by Dawn Metcalf
She nodded, looking out across the street. “Sure,” she admitted in defeat. “I’m a junior at Jefferson. Getting ready for college applications.”
“Huh,” he muttered. “I didn’t think you were a teenager. I mean, most of us are, but you seem, I don’t know, timeless. Ageless.”
She laughed humorlessly, holding out her arms. “Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving.”
He glanced at her skeleton. “Yeah,” he said. “Guess so.”
Their silence fell flat. Wish began tapping, rattling the novelty pins on his sleeves.
She’d made him uncomfortable, which made her feel guilty. Consuela sighed, considering the thin, scraggly boy in the grass.
“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.
Wish shrugged, knees bouncing. “It’s a free country.”
It wasn’t a yes or a no, but Consuela settled herself down. She read a blue button near his collar that said I DON’T CARE TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL HAVE ME AS A MEMBER.—GROUCHO MARX.
She tried to break the ice. “Nice pins.”
“Yeah?” Wish said, looking at the Marx quote. “They were a collection that kinda took over. You know how it is. Something to do.” He held up the pin by its backing: CRAZY IS AS CRAZY DOES.
Consuela rested her ulnas against her knees. “You think we’re all crazy?”
“Well, I can’t speak for you,” he said, “but being crazy would make a lot more sense than knowing that this was real. Still, when we’re like this”—he pointed to himself and her—“we’re not like that, you know?” Wish gestured vaguely at the high school. She could almost imagine the babble of petty talk, the bus exhaust, the lunchroom politics, the hallway runways, and the locker-room drama. The Flow was definitely different.
“I know.” She nodded. “We’re more . . .” She struggled for a word, but failed to find a good one.
“Ourselves,” Wish supplied. “We’re more ourselves and more than ourselves . . .” He jutted his chin. “This is more who we really are than when we were playing it safe, back there. Like this reality matters more than the real one. Know what I mean?”
“Sort of,” Consuela admitted, nodding. “Yeah.”
Wish’s thin-lipped grin tugged at his crooked eyeteeth. “So this is really you?”
She didn’t need to grin back. “Yes.”
“Sure. See? I’m really me when I can make folks’ wishes come true. It’s the best!” he said. “What do you do?”
Fly out of windows? Fall down the drain? Burn in buildings ?
“I save people from dying,” she said. “Before their time.”
Wish blew a raspberry, his fingers still tapping erratic, staccato rhythms on his arms. “Well, duh, yeah. We all do that. But I meant how?”
“Oh.” Consuela thought about it. “Um . . . I can take off my skin and make new ones out of things like air, water . . .”
“No shit?” Wish sat up. “Sorry. I mean, really? You don’t normally look like this?”
Consuela laughed, surprised. “No! I have a face and hair and eyes and everything.”
“Huh.” He tugged absently at his ear and the tips of his hair. She wondered if he realized that he was doing it. “So what do you look normally like?”
She thought about embellishing a little, but why bother? Who did she have to impress?
“Short,” she admitted. “Round, dark. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin. I’m Mexican.”
“Really? You don’t look it.” They both laughed at that. “I meant that you don’t sound like it.”
Her mood shifted.
“Excuse me?” she said.
Wish immediately dropped his eyes and scratched a spot of acne on his cheek. “I meant you got no accent.”
Consuela didn’t know what to think. No one had ever thought of her as anything but Mexican American. She’d never been mistaken for Caucasian, but without skin . . . skeletons all looked the same. He thought I was white, like him. Big deal. But that was supposed to be, what, a compliment? Or was it just something everybody assumed when they didn’t know for sure—that people looked like them by default?
“I said I was Mexican,” she said. “Not that I was from Mexico.”
“Right,” he said quickly. “Sorry.”
A frigid silence fell under the crab-apple canopy. Wish shrank into a tight, miserable ball.
“Hell,” he muttered. “Some things don’t change in either world. I can still piss people off right from the start,” he said. “Talent I’ve had since I was a kid. Sissy can still be popular and V can still be cool and Tender can still be a total head case, but someone you gotta have around . . .”
