by Caleb James
The laughter was dying out.
A shiver ran down my back. What is she doing?
Lance was still hopping up and down the keys. Plunk, thud, plink, crash. He had a bit of rhythm going.
It wasn’t an accident, his being here… and if he was here…. Mustering everything I could, I focused on the muscles of my head and my neck. Like pushing a boulder, I turned my head, first to the right, and then all the way around to the left. This is my body, I thought. I want it back.
It was mine… but May still pulled the strings… and not just mine. The musicians and choir seemed frozen behind me. I strained to turn and face the audience and the judges. What was wrong with them? No one moved. It was frightening. How did she get this powerful? To control one body… to do the twisted crap with that cab driver, or Jenna in the bathroom, but there were thousands of people in this theatre. This was power. Big, scary power.
I felt her fury shoot through my head. Like a whip, it shot down my arms, and before I knew it, I’d grabbed Lance from off the piano. He croaked frantically as my hands squeezed around his juicy body.
“No!” A voice screamed from the audience. “Alex, no!”
“Who was that?” The words flew out of my mouth… but not me saying them.
I felt helpless, trapped in my body, staring out at a few thousand members of the IT audience, frozen in space. Their faces were still lit with the humor of Lance’s performance.
“Alex!” It was Jerod. “You’ve got to fight!”
Somehow, he’d escaped May’s freeze gun… or whatever the hell she was doing. Nimby buzzed around his head and shoulders. She wielded a sword-shaped cocktail stirrer and was batting at the air around him. He pushed his way past frozen audience members. He made it to the aisle and started to run toward me.
“Leave me be!” The words left my mouth. I felt the muscles in my jaw tense.
I wanted to speak, and I couldn’t. It’s not me, Jerod.
“Alex.” His brown eyes searched mine out. “You have to fight her. You can do it.”
My jaw moved. I tried to clamp my lips together, but she was too strong.
“Alex is dead,” she said through my lips.
“You lie,” he shouted. “Alex is alive.”
“No.” Her thoughts hissed in my head. I felt a twinge of her uncertainty. It frightened her. “He is dead.”
“Wrong,” Jerod said.
I saw more movement in the audience; it was Katye and Mom… or rather changeling Mom. They pushed past frozen audience members and started down the aisle.
“Hello, sister,” Katye said. “Long time. Quite the performance. Very moving.” Katye swept her hands out. “And just look at your power. So big and strong. They gave it to you… but you never did have a sense of humor about yourself. The laughter hurts.”
“Shut up!” May spat out my mouth.
“Truth hurts,” changeling Mom added.
“Yes,” Katye said. “I’ll tell you something else that’s true.” She stared at me, and then at Lance still clutched and squirming in the prison of my two hands. “You can’t possess a property when someone has a lien on it.”
I felt May’s confusion. “I will kill you, sister,” she said, her fear causing her to throw more energy into controlling my body. As she did, I saw movement in the audience. The blinking of eyes, people swaying. A child coughed.
“It’s truth… dear sister. It’s truth that I will always love you… because you are my sister. It’s also truth that Alex was not free for the taking. And that is why you did not kill him when you took his body. He is not dead, May. His body and his soul were not his to give.”
“You lie!” She shrieked. It was as though an animal had been loosed in my brain. Where I’d been mucking about in here, there was now something else, serpentine and slippery as water. It rushed through all of my hard-won connections and battered up against my consciousness. I felt it, whatever it was, halt as we slammed together.
May opened my mouth and screamed, “Noooo!”
“Yes,” Katye replied. “Alex is in there. He’s listening to your every thought. He sees you, feels you… he is not dead, and you’ve taken something that did not belong to you.”
“He gave it,” May gasped.
“No!” It was Jerod.
