Smell the greenery. Spend too much time in bleach ‘n antiseptic land and your nose will atrophy. The smell of death is distinct. Doesn’t matter what side of the divide between normal and unnatural. Everyone can smell death. Wired. Animal brain primal. Caution. Recoil.
Penderghast bought the hospital recently. As in a year or two before the Foxes arrived. Putting it through a slow renovation. This sort of stuff takes time. Either shut the place down or take your time dragging it kicking and screaming into the 21st century. One of the first changes was the central courtyard. Hospital is a big rectangle. Previously a kingdom of concrete in the donut middle. About as appealing as tooth decay. Easy change. Psychological change. Lenin would love the brutalism. Everyone else passes. You want healthy bodies, healthy minds, get something alive out of the operating theatre and into there.
Now it’s fresh, alive, growing, ferns and planter beds, grass and water. Might be a good idea for a place when you’re fighting back death. Just advice. Don’t take my word for it. Neat little gardener's shed in the corner too. Fits the aesthetic.
Two people in the atrium gardens right now. One is a young boy in jeans, t-shirt, sneakers and an unimpressed expression. Kicking a football (the English kind) around the grass. By themselves. Clearly not happy about that too. The other is seated on one of the stone benches. In a hospital gown, jumper, pants and slippers. Long brown hair in a simple ponytail. She watches the boy and chomps on an apple. Eyes don’t leave the ball as it’s kicked around.
Freeze. Stop the story. There is only so much in media res before you are completely uncertain what media exactly you have been res into. Timeline and explanation. It has been two days since Eva was found trussed up in an antiquated straight jacket. A very complicated two days.
Firstly. How the hell did anybody get their hands on a medical restraint device that hasn’t been used in a very long time? Secondly, how did they get past the police officer guarding the door to the private room, lock the door and tie Eva up in it without anybody either seeing or hearing anything? Thirdly, why in the darkest court of the blind daemon sultan would anybody do something like this?
The best part is that after two days nobody has any answers. Constable Seers, the one meant to be watching Eva, is facing all sorts of complicated disciplinary action. If anybody could solve the riddle of what to blame him for. He has been taken off protective duty. Hasn’t been seen at the hospital for two days. The Foxe’s are not doing that much better. With the targeting of Eva by a malicious third party now crudely demonstrated, the authorities have warmed, or perhaps thawed, to the recount Luther gave of an unknown person stalking Eva and trying to kidnap her just before she was accidentally shot. Nobody knows who this third party is, of course. They might find fleshly pieces of it in the corner of Eva's hospital room. You’ll need moonlight and a candle made from the wax of rendered human flesh to see them. The smell is like a bacon and eggs breakfast. Perfect to bring out that morning nausea.
Eva was interviewed and interviewed and interviewed and interviewed until Dr Schwarzschild intervened and told everyone to leave the recovering girl alone. All she would say is that someone broke into her room and tied her up. Never saw their face. Which is technically true. They didn’t have a head. Therefore, no face to describe.
Nobody knows what really happened. The police were derelict in their duty. The Foxes appear to have not tried to execute their daughter due to 5 years of stress. One great big mess. The mystery of how Eva was targeted again. All swirling around the drain until being sucked under. That is, until a fetid gas of possibility comes burbling up the plumbing of reality and belches into existence.
So, it is two days later and the girl who should have still been in ICU is sitting outside in the morning sun. No cables plugged into her. No fancy drugs. Half the stiches already removed. An inexplicable mystery that everyone finds tantalisingly horrific to grasp. Just what can go wrong now?
The boy sighs. Loudly. Good for that. He’s been sighing for the last half hour. The girl knows he has. Been watching him play and listening to him sigh since he arrived in the courtyard. She doesn’t get up to greet him. Doesn’t make eye contact. No acknowledgment of his existence. Eyes only on the ball.
She doesn’t need to see him. Already knows who he is. Too awkward to make conversation. She’s responsible after all.
Crunch
Sound of a tasty apple. This noise punctuates the air every few minutes. Small nibbles around the flesh. Deeper and deeper. Can you find the rot in the middle? Chase down the worm into its home. Swallow the writhing thing whole. Hear it scream down a lightless cavern before landing writhing in an acid pond.
Eva disregards the final shrieks and throws the stem into the garden. The boy’s intense desire to ignore her for the past half hour is cute. The twist is that she has no idea how to approach him either. Eva has encountered children so little that it’s a foreign concept. Talking to the psychologist about the ink blots and why the middle one is currently holding a scalpel moments before the man suffers a papercut, that she can do. Talking about ponies, sports, your favourite videogame or anything that a normal child might. Prepare to see a very adorable and flustered deer in headlights.
