“Carrie,
you’re fourteen. This can’t go on for the rest of your life. You have
to stand up to her eventually.” Mark said, just loud enough to carry
through the bathroom door but not loud enough to carry downstairs to the
kitchen. Carrie was in there, retching her guts out, the effects of
Lauren’s latest set of “vitamins” for the teenaged girl. Mark hadn’t
heard any sound for a few minutes, though, so he suspected that she’d
already expelled everything she had in her system, hence his willingness
to try to start a conversation.
“Of course it will last forever.” Came Carrie’s weak reply. “She’s going to try to keep her claws in me all my life.”“That’s
my point!”
Mark, encouraged by the reply, pressed on. “If you make a
show of not taking the vitamins, she’ll have to stop.” Mark, eighteen,
was starting his senior year of high school and in the process of
looking for colleges, which made him keenly aware that he wouldn’t
always be around to take Caroline’s side.
“Mark...”
Carrie almost audibly shook her head from behind the door. “She’ll get
me declared mentally unstable. You know she will.” Caroline coughed
loudly, and Mark winced at the sound.
Mark
considered this for a moment, remembering the few times in the last few
years he’d tried to broach the topic of treatment of Carrie with his
mother. He had to admit that his little sister was probably right -
Lauren had lashed out verbally and physically at Mark for even taking
Carrie’s side on many occasions. Of course, Mark’s growth spurt had
ensured that he really wasn’t afraid of her anymore - Lauren, four
inches shorter, thirty-two years older, and fifteen pounds lighter,
couldn’t really hurt him even if she tried. “You might be right. But you
shouldn’t take the pills.”
“You’re
probably right.” Carrie agreed grudgingly. “Koffer doesn’t even look at
me before he prescribes, how would he know?” Carrie was referring to
the fourth doctor in as many years that she had regular appointments
with - or rather, that their mother had appointments with to discuss
everything she disliked about Caroline and how best to go about
correcting these deficiencies. Halwicz, the first, had at one point
suggested to Lauren that she explore non-pharmaceutical options,
apparently, and the next two hadn’t seen anything in Caroline’s behavior
that had suggested a need for medication. As far as Mark could tell
indirectly, the current one, a self-described child behavioral
specialist, was a quack, and Caroline had far less charitable words to
say about the man.
“Exactly.” Mark encouraged. “I mean, you might have to fake it for Mom, but that’s better than the alternative, right?”
“Not much better.” Carrie sounded dejected. “Mark, some days I think I should just leave.”
Mark
started at this. His sister, running away? Things were bad sometimes,
but he hadn’t thought they were unworkable at any point. After all,
Carrie could easily outsmart Lauren even drugged halfway into a coma.
Mark knew he wasn’t the mental star of the family, but even he had long
since begun to feel like his mother was more to be pitied and
outmaneuvered than directly opposed. “Carrie, that seems a little...
extreme, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.”
Carrie coughed again, and Mark was pretty sure that one was more chunky
than the previous one. “Roz offered to give me a place to stay, if I
can get there.”
Mark knew that Carrie’s ever-present imaginary companion could hardly
shelter her. As far as Mark could tell, “Roz” existed only in Carrie’s
head, a sort of semi-autonomous piece of her psyche that gave her advice
and acted as a sort of peanut gallery to Carrie’s life. As far as he
knew, he was the only one who knew this - and yes, it was bizarre, but
Mark didn’t think it was bizarre enough to justify his mother’s actions.
Caroline, after all, was a good student, was well-behaved, and didn’t
bother anyone - a little bit of insanity now and then was well within
her rights, in the older Farner’s mind. In addition, she had gotten good
in recent years at keeping that insanity between herself and her
brother. People still thought she was a little off, but she didn’t scare
her classmates or teachers anymore.
“I’m not sure how you’d take her up on that, though.” Mark said,
playing along reflexively. He’d grown up around Carrie, after all -
playing along with the “Roz” game was second nature to him He didn’t
doubt for a moment that there was a voice in Carrie’s head that she
called “Roz”, but he didn’t really think, as he had years before, that
this entity was an autonomous individual.
“Me neither.” Caroline grumbled. “Even I can’t go that far, but - ” Caroline broke off suddenly, as if interrupted.
“You okay, Carrie?” Mark inquired after a moment.
