by H. M. Jones
“No, Abby, don’t look. You don’t want to know. Come on.” She fought against him, but he was stronger. He grabbed her arm and pulled her around the Nightmare. It made no move to follow them. It just held out her hand, as if imploring them to turn back.
Ishmael faced it and shouted, “Morning has come. You have no right to be here now!”
The Nightmare burst into a dewy cloud, silver light tipping the edges of the lingering fog-like form. Abigail was speechless over what she witnessed, and Ishmael wasn’t in the mood for answering questions.
By the time they reached the city’s limits, a faint glow illuminated the entire terrain. Ishmael slowed his pace and released his hold on Abigail’s arm.
She rubbed her arm where he’d grabbed her, summoning blood to the surface. “You’re being very pushy. I don’t like being dragged around.” He put his finger to his lips to silence her, and she very seriously considered punching him in the face.
Instead, she pushed past him and walked towards the path revealed when he crossed the limits of the city. He walked in step beside her, tilting his face towards her to get her attention. She ignored his gesture and walked, seething, beside him.
They walked in grouchy silence for a few miles before Ishmael cleared his throat. “Okay. I’m sorry. It wasn’t trying to be pushy. I’ll tell you anything you want to know now.”
She crossed her arms and twisted towards him. “I’m allowed to talk, then?”
He pursed his lips, something she noticed he did when thinking, but didn’t answer. He sat down on a felled tree and lit a cigarette, sucking in smoke like it was life-saving oxygen. He blew smoke out and ran a hand through his hair.
He spoke again when it was clear she was still too angry to talk to him. “The man in my room was one of the men from the group who were so interested in us in the bar district. I learned, early this morning, he’s a Snake by trade and one of Eric’s first recruits. Eric came through this way and promised a reward for your capture. The man must’ve bribed the front desk attendant to get our room numbers. Thankfully, he chose the room I was sleeping in first. I guess their orders didn’t include me because he was just leaving my room, I assume, to go to yours, when he tripped on my shoes and woke me up.”
Abigail sat next to Ishmael and tried to calm her shaking hands. “He wanted me. Not you? Why?”
Ishmael rubbed his beard. “We struggled. I asked him who he was, when I got the better hand. He told me only what I just told you. He was sent for you, he wasn’t supposed to bring me. I guess they figured I’d follow. But he was supposed to bring you, alive, to Eric.”
She frowned. “What about Geoff?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I asked him if there was another man with Eric and the guy said no. I was going to ask him more, but he kicked me in the stomach and pulled a knife on me. We struggled for a hold on the knife and he tripped over my leg and fell onto the blade. He drowned in his blood.”
Ishmael shook the image of the dead man from him, paling, took another long drag and put his face in his hands. “I don’t know what Eric’s doing, but I think he’s in this without Geoff. He has an agenda against me, but I don’t think it’s personal. I feel like,” he shook his head, “like he’s working under orders. Like the guy in my room. Only his orders are higher up.”
His face was a Tragedy mask. “I had a nightmare last night. Only it wasn’t like a normal nightmare. It was like the dream I gave you—real, in a way. It didn’t seem to occur from within me, but outside of my power. We met the Nightmare this morning.”
He licked his lips, as if they were dry. “I dreamed about being pushed into a dark room. I didn’t see who was pushing me, but I knew it was Eric. You were lying in the middle of the floor of the room, stabbed in the chest. A note was stuck under his knife.” He spoke to his feet, his voice shaking. “Her death is on you.” He put his face in his hands, defeated.
Abigail knelt in front of Ishmael. “Hey, it wasn’t real. Okay?”
He shook his head, but kept it in his hands. His voice still trembled. “No. He warned me. He told me to do my job right. He said you will belong to him either way, with or without my help. But now…” He paused and looked up. “Now I know he’s bent on getting what he wants and punishing me in the process.”
She ran her hand over his back. “You mean you think your boss has ordered Eric to teach you a lesson through me?”
His eyes were red and his voice hoarse as he answered, “I know he has. He’s not one for empty threats. It’s the only reason I hesitated in helping you at first. I thought it meant losing my job or life. I didn’t realize it might be worse.”
She grabbed his hands in hers and stood, urging him to his feet.
He stood tiredly. “I’m sorry, Abby.”
She waved his apology away. “Don’t be. You saved my life this morning. Again. We just have to make it out of Monochrome. We have to be careful, but we can do it. How much longer until we reach the border?”
“It’s about a half-day journey from Steamtown.”
“Alright. And we can get to Steamtown tonight, yes?”
He nodded. “Probably, but it’s not easy. If Eric has recruited more men and women, I’m not sure how we’ll make it there without being caught. Or what we’ll do once we get there, since the place will be crawling with his spies.”
“Carefully and quickly.” She took his arm and led him back onto the path.
“Abby, I don’t know if I can go back with you, but I’ll get you to the border no matter what. I’ll get you back to your family.”