Thump
Football rolls over to Eva. Accident? Excuse? Manipulative third party (I’m voting the later). Stops right at the girls slippered feet. The boy wanders over. Gives Eva a sullen expression.
“Are you going to kick it back?” he huffs.
Well as you can see this charming young gentleman is the epitome of sophistication and wit that sends men and women to their weakened knees.
Weak kick back. Enough to get the ball rolling. Heh. See what I did there? Comes to a halt closer to the boy than Eva. That should be enough. The boy stomps over and picks up the ball. Glares at Eva. No response. Lean back. Enjoy the puffy white clouds floating in the clear blue sky. Perfect afternoon. Just the right temperature. Air not too dry or damp. Maybe too bright. A lifetime spent under artificial light. Day star is harder to control. But the long shadows are a comfort.
“Were you the one that was shot?”
Still staring at clouds. Much better than staring at dumb children.
“You’re the reason my Papa is in trouble.”
Prince charming.
“Your father is the reason I was bound in a straightjacket, medical equipment torn out my body, lying in my own vomit and blood.”
The boy glared at Eva. No retort. Can’t really rebuke something like that. Eva glances down at her hands. Thumbs twirling around one another. Trying to find the right words. The right thing to say. Talking to children is so hard.
“But I’m sorry you were scared.”
Whisper. That Eva is good at. The boy does hear it. Eyes go wide.
The boy had heard Eva was weird. Weird rating 3 right now. Papa found her unnerving. Dad is angry that Papa is on administrative leave. Been taken from protection duty. Constable Seers did something very naughty.
Attention. Intangible. Something pressing hard against the back of the neck. It crawls through the bushes. Snakes under ferns and over small ornamental ponds. Eva turns to face it. Looks through the tiniest of gaps to stare at her constant guardian. An officer that failed to meet her eye. The other police officer stares back. Both now silently followed her every move about the hospital. Eyes meet eyes. Eva doesn’t blink. Goes back to the boy.
“Do you hate me, Joshua?”
Weird rating getting to a 5 now. Would Papa have talked about home stuff around her? Maybe something caught on a phone conversation perhaps. Joshua wants to back off. Run from the crazy. Flee if it’s infectious. Yet still. There’s something. It draws. It tugs. He knows he should be afraid. He is. But still curious. Cautious. Delicate balance.
“Joshua!” a deep voice echoes across the atrium.
Moment is broken. The boy leaves. Glances cast over his shoulder. Eva watching him. Eyes taking him in.
“Say hello to Max and Edward,” Eva whispers.
No reasonable way Joshua would hear that. Reasonable is currently laid out on a slab in the morgue. Right beside rationality. Sanity has the toe-tag. Which of course means Josh hears every word. Really wishes he didn’t. Weird rating now at 7.
This is what you get for being a little shit.
----------------------------------------
A shivering body. A sad bed. Blankets pilled overtop. Knees tucked up against chest. One lonely girl in a lively hospital. Two police officers outside. One hovering mother in a cot at the end of the bed. One girl who feels so lonely she might just crack in two. Tugs at the hem of her camisole. Worries at her lips until it bleeds. Licks away white blood. Wound already healed.
Christina emerges from the private bathroom. Fresh from the shower and looking a little perkier. Comfortable pyjamas. Damp hair worn loose. She pulled a chair up next to Eva. Not hard to read the mood.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Eva glanced toward the open door. The two police officers standing to attention. One watching the corridor. The other the room. The Foxe’s are not getting personal time anytime toon.
Eva shook her head.
Christina pulled her daughter in close. Kissed her forehead.
“I won’t tell you to sleep. I know that is never pleasant. I’ll just tell you to rest.”
Eva nodded. The lights flickered off. The beep and click of medical equipment. This girl should have still been in ICU. The medical miracle known across the hospital. Something in the water maybe. Essence of Dagon and mineral salts. Now up, walking, eating and soon to be discharged.
“Liar.”
Whisper. Too many whispers lately. Not as though Eva has ever had a voice. Now it’s just become apparent to her how little voice she had before and how much she should actually have.
“I am only late.”
Gloved hands cover Eva’s eyes. Best she can do is clamp a hand over her mouth to hold down the squeal. Then huff. Pull her gloves off. Turn around to see Shogo leaning against the wall. Hood down and soft blonde hair framing her striking face.
“They’ll hear you,” Eva hissed.
How do you react to something like that? What is the rational, reasonable thing to do? Reach out and tickle the flustered 11-year-olds underarms. Eva tenses and readies for the shriek of laughter.
Nothing.
Lots of nothing.
She can feel the fingers. Contact with skin. Tactile recognition.
“It doesn’t tickle,” Eva said despondently
The light changes composition. Dusty. Grainy. Illumination from the corridor flickers. Eva sees several small things scuttle by. Turns her head to see a wheelchair parked just outside the open door.
