I'm changing. That's not much of a surprise—everything does that. Atoms. Cells. Stars.
'Crossing over', like the universe is all a great game of hopscotch. Something new comes. A smudged step on the chalk. Colorful dust blown up in the air. Humans aren't stone cold and constant—they're always changing and replacing and regrowing themselves, like a bubbling chemical cauldron. You taught me that.
I've never played hopscotch.
I wrote not far from the graveyard; leaning against a reddish cedar with a tall crown.
When you're on the outside you see shapeless people as if you're watching fleshy goldfish swim through a thick glass jar. You won't see them again, so telling the difference between them doesn't matter. Milky Fanny Price was more real to me, the books you wanted me to read.
And from the outside you see so many things that are stupid and useless; or you want to tell yourself that. Beating your chest to prove you're right is stupid and pointless. Kicking a plastic ball is stupid and pointless. Going into oblivion for a few hours is stupid and pointless. Rituals are stupid and pointless. Fitting a dead squid on the end of a hook and sitting for hours with it hanging in the water is pointless.
It's quiet. There's soft rising and falling and rocking on waves. Water's gentle over the old yellow-grey sand, driftwood-spread. Words might say—the sea like a harper laid hand on the shore like a lyre. Or the endless rippling laughter of the waves while you lie chained to a rock in the middle of the ocean, grey-green echoes licking your ears and swallowing the cries of pain while eagles gnaw out your liver each night. The seat of the darker thoughts. I read for connections.
Gordon and his friend are quiet, as if they know each other so well there's no need to jabber. They teased that I wouldn't eat the bait this time. If Monty Black is tearing up the town, careening around on his bike—he's young. They laughed as if unworried for him. Fishing's almost like being left to one's own thoughts; tranquil.
Hello again, Mom. I'll see you. I miss you. I didn't mean to betray you. There are photos of you by the beach in Gordon's rooms that I don't remember; the old days. You wanted to protect me by travelling; you thought he would take you from me and that those others wanted you dead.
I've felt flatter lately, as if I'm already taking too much. There is a word for endless tranquil peace and it is death.
I might—or might not—have a friend here.
—
It was easier that week; no red-nailed hand on my arm. I talked quietly, trying not to give too much away—not even trying consciously to bore her, for that she might notice. Ms Enn's class worksheets shifted to cover grocery shopping. (Did she ever mark them? Or simply let them rest? Grades were such a small thing to care about.)
"People, we have twenty-seven days left prior to our Hallowe'en fundraiser," Maggie announced. "We've returned to schedule—we need to improve our advertising and hang flyers all over town—we need to finish full construction of the haunted house. Let's review the design documents, then I've made up color-coded lists of..."
The thick red dye smelt of beetroot and corn syrup; the old metal stretcher was shabby and rusting. Val spattered it in thick spots and clots. The steel creaked ominously as he moved it back and forth.
"Too much? Or not enough?" he said, adjusting one thick clot with his hands.
"In the dark it won't be easy to see," I replied.
"Not with that kind of light." It'd blink in and out at irregular-seeming intervals, faint and then strong; and Misha would be standing there in a corn syrup-stained white coat with saws in his hands.
Almost humorous.
The plywood walls were shaping into a maze—not a labyrinth, separate entry and exit. You could see now that they'd been changed; we'd helped change them. Misshapen, curved, and spiralling up and inwards, woolen domes continuing up to the ceiling. You could see now those angles made it look higher, jagged and confusing.
"Imogen was right," I found myself saying. "The way you look at it—the height and the angles are the illusion—it makes you see it a different way, a high dark dome. Then layers of false cobwebs, glowing faintly, higher ones thinner than lower, as if someone's entered a spire that's bigger on the inside than outside..."
"I see it too." Val glanced up. "Vaseline and plastic wrap in the next room, hanging from the ceiling. Jellyfish."
"...Cold and slimy. Irregular spots glowing in the dark, not everywhere so you wouldn't know where to dodge..." I said.
"That's volunteering." Val let the bloody stretcher go, creaking away; he held up red-stained hands. "Come in, come in—now feel the peeled grape eyeballs."
