by Paul Durham
She’s noticed the chip in the stone above my right eyebrow. There’s another in the left canine that protrudes over my upper lip, but she’s nice enough not to point that flaw out.
“And your tooth?” she adds, pointing to my mouth as if she might touch it.
So much for the nice part.
“Accident,” I say flatly. “A long time ago. Thanks for bringing it up.”
“But that’s just the outside,” she continues. “Inside, there’s something dark and swirling, like a storm cloud that can’t quite rain.”
“Okay, I get it,” I say. “You can see me.” Definitely squidlike, this one.
“Should I go on?”
“No, that’s quite all right,” I answer quickly, trying to quell the uneasy tendrils fluttering in my gut. “How did you get up here, anyway? I didn’t see you come in.”
“Do you see everything?” she asks.
“Absolutely,” I fib. Truth be told, I’ve been a bit distracted since the unsettling loss of my friends.
“The stairs,” she says with a nod to the fire door. It’s propped open with a cinder block. The practice-adults must have forgotten to close it again.
“You don’t live here,” I point out.
“No,” she agrees.
“What are you, about twelve or so?” I ask, looking her over again.
She gives me a little smile. “Good guess.” I see her steal a glance down toward Hetty’s window.
“Do you go to school with those girls?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I spend most of my time at the Conservatory.”
The music school? I eye the old-fashioned violin case at her side with growing interest. Its wooden surface is scuffed and battered—a tiny coffin sealed with brass clasps. It’s got character. I have a sudden urge to fling it open and see the instrument inside, but I mind my manners.
“Are you some sort of prodigy?” I ask.
“Something like that,” she says with a shrug. “Do you like music, Goyle?”
“It depends, Viola,” I say, intentionally misidentifying her instrument.
“This is a violin case,” she corrects, patting it with a gloved palm.
“I know. And I’m a Grotesque, not a gargoyle.”
She narrows an eye and purses her lips. “You’re pretty clever for a block of stone, Goyle.”
“You’re pretty bold for a squirming lump of flesh and breakable bones, Viola,” I say, and she stiffens.
Oh, bricks. That was harsher than I intended. She looks like she might leave. As strange as it is to be talking with this girl on my roof, I don’t really want her to go. I haven’t actually talked to anyone since the Twins moved on.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I wasn’t implying that I would break your bones.”
She glances at me warily, then down at the streetlights and a row of silent cars parked along the curb.
“So why are you up here?” I ask. “You’re not hanging around with those college students downstairs, are you? Take it from me, they’re not nearly as interesting as they pretend to be, and their apartment smells like last month’s laundry.”
“I like it on the rooftops. If you listen closely, you can hear the songs of the city.”
I could tell her that I hear the shallow breathing of the infirm at City Hospital, or the last gasps of dockworkers drowned in the great Molasses Flood long ago. But I’m afraid that might prompt her to leave again.
“Sometimes I hear things” is all I say.
Her eyes drift upward to the sky. The urban lights dull the stars here, even on the clearest night.
“We’re only a few blocks from Symphony Hall,” she says. “Late at night, when the streets grow still, the musicians practice. They’re at it now.” A small smile curls her lips. “Can you hear them?”
I have to restrain myself from jolting my stone neck in surprise. Can I? A string quartet is at it again. I always pause to listen—it’s one of the few things that help drown out the stir of distant echoes.
She closes her eyes, tilting her neck so that her chin juts in the air, and breathes deeply.
I join her in the silence. The haunting violins carry across the rooftops like the call of invisible night birds.
Then the strings disappear in a harsh screech of static. Sharpened nails carve at a chalkboard inside my ears. A vibration runs under the building and up its walls like a swarm of scuttling rats, until it rattles inside my body. If you’ve ever hit your funny bone, imagine that sensation in every limb at once.
“What is it, Goyle?” she asks, jolting her eyes open as if she senses my alarm.
I look down at Hetty’s window. I see the Ouija board on the floor, Hetty and her friends huddled around it anxiously. I was afraid this would happen. Someone—something—has accepted their invitation for a chat.
