Page 54 of A Slipper in the Smoke
Susan rose from her seat, moving towards the door. She clasped Pip’s shoulder as she passed. “This will have to end, Pip. When we go home. And it will hurt. It would do to prepare yourself.”
“I know,” said Pip, something knifing in his chest. “It’s just… not being with her hurts more.”
Susan smiled wearily. “What’s her name, this girl who has captured your heart?”
“Elena,” said Pip, like her name was a musical note, “her name is Elena.”
Elenaexpectedtobetoo tired to do anything but sleep when she fell into bed, but she woke several times in the night, coughing and choking, her dreams strangling her. She saw Grandma’s body falling again, thethudshe hadn’t heard now beating like a drum, an empty, demented heartbeat. Her own seemed to taunt her.
Fire flashed through her dreams beneath the pounding feet of the dread doctors. She dreamt a shop splintered open and vomited out oil and gears. She dreamt the crowd melted into coal, which reformed again in the shape of skeletons—noiseless, faceless chattering maws.
All except one. A black, gooey skeleton wearing her father’s face.
“Elena,” the bones creaked, “Elena.”
It was a relief when the nightmares spat her out.
Her body felt hot and stretched, not quite her own. Her head was pounding, thoughts sluggish. But she couldn’t return to bed, and she didn’t want to.
She dragged herself out, splashed water in her face, guzzled what felt like half the tap, and tried to force herself to eat a bit of toast. She should have been ravenous after barely eating at all yesterday, but everything tasted like ash in her mouth. Brick would have been easier to swallow.
She crept away before anyone could wake, crawling through the streets at the pace of a snail, silently amazed at how ordinary they looked, when she felt like the cobbles themselves should have been screaming.
It was a relief to get to work, to bury herself in the cogs and wires and gears and grease, even if her fingers weren’t working like they usually did, and everything seemed to take longer. She could make the world vanish if she just kept working, and kept working, and kept working…
She’d forgotten why she was here, what she was doing. She was forgetting most things, anything that made sense. Even her own name was turning mushy and strange.
When she first set up her garage, when she earned the first coin under the counter, when she realised that one day, maybe, escape could be possible, she had told herself,my name is Elena Hernandez, and I will get out of here.
The first penny clinked in the canister.
But now she felt like she would never get out, that she wasn’t even sure where she was supposed to be trying to go.
Lunch came and went. She survived on tea and nibbles of sandwiches. Tastelessness coated her tongue.
A smooth, soft hand brushed her shoulder. “Elena.”
Pip.
The world shifted back into focus, only for a moment. Pip slid onto the seat beside her, pulling her into his arms.
She set down her tools. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came to see you, to check how you were,” he said, as if this were obvious. “You’re the last one here, you know. Everyone else has left.”
“They’ve gone early.”
“Apparently, someone gave them the evening off.”
“How nice of that someone…” Elena wanted to smile, but she couldn’t quite summon the energy. She slid out of Pip’s arms and lay her head against the desk.
“Tired?” he asked.
She nodded, mouth too sticky to speak.
Pip rubbed her back. She liked his hand there. She hoped he wouldn’t remove it. She wanted him to keep touching her and keep smiling at her and then maybe,maybeeverything would be fine.
His expression sobered. “Your stepmother—” he started.
