Versailles

by Yannick Hill

  Then she was running, running as fast as she could through the crowd, her sword on the back seat of his car, but it didn’t matter anymore, the future didn’t matter, this place was who she was now and there was no looking back, the sun high in the sky, her light, her light, and the crowds of painted faces closing in, the smell of other bodies all around, sweat and smoke and dust, all these people here for the same thing, all these people and she was one of them, none of them, her heart pumping blood as she ran as fast as she could away from the car, her sword on the back seat, but who cared about some random sword when she had her youth, the rest of her life spread out like the skirts of a gold-sequined infinity dress of her own design, the Saturday sun reflected back a million times, a million billion times until there was only light, her light and the pleasure of being lost in a crowd. Missy missing now.

  38

  Room 70. Missy’s bedroom.

  Before the sword. Before the sword, her room was what you might have thought. A young girl’s dream, fit for any princess. There were balloons, all different colors, always blown right up and ready. Her beloved white and gold rococo dresser with the oval mirror, turned now to face into the wall. Her walk-in wardrobe with catwalk, filled with clothes designed for her by the world’s most gifted couturiers. Her own desert island: a tall palm tree lamp, surrounded by clean white sand, a small beach with shells, special stones, and plastic starfish. Her doll’s house was a replica of Versailles, a doll for every member of the family. There was Synthea, gazing from the window in her office, River in his bunker, sitting on a chair in front of his computer screens, and Missy herself, playing with a miniature doll’s house, complete with dolls so small that one time River put his sister in his ear and had to go to the hospital to get her out. But what really struck those who entered Missy’s room was all the photographs. Every inch of her vast wall space was covered in pictures of her and her friends. One for every day of her life since she got her smartphone, an ocean of smiles, teeth, sunsets and spilled alcohol, dyed hair, pierced tongues and half-closed eyes. Her friends, their friends, all looking into Missy’s room and reminding her that she was loved, that she was loved by all of them and more.

  That was Missy’s bedroom before. The day the sword arrived, everything changed. The day the sword arrived, something clicked, like a camera pointed up into the blue, blue sky. What Casey did had cast a shadow over Missy. She didn’t want to get out of bed, listen to music, go swimming, nothing. She just wanted to crawl under the covers and return to sleep, to dream of better things. The day the sword arrived Missy woke right up. She placed the sword on her dressing table and stared at it awhile. It was that feeling of wanting to tidy your room around a new device, make it birthday ready, but deeper than that. No balloons this time.

  Missy put her favorite Scout song on repeat, turned it up loud and got to work. First thing was taking down all her photos. All these people and she realized now she didn’t know any of them, not really. Every single photo on her four walls, she took them down and tossed them in her monster, leopard-print suitcase. It took her a long time but when it was done she zipped the suitcase and wheeled it into her walk-in wardrobe, out of sight. Next came the balloons. She took a long, shiny hat pin and went round her room popping every one of them. It was actually a lot of fun, running around her room and popping all those shiny balloons, bang, bang, bang, bang. Next up was the desert island. She got one of Versailles’ industrial vacuum cleaners and sucked that beach right up into the transparent cylinder. She picked the shells and stones out first but the rest of it she vacuumed right up until every grain of sand was gone. She put the palm tree lamp in the wardrobe along with the suitcase of photos. Out of sight. Out of sight for now.

  She’d stood in the middle of her room then, to admire her work. Those white walls, those vast, white walls where all the photographs had been. They seemed to vibrate with possibility. Potentiality. She glanced at her brand new sword lying on the dressing table. Inspiration. No colored balloons. Nothing to distract her now. Standing there, Missy had this weird idea, this vision for how her room should be. Before she knew what she was doing she was busy. It was hours and hours of work but she loved every minute. She must have listened to that Scout track like a thousand times before she was done. But when she was finished she was very happy. She was very happy, but she also knew that if anybody saw this they wouldn’t understand; her so-called friends wouldn’t understand what all this meant. And for once, she didn’t care.

  Room 70. Missy’s bedroom. Before the sword, her room was what you might expect: a young girl’s dream, fit for any princess. Since Missy ran away, nobody has set foot inside her room, so it remains just as she left it. Four vast, white walls. Her bed is made, not a crease in the silken sheets. The curtains are wide open, letting all the bright sunshine in from outside. There is very little in this room besides the main furniture. The effect is of a modern gallery, a large, open, rectangular space. It is like an art gallery because the thing defining this space resembles a work of conceptual art. Exactly half of the pink carpet on the far side is occupied by an army of dolls. These are all of Missy’s dolls. Every Barbie, Sindy, plastic, porcelain, tears, no tears – every single doll of Missy’s since she was a little girl, all arranged to look like they are marching, an army of dolls, rank upon rank, all marching in the same direction toward the giant window at the end of the room. But that’s not all. Every one of them is armed with a sword across their backs, razor shells collected from Versailles’ beach over many years. All marching in the same direction toward the giant window at the end of the room, a window looking out onto the glittering ocean.

  39

  Missy had to find Cass, but first she needed a disguise, something to help her blend into the crowd.

