Work Text:
Claire Moretti is born a healthy baby two years after the World War. In the future, her parents will tell her how cute she looked and how loud she screamed, and she'll flush and tell them to say something else.
When she's four years old, her family changes their religion. Till then, she's only known the cathedral of the Evernight Goddess, the front wall having stars in it and the hall dark enough that she can easily take a nap there. It's strange to move from that to a bright room with colourful drawings on the walls and windows. It makes it a lot harder to doze off during prayers too. It's a huge change and no one really tells her why. Father and Aunt look happier though.
The Church of the Fool has a funny name, but she soon finds that it's a nice place. The priests are a lot more chatty than the ones in the Evernight Church. One of them tells her stories of the drawings on the walls when he catches her tracing them with her fingertips. As slow as he explains though, there's too much to the story, too many names and places. The only thing that really stays with her is the ending, because of how it fits with what she was looking at—the then Saint Gehrman, now some angel, taking people to see the sunlight for the first time. She likes the happiness on everyone's face, even if Mr. Gehrman is a little scary.
Half a year later, as they're going home from the church, Father tells Mother, "It's Lightseeker's Day in two weeks."
They start talking about it but Claire doesn't understand what it is, so she butts in with, "Lightseeker?"
Though she mangles the strange word, Father understands. "It's the day the City of Silver saw the sunlight for the first time."
"That picture!" she crows, proud of knowing this one. "Mr. Gehrman took them."
"That's right." Mother smiles at her.
Backlund has only one church for the Fool, but on the festival's day, there's an entire crowd present. They sit through a lot of prayers before the fun part comes. Everyone gets a paper balloon with a light at the centre. At first, she thinks it's fire, but when she pokes the paper and looks closer, it's like a small sun, glowing but without any heat.
"Claire," Aunt Melissa says, pushing at her shoulder. She looks up from the balloon. Everyone's holding onto theirs, reaching up to the air, and she quickly follows.
One by one, dozens of coloured balloons, maybe a hundred, rise. It looks pretty how they all go up together and she can't help but gasp. It almost doesn't feel like it's night anymore.
"Are we trying to make sunlight?" she asks Aunt.
Aunt smiles but it isn't happy. "No. It's in remembrance. Of all the struggles in the darkness and the people who were lost before they could see the sun. It's most important for people in the New City of Silver, but even here, we can remember people we've lost and be thankful to Mr. Fool for looking after us."
Claire doesn't get all of that, but Aunt is looking up so she does the same. The bright lights have become more like little twinkles, like stars. She wonders how far they'll go and if they'll remain bright even if she can't see them.
Then she wonders if Aunt knows someone who couldn't see the sun. Before she can ask, some people start crying and it's all sad, so she just sticks silently right by Aunt's side.
Mother doesn't have any siblings, which means Claire has only one aunt and she's undoubtedly her favourite. Well, she also has an Uncle Klein but she's only seen him in pictures. Everyone says he went far away and won't come back for a long time so Claire doesn't really count him. Maybe one day.
Anyway, Aunt Melissa is cool enough alone. She's a bit quiet, but she always pays attention to Claire and brings along toys and devices for her. They work beyond what they should be able to because Aunt has these supernatural powers. Mother and Father are always weird when talking about it and it's rare to meet people like Aunt, but there are a lot of stories about the supernatural.
Claire doesn't really see it till she's seven years old though, when Aunt promises to show her a secret ritual for Mr. Fool.
“Just between the two of us,” she says, placing a finger to Claire’s lips.
She nods in response and pinches her lips together as her promise. Then she watches as Aunt sets up candles and prays. She doesn’t know this language at all but she confidently copies whatever Aunt says.
Before she can repeat the third and last sentence, the fire flares and whoosh— there’s a scary grey thing hanging in the air.
She jumps and hides behind Aunt, frightened, but Aunt tells her to say hello. Claire trusts her, so she steps forward and reaches out a hand.
The thing hits her hand lightly. He's cold and soft and Claire thinks he’s pretty fun to hold, even if she has no clue what he is.
After a little while, he even curls onto her palms. Though he doesn't speak a word, she can feel happiness and affection bubbling from him. It's weird but nice.
