by Rae, Nikki
I’ll be here.
It seems to take me so long to detach myself from him. Eventually my fingers loosen, feeling so cold with my hand at my side that I have to wrap my arms around myself.
I take the elevator to our floor, knocking a few times when I get to the door, but I don’t get a response. “Jade?” I ask. “It’s me.”
I try the handle, growing more and more panicked, scared that something has happened to him, that Michael has finally found us and he’s chosen Jade this time. The metal is warm in my hand, and I realize that it wouldn’t take much for me to break it. However, I find that when I concentrate more, I can look just beyond the door, to the other side, where the screws keep the handle in place. I imagine them coming off, falling gently to the ground. I can also hear breathing on the other side of the door and it puts me at ease but doesn’t make me any less urgent.
I lean down on the handle now, and it comes off in my hand. The door silently opens after that, and I look around for witnesses, my pulse pounding in my throat. The only people around are down the hall, talking too loudly to each other to hear anything else.
I quickly replace the doorknob and screws, shutting the door behind me as soon as I’m done.
Jade is sitting in the chair at the table, leaning his head against his hand, staring at the floor. His bag is resting at his feet, right next to mine.
“Jade?” I ask, afraid to stay by the door, but afraid to move closer. “What are you doing? The bus is almost ready to leave.”
He doesn’t look up at me. “I know,” he says. “I was ready to leave, and I got everything together and then…” He shifts in the chair, finally looking at me. His eyes are rimmed in red. It looks like he spent more time crying than sleeping. “But then I started thinking.”
I place my palms flat against the door.
“Thoughts are hard to get around these days, you know?”
I nod. “I know.”
He gulps. “And then, as soon as I’m done thinking through one thing, like Stevie being gone, there’s something else staring me in the face. Like how he’s been visiting me this entire time.”
I take a step forward, but the look he shoots in my direction tells me he doesn’t want me any closer. I sit on the bed.
“You’re okay and then you’re not okay,” he says. “Myles is supposed to help you and then he’s the one who put you in this situation. Michael isn’t a threat and then he’s following you, hunting you down. Dad walked out on us because he was a selfish asshole and then no, that’s not the reason at all.” There are tears in his eyes again and he has a wry smile on his face.
“Do you want me to keep going? I could go on for hours if you want.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He throws his hands in the air. “What are we even doing, Sophie?”
I shrug. “Trying to survive? Trying to be normal when everything is screwed?” I smile a little. “You pick.”
Jade laughs a tiny bit. “Okay.” He rubs his eyes. “Can I put in a third option?”
“Sure.”
“How about we’re trying to get through today and tomorrow so we can go home and then deal with the actual problems in our lives?”
I nod. “That sounds pretty good to me.”
He finally stands up, slinging his bag over his shoulder, walking over to me hand handing me mine. I take it, standing up too. “Where’d you go last night?” he asks. “Do I need to know?”
I smile. “Myles found me.”
He nods to himself. “So,” he says. “Are you okay now?” He places a hand in front of him before I can speak. “I don’t need details, okay?”
I can’t blame him. “I’m fine now,” I say. “Really this time. We...figured it out.”
My brother smiles but I can tell it’s a hard thing for him to do. He places an arm around my back and we walk to the elevator together.
***
The dream begins again, but this time, it’s different. Time has passed. Years. I don’t know how I know this and no one is here to tell me, but I know it as a fact. My body is taller, stronger. And though I haven’t eaten anything in an immeasurable amount of time, I find that I’m not hungry. I don’t want food, exactly. I’m still in the dirt, in the hole mother dug for me, but I am strong now. Strong enough to climb up the walls and dig my way out.
Our hut is dimly lit by two torches situated at its entrance. I can feel the earth in my hair, ears, and mouth. But I like it. I am part of it and it is part of me. It has made me strong when I was supposed to weaken and die.
“Micaiah?”
When I turn around, my mother is standing there. Her long, golden hair flowing, bits of leaves and dirt in its fibers. “You’ve come home, my son,” she says, standing from her straw mat and out stretching her arms. “You have come to help us.”
I do not question what she says. I do not wonder what the words mean. All I know is that when I see her coming toward me, I cannot help letting myself become enclosed by them. The sounds fill my head as soon as our skin has made contact. A steady, ongoing thump, deep in the pit of my soul. The steady pumping of her blood, calling to me, telling me that I am home. Welcoming me.
It is easy, slitting through her throat, especially with the new teeth the Earth gave me while we were so close, when we were brother and brother. Mother and son. It is warm, enveloping me, making my skin break out in cool bumps that I have always associated with fear but now it is different. Calm. My entire body is calm and there is nowhere else I am supposed to be.
“Beast,” she says. “Night walker.” The words break me free of my swimming head and I pull away from mother abruptly, her life flowing over my mouth and chin. Her body is limp in my arms. I know somewhere in me that I’ve killed her, but I am not bothered by it. She who sent her child to the earth. I was reborn into something more, as she wanted it to be, and that something more is a monster capable of murder.
