Katalepsis

Evelyn’s bedroom was my favourite part of Number 12 Barnslow Drive.

How could that be true when so many other candidates vied for that top spot? What about my own bedroom, the space we shared with Raine — and, increasingly in those days, with Zheng? Had we not imprinted our overlapping tastes and desires on that room, from the divots in the pillows to the books on the desk, from the angle of the curtains to the play of friendly shadows across the ceiling? What about the bed, upon which Raine had wrung so many intimacies from my changing body with such endless tender touches? Was that not the room in which I could pick up a t-shirt from the floor and be certain it would smell of Raine’s skin and Raine’s sweat, and so soothe away all of my anxieties and fears and worries? What about the scent of Zheng lingering on the mattress, mingled with Raine’s body heat, mixed into a cocktail so intoxicating that I could not tell where one woman ended and the other began?

What of Sevens’ new bedroom — the yellow-veiled proof that she was asserting herself as more than a mask over a void, that she was claiming person-hood from the steps she took upon the stage? What about the room Lozzie and Tenny shared, a physical manifestation of sanctuary and unconditional support we had gifted to them both, an orphan and a foundling with no other home, welcomed into the heart of the house and the hearts of those within?

What about the kitchen, the core of the home, where so many conversations had unfolded, where Praem cooked with love and care for every one of us? What about Evelyn’s study, full of the muted peace and anticipatory quiet of all those treasured old books? What about the magical workshop, the hard-won prizes from months of toil, the evidence of our evolution from a group of confused students to the reality of Sharrowford’s new supernatural family?

All those were known to me, measured and accepted. We loved them all, of course.

But Evelyn’s bedroom was special because it was so unexpected — and more than a little exotic.

Back when I first met Evee, if I had been forced at knife-point to make an educated guess as to the state of her bedroom — her private space, the canvas of her self-expression — I would have predicted shadow and dust, naked practicality, slow bitterness unfolded across blank walls and thin bedsheets. I would have expected something sad and pitiful and half-dead, all self-denial and inward-pointing barbs of lethal poison.

But the real room was a window into a very different woman. Evelyn’s bedroom was so very girly, all pastel pink and lily lilac, full of frill and fluff and frivolity.

Evee’s bed itself was always piled with layers of pastel sheets and extra pillows, a den of comfort and retreat, suitable for any burrowing animal. The thick, warm, pale carpet was never suffered to gather dust in the corners or collect stray hairs along the skirting boards; Praem shouldered the duty of hoovering in those days, but I had been reliably informed that Raine used to handle all the vacuuming and cleaning, when she and Evee had lived alone, before I had entered the picture. Evelyn’s own efforts in housekeeping had often risked disaster or near-injury, which did not surprise me.

Her bedside table sported a pretty little porcelain lamp with a pretty little floral shade, like something from a century earlier. Her slender laptop sat on a desk in the corner, decorated with a series of brightly coloured anime stickers. The desk itself was surrounded by a nest of books and a ring of posters — yet more anime, some of which I had watched by then, alongside Evee herself.

Last but not least, Evelyn’s collection of plush animals and anime girl figurines stood sentinel upon her oaken chest of drawers.

I’d never seen her touch any of the plush animals, let alone pet them or hug them while she slept, but the plushies often appeared in different positions every time I saw them, as if they were regularly taken down and moved around when nobody was looking. I had come to recognise a specific pair of plushes which adjusted their positions most often — a rotund hedgehog with soft bristles, and a stylised ‘chibi’ anime girl with long blonde hair, yellow eyes, and an absurdly frilly dress: Evee’s favourites, I assumed, though I had never asked. 

It was in that bedroom, inside that secret bared heart like a fluttering organ of delicate pink flesh, that Evelyn sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, cast her walking stick against her bedside table with a clatter, and shot Raine and me a withering glare.

“Ummmm,” I said, wetting my lips with sudden worry. “Evee? I-I thought you were okay with this?”

Raine closed the bedroom door behind us with a soft click, shutting out the soporific shadows of the upstairs hallway. Evelyn’s bedroom was lit by a pair of lamps, leaving soft shade lurking in the corners and on the far side of the bed. The rest of the house was heavy with sleep, with the little sounds of creaking beams and the muffled buzz of night insects beyond the walls and windows. Raine was still carrying Evelyn’s book, which she placed gently on the bedside table. Evelyn watched the simple motion as if she was observing a dog eating its own vomit, her upper lip curling in disgust.

“E-Evee?” I tried again.

I had teleported us three from Camelot to the magical workshop only minutes earlier. Raine and I had left our shoes behind downstairs, but we were both still dressed for bed, Raine in her tank top and shorts, me in comfy pink pajamas a size too large for my petite frame, with my tentacles poking out through custom-cut side-slits. Evelyn suddenly seemed very overdressed, in jumper and skirt and several layers beneath.

Raine grinned at Evelyn and answered my question: “She’s fine with it, Heather. Don’t let the little miss grumpy act lead you astray. If she wasn’t down for this she’d be screaming bloody murder right about now. Wouldn’t you, Evee?”

