by Sarah Porter
Aloysius is a complacent bastard, basically. He’s used to being in control, I can feel it, and he hates Dashiell so much because my brother was the first person in ages who put up a serious fight. Dashiell’s still giving him hell, in fact. But I don’t think Aloysius is expecting much trouble from me; I mean, to look at me, it’s fair to assume that I’d be pretty pathetic. He thinks I’m so weak that he doesn’t even make the effort to flip me into unconsciousness; like, who cares if I see what he’s doing?
So I’ll use that. I’ll act as limp and stupid as I can and see if he gives me an opening—though an opening to do what?
Maybe Dashiell’s going to butcher me—in real life, this time—and devastate our dad all over again, and get Ruby busted for my murder. She’ll spend her life in some asylum, muttering to the ghost in her head. Realistically that’s probably about the best-case scenario that can go down, and Dash has destroyed our whole family by dragging us into this mess. He deserves for all of us to hate him forever.
But going up against Aloysius was an incredibly brave thing to do, I know that now. The spirit inside me is cold and shifty; it clanks at the bottom of my guts. Dashiell’s the one who had the nerve to push back at that overpowering evil, and I’m so proud of him that it hurts.
I catch myself wanting to make Dash proud of me, too. I want to prove that I’m worthy of being his brother. And right now I don’t care how crazy that sounds.
* * *
We’re a block and a half from home when my head pivots sharply left and my legs stop scissoring along. I’m staring transfixed at a creamy orange smudge under a shrub by the curb, then walking over and levering up the lower branches with my foot.
It’s a dead cat. A fat, spoiled-looking old marmalade, and it’s lying in such a crooked mess that its spine must be broken in three places. I feel the slap of Aloysius’s anger, the red rumble of vindictive impulses; he’s not paying attention to me at all. I don’t try to slam him under; instead I softly take my own right hand back, the same way he stole control of it from me when he chucked my phone. Casually slide the hand into my pocket like it’s just an idle, unconscious gesture, and slip one finger through my key ring.
He hasn’t noticed yet. Who knew I could do this? It’s like I’m learning to be a ghost haunting my own body, a stirring in the rooms. I wait for a moment with Mabel’s voice playing in my memory, saying, Dashiell stole something from them. Something valuable, and I know Aloysius is after that bony curved object Dash stuffed in my pocket. It must be somewhere in our house.
Aloysius lets out a disgusted snort and lets the branch drop, swinging around on my heel. As he spins I fling up my right hand and use his momentum to send the keys skittering toward a storm drain. They’re dangling over the metal lip and I have just enough to time to register the hard shock of Aloysius’s rage before he smacks me into blackness.
Did the keys fall? I can’t tell; there’s nothing to feel here, no light or sound. Please, please, did the keys drop away into dark, hit the wet depths of the sewer? It won’t keep him out of our house forever but it’ll slow him down, buy Dash time to do whatever he’s doing. I’m so desperate to know what’s happening that I crash up at Aloysius, reaching for air and gray autumn light and the smell of wet leaves. His consciousness is so heavy, though: an iron weight, a wall that never stops collapsing on top of me.
Then something gives; light ruptures the shadows and I see my hand snatching the keys out of the gutter.
I feel his astonishment that I was able to push past him, even for a split second. And I feel him trying to hide his surprise from me before the darkness crushes me again. He didn’t think I was strong enough to resist him at all and he’s beyond pissed to find out that I can.
It’s satisfying but it doesn’t change the fact that I failed. My keys are clacking in my right hand, even if I can’t see them. My legs must be running up our front steps by now. I slam back at him so hard the darkness fractures into sharp-edged rubble, but he’s got his full concentration pressing on me now and I can’t get through.
Dashiell? I really tried.
It’s not enough. So, great, I’m not as helpless as people assume, but I’m still not nearly strong enough.
So I catch myself hoping that Dashiell stops me, even if he has to use a knife to do it. I’m fine with whatever it takes now, truly, just as long as he gets to me before I hurt anyone.
