Tristessa's Story, Part 4

Check out Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Tristessa's narrative to get caught up on her journey. -m


The package on the table taunted me. I could hear it: "Triiiiiisteesssssssaaaa.... I'm waiting for yooooouuuuu. Just waitiiiiing. Open me....open meeeeee..."

In any other circumstance, those words would be creepy, even terrifying. But instead of being worried, I was strangely comforted. I was not the only peculiar thing in the village. If I could hear the voice of a brown paper package, then surely there were stranger things than me. For the first time in months, I could feel my spirit lifting.

And then I realized that the shadows on the edge of my vision were not normal things.

The realization came one night when I snuck out of the house. Ravigie was sleeping. I still wasn't supposed to go any further than the front stoop, but being outside at night was the only freedom I had left. And with the package taunting me, outside was the only place that the voice stopped whispering in my ear.

I'd been outside before, on other nights, but this night felt different from the moment my right heel touched the other side of the threshold. I shivered and cleared my throat as my stomach tightened. Something was wrong. Adrenaline beating like drums in my veins, I looked inside, back into the shadows.

Dark smoke poured into my peripheral vision, clouding things until the only thing I could see clearly was the package on the table. Something like the sound of feet scrunching on gravel happened behind me, and I turned back around to face the outdoors. The smoke followed me, taking on the shape of a young man.

The darkness poured first into his shoes, then up to his knees and waist. It was only a nanosecond but it felt like I watched for hours as this person was formed out of the night. When he spoke, I heard my name. "Tristessa."

"Who are you?"

His face was clearer now; I could even see that he had a sort of a nose and broad shoulders on top of a rather lanky frame. "I'm...a shadow."

"I can see that. Is it parts of you I've been seeing?"

"Parts of me?"

"Sometimes there are dark things over here," I said as I motioned with my hands near my temples. "Like shadows." The smoke was making me feel light-headed, though, and I accidentally scratched myself on the forehead.

The man shook his head slowly, and then nodded. "It's possible. Ravigie can sense when I am near, so why wouldn't you see parts of me?"

"What's your name?" I asked. His skin was solid now, and was taking on a tint like the men from Italia. "Why can Ravigie sense you?" I added as an afterthought.

"Ambreel," he said after a moment's hesitation. And then, without warning: poof. The smoke that had poured into the smoke-man Ambreel seemed to shrink, like it was inhaling. With one great explosion, the smoke exhaled and Ambreel disappeared.

My hair was blown back and tears were pulled from my eyes. I held my breath. In a moment it was over, and the shadows were gone, leaving only the blank darkness of the night. I grinned, unexpectantly feeling powerful. My nerves were jumping in my fingertips and my blood was pumping hot through my chest, though it felt different from normal adrenaline.

I stretched my hands, looking in wonder at my palms. They even looked different. What had that smoke done to me? Tiny swirling designs played on my skin like a kaleidoscope. I turned my hands over and looked at the backs of my fingers. Smoke curled around them like tattoos of vines, then sunk into my skin with tiny electrical shocks.

For the first time in almost a year, I didn't miss my mother.

Twelve, Part 5

Tessa was gripping my hand like it was the last thing in the world she would touch. It hadn’t occurred to me that she lived in her own illusionary world, but I thought of it now and realized that without her own coating over reality, everything probably seemed foreign, maybe even terrifying. Her eyes were so wide open I worried that her eyeballs would fall out.

“Hey, are you OK?” I asked. The girl stared at me, unfocused and flailing in a sea of unfamiliar colors and textures.

“I can’t…I can’t…I can’t…” she murmured like a mantra. Flexing her fingers over and over again, Tessa tried to create illusions around her. She did it the same way Avel did, by focusing on something from afar, flexing her fingers, and tilting her chin up.

“Madam?” someone called out. I turned. In our haste to get Tessa in a room where she could freak out in privacy, I had bypassed the ticket checker. Apologizing, I handed over our papers, heart beating like a tom-tom.

“Alright, grazi,” he said after giving Tessa’s fake passport a cursory glance. I looked him in the eye and smiled, wondering how much he had been paid off today.

Pulling Tessa along like a stuffed toy on a child’s leash, I wound around the upper level of the ship before stopping in front of room 112. Tiberon was close behind us, his massive shoulders taking up every inch of space in the hall. He tried to turn sideways to allow a couple of tourists to pass, but even that didn’t help much. They had to wait for us to get into our room before they could venture any further down the hall.

