She understood S.A. now. It was simple. He was cruel, and she loved him.
He became aware of Jina and Lewis then. Jina wanted to go someplace she shouldn’t.
“Help me Sandy. Your friend wants to come rescue you. But you don’t want to leave, do you?”
No, Sandy thought.
“Good. Lend me power. Think about bricks. You believe, ever so much, in bricks.”
Jina chased after Lewis. Room after room went by in a blur. They might as well all be the same. Ah, here were the damn stairs. Where had they been before they all got separated?
She descended and whirled into the room.
Lewis had stopped screaming. She saw him lying on an antique couch with wooden trim and claw feet. He slept, clutching the kaleidoscope like a teddy bear. Poor thing.
She was glad to see the kaleidoscope. She felt safe to know it was near, that anything S.A. could try would be dispelled by its magic and by the power Sandy had infused within it. Why hadn’t Lewis tried to use it on whatever it was that had frightened him?
And now where were they?
It seemed a little like the room they had started in. Only now it was furnished. And where was the old telephone? Instead, dim lamps lit the base of the stairs. A violin graced a small table. An old style phonograph player rusted near it. A music room?
But best of all, her heart’s joy, an upright grand, sat close to the stairs. It was half falling apart, and unlikely to be tuned, but… It had been so long since she had felt ivory under her fingertips.
She listened to Lewis’s soft breathing for a few moments. Thinking again of the piano, she remembered back to the times when she had played to impress guys. Nice guys had actually asked her out back then, guys that were going somewhere.
Lewis was going to be a lawyer.
Jina sat on the rickety stool and prayed that most of the keys would work. She tested them with an arpeggio that spanned the entire keyboard. Surprisingly, the keys did work, and even more surprisingly, it was in tune. Even her mother’s piano wasn’t in tune.
She heard Lewis stir behind her, so she hastily chose a difficult, yet quiet piece out of her memory. She wanted to show off.
Her wiles were working. Midway through the piece, Lewis sat up. Still clutching the kaleidoscope, he crept over to the piano and knelt on the floor beside her.
“You play well,” he whispered when she finished with a delicately rolled chord.
“You liked it? I didn’t pin you to like classical.”
He shrugged. “And I didn’t think that of you either.” He looked up at her and their eyes met. “Got any more?”
Jina turned back to the keyboard. Lewis interrupted. “No— Not now,” he said. “I’d rather… I’d rather just look at you.”
He swiveled her seat around smoothly and resumed his gentle gaze. She touched her forehead to his, and they kissed. The kissing turned frenetic. Lewis stood, and guided Jina backwards to the couch where they sat and began to make out.
After some minutes Jina pulled away, and said, “This is really nice, but Sandy’s lost in this place. We should stop fooling around and find her.”
“No, Jina, I want you. I love you.” He kissed at her neck.
“We can’t just leave her.”
As if in answer, they heard screaming from far away in the house.
“It’s her!”
“There’s nothing we can do to help. S.A. wants us here.” He touched her cheek. “We might as well stay put until he’s done… doing whatever it is.”
“How do you know he wants us here? Maybe he wants us to go looking for her.”
Lewis quickly glanced upward. There came a scraping sound from above, as if very heavy furniture were being moved. Jina leapt to her feet. Now it was coming from the stairway. She ran to the base of the stairwell and looked up. Where there once had been a passage to the second floor, there was now a brick ceiling.
She ran to the door on the opposite side of the room. To her relief it swung open. But on the other side, a brick wall. Looking towards the two doorways at the base of the stairs, she saw more bricks.
“I told you.”
“Fuck! What is he doing to her?”
“Who knows. We’ll find out soon enough. Maybe through firsthand experience. We might as well enjoy ourselves in the meantime.”
Jina walked over to Lewis and held out her hand. “Give me that.” With a shaky hand, he surrendered the kaleidoscope into her palm. She looked through it and turned it towards the door. Still bricks. A kaleidoscopic array of red bricks.
