Up With The Crows

by Zoe Parker

  I should get a large, shiny medal awarded to me for making it through this situation. Maybe even one of those wine gift baskets, heavy on the wine. I’ve accepted that there are things that go bump in the night, rather eloquently, if I might say so. Well, if you leave out the almost panic attacks, damn near constant doubt and the slim, ever-shrinking hope that I was just mentally ill. That’s a win in my book; the key word is almost.

  However, the secrets being kept from me upset me more than accepting that paranormal shit exists. Their existence is like having a pointy sesame seed stuck between your teeth rubbing a sore spot on your gums. No matter how many times you poke at it with your tongue, or brush your teeth—hell, even take some floss to it, resolves nothing. All the seed does is dig deeper into your aching gums and makes everything ten times worse. If I really wanted to, I could compare it to a cactus spine or a tick. A greedy, deep digging tick.

  With Lyme’s Disease.

  Forcing my thoughts away from the image that cooks up in my brain, I realize that I enjoy coming to work, not because of the comfort of having a job or even the security of a steady paycheck, simply because I like them. But, as far as the perks go, I’ve managed to get a real bed, I’m saving up for an apartment, and I paid my mom back for the first time in a decade. The satisfaction from that is one of the most freeing feelings I’ve ever had in my life. I plan on working to keep it that way or at least until they find some fucked up way to fire me here.

  I wave to Bob the Blob—yes, I named him that and I’m fully aware that it has no originality at all, but the poor thing didn’t have a name, just a creature tag. Which is what the Fake Fairies register them under, creature tags. It’s a blatant form of racism… no, speciesism, if I’ve ever seen one. Not only are they some kind of prisoners or something in this place, but they’re also demeaned in such a way they don’t get names. Come to find out, the names on the tray lists Connie gives me, she puts on there—not the management. She said it’s her one way to recognize them for the special people they are. Which besides the apparenty humanity—fairymanity, whatever—struck me as an odd turn of phrase and so I asked her, I mean, that’s a dangled carrot if I ever saw one. Of course, she smiled and turned away to stir her gigantic soup pot. I swear they’re torturing me for fun with the mysteries and allusions. All around me, I get hints about how things are, but no one gives me any reliable information. Especially from Vale, all I get from him is, I’m waiting for you to blossom.

  What the hell is he waiting for me to blossom into? A bridge Troll?

  I see fantastical crap daily—hell, minutely, and I have conversations with two-inch tall real Fairies about hair conditioner. How have I not “blossomed” enough to find out what the hell is going on here? I’m not a fan of vague bullshit. I’m that person that would skip all of the what if’s and know how’s and skip to the end of the story of life versus wading through six feet of shit to only end up dead because of something they didn’t tell me.

  “You think too hard about stupid things at times, Mel.” Marigold’s voice beside me might no longer startle me as it did before, but there’s still a small zing of apprehension. Every single time.

  “How are you today, Marigold?” It’s my small payback. She prefers that I call her Mari.

  “Well, I suppose. The garden is waking up again, you should go find it one day soon,” she says, then promptly turns and walks off.

  She reminds me of a psycho version of that cricket from all the mouse movies. You know the ones. M-I-C-blah, blah, blah.

  I stroll into Tavin’s room who gives me a knowing look that annoys me ten ways to Sunday.

  “Patience is a virtue for a reason,” Tavin chides from where he’s lounging, chainless now, on his bed watching me like an owl watches the dumb, slow mouse.

  One day I’m pretty sure he’s going to sink those teeth into me. What I’m not entirely sure of is in, what way. His smile widens and my stomach flutters. Honestly, I’ve admitted—to myself only—I’m sexually attracted to the twins, monsters or not. They have the effect of making my womb cry for me to yank my clothes off and say, take me now, I’m fertile.

  “Patience doesn’t help you enjoy your life. It merely makes getting the things you want to take longer.” His laugh is deep and infectious. I laugh with him. “Are you sure the two of you don’t read minds?”

