Cassandra: And they all fall down

by Julie Hodgson

  Ellen put a plate in front of Cassandra and then brought her own meal to the table. There would only ever be three dinners, despite the years Ellen and John had prayed for a brother or sister for Cassandra. She knew Dr. Somner had saved some of her eggs, years ago, but had never enquired.

  “We’re not talking about this,” Cassandra huffed and began to push bits of brown around her plate.

  “I’m afraid we are, Cassandra. You don’t look well. I told you to let me know if you had any problems.”

  “This about the pills?” John said, forking meatloaf into his mouth.

  “No.”

  “Yes. It’s only been a week and look at her.”

  “She looks fine to me.”

  This made Cassandra smile. Good old Dad. “I am fine,” she told her mom and began to eat, although she really wasn’t hungry.

  “What about your hands?”

  “They itch.”

  “I can see they itch.”

  There was a moment when no one said anything and then Ellen added, “I’ll get you some more cream.”

  Cassandra was going to protest – it would take more than a bit of moisturizer to stop the itching – but she bit her tongue. Anything that made her mom feel better was fine by her.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  “Mom!” Cassandra snapped.

  “Leave the girl alone, Ellie.”

  “I just need to know that she’s okay.”

  “I’ll be okay if you just leave me alone.” Cassandra hated the fact that she often snapped like this at her mom. She didn’t mean to do it, but it always happened. She just couldn’t help it. She didn’t speak to anyone else this way, but her mom had the knack of pushing her buttons.

  “I’ll leave you alone when I know you’re okay.”

  Cassandra’s fork dropped out of her hand, and she looked straight at her mom. “Why can’t you just trust me? You told me to tell you if I had any problems. You made me promise. You made me promise twice. Why did you make me promise if you don’t trust me to tell you? I’m nearly sixteen, Mom. Why do you still treat me like I’m six?” Cassandra hated every word that spilled out of her mouth, but she had no control over them or the tears that were starting to flow. She also knew that there was an irony in behaving like this when her argument was that she was a grown-up, but she had lost all control.

  “Cass?” Ellen said, with such softness in her voice, but Cassandra had already stomped away from the table to her room, slammed the door behind her, and was lying down on her bed crying. She sobbed and sobbed, but had absolutely no idea why.

  After a few minutes, the tears were starting to subside, and her head felt a little clearer from the outburst. She sat up and looked over at the door. She couldn’t face going back out. She was also starting to feel hunger now, but she was too proud to go out for food. She knew her mom would be in soon anyway, to bring her some food, and then they would talk it out. She would probably end up telling her the truth, or a variation of it, that she hadn’t been feeling great, but she wanted to wait it out, see what happened. They would probably then talk about how preparations were coming along for the race and then about Abby’s party and what she was going to wear. This was how it usually worked, but another fifteen minutes passed and Cassandra was still sitting on the edge of the bed in the silent room that was darkening around her. Fifteen minutes became thirty and then an hour and nothing. This time her mom wasn’t coming. Eventually, Cassandra tried to settle herself on the bed. She picked up her phone idly and read a few notifications, but none of it interested her. Most of the time she could lose herself in her social networks for days at a time. The house could have burnt down, and she would be sitting among the burning embers with searing flesh, still engrossed in who was dating whom, what her friends’ pets looked like, and what people were having for dinner. She had no idea why it was so compelling; it just was. But right now, the weight of the phone in her hand was just too much for her and the colors as she started stroking the screen with her thumb felt almost unbearable on her eyes. Overridingly, the backs of her hands were itching to distraction. She let out a groan and flung her cellphone on the bed then clawed at the red patches with her nails. It gave her very little relief, so she scratched harder and harder, and she knew without looking now that she was drawing blood, but she couldn’t stop. She buried her nails deep into the flesh and dragged at the tissue over and over again, but the terrible pain was still second to the itch, which refused to cease. When she finally looked down at her hands, she saw that they were a mess of red. She stopped for a split second and held her hands up in front of her. They looked as if she had been buried alive and clawed her way out with her nails, bloodied and tortured. The backs, which were still burning and tormenting her with their relentless irritation, were now split and clawed, and the blood ran down her arm as she inspected the damage before resuming her assault on herself, scratching as hard as she could. But now when she scratched she felt something solid under the skin, first on her left hand and then the right. Her stomach heaved at the discovery; she had hit bone. She had done this to herself. She managed to stop herself from scratching and hold her hands behind her back, out of view, not daring to look. However, the incessant prickle she felt soon forced her hands back out in front of her and her nails back into the wounds like demonic children of Satan in a blood bath frenzy. She knew she had to look. She didn’t want to, but her nails had found something solid under the skin of both hands and although she first thought it was bone, the more she poked, the more she sensed that whatever was there didn’t belong. It was solid, but not quite as hard as bone. It had no give when she pushed with her nail, but there was a softness, a bit like rough leather, and it was warm. Her heart was now beating so fast that her head was starting to spin. She sat down on the bed and the support made her feel a little better, but her stomach was still skipping over and over, again and again as she put off the moment when she would have to look. She took a deep breath and swallowed back the cry that was sitting inside of her, waiting to explode. She closed her eyes and turned her head away as she raised one hand and then the other. Finally, she dared to peek, but she immediately closed her eyes again to escape what she was seeing. A little, black, pointed nub had burst through the skin of each hand, no bigger than the tip of a blade of grass, but large enough to send her on the brink of hyperventilation once again. She looked over to the closed door and knew that both of her parents were beyond. She even opened her mouth to call to them, but something stopped her. It wasn’t just that she had fought with her mother and sent herself to her room. It wasn’t even that Ellen hadn’t come to see her as she always did, to make things okay again. She didn’t want to worry them, she didn’t want to end up in Dr. Somner’s office again, but more than this, everything she was experiencing right now felt deeply personal. More personal that when she had her first period or kissed her first guy. It was immensely intimate, and she just couldn’t bring herself to call out.

