CHAPTER 3 - DUET II

  This is, perhaps, the least surprising statement to make, but Siena doesn’t have many friends even in her home town. There was the occasional schoolmate growing up—the type of friend she would sit with at lunch, talk to in-between classes, and study with—but nothing much. None warranted calling back these days, especially since she hadn’t kept in touch since dropping out after her depression got too difficult to manage. In Colorado, she has…

  She has one she can reluctantly call acquaintances, even if she’d call her a friend.

  A grid of sodium-orange streetlights stretches toward the Sandias, the mountains reduced to a darker absence against the sky. The shine dances across her body, yet none of it reflects in her darkened eyes distorted like television static.

  The monster does not understand the concept of friendship very well, even with Siena’s memories now hers. She does know that within each human heart is a yearning to belong, for they are social creatures, and she will soon begin to understand that ache she still carries from her past self. Already, she wishes her kin were ever-present.

  At the very least, she would be meeting the other tonight according to Twilight Ember’s text. That wasn’t the only reason why Siena had gone out in the dead of night for a walk. Cities this late at night hold a dull type of quiet aside from the occasional car passing by. Like a song paused midway through, only to resume when the sun rises the following morning.

  In this case, the song is a terrible arrangement of noise, and as such, the pause is appreciated.

  Siena’s legs hurt by the time she makes it to the gas station her kin asked to meet her at. It is one like many others, an island of fluorescent light marooned in a sea of darkness. The canopy hums overhead, its white glow bleaching the concrete. Inside the convenience store, the windows shine brightly with energy drinks and snacks, untouched at this hour of night.

  It is Shadow Lily in her human form that casually leans against the storefront with an opened can of sprite lazily in her hand.

  You can tell a lot about a Magical Girl from her eyes.

  Both girls’ eyes are shrouded in darkness, an evergrowing void that seems to bleed past their pupils and crawl over their eyelids like a child coloring over lines.

  There is, however, a difference. Siena’s eyes are dotted by grainy, ashen particles that blind her to the horrors of a world which has hurt her time and time again. She fears what she could see should she open her eyes to the truth, and therefore prefers her vision obscured to protect herself.

  Shadow Lily, however, does not hide. The darkness within her vision is as smooth as polished stone and jagged at the edges. She wants to see—wants to know everything, no matter how ugly or small or disappointing it is, because if she knows, if she can brace herself for impact, nothing can hurt her.

  They are both different now, controlled by something alien. A mockery of what it means to be human.

  Yet these mindsets…

  Stick with them.

  “Want a drink?” she asks smoothly, as if she cares for nothing. “I can get you anything.”

  Siena frowns, failing to answer. She doesn’t understand. There is nobody around so why is Shadow Lily behaving this way? Behaving so human? She moves idly, fingers tracing the rim of her soda can; she taps a foot on the ground and tilts her head back and forth as if she imagines a song in her head; her breaths are relaxed, yet uneven. Nonsurgical.

  Siena stops in her tracks, and her kindred smiles. “C’mon, girl. No need to be so scared.” She leisurely beckons her with a hand. “I’m not like that hard ass Megan. She just asked me to check on you ‘cause she likes thinking herself in charge and having lackeys.” Shadow Lily rolls her eyes. “She always complains and I really couldn’t give less of a damn.”

  Siena blinks slowly, not knowing how to interact with her fellow note. Her expectations had been so different… she gets closer and gets a better look at her last sibling. Shadow Lily looks a tad immature for eighteen. Clothes hang on her dark skin more than they fit, and her shoulder-length hair is more of a textured dark brown than the usual straight jet black when she uses her implement. The thin lavender streak by her cheek, however, remains. Despite the relaxed demeanor, she’s light on her feet as if she’s ready to run away or fight if she needs to.

  Siena steps into the pale, glowing light. “What’s… your name?”

  “Right. I keep forgetting you’ve got no friends so you wouldn’t know one of the famous Magical Girls out there!” She slaps her knees and chortles a little bit, taking a swig of her soda. “I have a few. It’s a lot of fun, you should try it—” she gasps. “Wait, we should totes be friends!”

