Candle in the Attic Window

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  I open my new book. The pages are thick, heavy. There are no words. Only pictures. They follow a sequential order, telling a story. I blush as I flip through it, closing the book as quickly as possible. I do not want the teacher to see what I am reading. I do not want her to see what Mister Harvey has given me.

  They are line drawings, and in each of them someone is performing some sexual act with someone else. Always in the background, hidden in the walls of the castle, in the shadows of the tunnel. Leering at the main characters.

  I am not sure how I feel about this.

  I open up Stone Dogs and read. The teacher’s voice drones on in the background. I read about Princess Earwig’s glass face. I read about her hair made of gold. I read about her dresses, 230, in all, and no two of them alike. I read about her heart, kept in a box on her stepmother’s throne.

  And I read about the magic she uses to try and capture the love of Alisandre. Pictures burnt. Words whispered into seashells and buried in a box of mirrors. Blood smeared across the walls and the howls of misery ringing through the castle.

  I picture Princess Earwig. And I see her looking like one of the girls in the shadows of the Castle of O. Her face twisted, her mouth wide open. She is screaming. That is what Princess Earwig looks like. A twig of a girl in a castle of sex.

  I hardly even hear the bell ring. One of the sword girls shakes me out of my book, out of my trance. She giggles when I come to, giggles and runs off with her triplets. I want to cut her open. Display her glass organs to the world.

  I run outside, into the hall. I see Geoff and wave. He waves back, I see scars along his fingers. Cut into rings around his knuckles.

  He talks to a boy. A new kid? I don’t know. I don’t recognize him. He has purple hair and a trenchcoat. He’s cute. His features are very pretty, very feminine. He talks in a thick British accent. He reminds me of a fox, somehow.

  Geoff introduces him. The boy’s name is ‘Nogitsune’.

  “He climbed in through the third floor window. He’s here to save us.”

  I smile my best smile. “Really? How come we’re still in here, then?”

  The boy shrugs. “Because I lied to Geoff; that’s why. Although, I did sneak in through the third floor. But I’m not here to save anyone. I’m hiding out. Someone is chasing me.”

  Geoff sighs. “How could you lie to me?”

  The boy puts his hand on Geoff’s shoulder. Geoff melts beneath his fingers. “I’m sorry. You just seemed so excited and I just fed you what you wanted to hear.”

  I know I should ask whom he was running away from. Instead, I do something stupid. I talk about books. “Have you ever read Stone Dogs?”

  The new boy shrugs. “Nope. Sounds like some weirdo New Agey thing.”

  I wave my hand excitedly. The more he looks at me, the more I want him. “No. It’s fantasy.”

  New boy Nogitsune puts his fingers to his head. Like a gun. Pulls the trigger, bang. He’s dead. Tongue sticks out; head lolls back. “Oh gawd. Not more of that Tolkien shit. I am so sick of elves and dwarves. Don’t you guys read anything good? Like Camus? Or Sartre? Or – fuck – I don’t know. Flannery O’Conner?”

  Geoff blushes. “I read that stuff.”

  I push him. I don’t know why I do it. He doesn’t deserve to be pushed. “No, you don’t,” I say.

  Geoff is hurt. “If he can lie to me, I can lie to him.”

  I see him look at me. His face is red. He’s about to cry. He runs off screaming. Nogitsune looks at me and his eyes light up. “Woah, good going, there. I thought he would never leave. So – what did you say your name was again?”

  I almost answer when the bells rings.

  “Shit. Late for class. Sorry.”

  I run off; he yells at me.

  “Late for class? How can you even care about such things when the world is going to end?”

