Blank Skies

Running is sixty percent flying.

That’s what the girl thinks as she runs. She’s read it somewhere. She isn’t a reader; she’s far more than that. Syllables form words – words form the girl – the girl is running home.

“It’s a white day,” a corner of the girl’s mind notes as her too-worn shoes fly over the sandy path. “A blank day. The sky isn’t blue. Not even grey. It’s just white.”

To us, sister, comes the call again, shaking her from her thoughts. Let us fly you out of this world, and into ours. The characters beckon, clear and eager, the way Mama never does. 

Two years ago, the characters began speaking to the girl, their voices sounding just as she imagined them from the pages she read. The virus had locked her up with Mama, and she’d just discovered that not only could she read about worlds of faelight, but write about them too.

“Mama!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m gonna show you-”

Mama looked up from cleaning the sink. “Don’t shout, dearest,” she said, the toneless words seeming to cost a world of effort.

“Isn’t it weird,” the girl pants now as she searches for the characters that’ll take her away. “I read, and Mama cleans.” Ahead, a hill rises. “And even now, I don’t think she knows I write.”

That day, two infinitely long years ago, the girl ran up the stairs, chest and throat burning in sync. Is anyone out there? she screamed in her head.

The characters responded.

Wait, they whispered. We’re here with you. Hold on to your world a little longer.

The girl tried. She really had. Each day, she babbled cheerfully, hoping for a response. Every obscure holiday, she made Mama something. But Mama just kept cleaning, the vacuum drowning out her words.

The ground steepens. Pain shoots from the girl’s ankles to her tailbone. Her legs beg to give way, but her mind does so first, spiralling her back to the morning.

Heading downstairs, dawn light streaming in. A rare bounce in her step. Last night, the power had gone out, and Mama had gathered every nightlight in the house to illuminate the girl’s bedroom. Morning had come with the desperate hope that Mama had finally begun to see her.

“Morning, Mama!”

Mama didn’t stop mopping.

Something snapped inside her.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” Her voice cut the stiflingly quiet air, like the air had cut her for two years.

“What’s up with you this morning?” Mama said wearily, still mopping, like the floor was more important than the girl.

“Maybe you’d know if you spared me one glance!”

The girl’s shoes slap the ground. Faded from a once-fresh hue. “Like the sky,” the girl thinks. “Like me.”

She crests the rise. To us, sister, the characters sing.

The girl soars down the hill. Something within her chest and under her skin strains for the surface, calling out. “I’m running, and falling, and flying,” she cries into the humid air. “I’m almost home!”

The ground levels ahead. She’s left her neighborhood now, and the drop of the cliffs rushes closer. The girl sees herself sprinting off the ledge, and the characters catching her, spiriting her into their world.

The girl sees faelight in this blank day.

Then why can’t I go on?

Her knees crash to the sand, inches from the edge. The pain is drowned out by the shaking of her limbs and the ringing in her ears.

The girl cannot hear the characters.

“Is anyone out there?” Her voice breaks.

Dearest. She hears Mama in her head. When we want something badly enough, we imagine it.

“No. No!” the girl cries. “Please. Take me home.” Her throat is raw. Something in her bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. 

With everything in her, she screams, “Is anyone out there?”

A sense - a smell. Shampoo and hand cream, aloe vera and lavender, the way it’s forever been. Then Mama’s arms are around the girl.

“Mama,” chokes the girl, over and over. “Mama.” She buries her face in Mama’s pajamas, clinging desperately to the soft worn cloth and the scent of home and the only thing she knows. 

“Oh, dearest.” The girl grasps onto every inflection of Mama’s voice, filling herself with the aching familiarity. “I’m so sorry.”

Mama’s words are ragged, like she nearly lost a race. Like her life would have ended if she lost. Like she just realized it. 

Mama ran after me.

And those words - they aren’t about a burden, not scolding an annoyance. They’re for me.

Below, the ocean crashes; above, gulls call.

“Let’s go home, and read one of your stories.”