Human Spines

Amistifer's Rock-II

Dumaine

        The whole time she said she was that Demon from the church was really awkward. She wouldn't speak, even when we got ice cream. I felt like a lying thief because I had to use money from her bag, and I ended up telling the cashier Emmeline was mute. I'm not even sure how it happened.

        When she suddenly came back, I hoped I'd get more of an explanation from her but she likes to stray off track. Like really off track, so that didn't happen. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get a full explanation from her.

        I don't like using her money. Even after finding out she has over three thousand dollars in the form of several hundred ten dollar bills in her bag. I was rather suspicious at first, but then I remembered she lives in a world I'll never understand. Not that I won't try.

        There's also the fact that a very moody and stubborn Demon with O.C.D. has taken a shower twelve times in her body since it forced someone to drive us across a long bridge to this hotel. I hadn't thought about it before. She has absolutely no privacy in her mind or body. Every Demon that's possessed her knows every secret she has. I get why she doesn't want me to tell her my name now. That is, if any of this is true.

        She doesn't know a thing about me. How old I am, what I do, who I know. Yet she's invited me to stay in nice hotels with her and trusts I won't hurt or steal from her. She's given me all this access because she desperately needs someone's help. Because she believes nothing I could do to her could make her life anything less than what it is. But I don't want to hurt her, I want to help her, mental illness or real Demons. Because it's interesting. Because it's strange. Because it's sad, yet inspiring.

        "Because it's like watching a gust of wind knock over a family of ducklings trying to follow their mother to a pond. They roll and tumble around for a while but somehow catch up with their mother again as soon as the wind stops and just continue to waddle on."

        "What the heck are you talking about?" Emmeline whispers. It's only been a half hour since she... unpossessed, so we're sitting at the edge of her half-made bed trying to figure things out. As she's been talking I've noticed something. She has an incredibly strange accent. It's only noticeable at certain times with certain words, but it is definitely there. A dark, unknown edge to each of her words.

        "That's why I'm here. You're the ducklings, you're body's the mother, and the Demons are the wind. It's inspiring and strange and interesting to see, but it's also sad. I'd like to help fix that." I shrug.

        "How do you know the Demons are the wind?" Her eyebrows scrunch in question. I open my mouth to explain again, but she keeps going. "I never told you that. I meant to though, but I kept forgetting. Half of my brain thinks it's because you have a distracting face and the other half has no clue what this half is talking about and is still stuck on the fact that the Demon in the courtyard snuck up on me so easily. I was in the middle of a memory!" She tosses her hands up. "I can usually hear them. Most make this horrendous 'creeeeeeetch ka fvshoog' sound when they walk through walls, but I guess I was too caught up remembering. I don't even know what the Demon looked like and I guess I never will since it didn't give me its name. You know, some of the Demons have really cool names, like Salusikus and Ulklancifer." She says the names rapidly with that dark accent, before clasping her hands together and continuing.

        "Anyway, yes, I don't see wind like you do—like you might." Her finger in the air, she corrects herself. Now leaning in closer to me, she whispers, "I'm still not sure if you're human yet."

        She straightens, taking a step back. "Wind is a running Demon. A gentle breeze is a swiftly walking Demon. A mad burst"—she jumps up, landing a foot from me—"is one on the hunt. It's probably rather troublesome for you to imagine. So many surrounding you." She spins in place, her knees crouched and her arms out. "You've probably noticed I like to run places." She straightens again, thrusting her hands to her hips. "I love it. It makes me feel like I get to choose what I'll do next. I'm always running. Sprinting. Spinning. Leaping. Chasing." Her face suddenly melts from her brilliantly glowing smile to an empty, shadowed skull.

        "But I've never moved."

        I don't know what to say. I understand what she means, but what do I say to that? Probably something deep and inspirational, but all I can think about is how despairing it really is and how animated she gets when she's talking and how many Demons there must be to create that much wind and—

        Someone is knocking on our door.

        "I'll get it." I step off the bed, glad someone's saved me from having to come up with something to say.

        "Demons can knock on doors too, you know." Emmeline whispers as she follows. Yes, I want to answer, but if it's a human and you answer it, you'll scare them away with your enthusiasm. But I'm quiet as I open the door.

        And find no one. An empty hall of hotel rooms and cream-colored walls.

        "Eight," Emmeline says, grabbing something off the floor and spinning away from me, back into the room.

        "What?" I shut the door and face her.

        "Eight."

        "Eight?"

        "Yes, eight." She falls onto her bed and holds up a scrap of paper. I take it, looking at the marker-drawn number eight. I flip it over and, finding nothing else, sink down onto my bed across from her.

        "Why would someone leave this?" I ask, watching her stare at the ceiling. She's quiet, her tangled hair sprawled around her as she lies on her back. We had to go to a store to get the shorts she's wearing. They're rather loose on her. Everything in the store was. I hadn't noticed before, but Emmeline is a very small person. Her feet are the size of a six-year-old's, and she's over a half-foot shorter than me. And I'm only five-five. She seems so much larger when she's the one in control of her body.

        "Can I tell you another memory?" Her voice is soft.

        "We should probably figure out why someone left an eight at our door. Nobody's talked to me since we checked in a few days ago so—"

        "It's an eight. There's nothing to talk about. May I please tell you another memory? I promise it'll answer some questions."

        I tuck the eight note into my pocket. "You promise?"

        "Yes." She nod, her eyes still on the ceiling.

        "Go ahead."

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