Everyone Loves a Lad Insane, Part 2, by James Wylder
“I was five and he was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
He wore black, and I wore white
He would always win the fight.
Bang Bang, He shot me down.
Bang Bang, I hit the ground.
Bang Bang, That awful sound
Bang Bang, My baby shot me down.” -Cher
My name is Jhe Aladdin. I’m a teenager, I’m ridiculously wealthy, my mom and dad saved the Universe, and my child hood friend is dead. Ariadne Phillips. She’s not the only one whose dead, Kagura is dead to. Boom. Somehow after all these years they just aren’t there anymore, and here I am at Celeste’s home, ready to say my condolences.
I missed the funeral. I wish someone had told me.
“Bang!” said Ariadne. I fell to the ground, clutching my breast. “Take that, you filthy Earther!” my mom, dad, and Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were having tea, or something that looked like tea, they didn’t look over. “I guess I’m dead.” I replied, staring up at the blue sky. “Where do we go from here?” I don’t think Ariadne expected so much philosophizing. I was 5.
“Yes, you’re dead.” A voice said, “Just like me. Now we have something in common Aladdin.”
“Shut up!” I yelled. Ariadne looked confused. I blushed. My parents looked over.
“Is everything okay over there?”
“Fine!” I yelled. “Sorry Ariadne.” She helped me up. I remember the feel of her hand, the creases of it. Those creases are rotting now.
“Are you okay Aladdin?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I like to… Pretend I talk to a ghost. It’s like a game.”
“Well that sounds fun. Let’s be ghosts.”
No, I thought, that’s the last thing I want.
I sat with Celeste at the table. Her husband wasn’t home. Calling her Celeste was weird. She was still Adriane’s mom, Missus Phillips, not Celeste. That sounded so cold. So adult. It was like acknowledging her daughter wasn’t there. I had hugged her when I came in the door. I brought flowers for the grave, and they sat on the table in an empty place setting for now. I couldn’t help but wonder whose. I couldn’t ask. I tried to say something to make it better, but we just sat there in silence. I almost wanted the voice in my head to speak again. It had stopped a few months back after all these years.
“Hello Aladdin. Aren’t you a strapping young man?”
“You can’t be here, this is my dream.”
“I’m always in your dreams.”
She was taller than me, but not entirely a person. She was a shadow of a person. Residue. She was blonde. Her clothes were tailored. I could make out strange details even though she was a blur.
“I’ve been watching you since you were a little baby, talking to you after mommy put you to bed.”
“I know. Get out of my head.”
“I won’t. And you don’t have any control over that. How does that make you feel?”
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”
“Powerless? Is it cause you’re just my puppet? My plaything? You’re everything I ever wanted you to be. And you’ll be more when you get older. You’ll probably be quite handsome.” She ran her finger along my back, but it wasn’t really my back, it was the back of my mind. It quivered. I felt sick.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your Empress. Not of any body of land, but of life and death. And of you.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“That’s not how this works.”
We were in a city, baroque, we flew over it, I moved with her and we saw the same things from the same eyes. “This is a city I built in my mind, out of boredom. You do realize how pitifully little there is to do when you’re dead? You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. There’s nothing to break up the monotony unless you make it. And I made you.” The city was vast. People made of dreams slipped around beneath us. There was a man who was the memory of hand running along the fur of a cat, a woman made of a drop of blood hitting the ground, splashing up upon impact, and a child make of the dream of sitting in a throne. I passed over it all. We did. She held me too close.
“What am I then? Who am I?”
“You’re playtime.”
“Your mother and father must be so proud of you Aladdin, though I admit you take after Kalingkata way more than your mom. And you’re a bit more of a maverick then either of them.” I tried to ignore the end of that sentence.
“I hope they are to. Dad’s training me to do his kind of work. I’m not sure how Mom feels about it.”
“They’ll be alright, your brother and sisters turned out alright.” I took some solace in that. At least one kid could be the failure. I had that to fall back on. I turned to see if anyone was following us. No.
“Thanks Missus Phillips.”
“Please, call me Celeste.”
“Sorry, Celeste.”
“Its okay, its just, when you say that it makes me think of the two of you playing, and it makes me think that I was…” She started crying. I held her. I cried to. It took a long time before we both stopped, and it was cold by then, so I walked her back to the house and headed for Adriane’s grave, flowers in hand. She hadn’t had to finish the sentence. I knew it ended in, “her Mom.”
