Author: mark_cleaveland

The end.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

Whoosh-suck, went the heart.

The room was just as she had left it, except the spilled crates were now gone. In fact all of the crates were missing, and the candles were now expertly placed in rows around the periphery of the room. The heart sat cradled in its ring. The shiny red bugs continued their endless comings and goings. The pipes clanked and hissed. 

“Oh darling, I’m so happy to see you.” The woman came into view from behind the heart, and glided over to the girl, who had once been named Lisa, with her gloved hand outstretched, as if expecting a kiss.“Life was getting so boring.”

“What happened to the the crates?”

“Oh dear, was there something you needed?  But of course! I cleaned up your mess. Not to worry, anything can be replaced.” The woman clapped her hands together. “I know, let’s go shopping.  Just you and me.”

The girl looked down at her hands, and then she looked over to the vaulted entrance that she had run through when she first came in to the room. Finally, she tipped her head and looked up into the woman’s eyes. Although the woman’s face smiled, the eyes held the girl’s own with a, could it be, nervousness?

Again the girl looked down at her hands.

“No. I’m leaving.”

Whoosh-suck went the heart.  

The woman twittered out a laugh, took out a cigarette, and lit it. The girl noticed that the woman’s hands were shaking.

“Leave?  But darling, you can’t leave. You are safe here.” The woman blew smoke skyward, and tapped ashes out on to the floor.

The girl stood, and looked directly into her eyes. “No.”

She reached out and took the cigarette from the woman’s mouth and dropped it on to the floor. The woman stared back in disbelief as the girl turned and walked toward the vaulted passageway.

“Darling, be reasonable,” stammered the woman. “What about that hideous beast?  I won’t allow it.”

The girl, who had once been named Lisa, continued to walk toward the passageway. Behind her the woman began to age.

“Angela!” The woman collapsed to the floor and let out a wail. “Lisa!”

But still the girl did not look back. She entered the passageway and continued walking, the wailing echoing from the walls. And if she had turned, she would have seen the woman shrivel, and shrivel, and finally scuttle off like a spider. Up the stairs besides the heart the spider went. It leapt into the webbing of pipes, and scurried up and out of site. Then, with a rushing whir the ladybugs all took flight, and rose like a red mist.

Whoosh-suck, went the heart.  Whoosh-suck.

Slowly the passageway dimmed. The girl continued to walk forward with one hand reaching out and the other trailed along the wall beside her. And as the light became ever more faint, she felt fear start to grow within her. Somewhere up ahead, she knew, was the thing, the rasping breath, and the footsteps. Her own breath came more quickly, but even so she continued walking forward until all was completely dark. Still, carefully and slowly she continued on until…

It was right beside her.  How the girl knew, she wasn’t sure, but she froze in place.

“What are you?” the girl whispered.

A rasping of breath answered her, and then she felt her hand being taken up by another’s. She felt it tug, and she heard shambling footsteps leading her through the pitch.

“Where are we going?” the girl’s voice quavered.

Only now she felt a familiar air. Cool and wet, the air enveloped her. She pulled the guiding hand to a halt, and feeling out with her foot to the right and then to the left, she felt where the floor to either side ended in nothingness. Again the hand tugged at her own, and stumbling fearfully behind, Lisa followed.

In fact, so intent on controlling her fear was she, that the girl at first didn’t hear the voice. A very small, very light voice.

“It’s going to be o.k.” said the voice.

The shambling thing in front of the girl let go of her hand.

The girl trembled, afraid to make even the slightest of moments.

“Who’s there?”

“I’m down here.”

Patting with her hand, the girl felt about her – stone, and stone, and then something soft and plushy that crawled on to the palm of her hand. She lifted the hand until it was inches from her face and blew. Instantly a glow of light appeared, and there in the girl’s palm was a furry creature. It looked something like a very tiny hedgehog, only with the softest of fur instead of quills. And strangest of all it was glowing. The girl blew again and the glow brightened.

“Hey, that tickles.”

The girl looked around her and startled. She was on a circular platform from which thin bridges of stone radiated out over a pit of pure black. Her mind screamed out, “What if I had fallen!”

“Then you would have fallen forever,” said the furry creature in her hands. Its glow was starting to fade, so once more the girl brightened it with her breath, and took another look around herself. 

In the middle of the circular platform was a very large box, painted baby blue, that was as tall and wide as herself. And standing in front of the box was the strangest creature she had ever seen. It was a young woman’s body — skin and legs and hips and arms. Except where a head should have been there was nothing. Even so, the girl felt that it was looking at her. The girl turned her attention back the creature in her hand.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I’m your verb.”

The thing shifted its tiny feet on the girl’s palm.

“I’ve been waiting since forever for you to find me.”

 The girl bent in close and whispered, “O.k., but who is she?”

“A friend,” whispered back the verb.

The girl, who had once been named Lisa, looked over, and the woman-thing turned and bumped into the box.

“And where am I?”

“At the beginning silly,” said the small voice. “It’s time for us to go.”

The woman-thing was clumsily moving around the box, reaching up and lifting back it’s folded in top. When she had done this, she proceeded to heft herself up and over and disappear into the box.

“Where are we going?” asked the girl. With the verb in one hand she, too, approached the box.”

“I don’t know yet,” said the verb.

