Edge

by Serena Sallow

  Screech returns my babbling with a shocked look of his own, but does not speak. Perhaps his fear is a reticence.

  “Did – did we, we uh... we reach the top?”

  He stops having a quiet mental breakdown to give me a cacophonous glare. “Oh, yes, we reached the top, Freck. This is it. Heaven. This must be the promised land because, look” – he gestures to the geysers that have been Madame Veneera's favorite subject since we arrived – “we have water!”

  His sarcasm is completely dousing me, and I turn my horror into anger, just as he did. “Well I don't know! I've never seen the top, have you?”

  “Why on Earth would you believe this to be it – the top? The thing you have, quite literally, been aspiring to reach your entire life?”

  “There's water!”

  “And a creepy woman dressed in red see-throughy-stuff that with holes in her teeth who is freakily obsessed with said water!”

  “Screech! Keep your voice down!”

  “We're whispering!”

  And that's when I realize we are. We're much further up, towards the edge of the plain, where the staircase used to be, and he's standing right next to me, our voices lowered as Madame Veneera stares on at us. When I glance back, she gives me the smile that's still not left her face and waves.

  I smile weakly back and wave.

  “Stop that!” Screech nearly slaps my hand down. “You can't go around waving to creeps! I thought you were eighteen? Don't you know not to talk to strangers?”

  “I was a stranger when we met,” I remind him, but I still lower my hand, kind of robotically.

  “Yeah, not a creepy as all hell stranger.”

  “What's the definition of a 'creepy as all hell' stranger?”

  “Oh, I don't know. One that doesn't make the staircase disappear or have flowing waters everywhere or that actually stops smiling for a second.” He's peering over the side of the staircase plains now, where there is nothing – just a large drop into red mist and a sea that's barely visible from beneath the smog. He pulls up suddenly, as if he'd seen something, before off-handedly waving towards me and going to inspect a blade of gray grass by kneeling next to it. “And on that staircase note, be careful where you step.”

  I smile, but the action is a bit exasperated and almost exhausted. Yet it is, overall, to some extent, an entertained look I finally give him. “You have theories already?”

  “Always.” He rises but puts his back towards me a bit, obviously trying to force the corners of his mouth into a serious expression so that it does not show his mild amusement. He makes his way back towards Madame Veneera, who sits cross-leggedly, awaiting our return.

  “Satisfied, my dear?” she calls up to us as we walk by her. This time, I stand with Screech, my superfluous trust damaged, and the boy places himself next to me, yet slightly ahead, hands on his hips, his fingers running against his bare skin under his ribcage.

  “Satisfied?” I ask.

  “Yes. We just asked to go check out the nonexistent staircase, about two seconds ago.” Screech's confused eyes bore into my face as I stare up at him, equally baffled.

  “Oh,” I let go, despite not remembering that and the fact that there was still an odd sort of crushing in my stomach, like a very quiet or nearly silent shock was settling into my bones.

  “Oh, oh, indeed!” repeats Madame Veneera. Her smirk is like that of a porcelain doll's, never melting, never slipping. Under those rather vacant eyes is a face so plastic, so plastered that were I not experiencing her in real life, for myself, I would presume her to be a facsimile of some sort.

  “Tulle,” I say, suddenly.

  “Tulle, tulle!” says our resident parrot.

  “Tulle?” questions our resident detective.

  “That's what the red see-throughy-stuff is called. Tulle.”

  “Oh,” Screech says, but his voice sounds perplexed, not enlightened. Perhaps because that piece of trivia burst from nowhere. Then he sets his eyes on me, apparently awaiting me to question the other more.

  I find it amusing how he's interested enough to know, but not curious enough to ask himself. Perhaps he's afraid of asking the wrong questions, and would rather I screw up than him.

  I swallow back my automatic inhibitions and grant his wish.

  “So, uh... you've never seen the staircase before?”

  “Staircase, oh? What kind of staircase?”