Nightingale was a welcome addition to my life. Though I’m embarrassed to say it. Sometimes I have dreams where she is in them, and I like them because the ghost never shows up in those dreams. She wouldn’t appreciate me saying that. I don’t think. Either way, I have serious mental health issues, at least according to Fei. I’ve been to a lot of therapy, but I’m not sure anything can change those dreams.
Nightingale listened. I trusted her a lot, and I can’t figure out way. She’s older than me, grew up on Earth, and is the first mate on a pirate ship. Not to mention James.
There are few people who intimidate me. Ghosts do that to a person. James scares the bejesus out of me. I wish I could write how he looked at me correctly, if I was a rolley-polley I’d curl up in a ball and hide when he does that. The thing is that he is ridiculously strong, kind, sacrifices himself for others, and has abs like a tank.
I can never measure up to him. I think that’s what scares me.
When I was little my mother would sing me to sleep, and I’d look up and feel safe and loved. She would hold my tiny hand as she let me off for school, or my dad would. When I got older, they spent less time with me and more with business. I still had the Ghost to talk to.
Hanging out with Nightingale, Greed, and their crew for that short time I felt welcomed briefly into a family. I dreamed of going back there. I prayed I would go back there and see them again.
Now half of them are dead.
She was at my windowsill. The drapes waved, as did her hair and her willowy clothes.
“How are you here?”
“I’m not, you’re dreaming.”
“I’m always dreaming.”
She kissed me. I felt sick.
“I want you to understand something Aladdin.”
“What’s that?”
“Eternity. I want you to feel what its like to die alone.”
I was her. The Ghost. I walked in her shoes and my hair dangled down. I went into a room. I talked to a video screen with another woman’s face on it. I was catty. It was a blur then. There was gas. And I fell alone into an escape pod, and from the view screen watched the stars become endless, separated from the world. I was alone. My slender white hand touched the glass. I saw my skin and fingernails glow in the faint starlight.
And then the bombs went off. They ripped me apart, and I felt my body vaporize. In that moment, I saw my life flash before my eyes, sort of, her life, and scenes from a different life on Gongen. They didn’t make sense. There was a boy smiling. He was dead and a young man was standing over him. I was shooting him the head in Chicago-Plex. My father pointed up at the stars, but I wasn’t her anymore, I didn’t know who I was. I saw a girl smile. We kissed. She died. I was in space, and I was vapor, and I was dead.
My father knocked on the door. I’m not sure how young I was. A woman opened the door, she had brown hair. She wrinkled her nose.
“Hi, I’m one of the most powerful people in the Universe. I brought my kid, can I come in and talk to your husband? I brought tea!” My father had spent the last twenty minutes thinking of the weirdest and yet most mundane thing he could say when we got to the door. We’d heated up the tea around the corner while people looked at us funny. I never questioned his methodology. We were let inside. He also brought cookies. A man, frankly fairly terrifying came out. A man I recognized from stories, who I thought was a story like the tooth fairy. He was death. When the nice brown haired woman asked if I wanted to go play with Tobias, whoever that was, I followed her ushering unquestionably.
I told the other kids at school my dad brought death tea and cookies and cracked jokes with him. The other kids already knew my dad from the stories. They believed it.
Tobias was older than me, a little, and was playing with a group of metal spiders. It looked like they were dancing.
“What are those?”
“Who are you?”
“Aladdin. My dad’s talking business or is giving away tea and cookies.”
“Tobias. They’re eye-ders.”
I looked at one. Its singular namesake eye swiveled to look at me. It was shy, and backed away. Another one was more outgoing.
“Beat his face in.” The Ghost said.
“They’re all very distinctive. I name this one Earl.”
“You can’t do that, his name is Four.”
“That’s not a very creative name.”
“Its his name though.”
The eye-der stumbled around my palm, and up my arm. It tickled.
“Does your dad let you mess with them?”
Tobias grinned, “let and do are different.”
We we’re going to be great friends.
“Gouge his eye out. The left one.” The Ghost said.
We played, though other children might have called it work.
“Time to go Aladdin, we’ve set the work up.”
“Can we come back?”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“I think it’s a good idea to get on good terms with death daddy.”
We left, but Dad didn’t stop laughing for sometime.
“…Malcolm Carmichael!” She screamed. I woke up in a sweat. I could feel her smiling. I could hear her crying.
