Insatiable.
It is a living thing.
Fire is a living thing, even after it has left the body and had its way with mutilating what once might have been considered normal, average; not beautiful. It remains a ghost in the system, haunting with feverish efficiency. Cruel and consistent.
Its voice is a single droning tone, a piercing thought, riding the tip of the blackened fangs of the hounds as they scrape bone.
My voice wails in unison with the charring chorus.
I hear Stafford say, “If you really want to be its caretaker, be my guest. But know the consequences of—”
His voice is muffled by the red cry and sunburst enunciation beyond excruciation that wraps my head in its wail.
Caretaker? What kind of joke is that? I want more from the book than to just watch over it.
There is pounding out there, beyond my burning prison.
“Come in,” he yells. “I had intended to save her, but you can have the pleasure, if pleasure is to be found in…” He falls silent as the sound of ruptured wood cracks at the force of a mighty weight.
There is a pop and thud and an aural chaos that is woven into the scorching thread that kneads my face in blisters that pop and skin that melts and—
--a flush of something cool, like an arctic belch, vomiting powder over my head; this hurts as well, a different pain. Not healing, just shifting.
Seconds slide by, the voices become clear as a Vicki says, “Is she alive?” while Chuck, who likes to be called Charles, but who gives a fuck right now, says, “She’s alive. But he’s not. Watch your step. Blood.” “Oh, shit…” “Call 9-1-1,” and I realize the siren wail that resonates with acute lucidity all around me—as the flame was, now this sound—is my voice, my throat shredding, hacking metal-on-metal razorblade symphonies in conjunction with the expression of such immersive horror…
“Darling,” my mother says again.
“Yes, Mother,” I say, though it is garbled by my dry throat. Or is it in transition? Perhaps this is my new voice? What languages will it teach me to speak?
“I thought I’d lost you.”
She is not looking at me. This annoys.
“Well,” I say, my timbres clearing and in league with the annoyance, “You obviously haven’t. Why don’t you take a look at your pretty girl and give her a big hug.”
“Darling, I…” But she gives up, the fight not even worth the effort. As she’s always done.
I don’t care. I poke her as if she’s dead, which she has been for me for years. Never there when I needed her. Never there at all. Dad having left upon my birth, she’s the only parent I’ve ever known. Which means my definition of parent is devoid of meaning.
Dear old never-known dad probably left more of himself in my genes than she has. Thankfully.
“Come on, mother. How about a kiss,” I say, even though my lips are probably nothing more than mangled pink flesh poking through gauze. It probably looks perverse to her, yet I really do not care.
I reach up to make sure there is gauze. There is. What’s she so goddamned afraid of? That’s when I realize the gauze is freshly applied. There was moistness and patchy hardening before I went to sleep. Was she here to watch the sideshow exhibit as it danced around, curtsied and tipped its motley hat?
The façade of mother she flaunts for others wears thin on her only daughter. I’m not into games. I’m into discovering who I am now. Uncovering who I am now…
I swing my legs to the side of the bed.
“Darling, what are you doing?” Her care is more out of discomfort than genuine empathy.
I start to unravel the gauze.
“Darling…Beth, darling. I-I should call a nurse.” She rises from the chair, the plush blue cushion sighing at her retreat. As she passes in front of me, I reach out and grab her arm.
Contact.
She yelps, a tiny sound: a Chihuahua’s tail pinched under heavy heels.
I hold tight.
“Baby, you’re hurting me.”
“Fuck you, mother,” I say, the last word an abomination.
“Let me go,” she says, and I release her. She continues to the door, looking back as I pull off the last of the gauze. “Oh, my…” Her face is much as the doctor’s when I asked about damage.
There’s something here I do not understand. Now is the time to get a clue.
The door swooshes closed as she exits. I hear the tap-tap-tapping of her expensive boots and her whiny voice fade as she rounds a corner.