“Netherkin,” I whisper sharply.
“Nether what?”
“Stay here, Viola,” I say. “Don’t leave the roof.”
And with that I flash into a wisp and head for the basement without delay.
The only elevator in the building is a rumbling black box, one that refuses to move until you slide its heavy grating shut behind you, sealing yourself inside it like an iron coffin. It’s a temperamental beast, a relic from another century, and even I don’t trust it. Instead I take the narrow, deserted stairs, which grow quieter and less welcoming the deeper you descend.
The basement is a cold and windowless labyrinth, dimly lit by two exposed bulbs that flicker under thick coverings of dust. There are no apartments down here, this place only home to rattraps and a row of rusting washers and dryers. Most of my wards opt to wash their clothes at the laundromat down the street. Those who make use of the machines don’t do so after dark.
Not that they have anything to fear. I keep a clean basement. No, I don’t mean the cobwebs and trash overflowing from the garbage chute. What I’m fastidious about is keeping it free of unwelcome visitors of the shadowy sort. In that regard, you might call me a neatnik.
But tonight, as I creep silently through the deepest level of my Domain, I can smell the Netherkin. I know it’s down here somewhere.
Don’t confuse Netherkin with imps. Imps are like flies. Scavengers who were never of this world but who feed off it like parasites. Quick and numerous but weak in spirit, they can do no real harm to the living. They seldom enter my Domain, nor any other Grotesque’s, for we can swallow them like candy when we catch them.
Netherkin are different. They were once part of this world and their ties to it remain strong. They exist in more forms than I can list: common haunts, malignant poltergeists, and festering specters. The sinister, shapeshifting Shadow Men are a special breed of Netherkin—the evilest of all. But what they all share is an unwillingness to move on to what’s Next, for reasons both unknown and unimportant to me. What is important is that these vile phantoms are drawn to the living—my wards—and that sort of nonsense will not be tolerated in my Domain.
The only good Netherkin is a well-digested one, and I’ve consumed more than my fair share.
When Netherkin enter dwellings, it’s most often through basements and cellars. It’s no coincidence that your youngest siblings won’t go downstairs to fetch that seldom-used tool kit or clean the cat’s litter box alone. I told you they see things that older children and adults don’t. Perhaps it’s the cracks and crevices, or the proximity to the stale soil, but underground places are the Netherkin’s highways of choice. Fortunately, I can feel them coming. Hear them, even—if they’re particularly clumsy. The noise of tonight’s unwelcome visitor is what interrupted my relaxing moment on the roof.
One of the bulbs overhead sputters and winks out. It’s a sign I’m getting closer. Do you find yourself changing lightbulbs often in your home? You might want to—well, never mind.
I finally spot the Netherkin as I slip around a support beam and creep past a box of abandoned toys. In the unlikely event you should ever glimpse one with your own eyes, it may a
ppear to you as a vague human silhouette, or an unexplained orb of light in the corner of a photograph.
Consider yourself lucky. I see them for what they really are.
This particular abomination leans over, lapping a stagnant puddle from a leaky pipe with a tongue as narrow as a serpent’s. It’s oddly feline, an emaciated predator without fur or skin, its body just rippling sinew and pulsing, bloodless veins. Fortunately, it’s a small one, crouching on two legs like a nasty little ape, bracing itself on the pads of its long, stringy fingertips. Its pointy, batlike ears twitch alertly.
But I’m too stealthy for it. I have to cluck my own tongue in disapproval to get its attention.
The Netherkin recoils and hops around to face me. The pupils of its oversized eyes dilate into black bottomless saucers, then narrow back into slits.
“Don’t let me interrupt you, Netherkin,” I say. “Go on, drink your fill.”
The Netherkin cowers for a moment, like a frightened animal, but doesn’t move.
“So, you’re finished, then?” I ask.
It huddles there without response, flexing its claws anxiously.
“It’s time for you to go.”
Finally, it speaks, although not with words. It’s more like a vibration.
“That, I cannot,” it hums.
