by Iva Viddal
“There, see. Sometimes big ideas are simply too big, and some of us—the unfortunates like yourself, dear—must leave the big ideas to those who can care for us.” Doctor Leech stood and smoothed her dress. She turned to the small dresser and pulled a square of black fabric from it. She shook it out, and a spider dropped to the floor and scurried beneath the bed. “You will need to change into this.” She laid the ragged fabric across the foot of the bed.
She turned to leave, and Nerma watched with horror as the thick tail slithered into view. Russet spots trailed down its center like leopard print, and just beneath its surface, Nerma was sure she could see the outline of arteries or organs. She quickly averted her eyes.
Doctor Leech looked back at Nerma, and a look of disquiet trickled across her face.
“You see,” she said, “neither Doctor Mapple nor I have ever seen one such as yourself before, one lacking a Purpose.” She spoke this last word with great, reverent emphasis. “You are—well, the best way to say it is that you are Purposeless. You are—well, you are bare, empty, incomplete. It is—” Doctor Leech looked away from Nerma, and a monstrous grimace contorted her lovely face. “It’s something that Doctor Mapple and I must discuss at great length,” she finished. She glanced down, tutted at the full bowl of mush, and left the room, closing the door with a click behind her.
Alone again, Nerma found that the bedding was sticky and dark where Doctor Leech had sat. She grabbed the lumpy pillow and went to sit in the farthest corner of the room. She had forgotten to pay attention to how the doctor operated the door, and in frustration she slapped her palm against the hard floor.
The clothing Doctor Leech had set out turned out to be a sort of dress or frock. Hopeful that playing along would help her get on the doctors’ good side, she put it on and found that it hung all the way to the floor. Perhaps once it had been black, but now it was the color of a blackbird that had rolled in dust, its feathers lusterless and bruised. The fabric was itchy, so Nerma held her arms away from her body as she settled onto the pillow in the corner.
For the next hour or two (or more, for she had little sense of time but knew that the night must be passing), Nerma sat on her haunches, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She imagined ways of escaping—breaking the ceramic pitcher over Doctor Leech’s head, using the three karate moves she remembered from second grade summer camp, breaking the window and yelling for help—and absentmindedly picked at the peeling wallpaper. After a while, it began to seem as though the ugly mustard swirls in the paper taunted her. They took on a life of their own, beckoning her eyes to follow along a smooth, predictable curve that then shot off at a bizarre angle. Each time she began to have a hold on the pattern—was it a flower or a horse?—the image would shift and order would dissolve.
After a length of time that seemed endless, Nerma leaned her head against it and drifted off to sleep.
7
The Climber
Seven stories below the Gold Room, where Nerma dreamt of an endlessly shuffling maze of yellowed teeth, a boy stood in a dark doorway, watching.
Outside the home and offices of Doctor Mapple and Doctor Leech, a crowd of villagers had begun to gather, but October was hesitant to join it.
Belinda Addams, the village butcher, was already in a heated argument with Mr. Switch, the upper grade schoolteacher. Belinda swung her knife close to the tall man’s Adam’s apple and the teacher shrieked, casting his eyes about.
“There, see—someone must have seen it that time.” The butcher lowered her wide blade and the teacher sniffed. “She’s going to make a pork chop out of me—a lamb chop. She’ll put me through her grinder and serve me as a meat pie, a Landjaeger sausage, a cured—”
“Shut it, you blasted book-mouth,” Belinda growled, threatening to raise her arm again.
“Shut it, the both of ye,” warbled a stout old woman nearby.
The butcher and teacher promptly behaved. Mrs. Oleander had this effect on the people of Small Hours.
October stood still, watching as more villagers entered the small square before the closed doctors’ door. Some carried lanterns and others brought jars of nightglows, depending on their household status.
October carried neither. He had always preferred the shadows.
The townspeople were growing restless. News had spread quickly as Midwife Cardea made her way through town, spreading news of the visitor. A Stranger was here, she said. A Stranger with no Purpose.
