A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga)

by Grotepas, Nicole

  “You’re too sweet,” he laughed, sliding the ring onto her finger. He mentioned how well it went with the black dress she wore and she laughed. He was full of crap. She knew that. The ring was just silly. Why he insisted on it, she still didn’t know. They continued on beneath the tower lights.

  As they reached the glowing spire, Kate leaned back to take it in, feeling tiny beneath its airy heights. It was much bigger and heftier than she ever imagined it would be. And being there with Will, Kate was under the delusion that her feet weren’t on solid ground. They were floating. They passed under the arch of one side of the tower and it was like they’d walked through a portal into a dream within a dream. They’d fallen into a comfortable quiet as the lights of Paris and the tower cascaded around them like fireworks. Everything was aflame. Other people brushed by, but Kate didn’t see them, they were a blur, like those time-lapse images where the light was just an endless stream. The faces of the people were indistinct. Their conversations and voices were like distant signal from fading satellites. The lovers might have been the only real thing for thousands of miles and this planet, created just for them; all the fake people around them, ghosts acting out lives they once lived, caught in an endless loop where they never realized they were dead.

  They took two lifts to the top of the tower, transferring halfway up. When they stepped out onto the balcony of the top level, Kate gasped, stunned. The city of Paris stretched to the horizon, a dark river of stars, an arm of the Milky Way, flowing away from them like a black lake filled with incandescent pebbles. The contrast of light and darkness was stark and humbling. She’d never seen a more beautiful city. They walked to the nearest railing and Will wrapped his arm around her, standing at her side, quiet and reverent like the moment seemed to call for.

  Humans had created a lot of beautiful things while also being the purveyors of a lot of the miserable. While Kate had seen just a small bit of the ugly, she’d witnessed her share of the wondrous. But she knew as she stood there absorbing the experience, that this—Paris at night at the top of the Eiffel tower—was one of the best. And maybe it was just because she was there with Will. Maybe it was that she could smell his musk, and around it, the fragrance of summer in a city. Or perhaps it was the imperfect mirror image of the city of light beneath them and the star speckled sky above. Together the endless city and the eternal night sky made her feel so small and insignificant. The thing that kept her from sinking into a kind of fatalistic despondence, was Will—his soothing breath against her neck, the comforting weight of his arm wrapped around her. Those two things seemed to say, you are known. Perhaps you are even loved.

  They could have been laughing, acting drunk with elation that they were together at the top of the world like some of the tourists around them. Instead they were somber and reverent. Though stunned at the enormity of the moment, Kate honestly hadn’t anticipated being so prompted into silence.

  “Want to see the other side?” Will whispered. His lips brushed her ear and chills flashed across her neck.

  “Yes.”

  Without warning, Kate’s heart started to pound. She knew, somehow, that she was about to wake up, that Will was about to be ripped from her grip like always. She paused, “Wait.”

  “What is it?” he asked, stopping and turning his concerned sapphire eyes to her.

  “You’re leaving me,” she said, panic rising like a galloping horse in her chest.

  “Never,” he answered. He stood closer to her. The nondescript crowd moved around them like scenery on a stage. His fingers tightened on her back where he’d taken hold of her and pulled her into his embrace.

  “I can feel it, Will. You’re fading.” She was almost crying. It had been so perfect, this one. And now, to wake up . . . she was being robbed!

  “Kate kiss me, before you wake up.” His eyes searched hers.

  “Hold onto me. Don’t let go. Don’t forget me,” she pled.

  “I won’t. Not ever.” He cupped her face with one hand. He leaned his forehead against hers. Kate squinted and held onto his blue gaze, committing the look in his eyes to memory. His lips pressed into hers. She could feel the tears on her cheeks. It was beyond reason, the sorrow. That familiar anguish of losing something, of transferring from one reality to another. It took her with it: a black tide pushing her down, sucking her into oblivion, and thrusting her up onto a shore of forgetfulness where she awoke alone and beaten by the thief of time.

  ***

  She hated her life.

