We Are Ash

by Samara Stone

He extended his hand, his grin lighting up to its full, knee-weakening wattage. “Nice to meet you.”

  Ash's eyes narrowed and she brought her face close to Brook's and said, “We are not the You. We are Ash.” She turned to Dolores next and said, “What does it want us to do about the Brook? Is it for mouth-smashing? Or pelvis-smashing? Or does the Dolores want us to leave so it can pelvis-smash the Brook?”

  Brook’s grin faltered, unsure if what was happening was real and probably also wondering whether or not to be turned on.

  “No, Ash, nobody's smashing anything,” Dolores quickly said. “He's here to meet y—Ash. He's here because I think you made another mistake and broke another rule.”

  Ash snorted and assessed Brook again, whose mouth was agape with unformed words hanging in the air. “We only grew the pelt, we did not do any more things from the Not Allowed. Then the Dolores said that house-pelts were Allowed. The Dolores cannot take away the house-pelts!”

  Brook finally burst out laughing. “What the hell is a housepelt? Is she German? Is she a queen? What's with the divine 'we'?”

  Dolores wearily pointed at the pile of fur on the kitchen floor. “That is a house-pelt. One that she dropped. And she’s definitely not German. If she's a queen, it's of a different planet or something.”

  Brook’s laughter trailed off and he turned his eyes back to Ash. As was usually the case when Ash had interacted with anyone but Dolores, Dolores could almost hear Brook’s brain whirring as he tried to fit her into some kind of mental framework that made sense. He started to speak, then paused, then pressed his hands together and held his forefingers against his lips.

  “Are you guys fucking with me? And how does she do that with her voice? It sounds like… like… like lots of voices, all stirred together? And are her eyes… damn, this sounds seriously crazy. Do her eyes glow? If you'd given me a drink, I might think you'd slipped me something.”

  Dolores smiled. “Yeah, most people don't notice the eyes. It's subtle, so I get it. I think they're actually bioluminescent, so in the day you can barely see. As for the voice, well, you don't know the half of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dolores squatted down next to Ash, who’d started stoking a fire. “Hey, it's okay about the Not Allowed. I know it's not on purpose. I know the bloody cough isn't intentional.”

  “What is the Dolores talking about? We haven't breathed into a squishy since the one we fixed. Is the Dolores changing its mind? Is it Allowed again? Like the house-pelt?”

  “No, no, no, but I understand if it happened by accident. But with my friend, Brook… don't breathe into him, but for tonight, the other Not Allowed stuff is Allowed. Just for right now, okay?”

  “Okay,” Ash responded without looking at Dolores.

  Dolores glanced up at Brook who was unabashedly eavesdropping. “Ash, say something like Brook.”

  Ash's bright, gleaming eyes snapped to hers.

  “Is it going to not-nice yell if I do?”

  Dolores shook her head.

  Ash stood up and she seemed to relish the opportunity to showcase her skills. She met Brook’s eyes and said in his exact voice, “What is the German and why does it think the house-pelt is the German?”

  Dolores had hoped to shock Brook and maybe scare him a little, but instead he simply said, “Unbelievable. Simply uncanny. Can you do it for anyone?”

  Ash growled a very bearish growl and said, this time in Dolores's voice, “We suspect that the You is an idiot, and can't do anything, but we can. We can make all the mouth-noises.” Ash glanced at Dolores and then repeated herself in Spanish. Dolores didn't know Ash had picked up Spanish, but she wasn't entirely surprised. Brook's hand rose up as though he intended to touch Ash's face, but Dolores saw him will it back down.

  Brook instead turned to Dolores. “Why did you want me to meet her? Not that this isn’t extremely interesting.”

  “You haven't seen anything yet. Ash causes the plague, but she doesn't mean to.” Brook instantly lurched back from her and covered his face. She continued, “Don't worry, not like that. She has to do something specific.”

  “Why haven't you gone to the police… or… or… I don't know. Should I could call my boss from the CDC?”

  “No! That isn't why I brought you here. They'll take her away. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone. I think she can help us. I think we can figure it out. She's my best friend.”

  Ash piped up, using Brook's voice again. “We are her crazy bitch!”