  Friday: Study Hall

  I love the prose in Stone Dogs. It is unlike any fantasy I have ever read before. The sentences flow over each other. Tripping on the words and melting into a soup of language. I’ve got some time in Study Hall, so I will copy my favourite two paragraphs here:

  The kindly birds, they speak and sing, with knives for beaks and swords for wings; they drip and dance orange light, discarding stray feathers like leaves on the ground. They are the autumnal gods, the speakers of mist; they have come to grant Alisandre 50 wishes, if only she can climb with needle hands and spindle fingers, up the labyrinth halls, past the walking dreams of angels and into the fire of morning light. There, there, burning puppets and the lies of sitars’ men. We all know who lives here, the Medusa-spined, the stone singers. The hot and hollow dolls that grab the grass of dreams and weave coats of undying love.

  But in corners of anger dwell the archling comedunly, who stretch with milky white eyes and cough and pour starch in the flour. They grab all hair and make them sing and dance. They have fingers; they have eyes. Oh, what burning things they can do to the pretty-pretty. Oh, what holes they can cut into our song boxes.

  Absolutely chilling stuff. I have dreams that are written like that, in that same flowing way. Some day, I hope to write like that. Maybe, if I keep reading it and copying the words. Maybe my mind will drink in that style. Will become it.

  Friday: Lunch

  Geoff is not in the lunchroom. He is not at our normal table, not sitting at his normal seat. I wander around the crowd and look for him. Nothing. Some of the kids in the back wear paper-plate masks, with pictures of the dead stapled over top of them.

  I wonder briefly if they are ghosts.

  I see new-boy Nogitsune. In front of him, on an intricately detailed plate, is a dead fish. Cooked. With head and eyes still intact. He motions me to sit down.

  I set my red plastic tray on the table. Chicken salad. Not bad for cafeteria food.

  After I sit, he tells me a story about foxes. About their genealogy. About their species. I am bored and I realize Geoff would love this conversation. It is so full of details.

  As he speaks, he eats. Cutting the fish slowly. Leaving the bones on his plate. When he is done, I let the silence sit for a moment. I don’t know what to say. I am numb from listening.

  “When do you think they will let us go home?”

  Nogitsune drums his fingers on the table. “Never. Things have changed. We are in the snow lands, now. They didn’t want to tell you, but if you go outside, you will see. There are no more trees, no more roads. We are surrounded by miles and miles and miles of ice and snow. Nothing else.”

  I stare at the last piece of lettuce on my plate. It is drowned in dressing. It will sting when I stick it into my mouth, coated with all those spices. “Never leave? I don’t believe you. You’re lying, again.”

  He picks up his plate and slides it into his trenchcoat. It disappears beneath the folds of clothing. “That’s not all. I’ve seen giants outside. Wandering in that wasteland. You can see them. Their heads scrape the sky. They wait for us. And they are hungry.”

  Nogitsune gets up and leaves.

  It still smells like socks in here.

  I wonder where Geoff is.

  Friday: Biology

  Our teacher doesn’t show up for class. They say she tried to leave, tried to go out one of the second floor windows and into the snow. I hope she’s okay. I hope she doesn’t get eaten by a giant. Nobody else seems to care.

  The other students leave. I stay and read. I like the room. I like being surrounded by these pretty dead things. So neat, so tidy. So intricate.

  I pull out Mister Harvey’s book. Careful, making sure nobody else is anywhere near me. I flip through the pages, looking in the background. The main story isn’t interesting. A simple quest of some sort. It ends with the main character, that nude girl, having a threesome with a giant and dwarf.

  I look at each face in the backgrounds, at the tiny details of each body. I look in each crack, corner and crevice. There, I find more people, more figures. Doing things I never even thought possible. And
I see them stare back at me. All those eyes. Staring right back at me. One of them, I realize, is Alisandre. Just as I pictured her. She wears bits and pieces of chain mail, rubbing coldly against her exposed and naked flesh.

  That is not the Prince of Butterflies above her. It is a man. And he sings. And she howls in pain. Staring at me. Pleading for me to come and help her.

  I’m covered in goosebumps.

  I feel hot, dizzy. Aroused. I slam the book shut. Before things get out of control. It would be a terrible thing if someone were to walk into the biology lab and see me masturbating amongst all of the scientific corpses.

