Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26

by Kelly Link Gavin J. Grant

  He had dreamed of her, of calling for her through the fog. “Rosa! Rosa!” In his dreamworld, his voice sounded weak and thin, unable to penetrate the layers of heavy, damp air that wove around him. He tried calling louder, and louder. He summoned her from whatever mystery had consumed her, calling insistently through weeks of dreaming, certain she could not but respond to his summons. When he awoke next, the house was in a panic of activity. “Come, Juan,” his grandmother Cynthia had said, “enough sleep, now. We must all leave this house at once. It’s cursed.” Juan did not feel like going anywhere, except, vaguely, back to bed. He yawned and stretched, the bottom of his striped pajama shirt lifting to reveal a taut belly, which he lazily scratched. Brothers, wives, and their children fled past him in the hallways, their arms full of bags, and dolls, and pictures snatched from the walls.

  “What d’ya mean? What’s happening? Where’s everyone going?” He stopped a small child it seemed he had never seen before.

  “The house is cursed,” the child said, his fluty voice gone all grave. “La Rosa. La Rosa!”

  Rosa? Was she back? He wanted to see her. “Mother,” he grasped a woman running by him, who was indeed his mother. “Is Rosa here?”

  “I don’t know, Juan. I don’t know what’s happening except that El Diablo has put his hand on this house, and we must leave it now, while we can.” They had reached the main hall, where suitcases were being stacked and carried four and five at a time out the door which stood wide open. Juan thought he smelled rose perfume. “Come just as you are, Juan. We’ll get you some clothes in town. We cannot wait for you!”

  “But, Mother. I don’t want to go. What if Rosa returns and finds no one here? Someone must wait for her.”

  His mother took a step backwards, as if to regard his whole length through her slitted eye. Her lips were tight and dark. “Juan. Did you call Rosa from your dreams? Have you been calling her?”

  “I think so, Mother.” Juan knew he had.

  Her hand flew to her chest, gripping something that lay there under her dress. “El Diablo! You are not my son.” She fled through the open door of the house, never to enter it again. Others followed her, saying goodbye on their way, but without looking at him, and soon Juan stood in the quiet main hall, alone in the house for the first time in his life. He felt sleepy, and he lay down on the carpet to sleep. In his sleep he dreamed of Rosa.

  He slept and slept in the quiet house, his longest sleep yet—it may have been years—and when he awoke the house was dark and fragrant. From very far away, he heard birds singing—night birds? The door still stood open, but he could not see out. There was something covering the entrance, a dark net or web. He reached for it with his hands, and something fell into his palm from the dark wall. Rose petals. He reached out again, this time struck by sharp pain. A thorn had pierced him, and blood ran down his wrist. There was a wall of roses covering the door.

  Slowly, making his way through the close-shuttered house, Juan inspected the windows and doors—all covered in blood-dark roses and thorny vines. He discovered the same situation on the second floor of the house, and even the attic windows were knotted over with roses. Juan did not know if it was night or day. He did not really know if he slept and dreamed or dreamed and woke. He did not know if he was still Juan, without his family here to name him, or something else, El Diablo. In his father’s room he found a hat, his grandfather’s fedora, and put it on his head. “Tobias,” he said. “Grandfather Tobias.” Could he summon a spirit for company?

  But Juan was alone. He went to the kitchen and found only rotten food. He tried to sleep in the pantry, where he used to curl up in the sunny afternoons of his childhood, but, strangely, he could not sleep. Grandfather’s hat on his head, Juan took a few large knives from the kitchen and returned to the door. He began cutting, and rose petals dropped and vines split under his energy. His hands and arms were cut, scratched, and blood ran, soaking his pajamas and making his knives sticky and hard to wield. But still he cut, and forced his body into the wedge he’d made, and cut further. He forced his body further, cut until his whole body ran with blood, and he could not see through the vines to what lay outside. His breath slicing through his lungs, Juan did not know whether to continue or to fall back, exhausted and bloody, into the house. He hacked a bit ahead, crying now because he realized that to stay still meant risking being embalmed by the vines, which grew quickly, entangling his legs and pressing against his narrow chest. If he paused too long, he would die in La Rosa’s embrace.

  Desperate, he fell back into the house, clutching his knives and throbbing with pain and blood. He lay on the floor, a voice in his throat that he did not recognize as his calling out grunts and moans. He could think of no name, not Rosa, not Mother, not Grandfather, that could help him. He lay and lay, awake and throbbing, and finally said, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, help me!” He burned in a blood-fever, gripping his knives. After a few hours, he got to his feet and limped back to his father’s bedroom, where he removed his bloodied pajamas and girded himself in his father’s clothes. He put on the clean, white underthings, soft against his bloody wounds, and then a shirt, a vest, a suit, an overcoat, yellow kid gloves, and—for good measure—his father’s top hat right over his grandfather’s hat. “My God, oh, Padre, help me!” And Juan returned to the door and slashed more furiously through the vines, tearing them away in a rage and forcing his body into the crevice he made. But the vines, too, seemed more furious, and they wound about him, stopping his hand, wrenching away a knife, plucking away his coat, his jacket and vest, the clothes shredding and falling away, vanishing amongst the dark roses, and though now Juan wanted to die, he would not give his body to be chewed on by thorns, and so fell back into the house, naked and shaking with anger. Again, he lay there, unsleeping, one hand holding a knife, the other resting on the top of his head, still covered by two hats.

