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Helena buries herself in dreams to pass the time, like pulling a worn-out blanket tighter and tighter around herself to pretend she is not cold. What else is there to do, otherwise? Stare out the windows of the plane? Look at the men around her, wrapped in uniforms the way she is wrapping herself, tighter and tighter, in the few memories she has grabbed? No. Nothing. She hunches down in the bright red coat – target target target – and plays pretend.
She pretended she had a friend, back when she was alone. Her friend Pupok. But she is not alone anymore – she has a family, a family all of her own. So she closes her eyes as the plane flies further away from her family and builds them, in her head. One at a time.
She makes Sarah first, before she forgets how to, before she gets too far away or too cold. Sarah is easiest. Sarah she makes out of the dark of the warehouse, a Clash t-shirt without blood on it, smoke without the fire – Sarah doesn’t need a fire. Sarah doesn’t need violence and burning and the way fire devours wood; she doesn’t need to eat her past alive, to start over. Helena gives Sarah the way Sarah laughed in the car; she gives Sarah her own smile back; she hoards Sarah’s tears for herself, but gives the rest of Sarah freely away. She wraps Sarah in the way Sarah smells, smears smoke around Sarah’s eyes before opening her own. If she moves her tongue right around her mouth, sometimes, she feels like she can poke her heart with it. So she does that. Takes part of her heart, gently, and puts it in Sarah. Closes her eyes again.
The plane is still there. Everything is still there. Only the soldier who was sitting next to Helena is no longer there; he is Sarah.
Bright in here, innit, Sarah says. Helena blinks. She hasn’t noticed – but of course Sarah is dark spaces, safe places to hide. She gives Sarah a pair of sunglasses.
Thanks, Sarah says. Helena nods. She looks at Sarah, who looks around the plane.
I miss you, Helena says. Are you going to come and help me?
You don’t need to miss me, meathead, Sarah says back, grinning. I’m right here. You gettin’ a little loopy, there?
Helena sighs: it’s not good enough that she can believe it. Her eyes are still closed, but the plane around her shatters. Sarah sits peacefully next to her in the black. Sarah sits next to Helena, and Helena starts building Kira.
Kira she gives bright things: all the bright things Helena remembers, birds and sparkles and sunlight and the color grass turns when the light hits it. Growing things, things that grow like Kira does. She gives her smiles. The warmth of Kira’s hand in hers, the way her heart had fluttered like a bird when Helena had wrapped her arms around her. She builds Kira out of touch, which is what Helena has always longed for.
She gives Kira wings. Kira deserves them. Kira is the closest thing to an angel Helena knows.
So there is Kira: crushed between Sarah and Helena, sitting in the dark. Her feet swing, slightly. The wings on her back are stiff; Helena would not give Kira real wings, because real wings hurt. Real wings bleed and bleed. Kira gets lovely fairy wings. Lovely. Helena loves her so much it is like an ache.
It’s dark in here, Auntie Helena, Kira says. Where are we?
Helena frowns. She and Sarah are used to the dark. Kira is not. But there is no happy place Helena could bring Kira. Helena has no happy places, anymore. Helena has never had a happy place that she has not somehow ruined.
She’ll have to make one up. For a second the roar of the plane engine comes back, when she bites her lip – she is brought back to the real world, and it hurts, and she doesn’t like it. So she pushes it back down and concentrates as hard as she can. She puts the sky in first, blue as the sky can get, blue like the way you shout when you are on a roller coaster. Blue like a happiness Helena does not know. This is why it is fake. The three of them sit in the empty sky for a second while Helena tries to figure out where they can go. Around her the world shifts and stretches, like an animal waking up. Nowhere Helena has been works. Not Janika’s apartment, not the riverbank by Danielle’s house. Not—
No, she is looking in the wrong places. She is looking in the graves. Remember, Helena, you have a family now.
Helena does not know where Cosima lives – she had never found Cosima, not once. Maggie had never found Cosima.
