The Kraken Sea

by E. Catherine Tobler

  He was unprepared when she did appear. The carousel girls fanned around the edge of the stage, chests heaving from their exertions, and another set of curtains parted. These gave way to the black-eyed girl, who strode down the center of the stage in a dress very like the one she had worn in Chicago. Plain, simple, white, and buttoned to the neck. The gaslights burnished her brown curls, hands covered by prim white gloves.

  The music swelled, then went silent. The hall held its breath and Jackson could not move as the lights dimmed. The black-eyed girl hovered between this place and that, a shadow he lost sight of. Then, the lights returned, exploding into full brightness. Jackson lost his vision for a breath, as if he had looked at the sun and could see only shadows, after images of actual people. If one had looked away from the girl, it might seem the explosion of light had burned her dress clean off. Jackson was only learning the ways of showmanship, but was so focused on her, he could not miss the snap of her wrist to part what few laces held her dress and gloves together. The discarded fabric vanished into a slim vent in the stage floor.

  Black leather covered her from head to toe, trousers clinging to her round bottom and legs, a corset pinching her in tight at the waist before swelling across breasts. Her shoulders were bare, so pale they might have been carved from alabaster and those in the audience who didn’t applaud, made a low murmur. It was lecherous to Jackson’s ears and he hated them all. Hated what they surely thought when they saw her, for he thought it too.

  At her waist, she wore her whip and she drew it loose, allowing it to slither to the floor. Her hands were protected by leather gloves, but Jackson was aware of every finger, how they held the hard whip handle, how they moved as she spun the whip. He was aware too of the way her entire body shifted in reaction to the new beasts on the stage.

  The carousel girls held their positions, a beautiful cage for the five lions spilling from another set of curtains. Part of the audience recoiled, but most fell into shocked silence, as the orchestra hummed and the black-eyed girl lifted her whip. She never struck the animals, only told them where to go with the whip’s hiss and pop. The lions circled her in a run, then leapt onto the cages and platforms wheeled into place by the zebra and hippo of the carousel. Jackson knew of lions from the zoo and from books, and those guarding the doors throughout the city, but to see these here, under her command, took every breath from him.

  Jackson moved from the edge of the stage and slid into an empty chair, watching with his hands tented in front of his face. Pieces of him slipped away; his mind wandered down avenues he could not explain or understand. He pictured this girl as a woman and he knew her name for it was soft in his mouth even as he bit into the flesh of her bottom lip, inside a moving train, bundled into his very own bed. He knew the scent of her beyond the soap the rest of the world knew. He knew the color of the shadow tracing the length of her bare thigh. He was sickened by it and lifted up in the same instant.

  Have we been here before? He had asked the sister and he wanted to ask this girl. Was she the third in this trio of women? Was Cressida? Jackson’s head ached and he shifted in the chair, into the sudden swell of a body beside his. The carousel women had slipped down from the stage, to roam amid the crowd, and the whale smiled at him. Up close, her eyelashes and eyebrows were decorated with blue stones and a dust sparkling under the gaslights like stars. Her lips were painted into a full blue pout. White sea froth curled down her neck, into her bosom, while her white hair was piled three hand-spans high, the whale tail rising up behind it.

  “Haven’t seen you here before, little one.”

  Jackson stared, unable to do anything else. He was aware of the black-eyed girl on stage, of the lions as they continued to shift under the direction of her whip, but this woman before him was something altogether different. She leaned in, bringing Jackson’s hand against her shoulder. Her skin was unbearably warm and soft.

  “Newcomers are entitled to a free swim … you do know how to swim?” She leaned in so close Jackson could see the sheen of sweat dotting her upper lip. Could see too the shadow of a beard that clung there. Jackson dared touch her then, his hand careful along the line of her jaw, tipping her head up just a little, to study the neck, to take in the Adam’s apple, curiously male amid the froth of femininity.

  Jackson leaned back, his hand gentle on the whale’s chin. “You’re a man.” There was a question in his voice, his mind trying to catch up to what his eyes had seen.

