It wouldn’t wash out. No matter how I set my knuckles or gritted my teeth, it held to me like a scarlet rot, bitten deep. I scrubbed and I scrubbed until my nails cracked and my skin started to burn, but it made no difference. Pulling down my sleeves, I beat back warm tears that nipped at my eyes like motes of cinder, setting them on fire as I tossed the mold-tipped sponge across the counter. I barely noticed the mildewy smell that clung to my loose jacket or the rich tinge of iron that joined it. Everything seemed closer, now: the cheaply papered walls, the popcorn ceiling, and even the splintered hardwood underfoot, snickering at me with every tiny step. There was something there, hidden in the details, throbbing like a pulse. It reverberated inside me like a thunderous wave, crashing against my every thought and instinct.

My ribcage pressed tight against my heart, it seemed, wringing it like a throat. Breathing became a battle, and I fought tooth and nail for every precious portion. My veins flowed with sleet, flashing me into shock as I spiralled down, down, inside myself. I bent over the sink and splashed a few handfuls of lukewarm water over my face, calming the growing storm. My breathing softly steadied, like a feather floating back to earth after being taken by a sudden, violent whirlwind. It’s fine. Physically fine. Mentally fine. You’re fine. Everything will be fine. We just need… Just need…

Lil– Lily! I gasped with revelation, stumbling through the kitchen like a drunk in want of company. She’ll know. She’ll listen, and she’ll come, and she’ll know the procedure for… I tugged at my sleeve, its muted blues dappled with flecks of blood. I swore I heard a voice, peaking through the stale din of whirring lights and fans. I pretended it wasn’t there. ... for this.

There was a landline plugged into the wall, not one meter away from the corroded sink. Odd place for it, I thought with a strangely sober clarity, belying my twitchy fingers and broken breath. Shaking my head, I broke free of any needless thoughts and held, instead, to what mattered: her number. I took hold of the phone, a borderline antique that barely fit my tiny hand, and poked at its clunky keypad, playing out a hectic song through its crackling notes. My breath stalled as my thumb lingered over the call button, then prevailed in a half-sniffle as it fell. The shrill rings covered the stale air like a frost, setting my hackles up. Tell her what happened. Hold nothing back. If she doesn’t want to know you after that, then fi– Fuck fuck fuck, no… I panicked, in a blunt moment of jagged thought, as my feather took new flight, darting up and away. I aborted the call with another poke, then folded back over the counter, shaking. Her soft face flashed in my mind, framed by swimming hair, pink as an oleander flower in full bloom, and ripened to perfection by a wide, glistening smile, like a dewy half-moon. A tear cut its way down my cheek, as I dropped my head into a makeshift nest, teased together by crossed arms. She’ll think I’m a fucking psycho. She’ll bring her dad and throw me into the darkest, moldiest cell he has. She’ll…

I closed my eyes as they caught fire again. She’ll hate me…

Lily had long been a muse in my ear, steering me to lost causes and exciting places. I’d been mostly single since the end of high school, and high school was nearly a lifetime behind us. We’d been through college dorms, spring breaks, and summer jobs by the score, at that point, and were the veterans of collegiate strife, having endured our share of cheap ramen and powdered drinks. They were the best years of my life, and she made them all the sweeter. Had it not been for the heights she made, the depths would have been dire: they might have cut me to the quick, leaving me to bleed out and drown in my own excesses, but she dulled their sting, the way she always seemed to, making the wounds seem skin deep. She brought me through to graduation, bent but unbroken, with a few honours to my name, too.

And I went through it all without the comfort of a hand around my waist or the sweet taste of a kiss on my lips. In the meanwhile, whenever I looked, there was always some new girl clinging to her arm, flashing me an obligate, almost pitying smile. Her beauties became theirs, taking the form of lush, fervid hair, like colourful rapids down their backs, and wide, fluffy dresses, of pretty pastels, that bloomed at their waist like a flowering buttercup. They all looked the same at her side: washed out, misplaced, dimmed by her blinding light. No matter who you were, genius or idiot or athlete or lush, you were nothing more than a flickering match against her waxing star. Impotent, fleeting imitations, struggling to rival the ineffable and floundering all the while.

