by Jared Ravens
The judge stared at him from his perch, shaking his head before descending to the backdoor. Felix stood up. He should have felt embarrassed but he felt fulfilled. It had been like a test he had passed, a trial he had gone through. He felt emptied in a good way. On his way to the back door way he caught the eye of the Primary. She still sat in her chair, quiet and alone, watching him with a mindful glare. He nodded at her and walked past her, afraid she would reach out and accuse him of some crime.
“What was that?” Dayne said, cornering him in the hallway. His breath smells like like pickled vegetables.
“It was… a mistake….”
“Could have gotten killed,” Dayne replied, backing away a little. “You know how these fuckers are. You know how it feels to have that hysterical woman point at you? These defendants are all on edge. Some of them have weapons.”
“I know… It was spur of the moment. It won’t happen again.”
“Good to hear.” Dayne licked his lips and sighed. “Good tackle, though. How’s your back?”
“Fine,” Felix lied. Dayne nodded. Felix followed him down the hallway.
“That woman’s voice was like hot daggers to the balls. I was about to tackle her. We need to find someone else. What happened to the one we used to use?”
“I think she went off the edge and went into an institution, maybe a temple…”
Dayne wasn’t listening to him anymore. The harsh banging on metal coming through an open window interrupted them. Dayne gritted his teeth.
“Is that the fucking copper tower? When will it stop?”
“They’re doing improvements,” Felix said, glancing out the line of windows on his right to the gleaming tower just down the block. He was nearly blinded by the reflected light.
“They’re doing repairs. That thing’s had problems since day one.”
“I thought they were done with it, guess not.”
Dayne exclaimed the he needed food or he was going to pass out and continued down the hallway. Felix agreed and turned into the office he shared with five other clerks. He had had managed to steal a seat by the window with a view directly at the copper tower.
It shown brightly in the midday sun, standing far above the dilapidated wood and stone buildings around it. Robertson considered it a rejection of all he stood for. To Felix it stood for everything that could be accomplished when you don’t follow the bullshit that they told you to do.
If you followed their rules you would end up OK. You would find some job and some house to live in. You would probably be left alone. You would have neighbors that all agreed with the rules and were terrified of offending Spaulding or Celia or Genesee. Those vicious entities wouldn’t pay you any mind and you’d be safe.
But you wouldn’t have anything special. If Theo hadn’t manipulated his way through the law book he wouldn’t have this tower. Here it stood, a monument to what those on The Hill stood in the way of. Here was what humans could do on their own, if they were left to it.
He studied it as he ate at his desk. And then he felt it, too. He thought he even saw it move. The hammering, the constant banging, sounded like something on the other side of the building was being demolished. Maybe it was a mess, but it was a beautiful, human made mess. Let the titans on The Hill go stuff it if they didn’t like it.
There was a murmur in the room. Felix looked up from his lunch. The Primary in the multicolored dress stood there, staring at him with a confounding look on her face. She strode past all the other clerks and approached him directly. She stood there for a moment, listening to a voice in her ear.
“You have something to tell me?” Felix asked, bashful of the looks the other clerks were giving him.
She dropped into a seat beside the desk, a hand to her face. She looked almost astonished. Her appearance seemed to change instantly into something confident and her eyes suddenly glared into his.
“She says it’s impressive,” the woman said, her eyes bright with excitement.
Felix nodded and looked away.
“Tell her thank you,” he said, taking a drink.
“She knows you don’t trust her.”
“Well, she pretty much said not to trust her, Felix whispered, eyeing his coworkers.
“That’s why she’s speaking through me,” the woman whispered back.
Felix shook his head and stood up, motioning for the woman to follow him. He led her into the privacy of a hallway corner.
“Who is she?” He asked. “What do you want from me?”
“She doesn’t want to tell you, she says it's political. But she’s a friend.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
The woman smiled. “She knows you don’t trust them, that’s understandable. But she’s just trying to protect you.”
“I don’t feel protected. You’re watching me.”
“She’s asking you ever had a broken bone. Or a bad illness. Anything like that.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
The woman’s face changed again, the wrinkles softening and the eyes becoming a bright yellow and green. There was an a magnetic energy that reverberated from her, the same that he felt coming from the woman in the cage the day before.
“Its a hint,” the voice said, deeper and more earthy than the Primary’s voice.
She leaned in and thrust her lips on him, pushing him agains the wall and overpowering him with an energy that jolted his body. She remained there, lip to lip with him, as his eyes darted around in the hope no one would see him kissing this old woman. As she remained there, he melted into her, his eyes closed and his body relaxed. When she released him he had to catch himself from falling to the floor. He was crouched down, leaning against the wall, looking up at him.
“You’ve developed wonderfully,” she said, smiling at him. “I can feel it.”
“Thank you,” Fairfax said, feeling dazed.
