An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon

  “Thank you,” I say, and kneel on the provided cushion, touch the idol. Flecks of powdered sawdust rub off onto my fingers, and the smell of sweet maplewood is heady and strong.

  “I made that myself,” says Aster. “And can you tell that I dressed up for this occasion?” Her hands are in the pockets of her rolled-up trousers. I see now how good the material is, no signs of dirt or holes. Her shirt is soaked through with sweat, but I imagine at one point today it was crisply ironed. “Do you like it?”

  “I always like the way you look,” I tell her, then turn away. “Would you like to pray with me?”

  “No, but I will join you to make you happy. I like to make you happy.” She’s never said anything like that before.

  Aster kneels next to me, and I scoot over so that her knees will be cushioned by the pillow. Her bare arm touches mine, and I wish I wasn’t still in my white coat. I think of taking it off. Rolling up the sleeves of my shirt. Instead, I light a candle. She lights one too.

  “If it is not considered too blasphemous, I will do my anatomical recitations,” she says. “I have to keep my memory sharp.”

  “The body is part of God’s creation, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a rhetorical question, which is meant to assure me that it would not be blasphemous for me to do my anatomical recitations, correct?”

  “Correct,” I tell her, nodding.

  I hear her say, “Deoxyribonucleic acid, endometrium, endosteum, endothelium, enteroendocrine, inguinal falx,” and I begin the Evening-Hour Litany, words describing devotion to things I have never seen: oceans, mountains, deserts. I long to see them, though I know I never will.

  I think it was my nanny Melusine who made me the way I am. A queer. Not a man or how a man’s supposed to be. Bent. On Q deck, all children are referred to as girls. All people—all Q-deckers at least—are assumed women unless there’s a statement or obvious sign otherwise, such as the fashions they wear or the trade they choose.

  The more bold among the Guard call me faggot when they are drunk, or whispering. Because I refuse to keep my beard. My earrings, though religious in nature, are a practice most other highdeck men have long ago abandoned. I have three black dots under each of my eyes, drawn there with a coal pencil. It is religious, but still they know that I am off. Because I am an anomaly, because they see me as someone holy, they can tolerate my differences.

  Aster is still reciting next to me, even though I’ve stopped, and I don’t interrupt her. I blow out my candle. I look up and imagine this barn as a temple. I imagine God filling the walls.

  “Let us stay in here until Baby Sun is fully set,” says Aster.

  “I cannot.”

  We both hear someone approach, a stranger crunching in the dirt beyond the door. As silently as I can, I stand, putting proper distance between Aster and myself. The door comes open and a guard enters.

  “Surgeon,” he says, surprised to see me.

  “Yes,” I say, and do not bother to use his rank. I fully admit I am petty and disdainful. It is my pride, my greatest sin after fear.

  “An overseer told me he saw someone take a worker in here. Didn’t know he meant you.”

  It was no doubt the same guard who’d insinuated with his smile that my intentions toward Aster were untoward, and he’d taken issue with my response to him. He likely hadn’t known who I am.

  “Aster and I are discussing work,” I say.

  “Right. Right, sir, of course. My utmost apologies for interrupting.”

  “Sir?” Aster says.

  “What?” the man replies.

  “I have work to do tonight. May I sleep here and work through the evening?”

  “You plan on stealing some crop?” he asks.

  “No sir, of course not, sir.”

  “You can stay so long as you behave,” he says. “I’ll let your wing guards know so you’ll be excused from curfew, but you still got to be there for morning headcount.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He tips his hat to me then departs the barn. Soon it is dark, Baby Sun shaded for the night.

  “We can sleep here,” says Aster, pointing to a bundle of straw.

  “I am not sleeping here,” I tell her, though I want to, I do.

  “Then I will sleep here and you can go off and be important. Stay and have supper with me at least.”

  She unpacks a satchel containing tins of food. One is filled with red soup. It looks spicy and rich. Oxtails and beef knuckles and marrow bones rubbed in a paste made of red pepper seeds, then left to roast in an iron pot over the fire all night. Served with cornmeal dumplings. Ms. Melusine used to make me this dish when I was young, when she was my nanny.

