INFERNO
Amber took a moment to inspect the hatch Madaline had disappeared through; she couldn't see anything, the world outside was obscured by an impenetrable curtain composed of low light and fog.
She sighed, took another moment to hesitate, and at last stepped through following her foil to the stage, only to discover too late that the stage was a little lower than she thought.
Her heart lurched into her chest as she made a short drop to the ground, her shoes crunching on what she saw was black earth layered in frost.
Amber straightened up and looked about, trying to force her eyes to adjust, she was surrounded by a multitude of shapes, tall and short, ahead was Madaline's blurry silhouette, which turned from her and began to move lazily ahead, totally unencumbered by the umbra.
Amber remembered a Saturday when she was in second grade, her father had been out of the house and her mother had taken out a shoe box full of old Polaroid photos, this place, these conditions, reminded her of the oldest of those pictures, the dyes faded out leaving an almost solid dark grey with a few unrecognizable shapes
Then far away something distinct, a blade of red lightning silently carving down the sky, the flash of light blasted the miasma away, it was like a reversal of the decay those old photos had suffered, like Polaroids redeveloping, the fog and dark cleared, the shapes bolted into terrible sharp distinction.
Amber’s breath curled like thick smoke in the air as she gasped in the wake of the reveal, and wake might have been a fairly on point term.
It was a graveyard, growing out of the black earth, sculpted from stone and cold.
There were markers, and slabs and memorials and monuments of angels, charnel houses and obelisks. In some places the black earth was flat, in others the ground seemed either freshly buried or perhaps pregnant, ready to burst, to give birth to its contents. Most astonishing of all was how this necropolis just went on and on, stretching for miles, past the horizon, seemingly endless.
The awareness of the dream, which had felt meaningless back at the carnival, evaporated easily under the force of this sight.
Too many. There can’t possibly be this many.
Amber wrapped her arms tighter around herself as razor tipped gusts of wind danced among the tombs, she looked longingly back at the Ferris Wheel, just in time to watch as its dimming lights went dead.
Here at last, long after the flash of lightning, the thunder rolled in, growling deeply like some apocalyptic beast.
Amber studied the landscape.
Madaline's voice drifted back, gently singing; the dream cobbling together its best attempt at the lyrics to Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35, a song Amber had heard and enjoyed once in Madaline’s car, or perhaps Amber’s mind recalled the lyrics perfectly and had modified and remixed them with the purpose of serving as a thousandth unrecognized or else denied dire warning. Ironically, as Amber would discover later such modifications and remixing of lyrics, this creative plagiarism, was not far off from a technique the real Madaline herself had made frequent use of.
“He’ll stone ya even though you’ve tried to be so good,
He’ll stone you just like he said he would.
He’ll stone you if you try to go home.
But really you shouldn't feel so all alone..."
Lightning flashed again.
Madaline paused and hopped on a grave marker, crouching atop it precariously like, well, a vampire, declaring, arms out to the field of figurative forget me nots they stood inside:
"Everybody must get stoned.”
Like clockwork, Amber effectively ignored the ominous implications, perhaps even honestly, too darkly fascinated by the macabre landscape.
Part of her also found the play on words, on the song's meaning, fairly amusing, she might have laughed, if she didn't find the atmosphere of the place vaguely threatening in a way that she'd never felt about a graveyard before.
“Princess,” Madaline sangsonged.
Amber looked at her.
Madaline’s fingers curled for her to follow.
Hugging herself tighter, Amber slowly shuffled forward.
As she went, something began to cut its way through the numbness that had fallen over her when the mirror had broken, a tinge of nausea, an increase in her heart rate, a cold frozen finger hooking inside her stomach, a sense of something pulling at her, making her want to wheel, wanting to run, not just anxiety, not just fear, but slowly mounting dread. If it hadn't been Madaline she would have refused.
Another gust of wind came, seeming to tear through Amber’s clothes and flesh right down to her bones, like out here, beyond some glamour she was nothing more than a skeleton.
So cold... Dante again, the lowest level of Hell, it’s ice, a place for the betrayers.
Madaline, utterly unaffected by the climate, patted around her pockets until she found her vaporizer.
Amber found herself fighting between the desire to run back to the Ferris Wheel and the desire to run towards Madaline, to climb as close as possible to her, to be surrounded by that warmth, the inclinations met each other and her feet stopped, she shook her head, feeling like a child, “Madaline, I don’t- I don’t like it here.”
Vapor curled up from Madaline’s lips and she raised an eyebrow.
“What? Okay, yes, it looks really- interesting, I still don’t… Madaline, can we go back to the carnival, please?”
Madaline bit her lip and considered her, “No, take a look around, check out some headstones,” she waved a hand.
Amber looked around herself, all of them were faded, or covered in so much black dust their names couldn't be read.
“Go on, wipe one off.”
Amber wrinkled her nose at the prospect, they were filthy and she had nothing to do it with but her hands or sleeves. “I’m not going to-”
Madaline sighed, “See, called it, such a princess.”
Something flapped like a huge crow wing in the air.
Amber’s hand caught it by reflex.
Madaline was still on her gravestone, shuffling her jacket back into place, between the zippers of her coat was a blade of bare flesh bisected by her black bra.
A spark of heat fell into Amber’s blood, like a tiny sip of alcohol.
She held the shirt and even now felt the urge to press her face into it for comfort.
She didn't, instead she huffed a breath, that spilled out of her like milk in orbit, “Fine. Which grave?”
Madaline puffed her vape, “Pick.”
Already suspecting what she would find, Amber chose the nearest headstone that didn’t have a mound of earth to climb over, she leaned and went to work; the filth came away easily and confirmation was quick.
”Here lies, Amber Janus Orlet, October 24th 2004 to-” The terminal number was written, but so eroded she couldn’t read it.
