“Are you there?” I ask thin air, aiming the sound at the door and the beyond.
No answer.
Maybe I imagined it? Maybe it’s the fear of the bug and that I let in the disease when I opened the door? Maybe the enemy that no one sees took a physical form in my crazed mind? My heart can’t stop racing, and finally I give in and find the drawer in my bedside table. I pull it out and finger through the few items in it until I find the little plastic canister of pills. It’s cold and smooth, except for that sharp edge on the side of the lid. Flipping it open, I pour a small oval tablet in my palm and then throw it into the back of my mouth, swallowing dry. I put the lid back on, replace the canister in the same position and close the drawer again.
Morphine. It’s for pain. It was my grandmother’s. No one cared to take away all the medicines she left behind.
I’m not in physical pain, but the soft feeling when the drug wraps around my brain, like thick wads of cotton around the ragged edges of a broken bone, will take me through the rest of this day that has turned so wrong.
The medicine hits fast, and I sidestep as I stand and make my way to the door. One day, maybe, I’ll fall down one of the stairs in this house. I’ll break my neck, and poor Kiki will find me days later, stiff and truly unseeing.
My fingers wrap around cold steel, then I unlock and swing open the door.
“Mr. Virus, I’m coming out. If you’re here to take me, you should know that I don’t have much. There isn’t much flesh on my bones, and my mind is quite brittle. I bruise easily. I don’t know why I’m alive. I don’t know the purpose of all this. I have nothing to offer you. I can only ask that you be gentle.”
I sniff the air. There’s a slight hint of grass still, from when I opened the door. Earth. My socks get damp as I walk through the puddles in the corridor. I shake my head. I don’t feel the stranger anymore.
In this house of many stairs, I only sense my own beating heart, and it has calmed.
Chapter Four
Adam
I don’t know why I didn’t stop her when she ripped the curtain to the side and threw the shower hose in my direction. Maybe I was too mesmerized by the whole situation, her bizarre act, and her surreal appearance? Entering this house, I only meant to find a spot from where I could overlook the street, but this girl and her warped reality have pulled me down the rabbit hole. I need to know who she is, what the hell she’s doing here, and why she accepts I’m here even though she can’t possibly know.
I’m soaked down to my underwear, and I really need to dry off. At least I’m warm and wet now, as opposed to cold and wet like out in the grass.
While she’s locked inside her room, shouting about God only knows what, I pull off everything except my briefs. In a room at the other end of the corridor, I find a large bed and hang my wet clothes on the wooden footboard. Everything is dusty, and the room smells a little dank. A vase with long-since dried cut flowers stands in the window. Someone once cared to decorate. Those days are long gone. What kind of people were they, the ones who lived here? This is a house for a large family, and there must have been some money at some time.
I peek out the window, seeing a part of the property on the other side of the street. It’s not enough. To the far left is the alluring tower. That’s where I want to go. Fuck the girl. Fuck whoever lived here. It’s not important anymore. Surviving is. I hope Coran’s keeping up with the truck. He’d better be. Looking at the radio that I put on the checkered blue-and-green bedspread, the fruit of someone’s hard stitching labor, I decide against using it to just quell my curiosity. He’s a big boy who can take care of himself, and I’d only reveal my presence here and would have to deal with Crazy Lady. I take a step out into the corridor and stop dead. The door at the other end slides open with a creak, and on the threshold stands a vision in white.
Holding my breath, I drink her in. Her shapeless rough dress in a light gray cotton fabric hangs on skinny shoulders. The neckline is wide and reveals sharp collar bones and an alluring dip in the hollow of her throat. Her long, pale neck ends with a heart-shaped face with full lips, high cheekbones, and a small, slightly flattened nose. Her white hair is a mess of curls, and as I watch, drops of water fall on her shoulders. At first glance it looks like she has no eyelashes or eyebrows, then I realize they’re as white as her hair.
