by Dawn Metcalf
Tender eats pain. He hates it. It hurts him. But he can’t help himself; he’s hungry. The next synapse fired an awful certainty: This is who I am and that was Tender. That is who he is.
It made her sick and sad and sorry and no small part grateful that it was him, and not her, who had the burden of maintaining the Flow. How could he stand it? Could God be so cruel? Tender’s words haunted her. Consuela had often wondered the same thing, reading the paper or listening to the news, things were not so different in the Flow. There were still victims and predators, cruelty and fate.
And still, she couldn’t pity him. Or admire him. She was just glad she wasn’t him.
Disgusted with herself and what she’d witnessed, Consuela’s skin felt like a layer of sewer-soaked clothes or unexpectedly bloodied underwear at that time of month. She tore the lump behind her neck and ripped off the skin, violently pushing it from her. It fell limply in a pile, one empty arm drifting like a swirl of campfire smoke. Consuela hugged her skeletal arms, clacking them against her breastbone and ribs. She ran her hands up and down her radii as if trying to get warm. At least she felt better; at least she was still wholesome and whole.
Her body glowed gently with its muted pink-blue-pearl light and she took comfort that she was still her, inside. She was still Consuela—Bones—and being in the Flow hadn’t changed that. It just made her more herself, like Wish said. And the Yad. It made more sense to her now.
Draping her cast-off skin over one arm, Consuela concentrated on finding her way to her room.
Or, at least, the memory of her room.
She closed her eyes against the strain and saw a flash image of Tender’s loose jaw. She opened her eyes again—no good. If she thought too much about it, she’d never get anywhere. Go, she urged herself. Just go.
Trusting that her feet knew the way, Consuela stepped sideways through the Flow’s tesseract doors and onto the soft carpeting of her own floor. She stumbled and righted herself, almost surprised to have gotten there so easily.
Feeling the air skin against her body, she flinched at its closeness. She never wanted to wear it again.
Never again, she thought, and tossed it aside.
The skin pinpricked into its own black hole.
Consuela stared after it. Or the place where it wasn’t. She stepped forward, reaching out to test the air. Nothing. She spun in place with the disorienting feeling of having had her keys a moment ago and now being unable to remember where she’d put them.
Consuela got down on her hands and knees, her sharp patellas poking into the plush carpet, sweeping the surface as if searching for a lost contact lens. It felt strangely like a dream. Her fingers stippled over the carpet yarn.
Nothing. Her skin of air was gone.
Pushing herself up, she wondered with a thrill of excitement and dread whether she could ever make another one again. Or was it like Wish’s tooth wishes? Only one, then gone?
Consuela padded into her bathroom and unbolted the window. Climbing into the tub and stepping onto its edge, she sat upon the windowsill, feet dangling in the air. But the feeling wasn’t the same. There was no urgent need to make windswept footie pajamas, and without the internal tug, she didn’t feel like testing the theory by falling three stories and crashing to pieces on the back deck if she were wrong.
She crawled back out of the window and into the empty tub, racing back to her closet. She grabbed the water skin off its hanger and marched back into her bathroom. Holding it over the tub, she thought it undone.
The skin fell through her fingers, splashing against the porcelain, spinning and gurgling as it slipped down the drain. Tiny droplets of water clung to her finger bones, threatening to fall like tears.
Were the skins reverting to their original components or did they simply cease to exist? Between her last two skins, only one held the answer.
She scooped up her trailing gown of inky feathers and spread it over her bed. Carefully tucking all the stray ends onto the comforter, Consuela smoothed her hands through its tucks and folds, burying her fingers in its dramatic sheen. Closing her eyes, she willed it unmade.
