#borrowed time

Darcy stared down at her phone, eyes practically going crossed with the way she was trying to make sense of the information she was reading from Cricket. Most of it had to be out of context, right? Maybe it was because Cricket was putting on a display, trying to push Darcy away so that she could do something with her time that’d eventually be revealed for her. Maybe it was because she’d done something to piss her best friend off unknowingly. Whatever it was, Darcy would fix it. She’d figure it out, and she’d put it back together. The last thing that she could handle at the moment would be the loss of Cricket, especially after everything else she’d endured this year so far. She refused to let Cricket dig herself into a hole. 

It was apparent that there was something wrong with her. The shit that she was saying online was shit that Darcy would’ve never imagined Cricket saying, even on her worst days. She tried to imagine what could’ve possibly made her start acting this way, tried to trace it back months, years, to a decade– to Beetle, to her step-dad. Something must have happened, and it had been right under Darcy’s nose. That part made her angry. It burrowed into her, something akin to the way the sun became swallowed by clouds as a thunderstorm rolled through. It was suffocating, the feeling she felt as she threw her jeep into park. The idea that she, Darcy, might’ve not been aware of something going on with her Cricket. It was unfathomable. 

She hopped out of the driver’s seat, immediately beelining for the front door. Only Cricket’s civic was in the front driveway, looking largely untouched. Weird. Darcy balled her hand into a fist, practically beating the door with it. “I know you’re in there!” Darcy’s voice was loud, carrying through the open window that was to the very right of the front of the house. She tried to peer through the blinds, but they were closed, practically suction cupped to the spot they hung from. Retreating from the front door, she rounded the house, back to where Cricket’s window was. She could see it open, too. “Fucking ignoring me, insulting me– pretending– when I get my hands on you…” She hissed as she grabbed the lattice that’d supported her on every climb upward since she was nine years old. 

“Fuck. CRICKET!” Her voice came out mournful, a call to swallow everything else that might come in between them. Darcy pulled herself through the window, surprised to see that it wasn’t as empty of a spot as it usually had been. She fell into the objects, not making sense of them until she felt the hard covers from books beneath her ass. Getting to her feet, she shook the feeling off. She looked around, head on a swivel, trying to figure out where her best friend could possibly be. She wasn’t inside the room which… as she looked around, she noticed was inexplicably clean. Darcy then looked down at the ground, taking note of Cricket’s phone, too. She bent down, picking it up, staring at her reflection in the glass. She tapped it, letting the screen illuminate with light. So it wasn’t dead. Cricket was just choosing to ignore her. 

“CRICKET?!” 

If she could set her eyes on her, it would be alright. Wouldn’t it be? 

—- 

The families she worked for never let her sing; even the low humming of quiet songs was not permitted, and the work was duller for the silence. Here, to-day, Ophelia could sing all she wanted; and she did want. She wanted a great many things. For now, she contented herself with the songs; the half-recalled tunes from the music-halls. Mostly, she hummed as she scrubbed the bathroom tiles with her sponge; her hair tied up, on her hands and knees rubbing a circular enchantment of soap and water to pull away the flecks of grime. The house—this poor, old house; much like her—seemed as well to be singing; for all the cleaning she had done, transforming dusty corners into sparkling edges. The house was not to its former glory—perhaps it would not get there without a carpenter—but it was happy. Ophelia put the sponge back into her bucket and wiped the sweat on her brow—what a delight to sweat again!—and laughed as she smeared a line of popping soap bubbles against her forehead. 

For everything that had changed, it seemed there were many more things that remained the same: always the dirt and the dust and the tools to conquer them. Ophelia could clean just as well now as she could then; better, in fact! There were vacuums: strange plastic-y devices that screamed like a child in tantrum, but made such quick work of the rugs. Oh, imagine if she had had a vacuum then! Bessie would not admonish her for being too slow with the hanging of the rug out of doors, and the beating of it with the cane beater—which Bessie always told her she was too sweet with, and needed to imagine the rug—in her words—as a man who’d run off (this she said with a wink). When Ophelia coloured, Bessie laughed and called her anything from a pigeon to a green girl. Then, she really did strike the rug with a force that made the air whistle, imagining it was Bessie. Crack! Into her ribs. Crack! Into her skull. Crack! Crack! Yes, much would’ve been improved with the vacuum. Ophelia wiped the bubbles off her head and rose, stretching. Then,

“Fuck. CRICKET!” Then, a crash. Then, “CRICKET?!” 

Ophelia went rigid; she knew Darcy’s voice as well as she knew Cricket’s (her own voice now, she had to remind herself). She followed the sound—she couldn’t say why. She stood at the threshold of Cricket’s room, staring at Darcy. She stood very still and gazed long. Darcy had knocked down Ophelia's tower of books—she hadn’t a shelf for them yet—but Ophelia’s attention rested on the sight of her; brown hair messied, face pink. She wanted to put her back into place; smooth her strands, cool her cheeks. “You duck,” she said, and only in feeling the vibration against her throat did she remember that she was no longer a ghost, and that she could not simply stand watching, smiling. 

Worst of all, what would happen to her would happen to her—tangibly. “I have a lot of work, Darcy,” she said, as flat as she could wrestle her voice to be, and turned towards the bathroom. “Go away.”

—

You duck. 

Darcy stood across from Cricket now, the mild warmth spring licking the back of her neck. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d set eyes on Cricket. She quickly looked her over, searching for any life sucking leeches that might’ve attached themselves to her. She wanted to find the reason that she was acting the way she was, to pull it out of her; rip it from her, if she had to. Was it hers to learn? Was it her right to rip it from her? To devour what had clearly started to eat her alive? She didn’t look as sick as she had before, didn’t have the same colorless expression– there was life to her eyes. The kind that made Darcy want to scream, to ask why it was she was pulling away. If she could live, why couldn’t it be with her? If she could be happy, why couldn’t it be alongside her, in the quiet while they navigated their futures? Instead, there was a pillar, and Darcy stood on the opposite side from Cricket. The pillar was cold, and it had been driven in by Cricket herself, for no reason Darcy could come up with.

