I pull my arm away, staring at Zeb’s blood on the floor.
She moves round me to my other ear.
‘You’d feel better, you know, if you stopped thinking on that boy and that stupid made-up Outside.’
I keep my hands out flat, even with them twitching to ball up tight. ‘I ain’t thinking nothing but truth.’
She starts grunting beside me, like my words have bitten her. She moves in close and hisses real slow in the language of the Others, exaggerating all the clicks her mouth makes as she says it.
‘Liar.’
I turn quick and arch my back up, but I don’t take her by surprise. She’s already up on her fingertips, baring those teeth at me and puffing herself out all big. I catch Bee behind her, eyes wide and scared. Cow shakes his head, looking sad.
I close my mouth and back off.
Queenie sits down, right on top of poor Zeb’s head stain.
I scowl at her. At all three of them. They say Outside is all lies. And they won’t have me thinking of Zeb neither ’cause, to them, as soon as something ain’t Inside no more it ain’t real. If it was up to them, we’d all still be rolling around like little ’uns, living in our lies.
I ain’t scared of no truth. I remember.
Zeb looked like me, ’cept he was a boy. He had the same pale skin, same long fingers, same bones sticking out. When he let me touch him, I used to close my eyes and map our faces out with my fingers, and they were the same, too. Nose, eyes, chin, cheeks. His jaw was a little squarer, like a page with the corner folded over. And his hair was a bit darker than mine and not quite as long, though it sat down below his shoulders easy by the time it happened. When his eyes looked at me, as wide and blue as the sky Outside, and his hand stretched out towards me.
A hand like mine.
I rub the pain building up in my chest. He’ll be here soon, the man who took Zeb. Soon as that water dries off the floor, we’ll hear Him.
I sit with my back against Jack’s wall. It’s calling to me, but I can’t knock to him in front of the Others. They reckon I’m crazy enough as it is. They wouldn’t understand the magic of his knocks.
Instead, I fold myself in real close. I think about that lady’s face – the one in my dream. I ain’t never seen her before, but her red smile is hanging around my eyes like I’ve been looking at the sun bars too long.
Maybe she’s a Princess, too. Come to life out of the books while I was sleeping.
And I’m thinking on that when I hear the whistling. I’m hoping it’s just the ringing in my ears. I’ve found they’re awful prone to doing that on days like today. Seems like every minute is a new whistle. But this one don’t do nothing but get louder, and pretty soon the Others are whimpering and shuffling away from that door about as fast as their asses will take them. They pile together in what used to be Zeb’s corner – the one next to mine when we’re looking at the door.
I sit on my hands and squeeze my eyes up tight.
Whoo-oo-who-oo-oo-ooo.
‘Ele,’ one of them is saying. ‘Ele.’
Don’t know which one it is or what they want, but I’m praying they keep their mouth shut, as I’m trying my damnedest to stop the scared coming up inside of me.
We hear the clang from far away and the whistling gets louder. Same ol’ whistle.
Whoo-oo-who-oo-oo-ooo.
‘Ele.’
Shutupshutupshutup.
I can hear His footsteps now, loud as can be. What are the names of the trees?
OakWillowBirchSycamore–
‘Ele!’
MapleAshPine–
And then the footsteps stop and I’m all out of trees, ’cause the light above that door’s gone and turned green.
Ain’t no one saying my name no more. All heads are to the floor, all bodies about as far away from mine as they can get.
He won’t see them anyway. He’ll just see me. Just like He never saw Zeb ’til he stood up.
He pushes the door open and I try to slow it down, so I remember to look past Him to what’s behind Him, but ain’t no seeing that. I forget what breathing feels like and all I see is that grubby face of His, those cheeks like someone has slapped them. Hair like metal strings. Nose round like the ball in His throat.
He’s smiling today, teeth all triangles like the Big Bad Wolf.
‘Hello there, little lady.’
His voice is deeper than any of ours. It makes the pipes whine.
