We Leave Together

by J. M. McDermott

  Even Jona dies someday, whether Salvatore kills him or not.

  He’s in a hammock. He’s in a cave, and doesn’t remember how he got there. He’s in the city again, and he doesn’t remember how he got there.

  He knows that he cares about someone, out there. That’s all he knows. He only remembers what he can love.

  ***

  Jona listened for the reports and rumors for the fire he had set in the bedroom, and heard nothing. He watched Calipari’s hands moving over the different papers of crimes, like cards scanned for signs of cheating. No search for an arsonist came through the messenger boys. Jona thought to peer into the paper and seek it out, but if there was no report, then there was no report and looking for one would only be conspicuous.

  After dark, Jona watched for Salvatore, and saw the girl as bright as sun in the dark, dancing with her criminal.

  Jona went back to the house, a few nights later, expecting it to be damaged. He didn’t want to go to Sabachthani’s latest ridiculous party, where the two were inevitably going.

  Jona walked down through the houses in the dark, looking for any sign of what had happened.

  The house stood fine, with no sign of fire, and not even a singe at the windowsill.

  Jona stopped at the tree he had cut, and saw where his knife had plucked the branch. He reached over the fence to touch the wounded stem.

  It could’ve been just a gardener’s blade.

  Jona climbed up the fence enough to look inside the window, and he saw the same thing he had seen last time. Moonlight spilled on a bed. A man’s naked leg glistened on the white sheets.

  Jona walked away.

  He felt like punching Salvatore for this, as if Salvatore had done something to stop the fire that had burned out all by itself. He felt angrier and angrier until he wanted to grab Salvatore and shake him and hold his head in a fire even while Jona’s hands felt the burn. He should have felt relieved.

  ***

  Mishaela was smiling when they met. Then Salvatore said something to her. She placed her hands over her face like she was playing peek-a-boo. Her shoulders shook. Jona wondered, for a moment, whether she was laughing or crying. She had been smiling. She covered her eyes like playing peek-a-boo. Then, her hand reached out, and touched Salvatore’s shirt. Half her face was crying, the other half was still hidden.

  Under that hand she could have been laughing. Jona had a vision in his mind of a drama mask, and Mishaela laughing under the hidden hand because this was all an act. A single tear flickered like a burning flame in the lamplight down the side of her face.

  Jona watched Mishaela crying. Salvatore stood up, and the girl’s hand reached out to his black shirt that turned away and away and then was lost into the night shadows. Then, Mishaela was alone, and crying.

  In the street, outside the tavern, Salvatore shoved his hands in his pockets. He slouched with his hat low against his head.

  Jona strolled up behind him. “Only a matter of time before you tossed her off, anyway.”

  “That wasn’t about you,” said Salvatore, “It never is. You don’t know anything about me.”

  Jona snarled. He spit at Salvatore’s feet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jona.

  Salvatore spit back at Jona’s feet.

  “I’ve been told to leave you alone” said Jona, “I just thought you should know that I’m done with you.”

  “Toss off, then. I hope I never see you again.”

  Salvatore turned his back to Jona. Salvatore strutted away like he was untouchable.

  And Jona couldn’t touch him.

  Jona walked behind Salvatore a while. They crossed the same bridge to the same lonely street. The same drizzle misted their shoulders from the same cloud.

  Salvatore turned a corner to his own home.

  Jona stayed on the street until he found Rachel’s apartment over the butcher shop. He looked up through the streetlamp glow. He saw her pulling her brother’s clothes in from the line at her window. She was home right then. He waved up at her. He called out her name. She waved back. She looked inside, and shook her head. My brother’s here, she mouthed silently. She held her hands up and mimicked sleeping.

  Jona shrugged. He blew her a kiss. He walked on, to the station house.

  ***

  Are you drunk? Have another drink and then you will be.

  I want to believe we’re good, you know.

  We are good. Jona, I’m tired, and I want to go home and sleep. You have to go back to work. You should stop coming to see me. We need to stop before we fall in love.

  Don’t say that. We’re it for each other, so don’t tell me not to love you. Listen, I want to know it in my heart that all of us—all the people like us—that we’re really good. That if we do something bad, it isn’t because we are something bad.

