Encase Page 22

  My eyes find the ground. I’ll allow this one question, then. “Yes.”

  “You were here that long, and you were able to go back?”

  “The price was high.”

  “What? You and Thomas in a tiff?”

  As I said, one question. “Shut up, Isaac.”

  He smiles, vaguely, at the ground. He looks strange framed in the low light. He doesn’t look like me. “Why didn’t you try to stop me?”

  I did! And I feel that response so violently I clench my fists. No, fist. My other limb hangs by my side, empty of the anger in the rest of my body. It grounds me. Reminds me why I came back. “I just want to talk to you. You can be reasoned with.”

  “Can I?” This is released in a puff of laughter, as he rocks back away from me and towards the fire again. He sits once again, as though resuming the life here, as though I am not looming over him with heavy words. He begins to poke the glowing embers that I do not understand where he got. “Is that what you thought? Is that how stupid you are?”

  “I am not being stupid.” My voice creeps into defense.

  “You are always being stupid – ”

  “I didn’t come to talk about me.” I cut off his slow, agonizing enunciation of words. I know my time here is borrowed, limited. I will not waste it arguing about me.

  “Fine.” His eyes find mine again, and his next statement is, once again, creeping and crawling out of his lips.

  “What did you come to talk about?”

  I step around him, around the fire, and kneel until I’m eye level. I can tell he is choosing not to return the visual contact. “I think you’re making the wrong choice,” I offer.

  He huffs.

  “I think that – you’re better than this, Isaac.”

  A downright laugh.

  I hide my frustration. “You don’t need to do this.”

  “Famous last words, huh?”

  “I am being serious.” My eyes narrow. “You don’t need this. She cares about you. She wants to be your friend – ”

  He ignites like the fire, comes to life at mention of his sleeping companion. Nothing soft in his gaze now. Something rabid, something released. I pull away when he leers towards me. “She would never give all this to me! She would never love me! She would never ditch that kid for me!”

  “You – don’t need her to.”

  “Yes! Yes, I do! I need someone who is just my own!”

  Eyes squinting. Small. “There is no such thing as owning. Not in this world or any other.” I move forward, looking to offer comfort. “You don’t need this, Isaac... she’s your friend.”

  “She needs...” Breathing, as though that will help him temper his rage. “... to love me. And hold me. And care for me! Is that so wrong? To want someone to love?”

  Is it? I look away from him, stare at canvases of black and red around me, now that I can finally see again. Thomas had once said I could never love. He said that neither of us could. He often insinuated that it was difficult for me to feel in any capacity.

  But I am here because I felt guilt at leaving him alone, at realizing that I had misjudged him and everyone. I am here because I realized he was trying.

  I am here because I heard Thomas cry over almost losing me, and then considered that no one would cry when Isaac died.

  It isn’t wrong. To want someone to love. But I look down at the fact that I am here, and I think of the desperation in Thomas’ voice, and I think of him letting me do what I needed to do anyway.

  Thomas may have lost me for my brother. Isaac may have lost Freckles for Screech. But there was a difference.

  Thomas let me go.

  “You have to earn someone to love. Fair and square. And you can’t believe that everyone you love will love you,” I whisper.

  “She loves me, now. She is mine now!”

  “She won’t be forever, if you force her here. This isn’t love, Isaac. This isn’t right.”

  And then, he’s laughing again. As if I’d mentioned something that he thought was ridiculously funny. As if we were friends, again, back on the staircase, telling odd jokes to one another, back when his accent wasn’t horrifying and we contemplated life together. I feel cold.

  “It’s sad I’m even talking to you.”

  I start at the implication. “Why? Why is it sad?”

  “Oh, come on, now. Don’t be clueless.”

  “I am not clueless.” Maybe I am. I just was, after all. “I just do not understand.”

  “You’re not real!” He seems upset he has to spell this out for me. “Just another thought, imagination in my head.”

  “That’s not true, Isaac – ”

  “If only the real Ivory were here.” He’s settling down, next to Freckles, brushing short hair away with his thumb and sighing. “She’d know what to say. What to do. She always had it all together.”

  I reach out to him, but I do so with the arm that lacks a hand. I come up short. “Isaac – I am here. I am talking to you. This is – this is really me.”

  He looks at me, but his eyes are sad, havocked. Liquid and still somehow shattered. Agony casting shadows on his face. When lips pull back to bare teeth, he appears so small. So young. Universes more premature than I. Finally, he replies, “You’re fading from my mind, now. You’re dying.”

  “I’m not dying,” I expire. “I’m fine.”

  He reaches a hand up, as though to touch at my face – drops it before he can make contact. I feel desperate in the thought that he knows I’m real, that this is a real chance at redemption, and I reach out. My hand passes through him.

  He doesn’t even notice I’d attempted. He’s already shifted, angled his expression away from mine, leaned his head against Freckles’. His eyes lid closed. “Don’t feel badly. Everything dies in my mind.”

  “Stop it. I’m not in your mind, and I am not dying.” I crawl forward, move closer. I wonder why I cannot see my nose before me, but try not to question it. “I am stronger than you think. Than anyone thinks.”

