Terra Firma

Ivy

When you're young, you think your marriage will be perfectly formed, without chaos and chance.

I'd been guilty of this, especially as a little girl. When I thought weddings I thought bells and white flowers, a honeymoon that was high class, high priced, and unflawed. A groom that was tall, tan, and possessed a smile as white as my dress.

But chaos doesn't believe in weddings. Outlaws cannot take comfort in a 5 star hotel. And psychos are often too mad to bother with brushing their teeth or running combs through their hair.

I suppose if you wanted to catalog the events thus far in my life, the tumultuous time between my transformation and the night I'd wreaked havoc on Gotham city would be our version of dating (which was probably no more than a month, I'm guessing) Our transition from that into some strange form of a partnership probably began when he fell from that building, and I let the men throw me in the back of a cushioned van, wrapping me up in a strait jacket.

Even though I was only trying to help.

And the honeymoon? Traveling from sleazy motel to run down inn, hiding scars with high collared jackets and scarves, unruly hair with stylish hats. Killing the occasional pedophile, robbing the occasional poorly secured bank. Returning only to watch a horror movie on a pile-of-shit TV and surrender to physical urge while businessmen next door cheated on their wives.

My life wasn't much at all. And yet, I was legend.

And happy. Imagine that.

Happy.

Through all the nights in the asylum, I'd had the most wonderful dreams. It was probably the only thing that kept me sane.

I knew I was dreaming now, for this one would often repeat itself. Jack and I, unscarred and sane.

Only this time, it was slightly different.

We stared silently up at the huge garden gate, covered in greens and all sorts of flowers I couldn't name. At the very top was an inscription:

abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Jack smiled at me and we entered anyway.

"There's a great big tree up on the hill..." Jack grabbed my wrist and giggled like a child, galloping into bright sunlight, passing a maze of hedges that stood threateningly beside the scenery. I could see the apple tree standing crookedly in the distance. It's branches dripped darkly with red.

I heard a voice in the maze and stopped.

"Come on May..." He pulled impatiently and I waved him away. I felt him turn and walk on, shrugging.

The voice coughed.

I got closer to the hedges and gasped.

It was filled with dead men, tangled between thickets of leaves and thorny flowers, gouging their skin and making the ground around my feet squelch with blood. I grabbed at my stomach, feeling sick.

I looked up when I heard a weak cough.

A woman. She looked so much like Rachel I felt tears. But when she spoke, her voice was nagging and annoying.

"Hello. I've been waiting for you."

"...What... what... who are you?"

"Jeannie." She smiled. Her skin was covered in dried blood and the thorns were wrapped so thickly around her skin that she could only move her arms. There was an awful smell about her. Like she was rotting from the inside out. In one hand she held a cigarette. She would bring it up to her cracked lips on occasion to puff it.

"Who did this to you?" I asked, reaching out to touch a thorn. It retreated, refusing to harm me.

Jeannie raised her eyebrows. Her brown hair sat sweaty and limp against her forehead and her green eyes twinkled humorously,

"You did."

I stuttered, "But I... I didn't mean... I don't even know..."

"Sh." She coughed harshly, taking up the cigarette again, "It's alright. I've been waiting to die. Consider it a favor... I've just been waiting to talk to you. To... warn you." Her eyes traveled over my hair, covered in a crown of orchids, to the tree in the distance.

"Warn me?"

"About him," She looked at me, "Lemmee tell you this: he loves you. And that's okay. But listen: he'll hurt you. If you open up to him. Just like all the others. He'll tear you up like he did to his face."

"But he promised..."

"It doesn't matter what he promised. He's too crazy. He'll get too mad or too excited..."

She coughed and I nodded.

"I know." I said.

"I don't think you do... love is blind they say, but I don't think that's right. I think it makes you blind."

I could hear footsteps off in the distance. Jeannie put the cigarette in my hand quickly.

"I'm only telling you because you freed me."

"Wait!" I called. But the hedges ate her up and swallowed her whole. Despite it, she smiled.

Jack was laughing behind me. It was light and happy, nothing like what it was when the dreams ended.

"Who are you talking at, silly? Here, I brought you an apple..." His voice faltered as I turned and his brown eyes traveled from my hair to my lips tenderly, suddenly igniting as they snapped to the cigarette.

His face twisted in that awful, menacing way, and he squeezed the spare apple so hard it splattered, spraying the delightful green grass with blood. He licked his lip, red with the juice from his own apple.

