I’m Still Here
03
Lady Yate-xel
Stephanie had been traveling with the group for weeks on end, and never once complained about the strange conditions she lived in. She expressed to Edgar that she loved T-shirt dresses, and only felt bad that they had been his shirts. She loved reading bad tabloid articles, dressing up to wail about people’s deaths, sneaking snacks, learning broken German, and fake-driving the van. She didn’t eat very well, but she didn’t know that.
After Johnny’s combination myth from and about Hell, Stephanie practically demanded exposure to the origins of all the stories. Edgar was happy to give her something better than tabloids, and picked up mythology books when they passed through towns with used book stores. It wasn’t that the Homicides couldn’t afford a new mythology book, it was just that both Stephanie and Edgar preferred ‘old book smell’. Edgar’s basement often had that smell and he had been surprised to see Stephanie know what he was talking about when he mentioned it one day.
In the course of the same day, Edgar could forget that Stephanie didn’t have all six years of life she appeared to, and later be keenly aware of it. That she had a fondness for old book smell both made him feel comfortable and made him wonder if mildew was a part of the collective unconscious.
Stephanie devoured the books along with her sugary snack food and dry packets of ramen. She read the most classical and typical stories that Edgar could find, and the most obscure deteriorating volumes of myth from tiny islands thousands and thousands of miles away. She never brought the books to Edgar questioning anything about how the gods and goddesses managed the things they did, which sort of disappointed him. Instead, she found connections to the stories and cultures in daily life, down to the predictions on her fortune cookies and the order Edgar put on his shoes.
“You put your left shoe on first,” she said to him one day, standing warily in front of him, as though afraid she’d catch something from his shoes.
“Um, yes?”
“In other places, the word for left sounds like ‘sinister.’ That’s bad, evil. And unlucky.” Stephanie stared at Edgar’s foot, which was only part of the way into the shoe. “It’s bad in some countries; they make people not use that side. And other places! If you go left in this one place, it-”
“Sweetie, it’s okay,” Edgar said. “It’s just my shoe.”
“Don’t cheat, okay?”
“I-what?”
“Don’t go left, Edgar,” she said, nodding emphatically. “It’s not a good idea.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
“Good. I’ll go tell Nny.”
Edgar felt bad ever putting shoes on after that, especially when Johnny came to him later saying that Stephanie had just assured him of the security of his relationship. Edgar had been surprised that Stephanie had linked him and Johnny but he still had no idea of what the connection had been between that and his shoes.
He worried that the band would give Stephanie a skewed perspective on relationships, especially coupled with all the mythology she was taking in. She was living with one unattached guy who was lusting after another one who was in a relationship with a third, accompanied by two women who were questionably involved as well. Edgar worried she’d grow up assuming everyone was gay and people just appeared from the sky.
Johnny told him this was a fairly accurate assessment.
“We all can’t be a good influence on her, though,” Edgar persisted.
“Why not? She was fucked up when we got her.”
“I realize that things that cross my mind run totally parallel to yours,” Edgar said, “but let’s pretend you’re normal for a second. Don’t you think she’s going to have some problems later on without parents or anything? Kids turn feral when they’re not hugged and talked to and such.”
“We talk to her.”
“But no one goes near her. And all she has is in this van. She’s going to get lonely.”
“You want to take her to the playground and chat with the other mommies, Edgar?”
“I can’t even believe I was trying to talk about this seriously with you.”
Johnny shifted his weight and sighed. As per usual, he was using Edgar as a full-body pillow stretched across the back seat.
“If you’re worried about it,” Johnny said, “why aren’t you the one hugging her and keeping her company?”
“I don’t think she likes me as much as she likes you.”
“Pfft, that’s everyone. I thought you got over that a long time ago.”
“You’re a horrible person.”
“I love you, too, Edgar.” Johnny shifted his shoulders and made some contented noise which Edgar took to mean he was saying no more and going to sleep. Edgar stared out the rear window and up at what stars he could see. In reality, he thought, there really was no reason he hadn’t done anything more than buy the girl books. He’d just been thinking someone else would do it, thinking he shouldn’t get too attached because he’d end up being mushy about it. He’d been thinking that it was similar to when he’d fallen for Johnny and had just not wanted to address it until years afterward. Stephanie, he reasoned, didn’t have years to be lonely and Edgar should do something about it.
*****
The opportunity arose when Stephanie brought a book to the back to the van. She complained that the words were too big and she didn’t understand anything but that Zeus was a really terrible man and headed left far too often.
“Do you want a different one?” Edgar asked, flipping through the pages of the book she handed to him.
“No, I read all the other ones.”
When Edgar leafed through the pages he found it was less a mythology book and more a psychological analysis of the cultures that created said myths. It appeared to be inteneded as a textbook. He wasn’t even sure he could pronounce some of the words.
“This one isn’t all that interesting, really. I think the words are too big for me, too.”
“Do we have any new ones?”
“Not about all this, no.”
Stephanie made an exaggerated pout and climbed onto the seat next to Edgar. She sat staring straight ahead with her arms crossed and her lower lip poking out, perhaps trying to frustrate more books into existence.
“Jimmy has some German books, doesn’t he?” Edgar tried.
“I guess.”
“Magazine?”
“No.”
Edgar rested a hand on her head, and her pout disappeared. “Let me know if you need something, okay?”
“Okay.”
“We can still try to read this,” Edgar said, gesturing at her with the book in his other hand, “but I think you’ll be pretty bored.”
“Skip the boring parts?” Stephanie asked hopefully.
“Sure. Come on,” he said, motioning her for to come closer, “let’s see how much of the book we can skip.” Stephanie moved under Edgar’s arm and cemented herself to his side, excitedly regarding the book in Edgar’s hand. Edgar was relieved Devi hadn’t taught her to hate human contact or that Johnny hadn’t taught her it would all be fleeting and twisted. Reading a boring book was more than worth it. It was better when Stephanie seemed incredibly interested in even the driest sections of the writing.
Reading books with Edgar was quickly added to Stephanie’s list of daily activities with her strange family. She spent more time in the back with him (and occasionally Johnny) with each passing week, until Edgar found that she spent nearly all her time with him, only breaking to ask Devi for tea or learn a new word from Jimmy. When Edgar’s eyes hurt from reading the tiny words in the textbooks, Stephanie sat with the books herself, squinting purposefully at the walls of paragraphs. She often tried to use what she’d read to best Johnny at random useless knowledge, but he always already knew about the sirens, or the curse of the mummy’s tomb, or crop circles.
One night, after Johnny not only knew what piece of trivia she presented him, but also knew that it was technically wrong, Stephanie swore to Edgar that some day, she’d tell Johnny something he didn’t know. Edgar hugged her and wished her luck.
“I’ve not been able to do it in years, but you might catch up to him.”
*****
“You seem pretty fond of Banshee.”
“I am. It’s sort of like the stalker, you know? Stephanie really seems to appreciate having me around.”
