She Lies Twisted

by C. M. Stunich

  I tugged at the black tentacles around my waist but they were solid muscle. I couldn't even get my fingers under them for leverage. The demon behind me shifted and I could hot breath against my neck. I refused to look.

  “Why do you have to go out of your way to make things difficult?” She asked, tapping the flute against the palm of her hand. With my sweatshirt and Boyd's earring and Abe's boots, it was like watching me punish myself. I had always done it, in some form or another. I had punished myself for the deaths of those around me. Now, I was finally starting to get outsider's view on how ridiculous I had been. I'm going to have a revelation and then die. How Shakespearean. “You wanted things to be hard for me. You couldn't just blend in; you had to stand out in the worst way, Tate. What is wrong with you?” I blocked her voice out and went to that place inside my head, the place I'd gone when I'd found Boyd dead.

  Just as I found myself in a meadow with gently swaying daisies and a blanket with the world's best picnic, an arrow shattered my concentration and drew me back. It struck the baboon demon in the chest, knocking him away from James just as Nethel landed in the grass, light as the feathers that coated her skin and wings. Ehferea fired a second arrow and I watched in horror as it came straight at my face-- and then past it.

  The arrow struck the thing behind me and I found myself falling

  I landed on the ground with a grunt and sucked in what was maybe not a needed but certainly much wanted breath.

  Jessica was watching the harpies without much interest. She wasn't afraid of them and that was the scariest part. She turned back towards me.

  “I'm not done with you,” she whispered softly. “You're my sister and we're meant to be together, you and me and Jarrod. I won't stop until I get that, Tate. I need this.”

  I cringed as a dark shadow passed over, swept down and drew Jessica away in taloned claws. The bird demon flapped mustard yellow wings and rose, its beak-less face snarling in warning as it passed by. I watched them go. I watched my sister fly away in the arms of a monster and I couldn't have been happier. I crawled over to James and helped Nethel turn him onto his back.

  “Please be okay,” I whispered aloud as I checked his neck for injuries. There were none, just stitches in a rough line between his shoulder blades and scalp. His eyes fluttered open and he smiled at me, giving me a thumbs up.

  “There are perks to this job,” he joked as he tried to sit up. I started to cry again. James put his arms around me and apologized. I pulled away from him and looked at the harpies, at the injured demon lying next to us, and then back at the mass of tentacles that was twitching by the goal post behind me.

  “We have to find my sister,” I said, relief at the harpies' rescue and dread at the impossible task that was looming before me mixing together into one, hard to read emotion. “And we have to do it fast.”

  James and I released the demons that Jessica had left to their proper places and I found that I knew absolutely nothing about the process that I had thought I was beginning to understand.

  “What happened to the dragonfly demon?” I had asked James as Nethel had handed me the bag with the harp. As soon as my fingers had closed around the purse, I had felt a sense of peace. It really was a part of me, just like the flute was a part of Jessica. This was going to make things even harder than I'd thought.

  “I released her,” James had said with a tight lipped smile. “To the next life.” I raised my eyebrow. His smile had warmed a bit as I'd removed the harp. Apparently, he had known about it all along. He'd just been waiting for me to tell him myself. I felt ashamed. “Some demons are made when a summoner pulls them back from the Library too soon and some,” he'd paused and shaken his head. “Some are left too long without guidance and they become demons, too. That girl, that 'dragonfly demon,' she'd finished at the Library and been brought back by a summoner. The grim reaper that was supposed to pass her on didn't do his job.” Nethel had smiled and helped me to my feet.

  “I see you've come up with your own terms, transitioner,” she'd said as James wrinkled his nose.

  “Transitioner and gatekeep were too old fashioned. I just spiced it up a bit.” I'd wanted to smile at his joke but couldn't, I was just drained, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I had a lot to think about. They'd all gone quiet after that. Nethel and Ehferea had left with a promise to check up on us and get some more information on Jessica's whereabouts. They hadn't mentioned Sydney.

