B is for Broken, page 16
Mama said the dark signs were evil. Mama said Elise shouldn’t look for them, ever. She had always taught Elise that, while their forms were currently hazy, the good signs would come clear the more she practiced, the more she looked for them. And Elise tried. She strained to see them, even now, eyes flashing back open.
Usually Mama took her to the park. They would lie in the grass and stare up, like so many other mothers and their children. Only Elise and her mother didn’t look for shapes in the clouds—they looked for shapes in the iridescent shimmer of Elise’s magick.
Sweat broke on Elise’s brow as she fought to see the good signs against the water-stained ceiling. Her palms grew clammy, but she didn’t dare to wipe them. She couldn’t let her mother know how hard it was for her daughter to see the good. To be good.
Barely aware of her mother’s arms around her, Elise whimpered. Unable to keep the shadows at bay.
Maybe not unable, a dark thought whispered in her mind. Maybe you just want to see them. An uneasy thrill filled Elise’s belly and she remembered feeling it when she plucked the blast of light from the air in the alley.
The sharp, the deadly, the violent magicks gathered close. She looked into their clear patterns and saw their familiarity. They felt like cousins—the resemblance of yourself seen in their freckled noses and emerald eyes.
Elise gasped as the realization struck her. It was something Mama hadn’t said; it was unwritten between them, waiting—waiting for Elise to discover it.
The magick symbols, the cloud, all projected from Elise. The sigils she focused on, she allowed to grow within and without her. Her soul’s strength, projected, focused, used and repeated. The good symbols were of her. Her gut sank as she began to weep.
The darkness was of her, too.
After some time, Elise’s whimpering faded. She realized her mother had slid out of her chair to lie on the floor and cradle her. Elise hugged Mama close, her previous anger fading away. She felt fragmented, a porcelain cup shattered on the floor. All the jagged edges poked and stabbed, and she feared she would begin to bleed from the inside.
“It catches up with us,” Mama whispered, pushing back the sweat-damp curls from Elise’s face. “All their agony. All their violence. Without our positives to keep it at bay, it will break us.”
Elise tucked her head against her mother’s chest as she hadn’t done since she was a small child. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Don’t be.”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t—” Her throat clogged up, choking off the words.
“I didn’t want this for you,” Mama said. “I never wanted you to feel this.”
Elise nodded, letting her mother’s steady heartbeat soothe her as the magicks had done before. Was this not a magick all its own? A natural magick? One that couldn’t be blanketed by their new neighbor. Elise let her mind rove through memories, all the times she lay beside her mother in the park, all the times the woman guided her hands at the loom, teaching her to weave tapestries and rugs and blankets. Good memories. Positives of the natural world.
“We have to leave,” Mama said against Elise’s hair. “Find a different area of the city, or... or leave it entirely.”
Elise stiffened, pulled back. “Leave? Just... just give up and let him win?”
Mama’s eyes were hazy with tears. “We have to. It’s the only way. We can’t... we can’t live like this.”
“But we can fight him!” The words were fierce, they leapt from her tongue before she could cage them.
A frown darkened her mother’s face. “Elise.” A gentle rebuke, pressed into her name.
Elise trembled. With fear, with shame, but she had to speak. She couldn’t just let her mother give up. What about Ramos? And Linda? And all the other needy ones on her route? What would happen to them without her?
She knew. The dark imaginings etched in her mind, more prophecy than fantasy. Ramos would freeze to death or cast himself off a bridge to be rid of his pain. Linda would crash her car in a drunken stupor, taking out many innocent lives with her. Countless others would write their pain in bruises, in bloodshed, in death.
“I see the negatives, Mama. I see them all the time. Sometimes...” Her voice faltered. She couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. “Sometimes I like to see them. And I... I know it’s wrong, but I do.”
“Oh, honey.” Mama tried to hug her, but Elise pulled away. She couldn’t spill the dreadful truth into her mother’s arms; it was bad enough she had to share this poison at all.