Johnny shifted against Edgar’s ribs and avoided ramming his elbow into Edgar’s stomach.
“You make it sound like we neglect you.”
“‘We’ here meaning you, right?”
“I don’t.”
“I know you don’t,” Edgar settled an arm across Johnny’s shoulders and stared out the back window. “And the others really don’t either. I feel more a part of this whole mess now that I can hit Jimmy all the time and there’s no real animosity behind it. That seems so incredibly backwards to me, but it’s true.”
“I think everyone feels better when they hit Jimmy.”
“Can you tell me something?”
“Which clichéd response to that would you like?” Johnny wound some of Edgar’s shirt into his fingers. “Just a simple dead-panned ‘something’ or an overly exaggerated ‘I don’t know, CAN I?’”
“I’ll settle for a ‘yes’, actually.”
“God, Edgar. No wonder no one stalks you. You’re so damn traditional,” Johnny sighed in mock-frustration and released Edgar’s shirt. He stretched once and again was actually careful not to hit Edgar rather than just expecting Edgar to avoid it. He made another disappointed noise but got comfortable and muttered a ‘yes’ into Edgar’s shoulder.
“Why is Jimmy here?”
“He plays the guitar. Where’ve you been?”
“Shut up, you know what I mean.”
“You mean, ‘Oh, Johnny, why on Earth are you keeping this creepy guy around you for so long?!’” Johnny made some exaggerated damsel in distress hand gestures which nearly threw him off balance. He recovered well, so Edgar couldn’t even really laugh at him.
“I don’t have any issues with Jimmy, Nny. I think you’re the one who does.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s the butt of every joke, he’s like the company punching bag. I know you like him more now, but-”
“But why did I keep him around in the first place?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, when we found you, we all thought you were really lame.”
“I don’t really see how tha-”
“Oh, come on. This,” Johnny motioned generally to himself and Edgar, “is a big step up from lame, don’t you think?”
“Okay, okay. So, what, we both had potential?”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
Edgar waited for some explanation. When nothing came for a minute or two he let out a heavy sigh.
“Would it kill you to offer some information once and a while?”
“Probably.”
“Nny, please.”
“He ran into me at the school,” Johnny said quickly. “I thought you knew this already.”
“That’s about all I know.”
“He ran into me. I said something to him, since I’d never run into, you know, actually hit someone while walking, before. He just started following me after that.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“Of course not. Pay attention. We just beat him up. He kept coming back. He kept telling me he would be like me someday. It started getting creepier later, in the realm of ‘I will have you someday’ and such, but that wasn’t until we’d already decided to keep him.”
“And why did you?” Edgar took his glasses off and dropped them in the cup holder behind the arm of the seat.
“Because after a while, you realize that you can’t really be picky about companions when they’re the only people who know you’re there.”
“If you’d found me before Jimmy, do you think…?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you kept him around because he was all you had, then.”
“Not quite. I mean, yeah, that was a leading factor. He was just so...,” Johnny poked at Edgar’s collar bone while he thought of a word, “…loyal.”
“Johnny, that’s kind of creepy.”
“You asked.”
“I think I regret it.”
“It only gets creepier.”
Edgar swore he could hear the smile in Johnny’s voice.
“Do I want to hear this?” he asked hesitantly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Johnny answered into Edgar’s neck, “because I’m not telling you.”
“That’s really unsettling, but I think I’ll just ignore it.”
“Good choice.”
“I feel bad for him,” Edgar sighed.
“I’m sure he feels your sympathy when he looks in our windows.” Johnny sounded largely unimpressed.
“This is the part where I shove you off.”
“You wouldn’t. I could break something and then I’d have to wail in agony and make you feel really bad about it for a few months.”
“Fuck you.”
“See?” Johnny smiled and seemed quite satisfied with the whole exchange. Johnny’s shoulder blade dug into Edgar’s ribs for a moment as Johnny shifted yet again, “So. Banshee.”
“Oh. Oh, right. What about her?”
“Enjoying babysitting?”
“You’re the one who was so adamant about her staying with us for some mystical magical reasons. Don’t act like I came up with it.”
“You like the attention. From Banshee. From the letter woman.”
“I think you told me once that everyone likes attention.”
“Yes.”
Johnny voice sounded distant, as though he was only answering because some programming reminded him to.
“Is something wrong?”
“Isn’t something always?”
“What is it?”
Johnny said nothing and stared out the window. When Edgar thought it safe to ask again, Johnny had fallen asleep.
*****
Edgar felt a jab in his shoulder several hours later. He hadn’t remembered falling asleep, and his neck was certainly not happy about it, but he was awake now.
He was surprised to find Johnny still asleep and that it had been Jimmy poking him.
“Jimmy? What are you-?”
“Shh, jeez, you’ll wake people up,” Jimmy whispered.
“Sorry,” Edgar lowered his voice, “What’s wrong? Was I snoring or something?”
“No. I heard you before. What you said.”
“Hang on, okay?” Edgar attempted to move his shoulder with little success, “This’ll be easier if I can wake him up and-”
“No!” Jimmy hissed, “No, let him go. I don’t want him to… I heard you guys talking before. I heard what you said about me.”
“Waaaas it something bad?” Edgar suddenly felt worried that he was pinned in place.
“You feel bad for me.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t need to. I guess maybe a lot of other people would think my situation was pathetic or something, but it’s not. I’m not. You don’t have to go around feeling sorry for me.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a negative thing. I thought I’d be helping if I got him to stop mocking you all the time.”
“I don’t mind. He doesn’t hate me; I get to spend a ton of time with him. Even if it’s not quite the kind of time I’d like,” Jimmy motioned to Johnny sleeping against Edgar.
“I’m sor-”
“Don’t. I told you, it’s fine.”
Jimmy held out his hand. It took Edgar a moment to realize he was supposed to take it. When he did, Jimmy shook it firmly.
“Thank you, though,” Jimmy said grinning. “It’s not often I feel like any of you guys see me sittin’ here. Funny that it comes from you of all people.”
“I’m not insensitive, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s him,” Jimmy nodded toward Johnny. “Sorry I woke you up. I was never going to get to you while he was awake, though.”
“It’s no problem.”
Before Edgar could say more, Jimmy stood up and wandered back to his seat, which he reclined too quickly. The noise startled Edgar, and Johnny sat up, looking around the van frantically.
“Wha’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing. Jimmy just did something dumb to his chair. Go back to sleep.”
“The hell’s he doing to the chair this late?” Johnny’s words slurred together slightly and he looked rather disoriented.
“I don’t know. We’ll ask him in the morning. It’s not important.”
Johnny grumbled something about ‘stupid fucking Jimmy’ and cursed a few of the deities Stephanie had been reading about before settling back to sleep.
*****
When it came time to return home for a desperately wanted break, the group realized they couldn’t keep Stephanie in the van while it was parked outside of Devi’s building. Devi was prepared to argue about why she and Tenna couldn’t take her but wasn’t given the chance.
“I’ll take her with me,” Edgar said as soon as the issue was brought up.
