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The first time you can remember it happening, you are four. It was a long time ago, and not that clear. But you know that you woke up because you had a nightmare. You walked to your parents’ room and got through the crack in the door, and you tugged on your mother’s sleeve and asked if you could sleep in her and Daddy’s bed, please, because you were scared. When she rolled over to respond, you felt the most profound sense of shock, because this was definitely your mother, but you knew, right then and there, that she was the wrong mother. She was so, so wrong, and it only made you more upset, because you didn’t know how that could be – you’d only ever had the one.
It would be years before you understood what had happened. By that time, you were old enough to understand what it meant to be adopted. But that didn’t help at all.
***
You’re eleven years old and you are sitting in the office of a child psychiatrist. Multiple protestations to your mother (who is not your mother) that “they’re just dreams” have done nothing – unfortunately for you, she’s smart enough to see through you.
“Why do you think you dwell so much on your dreams, Rose?” He asks. “You know, we all dream, but it’s important to realize that the time we spend awake is what’s more important. It’s important to know the difference between dreams and real life.”
“I do know the difference between dreams and real life.” You say. “And I don’t dwell on them. I don’t know why everyone keeps saying I dwell on them. I just talk about them. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Your mother says that you talk about them a lot, though. She says you told her that the world was going to end.”
“Everything ends. I was just making an observation.”
“Well, it’s just that that’s not what eleven year olds usually think about, you know? And we want you to think about happy things.”
“So I should think about what the other kids think about?” You ask. “Like what boys are the cutest? Are you asking me to cave to peer pressure, Dr. Thurston?”
“Of course not, Rose, I’m just trying to – to –”
You stare straight at him, as hard as you can, and he stammers, averts his gaze.
“What’s wrong?” You ask. “You stopped talking. How am I supposed to get help if you won’t talk to me?”
You do not see Dr. Thurston again. Fine by you. Of course, your Mom still finds you another psychiatrist, and another one after that when she doesn’t work out, and then yet another one after that, and so on. And even though it’s not until psychiatrist #5 that you’re judged “well,” you think that first visit was definitely the most productive, because you learned something valuable from Dr. Thurston.
You learned that you scare people.
***
When you are fifteen, you finish the first draft of “Complacency of the Learned”. It’s actually thanks to psychiatrist #4 that this happens – he is the first one to suggest you try “channeling your feelings about these dreams into a journal.” You think the suggestion is idiotic at first, but then you realize it could be helpful as a record – you can’t always remember everything on your own, but you know somehow that it is very important that you don’t forget. It turns into a story, and your parents are thrilled that you’ve “finally found a hobby” (“Thank God,” they think, “She might still be normal.”) It is beyond you how your mother does not see echoes of the dreams you once recounted to her in the text. Your opinion of her intelligence goes down several points.
The story is typed up and showed to your school principal (without your permission). Everyone is thrilled, with it and you. Look at our little child prodigy! She’ll be famous one day, just you wait and see.
Maybe Rose has some potential after all!
(You never understood why they thought you lacked potential, why they thought you were strange. You tried to be normal. You never missed class because you were sick. You got straight As in every subject. You had friends. Not many of them, but you had friends. You did everything they asked of you, and you did it perfectly. What was so strange about that?)
The typed copy of “Complacency of the Learned” ends up being passed around the teachers. It is bound with a shitty plastic cover and placed in the library for future students to read. An assembly is held in your honor where you are asked to speak to the students about what the story means and why you wrote it.
You say that you just really like wizards and playing chess.
***
You are eighteen years old and a day, and that means that you are authorized to find out who your birth mother is, if she’s listed herself. You find out that she is and you drive to her house.
You have to knock twice before she answers. “Hello?”
You frown. You were not expecting to see the woman from your dreams, not really. You knew that it could never be that simple.
Still, you had sort of hoped.
“Ms. Alder?” You ask. “My name is Rose Thatcher, and I am eighteen as of yesterday, which means I am allowed to see who my birth mother is. The record says it is you, but I know that isn’t true, only I do not know why. I do not think you lied, so please, can’t you tell me why? Can you tell me how you found me?”
The woman in the doorway stands there stunned for a few seconds, then laughs. “Why would it list me as your birth mother if it was a lie?” She asks. “Be sensible.”
You shake your head. “I’m being sensible. If I was your daughter you wouldn’t even be asking that question. If I was your daughter you’d be much more emotional right now, but you’re not. Please, why won’t you tell me?”
She sighs. “You wouldn’t believe me, okay? No one believes me. I don’t tell that story any more, I almost got locked up telling that story. Everyone who hears it just says I’m crazy, and you’ll say the same thing if you hear it. Fuck, maybe I am your mother and I just don’t remember it for some reason. Makes more sense than…”
“Than what? I won’t think you’re crazy, Ms. Alder. I promise. If you’re crazy, then I’m crazy too. And I don’t think that I am. If you tell the truth, I’ll believe you – I’ll be able to tell. Please. You’d be surprised what I believe.”
She looks at you wary for a long moment, then sighs. “Come in.” She mutters, and ducks inside.
You follow her to a living room and she sits down in an armchair. You seat yourself on a couch opposite her.
It’s a little while before she speaks.
