I’m Still Here
Hour Five
Lady Yate-xel
He carried dual motivations for what he was about to do and he only felt slightly bad about it. The virtuous one was that everyone had the right to a peaceful home life and non-hostile treatment day in and day out. The selfish and slightly creepy one was that he disliked how his bed felt without another occupant and he was starting to feel lonely even with two other people in the house and a stalker on the side.
He walked as casually as he was able into the living room, which until now had been the danger zone that he and Stephanie avoided with out ever discussing it. Even when Johnny slept in his room upstairs they kept far from the pink chair and everything in its immediate vicinity. So today, he was jumping over the mental caution tape and inviting some kind of confrontation which he hoped didn’t actually have to involve any confronting.
“Nny?”
No answer.
“Nny, I think we really need to figure something out here.”
“Good luck with that.” A response faster than Edgar had anticipated, at least.
“I think we’re all a bit worn out over the little cold war thing we have happening here.”
“Probably.”
Edgar sighed, realizing he was just going to have to jump into it.
“What do you want? What can I do?”
“Nothing.” Johnny stared at the fireplace, which was, as per usual, not lit and partially obstructed by piles of books and music.
“I miss you. And whole sentences.”
“Bed too cold?”
Damn. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Yeah? Enlighten me.”
“I’m worried this is going to keep getting worse? And that I’ll end up, by some weird cosmic twist of fate, alone in this big stupid house again.”
“Alone?”
“Well, you haven’t spoken to me for days, and Stephanie thinks she needs to go work in a fish market and be a proper miserable orphan.”
“Fish market.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to be alone in here,” Johnny said quickly. He was watching his foot twitch to some rhythm that Edgar couldn’t hear.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose someone over all of this when I’m not even sure what it all is.”
Edgar sat on the couch now that there was some level of communication established.
“You’re not going to lose me,” Johnny said distantly. “I’m staying.”
“Really?”
“You have to ask me that?” He didn’t turn his head, but glanced in Edgar’s direction. “You only exist because you gave up eternity in bliss-land to come live in this shit hole with me again, and I’m only alive because I fought my way out of Hell to be with you again.” He looked back to the motion of his foot. “Of course I’m staying.”
“I didn’t want this all to be torn up…,” Edgar said, trying not to react too strongly. “Didn’t want there to be a hole at all.”
“No plane crash leaves what it hits completely unscathed.”
“I know, but it’s a fairly small plane.”
“That got bigger when submerged in water.”
“Still.”
“So, have you come to offer me some sort of peace offering? Small pox, perhaps?” Johnny was smiling slightly, which was all Edgar had to infer that he wasn’t furious anymore.
“I’ve come to offer whatever you want,” Edgar said, his lungs suddenly feeling as though they were performing less than up to par. “I want you to be happy.”
Johnny looked at Edgar directly, and Edgar saw an expression there that made him uncomfortable, but it vanished quickly. It was replaced with calm amusement.
“So what will you do?” Johnny asked.
“Whatever you want. Whatever we can work out. I think you must know the kind of stupid things I’m willing to do for you by now?”
“Mmhmm,” Johnny nodded. “I also think you’ve been around long enough to know what I’d ask.”
Edgar swallowed, and nodded in answer, “I would take her somewhere else, if you wanted it that much.”
His chest hurt to say it, so much more than to think it, but it was still true. As much as he liked and even cared about Stephanie, Johnny was still the center of it all, just like he’d been in the choir room. And Johnny was well aware of it.
Johnny rested his head against his wrist, staring at patch on the pink chair that was beginning to go bald. “You like her, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“Sure,” Edgar shrugged. “You even liked her before this all did… whatever this has done.”
“So, having her here makes you happy.” Johnny combed a few fingers through the longer stray bits of his hair.
“Yes?”
“I told you it was your turn.”
“Oh.”
“So she should be staying. I can’t just tell you to get rid of her.”
“You could.”
“But that would make me a total bastard.”
“Which is new how?”
Johnny smirked. “If I had something to throw, Edgar.”
Edgar returned the smirk. “That’s the only reason I said it.” His expression changed, and he went back to the task at hand. “Really, though. If you don’t want her here, tell me. Seriously.”
“I don’t.” Edgar’s heart felt like it had been stabbed before Johnny continued, “But you do. She can stay.”
“You don’t have to do anything for her, you know,” Edgar said, trying to make the idea of Stephanie staying more appealing to Johnny. “I’ll take care of it, really. I’m not going to ask you to baby sit her or anything, I promise. She keeps to herself, you’ve seen her.”
“You’re getting into a dangerous place, Edgar.”
“Uh, I-”
“With her,” Johnny interrupted, when he saw Edgar’s face, “not with me. She’s going to see you differently than she sees Jimmy or me.”
“Ah.” Stephanie had been hinting violently at this just a while ago.
“I’m not willing to be seen as her Parent B just because you and I tend to come as a set.”
Edgar nodded. “I understand. I don’t think I really intended that, but I understand. Still, I mean, she likes you, it’ll be hard to prevent.”
“Which is why I was-”
“You don’t have to cruel to her, though. Just be her friend again. Stress that it’s just that, if need be.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That said,” Edgar added, standing up, “I think I can try to send her to Devi or Jimmy again for a few days.”
Johnny raised an amused eyebrow.
“If you’re interested, you know,” Edgar finished, shrugging with a smile. Johnny grinned in return.
“Let her stay tonight, we can ship her out tomorrow.”
*****
Watch him make a casual phone call.
Watch him eat in front of the television with a psychopath again. Said psychopath had only just stopped neglecting him for days on end.
Watch him joke with the little girl.
Watch psychopath snap at him for joking.
Watch him take it.
Want to jump through the window to fix this injustice.
Watch psychopath nearly strangle him with his own shirt collar.
Watch them disappear upstairs.
Wish the house had something to use to climb up to second floor and perform a rescue until there’s a sound of pain from the upstairs window.
Watch too much, perhaps.
*****
“God, when was the last time you cut those?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“You’re pleased with this, aren’t you?”
“You don’t look like you’re complaining.”
“I hate you.”
“Says the guy sitting on my legs.”
“Shut up.”
*****
When Edgar was jarred awake by the sound of knocking at his door in the middle of the night, he instantly worried that Johnny would take back everything about letting Stephanie stay. Johnny was curled beside him, half-tangled in blankets, and only curled tighter when he heard the knocking. He made some angry noises in response that made Edgar wince.
“Edgar!” Stephanie’s voice hissed from behind the door. She was trying to keep an element of a whisper in her voice, but, as Edgar knew from experience, it was hard to whisper through the thick wood.
“Whaaat?” Edgar groaned. He hadn’t meant to sound so unfriendly, but even he wanted to just burrow under something like Johnny had.
“Do we have any scissors?”
Johnny poked his head out of from under the pillow and quickly propped himself up on his arms. “Tell me she did not just fucking say what I think she said.”