  Silence is her only response.

  “Pfft. Guess I got rejected,” she snorts, shrugging. “The name’s Keisha Boucher! Nice to meetcha.”

  “Oh. I mean—this isn’t what I expected. Sorry?” Siena stumbles. “Nice to meet you too.”

  There’s a slight pause as a car rides into the gas station, and Keisha’s smile grows a smidge wider. “How’s your new ride treating you?” she asks, nudging her head at the vehicle. “Mine’s been a pleasure.”

  “It’s been an adjustment,” she says quietly.

  “Sheesh. Not the talkative one, are you? Guess you did pick the shy depressed one. I just picked the mildly outgoing depressed one.” Keisha stops leaning against the wall and looks up at the sky. “Ever notice how you can’t see the damn stars? Pisses me off.”

  Siena had expected more anger at her failure. Instead, Keisha kept complaining under her breath.

  “This girl I picked by accident. Me,” Siena says with a sigh. “She’s not hollow, but digging into her, the little crevices in her heart full of soot? It’s a painful experience.” She outstretches a hand and stares at the line in her palm. “She’s let so much happen to her, and for what? It’s been hard coming to terms with everything.” So little has happened, and yet it feels like she has to face the world all alone. “It’s so lonely, and I get so angry and scared I can barely control it at times, and…”

  She pauses, realizing that this is the most talking she’s done since coming to.

  “Wanna go for a walk?” Keisha asks. “I love cities at night. I think we got that in common.”

  Siena nods.

  ——

  Keisha is a freeing personality.

  With her, Siena feels unbound by the circumstances of her arrival within this world—of the judgement and consequences she might face because she failed. Instead of Megan’s harsh words and barely hidden pity and contempt, Siena gets what a human brain needs to function.

  A connection. A conversation with an equal. A refuge in a new strange land.

  And what a strange land it is. They witness the sights of the city at night. Cracked sidewalks with weeds growing within. A closed taquería which still smells faintly of grease and cilantro. They wait at a bus stop and hop onto the empty vehicle with no stop in mind, chatting mindlessly about their new identities, and about how strange it is to feel so strongly. Siena even asks to hear the song again, but her new friend tells her no out of fear of addiction. You’ve been cut off, she says, so you’re better off not depending on someone else to listen.

  Children having snuck out in a park to smoke weed and talk among themselves.

  Within said park, they settle.

  Keisha stands on a swing, propelling herself back and forth with momentum while Siena sits calmly next to her with her eyes glancing down at the earthen ground.

  “Keisha used to wander at night at least once a week no matter where she stayed. California, Oregon, and now Colorado,” Keisha says quietly, eyeing the kids laughing at the other end of the park. “I’m her, but I’m also not her. I think I just like the quiet. How it feels like everything pauses. I think that she felt she could finally breathe while the world was pausing its own. Felt safe.”

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  Siena pushes her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Is that regret? Do you think you shouldn’t have taken her body?”

  “Oh—” the dark-skinned girl snorts, waving a hand. “No, no! I don’t regret experiencing this at all. Living sure is grand,” she trails off with a smile. “I know it’s not going to be forever. I know that eventually I’ll have to cause these people’s death and end their world, or die trying. But I plan on carving out a good time for myself until then.” She jumps off her swing. “What about you, Siena?”

  “What about me?”

  Keisha rolls her eyes. “What do you want to do before their world ends or we die?”

  “Before the world ends? I want to…” she closes her mouth to find the word, hands gripping the chains. “I want to find my footing, and then I want to return to the Conductor. We’re here to execute his will. He wants this world; this isn’t about me.”

  Something darkens in Keisha’s eyes. Siena holds her breath as her sister stretches, arms blocking the moon; a shadow seems to shroud the sky, transforming it from dark to nothing as it creeps over the park.

  “Keisha—”

  She clicks her tongue. “Shush for a bit.” Her hands cup her mouth and she screams, “hey kids! Scram!”

