Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

  “Sorry about your phone,” I say. “I can get you a new one.” This is a lie and we both know it but she smiles softly anyway and turns to the fridge. She takes out an old-school, probably early ‘70s, plastic pitcher and dumps the remains of the squash in a plastic dollar-store cup. Bright red. Red is one of my favourite colours. She looks around the kitchenette again, tugging drawers open, and sighs with disappointment. I know those sighs all too well.

  Her shoulders fall a bit and she trudges back into the living room and hands me the squash, of which I greedily gulp down. Still not as good as Dad’s, but better than any of my aunties’ attempts. She needs more Angostura.

  She sits back down on the loveseat and her body begins to shake. “Are you going to kill me?” she asks.

  I frown, tears prickling my eyes. “No, Auntie, no!” I cry out. “I just—I need a bath. One of those baths. I can never get the ratio right, you know? The Florida water versus the Rose. It doesn’t make sense and I can never get it right and my skin—,” I tug the sleeves up with care, but it still catches on the plasma and sticks until I have to tug harder, “—it’s really bad this summer and I need help.”

  Her apartment has grown warm so I roll the sleeves back down and take off the jacket. The acidity of my sweat has made things worse, some areas of my arms and chest cracked so bad, I can see fat. The skirt and tank top I’m wearing is sealed to my skin and this stupid fake leather chair isn’t making things any better but this is the only place to sit. She doesn’t even have a table set with dinner chairs.

  I shift in the arm chair and a small flap of flesh from the back of my knee comes away. It doesn’t hurt compared to the area that was stuck in the jacket so I don’t howl, but I do pick the piece off the chair and study it.

  “Oh, Father God,” Auntie says in a breath.

  “See?” I say, showing her the piece. “I need a bath!”

  “O-okay,” she sputters.

  “Do you have the stuff? All the different waters?” I ask. I’m being rude, but I’m desperate, Auntie has to understand.

  She nods slowly.

  “Do you have air conditioning?”

  She nods again.

  “Can you put it on? It’s hot in here. And I’ll have to nap afterwards, you know that, right? So put on the air in the bedroom, if you have it.”

  “I do,” she says.

  “Good,” I say.

  She stands and runs her hands on her thin thighs. She’s small, my new auntie. Not at all like my other ones. They were all big women with broad shoulders and huge guts and far-reaching breasts. I loved cuddling with them. This auntie is bony and I realize she looks a lot younger than I’d originally thought. Almost too young to be an auntie.

  “Where… where did you put my knives?” she asks, her voice shaking.

  I shrug. “I don’t know what I do when I’m in the black,” I say and it’s the truth and we both know it, so she nods and walks towards to the large window and turns on the air. It takes a minute, but the stale air turns cool, then cold and I’m sighing in relief. She returns to the loveseat and I stand up so quickly she flinches but I ignore her to stand directly in front of the unit.

  I don’t know if it’s real or a psychosomatic relief, but I swear I hear my skin crinkle and sigh.

  Once the pain subsides, I walk back over to the arm chair but I don’t sit. Instead, I say, “May I have more squash, please?” I’m being greedy, I know, especially since it’s before dinner, but I love squash and it’s been a couple years since I’ve had some.

  “I don’t have any more limes,” she whispers, her eyes widening with something like hope. “I can get some though.”

  I grit my teeth. “No store.”

  “No, just down the hall. Miss Toddy always has limes,” she says desperately.

  “No. No neighbours.” I blow out a breath and try not to let the disappointment turn into tears. “No squash then.” I sigh again. This really hurts. “What’s for dinner?” I flinch, remembering the last time I’d asked something like that so casually.

  Whatever in de fuck I cook, das what!

  I whimper, then shake my head. “I can cook,” I say, trying to pep up. “It’s been a while, but I never forget.”

  “I don’t have anything thawing,” she says. “But I can order Chinese.”

  Again, I’m fighting anger through my jaw. “No. Stop trying to leave before giving me my bath. I need to eat before you do, though, so what do you have that I can cook?”

  Finally, she’s had enough. Her whole face sets hard and she shoots up from the couch. “Go look in the fucking fridge, crazy-ass bitch.” Almost immediately, she stops herself, sobers as if someone popped her on the mouth after a bad word flew from it, but I’m too sad to do anything but deflate and drag my feet towards the kitchenette.

  I open the fridge first, then freezer, then cabinets and see that she’s right, she doesn’t have much, barely anything at all, just some chicken quarters in the freezer that will take forever to defrost.

  I have to eat and I have to do it soon.

  She’s a terrible auntie.

  My skin ripples and my belly growls for the first time in a very long time. I try not to let it growl ever because when it does, it’s almost like being in the black—I have no idea what will happen.

  But when I look at her, I don’t feel sad or scared, I feel angry. I feel like she deserves whatever is coming to her for being so horrible to me. I’ve been nothing but nice and respectful and she can’t even feed me before my bath.

  My belly growls again.

  And I change.

  I come to naked in a bathtub full of cool water, my ruined clothes on the floor beside me, and a little bit of blood on the tiles. I shift and various perfumes tickle my nose, meaning I attempted the concoction again.

  This one smells a little closer to home.

  Florida, Kananga, Rose, Aqua Divin, and Holy. No one would be able to tell, considering how murky and thick the water has become, but I can smell it. All of them.

  I smile. Then sit up and pass my hands along my arms, watching in fascination as the old Summer Skin sloughs away, revealing new, soft, gorgeous mahogany flesh. It’s perfect, my new skin. Perfect and beautiful and condition free.

  My smile grows wider as I continue the shed. From my breasts to my feet, my legs to my belly.

  I am brand new.

