Sugarcane and Indigo

The Tell Tale Heart

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

That thought echoed through my head like the beat of a drum as I stayed kneeling in the pool of clotting blood, my head resting on Indigo's still chest. I was coated in red; it ran down my face and neck and hands like I was washing my sins away in it.

I pulled back and wiped my face.

I should be freaking out, I thought numbly, but I wasn't. I felt calm - no, calm was the wrong word for it. I felt - I felt empty. Like my soul had stepped out of me the moment Indigo's had.

I don't know how much time had passed since I first discovered his body - NO! my mind screamed as I thought of Indigo as a body. No, he wasn't a body, he was Indigo.

Without realizing it, I had begun to rock myself in place. The blood squishing beneath me everytime my heels picked up off the floor.

Indigo was fine. Indigo was fine. Indigo was fine.

I couldn't stop thinking that. It became my mantra, my guide back to sanity.

This was all a dream. This wasn't real.

"Wake up," I muttered to myself. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up."

I didn't wake up.

My eyes kept flitting across the room trying to find something that would make sense. Cabinets, glass, kitchen island, body. Tiles, refrigerator, windows, body.

My eyes kept getting drawn back to Indigo.

I couldn't bring myself to close his eyes and they were started to cloud over as death took hold of him.

He looked like all those paintings of Jesus; those ones that showed him nailed to a cross. We didn't believe in Jesus here but sometimes outsiders would. I had seen a painting of him in Violet's house when I was young.

Indigo looked like Jesus with a crown of thorns wrapped around his head and the pure suffering written across his face.

I stroked a trembling hand down his cheek, feeling the stubble that had just begun poking out. It wouldn't grow anymore now.

I wish that I could wonder why this had happened. I wish that I could wrap myself in ignorance and close my eyes to the truth that this was my fault.

But I couldn't.

Anansi himself had just told me that, "This is all Fletch."

I didn't know why he had done this, why he had killed Indigo, but I hated him for it. Maybe he had killed Indigo as punishment for me attacking him. Maybe he thought it would be funny after our conversation to make a hypothetical become real. Whatever the reason a chasm opened up in my chest that threatened to swallow me with every breath.

I don't know how much longer I stayed kneeling in his blood but eventually a knock sounded at the door. My head popped up and I vaguely wondered who it was.

"Lavender?" A voice called that I belatedly placed as Grammie's.

I didn't say anything. Why was Grammie here?

"Lavender, Indigo, honey, the door's open so I'm gonna come on in."

I stared at the doorway as Grammie's heels clicked on the hardwood floor. She appeared in the doorway, looking out of place in Indigo's dark kitchen. I couldn't see her clearly, just the outline of her body which meant that she couldn't see us.

"Lavender? Are you in here?" she asked.

"Why are you here?" My voice came out hoarse from all the screaming.