I’m not a child anymore, Margaret seethed.
The silence between them was sticky like drying tears or salt residue, it tasted like half a hangover and sounded like a window that didn’t shatter when hit by stone.
“I suppose, I have one last question,” Margaret said, running only five fingers across the slick and lacquered bar, “Why not let me adopt your son?”
The mood shifted. It seemed to Margaret like the candles dimmed, shrinking. Ramona was no longer minding her barriers. There was a ghost of spoil in the air and a deep weight pulled at Margaret’s stomach.
“I’m sorry for that too,” Ramona answered, so quiet that Margaret had to watch her lips to understand.
“Where is he now?”
Ramona didn’t answer with her voice, Margaret heard the words clearly enough in her mind, I don’t know. The younger woman wasn’t trying to be purposefully difficult, she genuinely didn’t want to say that out loud. Margaret would never forgive Ramona her actions, though she would shamelessly profit from them. It was the child that Margaret was angry about now, the child that could have been her own to raise.
Silence separated the two for a while. The bar still smelled like turned milk, and perhaps half of the candles had died out when Margaret finally spoke again.
“You have a train to catch, don’t you Ramona?”
“Six-oh-five to Reno.” Ramona answered, her voice briny.
Margaret pulled away from the bar, “I need to get back to Stockton,”
“Mayy,” Ramona looked away from the candles she’d lost herself in, reaching her right hand out for Margaret’s right shoulder, “I really am sorry for your arm. If it's any consolation, I think the new skin is actually quite fetching.”
Margaret pulled away from Ramona’s touch, no matter how little she liked to. Behind a fiendishly clever young woman was a little girl who Margaret couldn’t stop loving, who would always be saccharine sweet, and kind spoken. “Tell your sister how sorry you are. Before I kill her. She’s the one you fucked over, worst of all.”
“Mayy,” Ramona blinked, and maybe she was about to cry, but Margaret couldn’t tell, “I didn’t lie to you about Amy, back in Stockton. She loves you. She’s worshipped you her whole life. Sway her to your side, but don’t kill her. Please try. Promise me that?”
Margaret bit back a laugh in her throat, unwilling to slap Ramona in the face with unbridled glee. Amy had chosen her own fate the moment she’d pressed Margaret’s face to tarmac and reminded her what it was like to be a powerless little girl.
“Sure,” Margaret shrugged, “I promise.”
Good witches lie, Margaret thought, with no intention of sparing Amihan’s life.
Ramona blinked again, a single tear racing down her cheek, running for her jawline, before falling, “We’ll likely never meet again, Mayy. If we do, I suspect one of us will need to kill the other. Take care of yourself. I wish you a good life, here in the land of Owens.”
Ramona tried to reach out for Margaret again, but she stepped back, avoiding the touch. For just a few moments the young woman’s barriers softened, and there was a slip of sorrow at the tip of Margaret’s tongue. It was a simple thing like an old wooden spoon, worn from use and left to heat on the stove, delivering a stew of rare bliss and awesome longing.
Margaret didn’t know if it was her memory or Ramona’s, but she was reminded of clutching the baby Lopez girl on her lap. Feeding her boiled carrots and beef broth, humming a melody for them both.
Margaret did not call after or clutch at Ramona as she left the bar, no matter how much she wished it, no matter how much her heart hurt.
11:18pm March 17th, 39 Veilfall
Stockton, California
“Did you hear about the man who couldn’t juggle?” Arranged across the same upholstered sofa of red velvet and Cherrywood that Lady Owens had once kept court on, Margaret watched Townsend entering through the front door. “He just didn’t have the balls.”
Margaret couldn’t even fake a laugh. Puns weren’t actually funny.
Townsend held his breath, gawking at her with an open jaw. His face was smudged with carbon and he was dressed in ripstop trousers, with black plate carrier over a tan shroud shirt that looked a bit too small in the shoulders.
“I was never told that you’d returned.”
