Cruel and Unusual (Somewhere In-Between)

by C. E. Wilson

  “Going to…what? You didn’t think I was going to…” I swallowed heavily as it dawned on me, “hurt you or something?”

  “How could I know what you were doing? You said I was a doll.”

  I winced at her words. She was right, after all. I had called her a doll. Honestly, I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t a sophisticated doll. Nothing made sense anymore. I dabbed some Neosporin over the marks and put on a Band-Aid.

  “It really wasn’t much,” I said. Dammit. The bite wasn’t the only thing that needed tending to. The thing had also scratched up my face. I felt it as my mouth curled up into a grimace. I rolled my eyes, went back to the sink, took the rag and washed it, and put it up to the scratch marks under my eye.

  “And…and for scratching you,” she called from behind me.

  “Yeah, well…I can’t say I didn’t deserve it,” I admitted. As I had the mark on my hand, I took care to clean the wound and cover it up. I didn’t like having the doctor come out there. Like Milo, he was a cruel man and obviously only out here for the money. If either of the wounds became infected, I would have to ask him to come, and I couldn’t think of anything worse at the moment.

  Especially considering my new house guest.

  “So what about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Your—uh—wings. Are they damaged?” I finally turned back around to face her. She was perched on the top of my chair, dwarfed by everything in my already minuscule shack. Asking a tiny, doll-like figure about her wings left a strange taste in my mouth. But there I was. And there she was. I watched as she glanced over her shoulder and started to spread them out. I was captivated and even though it felt like a very private moment, I didn’t turn away. I watched as the metal wings spread out to their full span—at least one of them did. Her right wing seemed to be bent at an odd angle, and when she noticed, her tiny lower lip pouted. It was… kind of cute.

  “I guess something happened when that bird attacked me,” she mused, reaching out to pull the wing closer to her body. The metal sounded like a rickety gate opening.

  “It wasn’t me, was it?” I asked nervously. “I mean, I did grab you and—”

  “They were already damaged before you found me. Relax.”

  I smiled and sighed in relief. Funny how she was telling me to calm down. She should be the one worried. She attacked me. She bit me. She messed up my place, and now she was trapped with a man five feet taller than her. Yet here she was, cool as could be.

  Once again, I didn’t know whether to be ashamed or relieved.

  “So, you’re going to have to start giving me some answers,” I said with what I hoped was authority.

  She stopped fumbling with her wing and let it expand behind her back.

  “I mean, I think I’m handling this pretty well, but I need to know what the hell is going on. Are you really not a fairy?”

  “I told you,” she said in an exasperated voice. “There’s no such thing as fairies. Besides,” she continued, jutting her thumb behind her, “don’t fairies have pretty wings? Like made out of feathers or some shit? Mine are an aluminum alloy, in case you haven’t noticed—the lightest metal on the planet—but they’re definitely not flying on magic power.”

  “So how are they flying?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember…someone said something about the mechanism is attached to a part of our brain that controls movement.”

  “Are you trying to tell me they work based off your thoughts? That’s not possible.”

  “It must be possible. It’s happening.”

  “Can I see them?”

  Her face reddened. “No, you can’t see them! You think I’m going to pull up my shirt and let you look at my back? What kind of woman do you think I am?”

  “I don’t even know if you’re a woman in the first place,” I shot back. I was only half kidding, but I could tell my response bothered her.

  The pleasant look on her face fell as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by moodiness.

  “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like—”

  “No,” she said over me. “Of course not.”

  “I mean, come on.” I tried to backtrack. “If something similar happened to you…do you really think you could just think I was a human so easily? Things aren’t working in your favor, and you can barely even explain what the hell you are.”

  “I told you. I’m a person.”

  I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest in a huff. “So you say.” For a minute there was a silence broken only by the low rumble of thunder from outside. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “What do you care?” she snapped back, already defensive. “I’m a doll, right? Call me whatever you want.”

  “Stop being stubborn. I asked your name, and I want to know.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “I asked first.”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me,” she said.

  “I asked first,” I said again. “What’s wrong? Are you embarrassed about it?”

  “No…” She let the word hang in the air. I felt her eyes on me as I started to move around the tiny shack, and she watched me for a few moments in silence. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m cleaning up the joint since someone…” I stopped cleaning and looked over at her, “who chooses to remain nameless flew around and messed everything up.”

  “I didn’t mess everything up,” she said defensively. “I was trying to escape.”

  “No…shit.” I tried not to smile. I returned to the task of trying to straighten things up—pencils on the floor, paint splattered in a few places, and papers all over the place.

  “I…I’m sorry about that. God. How many things am I supposed to be sorry about? Don’t you think I deserve an apology as well?”

  “For what?” I snapped. She flinched, but I didn’t care. If she was going to go on about “being a person” and whatnot, then I was going to start treating her like one. And I didn’t baby anyone. The only people I babied were my mom and Mauve. Everyone else? What the hell did I care? As long as she didn’t cry, I could handle it. “What should I apologize to you for? For coming out to pull you from the bushes? For keeping you a secret from my perverted neighbor? For not getting pissed about the fact that you bit me? What? What should I apologize for?”

