Deep Roots

by Ruthanna Emrys

  Considering where we were, and what we needed, I also gathered Spector. He sat with Charlie on one of the pit’s broad steps, knees up and leaning toward a canister. The first time I’d seen him in that pose, I’d thought him a praying mantis, sleek and monstrous in his black suit. Now, surrounded by the uncountable limbs of the Outer Ones, all I could see was another human. I heard him mention Poland as I approached, some shared reference to the warfront there.

  “Mister Spector,” I told him. “The elders want to leave now, and not the way they came. Can you help?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “I take it they refuse to wait until dark. Isn’t patience supposed to be one of your virtues?”

  Charlie stood, wincing and rubbing his back. “How well do most humans live up to their virtues?”

  “Do you have any idea how to get them out of here in broad daylight?” I asked. “I don’t have so much as a cloak.” I wanted to leave too, now that the possibility was near enough to consider. I wanted a room with only people I loved and trusted, where I could beg advice or absolution, where I could safely submit to my family’s judgment.

  Frances appeared beside me. She hugged her chest, hunched her neck. “Are we leaving now?” Her voice dropped. “Please tell me we’re leaving. I don’t trust these people, and I don’t know what to make of Freddy’s … girl.”

  Spector answered. “As soon as we can figure out a way to get an eight-foot-tall—that is, Captain Marsh and Miss S’vlk—out of the Bronx without attracting attention. I’ve always sworn there was no good reason to own a car in New York, but I should’ve been more imaginative. I don’t suppose you own a pickup, Miss Laverne?”

  Her lips quirked. “Or an ice cream truck?”

  “Could we buy one?” I asked, then answered myself: “Not in the next hour.” I wished, and not for the first time, that Trumbull’s guest would suddenly reappear. She’d had a penchant for cutting easily through this type of obstacle, and could likely have simply hidden our presence on the street.

  “Are you sure they couldn’t get a ride back the way they came?” asked Spector. “I understand why they don’t want to, but it does seem the easiest way.”

  “S’vlk is this close to taking her frustrations out on them without any further provocation.” Gods, we’re going to have to stay here until it gets dark. I have no idea how to keep this under control. I looked around for Audrey, and realized she’d been huddling uncharacteristically by the wall, as far from the canisters as possible. She caught my gaze, and hurried over.

  “Oh god, can we go now?” she asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Have you got a brilliant idea for hiding the elders on the street?”

  “Huh.” It was worth asking just to see the distress fall from her expression, replaced by bemused thoughtfulness. “There’s no way to keep them from standing out. But we don’t need them to blend in, we just need them not to look like the sort of scary weird thing that would make people call the police. If these guys have fabric lying around, and maybe something to make a mask with, we could have everyone out of here in half an hour.”

  I threw my arms around her. “Audrey, you’re brilliant.” Then I drew back, thinking the plan through. “We’ll have to ask them, won’t we?”

  “Awkward as this whole situation is—yeah, I don’t think we’re getting out of this party without saying goodbye to the hosts. You should talk to Freddy. He’s the one you really want to make a good impression on, right?”

  I would have rather sent Audrey. Men tended to do what she wanted without thinking too hard about why. But this was, in fact, my responsibility. And I suspected that the canister against which Freddy sprawled, deep in conversation, was Audrey’s ostensible creator. I wasn’t going to ask her to face Shelean again today, not when she’d so clearly been avoiding her.

  I paused a few steps away, and considered Freddy. Except for our shared blood, he was nothing I wanted in a mate. He scarcely seemed the same species as the salt-wise scholars and sailors I’d grown up with. When I imagined lying with him, I felt hollow.

  And yet a hunger for magic and home, kin to my own, must have driven him to this circle of meigo and Mad Ones.