The girl, who had once been named Lisa, reached up and, being careful to protect the verb, she strained with her free arm and was just able to pull herself up and over into the box. She then sat back against one of the walls as the woman-thing pulled the tops of the box closed above them. And as the last top came down, the girl heard the verb whisper, “I just know it’s somewhere I’ve been heading toward my whole life.”

She felt the warmth of sunshine on her face. Birds were calling, and the air was fresh and smelled of new-green. She opened her eyes, and found that she was lying on grass in the midst of a large garden. Everywhere was color and activity. Honeybees moved from one flower to the next. Butterflies settled through the air. Birds rose and fell through the sky high overhead.

She sat up, and found that in one hand she clutched a feather. Around her the gardens stretched up to a palace of soft, honey-colored stone that had large, arched windows. Leaning back on her hands, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and let her head fall back.

“I’m home,” she thought.  “This is my home.” 

She paused.

“And my first word shall be a name of my own choosing. And I choose…” 

PART 5.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

Once again her name slipped from her mind. What had the woman called her? But even more important than her name was what lay before her. At first she thought that she had stepped in front of a large crowd with a single spotlight lighting a plot of space around her. From all directions faces and eyes bore in to her, so that as she walked into the middle of the room, she used a hand to shield her face. Then, dropping it, and standing up straight, she looked around her.

Everywhere she looked Lisas looked back at her. The walls. The domed ceiling. All was covered with mirrors. Strangely, though, the Lisas in these mirrors were not the girl who stood unnamed in the middle of the room. Some of the Lisas were young girls energetically shifting from one leg to the other. Some appeared to be in middle-school, and were pulling brushes through long, brown hair. Others were closer to her current age, and stood with their hands on their hips, shifting their bodies critically this way and that. All of them, though, were staring at her, although “glaring” might be more accurate, and all of them appeared to be in a room that looked like a room that she remembered — a place where she once lived. There was her bed. There were her dresser and desk. There was the window with its floral curtains letting in afternoon sunshine. There was no doubt about it, these Lisas were all in what appeared to be her room in her mother’s house, while she…what was her name again?… stood before them, like a plaintiff before a jury.

“Who…”

But before she could say anything, one of the young Lisa’s shrugged her shoulders and turned away from the mirror. With a jerk, she felt herself spun around.  Before her a teenage Lisa was brushing her hair, and her arm spasmed up, and began to move back and forth over her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another Lisa slump back into the desk’s chair, and suddenly she felt herself flung to the floor.

“What…what’s happening?”

All around her the mirror Lisa’s went about their business, and as they did so, she found herself flung this way and that. Some jumped on the bed, and she found herself leaping up, time after time. Some moved their mouths this way and that, and picked at their teeth, and this made her face contort along with them. Some sat on the floor cutting valentines from paper, some danced, some stared, some pulled on clothes, and whatever the activity, her body flopped along, mimicking their actions, and the room filled with a cacophony of noise. Chatting, laughing, music, thuds, and in the middle of all of this, she was flung about like a marionette. On and on the activity went. When some Lisas went to sleep others were just waking. When some left for school, others were just coming home.

At first the girl, once known as Lisa, struggled for control, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she willed her own body, it continued to pull itself this way and that. In fact, with time she found that her mind wasn’t even needed. With a start she would come to, and realize that in her absence her body had continued to act on its own accord. And so slowly, she attended to it less and less. And slowly, more and more, it was if she wasn’t even there.

“You are stuck like a fly in a web.”

The thought drifted into her mind like the lightest of silks blown from late summer’s milkweed. So soft and so light was this thought as it settled itself on her awareness, that at first she didn’t notice it. In the mirrors all of the Lisa’s continued their routines. Some staring forward and touching their foreheads or brushing their hair. (Her arms flailed.) Some passing across their bedrooms without a glance. (She was pulled lock-step sideways). Some plopping into the bed, pulling out a phone and texting a friend. (She fell to the hard floor, lifted her hands and twiddled her thumbs.)

“You are words in a web.”

The thought lifted and brushed across her attention, and this time she did notice.

“You are right,” she told herself.  “It is a web made of echoes.”

“Hi there,” said the first thought in a tiny voice.

“Hello sister,” whispered back the second.

She watched these two thoughts as they lazily swirled and danced. They would stop, and then blow back into life, lift up and cross the blue sky of her imagination. And just for a moment, for the briefest of moments, the girl once known as Lisa, who was sitting on a hard cold, stone floor, in a room surrounded by mirrors, in a place in which nothing seemed to make sense – for the briefest of moments, she felt a breeze brush across her skin. A breeze that carried the fresh smell of sunshine and new-green plants.  And for that moment she closed her eyes and smiled because she was remembering. Yes, she was had been named. She was remembering, and this was her memory.

Once upon a time she had gone on a trip to the beach with her mother and father. She was four and sitting in a booster seat in the back seat of the car. The car was edging out on to the asphalt of the highway. Her parents were laughing, young and smiling in the front seat. Their car had run out of gas a quarter mile before the gas station, but it had kept rolling and rolling, and they had all yelled encouragement, and the car had slowed and slowed, until it crept to a stop precisely next to a gas station’s pump. They had all cheered, and little Lisa had watched as her mother and father had happily kissed, and when her father had opened the passenger door and pulled her out, he had swung her around in a big hug. “Can’t you just taste it!?” he had said. Now, the car was pulling away from the station, and Lisa, in her booster seat was smiling. Behind her, packed among the duffle bags, boogie boards, snorkel and flippers was a powdered-blue egg the size of a grape.  She had found it in the high grass at the edge of the gas station, and with her mother’s help, she had packed the egg in tissue and put it into her mom’s toiletry kit.