Echoing the sentiment from their online conversation, Darcy went slightly rigid as she heard it from Cricket’s own mouth. It sounded unlike her, missing the tone of affection that Darcy was so used to when it came to talking with her. She licked her lips, reaching up reflexively to twist her nose ring. A habit out of.. could she feel anxious? Hadn’t that been tied to fear? She could feel sad, couldn’t she? She’d been devastated by what had happened to her family, of possibly losing Cricket to the shitty town she’d dreamt of getting her out of. Years of trying to pinpoint the emotion due to the absence of something so many felt so strongly, and yet, she never had a word for what settled in her heart.

“Cricket. Stop that. What the fuck is going on?” She asked, voice thick with longing. It cast a shadow from where she stood to where she watched Cricket turn away. The smell of soap and a myriad of cleaning products burned her nose. It reminded her of the lemons. It made her mouth sour. “Hey, talk to me– I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Darcy took a step forward, hoping for the proximity, for the closeness; that it’d be enough to make Cricket fold. Was that wrong of her? To hope that by being close to her, she’d understand she wasn’t alone with what had happened? Whatever had happened. Darcy didn’t know, and that’s what pained her, it’s what made her skin crawl with uncertainty. Fear was absent, as it always was, but it was replaced with the nothingness, the unknowing; of losing Cricket to whatever this town had done to her while Darcy hadn’t been in her company. 

She and Cricket had been plenty rough with one another, had found it hard to be anything but, but now, Darcy was nothing but gentle, concerned that maybe Cricket would run like a cornered rabbit. “You’re cleaning? I can help you.” Fuck, she hated cleaning. Hated the way she got sweaty and itchy, hated the way that the soap dried her hands. But she’d do it, had done it. Had done worse for Cricket. Would do worse for Cricket. Cleaning was nothing. Cleaning was… nothing. It was nothing, and Darcy would do it, all to spend time, all to figure out, to dig deep into what was going wrong with her. But Darcy hated the idea that Cricket was wrong, because she never had been before, never had been categorized as such. Now, however, it was pertinent that she find out what it was that had dug its claws into her.

—- 

Ophelia believed that one could learn strictly from observation; in that sense, though she knew little about Darcy, she understood the woman quite well. Like a hunting dog set upon prey, she would not stop chasing. She loved Cricket, Ophelia knew. How nice it must be to be loved. No one but her own family had ever loved her. She wanted to be loved again; she mourned its feeling. She wanted to tell Darcy that she could rest her love for Cricket inside of her, that she would take it all. It could be hers now; like this body. Abdicate the love to her; she would be a more devout worshipper. Baptize her and she would never let a day pass without prayer: in the morning, before her meals, at the bed-foot she would kneel. 

But the love was not hers. 

She had not entertained fantasies of deceiving Darcy into friendship for long, not out of virtue—her virtues were thin—but out of logic: Darcy was wiser than Ophelia’s imitations, and Ophelia wanted things to be hers completely. She wanted love for Ophelia, affection for Ophelia, care for Ophelia, friends for Ophelia, all the things she could not find in life she wanted now and yes, she had this skin that was not hers but the soul was and it screamed. Oh, just give the love up, and then she could have it all. But the love was not hers. Darcy was not hers. Cricket was not hers. If it could be said that Cricket belonged to anyone, it would be to Darcy; and she to her. 

But now Ophelia had Cricket, and she was not eager to let her go. Slowly, she turned around. 

Darcy was a pretty woman—though pretty was not about the right word. Handsome, perhaps: nice features, healthy complexion, two brown eyes of such beauty they stirred memories of forests and loyal mud embracing rushing rivers. Brown was not a drab colour to Ophelia; it was the most natural colour, and hence the holiest. Though, Opehelia could not say she disliked any colour—and was struck then with the thought that, had Darcy’s eyes been another shade, her praise would be unchanging. It was perhaps not the colour, then, but the impression they gave. Or perhaps not the eyes themselves, but the woman they sat upon. Ophelia flushed—Oh! It was difficult to be cruel to a pretty face—a handsome face—and such faces always inspired pity. Ophelia remembered herself as being plain; unremarkable from her straw hair to her dry feet—she was old furniture, forgotten ornaments of the room. Outwardly, she told no stories, stirred no sympathies: she was not a jewel or a flower. She was ugly, and wicked, in every sense of both words; in every part of her. Was she sorry that she wanted to bludgeon Bessie’s body into a pulp? Not the slightest. Would she be sorry for this? Ophelia had learned long ago that goodness and freedom were never to be taken in the same breath; her desires extended beyond virtue. God had never forgiven her. Still, she wanted someone to look at her.

One could learn much watching pretty people like Cricket and Darcy; all of their mannerisms spoke to truths of their soul: the nervous flick of Darcy’s tongue over her lips, the shy way Cricket would thrust her hands into her pockets. What could one learn about the nature of a chair from watching the chair? No one had ever looked at Ophelia in her life, and now no one ever would.

Ophelia stood stiff as a tree, picking at an errant thread dangling from her worn sleeve. Darcy looked miserable; the softness, and the offer to help, were unusual for her. Ophelia knew the truth: if Darcy could see what was inside, she would cast Ophelia out from her pretty shell—she, the insect-like hermit crab having made a home to hide its ugly, weak, fleshy curl. She wanted to live. Darcy took her step forwards, and Ophelia took one backwards. Oh, Cricket would hate her for this, she thought. Perhaps that was why her stomach revolted. 

