Kind of a Big Deal, page 23
“Muses, I believe in you!” she shouted, praying that her belief and her imagination would be enough. She couldn’t fight something intangible. “I command you to appear to me!”
A mist crept along the floor. Josie took a few steps back to avoid it and then gave up and let it overtake her feet. It lapped at her ankles, chilly and dry. Her toes tingled.
The bookstore seemed darker than it should be. She looked back at the door, but there was no door. No window that she’d kicked open with her awesome fierceness. There was no more anything, except darkness and mist that stretched in every direction, seemingly for eternity. And the ghost light. It reminded her of a certain lamppost in a childhood book, a piece of modern civilization incongruous in snowy Narnia. Whether the light was intended to invite ghosts in or to scare them away, Josie felt it throb invitingly, a glowing safety circle. She stepped more firmly into its halo of light.
She caught sight of a shadow walking, just beyond the illumination the ghost light cast, and she gripped the cool metal post with one hand, the bear toy with the other.
Although she couldn’t quite make out his face, she knew it was Deo, the way you know the identities of people in dreams even when they don’t resemble themselves. Like the time Josie had dreamed about going to a carnival with Justin, only he’d looked like Bette Davis and she’d been a potted plant.
Deo’s skin looked like pure gold in the low light. His chest was, in fact, hard, chiseled, and hairless. She knew this because he was naked. Or at least she thought he was. The mist was in constant motion around him, rising and falling, swirling like a living toga. He was not wearing his glasses.
“Josie Pie. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Something wrong with your book?” Gone was Deo’s awkward charm. He was all smooth confidence, the sliding of liquid metal.
“Something was wrong with your glasses,” she said.
“Changing how someone sees the world is a powerful magic.”
“But I’m not farsighted. How did you—”
“A touch is all it takes for a small magic, like cursing a girl with temporary farsightedness.”
She seemed to feel again each instance when he’d touched her—bumping into his chest, his hand on her arm, his fingers grabbing hers as they sang a duet. Was it only after these encounters when she couldn’t read without the glasses? “Morning eyes” had been a lie. Deo had been the cause of her seemingly random eye problems, his way to make her read with those supernatural glasses.
Other shadows moved in the mist, pacing like caged tigers. Josie hugged the bear.
“You are Muses,” she said.
“We are older than that name,” said Deo. “Just because people have forgotten us doesn’t mean our hunger has diminished. We survived where our cousins long ago went extinct, because we are adaptable. Like insects. Always around, unseen, hardly noticed.”
“You … you really want to compare yourselves to insects?”
“Why? What’s wrong with insects?”
“A lot of people consider them pests, and they have tiny brains—”
“Insects are cool!” he said.
“Sure, okay.”
She heard him take a breath, and his voice was room-temperature mercury again.
“We notice people who notice us. We created an oracle in Missoula when you arrived, Josie Pie. The bookstore, just for you. Though you took long enough to find us, I must pose that complaint.” His voice was full of smile, as if he were gently teasing an old friend. “All we managed to entice in those months were two idle daydreamers of minimal power, hardly enough for us to call a snack.”
At his words, Josie could see pale tethers of light extending from Deo’s middle and off into the blackness, like transparent umbilical cords.
“You had ancestors in the old land who also dreamed deeply, feeding us for centuries. But you surpassed them. At such a young age, you’d already created a fantasy version of yourself.”
“Ouch,” she said. That was harsh, but she couldn’t argue.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Josie Pie, so believe me when I say, your talent is special. You yearned to insert a fantasy version of yourself into a different story from what life offered, and for us, that yearning was both palpable and palatable.”
His voice was delicious. His words seemed to lick her skin. She shivered.
