This Hollow Body

by Dave Riley

***

  Time moves slowly on nights like these, and so do they. Malak stifles a yawn, poorly, spilling a soft sigh over Rowena’s skin. Her nose drifts against the soft hair at the nape of Rowena’s neck as a flutter of sleep sneaks through the door the rotgut opened. Her breath is warm like easy comfort, like spiced tea on cold nights when you’ve built a big enough fire to enjoy how the windows frost.

  Rowena makes herself still, enjoying the silence, and the unerring comfort of Malak’s dozing weight encumbering her. The muggy night air blooms sweat between the shared space of their bodies. Closing her eyes, she indulges, focusing on the feel of Malak’s stomach as it rises and falls against her spine.

  Imagine how many different sorts of lives a person like Malak might have, someone bold, and brave, and so unquestionably kind it beggars belief. Imagine how unthinkably lucky, Rowena, a slop of a girl like you might be to share in even one of those possibilities. What would you do? What could you provide? You’ve no idea how to raise sheep, that’s for starters.

  What kind of life is that, to fritter away on a woman who can’t rear animals, who never learned how to properly till soil, who can’t even write poetry, and who wouldn’t even try, how deeply her mother’s forcible wisdom carved that notch inside impressionable young Rowena? No way to eat words and now, in an army that feeds you, how pertinently you remember the fitful pangs of the hungry stomach that carried you, barely, through childhood. The army has food, you can say that for it.

  What’s more, it has Malak.

  But it only has Malak because it has you.

  Fingertips touch her brand; eyes follow. As the lamplight slowly dies, the silver etchings almost seem to glimmer.

  So question this: is what terrifies you on running away that you might be caught? Why worry about that? There are half a dozen different countries you could flee to, places distant enough, or crowded enough, that they’d know where to start or never even think to look in the first place.

  With each thought, her heart beats a little faster. All the tension Malak lovingly worked out of her forehead, it storms back twice as hard. Her nose loses the scent of Malak, attunes to the smell of gunpowder. Her skin goes tight in response. Distracted, she doesn’t notice until it’s become a problem.

  Here’s what’s truly terrifying, then: that a Malak freed from her conscription might soon desire to be free of her Wren too. Right now, when the army tells her where to go, she goes, and blessed are you, Rowena, that this coincides with your personal need. In absence of orders, Malak could go wherever she pleases. What if where she pleases is somewhere other than where you might be?

  What kind of life is there to be had with a woman who can’t even bear to look at herself in an unclouded mirror?

  Oh, that’s a bad memory. Don’t dwell on that one.

  The dead chatter all around her. She shushes them away as best she can—in places like this, few voices are soft and sweet as farmers and sheepherders, and rarely, once you’ve opened the gates of your perception, are you allowed to choose what flows through them. Box them away, cloister them off, bury this part of you. Breathe Rowena, easy and still.

  Tink-tink-tink.

  Hair spills over her face as her head, unbearably heavy with drink, lists to the side. Her gaze falls upon the lantern once more. Though its light is almost out, the moth remains unceasing in its attack. Good, something to concentrate on. She rivets her attention to the assailing insect. She stills her breathing, so she can better hear the flutter of wings. She watches it cycle through each rebound and riposte, using the mechanical, instinctual motion as a talisman to force away her own instinct bubbling towards the surface.

  It’s too late. She’s borderline. The whispers build pressure against her skull. Her molars grind. Her shoulders stiffen. Her neck locks. A chain slinks around her throat—click, click, click—and her breathing goes so thin she sees spots.

  She can no longer focus on the moth, her vision blooms and fades between each heartbeat. Growing dizzy. Wants to scream. You always want to scream, when the change starts. You have to make a sound, have to make it external, what brews inside you, for fear of exploding if you don’t. How ‘bout a scream? Just one. It’ll help. It’ll certainly help.

  She clamps down on the thought by jamming her teeth into the skin between her thumb and forefinger. They can’t be caught. Not a sound; not a sound.

  A clatter of falling cargo sounds from outside. Something large and metal hits dirt and Malak startles awake with a groan. Voices of soldiers clamor against each other, everyone blaming everyone else for the mishap. The anger anchors to Rowena’s bones, spurring that torrent of rage inside her to breakneck speed. The hair on her arms goes stiff and her skin pebbles with goose bumps. It could happen. It could happen at any moment.

  Furtive fingers grip at Malak’s leg.

  “Help,” she whispers. “Please, help.”

  Malak drags her into a hasty embrace. An arm crushes around her shoulders, strong as iron, and her head sockets beneath Malak’s chin. The illusory chain—no less present, for being imaginary—winds another measure around her throat. She narrows her vision and takes in a straggling breath. Fingers clench into her hair, denying any possibility of escape, no matter what rebellious throes her body might bring.

