Soft blankets surrounded Seneya’s form, brushing against bare arms and feet, amid clean flower-scented pillows, fresh from the wash, overpowering the lingering scent of a home-cooked meal that permeated the house.

Yellow sodium streetlamps hummed their lullaby and threw whispering projected shadows of moths dancing in their glow through her blinds and onto her sage-carpeted floor.

A door opened, heralding the plod of a cautious step, and the form of a long-time friend stood in the center of her room.

“Bryan?” Seneya whispered, squinting groggily as he prowled up to her bed. Her heart beat rapidly, thundering in her chest as cold eyes bore down at her, masked in darkness and determination.

One of his hands clamped down over her mouth, and the other moved to pull her covers down—

-

“SENEYA!”

She opened her eyes, jerked from a dream by a shout of a whisper.

She sat bolt straight, upright among thin blankets, well-worn quilts sliding off her slender frame. Her hand traveled over her face, pushing back long locks of thick red hair, coppery in the dim glow of the moon in her arched lunette window.

“Who’s there?” She whispered, eyes darting about.

A strange, muffled silence greeted her, punctuated by cautious, slow, and heavy footsteps creaking across a burgundy painted wood floor, padded with an old floral-designed carpet.

Still unfamiliar with this new room, she silently slipped free of her bed, cautious of her surroundings.

Her thin legs spread out as her toes dug into the threadbare rug on her dusty floor. Gentle grit pressed back from between synthetic fibers. Stains and spills from years of abuse highlighted the fading floral design.

Predatory silence.

A stale scent rose up around her—mothballs and damp laundry.

“Seneya, listen, please.” a tinny-sounding voice whispered softly into her ear, urgency rising.

Shit. Seneya glanced towards the door, every muscle in her body tensing.

Panic rose within her as her heart raced.

She closed her eyes, focusing.

Everything erupted around her into a storm of sound. Tone wavered in words, in thought, and in silence.

A faucet dripped in the other room, pattering out a tattoo of rhythm over the din of the freeway a mile off.

A cat rubbed against a tree outside, clawing back with sharp jerking sounds as bits of bark rained over fallen leaves.

Every noise around her magnified into a storm of sound until a single note rose above it all.

A heavy breath.

Danger riveted over her mental hackles like slender fingers toying along an instrument’s strings with a feather’s touch.

“You’re in trouble now,” the voice said helplessly.

“Not quite yet,” Seneya muttered, gritting her teeth.

Oh great, and now I’m talking to myself.

“You can hear me!” the voice said joyfully, tickling her ear with its whisper.

She turned her head towards the sound, squinting about the room.

Nothing seemed amiss… A prank?

She couldn’t see any speakers or things transmitting sound, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It could have just as easily been coming from an air vent.

“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes. She could handle the voice later. The intruder in her hall mattered more now.

She drew to her knees, spreading her fingers to reach out over the floor, crawling. Her hand brushed off the rug, over the unsealed wood of the rough floor, tips trailing along scuffs and scratches from years of abuse.

The balls of her feet twitched as she leveraged herself onto them and reached gingerly for her throat, reminding herself to stay silent.

Every angle of her pose jutted, sharp bones sticking from thin skin, creating a scarecrow-like countenance as fiercely green eyes trained on the door.

“Who’s there?” She whispered.

The more rules she broke in this new house, the more likely they’d be to send her back to a group home.

She had her own rules to follow, too: keep your head down, mouth shut, and don’t bother anyone.

This would fall into the ‘mouth shut’ and ‘don’t bother anyone’ categories.

She tried to assuage her fears, still squinting around for the voice.

Damp skin on metal squeaked.

The doorknob turned, the lock clinking gently into place.

The door’s wood creaked from a gentle push, and the memory came rushing back.

Just because he’s trying my door doesn’t mean he means harm.

-

Her covers peeled back. She whimpered against the salty skin of his hand.

Her blood rushed in her ears, trembling.

The boy said something, pleading, but the static of her mind wouldn’t silence, and everything erupted when his hand slid down over her side and fingertips brushed at the hem of her pajama top.

She whimpered, shaking her head, freezing in terror as his hand rose higher, under her top.

