I’m Still Here
9th Sun
By Lady Yate-xel
Johnny hadn’t moved for days. Edgar had done nearly the same. Banshee expressed concern, though not without some bitterness. Nothing Edgar could say to himself could convince him that Banshee hadn’t been changed by the whole thing. She seemed to have altered her appearance as drastically as she was able just to serve as a constant, nagging reminder of what had happened. When she wasn’t quiet and hiding in her room, she was lingering in doorways, watching him, but pretending she wasn’t.
Edgar spent time watching Johnny lie asleep among a mountain of blankets and pillows. Johnny should be sleeping this much, Edgar reasoned, given the way he faked being fine for audiences and worked his system so badly. As much as Edgar repeated this, often aloud, he knew it wasn’t merely recuperative sleep.
He and the others had tried frantically to draw a response from Johnny when he continued screaming at a dial tone that wasn’t there. They’d dragged him from the phone, which Edgar had decided not to mention wasn’t even connected, and tried to get his eyes to focus on something. The only connection Johnny had seemed to make was with Banshee, who glared in response. No longer pointedly looking away from things that bothered her about Johnny, she had stared needles into him for the duration of their time in the van.
“Who is it?” Banshee asked from the bedroom doorway. Edgar blinked, taking in the waves of green blanket around him and the stack of pillows threatening to engulf Johnny’s skull.
“Who?”
“Which god?”
“I don’t know,” Edgar answered, keeping his gaze low. “Whoever’s listening, I suppose. I think it’s been different every night.”
“They all said no?”
He shook his head gently. “No, they just made executive decisions. Who do you think would want him?”
“Kali, maybe,” Banshee said, shrugging. Her ragged excuses for clothing provided sparse coverage for what appeared to be a wild and angry attempt to restrain the breasts that had emerged during her last growing incident. Edgar didn’t want to think she’d grown that much and for now happily played into Banshee’s insistence that nothing about her chest had changed at all.
“Kali? Really?” Edgar asked.
“Or maybe we could feed him to Ammit,” Banshee spat.
“Banshee, he didn’t-”
“Yeah, he’s completely innocent. Poor baby, too tired from letting a monster he found in a hotel eat his brain and stretch the skeleton of teenage girl.”
“I-”
“Don’t get me started on you,” Banshee growled. “You let him.”
Edgar sighed. The sooner he assumed some of the guilt for the situation, the sooner Banshee would feel better. And in truth, he told himself, he wasn’t entirely innocent.
“Think he’ll wake up?” Banshee asked, apparently satisfied with Edgar’s shame for now.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
****
Tenna drove recklessly, aided by Johnny’s barked orders to turn here and swerve there. He braced himself with a hand against the radio and prevented the others from adjusting the volume. When he saw a pay phone, he wrenched the wheel from Tenna’s hand, startling her into an abrupt break at the edge of the road.
Johnny threw himself out of the van and began fumbling in his layers of clothes for pockets of change.
“What’s the number?” Johnny demanded, gesturing for the answer to be presented to him.
“For Dreaming Dan? You can’t just-”
“It’s dream ninety-four,” Jimmy interrupted. His voice was steady and deliberate. “DREAM94.”
“Good,” Johnny answered. He didn’t count the change in his hands, since it seemed to be jumping from his palms, but just shoved the coins violently into the slot of the pay phone. Several smaller coins dripped to the ground.
“Nny, this is not a good idea.” Edgar. Of course.
“You don’t even know what the idea is.”
“But it’s still not good.”
The number to dial Dreaming Dan seemed to echo from the buttons. Johnny was greeted with a busy signal for a few moments and then the sound coming from the nearby van broke through the receiver as well. Johnny flinched at the intensity of it, felt it loop into him almost immediately and heard, faintly, songs from those in the van.
“Why did you take her?!” Johnny felt the music change with his question and though he could feel it pulling on things it shouldn’t have been, he could also feel that he was about to get an answer.
“Our desires seem to have coincided for the time being.”
“Johnny, what did you do? The station cut out!” The songs from the occupants of the van intensified, but not maliciously.
“What do you want?” Johnny persisted through the pain in his head. He could feel it sitting in there, prying open little things that had previously only been bothered by a closet in his bedroom.
“We need to be friends again.”
“We never were! You did things to me!”
The others in the van said something else, trying to help or something. The music on the phone got louder and tried to strangle the sounds of shoes, happiness, progress and being hot. Words were trying to fit themselves where words were not welcome. He could see the sneaking threads crawling through the phone. They’d stopped leaking out of the speakers in the van, and the songs of the others kept them safe from the invasion. Except perhaps Banshee, who had other things to worry about.
“We worked together. You and I deserve each other.”
“What are you doing here? Why are you following me? Where did you find her?” He felt sure he was only asking one question, even if it manifested as three.
“This is the way we belong. You can let me out of her, and this will all stop.”
“What kind of fuckery is that? You want to appeal to someone to save the creepy bitch, then talk to Edgar! I don’t care what happens to her!”
The voice that was not quite Tess laughed gently. “I didn’t mean her,” it said sweetly. “I mean only that if you let me out, the things happening to you will stop.”
“Because you’ll be eating my brain again! What kind of idiot do you take me for?” The sounds the voice emitted that weren’t words stung behind his eyes.
“The same one that never fought back last time.”
“I’m not him!”
“So say we all.”
Something grabbed him and he whirled around to crack the phone receiver into the side of Devi’s head. She shuffled backward a step or two and said something Johnny couldn’t hear. Jimmy came up behind him and hugged Johnny’s arms to his sides while Devi pried the phone out of his hand. Johnny hardly noticed Edgar, and he wasn’t sure what Edgar was even doing there. Banshee and Tenna looked at him from the van’s open door and he slid back into Jimmy’s chest, the sky swirling out of view around him.
“Jimmy?!” he shrieked when he sat up abruptly among piles of blankets.
“Can’t say I was expecting that.”
Edgar was sitting beside him and Devi and Jimmy were nowhere to be found. Banshee and the van and the sky and the phone were missing too. Johnny felt his breath sharply in his lungs, perceiving the inflation of them for the first time since coming back to life.
“How long was that?” Johnny asked, feeling every tiny wisp of air as he breathed.
“A few days,” Edgar answered. “Are you okay? Dizzy or anything? Going to vomit blood?”
“I’ll let you know,” Johnny said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m starting to feel like some fucking blushing maiden, with all this passing out I’m doing.”
“What do you remember?”
“Everything, I think. I called Tess. Or the wall thing. On Dreaming Dan. And then…”
“And then?”
“You guys all grabbed me.”
Edgar sighed and twitched an eyebrow. He might as well have glowed ‘NO’ in some kind of neon color.
“That isn’t what happened, is it?” Johnny asked.
“Not completely, no. You weren’t talking to anyone. Dan cut the station almost as soon as you got out of the van.”
“I heard it for-”
“We know, we all watched you scream into that phone,” Edgar said. “Thing is, it wasn’t even working. The cord was cut, and the change you put in rolled right out of it. You didn’t even seem to notice.”
“I didn’t notice,” Johnny replied, trying to see the events clearly in his mind. He thought, absently as he scratched at his lip, that it was a waste of seventy-five cents.
“I’m going to try to find her,” Edgar said. “If you really talked to her, then she can’t do this stuff to you. If she didn’t…”
“Then I’m doing this stuff to me.”
“Yeah.” Edgar clasped his hands and glanced around the room before looking back at Johnny. “I need to ask you a favor.”
“Of the guy who just lost days of his life? Classy.”
“Yeah. I need you to stay home. Don’t do anything stupid or go anywhere until we get this Tess thing worked out.”
“We cancel more shows?”