Amber stood shivering, shaking her head, “So what is this supposed to be Dante meets Dickens? If I don’t change my ways I’m going to die? That’s just such,” Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. The presence of the term popping into her head was jarring to say the least, she was stressed, she would have to watch that, her mind worked the far more expressive and cathartic term into something softer, “It’s nonsense. I don’t know about when I’m going to die, you know, but I haven’t betrayed anyone, I don’t deserve to be here.”
Madaline cocked her head, listened for a moment, flicked her vape in the air, “There it is.”
“What?”
“Fringe benefits... Alright, Amber, you don't deserve to be here. Prove it, tell me what the first word was that popped into your head just now, that's just such... what? Whatever was the first word that popped into your head, before you swapped it out.”
Amber scratched at her pants and stopped herself, “I don’t know what you mean, but it is… It’s nonsense.”
Madaline cocked her head, snapped her fingers, “There it is again.”
“There's what?”
“You're missing some finer details, do another stone.”
Amber shook her head and moved to the next stone, by the time she knelt she once more had a feeling for what she’d find, Madaline’s order serving as a guide for what this place was, but she couldn’t accept it, even if it was that… surely, not this much… not this many and what would it even mean?
The second grave came clean, and yes, there was her name again.
She stood, her teeth chattered, “All of them, yeah?”
“Every single one. Here lies Amber Janus Orlet,” she said, placing a special emphasis on lies.
Bullshit. Amber moved towards her, “No.”
Madaline listened, “There you go, I can hear it, the graveyard expanding, stabbing yourself in the back. You do it constantly, you lie to others, you lie to me, which isn’t really the problem here, maybe a bit mean at times, but that’s a survival skill, a talent, on the other hand the way you lie to yourself, the way you shove your feelings down, the way you edit out your desires instead of owning them, the way you mutilate your memories."
"Look, I apologize for lying to you sometimes, sincerely, I don't like it."
"I just said that's not the problem."
"But, this is so... everyone lies to themselves sometimes," she protested.
Madaline shrugged, "Sure, sometimes, and memory is an unreliable thing, but you take it farther, over and over you bury yourself underground," she waved a hand, "It's all you. This place is the result."
Lightning flashed.
"It's not me, it's just bad feelings and getting things mixed up and impulses, it's not me, it's-"
"The stuff that needs to stay in the closet?"
The ghost of an affirmative passed over Amber's brain, she snatched it and shoved it down. Somewhere a new gravestone grew.
She shook her head, scratching at her wrist, “I’m... I'm not buried... I’m right here. This is me."
“That’s being intentionally obtuse which is unfortunate given what a-cutie you are. But you want to know the best part?"
"No," Amber said quietly.
"All that stuff down there, that you put there, none of it's dead, you've tried to make it dead, you hope to kill it someday, at least part of you does, but you haven't, it's all quite undead," the four points of her fangs glinted in her mouth.
Thunder boomed and mounds of earth began to flex and breathe and tremble around them.
Amber backed away from one mound, only to find herself near another, there were so many she couldn’t help but trip over them.
"Stop it," she snapped, "Make them stop."
"Why?"
With that response, Amber grabbed her arm and shut her eyes, drew a breath deep into her lungs, cold and icy and held it there, until she grew light headed, let it out and opened her eyes and sighed with relief, the heaps had gone still.
“Another one grew somewhere when you did that."
"No."
"Yes. Every time. You're talented, you have a ton of practice, so sometimes you can get it all to play dead, but none of it is and none of it wants to. Doesn't that seem unfair? Imagine all that down there, truths, emotions, desires,” she drew her vape down the hard line of her stomach. “All of it pressurized, all of it so desperate to breathe, to keep you, ah…” she pointed her vape towards the cleared headstone.
Amber shook her head and scratched at the sleeve of her coat, "Well... things are only fair in fairy tales and this isn't one so..."
“Right, that's your dads saying, not yours, look at what that alone has done to you, princess, I offered you a fairy tale and you turned it away.":
"I couldn't just-"
"Then you say you don’t want to be here, but you built this place, you keep building it, there's more of you down here then anywhere else, you put yourself here, and the fuck of everything is, given how things went back in the carnival and the way you're talking, when this is over, you're going to keep building it, but,” she shrugged, “You have more choices ahead. Time. But make no mistake, the situation is,” she laughed, “Well, it's grave.”
Amber took a breath of thick cold air and tried to still herself, it was so hard, she needed to get out of here, preferably back to the Carnival. Debating with Madaline clearly wasn't going to work, acquiescing, learning a lesson might, “Okay… I see what you are saying, I have a problem with… being dishonest with others and myself. I will work on that, I can fix-”
“And see how you're locked into that idea. Fixing yourself.”
Coming from Madaline the comment was distinctly upsetting, Amber's control slipped, she threw up her hands helplessly, “What do you… I’m sorry, I can’t just,” her hands in the air, her wide sleeves falling down, she made a frustrated groan at the sight of her wrists, branded with the snakes. She rubbed at one viciously trying to remove it.
“Those are a nice touch by the way and that's a good visualization, you trying to fix yourself, what will you do if you can’t wipe it away easily? What will you do to fix yourself? Keep them covered forever, try to peel off your skin?”
“It’s not a good visualization of anything, it’s just… it’s just a stupid joke.” Amber kept rubbing them, but they wouldn’t smear much less disappear, it was like when she wasn’t looking they’d actually become tattoos.
Amber stopped for a moment and started again, working at her wrists with Madaline's shirt, they felt raw, she didn’t want to keep talking about this, if she kept talking about them, acknowledging them something down there might come even more awake, might come climbing out of the ground and causing all kinds of problems, she needed something else, something... a thought came to her, a horrible curiosity, irresistible once it had occurred, most importantly she wanted talk about anything else, that what was under the ground and how it got there. She licked her lips, “How did you get into the carnival?”
“Front gate, same as you.”
Amber looked up, “So… you… you’ve met her then? You met Serpentine?”
“I have," she laughed, "Serpentine? Is that seriously what you call her?"