In her booster seat the four year-old Lisa smiled as she thought about her mother and her father and her egg, and in the room of mirrors, sitting on the cold, stone floor the older girl, who had been named Lisa, also smiled, and opened her eyes. Around her the mirrors shone, and in each, the mirror-Lisa was standing and staring in at Lisa as if through a storefront window.

“Then what happened?” asked one of the Lisas.  

The room filled with questions and exclamations tossed in at her from every direction.  

“Tell them,” laughed one of the thoughts in the girl’s mind.

“Tell them what?” whispered the girl, who had once been name Lisa. She could feel her muscles slipping away from her, and it was all she could do to keep from once more jumping to her feet and moving like a puppet on strings.

“Who you are,” danced the second thought.

“Remember who you are. You are the dream catcher; the word giver.”

This last voice was a new thought. It sighed into shape and expanded like a balloon in the girl’s mind. As it did so the other two thoughts became tinier and tinier.

“Goodbye” called out the thoughts. “Goodbye.”

“The dream catcher,” she whispered to herself. “Why does that sound familiar?”  And then another memory spread into her mind.

One summer she had gone by herself to stay with her grandmother. This was when she was 13, and a growth spurt was stretching her legs and arms so that she scarcely recognized the person who stared back at her in the mirror. One night that summer she woke with her calves knotted up and cramped. She must have called out in pain, because the next thing she knew her grandmother was there, rubbing and massaging her legs. Her grandmother had strong, callused hands, and she kneaded lotion into Lisa’s skin that smelled of mint and that made Lisa’s skin throb with warmth.  

“There, there,” said her grandmother. “It’s going to be o.k. Lisa. Shhhh. It’s going to be o.k. Shhhh.”

Only now Lisa was sobbing. Her whole body shook and shuddered with the sobs.  Her grandmother shifted her weight to the top of the bed, and gently pulled Lisa’s head on to her lap. Without a word her hand stroked through Lisa’s hair. Over and over it passed.  

“What did I do? What did I do?” cried Lisa over and over.

“Oh, my sweet girl,” said her grandmother. “My sweet, beautiful girl. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. Shhhh. It’s not your fault.”

Finally, the sobs receded. Lisa stared darkly up from her grandmother’s lap, and still she felt the broad fingers gently pulling strands away from her face and ears and smoothing the top of her head. Lisa felt the damp from her tears on her grandmother’s nightgown.

“I got your night gown wet,” wavered Lisa’s voice.

“It’s alright.”

So Lisa lay there. The night air was warm, and the windows were open. From outside came the whirr of crickets and from somewhere, the calling of an owl. She could feel her grandmother’s lap beneath the nightgown, and across the room was the dark shape of the dresser topped with the music boxes that her grandmother collected, jewelry boxes, and bottles of perfume. Each breath her grandmother took raised and lowered Lisa’s head ever so slightly.

“Come with me. I want to show you something,” said her grandmother, and she hefted herself up from the side of the bed.  

Down the stairs they creaked to the kitchen. Lisa loved her grandmother’s kitchen. It always smelled of cookies, or Thanksgiving turkey, or roasts in the oven.  There was a small table pushed against one wall, and a round window, surrounded with a hanging of ivy, that looked out at the night sky. To Lisa it was a perfect kitchen.

Her grandmother gestured her to sit at the table. She put a kettle on and brought Lisa a glass of cold ginger ale in an aluminum cup. Then she reached up into a cabinet and pulled down a shoebox, which she placed on the table, before sitting down opposite Lisa. She lifted its lid, and one-by-one pulled out its contents. A dog-eared letter, a pin in the shape of an angel, a cross on a silver chain(her grandmother was Catholic), photographs.

“Do you see this?” said her grandmother. In her hand she had what looked like a spider web. Its outermost ring was made of crooked sticks that had been tied together.  Thread had then been strung and patterned across the space between the sticks, and mixed in with the twine were shells and beads.

“You made this for me when you were little.” Then her grandmother reached in and pulled out another, similar shape. “And here is one that I made when I was little, too. I thought it was fun to keep them together. Do you remember what they are called”

Lisa nodded, and her grandmother continued.

“They are dream catchers. The idea is that you’d hang it over your bed. Because usually when you are asleep, dreams drift in, and they are hard to hold on to. Like clouds.”

The tea kettle had begun to whistle, so Lisa’s grandmother got up from the table.  After a moment, Lisa reached out and turned the dream catcher she had made so long ago over in her hands.

“But with a dream catcher some of dreams get stuck.”

Lisa’s grandmother poured hot water into a mug, and returned to the table.

“Over the years I’ve found all sorts of dreams in those webs. I once wanted a parakeet so badly, and you can’t imagine the number of parakeet dreams I pulled out of the web in the mornings. But there were also dreams about being at school with no clothes on.”

Lisa’s grandmother laughed.

“I hate that dream,” said Lisa.