“It’s okay. She is with me.”
The wheelchair and its enormous orderly move on. Eva rubs her chest and sighs.
“A hallucination.”
A mutter. A curse. Perhaps something worse than ever the c-bomb. Eva is certainly unhappy. Approaching miffed. Eventual destination is angry.
Legs swing off bed. Bare feet land on lino and pad over to the empty cot. Mother is absent. Just a large pile of sheets over some unseen form. A small stuffed toy rabbit atop it all. The sheets breathe. Slow inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Dreamy sounds of the sleeping bedding. Eva snatched the rabbit and wrenched its head off. Stuffing and wriggling things tossed onto the ground. Drop the body. Launch the head into the empty corridor. Let the skull skuttle away on rabbit ears into the waiting emptiness of the hospital. The body suffers a worse fate. Dropped to the group. Stomped upon. Flesh pulverised. Black innards explode. Stain the cuffs of pyjama pants and squeeze between toes. A kick sent the wet ball of crushed organs skidding across the floor. Come to a stop beside the bed. A whimper. Slow cries as the corpse crawls into the shadows under the bed to die.
“Your penchant for theatrics is impressive. To discern that you are not lucid and to take command so viscerally is impressive.”
“You taught me,” Eva growls back.
Angry child in motion. Footsteps disintegrate lino and crack concrete beneath. The room quakes with each step. Lights flicker and burst. Eva zooms in on Shogo. In her tawny eyes is something rarely seen. Hands like the wrath of Elder Gods. Things crawl up the walls. Each with three pairs of eyes looking for safety. Vision fills with static. Your ears can hear across the entire AM spectrum. Tonight at 11, UFO sittings and ghost hauntings. Stories of livestock half-eaten and crops turned to rotten pulp overnight.
“They kept putting pressure and pressure on me. Thought that while we waited for the final report from Dr Schwarzschild I might break apart. I had the seizure and then it all does start falling apart. A stupid self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s like they want me to be broken. So, when something happens, something I had nothing to do with, they point to it with confidence. They’re the ones that broke. And Dad shot me. He shot me! Yes, It looked like me and me like It. He couldn’t tell who was who? I nearly died. I can still feel myself drowning. Each breath like gulping crimson water. Then I awake in hospital again. Something in my throat. Breathing for me. I can’t move. It kept trying to get to me. To make me break. And the pain wouldn’t stop. It still hurts so much. I can feel things crawling inside the wound. Swimming around my shoulder. It tormented me. Had the nurses drag me around the Hospital. Then It tried again. I had to get out of bed, pull all those cables out and run away. I thought of the camisole and what you had told me and how I could protect myself so I just ran and ran. I found the clothing and came back. I couldn’t be certain it would work but It was affecting everyone now. I had to make a stand.”
There were breaths taken. Somewhere. Don’t use the punctuation as a frame of reference. Just assume she keeps speaking until your lungs are empty. Eva glared up at Shogo and clenched her fists tightly. Fingernails cut half-moons into palms.
Shogo kneels, pulls Eva into an embrace and lifts her up. One hand crooked beneath her bottom. The other to hold her close. Eva struggles. Writhes like the things beneath Shogo’s collar. Cannot break free. This might be Eva’s hallucination. But Shogo’s resolve is unbreakable. Growling. Hissing. Like a cat that found no home in Ulthar. Eva doesn’t want this. It isn’t fair. You cannot just undo it all with.
With.
Stupid.
Annoying.
Warm.
Shushing.
Reassuring.
Then all is normal. Eva is crying. This is different from crying with her parents. That was primal. Instinctual. The baby animal wanting its parent’s protection. This is the weeping of someone gone through too much with too little. Eva just grips Shogo’s cloak tightly and bawls her eyes out. Head buried in the warm, comforting and boneless shoulder. Ugly crying. Genuine tears. Black streaks on dark skin. Arms clutched so tightly around the odd woman they’d crush the air out if she possessed lungs.
Then lots of sniffling. Lucky Shogo has a very delicate lace handkerchief. Fibre. Unknown. Origins. Best not explored. Looks like cotton. Plant not terrestrial.
Shogo tries to put down the emotional heavyweight. Eva grunts. The high pitched tut says ‘not on your life.’ Universal sound. Found across cultures and species. Holds on to Shogo tighter. Sympathy. That does exist in those not-yellow eyes, hidden behind glasses. Just what purpose do they serve? Let her see in wavelengths that other humans do for point of reference when talking?
Shogo paces slowly around the room. Take the baby for a walk when they don’t feel like sleeping just yet. Eva rests head against the best-supporting actor for what would be a collar-bone.
“Where were you?” Eva asks all pouty.
“Being near you is a danger.”
