Answering Game

I feel like an intruder whenever I come back here. I almost feel like I'm disrespecting Chris when I say that, after all she did to make this feel like a home. It was, for a while. But as the story goes – which is to say, as Noah tells it, because his word about this place is law and I, changeling child, can't speak of truth – Chris was haunted and I didn't care enough to stay and help her. He always thought I didn't belong here; It just took a crisis to prove it.

I forget we made up sometimes. I'll stand outside the door wondering what I'm doing here – it was never something I could imagine with a clear conscience. Not that I believed what he said back then. I don't think even he believes it either anymore. Neither of us knew how to help her. We were scared, we were angry, and now we're grown up.

He still looked so pleased when I told him my name was Rustcrown. Or Redblood. Or Thorne. Whichever one it was. As long as it wasn't Just, 'cause after everything we've been through, I might be his friend, but I still am and always will be a stranger in the family.

But then here I am, standing outside this damned old house. When Noah first put two and two together about the symptoms, I was scared. Rightfully so, in my defense. Imagine my surprise when, this time, he wanted me to stay. 'Please.' He asked me to sit with him through long nights, to put together everything we knew about the haunting, to separate his corrupting imagination from the realities we can use. We both knew it wasn't going to last. Chime won't let him have a ledge to hang on to.

There's not much reason for me to keep coming back anymore. When he isn't asleep, trapped in nightmare after nightmare, he's borderline incoherent. Or worse, terrified of me. And sometimes the house is just locked, Noah either unwilling or unable to let me in.

And I have the gall to be mad at him...

I know I can't do anything now, not really. It did the same thing with Chris – it wants its victim alone. Noah told me Chris escaped it before she died; He told me she did it on her own. But I'm bringing him food and water. He's not getting enough of either, choosing to spend his time awake working even before that time grew too small to consider going out. At least, I think whenever I stand outside this door, I can keep him alive a bit longer.

Chris taught us a special knock when we were small. I was so excited when Noah asked me to use it again so he'd know it was me when I came by, but when I'd tried it for the first time in years, he'd all but laughed. He's retaught me since, and when I knock now, I hear the lock click open. I step inside and shut the door behind me.

The living room is still a mess. I helped him clear out all the furniture from our old room, in case he ever needed to be locked in somewhere. The crowded living room became our base of operations for everything else, any floor space not occupied by furniture occupied by papers. I could follow them clearly at first, but the top layer is illegible to me now. Every book the house had outside of the library on protective sigils, arcane defenses, and malevolent beings of all kinds are stacked beneath journals, though I can't see any pens anywhere. For a second, I can't see Noah either, but then I spot him in a chair that used to be Chris's. His hands are clasped together so hard they shake from the effort and his sunken eyes stare down at them and away from me. I fight the urge to just walk out like I was never here. “Hey, Noah.”

He gets to his feet, grabs the lamp off the table beside him, and hurls it at me – I duck as it shatters far enough away from me I didn't have to worry. “Okay,“ I start, “What's happening?“

“What do you think you’re doing here?” His voice is much stronger than mine.

He ignored my question and I don't answer his. Instead I pull a plastic water bottle out of my bag. Moving forward slowly, I set it down on the floor between us, then retreat back to the door. He stares at it – even in the dark, I can see him swallow – but then his eyes break back to me. “I’m not drinking that.”

“Dying of thirst sounds like a painful way to go.”

His eyebrow twitches. Emphasizing every word, he amends, “I’m not drinking anything from you.”

“Oh.” I set down my bag. “What’s it been telling you about me now?”

“Nothing. Nothing this time. I’ve figured something out on my own, Ray. I figured it out.” Before I can ask, he cuts in, his voice hiking louder. “I know I’m awake, too. I know. I know.”

I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. “Fine. I’ll play. What do you know?”

“Don’t be stupid.” He waits, like he thinks I’ll take that instruction. When I don’t, he scowls. “You’ve always been so fucking stupid. Think, Ray.” Again, he waits, but I have nothing to say. “You want me to walk you through it, then? I can walk you through it.” I cross my arms, which he takes as a yes. “Why don’t the sigils keep it out of the house?”