“Oh, it’s a horrible dream, all right. But the thing about dreams is that in the daytime they do look completely different than at night. Beautiful in a way – even the frightening ones. Our dreams, after all, are who we are and who we need to become deep, deep down. All of us are beautiful, and all of us are afraid, and all of us are capable of wonderful things just as we are capable of hurtful things, and there’s never anything wrong with that. There is never anything wrong with seeing those parts of yourself.”

Lisa’s grandmother blew her tea and took a gulp.

“Anyway, I think you should have them.”  

“But they are yours. Really?”

“Of course.”

Lisa scraped back her chair, went around the table and put herself in the broad hug that was her grandmother.

“I love you grandma.”

“I love you too, Lisa. Now, how about you become my dream catcher?” She reached out, took Lisa by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Do you promise?”

“I promise,” said Lisa.

So when it had come time for Lisa to leave her grandmother’s, in her bag, pressed carefully between t-shirts were the two dream catchers. For the next three months Lisa kept them hung on the wall behind her bed.

It had only been three months, though, because her grandmother had died, and at the funeral, Lisa had reached in to her pocket and tossed both dream catchers into the grave. What was the point? Really. What…Was…The…Point?

The girl, who had once been named Lisa, opened her eyes. All around her the mirror Lisa’s reflected back at her. The little girl Lisas, and the teenage Lisas, and all the Lisas in between stood silently looking in at her.

“Well?” one asked. And then the room was filled with a yammering throng as they all called out. “Well?Well?Well?” But the girl, once named Lisa, wasn’t paying any attention to them. She whispered to herself, “I’m done with this. It’s time to move on.” She stood, and with that the room went silent. Lisa walked to the small wooden door, her footsteps echoing across the room. The Lisas watched, and when the girl, once named Lisa, reached the door she turned and said, “Don’t worry. I forgive you. You all did what you had to do.”  Then she turned, opened the door, and walked out of the room.

PART 4.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

A cavernous room lay before her, as large as any vaulted cathedral. Its light came from hundreds and hundreds of candles. Some in sconces along the cream-colored walls, but most placed, dripping, on stacks of wooden crates that piled up high along the columns that arched up and disappeared into a twilight high up overhead. Crates and candles placed willy nilly making the room glow with a warm light that was simultaneously diffuse and constellated. 

However, what caught her attention was what was in the middle of the arched room. 

There, resting securely in a metal ring, sat an enormous beating heart. With a whoosh and suck, the heart expanded and contracted, expanded and contracted.  Steaming pipes converged and spread around it, and along these pipes shuttled what looked like ladybugs. They poured into the heart and swarmed out, before disappearing with the piping upward into the dusky dimness. Steps wound up along one side of the heart to a railing-ringed observation platform. With a whoosh and suck, the heart expanded and contracted, expanded and contracted, and the pipes steamed and quivered from the force.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” said a woman’s voice.

She jumped. She had been so astonished by the sight before her, that she had not been aware of the woman who stood watching her. The woman was dressed in a form-fitting black dress and black elbow-length gloves. The woman had swept back blond hair, cut to the shoulders, and sparkling blue eyes. She was the most elegant woman the girl had ever seen.

“Um, yes it is,” she replied

“A bit hideous,” the woman gaily drawled. “But definitely not as hideous as that thing out there,” and she gestured toward the entrance.

“You know about that? What is it?”

“Oh, you don’t want to know, darling, trust me. But you’re safe. She never comes in here. I think I frighten her, the pathetic thing.”

The woman turned and sauntered away, waving one arm gracefully in the direction of the heart. “Such a good little worker.”

Whoosh-suck, went the heart. The girl, fell in behind the woman. 

“Excuse me, but who are you?”

“Tut-tut. Mind your manners. Besides darling,” said the woman, turning to face her, “I was going to ask you the very same thing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I’m, I’m…” And at that moment the girl was surprised that she could not remember her name. “Lisa?” she said uncertainly

The woman gave out a peel of laughter that sounded like a tinkling of bells. She approached the girl and put her hands on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes.

“Oh no, no, no.  Trust me, my dear. You are not Lisa.”

“What?”

“Mmm. She never could keep her slimy hands to herself,” sighed the woman, and then under her breath she continues, “She’s as ugly as they come, and I say that as her loving sister.”  

The woman pulled out a long slender cigarette, and casually lit it.

“Between you and me, though, she can keep her writhings and ink at the bottom of the sea. Some things are best repressed, right? Or at the very least, denied and locked away in the darkest depths. All that cold hard pressure!” And with that the woman shook herself with what seemed pleasure.

The girl was beginning to think that the woman before her was mad.

“Look, Miss…?”

The woman seemed not to be paying her any mind. 

She continued, “Excuse me.  I’m sorry, but can you tell me how to get ou…”  

The girls was cut off mid-sentence by a cigarette butt bouncing off of her head.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I do that?” said the woman. 

The woman then turned from the girl, who stood thoroughly confused, and sauntered over to the beating heart. With a casual flick of her hand through her perfectly groomed hair, she turned to face girl.  

“Now, let’s get something straight, darling. This, she said like a game show model displaying a new refrigerator, “is Lisa.”

Whoosh-suck, went the heart. Click, click, click went the thousands of shiny, red bugs.

The woman reached out with one of her gloved arms and patted the heart affectionately.

