Always in this nightmare, p.18
Always, in This Nightmare, page 18
“It’s sucked, kinda. I don’t have many friends, so to lose one you care about — that you love — it’s a special kind of hurt. But not everybody is compatible, right? We all have our own personal wants and needs that have to be taken care of. Our lives have directions we want them to go in, and not everybody is going to line up, right?”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It’s not selfish to want to continue in a potentially self-destructive direction just to force something that isn’t meant to be, right?”
Dr. Murdock considered this. “Um, hard to say. There is some nuance to consider in every relationship. But if it’s one in which you’re experiencing or you’re frightened by self-destruction, as you put it, it’s probably better to step away for a while. I think if you take a break or end things for the sake of your own sanity and the sanity of your partner, selfishness can become a triviality by comparison. Self-preservation and selfishness aren’t necessarily synonymous in this situation.”
The words made sense to her, but Ella wanted them to sound truer than they did.
“Do you feel that your life is going in the direction you want now?”
Ella gave her the smile she’d been practicing. “Yeah,” she lied. “I wouldn’t change anything.”
Finding her ‘inner quiet’ was difficult in a room filled with breathing and the sharp scent of yoga mats poking at her sinuses, but she tried. Back straight, shoulders squared and relaxed, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. Inhale to collect her troubles, exhale to release them, all while the whooshing of a digital ocean filled the room with soft noise.
Breathe in stinky vinyl and people sweat, breathe out sour coffee tongue. Should’ve bought gum. Maybe some mints.
Focus, Novotny. Just like her track coach used to say.
Useless. If it wasn’t the eerie tingle of sensing sweaty bodies seated in rows around her, it was the stampeding of her own thoughts that kept her from relaxing. The surrounding women all had contented half-smiles on their mouths, their breaths coming in slow, almost imperceptible movements suggestive of deep relaxation.
“We’re here for twenty more minutes,” the class leader’s soothing voice carried to the back of the room. “If you need to lie on your mats for a little nap, feel free. No judgments, only relaxation and falling into your center.”
Falling into her center. She missed that. The star space. It was the only place she felt truly relaxed, at peace. Even though the sleeping pills gave her the sense of relaxation, they had a caffeinated edge to it. The pills didn’t keep the horses of her thoughts from racing across the meadows of her mind, it just made them quiet. She could still feel their hooves rumbling the ground like an earthquake. Those were her dreams now. Shivering blankness.
Instead of meditating with the rest of the class, Ella daydreamed about the star space, about how easily she floated downward through her dreams, past the screams and blades of her nightmares, and into a crystalline bubble of purest night glittering with tiny star, the little eyes that used to watch her and Mara make love.
Grief and regret weighed her down. Mara had told her she loved her, and Ella pushed her away. Was still pushing her away. She thought that by choosing Jerome and denying Mara she’d find some happiness, a relationship without fear and anxiety being a necessary component, but she knew she wasn’t happy. The memory of the star space and of a darkened, candlelit house, were the void within her now. Jerome was a good man, thoughtful and compassionate, but he didn’t touch her soul the way Mara had. Ella could be weak with Mara and feel safe, protected, and valued, as if Mara reciprocated every ounce of love Ella gave her.
With Jerome… Well, she was still feeling that out. Sometimes she felt she cared more for him than he did for her. When autumn came, Ella was excited to pick apples and drink cider while navigating a local corn maze, but Jerome just sort of shrugged it off and it made her feel silly. But when she responded with the same indifference to the frightening hayrides and haunted attractions he eagerly went on and on about, he took it personally.
“Why can’t you be excited about the stuff I want to do?” he asked her. “I do all the dumb stuff that you want, even if I don’t like them.”
“They’re not dumb, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t go. I’m just not excited about it, Jer. They aren’t my favorite things in the world, but I’ll go with you if you want to go. I’m excited for you, not for the experience.”
