Twixt

by Sarah Diemer

  I breathe out, nodding.

  I can't find the word, either.

  *

  Night. Darkness drags along the ground as Charlie and I move from shadow to shadow in the street, making our way through Abeo City. I’ve got to get back to Mad House, because Mad House is closest to the wall, and outside the wall is the Sixers’ house, and that’s where I need to be tomorrow.

  Tomorrow, during the Bone Feast.

  That’s when it ends.

  Charlie got me a coat with a hood, and I have it pulled tight about my face, though it’s not as if there are many people traversing the streets at night in Abeo City, with the Snatchers watching, sentinel, perching along every rooftop, crouching on the skeletons of broken buildings. They make no move to stir, don’t lift a wing as we race past them, but they watch us, pale skulls turning as we pass.

  “It’s bizarre,” says Charlie, raking her fingers through her hair. Her hands are shaking. “I’ve never seen them act like this before.”

  “They know something’s happening. Something's about to change. They know…” I whisper, glancing up. I nod, once, to the nearest Snatcher, the one on the ridgepole of a dilapidated building, more rubble than wall.

  The Snatcher has a ragged right wing, and it tilts its skull toward me as it watches us pass.

  We’re almost to Mad House—just one more corner—when the bulky shadow moves out from beneath the cover of a shredded awning. We stop, cold, as it shuffles forward, peeling back a hood, revealing the white face beneath.

  And then I relax, almost collapsing with relief, as I take the final two steps and embrace Bird so tightly, I have to pull back, worried that she isn't able to breathe.

  Charlie watches us for a moment, working her jaw.

  "This is Bird, Charlie," I tell her, and understanding dawns on her face.

  After Charlie and Edgar came back to Black House with Violet, I told them all about Bird, explaining as best as I could manage that Bird was part of me, that she and I had been the third Sixer together.

  "It’s you…” Charlie murmurs now, stepping forward, looking from me, to Bird, back to me again. “You don’t… I was thinking you’d look alike.”

  “What’s done is done. Wasn’t meant to look pretty,” says Bird, hands on her hips. She cocks her head, birdlike, as she watches me. “They’re after you, lovely,” she says, clucking her tongue.

  I feel better with Bird here, near me. Stronger. I wonder…

  “Bird, now that we’re together—can we join up again? I don’t think this separation is natural. We're not supposed to be…” I trail off as her gaze narrows, dark eyes flashing.

  “What’s done is done,” she says, taking my hand, squeezing it. “We're apart for a reason. Tomorrow…”

  “Tomorrow,” I repeat, nodding. Somehow, she knows.

  “I’ll see you when the bodies need saving,” she whispers, darting forward, pressing her chapped lips against my cheek. “Somehow, this will come to rights. It must, mustn’t it? How can the play end on a sour note?” She shakes her head, turns to go. “Best get inside. You don’t want to see the hunt that’s beginning.” And, just like that, she’s merged with the shadows, disappearing like ink into the ground.

  “The hunt…” Charlie whispers. “Why does she talk like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her, the truth. I turn to her, reach out, touch her arm, realize my fingers are shaking, and shiver.

  “We need to get to Mad House, is what she meant,” Charlie growls, and then we’re running down the street, and there’s only one corner, really, between us and the house, but I pause—we both do—because there are voices ahead that seem to originate near Mad House.

  Voices I recognize.

  I stare at Charlie, eyes wide with fear.

  “Sixers,” I breathe out, and she takes my wrist, tugging me into the skeleton of a broken building, crouching behind a pile of rubble.

  “Why have they come out again?” Charlie’s voice hisses, and her eyes are angry, but her mouth is trembling. “They’ve searched the stupid house three times now…”

  I press a finger to her lips and listen, breathing out quietly.

  The Snatchers lining the rooftops flutter their wings, a whoosh like a sigh. I can hear the Sixers’ boots on the rubble outside our hiding place, can hear them coo softly to one another, a sound that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. I remember, half-remember, like a memory from a dream, them making that same cooing sound when they locked me into the room the first time, after the key slid into the lock of the bird-covered door.

