He’s right in front of me. Nobody’s around… Could I really do this?
I hesitated, my footfalls on the steep stairs slowing down. I tried my best to make the sound of my heeled boots as muffled as possible by stepping in the layers of snow that still clung to the shaded steps. Ahead of me, a guy in a distinctive beat-up red jacket trotted down the steps, skidding slightly on the ice but keeping a firm grip on the railing to the side away from the steep drop on the left. He was almost at the bottom, but I still had time.
He’s getting away, do something do something-!
Before I could make up my mind, Theo reached the bottom of the steps and turned up the road to the corner store. I paused on the last few steps and dismally watched him disappear into the brightly lit interior that all the students loved for total lack of carding.
What am I doing? You wouldn’t have done it. Stop being crazy.
It was nearly 2 am and Theo was the first person I’d seen my whole way home from the party. I’d stayed out late in hopes of shaking off some of the rage I felt towards him. It was a huge coincidence that I’d run into him right at the edge of campus. The steps down the hill to the store and an assortment of dorms were a notoriously nasty little shortcut.
They’d been nicknamed the Medusa steps because of a surprisingly good carving of a Medusa head that some art students had done in a tree at the bottom of the stairs. A pretty good name, I thought, given how damn treacherous they could get in this fucking ice and snow. Made even more dangerous by the lack of cameras. Most people just took the wider memorial stairs- they were well lit, well frequented, and shallow enough that you weren’t likely to break your neck if you slipped on them.
Of course, it wasn’t my neck I was concerned about breaking just then.
Coward.
As I reached the bottom of the steps, I glanced over at the Medusa carving on the pine tree. I don’t know if it was because of the evergreen nature of the tree, but the carving always stood out with a bright pale green coloring. It made it both eye catching and a little eerie. It was only about a foot tall. A beautiful woman’s face, one eye dripping a single tear, surrounded by an oddly attractive halo of snakes. They almost looked like an Afro from a distance, and it was only when you got closer that you saw the teeny little fangs.
The Medusa stared at me dolefully while I considered waiting for Theo to come out of the store to… what? Confront him? He’s a 6’4” hockey player and you’re a girl who does yoga once a week. Idiot.
I swiveled smartly on my heel and sped off away from the store to my dorm room, slithering over the icy sidewalks that led to Southgate. Reaching my room, I eased open the door as softly as I could. I was hoping Ally had been able to get some rest, but her eyes- eye- immediately gleamed back at me from the dark of our room. She still had a bandage over her left eye from where Theo had shoved his thumb into her socket when he was holding her down.
“Hey babe… you’re up late?”
She snorted, and I could tell she’d been crying by the sound of it. “You mean, have you really been up moping this whole time?”
I slid into the room and quietly started taking my earrings off. One slipped out of my shaking hand and landed with a slither of beads on the desk. Ally flinched at the sound, and I winced.
“I’m so sorry. I’m… well I’m just feeling a little worked up. I’m super sorry. I know this is the last thing you need, me coming in so late.”
“It’s fine. I wasn’t doing anything anyways, and it’s not like that’s going to change soon.” She smiled wanly, her teeth reflecting oddly in the dim light from the window.
I unhooked my bra carefully and started rubbing my shoulders where the too-thin straps had been digging in. “Ally. It’s been a while of things not changing. Do you want to try maybe talking to someone? Meg said the people at St. Mary’s were really gentle after her… after that one time. Y’know.”
Ally turned away from me and I could see she was still in her normal clothes. Wearing a leather jacket to bed seemed like an awful idea, but she’d been reluctant to undress since 2 weeks ago.
“Ally?”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Her voice, naturally soft, came through cotton-candy weak from under the blankets. “I’ll think about it.”
I turned away from her as well, trying to stay calm. “Sure. It’s totally your choice of course, I just wish-“
“You wish what?” She snapped, shoving herself back around towards me. “That I wasn’t that girl? That your best friend wasn’t a statistic? That it was all okay? Me too!”
She glared at me, the white eyepatch shining in the dark next to her tear filled eye.
“I was going to say I wish you’d talk to someone! But since you mention it, you can’t actually be a statistic unless you report it,” I snapped back and then instantly wished I hadn’t.