Perhaps this Netherkin is new and stupid, and mistakes me in my wisp form for some frightened boy.
“You realize that I’m the Night Warden of this Domain?” I ask.
“I do,” it warbles back.
“And you still choose to stay?”
“A choice in the matter I have none. What the Boneless King orders, must be done.”
I narrow an eye under my gray hood. “That rhymes. Very cute. But you understand what happens if you ignore my demand?”
The Netherkin hesitates, tensing the muscles in its throat.
“The Boneless King’s my master, iron-fisted and terse. Whatever you threaten, his wrath is worse.”
I sigh at the foolish Netherkin. And they say Grotesques are stubborn as rocks.
I lower my hood. I am still a wisp, but the boyish face of my form shifts, teeth growing out of my mouth until they become sharp tusks. My skin bleeds into an ash gray, and my jacket writhes and contorts on my back, sprouting two fearsome, leathery wings. My fingers are as sharp as sickles.
I can smell the fear in the phantom, but instead of disappearing down the floor drain or fleeing into the pipes, it rises up and postures, brandishing its jagged teeth and rotten gums.
Feisty, this one.
It springs, but I’m too fast. I step aside and it crashes off the old oil burner with a sickening thud, sending dust from the rafters. I expect the blow will have knocked some sense into it, but I’m wrong. No sooner has it regained its feet than it lashes out again.
This time I catch it with a firm grip around its throat. I pummel it against the floor like an oversized rag doll, then pitch it into the open hole of a dryer. I slam the door on its head three times, until it falls into a heap on the basement floor.
“No more warnings, Netherkin. Be gone,” I command.
The Netherkin’s eyes look up at me and flash. Its weakened voice is just static in the musty cellar air.
“I’m just the first but won’t be the last. The Boneless King’s prize shall be claimed before long has passed.”
That does it. I’ve never had the patience for bad verse.
I dislocate my jaw and my cheeks melt like a burning plastic mask. I open my mouth until it gapes as wide as a sewer. Clutching the Netherkin by its nubby tail, I thrust him inside and swallow him whole.
The lyrically challenged Netherkin is still repeating on me as I make my way back upstairs. They always leave me with indigestion, and this one sits particularly foul in my gullet.
I reach the roof and pull on my hood, turning my attention to the evening’s other visitor. But Viola is gone. It’s surely for the best, and yet I find myself strangely disappointed by her absence. I listen. Sadly, the string quartet is done rehearsing too. I belch and curse the Netherkin’s taste on my tongue.
I miss my friends. And now something other than the Netherkin is bubbling inside me.
Anger.
I’m tired of sitting around idly. The Twins’ killer is out there and I’m not about to find him by sitting here gathering soot on the roof.
The posthumous poet in my gut may have lost his otherworldly mind, but his incessant yammering about his master has gotten me thinking. Who would dare to send a Netherkin to my Domain? I remember the limp-legged wanderer I came across in the Fens. That paper-crowned fool seemed incapable of commanding his own feet, never mind a Netherkin, and surely anyone too weak to stand up to a stiff breeze would be no threat to the Twins. But his dark thoughts pulsed with a strength beyond that of his frail body, so strongly that he just might warrant a second look.
Tomorrow I’ll head out in search of this so-called Boneless King, whatever he might be. And while some glorified ghoul may not be responsible for the demise of the Twins, I’ll be glad to let off some steam all over his homely undead head.
For now, I peer down into the fourth-floor window as I settle back into my stone shell on the parapet. Hetty and her friends are finally curled up in their sleeping bags. If I’ve done my job well, they’ll sleep soundly, blissfully ignorant of all that has just transpired.
But I notice that, on this night, Hetty has left a small lamp alight atop her pastel desk.
Weekend traffic is light the next morning, but the buzz of visitors at the lobby call box jars me each time I nod off to sleep. A steady stream of parents arrives to collect their daughters from Hetty’s apartment, until only Hetty, her mother, and Captain Poopy-Pants remain. I’m glad to see the mini-mystic with the eyeliner take her spirit board with her. There’ll be no more misdirected invitations to the netherworld under my watch.