“You didn’t do what I said. You should have hurt him.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“You’ll want to.”
“You can’t make me.”
“You shouldn’t have said that.”
I found myself in a white room.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in your head. And I’m going to leave you here Aladdin. I’m going to leave you here for a year.”
“You can’t leave me in here for a year!” Silence.
“You can’t, I’ll need food. I’ll die!” Silence
There was only silence. For a year. I can’t really describe that. How alone I felt. How much I cried. How I screamed and yelled and carved notches into the walls every night.
It was 12 months later I heard another sound.
“Do you miss me?”
“Please let me out.”
“I haven’t locked you up anywhere. Its all here, inside your head. Aren’t you the master of your own destiny Aladdin? Can’t you make your dreams come true? Tell me you can’t.” I was curled up on the cold floor, my tears puddling on the imaginary concrete.
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Good. Now tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours you can do whatever you want with me.” I said, in between the gasps of tears.
“That’s a good little boy. Whose your mommy little boy?”
“My Mommy is?” It took me a moment, “Jhe Hotaru is.”
“No she’s not. Not anymore. Tell me who your mommy is now little boy.” I tried to wipe the tears away and make them stop. I knew what I had to say.
“You are. You are Ghost lady. You’re my mommy.” I struggled to think of how to beg my way out of this, “Empress.” I felt her laugh.
“My name is Jade Darkshadow little Aladdin. And I’m your mommy now. Welcome to the family.”
I sat up. “So I can go?”
“I’ll be back for you in a week.”
“No!” The worst part was, while I waited those days out, I began to feel grateful she was letting me go. That she wasn’t so bad. I hated myself for thinking that. Seven days later, I woke up. It was the next morning. I ran to Hotaru and hugged her. “Hotaru Hotaru I’m so scared.” She held me. And my heart slowed down. My real mommy. I could still hear the Ghost laughing. I didn’t stop clinging for an hour. I told her it was a nightmare. After some time, I pictured the Ghost in my head, and my malice grew. “You’re my mommy,” I told my real mommy. “Yes? I am,” she replied. Good. I could feel the Ghost’s anger ripple along my spine. I treasured that feeling.
Kotone and I were skipping rocks at the stream. I wasn’t very good, which means plainly, she was skipping rocks, and mine plopped in. I didn’t want to learn. I got the impression the Ghost liked the violence of the kerplunk.
“You’re doing it all wrong Aladdin, you need to choose flat smooth stones, like this one.”
“Yeah, sure.” I picked up a big rock. It made a splash.
“Stupid brother.” I frowned, “Sorry.” She narrowed her eyes a bit.
“How bout I show you?”
“Throw her into the river and push her face into the stream. Hold her there while she thrashes. Wait till she stops.”
“Sure.” She showed me the rock, and hold to hold it, and put her arm over mine and did the motion together till I got it down. It took me a few tries but I got it down. We laughed together. I love my sister.
When we finished, she headed home first. I told her I’d be right behind her. I ran into the woods. I ran and ran till my legs burned and my lungs were sore. I fell over.
“I’m not hurting anyone.”
“You will. Or I’ll put you back in the room.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“I can do other things to you. Things you don’t want to know.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Empress Darkshadow. I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I want to see blood Aladdin. You’re failing me. Get me some blood.” I looked around, I was in the woods, there wasn’t… There was a squirrel. I stared it down. I pulled some bread I’d saved for the fish. My hand shook as I placed it on the ground. I felt my hand go around a rock.
“The room Aladdin.”
The Squirrel skittered towards the bread, it looked at it. It bit it. I smashed the rock down on it. Again. And again. And again. The tears ran down my face as the blood splattered me.
“Good boy Aladdin. Good boy.”
Tobias, Glenda and I looked down the hole.
“Who goes down first?” Tobias led.
“Not me.” I muttered.
“Nose goes!” Ariadne spat.
Naturally, hands on my knees peering down it, I didn’t do very well. Tobias has the knotted rope ready, and my protestations this wasn’t safe were only met with the usual “its fine!” from my friends, and “hurt them horrifically” from the Ghost. The two of them held the rope, and I carefully went down the rope, holding a flashlight in my teeth. If any of our parents found us, we were going to get so grounded. Though getting locked in my room full of things just didn’t have the same bite anymore, not that I told my parents that.
