Fell of Dark (11 page)

The razor blades and cream? The razor from home? All at school. My locker. I shave when I have to, after school, in the boys' bathroom.

Two days ago, Candace Ingram—still mostly teeth and curls, taller—showed up while I was rinsing. I opened my eyes, and there she was, in the mirror, over my shoulder. I nearly screamed.

“Where did you come from?”

“Ninja moves.”

“Ninja?”

“I've been dying to know what you do in here. Now I know.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Maybe I can shave the back of your neck sometime.”

“—?”

“Your hair gets kind of long on your neck. I sit behind you. I've noticed.”

“—?”

“I could do it now,” she said. “If you want.”

The whole time she stood behind me, sliding that razor over my neck, I thought my backbone would break through my skin. It felt that way. I thought I'd fall down.

Everybody in me, my Protector, my Sawmen and Guardians, somewhere, even my Architect, wondered if Candace would cut me open with the razor. Leave me for dead on the floor. I felt their suspicion and rage. I heard their growls. I also felt her fingertips and the razor.

Her face in the mirror. Her lips stretched tight over her teeth. Concentration.

How long will she take? How long? Then—

“Done,” she said, and ran the razor under the faucet. “How do you feel?”

I checked my neck for blood. “You were gentle,” I said.

“What did you expect?”

“—”

She handed me the razor: “I like you, Thorn. I always have.”

I couldn't say the same about her. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me to like anyone especially.

“Don't trust her,” the Guardians growled. “Your heart. We will make you suffer if you—.”

“We could do this again,” she said.

“When?” I said, and the Sawmen found their saws.

“The rate you grow hair,” she said, “I'd say tomorrow.” And she turned to the door.

“I'm not so sure you're funny,” I said.

For once, if someone had asked me what I was feeling, I would have said happy. Even then, as the saws sank in.

What about the change in Tillion? Does she want to transform back into Tatiana? After ten years, why now? I can't figure it out. Kulthat seems only to be Kulthat. Is my mother trying to get out of hell? Why?

I don't know what to do. Every time I try to think about it, I go to sleep. It's as if a Protector flips a switch inside of me, and all I can do is put my head down. Sleep.

facilis descensus Averno;

noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;

sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,

hoc opus, hic labor est.

Easy is the descent to Avernus, for the door to the underworld lies open both day and night. To retrace your steps and return to the breezes above, that's the task, that's the toil.

Kulthat quotes this from the
Aeneid
. Avernus is another Gehenna, another hell. Maybe he wants to leave hell, but he's too weak. He won't stop the punishment. He punishes me, but he punishes himself, too.

That day on the beach, he let my sister swim out to me. A thirteen-year-old girl rescuing her almost-five-year-old brother. My father couldn't be bothered to look up from the chessboard. My mother slept.

Why didn't he come out to me? Why did he let his daughter die? Why did we lose our shining star to a game of chess?

My favorite word from chess.
Zugzwang
.

When you have to make a move, but you wish the other player had to move. You want to pass, or miss a turn. You have to move, though. When you do, you're suddenly weak.

Zugzwang.

The man next door must have gotten a new gun.

Pop.

I didn't have to listen so hard to hear him.

Poppoppop.

And you're smoke.

I have this fantasy. My mother will come out of hell. My father, if he can't come out, will die in his Gehenna. I want her to forgive me. I never wanted Salome, their shining star, my shining star, to turn into a seahorse. I want to stop feeling like a monster. Murderer. I want to have one voice in my head, mine.

I want to feel normal. I want to be normal.

The rattlecan rushes and rushes. All the stones, pebbles, stones, pebbles rolling around and the clattering clatters. The saws turn. Two, four, six, four saws at angles, spinning. The rattlecan teeters and totters. The stones and pebbles, and the saws cut through me. Arms fall down. Legs sprout legs, and my stomach bleeds.

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

—Herman Melville,
Moby-Dick, or the Whale

ERIK

Still

TWO YEARS BLEEDING. NO
end. No reason.

This is bad enough, but there's worse.

I haven't found you.

My bleeding's invisible to everyone but myself. You would see, wouldn't you? Only you, and you would take a little time out of your day to clean me up.

You'll have your gauze and your ointment: “I'll just have to do this again later.”

“I know.”

You wipe up the counter.

“It will stop, Erik, someday.”

“Before I die?”

“You're bleeding for a reason.” You scrub your hands and take a long time cleaning my blood from your fingernail.