October reached up and smoothed his oiled hair, making sure it was parted neatly down the center and lay in two perfect planes on either side of his forehead. He re-tucked his shirt into his slacks and adjusted his cravat. There was something that bothered him about this whole affair.
“How could it not have a Purpose?” he heard the tailor whispering to his wife.
He heard her respond, “It must be an animal then, eh—a wolf with no hair, like, or a armadilly. I hear they haven’t no hair, not even a eyelash on their eyes.”
The tailor agreed.
One of the shop owners, Pearl Graveman, must have heard too, because she joined in. “A fish is more like it. No person can be—can be born Purposeless.” She rubbed her large belly protectively. She was due any day to have her first child. “Every babe is born with the mark of the Maker.”
Someone farther away shouted, “Bring it out! Enough keeping it locked away!”
Another voice hollered in agreement. “Let’s see the beastie!”
The crowd murmured in anticipation.
“Bring out the Stranger! We deserve a peek!”
October took a breath and secured the round frames of his glasses more firmly to his nose. Then he reached out and pressed his hands against the sides of the doorframe, bent his elbows, and pulled himself effortlessly off the ground. He climbed upward along the house’s exterior, moving silently and avoiding the lit windows from which the very young and the very old watched the spectacle below with interest.
Below him, the crowd continued to grumble. A baby cried out, and a deep voice joked that if no one brought the Stranger out soon, he would go and get it “just to calm the babe.”
October kept climbing until he had passed the third floor and the steep expanse of roof above it. A gargoyle perched inquisitively upon a higher overhang, and it was to this poor stony animal’s head that October attached one end of spider’s web, much to the creature’s displeasure. From his right thumb he shot another string of webbing across the alley.
He worked swiftly, careful to make sure that no one below saw him.
When he had finished, he swung across the narrow space between the two buildings. Upward he climbed, still keeping to the shadows. The moonlight lit the chill air and made it difficult to disguise his movements, but at last he reached the window that was illuminated by the yellow-green light of a nightglow lantern, the window where, earlier in the evening, he had seen a small and timid silhouette take form.
October pressed his hand to the glass, feeling the tiny hairs on his palms cling to the smooth surface. He pushed upward and felt the window open a fraction, but a feeling—or perhaps a sound—made him pause. He rested the curve of his ear against the glass and listened.
8
The Meeting
“Wake, child—wake,” a voice croaked.
For the third time, Nerma experienced the surprise of seeing a face with an extra eyeball on it. For the third time, she flinched.
Midwife Cardea was not flattered.
“A meeting has been called,” the dour woman complained. “Small Hours desires to meet you, it seems.”
Two of Cardea’s eyes wandered to the window. The unruly sounds of a crowd far below could be heard. Her third eye, however, remained fixed on Nerma.
“I would prefer to have you escorted from town or . . . taken care of in some other way, but the powers that be are the powers that be,” she said. “Come. Follow me.”
Nerma stretched her stiff limbs and followed the Midwife in silence. She wat
ched as the woman inserted a strange tool with five sharp pointed blades into slits that were barely visible in the door frame. The door clicked open, and Cardea slipped the tool into her skirt pocket.
They stepped out onto a narrow ledge. Spindly stairs spiraled downward along a curved wall, descending into a dimly lit chasm papered in mildewed mauve. Down they went, passing unmarked doorways and flickering sconces. Nerma stayed as close to the wall as she could, terrified that she would slip and fall into the darkness below. The cavernous space echoed with whispers of the Midwife’s skirt and Nerma’s worried breath.
Once on the ground floor, they were joined by Doctor Leech and Doctor Mapple, who provided Nerma with a pair of ratty gray booties and mittens. Doctor Leech draped a thick, hooded cloak over her shoulders.
Doctor Mapple once again wore his top hat. “Stay close behind and don’t wander off,” he barked.
Nerma followed the Doctors, and the Midwife brought up the rear as they made their way out to the front stoop. The rowdy crowd that filled the alleyway felt silent at once and stared.
Nerma stared back, her eyes wide and her jaw slack.