  “So,” James began as he helped me over the wall. I knew he was just as tired but I couldn't find the strength to do it myself. “Do you want to hear a story?” He was trying to be lighthearted but there was a catch in his voice that drew my attention. I straddled the wall and stared down at him.

  “What about?” I asked, my voice as dry as bones. I needed to sleep again. Whatever it was, I hoped it could wait. James looked down at his feet and I knew instantly. “Sydney,” I said. He nodded. I bit my lip. I wanted, almost needed, to know about Sydney. I felt like it was my first step to understanding and coming to terms with Boyd. I didn't know why but my gut promised me that. Still, it was going to be emotional and it was going to hurt. I'd had a lot of hurt for one night.

  “James,” I said, trying to soften my voice, make it sweet as petals. “Let's go home, let's get some sleep. In the morning I-” I couldn't finish my sentence. It was caught in my mouth like peanut butter. I swallowed to clear it. “In the morning, I want you to tell me everything and I...I want to tell you about Boyd.”

  He looked up at me, his hair reflecting the stars, and held out a hand. I helped him up the wall with a bit of strength I hadn't known I'd had left.

  “We're going to make a great team,” he said as we paused on the stone wall and stared at each other. I was too hurt to say it out loud but I thought it.

  We already are.

  I sat on my bedroom floor, flipping through albums that my mother had put together in a hysterical frenzy after my father had died. I'd only been three years old but I remembered. I could still see the frenzied glint in her eyes and the shimmer of unshed tears. She had plastered picture after picture after picture of Abe and Jessica and Jason and me. I touched a picture of Jessica, sitting on our floral print couch, with a swaddled baby Jason wrapped in her arms. Dad was sitting next to them, smiling down at them like only a parent can do. I barely remembered him at all. I slammed the album shut, coughing at the wave of dust that floated throughout the room, highlighted by the bright bars of sun cutting through the window panes.

  I stood up and brushed myself off, carefully replacing the album on the shelf next to a glass clown and a box of arrowheads. I was going to have to go downstairs sooner or later and talk to James. He was going to tell me a story that was going to break my heart and then I was going to have to tell him mine. I checked the time. It was already past noon. I was wasting time that I didn't have. I sighed and unlocked my door.

  After we'd come home last night, we had retreated to our respective bedrooms without another word. I'd fallen asleep in my muddy clothes and woke up in the middle of the night itching from stray blades of grass and clumps of dirt. I'd torn the sheets from my bed and changed into another one of my inspiring hoodie-jean outfits. I didn't feel safe sleeping in pajamas. Pajamas were soft and vulnerable and spoke of comfort and home. I didn't have that sense at all anymore.

  I paused on the top step and bit my lip. Somebody was cooking. I could smell butter and bacon and very faintly, I could hear the sound of a hot pan sizzling. I took the steps two at a time and found James, complete with one of my grandmother's white lace aprons, at the stove.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him, surprised but pleased. I hadn't had anyone cook for me in years. James glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled. His hair was freshly washed and he'd found new clothes to wear. The jeans had been Jessica's but I was surprised to see how good he looked in them. I tried to grin, I liked guys in girls' pants, but the sadness from last night swept over me at the last moment and stole the happiness f
rom my face. Why, whenever I made progress in my life, did it have to be taken away again?

  I sighed and sat down.

  “I hope you don't mind me using your kitchen,” James said as he turned his attention back to the cooking. “But there wasn't much to eat that didn't need some heating up.” I rested my cheek on the tabletop and tried not to stare at his ass. What the fuck is wrong with you? I asked myself, guilt and confusion fighting for supremacy. Your sister tried to kill you last night. For the second time. I huffed in response to his question and turned my face towards the wall. I wasn't acting like myself and I didn't like it. That's what happens when you have a revelation, I told myself. You change.

