She can taste the darkness. It has the flavor of sharp wet air on a winter's night, like a last sip of cold soup, like the feel of concrete beneath her frozen fingers. The darkness coats her tongue like melting wax or chocolate, even when the suns shines and softens the filthy snow that builds up by the main road. She hardly talks because of the thick darkness in her mouth.
Cherry doesn't know why.
She remembers the first night she tasted it. The darkness. It was nighttime in very late autumn; candles were perched on windowsills by four o'clock and it was pitch black by half past five. The glow of the streetlights was cheery, but useless against the biting cold of November nights. She remembers standing right below one of those streetlights, her gloves still intact and her shoes almost without holes. She was younger then, but Cherry doesn't know how many years younger simply because she doesn't know how old she is.
She wasn't alone. Her mother was there (or at least she thinks it was her mother), fiddling with the ends of Cherry's scarf. She slipped a few coins into her coat pocket, murmured a reminder to stay out of the path of child-snatchers and fast carriages, and then she turned and left. Cherry watched her disappear completely into the gloom. She waited patiently for her to return.
Younger Cherry, Cherry with the gloves, stood beneath that streetlight for a long time, her mouth slowly filling with an odd taste- like half melted ice and damp wool and the biting smell of alcohol. She drank it in thirstily, letting the thickness roll over her tongue, only moving when dawn broke and the first carriages rumbled out into the cobblestone streets (whereupon she recalled her mother's instructions and fled into a nearby alley).
She's still waiting, though many years have gone by. Her gloves and shoes and coat bear the marks of passing time- they're all ripped or worn or far too small. The fingers of the gloves have long ago come apart from the rest of it, leaving her fingers constantly exposed to the cold. Cherry no longer speaks, of course. She's not alone in the streets, but she might as well be, because none of the others go near her.
Sometimes she understands what it must feel like to be a ghost.
Her dreams are the only relief from the constant darkness in her throat. They echo through her subconscious, bringing with them sights and sounds and memories, though Cherry can't decide whether they're good ones or bad ones. Her mother appears, sometimes.
She rides on a velvety horse and sings in a language that Cherry doesn't understand, her voice growing hoarser and hoarser until it fades into an agonized screech. Cherry's mother hunches over and gruesomely shrivels up into a phoenix-like bird, though smaller and uglier. She lets out one last caw and flies off. Cherry stands by the horse, watching her mother fly away. A single feather lands on Cherry's cheek and melts into her flesh, sending a shock of warmth through the girl's body. The world seems to brighten around her, and for one golden moment she tastes flowers and dewy rain and the smell of baking cakes. For one golden moment she can't feel the ache of hunger or cold in her bones, and her feet seem to hover a bit off the ground as she laughs so lightly and freely. Her mother is coming. Friends are coming. The darkness is gone.
Then her eyes fly open and she finds herself curled up on a pile of vegetable peelings and old flour sacks, her mouth dark and heavy once more and her hair full of shredded carrot. A nearby door flies open and a man in a stained cook's apron leans out of the opening, zeroing in on the disoriented girl in the rubbish heap and raising his voice at her. Cherry staggers to her feet, dazed and half-asleep, as the cook takes a threatening step forwards. He seems to be fighting back the urge to give her a good slap.
Get out of my alley, he yells. Out, you filthy street rat, and don't be scurryin' back here again.
She nods blearily, too tired to argue. The cook furrows his eyebrows, the tiniest bit of pity snaking its way into his mind. He jerks his head at the pile of vegetables Cherry was sleeping on. The potatoes are still eatable, if you're hungry. But just this once.
Food. He's offering her food. She doesn't even bother trying to force a thank you out of her black, black mouth; the cook will only think her crazier than the rest. Instead she gives him a grateful nod and crouches down, slipping a few of the tubers into the pockets of her tattered coat and clutching one in each fingerless-gloved hand. The cook's mouth twitches into what could resemble a smile and backs into the kitchen once more, slamming the door shut behind him.
Of course, Cherry has no way of knowing that the man will be beaten and punished quite severely later that day because of the food he allowed her to take. She has no way of knowing that this simple act of kindness (the first aimed towards her in god-knows-how-many years) is what causes the taste of darkness to fade a little from her tongue, only moments later. But it is the cause and the flavor does diminish and Cherry suddenly finds herself closer than ever to the feeling she had in her dream, and suddenly she remembers the name of that far-off taste from her oldest memories, and suddenly she can say it, in an awed voice cracked from years of silence.
"Sunshine."