“Not a lot. People are all saying you’re dead again anyway and I think the fans eat that up. They’re selling T-shirts, I hear. Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we have to do this touring around thing anyway – it’s just to mess with people by now. Just stay home.”
“Are you going somewhere that you can’t police my staying at home?”
“I have a few things to do.”
“I can watch him,” Banshee piped up from somewhere in the hall. She walked to the door and leaned dramatically into the doorframe. Most of her hair was gone, save for a long green strip running from her forehead to the back of her skull.
“Watch me?”
“Yeah, do I look old enough to handle that kind of thing yet?” Banshee asked, gesturing to her taller, more adult body.
“Banshee, stop,” Edgar said, rising from the bed. He reached out to Johnny to do something – Johnny thought it was to pat his head or something equally weird – but he stopped mid-motion. He smiled at Johnny instead and then turned to Banshee. Johnny felt something like pity or condescending indulgence, not directed at Banshee, but at himself. Something in the back of his mind flared up and wanted to react violently and immediately.
“Would you mind?” Edgar’s tone with Banshee wasn’t authoritative, or even simple asking. Instead, he sounded afraid to tread somewhere he was unwelcome.
“No.”
The thing in Johnny’s brain was not going to gain physical control, but Johnny had to agree with it on an emotional level. “She’ll try to poison me or something, Edgar. Look at her!”
Banshee made a mocking ‘rawr’ and mimed claws with her fingers before turning to say she was going to make something for dinner. Edgar called after to say he’d be joining her.
“Just stay where she can’t eat your brain, okay?” Edgar’s expression asked far more than his voice. Johnny nodded, tossing the layers of blankets from his legs. Even if he really wanted to be violent, his body wasn’t going to let him, at least not at that particular second. Edgar looked alarmed that Johnny was attempting escape and behaved as though he anticipated having to catch something as Johnny swung his legs out of bed and tried to stand.
“Where are you going?” Edgar asked, clearly struggling with whether he wanted to offer his arms as support.
“I haven’t peed in four days.”
****
Banshee shuffled and slid around the kitchen, grabbing things from cabinets she hadn’t been able to reach a few months ago. Edgar watched her slide across the floor in her mismatched socks and patchwork clothing several times before he said anything.
“You’d look less like him with a chest, you know.”
She stopped sliding abruptly, whisk in one hand, small package of pudding in other. She looked up at Edgar slowly. She had painted around her eyes and on the sides of her head. Standing there like that, glaring at Edgar, and making pudding for dinner, she wasn’t avoiding any comparisons to Johnny.
“Do you want to see Devi and Tenna about it?” Edgar asked. He’d expected the bra conversation to be full of more drama and more ‘Eww, no, you touch it!’ and more treating Banshee like she was a leper. There should have been lots of blaming Edgar and even more mocking, but Edgar felt as at ease as he would have were he talking about toast, or, in this case, pudding.
“They shouldn’t even be here,” Banshee said bitterly.
“But they are. And sources tell me they don’t melt into your body if you put pressure on them overnight.”
“But I can ignore them. That’s working so far.”
“This actually looks like ‘lavishing attention’ to me. Maybe negative attention, but attention regardless.”
Edgar watched her resume her pudding making activities, though her movements looked stiff and strained. She turned back to him a few seconds later and made an attempt at a scowl.
“Are you still here?” Maybe learned from Johnny?
“Where was I going to go?”
“Someplace where my chest was not part of the conversation.”
“It’s going to get worse than your chest, you know.”
“Don’t you think I know anything?” She pointed accusingly in Edgar’s direction with the dripping whisk. “I read! I know! At least I’m prepared this time! Not like with my teeth, which was great of you guys.”
“You’re blaming us for not knowing that your face would explode?”
“I can’t be the only person you’ve ever known who lost teeth.”
“Considering I started existing at age ten…”
Banshee spun back around to her bowl in frustration, flinging droplets of chocolate batter across the kitchen floor. She attacked the mixture violently, as though it had insulted her or she was trying desperately to form it into a sphere.
“What are you going to do with Tess?” she asked. She apparently saw no need to stop her relentless assault on the bowl, so Edgar talked over the sounds of the metal clashing.
“Just see if I can find her. Check all the usual hangouts. Alert Devi.”
“Don’t hurt her or anything, okay?” Banshee said, pausing in her assault of the pudding bowl.
“Devi? Are you kidding? She’d eat me alive.”
“No, Edgar. Tess.”
He didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to say, and what he could say, but what he should say was missing.
“We’ll see what happens,” he managed.
****
Banshee climbed the stairs slowly, even though she wanted desperately to take advantage of her newfound height and scale them two at a time. She was scared to think it in words, but she thought doing anything too extreme with her body would trigger the rest of it to grow up, and from what she had read, that was something she was lucky to have not encountered so far.
Johnny remained in the pillow-y sea of bedding that Edgar had heaped on him while he was asleep. The television was on and showcasing a claymation short while Johnny ignored it, seemingly working hard at tying his fingers together. Banshee watched him for several seconds, assuming that he knew she was there, but was choosing to ignore her. She leaned herself against the door frame, crossed her arms, and tried her best to send waves of disapproval in Johnny’s direction.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making sure the universe doesn’t come unstitched at Ragnarok,” he replied, his concentration fully on his swollen finger tips.
“For real.”
“Watching my fingers swell up when I cut off the blood flow.”
“I liked the other one better.”
Johnny exhaled sharply and dropped his hands into his lap. He turned to look at Banshee standing in the doorway behind him. Banshee guessed he felt the waves.
“Aren’t you here to stab me with something? Yell at me about how my brain made your body go nuts?”
“Did you know it would do that?” she asked. She tried to be as restrained as possible, since it was very likely Johnny would find the best possible way to upset her in the quickest possible time.
“I didn’t know. I thought it would.”
“And you did it anyway.”
“Okay, look,” Johnny said angrily, tossing blankets aside. “My brain, the stuff that’s in it, the stuff it can’t remember, the stuff that keeps coming in anyway, and that fucking closet? They could destroy me.”
“And you don’t think-”
“You will not die from breasts.”
Banshee took half a step back and wrinkled her nose at the comment, but shook it off. “You could have told me!”
“Edgar told you.”
“But no one asked how I felt about it, or even if it was okay?”
Johnny bowed slightly in her direction and pressed his hands together in mocking prayer. “‘Oh, Banshee, Empress of the Van, is it okay if Johnny tries to stop the crazy woman who wants to eat his brain and sleep with Edgar?’”
“You think Tess wants to sleep with Edgar?”
Johnny scoffed. “You don’t?”
“Tess...” Banshee tried to explain, but could come up with nothing but Tess’ name for some time. Johnny waited for her. “Tess is good. Tess belongs with us.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow. “So ‘good’ is eating my brain, then?”
“So she doesn’t like you!” Banshee exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air. “What is the big deal? The whole rest of the world adores you!”
“This is more than mild dislike. She’s coming after me, in case you missed that. Weird phone calls? Loudspeakers? Radio shows?”
“So Tess calls a radio show, which you could have ignored, by the way, and you do this to me?”
“Yeah, Banshee,” Johnny said, turning back to the television. “I really just wanted you to grow boobs.”
“Is everything about you?”
“Is everything about your chest?”
“NO! It’s not about the breasts; it’s not about the bleeding, or the nails, or the pain or the hair or the teeth! You’re just a bastard!” She pounded her fist against the door frame and squeezed her eyes shut. “I was a goddamn teenage girl! I still am! What the hell are you trying to put me through?!”
Johnny whirled around and off of the bed faster than Banshee thought he should have been able. He glared into her eyes from only inches away.
“I am not trying to put you through anything. I don’t give a shit what happens to you, okay? On the micro-scale, you growing into womanhood at last doesn’t mean a fucking thing, only that Edgar isn’t devastated because you’re dead. You’re not my damn kid, or my magic sister from the future; I don’t owe you anything.”
