“Hey, there—what’s that in your bag? You got any food?” That smile never faltered. This guy was good.
I’d forgotten to come up with a just-in-case-I’m-caught lie, so I blurted out the only thing I could think of that would get him to leave me alone. “In my bag? Tampons. A lot of ‘em.”
Smiley Guy was a bit taken aback, and I felt a little surge of victory that I’d broken his grin, even if it was just for a second. He wasn’t buying it, though.
“Let me see.”
I pushed past him in a brusque motion and set off into a sprint, my tennis legs helping me get away. So I might get in trouble later. I didn’t really care. I kept on running, feeling beautifully antisocial and freer than I had in weeks. The running started to feel less necessary and more instinctual after I was in the clear, and I broke into a wild gallop that carried me all the way back to my dorm room.
I DIDN’T HAVE a bowl, nor did I have tableware of any kind, so I dug a Styrofoam coffee cup out of the garbage, washed it out in the sink and set it on the windowsill. After night had fallen, I opened the window to the chill of the night and poured the milk into the cup. Then I sat back at my desk and waited for my good friend Thackery Binx to come crawling up to my window to get his long-awaited dinner.
He’s been following me…he knows all about me, my name…what does he want? Thoughts darted in and out of my mind like frightened mice, but I kept my eyes fixed on that coffee cup, fully aware that I had to be stupid or insane to attempt this—or perhaps some brilliant combination of the two. I decided to Google familiar spirits, but what I read alarmed me, so I shut my computer, even less certain about what I was doing. After about an hour of tense waiting, my phone chimed with the sound of an incoming text from Joy:
Hey, Sarah. I just wanted to say how sorry I am for earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you.
I cringed, remembering with the dead weight of shame how rude I’d been to Joy. I rubbed my forehead and scolded myself for the thousandth time, wishing it had been anyone but Joy that I’d exploded at. I fiddled with my necklace for a moment, then quickly answered:
No, I should be the one to apologize. I acted like a bitch to you and you were only trying to help. I didn’t mean what I said.
Dots appeared, telling me Joy had started to type something back, but I never got to see what it was. I glanced over at the window to double check on the cup, only to find it had disappeared. I rushed to the window and looked out into the bushes, my heart thundering.
Why did I do this? What possessed me? I asked myself, wondering if it was too late to take it back. The more I looked around outside, however, the calmer I grew. It was windy with a hint of rain in the air, but I could see nothing that hinted Sylvester had been the one to prowl up and take my offering.
I had just taken a few steps backward with the intent of shutting the window tight and hiding in my bed for the rest of the evening when a pair of ghostly green eyes blinked at me from the crimson tree outside. Its bright leaves, still vibrant in the night, shook and whipped about in the gales, but he stayed perched there, still and licking his lips. Our eyes connected for a long while, the wind whistling around and rainy mist splattering my face.
“Come with me,” I heard him call me from far away, though his voice sounded as close as if he’d whispered in my ear. Without waiting for my response, he leapt from the lofty branches and floated down to the ground in slow motion. He landed without a sound on the damp soil, then streaked off into the angry redwoods.
I was too scared to move at first, and at the first flash of lightning I was almost certain that nothing in this world could have called me out into that violent night. But just as the first patters of rain rolled over the sill and onto the threadbare carpet with its years of dirt beaten into it by the feet of so many strangers, I decided that I needed to go. I had already pushed past something that I could never undo. If I stayed where I was, I’d be forever half-formed. I knew too much to live peacefully ever again; the memory of this day and all its eerie possibilities would nag me into madness if I let it slip away. The gates had been closed behind me and there was no way out but forward, so forward I went.
I pulled on my hooded, knit poncho in a flurry and hurried out into the night. The direction the creature had gone in wasn’t clear, so I kept following a path that just felt right and ended up at a pair of electrical towers that looked like the silhouettes of skeletons against the clouded sky of opaline gray. When the lightning flashed again, I saw him atop the fence around the towers. My heart fluttered in that awful, painful concoction of excitement and fright.
