Three Birds
This story was originally published in Unnerving Magazine Issue 7
Sade is woken by the sounds and motions of a struggle next to her on the mattress. With what shadowy vestiges remain of her sight, she catches a flurry of movement as someone disappears into the bathroom. It all happens so quickly, that she questions if she had seen anything at all—until she hears the sound of the bathroom door gently clicking shut.
Now fully roused by panic, she sits straight up, clutching her thin sheet to her chest. Her heart pounds, she is hoping that she is not yet awake, and this is all just a dream. She presses her eyes shut and reaches out to the mattress surrounding her; her trembling hands graze the two bodies flanking her on either side; one, the Master, whose body is still and coated in sticky wetness; the other, her beloved Penn, who grasps her hand and squeezes. Rayen is gone.
Sade wants to cry out for Rayen to return, but her voice catches at the thought of what might happen. No one was to set foot on the floor without Master’s permission, not even Rayen, who was Master’s favourite and most talented pupil of the three. Master would be very displeased; there would be punishment. An icy prickling traces up her spine. She will have to go to Rayen, to get her back before the Master wakes.
Beside her, Penn shifts her weight. Sade is forced to sit for several agonizing minutes, hoping Penn does not wake up or disturb Master. When she dares, she moves with care to the edge of the mattress.
Her toes touch the floor, its wooden grains cool and familiar. In front of her looms the vague outline of the room’s only furniture, Master’s chair. She is already breaking many rules, and she wants to ease off the mattress as smoothly as possible, so she reaches out and uses the chair to pull herself up. With soft steps, she crosses to the bathroom door, feels for, finds, and slowly turns the knob, a strange sensation from an old life, one she’s nearly forgotten. By the Master’s order, the door is never allowed to be closed. She shudders to think what the Master would do if he were to awaken now.
“Rayen?” she whispers. The bathroom light is out. There are no windows. In such low light, Sade cannot make out even the most basic of shapes; everything blurs together in the dark. She relies on her hands, feeling her way through the room, past the cold and smooth porcelain of the sink, the top of the toilet. She pauses. The room feels empty, but she knows it cannot be. She ignores some nagging truth at the back of her mind. “Rayen?” In the quiet, Sade’s voice resounds off the walls, the tub, the floor. Feeling for the tub’s edge, she kneels and reaches forward. She touches Rayen’s short and heavy curls; her head is slumped forward, onto her chest.
Sade’s hands travel over the familiar shapes, down Rayen’s smooth neck, and over each slender shoulder. Her fingers sense an unsettling stillness. She begins to shake Rayen, in what grows to be violent, wrenching motions. Rayen flops like a rag doll, her body thuds against the empty tub.
Sade begins to cry. She begins to shout. Then to moan. Wordless sounds she cannot hear over the rush of her pulse in her ears.
Then Penn is with her. Her warm hands press against Sade’s temples, holding her steady at first, and then wrapping her arms around her, drawing her away.
They return to the mattress on the floor. Penn, who cannot hear, and Sade, who barely sees, sit across from one another in their familiar practice of communion. Sade places a hand on Penn’s knee, and Penn does the same, both painfully aware of the pair of knees that are missing.
She traces her thumb down the side of Penn’s face and then wipes Penn’s silent tears. How long, Sade thinks, how long have we all been here, together, learning the ways of the Master, and for what? “She’s dead,” Sade signs.
“Yes.” Penn reaches out, stroking Sade’s shoulders.
Sade closes her eyes. Her head is spinning. She leans over and vomits, some of it splashes hotly against her naked thigh. Penn smooths back her hair, she takes Sade’s hand and places it on her own beating heart, saying in a soothing tone, “I am still here, I am still alive. You are still here; you are still alive.”
Sade takes a shaking breath. She signs, “Oh, Penn! What has happened?”
“Come.” Penn plants a firm hand on Sade’s shoulder. She feels the weight of Penn leaving the mattress and then Penn is drawing her up by her hands. Her knees go slack, and Sade falls back down. To leave the mattress without permission is forbidden. She cannot do it again.
“I understand that it is hard, but we must leave here now,” Penn says.
A stabbing pain shoots through Sade’s chest. “Leave. Without Rayen? No.” On weak knees, she rises under Penn’s insistence, only staying upright with her support.
“Rayen is gone, Sade. But, the Master is also gone. We are free.” Penn grips Sade by the shoulders. “We only need to find our clothes. I have the keys.” Penn unlocks a heavy wooden door that creaks on its hinges. These are familiar sounds, which Sade has heard many times before. This is the Master’s room, and it is forbidden for Sade to enter until she has achieved a higher reasoning. Only sometimes would he bring Rayen in here, and once, last night, Penn. Sade had longed for her day to come, but now, she knew, that would never be.
Sade’s hands knock into things and over things in the cluttered and dark room until she feels the light pull graze her face and yanks it. Now, at least, she can stop running into things. She continues to feel along the top of a desk. Her hands move over lengths of leather, cold chains, and other objects which are harder to identify.
She hears Penn’s fingers on a keyboard, the clicking of the mouse. Audio begins to play. Sade freezes. The Master is momentarily resurrected; she fights the impulse to return to the mattress, to her place. It is the Master’s voice she hears, but it does not sound exactly like him. His cadence is off; he sounds gruff, he is loud; not gentle and flowing, not like her Master, her teacher of great truths.
“Welcome everybody, welcome to See No Evil, featuring the Three Birds. I’d like to thank all our new subscribers out there, and welcome you to the show! Stay tuned for an extra-naughty special at the end of this webisode, for only twenty dollars, you can purchase the much-anticipated debut of our very own Penn. In the meantime, let’s see what our chickies are up to now!”
Penn stops the track.
Sade sinks to her knees. Her face brushes against Penn’s legs. She puts her hands out, steadying herself, and is surprised to feel a mattress beside her. Touching it brings forth a wash of intense despair. Sade realizes the reason for the Master’s special room, and for Rayen’s increasing hatred of him. She is sickened by her resentment of Rayen, and by her own desires for the Master’s special attentions. Sade feels about to vomit again. She reaches out and cups a hand over Penn’s foot, Penn joins Sade on the floor, resting her chin on top of Sade’s head. They hold each other.
“I should have known! I should have helped!” Sade cries.
Penn takes Sade in her arms. “Rayen kept it all from us, she was the strongest, and she saved us from it all. You could not have known; I could not have known, because that is how Rayen wanted it to be. She loved us and was loved, and she knew this. She chose this path, and there is nothing more we can do for her now.”
Sade closes her eyes against the tide of grief. Everything had been a lie. And now it was over. And over most of all, for Rayne. Memories flooded her; of their days sat in quiet contemplation; of Rayen taking Sade’s hands in her own; of their quiet and beautiful connections, how they’d joined, three existing as one.
“We have to go,” Penn says. “Before someone else comes for us.”
Sade acts quickly now; she moves at a pace that has her bumping her hands painfully into things, flinging objects aside as she feels her way through the room. She finds and peels the lid off of a plastic bin, grasping the clothing that the Master had stripped them of long ago. There are three people’s outfits in the bin; Sade pulls on a thick hoodie, the fabric heavy and rough, but it feels good being wrapped in something that once belonged to Rayen.
Penn takes Sade’s hand. Together, they exit the building.
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Grey doesn’t scare me like it used to.