Psychopomp: A Novella

by Crews, Heather

  She drew forward, enraptured, until she was close enough to see the color of his eyes—ice blue, to reflect the state of his heart—and the overwhelming bitterness they contained. They’d been so happy once, always twinkling with laughter. But she liked them better this way.

  “I’m Claire,” she said. “Claire Toussaint. Do you remember me?”

  Something flickered in those hard, cold eyes. And then he began to play once more.

  The song was one of sorrow and fear. Claire could feel it in her chest as she leaned dreamily on the piano. Its melody left her drained and helpless, her legs like the jellies in the Marshwick harbor. Her adoring eyes blurred with tears, and through them she could see something huge and dark looming behind the angel. His shadow, maybe, or something else. It streamed behind him like a shroud, but sometimes it unfolded toward the ceiling.

  After a while, his fingers stilled and the last notes faded from the air. “I will write songs for you,” the angel said, staring down at the keys.

  “How did you get here?” Claire asked.

  “This is where I fell.”

  “Why did you choose me? Why did you call me, but none of the others?”

  “I called to everyone,” the angel revealed. “Only you heard me.”

  Claire felt relieved but also heartbroken.

  “It’s because of my sister,” she said, “isn’t it?”

  He only looked at her, and in his eyes she could see his heart breaking all over again.

  ~

  It was Ethan’s smile that really disarmed the girls of the institute. Claire figured this out when he secretly began slipping her little gifts. She lined them up on her windowsill: strawberry lip balm, a flameless candle, an antique silver key, little candies, a crystal to catch whatever sunlight shone through the haze, and half an oyster shell coated in shiny pink lacquer.

  At first she thought the gifts were from the angel. But he would have no way of getting such things. Claire found herself meeting Ethan’s eyes across a sea of heads, and he would offer a lazy, secretive smile just for her. His velvet eyes would glimmer, as if he knew something about her even she didn’t know. She never returned the smile and always turned away before he could see her blush.

  Before he could see how scared she was of him.

  The next night, full of wild emotion, she ran up to the attic. The angel stood as she burst from the stairway. He was long and lean, all shadows and skin. His eyes, she thought, softened at the sight of her, though his face remained severe. She ached for him, as she always had.

  “I love you,” she cried.

  “You’re not even sixteen,” he said, dismissing her.

  But his song that night was poetry without words. In it, her hair was dark melting chocolate. The sun shone from within her earthy eyes. Her lashes fluttered against his bladed cheeks. Her hands were little birds singing on his skin. It was as if he played her very wishes.

  Claire understood the music was an extension of him. He touched her with it instead of his hands. He manipulated the sounds, wrapping it around her like the finest cloth, eliciting the most forceful of emotions. It was better, almost, than the touch of mere fingers.

  “Thank you,” she said when the song ended. She didn’t tell him she was still so full of longing it hurt.

  10. la fiesta

  I wore the gold dress the night of the party.

  Harkin came with Verm and me. The center of Cizel, so far from the fug of fish and grime, smelled sharp and sweet. Getting off the rail, we passed metallic plants with broad leaves that released pure oxygen into the air. They emitted watery light, like bioluminescence.

  The haze wasn’t as bad here because of the air purifiers. Lights sprang out from the tops of buildings, purple and green, slicing through the night. We walked on smooth sidewalks, too astonished to talk to each other. We’d known everything in Cizel was better and cleaner, but this was a different world.

  Most of the buildings we saw were dark, but one ahead of us beckoned. There were no windows on the face of it. It was white, glowing as if the sun reflected off it. In front, white steps inlaid with soft cyan lights led up to the open door.

  We’d arrived.

  “Just don’t talk and try to look pretty, if you can even manage that,” Verm said as we entered.

  We heard loud music and the roar of voices from a room at the end of a long, low-lit hallway. No one tried to stop us as we walked toward it.