  “Well, uh.” I shrug, helplessly, because I'm bad at explaining things. “A staircase kind of staircase. One that goes up.”

  “But also down!” she interjects.

  “But mostly up.”

  “But staircases go up and down. Two ways, yes! Hah! A staircase that goes both!”

  “But you're supposed to climb up – ”

  “Freckles,” Screech says, and when I meet his eyes, he shakes his head, a silent plea as a no. I take his suggestion and back away from the statement.

  “Okay, yeah. Have you seen it?”

  “Oh, I don't know. About eternities high, black-ish, firmer at the end and mushy towards the top?”

  “Yes,” I reply, my voice obviously quite relieved at the fact that she seems to have found her mind.

  “Never seen it.” And with that, a hysterical laughter rips from her throat, and she leans back, playfully enjoying her own jest.

  Thought too soon, I suppose.

  Neither Screech nor I have made any move, but both of us agree that it was one of the least funny things we have ever heard, and I can tell by his paralleled deadpan expression. In fact, it's nearly haunting, in a way.

  “What's so funny?” That's Screech, his first question to her other than his initial reaction of What, and I wonder why he believes this question to be less charged than the ones he's mutely forced me to pose. In fact, I believe it's more dangerous of a query than I've put her up to at all.

  “What, what, indeed!” Her eyes flicker to Screech, and she tilts her head, slightly. Madame Veenera's eyes change for a brief moment, and I can see an almost controlled hatred within them.

  I grab Screech's forearm and back up, minutely, but for some reason, he's seemed to not notice this change and stays rooted to the spot. My eyes are wild, and I'm about to tell Screech to go, but then I realize there is nowhere to go. We're stuck on a large plain with no sort of escape. No staircase. No anything. And now I'm searching, feverishly, breathlessly, everywhere for some sort of escape, some sort of way out, and my eyes are going to every niche and corner and coming up empty, like they always have, like I know they always will, except now it's wider and more empty because the staircase is gone, the staircase which has been my life, my story for my entire eighteen years, so far as I can remember, and it's just gone. And then it occurs to me even if the staircase comes back, what am I supposed to do? It's another trap, another prison. As I told Madame Veneera – the only place to go is up. Or down, but that's more of a falling and screaming sort of thing, as you fall, as you pass to the ocean. It's a trap just as well. We're like lambs to the slaughter, aren't we? What if Screech is right – it's a huge oven up there, and the moment we get there we just get added to the staircase? But then how did the staircase start, without any foundation? How did it ever come to be?

  I don't think I'm breathing, because I'm on the floor suddenly, hands clutched at my side, and Screech is shaking me, wildly.

  “Hey, hey! Freckles! Sit up!”

  But I don't, because I can't. I think I'm dying – my body is convulsing in some sort of way, and my vision is all white around the edges, my hands and feet and body beginning to go numb and chill, and I can't breathe, I just can't breathe.

  I hear them talking, and I've always thought that the last voices I would ever hear before my death would be far away, but they're close, so loud, invading my personal space, my already broken head.

  “Hey! She's sick, you need to help her. Help her!”

  “Sick, sick, hmm? You know what would help her? My calming, relaxing waters. My fountains are the most clear a
nd relaxing of any in the universe!”

  “Screw your calming waters! Help her!”

  “Sc – ” I try to scold, but my throat is coarse, scrapes together like sandpaper.

  I'm frightened for him. I'm frightened that he's going to get hurt by this strange woman while I'm too incapacitated to help.

  And then I'm mad at myself, because I should be able to do more.

  That phrase grabs my mind, pulls me back and forward.

  Should be able to do more...

  “Stop beating yourself up, hun. You did your best, and I am more than positive you got the scholarship.”

  I open my standard navy locker door as loudly as I can, glowering as I throw my math and English textbook into the dark hole that is my locker. The books have always been arranged haphazardly – I don't have time to waste meticulously organizing them like some literature geeks I know – but I know where in the pile everything is located. Without much of a hesitation, I pull my physics folder from the third bottom and my science book, second down. I don't technically need the book for this class, but, hey – I gotta have something to do when I finish the exam, don't I?