“How?”
Fair question. Still quite pouty.
“In this town. Around this town. They are waking up. No. They have always been there. What is different now is the radiance. The glare is bright enough to reflect off the prism that is reality and allow them to come into focus. I have been hunting and eating. It is dangerous for you. A somatic transfer whereby sensory input-output, or the best analogue for them, translocate to your mid-brain. We share some limited psychological framework. However, our biologies have no evolutionary commonality. This leads to a cognitive dissonance whereby you are incapable of safely processing unintentional proprioceptive experience.”
Eva chewed her lip and chewed the knowledge. Pieces of puzzle that needed to be shuffled around the board until they fell into place.
“The seizure.”
Eva turns and presses her face into Shogo’s shoulder.
“So. It’s. Your fault,” she mumbles.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“No. Yours.”
Eyes peer up from where they are pressed close to the black bolero jacket. Actual innocence.
“Me?”
“Who do you think is the radiance?”
Less time needed to chew.
“I don’t understand.”
Shogo walked Eva back to her bed. Settled her down amidst the sheets. The girl was still very clingy. Obliging, Shogo sat down and rubbed her gloved hand in small circles over Eva’s back. The sensation was reassuring. Eva didn’t want to admit it but her eyes were tired. The lids were lead barely held up. The emotional outpouring left her enervated. Strangely satisfied.
“You are the moon, Eva. A soft glow in the darkness. Smothered for too long. Too much light and everything burns or flees. No light and they lack coherence. Definition.”
“Not everything is bad,” Eva said, considering the odd but innocuous entities in the hospital.
“True. Your dangers are from elsewhere. There are also hunters that can see the palest light at the edges. They come from the other horizon looking for you. I kill to clear away ambitious predators. Until you are ready.”
“I am ready?”
“Yes. Then you will be what they fear. Not I.”
Weighty words for Eva to consider. Right now, she just wanted to rest. Properly rest. She leant forward, resting chest against knees, letting the fatigue wash through her. Shogo took a blanket from the end of the bed and draped it around Eva.
“Now you won’t be able to rub my back,” the girl mumbled already half asleep.
A single blonde eyebrow arched delicately. Tendrils crawled from the shadows where they pooled around her feet. Up into the bed. The sensation of warm fingers gliding up and down her back. Eva knew that part of her ought to be horrified. The rest approved of the gesture.
“Sleep well, Eva. We will meet properly soon. In the interim, practice.”
Those words in their strange cadence sunk into Eva’s dulled mind.
“I can’t sleep without him.”
The sleepy girl cracked an eye. Christina had her phone torch on. Out of bed and scrabbling around on hands and knees. Busy searching around the room. No subtlety.
“Oh sorry,” she replied. “I just cannot find Cottontail.”
A faintly wicked smile. The smile is faint. The wicked part certainly isn’t.
----------------------------------------
Greenery. Chirping of birds. Buzzing of insects. The smell of water and fresh air. All that’s ruining it is a pouty boy and his football (reminder, the English kind).
Slurp
The girl is happy though. It’s an orange today. Silent screams as the skin is peeled off. Pluck out it’s organs one by one. Masticate and crush the children within the soft flesh. Suck blood from fingers and start again.
Thwack
Again, the low thump of a football being kicked across the green. It comes to rest beside slippered foot. Eva doesn’t kick it back this time. She’s too busy arranging the flayed skin a small pile and licking palms clean of blood.
“Were you going to kick the ball over?”
Demanding with an extra serving of indignance. Eva turns back to the boy. Joshua. Josh. J. A few ways of framing the individual. Right now. Hurt. That’s what she sees. Tawny eyes fixed on his. Josh walks over and picks up his ball. Stares at it. Glances to the other end of the atrium. Something small and innocuous. New reaction. Resolve. Swallow something. Maybe pride. Maybe fear. Sits on the stone bench next to Eva. Yeah. Totally casual. I just ended up happening to sit next to you. No other spaces available sorry.
“You were shot.”
“You brought this up last time.”
“Where?”
Eva pointed a spot a few centimetres below her clavicle.
“Dad shot me here.”
“Okay wow. How do you just casually say that your Dad shot you?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“You are the weirdest girl I have ever talked to.”
“How many girls do you talk to?”
Shots fired! That was a quick one. Could be interpreted in several ways. Best assumption from Joshua’s steadily reddening face is that WW3 has just been announced.
Then laughter. Josh is rocking back and laughing. Gives Eva a grin.
“That was harsh,” he says with mirth.
Eva shrugs. But there is a little sparkle in her eyes.
Josh blushes. An odd sort. Not shame. But still embarrassment.
“I know this sounds super weird and I don’t mean to be a—”
Eva snags her collar with two fingers and pulls it down a little.
