You're being torn from the inside out, falling through blades, through fire, through black ice. You have never experienced so much pain in your entire life. It's horrible and scary and trapped under your skin.
It's burning right through your core and the pain is vibrating, shaking, screaming.
(It's you, you have said. It's you. It's me. It's us. Where the hell did it come from? Those words meant nothing, and yet, they are everything. Right now, they are your reality. They are your destiny. They are your doom).
(It's you, you've said. And then – It's me. It's us).
"It's us… it's us…"
You can't breathe. You can't stop murmuring. The wind is cold and it strikes you in the face. Soft waves are drenching your clothes, sharp and painful and icy cold. Something small and bony is clenching to you, breathing rapidly, but you don't know what it is and you don't have it in you to check.
(Your body is being tortured by hundred little needles, by a thousand little sticks, by million little nails. Your fingers are numb. Your ears are ringing. Your legs are on fire).
It's cold and it's painful and it's slicing its way out through bones and muscles and flesh.
The pain is agony and the agony has a name.
"Dani!" a voice is calling from the darkness behind you. It's a name but a wrong one. It's your name and you're having trouble recognising it as such.
"Dani!"
And then Jamie is beside you, splashing water as she struggles to reach you, her face is ashen – white as a midnight moon in the relative darkness and even though she's only inches away, eyes wide and mouth round and features wild with panic and fright and horror, you can barely see her.
(You can barely feel the small girl in your arms, a weightless creature pining you down, whimpering softly).
"It's us… it's us…"
Jamie's face dissolves, re-forms.
You recognise her now. It happens in an eyeblink. It's as if you've been standing outside in the dark and a shade has snapped up, over a lighted window, revealing the life that has been going on inside in all its clarity and detail.
When Jamie speaks, there is that glimpse and you see her, clear and close and lovely.
"Shhh," she tells you and smoothes your hair with a shaky hand. "It's okay".
A wave of blood goes up your head, your stomach shrinks together, as if something dangerous has just missed hitting you.
(There is a flush of shame, of guilt, of terror, and of cold pain).
(The pain is a frightening wave and it washes over you, twisting your insides, making you tremble).
"It's okay."
Jamie has her fingers clawing at your wet sleeve, holding tight as if you might slip away from her grip. You have your hands secured tightly around something (someone) you can't quite remember and your mouth is moving with words you can't seem to stop whispering.
The pain is almost unbearable.
"It's okay, it's okay," Jamie is whispering in your ear and you know she doesn't believe it (you know she can't believe it), but she tells you anyway.
(Jamie is always so strong, so present. Nothing is frightening her. Not the dark corners of the big manor, not the deep shadows of her garden. Not even a man too obsessed to realise he's not welcome in a place he once called home. Jamie is a tough brat with a mean mouth and good intentions. She's living by her wits. She can handle anything. Out of the two of you, you're the weak one, the more timid one).
Now Jamie doesn't look tough or brave or sure of herself. Tears streak down her cheeks and her lower lip is trembling. Her eyes are wide. Whatever it is you've done, whatever just happened, it must have been extreme.
(You're having trouble remembering what is it exactly that causing this unbearable pain inside your chest).
"It's okay," she says and even though you are far away, drowning in a lake and being lifted in the air and being burned alive and iced all at once, you can smell Jamie next to you (freshly cut grass and turned earth and cigarettes) and you cling to her words, willing yourself to believe her, willing yourself to move away from the painful presence in your chest.
You're prepared for anything, now. Anything at all. Except for silence. Except for absence.
You listen to your heart, going dull and fast under your fluffy sweater. A flawed rhythm, like a thing you don't quite recognise anymore.
"It's us… it's us… it's okay…"
It's cold and the sound of your breath comes to you disembodied and gasping, mixing with the little high whimpers of a scared child and the soft cooing of a terrified woman.
The pain is cutting through your bones but Jamie is there and somehow, her closeness pries away the agony.
In the dark, she smells like sun-kissed skin and like weed and like summer and nothing, not even the fearsome presence in your chest or the pain in your bones or the fear that has settled in your heart, can distract you from her.
The world is silent, no voices of children, no screams of anger, no sounds of life. In the distance, you can hear the monotonous crowing of a crow and behind it the gentle waves of the dark lake.
Your blood is pounding in your ears. Jamie presses her forehead to yours and whispers something you can't hear (more of her attempts at reassurance, perhaps). Flora, small and wet and trembling, circles her arms around your neck and nuzzles close, as if you can offer any sort of comfort whatsoever.
Your lips are still moving. "It's us… it's us… it's okay…"
You close your eyes. In your head, there's a square of darkness, and of purple flowers. Of ancient times.
"It's us…"
The lake is running with clear water and the shores are filled with bushes and small trees you used to find beautiful.
You take a deep breath, trying to push away the pain and anger through your skin. The fury doesn't belong to you but it's small enough of a bud to cut away.
Jamie smiles gently at you and you want to jump and to kick and to run away. The need isn't yours and you snatch back the control, terrified the monster in your chest will hurt Jamie.
Something roars inside of you, distant and angry, but small. It wants to inject and jolt and prob and slice apart everything you lay your eyes on. It wants to understand and kill. It wants to see what makes the world tick and it makes you sick.
You swallow hard, sighing. Your left hand twitches and Jamie supports Flora's weight with her own shaking arms.
Nobody's standing on the shore, besides you and Jamie and Flora, who cuddles in your arms. There is no voice and no figure in a black dress. There is no ancient lady with a washed off face and no hooded shapes. It's clear to you, against the dark sky and the dark water and your dark dark (Dark) thoughts, that no one will come. Whatever happened belong now to the past and the only darkness is within you, silent and content, for the moment.