“You gonna just hide her away from everyone for a while, too?” Jimmy joked.
“Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll wait until she dies to have you guys over at all,” Edgar shot in return. He heard Stephanie take a sharp breath and realized that she had no idea that Johnny had died once, and was taking the joke pretty literally.
“No, no,” Edgar said, hand on her shoulder, “Not really, it’s okay. I’ll explain later, alright?” Stephanie swallowed once and nodded. She didn’t look convinced.
She also promptly forgot about the entire incident when told she could have her own room in Edgar’s house. Edgar felt a little wary about leaving her the room that still housed the book that had once spied on him, but Johnny wasn’t about to give up claims on his, despite sleeping and keeping a lot of his stuff in Edgar’s anyway.
“I can have this?” Stephanie asked after a round of bouncing on the bed.
“Yes, of course.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes, the whole thing. We’ll keep the books you’ve already read in here, okay?”
Stephanie nodded and ran around the room excitedly, looking at things, but not really seeing any of them. She chattered about how ‘awesomely’ everything was going be, and how she was going to make sure Jimmy never got in, even if he didn’t live there. Edgar worried about what Jimmy could have done to deserve that reaction, but then reasoned that he’d been in close quarters with everyone, couldn’t have done anything skeevy without being seen, and was just, in fact, Jimmy.
Besides, after the late-night handshaking, Edgar found that he increasingly doubted all the horrible things the others said about Jimmy.
Johnny poked his head into the room to see what the yelling was about, “Careful there, Banshee, you’ll kill us all screaming like that.”
“Nny! I have a ROOM!”
“Clearly.”
“The whole thing.”
“Well, shit, set up some alarms or something. People might try to move in on you.”
Stephanie’s eyes went wide in horror.
“They’ll do that?!”
“Never know,” Johnny said, looking around. “They might just pop out of the walls.”
Stephanie gasped, and Edgar shoved Johnny out of the room.
“Nny! Don’t tell her stuff like that!”
“Do I need to remind you of the reality of things coming from walls?” Johnny asked, smiling. “Or do we need to turn on channel seven hundred again?”
Edgar shivered.
“No, no. But come on. She’s just a little girl.”
“Who wants to be a messenger of death when she grows up.”
Edgar sighed, “Okay, okay. Still. Go easy, please?”
“Edgar?” Stephanie’s voice echoed into the hall.
“Mm?”
“You’re not really keeping me here till I die, are you?” she asked, her voice quiet. Johnny snorted and disappeared into Edgar’s room.
“No! No, I’m sorry. It was a joke. Kind of a bad one. About something I did before. It’s sort of hard to explain, but-” Johnny came back at that moment wearing the long black Hell-coat.
“I was in charge of Hell once,” he said, leaning in front of Edgar.
“Nny, really, I can-”
“Hey,” Johnny said, turning with a partial bow, “trust me.”
Edgar nodded, and stepped back. He watched Johnny drop to his knees and start gesturing dramatically to accompany his hushed story. Edgar worried about what he’d just permitted until Stephanie’s expression turned from fear to fascination and then excitement. Edgar let himself relax and retreated to his room to wait it out.
Which he regretted later when Stephanie staggered into the room, wearing one of his old Homicides’ shirts that had been inexplicably filled with needles, and screeching ‘BRAINS’. Johnny leaned through the door frame after, wide grin on his face.
“We learned about zombies today,” he said, clearly suppressing a laugh.
*****
Several days passed, and with Stephanie still otherwise occupied with undead-ing around the house, Edgar was once again left to think about her well-being. Among other things. While going through some overdue unpacking, he went over the ideas he’d been having aloud.
“And maybe she’s some kind of illusion, so it’s not really bad to keep her here. Or she’s some kind of test. Clone from the future?”
Tossed a shirt aside.
“Are you rationalizing again?” Johnny asked from the far corner of the bed.
“Maybe a little.”
“I think we should ask Pepito.”
“That is your answer to everything.”
“I’m going to sit here and wait for you to suggest something better.”
Edgar sighed, and dropped another shirt into the growing pile of things to be washed.
“Look, for me, this is like asking for things to get messy,” he said, trying to resist the urge to gesture with some rolled up socks. “This is like, ‘Hey, why don’t we let the Anti-Christ know we can’t figure a little girl out?’ ‘WOW, great idea!’” He made an exaggerated happy face to hopefully emphasize his point.
“Pepito could have sent her, though,” Johnny pointed out, unaffected by the happy display.
“I already asked her about Pepito, like I told you! She doesn’t know him.”
“Which is exactly what I would have said the night I came back to life.”
“He didn’t do that.”
“But it’s still worth it to see. He owes me, so he can at least check with the losers upstairs for us.”
Edgar sat down on the bed next the laundry, “What makes you think they’ll tell Pepito anything truthful?”
“They have to live in a balance,” Johnny said, examining a hole in his shirt. “They really can’t afford to lie to him.”
“Okay, okay. So we’re thinking there’s some reasoning behind all this, and it’s not random. We came very close to running Stephanie over because we were supposed to.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow.
“Supposed to find her. Not supposed to run her over.”
“That’s the kind of destiny that fucks you up for life, I’m sure,” Johnny grinned and widened his eyes dramatically. “Your mission, Edgar, is to RUN OVER A SMALL GIRL.”
“I’d hate myself for life, I think.”
“Which I think Pepito would really love. We should go see him.”
“Okay, we’ll go. Let me just… get this stuff going and tell Stephanie not to actually kill herself, I guess,” Edgar hauled the pile of clothes into his arms and shuffled into the hallway. He called through Stephanie’s door that they were going to be leaving for an hour or two (which was met with an affirmative ‘Braaaains’) and made his way downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase, he felt a pang of hope for a letter.
There hadn’t been any letters in all that time he’d been gone. No pile on the doorstep, no comically large mail bag, no letter from the post office that he’d gotten a package of them the size of Atlantis.
Edgar had tried not to let it show, but Johnny had called him on his obvious disappointment. For some reason, though, today felt like a good day. He scuffed his way to the basement and filled the washer rather carelessly, drizzling blue soap across the top of the machine in his haste.
He took the stairs back up the first floor two at a time and hurried to the door. Once there, he tried to open it as casually as possible. When he reached into the mailbox, he felt paper. For a moment, he stood there willing the envelope to be a letter or a note and not some ads or a credit card.
With a quick motion, he snapped the envelope out of the box and checked the name.
For him.
That same girly handwriting.
He tore the envelope a little too enthusiastically and almost ripped the paper inside.
“Edgar-
You have to realize I’ve been trying to get through to you.
The girl is adorable. I wasn’t expecting that.
I can’t talk with you when he’s there.
Please come and talk.
Library.”
For a moment, for the length of a double take, he thought the woman’s name was ‘Library.’
“Damn thing doesn’t need to be so cryptic,” he said aloud. Looking at the sky, it was likely already late enough that the library would have closed and he was supposed to be going to see Pepito with Johnny. No time to work this in.
