Human Spines

Teaching Telliyon-I

Emmeline

Eight years ago

        Last week all I did was clean Maddy's and my room. I haven't gone to school once since I started second grade. I haven't eaten since last month, I haven't spoken a word since last Thursday, and I haven't looked in a mirror in four weeks. I'm afraid I won't see myself looking back at me. But despite my lack of living, I seem to be learning like a newborn baby. Everything— everything— taught to the Demon repeatedly possessing me sticks in my brain, so for the rare moments I'm myself, I feel like I'm about to burst with new words and meanings and understanding.

        "Come on, Emmy, hurry. Mom said Aunt Thena and Uncle Morbick are gonna be there!" Maddy strides in front of me. We're walking home from another day of school I missed but gained an almost impossible amount of knowledge from. Including the fact that the Demon has been letting Maddy call me Emmy, like she did when I was a baby. As soon as I learned to pronounce my whole name, I made sure it was what everybody called me. I'm different from Maddy in this way. She throws a fit when people call her Maddeline.

        "Will you please not call me Emmy?" I ask, speeding up so I'm right next to her. But just as I finish my question, I trip, and before I can feel bad for breaking a rule and getting hurt, I land directly on the thing that tripped me. And hear a voice in my head.

        "My name is Telliyon."

****

        We're all seated at the dinner table, eating with Mom's sister, Aunt Thena, and her husband, Uncle Morbick. I can see Telliyon in the corner of the kitchen, sitting on my backpack, doing my homework. A spelling book is laid on his... or her, lap, pencil flying across the page, rewriting the same twenty words, over and over again. Telliyon is small, almost smaller than me, but with a much larger head and enormous hands. Its skin is like tie-dyed cake fondant. What it must use for eyes is a single semicolon, cut from the center of its face. It has arms and legs and a neck and a body, but it is completely bare. No wrinkles or nails or hair. Not even a mouth or nose to go with the semicolon hole that is its face. Just rainbow tie-dye.

        I wonder what everybody else sees. A pencil zooming across a floating book in the corner? Someone would notice something like that, wouldn't they?

        "What're you staring at, Emmy?" Uncle Morbick asks, leaning across the table toward me. I like Uncle Morbick, I really do, but I won't anymore if he calls me Emmy.

        "May I please ask that you call me Emmeline, Uncle Morbick? I enjoy my name." I politely request, eyeing his elbows on the table. He huffs out a laugh.

        "Well then, Emmeline, what was it you were staring at?" He asks again.

        "I don't know, what was I staring at, Uncle Morbick?" I counter, folding my hands and setting them on my lap. His thick eyebrows raise, surprised at my answer. He glances at Dad, beside me. "I thought you said she was still sweet and in second grade," he whispers.

        Dad shrugs. "I said Dessie May was sweet, but Emmeline's learned a lot at school this year. Like how to ask questions."

        Uncle Morbick turns back to me. "Well I'd say you were watching your school stuff. You're into learning now, aren't you?"

        I nod and continue eating, enjoying this chance Telliyon's given me to be with my family. But I'm trying not to think about what Telliyon's behavior must have been like if they thought my rude questions were just me learning. Finished, I stand to take my bowl to the sink—