“I wasn’t really expecting you to come.” She says. “I was… I let my information be accessible because I thought maybe… it was crazy, but I thought maybe you’d grow up and come see me and you’d believe me. I don’t know why, I just… but I wasn’t expecting it to really happen.”
“Tell me what happened.” You say.
She sighs, looks down at her lap. “I was on a hike. Up at Rainbow Falls. It was getting late, I was alone on the trail. I was just about to head back, and then I saw – a meteor. Hurtling down to the earth. It was so close I nearly had a heart attack. I felt it hit the ground, and I ran to see, to check if someone had gotten hurt I guess… I don’t know what I was thinking, you know, since I was the only one on the trail… and then I saw… I saw you. As a baby. There was… there was a baby, a tiny little newborn baby, sitting in the crater. Diaper and all. I didn’t believe my eyes at first. But you started crying, and I couldn’t just leave you there. The people at the orphanage I took you to didn’t believe me – I mean, who would – so I was listed as your mother and that was that. I didn’t expect… anyway, it doesn’t matter, I’m sure you don’t believe me ei-”
She cuts off mid-sentence when she looks up at you.
You are crying. More freely, more openly, than you’ve ever cried. You close your eyes, and images flash before you in the black – fiery orange trails, falling stars, a forest in the middle of nowhere.
Except that it is not Ms. Alder who picks you up.
“I believe you.” You say.
She stares at you. “Th… Thank you.” She stammers. “Thank you. No one… no one’s ever… maybe I’m not crazy.”
She’s not. Neither are you. But that doesn’t make it any better.
Your name is Rose Thatcher, you are eighteen years old, and something is terribly wrong.
***
Things start to come together when you are twenty-one. You are driving in New York and listening to news on the radio when on comes a piece about a strange incident at the University of Texas, Austin. Apparently, about twenty students sustained mild to moderate injuries after throwing themselves down a flight of stairs dressed in red and blue t-shirts, in the fashion of an obscure online comic being produced by a student at the university. The student in question, named Dave Strider, apparently insists that he had no involvement in planning the incident.
You don’t recognize the story right off the bat. You don’t even recognize the name. But when they interview the student in question, when you hear his Texas drawl, your heart skips a beat.
You close your eyes and see line after line of red text with little adherence to principles of grammar or even logic. You see sunglasses worn indoors and a shitty broken sword clutched in a thirteen-year-old’s hand. You see a purple moon and a ball of yarn and you see nothing beyond that.
It will be a while before you actually contact Dave Strider. Right now, he is the same age as you, and even if you had your thoughts straight, he would not be ready. But you write the name down in your notebook, and every so often you visit an Internet café to catch up on Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. It is mostly incomprehensible, an utterly transparent attempt on the part of the creator to work through his issues without actually facing them head-on.
It reminds you very much of your own work.
***
You are twenty-four years old and you are working in a grocery store. You have an apartment on your own and, as such, you are no longer required to do much that you do not want to. You do not have to make friends. You do not have to visit home, or make contact with your wrong-mother and fake-family. Your free time, all of it, is yours to do with as you please.
You decide to get a handle on things.
The Sight, you don’t really try to control any more than you already can. It is volatile, and you are fairly certain it will always remain volatile. It shows you what it wants to, when it wants to, and although you can will it a little bit when you really need to, the effectiveness of this is often limited.
But there are extensions to the Sight. Extensions that are the color of the moon from your dreams, sometimes darker. Extensions that whisper and push and pull. Once you called them nightmares, but now you are realizing that they are more than that, and that you are going to need some help if you ever want to figure this out and fix the world, to stop everything being so damn wrong.
You light purple candles in your room, lay on your bed, and close your eyes. In your sleep, you see yourself, your unconscious body, and you look out to the darkness. You reach a hand out, wanting to touch it. You reach and reach, and then finally you feel something solid.
“I know you’re there.” You say. “Please, come out. I’m not going to hurt you.”
You see and hear nothing for a second. Then there is a rushing sound, and your Vision goes totally black.
A million voices speak in your head at once. It is not English, but you understand.
Creatureoflightbegonefromhere
“I’m not a creature of light,” you say, “and I’m not going to leave.”
Theprincessdoesnotrememberitlikewedo
Theprincesswantsourhelp
Shedoesnotunderstandthatnothingwillhelp
Hecomesanddestroysusandshecannotstophimshecannotfighthiswitch
Shecannotwin
Wecannothelp
Theprincess’smissionisfutile
Whywouldwehelpherwhyshouldwehelpyou
“Because I will help you.” You say.
Foolishgirl
Areyouevenlistening
Youcannothelpyoucannotwin
Hecomesanddestroysusyoucannothelp
Offersomethingbetter
Thenwewillconsider
“Like what?” You ask, getting desperate.
Notourjobtofigurethatout
Princessmustgiveusareason
Princessmustmakeusanoffer
“My body.” You say the first thing that comes to mind.
Foolishprincess
Shedoesnotrememberitlikewedo
Wehavehadyourbodyanditdidnothing
Tryagain
You try again. “My mind.”
Theprincessdoesnotunderstand
Wewilltakeyourmindregardless
Howelsedoyouexpecttouseourpower
“My firstborn child.” You snap, sarcastically.