A soft pluff sound and a great loosening collapsed the skin into a pile of loose feathers. She picked up a few and let them spiral down. Separated, alone, they were nothing like the skin of the dark, winged angel who’d rescued a muddy drunk. She gathered up the corners of her bedspread and, unbolting the double-paned glass, Consuela pushed the bundle out the window, letting two of the corners fall. A great cloud of feathers exploded, beating at the window, obscuring the view, before pinwheeling out into the fathomless “wherever” that existed beyond her make-believe room. She shook the bedspread with vicious snaps, pulling it back in only after she’d dislodged the last bit of downy fluff. She snapped the window shut and threw the comforter on her bed. It was a violent release, a daring game, playing chicken with the Flow.
Consuela considered her last victim crackling merrily in its garment bag, tongues of yellow-orange flame licking the inside of the clear plastic. She stood in the closet doorway, the gold light playing merrily over her bones. Would undoing this last skin free her from the Flow? Or would it make her powerless, trapped as a living skeleton, forever, without any skins? Would it kill her, making herself “undone”? Would it do none of these things and simply curl into a zip of warm nothingness, leaving only a touch of ash—if that—behind?
Could it free her? Kill her? Bring her closer to the end? A real end, like Nikki’s: death in both worlds.
The fire skin hung by a crackling thread.
The real question was: was she willing to risk it?
She rotated that last question around in her mind.
No.
Consuela took her own skin, unfolding it gently like an heirloom quilt, and stepped into herself slowly, welcoming it on like an old friend. She felt her spine slide closed, soft orbs settling into her sockets, the itch of her scalp as it tightened against her skull, and the comforting weight of her fatty curves as they nuzzled over her ribs and hips. Consuela lifted her head, looked at herself in the mirror, and recognized the full-lipped, high school grin.
I know you, she thought at herself. This is me.
chapter ten
“To us, a realist is always a pessimist. And an ingenious person would not remain so for very long if he truly contemplated life realistically.”
—OCTAVIO PAZ
WISH whimpered as he stumbled on a stretch of nothing, slipping through the infinite space of the Flow. Dodging between islands of other people’s pasts, he cursed for the millionth time the fact that he couldn’t be selfish if he tried.
He ran wildly, tripping over his long shoelaces. He could sense murder coming like a storm.
Perhaps he imagined it—not the killer, that was real—but the echo of footsteps, sharp and sure like marching soldiers. Damn boots should make a sound outside his head! He couldn’t have been seen, not yet anyway, or the footfalls would’ve gotten faster, right? Anyone human would start running him down. Then again, Wish wondered if there was anything human in there anymore.
Wish bounced off of something solid, the edge of familiar territory, but whatever it was retreated before he could get a grip on it and yank himself into freedom. No trespassing. Doomed in the empty. Probably Joseph Crow’s trickster-coyote trapdoor.
“Shit!” he swore, spun to his feet, and kept on running, fast.
The somewhat-sounds were coming closer, and Wish felt a desperate clawing-bile-panic need to escape. He was good at wishful thinking, but he was much better at hiding.
Wish sat down, curling into a fetal ball on the nothingness floor. He rolled up—whimpering—and ground fists in his hair. The un-noise kept ticking like a grandfather clock.
Wish teetered on his seat, pulling his jacket full of novelty pins like an umbrella over his head. He shook, back turned toward the imaginary echo, feeling the cold on his crack where his shirt lifted from his briefs. Ducking his face into the hot hollow between his chest an
d legs, he squeezed his eyes shut, openmouthed-breathing, hiding the animal sounds coming out of his throat.
It wasn’t my wish, so this should work . . . Wish clenched his hands tighter. No, no, no—it HAS to work! It wasn’t mine. It HAS to work . . . !
He kept his weird prayer spinning in his head, forming a sort of convincing cocoon, winding a thread of hope to cover him whole.
The marching came closer.
He has to have seen me . . .
The sounds were steady and even.
Inhuman robot prick!
The footsteps never faltered, driven like a steady hammer to nail, gunshots at a firing range. It was almost upon him—the press of hot, dampened Flow pushing everything out of its wake. Wish cowered, waiting. He didn’t want to die, but couldn’t help wondering what it’d feel like if he did. He wondered if it’d take long. He wondered if it was happening now. Was the sword hanging over his head? He couldn’t stand not knowing. He looked.