“Yeah. Roz just reminded me of something.” Came the reply. “What’s in
those pills, truth serum? You very nearly got me talking beyond the
Line.”
The Line again. Carrie’s word for the boundary between things she could
tell Mark and things she couldn’t, for some undisclosed reason. Part of
Mark wanted very much to know what secrets his sister kept, but they
were hers and not his to ask for. “Want me to go away?” Mark asked
hesitantly.
There was a low, murmured sound from Carrie, which Mark didn’t quite
make out, but before he could ask her to repeat that, the door opened,
and a pale, disheveled Carrie poked her head out. If it weren’t for the
fact that she still looked like death, Mark knew, Caroline would be a
rather attractive girl - and she was at the age where boys were
beginning to notice. That, combined with the fact that Mark would be
leaving for college in less than a year, only strengthened his resolve
to keep Carrie off anything that might cloud her judgement. Bitterly, he
mentally fumed that Lauren would give her own daughter Roofies every
day before school if she thought that would make Caroline move a little
closer to the impossible daughter ideal.
“No, I don’t want you to go away.” Carrie replied to Mark’s earlier
question, except Mark took it to have a second meaning. With a wince,
Mark offered Carrie his arm, which she weakly accepted, and guided her
down the hall toward her bedroom.
“You’re right.” She said again, as he opened the room door for her. “No
more of those pills. Worst ones yet.” Carrie released Mark and leaned
on the doorframe.
“I’ll go get you some water.” Mark changed the subject. “Why don’t you lie down.”
Carrie nodded, and ducked into her room, so Mark went downstairs to the
kitchen. He was dismayed, though, when he got there and his mother was
sitting in front of the sink, fiddling with some new kitchen implement
ordered from the 800 number in a loud commercial. She looked up as Mark
entered, and rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Hungry again, Mark?” She
shook her head. “Kitchen’s closed. You’re on your own.”
Mark shook his head. “Just want a glass of water.” He decided not to
mention it was for Caroline - that would probably lead to a screed about
how Mark “always took his sister’s side over the side of the woman who
birthed him” or something like that.
Lauren seemed to buy it, returning her attention to the device in her
hands, so Mark grabbed a glass and a few ice cubes, then went to fill it
from the tap.
“Tap water, Mark?” Lauren shook her head, and gestured to the chrome
machine next to the sink. “How many times do I have to tell you about
all the things in that that are bad for you? Get it out of the filter.”
Mark grudgingly obeyed, letting the machine fill the glass at a slow
trickle, while Lauren rambled on about the health benefits of pH balance
and microclustering and a pile of other stuff that Mark knew from basic
high school chemistry was pseudoscience at best and a hoax at worst. He
was pretty sure that Lauren didn’t even notice when he retreated, water
in hand, and headed back upstairs - she was still talking along that
line of thought.
Carrie, curled up on her bed, looked half-asleep when Mark peeked her
door open, but she waved him in and sat up enough to accept the water.
One sip of it, though, and she made a face. “This is from that machine,
isn’t it?” She asked.
“Yeah.” Mark shrugged. “How can you tell? I can never taste a difference.”
“Always tastes... sharp. I dunno.” Carrie, despite her protest, drained
the glass. “It’s annoying is all.” She muttered as she set it down,
returning to her previous curled-up state. “Thanks though.”
Mark turned to leave, but Carrie reached out and grabbed his wrist,
stopping him. “Mark, close the door.” She asked, and her older brother
could not but do as was requested.
As soon as Mark had closed the door, he felt a sort of chill, of the
kind he associated with Carrie at her most unnerving. It was that
feeling that he, years before, had associated with “Roz”, when he was
still childlike enough to believe that that alleged entity was more than
just one symptom of Carrie’s endearing (to Mark, anyway) disregard for
notions of sanity. “What is it?” Mark prompted quietly as soon as the
door was shut.
“I know I’ve made your life trouble, since Dad died.” Carrie sighed.
“You’re always looking out for me, even when that gets you in trouble
with Mom.”
“Carrie, all the crap Mom’s put me through on your account is her
fault, not yours.” Mark interrupted. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Let me finish.” Carrie’s tired, nauseated expression melted away into
one of fierce frustration for a moment, and Mark nearly stepped back in
surprise. Carrie was hard to rile, most of the time. “I think there’s a
time coming where you won’t be able to do that anymore.”
