Forgotten Spaces

[Susie Quinn]

Susie wandered the halls of Meadowbridge in those boring hours after the end of classes and activities, but before dinner. Climbing the back stairs behind the library, she eventually found herself in a dusty and empty hallway with a trapdoor in the ceiling. She gave it a tug, but it was locked from the other side.

Susie tapped on the wall, as high as she could reach. Taptaptap...tap...tap tap...taptaptap. The hatch above her opened and the ladder extended down, granting her access. The climb to the top didn't take long, and she was pleased to see that Tom was the attic's sole occupant.

She gave him a smile, and found her spot on the other side of a makeshift knee wall of boxes, sitting down in the musty wingback chair and tucking her feet underneath her. "Had a session today," she said solemnly. She rarely offered up conversation without being prompted first, but after her time with Andrea she felt she had to tell Tom. In case it was important. He'd know. He could help her understand more of what had happened to her.

[Tom Lankey]

By the time Susie's head sprouted through the trapdoor, Tom had retreated to his corner, where he straddled a beanbag beneath a cloud of smoke. Hunched forward before a small glaring television set, he fumbled in the gloom for his trusty zapper, then fired a shot at the screen. There was a blast of light, throwing into sharp relief the neanderthal angles of his face, all furrowed brow and jutting jawed, the face of gravest concentration. Familiar plucky tunes crackled from the old grey box, upon which a colourful game played out featuring a dog and some ducks, and when the dog jumped amongst the ducks...

There was a flash of light, another flash, and another, each accompanied by a ripping fizz of sound; the shots came thick and fast, and by the time the last of the ducks successfully flew away Tom was practically prodding the screen with the end of the flimsy plastic barrel. He tossed it aside with an anguished grunt and prized the cigarette stub from his lips to regard Susie across the room.

"You do look a bit pie-eyed, mate, now you mention it. More so than usual, like. Did you get the lottery numbers?"

[Susie Quinn]

She shook her head slowly, trying to form the sentences in her brain to explain. "They gave me a shot."

Susie rubbed her arm self-consciously, rumpling her oversized grey cardigan even more. "I saw a tree."

[Tom Lankey]

After a moment of consideration, Tom gave Susie an approving nod, "Well, that's nice."

Granted, it wasn't the lottery numbers or even a tip off on next week's derby, but at least it wasn't anything unpleasant, like wars and stuff. Sucking out the last dying embers, he deposited the cigarette in an empty larger can and sunk deeply into his bean bag until a pair of makeshift armrests swelled up on either side of him.

"A bit of nature for you. That's good. Did you see any grass? Birds? ...Sunshine?"

[Susie Quinn]

Susie frowned and wrapped her sweater around her body tightly, wiggling into a more comfortable position in her chair. "It wasn't a tree I saw."

She sighed with frustration, covering half her face with a hand and then scrubbing it through her hair. "A tree that wasn't a tree. Not real." Susie plowed on before Tom could get a word in, "And there was a girl there. American, I think."

[Tom Lankey]

"A tree what weren't a tree?"

That was strange even by Susie's standards. Tom was used to filtering her words, normally to compensate for her muddling premonitions with reality, and vice versa. Tenses were often a problem, too. But this riddle was something new. Suddenly, the creases of confusion softened into a knowing grin.

"Susie Q, I think you're still tripping balls, darling. What have they been feeding you?"

[Susie Quinn]

She pushed herself out of the armchair and crossed the attic floor carefully until she was in front of Tom on his beanbag throne. Susie knelt in front of him and stared into his eyes. "I never know what they give me.

"I was... in the classroom. Then I wasn't. It was a place that... exists... on another..." She stared at him harder, her eyes widening a bit as she searched for the right word. "Dimension.

"And the American? Really, it figures the Americans have landed in other dimensions ahead of us -"

"She was nice." Susie sighed. "She said it was her safe place. They do things to her, too. She said it was the Astral Plane."

She settled back on her heels, and blinked. Wait, Tom was in front of her, looking back at her patiently.

He offered, "You were in the what?"

Susie's face fell a bit. Explaining herself twice was a burden, but she repeated what she'd seen herself saying. She didn't know what would happen if she diverted from the script. It was easier just to go with the flow.

