by D. D. Miers
But the moment he lay against me, his skin flush against mine, something changed. It was more than just sharing thoughts. It was sharing minds. For a moment we were almost a single person. Everything I was lay open to him, and everything he was spread out before me with a screech of tires and the smell of burned rubber.
We pulled away from each other at the same time, with the same thought, and for a second just sat staring at one another, shock and distress putting a firm end to the excitement we'd just felt.
"Sorry," Cole said, and vanished.
Chapter 10
There's nothing quite like being cockblocked by your own brain.
There was a lot to unpack about what had just happened with Cole, from finding out demons existed to the low simmer of attraction between me and Cole finally reaching a boil. But now, I was outrageously aroused and could do nothing about it. Thinking about it only made things worse. Couldn't a girl get laid in her own magic coma dream without exposing the innermost workings of her soul?
Exercise was a good way to burn off energy. It had saved me from making more than one ill-advised booty call on lonely nights. So I did jumping jacks and sit-ups while Mort watched with an expression of polite canine befuddlement. Unfortunately, I couldn't get tired here since I was a projection of my own unconscious mind and, you know, not a physical being with a body capable of getting tired. Sure was capable of getting horny, though! Goddamn it.
I was this close to tearing my own metaphorical-coma-dream hair out when Mort suddenly got to his feet, barked at me once, and ran off.
"Fine," I muttered. "Might as well try running."
I jogged after Mort, who set his pace to match mine, running just a little ahead of me. Unfortunately, the mechanical act of running doesn't do much to keep the brain occupied. My thoughts turned over all that had happened with Cole. I still got a little giddy remembering the memories I'd felt from him, the rush of desire. More than desire. The awe he felt at my power, the fear of losing me, the things he wanted to share with me.
I shook my head, trying not to think about the things I wanted to “share” with Cole right now.
The worst part was that the Vulcan mind meld that happened when we touched was, for the most part, great! I don't think he would have ever opened up to me without it. The way it felt when we kissed was . . .indescribable. I'd tried not to look too hard in that moment when our minds overlapped, but I still saw things: a car accident; his parents fighting; long, cold fearful nights; a demon like a marble statue offering its hand; a fast-food parking lot and a cheap burger unable to erase the foul taste in his mouth. All of it was disconnected . . . out of context . . . but the emotions Cole had felt during those moments were as sharp and real as my own. I had such shame and self-loathing, I was surprised he didn't have self-curse to match Ethan's.
What had he seen in my mind, I wondered? A nameless anxiety gnawed at me. None of what I'd seen in Cole's mind was anything he was proud of. Had he seen my worst moments? The things I was most ashamed of? God, what must he think of me? I'd been prepared for most of what I saw in Cole's mind. I knew what his life had been like before he met me. I had no such dramatic secrets. Just a lot of petty meanness, stupidity, and shame. The things that kept me up at night hating myself weren't huge or earth-shattering. They were mundane and all the more shameful for their mundanity. There had been no demonic temptation involved in my most shameful moments, no lessons learned. If I were Cole, how could I see such things and not have any attraction immediately squashed by pity and mild disgust?
Mort picked up speed and I increased my pace to keep up with him. I could run forever in here if I wanted to, which seemed like a good idea. But Mort kept getting faster, pulling away from me. Beginning to sense that something was up, I kept after him as he vanished into the distance ahead of me.
Sure enough, not a moment after Mort disappeared, the blue door appeared in the distance. Mort had led me here again. What the hell was up with that dog!
I slowed to a jog as I approached the door, eyeing it warily. It was fully closed this time, and there was no sign of Mort.
"You going to talk to me this time?" I asked the door knocker, eyeing it suspiciously. "The jig is up. I know you can speak now. There's no point in pretending."
But the door knocker stayed still and silent.
"Fine, have it your way," I muttered, and opened the door.
I half expected the usual beige hallway, but instead, I was greeted by sunlight and birdsong.
A garden stretched beyond the blue door, beautiful and inviting. A green path of soft grass curved around flower beds in bloom and the slender trunks of white cherry trees. Birds flickered between the branches. Squirrels chased each other round the trees. Insects hummed and frogs chirped in the shade of the flowers.
It was so lovely and so full of life after the endless terrible darkness of the void. I completely forgot what the door was and stepped inside eagerly.
The door slammed shut behind me and I remembered.
The garden was much narrower from inside. Just beyond the flower beds on either side of the path was a row of espaliered fruit trees, fixed to a high wrought iron fence topped in decorative but very sharp spikes. A dense green hedge rose on the other side of the fence, a with farther defenses beyond that. This was not a garden I could escape. Like the hallway, I had only one apparent path forward. I guessed I wasn't quite done with those control issues. But this was something else, to which my insecurities about control were only window dressing.
Gazing back toward the door, I saw it was set in the base of a stone tower. It was not a large tower, probably mostly decorative. It reminded me of those windmills you see on miniature golf courses. But it was about two stories high, and there was a window in the second story. The window was dark, but I saw the dim silhouette of people, standing eerily still, watching me.