This elicits a laugh, and a shiver goes down your spine.
Shedoesnotknowabouttherogue
Agoodjoke
Butnotagoodreason
You stop to think. This is not going how you would have hoped.
You take a deep breath, and take a different tack.
“Because no one else is going to help you. No one else believes in you, or listens to you. You cannot stop me having these powers and you cannot stop me using them. You might as well consent to it and give me some control. I might not be able to stop… whatever it is that you want me to stop, but I will try. And that’s better than anyone else is going to do for you any time soon.”
The space inside your head explodes with noise, and it is so loud, so fast, so angry, so unintelligible, and you are so scared, and lost, and it’s dark – and then there is an overwhelming roar, and everything goes silent.
They speak again after a moment of time
Theprincessisverybraveandsheisalsoveryfoolish
Thatisnotagoodreasonprincess
Butitisgoodenough
Wewilllendyouourassistanceourpowerswillbeyours
Weaskonlyonemorequestion
“What?” You ask. “What? I’ll answer anything.”
Youknowthatitwillbefutile
Youhaveseenwehavetoldyou
Butyouwanttofight
Youmeddlewiththedarknessandabandonyourmindtofight
Wewishtounderstandwhy
You say the only thing you can think of.
“Because I must.”
They laugh.
Theprincessisfoolish
Butweacceptheranswer
Goforthandfightchildforthetimewanes
Sendamessageofwarning
Heisalreadyhere
You wake in a sweat, gasping for breath. You look at the clock. You are sure you were only gone for minutes. But somehow, it is nearly dawn.
Shaking, you rise to your feet. Your candles have burned out, so the room is completely dark, other than the slight light coming through your window. You close your eyes, and you can feel it. Careful, you extend a hand out in front of you and open your eyes. Blackness is ripped from the shadows of your bedroom and it congeals around your pale hand, writhing and dissipating into the air like smoke.
You turn towards the window and hurl it.
It is about $400 to replace the window and blinds, which is quite a lot to pay when you are working for minimum wage. But it is worth it to see the damage you can do.
Any remaining doubts you have about the reality of what you have Seen are erased.
The world is going to end. And you will not be able to stop it.
***
You publish “Complacency of the Learned” when you are twenty-six.
At first, you are dubious about the possibility of publishing. It skirts dangerously close to commercialism, a force that you have been fighting as long as you have been alive for reasons largely unrelated to being raised in the 80s. But you remember what the Old Ones said about sending a message of warning, and although you know that such a message will be futile, you are reticent to disobey a suggestion from your gods. Besides, some money and notoriety won’t be remiss if you want to be as well-equipped as possible for the coming fight.
Once it’s edited (honestly, how low were the standards at your high school that you were praised for this drivel), getting it published isn’t actually as hard as you expected. You contact a few agents until you find one who is susceptible enough to nightmares to be interested in taking you on after three days or so. He then contacts several publishing houses. The first three reject it entirely; apparently, your material is far too dark to sell to anyone. Publisher four is known for their avant-garde material, but they too are reticent. Luckily, it turns out that just about everyone on the board of publisher # 4 is susceptible to nightmares as well.
You get a call within a week saying that the company will be happy to publish with you. You say you are thrilled that they came to a decision so quickly.
You are given the opportunity to publish under a pen-name. You keep Rose, but change your last name from “Thatcher” to “Lalonde” without a second thought.
At first, the book is read primarily by goth teenagers. You make a profit, and so does the company, but it’s a very small profit. Then about a year after publication a writer with the NY Times Book Review reads it to try to connect with his daughter. He writes it up and everything goes wild. You receive attention from a dozen places at once. You are asked to do interviews and to appear on television, and your agent begs you to do these things and more. (You tell him that you don’t know how you’re supposed to cultivate an air of mystery in a well-lit studio.) Your publishing company clamors for a sequel, and so does the public. Merchandise is made and bought. There is movie buzz.
Simultaneously, in another part of the media industry, the air is abuzz with talk of the recently released Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Moive, co-produced, written, and directed by a young upstart named Dave Strider. The movie was the lowest quality piece of shit anyone had ever seen. The dialogue could barely be described as such, the whole thing looked like a poorly compressed jpeg, and nobody could tell what it was trying to say about anything. Some people liked it because it was shitty, some people thought it was the most brilliant piece of art to come out of Hollywood in years. Some people figured the creator an idiot, some called him a genius, and a few assumed he was some kind of autistic savant. Whatever the answer to any of these questions, one thing was clear: the film was making millions.
You decide that it was well past time that you and Dave Strider met.
***
You are twenty-eight and have managed to secure yourself a ticket to Dave Strider’s birthday party. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved: your agent has been begging you to make a high-profile public appearance, if only to keep people talking, Dave’s party gets extra buzz from having such an unusual guest, and you get what you want, which is to see him.
The party is held at Dave’s Beverly Hills house and crowded with people in formal suits and nice dresses. You are very glad that your public persona involves keeping a low-profile, because you do not want to deal with having a party like this for yourself tomorrow. You do not see Dave until he gets up onto a stage set up at the far end of the room to thank his guests for coming.
