Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
What is madness?
Insanity, being crazy, being mad, losing your mind. Nuts, bonkers, lunatic. A change in the way you think. The way it occurs could bad fast, but could also be slow. You end up thinking differently from the norm, remembering and forgetting in ways different from the other people you know. You want things that no one else wants. Things sane people would never want. You see things differently, enough to stop you in your tracks and just stare, bewildered, at the beauty before you. Or the horror. They insist most of it’s horror.
Is it?
Maybe the question is, what is sanity? Is sanity just the madness that most people suffer?
I think about these things so often that I end up confusing myself. I think about them so hard that the line between sanity and insanity — myself and the rest of the world — blurs, fades, and finally disappears all together. No one is sane, but no one is mad, either. We’re all just people, all these colours bleeding together under a fading sun. These days, I don’t even have to take drugs to feel that, and to believe it…I just have to think, and think, and think. Think until my mind spins. Does it slow down to the speed that everyone else is at, or does it speed up? Or am I kidding myself?
On bad days, I stop thinking altogether. I act on instinct, if I have to act at all. Getting out of bed — move foot. Move other foot. Turn light off. Sometimes it’s exhausted, lifting my hand to the switch. Slumber swoops and snaps around my face, come back, come sleep, this is empty time, sleep, sleep, make it disappear. On bad days, there are huge gaps in my memory — I know they happened, I know every day has twenty-four hours and each of those hours must be filled with something…but I wasn’t there. I was somewhere else, while my body and brain took over the hard part. Simply existing. But sometimes even they were too tired to make it work.
Days of lying on my back, staring at the ceiling. Water-stained, cobwebbed, gyprock. Faces parading in front of my closed eyes, Mum and Dad and Jayme, my sisters. Distant now, ghostly and transparent. I still loved them, don’t make any mistake about that. I loved them and I was grateful for them for putting up with me as long as they did — mad people are not easy to live with, which is why most of us here at the hotel lived on our own.
The hotel. The residents. Vincent, Nutmeg. Wender, the creepy jackass he was. Other friends of mine — Jeremy, who suffered from a learning disability and had the mind of a child, who would always make me laugh, who struck me as mightily intelligent, at times, much smarter than me. The Book Girl, who never spoke to anyone in public, who walked around cradled in her own arms out of a fear so bad that she had to sedate herself up to the eyeballs to leave the hotel to go shopping, or attend her disability clearance appointments, or anything, really. She had a real name, of course, but I called her Book (she was always carrying one with her, no matter where she went) and she seemed to like it. She loaned me her books, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez becoming my favourite. Amaranth, a writer who couldn’t listen to music, because it would make her lapse into hour-long crying jags. She had lost something, or had something taken from her. I think it was her heart. She got off her face on LSD whenever she could, said she ventured to other planets and place where she was a song, and didn’t have to pretend anymore. I believed her. I wanted to go there, with her, but LSD never did that with me…it just turned the world into an exploding flower of colour. Perhaps Amaranth’s world was private. I didn’t know.
These people.
And me.
We’re all mad here.
Killian had to have been mad, as well. Something about him had to have made him abnormal — even something as petty as a lack of money (why Vincent was here). Maybe he was here because someone had decided he was a sociopath, the way it may (or may not) have been with Nutmeg.
Maybe he was here because he looked like a demon and played music like an angel. But that seemed…
I don’t know what I said to him, in reply to his cheerful good morning. The world flipped itself on its ear and that was that, the end of cognisance for the most part. He walked past me, still with that summer song smile, and moved down the stairs — the lift was broken, apparently, that was why Nutmeg had used them — and I thought I could smell him, his scent, I thought I could…and then, nothing. The autopilot must have kicked in, because somehow I got back into my apartment with Mephisto never taking his hand off my shoulders. I must have said something sane, because Killian’s smile didn’t falter, the light in his eyes — why, why, why do I remember only that? — didn’t change. I must have moved away from the stairwell, I must have opened the door, I must have stumbled inside. I can’t remember it, nothing would wake me up.
I woke up to find myself curled against Mephisto in the tatty old single-seater sofa, shivering like someone had dumped a bucket of water over me, my eyes stinging as if they housed a colony of extremely angry wasps, my hands curled into tight fists around his lapels.