  “Make yourself at home,” I added when I heard the clatter of plates on the kitchen counter. I hadn't meant it to sound so...bitchy. I raised my head and watched James' face drop. I tapped my fingers on the table and tried to lighten the mood. “Um, did you sleep okay?” I asked in my nicest voice. James nodded but didn't speak. Is that the best you can do? “I just wanted to say thank you,” I added, hoping that I was making the right decision by bringing up last night. “For saving me.” I could still see the knife, reddened with Jessica's blood. I shivered. James smiled again and with the way his stitches stretched and pulled the skin taut against his face, I could tell it was genuine.

  “You're welcome,” he told me as he lifted the pancake from the pan and presented it to me with a flourish. I smiled back.

  “Thanks.” James sat down and we ate in silence. The conversion we were supposed to have pushed aside for the moment. We needed to do it but it was going to be hard. Procrastination seemed like the safest option.

  “I was thinking,” he said as he finished his food and placed both of our plates in the sink. I expected him to leave them there and was shocked to see him pump pearly soap onto a sponge and lather it up. What a fucking saint. “Maybe in a little while we could go out and...” He paused, dried the first plate and placed it on the counter next to him. “Maybe we could find Sydney.” I almost choked. He glanced back at me and I nodded.

  “Why the change of heart?” I asked him quietly. My heart was pumping so loud I hoped he wouldn't hear it. James finished with the other plate and replaced the apron on the nail by the doorway to the living room. He adjusted the black “Providence High School” sweater he had borrowed and sat down across from me. He reached out his hands and pulled mine closer to him. I let him.

  “I want to show you something,” he said and I waited in anticipation as he drew a small wallet out from inside the sweater pocket. He opened it with one hand and handed the cracked leather over to me. Inside the plastic covering was a picture of a girl. She had her arm around his waist and grinned back at me from behind a curtain of ebony hair. This is Sydney. I swallowed a lump and flipped to the next picture. Sydney, her slanted eyes narrowed suspiciously was dressed in a red cape and a black gown, curling her finger towards the cameraman who I could only assume was James. Next shot, Sydney, asleep on a bus, her pale skin soft in the blush of afternoon light streaming through the window. I closed the wallet and handed it back to him.

  “Why are you showing me this?” I asked. James replaced the wallet and squeezed my hands in his.

  “Last night, I saw the way she hurt you, Neil.” I closed my eyes but James wouldn't let me. “Look at me, Neil, please. This is hard enough. I have to know that you're here or I can't do it. I've never told anyone else this before.” I opened my eyes and watched his fill with tears. He dashed them away with the back of his hand. “I saw your face change the moment you knew she'd put her own interests before yours. I can't do that to Sydney. Keeping her around, following her, just so I can look at a demon that isn't even really her anymore...That isn't love, Neil, and I love her.” I nodded but didn't speak. His voice was killing me, ripping me apart, but it was also putting me back together again. It was a painful process.

  “Sydney and I have been...” James paused. “Had been friends since we were in sixth grade.” He grimaced and I could see the use of the past tense was cutting him like a knife. “We were always together. We used to sit together and play Monopoly for hours. She'd never let me stop without finishing the game.” James' face started to transform as he talked about his friend. Some of the sadness was slipping away, cloaked in memories. “That was one of the things I liked best about her; she always finished what she started. She was a big xylography fan, too, and she always told me she liked my work, even if I didn't believe she did.” I still had no idea what xylography was but I couldn't bear to interrupt him. His face was blooming like a rose in the spring. Love. That was what love looked like and it was beautiful. I promised myself that I would look it up later. James was rubbing my hands with his thumbs. It was weird at first, to be touched like that, but I decided that it also felt good. I could sense his feelings for Sydney in his touch and I resonated with that.

  “Anyway,” he continued, nibbling at his stitches and glancing down at the white tiles on the floor. “Things were perfect until we hit high school.” He looked up at me sharply and I could see the petals wilting. This is where the story began to sour. “People just couldn't understand that we were only friends. They didn't get that the love we had was special. It wasn't like a girlfriend, boyfriend sort of a thing, some stupid high school fling that gets forgotten like it's nothing. This was special.” James ground his teeth at the memory and it was like looking in a mirror. Boyd and I had been like that but no one got it but us. I squeezed James' hands tighter.