You are taken aback. You had seen photos before, and recognized him in those, but in person it is so much more. You recognize every feature of his face, every strand of his hair. A chill goes up and down your spine and, despite your best efforts, a tear comes to your eye.
You wonder how you could ever have thought you could do this alone.
Some time later, you are lounging casually by the snack bar and looking disinterested when someone taps you on the shoulder.
“May I have this dance?”
You turn around, and it’s Dave.
Your heart thumps, but you contain yourself. “The man of the hour. How lucky of me to get a moment of your time on a day like today.”
“I heard you were going to be here.” He says. “The elusive Rose Lalonde, come to grace my humble shindig with an appearance. And what an appearance she makes. You’re ravishing in that dress. So, Lalonde, to what to I owe the pleasure?”
“Just coming to wish you a happy birthday.” You say. “And please, call me Rose.”
“Well Rose”, he says, “You know I know that you work in the media industry, which means I know that you’re not here making the first public appearance you’ve made in like a year because you don’t have an angle. I’m just fuckin’ curious.”
“Well, I do have something to show you. It’s a gift. But I’d rather not give it to you in front of everyone. Is there a private room we could retreat to?”
“My bedroom will do.” He says. “Let’s give those shitty magazines something to talk about, shall we?”
You smile and follow him up the stairs to the master bedroom. The inside is a mess, even more than you were expecting – there’s food wrappers thrown haphazardly on the floor, his bed is unmade, and it is impossible to see the top of his desk through all the crap on it. He sits down on his bed and beckons for you to sit beside him, so you do so.
“So.” Says Dave. “What do you have for me?”
You smile and withdraw a perfectly ordinary present in a lidded square box from under your shawl. He doesn’t seem to notice that you pulled it out of nowhere, and you’re grateful.
“Open it.” You encourage him.
He opens it. Inside the box sits a medium-sized ball of light lavender yarn, unaccompanied by tissue paper, card, or explanation.
He takes the ball out and turns it over in his hands. He sits examining it for a long time.
“Dave Strider.” You say. “Do you remember it?”
He stares at the ball, tosses it up and down a couple of times, and chuckles low in his voice. “Sometimes.” He says. “Parts of it.”
“The world is ending.”
He sighs and falls backwards onto his bed. Carefully, you lean over and remove his aviator shades to uncover his eyes. They are bright red.
“I know.” He says.
***
It is only after meeting Dave that you find out what that means to you.
You return from the party to your hotel room with plans to meet again in a café a couple days from now while you’re still in town. (“Make it nice and public.” Dave says. “That’ll give them something to talk about for at least the next two weeks.”) Your meeting was unfortunately cut-off at the time by the intrusion of a drunken actress into Dave’s bedroom and the necessity of actually being present at one’s own birthday party. But the both of you are desperate to see each other again.
You fall into your bed that night as soon as you get your dress off, not even bothering to brush your teeth. Normally it’s some minutes before you can fall asleep, absorbed by thoughts of the future and the past all tangled up in one, absorbed by nightmares and hopes in-turn. But there are days when you fall asleep right on cue, the minute your head hits the pillow, without a second thought.
These are always the nights when you See instead of dreaming.
And it’s strange, because you know that you’re never shown anything that you don’t need to see. You get remixes sometimes, but they’re needed, they’re to clarify a point, things in a different order that help you piece together the puzzle just a little bit better (but never starting with the edge pieces and never, God forbid, completely). But tonight, you are watching a rerun from when you were eighteen and looking for a mother. Except that it’s like someone went in and tweaked it just enough to call it new material. It’s the same spot on the globe, and it’s definitely the same meteors, but the forest is black-and-white buildings and the sky looks different than it did the first time. And there’s water – there’s water everywhere.
The meteor crashes. You peer down into the crater to observe its cargo. Inside it, there is a tiny little blonde baby girl. But it’s not the same one. And this time, there is no mother there to pick her up and take her home.
You wake with a start to find tears streaming down your face.
Your name is Rose Lalonde, you are twenty-nine years old as of two hours ago, and she was never meant to be yours.
***
“You’re going to be a father.” You say.
Dave looks at you from across the table over his shades. “Not for nothing, babe.” He says. “But I distinctly remember you taking birth control for that sort of thing.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or disingenuous, so I’ll spare myself the trouble of trying to figure it out and cut to the chase. This timeline is a reboot, a chance to redeem our past selves’ failures and save the world.”
“I thought you said we couldn’t save the world.” He says.
“We can’t. But someone else might be able to. There is a new timeline and so there are new heroes. One of them is my daughter. Another one will be your son.”
“Are you telling me this so I’ll be on the watch for meteor babies?”
“No. I’m telling you this because there’s no point in keeping watch for meteor babies. My daughter and your son will not come into this world for another 400 years. When they do, the world will have already ended. We will have lost, the witch will have won, and they will grow up alone. But they need not grow up without provision. I intend to do whatever I can to keep my daughter safe. I assumed you would want the opportunity to do the same for your son.”
He pauses for a very long moment, and you let him. This is not easy news to process, let alone to process in public.
“My bro.” He says finally.
You blink. “Excuse me?”
“My bro,” he says, “not my son. Don’t call him that, don’t… he won’t be… he’s not my son.”
It is only through a lifetime of experience that you manage to keep tears out of your eyes.