“Is it so hard to believe that I don’t want to see you?” she asked. No, too cold—she had to say it the way Cricket would. Ophelia slipped her hands inside the pockets of her long skirt, and shrugged to her ears in Cricket’s usual fashion. “Dude,” she said; she was ignorant still of the meaning, but understood its grammatical placement. “What the f”—she coloured and swallowed—“f-fuh…fuh”—she had never spoken the word before—“fuck is going on with me is that I don’t want to see you. Ever. Now please leave.” No, Cricket never said please. “Shut up.” Cricket said that often. “Go.” 

—

Darcy could remember her and Cricket’s first fight. The anger had been a festering thing; unanswered calls, the neglect of a friendship that’d blossomed past telling secrets and holding every truth between them. The treehouse had gone largely untouched that week, neither herself nor Cricket visiting it in the off hours in the hope that the other would be there. It’d been over something small, something stupid. But the week following, Darcy had climbed up Cricket’s window, found the nest the other had made for herself, and fell asleep with her in it. By morning, the week-long feud had been forgotten. Even now, Darcy couldn’t remember the fight, but only the way that they had made up; of how they pinky swore, twisting their limbs in such a fashion that would make the roots of a tree jealous; of their spit catching on leaves as they caught all the unsaid things in their mouths, expelling it. 

So when Cricket asked her, is it so hard to believe that I don’t want to see you? Darcy had to remind herself that they’d never fought like this. Not since then, and even if they had arguments, they were always settled. She would bring food, or Cricket would. There’d be an arizona tea in a plastic bag that twisted around Darcy’s fingers, turning them purple. There were always lifelines for the two of them. A bargaining chip, some would say. But Darcy wasn’t sure if she had one now. She had an excuse, if it was about her absence. Her parents, her siblings, her community. She’d lost it all, and to her, it seemed she was about to lose Cricket, too. 

But she couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t. 

Cricket struggled to get the words out, and Darcy barked out a laugh. It was ignorant of her to believe that it was because Cricket didn’t actually want her to go. Ignorance was bound to swallow her, it was just a surprise that it would be revolving Cricket that it had done so. “I’m not leaving. Not until you fucking tell me why. Until you give me a reason.” She could make herself appear big, despite being so small. It wasn’t because of her illusions; no, they hardly did anything to combat her tiny stature. Instead, it was the way she commanded herself. The way she’d deepen her voice, staring directly in the face of whatever opposed her. She wasn’t scary by nature, but she could be direct, and could find it in herself to steer those around her in the direction she wanted. 

Darcy took another step forward, and another. She didn’t reach out to grab Cricket’s arm, she knew that she hated it– being touched without giving the OK. Hated being grabbed especially. Even if Darcy wanted to feel her, she knew she’d have to let it be on the other’s terms. There were signals she’d learned over the years– of crawling into Cricket’s bed, of knowing when she could get close. They were absent now. There was a cinderblock wall between them, and it was getting hard to see Cricket through it, even with the closed proximity. Darcy smelled new shampoo. Not the usual that Cricket would use. And her roots were growing in. Why hadn’t she called to have Darcy help? “Tell me why you don’t want to see me. Don’t just say you don’t want to see me. Tell. Me. Why.” Even then, she wasn’t sure if she’d take the answer. 

They were inches apart now. Darcy looked up at Cricket, hoping that she’d laugh, and slam her lips into her forehead like old times, and then the surprise would be revealed. The smell of the cleaning products mimicked that of her burning home; co-opting itself for the change that Darcy was forced to undertake. 

—- 

The river between them narrowed; Darcy was crossing the stream, coming to her. Ophelia stiffened her—Cricket’s—body: muscles locking, arms pressed to her torso, legs held together. Her gaze fluttered to the wall of glossy, unframed photographs Cricket had; gaudy things with half-dressed people, much of Darcy, and occasionally designs of bold text. A mistress never liked her maids to cower—a mistress would not be made to feel a villain in her own house when rightfully disciplining her staff. Ophelia waited, and waited, but Darcy did not strike her. For what other reason would she come so near to her, with such certainty, if not to punish her? Ophelia looked into Darcy’s eyes—so brown they were, so gentle, so like a woodland animal. You are my enemy, she thought, I will not be bought by your beauty. So powerful it was, that Ophelia’s fingers burned in her fists as she imagined embracing her. How warm was Darcy? How soft was her hair? Was it like silk? Was her skin like cotton? 

She knew, already, what Darcy smelled like. In the mornings, upon Darcy’s exit, Ophelia would crawl inside Cricket and press her face to the sheets. She ran her hands over the escaping heat of Darcy, pressed her nose to fabric, taking in the musk that did not belong to Cricket, imagining what it must be like to be held. Watching the women lay together, Ophelia desired to lay between them—their friendship was strong, and intimate, and Ophelia had never loved, or been loved, even a quarter as much. She’d tried, unsuccessfully, to inhabit Darcy’s body once. In touching her, she vanished and was unmoored from time, trapped inside memory—an experience which plagued much of her time as a ghost, before she understood how to tether herself to linearity. She never tried it again; Cricket’s body was like a glove. Safer there—here. 

 “I…” she began and ceased. You are my enemy, she thought again, and repeated round and round inside her thoughts. How else could she be cruel? How else could she be cold? How else harm her? How else but to name her the enemy? Ophelia was the cornered animal, and she would kick. She stepped back and leaned upon the door-frame as Cricket might. How soft were Darcy’s lips? How salty her sweat?

“You do this,” she began, very slowly as she parsed her observations of the modern language, but slow speech was the habit of Cricket anyhow, “can’t let anything go.” She shook her head as if frustrated—what an actor she was! Oh, if Edmund could see her now—how she’d grown from the Shakespeare they would act out! “It’s annoying. You annoy me,” she said, frigid as winter nights. “You’re strange. You’re like a dog. I want…” Ophelia licked her lips. “...to have my own fucking”—it made her feel quite masculine to say it—”space. For once.” She shrugged, just the way Cricket would. “I don’t know. I have outgrown you.” 