“Tender,” Consuela said. “What is it about this guy?” She turned, spinning on her coccyx. “Sissy seemed totally freaked out by him.”
“She should be,” Wish said simply. “You should be. I should be. Heck, I am and I’m, like, best friends with the guy.”
“Really?” Consuela said.
“Sure. I even made a wish for him once.” Wish unwound a little from his self-protective hunch. “Tender’s been here years and years. There are all sorts of people who’ve come and gone, but Tender’s role and what he does is something that has been part of the Flow for, like, ever. He gets things, right?” His eyes had a sort of wicked spark to them, like when kids tell each other gruesome secrets or ghost stories in the dark. “Sissy tell you what he does?”
“He eats pain,” she said back.
“Yeah, right. He digests it. Eats it right up,” Wish said. “He can take the darkness inside him and chew it up or spit it out. That’s what Sissy doesn’t get. That Tender’s been here long enough that he knows the Flow inside and out. She thinks he’s trash and that she’s got his number, but she doesn’t. Not really.” He sat back with a strange sort of pride in his voice. “That’s why she has to listen to me. I know Tender best. He trusts me.”
“Do you trust him?” Consuela asked.
“Hell no, but I don’t pity him, which he appreciates more than anything,” Wish said. “I don’t spit on him either. Tender’s got a short fuse when it comes to respect. He cares a lot about what he does—knows it’s a tough-ugly job, but also dead necessary. Useful.” He gestured again at the two of them. “Folks like you and me? We’re temps. Dime a dozen. But there’s always been a guy like Tender in the Flow. Just like there’s always been a Watcher like Sissy. Yin and yang. Either one of them goes, there’ll be another one soon enough. There’s got to be or the Flow doesn’t. Isn’t.” He drummed his fingers against his knee. “Some think the Watcher and Tender are the same person, the same soul, recycled, you know? Reborn and returning over and over.”
Consuela felt a ripple of nausea like goose bumps on her nonexistent skin.
“Sounds horrible,” she confessed.
Wish shrugged. “Tender seems to deal with it well enough,” he said. “He likes being a big guy. Like my mum says, ‘He wears it well.’”
Cradling her jaw, Consuela watched Wish unconsciously tapping his buttons and scabs. “So if I meet Tender . . .”
“When you meet Tender,” Wish corrected.
“. . . when I meet him,” Consuela allowed. “Anything I should keep in mind?”
Wish leaned back on his hands, his thin chest concave under his denim jacket. “Don’t feel sad for him, or pity him, or piss him off. He’s a real bastard, but that’s how he’s drawn,” he said. “You have to be tough to do what he does. He has to take it all in.” He ran a spindly hand over the patchy grass and the knobby trunk of the tree. He knocked on the wood. “Someone’s got to feel it all, you know?”
Consuela placed a skeletal hand against the bark. Without skin, she might be powerful, even immortal, but she could hardly feel a thing. She looked at the school building, large, empty and lifeless, too distant and strangely difficult to recall what it might have been like before. She felt numb here, behind glass. Without her skin, she was dead to the world.
“Is it real?”
Wish snorted and jutted his
chin at the school. “It may not be real, but it’s a lot realer than that.”
Consuela stared at the high school, suddenly homesick. She felt tears on her cheekbones, dripping off of her chin—somehow, she could feel those.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
“Hey, hey,” Wish said, a little alarmed. His hands moved like butterflies, unsure where to land. He placed a palm against her flat shoulder blade. Consuela leaned into his awkward, one-armed hug. He tried to sound soothing, “It’s okay . . .”
“It’s not okay!”
“No, you’re right,” he said. “It’s not okay.”
They sat under the crab-apple tree, the wind playing lazily with the thumbprint-shaped leaves while Consuela rattled against Wish’s buttons as she cried. One caught in the curve of her eye socket as she wiped her face. It read I PLEAD CONTEMPORARY INSANITY. He removed his hand from her shoulder joint.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said.
