by Sarah Porter
Roughly as clever as a toddler hiding under a bed.
Ah, but since he lacks our dear Mabel’s talents, he was hardly likely to come up with anything better, now was he?
The girl steps out her door in the morning’s consumptive pallor, vulgarly attired in painful colors and more than slightly the worse for wear. She’s puffy-eyed and unsteady on her feet. Dashiell Bohnacker isn’t easy on his clothes, it seems. Ludicrous hair, this girl has, and excess flesh. What has become of women as I once knew them? Sylphs in silk with marcel waves. Refined, intoxicating creatures, so long as they kept their mouths shut.
The boy with her, though, looks wretched. He hasn’t slept a wink, I’d swear it. Could young Mr. Bohnacker be fool enough to reveal his current place of residence to a beating heart, family or no? The question presents itself vividly in this youth’s unprepossessing face—looking, as it does, like he’d seen a ghost, or at least listened to one prattling on through the small hours of the night.
The girl bounces down the steps with a high-strung mockery of cheer and doesn’t observe me, but the boy crouches on the sidewalk close by and reaches out his fingers, crooning. I turn away from him and lick my fur. It seems to be the thing to do.
Why, cats can dream as well, Mr. Bohnacker. They can dream of a very nice man with a can of tuna in his outstretched hand.
EVERETT
School. I know I went there. I know I sat in classes listening to white noise that was probably teachers trying really hard to explain essential concepts. I know I looked up at people, but they all seemed so gray. Jell-O on legs, tottering and shouting. Or was that me?
I guess I’m not doing very well. It’s Tuesday—only Tuesday?—and I haven’t slept for one second in the last two nights. But I’m really trying to. I absolutely intend to fall into a deep sleep, let my eyes start rolling fast under their lids, and dream whatever horrible things I have to dream to save my sister. But it’s not working, so maybe Dashiell is right about me. Maybe my whole problem is that I’m not brave enough to be a valuable and complete person. She’s incomparably more courageous than you are, he said. Like I don’t hear enough about Ruby’s all-purpose superiority, how smart and creative and dynamic and all the other crap. Though people don’t usually say the more than you part out loud.
Doesn’t matter. I can still hear it. I can hear it with every step that smacks into the sidewalk. Going home? That’s right, I’m going home and I’m going to fall—
I’m waiting for the light to change so I can cross 6th Avenue. Almost to our house. I start to nod off standing right there on the corner, and all at once adrenaline stabs through me. My head flies upright and my arms spasm out like I’m trying to push something away. My heart goes berserk and I start wheezing and the hair prickles on my neck. I’d either puke or piss from terror if I could just make up my mind which one would be more humiliating.
And then I’m wide awake all over again, feeling my chest hammering as if it’s going to split. The orange trees wave like they think I’m being totally entertaining.
The same thing happened at breakfast, it happened in chemistry, it happened in the locker room. And about fifty times last night. I start to fall, the world starts to fade. And then bam! A knife of pure, electric, horrified alertness guts me again.
Stab and twist. That’s how you do the most damage.
Because I’m too afraid of what I don’t know, obviously. I’m terrified of what Dashiell’s going to do as soon as he catches me dreaming. Coward. But I keep remembering how hard Ruby freaked when I asked. The worst thing possible. That was it. That was all she’d say.
See that little glowing green guy? That means you’re supposed to cross the street. Keep walking. Almost there. Kids in striped mittens. It’s that cold. Women with yoga mats hanging down their backs.
Anyway, for Ruby probably the worst thing possible would be if she had to hurt someone else. If she had to hurt him. So maybe I’m going to dream that I have to blow Dashiell’s brains out, and at this point that might be okay with me.
If he shows up again I’ll tell him that. But he hasn’t. I’ve kept waiting, staring at Ruby—staring so much there’s no way she won’t notice. But nothing. Not a glimpse of him since Sunday night. It’s all Ruby, all the time. And she’s acting like none of the craziness ever happened. I’m actually relieved that she’s gone off to the library with Liv today, so I can stop wondering for a few hours—
Maybe he’s lying low and waiting for me.