  Determined brown eyes met soft blue ones, and for a few moments neither of us said anything. She was thinking. I could tell that much. Damn thing was trying to come up with something so I would have to apologize to her. I smirked, knowing she couldn’t. “That’s what I thought,” I said with a triumphant grin. I returned to cleaning.

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  “Such harsh language for a tiny little girl.” I chuckled as I set all of the fallen paint brushes back in the cup and refilled my cleaning cup with water.

  “I’m not a little girl!”

  “Oh no?” I asked, smiling even wider.

  “I mean…age-wise! I’m not little!”

  “So how old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen? Do you even remember?”

  “I’ll be twenty in a few months if my memory serves me right…and I think it does about that.”

  I stopped cleaning and jerked my head in her direction. Twenty? She was going to be twenty? I couldn’t help looking at her with different eyes. Knowing that we were so close in age made the situation all the more strange. She wasn’t a child or a doll with wings. She was a woman—quite possibly a person—and she was only a foot tall. I was starting to have a more and more difficult time seeing her as a doll.

  “How old are you?” she asked when I didn’t answer her right away.

  “Oh…uh…twenty-two.” I returned to my cleaning.

  “So you’re not even that old,” she said huffily. “And if you’re so pissed off about what I did to your place…” she trailed off, and those metal wings fluttered, “then I guess I’ll just have to prove my worth, won’t I?” She landed on the flo
or, gathered up some fallen pencils, and tucked them in her arms. “Where do you want these?”

  I glanced over, shocked to see her on the ground. She looked… “You’re so freaking small,” I couldn’t help saying. She flushed immediately, so I bit my lip and glanced away. Smooth. Fantastic. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I just—”

  “Where do you want the pencils?” she asked again, a hint of hesitation mixed in with her annoyance. Unless I was stupid, I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with the size difference. I heard her leave the ground and land on a higher surface.

  “You can leave them wherever you are,” I called, keeping my back turned. My face was so hot. Was I actually blushing over her? I didn’t even know what she was! Had I been away from the opposite sex—other than Janet—for so long I was off my game?

  “I don’t want to leave them where they are. I want to help you clean up. I made the mess, so I want to help fix it so you can stop being so passive-aggressive.”

  “You don’t need to help. Besides, aren’t they too heavy for you?”

  “If you would use your eyes, you would see me carrying them.”

  “You should let me clean it up. I know where everything goes—”

  “So tell me where the pencils should go!”

  “Enough!” I shouted. I couldn’t believe I was raising my voice again, but I didn’t want her to touch my things. Just thinking about how close she had come to ruining my best picture of Mauve…I suddenly felt defensive about everything. I jerked around and thrust my hand toward her. “Give me those. Go…go sit down or something. Rest your wing.”

  “I’m not helpless.” She came closer but kept the pencils. “I told you. I’m a person—a small person but still a person. And I really am sorry about messing up your place. Let me—”

  “Give me the pencils,” I said over her. With four fingers, I beckoned her to give them to me. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I want to help—”

  “And you can, by giving the pencils to me,” I snapped again. I didn’t know why I was so angry with her. Was it because I had blushed? Was it because she was so small that I didn’t know how to handle it? I didn’t know. All I wanted was for her to sit down and let me clean.

  I expected her to put up more of a fight, but that lower lip start to pout again. Dammit. Heat raced up to my cheeks, but I tried to relax as she walked closer and placed the pencils in my palm. I was surprised at how she was able to get that close to me after what I had done to her earlier. If I were in her situation, I wouldn’t be so willing to move toward the same hand that had grabbed me and roughed me up earlier. I wrapped my fingers around the pencils, and she immediately backed a few feet away from my hands.

  That was better. She was scared of me. Of course she was. I hadn’t really given her a reason not to be yet.

  “Seriously, I can take care of the mess. It’s not like I’m actually pissed. I would probably have reacted the same way.” I chuckled nervously. “Maybe even more so. You’d probably want to kill me after I was done with this place.” I set the pencils down in their usual place and let out a small sigh of relief when the girl flew away and landed back on the chair, watching me…again.

  It took a little over a half hour to get the place cleaned, but finally everything was in its proper place. I smiled and ran my hand over the stubble growing on my chin, realizing I could probably use a shave. My temporary roommate had fallen silent since I took the pencils away from her. Maybe I had been too harsh.

  I started to pace the room, trying to figure out if there was some way to reach a temporary peace. “Look—” I started.

  Simultaneously, she blurted out, “I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry.”

  I stopped pacing and stood there, looking at her incredulously. “I told you. You don’t need to be—”

  “You’re obviously still annoyed. You don’t want me touching your things, and—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said, softening. When I met her eyes, I was put on edge at the sight of her downturned mouth and lowered lashes. Had she honestly been moping and thinking about that the entire time she had been silent? The idea that I had made such a small creature so sad…it hurt me in a place I didn’t want to think about. Only Mauve had a place there, and I wasn’t prepared to let anyone else in.

