Yesterwary

Demi sat up with a deep, rib-shaking breath. She was briefly relieved to find that the pain had left her body, but immediately concerned upon realizing that nearly all other feeling seemed to have left her body as well. A shard of stone had lodged itself into her palm, and a river of diluted red mingled with the puddle beneath her. But it didn’t hurt. Had she not noticed something hard distancing her hand from her face as she wiped the raindrops from her forehead, she likely wouldn’t have noticed the wound at all.

“Hey!” Demi screeched, as a boot stepped over her head, dripping a splash of mud onto the tip of her nose.

“No cutting,” the man said, eyeing her crossly. “Back of the line.”

“Line?” Demi murmured, finally taking in her surroundings. She was nowhere near the library. In fact, she didn’t recognize her surroundings in the slightest. She had never seen this place before, and, somehow, she had managed to wind up on the rain-soaked ground, in the middle of a queue made of exceptionally grumpy-looking folks in odd clothing. “Line for what?”

Pushing herself to her feet, Demi stumbled to the back of the queue, gazing up at the strange, crooked buildings that hemmed the street. They were unlike any buildings she had ever seen before, and it seemed impossible that some of them hadn’t already toppled over, but she would soon find that this place was full of impossible things—like how quickly the queue moved along.

As she neared the building ahead, Demi spotted a woman sitting behind a pane of dusty glass, with a small opening in front of her through which to speak, and a slide-box for handing out whatever it was all the strangely-dressed people were waiting for.

“Excuse me,” Demi rasped at the woman, after finally making her way to the front of the queue. “Where am I?”

The woman uttered something between a snort and a scoff, before shoving a wrinkled pamphlet through the slide-box and waving up the next person in line. Demi stared in bewilderment, before the person behind her shoved her aside to receive his pamphlet. Taking off on an aimless journey down the street, Demi stared at the crumpled, dirty paper in her grasp. It had certainly changed hands multiple times before it found its way to her. The number ‘143’ was jotted messily in the corner, and, in faded bronze lettering, ‘Yesterwary’ gleamed across the top of the page.

“Yester—” Demi began to whisper, before clashing head-on with a body that had been heading in the opposite direction. “Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry.”

“‘Sorry?’ You must be new, here.”

Demi looked up at the owner of the voice, and her jaw made an admirable attempt to dislocate itself from her face and rest comfortably upon the ground. A young man towered over her, an oversized trench coat making him appear far more intimidating than he actually was, and a lit cigarette dangling defenselessly from his lips. A mangled top hat rested upon his mane of wild hair, which obstructed the better part of his face, and his fierce eyes gazed down at her in mild amusement.

“Where is here, exactly?” she asked, finding her voice, eyes curiously lingering above his head just long enough for the young man to notice.

“Hasn’t your guide gone over that with you?” he asked, discreetly repositioning his hat with a hint of self-consciousness.

Demi looked around in confusion, searching the damp winds for an answer. The young man sighed in irritation, and ripped the blood-spattered pamphlet from her hand.

“It’s your lucky day. I’m your guide,” he said, shaking his head as he threw the paper to the slippery stone road before trudging off toward an alleyway. “Well… are you coming?”

“With you? Down a dark alley?”

“Unfortunately, you’ve already missed Santa’s train to Neverland,” he said, continuing his path without a second glance back. The number ‘143’ peaked through his hair, branded at the nape of his neck in faded black ink.

Demi stood still, at the crossroads of fear and logic. It was either stay alone in this strange place, or walk with a strange stranger in this strange place.

“Wait up!”

The young man turned around, lips pursed knowingly. “Yeah, I figured.”

They walked down the alley in silence for an eternity and a half, the scenery unchanging. Everything was built of old stone, crooked brick, and something that desperately wanted to be glass, and may actually have been at one point or another. A haze hung over the city, muting colors into discouraging blacks, sickly browns, and dingy reds. This was the kind of place people avoided, not because it was dangerous, but because it was full of forgotten memories that had been forgotten for a reason.