She couldn’t help it. From the front of the crowd stared the face of a man whose skin was covered entirely in fish scales the color of emeralds. Beside him, a young girl around Nerma’s age had a toucan’s beak instead of a mouth with lips. A woman’s head towered above the crowd upon a neck that looked to be made from a broom handle, and gramophones sprouted from the ears of two identical men who stood side-by-side, expressions of wonder upon their faces.
The Midwife nudged her from behind, and Nerma hurried to keep up with the Doctors. The crowd parted for them, and at times, the alleys became so narrow that villagers had to clear out entirely. More than once Doctor Mapple had to shift his great frame to fit through tight places.
The chill air seemed to seep out from between cobblestones and between the wood slats of the buildings they passed, and despite herself, Nerma was glad to have the extra layers of clothing.
At last, they arrived at a wide courtyard. A soaring building of stone and glass seemed to grow straight up out of the cobblestones and rose into a hulking mass, lit by the fiery glow of a dozen torches. A tall turret stretched upward, its spire piercing the night sky and blocking the moon from sight.
The Doctors led Nerma toward two enormous wooden doors carved with faces that seemed to laugh and cry in the firelight, and gargoyles watched from above with obvious glee as the Midwife prodded her from behind. Nerma stepped into a damp, dark space that rang hollowly with the sounds of their footsteps. As the villagers entered behind them, they lit torches along the walls with their lanterns. Above, a vaulted ceiling soared into gray gloom.
Rows of benches crowded the room, and Doctor Leech guided Nerma toward one near the front, pushing her down with a manicured hand before taking a seat beside her. Midwife Cardea sat on Nerma’s other side, and behind them the townspeople quickly filled in the other rows, humming in their excitement.
Doctor Mapple ascended a raised dais at the front of the room. There, he removed his top hat, and Nerma caught another glimpse of his twisted stem before he covered it with a peaked white cap, striped with gold down its middle. Doctor Mapple smiled benignly upon his fellow villagers and cleared his throat. He began to speak.
“People of Small Hours, thank you for joining us at Grackleswot Abbey. As you have undoubtedly heard, and as you may have seen with your own eyes, a Stranger arrived in town early this eve. This Stranger sits before you now, beside our esteemed Doctor Leech.”
The villagers murmured from their benches.
“There is no immediate danger, as you can see.” Doctor Mapple paused, and a tremor appeared to pass from one pole of his round body to another. “No danger—and yet, it would be dishonest of me to mislead you. The Promethean Primer warns us against dangers unseen. In Chapter Eight, Instruction Four—”
Nerma’s attention was captured by the rustling sounds of paper, and she glanced behind her to see that some of the villagers had pulled out small books bound in worn leather. Others were holding objects she couldn’t identify. A teenage boy on the bench behind her had unspooled a ribbon-like scroll. His left hand appeared to be a metal screwdriver and his right a clawed hammer.
Nerma whipped her head back around.
Doctor Mapple continued, “The Primer tells us to ‘beware the Stranger who lacks a Purpose, for dangers lurk in Emptiness as much as in life-thievery.’”
The doctor paused before repeating the last phrase, “Life-thievery, my friends of Small Hours. There is no worse crime.” He went on. “The Primer also tells us, in Chapter One, Instruction Nine, that ‘the soul of the Human person shall be incomplete without a Purpose, which the Maker hath shaped from clay.’” Again, the sound of rustling pages echoed through the cavernous room as the villagers followed along.
Nerma understood none of this and picked nervously at the fur of her mittens. It came off in little tufts that made her stomach churn, so she made herself stop.
Doctor Mapple sighed and let his chins fall upon his great chest. “Doctor Leech and I have examined the Stranger, and we have found that the Stranger is entirely without Purpose. It lacks protuberance, device, alteration, or variation. There is no evidence that a Purpose has been injured or removed—no scarring, no broken bits, not even a mole.”
He lifted his head and looked miserably at Nerma, who shifted in her scratchy black dress.
“The Stranger,” Doctor Mapple pronounced with an air of finality, “lacks the Purpose of Prometheus.”
The villagers gasped, and the room began to buzz with barely constrained gossip. Nerma pulled the cloak tighter around herself, wishing she understood what the Doctor’s strange words meant.