It's cold. Colder. Jamie is shivering. The water is moving under a tiny sheen of ice.
Jamie is looking at you, no lopsided smiles now, no wise words. Her eyes are huge and young, so raw and confused it hurts somehow more than the new torture stretching the boundaries of your soul.
A sick feeling in your body, the knowledge of the wrongs you've done and the weakness you carry, and the awkwardness you can't shake off, all reflecting back at you from green tearful eyes.
(She's scared and lonely and young and you need to get a grip on yourself).
"It's okay," she says and you parrot her words back at her.
"It's okay. It's okay…"
The fear in Jamie's brilliant eyes withdraws like smoke and she breathes a sigh of relief. She moves closer and kisses you on the cheek. It's a press of mouth to your flesh, more than anything else, but it's enough to keep your grounded.
"It's okay…" she says and she's lying but you don't really care because you believe her.
Jamie guides you out of the lake, stumbling a little, toward the shore. You turn to look back, but the lake is empty.
Inside of you, there is a faceless woman, a dark shadow, and a blurred reflection of the moon behind her.
She disappears as soon as you open your mouth to call her.
There is no sound to the world, only the quiet whispers of the monster inside your chest. Into this silence rips a sound that makes you whimper with fear. It's a sound like the strafe of a bullet, like a howling wind, nails on a chalkboard – promises being broken.
It's a chord of pure pain
And it's coming from inside you.
//
Eddie used to roll his eyes good-naturedly and huff and puff and laugh when your mother slammed doors in your face and left your ears ringing. He had good intentions. He never knew how to deal with the serious aspects of life, so he tried to belittle them, for your sake.
It was an act of love and friendship, though a little misguided, never cruel.
"Women," he used to say to you after wrapping you in his arms and kissing the crown of your head as if the word had more than one meaning. "You know what they're like".
He used to say it in a sort of extra dirty attraction as if he wasn't supposed to tell you this, as if he was revealing some sort of a secret, a conspiracy he'd let you in on.
"What are they like?" you used to try and confront him more than once in a sullen fury, but your guilt always got the better of you and you always let him win. You told yourself you're doing it out of love, but now you're not so sure.
(You used to let him win because you knew that if he didn't the world would be changed and you were not ready for that).
"Don't think about it, Danielle," he used to put his hands on each side of your face and peer down at you through glasses that had always managed to slide down his nose. "She'll cool down. That's the thing about women; they always get hot under their collar," and then he used to smiled and push his glasses up his nose and rub your back, between your shoulder blades, in small circles that were supposed to be comforting.
You always wanted to argue.
You never did.
"Come on," he used to say then because your eyes would get glossy and he'd feel bad for almost making you cry. "Let's go and have some ice cream".
And you know he used to say it to cheer you up, but it only had ever left you confused and wondering about women and what went on under their collars.
(Hotness and coldness and coming and going and that strange captivating musky flower scent of theirs that used to keep you awake at night. It was mysterious and important and uncontrollable and it was a secret you kept close to heart, right under your own burning collar).
Jamie is nothing like Eddie and nothing like the hot-and-cold women you were raised to believe in and nothing like a mystery or conspiracy or shame and you don't have to solve her like a puzzle.
(She doesn't call you Danielle. She doesn't reduce people to actions. She observes, shrugs, disappointed at times but never surprised).
Jamie is nothing like Eddie. She's smiling wide, eyes glimmering. She hugs tight, with strong arms. She's kissing you with soft soft (burning) lips and leaves your head spinning and your cheeks flushing and your mouth searching for more.
(Something is burning under your collar, but you don't need anyone to solve the mystery of what it is. You know exactly what is going on).
"I talked to my mum, yesterday." You say. "She sounded so angry".
When Jamie says "people" it doesn't carry the same weight as Eddie's "women" had and so you find a small fire of resistance and stubbornness within you, not because your want to defy her but because you want to be the acceptance to the rule.
Lust should have been drained of its supercharged by the weather and the circumstances and the horror surrounding you, muffled as if under a damp mattress. You and Jamie should have been limp and enervated and exhausted, but instead, you're slippery with longing, wet with desperation, every cell in your body suffused and thrashed around like newts in a puddle.
(Jamie's dark eyes suggest the same).
"What is it?" she whispers and stares at you with her shining eyes, the colour of a thunderstorm. You notice her accent is cutting off the end of words. It makes you shiver.
"I don't know".
"It's alright," she says. Her shoulder is touching yours and you can feel the heat of her skin through her shirt.
"Here," she says, all business-like, and she turns and kisses you again.
When Eddie kissed you it was wet and mechanical and you had to actively remind yourself to move your lips, to stick out your tongue, to circle his neck with one arm. It had no heart and no soul and you spent your time fearing he might pick up on how awkward and pointless the whole thing was.
(He never did and you haven't had the courage to explain).
Kissing Jamie is nothing like it. It's soft, yes, but also exciting and intuitive and equal in a way you've never known was possible. It's earth-shattering. It's intense.
You lose yourself in her kisses and the world falls away.
It's deep twilight, purple darkness wells up from the earth, night flowers open, musking the air. Bats flit past trees like leathery butterflies. You and Jamie sit outside for the evening breeze, your fingers are loosely entwined.
You feel a small current of electricity moving between you, tiny iridescent moths are shimmering around your heads. Jamie smells like salt and crushed petals and green earth and when you look at her, just before the kiss, you can barely see her. a place of cheekbone, a shadow, a glint of eye.