Pepito lived so close to library. Maybe he’d kick Edgar out again to have brain melting conversations with Johnny and Edgar could pretend to go visit Dib in the band room.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Dib recently except in Bigfoot magazines.
He pocketed the letter and resolved to find a way to the library as soon as he could. Maybe he was dumb, maybe he was being gullible, maybe she was some kind of rapist, but he wanted to know.
The second he landed his foot on the first step, Johnny appeared at the top of the staircase.
“Can we go now?”
Edgar looked around, as though the answer was in the hardwood somewhere.
“Um, yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”
“Great. I’m looking forward to seeing how he’s handling the damned without me.”
*****
Ich denke Ich will hier bleiben.
The house was comfortable. The van was comfortable too, but the house was better. There was space, and if Stephanie didn’t want to move for Uncle Jimmy to take his seat back, she didn’t have to. She had her own room.
This didn’t mean she didn’t want to look at the other rooms. Down the hall, in a corner of the tiny second floor that didn’t get much light because Edgar wouldn’t put two light bulbs in a single light fixture, was Johnny’s room. Stephanie snuck in there at night at least twice, because Johnny never slept in it.
He had more books than she did, and everywhere on the floor where piles of CDs, drawings and notebooks. Johnny’s room was bigger, and Stephanie often thought to complain about this, since Johnny got two big rooms and she only got one small one, but caught herself when she realized it would let everyone know she’d been snooping. Once it spread around, Aunt Devi would figure out that Stephanie had snooped through her things too, and this frightened her more than the things she had found when she spent one night last week in Uncle Jimmy’s house.
Edgar’s room was harder to get to than Johnny’s. It was never empty at night, and Stephanie spent her whole day with one or both of its usual occupants. There was no way to explore unless they were both gone.
Which was why Stephanie liked crazy fans, Johnny’s spontaneous field trips, and Pepito.
Though she hadn’t experienced them all from the house yet, she knew how effective they’d been in the van and had been on the lookout for a single instance of any of them since she arrived.
She didn’t know which distraction was keeping them now, but she had a clear shot even if just to look at the pictures on the wall.
The door stuck on a bunch of laundry when Stephanie pushed on it, and she had to squeeze through the opening rather than risk Edgar and Johnny noticing that the clothes had been moved.
No matter how many times Edgar had had her in the room watching TV with him over the last few days, or how long Johnny had spent showing her the babies versus unicorns, the room still looked as though she’d never seen it before. Johnny had put posters overlapping the closet door, even. She hadn’t seen that before. It didn’t make sense to cover it, even to her. They needed to get clothes, right?
She heard nothing in the closet when she pressed her ear to it, though she didn’t know what sound she expected it to make. Maybe the door didn’t go anywhere. Or maybe to another world. Johnny was the kind of person to keep another world behind a poster. He could do it. She was sure.
It took several minutes to get the ruler she'd found under the bed to dislodge the tape on the poster. She ripped the corner, which she hoped she could fix when she was done, or pretend had always been there, but once the side was free, she could open the other world.
The other world was boring.
It was just a white room. A white box. Attached to Edgar’s room, but filled with nothing. Light came in through windows that showed nothing outside, and it was hard to look at how bright everything was for too long. Stephanie wanted to ask why the room was there, and why they didn’t use it, and why it was white, but she couldn’t.
They’d know who ripped the poster then.
It was then that she heard a noise that sounded like maybe they already knew. A door slammed, and something shattered.
“I fucking swear, that thing will haunt me the next time I die.”
“Stop, stop, jeez, what the hell happened?”
Stephanie stopped listening then, shut the door to the white room, and hurriedly tried to fix the tape on the corner of the poster. When it looked convincing, she shuffled back across the hall to her room and closed the door behind her.
*****
Something had just changed. It felt similar to when the house had lurched when Johnny remembered everything, but Johnny had a hard time differentiating between that lurch and the feeling of his brain catching back up to him.
There was something new, but something that shouldn’t have been new at all, sitting in the back of his head. It itched in a way that felt like nothing at all. Johnny shook his head and squinted up at Edgar, who was still standing by waiting for an explanation.
“You didn’t feel that?” Johnny asked him.
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s something. It feels like remembering, but not quite.”
“Am I going to regret asking any more about this?”
“Heh, maybe.” Johnny smiled and pressed a spot on the back of his head. “Still. It feels like something woke up.”
“That’s maybe not the best way to have phrased that.”
“You want to crack it open and have a look?” Johnny tilted his head forward and made exaggerated prying motions at the base of his skull.
“I’ll pass, thank you,” Edgar said, making a face. “Still, is this a big deal or…?”
“I’m not sure. It’s like it needs a push or something.” Johnny looked around the room for something that he thought might trigger it, but realized he had no idea even of the nature of what he had just almost-remembered. “Maybe it’ll work out later. Fucking hurt at first, though. It had better be something awesome when it finally clicks.”
“I think I’m disappointed that this isn’t an explosion.”
“Yeah, my brains would have looked great against the wallpaper.”
“Maybe next time,” Edgar said, shrugging.
“Maybe Banshee learned to sing and has damned the back of my skull.”
“Oh, shit, we should go make sure she isn’t having brain issues.” Edgar headed up the stairs before Johnny could joke about the issues Banshee already clearly had. Pepito would have to wait, evidently. The thing in his mind pinged again, but he shook it off and followed Edgar. It was at least marginally in Johnny’s interest to see if Banshee had developed a freak brain spasm as well. Maybe they’d compare notes.
*****
The knock startled her, even though she knew it’d be coming.
“Come in?”
“Hey, we haven’t left yet, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t…” Edgar trailed off. People did that when talking to Stephanie quite often. She was pretty sure it meant they were going to swear or say something scary. Neither one bothered her, but she pretended she didn’t notice when someone stopped talking and clearly continued in a different way.
“Did any weird shit just happen to your head?” Johnny asked, slipping around Edgar. This was why Stephanie liked Johnny. From Edgar’s reaction, she guessed maybe he wasn’t so fond.
“Do you really have to-?”
“She’s fine, look at her.”
Edgar grumbled something, but let it go and turned back to Stephanie, “Sooo, nothing wrong then?”
Stephanie shook her head, “Uh-uh.”
“Just me, huh?” Johnny asked, glancing at the ceiling.
“You aren’t used to that yet?” Edgar asked him.
“What happened?” Stephanie thought she’d make sure they knew she hadn’t overheard anything.
“Oh, just more crazy stuff happening to Nny. Nothing we’re not used to. Don’t worry about it.”
“In his head?”
“I’m fine,” Johnny told her, waving his hand. “It’ll likely be just a cool thing I forgot about.”
“Okay.”
They left soon after, saying something about aliens and centipedes, but Stephanie didn’t understand what. She heard a door open, and Johnny make some mention of the door getting stuck on clothes. Edgar protested that it wasn’t his fault, and then Johnny swore at something. Stephanie tensed. There was no way they’d notice the poster that quick, was there?