Ally’s voice choked up again. “I’m sorry. I just. I just can’t.” She flipped back over with an air of finality.
I breathed deeply in. You lost your temper with your best friend who just got the hell beaten out of her and raped by a goddamn asshole who’s going to get away with it. Why are you yelling at her? Idiot. Keep your cool.
I breathed in once more, and then eased myself into my chilly bed.
–
The next day, I found myself exhausted by the time 7 pm rolled around. I’d been rushing to Ally’s classes as well as mine to pick up notes from the professors who’d agreed to help her out while she was still too traumatized to attend classes.
Oh god. I still had to stop by Ally’s late night music seminar.
I took a deep breath, grateful for the warmer air today that at least made the walk to talk to this particular teacher a little more pleasant. Professor Goldstein had been a real dick to her. When Ally had sent an email to her professors, backed up from a note from her doctor, stating that she couldn’t attend classes for some time, most of them responded with worry and empathy.
Professor Goldstein had seemed to go out of his way to not show either. He not only refused to let Ally take her cello assessment a week later once she’d had more time to heal, but also refused to let her attend class remotely or even get notes from him.
Ally had reported him to the campus office supposedly in charge of preventing discrimination, but she mostly got a shrug back since her assault hadn’t been reported to them and thus wasn’t qualified for intervention. Or so they said, but she wasn’t in any state to argue back too much at that time.
Fucking asshole, I thought as I stepped into the little music room where Goldstein was setting up his papers. He glanced up and I could see his eyes roll from across the room.
“Miss Khan, how can I help you?”
I stepped up to his desk and tried for an ingratiating smile. “Professor, I wanted to ask again if Ally could get your teaching notes from this week’s seminar. She’s still in a lot of pain from her- from her accident, and we’d really appreciate you helping us out.”
He sighed. “My teaching can’t be summed up in notes, you know. This is a practical seminar after all,” He stressed with a smarmy little smile that was even faker than my own.
My determination to be sweetly convincing faded quickly. “Look, Professor. She’s hurt. She can’t see out of one eye, she’s banged up- Can’t you cut her a break?”
Before the professor could respond, a familiar voice came from behind me. “Hey, I’m still able to turn up even after practice. We get pretty banged up there, you know.”
I whirled around to see Theo standing in the doorway with wide innocent eyes, trumpet case strapped to his back next to his hockey gear. Goldstein looked a little taken aback. “Well Theo- Mr. Oberbeck, that is- it’s a little worse for her. She’s been through something awful I’m given to understand, I just can’t accommodate her here.”
“Of course Professor,” Theo said while shoving past me a little too hard. He gave a scholarly little nod to Professor Goldstein and plopped down in a chair. As he made eye contact with me, I couldn’t help but think of that line from Much Ado About Nothing: Oh god, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. It had been a favorite since high school, but I was only just starting to appreciate some of its darker qualities. But, as in the play, I was all too aware of my physical shortcomings here.
I just turned and left without a word, feeling both men’s eyes on my back. Ally would be mad, but I had a plan: Get her some of her favorite Pocky from the corner store to appease her, and then craft a really heartfelt email to Goldstein as a last ditch effort. Grateful for the warmer weather that would make my usual shortcut less icy, I started for the steep steps while thinking how best to woo Goldstein. He was an asshole, but hey, maybe he reacted better to the written word.
However, my reverie abruptly cut short in confusion as I reached the Medusa steps. The shortcut somehow looked icier than yesterday, despite the overnight melt since then. I glanced behind me in confusion and found the path that led to the steps totally ice-free. But ahead of me, it looked like the steps had never even heard of warmth.
I hesitated, the weird weather phenomenon fighting with my urge to get to the corner store and Ally as quickly as possible. It was spooky, but… maybe a result of the deep shade the forest that closed around the steps? Either way, it was still quicker than going all the way around to the memorial steps. I sighed and gingerly started down the steps.
Instantly, I gasped in shock and my breath showed in clouds in front of me. The steps weren’t just icier- they were actually far colder than the path I had just stepped off. How is that possible? I started to step back off the steps, afraid of whatever the hell was causing this.
Then something made me pause again. Someone wearing an awfully familiar beat up red jacket was picking his way down the steps ahead of me.