Mark had already been thinking about the fact that he was college-bound
in less than a year, so took that to be what she meant. Before he could
respond, though, Carrie continued. “But Mark, I want you to promise me
something.”
“What’s that?” Mark queried, expecting that she was going to elicit a
promise to visit, or to call regularly, or something, all of which Mark
knew he’d be doing after he left for college anyway.
“Don’t you ever start thinking I’m just your crazy sister.” Carrie
said, which matched nothing that Mark was expecting. “Promise me that
you won’t start dismissing what I say and do as crazy just because you
don’t understand it.”
Mark nodded, frowning. “I haven’t yet, and I won’t, I promise. Though I
can’t promise I’ll understand. I don’t think I ever have.”
Carrie gave a single-breath chuckle. “That may change, Mark. Roz and I
both think you could see the world my way, if you took the time to learn how.”
Mark shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t have my own Roz yet.” He intended
this to be sort of light-hearted, but it was clear his sister didn’t
take it that way.
“Roz told me this a long time ago - she’s not like others. You don’t
want your own.” Carrie replied, seemingly reflexively, then jumped a
little as if poked with a needle and looked away. “Apparently I wasn’t
supposed to tell you that.” She admitted, sitting up a little and
leaning against the headboard. “That’s a subject beyond the Line, sorry
Mark.”
Mark frowned a little, not immediately replying. He was genuinely
unsure how to make sense of any of that. Part of him wanted to abuse the
mind-numbing effects of the drug that had made Carrie feel so ill, but
the rest of him hated the thought of taking advantage. Yes, he could
learn something about what was beyond her Line, what was inside her
skull that had never gotten out, but Mark knew that that would violate
her trust. “Should I go then? That’s the second time since you took the
pills that you’ve said too much.”
Carrie shrugged. “I think I just need to sleep it off.”
Mark turned to leave, but as his sister laid back down in the bed she
spoke once more.. “Remember, Mark. You promised.” She said seriously.
Mark turned back, and acknowledged with a nod and a thin smile, then
left Carrie to sleep off the effects of the new medication.
The translations had slowly become routine, and Mark soon lost count of
the number of times he had pushed the limit of the strange, springy
translation boundary. His first run of the evening resulted in only
fifteen translations, but in the first ten he’d beaten his prior record
with a chain of twenty that turned his face red and sweaty with effort.
It was a strange feeling, the exertion - not a muscle in his body was
being strained, but he regularly had to forcibly relax his tense
shoulders and arms - they seemed to sympathetically want to share the
strain of the higher-order translations, as if doing so would take the
effort off of his brain.
Soon twenty was surpassed, then thirty, and after what seemed like a
herculean effort to break thirty-seven Mark broke off to get a drink,
not remembering to snap himself back first. The apartment outside the
mirror looked slightly dim and grayish, almost grainy. He attributed
this at first to poor lighting - the hundred-watt incandescent bulb over
the bar, the only light on outside the bathroom, seemed to be faint,
like it was only putting out twenty watts’ worth of light.
He knew something was off, though, when the refrigerator didn’t open
with his first tug. Trying again, with both hands, he managed to open
it, but the force required was closer to that he would expect to move
the refrigerator than to open it. It wasn’t that the door was stuck -
every inch he pulled the handle back was as hard as the previous, like
the hinges had been filled with thick tar or the door had been replaced
with a slab of solid lead. The light inside also seemed wan, distant,
and pale.
Carefully, Mark tried to lift a can of soda from inside the door. it
seemed to weigh as much as a whole twenty-four pack case, if not more,
and he had to navigate it out of its shelf with both hands. Setting the
soda on the counter, he thought better of trying to pull the tab to open
it. He knew immediately what was causing the strangeness, and, without
bothering to return to the mirror, started another translation. Rather
than pushing the boundaries with intent to break through, he pushed only
until he felt resistance and then stopped.
The unmistakable settling sensation came back, far stronger this time
than it had before, and Mark shook off a light feeling of vertigo that
came with it. Almost immediately the light in the overhead bulb
brightened back to its full hundred-watt yellow-white cheeriness.
Experimentally, Mark picked up the can of soda - it was back to normal
weight.
Mark drank the soda slowly, considering the implications. The world
faded out when one accomplished enough steps in Carrie’s process - did
that mean that he, too, would appear to fade out? Carrie had always been
good at hiding herself - was this her secret? Could she simply step
away from things, fading into almost nothing?