Banshee’s eyes widened, and something in her chest constricted on her lungs.
“We were friends once,” she gasped. It sounded lame, and she knew it, but it came out anyway.
“I can be your friend and not give a damn if you have a chest.”
“It’s not about the chest!”
“Are you sure? We keep coming back there.”
“This is willful abuse! You think this is okay for a kid to go through? How old was I last month? How tall?”
“I don’t know! Ask Edgar to break out the baby book! What, now you look legal enough to get tattooed and smoke crap like all the other ratty kids? Well, shit, Banshee, hard times.”
She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him, make him see that he had done something without even thinking that he would hurt her in the process.
“Why are you like this? Why are you okay with hurting people? Growing like this over a few minutes fucking hurts!”
“Because it could be a lot worse. I could be killing you all. Count your two blessings,” he shoved her back with a hand to her chest, “and shut the fuck up.”
“Then…then, what about Tess?” She wasn’t giving up on the entire argument.
“What about her?”
“Edgar is talking to her now, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
Johnny sighed, and dropped a handful of tangled string to the floor. “I think he’ll wimp out like he always does and come back telling us his new ineffective plan.”
“You don’t think he’ll get her? Get that thing out of her?”
“You think Edgar can do that? That’s cute.”
Banshee’s nostrils flared and she did everything in her power to keep herself from stamping her feet. “Is that what you think of him? He talked to Tess because he thought she could help you!”
Johnny looked across the room to the closet. “I have no delusions about the kinds of things he can do.”
“So everything has to be solved by you, then?” Banshee felt the first argument returning, but felt more ready for it this time. “You’re just going to let Edgar flounder around until he fails at helping you, and then save the day with your broken head?”
“My broken head isn’t helping anybody! But no one’s helping my head either!”
“Yes we ARE!” Banshee shrieked. “Edgar carried you all the way up these damn stairs and piled all the blankets in the house on you! The others cancel doing things they like to do because they worry about your fucking head!”
“And yet here you are, bitching about your bones!”
“Bone pain,” Banshee said firmly, latching her hands onto Johnny’s forearm, “is the worst pain you can feel.”
Johnny pulled back against her grip, but Banshee held it tight. She slid one hand down to Johnny’s wrist and twisted as hard as she was able. Johnny let out a noise better fit to spill from an animal. He tried to spin away from her to lessen the twist, but Banshee was persistent.
“This isn’t even your bones!” Banshee taunted. “This is just everything attached to them! And guess what?!” She quickly changed the direction of the twist so that Johnny’s attempts to lessen his pain would only help increase it. He swore loudly and tore at her arms with his free hand.
“Those grow too,” Banshee finished. She’d been unable to do what she really wanted to do when she started, but thought either she would lose the will, or Johnny would lose what motivated her.
With the release of his arm, Johnny staggered backwards, desperately rubbing his wrist. He was nearly doubled over, cradling his arm, glaring up at Banshee.
“This is your plan, is it?” His breath was heavy between words. “Going to break my arm and then Edgar will like you best and you’ll have a real family at last?”
“That’s not what this is about! Do you even fucking listen? You put me through torture! On purpose!”
“And you’ve returned the favor.”
“Like that even compares.”
“What, you want me to grow boobs too? Maybe then we can be twins.”
Or no one would lose anything, and she would have to try again.
Banshee screamed something incoherent, and then a few things in German. Johnny waited while she caught her breath. She stood in the doorway, chest heaving and lungs burning, waiting for him to do something in response, but aside from adjusting his posture and his gentle grip on his own arm, he did nothing. They stood, blinking at each other, while soft wisps of Johnny’s song lingered around them. Banshee had never heard it without Edgar around, nor without Edgar’s song firmly tangled in it.
“What are you doing?” Johnny asked angrily.
“Nothing! I’m standing here like a moron, just like you are!”
“You’re putting words in it!”
“What?”
“Listen!” he spat, nodding to some place vaguely over his head.
And so she listened. She heard Johnny’s song, with all its conflicting, folding parts just as she always did, though it was uninterrupted and clearer than usual. Around the edges of it, creeping in as though they were only burning the corners of the tune were soft words. Banshee couldn’t make them out, and didn’t know them.
“I’m not doing it!” she protested.
“You have to be! I don’t have any words!”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s still true! I know those aren’t mine.”
Banshee felt the words drift away, though they were barely perceptible to begin with. Johnny listened for them for a few moments after they disappeared. His eyelids flickered when he was sure they were gone, though he still quietly regarded the floor for a few seconds after the words vanished.
“Maybe we imagined it,” he said quickly, rubbing his bruising wrist. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
Just like that, at least for the moment, her animosity toward Johnny vanished; and as much as the guy whose arm she’d just tried to break could be, he was her best friend in the world. They made some sloppily constructed sandwiches together while singing and finishing the latest song that Johnny had ruined by collapsing.
“Do you want cheese on yours?”
****
Edgar had been unable to find Tess when he went out, so coming back to Johnny’s arm nearly twisted off did not improve his mood. However, he told Banshee that he was happy that she and Johnny seemed to be friends again, and even managed to excuse her violence against Johnny’s arm, though his reaction to it was not without some initial horror. Banshee did feel like she was friends with Johnny, but this didn’t stop her feelings of betrayal, and of being an inconsequential addition to the lives of the people she lived with. She could deal with Edgar favoring Johnny over her – Johnny was something like his partner, and she was a distant niece, if she felt like being generous. What she couldn’t live with was neglect and abuse, and the more she watched Johnny flaunting his un-broken wrist, the more she decided Johnny had no right to be un- anything.
They were upstairs, and Banshee was crossing the hall to fish something out of the closet, when Johnny emerged from the bedroom.
“What do you want?” he said, though she’d said and done nothing to warrant such a question.
“Nothing, fuck you.”
“Have you seen that glass thing?”
“You’re going to need to be specific.”
“The glass thing,” Johnny said as he mocked holding a small ball. “You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
Whatever Johnny said next didn’t particularly matter. She later pretended that it was what had set her off, but she was already resolved well before then to shove. There was never going to be another time that she and Johnny would be this near the stairs without suspicion, unless Banshee pretended to camp in the bathroom for hours until he emerged. She waited until he’d said the last syllable of whatever he was trying to say and then she forced all her weight against his chest. It wasn’t much weight, but thanks to her resemblance to Johnny, there wasn’t much weight to move either.
When her hands left the fabric of his shirt, everything slowed long enough for Banshee to appreciate that Johnny was not dodging her, but that gravity was dragging him out and away, and in the same way that she used to hear Jimmy think it aloud, she found Johnny falling to be something beautiful.
Things were supposed to be okay. Judging by the fact that Johnny was now flailing through the air, they clearly were not, but even in the times that things had been okay, Banshee had found the support of her ‘family’ inconsistent at best. Losing a bookmark was an event warranting national security, but a bloody knee was only important once Edgar found out about it. When she thought about it, still frozen in a moment her mind seemed determined to both relish and ruin, Banshee realized that the little crises about her body had always been the worst offenders.
She had awoken sometime early in the morning back when she felt a little younger with a pain in her jaw and a wet, sticky feeling on her cheek. When she’d taken a breath, worried that her jaw had somehow fallen off, the taste and scent of blood flooded her senses and for a moment, she’d thought, shorted out her brain. She’d sat up abruptly in a panic and realized there were sharp objects in her mouth. Pausing only for a moment to consider the possibilities, she’d spat into her hand.
There, shining among strands of spit and blood, she’d found a hand full of her own teeth.
