Monachopsis | Chapter Three: Driftel (1/2)

Driftel’s interior floated on the glassy surface of an enormous tide pool. The driftwood logs that formed the walls were wedged between slimy rocks edging the pool, and wooden catwalks criss-crossed the water to form a network of paths. The whole place was illuminated by narrow bars of sunlight slipping through the cracks in the logs and the dancing, flickering firelight on the roof.

The rank stench of brine and fish permeated the air. Madder thought she might choke on it as Percy steered her across the damp catwalk and up to the host: A squat, muscly creature with patchy silver hair and a long, twisted, drooping nose. To get to it they had to pass a maze of half-submerged tables and chairs, all crusted with salt and most occupied by a range of crustaceans. Madder kept her eyes on the planks and tried to fight down the nauseous, icy knot in her gut.

She felt like she was balancing on the precipice outside of Queensquare again: Off-balance, sickeningly tempted, and mere inches from either plummeting to her death or taking flight. Her blood thrummed in her ears.

The host gave a shrill series of whistles as they drew nearer. Percy whistled back, lower and less ear-splitting, finishing the sequence off with a couple of rapid-fire clicks. She squeezed Madder’s hand, and Madder dug her fingernails in in response. “I’m going to be sick,” she muttered.

Percy ignored her but for a flickering sympathetic glance. She and the host exchanged more whistles and clicks before, finally, the host lifted an enormous, clawed hand and pointed to a shadowy gap in the wall.

Madder almost fell over when she tried to move again. Every joint in her body seemed to have forgotten how to bend all at once; only Percy’s quick reflexes saved her from plunging head-first into the water. Her stomach heaved. “Easy,” Percy said, pitching her voice low. “Just a little bit farther and then you can lie down.”

“What was that thing?” Madder whispered. Her head hurt too much to care about being overheard and seeming rude. Percy shushed her anyway.

“Kli’s a tove,” Percy said under her breath, audible only because her mouth was an inch away from Madder’s ear. “And Kli’s not a thing either, so don’t be mean.”

She half-led, half-dragged Madder down the catwalks, past a barnacle-encrusted rowboat crammed with shards of porcelain, past a veritable army of scarlet sea urchins carpeting the tide pool’s floor, past a whispering pair of off-duty Red Chessers whom Madder recognized vaguely from mealtimes at Queensquare. They reached the shadowy place in the wall, which turned out to be the entrance to a room that had been carved out of a massive log.

Percy hustled her inside. It was about as long across as Madder was tall, and the ceiling was so low that it tickled the short hairs on top of Madder’s head. The only light came from a few fist-sized holes in the outer edge of the log; the ceiling, thankfully, was not on fire. A narrow bed took up most of the space; Madder collapsed onto it with a grateful whimper, not even carrying that the mattress smelled like seaweed.

(She stood frozen with her gaze glued to the floor, not even strong enough to bear witness to her sibling’s tears.)

Madder dug her fingers into the mattress; it was rough, spongy, and the material scraped the exposed skin on her good hand hard enough to drag her out of the other-reality. For a few precious seconds, her vision cleared. She was here. Here, in Driftel, in the Glassland, and she had to hold onto that.

She strangled a scream when a hand touched her back. Just Percy, not an alien sensation that both did and didn’t belong to her. “It’s alright,” Percy whispered. “Madder, it’s alright, you’re safe, it’s okay—”

Her voice smeared out into a background hum of traffic. The warm press of her hand between Madder’s shoulder blades vanished; so did the mattress, then the overpowering smell of Driftel itself. Blank, dark void swept her up and folded over her head—Madder could feel it taking her apart, cell by cell; it hurt less than she would have imagined.

In fact it was almost peaceful.

(“Stop. Stop! Please!”)

The emptiness uncurled. A white-hot needle of helpless rage pierced her throat, and she slammed back together all at once. Every nerve blazed with the need to lunge forward and do something, but the needle in her throat kept her pinned.

When she tried to scream, all that came out was a rasp.