“I am so sorry,” Edgar half-whispered. “I have no idea what could be so important.” He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Can this wait till morning?” he called beyond the door.
“I… guess so. I’d rather not.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need a hair cut.”
Edgar wondered how he’d ever considered keeping her around instead of Johnny.
“Stephanie, really, this can wait till mor-”
“No, I’ve got this,” Johnny said suddenly. He slid off the side of the bed and opened the door while a baffled Edgar watched him.
“Oh, I see,” Johnny remarked when he got a good look beyond the door frame.
Edgar heard him walk Stephanie into the bathroom and wondered if he should follow. He remembered then that this would involve something sharp, Johnny, and a questionably nine-year-old girl that Johnny had just today decided could stay in the house.
Edgar grabbed his glasses and got up.
Inside the bathroom stood Johnny behind Stephanie, who was boosted to near Johnny’s height on a stool in front of the sink. They stared into the bathroom mirror, regarding Stephanie’s hair, which had grown several inches since Edgar had stopped by her room to tell her ‘good night.’
“We’re going to prevent this from being a frequent problem,” Johnny said casually, pulling a pair of scissors from nowhere. He began cutting huge sections from Stephanie’s hair with little regard for evenness or how much of it was ending up on the floor. Edgar winced with every snip of a few more inches, but Stephanie showed no signs of being bothered. She actually seemed more enthusiastic about it, the more Johnny took off.
When Johnny declared her ‘done,’ she no longer had enough hair even for the pigtails she’d come to them with, but instead sported an uneven and rather unmanageable looking shock of hair that fell just below her ears. She leaned in close to the mirror, nearly touching her nose to it when Johnny asked her what she thought.
“It’s awesome,” she told him.
Edgar felt incredible relief that no one had been injured and that Stephanie was not upset about her hair. Johnny, however, looked concerned.
“Get away from the mirror,” he told her. She backed off, and Edgar had a flash of the monster from the motel for a moment.
“Can you see it from back here?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah.”
“Really?” Johnny looked skeptical and cut a few random pieces off with no warning. “How is it now?”
Stephanie looked conflicted, and squinted at the mirror. Edgar couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier.
When Stephanie tried to lean in to the mirror again, Johnny pulled her back from it.
“Don’t lie,” he told her. He nodded toward Edgar, and for some reason, Edgar understood what he wanted and handed his glasses to Johnny. He put them on Stephanie, who looked ridiculous with them perched on her nose.
“Ahh, everything looks weird,” she whined. “It’s all coming at me.”
“That happens with ones you aren’t used to,” Edgar said.
“Can you see better or worse now?” Johnny asked her.
“Better, I think. It’s hard because everything is all bulgy in the middle. It’s all wrong.”
“Likely his eyes are worse than yours,” Johnny said, watching Stephanie in the mirror. When he reached down to take the frames from her and she jumped back, startled.
“Gah, are your fingers bleeding?”
Johnny regarded his fingernails for a moment, then promptly laughed at her.
“No,” he replied, taking the glasses from her face. She squinted at him, sending a questioning look, but he said nothing else about his nails.
“Maybe we can send Devi out to get you some glasses that don’t make you look like a total loser.”
He tossed the glasses back to Edgar who suspected he was to be indirectly called a loser in exchange for Johnny not mentioning the origin of the blood.
“You’re done for now,” Johnny told her, urging her with a shove to get off the stool and back to her room.
“Okay. Just for now?”
“Come get me tomorrow, and we’ll finish it.”
“I like how it looks now.”
“I do too,” Johnny said through a grin, “but it’s lacking some color.”
Stephanie lit up, and ran off to her room with a hurried ‘good night.’ It had been a while since Edgar had seen her so excited. Johnny strolled back into the room he shared with Edgar, leaving the scissors and hair in the bathroom.
“Where did that come from?” Edgar asked, trailing behind.
“I have my moments of charity.”
“Is that what that was?” Edgar raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to call it that.”
Edgar laughed lightly as he sat back on the bed. “Whatever you want, thanks. I mean, for all of it.”
Johnny shrugged. “Eh, she needed the haircut and she didn’t need to know about the state of your shoulder. Seemed logical to me.”
“Because you and logic have always been good friends.”
“Oh, yes. The closest.”
“Cheating on me with logic?”
“Boggles, doesn’t it?” Johnny laughed. “Though, logic actually seems to mind when I scratch chunks out of it.”
“Hey, I can be charitable, too. Little blood sacrifice never hurt anyone.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, let me try to rephrase that in the morning.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
*****
In the morning, Stephanie tried her hardest not to look like she was anticipating doing something else insane to her hair. When she saw Johnny in the hall, she did her best not to jump on him immediately. Luckily, he seemed just as interested in messing up her hair as she was to have it done and he led her into the bathroom after little more than an acknowledging nod.
While Stephanie waited on the edge of the bathtub, Johnny rooted through the cabinet for some boxes.
“What color do you like, Banshee?”
“Green.”
“You know, for about half a second, I thought you were going to say ‘pink.’”
“Why?”
Johnny shrugged.
“Keep forgetting the pink pony therapy doesn’t work for you, I guess.”
“It could be pink, if you want.”
“What makes you think I’d have pink dye?”
“I… don’t?”
“It’s not fair to confuse her like that, jeez,” Edgar appeared in the doorway. “What are you planning on?”
“Color?” Johnny held up some boxes and shook them at Edgar.
“Is that bleach?”
“I-“
“Nny, you can’t bleach her hair! She’s nine!”
“Actually,” Johnny said, holding a box to his chin in fake contemplation, “she’s going on a few months, I think.”
“That doesn’t make it any better. Can’t you use some drink mix or something?”
Johnny regarded the boxes in his hands for a moment, and then looked at Stephanie, who tried to look very enthusiastic and not four months old at the same time.
“Why don’t you go get the camera, Edgar?” Johnny’s smile scared and thrilled Stephanie at the same time. Edgar didn’t even argue, so Stephanie assumed it had a similar effect on him.
While Edgar was off rummaging through the ‘Potentially Useful Stuff’ trunk, Johnny was tearing boxes open, humming to himself.
“What’s wrong with bleach?” Stephanie asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why doesn’t Edgar think it’s a good idea?”
“When does Edgar ever think anything is a good idea?” Johnny asked, mixing some bad-smelling goop. “He wanted to give you to the police when we found you.”
“Oh.”
“I doubt the police would have given you green hair.”
“He thinks it’s a good idea to keep me here now, though.” It was a statement, but she had to consciously try to make it that way.
“Yeah, the big freak.”
“Ah-”
“Nothing personal, Banshee. We’re friends, after all.” Johnny snapped some gloves onto his hands, and then glanced out into the hallway, “Edgar’s just a big sap, that’s all.”
“Sap? Like syrup and stuff?”
“Heh, no. Not like syrup. Like soft and kind of mooshy in places.”