I fought through the snaky thing that was trying to hold me back. It was furious but weak. I went on the attack and took back my eyes. It worked, no more trying to pull together images from the back of my brain. I was front and center, using the old eyeballs. I was master of my optic nerves. There was a lot to look at, but really… just one thing. Jerod, tall and strong. He was walking toward me. Nimby flying like a manic satellite around his head, beating at the air—at May’s magic—with her plastic sword. I wanted to warn him away. May’s thoughts were poison. She’d tried to kill him once today; it was all she wanted now. Her thoughts on this one thing clear: The boy had a prior claim. Impossible… but true. But if he’s dead… the claim is void.
“He was not free to give,” Jerod stated, his eyes on… mine.
I love you, I thought as May fought for control of my brain and my body. Like a thousand snakes crawling through my synapses, she wanted to flush me out. I love Jerod. It was more than a thought or an emotion, it was strength and truth. I remembered that first kiss and how right and how scary it had felt. I remembered something else.… He’d said he loved me, and more importantly, he’d proved it, again and again.
“Liar!” May screamed.
“He is mine,” Jerod replied.
My head turned, first to the right and then to the left…. I’d just done that. The creepy mess snaking through my head and belly flared. I love Jerod, so do what you do, Alex. Ignore her, shut her out, make her go away. Yeah… then say something. It wasn’t easy; a thought flew through my lips, and I felt my tongue flick against the roof of my mouth. “I love Jerod.” Something squirmed in my throat. I wouldn’t stop as it tried to choke my words down. “I am his, and he is mine. I was never free to give.” Each syllable, the way my tongue flicked in my mouth, the feel of my breath against the inside of my lips, the hinge of my jaw going up and down; I was doing all of that.
Katye clapped.
I pushed for more, noticing more movement in the audience. People were staring at me. Lance squirmed inside my hands. He croaked. “He croaked,” I said aloud, my gaze fixed on Jerod.
“Yes, he did,” he answered while climbing the steps to the judges’ platform. He was next to Carly Casswell, who was wakening from May’s spell.
She reached a hand to Jerod’s arm. “What’s happening? Who are you?”
I stood riveted and practiced the one trick I knew. Bricks and mortar--There is no May, Queen of the Fey. She does not exist, certainly not in this world and not in me. This is my body. I gently separated the prison of my fingers and made a platform of my palms. Lance sat unmoving, his head toward Katye. I started to shake, like the bubbling of a just-opened bottle of soda.
Carly Casswell looked from Jerod to Morgan Flood. The producer was equally dazed; he shrugged. “Not my doing,” he said.
Jerod smiled at Carly, and then bounded from the judges’ platform across the catwalk that separated them from the stage.
The monitor behind me was alive again, my image front and center and three stories high. I couldn’t stop shaking as the audience came alive, throwing off May’s paralysis. My thoughts were a jumble. I was in control of my limbs… but something was wrong. Like feeling the hole after a tooth’s fallen out—This is too easy. Something is wrong.
I heard movement overhead. My neck craned back, and I stared into the recesses of the stage ceiling. Hundreds of lights and miles of cable, metal gangplanks, one of the crewmembers in black adjusting a heavy spotlight. Oh God, no!
“Jerod…. No!”
Lance leapt from my hands as I raced across the stage. I felt May’s snaky tentacles try to hold me back. Her single thought—Jerod dies, and the body is mine, mine, mine.
I saw a metal bolt fall. It bounced across the stage. Time stretched as my legs pumped. I saw Nimby stare in horror from Jerod’s shoulder. Something gave way overhead, and I launched myself across the stage toward Jerod, who was twenty feet away. Maybe it was May’s magic still inside of me or something else, but I cleared the distance. My hands landed on Jerod’s chest and I tackled him. We fell back as a four hundred-pound light crashed to the stage where he’d stood.
Falling, I shot my hands around his head and cushioned his landing. We lay on the stage. His breath fast, his heart beating against mine. His eyes… his lips.
The moment was broken by a tingle down my spine. There was more movement overhead. “No.” My word out of my mouth. “She isn’t going to stop.” I saw half a dozen figures in black, loosening lights.