“Where are we going?” I shouted over the wind to him, but he just kept on smiling and leapt down. I ran after that bushy tail as it snaked through the underbrush, my boots getting muddier by the moment. Soon I lost track of where I was and where I was headed. I became a greyhound after the rabbit, something ancient igniting inside of my brain. Is there anything more primal than a chase?
I came out of my frenzied run once I had burst into a dark clearing with a bed of overgrown ferns and dried up pine leaves. The rain was making a soup of this, and a frothy, muddy foam was starting to swirl about. In the center of that mess was little Figaro, ever the patient guide.
“Come closer, Sarah. Look what I’ve made for you,” he coaxed me, sounding almost giddy. His whiskers prickled as I inched closer to where he sat on his haunches with something on the ground between his paws. Still full of dread that he might attack at any moment, I approached and saw a little golden box with a bronze-colored taffeta bow atop the lid. It looked like a little birthday present.
“What is it?” I breathed, and he looked down at it for a moment, then back up at me.
“What does it look like?”
“Like a box.”
“Then that’s what it is. Open it up. Find out what’s inside!” he squealed with delight, a feline sound that matched the pitch of the wind singing through the pines.
My numb fingers reached forward and lifted the box, no longer than an inch and a half. I opened it and became certain that this was all a dream. I wondered, in a moment of sublime madness, if I was in a coma like Stephen, or trapped in a long, vivid nightmare. Inside the box was a perfectly preserved bit of my past—a petit four cake. When Lea and I were little, the bank our dad worked at was next to a bakery. When Mom called and told him we’d been good that day, he’d come home with petit fours, one for everyone in the family. When he got a job elsewhere, those delightful little confections disappeared from our lives. Yet here one was. Baked in the exact style that store had made them in. The same iced roses, the same shape. There was no mistaking it.
“Where did you get this?” I gasped, shielding the sweet from the rain with the lid.
“I told you, I made it for you. In return for your generosity. Go on. Eat it up. I know you’ll find it to your liking,” Jiji purred.
“It’s poison, isn’t it?” My head was starting to reel. The petit four was giving off a strong, sugary scent that made my mouth water and lust after its taste. I somehow knew its flavor would perfectly match my memories. The more I breathed in its aroma, the dizzier I felt.
“What do you mean by ‘poison?’” he questioned, confused.
“It’ll make me sick. It’ll kill me,” I heard my own voice say. I was frightened most because I was having such a hard time resisting. I wanted that little rose on top, the silky green frosting, the creamy marzipan inside, the fluffy layers of cake….
“It’s not that kind of poison. It will just help you escape. It won’t hurt you. Try some and see….”
WHAT DID IT matter if it was poison, even the kind that would kill me? Felix the cat—the wonderful, wonderful cat—had known that what I craved most was escape, and in those few moments I realized that he was absolutely correct. I wanted to break free of my life as it was.
As this aching longing came over me, I lost control. In a frantic motion, I plucked the cake out of the box and shoved it into my mouth, feverishly chew
ing as the explosion of flavor swept over my tongue. It was worlds better than I remembered, so enticingly delectable that my heart and head fluttered. The light sweetness and soft cream blended together to form an experience I imagined heaven would be like. I wanted it to last forever, but I was so hungry for its taste that I gobbled it down in seconds. After I swallowed, I began to pant. Panic set in. I’d actually done it. There was no going back. Now I’d just have to wait and see what escape really meant.
“Am I gonna be okay?” I wailed, the words spouting from my lips like steam from a kettle. My legs felt weak and I didn’t know whether it was from nerves or if the petit four had reached its destination.
“You’re going to be more than okay. Just let it slide over you…I’ll guide you all the way there….” Salem’s voice soothed, comforting now, evoking memories of youth and safety. I grew even more afraid.
What have I done? What have I done? I’ve got to stop this, somehow.