  “Or maybe only I saw it like that because Sydney, she...she wanted it to be more but I just couldn't. It wasn't like that for me. I loved her but I didn't...you know, I didn't want it to be like that.” James watched my face closely, desperate for some sign that I understood. What he didn't realize is that we were the same, me and him. Boyd had loved me like that. I hadn't. It didn't mean I loved him any less, just different. All I could do was nod.

  “So I...” James blushed and pulled his hands back. The silence between us became awkward for the first time since we'd met. Whatever it was he wanted to tell me wasn't going to be easy. Your story can't be any worse than mine, I thought with a sudden stab of fear. I was going to have to tell it soon. I was going to have to peel back my ribcage and let him see my heart. As I watched the anxiety swarm across his face, I froze up, promised myself I couldn't do it. How can he even stand it? I wondered as he looked pointedly back at me. His eyes were boiling over with determination. He wanted to do it but it was going to be hard.

  “So I had...so we...we...” He waited, hoping I would supply the words, hoping that I would figure it out for myself so he wouldn't have to say it. I waited, my back tense, my spine ramrod straight. What was he trying to say? Please, don't let it be that. “So I had sex with her because that's...that's what she wanted...” I almost threw up. I almost leaned down and put my head between my legs and emptied my soul on the floor. Why is he a reflection of my life? How did those fucking harpies know we were the perfect match in misery? James babbled on, mistaking my silence for judgment. How wrong he was.

  “She said it wouldn't mean anything, that she just wanted to try it, that we should be each other's first because we were so close and I...I should've told her no but I didn't and then afterward, I felt guilty.” James stood and paced across the room to look out the window. I stayed seated, facing towards the living room and away from him. I didn't need to hear the rest, I already knew what happened. I'd seen it myself. “Things were different then. She was different, I was different and so I started avoiding her...” He trailed off and didn't continue for the longest time. I counted seconds in my head and watched the numbers on the stove move upwards.

  “Some of my memories are fuzzy,” James whispered softly. “Like they're underwater and I'm looking at them from above but the day she died, that's as clear to me now as the day I lived it.” He leaned over the sink and closed his eyes. “I had just crossed the street towards my house. School had gotten out and I was trying to leave be
fore she saw me. We'd always walked home together but lately, it hadn't felt right. I think she expected things to change between us but I just wanted them to go back to the way they were.” He whirled around and stared at me, fat drops rolling down his face and neck.

  “Do you hate me?” He asked suddenly. I stood up, too, no longer able to sit still.

  “No,” I whispered, my hands shaking. I understood perfectly. I had to tell him that. He had to know I understood and that there was someone just like him out there in the universe who had made the same mistakes and dealt with the same consequences.

  “She called out to me and I ignored her. I pretended I didn't hear,” he said and his voice began to quiver, to shake like a bridge in an earthquake. It was trying to stay strong but when your foundations are struck, you crumble. “She chased after me and I saw it coming. I tried to warn her but it was just seconds between my voice and the crash. She was so bloody and broken, Neil.” James was sobbing now. I went to him like he'd come to me last night and held him while he cried.

  “She was bloody and broken and when they took her to the hospital, she never woke up. I can't forget the sound of the metal and the crack of bone on pavement, Neil. It haunts me in my sleep.” I shushed him then and brushed his hair back. That was enough. He had told me all I needed to know.

  “We'll find her,” I whispered, getting the strangest urge to brush a kiss across his forehead. You're going insane. Grief is making you insane. I decided against it. “We'll find her and we'll make things better and when she's done at the library, you can say goodbye and you can tell her you're sorry and that you never meant to hurt her and that you love her so fucking much that it kills you inside.” I stopped when I realized I wasn't just talking about James. I was talking about myself and Boyd. James pulled away and smiled at me.