When I let go of Tessa’s hand she collapsed on the spot. I didn’t even have time to think about catching her. Tiberon was holding too many bags to be of any use. We both exchanged looks, expecting the worst and feeling like terrible guardians. I was about to put my hand on her back to try and comfort her when I heard the strangest sound: laughter.

“Uh…Tessa? Are you…OK?” I glanced up at Tiberon, who shrugged. Tessa’s giggles filled the room when she rolled onto her side, her hair splayed fan-like on the bland blue carpet. She smiled up at me, one of the first smiles I had seen her produce without any traces of mischief or false happiness.

“I’m grand, grand, grand! Wonderful!” She cracked up again, unable to control herself.

“I’m gonna go check out what they have to eat,” Tiberon said, leaving me with the hysterical kid. He shut the door quietly, and I wish I had glared after him the way that I wanted at that moment, because, well, in my experience, you don’t just drop a partner in the middle of a firefight.

Just as the door clicked, Tessa lifted up her head and grinned at me. The laughter was gone, as was the unfocused gleam in her dark eyes. I suddenly felt uncomfortable and exposed and I reached for my gun. It wasn’t there. My boots squeaked as I shifted position.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“I’m tired of laughing,” she said. “Let’s go do something.”

“How about we wait for Tiberon to get back?” I asked. I didn’t like the way her eyes were glinting. As if in response to this thought, Tessa stood up suddenly, white teeth flashing. Her hair looked almost black again, and her face was in shadows since we hadn’t turned on any lights yet. The only light was coming from the window behind her.

“How about we wait for Tiberon to get back?” she said, mimicking my tone and mocking it. I reached for the knife in my boot, ready to restrain her with force, then checked myself. I was going to use a switchblade on a little girl? What kind of idiot does that? I pulled my hand back up to my knee and stood, looking down on her and enjoying the extra height my boots gave me.

“Would you rather do something else?” I asked. “I’m wide open for ideas.”

“How many of those little pills are there?” she asked out of the blue. When I looked her in the eyes, though, I had a wiggly little feeling that the twenty minutes since I gave her that first dose had all been planned. I was being set up.

“Got a whole bag of them,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. Tiberon, you leave me again and I’ll kill you, I thought. Tessa smiled sweetly and brushed a wrinkle out of the bedspread before sitting down. After she patted the mattress next to her, I sat down, too.

“How big is the bag?” she asked.

I hesitated, then held out my hands like I was holding a cantaloupe. “This big. Give or take.”

“I see,” Tessa said. She put a hand to her chin. “And how often must I take them?”

“Every two hours,” I said, not wanting to lie about that part, since she would figure it out soon, anyways. I could see why the Palermo guys were so nervous about her. Tessa reasoned like an adult and creeped me out like a talking snake. And then she put her hand on mine.

“It’s alright, you can trust me. I won’t do any illusing.”

I could hear the unspoken loud and clear: Don’t you dare make me take another pill.

“I’m sorry, but Avel said they had to be every two hours,” I said as I pulled my hand out from under hers. Tessa looked up at me from under her black eyelashes and looked like she was about to say something when Tiberon came back in holding a plate of sandwiches, pizza, and cartons of milk and juice.

“So I raided the kitchen. Little chef guy wasn’t too happy that I didn’t want to wait for the buffet,” he said as he kicked the door shut and put the tray on the empty bed. It took him a couple of seconds to catch the look in my eyes. "What?"

I looked as nonchalantly as possible at Tessa, who was still glaring in her "I'm angry" pose. Tiberon squeezed his lips into a thin line, completely failing to understand the clues of the situation. He straightened while tossing a box of chocolate milk to Tessa.

"Meliora and I were just discussing the idea that I really don't need to take those pills so often," Tessa said. I looked at the girl with surprise. I had never told her my real name; as far as I knew, she still thought I was Renee.

"Who told you my name was Meliora?"

"Nobody," she said, fingering the milk carton and pushing the flaps back to open it. "I just knew."

"You mean you were listening at the door, don't you?" I asked. She just grinned.

"You and Tiberon talk very loudly, Meliora," Tessa said. She downed some of the chocolate milk, then wiped traces of it off of her mouth. "Especially about the twelve little things you have in your pocket. Oh, I'm sorry. It's down to eleven, isn't it? Eleven little pills? I was just wondering, how are you going to get me to America if you think the boat is eating your toes?"

Tiberon looked down at the floor, half expecting to see it rise up and attack his feet. I kept my eyes on Tessa. We still had an hour and a half before the first pill wore completely off. Ninety minutes to prepare for battle.