I rise, gather my gumption as well as my balance, joints popping and muscles straining, and wobble what one might view as drunkenly toward the bathroom.
I step inside and flick the switch.
The light causes my eyes to water, yet I do not close them. There is too much to take in. The doctor’s and my mother’s confusion made…not exactly clear, but finding its footing.
I wonder as to why I was not in a burn unit. Perhaps my strangeness defied protocol.
I think about my absent father and the shadow that is my mother.
I think about my true parents, the only one’s who could have created the masterpiece that is...me.
I laugh. The sound rises with the tenacious grind of a train seeking refuge from Hell. But it’s not refuge I seek. It is completion.
I am…
Almost there.
Almost me.
I scrounge through the brown bag that sat on the floor next to the woman who called herself my mother. Mother, sweet mother, left clothes, shoes. As if she thought I was leaving anytime soon.
The details here do not matter. What matters is my quest. Quickly dressing, I gather the strength to tumble out the window, my legs acclimating to the task, and sprint away.
Darkness is my shroud, my features muted by light and shadow. I may look curious to the few stragglers and homeless, but the image will fade as they slump in beds made of concrete and dream of strange creatures.
I will be the strange creature they thought they saw before Morpheus takes them to the places their personal demons frolic.
My breath is harsh, pluming amidst the two A.M. chill. Sunrise is hours away. My pace is swift. I will make it to the apartment well before the sun’s gleaming stare points me out to others, who will pray I am a nightmare of which they want to pinch themselves in hopes of awakening into the real world.
Not a very promising choice, I think, veering toward Stafford’s choices, and wonder as to his fear. All he had researched, a lie. With what he owned, the book that burned perhaps to ash along with my face, why did he not pursue its gifts?
Then I remember inhaling the deep, pungent aroma of ink and old pages, parchment allusions made tangible with what I have learned. Even through the thickening smog of my own burning flesh. I wonder what remains of the book. I wonder if any of it is salvageable, and if it is even there, in that apartment. Would the police or the fire department have taken it away, the grotesque scene one in need of answers they would never get, even with what remains of the book, if anything? Did the book burn to ash, never to be deciphered again?
Were these questions and more never to be answered?
Perhaps my physical condition was one to answer questions…or inspire more.
Would his ex-wives and ex-girlfriends have answers for the questions ricocheting in my reeling thoughts?
Was I so close to something, a true revelation and not just the opening of the door the hospital mirror presented?
Would I be left adrift, this monstrous creature no one would lay eyes on without feeling bile rise and tickle the back of their throat?
Too many questions, with answers doubtful.
I only knew the apartment might hold another key, this one invisible and to be slipped into the lock of the mind, helping me figure out my present predicament.
I think back to Stafford again, and his denial of the book and the gifts it held. I remember him saying his father was the one who was into the dark stuff, the black arts. I remember him
and his knowledge, never something he embraced, more a necessity. Keeping it at bay. Keeping something at bay. I had loose threads in need of braiding. My interest only over the last few years, leading up to him, and this. Yet I know I have a stronger internal foundation as to why I have this interest now. He, on the other hand—I sense he was afraid of things, of his father’s legacy of forbidden knowledge, yet that knowledge sat in the back of his brain, rocking to and fro, waiting, waiting.
He chose punk rock aesthetics, the red hair, blue beard, anarchist’s attitude, but had not the heart to truly embrace it all. Surface level, like the tattoos. He was a lunatic, but it was a lunatic by choice, not a part of his essence.
My essence, well…
I thought of my spare minutes with the book and know it was mine, all mine. As Maria had suggested. Meant for me: its history and its promise. Welcoming me as a parent to a child.
No, not the book, but those who wrote it. Those whose dark wisdom bled onto those pages.
I think of what I am doing, and why am I here, tearing the yellow police tape from the door and turning the knob.
I knew it would open.
