An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon

“My sweet,” said Giselle in a wispy falsetto, a butchered rendering of upperdeck accents, “I think it’s best we put the perfume on my neck, or my wrist. It’s freezing.”

  “I am the husband and therefore I say what is best or not best.” She raised her hand up, but unsure what to do with it, she let it flop limply back to her side. Giselle mouthed silently, Come on. Don’t ruin everything. So Aster ripped Giselle’s shirt open, no great challenge, as they’d done this performance before and had intentionally sewed the buttons back on loosely.

  Smudges of black shoe polish and rouge covered Giselle’s chest, made to resemble the aftereffects of aggressive suction, as in the case of a sexual encounter.

  “It’s not what you think,” said Giselle, cowering, pulling at the lapels of her shirt in an attempt to conceal her exposed body. She dipped her fingers into a nearby pail of water and smeared liquid along her cheeks. Tears.

  “What I think is that you’ve given yourself to another, like a wh-whore,” said Aster.

  “Love, you know me, you know I’d never be unfaithful to you.”

  Aster grabbed the bottle of perfume from Giselle and threw it against the wall. Glass exploded into fragmented crystals, and the audience gasped, some women pressing their palms to their mouths to suppress screams.

  “Women like you are the reason we’re stuck in this glorified soup can. How many times did you”—Aster paused for effect—“fuck him? Each time you went on your knees, that’s another year added to our journey. Was it one time? Two? Fifty? . . . Fifty years. Fifty more years at least until Matilda reaches the Promised Land. You’ve made this Gulf of Sin. You’ve made it!” Aster sometimes liked to imagine her words were true, that all the bad things she’d ever done formed the fabric of the cosmos. The Gulf of Sin. Like the Sovereign said. Even though she knew science. Space was not sin. It was a vacuum. It was nothingness.

  “Archibald, try to understand, please, love,” Giselle begged.

  Archibald did not understand. He took off his belt, folded it in half, and went at Giselle’s back. Though they’d layered cardboard under her blouse earlier, Giselle called out and screamed and then whimpered and then whined and then squeaked, squeaked, squeaked, until an endless silence rocked the audience into applause as Giselle took her fake last breaths.

  Aster’s heart thumped, like it always did, but she noticed it more so now. “Giselle? Giselle?”

  “Yeah?” she answered, resurrecting from the fake-dead to take a bow.

  But Aster had nothing to ask, just longed to disrupt the silence.

  * * *

  Things were always going wrong back then. One day, Giselle got pregnant. She’d forgotten to take the tincture Aster made for her, so when an upperdeck man had her, a not-yet-a-baby grew inside her belly.

  “Aster, come,” said Aint Melusine, shaking her awake. “Dress nice and wipe the dirt off your face and try not to look so insolent.”

  It was barely morning, only four o’clock. The other girls slept soundly in their cots. At five, guards would come to wake them for headcount. That meant Aster, Giselle, and Ainy had an hour to do their business before returning back to quarters.

  Giselle slumped against the hatch, wearing her best outfit: a cornflower-blue frock, long-sleeved, with a smart white collar. Black stockings. Brown shoes that were not so beat up as the other pair she owned. “I don’t want to go,” she said.

  “You wish to keep your offspring?” Aster asked.

  “No—just. I don’t want to go. I want to wake up and have it be over.”

  “It will be fine,” said Aster. It was the sort of thing she’d heard others say in similar circumstances, and she hoped the adage applied now.

  Aster stumbled in the low light, pulled blue tweed trousers over her long johns.

  “Do something with that hair,” said Aint Melusine.

  So Aster fixed it into a thick flat braid and put on a cap. “Sufficient?”

  “Hardly,” Aint Melusine said. “But it’ll have to do.”

  Aster spun the handwheel to open the hatch, and Giselle reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. “Can’t the man come to me to do it?”

  “We don’t have time for this, child,” Ainy said. Then she muttered something in patois, difficult to translate, but meaning something close to, Fretting is for people who can afford to fret.

  “Why can’t you do it, Aster?” Giselle asked. “You’re always going on about being a great scientist and all the things you can make. So can’t you create something that will make it go away?”

