Every Heart a Doorway
“She knew, in an academic way, that she should hurry after them—that she shouldn’t stand out here alone, where anything could happen to her. But that seemed hasty, and dangerous. Stillness was safer. Stillness had saved her before, and it would save her now.
She had forgotten how much like pomegranate juice a bloodstain could look, in the right light.
She had forgotten how beautiful it was.
So now: stand still, so still that she became one with the background, that she could feel her heart slowing, five beats becoming four, becoming three, until there was no more than one beat per minute, until she barely had to breathe. Maybe Jack was right; maybe her ability to be still was preternaturally honed. It didn’t feel like anything special. It just felt correct, as if this was what she should have been all the time, always.
Her parents worried because she didn’t eat enough, and maybe that was something they needed to worry about when she was moving like a hot, fast thing, but they didn’t understand.
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