The key was with Stafford. It might have dropped and scattered amidst the chaos. The dead ex-wives and ex-girlfriends might have hidden it. These thoughts filter through me as I step through the door and gently close it behind me.
Breathing deep, the taint of burnt flesh and burnt paper--burnt old paper--tweaks my nostrils. Not strongly, it’s been over two weeks since the incident. But enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I brush my wrist over the less damaged skin around my eyes, courtesy of Stafford’s insistence I see what I am to see but not what he expected me to see, and lightly thumb the layers and layers of the flesh of my face, and wander to the middle of the room.
I turn in circles, waiting for something to happen.
“Why am I here?” I say aloud.
“You’ve come home,” Maria says.
“Not home. This is Hell.” Doreene, frightened, yet hiding in the darkest part of the room. She steps out and reconsiders options when she sees me more clearly. No light in the room but the moon peering through cracked glass.
She begins to weep.
“What’s happened to your face?” she says.
“Yes, what’s happening to your face?” Darlene, roaming along the periphery; perhaps the periphery of this world and another.
From happened to happening. I wonder…
I am…
In transition?
“You know what’s happening, don’t you, dearest?” Maria says. Her voice is vinegar-laced, joyful.
“I am…not sure.”
“Perhaps not,” she says. “But you have an inkling of what’s happening, don’t you.”
“The book—”
“Yes.” Not a question, a statement.
Shadows thicken where the others gather. Not Maria. She wants what I have, but does not court jealousy in anticipation of what I am…becoming.
Then I realize there is no book to be found here. Not exactly…
“You are beautiful,” Maria says, stepping back, eyes wide in awe. She starts to chant. Her wish one for true resurrection, out of the spirit realm and into the flesh. Her understanding is distorted. To be as she is and to welcome the possibilities of discovering her true self—oh, what bliss she would experience.
As I am swiftly learning.
My final statement, one of triumph. A statement mocking Stafford’s misguided damnation, as if he had the power to distribute such a thing. My true name revealed as the leaves of my face flap wildly.
(I am...)
Maria buckles to her knees in rapture, palms raised to the black heavens awaiting trespass through me. “Yes! Yes!”
(I am…)
As if another match has been flung to my head, thoughts spark and smolder through me as I read the leaves…
(I am…)
--the passage of eons, words and rituals, chants and spells scribbled in blood, ink, and fever sweat hallucinations; seeing too deeply, yet not enough…
(I am…)
--my absent fathers, human and…not, mad poets and mad geniuses and mad creatures culled from the rim of forever, the wasteland dwellers, both here and…out there…
(I am…)
My voice, a howl, a tolling bell, the time has come--now!
“I am--”
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die
“--The Necronomicon!”
I'm hiding behind Mancer's big shelf, watching them through gaps between books. Across the workshop, Mancer is collaborating with Taia. My muse, he calls her. Taia's movements are strange. One moment she swirls effortless, the next seizing postures which require strained effort as she contorts in place. Her perfect white skin glistens with perspiration, and her long straight hair, also perfect white, flails around her like a bright halo.
Mancer's attention is split between Taia's movements and his paper before him on the desk. His pen hand moves as if sketching, and while it's true he's interpreting form and outline, he's not drawing, but writing. More accurately, he's scratching letterforms, designing sigils, muttering words under his breath. Sometimes he tries spoken words in sequence using different intonation or inflection, playing one sound against the next like a singer, while his muse poses, her every movement synchronized to his speech.
Taia's paleness is revealed through her dress, made of thin rings of black metal, like a weightless suit of chainmail. Tiny loops jingle against one another, catch against the skin beneath, and slide free.
The portal window behind them looks into an abyss of water, dark and very deep. The only light out there is that which escapes this room. When something out in the water nears the glass, it steals a fragment of light, and as if startled to discover luminance where none is expected, swims away. Why Mancer situates us here, so far below, I don't know. When I've asked, he repeats his mantra: Never question.
