by Tahereh Mafi
Oliver frowned, flinched, and jumped away from Alice, rubbing his shoulder as he did. He was irritated, but somehow, simultaneously, fascinated.
“Now get out of my house.” Laylee picked up the poker and jabbed them both, briefly, in the centers of their chests. “Out! Get out!”
Alice was crestfallen, but Laylee felt no remorse. These trespassers were not only flagrantly disrespecting her wishes, but they’d used up all her firewood, too, and Laylee couldn’t take much more of their foolishness. This was her home—she alone should be able to choose who entered it.
She was parading the two of them toward the exit when Oliver said, “Let’s say for a moment that you did want us to stay here—”
Laylee jabbed him in the back.
“In theory!” he said, wincing. “Let’s just say, in theory, that you actually wanted us to stay here. Would we have to wash a dead body in order for the magic to protect us?”
Laylee shook her head.
Oliver was visibly relieved.
“Not just one,” she said. “You’d have to wash three. A man, a woman, and a child; three for every night you remain.”
Oliver blanched. “Do you even have that many dead people here?”
Laylee stopped walking. Quietly, she said, “Yes.”
It was a single word, but it carried a great deal of weight. They three were suddenly overtaken by a silence within which each of them was, for a moment, tossed about in a tornado of their own worries. Laylee, weary with exhaustion, could think of little but her own steady deterioration; Oliver, wary of the situation, could focus on little but self-preservation; but Alice, who often took the time to worry about more than just herself, felt a door in her heart swing open.
It was she who finally said, with great tenderness, “That sounds like an awful lot of work for one person.”
Laylee looked up sharply, locking eyes with Alice in a rare moment of transparency. The reminder of her workload had dropped a new weight on Laylee’s shoulders; she felt her elbows unlock. She’d nearly forgotten the newly silver tips of her fingers until she’d felt them tremble, and it was enough to loosen her grip on the poker. She looked away as she said, “Yes. It is.”
Alice shot Oliver a knowing look, and he seemed to understand. This was their moment. Together they stood tall, screwed up their courage, and said, “Well—would you like some help?”
And it was this—this simple, foolish question—that finally touched the heart of our young protagonist.
Something like hope had whistled through the cracks in her heart, surprising her with a feeling she’d long forgot. It was then that Laylee looked at her trespassers with new eyes. It was then, dear friends, that she finally smiled.
Oh, it would be a very, very long night.
TREAD CAUTIOUSLY, DEAR READER
The moon hung fat and low in the half-lit sky as they three traipsed single-file into the backyard, Laylee leading the way. Night had fallen fast: a skin of darkness had been hitched across the daylight and left to rot until midnight itself had become a curtain of charred flesh you could pinch between two fingers. The clouds were stretched thin as they slunk by, gauzy strokes painted hither and thither. There were many dead lying about these grounds—and many ghosts haunting the hollows in between—but the real monster they faced tonight was the wintertide itself: The cold was a physical enemy, a blistering, forbidding presence stacked thickly in the air. Each step forward was an instigation of aggression, arms punching and heads knocking against icy gusts and fits. Laylee, at least, was well prepared for the wars waged by these freezing nights.
Her work was always done in uniform—in accordance with proper mordeshoor tradition—and she was never more grateful for the ancient armor of her ancestors than she was on these nights. She’d latched an old, intricately hammered chest plate atop her heavy, tattered gown, clamped solid gold cuffs on both forearms and ankles, and upon her head—secured atop her floral scarf—she wore the most impressive heirloom of all: an ancient helmet she wore only in the winters for its added protection against the blustery nights. It was a gold dome of a cap embellished with a series of ornate, hand-hammered flourishes; emblazoned all around the dome in timeworn calligraphy were wise words captured long ago, in a language she still loved to speak. It was the work of the poet Rumi, who’d written,
Last night a sheikh went all about the city, lamp in hand, crying, “I’m weary of all these beasts and devils, and desperately seek out humanity!”
The helmet was topped by a single proud spike that stood five inches tall; the brim adorned by hundreds of fussy hinges from which hung a fringe of jagged chainmail. The sheets of deftly braided steel rained down the back and sides of Laylee’s head, swishing quietly as she walked, leaving dents in the wind. She was thirteen years old and far too terrifying for her age, but she was, at least, entirely prepared to deal with death on even these, the coldest nights of the year. Laylee tugged her scarf across her nose and mouth in a practiced motion, careful lest she breathe in too deeply (on more than one occasion she’d had to rush home for a glass of warm water, frost choking the inside of her throat), and soldiered on.
It was odd: Whichwood was known for its spectacularly painful winters, but this night seemed unusually cold. Laylee, as I mentioned, was armed and bundled to the point of immobility, but her companions were a sight less prepared. They’d at least known to travel with heavy winter cloaks and boots, but they were strangers to this land—their bones were not built to carry this cold—and more than once, Laylee caught herself wondering how they managed. She was sure these two had no idea what they’d agreed to, and part of her worried they’d be scared away too soon. It was only then that she saw how quickly she’d come to rely upon their offer of help, and she hated herself for it. Laylee was too proud to accept charity, but she was too smart to reject it, too. No one had ever before offered to help her, and she couldn’t say no to a good thing now. Certainly she could stand to live with these children in exchange for their assistance—but would her fragile guests survive the night?
