Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
I knocked on Killian’s door, shifting from foot to foot. I felt a pang of sharp regret as the guitar playing stopped, and couldn’t help grinning at him as he opened the door.
“Am I too early?” I asked, the same moment he asked, “Am I too loud?”
I giggled, and he grinned. He was wearing black boxer shorts and a Brisbane Lions polo shirt celebrating the back-to-back triple premiership wins, which had seen much, much better days, but looked extremely comfortable. His hair was loose, close to wild but not quite – I got the feeling he’d run his fingers through it, but not a brush. Ah, who minded? It was Saturday morning, after all.
“No,” I answered his question, shaking my head. “Am I–”
“Not too early,” he smiled widely. “Excuse the outfit, by the way…although these are my very best boxer shorts, I’ll have you know.” He winked at me, and I giggled again. “Come on in. You had breakfast? And I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“Yep,” I answered, closing the door behind me. “And no, I was already awake. I heard the music and I…” I blushed. How was I supposed to phrase that? I heard your music and suddenly all I wanted to do was fling myself into your arms? Despite the fact that not even the most talented guitarist in the world could play with their arms full of someone.
“The piece I was playing just before?” Killian asked, plonking himself down on his sofa and motioning for me to do the same. He placed the Desert Bastard across his lap. “That was a sort of…experimental piece of sorts. Won’t be complete until I get some pedals and amps and the right gear…which will not be happening this pay week, let me tell you.”
“But…it sounds fine as it is now!” I said, blinking.
“Thank you!” Killian looked pleased – was that a hint of a blush across his cheeks? “But I want to make it sound better.”
“What’s it called?” I asked. “The title of the piece, I mean.”
“My working title’s ‘Desert Sky’,” he replied. “Not sure why, seeing as the lyrics are yet to come along, but…there you go.”
“Can you…” I smiled shyly, a storm of butterflies whirling into life in my stomach. “Can you…play it again? It’s…I mean, I know you think it’s unfinished, but it’s so…”
Killian smiled, glowed. “Of course. Just for you.”
Just for me…
The song awoke and uncurled, opened its wide eyes, and floated up, up, up and further, through the mirror, through the remaining ten stories of the hotel, and then shuddered into life, exploding in the still-early morning sunlight, showering down over the building. Slipping through the air like a silk ribbon twisting around someone’s fingers – Killian’s long, slender, musician’s hands. It permeated the air, it was inescapable. I breathed in and I breathed it in, and I was transported.
Rising and falling notes, rippling through the air and through the light. Exploding colours, fading colours – sky blue so pure it made me want to cry, satiny white, the earthy tones rising and rising, diving down again, reds and ochres and goldenrods, soil the colour of black coffee, of mocha, of cocoa. No scents, nothing of that kind; no muted murmurs of Nag Champa or insidious comforts of cigarette smoke, no aging apartment complex. The sun was so bright, so violent, it had stolen all the scent from the land, except for the smell of pure heat. There was no water in the air; you could dance through it like a butterfly.
And I suppose that’s what I did.
I lifted my arms, raising my face to the obssessive sun – so in love with the land below it, it abolished all that would try to stain it or lay claim to it, this was the sun’s land – and my feet moved. Patterns traced in the air were patterns across the dust-fine sand, dirt. I felt it sink into me, relentless, becoming part of my blood, my bones, my marrow, finding the fine strands of my soul and wrapping around them. I became a part of it, and as I danced, I knew there would never be any going back. I couldn’t sever myself from this now, this sensation, this unexpected beauty…
It wasn’t like when I became a song. I myself was not the beauty, I was simply subject to it, prostrating myself at its feet and worshipping, full of joy, full of shining love. Somewhere, somehow, I knew I was simply swaying around the apartment of a young man with a red guitar…and yet I wasn’t. I was inside the music, dancing through a desert, a song that had set the world on fire.
But, of course, all fires have to burn out.
I exhaled.
“You dance so beautifully,” I heard Killian say, awe colouring his voice. I stepped back down to Earth, opened my eyes. My arms were still raised, stopped from when I had been tracing them through the air. I let them fall, breathed out again.