When I open my eyes, Father is standing in the doorway; the light from the torches illuminates half his face. I wonder if I look like him, now that I have grown with the earth to be stronger and older.
Father wastes no time picking the torch up from where it is embedded in the ground.
“Back,” he says, waving it in my face.
I should be afraid of fire. I should be afraid that Father will burn me, hurt me, kill me.
But the earth has made me fearless. The ground has covered me and brought me back to life. It will not let anything harm me, much less its sister, fire.
I take a step forward, and Father does not hesitate to swing.
Though I feel the heat and burn of the flame against my cheek and in my hair, I feel no pain. I can smell my own skin burning as father drops the torch, and just as he did not hesitate, neither will I in seizing his throat in my hand.
“Micaiah.” He says my name in a strained gasp. “No. You are not supposed to harm us,”
I want to speak with him, but I cannot use words. I have not used words in quite some time.
“You were supposed to save us.”
I squint and I can see into him like I am looking into a river. I can see every rock and creature beneath the ripples. I can hear every cry he has prepared to plead for his life.
I find that I am hungry now. Starved.
He has just what I want, so I will take it like they have taken my human life away from me.
When I am done with Father, I will go to another hut and find another and another.
Their blood is mine and the earth has given it to me. I am a child of dirt and blood and moonlight now, and I will not be stopped.
***
“Sophie?” I can hear Myles, somewhere next to me. I can feel his hand wrapped tightly around my forearm, gently trying to shake me awake.
Then I feel his hand on my head and a slight tingle against my temple. “Open your eyes,” he whispers.
I do, though I don’t know where I am when I take in the scenery. I seem to be underneath some kind of bridge and whate
ver’s under me is soft and cool. It’s still sunny outside and I can see the bus, though it’s miles away, still parked in front of the hotel.
“Shit,” I say. “How did we get here?”
Myles sits up, leaning my body against his until he’s sure I can sit up on my own. “We were getting on the bus and you just took off,” he says. “I caught up to you and you said you needed to be in the earth.”
I take a deep breath, once again looking around. I notice now that the sand I’m sitting in is darker. Damp.
“And then you just started digging,” Myles says. “You wouldn’t respond to anything I said.”
I shake my head, trying to shake free the dream–memory from before.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. Am I supposed to get up? Ask questions? Or keep digging?
In the end, I do none of these things. I collapse against Myles. He’s the only solid thing right now that makes sense. When he touches me, everything is once again quiet. Everything is simple. I bury my head in his chest, wishing for the millionth time that we were both somewhere else, some other people, living normal lives where things weren’t constantly ripping apart.
“I’m sorry,” I say into his shirt. “I just...”
“Shh,” Myles cuts me off. “Don’t.”
“But...” I say, everything from the day before clouding my head.
“No,” he cuts me off again. “Just a few more minutes.” He rests his chin on top of my head. “Please.”
I can’t argue with it. I can’t find it in me to want to shrug him off and face everything when it’s crashing down around us, when the walls are moving in. I know he feels it too. How close Michael is. How easy it will be.
We sit like that without saying anything for the longest time. There are sounds around us. Cars passing overhead, the distant hum of the bus. I close my eyes, wanting to sink deep down into the mud. Down, down, down.
“No,” Myles whispers, and the tone of his voice tells me that he’s heard my thoughts once again. “You don’t want to do that. You need to stay here with me and Jade. Remember?”
I sniff, refusing to let the tears fall. I can’t cry anymore.
“Jack told me Michael raped me,” I whisper into his arm. “That he used his body.”
Myles’ muscles tense, but not enough to hurt me.
“Can you think of a reason why he would do that?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer for a long time. “Yes,” he says.
“What, then?” I refuse to break now. I can’t. Not when everyone’s waiting for us and we have to keep moving.
“So you would do the work for him,” Myles whispers. “So you would become so depressed that he wouldn’t have to worry about finding you, about going through me or protectors.”
“So I would kill myself?”
Myles pauses. “He’s done it before.”
We don’t say anything more. We don’t have to. It’s understood: one more thing about my life is a lie. All of the scars I made over it, all of the time I spent trying to shove that monster back in the closet. It’s all different now just like everything else.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Myles says. “I promise.”
I dig my hands into the damp earth. It reminds me yet again of when I ran to the beach while Mom was throwing my crap out of the house and Myles found and brought me back.
“You’ll always find me?” I ask. “Always?” I whisper.
“Yes,” Myles says, wrapping his arm around me even tighter. “Always. No matter what. No matter where you go.” He reaches his hand across my chest where it settles against the scar on my collarbone. Bits of sand scatter down my trench coat. “We’re connected,” he says. “Forever.”
We get back to the bus in record time, thanks to how fast I can run now. They all ask where I went and Myles covers for me, saying that I forgot my phone in the room. The entire bus is wide awake once we start moving, but Myles, Jade and I head straight for the bunks. Once we’re there, sliding the door shut to close off the noise, all three of us just stare at each other, waiting for something.
Jade speaks first. “Are you sure she’s okay?” He’s looking at Myles.