  What did you do?

  Nothing. I broke this girl’s heart.

  It wasn’t mine.

  It was over this fellow I know.

  This fellow you know. Name?

  Salvatore Fidelio. You remember him, right? That burned girl? I threw him in the lake.

  Did you break his heart, too?

  If he has one, I did. He had another girl, already, and she loved him. I don’t know what happened, but I think I had something to do with it.

  You didn’t do anything.

  I set a fire in her house. I might have scared her.

  Is she pretty?

  She wasn’t as pretty as little Aggie from the Anchorites that got burned dead for Salvatore’s sake.

  If Salvatore is as bad as you say he is, the best thing is to back away, and walk away, and let him find his own death.

  Right. I wish I could talk to you all night.

  I couldn’t stay awake that long. I have to go. I have to work tomorrow night.

  Can I come?

  Don’t be foolish. Give me a kiss good-bye.

  When can I see you again?

  Not this week.

  Want me to help you with your brother?

  No, Jona.

  I can help, you know.

  I said no.

  CHAPTER 4

  We do not know the fact of Djoss, for he was not held in any demon’s skull. I can only piece together what the rats tell us about the pinkers, and what their nature tells us, and what Calipari’s flock of birds tell us and what the stories of the street tell us.

  Is this Djoss? Is it a lost vision of a dream of another man?

  I do not know.

  Still, the story fits into the puzzle that I piece together from the demon skulls. I shall include it here, so all will know who to seek when they seek out Rachel Nolander.

  ***

  Djoss paid a fellow all he had to acquire this little wooden tile with a number on it. Djoss took the slab to the bartender. The bartender tied the tile around Djoss’ neck with a string. He led Djoss behind the bar, into the back rooms. Bottles of alcohol in crates were stacked between giant casks of piss whiskey and ale. The door was built into the side of a cask. The back half of the cask swung inward. A fat stairwell led down past an old woman, and into a room smothered in pillows.

  The old woman’s clothes were too fine for this place. Her red and blue silk dress matched the fan she used to blow the pink away from her face.

  She waved Djoss down to the basement with her fan.

  Djoss slipped a coin into her hand. “Let me stay a bit, eh?”

  She took the money and waved Djoss inside. Four men lingered on dirty pillows, their mouths plugged into the hookah’s long stems. The four men didn’t look up.

  The hookah was an upside down glass squid, as tall as a man, with many lithe tentacles. The pipe bubbled gently with a low flame. Four curled limbs reached up from the ground, out from the hooks at the top and out into the mouths of the fallen figures lingering the flickering haze. Djoss couldn’t see through the dark where he could find a place.

  The old woman touched Djoss’ arm with her fan.

&n
bsp; “In or out,” she said, softly. “Hurry up, now.”

  Djoss stepped inside. He grabbed one of the open limbs coiled at the top of the hookah. He sat down on an empty mound of pillows. He bit down gently onto the hookah’s tip like sucking a new thumb. The first wave of joy poured through him, and he was swimming.

  When Djoss emerged, he heard a voice on the horizon: the old woman. “Nobody wants to hear about your family,” she said, to someone.

  Djoss pulled himself up to sitting. Djoss sat up too fast. His head spun, and he fell back to the filthy pillows. The spout of the hookah slipped from his fingers and jumped away with the coiled tube. Djoss reached around for his among the pillows. His fingers found the rear end of a rat. The rat hissed and scurried off. The rat had been eating vomit. Djoss ran his hands over the powdery dried vomit, looking for his piece of the hookah.

  “You hear me, king’s man?” said the old woman, “If you start screaming, I’m throwing you out.”

  Djoss pulled up onto his elbows, and this time he managed to stay there. He looked up at the man at the door.

  Jaime, in his king’s man uniform, sneered at the fan held between him and the hookah. “Don’t be like you, lady,” said Jaime, “I’ll ring the bells for you here. I’ll call the others. I will.”