I saw his eye twitch and took a step back warily.

"You were.. smoking...?"

I held up my hands, "No, no. It was her... you don't understand." I dropped the cancerous stick and the hedges behind me flamed up instantly. The hunger of the flames at my back matching the burning rage in his now black eyes.

"You were smoking!" His arms snapped up and he snarled, rushing at me with fingers curled and covered in red. I could feel his hands on my neck, tightening like a vine, could feel the heat of flames licking flirtatiously at my bare back.

I awoke, gasping for air, snapping up like a dead woman from the grave. I grasped desperately at my face, now covered in moisture. Whether from tears or sweat I don't know. I shuddered, letting my eyes adjust to darkness. No noise, no movement. No flames, no blood. Nothing but a lone cricket whispered away and the occasional muttering of the man who, seconds earlier within my mind, was strangling me to death and smiling.

I shuddered, looking at him. I had to calm myself. I stumbled into the shitty little bathroom of the motel room, reaching and turning on a dim light. I let the tap run for a few minutes, reaching with shaking hands to splash it over my heated face. The pipes made strange gurgling noises and I bent low over the sink, letting the white noise calm my nerves. I sighed, taking a yellowed hand towel and patting my skin with it.

I jolted up as my face met the mirror. He was there, behind me, blinking and slouching as he usually did.

"What's uh, what's wrong?" He scratched his dirty hair tiredly and stared up into the crummy light, now blinking repeatedly, licking his lip.

I whirled, feeling my hand fumble awkwardly as it hit a shaving razor and hissed as it fell to the floor, looking down at the palm of my freshly cut hand.

"C'mere, butterfingers, I'll fix it."

I shook my head and bit my lip.

He frowned slightly, raising his arms up and reaching for the twisting vine in my arm. I took a step back and found myself trapped against the sink as he stared at me madly. It took everything I had not to look frightened as he reached behind me in the cabinet for a band-aid. And even then we both knew he could smell the rare emotion on me.

When he finished sealing my hand, he stared into my eyes. He looked slightly curious. The scars on his face stood out severely in the fluorescent light, twitching like his eyes.

I snapped away when he touched my neck. But he moved faster, pinning me and reaching both hands around my neck wildly as his mood shifted. I could feel my knees wobble unforgivingly as he made those odd shushing noises.

"Sh, sh, sh. Trust me. Trust me." He kept his hands on my neck, stroking the curve of it with his thumbs.

He knew. He always knew. It was just something he had. I can't even tell you what it was.

He let go, kissing my neck lightly.

"I won't. I told you I won't." His voice snarled suddenly and he turned, walking off to bed again as if that whole moment was nothing at all.

I stared up at the blinking light and sighed wearily, following him.

Cosette

Miles away, my mother was waking up from her own nightmare.

And now, fate was reaching its dirty hands to play with me before taking over my life fully, setting up another nightmare for a young woman in Gotham City, trying desperately to pry herself from chaos and tragedy, but only finding herself in it all over again.

My phone rang and I grumbled as I glanced quickly at the caller id.

"Jay, why are you calling me this late?"

"I knew you'd be up. You and your stupid horror movies."

I scoffed, "You are so drunk."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey. Did I tell you?"

"Tell me what?" I laughed. Jay's smooth voice was slurring loudly.

"Some redhead was found dead in a dumpster this morning." He laughed.

My heart quickened and I frowned, "There's nothing funny about that."

"No, no, you're right. But the weird thing was, no evidence! This guy was clean as a whistle. A real pro."

I sighed. It couldn't have been my father. He always left some kind of card or was too apathetic to bother cleaning very well. They were still off rambling, I guessed.

"That's nice Jay. Go to bed."

"There's a carnival coming soon..." He sang.

"That's nice."

"We're gonna go! You me and Angel. Homer too."

"That's nice."

"Okay. Well have fun with Night of the Living Dead or whatever you're getting all mental over."

"Jay..."

"Just sayin'."

Silence for a few moments, other than the zombies groaning on my big screen television.

"Actually," Jay rambled on drunkenly, "There was one thing..."

"Hm?" I feigned interest.

"A puzzle. Some kind of... word puzzle. A riddle."

He giggled and hung up.

I thought nothing of it as I turned back to mindless violence.

But in two days, it would mean everything.