Amber gave up fussing with her wrists and pulled her sleeves down to hide the marks, “It’s what she calls herself… it’s more of a description… nickname,” she licked her lips a second time, they tingled in the bitter air, “What did you think of her?”
Madaline smiled softly, “Heck of a lady, smart, fun, cute, full of surprises that one, has some serious issues though, I’ll tell you that.”
“Right, you can say that again,” Amber threw the shirt back to Madaline, zeroing in on the final detail of Madaline's summation, feeling better at finding a space where they were once more on the same page, "If you don't think Serpentine fits what would you call her?”
Madaline shrugged off her coat, and slipped the shirt back on, brushing away the grave dust, before returning the coat to its proper place. She cocked her head at Amber, curiously, “What do you mean, what would I call her? Thinking about it, Serpentine fits fine, she is fairly serpentine, but I'm probably going to keep calling her the same things I always have, either Princess, the nickname, the description I gave her or I'll just use her name, Amber.”
Amber’s whole body went rigid, “Okay, I’m done. Remedial lesson over, I want to leave, right now," she demanded.
Madaline exhaled vapor, “That isn’t the remedial lesson. We're just chatting.”
“What then why- Fine,” Amber’s foot stomped black earth, frost crunched “Fine, what is it, so I can do whatever and we can go and… but… but… she and I are not the same and if you seriously think I'm going to let you fuck me in a graveyard, mine or anyone else’s, real or not, you’re wrong.”
Madaline reached into her coat, grinning, “Oh, princess, lets be clear, this one aside… maybe… You would absolutely love for me fuck you in a graveyard.”
Amber blushed and for a moment the cold faded.
Madaline extracted Amber’s book from her coat and tossed it to her.
Amber caught it, clutched it to her chest, grateful to have it once more, holding it made her feel a little better, it was hers, she'd earned it, it was hers, “That's not-, what’s the remedial lesson?”
“Role reversal, today, you are the teacher, I am the student.” she grinned showing off the sharp teeth.
The cold edged back once again as Amber shivered. "What am I teaching you, so we can go."
“The book, princess, tell me about it.”
Amber's finger scratched at the sleeve of her coat, “It’s not important."
“It really isn’t, right, you think I care that you stole it? I’ve probably stolen a car, you think I’m going to blink at what? At most twenty something dollars.”
“You’ve stolen a car?”
“Probably,” Madaline snorted. “I’ve lived an interesting life, so have you. The book isn’t important to me, but it is to you and… it’s a good spot to work with. Kind of a… call it a nexus of negative and positive emotions that you’re dishonest about. Honesty, Amber, it’s all a game of truth or dare, but you’re all out of dare for today. Dare was back at the Carnival, dare was the mirrors. So tell me.”
“It’s not- You won't tell me what happened between you and Simon.”
"We're not in my graveyard."
"Well you... You don't need to know."
“Right again, I don’t, what needs to happen is you need to say it, be good for me, participate, maybe you get a reward at the end."
Amber shook her head and backed away, subconsciously trying to make herself small enough to disappear from the situation.
“Okay," Madaline shrugged, "I’ll just ask you questions then, really blunt questions... Let's see we can go over some lies you told me... Your mom wasn’t a secretary and your dad wasn’t an orderly in a nursing home like you told my mom and Tom, what were their vocations, jobs?”
Amber stomach clenched sickly.
Amber Orlet's self soothing gestures are funny things, the scratching of her pants leg, even the occasional ripping and tearing of objects are deviations, attempts to hide the preferred original method. She never realizes the combined influence of both parents involved; though she's aware of how Genevie Orlet's gesture of thought evolved into her own gestures of anxiety, to clutch or scratch the arm, later clutch or rub a wrist which was easier to hide, but if someone could look across their lives, they would see, perhaps curiously, that that the left handed mother clutched with her left hand, while her ambidextrous daughter at ratio of nearly twenty to one, favored taking the right hand to the left arm.
Amber's right hand clutched her left tightly, her fingers wiggling wanting to scratch, “ Yes, they were, I don't know-" she looked around at the graveyard, "Fine…Mom… Mom didn’t work. Never had a job, after she married…him.”
“Right, good start, what about him? What did he do… for work, not… what did he do to you.”
It took her a minute, the words came out like half solid cement, “He… was… sheriff… of Cypress County.”
Lightning flashed behind Madaline, “Right, that's good, good girl, you're doing so well now."
A glow of heat inside, "Can we stop now?"
"No, what made that scary to you even as a kid?”
Amber’s response came automatically, “It wasn’t.”
“Vampiric hearing Amber, I can hear the graveyard grow.”
“No,” Amber insisted, stepping forward, the temperature vacillating by degrees around her, “It wasn’t, like, like, he was always really responsible… he… he… he had a safe, in his office, I... I even know the combination it was 23, 99, 07, 28, that's how regular he was with it,”
In Amber’s mind, her 13 year old hand, turning the dial, clicking the safe open, staring at its contents for several minutes before reaching forward once with shaking fingers, then pulling back before she can touch it and quickly shutting the door. “He um, he always locked his gun up when he got home. Always. He was very responsible, you know, safety was very important to him.”
Madaline paused listening to the wind.
“And the graveyard isn’t growing. Look at that.”
“See,” Amber spat.
“That he was big on gun safety?”
“Yes. I'm telling the truth.”
“Yeah, you're telling the truth that he always locked up his gun, the most terrifying thing is that’s the best line your mind can cook up right now for why the fact he was police wasn’t scary, but, having guns isn’t what makes police scary… "
"Okay, he was a little scary sometimes, he was strict, he... would yell, when he got upset, but that's just parents, you're really going to sit there and say, that when a kids parent is upset... that if a little kid finds that scary... that... because... they might be in trouble... that that's somehow abnormal."
"Amber... you know the combination to that safe. Memorized it."
"Yes, so? I saw him put it away a few times, you know, like I said he was responsible. Whatever his faults, he was a responsible man and he loved... me, he may not have understood certain things and had high expectations, but he loves me, " the words came out choked, "You know, lots of parents, they don't or can't take time for their kids, but Dad was... Dad was always there, he was always teaching me things, and he was always taking an interest in my health and... and..."
