once upon {another} time // moira

Heaven calling in the distance
So I packed my things and ran
Far away from all the trouble
I had caused with
My two hands

Snip. Snip. Snip. “Hold still!”

“Sorry, Mrs. D.”

Snip. Snip. Snip. “You said not too much off the top, right?”

“Yeah.”

Snip.

It’s become a monthly occurrence where it used to be a seasonal one, me sitting in a creaky chair in the middle of a worn-down but still homey kitchen (I never had somewhere like this, and even if the sunshine-yellow paint has faded and the countertop is cracked in places and the table wobbles a bit, there’s a sense of security and family here that I’ve always liked) as Mrs. Dempsey hovers around my head with a pair of kitchen shears like a hummingbird flitting around a flower. She’s as much of a fixture in my life as the stars or the background noise of the slums or the feel of dirt beneath my nails, another piece in the patchwork puzzle of my existence that falls in with a past-present-future that only ever seems to revolve and end up right back where it started.

I can remember her hauling me into the house for the first time when I was just a kid, nine years old and painfully scrawny with matted locks of brown that I couldn’t be sure was dirt or just the color of my hair dangling down to my shoulders. For goodness’ sake, boy, doesn’t your mother cut your hair? You look like a Shetland Sheepdog! she’d said, clucking disapprovingly and shoving my head under a running faucet as Ella watched with wide eyes and rare silence from the doorway, already trained at her tender age to never trust anyone. I don’t have a mother, ma’am, I had replied, respectful to a tee simply because it had been impossibly long since I had been inside an actual house, much less been dragged into one with threats promises of a haircut and the opportunity to wash up with real soap. Her face had shifted then, kind features knitting their way into a bone-deep sort of sadness, but she never said anything more. She cut my hair so short I couldn’t even rake my fingers through it, even cajoled Ella into allowing her to comb through her own tangled mess of dark strands and trim off the broken ends, and most astonishingly, she rifled through her almost empty cabinets and presented us with an actual loaf of bread before she sent us on our way.

From then on it was the same story over again every few months. Every time my hair would grow past my ears she’d snatch Ella and I off the streets as we walked from school to wherever we were sleeping that night, hack the accumulated growth off and slip us a morsel of food even though it was obvious they didn’t have much to begin with. You can say what you want about the gutter, but it’s a fact that the decent ones among us take care of our own. Those brief moments of kindness were rest in a world where we had to fight for everything, a few days of not wondering where our next meal was coming from or who we’d have to beat up or steal from to get it. One good turn deserves another, they say, and I took that to heart, which is why ever since I picked up a job down at one of the gem refineries I’ve been stopping by every month for a trim and paying her for her effort. The Dempseys were never well-off, but it goes without saying that they’re worse now. No one ever says why things are the way they are, why both parents lost their jobs so suddenly and without justification, why everyone’s faces are etched with worry or why the girls are all starting to look so terribly skinny, but that’s only because the question doesn’t need to be asked when the answer is on wanted posters slapped onto every flat surface in the District - Kaelen Dempsey, Wanted Dead or Alive. He was nothing to them, a cousin, a nephew, never present at family functions, but logic has a way of not being able to stop fear. No one wants to be tied to a last name that killed thirty people, no matter the distance of the bloodline or the fact that I have only seen them dispense kindness into the world rather than poison.

“All right, you’re done.” I hop up, scraping my palm back and forth over the close-cropped style (she still took a bit too much off the top, but my hair grows like a weed and will be too long for my liking before I know it) and grinning appreciatively as I fumble through my pockets, pulling out the few wadded-up bills they contain and tossing them on the table. Mrs. Dempsey glares up at me from her tiny height the way she always does, brandishing the handle of the broom she’s been using to sweep up the feather-tufts of hair from the faded linoleum. “Auggie Dahl, don’t you dare –”

“I don’t have a family to feed,” I cut her off, already headed for the door in case she tries to chase after me and force me to take the money back, which has happened more than once. “I still owe you for eleven years of haircuts, Mrs. D. It’s not charity, it’s interest.”

The sounds and sights of life as a family wash over me as I cut through the living room toward the front door. The grainy TV screen crackles out a tinny Capitol news report. The youngest sister dashes out the front door without so much as a goodbye, gone in a clicking flurry of high heels and a flash of dyed-bright hair. Upstairs, someone is singing, a stormy alto whose words I can’t make out flitting through the air. And perhaps the most interesting, in the far corner of the living room there sits a girl, perched in front of a spindle-legged table topped with some sort of game board, all checkered surface and crystalline pieces. The oldest sister, I’m fairly sure, having watched them all grow up alongside me in fleeting glimpses through the kitchen doorway. She’s seemingly lost in concentration, amber-dark eyes narrowed in speculation as a delicate hand hovers over a single crystal statuette before decidedly moving it forward. Her face lights up in triumph, almost childish glee and in a split second she’s risen from her place and darted to the other side of the table, moving a black piece forward with an audible ah-ha! of victory. I blink once, twice, my hand still half-extended towards the doorknob before my curiosity gets the better of me and I turn on my heel, crossing the creaky floorboards in a few strides and settling into the abandoned chair across from her. I’ve always liked odd things, shining stars in life’s constellations, and she could be Casseopia, queen of the night sky, made of the brightest stars but always upside-down, beautiful but always a little off.

“What are you doing?” I ask, staring at the confusing mess of crystal statues and then focusing on her face, trying to pick apart the stories that dance behind her eyes and on the tips of her fingers. “This looks… complicated.”

I’ve always liked complicated things. I am one, and we’re all drawn to each other after a while.

Alone we travel on
With nothing but a shadow
We fled, far away
Hold your horses now
Sleep until the sun goes down