by Phoebe North
I ride on and on and on through charming towns and bustling cities and fields of blue flowers growing straight up through the winter ice and as we go, people bow to us and shout my name. My true name, like they’ve always known it: James Michael [Redacted]. Because I am a hero. I am the one who will open the Veil. If only they knew that I have tried before and failed. If only they knew that there is softness in my heart, a sickness, a tender place I can’t bear to show
because once i was sick and for some reason He didn’t want me to stay home, i think He was worried i’d die and He took me with Him in that Blue Truck and i felt trapped and safe all at once sitting in the parking lot under a blanket and i’d looked out the window at the Rite Aid and then saw across the street—a police station, just like that—and i was staring and staring and thinking about getting out but then He opened the door and handed me some Robitussin and it was over, the chance, my chance, my moment to leave
and i pedal faster and faster and faster wondering if the map i’ve drawn in my mind is wrong, the map i’ve drawn in all those notebooks He never looks in because He doesn’t care what i think until i catch the bright light of the Rite Aid and i skid to a stop and an SUV almost hits me but i hang a left and there’s the police station and i drop the bike on the sidewalk and go racing up the stairs
until at the edge of an old tangled wood I spy a strange silhouette, jagged and black against a cliff face. I nudge the stag thataway and he trots over on his golden hooves, closer and closer until I see a massive sword plunged into the rock and skewered on its blade a boy, intestines draining down the mountainside. His hair is a matted tangle of brain and maggots and black black blood and the stag wheels back and so do I. That’s when I realize that the naked trees clinging to the rock are not trees at all but more swords and more boys
and i am shocked that it’s quiet inside, like Dead Silent, and the silence is loud and screeching under the faint humdrum buzz of the fluorescent lights when i step forward my shoes squeak on the tile floor and His sweatshirt is soaked through with rain, my hair stuck to the side of my face and my neck and i step forward s l o w l y and my hands are shaking and my nose is running so i wipe it on His sleeve
and I am shocked into silence, and the whole world is dead dead silence all around except for the golden bells of the stag’s hooves as we make our way up the mountain now s l o w l y and my hands are shaking and my mouth is full of bile so I spit it out.
there’s a man, a cop, sitting behind a glass wall which is hazy with scratches and he’s on his phone and doesn’t see me at first until my shoes squeak again and then he looks up and he sees me but i have to wonder what he sees: dirty boy with dirty hair and zits, clothes soaked through and starving, it’s gotta be some Oliver Twist shit to him Can I help you, son? he asks, which feels like a question from a movie so i stand in front of the counter, it’s god damned cold in there, and i’m shaking and shaking
He killed them, says the stag, and I didn’t even know he could speak and the air is so thin that my lungs feel empty and I’m shaking and shaking
i say, Excuse me, but something bad is going to happen, if it hasn’t already in a voice that sounds kind of ten instead of sixteen
I say, It was a blood tithe. They said their vows. They agreed to it.
he looks at me for a long time, considering
And I don’t know why I’m defending Him but suddenly I’m breathless in the thin air and the stag just snickers.
What do you mean?
they put me in the police chief’s office, drape a fake wool blanket like one of those airline blankets but green over my shoulders and give me a cup of Bad Tea, the cheap lipton kind with a picture of a lemon on the tag but Strong and Bitter as chalk
I have been a feral child and I have been a pirate and I have romanced slippery mermaids and dagger-clawed sirens and I have spilled my seed into Gumlea’s brown earth and I have had a thousand knots tied around me and sometimes I feel like the ropes hold me still
every once in a while someone comes in and asks me another question about Him but otherwise they leave me alone in there and they’re not telling me what’s going on and it’s like
Time
Stands
Still
but now I dismount to stand beneath at the edge of the Veil, my courage gathering like a thunderhead over an empty wood, and I see that the blackness is not blackness at all but the tar-bright, writhing scales of the dragon that circles the world.
finally a cop who looks younger than me but is hiding it under an ugly mustache comes in and sits down at the desk Are you the chief? i ask and he stares at me, tapping his pen on the pad on the desktop
Will you help me? I ask the stag but he only taps his hooves against the sodden ground and shakes his heavy-branched head.