The hole was fleshy, and I felt like I was climbing down someone’s vein or nostril. We were on a Quay ship. The climb took longer than I expected, but I reached the bottom, found my footing on the squishy ground, and untoothed my flashlight.
“Are you alive Aladdin?”
“Yeah!”
“What’s down there?”
“Don’t know yet!” I shined the light around. “There isn’t much room down here--,“ The light shone on a Quay. I stopped. Its eyes turned to face me, but not its torso. It seemed shorter than usual, and I quickly learned why: its legs had been torn off at the torso. Its long body stretching back along what looked like a simple metal board with wheels. The Quay still had its arms, and it slowly turned its body to move towards me,
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE, CHILD?”
“…exploring….”
“SPEAK UP BOY.”
“Exploring!”
It nodded. “A NOBLE VENTURE. I HEAR YOU HAVE COMPANIONS. ARE THEY JOINING US?”
I was going to say no, but I heard their grunts climbing the rope. I just hoped they didn’t secure the rope by tacking to the living floor.
“AH, I SEE THEY HAVE JOINED US.”
Tobias and Glen shined their flashlights on the Quay.
“Look at it! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Don’t be silly Glen you’ve seen lots of Quay.”
“Not on wheels!”
“ITS MY FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR BETRAYING MY PEOPLE. I HOPE YOU NEVER SUFFER SUCH A FATE AS HAVING YOUR LIMBS TORN OFF AND BEING FORCED TO LIVE IN A DARK HOLE.”
I could agree with all of that.
“What do you do here?”
“WHAT I AM GOOD AT, COME, TAKE A LOOK.” He ushered us with his paw, and we slowly stepped forward. Hidden by the Quay’s massive form and the shadow was a canvas of fleshy matter and vines. The Quay delicately pulled a tubelike growth, and slid into a stitch he had cut in another plant.
“What is that?” Tobias couldn’t take his eyes off, none of us could.
“Plant weaving. If you know the way to, you can create living works of art from plants. It’s a long and storied art form of the Quay… One few know how to do… And the only reason I deserve to live.” His voice had softened. “I am creating a portrait of Aequitas, one that will live forever even if he doesn’t as long as it is properly watered and fed.”
“It doesn’t look anything like Aequitas” Ariadne murmured.
“It won’t for a few more months. The plants must grow together and be tended precisely. It is not an art for the patient.”
The logistics of it flooded my brain. “Do you even control the plants reproductive cycles to ensure it remains the same?” If a Quay could smile, he did.
“You are clever, child. Creating a Plant Weave is creating an ecosystem. You must learn to become like the Ancestors, patient, and tender, but merciless when you need to be.”
I am not a touchy feely person, and I wasn’t sure about my companions, but we just stood there, holding hands, watching the master carefully move and assemble the picture. We watched together for hours. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Hours later when the shipwide alert and scouring of the ship found us in a hole watching art, it was also the most trouble I’d ever been in. As the Quay security carted us off, I did get to ask one more question.
“What’s your name?”
“I have renounced all names since my failure. But I may be given one.”
“Call him Earl.” Tobias smirked.
“Earl indeed.” I replied.
“Why Earl?” Glenda said, confused.
Tobias and I shared a glance before we were rushed back into the arms of angry parents.
We visited again, and often.
I knelt down in front of Ariadne’s grave. I set the flowers there, and said prayers for her. I prayed for her soul, for her parents, for me, for my family, for my friends. And I prayed that God please listen because we needed it. The wind blew over the grave, and her tombstone stared blankly back at me. And I was alone. There was no ghost. There was no Ariadne. No Kagura. No Anyone. Just me and this gravestone. And I thought of Nightingale and how she had given a shit about me, and then I thought about how awful her life was. I thought about James, and what pain he had to be going through every day with those body modifications, and I wondered if I was just as much an intruder into Tobias’ ship as the Ghost was in my life.
“Just come out already!” I screamed.
“Just talk to me! Where are you, you stupid fucking Empress of nothing!? Come out already! Talk to me! TALK TO ME! PLEASE!” I screamed and cried into the ground. Ariadne was dead. She’d never go and visit Earl with me again. She’d always be dead. The Ghost was gone. And I was alone.
I pulled my face up from the dirt, and wiped my tears off. I couldn’t be this weak. Not if I didn’t want to go back to the room. I stood up. And dusted myself off.
“Goodbye Ariadne.” I kissed the tombstone.
“You used to shoot me down.”