“I don’t want to scare you,” the woman said, backing away. But just be prepared.”
“For what?”
“Mundanity is not in your nature, so don’t resist the urge to act,” She replied, closing her eyes. “The deal is coming due.”
“What deal?” Fairfax asked, standing up straight. The woman opened her eyes, appearing confused. Fairfax asked her several more times but she was confounded. She scanned the hallway and asked where she was. Fairfax stopped asking her when she began to cry and cradled her in the hallway until someone came to retrieve the bewildered woman.
The Cow
“And she kissed you?”
McKenna looked away as Felix told her this.
“How old was the woman?” Dani asked, breaking the silence
“Stop it,” Felix said. “That’s not important.”
“It might be,” McKenna said, smiling. Felix sighed and stood up, walking away from them. McKenna and Dani looked at each other and then stood up from the concrete river wall of the river that ran through Sigma. It was midday and the crowds of the market had temporarily ebbed. They joined Felix on each side as he walked away from the river and back towards the courthouse.
“It’s not funny,” Felix said, replying to Dani’s smirk.
“Sorry, but it is kind of funny,” Dani said. “Most people don’t have a lusty nymph chasing after us.”
“McKenna has to deal with her mother,” Felix replied.
“I wouldn’t say that she’s ‘lusty’,” McKenna replied, slightly disgusted. “This woman wouldn’t say who she was channeling?”
“She just started crying. Whoever it is took her over by force.” He could see the courthouse just down the road. He stopped on the street corner, sighing at the thought of having to return to work.
“She said ‘The deal is coming due’,” Felix said.
“What does that mean?” McKenna asked.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you could find out.”
“Me?” McKenna asked. “How would I do that?”
“Your mother.”
Mc
Kenna fell quiet and looked away.
“Would she be willing to help?” Dani asked.
“No,” McKenna said tersely.
“I wouldn’t ask, but this woman is going to keep coming back. I have to know.”
“You’ll find out eventually from her,” Dani said.
“I’d like to be prepared,” Felix replied.
McKenna looked at the two of them.
“I can try and slip it in. No promises.”
She waited in her room, listening to the sounds through the walls, fearing the question she wanted to ask. Near twilight her mother returned. She heard the banging of doors and the contentious conversation of her mother and father. There followed the warm murmurs of her father capitulating, and by the time she walked to the door of her mother’s octagonal shaped room he was rubbing her shoulder and cooing sweetly at her.
Good, she’s calm.
“There’s a girl,” Theo said when she entered. “We were just talking about you.”
“I’m blushing,” McKenna said politely.
“The date set up for you,” he set, his arm dropped around Delia. “I have an idea of what you should wear.”
McKenna smiled weakly, holding her temper back. Her mother gave her a knowing look.
“That’s just great, Theo,” McKenna replied tersely. “But I need to speak to mother right now.”
Delia shoed him along. She shut the doors to her room she turned, clasping her hands in front of her slender red dress. She shook her head, her long dark hair swishing softly across her back.
“I can hide you if you want,” Delia replied.
“For the rest of my life?”
“Possibly. What are you thoughts on temple life.”
McKenna laughed a this but she saw her mother’s thin face was not amused.
“I’m not going to become cloistered.”
“There’s many avenues for a girls such as yourself,” Delia replied, walking towards her bed. She began to pull her dress off and strip down to her undergarments. Several women appeared from the closets and helped her with many buttons and strings.
“Let’s not go there,” McKenna said.
“I can think of worse things than a life dedicated to advancing Celia. I can tell you unions are much harder.”
“That’s for me to decide,” McKenna said, walking towards her mother as the maids pulled her dress came down around her ankles. Her mother turned her head to look at her.
“Let me tell you from experience, there’s only a few paths you can take. If someone on The Hill has an interest in you, you only have a few options.”
“I don’t think anyone up there notices me.”
“They do,” Delia said as the women rubbed oil on her shoulders. “Because of me. Celia will want you, or Martel. There are worse things. And because of that your father will always be trying to make a deal to trade you out.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
Her mother tuned to face her. Now only in her undergarments, her body looked nearly skinny, her ribs perturbing from under breasts.
“I’ll keep your secrets as long as you need me to.”
“What secrets?” McKenna asked, suddenly fearful.
“The poor people, the women too,” she replied, sitting down on the bed and brushing off her helpers. “He won’t care about the women but they can’t be poor.”
“Mother…”
“But it would be a lot easier if you decided on the temple. They aren’t celibate, you know. All those women have each other.”
“That’s not a life to me. Not a free life.”
“Freedom,” Delia said, rolling her eyes. “Do your best to forget about that.”
McKenna nodded and made an attempt to refocus the conversation.
“I came here for a request,” she said.
“It involves someone poor,” her mother said, looking along the top of the bed for a night dress. She picked up the silky blue dress and held it before her.
“Well, he’s not poor.”