"Was there actually an ultimatum the day you came out to him, we won't help you anymore if you go through with your transition, you can come home whenever you decide to stop."
"Yes, that's what he told me."
"So you just left out the part where when you stuck to your guns things really went south."
"He was... upset," Amber croaked, she could hear her heart drumming in her ears, feel it beating behind her temples, like she was being hunted.
"How upset."
"Harsh... words, he said, some harsh words... we both..." Amber took a hand and pressed it to her temple. Six letters, nine points. Amber grabbed the thought and forced it away as fast as possible.
"I bet."
"I don't- want to talk about this-"
"Okay that's fine, back to the safe then, you knew the combination, where he kept his gun."
"Yes, I told you-"
"Did you ever think about-"
Six letters, nine points. Amber forces the thought away again. This time there's a backlash, graves writhing, she doesn't notice, for a moment she's six years old watching Star Wars with her father, eating nerds, her left arm in a cast, and then she's thirteen opening the safe and then she's twenty on the bus and the bus is going over the county line and all she can think of is this awful scene from a book she'd read during November called Pillars of the Earth, the scene where a group of men locked a cat in a room and threw stones at it as a game and the cat was trapped, no way out and it had only survived cause someone opened the door from the outside and then she's a few hours older in front of the mirror in the tub room and in the mirror-
Amber threw up her hands, the book in one, “The book. The book is Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, I stole it. Sixth grade, every year or so the town library would get rid of its old books, you know, and it would give a bunch to the school libraries to help sell. The school library had Something Wicked This Way Comes, but it wasn’t for sale, the librarian recommended it to me and I’d glanced through it and wanted to read it, I loved the writing, it was beautiful, but it was published in 1962 and that meant-” Thunder punctuated Amber’s halt in her words. She swallowed, “That meant turning it over to my dad to check it out to make sure it was appropriate and that was always… He had just recently… He’d been in a bad mood lately and I didn’t want to have to deal with that and answer his questions that I probably wouldn’t know the answers to and his checks sometimes took months and -” Amber shook her head.
Madaline waited, chin propped in her hand, elbow on her knee.
Amber went on, “But A Christmas Carol was for sale and they were roughly the same size, so I bought it with my lunch money. I brought Dickens home, dad checked my bag, he always made sure to be there at 3:30. He saw A Christmas Carol, and didn't even blink at it. He’d sometimes say something about me reading too much, but he’d let me go, he’d let me have it, usually.”
Madaline waited on her headstone, her expression not unsympathetic.
“So... I stole a razor blade, one out of his pack, hid it in the pages, took it to school, stayed in the library at lunch, sat down with both books and I uh- I used the razor to zip the laminate off the cover of Bradbury and removed the tags, so it wouldn’t set off any alarms.” Amber’s face felt odd, the cold was departing with her words, she was tense with the story, but no longer from the chilly assault, “I put the Dickens cover over Bradbury, fit like a glove, then I threw the other cover and the razor away and left Dickens on the shelf. The alarms didn’t go off. Dad checked my bag, didn’t blink.”
“What would have happened if he’d looked at the title page and found out what you’d done?”
“He would have… I probably could have lied my way through it…. Maybe, say that I didn’t realize that it was the wrong book… he might have believed me. But either way he didn’t look, he never looked. I got away with it.”
“You did, but what would have happened if he found out, if he didn’t believe you.”
“He would have… he would have been upset, but it doesn't matter, he didn’t, I got away with it.”
Madaline considered her once more, “You hid the ultimate Halloween story inside the ultimate Christmas story.”
Amber nodded, “Yeah, I guess, I did.”
“I literally cannot think of a better metaphor for you as a person.”
“Then you’re not trying hard enough.”
Madaline chuckled, “I love it, you’re so damn proud of it, so damn proud you did it, like to an extreme degree, you’re proud that you got away with it. You’re proud that the one time you chose to, likely on an act of impulse, you outsmarted him, that’s so important to you. You’re so proud of it.”
“No,” Amber shook her head.
“No? Then why are you grinning ear to ear?”
Lightning flashed as Amber reached up and felt the slashing curve in her face, bearing all of her teeth. She struggled to correct it, forcing her face to neutral. “I’m not proud of it… I just,” She shook her head, “I’m not sure why that happened, sorry,” she said, her voice small and meek.
“Hmmm,” Madaline stretched, cracking her back, “You know, I think we’ve established that our relationship might be a little too intense to just be called a platonic friendship, even discounting you moaning for me on my desk."
"You can't just say stuff like that."
Madaline ignored her and went on, "But I don’t understand all that stress over those desires, honestly, if there’s something Simon should worry about it's you and that book. Sure makes me feel insecure. The way you fawn over it, like a serial killer with a trophy, you hold it and you get off on it.”
“No, I don’t, that’s ridiculous, who would do that?” Amber snapped, clutching the book closer, wishing she could just fuse it into herself.
“That’s what I mean, who would do that? But,” she laughed, “In the end though the story behind the book is like so much to do with you, Amber, it's all just so anti-climatic, seriously Something Wicked this Way Comes, you bought a Switch for yourself mowing lawns your senior year, you couldn’t have done the chores, to buy a copy, I mean did your dad check that out too?”
“Yes,” said Amber, her voice just short of a hiss, cringing down into her coat, Madaline may as well have slapped her, her ears were hot, turning bright red with shame.
“Oh, well, still though, like you have to know he would have let you have that book right? Like it wasn’t that big a deal. You made this huge thing out of stealing it and sneaking it in the house.”
What's the worst that could have happened? Amber's teeth clicked, the cold was sliding further and further away, a growing pocket of heat around her, like a summer day, one with the mercury in a thermometer steadily rising, Six letters, nine points. No. “It’s like I told you I never knew, I could never tell. I never knew for sure what was- He was always yelling and- You don’t understand.”