[Tom Lankey]

It was rare to get more than a single clipped sentence from Susie, so when presented with such a deluge of dialogue from his quirky friend, Tom knew to pay attention because it was important. And so monumental were the concepts of astral planes and interdimensional travel that he was sure there was risk of him going cross-eyed as Susie attempted to wrap them up in the right words, but she did a good job, not that it made it all any easier to understand. After a long hesitant pause featuring a couple of false starts, Tom leaned forward and said:

"Susie, if you looked me in the eye and told me you'd just come back from having tea and crumpets with Elvis, I'd believe you. But... why now?"

His face was set like granite and his eyes became small and piercing.

"What was different this time?"

[Susie Quinn]

She shrugged, shoulders hunching up as she shrank back from his gaze. Eye contact, so boldly given, was now a weapon used against her. "It's important," she offered glumly.

"The engines from beneath the poison mountain lay waste to the city of angels; their gears grind the bodies of gods and men into dust..." Susie trailed off, and then peeked sideways at Tom through her hair. "Andrea showed me. She sees, like I do, but not like I do. Further. It's important?"

[Tom Lankey]

"The poison mountain, eh?"

Tom offered an impassive smile as he retreated back into the groove of his bean bag. It wasn't the answer he was looking for but Susie was emphatic in its importance, so he'd humour it for the time being. His rubbery features contorted in contemplating an entry point for what had become, hands down, his strangest conversation of the week.

"So this bird, yeah? Andrea. She was real or was she like a... vision of the future?"

[Susie Quinn]

"She was real," Susie said. "But the... Astral Plane. You know what astral projection is. That's what I was doing, I think. How I got there. It was beautiful, like Narnia.

"And she was there too, with me. She was in California, and also there with me; like I was here but there too." The words were starting to rush out of her. "She is a precog too. And mutants with mental powers sometimes have the ability to visit the Astral Plane - but she said I shouldn't just wander about because it is very dangerous except for in her safe place."

Susie took a deep breath, and blew it out slowly. "I thought maybe... maybe I could use it to find someone... someone who could help us." She rubbed her arm where the needle had gone in.

[Tom Lankey]

Tom did not know what astral projection was and, for fear of burning out his humble bonce, it was probably best kept that way. So he took Susie on her word that while her body was in one place her mind had been elsewhere, in a place she was able to share with other mind jobs, like Narnia. A creeping weariness threatened to take hold of him when Susie's last words snapped him out of his stupor, and he was suddenly all frowns and finger pointing.

"Yeah, you can knock that idea on the head! I thought that Andrea one said it were dangerous? Wanna go back to Narnia on a pipe dream? You'll end up a vegetable, soft girl."

[Susie Quinn]

"I'm not stupid," she said quietly, looking across the breakfast table at the row of girls who were noisily gossiping over porridge. She stirred her own bowl without enthusiasm, thankful for the bit of brown sugar they were allowed to sprinkle over the top.

Susie blinked. Tom was still frowning, his finger jabbed toward her accusingly. "I don't know if I can, anyway. Go back." She sighed. "Oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow."

[Tom Lankey]

"Oatmeal's alright," he started defensively, patting his belly, "Nothing better than a good hearty English breakie on a cold morning."

Susie had that faraway look in her eyes again, haunted by her out-of-body experience, if that's what it can be called. Tom was no mind jobbie, but he could practically see the thoughts circling her head, and for all her talk of a safe and beautiful other dimension and her nice new psychic friend, she still look desperately sad.

"Anyway, who needs help? Look at us, we've got our own safe place, right here. Masters of all we survey."

He was on his feet, making wide dramatic gestures to their dusty little den, cluttered with old pre-war relics and makeshift furniture. Looking thoroughly pleased with their own private hoard, Tom snatched a four-pack of Carlsberg from atop a small mountain of faded Beano comics and snapped one free of its binding, offering it to his friend.

"You and me against the world. We're good, yeah?"

[Susie Quinn]

She nodded, accepting the can silently and retreating to her chair. Susie didn't know that they were all right, but Tom was confident and that was good enough for her.

At least, it always had been. Now, however... She popped the tab of the drink and sipped the brew inside. "Are you happy?"

[Tom Lankey]

"Like a pig in shit, my little cherub."