  The girl in the face-paint tent was wearing a one-piece coral-pink swimming costume over fishnet tights, matching lipstick and a dirty white bow tie. She applied the face paint to Missy’s skin with her fingers. The human contact was giving Missy shivers. Missy laughed at the sensation and Crystal laughed too. Crystal was seventeen and made up to look like she was crying blood. She was making Missy up to look like a leopard.

  ‘You have nice eyes,’ Crystal said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Missy said. A rush of goosebumps.

  ‘And a great smile. You look more like your dad or your mom?’

  ‘My mom,’ Missy decided.

  ‘I’ll bet she’s real pretty,’ Crystal said.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘I never saw you here before . . . I’m good with faces.’

  ‘This is my first time,’ Missy said.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Who you here with?’

  ‘Er, Cass. Her name’s Cass.’

  ‘Always-naked-Cass?’ Crystal said.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Oh my God, you know always-naked-Cass, that’s so awesome!’

  ‘I know!’ Missy smiled.

  ‘How long you known Cass, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Not long, we met on the road, actually.’

  Crystal didn’t say anything as she applied the leopard markings to Missy’s face with her index finger. Missy turned in the orange plastic chair to ask, ‘Why, is something wrong?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing, really, I just know some of the guys she hangs out with . . .’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ said Crystal. ‘I just know they’re into some really weird shit.’

  ‘What, like sex weird?’ Missy said.

  ‘That too,’ Crystal said.

  ‘Oh,’ Missy said. She remembered Cass’s tattoo, the wolf howling at the night sky, the stars getting smaller as they went all the way up her neck. ‘Is this going to take much longer?’

  ‘I’m almost done,’ Crystal said. ‘Why, you gotta be some-where?’

  ‘No, I mean yeah, I . . . I told Cass I’d meet her.’ Missy hated lying, especially because Crystal seemed like such a nice girl. She felt like saying something true t
o make it right. ‘I feel so happy right now! I’ve never been to a music festival before.’

  ‘You’re kidding me! That’s so cool! I mean it’s not cool but you’ve come to the right place! This place, these people. They’re like the most amazing people, not like anyone else. There’s no one fake, everyone’s so real and friendly and honest . . . I’ve been coming here since forever and I can’t think of anywhere else I feel this . . . free. Just enjoy yourself, girl, you’re going to have the best time . . . There, you’re done.’ Crystal held up a mirror.

  ‘Oh, my goodness, you did such a great job. Thank you. Thank you so much,’ Missy said, standing up. She felt very different, unlike herself, and more like herself. It was a warm feeling, like that time right after her first kiss with Levon. Crystal was doing something on her phone and Missy almost asked her to take a photo but there was no need. She’d remember this moment and it would be a part of her story. No need to share this now.

  ‘That’s no problem, Missy. Maybe see you at the fire later?’

  ‘The fire?’

  ‘You don’t know about the fire? This really is your first time, huh? The trolls are burning an effigy of Casey Baer at dusk. It’s been our tradition the last couple years, but this time we’ve got a special guest as our master of ceremonies.’ Crystal’s eyes brightened.

  Missy had that feeling again that she was dreaming. She glanced at Crystal’s phone again. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Why? Because he’s the mortal enemy of the free internet, that’s why. We trolls have to keep a united front, stop the Casey Baers of this world from turning the internet totally social! Pretty soon there won’t be anywhere left on the net that isn’t his. Casey Baer’s like the Antichrist around here.’

  ‘Is that what this is, this place? You guys are all internet trolls?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Crystal said, ‘You must know that, otherwise why would you be here? The name’s kind of a giveaway.’

  ‘I guess I always thought of trolls as like, all out for themselves,’ Missy said, ‘making mischief, out to upset other people. This place ­– it’s like you said – everybody seems so friendly.’

  ‘That’s because we are! What, did you think we all look like monsters or something like that? We may be trolls but we’re also human beings! Troll Meet is like the one place where we can come and feel the love, share our stories of mayhem and upset, get away from our computers, have some fun in the sun! You should come tonight, Missy, see for yourself. The fire really brings everyone together. It’s a great atmosphere. Please come, it’s not every day you get to watch Casey Baer go up in flames surrounded by, well, flamers!’

  Missy pinched her own arm above her elbow. ‘Okay, I’ll be there,’ she said.

  ‘Yay!’ said Crystal, and gave her a kiss on her leopard cheek.

  ‘Listen,’ Missy said. ‘I forgot my sunblock and have sen-sitive skin. Do you have something I could borrow to cover my arms?’

  Crystal went to the back of the tent and picked a hoodie off a pile of other clothes. It was black and covered in small gold stars. ‘Here.’ She watched as Missy gathered her long hair in a swirl under the hood and zipped up the front. ‘Girl, I don’t know why, but you make that look sexy as hell.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Missy smiled, hands in pockets. ‘I guess I’ll see you at the fire later.’