And again, so did the bookstore. Or wherever she was. She blinked twice. Inside the two blinks she seemed to be in a palace hollowed out from the inside of a mountain, the mist a lake of fire up to her ankles. It was all gone again by the second blink, but she was so shocked she leaped back, disturbing the white mist. Beneath it, there was no lava lake. There was nothing. She had the stomach-sickening feeling of falling without moving. Thankfully the mist nosed its way back over the break, hiding whatever was (or wasn’t) beneath her.
“I was right about her,” said Deo. “She has the talent, the lineage, and the passion.”
“Perhaps,” said one of the other shadows. Female. Silvery voice. His sister, Bianca, Josie guessed. “I just wish this ‘one’ you’re always looking for were a little more pliable. All her hopping in and out of stories made me queasy.”
“She’s here, isn’t she?” he said. “I wish you’d learn to trust me.”
“I wish you’d stop comparing us to bugs.”
“Bugs are the most adaptable creatures on the planet,” he said, his voice rising nearly to a whine. “Plus they’re strong and clever and adaptable and … and strong…”
These were Muses. So this was a performance. Josie must play the fearless, noble heroine. She refused to be Persephone, kidnapped by Hades, helpless and lost. Instead she would be a hero like Orpheus, braving the underworld to save whoever Hades had kidnapped. And she would not look back.
She squared her shoulders, neck straight—sense memory of confidence.
“Justin is part of my true story. And Mia, too. And Missoula, Montana. Even if it’s not the way I would have written it myself, it’s my story and I want to finish it.”
“Justin we can arrange—or at least the closest version to him that your imagination can produce. You can have anything you dream. Except Mia. Children are too volatile, even in imagination. And their own imaginations can prove catastrophically powerful. They upset the balance.”
No children. How had she missed that? Even in fake New York City, everyone had been an adult. A world devoid of children. Maybe in the fake Missoula, the story had just been responding to her imagination’s demand for Mia the best it could. With a creepy bear-toy substitute.
Wait—since Josie was in the fantasy, did that mean she was no longer a child? Had she passed officially into the role of adult? When would her teenage self grow into a person who could, if she had the chance, get a credit card again and pay the bills, and struggle with something without having to run away, and make and keep long-term relationships with people? And just not be so freaked out about failing everything all the time. If she got out of here, could that be her now?
“I wouldn’t have targeted you if I’d known you were so attached to a child,” Deo was saying. “We avoid tapping into parents of young children, since they tend to have stronger threads tying them to real life.”
“Well, I’m pulling on that thread,” she said. “Send me back.”
He shook his head. Or else the space shook and his head didn’t.
“You signed a contract.”
A contract? She was about to argue but then felt in memory her hand holding a pen, sliding over a piece of paper. “The theater contract? But that wasn’t real! That was in my mind!”
“Humans!” Deo said cheerfully. “As if what happens inside your head doesn’t matter. As if thoughts are meaningless, daydreams trash, ideas and understanding insubstantial.”
“Well…,” said Josie. That was all she had.
“You signed on for the run of the show. And this show will never close.”
“Always read the fine print,” said Bianca, her voice singsongy, “even in dreams.”
Josie glared in her direction. “Still, contracts can be challenged, ripped up—”
Deo moved in closer. The glow from the ghost light caught him. The colors of his shape solidified, his skin changing from gold to brown, the mist stiffening into clothing under his red bookstore apron. But no glasses, and his gaze bored into her with a force. She gripped the post of the ghost light with white knuckles.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” he asked.
“Clearly I don’t, or everybody wouldn’t keep saying that!” Josie said.
Deo smiled sympathetically. “Josie, you lived years inside that story.”
“What do you mean years? It was three months.”
“Three story months. But many more real years. Mia is grown-up. She’s forgotten you, and so have Justin and Nina.”
Josie’s breath froze. Her everything froze; the only way she was still standing was thanks to her cement legs and icicle spine. She recalled the spells in Harry Potter that could paralyze a person with a single word. Loving other people made her vulnerable. No magic required, just the words: Justin is gone. Little Mia is gone. And everyone I know. It’s my fault; I knew I shouldn’t stay. I’m such a chump; I knew I shouldn’t stay …
Deo’s eyes were soft as he said, “You’ve been pleading with the Muses for years, and at last we get to grant your wishes. All I’ve wanted is for you to have your dream.”