Demi didn’t know where she was, but she knew where she was going. She didn’t feel lost, not in the sense of direction, anyway, and the place seemed the sort of familiar that only existed in childhood memories; when you know a thing used to have a home in your life, but some other thing inevitably demanded more attention—as things often do—and forced the first thing further and further from your memory. Like learning something new, and having to give up the knowledge of something else to make room for the new thing in your brain. Learn how to juggle flaming yams, forget how to chew with your mouth closed. Fair trade.

But this was not the place for juggling fiery vegetables. No, this was the place you know you went to as a child, but only manage to remember irrelevant bits and pieces from, and your parents swear those snippets and scraps aren’t true. You must have imagined them. You were very young, after all. The building that was dangerously close to toppling over, and was held up by nothing more than threads of silk tied to a tree, and why was there a giant oak in the middle of town, anyway? Certainly, that couldn’t exist. Or the dilapidated carousel that was constantly in motion, but never had any passengers. That wouldn’t make sense. It’s all in your mind. Now, shut up and eat your spinach. But here it was, right in front of Demi’s eyes, against all logic and reason, and she remembered it from the darkest, emptiest depths of her mind.

“I’m Demi,” she said. She could no longer stand the thoughts that weaved themselves from the quiet.

“Mm hmm,” the young man hummed around his cigarette, barely acknowledging her.

“And you are?”

“Hungry, tired, and due to clock out five minutes ago, but someone missed the group-tour.”

“You’re awfully rude for a guide.”

“It’s awfully rude to tell someone that they’re awfully rude,” he said, glancing down at her from the corner of his eye. With a sigh, he flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk, stopped, and turned to her. “Let me see your hand.”

“I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt.” Demi cupped her injured hand to her chest, eyeing the stranger with uncertainty.

“I didn’t ask if it hurts,” he murmured, ripping a section of cloth from Demi’s dress-sleeve.

“What the hell,” she protested, struggling to pull away as he took hold of her arm.

“Hush,” he said, delicately picking the shard of stone from her palm, and retrieving the tiniest bottle of vodka from his coat pocket.

“Did you just hush me?” she asked incredulously.

“Shhhh,” he hissed, pouring the alcohol over her wound. Demi winced out of habit, but it didn’t burn. It didn’t feel. Finally, the boy wrapped her hand in the torn piece of sequined fabric, and tied it firmly in a knot.

“Are you a nurse, or something?” she asked, inspecting the less-than-sanitary bandage.

“Nope,” he said, picking up pace back down the alley.

“And you just happen to keep little bottles of vodka on you?”

“Maybe I’m an alcoholic.” His tone made it obvious that he was growing weary of answering her questions.

“That seems unlikely,” she said, carefully stepping over a man who had passed out in the middle of the street.

“Have a lot of experience with alcoholics, do you?”

“You could say that.”

“You could say you’re the Easter bunny, but that doesn’t make it true.” He looked down at her with raised eyebrows, half-expecting her to be lost for a response.

“Do you have some sort of sick fetish for holiday characters?”

The young man smirked as they came to a stop at a small building, which seemed all too eager to cave in on itself. Dim lights shone through the bowing windows, which were so grimy, only disembodied shadows could be seen from inside.

“I’m getting food. Do you want some?” he asked.

“I’m not hungry,” Demi lied, cautiously eyeing the rusted door. It wasn’t the sort of place you ought to trust to handle something that you were meant to be putting into your mouth.

“I didn’t ask if you’re hungry,” he sighed with exasperation. With a morbid creak, he propped open the door to The Old Chicken, which was most definitely on the list of Top Ten Things to Not Name a Restaurant.

“Why’d you miss the group tour?” the young man asked accusingly, grease nearly plummeting to his lap as he bit into a burger the size of his head.

Demi grimaced at her plate of lard-covered things, and opted for the sprigs of wilted parsley that lined the rim. “I didn’t know there was a group tour? I don’t even know where I am. I just woke up on the ground.”

“You were unconscious when you arrived… You’re lucky.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, coughing on a mouthful of water that tasted of petrichor and aged newspapers.

