---

It Grows Back

by Grant Collier

When Billy was four, a tall construction man’s arm broke beside the street. Billy was dog-walking with Mom, and the tall man was there, and the big block of cinder—it fell with a cronk, thudding onto the man’s arm, which was too-tall now, and pulsing, with an extra elbow that went the wrong way. The man screamed, and Billy screamed back—their voices touched, and that turned Billy’s arm to jelly, too, and made the butterflies inside him try to lick their way out with their little mouths. He looked away, but the tall man with the too-tall arm was still in his thoughts, and he couldn’t get him out.

It happened for years, mostly when Billy slept. There were long, dark hallways, and the too-tall arm man would be there, and he would shuffle at Billy. Not quickly: he knew Billy couldn’t get away. The hallways were too crooked (like an arm), and they never bent the way Billy expected. The man just shuffled slowly, until Billy turned a corner, and he was out of sight, and then he would scramble fast to get close, and coming around the corner he would have even more arms, with even more bends where there should be none.

He almost got Billy once, but Billy woke up just in time, with his head thudding and pulsing from a doorframe. “Oops! You were just sleepwalking, Billy. We’ll get you some ice. We’ll get you a railing for your bed.”

---

He went to Ms. Jill sometimes. “She’s going to help you with your night terrors. She’ll help you clear your thoughts, Billy.”

Ms. Jill was nice enough; she had toys on her shelves, and he could play with them if he answered her questions. Sometimes she asked about the too-tall-arm-man, but stopped when he told her to stop, but she would ask again later, from another direction.

Ms. Jill taught him Meditate—“good for right before going to bed.”

Meditate was “like raking leaves in the yard,” clearing thoughts to see what was at the bottom. Billy knew that the bottoms of leaf piles had centipedes. He did not want to look at the bottom. Better to keep it covered, than to look.

---

There were four of them at the sleepover. Simon, whose house it was, so he got the top bed. Bryson knew a magic trick, Clay was allergic to things, and Billy slept on the floor so he didn’t hurt himself wandering in the night.

Bryson had them play a game where you close your eyes, and imagine walking through a forest to a cabin. You open the door, and someone you know is waiting inside. Who is it?

“My Mom,” said Simon.

“You,” said Clay. “Of course.”

Billy didn’t walk into his cabin: the door was tilted, leaning toward him, inviting, like it wanted too much for him to walk inside. He felt he knew what waited for him. He turned and walked back into the woods. “Kendra,” he said. “From school.”

Bryson smiled smugly. “That’s who you’re gonna marry.”

“Ew,” said Simon.

“No it’s not,” said Clay.

“Those are the rules,” said Bryson.

Billy said nothing.

Simon had pretzels, and he threw some under the bed at Bryson, hard. “Your game doesn’t work.”

Bryson ate one. “Does too,” he said.

“Do you see Clay?” Simon asked Bryson. “When you do it?”

“I already know it, so it doesn’t work on me.”

Simon frowned. “That’s not fair.”

“If I already know it, then I’ll just-”

“I know another game like that,” Clay said. “But it doesn’t always work.”

Clay didn’t speak often, so they all listened.

“You think about walking down a hallway. At the end of the hallway is a door, and you step out into a room with four sides. Each side has a door. Each door has one of us, walking through it.”

“What next?” Bryson asked.

“You have to wait and really think about it,” Billy said, and Clay nodded.

They were all silent for a moment. Billy walked down his hallway quickly, careful not to turn around: the walls were yellow and old, and twisted all wrong, like in dreams.

“Now,” Clay said, “each door is different. Focus on them. Say what each door is like. If we focus enough, we’ll all be in the same room, and see the same doors. Simon, who’s to your left?”

“Bryson.”

“You’re to my right!” Bryson said. “Your door is tall and skinny.”

“Is it made of wood?” asked Simon.

“Yeah, wood. Dark wood. Like the bedpost.” Bryson tapped the bottom of Simon’s bed. “Clay, you’re to my left.”

“I see it too,” said Simon. “Clay, you don’t have a door, you have an archway, with pillars. You’re right in front of me. Bryson, you have a red door.”

“Does it open in the middle?”

“Yeah, it opens in the middle.” Simon laughed. “Do you see Clay’s pillars?”

“Yeah, they’re white. Big ones, on either side of him.”

“I see them too,” said Clay.

Billy saw it all, with himself between Simon and Clay, across the room from Bryson. He didn’t know if he had seen them quite that way before they said it, but it felt right once it was said. “I see it all too,” he said finally. “What’s my door?”

“It’s old,” Bryson said. “Yellow paint, but it’s flaking away.”

“Yeah, I see that,” said Simon. “And there’s a long hallway on the other side.”

“I see that, too,” said Bryson.

“Do you see that too, Billy?” asked Clay. “What color is your door to you?”