“You want to see the wound?”
The boy grins. Leans forward for a look. Inspects the gauze and stiches from the front. Eva obliges and moves the collar around. Clear view from the back. Bullet went clean through. Just missed the shoulder blade. Josh whistles in appreciation. It does look very cool.
“How the hell are you up, walking and talking?”
“Lucky.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it. Okay, so Papa is a police officer. Dad works here as a nurse. I hear about stuff all the time. That’s how I first heard about you. The girl that should have died. Then next day Dad’s talking about how you’re up and awake and walking and stuff. It’s just… that doesn’t happen. I’ve had Dad come home after a shift when someone has died. He’s got this look. Papa’s job is really intense too. They both work—”
“—with death.”
Eva is scoring extra points for tact. Josh nods.
“Yeah. I’m not a nurse. I’m not a cop. But I have parents that are and you learn things. You shouldn’t be up and fine. That’s weird.”
Josh looks down at his ball. He doesn’t sound so proud to say what comes next. But it is what everyone is thinking.
“You’re the weird girl. With weird stuff that goes on around her. You’re supposed to be crazy and have all the doctor’s confused. The spooky girl that knows stuff.”
Eva scratches her cheek absently.
“Do you want to know a little secret?”
Nothing said. But Josh’s intense expression is all that need be said.
“I knew what you asked already. The funny thing is, when people know you’re insane, they don’t filter. They let down their guard. Think that I won’t hear what they’re saying. And it is harder to hear them with all the other noise. But I can still hear. I still listen. Your Papa didn’t consider that I was listening to all his incidental conversations with fellow officers and medical staff he clearly knew. I saw the lock screen with you, Edward and Max on your Papa’s phone. There’s nothing spooky. Just a little deductive reasoning.”
Eva twiddled her thumbs. The mystery dispelled.
“So why are you here and not with your brothers?”
Josh blew at his fringe.
“Edward is at basketball practice and Max is at some afterschool STEM program thing. He’s super smart so this is meant to help him in High School. Papa is on administrative leave. Which means he gets paid but stays home. And I don’t… want to be there right now.”
Now isn’t that something to say. How tactful shall we be?
“You don’t look like someone who is beaten by their parent.”
Nope. Straight to the point. Normal reaction should be shock at such a statement. Coming from Eva, it’s more statement of fact. Affirmation of confidence.
“I think you’re the first person that has been that honest. No Papa doesn’t get angry at me. At us. He’s angry at himself. If he saw me around at home, he would be angry that he’s not out working and protecting the community, protecting us. He feels like an idiot because he allowed you to be hurt.”
Josh growls and thumps the stone bench.
“What happened?”
“What has your Papa said? What has your Dad said?”
“They won’t. The one time they’re being super secretive.”
Eva smiled. The idea that she had so unnerved people was deliciously delightful. That smile was unnerving Josh right now. Still. He doesn’t flee. Seems the brat has some spine.
“Your Papa should have been watching me. Instead, I was being tortured in my room. Bound in a straight-jacket and made to scream.”
“You hold back, don’t you? But you also hide things. Stuff people won't believe.”
Joshua’s look is more appraising now. Taking in Eva. Assessing. Re-evaluating.
“You’re afraid of causing trouble. You might get punished if you do.”
Eva shakes her head. It’s not like that. Genuinely it is. The problem is perspective. Eva could say a lot of things. But she sees and hears more than anyone else. Perspective is paramount. You cannot talk about something not there. Or you can. But that just leads to more psychiatric sessions and an increase in your medication dosages. Say goodbye to another few weeks of your life as you adjust.
“Well don’t hold back,” Josh declares. “You’re the weird girl who got shot. I don’t think anything you say would outdo that.”
“I’m sorry.”
Eva twiddles her thumbs. Takes a deep breath.
“I was angry. Your Papa was the cause. I told him to be in my Dad’s position and then judge us. I… think I was the reason why Shogo may have suddenly lashed out. I don’t know. She didn’t tell me much last night.”
Eva’s voice dropped down.
“I was too busy crying.”
Josh raised both hands.
“Hey slow down, slow down. Too much information and not enough. What do you mean Shogo lashed out? Who is Shogo and what do you mean by lashing out?”
“Shogo is family. She’s tall but not. Dresses old fashioned. Even wears a cloak. Sometimes has the hood up. She has these beautiful eyes that aren’t yellow or gold or orange. They sparkle behind her glasses.
Sorry. I get distracted.
It may have been her. I don’t know. It’s just that when I got angry your Papa’s phone started ringing and I’m guessing it was your Dad. It sounded like something had happened. I’m worried that his family, that you, might have been targeted. And if that did happen then I’m so…”
Eva trails off. All birdsong is dead. Not a buzz of insect. Not a slosh of water. Not a crunch of footstep or hum of conversation. Everything is still. Just Josh staring at her with all-too-wide eyes. Clutching his ball and staring at her.
