Candle in the Attic Window(15)

A hand through hair.

“About an hour ago. Are you all right?”

I nod. What else can I do? I can’t tell him about the boy-wolves. He wouldn’t understand. “Yeah. Why?”

“You look. I dunno. Shook up.”





I laugh. “Yeah, a little. I didn’t know that he was –”

Nogitsune’s eyes spring open. They are red, glowing. His mouth pulls apart and I see tiny needle teeth. “I smell them. They are close. My brothers, my sisters.”

Geoff looks down, his eyes squinting. His mouth twitching. I back away, my shoulder against the wall. “Nogitsune? You all right?”

Eyes return, roll back to normal.

“Yeah,” he says, “Sorry about that. My family is here.”

Geoff seems unfazed by what has happened. I, on the other hand, am spooked. Spooked by his actions and spooked by the wolf kin from earlier. This whole place feels wrong.

“I’m going to head out. Dunno where. Might see Mister Harvey and give his book back to him. I can’t keep it; it’s too weird.”

Geoff doesn’t hear me. Nogitsune doesn’t hear me. They stare into each other’s eyes. Gently, lips meeting. I feel like I am invisible, again. This makes me very sad. I never thought I would be the Invisible Girl to Geoff. I always thought I would be physical and real.

Now, I vanish.

Before his eyes.

I leave the cutting room.





Friday: Mister Harvey’s Office





Mister Harvey is behind a large desk. It stretches the length of the room, and is covered in books and maps. Each one is highlighted. Each one has pins in them. Displayed, naked. Like a dissected animal.

He doesn’t see me come in. Not at first.

His eyes are down. Head down. He is not talking. Only muttering, fast. Incoherent stream of syllables. I listen, listen closely. Try to find something to stand on. Some symbol to pull meaning from.

His eyes are moving, fast. His lip thickly twitching. His tongue a loose and wild animal in his mouth. I feel an electricity in the air. It is sharp and bites my skin.

I sit down in the chair. I should just leave the book on his desk. Leave and walk away. I don’t know why – but I want to say something to him. I want to confront him with the book.

On the cover, I see Nogitsune. In the shadows. Beneath him is a monk, his robes up over his waist. I turn my head. I do not want to see this.

Eyes roll down. Eyelids flutter. Tongue stops moving. He sees me. I am no longer Invisible Girl. He puts his hands on the desk. They have cuts along them. I wonder briefly if he has been to the cutting room.

“Hello! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

The book is in my lap. Under my folded hands. “The book you gave me ....”

He brings his fingers together. Into a pyramid. “Yes, yes. You know that books are magic? All books? They are all spell books of a sort. See, words and images. They carry more than just meaning. They carry the codes to our mental landscape. Books f*ck with this. They take the words and change them, take the images and rearrange them. Each time you read a book, you become someone else. Changed inside.”

I lean back in the chair. The electricity is still here. I feel it. Under my skin. Like acid. “I don’t understand,” I say. I feel weak, stupid.

“Did you read the book?”

I nod.

“How carefully? Did you just flip through it? No, no. You didn’t. I see the change. It’s coming over you, already. You are different now, aren’t you? Can’t you feel it?”

I do not feel any different. Just the same. Same Invisible Girl. Although, part of me is haunted now. But I am haunted by the things I’ve seen – the world acting in unnatural ways. That is not the book’s fault. But I do not want to seem stupid. “Yes, I do feel different. But that’s not the point – you giving me this book. It makes me feel uncomfortable.”

That is a part of it. The discomfort. I want him. I need him. But this book made things clear – brought the hidden things forward in my mind. And I didn’t feel right after that. Not comfortable. Not right.

He gets up on the desk. Crawls across it towards me. “Yes, yes. It is because you are changing; don’t you see?”

I get out of my chair, move towards the back of his office. He has pictures hung on the walls of swingsets and playgrounds without children.

“No, that’s not it. I don’t want this book. I don’t – I don’t want you. Please. Stop. Just take the book back and let me go.”

I move my hand against the door. I feel the doorknob. But it doesn’t turn. I shake it, trying to force it to open. It doesn’t turn. He is over top of me. Towering.

His hand cuts across the air and I hit the ground, hard. My cheek stings from his fist. I look up to see him pulling his shirt off. Tattoos across his biceps, his shoulders, his chest. Circles. Latin. Symbols I don’t understand. He chants under his breath and my knees feel weak.

I try to move, but I cannot. My limbs have gone limp and wooden. I whimper. I try and say something, but I can only whimper. This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends.

A bang on the door from behind me.

He picks me up, moves me across the floor.

The door swings open.

Standing there is Nogitsune.