  They obviously don’t listen to her. One gives her his middle finger, a girl tells her to fuck off, and the last two only snicker. With a hand on her hip, the Magical Girl sighs. “I’m really not in the mood for this.”

  She snaps a finger.

  Lights within the park flicker and slowly die. The bulbs buzz and whine like something suffocating, their glow shuddering, thinning, then bleeding out entirely until there is nothing left but a malignant growth that devours all light. The blackout swells outward and spreads until the entire street is dark. Until one cannot make out leaves on trees from the night. Until you cannot tell people’s faces apart because they are just shapes.

  “The fuck?” one of the kids says. “What’s—”

  But there is something else. Captured light, tamed light, enslaved light. It pops and sparkles above the teenagers, and their shadows seem to spasm on the ground, growing thicker and thicker until one reaches out and—

  They run. They run silently and never turn back, their steps echoing in the night.

  “Without light, there can be no shadow,” Keisha mutters under her breath.

  “The Luminaries! They’ll—”

  “There’s a lot of leeway in the three virtues,” she interrupts with three fingers up. “How else do you think Magical Girls are used for war? Those fools are too naive to actually tighten the noose around any of their beneficiaries. There is a limit, but it’s mostly smoke and mirrors. Propaganda to keep us docile. You inherited a rookie’s memories, so you wouldn’t have known. And even then, a lot of veterans still don’t know. Fuckin’ rubes.”

  But she knows. It is in her nature to upturn the world and seek every bit of knowledge, because what she knew could not hurt her.

  Siena’s head is spinning. “What if the kids report you to the Agency?”

  “They won’t believe ‘em. They were high, and it was late at night,” Keisha says with a shrug. “Now, you.” She tilts her head with a toothy grin Siena barely makes out.

  “Wha—”

  The dark folds inward. Her outline blurs then snaps sharp as the shadows peel off her like a second skin pulled too fast. Moonlight vanishes as darkness rushes up her legs, her arms, her spine—absence slotting itself into place as she dashes toward Siena with obsidian hair flowing in the air and new fabric condensing from the darkness around her.

  Siena doesn’t realize her own implement coalesces into her hand from dirt and dust particles on the parkgrounds. She swings her scythe with a firm grip, and hits the thrusted rapier out of her neck’s way.

  “What are you doing?!” she screams.

  “Ha! So you do have a pair of lungs on you!” Keisha cackles. She jumps back and lands in a crouch, but clicks her tongue when dirt is already slowing her down by wrapping around her ankles. She hums pensively, flexing a bit of darkness to purge it away. “You’re quite an unknown, and Keisha tracked everything. A new Magical girl with powers over fine particles who keeps to herself—”

  “Please don’t kill me,” she begs. “I’ll be good, I’ll—”

  “Jesus Christ, shut up! You’re pathetic!”

  Light behind her like fireworks.

  Siena feels something hug her from behind. Her shadow betrays her; it keeps her still and quiet, having risen from the earth to serve another master. Siena can’t move. She can’t think. She can’t help but close her eyes as Keisha blurs toward her, sword in hand, and stabs her throat with minimal motion.

  She feels warm as she collapses on the ground, bleeding out. Like a flash of heat. Her vision blurs, but she can make out her assailant’s blade snapping through the air with a practiced motion, sending a dark spray of blood on the ground. She says something, but the words—she can’t register the words. It’s all far away.

  Blood surges up Siena’s throat in thick, choking waves, stealing her breath mid-gasp. She convulses, coughing violently. She retches with a raw, animalistic sound that scrapes out of her as her body arches uselessly against the dirt. The human body dies faster than she can truly understand.

  But she doesn’t die. Maybe once upon a time, Siena would have allowed it like she did in Seattle, but not her.

  The world is made up of fragments suspended in motion. Dust hanging in the air, grit embedded in the soil beneath her cheek, pollen drifting unseen, shed skin cells, and on and on until it can pretend to be something whole.

