Like Velveteen and Cave

My skin crawled at the sound of the cries. My guts tightened and my steps were shaky. I can't say why I was going toward, rather than quickly away from, that eerie sound; or why there were tears on my cheeks.

I wasn't careless. I never am. The world is a trap, full of pitfalls and predators and seemingly benign items that can kill you. And sometimes there are living things. Are they people? Some of them may be. I have never gotten close enough to judge, not since Nona stopped. I should have already scuttled away from the commotion as quickly and quietly as possible. Commotions draw things, things I don't want to meet. But something in that sound pulled at me. So I crept, carefully, as quietly as I could, nearer.

Still, it felt like a trap. Whatever was making the noise was also twisting and rolling around in a drift of rubbish, as if to draw attention, making a suicidal racket. My heart was also twisting and rolling. 'What is the matter with you,' I asked myself. Or maybe it was Nona's voice I heard in my head. I still do sometimes. Either way, I got no reasonable reply, just a resumption of my seemingly involuntary creeping into danger.

But I could see it now, whatever it was. Some kind of critter, small, with thin, pale limbs that waved as it rolled. And something shiny glinted as it tumbled. In one spot I could see it digging in, drawing blood. No wonder it was screaming. As I drew nearer I could see the strange, shiny wire? No, not wire. Something metal though. It wrapped the squirming thing and where it wrapped tightly, the thing bled.

I watched for a while, wanting to run. But run where? It occurred to me that I had never really understood the concept 'to be torn' until now. I wanted to run away exactly as much as I wanted to run over there and ...I didn't know what. And the thought of doing either upset me just as deeply. So I watched, frozen, and waited for something to change. Even that scared me.

The shrieking and tumbling gradually stopped. It should have been a relief. It wasn't. The danger may have been lessened. But I was no less affected. I felt as if I was going to be sick. It wasn't still and quiet, just stiller and quieter. Instead of rolling and screaming it was now panting and whimpering. For some reason that terrified me.

It also got me moving. I didn't bolt across the space between. I'm not stupid. I hugged the shadows and walked carefully, but rather quickly to crouch nearby and look more closely. Was that a chain? It seemed like too hefty a word for the thin item that had the little animal trussed up and exhausted from trying to escape. Whatever it was it had dug in and drawn blood in half a dozen places that I could see from where I was. And just like that I knew I couldn't let it stay that way, that I had to try and save it.

I was so frightened of what I was doing that my brain went on vacation. I guess this is what Nona was talking about when she said that. My eyes could see what my body was doing and I suppose some part of me was taking care, looking out for danger, but my mind was full of memory. In it I sat in our only patch of sunlight, under the skylight in the atrium in Library as Nona read to me. I could hear her voice, feel it where it still lives inside me, but only pick out random words. I think they are ones that I've remembered, not because they were especially meaningful to me, but because I didn't understand them and still don't, despite having looked them up. Words like, velveteen, waterfall, elevator, cave, mother; I'd tried looking them up. If there was one resource I had in plenty, it was reference materials. But it didn't help. Each definition was full of more words I had to look up and when I did, it didn't always help. It just revealed more words I didn't understand. Still listening comforted me and still does, even though her voice has been only in my head for longer than it was ever in my ears.

I don't know how I ended up with Nona in Library. If she ever told me the explanation must have been incomprehensible to me. But she may not have. Despite all she taught me and showed me how to learn for myself, there were things Nona never explained. There were questions she said she couldn't answer and others she said she didn't want to. And there were things she tried very hard to explain that I just couldn't wrap my mind around. She talked about Before regularly. But the words she used had no meaning for me and eventually I think she realized she couldn't adequately explain them to someone whose experience of the world did not include any reference to that time other than books.

The books were something else. I knew them, know them, in their vast stacks and shelves and piles and boxes, better than anyone else probably ever has. Maybe I've read more of them than anyone, even Nona. I don't know. I have no way of finding out. All that information, pages and pages beyond counting, and there is so much that isn't there.

My age for instance. Nona knew how old she was, at least for a while. But she didn't know how old I was and had no way to find out. I'm not really sure I understand what age is. I get years and months and days, though I no longer try to keep track of them. But what is birthday? What is born? Like velveteen and cave, the definition is obscure to me. My name is another mystery. I know that a name is what a person is called. But I don't know if I have one, now I mean. I probably had one once, but Nona wouldn't have known that and if she asked me, I was too young or too traumatized to tell her. Or maybe I just didn't remember. I know now that Nona might not have been her name. I looked it up once and found out that it might mean sleeping sickness or ninth or the youngest of the three Fates in Roman mythology, none of which was helpful. Later I read a story in which a child referred to her grandmother as Nona. But grandmother doesn't mean any more to me than mother does. In any case, she called me a lot of things; boy, you, honey, love, none of which seem to be names either. I guess it doesn't matter now. In my head I am I and there's nowhere else that anyone is going to call me anything anymore.

While my mind was listening to Nona read, my body had scooped up the suffering creature and stuffed it under my poncho against my belly. Then I carefully made my way back to Library, checked to make sure there was nothing around to see or hear, and let myself inside. The gate across the top door into the basement looks like it's probably locked and has not been moved since Before, that's what Nona said. I have lubricated the hinges so it's quiet when I open it just enough to pass through. This is the First Line of Defense. If something did figure out how to open it, all they'd see would be a flight of stairs with a big, heavy door at the bottom. This one really is locked. I have the key. I have it now. Before she stopped Nona kept it in her pocket at all times, pinned in there with what she called a safety pin, because it kept the key safe I guess.

I bolt the gate, unlock the inner door, go inside and bolt that one too. Then I slip my poncho off over my head from the back and bundle the little critter into it and onto the table. I did all that as I usually do, in the dark. But now I need light. So I crank the lantern, doing it longer than I want to so it won't shut off when I really need it, then inspect my find, which had become still and quiet.

It was almost completely hairless except for some fuzz on it's head, which didn't look finished somehow and scared me a little. There was a pulse throbbing there, I guess that's what it was. I decided to assume it was still alive. I knew I needed to make it clean and treat the places where it bled if I wanted it to stay that way, and somehow I did. But first I had to get that thing off. There are wire cutters in the tool kit. So I got those and then tried to decide where I could cut without hurting it any more. I gently turned it over, hoping there was a better spot to slip the wire cutter under on its back. That's when I saw the shape. Something was attached to the metal that wound around the little thing. It was gold, like the rest. There was no place I could fit the wire cutters. But next to the shape I found something else. A little circle with a stem on it that looked like it had a track to move in. Maybe it would open the thing so I wouldn't have to try to cut. As I worked at it, I remembered where I'd seen that shape before. It was on the bookmarks at the library desks, red but the same shape. They said I <3 My Library. Nona said the <3 meant 'love'. But how could something that hurt so much be love?