Her teeth began to squeeze, still she tried to make herself smaller. There was a noise in her head and nothing but Madaline's words could make it through, battering her. It was a strange sound like the hissing of a snake combined with the chopping of helicopter blades, slowly speeding up.
Everybody-
“Well that’s what I mean, never mind vampires, this… this is all so baroque, this is so fucking pointless in the end. So what if he got a little upset, what’s the worst that could have-”
Everybody must get-
Lightning flashed, before the flash Amber was clutching her book, standing away from Madaline, after the flash Amber had dropped the book and lunged for her, stepping up the stone, grabbing her by her coat's leather collar.
Everybody must get stoned!
Then either by Madaline’s own accord or Amber unbalancing her when she grabbed her, Madaline fell back and pulled Amber over the headstone with her towards the ground, on her way Amber's knees banged against the stone top, hard enough to bruise, but she didn't notice it.
Somewhere in her she knew she needed to explain, to make Madaline understand the gravity of things, but that would require owning the truth and she couldn't do that, still for a moment in her state of distress her mind found a metaphor:
It wasn't this, but this was what it was like... Like standing at a stove with your hand over a burner from age six to age twenty, one that could come on at any time, for any reason, you had no control, your whole world was standing there with your hand over it and when it came on...
So you dedicated yourself to discovering the patterns by which you could hedge your bets, to move in ways that would keep the burner off, that was your primary purpose, your reason for being, understanding what would and wouldn't make the burner come on. Through so many errors, you made yourself an expert...
Except the burner was unpredictable.
Except sometimes you couldn't help yourself.
Except sometimes as you got older you had moments of impulse where you forgot that your life was standing with your hand over the burner.
Except sometimes you had delusions that this or that wouldn't make the burner come on.
Except sometimes when you found a pattern, it felt impossible to follow because it was just so arbitrary.
Except sometimes every option you had would lead the burner to lighting and doing nothing wasn't an option either, because that would lead it to lighting too.
Except sometimes the burner came on for reasons you couldn't comprehend.
And for all those reasons and more, eventually you learned, even if it was off now, eventually the day would come and the burner would turn on and when it did...
But in many ways the worst thing was just how long the burner could go without properly clicking on, those weeks or even months could do things to you, at first its the repeated obliteration of the hope that it will never turn on again or later that someone might take you away from the burner, but nobody does, the burner owns the world, the burner is the world, the burner is God, everyone loves the burner, you love the burner. But then as you get older, the space in between becomes maddening, not simply because of the fear, but because of the final thing you have to do, at all times, you have to pretend the burner isn't a burner, that it has never turned on and seared your hand, because telling the burner that it's a burner is a sure fire way to get burnt.
So you learn how best to convince yourself, you fix things, if you're a person with a tendency to make mountains out of molehills you need to learn to fade the elephant, but occasionally just occasionally all that will break down, elephants get loose and the mixture of fear and sorrow and yes, the humiliation of having to do that will curdle inside your head into something so poisonous and you just want to cry and never stop, but you can't do that anymore, you physically can't cry, so the urge to cry becomes the urge to scream and scream...
All this passes through Amber's head on their way down, but she's beyond being able to express it and the metaphor is far too apt to say aloud anyway, so it is swallowed back into herself, the elephant shrinks, the graveyard grows, but this time, for the first time in a long time, the full force of the feelings lingers on.
Madaline landed on her back, Amber landed on her chest, quietly in her head are the words, He wasn't perfect, he could get upset, I could be a problem, disrespectful, but he would yell sometimes when he was upset, be mean, and he was scary when he got mad. The thought is there, but she almost can't hear it, because someone was screaming. She made it through several sentences before she realized what she was doing, “SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! I'VE MET YOUR FAMILY! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE Fuckkkk..."
Amber’s throat was raw, but she no longer felt any cold at all, in the moment the rush of the release was like the most brilliant of orgasms, soaring through her being, for a moment she'd been made of white hot light-
Then the realization dawned, what she was doing and her adrenaline dropped. She began to hyperventilate.
She tried to tell herself that it wasn't her who did all that, but she'd done it to Madaline, she'd screamed at her and Madaline had seen and that-
Amber took her hands off of Madaline's collar, “I’m- I’m- I’m- sorry.. I’m sorry… I don’t know what came over me.. I’m sorry. I’m not..”
Madaline's hands, large and strong, snapped to hers and closed them back on her coat, “ Shhhhh, but you are, there she is, there’s my girl."
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what-” Amber stammered, “That’s not-”
“But it is.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay."
"I'm sorry."
Madaline gently slid her hands up Amber's back and pulled her down to her chest, hugging her close, as Amber sat there crouched almost in a fetal position, compulsively babbling her apologies, anguished pressure drilling at the backs of her eyes.
Madaline let her babble, held her, stroked her hair, slowly Amber began to calm down, then for a while she said nothing, at last whispering out one final, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
She put her hands on the sides of Amber's face, thumbs gently rubbing circles under her eyes, trying to relieve the pressure,
"Amber, listen to me, the thing about honesty, real, pure, undiluted honesty, the honesty that matters, it's like oxygen, we need it to live, and it can be contained, but when you're constantly shoving more oxygen into the container, it becomes pressurized, it’s always looking for an escape, then…” she slid a finger down Amber’s cheek, “If heat is applied to the container the oxygen molecules they expand, the seals fail or it ruptures, the oxygen rushes out with force... Do you remember the OSHA training videos from Mis-U?"
"Uh-huh."
"What is oxygen? Why do they put a special warning symbol on pure oxygen?"
"It's um... it's an oxidizer."
"Right, what does an oxidizer like oxygen do if a container ruptures and there's a spark?"
"It... explodes."
"That's right, it explodes. Honesty is the same. They both go boom under the right circumstances."
“I can… fix myself. I can fix myself.”
“I'm all for you feeling better, but why should you want to fix yourself, why should you want to fix your natural response... you're so angry."