The light in the room had been faint, but her eyes were able to make out the small puddle of blood that was staining the pillow and the collection of other teeth that were lying scattered around it. Horrified, she’d shuffled through the sheets and away from the stain, shaking the teeth from her hand and into the folds of her bed. She’d run her tongue around her mouth in a panic, but found no gaps in the rows of teeth. The teeth had only felt sore, though some of them felt sharper or differently shaped than they had when she gone to sleep.
The longer she had remained awake, the more her jaw had ached. Banshee’s thoughts of panic had then been interrupted by intense desires to chew on ice cubes or fill her mouth with gauze. Unfortunately, she never made it to freezer or to the hall closet. She remembered clearly that she had pounded on Johnny and Edgar's door, but only barely recalled that she had run to it.
"Oh god, what did you do to yourself?" Johnny had looked disgusted at the sight of her, his lip twitching.
"My teeth all fell out!"
"You’re not that old," he’d said, rolling his eyes and trying to shut the door on her.
Edgar had pushed the door open from behind Johnny and shoved him out of the way. He had gasped and looked a little sick when he saw Banshee standing there.
"Oh god, get into the bathroom," he’d choked, trying frantically to turn her around without actually touching her.
Banshee had obeyed silently, afraid to blink and have more of her face deform itself while she wasn't paying attention. Standing in front of the mirror, she had then been presented with a reflection of the patch of blood that had traveled over her cheek during the night. The image of it was still clear in her mind; dried and crusting off of her skin on the edges, while the inch or so near her mouth remained tacky and thick. A spot or two on her cheek had retained the texture of her pillow, accented then with thick reddish brown.
"Ew, that's really horrible looking." She’d touched her cheek gingerly, and her fingers had actually stuck for a moment. "Sorry, I didn't know it was so gross."
It had been disgusting, but Banshee still recalled the intense relief that her face had not fallen off during the night. Edgar had tossed a washcloth at her from the closet and she worked on scrubbing her face. The mirror had assured her it was gone, but her face had very much insisted that something was lingering.
"You told Johnny your teeth fell out?" Edgar had asked from the doorway.
"They did!" she’d squeaked, tossing the cloth in the sink. "They're all on my pillow!"
"You still look like you have them all," he’d observed, leaning closer and obviously doubtful.
"Go look!"
Johnny had gotten there first.
"This is seriously gross, Banshee.” His voice had sounded friendlier echoing from her room then than it had recently.
"I did it on purpose, Nny. Just for you."
"Good, I think I'll let Edgar throw it in the laundry. It's the gift that keeps on giving."
Edgar had said something Banshee didn't hear as she followed him into her bedroom to join Johnny. She hadn’t thought much of what it was at the time, but reflecting on it she assumed it to be some sort of smart but loving remark that she hadn’t been meant to hear in the first place.
The teeth, still bloody and glistening, had looked more gruesome in the light somehow. To have them lying so casually among the pictures of cats printed on her sheets had made her feel uneasy.
"So… your body caught up with you all at once or something," Johnny had said, still surveying the bloody stain.
"Teeth are supposed to fall out?" Banshee had asked. She had never run into this problem in mythology.
"The first ones, yeah."
She’d pressed her fingers into her cheeks again, just to make sure her bone structure hadn’t changed. For weeks after the event, she had checked almost hourly to make sure her teeth hadn’t escaped. Her nightmares had often consisted of being unable to keep teeth from piling up behind her lips in their frenzy to escape her jaw. In some dreams, she choked on them; in others, she could do nothing but throw up vomit laced with them.
"I feel like my face exploded while I was asleep."
"It looks like that's exactly what happened." Edgar had still been hovering between interested and disgusted.
"So what do you want to do with them?" Johnny had asked, turning to Banshee.
"What? Do?"
"Yeah, you thinking earrings or a necklace or what?"
"I don't have holes in my ears."
Both Johnny and Edgar had seemed surprised to hear this and they stared oddly at her for a few seconds.
"What, do they occur naturally or something like belly buttons?"
"No," Johnny had answered with a partial laugh, "I think I just assumed. There's something like twenty holes between all of us, I just forgot you weren't adding to the total yet." That joking friendship had been there then, but had almost vanished by now.
"How'd you get them all?" Banshee had asked. She had been curious about the ear holes, but was still focused on the teeth.
"Experimenting,” Johnny had replied with a casual shrug.
“That doesn’t sound safe at all.”
Johnny had looked intensely disapproving of Banshee’s comment and had glared at Edgar.
“What have you been telling her?” Johnny asked accusingly.
“What? She shows some concern for not getting a huge swollen infection and that’s my influence?”
“I wonder where she would get the idea that she could get such a thing…”
“It was your fault, you know. You’re the one who did it.”
“Um, hey,” Banshee had interrupted. “I didn’t say anything about infection.”
Very quickly after that conversation, Johnny had retrieved needles and several books of matches. After a few misfires resulting in more bloody facial wounds, a burned lock of hair, and the story of how infected Edgar had gotten when he agreed to have Johnny poke a hole in one of his ears, Banshee had gained her first ear piercings. They’d been slightly irregular and she had different numbers on each side. Johnny would later teach her to do it herself and in her latest body transformation she incorporated a few more holes into her new look, though she kept the uneven distribution. The pain of the new holes in her ears felt comforting the second time around - she’d inflicted it herself, and it was a change she invited among all the transformations that other people had given the okay for.
Edgar’s voice was the only sound she still remembered over the memory of the other pain.
“It’s okay, Banshee. Don’t worry.”
But it had been very not okay. She still felt this pain every day. Often, she felt like she had never left the moment when she first felt it, and could very well still be in the front of the mirror in the bathroom.
There had been, and still was, an ache across her chest and deep in her abdomen. She had hugged her book against her chest in an effort to stop the pain she felt trying to burst from her ribcage, but nothing seemed to stop it. Like every other growth she’d never been warned about, this happened with no remorse or restraint.
The pain did not stop when her chest grew outward instead of upward.
She’d been reading a book in which the princess possessed magical mirrors that reflected a second too slow and a second too fast. The princess was under constant threat of attack and as a measure of protection a mark had been made on her eyelids that would kill someone looking upon the image. This meant that the princess spent much of her time alone. One day, looking into the slow mirror, the princess saw her own eyes closed, and the image on her lids, seen by the eyes underneath for the first time, killed her. At that moment, Banshee’s body had rebelled against her and Edgar had assured her that things would be fine as she scaled the stairs in terror. She had slammed the bathroom door behind her, shredded her shirt, and stared into the mirror over the sink in horror.
She knew what they were, she knew what they were for, she knew she’d look more female with them and yet, the pain aside, she hated them. Her companions, her friends, her sad excuse for a family were only going to make jokes about it. She knew that was how they dealt with things that scared or worried them, but that didn’t excuse it.
The hatred did not go away after that freak growth, and it did not lessen. Cramming herself into a bra (provided by Tenna) was uncomfortable and unnecessary. It was ugly and awkward. It was stupid. It was girly. It was too tight around the middle but still slid off of her shoulders.
She hadn’t been, and still wasn’t dumb enough to punch the mirror, but she had thrown herself into trying to split it from the wall. She had wanted to melodramatically claim that the mirror was mocking her, or that it was cruel in some way, but she knew better. Until the mirror showed her time a moment too soon and a moment too slow and she was able to see the outside of her own eyelids, she had no mirror to blame that she was flailing around her bathroom in some kind of harness.
After staring down her own reflection, Banshee had rejected the bra, the breasts, and everything that came with them. A bandage from the closet, pulled tightly around her chest for maximum restraint and flattening served as her permanent underwear from then on. Her reflection now showed a girl with a sore jaw, sore ears, a sore chest, and a generally unstable skeleton. Every injury she’d ever suffered even indirectly at Johnny’s hands stared back at her from eyes she herself had surrounded with black make-up.