Silence.
For several minutes she contemplated living with Aunt Devi. If she crawled out the window now, maybe she’d never get caught.
“I don’t know! It’s just there!” From the hallway.
“We can’t just stare at it!”
“You’re not going into a phantom door! Do you think I’m stupid or something? It’s Pepito tricking you into going back, or it’ll just open into nothing, or it’ll be Bigfoot or something, I don’t know.”
“Edgar, you can’t just ignore it. It’s a fucking door! If it’s bad, we’ll close it, lock the thing and be done with it. Drywall over it or something.”
“You’re the one always saying that things will come out of the walls. Doesn’t a random door look a little too obvious to you? That’s like the thing at the hotel saying, ‘Can Johnny come out and play?’ and you just- No. We’re not opening the door.”
A door? They were upset about the door? Stephanie opened her own door and leaned into the hall.
“Um.”
Edgar jumped when he heard her voice, and nearly lost his grip on Johnny’s arms.
“Oh, hi.” Edgar used ‘trying to appear calm and rational around children’ voice. One day Stephanie would tell him she could tell.
“What’s wrong with the door?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Edgar, you big fucking liar,” Johnny growled.
“Nny, please.”
“What’s wrong with the door?” Stephanie repeated.
“It wasn’t there before,” Johnny said before Edgar could talk over him. “Did you know it was there?” Stephanie shrank back into her room slightly and nodded.
“When did you see it?” Johnny took a step forward.
Stephanie bit her tongue, “Before.”
“We have to open it now,” Johnny said, looking back at Edgar, who still had a solid grip on Johnny’s arm. “You can’t even pretend we don’t have to.”
“Yes, I can, and I will.”
Stephanie had never seen Edgar glare before. Johnny glared back at him, and even though she was pretty sure she’d seen it before, it was still scarier.
“You do that.”
With three words, Johnny twisted his way out of Edgar’s hold on his arms. Stephanie had been watching intently, but still didn’t see how he did it. Clearly, Johnny even knew magic.
Johnny disappeared into the room, and Edgar appeared conflicted as he alternately tried to stop Johnny and warn Stephanie to stay where she was. Stephanie was sure she wasn’t going anywhere until she remembered that there was nothing in the room.
“It’s okay,” she said, without thinking, “It’s just white.”
Edgar stopped and stared at her. Johnny leaned out of the room and narrowed an eye.
“You’ve been in there?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t hurt anything!” Lie.
“See?” Johnny said, turning to Edgar. “Nothing to worry about. If it didn’t eat a little kid,” he flicked his wrist and produced a small knife from seemingly no where, “then it won’t eat me.”
“I’m not sure. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”
Johnny ignored him and vanished into the room again. Edgar looked conflicted again for a moment, and then beckoned Stephanie to come with him. She followed them both into the room, suddenly feeling less upset about the torn poster. Johnny even saw that it had been torn, she noticed. He smiled at the corner when he moved it from the door, and looked back at Stephanie out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.
“Okay,” he said, when all the posters were clear, “let’s see what we have.”
Stephanie saw the white again, and nothing but. Johnny and Edgar, she guessed, did not.
*****
It hit him in the stomach, whatever it was. There was no blood, which was kind of unusual, but not unwelcome. He couldn’t find it, didn’t see it. Suspected one of them, but felt better not to look for them. They didn’t need acknowledgement.
Nothing in the room. Stop looking for it.
He had a hard time remembering when he’d come into this room, or even what he’d come in for. When he had come in was the larger issue, but he wasn’t even worried about that as much as he could have been. Edgar would still be upstairs, either way.
Smart guy, Edgar was. Sticking around had been a point away from his favor, but on the whole, okay. Johnny felt bad sometimes for not killing him, since Edgar’s house seemed to have been eaten by whatever was eating Johnny’s head. Edgar had said he didn’t mind, but Johnny suspected tha – no. Knew. Knew that other people valued their things, their little toys and boxes for their shit. Boxes for shit inside a larger box for shit. He knew Edgar had been upset about the loss of everything.
It had taken guts or sheer stupidity to show up on Johnny’s lawn again after being set free once. It had also taken the ability to see the house, and for that reason only, Edgar lived a second time. Johnny told himself it was that reason only. Edgar had been kind of okay to talk to, even when he should have been moments from death. Company that wasn’t in his head was nice, at the very least.
Edgar was still there. For some reason. Not too smart, that. For all the brain power that seemed to be awake enough to keep Edgar alive, it seemed to shut off at the most crucial times. Sitting on his couch? Lounging around like he belonged there? He’d let that keep happening after a time, and while the threats of death never disappeared, they had decreased in frequency. Friends that weren’t internal had gotten pretty rare since that whole killing people thing started. Shame. Good.
“I found a coupon for free Freezies, you want it?”
And he stayed there because Johnny let him stay there and he was going to be something since the girl at the bookstore never seemed to get it. Something. Probably deluding himself, probably got this all wrong, probably going to kill him instead. Do something or don’t do something, but one of them had to be done.
“Is it real? The guy last time wouldn’t take it.”
“We won’t be seeing him again, will we?”
“No.”
This was not the same.
“I think it’s real though.”
It kicked him in the back this time.
*****
Johnny felt thrown back when the room had opened, and his head had hurt for a moment. A lurch, like before, and then nothing. He looked around wildly to be sure he was really where he thought he should have been. The posters, and the TV and the Edgar with strange little girl, all there. The things in his head were really there now. Beyond itch. Sediment. Settled. Really there.
He hadn’t wanted to remember ‘all the shit’, but was sure what he had remembered just then hadn’t been in that category. As far as he was concerned, and he fancied himself an expert on the matter, what he now had was something quite the opposite of shit.
Edgar seemed to think differently if his distressed expression was any indication.
“You alright?” Johnny asked. His voice felt different.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting…,” Edgar looked at the floor and seemed to be in some kind of pain. “What’s in there?” he nodded toward the room, avoiding being questioned again. Johnny let it go and peered into the room.
“Nothing. Just a shitty old room,” Johnny opened the door wider and stepped back from the opening. Edgar looked inside himself, and sent a curious look at Johnny.
“Shitty old room?” Edgar asked.
“Uh, yeah. Look at the floors in here, they’re rotting or something.”
“They look fine to me. Just a little dirty, but probably nice wood under there.”
Johnny started to say something to Edgar, but remembered something in the same moment.
“Hey, Banshee,” he said, nodding towards the girl, “what does this look like to you?”
“White,” she said. “Bright white.”
“All of it?”
She nodded. “All of it.”
“And it looked like that the last time you were here?”
“Yeah.”
Johnny closed the door, winced when the new memory seemed to be unhappy with that, and reopened the door. It still looked like shit to him. Edgar and Banshee shook their heads - no change for them either.
"We need to get Devi and Jimmy in here," Johnny said, staring into the empty room.