  “Freddy,” I said, and stumbled as I tried to explain my urgency in a way that didn’t insult his beloved Outer Ones. “We need to get Khur S’vlk and my grandfather back to the water. Acolyte Chulzh’th will fret more the longer they’re away, and the dry air isn’t good for them. Audrey suggested we pull together costumes so their natures wouldn’t be obvious on the street, even if we can’t make them blend in. I don’t suppose there’s any fabric around here, or leftovers from a masquerade…”

  The cylinder laughed. “Clever girl! This city is full of unexpected things; they just need to lie about what sort of surprise they are. Sweet boy, there’s a storeroom down the third hall over, second door on the left—no, fourth—that’s full of clothes and masks. All you need for a night on the town, whether you’ve got gills or wings or a tail full of poky spikes! They’ll want the tallest cloaks you can find, and big wide masks, and something for their hands, too.”

  “Maybe something that could make it look like they’re on stilts?” I suggested, relieved and a little alarmed. “There are a few men of the air about Grandfather’s size, but not many as tall as Khur S’vlk.”

  “Such nice bodies,” crooned Shelean. “It’s a shame to hide them.”

  Freddy flushed. “I’ll see what I can find. You wait here.”

  While he went in search of the unanticipated wardrobe—one that implied an alarming number of winged, spike-tailed creatures wandering New York at the Outer Ones’ behest—I returned to the elders.

  “They may not be the most comfortable outfits,” I warned. Imagining the vaguely described masks and gloves, I added: “Or the most dignified.”

  “I will dress like that great green statue in the harbor if it gets me out of here,” said S’vlk.

  Fortunately, that didn’t prove necessary. Freddy returned with two vast cloaks, clearly intended to disguise a multitude of alarming anatomies. They’d been tailored by someone with a taste for the garish: one bore green and gold stripes; the other was a patchwork potpourri of velvet rags. S’vlk exclaimed over the latter, apparently having never seen the material before, which left Grandfather resembling a circus tent. Neko tugged at the rag seams and pronounced them likely to hold for the brief period we’d be outside and visible.

  The masks were stranger. They were full headpieces, very nearly human looking. The skin was pale but tanned, the features broad under bushy hair. Under the cloak they might pass, or at least give the impression of a deformed or poorly made up man of the air. Yet something about the nearly-successful simulacra terrified. When S’vlk pulled one over her head, my stomach clenched with nausea. She looked as if some terrible magic had reversed her metamorphosis but warped her original form. No matter how she adjusted the mask, some part of the face bulged or drooped.

  It would do what we needed, though. With the mask on and cloak pulled tight, and gloves as distressing as the mask pulled over her hands, a stranger might find her disturbing, but would pass on without guessing that her freak-show appearance hid something even less familiar.

  “People will notice,” said Spector. “They don’t walk like they’re on stilts. They walk like…” He trailed off. On land, elders either moved at full predatory rush, or the shuffling hop that made a more comfortable compromise for muscles and joints adapted to deep water.

  “You’re looking for weird things,” said Audrey. “Most people, if what they see doesn’t match what they know, assume it’s their eyes that are off. But I was hoping for weird and exciting, like a mask for a dance, or Museum Night. If you have some cardboard, I could make tiger faces in a few minutes…”

  “These will do,” said S’vlk grimly.

  While the elders prepared, Spector pulled me aside. “New York’s a big place, with room for a lot of strangeness, but I’m not the only pers
on who knows how to spot anomalies. I saw a little hotel about six blocks back toward the train—it’ll be a pit, but if you’ve got a little cash you should be able to rent a room for the day with no questions asked. Once we’re done here I can requisition a van to bring your family back to the water. They look like they need it.”

  “Thank you,” I told him. For all my ambivalence about the state’s involvement in this business, I was grateful for Spector’s pragmatic thoughtfulness. “Are you getting the answers you wanted?”

  “The missing people are eager to reassure us that they’re fine, if that’s what you’re asking. But the whole business opens up a whole new kettle of things we need to find out. Later, I’d appreciate your coming over to the Ritz and talking us down from our mistaken conclusions.”

  “I can do that.” Maybe we’d have a chance to sort out our own conclusions first.

  * * *

  Despite all my fears, the Outer Ones didn’t try to stop us from leaving. When I thought about it, there was no reason they would. We had far more at stake than they did.

