Every Mountain Made Low

by Alex White

  She nearly leapt out of her skin when a heavy hand fell on her from behind. A dim flashlight clicked on, illuminating a gaunt face. The gentleman to whom it belonged was a stage hand named Felix, whom she’d met once before when she’d arrived. She found him agreeable enough, if only because he almost never spoke.

  Felix placed a finger to his lips, silencing her, then motioned to his watch. “You go on after this song. Are you ready?” he whispered.

  Another piece of her bravado chipped away as the moment drew closer. “Will I be able to see all those faces in the audience?”

  “Not a chance. The lights are too bright. You afraid of crowds?”

  “I don’t want all of those people looking at me.”

  “You’re wearing a mask and a tux. I don’t think they can see much of you. You ought to see the things the other girls wear onstage.”

  Loxley gulped. “Silk?”

  “What clothes they manage to wear are made of silk, yeah.” He fell silent for a moment as the song ended and applause roared. “Okay, go up there after he introduces you and do your thing.”

  Loxley peeked out from behind the curtain to see a man standing out on the stage in a black satin jacket and white gloves. He put his arm around the singer, a woman in a blue sequined dress like sparkling water, and waved to the crowd. She held a trumpet, and Loxley surmised she was the one playing earlier. They stood before the darkened audience, receiving their applause like torrential rainfall.

  The man glanced back at her – it was Tailypo – and winked before speaking into the chrome-capped microphone. “Let’s hear it for Veronica! Our very own angel in the deep!

  Loxley’s stomach sank as she watched the host pat Veronica’s behind, signaling her offstage. If he did that to Loxley, it might hurt, leaving a mark just like all the other ghosts who’d touched her. The roar of applause scattered into a few sharp claps popping across the room, and Tailypo folded his hands behind his back.

  “Tonight,” the rumbling host began, “we have a rare treat – a diamond of the roughest origins. She will spin you a song unlike any other, chaotic in its attachments, yet astonishingly beautiful in its order: a spider’s web,” he placed a gloved finger to his temple, “glimmering in our minds; somewhere forbidden, yet somewhere we must all be caught, inexorably to struggle until stillness settles our hearts. She could so ensnare our thoughts that even the spirits of the dead must heed the siren call of her strings.” He turned to glance at her with a smirk before continuing.

  He unclipped the microphone and prowled across the stage, his heels quietly clicking against the breaths of the rapt audience. “We discovered her: squirreled away in some dark alcove of the Hole, a genius of the bow, lonely and afraid, and we brought her here, tonight, to show you all the wonders her deft fingers can weave.” With this, he waggled his fingers in a way completely unlike a violinist. He straightened. “I humbly invite you, on behalf of all of us at the Hound’s Tail, to enjoy the musical styling... of the Spider.”

  Polite applause greeted Loxley as she took the stage. Her skin prickled, but thankfully, Felix had been right; She couldn’t see a thing aside from Tailypo’s black coat. She tried on a smile, but it fit like a too-tight glove. She focused instead on making it to the stand where her host was re-seating the microphone.

  She gasped as Tailypo took her arm and whispered in her ear. “If you can make it through just one of those songs, you’ll still have a job in the morning. If you embarrass me, though, I might just sell you to Duke.”

  It didn’t hurt. His touch hadn’t wracked her with pain like the others. Had the things in his office only been an illusion? The deadly whirlwind of teeth and claws of the old woods came screaming back into her brain, and she decided to trust what she’d seen. Just because Tailypo was different, that didn’t make him alive.

  “I don’t think Duke would speak to you,” she said. Tailypo chuckled, but she hadn’t meant it as a joke.

  As he backed away, she turned to speak into the microphone. She froze. This close, she could make out the shapes of dozens of faces looming in the shadows. She let her eyes unfocus until all that remained was the bright haze of the spotlights.

  “Hi,” she said to no one in particular. Her voice bounced off the walls, and her hackles rose when it sounded as though she was speaking from behind herself. “You’re, uh... supposed to wait until after I play something. Then you can clap.”