She was simply tired of it. One comment here, one comment there. Something about her chest, something about her height, something about how similar they looked, something about how Tess had become a succubus and was trying to seduce Edgar in the night and Banshee was going to lose him to the same person she’d been trying to protect. Johnny was, as far as Banshee could tell, her best friend, so this all made sense. Heaps of abuse only warranted abuse in return – it was how best friends worked. Best friends were supposed to fight more than anyone else in the world.
With Johnny the center of the world, and no one caring about the state of the mangled girl he’d indirectly attacked, an idea wormed into her mind and erupted later over the shaky re-establishment of their friendship.
When he hit the stair half way down, she almost regretted pushing him. When she heard a crunch and a cry of pain, she felt nothing at all. It wasn’t as violent and personal as breaking his arm while twisting would have been, but it was something. Before she knew what she was doing, she had rushed down the stairs, several at a time, and smashed her boot against his forearm, wrenching a howl from him that almost made her laugh. Personalizing things. The sounds of Johnny’s arm breaking startled her, but they also sent a wave of power through her that muted every sound and blurred every image for several seconds thereafter. While Johnny gasped at the bottom of the stairs, Banshee fled to the top step, sat, stared down at him from between her knees and watched him squirm.
Within a few moments, Edgar emerged from the basement, saying something about hearing a noise. Briefly, Banshee wished she had savored breaking Johnny’s arm a little more; it had gone so fast and felt almost like it had happened in her head.
Edgar’s reaction to Johnny’s wrist wrapped in a bandage was nothing compared to his reaction when he discovered Johnny’s arm completely broken. He’d taken very diligent, gentle care of Johnny’s wrist after it had been twisted while mocking him at every opportunity and giving Banshee disapproving but gently joking looks in the meantime. With Johnny’s arm actually broken, Edgar was at first violently angry and then bitterly cold. This was, of course, after the panic.
Johnny had writhed on the floor in pain for a few moments before he managed to breathe enough to say that he thought his arm was broken. When Edgar asked what had happened, Johnny nodded toward Banshee at the top of the stairs and Edgar’s gaze met hers. She’d never seen Edgar’s face in this expression and while she was not sorry, she regretted that fulfilling her need had to hurt Edgar. When Edgar asked for confirmation that Banshee had really broken Johnny’s arm, Johnny nodded and said something to the tune of, ‘Fucking jumped on it.’ Edgar’s eyes widened and he held his hands out to discourage any movement on Johnny’s part.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Johnny said between winces. “Just call Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?” Edgar was already on his way to the phone apparently to dial for an ambulance. “What do you want him for?”
“He can fix it. Seriously, call him.”
“I’m not calling Jimmy for something a doctor should be doing, it’s-”
“Jimmy can actually see me, just fucking call.”
Edgar’s worry was enough that he seemed to forget what had caused all of this in the first place because he looked at Banshee as though trying to get her to vote in a tie breaker. She bit her lip hard to keep from telling Edgar that he should jump on Johnny’s arm just to make sure it was really broken before making the call.
Moments later, he apparently decided he didn’t need the opinion of Johnny’s teenaged assassin-in-training and dialed the phone. Banshee was surprised when Edgar said hello to Tenna and not to Jimmy or a hospital.
“I need you to get over here with the van; I think Johnny’s arm is broken. I – um, okay. Sure.”
He hung up and looked bewildered for a moment.
“She swore at me, and then she said she’d bring Jimmy over,” Edgar said, almost to himself.
“Fucking told you,” Johnny growled through his teeth.
“Has he done this before?” Edgar asked.
“Devi broke her arm when she was thirteen. Jimmy read about it or something, I don’t know. But he fixed it with some shit he stole from the school nurse and some other stuff from some kind of army supply store.”
“What did he do? Maybe I can do something before gets here.” Edgar made a motion to grab Johnny’s arm, and Johnny tried to pull away in an effort to avoid pain, which then resulted in more pain. He swore quietly and then stopped moving.
“Okay,” Johnny said. He caught a glance at Banshee out of the corner of his eye and his expression changed, but Banshee was not sure to what. It flashed on his face only briefly before he returned to trying to give Edgar something to do.
“So it looks fucked up, right?” Johnny asked, watching the ceiling fan.
“Yeah. Yeah it does.”
“How does it feel?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“I mean to touch it. Cold or something?”
Edgar gingerly touched Johnny’s arm above his wrist. “Yeah.”
Johnny asked questions he already knew the answers to and had Edgar feeling useful until Jimmy arrived, banging on the door and accompanied by Devi and Tenna. Edgar let them in and the conversations went by too fast for Banshee to keep track of. Someone mentioned Tess, everyone wanted to know how it happened, and Jimmy and Johnny swore at each other while Jimmy fussed with the black oversized First Aid bag he’d brought along.
“Stop twitching! I have to get the circulation through here again!”
“It fucking hurts! You didn’t do this to Devi!”
“Yes he did, Nny, I just wasn’t a baby.”
“Fuck you! OW!”
“What the hell happened?” Tenna demanded, waving her hands in front of Edgar’s face.
“Banshee-” Edgar started, motioning to her.
“Kleine?!”
“FUCK, JIMMY, MY ARM!”
Banshee laughed softly into her knees, attempting to stifle the sound for the group below. Unfortunately, the more a silence settled over them, the harder it became for her to maintain hers. When she laughed, it flowed from her and rolled down the stairs, stunning everyone at the bottom, except for perhaps Johnny, who was already very physically aware of Banshee’s joy in the situation. The longer they looked at her, the harder she laughed. The harder she laughed, the more pronounced their horror became.
Jimmy and Edgar looked betrayed, though Jimmy more so than Edgar. Edgar, at this point, was in a kind of angry shock. Banshee’s glee faded when she looked at his face, but it surged again when she saw Johnny, who was striving to avoid looking at her. She’d wounded him in a way that he couldn’t hide now. He couldn’t avoid this like an emotional blow, and he couldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt him in front of others like he had done with everything Tess had ever done to him. Even if Jimmy managed to mend the limb perfectly, Johnny would wear a cast and someone would catch a picture of him with it on. Johnny was not unbreakable, was not immortal, and not magical. With the cast on his arm, he wouldn’t slip out of anything, wouldn’t even be able to eat with the same efficiency. Bones for bones.
Jimmy silently returned to fixing Johnny’s arm, and the others just looked uncomfortable. Devi expressed disgust with the whole affair, while Tenna was just confused. She glanced between Banshee and Johnny several times, yet never seemed to come to a conclusion that satisfied her.
“I guess that should do it,” Jimmy said minutes later, trying to focus his attention entirely on Johnny’s newly wrapped arm.
“Will that plaster come off the floor?” Devi asked as she poked a few spots that Jimmy had dripped. Johnny shot her a look but said nothing. He was still avoiding looking up the stairs, and the others seemed afraid to say anything to Banshee at all. Since they’d all stepped around ever being called her parents, she realized, no one was comfortable punishing her, and the one person who had every right to lash out at her because she’d just broken him, couldn’t.
“I’ll be in my room,” she finally said, her hand hovering above her mouth. When she stood up, she towered over them and again let out rich laughter that followed her down the hall.
****
Banshee sat alone in the room while the others remained downstairs, baffled at her behavior. She still didn’t feel bad for the act itself, only that it upset people she had not directly hurt. Jimmy certainly had not expected the girl he shared his fake second language with to try to break his lifelong obsession, and Edgar was clearly not amused either. A small comfort, though, was that Banshee could be fairly certain that Tess would very much approve.
The red star still hung in the dark when she closed her eyes.
She could hear the group downstairs fussing over Johnny and even louder was the sound of Johnny complaining.