  S’vlk stepped out into sunlight, a waxen figure in a patchwork cloak. I shut my eyes against the glare. For a moment, I felt myself a stranger, as foreign to this place as the Outer Ones. The vertiginous alienation passed, but a veil still seemed to lie between me and the world. I stifled a yawn. I hoped a safe place to sleep would help me finally throw off my exhaustion.

  I helped Charlie down the steps. The block around the Outer Ones’ stoop was sparsely populated, and we drew little attention. Trumbull hovered close to S’vlk, and the rest of us spread around her and Grandfather. Our bodies might further hide their un-stilt-like walk.

  The masks and cloaks made expression difficult to discern, but both elders turned to catch glimpses of the inland city.

  “You can’t even smell the ocean,” said Grandfather. “How far did they bring us?”

  “About thirty miles,” I said. “But Mr. Spector’s van will cover it quickly.”

  S’vlk crouched as a car growled by, then straightened and peered after it. “Those still seem unnatural. Better than horses, though, and faster, even if they do have their own dreadful smell.”

  “Jumping at horseless carriages will stand out far more than our looks,” said Grandfather. “Compose yourself.”

  “Yes.” A pause. “The buildings here aren’t that much taller than in Innsmouth.”

  “They get a lot more impressive further in,” said Trumbull. “Maybe Mr. Spector can give us a driving tour.”

  “I’d like that.” They shared a look through the mask’s filmy eyeholes. “I’d like to see something cleaner than that place.”

  The Outer Ones terrified me, and I found their den claustrophobic, but the simplicity of her hatred upset me. “We’ve all seen worse.”

  The mask swiveled in my direction. “I know full well how monstrous humans can be. But when men stab you in the heart, you know. You can be in terrible danger among the meigo and never see it. You can escape their presence and never know whether that danger stayed dormant, or whether you had to fight. You can fight and lose and never know.”

  I thought, but didn’t say, that a loss you could ignore was one you could survive. I knew she’d suffered a loss she couldn’t ignore. I’d nurtured my own furies for a long time, and still held some of them tight; I’d no right to judge her grief.

  And no time for it—as we continued toward the promised hotel, the street grew crowded. It was late morning now, the sun pulling sweat through my pores and picking out the pallor of the elders’ masks. People noticed us. Perhaps that had been the goal, but the looks cast our way were not bemused. I recognized, though I’d forgotten until this moment, the loathing of strangers. Strangers passing through Innsmouth. Strangers in Arkham when we stepped off the bus, on the rare errand that couldn’t be fulfilled at home. Our mother had never brought Caleb on those expeditions—but she’d started to take me. It was a skill to be learned, to refuse the silent provocation and move on swiftly before anyone could give it voice.

  But in Arkham we’d been known, the subject of endless bloody rumor. Were the masks truly that disturbing? Or had these people already seen something more frightening than an elder, wearing similar garb? Both truth and libel might lead someone to hate what walked under those cloaks.

  “This isn’t right,” said Frances through gritted teeth.

  “Keep walking,” I told my companions. I lifted my chin and walked as quickly as I dared, quickly as the elders’ pace and Charlie’s permitted. I wanted to run, or to turn and demand explanation for the glares. Neither seemed wise.

  We hurried past whispering women in straw-brimmed hats. A hot dog seller crossed himself as we went by; a young man spat at us, wetting the concrete just short of our feet. Underhill, I’d yearned only to be surrounded by common humanity. Now, I remembered what that meant.

  A bulb-barnacled sign embraced the corner of the building. Beneath its assurance that we’d reached The Pavilion, a smaller sign promised vacancies. Audrey blocked the elders from the door. “Wait out here while Aphra and I—no, Charlie and I—pay. Let’s not tempt fate.”

  I took inventory of how we might appear to a curious clerk, and nodded. The pair went inside, emerging tense minutes later with a brass key. When we at last escaped the sun’s glare into the cool lobby, the clerk had gone back to reading behind his ornately carved cherry counter. The desk, its wooden screen filigreed with birds and moss-dripping trees, seemed out of place on the unswept linoleum floor, illuminated by dingy fixtures. Someone had loved this place, a long time ago.