“I used it, today. I blasted him with light to keep him from watching and—”
The slamming of a door in the hallway stopped her. Her eyes widened as she scrambled to her feet.
“Come out here,” the man’s voice barked from the other side of the door.
Elise stood between her mother and the barrier.
“Elise, no. Come here now,” Mama said frantically as she hefted herself up into her chair. “We must go. Now. The dark signs will taint you if you use them. They’re—”
“Evil?” Elise supplied, hands coiling into fists. But maybe necessary, too, Mama.
Elise jerked the door open. She stared up into the face of the stranger. He seemed impossibly tall. He was thin through the chest, with a faded blue t-shirt clinging to his jutting ribs. His face was haggard and gaunt, eyes a shifting mass of pain and anger.
“Elise, please,” Mama cried.
Elise glanced back as her Mama rolled forward to stop her. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I have to. For them. For you.” She stepped forward and shut the door behind her. Her hands fluttered up to the storm clouds brooding around her; she retrieved—more easily than she would have imagined—the shape of a lock and scratched it into the wood around the door handle.
The knob rattled; Mama cried and shouted from the other side, but the magick held the door fast.
Elise faced the man again. He shook all over, barely repressing something that wanted to scream out of him. Elise could see the jagged edges swirling around his head—his magick. She’d never been able to see it before. But his was so tainted by negatives that it blared like neon lights.
“What’s wrong with you?” Elise asked. Some fragment of compassion pressed through, but mostly it was anger. Mostly it was an accusation.
“People like you,” he said, voice a snarl. “You oppress them and you don’t even know it, do you?”
“Oppress them?” She stepped closer, fingers fluttering through the dark edges and snagging something that looked like Mama’s symbols for strength—only heavier, thicker. Pain resonated up her right hand, shaking her bones so hard she thought they would break. But the strength filled her as she scratched the pattern into her forearm.
Why? Why was it so hard to see the good, but so easy to see the negatives? They spooled out for her at the simple opening of her mind, the simple release of her resolve.
“I help them,” she growled.
He laughed, but there was pain in it. So much pain.
“You will stop.” He stepped closer and she wished for his height, so that she could stare him in the eyes and show him she wasn’t afraid.
“I won’t. You will leave,” she said. “You’ll stop hurting Mama and me.”
“Are you gonna make me?” His grin was sharp, sharkish. Eyes hard. He looked at her like he knew her, like she was someone else entirely—not a dark, curly haired little girl. She felt his history rising between them, but couldn’t detect its edges, couldn’t find its meaning.
“I will,” she vowed.
He laughed again. “I bet you thought you’d never use the ‘negatives’. Aren’t they evil to you? Aren’t you crossing all the wrong lines? Won’t your soul be damned?” Sarcasm was thick in his tone, even as he drew from his own magick and scratched symbols into his arms until they bled.
A flash of heat zipped from her toes to her head and back in a few seconds. She cried out, vaguely aware of Mama still screaming and pounding on the other side of the door. Anger rose with the pain. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d grasped a symbol of wind and etched it around her lips. She blew one strong gust of air and it struck the man with hurricane-force.
He flew back, slamming into his door. The wood shattered around him. He struck the floor of his own living room. Elise jumped forward. She caught a glimmer of fear in his eyes, but he was already writing his magicks on his scarred, white skin. Blood trailed through the lines. A thunder clap burst in Elise’s ears. She crumpled with a shout. Deafened, the whole world seemed to be ringing like a phone she couldn’t pick up.
Gasping for air, she wiped blood trails from her ears. Casting aside her chalk bandoleer and pulling up her shirt, Elise acted on instinct. She drew, with the sticky red paint of her lifeforce, a new pattern on the dark skin of her stomach. It was a sharp edged symbol, a crippling force.
When she finished, it burst—striking pain back into her, the recoil of a gun to her chest. Elise and the man were blown back away from each other. He writhed as she stumbled to her feet again. He screamed in agony as electricity zipped up and down his spine. He convulsed and she stood over him.