“Oh, it’s a he, I got it confused,” she said, pulling the dress over the top of her head. “I was seeing something.”
“I know how you feel about men…”
“Well then, you know how I feel so let’s drop it.”
“He’s had someone approach him from The Hill.”
Her mother looked up at her, startled.
“Who?”
“They won’t say.”
“What did they look like?”
“It was a woman. She can talk through other people too.”
“The men up there can appear as women, too. That doesn’t tell me anything.”
“He saw her at the union ceremony. She approached him there and then later at his work.”
“Strange,” Delia said, looking away, trying to picture the scene. “I didn’t see anyone from The Hill there. I would have seen them…”
“I think she kept hidden.”
“And who is this boy?”
“His name is Felix.”
Her mother looked at her straight in the eyes.
“The one that looks like a cow?”
McKenna was startled.
“Like a cow?”
“Yes, he was sitting down at the middle table and pretending not to look at you. He look exactly like a cow.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“People look like what they are,” her mother shrugged. “That’s what I saw coming through. It was very unusual. I thought you were trying to have… relations with him.”
“Me? No, he’s… We’ve known each other since school.”
“I sent you to the wrong one, then.”
“Mother,” McKenna pleaded. “Please don’t say things like that. He’s fine.”
“No, he’s not,” Delia said, sitting on the bed. “He’s not OK.”
“So who is this person? You said cow, could it be Ogden? Or Martel?”
“What does Martel have to do with a cow?”
“I don’t know, mother, please, can you help him?”
“I’m not meeting with him, that’s for sure,” she replied, pulling her stockings off. “But I will see what I can do. Mark my works, little freedom girl, stay away from that one. He has something going on inside of him.”
Vivian
Two handmaidens pulled open the vast gold doors as Martel walked unto them. The high, vaulted ceiling rose many stories above her, its rose and gold highlight twinkling down on her like the night sky. Intricately designed gold leafed chairs and couches suitable for her size were mixed with other chairs and tables that towered above her. The mixture of designs and sizes made for a disorienting jungle of furnishings. She focused on the voice at the center and walked towards it.
Celia was her size today, a relief to Martel who found speaking to family members many times her size to be frustrating and borderline rude on their part. She had made comments before but no one had ever noticed them, so she had given up trying to make her brothers and sisters come down to size. Even her own husband, Harper, would fall asleep in his large state and have her lay on his chest like some house pet.
Celia was dictating a long list to one of her handmaidens who was furiously writing every action down on a piece of paper. She reached the end of the page and dropped it, switching to another page without missing a beat. Celia had turned away from the girl to look at Martel. She nodded at her sister and smiled without pausing in her dictation.
“…The lawn is patchy in that corner and they need to have someone good come out, not that chiholi woman they bring in…”
“She does good work,” Martel said, interrupting her sister to give the poor handmaiden a break. Celia turned more fully towards her. She was a pale white today with straight brown hair that grew down past her shoulders as she looked at Martel.
“Not good enough for me. Not on my lawn. Get Ogden, and speaking of, that’s why you’re here. Do you know…”
She became flustered and began picking through the s
tack of papers sitting on the table in front of her. She pushed several on the floor to locate one.
“This child, my daughter Delia…” Celia shook her head. “She sent me six notices… Seven! Another is coming in. Bless her, she won’t stop.”
A flustered look came over her face and she wrote down an identical paragraph to the one on the page before her. At the same time a handmaiden approached her with another piece of paper.
“I know what that is,” Celia said, raising her hand to stop the girl. “If she sends the same message again to you then throw it in the trash.”
Celia handed the note to her sister.
“What is it?” Martel asked.
“She knows someone that looks like a cow.”
Martel drew back.
“What does that mean?”
“It means this person looks like a cow to her, so there’s some mistake or something strange…. I don’t know. Maybe someone fucked a cow.”
“Is it literally a cow?” The handmaiden asked.
“No!” Celia said, pausing to control her frustration. “She’s perceptive, and she sees things represented in some way most do not. And she’s a pain in my ass, though I love her. But she is a pain in my ass. What I need is for Ogden to give me an answer on this.”
“You think Ogden would know?” Martel asked.
“He would know more than me. I don’t care, I just don’t want to deal with her any more.”
“I don’t think he’s here.”
“Then give it to Vivian,” Celia said loudly. “She can find her lover somewhere and deal with this. Go!”
Martel walked hurriedly out of the room. She asked every helper she could find where she could find Vivian. She had her own work to attend and had little time to be a currier for Celia. At last she found Vivian lounging in a wooded corner of the lawn. She was sprawled out on a bundle of leaves. She drew breath as Martel approached and sat up.
“What is it, Martel?” She asked.
“Where is Ogden?” Martel asked, holding out the paper. “There’s… A person that looks like a cow.”
Vivian reacted, snatching the paper her aunt’s hands.