An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon

  “You’ve caught me on a bad day.” Theo slicked his hand over his sparse black hair, but doing so did nothing to tame the cowlicks.

  “If you’re the Surgeon, as you claim, then I’d like for you to remove my kidney, right here, right now. Can you do that for me?”

  The Surgeon could do no such thing, of course. Such a procedure would take more than an hour. The coronation was in less than half an hour.

  After a pause, the man laughed boomingly, throwing his head back. “I am joking, yes? Even God’s chosen can take a joke?”

  “Of course.” Theo laughed as well. A lying laugh.

  “Now let me show you to it,” the man said. “Evening Star awaits us.”

  Melusine, who used to work in the highdecks as a nurse, described E deck as everybody doing nothing very slowly. Aster didn’t disagree.

  “You think it’s all right to bring him to this?” the man asked. He looked like a Villem, so in her head, Aster began to call him that. “A coronation is a very holy event. Of course, who am I to school you on what’s holy?” Villem laughed again. “What’s your name, boy?”

  Aster stared ahead, kept her hands stuffed into the pockets of her trousers so as not to slap her thighs nervously. “Aster,” she said.

  “Aster? What a peculiar name for a boy,” said Villem.

  “He’s named for his mother,” said Theo, “as is the custom on his deck when the mother passes in childbirth.”

  Theo’s fibs possessed a suaveness Aster’s lacked.

  “Are we almost there?” she asked, quickening her pace.

  Villem smiled at her, threw his arm around her shoulders. She wanted to bite his pale hand dangling at her chest, finger almost touching her nipple. “You’re excited,” he said. “It’s good to see one of your sort so invested in the political goings-on. I know life on Matilda isn’t always fair, but we all agree some sacrifice is in order, and we must maintain a level of decorum if we’re to survive this voyage.” He patted her back, and she tried not to tense.

  Chuckling, he pulled her into his embrace, strange, alien affection scaling off his skin. They were not comrades, and yet he treated her with such camaraderie.

  Villem showed them to Evening Star’s entryway. “Mind you, everyone is always late. I wouldn’t worry about missing anything. This is my third coronation.”

  “Do you know any specifics on the protocol?” Theo asked. “I was only notified last minute. What will actually happen?”

  “We were all only notified last minute. There tend to be weeks of deliberation before a new sovereign takes the helm. I suppose you’d be too young to remember how much time there was between your father and Nicolaeus. The blackouts have the Sovereignty in a right state, don’t they? They have faith that the new sovereign, whomever it might be, will return things to their previous glory.”

  Aster tugged at the tail of Theo’s jacket, Villem’s hand still at her waist.

  “Sorry, General, but don’t we need to go? Villem, you’ve been kind. Goodbye,” Aster said, wrangling out of his grip and pulling Theo forward. When the man followed them through the double doors, Aster made sure to walk briskly toward the crowd to lose him.

  Evening Star was a magnificent ballroom. Portside, there was only stained glass, large windows that covered end to end in every direction, looking out onto Baby. Her light made the colors so vibrant.

  The ceiling seemed to stretch infinitely high. “So much light,” Aster said, though for once, it wasn’t a bother. The walls were not rusted bronze, but some strange plaster material, painted a pale, creamy white and engraved with intricate loops, points, twists, patterns. Everything was wood—the floors, the fixtures, the furniture, the window frames, the doors. Pews, like at temple, circled the room around a center platform. “What now?” she asked, surveying her surroundings.

  Theo searched the room just as frantically. “Up here, you’re Aston, by the by. We can’t expect that everyone here will be as stupid as—Villem.”

  “Oh, I think we can expect it,” she said, glancing about. “We should expect it.”

  Theo made a raspy sound in the back of a throat, then laughed softly. “That was funny, Aston. I’m impressed.”

  Men and women filled the seats, speaking hurriedly. Curiosity warped their faces into uncomfortable frowns. A young man, black like Aster, lingered over her for a long moment. She squinted her eyes to see if she knew him, but his face held no meaning. The shape of the eyes, the bumps in the nose, and the burgundy in the lips coalesced into a fine enough face, but not one with which Aster was familiar.