  “What are they doing?” Charlie mouths to me, eyes wide in the dark. I shake my head, and we crouch, muscles straining, barely breathing, until we hear the scream.

  It’s a piercing shriek that the Snatcher makes, far different from the creatures' characteristic wails. This scream is extended, a scream of pain. There’s a sound of meat against meat, a dull thud, and then silence.

  And the Sixers laugh—their voices cold, drawn out and stabbing, like barbs. I risk a look, rising from my hiding place, peering over the mound of rubble out to the street.

  There, my sisters hold up their hands, claws extended, and between them on the ground, curled up in a bony heap on top of and entangled in their hair, is a Snatcher.

  I stare as the creature curls in upon itself, using its wings as a shield against my sisters, cowering beneath their gaze. I watch, breathing out, breath catching, as the hair seems to move, seems to crawl up and over the Snatcher, pinioning its bones to the rubble-strewn streets.

  The Snatcher writhes, screams, tries to rise, but the hair is like a net, pinning it there.

  One of the Sixers glances at the Snatchers upon the roof, hooks a curling finger in their direction, and the nearest Snatcher falls, as if it suddenly lost its balance, tumbling to the ground with a heavy thud. The Sixer that felled it stalks forward, hooking her fingers toward her slowly, her hair dragging behind her but also moving with her, like a shadow. The fallen Snatcher scrapes along the ground, rolling in front of her, toward her, pausing at her feet. And her hair, like a predator, spiderwebs over the rubble and over the Snatcher, tangling itself with the white bones.

  I stare, heart racing, breath coming too fast—they’ll hear! I try to calm down, hold my breath, gripping Charlie's arm and shutting my eyes.

  The Snatchers are hideous, terrifying; they were made to appear that way, fear built into their feathers and bones like the spun nightmare Abeo is. But I know what they are now, truly, beneath their dreadfulness. And even if I didn’t know… These are creatures wracked with pain, helpless, struggling, and ensnared by a pair of pitiless oppressors. My sisters.

  The second Sixer laughs again, plucks something out from beneath her arm, unfurls it. A sack of shadow lowers over the Snatchers, growing to accommodate the creatures' scale, pooling across the ground. Then the sack opens, dark maw gaping, and swallows both of the Snatchers in a quick, silent moment.

  The eldest Sixer ties the bag closed with one vicious movement, and then she and my other sister drag the sack down the street, away from Mad House. The contents within the sack of darkness squirm, a claw pressing against the cloth, reaching back toward us, almost pleading.

  Even after they turn the corner, the Sixers’ hair snakes over the ground. I stare at it in morbid fascination. It seems…alive. Could it see us, snare us, if we shot out into the road now?

  I feel Charlie's gaze, turn to look at her. She stares at me with wide eyes, still seated beside me, leaning against the pile of rubble. “What just happened?” she asks, voice soft.

  I stare up at the Snatchers whose heads are tilted toward us, every last one—waiting.

  “I think the Bone Feast has begun,” I whisper.

  Chapter Nine: Bone

  The Bone Feast starts, in earnest, at first light.

  I rest against Charlie's chest, her hand woven through my hair, as the darkness ebbs and light bleeds through the edges of the curtains in her room
.

  There's an outcry outside; the shouting seems to go on forever, and it's accompanied by voices, so many voices, outside of Mad House as the Sleepers stream into the streets, gathering together.

  Charlie presses a kiss to the top of my head and rises, tugging at the sleeves of her coat, combing her fingers through her hair. “How do I look?” she laughs wryly, smiling at me, but her mouth twitches sideways, like it doesn’t wish to hold a grin but a frown.

  “Beautiful,” I tell her, putting my arms about her neck, pulling her down to meet my mouth. My insides squeeze, tighten, as her lips touch mine, because it’s the beginning of the end, and I’m doing my best to hold myself together. I’m not afraid, not for myself. But as I feel Charlie’s warmth against me, her body a perfect fit for my mine, feel the gentleness of her hands at my waist, holding me, I’m afraid for what we’ve become. And what we're going to lose.