Maggie had found Alison, though.
Helena bites her lip, hard, and tries to remember the shape of Alison’s neighborhood. The way it had looked in the dark, from on top of a motorcycle. Neighborhoods are good: neighborhoods are where people are happy, where they have parties in their backyards and kiss their husbands-and-wives on the cheek before they leave for work.
Helena doesn’t really remember the shape of Alison Hendrix’s house, so she patches everything together the best she can. The grass is green. The house is made of brick, because all homes are. The house Sarah brought Helena into – the house where they found out they were sisters – was made of bricks. She plants trees, and she puts a fence all the way around. There. Now they are safe.
Where’s Auntie Alison? Kira asks, cross-legged in the grass. Isn’t this her house?
Yeah, meathead, Sarah says, where’s Auntie Alison? She pushes the sunglasses down her face, eyes Helena like she doesn’t believe any of this. Helena scrunches up her face. Gives Sarah a chair to sit on; gives herself one too. Puts in a table. Oh! Auntie Alison. That’s right.
Alison is married. Alison is married, and she lives in suburbia. Helena makes her out of all of Helena’s dreams: a pearl necklace she winds around Alison’s throat that is as white as a picket fence, that maybe Alison’s husband gave her for their ann-i-ver-sa-ry. A dress with a wide skirt, like – like the one Helena saw on a television, once, on an old TV show that flickered in black and white. But that’s not right: she wants colors, so she makes it pink. Pink is the color of hope. Pink is the color Kira was wearing, when Kira ran into Helena’s arms. Hope and dawn and starting over. There.
Alison blinks, looks around, frowns; balloons start growing from all of the fence posts. A barbecue appears by the door, smoking slightly.
What is this, Helena asks.
It’s a surprise! Alison says. Kira giggles. Alison smiles at Kira, for a second, Helena’s love reflected in her eyes. Then she sighs, puts her hands on her hips. (This is a thing that Alison would do.) I hope we can get the barbecue working, though! This is really a job for a man, you know.
Helena opens her eyes and the plane comes roaring back she doesn’t want a man she doesn’t want any men near her there is an arm pressing against her arm she doesn’t want she doesn’t want she doesn’t want—
She can’t breathe, and she is shaking, and there is a low sound in the back of her throat, and all of these men are looking at her like they are brother—
—sestra.
You okay there, Sarah says, and Helena breathes in through her nose. It smells like how fresh-cut grass would smell. It smells safe.
Yes, she says. The air smells a little like smoke. Sarah sighs at the smell, settles back in her chair. Oh. Smoke. The barbecue.
Felix – Felix – how does she make Felix. Felix is swaying hips and shiny pink smiles. He is dates, he is makeup on the face, but he is a man too. He is someone who has never seen violence. He is the lamb, sacrificed to bring her and Sarah out of the dark. She puts him by the barbecue, where men go, and puts him all in white. Baaaah. She makes his hair neat, too. Pretty Felix.
She pauses.
She gives him a drink.
All around Helena things are growing: tables to hold desserts, streamers and flags.
What is this, Helena asks.
It’s a surprise! Kira says. Sarah laughs, a short breath between her teeth. Helena loves her.
I am glad you are all here, Helena says. She feels like she’s been missing them, but she’s starting to forget why.
(We’ll be touching down soon. Please make sure your seatbelt is fastened.)
But she’s not done. If she concentrates, she can remember how it had felt to dance with everyone – Sarah bouncing up and down alongside her, grinning; Alison and Felix in the corner, tangled in each other; Kira, with her smile. But it was Cosima who pulled Helena out to dance.
Cosima is easy: Cosima is bright color, blooming flowers and cheerful grins. Cosima is a scientist. Cosima lies awake in the dark and tells stories about how beautiful the world is. Cosima is colors, Cosima is stories, Cosima is the way the world was born. Cosima is beginnings too. All of them are beginnings.