  “Yes, we can smell and see how you feel. No mind-reading needed.” He leans forward, and the shirt on him gapes open showing off the pale skin covering that tight, yummy—Christ, Mel get ahold of yourself. The wayward path you’re currently going down is leading you to his lap. I bitch at myself, trying to stop the tidal wave of hormones that subconsciously made me move a step closer to him. God, I’m just as bad with Vale, maybe even worse because that man flirts so effortlessly, I don’t even realize how charmed I am until I’m practically licking his… face.

  Sure. Face.

  “Where do you go off to when your eyes glaze over, and your mouth hangs open?” His question makes me jerk right out of my reverie about licking things, and my mouth snaps shut. Giving him a dirty look, I grab his laundry and leave, the rude man. Saying my eyes glaze over and my mouth hangs open. That’s rude to say to a lady.

  Not that I’m a lady.

  After I’m finished with the third floor, I wander around to find a hidey-hole to take my lunch in. The residents themselves always manage to find me, which is fine most of the time, it’s the guards I’m trying to avoid. I’m not exaggerating when I say they’re assholes, all of them. The last time they found me they took my sandwich and stomped on it. Before that, they wastefully dumped that delicious homemade tomato soup on my head. So, I walked around all day in a uniform stained with what looked like not-tomato soup, smelling like a rotten vegetable garden.

  A feeling of awareness lassoes me right around the gut and tugs hard. Stopping in my tracks, I turn towards its source and find myself facing a dusty old door. It’s another iron one, they have a thing for them here, but this one hasn’t been used for a long time. The hinges are rusted, and the doorknob is hanging by one screw.

  With the usual aplomb I show here, reckless and stupid mostly, I grab it and yank. Unsurprisingly, it comes off in my hand. Annoyed, I try to get it to reattach, you know—because that’s magically going to happen. To properly communicate my desire to get it to go in the hole, I bang the knob against it a few times. Resting my hand against the door, I yank it back when a sharp pain shoots through my palm. Looking at it I see a single drop of blood welled up on it. I eye the door that bit me. There’s a smear of red outlined by what looks like my palm print.

  Leaning closer I hold my hand up to the spot and push it flat against the smooth metal of the door. A soothing warmth suffuses my hand right before iron claws of pain reach up and grab my entire body locking me against the door. Yelling, I try to pull my hand away and only end up slapping the door with my other hand and screaming bloody murder at the damn thing.

  “Give me my damn hand back! Why does it always have to be about blood?” I yell at the door—a wave of hot air slams into my face pushing my eyes shut. Another wave stings my cheeks and tears my hair from its loose band. The next wave is a continuous stream that makes my eyes water from the force of it, with tears streaming down my face I try to turn my head away enough to open them and see what the hell is going on.

  Just as I’m about to accomplish this, the wind stops as suddenly as it began. Using my sleeve to wipe the moisture from my face I give the door the dirtiest look I have in my arsenal and this time when I yank on my hand it comes away with no problems, sending me back into an arm flinging mess, yet I somehow manage to catch myself before I hit the hard floor.

  The handprint on the door, my handprint, begins to pulse a bright white. The rhythm is unmistakable as anything other than a heartbeat. Curious despite myself, I rest my hand over my chest and discover that it matches mine identically.

  Did I honestly expect it to be a standard door?

  “Now what?�
�� I ask the empty hallway. The response to my question is for the door to click and open a few inches. ‘Hmph.” I turn and look for the lunch bag that I dropped when the door tried to eat my hand. My footprint stands out from the top of the bag. I snatch it off the ground anyhow food is too precious to waste, stepped on or not.

  With a deep breath for bravery—something that my stupidity likes to hide behind—I push on the door, and it opens as easily as a brand new one. Muttering a few insults at the door, because you know, doors care so very much about what we think of them, I step into the dark room.

  The stupidity has chosen to now run in front of the bravery.