  I no longer eat animal flesh, but Aster has brought me twice-fried plantains and a salad of cold lentils, chopped red onion, cilantro. Sautéed dandelion and mustard greens, squash blossoms. It is all Ms. Melusine’s cooking but I appreciate that Aster thought of me, that she planned this, a gift and a supper.

  “Theo?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have been thinking lately about the dead. Lieutenant has made it so cold that the hairs on my neck stand up and the skin on my arms turns to gooseflesh. I think it’s my mother’s hand stroking me sometimes, before I return to my senses.” Aster pulls her knees into her chest and rests her cheek against my shoulder. I want to kiss the top of her head.

  “I must go,” I say before hurrying through the rest of my supper.

  I go out into the fields, then into the corridor, and then updeck. I make sure my radio is on but thankfully no one calls for me. Once in my cabin I pray again, this time to be rid of impure thoughts. I pray for deliverance for Aster and Ms. Melusine and Giselle, and, selfishly, for myself. I undress. I beat my back with the five-tailed whip, then lie in a salt bath until I pass out.

  * * *

  Later, I barely hear my radio calling out to me. The water is cold and has wrinkled my skin. Draping the towel around myself, I move toward the handheld transceiver.

  “The Surgeon, copy,” I say.

  It is Uncle and he has news.

  viii

  Aster’s radio buzzed to life with a staticky moan.

  “Aster, do you read?” asked the Surgeon.

  Sun shined dimly upon the Field Decks. Wind from the air filtration system rocked flowers into a waltz. It felt good to be away from the chill of Q deck and the hoarfrost of the Ancestors’ whispers. Staying the night had been wise.

  “Aster?”

  “I read,” she said, bringing the two-way to her lips. Dandelion blossoms floated upward and away into the not-sky. She caught one, mashed the tufts of white between her fingers.

  “Are you all right?”

  Aster knelt, knees to dirt. “I am as you left me yesterday evening,” she said, though technically she’d relocated. Upon waking, she had left the wheat fields, chasing Baby’s light from deck to deck, settling in the field of wildflowers.

  “Sovereign Nicolaeus is dead,” Theo said, pausing for what seemed an inappropriate length of time before Aster realized he was giving her space to have a reaction.

  “All right.”

  “I wanted to speak with you before the general announcement. Are you sure everything is fine?”

  She dug her trowel into the muddy soil.

  “Aster?”

  “I don’t hold Sovereign Nicolaeus in particularly high esteem. Why would I wish to know of his demise before the general announcement? He was ill, was he not? This is expected.”

  “I’m contacting you to ask if there’s something you know that I don’t.”

  Aster thought of her mother’s journals, the jagged irises she shared in common with Nicolaeus. “There’s much I know that you don’t.” She managed, just barely, to keep herself from laughing at the sound of Theo’s indignant sigh.

  “You’re taking the piss.”

  “I am.”

  “All I need to know is if it was you.”

  “Was what me?” she asked in return, lip
s right up against the radio. Aster recognized the gargled sound Theo made as an expression of incredulity, but truly, she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Tell me and I’ll take care of it, but I can’t do that unless you’re up front, unless I know where your tracks are so that I can cover them. Now’s not the time to play ignorant.”

  “Then don’t speak so vaguely. Too much of my day is spent decoding euphemisms, then dealing with the aftermath when I decode them wrong.” She slipped her pocket watch from her trousers and gave it a look: 04:05. She needed to get a move on if she wished to visit her botanarium before returning to her quarters for headcount.

  “I’m asking if you’re the reason the Sovereign’s dead.”

  Aster’s brow crinkled into tense knots. “Why?” she asked. Days ago, Theo had come to her for help keeping Sovereign Nicolaeus alive, and now he accused her of having a hand in his death. “Giselle’s missing, my shoulder hurts, and my mother’s autobiography is written in incomprehensible riddles,” she said, speaking boldly despite the public location because she knew she was alone. “As much as I’d like to have had time to kill Nicolaeus, I’ve been quite occupied.”

  “Just—will you meet me in the morgue as soon as you’re able?”