  The painted blue mouth curled up in a slow smile. “Suppose you came for Mae then.” He nodded toward the stage, to the girl and her lions. “They mostly do, but there are others …”

  One of these others came up behind the beautiful whale, hands sliding up the tail rising in an arc over the piled white hair before circling around to cup the breasts that could not be breasts at all. This man nuzzled the whale’s cheek and the whale grinned, leaning back into his eager body.

  “There are others,” Jackson repeated, and watched as the pair slid off into the shadows clogging the outskirts of the theater floor. He thought the world would somehow fall out from under him, that nothing would make a lick of sense, but the more he looked, the more things did make sense. Everything was a lie and everything remained beautiful. Maybe it was beautiful because it was a lie.

  He brought his attention back to the girl on the stage, Mae. He whispered her name, letting it be lost to the crowd adoring her, that marveled at her and her lions, but it was mostly her they adored. He no longer reviled them, but understood. They came for the show, for the artifice, for the beautiful lie spread in the gaslight before them. They could have that. Jackson wanted more.

  §

  A paper lion fluttered from the railing of Jackson’s fire escape, tied with a white ribbon that could have come from Mae’s white dress. He slid onto the metal balcony and untied the beacon, looking up the ladder to the roof. At its apex, another lion twisted in the night air. He untied the first lion, cut from heavy paper and colored with pen and pencil. A red painted ribbon decorated its neck.

  Jackson slid the paper lion between his teeth and climbed. He lingered at the edge of the roof, looking for her before he hauled himself up. Mae stood at the furthest edge, near the first catwalk. Jackson tugged the second lion free and held both as he crossed to her. She was dressed in trousers again, a trim jacket, her hair twisted under the collar. If someone didn’t know her, they might take her for a boy.

  He drew within a step of her before she turned, before her balled fist closed the distance slammed into his jaw. Unprepared, he went down. The paper lions fluttered to the roof, forgotten as he tried to understand, but she didn’t give him time. The next thing he knew was the wrap of her whip around his throat.

  “Theo will live, no thanks to you.”

  Jackson tried to reply, but she pulled tight on the whip making speech an uncomfortable thing at best. He sucked in a breath instead, both hands spread wide. “M —”

  Mae coiled the whip into her hand, shortening the length of leather between them as she crouched down. Jackson had never seen eyes so angry.

  “I’m not going to kill you because you didn’t kill them,” she continued with a sharp pull on the whip. His back angled up from the roof so he might not lose his entire ability to breathe. “Because I know how these things go. They just wanted to know what you were, newcomer.” Her upper lip curled in a sneer. “Snake.”

  The whip unspooled from his neck with a snake-like hiss of its own. Jackson flopped back hard, staring at the distant stars as Mae moved off. He thought he could see galaxies moving in the dark, but was only aware of the sound of her, of her whip as she coiled it to her belt and exhaled. Jackson rolled to his shoulder, plucked the paper lions from the roof, and stood.

  “Right,” Jackson said. His hand went to his throat, to touch the warm line her whip had left behind. Had the leather burned him? He somehow thought not; her hand was steady and sure. He stared at Mae’s back, the taut way she held herself, and he thought of the you
ng man he’d thrust into the knives, of the other three with him. “What is Theo to you, then? He works for Bell’s like you?”

  “He is a Bell.” She looked at him over his shoulder as he drew even with her, then looked northward to Bell’s again. “My brothers.”

  What little warmth the evening air contained drained away. Mae had come to his roof to find out what he was and, having been disappointed, her brothers trailed after, getting a firmer answer to their questions. It didn’t stop his hands from shaking.

  “You came?” She had turned around, attention fully on him now. Her arms were crossed over her jacket, hands tucked into armpits like she was cold. “To see the show?”

  Jackson lifted the paper lions. “Your show.” The white ribbons lifted in the night breeze and he remembered the way her dress vanished on stage. Remembered the queer feeling in his belly. “You know I did.”