"You know, something about Jimmy in my bedroom is just-"
"There you go with the non-issues again," Johnny interrupted. "There is a door. In our wall. That we're all seeing differently," he motioned between himself, Edgar and Banshee, "We can't not look into this."
"We can't just say, 'It's a reflection of our souls, so obviously hers would be happy and light since she's a little girl, problem solved'?" Edgar looked terribly uncomfortable.
Johnny raised an eyebrow at him, "Are we talking about the same kid?"
"Nny, this is just walking right into something stupid, this is dumb."
"I'm going to get Jimmy and Devi."
"Can I come?" Banshee asked quietly.
"Sure, why not. Maybe we'll take a field trip."
"Oooh!" She trailed after Johnny excitedly, the door and Edgar seemingly forgotten entirely. Johnny turned around half-way down the stairs when he heard Edgar wander into the hallway.
"Pick up the damn shirt pile, would you?" Johnny asked with a smirk. "We can't have Devi feeling better about her housekeeping skills."
*****
Edgar watched the door close, and stared down the stairs for several minutes. This door stuff was all wrong. It was clearly going to drag them into some kind of loop from Hell like the last little oddity Johnny had wanted to explore. Keys.
Keys had degraded into getting Johnny killed. A door was likely to eat them all and spit them out in yet another lifetime. Maybe it would be like the first one and Edgar would just be torn apart again. Then, he reasoned, he’d just stay there. There was no reason he would need to live so many times. Unless Johnny did too. Then Edgar would be on the lifetime spin cycle for as long as the system would support it.
This nagged at him. Whatever memory Johnny had regained didn’t seem to be having any ill effects on him, but what Edgar had remembered bothered him intensely.
He hadn’t loved Johnny before this life.
It should have made sense, after all, he’d come into existence insisting that Johnny was his best friend and nothing more, dammit. He should have figured that his previous self had felt nothing like what his current self did now. But it worried him, on several levels, really, because he couldn’t remember a time in this life when he didn’t feel something he could now identify as adoration at the very least and hopeless devotion at its greatest.
He’d been born, or generated, or made, or whatever they were calling it now, loving Johnny. He’d had no choice in the matter, no reasonably innocent building up of the stuff on his own. It had just been there, always. Just plugged into him. An add-on. A bonus. An upgrade. Plastic accessories. An improvement. Pasted on.
Fake.
He picked up the shirts anyway.
*****
“Doesn’t Aunt Devi live down there?”
Stephanie trailed behind Johnny, even while trying to keep up. There was a kind of balance to be maintained here - keep up, but don't show that you're struggling to do it.
“Yeah, hang on, we’re taking a detour.”
“But-”
“Do you want to walk there yourself?”
“Not really…”
“Then we’re taking a detour.”
“Okay.”
Everything was dark and cold and it was getting only getting more so. Stephanie really wished someone had made her a coat from some of Edgar’s old stuff, but she never said anything about it. Her collection of aunts and uncles had chosen to keep her with them, and could probably choose to get rid of her just as easily.
Johnny was taking her to a big building that she didn’t like the look of at all. It made her feel small and uncomfortable.
“This is the school,” Johnny said, when they stood in front of the doors.
“I don’t think I like it. It looks dark in there. We don’t have anything to pay the ferryman.”
“You haven’t even been inside, and this is already Hades?” Johnny shook his head as he brought out a ring of keys and rammed one into the lock on the door. “I need to tell Edgar to keep that stuff away from you for a while. We need to rot you properly and give you some pink ponies or something.”
“That’s okay, I like the ferryman.”
“Of course you do.”
Johnny took her down a hallway, past some glowing vending machines and into another dark room. He flicked a few switches, and a room covered in posters lit up in front of them. It was lined with chairs and filing cabinets and the ceiling felt too high.
“I used to live here,” Johnny said, opening another door. “Actually, we met Edgar on the floor, right there.” He pointed to spot between the doors.
“Met him?” Stephanie asked, staring at the spot, trying to imagine Edgar cheerily shaking hands with everyone.
“Yeah, he was all crumpled on the floor, and then he came in sounding all crazy the next day.”
Not shaking hands anymore.
“He wasn’t always there?”
Stared at the place where Edgar had been once. She thought she could make him out in the midst of the yellowing pattern on the tile, younger, confused and missing that spot of hair on his face.
“That’s only ever the case with yourself.”
“What?” Blinked and Edgar was gone.
“For people like us, the only people who were ever always there,” he unlocked one last door, “are ourselves.”
This last room was tiny and cramped and full of papers, boxes and chairs that were falling apart. There were pictures taped to every inch of the walls and it all felt a little dusty. Stephanie thought it reminded her of the van, just with flourescent lighting.
“I took all the keys to this place,” Johnny explained, examining a layer of dust on a box beside him. “I didn’t expect them to just leave it, though.”
Stephanie stared at him.
“You really lived here?”
“Yeah, we all did, sort of.”
“Where did Uncle Jimmy start existing?”
“I could answer that two ways,” Johnny replied after a moment, “but I think you mean out there, by the ramp into the rest of the school. It’s where I found him. He ran into me.”
“Aunt Devi?”
“Before that. Outside.”
“Aunt Tenna?”
“You’d have to ask Devi.”
Johnny took a few things off the walls, took a good look around and then directed Stephanie out of the room. He locked everything up as though he hadn’t really come here for anything but to look.
“We’re not staying? That was it? ” Stephanie asked.
“We’re not quite done. We have to go upstairs.”
More long hallways and doors that were so much bigger than her. Johnny opened even more doors and they climbed stairs filled with air. With wind. Hallways full of windows. One more door, and then outside. It was still cold and even darker than before.
“What do you think?”
“Wow, how high are we?”
“Go look,” Johnny nodded toward the edge, and Stephanie ran to the side and climbed on the ledge. There were houses and lights everywhere. Hills and telephone lines and the sound of planes. Specks of light flickered in the distance, but one nearby house felt funny to her. It had a strange light.
“Pepito lives there,” Johnny said when Stephanie took a breath to ask.
“Oh.”
“Not that Edgar is ever going to let you out of the house, but if someone else does, don’t go there and get eaten, okay?”
“Why is everything trying to eat me?”
“Little kids taste better.”
“Then all those cannibal guys should have eaten their girlfriends earlier?”
Johnny raised an eyebrow at her, “Shit, Banshee, was that Jimmy or the Greeks?”
“Both?”
“Pink ponies. As soon as we get back.”
“Can we pretend I didn’t say anything?”
Johnny laughed into the sky.
“Absolutely.”
*****
He really was okay. Smart, mostly, and there. Still there, though not often enough.
Not often enough. Not enough to make him angry, and not enough.
So somewhere in between.
There was something there, something like an interest or a curiosity. Parts of him mocked the rest of him about it until it all threatened to tear itself in two. Or maybe four. The number was so fuzzy lately.
The problem was that he didn’t see. He couldn’t see and there was a struggle in conveying so he would see. He just wouldn’t see and it was so frustrating to not be able to make him see.