  She hated Will for leaving her. She cursed the fact that she’d gotten to where she remembered him when she woke up. Before this, she never thought she’d long for forgetfulness. She never thought she’d wish to be Audra, that lucky girl who didn’t remember her dreams.

  It was dark in her bedroom, still, and the cold and emptiness were the loudest things she heard for a long time. Soon enough Jill would be awake and screeching out violin solos through the thin wall of Kate’s shallow, doorless closet. She was sure it would top the silence thumping at her eardrums. With a sigh, she rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. In her head, she still saw Will’s azure eyes.

  16: A Reprieve

  Kate stood behind the counter in Suga’s discussing new bands with one of their regulars. Simon had naturally curly auburn hair and wore his shirts tucked into his Dockers; his pale, hairy toes were always visible because he only ever wore Chacos, and his entire shirt wardrobe seemed to consist only of short-sleeve button-downs. Perhaps so his Silver Spoons, Ricky-Schroeder-black-plastic bracelet was always visible.

  Simon had just traded in a slew of recently cool bands and bought two LPs and a few CDs of stuff Kate recommended. No matter what she told him, he thought it was musical doctrine. She could inform him that Def Leppard was doing some awesome new concept album with Supertramp and it was effin’ amazing and he would buy it. She could tell him that Jack White should never have broken up with Meg and he would most likely agree, and then rebuy all the White Stripes albums he traded in years ago.

  Kate didn’t do that because she wasn’t Ferg. That was the sort of trick Ferg would play on tattoo-obsessed Anthony, if Anthony had ever put stock in Ferg’s opinion.

  As Kate gabbed with Simon, her mind wandered back to the Eiffel tower and the ache of being ripped from that moment with Will. Another part of her brain wondered if she’d see Ty again soon, and she couldn’t stop thinking, as well, about the crumb at the corner of Simon’s lip. It just kept hanging on, no matter how much he moved his lips. Should she tell him? It would only embarrass both of them. He’d probably just come from Salt and Sugar.

  “Have you heard Exitmusic yet?” she asked, motioning toward the album on their store top-ten wall.

  “A while ago, yeah. It wasn’t my thing,” he answered, clutching the paper sack against his chest. His button-down was blue and yellow plaid, which wasn’t great with his light-colored complexion.

  “How could it not be your thing?” she wondered aloud.

  He shrugged. “I’m not in the mood lately for sad shit, I guess.”

  “Ah. Why not?”

  “Divorce,” he said. Kate choked back a cry of surprise. How did I not know he was married?

  “Oh, wow. Sorry. I didn’t know you were married.” Kate toyed with a strip of label-maker tape in her fingers. It said “Do Not Feed the Animals,” only there was a mistake on it—Ferg forgot to put the “not” in. So he redid it and stuck the correct one on the side of the counter. Kate guessed that she and her cohorts were the animals? She’d absently picked up the discarded one and couldn’t seem to put it down.

  “Most people didn’t,” Simon said. “I wasn’t open about it much. And I didn’t wear a ring because I work on an assembly line. So I kept it on a chain around my neck.”

  “Well, I’m really sorry,” Kate said. She wanted to pull the backing off the label and stick it to something.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s better this way,” he said while expelling a telling sigh.
/>   “So that’s why you don’t like Exitmusic, huh. Good reason.”

  “I’m more in the mood for Grouplove, you know, stuff like that,” he said. “The band, not the—the act.”

  “Right, I knew what you meant,” she told him, smiling and giving him a sideways glance.

  “It just—it didn’t sound right. Wanted to clarify.”

  “Thanks.”

  He cleared his throat. “You working alone today, then?” He put his paper bag of albums down on the counter.

  “Ferg just went out to get supplies and do a deposit at the bank. He should be back soon.” He’d been gone almost an hour. Kate figured he’d probably just “slipped up” to Lucy’s Diner in the canyon for a relaxing meal all by himself. He’d done it before, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he did it again.

  The front door swung open. Kate expected Ferg, but it was Audra.

  “Hey Simon,” Audra said, interest sparking in her eyes when she saw him. Kate smirked faintly, aware that Audra had a thing for Simon. It was inexplicable, but she laughed when she saw Audra get excited that Simon was in the store.