I think that spine of his just melted. The boy was off the stone bench and backing away at double time. Military retreat with spherical weapon at the ready in case the enemy approaches. Then turn tail and flee.
Eva all alone in the atrium. Uncertain. Certain. A line was just crossed. Oops.
----------------------------------------
Ink blots. Not very original. But always entertaining. Eva has done this puzzle plenty of times. Dr Schwarzschild and Eva in a private consultation room. Two low seats, a table between them with glasses, juice and open books. Two lampposts in the room. One that provides light. Glowing. The other that consumes it. Gloaming. Eva considers whether to go and turn that one on. It’s all too bright in this room. Photophobia is unusual for her. Some medications caused very adverse side effects. But that was discomfort or pain. This feels different.
“You’ve completed these sorts of test before, I believe,” Dr Schwarzschild observed.
“Mmm.”
“I just want to gauge your current mental state.”
“Thank you for not lying.”
“What do you see?”
Eva rubbed her sore eyes and stared at the paper. It was just ink blots. For once just ink blots.
“Ink. Paper. Binding. Real leather cover. Failed psychology exams. Failed attempts at emigration to other countries. Unsatisfying posting to a town far from home. Failed attempt at sparking relationships with men or women. Then a girl, a patient, appears and the glimmer of a challenge rises.”
Eva looked up. Dr Schwarzschild’s face was shrouded. Stark shadows cast by the gloaming lamppost. A wriggle with too many limbs and not enough joints scuttled across the floor. Struck the lamppost and sent it toppling forward. Eva moved without thought. Springing faster than someone so injured should. Tried to catch the falling furnishing. The gloaming lamppost fell through Eva’s hands and shattered on the floor, sending fragments of inky lightbulb sputtering across the carpet. The shock sent the wriggle sprinting. It hit the glowing lamppost. Sent it rocking and falling. This one Eva caught, head whipping back, her other hand flicking out to catch it.
The light in the room took on a static quality. A crisp, crackling that hissed before retreating. Ruth took the lamppost from Eva’s hand and set it upright. Frowned. Rubbed her hand. Turned back. Silhouetted against the light.
“I think that test produced some results.”
“Sorry.”
Eva settled into the seat. Curled in on herself. Hands clasped together. Fingers knitted. Thumbs pressed against the opposite palm. Enough pressure for nail to pierce flesh. Then a very gentle hand on her shoulder. Very little pressure. The unspoken question. May I enter your personal space? Eva looked up. The room was blurry. Neither lightbulb nor fickle ambience at fault. She sighed. Another awkward encounter. Normally she was so careful. Guard up and words carefully chosen. Her edge was slipping. Ruth was crouched in front of Eva. Hand still very light on her shoulder.
“Thank you for catching the light before it fell.”
“You are. Welcome.”
“How did you know it would fall over? The base it quite wide. Nothing short of a major earthquake would send it tumbling.”
Thumbs pressed harder against palm. Blood dribbles down. Pain is a sharp shock. A balm. A way to handle the awkward questions. A delaying measure whilst she tried to talk her way out of the situation.
“You didn’t ask about why I jumped up early. Why I tried to catch nothing.”
Eva’s voice was smaller than all the empathy her previous psychiatrists had ever show her. Microns. Planck lengths. I'll check her case files and give you accurate SI measurements.
“I don’t know what that was about. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that you saved me from being struck on the head with a metal pole. I am thankful. I also want to know how you knew.”
A quick scan around the room. The wriggle was now tucked in a corner and already burrowing into the umbra. Body and too many limbs disappeared into the darkness.
“I just did.”
“If you are embarrassed then you should know that… Eva, your hands!”
Warm drips of emotion slipped down slick palms. Pooled at the blade of the hand. Gathered in drops of joy, sadness and shame that fell to the carpet. A quick glance down. Her thumbs had pressed too deep. Eva spread her hands wide with a low cry of embarrassment. You don’t really want to bleed all over your doctor’s fancy carpet. Leads to all sorts of awkward questions and expensive cleaning bills. Dr Schwarzschild was already up and at a cupboard, grabbing a box of tissues. She started dabbing at the glistening hands.
“With bleeding this bad,” she muttered, “I may have to stitch…”
Her voice trailed off. Coherent medical thought processes currently experiencing tachycardia. Eva’s hands were covered in blood. Too much. Self-inflicted wound and deep. The cleaners may as well give up now. The stains on the carpet are fairly expansive.
Clean palms.
Unblemished skin.
Not a single layer of skin disturbed.