  With a whoosh sound, the lights flare on. A single step backward brings me up against the door frame. The room… the room is everything an old hidden place in my imagination should be. There’s a skull on the old secretary desk, with a freaking melting candle on it! Books line the walls, there’s even a podium with an open book on it, that from here looks authentically old and creepy. There are dust bunnies and spider webs everywhere, giving this room every single touch of Addam’s family library that it can.

  “I thought it would take you forever to find this place. Sometimes you’re so damn slow, Mel.” The female’s voice startles me so much I throw the lunch bag towards the source. The harsh caw of Athena makes me almost regret it, almost.

  “Thanks, Athena, you’re so supportive,” I answer her, not surprised she’s talking to me. Jacaby told me weeks ago that she talked and well, a talking bird isn’t the oddest thing I’ve come across in this place.

  Not by a long shot.

  “I have to admit. I’m rather proud of you. You’ve accepted this with more composure than I expected. You’ve even limited your melt downs to weekly instead of nightly,” she teases, I follow her voice to find that she’s perched on an old golden cage that’s torn open. I’m pretty sure that whatever was in it broke out instead of something breaking in.

  “Oh, thanks,” I point towards the hole in the cage, “Was that your former home?”

  “Once. The former master betrayed this place, and I had no choice but to flee,” she says with sadness lacing her words. This master was someone she cared about.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She hops down to the desk and rummages around in the mess of things on top of it. I can hear her muttering to herself and cover my mouth to hide my smile. She sounds like I imagined her to. Her voice is smoky and sounds like that lady on TV who does the wine commercials—the voice of a phone-sex operator in the body of a bird.

  I giggle.

  “I’m glad you’re so entertained, Mel. Here,” she flaps over to me and drops something heavy down the front of my shirt. Rolling my eyes at her, I reach in between my boobs and find my hand filled with more warm metal.

  “I promise that if this thing bites me, I’m going to make you eat it,” I threaten and pull it, reluctantly, out of my shirt to examine it.

  In my hand is a golden amulet about the size of my palm. There is a ring of white stones—probably diamonds—set in it, with the center holding one the color of flame. It’s beautiful.

  “That’s yours,” Athena says.

  “This thing has to be worth a fortune. I can’t take this,” I insist.

  “Mel, everything in this room is yours. You can take whatever you want.”

  Blinking a few times, I stare at her and say, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You’re the Path Keeper. This is your room. This place---the Unsylum, is the Path.”

  I blink a few more times, trying to process. “Try again, bird.”

  “Pah, don’t get mad about it. Here,” she hops over to the podium, “this is your… guidebook of sorts. Read it, and you’ll get many of the answers you seek.”

  “Okay, Athena…let’s take it down one more level of dumb. You’re saying that the Unsylum is a path?” She nods. “To where?”

  “Everywhere. This is the doorway to all worlds. The magic users that have entrapped it and its guests inside are not the rightful heirs to it. When my former master deserted his post out of cowardice,” this time there’s anger mixed in with the sadness, “he left a vacuum of power that the witches and wizards from the Runin Realm took advantage of. Go on, read, it’s all there in the book and will take a lot less time to read than for me to explain.”

  I almost push her, almost, but I feel like it’s more that she doesn’t want to talk about the person who she called master than her being lazy. No one likes to talk about something that hurts them.

  “So, there’s a shit ton of other worlds—which even science says is possible, so I don’t feel too crazy accepting that—but the whole me being the Path Keeper thing. I suck at keeping plants alive how can I—”

  Athena cuts me off, “You are one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever seen when it comes to caring for things. Did you forget I know about those three idiots you’re caring for? What about what you’ve done for the inhabitants of this place?”

  Well, then.

  I open my mouth and she interrupts me again, “Don’t even say it, Mel. You’ve known for a while now that there’s a reason you’re here, you like playing stupid because it suits you.” My mouth shuts, and I sit down in the chair that immediately collapses under my weight.

  Laying on the dirty floor, I cover my face with my hands and laugh. What else can I do? The last few weeks of my life have been like some traumatic, never-ending, acid trip. But it’s been one helluva trip. This is the icing on the cake, her telling me that I’m some keeper of a path thing. The thought of being responsible for anyone other than myself or the birds… that freaks me out more than a talking bird. My laughter takes on the edge of hysteria, what the fuck has happened to my life?