It never fails to surprise you how the space between you explodes when she has her palms pressed to the sides of your head. Your heart keeps missing beats and you can't pull her close enough. It's like you've been starving and the taste of her is everything you've been searching for.
When Jamie kisses you, the pain and the horror and the darkness inside your chest fall off. You feel a sword going in between your ribs, the loss of something, and a break. A brief, silent pause and time doesn't count.
Only this,
This and Jamie's lips pressed impossibly tight to your mouth.
//
Thunder and wind rolling outside, a sudden storm, and Jamie scrambles to her feet from where she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by every single botany book stocked by the local bookstore. She grabs her cup of tea that's been cooling by her side, and the book she's currently holding and climbs on the bed.
You watch her movements, carefully and lovingly observe her moving through the room, distracted and half-dressed, balancing the items in her arms.
When she's settled she locks her ankles with yours and glances at you. she's about to make some offhanded comment, some lovingly teasing joke when she hesitates.
"Poppins," she says carefully and the smile vanishes from her face. She is cupping carefully her tea mug. Her brows are furrowed. "What's going on?"
"I'm scared you're going to get sick of me," you admit quietly. "That you're going to get tired of living a life you might lose. I'm afraid that I will keep you from living a beautiful and happy life, and when I'm gone…"
In one move, the tea is on the nightstand and Jamie is facing you, hands on either side of your body, pressed to your thighs.
"What makes you think I'm not exactly where I want to be?"
"It can all be over in a heartbeat. We have no idea what is going to happen. It's hard to live like this, worrying every day, every hour, what will happen in the next moment".
"We don't have to worry, just live life as it is!" there's a rising panic in her voice, her smile is nervous now, unsure.
"The point is," you say and your voice is small and you can't look Jamie in the eyes. "you are complicating your life for my sake, and why would you do that?"
Jamie doesn't say anything but her eyes are sad and old and pained and you hate to be the one who makes her look so lost. She tries to laugh but she can't. Her tone is leveled, strained.
"Because…" she says and three little words hang between you. You see it clear as a day, in her bright glossy eyes and her anxious expression. "because –"
But Jamie doesn't know how to express what she needs you to understand, so she kisses you.
Because it's Jamie and because her kisses are electric and because your stomach drops and your heart skips a beat and her smell is in your nose and blinding, and you are so shaken you can hardly think, you forget about talking and you kiss her back.
You kiss her back and her hands slip under your shirt. Her palms are so hot it burns your skin and you inch closer until you're pressed to her completely.
"Dani…" Jamie's voice is small and pleading and you shake your head and bury your nose in the soft flesh between her neck and her shoulder.
Rain is tapping wildly on the window, like angry unhappy fingers. The wind rattles the blinds. A flash of white light and almost immediately after, the booming sound of thunder.
You don't make love tonight. Instead, Jamie brews tea and you drink it, and she tells you about the first time she kissed a girl and how she hates when people assume she knows things just because of her past and what it felt like looking at the sky from inside a prison yard. She tells you about her mother, too young to care, about her father, lost in his dark world, about how she learned to pick a lock and distance herself from the things she's been served at the dinner table.
You smooth her messy curls from her forehead and tell her about your engagement party and about your traveling through Europe and how it feels to have twenty-five pairs of eyes looking at you with excitement and interest from behind small wooden tables.
You tell her about the gargling panic and the impossible tightness of a hand around your neck and of buzzing words you still cannot shake away.
You tell her you're not a hard liquor drinker.
You tell her how you thought your heart was going to explode when you first saw her.
The rain outside slows to a drizzle and the rumbles of thunder have receded and Jamie settles by your side, presses close, so close your skin sticks to hers. She's hot and small and laughing and she smells like flowers and grass and summer and her voice is a little hoarse when she's humming a tune she used to sing for her baby brother, to put him to sleep.
//
Jamie's kisses are hot and feverish. Her hands are searching searching searching, desperately grabbing your head, the back of your neck, your hair. You dig your fingers into the fabric of her shirt, gripping so tight you're a little scared you're going to tear it apart.
"Christ…" she sighs as she tugs at you, urging you closer. Her lips part, her tongue glides on your upper lip and your head is blank. There are no thoughts and no darkness and no pain. There are no words and no memories and no deep, cold, icy waters.
There are no ghosts.
You can hardly remember where you are. (You can barely remind yourself to breathe).
Jamie presses a leg between your knees and you sink down, riding her tight, rocking back and forth against her, too far gone to feel any kind of embarrassment. The kiss is sloppy now that you get the smallest of frictions and Jamie is searching for more skin to taste, bumping her nose with yours, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your jawline, to your throat, to your collarbones.
A soft groan escapes your lips when she sucks gently just beneath your jaw and Jamie grins against your skin, grazing her teeth gently against your flesh.
"Jamie…" you whisper. And then increasingly louder: "Jamie… Jamie – Jamie!"
She's kissing you stupid. She's kissing you hopeless. She's kissing you miserable. It's full of promises and questions and wishes and prayers that neither one of you will address.
She pours everything she has into her kisses and you don't think you need her to ask or to explain anything. You feel it in the way she's sucking at your tongue, in the way she's biting on your lower lip, in the way she pushes herself close close closer.
This is rich and wonderful and so fucking good. Jamie's kisses are electric, her hands are burning hot, her sighs are piercing needles of pleasure right through your heart.