Helena digs through the closet in her mind to find what would fit Cosima – she settles on the bright clothes from the place she was born, the past and the flowers and the way the world all fits together. Tenderly, she winds flowers into Cosima’s hair. There. That is the way it goes.
Sarah shifts in the chair, so Cosima can sit next to her. Bright colors and the dark ones, and Helena is the light. The end.
You’re forgetting someone.
The voice is high and rattling, and Helena’s doesn’t know whose it is. She doesn’t. it is. whose know whose. All around her everyone is smiling, all those happy faces, and—
Oh.
Helena unzips her jacket, peels it off. Underneath she is wearing pink, like hope, like dawn, like starting over. Her belly swells out to meet her. Helena brushes one hand over it, like worship. That is her baby. Her little angel. Her child’s name is on the tip of her tongue, sweet-like-sugar.
Hello, my little—
(She’s unconscious.)
(Sedate her anyways. We can’t risk her waking up while we travel.)
Someone hands Helena a box. She takes it; when she looks up, everyone has moved. Was she asleep? Did something go wrong? In fear, she looks around – there are Sarah and Kira, playing together. There is Felix by the barbecue. There is Alison, going into the house. There is Cosima, following her. Helena puts a hand on her belly; there is her baby.
Helena wonders something something something something is rattling who handed her the box. But that doesn’t matter – she is safe here, she and her family are
safe. Helena opens the box and grins happily. All these presents, all for her! She is so lucky Alison decided to throw her this party. She is so lucky to have this family. She can hear Kira giggling, and she grabs the first present from inside the box. It’s a stuffed bear, new and soft and clean. It smells like a black bag pulled over her head. Helena kisses it – mwah – and rummages through the box, humming. Little shoes, for her baby. Soon she will decide her baby’s name – but just because she does not know her child’s name does not mean her child does not deserve new shoes, for little feet. Little feet need shoes, if they are going to be put in chains and dragged onto a plane. Without shoes, they might get stepped on. That would be bad.
“Oi, meathead,” Sarah says, collapsing in the chair next to Helena. For a second Helena is confused – Sarah’s voice is very loud, and the colors are very bright, and wake up kiddo Helena feels like it maybe should not be like this. But that doesn’t matter – she is safe here, she and her
family are safe.
“I don’t think those are gonna fit,” Sarah continues. Helena blinks at the shoes in her hand. How long has she been
“They are very little,” she says to Sarah; she’s not looking away from the shoes, but she can see Sarah taking off her sunglasses anyways. When has Sarah ever worn “Maybe you can wear them on your fingers,” Sarah says, grinning. Her fingers walk, like little feet onto a plane through the air. going nowhere.
“They’re not for her, silly!” says Kira, flying in with her pretty wings. Lovely wings. Lovely. “Helena’s gonna have a little monkey too!”
Kira puts her hand on Helena’s growing belly. Inside her skin, her baby rattles kicks against Kira’s fingers. They will be rattles cousins. Helena hopes they can rattle play together, Kira and her cousin. She just wants her child to have a family. She wants her child to have a family, just like she does, just like the family that Helena has now, that family.
“Monkey number two,” Helena says softly, poking Kira’s nose with the little shoes. Kira giggles, the same way she always does. Sometimes. Twice? It doesn’t matter. Helena is looking at Kira but Helena is walking out of the house, carrying cupcakes. She knows this. She knows how their conversation goes, too, the one Alison is about to have with Felix. She plays with Kira as they talk, the little shoes on her fingers dancing around like they have never never never never known fear. They are both laughing. They are both happy, she and Kira, and they are both laughing.
“Felix, that ox liver smells fantastic!” Alison says. She sounds very impressed.
“Doesn’t it?” Felix asks. “It’s our sestra’s favorite.” She never told “Marinated in horilka all day.”
Alison hums, a happy hungry sound; she’s reached the table. “That’ll go perfectly with these,” she whispers, and Helena crouches down to look at the cupcakes: all different flavors, all different colors, bright colors and fresh fruit.