“I wasn’t even aware that I was dancing…you play so beautifully,” I said, almost floating back over to the couch, hazy, dreamlike, but full of exploding golden energy. I felt that anything I touched would be turned to silver and pale, pale sapphires.
“Thank you,” he said, and again – that almost blush, almost. Not quite. I wanted to throw my arms around him, to kiss him; press my lips to his lips, to the scar on the side of his nose, to his eyelids. I was spinning, dizzy. “That’s…that’s the best I’ve ever played that, though. I wasn’t really paying attention…I was watching you dance. How the hell that works out, I don’t know, but…”
“Because it’s music you feel,” I answered. “It’s not music you remember. You just feel it. Like dancing, sometimes, it’s not about choreography…it’s just about…feeling it.”
“Yeah…” Killian said, slowly. I could see he was turning this idea over and over in his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. He leaned the Desert Bastard against his desk again. “I had an ex who used to say that kinda thing, improvisation like that, it was the mark of an amateur, but…”
I chuckled, tucking my legs beneath me on the couch. “My sister Ruby said pretty much the same thing, when she asked me if I ever choreographed any of my dances. I guess that means I’ll never be a dancer, but–”
“What are you talking about?” he frowned at me, puzzlement written on his face. “You dance. That makes you a dancer.”
“It, it doesn’t,” I stammered. “A dancer is someone who…who really dances, who can…remember, you know. Choreography, like I said. And someone who specialises in one kind of dance, real dancing, not the…whatever it is that I do.”
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“Nobody told me, I just…it’s just something I know.”
“Well,” said Killian, “You know it wrong.”
“Wrong…?”
“If you dance, and if you love dancing, then you’re a dancer.” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself, cementing a fact.
“But…but…”
“But what?”
“That’s…I’m…I mean…” I trailed off, gesturing widely. “I’m crazy, and I–”
I gasped as Killian’s hands circled my wrists, gently, but firmly, stilling my moving hands. His eyes were the same colour as a stormy sky, but they didn’t speak of violence or a blowing dangerous wind; they just spoke of a strong determination, a true belief…
“Elli.”
“Ye, yes. K-Killian.”
“Do you dance?”
“…what the hell kind of question is that? You’ve seen me. You know I dance.”
“Do you love dancing?”
“That’s…” I paused, and thought of the many times I’d let myself be whisked away by music, wooed by a beat and whirled it around and around to my own timing. The dances beneath the stars…on the roof… “Yes. Yes, I love dancing. I really love dancing.”
“Then you’re a dancer,” he smiled at me, as soft and as beautiful as his music. “You might be a crazy dancer, but that doesn’t make you any less of a dancer.”
“I’m a dancer…” I whispered, eyes unfocused. I felt like I could hear the ocean roaring in my ears. “I’m…I’m a dancer…”
“Did you really and truly…never call yourself a dancer, before now?” Killian’s look was mystified. His grip on my wrists loosened and he slid his hands upwards until they were palm to palm, fingertip to fingertip with my own. Him and me and you and I and us, twins separated at birth, twins that looked unalike and yet alike. Brother and sister, hand in hand.
I shook my head, still in a state of bemusement, carefully avoiding looking directly in his eyes lest I got myself all tangled up in the blue of them.
“Never. I never…I just…I don’t even know,” I murmured. “Am I making sense?”
“Not really…but would you believe me if I said I understood what you meant, anyway?”
“That’s kind of a contradiction, isn’t it?” I couldn’t help smiling.
“You bring out that kind thing in me,” he said, with a soft laugh. I wanted to shift my fingers, crook them slightly and entwine them with his own, but I daredn’t move. “Elli…”
“Hmm?”
“I…hm.” He tilted his head, looking thoughtful, and then at my curious look, “I’m trying to think of a tactful way to put this,” he explained with a chuckle.
“Are you going to call me an idiot or somethin’?” Playful, playful. “’Cause I already know.”
“No, that wasn’t it,” he said, seriously. “I’m glad you’re…back. From wherever you went during that, how did you call it? Missing time? Yes. I’m glad you’re back.”
Killian’s fingers flexed, and in a moment they twined between my own. My heart began screaming with its hands to its face, a strange teenage feeling. I moved my own fingers and then we were clasping hands.
