Edge

by Serena Sallow

  “You're just a damned boy, ain't ya?” says the cruel voice, the one that's making my skin crawl and my blood curdle. “You're just a kid.”

  “Don't touch her again! Don't you ever touch her again!”

  I can't see what's happening, but I hear fighting, hitting. There's no way an eight year old is winning against a full fledged adult, however, so I begin crawling over to the fighting.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” My voice is scratching, breaking, full of sobs that I did not realize were emanating from me. “Let him go!”

  My hands go to find the one with the bare chest, but I realize too late they both have one. Then I look for the rough, course skin, and I shove as hard as I can, trying to get him off of Screech, not really caring where he's going.

  And suddenly, I feel nothing beneath me. No platform, no staircase, no anything. There's a gravity centering down, forward, incorrectly, and the howl I make is broken.

  I'm falling off the staircase.

  nineteen

  This is not how the story should end. A pregnant mother taking a dive off the edge of oblivion right when the only person she ever wanted in her life returns.

  Don't worry. That's not how the story ends. (I'm sure you weren't really worried anyway – there's still so much left to read.) There's only one person meeting the bottom of the pit tonight, and that's not me.

  “Freckles! Freckles!” Screech's tiny hands are on my shoulders, despite the fact that I'm falling, and he's shaking me, getting my attention. “Stop screaming, you're okay!”

  “I'm falling!” I insist, because I am. I feel myself tumbling over the edge, and the air is rushing past my face, brushing my hair back, throwing me closer and closer to an impending doom, its iron grip momentarily open to snatch me from the sky.

  “Listen to me! He still has control of your mind, okay? He's making you think you're falling, but you're not. It's the stupid water, okay? Just... just listen to me. It's just the water.”

  His words begin to trickle through my fear, my shock. Just the water. I feel the ground on my bare knees, feel his arms around me. Just the water. My quivering breaths come from stall, still air, not rushing air. Just the water.

  I'm safe.

  My body's quivering, and there's a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. I lean over, away from the child, and empty all the contents of my stomach.

  He doesn't let go of me while I do. Of course, it's dark – he can't see anything. Letting me go could mean losing me in the consuming darkness.

  When I pull up, however, I grab him to my chest, holding him nearly fervently.

  “Oh my God, Screech. I missed you so much. Oh God...”

  He goes sort of still and silent, and I realize quickly that I'm still undressed. I begin to pull him away before I feel a tickle of realization, soft but sharp, almost red or fleshy pink in the black of my mind. The tickle grows and turns into an ocean I'm trapped in, and subconsciously, my hands press against my abdomen.

  My abdomen which is lying flat against me, only as curved as it had been before I found Todd again.

  “No,” I whisper, once. The thought is empty – horrified. And then suddenly the shriek peels from me. “NO!”

  “Freckles?” His voice in the quiet is unsure, unsettled.

  “My baby... my baby's gone!” I turn to where I'd just vomited as unintelligent thoughts take me and shake my foundation. Oh God, I must've thrown up my baby. My baby's gone... my little girl.

  I wrench myself forwards, nails and fingers going towards where I'd heaved. I need to find her! She must be caught in there – she must be lost...

  Hands, suddenly firm and powerful, are dragging me away. “What are you doing? Stop!”

  “My baby – she's stuck in here – ” My body is twisting and turning, fighting, my hands clamoring forward, uselessly.

  “Freckles, stop! There wasn't a baby. Not now. Not ever!”

  “Stop it!” My voice is high enough to pierce the darkness around us. “Stop! She's there – let go – let me go!”

  “No!” With a mighty effort, he pulls me backwards. I feel myself fall on him and my hands go forward for only a singular moment before a sorrow overtakes me and I fall limp against him.

  I'm sobbing again, or maybe I never stopped, and I dissolve against Screech, not caring about the fact that I have no clothing on. He's frightened and stiff and quiet.

  “There was never a baby, Freckles.”