And, below even that, was me. I was to her what a worm is to a viper, or a moth to a monarch. We came from our own, separate worlds, alike in broad strokes and faint patterns, but different in function and form. We shared a unique passion for the law, with all its musings and quirks, and had a talent for seeing things as themselves, rather than what they ought to be. I’d always say that the courts were in her blood, and she’d laugh a dismissive laugh, then reply with something odd or clever or otherwise unusual before striking me with a polite compliment, usually about how ‘thoughtful’ I was, how it was a strength when human nature was a weakness. It was nonsense, of course, and soaked in her usual oddness, but I appreciated it, all the same.

We’d never be mistaken for sisters: my ratty hair, clumped up in knots about my shoulders, and cheap woollen sweaters and jackets stood in stark contrast to her rich ensembles, done up by the layer. I lacked her charm, her confidence, her presence, her shine. We came from different stock, brewed in our own, bespoke chambers, and our mixing should have been a scandalous affront to good taste, on both our parts. Mine was corporeal, and hers was eerily ethereal, like a prodigious creature of myth that shouldn’t exist.

And yet, she was always there for me. Light or dark, right or not, she’d come. Behind every wry word, every laughing eye, every flick of her graceful wrist, there was something real, hidden in the minutiae. Something I’d never seen before, not in the wild, not at home. I might not have been worldly, not by a wicked span, but I knew that what she felt for me was special: maybe not love, but similar enough to make no matter. It was something I would need to cherish, need to hold tight, like a rope dangling off a precipice. So, I concluded, if she ever were to ask me something, long as it had some footing in reason, it should be done. Help her study for a looming exam that she ‘forgot’ to prepare for? Sure. Cover for her at work so she could meet an old friend for lunch? Of course. Hook up with a handsome acquaintance of hers so I could ‘get some bleeding passion back into my life, as a treat’? No problem!

And now, around the corner, on a grey, blood-soaked carpet, he was festering, stiff and cold as iron and stone.

I pushed myself up, gripping the edges of the granite countertop and staring off into the swirling fractals of its surface. She’ll understand, I realized, demanding that my heart settle into a reasonable pace. I’ll tell her, and she’ll understand. She always understands… With another, settling breath, my feather finally fluttered its way to level ground. Assured, I took hold of the phone and poked again at its pad. I cleared my mind as it started into its ring, closing my eyes and swaying off into a soothing trance. In my mind, I led myself somewhere familiar, somewhere only for me. It was many years earlier, and it was home. I was still a girl, there, and my mother was still a breathing, thinking person. She was smiling: a rare, beautiful thing, that even now sparks a comfortable warmth in me. From the ranks of the worn, water-damaged books that decorated the shelves along my walls, she plucked an old favourite, its cover still pristine: Mistress Maven and the Heroine Harp. I giggled, delighted to be pandered to. Licking her finger, she’d open the paperback, turning to where we’d last left off. “Songs, melodies, notes, they weren't any of them music until they were heard.” My mother recited, falling into a posh accent. “Truly heard, their threads tight around your heart, your inner light, pulling you well inside.” Her voice is velvet, smooth to my ears and warm in my mind. My fingers wound around the tender neck of my violin, and its glittering strings purred as I pulled it close. My song, my voice, the only thing I ever did that let anyone hear me. I hugged it tightly, holding it like a promise, like the hand of someone sweet and generous. I set my head down, resting on her lap as she continued through the trials and tribulations of the Maven and her children, kept together by their love of music, even in the barren of a quiet, tuneless world. As I slipped into a gentle sleep, my entire world in reach, I was happy. My mind was calm, and all was per–

“Yeah?” The flutings of Lily’s voice snapped me back to attention with an oblivious ‘wha?’ sound, half-word, half-grunt. “It’s me,” she continued, as I heard something rustling in the background, "princess, goddess, proprietor, esquire.” She rambled, her tone bubbling into a playful melody, as I heard a few stock laughs float out from the permeating static.

“I–” My tongue was playing with me, dancing around the words, never letting me get a grip on them. “It’s…”

“Eve, come on,” she snorted, as I heard a crunch resonate through the speaker, “he can’t be that bad. If he was, I would have noticed, and he’d be dead.” She said, matter-of-factly. Another crunch, as the laughs subsided. “So? Regale me. What did he do?”

I blanched. “He… He’s…” I said, my heart smashing against my ribcage in an act of terrible revenge.