Abigail’s heart ached as the image of her husband from last night flooded her with guilt and longing to make things right. She wanted to talk Ishmael into coming back with her, but he and she both knew she was going back to her family. She touched his arm. “I won’t leave you here.”
He shrugged her off. “You will. For them you will.” He gathered his speed and tromped ahead. She followed close behind, feeling more conflicted than she’d ever been in her whole life.
*
Abigail was sick of Ishmael’s irritable attitude after about two hours. At the same time, she understood why he was irritable and silent, so she didn’t want to be too tough on him. She had to admit, too, she was frightened they were being followed, they might not make it to the border and she’d end up a “lesson” for Ishmael’s behavior, noble as it was.
She’d racked her brain for a long while to come up with a poem fitting for the occasion, something to bring back the smiling Ishmael from a day ago. But she didn’t seem to have the memory he did for exact words. She knew the poems she recited before because she’d recited them in place of monologues in college, when she tried out for plays. Besides, she’d read them hundreds of times. There were very few things she remembered by heart. But she walked long enough in silence that a couple of stanzas came to her.
Abigail picked up her pace and cleared her throat.
“There is a change—and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart’s door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.”
She paused to think of the next stanza, and saw him shift his head. She thought she saw amusement in the way his body turned to her. She crossed to his side and took his arm in hers.
“What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I? shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless and hidden well.”
She dripped distraught at the end of the stanza and laid her head dramatically on Ishmael’s shoulder. She peeked at him out of the corner of her eyes, and it was certain, now, he was smiling. His eyes sparkled as he shook his head at her. She thought she remembered the poem well enough to finish it, but she was lost in his spar
kle.
“Uh…” She laughed. “I don’t remember…”
He stopped and threw her off guard by lifting his t-shirt over his abdomen and smiling wide. He took her hand, placed it on the skin above his belt line and grinned evilly. Her fingers met the rough denim of his jeans and the tension of his body.
She was too flustered to move or speak right away. He’d always been forward, but this seemed a strange time for advances. Her eyes grew wide and she muttered a nonsense sentence about how she was not hitting on him.
Ishmael’s face was all mischief. “Look under your hand.”
Abigail hadn’t realized she kept her hand where he’d placed it, the muscles on his abdomen a firm reminder she was only human. She bent down and lifted it. His lean torso was covered in a block of script-style writing. She breathed unevenly, her cheeks warming the closer she got to his skin, and noticed the very poem she was reciting. She scanned the first line of the stanza and remembered the rest of the words automatically.
“A well of love—it may be deep—
I trust it is,—and never dry:
What matter? if the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.”
She stopped, coming up short again.
He chuckled. “I guess you’re going to have to unbutton me.” An image of his naked body leaning against the bathroom door tugged at her brain, but she swept it from her memory.
She stood tall and nudged him away. “Just tell me what it is, ass.”
He pulled his shirt down, and captured her eyes, his face no longer laughing.
“—Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.”
He said the words so quietly and with such ardor, she involuntarily leaned into him.
Abigail sulked at the desperate sadness in his eyes. “I was trying to cheer you up.”
Ishmael rubbed her arm. “I know. I do love that poem, but, you have to admit, it’s not a very cheerful one.”
She set her chin stubbornly. “I couldn’t remember the words to a happy poem, and I figured you’d know Wordsworth.”
“You were right, as usual. Sorry, I’m just tired and grumpy, you know, from being attacked this morning and rejected last night.” He bumped her with his elbow.
She put her hands in her pockets and lowered her head. “Well, if it makes you feel better, it’s not easy to reject you and if I weren’t married…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m both resilient and persistent.”
Abigail just shook her head, not wanting to put him in a worse mood by telling him any other efforts would be wasted. She loved her husband, despite their recent problems, and she knew how terrible she would feel if he betrayed her. She was not about to throw away his trust.
He was too good. Jason was the kind of person who only existed in sappy movies. He was honest, caring, loving, patient and unreservedly loyal. Thinking of him made her stomach ache. She was growing even more homesick, if that was at all possible.
They walked for hours. Their walk was quiet at times, but not uncomfortably so. They talked on and off about classes they took, books they loved, good memories they wanted to keep. Abigail pointed out a lot of Ishmael’s were sex related, but he just shrugged and said, “Sex is great.”
She agreed, but switched the topic because it was too dangerous to think about Ishmael and sex at the same time. She didn’t have to feel embarrassed or insecure about her passion for Romantic poetry, medieval texts and otherwise nerdy pursuits.
On the contrary, they shared many interests. They both wrote fiction and poetry, and they both liked to discuss theory and philosophy. It was an uncomfortable realization that Ishmael was just the type of person she always thought did not exist, and despaired of finding.
But they were a little too alike, she thought, for them to do well together for long. They both liked to drink, argue and binge-read, which, barring the reading, meant they also shared an unhealthy capacity for self-destruction.