Maybe there was nothing to see after all. Someone had said that once.
He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to show, when he thought about it.
*****
When Johnny moved again, he asked Stephanie if she ’d seen anything. She recognized Johnny’s tone instantly.
“No,” she shook her head.
“That’s the best part of lying, isn’t it?”
She tensed and wondered if she should look at him.
“Which part?” she asked quietly.
“Knowing when to do it.”
“Oh.”
“I’d appreciate it if you kept that lie up for a while.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s get going. Edgar’s going to think I dumped you in a lake or something if we take too long.”
“Oooh, I could meet Morgan!”
“Good to see you’re on a first name basis with her, Banshee.”
*****
Edgar had things reasonably ordered by the time Johnny returned with three extra people. Stephanie tore up the stairs ahead of everyone to tell Edgar about her visit to the school. Devi stood at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed, watching him as Stephanie talked excitedly about her small trip, making circles around Edgar ’s legs.
“Aren’t you cute,” she said.
“Is this a problem?”
“Nah, I’m just starting to think she likes you more than she likes anyone else.”
Johnny led Devi and Jimmy upstairs and waved them into the room with the offending door. Devi was largely unimpressed.
“So that’s it?” she asked, frowning. “I thought it would at least be covered in blood or spikes or something.”
Jimmy inspected the frame, and the wall around it, and finding nothing, gave the others a shrug.
“I don’t know what I was expecting to find,” he explained, “but I thought some sort of time rip at least.”
“So go ahead,” Johnny nodded toward Jimmy and the door. “Open it.”
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” Jimmy took the doorknob, ignoring his obvious anticipation of pain. When the door clicked open, Edgar closed his eyes and was greeted with a brief and simultaneously endless stream of odd pleasantries.
He opened his eyes again when he heard Jimmy speak.
“It’s kind of a shit hole, isn’t it? Guess the posters are nice though.”
Devi looked curiously at Jimmy.
“Posters? Where the hell are you? It just looks like someone threw paint everywhere.”
Tenna, who Edgar had forgotten about, piped up from behind him, “It’s an apartment or something, looks like. Lived in, but not a paint-covered shit hole.”
Edgar kept waiting for ‘And I remember raping girls to be like Johnny’ or ‘I remember kicking Johnny in the face.’ He had no idea what Tenna would remember, but he thought she’d at least remember Devi. Maybe she’d have a dilemma like his and remember not liking Devi at all.
Or maybe everything was just him, as always. If no one else felt anything, maybe the memories had been faked. On the other side of things, maybe it only worked on him since it was his bedroom. It had worked on Johnny, too, hadn’t it? Or was this just as much Johnny’s room as his own by now? Maybe he could get Johnny to tell him what it was he remembered.
“What do you want to do, Edgar?”
“What?”
“About the door.”
“I… don’t know?”
“I don’t think he’s been with us for the last few minutes, Nny,” Devi said, laughing.
“I see.”
“Sorry, I was just thinking,” Edgar answered no one in particular. “No one felt anything weird from opening that?”
“Weird?” Tenna asked. “What’s weird about it? I mean, besides the obvious.”
“I remembered things when we opened it before.”
Stephanie left his side then and went to sit on the bed. She looked uncomfortable, but was listening intently.
“I never know what I’m remembering,” Jimmy told the floor, “and what I’m just regurgitating from what Nny told me.”
Edgar looked to Devi and Tenna for a more concrete answer, but they wouldn’t say anything, even when prompted. Devi just kept shaking her head.
“We’re going to get going,” she said instead of answering. “Let us know what you decide to do with it, or if something else happens.”
Johnny nodded as though the silences not only didn’t bother him at all, but he gained valuable information from them, and Devi and Tenna headed down the stairs. Edgar heard the door close, and then Jimmy made some excuse to leave as well.
Soon, Edgar was standing in the room with a nervous looking little girl and Johnny, who didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
“What just happened?” Edgar asked.
“If I didn’t tell you what I remembered, what makes you think they will?”
“Why don’t you guys remember things?” Stephanie asked from the corner of the bed. She was winding the sheets around her fingers, though she didn’t seem to notice she was doing it. Edgar looked around, trying to find a way to explain without mentioning killing or mania. While he was searching for it, Johnny said something to the tune of Vishnu, and Stephanie seemed to understand immediately.
“You remember the life before? Show me, show me!”
Johnny laughed lightly, “I can’t perform it. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I mean show me how!”
“I can’t do that either.”
“You can do anything!”
“You feel free to repeat that as often as you want,” Johnny said, smiling.
“If I keep saying it will it make it true?” Stephanie asked hopefully.
“It will only make it more so,” Edgar told her. “He’ll figure out how to make you remember the dinosaurs given enough time and some unholy force to drive it.”
Johnny hummed a tune that made Edgar roll his eyes, and then spoke the relevant bit aloud. “‘…with Satan himself by my side.’”
“Isn’t he dead or something? Or he was the first one?” Stephanie asked. “We only have Pepito, right?”
“Eh, details,” Johnny answered, shrugging.
Edgar spent the rest of the evening talking about Pepito and reincarnation and being effectively distracted from the door and memories in general. Johnny and a strange little girl was an odd combination, but Edgar rather enjoyed it. He was surprised that Johnny took having a girl around most of the time so well. He kept expecting something to collapse.
Over the next few days, Edgar tried to ask Stephanie when she wanted to make her rounds to visit Devi and Jimmy, but she either wouldn’t give a concrete answer or asked Edgar a question directly in response. He’d eventually get wrapped up in the answer and forget to send her off to someone else at all. The group had agreed that she wouldn’t be staying with any one person all the time, and had decided on some marginally weekly cycle. So when Stephanie failed to show up anywhere when the others were expecting to serve their time they began to wonder why they were getting so much freedom.
Devi called once to ask if Stephanie had died too, and mentioned Jimmy discovering new words he wanted to teach to someone who cared.
“She just avoids talking about it,” Edgar explained.
“Edgar, she’s something like six. You can send her wherever the hell you want. It’s not like dealing with Johnny.”
“She feels like more than six. I don’t know. I just don’t want to force her to do things. We’re not her parents or anything.”
“Keep her as much as you want, okay? I’m not trying to bust in on your little parental party, I just thought Nny would be sick of her by now and I’m tired of Jimmy calling me.”
“I’ll talk to- Wait. Jimmy calls you to ask about things here?”
Devi sighed.
“He’s trying to not be weird and call Nny? I don’t understand it, I just tell him it’s fine and I’m sure he’ll get over it.”
“Tell him that makes him creepier than if he called me,” Johnny’s voice echoed into the receiver and from the other room. Edgar and Devi both told him to mind his own fucking business and get off the other phone. Johnny muttered something and then Edgar heard a click. Not satisfied, he walked into the room where Johnny had been listening, where Johnny held up both hands and waved them wildly in Edgar’s direction.
“Not listening!”