“Ooh, I’ll guess,” she answered, with the softest of giggles, like a jingling bell, “let’s see, let me think… oh! He’s into watersports? No, wait, how about… feet?” She asked, the trimmings of concern sewn deep throughout her voice. “Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t even want to consider it as a rogue possibility, that’s…” I heard a shiver on the other end of the line. It eased my heart, convincing it to set aside its grievance. “So, tell me it’s something more pedestrian. Please. Save my innocence: it’s swinging by a string!”

I took a long breath, through my nose then out my mouth, and used the produced hush to thread together a worthy enough explanation. My traitorous tongue, however, had devised its own perfect solution.

“He’s dead.” It told her, my voice nettled and thin as I began to rub a thumb into my palm.

A long span of silence followed, thickening about me like a fog. The crackling laughter returned, but it only set it thicker. Deeper. My ears were burning, and my jaw tightened. I swore I almost cracked a molar.

“Um…” Came the eventual reply, like the chirp of a confused hummingbird. Another, truncated rustle sounded soon after, followed by shifting fabrics. The laughs faded entirely, with a low pulsing sound. “Okay." She let a hush reign, as if inviting some alleviating clarification. Nothing came. "You’re… you’re funny…” She broke in, trading the ambient noise for another, creakier laugh. “Dead? I mean… Wow… I didn’t think you were that morbid…” Her voice fell out of tune. “W-why are you… what kind of joke is this supposed to be? I’m just cur–”

“It’s not a joke!” I interrupted, half-sobbing. “I– I didn’t mean to, but he…” I leaned into the counter to properly steady my balance. “He– he wanted me. I don’t know why, I don’t know what for, but the shit I’ve seen, Lils…” My lip was quivering. “There is something wrong here. It’s like mold, it’s everywhere around me. I can feel it; it’s in the walls, it’s in the air, it’s in me. It’s in me! Please, please, please, Lils, please, I need you, please…!”

“Eve! Eve!” She interrupted, derailing the maddening train that was tearing through my mind. “It’s alright. Everything is alright, you just need to breathe.” She told me, calm and reasoned, as if the story had wound itself together already in her mind. “Can you do that? For me?”

My tongue wasn’t satisfied with its earlier stroke of genius and decided to innovate. “No, I can’t.” It said, in a huff. My face was slick with tears, and every word was tarnished by phlegm. “I can’t breathe. It’s beyond me. I haven’t been breathing for ten fucking minutes! I’m clinically dead! That’s why I called you, to share the good news!”

“Okay, okay!” She said, as a door clicked shut. “I know, stupid question, but I’ve seen you forget before, so don’t blame me for asking!” Her words struck like the lashes of a thin whip. “Are you still there?”

I blinked, then curtly shook my head as if she were in the room with me. “Where else would I go?”

“Good. I’m on my way. Get yourself a glass of water and wait. Don’t go anywhere, don’t touch anything, don’t give yourself any reason to panic. If you do any of those things, I’ll know, and I’ll be… right mad! Properly mad!” She warned me with a slight groan, and then the phone went stunningly quiet for a wonder. My thoughts milled into focus, fighting for my attention as a bead of ice slipped down my spine. A piercing dial soon cut through that din, brushing those thoughts aside as my arm softly fell to my side.

I stood stiffly in place, shellshocked. My eyes, droopy and fluttering, settled back onto the countertop, tracing the patterns, forming new shapes from their plateaus and waves. In an empty motion, I set the phone back into its rightful place with a dull, decisive clunk. What the fuck did I just do? I wondered, as I found a violin in the granite. It looked a bit like mine, only blue and white and green, like a foamy serf made into music. I didn’t notice the time passing. Time wasn’t real anymore. Now she knows you’re a murderer: you can’t put that back in the bottle, it’s out, and it’s forever. This is your life now. Evil, murderous Eve. A maneater, a black-hearted witch, a psychotic bit–

A knock came from the front door. There was a rhyme to it. A song. I didn’t turn. Didn’t leave the countertop. It stared back. My heart screamed, but I didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Grey eyes appeared in the pattern, then blinked away. I blinked back.

“Hello?” Lily called, her voice a tattered marriage of whisper and shout. Slowly, with a clunking sound, the door mumbled open, and her bright face poked through the dark like a beam of light, flashing me with a blank stare. The rich scent of vanilla brushed away the mildew and iron, bringing me a needed reprieve. “Eve? Eve?!”

I finally snapped to attention, eyes beady and unfocused. “That’s me, yeah. I mean…” I regretted the words as soon as they stumbled off my idiot tongue.