  Brook raised one eyebrow dramatically, but Dolores just shrugged. “I only figured this out very, very, recently,” she said. “Look, before this crazy burst in North Dakota, she didn't know that people were getting sick. So I told her to stop it, and she did for a couple weeks, but now...”

  “The breathing into squishies is Not Allowed. We did not do anymore, even though we do not like not breathing into them. They are full of things we can learn, like the Spanish, and they are full of places to see and learn ever more.”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll get back to that. For now, Ash, grow fur.”

  Ash obliged, sprouting a short, silky sable horse hair coat that accentuated her muscles and high cheekbones. It blended seamlessly into her long blonde hair, and Dolores was pleased that this at least startled Brook.

  “Holy hell! What in God's name did she just do?” he shouted. Then, without asking, he reached to run his hand along her now fur-covered arm. Fearing he might infect himself, though, Dolores quickly swatted his hand away.

  Ash turned to Dolores. “Does the Dolores want us to let it touch us?”

  “No, not yet. Now turn to ash, Ash, but come right back, okay?”

  Ash looked warily at Brook. “What if it loses the shit? Will the Dolores keep it from not-nice yelling? Will the Dolores not-nice yell?”

  Brook cut in. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, she can what? Incinerate herself? No, no. This is surreal. This is impossible. What is she?” He stepped toward Ash again. “May I please touch your fur?”

  “Only the fur, yes. Touching the fur will not make the Brook leak. It is Allowed to touch our fur if the Dolores says it is Allowed.” Dolores was certain there was a snarky edge to Ash's voice.

  “What do you say? Can I touch your crazy bitch's fur?” Brook asked and gave her his most pleading smile. Dolores nodded, and he slowly ran his fingers along Ash's sable arm.

  “It's hard to believe she's dangerous,” he said in soft awe.

  “Ash, make a bear noise.”

  Ash bellowed a nice, angry roar right in Brook's face. Immediately he fell down and scrambled crab-like away from her with wide eyes. Dolores walked over and squatted next to him.

  “You've seen just a tiny fraction of her weird shit, so don't think you know what she's capable of. There's no malice in her, but she does get angry. The next thing I'm going to show you is a true mind-fuck, okay? So if you need to take a piss, you probably should go do that.”

  Brook shook his head but accepted her help getting to his feet. “I can't believe it. It looks like horse hair and it feels like horse hair, but how can that be? It was instantaneous. And that’s what's on your kitchen floor? Does she always lose the entire coat?”

  “Ash, ungrow the fur.”

  Ash obliged, looking a little bored. She then said crossly, “If it is not going to make us go away, we are going to grow a warm pelt. That was a by-the-fire pelt. It is not afraid? Not even of the Not Allowed things?”

  Brook shook his head. “You surprised me. But I'm not afraid. Not afraid at all.”

  “The You continues to surprise us as well. It is everywhere, we must always be on guard.”

  Dolores tried not to laugh at Ash’s constant plotting against the ever present You. “Ash, do it. Disappear.”

  Ash’s eyes flew wide as her head rolled back. Dolores had intended to watch Brook's reaction, but couldn’t keep her eyes off Ash's dissolving. Ash breathed out a long, rattling sigh and the first gray tendrils came twining out of her mout
h and nostrils, swirling up toward the ceiling and dispersing as larger, wider columns of ash emerged from her. Her eyes flared brighter, and then the clothes she'd put on for Brook fell to the floor in a heap as the smoke disappeared. Brook shouted, “Ash!” and raced to the deflated clothes.

  Dolores watched Brook's fruitless search and subsequent confusion with sympathy. It had been no less startling to watch even knowing how it would end, but at least she was confident that Ash was okay. Dolores could feel the tickling, watched feeling on her skin and she knew that Ash hadn't gone anywhere—she was there with them, watching, waiting.

  “Come on back. Remake, or whatever the word is,” Dolores called out into the air.

  Brook whirled on Dolores. “Where is she? How can she hear you? What the fuck is going on? The other stuff was bizarre, but what is this? What is this, Dolores?” His eyes were a little wild, somewhere between terror and intrigue.