  The old woman gestured with her fan. Jaime stepped into the room. The only empty spot was next to Djoss. Jaime picked up Djoss’ lost hookah limb and sat down where it had been hiding among the pillows. He took one long drink of smoke, and collapsed to kneeling.

  “King’s man,” said Djoss. He sat up and reached out for the lost pink smoke. “Hey!” he said.

  Jaime didn’t hear him.

  Djoss touched his back.

  Jaime smacked Djoss’ hand away.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” said Djoss, “Hey!” Djoss waved at the old woman.

  A woman shoved her fan over her face and stepped into the little room. She kicked Jaime in the head. Jaime looked at her like he was afraid of this old woman.

  The old woman snatched a new limb from the hookah off the floor, and shoved it at Jaime. Jaime took that one, and shoved them both into his mouth.

  The old woman pointed at Djoss.

  Jaime’s eyes were closed. She had to reach into Jaime’s limp hands for the end of the lost hookah limb. She placed it between Djoss’ lips.

  Djoss swallowed joy hard one last time before he drowned too deep to swim ashore.

  He woke up in an alley. Jaime was there, next to Djoss, deeper than Djoss had been. Jaime hadn’t been smoking as long.

  Djoss reached out his hand to the prone guard. Djoss fingered the king’s man’s uniform.

  If Djoss had been stronger, he’d have stripped the uniform from the sleeping man’s limbs. Djoss was still too weak.

  Djoss felt his stomach rolling. He pulled himself up to the king’s man’s face. Djoss curled his lip. “The king’s loyal dogs pissing and drooling themselves,” he said. Djoss opened his mouth and tried his best to smell all the filth of the alley, all the smells rising up from the pink king’s man.

  The king’s man opened his eyes.

  Djoss closed his mouth. “Hey, dead dog,” said Djoss.

  The king’s man’s eyes tried to focus.

  Djoss slapped Jaime’s face lightly. “Look at me, dreaming hound.”

  The king’s man focused.

  “Hey,” said Djoss.

  “What do you want?” said Jaime.

  Djoss looked up and down the uniform of the man below him. “You a king’s man?” said Djoss.

  “Corporal Jaime,” he said. The king’s man’s stomach convulsed. Djoss rolled off the king’s man fast. Pink bile leaked from Jaime’s lips without much substance, like smoke congealed into flecks of watery vomit.

  Jaime choked on it. His arms reached out to the walls. He rolled himself onto his side.

  Djoss pulled himself up to his boots. “You ain’t so tough, now,” he said. Djoss lifted a boot up and let it fall upon the king’s man’s back. “You’re the guy with my sister, aren’t you? I saw you naked, with her. I heard your name. She called you Jaime.”

  Jaime took another boot between his shoulders. His stomach was still rolling over everything inside, and it was all pink.

  Djoss dropped his boot again upon the king’s man’s back. Djoss leaned against the wall to walk away from the man on the ground. On the main avenue, he grabbed the first person he saw.

  “Hey,” he said.

  A shopgirl took one look at Djoss’ bloodshot eyes and pink sweat. She jumped away and walked fast down the sidewalk.

  “Wait!” said Djoss, “There’s a king’s man over here pink as Elishta! You can walk right up to him and kick him like nothing!”

  People kept walking.

  Djoss stumbled down the street to the closest fountain.

  He puked at the base of the fountain. He splashed water over his head. He rinsed his mouth out. He waited there for his limbs to recover their strength in the fading afterglow. He watched people come and go. Young women, ignoring him, brought buckets to the fountain to carry back to their apartments and homes. Young apprentices brought water back to their businesses and horses. They stepped around Djoss like he didn’t exist.

  Eventually, Jaime stumbled up next to Djoss. Jaime splashed water on his own face, and rinsed out his mouth. Jaime stripped to the waist and shoved his uniform shirt into the water. Jaime had to get the smell out of his clothes as best he could before muster.

  Jaime squinted at Djoss. “You kick me, tosser?”

  Djoss balled up his fists. He snarled. “Kick nothing,” said Djoss, “I don’t know about any kicked king’s man. You stay away from my sister or I’ll know nothing about a tooth in a king’s man belly, either.”

