These things hiding in the smoke stood and reached, feasting on the body that lay trapped by age and sickness and sleep.
Umbra waited, quiet as a mouse, as they kneeled and bent. Steps from her, Gran’s housecoat was lifted as they laid their hands on her body before more teeth bit and more tongues licked and more mouths sucked and more lips kissed. Her knees, her legs. The pale skin around her belly button. Her sagging boobies. Heads even pushing close to her super-duper secret private place. Lips spreading and jaws stretching and throats swallowing as her strength, her energy, her health was eaten. All she was, everything except her actual body, her life, being bit and crunched and chewed with the weird, soft sound of sucking and licking and savoring.
A moment later, these things lifted their heads, their eyes finding her as she watched silently. She breathed, nice and calm. Returned their gaze. Their lips curled into small grins, the lips wet with spit and the sweat from Gran’s flesh.
As she stood there, something told her she would be okay. Both she and Gran. Something let her know that they wouldn’t come close to her. She had nothing to worry about. Gran was who they wanted and they wouldn’t kill her. No, there’d be no death. She knew that. No one would die. Not tonight.
A moment after that, the heads returned to the body. The licking, the tasting, the sucking and nibbling, the feasting, started again. Gran a buffet for the shifting, quivering, wavering strangers crawling all over each other as they fought through the smoke to crowd the old woman sleeping in the chair.
She moved away, nice and slow. Her feet feeling heavy and thick, she walked backward to her bedroom. Her fingers trembling, she turned the doorknob. Calmly, she went into her room and, once safe, closed the door. Tight.
Taking a deep breath, she looked to the stain that wasn’t a stain.
And she remembered.
Señor Sanchez. Standing in front of her on a summer day as she sat outside. It was hot. And dusty. He was trying to give her ice cream. Or candy. He was big. This large dark thing blocking the sun as he squatted and tickled her ankle with his finger. She remembered his dusty cowboy boots. His shiny belt buckle. His tummy too big for his shirt and his moustache looking sweaty and gross. His face wrinkling as he smiled. His teeth big and yellow as he came close to her. Too close, his lips wet as he tried to press them to hers, his breath smelling like beer and cigarettes as he nudged his nose against her cheek.
Mi muñeca, he’d said, the words an urgent whisper. Tan tierno—
The ground moving. She remembered. It had lurched and shivered. Cracked in a cloud of dust. The sky blue, but black. Shadows where there shouldn’t be shadows. And the ground not breaking as hands, like old people hands, came and grabbed Señor Sanchez with his shiny belt buckle and dusty boots and his tummy too big for his shirt. She remembered how fast it was. And how skinny and dangerous the hands looked. The hands that grabbed him. They looked like claws, but only without fur. Like human claws. Like skeletons who lived under the ground had reached up, covered in dirt and vines and the roots of trees, to find him and and stop him and pull him down. The fingers skinny, the arms nothing but bones, the nails long and sharp and yellow. Like Gran’s.
She’d forgotten this. She’d forgotten him. She’d forgotten how quickly the ground had swallowed him and his ice cream—yes, it was ice cream because it had melted and dripped on his hand and she’d thought that looked gross—and how the sky had gone back to being blue and the ground stopped moving and how she’d just sat there getting burned in the sun.
“Did I do that?” She stopped and looked at the stain. Saw nothing. No face, no eyes. No lips pressing forward to open and speak. “Not just with Gran, but back then? With this Señor Sanchez?”
Silence, the stain nothing but a stain.
“I forgot.” She paused and tried to think. “I don’t think I coulda done that. I was just a baby or something, you know?”
She watched the stain. “I’ve been bad a long time, I think.” She traced it, running her finger all around the edge. Wondered if it tickled. “I can say that to you because you’re a friend. I think that maybe sometimes I can be sorta bad. Sometimes.” She thought again of Sanchez and stopped. “That there, outside in the living room, is it bad, too?”
Nothing.
“It can’t be. Because if she dies, they’ll make me leave. And I don’t want to leave.” She felt like moving close. Like pressing her cheek against it or kissing it or something. Anything to get it to listen. “Do you want me to leave?”
Again, nothing.
“I don’t want to leave.” She crawled into bed and lay down as the things in the wispy smoke on the other side of the door ate away at her last link to something normal and safe.
“I’ve told you all my secrets and you’ve told me nothing.” She closed her eyes. “Maybe I should go. Maybe I don’t belong. Maybe I’m wrong about you. About us.” She sighed. “Maybe you’re not a friend after all.”
***
She was wrong.
Coming home from school, she’d turned the corner, her backpack slung over her shoulder, a new book from the library under her arm. Yet another she’d read aloud and hoped the stain would enjoy, as if it even cared. And in front of the corner store, she’d looked up and stopped.