“Yes,” he answers.
“She tell you about the Michael dreams?”
Myles nods. “I guessed as much.”
“Are we okay?”
Myles doesn’t answer, then says, “I’m trying my best.”
I think Jade is going to punch him or yell but instead, he sticks out his hand, which Myles shakes. “Thank you.”
Myles doesn’t look like he knows what to say.
“All you have to do is keep her safe, okay?” Jade says.
“I understand.”
“Good.” My brother yawns, throwing his bag into his bunk. “I think I might be able to sleep now.”
I clear my throat. “Yeah,” I say. “Us too.”
Jade finally acknowledges my presence by hugging me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says before shutting himself into his bunk.
I lead Myles down to mine, not having to say a word to get him to follow me. I curl myself around him in the tiny space.
Should we tell him? I ask. Should we tell him that Michael’s closer than we thought?
No one’s said it out loud but we both know it. The memories are more frequent now. He’s trying to send me some kind of message.
Myles wraps his arm around me, caging me in his scent. No, he says. Let him have this.
I agree with him before we fall asleep. Before we get to disappear for a few more hours.
This time, the dream isn’t about Michael. It’s about me.
My mom is standing in the doorway of my room, watching me sleep. Her hair is a natural shade of blonde, not the fake platinum color I’ve come to associate with her. The room is the same one I remember from when I was little, done up in sunflowers with light blue curtains and blankets. A little me, with the same color hair as her, sleeps soundly with a teddy bear clutched in her arms.
“Does it hurt?” she’s asking someone.
Myles, the same as he looks now, only his hair is a little bit shorter, appears in the doorway beside her. “No,” he says, a hand on her arm. “Not at all.”
Mom has her palm to her chest, playing with the necklace hanging there. “That’s good,” she mutters to herself. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
He smiles, but it isn’t happy. “You don’t have to stay,” he tells her, taking a step into my room toward the bed. “You won’t remember it anyway.”
Mom nods, a few tears escaping through her eyelashes as she heads down the hall.
Little Me stirs in the bed when Myles sits down. I always was a light sleeper. “Hi,” I say simply, like I was waiting for him the whole time.
“You should be sleeping,” he gently scolds.
“You woke me up.” I rub my eyes with my tiny fists. “I thought you were Daddy.”
Myles takes the bear from the side of the bed. “Did Daddy give you this?” he asks.
Little Me nods, proud.
He sets the bear down next to me and I hug it to my chest. “Then you shouldn’t ever lose it.”
I watch it all happen, and neither of them can see me as I sit down in a rocking chair across the room.
As a spectator to my own memory, I watch as the little girl falls asleep again, I watch as Myles places a hand to her head, whispering into her ear the things she’s supposed to forget.
When it’s over and Little Me is asleep, Myles turns around. He can see me. “Do you want them back?” he’s asking, holding his hands out to me. They’re glowing with yellow light, illuminating his face before they return to normal.
He comes closer.
“I–” I say. “I don’t know.”
Myles looks up at me as he kneels down. “They’re still in there, you know,” he says, looking at the side of my head. “You can tap into them without me.”
I stare at the girl sleeping, peaceful for now, unaware of every
thing ahead of her.
“I just thought you should know that...” he says. “That I didn’t want to do this.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“I know what it’s like to not remember where you came from,” he says. “I didn’t want that for you.” He grabs hold of my hand and tiny shocks of electricity tingle through my fingers. “I just wanted you to be okay,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
I smile, squeezing his hand. “I’m scared,” I tell him.
“Me too.”
The bus comes to a halt, slamming us both out of the bunk without any warning. We’re thrust out of the warm dream and onto the cold floor, neither of us saying anything when we land on top of each other. There’s nothing we can say now.
Peebs slides the door open at the same time that Jade’s sliding open his curtain. “Everyone okay?” he asks.
Myles stands, helping me to my feet. “Yeah,” I say. “You okay, Jade?”
He inches out of his bunk. “Yeah. What was that?”
“We’re here,” Peebs explains. “Had a little trouble squeezing into a parking space.”
“Oh,” Jade says, following him out of the hall, giving me a smile as he slings his bag over his shoulder again.
“You alright?” Myles asks, and I know he’s not asking about the jolt out of bed.
My smile is genuine when I answer. “Yeah.”
He kisses my forehead and we slowly make our way into the main part of the bus.
“Okay,” Manny is saying from the table, his laptop in front of us. “It’s nine and we were supposed to be here at eight. So we’re a little late.” He passes a set list to me. “The bus is going to drop our shit at the hotel so we can sound check.
Boo emerges from the back of the bus at the same time I’m looking down at the songs. “Hope you don’t mind,” he says. “I figured our last night on tour should close with our best song.”
I scan the sheet with the familiar names of songs on it until I’m at the bottom. “Colorblind” is among them.
I smile up at him. “Perfect,” I say.
Myles squeezes my hand as everyone files off of the bus and outside, where there’s a small bar waiting for us, the name “Al’s” painted in red letters above an awning. There’s already a line forming outside and we enter through the back.