I suppose he is real, I thought nonsensically, as I surfaced. I noticed he had his arms around me, much like he had earlier in the morning when the terrible nightmare had dissolved me into tears. I shuddered violently as I climbed up and up within my body, closer towards consciousness.
“Elouise?” Mephisto murmured.
I uncurled my body from its crouched position, and straightened up to stare at the demon in his strangely bright blue eyes (like Killian’s, exactly like Killian’s).
“He looks exactly like you,” I whispered. My mouth felt like someone had filled it with egg whites, my stomach protested its existence. I laid my palms flat against his chest, desperate to…what? Feel his warmth? He was warm. I didn’t know much about demon physiology, I thought maybe he would have cold blood like a snake, cool skin, but there was warmth beneath the fabric and my hands. Don’t assume, Elouise, don’t assume…
“He looks exactly like you,” I said, again, a tremor lacing through my words. “How is…how does…how can he look like you? Why is that?”
Mephisto sighed, chest rising and falling beneath my shaking hands. “To a demon, there’s quite a bit of difference between his looks and mine…but from a human perspective, yes, I can understand how unnerving this is.”
“There’s no difference!”
“There’s quite a difference,” the demon repeated. “Quite. Can you tell the difference between a picture of a tree in summer, and a tree in winter?”
“Yes. Some trees lose their leaves in winter.”
“That is the difference between Mr. Lanois and I.”
“I don’t get it,” I mumbled. “I don’t…he’s exactly…why does he look like you? Why?”
“That,” Mephisto said, grimly, “Is also something I would very much like to know. I can be…vexed…when I don’t know something. It’s a rare occurrence.”
“Don’t blame me,” I muttered. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t order him to look like you.”
He chuckled softly and ran his hand down my hair, a simple gesture that was much more sensual and heavy than it probably would have been in a human’s touch. “I know, my dear. Very aware of that, in fact.”
“I know him,” I said. “I know him. He knows me. Nutmeg was right. And he didn’t…he didn’t…”
“Didn’t what?”
“Talk to me…like I was crazy.”
It was hard to explain, but Killian hadn’t. He had greeted me not in the patronising manner of an overly cheerful Mental Health worker, nor in the protective, parental way that Vincent and even Nutmeg did — one of those I couldn’t stand, the other I quite liked. But Killian hadn’t done either, he had greeted me in a third way…as if he was talking to any other girl, any normal girl, one who could think in a straight line and not disconnect at the sight of his face and be torn in half by strange recognition and fear and never talked to demons no one else could see. My heart twisted and hurt, for some reason, the quietest, tiniest pain, but still pain I didn’t want to face. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand anything…
“Don’t understand it,” I said, softly. I wondered if Mephisto would be able to hear me. “Don’t understand none of this, none of it.”
“Don’t worry–” Mephisto began, but was cut off when my apartment door opened with a sudden flying crash, and then was slammed closed again, with a noise so sharp and loud tearing through the quietness of my apartment it sounded like the world was ending.
Nutmeg stood just beyond the door, in the kitchen area, looking so utterly furious and wholly terrifying that I gasped, my hands becoming fists in Mephisto’s lapels once again.
“What the living hell do you think you’re doing here!” she screamed, sparks of anger flying off her skin, her eyes, out of her hair. Her glare was like a ragged-edged sword sweeping through the air, parting breath and light. I felt sick.
“I…I…I…” I couldn’t speak — I always knew that she was dangerous, there was that side of her that was wilder than the winter wind, but I never thought she’d turn on me. My throat closed over completely. “I…I…”
“Elouise, dear,” Mephisto murmured, pushing me gently out of his lap and standing up, dark flowers blooming in his eyes. “I think our dear lady here isn’t speaking to you…but to me.”
I gaped at him, gaped at Nutmeg, still standing in a fixture of fury, glaring, showing her white teeth. I then realised — her eyes weren’t fixed like sharp stones upon me, but instead upon Mephisto. She could see him as clearly as I could. She had seen him this morning, too, that was why she had reacted so badly.
She was not amused
“Who the fuck else would I be talking to?” Nutmeg snarled, advancing a few paces. She spat the curse word out with such venom I jumped a little.
Make sure you lock your door. Had that been a warning to me, or to him, or…?