  It’s a fighter, her body, decoupled from the binding of rational thought. It thrashes in Malak’s embrace, resentful of its binding. Teeth snap out, finding Malak’s neck, and claiming it for their own.

  “Careful,” Malak says. “Gentle.”

  But Rowena is a beast and beasts have no capacity for “gentle.” So her teeth dig down, dig deep, and dig hard, drawing a cry from Malak loud enough to rouse a village.

  Loud enough to force even the frantic heart of a wolf to skip a beat.

  In the space of that heartbeat, Rowena snaps herself to senses, forces her body to remember its place. She is the mind and it is only so much meat. That’s how she claims this thing, that’s how she controls it, for it is she. However baneful that thought might be, there are worse things than thoughts. Her body goes slack. The chain around her neck cracks open. And she is free.

  Just like that, it’s over, finished, forestalled for another day.

  (today?)

  Shoulders rustle against Malak’s grip and Malak, sensing the moment has passed, releases, letting Rowena roll onto her back. They’re apart for all of a single blink before Malak spills atop her. Heartbeats come rapid and thick. Malak plants rough, worried kisses against the top of Rowena’s head, the sort of brazen, dauntless affection that is her hallmark.

  It’s a shame Rowena has no mind for it. The thrill of regaining control fires through her in supple wave, erasing conscious thought, combining with the intoxication of the sour hooch still roiling in her stomach and creating, for those few blissful seconds, a place in her mind untouched by the utterances of the dead or the roar of her past.

  As she watches the darkness pulse above her, Rowena heaves hoarse breaths into the still, humid air. Her skin loosens. Her vision regains its focus, bit by wonderful bit. In her stupor, she sees the tension evaporating from her. It sparkles in the darkness like emerald fireflies.

  Terrible as the change may be, no sensation is so sweet as the oblivion that follows a successful resistance. She is her own again, beholden to nothing, no rebellious body, no burdensome army, not even the storming blush that tends to follow the assault of Malak’s kisses. She feels as if she is floating in a great, white void. She is giddy. She starts to laugh.

  “Hey, hey, quiet now.” Touching fingers to either side of her face, Malak draws Rowena’s gaze to hers, voice almost brusque enough to conceal her anxiety. “You gave me a scare there…”

  Being caught due to a laughing fit would draw the same punishment as for any other reason, so Rowena clamps down on her laughing fit with tight lips, but that only explodes the sound through her nose in a sharp snort. The absurd, ebullient sensation in her chest winds down like a great, tensing coil. Tears spring up
into her eyes.

  “Must feel awfully good, that change of yours.” Malak shakes her head, releasing an exasperated sound. “Haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time.”

  Rowena emits an unrestrained cackle. “Better’n an evening rut!”

  “And how would you know? If you’ve got that to compare it to, I’m about to be awfully jealous.”

  It’s all Rowena can do to curtail herself to a string of long giggles. Stifling herself, clenching her teeth until they hurt, she decides she must be terribly, terribly drunk.

  Malak rolls her eyes, waiting for the fit to subside—which it does in short order, as weeping, snickering Rowena watches Malak’s fingers rock against the deep, red welt on her neck. Rowena’s cheeks pale. The sense blinks back into her head.

  “Don’t worry,” Malak says, glancing away. “No one will notice.”

  Rowena finds her mouth has opened—to apologize, she assumes. But how do you apologize for what you are? She sidles away an inch or two, manic relief quelled by this wave of sudden, striking shame.

  Malak does not abide shirking. She pulls Rowena back against her, comfort overwhelms concern, and Rowena melts into the loose hold. Again she luxuriates in the pulse of Malak’s heart, muffled through the thick, full flesh of her breasts. Shaking fingers drift over the firm abdomen pressed against her, exploring the ridges of muscle made hard first by labor, then by war.

  Shaking out her head, to clear away the cobwebs of bad booze and passing mania, Rowena extracts herself from the embrace and props herself up on her elbow. Looking down, she takes a moment to lose herself in the dark browns of Malak’s eyes, bright and beautiful, even with the lantern light all but gone.

  Cocking an eyebrow, flush of her own building nice and quick, Malak rubs the back of her hand against her nose and feigns a lack of care. “What?” Her eyes search the tent, eager for anywhere to look but Rowena’s placid, appreciative gaze.

  “Would you want to?”

  “Would I want to what?” Malak gives a hesitant cough. “Rut?”

  “Sure, that.” A sly smile scrawls across Rowena’s lips. “But all the rest, too: build a farm, raise spotted sheep, have children, grow old.”

  “What, children? Plan to grow them on beanstalks?”

  Rowena cants her head from side to side, enjoying the last wisps of weightlessness that buoy her brain. “Why not? I’m sure I’d do as well at that as I would raising sheep.”

  Allowing a small chuckle to roll through her chest, Malak drafts fingers over Rowena’s arm. “Either way, I’d like to see you try.”

