by Rue Volley
“I would assume that you want breakfast, love?” he said.
She bit her lip and shook her head.
“You are in a lot of trouble, Theodore Barrington,” she said in a tone that made him sit up on the bed.
He cleared his throat and tried to smile.
“You glamoured me… I did not feel it until early this morning. I sat there thinking, ‘There is no way that my Brother… would ever do such a thing to me… no way’!” Sam said as she continued to stare a hole through him.
Theodore raised his finger up, prepared to start some half-assed excuse session, and Sam waved her hand in front of her and did an, “Ahhhhh!” …which is never a good indication that a discussion is going to go well.
He waited, ready for whatever was going to come from her mouth. She started to pace, another bad sign. She stopped and looked at him mumbling something. Finally she regained enough civility to speak without yelling it out.
“So… Rue is with Johnathan, who just so happened to freakin bond with her, on accident, in true idiot fashion.”
Theodore opened his mouth up and Sam held up her finger to him.
“Ahhh. I am so not done,” Sam said.
Theodore sighed and looked at his hands.
“And… Josh is doing god knows what, because I cannot feel him now… which is so not a good thing.”
Theodore adjusted on his bed and Sam cleared her throat.
Theodore looked at her and simply nodded to her.
“And where the hell are Jonah and Lily?” she asked him.
“Well, funny thing. Jonah seems to think that we need an army. I was unable to render a solution for his problem… the consumption of my death, which he so bravely took upon himself… to save me. He is currently practicing cannibalism to alleviate the problem.”
“Oh that sounds just great,” Sam said as she shifted her weight to her other foot.
“Why do you piss me off?” she asked him.
Theodore shook his head and held his hands out.
“I was not aware that it was my intention.”
“Don’t be cute,” Sam said to him.
“I am not. We had many things going on that were in need of attention.”
“You think?” Sam said, raising her voice.
“I simply did the only thing that I could.”
“Just because you are the oldest does not mean that you are the only one who can fix things,” Sam said as she looked at him.
“I would think that you would trust my judgment.”
“This has nothing to do with trust, Theodore. This has to do with you suddenly thinking that you are alone.”
Theodore sat there for a moment and looked at her, realizing that after all of his time on the earth, all of his navigating through countless situations that could have left him rotting in memory, that Samantha was most certainly right. To admit it would be something that he would never hear the end of, but to allow her to help him would most certainly not make anything worse.
Sam stood there and then suddenly sat down on the bed and looked away from him.
“I need for you to touch me, Theodore. Share your memory and let me help.”
Theodore hesitated and she turned to him.
“I am so not asking you… I am telling you,” Sam said.
Theodore leaned up and looked at her.
“You will not like what you see,” he whispered.
“Just do it already. I am so much stronger than you give me credit for,” she said.
Theodore raised his hand and Sam took it and placed it on the side of her head.
She closed her eyes and then peeked at him.
“Today… not tomorrow,” she said to him.
He closed his eyes and relaxed allowing his memory to flow to her. She sucked in her breath and jerked her head from his hand. She stared at him and shook her head.
“Who the hell is Evil?” she asked him.
“I fear that she is the part of Rue that she buried in memory, as a child. Evil is a nymph… scorned and treacherous, seeking love and power that manifested herself in Rue’s image.”
“Great… I hate nymphs. I thought that they all lived in memory now,” Sam said.
“Well, all but this one. She attached herself to Rue as a child and somehow Rue had the wisdom to trap her.”
Sam looked at Theodore and shook her head.
“So which one are we dealing with?” she asked him.
“Clytie… Helios’s scorned lover. I am most certain.”
“Awesome… a crazy Greek nymph… So what did Rue write in her book of Clytie, if that is who we are really dealing with?” Sam asked.
“Rue wrote of stumbling upon a flower in the forest as a child; the flower was so beautiful that she spent many days just sitting and staring at it. The flower smelled of honey and shimmered when the sunlight hit its pedals. She said that she started to hear whispers on the wind… a voice calling out to her. Rue realized after many visits to the flower that it was, in fact, the flower that spoke to her. The flower spoke of love, wanting… the fact that she was lonely and that Rue was her only friend. Rue eventually started to touch the pedals, purple in color. She felt a tingling in her fingertips… a vibration, not unlike the vibration we feel when we are aware of each other. Over time the flower told Rue to prick her finger and let her blood run onto her pedals. The flower told her that she was trapped… left to live alone, and that Rue was the only one who could bring her back to life as she had once lived it.”
“You are kidding me,” Sam said. Theodore went on.