“You’ll fight with me.” You say. It is a statement, not a demand.
He nods, smile terse, muscles sharp and tense. “You kidding, babe? I’m a Strider. Never let it be said that something as trivial as guaranteed failure could get in my way.”
You smile back at him, and for just this moment, you don’t say anything.
You wonder what his brother will be like.
***
You are thirty-two years old and the revolution is not being televised.
Well. That’s what the Internet is for.
It’s not just you and Dave any more. Realistically, it was never going to be just you and Dave – someone, at some point, was bound to catch on. This didn’t change anything – even the largest army the earth could amass would stand only a minimal chance of defeating her – but it provided some small comfort. News of the revolution permeated the world online. In the years to come, the spaces that were free and accessible, even online, would shrink, and even the most powerful and motivated groups would have difficulty dodging the censors. But while the Batterwitch’s mechanizations remained small and silent, the people had hope.
(Sometimes, you would go online, and see all of this hope, and you would come within inches of clawing your own eyes out in desperation to just not See, in wild, backwards, fruitless desire to feel that hope. You are absolutely certain that you would have gone through with it if you had thought that it would actually do you any good.)
You get a text from Dave one night while you are sitting in your apartment drinking with only one word, “Minnesota”. You know Dave better than anyone, so you know that if you’re getting a one-word text from him, something is very seriously wrong.
You get online and look up “Minnesota” and “news”. The top story is on a reputable news website detailing surprising events the previous day outside the General Mills Headquarters, specifically outside the Betty Crocker Kitchens, where a group of protesters in their teens to mid-twenties, had showed up unexpectedly carrying picket signs. When asked about their intentions, none had offered particularly coherent responses, only gone off about how “the Batterwitch must be stopped.” Cops had showed up about two hours into the protest and arrested the whole group for trespassing on public property. According to the article, the younger protesters had been released to their parents pending appearances in juvenile court, while those over 18 were being held awaiting a group trial.
You click back to the search and browse results a little more. There were no major petitions, no outraged cries for justice, no real signs that this was anything more than a “news of the bizarre” story for a slow-press day in most places. You knew that if you looked deeper, looked at Twitter and forums and blogs, you would find people who saw the truth behind the story. But you didn’t bother looking. It would only depress you, and you were feeling depressed enough, because it did not take the skills of a Seer to know that there would be no trials, in juvenile court or otherwise. The public would forget, and those close to the victims would stay silent or be silenced, and the world would never know the truth.
The first eighteen victims of the revolution were between the ages of 15 and 23. They were children who saw the truth and tried to do something about it, and they were executed.
Eighteen down, and seven billion to go.
***
You are thirty-five years old, and construction has just been finished on your new home. It is a ridiculously extravagant project. The property cost you about a million dollars, and was hard-won besides. The house on top of it, plus furnishings, electricity, wi-fi, etc., (plus the set-up for these things to be able to run again in 400 years) cost even more. You are grateful for your image as a bordering-on-crazy eccentric writer lady, since questions about why a single woman with few friends and no romantic prospects (foolishly, they gave up on you and Dave ages ago) would construct such a house can mostly be answered by “who knows with her” this way.
Rainbow Falls is a long drive away from any major city, secluded in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. It is not a location that most people would choose to live in, let alone raise a child in. Then again, you are not actually going to raise her. Besides, you could use some peace and quiet. You could also use a headquarters for you and Dave to hole up in during the coming years once the going starts getting tough.
For now, though, the first thing you notice when you get out of the car and look at your completed new house is how silent it is. You think you have never been anywhere quieter in your life. You’d visited earlier, but now there is no hammer of construction, no din of footsteps as a moving crew gradually and painstakingly removes furniture from a U-Haul truck to take it inside the massive house and place it where it belongs. There’s no editor, no publisher, and no paparazzi. There’s just you and the forest, and even the horrorterrors are quiet in your head. You suppose this is the time most people would be having a housewarming party, and you make a mental note to have Dave over as soon as possible. But actually, you rather like being alone with your thoughts and your dark gods.
Once you’ve explored the perimeter and most of the interior to your satisfaction, you make your way to the one room you saved for last. Your daughter’s bedroom, all set up for the arrival she will not make for 400 years. There’s a bed, a corner shelf, a desk with a chair, a dresser, and a small entertainment station with a TV and consoles – everything a little girl could want.
You walk to the corner shelf, reach into your sylladex, and pull out a copy of “Complacency of the Learned”, placing it there reverently. It will gather a great deal of dust before her fingers touch its cover, but you wanted to do this right away because you were fairly certain that if you didn’t, you never would. This done, you sit on the bed and look around for a good while. You have given her everything you could think of, every generic little-girl thing you knew. And the room is strangely, completely, empty.
You realize that you know absolutely nothing about your daughter.
You do not often ask anything of the horrorterrors. You See what you See, when you See it; you do not try to guide your Sight in any particular direction. When you were young, and you would try, the results were generally fruitless, so nowadays you do not bother, except when you really need it.
