Where the Heart Is

         It was a dark and evil night. Wandering shoeless through the streets, the wind whipping at his unwashed hair, his clothes white and thin, he felt none of it. His eyes cast down on the ground being eaten away by the soles of his feet, his mind was elsewhere.
         She was sitting on one of the benches in the town centre. She had a warm coat, a bag, a pair of jeans and tear marks on her cheeks. If he had been looking where he was going, he might never have seen her.
          “What’s up?” he asked as he sat down beside her. She hugged her knees to her chest. “Why aren’t you at home, hey? What’s brought you out here?”
         She let herself fall against his chest, and he let his arms hold onto her.
          “Lets at least get you something warm to eat, hey?”
         The security cameras watching the town might have noticed something odd in the tired looking, weird looking young man leading the lost, alone and upset ten year old back to his house, but no one ever said anything.

          “Here you go,” he said, handing her a bowl of hot soup and a couple of slices of bread. She took them from him and supped at a few spoonfuls. He got up again, and came back a few minutes later with some tissue. Taking a gentle hold of her chin, he tilted her face towards him and dried her eyes.
          “You’re freezing,” he smiled. She nodded. “I’ll go run you a bath.” And he disappeared again. When the bath was run, he came back and lead her upstairs and, when she showed no sign of doing it herself, undressed her, helping her in. She shivered as the water slipped over her. He smiled, but she just sat there like a lump of meat. And so, gently, he filled the flannel with water, and emptied it over her back and her front. She seemed to relax a little, so he did it again. When he did it the third time, she smiled, a weak little thing that seemed to flutter like a moth to the flame. Slowly, he washed away the tears from her cheeks, and sat her back. She closed her eyes, and took in a sad breath, and he kneeled and watched this tiny little naked woman in his bath, confused at what he was looking at. Everything was there, but none of it worked the way it should. Hormones and chemicals would do amazing things.
         When she took his hand and was helped out the bath, he wrapped a towel around her and led her to his bedroom. “You can sleep here” he told her. She smiled and nodded, but didn’t lay down. He waited.
          “My bag,” she said eventually, her voice strong and with the confidence of a child playing a game. He nodded, and went downstairs to fetch it.
         When he came back, she was lying in bed, the towel on the floor. He paused for a moment.
          “What’s in your bag?”
          “My things,” she said with that same voice, reaching out to take it from him. He let her, and paused for another moment. She didn’t open it, just took it into bed with her. So, he tucked her in as best he could, turned, and closed the door behind him.
         Sitting on his sofa downstairs, he ran his hands through his greasy, unwashed hair. Coming back to his senses, his feet began to hurt from the hours he’d spent pounding them against the cold pavement. It had been a sad and lonesome day. Just when he thought everything was behind him, it bit him on the arse. Just when he thought he could ignore it, it was staring him in the face. Not wanting to wake the girl upstairs, he took out a pencil and a blank piece of paper, and began to write. As the words flowed from the graphite, they twisted around his fingers. He skittered the led across the page, trying to out-run them, but they overtook and swallowed his hand, sinking into his blood through the skin, letting his body take them to his heart where they sank low and heavy. They twisted around his sinews until the little girl stood there, staring out from his chest. He signed it, and put both pencil and paper down.
         As he dozed, he dreamt.
         He was walking down the High Street again, the air still and the night stars shining bright above him. The moon was waxing crescent, a slither above him that promised only to grow. He turned the corner into one of the side alleys that lead nowhere special, and moved his bare feet forward. Sounds were coming to him, a wailing like a dying dove, a disharmonic chorus of beating wings and swansong. He turned another corner, and watched.
         His school looked as big and bright and blasphemous as he remembered it. Those soulless buildings running towards the sky, blinds closed against the sunlight that might come in and disturb the lessons, the bridge between the two buildings like an iron umbilical chord between mother and mutant child. On the concrete around them, he saw hundreds of children, uniformed and playing. They picked stones up and threw them at each other, beat each other with sticks and pulled at hair until it came out at the roots, all with that childish glee of a game played well. Blood marked the playground, bones broke in the night and when someone fell down they were beaten all the harder. If the night wasn’t so still, he could hear what they were saying to each other, but all he could see was their mouths moving, laughing and smiling. When someone was beaten until they didn’t move, until they ceased to be any fun any more, they got up and re-joined the game.
