“The ground is cold and wet.” A whisper rustles up through the dirt, around the bushes, growing like flowers. I believe it, though my clothes are barely dampened, and the weather has begun to turn a corner. My brilliant friend is lying beside me. I don’t know what she is, but she’s beautiful. I call her Cylia because once, when we were swimming in our pond, she told me that was her real name. She told me only her favourite people call her that. I know Cylia is lying, but I trust her enough to take her word for it. 

“The ground is cold and wet,” she repeats. I can tell it’s Cylia this time, by the way the hair on my arms sticks straight up. She has a confidence that makes my stomach turn, and tells me that feeling is called jealousy. Her spine is sandwiched between two rough, bony lumps. Once, they were wings. I was told this in confidence a few weeks ago. It’s exceptionally rare to witness this type of vulnerability in her, so that confession made me feel like I was the one who could fly. She told me she misses having wings, and she didn’t even try to laugh it off. 

“What kind of moon is that?” I ask. Cylia would know this. I believe Cylia is magic because she knows everything, and I listen. Even when I know something is wrong, I listen because wrongness can feel truer than the truth. Cylia had said this, of course. She has wisdom that manifests as perpetually cold hands, and skin so olive-toned it really looks green. We met in the foliage of my backyard that leads to a tree-lined pond. She was floating on her back. Her thin green skin was blending right in with the swampy water. 

“Blue,” says Cylia. “But when you go home, don’t tell anyone you were looking at the blue moon. Just say it caught your eye. Someone will try to tell you you’re wrong if you mention that today is a blue moon.” Cylia likes to look through me. She says I’m purple on the inside, and it’s so obvious that a trail of violets follows me wherever I go. I’m pretty sure the violets were already there, but I like to believe they grow where I walk. I like to believe I can be as wise and certain as her. 

“But what if I’m not wrong about the moon?” I ask. Cylia’s cold expression sends a wash of worry over me. What if I am wrong about the moon? 

“You can never be too sure,” she says. I internalize this. Chew it and swallow. It will stick in my stomach for the rest of my life like gum. I can never be too sure. I am never too sure, but who is? 

“Did you know your thoughts control the universe?” says Cylia, suddenly chipper. I like it when she smiles like this. All teeth with such infectious optimism that I almost forget about the moon. I watch the stars twinkle around her head like a million little ideas she’s so eager to spit that they start overflowing from her head. I feel like I could grab one. I wonder if I look the same to her, or if I’ve tainted the lights with negativity. 

“Even the bad ones?” I say, because I just can’t help myself. Because I know what I am capable of conjuring. Because this could be life-altering, world-ending, mind-bending.

“Especially those, duh. That’s why you have to be careful,” she says it like poison. Like she wants to poison me. I feel the purple start to drain from my face and into my feet, making it hard to stay upright. Heat pools around the ground. 

“You seem quiet,” says Cylia. “You should go home.” A pause. “But don’t talk about this, OK? It’s our secret.” I float home, wondering why I can’t talk about it, why I can’t live my life honestly, but I have this compulsive urge to oblige. To sit in my room and think about sunny days, pastries, and peace, and not let anyone know what I’m so focused on. One day, they’ll know I’m saving them. 

The next day, when the sun is at its peak, cooking the grass and making little stars bounce on the water, Cylia tells me I look less purple. I noticed it too, and I think I am giving my life away. Maybe it’s for the best. 

“You might be getting sick. You should go home and check for any other symptoms, but don’t tell anyone what’s going on.” Cylia is wise. I believe this.

Suddenly, I do feel sick. My heart is screaming at me, and my stomach feels like I’m churning butter. My head feels like air, and my forehead dampens. She looks at me like I’m dying from an undiscovered disease. Like I must quarantine myself and discover all the ways one might die. Maybe I am already dead. I wouldn’t know for certain since I don’t know what that feels like. I think it would be colder than this.  

“Someone will think you’re lying, unless you have proof.” Cylia is always opening my eyes to new truths. Without saying anything, I get myself up slowly so as not to worsen my ailments and walk home cautiously. I am sick, I must be. I am fading. 

In the morning, I stare into the mirror for longer than usual, hoping to conjure up Cylia’s insight. And I do. She’s there behind me, giving me the necessary instructions, making me feel autonomous by taking my indecision away. Life feels small but lush when I know exactly when to breathe, think, and be sick. How to breathe, think, and be sick. I take on the day, counting as I go and keeping my words intentional. I walk to the pond and, with an unsure feeling in my bones, lie down on the cold, wet ground. My eyes close.

I dream in odd numbers and when I wake, Cylia is staring down at my decomposing body; I can see it through my half-closed lids. She is pulling me upright and painting me purple. Purple is for liars. 

“Why are you looking so dull and pale?” She tears at my clothes, trying to get a better look at my cellophane skin. Making little holes and rips, filling them with purple paint, as if she’s trying to colour me from the inside out. Cylia wanted to keep me safe, keep me purple, I know. Control is disguised as peace. Repetition is like prayer, but the things I withhold fill up my insides and take my energy. Parasitic nerves and ridges in the brain to drain what’s left of my purple blood. 

“Why won’t you answer me?” I hear fuzzily through ringing ears. Sunrays grow and shrink between trees, turning into glitter while my vision blurs. I can’t find the energy to tell her how I’ve never felt this weak. How I’m sick with prayer and can’t control my mind. How I know she just wanted to keep me safe, but how control is a breeding ground for scarcity. I let myself breathe for a moment and I realized, she’ll never comprehend through the depths of her desperation that it hurts her too. My fingers tingle at the thought. My heart slows. My feet sink into the ground. I watch the glitter in the sunlight dance above me and decide it’s time to let myself go. My eyes flutter closed and for the first time in ages, I feel like my own.