Twelve, Part 4

Tiberon and I were probably stupid not to put more distance between us and Tessa. I mean, what’re you supposed to do? She was just a kid, and everyone was treating her like she was the most dangerously volatile being on the planet. Avel’s Palermo contacts were so afraid of her that after we met her, they gave us a car and let us do wherever we wanted. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little bit bad for her.

Poor Berto was assigned to follow us around, and Tiberon and I let him join us for dinner. Well, “let” is sort of a lenient word in this instance. More like, we very strongly encouraged him to talk with us over a cordial meal. It’s amazing what you can do with a dark-eyed illusionist and a semi-automatic.

On our twelfth day in Palermo, I was packing my bag and making sure everything was ready to bring across the border. It would be easier to take everything out of Palermo, since our hosts had such an impressive grip on the authorities in the city. But I still wanted to be prepared. As I was zipping the last compartment, I heard a tiny knock on my door.

“Signora?” It was one of the wives. Tiberon and I didn’t know enough Italian to tell them that we weren’t actually married, so I let them call me Signora or whatever they wanted. Very few of them ever wanted to talk to me; I guess I scared them by not being afraid of their young charge.

“Yes? Sì?”

“I want to ask after my cousin,” the woman said. She was petite, maybe 15 or 20 years older than me and wearing red Louboutins under a white Chanel pantsuit.

“Your cousin?” I asked. Was I supposed to know her cousin? My stomach dropped as I remembered the last time I had been to Palermo. It had been a few years, but...I sighed.

“Sì, my cousin Luigi, he has been a contact in New York for a year,” she said. It was hard to catch, but her voice took on a shrewd tone, and she eyed me like I was a piece of art of questionable origin. Luigi…the name rang a bell. I smiled, using the half of a second I had to think as quickly as possible. Luigi? Wasn’t he the guy that fell on his thing? That one time? I mentally kicked myself. I felt like I should know how to answer her, yet I was coming up with nothing but blanks.

“Luigi?” I clarified. The woman nodded curtly. I opened my mouth, ready to answer. The first word, “he”, was out of my mouth before I realized that Luigi was the guy Avel’s instructions had talked about. I was supposed to hate him or something.

“He…he’s a traitorous bastard,” I grunted, trying to sneer and work up some spit at the same time. The saliva launched about an inch away from my teeth and plummeted. It wasn’t the most beautiful shot, but at least I didn’t hit the Louboutins. The woman watched me spit with a slight hint of amusement playing at the very edge of her red lips. Without another word, she smiled, dipped her head at me, and disappeared.

I was suddenly very tired, and I stood unmoving for a minute before I remembered to check that I had the twelve little pills in my pocket. Then I sat down next to my bag. A tiny voice in the back of my head told me that I had just passed a test. Wasn’t sure what had gotten tested, but, hey, I don’t argue with passing scores.

Tiberon came in then, sat on the bed next to me. “Some lady asked me about Luigi,” he said. “I never thought I’d use so much Italian cussing.”

“She asked me, too,” I said as I stood and stretched. “Think they were making sure we’re actually from Avel?”

He shrugged. “No other explanation. C’mon, let’s get out of here. I had some of the ladies dye the kid’s hair. They were shaking in their fancy feet-killers the whole time.”

Laughing, we both threw our bags over our shoulders and went to find Tessa. She was outside, sitting cross-legged on a bench in the sun. Her hair had been black, but now it was much lighter, like mine. She was wearing it down, hanging in her face. I dropped my bag on the ground next to her, making her jump.

Berto was on the other side of the courtyard, reading a paper and trying to look like he wasn’t actually there. Tessa glared, then smiled when she saw that it was me and not one of the Italians. “You’re late,” she said as she unfolded her legs and slipped her shoes on. I looked at her intently, tilting my head.

“You cut your hair, too?” I asked. Tessa shrugged as she self-consciously touched her new bangs.

“Do they look bad?” she asked.

“Oh…no! I just wasn’t expecting them,” I said. “They look good.” Tiberon tossed our luggage in the trunk as I looked at Tessa, thinking that now her eyes looked even darker, deeper now that they were framed with hair with a slight hint of chestnut.

“Berto! You’re driving us!” Tiberon yelled. The little man grimaced, tossed his paper down and stalked over to us, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Girl…in back,” he said in the broken English we’d become fluent in over the past twelve days. I looked down at Tessa, who didn’t seem very happy, but she obliged Berto by sitting as far away from him as she could manage in an enclosed space. I saw her eyes light up mischievously so I poked her in the side before she could drive the poor man crazy.