When she sunk into her blankets, and closed her eyes to take in the red star, she imagined she was floating. Sometimes at night, when she was very nearly asleep, she would feel as though her body was tipping off of her mattress or that it was swinging steadily on a plank. The hovering feeling usually took a while to experience and was fragile, but it had soothed her to sleep more times than she could count. The red star usually made her feel that way in almost no time at all. At this point, Banshee lacked any concern over the politics of the Tess situation, she only knew she wanted to see her, talk to her, and figure out what made her tick. She wanted no parts of taking sides, she just wanted to know.
She traced a star in the air with a hand that felt heavier than usual, and sang softly at the one waving in the black behind her eyelids.
“It’s my red star…”
The star glowed and pulsed in response to her voice, encouraging more. The louder the words, the more she repeated them, the greater happiness surged from the star. Soon, the song stopped being the mostly soft and flowing tune she’d first called out of the mental sea and grew harder, sharper, and angrier, the star morphing with it. Banshee found the change quite welcome.
In a few moments, the words Banshee sang no longer matched the words being fed to her (or drawn out by her, she wasn’t sure). The star’s song compelled her to mouth words to a song she had never heard, but knew all the words to.
“Liar…”
The star was pleased by the first word she uttered, and urged her to produce more, though Banshee did not need to be pushed.
“You took a quick escape
But left your lies in perfect shape
As long as my mem'ries live
I never will - forgive you”
As the star sang less and Banshee sang more, her lips curled into a satisfied smile, and Tess’ voice began to sing with her.
“So if we meet - somewhere tonight
You'd better - be set to fight
In the darkness - of missing stars
You won't see me
But you'll feel me inside”
Tess’ voice and her attempts at singing angrily to Johnny made Banshee smile wider, and a reprise of her laughter from the staircase almost ruined the continuation of the song.
“Sitting in the dark just feeling low
I'm ruined to the heart - I'm on the road
To nowhere - to nowhere
If you wanna lie to me again
There is a rotten place they call the end
Just go there - and stay there”
Banshee felt Tess smiling too.
“Liar.”
They hummed together, nearly vocalizing the remainder of the song’s tune, both almost laughing, and Banshee was floating - hovering just above her sheets.
****
Edgar cornered her when the others had left and Johnny’s arm was securely in Jimmy’s shoddy-but-effective cast.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Banshee smugly shrugged the question away. “I was angry.”
“You broke his arm!”
“I know!” she laughed. “That’s what I was going for! I’d say it worked quite well!”
“Why?! What is this about?”
“He did this to me!” she yelled, thumping her hand against her chest. “On purpose! He’s been torturing me since the day I got here!”
“He was the one who first wanted to keep you here! Without him, you’d have been given over to the police!”
Banshee lips twitched uncontrollably. She tried to scream and clamp down on the urge at the same time. Edgar looked so angry and while she wanted to fight back with everything she had, Edgar was the person she wanted to fight with the least.
“He wanted to keep me just to mess with me, just to make me a pawn in his stupid shows.”
“And now we’re stupid.”
“No, I-”
“It’s all of us. Not just him.”
“He uses the rest of you, just like he uses me!” Banshee exclaimed, tossing her hands dramatically and then letting them fall to her sides. “I was just a kid-shaped toy to him all that time.”
Edgar looked conflicted for a moment.
“So what did you do?” he asked slowly. “What was the idea here? To punish him? To get to me somehow?”
“I don’t know.”
“I played dumb for a while, you know, to what you wanted. And Johnny was right; I should have addressed it long before now.” He sighed. “Especially before now.”
“What the hell do you know about what I wanted?”
“You came home one day screaming that you didn’t have a father. In German. I’m not an idiot, Banshee.”
Banshee felt a wave of fear, or maybe embarrassment, rush over her.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said with false arrogance. “I look what, maybe five or six years younger than you now? Some father you’ll be!”
“You wanted me to be when you were smaller. Would you still feel that way if I’d accepted all this earlier?”
“I’d still have broken his arm.”
“That’s not what I mean. And I don’t care how funny you think that is, you won’t get away with it.”
“What will you do? Lock me in my room? Put child locks on the van?”
“You just won’t be here,” Edgar said, though something in his voice betrayed that he’d only then thought of the idea.
Banshee crossed her arms, and laughed. “Yeah, go ahead, send me to Uncle Jimmy.”
“He’s not going to want you either. I’ll let you know when we make some kind of decision. Other than that, don’t expect to hear much from us.”
He left the room after that, leaving the issue of her feelings unaddressed.
“Thanks, Dad!” she called mockingly after him.
There was no answer from Edgar, or from the red star.
*****
Johnny had everything he asked for. Even though Banshee hadn’t snapped both his arms, he still legitimately needed help with some things, and shamelessly and arrogantly whined for help with everything else. Banshee wanted to lash out at him again, tell Edgar how obvious it was that Johnny was milking a broken arm for all it was worth and how he was being the same selfish bastard that had resulted in the broken limb in the first place.
However, Edgar wasn’t speaking to her, and when he managed to, the words he said were far from kind.
She knew that she’d brought that on herself, and she had even considered it briefly in the euphoria of crushing Johnny’s arm, but it didn’t make Edgar being so cold any less unpleasant. No one got anything for her anymore, even when she remembered not swear when she asked for it. The items she used to just borrow and then never return were all taken back, even though she’d had some of them since her first few days in the house. Food was made for two again, and not for three.
It angered her that Edgar took Johnny’s side, even though she should have known he would. Johnny had always been more important, even while Johnny blatantly abused Banshee and Edgar claimed to care about her. She used to wonder if Johnny ever really loved Edgar, and had snooped around more than once to see if he did, but at this point, even the supposed love she had witnessed could not convince her that Edgar wasn’t being manipulated. Tess was fucking on to something all that time. The star sung with her at night because it was right.
When Banshee walked into the living room to watch television, Edgar and Johnny ignored her, and even changed the channel when she seemed to want to watch what they already were. She suspected that Edgar and Johnny suffered through a show they both hated in order to make Banshee as uncomfortable as possible before she gave up and retreated to eat in her bedroom. As she closed her bedroom door, she heard Edgar’s voice ask if Johnny wanted him to change the channel.
The star showed her something better when she closed her eyes.
*****
“Does it hurt?”
“No, it just fucking itches.”
“You sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“I’m not dying, I just broke my arm.”
“Banshee broke your arm,” Edgar muttered. He made no effort to conceal bitter anger. He was sitting with Johnny in the bedroom, several days after the break in question, both of them staring at the white closet, but neither saying a word about it.
“I’m impressed at how much not talking to her you’re doing.”
“She did it on purpose! What am I supposed to do? Take her out for ice cream?”
“I could go for some,” Johnny hinted. Edgar ignored him.
“You’re not bothered by this?”
“Of course I am. She tried to snap me in half to get to you, or to prove that Tess is God, or that she was a real boy at last or whatever,” Johnny waved his hand dismissively, not bothering to adjust his Pinocchio reference for gender. “I just have things not trapped in my house to worry about.”
“She’d be easier to deal with if she was a boy.”
“Well sure,” Johnny replied, “since you already know how to deal with me and we’re exactly the same and all.”
“Fuck this,” Edgar said suddenly, letting himself drop into the blankets. “I’m obviously meant to have a specific set of relations, and all my extra ones are only sent to do their damndest to ruin the one I like the most. I couldn’t even have a stupid secret admirer without it turning into some shit storm from Hell.”
Johnny laughed, but had nothing to say. He found it funny that Edgar’s not-affair and Edgar’s not-daughter seemed to be gay either for each other or for conspiracy. Usually, at this point in their conversations, Edgar would unmask whatever it was that he really wanted to say, and Johnny would give him the obvious answer, but today, Edgar was mysteriously silent, even after a few minutes.
“I’m glad to hear you like me the best,” Johnny prodded.