  “Aye,” said Aster, taking pity.

  “Be careful traveling the corridors. Guards will want nothing more than to exploit the break in order.”

  “Though Careful is not my middle name, I will endeavor to behave as though it is,” she said, then went silent as she heard twigs crack in the distance. She cut off the transmission and slid the clip of her radio onto her belt, taking care to avoid bumping it against her radiolabe.

  She ducked beneath a canopy of flowers, gripped her trowel. The blade had a satisfyingly sharp point. If called upon to do so, it would break skin.

  Next to her, on top of her logbook, lay the olive cardigan Theo had knit for her. She wondered if she had time to button it on. Were she to wear it, the approaching stranger might take her for a finer lady than she was, and spare her whatever violence they intended.

  “Hello?” someone called, high-pitched. “Is someone there?”

  Aster let the trowel go slack in her hand. It wasn’t a guard who approached after all, but, judging by the shy, questioning tone, a civilian.

  “Are you there?” the voice continued to call out. “I know I heard someone. Please answer.”

  She pronounced each word with curious fullness, drawing the sounds out, her greeting a bit like heh-low, rather than the uh-lo or even ah-yo to which Aster was accustomed. An upperdecker, then.

  “Is anyone there?” the woman asked again, emerging through the fat stems of the dandelions. She wore a light-brown frock, buttoned chin to waist, the skirt flaring modestly outward. Blue veins showed through the white skin over her temples, and pearl earrings dotted each ear. “There you are. I knew I’d heard someone. These weeds are immense, and I seem to have lost my way. Would you mind terribly escorting me back to the path? My name’s Samantha. You can call me Mrs. Sammy, if you’d like.” She twisted her index finger into the strands of baby hair crowned about her forehead.

  Aster’s hair, rough as cornbread, protruded in similar fashion, too short at the edges to fit into the ribbon tying her bun. Drawing a hand across her face, Aster wiped away the strands that had become stuck to her forehead. The wide-brimmed hat she wore disguised most of the uncooperative coils.

  Samantha (Aster flatly refused to think of her as Mrs. Sammy) was not wearing a hat. She did, however, carry an ivory parasol edged with lace, a prudent accessory. Though they had ample recreational space, upperdeckers enjoyed strolling the more comely of the Field Decks before the morning shift workers came, even though Baby leeched radiation.

  “Aren’t you listening?” Samantha said, twirling her umbrella lazily. “Are you ignoring me?”

  Yes, she was.

  “A woman comes to you in need of help, it’s only right to offer your hand,” said Samantha. “Or are you deaf? Dumb?”

  Aster stabbed her trowel in the soil, glanced up. “If I said, Aye, yes, I am, in fact, deaf, dumb, am I to believe you’d leave me to my work and be on your way?” she asked, and it was a genuine question. If she could avoid conversations in the future by admitting to infirmities, she’d do so.

  “Excuse me, but—”

  “You are excused,” Aster cut in. “And to clarify, by ignoring you, I’d wished to convey I had no desire to speak with you, an overture my compatriots would’ve universally understood. In your language, a gesture of prolonged silence obviously means something else. However, now that I’ve elucidated, there’s no further room for misunderstanding,” she finished, eyes on the woman’s shiny white patent-leather boots, chunky heels in the soil.

  Aster had stated her piece as eloquently as she could and would pay the woman no further mind from here on out. Back to root-picking. Eight women in Swan Wing had taken ill with the blood sickness, leucocytes accreting in greater numbers than was healthy. A precise solution of taraxacum root, accebum blossom, livilia sap, spiny alva alkaloids, and enzyme inhibitors Aster synthesized in her botanarium would target and destroy the wayward cells, slowing if not stopping their progress altogether. She didn’t have time for the ship’s Samanthas—not yesterday, not today, and very likely not tomorrow.

  Aster sunk her fingers into the luscious soil, its texture neither wet nor dry. She didn’t have time to waste, but she wasted some anyway, luxuriating in the feel of granules against her skin, nesting into her fingernails. Thank Heavens for this moment. This chance to catch her breath. She would find Giselle. She would trace her mother’s tracks. She’d meet Theo. But for now, at this very second, she would dig.