And since Darcy was her enemy, she felt nothing in the way of emotions; and if she did, she swallowed it effortlessly as she had in her life; and if her heart was loud and had crawled up inside her head, it was only because the room was rather hot; and if she considered anything, it was only to that she wanted to return to her cleaning. She was good, she thought, she was good and had only done what was necessary and Darcy was her enemy and, of course, any action taken against an enemy was justified. She might slap her! For, wasn’t a mistress entitled to protect the manners of her house? And then, might she not feel the tenderness of Darcy’s cheek? Might she not, for a moment, hold her face inside her palms? And she would kiss the health back to her, upon her cheek, because she was good. How yielding was Darcy’s skin? Ophelia wanted to know. 

—

Darcy felt that one wrong move could reveal some kind of riptide. That it could entangle her, tearing her from Cricket. As she looked up at the other woman– her friend, she felt something absent. There was something in her eyes, or lack thereof. It was static, but not the home grown kind– not the kind that was encapsulated by staying home one too many days. It was manufactured; a hateful thing drawn out in handwriting that Darcy couldn’t fucking understand. It pierced her skin, her heart. It was like the burning house all over again. The smell of the hot cinder, the absence of screams. They were already dead. Was Cricket saying that she had died, too, in that fire? Had that been the final straw? Had there been someone, somewhere, that’d gotten to Cricket, deciding to fit a wedge between them, big enough to fit in the cavity meant for Cricket’s heart? Was that it? Was it so awful to love her? To continue doing so? 

It wasn’t a fear. It was a question. It was scaling the events, of turning them over in her mind as she looked up at Cricket who looked at her with the sort of absence Darcy felt at evening as the night chirped to life. She wanted to beg her, to get onto her knees and grovel, to ask for one more chance. I can be good, I can do better– I’m not like what they say. Was that what Cricket was asking her to do? To beg? Cricket was famous for not saying what she meant. 

So was it truly so hard to believe that there was a certain power behind her words now? That she meant every word? “Fuck off.” It slipped out, and it tasted metallic. It coated her tongue, all the way back to her throat. She’d bitten her cheek. Hadn’t even realized it, either. Copper flooded her mouth and she swallowed it down. She thought of the time that she’d taken Cricket’s cut finger into her mouth to cull the bleeding. Could she do so with this? Could she put her mouth to the wound? Cricket hung in the doorway in such a stupid Cricket fashion, and all the while she said things that Darcy didn’t ever think she’d hear her say. 

Was this some kind of karmic debt she’d been handed? Had her existence truly been that erroneous that it all had to fall apart? That each branch had to split from the body of the tree until they gathered at the roots which had been rotting the entire time? Darcy wondered again, was this what fear felt like? Or was this heartbreak? How could she still not quantify the meaning after having experienced so much that would drive one to madness? “What the fuck do you mean you outgrew me? What the fuck does that even mean?!” Exasperated, she took a step back, looking around the room. There were traces of her everywhere. Her t-shirts, the C.D’s she’d lent to Cricket, photographs of her fixed to the wall with sticky tack. She was everywhere. Cricket hadn’t gotten rid of her. 

“You have me everywhere. If you really fucking meant that, you would’ve gotten rid of this shit.” She thought about Cricket and how she would come to the Treehouse, freshly showered after a few hours of no response. Darcy had always known where she’d gone off to, figured it out pretty quick by the smell of her on the times she’d not gone home to get changed. Darcy wasn’t stupid, she knew that Cricket looked for other things that weren’t her, but she had always come to her, at the end. It was always Darcy’s bed that she fell asleep in, or vice versa. So for a brief moment, as she looked around, she considered the impossible; that there was someone else, and Cricket was too chicken shit to tell her. 

But that didn’t explain everything else; the mannerisms changing, the way that she spoke online to people– the kind of conversations Cricket would have never had. There was something wrong with her; it was like she’d been taken over by something, and Darcy had been too consumed with her own grief to notice. What had it been? She’d considered leeches of some kind, or maybe a parasite. It had to be that, didn’t it? Because Cricket– her Cricket wouldn’t suddenly go spouting about God and the Bible. She wouldn’t talk down to those who dared oppose her in a manner of speech. She wouldn’t say that she’d outgrown her, either. 

So before Cricket could act, Darcy started to rip through Cricket’s drawers, looking for anything that could be an answer to what had happened to her best friend. 

—- 

Her scheme did not work and Ophelia watched as Darcy ripped through Cricket’s drawers, tossing aside the remains of Cricket which clattered to the ground like rocks. There were no oddities: inside the drawers were only Cricket’s things, unchanged, as Ophelia hadn’t started moving things—she would’ve liked to say it was because she knew Cricket would return and be cross with her if things were not in their places. She knelt and plucked the scattered objects, placing them in her arms: photographs, rings, bracelets, the larger victims of Darcy’s storm were spilling from the drawers and were too far from Ophelia to be rescued. She recalled the doll she’d had as a child, fashioned from rags; and all the life it seemed to her that doll possessed—or, all the life she wished it did, and in wishing, made true in her mind. She didn’t like things to be treated so roughly. The only things of hers in this room were the books, and the Bible resting upon the nightstand. 