“R-Raine,” I stammered a little, distinctly uncomfortable, curling my tentacles inward. “Don’t make it sound like we’re … forcing this. We’re not! We’re not. Are we?”

Evelyn harrumphed, but she didn’t say anything.

Raine just kept grinning. “She knows I’d never do anything she didn’t really want. Ain’t that right, Evee? Come on, you gotta pipe up sooner or later. I’m not letting you sit there all night without saying a word.”

Evelyn sighed sharply, squeezed her eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Alright. Whatever. Get your kit off and do whatever you’re going to do, then. Let’s get this over with so I can get some bloody sleep.”

“E-Evee!” I squeaked, losing my battle with a blush. “I don’t think that’s what this is about! Really! We’re not going to … do that! Gosh! We’re not, right? Raine? Raine?!”

Raine laughed, ruffled my hair, and then walked over to the bed. She stopped before Evee, well within whacking range. Evee looked up, while Raine gazed downward.

Raine said: “Oh no, Evelyn. Nuh uh. You aren’t getting off that easy. Pun fully intended, by the way.”

“Raine!” I snapped, rousing myself to Evelyn’s defence — but neither of them reacted. 

I realised with shock that neither of them were listening to me. Whatever was unfolding now was held entirely in the few feet of empty air where their gazes met.

Evelyn rubbed her own right thigh, just above the knee, digging in with her thumb — into the flesh cradled by the rubber socket of her prosthetic leg.

“And what do you mean by that?” she asked Raine, her voice low and dangerous, her eyes dead flat, her face a pallid mask.

All my tentacles curled inward and tightened, as if we were watching a pair of sharks circle each other in the void; once they were done with each other, the winner would turn upon us, rend our flesh, and devour us whole. We shivered with a heady cocktail of anxiety, sexual anticipation, and fear of our friends falling out.

Raine answered: “That would be the easy way out for you, wouldn’t it, Evee? Clam up, close your gates, shelter behind your walls—”

“Get to the point,” Evelyn snapped.

“—watch me and Heather have a shag while you sit alone in the corner and pretend you’re not one of us. Then we all go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and pretend none of this happened, like nothing needs to change. You know what’ll happen if we do that? Any idea? No? Let me spell it out for you: one of us will die out there.” Raine never stopped grinning. “It’s always been your easy way out, Evee. And I’ve let you get away with it before. Not this time.”

Evelyn spluttered. She sounded as lost as I felt. “What the hell are you talking about, Raine? Where is this all coming from? Stop speaking in riddles!”

Raine stopped smiling. She crouched, squatting until she was level with Evelyn, then lower than her, so their positions were reversed, Evelyn looking down while Raine looked up. She said: “I made a mistake the last time you did this. Never again.”

Evelyn squinted and shook her head like Raine had gone mad. “Last time I did what?! Raine, what are you—”

“When you asked me to move out.”

Evelyn’s mouth jerked as if to argue back, but she slammed to a stop.

Raine went on, soft and low and gentle. “That summer before we met Heather. When you got uncomfortable, when you asked me to move out, and I did.” Raine shook her head and sighed. “I didn’t see it at the time, too much chivalry in my bones, but I should have said no. I should have refused. Should have stayed. Should have taken an executive decision. I abandoned my duty. Abandoned you.”

Evelyn stammered: “D-duty?! Raine, don’t be absurd, you’re not responsible for—”

“Yes, Evee, I am responsible for you.”

Raine interrupted without raising her voice. Something in her words or her tone overrode Evelyn in a way I’d never seen before, left Evelyn gaping and flapping, lost for words. Raine adjusted her pose, slipping onto one knee, one arm resting across her own thigh, head on the cusp of bowing in submission or fealty or regretful apology.

She carried on: “And I’ve never said sorry. I’ve never apologised for fucking up and leaving you here alone. You wanted me to move out, sure, right, you did. But when I left, you slipped into isolation and depression, and then you tried to kill yourself.”

Evelyn stared at Raine, face turning grey-pale, wide eyes filling with tears. I covered my mouth with one tentacle-tip, horrified; I stepped forward to comfort Evee, but Raine waved me back with a covert twitch of one finger.

I knew what Raine was referring to — the great unconfronted secret of my initiation to the supernatural.

When I had first met Evelyn and Raine, and rescued Evelyn from Outside, she had been experimenting with teleportation spells, despite knowing there was no way back. When I had achieved my first intentional Slip and retrieved Evelyn from the Stone-world, I had no way of knowing at the time that I had thwarted a semi-subconscious suicide attempt. Twil and I had discussed this months ago, when Twil’s own insight had revealed the truth to me. But Raine had not talked to Evelyn about this, not until now — she had not confronted the root of that act.

Evelyn eventually stammered: “I-I-I was never—”

“You were,” Raine said gently. “It’s okay, Evee, you don’t have to pretend. Nobody here is gonna judge you. Least of all me.”

Evelyn’s eyes scrunched up, tears running down her cheeks. Her face contorted, holding back a bitter sob.

“You were leaving me!” she said. “I-I can’t— I can’t— can’t live— I would have just died— I—”

“I was never leaving you,” Raine said. “I was never going anywhere. I never will.”

Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut. She sobbed, once, wet and raw.

“Evelyn Saye,” Raine said in a soft, slow, ritual murmur. “I am now, have always been, and always will be your right hand, your sword, your knight.”

Evelyn took a great shuddering breath. “You only—”

“Not because you need me. Not because you believe you would have died without me — which I reject, and refute. But because I choose to be here.”

Evelyn forced words through a muzzle of tears: “Not how knights work, you blithering idiot.”

“I love you too, Evee,” Raine said.

Evelyn sobbed once again, then reached out with shaking fingertips to touch Raine’s shoulder.

I could only stare in awe and wonder at these two people who I thought I knew inside and out; I had gotten this jealousy all backwards and upside down. Evelyn’s heart was a knot beyond my comprehension — beyond her comprehension too, I suspected.

Evelyn started to scrub at her eyes with one sleeve. Raine took a deep breath and straightened up. The ritual aura of the moment was passing away now the words had been recited and accepted. Raine glanced back at me and said: “Somebody needs a hug. You’re up.”

“Oh, fucking hell!” Evelyn spat from behind a thinning veil of tears. “I’m fucking fine! For fuck’s sake! Don’t fuss! Just let me be!”

We ignored that and hurried over to the bed, because of course we did. We quickly perched next to Evee, hovering around her with hands and tentacles, unsure where to touch. Top-Right just wanted to grab her shoulders and squeeze her hard to show her how much she was loved, but the other six Heathers shouted that suggestion down with good advice about not hurting Evee’s spine. Top-Right and the rest of us settled for coiling gently against the back of Evee’s neck. Very gently. Feather soft.

Evelyn wiped away the worst of her tears. “I’m fine. I am fine! I mean it, for pity’s sake!” She sniffed hard, taking hard little breaths. “I’m certainly not in danger of … that anymore, for fuck’s sake. I have plenty of things to live for. Praem chiefly among them.” She sighed heavily. “And, yes, you two as well. Fine. You’ve squeezed it out of me. Happy now?”

“Evee,” I ventured. “I’m happy if you’re happy. You know that, don’t you?”

Evelyn shot me a look like a kicked dog. I almost apologised.

Raine leaned backward, slipped out of her crouch, and sat down on the floor with a smile on her lips. I waited patiently for Evee to gather herself. She wiped her eyes and took several deep breaths, until she was almost back to her usual.

“Wanna get ready for bed?” Raine asked. “Heather and I already are. You gotta join us, Evee, all the way.”

Evelyn emerged from the aftermath at last, and frowned at Raine. “What? I thought you were joking about that part. I assumed this was all a pretence to … I don’t know, re-swear your undying devotion.”

She tried to make a joke out of those last two words, but she couldn’t quite get there; her voice threatened to break.

I blinked at both of them. “I’m sorry?”

Raine laughed. “Not joking at all! Evee, Evee, Evee, you should know me better by now. We’re all gonna sleep together — actual sleep, mind you, not the other kind. But we’re not remotely done yet. Let’s get you all ready for bed, come on.”

Evee harrumphed and grumbled and tutted, but she submitted to the process all the same. Practical realities could not be ignored, so I accompanied her to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and Raine waited outside the door while Evee used the toilet — in imitational echo of how they used to be so inseparable, I assumed. When Evelyn returned to her bedroom she sat back down on the edge of the bed, hiked up her skirt without a care, and started removing her prosthetic leg.

But Raine murmured, “Let me. Please?”

With more familiarity than I had thought possible, Raine went about removing Evelyn’s prosthetic leg for her. Evelyn allowed this with a strange look of mingled discomfort and embarrassment on her face, but she didn’t say no, or turn away, or close her eyes. Raine gently rolled the sock and rubber socket down Evelyn’s stump, cradling the weight in one hand. When the mass of scar tissue was revealed, Raine neither averted her gaze nor lingered upon the old wound. She placed the leg to one side, standing up next to Evee’s bedside table. Then Raine reached forward and touched the waistband of Evee’s skirt, beneath the hem of her favourite white jumper.

Evelyn’s face creased with a warning frown. “Raine, I’m not fifteen years old anymore. My hands do work. I can dress myself for bed.”

“All those things are true,” Raine said. “But I’m not hearing a no.”

“R-Raine … ” I added, but neither of them paid me any attention. This was firmly not about me.

“Raine,” Evee squeezed through clenched teeth.

Raine wasn’t grinning, or smirking, or even smiling. “Say no and I’ll stop. Say no, Evee. Come on, say no.”

“Stop fucking with me,” Evelyn grunted.

Raine smirked, just a tiny bit. “If I was fucking with you, you’d know it. Say no and I’ll stop.”

Evelyn swallowed hard, opened her mouth, and whispered: “Continue.”

Raine helped Evee into her pajamas — a pair of comfortable pajama bottoms and a long-sleeved t-shirt about three sizes too large for her. I turned away for most of that, though there was nothing even remotely sexual about the exchange. Theirs was a love of devotion and service, not an intrusion on my own. I gave them privacy even though I was right there. It seemed only natural.

