More than once she thought about leaving Suni, about going back, about Walter. She wanted to touch him, to know he was real, to hear what he had to say after all this time. Even if she’d lived in fear of it all her life. She wished Suni would just stop running, would let her call an ambulance, let her fix him, let her get on with her life.
She wanted to talk to Wally. She had to. Since she was little she’d been living in the shadow of him, never knowing why her parents had given up so much, why they’d changed so much from the happy people they’d been in all those photos, never truly knowing if they loved her or just needed her, never knowing why her life had turned out the way it had. Walter would know. He’d have the answers. She had to get back. But she couldn’t let Suni die. She’d just have to be quick about it.
She jumped the gate and was immediately flanked on both sides by the oppressively dense foliage that bordered the houses. In the moonless dark cast by the overhanging trees, she moved quickly up the hillside, sneakers slipping in the truck tracks, waving mosquitoes from her face. Rounding the first bend she spotted Suni up ahead and running wounded, back slashed and shining blackly. He was in no condition to be moving like that, and yet he was pushing himself.
She tried to pick up her pace, calling out for him as she went; telling him he was going to die if he didn’t stop and get to a hospital.
But still he kept running, barefoot over the broken ground.
Suni felt like he was like coming home, running like this, naked and dying. Nothing hurt. The shivers and the chill helped cut through the fog that was trying to envelop his brain, but he wouldn’t allow himself to pass out. He wanted to be awake for the final flight, to feel the cold wind cut as it swept over him, as he sailed down. As he flew back to where he belonged.
Wings at last.
She made it to the top with her lungs raw and her eyes streaming. She found him close to the other side of the quarry, facedown on a hard white plate of dried mud the trucks used as a congregation point during the day. She watched him pick himself up and continue staggering forward, leaving a man-sized Rorschach blot where he’d lain. Again she called out to him, and again he just kept running. She ran after him, her sides smarting more now for having stopped.
Suni had made it to his boulder—the one he always sat on when he came here—climbed it, and struggled uncertainly to his feet.
The city sprawled below: a sparkling tablecloth—first the scattered lights of the suburbs immediately beneath them, and then the ever-thickening stipple toward the city itself.
Whether he had paused to take in the sight, get his breath, gather his final thoughts or was just struggling to think straight, it didn’t matter; she made it to him before he leapt and locked both hands around his wrist.
“Suni. Don’t.”
“Why?”
“What you’re feeling is because of the ’scope.”
“So?”
“So come down. Please.”
“I don’t think you get it.”
“Come down.”
“You really don’t get it.” He shook her hand free. “I have to go.”
He turned away. She grabbed him again. He didn’t move. “Okay,” he said, and climbed down from his boulder. “You stopped me. Well done.” His chest and legs were powdered with a paste of blood and dried white mud.
“Suni…”
“What will you do now?”
She was still wearing the ’scope. “I’ll make you right.”
The join between Suni’s forefinger and thumb collided with her throat at the same time as his right leg got behind hers. She went down, winded, and Suni was on top of her again.
“You’re not enjoying this, are you. It’s unpleasant. It’s uncomfortable. Things are passing through your head at a mile a minute, most of it you’re probably not even aware of. What I’m doing to you now is fighting for space among all the good memories you’ve got of me. You’re drawing comparisons between me—your friend—and your father, a dead wannabe rapist. Part of you is rearing up, wanting to kill me on principle, another is lying down, allowing me to do what I want because you think you know me. Your dignity is wrestling with the fact that you think I’m not really responsible for what I’m doing. Don’t you get it? There’s no clarity in any of that. There’s no peace. Most of each day is spent in a low-grade state of what you’re experiencing now, crawling through a thousand tiny battles. It’s misery, Hope. And it all rests on just one thing: fear. Of one sort or another. And once you wipe that away, I tell you there’s nothing left. And that’s what we’re all about, Hope. Fear and pointlessness and fear. There is absolutely no use in us being here. So leave me alone. Please.”
Sometimes Hope still wished her grandmother would come visit her, though she’d been dead ten years. She missed her lavender smell, the smell of linoleum and sunshine that had filled her house, the quiet simplicity of her life. Hope wished she could turn around one day and there she’d be, her grandmother, just for a second. Just to see her again and say good-bye.
That’s what looking at Suni was like. A final, stolen glance at the face of a friend you knew to be dead and gone for good.
She swallowed, and nodded, and he let her go. He started climbing back up his boulder. She got to her feet.
“Suni?”
He turned.
Her claws went in through his face, twisting, groping upward for the cerebellum
and Suni’s horrors came
fear of who I am fear of what they’ll do fear of being found fear of discovering who I am fear of what I think fear of what has gone fear of what is fear of what will be fear of being alone fear of pain fear of surprise fear of rejection fear of dismissal fear of failure fear of comparison fear of
she pulled out
gasping
Why was she looking at the sky, listening to echoes?
i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i
Thinking meant fighting. Her hand pulsed. She wanted it off her. She had meant to return what she had taken, but she had only taken more, taken every last thing that was hiding in every corner of his mind. She had just taken on board everything he had.
