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  “And Isaac?”

  “Around the same amount.”

  “And never, ever has our soul bonded to any of them?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Of course?”

  “I hate to be the one to state the obvious, Ives, but – ” He gives another one of his infamous laughs with a flair that is quite unwelcome. “ – neither of you know how to love.”

  I blink and take in my twin brother, and he me, and we sit there in silence contemplating the answers to my barrage of questions and, most notably, the more recent one.

  Neither of you know how to love.

  Was that true? I knew that I was often callous towards people – my objectivity of Thomas and my original one of Isaac has proved that all too well – but does that mean that I, personally, am incapable of love?

  I ponder it as Thomas turns towards Isaac for questions.

  “Where are our charges?”

  “They’re not here yet.”

  “Then why have you awoken us?” I jump in. Perhaps my assault of questioning never really ends. Is that because I’m untrustworthy? Would untrustworthy be a trait that succeeds lack of love?

  “Initialization takes some time.” I can hear the grin in his mouth, and immediately decide I am to ask no more questions.

  “What kind of people do we have for our charges?” From the note in his words, it becomes immediately clear to me that Isaac wants to make a considerable contribution to the Questions Asked list, but cannot, of course, think of questions to ask.

  “People people,” is Thomas’ rather abrupt reply.

  I find the way our overseer replied humorous – but I turn my head to hide my smile from Isaac.

  “Are the two people we’re assigned related at all on the staircase?” comes Isaac again. “And how much do they know about themselves? Like – a lot, or... ?”

  “People on the staircases only know their ages. No more information is granted them. And – if you mean if everyone on the Ashen Staircase is related in some way, shape, or form, the answer is – no. Or, uh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. If you’re asking whether you and Ives have people that are somehow related to each other on the Ashen, then the answer is yes. You normally get siblings or people who traveled together. This time, you two have unlikely friends.”

  Unlikely friends. Sort of like my brother and I, is my rather sardonic note.

  There is much I want to ask Thomas – why Isaac seemed to retain some of his memory – what this pull in my gut means – the exact specifics of my job – but I don’t want to ask them until Isaac is gone. Something in the back of my mind tells me it will not be long until such happens and so I wait, patiently.

  “I’m supposed to give you two time to process this information,” Thomas states. I blink up at the sky. I do not need any time to process anything. I knew nothing of my life, of myself, before. Why should any information come as such a shock? “It’s protocol, you know,” he adds in, as if he can see the bend of my face. “I’ll leave you two to it. If you need anything – I’m always here.”

  And, with that, he’s gone. I’m greeted with the same silence I had been entertaining before these two had come into my life. The only difference, now, is that I can hear Isaac’s even breathing next to me.

  I turn my attention to him. His eyes still haven’t left the Ashen Staircase – and for some reason, I think they look haunted as they soak in the appearance.

  “Are you alright?” I greet.

  “What?” His empty voice shows no indication that he didn’t hear me. “Yeah, yeah. Fine. Just... not a nice looking place. You know?”

  I nod at him, even though he’s not looking at me.

  We remain in silence for a few more moments. I begin to mess with the hem of my dress and suck in shaking, shuddering breaths. The quietness is not tensed nor uncomfortable, yet still, something within me forces me to break it.

  “Apparently we’re loveless creatures.”

  This brings a smile to his face, one that twitches the only corner of his mouth that seems to ever break into a grin. “Apparently.”

  “Perhaps that means we’re very good at our job. As Moderators. We can never get too attached. We are always here to... try and save more lives.”

  “Maybe,” Isaac grants, but there’s a sort of melancholy color to the thrum of his tone. “Or maybe it means we’re bad at our job.”

  I leave his sentence hanging in air for a moment, before, “Well. I guess we’ll just have to do it to see, won’t we?”

  “I guess so,” he murmurs. “I guess so.”

  five

  I have learned – the hard way, of course, because I believe that that is most likely the only way to learn vital new information in this world – that there is no passage of time here.