         He walked around, running his fingers over the lattice-wire fence, his eyes flickering between the bloody and mangled children and the ground. In his dream he didn’t shudder or flinch.
         Slowly, he lifted his eyes to the night sky again, and saw against it a silhouette. As his pupils widened, he saw small and limp body, dangling from a thin line around its neck, strung up on a deadening tree. In the non-breeze, it wavered, it’s flesh hanging in tatters from its bones.

         He came back to waking like a man drowning in quicksand, the world reluctantly dragging itself around him again. It must have been cold because he shivered, and he grabbed his shirt to wipe away the sweat.
         As the sounds came to him, he heard rustling and clashing from the kitchen. He rubbed his eyes.
          “Here you are,” she said, smiling.
         He looked at her in the morning light. It must have been the way the sodium light had flicked her skin, because she looked so much more . . . human, in the daylight. Her long hair neatly brushed, clothes warm and dry, her lips curled into a smile.
         He took the plate from her, and sat up. She sat down beside him.
“We should call your parents,” he said, staring at the breakfast she’d made him. She shrugged and sat back. “Where are they?” he asked.
         She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his stomach. “But I like it here, Charles. You’re so nice.” He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair. It was warm and soft and made him smile.
         When he had ate all that he was going to, she took the plate from him, and took herself upstairs. Curious, he followed her.
         He found her in his bedroom, sitting naked on his bed. Again, he looked.
         Her bag was still closed, but she had something slight and silver buried in her hand. She patted the bed beside him, and he sat.
         Slowly, she drew her fingers across her cheeks, from the corners of her mouth backwards. He sat and watched, amazed. Thick red lines followed her fingers that began to weep. She giggled and grabbed his wrist. It wasn’t a strong grip, it was a grip of promise. Slowly, she drew her fingers over his forearm, and again a thick red line followed. He stared up at her face, the new blood rolling down her checks and over her chin, dripping on her clothes and on his bed sheets, her face paling. She giggled.
          “See how easy it is, Charlie?”
         He grabbed her chest and forced her back against the mattress. The force of the impact shocked the blood from her face, and it dotted her forehead as his ran down and onto her naked flesh. She giggled again. He stared down at her, her hair a halo around her face smeared with red, and she ran a small hand through his hair. “See how easy it is, Charlie?” He snapped away and left the room.
         When he came back, he was carrying a first aid kit, and she was still sprawled naked across his sheets. He picked her up, sat her on his knee and began to wipe the blood off her cheeks. He kept doing it until no more came, and the he stuck the skin back together with surgical tape. She sat there, quiet as a church mouse, and let him.
         When he was done, he sat her back on the bed, no words to say to her. She picked the razor up again, and started to twist it through her fingers.
          “How do you know my name?” he asked slowly, eventually.
         Her eyes cast down at the slither of metal, she smiled to herself. “Someone called you when you were asleep. I heard your answer phone message.” He frowned, but didn’t say anything.
          “It’s good, you know, Charlie,” she said, eyes still set on the razor. She took it between her thumb and forefinger, and drew it down the length of her chest. As he sat and watched, she giggled. When she was done, he reached for another pad to clean her, and as he turned back to face her, she started undoing his shirt. With his chest exposed, she drew a deep, ugly cut all the way down to his groin and the air stuck in his throat just as the words had stuck in his mind. “See Charlie?” she said, standing up and wrapping a towel around herself. He watched her go back downstairs until the film of blood began to run down his legs, slowly went into the bathroom and ran himself a warm bath.
         He didn’t know what she was doing down there, and as he closed his eyes and sunk beneath the water’s skin he tried not to think about it. The hot water bit into his chest and stomach, and he grimaced.
         The lapping of the water in his ears sang a sweet song, and he began to relax. He kept his eyes tight shut against all the world outside and all the noise inside. Slowly again, he began to hear that noise, all those beating wings and that plaintive wailing, the last breath from the lungs desperate to be heard. It was only a dream, he told himself. Nothing more. But his breath was coming slow and ragged, and the skin of the water stretched up and swallowed him.
         He awoke again choking and spluttering water from his lungs. He coughed until his lungs hurt, and when the pain had died, he still heard that chorus in his ears. He shook his head and pulled himself out the bath.