Drowsiness overwhelmed me and I sank to the ground. The bed of wet needles now seemed like a bed of feathers and silks. I lay my head down as Binx circled me, a shark around a helpless rowboat. He was purring, and the noise lulled me even further toward sleep. The rain sounded softer now and far away, and as my lids grew heavier and blinking them turned laborious, I marveled at how gorgeous the boughs of the trees looked when crystallized by the downpour. If this was dying, then dying was beautiful.
Felix’s circling was hypnotic, and my eyes attempted to track him with each ring he made around my body, which had drawn into the fetal position of its own accord.
What came next is still too foggy for me to remember. It was that sacred zone between waking and sleep, where your mind is just barely clinging on to the things that make sense in the world but looking forward with rapture toward the infinite possibility of dreams and the fathomless peace that lies in the darkness on the other side of them. Years could’ve gone by. I didn’t care. I was in heaven, floating on my little cloud of needles and leaves.
The thing that drew me from my stupor were his green, green eyes. They were above me now, bobbing. The more I focused on them, the higher they got. They beckoned for me to follow, and I did. We rose a few inches, then a few feet into the air, my head feeling like it was filling with helium. I made the mistake of looking down.
I was above my body. I saw it lying there in the mud and rainwater, my chest still rising and falling gently. I tried to scream and it came out as a wave of dark ripples of bent light around me. I was stuck. I couldn’t budge from where I was, and at that point in my life I had never experienced a terror so complete. It felt like hours, hovering there and watching myself sleep, but then I saw his eyes again. They swam into my vision, and that comforting feeling of home quieted my tempestuous heart.
Follow me, the eyes seemed to say, and I found that I could move freely once again. We were swimming now, upward into the air and gaining speed by the second. We pierced through the weepy cloud cover and its halo of mist, then through the atmosphere. I was too stunned by the beauty of the stars to feel afraid now, and as I let those brilliant, cold points of light fill my vision they began to expand. The light was growing, blinding me, but it didn’t hurt at all; it was peaceful. It surrounded me, and I was traveling through it.
I have no memory of the time between then and when I returned to consciousness. My eyes focused and I sat up slowly, a shower of shining sand falling from my hair and shoulders.
I was on a beach with silvery sand. The fragments were fine and sparkled in the rosy light of a velvety, vibrant sunset that looked too beautiful to be real.
The first eccentricity that struck me was that while I was on a beach, I felt none of the unpleasant things about being at the beach—no chill in the wind, no smells of sunbaked kelp, no gnats buzzing around, no sand that crept into my shoes, no sticks or rocks in the surf. The air was sharp and my unfamiliar surroundings uncomfortably clear. The only way I can describe it is that my senses stretched. Sight, smell, touch…everything went farther. I was aware of it, but didn’t feel threatened. Everything was hyper-pleasurable. As this sensation intensified, I saw in the distance a pier with an amusement park perched on it, everything spinning and trickling with rainbows, flooding me with its motion and the sounds of merriment.
“You made it,” a voice purred from behind and I swiveled around to see a placid Felix standing in the sand.
“What did you do to me?” I breathed, more mystified than angry. “Am I dead? Is this heaven?”
“You’re not dead. You’re only sleeping. Well, your body is, back where you left it,” he explained and my brow furrowed.
“But then…what is all this?” I pointed to myself. I looked corporeal. I felt corporeal.
“Your body is the vehicle for your consciousness. That’s what you are now. Consciousness freed from a material prison. Everything you see before you is a product of thought. You are in complete control of this portion of this world. This place is what I call my garden. Except now it belongs to you, Sarah.”
“What? Why? And why does it look this way if I didn’t make it that way?” I demanded, stumbling up to the surf and running my fingers through the waves. It was as warm as bathwater.
“It remained in the condition it was left in by the last person who owned it,” he answered, prancing up to where I stood. There were tiny, bright colored fish swimming in the shallows and he batted at them lazily. “And it’s yours because you fed me. It’s the reward I promised.”