She loosed a hesitant laugh, tip-toeing inside and smoothly shutting the door behind her. Setting her furry coat and leather purse on a split rack, she kept her gaze on me. Her long, fluffy bed-robe billowed behind her like a lavender cloud. “I figured as much: the hair is a distinct signature. I’d know it anywhere.” If I had been in an even partially lucid state, I’d have noted the hypocrisy in blaring display. Her pink hair rolled lazily off her shoulders, and in the dim light of the front foyer, appeared almost blood red.

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t speak, nor nod, nor offer any other assuring signs of life. My gaze just floated off, from her to the details all around us. They were shifting now, twisting in on themselves like roiling waves. I might as well have been with them, teetering in an endless ocean.

She snapped her fingers, inches from my face. I didn’t notice her get that close, and she felt immense in the squat house, like a blinding flame in a dark room. “Hey. Hey! You there?! Eve, please.” She pleaded, setting a hand near my forehead but not quite making contact, as if trying to soothe a wild doe. I saw the details in her face: it was wide, and her prim nose wrinkled as her eyes constricted. Their rich blues were nearly purple in the sterile, flickering light of the cramped kitchen. They led me back to shore.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“S–sorry,” I murmured, hugging my belly. “I just…”

“Obviously.” She said, bluntly, though it was enough for her to retract her hand. “I mean, ahem, didn’t mean to come off… that way. It’s alright. I told you it’s alright before, and you’re not about to make me a liar. So, now that you’re back, I just need you to answer a few quick questions, okay?” She said, leaning in and tilting her head to listen closely. To what, I had no clue. Still don’t, if I’m honest.

“I didn’t mean it.” I reminded her, as I watched how the wood formed broad, rotten circles in the floorboards. They seemed to spin. “He would have… hurt me if I didn’t. I swear!” I took a long, stuttering breath, as my eyes finally lifted, back into hers and then across the room, approaching the dark room, which seemed darker now. “He’s– he’s in the…” From my waist, I began to point in the offending direction. The insidious smell of iron snuck back up my nose.

Her eyes followed my direction, and she strode over, peeking around the corner. I felt a sudden charge in the air as she almost bent double, cradling her belly, before marching right back. There was a new rush in her step, and her eyes were somewhere else, years away. “We’ll ruddy deal with him after,” she told me, draping a palm over her nose and mouth. “When I know you’re not about to crumple like an accordion, alright?!” Her voice was dissonant, as though it were playing out two songs at once: one of immaculate composition, like a tight braid of wind, and one of broken notes, with fitful drums that cut dead through it. “Now, I have to ask–”

“He made me!” I insisted, barely standing upright. “He was going to kill me if I didn’t! I swear it! Get a bible, get anything, and I’ll swear–”

She traced the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Eve, you are a gorgeous, wonderful person, and I’m better for having known you, but for the love of all above and below, shut up and listen to me. When it’s your time to talk, I’ll tell you, don’t worry.”

Her gaze was still long, but it was square on me, scolding hot. She sniffed, then reached for my hand, but stopped herself as I recoiled. I usually made an exception for her, letting her stroke my hair and hold me by an arm, but I was well on edge by then. Looking for my approval, her eyes gentle and patient, I sighed and gave her a slight, tremulant nod. With a pleasant smile, she began to gently peel up the sleeve, inch by inch. As she went, I saw her turn a snowy pale, eyes full and growing. She looked back at me, mouth slightly askew. I realized that her canines were longer than I remembered: an odd thought to have with murder around the corner. “Why did you do this?” She asked, as the wind in her voice started to howl.

“I… I was…” I scrabbled for words. “There was blood, and I needed to clean it off…” It was burning, still. I didn’t much care.

She looked into me, then back at my arm. “Well, there’s certainly blood there now…” She told me, before sighing a curdled sigh. With a languid tilt of my head, I looked and saw little patches of peeled skin and bright burns. It seemed diseased. “We’re gonna need to address that, that’s our priority. Just set it under running water and then I’ll figure out… something.” Her eyes were tired, weary of the task ahead.

She turned the squeaky tap for me, then led my arms underneath. The cold water burned as it rolled off my arms, trickling down and pattering against the dull, rotted sink. I hardly flinched. “Hold it there, and don’t move. Don’t dare.” She told me, stepping slowly away. “Now, I just need you to answer me a few questions, while it runs. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded.

“Good. Okay, firstly, can you say your name? The full one?”

I nodded.