At some point in the blur of nothing, Aloysius gives me another blink of reality. It’s so dazzling after all the dark that it takes me a second, but then I get it: my dad’s bathroom, white tiles shining. There’s something in my mouth sliding down with a gulp of water. Something small and cylindrical and amber brown in my hand, and I’m leering down at it.
A bottle of sleeping pills.
Just to make sure I don’t cause any more trouble.
RUBY SLIPPERS
“Ruby? Where’s Everett?”
Never-Ever-Everett? He’s trapped at the bottom of a well built from his own eyes and skin. Teeth in the walls, bones crossing out the sky.
Never is no longer your brother, no matter how he appears to you.
“He couldn’t come today,” I say. And anyway, Elena, what is it to you? This is our disaster and we have no room for strangers. “He’s sick.” Sick with someone else’s death. Why do you ask? It’s not as if you ever talk to us.
I was doing my best to be alone, sitting back in the farthest corner of the library, and I stare down at my book again. What makes it even more obnoxious is that everyone else is in the auditorium now, so she must have followed me in here on purpose. If I could I would slice the world away from me, peel it back and see nothing but the darkness it hides.
Dashiell, tell me that Never’s accusations are insane. Tell me that what you did in our dreams will stay there. Promise that my twin’s blood will never escape from that dream and flow into the waking world. We’d rather die than hurt him. Both of us. We’d die together first.
Elena sits down at my table, hard, and tugs her chair forward until our knees touch. She leans in on me, hair chocolate and blue, and slaps Lord Jim shut.
“Oh, he’s sick? Then I guess he won’t be coming to Nathan’s party tonight. Will he?”
She delivers the words in a stony tone that means anything but what she’s saying.
“He couldn’t have gone out anyway. He’s grounded.” I try to slide away from her but I’m cornered by bookcases. Even with my head against the shelves she’s too close, her face rolling in like fog. Did Dash tell you about how he went and had sex with Paige in my body, and she didn’t even know it wasn’t me? And now he’s after Elena. I’d like to smack her.
“Ruby? Do you care about what’s happening to him? Because there’s no way I’ll believe you haven’t seen something. There’s something really bad going on and you’re just sitting there talking total shit.”
“I care a lot more than you do!” My thoughts are wheeling through everything she just said. If she’s seen Everett acting strange, then how much does she know? Her skin is silvery blue in the cold light fraying through the windows: the color of a knife blade left among stones. I’ll do my best to murder you. But you’ll try to murder me, too. “You didn’t even notice him until two days ago. You don’t get to suddenly pretend you’re his best friend!”
“I noticed him. He’s never been easy to talk to.” The aggression has washed from her voice and she tips out of my face a little bit. Finally. “I’m really, really worried about him. And I’m not asking your permission for what I get to feel. I feel it. What I want you to do is let me help. Ruby, I mean—do you understand—have you seen him change like that?”
“You mean,” I say carefully, “have I seen him acting like a different person? When did you see that?”
“Yesterday.” She breathes it out. “He talked to me in a completely different voice. He was a different person. And then he snapped out of it and told me it was too personal to talk about, but he really seemed like he was cracking up.
Do you know what that is?”
“Why would I tell you anything if Ever wants to keep it private? Why are you prying?” She reels back in her chair, wide-eyed and glimmering with hurt; maybe that would work on Everett but it definitely won’t on me. I stand up and grab my books. I’ll have to climb over her to get out of my corner, but I don’t care. Really, she wants to help? What does she think she could do, crawl down Everett’s throat and chase the ghosts out? We are rain and we wash everything away. You and me, Ruby-Ru. I start to lift my right leg over Elena’s lap. “Excuse me.”
“Was it Dashiell?”
The knee supporting me wavers and I have to pull my right foot back so I won’t pitch over.
He’s here right now. I don’t know when Dash whispered back into me, but he’s here and he’s listening. He thinks she’s being completely adorable. The library starts slurring in front of me, the windows restlessly ascending and something foggy and angelic beating in the corners of my eyes.
“That’s a horrible thing to say, Elena.”
“He wasn’t Everett, whoever he was. But he said you were his darling sister. I thought about it all night, and Dashiell is the only solution that makes sense. I don’t even believe in anything supernatural, but—if someone I care about is in trouble, then I have to be open to all the possibilities. Even the impossible ones. Right, Ruby?”
I open my mouth to snap at her; none of this is her business, none of it, and she should know better than to mention Dashiell to me. But what comes out isn’t my voice, and they aren’t my words.
“She is my darling sister, Elena. No one is dearer to me than my Ru. So try to be nice to her, please, even if she’s being distinctly irritable with you. For no reason whatever that I can see. I thought your offer was very gracious.”
I feel myself smiling, sweet and insolent, into Elena’s shocked face. I’m grinning with one hand curled under my chin when I’d rather scream, spit, claw at her cheeks.
She’s trying to speak. All that comes out is a thin whine.
“Ah, so you didn’t need me to tell you what I am, did you, Elena? You’ve done an elegant job of deduction on your own. No wonder Everett is so hopelessly smitten with you. Of course, our boy couldn’t make anything easy for you, could he? Not any more than he does for me.”
Dash, stop it! Stop right now!
“Leave Everett alone.” Oh, so she’s finally choked out something, even if it’s something dull and predictable. It’s more than I can do.
Oh, pah, Miss Slippers. Here we are, swept up together in this magnificent if rather desperate quest to save poor Never from a hideous fate, and you’re telling me to stop? Fun is an important part of the heroic process.
“But, Elena, if I were so heartless as to leave Never-Ever alone now, his doom would be assured—his doom, that is, along with quite a few other people’s. He’s in terrible trouble and he needs all the help I can give him. And I was very touched to hear that you want to help him, too.”
EVERETT
I’m a mess. I’m lying in a sloppy, bruised heap on the floor, and my mind is just as trashed as the room. Where am I and what happened are just more garbage, more torn rags and thrown papers, and the chaos I’m seeing gluts my skull until it’s about to split wide open. It’s our living room, I get that now, and every last book has been yanked off the shelves. Stuffing dribbles from slits in the red sofa. And someone is shaking my shoulder. Frantically.
Dad. I’m on my back and his gray puddle of a face sloshes just above.
“Everett! Everett, my God! Can you speak? What have they done to you?”
Sleeping pills; Aloysius made me swallow sleeping pills and I don’t know how many I took. I’ve never had a headache this bad.
“Hi,” I say, and it sounds pretty reasonable, like a regular human voice making a regular word. “What have they done? Who?” His mouth is chewing with worry; the puddle wobbles with each twitch.
“Shh. I’ll call an ambulance. Lie still. Don’t try to say anything.” But wasn’t he just asking me questions? “We’ve been robbed. The whole house is torn apart. And then—they must have knocked you unconscious.” Daylight floats above us; I think of gray boats sailing through the middle air. What is he doing home so early?
“I don’t need an ambulance,” I say. “I’m—it must have been Aloysius? He was looking for whatever Dashiell hid in here. He—oh, no, did he find it?”
I can’t understand why my dad is making that new, awful expression, goggle-eyed and twisting, but then I remember: Dashiell. Dad doesn’t know he’s back and I’m not supposed to talk about him like he’s been around recently. But why not? It doesn’t make any sense to keep that a secret.
“Dashiell’s back,” I explain. “I mean, he’s still dead, but he’s here anyway. He’s probably with Ruby. But now it’s even worse, because somebody’s after him. Somebody bad. It’s all my fault.”
“Shh. You’ll be fine, Everett. Everything’s going to be all right.” His hand goes reaching into his pocket and comes out holding his phone. I can feel Aloysius flex; Dad making that call is not acceptable.
Something strikes out, snake-quick, and the phone spins away from him and cracks on the wall. It’s only when I see the outraged stare he turns on me that I realize I knocked it out of his hand. Why is it taking me so long to put everything together?
“Dad, get out! Now! Run away now!”
