by D. S. Murphy
“I’ll walk you,” he said, falling in step with me.
“Please don’t,” I said. “I mean, it’s fine. I can manage myself.”
“It’s dark. I can’t let you walk through the woods alone.”
“Who says chivalry is dead?” I said, rolling my eyes. This guy was tough to get rid of.
“I’m no gentleman,” he said, with a sad half-smile. “But I’d feel better escorting you. There are more dangers around than you realize.”
“How do I know you’re not dangerous?” I said. I was teasing, kind of, but he seemed to consider the question seriously. He looked up at the sky for a few seconds as if he could divine the answer, then nodded to himself. “We’re already alone in the woods. I could be dangerous. But since I haven’t hurt you yet, I probably don’t mean you any harm. At least not tonight.” I looked over for the smirk I was sure would be there, but his face was stiffer than the dead raven on my head.
“That was way too honest of an answer,” I muttered. We walked in silence for a few moments. “Well it’s really uncomfortable letting a total stranger walk me home, so can I have your name at least?”
“Puriel,” he said.
Weird name.
“I’m Kaidance. Kai. What school do you go to?”
“I’m not a student,” he said. He didn’t look much older than me.
“Work around here?” I asked.
“My duties take me many places,” he said. “I’m here for a particular project.”
“In Chehalis? Lucky you,” I snorted. “Have you seen the 1916 steam engine yet? Or the Vintage Motorcycle Museum? Those are pretty much the only things here.”
“It’s not without its charms,” he said with the hint of a smile. It was the first sign that he might not be a serial killer. I glanced at the intricate tattoos climbing up his muscular arms. He was weird, no question. But oddly fascinating.
The loud crack of a broken branch ripped through the woods. Before I could react, Puriel shoved me backwards and flung himself in front of me. He moved so quickly I stumbled off the path in surprise. I cried out when a sharp branch dug into my cheek.
“What the hell!” I glared at him, “What do you think is out there, bears? It’s probably a possum or a raccoon. There’s nothing at all dangerous around here.”
He kept his hands out, blocking my path. His narrowed eyes searched the woods around us. Finally, he grunted and turned back to look at me.
“Sorry,” he said. He reached his hand up to my chin and tilted my head to see where the branch had scratched me. “You’re bleeding,” he said. Before I could stop him, he licked his thumb and then brushed it against my cheek to wipe away the blood. It felt wet and warm, almost like a kiss.
That’s when I saw the stars. I thought I must have blacked out. My vision was filled with millions of them, whole galaxies, everything converging together into one blinding light, and then nothingness. Just empty, black void. It all happened in less than a second, and I instinctively swatted his hand away from my face.
My sight returned and I was looking into Puriel’s golden eyes. We were so close I could see small flecks of yellow in them. He was peering at me with curiosity, like he was trying to see inside me. I wished I had my sunglasses on. Then I realized I was tilted backwards, and Puriel had one arm supporting me from behind. My body was inches away from his, and I could smell vanilla candles, decomposing earth, and cedar—wrapped in the warmth of his skin.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” I said, putting my palms on his chest and pushing him firmly away from me. As I stumbled backwards, I heard Jessie calling my name and spun towards her.
“There you are!” she said, “Man you walk slow. Party’s a bust. I thought I heard your voice. Talking to yourself again?”
I glanced behind me, then turned and looked in all directions. I was completely alone. It was just me, the moonlight, and acres of tall, dark fir trees. For the first time in my life, I thought I might really be going crazy.
4
The next morning I stood in front of the makeshift mirror in my room with my palm against my cheek. There was no mark at all from the night before. Not even a scratch—though I was certain that branch had drawn blood. On the way home I asked Jessie if she’d seen a guy with white blond hair and warm yellow eyes at the party. She hadn’t. I wondered if anybody else had seen him. I remember the feeling of his thumb on my cheek. If Puriel wasn’t real, I didn’t know how much I could trust my senses.