  She remembered Bindi’s words about breathing, which seemed to be helping her more and more these days, and took a long, deep breath in then breathed out until her lungs were completely empty. She straightened her back, rolled her shoulders and neck in circles, took a few more quenching breaths, and when she opened her eyes again her mind felt clearer, and she had summoned the strength she needed to tackle her hands again. And as she allowed her eyes to settle on the alien mess of one hand, a pointed finger prodded the wound and dared itself to circle the terrifying protrusion. It did have the texture and appearance of leather. It was also not just black, but there were traces of green in it, which caused her stomach to stir once again. Perhaps she had popped out a vein, and the next step would be to bleed to death. She looked over at the closed door once again and then quickly back to her hand. She now moved with renewed assurance, as she nipped the nub on her left hand between the nails of her right, feeling the heat from it radiating up her fingers, and gave it a gentle tug. A stunted syllable flew from her mouth as the gree
n-black nub lengthened like a tiny snake being dragged out of her. She slammed her hands over her mouth to contain the scream but was quick to move them away again as she felt the thin, stringy strand dangling from her. Again, she needed time to compose herself before confronting what was hanging there, and she even debated simply getting into her bed and going to sleep, pretending that none of this was happening, but her hands still itched so much. She had to sort this out. She took another deep breath and returned her attention to the hand. She placed it firmly on her knee and now glanced down at it as if it belonged to someone else. The black-green string, all 10 cm of it, hung down over her leg. She dared herself to prod it with her right hand and noted that she felt nothing when it was touched. If it were a vein, she imagined it would hurt, or she would at least be able to feel it in some way. She then gripped it between her fingers; it was boiling hot. On fire. So hot that she could only hold it for a second before it started to burn through. She blew on the tips of her fingers before trying to grip it again. This time she managed to hold it long enough to give it another gentle tug, and the whole thing came away from the wounds she had created. Out of instinct and the sheer heat of the thing, she flung it across the room and let out another yelp as her body shivered all over with repulsion. She was on her feet and standing over the tiny snake-like strand on her pink and white rug, watching with her mouth frozen open as it jumped and flipped, squirming as if it were in the last throes of death, although it couldn’t have ever been alive. As it juddered and twisted it trailed a light green, shiny goop and then got smaller and smaller, shrinking into itself, receding into that leathery skin until it was too small for her to see, and finally disappeared completely, leaving a thin line of slime as the only evidence that it had ever existed. With no paused for thought, she pulled the thread out of her right hand and tried to hold onto it, to look at what it could be, but it was also too hot to hold, and she tossed it onto the rug not far from the faint, lime-green residue of the other. Again, she watched as it shriveled and receded until all that was left was another film of green. For a moment, she didn’t quite know how to respond and simply stared at the light patches. She looked at the door again and then back at the rug, and then she realized something important. For the first time, all week, perhaps the first time in her entire life, her hands had completely stopped itching.

  Chapter Six

  Cassandra woke up on the floor the next morning. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she could sense the heavy sleepiness that had gripped her body and it was easy to believe that this weight had seized her all at once. Although she could still feel this fug, she experienced it as an imprint, almost a memory, and something far brighter had awoken inside of her as the sun rose. She slowly opened her eyes, and before she even had her first thought, she brought each hand up to inspect. They were a mess. Most of the blood had rubbed away in the night, but a crusty sheen of red remained, and the wounds themselves looked nasty and stung as she moved her hands around. This would have bothered her far more if not for the sudden realization that followed. Her hands no longer itched. She remembered the feeling from last night but was too fearful to celebrate it. She had momentary reprieves from the itching before, and it always came back, so she was reluctant to start jumping up and down. This morning, however, she knew in the deepest recesses of her heart that it was over. She had spent a lifetime clawing at the backs of her hands, hiding the scratch marks, being driven insane when she was forced to sit still while the wild creatures under the skin wriggled and writhed. And now it was finally over.

  She pushed her hands down onto her fluffy rug to sit herself up, and the feel of it brought back more images from the night before. It was on this rug that she had tossed the severed tentacles she had pulled from her hands, that had sent her stomach heaving and her heart racing. She flipped onto all-fours and brushed the carpet with a flat hand to find a trace of these green-black threads, but she found nothing. It would be easy to tell herself that she had been dreaming, that she had been upset about the fight with her mom, the itching had twisted her brain, and she had slipped into an early slumber, but she knew the truth. She had the wounds to prove it.