Devi hadn’t needed to say much more, but told Edgar to warn her when she was about to be playing baby sitter for a few days. She also said something about the police, but Edgar chose to ignore her. He stared at the phone after he hung up, thinking about turning Stephanie over to the police. Logically, someone on a police force somewhere would be able to see her by now, so it would just be a matter of finding that person. The problem really wasn’t lacking anyone to give her to; it was not having a problem with keeping her where she was.
As far as Edgar was concerned, if Stephanie really was planted for them to find, and she wasn’t doing any damage, or hurting anyone, or causing any kind of burden, then she might as well enjoy her stay. The group as a whole made enough money that getting a few extras for a small girl made no noticeable dent in the funds, especially with how thrifty everyone (or maybe just Johnny) had been in making her clothing. The way Edgar saw it, she could happily live with everyone and maybe contribute some weird instrument to the group when she got older. They could always use a triangle.
“So, where’s she going?” Edgar jumped at the sound of Johnny’s voice. He’d tried to repress it, but failed.
“Going?”
“Who’s got her now? They going to fight for her?”
“She’s not…”
“Devi’s not-? Oh. Why?” The tone on Johnny’s final word dripped with very sudden disapproval.
“She doesn’t want to go anywhere else,” Edgar said, hoping the excuse would miraculously work on Johnny when it clearly hadn’t on Devi. He expected one of Johnny’s standard all-knowing answers in response. Something Zen.
“So what? She’s fucking, what, six? She’s going where ever we want her to go.”
Not quite the Zen Edgar had been hoping for.
“She’s not a pet, Nny.”
“Take your own advice and take her out of the little Edgar-shaped Chihuahua bag for a while,” Johnny nearly spat the words as he gestured dramatically.
“You’re just upset that she’s here all the time.”
“Uh, yeah. That’s pretty much it. Thought that was obvious. I’m willing to play the game when it stays a game and doesn’t become daily life.”
“Nny, this isn’t a game, it’s a little gir-”
“It’s okay, I’ll go see Aunt Devi,” Stephanie said from the top of the stairs. Edgar hadn’t even noticed that the discussion had gotten near the stairs, and felt terrible the moment he heard Stephanie’s voice.
“Oh, no, I didn’t-,” Edgar started.
“Issokay. Are we leaving soon?”
“I…,” Edgar trailed off hopelessly and looked to Johnny for some kind of clarification. Johnny raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Let me, uh, call Devi back, I guess,” Edgar answered, defeated. Stephanie nodded and vanished into the dark on the second floor and Johnny drifted into the kitchen. Edgar marveled at how easily both of them made him feel like a complete shit head and felt some residual concern over what that might mean.
The dial tone reminded him that he now had to crawl back to Devi and tell her he’d angered both Johnny and the girl, and he thought just calling Jimmy and making sure everyone knew that he had failed horribly may be in order.
*****
She really hadn’t expected the little girl. This made things a little difficult. She could be easily corrupted if something wasn’t done quickly. It hadn’t taken Edgar long at all to be completely brainwashed, and a little girl was likely already far gone.
In the bushes, once again, watching the occupants of the house.
Johnny was even venomous to a small girl! How could Edgar not see what was happening? Was he so lost already?
This hadn’t started as a rescue mission in addition to a sabotage, but it was feeling more like one every day. Edgar needed someone to get him out of there, and now the girl had to come, too. Johnny was cruel to both of them, yet they both meekly did as he requested.
“…Destroy everything you touch”
The band responded to music, and quite well. She’d seen them react in the last place she was able to follow them, and as soon as she could find a way, she’d get reactions from them at home. Songs had to be the best way to get Edgar out without rousing suspicion. She didn’t know how effective music would be as subliminal messages, but it was worth a shot.
“What you touch you don't feel
Do not know what you steal
Destroy everything you touch today
Please destroy me this way”
She watched Edgar in relation to that girl, watched him talk to her and laugh with her. Meanwhile, Johnny had shown interest and then suddenly cut her off. Not a satisfying plaything? Not as corruptible, as destructible, as Edgar?
How did someone as good as Edgar end up with this monster guy? This was just as unjust as what had happened to her. Just as fucked up, just as wrong, just as badly in need of correction.
“Destroy everything you touch today
Destroy me this way
Anything that may delay you
Might just save you”
She debated sneaking in through their windows later that night to plug her music into Edgar’s stereo, but she worried the song would give Johnny ideas and decided against it.
*****
Stephanie waved to Edgar an hour or so later, and drove off with Devi and Tenna with the promise of some ice cream. Edgar hoped she wasn’t so good at reading people yet that she could recognize a forced smile. When did kids pick up on things like that, anyway?
“So that’s the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.”
Johnny never missed said things.
“I’ve had faker,” Edgar said, still staring down the road.
“What’s going on?”
“What? You don’t know every inner detail? Quick, alert the media!” He didn’t know what was making him so short suddenly, but Edgar made no effort to patch it over.
“Greetings there, Unnecessary Hostility, what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Me?” Edgar finally turned toward Johnny. “I’m being unnecessarily hostile? You just scared a little girl out of her house!”
“Yeah, I’m terrifying for the under ten set,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. “And it’s not her house.”
“She lives here, just like you do!”
“No. Not like I do – she’s been here like two weeks. What is your thing with her?”
“What’s yours? One day, you’re her best friend, and the next you’re mad that she’s here?”
“You can’t answer my question with another one, Edgar.”
“It’s never stopped you.”
Johnny seemed to actually consider Edgar’s statement before he spoke, “I’m fine with her, she’s easily the most enjoyable small child I’ve ever run into, but that doesn’t mean I want to live with her or be her sole parental thing. Or be one at all.”
“She’s not hurting anything living here, and she’s better off here than at Jimmy’s or with Devi and Tenna. She likes us, she likes the room.” Edgar paused for a few moments. “It’s not like you can’t swear or anything,” he added with a shrug.
“You just looked like you were crossing into that territory.”
“What territory?”
“The ‘let’s be family’ one.”
“It’s not quite-”
“No. But it’s getting there.”
“I guess, maybe it could be seen like that. I’m fond of her, but I’m not looking to just drop everything and buy some parenting magazines, really.”
“Good,” Johnny said, squinting at the road, “because what I said about not living to eighty, I meant.”
“Are we aiming more for fifty or something?” Edgar asked cautiously.
“Not even so old.”
“Oh.”
“Still want to come with me?” Johnny’s voice had a hint of a dare in it.
“I don’t remember saying that I did,” Edgar answered slowly. Johnny’s expression wavered for a moment. “But yes,” Edgar finished. “I do.”
“‘If a plane were to fall from the sky…’” And again, there wasn’t much singing in Johnny’s words, but Edgar recognized them, and finished them, nonetheless.
“‘…how big a hole would it make in the surface of the Earth?’”
“Perhaps Banshee is our plane,” Johnny said, smiling. He was still watching the road, as though he could still see Devi and Tenna driving off, though they were likely at home or even miles away enjoying ice cream.
Edgar hadn’t thought about a crater.