The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories

by A. C. Wise

  And the release goes all the way through her body, shivering just beneath her skin. Her sweat cools, gooseflesh puckers tight.

  “You wrote all his stories. You wrote everything, and he never knew?”

  “Yes,” the automaton says. “His stories were…inelegant. I improved them.”

  Silver fingers tighten on the pen. From the automaton’s curled hand, Anique traces the line of its arm, the curve of its spine visible through its silver ribs behind the tangle of wires. It is bolted to the chair; the chair is joined to the desk. The Pornographer’s Assistant can never stand, never move from the chair that was carried from the city in Pernaud’s great flight.

  “Oh.” The sound escapes her lips again. Her heart breaks on it. “Oh.”

  She closes her eyes; a glimmer of moisture beads her lashes, never falling.

  The metal beneath her skin sings. I feel it. Words crowd her tongue; I watch her struggle with them.

  She is so frightened, so alone. She is in so much pain.

  Her voice comes at last, a tremor in the silence. With her eyes closed, it seems easier for her to speak. What does she see, behind the blood-screen of her lids? Is there a safe space, ink black, glass smooth, lit with a thousand stars?

  “I…I was in an accident. The car…the road was slick…and it broke through the barrier. Everything was weightless. Then I fell.”

  She pauses, breath hitching, and I fear she won’t continue. After a moment, she does.

  “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I think there’s broken glass in my hair. I can’t move because I’m terrified the splinters will lodge in my skin.

  “My bones…everything shattered. My heart stopped. My lungs collapsed. I shouldn’t have survived. I didn’t live, so I shouldn’t have survived. But doctors rebuilt me. They put metal under my skin—pins, plates, joints. No one asked me what I wanted. They cut me open again and again, and stitched me back together and acted as though I should be grateful because they saved my life.”

  She opens her eyes. They shine, but no tears fall. She undoes the rest of the buttons holding her shirt closed, and sheds it, a second skin. Her boots are next, then socks, pants, everything, until she stands naked save for the fine network of scars, imperceptible to the human eye.

  But I see them. And I understand.

  Naked, she seems less frightened. There is nothing left to hide. She takes a breath; it lifts her small, near-flat breasts. Her nipples are dark, and crinkled hard.

  Her voice steady now, she offers one last confession.

  “After the accident, or maybe always, I was different. I don’t like boys. I don’t like girls. But Pernaud’s books made me feel less alone.”

  I have no heart to break for her. But I wish I did.

  There is longing in the metal under her skin. It shivers, full of unspoken pain.

  “I…” My gears snag. I cannot close my eyes. “I cannot touch you. I can only write.”

  Will she feel my sorrow, my ache, twin to hers? I try to hold her in my eyes, drifting, reflected in the blackness. I understand. My words hang in the air between us.

  “Yes.” Her answer is breathless. “Write. Please.”

  And Anique feels it. She feels the quill move across her flesh as it moves across the page, inscribing Pernaud’s words—the automaton’s words. The nib, cutting sharp, draws blood, lays bare her bones. They sing.

  A faint vibration, a resonant hum sounds from the metal inside her. It’s like standing beneath a web of power lines; the sensation raises the tiny hairs on her skin.

  It’s like standing in the heart of a storm. She feels it in the space between her bones.

  The first word is lips, and they chase across her skin. Warmth radiates out, spreading from her ribs to caress her belly, tracing the curve of her spine. The touch, feather-light, puckers her flesh. Breath chases lips, brushing her cheek, caressing the line of her jaw. Touch finds her mouth with one finger.

  She parts her lips, hungry. And touch follows the arch of her throat as she tips her head back; it pauses in the hollow above her collarbone. Shadow-light, it becomes a palm, fingers splayed to cup first one breast, and then a second hand, another touch, takes the other. The words are physical. They spark light from her bones. She quivers, bowstring taut.

  A nib, drawn feather light, teases circles around her nipples, traces her ribs, and continues down.