“That sounds like mold.”
Johnny snorted.
“I don’t know how you ended up this awesome from being on the side of the road, but I’m starting to think everyone should just abandon their children for a while if this is what happens.”
“So it’s moldy, then?”
“No, no. It’s … it’s mooshy. Maybe it is syrup… that kind of works with the whole – Eh, I guess ‘sentimental’ is the right word. Puppies and kittens and flowers and greeting cards and shit like that.”
“‘Romantic’, then.”
“Ech, if you have to put it like that, sure.”
“Shouldn’t he be?” Stephanie leaned forward and tried to look engrossed in the scary hand sculpture that sat in the corner of the bathroom, “I mean, if he loves you?”
“Not everybody likes that stuff. I thought you’d be up on that from being so weird. You don’t like pink; I don’t like mooshy shit.”
“I guess so.”
“Truthfully, I think we’re all lucky you don’t think rape and pillage or kidnapping is the ultimate expression of love.”
“Oh, like Hades. Or Zeus. Or Poseidon. Or-”
“Yeah, see?”
“Right. Zeus seemed to like raping pretty boys.”
Johnny shrugged in response, so Stephanie kept going.
“I think what I don’t get is that he raped people as animals. Wouldn’t people have liked a god more instead of a bull or an eagle?”
“Maybe it’s like it’s not his fault if he rapes people like a petting zoo.”
“What the hell are you telling her?!” Edgar had reappeared in the doorway, horrified expression on his face, camera in hand.
“Nothing she wasn’t already telling me,” Johnny answered. He smiled deviously at both Edgar and Stephanie, prompting glee from Stephanie and just the opposite from Edgar.
“You don’t really process things like this, do you?” Edgar asked as Johnny rounded up the proper chemicals. Johnny motioned for Stephanie to stand in front of him while Edgar continued complaining.
“She just talked about animal rape, Nny.”
“Mmhmm. Okay, Banshee, here’s the thing. This is probably gonna itch like fucking hell, but you can’t touch it or you’ll burn your hand off.”
Stephanie nodded, eyes wide.
“Did you hear me?” Edgar asked.
“Take a picture, will you?” Johnny shot back while smearing questionable chemicals on Stephanie’s head. “And yes, I heard you.”
“And?” The flash from the camera hurt Stephanie’s eyes almost as much as the fumes.
“And who gave her the books with animal rape in them?” Johnny asked sweetly.
Edgar looked conflicted, and Johnny’s smile widened.
“There you go. Maybe you should start screening what she reads, hmm?”
“It’s okay,” Stephanie said from under her hood of fumes and chemicals, “I’m not gonna rape anybody.”
Johnny laughed so hard he had to leave the room. Edgar told her it was just the fumes.
*****
“Aunt Devi?”
“Yeah?”
“Nny and Edgar like each other more than they like me.”
Devi eyed the now green-haired girl. “What?”
“They do.”
“I- yeah, I know, but… what. Where did that come from?”
Stephanie sunk into the paint and coffee stained cushions of Devi’s couch, holding her tea cup with both hands. She hadn’t taken more than half a (likely tongue-burning) sip of it since Devi gave it to her twenty minutes ago, and hadn’t said much until just now, when she decided this little outburst of the obvious was important to call to Devi’s attention.
She’d been dropped off with Devi early that afternoon, and had been frustrated the entire time.
“I just thought Edgar maybe would like me more,” Stephanie said, staring intently at the wall in front of her. “People in stories and books always sacrifice their lovers and wives for their children.”
“Okay, I think you may have some crossed wires or something,” Devi said, biting her lip. “That’s all sort of true, but you’re not their, or even just Edgar’s… anything. I mean, you’re not biological or anything.”
“This shouldn’t be bothering me.”
Devi blinked at the girl in response. Stephanie was just sitting there, staring into space, talking of important things in clothes that didn’t quite fit her and that she’d already cut weird fringes and shapes into. The more Devi looked, the more something felt eerily familiar.
It wasn’t quite deja-vu, but it was damn close. When Stephanie opened her mouth to say something, but then clamped it closed again in frustration, Devi flinched at how familiar the expression seemed. When Stephanie’s hands tightened over and over on the cup she held, Devi watched the knuckles and flaking black nail polish with interest she’d thought she’d long ago lost. Stephanie’s socks had holes already and the thread holding her sleeves on was a different color than any other part of the shirt. Devi’s breath locked her voice in her throat for a few seconds before she was able to make any actual words.
“Sweetie, I’m gonna… go ask Tenna something,” she muttered when her vocal cords returned to her, “I’ll be right back.”
There was a non-committal nod and a sort of grunt in response.
In the other room, Tenna was happily watching some overdone puppet show while sprawled over a chair and slurping some soup from a Tupperware container. She didn’t bother to acknowledge Devi, though Devi knew she had been seen.
“Tenna, can you come with me for a sec?”
“Can you wait for a commercial?”
Devi looked over her shoulder at Stephanie still fixated on that spot on the wall. “Sure,” she said, shrugging. Not like Stephanie was going anywhere.
When Tenna’s sock puppet indulgence was interrupted by some advertising, she came to the door. Devi gave her a ‘shush’ motion, and had her shuffle slightly into the kitchen where she could see Stephanie, but still not look obvious. Stephanie didn’t show that she noticed them, if she did.
“What do you see?” Devi asked.
“Is this like Waldo? You know, that little fucker is alwa-”
“No, this is not like Waldo, Tenna. Just her.”
Tenna tilted her head, and squinted. She stood there, arms crossed, for quite some time. Devi briefly felt concerned she’d be stuck like that before Tenna shifted her weight.
“She looks… like Nny.”
“Yeah, okay, so I’m not crazy?”
Tenna raised an eyebrow.
“Tenna.”
“Fine, not crazy.”
“Good,” Devi said, adjusting a pencil that was tucked behind her ear. “I wish you could have seen him this young – or even close to this. Aside from the green hair, and the being a sulky little girl, that’s really dead on.”
“Well, the glasses will help,” Tenna pointed out.
“‘Help’?” Devi asked. “Is thiiss… bad?”
“Devi, remember back when Nny was dead, and we-” She stopped abruptly. “Damn, that still feels weird to say.” Tenna shook her head as though ridding herself of the weird, and continued. “Remember when you told me to be Edgar for a minute?”
“Yeesss.” Devi didn’t like where this was heading.
“Look at her,” Tenna said, gesturing to the couch, “and see a child who looks like Nny from Edgar-O-Vision. What completely bat shit things does he start assuming? What completely insane stuff might he already think?”
“Oh, motherfuckingshit,” Devi groaned. “We need to find some really obtrusive glasses.”
*****
“Nny?”
“What?”
“Does Stephanie have a song?”
“Sure.”
“Can you hear it?”
“What’s the problem?”
“I just haven’t heard anything, so I wondered if she even had one.”
“She has to have one. I think she wouldn’t exist if she didn’t.”