I terrified myself with the thought that Jessie was just an imaginary friend I made up and had been talking to for the past eight years. Maybe that’s why everyone stayed away from me. I was so relieved in the morning when I saw her talking to other girls, my eyes filled with tears. The party had been real. I still had mud stains on my clothes, not to mention a slight headache from the wine. But walking home with Puriel seemed just as real. Had he really even been there? If so how had he disappeared so quickly?
And why didn’t I have a mark on my cheek where the branch scratched me? And what had been that weird vision I saw when he touched me—I’d never seen anything like that before. It was like the Big Bang in reverse. I’d always assumed I was tough enough to survive in JDRI. I’d do my time, then get out and start a normal life. Now I wasn’t so sure.
To get out, I had to pass a final psych test. If I wasn’t deemed sane, I wouldn’t be released. I’d go to a real mental institution; the kind that you can’t escape from. And I could be there forever. The thought of being locked up for the rest of my life petrified me. I was so wrapped up in my fears, I almost didn’t notice that Sarah was acting weird. It wasn’t until lunch that I saw it, in the reflection of the shine of Dennis’s bald patch as he walked by our table, strutting like a peacock fanning its feathers. A flicker of fear on Sarah’s face.
It was a fleeting moment. Nobody else could have seen it. But I did. I looked at Dennis and then back at her. Sarah had been hanging out with us for the past few years. Even though she was so young, people didn’t mess with her. She had nothing to be afraid of, until Dennis showed up. And in that second, that second when I realized Dennis must have done something to Sarah, something that scared her, I was ready to rip out his intestines and hang him out my window. In my mind I watched him kick and struggle against his own innards, his blood dripping around him like rain, gasping for his last breath.
He saw me staring and sauntered over.
“Hey there, darling,” he said. “Change your mind about that book?”
I reached over and took Sarah’s hand.
“Did he hurt you?” I whispered, leaning towards her. “Did he touch you?”
Her face told me everything I needed to know.
“Listen, Dennis,” Jessie said. “You’re new so you don’t know how things work yet. We’ll forgive you this time. But you need to get the fuck out of here.”
“Is that how it’s going to be?” Dennis said. He undid the clasp on his belt and pulled out his Taser, holding it in front of him like a pistol. “I’m really going to enjoy this,” he said, in a buttery voice that made my skin crawl. “Now be a good girl and finish your fucking potatoes.”
When I was little, I’d learned to be silent. The more I talked, the less people liked me. I’d been a good girl, even after my parents left me at JDRI. I never made a fuss. I studied hard. But good behavior didn’t bring my parents back. Be a good girl?
That’s what people have been telling me my whole life. And I always was. I cleaned my plate. I kept my room tidy. I never complained. Where had it gotten me? Abandoned by my parents. Forgotten by the whole world. And now my best friend was about to be electrocuted by some asshole guard, who thought he could do whatever he wanted to us in here. And he was probably right.
That’s what I was thinking just before I slammed my lunch tray across the Dennis’ face. I watched him stumble backwards, a drop of blood sliding down his forehead, then sat down and continued eating.
5
Remember when I sai
d that JDRI wasn’t like a dungeon? I was wrong. I’d never been in solitary before. The cellars were over a hundred years old, with thick wooden beams in the ceilings. They’d been divided into “discipline rooms.” When we became too much of a disturbance, or a danger to ourselves and others, they’d lock us up until we calmed down. Nobody could hear us scream or cry or bang on the walls down here. The room was half the size of my regular bedroom, with jagged cracks running down the stone walls. Spiderwebs clung to the corners. And for the first time since I got to JDRI, my door was locked from the outside.
All I could think about was getting back to Sarah and Jessie. I hated not knowing what was going on. I was so frustrated and angry I wanted to scream. But I’d already indulged myself with one violent outbreak today. I needed to pull myself together, or at least act like I had, so they’d let me get back to my friends. Dinner consisted of French fries and a corndog. They’d pulled out the little wooden stick so I had to eat with my fingers. They didn’t want to give me any weapons. After eating I leaned against the cracked wall, trying to make myself comfortable on the rusty bedsprings. They creaked loudly whenever I moved.