  “Do you know that man?” Theo asked.

  Aster shook her head. “Should I take care of him?”

  “Was that another joke, Aston? I believe you’re on fire. Though I highly doubt that would end well. He’s stymied trying to determine your gender. If you ignore him, he’ll move on. No need for violence.”

  “But I could be very discreet,” she said.

  Theo laughed again, this time more vigorously. She wondered if it was nervousness, because he rarely laughed, let alone so freely. “Aston, you don’t have a discreet bone in your body.”

  “A discreet bone?”

  “It’s nothing, never mind.”

  In the corner, Aster spotted a brown woman in a head wrap. She wore a long white dress, a chain around her ankle attached to a weight. That was the only way lowdeck women got this high up.

  “I am going to speak to Reginald. He’s a Council member and will know what’s going on.” Theo pointed ahead to a finely dressed fellow in spectacles, his gray beard long and excessive.

  “All right,” she said. “But you must explain the discreet bone. It’s not nothing. You said it. Tell me what it means.”

  “It means you are not discreet. To say that you don’t have a discreet bone is to say you have nothing in your body that predisposes you toward discretion. It is not in your nature. Not in your bones.”

  Aster straightened her back and shoulders as they approached the center of the grand hall. These last few days she was always straightening, bending, looping, whipping left at the last possible moment, only to realize she’d meant to go right. “I hate nature,” she said.

  “And yet nature’s rather indifferent to you,” Theo replied. “Are you ready?”

  Inhaling deeply, Aster summoned what strength she had. “No, but I will do what needs doing.”

  “I find it useful to remember that everyone here has the power to kill you with impunity. Your own sense of self-preservation and survival should direct your behavior appropriately. Follow my lead.”

  She let him move two paces in front of her as they approached the bearded, bespectacled man. Theo moved confidently. Aster homed in on the rhythm of his steps, tried to mimic the hop of his hips. Even in her fine clothes, Aster felt a foreign species. Gold engulfed her: the embroidery on the handkerchiefs, the watches, the necklaces, the flecks in the servants’ eyes. Opulence for days.

  The grandiosity of it all got Aster to imagining a different sort of life, one in which a man named Aston and a man named Theo were lovers. The World Fair for the Society of Astromic Physiomaticians was to be held in Evening Star; the topic: Undermining Infinite Time Loops Using the First Three Laws of Transcurviogetics. Aston and Theo were the fanciest men in attendance. They drank fermented libations. A scientist named Patrocles gave a presentation on how in order to change their natures, universes must collide into other universes, creating a new, third universe with otherworldly physiomatic constraints. Being in the camp of the aviotologists, Theo would call it hogwash, but Aston would listen attentively and hiss at Theo to be quiet as he made jokes under his breath about Patrocles’s mustache actually being the thing that was under otherworldly physiomatic constraints.

  Different worlds, worlds opposite the one in which Aster lived, teased and beckoned her. She had to remind herself that those worlds were not possible. Aston was not Aston, but Aster, and Theo was not an aviotologist, but the Surgeon.

 
She followed Theo and tried to focus on the here and now, the mass of bodies surrounding her, what she might say or might not say as they finally reached the important-looking man.

  “Excuse me, Sergeant,” Theo said.

  The man turned to the both of them, straight-faced, his eyes the cruelest blue. Seeing him up close, Aster realized she knew him. Pockmarks dented his translucent skin, and his cheekbones rose high. He wore a black jacket over his shirt, ribbons and medals at the top right corner. He was Sergeant Warner, only dressed up proper now. Under the soap and oil, Aster could still smell Giselle on him, and her body slipped into mild dysfunction. She tried to count each thump of her heart, but swore it only beat the one time, a solid, thunderous clap. She stared at his pomegranate lips. If he recognized her, he said nothing. But how could he not? Shorter hair and a new outfit were hardly a facial reconstruction. That was how nothing she was to him, to all of them. He could stare her in the face and beat her backside with a cane, and then forget. She turned to leave.

  “Aston,” Theo called.