“They’re real.”
Lewis shrugged.
She leaned over the couch and pulled back the thick curtains. There were windows, but they, too, were bricked over. Handing the kaleidoscope back to Lewis, she sat on the couch, unzipped her gym bag, and started digging through it.
“If he wants us stuck in here because he’s concentrating on Sandy, that means he’s distracted and we can try something. Anything.” Desperation made her voice quaver. “Sandy found some things in a closet. She put them in here. Maybe some of that crap will be useful.” As she spoke, she tossed out the coke bottle, twine, and a wire coat hanger.
“To get through bricks? Look, I was trapped in a room for, I don’t know, weeks or something,” Lewis’s voice grew increasingly louder. “And it wasn’t even bricked in, so how in the fuck do you think we’re going to escape if he doesn’t want us to!”
Jina calmed down, stood, and embraced Lewis.
“Shhh… I know it seems hopeless. I know you feel trapped. I do to.” She held his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “But we have to try, right? We have to do something.”
Lewis was crying. “We could just make out and enjoy what we can while we have a chance.”
Jina sighed. “I have to help my friend.”
She sat back down and dug. She stumbled across her baggie of weed. A small temptation came over her, but she remembered what happened last time. Sandy was the expert here, and if she said no drugs, then no drugs. She would need complete clarity of thought to fight S.A.’s illusions.
“Ah ha!” she exclaimed in triumph, hefting out the heavy railroad spike. “See? This might be useful. Didn’t Sandy say fairies were afraid of iron? I’ll bet this is made out of iron.”
“But how does that help? S.A. isn’t here.”
“If he were, this would be really bad for him. Especially if I shoved it in his heart. Like a stake through a vampire.” Jina waved it in the air with a flourish. Holding the spike firmly in hand, she walked over to the doorway, and began chipping at the mortar. It was going to be slow going.
“By the time you get done with that, he’s going to be back anyway. Jina, it can’t be done.”
He approached behind her, and placed his hand on her waist. It felt nice and warm. She tried to ignore it, and kept chipping away at the mortar, though nothing but a little dust was coming loose. “Put that down.” He turned her and kissed her.
There was a feeling in the air that made Lewis seem very persuasive. Very alluring.
“Put that away. I’ve got something about that size… and shape… right here.” He pressed into her, and she melted into his arms.
Before too long, they were right back on the couch.
They lay on the canopy bed in the seelie room, his naked body curling around hers. She felt her breast cupped under his hand. Through his eyes, she saw the burns on her shoulders and legs, and remembered how good it had made him feel. That, and the moment of penetration. The thrill of possessing her. The power of ownership.
She basked in his contentedness. He had never been more happy.
With access to his thoughts, she sought to know him, sought to learn all about her dearest love. There were indeed dark things lurking in this mind, but she understood all of them. Unflinchingly, she let each thought roll through her. Her own human understanding seemed remote, alien, incomprehensible, unreasonable.
She quickly learned there was no curse. Of cour
se not. No need to marry to break a hex. Lies, all lies. She laughed. How very clever he was, S.A. But he was right in doing what he had. How else would someone like her come to love someone like him? Nothing else would have convinced her.
He was a poor thing, alone in this house for so long. The abuse, that part was true. His step mother, she hated him, hated that he was not human. She was forced to rear him, her own child taken in trade, abducted, screaming, to Tir Na Nog, leaving little S.A. behind. She had vented her anger out on him, little S.A. Little darling. Little boy.
That vile woman had bought every book on fairy lore, magic, the occult, every grimoire and spellbook she could get her hands on, and she tried every possible spell — to banish him, to summon her son, or to travel to Tir Na Nog. Anything she thought might work.
When she ran out of spells from books, she resorted to inventing her own, experimenting with S.A.’s blood in the hopes of getting her way.
Fucking witch.