I noticed the smell first. Not the ordinary smell of rat poop and moldy wood. It was a smell of roses and wildflowers, but sweeter, like honey. It filled the room like a cloud. Then I heard the voice. Puriel’s voice.
“Do you ever feel guilty?”
It sounded like he was sitting right next to me. I jumped up and searched the tiny room, but I was alone. I looked through the glass window in the door, but I couldn’t see anyone outside. Great. I’m smelling things and hearing voices. Aren’t those signs of a brain tumor?
“About the things you do?” the voice said again. I put my ear against the wall. Maybe he was in the cell next to mine?
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
“I didn’t believe it at first, you know. About your brother. But after the way you attacked that guard, I can see what you’re really capable of. I just want to know, whether you ever feel guilty about the things you do. The people you hurt.”
I felt my blood run cold. Who was this guy, and how did he know about my brother? Or was this really just in my head?
“What are you, my conscience?” I asked.
“Don’t you believe in Judgment? Sin?”
Oh shit. I knew what was going on now. He was one of those handsome youth pastors who dressed cool to convert teens to Jesus. He wasn’t stalking me, he was trying to save me.
I groaned. “Please, just go away. Did Mrs. Taylor send you here to console me? Teach me how to be a better person?”
“I wasn’t sent to talk to you. Actually I wasn’t supposed to talk to you at all,” he said. “But I’m curious. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“I’m not a puzzle,” I snapped.
“You have the power to destroy, but you aren’t responsible enough to use it. Now I know why he sent me. You’re dangerous.”
“You’re not real,” I said, willing it to be true. Nobody had seen Puriel but me. Even though JDRI wasn’t exactly Fort Knox, there’s no way some total stranger would sneak in to talk to me about my sins. And he couldn’t know about Charlie. I was losing my mind, and now I was talking to myself. I needed to get my shit together. I pulled my pillows over my head and rocked myself to sleep, willing the voices to stop. And they did.
When I opened my eyes again I was in a meadow. The light was dim, and seemed to come up from the ground. The meadow stretched out on all sides over the horizon. I should call it something else, not a meadow, but I had the sense that somewhere it ended. It was finite, limited. Not boundless. Somewhere beyond the reaches of my vision this smooth, grassy plain of wild flowers ended in rocky mountains, or an impenetrable forest. It was contained. But then the landscape shifted. It was the same meadow, but now it was up on top of a hill, and I could look across narrow valleys and see other hills, some gentle and sloping, some rugged and steep. The grass was sage green, with isolated patches of red wildflowers that pushed up in sporadic patterns. I could smell rosemary and lavender. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. Enchanted somehow. Mystical.
At the top of the hill was a giant tree, its branches reaching up into the sky. When I walked closer to it, I found a deer and a goat nibbling on its leaves. The startled deer ran when I approached, but the goat just kept eating. Some kind of rot infected the trunk, and when I touched it, pieces of bark crumbled and fell, leaving sticky white patches underneath. The residue clung to my fingertips, tingling.
I heard a sound behind me and turned to see an old woman coming up the hill, with buckets on the ends of a stick balanced over her shoulders. She set the buckets down and stretched, cracking her back. The first bucket was filled with pure, shining water. It looked radiant somehow, like it was glowing. She poured it onto the ground around the roots of the tree. Then she reached into the second bucket and pulled out a thick, white clay. She covered it onto the trunk of the tree like she was drywalling a house. Then she started back down the hill.
I followed her, noticing bits of ruin along the path. Shards from forgotten kingdoms. A toppled pillar that had shattered into pieces. The arm of a statue, pointing at nothing. Down the hill and around a sharp corner was the entrance to a large tunnel, surrounded by Greek characters. The woman entered and disappeared into the darkness. It looked like she’d been swallowed by a massive underground beast. The wind teased my dark hair as I hesitated, waiting to see if she would come back out.