She blinked, as nothing seemed to follow. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to hear it.” She said, her tone a bit more blunt than her usual refrains. “It’s a cute name. Pretty to the ears.”

I went quiet, then began. “Eveline Ingrid Thomas.” I told her, in a raspy whisper.

“Great!” She piped, rubbing my back. “Great, no identity drain, that’s a positive start…”

“What?” I croaked in answer, eyes bulging as I craned my head to look at her.

“Don’t dwell on it; next question!” She continued, as her slender hands began to massage my upper back and shoulders. Knots I didn’t know were there slowly unwound, as tensions loosed. “Can you feel your heartbeat?” The music in her voice was soothing, favouring the wind and holding onto a gentle timbre.

After a moment of confusion, which spread across my face like an inkblot as she watched with large, crystal blue eyes, I brought a damp, shaking hand to my chest and held my breath. I felt a soft thrum pulse through it, then a few more quickly after. Too quickly.

I nodded. She nodded back, curt and enthusiastic, as if this were an immense relief. Her hair fluttered, then settled gracefully back into its former place atop her shoulders, like a dozen pink monarchs set out about her neck.

“Perfect! Still attached to the physical! Still here. We’ll be back to speed soon! Just don’t worry.” A hush arrived, settled down for dinner, and enjoyed a lovely evening with friends before she began again. “Are you worried?”

I nodded. She didn’t nod back.

“That was rhetorical, but…” She leaned over, her head peeking over my shoulder as she set a hand on my arm. “Do I have to say it again? It’ll be alright. You know it’ll be alright, right?”

I didn’t nod. She nodded instead.

“Yes. Yes it will, because I’ll make it alright. I’ll pry ‘alright’ out of this nonsense with pliers and sheer freaking spite if I have to!” She quirked a subtle smirk, and looked to me for the same.

I didn’t smile. She stopped smiling.

“Well I will.” She added, a shadow under her eyes. “We’ve already covered the necessities, so we should be clear to go. The human body is a durable thing, so I’m not so worried about that…” Her voice grew distant, as if echoing from across the room. She made sure my hands were still in the sink and turned up the water before clearing her throat.

“Last question–” She continued, swallowing hard. “And with it, feel free to let it out. Let the deluge wash over me. I’m ready:” She drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “What, exactly, happened here?”

I drifted back to earlier in the night. The sun was dipping low, below the pine-crowned hills to the west of Kindred. It soaked the cracked streets in a creamy orange varnish. The air was chill: not unusual for springtime Alberta. I waited on the front stoop, crinkled up and small as I could be, wrapped in my favourite jacket, fully buttoned. It wasn’t bloody, then. I should have appreciated that, while I had the chance.

He picked me up a few minutes earlier than I expected, in an ancient Honda Civic with a faded red paint job, turned to a washed-out pink by years of neglect. His eyes were a bright grey, and his chin was solid. “He– picked me up at six…” I told her, as the details poured slowly into my basin of thought.

“Adam?” She asked, her head tilted to one side. I didn’t know I had to specify the name, but something in her eyes was insistent.

“Ye-yeah. Adam.” I confirmed, looking deeper into that basin. We drove for a span as he made small-talk. Insignificant things, like school and my career. I told him I was just working odd jobs, wherever I could find them, because that sounded better than saying I was unemployed. I felt him stealing a few looks as we rounded up to our destination. He tried to take my hand and I pulled away, my heart tightening like a rope pulled taut. My skin sharpened, and I began to feel small again. But not small enough. “He brought me to a bar. The Queen’s Roost. It smelled like ammonia and rotten fruit.”

“I don’t need the whole picture,” she clarified, voice low. “Only the major strokes.”

“Major strokes…” I echoed, faint and low, as if spoken from somewhere far away. “We got a few drinks. I just had a beer, but he wanted whiskey. Quite a bit. Seemed like he was nervous…” I remembered him wolfing them down in jagged, bestial flashes, as I watched on aghast. At the time, I convinced myself that, maybe, he just hadn’t been with a woman in a few months, or years, and needed to stock up on courage. That all my instincts telling me that something was amiss, that the hard liquor that trickled down his gullet was meant to dull the pain of something looming, were misfounded. I was just being a worrywart, letting old wounds fester and itch. It was better not to scratch, I reasoned, settling back on my creaking stool and sipping daintily on my beer. Instead of listening to that bristling part of myself, instead of insisting that those instincts were there for a reason, I convinced myself that it was better to leave it be, to ball up and pack it away. As I always did.