I assume the point is to be near whatever ineffable godhead he's striving to attract.
Taia spins, arms and legs so thin, whirling untouched by gravity, like a body suspended in perfectly clear water. Feet naked, nails bare, unvarnished pink. Those few aspects of her not absolutely pale are like this. Pink eyes, pink nipples showing through the garment. Other parts I barely glimpse, more hidden.
I want to see her eyelashes, closer. First I believed she had no lashes, but she has them. They appear to be white, as they would be.
What kind of creature does this make her, this pure lack of color? Very strange. I think she's beautiful.
Pressing myself closer, I angle my face, jam my nose against some musty tome, trying to see through the corner gap in the shelf. There's no space, no way to get nearer. I slide down, lower myself, look under. The cabinet is raised up on legs, and there's a deep gap beneath. I see Mancer and Taia directly. See her moving, sense the lightness and texture of her.
Silently I slide forward, press myself through, belly crawl into the room. I'm small, still not fully grown, and the space is wider than expected. Taia, there before me, separated by nothing. She moves as if wrestling with something invisible. I can't stop myself straining ahead, hoping to better see her movements, every detail of her, closer. Candlelight flickers, wild yet delicate, dancing as the muse Taia dances, responding to the rhythm of Mancer's incantation.
I wriggle forward, lift my head, and realize I'm exposed, fully out from under the shelf. I'm in the room, too close, and unhidden.
Mancer stops. The final note of his incantation resounds, echoes away.
I stop, try to wriggle back.
Taia freezes for an instant, then flits back, disappears into the shadows against the far wall. Her eyes reflect the candle, which flickers now only in response to the motions of Mancer's eyes. His eyebrows raise and spread, antennae surveying the room.
"What are you doing?" Mancer's voice booms.
Don't reveal fear. "Just...
curious." My voice holds steady, mostly.
"Is this the aim of apprenticeship?" Mancer inhales, exhales luxuriantly, as if bored. "Spying, in secret?"
"I couldn't help.... Only wanted to see." Stop. Better he doesn't know.
"You were watching her, Taia. My muse. Is Taia your muse, also?"
What is she to me? I barely know her, have never spoken to her. There can't be any name for the way I think of her. "I have no muse. I have nothing my own."
Mancer's eyes reveal none of the sympathy I hoped for. "What do you imagine Taia is to you, then?"
My only hope is that she's left the room, is seeing none of this. I can't help squinting into shadows, hoping not to find her, but there, eyes flicker, visible in the dark. Shame burns my cheeks.
"My question."
"To me? Nothing," I stammer. "I only wondered. Was curious."
"So here we return to the beginning." Mancer's eyes widen like yawning mouths, even as his focus and his hands shift to straightening vellums, aligning pens. The candle's flame stops, frozen mid-flutter, then straightens, lengthens. "To satisfy your curiosity. That must be why I granted you apprenticeship."
My eyes sting. I look down, blinking. "No, Mancer."
"Why then? What reason?"
"So I could learn, and perform tasks that are beneath you."
"Then you haven't completely forgotten." Mancer smiles. Crinkles form beside his eyes. A vertical crease divides his brow.
"No. I remember." I steal a glance, find Taia still lurking. "I'm sorry to disappoint you."
"Sorry. Well then. My work reaches an important stage. Recent outcomes lead me to dare hope I finally may be nearing... my own greatest desire."
"How can I assist, Mancer? I would love to do more than you've asked of me. I'm capable..." I stop myself.
"Truly? Capable of more? Is that your desire?"
I hesitate, already second-guessing. Maybe admitting the truth will only convince him I already forget my place. "I could."
"You could. Maybe I should sit back, rest these hands. We could exchange stations. I could occupy myself with lesser things, while my apprentice drives my work forward, boldly. A boy, not a man, makes manifest my own lifelong ambition. After all, any one can speak the words." He gestures at the workbook, his scrawling.
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