Because the World is
by Silver Meteor


This city is like an old forest or house that you think's just rotting away and then you see there's magic inside. I try to remember that about life and about my heart in me. I think by being by myself I am learning how to love you more and not be so afraid.––Francesca Lia Block, Missing Angel Juan





VI.

Girl, you get yerself in here! says
Hellie. I'd run, but I'm
too far from the door. I hunch
my shoulders, and scrunch
my mouth.

I find Hellie behind a mound
of dirty paper tissue, her eyes
swollen red and
nose running.
Her voice is cracked like
an eggshell.

You know what you done? she says.
I don't know what I done. Sometimes
Hellie will hit me for things she
imagines I do.

It's a game.

You whoreling. You're just like er.
Wench!
Hellie hits like a bull, if a bull
were smart enough to hit
when the man with the swords wasn't
expecting it.

Smack, on my cheek, and
I'm on the floor. I claw at her ankles, bite, kick,
scream, but she picks me up and tosses me out the
door. In the dirt, I bang my mouth and
feel something bleed.

You're just like her, the bitch, you little
piece of filth.

She grabs me, out in the open, in
the middle of the street, where anyone can see.
She wants them to see.

I scream. I scream like a
wild cat, a vixen driven mad and
fighting for her life. She has my arm,
and I try to get away,
but
she
roars,
like a train, like a nightmare,
loud and more angry than
the
Devil. And she pounds, pounds,
pounds on me so I don't have
air to turn into a scream and
it can only get worse
and worse
and
worse. . .

Stop. You there, woman, let that girl go.

Hellie stops roaring at once, and smoothes her
hair with her free hand. I don't stop struggling.

She's really a orrible little spiteful thing, says Hellie, in her
most sweetest voice that
makes my toes curl. I'm just
teaching er a lesson, sir, it's fer
er own good. If I had more money,
she might have a good learning, sir.
Alas, alas. . .

Hellie's used this before, and sometimes it
works. When it doesn't, I have to run away.

How much do you need?

I watch the bright colored bills like
wilting flower petals fall the ground, and I look
up at the man who's saving me right now
to see:

A Knight. The sun smiling on his
silver armor, youthful face, honor,
too bright to look at—

and the image fades only to become
a hazy reflection on the back of
my eyes.

Half-Touched, Half-Touched,
a voice in my ear sings.

The man really just looks like
everyone else here: young, but
older than they were before they came
and tired but not
deep enough down to
give up.

Hellie looks down at the pretty
pieces of paper with hunger.
Her grip on my arm tightens,
like she is afraid it is a trick. Then she
scoops up the papers and darts
into the house that was partly
mine and shuts the
rusty door with a slam.

I hear her lock the bolt. She never locks the bolt.

I know what this means, and even though part of me is like a raging dragon that wants to burn
and burn
and burn
the rest of me is all one lost girl huddling in the dirt with no where to sleep anymore.

He's still standing there. I almost
forgot that I'm his now.
He bought me.

I am worth a handful of paper.

I feel him looking at me, but then
he just turns around
and he walks away. I get up, and follow.

A Knight and his page.

We continue walking in silence, down the dirty
streets that look somewhat beautiful because
it's so bright in the sky today.
This city is like a good whore, I heard an old man say
to his friend, who was dead and buried underground.
Tempting, addicting, fraught with sin and more beautiful on the strangest
days.
The cold stone angel looked almost thoughtful.

I'm dreaming,
I'm dreaming that I'll go out into the world
like all of the dirty, ragged children who are
really princes and princesses who
have to walk on daggers
and cry every night so the can fill
up an ogre's well, and help a
beggar woman who is actually a færie wish-maker,
and I will wish for anything
just
anything
that might
bring my mother back.

The Knight walks on. I follow.