  * * *

  As Aster made her way back to the path, she saw Samantha standing next to a guard at Heavens’ Gates, the massive double-paneled iron hatch dividing the field and the corridor, tall as two Asters, an oval at the top. Samantha made exasperated hand movements. The guard nodded his head. Aster walked toward them as slowly as she could.

  The guard had peachy-white skin, red sunburns on his nose, peeling. Curls of blond hair stuck out from his burgundy wool cap. He examined Aster with alert blue eyes as she got close enough to hear their exchange, and she recognized his face.

  It was the guard who’d barged in on her cabin less than a fortnight ago, inebriated, the one who’d beaten Mabel and Pippi with the belt after seeing them in bed together. He cleaned up into something much less soft. That night, he’d been easy to overcome. Aster didn’t think the task would be so easy today.

  “Come here, girl,” the guard said, and Aster knew better than to disobey. At least he didn’t appear to recognize her. “This woman says you’ve been giving her trouble.”

  Aster looked at Samantha, then back at the guard, and answered honestly: “She interrupted my work.”

  “It wouldn’t have taken you but a moment to show me the way,” said Samantha. Aster ventured a glance toward her pocket watch. “My apologies, am I delaying you by holding you accountable for your disrespectful attitude?”

  “I can take her into custody if you’d like,” said the guard, fixing his gaze on Aster. It wasn’t recognition in his eyes, but something close, and she bowed her head down.

  “That’s really not necessary.”

  “Would you feel better if I got her to apologize, then?” he asked.

  Samantha flicked errant strands of hair behind her ear. “This isn’t about how I feel, officer, and this isn’t a personal matter. It’s a Matildan matter. Our social order depends on our ethical order, and our ethical order depends on acknowledging and rectifying moral wrongs. So yes, an apology would be appreciated, but not for my benefit, but the benefit of the society in which we all live.” Aster had not met an upperdeck woman quite so showy before, and she seemed to be playing a part. It reminded Aster of Giselle, when they played house as children, and Giselle’s exaggerated upperdeck accent.

  The guard nodded perfunct
orily at Samantha’s speech, then turned to Aster. “How about it, Aster Grey, assistant to the Surgeon? Would you like to apologize?”

  Aster licked her dry and cracked bottom lip, the iron tang of blood spreading from the tip of her tongue to the whole of her mouth. “No,” she said, though she’d quite meant to say yes. Theo had called for her. Sovereign Nicolaeus was dead. She had a list of fourteen things she needed to do today. She had every reason to seek the easy way out via feigned contrition.

  “I never!” gasped Samantha. If she’d had pearls, she’d be clutching them.

  “I can sort her out,” said the guard with the hint of a smile.

  Samantha closed her eyes and left them shut for several seconds. “Fine,” she said, then pressed the large amber button to open the hatch.

  “Wait,” Aster called out, jogging after her, putting as much distance between her and the guard as she could. “Let me walk you back to your cabin.”

  Samantha gave Aster a bewildered look, taken aback by the sudden reversal in attitude.

  “I’m certain that’s not necessary. Mrs. Samantha is perfectly competent,” said the guard. “Besides, you’re not allowed to her parts at this hour, Surgeon’s pass or not.”

  Samantha glanced between Aster and the guard, then stepped in front of Aster, seemingly happy to play savior. “I would appreciate her taking me back to my quarters. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Aster nodded, a sack of dandelions slung over her back.

  Samantha reached out an arm and wrapped it around Aster’s waist, pulling her near.

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” said the guard. He brushed his thumb over the glossy wooden tip of the baton strapped to his belt.

  “Surely you’ll let the rules slide just this once so she might take me home,” Samantha said. The quality of her voice had changed, more strained now.

  “Rules is rules,” the guard said. In a lazy, mocking tone, he added, “After all, our social order depends on our ethical order, and our ethical order depends on acknowledging and rectifying moral wrongs, doesn’t it, Samantha?” Now he appraised Aster. “Most people don’t count on my memory being what it is.”