But… he’s in class with Goldstein. I just left him there. Didn’t I? It must be another guy on the hockey team with the same varsity jacket.
I called out. “Hey!”
The figure in the jacket didn’t turn. In fact, he gave no indication he’d heard me at all.
I tried again, paying attention to if my voice carried properly. “Theo! Hey, red jacket! Can we talk?”
Again, he didn’t even pause in his careful steps- he just kept concentrating on the ice coating the stone beneath his feet. And this time, I’d noticed something odd: My voice sounded muffled, wrapped in the dark green blanket of the trees. It’s like the forest didn’t want him to hear me.
The stairs seemed to shorten before me, bringing Theo’s form closer and closer to me. The trees started to close in front of him while inviting me in. They wanted me to go after him.
It was too much. I backed slowly away from the stairs, letting the red jacket disappear down into the chill. Even once I’d stepped back over the threshold onto the wonderfully mundane path, I couldn’t stop shivering. I started almost running as I made for the memorial steps instead.
–
Breathing heavily, I finally skidded into Southgate. My hair was sticking to my face and I knew I must look crazy. Not wanting Ally to think anything of it, I passed by our door and plopped down in the common room to let my heart rate calm down. People stared at me as they went by, but nobody stopped.
After some time, I went and washed my face with cool water in the bathroom. I looked up and made eye contact with myself in the mirror. A girl with green eyes walked by behind me and made unwitting eye contact with me, then looked abruptly away. I could tell she’d been worried by my intense gaze. To tell the truth, I was also worried. Was I losing it? No… it was just the stress of dealing with this. Best to just go to bed and you’ll feel better tomorrow.
I knocked lightly on the the dorm room door, heard no reply, and slipped silently in. Ally was already asleep at 8 pm and I slowly followed suit. I could still see the white of her bandage staring at me in the dark as I drifted off.
–
It was now Saturday morning and I found myself at the top of the Medusa steps again. I’d decided hand delivering the letter to Professor Goldstein was best, and had left him reading it with a carefully solemn look on his face in his office. I’d wanted to just go home via the memorial steps and collapse, but I’d passed the gym and been enraged all over again seeing Theo giving me a cheery little wave from the treadmill by the window. Suddenly, the idea of meeting him on the steep stairs appealed to me.
I eyed the deep ice that still covered the steps, totally out of step with the 60 degree day I left behind me. The sunlight seemed to stop at the first step, leaving them in a perpetual twilight. This time, I’m ready.
The ice crackled beneath my feet as I started down the slope, keeping a death grip on the railing to my right. And as expected, I saw the red jacket bobbing down the stairs ahead of me, his breath puffing out like a steam train.
I didn’t even question how this was possible when I’d seen Theo at the gym not 10 minutes ago. I was supposed to meet him here on the steps, here in the dark and the cold. I had a feeling that I could shove him on a plane to China and still find him an hour later on these steps.
…I would eat his heart…
The wind felt like it was talking to me. The pine trees seemed to press in ahead of Theo, his steps slowing as he got to the tricky little landing in the middle of the stairs. The one that always iced over smooth and pristine with a slope to the left away into the ravine. The slab seemed to tilt further and further as he navigated it. I felt the trees at my back, strong and evergreen.
I leapt at him.
The air went out of him with a whoosh as I hit his back broadside, doing my best to imitate linebackers I’d seen on TV. I plowed my shoulder into the small of his back and felt a horrible kind of relief as his feet went out from under him and he started the slide to the waiting forest floor. He’s dead! He’s dead!
Theo’s reflexes kicked in just as he was about to slip over. His left arm shot out, long enough to reach the bottom of the railing on the other side. The other hand closed around my ankle with a viciousness that brought me thumping down to a couple stairs above him.
I screamed but felt the trees muffling us both. Theo’s eyes turned up to mine, his handsome face twisted with hatred.
“You! You fucking bitch….”