“Rue spent weeks thinking about it, mostly because the thought of cutting herself scared her. Rue eventually decided that she would share her blood with the flower and revisited it deep in the forest. It was mid-summer and the trees and all other vegetation in the forest had come to full bloom. Rue stepped into the small clearing, by a brook, to tell the flower that she wanted to share her blood with it, so that they could always be friends. Rue looked for the bright purple flower; it had always been easy to spot amongst the lush green of the forest. She narrowed her eyes when she spotted the flower, tilting almost to the ground… dull in color. Rue leaned over it and reached her hand out to it. The flower whispered on the wind to her that Rue had abandoned her, as had everyone in her life, and she had lost the will to live. Rue leaned over it and started to cry. Her tears fell onto the pedals and the flower shimmered. Rue wiped her tears and pulled the flower out of the ground and walked to the brook, placing it in the water. It is then that as Rue leaned over the water, letting her tears fall in, that she decided to prick her finger for the flower, although she thought it was already dead. Rue pulled out a needle and pricked her finger. She hissed and squeezed at it until blood welled up. She placed her hand in the water and a hand grabbed hers. Rue looked down and saw a girl under the water that looked just like her. The girl pulled Rue in and that is where the story ends. Rue spoke of it no more… She simply started another chapter in the book about her love of reading.”
“Only Rue would run into a psychotic nymph and be able to bring it to life again,” Sam said.
Theodore smiled.
“Well, I believe that there are many things that Rue is capable of that we are not aware of. The book that she wrote only allows me to read it a little at a time, almost as if it is hiding, not wanting to share its secrets.”
“Well then, Rue should be here reading her book, Theodore… It is ridiculous that you sent her away,” Sam said to him.
“She had only one intention when she returned from memory and that was to travel to Valon,” Theodore said as he touched Sam’s arm.
“And?” Sam said.
“And that would be certain death, Samantha.”
Sam smiled at him and touched his face.
“Theodore, at some point you have to stop thinking that you control will.”
Theodore stood up and walked to his window, looking towards the forest.
“I think that you may be right,”
he whispered.
***
I woke up and stumbled to the bathroom. I had probably drunk over half the wine. I had handed it to Johnathan over and over but he took smaller and smaller drinks from it, allowing me to be the victim. I had at some point fell asleep hugging the bottle, like some homeless alcoholic under a bridge. I closed the bathroom door behind me and realized that I still clutched the bottle in my hand. I dropped it in the trashcan and looked at myself. I looked tired, dark circles starting to form under my eyes. I looked at them and then leaned into the mirror. I started to feel strange and my eyes almost looked like they were foreign to me… swirling almost.
I continued to lean in and then I jumped when I heard a knock on the door. I sucked in my breath as I backed away from the mirror. I turned and opened it up and there was Johnathan looking like he hadn’t slept either. I looked at him and rubbed my head.
“Yea… I feel ya,” Johnathan said as he tried to pull out a grin.
I looked at him and grinned.
“You didn’t drink nearly as much as I did.”
“Enough though,” he said as he looked past me and at the toilet.
I bit my lip. “Are you nauseous?” I asked him.
He nodded and I stepped out of his way. He kicked the door behind me and I heard him doing the nasty in the bathroom. I stepped back and looked over at the window. There sat the bottle that weirdo had given me last night. I guess I should at least open it up and see what he had given me. I felt tired, but unlike Johnathan I guess, the wine did not have the same effect on my stomach, in fact I was starving. I walked to the table and picked up the bottle, turning it in my hand. I suddenly heard a whisper and rolled my eyes and when I looked around the room at nothing. I was so not going to get to school and then get kicked out because they thought I was crazy. I am not…I am sick.
I unscrewed the cap and looked inside the bottle. It was some liquid. I rolled it around and it looked like cough syrup. I so hoped it wasn’t, if it was a cough that I battled with it would be easy and simple. I sniffed it and it smelled sweet. My stomach growled, and despite Mr. Can’t Drink a Little Wine’s hurling in the bathroom, I was hungry. So hungry that, as I watched the liquid move in the bottle, all other sound faded in my ears and the movement of the train faded. I closed my eyes and placed the bottle to my lips. I tipped it back and felt it get taken from me. I looked to see Johnathan staring at the bottle and smelling it too.
“What the hell?” I asked him.
Johnathan looked at me and picked up the cap I had screwed off of the bottle and started to put it back on.
“This is so not gonna happen,” he said.
“What?” I asked him.
“This,” Johnathan said as he waved the bottle at me. “We don’t even know what it is, Rue. The train stops today, we will find some vitamins then,” he said.
He walked the trashcan and dropped the bottle in it. I so wanted to run to it and take a swig.
“When did you become the authority?” I asked him.
He laughed and shook his head at me.
“When Theodore said and I quote, ‘It is you, Johnathan, that will be entrusted with her safety and it is you that will be held accountable if any harm comes to her.’ End quote.”
I sat down at the booth and looked up at him.
“Oh come on, I am almost twenty… Theodore is just dramatic; you know that… just like I do.”
Johnathan slid in across from me and took my hand.
“Well, dramatic or not… I promised him that I would not let anything happen to you, and I won’t,” he said.
I won’t lie, for a moment I stared at him and found it sweet. I truly believed that Johnathan wouldn’t let me get into trouble… In fact, he would go out of his way to make sure that I would never had to worry about anything if I would let him. He held my hand in his, another sweet moment lingering into awkward. I pulled my hand out slowly and walked back to the bathroom. I looked back at him and grinned.
“Thank you for um… you know,” I said.
Wow, how specific could I possibly get with him?
Johnathan grinned though and didn’t say anything. He was so that way about everything.