“I’m going to, I need to.”
“Or you can take another option.”
"Another..." Amber blinked, looking around, “I... I forgot... I forgot... This is a dream. I’m dreaming, I can just wake up. None of this counts.”
“Sure, you can go that route, but you’re already here, you love the gothics. Why waste such a lovely graveyard, not when you’ve done so well, don’t you want your reward?”
“I can’t- I can’t do this anymore- I can’t-”
“No, no, we’re done with that part, the remedial lesson is over, all that’s left is extracurricular.”
Amber shook her head, “You want to- again, I don’t know if we…”
“No, not that either, whether we should or not, you took me fucking your brains out off the menu when we left the carnival, but don’t worry, we have something else, something that fits the theme, something very special.” She leaned up, her lips touched Amber’s neck, then the points of her teeth.
Amber scrambled off her, climbing to her feet, hand clutching her neck.
Madaline climbed to her own.
Amber took a couple steps back, her heart picking up steam as though anticipating being chased. “You said,” she swallowed, keeping her voice steady, “You said, you weren’t going to drink my blood.”
“Not unless you want me to.”
Amber's heart was in her ears again. Her lips twitched, “I still don’t,” she choked. There was almost a relief in having said it.
She expected Madaline to one way or another back off of the subject, but instead:
“How come?”
“How- How- How come?” Amber stuttered… She looked around, trying to find someone who could provide the appropriate answer to this question. There was no one though, it was just the two of them.
She pursed and unpursed her lips… “Cause it’s… it’s… drinking people's blood… it’s gross and violatory and… weird.”
“Hmmm,” Madaline hummed, “Right, guess that’s an argument, but hey,” her fingers snapped and her face crested into a feral grin that made Amber’s blood stop, “You want to know what’s even worse,” she sauntered towards Amber.
Amber’s feet were glued to the spot. “What?”
Amber didn’t at first understand what she was doing or she probably would have tried to stop her.
Leaving a little distance between them, Madaline brought her right hand to her mouth, palm covering it and slowly dragged, gasping in pain. “Fuck, that smarts.”
She leaned over clutching her hand.
“Are you-” Amber began to go to her, but stopped herself, realizing what she’d done, “Why did you do that?” she yelled, her voice pushing into horror stricken alarm.
“It’s fine, just give me a sec.”
A sound like the first drops of rain before a storm hitting the earth.
Amber looked at Madaline’s right hand, squeezed tight, there was blood in her fist.
Gooseflesh rose up across Amber’s spine.
Madaline straightened up and bared the palm outward, “What was I saying, oh, right, even more gross and violatory and weird than someone drinking your blood… Is being forced to drink someone else’s.”
Amber gazed at Madaline’s hand, a slim diamond slit in her palm, irregularly composed, its top end wide, growing more narrow as it went down, dripping to the ground, a slow vibrant red trickle, deeper and darker and richer than rose petals.
The fingers on Madaline’s unmarred palm curled, “Come here, princess.”
Amber’s body responded by trying to pull a funny maneuver, she tried to pick up both feet at once, one going forward and the other going back and instead found herself spilling over.
Her heart went into her throat this time, then Madaline was there, her uninjured hand snapping gently around Amber’s wrist, but instead of pulling her back on her feet, Madaline instead carefully eased her down to the ground, her back resting against a headstone.
Amber pushed herself off, got her feet under her as Madaline crouched down before her, her face softening, serene.
Instead of standing Amber found herself knelt across from her.
Madaline displayed the palm, her eyes so green and reassuring, “I’m joking, I’d never force you to. If nothing else it defeats the purpose.”
“P-purpose?” Amber asked, gaze split between red and green, blurring out all other colors from the world.
“Choosing, of course.”
“Okay, so I can- I can just say…”
“Absolutely,” Madaline said, but the palm remained hanging in the air, right on level with Amber’s mouth.
Her stomach rolled with revulsion, while everything else… ached, craved, thirsted. It was a contradictory experience.
If Amber chose to, she could just lean forward and her face would press into that warm red mess.
“Told you it would be easier if we just had sex, that the whole vampire thing was super baroque, but here we are. Now, I can see that no on your lips, loaded up and ready to fire, but first I want you to think about something.”
Amber’s breaths were shallow, she nodded. “I don’t… okay?”
“Think about what you heard me doing with Emily, think about the things you know I’ve probably done with Rikka, think about all the things I’ve probably done with… girls.”
Amber’s face flickered, “Why?”
Madaline ignored the question, “And then ask yourself if this…” the long fingers on the split palm she was offering to Amber wiggled like spider’s legs, “Is something I do with them.”
Amber thought, lightning flickered ten times in the distance, at last she produced the words, “Why… why does that make a diff-”
Madaline smiled fondly and interrupted, “Like I said, I won’t make you, even if you want me to, but, we can tell everyone it was my idea, we can tell everyone that I, the predatory lesbian vampire, forced you to do it.”
Amber trembled, fixated on the gash. Distantly she considered that gash might be the most spot on term for the wound, she wondered if Madaline had intended to carve it to the shape of a vulva. A joke she’d picked up from her bestie whispered macabrely through Amber’s head, New bottom surgery just dropped.
Amber giggled, she couldn’t help it.
Madaline let her laugh for a bit, waited for her to stop, when she did she snapped her fingers, “Here, I just remembered,” she stood up so Amber was kneeling before her, palm extended down towards her, still level with her face. “There, that’ll be even better, huh? I call you princess, but you think of me as, what… this is my body,” she waved her uninjured hand over her abs, and curled the fingers of her bleeding hand, “This is my blood.”
The air was so cold, Amber could still see her breath, but she herself was too warm.
The slice, it was so red and it was Madaline’s and whatever else those other girls had tasted of her, how many had been offered this?
When doors get closed by repression, the devil opens windows and curiosity is key….
So how would it taste?
Gross… nonsense… madness..
