Nothing But Bones

46: Instigation

Melvin J. Berrycloth finds himself in a circular room. Stairs spiral up into a dark, star-studded infinity. Countless doors line the steps. He's aware; he can feel her subconscious.

His voice echoes off of curved walls and old door knobs. "Alright, Tiff, let's see what you've got behind these doors."

The first door opens to the inside of a grocery store. Bright fluorescents overhead drown out the world for a moment, until it fades into bright colors and packaging.

This is how you keep the peace: you go with your mother to the grocery store. You trail behind her, dutiful and obedient, your mental calculator adding figures in a way the hands clasped behind your back will never betray. One foot in front of the other, Tiffany May Sheridan follows her mother down the aisles of a grocery store further away from home than it has any right being. She’s maybe twelve here, and really only lives in the back of her head. The tiles follow a consistent pattern: solid white, blue every seventeen tiles along every third line. It's a mosaic of nothing, a painting of an occasional blue dot— bird's-eye view of an angry woman and her anxious daughter.

She's a woman of average height, with long brown hair in a severe bun and a skirt that swishes with every step she takes. Ruth Sheridan hides her anger well. It radiates out of her, though, in a way Tiff can feel in her chest. Radon gas, the way her mother is— there's no real difference when it comes to their effect on her lungs.

Tiff, in turn, hides all that nervousness behind a mask of pious, repentant nothing. She can tell that her mother is still ranting in her head like she did during the drive here, the way she would to a trusted friend.

Ruth sighs into her grocery list, anger escaping in the gaps behind her teeth. "Tiffany May, I need you to go grab paper towels, a can of Comet, and a package of sponges. Whatever's cheapest."

She nods, then, realizing she's behind her mother and thus her silence may be interpreted as ignoring her, stammers out, "Yes— Yes, ma'am."

"I will come and find you if I have to."

She means it as a threat. It works to put the fear of God in her.

Tiff scurries off to do what she's told. Her mother always tells her not to do that— stop scampering, you're going to hit something— but it isn't like she's looking. She's too busy in the produce section, comparing the prices of oranges and clementines. So Tiff runs off, not quite sure where the things that she's looking for are.

At the end of the aisle of assorted cleaning products, past the end cap, between a display of raisin cinnamon bagels and a small cooler of various shredded cheeses, she sees one of those things she has coveted for so long. They're gathered around a plastic cart: four or so teenagers rifling through the baked goods. The words of their conversation weave in and out like the playful phrasing of a children's symphony. Tiff pinpoints the oboe, the violin, the bass, the French horn— a girl with dark, glossy hair and a black denim jacket embroidered and painted with patches of white and thin, spindly letters. That's the flared bell that fits in woodwind quintets and surprisingly isn't entirely barred from jazz. They're all adorned in bright colors, ripped clothes, bits of metal embedded in black leather, but it's that girl in the jacket that she can't take her eyes off of.

She watches them out of the corner of her eye, listens from the corner of her ear over the tinny pop music playing through the store's speakers. The conversation infects her, mesmerizes her.

The girl laughs, and it's like wind chimes in the middle of the store, over cheap guava strudel and discount double chocolate chunk muffins. Some part of Tiffany May, deep down and stunted though it may be, recognizes the truth of what she's feeling: a double dose of wanting and indescribable loneliness. Does it count as loneliness if the person you're isolated from is someone you desperately want to be?

She can't mistake it, with her hands grabbing for a plastic-wrapped package of cheap scrubbing sponges. She wants all of it. She wants hand-painted patches for bands she has to explain; she wants her hair cut short and more than one piercing; she wants friends who will go to the store with her; she wants personhood to be a work of art. More than all of that, though, she wants to be that free. She covets the easy nature of the girl's laugh and the easy way her fingers fray the loose threads at the bottom of her jacket. She's glockenspiel tones; she's an allegro moderato for horn like Gordon Jacob intended. A neverending grin the same width as the package of three rolls in her hands, laugh like guava jelly: it's everything Tiffany May covets. She'll have to repent it out of herself later.

And, yet, there the girl is. She's a testament to life outside of what Tiff has known— life lived, rather than endured.

What would it be like, she wonders, to not be held down by what you are and what's expected of you? To do good things because you want to? To laugh with your friends at the grocery store and draw yourself like an acrylic-covered work of art? Her breath catches in her throat until she's sure she's going to fall over again.

A crackling command for Joseph to head to the front snaps her out of it. She takes what she was supposed to find back to her mother— one scampering foot in front of the other, tamping down wanting, like this is how you keep the peace.

Melvin exits the door, feeling already tired from keeping that memory from influencing Tiff's slumbering mind. "You poor, poor kid. All you wanted was to express yourself."

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. He has no idea how much time has passed, if any. His body is sleeping next to Tiff's; as aware as he is in here, the him that exists in the real world has no concept of time and its passing. Melvin looks at the door again. Shaking his head sadly, he begins to ascend the stairs.

*****

Ellis sits in a chair that he moves closer to the bed once the two of them are magically linked. That particular process was much easier than he anticipated. This next one won't be. He shuts his eyes; his hands draw symbols in the air that send a wave of magic into Tiff with each completed stroke; the accompanying words come quicker and quicker. He isn't shouting, but he's sure that anyone who put their ear to the door could hear.

It's all so complicated and, yet, the instructions were well laid so clearly. Whomever wrote this tome included the cost demanded by the caster.

That was to be expected, of course. He left it out of his explanation on purpose. Tiff wouldn't have agreed, had she known. He doesn't know her well, but he knows that. The fact remains, though: magic like this is never truly about saying the right words or using the right ritualistic instruments and symbology. What he's doing is old and rooted in the very essence of the universe; what he's doing is asking the threads of fate for a favor. He just has to hope that whatever answers his call doesn't demand too much of him.

He didn't think it would hurt as much as it does, but he will endure. He has to.