Eva was glad at that moment her skin was dark. It helped hide the flush of hot shame and embarrassment on her cheeks. Dr Schwarzschild turned Eva’s hands over several times. No cuts or wounds. Yet with bleeding that profuse there had to be a significant injury.
A quick snatch. Eva pulled her hands back and wrapped them against herself. Looked at the doctor as though they were foe. The moment when you start weighing up what little you should say. Speak up and have them lock you away for months. A gamble. But maybe. Just maybe. It’s desperation and fatigue. Bone weariness sunk in deep after nearly two weeks of struggling and suffering. A little spark. Mad desperation and aching loss.
Shall we gamble and roll the dice?
“What colour is my blood, Dr Schwarzschild?”
“Pardon?”
The doctor was halfway to the bin. Mind going over all the sanitation protocols needed after the session. Cleaners and expenses. Her movement was arrested by Eva’s grip. Slender black fingers contrasting against the doctor’s pale wrist. The girl was barely more than a skeleton. With the grip of a creature from the deep. Eva spun around, pressed her back against the doctor’s chest and pulled the wrist out a little further. With her free hand she knocked away the wads of tissue. Placed her small hand into Ruth’s. Chirality matching. Small fingers contrasting against the larger hand.
“What colour is my blood?”
Ruth wasn’t given a second chance to answer. Eva let go of the wrist and weaved her other hands fingers through the gaps between the mirrored hands of Eva and Ruth. Gripped tight and sandwiched the doctor’s hands in-between.
It was a curious moment. Ruth had been studying various forms of mental illness in her spare time. She hadn’t lied to Luther with her assertion of reading a 5 year long case file in 24 hours. Many a free moment since their first meeting over a week ago had been spent trying to unpick the mystery that was Eva. Evangeline. Evangeline Griseo Foxe. She ticked all the boxes for someone who was seriously mentally ill. Yet she also displayed, in brief moments, a level of clarity and lucidity that was at odds with the various diagnoses. Ruth could see where people would diagnose her as having a severe and disturbing form of psychosis.
Perhaps she had not appropriately distanced herself from this child in a professional capacity. It tugged at her. That niggling doubt. That infectious madness. Sorry doc but you were dragged into this the moment you looked back at that window and saw something in the reflection. A memetic virus. A basilisk hack. A soma transfer that sent little worms burrowing into the softest, fleshiest and deepest corners of your psyche.
Put another way, the good doctor is screwed.
The discarded tissues were pink to deep crimson where the blood had been blotted. Her hand. Those palms. A deep caramel. They should be crimson where they had not been cleaned. There were no cuts or abrasions. Just clean flesh. And blood that was too thin. Almost oily. Not. Red. The colour. It. It. It. Was. Not. Red. So that.
That.
The blood. Colour.
It should be soaked in haemoglobin. Tinted in oxygen and iron.
It.
It is.
The blood.
Spirals and whorls of blood. Twisting and spinning. Don’t stare at the hand. It draws you in. Your mind aches. Your vision swims. Balance is twisted. Warped.
The blood.
It is.
Not.
Red.
Ruth choked back a gasp. Wrenched her head away. Eva’s grip was slack. The doctor stumbled backward, leaning hard against the back of a chair and trying to catch her breath. Her heart had given up pretending anything was normal. Given half a chance it would evacuate her chest. Cold sweat coated the woman. Vision turned crimson. Ruth walked over to the windows of the room to check what was wrong. The corners of her eyes were starbursts when the capillaries had burst. A tinge of blood filmed her eyes. Likely from the soft tissue of the eyelids.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the tiniest of little voices. Ruth breathed out slowly. There was a rational explanation for all of this. Even if the rational was irrational. She turned and faced Eva. The girl was all alone in the gloom of the room. When had the room turned so dark? The floor was streaked with shattered fragments of umbra that drank up the light. Standing against the opposite wall, pressed hard against it, was a child doing their best to disappear. Light. Shadow. Texture. Everything behind Eva writhed. It wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t hungry. There was no desire to harm. Eva was a blot in the storm of uncanny. She clutched fists by her sides and stared hard at the ground. Tried to bore a hole through bloodied carpet, liner, concrete, sand pad, soil, rock, mantle and finally solid metal core. Halfway through a chunk of ringwoodite Eva heard a firm voice. It called out over the rumble of the mesosphere. Out over the whispers of shadows sharing further secrets. Things that the doctor would never voice.
“It is not red.”
Eva looked up. Dr Schwarzschild had recovered her composure. The hand that Eva had grabbed was now curled tight.
“This may go some way towards explaining how you have recovered so quickly from what should have been a lethal gunshot wound.”
“Mmmm.”
“Perhaps we should end our session here.”
“Mmm.”