You are my enemy, she thought, rising, and you have come here to ruin me. Kill me. She tried to stir anger, but her heart would not listen. Ophelia turned and placed the objects down on Cricket’s desk, lining them up. Darcy was still having her fit, her nerves seemed to be quite out of sorts—perhaps that was a simplistic observation. What other language was there? She thought of Imogen as Fidele picking at the headless body she believed to be her husband, asking “Where is thy head? Where’s that? Ay me, where’s that?”. Ophelia took one of the disregarded photographs—a picture, same as hundreds of pictures, of Cricket and Darcy smiling together. She looked once more at Darcy and wanted to go to her and in wanting knew she could not. If she went to her, she would give her the truth, and if Darcy had the truth, she would surely ruin her.

“Please go,” she said, releasing her artifice of Cricket—if it had worked, the result was not what she imagined. “Please leave. You can—You—You have her always, I only—I want one moment. I want her for one—” Ophelia dropped her gaze, Cricket’s body sagging with her mood. She bit her lip—Cricket’s lip. Her eyes—Cricket’s eyes—stung. She set the photograph aside and sniffled, rubbing her eyes roughly with the back of her hands. She felt too much like a child having a fit: she could not have her way, and now she must cry about it—she didn’t cry so much in life, not a drop. In Cricket’s body, she was easily moved to tears. Cricket cried often, always alone—or, always without another living soul, for Ophelia was there for her. 

“Please,” she said. “I want you to go; isn’t that enough? Why must you fight it? Go! Go. It is easier if you go.” She leaned against the desk and wrapped her arms around herself, scratching at her sleeves—when she’d been alive, she often made holes in her own clothing with her nervous habit. “Please, Darcy.”

—

As she worked through the drawers, she peeled back years of friendship. Most of what Darcy even owned had concerned itself with Cricket, and it seemed like that was true for her friend, too. She moved from the topmost drawers to the middle, and eventually, to the bottom. Cricket stood behind her, an immovable object. The Cricket she knew would’ve lunged already, would’ve caught her arm, told her she was overreacting. There would be an argument, something small, something that would burn her throat, and then they’d be over it. But for some reason, something burrowed into Darcy– a sort of knowing that the Cricket behind her wasn’t Cricket at all, but some kind of imposter. 

A Cricket who cleaned, who kept things clean– who didn’t swear, who let her hair grow out without calling her. Darcy’s heart hammered inside of her chest, an erratic thing that could take a rib or two with it. She barely registered Cricket’s voice when it finally broke through the shuffle of items she was tossing over her shoulder onto the floor. She had upended the remainder of the books she’d fallen on top off, flipping through the pages. But once she let the words sink into her, it was hard to continue looking for the thing she could not find. It’d been right behind her all along.

Desperation and fear were a closely related thing, and it was the closest she could get to the latter, she had told Cricket once. Desperate to leave, but not afraid of not being able to. Determination had built itself into the house of bones picking her skin up from the floor. If not for herself, then for her friend beside her. But was it Cricket at all? It seemed to not be. A half-admission was said from the corner from which she’d moved, and Darcy turned around to face her. 

You can have her always. I want one moment. 

Darcy didn’t consider herself to be smart, not in the usual sense. She had smarts about her, knew how to navigate the world she’d been born into, but when it came to most things, she was blissfully unaware. Or, maybe it was that she couldn’t bring herself to care– because caring meant vulnerability that was unbecoming of someone like her. Of a child born to a ranger and a shifter. 

Suddenly, she was in the burning house, even if she’d only approached it from the outside, watching the flames lick the tops of the trees that surrounded it. She could smell the wood, hear the glass pop. Cricket burned in front of her, and it was then that she realized, this was not Cricket at all. The imposter had been in front of her the entire time; but the vessel of her friend stood, and so she had hoped (which, in Darcy’s opinion, was a ugly, bitter thing), that it was as simple as— as what? She didn’t have her lexicon anymore. Her mother was gone. 

“Where is she?” It was curt, unshakeable. It sounded wrong to Darcy’s ears. Her own voice sounded distorted. Her head swimmed. She was not afraid of losing Cricket, she was angry; remorseful, gutted. She felt like a pig over the open fire of her home, cut from the chin down. “Don’t fucking cry. Tell me where she is. Bring her back to me.” She closed the distance, but still didn’t touch Cricket– Not Cricket(?), because Cricket had to be somewhere inside. This was a parasite– a reimagining of Cricket, some awful, twisted thing that Darcy was certain had assumed her face. Cricket was still out there somewhere. 

“Where is she?” 

—- 

You are my enemy, Ophelia reminded herself; Darcy was one step away from her—and how easy it would be to take that step. Nothing but one foot thrust forward. How soft was her skin? What if she opened her mouth and pressed the pointed ends of her sharp teeth to the flesh of her arm? What if, when Darcy shook and shook, she hung on like a snarling dog? What did her blood taste like? Was it different from Cricket’s? She wanted to be inside Darcy’s body and at Ophelia’s side, her fingers twitched. As a ghost, desire (perverse ones, to be sure) was her only companion; she desired with unending appetites which swelled to rage and grief. She wanted to pull the world inside her body; she wanted a body to pull the world into. She wanted and wanted and wanted and she stood there, watching Darcy’s anger. Inside, she could not feel the swallowed, resting pearl of Cricket. Inside, there was the heart, the blood and the bones, and the ache drilling through her stomach; but it was only her. How deep had Cricket vanished? 

“She is here,” Ophelia answered. “She is here.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. Her voice—Cricket’s voice—worbbled like a dying bird-song. She had yet to tolerate the voice; it was not at all like her. How could it be? It was Cricket: flat, rough, American. The voice inside her head was as she remembered it: tempered, pleasant, British. She was grateful Darcy could not hear it; Ophelia had never sounded intimidating, or much of anything, unless reading words that were not hers. In the voice of Hamlet (Edmund insisted always to be Ophelia, wanting to be his sister) she was certain, or fearful, or angered. As Ophelia—herself, not the tragic figure—she could speak only as she had been raised to, as the etiquette of the time commanded: she was soft. It was the characters in the stories that spoke for her: Jane Eyre agonizing upon her mind “Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned?"; or Pip, “What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew?”; or, departing from the novel, into poetry, Tennyson himself “But the tender grace of a day that is dead / Will never come back to me”.

