Black Bells: Chapter One

Megan went to bed without brushing her teeth.  Her mouth felt furry and sick as if she’d been licking a dog, but she didn’t care.  She wanted to wake up with a dozen cavities.  Maybe even need a root canal.  She felt the need to punish herself, though she didn’t know why.

None of this was her fault.  Everyone said so, and she believed them.  But still, she felt wrong.  And bad.   She thought she’d seen her mother at the graveside, standing at the back with a strange woman by her side.  Her sponsor, or her psychiatrist, perhaps.  If she had been there at all.  Megan hadn’t seen her mother in five years, and she’d had no wish to see her then, as her sister was being lowered into the ground.  Megan had turned away, and when she turned back, the woman who’d looked like her mother was gone.  And somehow that made her feel even worse.

The house she trudged through was clean and uncluttered.  Through her haze of grief she noticed this, simply because it was so out of character for the home of a family of four with two small children.  Brian had cleaned the house at some point.  He’d done it for her, and he would want her to rest and relax after the stress of the last few days.  Brian was a 43 year old man who would usually rather kill zombies on a big-screen TV than vacuum a filthy floor, but he’d always had the knack for coming through just when Megan needed him the most.

The girls disappeared upstairs and into Jenna’s room.  They’d been quiet all day, speaking to nobody but each other, and then in hushed tones.  They would probably stay in their rooms until they were called down, and if nobody called them then they would play quietly until they fell asleep on the floor.  It was that kind of a day.

Megan followed them upstairs and crawled into bed.  It was that kind of a day for her, too.

Brian followed her to bed and lay down beside her.  He kept his clothes on and lay on top of the covers, signifying that he intended to leave her alone after a bit.  Megan wished that he’d go to bed with her, to hold her and keep her warm.  She knew it was silly, of course.  It was barely six in the evening.  There had been a buffet after the funeral, but the girls still needed baths and bedtime stories.  The world did not revolve around Megan Campbell, much as she might wish that it did at the moment.

“Do you want me to bring you anything?” Brian asked quietly.

My sister back. Megan thought, but instead she said, “No, I’m fine.  Just tired.”

“Okay.”  Brian squeezed her gently, kissed her cheek, and got up.  She heard the door close and Brian’s low voice as he spoke to the girls.  She couldn’t make out the words, but she could guess at them…  ‘We’re going to be very quiet, Mommy is resting.  You can have a snack before dinner:  cheese and crackers, (or apples if he was feeling health-conscious) and then play quietly upstairs until bed time.  Leave Mommy alone and let her rest.’

Megan closed her eyes and burrowed her face in her pillow.  She’d thought she was out of tears while at the funeral.  She’d stood dry-eyed through the whole thing, even when they’d lowered her baby sister into the ground.  Her face had been dry and gritty through the full service, and she’d thought that she was finally all cried out.

Turned out she was wrong.

Megan awoke in the dark.  Her eyes felt hot and sore, and she tasted salty snot.  Her brain was fuzzy as well, as though stuffed with cotton, and she vaguely remembered heavy, saddening dreams.  Dreams about Debbie, of course.  Talking to her, asking questions, maybe wanting something from her?  Megan couldn’t remember.  But the dreams had made her feel sad and afraid.  That much she remembered, and the feelings lingered.

A familiar voice spoke in the darkness.  “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the awesomest princess of all?”

“Megan Megan on the wall, Princess Megan’s queen of the ball.”  Megan spoke the words automatically, like someone had pulled a string in her back.  She felt like a doll, stuffed and fake.

“I knew you’d remember.”  Her bedside lamp flicked on.

Megan thought she ought to feel afraid.  A man’s voice had spoken in the night, and now there he was in her room, looking down at her with a cocky grin.  But she wasn’t afraid.  Her heart was sick, and her body was heavy, but there wasn’t any fear.  Maybe she was too tired to be afraid.

Or maybe it was because she knew this man.  Though he hadn’t been a man the last time they’d met.

She looked over at Brian, who slept like a lump on the other side of the bed.  She poked at his shoulder, but he didn’t move.  She prodded a little harder.

“Oh, don’t do that.”  The stranger spoke with a faint accent.  Scottish?  English?  Elvish, perhaps?  He certainly looked like he could be any of those things.  His hair was thick and black, and his teeth were enormously white.  His hair covered his ears, so she couldn’t tell if they were pointed.  She thought they were.  If he was who she suspected he was.

He was clad all in black, which was wrong.  Black bells hung from his ankle cuffs and shirt sleeves, and their jingle was muted, as though the sounds were partially held back in a fist.

“You’re different,” Megan said.  “You don’t look like how we thought.”

The stranger sat down on her bed and patted her leg.  “I thought black would be more appropriate, given the circumstances.  You’re not really in a rainbows-and-sparkles mood, are you?”

“No.”  Megan yawned.  God, she was tired.  “Why are you here?  I’m all grown up now.  And Debbie—”

“I know.  She’s gone and left you.  That’s part of why I’m here.  You’ve got a hole in you—right there.”  The stranger touched her chest gently.  “I think that’s how I slipped through.”

Megan lay back on her pillow and regarded her imaginary friend.  She could almost remember his name.  Jack something.  Every boy hero of the fairy tales she’d loved had been named Jack.  Jack the Giant-Slayer.  Jack and the Beanstalk.  Jack—

“Jack Benimble,” she said.

Jack grinned.  His teeth were like new-fallen snow.  “I knew you’d remember.”  He leaned over and kissed her on the nose.  “Now, what else do you remember?”

“I made up stories about you for Debbie.  We drew pictures.  I think we even made up a song.  How could I have forgotten?”

Jack shook his head.  “You didn’t forget.  You just locked it all away in storage.  When—”  He hesitated.

“When the bad thing happened,” Megan whispered.  She felt her face grow cold and pale.  That was the locked closet door, the sealed vault, the deep dungeon where her conscious memory was not allowed to go.  Even Jack Benimble had never visited the Dungeon Deep.  Nobody went there, never ever again.

“The bad thing.”  Jack’s face was pale and solemn.  Then he shook his head.  “But enough about that!  Water under the bridge.  Forgive and forget.  Live in the now.  All that crap.  So now, what do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m back.  You’re alone.  We have all night to do what you please.  So what would please you?”

“Can you take me back in time?”

“Megan, I can do whatever you say I can do.  That’s how this works.”

“Then I want to see Debbie again.”

“Excellent!”  Jack put his hands on her cheeks.  His hands were warm, and so was the kiss he planted on her forehead.