“Are you gonna say thank you?” Sarah asks, something rattling bleeding into the edges of her words. Helena looks up from the instruments she has been shaking for – and says, “Thank you, sestra Alison.” It was stupid of her to forget. That is what families do. Say thank you for the nice present, and you do. It was nice of Helena wake up Sarah to your family’s not here remind her.
“Oh, heavens,” Alison says loudly, loud enough to hear over the rattling rattling rattling rattling of the sticks in Helena’s hand. Kira reaches out and stops the rattling. The rattling stops, thank you Kira. “Just a few things I’ve made,” Alison continues, stepping closer.
“This is your special day, Helena,” she says. “You and your precious cargo.”
Helena wake up they’re putting you in a grins, shifts in her seat. And there is Cosima! She looks very pretty in her costume.
“Dude, you look awesome,” Cosima says, like she knows what Helena is t hinking. Like she is thinking the same thing.
“You look awe-some also, sestra,” Helena says, because here they are all family, here they are all safe, here they are all safe, here they can be the same. Here they are all safe, so—
“You are well?” Helena asks, running fingers through Kira’s hair the way she likes. The way Kira likes also. Here they are all family, safe, the same, family.
“Yeah,” Cosima says. “I’m, like, way better. Thanks to science.” Helena’s relieved she didn’t try to explain more: Helena does not really understand science, but she is thankful that it can make miracles like helping Cosima. This is a happy day, and no one should be sick, or unhappy.
“Check it out!” Cosima says, and Sarah moves the box so Cosima can put her basket down.
“Babka cake,” Helena breathes. “Kovbasa.” All foods that she has had to put together from pieces in her own brain, watching nuns munch on treats while she starved, hoarding a piece of bread and closing her eyes when she tasted it so she could pretend it was lasting longer. To have them here, in front of her, doesn’t
seem
real.
“Go ahead, dig in!” Cosima says, smiling. There is some sort of love reflected in her eyes. “You’re eating for two now.”
Helena’s chair rattles rattles as she leans forward, rips off a piece of bread, puts it in her mouth. It tastes exactly, exactly like she has always imagined. She leans back. She closes her eyes.
When she opens them the world is dark and cold. When she. her sisters are gone when she opens her eyes the world is everyone is gone rattles rattles when she her sisters is the world gone Helena is alone. When she opens her eyes, Helena is the world alone the smell of smoke meat charring Helena is alone the world is dark and cold her baby is rattling kicking rattling kicking rattling kicking rattling. Her baby is rattling.
A scorpion crawls out a scorpion a scorpion crawls out of her belly, all arched stinger, all black and hurting, all like hurting the black I’m here now wake up the rattling the hurting seriously kiddo can’t hide forever Helena screams. She screams and screams and the scorpion does not stop coming, marching up her rounded belly, marching up her skin, getting close to her—
Helena wakes up. The world is dark and cold, but she is alone.
The world is a box. Helena doesn’t know where she is, but everything in her afraid of small spaces starts screaming. It’s like a cage, only she can’t see anything; it’s dark and small and she is alone and she could really use a friend. But she doesn’t want to close her eyes, in case – in case – she doesn’t want to close her eyes. She starts smashing at all the parts of the box she can reach, but they won’t break. They won’t break, and she is alone, and fear is climbing up her throat like a scorpion and she keeps thinking about the scorpion, it is reminding her of something but she is too terrified to pull that thought into reach. She’s making low frightened sounds. She crawls towards the light.
When she puts her eye to the hole she can see a room she does not recognize, brighter than the ship but still not as bright as she wants. No colors. No family. She rotates – bangs on the lid of the box some more, just in case, it’s not going, oh oh oh it’s not going away, panic creeping at her limbs like – all the way around, there is no way out, there is no way—
—rattling—
When she looks back, there is a scorpion. Scorpion rattling, oh god, she shoves herself against the back of the box please don’t hurt me please don’t hurt my baby please don’t be my baby Helena is going to die here—
Relax, Helena, says a high rattling voice. You remember me, don’t you?