His eyes fell on the book, and Mark remembered that it was supposed to
have a title. He hadn’t been paying attention to it moments before, but
he wondered if thirty-seven was enough to see the writing that was
mentioned inside.
Finishing his drink, Mark picked up Carrie’s instruction manual and
carried it into the bathroom, and started another set. At twenty, he
looked over to the book - nothing. At thirty, nothing. At thirty-five,
the cover was grainy and hazy, but then everything besides his
reflection looked a little grainy and dull. After the thirty-eighth,
Mark thought he saw something, a discoloration on the book’s cover.
Heartened, he pushed against the resistance to the next translation, and
broke thirty-nine. The smudgy discoloration resolved itself into
letters that swam into unreadability when he looked directly at them,
but the dullness of the rest of his world made it clear to Mark that he
was close. Turning back to the mirror, he pushed against the fortieth,
expecting it to be the last keeping him from reading the title of
Carrie’s book, wondering how many of the questions he’d always had about
his little sister he’d have answered if he broke past.
But the resisting force, like a metaphysical trampoline, stymied his
efforts again, and Mark did not just settle back - as if the enthusiasm
for moving beyond forty was countered by enthusiasm for sending him
back, Mark felt not settling but wrenching. His stomach turned, and he
was immediately grateful that he had been practicing in the bathroom, as
his dinner, now thoroughly mixed with the can of soda from moments
prior, made a break for the exit.
Deciding after his insides had stopped heaving that that was perhaps
enough translation for one night, Mark cleaned himself off and got into
bed. Until now he hadn’t considered that the translations were anything
but harmless, but between the dulling of his senses and the snap-back
being able to make him sick (even though Mark was historically resistant
to motion sickness of the usual types) Mark could no longer assume that
the trick Carrie’s little book had taught him was harmless. How many
translations before an incautious snap-back caused Mark permanent
damage, or killed him? A hundred? Sixty?
As
he lay thinking in the darkness, the cold feeling darted down his
spine, and he had another, far more disturbing thought - if the
translations were not harmless, what about the repetitive cold feeling,
that Carrie seemed to imply was the result of contact with an invisible,
intangible being, as Mark remembered from her childhood games?
Supposing that entity did indeed exist, being associated somehow with
the translation trick, he had to assume that it too could harm him. And
if the cold feeling could be trusted, that meant it was close, perhaps
seated at his bedside, or crouched over him, waiting for its unlucky
victim to fall asleep...
No,
Mark forcibly discarded that childish line of thought. Supposing the
existence of such an entity (Mark still wasn’t sure he could believe it,
even after Carrie’s first several instructions), it had had the run of
his apartment for two days and had not yet caused him harm. Carrie’s
invisible companion had always been a source of observations and aid, at
least to Carrie herself - Mark couldn’t recall any times he saw Carrie
berate or disagree with her “imaginary” companion.
Still,
the possibility bothered him, and eventually, with a groan, Mark rolled
out of bed and opened the bedroom door, feeling stupid for even
considering what he was about to do. “Look.” He said quietly into the
darkness. “I know you’re in here, when you get close I get a feeling.
Always have. I’m not going to get any sleep unless you leave me alone...
I’d appreciate it if you weren’t in here, okay?”
Mark’s
words were met by silence. Even the light hissing sound of the traffic
on the road didn’t penetrate this far into the building. He realized all
the things he might have done wrong. what if the entity was more a pet
than a person, trained by his sister? What if it didn’t understand
English?
As
Mark’s mind tried to compile a full list of all the reasons he was an
idiot, it was interrupted by another cold feeling. This one was
different - it was stronger, localized, not trickling in from all his
extremities and then wriggling up his spine but centered on one side of
his face. Had he not been paying attention it might have been dismissed
as a draft at first, but it lasted a full two seconds, growing, before
vanishing suddenly.
Shaking his head and not fully understanding what had just happened,
Mark shut the door and walked around the room, unsuccessfully searching
for the cold feeling. Reasonably certain that it had left him alone for
the time being, Mark got back into bed, no less confused but slightly
less fearful. It had listened to him, whatever it was, which suggested
to him that it wasn’t dangerous.
At least, he decided, not for now, and not to him.
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