  The ground isn’t ground but countless grains pressing into her. The air isn’t empty but crowded, thick with debris and breath and residue. Her own body is no exception; warm blood sputters out of her in tiny increments, losing its shape, turning into heat, scent, and mist as it seeps into the ground.

  Siena tires of being treated like nothing. She calls upon the little things that make up the world and somehow rearranges herself. The girl stares down her arms and cannot tell where she begins and dirt and ash and plastic and sand and ash ends. It is as if the particles themselves push her to move, scythe in hand, with a quiet so absolute she can’t even hear the wind.

  The Magical Girl feels more confident than she ever has. This is what drove her, once. Only this.

  Keisha mutters something with a raised eyebrow. She cannot hear it.

  She moves too quickly, severing her arm in a flash, a flick of her wrist without a care in the world—but it doesn’t fall far. It hangs in the air for half a second, already coming apart, breaking down into its smallest pieces. Blood mist, bone, muscle, skin lose their insistence on shape, unthreading into a dense cloud of matter suspended in the air, and they reknit themselves.

  Without a second wasted, she spins and forces her assailant back, who seems to be content to observe her. They stare each other down a few seconds, and Siena can’t help but pant with exhaustion. She can barely stand without using her scythe as support.

  There is a lantern attached to her implement, one that continuously spits out grey ash that clouds the park. She outstretches a hand and sends them barrelling toward Keisha. Fill her lungs and eyes and mouth and nostrils and stomach and kill her, she rages knowing she can’t get close.

  Shadow Lily steps forward and the dust simply fails to register her. Her outline blurs, edges smearing thin, and the grey cloud passes through where she should be, slipping through her like a ghost. A snap of a finger, a trail of light in the sky, and she suddenly disappears—the word stutters, and places her behind Siena, who feels the swordtip on her back.

  She’d traveled through shadows—and she’s close enough for her words to sink in.

  “That was messy,” she tells herself more than Siena. “Enough.”

  The monster wants to laugh. Enough? As if she hadn’t been the one to attack first.

  “I do mean it when I say that,” she adds, her voice cold. “Or I don’t think we can be friends ‘cause you’ll be dead on the ground. That trick can’t work forever, zombs.”

  Siena sighs, but she knows she’s correct. Without much choice, she becomes human again, and not an amalgamation of dirt and blood and whatever else she had gotten her hands on. There is fear in her heart, but she can’t help but lash out.

  “You attacked—”

  Keisha interrupts. “Yap, yap, yap.” Her rapier dissolves into her own shadow. “I’m sorry I was tired of you whining? You talked like a gust of wind could blow you apart, now look at you. Yelling and shit.”

  “I could have died!”

  “But you didn’t. Now, did I know you wouldn’t die? Pfft,” she waves a hand, “no way. But honestly, do you know what I hate the most, Silent Ash?”

  Siena blinks at the mention of her Magical Girl name, and then shakes her head. “We just met.”

  “Right,” she giggles, crossing her arms. “I hate it when people wallow in their own self pity, complaining about their lives while doing nothing. Under normal circumstances, without us in there to pilot these girls?” She taps the side of her head. “We would have hated each other.”

  That was true enough. Both girls’ minds are in a dark place, but they are opposites.

  “Woe is me, y’know?” she continues, sitting on the swing next to where Siena had nearly died choking on her own blood. “You’ve got to act upon the world. You can’t just sit around and cry, especially when we have to soften it up and eventually help conquer it. Anyway, wanna go to McDonalds or something? I’m famished.”

  Siena doesn’t even bother to answer. Instead, she just starts walking back home in silence. Her clothes are bloody and dirty; exhaustion creeps into her bones and her throat still hurts, but at the very least, she can breathe.

  “Guess I’ll be going on my own! See ya in Colorado, girl!” Keisha yells. “You’ve got my number!”

  As she walks, the monster notices the countless phone notifications she’d gotten. Missed calls and texts from her brother, but some from Twilight Ember as well, most likely asking how the meeting went.

  With a sniff of contempt, she looks at the moon.

  Yes. A picture of the moon as her new screensaver ought to do just fine for now.