You hold onto her shoulders, digging your fingers into her, pressing yourself to her front. You kiss her with desperation and need and urgency and even though Jamie answers in equal pushes, she's gentle and solid and certain – everything that you need.
The hunger inside you is bordering on feral, on something wild you can't quite name yet, and the watchful presence in the back of your mind retreats in confusion like the intimacy is too much for her to bear.
Jamie is confident and when she's pulling you into her lap, it's all you can do rocking back and forth, slowly, deliberately, whimpering softly against her lips. It's a hellish wonderful dream you don't want to wake up from.
The urgency of it all pauses when Jamie takes her time removing all pieces of clothing that serves as a barrier between the two of you. She helps you out of your sweatshirt and skirt in measured movements, she rolls down your pantyhose, your socks, your now ruined underwear.
Even with her hair messy and her smile shaky and her eyes dark, she's as solid as ever, her hands gentle and loving and everything like home.
She lays you down gently. Slowly, she massages your breast, smoothes her palm against your tightening stomach. She brushes strands of hair from your face and pushes your legs apart.
She never looks away. Not when her hand drifts down, nor when she sinks between your knees, nor when she lowers her head to kiss between your breasts. She's looking at you when you arch your back under her searching fingers and curling tongue. She's looking at you when you gasp her name in sharp, heady, breathless gasps, clenching tight around two fingers, drenching her hand.
She's looking at you when you sob with exhaustion and relief and pleasure.
She's looking at you when you reach for her.
(She doesn't look at you when you kiss her cheek. She doesn’t look at you when you explore her body, wide-eyed and a little scared. She doesn't look at you when you taste her for the first time or when you brush your fingertips through wet folds or when you bite down on her thigh).
(Instead, she grips the sheets in both hands, head tossed back, eyes shut tight and mouth full of moans, arching off the bed in one sharp, perfect motion).
You haven't said it to her yet, but you love her.
You love her.
//
Boredom was never part of your life in Bly, but some days still left more of a print on your slightly jumbled memories than others. You remember the floating mood so well from the months that you spend in the big house, the new sensation of not waiting for anything to happen, but rather living for the now.
Jamie is digging weed in the garden and you stay inside the house and help Hanna with the dishes. Miles is pestering Owen about something you think is some sort of a car while they roll dough and Flora is too busy with her colouring book beside the table to even notice the relative quiet of the afternoon.
It's easy, this lazy routine, easy and happy and something you have never experienced with your own family.
(You remember It was a cold day with no significant importance, and yet, the memory is vivid and it makes your arms ache for Jamie, even when she's two feet away, making fretful raw in the kitchen).
When Owen had enough of machines and cars and engines, he makes a gentle excuse and engages the kids with greasing muffin tins. Flora is happy to abandon her crayons and Miles is smiling his little-kid smile.
Owen laughs and you send him a crispy tight smile of gratitude and he nods and winks as if he understands.
"I can finish here," Hanna gives you a soft smile, somewhat distracted but still very much present. "You can go and relax for a bit".
"Oh, no!" you know what she's doing and your cheeks are red and burning. You try to laugh it off. The sound is panicked, even to your own ears, and Owen raises his head, eyebrows raised at your miserable attempt to throw them off.
"Oh, no! It's alright. I don't mind helping!" and you pretend not to be offended by the flatter in Hannah's smile.
Your fingers are a wreck and you wonder if everybody in this room knows about you and Jamie. Their careful loving smiles tell you they do but you're still a little scared and a little uncomfortable and a little self-conscious about this sort of thing.
(It's normal, you tell yourself. It's nothing like home, this big old house. What you do with Jamie is nothing to worry about, because the gentle pushes and the soft smiles tell you so. Whatever you and Jamie do, it will not provoke the same angry looks Danielle used to attract when her gaze lingered too long on a girl, not from these good people).
(It's normal, you tell yourself. You and Jamie. It's normal. It's smoking and laughing and poking fun at each other. It's kissing, when no one's around. It's approaching and pushing away and grabbing and pushing away again, more gently this time. It's salty mouths smelling like cigarettes and skin smelling like weed and spice and it's twirling around and shuffling around and dancing around and it's nothing nothing nothing to feel shameful or guilty about).
But you do feel guilty. Not for wanting to kiss Jamie, but for leaving Owen and Hannah to cook and clean, when you're perfectly capable of helping.
"Go on, then." Owen smiles and Hannah wears a serious expression you know she doesn't mean.
"It's not like you're a lot of help here, miss Clayton," Miles gives you a genuine smile. It's one of his sweet, childish smiles, and there is no malice and no agenda behind his words.
"Oh, is this how it is?" you plant your fists on your hips and pretend to be offended.
"Don't be cross, miss Clayton," pipes up Flora, sweet and ready to lighten the mood. She doesn't look up from her task, fingers glistening as she keeps swirling around the square of butter Owen placed in her hand earlier. "But you're really not".
Hannah has a big smile on her face and Owen is laughing a good belly laugh.
"Conspiring against me, I see".
"Go!" says Hannah with scorn and you give the four of them one last exhausted sigh before you make your defeated departure.
(Later, you will think back and wonder how didn't you catch that something was wrong. When you think about Hannah, it's never lying belly down in the well, her head at a sick angle, peering over her own shoulder one-eighty degrees, not looking at a wall though, not looking at anything, no angles there showing up).
(When you think about her, it's like this. Half smiling and half scowling, mouth twisted, skin soft, cross lying softly against her chest).