  “Don't say that,” I fight, but all I have for ammo now is my broken whisper, levied as he pets my hair, gently, almost distractedly.

  “I never saw your stomach get any bigger. Not once.”

  “I was weeks pregnant when you left.”

  “You were never pregnant, Freckles. It was all a dream. All a part of his trap.”

  I shiver, pointedly, against him, and I'm sniveling and sobbing all of my words. “What a cold bastard.”

  I think he's nodding, but of course, I can't see. “Did he damage your mind too much?”

  I know what he's really asking. I close my eyes, though there's still no point, and I just lay there in muted agony for a few moments. My mind isn't really coming to grips with these last few minutes, and I feel as if I should make peace with that before delving any further.

  It seems like a futile effort, however, so I finally murmur. “Madame Veneera. The blood rain.”

  “You remember?” His voice is a whisper, but I hear behind the simple question a tinge of hope, of prayer.

  “I remember.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  I can't help but smile at his distrust. That's Screech. I could spot his soul from a mile away in a pitch black environment. That's Screech.

  “The blood rain – rain coming down on us, hard and fast, blood everywhere. You almost fell. Then Madame Veneera... with the tulle.” I smile slightly at the memory of teaching him the word, and immediately snap back into my self, my old self, the one that sat beneath starless skies and played with a child, imitating the squeaked voice of the woman. “My fountains are the most clear and relaxing of any in the universe!”

  Screech can't stop himself from laughing lightly at my imitation, though the laugh sounds too... broken, too sad for one so young.

  “And the fountains,” I continue when his pathetic chortle has ceased. “Remember, washing up?”

  “Yeah. You had no clothes on then too.”

  My laugh mirrors his, and he falls dangerously silent for a few seconds.

  “Let's... see if we can find your clothes.”

  I nod, and we pull away from each other. We hold hands, but apart from that we move, feeling around for cloth against the hardness of the plains. I notice that the ground doesn't feel like the soft grass it used to – it feels like the ash it's always been. Eventually he comes across my pants and I come across some weird top-like thing which I identify to be Todd's, the button down shirt he used to wear over his white tee. I pull both on, though dressing in the darkness is leagues more difficult than one would think, and I'm left fumbling for most of the time before I can pull it back over my curved, no longer enlarged, belly.

  “I was pregnant,” I whisper to Screech, once clothed, buttoning up the buttons on Todd's pull over as I lay down again, resting my head in Screech's lap.

  “You need to get some sleep,” he orders.

  I shake my head, my eyes closed tightly, though I'd never seen anything bad. “I... don't think I can ever sleep again.” I hesitate, a thought slowly occurring to me. “You okay? From... the fight, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” He sniffs, slightly, and I think he's rubbing at his face. “I'm fine. It's no big deal.”

  “How long?” My question is random but not unfounded. “Since we parted ways. How long?”

  “Few weeks. I didn't get real far though.” His voice takes on a real quiet, stripped tone.

  There's a silence, as neither of us sleep; we just wait for the dawn of morning. Though there's no spoken confirmation, we have a silent agreement of what
will happen – when the light arrives, we will continue up the staircase together.

  “You came back for me,” I finally say, softly.

  I think he's nodding. “Of course I did, Freckles. Through thick and thin, yeah?”

  A slight smile comes to my face, and I swallow hard at the words he's saying. “Yeah.”

  There's a pause again before words come tumbling out of my mouth, like the tears down my face, like the lump threatening my throat. “I'm so sorry, Screech. If I had known, if I had realized earlier – ”

  “I know,” he says, but doesn't quite accept my apology. Not aloud, anyway, but we both know he wouldn't be here if he didn't forgive me. He wouldn't've come back if he didn't need to.

  “What I've been doing to you... it's not okay. I never trust you, and that's not right. Whether it's because of... your age, or just me, I... I don't know. But it's still not right. And I don't want you to feel like you're doing something wrong.”

  “I know I'm doing nothing wrong.”