  “Lottie?” asks Charlie, then, breathing my name into my ear. I sigh, look up at her, force a smile. As if she knows what I’m thinking, she shakes her head. “Lottie, it’s worth it, all of this. We can free them all.”

  We, she said. Not you.

  I’m not alone. She said we.

  I nod, swallow the melancholy, put my hands at the small of her back. “I’ll watch from the window,” I tell her, and she nods, too, reaching back and squeezing my hand, and then diving in for one last kiss.

  I feel dizzy when we part; she leaves the room too quickly, and an ache unfurls in my heart.

  Charlie has to go to the Bone Feast, has to represent Mad House with Abigail. If she doesn't go, the Sixers will be suspicious of her, and I can't let myself think of how they would hurt her, what they would do…

  She had to go.

  But I feel her absence like a hole within me.

  Now I’m alone. I press my black-lined palm against my cheek, and I still feel Charlie's warmth against my skin, her lips...

  Down below, in the streets, Violet and Edgar will already be moving amongst the other Sleepers. And Bird is probably all right, for now.

  We are all still connected, even though we're apart: strands drawn taut from one heart to the next. The sharpest pair of scissors could not sever us.

  I pace, and my skin itches. I want to be out there. I want to begin this. But I have to wait for tonight.

  Just a few hours more.

  I step to the curtain, draw it back a sliver, and peek at the street below.

  There are strings of jars and lanterns laced across the tops of the buildings, along the ridge of the piles of rubble. Inside the glass confines, Wisps dance, adding a warm glow to the already brightening streets. There are so many Sleepers, I lose my breath. So many… I hadn't seen, hadn't known there were so many.

  And it’s strange: watching them, I almost remember…

  I remain still for a long moment, curtain pinched between my fingers, thinking back, trying to dislodge a memory teasing at my thoughts. Ever since the Sixers spoke to me, small memories return, unbidden, often catching me unawares.

  I don’t remember the Sleepers gathering here for the Bone Feast before, in front of Mad House. I stare down at the throngs of people, unseeing. Yes. They used to gather in the Wanting Market, would move the tents aside so that the center of the square was open enough to contain all of the Sleepers in Abeo. It's rare, for the Sleepers to linger outdoors for hours together. Normally, they stay within the Safe Houses, where they're protected from Snatchers. Sleepers never gather like this, only during the Bone Feast. The Wanting Market is the only space large enough to hold all of them.

  So why are they having this Bone Feast in the street before Mad House? It makes no sense, but even as I think the question, I already know the answer, and my heart sinks.

  They know.

  Down below, the Sixers stride between the Sleepers, two hooded figures that the crowd parts for, the Sleepers edging back from their black cloaks and writhing black hair. As one, the Sixers glance up at Charlie’s window, my window, their hoods hiding their faces, and I let the curtain fall.

  I step back, heart thundering against my ribs, then press my eye to a tiny pinprick hole in the fabric. They still watch the window, the two of them as unmoving as the broken fountain statue in the square. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and I hold my breath, and my heart hardly dares to beat… But after a long, pointed moment, they glide along, walking slowly down the street, seeming to flow over the ground like spilled black water.

  My eyes drift to faces I recognize in the crowd: Violet and Edgar, standing close together, near Mad House. And, as I watch, Edgar moves his hand slowly until it’s following the bow of Violet’s side. She doesn’t move away from him; she leans into him, glancing up at him, the corners of her mouth, so often pulled down, curving up. He cocks his hat, grins back, and they stroll through the crowd, away from my window, linked together.

  A bright starburst flares in my belly—for Edgar, who wanted this; for Violet, who finally let it happen, after holding Edgar off for so long…because she was afraid to care that much about someone else.

  I think of Charlie and something crumples inside of me. I clutch a handful of curtain and rake in a deep breath.

  Time is drawing close. Everyone feels it. I step back from the window, sitting down on the edge of Charlie’s bed for a long moment, pressing my hand against my thrumming heart, the other gripping the soft covers. I can feel time moving all around me, like air, like breath, a breeze of minutes tugging at the encroaching night.

  And then, like a sigh, the murmur of voices fades to nothingness outside.