  “Has she completely lost her mind this time?” Vale’s deep voice cuts right through the room and silences me immediately. Vale left his room? Rolling towards the door I look up at him, he crosses the room—strolls really—his hands tucked in the pockets of a pair of jeans that I’ve never seen him in, a plain white t-shirt stretched across his lean frame…goddamn that man is fine.

  I can’t believe I’m laying on the floor contemplating throwing water on him to the soundtrack of Magic Mike.

  Rolling onto my back again I cover my face with both hands this time.

  “Have you told her, familiar?” he asks.

  “Her being on the floor should be your answer,” Athena answers, amusement thick in her voice.

  “Everything?” His voice is closer now, and I swear I can feel his body heat.

  “No, if that were the case, I’m sure she’d have tried to jump off the roof or run home by now.”

  Oh, shit, how bad is it that she thinks I’d freak out in those ways? Lifting my hands off my face, I look up into the bright eyes of Vale. His laughter is dancing in their hypnotic depths, there’s something darker, deeper there too. I shiver.

  Yeah, Tavin isn’t the only one whose teeth are sharp. And reactions aside, the one I have to Vale is more visceral. And confusing, so confusing that I roll the opposite direction from him and climb to my feet. Wiping my dirty hands on my already filthy uniform, I cross to look at the book, mostly to avoid looking at Vale.

  His hair is in a long braid, tossed casually over his shoulder, and I curl my fingers into my palm to keep myself from being a moron and reaching out to touch it. I already know his hair feels like strands of thick silk. It’s textured in such a way that you want to rub it all over your body, like a weirdo. Forcing myself to look down, away from the knowing light in his eyes I manage to somehow read the first page of the book in front of me.

  If you’re reading this, then the former Keeper has passed on. Well, that isn’t foreboding or anything, is it? Intrigued I keep reading.

  These words are the sacred writings for the Path Keeper. Always keep control of the Path, never fail in your task. If it is taken, take it back. This means you, Melantha. Get your finger out of your ear and read this book. Read it because your life, their lives de
pend on it.

  I slam the book shut after I stop itching my ear with my finger.

  “Mel, is it that hard to believe your important?”

  “I’m not important, I’ve never been important—this is just…” My words sputter to a choked ending. Gripping the edges of the podium, I take several, deep, bracing breaths. No, I’m not important but the drive to read this book is a fucking need.

  “More untrue words have never been spoken. For ten years I’ve sat here, pieces of myself scattered to the chaos of the chained Unsylum, waiting for you, Mel.” His hands are firm but surprisingly gentle as he pries my hands off the podium and grasps them in his warm ones. “You may ask your questions, and I’ll give you the answers that I have.”

  “What do you mean pieces of yourself?” That’s not the question I wanted to ask, but I’ll roll with it.

  “For every part of me they remove, a duplicate or a twin of me forms. I see through all of them, I am all of them but because I’m in pieces the main part of me is weakened.”

  Blink. Blink. Blink.

  “Yes, Tavin is a piece of me,” he answers my unspoken question.

  “So—uh—like, that’s you talking through him?”

  A chorus of voices answer me, “I am he. He is I. We are him. But split apart, hollow without our center.” The multitude of voices sends my gaze flicking around. Tavin stands in the doorway, beside him yet another Vale look alike, one I don’t recall seeing. Behind him a smaller, childlike version and on the other side of him yet another one, young but not quite a child. Vale catches me when I try to sit down in the broken chair again.

  “Mel. Shake it off. There’s no time for you to have an emotional crisis. Ask your questions, my time here is limited, soon I will need to return to that foul room and wait for them to turn their eyes away again. Only here can I give you the answers you seek but ask now!”

  Perhaps it’s the urgency of his tone, or maybe it’s the clawing panic that I’m barely holding at bay. Maybe even more than anything it’s the sense that once I get these answers, I’ll be in the place I need to be.