Manhattan's Velvet Knife

September 13, 1976

The sky isn’t real.

Why had it taken Blue so long to notice this? Why only now, as she rested on the cool grass and looked up at it, did she realize

that the sky was just another game people played? After all, how did you define the sky? Sometimes the clouds were under them here on the mountain, and clouds were part of the sky, and the sky was always up.

A paradox!

It was just like Dean said: Things are what you say they are. It’s all a bunch of games—little agreed-upon realities—and the

more you explore them, the quicker they fall apart.

It was a late summer evening and the sun took its time, drifting low and lingering long on the horizon, like a performer reluctant

to leave the stage. The next act was creeping in from the wings—the sprinkle of pale stars, the outline of the moon. The lightning

bugs started their hypnotic evening dance inches above the grass.

Also, the house was moving away from Blue, walking off on tiny feet. That was a bit odd.

“How much did you give her?” Dean asked. He was hovering over her, blocking out the view. His jeans were giving way at the knees, and his mustard-yellow T-shirt had massive sweat moons under the arms. Blue could smell him, musky and sour, like the juice at the bottom of a garbage can.

“Enough to take the pain away,” Sweet Jane said. “I mean, it was strong.”

Oh, right. Jane had made her tea with mint and lemon balm and lavender and mushrooms. She was on mushrooms. That’s why the

house was strolling down the hillside of its own accord.

This moment of clarity brought a jolt of adrenaline. Something bad was happening, right now, and Blue was a part of it, if

only she could get her head together long enough to remember all the details. She had flashes of what had come before—moving

a bag through the woods, talking to Star in town, looking at her scarf in Star’s hair, a vision of a swimming pool, a single

instruction she had given herself before the drug took hold:

be silent

“Blue.” Dean snapped his fingers in front of her face. The noise was as loud as a tree breaking in half. “Where’s Star?”

Right here, she wanted to say. There were dozens of them, riding on bugs, hovering above the grass. Or if he meant the ones scattered

throughout the so-called sky like salt spilled on a table, those were visible now as well. Dean could have as many as he liked.

be silent, the voice in her head whispered.

“You walked to town with Star.” Dean had softened his voice in an unnatural way. “You went to the store. You came back without her. Where is Star now?”

Oh. Star. Star with her frizzy blond hair and skinny legs who liked to wear the red-and-white-striped halter top. The Star who hiccuped

when she ate peppers and had a single green bangle on her wrist that she couldn’t get off.

Oh yes. She knew where Star was.

be silent

“Are you keeping a secret, Blue?” Dean asked.

They weren’t supposed to have secrets. Or birthdays. Or families or names or privacy. Those were all old games. It was her

duty to tell Dean where Star was but Blue obeyed her own voice and said nothing. She could see her silence made Dean crackle

with anger. His face narrowed into the wedge of an ax.

Blue closed her eyes and tried to telepathically ask the earth below to consume her, to help her keep her silence. She could

almost feel it working. The grass felt like it was growing higher around her and she was sure the worms in the ground below

were tunneling in an undulating weave to open a passage. This was beautiful. She would be eaten by this patch of mountain

grass and become part of the rich soil that gave them tomatoes and small lettuces and herbs. It was the good way out of this,

to hold her silence and become mint and lavender and perfume the air.

Then she heard the van door slam and the earth spat her back to the surface.

When Blue opened her eyes, the sky was ink black.

Her body was heavy and cold and covered in bug bites.

She had a slippery grasp on the concept of time but she knew it existed and that some had gone either forward or backward.

A fine mist of rain was coming down and something was going on at the van.

Sally and Denver were lifting something out of the back door that was making muffled growls and wails.

A dog? A bear? What beast had they brought here to the house?

Dean came around from the driver’s side and smacked the thing, sending its head of blond hair snapping back.

Not it. Star. Something was wound around her frizzy blond hair and her face.

Blue’s heart lurched into a frantic and unsteady beat. All she could feel was fear, raw and electric, pushing bile into the

back of her throat, punching at her brain. Her instincts told her to move, but the best she could manage was to roll to her

knees and start crawling across the lawn. This caused her to dry heave and shake.

“Relax, Blue,” Sweet Jane said, running over to her. But there was no ease in her tone.

“What’s happening?”

“Nothing, honey. Dean just needs to talk to Star.”

Sweet Jane smiled, but Blue didn’t like it. There were invisible fishhooks tugging up the sides of the smile.

“Inside,” Dean said. “Everyone. Now.”

“Come on, Blue,” Sweet Jane said, grabbing Blue under her arms. “Get up. We have to go in.”

“I don’t want to. . . .”

“Dean said.”

That was enough. Dean said. Blue found her legs, the strange appendages that they were, and allowed Jane to guide her across the grass and up the concrete

steps to the rickety screen door into the kitchen, into a world of cool linoleum and strong metal where it rained indoors

and stars fell because the sky wasn’t real.