But now here he was, here with Sandy. She felt his love for her overcome him. She basked in it. He squeezed her breast tightly, and she heard herself squeak. She felt the swelling again, felt her thigh through his growing erection, excitement coursing through him. It would all be delightful, the endless torments, amusements, orgies.
Soon they would need to prepare for the wedding. Very soon. But for now, just a few moments longer here in their bridal bed.
She heard the girl, herself, whisper something.
“What, my dear?” he asked.
“I asked, what is your name?”
Sandy wondered how she could open her mouth to ask such a question, when she was here, inside of him. Maybe the same way she had screamed before. Instinct? Automatic nervous reactions, the way a bug still twitched after its head was bitten off?
He laughed. “I told you. I can never tell you that.”
But she knew it now. His name. It had passed through his mind. There was a time when she would have used it against him. Now, the thought of it just made her tingle with joy. What a beautiful name!
Inside she sighed and then smiled with relish as he rolled her over and raped her again.
Lewis slowly buttoned his shirt. How long had it been since he’d had sex? A month? A year? He had no idea how long it had been since he’d even seen a girl before yesterday. It was good to know he could still attract a cute woman like Jina, even after his body had been so mutilated.
After Jina zipped up her jeans, she touched his face softly. He fought down an instinct to flinch. It was only Jina. She had such a soft touch. Nice fingers. He smiled at her, and pulled her close to him. He wrapped his arms around her and they spooned together on the couch.
“See?” he whispered. “You’ve got to take the good while you can get it here, or you’re in constant struggle. You can’t panic forever. It’s exhausting.”
The reverberation of scratching violins startled the both of them. The turntable on the phonograph began rotating, and a grainy orchestral arrangement wavered through the room.
The static crackling grew louder, three dimensional. It was then that Jina noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked past Lewis’s arm.
A crocodile, the same one from before, slowly drug his belly across the floor towards them. Dry reptilian skin sliding over splintery wood echoed and enhanced the static from the phonograph.
It paused and grinned at them. Crooked teeth ill-fitted its closed mouth and pointed out in all directions.
Lewis began trembling uncontrollably. He began chewing on his finger, the old kaleidoscope rattling in his hands.
“Use that thing. Now!” Jina shouted.
Lewis found new confidence upon realizing what he held in his hand. He smiled, as though he were suddenly in control. Jina had seen that kind of smile before, earlier that day. S.A. had used it.
He lifted the kaleidoscope to his eye. He, and he alone, would rid their lives of this crocodile. The kaleidoscope would save them from S.A.
But instead of banishing the apparition, or seeing it through the scope, he could only see a plain white circle of fuzz down a darkened tunnel of mirrors.
Lewis blinked.
Something black began filling the white from the center.
He blinked again.
“Come on,” Jina said, gripping the upholstery of the couch. “What’s taking so long? Make it go away!” The crocodile opened its mouth. Its toenails clicked against wood.
“I— I’m trying.” Maybe turning it would help. But as he rotated the end of the kaleidoscope, the fuzzy circle grew. It reminded him of the stuff that grows on oranges.
Mold.
He shook it and turned it again.
S.A. smiled at him with a look of enduring patience.
“It’s time to prepare for the wedding,” he said from within the kaleidoscope.
Lewis blinked.
Another toenail clicked. The croc’s peeling green feet propelled it a step closer.
“Give me that thing,” Jina snapped in her rising panic.
“We have to prepare for the wedding,” Lewis mumbled from behind the kaleidoscope.
“What are you talking about?” Jina turned and tried to grab it, but missed. She slid out of her entanglement with Lewis and fell onto the floor. Something unseen had pulled her off the couch and began to drag her across the floor, towards the awaiting jaws of the crocodile.
“Lewis,” she screamed, “stop me!”
He sat, motionless, and watched her soberly. “I can’t do a thing,” he said.
“What?!” Lewis didn’t respond. She slowly grew closer to its gaping mouth, its waving head.
