Don't Cross Me {Onyx}

I swallowed a banshee in my sleep, and it comes out in every breath I take. I whimper instead of sighing, wail when I mean to yawn. Grief chokes every corner of my body like dust. I feel old. I feel lost.

Somewhere below the floors of this shop, my brother rots. By now, his white shirt will be nothing but threads, chewed away by time and insects - the same ones that strip the flesh from his face, his throat, his talented hands, once as good at handling flick-knives as they were at handling needles.  All that will be left will be the sleeping shadow of his bones, and the razor blade my mother put lovingly behind his teeth as he was dressed for his funeral.

I haven't felt fit to defend my family similarly, with a blade concealed behind closed lips as I walk through town, since I watched his hologram cut down in our own living room, him being hundreds of miles away. My other siblings have let it pass, the memory resting like tiredness under they eyes rather than on their shoulders, and I know they resent me for not being able to let it go, too. But how can I ever explain to them how I treasured my brother like a second part to myself? How can I show them that when he died, I died with him?

And so instead of prowling these dusty roads, protecting my family's name and legacy, I stand behind a counter and let my eyes grow foggy, my brain slow. No one comes into our shop anymore unless they, like new sailors drawn in by sirens for the first and last time, haven't been warned about the death-curse that hangs like a steam inside these timbers. My ears ring vacantly and I let myself stare into space - beyond it - counting down the minutes until I can once again disconnect myself from my duties, and from my body.

The ring of the bell above the door doesn't  even startle me, and I don't bother to refocus my eyes. All I hope is that this customer is put off by my absent presence and retreats back out of the shop again. I allow my fingers to fold a small piece of fabric behind the counter without looking, seemingly occupied, but even this doesn't drive my unwanted companion away. They meander along the front-of-shop window, assessing our goods for sale, without doubt completely unaware of the minute pieces of weaponry sewn into the brim of each hat, the hem of each skirt, giving them their real purpose. I know without even looking at them - her - that this customer is her for a job much more mundane than the gang warfare we usually cater to.

I think of the way Jenoah used to walk around this shop. His quiet confidence was notable even to people outside our own family, though we appreciated it more significantly. He moved with the grace of someone who knew himself, and knew the floors he walked on could - would - someday be his.  And now... Now all I can do is picture that walk, imagine my brother weaving between customers as deftly as if they were the fabric he was showing off to them. Now all I can do is imagine his secret, yet smug smile as he let another sibling take shift and silently sat down in his chair by the door. The chair this girl now has the nerve to settle herself into.

My senses snap to attention, the predatory instincts I was raised on switched back on in an instant. I am at her throat, scissors in hand, faster than it takes her even to realise I had re-entered my body.

She smells like bread and hard soap, and I can feel her heartbeat drumming under the hand I now have pressed around her throat. My teeth are bared, my eyes shining with territorial fury, my ears no longer ring with an off-tone chime of aching sorrow but with a constant flurry of howdareshe howdareshe howdareshe.

I hold the pointed tip of the scissors threateningly against her jugular, and whisper to her with a venom reserved only for those who, like she, have wronged me and my family personally,

"what... gives you the right... to sit where he sits. How dare you take his place."

Some mantra about customer care and etiquette croaks in the back of my head like an old recording, but my head it too filled with rage and hot anguish to pay it any attention now.