“Why was he nervous?” She asked, head tilted. Her eyes were twinkling bright, as if the stars were shining through them.

“You saw.” I rasped, dipping into that basin. A flash of cold bit into me as I went back to those moments. To him leading me through his bare and rotten house. A house that clearly wasn’t his, a house with no furnishings and no pictures hanging from its walls. “He had it prepared before. Must have.” My breath became heavy, as if my lungs were crushed by fathoms of water. And yet, I kept going. “He lead me through the kitchen and around the corner.” I swallowed. “When I saw, I…”

“You were afraid.” She told me, stroking my hair with soft flirts of her fingers. “No one could blame you for that. No one reasonable, at least. And when he threatened you, when he left you no choice… there was a scuffle?” Her words danced to an unheard tune, presenting themselves like a proposition. I didn’t understand, at first. My eyes said as much, drooped and oblivious as they were.

I was sinking, then. Back to those moments. He lead me around the corner, into a dark room. My arms were folded. I suppressed every nettling instinct that crawled up my back, scratching at the window to my waking and unwaking mind. The room was wide, wider than the shape of the house suggested. My bowels began to knot up as I caught the smell, mildewy and iron thick. I didn’t recognize the emblem carved into the floor: it was two circuitous series of roots that spread from a spooling center. The top half was rife with lush leaves and vibrant flowers, while the other ran bright with gold and wine, dripping down its tendrils. Candles were lit all throughout the room, along a shabby old mantle and faded oaken shelves.

When I turned to look at him, there was a knife in his hand. Everything inside me fell. The sound faded. I felt tiny before him. Like a gnat, like a nothing.

“I didn’t mean to…” I insisted, nodding idly as my throat grew damp and raw. “He…”

“Shhh…” She trilled, softly hooking her arm around my neck and leaning in. “Yes. You had no choice. I get it. I understand…”

She didn’t. The water began to warm. It felt normal around me, as I went back to the boy with the knife. I saw his grey eyes in the dim light, welling with tears. Saw him fall to his knees, coughing out quiet sobs. Saw the knife slip from his hands, tumbling toward me. He seemed so small, then, as I picked it up. He was saying sorry, now, loudly and often.

“So that’s it, right?” Lily continued, pulling back and looking into me. Her hands cupped my pallid cheeks. I didn’t react. “You were afraid? You didn’t have a choice?” Her stars were guiding me home, but I ignored them, slipping further away.

Back there, with the pleading little idiot, my head was swimming. I was tired, and I wanted nothing more of it. I wanted to leave him there, to go home, to crawl into bed and huddle under a thick blanket with my violin until a pox took me.

But then, anger flared inside him. He’d failed, and now his anger needed a target, and like so often happens, it chose me. His words were barbed and venomous. They took aim at my schooling, how worthless it was. They took aim at my career, how it stalled, how I was living out of the government’s palm.

Then he took aim at my mother. How she was a psycho, how I was just like her, meek and weird. How I’d throw myself off a cliff exactly like she did, because I’d have a daughter just as fucked, just as useless, just as broken as I was, and I wouldn’t be able to stand it, just like she couldn’t.

“Eve?” I heard her voice, reaching from afar, as I slashed his throat. Blood splashed across the walls and filtered through his fleshy fingers as he tried to quell the flow. I watched as his grey eyes bloomed, as his mouth groped for pleas, as his face turned a sickly pale. I didn’t feel small, anymore. And, soon enough, he didn’t feel anything at all.

“Y-yeah.” I told her, as her stars reflected in my eyes. “That’s it. He made me.”

There was blood on my hands and across my jacket, but I wouldn’t notice until he was dead. I wouldn’t notice my slow heartbeat, my flaring nostrils, my dilated eyes. I wouldn’t notice the roots in the floor sear and hiss. I wouldn’t notice anything. It was like falling deep below the surface of a vast sea. There was a feeling of liberty to it. Bliss. Assurance.

In a blink, it all struck at once. I couldn’t breathe, and my heart was in an iron vice. I thrashed and kicked my way back to real air like a woman possessed. Back to that familiar place, where I was small and meagre. That feeling wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be me.

My posture gradually relaxed as I flowed back to the present. She was holding me, still, and her smell drew me in. I realized I was happy, there.