We rode on horses made of sticks
He wore black, and I wore white
He would always win the fight.
Bang Bang, He shot me down.
Bang Bang, I hit the ground.
Bang Bang, That awful sound
Bang Bang, My baby shot me down.” -Cher
My name is Jhe Aladdin. I’m a teenager, I’m ridiculously wealthy, my mom and dad saved the Universe, and my child hood friend is dead. Ariadne Phillips. She’s not the only one whose dead, Kagura is dead to. Boom. Somehow after all these years they just aren’t there anymore, and here I am at Celeste’s home, ready to say my condolences.
I missed the funeral. I wish someone had told me.
“Bang!” said Ariadne. I fell to the ground, clutching my breast. “Take that, you filthy Earther!” my mom, dad, and Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were having tea, or something that looked like tea, they didn’t look over. “I guess I’m dead.” I replied, staring up at the blue sky. “Where do we go from here?” I don’t think Ariadne expected so much philosophizing. I was 5.
“Yes, you’re dead.” A voice said, “Just like me. Now we have something in common Aladdin.”
“Shut up!” I yelled. Ariadne looked confused. I blushed. My parents looked over.
“Is everything okay over there?”
“Fine!” I yelled. “Sorry Ariadne.” She helped me up. I remember the feel of her hand, the creases of it. Those creases are rotting now.
“Are you okay Aladdin?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I like to… Pretend I talk to a ghost. It’s like a game.”
“Well that sounds fun. Let’s be ghosts.”
No, I thought, that’s the last thing I want.
I sat with Celeste at the table. Her husband wasn’t home. Calling her Celeste was weird. She was still Adriane’s mom, Missus Phillips, not Celeste. That sounded so cold. So adult. It was like acknowledging her daughter wasn’t there. I had hugged her when I came in the door. I brought flowers for the grave, and they sat on the table in an empty place setting for now. I couldn’t help but wonder whose. I couldn’t ask. I tried to say something to make it better, but we just sat there in silence. I almost wanted the voice in my head to speak again. It had stopped a few months back after all these years.
“Hello Aladdin. Aren’t you a strapping young man?”
“You can’t be here, this is my dream.”
“I’m always in your dreams.”
She was taller than me, but not entirely a person. She was a shadow of a person. Residue. She was blonde. Her clothes were tailored. I could make out strange details even though she was a blur.
“I’ve been watching you since you were a little baby, talking to you after mommy put you to bed.”
“I know. Get out of my head.”
“I won’t. And you don’t have any control over that. How does that make you feel?”
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”
“Powerless? Is it cause you’re just my puppet? My plaything? You’re everything I ever wanted you to be. And you’ll be more when you get older. You’ll probably be quite handsome.” She ran her finger along my back, but it wasn’t really my back, it was the back of my mind. It quivered. I felt sick.
“Who are you?”
“I’m your Empress. Not of any body of land, but of life and death. And of you.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
“That’s not how this works.”
We were in a city, baroque, we flew over it, I moved with her and we saw the same things from the same eyes. “This is a city I built in my mind, out of boredom. You do realize how pitifully little there is to do when you’re dead? You don’t sleep. You don’t eat. There’s nothing to break up the monotony unless you make it. And I made you.” The city was vast. People made of dreams slipped around beneath us. There was a man who was the memory of hand running along the fur of a cat, a woman made of a drop of blood hitting the ground, splashing up upon impact, and a child make of the dream of sitting in a throne. I passed over it all. We did. She held me too close.
“What am I then? Who am I?”
“You’re playtime.”
“Your mother and father must be so proud of you Aladdin, though I admit you take after Kalingkata way more than your mom. And you’re a bit more of a maverick then either of them.” I tried to ignore the end of that sentence.
“I hope they are to. Dad’s training me to do his kind of work. I’m not sure how Mom feels about it.”
“They’ll be alright, your brother and sisters turned out alright.” I took some solace in that. At least one kid could be the failure. I had that to fall back on. I turned to see if anyone was following us. No.
“Thanks Missus Phillips.”
“Please, call me Celeste.”
“Sorry, Celeste.”
“Its okay, its just, when you say that it makes me think of the two of you playing, and it makes me think that I was…” She started crying. I held her. I cried to. It took a long time before we both stopped, and it was cold by then, so I walked her back to the house and headed for Adriane’s grave, flowers in hand. She hadn’t had to finish the sentence. I knew it ended in, “her Mom.”
