Chapter 19 Rosabelle
Rosabelle
In my dreams, she’s always running.
Clara laughs, racing through tall grass, her white-blond hair streaming in the wind. Her cheeks are full, flush with color;
her hands catch the puffy heads of dandelions, releasing wishes into the sky.
She stops, looks up, watches them float.
A fist of sun unclenches above her, fingers of light illuming her face as she searches the clouds, and I know, without knowing
how, that she is six years old.
Just a dream.
I tilt with the tilt of her body as she bends to fill her pockets with pebbles, then twigs. A damselfly lands lightly on her
shoulder and she doesn’t notice, her knees sinking into dirt, fingers digging into ground, turning over earth. A worm. She’s
found a worm.
Three worms and a millipede.
One pill bug.
Rosa, she shouts, her head popping up, her smile blinding. Do you want to play a game with me?
I have no mouth.
I’m suspended in cool water, drifting; my mind hovers inside a head inside a body inside a dream inside my mind. I can’t feel
my skin.
I have no teeth.
I’m blind even as I watch her clamber to her feet; senseless even as I feel the breeze. Pebbles release from her soft fists
as she wipes dirty hands on her white dress.
A butterfly totters over, curious.
Clara looks around. Rosa?
Here, I try to say.
I have no voice.
Rosa, where are you?
Here. Where am I? Here. I have no head. I’m here—
Rosa? Clara says my name quietly this time, her eyes rounding in her face.
I’m here.
I make no sound.
Color blotches in her cheeks. I feel her little heart beating, her pulse racing. Heat presses against her eyes, my eyes; humidity
takes her hands, my hands; fear climbs up her throat, my throat.
Rosa, she says, her chest heaving.
Here.
I have no tongue.
Rosa? She turns around.
Here. I have no face.
Rosa, she screams.
Here. I have no head. I’m here. I have no hands.
ROSA—
I’m here. I have no heart.
Clara is crying now, I’m crying, her body shaking, I’m shaking, tears stream down her face my face, her eyes wild with fear my fear. She’s rooted to the ground, her dirty hands splayed at her sides—
Rosa, she screams again, where are you?
HERE
The word is wrenched from somewhere inside of me, torn free of bone and sinew, the tissue of soul. I’m gasping for breath
I don’t need, reaching with my teeth for a mouth; searching my eyes for sight; listening to my ears for a sound—
In here, I look around.
Gone is the field, the sun, the flowers. I am encased in black. I hear the slow beat of my heart in this darkness. My pulse
is occasional; an ellipsis.
Threads of sensation tighten around the unknown shape of me, flashes of pain and searing heat, then breath; breath exhales
inside me like smoke blown into my mouth, then heart; heart hammers into pain that suffocates, then resonance. Tones focus
into pattern, arrange into letters, sharpen into words—
One word—
Rosa?
I stiffen.
Rosa, is that you?
I touch my mind with my mind, unfathomable, like water touching water. I make my voice as if with my hands, gathering sound
like wind.
Clara? I say.
Rosa, she says desperately. The force of her grief nearly blots me out. I nearly go away. Where?
Rosa, she says again. Are you dead?
Am I dead?
I gather up my mind, reading its texture with fingers I don’t have. I don’t know where I am, what I am.
I don’t know, I say. Then, terror: Are you?
Silence.
My fear grows in the dark, leaves and shoots unfurling, fruit ripening faster and faster—
No, she says finally.
My heart, nonexistent, beats hard in a chest I don’t have. Relief floods through me?
Am I dreaming?
I remain floating, suspended. I fight for a better grip on myself, a better hold on my mouth, but I’m blind and deaf, amorphous.
I want to know myself, find my eyes, but there is a boundary here I cannot cross, a veil beyond my strength to breach.
Rosa, she says, and the blaze of her fear circles me again. You shouldn’t be here.
Why not? I ask. Where am I?
Am I dreaming?
There’s something wrong, she says. Can you remember what happened to you?
I run my fingers along the folds of my mind again, reading the flesh like braille. Flickers of scent and sensation, apple
and heat, fear and longing, pain—
Tears.
Touch.
No, I say.
Something is wrong, she says again, her panic loud. Wake up. Wake up before it’s too late. You shouldn’t be here—
Why not? I ask again. Where am I?
I search the dark in vain, growing only blinder even as my speech improves. Sounds are coming to me more quickly, words forming
with less effort.
For the third time: Where am I?
She doesn’t answer. Am I dreaming?
Clara, I say. Where are you?
Why are you here? she says sharply, her feelings wild. How did you get here? You shouldn’t be here—
What do you mean? I ask.
Wake up, she says more urgently. Wake up, Rosa. Wake up and never come back here—
Why? A pulse of terror. Clara, please— What’s happening?
Quiet.
Inching quiet.
Then—
You’re in my dreams, she says.
Shock sparks inside me, so strong I nearly go away. Where?
Do you mean I’m dreaming? I ask. Am I a dream?
No response.
I touch my mind to my mind, no impact, like sky touching sky. Are you real? I ask. Is this real?
Silence for too long.
Wake up, Rosa, she says. I can feel that something is wrong. You shouldn’t be here. You need to go back—
Tell me what’s happening, I say. Tell me where I am, tell me where we are—
You’re in my dreams, she says again. Not yours. Mine. Never come back here. Wake up and never come back here—
Panic, spooling. But— Why—
Because, Rosa, she says. I only dream of the dead.
Horror, white-hot.
Devouring.
Wake up, she says desperately. Wake up—
Clara— No—
WAKE UP, she screams. WAKE UP—