by Martin Kee
She balled up her fist and let out a little cry, thrusting it into his chest again. Marley flexed for it and her fist bounced off. He was no longer laughing.
“You need to think about what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re trying to punch me up here. You need to think about what you can hit the most effectively from your own height. And always follow through. Put your will behind it. Don’t half-ass anything if you intend on walking away.”
He pointed under his ribs and traced a finger around the side. “Kidneys will make a man puke if you hit him hard enough.” He pointed to his throat. “And all you need is about five pounds of pressure to collapse a man’s larynx.”
He corrected the way she held her hands, demonstrating how to strike more effectively. She tried a few times until he seemed satisfied. She might as well have been punching a log; Skyla began to suspect he was simply patronizing her.
“Most men will crumple if you hit them in the knee hard enough,” he said. “It’ll make it easier to outrun them.” The edge of his mouth curled upward as he said the last part. She narrowed her eyes.
They hadn’t had many sessions together but already she could feel the effects in her hands and arms. She awoke sore in the mornings, rubbing her eyes with calloused knuckles. Marley liked to get up at the break of dawn to train.
“I haven’t seen Dale around lately,” she said, taking a break.
Marley only shrugged. “Maybe he found a job.”
“Maybe…”
She lunged and managed to make contact with the area under his ribs. Marley feigned a grunt and then smiled. He gave her a nod of approval as they rested on the wooden bench behind the pub.
It was a warm day with a cool breeze that rustled the pines and mussed her hair. Skyla was glad to not be cleaning for a change as she closed her eyes and let the air cool her forehead.
“What weapons did you use when you fought? Swords?” she asked.
“Newer fighters start with shields about so big”—he opened his hand flat—“The shields get smaller until you are fighting with these,” he said, raising a hand. The metal designs caught the sunlight and gleamed.
Skyla conjured an image of two men smashing their fists together. She cringed.
“Sounds painful.”
“You could say that,” he said. “It’s a good reason not to allow yourself to get hit. You go in all bluster and force, you’re likely to shatter an arm… You seem like you’re pretty good at avoidance yourself.”
There was a deeper question there. She looked up at Orrin. He looked back and squawked.
“I told you I’m from Bollingbrook.”
“I believe you,” he said. “What you aren’t telling me is why you left.”
“It’s complicated.”
Marley shrugged and stood up, walking over to the well. He pulled a ladle from the bucket and drank. “We’re all here for a reason. Not being philosophical. By ‘here’ I mean Lassimir.”
“I just didn’t have anywhere to go, really.”
To that he nodded. “The entire city of Lassimir is made of people that don’t belong anywhere. People who were banished from Bollingbrook, Rhinewall, Arist, Newsac…this whole city was built by outcasts.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’ve been here since I was your age… younger, in fact. Don’t remember much before that.” He wiped his mouth. “I remember a boat ride.”
“They had boats back then?” She grinned.
“Anyway,” he continued, “All I’m saying is that you can tell me if you want, but it ain’t no big deal.”
Skyla was silent for a long time. Marley took another drink. She listened to the trees and the birds above. She was filled with an overwhelming sense of calm.
“My mom is dead,” she said with no emotion at first. Then, as if a crack had formed in a dam, something uncontrollable and raw flooded through. Marley let her cry in silence, respectful.
The flood ended and Skyla wiped the tears with her palm. Marley offered a towel and she accepted gratefully. After a few more moments she continued.
“Something took her,” she said. “I don’t know what it was, but it was huge. It was like a shadow but…solid.”
“You mean like a black bear?” he asked.
Skyla took a long breath and tried to explain.
“I… can see things that are attached to people… shadows inside their shadows,” she said as if she were explaining it to herself. “Not what you’re thinking. Not this”—she waved her hand in front of her face—“I can see what people really are… things they don’t want anyone to see… does that make any sense?”
“No. Not really.” Marley fell silent. There was a horrifying moment where Skyla thought he would kick her out. But after a few more seconds he only shrugged. “So you handled your fights by what? Reading their minds?”
“There was this girl,” she said. “Dona. She used to beat me up in school. Bully stuff, shoving, pulling hair that sort of thing. She and this girl Vicky used to make fun of me a lot, me and my mother. One day I punched Vicky… I punched her hard Marley. I think I even knocked her out. She was missing teeth.”
“Good job,” he said with a slight smile.
“No. No it wasn’t,” she said. “They just came after me with more girls, even with Melissa, a girl I thought was my friend. Vicky had pliers. Said she was going to get her teeth back.”
He squinted at her. “I don’t see any missing teeth.”
“Melissa stopped them. She bought me time…”
“Where’d he hit you, Dona? Did he do it again where they couldn’t see the bruises?”
“I saw something in Dona’s shadow. I saw things her father did to her. Really awful things, Marley, things no one should know. And I said it aloud. I told them all what I saw in her shadow with all the girls there.”
“He makes you sit on his lap, doesn’t he Dona… You tell him you’re too old but he says you’re never too old and you do it. Every time you feel smaller and smaller. You sometimes wish something would happen to him, but it won’t.”