Eva was careful to negotiate her slippered feet around the shards of gloaming glass when exiting the room. This little shuffle was not lost on the doctor. What left her more disconcerted was Eva’s shadow. Where her shadow passed over whatever she avoided, little fragments of something glassy and sharp winked up at the doctor.
----------------------------------------
Heart. Pumping. Loudly. Deafening. Slipper after slipper. Eva’s mind is focussed on one thing. Her success. In the sea of silence someone listened. For a moment. The briefest twinkle in the night sky. And it was enough.
Enough.
It was bloody enough. Eva knew that she saw things that weren’t there. Heard or felt or smelt them. But there was much more that was there. That she could see. When you pulled back the veil of reality, the veil of sanity, existence was a twisted shadowy realm where anything and ANYTHING was possible. Now someone else knew. Someone else had seen just beyond the edges. A brief peak. They believed her. Or at least hadn’t shoved needles into her arm and left the girl catatonic for two months.
Yes, some people already know. And so actively reject that knowledge that they harmed a then 9-year-old girl. We may go back and explore that story one day. Sorry but there is no karmic justice. It doesn’t end well. Just another plank leading up to the current story.
Eva is caught up in her own little world. Footstep after footstep. Autopilot as she digests everything. She had shown Dr Schwarzschild. Given her the briefest insight into what the world looked like to Eva. Maybe the doctor would listen to her. Maybe it was enough to get… no her parents wouldn’t listen. Not that easily. It was, however, a start. A beginning point. Eva—
—ran straight into someone. Floundered backward and landed hard on the ground. It took the girl several seconds to process what had happened. Her mind could not catch up with her body. Everything was a scratchy, writhing blur of noise and sensation. Finally, she realised that it was outside her private room. Josh was standing there with a shocked expression. A nurse ran up and knelt beside Eva.
“Are you okay, Ms Foxe?”
“I’m fine, Harry.”
Harry gave Josh a look that would have Sisyphus running down the hill with his boulder chasing close behind. Josh raised both hands pleadingly.
“I called out to her several times. She just didn’t hear me. Barrelled right into me.”
“And this is what you call apologising?”
“Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Eva.”
Okay. Back up. Process that one. Then again, we met Harry way back in Chapter 3. He’s appeared in the background since then so this does count as foreshadowing. Harry gently drew Eva to her feet. Checked for any pain, strains or tightness before escorting the girl the last few steps to her room. Josh walked to the doorway but progressed no further. Watched his parent walk back down the hallway. Eva’s room was thankfully free of Christina and Luther. It gave Eva the opportunity to sit down on her bed and begin to untangle the last hour.
“I never told anyone the full details.”
Those weren’t Eva’s words. She looked up to see Josh standing in the doorway and watching her carefully.
“Max and Edward heard the noise. Someone sneaking around the backyard. Dad grabbed a flashlight and stuck his head outside. Shone it around. They didn’t see anything but an inky shadow. I saw it though. Those eyes. They looked at me. Into me. I’m never going to forget them. All I told anyone was that I saw someone. Just like Max. Just like Edward.”
Josh looked down at his feet. At the invisible line.
Outside. A corridor. The general hubbub of a hospital. Normal. Everyday. Average.
Inside. Quiet. Shadowy. Twisted. Tones of the unnatural and strange.
Josh took a breath. Met Eva’s gaze.
“Can I come in?”
A single nod. A binding geas. Remember no dog meat and be nice to people. One step past the threshold. Josh ran hands through his hair and tried to shake off the embarrassed look on his face.
“So… uh… when are you getting discharged?”
“Likely tomorrow.”
“Cool.”
Lonely seconds ticked by. Eva sighed and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. She was tired. And short on patience.
“You aren’t interested in girls so this isn’t an awkward love confession. What do you want?”
“Wait. How the hell? I mean. Come on… fuck.”
Josh laughed again. Cheeks aflame with embarrassment. But laughing.
“You’re not secretly a masochist?” Eva mumbled.
Josh laughed even harder.
“No. No it’s not that. You just. You are nothing like what anybody described to me. Plenty of Dad’s friends come over to our place after work for drinks. I had to see you for myself. I wanted to be angry at you. For what happened to Papa. Instead, you’re just so… you.”
Eva wanted to tell the boy ‘That makes no coherent sense.’ She wanted to shove him out the room and get some sleep. Read a book or two. Maybe watch some period piece drama. Her words were raw.
“Why are you talking to me?”
Josh shrugged.
“You’re weird. And spooky. And interesting. And honest. And I want to be friends with someone like that. You have to meet Imogen.”
Josh turned and gave a wave.
“See you tomorrow then. Hopefully you’re out by then. I want to show you around town.”
Eva was left all alone in her room. Staring at the empty doorway. A cold trickle ran down her back.
“Friend?”
The corpse under the bed chuckled at the bad joke.