  One could be sitting in the same spot forever, and the sky would never change. Never lighten or darken. Rain would never fall, the sun would never shine.

  No.

  What I see and saw in my first few moments is exactly what I receive.

  Isaac and I sat on the invisible ledges, me with my back to the Ashen Staircase, him staring into it, for what felt like days. We made small conversation here and there, quiet, gentle mumblings, yet neither of us felt the need to really, deeply converse. The entire time, his expression remained as ghastly as if he could accurately remember each and every life that he had lived, as if the ghosts from each of those memories were clawing at the tendrils of his mind. It frightened me into a sort of speechlessness.

  Finally, after what felt like the fourth or fifth day, Isaac decides to strike up conversation with me.

  “Ives? I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Then talk,” I comment, glancing over at his form, just as scrawny and ill-fitted to the world as mine.

  “Is it just me, or – do you have these – ” He tapers off, and bends his head to look down at his lanky fingers, which he plays with, perhaps in an attempt to distract himself from whatever ‘these’ are. His breathing becomes more ragged, and unsure, and shaky, and I attempt to give him what I believe to be an appropriate amount of time to find his speech before I nag him on about it.

  “Have these what?”

  “These – ...” Another shuddering breath, but this time, he recovers quicker. “These thoughts.”

  “Of course I have thoughts, Isaac.”

  “No. Like... thoughts that seem more like memories. Memories that don’t place, like... the wrong puzzle piece – like that!”

  I blink, and glance around, as if looking for what he is referring to.

  “A puzzle piece! You know?” His eyes have some sort of fervent exuberance in them which scares me more than it enlightens me.

  “I don’t believe I do.”

  “Puzzle piece. We’re in this world. This world with nothing. No objects. No puzzles. And yet – we both know what a puzzle piece is.”

  I notice that, often, my response to something I don’t understand or do not have an immediate reply to is a blink. It is true. I do know what a puzzle piece is. Yet, by Thomas’ own admittance, we would have no idea what a puzzle, of course, is.

  “You’re right,” I comment, slowly. “I guess I do have such... thoughts.”

  “And... this.” Isaac clears his throat and begins, slowly, in a Westernized country’s Southern drawl. “Well hoooowdy! I reckoned y’all mighta recognize--...”

  “Oh, no! No, no no,” is my reply, immediate enough to cut him off, but it’s through one of the first grins I’ve ever shared, one that my fingers are quick to hide. “Wow. That was so bad. That was so, so bad.”

  “Oh, come on!” He reverts back to his original tone, the one that suited him and I far better, then forward again. “A country accent? Ya dun think I can pull it off?”

  “No. No.” But my frame is shaking with light, a strange joy, something I’ve never felt before and something somewhere deep in me is desperate to hold onto. “Your voice is nothing near to that!”

  �
�Bet’chu I could, if I wanted ta.”

  “God, you’re embarrassing yourself, Isaac.” Lips can’t help that they’re upturned, can’t help soft petals stuck in my throat, tickling. My fingers play with my bottom lip.

  Head cocking forward, all relaxed, no more ghosts, only humor. “I dun thank I am...”

  “Stop it! Isaac, you’re embarrassing myself, now.”

  “Aw, come on, now!” As spirited as though he’s truly upset by this. Truly upset! By my reaction to this! “That’s a little harsh. D’y’want yer baby brother ta feel all broken hearted just ‘cause y’can’t see his genius?”

  “Genius? What exactly is genius about pretending to be a country hick?”

  “Who’re you calling a pretender? Baby, I were borned this way.”

  “Borned.” Another simper peals from my mouth, permissionless, and for a moment, I try to ascertain why this is so amusing to me. Perhaps it is merely, as one may say, a sibling or a twin ‘thing’. “That is cringe-worthy, that is. And you most certainly were not.”