  However, I did feel drawn to the tiny creature.

  “You had a reason to do what you did. And as far as you touching my things, you can’t blame me for getting short about it. They’re mine. That’s how it is. It has nothing to do how small you are. I wouldn’t let anyone touch my stuff if I could stop them. So please, don’t take it personally, okay? I like things the way I like them.” My eyes trailed over to her, and she nodded. I guessed that was the best I could hope for, for the time.

  “Can I know your name now?” she asked.

  “Can I know yours?”

  She smirked. “I asked first.”

  “But earlier, I—” I stopped myself short. With everything that must have happened to her—if she really was a person—I decided I owed her something. Despite what I had done, despite how I had spoken to her and treated her, she was still far calmer than I was. I touched the Band-Aid on my hand where she had bitten it. She must have been very scared.

  “Davenport,” I said. “Mr. Davenport.” I was so used to having to introduce myself this way that it flew off my tongue naturally. I was hardly able to use my first name anymore. Flynn certainly didn’t like to call me Malcolm, and my wardens didn’t like to either. The day I had been arrested, Malcolm ceased to exist—only Mr. Davenport remained.

  The girl’s mouth parted slightly, forming an ‘o’ when I told her. “You want me to call you Mr. Davenport? Even though I’m only two years younger than you?”

  I shook myself out of a trance. “What? No! Of course not!” I rubbed my hand over my jaw. “It’s Malcolm. That’s my name. My real name.”

  “Malcolm Davenport,” she said, trying it out on her lips.

  I tilted my head, trying to get a look at how those things moved. They were so tiny.

  “Horrible, right?” I tried to joke. “I sound like a complete douchebag.”

  “It’s not so bad,” she said, though I thought I could hear her trying to suppress a giggle. “I’ll call you Malcolm. How’s that?” She lifted up her head and smiled at me, her blue eyes finally warming. Hearing my name spoken so casually was a jolt, too. She made it sound very right. I tossed my head so fallen pieces of dark hair wouldn’t block my sight of her. I wanted to see that face. I didn’t know how often I could make her smile like that.

  “And you?” I asked, suddenly wanting to know more about her. “What’s your name? Are you finally going to tell me?”

  She let out what was definitely a nervous giggle. Music in my ears. Ah! To hear a woman’s laugh! It had been so long. “They call me Verity,” she said at last.

  “Verity what?”

  “Verity Nine.” That precious smile left her face momentarily. “Suddenly Malcolm Davenport doesn’t seem so terrible, I bet.”

  “Is that your actual name?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because you said, ‘They call me Verity’. I guess I was only wondering…” I trailed off, not even sure where I was going with this.

  “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t my name when I was human, but I don’t have the specific memory of what I was called before I became…what I am now.”

  Her answer begged for more questions, but since being sentenced, my days had been lazy and routine, so any changes tired me not only physically but mentally. My head swam with questions, but pressure felt to be building fast behind both eyes. I never had migraines before being sentenced, but lately they seemed to be a weekly occurrence. I really didn’t want to ignore my new guest, but I could barely keep my eyes open without pain. I looked toward the door and then back at her. As though she was reading my mind, her eyes met mine.

  “I won’t try to escape again,” she sa
id.

  “Oh, well, I hope not,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. I didn’t know why I was so set on her staying. If she wanted to leave, that was the time she could ask me. I was growing weaker for her. Not having seen a pretty girl in over two years was really started to have an effect on me. I wanted her to stay, but I needed to lie down. Rain always tired me. “You can have the chair to rest on if you’d like,” I offered, walking over to my tiny bed with its thin mattress.

  “You’re going to sleep?”

  “My head is pounding. I don’t know…just all of this…I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I’ll be okay if I just close my eyes for an hour or two,” I said, lying on my back. The rain pounded overhead, and my eyes grew heavier. I closed them.

  Verity Nine said something, but her voice was so soft and I was so tired that I didn’t catch it.

  I hoped she would be there when I woke up.

  Chapter Seven

  Darkness.

  I reached over and picked up the cheap watch resting on the nightstand next to my mattress, and my jaw almost dropped in shock. Seven. Not seven at night—seven in the morning. I jolted up in bed, and my eyes danced over the place, trying to find what mattered most.

  My picture. I smiled in relief when I saw my watercolor painting of Mauve.

  “Good morning, baby,” I whispered. I couldn’t help it. I missed her so much. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to touch her curves.

  I couldn’t help but feel that something else was missing. My picture was safe, so why was I…I blinked wildly. The fairy! Wait, no…the doll…the girl?

  “Verity,” I muttered to myself as I suddenly remembered her name. She had told me yesterday. Verity Nine…and she wasn’t even sure if that was her real name. I reluctantly tore my attention away from the picture of Mauve, and searched the place. I didn’t want to move from the bed yet since I didn’t know where she was, but after a few moments of looking, I gave up and stood.