"Noodle intestines," I said.
"Frozen corn teeth."
"Plum pudding stomach," I remembered.
"And the witch is—" We both knew that game.
"The witch is dead. Really dead."
"I hope you weren't talking about us." Imogen, a drill upraised in her left hand, walked past one of her curved corners, fair-haired Erin behind her. "Think we should stick a victim dummy here? Or save them to dangle from some rafters? There was a real skeleton hanging up in a haunted house once, y'know. And it took years before they noticed."
"We've brought t-the real skeleton," Erin said. "P-plastic, really. But he's accurate." White bones jangled across her shoulders.
"Put him on the swaying door," Imogen said. "Let him rattle—rattling bloody bones."
"Fix one of the lights in his skull?" Val suggested. "Door opens—glowing eyesockets—"
"Hanging up in the dark with a light going on and off would be the same," I said. "Nothing, then him—looking a dull color, too bright a white doesn't seem real—and red liquid still flowing over him, bloody bones though they're long-dead." That wasn't frightening, it wouldn't be real—just vivid. Probably I'd said too much once more.
"As if—as if the bones d-drank someone else's blood while they shook; that would scare some..." Erin added.
Imogen stared. "Creepy," she said. "But kinda reasonable. Yellow-brown food coloring, and one of those string arrangements where you balance tins against each other and it makes things go off every so often. Or we should stick in scary giant wolves," she added, and laughed. She picked up the bucket of blood. "Time to stain those walls before it dries."
"That's cruel," Erin said. "It's n-not fair to laugh at Anova..." She moved a stool, going to hang the skeleton into the next space.
"And there're space aliens in the bushes, superheroes turning into giant spiders, swamp monsters going on dates with Bigfoot, computer viruses escaping the computers into the real world, televisions sucking people inside them, Anova replaced by a pod person—" Imogen reeled off, and launched a large splash of red across the plywood walls. "Must be something in the water."
"There's been the animals," Val said quietly.
"You know folk hunt. Heck, the Cullens skive off school to hunt and hike each time it's sunny," Imogen said. She left a bloody handprint on the wall and made sure drips trailed artistically down from it. "Y' can totally imagine Antony out in the field, can't you? Ohhhhhh, Veronica! This buck I sacrifice in your name! Be impressed by my many manly muscles! And Killigan—run and show your yellow-livered guts, cute little rabbits! There will be blood tonight!" Another swathe of red ran along the walls. "I'm still more interested in nailing the bombing, I got some nice pull quotes from Mrs Cullen. You know, proper reporting. C'mon, Erin, get your hands dirty!"
"I don't know... N-no thanks, Imogen..."
"But just stand there for a moment—you're wearing old clothes and this soaks out just fine—"
Then she flung it. Erin's silhouette appeared in part on the wall as if a victim had been put to death there.
"Old Hallowe'en trad," Imogen said nonchalantly.
"I'll...I'll g-get you back for it—" Then Erin had somehow taken up a brush Val had used, and her aim was rather good. Then only a moment later, all four walls seemed splashed and a good deal of the mixture had covered our clothes. I thought I'd flung some at Val and Imogen: we stood red-handed, liquid trickling down our clothes. A large clot had settled on my shoulder. Technically, supposed to be edible; therefore clean. I licked my hand.
"Well, that's the bloodbath of medical horror taken care of! These things always look better when they're more realistic, I think," Imogen said. "Now c'mon, Erin, come get the hanged dummies—" She disappeared with her friend.
It turned out to be Maggie Fenton's footsteps that had sounded behind her, tolling the end of the lunch hour.
—
"You're not really bleeding to death. Pity."
It was Bodhi's voice; it wasn't often we shared a corridor. She moved swiftly on her pointed heels.
"No, it's not real. No reason to be frightened of it," I said, because it had seemed she was.
"Fucking vasovagal response. Not the same thing, asshole. Say you're sorry." A tall blond boy walked by her.
"I'm sorry. Leave me alone?" Orange-streaked eyes and nails today, pale face and neck.