  Just inside the door, we all stiffened and stood up straighter. The room was round, lined with floor-to-ceiling aquariums. In each one a single large jelly floated, slim tentacles and frilled arms waving. The tanks cast the room in pale shades of purple and blue. They were beautiful. No one even glanced at them.

  My widened eyes roved greedily over the people. I saw a man with black metal hair shining with refracted light. It flowed to his shoulders in a sheet of tiny squares hinged against one another. One woman had skin like the nacreous underside of an oyster shell. Another had gold studs embedded along her collarbone. Several people wore coral arrangements as headdresses.

  Their mouths seemed always open as they talked over the pulsing music. They all had suspiciously perfect smiles. I kept my lips pressed shut over my crooked teeth.

  It was clear the three of us didn’t belong at the party, though Verm tried to pretend otherwise. These people were well-fed and healthy because they could afford all the fish and produce they wanted. Their smooth skin glowed with artificial youth.

  Verm put a hand on my arm and dragged me to the bar, Harkin trailing behind. He handed me a drink and looked around for someone to impress. Tiny beads of sweat on his hairline gave away his nervousness.

  I felt exposed and vulnerable even though no one in the crowded room was paying attention to me. All I wanted was to leave.

  When Verm wandered away from me to insert himself into someone else’s conversation, I seized the opportunity to slip away on my own. My arm hurt where he’d held it.

  A long table near the bar held the food. The aquarium light fell over large fish, platters of shrimp, mysterious dips, and colorful fruits of great expense. Dried curls of seaweed garnished the dark, iridescent plates.

  The vast quantity of it all twisted my stomach with wanting. I picked at the food until I’d eaten about all my stomach could hold, and still I hungered for more. I always took what I could get. We’d taken so much from the ocean that sometimes it gave nothing. This was luxury. This was waste.

  Harkin walked over and handed me another drink, then stood beside me in the water-ripple air. His sun-bleached hair had been nicely combed for the occasion, but now it flopped over one eye. I tried not to notice him leering drunkenly at my chest. I didn’t think he’d do anything, but I remembered Blanca’s warning.

  “You must be exhausted,” I said. “With the baby.”

  “Hmm? Yeah.”

  “She’s beautiful,” I added. “Blanca, too.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She loves you.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t hurt her. Don’t leave her.”

  He looked at me. “Qué?”

  My faced flushed with embarrassment. “Nada.”

  I edged away from him, along the glass walls, until I came to an opening. I walked out onto a semi-circular balcony overlooking the city, struck by the night landscape of glimmering glass and colored lights. Pale streaks of blue and violet from inside teased at the edge of my vision. I’d drunk too much and I thought I might hurl over the edge of the balcony.

  There was a sound behind me and I snapped my head around. I saw a shape in the shadows and thought it might be Verm, wondering why I’d left him on his own. But the man who moved forward was taller and dark-haired. His hollow-cheeked face was clean-shaven.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, noticing the tension in my body. My eyes were heavy with mistrust as I backed away from him. He didn’t pursue me, but he looked me up and down studiously. “You aren’t from the city.”

&n
bsp; “Marshwick.”

  “Rueville,” he said. It was a town like ours, only too far from the sea to fish. The man looked at his hands and rubbed a spot of dirt from a crease in one palm.

  “That’s nice,” I said rudely. I didn’t know why he bothered talking to me.

  Suddenly, the building shifted beneath our feet. A violent roar sucked the sound from the air. As the floor lurched up, I reached blindly for the edge of the balcony, but my hand sailed past it. Quickly, the stranger grabbed me and pulled me upright. I fell against him and stayed until the shaking stopped.

  “What was that?” I asked as I pushed myself away from him. My voice sounded distant. Brushing a few strands of hair from my face, I looked inside. People were screaming hysterically and tripping over each other to get to the exits. In the chaos, I couldn’t see either Verm or Harkin.

  “You’d better get out of here,” the man said. Then he turned and hauled himself over the edge of the balcony.

  “Wait!” I cried, flinging myself after him. I leaned forward and saw him hanging off the side of the building. He flashed a quick grin and began climbing down to the street.