  “Come on,” he groans, leaning heavily against the locker next to mine. “Look at me, babe.”

  “Don't call me that,” is my harsh reply, as I'm rummaging through my locker, actually just killing time before I have to go to my next exam. Physics is easy, but still. It's an exam.

  I see his face get hard when he hears me speak. “Listen, you passed, okay? I just know that you did.”

  “I don't need that,” I say, hand on my locker door, tightening so harshly that my knuckles turn white. “I really don't need that.”

  “What, optimism? You're the biggest optimist I know!”

  I don't answer, just skim my locker, my face and neck growing hot at his words, despite me not knowing why. I am the biggest optimist I know – about everything other than myself, coincidentally.

  “Yeah,” I say, my shoulders untensing in nothing more than formality as I try to carefully close my locker door, the lock clicking into place the moment its reunited with the metal frame. With baited breath, I turn to the boy waiting for me, pulled away from the locker opposite of mine as the girl whose locker falls to the odd number after mine goes to working her lock. My boyfriend smiles at me, a kind of hopeful look on his face.

  “Come on, kid. You're gonna be late.” He holds out an arm, straight out but curved slightly and, sighing, I walk underneath it so he can hold me by my shoulders. I hate when he does this, as usual, but it makes him happier, so I let him.

  We walk down the hallway in contented silence for a few moments. “You shouldn't be worried,” he finally says.

  “How can I not be? With Mart – ”

  “I swear, if you mention her one more time I might just have to assassinate her.”

  I grin at him, widely. That's the kind of stuff that makes me happy.

  “No, no. Sorry. It's just that it's so frustrating.”

  He pats my arm with the hand that's draped around me. “I know, babe, I know.”

  I sigh, as I always do when he calls me 'babe'. It makes me feel like an object or something. I don't know.

  “So, what, have you got your hours in?” he asks, and the three-minute warning bell rings.

  “Yes. All set up, all the way to fourth quarter.”

  “Damn.”

  I shrug, grinning slightly. “What can I say? I don't feel like lab duty is much work.”

  “I hate you,” he complains loudly. “It's no fair that you get to do your major for work.”

  I shrug, chuckle. “Oh, come on, what you do is much better in terms of environment.” I nudge him, slightly, with my elbow. “What about you? Making our world a cleaner and more efficient place by putting more paper towels in the bins and toilet paper in those little circle-y holders and mopping up the dirty?”

  He laughs his loud, rumbling laugh that makes half the hallway turn. “Uh, no. Haven't been. Not for a few months.”

  “Dang, boy. You're gonna get in trouble.”

  “I'm skipping the Psych exam to do it in about three minutes.”

  “Knew there was something suspicious about you walking me all the way to the H building. Is that, like, allowed?”

  “I don't, like, know?” he questions, mimicking my voice obviously. I hit him in the stomach so hard that he actually stumbles in his gait before shoving me extremely lightly and playfully, continuing. “I'm just gonna say I forgot my exam was now and thought I was on work duty. It's not like they're going to get mad at me for doing janitorial duties.”

  I laugh. “They can't!” I pause, then reply, “Well, let me know how many times you have to scrub off 'Mr. Dixson is a dick' this year.”

  He grins, the light reaching those amazing eyes of his. “Will do, hun. I'm almost considering leaving it, though. He's caused so much graffiti that I definitely agree – he's totally a dick.”

  “He totally is. I had him for a block.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I took a half-semester of AP Music Theory, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. Before you realized you suck.”

  I smile up at him. “Yes, before I realized I suck. And before I realized he sucks.”

  “What does he suck, precisely?”

  “Ew.” I catch the teasing bite in his tone but it doesn't make me want to hit him any less. I finally consent to returning the large smirk he's giving me. “You're a disgusting young man.”

  “You're a disgusting young woman.”

  “Am not!”