I kicked as hard as I could at his hand, but he’d developed quite a grip from 3 years of college hockey. A small girl was no match for him, as Ally had already found out. Theo pulled himself up to a kneeling position, his arm now firmly hooked around the railing. He wasn’t falling anytime soon. He gave my leg a hard yank and I slid - bump bump- down the stairs to land right next to his knee. I felt something snap in my ribcage as I bounced off the steep steps and I screamed again. The trees rustled with agitation over us, and I felt ice start to crawl up my side and onto my chest. Theo didn’t seem to notice anything but me.
He barely looked human as he loomed over me, his expression filled with shock and anger. “You tried to push me!”
I struggled as he moved to plant one foot on my side, and suddenly became all too aware I’d ended up on the side of the stairs without the railing but with the drop.
I’m sorry Ally, I thought as I realized I was going to die today. I tried.
He shifted his grip on the railing for better leverage and pulled back his leg to kick me off the edge. “I’ll fucking kill you, you crazy goddamn-“
I closed my eyes. I love you.
A horrible squeal of metal rang out all of a sudden. Theo yelped. My eyes flew open again.
He’d yanked his arm away from the railing, cradling it. I could see thin red drops of blood falling onto the ice beneath us, forming small flowers on the snow. What-? I glanced up and gasped at what I saw.
I’d seen a statue once, at the Vatican: A man and his two sons, being devoured by snakes. Ally had taken me, and I remembered her happily chatting away about it being some Trojan priest getting punished for doing something to annoy the gods during the whole wooden horse saga. I also remember barely hearing her because the statue so horrified me. The face of the largest snake as it bit the side of the man was terrifying. Malicious and totally driven. This one was even worse because it was moving.
The railing reared back, hissing. The black metal merged seamlessly into black scales, the end of the pole sprouting teeth. Teeth far longer than any natural animal’s would be. A viper, a nightmare.
Theo and I both stared stupidly for a heartbeat at the snake-railing, then the metal monster turned to look at me. The pines reflected against its black skin made its empty eye sockets look dark green. I realized abruptly the implications of Theo letting go of the railing.
He realized it too but just a moment later than I did. He turned to me just in time for my foot to land squarely in the middle of his chest and send him spinning over the edge. He didn’t even have time to yell. I saw his hands scrambling for something, anything, to hang onto but they only found air.
He landed with a sickening crack at the bottom of the cliff. I leaned over to look and initially had the weird impression that his red jacket had landed perfectly under his head. The spreading blood in the snow looked beautiful.
I shakily leaned back against the railing. The fangs were gone. He was gone. I watched as the ice seemed to race away from me down the steps, melting as if summer was hot on its heels. It took the drops of Theo’s blood with it. Warmth returned to the air, and the trees seemed to sigh.
The railing felt reassuringly solid beneath my hands as I pulled myself up and leaned heavily on it as I made my way to the bottom of the steps. I’d find an urgent care somewhere. It was over. The Medusa carving seemed paler than ever against the vibrant and healthy brown of the tree trunk as I passed it at the bottom. There was no tear under the eye anymore. It looked serene yet stern. I felt oddly certain that nobody would ever find evidence related to me here.
–
It took almost a week for Theo’s body to be recovered and written off as a tragic accident on slippery stairs late at night. The body should have been obvious, but the ground was so muddy that he had started to sink into the ground. I overheard a friend of Theo’s telling a group that when they finally found him, roots had twined up around his hair in an odd parody of a lovers embrace. One stem was even starting to poke into an eye socket. It made him hard to see and even harder to dig up. The roots didn’t seem to want to let go.
Ally had cried when she first heard the news from the campus newspaper, and I never told her anything more. Her tears of relief were a joy to see, all the more so when we realized her damaged eye was leaking too. Tears meant it was still alive, that it could be saved.
On our way up to see the campus nurse about it, she suggested going by the Medusa steps. I understood the morbid need to see where it happened, but it was still an odd feeling to stand at the bottom of the steps knowing what I had done.
She turned to me, real elation on her face for the first time in months. “Race me?” Her bad eye still flowed with tears, clean and pure.
I nodded with a smile. She took off up the steps and never missed a beat despite the uneven nature of the stairs. I could almost see the stairs flattening under her feet to give her a good running surface.
I waited a moment before going after her as my eye was caught by the carving. Medusa’s face curved into a subtle smile, her features standing out against the tree with now oddly red leaves.
I held her gaze for a moment, then went flying up after Ally.