But she didn’t stop when she reached the crocodile. She kept going, past him. It turned its head slowly to watch her, like a free swinging door on slow hinges. Her phone fell from her pocket with a plastic clatter. With movement faster than she’d expect from such a large creature, it lunged on the phone and caught it in his teeth. It swallowed in lurching gulps.
It could have eaten her instead, but it didn’t. She looked behind herself to see where she was being dragged. There was nothing there but a clear space along a wall.
“Why the hell can’t you do something?” she shouted back to Lewis.
“We have to prepare for the wedding,” he replied softly. S.A. was still in control, had always been in control. Wedding, torture, whatever. No point in fighting.
Jina hit the wall with a painful thud. A board creaked.
“Lewis, please…” she sobbed. Her body pressed against the wall and was then dragged upwards. Her feet dangled freely. The pressure built, crushing all of her. Her back began to tingle in pain.
But he only watched, listening to the conflicting forces within. His voice, the softer voice, said he should do something. But the louder force held him stationary, stalled in fear. He had told her he loved her. But what could he do with S.A.’s triumphant laughter ringing through his head?
The wall softened, or liquefied, or something, and Jina slid through, leaving the wall as it had been before, perfect, dusty, covered in faded stripes.
Now Lewis was all alone again. He stared at the crocodile. He hated that crocodile. Loathsome beast.
He put the kaleidoscope back to his eye. Bugs filled his world. He wasn’t sure if it was only one or two termites reflected a hundred times, or hundreds of termites reflected once. He couldn’t be too sure, even though he thought he could make out a queen, and drones, and larvae. He tried to count them all, and gave up after five.
He imagined himself dropping the kaleidoscope. In his mind it rolled towards the crocodile with a hollow tin-can rattle, and exploded in its face like a kaleidobomb, spreading reptile meat all over the room.
But he kept it, clutching it in his arms.
The crocodile’s mouth opened again, slowly, like a music box lid. Its tail lashed as it crawled towards the couch.
Lewis seemed to notice the croc for the first time, and he screamed, pushing himself into the back of the couch. He f
elt he was pressing so hard he would go right through the couch and into the wall, through the wall and into the wall.
The crocodile snapped at Lewis’s shoe, but Lewis was falling through the back of the couch, falling into the wall, falling through the wall… encased in the wall.
Something gave way, but there was no sound of splintering wood or bone as she had expected.
She stopped moving when her back hit something. The surface in front of her solidified, flattening her face.
Jina tried to move, but the wall compressed her, held her tightly. The splinters from wood slats scratched at her arms. Blindness felt for her eyes, and all she could hear was the hollow echoing of faint sounds in the room outside.
Blackness pressed in on her as much as the wall did. She struggled again, and found it difficult to breathe. Stale air whistled into her contorted nostrils. The thought came that there wasn’t going to be much oxygen here.
She opened her mouth and gasped for breath. The fact that she was panicking didn’t help.
Was this it? Was this the end? She forced a calm, shifted her weight, and tried to make herself as comfortable as possible. She would have to wait for whatever came next.
She tried not to think about what S.A. could do to her.
Cool darkness enshrouded him. A firm, flat surface safely cradled him in back and front. The pressure against his nose in reassured him of this.
He smiled, and thought to himself, finally. Peace.
Then, the tickling began. He could handle a little tickling. His long days and nights with S.A.’s entomology experiments had hardened him, built tolerance.
But the sensation grew, all over his body. Millions of tiny, soft bodies clung to his skin.
He shifted his weight, trying to move. Bodies burst against his clothes, skin. He felt the wet sliminess on his hands and face that he could not rub off.
A particular tickle close to his knee grew to an itch. He tried to reach it with the nearest hand, but the two inner surfaces that made up the wall held him, confined him. Movement to scratch was more than difficult. It was impossible.
Make Willing the Prey (Dreams by Streetlight) Page 10