He stands in the doorway and bends Himself over like a bow pulling back an arrow. Still smiling. His fingers are wrapped round that door frame, covered over in His extra-skins, though I know He’ll take them off soon enough.
Funny, ’cause He’s all white underneath, just like us. He’s got the same belly as Cow. The same knobbly knees as Bee, though His are all grey and hairy. If you look close, though, like I’ve done, you’ll see the bits where His skin is falling off His bones, wrinkling up like an eyelid.
Sometimes, looking at those bits of Him, I wonder if I could kill Him.
He says something else, but I don’t understand what it is. I don’t reckon He knows I can understand Him most of the time anyway. I ain’t never said nothing back. But I get His meaning sure enough. I shuffle myself over there, heels dragging the rest of me behind, and He lets go of the door.
It swings. For one moment, I feel myself a cool breeze. Then the door closes.
The light goes red.
Four
He ain’t brought me many things from the Outside. The books are three things. And then there was this other time a couple of years back when He brought me some Outside food. It was wrapped up in crinkled armour all shiny and tasting of metal, but as thin as paper. He said it was His ‘Lunch’. Said He was giving it to me as a treat ’cause it was my birthday and I was a teenager now.
I din know what those things were, but I took it anyway. It din smell like feed – not like food at all. The armour was all sharp edges, but the Lunch was as soft as Bee’s cheeks and covered in white dust, like it’d been dropped on some kind of floor. I looked at Him and I must’ve looked right suspicious ’cause He started laughing at me and put one of His big hands on my head, all heavy.
‘You don’t need to look at it like that none, girl. It ain’t gonna eat yer.’
It looked mighty alive, skin as white as mine almost, a tongue of something smelling like the in-betweens of Cow’s toes poking on out at me. I din know whether to bite it or kiss it.
He grabbed it out my hands and shoved it in His own mouth, yellow teeth chomping down. He pushed just about the whole thing in His mouth in one go, cheeks out, strings of water linking His lips to the Lunch as He took it away.
He handed it to me again, but I watched Him eat His bit down first. He din eat like us. We tip our heads right back and gnash our teeth up real quick so the food don’t come out, but His head stayed forward, and the Lunch stayed behind His lips. It din make no crunching noise neither, like feed does. All I heard was His breaths fighting on past the food in His mouth and His jaw knocking like knees.
When He swallowed, the ball in His throat did handstands up and down.
To tell the truth, I weren’t so keen on eating it. It smelt funny and I was still wondering if it was alive, even though it din squeal none as He bit it. But, even though Zeb weren’t looking over, I could see the Others, eyes out and greedy when they’re usually locked on down when He’s in. They wanted it, but it weren’t for them. It was mine.
I shoved it in my mouth and it was like biting into Cow’s belly, all soft. My teeth came together real quick, making my head ring out. My bite din come away easy neither. I had to thrash my head about this way and that, all the dust over my face and itching me, and when it finally came loose I about near choked on it as it made a run for my throat.
It din taste good. It tasted of warm things. Of soft things. Of alive things.
But I chewed it like He did, behind my lips. And the Others were watching that too, and I could see their thoughts. L
ooking at my lips. Looking at His lips. Feeling at their own lipless mouth holes.
I swallowed it down, scraping the dust off my tongue by licking the top of my arm.
When I looked up, He was laughing at me.
‘You is one weird kid.’
And I guess it was before things turned bad, ’cause I remember snapping my teeth at Him and turning into my corner, thoughts raging hard. I buried myself away and din give no thanks for the gift He brought – He had to take that from me. And He left afterwards still laughing, taking the armour away with Him in a ball, and leaving me with a belly full of hurt.
I wouldn’t have done that, though, if I’d known what He was capable of. If I’d known then what the black thing on His belt He called a ‘gun’ was for, I would’ve just shut up and thanked Him proper, like I do now.
Things changed. He don’t bring me nothing no more.
These days, things are bad. After this visit, I spend a few days in the Outside Inside my Head. I’ve made a whole bright world in there, all cut from fairy stories. Sometimes it can be mighty hard to calm my thoughts enough to make it real.
