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  As much as my legs want me to move, I know I will do no good if I spill into the wrong place, or forward and push him off more, or knock Freckles off in the process. As I attempt to fight forward, I feel myself falling back.

  I close my eyes again, and pray that I have not killed myself or anyone else.

  It is silent for a long time, and I’m shaking, wiggling, fighting for breath I am a bit unsure if I want to find. There is some sort of metaphorical hole deep inside of me – the knowledge that I may have let a charge die because of my own incompetence.

  The longer the quietness wears on, the more I believe that perhaps I am dead, too.

  “What did you think you were doing?” The explosion from Thomas is more than enough to solidify the fact that I am, indeed, “home”. Half of my body is still within the barrier, and though it feels like the glass staircase beneath me has shattered, and I am covered in broken glass that is only digging deeper into my skin, I try to move, fight forward, lips sealing in attempts to muffle the cries that wish to stream from my mouth.

  Finally, I feel my feet in the cool air, and I collapse on the definitely less substantial staircase. I’m closing my eyes because I have to – because I feel like all of the air has been sapped from my lungs, and my body is broken and bitten and bruised, and I am logged with water of a world I do not know of.

  “I haven’t told you the first thing about traveling through the barrier! You could have been killed!”

  My eyes remain shut, my body limp, my mind focusing more on the throbbing of my limbs than on the reprimand I am apparently receiving.

  “Did you drink too much of the water? Tell me you didn’t. God, Ives, what were you doing?”

  Screech is dead. Freckles is alone again. All because I am not strong enough. Does that make me a “special” person?

  “... Ivory?”

  The fear in his voice is palpable and real. Horrible, as if he believes I am dead. I cannot do more to convince my existence than breathe, however... the pain is too real, too consuming... too... every... where...

  I grunt, attempting to ignore how much it takes out of me, how it rattles and shuffles my shattered lungs.

  “Don’t ever scare me like that again!” His voice is caught within a sigh of relief, shaky, sick. (He’s not laughing anymore.) “You’re not to go through the barriers until you’ve had proper training! You could die!”

  Screech is already dead. I’m not allowed back through the barriers anymore. It doesn’t matter.

  “... You weren’t needed over there, anyway. Your charge seems to have another Moderator.”

  His statement piques my interest, but not the movement of my body.

  “Isaac’s last charge. The girl. She saved him.”

  As if it were planned just for me – as if they had been holding their dialogue until there was an audience to hear them – I hear the pair speak on the barrier next to me.

  “You saved my life.”

  I smile, slightly, the bare movements causing me unbelievable shakes and aches that control my mind.

  “Oh, my God, you saved my life.”

  “I just...”

  Thank you, I begin, over and over, at the sound of a voice that I am much more well-acquainted with than Screech’s. Thank you. Thank you.

  I let the sound of the young boy thanking her for himself lull me to sleep.

  nineteen

  “I don’t really like this idea.”

  It’s a lazy day of walking for the famed pair on the other side of the staircase. Still painted red from the previous day’s rain, they trek side by side, and I follow them, having caught up and raced until we were once again on the same plane, due to my unexpected sleep. I’d woken up just in time to hear them exchange a promise so deep that the pain that had been radiating throughout my body near subsided the instant I heard them.

  “We’re invincible, you and I.”

  “Invincible?”

  “Yeah. You and I, together. On the staircase. Nothing can touch us.”

  How ironic it was, of course, that the only person who wanted to help them and keep them safe was the only one who truly could not touch them.

  It only seemed to cement the fact in my mind that I knew to be true – I had to learn how to cross barriers without being stuck, flailing, lost, and make sure that that little promise of theirs came true, to the furthest of my abilities.

  Perhaps it was not only just the two of them, against the world, as they seemed to believe. But I would make sure that everything they needed to believe in to get themselves through the world they had been thrust in remained intact.

  Even if that sacrificed the fact that they would never truly know me.

  They probably did not expect a stranger to protect them, but this is the way, I know, it must be. I would protect them. I would still guard them against the world.

  I just need to learn how best to go about doing this first.

  I do not know where this wild protectiveness has come from, this need to save them. Any time I get close to a conclusion, something in me refuses to go further, denies to know the truth, wills me not to look.

  “You said I was not allowed to go through until I have proper training. So...” I incline my head towards the white mist, slightly. “Train me.”

  “This wasn’t quite what I meant.”

  “And you weren’t quite what I meant when I first thought that God was watching me. Still, I’ve held no prejudices against you.”

  “Wait, what?”

  I narrow my eyes at his obvious attempt to change the subject. “You are not getting out of that this quickly.”

  “But I’m curi – ”

  “How do I make it through the barrier?”

  His resignation comes with one sigh, and then another breath sucked in, held, as if he needed the extra oxygen in his lungs to contemplate his options – of which he has very little, of course. He knows that if I truly want to go through the barrier again, I will, but I will just do it unsafely, without his help.

  “Fine. Fine. The barrier.”

  “The barrier,” I repeat, obvious sarcasm and flamboyancy of annoyance in my tone.