Nope
Nope.
neither of us says anything until one of us does
Have they caught Him yet?
he looks like he’s considering something but then he decides against it and shakes his head No. They went back to the apartment and found the boy alone, playing video games
i can exhale at this, i can almost laugh, how often was i the Boy Alone, playing video games? days and days and years
I slowly exhale at this, imagining the people on the other side.
They think He drove off looking for you, the cop adds, and my abdominal muscles clench at that and i grit my teeth and try not to feel anything because the first thing i felt was good, I’m not replaceable, then and what the fuck Kind of Feeling is that
Do you think they’re waiting for me? I ask the stag, my abdominal muscles clenching at the sick hope that tumbles inside me because I want to think I’m good, beloved, the cherished son, that on my birthday my father bent low to kiss my wrinkled baby feet.
Can I talk to the kid? i ask, and the cop shakes his head No. His parents came to get him already
No. Your family has never looked for you.
more clenching and more gritting
A knife twists inside me.
Parents
P a r e n t s
fuck i can’t even think about that, about Dad with his five o’clock shadow by noon and Mom who couldn’t resist him but it breaks me to think about them and the cop taps his pen again We need to call your parents, too, he says, and i knew it was coming but i didn’t, before we can question you, since you’re a minor
Fuck, i say, and without even thinking about it i’m burying my face in my hands because it’s just like He said, they’re going to know everything now, every Ugly Stupid Bit
the cop doesn’t answer so i drop my hands between my knees and sit with my head hanging
Okay, i say, not looking up. Their names are Marc and Shira [Redacted] and they live in Wiltwyck, NY
Okay, I say, staring at the moving scales, I need to kill it. I need to kill it and then I can get back home—
Do you have a number for them? he asks, and when i give him mom’s cell phone he jots it down on a lime green post-it and tears it off
Stop talking about it and do it, the stag says, gives his golden hoof one final stomp, and then takes off.
then he stands, doesn’t say anything else to me, leaves me sitting there wincing down that Bad Tea and i’m waiting and i’m alone again and i’m waiting just like i’ve been waiting for two years for Him to come home and for Him to touch me again after work and for someone to find me i’m waiting i’m waiting and my stomach dips and i’m imagining mom’s face as she tucks the phone against her chin and sweeps her hair out of her eyes and i’m wondering if she looks the same or if she’s dyed her hair and i’m letting myself miss her for the first time in forever as i imagine the Slow Dawning Morning of Ma’am, we’ve found your son
I step forward timorously, trembling, wondering how many times I’ve done this, wondering how many boys have tried this, gripping their knives tight, clad in chain maille armor. But I have no armor now, only my leathers, and as I walk closer I feel the words form
on my tongue: Dragon, I’ve come for you.