“It’s not a fun trip,” he said with dark experience in his voice. At Demi’s questioning glance, he looked up to somewhere above her head, as if the words he was searching for were floating around, waiting to be plucked from the air. “It’s like that feeling of falling when you’re trying to sleep. Only, instead of jolting awake you just keep falling for ages through total emptiness. There’s nothing to grab hold of, there’s no air for your lungs, and it feels like it’ll never stop. But, eventually, it does. And you notice the emptiness a bit more, I think, when you’ve felt everything that makes you ‘you’ being ripped away in the plummet.”

“…Uh huh…” Demi said, eyes wide as she stared in mild disbelief.

He shrugged, and carried on after another bite of burger. “You seem to be doing awfully well, for someone who randomly woke up in an unfamiliar place…”

“I’m fairly certain this is all just a dream,” she said, tossing her tasteless parsley back to the plate. “Assuming it’s not, though, how did I get here? I mean, who brought me here?”

He stared at her for a long while as he thought on the best answer, wiping the grease from his lips with a cloth napkin that Demi strongly suspected had already been used before they’d sat down. And she was right.

“You did,” he said plainly.

Demi squinted, failing to find any sort of sense in the young man’s words. “You want to clarify that a bit for me?”

“Come on.” He tossed a handful of coins onto the table as he rose to his feet. “I want to show you something.”

“You’re a guide. Aren’t you supposed to show me a lot of somethings?” she noted, leaving her untouched food behind as she followed him out the door.

“This isn’t on the usual tour,” he said, a few paces in front of her as they travelled down another grimy alley, which was littered with more bodies that smelled of alcohol and urine.

“Are these people okay?” she asked, having to take twice as many steps to keep up with her guide.

“Probably,” he said, showing not even the slightest bit of concern.

Demi whipped her head around at the sudden difference in sound from beneath her feet. Without much transition, the ground had changed from slippery, wet stone to dry, cracked dirt. It almost didn’t seem real, like something out of an old western film with horrible set design. This parched walkway appeared to be the only path protruding from the entire town through the dark waters, which wavered from the falling drizzle. In the distance, at the end of the dirt path and surrounded by dry, patchy land, Demi caught sight of a building that would have towered over all the others in town. It was different, somehow; darker and older, and it appeared to outdate history itself. The stone walls had been blackened by time and negligence, but the structure did not waver. Grotesque statues haunted the gabled roof, which came to a steep point not far below a blanket of clouds that just couldn’t muster up the energy to be threatening. Margo would have adored it.

“What is this place?” Demi asked, as they journeyed up the crumbling front steps of the building.

“The library,” the young man said, heaving open the weighty, carved wood door.

“Of course it is,” she whispered.

Demi stared up in awe at the ceiling, which seemed to reach all the way into the heavens. Paintings of angels, with human hearts in their hands and looks of dismay on their faces, hung far above her, as if in warning and explanation of the place. The edge of the building was lined with floors and floors of books, all looking through the open center, down onto Demi and the strange fellow, who hadn’t stopped to appreciate the magnificence of such a sight. She may not have known where she was, and the place may have been bleak and dreary, but at least she would have several lifetimes-worth of books to keep her company during her stay, which she hoped would be short.

Demi followed the young man up seemingly-unending flights of stairs, until they finally pushed through a corroded, iron door. She was surprised to feel cool, damp air against her cheeks as they entered out into the night.

“Wow,” she breathed.

The library roof overlooked the entire city. The hazy silhouette of the town peeked through the fog at unnatural angles, and seemed to breathe raspy breaths into the sky. The pale, yellowy light that glowed from the top of the clock tower felt almost too cheery for such a place, and the hazy rain-cloud that hovered over everything showed no apparent intentions of letting up or moving on. But within the sprawling darkness was a rich beauty, at least through Demi’s eyes. It was a sad, poetic sort of loveliness, often found only by those who were accustomed to searching for it.

“You want to know where you are? How you got here?” the young man asked, gazing out over the city with sorrow in his eyes. “This is the place that love left behind. The land of fallen hopes. You’re here because you have no love left to give, Demi… Welcome to Yesterwary.”