  “You’re – not to try any of this right now, of course. Alright?”

  “I will try it when they are in trouble. They are not currently in trouble. They can, however, become in trouble in the next few moments.”

  “And – that’s the next thing. This whole they stuff.”

  I blink up my confusion as my steps slide into the stairs.

  “The boy is your only charge.”

  “You assigned me ‘the girl’” – I make sure to make use of my fingers to portray my quotes – “after Isaac fell.”

  “Well...” His voice seems unwilling to agree to this. “I know you decided to watch her, but that wasn’t... official.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You watch her, technically. But according to the other Moderators – and the staircase – she’s Moderatorless.”

  “Why does this matter?”

  “Because you are not allowed to help her, personally. Not in any way.”

  “What?”

  “You are not allowed to touch her, brush against her, alter anything around her. According to you, she doesn’t exist.”

  “I’ve been watching her for eons!” My hands turn into fists, for a reason I cannot imagine, and I turn to look at her body, stained red, short hair bobbing beside her mouth. “I know her better than I know the boy. I’ve – I’ve been tracking her life – since the very moment it began!”

  “I know.” He’s attempting to soothe me while continuing to throw at me words that only enrage me more. “I know. But she’s... she’s not yours, Ives. The boy is yours. According to the rules – ”

  “Oh, yeah? What rules? Who enforces them?”

  Something happens that has never quite happened to me before. Something that makes me unfurl my fists, makes my steps hesitate for many moments. Thomas replies, with every note of ani
mosity in his voice – and directs it towards me.

  “You said you wanted to learn how the barrier works.”

  I’m blinking, in shock, unable to move for many moments, before I begin, swallowing drily and steadying my voice, “I do – ”

  “Then you follow and listen to what I tell you. Or you won’t go over at all. Do we understand each other?”

  My mind goes back to the one other time I attempted to go through the barrier – after the loss of Todd, or Isaac, or whomever he was then – and he froze my body. He refused to let a single muscle in my body respond to the begging of my brain.

  My rather trembling hands go to tying my hair behind my back in a knot, perhaps just to attempt to distract myself from both the memory and the obvious power he wields over me.

  “We do.”

  “Good.” He relaxes, the mood loosens slightly. “I’ll tell you what you need to know. No more, no less.”

  I nod, still a bit too shaken to answer in sentences. I check my charges and my reflection at the same time.

  “When you get through, you’ll be assaulted by some sort of liquid. Do not drink it.”

  That is no easy task, I muse to myself, but I do not have confidence enough in me to say, yet.

  “I know it’s hard, but just – grit your teeth, seal your lips. I don’t care what you do. That water does bad things to the mind. It has some... weird properties... and basically, you’re just not going to like it.”

  Another nod.

  “Alright. So, uh – you’ll kind of lose your sense of direction. Left, right, up, down. Just walk forward some. You’ll begin to see many different shapes, and colors – you go for the black. Always go for the black. The black is the Ashen Staircase. Wherever that is – it’ll be black. But there’s another, um, hurdle you have to go through before you’re to the actual staircase. This is where you decide what you go as.”

  He pauses, obviously waiting for me to question him on it, but I just raise my eyebrows in confusion and turn my head up.

  “You can alter your appearance on the Ashen Staircase to whatever suits your needs, as you control that realm and its... everything. You’re not going to alter your appearance. You’re going to let go of your bodily form, and go over as nothing more than... a spirit, or something. You won’t be seen, but you can still alter the world to your benefit. You’ll see how it works if you ever do it.

  “The most important thing to remember, of course, is not to bring your body. I do not want and will not allow you to bring it over.”

  I just shake my head affirmatively in reply. He is attempting to threaten me, once again, and if he believed that that would make me forgive him for the last time he threatened me, he was sorely mistaken.

  I withhold a sigh as I walk, stretching my arms up above me and letting my feet point and move as I walk. I am hardly listening to the wistful, lost talking of Screech and Freckles, until I realize the speaking on the other side is growing more fervent.

  “Scree.”

  My head turns and my eyes run up and down, beginning to examine what I had brushed off only moments ago. There’s another figure on the staircase. Humanoid, but not human – crafted of smoke and fog, and swaying as it moves, expelling white clouds of air and running, wildly running, as if it knows just what to hide from. As if it has found the source of all evil, all bad, all dark in this universe, and it is attempting to run from it with teetering, tottering steps.

  “Scree, get behind me.”

  He’s not moving. He’s glued, staring at whatever the figure is, as I am too. Something in the back of my mind questions whether or not I should walk forward and help him. Whether or not I should offer my assistance in the form of the...

  “Not yet.” Thomas has seen my gaze, the creep of my fingertips to the surface. He knows just as well as I do what’s on my mind, what I’m thinking, and perhaps, that frightens me most of all.

  Freckles is attempting to coax her companion to follow in line behind her – he is attempting to question the intelligence of her plan, basing it off a theory that they may be burned to the staircase if they do such a thing. And so he does not lie with her – he stands boldly in the face of danger, extending a single, long hand in front of him, as if to tell the figure to stop.

