Corkboard

The rough brick scratched against the back of Nora’s skull as she squinted toward the mouth of the alley. Afternoon light illuminated a few feet of stained concrete, before being swallowed by her gloom. She lifted a limp hand and glanced at her wrist. Unearthly light no longer seeped from beneath the cuff of her hoodie. She wasn’t surprised; the heat of it had finally diminished into the disquiet coals that usually haunted her heart. In its absence, human necessities began to bite at her ankles. Nora shifted, her shoes scraping concrete as she drew them beneath the scarce meat of her and heaved herself upright. She leaned heavily against the wall until she steadied. 

The dusk of the alley held uncertain questions. Beyond, the light of day looked like an answer Nora didn’t want to hear. Her head throbbed with dehydration, so she dragged herself into the daylight. She didn’t dare glance at the humans populating the sidewalk. Sense told her that they weren’t looking at her either, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of foreign eyes deconstructing the dirty smudges on her light sweatpants, the hollowness of her narrow face, and the tangles in her lank brown hair. She hadn’t seen home in days — wasn’t even sure if she could use that word for the small apartment anymore. She shivered; the cold of heavy metals was beginning to seep back into her marrow.

Reality bulged. Kieran lost her footing, danced backward, and caught her balance against the upheaval of concrete and ancient chewing gum and iridescent, glassy panes shattering up in jagged spikes between the sidewalk crevices. She leapt into the air and stayed there.

“This isn’t funny,” Kieran said.

“How did you get here?” demanded the tower.

“I walked.” Kieran shot out a hand and snagged a recursive dragonfly before it could spiral its way to zero as it tried to flee along with the other fauna. She shoved it into her chest and crunched down with the jaws of her heart. Energy zapped through her. She exhaled blue-red sparks, bright on her tongue, and flew higher with a burst of will, until she was level with the fourth story — the lowest whose windows shone with warm light. The curtains were drawn, but she could see something moving inside one of the rooms. She said, “I was going to ask if you’re okay, but I think the answer is evident.” The light inside the room snuffed out. She flew up to the fifth story. “Why are you hiding?”

As she climbed, she said, “You are a trickster god, then. Am I doomed to your subterfuge for the rest of my days now that you've taken an interest?”

The wind tugged at her ponytail. “I would never dare claim to be a god of any sort.” 

“Then what — ah, my hat!” The poet inched down the branch. She pushed aside a bough of needles, and gasped. She was quite high up now, and the view beyond the tree paused the breath in her lungs. Framed in tufts of pine needles, the mountains surrounding her own cascaded into the distance, growing purple with haze the farther out they sprawled. Vaults of clouds drifted across the blue sky, and the sun shone through in beams that dappled the mountains like her own forest floor was dappled by the leaves in the trees. 

The City kept their word. For the next week, they did not approach, and Ash was grateful because he had a rat’s nest of rebellious feelings to untangle. He journaled, and he worked, and he tried to carry on as if a supernatural entity wasn’t nagging at the corners of his every thought; despite The City’s respectful restraint, Ash still saw them at every turn. They were the dollar bill he offered to the homeless man camped at the corner of Highland Park. They were the free samples of jalapeño chutney at the indoor farmer’s market, and the smiling woman behind the table who had a story for every flavor. They were the rambunctious five-year-old trying to drink the milk from the café’s insulated pitcher, and the overworked mother making a cursory effort to curb her daughter’s chaos. They were every single cup of coffee Ash poured, every steaming drink that comforted another person as they left the café clutching a paper cup to ward themselves from the biting winter wind. Every thank you. Every goodbye.

The poet crawled through the leaf litter underneath her slab, mindful not to disturb the little clusters of pale mushrooms sharing the space. Situating herself, she pulled her shawl out of her satchel, tucked the bag into a safe crevice, and wrapped the warm cloth around her shoulders. The day had become dark. She could hear the beginnings of rain pattering against distant leaves, quietly at first, and then a crescendoing whisper that grew closer and more insistent until the shushing in the leaves was coming from every direction. Raindrops fell like a gray curtain around the poet's little cave. Rivulets of water began to stream around the perimeter, meeting as they passed. The ground beneath her stayed dry. She relaxed and stretched out her legs.