(And just like that, it was over: Abuelo stormed from the room with his garbage bag full of dresses slung over his shoulder, and Lou crumpled onto the threadbare throw rug and howled. Alice took a broken step toward nem, brushed her fingers through the coarse, tight corkscrews of hair ne’d inherited from their father. Ne shuddered and curled into a tighter ball.

“Lou, I—”

She couldn’t, as it turned out, find the right words to say, so instead she said nothing. That had been happening a lot lately.)

More needles, icy ones this time, digging hooked tips into the soft spaces between her ribs. She squirmed, arching her spine until it creaked in protest, but she couldn’t escape this new attack.

(Carl was screaming across the hall, upset by the fight and its aftermath; Alice gritted her teeth and wished, not for the first time, that she knew how to help everyone and actually be useful for a change. But right now Lou needed her more, and she had to just hope that Charlie wouldn’t have the bad timing to tease their youngest brother while Alice was occupied with Lou.

She smoothed her bandaged palm down Lou’s knobbly spine and wracked her brain for something productive to say.

Nothing came.)

“Madder!”

Hands, pinning her wrists. Something hot and slick between her fingers. Pain everywhere, acid dripping between her cells and eating away her very bones.

“Madder!” She knew that voice. Her thoughts careened in random directions in search of a name, any name to pin to that familiar—there—Percy. Someone safe. And Madder—Madder was—

Me?

She cracked open her eyes. Blurry, serpentine shapes filled her vision; she blinked until the scrim of slime covering her eyes broke apart and the shapes snapped into focus. Sea serpents, dozens of them, carved into the wood above her head. It hurt her eyes, so she closed them again, sighing.

“Madder?”

Madder made an attempt to speak and almost choked on her own tongue. By the time she finished hacking and regained control of the body—her? body—most of the sludge had drained from her mind. It left jagged fragments of glass and splintered metal behind. Something—the other reality, the other her—had ripped through her head with the brutality of a hurricane.

“I’m… fine…” she said with deliberate slowness, determined not to lose control of her tongue a second time.

“You’re not,” Percy told her softly. She lifted Madder’s hands so she could see them; the bandages on her wounded hand had been half torn away, and the other palm was marked by deep scratches. Blood seeped out from beneath the bandages; that was the source of the warm liquid on her fingers. “What was that, Madder?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know. Maybe a dream?”

Percy stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. “You went stiff and then you started clawing at yourself, tearing at your bandages and, and whimpering. It was scary.”

“I went—somewhere else,” Madder offered. “I was… more me. Or different. I don’t know.” Everything felt heavy—her limbs, her chest, her head, her eyelids. Even her heart moved with ponderous slowness. She wanted to sleep. “I had—two brothers. Another sibling. Younger, I think. And…”

It was no good trying to extract more detail than that. The ripping agony blotted out whatever snatches of the other her’s life she might have gleaned. “She was torturing me. I was, I mean. I think.”

“Why?” Percy smoothed her hair, which was matted to Madder’s forehead by cold, sticky sweat. Warmth bled from her fingers wherever she touched, and Madder felt the first flicker of a feeling that she might actually be alive.

“I don’t know.” She could feel energy draining out of her from the bottom up; Madder doubted she could’ve moved her feet if she tried. “I’m tired.”

“I’m going to fetch someone,” Percy said. “Nonli, if I can find her.”

Madder forced her eyes open again. “No!”

One look at the mulish set of Percy’s jaw told her it was useless to protest. “I know you’ve got this—ridiculous—idea that being sick or hurt means that you’re weak, Madder, and makes us think less of you,” Percy said, low and cold, “and I’ll to let you act like you’re fine if that makes you feel better. But this is—too much. I can’t keep this a secret, I can’t.”

“Please,” Madder whispered.

“You need help,” said Percy. She rifled her fingers through Madder’s hair with a sickly attempt at a smile. “Because that was way more than just—than just not feeling right in your own skin. And I’m not going to let you handle that alone.”

She stood up. Madder made a feeble attempt to reach after her, but she had lead weights dangling from each bone and managed no more than a weak flop. Her vision was darkening around the edges.

And then Percy was gone with a final swish of her long, black ponytail. The room folded up around Madder like the emptiness had done earlier, and consciousness slid from her grasp entirely.