  I hold my breath, attempt to remind myself that, as Thomas said a while ago, I cannot love, and I do not love. I work hard to instill the memory in me that I do not know what love is, and the burning that is starting in my chest is nothing more than anxiety.

  And then the figure meets with his hand. I watch Freckles cringe and close her eyes for a mo, but mine remain open, and as her green gaze opens and rejoins the situation, the pair of us watch what is happening. As soon as it meets the palm of the young boy, it begins to lose figure, form, puffing instantly as if it were made of nothing substantial at all. It billows backwards, the puffs of its fumes falling backwards and away from them, at times attempting to move forward and reaching them but then recoiling as if the same barrier that is erected between me and them is erected between them and the thing. As the soot dissipates, slowly acclimating to the air that is its new home, I watch Freckles stand up, her knees shaking so much that I can see it in the tips of her hair.

  “I... how did you...?”

  “No idea,” he’s answering, flexing it his fingers a bit stiffly. “I don’t think I had anything to do with it. I think it just kind of... when it came in contact with something, it...”

  I wonder how insubstantial it was. I wonder where it came from. I wonder how the touch of one young boy stopped it.

  Perhaps I was right, and Thomas was wrong. Perhaps there’s just a little something more within the pair that has kept them moving as steadily and surely as they have been.

  As I’m taking moments to think about what we have just witnessed, and the pair are talking, murmuring, among themselves, I notice the staircase begin to move. It’s as if some invisible force has lifted the pair up, off the stair they were on, and spun the stairs away, began to replace them with something new, something intrinsically different. Neither of them seem to notice what is going on until their feet hit sooty floor again, and at which moment, they both spin around, terror painted on their face.

  A similar feeling is beginning to bite at my insides. “Thomas? What’s happening?”

  “I – ”

  “Thomas, what’s happening? Are they safe? How did they mo – !”

  “Ives, you need to calm down.”

  “Where are they?”

  It’s an extending expanse, flat and continuous in every direction the two are beginning to look. Sitting in the center of it is a mess of red – a woman, covered in a tulle fabric, face hidden from the pair. The mere thought that they are so exposed and, despite that it was only fabric, she seems so... hidden... frightens me.

  “Who is that? What is that?” My voice is rising at pitch from the lack of answers afforded me. My charges are God knows where – and Thomas, the closest thing I currently have, will not help me.

  I move, attempting to see her as well as the pair obviously can. She begins to lift up her veil, long, pointed red nails doing most of the work arms would normally have to carry. It isn’t Kinjia. It isn’t anyone I’d ever seen before. She is a stranger, both to me and the pair, but she still smiles at them, revealing the hole in a tooth in the center of her mouth. She shifts, and there’s the noise of metal clanging against metal, but I cannot see what metal is hitting what.

  Screech gives kindling to this new conversation in the form of, “What?”

  “Mm!” She seems quite happy by this singular statement, this singular beginning. “What, what, indeed!”

  “Who are you?”

  I applaud the child’s skepticism, and I wonder if he will truly get answers before Thomas decides to award me mine.

  “I’m Madame Veneera! Come, come, my children!”

  Freckles is like a misguided sheep – she begins to move forward, trusting, and neither Screech nor I take kindly to
her actions. The young boy, in shock, grabs onto her to hold her back and tells the woman, “We are not your children.”

  “Scree,” Freckles murmurs, voice lowered, in one of those we are not having this argument now but if we did, you’d know who’d win voices. Though I believe I know which one would win – and it wouldn’t be the elder one – I turn back to pestering Thomas.

  “Thomas, are you going to answer me? Are my charges in danger?”

  He’s still silent, but I feel his uneasiness, his spots of anxiety. This silence only frustrates me ever more, so much so that even the mere thought of him allowing me to figure it out without his direction is boiling my skin.

  “You better answer me! You said you would help guide me!”

  On the other side of the staircase, conversation is still continuing. I can hear the notes of distrust in Screech’s young voice, the bone-chilling bite of Madame Veneera’s. I wonder what that name is – where she got it – who she is.

  “I don’t want you to go over.”

  He sounds defeated. As if he’s lost everything he has already, and I haven’t even made up my mind over whether or not she is truly a threat. I still sigh, put my hands on my bony hips, and regard the surrounding mist.

  “Then you better tell me who she is before I find out on my own. Shan’t you?”

  He’s silent, once again – as if he doesn’t want to admit the things that are working behind the painting of the sky I am allowed – before finally, heaving a sigh, he speaks.

  “She’s a... a lost soul. A Moderator gone... gone bad.”

  “She’s not wearing jeans or white.”

  “What?”

  “All Moderators – even the lost souls we’ve encountered thus far – they were wearing white and jean. She is not.”

  “I didn’t know you were that perceptive.” I can hear the smile in his voice, but with I am currently in no mood even remotely ready to deal with it.

  “Of course I’m perceptive. I notice everything.”