"Ooh, I don't like that," I said, shivering.
With some difficulty, I turned my back on the tower and followed the green path, hoping but not expecting to get out of sight of who or whatever was watching.
I trailed my fingers through the flowers absentmindedly as I walked, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air even if it was an illusion. Aside from the tower, this place was wonderful. If I had to be stuck in my own head, it wouldn't be so bad if I could at least spend my time somewhere like this. It was so full of life. The plants actually grew while I watched, flowers blooming, branches stretching, and vines curling like everything was in a video being played at double speed.
Ahead of me, the path curved and I followed it, unsurprised when I saw the stone tower rising ahead of me. Just like the hallway, the garden looped. I assumed if I passed through the door at the base of the tower I would come out at the front of the garden again. The dark figures still stared at me and I shuddered. I would rather turn around than go back through that tower, honestly. I could figure out how to get out of here without looping.
I turned to walk back in the other direction and froze immediately. Horror seized my heart.
Behind me, the garden was a withered wreck. I had left seared patches of black, bare earth everywhere I stepped. Every plant and tree my fingers had grazed had blackened and wilted. Horrified, I watched the rose bush I'd most recently touched shrivel and drop its leaves, its once beautiful flowers falling to the earth in dry clumps. Startled, I backed away and bumped into another tree. From the moment I touched it, the wither spread from the point of contact and across the trunk. I heard the wood groan and creak as it died, like it was suffering.
"No, no," I whispered, beyond words as I watched the tree's leaves fall in a shower of black, its branches drooping and cracking. A bird's nest near the trunk slipped, jostled by the trees violent death, and fell into the grass. I jumped away from it, afraid to touch, as the blue jays it had belonged to cawed their anger. One swooped at me and I threw a hand up to protect my face instinctively. I felt the jay's feathers brush my fingertips, and a second later, it plummeted from the sky, stone
dead. I sobbed, a desperate panic filling me. Were my powers doing this? I tried to rein them in, but I still couldn't feel them at all. And yet every step I took, more died, the circle of death around me growing larger. Squirrels fell from the trees, fruit rotted on the branch.
I fell to my knees in the withered grass, curled up as tightly as I could, trying to touch nothing, miserable sobs wrenching their way out of me with a force that was almost painful. This was what Cole had seen when he was inside my mind. I ruined everything I touched.
In tenth grade, miserable and friendless, I'd joined the drama club and been cast in a background part. On the night of our last performance, I stole the dress of the lead actress and tried it on, hoping for a minute to feel beautiful and important. I just felt fat and pathetic and tore the zipper, which only made my guilt worse when I heard the actress panicking, trying to find the dress, since she'd paid for it with her own money. I'd struggled with depression for a while already by that point, but I'd never been suicidal. That night, for the first time, I wanted to die.
When I was a child, a stray gave birth to a litter of kittens under the house, and then died. I tried to bring her back, but the rote memory instincts a zombie operates on were not enough to take care of kittens. I could have taken the litter to my parents, but they would have taken it away, and I wanted to raise them, to be the one that saved them. But I was too young and didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know they needed kitten formula rather than cow's milk, or that they had to be fed every two hours. They died. Slow, bad deaths that I could have prevented. When I got in certain moods, I still lay awake thinking about them, and I'm not sure what's worse: If I'd done something different, tried harder, I could have saved them; If I’d done nothing, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
These things, and a thousand other things like them, are what I'm most ashamed of, petty and stupid as they are. Proof I was always terrible. I'd been born with something ugly inside of me and even if I never used my powers, even if I did everything I could to be normal, I would still carry nothing with me but death. If that was what the door wanted me to confront in order to leave, it was several years too late. This wasn't something about myself that I could change.
Around me, the garden was silent. I sat up slowly, realizing it was over. I'd killed everything. I wasn't capable of doing anything else.
In the window of the tower, the watching strangers still stood.
And then I heard a noise. A soft, barely audible shuffle of earth.
Not everything was dead after all. The strange, double-speed camera effect was still at work. The body of the blue jay shrank and fell into bones. Moss grew over it, sprouting small white button mushrooms. Of course, I thought. Moss and fungi. Rot, and what fed on it, were death's closest companions.
But it wasn't only mushrooms. A green seedling grew in the shadow of the bird's rib cage. Others were appearing elsewhere in the garden. I sat up a little straighter, watching, as grass spread like a carpet. Vines covered old trees while new saplings grew up beside them. The fallen seeds of dead flowers gave birth to green life. I watched, silent and unmoving in breathless wonder as the garden renewed itself from the ruins.
I jumped in surprised as a dead tree was pulled down by the weight of the vines climbing on it, and the log became host to new plants and ferns. I heard insects soon, and birds. A lizard scurried across the path, which was now barely distinguishable from the wild growth around it. The garden was changed, but still alive, perhaps more now than before. I moved, curious, and flinched as I realized my touch still killed, shriveling the grass I knelt on. But the dead grass was quickly replaced by new. The garden was full of more life than ever.