“I know,” Wish said. “But it’s not impossible to get back, you know? You hear things . . . if you listen for it.” He shrugged. Consuela suddenly understood that Wish liked it here, but was too embarrassed to admit it. She couldn’t imagine preferring this crazy half-life to reality. Family. Home.
“It’s not impossible?” Consuela said. “Then why didn’t Sissy . . . ?”
Wish evaded her eyes. “Maybe you should ask her.”
He said it like a hint. Consuela debated taking it.
“Maybe I should,” she said, and pushed herself up. His eyes followed her, surprised. She paused in a half crouch, a tangle of bones. “Thanks, Wish.”
He might have blushed when he shrugged again, looking down, tapping his buttons and shoes.
“No problem,” he muttered. She stood and stretched. Nothing popped.
“I’ve got to find V,” she said, and thought, I’ve got to get home.
“Yeah, well, just remember,” Wish said. “This is the Flow. Nothing’s impossible.”
“No,” Consuela agreed. “Just highly, highly improbable.”
Wish snorted and threw another small stone, watching it bounce. “Got that right.”
And although they watched the school steps for a long, long while, no one ever came out.
WHEN Consuela appeared at Sissy’s door, she had a plan. There was only one master of probability in the Flow.
“Come in,” Sissy called in answer to her knocking. Consuela tried to ignore the nervous thumping of a heart that wasn’t there, yet her voice was tense without vocal cords.
“Can you take me to Abacus?” she asked.
Sissy hadn’t turned, intent on her monitor. “Not right now,” she said slowly. “I’m a little . . . busy?” She said the last word like a question, like she wasn’t sure. Sissy spared a glance over her shoulder. “Nikki didn’t show up.”
“Was he supposed to be here?” Consuela asked.
“Not here,” Sissy said. “He didn’t show up for his assignment.”
“Oh.” Consuela walked over to the desk and squinted at the screen. It was full of open windows like a vertical pile of scattered papers. “What happened?”
“Same thing that happens every time one of us fails,” Sissy said quietly. “His assignment died.” She blew out a long breath and tilted her head to Consuela. “Although,” Sissy eyed Consuela meaningfully, “I do know of one exception.”
She leaned forward and grabbed her cell phone. “I can let you borrow my phone. Abacus has a beeper. The signal will lead you to him, like you did coming here.” Sissy tossed it to Consuela, who cupped both hands to catch it.
“Star seven,” Sissy advised. “And be sure to bring it back.” She resumed typing.
Consuela turned the phone on. “Thanks.”
The scrabble of keyboard keys stilled. Sissy turned.
“Can you forgive me?” the Watcher asked.
Sighing, Consuela shifted from foot to foot, long bones settling like toothpicks against the carpet. For telling me that I’m doomed? For not telling me everything? For not saying that none of this was real from the start? For killing all hope? For not being okay with that?
“Ask me later.”
“No,” Sissy said. “Let me tell you something my father told me coming from a long line of early stroke victims: You never know how long you have—there might not be a later—so don’t let things go unsaid or unforgiven.” She looked a little embarrassed, scared. She readied herself. “So forgive me now, or don’t.”
It was true, but no one said those things aloud. The mortal truths. You always assumed there would be time, but there wasn’t. Consuela knew it. They all knew it. The Flow knew it, too.
She nodded.
“I forgive you now,” Consuela said.
The blond girl smiled a tiny bit. “Good. Great. Now let me get back to work.”
CONSUELA appeared on the edge of a hill. The ground was patchy with grass and rocks, above was a picture-perfect puff-cloud sky, and between them stood a structure that made her head hurt.
Fractal images and impossible planes shot up in jagged, defiant directions, reminding Consuela of crystal formations grown under time-lapse film. Hints of reverse-rainbow colors and ultraviolet bands sliced along the sharp edges of . . . whatever it was. If this jumble of jeweled obelisks somehow formed a building, she had no idea how to find the door.
Consulting her cell-phone receiver did nothing—the yellow marker wove itself into a helix.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
“Hello?” a voice called from out of sight.
