The Phoenix Compound
December 12
I always dream when I'm dead, and this time I watch a young woman set fire to herself: a young, slender woman dressed in layers upon layers of the gauzy kind of robe that takes well to kerosene and matches. I never saw her face, there was a veil of thin lace just transparent enough to blur her features into a puddle of anonymity. I should have recognized some facet of her-- the long white gloves, the streaks of hair bleached to the same shade-- but I could not match these familiarities to a name. Looking at her was like the memory of an old love affair, the brief and passionate kind that leaves you with vivid impressions of individual sunrises and specific shadows of firelight on hands although you can't remember the concrete things: dates, names, addresses. For this reason I can never go back.
Was this why she wanted to immolate, I asked myself. Because she knew I had forgotten or was it so that I would never forget? I was being selfish of course. I naturally assumed the bonfire she was making of herself was because of me. Or that it was only because of me.
(Don't do it,)
I begged her.
(Don't burn your life up.)
(Someone has to do it,) A casual shrug of her shoulders.
(Might as well be me.
Do what?
Give them a witness.
Of what?
Us.)
She held out the match booklet to me, as a duty I was expected to take.
(Go ahead, do it. Strike the match. We have to show them we mean it.
I'm not going to burn you.)
She shook her head and when she spoke it was with the kind of sad disappointment that a mother uses with a child who has said something thoughtless that she knows he didn't mean. She knows he didn't mean it because he didn't understand what he was saying.
(See, that's why you're going to lose me someday.
Did I ever have you?
If you're afraid to burn me up then you're going to make me do it myself.
What's the point? What will it prove?
If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.
But you don't have to set fire to yourself to be human.
Sometimes you do.)
A match flared, white and orange and blue. Why did I think she was smiling underneath the veil?
(Think of it like a wedding, love. Think of it as 'til death do us part.)
And she burst into flames.
I did not wake screaming but this was only because I did not know how to open my eyes. Something holds them shut, dark black staples pressed into my eyelids and along the creases of my brain, preventing me from regaining consciousness. I try to push away the darkness; a sound of something ripping at the seams, a jagged-edged pain pushes me back in turn. For now, it pushes harder.
Yet something from the outside penetrates the staples and the walls. At first it is only static, white noise. Three notes played on a rusty violin. Garbled words, inside my head, a voice that doesn't belong to the person I kissed. But I can't remember who else it could be...who else...not the bonfire girl, she is gone.
/.....God help me, Logan...wake up...heal.../
Hands on my body, shaking me: the violence is out of place with the inherent softness of the fingertips. There are no gloves. Another proof that this is not the right person. I am certain of it now. And since it isn't, why bother to answer? Why push the staples, tear the skin?
/Can you...hear...me.../
The violin again. Flash memories of fall and orange coffee sweaters and a different pair of hands, also without gloves. A momentary wonder at the similarities between hands and gloves-- for example, could you exchange one pair for another if you grow tired of them? Is this what Marie has done? Folded up her regular hands, tucked them under her pillow, and tugged on a new pair for the occasion? One that will let me touch her?
I would entertain the concept but the strange hands and the strange voice refuse to leave me in peace. It is clearer, this time, desperate, close to panic.
/Logan, I have to do something now. It's not right because you're still unconscious and you can't give me permission, but I have no choice. You'll understand when it's over./
A remembrance of a name-- I know who's talking to me. Jeannie. What's she going to do to me? I don't like the way she's promising me I'll understand, she's saying it the way they tell you things you don't really want to know at all.
/You have to know what happened to her. If you know, then you'll have a reason to wake up. And you have to wake up, you have to, they need you...you'll understand./
The hands move to either side of my forehead.
A jolt of unrestrained psychic energy shoves my brain from neutral into overdrive, every synapse and fiber standing on end all at once, twisting my body into a spasm. The soft violent fingers hold me in place; no small feat for something as small as they pretend to be. There is a sudden picture in my mind, like I am looking at a woman from her reflection in the mirror--only the mirror's cracked. I see reddish brown hair, falling over a face streaked with more red, only it's sticking to the skin, like glue. I recognize the hair.
/Now I'm going to show you all of it./
The next jolt is not a stabbing but a pouring out, like a vat of hot lead overturned and dumped into every fissure of my brain, every crease. Molten images, words, feelings; fear blends with fascination and I wonder if this is what Marie felt last night, after I kissed her? Drowned, engulfed, yet breathing.
The liquid cools quickly, solidifying into hard metal pictures, shiny and glistening and terrifying.