As a ghost, she raged to speak—screaming, or else not screaming, since she could not tell if she were, then attempting the memory of a scream. Inside, she had words: about her life, from birth in London to death in that attic; about her family, whom she still loved. She could quote the books! She had poems about the birds, trees, insects. She was Ophelia! Alive again! Not drowned! She could say it now, and speak as she had always dreamed. 

You are my enemy. She swallowed. Now, given the chance to speak, what did she say? She said: “I am Cricket.” Ophelia blinked and wiped her eyes clean. “I am Cricket, your friend—not your friend anymore. Because I hate you, Darcy. I changed myself because I hate you. Because you are greedy, and perverse, and when you want to speak, you never say what it is you mean, and I hate you for it. You took my life away, and I hate you for it. I never want to see you again; I wish you would go away forever.” And every rough syllable was delivered with purpose. “Cricket is here. I am Cricket.”

— 

Darcy so badly wanted to reach into Cricket, to pull whatever it was inside of her, thread by thread– to unbraid it, to eat it with her teeth. She’d devour whatever had taken Cricket from her. She’d kill it, just so she could find her again. But did Cricket need saving? Was this some version of Cricket, uncovered by a town so bleak that it’d taken so much from the two of them? She thought of Beetle, and of the way Cricket’s face had looked at the funeral. Of the dress she wore; how it was too wrinkled, and how Darcy had run to the bathroom with it, turning the shower on as hot as it could go. She had sat there, watching the wrinkles unfurl, and had come out bright pink and faint. The dress wrinkled shortly after, and maybe this was like that moment, where Cricket had always been some wrinkled thing, ready to dispose of her the moment it got too hard. 

But Cricket spoke in the kind of way that meant whoever was speaking, was not Cricket at all. It’d be so easy to reach over, to show her teeth, to rip through the maw– the center of her chest, to rip out her beating heart. Maybe it was something she should’ve imposed on her; to threaten whatever was inside of her to get the hell out. But would it work that way? There was still the promise, and it had been conducted under the moonlight. Darcy had swore on a stack of skating magazines, her palm covered in tree sap from the climb down after rescuing a shoe Cricket had thrown to disengage fighting squirrels. She had promised her some time ago to never use her abilities on her, and she would maintain the oath. 

What if there was no getting out for this thing that had taken home inside of her? To believe the things she was saying, to think that she could somehow be the catalyst for the rot that was growing off of Cricket, turning her into somebody else entirely, would be a fearful attachment, wouldn’t it? Darcy couldn’t comprehend how they’d gotten here. But it was a lie, as all evil things were– a lie and liquid smoke. Finally, Darcy took a hold of Cricket’s arm. It felt like Cricket. It was warm, and sticky with the warming weather– from the exertion of cleaning. 

“You are not.” The words were louder than she anticipated as they tumbled out of her mouth. She steered Cricket backwards into the wall, her grip on her (not—-?) friend’s arm tight, but loose enough so that if Cricket wanted to get out of the hold, she could. Cricket’s pulse bounced where her fingers were. How badly she wanted to put it to her ear, to fall asleep to the sound of her jumping heart. It was one of the things she had missed most in either of their absences. “I lost everything, and I’m not going to lose her, too. Let her out.” Darcy had no idea what she was dealing with. She knew monsters. To some, she was one. But she couldn’t recall a leech that overtook crystalized parts of somebody’s memory, while simultaneously losing every aspect of who they were. “She doesn’t hate me. Maybe you do, but she doesn’t.” Maybe she did. Maybe Cricket hated her so much it made her sick to the point of this, but until that was explicitly proven– until the imposter in front of her was brought to some kind of justice, whether it was expulsion or damnation, Darcy wouldn’t rest. “She likes me greedy. She likes when I want her. You would know that if you were her.” 

—- 

Ophelia shrieked when Darcy grabbed her arm; it had been years upon years, twisting time, lost and uncountable minutes, since someone touched her. Darcy’s fingers were hot like coals, and she could feel her own bones under her grip. When she hit the wall, the jolt made her squeak again; lit fuses running up and down her spine. Her pulse quickened. She was not afraid; her breath spilled fast and hot from her mouth—dry as though Darcy had sucked the moisture from it herself. Years and years and years, no one had ever touched her. Disgust roiled across her stomach, chasing the pleasure away as though it were a hungry dog come to beg; it did a poor job of sending that beast elsewhere. She shuddered, hot, caught inside Darcy’s grip. You are my enemy, she tried to think, but even the idea thrilled her. The longing inside her was so bloated, it strangled her. It was so ravenous, she squirmed; she feared it may never be fed. And then what? She burned all over. Years and years and years and years. Even when she had a body, no one touched her; unless it was to punish her—or, that one time, with Bessie… Oh, but she must’ve been making a fool of her, to kiss her so. Anyhow, she didn’t remember it, her blood had surged up to her head and she could feel nothing—she’d despised her for it.

And just the same, she hated Darcy for setting her on fire. Her eyes could find no place to rest; they danced between her eyes, her lips, her cheek, her jaw, her neck, her lips. Years and years, she thought, you are my enemy. She could hardly hear Darcy, her blood had boiled up inside her ears and sizzled like fat in a hot pan. She was pink, she could tell she was pink, because she prickled everywhere with heat. Years and years and years and years and years—fast enough the words trailed together that, escaping her notice, they became: yes and yes and yes and yes. Bile shot up her throat. “I hate you,” Ophelia spat. “Unhand me!” She was weak—she always had been—and pulled with clumsy effort at her arm. “You are a villain!” She pulled again and slipped out of Darcy’s hand, stumbling away from her. Her arm throbbed; she wished Darcy would grab the other and push her, perhaps, against the hard, closet doors. 

