Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
As soon as the door closed (gently), Nutmeg whirled around and spat whatever she had been drinking into the sink (there were two glasses on my tiny little table, filled with clear liquid, but like I said, only 100 Pipers…). She was furious. Again.
“How do you explain that, exactly?!”
“Huh?” My head was still spinning, so I struggled to grasp her meaning. She looked outraged. “How do – what? Did I, have I, did I do something wrong again?”
“Not you.” Mephisto squeezed my shoulder, gently. “She was shouting at me, again. And–” to Nutmeg “–I don’t. I don’t understand it anymore than you do. Perhaps a coincidence?”
She snorted. “Nothing in life is coincidental or truly random. You know that.”
“I suppose I do,” Mephisto mused, perching on the arm of the sofa. Immediately, without thinking, I rested my head against his thigh. He chuckled, and began stroking my hair. Nutmeg looked a little rampageous, but I didn’t mind so much, not at that moment, anyway. Too drifty and sleepy, opiated.
“You’re supposed to rule over all knowledge…to covet it, to steal it when no one will give it to you!” Nutmeg ranted. “So how in the hell is it that you don’t know so much, then?”
“As I told you before,” Mephisto answered, in clipped tones, “I don’t know this, either, and believe me when I say it grates on me probably much more than it does you, my dear.”
“Pah,” Nutmeg spat, contemptuous.
“What’re you two talking about?” I ventured to ask, albeit timidly.
“Young Nutmeg here–”
“Will you stop calling me ‘young’, thank you!”
“–can see the…similarities…between Killian and myself, now.”
I sat up, surprised. “She can? You can, Nutmeg? How is it that–”
“Diabolical magic,” Mephisto replied.
I looked at him askance. “I’m starting to think that ‘diabolical magic’ is just code for ’shut up and stop asking questions, Elouise’.”
Mephisto smiled, inscrutable. “Now, why would you think that?”
“The newest resident to the seventh floor has exactly the same face as the devil that appeared in the bedroom of the girl who woke up realising she’d lost twelve months without even knowing it,” Nutmeg stated, ignoring the both of us, it seemed. “Something has got to add up here. Something strange is going on.”
“And I turned into a song, too,” I supplied. “Didn’t you tell her, Mephisto?”
“I did,” Mephisto replied, twisting a stray curl of my hair around his fingers, somewhat distractedly. “She doesn’t believe me.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth!” Nutmeg raged, flushing prettily, shaking a finger at Mephisto (who, of course, simply smiled tranquilly at her). “I said it was unlikely. You haven’t lived next door to the girl for the past three years, thank you kindly. Elouise…things overwhelm her, quite frequently.”
“I…well…that’s kinda true,” I mumbled.
“You see!” Nutmeg cried triumphantly.
“I am very, very in tune with music and its various transformative facets,” Mephisto replied, the line appearing between his brows. I wondered if he was getting irritated.
“But…but I think that…I think that I did it again, accidentally.”
“What?!” Nutmeg and Mephisto spoke with one voice, sapphire and nuclear-blue eyes turning their full, laser-beam attention onto me. I shrank into the couch a little.
“I turned into a song again. Before. When I…Killian…I threw up, and…oh, I paid Wender the rent…”
“You…threw up on Wender?” Nutmeg asked, puzzled.
“No! No, no, let me try again.” I took a deep breath, and tried to sort out my thoughts into something resembling chronological order. “I went down to pay the rent. But I felt sick, on the way up, and I kinda, I sorta, pretty much threw up in the elevator. Couldn’t move, see, just sorta…was crouching there.”
Mephisto looked concerned. “Are you all right now?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine, see…Killian was there when the door opened, and he looked after me, took me into his apartment, gave me some water.” I couldn’t help smiling, a tiny, private, diamond drop of a smile when I thought of Killian. “Then we talked about stuff. Because, this morning…when…he was the one who…told me about Amaranth. Again. I guess. So we just got to talking about stuff. Nutmeg,” I whined, at the playful smile that ghosted her lips and the single perfect brow raised. “I don’t even know him! He moved here during the missing time!”
(Conveniently ignoring my strange urge to kiss him until I forgot how to breathe…)
“I didn’t say anything,” Nutmeg protested, but she was still smiling.
“Keep going, Elouise,” Mephisto said.
“The missing time…I told him about it. Told Killian about it, I mean. He didn’t, he didn’t freak out of anything like that, he was…he believed me,” I whispered, still amazed. “He really believed me. And then we talked about, just anything, stuff, mirrors and Kerouac and that…and then he played his guitar.”
Mephisto nodded. “And you…felt yourself turning into a song again?”
“Yes,” I replied. “It’s not…not a bad feeling, not at all, no way…but then I come back into my body, and it’s all…like I just had a morphine milkshake.”
The devil grinned. “Have I ever mentioned that I love your analogies?”
“So Killian…played his guitar, and you…slipped away?” Nutmeg caught her lower lip between her teeth, frowning. I was still in a liquid kind of state of mind, so what caught me then was how beautiful she was – still, even in anger or frustration. So golden and beautiful and delicate, like a butterfly…
“That’s kind of how it is,” I said. “Mostly it’s like suddenly I can fly, I’ve grown wings ten times larger than my own body…and I can glide through the air. And nothing can hurt me anymore…nothing hurts, nothing’s wrong, and I’m not insane anymore. I’m perfect. This one perfect song. And I’m everywhere, everywhere…” I chanted dreamily, waves of lethargy still breaking over me, gentle as a sheet of white and saffron silk brushing my skin. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against Mephisto’s thigh again, too safe warm slippery with sleep to care. “That’s right. That’s what I should be, this song, this perfect thing…always and forever and surviving the ages, forever and ever…”
“Elouise,” Mephisto said hesitantly. “You can’t…that is, I’m not sure that it’s good for you, really.”
“But it feels right,” I yawned. “It feels perfect.”
“Human girls aren’t meant to turn into songs, you idiot,” Nutmeg said, but her voice was sad and gentle. “Look at what it does to you, you’re asleep on your feet.”
“Not on my feet. On the couch. Mephisto’s lap.” I giggled, but still couldn’t quite summon up the energy to open my eyes.
“Davvero,” Nutmeg muttered. I heard her get up and walk to the door. “I can’t talk to you when you’re half-asleep, sweet pea. But we will talk later, we’ll figure all this out. Demon, you take care of her or I’ll have you kneecapped. Have fun dancing without ‘em.”
“Duly noted,” Mephisto purred. Nutmeg muttered something beneath her breath again, I didn’t quite catch it, then the opening and closing of my apartment door. Mephisto clicked his tongue, and began stroking my hair again.
“If you go to sleep there, you’ll hurt your neck.”
“Too tired to move,” I mumbled. Even moving my lips was becoming exhausting. Turning myself into a song took a lot out of me, it seemed.
“Here…” I was gathered into Mephisto’s arms and lifted from the couch and laid on my bed. I relaxed further against the pillows, letting the lethargy billow over me, envelope me in the soft white feeling of sleep. “Go to sleep. Turning yourself into a song twice in one day, that would tire anyone out.”
I felt his fingertips brush down the side of my face, and turned my head to where I could feel him sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Will you still be here? When I wake up, I mean?”
A low chuckle. “Where else would I go, baby child?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured. “Somewhere. But don’t. Be here. Okay? Because I need you.”
“You’re so tired you don’t even know what you’re saying,” he replied, but his voice was as gentle as Nutmeg’s had been.
“In somnis veritas,” I mumbled, before giving in to sleep totally.