“Can I keep—” she starts to ask, turning to look at Aunt, then pauses.
She's biting her lip and her eyes are watery.
“Aunt Melissa?”
She lets out a deep breath and steps closer, standing behind Claire. Then she clasps their hands together.
“You can't keep him,” Aunt says softly, “but you can always tell him to visit.”
The thing nods, before pulling back and vanishing into the fire. It's a little sad but she resolves to look at the bright side—she has a new friend now.
Three days later, Aunt gives her a bracelet. It’s silver and looks like vines with leaves—a little like the pocket watch Father carries around—and the best part is how it fits just right against her wrist. The metal is cold though and she’s never liked jewellery…
“Always wear it,” Aunt tells her solemnly and even makes her pinkie promise, so she swallows her complaints. It’s enough that she doesn't have to wear it while bathing; that'd be annoying.
Eventually having the bracelet on becomes routine enough that she forgets it exists. She goes to school, meets with friends, writes in her diary and shares stories with Mr. Fool. The grey thing—tentacle, Aunt taught her, like octopuses and squids though she's never seen any of them—doesn’t talk but she knows he's listening from how he reacts.
One day, her class has a field trip led by her teacher Mr. Graham. Their return path takes them near the Tussock River. She knows to be careful but she thinks she sees something floating and goes too close... and then trips forward. For one endlessly long moment, her heart is in her throat, and then she hits the cold cold water, every part of her burning and hurting.
On instinct, she screams into the water and it rushes into her throat. No, she doesn't want to die… Above there's light and she stretches a hand out to reach—please—it's so far away, keeps moving away—her wrist starts to burn—
The light swallows her whole.
It's not hurting anymore. She can't feel anything… she's about to scream again, when the light becomes less blinding and she can see hundreds of the tentacles she’s come to consider a friend, all of them supporting a hooded person in black.
“Claire,” he says softly. Something about him feels familiar but she's never met him. She's sure of that.
“Mr. Fool?” she whispers back, confused.
His hood falls to cover even more of his face as she speaks, then one of the tentacles wraps around her hand and squeezes.
“Don't worry, you're safe now.”
“Really?” she asks, curling into herself. “I'm not in heaven?”
“It's not heaven,” he says. “You should go back—”
She flinches, memory still awash with the water, and the tentacle pets her hair as he adds, “But you can stay here until you feel like you're ready.”
She nods and sits there playing with him, other thoughts slowly slipping away. After a while, what happened seems a lot less real than what her pounding heart told her at first. Feeling better, she finally manages a smile and chirps a thank you, because it's good manners. He smiles too, even as the light overtakes her vision again.
When it fades, Mr. Graham is dragging her out of the water. Claire gets the scolding of a lifetime although he looks about to cry. After finding her a change of clothes, they go back to school. She isn't allowed to go to class though, and has to wait in the nurse's office until Aunt comes to pick her up.
The moment Aunt enters, she rushes to Claire and pulls her into a tight hug. She's trembling as she says, “I'm so glad you're alright."
Claire feels bad about it, so she pats Aunt’s back reassuringly as she says, “Mr. Fool saved me! Like a superhero! It was cool.”
Aunt pulls away, quickly looking around. Claire doesn't know why since there's no one around. But only after that does Aunt turn back to her and cup her face, eyes filled with emotion. There's a long pause before she replies, “Cool, huh… Don't tell anyone though. He’ll get embarrassed.”
Claire laughs at that, and Aunt frowns a little.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," she says then shivers a little. "Well, it's cold."
"That's all? You're sure? After all that…"
"Yup! I'm fiiiiine. Don't worry, Aunt."
That doesn't help because Aunt replies sharply, "How can I not? You… you…"
"I'm sorry." Claire's voice is barely a whisper but she means it. "I won't do it again, I promise."
Aunt sighs. “We'll discuss this at home. Come on.”
After the day Aunt made Claire meet Mr. Fool, she started teaching her how to speak Mr. Fool’s very long name. It took her two weeks to say it in a way Aunt approved, after which Claire was shown how to do that secret ritual with a warning never to teach it to anyone.