She rubbed at her red arm. “I do not like you,” she said. “And your stubbornness is…” Ophelia huffed, blowing an errant strand of hair away from her face. “Rude,” she continued. “And unladylike, and a woman is entitled to change her mind about things! I can hate you! I am able to! And this”—Ophelia gestured at her arm—”is evidence of your cruelty. Would you harm someone you loved? Why should I want you as a friend?” In her life, Ophelia had never raised her voice; she could not be sure she enjoyed it now. “She—I do not like you greedy; no one likes anyone greedy,” she said, tugging at her clothes. Her voice levelled again and she exhaled. Of course, she was the greediest of all, but she felt that point was best left unsaid. “The only person that needs to be let out is you. I am Cricket.”

Ophelia huffed again and walked towards the open window, from where Darcy had come. “Out,” she said. “Or else I shall…” Ophelia thought long, searching her mind for the most terrible action she could take. “...spank you,” she said, puffing out her chest.

— 

Darcy’s grip was a purposeful one. When Cricket made to slip herself out of it, she went easily. “You do,” she countered, “but she doesn’t.” Darcy’s refusal to believe that Cricket was inside of the body before her was one that had to upheave the hope attached; that maybe Cricket was subdued, in some half-awake state, startled by the commotion. Should Darcy have been more gentle? Would her advances hurt Cricket? She abhorred the idea that it was too late, so it wasn’t something her mind settled on. Whether it was today or tomorrow, Darcy would peel Cricket back from the shadows, kicking out whatever had moved in, out. 

Cricket was in the burning house, and Darcy had a chance to get her out. “I don’t want to fucking hurt you– her.” She wanted to devour the parasite. The room they were in was too small of a thing for her to shift. She would get stuck, and Not-Cricket would run, and she’d be left behind to watch. “You might think that I’m rude, or that I’m stubborn, and you might not like how greedy I can get, but that doesn’t matter to me. You do not matter to me. She does.” How many times would she have to say it? Would the parasite listen? Would whatever had taken Cricket over decide that  yes, they’d been incorrect in inhabiting this specific body, and fuck off? Probably not, but Darcy couldn’t help but fall into line with a bit of wishful thinking, especially after how everything else had gone. 

Darcy watched as Cricket walked to the window, barking out a laugh as the other told her to leave. The laughter only grew louder at the mention of spanking. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Still, in the back of her mind, she hoped that somehow, this was Cricket– that she would drop the act, and laugh with her. That her pinched expression would fall into her natural nonchalance. It didn’t. Instead, Not-Cricket stayed firmly pressed into the act of being Cricket. “You’re going to spank me? For what, being greedy? For wanting my gi– friend back?” 

She closed the distance again. The breeze from outside pushed in through the window. It was a welcome thing, considering the fumes carrying into Cricket’s room from what Darcy could only guess had been the bathroom. “I think you should leave.” Darcy poked her finger, far too gently than her anger should have allowed, into Not-Cricket’s chest, just above her heart. “Where is she? Tell me where she is, and I’ll leave. You said she’s here, but I don’t see her. I want to talk to her. Bring her to me.” 

—-

Ophelia felt like a horse; stomping her feet and huffing. She was pink and had nothing to do but point with repetition at the open window. How could she get this interloper to obey her? She was not so convincing in life, horribly not so in death, and seemed once more cursed to hold no gifts of rhetoric. In her time, however, one did obey their elders; and certainly their betters. Though, living, she had fought against the notion often in her mind—she could not fight it out of her mind—since she determined herself to be always the better in any room. Was she not a talented girl? Could she not sing, and dance, and converse pleasantly, and sew, and paint and play a little of the pianoforte like a real lady? She knew many things about art and could recite poems and was amiable in manners and calm in nerves; she knew arithmetic and geography and her deficiencies in the schooling of history and foreign languages were more than attended to by her talent for… for… cleaning! Yes, and cooking. Which ladies did not know how to do, because they had been born needling nursemaids, housemaids and cooks. Ophelia’s only fault was a low-birth and she thought, why should she have to obey anyone? 

This was her house. This was her body. You are my enemy. “If I mattered so much to you,” she said, “then where were you?” Ophelia locked her green eyes upon Darcy’s brown. “All these weeks; where did you go?” Cricket had waited for her, and Ophelia had too. And then— Ophelia gazed out the window. “You could have helped,” she said softly, unsure if she meant help her or help Cricket. The last time she’d seen Cricket, it had been— Her mouth tasted sour; she was unwell. She caught Darcy’s stutter, but knew not what word she intended. 

“You are the one who came into the house uninvited,” she said—knowing that it was herself to which she referred. “You are the one who refuses to leave,” she said. Darcy’s finger pressed against the black rhythm of her wicked heart. “And a flogging is a very effective punishment for…” Her voice died. Ophelia looked at Darcy. “She is here,” she said, all of the indignation wrung out of her. She didn’t feel better than anyone. “Please just… go.”

—

Where were you? 

Darcy was at the burning house. She couldn’t hear the anguished screams, but she could imagine them. She would pull from them later, re-write them in her own illusionary gore. Grief had poisoned her mind; had made her soft. The Treehouse had been a lonely, aching thing. She had wished Cricket would come, had begged for every padding footstep outside to be that of her friend instead of a creature who was drawn to her due to the blood pumping through her veins. Her lips parted, moving to say something, to stick it to Not-Cricket, to give her a reason to eat her words, but she couldn’t bring herself to, because since arriving, what had been said was the most Cricket out of it all. 