She dug the silver tips of her fingers into her palms and clenched her jaw in frustration. Oh, if only she could, she’d rather die than accept the pity of passing strangers.
The farther they walked, the deeper they dipped, and soon the triplet troop was caught thigh-high in the snow, and there was no telling how long they’d last. Laylee glanced briefly in her guests’ direction, but thus far they’d not made a peep of protest, and Laylee couldn’t help but feel a begrudging respect for their resilience. And so, for the first time in a long while, Laylee was inspired to do something kind.
She stopped abruptly, Alice and Oliver quickly following suit. It had been at least two years since Laylee had felt any compulsion to share, but tonight she was feeling more unusual than usual, so she unearthed a small pouch of matches from somewhere inside her cloak and offered its contents to her guests.
They didn’t seem to understand.
Alice shook her head. “N-no, thank you,” she stammered, cold caught in her teeth.
Oliver shook his head, too. “What’s it for?”
“To keep you warm,” said Laylee, confused and—dare I say it?—hurt.
“One m-match?” said Alice, still shivering. “Doesn’t s-seem like it’d d-do much good.”
Laylee withdrew her hand, stung by their rejection, and looked away. She was ashamed of herself for having offered them anything at all. Angrily, she snatched a matchstick from the pouch and popped it in her mouth, vowing to never offer these ingrates anything again.
Alice gasped. “What are y—”
But Laylee’s face had just flushed a bright red, and Alice couldn’t be bothered to finish her sentence. The heat was moving quickly through Laylee’s body, and her cheeks were now a sweet, rosy pink. The warmth would last only a short while, but it always helped her get through the rougher hours of winter workdays.
Laylee was feeling very warm and, suddenly, a little sleepy. She blinked softly and smiled, only vaguely aware that she’d done so. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“But—”
“I know,” Laylee said quietly. “Some people don’t approve of Quicks, but I can’t say I care.”
“It’s not that at all,” said Oliver. “We’ve just never seen such a thing before. We don’t eat matches in Ferenwood.”
Laylee looked up, slightly mollified. “Oh.”
“How do they w-work?” said Alice, who was now standing in snow up to her waist.
“Well,” said Laylee, as she tilted her head, “they don’t work for everyone. But the idea is that they catch fire inside of you, heating you up from the inside out.”
“That’s f-fascinating,” said Alice, who was now eyeing Laylee’s pockets with a new hunger.
“Wait,” said Oliver, “why don’t they work for everyone?”
It was a reasonable question, but Oliver had made the mistake of touching Laylee as he spoke, and Laylee looked him over now—his hand on her arm, her gaze strange and frightening in the moonlight—and wondered whether Oliver had lost the whole of his mind. After all, her body was her own business, and she’d not told him he could touch her. The problem was, Oliver wasn’t even aware he’d done so.
The ghostly midnight glow had caught the silver in her eyes, and the helmet she wore glinted gold against her skin, and somehow, in that moment, Laylee looked more ethereal than ever: half alive, impossible to grasp, angry even when she smiled. She was a dazzling girl and Oliver Newbanks was in danger of being too thoroughly dazzled. But Laylee could never understand why others were so enchanted by the macabre, or why they found her dance with death so morbidly exciting. It angered her, to be so exoticized.
So she locked eyes with him and said, very quietly, “Not everyone has the right spark, you know.”
And pushed him in the snow.
Oliver had mixed feelings about being so unceremoniously shoved to the ground. He was fourteen years old now and fully interested in the sorts of quiet, delicate things that transpired between the hearts of young people, but he never had the chance to sort it all out. By the time he got to his feet and caught up to the others, they’d come upon a large clearing where even the trees knew better than to trespass.
From high above, the scene was spare: a white canvas backdrop painted thick with fresh frost, three winter coats triangulated before a claw-foot tub half-buried in the snow. It was somehow implausibly colder here—as there was a distinct lack of life to lend any heat to the space—and it was silent, desperately silent. Unnervingly so. No living thing—not plant, not insect, not animal—dared disturb the rituals of the final bath, and so they were alone, they three: the strangest sort of children come to hold hands with the dark.
Forgotten for the moment was the cold, the ice, the fear, the hour. Night had been sliced open and, within it, they found mortality. This, the final act of the dead, demanded respect that could not be taught. This was the least alive they’d be tonight, and a hush fell over their reverent forms as three sets of knees hit the ground before dawn. Alice and Oliver had not been told to be still; they were compelled to be. Shadows crept up their limbs, wrapped around their mouths and ears and bones and squeezed. Breaths were extinguished; lips did not move; sounds were not made; and from the silence emerged an understanding: Life would clasp hands with death on these occasions only, in the interest of servicing both worlds and the wandering spirits that belonged therein.
Break this bond, and you, too, shall break.
Alice and Oliver gasped and choked their way back to steady breaths, heaving softly as the shadows lifted, massaging throats and lips and frozen hands. Their wild eyes found each other—for fear had found them first—and they held tight to one another, soundlessly saying all that would remain unspoken.