once i was asleep in the bed of a truck with my wrists and ankles bound and once i was asleep on a bare mattress with my wrists and ankles bound but looser and once after the ropes were gone we bought sheets and He touched me under them and i was asleep after and my stomach hurt and once coming home from gram and poppy’s i fell asleep and when i saw the headlights streaming down the highway i thought i’d Died and the lights were my Soul shooting off to Heaven once i was asleep on the sofa while the DVD menu played the long days tumbling together and once and only once i fell asleep at Neal’s house with Vidya and when we peeled ourselves apart she saw she’d missed a dozen calls from her mom and she just calmly called her father who wasn’t mad at all and who covered for her with her mom and i had to walk home in the Snow in the Middle of the Night hoping no one heard me when i came in and the only person who was up was Annie and she took one look at me and slammed her bedroom door, the scent of another girl on me like a piece of Scarlet Text stitched to my coat and once and only once i went for a walk my Only Freedom but when i got back my key wasn’t in my pocket and locked out i fell asleep on the concrete steps and a neighbor came and shook me awake and said do you need to use the phone? so i went into his apartment which was a weird mirror of our apartment and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking as i dialed because it crossed my mind i could dial 911 but then he would know my father would know and i asked for this and i brought it on myself so i called my “dad” instead and let Him know i was locked out and once a ton of times dozens of times hundreds of times Neal and i fell asleep our arms around each other but then he didn’t want to anymore and i still did and once and only once i fell asleep on the hard chairs in a police chief’s office, a scratchy acrylic blanket over my body and i slept and i slept everywhere and i slept always until a hand tentative uncertain touched my shoulder and startled me awake
Once I slipped my finger inside the slick body of a mermaid and I didn’t like it but I kept it in there anyway because I thought it would bring me closer to enlightenment. Once I untangled burrs from the fur of my hare and she licked my knees in deepest gratitude. Once and only once I stumbled across a pink-throated Winter Watcher girl whose steed was a tortoise the size of a small car and she was sitting on the shore of a greeny lake gone gold in early autumn and she let me sit beside her on the walkway and our thighs touched warmly and it was more thrilling than kissing or even getting laid and she just laughed with her mouth open to the sunlight and my hare cuddled herself around her turtle’s craggy shell. Once and only once I was unfaithful to my princess in the tower when I stroked the white flesh of a young boy whose teeth were sharpened to ruby-dotted points and he panted like a feral dog. When he was done I said please keep this a secret from Annit so he crossed his tree house room and plucked one of the Daddy Longlegs from the dew-dotted cobwebs in the corner, a creature as big as my head, and he stomped it beneath his bare dirt-brown foot and then crushed the body into a powder. Once I knelt beside him and washed the dust down with wine and we prayed to hide our secret from the moon and once, dozens of times, hundreds of times I kissed a feral boy and fell asleep sweaty and warm beside him and I love him still but he never did love me, not even once. Once and only once I passed through the body of a dragon, her hot throat closing around me, my body squeezed inside her, my clothes disintegrating in the acid of her belly until I was belched free on the forest floor, naked, damp, and born anew.
a police officer, they’re all running together
Son, apparently i am everyone’s son, your dad is here
my dad my dad my dad my dad
it’s dark in the office and i don’t wanna go because if my dad is here then he must know what Happened to me all the Things i Did the Camera and the Videos, His crimes, but mine, too, and this will ruin me but it will ruin my dad worse my stomach is some kind of Raw Weeping Thing, my organs are a Mushy Jumble as i get up and rub the sleep from my eyes taking my time because my dad my dad my dad
It’s dark in the forest and I don’t know where I am, whether I’m here or if I’m there. The dragon is gone and I am nothing, wearing no clothes and carrying no weapons and my nakedness is small and wrinkled in the cold and I am not a man and I am not brave. I’m only a boy with a sickness inside him, a quartz in his navel that is fractured and cracked because He He He
i follow the cop down the hall
I drag myself forward through the forest.
and there is a man at the end of it, standing by the desk, and the light through the windows behind him is New and Gray and soon it will be morning but november no birds singing not for me and not for my dad and i wonder where Elijah is and where Annie is and where my mom my mom my mom is, he’s alone, his shoulders saggy in one of his button-downs, and i see him before he sees me and i wonder if I’ll touch him, offer my hand to him, and if he’ll shake it or he’ll be too disgusted, he’s lost weight he’s a little more gray but it’s him it’s him it’s my dad and he knows everything and he is saying something to another cop but the one who is leading me says sir and my dad my dad my dad turns
There is nothing here. It is a tangle of forest in November. No birds. No snow. Only naked wild raspberry vines and garbage. There is no magic. I am dead inside. Somewhere, somewhere, He has won already from His throne at the top of a dead world. I drag myself forward, trying to keep the warm light of home in my mind ahead, but my body is heavier than the heaviest weight. I’m a boy and He has won and I’m nothing now and this forest will go on forever because I’ve done this before.