“We have to get out of here,” Jerod said.
“She’s inside of me. It won’t work.” I looked out at the audience, the giant chandeliers; she’d think nothing of bringing those down and killing them all if she thought she’d get her way. “I want her out.” I felt like a trapped animal. She was moving in my head and through my nerves. I’d made gains. I seemed to have control… at least for the moment.
Nimby hovered in front of me. In the past I would have shut her out. I almost did that now. The little black fairy flinched as she braced for me to wall her out. I didn’t.
Her wings held her in the air inches from my nose. A smile crept across her lips. “You know what to do, Alex,” she said. “Make her go away.”
“Do fairies ever give straight answers?” I asked.
She put one of her tiny thumbs and forefingers together, placed them on the end of my nose, and flicked me hard. “No.” She grinned.
“Ouch!” The pain startled me. I pulled back, looked from Jerod to Nimby. Something twinkled in the light. “Come on!” I was on my feet. I grabbed Jerod’s hand as a second light fell. It missed by a few yards, but now we were in center stage, and the scaffolds overhead were a hive of activity.
There was a gasp and screams from the audience. People were uncertain if this was a performance, or if something real and horrible was happening. “Stay close,” I told him. “She wants me alive. At least my body.”
His fingers twined through mine.
My brain was mostly mine, her presence a single malicious thought—Jerod dies, and the body is mine. The bulk of May’s power was in the magic she was wreaking on the crew and the confused audience. The cameras focused on Jerod and me. The giant screen tight on our faces… even Nimby was visible. At least to me.
Another light fell; its lens shattered and the bulb exploded.
“She tricked her sisters,” Jerod said. “Lizbeta into the mist and Katye into this world.”
“Right.” Wondering where he was going.
“She used their specials…. Lizbeta to keep peace and Katye… her love for Lance.”
From a corner of the stage, there was a loud croak.
“He croaked,” Jerod said with a straight face.
“Yes,” Katye shouted from the edge of the stage.
Morgan Flood pointed to her, and the giant screen split, half on Katye and half on Jerod and me.
A fourth light hurtled to the stage.
“No!” Katye shrieked. Pulling herself onto the stage. “Lance!”
From the wreckage of the last missile came a three-note croak. And he hopped across the stage.
“Lance! My love.”
My thoughts zipped. “Here.” Pulling Jerod back to where one of the lights had fallen, and to where there didn’t seem to be any more overhead hazards… at least that I could see. “She’s inside of me… at least part of her is. Most of her is outside.” I was rambling.
“Keep going,” he urged.
“Right, her special is power and she needs my body… because.”
“Because you’re special, Alex. Your father is fey. What is it she called you?”
“A haffling.”
“Right. You’ve got the body she needs… so she can do this shit.”
“She took my body when I gave her my name. I hate their logic.”
“But it is logic, Alex. It’s rules, and you’re good with those.”
“It’s a stalemate.”
I was on the edge of something. I looked at Katye, now holding Lance. Her face to his… the princess and the frog. May’s voice was faint inside of me, but her power was palpable. Lights crashed, bits of glass flew like shrapnel. I knew she wouldn’t risk harming my body. I also knew once she figured the lights weren’t doing the trick, she’d come up with something else… and with several thousand people in that theatre, the possibilities were horrifying. Her goal was to kill Jerod. Mine was to get her out of me. Somehow, my physical body was her anchor in this world. She was squirming inside of me like that stupid plane full of snakes.
“Jerod…. Whose am I?”
His hand left mine.
I gasped at the loss of his touch, and the squirmy feeling inside surged.
His hand found my cheek and then his other. The tips of his fingers gentle on my skin, his brown eyes serious.
“Mine,” he said. “You are mine, Alex Nevus. And I am yours.”
I heard a pop, and at first thought another light had fallen. It was inside my head. My eyes fixed on Jerod’s.