Tonight, you need it. You go to your bedroom and drink a glass of wine while watching the news before turning the lights off and closing your eyes. As you drift to sleep, you reach out to the blackness in your head that writhes there constantly waiting, and you will it, as hard as you can, to show you something, anything, about your mother. You do not try to look at your daughter directly. You have tried this, and it is useless (you are not sure why). So you go the indirect route, and you ask instead for a look at your mother – not Kelly Thatcher, nor Emily Alder, but your mother from before; the woman who will, approximately 400 years from now, be your daughter from after.
You are rewarded with glimpses. It’s fuzzy, and hard to remember once you’ve woken up, and it all feels a lot more like a real dream than it normally does when you See. But there’s a living room, the same as the one in this house, and a woman there. She has a long, pink scarf, a labcoat, and a cocktail glass held constantly in her right hand. She stumbles when she walks, and her hair curls out at the end. There are statues of wizards (Zazzerpan?) and a gilded vacuum cleaner and a refrigerator with magnetic lettering, and a teapot which has been spiked with vodka and…
And then nothing – just the walls of your silent bedroom, in the middle of your giant house, in the middle of nowhere, and no one around for miles. You check your phone – it’s six AM. Three AM Los Angeles time, and even Dave isn’t usually up this late, so you get up and get a drink and sit in the kitchen for a while, trying to calm your nerves, trying to stop shaking. It is an hour or two before you tire enough to go back to sleep, and when you do so, it’s refreshingly dreamless.
The following morning, you get to work turning near everything in your daughter’s bedroom pink, providing her with wizard toys and science equipment and memories. You also drive to the nearest liquor store and buy out approximately 50% of its stock. You put it in your bar and resolve to leave the door permanently unlocked.
It is not the most responsible mothering decision you could make, but under the circumstances, it is all you can think of to do to make your little girl happy.
***
You are at a book signing for “Complacency of the Learned” and you are thirty-seven years old. You don’t entirely understand how the book is still popular enough to warrant signings, but you feel it is time to make another public appearance or two, so here you are.
A girl comes to the front of your line and suddenly something flashes behind your eyes, a memory, a vision. A boy with spiky black hair and stupid glasses and blue eyes. But this is a girl, and her eyes are blue, but not that blue, and she wears glasses, but not stupid ones, and her hair is black, but it’s not spiky at all. The thought is gone in a flash and she’s just another customer.
You smile as you take her copy of the book in your hands and ask who you should make it out to.
“Jane Crocker.” She says.
You try very hard not to jump.
“I’m afraid to say I haven’t really read it myself, yet,” she says, “but I’m a friend of your daughter’s online and I figured I should check this sort of thing out. How is Roxy, by the way? She hasn’t been online in a few days, and I’m a little worried about it…”
This is no time to break down.
You take a long, shaky breath. “Nice to meet you, Jane. Roxy’s fine, really – just a little bit of a cold, so she’s been sleeping a lot. I’ll let her know you said hi when I get home tomorrow.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” Jane says. “I thought maybe something bad had happened, but she hadn’t told me or… anyway, I shouldn’t hold the line up. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Lalonde – tell Roxy to get well soon!”
Jane exits the line. You make it through two, three more books before you stand up and tell your bodyguards that you need a moment, retreating to the book store’s staff room.
Your fingers tremble and your touchscreen makes it hard, but you manage to hit
Dave’s name and bring your phone to your ear. He picks up after two rings.
“Rose?” He asks. “What’s up? You don’t usually call without warning like this, is everything okay –”
“What are you naming him?” You ask, trying unsuccessfully to keep the tears from your voice.
Dave pauses for a moment. “Excuse me?”
“Your brother, Dave.” You say. “What… what are you naming him?”
He pauses for a longer moment. “I haven’t really thought much about it.” He says. “Rose, what’s wrong.”
“Her name is Roxy.” You whisper. “I’m at a book signing, I just met the witch’s great-granddaughter, she… she said she knows her. She said her name is Roxy.”
“… I’ll have to think about that.”
Dave hangs up the phone. Without warning your bodyguards, or the bookstore staff, or anyone, you make a hasty exit, slipping through the crowds like a shadow and getting behind the wheel of your rental car. You jam the keys into the ignition and just drive, out as far as you can, away from the city, out on the interstate until you finally reach a place that is nothing but trees, not unlike home, and you pull over at the side of the road and exit your car, you barrel into the forest like you’re running from something. You’re not running from anything, and even if you were, they’d catch you, they always catch you, and the dark things are there in your head, feeling your distress, squirming under the surface and slowly breaking up out of your head and over your skin. You don’t know if anyone else would be able to see the dark, wet smoke that’s breaking over you if they looked, don’t know if it’s all in your head, and you don’t care, you don’t care about anything, the world is fucked and you are fucked and you wish she’d just hurry up and end it all already because you can’t do this any more, can’t think or breathe or feel anything at all except a desire to rend, to tear, to end it before she can.
You scream as loud as you can and darkness comes pouring out over you, out of your mouth, your eyes, your fingertips, and your self-control blacks out. You take your needles out and stab them into the ground with blind ferocity, and the squirming black nothing all over your skin spills out through them into the ground. It worms its way in rivers all across the surface and the grass and moss and mushrooms wither up, turning dry and then black, like they’ve been sit on fire. It snakes up the trees and infests the leaves and the branches on the evergreens crack and fall like they’ve been hit by lightning. Everything happens in a rush of sound and motion, and then suddenly there is silence.