Dona, her face ashen. Victoria staring. All the girls staring.
“You could tell your mother but then she’d probably just drink herself to death.”
A slap. Dona trembling.
Skyla shook her head at the memories.
“Probably just your imagination—” Marley said.
“No, Marley,” she leveled her gaze at him. Her pupils were huge. “I know about you too. I know about you and Dale. I know about the fight, the promise he made. You weren’t supposed to cheat. Not on your last fight. He still doesn’t know how you feel about it.”
She froze as the mountain of a man turned a deep red. The scar went white.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said and looked away.
Marley frowned. “People don’t like feeling vulnerable, Skyla,” he said. “That’s why they usually strike out first.”
An image formed in her mind of how other people must have seen her: a mirror exposing every blemish that makeup and fine clothes couldn’t hide. She thought of the way she had so carelessly flayed open Dona for everyone to see.
They must have all been terrified every time I looked at them, she thought with a shudder.
She looked up to see Marley standing over her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It should stay a secret.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I think we’ve trained enough,” he said with a smile. “You should get some rest.”
She went back inside to her bunk. Marley went inside shortly after. Neither of them noticed Dale who stood at the front of the pub, eavesdropping from around the corner.
But Orrin was gone. He never returned inside with her.
She called for him, but didn’t get a reply. She left food out but it only attracted raccoons. Skyla found herself feeling worse each time she stepped outdoors. Finally she had to admit to herself that he might really be gone for good. Dale tried to comfort her from
the bar.
“Maybe he met a nice lady bird and they ran off to get married, or whatever it is birds do.” Dale nudged her and elicited a small smile. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Skyla. He’s smart. You said so yourself.”
She shrugged and got back to busing the tables that were slowly being overrun as customers began to crowd the dingy floor. She stole moments to duck outside and call for him, but it was useless. Orrin was gone.
Dale, on the other hand seemed to be in good spirits. When Skyla asked him what had him so happy, all he said was that he came into some money. He seemed very pleased with himself.
The door opened and she was surprised to see Vana enter. She wore less camouflage than before, but there was no mistaking that crossbow. Grown men twice her size moved aside as she strode across the room and sat beside to Dale. There were some hushed words between them and Skyla watched as Dale’s happy expression melted away like heated wax.
He shrugged and Vana leaned closer to him. His face went pale. Skyla couldn’t hear any of the conversation over the noise in the bar. Eventually, Vana got up and left, leaving Dale staring into his beer.
Skyla began to approach him, but Dale only got up and left the bar before she could say anything.
That evening, Skyla stared at the empty rafter above the bed, consumed in her own confusion and loss.
This is what you get, said the voice in her head. This is what you get for staying here instead of doing what you set out to do.
She felt a warm lump rise in her throat.
But I’m happy here. Why is that such a bad thing? Why can’t I just stay here?
There was no reply. The voice was right. She stared at the ceiling and then closed her eyes.
The goggles. She remembered how she could see Orrin with the goggles. She pulled them from her backpack and placed them on her head. Taking a few deep breaths, she pulled the lenses down over her eyes.
The world went black.
She was staring through a million empty windows of a million empty buildings, a crystal labyrinth of dried-up opportunity. Any random shapes she could see were like leaves blown across an abandoned gazebo. She sighed and removed the leather helmet from her head.
What am I doing wrong? she thought. Why can’t I see anything anymore?
But she could see shadows still. She saw Marley’s while she was talking to him, huge and patient and powerful, blotched with shame and secrecy.
I have a home and new friends now, why do I feel so lonely?
The room faded to gray as she stared at a knot in the ceiling, letting the hard bed soften and engulf her. She saw herself standing on a distant shore, a throng of people staring back, their bodies blending with the pantry in The Hungry Skunk. She felt the sand under her feet, saw the countless faces as they stared back. Behind them stood a mountainous building, dotted with dingy windows and chipping paint. In front of the building loomed gates so high she couldn’t see the top.
A raven soared overhead, a smudge in the swirling sky. She cried out, reaching for Orrin, but she realized then that she was already asleep.
Chapter 14
John rolled the wad of cigarettes and handkerchief in his pocket with nervous fingers. He knocked on the hotel door and waited. He was nearly ready to leave when the door swung open, the Reverend Lyle Summers glaring at him from the threshold. For a moment it seemed as though Lyle didn’t even recognize him, then his face softened and cracked a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Father Thomas,” he said. “Please come in.”
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” John said.
“No. No,” Lyle said, shaking his head. “I was between meetings.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Indeed,” Lyle said, gesturing to a chair. “What can I do for you?”
As the door widened a gust of hot, humid air hit him. He felt his brow sweat almost immediately. The room was a glowing sauna of lamps illuminating every corner and producing enough heat that John was surprised there hadn’t been a fire.
John stepped into the room and hesitated. This wasn’t a hotel room. This was an art gallery of the insane. Gaudy golden picture frames hung nailed to the wall filled with crude, alien images.