  “I know of nothing that wouldn’t hurt you too,” Aster said.

  “Then let me get hurt. Let me get so sick I almost die. I’d rather that than go. Please don’t make me. They will get me and they will hurt me.” Giselle turned to Ainy, clutching her shirt.

  “You know I will carry you kicking and screaming if need be,” said Aint Melusine. She pressed her palms over Giselle’s, squeezed, then pushed them away. Aster went to her med-kit, removed the bottle she’d given Giselle before, on those occasions her braveness left her and she could not leave the cabin.

  At the time, in those days, still an adolescent, Aster thought Giselle’s cowardice an expression of hypervigilance, a logical but inflated reaction to Matilda’s dangers. After curfew especially, the guards who patrolled the corridors embraced lawlessness—one of those words that didn’t mean what it meant. Lawlessness suggested the laws forbade such violations. They did not.

  Though her surroundings amplified her fears, Aster knew now, years later, that Giselle’s phobias and anxieties breeched into the territory of psychosis: a paranoia difficult to identify because so many of Giselle’s concerns made sense.

  “Take one spoonful,” Aster had said, handing Giselle the medicine. Giselle swallowed the viscous, tangy liquid.

  “Ready?” Ainy asked, already in the corridor.

  Thirty seconds passed before Giselle ventured a step.

  “See? My tough little woman,” said Ainy.

  Giselle did not appear heartened, but the medicine restored some of her cocksureness. She walked head up, behind Aster, Ainy’s arm wrapped tight around her. Should anyone see them, they looked innocent enough. A grandmother and her grandbabies. Out past curfew, yes, but not for anything nefarious. This was what they’d say. Aster hoped it would work.

  When they completed their upward journey, Giselle fingered the fabric of her frock so that the skirt bunched up and more of her legs were visible, revealing scratches on her skin where she sometimes picked at herself. They’d arrived at their middeck destination, and Aster straightened before knocking in the code they’d been instructed to use. Three taps in quick succession—a lone tap, then two taps.

  The sound of the lock undogging, the creak of the spinning wheel, and finally the whine of the hatch opening. They entered the small cabin of a middeck woman with white skin and graying hair. “You’re late. He’s waiting for you.” She spoke in Middle, so Melusine and Giselle couldn’t quite understand, though Aster translated for them.

  “Do you have the required payment?” the woman asked.

  “Yes, and you will receive it following the successful completion of the service,” Aster replied. She looked about the finely decorated cabin for the man they’d come to see. The middeck woman stalled by putting on water for tea. It wasn’t until the rose leaves were steeping in hot water that he appeared from behind a curtain: the Surgeon. His eyes scanned briefly over Melusine, Giselle, and Aster.

  “Heavens’ grace upon you,” he said in the Low dialect, and unlike the other upperdeckers Aster had thus far met in her life, he possessed no discernible accent. Still, Aster tensed upon hearing it. The precision of his vowels and the overpronunciation of his consonants gave the musical language a strange rigidity.

  Where she’d expected a kindly, ineffectual, elderly white man was instead an imposing young anomaly. His black hair shined with multiple coats of pomade. Thick, heavy eyebrows, hairs curling coarsely at the sharp arches. Pale sk
in but with a definite olive-brown undertone. Brown eyes and dilated pupils. He was little more than a boy, no more than five years her senior—twenty, twenty-one, if she was being generous. His presence was that of someone much older.

  “Heavens’ grace upon you too, sir,” said Ainy and Giselle.

  Aster offered no greeting. She noted the small silver rings that pierced the round edges of his ears. Nine on either side. Prayer rings, for the recitation of the Heavenly Litany. The sight of them sent Aster’s heartbeat awry. She didn’t like religion because religion didn’t like her, often treating her cruelly. She crossed her hands behind her back, clasping them tightly so she wouldn’t fidget. “Do you consider yourself very devout?” she asked him, knowing the question was a non sequitur, not caring because she needed to investigate.