“I just thought, since I’d heard yours, that I’d be able to hear hers too.”
“It’s not like mine is the key to the universe. Besides, we don’t know anything about songs in people this young. Just let it go, you’ll hear it.”
“I wonder if she’s heard ours.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked her. We could go ask Pepito about it. We still haven’t been to see him.”
“If I wasn’t assured otherwise, I’d think you were fixated on him.”
“Competition, Edgar, look the hell out. Your only chance to win me back is to bug one of your eyes out of your head and grow horns.”
“Or never bathe. I think it would inspire those effects anyway.”
“Yeah, but Pepito doesn’t smell.”
“Damn, so close.”
Johnny laughed, but for a change, it wasn’t at Edgar.
“You know what she told me while we were adding color to her hair?” he asked.
Edgar winced, though he was happy to steer the subject away from Pepito.
“What?”
“She told me that she wanted to cover either herself or all our valuable stuff in anthrax. To be like Sekhmet.”
“Anthrax?!”
“Is that awesome or what?”
“There’s a god that covers himself in anthrax?”
“Goddess,” Johnny corrected, “but yeah, sort of. Her statues were pretty public so they were covered in poison to dissuade people from walking off with them. This seems like something we could employ on stage.”
“Because I’ll be able to play covered in anthrax.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Edgar. No one’s looking to steal you.”
“I’m just as cool as anthrax goddess.”
“Do you belch fire while quenching your bloodlust in the drunken slaughter of all mankind?”
“These are the goddesses she likes?”
“Yeah. I can’t wait to show her the goddess of suicide.”
Edgar shoved Johnny harder than he initially meant to.
“Don’t you dare! She’ll get insane ideas!”
“Yeah, not like covering herself in anthrax at all,” Johnny muttered, readjusting from the shove.
“I swear, the more I think she’s going to be okay, the more I hear she’s learned some new batshit thing from you.”
“You wanted us to be friends.”
“I didn’t want you to corrupt her though.”
“Like I’d be able to do anything else.”
Edgar sighed.
“That’s true, sadly.”
“I think she’d be boring any other way, honestly.”
“God forbid. You decide that she’s boring some day and we all discover later that she’s been left at a convenience store somewhere.”
“Her song is going to be awesome.”
“You think?”
“Has to be.”
“I hope it’s not as difficult to deal with as yours.”
“I hope for exactly the opposite.”
“You seem to like doing that.”
For what was likely the first time in months, Johnny looked like he honestly had no idea what Edgar meant.
“Comparing yourself to her,” Edgar explained when Johnny’s expression remained for more than a few seconds.
“Maybe I see things in her you don’t,” Johnny answered.
“Maybe you just see yourself in everything.”
“That’s no different than anyone else.”
“It is, because it’s you. I can’t exactly say how, but it’s different.”
“Let me know when you figure that out.”
While he spoke, Johnny’s song screamed in Edgar’s head and shattered some of Johnny’s words. Edgar flinched, though it didn’t hurt. When he opened his eyes again, they focused on the closet that had remained unopened and unbothered with for quite some time. That time ago, Edgar would have been happy to bolt the damn thing shut and ignore it, but with the addition of the things that had appeared in his mind when it was opened, he thought he should give it some kind of cautious chance.
He then reasoned that because he had made this decision it would be the wrong one and soon the monster from the motel would come waltzing into Edgar’s bed room and casually devour the both of them before slithering off into the sunset.
Or something.
“Nny, what do you think we should do with the not-closet?” Edgar kept his gaze locked on the non-descript door rather than look at Johnny.
“Don’t put our shit in it? Or do, and see if said shit manifests in our skulls later?”
“Come on, I’m serious.”
“There’s nothing to do with it, Edgar. It’s attached to the wall, in case you missed that memo.”
“I don’t mean ‘take it out’ or ‘bulldoze the house’, I just mean in regards to opening it again. Or taking a nail gun to it, I guess.”
“I bet Banshee would really like a nail gun.”
“Please don’t.”
“You’re making this ‘friends with the girl’ thing really hard, you know that?”
“Ice cream or books or something, Nny, not nail guns.”
“Books with animal rape in them, right?”
“Why do I even talk to you?”
“Because Banshee will talk about animal rape?”
Edgar laughed, which surprised him a little.
“Fine, fine. Back to the closet?”
Johnny shrugged, “Sure.”
“Think it’s dangerous?”
“And we’re back to, ‘Edgar, it’s a closet.’”
“Really.”
“I don’t think anything’s going to come out of it and rape me in my sleep if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s pretty to close to what I mean, yeah. With the whole…,” Edgar made a conjuring motion, trying to think of a better word than the one he was about to use, “…wall thing.”
“It doesn’t live in the closet.”
“Says the man who saw it living in a television.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Nny, I know you probably don’t even remember this, but the reason the phone downstairs was murdered in its prime was you worrying about the wall. I don’t even really know why you call it that.”
“It’s always been called that.”
“You’re doing that to scare me.”
“Not really,” Johnny shook his head, “but it’s a perk.”
“Still,” Edgar pushed, “this is sort of big deal. I want to find out what’s causing it and stop it before something big happens again.”
“You might be a little late. We’ve already taken in mysterious girl and now she’s doing magical growing. Soon, inexplicable things will happen, Devi will pounce Tenna on TV, Pepito will feed us cookies without other motives and gifts will arrive for Banshee from Valhalla or something.”
“That thing seems to really mess with you, maybe even more than Tess does.”
Johnny’s gaze snapped immediately from the closet to Edgar’s eyes.
“Tess?”
“Um, yes?”
“Her name was Tess.”
Edgar felt his heart pounding somewhere in the area of his stomach, and thoughts of how he could lie about knowing her name flashed through his brain, most of them awful. Luckily, he didn’t need them.
“Her name was Tess,” Johnny repeated. “I couldn’t remember it before. It was just her and that damn guy with the weird shaped head…”
His breathing slowly became more erratic and he ran a hand over the back of his head. Without much forethought, Edgar took hold of Johnny’s wrists.
“Hey. It’s all right,” Edgar tightened his grip for emphasis. “You always used to tell me how you weren’t the person you remembered. Don’t let it bother you so much.”
“I really can’t help it.”
“Do you… think talking to her would help?”
Johnny tried to pull away at the suggestion.
“No. God, no. She’s too-And I feel so much like I-”
He stopped abruptly, and looked at Edgar’s fingers wrapped around his wrists.
“Don’t worry about it,” Johnny said as his breathing slowed to normal. “Really. Don’t.”
“But-”
“Your turn, remember?”
Edgar let go of Johnny’s wrists.
“I know,” Edgar replied quietly, “but I’m worried that my happiness hinges pretty greatly on yours.”
“I can be happy and remember crazy at the same time.”
“I don’t really want you to. To be crazy, I mean.”
“It’s okay. I’m happy.”
“Are you sure?”
Johnny smiled.