He waved a pink hand in the air to regain the village’s attention, but the people of Small Hours were too scandalized to notice. Eyes darted toward Nerma and then quickly darted away, and hands and tools gesticulated wildly throughout the great room.
“Stay seated,” Doctor Leech murmured to Nerma. She slid from the bench and joined Doctor Mapple on the dais. She hefted her great, dripping tail two feet in the air and let it fall with a great slurping slap onto the platform. Slap, slap, slap. Three times she clapped her tail against the wood, and the townspeople finally quieted.
Doctor Leech smiled at them. “I know this is quite a shock,” she said. Her voice was as sweet as caramel. “But Doctor Mapple and I, as well as the Midwife Cardea, absolutely assure you that we will keep the town safe. For the time being, perhaps we can all look at this little Stranger as—as a pet.”
The villagers grumbled amongst themselves, and Doctor Leech waited patiently until the noise once again fell to a hush.
“Many of us have pet skunks,” she continued, “and they do us no harm, despite their lack of Purpose. And many young children keep pet bats, of course.”
She flitted her hands through the air like little wings and raucous laughter erupted from the back corner of the room. Nerma turned to see a pair of large mechanical wings unfold from the back of a man with a devilish grin upon his face.
Doctor Leech went on. “Thank you, Bruce. We have all seen your wings a time or two.” Several people chuckled. “But, of course, I am talking about animals, not humans. We choose to share our homes with creatures who lack Purposes every day—skunks, rats, bats—and we are in no greater danger for it. Still, though, we must obey the Primer. That is why it is my professional recommendation that the Stranger be kept much as a bat would, in a cage, where we can monitor her and enjoy her prettiness but not be bitten.” Her perfectly shaped mouth widened into a pacifying grin. “So now, I call this meeting to—”
A voice in the back of the room interrupted her.
“Doctor, might we ask questions?” the woman with the broom-handle neck whined from two benches behind Nerma’s. She simpered loftily at the beautiful doctor, who bristled but nodded her assent.
“You may speak,” Doctor Leech agreed.
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br /> “I desire to know the Stranger’s name,” said the woman.
The two Doctors visibly flinched, and Nerma felt Midwife Cardea stiffen beside her.
Doctor Mapple leaned forward on the dais. “The Stranger’s name, you say? Why—I—why . . . I fail to see how such a thing would matter,” he mumbled.
The woman with the long neck raised an arced eyebrow. “Shall we continue to call the Stranger ‘it,’ as though it were less than an animal and equal to a rock or moldy potato?”
The teenaged boy on the bench behind Nerma laughed, and she felt her heartbeat quicken. She was being treated like a thing. Without thinking, she stood and faced the rows of gawking faces behind her.
“Nerma,” she said them. Her cheeks blazed. “My name is Nerma. Nerma Lee.”
The crowd seemed to move as one then as everyone leaned away from where Nerma stood. She heard whispers of “It can talk!” and “Hallowed Maker, save us all!” Mothers and fathers held their babies closer and shielded the ears of their youngest children.
“And I’m a girl, a person,” Nerma continued. “And I want to go home.”
A little girl near the front of the room climbed atop her bench and cried out, “It can talk like me, Mama!”
The girl’s mother used her knitting hook hands to pull the little girl down from the bench, whispering, “Yes, it can talk, darling. The Stranger can talk.”
The little girl smiled at Nerma, and Nerma waved. Two ginger plumes of fire shot from the little girl’s nostrils, and Nerma blanched.
“I’d like to go home,” she repeated.
A man with no discernable oddity stood from his bench and twisted a cloth hat between two hands. “Pardon, Madam Doctor and Sir, but mightn’t the child be a Diviner?”
The room stilled.
It was Midwife Cardea who responded. “I wonder. When the Stranger appeared at my door, I thought to myself, ‘Perhaps there is something about her of the Divine. Perhaps her Purpose is simply hidden,’ thought I. But the eye knows. It sees the emptiness within her, the Purposelessness that threatens to suck the very souls from our beings.”