It’s as if the outside world ceases to exist when she moves toward me. The dress is so long it makes it seem like she doesn’t move her feet. She floats. There’s a slight whisper when the fabric shifts around her legs, and I have half a mind to run up and save her from falling down the stairs, but I’m frozen to the spot when she passes me and glides down with the utmost grace, lightly touching the rail with the tips of slender fingers.
I finally connect the dots. She looks like nothing I’ve ever seen and suddenly I understand why. She’s Black. And albino. That’s why nothing makes sense. My lungs burn, and for a moment I wonder why, then I realize I’m still not breathing.
My chest convulses with the desperate need for air, but I force myself to wait until I hear her on the next set of stairs, somewhere out of sight. I hope it’s also out of hearing distance when I inhale a long, life-giving breath, letting it out on a shudder. My mind spins. I have to get down to business. Careful, slow step by slow step, I follow the ghost of her presence down the stairs, through the sparsely furnished living room, across an empty hallway, past several more or less empty rooms, the doors ajar just enough so that I can catch a glimpse. I see a stairwell in the direction of the tower but the barely there sounds of her steps lead in the opposite direction. I’m pulled toward her like a bee to honey, but I have to get my head on straight. This is going nowhere fast.
Goosebumps chase each other along my naked back as I go up the narrow, curved set of stairs that lead higher and higher in a never-ending spiral. There are no doors. It just goes on and on. Someone built a tower for the sole purpose of having a tower, it seems. The sun shines through filthy windows, and the dust stirs into impressive clouds in the bright rays as I cross the room. There are wires and a mechanism on the wall, and when I scan along the construction, I get the impression that the roof can be opened. Maybe it’s for gazing at the stars?
How fucking romantic.
Who cares?
The windows sit low on the wall, and I fall to my knees in the dust, rub a clear spot on the glass, and settle in. Anything can happen at any time. Whoever comes or goes in the house across the street will be in clear view from here. Someone thinks they can steal from me. That’s an initiative that will not go unpunished. I don’t care how long I have to wait. I’m known for my patience.
I just have to steer my mind clear of the alluring woman whose house I have invaded.
Eve
Earth and water. Fire and air. Twenty-two steps to my lair. I’ve counted them my whole life. Every foot I set before the other takes me closer to the bliss of forgetting about myself and the world for a few hours.
Today I stop and listen every time I alter the point of my weight. Today the house breathes. It came with the wind and the scent of Another hidden beneath birch pollen and dew. A slight tang of oil and anger has left a trace in the rooms of my house. I haven’t smelled anger since the day the family took off. Too many memories try to push their way to the surface at once. The drug I took numbs me, but it also makes me defenseless against the onslaught of the past. The feeling of Mother’s arms around me, warm skin, tense muscles, a hug that wished it had never happened, a hug that was meant to mend a bond that was never there. My own mother thought of me as an abomination, treated me like something the Devil had planted in the midst of our sacred family.
When the virus took over the world and Mother and Father decided to leave with all my younger siblings, they said Grandmother couldn’t come with, that she was too weak, that I had to care for her. I pulled up the corners of my mouth into what I hoped was a smile and said ‘of course’. They never knew that I heard everything they whispered at n
ight. Grandmother wasn’t ill. She refused to leave if they didn’t take me with them.
She would have been alive if it hadn’t been for me.
Survivor’s guilt eats me. She was a powerful woman in her late seventies who had birthed and raised nine children. I’m a useless, broken doll.
I slam open the door with more force than necessary and wipe the stupid wetness off from the tip of my nose. There’s no use crying. The past is in the past. I open the cooler and find a slab of clay, cold and hard to the touch. I push my fingers in the crack between it and the next slab, pull it out and slam it down on the counter. Letting the door fall closed, I then find my work robe, a thick cotton fabric with a cool plastic surface, and pull it over my head. I tie the loose ends of the belt around my back, and sit before the counter, spreading my thighs as I drag the stool close to the work surface. I trace the clay with my fingers, then begin to knead it to make it warm and soft. It’s the one thing I can control, and I lose myself in the art of creating a mirage of what used to be life.