His voice was solid. “You are mine,” he repeated. “And I’m not sharing you.”
The pop in my head exploded. I doubled over as pain ripped through my gut. It felt like I was being torn apart. I retched and tried to hold it back.
“I will not share you!” he shouted, not letting go of me. His hands gripped my face. “You are mine! Alex Nevus is mine.”
Nimby shrieked, “Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s. Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.”
From the side of the stage, where she was holding Lance, Katye joined in. “Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.”
I doubled over. I puked. It was awful. Something slithered from my gut and twisted in my throat and mouth. I saw revulsion in Jerod’s eyes as a white snake shot from my lips and plopped wetly on the floor between us.
“Alex Nevus is mine. And I am yours.” He never let go, his hands firm on the sides of my head.
The pain was unbearable. I retched again, and this was even worse. It slithered up my throat and out my mouth, a snake… but with feet…. “Salamanders,” I gasped.
The edge of Jerod’s lips twisted. “Alex is mine,” he repeated. “And I am Alex’s.”
From the judge’s stand, I heard Carly Caswell’s unmistakable rasp as she joined in. “Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.” It spread to the other judges and then to the audience. It roared through the theater as I puked up gaping-mouthed salamanders.
“Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s. Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.”
The pain was unbearable. A knife in my gut. Jerod’s fingers on my skin were the only thing I could hang onto.
“Alex is mine.” His voice washed over me.
“I am yours,” I gasped. “Alex Nevus belongs to Jerod Haynes.” As the words left my mouth, the pain blossomed into something so awful I knew I wouldn’t survive. Like my stomach and brain and something where my liver should be were all ripping open. I choked as a mass squirmed from my belly to the back of my throat. It twisted inside of me.
“Alex Nevus is mine!” he shouted, hanging on as I jerked and convulsed.
My jaw shot open, and I felt the corners of my mouth start to rip. This was where I died. My eyes found Jerod’s. I saw his terror. Whatever was emerging from my lips was beyond awful.
My belly clenched, and with every bit of strength I had, I hurled and I pushed. Whatever it was, I wanted it out of me.
I gasped when Jerod’s hands let go. I wanted them back. My eyes shot open, and he was gripping the thing coming out of me. White and slimy, thick as my leg, with tiny pink eyes and a gaping mouth that snapped at his face. He pulled it out of me, foot after foot, yard aft
er yard. Its tiny legs flapped in space as it flopped and twisted. Pain ripped through my chest and my throat. My hands reached for the giant white salamander and pulled. It seemed like it would never end. Finally, I felt its girth lessen as I retched over and over. And then it was down to a long snaky tail, and with a final awful flick where it tried to latch on to my teeth, I ripped it out. I clamped my lips shut and fell back. I knew I needed to stay away from it, that it needed contact with my physical body. I fought the impulse to help Jerod. I watched in horror as Jerod wrestled the disgusting monster. But outside of my body, it had started to shrink. Its gaping mouth was firm between Jerod’s straining hands as it snapped and twisted in his grip.
The audience chanted, “Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.”
Nimby danced and flitted around the weakening monster, careful of its violent thrashing. “Alex is Jerod’s, and Jerod is Alex’s.”
The monster lunged between Jerod’s hands…. It lunged for his face. The muscles in his arms strained, his jaw was clenched, his eyes staring at the horrific beast. But while it fought, its substance was fading. I smelled something bitter, and there was a crackling. A blinding flash of light, and the serpent burst into silver flame, like when metallic magnesium is pulled from oil and contacts oxygen. It shot sparks and roared; it sounded like a woman’s scream.
It took everything I had to not run to him. It was what she wanted… what she needed. Let him fight this battle, Alex. Let him be the hero. The flame flashed skyward, a blinding ball of light. My eyes followed. My heart pounded.
It was gone.
Jerod was on his back, his hands holding air. His shirt was soaked in sweat, his hair plastered to the sides of his flushed face. He looked at me. “Any more?”