“Yes.”
*****
Stephanie was quiet when Devi and Tenna coaxed her into the car, and remained that way for the entire drive to all the stores in town where cheap reading glasses could be found. A dollar store and a pharmacy failed to produce anything that Stephanie could actually see with.
“These hurt,” Stephanie complained of the first pair.
“These are ugly,” she said of the ninth.
“I look like an old lady.”
“These just make everything bulgy.”
“I hate these.”
“I don’t need these.”
It was when Stephanie actually turned and yelled at Tenna that she needed glasses just for her and not for old people that Devi realized they couldn’t cheat their way out of the glasses.
“You don’t think those donation boxes in the grocery store would have any for her, do you?” Tenna asked on their way back to the car after the final failed general store.
“Only old people ever donate those, Tenna. And even so, she’s right about the glasses. We do need to get some just for her. I had just hoped we wouldn’t have to wait for them.”
“Edgar sent her to us like this, didn’t he? Don’t you think he’s noticed that his favorite new toy looks alarming like his boyfriend already? I mean, really. I know I brought it up and everything, but still.”
“I’m willing to bet Edgar is selectively blind.”
“I could think of a million ways to counter that if she were not here,” Tenna said, grinning.
“How nice of you to restrain yourself.”
“I’m a saint, really. It’s what it comes down to.”
“Can we just go home?” Stephanie asked.
“We have to make sure you can see first,” Tenna told her.
“I can see!”
“But crappily,” Devi replied, opening the car door. Stephanie climbed inside, but was still displeased.
“Maybe it’ll go away,” she said.
“Yeah, like Edgar’s did, right?” Tenna joked.
“How long has he had them?”
“Since before we knew him, I guess. Years and years.”
“Blech,” Stephanie sighed melodramatically and slid down the back of the seat and almost out of her seatbelt. “Ishtar didn’t wear glasses.”
Every specialist in town wanted them to come in for an appointment weeks later, even when Devi pulled the ‘marginally famous’ card. She found herself wishing for the times that she could have just slid into the office at night, invisible to everything, and tried to operate the machines and get glasses on her own. She’d worn glasses herself when she was younger, but they were correcting a minor case at best so she just tossed them when she grew out of them.
Upon reflection, though, she couldn’t remember where they had come from. Had her apartment just generated them? Had Johnny’s choir room?
While Devi stood at the reception desk, trying to come up with fancy ways of getting in ahead of the other appointments on the list, Tenna and Stephanie tried on the ugliest plastic glasses in the waiting area. Tortoiseshell plastic with gigantic lenses and bars across the forehead dwarfed Stephanie’s face, and some children’s glasses with a neon frog in the bottom corner of one lens sat perched on the end of Tenna’s nose, poking her in the eye with the unfolded arms.
“Shame they don’t have prescription star glasses,” Tenna said, glancing around for a new pair to try on.
“Do they have any of those smart old man ones?” Stephanie asked, still sporting the brown plastic monstrosity. “You know the kind that’s just one?” She made a circle with her thumb and finger around her eye in an attempt to clarify.
“A monocle?” Tenna laughed. “I’m sure you’d look very stately in one, but I think both of your eyes are messed up.”
Devi gave up annoying the secretary and sat down in a chair near Tenna.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” Tenna asked, perching some tiny glasses on the tip of her nose.
“It’s going to be at least a week before they get us in, if at all.”
“And... we want to do this today somehow?”
“That would be nice.”
“Did it occur to you, Oh Impatient One, that even if we got in today, she’d still need at least another week to get the glasses?”
“I guess I keep hoping we’ll be like Johnny.”
“Inconsiderate, socially incomprehensible, and selfish with rare flashes of brilliant?” Tenna tilted her head to the side.
“No, no. Magically able to get everything we set out for.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess that works too.”
“Let’s get going,” Devi said, rising to her feet, “I have something else I’d like to check.”
Devi left the building showing some signs of wear, while Stephanie and Tenna trailed after her, careful not to accidentally steal the monstrous glasses on their faces.
******
As much as he had told Edgar not to worry, Johnny worried as much as he was able. To his credit, it wasn’t worrying so much as it was concerned curiosity. Conveniently, Edgar seemed to have something he wanted to do outside the house, so Johnny was left alone with the closet again.
The problem with the things he began remembering was that they seemed to want company. The benefit to the closet was that it still seemed to be holding true to Johnny’s original wish to not remember the shit. Even though he knew it was in there, Johnny hadn’t clearly remembered any of the despicable things he knew he had to have done.
When he opened the door, though, there were enough things to deal with, despicable or not.
He was angry and seething all the time. Always bitter and twisted and more often on the clean side of filthy. He said he would kill the house’s new not-occupant in his head as often as he wished for that one to stay. Voices questionably his own argued with him over killing who and when and how and why or not at all.
Those voices rarely made sense.
Voices he knew were his, voices he was sure weren’t. Either way, they stopped saying anything meaningful lifetimes ago. The things they said spilled out from whatever mouths they were hiding in and fell into waves of static and interference. Words that meant nothing, things he could only assume were words. Everything swirled around him and through him and gummed up the works and shut things down and wasted things away.
Rusting voices.
They felt like nothing and knives at the same time. Daily, these things raged in his skull and there was no escaping them. All the Freezies in the world couldn’t fix it, couldn’t still it even for a moment.
Though Devi once had.
And Edgar.
Even Jimmy, just in a backwards way.
The perceptions of them twisted and warped, ensuring he’d never get a solid image of them. Just feelings. The feelings were the worst things anyway. They were what picked him up and dangled him like a rag doll in his own mind. They were what let Edgar stay, they were what let Devi live, they were what made Freezies so fucking beautiful.
It pounded through him constantly, and he thought there may have been a rhythm in it yet. Something of it had to make sense. Voices that sang or moaned - he couldn’t be sure - rang through everything. He felt positive they were words that he should have understood, but they resonated in his head as though through a telephone in a swimming pool. Under the water there was always that annoying click, but never words. Everything slowed, no matter how much you knew it was churning.
Noise that was voice and voice that was noise. All of it at once and none at all.
Best friend, huh?
Pounding repeating notes. So much grating, scratching noise.
White noise.
He found himself sprawled against the bed, one foot tangled in a blanket, the other on the threshold of the offending closet.
A closet full of nothing but memory.
What bothered Johnny about the closet, other than its occasional seizing of his brain, was that the room wasn’t just a projection into space or some magical add-on from Pepito. When Johnny analyzed it from the outside, architecturally, the room was always there and the house was built with it.
There was nothing making it magically appear; something had stopped keeping it invisible.
Edgar’s book had long ago ceased keeping track of his movements. Edgar once said he missed the book because it used to remind him of when he was low on tortilla chips. Johnny was fairly sure this was Edgar making light of something that freaked him out, which Johnny had to admit he did himself, just as often, if not more often, than Edgar. Perhaps the book and the door were related.