  Her legs can’t hold her anymore. Anique sinks to her knees, back arched. The pen moves, scratches vellum and skin. From the automaton’s pen, the word tongue is born, all loops and swirls, and it moves across her belly. Tongue dips into her navel, describes the curve of her hipbones.

  And she is falling, weighted and weightless. The car is spinning, end over end, raining glittering shards of glass, but this time she is not afraid.

  Electricity arcs beneath her skin.

  Inside and outside, she responds—legs part, lips part, she gasps.

  And she kicks out hard, legs pumping, swinging out into sunlight beneath the leaf shadows of a tree. Ropes burn her palms, as she clings to them. It is before the accident, when she was only herself, when she could fly. Her heart spins through the space between her bones. She is weightless, and gravity pulls her down, sucking at her, claiming her. And she is falling, and falling, and falling.

  But she is not afraid.

  Even kneeling is too much. Anique slides, skin slick with sweat, until she lies on her back. Her legs spread wide, feet planted on the floor. The automaton’s pen directs her now, and she surrenders to it as she never has—never could—to any human touch. She lifts her lips to a lover who isn’t there, a lover who is everywhere.

  The words slide down her belly, taste the soft flesh of thighs. Teeth nip gently, followed by finger, and again tongue. The words are both and neither, teasing her. The word wet slides between her legs, and she is. Fingers and tongue trace her clit, an aching circle, and slide inside her, deep, deeper, all the way through.

  The words swell inside her, opening her wider, wanting and giving, hungering and sating. They demand everything of her, and she gives. Gasp parts her lips, and turns into moan.

  She is shot through with light. Body arcing in response. Her spine, electric. Her skin, a shiver of notes only she can hear. The pen moves, and the vellum scrolls out, spills from the desk and pools around her. She gathers it, and it runs over her breasts, between her legs, filling all the places where she is hollow.

  And she has never been this wet.

  And her nipples have never been so hard.

  And she has never wanted anything more.

  A cry fills her throat, stealing breath.

  When it comes, when she comes, it strips her raw.

  And she is flying forever, and falling forever—caught at the top of the arc, suspended, perfect. And she will never, ever come down.

  The woman lies almost still, her only movement tiny aftershocks running across her skin. She breathes out, releasing air that has tightened her chest for years. Moisture leaks from between closed lids, and she turns her face away.

  My pen falls still. I watch her, not sleeping, not dreaming, just breathing for a while.

  The vellum slicks to her skin, binding her. My words hold her, keeping her safe.

  An eternity passes. Sand ticks against the metal walls. When she opens her eyes, they are bright and dry. She stands, legs trembling. She looks at me, and for a moment, I hang suspended in her eyes. A silver ghost, a fleshless skeleton, drifting in all that green. In her gaze, I am so much more. She sees me. She understands.

  For a moment, I want to ask her to stay. For a moment, we were one. But the moment is past. She will move on, and I will remain. I will remember.

  She bends, gathers her clothes and holds them to her chest. Regret flickers in her eyes. Teeth touch lips, bite soft, as if to hold back words. Before they can escape, she turns away.

  I wish I could close my eyes, but I cannot.

  At the door, over her shoulder, she whisper
s, “Thank you.”

  The witch arrived at precisely 11:59 p.m., just as September ticked over to October, on the day after Michael Remmington moved into the house on Washington Street. She knocked at exactly midnight.

  The house was all boxes, and Michael all ache from moving them. He’d been sitting on an air mattress—the bed wouldn’t be delivered for another week—staring at a crossword puzzle at least five years old. He’d found it in the back of the closet, yellow as bone, and peeled it from the floor—an unwitting gift from the previous tenant.

  Michael opened the door, only questioning the wisdom of it after it was done. It was midnight in a strange neighborhood; he wore a bathrobe and slippers, and he’d left his phone upstairs. If it turned out to be an axe murderer at the door, he wouldn’t even be able to call 911.

  “Hello,” the witch said. “I’m moving in.”

  A suitcase sat on her left, and a black cat on her right. The cat’s tail coiled around its neatly placed feet. It blinked at Michael, its gaze as impassive as the witch’s.