  She pulled herself up off the floor and sat on the bed. She was surprised that she felt so good. In fact, the sun shone in through the window, the day was light and airy, and far from feeling freaked about last night, she felt full of hope. If those threads had contained any kind of infection or disease, she was now free of it. She felt lighter than she had ever felt in her life.

  She went out for a quick run, showered, dressed and began to think about breakfast. Steak. No, she couldn’t have steak for breakfast. She didn’t even like steak that much, but this was what she wanted. In fact, ‘wanted’ was an understatement. She could practically smell it barbecuing in her mind, flash-grilled so when she took a bite out of it, it was still chewy with blood and retained its metallic taste. She would probably have to settle for cereal, though, but she was hungry enough not to really care what she was eating, and quickly patched up her hands so she could get out into the kitchen and eat. She was surprised by how benign the wounds looked after her shower, and she was easily able to cover them with Band-Aids and a long-sleeved shirt.

  Mom and Dad were both sitting at the kitchen table, eating bowls of cereal and talking. The talking stopped when Cassandra arrived in the doorway. Then Dad said, “Cassandra!” in an overly cheerful voice.

  “Hey,” Cassandra answered, covering the new positivity she felt with a woeful tone. Of course, she would share her new feelings of hope with her parents, but for now, she had to show how remorseful she was about the argument the night before. Her mom had only been trying to look out for her.

  “There’s still some Cheerios in the cupboard. Your mother ate the last of the Mini-Wheats.” He turned to Ellen and smiled, so Cassandra also turned to her mother and smiled, but Ellen wasn’t smiling. Or rather, she had that fixed smile on her face that didn’t mean much of anything, and Cassandra knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t happy. She was trying to be happy. This was obvious. She said, “Grab yourself some orange juice, Cass,” but there was no energy in her words, and Cassandra couldn’t bear it. As hungry as she was, she shook her head, also trying to keep up the pretense of happiness, and said, “It’s okay, I’m meeting Bindi and Leo at the mall. I’m running late already. I’ll grab something there.”

  “Well, take this and try to stay out of trouble,” Dad said playfully. He then took thirty bucks out of his wallet and gave it to her without her even asking for it.

  Cassandra took a parting look at both parents and could see that they were uncomfortable. She didn’t really understand it. They had never been quite like this before. So, she had made a decision as she slung her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. She would spend the $30 on a present for them to make up for the argument and get things back to normal. Or maybe she would spend $20 on a present; she was so hungry, and McDonald’s was calling her name.

  All the kids in Garden City called it the mall, but it was actually an outdoor horseshoe of stores and a few places to eat, an arcade. In the center were tables and chairs where everyone would hang out. They would have to go out of town to the city to find the true definition of the word mall.

  Cassandra hadn’t been quite honest with her parents. She wasn’t late to meet up with Bindi and Leo, but she knew they would be there a little later. When she arrived, the tables and chairs were practically empty. It would still be an hour or more before Saturday really kicked off, and half the school arrived to hang out. Ordinarily, she would feel uncomfortable to be on her own. She might even walk around the stores or the neighboring streets until a friendly face arrived, but she had other things on her mind today. If she had ever been this hungry before, she couldn’t remember it. She charged over to McDonald’s with such vigor that she would have mown down anything in her path. The window was still boarded up from the week before when Spike Blue had been throwing a car door around, which ende
d up going right through it. No one had any idea where he had got a car door from, but this was Spike Blue all over. He was the most unpredictable guy on the planet and if he wanted to turn up at the mall with a car door and throw it around then that was exactly what he was going to do. Cassandra now paid the boarded window no attention whatsoever and charged inside. When the funny looking guy behind the counter took her order, she found herself asking for two large Big Mac meals. She didn’t even bother pretending she was placing an order for her friends – two massive football players who had never eaten before. She tapped her foot and clicked her fingers as she waited, as the saliva rose in her mouth, and then the guy finally returned with her mountain of food. She thanked him and then took the heaving tray out to the tables. She found herself a discreet seat in an enclosed area, took a fleeting glance around her, and then took a monumental lungful of the McDonald’s aroma. She didn’t even normally like burgers that much, preferring sweet treats, but it was the best thing she had ever sniffed. She snapped the first Big Mac out of the box, gripped it tightly and then sunk her teeth into it and devoured almost half of it with just one bite. It tasted even better than it smelled, and the different textures and tastes were a feast for her senses. She had always liked to eat, but she wasn’t sure that what she was doing even qualified as eating. It was so much more than that. She was experiencing the food in a whole new way, and this was perhaps the very best moment of her life so far. Just her, two bags of fries, two massive burgers and a couple of tubs of Coke. Heaven.

  When she had devoured both burgers, both drinks and was now picking at the last of the fries, she took out her cellphone.

  Hey? You coming to the mall today? She typed and sent the message to Bindi and Leo. Within seconds she got a message back.

  Look behind you.

  Cassandra turned and saw Bindi standing in the canopy opening. Cassandra suddenly felt extremely self-conscious.