Short Stories

Goodnight, Kay

When she lays down to sleep, Kay is warm. She is warm and safe and happy, snuggled beneath a purple paisley-patterned blanket pulled up to her chin. The heap of pillows behind her cradle her head as she rolls onto her side, staring, wide-eyed, at her open bedroom door.

She isn't allowed to keep it closed. It's not clear why, but she assumes her parents have some fear about what she might get up to behind closed doors, at night, while sleeping. Or maybe they just want to keep air circulating in the house. Or maybe they know about the visitors and figure that leaving the door open is easier for everyone involved.

The visitors come every night to her room, slinking and creeping down the hall, like cats or ninjas or cats that had been trained as ninjas. They dress all in black, clothes that drip like ink down their arms and legs and spatter across the carpet, where it stays all night but disappears by morning, like invisible ink on the pages of one of her childhood journals. Their faces stand in sharp relief against their outfits, white like flour from the kitchen or television corpses. They never miss the opportunity to spend an evening by her side, bent over her bed, fingers pressing down the edge of the mattress, chilly breath spilling over her cheeks and seeping into her hair.

Tonight, it is the boy. He is tall, all sharp legs and spindly arms. His knees brush against the doorknob, his shoulder presses against the top of the doorframe—he has to bend low, crouching down and slinking along, to enter the room. His shirt seeps down and coats his long, crooked fingers, staining his jagged nails and dripping off where his fingers brush the pile of her cream-colored carpet. His eyes, bulbous and deep purple, never seem to blink as he stares her down, pupils tracing the outline of her reclining form beneath the covers. His gray tongue drags along bluish, cracked lips, bent into a grinning crescent.

His voice never seems to escape from his lips, but rather echoes in the space around him while his mouth hangs open. As he kneels beside her, angular elbows slicing her blanket to reveal the wispy stuffing, he greets her.

"Kay. You are here early." His words rasp, a buzz in them like wasp wings.

She nods, a smile sliding across her cheeks. "It was a long day. Mom had to stay after at work, something about paperwork and Jessie who still acts like she doesn't know how to close up and if she finds one more empty soda can under the counter..." Kay trails off, pursing her lips. Her mother will have one less employee when she finds the culprit, and they both know it.

"And Dad?" His rough palm smooths the copper curls back from her forehead, and he leans in close to her face. She traces the violet veins creeping up his hollow cheeks before she responds.

"He slept for a while today. I didn't see him till about one, and then he just went out to the shed. When he came back in, he was muttering under his breath and he didn't bother to wipe the grease off his arms, so I went ahead and made the noodles for dinner, then cleaned off the doorknob. You know how Mom hates when the knob's all slimy and hard to open."

The boy nods, thick locks of black hair sliding down to tickle her cheek. She giggles, brushing the slick strands away. His head tilts to one side, clicking as it shifts.

"You would like a Story, Kay?"

She nods and pulls one hand out from inside her cocoon of comforter. Her pink palm turns upward, fingers curled expectantly. He slides his palm against hers, a rasp of skin on skin, and closes bony fingers in a cage around her sweat-sticky skin. The edges of the room curl up like paper on fire, glowing bright, then blackening, then bowing their points toward then center as the orange spark races inward. Kay is still warm, still wrapped in her blanket, hand still gently held, but she is elsewhere now. In the Story.

The boy speaks, and the world answers.

"A woman sits on a couch in a living room. There is a TV, but it is not playing. She has a novel cracked open in her lap, eyes wandering across the pages. The window is open, and her white curtains billow."

The window appears, brilliant sunlight streaming in, dappling across the end of Kay's bed. On the couch that settles against the far wall, the woman smiles into her book. She has copper curls, like Kay's, a soft halo that barely brushes the lobes of her ears. Her feet, clad in lavender socks, are tucked up under her, and she leans against the couch's arm.

"There is music playing, outside. Perhaps a neighbor is having a barbeque or a yard party, or just enjoying some music on their front porch."

A sunny, bright jingle, laced through with guitar and crooning voices, drifts through the curtains, filling the space between the woman and Kay. They grin in unison, a wistful summer-song smile.

"From somewhere in the house, a voice calls. A woman's, high and lilting. Just one word, a question."

"Lemonade?" A hallway shoots out from the room, deeper into a home, for the voice to waft down. At the sound, the reading woman perks up, turning her head toward it.

"That would be great, dear."

The voices in the Story always echo, like they're bouncing off the walls of some damp cave, striking the ridges and dips of stone and splintering into a hundred bright, warbling tones before arriving at Kay's ear, but they are also always beautiful. No one there has harsh voices, loud voices, voices that slam off walls and doors and careen, breakneck, down the hallway at her in one sharp familiar sound—

The fingers squeeze tighter around Kay's hand, hard knuckles digging in, drawing her back before she can leave the Story. Her eyes meet the dark ones, staring down, and she nods softly.

"Another woman brings in two lemonades and settles on the couch too. The reader sets her book down, tucking a bookmark inside."

The first woman picks up a woven rainbow of a bookmark and slots it between the pages while footsteps creak down the hall. A shorter woman comes in, all elbows and afro and dimples, carrying two lemonades and a heartfelt smile. She plops herself down, somehow not spilling a single drop, before passing one glass over. The cup clinks lightly against the copper-headed woman's hand, and Kay sees the glint of a wedding band wrapped tightly around her finger.

"They sit and listen to the music. They are safe and happy here."

The dimpled woman reaches over and wraps her weathered brown fingers around the pale, free hand. She leans her head down, springy coils of hair against a shoulder. One set of curved lips sips at the lemonade, then the other. One thumb brushed against the back of a palm, and Kay spots the twin ring snuggled on the fourth finger of a darker hand.

"They are safe and happy."

The world disperses like clouds, droplets pulling out across a sky, sunlight spilling between the interlocked fingers, shining off the cubes of ice in the cups, catching the curve of each woman's curls. Then the clouds are too spread to see, and the sun sets into darkness, and Kay is in her room, dark wall picked out in moonlight through the blinds, plain brown dresser standing at attention, boy kneeling in a pool of inky dark beside her bed, door open to the shadows of the hallway.

"That was a nice story," she yawns. Her eyelids begin to sink, rows of eyelashes desperate to come together. The boy stands, shoulders pressing against the popcorn paint of her ceiling. He squeezes her hand once more, before tucking it back into her blanket and letting go.

"Goodnight, Kay."

She wants to watch the ink trail follow him out the door, but her eyes are closed before he even turns away. She is happy. She is asleep. She is safe.