“But you…I mean…” I took a deep breath, ignoring my hammering heart and trying to think clearly. It was a lot more difficult than it probably looked. “You met me…when you moved in here. That was a year or so ago, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You didn’t…you didn’t know me before I was…wasn’t here. D’you know? You’ve only ever known me as I was during the missing time.”
Killian still looked thoughtful. “Yes, but…”
“But?”
“But it was like…it wasn’t you. Or wasn’t your real self, or something like that. You probably think that sounds mad. But I thought there was something pale about you, something that wasn’t quite there. Nothing wrong with you, but still, something was missing. And then…” He shook his head. “Couple of days ago, when I saw you in the hallway. Something had changed.”
“Something like what?”
“I don’t know. It was like the difference between a bud and a flower. Suddenly I was seeing you. And, y’know, I understand why you looked so terrified when you saw me, after you told me about the missing time – here’s me greeting you like I’d known you for a year, and you didn’t know me from Adam.”
“I did,” I murmured. “I knew you.”
He looked puzzled. “You did? How?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Did I really look that scared when you saw me in the hall?”
“You did – white as a sheet. I thought you were going to pass out or something.”
If Mephisto hadn’t been there, I thought, I more than likely would have.
“Hm. Yeah, I felt a little woozy. You looked like…my friend, that’s the second thing that I thought when I saw you. That kinda shocked the hell out of me.”
Killian grinned. “Do I really look that much like this friend of yours?”
“Yes, oh yes. Identical.”
“You’ll have to introduce me to him, one of these days. I’m really curious.”
“Hm, I’ll see about that." I wondered if Killian would be able to see Mephisto. He hadn’t seen him yesterday, when he walked me back to my apartment, even when the demon in question had put his hands on my shoulder, protectively.
Nutmeg, I thought, she saw him straight away. But Mephisto said she had one foot in this world and one in his. What did he mean by that? What does he mean by anything he says?
“Penny for ‘em,” Killian broke me out of my reverie. I noticed our hands were still clasped.
“Just thinking. About people. Different people, here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “This place is full of ‘em, isn’t it? Never a dull moment.”
“Mm…” I glanced sidelong at him, thinking over my words carefully, before just deciding to spit them out. “Why are you living here?”
He blinked. “Eh? What do you mean?”
“I mean…the Hae’s not exactly high-class living, to put it…gently. And here, on the seventh floor, I mean…we’re all pretty much insane, haven’t you noticed?”
“You aren’t,” Killian protested with a little frown. “Nor’s Nutmeg. Jeremy’s not, either. There’s nothing wrong with Vincent. The girl with the books–”
“Book. She doesn’t mind being called Book.”
“–Book, then…she’s not insane, either, just a little unwell. Amaranth was the same.”
I gave him a wry look. “You’re either extremely tolerant or just wandering around wearing rose coloured glasses. Okay, maybe you’re right about Vincent. But…no, okay, maybe I worded it all wrongly. There’s something wrong with all of us, here. We’re all…” I paused. “Demon-haunted…”
Killian shook his head, emphatically, his brow still furrowed. “There’s nothing wrong with anyone here. Not you or Jeremy or Nutmeg or bloody anyone.”
“Killian, I have to take three different kinds of pills every morning, just so I can think clearly,” I said, somewhat snappishly. “That’s not normal.”
“It’s normal for you,” he shot back. “Isn’t it?”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Well, yes, but…”
“But what, then?”
“But…but that’s not how a healthy person operates! Healthy people don’t need three different head meds…healthy, normal people don’t live in the ever damned Hae Plaza Apartment Complex! They don’t get effectively thrown out of home because of the stupid, stupid broken wine bottle…” I saw confusion flicker over the blue-eyed boy’s face, but I ranted on, regardless. “They don’t scream at the darkness and sell their soul to sunsets and dance because they get all tongue-tied and can’t express themselves and taste music like they would food and go missing for twelve months without realising it!”