“I’m fine.” I assured, even-toned. My hands were a bright red below the tap, but weren’t burning anymore. I took a deep, settling breath through my nose, and forced an assuring smile. It felt strange, warping my face into a foreign shape. “It’ll be okay, I think.”

Lily returned the gesture, brushing a hank of hair out of my eyes. “It will. I promise you, it will.”

I realized, then, that I was just as tall as her. “I know. Thanks. I…” The words were tangled in my throat. Probably for the best, given what followed. My gaze wandered. I felt numb as the moment passed, and the words faded from my mind. Just another chance lost.

Lily’s face slackened, for a moment, before she began to pull away, as if she recognized something startling in my eyes. “I’m just gonna do a quick once-over. See if there’s anything–” Her gaze slowly moved to that same, ever-darkening hall, and I saw her little nose crinkle up. “--anything I can do. Is that okay? You’re not gonna saunter off and do who-knows-what, god-knows-where while I’m gone?”

“Where else would I go?” I mumbled, focus fixed to the brightening counter, watching the shapes twist, as the shapes watched me.

Lily plucked the sink’s chipped plug and set it in the drain, then softly took hold of my arms and dipped them into the gathering swell of icy water. “Just stay here. Hold them under, and try to… Try to think of helpful things. Like…Like music. What songs come to mind? Find something nice, something soothing, and hold onto it. Mold it into something new, something you. I’ll be right back…”

As her steps retreated around the corner, I kept my eyes on the countertop. The violin was still there, its waves laving wildly across the surface. I began to wonder what sounds it could make. Whether it would be nice, would be soothing, would be something to hold onto.

And then I heard it. A bow made up of seafoam began to drag across its strings, prying forth long notes of rage and despair that twinned to form a gorgeous medley. Like wicked waves against coarse stone, like the gentle sway of evening wind, like a muffled clap of thunder, there was a sense of rawness that laid hold of the parts that made me. It wound itself around them, pulling me in, to that soothing place beneath the surface. I felt weightless. Liberated. Assured.

I heard someone call to me. They didn’t matter. The song mattered. My song. It swirled about me like a shining thread, guiding my thoughts, my feelings. Leading them off to pastures bright and appealing. For a moment, I felt like I could be there. Like I could matter. Like I could exist, be seen, be heard.

“Eve!” She called, loud and shrill, throwing me back to the moment. I was in that dim, dreary kitchen. My hands were still submerged under the gushing faucet, and the sink was nearly full. I didn’t think to close the tap as I slavishly followed her voice. The smell of iron was sharper, now.

I laid a hand on the doorframe as I turned the corner, halted briefly by a mangled shadow shifting on the wall, cast by fading candles. I thought it odd: they’d burned out an hour ago.

Lily was the first thing I saw as I stepped over the precipice, her expression white and gaping. She looked at me with a stunned expression, her stars long extinguished. I wondered off-handedly if I had ever seen her like that before, as I followed her gaze to the heart of the matter.

My eyes widened as I caught the shape, held aloft by tiny threads of sinew and bone. It was squat, yet tall, its throat extending far above its bulbous frame. All pink and white, its torso was a clump of tangled meat, padded together into an hourglass shape. They were woven about a bright, throbbing heart at its core, that burned a soft red. Four thick lengths of hair fell down its long neck, binding to what might have once been feet at the bottom. A blank face watched us from above, with dulled grey eyes and a slack jaw.

A thin arm, of muscles and ligaments, was pulled tight across its strings, speaking of waves and thunder and wondrous things. Its song tore through the air, lingering sweet and true in my tired ears, as my feet carried me softly forward, like wading through water. I reached out to touch it, my eyes wide and sparkling with a constellation all my own, before Lily reached out to stop me, clasping my wrist. The burn returned, dull but apparent.

With a mixed look of confusion and fear, her mouth groped for words. My gaze was long and distant as she looked to me for answers. Instead, she found a foreboding stranger.

“What’s happening? What is this?” She finally asked, her grip subsiding. For the first time since I’d known her, she seemed unsure. Her face went a stark white, and her eyes were full. I think she was afraid, but there was a tint of curiosity to her eyes. It was like awe.

The ambient sound of trickling water built until the crackle of flame flared up and rushed out from the kitchen, cleaving through the gloom. A new light swelled, drenching me in a guttering orange glow as she was gowned in shadows. My face bloomed with a small, beaming smile.

“It’s music.” I told her, my voice a breathy trill, as the song pulled me under.