All of the fear drains from Helena in one slow breath. It is her friend. She was alone, and her friend came back. She doesn’t have to be afraid. This is not a bad scorpion.
“Yes,” she breathes, letting most of her fear sigh out. “Pupok.” Saying the name makes her feel strong, but she can’t get all of the fear through her mouth, out of her chest. She doesn’t want to be alone. She doesn’t want to be in this box she doesn’t want to be in this box she doesn’t want to be alone, in this box.
“It’s been a long time,” she says, desperately. Please don’t go.
You’re being tested again, Pupok says, and Helena slumps against the box. The last time she was tested – the last time she was tested, everything went so terribly wrong. And this time you’re carrying a child, the scorpion continues. There’s something fascinated around the edges of that voice, something Helena doesn’t want to look at too closely. Something Helena doesn’t want to think about.
“It’s called—” Helena starts, then lapses into Ukrainian. She can’t help it. The English isn’t working right. She leans in closer to Pupok, the only friend she has. “They took me from my sestras,” she breathes, hoping that the scorpion will understand. Someone has to understand, how terrible it is for her to be alone.
No one said it was gonna be easy, kiddo, Pupok says.
Helena breaks down, and lets herself start crying.
She cries for a long time, fist shoved into her mouth to keep her silent. Partway through, Pupok leaves her – the scorpion has never liked it when she cries, she knows. Use your stinger, Helena. You’ve still got a stinger. You’ve still got me. Buck up, soldier, keep moving. Feelings are weak, and that is why Pupok left in the first place: once she had Sarah, she could not be calm enough to keep Pupok around.
Thinking about this, she tries to fall asleep. She wants Sarah back. She can’t get out of this box, and Pupok left, but she spent so much time making up her sisters in her head that she just wants to see them again.
It doesn’t work. She lies there, and the box is tight around her in a way that is not really like someone else touching her. She still tries, though; what stops her is Pupok’s rattling, low and angry. Buck up, soldier. So she turns her head and considers the little black body on her arm.
“My legs hurt,” she tells the scorpion.
Picture a box, inside a box, inside a box, is the reply. Helena likes riddles, but Pupok likes them more. She is in a box. Is there another box, outside of this box? Or is there a box inside of this box, that Helena is in? Maybe, she thinks sadly, the box was the dream that she made. She remembers now the sound of rattling: the scorpion was angry that she was hiding in there, inside her head. Stand and fight, soldier. That’s the only solution. You can’t hide away forever.
So maybe she can’t. She is trapped in a box, but she does not have to trap herself even more. No more hiding. No more dreaming. No more running away.
(Pupok is hiding. Pupok is a box, too. But she doesn’t want to think about that. If she is alone, she will lose her grip on the parts of her that are Helena and she will just be skin around a scream. Skin around screaming and screaming and throwing herself at the walls, over and over. She needs Pupok, right now. Now that she is alone.)
As if the world outside has heard her thinking, there’s the sound of rattling chains – locks – the box opening. Oh. Oh, praise God, she is free.
Congratulations, Pupok says. You escaped the first box. She can’t tell if the scorpion means the walls pressing at Helena’s sides at all. Pupok loves riddles. Pupok does not love explaining them, and – the lid to the box opens, and Pupok leaves her. This must mean that she is not alone. Helena winces at the light, winces at the pain. The light is too bright to see, but there is someone hovering over the box. She blinks, blinks, blinks – Mark.
No. Not Mark. Well then.
She’s escaped the first box, she thinks, testing the movements of her arms and legs, silently mourning Pupok’s loss. She escaped the first box, and she escaped this box too; she did not break, she did not give up. One foot in front of the other, soldier, and that is how you push through the box’s walls. That is how you become free.
The question, she thinks, is this: how many boxes are left?