His beer can was raised in a toast to Susie, then upended, Tom indulged in long gulps, leaning back until he collapsed into his wheezing beanbag. A long sigh followed, his eyes probed the dark reaches of the slanted roof, mulling over the conversation and Susie's steadfast determination to steer it towards its inevitable destination. She was watching him, allowing her question to echo in the silence between them until it became unbearable.

"It's only two more years."

[Susie Quinn]

"Is it," she murmured, setting aside the beer on a rickety side table. After a moment she smiled. Two years was a long time, and the only thing she could be certain of was that tomorrow was coming. Two more years of tomorrows, and needles, and notebooks full of handwriting.

Susie sighed, and reached for her book. Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published 1911. There was a whole box of dusty old novels up in the attic, and she was slowly making her way through them all.

[Tom Lankey]

There was something she wasn't telling him, he was sure of it. And while, generally speaking, Tom found the inner workings of the female mind an elusive mystery, with Susie it was different. Maybe that was why they were mates, and only mates. Maybe it was because she was so different to the other girls at school, each of whom he categorized into one of three carefully-considered groups: Would, Wouldn't and If Shitfaced, Would. But not Susie. He knew her, and as uncomfortable it made him to consider it, she knew him, too. And that was exactly why neither of them spoke of it.

"Tell us about your book, Susie Q," he said, scooting across the room on his bean bag and sat before her with quiet fascination like a kid at story time, the title made him smile:

"In the end, do the apes win?"

[Susie Quinn]

"I have to read it to find out," she said slowly, lifting her eyes to look at him over the edge of the book. Susie raised an eyebrow, and looked down, pushing her pencil across the page in a random swirl before turning her attention back to the math book open in front of her.

"They're going to clear out the attics," said Lucy McBride. "Mrs. March said the Catholic school is wanting things for a rummage sale, so -"

Susie blinked, and looked around at the attic, and then at Tom. She put down the book. "St. Joseph's is having a rummage sale..."

[Tom Lankey]

In the wake of her cliffhanger, Tom waited expectantly for the other shoe to drop, but it looked like Susie was done. He shrugged.

"So... what? Are you saying St. Joe's is the place to be or summat?"

[Susie Quinn]

She shook her head, "No, no. The staff is going to be in the attics looking for things to donate."

Susie bit her lower lip, stuffing her hands in her cardigan's pockets and pulling it around her tightly. "That's the rumor. Tomorrow." She looked away from Tom, and down at her knees. What would she do without this place?

[Tom Lankey]

As Susie divulged her latest revelation, Tom's incredulous face cemented itself in an expression of stoniest brooding, and he feel silent for a spell. Chunky fingers interlaced and wild eyes stared into empty space as if a solution was manifesting itself before him. An epiphany dawned on his rubbery features. He sprung upright, and with strides full of intent he crossed the room to a stack of bulging cardboard boxes.

"They're not havin' my Tom and Jerry videos!" he declared, rifling feverishly through one of the boxes, "A fuckin' jumble sale! What limp-dicked window licker came up with that one, eh?"

After rescuing his collection of video casettes from the bowels of an old bin bag, Tom now lumbered towards a large oak chest, long-neglected and grey with dust, the chest opened with a weary groan. An unholy din followed as its contents were disgorged onto the threadbare carpet. Drunk with frustration, Tom wheeled around on Susie, still cradling his cartoon collection in one massive arm.

"This is Winters," he fired up, knowingly, "That podgy specky twonk! He won't be satisfied until he's sucked every last ounce of happiness out of this shit hole! Who gives a flying fuck about St. Joseph's school of bible-bashers and the... sexually-repressed? Charity might be all well and good and that, Susie, but there's a time and a place. It's not supposed to sweep into our homes, uninvited, and nick all our fuckin' stuff! Can't we have nothin'!?"

An animated shrug punctuated the end of his hysterical rant, he glanced down to find his audience of one looking just about as impassive as ever, and with an exasperated sigh, he skulked back into the maze of junk.

"I can't find my fuckin' Ghostbusters."

[Susie Quinn]

Susie impassively watched Tom tear apart their attic space, and then she got up and walked past him to a broken down wardrobe. Pulling it open she poked her head inside and rummaged through the detritus held within.

"It's almost dinner time," she said, her voice muffled. "Where are you going to put..." Susie withdrew and turned toward Tom, holding out the Ghostbusters VHS he'd been looking for, "...all this?"