He remembered the continuing influx of ‘not shit’ with a hazy kind of clarity; nothing made sense, but the images were as crisp to him as photographs. Pictures of the house, of his own hands, of Edgar, of Devi and Jimmy. All different in ways that were both subtle and glaring.
The room stared back through him when he glanced into it. Johnny wanted to be seeing the bright white that Banshee described, not the rotting room in front of him. The floor, should he ever be able to enter the room without collapsing a footstep beyond the doorframe, looked like it wouldn’t even hold Banshee’s weight, let alone his own, no matter how skinny he was. Was it some kind of illusion? Was the floor really solid or would he go tearing through the floor and into a special kind of Hell if he ever managed to set foot upon it?
They still hadn’t visited Pepito. Johnny wasn’t sure why he didn’t just go on his own.
He kicked his foot free of the blanket it was wrapped in and crossed his legs, reasonably content to sit on the floor and ponder everything. A glass paperweight that he didn’t remember owning rolled across the floorboards and bumped his hand. It directed the light in odd ways when he held it above his head, but it wasn’t anything special. In just about every way, actually, the trinket containing some crudely spun flowers was rather tacky.
“Waiting for him, maybe?” Johnny asked the glass ball. Waiting until Edgar was ready to visit Pepito. “I’m sentimental about the Anti-Christ. Edgar likes lyrics. I guess that works out somewhere.” The glass ball felt alive when it filled with light.
“Fuck,” Johnny said with a sigh. He watched the ceiling for nothing at all and then made the light reflecting from the ball dance to the song he was either making up or remembering. The highlighted spot moved quickly with the slightest change in his wrist.
When he stood up, the light in the paperweight grew cold and died, and the ball rolled under the bed. Johnny thought it likely that he’d never see it again.
******
“Devi, this is the school.”
“I know. We’re going to check on something.”
“Do I have to go in?” Stephanie asked.
“What, are you actually scared of something?” Devi asked.
“No, it just doesn’t have a ferryman, and it makes me feel kinda weird.”
“Why would there be a ferryman in a school?” Tenna opened Stephanie’s door, but she looked reluctant to move.
“The floor in there needs a ferry.”
“Over what?” Tenna asked. “Last time I was in there it was solid ground.”
“It just really needs one.”
“Come on,” Devi said firmly. “We’re not leaving you out here so Pepito can eat you or serve you cookies or something.”
“Wait, what? Cookies?” Stephanie squeaked as she was hauled out of the car.
“Devi, this is a lot of effort to try to keep something weird from Edgar for a few days,” Tenna remarked as they walked down the familiar hallway to the choir room.
“She needs glasses, Tenna.”
“Oh, it’s virtuous now, I see.”
The door to the mini-classroom attached to the office was locked, which Devi expected, but checked on anyway. What she hadn’t expected was for the office to be untouched.
“They haven’t changed the locks?” Devi looked through the dusty glass at all the trappings of her pre-Homicides days in awe. “What would they do with all this old shit in here?”
“Maybe it’s like an altar,” Tenna suggested.
“Ooh, really?” Stephanie asked, slipping closer to the door and suddenly completely fine with entire school experience.
“I would not be even a little surprised if there were altars to Johnny somewhere, really,” Devi said, pushing her shoulder against the door.
“Devi this may surprise you, but locked doors are frequently coaxed open with keys.”
“Do I look like Nny, Tenna? I don’t have magical keys. I just thought they’d have changed it by now.”
“And that you’d be able to break their locks?”
“Shut up.”
“It’s still Nny’s lock,” Stephanie said, peering through the glass.
“Did he take you here?” Devi asked.
Stephanie nodded, still straining to see into the room, “Uh-huh, for a little bit. He came to get something and brought me with him.”
“Sounds like him,” Devi said, taking in the view of the room that the dirty glass allowed. “Still, guess this isn’t going to work.”
Tenna looked like she wanted more details, but didn’t ask for them.
Devi led the others back out of the school, which, when she thought about it, probably shouldn’t have been open. Across the street, Pepito waved at them from his porch. Devi tried to get the others to duck into the car quickly enough for him to do no more, but he appeared beside her before either she or Tenna could start the car.
“Greetings,” he said sweetly.
“Pepito, the last time I really had to look at you, you were stealing Johnny’s dead body, so I think I’d appreciate it if you just-”
“How long have you had her?” Pepito asked, poking the window looking in on Stephanie.
“She’s not important, just go home and corrupt that nervous looking guy of yours some more. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“How long have you had her?” Pepito repeated.
“A little while,” Tenna answered, earning a glare from Devi.
“She’s already so old,” Pepito ran a long nail over the window, which Stephanie watched with intense interest.
Devi stopped trying to steer around the horned man for a moment and leaned toward him, eyes narrow.
“Do you know something about her?”
“Not really,” Pepito said, smiling. He waved at Stephanie, who returned the gesture.
“‘Not really?’ You can do better than that.”
“I know of her, but don’t worry – I’m not looking to claim this one once she’s served her purpose or anything.”
“How comforting. I’m sure we’ll all sleep well tonight,” Devi deadpanned.
“She might be interested in these though,” Pepito said, producing a pair of black-framed glasses from nothing at all. “They came for her the other day.”
“What the hell, are you her mailbox now?”
“I didn’t ask,” he answered, shrugging.
Stephanie rolled her window down, and Pepito handed her the glasses. She showed a remarkable amount of comfort around him, though Devi thought maybe it was just that she didn’t know who he was yet.
“Hey, whoa!” Stephanie exclaimed, holding the lenses to her eyes. “This is so much better!”
Pepito shrugged cheerily when Devi shot a glare at him and vanished before she could question more.
“Shitfuckdamn,” she muttered, falling back against the car door.
“Well,” Tenna said slowly, “the bright side here is that it’s all done today.”
“And what do I tell Edgar? Or even Nny if he even still gives a shit? ‘Oh, durr hurr, they just came from the sky!’?”
“The ‘Durr Hurr They’re From Pepito’ explanation doesn’t seem any less okay, really.”
“What’s wrong with Pepito?” Stephanie asked. “Is it that whole Satan thing?”
“You know about this?” Devi asked.
Stephanie blinked.
“Of course you know about this,” Devi answered for herself. “You live with Nny.”
“Maybe they won’t even ask,” Tenna suggested. “I mean, where does Edgar get his glasses?”
“The guys upstairs, maybe.”
“Upstairs?” Stephanie asked, sliding her glasses on and off her nose.
“Yeah, you know,” Devi said, gesturing lamely to the sky. “Heaven or whatever.”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“You read all that mythology and you don’t know about Heaven?”
“I know about Hades. I know about Valhalla. I know about the West and Osiris. And, um, the Underworld, and Hell, and-”
“Heaven is for the good people.”
“There’s a difference?”
“None of those things you read has a Heaven?”
“Zeus… puts people in the stars?”