  Dolores gestured to the corner where Ash started to return to the flesh. A gray cloud had begun to glow green and then it gradually coalesced into those ashy tendrils that caused so much damage. Brook moved as if he was going to touch it and Dolores grabbed his arm, “Don't. If you breathe that shit in, you'll regret it. Trust me.” He stopped pulling and she reluctantly dropped his arm.

  The tendrils quickly formed into what looked like the burnt remnants of a body, something you would've found at Hiroshima or Pompeii—an instantaneously incinerated, upright corpse. But the figure gradually became a grisaille underpainting of Ash. Then color glazes were added, and finally, those firefly eyes snapped open. Dolores had expected Ash to be looking at Brook, but her eyes burned into Dolores's. She again felt that intense connection that had made her determined to protect Ash—no matter what she'd done, no matter what she did.

  “Is anyone going to explain to me what just happened? Holy shit, Dolores! How is she your roommate? How does she even exist?”

  “Beats me. Come on, let’s help her get dressed.”

  Brook shielded his eyes from Ash’s newly naked body, inadvertently blundering into her as he tried to pass her one of her shed pieces of clothes. Grabbing her arm to steady himself, he quickly developed the telltale nosebleed that came along with touching ash.

  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Brook said, swiping away at the trickle of blood like it was a fly rather than his own bodily fluid.

  “Ash, fix Brook before he bleeds on my floor.”

  “It said that it would not make us fix again.”

  “Please, just this once. It's not big, right? It won't hurt Ash too much?”

  Ash made a series of noises that were distinctly not human as she pulled on her bizarre outfit: polyester granny pants in lavender and a western men's shirt with pearlized snaps. Someday Dolores would love to know where Ash acquired her clothes, let alone how she picked her ensembles.

  Brook turned to Dolores with a smirk. “Do you guys, you know?”

  “I assume you mean fuck?” Dolores asked. He seemed startled by her bluntness. “No, we do not. But even if we wanted to, I don't think she's properly human.”

  “We are Ash,” Ash added helpfully with a big smile. She finished her last snap and approached Brook. “Does it want to mouth-smash with us? Should we do that before we fix it? We only wish to do the fixing once.”

  Dolores laughed at the bewildered look on Brook's face. “No, Ash, I don't think so.”

  “What do you want?” Brook asked.

  Dolores hastily interjected before Ash's You-Fury burbled out. “She wants to know if you'd like to kiss her before she makes your nosebleed stop because she doesn't want to have to make it stop more than once and if you kiss her, it'll make your nose bleed again. I told her you're—”

  “Yes. Definitely. For science.”

  Dolores felt deflated. This was the second guy she’d casually crushed on who wanted to kiss her only friend. She looked to Ash, who seemed willing to oblige but was waiting for approval. Dolores shrugged. “Ash, feel free to mouth-smash.”

  Ash didn't initiate anything, but she turned her gleaming eyes on Brook and stepped forward, pulling her against him and kissing her.

  “Its blood-juice tastes coppery,” Ash said when they’d broken away. “We knew it smelled that way, but we had never tasted it.”

  Brook seemed dazed and about to go in for another attempt when Ash gently removed his arms from around her torso. Then she delicately ran her fingers down his nose, her eyes sliding shut as she did so. Dolores saw a small spiraling tendril of crimson ash swirl up into Ash's arm, a black vein appearing on the back of her hand and disappearing about halfway up her forearm.

  Then she stepped away from Brook and looked directly at Dolores. “Why does the Dolores not want to mouth-smash us for science?”

  Dolores felt a little sad for both of them as she answered, “I don't think we should mouth-smash, Ash. It might hurt me.”

  Ash looked down, forlorn. “It is true that we do not wish to hurt the Dolores.” If only her friend understood there were other ways you could hurt people too.

  31 The Going Away

  Brook sat down heavily on Dolores's couch, still baffled by his newly healed nose.

  “So you're the person I've been looking for. Or, well, whatever you are…”

  “We are Ash, as we have mentioned, and which it seems unable to process.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. But you—you're making people sick. Why? What does it do for you? Dolores says that you need to do it.”

