Thrum

The next morning, I take the stopwatch from my selection of knapsack tools and conduct an experiment. It’s simple, probably pointless, but I need something to do. I can’t call for Dorian, not after embarrassing myself last night. I had far too much wine and lost my stupid head. I’m lonely, but not that lonely.

So instead of asking him to bring me back to the docking bay to have a go at my comms array, I pace the corridor outside my room. I walk in one direction until I come to my room’s door again. Confirmed: the ship is still looping. I make an exact count of steps, of the time it takes, of the breaths that leave my lungs as I go. If I can figure out how the hallway is looping, I can extrapolate for the rest of the ship. I’ll be able to categorize this place. I’ll make it real. I’ll wrap my brain around it.

A dozen steps bring me from one door to the next, a complete loop. Opening it, I peer inside — it is my room, just as I left it. The pothos waits greenly in the corner, my knapsack sits hunched on the bed. My dirty clothes lie piled in the far corner.

Something slips past, behind me in the corridor.

I spin, heart in my throat. It was nothing but a hint of flickering shadow in my periphery, but my pulse beats a frantic staccato as I search wildly for what I thought I saw. But it’s gone. There’s nothing watching me, nothing hovering there waiting to strike. There are no undulating shadows, no glinting eyes. The corridor is empty.

Then why is my heart thudding, my gut in knots? Why does everything seem brighter, sharper, worse?

“You’re fine,” I mutter. But I’m bursting with adrenaline, and my fingers shake.

Stubbornly, I force myself to conduct three more experiments. I walk in a different direction, then both ways, backwards.

When I walk backwards, I can still see my original door when the new one appears beside me. I open it, and I’m in my room again. Does this mean there are multiple versions of my room, an endless array, lined up like a room buffet? Or am I somehow, without actually feeling it, wandering in circles? It’s like I’m hooked up to a permanent virtual reality rig.

If my brain can’t process the ship itself, there must be other things it isn’t processing, not just Dorian. I know that as soon as an image hits the brain, it can be altered by gray matter, flipped and molded and enhanced as the mind sees fit. I am wandering in circles, circles, and circles, Theseus caught in a hamster’s wheel.

Dorian.

The thought of him creeps up on me unwanted, his smile, lips stained with red wine. His delicately long fingers in my hair. His laugh. His breath against my—

“Fuck off,” I hiss, shaking my head, rejecting the thought.

I continue pacing. I’m glad to be distracting myself, though I acknowledge the experiment is achieving nothing. And I still can’t shake the feeling that something is watching me, a slither of presence always there but never seen.

And always that humming in the distance.

A prickle runs up the back of my neck, and all of a sudden I don’t want to be out here. The corridor is too vast and yet too small, I’m claustrophobic in this endless loop, and I want out. Stumbling in my haste, I dart into my room and slam the door behind me, wishing for a lock. Sweat pricks my upper lip, my palms.

“You. Are. Fine.” The words shake but I’m adamant. I’m fine.

Like an overstimulated child, I lower myself to the floor and lie on my back, eyes closed, breathing hard and fast. The floor is cool, and I pretend I’m in the garden of my childhood best friend’s house, where stepping stones wound through overgrown ferns and foxgloves, and bees hummed all summer long. I would go there sometimes, when my mother was feeling unusually generous, and I’d spend the night. There, I was safe. Just for a little bit, my mother couldn’t touch me. The hush of imaginary wind brushes my cheek. I imagine late afternoon sunbeams alighting on my eyelids. I am seeing gold, thick like honey. I am safe.

My breathing begins to slow.

I open my eyes at last. The plain ceiling greets me, the orange glow of ambient lighting. I roll sideways, about to push myself up to my knees when I see it.

Something is wedged between the bedframe and the wall, only visible from down here. A piece of pink plastic. Probably something of mine, fallen down and forgotten, stuck here while I slept.

It takes me a moment to wiggle the thing free, and then with a grunt, it comes loose.

My heart stops.

It’s a hair comb. The cheap kind you get at a drugstore, some brandless thing that will break within months of use. But it’s not my comb. I don’t even use combs — all I have to do is run my fingers through my fine black hair a few times, and it’s done. But I know this comb.

It’s Vasilissa’s comb.

“What the fuck,” I say like it’s a prayer, turning the comb over and over in my hands.

I consider the possibilities: It is Vasilissa’s comb, but in my grief-fueled shock I put it in my knapsack by mistake. It is my comb, and I forgot about it during stasis. It is not a comb at all, but some unidentified object that Dorian’s ship has decided should look like Vasilissa’s comb. Or it doesn’t exist at all, and I’m hallucinating.

Thing is, I don’t remember packing it. I don’t remember removing it from my knapsack, let alone laying it out where it might fall and get stuck in the bed frame.

Am I going insane? I wonder, not for the first time, thumbing the plastic, pressing the pointed prongs into each of my fingers, one at a time. Or, worse, is Vasilissa’s ghost haunting me? The prospect of ghosts, of revenge brought down upon me by my crewmates, turns my lungs to ice.

No, ghosts aren’t real. This is a comb. I am in a spaceship that alters the way I perceive reality. Ghosts aren’t real. And this is a comb.

A knock sounds at the door, a low and metallic thud. A scream catches in my throat, and I force it back down, embarrassed by this reaction. But my body is on the verge of panic, and my gullet pulls tight, my knees shake as I get to my feet. I shove the comb deep into my pocket. I open the door.

Dorian looms in the doorway, dark and tall and all-consuming. He regards me with a strange expression. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say, lying. Always lying. My teeth are on the verge of chattering, like some vintage Earth cartoon. In a minute I’ll start stuttering, and my heart will beat out of my chest in a perfect shape, stretching the skin as it expands and contracts.

The shadows seem to watch me, every unseen terror, rigid and sitting up, like hares about to swarm or bolt. Dorian, too, watches me with intensity, and I avoid his eyes. I don’t want him to see my fear there, or the comb.

“I was conducting some studies,” I add. “Testing the corridors. Your ship won’t let me go twelve paces beyond my room.”

His brow furrows. “You’re not a prisoner, if that’s your worry. I thought you knew that.”

I search for an adequate response and find none. I realize I’m picking at the skin around my thumbnail, picking and picking.

“I finally found the materials you need to fix your comms array,” he says, tossing me a lifeline. “They’re in the cargo bay. Would you like to—”

“Yes,” I nearly shout, eager to get out of this room, this cyclical nightmare. Working on something, using my hands and my muscles, focusing on a project — that will calm me down. I’m sure of it. It has to.

He holds out a hand, an invitation, a welcome. None of which I should want. I want it so much. “Come.”

I can’t say no. I don’t want to say no. So I follow him, hands in my pockets, the pink plastic comb held firmly in one fist until the prongs press into my skin, stinging. I cannot shake the feeling that I’m being watched, the ghosts of my crew or of this ship, shadowing me.