  “How’d’ya know? Coulda been.” He crosses his legs beneath him, shifts his weight a bit with some excitement. I find I can’t help but love the glimmer in his eyes.

  “I suppose so. I pray Thomas would warn me, in that case, so I could stay far away from you.”

  A mock frown, but deep enough to be a real one. “Ya’d turn on me? Yer own baby brother?”

  “If you keep sounding distinctly like the sort of fellow who wouldn’t get the message after a girl told him to bugger off for the ninetieth time and then try to shift blame of your poor actions on her, or on some permission that the girl won’t confirm you had? Oh, absolutely.”

  His eyes go wide, but he’s laughing, too, a bit breathless, perhaps with the realization that I am completely accurate in my assessment.

  I go on. “The type of guy who doesn’t know how to reciprocate, and the only laws of his constitution he knows by heart is free speech and the right to bear arms, and somehow makes every conversation about him, and has never painted himself without the broad brushstroke of him somehow being a victim.”

  “Y’think all country people sound like tha’?”

  “No,” I say, smiling. “Just you in particular. Your tonality. You’re perfect to be a villain.”

  And we laugh, because such a thought is so outlandish and ridiculous in this light, the thought that in our boring, easily cut-and-dry story can even have any villains, and that the villain could ever be one of us. We’re Moderators. We watch people live their lives, and then they die, and maybe we do, or maybe we are re-started. I am newly awakened and I am cynical, but it does not take the sharpest tack in the drawer to see where this leads.

  The original subject is lost to a fake Southern accent and the antics that follow with it, and we sit in a more relaxed silence. Despite the lines of laugh still etched on both of our faces, there is still some sort of eternal sorrow in his icy blues, but I decide it would be more polite not to question him on it than the opposite.

  Our silence moves on for what perhaps is another few hours, every now and again, one of us muttering a line from our previous dialogue to get an emotional response from the other, before Thomas finally returns, a welcome distraction from the near nothing we have fallen into.

  “Your charges will be arriving soon.” Six words, and it seems to turn our entire world upside down – to flip terror into my throat out of nowhere. “So I believe Isaac should start walking to where he’s going to meet his charge.”

  “Will I ever see him again?” I ask Thomas, as he and I both rise to our feet.

  “Yes. You two can easily meet and converse when your charges are asleep. And you two will most likely be walking together, once your charges meet up.”

  I cannot explain the sudden need within my bones to wrap my arms around Isaac in a hug, but I give into it, regardless. He clings, almost desperately, back to me, and something in my soul shakes at his unspoken terror.

  “Be safe,” I murmur.

  “You be safe,” he murmurs back, but his voice sounds no more relaxed by my embrace.

  Finally, he releases me, body shaking as it does so, and begins his trek downwards, apparently, where he will meet his own charge. I watch him with a guarded expression. It’s only when he’s disappeared that I attempt speech with Thomas.

  “Why do I feel so worried for him?”

  “He’s a worrisome fellow.” The word fellow doesn’t sound correct in his mouth, and he expounds upon that by laughing at his own phrase.

  “It seems to me as if he can remember much, much more than I.”

  “Indeed.”

  For some reason, there is a part of me that accepts that. Accepts him doing no more than simply agreeing to my statements. Perhaps I need the voices in my head to agree fully with me in order to keep myself from thinking I’m insane.

  As I lie down on the staircase, waiting to be alerted to my own charge arriving, all the questions that I had in my head are dissected and gently pulled apart, tossed and turned over and over within the fathomage of my mind. And yet, when it comes to voicing them, I choose upon only one.

  “What’s at the top of the staircase?”

  I can feel a smile that I cannot hear or see. I cannot tell how much sorrow and how much amusement this particular smile holds – only, I know, that there is a percentage of each.

  “I’ll tell you,” he responds, lowly, “when someone makes it.”

  six

  It’s been quiet since my brother left.