  We trudged up narrow stairs and at last squeezed into a room that must have been their most luxurious, or at least their largest. The air cloyed, heat thick enough to catch in my throat. Faded gold fleur-de-lis marched across peeling wallpaper. We could all fit, if three or four sat on the bed. Neko pulled yellowed curtains across the window, and S’vlk immediately tore the mask from her face.

  “Careful,” I said. “We may need that later.”

  “It’s an abomination. Smell it.” She tugged off the gloves, only a little more delicately, and dropped them on the bed.

  Grandfather followed suit. “It smells vile. What of it? It’s been at the bottom of a storage chest for people who reek of rotting mushrooms. It could hardly be sweet.”

  I picked up one of S’vlk’s gloves. It felt too soft for something that looked like a wartish pale hand, like finest quality kidskin. I lifted it to my nose. Above a whiff of S’vlk’s sweated-in salt and oils, I caught something leathery and equally organic. I thought it almost pleasant, though there was a hint too of the Outer Ones’ fungous swamp.

  Then I realized why a glove that looked like a hand might smell of leather, and threw it on the blanket with a cry. I looked for something to wipe my own hand on. “It’s skin. It’s real skin.”

  S’vlk scraped hers on the curtain, grimacing as cobweb clung to her fingers. She pinched the threads gingerly between talon-tips and let them drift to the floor. “They’re bloodless, I can assure you of that. Not flayed from sacrifices, but grown from thralls who let their masters copy their bodies piecemeal. Once in a meigo den I saw their gardens: long pipes flowing with black fluid, empty hands and faces dangling like moss.”

  “Ugh.” Audrey picked up a mask and examined it, nose wrinkled. “Not very good copies, I hope? Because I feel bad for the models, if so.”

  “Faces grow better on skulls,” said S’vlk. Then: “Aphra Yukhl.”

  I’d wanted to surrender to the elders’ judgment. I hadn’t expected to enjoy the process. I rearranged myself, on my corner of the bed, into a semblance of respectful kneeling. “Yes, Khur.”

  “Tell us exactly what you perceived, while you and your sister-in-adversity were alone with the meigo.”

  “And what you thought worth the risk,” added Grandfather, “now that there are no unfriendly ears.”

  I did my best. I resisted the urge to gloss over my memories, still raw from the trape
zohedron’s forced recollection. Grandfather knew the basics of our first encounter with Barlow, and had been there for the culmination of our efforts to salvage their damage. But the details would anger him, and rightly so.

  More tentatively, I described the deep oasis of which I’d caught the briefest glimpse. I scarcely had words to describe something that must be as familiar to S’vlk as a streetlamp or manhole cover.

  Charlie had put a hand on my shoulder, silent comfort as I recounted painful memories. Now he dropped back to lean against the wall, listening in fascination. On Neko’s face I saw equal interest, mixed with yearning and frustration.

  “And you?” S’vlk asked Neko.

  “S’vlk-sama. I saw the same scenes Aphra did at the beginning, my own memory of them, though the lack of touch didn’t bother me so much. I wish it had; I think I spent longer reliving each memory. Or they felt longer. I guess they did in real life, too—I just remember being scared for her, and for Audrey, and—” She halted abruptly.

  “And for Sally Ward, yes,” said Grandfather. “Go on.”

  “But then I saw something new. I’m not sure how to describe it. It was the strangest place: I was flying among shapes I couldn’t quite see, and hearing music very far away. And I felt very calm, and very happy, because the flying was fast and smooth and I knew I was going somewhere wonderful. It was more like a good dream than a real memory.”

  S’vlk hissed softly, thoughtfully. “Only one of their memories each. Perhaps this will not be as hard as I feared. That was the first time they used their tools on you?”

  I had glossed over something, after all. I closed my eyes. “No, Khur. The first time we went to their den, Freddy showed us the altar room. He invited us to join him in ritual. I was worried, but I wanted show respect, to listen to him so he’d be willing to listen in turn. Why…?”

  S’vlk shot Grandfather a frightened look—fear like I’d never seen in her before. She was tens of thousands of years old, an alumna of the Archives, but this disturbed her. “Tell me everything,” she said.