Outside it's pouring and Jamie is sitting on her heels, crunched over a patch of weed, eyes squinted. She sticks her bare fingers in the soil and sniffs, then trims the tip of the plant a little. From time to time, she drags her wrist across her forehead, to try and wipe away the rain from her face.
Her movements are precise and gentle. She's treating the plants as one might treat a newborn baby, all careful gestures and frightened delight.
At her sight, you feel like there is a fire growing inside you. Your cheeks are flaming.
You watch her, staring at this beautiful smiling woman crunched on her heels in the mud and you're getting drenched to the core. The rain keeps you from seeing her clearly, so you run over to her and tap her lightly on the shoulder.
"Thought you'd just stand there, staring at me forever." She drawls playfully and a smile breaks over your face. The usual increase in heartbeat skyrockets but there is no fear, just excitement. Being close to Jamie feels like being close to a bonfire, but knowing the flames cannot hurt you, just keep you warm.
The rain is straightening her hair and soaking her clothes. Her denim overall is dark with water and her boots are muddy but she's smiling her wide crooked smile as if she's exactly where she wants to be.
"Well, come here then," she says, biting the words and cutting off vowels and syllables, making it somewhat hard for you to resist her. So you step closer and she wraps her arms around you.
You make a small surprised noise. Being close to her makes you feel lightheaded and she's sliding her hands up your sides, into the curve of your waist. You bury your nose in her neck (she smells like turned earth and weed) and inhale deeply. She has her fingers in your hair (dirt cooked under her short fingernails) and she tugs at your locks lightly. When you move away a little, she catches your mouth with her lips, and all of a sudden, as if it's the most natural thing in the world, as if you've done it a hundred times already, you're kissing.
It makes your ribs feel too tight. You're standing in the middle of the garden, locked in Jamie's arms, kissing in the rain. And it's not like you haven't done it before, but all those other times were relatively private; in the dark on in the privacy of your room. Now, you realise, anyone can walk out the front door and see you.
It makes your stomach turn, and yet, you don't want to stop.
The air smells like rain and lilac and mown grass. There is a hint of burning and you keep kissing Jamie, with her arms around you and yours around her, with the heavy clouds above your heads and the sound of pouring water and the dim lights coming from the windows of the manor.
It's very easy. She lifts some of your layers and runs her hands over your back. Your backbone tenses and you are having trouble breathing. You lean into the strength of her body, you touch her face.
Jamie keeps kissing you.
It's pure energy.
//
There is a monster inside of you, and you are painfully aware of her presence. It's a cold ghostly stare between your shoulder blades. It's a shadow following your every step. It's a whispered voice at the back of your mind; hushed and angry and everything resentful.
There is a monster inside of you and you don't deserve the gentle soft love of a headstrong gardener with a crooked grin, who dips her fingers in dirt and soil, who cuts off syllables and vowels, who doesn't flinch when you raise your mismatched eyes and stare.
The monster inside of you makes you move with caution. She is a dark dark (thudding) heart beneath your ribs, she's a torring pit who doesn't understand loving gestures and this beautiful, heroic, gentle adoration. She's a scary thing made of darkness and broken necks and bend spines and death and Jamie's light smiles don't touch her.
The monster inside of you is made of something awful, something hateful, something endless. There is no life in her but something aches away in your body, a phantom throb and you don't know how to make it stop.
You have a quick flash of disappearing under ice, or chunks of cement burning out or plummeting into an underground black torrent.
Sometimes it's an arm appearing from behind the back, careless and deadly and unexpected. It's a hand, a face, a rock, a knife –
Jamie taps two knuckles against your forehead. "Hey, Poppins. Where'd you go there?"
"Nowhere".
Jamie isn't smiling but the annoyed expression on her face is an act. "Was just getting to the good part".
"I'm sorry," you chuckle. "I'm listening. I promise".
"Alright," she says with caution. "I was telling you about the town," her eyes are searching for your reaction. You school your face into a neutral expression, prying away the shadows. "About the ordinary arseholes; the grouchy and aggressive and drunk, but also about the too much friendly arseholes and the too eager and too overdoing".
"Hmm," you say because Jamie has paused and you are listening, so you let her know.
"Peter Quint reminded me of them, you know. Tiptoeing into a forbidden room while pretending to have the right to be there, that sorta type. Assertive. Smug. Clothes too new to trust 'em".
"What?" you laugh a little and Jamie smiles.
"You know how to dirty up clothes about one second after buying them when you come from a small town, Poppins. Don't wanna look too fancy".
You tug playfully at her shirt. It's an old shirt the colour of olive that you're particularly fond of.
"Is that what you're doing?" you tease with a smile you can't hide.
Jamie scoffs. "Anyway," she says pointedly. "Those arseholes were fancy. With white teeth that look fake and a tan, like deep-sea devilfishes, and I was a bit too young to notice".
You rub small circles between her shoulder blades. A strong, stubborn, beautiful smile spreads on her face.
(The smile is harder than you'd like. Crispier, like it might crack any second).
"Anyway, got myself mixed up with the wrong crowd. T'was a scam. Didn't take anyone with half a brain to figure it out before too long, but by then I was in deep shit".
"Oh," you sigh. You hate thinking about Jamie sad and angry and in trouble. You hate knowing that whatever amount of love you will pour into her, it will never chase away the stolen years.
"Yeah," she shrugs and her face is hard and smooth, detached from the story that must hurt. "Those stupid fucks were gone, I landed in jail, and everything basically went to shit".
"Unlike any other time." You say teasingly and with a smile, because you need to steer her away from the pain.
(You aim at playful but you're not the best at poking fun, certainly not at Jamie, when your heart is racing and your cheeks are flushed).