/Marie standing at a door, begging Scott for help. Logan's done something beautiful, she says, but very stupid and I've killed him. I've killed him./
/Jeannie working on my body, the one that isn't moving and isn't even breathing, while Scott sits between Marie and the bathroom door to make sure she stays clear of the razor blades. Metal won't kill her, and he knows it, but he also knows how creative she gets when she's desperate. She caught him by surprise the first time, and when the cuts healed that's how they knew what I'd done./
This surprises me. She told me she didn't care, and even though I never believed it, I had no idea she would go to that length trying to follow me into the places she couldn't go. I made sure she couldn't.
/The door breaks down and there are six of them, big men, men that hate Scott and Jeannie and Marie: I don't have to smell the hate, it's plastered all over their faces like black paint. We're here to take Bondmaid Marie into custody on charges of infidelity and attempt to murder her mate. Scott mumbles something along the lines of over dead bodies (I'm not sure whose) and shoves her back against the walls so they can't take her from behind. I owe him for this one, I do./
/Jeannie steps in front of them, she tries to tell them what happened and they knock her down. Fist to the left side of her face, and she's falling, and her forehead smacks against the concrete when she hits the floor. The baby is screaming. I think that's the only kind of scream that's worse than Marie's because it sounds like the little guy is dying or in pain and maybe he is. Maybe he's like his mother, maybe he feels it inside him and doesn't know what it is. What would that feel like, that sort of pain without a name?/
I can't close my eyes when they're already shut. I have to watch; and I realize that this is why Jeannie was apologizing. Not because she had to invade my mind but because of the things I had to see once she got inside.
/Scott grabs the closest thing-- a lamp beside the bed-- and smashes it against the skull of the one who hit his wife. He uses the jagged end to fight like a street kid, like the street kid he must have been once because it all comes out as instinct. Talks ugly and dirty but they deserve it. He's doing a good job but there are six of them, big men, and he can't handle all of them at one time. After he goes down the second time, Marie animates. Explodes. I taught her those moves. Brave, stupid kid./
/He's down now, and he's not moving because there's a boot pinning his head to the pavement and handcuffs on his wrist. They've got her too, arms yanked behind the back. Head jerked to the side by the hair, held in place so she can see what they're doing to him. They think it's funny, because she's supposed to be his lover. They think she'll beg them to stop. Shows how much they know about my girl. She doesn't beg./
/Boot to the stomach, to the groin, twice, to the small of the back. They aren't satisfied; he isn't responding. Two of them are down and all of them are bleeding and they feel he owes them some kind of concession of defeat. Jeannie's unconscious, small mercy, so they can't take it out on her. But Marie's still alive and kicking...they throw her down in front of him and he's snarling that they aren't men, that if they were they'd take it out on him and not on a mere girl.../
I have to open my eyes; I don't care if the staples rip out and if I go blind because of it, I can't see this anymore. I try to push my way to the outside but Jeannie blocks me. Delicate brutality, the kind that hurts the worst.
Let me out, Jeannie. I've seen enough. I'll wake up for you. Just let me go...
/Almost over, Logan. If I can see it again, so can you./
No, please...
Another surge of energy, stronger than before, overrides my protest.
/She spits at them when the kick catches her in the gut, flashes them a mocking smile around the gasp for breath; because of this they kick her again, this time in the back. Flat along the spine./
/They throw her down on the bed to tie her hands behind her back. Whore, they say, into her ear. Slut. Infidel. She presses her lips together, two thin white slits. /
Why aren't I moving? Why aren't I sliding metal up their spines, pulling out the nerves? I remember. Because I'm dead again. I couldn't even protect myself, much less stop them as she is hauled off the bed, out the door. Scott is dragged after her, then the two unconscious freaks; then there is nothing left in the room. Nothing but Jeannie and the baby and me--she is the one bleeding and the baby is the one screaming and I am the one sprawled out on the floor dreaming of girls who become bonfires.
The last image fades; the staples sealing me in oblivion dissolve. Consciousness descends as a load of gravel dumped directly on my head, left to rattle inside my skull, raising dust and confusion. I am thrust through the cracks of reality one piece at a time: mismatched, dismembered. A hand, a foot, a jawbone, an elbow, a fragment of skull. Whoever's putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again obviously neglected to look at the diagram.
Progress is slow, an effort akin to tuning an old radio. At first I see nothing but a white glare; hear nothing but the overwhelming roar of my blood inside my veins and my lungs inflating and collapsing in counter-rhythm. Stench of blood and fear so strong it's nauseating. Jeannie's brought me back at high frequency, have to tone it down before I can see or hear or find answers for this.