  There’s a broken laugh, then, “You’re not that strong.”

  The similarity of the responses frightens me. I open my mouth to say something – to question him – but before I know it, the scene has faded and I am encompassed in never-ending black.

  thirty

  Black is all that is.

  There is nothing else. No beginning. No end.

  Only darkness.

  Darkness is who I am.

  Darkness is who I’ve always been.

  How am I supposed to know, or understand, anything else?

  Only darkness.

  Darkness.

  Darkness.

  D a r k n e s s . . .

  But my name means light. My name means bright. I am darkness, but the word that symbolizes who I am is another thing entirely.

  I hear my name, sometimes. Murmured through the nothing. Begging me to come back.

  I do not feel like I can.

  This darkness is safe. Is comfortable. Is right.

  But the words pull at my mind. They sound desperate, and they make me feel desperate.

  Well, alright. But I must wait a few eternities for me to fade towards it.

  As I wait, I stare at the collage of colors in the empty black, and wonder what other worlds are like, other, less peaceful worlds.

  “Ives, please!”

  Alright, alright. I’m coming.

  “I can’t hold him forever!”

  Hold who?

  “Your brother.”

  I have a brother?

  “Ha-ha.”

  What?

  “Oh, are you not kidding?”

  No, why would I be?

  “You don’t remember him?”

  No.

  “You will if you wake up.”

  I don’t want to.

  “You need to. Your charges need you – and I need you. And your brother, him, too.”

  Charges? I don’t know what that means.

  “It means it’s time f
or you to wake up.”

  No thanks, it’s comfy here.

  “It’s comfy here, too.”

  Really?

  “Yeah.”

  Promise?

  “Sure can-do.”

  It better be comfy.

  Sharp, spiking pain fills my soul, my mind, my body. I seize uncomfortably atop what can only be described as floating mist, and I’m immediately screaming, and thrashing. It’s as if I’m being electrocuted from all angles, all edges, and – ...

  It dies down for a moment, leaves me with nothing but my panting and throbbing. I am lying atop of a glass staircase, and I cannot see who or what is next to me.

  “You said it would be comfy!”

  “Drastic times,” is his only reply.

  My grunt shows my appreciation.

  “I need your opinion, Ives. Please.”

  “I needed rest!”

  “You’ve been resting for months, and it’s...” His voice sounds strained as he makes out his words, but he still has time for a humorless laugh. “It’s hard to hold him.”

  “Hold who? What is going on?”

  “Isaac. He’s my charge, too. I can influence some of his life. Not all of it – but – I can – ”

  I’m cringing as my electrical charges begin to radiate through me. I feel as if my brain is being fried away. “Just get to the point, Thomas!”

  “Isaac fell. Off the staircase.”

  The pain seems to disappear almost immediately for another one – a pulsing in my heart, not my bones.

  “Oh.”

  “Actually, he was pushed. He was attempting to take advantage of Freckles – Screech happened to come back just in time.”

  “That was lucky,” I breathe.

  “I guess.” By the sound of his voice, it was some scuffle. Something that I missed. Something that I, in part... caused.

  I turn my head towards the viewer, and watch the two of them moving, close together, shaking, crying.

  “How much have I missed?”

  “Can – can we get to that part later, please?” His voice is tensed as if he is carrying millions of pounds of cargo, and just needs somewhere to drop it off.

  “What do you want, Thomas?”

  “When he – when he fell, I caught him. In case you wanted him.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in case I wanted him’?”

  “In case you wanted to save him. Keep him alive.”

  The very implications of this phrase begins to unsettle me. I stare forward, unsure, up at the clouds to which I am speaking, wiggling legs that I feel I do not have any control of.

  “I am not God. I do not get a choice.”

  Thomas is instantly exasperated. “You’re the closest thing to a friend he has.”

  And I, in turn, am instantly infuriated. “Are you trying to guilt me?”

  “No. Isaac is already dead, Ives. What would you like to do with Todd?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s lost. It means he gave himself up to be Todd, on that side. It means he didn’t listen to you, and still tried to hurt them after you were gone. Please, Ives, just – what do you want to do?”

  What a question. What a terrible, horrible question. What would I like to do with Todd? The abandoner? The rapist? The poisoner? The near-murderer?

  I cannot open my eyes as I give the singular order.

  “Let him fall.”

  The thought of him falling, right now, as I give the ‘okay’, frightens me. It reminds me that this is not the first time we’ve lived these cycles. Have there been times when I let him go for such acts? Or has he never been this bad? Was this just the final straw? Was this just what broke the metaphorical camel’s back?

  There, crashing to the ocean, goes the only person who would perhaps understand that reference, the only person who would reflect upon that with me.

  Should I feel guilty, for killing a sinner?

  And, for that matter, am I a sinner? I have lived just as many cycles, after all. What past transgressions have I sinned that I will never know of? Is me allowing him to die a transgression as well? Is me giving the order for it the same as me killing him?

  Was he redeemable? Could I have helped him, had I interfered earlier?

  Was this always meant to be his path?