Billy preferred to look at his friends’ doors: he could feel something behind him, in the long hallway, and didn’t want to turn around. He couldn’t remember what color his door had been, but yellow felt right. “Yeah, yeah it is.”

“This is so cool,” said Simon.

Clay smiled. “Now, we can go through each person’s door, and see what we find.”

“I don’t want to do that,” said Bryson, quickly. “It was a cool game, but I’m tired of it.”

“You’re just jealous,” said Simon, “because Clay’s game works and your game doesn’t.”

“I just don’t want to play anymore,” said Bryson.

“Please Bryson?” Clay said. “Just go through one door, okay? It doesn’t work if you leave halfway through. You said Billy had a hallway, right? Let’s just look down Billy’s hallway.”

“I’m done playing, too,” said Billy. Bryson stared at him intently.

“Me three,” said Simon. “Let’s stop.”

“Simon! You were on my side!”

“You can walk down Billy’s hall,” said Simon. “I’m done.”

“Fine,” said Clay, and they all laid there in silence, in the dim light of the nightlight. Billy felt relieved that he could stop imagining, but he didn’t like that they had stopped talking—that meant sleep, and sleep meant more imagining.

After a while, Bryson spoke up. “You saw it too.”

“I don’t know,” said Simon. “Yes.”

“Saw what?” asked Clay.

“There’s something in Billy’s hall.”

No one spoke after that. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to speak: maybe Billy, but he was not going to talk about it. He didn’t even want to think about it: it shivered him, like a breath on the back of his neck. Like a breath.

Eventually, they all slept: Clay first, then Simon, then Bryson, then Billy last of all.

---

Grandma had a couch with good pillows for forts—big, sturdy—and she made cookies, and she was wise. She taught him to always pray before meals: he did this when she was around, but never alone. Billy didn’t pray alone. By himself, how did he know how to think in the right direction? Anything could be listening.

Grandma had a tulpa, she explained. “It’s like a little friend you grow inside your head.” Hers was based on Grandpa, who Billy had never met but who was a kind man and worked with planes and had Billy’s nose. “This way he’s always with me, in a way.”

“Can I grow a tulpa?”

“Maybe someday,” she said. “It’s just like an imaginary friend. But the more you focus on them, the more real they become. Do you have an imaginary friend?”

“No,” said Billy. “Let’s go play outside.”

Grandma also read tea leaves, and she read Billy’s for him. The tea smelled good, but tasted bad, but it didn’t matter, because he drank it quick. “What does it say?”

“Well, let’s see—I see a bird…that could mean good luck, but maybe it’s a tree—that would also be good luck, but it’s more in the past…” Grandma frowned. “…you said you don’t have an imaginary friend, Billy?”

Billy slowly shook his head.

Grandma set the tea down, took his hands, and held them in hers. “Look at me,” she said, and stared into his eyes. Her face was serious. After a while, she looked down, and patted his hands. “Oh, Billy.”

“What is it?”

Grandma spoke slowly—she was being careful. “A mind…it’s like a garden, Billy. You know my garden? Like that. A big, big garden. Lots of things grow in it. Not all of them things you planted. Some good, and…it’s important to be careful what you grow in your garden, Billy. Thoughts are like plants: the ones that grow the most are the ones you water.”

“What’s in my tea leaves, Grandma?”

She looked him sternly in the eyes. “Your mind…what are you growing in there?”

“I…nothing.”

“Whatever you’re growing, Billy…it’s best you stopped.” She straightened her back, and looked away. “Best not dwell on it. It’s about time you help me with the dinner, isn’t it? You’re tall enough to reach the counter now—do you think you’re old enough to use the cheese slicer?”

Billy nodded slowly, and they made dinner.

---

“-think we need to get his door a lock for the night”

“He’s an anxious kid, that would just scare him more—”

“The railing doesn’t work; there’s hardwood floor at the bottom of those stairs, Al, and it’s only a matter of time—hey, Billy!”

And so Billy got a lock on his room door, from the outside.

Billy didn’t like the lock. It kept him in with the closet door that never shut all the way, and the dresser that grew and hung over him, ready to fall, and the dappled ceiling that looked like a face, and another face, and that one is staring right at him, but is the closet open even more now? It opened wider whenever he closed his eyes, or looked away, because it knew. Were the dresser drawers opening too? They seemed to, but closed right before he looked, open close open close, it’s in there, moving them around.

Sometimes, right before Billy fell asleep, he would hear a voice. Sometimes it would just yell, a brief yell that jolted his eyes awake and then was silent. Other times, it was as if he was hearing a conversation, but only one word at a time. Just the beginning of a conversation — the voices were only there right as he was about to fall asleep, and they stopped as soon as they startled him awake. Like they were waiting. “Hush,” he heard one time. “Nighttime.” Another. “Breathe.” At this last one, he sat up and held his breath: he didn’t want to do what the voices said.