Jason, on the other hand, was a great compliment to her emotionality. Where she was a loose cannon, impatient and sometimes reckless, Jason was a patient, organized mind. Where she tended towards romantic excess, he was grounded and logical. He calmed her storms and never yelled back. He was temperate when she was wild, which she treasured even more now Ruby was in the picture.
Before her depression, they rarely fought or let small stresses define them. While they shared common interests, they were more dissimilar than alike. He read manuals and she read novels. He thought many of her interests endearing, but didn’t share them, and vice versa.
But she knew her memories with him were the best of her life. They stayed together so long she didn’t realize they stopped working to maintain the spark of interest. She thought apathy was a normal thing for long-lasting couples.
Talking with Ishmael and experiencing an immediate connection, she wondered whether she and Jason, while very much in love, were destined to be forever unalike, and if that was a bad thing. She wasn’t sure it was, but she often longed for a few more shared pursuits.
Ishmael and she ignited a passionate spark instantly, but where did passion end and volatility begin? Mutual instability wasn’t more promising than apathy. Abigail sighed. She didn’t know why she was thinking like this. It was counterproductive.
She needed to go home and be a present wife and mom. She believed in loyalty. So did Jason. She didn’t think Ishmael believed in much outside of what was happening in the moment, which could be a disastrous way to live, or a selfish one.
Ishmael cleared his throat, and she roused from her long reverie, embarrassed even though he couldn’t know what she was thinking.
“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” she asked, blushing,
“Yeah, I was just saying we’re about two hours from Steamtown. There’s a smallish place up the way with food and drinks. It should be safe.”
She nodded in consent. She needed rest. They’d walked through the morning and into late day. She was starving and tired, and wanted very much to rest her tired body. What she wanted more, though, was to rest her tired mind.
*
Ishmael showed Abigail to a table at the edge of a very small building serving as an outpost, bar and restaurant. There were a few other people at the bar, but no one Ishmael recognized. He went to the bar and ordered their food and drink, paying with a memory she chose not to witness. He insisted.
They ate and drank in silence, both consumed with thoughts they didn’t want to share. She was worried about making it out of this place alive, and about her growing feelings for the gloomy man seated across from her.
She was concerned for her family, and wondered whether Jason and Ruby were doing well without her. She bit her lip and stirred her whiskey and ice. She drank sips from her glass of water to keep her mind sharp and her body hydrated. The eggy, thick water made her gag once or twice, but she forced it down.
Ishmael didn’t seem to care for hydration. He drank his usual whiskey and coke. He toyed with a glass of water, but drank very little of it. She knew how to be a productive drunk, and water was essential in that aspect.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “We should go soon. But we need to talk about concealing ourselves when we get there. It’s a big place, but if Eric is working for my boss and is under assignment, he’ll have plenty of eyes paid to watch for us. I’m not sure what we can do, though, except be alert.”
His voice was tense. He didn’t hold much hope in making it through Steamtown without notice. Abigail had been devising a plan she was certain would work, though. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a memory:
For as long as she could remember, her hair was brown. After breaking things off with Josh, though, she felt like a change was needed. The break was a turning point for her. Her relationship defined her for the last year, and, since it wasn’t a very happy one, she wished to create a new definition.
She wanted a change. She knew change came from the ins
ide, but a little spark on the outside did a lot for a woman’s fire. She towel-dried her hair thoroughly as she thought about her new life. She felt hopeful. She felt in control. She took the towel off her head and shook her long hair, watching it fall to her shoulders. She felt like a red-head. The dark burgundy hair was a beautiful contrast to her green eyes. She winked at her naked, daring reflection and felt excited about the future.
Abigail opened her eyes just in time to catch Ishmael’s mouth hanging open. “Did it work, then?”
He closed his mouth and paused before answering. “That color! You look hot.” He shook his head. “It worked. I don’t know how you do it. I think your hair might even be longer.”
She shrugged. “I use my memories. Just like we use them for everything else here, only, I keep the effects. I use them on me.”
He puffed out his cheeks and let out a long breath. “I’m amazed.”
She held up a finger. “I’m not done yet.”
She closed her eyes to Ishmael’s stunned gaze, and concentrated on the rest of her guise. When she was done, she looked like herself, close up, but the disguise should hold up.
She was wearing tight black jeans over her curves, a long black tank top with a metal band logo on it, black boots and a torn leather jacket, held together with safety pins. Except for the grey scarf she tightened around her neck, it was exactly like the Halloween costume she wore three years ago.
Her friend threw a 1980s Halloween party, and Abigail decided to go punk with it, not wanting to go Cyndi Lauper. She thought it was hot, in a late 80s, early 90s way. The transformation was completed by a fake nose ring in her right nostril, dark red lipstick and heavy grey and black eye shadow.
Ishmael shook his head as he led her out of the small outpost. “I can’t stop staring at you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, try, and concentrate on yourself. You still look the same.”
“I’m not sure I can do it, Abby.”
Abigail crossed her arms. “You haven’t tried and we’re running out of time. Don’t you ever remember a time when you were different? Can you picture it?”