"You laughing at me, Poppins?" she pushes herself against the armrest of the sofa, eyebrow arched and a crooked smile plastered on her face. "Victim of a confused youth due to shit parents and foster care abuse?"
Your mouth goes dry. You know she's joking, but your chest tightens and your crispy little smile falls.
"I'm sorry. I –"
"Poppins," Jamie collects you in her arms, laughing her hoars deep laugh. "Relax. I was kidding".
You sink into her embrace.
//
Jamie's jaw softens when you kiss her. You stumble forward and her strong hands are catching you before you bury your face in her neck.
"Poppins," she hums into your hair. "What's this?" and your drowned monster will never understand this soft, wild, angry love. She will never understand the delicacy of such sweet weakness, such gentle love.
You don't pretend you don't feel her inside you, choking on her hate. You wrap your arms around Jamie and hug her close.
"It's her," you admit, choking on the words. "It's her..."
"S'alright. S'alright. I'm here".
At Jamie's closeness, the warzone inside you rumbles on, quiets down. There are screams of horror and of metal, of great loss. There are sounds of savage violence and splashing blood and Jamie's warm hand is there, holding you above the mess inside your chest.
You can hardly see Jamie. You see a different place now, and the monster is roaring in your ears.
There is ice on the lake. You stand in the snow, looking at it.
Water is running somewhere, but it's not the sound of the lake. It sounds like pipes and like a faucet and like sharp low hissing.
"Dani, it's alright".
Cold shoots through you. your shoes are filling with water.
"Dani –"
You try to move but your feet are heavy and there is water inside your shoes. You keep standing there, on the shore, watching the dark icy water. It's dusk and the snow on the ground is bluish-white. All around you, there are blue arches, blue caves, blue vegetation, pure and silent. The water in the lake is dark and peaceful and tamed with corpses. It's a graveyard of bones and lost dreams and hopes nobody had any right to hope.
It's full of dead people and bones and you stand there and think that soon enough, it will be your home.
"Dani, c'mon…"
You fight through your memories, through something that isn't your thoughts until you can see light. You move now, your head filled with black sawdust, little specks of darkness are getting in through your eyes.
"Jamie…" you whisper, crying softly. "Jamie…"
"I'm right here. S'alright. I'm right here".
Her hands are gripping your shoulders, holding you upright. There is a shifting whisper in the air. There are knives going through your hands and legs and Jamie is turning the running water off.
Tears are running down your face. It's tears of pain and of terror.
Jamie is solid next to you and her hands are warm.
"No no," she coos. "No tears. Hey, come 'ere," and she's wrapping you once again in a hug. She smells like cigarettes and grass and a hint of alcohol. She's still wearing her coat and you realise she must have been out, while you were miles away.
"I'm so tired…" you cry against her shoulder. "So tired – "
"I know," she says. "I know. I'm right here. It's alright. I've got you".
She's talking to you, stroking your hair. Jamie's mouth is tight and her face is frightened and angry and at the same time so young and scared.
//
The monster inside of you is made of tortured memories. She's the stuff of legends, so old her life is a dark fairytale, a myth nobody believes anymore.
//
Sometimes, you can taste rancid blood on your lips. You can feel the memory of bones snapping, crooked wrists holding into arms made of stone.
You don't talk about it, just exhale through your nose.
It's dangerous, to live in the night. Dynamite becomes irrelevant, your thoughts a jumbled mess.
You find yourself upright in the middle of the room, one shoe in your hand, wondering how you got there. Sometimes you get careless and you overlook details. Sometimes you are in the middle of the flower shop, Jamie a little to the side, and you're watching leaves riffle in the trees across the street, commanding yourself to move.
Things are gloating inside you for months and you go about your daily routine with pleasure. You keep yourself busy, close to Jamie. Sometimes, when you're all alone, a whisper comes to you from the dark, a voice inside your head that isn't your own and you wonder if the same sort of whisper goes inside other people's heads before you recongnize the crackling grumble of the beast.
Hands, warm, tanned, dirty hands are grabbing at your shoulders, your wrists. Hands are holding you down or pulling you up and you don't know where you are exactly, but Jamie's scent surrounding you (turned earth and sun-kissed skin and weed and cigarettes and wet grass) and something hammers inside your chest, and hands are pressing heavily against your cheeks.
"Dani! Dani!" you are being shaken. Jamie is talking slowly and clearly but you hear her words rushing because there are broken bones between your fingers and you are covered in blood and something is burning in your chest –
"Dani, it's okay." Jamie's hands are on your cheeks and it is much too small on the floor, between the bed and the window. You don't know how you got there or what you've done but Jamie coos softly until the sun rises until the horrors of the past disappear until the monster is gone.
You take a very deep, very shaky breath. You are Dani and you haven't drowned. You are not being guided out of deep waters, you are not cold, you are not pushing against double doors. You remember where you are (you remember where you aren't) and Jamie is holding you very softly, very gently.
"Ancient civilizations burned aster leaves to ward off evil spirits," she says quietly.
"What?" you whisper, a whinny little sound.
Jamie twists her mouth, tears welling in her eyes as she tells you about flowers. You nod and she keeps talking.
"Roses are related to apples," she says and you chuckle. She nods as if says 'they are'.
"The largest flower in the world is the Titan Arums, it's flowers ten feet high and three feet wide," she says. And, "Sunflowers move throughout the day in response to the movement of the sun," and, "Angelica was used in Europe for hundreds of years as a cure for everything," she's speaking until you can breathe without choking and you press your face into her shoulder.