Or maybe I’m the one who’s losing my mind, not Ruby, and I invented the entire thing. Maybe on those nights when I thought Dashiell was jerking Ruby’s body around she was actually fast asleep in bed, and my brain was projecting complete garbage and I was sitting there jabbering to an empty room.
But if I really believed that it was all hallucinations, I wouldn’t have any problem going to sleep. I can’t sleep because I know for a sick, sure fact that Ruby’s possessed, and soon I will be too. Ergo, as Dash would say.
Er-freaking-go, the bastard will show up anytime, just as soon as my brain gives in to exhaustion and I collapse. And it will be a dream—gossamer and smoke—but one with the power to drag reality around after it.
That snotty-ass gray tabby is hanging out on our stoop again, giving me the once-over. I usually love cats but this one is asking for a kick in the face. Like, I could swear it’s smirking at me, and it dodges at my heels as I open the door like it’s trying to sneak inside. Like hell. I shove it back hard with the door and it yowls at me.
I manage to make a sandwich. I can still spread mayonnaise just fine, and put slabs of leftover chicken on the mayo, and bread on top of that. Maybe that’s not enough to qualify me as incredibly high-functioning but it’s good enough for now. The kitchen is blurring in front of me. I sit down at the table and try to eat, but the bread seems too thick and dry.
Something moves in the corner of my right eye. A shadow just behind my shoulder. I jerk around in time to catch a dim imprint of a tall human shape blinking out.
Sleep deprivation does bring on hallucinations, though. That’s absolutely a known thing.
I keep turning farther in my chair, scanning the whole room. Just in case. I guess it’s a nice kitchen, all steel appliances and ash-black polished wood. Walls a soft honey color. Copper pots hanging and Ruby’s framed collages on the wall. People with fox and owl heads and streams of disconnected words on banners spilling from their mouths. A purple-haired girl hiding her face behind a swan wing.
But through it all I keep getting little pops of colors that don’t belong here, always at the edge of my right eye. Harsh electric green. Dark red. And I keep turning, chasing whatever it is I’m seeing. Somehow I’ve stood up.
It’s getting too dark in here, like maybe clouds have suddenly covered the sun. Maybe I never turned on the light. But those bright, gnashing colors just get stronger. I could be in a maze of green pipes that won’t stop moving, shoving at me and herding me along.
Okay, I tell myself, this is obviously not our kitchen anymore. Our kitchen isn’t made of weird shuffling clockwork, gears shining blood red in the darkness. Its floor doesn’t twitch and jolt sideways. Therefore this is not real. It’s a hallucination.
But actually I know it’s something worse than that.
It’s a dream.
I stumble forward and I’m sure now that I’m not alone in here. I can’t see anybody but I feel a whole crowd hidden in random angles of the darkness. Or maybe it’s that I’m blinded by the colors flashing at me; some kind of huge engine, scaffolding …
“Hey, Never-Ever!”
My heart lurches at my throat; it doesn’t help that I’ve been expecting this all along. My mouth is dry and pasty. I’m still trying to chew that stupid sandwich and I can’t make myself swallow. The bread is buzzing in my mouth.
“Never-Ever! I’m up here!” Dashiell laughs. “You’ve been playing far too many video games, apparently, Never. Look at this place!”
There’s
something moving high up in the scaffolding. The metal grid is horribly, violently yellow. Eye-scalding brightness, so the most I can make out is a shadow clambering around.
It’s him, though. I know the smell of who he is. I don’t like to put it like this, but I know the way his freaking soul moves, and I can recognize it now. Graceful, okay, but with this monkey stealth that creeps me the hell out. I can’t talk so I turn my head and spit up the mouthful of pulped sandwich. That helps. I feel a little clearer.
“Never? Are you coming? Can you see where you’re going at all?”
“Not really,” I call back. “Where are we?”
“Oh, Land of the Dead,” Dash says casually. “Where did you think? With the material details, of course, generously provided for us by your subconscious mind. Sorry, but it looks like you’re going to have to climb. Are you still scared of heights?”