One of the paintings he recognized as The Last Supper, only all of the participants were sideshow acts. There were extra limbs and eyes. Faces seemed misshapen, one of them screaming. Something in the back of his mind told him to run. Another part of his brain was rapt with curiosity.
“I didn’t know the hotel rooms provided such lavish decorations,” he said, looking at another painting that might have been the crucifixion, if Jesus had five arms… or was that part of the cross? He felt his skin crawl.
“Oh,” Lyle said. “You like them?”
“I’ve honestly never seen anything like them in my life.” It was an understatement. Bollingbrook had a fine gallery of renaissance artwork as well as recovered paintings and sculptures from the Lost Centuries. He had made it a point to see them when he had first arrived in the city. But this…
Lyle led him across the room and around a monolithic chest that stood in the center of the floor, lit on all sides by light.
Lyle saw him looking at the lamps and said simply, “They’re chemical.”
John took a seat in a wooden chair near the desk at the far end of the room. A portrait of Job stared at him with black, sunken eyes that seemed to bleed tentacles.
“Painting’s always been a passion of mine,” said Lyle. “Second to preaching The Word, of course.” He took a cigarette out of the case on the desk and placed it between his lips, lighting it. He shot John a cool, casual glance.
“I’ve always felt,” said The Reverend Summers, taking a puff on the cigarette, “that art is humbling. It reminds us that we are but simple tools of the Lord. Do you agree?”
John nodded, speechless. Lyle grinned and followed his gaze to a painting of the Beast from Revelations with its many crowned heads and forked tongues. One head was eating a screaming woman up to her pale waist, an eye growing from her navel. It seemed normal by comparison to the rest.
“Now that one.” He pointed the smoldering cigarette to a different canvas. “I did that one in the Great Utah Territory, just a mile from the Battle of Weeping Rock, in the courtyard of the Mission Santa Maria as a tribute to the good men who fought and died there.”
The painting in question could have been Lot’s wife at Sodom and Gomorrah. John knew better than to try and guess out loud. The faces in the painting stretched grotesquely. Walking sticks of soft taffy.
“Yes,” John agreed. “I think I can see that.”
“I’m amazed I find the time at all anymore,” Lyle said. “But every now and then, I get the itch.” The Reverend Summers drew an unconscious hand to his chest and scratched.
“Do you sell many of them?”
“Oh,” Lyle said, stretching. “I suppose I sell a few here and there. Usually church members back home. One is in New Amsterdam, sitting in the home of Judah Merchant.”
John knew that he was supposed to react to the name-dropping, but he could only nod absently. How long before he asks me to buy one?
“You should sell some around here,” John said. “You’re certainly popular enough.” He winced inwardly. Why would I ask that? It felt as though the paintings were performing their own interrogation on him now.
“These are my private collection,” Lyle said. “But I can put you in touch with a dealer if you think your cathedral could use some sprucing up.”
The Reverend Lyle Summers grinned, and John found himself looking at the door. Lyle scratched his chest again and John thought he saw a lump underneath the fabric.
“Bollingbrook is full of good people,” Lyle said. “Hardworking God-fearing people. Things go well enough, I may just donate a painting to the local charity.”
“I’m sure people would love that,” John said. “I’ve noticed that several of the factories have begun production again. I’
m guessing you had something to do with that.”
Lyle took another drag from his cigarette before he squashed the butt in a tray, then leaned in toward John.
“This town looked like it could use a shot in the arm,” he said. “Police force here is embarrassingly underfunded. Factories have lost about fifty percent of their workers. Your upper class was even starting to feel the pinch. I saw an investment.”
“I noticed that a lot of the production seems to be military,” John said.
Lyle looked at him for a stretch of time—his face was expressionless. Then he turned to the desk and grabbed a scrolled map, handing it to John. “See anything odd about that map?”
John studied it, trying to ignore that Lyle was studying him.
“It’s an old rail map between here and Rhinewall,” John said, handing it back. “The railway hasn’t functioned for decades though.”
“Anything missing?” Lyle asked.
He looked at it again, his eyes following the line of the river—
“There’s no Lassimir,” he said, finally.
“And why is that?” asked Lyle, taking the map back from him. “You’ve got a clear map of the river”—he traced a finger down the image— “and where it dumps out into the ocean. But the city that people associate with the river is gone.”
“Well,” said John, “it’s not even a real city for one. Most people stay away from it. I hear it is completely mobile, more of a camping site than a city.”
Lyle placed the map back on the desk with care. He turned back to John but did not look at him. Lyle’s eyes drifted across the paintings on the wall lovingly.
“The mind,” he said. “It’s an interesting thing, Father Thomas. It sees what it wants to see and it ignores everything else. Even if the soul sees something, the mind can turn a blind eye. It is the mind that is the bastion of sin. That’s what’s been happening to this town, Father.
“You’ve had a cancer under your noses for a decade and nothing has been done about it. It took the Vatican to send someone with my training to weed that corruption and evil out of your midst. If I hadn’t shown up, your Industrial Wedge would have become a coven.”