  Mae’s jaw tightened and she reached for the lions, but Jackson held them out of her reach, his arm extended above his head. He was transported back to the shadowed hospital halls, other boys holding his penny dreadfuls out of reach, demanding money for them.

  Mae didn’t step away, but drew her hand back, tucking it under her arm again. Her cheeks were pinker than they had been. “Did you enjoy it?”

  She smelled warm in the cool night, like leather and lemon, and Jackson kept his face carefully neutral. If she was a Bell, she was dangerous, but then, she had been dangerous before he knew her affiliations. Dangerous sitting on the edge of his fire escape. Dangerous with those lions under her command. He took a step back and tucked the paper lions into his own pocket. “You know I did.”

  The silence between them ran like a ribbon, smooth and not uncomfortable. Jackson kept his hands in his pockets, feeling the lions someone had colored, stroking a ribbon between thumb and forefinger as he watched her watch the city.

  “They seem human,” he eventually said. When she looked over, that silent knowing in her eyes, he added, “Your brothers.” He watched as the muscle in her jaw tensed again, the only outward sign of her annoyance.

  “Strange, that,” she said, and let her hands drop from their tucked position. “Come with me.” She turned, her boots not making a sound on the roof as she moved off.

  Jackson stared after her, but not for long. He took double steps to fall into step beside her as she crossed the roof. He was rewarded with a smug smile from her, one that made him bristle, but as she crossed the catwalk and led him across the neighboring building, he didn’t care. She could be as smug as she wanted. She knew this city and he didn’t. He would follow her lead for now, because it would lead him somewhere. Besides, he had stabbed her brother and she had come calling even so. Surely that meant something.

  Nothing.

  Everything.

  Have we been here before?

  He told the sister’s whispering voice to shut it and stayed close behind Mae when she slipped one level down a fire escape. This escape led to another catwalk and they crossed in silence, unknown to everyone on the street below. There was power up here, in knowing these routes when those below did not.

  Counting the buildings as they went became something of an obsession, an invisible trail of breadcrumbs in his mind. Mae never hesitated, not even to see if he was keeping up. Where she went, he followed, up iron ladders, across narrow catwalks.

  The building she led him to was across from the docks, the scent of the ocean washing up to greet them. They crouched in a shadow falling over a fire escape, behind someone’s forgotten laundry. Mae peered over the rail, then pointed to one ship in particular. Cressida’s vehicle trundled into the scene.

  Jackson’s hands curled around the fire escape grate as Foster parked the automobile. Cressida poured out in her black skirts and fox wrap. The fox surveyed the street behind her. She and Foster moved toward the ship and the men who emerged from it.

  “What is this?” Jackson asked, looking again to Mae.

  “This is a problem,” Mae said, “but I don’t expect you to see it that way yet. The Widow controls so much of this city and she … Just watch.”

  Cressida accepted a sheaf of papers from one of the men and carefully read through them. She questioned one thing, her gloved finger stroking over a line, but the captain nodded and gestured into the darkness between the berthed ships. Cressida stepped into the dark and the captain followed. Jackson shifted, trying to get a better look, but Mae’s hand forestalled him from actually leaving the fire escape to get closer.

  “Just wait.”

  It was an eternity, wondering where Cressida had gone and what had come in on the ship. When the riddle was at last solved, Jackson wasn’t sure what to think. Cressida and the captain emerged from the darkness and it was just them walking and talking, papers held in Cressida’s hand. Then, other figures began to emerge.

  These human-like shapes peeled away from clotted darkness; Jackson was certain if he was close enough, he would have heard a wet puckering kiss as they separated from the black. A chill having nothing to do with the cool evening slid down his spine.

  “What the hell are those?”

  Mae shook her head. “We don’t know.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, but she didn’t look away. Jackson counted the shadowy forms as they emerged. Four, six, eight, twelve. They kept coming.