As the sparks fizzled, he lay panting, emaciated sides heaving. “I hate you. I fucking hate you!” He screamed it with tears, and Elise tensed. She raised a new sign, ready to write it in her blood once more, but his hands were still, clutched like broken talons against his chest. “You can’t press your fake plastic peace down on everyone! Don’t you see? Sometimes they have to feel. Sometimes you have to let them feel. You’re fake. So fucking fake. You’re just like them!”
“What are you talking about? Just like who?” Elise gasped, doubled over against the pain. She could almost feel the bruises beginning to marble her chest and ribcage.
“You—they—shoved it down my throat.” He was sobbing in earnest, helpless on the floor. He knew his dark magicks well, he knew his negatives intimately, but he couldn’t contest with the power of her youth. “I was just a problem. Just a problem that needed fixing. All I wanted was to feel, a little love, an embrace. I didn’t need their sigils, their signs. I needed them!” One hicupping breath, and then Elise thought she heard him whisper, “Daddy, please.”
Elise stared at the wreck of a man before her. He looked like a child. He was, she realized. Whoever he spoke of, they had stunted him. Mama let Elise feel pain sometimes, she let her feel tired. “It’s natural. It’s necessary, sometimes.”
She considered him, considered the magicks begging to be used. Her fingers trembled as the shadows pressed in, hungry for his death. Fear blasted through her as she realized that some part of her wanted to take his life. He won’t give up. He needs to be ended. But did he?
He grew still, his tears drying in tracks on his haggard face. He looked up at Elise and she saw not fear, but relief.
“Do it,” he said. “Just end me.”
When is taking a life merciful? When is it the right thing to do? She didn’t know. The fullness of what she didn’t know rang in her head, in her hollow gut. Maybe that was another lesson, another truth, that lay in wait. Unspoken between her and Mama. Maybe she couldn’t access it yet because she wasn’t wise enough.
Elise flinched at the sound of wheels rolling over splintered wood. Mama sat in the doorway, sides heaving and face streaked with tears. Their eyes met and Elise’s hand slid slowly down to her side. She wiped her blood, patternless, against her pants.
“I can’t,” she said to the man. She shook her head. “I won’t.” And that was more true. “Y-you’re not right. Not all the way.”
But maybe he wasn’t all wrong either. Maybe her magicks had made the people dependent, maybe they never learned to be more than addicts to her power. She knew one thing for certain, she wasn’t all right either. She turned and staggered to Mama, ignoring the man’s cries after her.
Together, they moved numbly through the splinters of wood and the glittering mold. With the blanket spell broken, Elise’s magick shone clear and bright around her. But the negatives remained, within and without her. She grabbed her mother’s hand, ready to face the dark sigils, to face the darker parts of her soul.
N is for Negatives
Michael M. Jones
THE Theatre of Dreams stands alone, small and unimposing against its surroundings. It’s located on the outskirts of the Gaslight District, Puxhill’s oldest and strangest community, set back a little ways from the road itself. Save for a small sign, you’d never know what the building truly was. There is no ticket booth; you cannot call ahead or pre-order here. There are no prices listed; entrance is paid with innocence and secrets, whispers and hopes. There are no hours posted; either you know when performances are, or you do not. The Theatre is not listed in any newspapers, trade magazines, or travel guides. It does not advertise. It doesn’t need to.
It’s Friday night, and the marquee reads, “Juliet Sinclair, appearing irregularly.” No other explanation is needed. She is the star. She is the Dreamer.
It’s almost time for the midnight show and the people are still outside. The crowd is curiously mixed, college students and socialites sharing the same sidewalk—jeans and T-shirts clashing against tuxedoes and gowns. Strangest of all, however, are the Theatre’s most devoted attendees. Divided into two factions, they circle each other like tired boxers, neither willing to start something, but each convinced they’re the only “true” fans, that the others are poseurs and fakes. The Funereal Children come decked out in their best mourning clothes, all black and lace, veils and tears, while the Unquiet Sleepers move with heavy-lidded distant eyes, garbed in nightgowns and robes, clutching articles of comfort to their chests.