When my stomach reminds me that I haven’t eaten in hours, I have a small bust before me, a woman, holding out two stumped arms in a hug that will never happen. Seen from behind, the bust is hollow, yet from the front, it appears inviting and warm. At least these are the thoughts that have gone into my work. It appears I’m good at conveying what I feel. The feedback over the years has been overwhelmingly positive. It doesn't matter anymore, though. No one cares about statues or pottery. Kiki’s gallery is full of unsold art. My basement is a cramped museum of things no one needs, but it’s all I have.
My mind is clear. The morphine has worn off.
I wash my hands and arms, put the work robe back on the hook next to the cooler, flick the switch to the kiln, heating it so I can fire the statue later, and make a one-eighty, aiming for the stairs.
The house has been holding its breath while I’ve worked, but now it’s as if a shudder runs through it. When did it turn into a living, breathing thing? Up until this morning I thought I had things somewhat under control. I was achingly lonely, non-stop afraid, constantly balancing on the edge of wanting to end it all. But I considered myself sane.
-ish.
Now, I don’t know.
There’s a scent.
Several scents, in fact.
Had they come from the outside this morning, wafting in the few moments I had the door opened, they should have vanished by now, but they have multiplied during my hours in my workshop. I sense a hint of a detergent I don’t use, remnants of fumes from engines, and there’s anger in the house again, a hint of sweat, acetone, adrenaline.
The house lives again, and I’m definitely losing it big time.
I dump the contents from a tin can onto a plate and shove it in the microwave. I haven’t really bothered to taste what I eat for a long time. I just need the sustenance. Kiki brings me stuff she knows I don’t hate.
Standing through the meal, I shove it in and chew. It’s slippery. Squared pillows with ragged edges that fall apart and leave a tiny hint of meat on my tongue. Ravioli, I decide. I’ve never eaten homemade ravioli, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like. Probably not like this. This one has the taste of tomato sauce partly hidden beneath the tang of metal from the can. I rinse off the plate and fork, towel dry them and put them back in the cupboard and drawer. My head aches, and I long for coffee, but the kiln is probably warmed up by now and I need to fire the clay to harden it.
Before I start the walk down the stairs again, I stop and listen. Or… I don’t only listen, I feel. I let the tendrils of all my remaining senses spread throughout the house I know so well. I know every nook and cranny, every creaking floorboard, every nail head that needs to be hammered down, every splinter in the railings.
I don’t hear anything, but I feel it.
I let something in this morning. There’s something inside my house that shouldn’t be here. A chill runs down my bare arms, and I rub them.
“Hello?”
Holding my breath, I wait, listen. Nothing. I inhale through my nose and try to catch that sharp, musky scent from before. It’s still there. I have wished for my lost sight more times today than I have during the last ten years in total. It feels as if he’s standing just out of arm’s reach, goading me, teasing me, testing me. But for what?
“Who are you?”
Please, answer, whoever you are.
Finally, I give up and go to take care of the bust. My hands are calloused and full of scars from managing the kiln. I barely feel the heat anymore, and I don’t burn myself that often, but tonight I fumble and make mistake after mistake, coming away with a couple of fresh stinging marks, one on each palm. I never bother with the time. I know when dawn approaches because the birds start tweeting outside. Delirious, having molded several more shapes on the wheel during the night, just doing mindless bowls to occupy my mind, I finally wash off and drag myself up the stairs.
“I know you’re there,” I mutter to thin air when I walk through the upper corridor, heading for my room. But to be honest, I have no idea anymore. I just want to appear to be on top of things.
I don’t bother undressing. Or maybe I don’t dare? My sleep is restless. I’m sweaty and warm. I dream of touching. I long so much for a touch, but I fear it even more. Touching means death.