Nightingale was a welcome addition to my life. Though I’m embarrassed to say it. Sometimes I have dreams where she is in them, and I like them because the ghost never shows up in those dreams. She wouldn’t appreciate me saying that. I don’t think. Either way, I have serious mental health issues, at least according to Fei. I’ve been to a lot of therapy, but I’m not sure anything can change those dreams.
Nightingale listened. I trusted her a lot, and I can’t figure out way. She’s older than me, grew up on Earth, and is the first mate on a pirate ship. Not to mention James.
There are few people who intimidate me. Ghosts do that to a person. James scares the bejesus out of me. I wish I could write how he looked at me correctly, if I was a rolley-polley I’d curl up in a ball and hide when he does that. The thing is that he is ridiculously strong, kind, sacrifices himself for others, and has abs like a tank.
I can never measure up to him. I think that’s what scares me.
When I was little my mother would sing me to sleep, and I’d look up and feel safe and loved. She would hold my tiny hand as she let me off for school, or my dad would. When I got older, they spent less time with me and more with business. I still had the Ghost to talk to.
Hanging out with Nightingale, Greed, and their crew for that short time I felt welcomed briefly into a family. I dreamed of going back there. I prayed I would go back there and see them again.
Now half of them are dead.
She was at my windowsill. The drapes waved, as did her hair and her willowy clothes.
“How are you here?”
“I’m not, you’re dreaming.”
“I’m always dreaming.”
She kissed me. I felt sick.
“I want you to understand something Aladdin.”
“What’s that?”
“Eternity. I want you to feel what its like to die alone.”
I was her. The Ghost. I walked in her shoes and my hair dangled down. I went into a room. I talked to a video screen with another woman’s face on it. I was catty. It was a blur then. There was gas. And I fell alone into an escape pod, and from the view screen watched the stars become endless, separated from the world. I was alone. My slender white hand touched the glass. I saw my skin and fingernails glow in the faint starlight.
And then the bombs went off. They ripped me apart, and I felt my body vaporize. In that moment, I saw my life flash before my eyes, sort of, her life, and scenes from a different life on Gongen. They didn’t make sense. There was a boy smiling. He was dead and a young man was standing over him. I was shooting him the head in Chicago-Plex. My father pointed up at the stars, but I wasn’t her anymore, I didn’t know who I was. I saw a girl smile. We kissed. She died. I was in space, and I was vapor, and I was dead.
My father knocked on the door. I’m not sure how young I was. A woman opened the door, she had brown hair. She wrinkled her nose.
“Hi, I’m one of the most powerful people in the Universe. I brought my kid, can I come in and talk to your husband? I brought tea!” My father had spent the last twenty minutes thinking of the weirdest and yet most mundane thing he could say when we got to the door. We’d heated up the tea around the corner while people looked at us funny. I never questioned his methodology. We were let inside. He also brought cookies. A man, frankly fairly terrifying came out. A man I recognized from stories, who I thought was a story like the tooth fairy. He was death. When the nice brown haired woman asked if I wanted to go play with Tobias, whoever that was, I followed her ushering unquestionably.
I told the other kids at school my dad brought death tea and cookies and cracked jokes with him. The other kids already knew my dad from the stories. They believed it.
Tobias was older than me, a little, and was playing with a group of metal spiders. It looked like they were dancing.
“What are those?”
“Who are you?”
“Aladdin. My dad’s talking business or is giving away tea and cookies.”
“Tobias. They’re eye-ders.”
I looked at one. Its singular namesake eye swiveled to look at me. It was shy, and backed away. Another one was more outgoing.
“Beat his face in.” The Ghost said.
“They’re all very distinctive. I name this one Earl.”
“You can’t do that, his name is Four.”
“That’s not a very creative name.”
“Its his name though.”
The eye-der stumbled around my palm, and up my arm. It tickled.
“Does your dad let you mess with them?”
Tobias grinned, “let and do are different.”
We we’re going to be great friends.
“Gouge his eye out. The left one.” The Ghost said.
We played, though other children might have called it work.
“Time to go Aladdin, we’ve set the work up.”
“Can we come back?”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“I think it’s a good idea to get on good terms with death daddy.”
We left, but Dad didn’t stop laughing for sometime.
“…Malcolm Carmichael!” She screamed. I woke up in a sweat. I could feel her smiling. I could hear her crying.