It would of course taste like sodium chloride and copper, like sucking a warm salted penny. Some blood types might be more rare than others, Amber herself was AB positive and she’d seen from the corner of her eye when they were at her blood draw that Madaline was O negative but that didn’t matter, you couldn't taste the difference.
Salt and metal that was all.
Amber shook her head.
Madaline’s hand remained.
Amber took a breath. Took several more.
She needed to tell Madaline, no.
She needed to tell Madaline that even if she wanted to, which she didn't, but either way it would be unfair to tell everyone Madaline had forced her to do it.
She needed to tell Madaline that she needed to get medical supplies and to stitch it… because of course Amber had lied, of course she could do stitches, she’d done her own once, at least once.
She needed to tell Madaline that even if she had some mixed up feelings about her best friend, a deep fondness perhaps tinged with a confused attraction… cause well Madaline was just that attractive… but that didn't mean that Amber wanted to press her lips to Madaline’s poor sliced hand and gently, soothingly lap her tongue, to taste and swallow and…
She needed to tell her…
She needed to…
She needed…
0.
The orgasm woke Amber.
This had happened enough times with Simon next to her that she knew that it wasn’t some spectacular back arching, howling to the moon show. Once and awhile it happened early in the morning and it didn’t wake him. Once even, early on in their relationship it had happened while he was awake next to her and he still hadn’t noticed
Just gentle groans, maybe a whimper or two, tossing back and forth as a nearly physical barrier of tension collapsed, shooting her out of fragmented dreams for a hollow moment of pleasure, which then usually vanishing under a blanket of shame and then a more generalized emptiness, but that emptiness included the lack of tension and so to her there was a relief in it.
But then slowly over the next month, it would come creeping back, a sense of dissatisfaction, that morphed into growing winding tension until at last the cycle began anew once more.
A month between incidents, that was what it usually took
Laying there, alone, Amber could already feel that this time wouldn’t be so kind, things were different now, she didn’t used to have the strange feverish thoughts that sometimes came into her head, corrupting her thinking so that she say, got an erection while listening to her friend get laid, or have hardcore, highly inappropriate sex dreams so vivid that they took fading, not to mention whatever it was she’d just come out of... No she was almost certain the relief would be short lived this time.
Progesterone.
She blinked her eyes and climbed out of bed, hurrying into the bathroom, closing the door.
Amber shed her sweat soaked clothes, then took a wash cloth to her face, her sticky slick pelvis, washed her hands and rushed to begin her skin care routine, totally forgetting to brush her teeth, as she fled to the shower and cranked it towards cold, forcing herself to stand there until she was awake and used to the brutal temperature.
The dream had shattered on her way out,much of its features and details fading, rather vampirically, in the morning light, but the one thing that hadn’t, that remained fully intact:
Madaline as a vampire standing over Amber, offering her a split and bleeding palm, promises of nobody having to know.
She hadn’t done it of course; she had politely declined, stood and she wasn’t sure what had happened in the dream after that.
No, she insisted, there was simply no way, under any circumstances, that she’d at last pressed her face forward into Madaline’s waiting hand, almost nuzzling it, before experimentally, tenderly, lapping at that waiting slit. Madaline hadn’t stroked her hair and called Amber her, that’s to say Madaline’s, good girl.
Amber had not knelt there in the graveyard hearing those words with lips and tongue and teeth stained cherry red, licking frantically and reciting a muffled chant into Madaline’s palm, a chant chaining seven letters.
No.
She might have some strange thoughts about Madaline, once again the progesterone was the likely culprit, small price to pay for improvements, but that hadn’t happened, no, that would be obscene, deranged.
The image, it kept bobbing up, she wasn’t remembering it right.
She cranked off the water, climbed out, dried and wrapped a towel around her.
Amber ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, doing so reminded her of her teeth, she’d forgotten, she was supposed to do that before the shower.
It was unusual for her to break a routine such as this, she’d have to watch it to make sure she didn’t forget anything else today.
She began the methodical process of brushing her teeth. An image flickered in her head, her wrists stamped with snakes.
The idea came to her, her nostrils flared, she kept working her lower front teeth going through them one by one. She tried to ignore it, it was insanity, but by the time she was going round her teeth a second time, she couldn’t resist, she had to check.
Serpentine?
She hated the relief she received as she felt Serpentine emerge.
You rang?
Nothing, never mind.
Just checking in? To make sure I’m still up here?
Amber huffed, her toothbrush circled the back of her lower gums again and went off. Amber didn’t notice, continuing her brushing motion, returning to the outside of her upper teeth and beginning again. It’s- a disturbing thought, you with your own body, god knows what you’d get up to and you’d do it looking almost exactly like me.
When she’d imagined Serpentine before, rolling her eyes, sneering, it had always been the impression, the idea of a face, now though, it was just her own, casting the image of a lord help me expression.
My own body would indeed look almost exactly like yours, sans the almost. As for what I’d get up to… Madaline’s back, once her friend is gone, I imagine I’d hang out with her, same as you.
She’s got to be gone by now, the sound of Emily cumming echoed in her head, Amber continued to brush, her strokes growing harder.
Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it as a certainty. Pangloss is full of shit, might be better than some, but this is not the best of all possible worlds.
I think that was Voltaire's point.
Eh, I hate that book.
Amber brushed and brushed over her gums, her lips foaming, like she was slowly growing rabid, she herself did not care for Voltaire’s Candide.
Anyway, Serpentine went on casually, If I had my own body, our situation would still be the same, but I’d definitely do whatever I’m doing today in that asymmetrical top and the dark plum leggings, match my eyeshadow, do big thick eyeliner, sharp crisscrossing wing tips. That’s my input. That’s what you should wear.
Amber shook her head, her toothbrush still going, The clothes maybe, but the eyeliner is a little much,
We’d look great.
Maybe, but it’s too much. Simon- Amber at last realized what she’d been doing, she stopped and spat into the sink.
Yes, she’d brushed too long, the foam was pink with little tiny threads of red.
What had happened in the dream?