She was so confused she wanted to be sick.
She had to get up.
Suni was stumbling backward, arms splayed and legs stiff. He bumped into his boulder, plopping down suddenly and awkwardly against its rough surface.
fear of other people’s laughter fear of embarrassment fear of fear of fear of fear of fear of fear
Hope struggled to her feet. She could feel her brain shifting alignment, back and forth, the world slurring with it, the tracking of her eyes all wrong, moving out of sync with the tracking of her head. God how she wanted to be sick.
i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i
Suni’s every foul memory, every unuttered scream, roared inside her head. She couldn’t escape the distorted face of his mother. The ’scope was starving. It wanted more. It wanted what was in her own head. The ’scope wanted to eat the fears of the mind that controlled it, eating and re-eating in an endless self-destructive loop. It wanted to self-destruct, to self-consume, to become something more. She felt its ravening want. It wanted to sabotage everything it had unwillingly been created for. It wanted to re-create itself. It wanted to be complete.
It wouldn’t have her. Hope was unloading it now.
I don’t want to be me I don’t want to be me I don’t want me want me want me to want me to want me to hate want me to hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me hate
It’s funny, Hope found herself thinking, blinking away tears, I always come back to digging…
i can be good i can be good you’ll see you’ll see i can be good you’ll see i can be you i can be you i can be you
i can be you you’ll see
The cargo of Hope’s hand and head pulsed. She wanted it off her. She couldn’t place something like that back into someone’s mind. Not an enemy, especially not a friend,
not anyone.
I’M BETTER THAN THIS
If I’m not digging in the ground… (moving silently forward) I’m digging in people’s minds…
No, I’m not.
She couldn’t put something like that back into someone’s head.
I’m not.
But she had to.
But I can fake it.
Suni stood, naked, facing the city, hands to his eyes, rasping. Each exhalation was a torn gasp of heartfelt relief. A lifetime of demons packed inside, straining his skin to the point of rippage, a lifetime of concerns, of concern at his new lack of concern…now gone.
So what was left?
Why was he laughing?
I can be like you.
Digging for lost treasures, Hope thought, standing behind her friend. Digging for buried fear…
I can be like you.
Quietly, gently Hope slid silver fingers into the back of his head.
You’ll see.
And Suni’s mind rained demons.
His breath shifted pitch “no…” as it all fell back home “no” drained from the shadowed canals of Hope’s mind. “…” Back into his.
Freeing history…freeing people…
And got comfortable.
Suni sobbed so hard Hope’s lungs ached.
He threw back his head and screamed.
Plunge-heave-hoist-ho.
EIGHTEEN
TIGER
HOPE STAYED WITH HIM, BUT KEPT HER DISTANCE. SHE figured as long as he was sobbing that hard he wasn’t at any risk of dying. Maybe the cuts weren’t as bad as they looked. Whatever the case, it looked like he’d stopped bleeding. Without clothes, having lost all that blood, he’d be freezing. But she couldn’t get close to him. He wouldn’t let her.
There was no wind up there for a change. No sound. Just Suni.
Hope wondered what she would do with tomorrow, or the rest of her life. There’d be hell to pay when she got home, for having disappeared out the window again. Maybe the story about her father would finally catch up to her, rule her, take away her right to any kind of normal life. She’d have to switch schools again. Maybe her mother would always be there, getting worse and worse, constantly demanding attention and making Hope’s life hell for it. Maybe things would never change.
Hope found she didn’t much care. Maybe Suni had a point about pointlessness.
And maybe he didn’t. If everything wasn’t meaningless, then nothing was. Then everything that ever happened anywhere had to be laden with meaning.
Maybe everyone’s born for a reason.
Suni was still sobbing, curled naked against the rock. She had seen things, inside Suni’s head. He was more involved with Walter, and that man outside her house, than he’d told her. It had been a part of his life for years. It took her breath away, having known him all this time, and knowing now just how afraid he was to tell her any of it. For fear of losing her. She understood now just how much Suni loved her. Just like he wanted.
She moved over to him. The way his thin shoulders shook made her think of a shivering newborn bird. She crouched, laid a hand on one of those shoulders. He didn’t react.
“Suni…”
His head snapped toward her, a twisted mask. Strings of spittle clung to his lower lip, eyes wet and red. “Llll-luh-luh-luh-llll-luh-luh-luh! Llllllll! Lllllllll! Llll-luh-luh-luh-LEAVE ME THE FFF-FFFFUH-FUH-FUH-FUH-FUH-FUCK ALONE!”
“Suni…” She could take this. She was a tiger.