I close my eyes then open them again, blinking to test the connections. Images sharpen, colors appear, seeping through the white like watercolor stains. Left eye, check. Right eye, check. So much for preliminaries. I turn my head-- gritting my teeth when the three-ton gravel headache slides to the forefront of my skull-- to find out reasons for the blood-smell.
Even after what she showed me, I'm not ready to see the cut down the middle of her forehead, slanting from her hairline to her left eyebrow, fat, ugly, mocking. Bruises down her left jawbone. Not fresh; the wound is stitched shut and the bruises have begun to turn yellow. This disturbs. Disturbance leads to fear: if Jeannie's this bad, what will Marie look like?
/Like she always has./
My own voice, this time, working through the emotion to the logic.
/I'm inside her, right? Pushing out the hurt./
Momentary reassurance, then a reverse.
/But what happens when I fade?/
Can't think that. Can't panic just yet. It wouldn't do to go running out to harvest major organs until I know who I'm gonna hunt down after and why they're gonna to be slated for a donation.
My mind forms the questions, but my voice is stubborn, thick and raspy from the gravel in my head, like I haven't used it for several days. Maybe I haven't. Could I have been out that long?
"Two days."
She answers for me; she'd be able to do that. How much of her is left inside me?
"You've been out two days. If Marie hadn't told me about your implant, it'd have been longer."
"You...took it....out?"
I intend to growl but my lungs hitch and it turns into a cough.
"Yes. I know, she told me it wasn't what you wanted. But you had to wake up, now...I didn't have a week to wait for you to come out of the coma at your leisure."
She leans back on the bed, her face pale and drained from the effort of sharing memory; hands pull the bundle of blankets in her lap closer to her chest. The bundle smells of formula and talcum powder: her child.
"It isn't your fault," Jeannie says, but it's not true because she can't look at me. Her eyes lock steadfastly on the cracks in the plaster.
"You're new here, you couldn't have possibly known the rules. We've been here for seven months and we don't even know them all. So it's not your...fault..."
She's rocking back and forth, little, sharp movements, but I don't even think she knows she's moving. The veins in her hands bulge midnight blue under the pale skin.
"Let me get this straight-- she went to you to save my life so they freakin' beat her and arrested her for it. What freakin' logic does that follow?"
"She was charged with infidelity and for willful attempt to harm her bondmate. Scott was charged with infidelity and attempting to interfere with her arrest."
"How did they even know I was down?"
Talking too fast but I can't slow down. Don't have time. These people are fanatics, I knew it right when I walked through the gates. I also know what fanatics do when their delusions of sanctity are interrupted.
"Someone must have seen her come to us for help. They called in possible violation of her bond. No logic...just an excuse for revenge. Scott killed a man not long ago, the High Elder's son. Should have seen this coming....should have..."
She stops, the words fractured at their joints like broken fingers. Something in me aches like the broken fingers are mine.
I reach for her hand, it is feverish, trembling. The gravel inside my mind has been replaced by Hiroshima: mushroom cloud hate, white fire anger, charcoal shadows of fear burned into place, but I do not show this to her. There is control in my voice because it is all I can control at this point. Everything else has spun away.
"Then what did they do with them?"
Of course I ask, even though it I am not sure if I want to know. She did not show me this part inside my head. Did she think it unnecessary or was she trying to spare me the visuals?
"There was a trial, but it wasn't a trial...witch hunt. With all the trimmings...the things they did...the questions they asked..."
An even greater restraint is required; my words turn metallic, spun very carefully out of cold, unemotional wire.
"Things." I echo.
"Questions." "About their...relationship...and their lust...and their plan to kill you....All lies, all of it. They took his visor to humiliate him. He had to face them blind and she had to wear the veil and when they didn't say the right thing..."
Again her voice fades, in and out like a distant satellite signal, and the secondary fear that she's unraveling on me begins to grow in urgency. She pulls her hand from mine and begins to finger the hem of her dress.
"They sentenced them to a community purge that's what they call the beating, like it's meant to cleanse all of us. Like it's something just. That happens tomorrow. But that isn't the worst part."
"It gets worse?"
"When they wouldn't confess, the council decided to get evidence of the infidelity. To force a confession. They thought they could find it on Marie."
No. Absolutely not, she's not going to tell me that they--
"There was a medical exam," she says, baldly. "For proof."
This is the part where the room turns white again. Even when color and shape return, my vision is blurred once more, all the wires knocked loose, crossed in the wrong places. Metal slices through skin, though I don't even notice that the claws are out until I see Jeannie flinch.
Marie, baby, they're going to hurt for this. Just you hold on.
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