It was the back and forth around the little things that bothered her. A tiny tug of war between them that made her feel like he expected her to adjust her emotional state to fit his needs, yet asking him to do the same resulted in him resorting to a sort of childish griping and a half-hearted, “Fine. I’ll be excited for you,” and needed to suffer through at least a day of his standoffishness. Plates and spoons clattered into the sink just a little harder than usual. Hugs were too short. Kisses jabbed with lips tightly puckered and disinterested. When she’d approach him about it, the answer was always the same: “I’m fine, Ella. Stop trying to dream up problems.”
Mara was her soul. Her essence. Even now, in the carbon-copy daydream of their secret place, it felt empty and alone. Ella let the melancholy settled over her like a cold dress weighing her down into the sea. She deserved this. The sensation of sinking, of weight pressing her down and squeezing all around her until all she heard was the quiet rhythm of her own heartbeat sloshing through her ears.
As she opened her eyes, her sight sharpened, as if a second set of eyelids opened.
She was in the star space.
Shock filled her with a trembling, uneasy joy. This wasn’t a daydream. She couldn’t feel contact with her physical body. There was no sensation of being in-between a dream and reality. The stars were the same. Both doorways greeted her with their whirlpool spinning and silent appeals, imploring her to step inside. Air moved around her like thinned water. A hint of jasmine lingered on the wind.
She didn’t need sleep to get here.
She stared into the most shadowed spaces, searching for two blue stars sitting closer together than the others. “Mara?” she whispered.
Silence replied with a pang of guilt and heartache.
Ella considered the other door, the portal to the shadow realm. The other side of her world. It called to her, whispering the soft licking sounds of terror swirling down thirsty throats. Her bones missed the strength, the buzzing sensations of control and power twirling around them.
Her stomach growled. The shadow of her throat groaned how dry it was.
How long had it been? Months? She made it through the first few weeks by fighting the temptation with Wren’s leftover medication, but lately she had been considering weaning herself off of them. Mara would surely be gone by now, the need to move on to another source of food overcoming whatever sadness she felt about ending their relationship.
Why did I hurt her? I did it on purpose. Why?
Guilt and hunger pounded at each other, her insides their arena. She could go in and drink, just take a sip off someone, anyone whose overworked nerves kept them on the brink of sleeping and dreaming. She’d only take enough to feel strong again. It’s not like she’d let it take her over like before.
When her senses returned, Ella stood inches away from the door to the shadow realm. She hadn’t noticed she’d been moving until something caught her attention. A soft voice from her world calling her name.
Ella gave a last glance to the doorway, then flew up and into her nightmare with the promise she’d try this again.
Light blinded her when she opened her eyes. Noises, little laughs, grated her ear drums.
Tiffany, the class leader, squatted in front of her. She smiled. The tiny diamond stud on her bottom lip glittered. “I think you had a breakthrough, Ella. I could feel the energy radiating off of you. Did any of you feel it?”
The people not busy rolling up their yoga mats gave her appreciative nods or muttered agreements.
“The light in me recognizes and salutes the light in you.” Tiffany pressed her palms together in front of her. “Namaste.”
Ella swallowed, and blushing, returned the gesture. “Namaste.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“What are you doing?” Jerome asked from the doorway.
Ella popped her head up. “Checking under the bed.”
“What? Are you missing a sock?” Jerome set his book down on his lap and leaned against his pillow. “You know this sort of searching is against the Fourth Amendment, right?”
“Ha, ha. Mr. Funnypants, cracking jokes.” The underside of the bed was clean. No eyes lurking in shadow. She went to Jerome’s closet and flicked the light on and closed the door. She walked to the kitchen and flicked on the light above the stove top. The bathroom light went on, too. Its door closed.
“Ella. Babe. Sweetie poo. What are you doing?” Jerome’s tone was more insistent this time.