She's only allowed to do it once a month, but she happily burns through candles each time for it, cheerfully updating Mr. Fool about her life.
It's good she keeps a diary to refer to, because there's just so much that happens. Father bought her art supplies, her friend Nia went with her to the new park, Mother taught her how to make a flower crown—she puts one made of golden flowers on top of the tentacle and thinks it looks striking. Mr. Fool even wears it up until it starts looking a little torn.
And of course, she gets to tell Mr. Fool about the people she meets.
There are all the people in her school, her classmates and teachers. Claire only has a few friends, like Nia and Lily and Finn, but they're the best and she loves that Nia lives really close to her. They can visit each other whenever they want.
Father's and Mother’s friends are nice people, although they can be a bit boring so sometimes she hides in her room until they're gone. Father scolds her about it. In the end, they come to a compromise that she just needs to greet them and be around for a while before she leaves.
As for Aunt’s friends, Claire hasn't met a lot of them but of the ones she knows, Miss Audrey is her favourite, even if they don't meet much because of how busy Miss Audrey is. Still, she's friendly and her dog Susie doesn't mind playing with Claire while the adults discuss whatever they do. Claire even heard Susie talk once, which is a fun dog trick.
Mr. Leonard is weird and awkward, but he's a family friend of sorts—Uncle Klein’s friend, she heard Father tell Mother once—so she sees him now and then. She doesn't get all the dumb poems he tries to make her read, but he has a nice voice and he looks nice too so it's not so bad to spend time together. When she tells that to Mr. Fool though, her tentacle friend goes flailing and nearly cracks the floor.
She meets Will at school during recess. He’s three years older than her but they become friends. When she invites him home, Aunt meets him and gets along with him too. He's great, spending time with her and never looking down on her despite being older. Not to mention so many good things happen when she's around him that she starts to consider him a lucky charm. The times he stares up at the sky with an unreadable expression, she learns to ignore.
Mr. Fool never tells stories like she does but he always listens even to the little things. Now and then, if she's lucky, he shows her these really beautiful sights that are vivid as a dream though she's not asleep for them.
He's really kind too—she tells him once she wishes she could carry the tentacle around, because it never moves far out of the fire, and he gives her a little worm for a day. It's a lot smaller than the tentacle but it's still Mr. Fool, so she takes care of him and feeds him. When she sends him back, it's with flowers and cool rocks she picked from outside.
Afterwards, she wonders where Mr. Fool might keep the things she sent, which gets her thinking of where he lives. It has to be that light she's seen him in, right? That place looked empty and boring.
So she resolves to find more and more pretty things that she can give him.
Lily and Finn are absent that day, so during recess, it's just Nia and her playing together in the sandbox while she tells stories about Mr. Fool. She wanted to tell them at the Church but Father stopped her, and when she told Mr. Leonard she knew Mr. Fool, he didn't believe her at all. That was annoying, but Nia isn't like him. She trusts Claire.
They stop for a moment and frown at their sandcastle, which keeps crumbling. Claire is tempted to get some water to fix it but that'll be too messy. And Mother won't like it if she gets her dress dirty.
That's when Nia comments, “The Fool is such a weird name, isn't it?”
It's not like Claire hasn't thought that before, but she knows the truth now. “It's the Tarot card,” she says. “It's about the beginnings and journeys and changing.”
Nia turns to her, blinking. “Being an idiot is?”
“No! There are these cards and they're used to see the future and the Fool is the first card! After it comes everything else.” She puffs a little in pride. She heard some adults look down on him by saying things like he's a new god, which isn't fair. He's still the best.
She hates that she can't describe things perfectly to Nia. Usually she's pretty good at speaking, but when she talks about Mr. Fool, it's tough. She keeps missing words and forgetting stuff. Still, her friends should know. She tells Mr. Fool all about them, after all.
“See the future?” Nia says with wide eyes, and their conversation drifts to being about the supernatural.
Later, when she's telling Father about her day, he laughs at her “pro-se-ly-tising”.
“Are you being mean?” she asks with a pout.
“It's something that priests do,” he explains. “After you become one, you can talk about Mr. Fool as much as you want with everyone.”
She never thought of being a priest before. She considers it for a while before asking, “Can I be a priest and an artist?”