You pass out.
When you come to, the sun is setting. You look around. The blackness and wetness is gone, but everything around you in this old-growth forest, so symbolic of life and rebirth, is dead and barren. You do not have to check to know that this is the case for at least a mile or so around.
You walk back to your car with arms, legs, and hands trembling, and sit down behind the wheel. Tears are streaming down your face. You take a very shaky deep breath.
Your name is Rose Lalonde, you are thirty-seven years old, and you are just now realizing that this fight may cost you a lot more than your life.
***
You are forty years old and celebrating your birthday alone in your house with Dave Strider. On the news, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope have just announced their sincere intention to run for the presidency.
Dave gets out of bed to turn the TV off. You take the opportunity to appreciate his very exquisite naked ass to the best of your ability without him having the chance to notice and grouse at you. He crawls back in with you and you very tentatively wrap your arms around his waist and draw him close.
“It’s not like we didn’t know already.” He says eventually.
You kiss the back of his head. “Do whatever you want, dear, but don’t try to put on a brave face just for me.”
“We’ve done okay, right?” He asks, voice barely above a whisper. “We’ve made a place for them. We sent a warning, we – tried. That’s good enough. Isn’t that good enough, Rose?”
“Of course it is.” You mutter into his hair. “It’s better. But I’m afraid we’re not done yet.”
“When will we be?”
“When we’re dead.” You say. “I hope.”
Dave sighs and turns over to face you. “How the hell did you ever talk me into being a part of this, Lalonde?”
“I didn’t have to.” You say.
He kisses you, fiercely, on the mouth. You are both getting old, and you don’t have sex like you used to, so having gone a round already, you’re tired; but you let him take you one more time that night, just to feel close. You don’t get close to people any more… not like you ever did, but especially not now. After all this time, you’re slipping away, and you can feel the pull, like a stuffy cotton wall between you and everything else. He’s the only thing that can break through it any more.
You wish you could stop time so that things would never come to the point where even he won’t be able to do it completely.
***
When you are forty-four, the feeling that you are slipping further away with each passing day has become impossible to ignore. You’re not sure if you’re only noticing now because it started progressing faster, or because it’s only gotten bad enough for you to really inescapably feel it recently. Either way, you have always been a lost cause anyway; it’s just more obvious now, less avoidable. You spend your days in something of a haze and your memories blend together like somebody has been inexpertly sewing together their very frayed edges. The things in your head won’t let you alone, the visions and the horrorterrors, and for that matter your own conscience, or what’s left of it. You are still present; you are not crazy. But you are also not exactly well.
In a year, the ICP will be inaugurated as president and vice-president, and Guy Fieri will become national chaplain. The Hilarocaust will begin, and Crockercorp will finally shed its image of benevolence entirely. There are not many resistance groups left, nowadays. Most of the population has simply become complacent, and will remain that way. This does not mean they will be spared.
You think when you are feeling cogent that perhaps it is better to be going through this last stretch in a haze anyway.
You decide to look up Jane Crocker. You know where she is by now, realistically (“by now” being extremely relative and a gross fucking oversimplification, as your lover keeps reminding you) but you are a little curious what the party line on her disappearance looks like.
The uncensored parts of the Internet don’t exist any more, at least not unless you really know how to hack, but that’s not what you’re looking for anyway, so you get online and search her name. It says that Jane Crocker, heiress to the Betty Crocker empire, was killed tragically in a terrorist attack by misguided rebel fighters when she was fifteen, along with her dear father, the baroness’s grandson. The rebels responsible were of course tried and executed for their reprehensible crimes.
The record says their names were Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider.
That’s their record, then, and that’s your imprint, on the official documents. Signed, sealed, and tied up with a neat little bow. Never mind that SBaHJ: The Movle came out after 2011, never mind that you were doing book signings for years after that, or that Crockercorp had only barely revealed itself as a world power at that time. That record is how the world will remember you and Dave, and there is nothing to be done about it.
It doesn’t have to be how Roxy remembers you, though. It doesn’t have to be how Dirk will remember you. And you realize, fifteen years too late, that that’s what you’re fighting for. The world will end, and you always knew that; everyone, including you and Dave, will die, and you always knew that. The nobles – your children – will be the world’s last best hope. And you always knew that. And that’s why you’re fighting, because 400 years from now, when they’re the last humans on earth, these aren’t the records they’ll be looking at. They’ll be reading your book. They’ll be watching his movies. They’ll be living, for fuck’s sake, they will be living, because you have worked so hard and fought so long to carve out a space where they will be safe. It’s not enough, it will never be enough, because they won’t be, and you’ll never hold her in your arms, never read her a bedtime story, never pull her hair back when she’s sick, you’ll never be the mother you want to be and the one she deserves. But you’ll have done something, and it will be enough. It will have to be.
If it wasn’t, then what the hell was the point this whole time?
***
You kill Fieri when you’re forty-nine (almost fifty).