It was like a game of Clue: Twofaced Amber Janus Orlet in the Graveyard with her tongue pressed flat sucking at her bestie’s sliced hand.
Amber worried her lip, her tongue swirling around her mouth, she could only taste mint. She gripped the toothbrush tightly, then loosened as a new possibility occurred.
Serpentine?
Yes, princess?
Compromise, I’ll do the outfit, with either eyeliner, no wings and a reasonable color for the shadow or I’ll do the color with no eyeliner, if you’ll answer a question for me, like without… causing trouble, say yes or no.
Counter offer, outfit, fun eye shadow, eyeliner without wings, or alternatively a makeup style fit for Simon, but you ask Madaline to buy you some boots, not like hers, but boots, cute boots would look so good with a bunch of our looks.
Mine, my looks, Amber hissed before catching her tone, Yes boots would be nice, but I’m not just asking Madaline to buy me stuff.
Come on, Serpentine said with the vocal tone of an eye roll, She literally told you where five hundred dollars was if you wanted anything.
Needed, if I needed anything.
Sure, but don't you love how she does that?
Amber could hear the sly smile in Serpentine’s voice, W...What?
Makes those two words into the same thing. Talk to her first, tell her you need new boots.
I don’t need them.
I very much disagree, but alright, then the makeup offer. Come on, Emily might still be down there, don’t you want to put your best face forward when she sees you, especially after last night? Can you really afford to go down and be in a weaker position? Dress for the job you want or whatever.
Weaker? What? I- Then I should definitely do something more reserved, Amber insisted.
Consider who your meeting, Madaline’s friends-
Rikka looked like she’d just rolled out of bed and threw on the first thing she found.
And on her it looked amazing. She was gorgeous, it was fun.
Amber rubbed a finger at her wrist, it did sound like such a good look and if Emily was down there, Serpentine was right about the strategy for making a good impression, she’d be better off not getting caught off guard, projecting confidence, Deal. No wing tips
She began rubbing lotion into her skin.
What’s your question? Serpentine asked.
Amber considered how to go about it for a minute, but there really was no better strategy to get the yes she needed Serpentine to provide, she had to rely on the direct approach.
Okay… Serpentine, do… you… do you like blood?
Serpentine chuckled and sighed, Having trouble keeping the end of that dream down huh? I see what you’re trying to do, Amber... Still, as you like it, I’ll give you a one word answer, but first, simple yes or no from you. Do you like blood?
Amber couldn’t stop herself, responding before she could point out that this wasn’t really the deal, No, of course I don't. It’s-
Then, no, of course I don't, obviously. There’s your simple yes or no.
Amber glowered, turned the faucet and washed the bloody foam down the drain.
When she turned the faucet off, she discovered far sooner, far far far sooner than she'd anticipated, a wire of tension low in her stomach, starting to twist.
She closed the medicine cabinet a little hard, after putting her toothbrush away, Just a weird dream.
As she passed back into the bedroom, she found Carmilla on the dresser, she stared down at it for a second, then turned it over, making it slap on the wood. I’m taking this back to the library and getting something else, no more gothics, no more nonsense, from now on I’m reading sensible modernist works… American. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck.
Never did take a crack at Sound and the Fury, Serpentine offered.
Great, a southern gothic novel, thank you, Serpentine, I can always count on you to try to undermine my clearly stated desires. Amber wrenched open the closet with her clothes.
You know what? Serpentine said thoughtfully, I take it back, summers on the way and I could totally go for a reread of the Great Gatsby, you know the book featuring a beautiful person with a fast car and lots of money to throw around getting into bed with someone else’s wife. Sounds like just the grounded kind of thing you need to clear your head.
Amber managed to stop herself from ripping the asymmetrical top off the hanger in response.
Less than a half hour later, the faint smell of coffee caught Amber’s nose on her way down the stairs, faint tendrils of caffeine spiking her overexerted mind, drawing her onward.
The mixed up feelings from the fading shreds of the dream and bickering with Serpentine were drawn out by the tide of seeing Madaline alone in the kitchen.
There she was, back to Amber, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, her vape pen jutting at an angle in the other, tight black tank, baggy leather pants, hair and skin damp, fresh out of the shower.
Amber came to a stop in the middle of the kitchen floor, she hadn’t made a plan for this moment. She hadn't realized she would need one.
Madaline turned around, body damp and glistening, glowing in the dull morning sun from the window, “Hey princess,” she said cheerily, that smile spreading, that one that said Amber was the person she was most pleased in the world to see.
“Hey Madaline,” Amber said softly, her heart beating loudly in her chest.
Had her voice cracked? No, of course not, it was just groggy from sleep even though she'd been awake for more than an hour.
Madaline glanced back at the coffee pot and back to Amber.
Amber caught on, Get coffee, you’re acting weird…. How can I get coffee, she’s too… and right there and…
“Amber, you good?” Madaline asked.
“Uh-huh, sorry, just haven’t woken up I guess.”
Madaline nodded, drew on her vape, set it and her cup aside, then got a fresh mug down, put coffee and cinnamon and some sugar into it and walked it to Amber.
She sat the cup next to Amber on the table, before wrapping her in a big hug, head resting atop Amber’s.
Amber didn’t moan out loud, that would have been far too difficult to ignore, thankfully, but she might as well have, dopamine and oxytocin flooded her brain as overworked cortisol production was at last cut off.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you,” Amber said, into the wet of Madaline’s hair, her nose filled with spearmint, sharp, puncturing her heart, and from that puncture relief flowed in. Had she really been acting so crazy, why, everything was fine, perfect, at last greeting her absent friend, resting inside the solid feel of her arms, her presence.
Yes, everything was perfect.
They both stood there for a few moments, just the two of them.
Thank you for reading and your comments as always.
Next Time: The girls take a drive up the coast and Madaline carelessly pushes Amber to understand a concept that feels second nature to her, but to Amber the concept feels quite dangerous: They told you that the rules are real and that if you want to be happy you follow them. They aren’t.