         The water hadn’t allowed any of the blood to coagulate, and so as he wrapped the towel around himself his chest began weeping again. He ignored it. His mind was turned in on itself, eating away it’s own grey matter, gnawing down on his spinal chord. He shivered again, and curled himself up in bed, under the safety of his duvet, the song still swelling in his ears. He tasted blood in his mouth, and felt a hot whip around his neck.
         Someone’s waiting . . .
         Someone’s waiting at the door . . .
         Someone’s waiting at the door for you . . .
         He yanked his eyes open and, neck still burning, ran downstairs and opened the door.
         No one was there. Naked as a babe, he stood out into the street, and looked. But no one was there. He turned and went back inside again. He didn’t look downstairs because he didn’t want to see her, but went straight upstairs and back to bed.
         It was only when he slipped back between the sheets that he felt that warm lump beside him. He brushed his hip against it, and then his hand. It felt soft, and cool with outside air. A wet tongue licked his hand. He pulled back the sheets and looked at the dog. And that was just it, just a dog. Not any breed, just a dog, its eyes milky white and shot with red. He ran his hand down its length, over its withers and ran its tail between his fingers. Its fur was smooth and thick, and he ran his hand down it again. The dog rolled over onto its side, and he ran his hand down the length of its belly. She whimpered.
          “Good girl . . .” he found himself cooing. “Gooood girl.” He got to his knees, and rolled the bitch to her feet.
         Standing silently in the doorway, the little girl watched, and smiled. She smiled as she saw Charlie losing himself, savoured each and every drop of it as it slipped away from him.

         When Charlie woke up, it was again to the same sound that seemed to have slipped from his dreams to his waking. He saw the nighttime shadows slipping into each other, running through each other, and he heard a small drip, drip, drip as they bled. The dog was just as he’d left her, stretched out asleep beside him, and again his brain gnawed down on itself as he tried desperately not to think.
         He felt something warm and wet slip up his belly and over his groan, and as she sat up, the sheets fell away from her. Her skin was pale as dawn, the red lines showing vivid against it like blood in cream. She put her palms on his chest, and smiled again, her hair falling around her.
          “What’s she got that I haven’t got, Charlie?”
         He tried to shift, but her hips didn’t move.
         She took her razor, and drew another line across his chest bisecting the first one. He gasped and whimpered and tried to move again. But she just put a finger to his lips and hushed him. “It’s so easy, Charlie . . .” She put the razor down in the blood.
         He stared up at her wide-eyed, and without thinking took the razor up, making a quick mark with it across his stomach. She leaned back and laughed.
          “Well done, Charlie!” she said, clapping. He dropped the metal. Again, she put her palms over his nipples, leaned forward, and kissed him, and he let her. “I told you Charlie, it’s so easy . . .” She took the razor again and drew another line across his chest. He laid back and let her.
         When she was done, she leaned over him, resting her forearms on his shoulders, her face inches from his, her small body almost swallowed by his chest.
          “It’s so good to see you again, Charlie.”
          “What?”
          “Isabella . . .” she whispered.
          “Oh fucking-Jesus-Christ-”
         She smiled as he struggled, her tiny frame pinning him down. He felt soft fur against his side and a wet tongue on his face.
          “I knew you’d recognise me.”
          “Jesus . . .”
         She laughed.
         He heard bones breaking and blood dripping in the night, and again felt that hot wire around his neck.
          “It’s sad, really,” she almost cooed. “You alive when you want to be dead, and me dead when I should be alive.” She smoothed his hair. “I suppose you were too young to know any different. When you killed me. When we were both still young to be called people.”
         She kissed his forehead again, and breathed deep. “It’s good to be back. Back somewhere you felt so at home.” A stone glanced of his temple. “And I’m so glad you let us in, both of us.” Again, he felt a wet tongue lick his face.
          “What the fuck is going on?” he managed to get out. She laughed again.
          “You alive when you should be dead, me dead when I should be alive . . . I think we’ve found a happy medium. It took us a fair few years, but I think we’ve found it.” She giggled again. “And thanks to our new friend here, of course.” The dog barked softly.
         Isabella took the razor again, and cut deep under his ribs. He gasped, but he let her. She was right.