“You didn’t do what I said. You should have hurt him.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“You’ll want to.”
“You can’t make me.”
“You shouldn’t have said that.”
I found myself in a white room.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in your head. And I’m going to leave you here Aladdin. I’m going to leave you here for a year.”
“You can’t leave me in here for a year!” Silence.
“You can’t, I’ll need food. I’ll die!” Silence
There was only silence. For a year. I can’t really describe that. How alone I felt. How much I cried. How I screamed and yelled and carved notches into the walls every night.
It was 12 months later I heard another sound.
“Do you miss me?”
“Please let me out.”
“I haven’t locked you up anywhere. Its all here, inside your head. Aren’t you the master of your own destiny Aladdin? Can’t you make your dreams come true? Tell me you can’t.” I was curled up on the cold floor, my tears puddling on the imaginary concrete.
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Good. Now tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours you can do whatever you want with me.” I said, in between the gasps of tears.
“That’s a good little boy. Whose your mommy little boy?”
“My Mommy is?” It took me a moment, “Jhe Hotaru is.”
“No she’s not. Not anymore. Tell me who your mommy is now little boy.” I tried to wipe the tears away and make them stop. I knew what I had to say.
“You are. You are Ghost lady. You’re my mommy.” I struggled to think of how to beg my way out of this, “Empress.” I felt her laugh.
“My name is Jade Darkshadow little Aladdin. And I’m your mommy now. Welcome to the family.”
I sat up. “So I can go?”
“I’ll be back for you in a week.”
“No!” The worst part was, while I waited those days out, I began to feel grateful she was letting me go. That she wasn’t so bad. I hated myself for thinking that. Seven days later, I woke up. It was the next morning. I ran to Hotaru and hugged her. “Hotaru Hotaru I’m so scared.” She held me. And my heart slowed down. My real mommy. I could still hear the Ghost laughing. I didn’t stop clinging for an hour. I told her it was a nightmare. After some time, I pictured the Ghost in my head, and my malice grew. “You’re my mommy,” I told my real mommy. “Yes? I am,” she replied. Good. I could feel the Ghost’s anger ripple along my spine. I treasured that feeling.
Kotone and I were skipping rocks at the stream. I wasn’t very good, which means plainly, she was skipping rocks, and mine plopped in. I didn’t want to learn. I got the impression the Ghost liked the violence of the kerplunk.
“You’re doing it all wrong Aladdin, you need to choose flat smooth stones, like this one.”
“Yeah, sure.” I picked up a big rock. It made a splash.
“Stupid brother.” I frowned, “Sorry.” She narrowed her eyes a bit.
“How bout I show you?”
“Throw her into the river and push her face into the stream. Hold her there while she thrashes. Wait till she stops.”
“Sure.” She showed me the rock, and hold to hold it, and put her arm over mine and did the motion together till I got it down. It took me a few tries but I got it down. We laughed together. I love my sister.
When we finished, she headed home first. I told her I’d be right behind her. I ran into the woods. I ran and ran till my legs burned and my lungs were sore. I fell over.
“I’m not hurting anyone.”
“You will. Or I’ll put you back in the room.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“I can do other things to you. Things you don’t want to know.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry Empress Darkshadow. I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I want to see blood Aladdin. You’re failing me. Get me some blood.” I looked around, I was in the woods, there wasn’t… There was a squirrel. I stared it down. I pulled some bread I’d saved for the fish. My hand shook as I placed it on the ground. I felt my hand go around a rock.
“The room Aladdin.”
The Squirrel skittered towards the bread, it looked at it. It bit it. I smashed the rock down on it. Again. And again. And again. The tears ran down my face as the blood splattered me.
“Good boy Aladdin. Good boy.”
Tobias, Glenda and I looked down the hole.
“Who goes down first?” Tobias led.
“Not me.” I muttered.
“Nose goes!” Ariadne spat.
Naturally, hands on my knees peering down it, I didn’t do very well. Tobias has the knotted rope ready, and my protestations this wasn’t safe were only met with the usual “its fine!” from my friends, and “hurt them horrifically” from the Ghost. The two of them held the rope, and I carefully went down the rope, holding a flashlight in my teeth. If any of our parents found us, we were going to get so grounded. Though getting locked in my room full of things just didn’t have the same bite anymore, not that I told my parents that.
