The Fall of Never (56 page)

“She seems calm now,” Josh said. He was sitting beside Nellie’s bed in a chair from the kitchen, bent over the side with his hands folded between his knees. “Is there something you can do for her? Something you can check?”

Carlos smoked outside the bedroom door. “Check?” he said. “What is there to check? She’s breathing…”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe she lost the grip on your friend. Maybe it was a false alarm.” But he didn’t believe it himself. The air was still alive with Nellie’s static charge; even breathing felt like swallowing oxygen diluted with battery acid. Perhaps the prior calamity had been the result of Nellie crossing over some mental fence, and now she was safely on the other side, safely nestled in this Kelly woman’s head. Or, he also thought, maybe Kelly had suddenly ceased to exist, leaving the old woman in a deep and harmless sleep.

Leaning his head back against the frame of the door, Carlos closed his eyes and tried to reach for the waves of current rippling in the air. It felt like daydreaming, nothing more, and the deeper he allowed himself to slide, the more potent the current seemed to become—as if his resignation enabled him to become an empty container ready to be filled. Daydreaming…yet with a certain momentum behind each thought. The air was a hallucinogen, capable of undefined manipulation.

He thought of his unborn son. Dreamlike and suspended, he tried to seek out truth in the airborne power. Fueled by the consumption of such power, his mind coalesced poorly defined notions and images into specifics, into unconscious reality.
Where are you, Julian?
he called.
Is there any part of you out here that I can grab hold of? Is there any part of you lingering in all this power that can give me some sort of sign, some sort of reassurance?

“She’s moving,” Josh said, startling the doctor.

Carlos opened his eyes. His cigarette had burned down to the quick, nearly to his fingers. He wondered just how long he’d been meditating. “Waking up?”

Josh shook his head and stood from the chair. “No, I don’t think so. Just…moving.”

Slowly, as if influenced by some outside force, the old woman’s head moved side to side against her pillow. She did not look relaxed; rather, her eyes were squeezed shut and moisture had collected at the corners. The muscles in her jaw flexed. Her good hand quivered the slightest bit, the fingers twitching.

Josh looked nervous. “Do you think she’s gonna have another seizure?”

“I don’t know.”

Carlos moved toward the bed, reached for his medical bag. He produced an ophthalmoscope and bent down, placing his thumb against the old woman’s left eyelid and pulling it open.

He jerked his hand away. “Son of a bitch.”

Josh looked up. “What?”

“Eyes rolled back.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something with her brain,” Carlos said.

“You can’t—”

Both of Nellie’s eyes flipped open, her lips suddenly drawing together. A subdued look crossed her face.

“Jesus,” Carlos whispered. “Nellie? Nellie?”

“Can you hear us?” Josh chimed in.

The old woman just stared at the ceiling. She looked very peaceful.

Carlos went back to his medical bag. “Nellie, if you can hear me, what I’m going to do is—”

Nellie’s voice cut through him: “We’re in the heart.”

Both Carlos and Josh froze, staring at each other. It wasn’t Nellie’s voice; yet it was. Deeper. Resonating from someplace other than her body. No—she was merely using her body as a voice box, as a conduit. She was speaking from someplace else. Someplace distant.

“We’re in the heart.”

“The heart?” Carlos said.

“Did you find Kelly?” Josh said. “Did you find her? Is she all right? Is she there? Did you find her?”

“Heart,” Nellie muttered. Her eyelids began to flutter. Carlos reached his arms out for her…then retracted, suddenly aware of the intense flow of electricity radiating from Nellie’s body.

“Do something!” Josh shouted. “She’s fading!”

“Josh…”

“Goddamn it! Nellie, did you find her? Is she all right? Tell me! Don’t go until you tell me!”

Nellie’s eyes closed, her mouth went slack. Her hand ceased twitching and fell still.

“It’s building,” Carlos whispered, taking a step away from the bed. He could feel the air tightening again, becoming stronger all around him. His stomach groaned, caterwauled, threw punches. “Josh…”

Josh was not listening. He clung to Nellie’s bedside like a child reluctant to leave a place of comfort, his brows drawn together in panic and frustration. “Did you find her?” he shouted repeatedly. “Did you find her? Did you find her?”

“Josh,” he said again, now backing toward the bedroom door. “Damn it, Josh, listen to me.”

Josh shook his head. “Is she dead, Doc?”

“Just the opposite.” He brought a finger up, straight into the air. “Can you feel it? It’s building again.”

Behind Josh, the plastic taped to the bedroom window began to rustle, as if accosted by a harsh wind.

“Oh.” Josh said this almost matter-of-factly, and turned to move away from Nellie’s bedside.

“Come on,” Carlos urged, already feeling his stomach start to cramp. “Let’s get the hell out in the hallway before she blows our minds—”

The bedroom door slammed shut and they both jumped.

“Shit,” Josh said, his voice half-choked.

Carlos rushed to it, grabbed the knob, tried to open it. Stuck. He rubbed his hands down his pants then went for the knob again—only to pull his hands away, tweaked by a spark of blue light. Behind him, dresser drawers began to slam and split down the middle. He felt his stomach edge closer and closer to some invisible hillside.
It’s like climbing the first drop of a roller coaster,
he thought.
Just waiting for the drop.