We drove for about twenty minutes before the car stopped at a dock. A small ship was a port and passengers were boarding. I got out and stared for a second, then looked back at the other three.

“Boat?” I asked. Tessa smiled sweetly.

“I don’t do planes,” she said. She even tossed her hair at me as she walked towards the gangplank. Tiberon came up next to me and handed me my bag and our papers.

“Dudes told me this morning. Sorry I forgot to mention it,” he said.

“It’s fine. But…why are we taking a boat? It’s going to take forever!”

“Tessa doesn’t do planes,” he said, mimicking the girl’s tone from before.

“Seriously?” I asked. “We’re taking a boat across the Atlantic just because some kid doesn’t like flying?”

Tiberon didn’t answer; he just lifted his shoulders in defeat and went to join Tessa. I turned back to Berto and thanked him before following them.

As I caught up, the boat changed shape. Lines melted and regrew, and new colors jumped into existence in a kaleidoscope of awkward movements as I stood still and dumbfounded. For a minute I forgot about Tessa and I looked around for Avel. The small ship now had wings and levels like a skyscraper. I blinked. My head hurt from trying to remember that it was just a boat, not a flying building.

Tessa giggled, giving away the game.

“Stop it,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I remembered Avel’s instructions. I was supposed to give Tessa the first dose of the twelve pills now. “Here, you have to take this.” I handed her one of the tiny brown pills from my pocket, along with a plastic water bottle.

“What is it?” she asked warily.

“I have no idea. Avel’s orders,” I said. At the sound of his name, Tessa relaxed and unquestioningly popped the pill in her mouth and swigged some water. The plane-boat thing was so strange, I couldn’t help but stare at it. I don’t know if Tiberon noticed, but the pill had an immediate effect. Tessa’s eyes grew wide with surprise, her pupils dilating, then contracting, as the illusion of the flying building-boat disintegrated and was replaced with reality.

Avel had managed to take away the one thing that made her terrifying. I felt elation and relief flood every inch of me, only to be taken over by this thought: I only had enough for a day's worth of traveling.

Glass and Mirrors, Part 3

Parts 1 & 2 are over there. -m

If I hadn't've been sprinting after the ever-changing form of my ex-boyfriend, I probably would have taken at least a couple of moments to revel in the crazy luck we'd had in finding him in one of the first antique shops we'd tried. Just the ridiculous timing of it all made me grin. But then Avel would try to change his hair color, and my mind would be whipped back to reality. If I didn't pay better attention, my luck wasn't going to stick around very long.

Kadey's feet were pounding behind me, and I could also hear her having a hard time with other people on the sidewalk. I wanted very badly to glance back and check on her, but I had to keep both eyes on Avel. He was heading deeper into downtown.

How had he gotten so fast? Geez. It was like his legs were slurping up the pavement and spewing it out in dust. And I was eating it. My breathing was so labored I was certain that any moment I was just going to collapse, and then we would never find him again, because there was no way that Kadey would keep up with him.

Avel flung himself around a corner, the first one in several blocks, and I pushed harder, trying to keep up. I was only a few steps behind him, but once I came around the curb he was gone. I screamed in frustration. I needed to focus and look for him, but I was breathing so hard that all I was good for was leaning over and putting my hands on my knees. I saw Kadey's shoes on the pavement.

"He's gone!" she said. She was breathing hard, too.

"I know," I said. I took one huge breath and straightened. "You put your arms down!"

"I'm sorry," she said as she warded off a slap on the arm. "They were getting tired, and I honestly didn't think he was there any more!"

"Fine. Ok. Where would he go?"

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who knows him," Kadey said. I could almost hear her adding, You're the one he made out with and almost married....

"Ugh. I know! Ok, let me think," I said. I closed my eyes and leaned against the building. The art museum, movie theaters, restaurants, angsty poet hovels... all these ran through my head. But to no avail. That dang street corner was going to pay for making us lose him. I punched the wall. Ow.

"Hey, that's weird," Kadey said.

"Huh?"

"I could have sworn 46th went all the way through here," she said. Kadey took a couple of steps forward. I'd completely forgotten where we were during our run, but while I'd been thinking Kadey had looked up at the street signs. People rushing to their cars and to the metro from work ran into us from every angle. But we didn't move.

"Where are we?" I asked. I spun and looked at the sign. 46th and Jelly. I looked around, getting my bearings. If this was Jelly, and the sun was there... 46th should go straight through, crossing Linoleum. But a block away was a skyscraper, and 46th turned into a right-or-left choice. A choice that had never been there before. I started running, and Kadey followed me.