Margaret tried to offer a clever grin, lifting fingers to her lips, attempting to cast herself in a seductive light. She hadn’t changed from the road, and her bare feet were drawn up close to her thighs, “I had to sneak back into the city, around the Dogs, under Crosstown. I’m returning your brassboy, but I promoted her to Corporal.”
The lemongrass and pine smoke of Aurora’s old home was gone. Instead it was dominated by Townsend’s aftershave and slithering gun oil. Across from the sofa was a mirror and tin basin that Townsend had used to shave, maps and gear sitting nearby.
“And Sarn’t Holloway?” Townsend walked past the narrow vestibule and onto the deep red tile, kissed by veins of faux gold.
Margaret tipped her head back and forth like an old bobble toy glued to a dashboard, “He thought Plague Dog would promote him for my head.”
Reaching down to unlace the sides of his plate carrier, Townsend growled in reply, “I’m sorry. I made him the same offer to watch over you.”
Margaret eased out of her own mind a bit, allowing pieces of herself to flutter about the room, listening to Townsend’s pulse. His nerves were sizzling, and there was a pull at his chest. Desire made tangible to such an extent that he hadn’t even begun to question the silver crosshatch of her new skin.
“It was bound to happen. Someone would take a shot at me.”
“You look,” Townsend paused in study, tossing his carrier of molle and ceramic plate to the table, “better.”
Margaret reached over to her right shoulder and tugged her dress down to show him a rounded stump of Tilapia skin, “One arm poorer, but yes, I suppose.”
Does he see my face? Margaret withdrew her mind from Townsend’s neck and shoulders, avoiding what she might hear, or feel. Only her eyes ran across Townsend now, her tendrils, her very essence, withdrawn.
“Where did you grow up?” Margaret sat up, leaning on her left arm and lowering her eyelids, “Share that with me. With your voice. I want to hear you.”
“New Castle,” Townsend answered, his voice brisk, low. He sat down on the same chair that Margaret had kept when she brought Ramona to meet Aurora Owens. Painted oil lamps of ceramic and glass illuminated the room with a rolling banter of dim flame.
“My mother fought at New Castle,” Margaret lifted her hand from velvet, letting her fingers trace across the soft fabric, to sit up straight, “They thought she died there. They told me she died there.”
Townsend answered, hushed. “I was caught at the loading docks when the walls fell. Nothing but fire behind me and Antecedents in front. It was the first and last time that I believed I would die. I ran for the Antecedents. They shot at me, of course, assumed I was strapped with explosives like the other children. Not even a second or two passed before they died under New Castle mortars. They just floated there, for seconds, dancing, losing pieces of themselves.”
Townsend was painting a vivid memory with his voice. It was certain, a thick brush, putting color to canvas, pressing in so deeply that when Margaret blinked, she could remember a scene she’d never witnessed. When she answered him, it was in memory of the first time she’d seen mortars kill a dozen men, and her words matched the melody of his own with succinct sorrow, “You couldn’t believe how quiet it was.”
“I never heard anything as quiet as that day,” Townsend planted his big palms squarely on the knees of his ripstop. There was an openness between them, they were no longer trading greetings, talking about how much better Margaret looked, pretending that she’d never been doused in flame.
My turn, and she closed her eyes.
“My parents named me Margaret. I remember this. I can sometimes still hear my father
singing my name, rocking me to sleep, promising to keep the monsters away, promising me the world. Let me hear my name, on your lips.”
Does he know I’m not using magic? Can he feel it?
Townsend didn’t blink as he watched her, his face betraying so little, save two hard swallows, and the slightest hint of a tremor at his thumbs.
“Margaret.” Townsend answered.
Exhaling, Margaret bit on her lower lip. It was a trade of intimacy that went beyond anything she’d shared with Townsend prior. No slip of skin or touch of mind could have equaled his hesitation to speak, or hearing her real name suckling at her ears.
She stood up, slowly. Her bare feet slid along the cold and textured tile of Aurora's home, around the little table of wood and glass, and up close to the big man with his barrel chest.