She stood in the middle of the room, fingers busy playing invisible piano keys, body swimming in oversized fleece pants and t-shirt, and stared out of his bedroom door, gauging the layout of the shadows between there and the bed. “I’m trying to get comfortable.”
“The bed’s here.” He patted the spot next to his leg. “There’s a pillow. I’ve even been known to cuddle on occasion, thus preventing any potential boogeyman and/or ghost attacks.”
“Good,” she said, checking behind the door. “Because I’m the boogeywoman, and I’m going to get you in about thirty seconds.”
“I just said I prevented those.”
“You said boogeyman.” With the lights on and the door cracked, there was no place with a shadow where she couldn’t see something coming. Nothing could pass by her without hitting some amount of light first.
“Seriously, Ella. What the fudge, lady? Why are you surveying my apartment? You better not be baby crazy. I have student loans and union dues. I don’t need a kid cutting into my poker money.”
“I’m done! Gosh!” Ella hopped onto the bed and straddled his legs. “And I’m not baby crazy. Why is it when a boy clears the house, he’s just being protective and careful, but when a girl does it, she’s baby crazy or a psycho?”
“I’m just making sure we’re still on the same page.” He kissed her when she leaned in. “Making sure we’re abiding by the no-child clause of our arrangement.” One conversation they had shortly after deciding to keep their relationship monogamous had to do with boundaries and parameters. Jerome’s biggest one had to do with keeping children out of the picture until much further into the future. Apparently, he had a scare in college with an ex-girlfriend. There was no worry for him, though. Ella wasn’t interested in ever having children. “Come on, Ella. What’s with the lights?”
“I told you. I’m just trying to get comfortable.” When he wasn’t buying it, she added, “You want me to stop taking sleeping pills, right? Then this helps when I’m not in my own bed.” Usually, they’d stay at her house, but Jerome had been missing his own bed on the weekends, so she agreed to stay at his place, provided she didn’t ‘spray it up with flowery-scented stuff and glitter.’
That comment earned him a pinch on his chest.
“I’m just getting bearings, you know. If I have to get up and pee or get a drink of water, you don’t want me banging my toe into everything. Right?”
“Well, it’s not my toe.”
She slapped him with a pillow. “You shit.” She crawled under the blankets and slid her butt into the curve of his body before clamping her chilled feet together onto his leg for good measure. He yelped and complained, but after he turned off the light, he gathered her against him and readjusted so her feet weren’t being crushed between his knees.
“You really quitting those pills? For good, this time. Not like last month?”
She nodded. While they adjusted, her eyes searched the room for any familiar glows. It had been months since their argument, and no eyes sought her from the shadows anymore, but she didn’t want Mara sneaking in while she was testing something. “They weren’t a permanent solution, just something to help me get by after mom. I’m going to try something else tonight. You know, like find my center and clear my head, and whatnot. Namaste.”
His arms squeezed her gently. “I told you that yoga class would teach you a thing or two.”
Jerome always fell asleep so fast. It was a wonder how he ever suffered from insomnia. Once his breathing eased into a steady pattern and his arms felt heavier around her, Ella started taking a series of deliberate breaths and relaxing her body, from toes to shoulders, until her body felt like it was falling off the edge of space and jerked itself back to reality.
Close. She tried again. This time, easing into her nightmare, steadily enough that her spine only tentatively tingled with warning and her legs lost their instinct to kick.
And then she was through to the star space.
The shadow realm seemed somehow darker, lonelier than she remembered. Lights glowed dimmer, and the cool night sky felt heavier against her shoulders as she navigated her way between homes and trees with no clear destination, only allowing herself to fulfill her primal drive to sneak and wind her way through shadows like a swimmer who learned to breathe water. The sharp pine and concrete tang of the air. Fluttering of wings as bats and night birds swooped in and out of streetlights, catching the insects fluttering around bulbs like motes of dust in a ray of sun. A sense of completion enveloped her. Oneness and openness.