He leaned down over her, grinning. “Come on—”

--

“—Kacie?” a husky voice called out, snapping Seneya from her memory.

That name…

She hated that name, Kacie Doe—the name afforded to those young children abandoned at safe drop sites. Seneya suited her better, the name in her mind that calmed her like none else.

Names… names…what’s this guy’s name?

Justin… Jeffrey… James…

Preston. That’s it!

The heavyset boy had only come home a few days ago for summer break at his university.

“What do you want, Preston?” she groaned out, trying to sound as sleepy as possible.

Preston made her adrenaline rush, and bile rose in her throat every time he tried to talk to her. His eyes never lingered on her face, and he had no concept of personal space. Every sensibility she had cornered itself like a frightened rabbit around him.

Like any good rabbit, she knew a fox when she saw one—had narrowly escaped them before.

She adjusted her angle so that a wavering patch of silvery-blue moonlight pierced the small slit in her curtains. It lined up with the gap in her door between jamb and frame. The bronze glint amid the darkness of the latch reaffirmed that it was locked.

The blue of the curtains and the crispness of the moonlight cast silvery hues over the eggshell-colored room, casting silver and dark notes into her golden hair. Despite the lack of light, though, her eyes shone the brightest green.

She relaxed a margin and folded her legs crossed to sit. She looked about for things in her room that could be used as a weapon. But things that could be transmitting a voice concerned her as well. The vivid green of her eyes cast across the scape of her room, over a too-small and pocked white vanity with a creaking stool, a leaning dresser, and a sliding-doored closet with a misaligned track.

Think calm.

Think safe.

Don’t overthink.

Weapon! Weapon! Protect.

She defended herself before, and she could do it again.

She slowly crawled to the edge of her closet and grasped a piece of floor molding that had popped free at some point. Someone laid it up for repair at a later time that would never come. She held it to herself with tense fingers.

Alright then. I’m ready for you. Ready for you too, creepy voice. There was no way it was in her head, and if it was, surely, it’d hear her thoughts. So reasoning with it was not an option.

She froze and remained silent as the doorknob twisted again in a testing motion.

Crap.

She choked up on the wood in her hands as Preston scratched down the wood. Her heart raced, the muscles in her back twitching in a spasm. They did that often when she was stressed, something about the complex tattoos that sprawled across her back and scar tissue from getting it so young. She resisted the urge to reach back and rub at them.

A red light blinked in the corner of her eye, a little window alarm that would alert her foster family if she left. Of course, she could escape through the window, and an alarm would go off, but that was the price you paid for safety. It would at least give the boy a fright if he was trying to come into her room.

Rhonda and Gary Stone were a nice enough couple. They’d been fostering kids for three years since their only son had left for college. His presence had delighted them, and they swore he was so sweet, but Seneya was anything if not overly cautious. Something about the vulnerability and impressionable nature of girls in Seneya’s situation attracted unwanted attention. Something about Seneya often attracted unwanted attention. She always drew the eyes with her pale, freckled skin, bright coppery red hair, gleaming green eyes, and soft pouted lips.

She learned to not smile. She knew to look down.

“He’s got a key.” The voice in her head said. “Move quietly. You are not his.”

Now I know you’re screwing with me.

Seneya furrowed her brow and glanced about, moving in her spiderlike crawl, trying to distribute her weight so as not to creak the floorboards. Finally, she brought herself up to the door at a crouch and gently yet slowly folded herself into it, using her weight to hold tight. It barely made a creak, a soft click of sound as the lock rattled.

“Good job. Hold tight,” the voice said, as anxiously as Seneya.

She glanced about again, contemplating the window.

“Kacie, are you up?” the whisper was insistent.

“I just answered you, didn’t I?” Kacie said softly, drawing in closer to the door.

She felt vibrations of his voice, and held herself in a chilling tremble as a single fingernail scratched at the thin veneer wood once more.

“Kacie, lemme’ in. I got something for us,” he said.

Whatever it was, Seneya was certain she didn’t want it. “Not right now.” Her voice was hesitant, and she did her best to sound tired. The doorknob rattled again, and a light clink of something touching the lock rang out. She could hear the spring in the door vibrating.