  A metal trunk perched in the back of the automobile and Foster opened it, allowing the shadowed forms to slide inside. The way steam might escape a teapot, these creatures were swallowed by the metal, locked inside when Foster closed the lid.

  “What do you mean you don’t know what they are?” Jackson lowered his voice, but it held a panicked edge. “You’re supposed to know what they are. You have issues with the Wid — With Cressida. You bring me here. To see this.” He jabbed a hand toward the automobile. “You are supposed to know —”

  Mae’s hand around his throat silenced him. “If I knew what those things were, do you think I would be playing this game? You might have known. This is the third … shipment at least. There may have been others we didn’t see, but this … The third. There have been at least twenty of those things in each run. They always go into that metal box. She’s …” Mae shook her head, and Jackson thought she was trying to find the right words, but a look in her eyes told him otherwise. She was holding back tears and it made something inside him come loose.

  His hand covered hers, to pull hers away from his throat so he might talk. But he wasn’t sure what to say then, either. They sat there, as Cressida went on her way. The ship’s captain vanished amid the ships and — Jackson still held Mae’s hand. He abruptly dropped it, her black stare nailing him where he sat.

  “She’s planning something,” Mae finished, her voice uneven.

  “Maybe I could …” He cleared his throat. They weren’t allies. They weren’t even friends. “Could keep an eye out. For the box.” He supposed he could outright ask Foster. After what they’d been through … he would ask. But Mae didn’t need to know he had that kind of an inside line. She might use it against him.

  Mae only nodded. Didn’t say thank you, didn’t say oh would you, how swell. She turned away and Jackson imagined when her hands went up, she was wiping her tears away so he wouldn’t see. He was reaching for her when the window above the fire escape opened. A Chinese woman with a bucket of water stared at them.

  “We —” Jackson reached for Mae’s arm.

  The woman shrieked and threw the water. Icy filth drenched them, carrying a stench Jackson likened to the bottom of a mereling tank.

  Jackson pulled Mae down to the next ladder and the next and the next, until they were out of ladders and had to jump into a cart of fresh cut hay parked at the building’s corner. They came up sneezing and coughing, but as they ran, prickly hay sticking to their wet faces and clothes, Jackson found himself laughing, echoing the sound pouring from Mae.

  §

  Sister Jerome Grace was waiting in Cressida’s office.

  Sister Jerome Grace was wait
ing in Cressida’s office.

  Sister Jerome Grace was …

  “Shut it.”

  Jackson stared at himself in the mirror, almost challenging himself to change into what he actually was, to not be the proper young man staring back. The shirt was soft from too much wash and wear, while the tie was confining, a hand closed around his neck. But Cressida said he should dress proper for the sister. He was surprised she stayed in the city, for he pictured her having already gone. It was easier to imagine she had gone on with her life while he tried to understand this new one.

  He licked his palm and smoothed down his hair. He checked his belt, and his trousers, and his shoes, and everything was in its place. He couldn’t see any trace of scale or shadow in the mirror so nodded at himself and approved.

  Foster was not waiting outside Jackson’s door as he sometimes did. Jackson knew his way around the building, though the corridors the public didn’t traverse remained strange to him. The corridors connected every part of the building with every other, in ways Jackson couldn’t understand. He found himself trying to map them in his head, but they were different every time, a branch that hadn’t existed before, a fork that had once been a dead end. He trailed his hands over the walls as he went, swearing the building shuddered in response. Ridiculous. But then so too had those shadow figures been.

  Pieces of darkness peeled away from other darkness. Surely he and Mae hadn’t seen any such thing. Darkness flowing into a metal trunk as if it belonged there? Never happened. He tried to convince himself. He failed.

  The door to Cressida’s office was a beautiful thing. It was the same golden hued wood from the lobby, with an oval of frosted glass set into its center. Strange shapes infused the glass, changing as the corridors of the building did; there were often foxes chasing after birds, but sometimes these birds turned into dinosaurs and swallowed the foxes whole but for their tails. The door handle was wrought iron, always warm.