“Hello?” Consuela called back.
“In a minute.”
Consuela glanced around, trying to guess where the sound came from, but gave up.
“. . . Roughly seventy seconds, or its nearest equivalent . . .” A smiling face appeared through an Escher-angled wall. Abacus adjusted his rimless glasses as he stepped forward. “ . . . depending on your relative space-time,” he said. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Consuela said. “I’m guessing you’re Abacus.”
“And you must be Bones.” He offered a handshake, which she accepted. William Chang shook her collection of tarsals without a trace of embarrassment or hesitation. He wore his smile comfortably, like an old shirt; his actual shirt was maroon and tugged at a noticeable paunch.
“Consuela Chavez, aka Bones,” he said again. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” He looked her over appreciatively. “Wow! You’re really something, if you don’t mind me saying so.” His eyes twinkled. “Come on inside. Let me show you around.”
He waved toward his mass of towers. Consuela squinted up.
“I’m trying to get home,” she said as she tried to follow the lines of the building. The light bent and wobbled, trailing prism colors. Consuela’s phantom eyes traced the aurora effect as it climbed.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve come to the right place.”
“This is quite the place,” she said with a smile in her voice. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”
Abacus laughed. “Isn’t it? I call it ‘Quantum’ and I can honestly say I made it all by myself. I think it’s the only permanent artificial construction created within the Flow.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully and gave a mad-scientist laugh. “And it’s mine, all mine!”
Consuela burst out laughing. “Well, can we go inside?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said.
Standing at the base of the structure, she touched the smooth, quicksilver walls. “How?” she asked.
“I could show off and try to explain the math, but it’s simpler to say that I took surreality and bent it to my will. Fun, huh? This way.” He stepped one foot dramatically through the wall and held it there. “You might want to swallow before entering, the transition can throw off your inner ear, and you still have those—smallest bones in the body.” He winked. “Ready?”
“As ever,” Consuela said, swallowed, and stepped through the wall. She tilted suddenly upwar
d and to the right, flipping something inside her skull that resettled into almost the same position. She clapped a hand to her forehead with a clack.
“Ow,” she muttered.
“I warned you.” Abacus chuckled.
“You did.”
“But isn’t this totally worth it?” Abacus said proudly as Consuela blinked up at the faceted walls. Whorls of formulae swirled over its surfaces, arcing spirals of numbers and symbols in Greek. The writing changed color as it moved, reflecting its opposite, while incredibly thin lines joined and split, connecting tiny points of light like jewels in an invisible chandelier. Abacus reached up and touched one point of light and, with an encouraging push, coaxed it into a small constellation of similar stars.
“Welcome to the Flow,” he said, grinning. “My map of it, anyway.”
“Wow,” Consuela breathed.
“Tell me about it.” Abacus laughed.
Consuela looked around, hoping to find what would get her home fast. “So where’s your computer?” she asked.
“Here,” he said, tapping his temple. “And here.” He scooped something off of a hook. Dark wooden beads rattled on the frame.
As she saw the ancient calculator, William Chang’s nickname suddenly made sense. Consuela crossed her arms. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” He gloated. “It’s a suanpan. Faster than a computer. They’ve clocked it. Now look over here. I think this is what you wanted.” He led the way to one of the side towers leaning at a sharp angle to the ground. Consuela ducked when he did and knelt where he bent to enter a new direction. She crept forward, knowing she’d never find her way out of this place if she lost sight of him. Excitement tingled along her limbs. She felt sorry for leaving Sissy and V and Wish without so much as saying good-bye.
They wound deeper in dizzying directions. Fortunately, Abacus waited for her at every turn, a smile crinkling his eyes. When he stopped, she stood up too soon and banged her head on a corner. She might have bit her tongue if she’d had one.
“All right back there?”
She rubbed her skull. “You couldn’t imagine a place with right angles?”
“Had to work within parameters,” he apologized. “Here we are.” He took her hand and guided her to stand. “Look up.”