I answer slowly like the troubled student his tone implies I am. “It’s not in the house, it’s in the person.”

“Right. That’s right. But then, why don’t exorcisms work? No matter how specific the circle, the best it can do is make you vomit sand. Why?” I don’t have an answer to that one. Last time we talked about it, neither did he. He smiles when he sees me hesitate. “Good question, isn’t it? It means that Chime isn't possessing its victims. It can't be ejected because it's not really an entity inside of me. So what is it?" He waits, too long this time. “What is Chime? Just take a guess.”

“It sounds like it doesn't exist.”

“Okay, so how do we know it does?”

“We can see it in the victim.”

His eyes shine with feverish eagerness. “Yes, how?”

“Incoherence, stress, paranoia." He smiles wider. I go on. "The narcolepsy, the nightmares.”

He’s getting impatient, voice more forceful when he urges, “Right, and what are those?”

“The sympt–?”

“Yes!” he cries. “Yes, symptoms. That’s why it can get past every defense, every exorcism. It's not an entity, it's a list of symptoms. It's a disease, Ray.”

... And, god, he could be right. And if he is, that would mean we don’t need a spell or a ward – we need a cure or a vaccine. The idea is setting in, the shocked smile blooming, when he steps forward and closes his hands around my throat. I grab at his wrist and squeeze back as he gets right in my face, teeth bared. Through them, he snarls, “And how does that disease get around?”

His hands are tight enough to hold me in place, to make me struggle with every inhale, but not tight enough to choke me completely. “The air?” I manage.

“Wrong.” His hands get tighter. “How does the disease get around?”

“Person... to person?”

Mercifully they loosen. “Better. How did I contract it?”

“Chri–” I can’t finish the word before his fingers dig in and I waste my breath crying out. Hastily, I manage to whisper, “No, no, couldn’t be, too long between each haunting.”

They loosen again, enough air for his next question. He doesn’t seem to notice my nails drawing blood from his wrist. “Okay. How did Chris contract it?”

Chris? “I don’t know.” Wrong answer, his vice grip tells me, thumbs digging into my windpipe.

Through gritted teeth, he repeats, “How did Chris contract it?”

Only enough air to whisper: “Anyone, anyone, I don’t know.”

I can’t breathe in anymore. Getting closer to my face, keeping me from avoiding his eyes, he matches my whisper. “Who was a new, constant presence in her life before the haunting started? Who ran away just before she got better?” No air, no air. “Who did I blame, even then? Who came back here right before I got sick? Who brought disaster into this house?” I try and answer. “Who?” His eyes are lucid, angry, accusatory. I mouth the word.

He throws me to the ground and I land hard, too busy sucking air back into my lungs to protect myself. “That’s right. You’ve got it now, don’t you?” He turns away from me and folds his arms behind his back, the floor creaking under his feet as he moves away. “Chime is a disease. You, Ray, you’re its host. Patient zero. In other words,” his voice raises, “this is all your fucking fault.”

I catch him off-guard when I get my arm around his neck and pull him off his feet and to the ground in a chokehold. He grunts, then makes a noise that might’ve been a laugh. “You didn’t like that, did you?”

“Why do you always have to do this?” I’m still low on breath.

“I was right. Years feeling bad about it and I was right.”

“Obviously not bad enough.”

His hands are useless, grasping at me like that. “Did you know?”

I was hoping Chime's sleep would take him back by now. It’s going to make me actually strangle him. “It’s not true.”

“So you didn’t. In that case, you’re welcome.”

That does it. I tighten my grip and his legs start kicking, heels scraping the floor. Finally, after too long, he goes still. I lay him down and stand up. Once, I might’ve at least tried to get some water in him. Now, I rub the early bruises on my throat and just turn to go. Behind me, he twitches, not even unconsciousness safe from Chime's terrors. I lock the door behind me.

An intruder – ha. It's so much worse than that, isn't it? A curse. A disease. Ruin. I was a child then and just a person now.

But he walked me through his logic, laid it all out in front of me. And the bottom line is I don't have anything that could prove him wrong.