It is not an epic battle. It is not a struggle that brings you to the brink of death before you can secure your victory. It is not, actually, very hard. The hardest part is not drowning, but you’ve got help on board (you cannot get rid of it) and it’s not as if you’re entirely unaccustomed to having something damp and strange clogging your throat and pressing in on your body. The fight itself is over in what feels like an instant, time being even more relative when your grip on reality is nearly entirely gone (it is lucky you won’t have to hold on much longer). It feels natural. He takes a few swipes at you, you stick needles in his brain, and you ride his body all the way down the falls of blood. It’s really more anticlimactic than anything. You think he deserves it, a death like that. Anonymous, dirty, messy, no one left alive to even read about it in the news the next day. You think it might be ironic, but you never quite mastered irony like your lover did.
He is there to fish you out of the river, his task already completed as of this morning (“Ms. Lalonde, the Presidents have been cut in two.”) Oddly enough, the only thought that occurs to you upon seeing him is how foolishly bedraggled you look in your skirts drenched in blood when compared to his fresh clean well-cut suit.
“Try to be a little more melodramatic the next time you kill a war criminal.” He says. “I don’t think the needles in the eyes were really sufficient.”
“I think perhaps we’ve reached our quota on melodramatic murders, don’t you?” You ask, taking a proffered towel to wipe your face and hands. “Between the two of us and the three of them.”
“Fair enough.” He says. “I’ll let you off the hook this time, but you gotta remember to bring your A-Game. The audience might start to lose interest.”
“I don’t think that should be too much of a problem.” You retort. “I daresay I’ve never had too much trouble getting the audience’s attention when I wanted it. Plus, the only audience I have left is fairly easily distracted by promises of getting to touch my breasts.”
“Your words cut to the bone, Lalonde.” He teases, touching a hand to his heart. “How could you wound a young maiden in this way, I want my virginity back.”
“Then talk to your ex-girlfriend.” You say. “Let’s go, it won’t be long before the drones arrive and I don’t have the energy right now, nor do you.”
He nods and extends a hand. You mount his board and cling to his middle, burying your face in his jacket. You fly all the way back to your house. As you do, you peek over the edge of the board and gaze at your surroundings, at the raggedy tents of mirth, the water that goes on for miles stained in turn with oil and blood and debris. Once upon a time, you knew the highways of the Northeastern U.S. like the back of your hand. Now, you cling on for dear life and wait for him to get you home and make the black things recede from your brain as far as you can force them.
Your name is Rose Lalonde, you’re forty-nine years old, and you are going to die very soon. This is both unbearable to think, and the biggest relief you have experienced in your life.
***
You die when you are fifty.
A month or so later, and it would’ve been fifty-one. If you could have thought of one more way to procrastinate, one more provision you hadn’t already ensured for your daughter, it might have been later; fifty-two, or fifty-three even. But you took care of all of that ages ago, and it’s hard to justify intensive training for a battle you’re certain to lose. You could’ve had more sex, you could’ve left more messages, but what would be the point? A month might have been feasible, but much longer and you would have lost your mind too completely to fight anyway. Why postpone, when you have been seeing your death on replay since you were eight?
You are only barely afraid, that morning. You tie up your dress and comb back your hair. You slip on a headband, add a couple pins to take care of the inevitable stray hairs. (Might as well leave a neat corpse.) You eat breakfast in silence, and neither of you even needs to puke it up afterwards.
You are ready, as you will ever be.
You double-check your specibus. Your needles are at the ready, and the black things in your head talk louder, writhe quicker. They know what’s coming, and you cannot deny it to them.
You stand up. “Are you coming?”
He sits very still, and very silent, for a moment. “Yeah.” He says.
You swallow, take a deep breath. Halfway out the door, a poignant cough from Dave causes you to turn around.
“What?” You ask. “Don’t tell me you’re bailing out now.”
He scoffs. “Whatever. What would even be the point of that?”
“Then why are we delaying? Let’s go.” You insist.
“In a minute.” He says.
You scowl, but close the door. You stare at each other across the room for a very long moment.
“Before we die.” He says. “One last thing. I need you to know.”
You don’t say anything, just wait. He takes off his shades and locks eyes with you.
“I remember, Rose.” He says. “I don’t remember it like you do. But I know enough. And you should know that… oh, God, fuck it.”
Before you can retort to this, he’s crossed the room, and he’s kissing you like you’ve never been kissed before.
“I love you, Lalonde.” He says, inches from your mouth. “Rose. Rose, I love you. And I don’t regret an instant, never have, never will. I’m glad for what you told me. What you showed me. We’re dying today, and… I’m down with that, okay? So… thanks, I guess. Thanks for telling me about Dirk. Thanks for giving me a chance, and a cause, even if it’s a lost one. And the world might not remember us, but I will, whatever’s left of me will remember you, always has, always will. I love you, and thank you, and… and I’m sorry, Rose.”
You realize as if from a mile away that your eyes are wet.
“Are you scared?” You ask.
He shakes his head. “Who wants to live in a shithole like this, anyway?”
Five hours from now, as you lie dying from your wounds, you take a moment to think back on your life, on what the fight has cost you, what it has earned you, and on what things might otherwise have been like. You have lost your mind, your family, your body, and your daughter in service of this futile cause. And now you are losing your life.
In your last few breaths, you feel Dave’s hand close around yours.
Your name is Rose Lalonde, you are fifty years old, and if you had to do it over again, you wouldn’t change a single thing.