"Should've bloody known flowers will do the trick." She says.
You huff an annoyed laugh and a shakey smile tugs at your lips.
"Jamie," you sigh. "I'm sorry," you turn to her slowly, hesitantly. Meeting her beautiful eyes, you reach for her hand and your stomach jumps and then drops.
She shakes her head. "Poppins, no. what?" she kisses your knuckles very gently, a very unsteady smile tugging at her lips.
"No," she whispers into your pulse point. "No," she says again against your lips. "Nothing to say sorry about".
You tug her into a clumsy hug, twisting your hands into the fabric of her shirt.
"It's alright," she whispers into your shoulder. "One day at a time. We'll work on it." And somewhere, a bird calls from afar and the sun is in the middle of the sky and you sink into her.
"Hermits in the desert," she says very quietly into your hair. "They used to hear this sort of voices, as well".
"And prisoners in dungeons." You add, helpfully.
Jamie laughs and you refuse to wander into the labyrinth of leaves and branches and cold dead water, of birdsongs and windsongs and silence.
One day at a time.
//
Some memories are making you squirm in your sit. They hit you like a brick wall, right in the face, in the most awkward places.
A particular one is playing in your head when you're on a bus back home, nursing a paper bag with some painkillers and cough syrup for Jamie, who caught a nasty cold a few days ago.
Your face is flushed but the memories are rushing and you can't do much about it now, once you start.
Jamie has a surprised expression on her face and you laugh and laugh and laugh from between her legs, teeth napping at her inner thigh.
"You have to stay quiet," you say, tripping on the words a little and you press her hips down into the mattress with your hand, a sure motion you don't really feel but act on anyway.
Jamie bites her lip hard and moans quietly.
You put your nails into her sides and scratch down her stomach. Jamie arches into you, a breathy whine leaving her mouth, her muscles twitch under your touch.
"Fuck," she mutters and you almost choke because you don't want to stop but you can't take your eyes off of her and you have never thought in a thousand years you'd be the one pressing her into the mattress, whispering for her to be quiet.
You look at Jamie and you are hungry for her. You almost think of sinking your teeth into her soft flat extent of abdomen.
"Dani…"
"Yes?"
Your fingers are tracing her throat and her chest and her skin is so warm. You can't stop yourself so you press your mouth to her abdomen. Her fingers fly into your hair and for a moment, both of you are very still. Then she shudders, her breath a ragged mess and she pulls you impossibly closer.
You kiss her. Her mouth is hot and tastes like chocolate and you feel her moan when you press two fingers between her legs, tasting and teasing.
Jamie's hands are on your back, tracing your spine, your shoulder-blades. Her thigh is between your knees and you are having a hard time focusing on the task at hand because she is haloed and beautiful and shining and her muscles tense and you are riding her thigh even though you didn't mean to.
You twist your fingers, catching the silent moan with a kiss. Jamie's eyes are so dark they look black. You mimic her movements from a couple of nights ago. This isn't the first time you've done it, and you played it plenty of times in your head in the nights after your first kiss, so it's not a big surprise to hear her gasping and whimpering and wheezing.
"If you wake the kids I will have to go tuck them in again," you say. Your voice is tensed and rough and higher than usual.
"You're not leaving," Jamie manages to breathe out, sucking your tongue into her mouth, biting your lip, pulling you into her. You thrust your hands harder, very deliberately, curling your fingers that are buried deep in Jamie.
"Please don't wake them." You say it in a rush as you start moving your hand.
Jamie comes, laughing. A mixture of things happening and she's laughing with relief, so joyfully you feel it in your own chest.
"You," Jamie says and flips you over, the bed is squicking underneath your joined weight. Your lying flat on your back, head pressed between two pillows and Jamie's smiling face hovering above you. "Will have to follow the same rules".
She kisses you slowly and you're laughing when her hands trail down your sides, and you're laughing as she tugs down on your underwear, and you're still laughing when you come, quietly and lovingly beneath her.
//
Jamie is a messy business owner but in a hands-on kind of way that makes you fall in love with her more and more every day.
She's not a dreamy person by any stretch of the imagination, and she makes things work.
She'd given up her attempts at keeping the books and started engaging you in the shop. She has ideas, and new plants arrive every day. You think you will do everything to keep her this happy and the costumers that fill the shop are increasing in numbers.
Jamie brings increasingly more and more plants to your apartment. She's been gradually moving things around, beginning with the sofas and some tables. The place is drowning in beautiful greens and reds and yellows and Jamie is moving through the world with a newfound ease you will do everything to maintain.
Sometimes there is too much mud on the welcome mat and sometimes the sink is clogged with something you're sure is soil and Jamie promises and swears to be more careful, kissing you and hugging you and knowing full well this will happen again and she will be able to soothe you with the same amount of handy gestures and heart-melting smiles.
"At least leave your boots in the corridor." You say, defeated, and she nods, swears very seriously to follow the rules.
But she's opening your apartment door and walking in with boots thick with freshly turned mud. She's kissing you with a face streaked with dirt. She's sliding her hands under your blouse, all calloused and hot from effort, cooked with dirt.
"Hey!" You exclaim and she retreats, smiling her all-knowing lopsided smile.
Jamie gives you a gentle tap on the ass. "You've been dirtier." She exclaims and you spiral into a blushing mess of giggles and protest.
Jamie is all smiles these days. Smiles and suspenders and biceps. She's all messy curls and ruddy cheeks and a tan. She's denim overalls and plaid shirts. She's exhausted and excited and you can't even produce a good frown because it's Jamie, and when she circles her arms around you, smelling like a long day, you sink into her, grateful.
