by K. C. Cross
And I guess he won, didn’t he?
He got rich, didn’t pay off any debts, didn’t grow old, and he took his magic with him. That’s quite an accomplishment. And I could do the same. All I have to do is invite him in.
“Ha!” I laugh out loud. “It’s all fake. The whole thing is fake. And how pathetic am I? That I have to make up a cupid to find myself a love interest and a prison guard with a giant cock!” This time, when the laugh bursts out, I really start to feel crazy. I cover my mouth to stifle leftover giggles, push through the gate, walk around to the front of the cottage, open the door, and go inside.
And there is Pell. Sleeping on my little couch. His giant dick just lying there in wait like a lion in tall grass on the savannah.
I sigh as I look at him. He’s a very nice delusion, actually. Sexy monsters are… well. Sexy. He’s far, far too big for that particular piece of furniture, so only his upper body is actually on the cushions. From the hip down, he’s dangling over the side of the armrest.
He’s sleeping. Soundly, apparently. Since me walking in didn’t wake him. His arms are crossed over his muscular chest and his head is propped up on a pillow. I study his horns. They are a deep chestnut brown with flicks of orange heat inside them. This heat glows and pulses, like there’s a whole furnace of fire inside his body. The horns are interesting, I think. They do not go above his head like the mythological creatures in books. They kinda drape down over his shoulders, pressing against either side of the soft cushion that elevates his head. They are not the horns of a goat, or a bull, or a ram. Not a gazelle, either. Some other animal. His chest is almost hairless. In fact, his entire upper body is almost hairless. Even his head, which is only covered in a velvet of light stubble, just like his jaw.
I plop down into an overstuffed chair and clear my throat.
He awakens slowly, like he was somewhere else, his eyelashes fluttering a little. They’re also blond, like his chin and head scruff. Then he draws in a deep breath as he opens his yellow-orange eyes and smiles at me.
“You’re home.” His voice is husky with leftover sleep. “How’d it go?”
I don’t know what to say because there is only one way to describe what just happened to me. “It was a total disaster.”
“What?” He sits up, his fucking package shifting around like a living thing. And that just reminds me of what happened back there in town with Russ.
Did it happen? Didn’t it happen?
“At first,” I say, my words very soft—so soft, Pell leans forward, like he’s trying to hear me better—“at first I thought I was delusional. I made the whole thing up.” A tear slides down my cheek.
“Pie?” Pell is confused. “What the fuck happened?”
I just shake my head.
“Did he hurt you?”
I can only shrug.
“What does that mean? He hurt you?”
“I don’t know.” My voice cracks. And I’m not sure what that is. Fear? Shame? I don’t know.
Pell gets up, and with one stride, he’s kneeling in front of me. “Why are you crying?”
I sniff and wipe a tear off my cheek. And then I whisper, “I don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not know?” His voice is loud.
So I get defensive. “I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know if I really did those things in the restaurant. Did I climb in his lap? Did I pull my dress down and place his hand on me? Did I squirm like an animal? I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t think any of this is real. I think you’re fake. Or a hallucination, like Pia was. I think I’m dead. I think I died that night. On Halloween. I think I woke up a ghost and that’s why that nun called me a whore of Babylon.”
His eyes search mine, fast and hasty. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m insane, Pell. I’m fucking crazy. I’ve always been crazy. And this place…” I cry harder. I can’t stop it. “This place is purgatory. It’s punishment. Or I’m living in my mind. I’m in some coma somewhere, making this all up. Pretending to be real. But I’m not.”
He sighs, and that’s when I realize he’s got a hold of my hand. His grip is tight. Not tight enough to crush my bones, but tight enough for me to know he’s there. He’s real.
I pull the amulet up out of my dress and then over my head. I drop it onto his knee, which is covered in shaggy, straw-colored fur. “It’s all fake. Grant told me. He took the real books with him. He made money out in the real world—”
“OK, stop.” Pell breathes heavy for a moment. “Hold the fuck up. What did you just say?”
“I saw Grant. I had some kind of hallucination inside the restaurant—or maybe I really did climb into the sheriff’s lap and grind on him—but either way, I ran out the back door and went back to my Jeep and Grant was there. Waiting for me. And he told me this is all bullshit.” I point to the amulet. “All the books he left behind were bullshit. So I probably did climb in Russ’s lap and stick my tongue down his throat. Because this amulet didn’t fucking protect me!”
I throw it across the room.
Pell places his hands on my shoulders and my body immediately heats up, the same way it did in the restaurant. Like he’s filling me up with magic too. “What else did he say?”
Or maybe he’s filling me up with insanity. Ha. I’ve already got plenty of that.
“Pie!” he growls. “What else did Grant say?”
“Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter. None of this is real!”
He sneers at me. That’s the Pell I know. The sneering, snide, predator Pell. “Don’t be fucking crazy. I’m real. You’re real. This place is real.”
“I’m so far past crazy, Pell, it’s a done deal, OK? And now I would like to wallow in my insanity for while. So could you just please leave?”
He stands up and I think to myself, Finally. Somebody gives a shit about what I want.