 “God bless her. Lisa might get riled up, but she’s not going anywhere.”  She turned back to face the girl. Looking her up and down, the woman shook her head and clucked her tongue against her teeth. Her expression was one of pity.

“You? Let’s name you Angela. That was what I always wanted. Now Angela, we really need to get you into some new clothes.”

The girl-now-named-Angela looked down at her torn and soot-covered dress, and suddenly she felt very ugly, like a piece of gum stuck to someone else’s shoe. Her hair felt somehow dusty and greasy, and looking at her hands she saw that they were blackened with soot. Her knees were scraped and dirty. 

“Comecomecomecome,” said the woman, and striding over to Angela she shooed her along to one of the many stacks of crates that lined the walls of the room.  

“Top box. Go on. I’ve been saving them for you.”

Angela looked up at the pile of stacked crates. It did not look particularly sturdy, and the many candles stuck from corners and edges and tops.

“Go on! The clothes. They…Are…Adorable.”

Nervously, Angela reached out and grabbed hold of the wooden top of a crate.  She gave it a shake, and it wobbled. Then taking great care, she began to climb, carefully edging her way around candles and up one step after another. The crates moved beneath her and large shadows drunkenly moved about the room, and a few times Angela froze, straining to bring the pile back into balance, before continuing her climb.

Below her the woman casually paced back and forth, looking up at her with a bored expression.

At last Angela found herself beside the top crate. She blew out the two candles there, and lifted up the lid, and saw inside neatly folded piles of clothes. Reaching in she pulled out a black newsboy hat, a kaki skirt with buckled pockets and a cream colored blouse. Then crouching beside the crate she quickly pulled off her dress, buttoned up the blouse, and began to pull on the skirt. The blouse was long-sleeved and tapered ever so slightly at the waste, and the skirt was snug so that Angela needed to take small jumps as she pulled them up. The mountain of crates shifted beneath her.

“You know, you and I are going to be the best of friends,” called up the woman.

At that moment, though, the crates gave way beneath Angela, and with a loud crash they tumbled to the ground with Angela in their midst. For a moment the room was absolutely still.

Whoosh-suck went the heart.  Click-click-click-click went the bugs.

Angela lay outstretched on the speckled grey marble of the floor, and her head pounded from where it had banged against a crate. Slowly, she stood, holding a hand to her head. 

About her crates and candles — some still flickering and some now out and streaming smoke — lay strewn like rubble. Many of the crates had smashed open and disgorged their contents on to the floor — clothes, photos, wrappers, ticket stubs, receipts, and spool after spool after spool of thread. They rolled and pirouetted across the floor of the room. And if the girl-now-named-Angela had looked closely she would have noticed the squashed pink of a small, tattered walrus, baby teeth, the blue shell of a robin’s egg, and a card brushed over with colored paint. But she didn’t because at that moment the woman gave out a wail and collapsed to the ground.

“You clumsy girl! Now look what you’ve done!” She pushed pieces of wooden crate from her, and sat upright. Spools of thread fell from her no-longer-perfect hair.

And then the strangest thing happened. Before Angela’s eyes the woman began to change. Streaks of grey appeared in her hair, and wrinkles slowly began to spread from her eyes to her forehead and cheeks. It was if, like a balloon, she was deflating. With another wail, the woman leapt to her feet, tottered over to the steps beside the heart.  

“This is the thanks I get. I give you everything,” babbled the woman.  “Everything!”

As the woman mounted the steps, her pace slowed, and her posture became more stooped. With each step she leaned more heavily on the railing, until finally she slowed to a stop.

Still holding a hand against her throbbing head, Angela nervously walked over and climbed the steps until she stood just behind the old crone. “She looks like a little girl playing dress-up,” thought Angela.

“Is there anything I can do?” asked Angela, leaning in close to the woman’s face.

“Youth is wasted on the young,” muttered the crone, and collapsed back into Lisa’s arms.  She was as light as a doll, and Lisa hefted her up and held the old woman against her chest.

“Take,” wheezed the woman, “take me…to the platform.”

Cradling the woman, Angela climbed the remaining steps. The red bugs swarmed along pipes, and the throb of the heart made the platform quiver.

“Closer,” gasped the woman.

Angela edged forward. Daring to look down, she saw the red muscle of the heart pulsing and contracting.

Suddenly, a long, thin tongue shot out from the aging woman’s mouth. It darted out, struck one of the red bugs, and before Angela could even blink, bug and tongue disappeared back into the woman’s mouth. With a sigh the woman closed her eyes and her mouth crunched and chewed. Angela was so surprised by this that she dropped the woman, with a thump, to the platform floor. She took several steps back, and watched.

Once again, the woman was changing. Except this time, she was a balloon taking on air. The stoop straightened, the hair colored, and curves filled out the dress. The woman propped herself up with long, elegant arms, and gracefully got to her feet. She pressed her dress out along her filled form. She turned this way, and she turned that, as if checking for any imperfections, and then she turned to face Angela. Her expression was one of bemusement.

“We women have to have our little secrets, no?”

“I…I,” stammered Angela.

“No darling, we’ve already been through all that.  Not ‘I,’ ‘Me!’”

The woman turned and surveyed the wreckage of the boxes on the floor below.

“My goodness what a mess you’ve made.”

She paused with her hands on her hips.

