At the Seams

Chapter 28: Day 26 - 6:18 pm

Chapter 28: Day 26 - 6:18 pm

Sam stares at Jay lying on the bed with his blocky head resting on Mary’s left breast. Sam envies Jay’s position of comfort and familiarity, but not the Dobie’s mood. The poor guy hasn’t eaten since three days ago, when an entire section of Mary’s scalp vanished into thin air, resulting in a blood-drenched bed and a very nervous Jay. In addition to the spontaneous skinless patch on her scalp, Mary’s palms burst open again. Simon turned gray as he pulled torn thread from Mary’s mangled hands and mulled on how to repair the severely damaged skin.

Since that last horrific event, Jay sleeps only in brief snatches. Even as Sam watches, Jay jerks his head up to stare at Mary. Jay wears the expression he wore in days past when Mary arrived home—anticipation and excitement. Now, though, there’s something else, also. Is it anxiety? Or fear? “What do you see, boy?” Sam says softly from his place on Nanna’s chaise. Jay doesn’t hear, doesn’t turn, only drops his exhausted head back to Mary’s breasts. Sam can’t shed the certainty that Jay perceives something the rest of them do not; so, he watches, has been for four days. “Help me help Mama, buddy,” Sam says. Jay doesn’t even twitch.

Sam moves to the bistro chair near Mary. He sits and watches the girl and her dog. Sam doesn’t make contact with his wife. Doing so is becoming harder as time passes. Sam almost dozes, but Jay suddenly realizes he is not alone and jerks his head to gaze at Sam. The force and speed of his movements shake the bed. He makes no sound but he doesn’t appear to recognize Sam. His ears flick back and forth; his eyes never blink. After a moment, Sam drops his eyes to escape the sheer discomfort of Jay’s penetrating stare.

Sam keeps his eyes in his lap for a while, wanting to give Jay time to chill out. Soon, footsteps on the stairs cause Sam to sit up straighter and look at Jay with worry. His concerns are valid; Jay’s eyes rivet to the top of the stairs. Suddenly, the room feels different to Sam, as if the barometer spiked several notches. Sam knows from the nature of the footsteps ascending to the Rabbit Hole—small feet hitting hard, the owner’s legs forcing as much sound from each impact as possible—that they belong to Ginger. As the small woman enters the room, Jay presses his ears back against his skull. Nervous about Jay’s behavior and the pinched, reddened face of Mary’s mother, Sam gets up to intercept Ginger. “I think we should go back downstairs—“

“No. I want to see my daughter. I have only two days left. You don’t get to tell me when I can and can’t see Mary.” Ginger juts her chin forward and sidesteps Sam’s outstretched hands, moving toward the now empty bistro chair.

As Mary draws nearer the castle, she spies movement near the door, a huge portal of wood planks, bound together with dull, metal fixtures the size of her head. Before the dark wood, a figure paces. It could be human, but a billowing, green, hooded cloak obfuscates any indentifying details. Every time the pacer pivots, Mary tries to discern the face, to no avail. Mesmerized as she is by the smooth movement, by the curiosity of someone before her castle, Mary mindlessly slows her stride, then falters and stops altogether.

One second, Mary gazes at the striding figure; the next, her perspective is aerial, high and climbing above her destination. Mary’s focus shifts immediately upward, to her shoulder, grasped in the cruel talons of one the monstrous griffins. Mary screams in rage, and the thing tucks its mammoth head under its body and shrieks back into her face with enough force to blow her hair back in a wave of putrid breath. Mary dangles high in the pink sky, now, but she would rather fall than be eaten, and she tries to swing the blade in her hand toward the monster’s body. Her shoulder tangled in the monster’s claws, her grasp loose from poor circulation, Mary drops the blade. It tumbles out of sight before it puffs futilely into the purple dust below.