  I laugh, because it's so childish, so blatantly honest to say something like that. “Well, good. I'm glad.”

  I don't welcome the quiet at all, not with what just happened. For some reason I need to feel him, to hear him, to breathe him in, make sure I know what's fact. This could be another illusion. Another dream. I could wake up and Todd be hovering over me, my baby in his arms.

  I attempt to swallow the bile rising in my throat at the mere thought.

  “Where's Ivor – ... no, sorry. Shadow. Where's Shadow?”

  The child next to me seems to freeze. Moments ago, he was stroking my hair gently, but at the words, he's no longer moving, no longer breathing, it seems.

  It occurs to me too slowly, too laboriously.

  “She fell?”

  At my words, the child above me breaks into wails that I did not even think were possible of such depth from one so young.

  “Oh, God... Screech...”

  I pull myself into a sitting position and hold him, merely hold him. There's nothing to say, nothing to do but hold the sobbing child close to my chest and pet his head like he did mine, hushing his sobs with murmurs and promises that fall short.

  This shouldn't be. For one so young... he's killed twice – in defense of me, both times – and he's watched something he cared about die.

  No wonder he came back. He needed me. Even if it was delusional, in-love-with-Todd-till-the-day-I-die me, it was still a me he could hold and see.

  It occurs to me, kind of slowly, that it's not all about me. I was worried about Screech, yeah, but I was worried that I'd made the wrong decision in leaving him. I was worried about the baby, yeah, but I was worried that I'd not be able to give her a good enough life. I was worried, in the end, about myself, that my choices were wrong, that I'd messed up, and not necessarily taken into account the thoughts of the others.

  Even now, even after what just happened with Todd, it's taken me forever to ask Screech about something that is obviously so simply important to him.

  My mind recalls someone – a nameless, faceless someone, but someone who definitely existed – that had to be told that the world didn't revolve around them frequently, and said person hated that. I don't understand why, however. We all see the world from our own points of view. It's obvious that we'd forget that it's not about us. A reminder isn't a bad thing, and I don't know why it's viewed like that.

  I'm still petting Screech, who had once feared and hated me, who probably still does, in a not-so-distant part of his mind, when the sky begins to light. The world around us turns bright with the beginning of a red, new day. I notice that we're still on a plain, but the swing set and fire pit is gone, along with the grass and the clear blue sky and sun. My strapless, beige top lies at a corner in a crumple, and as I pull down on my new light-blue top that actually has sleeves and length, I question whether or not I should go retrieve it.

  I also note Todd's plain white t-shirt, on another corner of the field.

  “I bet you were a cat person, too.”

  Screech is not really crying anymore, but in the stage just after crying – where one is still sad, but almost too sad, too tired to continue sobbing.

  “What?” His voice is hazy, hoarse, like he's coming out of a dream.

  “In our old lives. Before the staircase. I bet you were a cat person.”

  “We didn't have old lives, Freckles.” He's speaking as if he's not listening to his own words, and the limpness of his body portrays this perfectly. “Our dreams are distant and odd. That's probably all they are – dreams. We've probably lived our whole lives on the staircase, somehow.”

  I can't help but grin. It doesn't matter how cynical his words are... I've just missed them.

  I help him to his feet, slowly, and we decide in the end to take my top. I slip it on underneath what I'm already wearing and give him the white t-shirt before shivering as I look down at my very empty belly.

  “You never were pregnant,” he reminds me as he pulls on his new shirt. I know he's meaning to be gentle, but it only makes me sicker.

  “Yeah.”

  I glance up at his face, his chest – more scars, thanks to me. Cut front, black eye, split lip. All good jabs Todd got in before I could intervene. Seeing that I'm looking, he quickly pulls the fabric over him and walks through the plains, towards the staircase.

  I'm quiet momentarily, before I plunge on.

  “You were right about Todd, and I never listened.”