Not this time, though. I’m so damn relieved to see that gun on His belt gone with Him that it’s easy as beanstalks to get there.
First, you’ve got to get real quiet. Usually the best way for that is when you’re curled up in a ball. You’ve got to push your face right into the dark, between those knees, hair all around. Then you’ve got to let your brain get quiet. It takes a while sometimes. You might find yourself chasing thoughts without even realizing that you’re following them until you’re lost right in them. Pretty soon, though, you’ll see those trees and that green come at you, like you’re waking up in that place you belong, and it’ll get a lot easier to see more and more. Rivers. Rocks. Sometimes even little marks in the sky that I know to be birds – sort of like clouds, but brown and streaky.
On days like these, I can feel the grass between my toes, like tiny fingers tickling me up with giggles. I can feel that sun on my face too, all warm and yellow. And the wind, making my hair stick up behind me.
Sometimes Jack joins me in the Outside Inside my Head, though we don’t mention it between the wall. Now I know I ain’t never seen him, but in the Outside Inside my Head he looks like Hansel, with curly hair and dots across his cheeks. He sits on a rock and watches me play in the water with the Mermaids, splashing it about. This water ain’t like the water in the Tower. It’s as blue as the sky and the rain, with little white bits where it snags on the rocks. It feels silky clean.
How long are you going to keep running for, Ele?
He’s throwing tiny stones into the water, and it’s so smooth that they don’t even make a plop.
I ain’t running.
I jump out of the water and use both my legs to hoppity-jump over the fairy toadstools to the trees – no running involved, just so we’re clear now. I grab the first branch, crackly like scrunched-up paper, and haul myself up, using my feet as a lever, like Jack when he went and climbed that beanstalk.
I know the facts about these things.
Jack, you ever thought about climbing a beanstalk?
Yeah, he hollers back, his voice all small down below as I get higher. I don’t think I’d be any good at it, though.
You’d be fine.
The branches get thinner as the green gets thicker, but they hold me like I’m an acorn fitting right back on the tree. When I can’t go no further, I turn round and look at the shadows on the other side – sometimes dark and sometimes holding other trees, kind of like when your eyes are going back in your head. If I concentrate real hard I can see the long arms of the Willow tree and the spiky hair of the Pine. I can just about see Jack down below, all small, and I wave at him. He waves right back.
The wind feels nice on my face, smelling like Zeb’s breath. I run my hands over the paper leaves.
Do you reckon this is what the Outside is really like, Jack?
Isn’t it so in the books?
Yeah. It’s so.
I can see all the things the books tell me. The Prince, running through the forest. The house of the Three Bears. And even a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the gingerbread house hiding far away in the trees.
I wonder what the Others will make of the Outside. Will they like it once they know it? I bet Bee will. She’ll like sitting on the grass and stroking it, reading the words dancing in the air around her. Cow will be fine too, once he gets himself a magic cooking pot and knows it’ll get him his next dinner. I’m pretty sure Queenie would still be grumpy even if she was smack bang in the middle of her own fairy story. That’s just who she is, ain’t no changing that.
I know I’ll love the Outside when I’m there.
Ele?
Yeah, Jack.
You should leave.
The Inside, or the Outside Inside my Head?
You can’t leave the Inside when you’re creeping around in here.
I ain’t creeping … I rub the paper leaves on my hand.
He ain’t listening, though, ’cause his voice is already leaving when he calls back.
You can’t escape when you aren’t occupying yourself with the facts, Ele.
I drop the paper leaves and start climbing back down the tree and out of my head. Damn Jack, he’s always right about these things. Ain’t no escaping my bellyache when I’m cooped up in the real, but ain’t no escaping Him when I’m curled up away from it neither.
Five
I suppose you’re wondering what happened when He came in this time. It ain’t a good story, so I’ll say it quick. There won’t be no ‘once upon a time’ neither, ’cause it ain’t just once. It’s every seven days.