Once Evee was wrapped in her pajamas she got settled in the centre of her bed, with the blankets drawn up to her waist and her back propped up on a cliff-face of pillows. She seemed to me like a cosy little princess, surrounded by her ramparts of lilac and pink. But for once the gates were unbarred and unguarded, a pass was opened through those mountains, into the den of the spider, the nest built deep inside a crumbling castle of the heart.

Raine crawled in first and sat down on the bed a little distance from Evee. I followed next, keeping my tentacles mostly to myself and settling down on Evelyn’s opposite side, close enough to touch but not so close as to crowd her. The ramparts of pillows and cushions surrounded us on all sides, a tidal wave of comfort ready to carry us off to sleep whether we liked it or not.

Evelyn sighed at me, then at Raine, then at herself. I couldn’t help a giggle. She just looked so snuggly, yet she sighed with such gusto.

She shook her head. “I cannot believe we’re really doing this.”

Raine smirked with a teasing glint in her eyes. She ran one hand through her rich, dark hair, showing off the flex of her biceps and a hint of stomach muscle beneath the hem of her tank-top. My eyes were drawn like magnets, but Evee didn’t care. Raine said: “Want me to call Twil for you? Need your girl-toy to really get it on?”

Evelyn’s eyes flashed with real anger. “Do not drag her into this.”

Raine raised her hands. “Joking, joking! Evee, Evee, hey, like I said, this is just us three tonight. Nobody else.”

Evelyn huffed. “What more is there to even discuss, Raine? You’re fine with me kissing Heather. I might even do it again! Who cares? Yes, we’re all on each other’s side. We all agree, what’s to—”

“Ahem,” I said out loud, raising one hand and one tentacle, being a good girl. “Actually, I have a question?”

“See?” Raine gestured at me. “She has a question.”

Evelyn sighed at Raine with a most dim and disappointed look, but then she turned a difficult smile on me. “Yes, Heather?”

“What is actually going on between you and Twil? I mean, um, if you don’t mind answering. You don’t have to, of course.” I quickly lowered my voice as if somebody might overhear, then added, “And the answer won’t go beyond this room or this night. I promise.”

Evelyn sighed very heavily and stared at the sheets gathered around her legs; her left was thin and withered, the wasted muscles obvious even through the sheets, while her right leg terminated in the stump of her thigh. She was silent for a long moment before speaking. Raine and I shared a glance, as if trying to figure out which way this might go.

“I don’t know,” Evelyn drawled. “Nothing I’ve not told you before, Heather. We were involved, then we weren’t, then we were, then we weren’t, then we were again. Frankly, I don’t suspect I’ll ever know. I hope she meets somebody nice when she comes to university in Sharrowford. She does not need me, that’s the bottom line.”

I reached out and closed my fingers very gently over Evee’s hand. “Thank you for answering, Evee. And … I’m sure Twil does need you, even if it’s not in that sort of way."

Evee grunted a hollow laugh. “Not much of a bloody answer, was it?”

“We need you,” said Raine.

Evelyn looked up with a frown.

Raine shrugged. “It’s the truth. It’s why we’re having this little chat. We three, we all need each other. And we gotta work this shit out.”

“What ‘shit’, Raine?” Evelyn asked with an exhausted sigh, her hundredth of the night. “What sort of nonsense are you trying to force, here? We’re reconciled, fine, good. You are my shield, ‘o shining knight.” She scoffed, blushing more than I had expected. “What else is there to mend?”

Raine wet her lips and seemed like she was about to say something, but then, a rarity — she faltered. She couldn’t find the words. She hesitated, closed her mouth, and shrugged.

“There’s a rift, Evee,” she said eventually. “I can just feel it. Can’t you?”

I spoke up with a little sigh: “It’s because of me.”

“Hey, Heather,” Raine said, smiling with that infinite confidence she kept cradled in her heart just for me. She reached across the gap and allowed one of my tentacles to wind about her wrist and forearm. “No, no, love, it’s not your fault. Don’t think that. Never think that.”

Evelyn snapped, quick and hard, suddenly so much more focused: “Yes. Yes, absolutely, I agree with Raine.” She swallowed hard. “Heather, I was the one who kissed you, not the other way around. Do not for one second believe yourself guilty of my transgressions—”

Raine butted back in with a finger-gun pointed at Evelyn: “Hey, no, Evee, you didn’t transgress against shit. We had a deal. You and me, Evee, we always had a deal.” Raine laughed softly. “What, did you think I was joking? You know me better than that.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and let out a sigh like an industrial furnace. “We were teenagers, Raine! We were teenagers shot through with more hormones than red blood cells! I had a demon in my head! We were trapped, in mortal peril! I think that voids any such ‘deal’.”

“That doesn’t make me an oath-breaker. I made you an oath.”

“I was dying!”

Raine just nodded. “And I meant it. Even if you lived. Which, you know, you did. Yay. Well done.”

Evelyn slapped her free hand against the bedsheets. “Oh, you are ridiculous, Raine.”

“Ahem,” I said out loud. “Deal?”

Raine glanced at me with a naughty smirk on her lips. “I’ve told you about this before. Haven’t I, Heather?”