“Well, we can’t worry about that now. It’s time to go. It’s what you said that you wanted. Come along.” And without waiting the woman descended the steps to the room’s floor. She marched over to a small wooden door that Angela had not noticed before. It was recessed in the wall, and standing beside it, the woman waited for Angela to join her.

“Now,” said the woman, “Make me proud.” She reached out and patted Angela’s clothing and, licking her fingers, she rubbed them against Angela’s forehead. She stepped back to admire her handiwork. “They’re going to love you.” She pushed open the door. “Oh, and darling, try to have fun!”

Perplexed, Angela peered at the door, and then slowly walked through it. With a soft clack the door closed behind her.

PART 3.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

With a start she raised herself up, all senses alert. She held her breath and focused all of her attention on listening.  

Nothing.  

Something had changed. She was sure of it. She raised herself up on her arms, and strained her senses at the dark, strained until it hurt.  

And then she heard it.

A scraping sound, like a heavy sack being pulled across a floor. The sound stopped, and then a few moments later returned.  

“Who’s there?” She called out, but no reply came back.  

The sound approached and grew louder, and now she could hear a rasping breath.

Panic overwhelmed her, and frantically she began to crawl away. She scrabbled across the ground, and paused to listen, gasping for breath.

The scraping had ceased. Replacing it, though, was the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Slow. Confused, but unmistakably searching.

Unsteadily, she stood. Her joints ached from being curled up for so long, and she felt dizzy, but even so she stumbled away, moving as quickly as she could with her hands outstretched in front of her.  

“Oof!”  

Her vision burst with yellow sparks, and she fell to the ground. She had run into a wall. A wall! It was something. The first something she had encountered in this place. 

Ignoring the pain, she crouched and pressed herself as tightly as possible against the invisible wall. It was rough as if made of stacked stones. The footsteps thudded closer, and closer, and then faltered. She took shallow breaths and kept absolutely still.  Every particle in her shook with fear. She heard rasping breath. She heard a shuffle. And then another shuffle, and then the steps began to move away. Bumping and thudding, they became fainter, and more faint, and then ceased to exist. 

And now we have come in a circle, back to the start of our story. We are with a girl, once named Lisa, in a very dark place, who is blindly feeling herself forward on her hands and knees. She whispers to herself over and over, “There has to be a way out,” and her hands pat out frantically in front of her, over the dusty stone. 

Suddenly her hands find only empty space. So suddenly in fact did this happen that she almost falls forward, and she feels a cool, wet breeze blowing upward from an even greater emptiness. Her hands shake, and she thinks, “What if I had fallen into that?” 

Slowly, keeping her fingers cupped over the pit’s edge, she inches along on her knees. 

But her thought is interrupted. There it was again, faint but definite, the sound of the steps. How long had it been following? Days? Weeks? Years…the thudding, erratic steps coming for her.

“Please,” she sobs, and then under her breath, “You have to keep going,” and moving away from the pit, her hands feel quickly in front of her. So quickly, that at first she doesn’t notice that the stone floor has changed to something smoother, and then her hands are rising up a wall. Not rock, but concrete maybe. Wobbling she stands, and once more begins to run, her left hand keeping contact with the wall. 

At first nothing changed. And then far ahead, like a pin being stuck through a black piece of paper, a prick of light appeared. It flickered like a star. It bobbed like a firefly. Gradually, dustings of light began to coat her surroundings — a vaulted ceiling of brick, a marble floor, and cement walls. Ahead, she saw an archway grow and pouring from it light, and warmth and a familiar sound. Not daring to look behind her, she strained herself forward toward this light.

Gasping, she reached the archway, and paused. The light squeezed into her vision too, too bright, until finally, her eyes, like dried sponges slowly began to soak in the sight before her. 

PART 2.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

Pump-pump. 

She heard a heart beat. In the inky black, she heard a heart beat and breathing. 

Pump-pump. Gasp. Pump-pump. Gasp. 

Then she sputtered back into oblivion.

***

Pump-pump.

Pump-pump.

She could not see. Everything was pitch black. She could feel that she was sitting with her feet tucked under herself. But the darkness was so thorough that she could not see herself. Through her clothes (a doctor’s gown?) she felt the coolness of a hard floor. Blindly, she lifted fingers to her face, and felt them push against the flesh of a cheek. She slowly let them pass over the smoothness of a forehead. Then she lowered her hands to the floor in front of herself, and, kneeling now, crawled herself forward. The ground was smooth. Stone perhaps. Or concrete. She worked in a tight circle, and in all directions that is what she felt. Stone, smooth and cool. No walls.

Her eyes began to play tricks. A patch of light floated across her vision.

“Hello?!”

She crawled forward. Shapes seemed to rise up, flowing and pulsing across her vision. They snaked up, writhing in all directions.

“Hello?! Can anybody hear me?”

She paused. Her ears rushed with the silence.

Pump-pump. 

Pump-pump.

She lowered herself gently to the floor, lay on her side and brought her knees up to her chest. Deep down inside she heard a small voice say, “I always knew they would abandon you. Why wouldn’t they?” And then she fell asleep.

***

How many times she awakened and slept she did not know. At first she crawled, patting her hands in front of herself, but eventually she stopped. What was the point? Nothing ever changed. The cool stone. The drenching blackness. And silence, except for a heartbeat — a breathing. These sounds of a body were not connected with her thinking. They existed elsewhere. And so sleeping became waking, and waking became sleeping.  