Finally, the doors open. Quietly, eagerly, the patrons file into the converted playhouse to take their places in the circular auditorium, settling into velvet seats that oppress with faded opulence and murky charm. Even the first-time patrons instinctively fall silent, nary a whisper escaping anticipation-laced lips. A faint cough hacks forth, hushed with sheepish haste before the atmosphere is poisoned. Funereal Children, socialites, Sleepers, students, yuppies—all wait patiently. All are equal here.
The lights dim, throwing the room into pitch-blackness. In flagrant disregard for safety guidelines, not even an illuminated emergency exit sign violates the darkness. A low throbbing, the sound of a giant heart beating, resonates through the walls and seats.
A spotlight clicks on, shining down upon a simple bed in the middle of the stage, an old oak four-poster with creamy white sheets which glow almost fluorescent. Gliding in time to the heartbeat, a young woman seems to sleepwalk down the aisle. Her movements are languid, her nightgown filmy and vaguely transparent against the single light. She is thin and pale, a mere wisp of a figure. Her hair is cornsilk verging on platinum, worn loose almost to her waist. Her eyes are closed.
Deep in her trance, the woman—Juliet Sinclair—climbs into bed. Within minutes, she has passed into sleep, chest rising and falling in slow rhythm, matching the ominous heartbeat
Minutes tick by, the audience still and silent. Beyond the sharp boundaries of that single spotlight, velvet darkness grips them in its embrace, the heartbeat linking them together, synchronizing their breaths.
And then Juliet’s dreams are cast onto the walls and ceiling, flickering like early cinematography at too few frames per second. The audience feels as much as they see. A sun rises, a cat stretches to greet it before transforming into a woman holding a rose. A gentle rain falls across a graveyard, while dogwoods bloom in fast forward. Somewhere, there’s a sigh of content, and the unmistakable smells of baking bread and cooling chocolate. Silk and velvet wrap around bare skin. A soft jazz song plays in the background as faceless people dance, only Juliet present as a recognizable figure. All these and more play across the audience’s senses as the Dreamer’s subconscious cracks open like floodgates. There’s love and hate, anxiety and confidence, beauty and ugliness, an unspeakably profound truth that speaks to the watchers. Unlike their own dreams, these will not fade away like mists burned by the sun.
All too soon it’s over, though hours have passed while the audience sat enraptured and the Dreamer lay dreaming. The heartbeat gently fades away and the lights slowly come up. Juliet herself awakens, blinking and bleary-eyed, unrested despite her sleep.
The audience is released from their paralysis. They stand, stretch, file towards the exit, talking amongst themselves now that the enchantment has been broken.
As the Theatre’s patrons trickle out, Juliet shakes off the last vestiges of drowsiness, pale blue eyes open wide with strange urgency. Desperately, she stumbles forward to clutch at the sleeve of an elderly woman wrapped in a black cashmere coat. Please, she begs, please tell me what I dreamed. Her voice is a needy whisper, ragged with restlessness and loss.
Taking pity on the Dreamer, for she alone does not experience the dreams cast for all else to see, the woman explains. Juliet loosens her grip, her smile soft and wistful. Something flickers in her eyes: Hope? Disappointment? She turns away, thanking the woman, drifting backstage to her dressing room. It has been a good night.
Juliet is backstage in the Green Room, a place resembling a ‘50s sitcom kitchen, all warmth and light and pastels. It perpetually smells like morning: eggs and bacon, coffee and toast. She’s alone; no one ever disturbs the Dreamer while she throws off her disorientation and rejoins the waking world.
She’s in jeans and a light blouse, barefoot. A plate of scrambled eggs and several cups of thick black coffee have made her feel much more alive. However, she can’t help but notice that in the bright light of the room, she’s even paler than usual, skin washed out to translucency, a little hazy around the edges. Despite this, her hands are steady and confident. She’s always known there was a price for being the Dreamer, a cost to breaching the boundaries between waking and dreaming. She welcomes it.