  A few audience members tittered with laughter. Of course they were laughing at her. She raised the violin to her chin, then lowered it again with a sigh. More giggles and chuckles. She couldn’t do this. She never could. The world works better when everybody knows their place, Lox, her mother had once said. It’s better to fit in and be safe.

  Then Loxley remembered seeing herself masked in the mirror, fascinating and happy. That was the woman the audience saw, not the retard, the madwoman, the fool. She put that reflection of herself between the microphone and the audience, a guardian angel to save her from humiliation. She squared up her shoulders, raised her instrument and placed the bow to its strings where it bounced slightly, a spring waiting to be unleashed. The audience grew quiet.

  She exploded across the fingerboard with a set of ecstatic trills like a red bird fluttering across a spring sky. The world opened up with all of the possibilities of flight, rising and falling, ducking and weaving through the currents of air. She looped through the musical staves, high to low and back out again before shifting key one step up to rise in altitude.

  Higher and higher she went. In her mind’s eye, the Hole fell away to the vast expanse of farmland around it, leaving only the cut rings visible to the naked eye. No more ignorant humans could be seen dotting the streets, only the geometric perfection of the crater’s steps. The ever-present pillar of steam from the foundry rose into the sky, and she circled its rotund, lazy folds.

  Her fingers slowed to a crawl as she coasted on the wind, interrupted by the occasional note as a feather ruffled. Floating along a stream of augmented fifths, she could stay here forever, watching the clouds drift by, far away from the rest of the world. She sawed back and forth, maintaining a steady altitude for a number of bars before looking back down to see the Hole again, still waiting for her. She rolled and dove toward the ground.

  A strange key set in as she crashed through the industrial jungle, wheeling between buildings and darting through alleys. The houses became blacker the further down she spiraled, and her instrument’s discord became an incessant rhythm of angry notes. Then, with a burst of flames from the foundry, she hit the very bottom, and the piece became a long tangle of minor chords. Molten steel splashed perilously close to her as the pounding machines rang out in the choking dust. Narrowly, she escaped to the eighth ring, where she found the Hound’s Tail awaiting her.

  The building may have been straight, but everyone inside was a bunch of curvy lines, and so Loxley switched to a syncopated beat. She played through the chaos of the kitchen and the thrill of the stage, and she’d almost hit her stride when something drew her out of her trance.

  The audience had begun to clap in time with her music. For the second time that night, her spine tingled with pleasant electricity.

  She began to sway back and forth, feeling her hair brush against her neck with each motion. Her music danced around each slap of their palms, swinging from it before catapulting to the next one. She’d never had a beat prescribed to her before, but she felt rapturous joy at the synchronicity. She knew she was humming, so she backed away from the microphone in the hopes it wouldn’t hear her. Her voice wouldn’t be controlled; she needed to calm down, or the world would hear her terrible, off-key singing. Time to change the subject.

  She started the first minor strains of a movement about the forest in Tailypo’s office, her legs suddenly crawling with ants. The bells of the foundry surged in her mind and her fingertips stung. She nearly threw the bow for wanting to shake them out. Bad choice. She shouldn’t play about ghosts.

  She
dragged out a long, major third, then halted, quiet flooding into the theater like syrup, impenetrable and viscous in her ears.

  She had to play something, somehow, to appease them. Her mind went blank, and all she could think about was Tailypo and the screeching of claws. She still smelled the blood in his office, of thousands of dead animals locked in an eternal cycle of carnivorous fury. She thought of the way his eyes bored into her as he told the story of his death and sudden rebirth – of his lustful overtures to her and heavy breath.

  A silhouette emerged in that wicked place: Jayla’s hips, swaying as she walked down the hall ahead of Loxley. Back and forth, it became the foundation of her next musical journey as she drew her bow across the strings. She allowed herself to fall into a rhythm before punctuating each musical phrase with two plucked high notes – the soft patter of Jayla’s powder puff on her face. The puff moved from her forehead, to her cheeks, to her chin, to her neck, and then came the eyebrow pencil – a sharp draw of the bow from the center to the edge. She injected her anxiety into the fluttering half-steps of her song, the fear of her skin being replaced by the makeup, counterbalanced against the calm she found in Jayla’s deep, brown eyes.