“Does the 3rd Army still know I belong to their General? Do you brag with your officers what my breasts feel like in your hands?” Five fingers slid across his rough cheek and toward his jaw. She had never seduced a man without magic, and she was stumbling for what would appeal to Townsend, what would teach him her desire, with no tethers.
With his left knee between her legs, Margaret stood over Townsend, lifting her left leg up and gently wedging her foot under his inguen, the ripstop rough on her toes.
“I never assumed you belonged to anyone but yourself,” she could see Townsend draw a deep breath, a part of him hesitating, just for a second, before he lifted his left hand up to her inner thigh.
I don’t suppose a man would do that if he wasn’t interested.
It was no different for Margaret than wearing a blindfold. She couldn’t read Townsend’s face no matter how hard she tried, and she tried, looking for any twitch of the eye or a shift of his brows. Anything that would tell his reaction. She was working for it and the very effort excited her further.
He was too gentle at first, and Margaret almost reached into his mind to nudge him.
Instead she spoke, “Harder.”
Margaret wasn’t skinny, but she was small enough that Townsend’s hand easily covered half of her leg, and when his fingers and thumbs retracted on her flesh, she tilted her head back, elated cry escaping her throat.
Margaret’s hand reached to the smooth waist chain. She loosed the clasp, letting the wrap fall open. From here the fish skin was only somewhat visible near her sternum.
“I like that your moustache always smells like cigarettes, and I can never see your lips. I like how angry you always look, even when you’re not. I like the way you don’t flash your feelings around, and you make me guess. You make me work for it.”
Townsend’s left hand slid up her thigh as he reached for her dress with his right, fingers tracing up her unscarred breast, past her clavicle, to her left shoulder.
The fabric fell to the floor.
Now or never, you like Tilapia-woman, or you don’t.
Her pantaloons were gone, cast off before she bathed in Aurora’s ornate old clawfoot. She was naked before him. The Tilapia shimmered by lamp, malachite and violet writhing around each other, across ribs and breast, across her collar bone. The cross hatching was unable to decide between gold or silver, and at times it reflected both.
“That’s,” Townsend swallowed again, his eyes groping at her skin, “beautiful.”
Margaret could now feel the awe that she heard at the back of his throat, but for a man who worked so hard to remain granite, it was a vivid tell that he’d been beguiled. Townsend removed his hand from between her legs and wrapped both big palms and fingers around her midsection, just above her waist. When his hands ambled up her body it was a uniquely different sensation on each side. His palms were rougher, warmer against her fish skin. She felt like she could feel every scar, every callous, every bit of torn cuticle. It wasn’t unpleasant, it was just different.
This close, this intimate, with so much skin touching, Margaret lost her blindfold, and she was aware of every thought that jumped and sparked in Townsend’s mind. She shrieked a giggle, and her own hand began crawling up Townsend’s face, and onto his clean scalp.
I fucking missed those tits, Margaret heard. The thought was a firecracker tossed past her ear. He was relieved that her burns were gone and by no means did Margaret begrudge him that; the wounds had been grotesque and upturned her own stomach.
“Show me how much you missed them,” Margaret replied to his thought, holding her tongue on her lower lip, a sing-song provocation. Townsend answered it with force, pressing her breasts together, thumbs riding up between them. The sensitivity of the fish skin was so different from her born skin that she found she was nearly bored by the clutching of her left breast in contrast.
I’ll tell him to go harder on my old skin.
Except, Townsend did just that. On her left side, he dug in so hard with his fingertips she knew it’d raise bruises. She lost her balance, almost falling into him, letting a deep moan worm its way into his neck, where her face was now buried. She raked teeth against his weathered flesh, then pulled back, a trail of saliva running down chin, “You heard me? You heard me?”
Townsend shrugged, brows scrunched up, “Of course. You said, ‘tell him to go harder on my old skin.’”
Despite herself, Margaret leapt onto Townsend’s lap, grinding her bare flesh into intumescence of his trousers. She only regretted that she couldn’t wrap both hands around his shoulders.
“I never spoke. We’re touching, and my mind is loud. You heard my thoughts.”