  Just a young man, Juan had never fallen in love, but his brothers had. Their love had hummed through the walls as Juan slept his death-like sleeps. Juan had never thought of kissing. He had never driven a car, but there had always been three of four cars in the drive. He had never danced in the night or laughed with friends out under the stars, but he could remember what Rosa had looked like home late from a night of dancing, her laughter, her cheek outshining the white cheek of the moon. He had not been to the city since he was a child, but remembered the noise and calls of humanity enwrapping his dreams. He had not labored. The smallest nostalgia for the embrace of these things awoke in his thin chest, and—naked, alone, sleepless—Juan felt incomplete. He was too vulnerable, just a child, but grown now into a man’s body. His father’s clothes had not protected him. He was hungry. He limped back into the kitchen. He needed nourishment. He needed protection.

  In the cupboard, he found a jar of grandmother Cynthia’s chili paste. He could remember the expansive smack of it. He opened the jar and sniffed the red paste. Every one of his wounds cried out in hunger. His mouths watered with blood. Dipping his fingers into the paste, the scratches on his hands burned, were seared, became adamant scars. Gently and with great care, Juan fed all of his mouths, covering his naked body with the chili paste. His wounds were cauterized, and the white skin of his youth became a deep red. From the soles of his feet to his pointed, black beard, Juan armed himself. He treated his face last, and with the tenderness of a lover, he rubbed the paste over his eyes, along his aquiline nose, up into the roots of his thick, black hair. He no longer felt pain. He was a flame. He left his knives on the table and returned to the door.

  But there was no point attempting the door again, while he was still incomplete. There was one thing lacking. Juan climbed the stairs, the sinews of his thighs coiling under red skin. He entered Rosa’s bedroom. In her closet he found a hat she used to wear, a little red cone with a set of fake cherries dangling from its floppy tip. Reverently, he put this hat on his head, feeling it snug against his scalp. And carefully, carefully, he covered Rosa’s hat with his grandfather’s fe
dora, and both of them with his father’s top hat. Now he was ready. He stood, naked and gleaming red under his three hats, before the door and the wall of roses and thorny vines. “La Rosa,” he said.

  “La Rosa,” he said. “La Rosa. I am your own brother, imprisoned. I dreamt you here and slept in your perfumed embrace. And I think you dreamt me here as well.” Juan paused and looked at his red hands. Even his nails, grown long in long sleeps, were red and hard under the chili paste. “Now we must part ways. Let me out. Or in. Let me in.” And he walked toward the wall of roses, with no intention of stopping, come what may. He reached out his thin, delicate hand and stroked the thorny wall, and a few rose petals fell into his palm. He crushed them against his face, exulting in their perfume. The wall began to part; a cleft appeared. Juan entered it, feeling his way through. The thorns reached out to him, but not with fury as they had before. They pricked his skin like little tongues, and the roses brushed against him softly. His body was full of excitement; he felt he would never sleep again. He made his way through the close darkness, imbued with the power of being deep inside, as deep as can be. He knew everything about himself, complete, and his body shook with love.

  And then he felt a releasing of the tension around him and—air on his face—she was letting him go. They parted ways under the moon, and Juan walked toward the city, where on the streets he would find sleep again and enflamed dreams, where he would be hailed Three Hats, Three-Hat Juan, El Diablo, the Red Man. He was to remain stained red for the rest of his life. People would give him everything he needed. There was no cause for worry. Old women carried buckets of roses into the restaurants and bars for men to buy for their sweethearts, and sometimes they would kindly lean over the Red Man, offering a flower. “La Rosa?”

  “La Rosa.” And he’d hold it to his red cheek, blooming again with joy.

  Poor summer, she doesn’t know she’s dying.

  Lindsay Vella

  We are almost purple. After that, we will be almost yellow. Last time we were here, there was a dry creek; now there is a river. Despite all our best efforts, the door to this place still creaks. It drips oil onto the floor and we’re too afraid to light the candles in the bathroom. You tell me they were only ever for decoration, but I feel as though I have fewer choices now.

  Get him, eat him, the door creaks.

  One time you painted me scarlet. I didn’t know that it was an ancient color and I would have to wear it always. While you were in the other room, I cut my hair and put it inside the grandfather clock. When you came back, I cut my fingernails and left them inside the oven. This is what you’ve always called sentimental. This is what I’ve always called a frenzy.

  I am still hungry, the door creaks.

  Soon, the whole valley will flood and this little locked house will be washed away with the rainwater. Soon, the ground will start sinking and the lawn furniture will be lost forever. You will eventually decide to leave everything so we can save ourselves. The door will stop creaking and I still won’t want to leave. You will lift the bed skirt and find me there, a monster.