Laylee sighed, disappointed.
Alice and Oliver would never be true mordeshoors—for that, they’d need the blood—but if they were to ever be even remotely useful, they’d have to first unlearn their fears.
The tub had no spigot, no spout, no knobs or levers, but when Laylee placed her bare, frozen hands on either side of the porcelain, its depths began to fill—slowly at first, and then quickly, furiously, sloshing hard against the edges.
Where the water came from, not even Laylee knew; all that mattered was that it existed. The first fill was always the most heavily perfumed, and the heady aroma was nearly too much for Alice and Oliver, who, bent forward with the weight of its lure, had not yet realized its purpose. The scent, you see, was a siren song for the dead, and the distant sounds of their slogging, dragging limbs meant they’d already begun their pilgrimage to water.
Single file, the decaying corpses cut a swerving path through the snow, occasionally stumbling over their molting limbs, bone shoving through sinew with each inarticulate movement, and Laylee had at least the propriety to look ashamed. (It was, after all, her fault they were falling apart.) She knew she should’ve dispatched her dead long ago, but it was a hard, thankless job and, well—normally no one was around to judge the state of her subjects.
Alice and Oliver could not mask their disgust.
Laylee took this reaction quite personally, but I really feel I should say—that is, it is my humble opinion that even a band of newly dead corpses would’ve affected them thus. (In fact, I tried telling Laylee this very thing, but she refused to listen. I’m afraid the girl is too hard on herself.)
Laylee, for her part, was watching the bodies closely, carefully ascertaining when to make their marching stop. For the sake of her guests, she gave them a wide berth, and when they’d reached a ten-foot radius of their little clearing, Laylee held up her hand. No words, just this simple movement, and all forty-six of them collided to a halt, collapsing in a tangled, rotting heap. Laylee cringed as she heard an ankle snap off one man’s leg and roll to the ground. This was not the way to show her guests a good time.
Oliver had swallowed back the same bit of bile on no fewer than four occasions now, and Alice, who’d nearly fainted in as many times, was still upstanding simply because the imagined stench arising from the distant pile of flesh had kept her conscious against her will. This, she thought, was her reward for performing so well at her Surrender. She could scarcely believe her luck.
Laylee had turned her eyes back to the tub, and Alice, who could bear to look at the mangled limbs no longer, was grateful for the reprieve. A thin layer of ice had already begun to form at the surface of the water, but Laylee broke the ice with a practiced swiftness, and it was this that prompted a newly shivering, nearly vomiting Alice to say,
“Couldn’t we possibly move the tub inside?”
But Laylee would not look at her. “You cannot wash the dead where the living still sleep,” was all she said.
Alice didn’t know how to respond, for fear of saying the wrong thing. She was beginning to think of Laylee as infinitely more frightening than any dead person she’d ever met, and even Oliver (who was hard-pressed to think rationally when faced with such a beautiful façade), found himself rethinking his attraction to this young mordeshoor. Perhaps it was the stack of putrid bodies piled off to the side, or maybe it was the single finger he’d just discovered in his sleeve, but there was something distinctly unromantic about this experience, and Oliver couldn’t yet suss out the why. In fact, he and Alice had just decided that this was quite possibly the worst adventure they’d ever undertaken when Laylee surprised them both by doing something strange and beautiful, and for just a moment, no one could remember to be afraid.
Slowly, very slowly, Laylee had touched her lips. She let her fingers linger at the seam for just a few seconds, and then finally, carefully, she retrieved a single red rose petal
from the inside of her mouth.
This she let fall into the tub.
Instantly, the water changed. It was now a boiling, churning sea of liquid crimson, and Alice was so stunned she nearly stumbled, and Oliver, who caught her, was staring at Laylee in shock and awe.
Laylee would not look away from the water. “Choose your first body,” she said quietly. “You will have to carry it here yourself.”
Alice and Oliver set off at once.
Laylee did not watch them as they went, or she would have seen them stumbling—half fear, half exhilaration—toward the mass of matted bodies, holding fast to each other lest they lose the little courage that kept them warm. No, she was too busy watching the water, combing its ruddy depths with her eyes in search of something—a sign, maybe, that she hadn’t made a false move. The thing was, Laylee was beginning to wonder whether an offer of assistance could ever arrive so sincerely. She felt weak of mind and bone, certain now that she’d agreed far too hastily, so desperate for help that she’d lost what good sense she had left.
The longer she stood alone, the more intensely the night gnawed at her. Had she sold herself to a pair of strangers? For what? A few nights’ reprieve from the occupation to which she was fettered? Why had she so easily broken? More distressing still:
What would they take from her after she’d taken what she wanted from them?
Laylee had no way of knowing that her fears were unfounded. She knew not the hearts of her two companions, and she’d never have believed a stranger capable of possessing pure intentions. No, she lived in a world where goodness had failed her, where darkness inhaled her, where those she loved had haunted and discarded her. There was no monster, no ghoul, no corpse in a grave that could hurt her the way humans had, and Laylee was afraid that tonight she’d made a most grievous mistake.