Wish peeked over his collar under the cover of his hair at the bright black boots stalking by. The young psychopath’s strides ate up the Flow and spat it back like some parasitic worm. He didn’t see Wish, didn’t even pause to sneer; the Angel of Death kept walking, storming toward somewhere else in space. Wish watched him go, refusing to breathe.
It was an old, familiar terror: too scared to speak, too scared to tell, and no one ever believed him, anyway.
The boots walked into the nothing as Wish sat unnoticed, sculpted in fear.
He unwound only when his muscles began to burn, when his knuckles shook with strain and sharp spasms bit the base of his spine. Uncurling like a hedgehog, meek and cautious, Wish kept expecting the inevitable predator-pain.
He couldn’t believe it—it worked! He’d passed within inches, if that.
Relief crashed through him with the promise of a major migraine. Paranoid, am I? Wish smirked. Then what the hell was that?!
He wiped his hands on his pants and headed elsewhere. His laughter, when it escaped, bubbled out in spurts of maniacal soda-can froth. Piece of cake; he giggled. Should he try to warn the others? Sissy was a goner, for sure. Bones, too, probably. He couldn’t risk it. There wasn’t time. Maybe he could find Abacus or Maddy and hide out with them. Wish might not be the only one left, after all.
Smarter than the average bear, Wish congratulated himself.
It was tough to hide in a world where nothing really existed, so he’d tucked himself behind somebody else’s wish, and waited for the threat to walk right on by.
THIS time, there was no knock, no warning, Tender walked right through her bedroom wall with a secret smile on his face. Consuela jumped up from her desk, cold with fear. Had he known that she’d been spying on him? Had Wish said anything? Tender’s going to kill me!
He was as confident and cool as ever, as if he’d never once cracked open his mouth and swallowed layers of black pain from the Flow.
“Hello, Bones,” he said. “Sorry to intrude, but I knew this couldn’t wait.” He flicked his head to move his bangs from his eyes. “I figured out your problem and—as promised—I’m here to help!”
The creepy, numbing buzz hadn’t left her limbs, which tingled awake without having fallen asleep first. She remembered the ants. And Tender’s screaming. She was proud that her voice sounded calmer than she felt.
“Help?” she asked warily. “With what?”
Tender grinned as if they shared a joke. “Oh, come now. V wanted to do it all by himself—right past wrongs, that sort of thing. Make it up to you,” he said. “And we all gave him his space and ample time, but I think you’ve had enough and would rather just get out, right?”
Consuela stammered, “Get out?”
“Get. Out.” Tender overenunciated. “Go home. Go back to your life. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
Her head spun, thoughts twisting one-eighty. “What?”
“I asked,” Tender said smoothly, stepping forward and looking pleased with himself, “if you wanted to go home?”
She blinked up at him.
“Home.” She repeated the word, visions of her parents and Allison and her car swam to the surface; school and pizza and walking out of her room and away and away and away . . .
Consuela was hopeful enough to ask.
“How?”
Tender clapped his hands as if he’d been waiting for that question. “Well,” he said theatrically, “let’s see what our lucky contestant can find behind Door Number One.” He grabbed her bedroom door handle and cranked it down, pulling it open with a flourish. Consuela stared.
There were hardwood floors, cream-colored walls, the worn, Indonesian runner, and the framed family portrait at the end of the hall.
Home. Her mouth felt dry. She forgot to breathe.
Tender stepped aside.
“How about here and now?” he said.
She was afraid to move, afraid to blink, afraid to believe it. Her feet were glued to the floor.
“That wasn’t there before,” she whispered.
“Of course not,” he said. “But this is the Flow, which can be anywhere at any time and right now it is at your house, on the second floor, just outside your room.” Tender leaned on the door with a self-satisfied smirk. “Now you say, ‘Thank you,’ and kiss me good-bye.”
Consuela stared at him and was surprised when he glanced away, embarrassed; a flush brightened his throat, but hadn’t made it to his cheeks.