  “Theo,” she replied, but continued to walk.

  Aster wandered the slowly gathering crowd, turning left when she saw a group of women sipping coffee, then weaving through a row of semifilled pews. She tripped over a woman’s leather bag, apologized, and moved on. Off to the side, she saw a stack of neatly wrapped boxes, some in beautifully decorated paper, others in gold tissue paper.

  “Those offerings are for the new sovereign, boy. To welcome him to the throne. Don’t go getting any ideas. I know your lot have sticky fingers.”

  Aster ignored the woman and walked toward the stack. There was finally a place she could do what she’d planned back in the botanarium. The woman was now turned away from her, conversing with others. When Aster was satisfied no one else was watching her, she removed her own gift for the Sovereign from the leather medicine bag she carried and set it down next to the others. Those boxes were surely filled with fine wine and spirits, silks, brandy cakes. Aster’s was filled with Flick’s frozen foot, freshly gathered from the botanarium. She had written and attached a note that said, Now that you are sovereign, please consider reevaluating the atmosphere controls in the lowerdecks.

  Something in the water must have made her do it. Alcohol or some other inebriant known for its ability to lower inhibitions. Or the ghost of her mother had inspired her. A collective frustration letting itself out all at once. It was not quite the same as setting everything ablaze, as Giselle had suggested Aster do, but as she left the amputated foot for Lieutenant, she had the distinct feeling she was committing an act of self-immolation.

  Part III

  Phylogeny

  xvii

  Melusine Hopwood

  It’s morning time and I’m on my way updeck to teach Abe his letters, Lord help me. Here’s what I do: Put uncooked corn grits into a little pan (a waste of grits but his mother say children learn best when they can touch and feel). Next, I draw the letter with my pointer into the grits nice and big so he can see. Erase. Then he got to copy it from memory, drag his itty-bitty index finger through the granules. If he don’t get it at first, I show him again. We up to letter M. He can spell some. Bib. Feed. Gab.

  Bell is his favorite word. He draws the letters into the dried grits, says the word out loud, then likes to ring the little bell his father keeps on the desk. He’s almost three harvest years old. Quiet. Sometimes his father hit him, so he’s afraid to speak, laugh, cry. He always up for saying bell, though.

  I wish I could say I loved him, because he might be better off if one person doted on him proper, but I don’t. He make me tired and bored, and I’d rather be doing almost anything than playing with him. They say there’s nothing like watching a child’s face light up as they learn something new, but the folks who say that is lying. Children are fine enough, just not my favorite.

  At 07:00 exactly I tap the little buzzer next to the cabin hatch. The white woman let me in. She cleans and cooks but isn’t a servant like me. She gets paid a little something for her effort.

  Say the white woman: “Morning, Ms. Melusine.” I don’t know her name.

  Say I: “Morning.”

  “Abe isn’t feeling so well today, so his mother is letting him out of his studies.”

  Say I: “I’ll go report to my wing then.”

  That’s not true. Like any good woman, I’m a liar. I’m going back to my cabin to sleep, and if I play it right, my overseer won’t ever know.

  I’m already on my way into the corridor but the white woman call after me. Say her: “The mistress wants you to stay the full three hours and watch over Abe anyway. He doesn’t like his nanny as much as he likes you. He gets afussed when he doesn’t see you or when his schedule is interrupted.”

  I sigh, but what can be done? I should feel lucky that I’m here and not somewhere worse.

  It’s not common for a lowdeck woman to tutor an upperdeck boy. A proper schoolmaster, a fine man, should be in charge of the boy’s learning. But the mistress don’t respect men very much and say a young child’s place is with a motherly type. For some reason, people think I’m a motherly type. Because I’m brown and dowdy. She got her husband to hire a lowdeck woman who knew her letters. To play meema. It’s not my favorite type of work, but it’s better than normal shift, like washing pots and tilling fields, and it doesn’t hurt my joints so bad. It isn’t my first nanny job, and I suppose it won’t be my last.

  Say Abe when I walk into his room: “Ainy.” They still keep him in a crib. He smile a little when he see me. He missing a canine tooth. He look like a sweet mongrel wolf.

