The Untethering of Caroline Donadeiu

By Sam M. Shaw

The warlock Jasper Throe first met Caroline Donadeiu when she had only two tattoos.

Tonight, she showed up on his doorstep shabby, with more tattoos than he could count, hands in fists by her sides. Jasper hardly recognized her.

Caroline bit the inside of her cheek. Instead of “hello,” she said, “I’m sorry. May I come in?”

It’s too late to say I’m sorry, Jasper thought, but not without kindness.

In lieu of answering, Jasper let the door yawn open wide enough for her to slip into his sanctuary. He whipped his scaly tail around and started up the impossibly tall, winding staircase. Caroline followed his soundless footsteps.

At first, Jasper had hated that his brick home had become a safe haven for monsters—the supernatural folk that had been unjustly deemed unsavory. He’d loathed their imposing company and their loud, upsetting habits. Now, he couldn’t imagine living without their fuss and bother.

He wasn’t exactly liberal with those he let into his home, but he and Caroline Donadeiu went back a couple hundred years. He remembered when she’d stopped by to show off her first pair of tattoos. She was so proud of the typewriter letters on her forearm and the supernova that had been artfully inked onto her shoulder.

It was all he could do, now, to permit her a small bedroom and a bath.

When they came to the top of the stairwell, Jasper led her into the vacant room on the right. He shut the door behind them and sat, organizing his scaly green tail to the left of his thighs.

Caroline made her way to the windows and drew the blinds closed, her hands leaving blackened stains on the delicate, taupe curtains.

“What is that?” Jasper asked, nodding to the substance that was now smeared on his fine decor. “I do hope it is washable.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “There was an accident.” Caroline’s voice was light and cool, floating on air, in complete contrast to her disheveled profile.

“I’ll say,” he replied.

Despite all appearances, she turned to meet Jasper’s eyes and smiled.

He did not return it. “What are you doing here, Caroline?”

“It’s happening again. I’m untethering.”

Immediately, his priorities shifted. “I thought that’s what all the tattoos were for.” Jasper’s tail curled around his ankle. “The pain keeps you tied to this realm, and whatnot.”

She lifted her right hand, showing the mostly-dried ink that covered her palm. “I was trying that remedy when I started—”

Caroline collapsed to her hands and knees, breath rolling out in shuddering waves.

Jasper did not think about the stains that would be on the otherwise pristine white carpet as he rushed over to place a steadying palm over the celestial tattoo on her shoulder.

“Tell me what else.” He pushed her up into a sitting position and held both shoulders as her whole body fizzled in and out of focus. “What else helps keep you tethered?”

“I have lived many lives, Jasper,” she said through clenched teeth, as if it was taking all that remained of her fitful power to stay present on Earth. “And right now, my memories and my pasts are converging. All at once.”

Jasper grasped her shoulders so tight that his knuckles turned white. He was temporarily and uncharacteristically at a loss for words; it was difficult to comfort an interdimensional being when he had no experience with such an existence.

Caroline let out a guttural groan while she fizzled out.

Jasper’s hands slipped right through her to the floor.

When the tension went out of her shoulders and she opened her eyes, they had turned white—no iris or pupil.

“What do you remember, Caroline?” Jasper probed, afraid for the first time that he had made a mistake in opening his door to an old friend.

He could not tell if she was looking at him, into him, or beyond him.

“I remember the day the Earth was born.” Caroline raised her tattooed arms out in a cross and lifted her chin. Her voice was whisper-soft. “It was beautiful.”

Before Jasper could muddle through a proper response, Caroline howled. She started to shimmer like a star, but Jasper did not scoot away even as the end of his tail twitched.

Her scream vibrated through the room, clattering the photographs and paintings against the floral wallpaper and slicing to Jasper’s very core.

She could have keened for mere seconds or long hours; Jasper would not have known the difference.

At last, she splayed her fingers wide and sighed. The lights in the room’s dated wall sconces—and likely throughout the city—flickered out as Caroline burst into tiny flecks of light.

Blinded by her flare, Jasper blinked, and tears cooled his cheeks.

I bet that’s what the Earth’s creation looked like, he thought.

He sat back on his heels, shaking a cottony sensation from his head, observing the last bit of Caroline’s light. As it winked out, he stood, took a deep breath, and stepped out without looking back.

As if in response, the city lights fluttered back on. The air conditioners commenced their obnoxious whirring, and the neighborhood dogs stopped barking.

Jasper swiped a palm across his chin, catching the tears before they fell, wondering absently how many other people would have cried at Caroline’s untethering.

Instead of cleaning the room, bleaching the curtains and carpet, or permitting another lost soul to take up residence in the room on the right, Jasper put a sign up on the door.

It read: She’s not there.

Can you guess which song from the 1960's inspired this story? Share in the comments!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam M. Shaw has been writing since she could hold a crayon—creating multicolored, fantastical worlds that she might tuck into for a little while. Presently, she is a Junior at UNC Chapel Hill, working toward her MAT to teach High School English. She hopes to show her future students, as she so fervently believes, that words have the power to change us (whether written in a fancy pen or crayon). 

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