  Simon dipped his head at her and waved. “Audra.”

  “Audra,” Kate said and nodded at Audra too, but Simon didn’t see Kate’s imitation of him. Audra came around to the other counter and leaned her elbows down on it, despite the little sign that read, “Please don’t lean on the counter.”

  “Kate,” Audra said, and then turned to Simon. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “I know. I’m here too much,” he said, coughing a bit, his face reddening slightly.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Audra responded.

  “It’s cool, I need to do something else,” he said. “But I’m in a rut.”

  “Isn’t your blog doing well?” Audra asked.

  “It’s good. That’s what I should be doing more of,” Simon said. He kept a print-making blog, which was why Audra had a thing for him. Though he worked on an assembly line for a local exercise equipment company, his true love was art. And since Audra’s minor was photography, she was into his stuff. Kate knew that he left some kind of legacy at the university when he graduated. Sometimes when he came into Suga’s, there were still ink stains on his fingers. And if you loved the artist’s soul, then Simon would be totally sexy, ink stains and all.

  Simon rubbed his chin and the crumb Kate had been trying to not fixate on fell. She sighed in relief, her shoulders relaxing noticeably.

  Audra smiled and became uncharacteristically shy. “I haven’t been to check it out in a while. What have you been working on?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. I haven’t posted anything for a month. Stuff—stuff has been weird lately.”

  “What stuff?”

  Their conversation rolled along without Kate, but she listened and appreciated that Audra was talking to a guy who was halfway decent. Simon might not have had loads of money like that Breck guy Audra went out with over the weekend, but she’d always been intrigued with guys who had that kind of wounded, creator’s soul. So Simon had been divorced already, but maybe there was a good reason, Kate thought to herself. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Audra would be glad to know that he was available.

  Kate kept half her ears to Audra’s conversation, busying herself with changing the in-store music, and helping a smattering of customers that came in. Kate shooed Audra and Simon out of the way and they retreated to a back corner of the store near a listening station. Audra gave Kate the occasional glance from her casual position leaning against a stool, where it appeared that Simon was very into describing some print-making process. He stood with his legs slightly apart and kept gesturing like he was lowering and then raising something. Audra listened, nodding occasionally, placing a finger against her bottom lip, and smiling from time to time.

  When Simon left, finally, Audra came back to her usual place at the counter. Kate finished ringing up a customer—so far no trades, which was a boon—and turned to Audra. “Well?”

  Kate’s unrepentantly flirtatious friend blinked. “Well what?”

  “Did you set up a date with Simon?”

  “What? No? Ha,” she said, as though the idea was completely outrageous.

  “Oh please. Don’t act like it’s so out of the question. You guys just talked for like an hour.”

  “It was thirty minutes tops,” Audra said, shaking her head and giving Kate a withering look.

  “You don’t have to hide your crush, sweetheart,” Kate said.

  “I know. Because there isn’t one.” Audra tossed her hair.

  “He’s divorced you know.”

  “Really?” Audra asked, interested.

  “Did you know he was married?”

  “I might have had an inkling,” Audra admitted, coyly.

  “So you knew. Cyber-stalking?”

  “It’s not stalking. His blog is public,” Audra snapped, blushing furiously.

  “And you’d like to get a little ink-stained. Confess.” Kate grinned, studying her friend’s face.

  “You think he’s weird,” Audra accused Kate.

  “Does that matter? And for the record, no I don’t. He’s just not my type.”

  “There’s something about him,” Audra said, staring out the window behind Kate. “I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “But you want him.”

  She shrugged, her gaze flicked back to Kate.

  “More than Breck and his money?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “I’d go for the ‘something about him’ too. Money is nice, but so is that je ne sais quoi thing about him.”

  The door burst open suddenly and Ferg swept in on a gust of exhaust and dust. “Thanks for holding the fort down, ladies. I have returned!”

  “About time,” Kate told him.

  Audra sniffed. “I smell Lucy’s Diner.”

  “I may have stopped for lunch,” Ferg admitted.

  “Oh, great. I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Kate said in a withering voice.