  I have been staring at the sky and breathing gently, as if to remind my body that it can, indeed, breathe. I am unsure much about this world – but the fact that we can still breathe, and see, and think, is somehow calming to a troubled, frightened mind.

  I believe it’s the earliest anxiety antidote. Breathing.

  It hasn’t been too long since I saw his back disappear down the curve of the staircase, yet I still feel as if I have been lying here for eternities. Perhaps my past lives had been spent here, as well – just lying in wait. Waiting to meet a human who I would never speak to, a human I would never love. One whose life I would watch, like a story, from start to finish, before my own life was rearranged and re-started just because my own inability to love.

  If I could not love them – if I could not save them – I should not be allowed to have more of them.

  I feel Thomas lingering, nearby. He’s watching me, though I have a strange feeling that his eyes should be on another.

  “Shouldn’t you be watching Isaac?”

  “I can watch both of you.”

  “That isn’t splitting your focus too widely?”

  “No. Isaac is safe, still waiting the count down until his charge arrives. And you are – well, quite the same.”

  That wasn’t the answer I had been looking for, but, I suppose, it is fine enough. I have more questions to pose to him.

  “Can I trust you?”

  The sudden silence tells me he is shocked by my question.

  “What?” I push, closing my eyes as I stretch on the staircase my eyes cannot see but my mind must believe is there. “Is it really so surprising that I am curious as to your motives?”

  “I have no motives, Ivory.”

  “No?” I wiggle slightly, back and forth, as I listen to the lulling of the voice I do not fully trust. “There is something odd about you, Thomas. I am sure of it. And one day, I hope to discover what it is.”

  “Well.” He sounds somewhere between relieved and horrified, a pitch I did not know existed. “Let me know when you do.”

  “You’ll be the first to know, naturally.”

  There is a short reprieve from our conversation, before I continue, “You never did answer my question.”

  “No,” he murmurs. “I suppose I didn’t.”

  And we are back at the start again. That loop that I so willingly throw myself into. And while I see there are alternatives, and that I can fight and speak my way out of it, I feel near co
mforted in the center of this strange communique the pair of us have adopted.

  In a way, I’m pleased he didn’t say that I could trust him.

  If he had, I would have known he was lying.

  “When will my charge arrive?”

  “A long time from now. But you wished to be awoken with Isaac.”

  “And so what am I to do? Wait and stare at the sky void of a sun until the person finally decides to begin existing? I don’t think past me is as logical as current me.”

  “Oh, no. She was more logical. Trust me.” The hint of a smile is apparent in his tone, which only provokes an eye roll from me. “You can watch his charge until yours comes along.”

  I nod. “I think I will.” I’d like to see this world that we’ve only had Thomas’ word on. Real. Portrayed in picture. Within grasp, even if just out of reach.

  For a scant moment, I question my own thoughts. A world so unbelievable that I have to see the validity of something as minute as the existence of a being in order to even slightly begin to believe it, to begin to work without questioning every pass of the rather still air through this foreign field. How frightening. This is such an unusual universe – one where strangers become brothers and voices in the wind become the only reliable source of information.

  “Isaac is following the same plane as his charge, meaning, if he needs to, he could break through the barrier and visit her. You’re not. You can only observe.” There’s a pause a breath’s length long. “Even if you wanted to break through, though, and you were on the right plane... it wouldn’t be permitted.”

  I can’t help but grin sardonically as I sit up, turning to view the barrier unraveled between me and a world that is only supposed. “So... what, then, would be my punishment?”

  Thomas doesn’t respond for a while. It’s so long, in fact, that I’m about to ensure that he heard me, when the barrier begins to darken and I hear his voice mutter, almost forlornly, “Just... don’t do it.”

  I do not push the issue currently because of the way he speaks. I muse, for a moment, that perhaps that’s why he doesn’t have a form – because his voice alone is just so exceptional at accurately displaying his emotions without a face and body to match it.