---

Field trip. On the bus. Billy sat next to Kendra, who had three cats, and who, he had been informed by Bryson, he would marry. They sat up front. Billy liked to sit up front—sometimes, looking out the back window, he imagined he saw something running behind the bus, following them, hiding behind the trees. The front was further from it—safer.

It was raining, and the windshield wipers went back and forth, back and forth—together at first, in the same direction, but if Billy focused on them for long enough, he could make them do it in opposite directions, in and out, in and out.

They stopped at a light—he wondered if it was gaining on the bus. It had grown more arms lately, and they made it faster, he knew: it rolled and tumbled over itself on them like carwash rollers against a car, thwapthwapthwapthwapthwapthwap–

“What are you thinking about?” Kendra asked.

Billy didn’t want to scare Kendra; she was nice. “I’m thinking about what if we held hands?”

Kendra smiled, and they did, and that was how they became girlfriend and boyfriend.

Billy thought Bryson would gloat when he heard, but he did not: “Cool,” he just said. He had been quieter lately.

---

It felt like a full minute of screaming and banging against his room door before Mom let him out. “It was here, Mom,” he choked, sobs breaking up his speech. “It was with me, you don’t understand, don’t…trap me…in here…with it…”

“Oh, Billy,” and “I’m so sorry,” but “you know this is just for your safety,” and “it can’t hurt you,” and “did Grandma say something to scare you again,” and “see, I’m right here, I’m right here, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

She didn’t know how fast it could crawl, with that many arms: like a centipede, floor to wall to ceiling to wall to floor. “There’s no time,” Billy sobbed. “You can’t get here fast enough, you can’t, you don’t…”

“Shhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m here.”

Billy didn’t let them lock him in there with it after that. There was a pin at the top of the doorframe, and a hole in the door handle: poke the pin in the hole, and it unlocked, even from the inside. It was “for emergencies and fires only, and nothing else, okay Billy?”

After Mom tucked him in he would wait until the footsteps were gone. Then: chair-push-stand-reach-pin-hole-click. Then he would push the chair back, run to bed—light feet so nothing heard you, parents or otherwise—grab the railing, jump the last foot, feet can’t get near the under-bed or it will grab—hide under the covers for a minute, steady breath: breathe, breathe, make sure nothing saw you, peek out just your eyes, breathe but not too loud.

Every night.

He was safer now, doing this—he could run if he needed. Maybe still not fast enough, but he could run. Every night, he made sure he could run, but they couldn’t know, or they would take the pin away too, and he would be trapped for good.

---

Darline was Kendra’s friend, and she fell asleep in class once, and she had no cats, but her cousin had a snake. “Kendra doesn’t want to talk to you anymore,” she told Billy.

“Why?” he asked.

Darline shook her head and bounced away.

At recess, Kendra was standing at the edge, near the trees, talking with Darline, who ran off when Billy approached. “Hi,” he offered. “What’s wrong?” He hoped she was just tired of him, and no other reason.

Kendra stood facing away from him. “I just don’t want you to be my boyfriend anymore.”

Billy nodded. “Okay. Why?”

She shook her head. “No reason.”

Billy walked around to face her, but she turned as he did, so that he could not. His stomach felt sick. “Just tell me why,” he said.

Kendra spoke slowly. “Sometimes…I’ll think about holding hands with you…but it’s not just you.”

Billy felt open and exposed suddenly, like he needed to hide under a blanket, but he knew even that wouldn’t help. “What do you mean?” His voice was scared, and he felt a warm-throated cry coming on.

“It’s never just you,” Kendra said. “There’s always something else with us.” She turned her head to look at him, eyes red. “Do you ever feel it?”

Billy couldn’t talk.

She continued. “It’s a…a tall man. And I can get him to stand further back—but I can never get him to leave. He’s always there. Watching us.” She turned to him fully now. “Billy…do you see him too?”

“I…are his arms…?” His tears were at the surface now.

Kendra’s eyes were wide, and she cried back. “You do know. You do…Billy, what are you?”

---

In bed, at night, it was silent. Except for when it was not. “It’s just an old house Billy, and older houses make more sounds”—but maybe that was because they had seen more, had more to tell you. What was it trying to warn him about?

Billy tried to be quiet, quieter than the house, blending into the creaks and the groans. He lowered his breath, too soft to hear, but his heart hit against his ears, drum, drum, drum, drum—he could not quiet that. His heart and the house and the wind from outside that sometimes got in and tickled the back of his hand unless he tucked it under—they were all telling him something:

Tonight was the night when it would come for him.

He needed to stay awake, ready to yell, ready to run. It knew that he was ready to run—it knew his mind, it was from his mind, so they knew each other—it knew he was ready to run, but it also knew that he needed to sleep, and he knew that it was patient.