Dreams coursed around her. She was flying over green trees. She was walking next to a boy, and he looked into her eyes. She was buttoning a shirt, only to find the buttons coming undone even as she moved on to the next. She was in a cellar, and something was coming down the steps, coming down to kill her.

PART 1.
This is a short story of sorts that might or might not be part of a larger cycle. If it is, then it is towards the end — part 4 of 6. Maybe. We’ll see. Anyway, rather than dump the story into one large post, I’m going to chunk it up and let it be consumed over a couple of posts. Enjoy.

She listened. The sound. Was it receding? Bumping and thudding it went. Yes, bumping and thudding, it became fainter and fainter. She allowed herself once more to breathe. Her heart beat quickly, and in the darkness that enveloped her, she eased herself away from the wall of cool stone that was at her back. Desperately, she again stretched out her hands and felt her way forward, trying to keep her breathing shallow and quiet. 

“There’s no way out!” cried a voice in her head.  

She fought down the panic. “Somehow I got here,” she thought.

There’s no way out!” cried the voice again and again. “There is no way out!”

“Where am I?” she whispered out loud. “Where am I?”

***

Once upon a time there was a girl named Lisa, and she found herself lost in a place so inky black that she lost her name and began to doubt that she even existed. And once upon a time there was a girl who chose her own name, who rediscovered herself as both a bird and a young woman, and who built from her own words a castle surrounded by rich gardens that rolled out like a dress during a deep curtsey. It all started, though, when the girl named Lisa came home from school one day to find that her mother had cleaned out the closet in her room. 

For years the closet in Lisa’s room had been dependable, and like so many dependable things in life, she had taken it for granted. It had been her one proof, though proof of what, exactly, she was uncertain, as she had bounced from her father’s to her mother’s, from camp to camp, and from school to school. All she knew was that the proof was necessary. The closet contained calendars with photos of pop stars (a gift from one of her mom’s boyfriends), coffee mugs from Disney World (from when she had gone with her dad and his new wife), a telescope, puzzles of the United States (to help her learn her capitals), a tent (a gift from her mom’s former boyfriend), shoes, necklaces (gifts from the parents of her mom’s current boyfriend), ticket stubs from movies that she’d gone to on birthdays, foil wrappers from Easter chocolates, baby teeth she had lost, the crushed egg of a robin kept in a plastic bag, and mixed in down at the very bottom of the pile were spools of thread and a card streaked with colored paint that someone had given her when she was little. Willie, Lisa’s stuffed walrus from her childhood, was stuck under a teepee that was part of a story line that went with an expensive set of dolls.

One Sunday night, however, when Lisa came back from her father’s she found her closet emptied, and on her dresser was a music box.

“Mom, what happened to all my stuff?!”

Lisa’s mother stood in the doorway to the room, with her usual pasted on smile.

“How about a ‘Thanks mom’?” said her mother. Here voice had a cheerful quality to it. The kind of cheerful that never listens. 

“I can’t believe you! Those were my things.”

“Lisa, it was a big mess. It was attracting bugs for goodness sakes, and it exhausted me. Do you want that? And this is so much better. Didn’t it exhaust you?”

Lisa walked over and fell backward on to her bed and stared at the ceiling.

“Besides, next year you’ll go to college.”

“So?”

“So? You don’t need that junk anymore, and anyway, I’m the one that lives here full-time. God, what will a roommate think of you? Little Miss hoarder.”

Lisa still lay on her sofa, staring at the ceiling. Her mother stayed in the doorway, waiting, as if still expecting to be thanked.

“Did you see the music box I got you? The therapist says that’s what you nee…”

As the words were coming out of her mother’s mouth, Lisa was up. In one motion she grabbed the music box and hurled it against the wall. With a crash, the box splintered apart and fell to the floor. In a fury Lisa turned towards her mother.

“I…Did…Not…Ask…For a music box,” she said with a cold fury. Her words were like a hammer. Hit. Hit. Hit. She panted, and glared straight into her mother’s eyes. Her mother, though, had not even flinched.

“Fine.” Her mother held up her hands. “Fine. Be your father’s spoiled daughter.”

“Get out!” screamed Lisa. “I can’t wait to be out of here!”

“That makes two of us,” her mother replied, and then turned and walked away, the door left open to the room as if to show the world Lisa’s shame.

For years it had been like this — a life lived as if she were a clenched fist. If Lisa’s mind still contained memories of Sebastian, Willie, Verbs, and the City spread about like the panes of a stained glass window, well, she wouldn’t have known where to find them. Her dad had remarried, and Lisa had smiled at the wedding and carried the ring on a pillow. There were half-sisters born, and the young son of her mom’s boyfriend brought into her life. She went to camps in the summer, played field hockey in the fall and soccer in the spring. She had friends who gossiped about each other and with whom she chatted online. Mostly, though, her days seemed to skip across her life like a stone skipping across the smooth water of a lake.

Did Jared like her?

OMG, she totally wasn’t ready for the math test!

She should write for the newspaper so that she’d have a better chance of getting into a good college.

 Skip. Skip. Skip.

Her mother’s boyfriend had moved out, and her mom had gone on a trip. That’s when Lisa had lived with her dad and his new family full-time. And then her mother had returned, and there was nastiness, and lawyers, and Lisa had moved back in with her mother, and a judge had decided that her father owed her mom money.