  Ash sighed and rolled her head back. For a moment, Dolores thought she was going to disintegrate again. Then she realized that Brook was about to get a full force You rant. Dolores touched Ash's arm and said, “I know, I know. He's just asking how breathing into the squishies works. Why do it? Why did… Ash… do it in North Dakota yesterday?”

  “Squishies? What are squishies?” Brook asked. “Is she a squishy?”

  “It doesn't listen at all! We are Ash. ASH! Not a squishy; not a bald, weak, defenseless biped! We are only using a squishy body. We breathe into the squishies to learn, to travel, to see. We can't learn all the things from the magic book place or the glowing boxes. But we did as the Dolores asked. We do not breathe into stupid squishies anymore. We learn like a squishy human learns, unlike the Brook which cannot even learn what we are. Even if it is a nice mouth-smasher.”

  “Squishies are humans, obviously,” Dolores elaborated. “Do not call her a squishy, it pisses her off almost as much as referring to her as 'you'.”

  Then Dolores turned to Ash. “But more people got sick in North Dakota and I know you don't always obey all my rules. Like the pelt-growing? It's okay, but I'm trying to understand so I can help you stop. You really can't breathe into people anymore. And I still think you might be able to help us fix people.”

  Ash's eyes filled with angry tears and she growled, “The Dolores said that fixing the Brook was the last time. It is trying to change the Not Allowed, but only for itself. It doesn't Allow us more things, it just makes us do the fixing. We cannot! We will lose ourselves. We can't do the fixing for the blood-juice cough. Why did it bring the Brook here? Did it think one mouth-smash would make us forget all the things the Dolores has taken away from us? We follow the Dolores's Not Allowed list because we love the Dolores, we do not want the Dolores to be sad, but the Dolores cannot keep changing it.”

  Dolores realized with horror that Ash was beginning to gray out and that she had thrown her head back. Brook cut in before she could dissipate. “No! No, not what Ash did to me. We mean a way without yo—without Ash. We want to fix them without Ash. That's not what Dolores means, right? Right? ”

  Ash's tears began to fall, but she seemed to become more solid. “Oh, we see. We see that once they can do the fixing without the Ash, then the Dolores can be without us.”

  It was Dolores's turn to growl. “No, Ash. No. Ash will always be my crazy bitch, but we have to fix these people somehow. I thought if there was some way to teach me and Brook then you would never have to d
o the fixing again, right? Even if you mouth-smashed and broke someone, then you wouldn't have to fix them.”

  Ash flapped her hand and said, “Pfftt… The fixing of the bloody snout is not so bad, it is a little fixing. We are strong enough that it is only a bit of work. But the blood-juice cough… we do not know if we could teach the squishies.”

  Brook sighed. “Why'd you go after so many in North Dakota? Before it was just a couple here or there, and not every day. You're gonna get real attention if you keep this up. Was it because you'd stopped for a while? Do you have to eat a certain number of squishies?”

  Dolores watched Ash with wide eyes to see what sort of wrath this insulting series of questions would evoke. Ash bent low and put her face very close to Brook's, her eyes glowing brighter. “We do not eat the squishies! The eating is a disgusting squishy habit. We said it already, we say it again and again, we know it is Not Allowed, so we did not breathe into any bipeds, or any other creatures. We do not care about the attention. Except the Dolores's attention. Does it think we care about the Brook's attention because of its mouth-smashes?” Dolores had seen, and she thought Brook had too, that Ash had grown while she spoke, as if the anger inside her was expanding physically.

  “Look, I'm just trying to find a solution that doesn't involve you being executed or locked in some top-secret government facility. Is there some way you can show me on another animal? Like a mouse or rabbit or something so I can dissect it and see the mechanism by which you damage the lungs?”

  “We do not breathe into mouses or rabbits or any other animals! We learn all we need from other animals without having to breathe into them. Only the squishies make us breathe into them to understand, to learn! The Brook should not kill mouses and rabbits.” She turned in anguish to Dolores. “The Dolores must make it Not Allowed for the Brook to kill mouses and rabbits.”

  Brook stood up and made a calming gesture. “Okay, okay, I won't kill anything. Calm down. I believe you. But Dolores said that you caused all the other cases of bloody coughing, so maybe it's out of your control?”