“No, I mean-” Devi tried again.
“Devi, let it go. Make Edgar tell her about it,” Tenna said, irritated. “I’m going to start this car and leave without you.”
“Alright, alright, let’s go.”
Upon their return to Devi’s place, Tenna remarked that the glasses did a lot of good for concealing Stephanie’s ‘crazy Johnny face.’
Later that evening, Devi said much the same.
Over dinner, Devi asked Stephanie to take her glasses off so she could compare the ‘Nny Factor’ in both states.
And before bed, Stephanie stubbornly refused to take the glasses off to sleep.
*****
Edgar felt a kind of pride that he was able to go out to meet Tess with no protesting or questions from Johnny, but was concerned that he had to even feel proud of it. Her constant insistence on the abuse he apparently suffered was beginning to get to him. Repetitions of innocence and happiness in his head began sounding like trying too hard or overcompensating and he was worried he’d start to argue with himself.
Shame it was so hard to get Johnny to talk about anything even related to Tess’ issues.
She stood near the front of the restaurant where they were meeting, looking anxious until she caught sight of him.
“Oh god, Edgar, I was worried!” she exclaimed, running to greet him. She looked like she wanted to inspect him.
“Um, why?” Edgar surveyed his appearance, but saw no bruises or injuries that he’d have to explain were not committed by Johnny.
Tess led Edgar inside and to a booth she’d already set her things in while she explained, “I saw him being so rough with you after you guys ‘made up’ the other day. And after he apparently took you upstairs and smacked you around or something…”
“Whoa, whoa, back up,” Edgar said, throwing his coat on the seat beside him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Tess sighed and settled into her seat in the booth.
“He grabbed your shirt and threatened you and everything. You don’t remember this? I know I heard you yell after you were up there for a while.”
“Okay, Tess, really. This crazy thing? It’s got you, actually.”
“Wow, this is displacement to the third degree or something, amazing. You’re a psychological wonder.”
“No, you really… don’t get it.”
“What’s to get?”
“Um. It really wasn’t anything like you’re saying it was. I was fine, I swear.”
Tess looked skeptical, which was sadly not unusual.
“So you’re telling me I’m supposed to ignore what I heard?” she asked, turning a pepper shaker over in her hands.
“I’d prefer it if you did.”
“That’s covering for him, you know.”
“No. No it really isn’t.”
“What did he do?”
“It was an accident.”
“What did he do?”
“It’s not that bad, really.”
“Edgar, what did he do?”
“He scratched me,” Edgar answered quietly.
Tess screwed up her face and rubbed her eyes a few times.
“Edgar, please. Are you even listening to yourself?”
“Are you? You sound fucking nuts, Tess. Seriously.”
“How do you scratch someone accidentally?”
“It’s my shoulder.”
“I’m not following.”
“I’m having a hard time believing that.”
“Welcome to my world.”
Edgar sighed and stared at the reflection on the dessert menu before he said anything else.
“Tess,” he said after his contemplation of cherry pie, “can I ask a favor?”
“Of course.” She sounded pleased that the conversation was going in another direction.
“Can we… just talk about something else?”
“We can’t run from what’s happening to you, Edgar, he-”
“I don’t mean to run,” Edgar interrupted, “I just, honestly, would like to just talk about something. Friends, right? How ‘friends’ can we be if we just bitch about Nny every time we see each other?”
It was Tess’ turn to look for enlightenment in the cherry pie advertisement. She looked pleased, if a little distant.
“Sure. We can drop it for today.”
Edgar didn’t expect Tess to be capable of it, but she never even covertly touched on the subject of Johnny for the remainder of the afternoon. They discussed playing instruments (Tess had played the flute in elementary school in one of her lives), the food at the restaurant (kinda shitty), the disrepair of the library (arguably shittier) and any number of subjects that could fall in between. Edgar found himself almost forgetting that the woman he was conversing with was the same one that routinely tried to shoot holes in his relationship until it almost became unavoidable.
“So, here’s something that’s sort of dangerous territory,” Edgar said between sips of his drink, “given the boundaries I’ve set and all, but what kind of things do you remember about lives before this one?”
“Aside from the known universe disappearing around me?”
“Right.”
“Eh, just a life, really,” Tess leaned back into the booth’s padded seat. “It wasn’t anything flashy. I had some shitty friends and some shittier boyfriends, but I just did what I could, you know?”
“I suppose so. How are your friends now?”
“Well, you’re pretty un-shitty.”
“I can’t be the only one, though.”
“I’m pickier now than I used to be. And, you know, considering the only people who can see me are you and… well. Let’s say my options are limited.”
“I wonder if Devi can see you.” Edgar laughed a moment after the words left his mouth, “That sounds so weird now.”
“Devi is the drum woman, right?”
“Yeah, she might be someone you’d like talking to.”
“How so?”
“You two had similar experiences? Something like that.” Tess stared at Edgar almost accusingly, so he rushed to change the subject. “Your other life though, we were talking about that,” he tried.
“Sure. What else about it?”
“Shitty boyfriends?”
Tess gave him a look that he could only describe as ‘knowing’ and he sorely regretted picking the topic.
“I had them, like everyone does at some point. Started to realize my shitty company was becoming a recurring theme, so I decided to try to do something about it. I wasn’t terribly successful, but I wasn’t given a lot of time, either. I was kind of a lousy judge of character.”
“Are you sure you’re not now?”
“Excuse me?”
Edgar flinched, “Sorry. Forget it.”
“I’m sure that you’re good people, Edgar.”
“I know, but I wasn’t – yeah, never mind.”
“I think I’d like to talk to your Devi.”
Edgar sighed in relief.
“That would be great.”
“What do you do beyond playing in that band of yours, anyway?” Edgar didn’t know where this bit of conversation was headed, but was more than welcoming to the change.
“Watch bad movies, I think. Read weird books and magazines. Stephanie and Johnny have me going through mythology lately so I don’t have to decode their conversations.”
Tess laughed and rattled her cup for the waitress to refill again.
“Bad movies? What kind of bad are we talking here?”
“The kind where the monster has a zipper on his back, mostly. Or the ones where the actors speak like there are periods after every three words of dialog.”
“There’s a show on the science fiction channel like that,” Tess said, pointing with her spoon. “The main guy is always talking like that and losing his shirt.”
“Yeah, we know that one. Stephanie watched it once and Johnny dissected the whole thing with a remarkably feminist slant.”
“Really?” Tess sounded doubtful.
“Yes, really, but I’m not expecting you to believe that.”
Tess adjusted her glasses and looked as though she was struggling with pushing a reaction to Edgar’s statement back into her throat.
“How do you get along with her, anyway? Stephanie, I mean.”
“Fine, why?”
“Maybe you could bring her with you sometime.”
“I think you’re going to need me to trust you more before that happens.”
“Let’s work on that next time, then.”
“If you want, sure.”
“You’re protective of her.” The motion of Tess’ spoon in her drink neared the level of hypnotic.