The moment I wake, I sit up straight with a gasp, then I throw the comforter off my legs and hurry to the bathroom, desperate for cold water on my face. Pulling open the bathroom door, I run straight into something that is warm, solid and soft at the same time, an unyielding mass of flesh.
“Hey!” A foreign voice, a man’s voice, cuts through the air.
Hands on my arms.
I scream in horror and throw myself backward, fall on my butt, and slam into the wooden floor. Something in my spine cracks, and I’ll bruise bad, judging from the immense discomfort that sears through my body.
Steps.
Coming closer.
“No!”
I lurch to my feet. Having lost all sense of direction, I dart left, only to smack against the man’s chest again. A strong arm closes around me, hugging me tight, nearly lifting me, and a hand slams over my mouth.
A tsk.
“And we were getting along so well.”
His voice is a deep rumble that reverberates through his chest, transfers to me, making my insides vibrate.
A person. A man. A stranger. From the outside.
In my house.
Too close.
“Mmmmph!”
Too close.
I’ll die!
Chapter Five
Adam
The whole night, I’ve been wandering this mystical, magical wooden castle, a quilted comforter – someone’s labor of love – wrapped around me. I’ve cursed the ghostly pale blind freak over and over as I’ve tried to get my radio to work.
When night fell and I finally decided to check in with Coran and the others, I realized the radio was dead. When I turned it over, water dribbled out through the cracks.
I’ve cursed her, and I’ve watched her back as she sat by the wheel all fucking night, her body rocking rhythmically while she was molding clay. I haven’t dared to venture into the basement and take a closer look, because I never intended to make my presence here known.
Now it’s too late.
Like a small bird in my arms, she’s warm and filled with a nervous energy, her breaths quick and shallow. She squirms and cries, and her huge eyes fill with tears that spill over her cheeks and roll over my fingers.
I lean in and put my mouth to her ear. Her untamed hair tickles my cheek.
“I know you can’t see me, but you can hear me, right?”
“Mmm!”
I sigh. God, she feels so fragile. I could break her in two with ease. She’s tall, though, only a couple of inches shorter than I am. I wonder what she looks like beneath all that ugly fabric. It’s been a long while since I held a woman in my arms, and feeling her stirs something i
n the pit of my belly – near-forgotten needs.
“The chance that anyone would come rushing to your rescue is…let’s see…zero, but nevertheless, don’t fucking scream when I remove my hand. I have ears. Okay?” I shake her a little for emphasis. “Are you with me?”
Her nostrils flare, and she squeezes her eyes shut, forcing more tears to fall. “Mm.”
I decide to give her a chance and lighten my hold, finally only feeling her full lips brushing my palm. Oh, those lips. How would they feel against mine? I’m not stopping her from screaming anymore, but she stays quiet like a good girl. I’ve studied her since yesterday, but this is the first time I’ve been this close, and I can’t stop drinking her in.
“What’s your name?”
“I am Eve,” she says, her voice harsh, unused.
“Eve.” I taste the name. “I’m Adam.”
Her lips twitch, and only then does it strike me, the divine connection between our names. Well, this ain’t no fucking Garden of Eden. It’s just random names and a freaky coincidence.
“What are you doing here, Adam?” she whispers.
I wave my hand in front of her, but her eyes don’t react.
“I know you’re moving something in front of my face.”
“How do you know?” I narrow my eyes and lean in, looking her over.
She has no wrinkles. It’s remarkable. Her skin is smooth as marble, looking as if it has never been kissed by the sun.
“I feel the air shift when you move.”
“How old are you?” I don’t know why it matters, but I’m too curious.
“That’s no quest—”
“I’m not a gentleman, Eve. How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-eight. Last time I cared to count. Maybe I’ve turned thirty-nine since then. I don’t know. The days all blend into each other. What does it matter?”
I Am Eve Page 3