  Michael couldn’t say how he knew she was a witch, but he did, deep down in his bones. The truth of it sat at his core, as inevitable as moonrise, or spaghetti for dinner on Tuesdays.

  “Okay,” he said, which was not what he’d meant to say at all.

  But he’d already stepped back, and the witch had already picked up her bag and crossed the threshold.

  “I mean—What?”

  The cat dragged a silken tail across Michael’s shins, following the witch. It felt like a mark of approval. A chill wind chased the cat, swirling fallen leaves; Michael closed the door. The witch set her bag down, turning a slow circle while remaining in place.

  “This house should have a witch.” When she stopped, she faced him.

  Her eyes were green, like pine boughs in winter, or the shadows between them.

  “A witch needs to live here,” she said, sniffing the air. “Can’t you feel it?”

  Michael sniffed, smelling only the witch herself. She smelled of cinnamon and fresh-cut cedar. She didn’t look like a witch, except that she did. Not that Michael knew what witches looked like. People, he guessed. Mostly.

  She wore black, a loose-fitting sweater over a long skirt that seemed to have layers. It reminded him of petals, like a flower, hung upside down. Her shoes clicked when she walked.

  Michael couldn’t begin to guess the witch’s age. When he closed just his left eye, she might be around forty, but when switched and closed just his right eye, she seemed closer to fifty. Either way, her skin was smooth, except for a few crow’s feet around her eyes, and a few lines at the corners of her mouth. Her hair hung half-way down her back, dark brown like thick molasses, threaded with strands of honey, rather than gray, and she wore a lot of jewelry—most of it chunky, most of it silver.

  “Okay,” he said again, then, “why?” after he thought about it.

  “The windows are in upside down.” The witch pointed.

  Michael couldn’t see anything unusual, but considered he wouldn’t know an upside down window from a right-side-up one.

  “The board for that step,” the witch indicated a tread halfway up the staircase, “comes from a pirate ship that wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod, near Wellfleet.”

  She paced three steps forward. The floorboards clonked hollow under her shoes.

  “There’s a black cat buried in the leftmost corner of the basement. Sorry.” She addressed the last to the cat at her feet, not Michael.

  “So, a witch should live here. I’ll take the attic.”

  “But it’s my house,” Michael said. “I have papers and everything. You can’t just…”

  The witch lifted her suitcase: a small thing, battered at the edges, and held closed with two brass catches. She gathered her skirt, and Michael found himself following her up the stairs.

  “I haven’t even unpacked yet,” Michael said.

  “I’ll help you in the morning. I get up at seven. Tea with honey.” She rounded on him so suddenly Michael nearly tripped on his heels.

  They’d come to the foot of the second set of stairs, leading to the attic. Close up, the witch’s eyes were flecked with gold, like bits of mica in stone. Michael stepped back a pace, but was annoyed when he did. He could follow her up the stairs if he wanted. Couldn’t he?

  “Hoop,” she said.

  “What?”

  “It’s the answer to 47 across.” She flicked the crossword puzzle, and Michael realized he still held the yellowed paper in his hand.

  “All around, Robin’s backward friend. Four letters. It’s Pooh spelled backward. As in Winnie the. Sixteen down is Marilyn Monroe. That should give you enough to get started.”

  “Oh.” Michael didn’t know what else to say.

  “You’ll find the mugs in the third box from the left in the kitchen. For the tea. I’ll see you in the morning.” Halfway up the steps, she paused, and turned again. Her eyes were luminous in the dark.

  “You’ll want to shut the windows. It’s going to rain.”

  Michael stared until the door at the top of the stairs closed. He listened to the witch’s shoes clomp over the floorboards, and wondered where she would sleep. There was nothing in the attic except dust and dead spiders. Maybe she’d hang herself from the ceiling like a bat. Maybe witches didn’t sleep at all.

  “Okay. Goodnight. I guess,” he said to the silence.