  *

  It took Missy nearly all day to find Cass. She couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder for Silas and the kid with no name. They had to be looking for her and she didn’t know about her disguise. It was cool having a disguise though, she actually felt like a cat, prowling the festival in search of her new friend. She started in the middle and worked her way outwards in ever-increasing circles. Knowing all these guys were trolls made her kind of happy, it felt familiar, like a dream.

  No, not a dream, it was that she thought her brother would like it here. Yeah, River would like this place, all the kids with painted faces. Not that she would call her brother a troll. River went online looking for companionship, even if that meant hacking someone’s email and pretending to be the horny wife of a marine commander stationed overseas. But he’d still like it here. All the boys and girls. Some of them had to be gay, right? Missy knew there were different kinds of gay. She didn’t know what kind River was, but then she was still the only person in the world he ever came out to. She remembered. Out on the speedboat, waiting for the dolphins to appear.

  She looked up at the blue sky and sent him love with her mind, hoped he could feel it on their pirate frequency, wherever he was. What was she thinking about? There’s only one place he could be. Versailles. In his bedroom, on the internet, playing at being other people. He always said it was more than playing, but maybe if he spent more time as himself he might realize he was an amazing person with so much to give the world.

  It was some way into her sixth circuit of the festival, as she was approaching the outer edges, that she saw Cass, and what she saw gave her an adrenaline rush so intense it hurt her hands and feet. But this wasn’t excitement, this was fight or flight. What she saw made her sad and scared at the same time. Nothing to compare this to, not in her past, and she hoped not in the future. Missy took a picture with her mind, then wished she hadn’t. No way to unsee. No way to delete.

  There was a group of them, standing in the shade of some trees, away from everybody else. There was a guy, he looked young but on second thought he could have been older. He was short and skinny. He was really muscly but in a compact sort of way, like Missy imagined soldiers to look when they took their shirts off. He had no expression and he was leaning back on his heels like a water skier, suspended there by seven lengths of thick wire. Each strand of wire ended in two large meat hooks, and they in turn were hooked into the skin either side of the upper spine of seven women.

  Three of them looked too young to be called women, but all Missy cared about was that one of them was Cass. She took it all in, then a step towards them. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. The guy holding the wires had no expression, but then nor did the girls. They too were leaning, only forward, their eyes closed, their faces relaxed. Missy said her friend’s name, it came out too quietly for anyone to hear. But maybe she did hear because now Cass was opening her eyes. Their eyes met but there was no recognition. It was like Cass was in a very different place. Missy could see that her pupils were fully dilated. She’d seen that expression before.

  Every day Missy had dreaded the sight of the black sedan with the tinted windows pulling up outside her school because it meant she was going home, and going home meant seeing her mom, or someone who looked just like her. Those black eyes, her pale lips. Every day she’d walk through the front doors of Versailles and Synthea would be there to greet her, and Missy would see what she was seeing now: Cass’s expression. It was something she thought she’d never have to see again. She would see her mom in the hallway and want to run up to her room and cry. Her beautiful mother, all the unworn clothes.

  Just then something changed in Cass’s face, she squeezed closed her eyes and opened them again like she was trying to focus. Missy heard her name. She felt a tear roll down her painted cheek, the smell of face paint melting in the sun. Cass was saying her name. ‘Missy? Missy, is that you?’ But it was too late, Missy turned from the group by the trees and started running again.

  This was going to be a big fire. Missy was sitting on the ground at the edge of a big group of boys and girls who were drinking and talking and smoking weed. She was beginning to think she’d seen the last of Silas. Bobcat. She brought her knees up to her chin, tugged down on the peak of her hoodie and watched the preparations. The wicker man didn’t look like her father, but that didn’t make the sight of him any less weird. You could see daylight through the loosely woven materials that made up his body, but the figure cast a mighty shadow that seemed to grow longer with each passing minute.

  Missy’s eye was caught by a row of fire helmets on the ground. Th
e helmets were colored gold and glowed in the late afternoon sun, giant synthetic sea shells on the shore of an alien world. What Casey did. It had turned her world upside down and inside out. His betrayal. It had changed everything. The way things looked and sounded. She’d be talking to somebody, like, one of her friends, and find herself zoning out, just watching as the other person’s lips moved, forming the words. It was like all the darkness in the world, all the shadows, were gone. No outlines, no borders. No meaning. Everything bleeding into everything else. No. Missy bunched her fists inside her sleeves, tasted the metal of the hoodie’s zip in her mouth. She was still here. She was still here. Her anxiety made it real. The helmets were not shells, they were protective, for the firefighters to wear should the fire get out of control.

  She suddenly felt out of control but she didn’t change her position even an inch, her arms around her knees, biting down on the metal zip of her hood and tasting blood. Her father’s name. She was saying his name in her head, over and over, the way she used to when she was trying to get his attention, the way they all did, her mother, her brother, everybody. Saying his name, over and over again until his silence swallowed you. Casey . . . Casey . . . Casey . . . And when he finally looked up from what he was doing, acknowledged you were even there, it was like you wanted to tell him everything, because in that fleeting moment his attention felt like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. You stood there, basking in the warmth of the light, and then he’d look down again and it was over, and you were on your own again.