Sort of Deadly

15 - Not So Ideal

They sure got a lot worse after moving to the city, the ‘mares, that’s for sure. Maybe a change of beds had something to do with it. 

Niffy was a frequent visitor in the 'mares, as was the Grahi Witch, and at times Saayu – that is, the Nerth-doll who drove our carriage to the Coven' fortress. 

I would toss and turn in bed, fighting to keep my eyes shut. But eventually the rustling would force them open, and I would see Niffy – always in her red gown with polka dots – and in the 'mares there would be nothing wrong with her vocal cords, it was all a pretense to gain sympathy, to steal my friends, and her one hand would hold Aar's and the other would hold Mar's and she would say to me in a voice as sharp as that of the actual Grahi Witch, making my skin crawl and trip over itself: 'They're no longer yours.’

I would scream soundlessly, and Niffy and Marra and Aar would utter in haunting, flawless synchrony: 'We are one, and one are we. We are one, and one are we. WE ARE ONE AND ONE ARE WE-'

And finally I would find my voice and I would shriek until my Pops was chaffing my shoulders and asking me if I wanted to sleep with him for the night. I would ask for Momma, but she would not wake if a tsunami carried her to Narnia itself because she had been working tirelessly on a pitch she had next month. Evidently, she had discovered the most efficient and cost-effective method of replicating stem cells in plants.

Toby, watch out.

Pops is very nice and considerate and all, but you know him. He doesn’t have thoughts of his own. He’s a mild fella, observing what happens around him and repeating what others say and living life like he were slurping juice. So he couldn’t exactly comfort me, although not for lack of trying.

After each of the 'mares, I found myself in that strangely magnetic alley, cursing my hair, my house, my life.

I guess most of us have that time in our lives, when we hit rock-bottom.

But most of us don’t end up like I did, dodging death left, right and center in an alien place.

Likely not for long.

I told you Garbo's big on cut-throat competition. I didn’t tell you just how big. Allow me.

Firstly, I wasn’t getting off on the right foot with my new teachers. I’d always raise my hand to answer their questions even when no one else would, and they’d choose me, and then I’d end up standing there vacant behind the skull and blank behind the face as the memory of Niffy and Marr and Aar going We are one, and one are we would crash into me like the truck that crashed into Mar when he was four, leading to a cascade of thoughts and remembrances. Marra, his eyes red and glowing, his fangs smothered with blood. That Mr. Cellomann characters blinding us with white powder, rasping the word 'Sleep' in a wacky voice. The saggy, ancient woman rattling keys on bars, watching us starve with bulgy, shining eyes.

The banana. The godforsaken sand-banana.

I’d been ignoring bananas ever since that one time, by the way. I just – I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.

Anyway, we had this science project to do in school. And since I was already working on a hydraulic brake, I stuck to it. Only I was making a rather complicated system of such brakes, such that a single lever would control them all. I had it all figured out, theoretically, and I had to do was make it happen, with or without rock-n-roll distracting my I intellect.

I kept it a secret from Pops (not that hard; he’s indifferent to most things) and Momma (not that hard either; she’s working on her stem cell research, no?) because I wanted to woo them both. Bad decision, as it turned out.