"Brace yourself!" I yelled over my shoulder. The transition point was coming up, and there was nothing weirder than passing through one of Avel's illusions without warning. It was like getting hit with a wall of marshmallows. Didn't leave any bruises, but it didn't exactly leave you feeling very healthy. We hit the edge of the illusion at a sprinting speed and I felt my hair get caught in the magical wall. Everything was kooky and soft for a second, and then we were through, and 46th didn't run into a skyscraper anymore.

"Whoa," said Kadey. "That was awesome!" I kept running, but I still grinned at her. I don't know why, but part of me felt a little proud of Avel for being able to pull off something like that. It didn't even occur to me that maybe I should have wondered why I hadn't seen the illusion in the first place. Something that huge should have been obvious.

"There!" I yelled and veered to the left. A gray haze was just disappearing into the alley behind the movie theater. We darted through the narrow opening and were suddenly the only people within view. Something told me that he was hiding in the theater. Avel couldn't have gone far while maintaining that illusion. I yanked open the back door and Kadey and I practically fell into the theater. After the bright sun of the streets it took a while for my eyes to adjust.

Kadey grabbed my arm and I started walking slowly, picking my way around shadowy obstacles. A few seconds later I found another door and opened it. We were in the back of a giant IMAX theater that was filling with people. It was then that I noticed that I wasn't seeing things very well. Everything was black and white and gray. I looked at Kadey. Her normally dark blue eyes were still dark, but they were gray. My hands were shaded, too; the flesh tones were gone. I choked on air in my rush to speak, but by the time I cleared my throat a theater attendant was at the top of the stairs leading down to the door we had just come out of.

"Excuse me, but you can't go down there. Employees only," he said. Kadey and I apologized and mounted the steps, pretending to look for our seats. The attendant wouldn't let us do anything but sit down. Every time we tried to head away to the exit, he corralled us and led us back to the seats. We sat, resigned, and stuck our heads together to figure out a battle plan. I kept staring at my hands in their gray creepiness and at the ends of my hair, which was just plain black. All the richness of color was gone, and I knew it wasn't because I had suffered any trauma. Avel was here and was doing it to me.

"What's wrong?" Kadey whispered. The lights in the room had just dimmed and people were putting on 3D glasses.

"I can't see," I said.

"What!?"

"No, I mean, I can't see colors. Everything's gray and black," I said. Kadey spun around in her chair, trying to look all directions at once.

"My vision's fine," she said. I sighed. If everything was already gray and black, I wasn't going to be able to find Avel. Not a chance. And he knew that. He remembered.

The screen flickered once, and the audience "Ooohed". Every seat was full and I could see two people in the aisle, walking up and down the stairs as they looked for open seats. Immediately I felt guilty, but there was nothing I could do. I needed this seat so I could keep looking for Avel. I tried scanning the crowd for him the way I'd looked for his work in the antique store, but everything looked hazy and gray in the darkness.

I slouched in my chair, frustrated. Kadey was still looking, wide-eyed, at all the people in the auditorium. With no chance of finding him, I closed my eyes. And saw Avel.

"Don't react," he said. I suddenly found I couldn't open my eyes, but I could still hear everything. Avel's voice was coming from just a few feet away. I struggled to sit up, but the weight of magic was on top of me. I was frozen and felt sick whenever I tried to move.

"I said, 'Don't', Meli. Don't move," he said. My mouth wouldn't open to speak. "Stop chasing me." I gave in to the illusion and let down the smallest of my mind barriers, so that I could at least yell at him.

Shoving my own magic back in his face, I said, "Give me back my sight!" Avel laughed, overjoyed.

"Finally! Doesn't it feel good to let it out?" In my mind Avel sat in a leather-backed chair, grinning like crazy as he ran his hand through his hair. "Let's play with them, shall we?" My stomach sank. Play?

The crowd in the theater gasped, and one woman screamed. Avel let me open my eyes to see the screen. The scene was from the perspective of a person walking on a dark road. Footsteps sounded from behind, and the person turned to look. Three thugs in gang gear were following the person; they smiled maliciously. The same woman screamed again.

"Meli?" Kadey said. There was a worried hesitance in her voice that I didn't like.

Suddenly the scene changed and Kadey gasped.

"That's my house," she whispered to me. This time I understood. Avel was ruffling through the audience's minds like they were picture books. Every five seconds, the picture changed, and a different person screamed or at least gasped in surprise. He was still in my mind, and I pushed my way up to his chair.

"Stop it!" I said as I reached out to slap him. But even in my own mind I was slow, and he blocked it before my fingernails could do any damage.