Skip. Skip.

And around her, like the passing of the night with its vibrant city lights, the Land of Not (which is what the city had used to be called) had slowly, imperceptibly awakened to a dawn emptied of color. Where it had once been a stained glass window, it was now a sidewalk – flat, hard and stretching out as far the eye could see. Each day was one foot in front of the other. Where the King’s tower had once stood was just another building, with scaffolding up its side. Where the ocean had once caressed the warm sand, were plastic cups, and other debris blown off the streets. And where the frogs had once called along side the river bank, a highway rushed and rushed and curved its way along the bay.  

But none of this mattered. In fact, none of it was even noticed. Lisa did not care about things like that anymore. 

It was not to say that the city had become ugly. It hadn’t. The water towers on the roofs, and the brick buildings, and the skyscrapers, and the roads crammed with honking cars – all of these things still carried the same energy of dreams being broken down, piece by piece, and then built back up. No, the problem with the city, if indeed there was a problem, was that it now held Lisa in an embrace so tight that breathing was becoming difficult. An embrace so tight that it was hard to even see the brick buildings, the skyscrapers and the roads crammed with honking cars. They clamored and pounded to be admitted into her mind. It was like the city, once so fluid and ever-changing, had hardened, and hardened, and hardened some more, and Lisa was caught on the inside, crumbling. There was always something that needed doing. Errands to get done. Homework to do. Things to buy, and therapists to see.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

Was that her heart departing her? Over the buildings and out to sea it went, while left behind was something black an oily, or black and hard, or maybe, just empty.

“Lisa! We have to get going!”

Lisa woke with a start. It was the next morning. She turned and looked at her clock. 6:45. She had exactly 10 minutes to get ready for school. Pulling herself out of bed, she grabbed a pair of pants off the back of a chair and slipped them on. Even as she did so she cleared away the strands of dream that still stuck to her face like a spider’s web. It had been something about a flood. Something about tentacles — dark and caressing her with a trembling love.

“Lisa?!”

“I’m awake!”

Lisa pushed the dream from her mind. It unsettled her. She pulled on a t-shirt from an already open drawer and stood before the mirror.  

That was when she noticed that something was not right. Something that she could not place, like an itch that doesn’t disappear with the scratching. There she stood.  Her black hair had its usual morning pre-brush straggle, and when she reached her hand up to touch her face, her reflection reached up and touched its face, too. But Lisa could not escape the feeling that who she saw in the mirror wasn’t really her – that the person looking back did not belong to her.

“I’m going!” she heard her mother yell up from the first floor.

“All right, I’m coming!  I’m coming!”

Lisa grabbed a brush, scooped up her socks and shoes and ran out the door. And as the sound of her bare feet clumped down the steps, if anyone had been there to notice, they would have seen that her reflection remained in the mirror — that it narrowed its eyes, and smiled, before stepping out into the room.

All that day at school Lisa felt off. Her head felt light, and it seemed like her voice came from far away. It was lunchtime, and she was sitting with her friends, Jenny and Kate.

“Didn’t you used to be friends with Sebastian?”

“I don’t know if I’d say friends.”

“Oh god, Jenny, not Sebastian again. He is so not your type. Do you think he’s her type?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“See? Lisa says he’s not your type.”

“Oh be quiet.”

“Jesus, who’s Miss Sensitive? I’m just saying – wait, rewind. You knew Sebastian, right?”

“Kind of. We played together when we were kids. I think my parents knew his dad or something. It’s sort of embarrassing.”

Lisa’s two friends stared at her, waiting for her to go on, but she didn’t. She just stared at her salad, and then put it aside. For just a second she felt herself drifting up from her seat. Lisa grabbed hold of the table, and looked at her friends. They hadn’t noticed anything. Instead, Jenny looked at a cheese stick that she was holding in front of her face, before letting it drop on to her tray..

“Ug. School food is so disgusting.”

“Wait. Do you want to hear disgusting? I heard that Erica saw Mr. Ziniac kissing Mrs. Palmer in the teachers lounge!”

“Kate!” Jenny shrieked. “Are you trying to make us puke?!”

Lisa pasted a smile to her face, but inside she thought, “What’s wrong with me?”  She felt weak and hollow, like she was water pouring out through a sieve. And as she felt herself emptied she began to feel cold. Her body shivered, and her teeth chattered. The feeling continued through French, and Calculus. Lisa was sure that someone would notice, but classes went on as normal, until finally school let out, and Lisa walked home.

The streets seemed to rock beneath her feet, and once Lisa had to reach out and hold on to a metal lamppost because she felt as if a breeze had lifted her from the ground.  Cars honked and baby strollers and pedestrians continued to stream around her. The sun shone down on the awnings of the shop fronts and restaurants, and no one noticed Lisa’s struggle. With all of her will, she managed to get home. Her hands shook as she opened the lockbox and took out the key.  

Leaving the door open, she entered the empty house, and began to walk up the steps to her room. Each step wore her out, and she paused half way up the stairs in order to rest her forehead against the wall.

Finally she made it to her room.  

The last thing that she saw was the shattered remains of the music box on the floor.  

The last thing she heard was a voice coming from behind her.  

“Happy birthday,” it said.

And with a puff, Lisa felt herself blown out like a candle.