Aloysius is trying to drag me upright. Adrenaline races in my chest and I’m awake enough now to know that, whatever he tries, I have to throw all my strength into countering him. He’s trying to bump me aside, tip my mind upside down, and I’m fighting so intensely to stay on top that pain flashes in my eyes. Green and red stars. I’m making my body as heavy as possible, sagging toward the floor. The struggle sends my limbs heaving in random directions and my arm smacks into the coffee table’s edge so hard the skin breaks.
“Everett? You—you’ve had a shock. You’re not acting rationally. Please try to calm down until I can get you help. Please.” He’s up on his feet, at least, gaping at me in dismay.
God—Aloysius is just too strong for me. The hard rolling mass of mind on mind rocks in my head and I know I can’t keep him down much longer. “Get out of the house! Dad! Plea—”
“Dr. Bohnacker.” I’ve lost my voice, and what comes out in its place is high and fizzling. He’s got hold of my throat, my mouth; I have to let them go and concentrate on keeping the rest of my body from sliding completely under his control. “There is no grief I know so sharp as the grief of a wayward son for his father, once he knows it’s too late to make amends. However young Dashiell behaved toward you, I’m certain his suffering will be boundless—as mine was once, after I murdered my own papa.”
I’m clambering to my feet now and I can’t stop it. My dad is just standing there, too shocked to move, and I’m stumbling toward him. The most I can manage is to hobble all of Aloysius’s movements; make him slower, sloppier, so that we stagger instead of pouncing. And how much longer can I even do this much?
“Everett—my dearest, dearest boy. This is not you. You are not well. Please.”
For God’s sake, Dad, get away! I’m fighting as hard as I can.
My hands are lifting up, reaching for his throat, and he stares at me with gray glassy eyes and doesn’t make the smallest move to defend himself or even back away. No: instead he reaches out and strokes my cheek. It’s maybe the first time ever that I’ve really understood, on a visceral level, how much he actually loves me. Everything in me that Aloysius doesn’t control wants to break down crying: just flop on the floor and sob, but I can’t. All I can do is let out this pitiful wheeze, and now my hands are closing in on his throat.
And he still doesn’t get it. He puts his hands on mine, but he’s not trying to yank me off him. He’s covering them in this tender way, caressing them, and looking at me with unbearable devotion. Aloysius is going to win, and strangle my dad while I watch, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m prying back from the
inside at my own thumbs as they start to really squeeze his windpipe, and all it’s going to do is make his death that much slower.
My breath rasps in my throat. Aloysius is putting all his energy into driving my arms forward, tightening his grip on my dad’s neck, but there’s part of me he’s forgotten.
My lungs. My damned asthma. And hey, I forgot to bring my inhaler today.
It’s a weird sensation, drifting stealthily inside my own body. I skim my attention toward my lungs and concentrate on stifling them. Aloysius is so caught up in the excitement of murdering my dad that he ignores it—and finally, finally Dad is fighting back, trying to tug my hands away.
At first Aloysius’s wheezing is just, like, irritated. The emotion I pick up on is impatience that my body’s not working the way he expects. I wring the air flowing through my throat, make it rake and choke; I crush my own lungs until my breath sounds like someone trying to claw their way through a brick wall. And I guess Aloysius doesn’t have much experience with asthma, because he really doesn’t know what hit him.
My lungs start to get that dry, empty burn in them. Every rag of air that scrapes in is thin and scraggly, not enough, and finally Aloysius lets go of my dad’s neck and reaches for mine. I brought on the attack on purpose, but now it’s taken hold for real and it’s the worst I’ve ever had in my life. My instincts kick in, raging for oxygen, and my body drops onto its knees. Black dots surge across the room, and now my dad is beside me slapping all my pockets for an inhaler. Aloysius has given up trying to control me—right, just like Dashiell, he’s only in it for the fun parts, and suffocating isn’t all that entertaining. So I’m able to lift my hand and point upstairs—the inhaler’s probably on my bedside table—and after half a second my dad gets it and jumps up.
