Page 20 of The Deer and the Dragon
The moment hung between us, suspended in time.
I saw his face, felt his final intake of air, watched every unspoken word flicker.
It was the surface of a lake fracturing in early winter. I could almost see ten thousand cracks as they broke between his silver eyes. He closed them, blowing out the last, slowbreath of air. After a heartbreaking eternity, he slid off the bed and pressed another kiss to my forehead. It was with cool finality that he said, “You’ve told me before, and I know I need to listen, even if you’re one hell of a habit to break. A life with me isn’t what you want. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you in the way that you needed me.”
“Caliban!” I shouted half in hate, half in desperation.
He stepped into the shadows before giving me the opportunity to fight. When the scent of cypress left the room, the shock left with it. The spell that had been holding me together shattered and I rolled into the pillow, screaming into the feathers as I sobbed until there was neither salt nor water left in my being. For what could have been an hour or what might have been years, I repeated his name over and over again. I wanted to yell at him. To fight with him. To throw things. I wanted to be angry, to be held, to be talked down from the cliff like he’d done so many times. My pleas were incomprehensible as I begged him to return.
And somewhere between the heaving, the crying, and the shuddering, my body gave out, and I fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Chapter Eight
Were cops only hot in movies? I was certain I’d never met a policeman who hadn’t looked like an NPC. Perhaps it was more comforting this way. Bland, unremarkable faces. Forgettable, business-casual slacks and shirts. One even had a mustache so cliché that it felt like it had to be a joke. They were kinder qualities than being forced to speak with a runway model when being asked to give a statement.
Two detectives interviewed me on my couch while investigators bustled about my unit as if it were an active crime scene. I was told it was standard, but I knew it wasn’t. Perhaps if I hadn’t drowned myself in crime shows during my depressive episodes, I would have believed their easy lies. Still, I gave them free rein of my apartment without a warrant.
What could I possibly tell them? What could they possibly find?
Oh, yes, the man you’re looking for? The one who murdered our receptionist? It’s a man named Richard. He tried to kill me. How do I know him? Please put it on the records that he was a former client from when I was an escort in a country where sex work remains criminalized. Oh, yes, my blood pooled everywhere near the demolished table. There was a bloodied knife, injuries, a corpse… Who took his body? Well, a black pulse of shadow did. How did I beat him? I didn’t. I’m meant to believe he choked on his own tonguethanks to a sparkly stranger who came from nowhere. How am I not injured? I was. Never fear, it’s gone. Something about sigils. Don’t worry about it.
Aside from my shattered coffee table—a clumsy accident—my apartment was spotless. They’d frowned at the crystalline shards, but after I’d allowed them a sweep of the unit, they were satisfied that the only victim in Apartment 12 had been my furniture. I promised to clean it up but had little to offer them by way of statement.
Someone had put the security cameras on a harmless loop, repeating hours of mundane nothingness everywhere save for the parking garage. If it hadn’t been for the footage of me pulling into the lot, I might have lacked an alibi for the window when the receptionist had gone missing. Given the horror on my face and genuine sorrow that I would never again see the wide-eyed girl who lovedFire and Swords,the police left me alone to process. They told me that security detail would be put on the building while they continued to investigate the case and left a card on my island, should I think of any other details.
The detectives did not contact me again.
But as the police left, I knew one thing for certain.
I had not imagined this. No fabrication of my daydreams or nightmares would have brought the boys in blue to my doorstep. No detective would have taken my statement if I had just been crazy. They were investigating a murder. My coffee table was shattered. I may not have a wound on my hand or a dead man in my living room, but this was real.
And if this was real…
I had to speak to Caliban. Urgency flooded me every bit as intensely as the fight-or-flight that had kept me clawing to life the night prior. A murder had happened in my building. A golden stranger had come from nowhere to make the man choke on his tongue. My bruised larynx was fine. My body was whole. But my head was full of memories that cast a new light entirely, and only one person had the answers I needed.
I did little more than gnaw on baby carrots, shuffle listlessly from bed to the living room, and stare at the empty space above my door for three days, day and night. I bought a tacky black light from a gift shop to examine the frame as if I were a forensic scientist looking for fingerprints. With a flair for the dramatic, I waited until midnight, held a candle to the outline, and searched for any sign of a sigil. An intrusive thought tempted me to cut open my veins and smear the evidence of my life over the threshold just to trysomething.
He would return. He had to. And when he came back this time, I would know he was real. I’d have so much to ask. So much to say. So much to apologize for.
Days bled into weeks.
Tiny green buds revealed themselves on the trees as the coldest season abandoned the city.
The clouds broke apart; blue and warmth leeched into the city as spring turned into the first hints of summer.
I wrote no new pages. I rarely answered emails. I’d ghosted Nia and Kirby, save for double tapping the videos they sent, giving the message a little heart so they knew I’d seen it. To avoid being alone with my thoughts, I let my laptop roll from episode to episode until I’d finished all eight seasons of a medical drama. When I wasn’t mindlessly watching television, I was googling “imaginary friends,” from the zanna of Romanian folklore and the hidden people of Icelandic lore to the tulpa created through one’s concentrated belief. My search engine was inundated with fairy tales and folklore.
With each day that passed, my anxiety grew thicker until it felt as real as any living thing. It was a flowering vine as physical and tangible as the summer gardens that lined the riverbanks. The supernatural vine’s tendrils spread out, filling my apartment, releasing its poisonous mist from its blossoms into every nook and crevice of my home. I inhaled the wounds, the confusion, the loss the moment I awoke and suckled on it like I was nursing a wound until I fell asleep. I couldn’t keep living like this. Insanity or not, I had to dosomething. If I couldn’t get any work done, then I could at least put my skills to work and do some research.
I’d gone weeks without seeing Caliban before. I could do it again, even though my skin itched, my legs bounced, and my toes tapped against every surface. I’d figure out how to bring him back before too much time passed. I’d fix this. Soon it would be a horrible memory.
The conviction of my wishful thinking did not sway reality.
After a month, I was so irritable I couldn’t write a single word. Spring waxed into summer. The notifications on my inbox surpassed ninety-nine, then added a little plus sign to let me know that they would no longer be informing me of my negligence.
On the second month, I buried myself in library books, first from the public library, then from the university’s archives. I shouldn’t have had access, but I was connected. I’d brushed in, unannounced, to visit a very flustered dean of admissions, who’d ushered me to the librarian who oversaw the delicate texts covered in plastic and kept in air-tight rooms with low lighting so as not to damage ancient acquisitions. The librarian was excited for a chance to dissect lore for a bestselling author on fictional mythology. She chatted my ear off while I paged through text after text, then offered me her private number so I could come back day in and day out.
Figuring out where to begin was a true stab in the dark.