He put his arms around her; his face close to hers. His breath smelled like salted caramel, cinnamon bears, candy hearts. A scent that could draw Hansel and Gretel deeper into the woods.
“What do you want, Josie Pie?” he asked.
The answer came instantly, a pinpoint of pain, exact as if a thin, cold arrow had shot straight through her chest.
“Don’t bother answering,” said Deo. “Love, right? Acceptance?”
She shivered, ashamed to be a cliché, and yet filled with that yearning.
“In the fantasy we make for you, you’ll never have to choose between being loved and being a star. You can have both. You can do anything.”
She couldn’t help snorting.
“Let me grant your wish,” said Deo. His eyes were on her lower lip. She could feel his longing, as if she were the performer onstage, he in the upper balcony, yearning to join her, aching to be where she was. Her stomach hurt with the pain of his yearning. She felt certain that if she just kissed him, she could heal him. And herself, too. Just kiss him. Taste his candy mouth, allow his hands to pull her closer. His lips were right there, as close to her lips as possible without touching. She’d have to make such a small motion to reach them.
“Justin,” she managed to gasp. Her heart throbbed.
“He’s gone from your life forever, and you’re feeling the pain of loss,” he whispered. His breath was red licorice, sour cherries, chocolate pretzels. “Just kiss me, and I’ll take that pain away.” His thumb ran down her cheek, teased at the corner of her mouth. “A light touch for a small magic, a willing kiss for a strong magic.” He touched her forehead, smoothing her hair back. “In your last fantasy, you started to forget about your other life. Remember how content you were? Just kiss me, and I can make that amnesia permanent.”
“Amnesia,” she whispered. Her head was spinning. “Because of the stress.”
So much yearning. She felt tugged closer and closer to him, though she was already in his arms, pressed against his chest.
“That’s not my yearning you’re feeling,” he whispered. “I’m only echoing back to you your own.”
She shuddered because she instantly recognized the sensation. This was what she’d felt in the balconies of the Broadway theaters; this was the hunger she’d sent at the stage.
“I know what you want…”
Part of the mist rose, swirled, opened like a tunnel, and through it she could see the hallway of her high school. There was Nina, smiling, waiting for Josie to walk with her. There was Justin, leaning against the lockers, looking like all the peace in the world. And dozens of students waiting for their star to step in.
Deo slid behind her, his arms around her waist. He spoke close to her ear.
“You’ve proved yourself skilled at rewriting the story. Imagine what you could do with a lifetime in your fantasy! You could have your happily ever after.”
“How? What would happen to…” She gestured to her body, meaning her actual body, sitting on a park bench. But surely it wasn’t still there, years later. Here in her false body, her heart was pounding.
“The show must go on,” said Deo. His breath smelled of lemon drops, nut nougat, and gummy peaches.
“Wait,” she whispered. “A show is rehearsed and performed, the same lines night after night. Life is way more complicated and unexpected. There’s no third act and no curtain call; it just goes on and on till it doesn’t. Life’s nothing like a show.”
Deo’s arms around her waist loosened. He exhaled sticky, rosy, perfumey Turkish delight. “For you, life can be a show, if you only choose.”
Why candy? A tiny alarm was ringing in the back of her brain. Was he a honeypot, some creature meant to look good and smell enticing, pull in the prey? The sugary smell was giving her a headache.
She heard a bell and saw Justin and Nina headed to class. Justin looked over his shoulder, as if expecting Josie to join him. The edges of the school hallway flickered, and as she squinted at it, she could just make out a different image. She gasped. It was Grandma Lovey wearing a bonnet and having tea with a man in breeches. That drawing room faded into a castle, where a figure in silver armor was currently fighting a dragon, and beyond that she caught a glimpse of a black-haired woman on the bow of a ship on the sea. Other people inside their fantasies? Deo was telling the truth—there was a way for her to just stay, perhaps forever.