And here she stood on Eidolon, still, across the street from the building.
They lived in what Gran called a tenement. But it wasn’t like the others. Where the other buildings held each other up, the two walls smooshed into one, theirs sat separate with alleys on either side. If the grass wasn’t so tall or the mud so deep, or if there weren’t tons of flies buzzing around piles of empty liquor bottles and poopy baby diapers, she’d be able to walk around it, her arms stretched, her fingers touching brick on both sides.
But today?
She was seeing the stain that wasn’t a stain as it really was.
It sat on the building, this thing.
Like a blanket, it fell like a mist, but thicker. This darkness like a cloud that not even the wind could take. It was black and looked almost solid, but she guessed it wasn’t. Shivering and shuddering, it swayed like fabric over all five floors, unrolling to rest on the sidewalk before spilling to the curb.
No one noticed it. No one stopped and looked and talked about the dark sheet hanging over her building. It was as if only she could see it. As if only she was special enough and trusted enough with this greatest of great secrets.
Standing there, she forgot she had to pee. Or that her tummy rumbled for dinner. Or that she was so very tired. She forgot that she was dreading climbing the stairs and walking into the smell of dust and old person and wet peppermint candy.
“This is you, isn’t it?” She watched it breathe with the breeze. “You can tell me. I’m your friend. I love you. This is you, right?”
Yes.
She heard it speak. Heard it find the words it needed to talk with her. She closed her eyes. It was still her friend. She felt the tears come. But these were tears she wanted. Tears she welcomed. These were happy tears, her heart soaring, her smile the biggest it had been in what felt like forever. Despite the nights of silence, the days of quiet as she’d stood there begging it to speak, to trust her, to show her she was loved and that she mattered to someone, to something, now she knew without a doubt that it was still a friend and it loved her.
And she loved it.
Even from across the street, she could feel its pulse thump and its blood pump. Feel it turn its head and stretch its limbs. Caught its breath as it lifted her hair and cooled her face. Smiled when it kissed her cheek.
“I can see you.” From beneath the dark blanket, it lifted its head. Turned to her. Like it’d heard. Like it’d followed her voice. Like it knew her. The darkness rose and fell as it breathed. As if it was waiting for her.
Her heart racing, her backpack lying in a puddle next to her feet, she watched it, trying to think of something to say, something to do.
“I know this is you,” she finally said. �
�I’m coming.” She shrugged the backpack over her shoulder and, the clouds in the sky rumbling with thunder, ran across the street to the door, her eyes on the darkness above. For a moment her vision dimmed as she passed beneath the black sheet. Her breath held, she paused.
There was another world here. Between the dark only she could see and the cold rain running over the brick. A world of hidden things. Of things that moved slow. Like her. A world of lost things. Lost dreams. Lost loved ones. Lost lives. Lost hopes. A place of regret and misery. A frightening world of shadow where things wandered and reached, always searching, never finding.
In this dark, lips whispered words she couldn’t hear. Were she to turn, she’d almost catch these strangers standing, watching, waiting, weeping.
“What is this?” She placed her hand on the door.
My skin.
She ran her hand over the metal, her fingers dipping into the dents, dings and scratches. Running over the thin iron bars that trapped the small window. Her hands even lying flat on the wet brick, the cold rain racing down her fingers, along her wrist, into her palm and past the sleeve of her rain coat.
She smiled. “This is your skin?” She pressed her face to the metal, the brick. Breathed in the cold and wet and rain. “And these people, these ghosts. Everyone here, are they you, too?”
My blood.
“They are your blood, the ghosts. And this, the door, the brick, the building, this is your skin.” She slid her key in the lock and gently turned the knob. “I understand.”
The door slamming behind her, she wandered down the hall past the mailboxes, her fingers tracing the dingy red tile on the walls. Her steps heavy and slow, she made her way to the stairs and, trusting her steps, trusting her friend to guide her, her hand gripping the wood railing, she climbed, her eyes closed.
“And this?” Pausing at the top on the first floor, she leaned into the smooth yellow wall. Felt how cool it was. Inhaled the musty smell. Didn’t care that her cheek would come away dirty and smudged. “This wall, what is this?”
My bones.
She smiled. Staring down the hall, she saw the apartments. Five on each floor. Five floors, five doors. The secrets of . . . wait, five times five equals . . . twenty-five . . . twenty-five strangers, maybe more, in this whole building, all opening with a simple knock. So many secrets, so many lives, so many mistakes. So much to learn.
“These walls, are all these walls your bones?” One arm holding the book to her chest, her backpack over her shoulder, she walked. “And outside, the building, the brick, that’s your skin?” Her hand ran along the wall. “And the ghosts, their whispers, are they your blood?”