The hole was fleshy, and I felt like I was climbing down someone’s vein or nostril. We were on a Quay ship. The climb took longer than I expected, but I reached the bottom, found my footing on the squishy ground, and untoothed my flashlight.
“Are you alive Aladdin?”
“Yeah!”
“What’s down there?”
“Don’t know yet!” I shined the light around. “There isn’t much room down here--,“ The light shone on a Quay. I stopped. Its eyes turned to face me, but not its torso. It seemed shorter than usual, and I quickly learned why: its legs had been torn off at the torso. Its long body stretching back along what looked like a simple metal board with wheels. The Quay still had its arms, and it slowly turned its body to move towards me,
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE, CHILD?”
“…exploring….”
“SPEAK UP BOY.”
“Exploring!”
It nodded. “A NOBLE VENTURE. I HEAR YOU HAVE COMPANIONS. ARE THEY JOINING US?”
I was going to say no, but I heard their grunts climbing the rope. I just hoped they didn’t secure the rope by tacking to the living floor.
“AH, I SEE THEY HAVE JOINED US.”
Tobias and Glen shined their flashlights on the Quay.
“Look at it! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“Don’t be silly Glen you’ve seen lots of Quay.”
“Not on wheels!”
“ITS MY FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR BETRAYING MY PEOPLE. I HOPE YOU NEVER SUFFER SUCH A FATE AS HAVING YOUR LIMBS TORN OFF AND BEING FORCED TO LIVE IN A DARK HOLE.”
I could agree with all of that.
“What do you do here?”
“WHAT I AM GOOD AT, COME, TAKE A LOOK.” He ushered us with his paw, and we slowly stepped forward. Hidden by the Quay’s massive form and the shadow was a canvas of fleshy matter and vines. The Quay delicately pulled a tubelike growth, and slid into a stitch he had cut in another plant.
“What is that?” Tobias couldn’t take his eyes off, none of us could.
“Plant weaving. If you know the way to, you can create living works of art from plants. It’s a long and storied art form of the Quay… One few know how to do… And the only reason I deserve to live.” His voice had softened. “I am creating a portrait of Aequitas, one that will live forever even if he doesn’t as long as it is properly watered and fed.”
“It doesn’t look anything like Aequitas” Ariadne murmured.
“It won’t for a few more months. The plants must grow together and be tended precisely. It is not an art for the patient.”
The logistics of it flooded my brain. “Do you even control the plants reproductive cycles to ensure it remains the same?” If a Quay could smile, he did.
“You are clever, child. Creating a Plant Weave is creating an ecosystem. You must learn to become like the Ancestors, patient, and tender, but merciless when you need to be.”
I am not a touchy feely person, and I wasn’t sure about my companions, but we just stood there, holding hands, watching the master carefully move and assemble the picture. We watched together for hours. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Hours later when the shipwide alert and scouring of the ship found us in a hole watching art, it was also the most trouble I’d ever been in. As the Quay security carted us off, I did get to ask one more question.
“What’s your name?”
“I have renounced all names since my failure. But I may be given one.”
“Call him Earl.” Tobias smirked.
“Earl indeed.” I replied.
“Why Earl?” Glenda said, confused.
Tobias and I shared a glance before we were rushed back into the arms of angry parents.
We visited again, and often.
I knelt down in front of Ariadne’s grave. I set the flowers there, and said prayers for her. I prayed for her soul, for her parents, for me, for my family, for my friends. And I prayed that God please listen because we needed it. The wind blew over the grave, and her tombstone stared blankly back at me. And I was alone. There was no ghost. There was no Ariadne. No Kagura. No Anyone. Just me and this gravestone. And I thought of Nightingale and how she had given a shit about me, and then I thought about how awful her life was. I thought about James, and what pain he had to be going through every day with those body modifications, and I wondered if I was just as much an intruder into Tobias’ ship as the Ghost was in my life.
“Just come out already!” I screamed.
“Just talk to me! Where are you, you stupid fucking Empress of nothing!? Come out already! Talk to me! TALK TO ME! PLEASE!” I screamed and cried into the ground. Ariadne was dead. She’d never go and visit Earl with me again. She’d always be dead. The Ghost was gone. And I was alone.
I pulled my face up from the dirt, and wiped my tears off. I couldn’t be this weak. Not if I didn’t want to go back to the room. I stood up. And dusted myself off.
“Goodbye Ariadne.” I kissed the tombstone.
“You used to shoot me down.”