  I wrap up the book, carefully. The leather like skin, caressing my hands. I remember the shadow of Mister Harvey’s hands and I feel odd. I’m not sure what I want, anymore. If anything is what it really seems to be.

  I want to read more in Stone Dogs. But I don’t have the time. The bell is about to ring. I can feel it, vibrating in the air. Like storm clouds pregnant with snow.

  Friday: Art Class

  Mrs. Willow Tree stands in front of us. She is covered from head to toe in leaves and mud. This is her winter coat. She tells us in a commanding voice that she will be back momentarily. She is going out to brave the snow. To rescue our sculptures from the kiln.

  She has a rusted sword strapped over her back. She is a knight. The Knight of Trees. She will need it when the giants come for her. I only hope that she can stand on her own. It is brave for her to do this.

  After she leaves, the boys in the class pull out the slide projector. They turn it on, pulling up the naked pictures from yesterday. They spin and look at me. Look at the two other girls from class. The other girls are a little thinner than me, with curved beak noses. My nose is small, button shaped, and twitches when I get nervous.

  The boys crowd around. They have red-lit eyes. Hair like black fur. They remind me of the wolf-kin in Iblio. A race of men whose parents slept with wolves, and begat half-breeds.

  One howls.

  “Come on, girls. We are all alone. It’s time to show us your inner secrets.”

  They crowd around. Claustrophobic.

  I want to run. I turn to look at the exit. Wide open. Ready for escape. I hope the bell rings soon, to give me a distraction.

  I see the other girls. The bird girls. They look down at the ground, shyly, sadly. They pull straps down. Bras off. I see them undress and my breath is caught.

  They are beautiful and sacred and scared.

  The wolfkin are enrapt.

  I run, run, run, rabbit-run out the door.

  They cannot follow me. They are trapped by the gaze of naked flesh.

  Friday: The Rooms Between Floors

  I’m still shaken from Art Class. And I have this strange feeling that I survived something. That I got away before something terrible happened. I don’t like to think about that. I don’t want to wonder what happened to the crow girls. Class seems unimportant now.

  Nagitsune was right – why should I worry about going to class when the world is going to end? I skip out on American History and run off to look for Geoff. I know about the secret places. The places he goes to when no one is looking.

  He calls it his “cutting room”.

  It is one of the rooms between floors.

  There is a secret into getting between the floors. Most people don’t know about it. The janitor showed Geoff the way. One that had a crush on him. I think Geoff wanted to reciprocate, but was afraid. Afraid of himself.

  You don’t use the stairs to get to the rooms between floors. You look for a green tile on the ceiling. All of the other tiles are dark blue. When you see it, you stand beneath it and close your eyes.

  And you concentrate on the sound of the ocean.

  Holding your breath.

  Still, so still.

  If you do it correctly, you will feel water around you. Do not panic. Do not move. Let the water flow around you, caress you. You feel dizzy, your lungs burning. But don’t let go – don’t breathe just yet. You wait for the water to cover you completely.

  And then -

  It stops.

  You can breathe and it feels like fire.

  When you open your eyes, you are in the cutting room. One of the rooms between floors.

  I follow the ritual carefully. It is hard to do. I am frightened and want to run. Instead, I think, I flow. I let the water come and wash me away.

  I was right. Geoff is here. He lies in the corner of the room. The walls are covered in posters, the only light a single candle in the middle of the floor. It is cramped in here – low ceiling. Stoop down to see everything.

  Someone is with Geoff. He is curled up around someone. They turn and look at me, naked beneath a blanket. It smells like the ocean. I see Nogitsune and I sit down, mouth open. I did not expect to see him here.

  “Hi,” Geoff says shyly. “Did you know the world is going to end?”

  I see new cuts. Across his chest. Nogitsune is asleep on Geoff’s chest. I see cuts across Nogitsune’s back.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s been ending for a long time now.”