Her fingers inched over the walls, the doors, as she moved down the hall, her footsteps slow and careful, her body buzzing with excitement. A moment later, she stopped in front of her door.
The place where she lived.
The place where it lived.
The place where they lived.
She was home.
She snuck in. Gran sat snoring in her chair, the TV on mute, the cheap screen a glowing square of static. Her faded housecoat still stained with soup and spit and sick. Her thin hair still devil’s horns of white standing on end. The lights on the ceiling flickered and popped.
Seven steps later, she was in her room. The stain waited on the wall. Backpack dropped by the door, the book, which felt kinda stupid now, tossed on the bed, her thin coat shrugged off, dropped and forgotten, she stood in front of it.
“Your skin, your blood, your bones.” She laid her hand on the wall next to the stain. “This what you are? This is who you’ve always been?” She moved near and closed her eyes. “So it wasn’t me. Before. With Mom and Dad. With Miranda. Was it you? Is that how it happened? Was it us? Together?” She paused. She could feel its breath rising and falling. She breathed with it. Could almost feel it moving. Could sense the bubble in the middle expanding. “You can tell me.”
It didn’t respond.
“It’ll be our secret. I promise.” She waited, willing it to talk, afraid she’d lost it. The brown circle sat in front of her. She caressed it. “This brown stain, here, is it . . . ?” She paused as she tried to remember other body parts, other things it might be. “Is it your face?” Her mind flustered and her tummy grumbling, she gave up. “Please, tell me.”
My heart.
“I like it.” She smiled and pressed her lips to it. Waited for lips to kiss her back. Pulled away to look at the familiar round spot on the wall, but saw nothing. No face, no eyes, no lips.
“What do you want?” She waited, the minutes ticking by. From the living room the TV static crackled and snapped. The lights above dimmed and then grew bright. Somewhere on Eidolon a baby cried and a woman shouted and a horn blared as a car splashed the puddles on the street below. Gran snored and, waking quickly, cleared her throat. Distant thunder rumbled from the dark, heavy sky.
“You want something. I know you do.” She traced her finger over the stain. Felt its warmth. Felt it buzzing and jumping with life. “What can I do to help?”
It grew quiet. She pressed closer. Took a deep breath. Ignored the smell of dust and rotting walls. Tried to forget the sharp bite of the mold growing in the corners and the constant chill of the rain outside.
All she wanted was to hear it speak again.
“I’m your friend. And I love you.”
Sudden silence. The baby quiet. The cars quiet. All of Eidolon quiet on this rainy Monday afternoon as she waited for this piece of the puzzle to snap into place. Hunger stabbed her stomach. She swallowed, trying to ignore her craving for a cheese sandwich.
It didn’t work.
“I’m hungry.” She leaned her forehead against the stain. “It’s not even four o’clock yet, but I’m hungry.” She wanted to eat, but was afraid to leave. Was afraid of losing it forever. “Are you hungry?”
Yes.
She breathed a sigh of relief and grinned. Her fingers stroked it, calm and gentle. The bubble shifted and spread beneath her palm. “You’re hungry.”
Her fingers ran over the stain as it split, the circle of brown opening with a gentle tear, sticky strings of something clear and white and pink stretching from the sudden wound. “Me, too.” The tear became two lips. Thin and long, they pressed together as they moved and lengthened. Flexed and found themselves, bulging with the hint of a thick tongue running along a row of hidden teeth.
She traced the lips with her fingertips. Light and gentle. She wasn’t afraid. She knew it loved her. And she loved it. She was safe. “You’re safe,” she said to the stain and then wondered why. Of course it was safe.
The lips stopped. Held still.
She took her fingers away and grinned.
Somewhere on Eidolon, the baby cried again. She listened, the sudden noise sounding far away and hollow. Like it was coming from behind a closed door at the end of a very long hall. She waited for it to grow quiet again. But probably hungry and maybe stuck in a poopy diaper, the baby cried louder, the noise becoming almost a scream.
The lips on the wall parted as the stain let out a sigh.
The crying stopped, the sharp silence almost shocking.
She looked back at the stain. Imagined the baby with a bottle shoved between its lips. “I need to eat, too. We should eat.” She thought again of her cheese sandwich and wondered if it’d like some. “Can you eat?” Then she wondered if it actually could eat. “You don’t have any hands or fingers. How can you eat? Do you need my help?”
The lips slowly spread in a dangerous baring of small, sharp teeth.
“Okay.” She put her finger to her lips and kissed it. “I’ll help you.” And then, the little clock on her bedside table clicking over as the minutes changed, her finger lightly touched the teeth as she gave it a kiss.
“Let’s eat.”
Monday, 3:24 PM
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