A moment passes.
The shadows back off towards where they should be only by a sliver.
Maz’s eyes close as Eli sits back and sinks into the couch.
She leans forward to him. Her fingers find his face by feel alone and crawl up and down the side of his nose until his cheeks begin to lift under her touch.
Don’t open your eyes. Now’s the time to make a case for the present tense here.
“How long… do you think it’s been?”
His hand stops in the air halfway to her hair.
Right. How long… Since last time? Since daylight made sense? Since we split a scale? Since reflections were normal? Since the shadows stopped being extra friendly? How long’s ‘what’ been?
They look at each other when the rain starts pattering its knocks on the window.
His mouth twists to one side.
“Wha–?”
The kettle carries on boiling.
Time skids. The next thing he knows, she is pulling him in. Her short laughter comes out thin, more a gasp than any intentional sound.
The window catches them doubled and strange where his reflection glances down the hallway. Its eyes move their focus to the centre of the room. After a moment, it looks right back at him. The one on the TV’s surface ahead holds a keen stare towards the kitchen.
The sky grumbles outside with the sound of thunder.
His hand makes a move towards the back of her neck while his attention stays on the reflection in the TV screen.
What’s in the… kitchen?
***
Me.
Right. Right, I was in the kitchen.
Last proper autumn, was it? The rain was knocking on the window, and the street beyond it was… beige.
The kettle was going without ever finishing the job, as expected. Maz stood beside me. She was close enough that I could feel her shoulder tensing through her sleeve.
Ari was by the doorway, that odd smile parked on his face, the one he’d always worn when he knew how the chat ended. He had his hood up for who even knows why.
He held the mint tin open near Maz’s face.
“And if we don’t?” She sounded like she sort of knew the answer but asked anyway.
“It’s not a pull you want to follow.” Ari shut the tin and placed it on the counter, like it had never not been there. Unless it was always supposed to go there anyway.
Maz laughed. That wasn’t a happy laugh at all, though.
I walked Ari to the front door. He stopped in the hallway with his face in shadow, not that his hood wasn’t covering enough already.
“So what, if we run out, do we disappear? Does someone come knocking? It would be just my luck to stop existing right before payday.” I aimed for a perfectly fine and normal dry joke. There was no point in letting the fear right behind it show.
Okay, it must have been showing since Ari’s grin had forgotten about its performance.
“That’s not how it works.” He sighed when he looked past me at… something. There was only the coat rack and an empty hallway behind me. Not news. I already had a mental file for ‘Ari sees things I don’t’ that didn’t need revisiting.
“It’s very simple, Eli. Seven days, seven half-scales.”
Right. I could work with straight numbers.
“Why seven?”
Ari shrugged as his mouth squished to one corner. He obviously thought I was asking the most boring questions.
“Queen’s got a taste for numbers. Five is Merx’s, shame, you’ll forget working with him quicker than he can travel. Six is hers, seasons and all. Seven’s the break.”
“Can’t we fake it? Pretend we forgot, keep our heads down?”
He pulled a face that might have easily been a smirk, or might have been pity. It was hard to tell with Ari.
“Sure, if you want to sit in the crack between.”
He gave the doorframe a knock.
“They don’t want your memories from below crawling back.” Another knock hit.
“You don’t want that world listening for you.” Knock.
“You want to stay topside? Stick to the schedule. Mercy is not the same as a pardon.”
Two more quick knocks followed to make sure I was listening or to nail his point home.
“Do yourselves a favour. Don’t skip a day. Seven in a row and it’s over. That’s the only bargain you get.”
Ari stepped out into the hall with his hand on the door handle.
“Write it down.” He didn’t look back as the thunder rolled outside.
“Not that you will.”
He swung the door towards its frame behind him as he walked on.
“You forget this part first.”
The latch snapped shut.
***
The kettle clicks off.
Eli jerks back and breaks the kiss.
How’s the kettle louder even than the door latch? Right. Home. Maz. Viper. No. No, no.
His grip at the back of Maz’s neck tightens as he pings glances between the corners of the room.
“Eli?” Maz tries to catch his eye.
“Where’d you just go?”
“Write it down…” He holds her face with both hands, but his gaze slides past her.
“Write it, or – Don’t – Ari said… if we don’t – I have to. Before Viper kicks in.”
She watches him as her heart and his tick too fast in her neck.
“What?”
Her hand reaches for him when he surges upwards with the mint tin in hand. The suddenness of it pushes her balance to tip sideways. His arm catches her by the waist as the other swings her leg clear of his lap. He pivots her in one fluid turn that makes her trade places with him while he vaults off the couch.
She misses his sleeve by a finger.
“Eli, hey–”
He is halfway to the kitchen. The thought doesn’t get a chance to take flight. His leg clips a chair on his way. The speed of it sends it spinning and hitting the wall before it leaves a dent in the plaster.
Cupboard doors creak and bang as he flings all four of them open and shut. He yanks open the bottom drawer. It derails with a loud screech and hits the floor before receipts and broken magnets scatter across the tiles. He gets down on his knees before starting to sift through the clutter with rushed hands.
He finds a pen and tears a creased envelope in half. The side of his hand flattens the scrap against the tiles. He stands. The lines get scrawled at the same speed as he crosses them out. He writes again until the nib breaks the paper.
Maz stands in the doorway with her arms wrapped around herself.
“Eli, what are you… what’s the hurry?”
His laugh comes out hollow.
“I’m trying to keep us on this side.”
He slams the mint tin on the counter with a sharp clack that rings out.
“The Viper…” He looks up and back down at the paper.
“We’re not… It’s not a habit.” His hands tremble.
“It’s the bargain. It’s the only way we stay. Forgetting is part of it, Maz. We have to… take it.”
He writes again, slower, but his hand keeps jittering and making the letters lean on one another.
“We’re supposed to keep taking it. We keep forgetting that bit.”
The pen falls from his hand while he is staring at the words.
“It was always going to let this world slip if we stopped.” His voice cracks before he turns.
“And we stopped.”
“Oh… No. You don’t mean–” Her gaze crawls around the kitchen. The colours begin to turn brighter and the ceiling a touch lower.
Eli grabs a magnet off the floor and pins the note to the fridge with it:
‘Seven days, seven scales. Don’t skip. –E’
Then begins the hiss at the edge of hearing.
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