“Young lady,” Mephisto said to her, with a perfectly ingratiating, flippant smile that had the power to both charm and irritate anyone, “I think you’re jumping the gun somewhat, here.” He bowed mockingly to her, grin never faltering.
“Don’t you give me that,” Nutmeg snapped, ferociously. “You tell me right now why you’re here. And what you’re doing with Elouise. And then, maybe, if I’m in a particularly good mood, I won’t tear out your entrails and hang them from my window.”
Mephisto laughed pleasantly. “I do like interesting characters. It makes life more interesting for an old man.”
“Leave!” she barked, her hands curling into fists.
“Now that,” he purred, “I can’t do.”
“Che cazzo stai dicendo?” she hissed, through clenched teeth. Languages had never really been my forte, even before when I could remember things, but I thought perhaps the words were Italian or Spanish. Was this Nutmeg’s native language? She had no accent when she was speaking in English, but…
The smiled disappeared from Mephisto’s face, and he regarded Nutmeg gravely. Once again the black flowers in his eyes blossomed.
“I could order you to leave, as well, did you know? I’m sure you do. You know who I am…I can use my power against you. I am the One Who Cannot Be Bidden.”
“I don’t care what you do to me,” she hissed, but she seemed a little paler. “I’m not the issue here—”
“Ah? This charming hotel hasn’t become your latest project?”
Nutmeg flinched as if Mephisto had slapped her, and I felt something inside her snap, like a branch put under tremendous pressure in a storm. She dropped her eyes to the floor, savagery shadowed by an elegance of long eyelashes.
“I have no ‘project’. This is my home. As close to it as…it just is. Leave me…us…be.”
Mephisto walked over to Nutmeg, putting his fingers beneath her chin and tilting her face upwards. I saw the sparkle of unshed tears glimmer in her eyes, but she still didn’t look directly at him.
“I think you were punished too harshly,” he murmured. “But if there is peace attainable for you, then I–”
“E…excuse me…” I croaked out, from my prone position on the tattered couch, clutching my knees with trembling hands. “What…what…what is going…what is going on? Please?”
Mephisto and Nutmeg stared at me for a few moments, doing nothing but blink. Mephisto was the first to move. He shook his head slightly, and withdrew his hand from Nutmeg’s face.
“My apologies, Elouise. That was very rude of us to simply leap into such a…spirited conversation and forget you were here.”
“You know…each other…?” I asked, hesitantly. Nutmeg looked askance at Mephisto, and shook her head.
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” she replied. “Elouise…you are aware that this isn’t a hallucination, aren’t you? That…this demon here…is as real as I am?” Mephisto shot her a contemptuous look.
“Yes,” I whispered. “He’s real. He…his name is Mephisto.”
Nutmeg’s eyebrows shot up, and again she looked at Mephisto. “That’s what you’re calling yourself, these days?”
“I have many names,” Mephisto replied blandly. “As do you.”
“True,” she muttered. She sat upon the arm of the couch and took my hands in hers, gently, looking at me intently, as if trying to figure out something that was written on my face. “Elouise…how did you summon him? It’s something…I could manage a demon of the twenty-seventh tier, but I was extremely talented…”
“I don’t understand,” I said. My head spun in circles, I felt like my eyes were going to explode out of my head. What was she saying? I didn’t understand a word of it. “I didn’t…I just…I was listening to the music, because I remembered only that, and then I turned around and he was here…”
“What?” she frowned, and once again turned to give Mephisto a hard look. He perched himself on the edge of my bed and crossed his legs, shaking his head.
“She didn’t summon me. I appeared here of my own free will. Of sorts.”
“Of sorts,” Nutmeg snorted. “What do you want with her, demon? Because if you corrupt this one, I swear…entrails. Window. And I pay extra rent for a large window, so let’s hope you don’t run out of entrails before I finish. I might get annoyed.”
“I’m not here to corrupt anyone, believe that or not,” Mephisto replied. He twisted his left hand in a elegant gesture, and a lit cigarette appeared between his fingers. I was suddenly very sure that if I looked in my box of Reds, there would be one missing. He inhaled deeply before continuing. “I have other people to accomplish that kind of nonsense for me. I am here…to discover. Why this one has lost her memory is something of deep importance to me.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I said in a tiny voice, impossible to hear.
“Lost her memory?” Nutmeg asked.