My turn to sigh. “Sort of. I do recall this came up once before. You promised Evee that you’d share any future girlfriends with her. Is that correct?”

Raine cracked a grin and nodded, as if this was something to be mightily proud of. “That’s my girl. Yup. A little while after we first met, we made a promise that if I ever got a hot girlfriend, we can share.”

Evelyn snorted. “I seem to recall you expressed it in significantly more carnal terms.”

Raine raised her eyebrows to Evelyn, in perfect innocence.

Evelyn held her gaze and deadpanned: “‘What’s mine is yours. My kills are yours. What I fuck, you can fuck. If I get some cunt, you can have it too.’”

A blush rolled up my cheeks and a tingle shot down all my tentacles — not at Evelyn’s recitation of Raine’s words, but at the way they were staring at each other with almost animalistic intensity, half-challenge half-sexual, but more than either.

Raine shrugged. “I refined it later.”

Evelyn tutted. “Besides, Heather has a say too, doesn’t she? She’s not a trophy for passing about, or your meat to hand off to who you want.”

Raine pulled a face like Evee was being a fool, smug and silly all at once. “Evee, she loves you too.”

I cleared my throat. “I … I do, yes.”

Raine gestured toward me. “So, what do you say, Heather?”

“I … I say … ” I huffed. “I say that I’m hardly a ‘hot girlfriend’. Tch! I’m a scrawny little weirdo with tentacles, seven semi-independent versions of myself, and the instincts of a badly behaved squid hybrid. I’m officially ‘scrungly’, last I checked.”

Raine and Evelyn shared a sudden, concerned glance. Evelyn cleared her throat and said: “Heather, who taught you that word?”

“I saw it on the internet,” we said. “On a video about cuttlefish.”

Raine laughed. “My scrungly beauty.”

“Look,” we went on, all six tentacles joining in now, “this rift between you two, even if it’s healed, it was because of me.” We held up a tentacle quickly, before Raine could refute this or Evelyn could snap a denial. “No, it was. I’m not saying it was ‘my fault’ or that I did anything wrong, but it was because of me. You two were a pair. Not a perfect pair, fair enough, and I didn’t know that I was intruding, but … but when I first met you both, I assumed you might be a couple.”

Evelyn scoffed. Raine nodded and muttered ‘fair enough’.

“And I butted in,” I said.

Raine sighed gently. “Heather, no you didn’t. I was shirking my duty.”

Evelyn said, “And I was pushing her away. Heather, you didn’t break anything.”

“No,” I said gently — and found my heart was racing, pounding against my ribs like a bird trying to get out. Our tentacles were going numb and hyper-sensitive, both at the same time. We knew what I was planning, and it was something I’d done before, and something I’d done a million times, so why was I nervous, why now? Because it mattered more than ever before? “Perhaps not. Perhaps I only contributed. Or perhaps I didn’t contribute at all, only catalysed. But it happened all the same, and I can fix that break with new flesh.”

Before either Raine or Evelyn could mount a defence, I did something I should have done a long time ago, though I had not known it was needed.

I bridged the gap.

I crawled across the bed on hands and knees and tentacles, right up to Raine. I only stopped when I was almost in her lap. The look on my face stilled her tongue — no more questions. Two tentacles wrapped around her neck, holding her close and steady. She didn’t resist, but gave herself to the logic of our joining bodies. She let out a surprisingly nervous flutter of breath as I reared up before her, as I parted my lips and wet them with a flicker of pink tongue. Shining brown eyes and soft chestnut hair and muscles beneath her warm skin — all waited for me to descend.

But then I glanced over at Evelyn and made eye contact. I made sure she was watching, not looking away.

Evelyn stared at us like she didn’t understand what we were doing, like she was witnessing some alien mating ritual.

I kissed Raine on the lips, deep and hard, the way we kissed when we made love. I drank up her softness and inhaled her scent and tasted her tongue in my mouth. We closed our eyes. We forgot the world beyond our body. All seven Heathers thought about nothing else except Raine’s warm, wet mouth sliding against our own.

We ended the kiss with a wet pop of parting lips. Raine was flushed and panting. Wordlessly, before either participant or observer could recover, we crawled out of Raine’s lap and over to Evelyn.

With Evelyn we practised infinitely more gentleness; we did not put pressure on her lap or against the back of her neck. We cradled her between three tentacles, barely touching for fear of hurting her spine or her hips. Her eyes were wide with shock and incomprehension, twin pools of deepest blue in the lamplight. Her face was red and blushing, framed by her waterfall of blonde hair.

But before we could complete the motion, Evelyn reached out. She grabbed one tentacle, harder than any touch I was applying to her body. She squeezed with strange need, as if trying to drag me closer.

I obeyed. I kissed Evelyn, deep and hard, no different to how I had kissed Raine. This time she was soft and giving, slippery and yielding. She moaned into my mouth, which surprised us both.

We parted with another wordless pop of slick and sliding lips.

I was panting, my vision all hazy and thick, my skin tingling, my tentacles tight and tense. Evelyn was flushed. Raine was grinning. By then we were no longer verbal — us Heathers, all seven of us retreated into the language of touch and taste.