  I get up, cross to the curtain once more, peer through the tiny hole. All of the people are facing one direction. I move to the edge of the curtain, twitch it aside to gain a better view of the street.

  Below, the lanterns and jars burn bright. The amassed Sleepers turn, as one, toward the edge of the street, where the two Sixers stand on a pile of rubble, still and silent as shadows, their hair dripping away from them like a bizarre, blackened waterfall. The eldest Sixer raises her hand, crooking a long, bony claw of a finger.

  A cage is drawn into view from around the edge of the dilapidated building. And then the purity of silence crumbles as the Sleepers shout, moving, jostling to see, to witness.

  A huge and rusty iron cage turns, suspended upon nothing, though it swings as if on an invisible chain over the pile of rubble. And crumpled upon the floor of the cage are the two Snatchers from last night, the ones the Sixers caught while Charlie and I hid in the darkness. They crouch, monstrously huge—though, in the daylight, they seem diminished. Misplaced and, somehow, less.

  The people begin to laugh, because the Snatchers' great wings are plucked clean, now only sharp dull bone, like the rest of their bodies. They curve these bone wings around their shoulders, trying to shield themselves from the people pointing, jeering, but the smaller one stands, staring at the crowd, hollow eyes unseeing but seeing all the same.

  “Look!” say the Sixers together, as one. My throat scratches as they do this, and I lean against the wall for support. “Look at the monsters now! The great Snatchers, fallen to us! You will feast upon their Nox, but look at what hunts you. Pathetic,” they hiss, the word rising into the sky, burrowing into every ear, snakelike and writhing.

  Pathetic.

  The Snatchers cower in the center of the cage, their great bulk of bones pressing up against one another, entwining, as the Sleepers surge forward on a wave of anger. One Sleeper, a man, hefts a rock from the rubble and throws it at the cage. It glances harmlessly off the bars, the metallic ring of the iron echoing, but then others follow his example, grasp rocks, rubble, bricks, and begin to pelt the Snatchers with them. Their fear of being Snatched has been transformed into fury, fury directed at these two featherless Snatchers. A rock cracks against bone, and a brick smashes a dome of ribs, but the Snatchers don't shriek, don't plead, hardly even move. They only watch the crowd with beaks bent low.

  I remember what they are. I remember
who they are, who's held captive within the illusion that warps them, and I claw at the wall and swallow my tears. I am weak with revulsion, so sickened that I sink to my knees. Our relations, pelted with rocks, broken apart into sharp white pieces.

  With wet eyes, I kneel forward, peer through the bottom of the window, search out the crowd for Charlie, for Edgar, for Violet, for some comfort and restraint in the violent scene that rages outside, amidst the screams of anger, of hatred and derision, spotting the air like a spray of blood.

  And there…

  Below, gazing up at my window, is Charlie. Her eyes are bright and brown and tear-filled, and she sees me, dares the flicker of a sad, sad smile. She glances meaningfully toward the lengthening shadows, at the darkness that begins to creep—too soon, far too soon—along the street, pointing black fingers toward her.

  The night is descending.

  I press my fingers to my lips and then to the glass, and Charlie bows her head.

  I rub at my eyes, stand, let the curtain shift back into place, hiding the hideous scene from view.

  It’s almost over.

  At the thought, I'm half afraid, half relieved.

  It’s almost over.

  Charlie meets me at the foot of the stairs, Mad House empty now, the only sound my echoing footsteps on the landing below, and then Charlie's footsteps as she leans forward, as she embraces me, drawing her arms around my form so tightly, it seems like she’ll never let go.

  And I don’t want her to. When she lets me go, it’s over.

  Why can't we stay here? Why can't we stay in this house, together—always?

  “Are you ready?” she whispers into my ear. I pause for a heartbeat, feel her warmth and nearness and strength and love all around me and within me.

  No.

  “Yes.” My voice breaks on the word, and she hugs me harder, but I step away from her, squeezing her hands, brushing my lips over her cheek, against her sweet mouth. She kisses me deeply. Cinnamon. No matter what happens, I’ll remember the taste of her: warmth and cinnamon. I'll remember that until I stop remembering. Until there is no memory, no...me.