  “Ives? Everything alright?”

  “Just – thinking.”

  Something cold beneath me, a weightlessness. I glance and see a hand sunken in vapor. Thomas seems to have put me back on the clouds that hover above the staircase, realizing that I will not be rising to my feet any time soon.

  “Want to share some of those thoughts?”

  “Would you agree that Isaac... Todd... was the villain of this... metaphorical story?”

  “Yes. Undoubtedly.” His answer is almost too quick.

  “If he was the villain... and I cohorted with him... what does that make me?”

  Thomas’ trademark silence wears on for a little longer than I would have appreciated. I shudder at the non-answering, attempt not to take his quietness too personally.

  “It makes you compassionate. Someone who cares about and loves people.”

  A smile twitches at my face. “I thought you told me I could not love.”

  A laugh in reply. “Hey, even I get it wrong sometimes.”

  Something I had been basing so much of me on, and it’s combated with such a simple phrase. Not all comments are forever perfect. If you live on, remember this.

  I breathe out, let the compassion in my chest wilt before I speak again. “What if we could have helped him? Before it got this bad.”

  “It’s not like we didn’t try, Ives, or that we weren’t going through our own stuff at the same time. It’s not our fault that he chose that path. We can’t make it our fault.”

  My eyes seem to burn. I close them. “Is it always this hard? When someone dies.”

  “I was told once that it should be at least a little hard, in one way or another.”

  My eyebrows cock upwards. Clouds drift above me. Beautiful and soft and distant. Nothing like anything in any of these worlds have the right to be. “Who told you that?”

  “Someone I loved.”

  “So, an old me?”

  “Maybe.” Teasing gently. “She wasn’t – uh – she’s not as great as you are, though.”

  He’s not good at flirting, or paying a compliment, but I suppose, neither would I be, so I just smile into the air afforded us and let myself go.

  I travel a journey between the world of darkness and the world where I watch my charges frequently. There is not much guarding I do, now – just lying, broken, stretched out on the vapor, observing.

  They are going through a minefield of hallucinations which don’t affect me. Though they cry out and run around, I have no idea what they are reacting to. Yet another thing other than the barrier that separates us. When I was there, I saw the imagination Todd had thrown on Freckles. Now that I am here, I see nothing. Nothing but the lack of connection.

  Thomas reaches out where they sink away. He is trying to help recuperate me into walking and watching my charges properly again. He’s laid down some laws – that I am never, ever allowed to go through the glass again, as I don’t have a filter and would just go through with all of me, and would be completely unrecoverable. The second law is that I am only allowed to walk for a few hours.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I feel as though it cannot be a list if there’s only two.”

  “Says who?”

  I smile, because we both know I do not have an answer – neither of us do. For once, I do not begrudge him these requests, as I feel too fatigued constantly to do much else.

  When I finally muster up enough strength to attempt to hobble, I do so with a cane Thomas provides, a white, swirling staff that clunks against the staircase as I move. I do not know where Thomas got it, but I thank him with a nod and a half smile. When I cannot walk, Thomas
brings me back the clouds. I wonder if supporting my weight with the vapor must ache him in the same way it hurt him to hold Todd, but I do not ask. I am not sure I wish to know the answer, either way.

  My life is somewhat empty, for the most part. There is just the walking, the lying, the darkness, and the watching. Thomas and I converse, sparsely.

  Once, I asked him if I got this sick in any of my other cycles.

  “No. You normally didn’t go through the barrier before. Now and again, I suppose.”

  I asked him why.

  “Because you never felt an attachment to them. You never felt a need to.”

  I asked him how he felt about that.

  “I don’t really feel anything about that. Your charges aren’t really my business.”

  But his voice was annoyed, so I just smiled back at him.

  It is a rather normal day when it happens. I am walking with my cane again. Across the barrier is hallucination city galore, so nothing interesting on. I am watching my feet, clothed carefully, watching the way they point and slide upwards, wishing I had the strength to dance, to spin, to dip, pirouette, a la seconde, fouette, when I hear a broken, battered cry.

  It’s in Freckles’ voice and pitch, with Screech’s name. Over and over. Broken.

  Their hallucinations have the capacity to be rather intense, I’ve noticed, so I am not too concerned. Nearly too lethargic to be. Yet still, I look up, shift my attention to theirs.

  It’s a red landscape, as it always is – red on black – and Freckles is standing there, as though frozen. I look to the left of the screen, to the right, and see no other figures, no other silhouettes.

  Something clatters to our staircase. It sounds too loud. Reverberating over and over and over in my eardrums. Reverberating into my bones. Into my soul.

  I open my mouth. I can’t find energy to say anything.

  Everything on this cold, distant staircase feels so warm. Feels so pained. Feels so on fire.

  I reach out with a hand not there and make no contact. No contact, no contact, not ever, not ever again.

  He is gone. Screech is nowhere to be seen.

  I wait, mouth gaped open. I wait.

  Freckles is peering over the edge, and her shoulders slack, her body begins to shake. I want to reach out, comfort her, but my hand never meets, my knees are buckling, my world is blurring, and then – and then...