  The chrome microphone gleamed more brightly before her, as if responding to her presence, and she moved closer. Her chest heaved, and she felt a tingle on her cheeks. She remembered the touch of paint on her lips and paused, leaving the note to hover in the minds of the audience.

  She drew back, then dove into the kiss with deep, passionate phrases, whirling around a jubilant melody. Sticky, sweet plucks danced across long sighs of the strings, and Loxley felt a great release like a fist relaxing after years of tension. Pride flowed through her fingertips, spilling across the fingerboard and out of the poplar body to echo across the audience. Someone wanted her. Someone liked her. She soared inside.

  A half-toned photograph of a cotton field under endless sky – that was what Jayla had made her feel. The farming manual was gone now, left somewhere in Duke’s house, but Loxley had memorized it. Under the weight of the Hole, of all the smoke and rot, of Duke’s plotting and Tailypo’s advances, Jayla had made her feel free, if only for the briefest amount of time. Perhaps that’s what a kiss was supposed to do.

  Loxley drew the last note and lowered her instrument, closing her eyes and sighing as the crowd exploded into mad applause, blasting like hail on the tin roof of Vulcan’s Bazaar. She’d done it – played in front of all of those people, in spite of the fact that Duke had taken everything from her. A voice cut through the din, Tailypo’s, shouting, “The Spider, ladies and gentlemen! Isn’t she something?”

  Tailypo took her arm and whispered in her ear, “See me after the show in my office.”

  When Loxley re-opened her eyes she could see the dozens of faces of the crowd, all beaming with delight. Before the show, she wouldn’t have managed to look at the audience, but something had changed in her, untangled somehow. Each and every person in that room loved her.

  Except for the hare-lipped woman sitting close to the front row.

  Except for Marie.

  Entrapment

  LOXLEY COULD SCARCELY breathe as Tailypo gently ushered her offstage. Like the snap of a rat trap, all of her false freedom had crumbled at the sight of Marie. What was the chauffeur doing there? Was she there to spy for Duke? Did she recognize Loxley for who she really was?

  Backstage was a maelstrom of clapping and patting hands, rough congratulations and unknowable smiles. Loxley curled her arms inward against the onslaught, the joy fading from her face. She stomped her feet and flapped her hands, but the crackles wouldn’t come off.

  “Don’t you all have jobs to do?” she hissed, and the felicitations faded.

  “That’s no way to treat these people,” came Jayla’s voice, and Loxley spun to face her. “They came to hear you after they saw your practice. You going to be nice to them?”

  “There was a woman in the audience.”

  “That happens sometimes,” said Jayla.

  “She helped kill my friend!”

  Loxley ripped off the mask and threw it into the darkness, her fingers seizing, almost refusing to let it go. It had become too tight, replacing her skin. She made to wipe the lipstick onto her sleeve, but Jayla caught her hands and held them tightly. Jayla’s brown eyes centered Loxley enough to calm her down, though she still itched to wipe her lips on her shoulder.

  “Which one is she?” asked Jayla.

  “The one with the weird lip.”

  “Marie...”

  Loxley twisted her hands free. “You know her?”

  “Only by reputation. She’s got money. Go look out and see if she’s still there. I’m going to get Quentin.” Jayla hustled off, out the backstage door.

  She crept to the curtain and looked out, only to find Marie preparing to leave. Loxley glanced back to tell someone, but found only Felix. This was her chance to attack Marie outside of Edgewood and find out how to get to Duke, or perhaps just kill her. The ants had become unbearable, and she felt static encroaching on her brain. Fear and fury twisted into a ball in her stomach, threatening to overwhelm her. Marie gathered her things and tossed a small stack of bills onto the table before turning to go.

  Loxley strode to the backstage door and flung it open. If she waited for Quentin, it would be too late. She had to move right then. She rushed down the hallway and to the coat check, where she saw the front door swinging closed. She bolted forward, barreling through the door and into the cold night.

  Her usual attire, denim and a heavy coat, always protected her against the wind, but the tux did little to ameliorate that. The frigid air whipped right through her, and she flashed back to several days before, when she’d been blood-soaked and alone, wandering the streets of the Hole.