Josie took a last look at Justin and Nina and the perfect high school life that had never really existed, and she turned her back, stepping out of Deo’s arms and faced the dark nothingness. The knot inside her chest loosened again, loops of rope falling free, and the sensation came with an astounding thought: I’ve lost Justin, and Nina, and Mia, too, and everyone I love has outgrown me, but I’m still me. Somehow, I still survive.
She put her fists on her hips and declared, “You just don’t get it, do you? I’m not going to play your game. Give me back my real life, or I will go full Spice Girls.”
CHAPTER 23
Deo stared at her, that burrowing gaze. She tried not to flinch but couldn’t help rapid blinking, and for a nanosecond between the blinks she saw it again: marble palace hacked into a mountain, red lava lake swirling around her ankles, and Deo and his family all golden, luminous beings.
“I can’t do that, Josie.” Now Deo’s voice had an edge like grating steel. “We’ve already invested so much in your story. Losing you would set us back years. Besides, there aren’t many dreamers like you. As long as I keep you dreaming, your fantasies alone can feed my entire family.”
The shadows moved forward into the silver ring the ghost light cast. No longer shadows, they were the clerks from the bookstore in red aprons, six seemingly young men and women. Without their glasses on, she could feel their hunger tug at her, gnaw on her. It was the flavor of her own hunger, amplified and played back at her like a weapon. She fell to her knees, cowering at the nakedness of her own desires.
You are not only this moment. What would Nina say? To not fight the yearning but own it. Flow with it. Have compassion for it, and for herself. Accept it lovingly.
She exhaled, relaxing into the sensation, and the yearning arced and fell on her like a wave.
“Oh,” she said, feeling it clearly now. Her years of yearning for Broadway weren’t a purely selfish desire to become a star—her yearning was for the song, and the communion between audience and performer, and the unity of a cast that felt more like family than her own, and the lights and sounds and the words so she always knew what to say, and character shoes that fit just right and the costume that transported her.
And also the yearning was for Justin, because she’d believed that becoming a star was what she needed to keep him. After her quick ticket to Broadway failed, she’d curled up tighter, mourning the loss of him, even when he’d probably still been in love with her.
She climbed back to her feet.
“Return to your fantasy, Josie Pie,” said Deo.
“No!” she said. She thrummed with memories of rehearsals and shows, of Justin and Nina, and Mia, too, of the realness of life, even the mundane pieces of being an adult—laundry and grocery shopping and making mac and cheese, the way life smelled and felt in her hands, like a library book, like steeping mint tea, like a worn-in sweatshirt. She smiled. “No,” she said again.
Deo scoffed. “You can’t defeat us. You yourself helped shape our power.”
Two of the book clerks were suddenly dressed as the police officer and the white-coated doctor with his syringe. Bianca and another became bandits with swords. The last two combined into a gray, bubbling Zombloid.
“You mean I did that?” said Josie. “So my imagination affected how even you all appeared in the stories?”
Deo didn’t respond.
“Are we still in the story?” She gestured around. “This isn’t really a bookstore in Missoula. We’re inside a book, right? Some weird empty pocket of the imaginary world I helped develop with Old Betsy here.” She tapped the side of her head, as if Old Betsy were a common nickname for a brain.
Deo flinched. At first Josie thought it was because of her weird Old Betsy comment. But there was a trace of fear in his eyes.
“Oh, for a Muse of fire!” he declared, lifting his hands high. Fire erupted around him. Bright, twisting, heatless fire.
Josie laughed. She knew a show when she saw one. Why so much spectacle? Why not just make her do what he wanted her to?
Because he couldn’t. He must not be able to force her into a fantasy. She had to choose it herself.