  The Surgeon tilted his head to the side, squinted. “You mean, am I devout to my patients? Of course. Yes. I provide a service, and it’s my duty to maintain a certain level of care and professionalism.” The words themselves were mundane, no different than the ones a shoe salesman might use to describe his trade; but beneath the content of his speech crackled a tone of self-conscious indignation. Even Aster, who frequently missed tonal shifts altogether, heard it.

  “You have misunderstood the question,” she said. “What I meant was, are you devout to God?”

  That seemed to perplex the Surgeon even more than the first version of the question, but he answered, “Yes.”

  Aster turned to Ainy and Giselle, jutted her head to the entryway. “We must leave.”

  “What?” said Giselle, but had no problem moving toward the hatch.

  Aint Melusine grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her back. “Excuse me, Aster, but you’re the child here. That means you don’t bark orders. I do the telling, and you do the listening,” she said.

  “It’s a trap,” said Aster.

  Giselle sidled up close behind Aster, either for protection or to intimate a sentiment of I-told-you-so. Aster had not considered the legitimacy of Giselle’s concerns, knowing how prone she was to anxiety. Rumors of Matildans advertising abortion services falsely, only to turn in anyone who sought those services to the Guard, circulated the lowdecks.

  “This isn’t a trap,” said the middeck woman whose suite they occupied. “You expect me to dog the hatch and pull out a knife and hold you hostage until the Guard arrives? You’re being dramatic, and wasting my time.”

  “Enough,” Melusine said. “You think you know everything, but you don’t. The next time I have to remind you your place, you get hit, and it’s gonna knock you out, and you’re gonna wake up with a busted lip and a broken tooth. And maybe then you’ll think twice before talking.”

  Which seemed a curious thing for Ainy to say because in actuality, Aster always thought thrice before talking, having said the wrong thing too many times. “I was only try—”

  “Don’t interrupt me. I was the one to seek Theo out. Me. You don’t trust your Ainy to mind all her p’s and q’s? Like she’s not the one who feeds you and clothes you? Like I’m some provincial who can’t tell real gold from paint?”

  “Theo?” Aster said, and glanced over to the Surgeon, who stood stiffly, face placid and unperturbed by the goings-on. “You know this man?”

  “I wouldn’t bring her to someone I didn’t,” said Ainy.

  Aster looked again at the rings on the man’s ears, licked her lips.

  “Are we all ready, then?” the Surgeon—Theo—asked. He pulled back the same curtain from which he’d emerged. “There is room for only two of you.”

  Ainy made to go, but Giselle reached for Aster and clung. “Please, Aint Melusine? I want Aster,” she said.

  “Fine.” Ainy limped to a lush velvet couch with pristine wood feet.

  The Surgeon led them behind the partition, where there was a brown leather recliner. “Sit.”

  Giselle plopped down, moved the lever on the side so that the footrest popped up.

  “Would you like a sedative?” he asked. “It is very mild, and it will calm you, which will help relax your muscles and make all of this go more smoothly.”

  “Already had some,” Giselle said. “Aster gave me something real good before we left Quarry Wing.”

  The Surgeon’s gaze flashed to Aster. “You gave her poppyserum?”

  “No,” said Aster. “Absolutely not.”

  “Alcohol, then?”

  “All I gave her was a small dosage of anxiolytic, a benzodiazepine to be specific, which I synthesized myself. Traveling in the corridors can be dangerous. I did what was necessary so that we could keep our appointment.”

  The Surgeon turned on a faucet and stuck his hands beneath, skin reddening from the heat of the water. After he rolled his cuffs up to his elbows, he soaped himself, lather turning his black hair white. “You synthesized your own benzodiazepine? That’s very impressive.”

  “It wasn’t difficult,” said Aster.

  In truth, she’d not synthesized anything at all, only dissolved pills she’d stolen from an upperdeck woman into an herbal solution that heightened the calming effects of the drug. She’d tried to make it herself, her burgeoning interest in alchematics being what it was, but the books she found confused and then upset her. She hardly knew yet how to solve stoichiometric equations, let alone how to carry out nucleophilic substitution.

  “You’re a healer?” asked the Surgeon.

  “An alchematician.”

  “An aspiring alchematician. She couldn’t even figure out what to give me to take care of this,” said Giselle, patting her lower abdomen.