I shuddered from a sudden rush of lightness, as if a great weight had been ripped off my shoulders. It was too good to be true, yet here I was, standing in the middle of it. Proof before my very eyes. Even if this wasn’t really happening, I was perceiving it just as clearly, or perhaps even more clearly, than the real world.
A dark thought halted my reverie. “Wait, will I be here forever?” I worried aloud, and the familiar shook his head.
“This will fade, which is why it is my strong suggestion you start to take advantage of your time here sooner rather than later,” he told me with apparent boredom, then made a small noise of victory as he caught a neon orange fish in his claws and gobbled it down.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to take anything without asking?” I asked, and his stomach-churning grin widened.
“I told you, nothing here is real, but it will all feel real. Go on. Try it. Make something,” he encouraged and I frowned.
He could tell I hadn’t the slightest idea how to do what he’d suggested. He sighed, took up a mouthful of sand, and then leapt into the air. He floated up as if riding the breeze and whirled around to drop the sparkling grains onto my outstretched palm. “Will it, and it shall be.”
“Okay,” I said, concentrating on the sand. I want…more petit fours.
The sand quivered and glowed, then shifted into a cyclone of light that reformed as a silver plate laden with the pastel-colored snacks. I laughed with delight, plucked one off the plate and popped it into my mouth. A symphony of flavor sang on my taste buds, unlike anything I’d ever tasted before. Even the unearthly cake that had brought me here paled in comparison. After I’d had a moment to revel in the joy of such a creation, I finished off the plate with the vigorous appetite of a puppy faced with a full bowl of food.
“And I don’t even feel full!” I exclaimed as I set the ornate silver plate down in the sand. “This is fantastic! This is incredible!” My head was buzzing, the overwhelming possibilities reducing me to a temporary state of shock.
“I told you you’d like it. Now, make more food! Make a whole feast.” The spirit bounced on his paws, leaping up high into the air and floating down gracefully, as if he were sinking through water and not air.
“That is an excellent idea, um—what do I call you? What’s your name?” I faltered, wondering why I’d never bother to ask the creature before this moment.
He stopped bouncing. “I have no name, or at least not one that I can tell you. You must give me one. I’m yours now, after
all.”
My joy wavered. Something about the idea of owning this little demon brought on feelings of trepidation.
“A name? I don’t know. I’ll just call you…Felix. For now, I guess. Until I think of something better,” I said and shrugged, turning back to infinity with avarice. I lifted my hands up like a conductor at his podium, and out of the sand formed a table covered with a silk, embroidered cloth. With more flicks of my fingers, dishes divine and sumptuous materialized out of the gold dust. Apples, grapes, pears, nectarines, peaches, berries—all saturated with sun-given sweetness, luscious and almost bursting with juices—sprang into existence aside braised meats caramelized with glazes of sauce. Massive, moist turkeys surrounded with ruby-bright cranberries, troughs of potatoes, steamy with a light, garlic scent, and ribs dripping with thick sauce followed. There were hot rolls, crumbly cornbread, and soups fit for a king. Icy pitchers of juice, honeyed wines, and jugs of crisp, refreshing water joined the procession. More and more the feast built itself with every food I loved, and when I willed confections that I had never imagined or heard of, they too joined the culinary parade. This pleased me most of all—this strange world wasn’t limited by my own imagination.
I could hold back no longer. Felix and I attacked the table and every last one of the victuals, forsaking any form of manners in our frenzied hunger. We ate like hyenas upon a fresh kill, and not even for an instant did a feeling of sickness or tightness of the belly come upon me. When I had finished with the feast, I threw myself down into the sand, laughing in disbelief and contentment, with the satisfying sensation that I’d finished a moderately sized meal. Just as I grew sleepy while enjoying the tapestry of dusty colors that was the eternal sunset, Felix’s bright eyes came into my vision.
Unreal City Page 4