Townsend seemed confused by this, his breathing deep, and he shrugged, “You’re a witch, doesn’t that just happen?”
Margaret tossed her head back laughing, then swung in fast, planting her lips on Townsend’s, “No! In fact, it’s never happened! I don’t even know how you did it. And I don’t care, you big son of a bitch. Fucking kiss me.”
Townsend didn’t hesitate to oblige her. She liked how small she felt in his arms, his fingers pressing so forcibly at her skin, behind her skull, locking her into the embrace. She could smell gunpowder on his sleeves and tobacco in his moustache. His breath hot in her mouth as she fought an elegant ballet with her tongue to gain dominance before finally submitting.
He released her head so she could lean back.
“You don’t need to assume,” she kept her lips close to his, so that when she spoke, she would feel his whiskers tickle her face, “I belong to you. Offer me your elbow and we command together. Ask me to drown a man in his nightmares and he’ll wish for death. Put a collar on me and I’ll walk on your leash. I’m yours.”
The intensity traded between them now was magnitudes greater than the first time they met. Margaret forced herself to not claw at Townsend’s skin, just to smell the blood, just to be closer to the moving cruor that powered him. There was no need to nudge him or command him, the game between them was out of control now, chaos that Margaret had never known intimately.
Townsend reached down, unbuttoning his trousers and Margaret grabbed a fist full of his cotton shirt in her little left hand, falling back, all her weight free.
She didn’t care if she fell or not.
“Not here,” Margaret panted, “I want you to fuck the shit out of me on Aurora’s bed.”
Townsend’s hands moved to her hips, clutching around toward her buttocks and supporting her full weight as he stood up. Margaret couldn’t feel his arms so much as tremble at her weight, but she fell into his chest regardless, her lips pressed into his neck.
For a moment Margaret almost whispered, I love you.
It would have been true. She could feel it crawling up her vertebrae, barbs wrapped around her mind and heart, tightening beyond all the joy she found in physical pain, burning her eyes and throat, a tidal emotion she’d never fathomed.
Those were tawdry and stupid words to Margaret. Her nieces used words like that, claiming they loved her, while they stabbed her in the back or lit her aflame. Telling Townsend that she loved him would devalue what she felt, steal away the heavy gold of this mom
ent that drug down at flesh and wet her cunt against Townsend’s dusted trousers.
Margaret wouldn’t just lie there of course. She’d grind her hips at each penetration, bite at his face like a hungry dog, and claw at his back; but she was giving her paramour a sacrament that no other man had enjoyed before him. A gift far more special than a disgusting word like love. She was giving Townsend power. Control over his mind and body, as well as her. In this way, he was also the first man to make love to Margaret.
5:02am March 19th, 39 Veilfall
Stockton, California
Aurora Owens had kept an antique clawfoot tub in her personal bathroom. That clawfoot was one-quarter full of boiled, unslaked lime and linseed oil. Margaret was small enough that she could essentially bathe in the viscous and perilously slippery grease, warm on her skin. With one hand she slathered it across her face and neck, stroking it repeatedly through her hair, her auburn locks a deep umber and tangle, flattening out against her skull and dripping down her spine.
“Blacksmith grease?” Erin stood at the bathroom door, her back to the frame, arms up and crossed high as her eyes wandered off. It didn’t bother Margaret to be naked in front of the girl, but it clearly bothered her, so she made a point of quickly dressing in the bath with undergarments soaked in tawny oil.
“Plague Dog is a fire eater.” Margaret answered.
She shifted and drew up linen strips, then slid around so one leg hung over the clawfoot’s polished edge. “Help me with this.”
The black linen needed to be cross wrapped under Margaret’s soles, around her ankles, then woven up legs and knees, to upper thighs. Erin turned, nervous she’d see more than her comfort would tolerate, and looked visibly relieved to see Margaret’s pantaloons.
“Linen and cotton have to be soaked, and wrapped tightly,” Margaret continued as she wound the dark fabric around her other foot and ankle, “it’ll bind the fire retardant against my skin, even if the outer layers dry and burn.”
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