  Geoff runs his hand over Nogitsune’s naked back. I feel a pang of jealousy. It feels odd, bitter in my mouth. I should have seen this coming, but did not. “When did he come up here with you?”

  A hand through hair.

  “About an hour ago. Are you all right?”

  I nod. What else can I do? I can’t tell him about the boy-wolves. He wouldn’t understand. “Yeah. Why?”

  “You look. I dunno. Shook up.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, a little. I didn’t know that he was –”

  Nogitsune’s eyes spring open. They are red, glowing. His mouth pulls apart and I see tiny needle teeth. “I smell them. They are close. My brothers, my sisters.”

  Geoff looks down, his eyes squinting. His mouth twitching. I back away, my shoulder against the wall. “Nogitsune? You all right?”

  Eyes return, roll back to normal.

  “Yeah,” he says, “Sorry about that. My family is here.”

  Geoff seems unfazed by what has happened. I, on the other hand, am spooked. Spooked by his actions and spooked by the wolf kin from earlier. This whole place feels wrong.

  “I’m going to head out. Dunno where. Might see Mister Harvey and give his book back to him. I can’t keep it; it’s too weird.”

  Geoff doesn’t hear me. Nogitsune doesn’t hear me. They stare into each other’s eyes. Gently, lips meeting. I feel like I am invisible, again. This makes me very sad. I never thought I would be the Invisible Girl to Geoff. I always thought I would be physical and real.

  Now, I vanish.

  Before his eyes.

  I leave the cutting room.

  Friday: Mister Harvey’s Office

  Mister Harvey is behind a large desk. It stretches the length of the room, and is covered in books and maps. Each one is highlighted. Each one has pins in them. Displayed, naked. Like a dissected animal.

  He doesn’t see me come in. Not at first.

  His eyes are down. Head down. He is not talking. Only muttering, fast. Incoherent stream of syllables. I listen, listen closely. Try to find something to stand on. Some symbol to pull meaning from.

  His eyes are moving, fast. His lip thickly twitching. His tongue a loose and wild animal in his mouth. I feel an electricity in the air. It is sharp and bites my skin.

  I sit down in the chair. I should just leave the book on his desk. Leave and walk away. I don’t know why – but I want to say something to him. I want to confront him with the book.

  On the cover, I see Nogitsune. In the shadows. Beneath him is a monk, his robes up over his waist. I turn my head. I do not want to see this.

  Eyes roll down. Eyelids flutter. Tongue stops moving. He sees me. I am no longer Invisible Girl. He puts his hands on the desk. They have cuts along them. I wonder briefly if he has been to the cutting room.

  “Hello! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  The book is in my lap. Under
my folded hands. “The book you gave me ....”

  He brings his fingers together. Into a pyramid. “Yes, yes. You know that books are magic? All books? They are all spell books of a sort. See, words and images. They carry more than just meaning. They carry the codes to our mental landscape. Books fuck with this. They take the words and change them, take the images and rearrange them. Each time you read a book, you become someone else. Changed inside.”

  I lean back in the chair. The electricity is still here. I feel it. Under my skin. Like acid. “I don’t understand,” I say. I feel weak, stupid.

  “Did you read the book?”

  I nod.

  “How carefully? Did you just flip through it? No, no. You didn’t. I see the change. It’s coming over you, already. You are different now, aren’t you? Can’t you feel it?”

  I do not feel any different. Just the same. Same Invisible Girl. Although, part of me is haunted now. But I am haunted by the things I’ve seen – the world acting in unnatural ways. That is not the book’s fault. But I do not want to seem stupid. “Yes, I do feel different. But that’s not the point – you giving me this book. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  That is a part of it. The discomfort. I want him. I need him. But this book made things clear – brought the hidden things forward in my mind. And I didn’t feel right after that. Not comfortable. Not right.

  He gets up on the desk. Crawls across it towards me. “Yes, yes. It is because you are changing; don’t you see?”

  I get out of my chair, move towards the back of his office. He has pictures hung on the walls of swingsets and playgrounds without children.