That’s not what I’m scared of. At least it’s not the main thing. Dash was right when he talked about my instincts telling me to get away from him. Every nerve in my body is jumping with the urge to turn around and run—
I grab on to the bottom of the scaffolding but it’s hard to really feel it. I make myself hold it anyway. The rung feels like hot static, slipping through my palm and getting lost inside my flesh. Somehow I’m going up, though. “What are you going to do to me? When I get up there?”
When I look down I can see my feet lifting and planting themselves on the metal beams, pushing me higher. But I can’t feel anything except a dark suction on my back and heels. The dark is trying to pry me off and send me plummeting.
“You’re making progress,” Dashiell calls down. I can see his shadow-shape leaning over some edge high above, a reddish stroke of his lit-up hair. “I have to say, Never-Ever, you’re exceeding my expectations. You’ve been keeping it together under some fairly trying circumstances.”
“Ruby wouldn’t tell me what happened in her dream,” I say. “Because you wouldn’t let her, right? So what are you going to do, Dash-Dot-Dot?”
“Are you backing out? Because neither of us wants me relying on Ruby to get the job done.”
“I’m not backing out,” I say. “I just want to know. Whatever I’m doing, I want it to be, like, conscious.”
“You’re dreaming, Never-Ever,” Dashiell says, and now he sounds gentle and maybe sorrowful. Almost like he genuinely feels bad about something. “Not conscious by definition, then. None of it will be real. Try to remember that.”
Suddenly I’m almost there and he’s leaning out over me, though it’s still hard to get much of a sense of his face. It’s a jumble, a web of reflected reds and golds, all shifting and flaring. He stretches a hand to grab me but I’m still just an inch out of reach.
And then I get a flash of another color in the dimness. Silver. A bright-edged point in Dashiell’s hand.
All at once I know what it has to be. I know what Ruby wouldn’t tell me and my arms fly up to fight him off.
Which means that I’ve let go of the rungs.
The slip, the drop. My stomach slamming up and bile spitting from my mouth.
I hear the wind whistling past my ears and the darkness shooting up as I fall. Ripping space and then the impact.
I’m still screaming and gasping. I’m clutching our kitchen floor, my sandwich a foot away on the blue glass shards of what was my plate.
The lights have been on the whole time. And hey, it looks like I’ve cut my thumb. A little spatter of red is soaking the margin of the zebra-stripe rug. The bastard did that to Ruby. She went to him because she loves him, and he hurt her. I’m staring at the rug and I know I should get my face off the floor and go get a bandage, but I can’t. All I can do is keep holding tight to something that sure isn’t going to hold me back. Everything is spinning. No wonder she couldn’t say it. She wouldn’t want to tell me anything that would make Dashiell sound—
But that’s not the worst part, and I know it. The worst part is that I panicked. Just like a goddamn weak coward. I didn’t go through with it.
Neither of us wants me relying on Ruby to get the job done, he said. I don’t know about him but I don’t want that is right! He can’t have her. I’ve really, truly made up my mind about that. And it turns out that making up my mind, and being a determined person, is something I can in fact do. No matter how vague and waffling other people maybe think I am.
So I guess I’ll have to go back and deal with the whole thing again. All the way to the end, whatever that end turns out to be, whether it’s real or not. And God, who could face that?
RUBY
The East Village is a good place to be if you don’t want to know where you are anymore, or if you want to pretend you don’t know. It could be an alternate world, with the trapeze sweeping of the golden branches overhead and the shop windows full of fairy dresses with tulle ruffles and the gorgeous college girls wearing crowns of silk flowers with their vintage tweed coats. And I need to be lost and stumbling into another world, because I need to find a place where impossible things can be true.
I can’t shake the feeling of him, is the problem. I can’t forget that must-have-been-dream, the sound of Dashiell’s voice coming to me through mazy walls, and Everett’s voice answering him. I can’t purge the impression that Dash is right here somewhere, just behind me or beside me, a voice always waiting to whisper in my ear but never saying anything, a hand constantly about to brush my cheek but never quite touching down.