But Evee and Raine were still plenty verbal. Raine muttered something like ‘go again, have her again’, but Evelyn said ‘you next, give me a sec.’

Evelyn passed me back to Raine. We kissed again, but this time I wasn’t in control; Raine held me in place and drank me down, pushed me to the bed and filled my mouth with herself, until I was a writhing, whining mess. Then Raine passed me to Evelyn and the cycle repeated a second time; Evelyn was more hesitant, watching Raine over my shoulder as if for approval, but I wrapped her in caresses and took her into my mouth. She was fluttery-soft and more gentle than I’d expected. Then I was passed back to Raine for a third, then Evee for a fourth, then perhaps a fifth, then I lost count. Sense overtook time, kissing meant more than words, as I carried the taste of Evelyn and Raine back and forth.

We didn’t talk about what we were doing. We didn’t stop to debate the meaning or the intent or what happened next. We just kissed, passing me back and forth, a limp ball of squid-limbs and panting need.

I’d never been any good at kissing, but we had learned from the best. Patient study makes grand results in all things, especially in flesh.

Eventually I lay on my back, spread out on the bed, suspended between the two reference points of the person I had become.

Over the bridge of my body, Raine and Evelyn stared at each other. Raine glanced at Evee’s lips. Evelyn snorted.

“Nope,” said Raine, cracking a grin.

“Absolutely not,” Evelyn agreed, sighing with relief, still flushed all over.

“No way.”

“No thank you. Though I appreciate the thought.”

“Same,” Raine said. “We never made a good couple.”

“We never were one.”

“But we can be a trio.”

Evelyn snorted. “We already are. What’s the saying? Triangle is the strongest shape?”

“Damn right,” Raine said. “Basic geometry. We’ve got nothing but triangles in this house.”

Evelyn nodded. “Then that is what we shall be.”

Raine extended a hand, palm up. Evelyn hesitated, blushing harder, then responded by placing her own hand within Raine’s gentle grip — her maimed hand, with the missing fingers and chunk of palm gone forever. Raine lowered her lips and kissed Evelyn on the knuckles. Evelyn looked frozen for a long moment, but then she leaned forward and kissed Raine on the forehead, quickly and gently.

They parted, one with a blush and the other with a grin.

Evee muttered through her blush: “As long as I’m the one who cucks.”

Raine grinned all the harder. “Is that right? With our squid?”

“Our angel,” Evelyn ground out.

“Our something, alright. Shall we get her settled?”

“Yes, please,” Evelyn said quickly. “I can’t get her up by myself. Here, help her under the covers, she looks about ready to pass out.”

I think I mewled, or perhaps whined, or maybe even purred.

Raine and Evee helped me into bed; I was a big floppy mess by then, pawing and nuzzling and completely non-verbal, making noises more like a small scrungly animal, neither human being nor abyssal hybrid; at any other moment in life I would have been mortified to witness myself in such a state, but right then I loved myself more than I ever had before. I was a writhing nest of seven squid girls, tentacles all moving over each other and snuggling tight, stealing little skin-kiss touches from both of my most beloved.

Raine got me to snuggle down under the covers of Evee’s bed, warm and enclosing, heavy with blankets, with my head cradled by the cliff-face of pillows, cuddled up right next to Evee. My face was inches from her hip.

We assumed that Raine was going to join the bed on Evee’s opposite side, so Evelyn would be between us — but Raine slipped beneath the covers behind me, sitting up like Evelyn was, so that I was the filling in a lesbian cephalopod sandwich.

That made so much more sense. I was the bridge and the answer and the catalyst, the angel come to heal the wounds and patch the leaks and mend that which was broken.

We purred, more with our diaphragm than our throat. Evelyn jumped slightly. Raine laughed.

“Look, like this,” Raine murmured. “Touch her like this.”

Raine showed Evee how to pet me, like I was a stray they’d brought in from the cold; she reached down beneath the covers to rub my belly until my purring intensified, then ran her fingers through my hair and across my scalp, kneading the back of my neck and pressing her thumbs into the knotted muscles of my shoulders. Evelyn joined in, hesitant at first, then with growing confidence; I could tell the difference between their touches with my eyes squinted shut — Raine’s was strong but gentle, while Evee’s was rough and earnest.

We touched them in return. We wound a tentacle around Raine’s arm, and brushed Evelyn’s thigh with a tentacle-tip. When Evelyn did not flinch or shy away, we pressed with more intimacy, sliding ourselves down her slender thigh until we reached the tender, vulnerable flesh of her amputation scar. We cupped her stump with infinite gentleness.

Evelyn sighed in a way we’d never heard her sigh before — with release.

For a long time we lay there, insensate, floppy, exhausted, and happy. Evelyn and Raine sat either side of us and spoke in low murmurs, talking of all manner of inconsequential things. We felt a dull twinge in the tip of one tentacle — the one wrapped around Evee’s leg — aching to grow a bio-steel needle and spread the blessing of our abyssal biology beyond the bounds of our own body; but it was only a dull twinge, with no great rush or urgency, perhaps a promise for the future.

Future?

What future?

This was the first time we had snuggled with both Raine and Evelyn. Would it also be the last?