And he knew the drop could come at any second.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

She is aware of darkness and light; of alternating chemistries, both false and real, and the strain of multiple complexities against her skin, her body. There is a sensation of union here, an impression of spontaneous augmentation. Individuality becomes indistinct. She is aware of propulsion, of moving forward—pushed forward. The heat around her becomes physical and operates as cilia, orchestrating her progression in fluid undulations. She moves toward an ending, a beginning. And though she works at it, she finds there is no thinking here, no contemplation…and it occurs to her that she is in the middle of it all, of everything. Of herself. She is here and she is now. And not alone. That strain presses against her, holds her together, yet threatens to tear her apart at the same time. She feels the walls breathe. She feels another presence…and then another—a third—yet far off in the distance. Again, she tries to think, but finds only that her thinking is now a physical thing and she is powerless to understand anything in this black-and-white void. Her mind is a patterned maze extended before her through which she now falls. Her body feels like a thousand arms and fingers, each of them probing against individual darkness. This cavernous channel, dense with fluid heat, convulses to expel her and donate her body to another world. Yet…a familiar world. This is a passage, she understands. This is a portal, a conduit, a wormhole.

Inside the heart.

Then she was suddenly there in familiar darkness.

At first, she could hear only her breath coming in quick little gasps. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out shapesrancor of rotting citrus fruit. The smell of cloth, of wool, and old clothes collecting dust. Urine. Lilac, though faintly.
—familiar
shapes—all around her: a door; a bed; a hand-carved rocking chair clogged with stuffed toys; an open window; a figure beneath the bed sheets. Smells came next, almost cloying. Medicinal smells, coupled with the

The room came into focus all around her. It was Becky’s bedroom, she realized, and she now stood in the middle of it. To her left, the single window stood open, letting in cold air. It felt good against her skin. She realized she was covered in sweat and breathing heavy. And her mind—it was confused, muddled. As she stood there in darkness, she could feel it slowly unraveling itself, putting all the pieces back into their proper locations. Nothing felt quite right, quite real. Like she’d been superimposed against the backdrop of this room.

Heart,
she thought, remembering it all at the same speed as her thoughts returned to her.
This house is the heart of Never.
And that makes sense.
And it did: the cold, lonely place where she grew up was what had cultivated her powers, pushed her toward progression, forced her mind to expand. It was this house, indirectly responsible for all she’d become and all she’d created. This house and those who occupied it.
How come I couldn’t see that just a moment ago? How come I didn’t realize this is the true heart of Never, that solitude is the birthplace of both creation and madness?

She remembered Simon at the same moment she saw him move against the far wall, beside Becky’s bed.

“No!” she shouted, and the room appeared to waver in front of her eyes. Was the room even real? Was she really inside her parents’ home, or was this just another illusion? Another fabrication brought to life through the powers of her mind? “You don’t touch her.”

“And what is it to you?” Though he was solid and real in front of her, Simon’s voice came at her from numerous directions, pelting her like birds from the sky. “What does she mean to you?”

“She’s my sister.”

“And so what?” He shook his head, his face half-masked by shadows. The inconstant terrain of his face and scalp was almost visible. He was so close to Becky he could reach down and caress her face. “All those years,” he mumbled. “How often did you think about her while you were away?”

The words stung. She felt something well up inside her, but she promised herself she would keep it together. “That wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t think…couldn’t remember anything about this place, including her. But it wasn’t my fault.”

“Then whose fault?”

“I was blocked. I couldn’t remember. My mind closed off all the memories to this place and I never even thought to try and remember.”

“She
remembered
you.”
Then he
did
reach out his hand as if to touch Becky. Only he didn’t caress her face; instead, he pinched her IV tube between two fingers.

“No!” Kelly shouted again and rushed at the creature. Around her, the room blurred. Colors peaked, sharpened, dispersed into granules. She lunged to grab him, blazing fury boiling just beneath the surface, but was tackled by a rocketing shock that ripped through her head. The force of it sent her to the floor, reeling in agony. She could feel the exact location on her brain where she’d been struck. Not pain—the brain felt no pain—but a frightening
bulge.

Embolism,
she thought.
I die now.

But she didn’t die and the bulging sensation faded quickly. Sitting up on the floor, Kelly scrambled backward until she felt herself slam up against the wall. As if made of rubber, the wall seemed to bend slightly inward against her back.

“You can’t touch me,” he muttered. His eyes were trained on her, his form fading in and out of the darkness. “You can’t harm me, can’t do anything to me. Not now. Not anymore.”

She tried to stand but found herself impossibly weak. Her muscles had become water. A draining sensation flooded her head, the back of her neck, and down into her back.
Power,
she thought.
It’s seeping out of me and he’s absorbing it. He’s taking it.

“What…” Even her voice dried up and died. She tried again: “I don’t want you to hurt her. Tell me what—”

“You know.” He said this with haughty informality.

“Tell me,” she insisted.

“You sister is useless to me,” he said. “I want to
live.
And that depends on you, Kellerella. The longer you’re gone, the more you forget, the less I become.
Look at me.”
And with that, he stepped forward into the panel of light that fell through the window. For the first time, Kelly really saw him, and her first impression was that he’d actually aged. His skin had gone the color of sour milk; his eyes, repellent and insect-like, bulged from his head like twin tumors in the middle of extraction; his chest and limbs simply hung, in a parody of human development; the prominent crisscross of ribs pushed his skin taut; a concentration of organs, vessels, and muscles pulsed and flexed too near the surface of his flesh.

She turned away, repulsed.

“You created this,” he said. “You’re the artist. You’re the mother.” She heard his awkward footfalls move around Becky’s bed. “The more you forget about me,” he repeated, “the less I become.”

“That has nothing to do with Becky.” That slipping, vacating sensation continued to work at her brain.

“She’s a bargaining chip,” he said quietly. “She’s an injured dog.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“What I want,” he said, “is for you to give in. I want that mind of yours, Kelly. The whole thing. I want to own it and not worry about you ever leaving or ever forgetting about me again. And for that, your sister gets to live out the rest of her life. Consider it a trade—your mind for your sister’s life.”