And just like in ‘Rapunzel’, there’s a Witch in this story. Him. He’s as bad a Witch as you ever did see. He came in, pretending to be harmless and all. Making nice to the Princess. Telling her she’s pretty. Stroking her hair like Bee does. He weren’t as gentle as Bee, though. His fat fingers were all thumbs and got caught up in her tangles.
She din do nothing. Time was when she’d be stroking Him back, trying to get herself more words about how she’s pretty as a picture. But she’s all froze up beneath those fingers these days. They’re gun fingers and they’re ready to snap.
He pushed her this way and that. She let Him.
‘Where yer gone? Yer disappeared on me?’
His lips scratched her neck as they moved. He had her caught between His legs, one hooked over her like a bar, the other curled round her back. He was all fingers and thumbs over her face, poking them inside her mouth, tasting of floor.
‘You ain’t still sore about yer brother now, are yer? Yer know why I needed to do it, my girl.’
She can’t hear things like that.
He slid His hands round her neck and, calm as, He grabbed the back of her hair tight ’til it was clear her head weren’t moving even if it wanted to. So she looked at Him empty, until He pulled so hard her neck screamed out and He got what He wanted.
Yeah. Still here.
He smiled, catching His tongue between His teeth. There were red lines in His eyes like they were bleeding.
‘There yer are, my girl.’
He leant in to press His lips up against hers, and He must’ve felt her twitch away, ’cause something passed over His face for a moment. Some kind of shadow that made His face look as dark as it did that day.
Anger.
The Princess’s heart kicked. She pushed herself towards Him, put her lips against His scratchy ones and moved them about as He liked it. He was all stiff at first, still thinking His dark thoughts, but they passed. Soon, He let go of her hair and was back to calling her pretty names again, telling her she’s His girl.
She don’t want to be His girl.
The rest of the story is the same as it always is. I’m hoping one day He’ll get tired of telling it. I reckon He does it to prove that He can hurt me if He wants to. But that’s where I know He’s stupid, ’cause He ain’t been able to h
urt me doing that since I were a little ’un. He can’t get into my mind no more, so there ain’t no more hurting to be done. My mind is full of truths and I’m gonna get me that Outside I want like nothing else.
I’m gonna get me it alive, too.
Six
I wake up when it’s still dark and feel Bee hovering over me more than I see her. The red light from the door catches on her eyeballs, making her look like some kind of Witch, and I scream out before I realize it’s just her.
‘Jeez, Bee, whatcha playing at?’
‘Shhh,’ she hisses, her breath disappearing like she’s looking around for eyes in the dark. ‘Don’t wake them.’
I look over her shoulder and we’re both real quiet for a minute, listening for sounds of them waking up, but really they ain’t doing that any time soon. Sometimes I’ll wake screaming myself hoarse and they don’t even stop their snoring for a second.
‘What’s wrong?’ I whisper.
I can’t see her eyes much, but from what I can see they’re just about brimming over with worry.
‘I wanted to check,’ she says, and I know she’s stopping to chew on her mouth, ‘how you’re doing.’
‘Fine,’ I say right back, but ain’t no need to be hiding in the dark. ‘Well, no, but I will be.’
The red light blinks as she nods her head. ‘I miss you.’
Her words eat right through me. Some of me wants to take her up in my arms and cuddle down with her tight, like we’re little ’uns again and nothing matters. But it does. I ain’t the Other she wants me to be.
I don’t say nothing.
‘Tell me, Ele, the one where we came to be here. Inside.’
I roll my eyes. ‘Goddamn, Bee, you don’t believe in no Outside. You say that it’s lies, remember?’
Time ticks on and my arms start hurting where I’m holding myself up.
‘It ain’t just a story, you know.’
Still she don’t say nothing.
‘It was Him – the Witch,’ I say, with a sigh. ‘We all lived happy in the gingerbread house with flowers all around us, and then He came in the night and took us. Just like in the story “Rapunzel”, remember?
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