“—won’t be enough time to get all those things done tomorrow,” Evelyn was saying to Raine in a low whisper, while her fingers rubbed at the back of my neck. “We have to prioritise. Forget anything not directly related to safety and security, but make sure everyone not coming with us knows where we’re going to be. Jan won’t need reminding, but Nicole might. Kimberly is to be kept away from all this, she doesn’t deserve the bother.”

Raine answered with a question, “Badger? Sarika?”

Evelyn sucked on her teeth for a moment. “No, absolutely not. I don’t want Mister Hobbes interfering again. The last thing we need is wild-cards and rogue elements who might step into this. Speaking of which, as soon as we arrive there, the first order of business is to locate the imitation version of Lozzie, the one that the Eye sent against us before. You remember that thing?”

Raine chuckled softly. “How could I forget? Shot it, didn’t I?”

“Mm,” Evelyn grunted. “If it’s still alive out there, we don’t want it stepping into the circle and interfering with anything. Heather should be able to … Heather? Heather? What are you … ?”

Raine squeezed my shoulder suddenly. “Hey, hey, Heather? Love, what’s wrong? Heather?”

Tears broke over me in a great and terrible wave.

Once I surrendered to the crying, I simply could not stop. Wracking sobs shook my body and wrung salt water from my eyes. I struggled into a sitting position as if fighting for air, panting and gulping, pulling my knees to my chest, curling up tight, bunching my fists in my own hair to hold back a wail. We had to wrap our tentacles tight around our own belly just to stop from lashing the air.

“Heather! Heather, we’re both right here! Heather!”

“Hey, hey, love, slow down, look at me—”

“What’s wrong—”

“It’s just us—”

“Heather—”

“We—”

“I don’t want to die!” I wailed.

With the truth expelled like a wave of rotten vomit, my sobbing subsided into mere panting. I was shaking all over, covered in cold flash sweat.

Evelyn sighed sharply, but she spoke with surprising tenderness: “Heather, we’ve been over this. You are not going to die. You, me, Raine, and everyone else is coming back in one piece. You—”

I shook my head. “Evee— Evee, you don’t— you don’t get it.”

Raine spoke with the whipcrack of command in her voice: “Nobody is leaving you behind, Heather.”

But for once even Raine’s confidence was not enough. I sniffed hard and shook my head again, frantic with inner panic. “May— maybe. But I’m so scared.” A dry sob threatened in the back of my throat. “I’m so scared. I’m terrified.”

Raine put her arm around my shoulders. “We’re all with you, Heather. We’re all going into this together.”

“Mm,” Evelyn grunted. “There’s nothing to be—”

“Afraid of?” I finished her sentence before she could. My eyes were bulging, with my fear. “Of course there’s things to be afraid of! I’m terrified, I’ve been terrified for ten years! I’ve been bottling it up, keeping a lid on this, as I take on more and more responsibility, but— but now we’re going to Wonderland, and I’m going to stare up into the Eye. And I have to reach out and put my hands inside it, and pull Maisie back out, and … ”

Words failed me. We trailed off.

“We don’t know that for certain, Heather,” Evelyn sighed. “She could be—”

“She is inside the Eye,” we said. “Metaphysically, spiritually, whatever. She’s in there. I have to pull her out, with hyperdimensional mathematics. You’ll all be at my side, yes, of course you will. But the final movement? That’s all down to me. And … and I might fail, and … and I don’t want to die.” My face collapsed into tears once again, my eyes filled with moisture, a sob tearing my throat apart. “I don’t want to lose— all this— everything— everyone— I don’t want this to be the last time I— hic touch you. I don’t— I want to feel this— hic—”

Raine squeezed me hard; we clung to her like a rock amid the storm, though we could not hear her words over the turmoil inside.

Evelyn pulled her stump free from our tentacles and slid out of bed. We heard the distinctive sound of her walking stick against the floorboard, the tap-tap-tap of the rubber tip, followed by the difficult grunt of Evelyn standing up on her one flesh-and-bone leg. We braced ourselves for a lecture, for Evelyn’s silver tongue and cutting words to bludgeon our fears into submission. We knew she would mean well; she would only be trying to help, but those fears would grow in the dark, like a mycelial mat infesting our secret heart, until they were strong enough to turn us all to rot.

But to our surprise, Evelyn said nothing. Tap-tap-tap went her walking stick, away from the bed, then tap-tap-tap back again.

“Here,” Evelyn grunted.

We felt a shower of gentle impacts against our lap, followed by Evelyn slipping back into bed and reaching out for one of our tentacles. Confused and curious, we opened our eyes and wiped away the tears.

Evee’s plushies had come to visit.

A tumbled collection of mismatched soft animals and ‘chibi’ anime girls lay in my lap: a pastel rainbow dragon, a miniature seal with a jolly expression, a pair of extra-fluffy rabbits, a green-and-white plant thing which I’m pretty sure was a Pokemon, and many, many, many more. Evelyn had simply grabbed as many as she could with one arm, then flung them onto the bed.