Instead another woman emerged, older than the first. She was stooped over, and her gnarled old skin looked worse than the tree. I waited for her to pass me like the first woman had. Instead, when she was right in front of me, she looked directly into my eyes and smiled.
“It’s time,” she said softly. Her words resounded across the meadow, and the ground began to shake violently. Both buckets crashed to the ground, and I felt the icy water splash across my face.
6
I woke up in a cold sweat. My face was flushed and feverish, and my brain was still muddled with images from the dream. I heard heavy breathing behind me. Adrenaline coursed through my body when I realized it wasn’t mine.
“Finally, some alone time,” a smooth voice said. Dennis was standing in the doorway, his silhouette lit by the flickering bulb behind him that was swaying on its cord. I could just make out the white bandage on his forehead, but the rest of his face was in shadow.
“So I thought we’d skip the reading lesson and go straight for the extra credit,” he said, taking a step forward. “Sound good to you, Sweetheart?”
I took a deep breath and tried not to panic. Jessie had taught me a little about fighting. Kick them in the balls or kneecaps. Punch them in the throat, or gauge out their eyeballs. I wished they didn’t make us trim our fingernails so short. I could have slashed them across his face like a panther’s claws. Just as I was getting ready to pounce, his eyes bulged and he made a gurgling noise. His fingertips clutched together like he was trying to catch a passing moth. For a second, I thought I’d somehow killed him with my mind, but when he slumped over I saw the knife sticking out of his neck. The man standing behind him had short dark hair and bright blue eyes. Briefcase man.
“Thanks for opening the door, mate,” he said, kicking the corpse out of the way. He stepped over the body that used to be Dennis, and then reached down to grab the knife. It came out with a sickening sound and a spurt of blood. I felt like I was going to puke. Briefcase man wiped the knife off on Dennis’ shirt, then wrapped it in a handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket inside his leather jacket. He was wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt—much more casual than what he’d been wearing last time I saw him, but it suited him more.
“Shall we go?” he said, fixing his light blue eyes on me and holding out a hand to help me up.
My arms were trembling. I crossed them and stuck my hands in my armpits. I was 90% sure this was another dream. The other 10% came from the slightly metallic, sickly-sweet scent
in the air that made the hairs on my arms stand up. I felt like a prickly cactus—all sharp edges and afraid to touch anything.
“I’m pretty sure this is off limits to visitors,” I said weakly.
“This isn’t a visit,” he said, “It’s an intervention.”
“You killed him,” I said.
“Are you complaining?” he asked.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you. You don’t belong in here. You don’t deserve to be treated like this. You’re special. And you’re important.”
“Important to who?” I asked, my mind racing to catch up. I was like, 60% sure I was still dreaming at this point. From the smell, I was pretty sure dead Dennis had pissed and shit himself, which I hear is common for the recently deceased.
“Well, not your parents, obviously, and not the government that keeps you locked up in here for something you didn’t do.”
That had my attention. In all the years I’d been in here, nobody had ever believed I didn’t kill my brother, apart from Sarah and Jessie.
I felt the cold stone floor beneath me, and suddenly the room started spinning. I lurched to the side and threw up in the corner of the room. As my vomit splashed against the cold gray stones of the floor and peppered my bare ankles with bits and pieces of my last meal, I knew, for certain, deep in my gut, that this was really happening.
“Who are you?” I said, a hitch in my breath.
“A friend,” he said. “You can call me Sitri.”
“Dennis wanted to be my friend,” I said.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t sleep with you,” Sitri said, raising an eyebrow. “But I’ll never lay a finger on you unless you ask me to. Now can we go please? We don’t have much time.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said, backing away from him and stepping into my own vomit. “I have friends here. I can’t leave them. Besides, I have no place to go. JDRI is my home.”