“The kiss is optional, of course,” he said. “But I thought you’d be grateful.”
I am, aren’t I? She was too nervous to be sure. Suspicion blinded her. It didn’t seem possible, but then nothing had seemed that way since she’d found the lump. More to the point, it didn’t seem right—but she couldn’t figure out why. She kept staring at the framed photograph down the hall, willing the image sharper, proving itself real, knowing it would look clearer if she stepped forward. She remained where she was. Why can’t I just go?
“That’s real?” she asked, stalling for time to think. “That’s the real world?”
“As real as it gets,” Tender said gently.
Consuela almost frowned as a thought occurred to her. “Why me?”
Tender paused. “Excuse me?”
“If this is real, if the Flow can go anywhere,” she asked carefully, “why don’t you use it to go back?”
Something in his eyes flattened and his proud smile grew stiff.
“You presume that I want to go back,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t ever want to go back.”
“But the others . . . ?”
“Neither Sissy or V or Joseph or Wish want to go back either—despite what they say out loud to convince one another how much they miss home. They know their lives are no longer pretty or they’re no longer pretty—” He shook his head. “But we all want to stay here in the Flow, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.” He tapped his chest and winked. “Maximum impact, remember? We do better here. But you—” He lifted his hand to touch hers; she flinched. “You don’t belong here. V’s said it a thousand times. You’ve said it yourself. You have to go back. V is being stubborn and selfish by making you wait when all he had to do was swallow his pride and ask for help.” He glanced at her under his thick black eyebrows. “You should never be afraid to ask for help.” His eyes quirked, full of double meanings. She gazed out the door to a familiar world.
“And I could just go now?” She said. “Just walk out the door and close it and be home?”
Tender looked out with her, saying nothing, leaning against the jamb.
“It’s up to you, Bones,” he said finally. “It looks like a nice life.”
Home.
“What are you waiting for?” he whispered.
Home. Don’t piss him off. TenderTenderTender.
What am I waiting for?
What am I waiting for?
I’m waiting for . . . ?
She searched for it. It was something. Unfinished.
“It’s not my ti
me,” Consuela said quietly, not quite believing that she’d said it. It was as true as she could make it, although it seemed as if they were both saddened by her answer. Tender pressed his belt buckle slowly, a gentle pressure. Consuela didn’t dare blink as he weighed something behind his eyes.
“Okay,” Tender said flatly, and closed the door with aching slowness. The latch caught with a sliding click. He let the handle go with a showman’s regret. “Have it your way.” He waved his hand and her window smeared open, punctured by the Flow. Tender walked toward it.
“If you change your mind, come find me.” His voice lilted, almost mocking. “When the time is right.”
She watched the Flow slip closed behind him, her window coalescing back to normal and the volatile feeling passing like rain. Consuela’s hand hovered above the door handle but she withdrew it and glanced at herself in the mirror, half wanting V to be there, spying, half wanting to privately convince herself she’d done the right thing.
She searched the reflection of her eyes, but she found no answers there.
She heard Sissy’s crying through the door, artless and broken. Consuela hesitated, not wanting to intrude on grief—she thought of mourning as a private thing done with wringing hands and tugging hair. She didn’t know Sissy well enough for that. But she still had to tell her Abacus was out and that she’d left a message. Correction: Tender left the message. She only hoped it said what she’d told him to say.
She was conscious of lurking outside the door.
Knocking cautiously, Consuela let herself in. There was only splintered crying. She had no idea that Sissy had been so close to this guy, Nikki.
The Watcher’s chair was empty and the sounds came from around a corner. Consuela crept carefully past the bookshelves, noticing the great, gaping hole where the dictionary had been. She was somewhat prepared when she found Sissy on the floor, propped up against the wainscoting, her hair hanging down over her dripping face and the bottle clutched in her hand. The Watcher sniffled thickly, limp tremors shaking her body. She looked like a marionette with all its strings cut.