"Your father's too stupid to find out who tried to kill us, they say your mother's crazy locked up somewhere, you're dirty and disgusting and don't belong anywhere out of a retard school. What're you made of, tissue paper?" Bodhi said.
Yes, she's locked up. Maybe I hate you too. But I still think you're irrelevant. Battle of Naissus, history photocopies smudged—where the sources said different things, rebuilding a written sequence out of fragments, more interesting—
"God, people are so fucking dumb," she said. "What do you think, Leon?"
"Let's see. You're so dumb you'd study for a drug test?" he said to me. "You're dirty enough to lose weight by showering? Your mother's like a screw—round the bend and frequently nailed? The last time I saw a photo of a stare like yours the prisoner was trying out some new belts on an electric chair? Will you come with me, Bodhi?" He'd said it for her sake.
There was another thing that annoyed me when it was said to me. "You're frightened," I said to her. "Frightened of something that'll happen anyway that you can't control—or frightened of something you're unable to understand. Blood makes you afraid, you're not brave, I've seen you run away, and you're not as crazy as me. Just frightened. Perhaps of white rotting worms."
"I'm not," she repeated. "Fucking well not—you stupid asshole. I don't frighten—" Her glare brightened; she stepped toward me like that day past by the deserted store, and I wished I'd said nothing.
But she hates reference to a lack of bravery—as if she's a soldier instead of student. She came too close. No easy escape route.
"Oh, yeah! I remember. Now you're stealing from Craterface. Erin's a sanctimonious pi-faced cunt if there ever was one." Then she backed away. "Typical fucking maniac. Leon, give me something to work with here."
"I'd say he's dumb as a post, only the post anti-defamation league'd sue?" Leon said. "No point to playing the insult game with the handicapped, is there. Bodhi, you don't need to be around him."
"Oh, sure. I'm ready." She put an arm up around his shoulders for a moment. He was athletic, tall, smooth-featured, not stupid; but no pale brilliant. No different to the others who defended her: I saw him one of a mass, JamieJasonRickLeonAnova blurring fleshy dark pink into each other. She walked away.
But I shouldn't have spoken any word to her at all.
My father had a letter back from the school over missed classes.
"This is the truth, isn't it?" Gordon handed the black print over the table. "Mostly gym. Easiest class of the lot. You're tall. You're a man."
"I shave and have a Y chromosome."
He continued. "You should at least make the effort to show up. That's the one thing you have to do. Who can't pass gym?" he asked rhetorically. "There's nothing wrong with you physically, nothing really. Show up and pass the class, or they fail your year. And—" He seemed struck with sudden inspiration. "Your mother would be very disappointed in you. You know she did well for herself in school."
No, I'm not sure she'd mind either way. She certainly doesn't now. "It's pointless and slightly painful. I don't learn anything."
"No pain, no gain. Man up." He awkwardly slapped my back, trying to look jolly; it was only briefly. "They'll get used to you once you put some effort in. It's all about teamwork. I was on my school's football team back in the day, and it got me into college. Your mom got in from her classes. Pull yourself together and get out with a diploma. You should want to be successful.
"And trim your hair," he added, irrelevantly. "It's getting longer again. You'll look like— Just try. They'll respect you for trying. Eventually."
"I don't think that I want to." I really don't. But should I give...
"I'm going to give the my house, my rules speech," Gordon said. "I can set your curfew earlier. Stay inside the house instead of—wandering without the phone. Call it grounding. I don't expect all As, I expect you to show up and try. Get your attendance record back, and I won't try to punish you. I don't want to do that. Deal?"
I noticed that he didn't try to bargain over seeing Mom. The walls here were wider than her ward; but I'd only be able to write to her by finding some place alone at the school.
They all hate me and they like it when I'm hit and they put a foot out on purpose or slap me themselves and I hate it— That would sound too close to paranoia. There are things I care for above school bullies. I could get away with ditching sometimes.
They all notice too much here. That's the problem. I gave a sullen nod.
—
A/N: Sea like a harper - Swinburne; liver-eating - Prometheus.