“I’m fine,” Edgar replied to the question that hadn’t been asked.
“Good.”
Johnny’s arm itched again, and once more he wished he had fingernails long enough to reach the awkward plaster-covered places that pinched and prodded him so often. Banshee probably had had no idea that the fracture would actually cause him less pain and annoyances than the method to fix it, but he was also not going to inform her. The itch was maddening, and he clawed senselessly at the cast, even though he knew logically it was far too thick for him to feel through it.
In the midst of Johnny’s fidgeting with the cast and his attempts at pressing on the itchy spot, he felt something click against his knuckle. Edgar, still gazing blankly at the ceiling, held a mechanical pencil in his hand, and was only barely making enough motion to convince Johnny that he’d meant to offer it. Johnny snatched it and jammed the tip under the cast to finally relieve an itch he thought he might suffer from for the rest of his life.
“Thanks,” Johnny said, tossing the pencil back. Edgar made a noise in reply and tucked the pencil behind his ear. Johnny watched him breathing, still expecting him to unpack his woes any moment, even if he felt from Edgar that he had no intention of doing so.
“What are you going to do to her?” Johnny asked. Edgar looked on the verge of sleep.
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I can’t leave her with anyone – Jimmy would suffocate her in her sleep for what she did, and I don’t think Devi is feeling very indulgent either.”
“But you are?”
“No!” Edgar protested, his eyes meeting Johnny’s for the first time in several minutes. “No. I don’t want to indulge her, or reward her, or anything like that. It’s not okay that she,” he motioned to Johnny’s arm, “uh, did that, but I can’t just toss her to the curb. If I don’t keep her here, Tess will find her.”
“How about Pepito?” Johnny asked, picking at his flaking nail polish.
“What the hell would Pepito know beyond what glasses prescription she needs?”
“No, I mean, let Pepito hold on to her. We know she can hold her own in a Hell Off, and if she’s anything like me… Well, she won’t die there.”
Edgar stared at Johnny’s arm, his eyes glancing over the graffiti from the others (‘Fuck Off ’and ‘Just die next time, you Bastard. Love, Devi’ among them), before he said anything.
“Maybe for a little while,” he said, a few fingers grazing the awkward stars that Jimmy had drawn near Johnny’s elbow.
*****
Banshee had predicted long ago that she’d never talk to the guy called Squee ever again. When she heard that she was being deported to Pepito’s house, there was a small rage in her that even her personal prophesies weren’t something special. Edgar showed her the house with little ceremony, gesturing with a flat “Well, this is it,” when they found themselves in Pepito’s lawn. There were no hugs or ‘goodbye’s or even any of those patronizing pats on the head. Edgar simply turned and left without even a mention of when he’d be coming back for her.
The door opened behind her as she stared after Edgar. She hadn’t knocked, but there stood the same figure who had produced her glasses however long ago, though this time he was holding a glass of milk.
“So this is the wild animal who broke our favorite crazy’s arm, eh?”
‘Fuck you’ felt appropriate, so did ‘What’s it to you?’ along with a host of other phrases she’d been taught were supposed to come out of rebellious teens. While she was considering which one to embarrass herself with, Pepito retreated into the house, leaving the door ajar behind him.
His house was warm, but not in a good way. It was too warm to wear a shirt with long sleeves, but not humid or even hot. It was just uncomfortable. The air felt thick from overuse, like it had been breathed a few times too many. She wanted to open a window almost the moment she closed the door, and yet there was no terrible smell.
“How many times have they kicked you out now, huh?” Pepito’s voice dragged through the air from the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” she answered. She wasn’t sure if it was true, but she cared less and less about the truth lately.
“Why did you do it?”
“Did they call you and have a chat about it, or what?”
“Please give me a little more credit than that, Stephanie.”
“Banshee.”
Pepito mock-shivered in his place in front of the sink. “Oooh, edgy.”
“That’s not – It’s not like that. It’s just my name.”
“You feel deeply connected to it, right? It speaks to you?”
The muscles in the back of her leg clenched. “Yeah, so?”
He laughed at her and pulled a few dishes out of the sink.
“You know you’re not going to get anywhere, right? I had Sir Crazy as the gatekeeper for Hell for a while, and he tried to kill Todd to get out of it.”
Banshee raised an eyebrow, and somehow, Pepito saw it.
“They didn’t tell you that?” he asked gleefully.
Slowly, she dropped her bag to the thick carpet and approached the kitchen. The air felt thicker and she thought she could feel it hovering more densely just above the linoleum. Banshee slid up to Pepito’s kitchen table, the top of which could not been seen under the sheer bulk of snack food Pepito and Squee apparently stored on it.
“Was this before he was born here?” she asked, running a finger along the table’s edge.
“Nope! It was just a few months before they found you, if I’ve got my timelines straight. Had him right against the wall in there, with the big knife on his neck and everything.” Pepito gestured to somewhere beyond the kitchen wall and was strangely cheery for someone discussing the peril, even past peril, of someone he was close to.
Every so often, the ‘Johnny, Ruler of Hell’ story flipped in Banshee’s mind from bullshit to gospel truth, but now it felt only like mundane history.
“You brought him back because he was going to kill Todd?”
“Mmm.”
“To go back to see Edgar.”
“Mm-mm. So a broken arm, I imagine, isn’t going to slow anyone down. Not metaphorically anyway.” He scrutinized a ceramic plate, nose nearly pressed against its shining surface, a long nail squeaking uncomfortably against the glaze.
Banshee pulled a chair out from under Pepito’s over-crowded table and gazed into the jungle of snack food spread out in front of her.
“I wasn’t trying to slow him down,” she said, shredding the top of a box of chocolate-covered pretzels.
“Please tell me you were trying to kill him,” Pepito pleaded mockingly, clutching a dish to his chest. “I haven’t had a good dose of teen angst since high school.”
“No wonder they don’t like you,” Banshee grumbled through a mouthful of snacks.
Pepito laughed – a sound that scratched at the insides of Banshee’s head – and continued rinsing his dishes.
“I just didn’t know what else to do,” she finally confessed. “He taunts me, and he did all this to me on purpose. He doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t fucking care, he just bitches at everyone and teases me about my chest.”
“And you broke his arm for that? Over your chest?”
“No. It wasn’t just the chest.”
Pepito made an amused sound, and set aside the last of his plates.
“Do you want to hear a story, Banshee?”
Banshee pulled the breadstick box she’d just opened close to her chest. “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with how random that was.”
Pepito ignored her discomfort and launched into a story.
“Practically forever ago, I met Todd when we were both only so big.” He motioned to a height somewhere just below the tabletop. “Other kids teased the Hell out of Todd, and-”
“Where is Todd?” Banshee interrupted.
“Giving an interview with the guy who stalks our house. He’ll be home eventually.”
“Okay then.”
“Anyway, Todd. They teased him, and I thought, ‘Here’s a kid that gets it. I’ll bring him over, and we’ll play and he’ll see I can take care of those kids for him.’ To tell the truth, I think he was afraid of me.”
“You’re the Anti-Christ.”
“Mmm-hmm.” As he nodded, something behind him dinged. “Of course just as I sit down,” he said, pulling himself out of his chair. “Do you want some cookies?”
“What kind?”
“Whichever you want.”
“Sure. So, your childhood love for Todd, then?”
Pepito made no effort to deny Banshee’s teasing. “Back then, Todd lived next door to a man who scared the shit out of him. A really scary fucker. Though he’d protected Todd a few odd times, he was really pretty horrible. Hell-bound, that one. And, you know, I didn’t mention it then, but I thought the guy was pretty neat. Anyway, this guy disappeared a little while after I met Todd, and to this day, I don’t know where he ended up when we accidentally ended that world.”
“That’s cute.”