  Rowena responds with a sharp, soldierly nod. “Good, then it’s settled.” Her smile claims her in full, big and broad as she hopes their barn will be. “Sheep or children first?”

  “Sheep.”

  “A whole flock.”

  “You’ll have to prove you can raise one before I’ll trust you with a flock of them.”

  Rowena feigns a cross look. “Have some faith!”

  Malak volleys back with a smile, worn and frayed around the edges, but no less appealing, cast upon her handsome face. “In you? Always.”

  “Well…” A smirk dimples Rowena’s cheeks. “Fine then, one—but only to start. I expect a whole flock, come spring.”

  “Spring? Bit too soon, isn’t it?”

  “Careful Malak. People waste away their whole lives worrying about things like too soon.”

  “Lucky we’re still young, then. We’ve got plenty of time to sort it out.”

  The camp is quiet for the space of a few seconds, quiet enough to hear each measure of their breaths. “And this war can’t last forever, can it?” Rowena asks.

  Although, for wolves, it very easily could.

  Always a pragmatist, even Malak has enough sense not to spread truth—they both know wolves don’t age out of army, and they don’t retire, that there’s only one way for women like Rowena free themselves. There’s nothing to be gained from saying it out loud, so why shatter the moment? Instead, she leans forward, nudging Rowena’s shoulder. “What would it take for you to share a few more of those smiles from time to time? I’d almost forgotten how precious they were.”

  Words like that are how young Malak Yata stole a younger Rowena Sted’s heart, in a time before the latter knew she had a heart to steal. So who’s to say words don’t have substance? Not her, not never.

  Eyes crossed, Rowena takes the time to think, to memorize this moment, to spin it over in her head and encase it in gold, so she can bury it safely in her chest for a later time. The smell of the air, the oppressive feel of the humidity, the tenderness of Malak’s touch, and the warm wash of her breath, all these sensations combine inside her, transmute into something different, something better.

  Malak gives her a jostle. “You little slag, quit drawing it out.”

  Rowena flops her head to attention, observing Malak with comfort-drenched eyes and a drowsy smile. She drinks in the line of Malak’s scar, the pleasing furrow of her brow, and how her lips purse with growing concern lacquered over by a thin veneer of impatience. There’s a sense of pride in that, that of all the people in the world a woman like Malak might make that face for, it’s someone like her. So it’s not a crime to make her wait, is it? Rowena’s earned this bit of gentle sadism. She must have.

  Finally, she says, “Bring more of that ‘shine next time and I’ll do more than smile.”

  Malak heaves an exasperated sigh into the air, just for show. “You’re a lousy drunk.”

  “The absolute, absolute worst.”

  A hand finds a hand and fingers lace, resting atop Malak’s stomach. Their smiles endure, easy and cool as morning dew. Rowena glances over to the lantern; the moth appears to have fluttered off, bored of selfish lanterns, or out in search of nectar. Well, godspeed, little moth, and here’s hope you’ll find your way.

  The dead murmur softly to her in the silence. As long as she doesn’t speak their stories aloud, they can’t enter her mind, but that does nothing to stave off the blunt sensation of their emotions, ragged and raw, enough to make you dizzy. Still, she does not shoo them away. As the moments pass, she touches each one in kind, even the terrifying ones—they deserve to be heard just as much as any other.

  A shouted order blooms in the air outside and Malak rolls her head to look, observing the scant glimmers of dawn fading in beneath the tent flap. A sigh finds her. “Reveille soon.”

  At the thought of battle ahead, Rowena’s body heaves out a final tremor, unconsciously preparing itself to crack its bones and change its shape, eager to have what it was denied, to sprout fur and fang and slake its murderous thirst on human bodies. A ponderous wetness buds in the corners of her eyes. She curves her fingers around Malak’s hip, applies the softest pull.

  At this silent appeal, Malak squeezes her hand atop Rowena’s. “We could run,” she says, as she always does on nights like these. “I’d protect you, make sure they never find you.”

  When they were young, Malak had no patience for the airy games of imagination Rowena would beg to play. Malak liked King of the Hill and fighting with sticks, preferring bloody noses to pretending at princesses. And yet, here she was: the woman who’d protect the beast. Isn’t that something of a fairy tale?

  But the rising sun has a way of shooing off the foolish inkling that there exists somewhere where someone can be something other than a beast. Rowena cups a hand around her upper arm, covering her brand.

  “Tomorrow,” she replies, as she always does on nights like these. “Tomorrow.”

  Malak nods. “Tomorrow, then.”

  THANKS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks for reading! If you’d like to see more of what I do, you can find it over at friendsfromtheinternet.com. If you’d like to see more of this work, share it around! Or let me know with a comment or a review wherever you found it.

  For future updates you can sign up for my newsletter at Gumroad, and you can find me on social media like Twitter and Tumblr.

&n
bsp; Art for this story was done by Wayne Norris.