I’ve made this journey before.
and i’m in his arms before i can even think about it, he’s folding me into his arms and we’re the Exact Same Height now but it doesn’t feel different, he still smells like Black Coffee and Soil like he’s been working in the garden out back like ten minutes ago but that can’t be true he must have driven the whole way here, Hours and Hours, and he’s holding me and holding me and i’m not letting go
But I think I see a shadow up ahead and I drag my heavy body faster now, because I know I need to meet him, this boyish shadow, this pale shadow, standing still in the middle of an empty forest, wearing blue jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that’s warmer and softer than the inside of his girlfriend’s body and I’m naked and cold in this empty wood, except for him, that boy, that selfish prince, and as I reach him, I see the knife in his hands. My knife. And I hear myself calling his name out through the forest: Jamie.
he takes over, puts a coat over my shoulders, doesn’t look into my eyes when he speaks and he tells me that we’re supposed to go to the hospital first and i ask why and he doesn’t say the words Rape Kit but he finally looks at me and those words are in his mind and caught at the back of his throat, i can almost hear them and he says the lawyer, his lawyer, Don Muselmaan, do i remember him? will be here by lunchtime because the police need to ask me a few questions but first we have to go to the hospital for the Rape Kit that my dad won’t Dare to Name
he’s clutching his keys in his hand and he leads me out to the parking lot and i feel nervous because He could be Anywhere and because my dad knows All of It, he has to, but as we walk out to the parking lot i can’t stop Wondering Something and we stop outside a black sedan i’ve never seen before and that’s when I ask him
He sneers at me, this puggish boy, his face aflame with freckles.
Where’s mom?
You’re late.
he stares at me and his eyes go On and On, his hands Big and Strong on the roof of the car as he considers but now my hands are just as Big as his
He stares at me and his eyes go on and on.
She’s on her way.
that’s all he’ll tell me so we get in the car, it’s Clean and it’s Empty, like dad’s cars always are (mom’s cars are always a mess) and we drive to the hospital in silence and i want to say something and need to say something like crap, I missed you, dad but that seems wrong because i chose this it’s my fault but then we drive down my old
street—this town’s so small—and the complex is at the end of the block and i almost can’t breathe but then i see something, lights flashing in the Early Morning and dad slows down because the whole street is clogged with cop cars, he starts doing a k-turn, and i don’t know whether i’m supposed to tell him this is where i lived and where this Guy took my Clothes Off while I was Sleeping and then put a camera on me and told me He’d send it to my parents if i didn’t keep doing What He Said and it’s Awful it felt Awful and what feels Worse were the days when it was just the Two of Us and it didn’t feel as Awful because the World isn’t simple dad like you told me it was
I want to tell him to leave me alone. That this is over now. That I’m going home at last. But I can’t move my lips. And he’s sneering at me and he’s staring at me and his hands are shaking with the knife inside them, pointing out toward me, and suddenly, he screams, I’m going to fucking kill you! And I’m laughing, suddenly, laughing, naked in that ugly naked November wood. Because I was him once, and I saw this coming. This moment in the far-flung future when I would be filled with hatred for what I knew I’d always been, small and weak and exposed, and I had tried so many times to snuff out this moment, to stop it from coming, but it only ever led me here. Over and over again.
and i’m arguing with him in my head even though neither of us has said a word
What are you doing? he says. Why are you laughing? Stop laughing at me!
anyway, one of the cops waves him down the road and we turn the corner instead and the lights are fading in the mirrors and the moment is over
Now he is a fury of nails and teeth and knife. Now my body is a willow bough bending. Now he bashes knee to groin, skull to skull. Now everything is black.
at the hospital, they’re waiting for us, they take us to a room marked off with a Little Curtain and the nurse who takes my blood pressure won’t look at me and my dad won’t look at me and Everyone Knows Everyone Knows and then she leaves and my dad asks me in a Low Voice Can I pray?
He’s got heavy boots he bought from the witch store downtown with his girlfriend who would make him the man he wanted to be. He’s got heavy boots and they’re falling on my ribs, my belly, and he’s screaming, tiny flecks of spittle flying everywhere: