In the City of Elizabeth

In the city of Elizabeth, which is very far away from most important places but very close to the villages that sneak out from its edges before succumbing to the forests, there lived a girl who had never smiled, even in that blissful moment in which she entered the world. She hated the city in which she lived. The girl worked in a bookstore, but she didn’t like books, and she always wore a large, feathery hat, even though she hated hats. The girl who had never smiled, who was named Sadie, didn’t really know why she spent her days walking the streets of a city she hated to a job that she didn’t like, wearing a hat that she secretly hoped would blow away into the sky, surpassing the clouds and sailing into the sun. She just did.

In the city of Elizabeth, strange things have been known to happen. It is worth noting, at this point, that Sadie strongly disliked strange things, but that didn’t stop them from happening in the city of Elizabeth. People often disappeared without leaving behind so much as a thread, or an eyelash. The graveyard moaned day in and day out, and wispy lights breezed through still air, traveling through and around the tombstones. The street cats – housecats did not exist in the city of Elizabeth - gazed out from their yellow marble eyes with too much intelligence, and gave everyone the sickening feeling that the cats were simply watching time pass by, not caring for the humans that got in the way. Sadie didn’t like cats, either, but in the city of Elizabeth, there was not a single person who did, so she cannot be blamed.

Nothing strange had ever happened to Sadie – she lived blocks and blocks away from the graveyard, and the bookstore was even further away. Of course, she could avoid the street cats, but she could not ignore them and the shiver that their ceaseless stares sent up her spine. By the time she was on the old streetcar that took her to and from the bookstore, Sadie felt entirely safe from the abnormalities that plagued the city of Elizabeth.

Had Sadie considered it, thought about it for more than a moment, or even a moment, she may have realized that strange things will happen, no matter how strongly she disliked them. Living in the city of Elizabeth, strange phenomena were even more likely, and one day in June, they swirled around the girl named Sadie.

In the city of Elizabeth, every day is hot and dry, but June days are especially hot. People only leave their cool houses if they must, and when they do, they take with them large fans that most people can barely handle with two hands, but that people in the city of Elizabeth had long since learned to singlehandedly use in order to keep the heat at bay. Sadie, who had small hands, didn’t like using the giant fans, but she still carried a large peacock-blue fan with her on the way outside of her home on the day in June. She walked daintily down the sidewalk, her peacock-blue fan fluttering all the while, praying – like everyone else on the streets that day in June – for a breeze.

It has been known, sometimes, for large amounts of praying from large amounts of people to actually cause something to happen. On that day in June, there were three documented cases worldwide – one involved rain, one involved a successful operation, and the last, which took place in the city of Elizabeth, involved a breeze. Of course, the breeze was more like a great gust of wind, which whipped up the skirts of the ladies, forced everyone to keep a tighter grip on their giant fans, and captured Sadie’s large, feathery hat and took it away. Sadie gasped, and followed the hat’s path with her eyes until she could no longer see it, for the large, feathery hat traveled directly into the fierce glare of the blazing sun.

There was no hope for Sadie to get to work on time and find the large, feathery hat that she so hated. She gave it moments of thought, and decided that although it was strange, it was for the best, and simply hoped that it was the last of the oddness to occur during her day. She really should’ve avoided such thoughts, because, as though accepting a particularly exciting challenge, the phenomena increased exponentially.

On any other day, Sadie arrived at the streetcar stop, stepped in, deposited a coin, and sat down on the second seat on the left. On that day in June, Sadie only got through step one – she had her coin at the ready, and was entirely prepared to step into the streetcar, had she not been stopped by the creature that greeted her. It was the size of a child, and though it wore clothes and had no fur, it was most definitely a cat. It had the striped black marks on its cheeks common in the street cats that lived in the city of Elizabeth, and its fingers were short and stubby, forming its hands into paws, but more than that, it had the over intelligent yellow marble eyes. It stood squarely on the streetcar step, smiling serenely at her. Behind it, where the conductor ought to have sat, there was only a dark, unreal shadow that flitted about in the conductor’s seat restlessly.

Sadie blinked at the cat-child. It smiled, and held out a hand-paw. Sadie looked around nervously, certain that someone else had to have stopped and would be rescuing her at any moment from this delusion.

The only problem was that there seemed to be no people left in the city of Elizabeth. There was no peaceful flapping of giant fans, no complaining of the heat, no clumping of shoes. There was simply no person left – only street cats, gazing at Sadie with yellow marble eyes. Sadie trembled on instinct, only to realize that no shiver was making its way up her spine. She turned back to the cat-child, which had not moved, but only continued to smile serenely at her, holding out its hand-paw.

Sadie’s hand lifted from her side unbidden, her fingers curling into the palm. Her fingers flexed, and she reached out, gently touching the cat-child’s hand-paw.

She didn’t remember stepping onto the streetcar – which was now moving down its path - much less sitting down in her regular seat, but nevertheless, that is where she found herself. The cat-child sat behind the conductor’s seat, which was still only occupied by the restless shadow. She assumed the rest of the streetcar to be empty, but it wasn’t – in the seat just across from her, there sat a street cat, which watched her with yellow marble eyes. She carefully rotated her neck, glancing over her shoulder – she did not see any more yellow marble eyes, but glimpsed the familiar pointed, perked ears in several seats. The rest were occupied by people. Excitement assaulted Sadie’s body – perhaps, she thought, the city of Elizabeth was not yet deserted.

Then they looked up. Each and every person looked up, and the excitement left when her eyes caught the strange, blank, featureless white masks that covered their faces, and the black depths that ought to have been their eyes. Sadie hated the yellow marble eyes of the street cats, but the black depths of these pretend people were worse than even a thousand yellow marble eyes. They caused chills in her very core, and she whipped her head back around, fixing her eyes on the seat ahead of her throughout the rest of the ride. It didn’t protect her from the haunting stares.

Sadie barely registered when the streetcar stopped. She was overcome with hypothermia, which had radiated out from her core and attacked her veins. She was shivering from cold, and her lips were blue, even though the heat of that day in June had not changed. She felt stubby fingers on her arm, and tore her eyes away from the beloved seat. The cat-child was smiling serenely at her, offering her its hand-paw. Her hand went to the paw of its own volition.

She had expected – hoped, even – to be instantly transported away from the streetcar and its pretend people in the same way that she had been transported onto the streetcar, but the cat-child only grasped her hand and pulled. She rose onto trembling legs, supported by weak knees, and followed the cat-child willingly off of the streetcar, her eyelids fluttering.

Outside, as the streetcar went on its way, the heat of that day in June sunk back into her body, thawing out her frozen veins. She let out an easy breath, and fully opened her eyes just in time to see the streetcar, with its restless conductor, yellow marble-eyed street cats and its black-eyed pretend people, disappear into the mausoleum, placed near the center of the graveyard of the city of Elizabeth.

Sadie sobbed. She wanted to be out of this delusion – she wanted to reclaim the large, feathery hat that she so hated, and to return to the bookstore that she so disliked, if it meant retreating from the graveyard that she so feared. The white wisps were cavorting that day in June, dancing and racing over and around and through tombstones, halting their play only to sneak quick glances of Sadie. The moaning continued, but now in disturbing song that wandered through the air.

The cat-child was pulling her into the party, and Sadie felt her newly regained warmth slipping away with each step. It detached from her body as smoothly as ribbons, tumbling out into the air and forming new wisps, a purer white than the others. The wisps no longer kept their distance – now they skipped around her ankles and moved across her arms. A few of them crowded about the giant peacock-blue fan that Sadie hadn’t realized she was still holding, even though it was gripped so tightly in her hand that her knuckles were as white as the new wisps falling from her body. The wisps tugged at it, and the giant fan came free of her fingers. It was carted clumsily away over tombstones, and Sadie ached to have it back, just as she ached for her feathery hat and the bookstore.

By the time Sadie and the cat-child reached the mausoleum, she was shivering nearly as heavily as she had around the pretend people, and the graveyard was filled with the intensified moaning of a thousand more bright wisps. The glass mausoleum doors opened for Sadie and the cat-child, and closed before a single wisp could sneak in. They crashed into the glass, and cried out plaintively, eventually giving up and skulking away.

The cat-child let go of Sadie’s shaking hand, and turned to smile serenely at her. It opened its arms, and the mausoleum lit up. Street cats stared at Sadie with their yellow marble eyes from every direction, but now the over intelligence seemed understanding and welcoming, and now they seemed to smile like the cat-child.

And, for the first time, Sadie smiled.

On that day in June, Sadie became one of the people who disappeared from the city of Elizabeth without leaving behind so much as a thread, or an eyelash. For a few days, the people searched for Sadie. Eventually, the people of the city of Elizabeth simply assumed that Sadie had left, perhaps for somewhere important beyond the forests. Someone else, someone who loved books very much, took her job. Her large, feathery hat, and her giant peacock-blue fan were all that was found in her deserted house, and were given away to people who truly wanted them.

In the city of Elizabeth, everyone is happy. They complain about the heat as they wave about their giant fans, but they laugh about it with strangers on the street as they drop their coins in the streetcar with a smile. The city of Elizabeth strives to keep its people happy, and is unworried about the means required. And, for this reason, there are people who – for the happiness of themselves, and for the happiness of others – simply disappear.