There was a split second of reaction time; her shoulder braced.

“Not right now, please,” She spoke softly, trying to add a touch of grogginess to her voice.

“I snuck some beer from my dad’s fridge,” he said insistently, pleading. She turned sixteen not but a few weeks ago in her group home, right before she came here. He was twenty at least and outweighed her by about seventy pounds. They were roughly the same height, with her being tall for a girl her age. Height didn’t mean anything to a pushy boy.

“Preston, I’m tired.” She added a whine to her voice and felt the lock click.

“Oh, come on, it’s not even a school night. We can watch a movie in the basement.” By movie, he probably meant something dirty. His parents had just gotten a fancy DVD player and put it down there for him. She’d heard moaning noises coming from the basement once from a video of some sort.

“Just tell him you’re sick or something,” the voice said hurriedly. Seneya focused on the door as the wood began to push against her weight with a small creak.

Not a bad idea, creepy voice…

“Preston, it is a school night. I’m not feeling good, Pres. I’m on my period, and I hurt.” She managed to put some whimper in her tone as she said so, and almost immediately, the prying at the door stopped. Of course, nothing stops a boy like menstruation, not that she’d really know. That particular life event hadn’t caught up with her, yet.

“What’s a period?” The voice asked. It sounded confused, but then again, so did most people that hung around Seneya long enough.

“Shh.” Seneya pantomimed with a finger over her lips.

I’m actually humoring it…

“Oh. Maybe when you’re off, then,” Preston sounded disappointed. She could imagine his bottom lip pouting from his chubby face. His shuffling step moved away, heading back down to the basement. However, what she did not hear was anything that sounded like clinking glass or liquid in bottles. She wondered if the ‘beers’ he was offering were down in the basement with his ‘movies.’

This might buy me a few days.

“Good girl.” The voice praised her, and she depressed the lock once more with the slowest of motions to dampen the click and metallic ring of the inner mechanism’s springs. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to be able to sleep for a while.

“Stop ignoring me.”

“Why?” She whispered back. She still couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it sounded right next to her no matter where she moved.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you to hear me. I helped you. I’m a good thing, I promise.” The voice felt comfortable, its words soothing to her. She liked how the screaming din of the world around her muted when he spoke with his twisting soft accent.

She crawled back onto her bed, clutching to her arms for a moment as she fought a shuddering urge to rock back and forth. A song seemed to chime in the back of her mind, lulling her into quiet peace.

“Uh-huh. I bet that’s what all the voices in peoples’ heads say.” Seneya muttered softly and dipped beneath her blankets. If Rhonda and Gary weren’t awake after Preston’s performance, she likely had a little leeway for talking.

“I’m not just a voice.” It said, sulking. “I’m a spirit, your spirit.”

“Well, spirit, I’m certain that you’re only two pills a day away from being silenced,” Seneya grumbled.

“I mean, you’re welcome to try, Seneya, but I’m going to be here all the same.”

“Where are you?” She asked quietly, barely a mutter under her breath.

“Within you, Seneya.”

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

“I’m sure you are…I’m sleep-deprived. Let me sleep, and if you’re still here in the morning, we can talk.” Seneya rubbed her temples. It had to be in her head; after all, she’d never told anyone about the name Seneya. How else would it know?

“Sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.” The self-proclaimed spirit whispered.

Billowing noises—traffic, people, mundane things of the night—sang out around her. Preston’s labored breathing hissed faintly down in the basement.

Is it all in my head, or can I hear everything?

“Sleep? Easier said than done.” Her eyes flew wide open again, focused on the ceiling above.

“You know, I’ve been with you a while. I sing to you some nights, hoping that you’ll hear. Do you want me to sing?” The voice asked sweetly—then softly. Seneya squinted her eyes, trying to shut it out.

“I think I’m good, thanks.” A wristwatch ticked on Gary’s nightstand in the other room. Clearly, in her mind’s eye, she saw the dusty hallway runner carpet, a distressed floral weave over creaking floors and a weathered older door, over bedroom shagged carpet and on a nightstand that was once part of a very nice set, ornate and hand carved. Now it stood out as tacky and garish in a mismatched assembly of furniture. The old watch sat atop, the ticks growing microscopically slower as the winding ran down.