“Of course I am. No one else really wants to be.”
“That doesn’t mean it has to fall to you.”
“It sort of does. And I don’t mind, anyway. She’s brilliant for her age – whatever that is – so it’s really not like baby sitting.”
“How charming of you.”
Edgar shrugged, “It’s nothing, really.”
“Brilliant how?”
“She takes in information like a sponge. She makes all these weird mythology references that I’ll probably never catch up to. She apparently went through some text books at Jimmy’s once and determined that she should be having some kind of psychological break down based on the stuff in the books and not having any parents.”
“She does seem to be holding her own with you two.”
“Yeah, though I guess what gets me is that she sometimes misses things that happen outside her mythology books. Certain terms make no sense to her, and why people can’t transform into animals and trees at will just can’t be explained to her. I’m starting to think she’s some kind of genius, but only in a restricted range.”
“Maybe that’s why someone left her on the road.”
“Hey!”
“Kidding, Edgar, jeez,” Tess said, laughing. “Lighten up, I’m not attacking her.”
“Sorry. It’s true though; I’m still not sure about why she was just there. We were supposed to go ask Pepito about it, but I feel… well, considering how things went last time we involved him, I haven’t exactly been jumping at the chance.”
“Yeah, understandable.”
Edgar looked up from the placemat in front of him and stared at Tess intently.
“You… you don’t know him, do you?”
“I know of him. I’m not gonna go inviting him over for tea and scones though.”
Edgar breathed an obvious sigh of relief, and found he cared very little for how Tess interpreted it.
“Worried I’m the agent of Satan?” she asked, grinning.
“It’s a justified fear by this point, right?”
“I think so. What, it’s been a dead boyfriend and some evil keys and a crazy book now, right?”
“And conceivably a small child, yes.”
“Better get her checked out. She could be a vampire.”
“What?”
Tess grinned again and then donned a mock-serious expression.
“Is it vampires, Edgar? You can tell me. I know some people who got out of vampires. I can help you.”
Edgar laughed in return.
“I think I can handle my vampires on my own, thanks.”
******
There was knocking at his door, and he had no idea why. He hadn’t called anyone to come over today, and everyone he was supposed to be friends with ignored him. The girl he was pretending to have as a girlfriend hadn’t bothered with him in a week or so.
Jimmy shuffled through some discarded Chinese Take-Out boxes and opened his door, hoping he’d have to sign for a package and being only slightly disappointed when it turned out to be Devi and the Little One sporting new hair.
“Kleine! What are you doing here? Nice hair. And glasses, too?”
Devi nodded as though Jimmy had been talking to her and shuffled the depressed looking Stephanie into Jimmy’s living room.
“Hi, Uncle Jimmy,” the girl managed as she was pushed along.
“Um, what’s going on?” Jimmy asked. He didn’t bother addressing the question to either of them in particular.
“I have a question for you, Jimmy,” Devi replied groggily.
“Oh, Devi, I don’t think we should be meeting like this,” Jimmy mocked with an exaggerated flick of his wrist.
“Don’t fuck with me. I am not in the mood.” Devi glared at him, and the Little One just sulked.
“We had a long night,” Devi said, glancing in the girl’s direction.
“Fine, fine. I’ll keep her here again, if that’s what you’re after.”
“That’s not it, actually,” Devi said, rifling through one of the pockets on her jacket. “I want you to look at this.” She pulled out a small square that Jimmy recognized as a photograph.
The picture showed him with Johnny, several years ago, well before they’d met Edgar. Jimmy was being made fun of or generally abused in the picture, judging by his expression, but this was standard practice for nearly all pictures of Jimmy from around the time so it wasn’t terribly surprising. Johnny was making one of his all-knowing smirking faces while Jimmy looked surprised and sort of stupid.
“Soo…?” Jimmy asked, looking up at Devi. Devi nodded emphatically toward Kleine, who was brooding away on Jimmy’s broken couch.
Jimmy tried giving the photo to the poor girl, but Devi quickly vetoed it.
“Devi, I’m not good at this kind of…,” he trailed off when Devi walked over to Kleine and got her to remove her glasses and look at Jimmy. Devi widened her eyes pointedly, and gave a nod to the photo in Jimmy’s hand.
He held it up and away from his body, closed one eye, and matched it next to the girl’s face. Though yellowed and a little faded, he was looking at a cheerier version of her face in the photo. Or a more depressed looking version of Johnny’s sitting on his furniture.
“Oh. Holy shit, that’s weird,” he managed, lowering the photo. Devi returned the glasses she held in her hand and walked back over to stand beside Jimmy. Kleine made a noise close to growling and stared bitterly through her new lenses at Jimmy’s floorboards.
“What did you do?” Jimmy asked when he was sure only Devi would hear.
“Do?”
“Is the picture altered or something, or is she…,” Jimmy hoped to not have to finish that sentence with more than some eyebrow and a hand gesture.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, you got further along than I did!” Devi made a face at his outburst, but let him keep talking.
“I just thought…,” he scratched the back of his head, trying to cover up feeling stupid. “Though I guess we’d have seen something, huh?”
“Yeah, genius. Thanks anyway. And here I was hoping I could get some intelligent thought out of you.”
“Hey, come on. You give me girl that looks like Nny, and you, who got to… It was a quick conclusion.”
In a rare flash, Devi looked like she was actually considering what Jimmy had said.
“Okay,” she said after a moment, “I’ll let that go. Still, it brings up other issues.”
“Did you ask Nny?”
“I… Not yet.” Devi looked around the room as though she’d never seen it before.
“I think he’d be saying something like, ‘Ask me instead of getting information from fucking Jimmy, because even though he stalks me, he doesn’t have a goddamn clue,’ about now.”
“I’m more worried about it leaking to Edgar.”
“Who’s gonna notice, I think, what with that fucked up ‘living with Johnny’ thing he does.”
“I really hate these days of yours,” Devi muttered.
“Days?”
“When you’re right,” she sighed, took the photo back from Jimmy and pocketed it. “I’ll be back to get her tomorrow.”
“Um, that thing where I was right?” Jimmy called after her as she opened the door. “Are you ignoring it to spite me?”
“No,” Devi laughed. She stood on the concrete stairs outside his door. “Edgar just told me Johnny would hack all his flesh off if she came back before she was supposed to again.”
“Well, fuck,” Jimmy grinned, “I’ll take her back myself then.”
“And I’m sure your flesh will be next,” Devi called over her shoulder as she walked back toward her building.
“Eh, the risk might be worth it.”
He didn’t even think to ask where they’d found the glasses.
Squonk Opera’s ‘White Noise’ from “Put Your Hometown’s Name Here: The Opera” is intended for the section from Johnny POV in which ‘White Noise’ is mentioned as a concept. The lyrics are near unintelligible, so this is a ‘La Mer’ kind of move again in that I can’t post words the characters can’t understand.