  Without stopping to think about it, I followed.

  He’d made it look so easy, but my fingers started hurting almost immediately and it was hard to find a foothold. More than once I slipped down and thought I’d fall to my death, but I always managed to catch myself.

  Then I felt a pair of hands on my waist, helping me. Once my feet were on the ground, I shoved them away. But I didn’t have to, because he’d already let go.

  Defensively, I stared at the man and then up at the balcony I’d just climbed over. It really wasn’t so high, but my heart pounded with adrenaline.

  When I turned back to the man, he was gone.

  Taking several deep breaths to calm myself, I walked toward the front of the building on shaking legs. People surged through the street in satiny outfits, shouting and shoving mercilessly to get to their magnet cars or the rail. People had fallen on the steps, bloodying their shins.

  Another bomb exploded down the street and I let loose a stream of panicked tears. Armpits tingling with shock and fear, I turned and ran from the screams and shattering glass.

  11. la morgue

  I knew the way home, but I never intended to return. I stumbled down alleys, ankles wobbling. The straps of my shoes hurt my feet. Gradually, the sounds of hysteria and fear faded behind me.

  There was no way for me to know whether the bombs had been the act of a terrorist group or any of the countries we fought for water. Protest or retaliation—the effects were one and the same. Buildings fell, fear rose, people got hurt and died. I’d just never seen it firsthand before.

  After several minutes, green and black shadows loomed before me. I’d reached the edge of the metal forest. Struck by nameless fear, I fell to my knees before it.

  Three days. Three days missing from my life. I could remember almost nothing, but somehow I knew I’d spent them here.

  When I tried to think of them, all I saw was darkness and dirt. I smelled something rotten. I could hear the low murmur of a cruel voice and the beeping of machines.

  But I didn’t want to turn back toward the city, so I had to pass through the forest. This was the way to Rueville.

  Staggering to my feet, I took one step forward onto the spongy ground. It wasn’t dirt beneath these trees but some kind of composite, recycled from other materials.

  I looked up, cowering a little. This close, I could feel artificially cool air on my skin. Tiny orange orbs flitted in the shadows. The forest seemed to emit its own non-light. It looked like a dark fairyland, like something out of someone’s dreams. I knew, though, it contained nightmares.

  My other foot lifted off the ground. For a second, only a second, I hesitated.

  And then I ran. I ran without looking on either side of me, but I saw the mansions anyway. Sharp and swooping, like sails, they flickered between the straight, narrow trees. Their white facades gleamed among the dark teal branches. Smooth paths led from them through the trees, to Cizel. But I avoided the paths, heading straight for the other side of the forest.

  The sky came into view, the haze reddened by light pollution. I knew I’d made it.

  I kept running for a few minutes, wanting to put some distance between the trees and myself. Here, on the other side of the cold eldritch forest, were empty fields, dry and dusty. I slipped off my pinching shoes and walked the rest of the way to Rueville. The short, leached-yellow grass pricked at my feet.

  If I looked back, I could see a faint orange glow above Cizel. I couldn’t tell whether it was fire or sunrise. It had been several minutes since I’d heard any bombs.

  Marshwick was far behind me now in more ways than one. I wasn’t sorry to leave it because it would never be a good place for me. It would never thrive, and if I stayed, I wouldn’t either.

  It had seemed almost a natural thing to follow Verm in Anden’s place, no matter how much he made me hurt. Until now, it was almost as if I’d been asking to suffer. It was almost as if I believed I deserved it.

  Maybe I was crazy to leave like this in the middle of a night, in the midst of a bombing, no change of clothes, my feet bleeding from the poking grass. Then I thought of the hard glint in Verm’s eyes when he smirked. The way he spoke to me with casual cruelty. The claustrophobic feel of his body moving over mine. My skin grained in the salt left behind from his evaporated sweat.

  It was too late to go back. I could only go forward.