“How about a story?” The voice grew more defined, a little deeper, a little more jovial.

“I’m sure I’ve heard every story that you’d know.”

“Not this one,” it promised.

“Try me.” She waited in silence as he spoke.

“Thank you for listening to me, little one—

Once upon a time, a long time, greater still than human memory ago

in a land so far away, they haven’t made units of measurements that can define it,

there lived a beautiful queen-

“Am I holding your interest so far?” The voice, decidedly male, asked.

“I’ll tell you when I call bullshit.”

“Hmm, well then—”

This beautiful queen was revered by all that would see her for her kindness and grace.

She was a healer by trade and could work miracles for the sick.

In those days, it was law that women were not to hold property and were governed by their men.

The beautiful queen needed a King to own her, so that none else could seize all that she earned.

Of suitors, she had many— tradesmen, warriors, and scholars.

Her brother sought to take all that she had earned.

“Ah, so she earned it all by being so beautiful?” Seneya rolled her eyes. How was something so deep in her head that she could annoy herself?

“Can you shut up and listen for a few minutes? You’ve never listened to me before, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you won’t start now.”

“Fine.” Seneya sighed and closed her eyes.

“Alright then—”

“By right, I am the firstborn son, and all that she has is mine.” Her brother declared.

Not many in those days wished to be ruled by a woman.

Her brother divided the people, taking the wicked.

Others held out hope for their queen, sending men to proclaim their love, suitors.

For each of their kind, she chose one to stand above them all.

Her hands could heal, but her lips, magic too, would burn the unworthy.

“Fair queen! Please, bless me with your magic kiss, and if I do not burn, I shall marry you,” Claimed the tradesman.

“Wise queen, let me partake of thy scalding lips. If I do not singe, I shall marry you,” said the Scholar.

“Strong queen. Let us see whose magic is stronger, and may the winner own the other,” Demanded the warlord.

To the tradesman, she came, and he offered her a contract, to share the kingdom and grow their wealth.

To the Scholar, she came, and he offered to share in their knowledge, to rule over their books and she, her people.

To the warlord, she came, and he offered her the loyalty of his people, if she might be his prize.

“The warlord is a jerk.” Seneya’s low mutter held a mote of sleepiness to it, a lull in her anxiety. She yawned and curled to her side.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Amusement played over the voice like sweet melody.

The tradesman courted her with riches and wooed her.

Upon his hand, she placed the softest of kisses, and he burned.

The Scholar, he brought her great knowledge to seduce her.

Upon his temple, she kissed, and he too was burned.

The warrior brought her his words.

“I should think a warrior need only bring his strength.” Said the queen.

“A warrior knows the profit and loss of a war. A warrior knows when to speak and when to fight. A warrior knows that strength is not only in the hand, but in the heart and mind.” The warlord stood proud.

In her hand, she held magic, and on her lips, she held flame.

“Lemme guess, he didn’t burn?” The sarcasm was weak in her quiet voice.

“What did I just say earlier? Hmm?”

“Fine.”

He did not allow her to kiss him. He took the honor himself.

He willingly came unto her hand and took her lips to his own.

Upon his face, he was branded. Where her hand touched, he was scarred.

Upon his lips, he was singed, and he breathed in her fire.

In the tears of pain and throes of fire, he laughed.

Scarred as he was, marked by her hand, he claimed her as his own.

“Now, I shall own all that you are!” He declared.

“You own only me, warrior, and that I give freely.” Said the queen.

And as he ruled his queen, she ruled their people, and so till the end of their days.

“And they lived happily ever after?” She asked with a soft yawn taking over her shuddering chest. Her eyes lost focus as she watched the browned water spots on her ceiling begin to blur into shapes and lull her into a dreamlike sleep.

“There is no ‘happily ever after.’ There is only ever after.”

She dreamed that night of a warlord with rich walnut-colored skin and auburn hair. Fingers ran through her hair. Bodies folded into one another, clutching to one another not in carnality, but with all the desperate insecurity of two individuals certain they’d float away if not tethered together.