  I pick him up and hold him. He rests his head against my shoulder. His breath smells like cocoa milk. His skin is too hot, fever. I almost call out, Silly white woman! Come here! But catch myself in time.

  Say I: “Miss, where his mother?”

  The white woman come into the room, dust cloth still in her hand. “What was that, Melusine?”

  “Where Abe’s mother?”

  “The salon, I think.”

  The salon is where the rich women go to drink coffee and tea, to eat biscuits and lemon cake, and talk about important matters like why this and why that, but did you ever imagine such and such?

  I let Abe down because my joints hurt too much to carry him, but slide my hand around his, which is hot and sweaty. He’s in footies, the little buttons running down the side of his legs all the way up to the collar. It’s thick, almost like fleeced wool, and ivory-colored, darker and more yellow than his pale, pale skin.

  Say the white woman: “He’s shivering.”

  I nod my head. No way he should be so cold in that one-piece he got on.

  I lay him on the velvet sofa, and he don’t protest. The white woman and me get him out of his footies, take off his diaper. There are tiny little red rashes on his bum, back, thighs. Could be scabies. I wrap a fresh prefold around him, pin it secure.

  Say I: “Go strip his bed, miss.”

  She nod and do what I say. She a good woman. I like her. I wish I could remember her name.

  Say I to Abe: “We’re going to get you fixed up good, weewa, okay?”

  He’s too lethargic to cry or whine, but he smile up at me. I suppose it should melt my heart.

  I unbutton the top of my dress, pick up the boy, and press him almost-naked to me, then settle a blanket over his back as I bounce him. We skin to skin. His shivering go down a little, but he still cold. Say I: “Hush now, babwa,” although he already hush as can be. Like the little mouse in my favorite story. Who build a house under a little girl’s bed, with old colored pencils, shoelaces. All the other little mice want to get in on it, but they loud as can be. So little mouse teaches them how to be quiet. How to scurry. And they build a mouse village beneath the little girl’s bed, and she never know about it.

  My sweet, perfect one—Aster—she quiet like that too. Used to be she never spoke a word. But even now when she talks, it’s quiet, like she never sure the words she’s using is the
right words. All her words is the right words to my mind, though sometime she get smart with me, back-talking and all that, but every word out her mouth I love because so what if it makes me angry, I like to hear her. I like to know what’s on her mind. Sometimes I think what she says is foolish, but I say foolish things sometimes too. It’s a woman’s way.

  Abe almost as quiet as my Aster.

  Say the white woman when she come back into the room: “I stripped his cot, got his little stuffed toys too. Now what?”

  Say I: “Get his mother.”

  I hold Abe close to me and rock him gentle, say: “You look like an animal, all those red spots all over you. You been talking to my Aster, haven’t you? She gave you one of her serums?”

  Say Abe: “Momma.” I know he don’t mean me. He’s calling for the mistress. Hattie.

  Say I: “She’ll be here soon.”

  “Momma.” He look at me as he say it this time. That’s what make me put him down, lay him on the sofa, cover him with that blanket. He don’t reach for me, but he look at me and moan with all the passion of a child wanting their caretaker. I sigh, put a hand on his forehead, but don’t pick him up again.

  It’s best not to call me Mama, Meema, Mother, Nana. Ainy is all right because it sounds just close enough to a real name that I forget it means great-aunt.

  When I look after upperdeck children and they call me nanny, I nip their ears, right there in front of their fathers, and say, “Do I call you little beast brat? No. I call you your name.” The fathers don’t mind it because they remember their mean nannies fondly.

  Mothers tolerate my meanness less. They’re always threatened. I am old now, but even when I was young I was not the prettiest thing. But they acted like I was some hot little toy that was going to lure their husbands away. And I wanted to tell them, Honey, I don’t want to be here. Your husband looks like boiled cabbage smeared with cream cheese. If I could be in my room smoking a pipe by my lonesome, I would be much happier. But no, I am here cleaning your infant’s nasty, nasty spit-up. Luring your husband away is the last thing on my mind.