Father smiles at her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “You can be anything you want.”
The world keeps changing. Things get scarier; even the cults are trying to protect them from the madness that unfolds. There are whispers of an apocalypse growing stronger and everyone's balancing on a knife's edge as they await the dreaded day.
Throughout Claire’s life, there have been things kept from her, and she has learnt to live with it. It didn't matter to her much, not when her childhood was cocooned in warmth and love. She only knows the shape of grief from the quiet pain that sometimes lingers in her home and from how fractured the world is.
When she's thirteen years old, Aunt and Father sit down with her. Their expressions hold a solemnity that she tensely mimics.
Aunt glances at Father then starts, "You know your Uncle Klein, right?"
She nods. She wonders whether they want to tell her that he's coming back or that he's dead. For the last few years, she was starting to think it was the latter since she realised everyone telling her "gone far away" could have been a euphemism.
"You've actually spent a lot of time with him."
That, she didn't expect. "I have? When?"
Father takes a deep breath. "Sweetie, he's Mr. Fool," he says, sharing a look with Aunt.
"What?! When?"
Mr. Fool was Mr. Fool. Like… her best friend but also a god who needed rituals and granted wishes. Uncle Klein was... she didn’t know him. She only heard stories and saw the family photo… the family photo…
…she casts her mind back to it, Father and Aunt far younger than today as they stood with a black-haired man. Those features... Didn't she always think Mr. Fool looked familiar? But, no, there were clear differences too and Uncle Klein didn't have tentacles.
It didn't make sense…
Aunt grips her skirt. "Klein... He couldn't be here because of everything he had to do as Mr. Fool. He's even busier now actually but in two months, he's going to visit for a week. It's been... a very long time since we saw him."
Claire glances between the two of them. Father is tense too.
"Does Mother know?" she asks.
Father nods. "We’re sorry we didn’t tell you sooner. We know it’s a lot to take in, but we wanted to wait until you were old enough to keep the secret."
Her seven-year-old self was so bad with secrets she could die to remember that time. Especially how she kept talking about Mr. Fool to everyone despite being told not to.
Even if this whole thing blindsides her, she can see that they weren’t wrong to wait.
She sighs. She can never get mad at Father. He's always both sensible and sincere; it’s a little unfair. Maybe it’s because of how he’s had decades of experience looking after Aunt and Uncle Klein.
Still... her uncle. Mr. Fool. It’s a lot.
…that’s an understatement.
She goes to sleep that night tossing the puzzle pieces in her head. In the time leading up to the visit, she doesn't use the ritual but her dreams are still filled with the embrace of angels. Slowly, the pieces fit together by themselves and become another truth to accept.
They're all in the living room and there's one figure that's never been here before.
He was at the doorstep, ringing the bell like any other guest, and Aunt opened the door to drag him in. Claire stood to the side and watched, Mother next to her.
Father however leapt forward to take both of them in his arms.
“Klein—” two voices harmonise for an instant. Father stops but Aunt continues, her rambling words muffled by tears. Claire can't see Father's face but it's obvious how he's trembling as he holds all three of them together to the point they can't be made out.
These are the steady adults of her life… she blinks back tears and sniffs a bit even as she averts her eyes to her feet. It feels wrong to watch them like this, when all she knows are filtered reminiscences.
After forever, they pull apart and even then they’re standing close, brushing against each other.
“Hello, Claire,” he says softly, almost uncertainly.
She unconsciously straightens and looks up at his face.
His features are difficult to focus on, too plain to stick in mind even when he's right there, but she knows. She has prayed and played since she was a child; how could she not?
And so she knows how his gaze is warm but tired, strangely separate from the present—unlike all the other people she’s met, she senses his distance is born from far more than just memories. Maybe it's because he's always been watching everyone as a god; that's a pretty far place to be.
But that's fine.
She meets the eyes she quite can't see, smiling brightly, and bypasses his awkward stance to wrap her arms around his frame. Lightly, a reminder of her presence, until he leans in and she makes it a proper hug.
“Welcome back, Uncle Klein.”
This is her uncle. He's finally home. Their family is happier for it.
It’s enough to know this much.