  The Surgeon pointed to a stool, and Aster sat, watching him as he worked. He didn’t speak, and though only a few cubits separated them, Aster felt that to touch his hand she’d have to first journey across a gulf the width of the universe itself, which she understood from her studies of physics was constantly expanding.

  “Do you need help?” asked Aster.

  “No,” he said, so she took out her flip pad and wrote, drawing detailed diagrams of each tool he used, writing notes about his process. She wanted to say, Like your job is so hard, but the measured movements of his hands were a sight to behold, and as she watched her own grasp a pen, she saw only how, in comparison to his, they seemed big and stumbling.

  Afterward, when it was done, Giselle wobbled on uncertain feet out to the main room in the cabin. She and Ainy leaned up against each other. Aster handed the middeck woman the agreed-upon payment: a bundle of freshly spun kashmir wool, dyed a rich shade of violet.

  As they gathered to leave, Aster saw the Surgeon without the white coat. His crisply starched shirt gleamed the brightest white. The triangle knot of his tie was centered just so. He was effeminate in a way she hadn’t noticed before in his doctor attire. Maybe it was how clean shaven he was, when many men on Matilda preferred a dash of stubble—more had beards. It was a sign of youth, folly, and girlishness not to have a beard, and it was surprising that a highdeck man had gotten away with having such a smooth face.

  “Which deck do you need to get back to, Ms. Melusine?” Theo asked.

  “Q. Quarry Wing.”

  The middeck woman lived on M, which meant a homeward sojourn of four stories.

  “We’ll make it if we hurry,” Aster said.

  “Does it look like we’re in any position to hurry?” Aint Melusine snapped.

  “Perhaps we could stay here. We’d miss headcounts, but we could explain that away later,” said Giselle.

  The middeck woman shook her head. “My husband works for the Guard. His shift ends soon. We’re cutting it close as is.”

  The Surgeon tidied the other section of the cabin, folding up the partition neatly into a canvas carrying case. Tools lay in an even row across the shelf, to be packed up into his medicine bag. He had nothing to worry about. Upperdeck men could travel freely despite the hour.

  “If you’d told us your husband was a guard, we’d have made arrangements to meet Theo somewhere else,” said Aint Melusine.<
br />
  “Had you been on time, it wouldn’t be an issue,” countered the middeck woman. She closed her eyes, released a whistled breath through pinched lips. “Please. Leave.”

  * * *

  I’m no saint, Ainy always said. But Aster knew better. Only Melusine could unknot the tangles in old skeins of yarn like it was nothing.

  “How much time we got?” Giselle asked, Ainy’s arm slung over her shoulder.

  “Nine minutes.” Aster stood one pace ahead of them, but to their side, so she could see them clutched together in her peripheral vision.

  “Is that enough time?” asked Giselle.

  “Not likely.”

  Giselle held tighter to Aint Melusine.

  “We’d be fine for time if you hadn’t held us up,” said Ainy.

  Aster hushed them, index finger pressed to her lips. “I heard something.”

  They approached the staircase with light feet. “Seven minutes,” Aster whispered at the foot of O deck. “We’ll cut through Ocean Wing here. Fewer guards.” She held her breath, but could still smell the must. Women here left their boots outside their cabins. Every third bulb flickered half-dead in the ceiling, dimly lighting their way.

  “Five minutes till headcount,” said Giselle.

  “Four,” Aster corrected.

  They walked single file, bodies diagonal, to fit down the maintenance stairwell. Beyond the walls, Aster heard the sound of guards coming on to morning shift. They stomped down the main steps in their thick-soled combat boots. Then—“All residents of P deck, Q deck, and R deck—awake! All residents of P deck, Q deck, and R deck—awake! Headcounts to commence. Any residents found outside of their quarters will be seized without hesitation, including any women who have temporary housing in the wings designated for pregnancy and child rearing.”

  “I must leave you two here,” Aster said, peeking through the glass of the door that led to the corridor.

  “That’s the exact opposite of what you got to do. Stay with us,” said Giselle.

  “I will cause a distraction at the end of Quince Wing so that you two can make it safely back. It is a simple matter. One caught is better than three caught.”