  “I did, thanks. I was also meeting with Darryl. So it wasn’t just me skipping work.”

  Kate’s stomach knotted up. “Did you find anything out?”

  Ferg pursed his lips and crossed his arms. The veins in his forearms popped out like he was clenching his hands into fists. “Yep. He’s giving us a month to increase our sales to show that our plan can work. He told me the place is bleeding him dry and he can’t wait any longer than that.”

  Kate could tell Ferg was mad about it. A flicker of shadow along his jaw indicated that he was clenching his teeth. Kate fumed quietly, annoyed about Darryl’s ultimatum herself, but she couldn’t blame the guy. She’d do the same thing. She didn’t know if she’d even give the store a chance to change things.

  “A month. That’s crap,” she said, more to comfort Ferg than herself. “But I bet we can do it.”

  “Piece of cake,” Audra said.

  Ferg sighed, but didn’t tell them they were full of shit. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’ll take a miracle. Our online presence is non-existent. And Darryl hasn’t given us anything to help build it up.”

  “That stuff doesn’t require much,” Audra said. She picked up the label-maker and began typing something up. “Look, all you need to do is sell stuff through Amazon and ebay. Anything else is just stupid. You utilize their customer base and their server storage and all that, and that way you’re not trying to build an online presence from scratch.”

  “What, are you some kind of expert or something?” Ferg asked, his voice derisive like it always was when he talked to Audra.

  “I might be. I have a little store on Amazon. I sell some of my records that I don’t want any more.”

  “Instead of bringing them in here?” Ferg sounded genuinely offended.

  She shrugged. “I want more than you’d give me.”

  Kate glanced at the clock. “Hey guys, fun conversation, but I need some food. I’m going to go get some and maybe we can continue this brains
torming session when I’m back.”

  “Yeah, get out of here,” Ferg said, jerking his head toward the door.

  “I’m coming with,” Audra informed Kate in a sing-song voice and pushed off the counter and followed Kate to the back room where she grabbed her bag before they left.

  ***

  Almost the moment they walked out of Suga’s, Audra launched into the reason she came to see Kate at work. They started toward the raw-food restaurant as she lectured Kate.

  “You need to get a grip, Kate,” she said, immediately. Kate could barely hear her friend over the ruckus of a man with a jackhammer tearing the sidewalk up across the street.

  “What?” Kate yelled back at Audra, cocking her ear toward her.

  “You need to get a grip!”

  Oh. “What are you talking about?” Kate knew what Audra was talking about, but she didn’t want to give her friend the satisfaction of knowing implicitly what she meant.

  Audra arched one dark eyebrow at Kate and smirked. “Don’t give me that. You know what I’m referring to.”

  They’d put a bit of distance between them and the jackhammer. A cloud of dust blew in their direction that smelled of gasoline and age-old concrete. “No I don’t. To what are you referring?”

  “Ty. Ty and the dream guy,” Audra answered as they turned the corner and headed up the street to Amir’s.

  “Piffle. I don’t need to fix anything,” Kate said, feeling feisty. She didn’t know why. Normally she’d just buckle under the pressure and tell Audra that she was right. Because she was. However, Kate didn’t feel like being told what to do today.

  “So you’ve realized you like Ty and want to stop being deluded about the man in your dreams?” Audra looked at Kate hopefully, but a glint in her green eyes told Kate she knew it was a false hope.

  “Yes,” Kate lied. Why am I lying? Perhaps the fight just drained right out of her and now she wanted to deflect Audra’s inquiries and the peer pressure she was piling on. Kate always thought peer pressure would disappear once she was old—or, older—and everyone had a firm grasp on who they were. Oh how naive that had been. No one ever knew who they were. A person constantly changed, or at least Kate noticed that she vacillated an awful lot. And Audra was the biggest purveyor of peer pressure Kate had ever known. In high school, Kate stuck with a crowd who shared similar values and she never had to question things too much or feel like she was on the outskirts of the cool scene. Well, Audra always wanted something for Kate, so the other girl doled out her opinions constantly, hoping to sway Kate.