She flew a little farther, eyes half-open against the north wind that didn’t bite half as hard as she knew it would on the exposed flesh of her human body, until she noticed movement that wasn’t human below her on the sidewalk. Too big to be an animal, for sure. Curious, though.
The closer she sank, the more she noticed the shadows moving.
At least a half dozen figures passed in and out of homes, seemingly oblivious to one another. The speed at which they passed made it difficult to tell if she had the count correct. There could’ve been more. Regardless, they didn’t seem to notice the larger shadow crawling along the rooftops like an ominous black cloud. Its nebulous form crept along, watching, then waiting as others moved along below it. Whether it was hunting or if it used the others for hunting, like a pack of wolves under the direction of a leader, she couldn’t tell right away. But when a bulbous part of it jerked to the right and started tracking a smaller shadow, she had an idea.
The larger one waited, hidden in the bushes, while Ella’s eyes followed the smaller one as it darted from shadow to shadow, searching. Other ones avoided it, deciding to disappear into the darkness altogether, a flock of sardines sensing danger and speeding away to safety. When the smaller one realized what was happening, it was too late.
The big one attacked with an ursine ferocity, slamming itself into the smaller one and pounding its weight into it. No matter how the smaller struggled, it was outmatched. In moments, the larger one’s teeth tore into it and pulled hunks of ragged shadow from its form and stuffed dripping, ichorous slop into its gaping maw.
Ella slowly backed away between streetlights before the hungry beast finished its meal and started its search for another.
Her progress stopped when her back hit something solid.
Another shadow, one about her size, peeled away and began circling around her. From what Ella could tell, it was a naked woman with long hair and delicate features, thin and sharp. The way she swam around Ella, sleek and graceful, reminded her of a mermaid.
Another shadow followed suit. This one, a man, slender and long.
Ella struggled to see their faces. They appeared human — faces, torsos, arms, hair — but diffused and unclear. People smeared like wet ink.
The woman’s touch was candlelight soft and warm, and she dabbed her finger against Ella’s shoulder as if trying to understand her, too. The man’s touch was just as tender, though his method of searching bordered on vulgar. He thinned himself out and twisted around her leg, sniffing around her backside and crotch like a dog. She pushed him away and took a quick step backward in the sky, but where the woman ducked into the shadows of a tree branch, he backed off only for a moment before whirling downward and running his tongue between her toes.
Disgusting.
Ella gave him a more forceful kick, eliciting a quick noise between a sneeze and a hiss. He, too, backed away into the tree branches.
She kept her eyes on them, nervousness prickling at the edges of her survival instinct. The woman followed her, her dark eyes wide with an eager interest. Ella flew more slowly, allowing her to catch up. When it was clear that she was actively keeping her distance from Ella, Ella reached out a hand as a gesture of acquiescence to the curiosity. They sort of acted like dogs, so maybe the same body language applied here?
The woman took Ella’s hand, sniffed it. Tasted it. As she moved up Ella’s arm, Ella’s nervousness responded like a clarion in her ears. Something felt off, not right. Maybe not danger, but very like it. She put her face right in front of Ella’s. Her eyes were the grayish green of sickly, science fiction smog, but they were captivating. Hypnotic. Beautiful and creamy jades hidden under a thin film of graphite.
A pair of sharp fingers slid into her skin on either side of Ella’s windpipe, sending a shock of ice water down into her lungs.
Ella slapped at the woman’s hand and tried to leap away, but the other was too fast. She pulled against Ella’s collarbone, forced herself in deeper, and started feeding.
The man saw this and sprung from the trees straight toward them.
Weakness fell over Ella like a jacket made of January wind. The pain was excruciating. Barbs on the woman’s fingers hooked into her ribcage, anchoring them together and embedding themselves deeper when she struggled. No amount of fighting freed her. She couldn’t pull away enough. Once the man reached them, she’d be easily overpowered and left at the mercy of whatever horrors they had in mind, beyond just feeding on her.