  She looked up and down the street before spotting her target, sprinting up one of the cracked sidewalks. Marie knew she’d been made, that much was clear. Loxley gave chase, her shiny loafers clapping the ground. They wound around the block and through an alley, and before long, Loxley’s lungs burned. Sill farther they ran, past wrecked shops and abandoned, stripped cars, around deserted buildings, across a decaying bridge before racing down the embankment into a culvert.

  Marie might have had terror fueling her feet, but Loxley was faster. Years of hauling supplies and produce up many flights of stairs to her rooftop garden had served to make her legs strong, and with each stride Loxley gained on her prey. She focused on Marie’s silhouette, keeping it in the center of her vision at all times.

  They reached a tunnel, almost pitch black in the moonlight, and the two women dashed inside. Before Loxley’s eyes could adjust, Marie’s fist crashed into her jaw, sending her flopping to the ground. Broken concrete and jagged rubble cut her hands as she caught herself, and she tasted blood. Static roared in her ears, and she feared she might lose control of herself, like she might disappear. If she fell apart now, there was no telling what Marie might do to her.

  She snatched a rock off the pile and swung it, striking the woman’s ankle. Marie screamed and fell, and Loxley scrambled forward to hit her again. They tangled and rolled across the toothy ground, each movement bringing Loxley fresh pain. Marie scratched her, pulled her hair and bit, but Loxley was stronger. She grabbed a handful of Marie’s hair and slammed her head against the concrete. She slammed over and over again, until Marie’s grip loosened, and Loxley was able to straddle her chest.

  She grabbed the largest rock she could find and hoisted it over her head.

  She focused her mind on the bells of the foundry, barely audible over the ringing in her ears. She wanted to feel Nora’s spirit inside her again, to be present for this moment. Clang. Her senses grew sharper, snapping new details into the world. Clang. Her mind opened up and her breathing steadied. Clang. She felt the cold rock cut into her hand, and her mind shifted, becoming more than just her own.

  Marie groaned and opened her eyes, barely visible in the dark. The expression on her face shifted from
dazed recognition to abject terror – a subtle twist, but one Loxley could now sense. Looking on her, she could feel what the woman felt – fear and confusion – and it caused a twinge in her heart.

  “Do you know who I am?” growled Loxley.

  Marie nodded.

  “Do you understand that I could kill you right now, and no one would try to stop me? I could break your fucking skull and leave you here, and no one would be any wiser. Do you get that?” Her voice sounded like her own, but her words flowed smoothly. She instinctively knew what she could say to frighten her victim.

  Again, Marie nodded.

  “And how would you feel about the person who helped me dump your body?”

  “Please don’t kill me,” Marie whispered, her mouth distorting the words. As Loxley’s eyes adjusted to the light, she saw dust caked on the woman’s face where tears would have been. “Please, I got a kid. Please.”

  She reared back to strike, shouting, “Did anyone listen to me when I begged? Huh? Did you? Go ahead and trot out your kid when it’s your turn to be judged!”

  “I just drive the car.”

  “Since you’re okay with letting others die in Duke’s fights, I guess you don’t mind me killing you on my way up the chain. How does that sound?”

  Marie whimpered.

  “Fucking answer me, bitch! Explain your worthless fucking existence! Do you want to die? Duke wants to kill me and all you can do is cry. You had better get useful real goddamned fast.”

  Loxley wrapped her free hand around Marie’s throat, but the beaten woman didn’t struggle. She made no attempt to do anything except pant and stare at the rock poised over her head. Blood ran down the side of her temple, and she shook uncontrollably. Spittle flecked through her exposed teeth.

  Something alien crept into Loxley’s mind. She’d never noticed it before, but this woman was hideous to her. The hare lip, it repulsed her in a way she didn’t expect. Marie was a freak – and a sheep to boot. She was someone for bigger people to step over on their way to important things. Normally, such a lowly person wouldn’t be worth noticing, but now that Marie had made the mistake of helping Duke with a despicable act, well... she was downright repugnant. Was Nora disgusted?