She  hadn’t been there when Cricket needed her most. Darcy had seen her ill, had held her as she warred with some silent thing she could not speak about, but when it mattered– when this parasitic being took over, where was she? She’d been holed up in a memory, giving names to the new spiders that had moved in. For all intents and purposes, she knew Not-Cricket to be wrong, knew that she would’ve been there had she been able. But Cricket hadn’t known. Darcy hadn’t ever gotten the chance to tell her, too afraid to give her more to worry about in her feeble state. But even then, Cricket hadn’t concerned herself with the way in which her hands trembled, or the way she couldn’t hold a conversation. Instead, she joked– and now, Darcy couldn’t even remember what it’d been that they joked about, because Not-Cricket was staring at her with her Cricket’s green eyes, pleading with her to exit from which she’d entered, all the while blaming her for becoming the parasitic thing Darcy so badly wanted to get rid of.

Darcy knew cruelty, had seen it all her life. She’d seen it within those who strived to change those around them, only knowing to resort to insults so low that not even a shovel could dig deep enough to unearth them. “Fuck you.” She dropped her hand, balling it into a fist. “She doesn’t deserve– she’s–” Darcy bit the inside of her cheek, and it popped between her teeth. Fuck, it was tender. More blood poured into her mouth. She swallowed it down. “You’re on borrowed time.” Once she figured out what exactly had Cricket, she’d get rid of it; devour it, cast it away– it didn’t matter. She’d do what she had to. 

She didn’t depart through the window. Instead, she aimed to leave through the front door. She took the steps two at a time as she descended the stairs. Just before she reached the door, she heard a low whine. She looked over to see Truck, his paws hanging over the couch. For a moment, she considered taking him, but there’d be no getting him into the treehouse. Not at his age. “Hey, Truck.” She listened to see if Not-Cricket (Cricket?) was following her, but so far, she was safe. She padded over, the heat of their argument subsiding considerably as she set eyes on the old lab. “I’ll be back for you soon, buddy.” She scratched behind his ears, then turned to the front door, exiting. Darcy swiped the spare keys from beneath the dragonfly statue sitting just outside, and headed to her jeep. She’d get Cricket back. It’d just be a matter of figuring out exactly what had her. 

—- 

Truck lifted his head as Darcy neared him, his tail thumping on the cushions. When the place behind his ears was scratched, he panted. At his age, he was too slow to catch up to the door. When he reached it, Darcy was gone, and pressing his wet nose against the sliver of window beside the door, he whined. He didn’t turn as Ophelia as she descended, but the flap of his ears pulled back and his tail waved once side-to-side in hearing her. He huffed and collapsed upon the rough rug. 

Ophelia was devoid of opinion or emotion; for the insults of an enemy were trifles and easily dismissed, as well as forgotten, as well as completely trampled by the good arguments that presently swelled inside. “Borrowed time,” she grumbled, stomping into the living room to grab Truck’s bed. “The only time that is borrowed is yours, you fiend! Yes, good, I shall say that to her next time.” She walked to the front-door and urged Truck to stand, quickly sliding the bed in his place, so that he might rest upon the plush surface instead. “Or, perhaps, is it not stinging enough?” Ophelia tapped her chin. “Have at you, Darcy!” She slumped, watching Truck settle in his bed. “No, I am not challenging her to a duel…” Ophelia waved her wrist, imitating the swish of a rapier. She leaned over and glanced out the window that occupied the dog. She was calmer now that the dreaded Darcy was gone; delighted to get back to her tasks of cleaning and cooking—but her mood darkened the longer she watched the empty, cracked stretch of road. The wind howled and the house moaned and it seemed to her ill omens. 

One could say the nature of living was that all time was borrowed—perhaps it should have frightened her more to have Darcy impose a clock upon her, but she had intimacy with an abnormal nature: time that was not time, and living that was not living, and death that was not death. Ophelia could not conjecture the future; it was still new to her that she should have a future at all. Darcy’s threat dissolved like fog. Time was finite—such was the purpose and form of living. There was an ending. A great, wonderful, ending. Once she’d believed, with anticipation, that upon that end, God would bring the spirit to glory and happiness. Perhaps she still believed it—perhaps her ghostly state was a commission to serve as guardian. Perhaps she was like an angel; she’d seen Cricket’s sins, and recognized her innocent heart—as deserving of salvation as her own. Perhaps, upon this good deed, God would take her to happiness. Borrowed, yes, ere long she would see Heaven. Was it not so? 

Perhaps, she thought, but it did not wash away her nausea. The memorised scriptures weaved together as one tight knot pressing upon the bleeding flesh of her mind; the words danced and their message tangled inward. Was she wicked? Yes, she must’ve been. Was she good? Yes, she must be. Just borrowed—that was all. The time would return to Cricket, at any moment, but until that moment she had the seconds, the minutes, the hours of living again. All she had done was take a book off its shelf to read. Who could hate her for such a thing? Yes, borrowed. 

But she wasn’t done reading, and she might like to read a second time when she was, and perhaps a third and a fourth. Ophelia kissed Truck’s head and then rose, stretching her limbs to feel the delightful burn of muscle. By her accounts, this was a victory over the villainous Darcy. 

“And the next time I see her, I shall tell her that her smell is bad,” she said. “Or, perhaps, that her stench is so vile that upon walking out-of-doors, all the flowers wilt and all the birds fall from the sky like dead leaves—which is a feat, for birds do not have a great nose like you, Truck.—And, so horrible this odour, that she shall live in infamy forever! All of humanity shall know her as Darcy: the intolerably stenched.” Ophelia paused, sagging. “Oh, I wish I had said that. Why is it that the best ideas always come when the argument has gone away?” She pouted, and turning, went back up the stairs and into the bathroom to clean. 

My brethern, my queens and kings, my rootin tootin cowboy lovers, we are through the trenches and Chapter 5 of Borrowed Time has been updateeeeedd....