Pure surprise stopped my tears. We gaped at the strange assemblage. Evelyn reached over, selected the hedgehog — one of her favourites, as I had predicted — and ‘walked’ it up my arm and across my shoulder, until the small plush fellow could nuzzle the side of my neck.

She kept a perfectly deadpan expression until the moment I made eye contact. Then she blushed lightly and cleared her throat.

“Evee?”

“Just … just accept it, Heather. Just hug them, for God’s sake.”

I let out a half-laugh, half-sob, and then did as I was told; I gathered Evelyn’s plush animals into my arms and hugged them tight, with both arms and most of our tentacles. We kissed one of them at random, nuzzling the flank of a plush pink dinosaur. Our tentacles burrowed and snuggled amid the mass of comfort.

Raine parted her lips with a wet click, and said: “Evee, you mind if I talk about how it was with us?”

Evelyn snorted softly. “You mean with my mother?”

I looked up in surprise and blinked the remaining tears out of my eyes. Raine was stone-cold sober and serious, almost more than I’d ever seen her before. Evelyn looked darkly amused. I felt suddenly pinned between them, flanked both above and below the bedsheets.

“Yeah,” Raine said. “About your mother.”

Evelyn sighed. “Fine. Go ahead. I suppose it’s relevant.”

Raine nodded a thank you, then looked down at me and smiled through a very difficult frown. “Heather, both Evee and I have been here before.”

“Oh … ”

Raine’s smile widened, full of warm understanding. “We faced the same question, before we slew Evee’s mother. We had a choice, but it wasn’t much of one. For days, or weeks really, we tried to figure out how to run away without getting caught. But we couldn’t make the pieces fit, we couldn’t avoid all of those servants and guards—”

“Fucking zombies,” Evelyn grunted.

“Mm. And even if we could have gotten out of that house and onto the road, Evee was in no state to travel. We didn’t have a proper prosthetic for her. She was malnourished, messed up—”

“And you were even worse, Raine,” Evelyn snorted. “The police would have mistaken you for a child abandoned in the woods and raised by wolves.”

Raine chuckled softly at a dark memory. “Yeah, right, there was that, too. Even if we got clear, even if we could dodge Loretta and her minions, what then?” Raine clucked her tongue and shrugged. “We would be what? A pair of teenage girls, on the run, avoiding the authorities for years and years and years. No money. Nowhere to stay. No connections. I’d lost all my old connections in London by that point. No more anarchist commune for me. Maybe if I’d still known that lot, they could have helped, but without that … ” Raine sighed. “Couldn’t be done. So we had to fight.”

I nodded. “I have to fight, too. Maisie, I won’t leave her, I won’t.”

Raine stroked the back of my head. “Yeah. Maybe if we pulled out all the stops, we could protect you from the Eye forever, whatever it sends eventually. But that would mean no Maisie. It was the same with us. Fight was the only option. And we weren’t certain we would win.”

Evelyn grunted. “Finally you admit it, Raine. Ha! You were nothing but confidence, back then.”

Raine shot Evee a grin. “I never doubted you for a second, Evee. And I don’t doubt Heather, either.” Raine looked back down to me, then leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “But we both know how it feels. It’s scary, damn right it is. No sense lying or holding that back.”

I nodded slowly. “But … but running isn’t an option. I won’t leave Maisie behind.”

Raine nodded along with me. “Running was never an option. Some things are worth killing for, but others are worth dying to attempt. I don’t want you to die either, Heather. I want to wrap you up in cotton wool and keep you safe, for the rest of your life. But I’ve come to accept that if you don’t attempt this, if you don’t try to rescue your sister, then that would be a kind of death, too.”

To my surprise, Evelyn let out a shuddering breath, almost on the verge of tears. Raine reached over and touched her shoulder gently. I wrapped my tentacle back around her thigh.

“That’s how Evee and I resolved the question, back when we faced this same feeling,” Raine went on. “We could die alone, separated, on our knees, slowly, or always looking over our shoulders in lifelong fear and paranoia — or we could take the chance of fighting for something better. We fought, and we got something better. And we’ll do the same alongside you, all over again. Evee?”

“Without even the shadow of doubt,” Evelyn said.

For a long moment, nobody spoke; I lay against my most beloved and felt the fear undergo a metamorphosis, hardening and cooling into new-forged resolve.

“I love you both,” we murmured.

“Love you too, Heather.”

With wordless agreement all three of us slid down into bed, emotionally and physically exhausted. Evelyn slipped into my arms and between my tentacles, cradled in a cage of cushioned flesh, the recipient of the most gentle embrace I could construct; Raine snuggled against my back, the big spoon to my little, her lips on my neck, her legs intertwined with mine. One of her hands wandered further, to find Evee’s and interlace their fingers across my hip.

We fell asleep together, us three, us seven plus two, nine and nine and nine again.

And not for the last time. We swore that to ourselves as we sank down into merciful and dreamless oblivion. This would not be the final time. If the Eye would not give us Maisie in peace and understanding, we would take her back by force.

And if the Eye would not let us go?

We would break reality itself upon the wheel of hyperdimensional mathematics. We would crack the world asunder with a hammer of thought, just to be here once again, between Evelyn and Raine.