  Just ahead on the flat fields, I made out the shape of little lightless shanty homes. A strong wind blew through the dusty town. I leaned against it as I walked, holding one hand over my eyes. The air began to lighten. It was morning.

  I didn’t know where to go or how to find the man I’d seen on the balcony. I wasn’t sure why it had seemed so important to follow him. I’d come to Rueville without a plan or any information about the man whatsoever.

  As I passed the splintering wooden homes lined along dreary, narrow lanes, a hill rose up before me. Atop it sat a long, rectangular building. The white façade was chipped and stained. There were no signs of life behind the blank windows. A chill shuddered down my spine.

  Rueville Asylum, a sign in front read. I hadn’t thought they called them asylums anymore.

  Suddenly my legs buckled and I fell, hitting the ground without feeling a thing. Then someone was there, hands under my arms, helping me stand. The person guided me across the dead lawn in front of the asylum, patient when I couldn’t get my legs to work. Behind the asylum there was nothing but miles and miles of yellow grass and a flat, hazy horizon.

  And a little building at the base of the hill, with a shadowed graveyard next to it.

  Blackness came once more. When I opened my eyes, I shut them again immediately against the glare of the bare bulb swinging overhead. My leg muscles ached. My feet throbbed.

  I sat up, letting my eyes gradually adjust. Dingy tiled walls surrounded me, pristine and mysterious medical instruments hanging on them. There were two steel sinks and a hose. A round drain marked the center of the mint green floor. My body warmed the stainless table beneath me.

  Standing a few feet in front of me was the man from the balcony. His hair was disheveled now and a dark shadow covered his square jaw, but I recognized him. His eyes were a piercing blue, shadowed with deep half moons. Not many people had blue eyes.

  “You must have left right from the party,” he said. “You didn’t even change your dress.” His voice was deep and even, seemingly without a trace of menace.

  “Where am I?” There was nothing comfortable about waking up on a table in a room with a stranger. I started to lower myself off the table, but my head swam. Falling down on my elbows, I began to cry, deep sobs that heaved my chest. I couldn’t breathe. “I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re safe,” he said. “Didn’t you mean to come here? Didn’t you mean to follow me?”

  I stared at him until my sobs subs
ided. I was all too aware of my dirty, bedraggled appearance. My hair was unbrushed, my bare legs scratched and bruised. Dirt dusted my cheeks and arms. I still wore the gold dress, but I couldn’t remember when I’d lost my shoes.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You recognize me? We spoke at the party.”

  “Sí.” His black hair had been combed then, but it looked better this way, unkempt and falling over serious eyebrows.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Marlo.”

  “Why did you come here, Marlo?”

  I flinched, not liking all his questions. But his gaze was so direct it seemed to pull a little bit of the truth from me. “I had to get away.”

  He nodded, perhaps understanding. Then he flashed a quick grin, slightly savage. “You’re desperate. You can work for me. Do you need a job? It’s destiny.”

  I eyed him carefully, beginning to realize he was a little odd. But he didn’t seem to wish me harm.

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  “I’m a mortician.”

  I only thought about it for a moment. I didn’t have anywhere better to go.

  12. los susurros

  His name was Gabriel. “Are you hungry?” he asked. I was starving.

  He lived in a room just off the morgue, only a small hallway separating the two. I thought that couldn’t have been very pleasant, but he didn’t seem bothered. The dull room had a tiny kitchen, a couch, and a bed.

  “Where will I stay?” I asked doubtfully as he showed it to me.

  “You can have the bed. I’ll take the couch. It’s more comfortable anyway.” He grabbed a towel from the chest at the foot of the bed and handed it to me, along with some clothes. “Bathroom’s over there,” he said, indicating a narrow door. “Go wash up.”

  There was barely enough space to turn around in the bathroom. I ran a shallow bath, the hot water stinging all the little cuts on my feet and legs. It turned cloudy with dirt in seconds. The gold dress lay in a heap on the floor. I’d throw it away first chance I got.