  Michael went back to his room. He closed the door, and after a moment’s consideration, closed the window, too. The witch’s cat had taken up residence in the middle of his pillow. It opened one eye, defying Michael to displace it. He sat gingerly and when the cat didn’t leave, he risked petting it. The cat rewarded him with a faint purr.

  As if on cue, rain tapped light fingers against the glass. The house creaked, settling its bones around them. No, not around them, around the witch. A few moments later, the downpour began in earnest.

  The witch came down the stairs precisely at seven, the cat at her heels. She seemed to be wearing the same clothes as the night before, only in the dust-laden light slanting through the kitchen windows they looked deep green, or blue, rather than black. Michael wondered if he simply hadn’t noticed the subtleties of shading last night. He handed the witch a mug of tea.

  She breathed in steam, beringed hands wrapped around the mug, which he’d found exactly where she said it would be. He’d found the tea and kettle there, too, and other kitchen things, which remained in the box, largely untouched. Michael sipped from a mug that had been chipped in the moving process; to his annoyance, he’d saved the good mug for the witch.

  “You can’t stay here,” Michael said.

  He’d rehearsed the words in the predawn light, lying in bed before coming downstairs to make the witch her tea. In his mind, the witch had accepted them, and everything had been perfectly reasonable. Normal. In the bright sunlight, with the witch looking at him over her mug, he wavered.

  “Look, you don’t even know anything about me. I could be an axe murderer!”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  The witch’s cat leapt onto the counter, a stream of black ink defying gravity. It twitched its tail, smug. Michael wanted to ask how long the witch planned to stay, and what her name was. Would she split the mortgage payment? Did she have a job? Did she expect him to take turns cleaning out the kitty litter? But the witch’s even gaze dismissed all his questions before he could voice them. Maybe a witch should live here.

  If last night was any indication, the witch mostly kept to herself. He’d certainly slept much better, as in sleeping at all, once she’d arrived. It was as if the house had been holding its breath, waiting for her, and when it finally relaxed, he could, too.

  “Is there a problem, Michael Remmington?” the witch asked.

  The question came so suddenly, Michael choked on his tea. He was certain he’d never told her his name. This morning, her eyes were amber. She no longer smelled of cinnamon, but of salt; it
made him think of storms and shipwrecks.

  “No. Yes. I mean… Look, I don’t want a roommate. Or a cat. I just want to live a normal, quiet, happy life. In my house.” He left unspoken the word alone.

  The witch narrowed her eyes, as if she’d heard the part he hadn’t said. The cat pushed its head against Michael’s hand. Instead of shooing it away, he scratched it behind the ears. This time, there was no mistaking the purr.

  A stray leaf, snatched by the wind, smacked into the window, making Michael jump. He had no reason to feel guilty. His name was on all the legal documents for the house. The witch had crashed into his life, invited herself in. He didn’t owe her a thing.

  “Look…” Michael said.

  “Thank you for the tea.” The witch set her cup down.

  Her eyes had shifted color again, taking on the hue of burnt wood. Michael could almost smell smoke in the air.

  “Give me your hand.” The witch held out her own hand, palm up. Her bracelets rattled.

  She looked younger this morning, no more than thirty-five, at a guess, but Michael was tired of guessing.

  “What? Why?”

  “So I can be sure you’re not an axe murderer,” the witch said. Her smile suggested she might be laughing at him.

  He gave the witch his hand. She traced the lines, and her eyes turned pale violet, inexplicably making Michael think of dragons. The witch pursed her lips. She said, “Hmmm.” He couldn’t tell whether it was a good thing, or a bad thing.

  A line of concentration appeared about a third of the way across the witch’s lip, like an old scar. Like a sudden flash of lightning in the dark, Michael knew things about her—all true down in his bones.

  The witch had drowned in 1717, and burned to death in 1691. In the 1800s, she’d died with a rope around her neck. In 1957, she’d been murdered—a kitchen knife to the gut and blunt-force trauma to the head combined.

  Michael sucked in a sharp breath.

  “It’s all true,” the witch said, without looking up.

  Could she feel him in her head? Or was it like a broadcast, and he just happened to be tuned into her frequency?