It was, in fact, absolutely crowded with life. Overflowing with it. I watched the flowers burst the bounds of the flower beds, only to be stopped by the spreading branches of the still-growing trees cutting off their light. Vines climbed wildly over everything, weighing down the branches of the new trees with their sheer bulk until they groaned. The grass grew fast and tough, crowding out the more tender plants. The trees sent up new saplings, growing with incredible speed until their leaves blocked the sky and everything beneath starved for light.
The birds, squirrels, and insects had multiplied at the same rate as the plants and now fought for territory, screeching and screaming at one another. The insects were everywhere, swarming so thick you could barely see through them. The trees towered, overgrown with moss and vines. The people in the window watched me, unfazed by how quickly the building deteriorated. The stones split, and the tower groaned as plant life burst through it, whole new trees sprouting up through the stone. The tower fell with a terrible crash, taking with it the Blue Demon Door, and the stones were quickly covered by grass.
The tough, thorny vines and prolific grasses quickly outcompeted everything else, growing over the flowers, bushes, and fruit trees. They crowded the path around me, until there were thorns in every direction. Above me, the tree branches grew together, tangled and joined, strangling each other. The birds had vanished. Squirrels filled the branches, screaming at one another, then gone. The insects thrived in the darkness while the plants continued to grow, until I was certain I would be smothered under them, my punishment for the destruction I'd caused.
But the moment the thorns touched me, they shriveled and died. I was still full of death. The thought made me miserable, until I realized what the door was trying to show me.
What was missing from the garden was death. The plants and animals grew and propagated at incredible speed, but never died, not even when buried under other plants and unable to grow. The garden would destroy itself, choking out the light, air, and insects it needed to survive, and still not die. I was surrounded by a shell of thorns by this point, and the darkness was total.
With shaking hands, I reached out and touched the thorns, which died back instantly, withering away from me. I swallowed the gut reaction of horror at what I could do and reached for more.
Once I'd cleared the worst of the thorns, I pulled the vines from the trees and removed the trees growing too closely together. The worst part was the birds and squirrels, even if I was as gentle as I could be and tried to only take the old and injured ones. I culled the grass, pruned back the flowers, maintained the animals, killed and killed, until sunlight could fall between the branches again. I was sweaty and exhausted from the work, but continued, carefully and steadily, until the garden, while not the same as it had been when I arrived, was healthy once again.
I lost myself in the work for what could have been hours or days, wandering between the trees and the flower beds, watching them grow, gently and carefully maintaining them. I remembered working in my aunt's garden, her lessons about pinching back the plants to help them grow better, snipping off the flowers of early tomato plants.
"Can't let them go to flower yet," she explained. "They aren't big enough. If they started trying to grow fruit now, it would weigh them down and kill them. But cut the flowers back a few times and they keep working on growing stronger stems, more leaves. By the time they fruit, they'll be strong enough to produce more tomatoes for a longer season. Everything stays in balance."
"Is that the lesson?" I asked a rose bush as I pruned it back before it began crowding out the flowers around it. "Balance? Is that it?"
Nothing answered, but when I moved to pull down some creeping vines covering a section of the fence, they fell away to reveal the blue door.
"I didn't learn anything," I told the brass door knocker. "I just feel worse."
"But look what you've done," it said, and I looked back at the peaceful, healthy garden.
I shook my head. "It's an oversimplification."
"Then give it nuance," said the door.
"I already understand death is necessary," I complained. "I know!"
"Then what don't you know?" the door asked.
I pressed my lips together for a moment, searching for an answer. My eyes stung with tears again and I pressed my han
ds to them to stop it.
"Why you made me go through this," I said at last, my voice tight, every inch of me sore and tired and feeling like a monster.
"Growth can be painful," the door replied, and there was something almost sympathetic in its brassy voice. "But pain, like death, is also necessary."
The door swung open, and there was only darkness beyond. I didn't bother asking the door anything else. I stepped out into the darkness, grateful to leave the garden behind.
Chapter 11
I walked in darkness for a while and soon realized I was somewhere outside my mind again. Was this place part of the door's lesson? If not, why had it led me here twice now?
I reached the place where the wisps flowed like eddies in a current, but I didn't have the will to chase them. The physical exhaustion had left me as soon as I escaped the blue door, but the mental exhaustion remained. Being made to kill, even for an ostensibly good reason and an illusion, weighted me down. I didn't want to be someone who could kill things with a touch. I didn't want to be . . .who I was.
I sat quietly among the wisps, afraid they'd crumble or disappear if I touched them.
I was so lost in thinking about my regrets, I almost didn't notice the wisps drifting close to me. The wisps had avoided me like before at first, but as I sat still, they'd stopped making such a wide circle around me, like they were more used to my presence. Now this one floated well within arm's reach. I watched it, considering if I should ignore it or touch it. I didn't have to look at the dream or memory or illusion it held. It might be nothing, just my coma brain's version of REM sleep.
I reached out and grabbed the wisp. All at once, I was dragged into an intense memory.