  “I'm right about a lot and you never listen,” he replies, turning to take the lead. I laugh gently, a natural reaction to him, to his words. It feels so... instinctive, being with him. Uncontrived. Like it's no longer a play that I'm acting out, but a real life I'm living.

  Perhaps because before, I was merely an actor in an imaginary life Todd had decided to make up.

  “Oh yeah? Like what?” I decide upon.

  “Like the thing about the blood droplets.”

  “Hey, I never properly made up my mind on that! And besides, I mean, it kind of makes sense. Where else would we get our food from?”

  “Except you're doing the same thing you knocked me for.”

  “Which is?”

  “Applying dream rules to the real world.”

  I shrug, nod, my lips a flat, accepting line. “Fair point.”

  “I learn from the best.”

  I let out a breath of air similar to a single laugh. We reach the foot of the stairs and he casts a single glance back at me.

  “Up?” he asks, eyes wide, hopeful, and definitely green.

  I give him a smile which I'm sure looks much more broken than I intended it to. “Up.”

  twenty

  “I've done a terrible thing.”

  I have been staring at the ground for a few hours now, listening to the sounds of our feet walking, attempting to re-acclimate myself to the feeling of going upwards constantly, and the feeling of not having a nine month pregnant belly. I remind myself that I was never actually pregnant, but for some reason, my brain won't accept that. My mind is working laboriously hard to forget things that, for once, I actually want to escape, but unfortunately, it loses what I want and keeps what I do not.

  “Oh? That's hard to believe,” I say, not looking up.

  “Shadow didn't just randomly fall off at a point by accident,” he begins, but then stops himself. I glance up at him, sideways. His shoulders are slightly hunched, and his head is tilted slightly like it does when he's thinking too hard for his age.

  “Yeah?” I question, looking back down, attempting to ignore my already growing anxiety.

  “Shadow fell off because of... this... certain area on the staircase.”

  “A certain area?” I repeat.

  “Yeah. There's...” He hesitates, as if unsure. “There's this area. It gets really narrow.”

  “Well. We know all about that, huh?” I say, lightly, remembering how narrow it was before we were picked up by Todd. Even now, I can see what he means – what used t
o be a huge path is beginning to slim down, slowly, step by step, to the point where we can not walk side by side, not even if we wanted to. It's not uncomfortably narrow yet, but I can see it diminishing ahead of me.

  “No... it's different.” His voice is tinged with obvious fear, perhaps that I will be unhappy with him because of this fact. I allow myself a soft giggle as we continue moving.

  “It'll be fine, Screech. Whatever it is, we'll work it out together.”

  My words don't placate him as much as they should have, which only makes me a bit more concerned. I nudge his now-clothed back gently with my hand, in askance.

  I see by the way his back straightens out that he's swallowing, hard. “I think... you might see some things.”

  “Some things?”

  “Well, when I was up here, there were... things... I saw.”

  “What kind of things?”

  But he doesn't lend me any more information, and the position of his form is so worrying to me, that I decide not to push it.

  Other than whatever foreboding Screech is effectively throwing at me, the day seems to be normal. I glance over the edge of the staircase, and the sea is long gone by now – too distant to even make out against the mist or food or whatever it is that surrounds the area in silent, ebbing throes. The sky's almost a light pink, and the black clouds that swirl and eat away at the image threaten overhead. I swallow, praying for a day with no rain.

  The staircase narrows itself slowly, shrinking from the once large path to what was more common when we were lower. Screech and I could have walked together for a while, but it seems almost... unnatural. It is another unspoken rule that he has to take the lead, and I behind, watching, guarding, looking out for shadows that he would most likely spot long before me.

  I'm worrying about him, because it appears that's what I do. He's just lost his wolf and was nearly murdered by a rapist before he killed the rapist. I wonder if he's worried about me, what with how he found me and all. My knees are still kind of shaking and I feel clammy in the back of my throat, but otherwise, it's as if it's never happened.

  Perhaps my mind can't rest too long on that. Perhaps because it keeps going back to other dreams.