“It’s also true. Here, take a plate.”
“What, you think you’re gonna bring on Ragnarok or something? You really going to get that Apocalypse going soon?”
Pepito smiled and slid a few cookies onto Banshee’s plate. “I’m no child of Loki, no. But Todd and I did end that particular world by letting Hell devour it. It was accidental, like I said, but it turns out Hell doesn’t particularly care.” He went on to describe in great detail what it feels like when Hell eats the world, and seemed quite content to use a cookie as a visual aid.
“So that world ended. The same world with that man who scared Todd, and the people he killed, including your Edgar, and that Jimmy guy you people still talk to.”
“Nny was Todd’s neighbor? But you two are so much older than-”
“I’m not finished,” Pepito said, stuffing a cookie into Banshee’s mouth. “Todd and I survived the end, and resumed our lives sometime in the next world, after things had been reasonably reset. Your psycho and his fanclub all came back, with strangely different results. Either way, the people responsible for all of this decided that that world was also no good, and took away the people who had been involved with the world’s current system.”
“System?” Banshee leaned closer to Pepito. “Some other gods in charge of things, or what?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s always been the man and his chair up there and me or my father down here. They had a system here meant to take care of a good deal of this world’s negativity. It was an okay thing when it worked, but… that was not so often. Your little family-thing was part of that, so they were killed off and reshuffled through life to try to clean it all out. Except Mr. I’m A Big Deal himself – your Edgar had to bid for life for him.”
“What does all this have to do with me breaking his arm?”
Pepito downed most of a glass of milk, and continued right on smiling. “I wanted him to come down here,” he motioned to a door behind him, “and do my thing for me. The people upstairs let Edgar decide otherwise, and I ended up having to give crazy boy up for Edgar. You see?”
“No, I don’t.”
“There are people, and things, who will find a way to fuck up even the end of the world for what they want. Breaking his arm was futile, and you’ll need to get over it.”
“That was it? I was totally starting to like you, too.”
“You wanted some kind of control, didn’t you? Some way to say, ‘Fuck you, I have some say in the world too’, yes? You won’t get it from those two.”
“I don’t care. It still felt good.”
“Does this feel good?” He motioned vaguely around his head, indicating her current status of ‘stuck in Hell’s Kitchen’.
Banshee turned her nose up. “I like cookies.”
“But this isn’t going to stay cookies, I assure you.”
“I’ll take my chances. I don’t care what they can or can’t do; I just want him to see.”
“He sees only a very specific set of things,” Pepito said, inspecting his cookie. “Most people do. You heard of selective hearing?”
“Selective blindness?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Pepito crammed the entire cookie into his mouth with no effort at all, and yet again downed a glass of milk that Banshee was sure he had finished just a minute or two ago.
“Okay then. Show me what I can do,” Banshee said. “You really bother Nny, so if I can do whatever you do…”
“You can’t do what I do.”
“And why not?” Banshee demanded.
Pepito retained his sweet expression, though Banshee felt that he was having a hard time keeping it up. He cleared the cookies out of the way and into somewhere she seemed unable to see.
“Because,” he said matter-of-factly, “you have breasts.”
While Banshee screamed and attempted to hit him with an assortment of his own snacks, Pepito’s odd laugh snaked and echoed through the house’s thick air.
*****
Several days after he had plastered Johnny’s arm to the floor, Jimmy asked the others how they felt about making some surprise visits to places that they had played before they were widely noticed. He desperately wanted to play in the parking lot again, he said, and there were some auditoriums he was sure he could secure by sheer force of will. He even told the others he could promote the secret gatherings on the deepest corners of the internet to see who would show up. Devi didn’t seem to care what they did either way, and Tenna was always up for dressing the others up in something new and horrible. Edgar said he wouldn’t mind doing a few, but with Johnny’s arm, the decision really belonged to him. Jimmy insisted the broken arm could look hardcore, but Edgar wasn’t buying it and still insisted the final call be Johnny’s.
When asked, however, Johnny seemed uncharacteristically motivated to do something other than make people get things for him. He agreed to do the few mini-shows, especially since they wouldn’t include Banshee. Jimmy and the others all seemed to agree that doing a few without her might do everyone some good, though there were some awkward moments in attempting to phrase the sentiment.
Jimmy’s deepest corners of the internet had spawned some freaks in higher proportions than usual, but beyond that, nothing exploded as a direct result of Jimmy’s involvement with planning, nor did anything seem out of the ordinary. As far as Edgar was concerned, this was a bad thing. Realistically, Johnny should have been having difficulty performing after Tess and Banshee both attempted to break him. He was far from perfect, but no one watching him ever knew it.
He was often delirious after he performed and wavered when he walked anywhere that wasn’t a stage. He strained to stay standing and struggled to keep his eyes open. His movements were slow and his voice quiet. Johnny held all of his scarce energy inside until it was needed. When he did something as basic as sitting up, Edgar could see even the most minor muscles involved start to spasm.
During a show, Johnny sang and screamed with everything he had. He took no breaks, and no refuge in the breaths between songs for fear that he’d fall over if given enough time to blink. After the collapse at the payphone, Johnny wanted no parts of more stalkers, more interviews, and more questions as he tried desperately just to return to the safety of the van. If he presented as completely fine on stage, minus the arm, there would be nothing to alarm anyone to questioning, or Tess to eating his head.
The single instance of questioning he agreed to, though, did not go badly.
A newspaper, or maybe a magazine, Edgar wasn’t sure which, asked to talk to Johnny one night, and over the protests of his friends that he was too tired, sick or busy, he agreed. Edgar had to come with him, though whose requirement that was Edgar also didn’t know.
The woman, who had seen Jimmy’s underground announcements, asked them how life as people that were not only visible, but the central focus of an almost-cult was going, and Johnny answered in a way that would have fooled Edgar into thinking he was fine had Edgar not felt Johnny’s muscles struggling to keep him upright. Edgar tried his best to answer questions when it sounded like Johnny’s brain was failing.
Johnny told her everything that he told everyone else: that his relationship with Edgar was still not a publicity stunt; and that Banshee was not anyone’s daughter, niece or foster child. He then made a joke about Edgar that managed to go over well despite a rather strangled delivery. Edgar mentioned Banshee to Johnny in a reference he hoped only they would understand, but it was not to be.
“I heard there was a little drama with her lately,” the interviewer said, latching onto the subject of Banshee.
“There always is,” Johnny answered quickly.
“She’s a teenage girl,” Edgar said, shrugging. “Sort of guarantees drama.”
The woman eyed Johnny’s broken arm, and Johnny quickly gasped that he’d fallen down some stairs before Edgar could say something for him. They hadn’t discussed it prior to this particular chat, but there was an understanding that the real cause of Johnny’s broken arm was not to be leaked to anyone. Johnny’s upper arms began to quiver, and Edgar did his best to mime that he felt cold in order to make Johnny’s motions look more acceptable.
The interviewer asked several questions about how Johnny was feeling (“Tired.”), how he was dealing with a broken arm (“Not cutting it off.”), why Edgar hadn’t written anything on it (“He… lives with me. What the fuck?”), and why the silly no-name tour (“Jimmy wanted to. I aim to please.”).
When the woman thanked them and finally retreated with her notes, Johnny slumped over onto Edgar’s shoulder.
“There,” Johnny said between heavy breaths. “Now I’ve done it at least once.”
“Nny, she might not have even been legit.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can tell everyone else I already talked to someone and someone, somewhere, will back me up. Let’s go.”
Edgar helped Johnny stumble toward the van and drop into a seat. He sucked down a juice box that Tenna offered and then promptly fell asleep. Edgar felt a gaze on his back alarmingly similar to Tess’, but when he turned around, only his friends were there, pretending to have not been assessing his situation.