My anger and shame and fury – at myself or at Killian or at fate in general, I wasn’t sure – was welling up in me and overflowing like a glass of baking soda doused with a cup of vinegar. I couldn’t stand it, I could never stand it, when people stood there and told me there was nothing wrong. Because they never meant it. Why should Killian be any different? He would try and reassure me that I was fine, just peachy, all dandy and nifty…to make himself feel better, like it was some moral good deed that someone had to do to be normal. It was how people always operated, and I never understood why they had to paint over everything in pastel colours when–
Killian slammed his hands down on the cushion between the two of us, his fingers still twined with mine, and thus mine went down, as well. I gasped, nearly losing my balance, thrown forward by the surprise.
Killian’s face, wildly passionate, was merely inches away from my own. His eyes were burning blue roses – like Mephisto’s, just like Mephisto’s again – and searing right through my own, into the door of my soul.
“You’re not normal, fine. You’re not like anyone else. You’re as crazy as a, a, I don’t know, a mad weasel. You know it, I know it. I’m not going to patronise you by saying otherwise. I’m not as stupid as I look.” His eyes suddenly turned pleading, begging me to understand…no, believe. “But Kerouac said it, I told you yesterday – the only people worth knowing are crazy. There’s nothing wrong with that, Elli – nothing, nothing, nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you, nothing wrong with me, nor Nutmeg nor Vincent nor Book nor Jeremy. Hell, there was nothing wrong with Amaranth.”
“She leapt off the roof,” I whispered, but the fight had left me. I felt curiously jelly-like, floating, and a sharp ice shard of pain had lodged itself uncomfortably in my chest. “She leapt off the goddamn sonofabitch roof, Killian!”
“There was nothing wrong with her,” he said, stubbornly. “And yeah, she did. But she didn’t have to. What’s wrong is that she felt she had to do that…it wasn’t her fault. Whatever demons were in her head…I take it you believe she asked for ‘em?”
“Of bloody course I don’t!” I exploded.
“Then it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing wrong with her. She wasn’t wrong, she didn’t deserve to die, she didn’t deserve to be hidden away or treated as some kind of class of subhuman…” he gave me a desperate, heartbreaking look. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
I swallowed hard.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered.
I slammed my eyes closed, gasped for breath, willed my heart to still, to stop throwing itself against the wall of my ribs, my hands to stop trembling tangled with his, the ice lodged in my chest to melt.
What do you say to something like that? Something so monumentally stupid and teeth-clenchingly frustrating, something so wrong that it causes your marrow to ache, something that is the diametric and polar opposite of everything you’ve been taught, everything you know to be the truth, that has proven itself to be the truth since you were fourteen years old?
How could I be perfect? I threw up for no discernable reason in elevators. There would be months on end when I couldn’t leave my apartment. Not to mention the year of not-really amnesia – who else but a complete and utter lunatic would claim to experience such a thing? I saw all these ridiculous, humiliating, belittling faults falling around me like shards of green glass.
Why did I throw that wine bottle down?
Maybe Killian was even crazier than I was.
“Elli…” I heard him say, hoarsely. I kept my eyes closed.
I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t.
“’Pray tell,’” I whispered, “’These fading satellites, across the silken night, are they not falling? From our view and from our hearts. And ’tis there we must start, for while agony is calling, time will not flow on back to you.’”
Killian was quiet for a few moments, then asked, “Did you write that?”
I shook my head, keeping my eyes closed still.
“It’s sad…but pretty. Who was the author?”
“I don’t know the poet’s name. My friend who looks like you told me about it. It stuck. In my head, I mean. Which is funny, because it stuck in his, too. He said the guy who wrote it actually wrote tonnes and tonnes of poems, but that’s the one he really remembered.”
“Did he ever put out a collection or something?”
“No,” I said. I opened my eyes, staring right into Killian’s. “He became a lawyer, instead.”
Killian didn’t have to say anything. His eyes spoke volumes. I could read them, down to the most obscure hieroglyph.
“I suppose that’s normal,” I said, with a little laugh, as plastic as a credit card.
“Elouise…” he said. I pulled my hands out of his roughly, turned away, glaring out the window.
Heartbeats passed between us.
“Elouise…”
“Fuck normal,” I snarled, and threw myself across the couch and wrapped my arms around him so tightly, so, so tightly, and his arms came around me with the same strength.