It’s almost noon when I finally abandon hope of getting any rest. I rise and stretch around the same time as the practice-adults and, as a wisp, make my way down to the rear courtyard of my Domain. Surrounded on three sides by the building’s walls and five stories of looming windows, the square is a constantly shifting realm of shadows. Only ivy and weeds grow here, but that hasn’t stopped the building manager from placing a couple of stone benches around the tiny concrete lawn. A six-foot-high, ivy-covered garden wall separates the courtyard from the back alley. It’s topped with a layer of mortar embedded with shards of broken bottles to deter unwanted visitors from climbing over. Not that it’s needed. Anything a little glass can do, I can do better.
I pass cheerful old Miss Ada. She’s stooped at the waist, wearing canvas sneakers and a sweater flung over her floral dress. She diligently collects litter from under the benches—undoubtedly left by the practice-adults the night before. I like Miss Ada, and even though she can’t hear me I greet her with a “Hello” as I pass. Her round face squints up from her toils as if she feels a sudden breeze. Miss Ada’s originally from an island in the Caribbean, but she’s lived in my Domain so long she can sense the slightest change in the air. She’d make a good Night Warden.
I exit up and over the garden wall with barely a rustle of ivy—a few broken bottles don’t bother me. It feels good to get out again. Today I’m making my way to a place known to be popular with Netherkin. I intend to use my special breed of charm to persuade one to tell me more about this Boneless King. I still doubt he is any sort of royalty—boneless or otherwise—but the prospect of a hunt has made me feel useful again. If I really catch a break, I may even find out who or what attacked the Twins. The thought makes me tremble with rage; then I crack a chip-toothed smile.
It’s going to be a bad day for the dead.
All is quiet in the back alley, as expected. It’s strange enough for me to be roaming under the gray midday sky; it would be extremely unusual—and problematic—to find Netherkin out by the light of day. I turn the corner onto the more highly trafficked avenue and stop short.
Hetty and Mamita have left the building too. Hetty pushes her little brother in a stroller, making race car noises as she zips him around cracks and craters in the sidewalk.
I follow them down the block. No, I’m not a stalker—I happen to be heading in that direction myself. But when they stop and unlatch a chain link gate, I can’t help but veer off my path.
Unknowingly, my wards have just entered dangerous ground.
Colorful gnomes in puffy coats and striped wool hats dangle upside down from monkey bars. Their parents and babysitters chat and read magazines next to parked strollers, confident that the short fences will keep the little wanderers safe from the traffic creeping around their urban oasis.
Playgrounds. They’re overrated. And dangerous, if you ask me.
This one has been here for decades. I can’t tell you how many of my littlest wards have been sent home in need of ice packs and Band-Aids, all thanks to its cold metal hands.
Hetty and Captain Poopy-Pants are the first children to inhabit my Domain in quite some time, so I’ve delayed my hunt to observe them in their natural habitat—and to make sure neither of them ends up with stitches. Tomás sits in a sandbox not far from Mamita, scooping its damp dunes with an empty Play-Doh canister. I crinkle my nose. If only they knew what the local alley cats did in that box.
Hetty sits alone on one end of a bright blue seesaw. Her knees practically touch her chin and the seat of her jeans rests just inches from the leaf-strewn ground. She’s by far the oldest child here. Her fingers busily fumble with something in her lap as the younger children squeal and dart past, playing a game of tag. She brushes her dark curls off her face and offers them a small, sad smile.
There’s no lonelier place than a seesaw without someone to join you. I know how she feels. I’m just a wisp on a bench at the playground’s fringes.
I sigh and pull my hood tighter around my face, then approach Hetty carefully. The younger children, who may or may not see me, are far too busy to pay me any mind. Hetty’s eyes remain lowered. She’s pulling and stretching a small handful of her brother’s Play-Doh into a shape I can’t make out. I wish I could climb up and join her on the seesaw, but my better judgment prevails. Instead, I just rest my palm on the empty seat.