So maybe Everett is right, and I’m in denial about the fact that Dashiell is dead. Even loopier is that I’ve been in denial about the denial, my mind spinning to escape the truth like dead leaves whisked in a rising helix—
Or else—and this is where my thoughts really get out of control—maybe it’s true. Maybe Dash is back in some way I can’t understand. Maybe if I could just find him I could throw my arms around him and cry on his chest, and this time he wouldn’t tell me I’m being too emotional.
Because Dashiell loves me, too. He still does. I can feel it. That’s what matters, and what was really crazy was that hour in the dead of night when I was afraid he might put Everett at risk somehow.
The night got into me, that’s all. Now that I’m out in the shimmery afternoon, everything feels so much clearer. If Dash needs me, then I’m ready, and if there is danger involved I’ll be the one to take it on, because the risk is trivial compared to what we feel for each other.
I take the paper out of my pocket again and double-check the address, though I know that this is the place. A six-story redbrick building on East 7th Street. I ring the intercom for her apartment; somehow I’m sure she’ll be home.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” I say—though why would she know who me is? “Ruby Bohnacker.”
“Fifth floor,” Paige says and cuts off, just like she’s been expecting me. The door vibrates and I step through. It’s a pretty lobby, black art deco tiles and sconces with sculpted glass flames. In the elevator I watch the red numbers winking higher. Dashiell must have watched them the same way the day he died, and once they got to five—that was as high as he was ever going to go.
When I get out she’s waiting for me, hanging languidly out of her door in a silver silk robe with white embroidery. Shining black hair and luminous skin. She’s beautiful to the point where it’s almost grotesque; looking at her is like biting into something so sweet it shatters your teeth.
“Ruby Bohnacker,” she says, and her voice is as syrupy as ever. “Not Ruby Slippers?”
“Not to you,” I say. “Only people I love get to call me that.”
Paige smiles the same tight, acrid smile I saw when she was on our doorstep. “Didn’t stop you from coming. Did you find me the way I think you did?”
The invoice was slipped under our door this morning before Everett was up. No stamp; someone hand delivered it. I brought it to my dad while he was drinking his coffee.
“He was so mad he threw your invoice on the floor,” I say. “So I copied down the addr
ess while he was in the bathroom.”
Paige barks with laughter. The invoice was for three months’ rent, not one, but on the other hand it was a lot less per month than she’d said it was, twenty-five hundred instead of thirty-seven. “But he’ll pay it?”
“He already mailed the check. I don’t think he’ll do it again, though. He got super burned out on stuff like that with Dashiell.”
“And so we come to the reason for your visit, Miss Slippers,” Paige says. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s mimicking Dashiell’s way of talking, just a little bit. My breathing gets faster. “Why don’t you come in and have some tea? You know I know why you don’t like me, anyway.”
I follow her into her living room and drop my coat and bag on the floor; the kitchen is on one wall behind a marble counter. Victorian sofas upholstered in pearl gray brocade and a black glass chandelier. A pink pony-skin ottoman. Candy-goth, the kind of tasteful that makes me a little queasy, like being in an expensive lingerie store.
“That’s not the reason.”
“Believe me, I got completely sick of hearing him talk about you. Dashiell knew how to make it into a race to the finish, didn’t he? He told me over and over that you were the only person in the world who truly loved him. Really and truly.” She kind of simpers the last part. She’s turned away from me to put the kettle on, but I can hear the sharpness in her voice. White knives, blades whickering in midair.
Then what she said sinks in, and I have to catch hold of her counter. “That’s not what he told me.”
“Oh, no? ‘My Ruby loves me through to her bones. My precious Ruby-Ru, she’d be there for me no matter the extremity, no matter the darkness I found myself in. And she loves me without harboring any desperate denial about who I really am. She’s seen into the depths and she hasn’t turned away.’ That was how the song went, Ruby. Oh, but of course not to you. Then you wouldn’t have kept trying so hard, would you?”
