No Sense But Presence

“I thought you said you knew a place!”

“I do, lass, ya just need to keep up!”

Chloe let out a breathy grumble as she raced behind her companion who seemed to have a better stride than her, despite the height difference. Upon meeting “Sean,” Chloe had begun throwing all logic out the window, and speed as a tribute of long legs was the most recent to go.

Sean, as the only name he’d given, appeared in front of Chloe three days ago. Not on purpose, but by mere coincidence, he said. It’s not every day a person collides with a leprechaun as they are hopping off the rainbow highway. If a car crash could be sparkles, flesh, and an attitude, this moment was it. The coincidence, however, propelled Chloe into a heist of a sort to steal back something of Sean’s, and, now, this chase from a very upset sluagh of goblins. In the height of the chase, Chloe couldn’t help but feel the sting of all the vagueness in her calves.

“This way.”

“How… much… farther?”

The little man cut a sharp corner into an alley and began to scramble up an old fire escape. Chloe groaned at the idea.

“Keep running that way, I got to get a look out.”

“What?”

“Keep moving, lass.”

Sporadic growls and hisses drew Chloe’s attention behind her for a hair of a second. Regret filled her whole body between the screaming warmth in her lungs and the sight of the poorly shaped monstrosities crawling the wall behind her.

Something in her head screamed to NOT run.

“LASS, MOVE!”

Against instinct, Chloe took off in another sprint for the end of the alley.

“Right, go right!”

And so she did. Skidding on the break between cobblestone and pavement and bumbling into a street, Chloe recovered long enough to pull herself out of the way of a taxi. She had almost forgotten that stipulation of this whole game. It had been three days since she spoke to another human being. Not one person had seen her or heard her. It was her least favorite detail. It felt like a trap, carefully laid. Isolated from her own, unable to have a soundboard that she could trust. And now, having to dodge traffic that could end her without even seeing her, she just wanted to go home. There was something so grave in the idea of other humans not knowing her whereabouts despite seeing them everywhere. It was against her internal coding, against nature. But here she was, bobbing through the street of lazy pedestrians on a Sunday morning. No one the wiser.

The scraping of claws and stubby fingers on stone, trees and pavement let her know she was still being pursued. She knew now that stopping wasn’t an option despite the ache in her shoulders. Her lower abdomen was beginning to cramp as well.

“Left, now!”

A gentle thud with a barking command told her that Sean had rejoined her on the ground.

By the luck of something, the street was stopped at a traffic light, and Chloe did not hesitate.

“Where the fu…”

“I had to open the door first!”

“Door?”

“Left.”

Again, no hesitation at the sidewalk to rip herself in a new direction. Move, move, move, her mind kept screaming. Maybe all the time away from humans was making her mind less human and all she could think was survive, survive, survive.

Door!

“What… door?”

Suddenly, a dull claw bit into her shoulder, whipping the girl into a spiral towards a brick pillar supporting a store front. She yelped as the sudden impact shut her whole body down. She was exhausted. Squished cheeks snarled at her, as she slumped to the ground. “Gives it backs,” it choked out of its abnormal mouth too big for its head while raising that same dull claw up to strike.

Somewhere buried in her mind was a pity for how ugly these creatures were. Or were they really ugly? Now was not the time for philosophical queries. Chloe heaved to push at the creature as the claw came down, bouncing off her back without breaking the skin. Small and somewhat weightless, the goblin flew into the street, and into an oncoming Buick. The crunch and splat of organic matter was indistinguishable despite the cry from its mouth being something otherworldly. Cringing, Chloe crawled to her feet to see the others closing in.

“The alley!”

The little leprechaun was already on the other side of the street, hopping in place from the very opening they just left.

“What.”

“Move.”

And so she did.

Darting across the street, beyond grateful for no more traffic, Chloe chased after her only ally. Howls that felt like anger and despair ripped into the air behind her. Great, let's add murder to theft and see if we make it out alive, a sarcastic thought cut through the panic of instinct.

“Up, up, up!”

This time her groan was audible, and Sean turned back long enough to glare.

“Do you want to live?”

“Do I?”

Chloe turned back to see their pursuers back in the alley, taking the walls, cobblestone, and any other surface unnaturally. There had to be like twenty, and she was so tired.

Don’t move.

“Lass, what are you doing? Let’s go.”

No, she was done.

Tiny tink-ing boots on metal told her that Sean had begun to climb without her. She let out a long breath and closed her eyes for the oncoming slaughter. Teeth gritted, she began to count.