  Three guys try to carry a couch across the country.

  Three guys on an important

  mission involving furniture.

  It’s just a couch, right?

  COUCH

  a novel by

  Benjamin Parzybok

  “An argument for shifting your life around . . . for getting off the couch and making something happen.”—The L Magazine

  JOAN AIKEN

  THE SERIAL GARDEN

  The Complete Armitage Family Stories

  “Joan Aiken’s invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure, and her books will continue to delight for many years to come.”

  —Philip Pullman

  Death’s Shed

  J. M. McDermott

  1

  When I was a boy, and my mother had just died, I had vivid dreams of the land of the dead.

  2

  My father began the train set after my mother died, in our apartment in Toronto. It filled the time he spent when he wasn’t working.

  I felt like I was a ghost of my mother, among his trains, with pieces of her face looking up at him.

  My father filled the green hills of his train set with Restoration-era cottages, and cities with both Gothic cathedrals and industrial bridges. The passengers of the brass and wood trains were tiny robotic gentlemen in top hats and monocles, sipping oil. Carriages with steam-powered horses carried people to train stations and picked up people from train stations. Larger robots wandered the hills, fixing and repairing and re-filling everything. Everything moved and nothing sat still and the tiny robots and men went from train to carriage to train and nobody ever arrived at a destination.

  When the train set was too big for the apartment, we moved to a house in the mountains above Vancouver.

  3

  My neighbor’s horrible girls hid from me, and I sought them.

  The girls were twins. One of them was bigger with brown hair. The other had gangly legs and bony arms and red hair. They had the same ugly face. They were both bigger than I was.

  I walked around the bushes in my backyard, to reach the shed at the edge, where the mountain woods leaned over the fence like a frozen green avalanche.

  There wasn’t supposed to be anything in the shed. My father and I had come from our small apartment in Toronto before my mother died. We couldn’t fill up our new, large property yet. The shed smelled like lead paint and concrete dust. It smelled like rot.

  I found a man there. He looked at me like he didn’t care if I said anything or not about him being there.

  I had never met anyone like that before. I had seen the dirty drifters everywhere around here. They staggered through the alleys and crawled through the parks and sprawled in the streets unashamed of their dirtiness. Cops knew them all by name, and talked with them.

  And now, I saw one in my dusty shed, and I could talk to him like I was a cop.

  I asked him what he thought he was doing there. He offered me a cigarette. I took it from him. He lit one up for himself. I pocketed the one he gave me.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but here I am,” he said. He had an old voice. He blew smoke at me.

  “Have you seen two girls trying to hide?”

  He shook his head.

  “If my dad finds you, he’ll call the cops.”

  “Would you rather call the cops or play hide and seek with those girls?”

  I heard giggling somewhere in the trees. Giggling was a bad sign. I looked over my shoulder.

  “I might be better off hiding here with you.”

  “Go find the girls,” he said. “You can take ’em.”

  “They’re bigger than me.”

  “Bruises mean they like you,” he said. “People hurt the ones they love.”

  The giggling got closer.

  I bolted for the house.

  They were faster.

  They tackled me. They pinned me down. The bigger one held me to the ground. The gangly one pulled my pants down.

  They had found a dead animal—I couldn’t tell what it used to be but it was probably a cat or a dog or a huge rat—and they had picked it up with a stick. They had decided to shove it down my pants.

  The gangly one hit me with the stick she had used to carry the dead animal, as hard as she could. It hurt. Red welts rose from my skin.

  I didn’t cry out. What good would it have done? The man in the shed wouldn’t help me. My father was in his basement with his trains. I bit down hard. I didn’t even struggle. They wanted me to struggle, and I wouldn’t give them that.

  After the gangly one had gotten bored whipping me, she used the stick to pick up the dead animal. She placed it on my buttocks. She gingerly tried to work my pants back up, and over the corpse. This lasted until her skin made contact with a patch of rancid fur. She squealed. She shook her hand like it was on
fire. She ran off. The bigger one ran after her sister, giggling like a princess.

  I looked behind me at what the girls had done.

  I listened to the sound of the ravens in the air. This mountain was full of ravens. The girls must have chased a few off to get their prize.

  4

  When I was just a boy, and my mother had just died, I had vivid dreams of the land of the dead.

  When I closed my eyes, my spirit roamed the hills of Elysium, searching for her. I called out her name among the ethereal trees and grasslands. The ground there was built of the dead single-cell life that crowded up everything like mud with their protoplasmic soul-energy. The dead grasses and trees attached themselves to the spirit mud with wilted branches, no flowers, no fruits, and no wind to make them dance. The people and animals lounged about, waiting until all their memories of life had faded.

  The lion curled up with the lamb not because they were at peace, but because they could not remember that they were at war. The poets and mystics there tried to speak with empty voices, but they made no sound. Some took to sign language, and I watched them briefly while soaring past them. They gestured with their hands in a language no living mortal could translate. Even the greatest of philosophers could only speak in signs that none could validate without a world to serve as the foundation of the symbols—no better than trying to speak with mouths.