He gave up on being quiet—it knew where he was anyway—and drummed his fingers against the side of his leg, drum, drum, drum, drum, matching his heart. He couldn’t fall asleep if he just kept drumming. But then the drumming slowed, slowed, till he couldn’t feel it against his leg anymore, and he almost didn’t catch himself until he did, and his eyes fluttered open again, ready to yell, ready to run, it’s not going to get me. He dug his fingers into his leg until it hurt—he couldn’t fall asleep as long as it hurt. But then his grip faded, faded, until the hurt was just left over from where he had once been gripping his leg: he lost his focus, and when he came back into focus it was there. Twisted into the dark corner of the ceiling, curled up, head cocked, watching. How long had it been there? Maybe the whole time, folded into the dark, skittering around the corners right before he looked.

As long as it was looking at him, he could not yell, he knew, and he could not run. It knew that too. He strained, but the more he strained, the more it fixed him in place with its stare, like a seatbelt after a sudden stop, tighter, tighter. It unfurled as it gazed at him, head fixed in place and body rotating around it. Hundreds of tiny adjustments from its hands on the walls and ceiling went pitterpatter—the hands and elbows made erratic jerks, but the body itself moved smoothly, slowly. Towards him.

It didn’t just have him, it had his bed, too, and as it moved to the ceiling directly above him, the railings around the bed shot up to envelop it, trapping him in with it, unable to run even if he could move, door blocked off. It was a hallway now, but with a back wall where his bed had been, and Billy glued to it—dead end, and it was writhing in the hallway, shuffling slowly towards him, blocking him in at the dead end, dead end, dead

Breathe. Clear the leaves.

His arm broke free! It had gotten too excited, distracted, the seatbelts had loosened, and now his other arm was free, and his legs, and he ran the only direction he could: towards it.

He ran under it, ducking, and the arms had arms had arms, tiny arms, and they brushed against his face and through his hair like spiders, slowed him down, he was running so slow, and they were joining with each other now—elbows on elbows, braided together, holding hands, arms forming into an arm, and it was reaching for him—but it was too tangled up in itself, and he was past now, and it writhed like a centipede when you lifted the leaves up, screeched like a construction man with a cinder block through his arm, and he didn’t look but he could feel it twisting around, coming for him: it would not let him get away this time.

Billy ran. The floor was sticky—but no, not sticky: it was arms now, too, tiny ones, reaching up, grabbing at his feet, wrapping around his toes like little suction cups, slowing him down as it slithered toward him, but he had to pull his feet up, had to run, had to push through. Arm-curtains draped downwards from the ceiling, hanging from arms from arms, little fingers everywhere like hair, like butterfly mouths all over that stretched and curled and reached and tickled and sucked—turn them away, push through. Floor was stickier now: they were growing, building, coordinating, holding back one moment then all grabbing his feet at once, like a wave, trying to trip him. He began to fall, but caught himself with his hands, but they grabbed his hands too and held him down—pinch them, use nails, scratch—they released, and he kept running, running, until the floor gave way completely—they had opened up a hole where his foot should go, a hole to trap his leg, a great big hole to swallow him up, and he fell.

Falling.

Fallen.

Hard wood floor. Bottom of the stairs. A thud-screaming-feeling that wouldn’t let him move. His left arm reaching around behind his back, past his right elbow—but it couldn’t reach that far–

Broken. A second elbow, where it shouldn’t be, between his shoulder and the first. Fire in his arm: scratching, clawing to get out.

It had turned Billy into itself.

---

He cried on the way to the hospital. From the pain of course, but not only. “I’ll be like this forever.”

“It’s just a broken bone, Billy. You’re going to be okay.”

Of course it was just a broken bone. It didn’t turn Billy into itself: Billy was just Billy. And pain was just pain. That’s it. It was, and then it wasn’t.

They wrapped his arm up, and made him lie in a bed, and gave him juice. “Billy, why in the world would you do that,” with a hug—gently. “You scared us so much.”

After that, Billy didn’t feel it around him so much. Maybe it had gotten what it wanted—maybe it just wanted him to understand. It might not be completely gone, but he didn’t feel it growing any longer—it had been harvested, spent, and he put it mostly out of his mind. His friends didn’t remember it much either, for their memories were short and the lives ahead of them long.

Sometimes though, at night, Billy would think about the cast, and what was underneath. Maybe his real arm was already gone forever. Maybe, when they finally took it off, it would be nothing but wriggling elbows underneath. Maybe the elbows needed the cast, needed the dark, could only sprout and grow when nobody was looking. Maybe once the doctors peeked underneath, and realized, they would want to keep the cast on forever: better to cover it up, they would think, than to look.

Maybe.

“Will I be like this forever?”

“It’s just a broken bone, Billy,” Mom said. “It grows back. I promise you, it will grow back.”

It did.