One… two…

A breeze of swamp and mold, hot breath and spoiled blood, flooded her nostrils and grazed all of her being. It seemed to shift and move up and away. There was no impact, no tearing of flesh, no biting, clawing or cutting. Though the smell seemed to waft, the breeze left. A rhythmic clicking called Chloe to open her eyes.

Not as horrible as the rest of its kind, a rather petite goblin, more arms and legs than anything else, crutched in front of Chloe, tapping its left talon to the ground. Giant pupils gazed up at Chloe. Chloe simply gazed back.

It tipped its tiny nose up, and sniffed, once, twice, and a third time. It chirped and the stood, somewhat, before scrambling to the fire escape to chase after its kin.

Leaving Chloe entirely alone.

And she stood for a good moment, and then some.

She stood there till the warmth in her lungs cooled, and the ache in her shoulders and calves seemed to forget themselves. She listened hard, to her breath, to the birds and the occasional gentle grumble of tires crunching pavement. She listened to the humming in her ears of blood trying to regulate her whole system, including the throb of a bruise forming on her back.

Her thoughts began to replay the whole of the last three days. There was the morning jog that set her on a path to collide with a fairy. The nonsensical coffee date that explained how only a human could retrieve a stolen item. The terrible sleeping conditions of a different alleyway and then the abandoned building. Not sleeping at all last night because there was a goblin den to break into. The vagueness of what she could and could not do, could and could not say, could and could not be. Safe was one of those things, and yet, for the first time in three days, she felt safe.

Sean was gone, and the goblin sluagh with him.

Nonsense aside with a healthy reminder of sovereignty, Chloe had one desire.

“I want to go home.”

“Well, why didn’t you say sooner? Door’s right there?”

Chloe jumped at the sound. Stiff pinches of pain remembered itself in her muscles and lungs, as she wildly looked for the source of the voice. Unlike Sean’s gravel and snark, this voice was pitchy and small, almost friendly.

“Here, darling.”

Turning in a full circle, Chloe found herself face to face with a door. It was easy to miss, covered in the same aging white plaster that was the rest of the back wall. Enough plaster had weathered and cracked to show a green paint underneath. At first glance, it very much could have been mold growing up the side of a wall. Where one would expect a knob, a simple handle jutted out.

“Down here!”

Chloe glanced down to see a little brown lady, hair pulled back into a neat braid, patting down her apron, which secured the waistline of a dress. Or was that a sock?

“That damn Sheamus, always draggin’ mortals into his sinteag. Poor girl.”

“Sheamus?”

“Or whatever that leprechaun told you to call ‘im. Quite the tale-teller he is? You wanted to go home, right, dearie. This be your way,” she said tapping the bottom of the door that was not there before.

“And that’s it? I just go through this door and I’m what? Visible by people again?”

“In a sense yes, dearie. You go through this, here, door to get out of the veil. Had he taught you nuthin?”

No, no he didn’t.

“Veil, is that why people can’t see me?”

“Yes, dearie, now are you going to keep running your gob, or are you going to go home?”

Home, please!

“Tha..”

“Shush, you fool! I see Sheamus did fail to teach you anything proper. Girl, just go. Be off with you.”

And with that, the little brown woman seemed to fold into herself and vanish all together. Chloe didn’t waste anymore time. She gripped the rusted handle and pushed. When it didn’t budge, she almost cried, but recovered to pull. Cool brisk air rushed from its opening as she pulled, almost like breathing for the first time. Light pooled out secondly, blinding the girl as she walked through it, hands extended. Her movements felt unnatural, pushing through the air and light, almost like swimming while being out of body, until all at once, gravity hit her as if she had just learned to walk again.

Chloe collapsed back in the alleyway full of cobblestone with its single, shabby fire escape. Had she not returned? She turns her head to where the door was, and gasped. Where a handle had once been was now an external run of cable encased in plaster, and the green paint was indeed mildew growing in suspicious patterns. Panic prickled at her spin and aggravated her new bruise. People, she needed to find people.

New spikes of adrenaline pushed her to her feet as she stumbled from the alleyway. There was the shop she slammed into, and a person in the window!

She stumbled across the street, without looking. Screeching tires and a horn blares into her ears as she once again narrowly misses a taxi zipping by. It saw her! It saw her!

She makes it to the other side of the street and grips the glass of the store window, gazing wildly at the person on the other side. They paused their browsing of wares to look at the stranger on the other side of the glass. Chloe couldn’t imagine what they were seeing, but they were seeing her. She was back, she was home, she was…

Exhaustion hit all at once, and her knees caved first.

And then her consciousness.