  “Tell me how many frogs you've dissected just this year alone.”

  “That has nothing to do with anything, you prick.”

  “You're the prick.” He kisses me on my forehead as we reach my building. “After school, our spot?”

  I sigh loudly, as if it's a trouble, as if I don't go there every day. “Why?” I complain.

  “I'm selfish and stupid and I miss you already and you've not even gone in, so you should come back.”

  But those last five words, pleading I come back, are not from his mouth. His lips do not move, and he just stands there staring, when –

  I jolt awake from... some sort of something. I'm lying on something squishy, and soft, and I look up and notice Screech directly above my face. Positioning myself, I can see that I'm lying on his lap.

  And I think I just woke up from a dream.

  I scramble, uselessly, grabbing at the slipping straws, trying, just praying that it will all come back to me. That it will make sense. But it doesn't. It flies away from me, and I'm left with nothing, absolutely nothing, no memories, no thoughts, just dead air, radio silence.

  My next thought is obvious: Screech. He must be furious that I did whatever I did and went wherever I went. But when I glance up at him, I see something I've never seen before – him sleeping.

  His eyes are closed, his head slightly drooped against his own chest, and he seems to be supported by something... but what? I can't tell from the position I'm lying in.

  “Come back,” says a voice, and it frightens me so much I almost let out a scream.

  But then I realize the small body underneath me rumbled slightly. My eyes go to Screech's face, and I push myself up a bit so I can see him.

  No, he's still asleep – merely speaking in it.

  “Come back, Mom,” he whispers, turning his head and sighing. “Come back.”

  I open my mouth to say something, my hands going to his shoulders shake him awake, but then I hesitate. Isn't it there something that says you forget your dreams if you're violently awakened from them? I can't remember. Either way, I need him to remember whatever is going on in his head – to fill all the questions I have, the memories I know I'm having but don't remember.

  I'm feeling much better since my last memory, though the fact that I've, once again, forgotten something has wedged a stone in the back of my throat. I know I shouldn't be beating myself up over this – that I've proba
bly been forgetting things like this since I was born, however that happened. Was I born on the staircase? Did I have parents? Oh, my memory is so small, so fleeting, so broken.

  I look up at Screech, feel his slight agitation as he fights against my figure. I sigh and look away, stare into the darkness. Morning is coming, I know. I can feel it in the air, and if I could see the horizon, I'm sure I'd see the light begin to seep into the sky.

  Finally, a light pink color begins to creep up over the edge of the plains, lighting our dark figures. I see we're against the stones of one of the waterfalls, still covered in blood – there goes his “don't move from this spot” plan – and off to the side, is Madame Veneera.

  Sitting, in the middle of the field, her legs crossed, her eyes fixed on us, smiling.

  It isn't one of those fears that makes you jump. It was like a low, silent, grip of horror.

  All night, she's been sitting there. Just... smiling... and watching us sleep.

  Oh my God.

  Suddenly, I want Screech awake – no matter what the cost. I sit up next to him, slowly, working very hard to make my movements careful and relaxed, despite wanting to jump and move as if on fire. I shake the child sitting next to me lightly, but when he doesn't move, my panic takes over and I nearly rip his body apart as I shake him.

  “W – stop, Freckles! What the – I'm up, I'm up!” He pushes me away and glares at me, those now blue eyes very piercing and angry. “What was that for?”

  “We have a guest,” I say, and he looks up, and sees Madame Veneera frozen, smiling, and cringes.

  “Uh, yeah. She's not moved since your little... 'episode'.”

  “What happened?”

  “Beats me.” He shrugs. “One moment you were fine and the next you were like, breaking down. I don't know.” He eyes me, almost suspiciously, and his reddened skin is glowing in the early morning light. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You?”

  “Of course.”

  We sit together in the silence as the day dawns and we're covered in the crimson light from above, watching as Madame Veneera eyes us creepily and hauntingly. I rise in silence, and I can feel Screech's eyes boring into the back of my head as I walk towards her.