Monkey grabbed my sleeve and tugged me into a little newspaper shop, where she flitted around until she found a rack of news magazines and tabloids. Her eyes scanned each title until she settled on one and held it out to me.
I took it, looked at the price, and raised my eyebrows. When did magazines get so expensive?
“Monkey, that’s the last of my money. We’ll be in trouble unless Rome comes through and sends us more.”
She shrugged.
“Yeah, you’re right. Fifteen bucks isn’t going to buy much else.” As I reached for my wallet, my temper erupted without warning. “You’re a real burden sometimes, you know that?”
I said it in a mean tone, too, which was not like me. Worse, I kept going. It was like my mouth decided to pour all my frustration onto her, and none of it was her fault.
“If you’d talk to me, it would help! I’m doing the best I can to guess what you want or need, but I can’t read your mind! Why won’t yousaysomething?”
I knew the betrayal in her eyes would haunt me for a long, long,longtime. I was sure that,yearslater, the image would pop up in my head ,and I’d curse myself out all over again.
She turned and walked away—and I stood there with that dumb magazine and watched her go, so absorbed in a moment of self-righteous anger that I actually considered leaving her at the airport.
She wants to walk away? Fine! Let her walk away. She can find some other poor sucker and drain his wallet and give him the silent treatment!
My anger never lasts long. It’s like a bubble that fills up in a second, then pops just as quickly. When it does, I’m left to clean up the fallout.
Only this time, I’d messed up something I wasn’t so sure I could fix.
#
Anne
I remember bits and pieces, some more clearly than others.
I remember my power being stolen, and my friends disappearing one by one until only I remained.
I remember demons dragging me to the White Room, and I remember what happened there.
I remember mismatched intervals of light and dark trekking across the walls. My world had shriveled to a rotation of pain and the absence of pain, though, and days and the counting of them had ceased to matter.
I remember how hope dwindled to a thread as thin as spider silk until I finally accepted that no rescue was coming.
I remember an obsidian-eyed man came into my prison one day and stared at me for several long minutes, then left. After that, the demons stopped taking me to the White Room, stopping coming in all together, and I was grateful to be forgotten.
I remember growing hungrier and colder and weaker until everything became dim and dull and dark around the edges. Fading, just like me.
I remember voices piercing my stupor. My eyes unshuttered when a flame-haired girl touched my arm. My ears unstoppered when a boy brought me a blanket and told me he would take care of me until I could do so myself. He told story after story until I climbed into his lap and laid my head on his chest.
I remember thinking that there could be no lovelier sound in the world than the endlessthump-thumpof his heart.
#
Spin
I found her doing yoga in a kids’ play area.
There were children climbing all over the place, and presumably their parents were the grown-ups sacked out in nearby chairs. Nearly all of them were ignoring Monkey, the kids too busy screaming and the adults either too jet-lagged or world-weary to care, but a couple of the men had their whole focus on her instead of their kids.
One was obviously curious, which I could understand. It wasn’t every day you saw a girl curled backward with her toes on the top of her head. The other one, though…
Sinking to my knees next to Monkey, I shotthatguy a glare loaded with power. Dude’s face went slack, then he got to his feet in jerky movements and marched away like an automaton. When he didn’t stop to claim any of the kids, it only confirmed for me that he was a predator, and I’d been justified in sending him away. I hoped the power lasted long enough for him to walk right into the bay and sink down to Hell where he belonged.
I turned my attention to Monkey. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t a transitionist or a counselor, and I usually ended up pissing off even regular people just by being me. What chance didIhave to help a traumatized muse?