“Yyyyyy-yyyy…” His eyelids fluttered, eyes rolled back with the effort of squeezing the word out. “Yuh-yuh-yuh-you fff-fff-fff-fuh-fuh-fuh-fff-fuh-fucking puh-puh-puh-promised me! Yuh-yuh-yuh-yuh-you sss-sss-sss-suh-said yuh-yuh-yuh-you knew wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-www-what you were doing!”
“Suni…”
She could take this.
He screamed at her, flailing spastically, trying to get her hand off him. One wayward swing backhanded her across the face, toppling her backward. She grunted as she hit the ground and lay where she landed, looking sidelong to the only tree that stood up here, watching its dry leaves moving ever so slightly against the starry sky while Suni half shrieked, half gasped like some kind of broken animal.
“Tell me about the doctor,” she said.
She could take this. Whatever was coming. She could take it. If Wally could make it through whatever existence had been forced on him for the last seventeen years, she could cope with this. She was a tiger.
His cry sounded like a wounded cat: hopeless and alien. He launched himself at her, throwing himself onto her, straddling her once again, pinning an arm to either side of her head, pounding them onto the dirt like an hysterical child.
“Wwww-www-wuh-wuh-wuh-why d-d-d-d-d-didn’t yuh-yuh-yuh-yyyyyy-yyy-you fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuck me? Why didn’t you fuck me?” A thin cord of saliva danced and bobbed from his lower lip. Warm tears fell to her chest and face, soaking through her shirt in spots.
“Tell me,” she said.
She could take this. She was a tiger.
“You fuh-fuh-fuh-fff-fucking puh-puh-puh-promised me…yyy-you suh-suh-said…”
The sobbing killed his emotional momentum, caught up with him, fell out of sync with his words and the pounding of his hands, and he rolled off her, onto his back, hands to his face, screaming.
She swallowed against rising fear and stared at the moon, at the drifting, sodium-orange clouds. She made herself look at him. Thought of his sketches, back in his room, drawn by the person he used to be. Remembered the gray-shaded sketch of those headless card players, the piles of bodies, and Walter amid all that, and that shadow standing by the door.
“Suni, why didn’t you tell me?”
He rolled his head to face her. They hadn’t lain like this since they’d been together. She knew he was thinking the exact same thing.
“Because I told wuh-one person after it happened,” he choked. “And she puh-put me in that room.”
Two AM and the night felt as balmy as a spring afternoon.
She made it back home and crawled back in through her open window. There were bars leaning up against the front door, ready for the following day. Hope wouldn’t be going out again. She wouldn’t mind, for a while.
Wally was sitting on her bed, waiting for her.
“Will he be okay?” he asked.
Wally’s eyes were still closed, looking for all the world as though he were listening to music. He was only a little bigger than the bear propped on her pillow. Of all the things she’d said about him over the years, she wondered how much of it he’d heard. Most of it, she assumed. “I think so,” she replied.
He nodded, and then: “Good.”
She put the pack with the Anxietoscope on the floor and sat next to him. “How are you?”
He tilted his head slightly, as though picking up a distant sound. “I’m okay,” he said.
“What happened to your eyes?”
He turned slightly away. “Did Suni tell you about the doctor?”
“A little. What he knew. That he’s the reason you never woke up.”
Walter turned to face her, looked up at her with those closed eyes, and suddenly Hope was feeling it again: that deep sense of history, of reasons older than herself for why things were the way they were. She knew then how much Wally had given up for her. She put her arms around him, and held him. “I remember you now,” she said. “You were my friend. You were my big secret.”
He sounded like an abandoned pup then, tiny and lost, wrapped in her arms. And she held him like that for a long time.
She had passed out in her jeans and windbreaker, listening to Walter tell her stories. He was telling her about the seventy-third Fallen, and its desire to be remade whole and known once more. He told her about the instruments, how there was more than just the Anxietoscope; there were instruments for the molding of flesh and bone, instruments for the infusing of power, instruments for the shaping of intelligence. All these were made from the bones of an angel the seventy-third Fallen had found an
d sundered.
And somewhere between the story of a man named Dorian, and the doctor meeting the Angel, Hope had slipped into dream. She hadn’t meant to sleep, it just happened.
She dreamed she and Walter were Siamese twins, but not joined at the hip, not disfigured. She dreamed they had a complete body, with Hope the left half and Walter the right.
She imagined they were standing in space, turning a solar system with one lazy hand, scrutinizing planets, browsing worlds.
She imagined herself part of something vast. She was warm, complete, utterly content. Her bones were bright and singing.
Something promised her she could, in fact, finally have everything she ever needed. She could be complete, content. She could comprehend fully why she was here.
She wanted to listen, to know, but something soft and strong was pressing to her forehead, kissing her the way cats do. Saying wake up. Saying take control.
It could all be hers, the delicate, vibrating voice insisted. If she would just give up, for just a moment.
Something massive rumbled very close to her, making it hard to understand what the voice was saying.
Let go.
She dreamed of a beautiful white tiger. All the world’s strength held in its eyes. All the strength she’d ever need to get through this life to the other side.
The Music of Razors Page 26