You were unbelievably lonely as a child. Eddie was your best friend, but you were too focused on helping him not feeling alone to open up, and as a result, you were left behind.
Jamie makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger. Something fun and important and beautiful. Something yours.
When you look at her brew tea or tend to the hundred flowers and plants around your apartment, you finally feel at home. You fall asleep with her arms around you and you wake up to the smell of slightly burned pancakes and Bly and home and Eddie all feel like a faraway dream. Your constant scary shadow is still there, matching your every move, but you find it easy to ignore it now.
You look at Jamie and she smiles, her eyes tracing your body. You watch her and it feels like you watch lightning strike the same place twice. Like you discover something amazing.
You were lonely and undaunted and nobody ever wanted you. You tried your best to hold on tight, though it didn't work.
Jamie doesn't need you clinging to her with all your might. She is holding you without a word, without a question. From time to time she makes sure her embrace is still wanted, that her kisses are still pleasant, that her being next to you is what you want.
The monster inside your chest is puzzled at those simple questions. You nod every time and tighten your hold on her and Jamie smiles her bright smile and you can breathe again.
"I love you," you tell her and she smiles.
"I love you," you tell her and the mixture of happiness and sadness is washed away from her face and she smiles.
"I love you," you tell her and there are a lot of things you need her to know. You miss her already, and every time you kiss her you feel like you're pulling a trigger, telling the world you didn't know the gun was loaded when really, you knew all along.
Jamie smiles.
//
The monster is watching quietly, fascinated by the way you both buried yourself into each other's hearts, into each other's souls. She will bow to you had she remembered how and the possession is something she wants.
It's not about possession, you think to yourself, pretending you are not talking to the shadow in the back of your mind.
The erased creature is baffled. Confused. She's watching Jamie through your eyes. She's pointing out flaws and wrongs and changes. You don't understand why a white strand of hair or a new crease in the face you love more than anything in the world would make a difference.
Their darkness inside of you is not a punishment and she isn't feeding on betrayal. You would release her had you known how, but the ghost is clinging to you and you can't go, not yet.
Jamie.
It's not your thought. You run your fingers through her hair. She stirs in her sleep.
Yes. Jamie.
She looks through your eyes and you're begging pleading crying.
Not yet. Not yet.
There is desperation in this thought. A need. The monster is moving closer, but there is an unease to her. she's weak and distant and you're surprised to learn something like affection has grown around her.
She doesn't know this yet. She doesn't recognise human emotions. She cannot love anymore, but you think she grew used to living inside your mind, and you cannot love someone the way you love Jamie without leaving a small imprint on a foreign soul inside of you.
Love.
Yes. I love her, you think.
Jamie.
Something blooms in your chest. You smile, allowing yourself to hope a little.
Yes. Jamie.
The monster retreats and you are left feeling empty and cold.
You remember darkness. Boring cold darkness surrounding you as you drown in it. No. Not you. The beast.
You remember feeling part of the wet cold world. You remember existing in the dark chaos, an endless loop of distant memories that stopped making sense after a while.
Existing in a past forgotten is exhausting and the monster makes a sad little sound. It's an eternal grieving sound.
The monster takes a step forward and then retreats as soon as she does. There is reluctance and hesitation written all over her struggling. You know tonight is not the night she will make her move.
She isn't gone but time will pass before you will release her. before she lets you. she is no longer human but she remembers mourning, and though the woman is no longer her and she no longer the woman, Jamie's features are imprinted in her. She's part of you, and so is Jamie.
"Poppins," Jamie murmurs in her sleep, without opening her eyes. "Why are you awake?"
You turn to her and press a kiss to the edge of her mouth.
//
Flora and Miles used to like to listen to your stories. When the lights were off and the moths were flying and the front door was locked, they used to gather around you on Flora's bed, wide-eyed and alert, and ask you for stories.
They wanted you to tell them stories about the States and about your life and about traveling.
You used to spice those stories with more adventures than you actually had. You used to change names, change places, change the hero of it all, distance yourself from the spotlight.
They knew a lot of stories but they used to ask for more. They used to make a show out of asking, pleading, and refusing to go to bed until you scolded and frowned and told them something you never heard before.
They used to ask about horror stories and fairy-tales and things that happened in real life but sounded like adventures.
After you have made your way through whatever tale it was you were telling them, they always urged you to tell it again. They prompted and interrupted and filled in the parts you've missed from the first time.
"Alright, you two," you used to say.
Jamie asks for stories, too. Her requests aren't seamless performance, but more about information. She doesn't want you to change details, to invent.
You tell her things you haven't told anyone before. When you're done, the darkness inside you is shattered and light is shining through the cracks.
You feel your body unclench, feel air flowing into you in long, soundless breath.
Your heart leaps.
You're dizzy with relief.
Then;
"Poppins," Jamie says gently. "You're crying?"
And you are. It's pathetic really. You never were the crying type. But you're crying now, blind and pink and whimpering, like a mouse.
You want to leave, to spare Jamie your tears, but then her arms are around you and you're enfolded.
Jamie's arms are like coming home, walking through the doorway into the familiar, the place you know. It's open and warm and loving. You can feel the love radiating from Jamie.
(A shape against the night window, glint of an eye. Dark heartbeat).
(The monster retreats again, repulsed).
(It's you, you think with something like horror and something like real relief and everything like love).
(Yes. At last. It's you. It's me. It's us).