But he doesn’t leave.
He grabs my keys from my hand, picks me up and flips me over his shoulder, carries me outside, through the gate, into the parking lot, and then plops me down in the Jeep’s passenger seat.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He slams my door, walks around to the driver’s side, gets in, and starts the engine. His eyes blaze yellow-orange when he looks at me. “You’re not insane, Pie Vita. And I’m gonna prove it to you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - PELL
Aside from moving the Jeep from the front to the back the other day, it’s been a really long time since I drove anywhere. Grant hasn’t been all that fun to hang around for the past few decades, and now that I know he really was working against me this whole time, my aversion to going places with him makes sense.
I guess I always knew, but before Pie told me that he snuck his books out, it was just a hunch.
Now it’s real.
And that sucks.
But what sucks more—what really pissed me off—is he has no right to taint Pie’s mind like this. She’s already confused and even though I don’t know a lot about her life, I get it. She’s under the impression she’s crazy because of that bird.
And maybe she is, I don’t know. I never saw her talking bird. I’ve seen a bird. Just looks like a normal bird to me. But the sanctuary is real. This curse, as crazy as it sounds, is also real. And we’re living in the real world at all times, even though there’s a wall up that separates us from them.
That’s why I’m taking her to the gas station.
Except… when I pull up to the crossroad where that gas station was the last time I came by here, it’s just a shell. A rusted-out sign, no gas pumps, no phone booth, and the windows to the little store are all boarded up. So I just idle at the stop sign across the street.
“What are we doing?”
I look down the road to my left, then to my right. “This used to be open.”
“Like fifty years ago, maybe. Do we need gas?”
I look d
own at the gauge. “It wouldn’t hurt. But that’s not why I brought you here.”
“Why then?”
I put up a hand, asking her to be quiet. “Just let me think for a moment. I need to find another one.”
She points to the left. “I think the highway is that way. There should be a gas station near the on ramp.”
I look down the dark, lonely stretch of road. It’s as dark as dark gets, even with the moon. Because the moon is almost always hidden by the tops of trees. This is what it means to live in this part of Pennsylvania. Thick, encroaching woods and no sky to speak of. That’s what I miss most about the Old World. At least the part I lived in. There was always so much sky.
“Pell?”
“Hmm.”
“Well, what are we doing?”
“OK. We’ll go that way.” I turn left and we drive for a while. There are houses, most of them with porch lights, but there are no street lamps out this way. So that feeling of being trapped in the trees never quite diminishes until, sure enough, the road opens to reveal a highway and just past the on ramp, there is a gas station.
“Do not pull in, Pell.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You.” She laughs a little. Well, maybe more of a scoff, really. But it’s good to hear something other than panic. She was really upset back there in the cottage. Like losing her damn mind upset. I hate Grant. I never really liked him—he walked around in an aura of assholiness. And he did fuck me over pretty good. But that’s not why I hate him. He has no right to confuse this girl the way he did. She’s teetering on the edge. And I guess he knows that, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s filling her head with this bullshit story about not being real.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I don’t care if people see me. They won’t believe their eyes anyway. People believe what they want to believe. And they want to believe there is no such thing as a satyr chimera. So I’m good.” Pie ponders this as I make my way across the highway and pull into the gas station. But then I notice something. “Shit. They don’t have a phone booth here?”
“Phone booth?” Pie looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “There are no phone booths anymore.” Then she shuffles through her purse and pulls out one of those pocket phones. “We have cell phones now. Did you bring me here to make a call?” Then she giggles a little and some of the anger leaves me. “We could’ve done it back on the country road outside the sanctuary.”
I pull up to the gas pumps. “Shit. I forgot. OK. Well, call your parents then.”
“What?”
“I want to prove that this is all real. You’re stuck in the sanctuary with me, and that’s kinda like being in a different world. But this world, it’s still here, Pie. You’re not hallucinating. This isn’t a dream, you’re not dead, you’re not in purgatory. We’re just stuck in a stupid curse. But we still have access to this world. And I’m gonna prove it to you, because you’re going to call your parents.”
She frowns.
“Now what?”
“I don’t have parents.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never had a father. At least, I never knew him. And my mother dropped me off at CPS when I was nine because I refused to say that Pia wasn’t real.”
“I don’t understand. Your mother abandoned you?”
She nods.
“Oh.” This fucking night. Nothing seems to be going right. But all I can do is shake my head, look out the window, and mutter, “What a fucking bitch.”
“Tell me about it.” Pie sounds tired.
I look over at her and suddenly she’s someone else. Someone who was walked out on. Someone alone in this world, like me. Like Tomas, too.
She interprets my staring as expectation. “I have her number, so I guess I could call her, but—”
“No. Fuck her. Someone else. Call someone else. A friend. Even if I wasn’t trying to prove a point, you have to do this so they don’t worry about you.”
“Oh”—she laughs a little—“trust me. No one is staying up at night calling hospitals and wondering if I’m dead in a ditch anywhere.”
“Well, why not? What the hell is wrong with them?”
“No. You don’t understand. I don’t have… friends. Just Pia.”