  “What time is it?” said Jaime. He wasn’t listening to the muttered threats. “Where’re the cryers? Where’re the bells?”

  Djoss turned and walked away. The lingering fog in his limbs slowly diminished. The boots walked with certainty. The eyes squinted less and less in the streetlamps.

  He made his way back to the small side street in the Pens. He climbed up the stairs, opened his door, peeled his shirt from his back, and fell into his bed.

  He didn’t notice it, but he had just fallen asleep on Jona’s uniform.

  Jona and Rachel, wide-eyed, held their breath in her bed on the other side of the room.

  Rachel pushed herself away from Jona. She grabbed her Senta leathers from off the floor. She stepped lightly across the room. Her talons clacked on the old wood without socks or boots to still them. Djoss didn’t seem to notice the sound.

  Rachel grabbed the edge of Jona’s clothes and nudged them out from beneath Djoss, one item at a time.

  Djoss didn’t even groan.

  Jona took his clothes from Rachel. He pointed at Djoss, and gestured with his hands like smoking a pipe.

  Rachel touched Jona’s cheek. She nodded, knowingly. She pushed Jona towards the door.

  Jona pulled his clothes around his body, haphazardly. He picked his boots up from the floor. He tiptoed into the hall. He waved good-bye to Rachel from the stair. She waved, and closed the door.

  In the hall, he sat down on the stairs, and pulled his boots over his feet.

  He sat there, in the black hallway.

  Outside, the sun rose. The city groaned awake in a hum of boots and birds and carriages and wandering shopgirls. In the apartments, doors opened and splashes of light filled the dark hall. The people said hello to each other, but they ignored Jona. They crawled past him, saying nothing to him in his uniform sitting on the stair.

  Good men and women were on their way to work.

  ***

  Jaime didn’t show up for morning muster. Calipari shrugged. “He’s been running late now and then since his wife,” said Geek, “He’ll show.”

  Calipari stood up. He put down his quill. “Hey, Geek,” he said, “Take the desk today and keep an eye on the scriveners and anything that turns up.”


  Geek coughed. “Sir?” he said. He looked at the desk like it was an ugly woman with a fire in her eyes.

  Sergeant Calipari snapped his finger at Private Kessleri. “Private, you’re coming with me. Grab a bat and a good pike. We’re going somewhere deep, you and me. How long you been a private, Kessleri?”

  “Two years, Sergeant.” Kessleri stood up, and handed his quill to another scrivener. Kessleri smiled, but his hands trembled.

  Calipari nodded. “Long enough to see this, then.”

  Geek looked Kessleri up and down. “What’s going on Sergeant?” said Geek.

  Calipari rested his knuckles on the desk. He looked down at the papers in front of him. “I hope nothing,” he said. “Stinks in here,” he said, “Too many of you. Walkabout, boys. Geek, if Jaime shows up, make him work with the scriveners until I get back.”

  Jona and Corporal Kelper stepped into the street, and immediately turned a corner to an alley. Kelper pulled a coin out. He flipped it in the air, and caught it. He slammed the coin on the back of his hand, keeping it covered. “Call,” said Kelper.

  “Castle side,” said Jona.

  Kelper revealed the coin face side up. The king scowled at Jona for choosing wrong side of the coin.

  Kelper patted Jona’s cheek. He placed the coin in Jona’s breast pocket. “The face is mine, then. Good boy,” said Kelper, “Have a good walkabout.” Kelper peeled off his uniform jacket, and handed it to Jona. He only had his white undershirt on now, like a sweat-stained white flag.

  “You’ll stand out more like that,” said Jona.

  Kelper shrugged. “Nic will see me no matter what. This way he can pretend like I ain’t what I am, if he wants.” Kelper peeked his head around the corner. He saw Calipari and Kessleri far down the street.

  “Nic’s acting like bloody Elishta’s going on. You think Jaime’s into something deep?” said Jona.

  Kelper snorted. “I don’t think nothing ’til I see it with these eyes, Jona. Best not to speak bad of a fellow we don’t know where he is. He’s still our boy. Mayhap we find him in the street dead drunk.” Kelper looked into the sunrise. “Mayhap dead.”