I stepped into the bathroom and started to strip off my clothes. I looked at my chest and sighed. I mean... why do I have no boobies? I guess my Mom must have been small too. I traced my finger across my tattoo above my left breast and felt a slight tingling in my fingertips. I really am overdue for my daily regimen of pill taking. I looked down and saw the bottle in the trashcan. My stomach clinched up and I pressed my hand on it. I shook my head and walked to the shower… that was what I needed. A good shower so makes it better…no matter what ‘it’ is.
I stepped in and started up the water, letting it pound against my skin. I started to soap up and then smiled as I remembered the reason that I was on this train to begin with. I was finally going to college. I blinked and got some soap in my eye. I yelled out in pain and the door popped open and Johnathan peeked in.
“What happened?” he asked me.
“Soap… eye… burn,” I said.
“Oh, need help?” Johnathan said.
“Ummm, no,” I said as I rolled my eye and rubbed on it.
“Sure?” he asked me.
I stopped rubbing my eye and stood there for a moment. Is he really hitting on me?
No… no way. I decided to call his bluff. I guess my hunger is making me grumpy.
“Yea… you know what, Johnathan…? Why don’t you strip and get in here? You can stop the burning in my eye,” I said as I grinned.
He didn’t respond to me. I expected a big laugh… an “Oh right”, or anything that would resemble his humor. Instead I got silence and I kept rubbing the shampoo in my hair as I waited. Maybe I hurt his feelings…? Maybe he is feeling like he is going to hurl again…? Maybe he…
“Holy shit!” I said as he stepped into the shower with me.
I stood there with my back to him, completely shocked and out of step with this new game. I covered my boobies (easy to do by the way) and stared at the white wall in front of me.
I cleared my throat.
“Um, okay Johnathan, what the F?” I asked him.
He touched my back with the washcloth and started to rub it. I almost jumped through the wall in front of me. My heartbeat started to pound in my chest and the water popped out in front of my mouth, as I started to breath hard.
“I… I just wanted to help,” Johnathan said to me.
“Okay… Could you, umm, get out now?” I asked him.
“Is that what you really want?” he asked me.
“I am naked… I would like for you to get out of my shower… key word being ‘my’,” I said.
Johnathan pulled the curtain and stepped out, leaving the cloth behind. It floated in the water collecting in the bottom of the tub. It touched my foot and I sucked in my breath. It felt like a hand had reached down and gently rubbed my foot. I ‘oh’d’ and looked down at it. I placed my hand on my mouth and stifled a laugh. I mean, come on! He did not just get in the shower with me, right? After all this time of no nothing and his first move was full on nudity in the shower? Holy crap!
I said, “Hello?” nice and non-confrontational.
He did not reply. I had to assume that he left the bathroom and closed the door behind him. I didn’t hear it happen, but I was busy freaking out about the washcloth molesting my foot. I stood there and turned off the water, leaning against the curtain, waiting to hear anything. There was nothing. I had successfully thrown him out. I mean I had to. I loved Johnathan with all my heart. I could not imagine a day without him in my life, but I always thought that love… the kind that makes you crazy, is the one that you look for. I wish it was him, I do.
Things would simpler if it was that way, but I stood there dripping wet, worrying about whether he was really gone from the bathroom instead of asking him to join me. Well, I guess I did… but I was joking, as we always do. Except for the handholding
and the kisses on the forehead, we are pretty much best friend status. Perhaps I didn’t see something that he did or hear something that he said. Maybe he was ready to be more after all of this time. I just wish that I felt the same way.
I peeked out and he was gone. I heard the T.V. going and decided to get out. I slipped on the floor and cracked my knee on the toilet. I covered my mouth, fearing that he would barge back in ready to save me. I shook my head and mumbled curse words, as I rubbed my knee, and grabbed a towel to dry off. I leaned over and saw that damn bottle in the trashcan, smiling up at me. I picked it up and unscrewed the cap. I looked in the mirror with it in my hand and shook my head. I look like a junkie hiding with an illegal drug in my hand. I could smell the sweetness of it and decided that I was more than ready to take care of myself. I tipped it back and took a swig. It was a little thick and it coated my mouth and my throat as I swallowed. I felt it go all the way down to my stomach. It was strange, not a burning but almost like warmth… comfort… Something that I was addicted to in so many ways.
I took a breath as my fingers started to vibrate and then the room started to vibrate… at least it looked like it. I heard a humming in my ears, then voices… echoes, pieces of something that I recognized but didn’t, all at the same time. I looked in the mirror and watched as the dark circles simply started to fade. That was crazy, right? I mean, that is so not possible.
I set the bottle down and felt another wave hit me, this time it felt like warm water rolling over my entire body. I let my head fall back and I looked up at the ceiling. Small sparks of light started to shimmer in the air, then they started to swirl. I reached up slowly and let my fingers trace across a line of color, it sounded like I strummed a string. I tilted my head and stared at it; I could hear a heartbeat… slow and steady.
I jumped when I heard a tap on the door. I scrambled to screw the cap back on the bottle and rolled it up in a smaller towel. I opened the cabinet under the sink and placed it in the back, resting it against the wall. I stood up and looked at the door.