“Well, you can’t call her. I don’t know much about the pocket phones, but I’m pretty sure your bird doesn’t have one.”
Her laugh is bigger this time. “No. She doesn’t have a phone. She’s never needed one. She was always just… there. And now she’s not.”
“You don’t have anyone you can call to pull you back from the edge, Pie?”
“Umm.” She looks a little panicked. Like this is a quiz question.
“Look, I’m not judging you. Hell, I don’t have anyone either. But I need you to know that I’m real. And if you’re sitting here with me and talking to someone out there at the same time, that’s how I prove my existence.”
She nods, looking at me solemnly. “OK. I have one person. I was on my way to see her when I got sidetracked by the caretaker job. Jacqueline. She was my foster sister in one of the homes I had to live in when I was a teenager.”
“OK. Call her. I can get out so you can have some privacy.”
I reach for the handle of the Jeep, but Pie puts her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be dumb. You can’t go out there. Someone could pull up for gas. I will pump the gas and make the call.”
I’m very focused on the way her hand feels on my bare shoulder, but before I can make sense of it, she pulls away and gets out of the Jeep. I watch her with a new interest as she walks into the store and interacts with the clerk inside. She comes back out, cell phone pressed to her ear, her mouth moving, her lips curving up into a small smile. And she comes over to the Jeep again, over to my side, and then starts pumping gas.
I can hear little bits and pieces of her conversation with her friend Jacqueline, but not enough to make sense of it. The gas pump clicks off, and Pie removes it from the tank as she makes a promise to go visit this friend one day soon. Then she looks down at the phone in her hand and I guess the call is over.
My eyes track her as she walks around the front of the Jeep and then she slides in next to me, sighing. “We got a full tank. I’m thirty dollars more in debt, and…” She pauses and her head slowly migrates my direction. “Thanks. She was actually so happy to hear from me. She said she thinks of me all the time and that I can come visit her any time I want. She just bought a house. She went to college, Pell. I never knew. She’s doing so good. She even has a guest room.”
Pie looks away, out the front window. Her shoulders drop. Relax. Like a whole world of tension was just lifted off of them. “I never knew, ya know?” She looks at me again. “I never knew I had someone. Not until this very moment.” She blinks, her eyes a bit glassy with tears. “Thank you.”
I nod at her, getting it. “No problem.” I start the Jeep. “It’s a crazy world so… yeah. It’s easy to start thinking it’s just you, when it’s not. It’s just… a crazy fucking world that never made much sense in the first place.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “It sure is.”
I’m really happy for her. I truly am. But it’s hard not to compare our lives.
She has someone, I do not.
She could, theoretically, leave the sanctuary for good one day and never come back. The chances of that happening for me are pretty much zero. But even if my curse was broken, where the hell would I go? I’d be a satyr chimera in a modern world and then what?
And it’s not like I even wanna be a human man. I don’t.
I just want to be me.
I just want to be with my own people, in my own time, and live my own life.
That’s never going to happen. Even if the curse is broken.
Pie and I drive in silence for a while. She messes with her phone. I’m not sure what those things actually do, but then she asks me, “Why do they call it Saint Mark’s?”
“What do you mean why?” I shrug. “It’s just
the name.”
“But Saint Mark was a real person. So says the internet.” She holds up her phone. It’s lit up bright with a lot of words. “He was a real saint, at any rate. And maybe you guys even lived around the same time. So I have to assume that he’s part of this. The sanctuary is part of a church.”
“A church?”
“One with saints?”
I actually guffaw. “No, Pie. We’re not part of a church.”
“Then why is it called Saint Mark’s?” She shrugs, like this is obvious.
I let out a long breath, trying to search for an answer, but I just don’t have one. “I guess… I don’t know.”
“You’re sure the sanctuary isn’t connected with a church?”
“Hundred percent.”
“Well. Then it’s a mystery, I guess. But a weird one.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, then concentrate on driving.
In fact, we’re both silent after that. We say nothing all the way back to that abandoned gas station, and then Pie says, “I know what you’re thinking. But you don’t have to worry.”
I smile a little as I turn right, heading back home. “What am I thinking?”
“You’re thinking I’ll leave you one day. That I’ll go to Jacqueline’s house and stay in her guest room. But don’t worry. It’s not gonna happen. This curse has been in place for two thousand years. I know I was all confident in the beginning, but I get it now, Pell. Reality check, right?” She sighs. “I just don’t have what it takes to change anything here. That is painfully obvious.”
I wasn’t really thinking about her leaving. Not after her comment about the sanctuary’s name, anyway. But it’s hard not to think about it again now. It sucks that I’m stuck here. And I know I’ve been a jerk to all the other caretakers over the centuries, but that was all bitterness on my part. Maybe even jealousy. I don’t have those feelings for Pie. I want to be supportive of her. I wouldn’t want her to be stuck here with me. It’s not fair. She didn’t ask for this. She just wanted a place to settle and catch her breath and I totally get that. So I say, “You don’t know that, Pie. I think your fresh perspective on things is exactly what this place needs. So don’t sell yourself short. It could happen.”