  When I think I’m done, I stand in the water and let the few chunks plop back down. I step out and dry my feet on my old clothes stiff with plasma and reach for a decorative towel drying the rest of my skin. I do something rude to the embroidered flower in between my legs for a little mischief, then turn to drain the tub. I’ll have one shitty clean up to do, but it won’t matter. The task won’t be halted by cracking, tight, swollen skin.

  I use the same towel to wipe down the droplets on the tiles, then hang it back. I search through her lotions and pick the least scented one, slathering it almost erotically slow over the smooth expanse of my skin. Once done, I look at myself in the mirror and for the first time in years, I like what I see.

  I need a plan, but for the next few days I’ll have to lay low here. My new skin will be sensitive and highly reactive to the outside. The sun is my enemy. Summer makes it worse. I want to enjoy the gift my auntie has given me. As long as the air is still kicking, I’ll be fine. No food, but I’m satiated beyond normal means.

  I’ll have to work on a story though, like one of those mysteries I used to love reading. Because there’s a knock at the door and a body in the hallway and I don’t want to hurt my new skin.

  — COLT’S TOOTH —

  by Linda Robertson

  My pa always said I was ornery ‘cause I liked playing in the creek, watching cattle being driven by, and climbing trees with my goats. But back in the early months of 1867, I was six and I was sick. When a boy so full of piss-and-vinegar spends the winter stuck in a drafty Texas cabin because he’s feeling lower than a snake in snowshoes, you can bet your boots he’s
spent too many hours thinkin’ of ways to make up for lost time.

  As the days got longer, Ma decided that I needed some sunshine and figured some wagon rides into town would do me good.

  Today was my third trip in two weeks. Now, I’d never paid much attention to the townsfolk, more concerned with whether or not I was gonna get a piece of candy, but having been cooped up for so long, I found these strangers more interesting than usual.

  On my first trip, I saw a fellow walking out of a certain brown and blue door holding a bloody rag at his mouth. Stunned me, it did. So much so that on my second trip, I kept my peepers trained on that same door. I wasn’t disappointed.

  After the newest bleeding man hurried off to the saloon, I pulled my ma’s sleeve and asked, “What kind of place is that, behind that brown and blue door?”

  “That’s the barber’s shop, Colt.”

  I didn’t know about hair cutters then, as ma trimmed my and my pa’s hair. But I did know about the barbs on a wire fence, and my young mind imagined some mighty scary possibilities about why people were a-leaving there with bloody mouths. Of course I probably wouldn’t have envisioned such wild ideas if Ma had enlightened me as to what a barber does, or bothered to add the fact that the local barber also dabbled in dentistry… but then she would’ve had to explain about teeth as well, I suppose. And at that time, I felt mighty sensitive about my teeth.

  You see, I had a loose one. My first. She’d told me the tooth fairy would give me a penny if I yanked it out and left it under my pillow. But I couldn’t stand the thought of losing part of myself, much less selling it to some tiny winged woman whom my parents didn’t mind breaking into our home at night.

  But things being as they were, by that third trip, Ma had noticed the attention I paid to that particular establishment. Worse, she’d decided that maybe I ought’n to visit that there barber…

  “Don’t wanna,” I grumbled. My tongue pushed at the loose tooth.

  “Colt Tanner, you want me to tell your pa you made a fuss?”

  Chin dropping down, I kicked at a little stone. “No.”

  I stepped onto the boardwalk and held her skirt tight as I followed her through that dreaded brown and blue door, eyes wide as a barn owl’s. The first thing I noticed was the pale and stooped man behind the counter. The second thing I noticed was the dark drops staining the floor. I reckoned I knew a bloodstain when I saw one, so while ma spoke with the man, my single thought was: escape.

  Ma had properly shut the brown and blue door. She grabbed me before I could get it open and out. She pulled me around to face the narrow room with its big ol’ chair in front of a large square mirror. Beyond that seat was another room, and at the back of it, an open door and freedom beyond its window. I was ready to run—

  “Jump up in the seat, son.” The barber’s voice was a husky rasp. He patted a plank he’d slid across the arms of the chair. “It’s up so high; won’t that be fun?”

  My toes dug into my worn shoes like the roots of an oak.

  “Go on, boy,” Ma said. She leaned down and whispered, “You didn’t pull your tooth so the fairy couldn’t leave you a penny, but be good and I’ll get you a candy when you’re done.”

  That sweet word loosened my “roots,” and I walked stiffly toward the big seat. Halfway into the chair, I gandered up at the barber and went stock-still. The man was sleight with gangly arms as long and thin as willow branches. His dark eyes sat too close, and his nose protruded from his face like a sharp beak, but he had the smoothest shaven chin I had ever seen on any grown man. And on the subject of hair, this barber had none on his head, but there were bushes poking out of his ears that sparrows could have nested in.

  “Well come on.” The man patted the plank. “You’re a-burnin’ daylight.” Then he grinned.

  From my low angle I could see what others couldn’t. This man’s mouth had more teeth than any person I’d ever seen—as in a whole second row behind the first. With a gasp I backed out of the chair.

  Ma scooped me up and plopped me on the board. “Stop acting the fool.” Her tone conveyed all the fury of a mule chewin’ up bumblebees, so I stayed put.

  There was a blur of white and the snap of fabric as the barber threw a cloth around me and tied it behind my neck. When he turned away to reach for his scissors, I was gobsmacked by the size and shape of the hunch on his back and the knobby shape of the man’s head. I glanced at the mirror and saw him notice how I was looking him over. He spun back, holding the shiny scissors open like two silver knives. Menace gleamed in his eyes.

  I ain’t ashamed to admit it. I started to shake.

  “Sit still.” The barber gave the scissors two quick snips, and they sounded real sharp.

  Unable to help it, I shook even more. I cast a look at ma, but she was studying the trinkets on the front counter. I was about to cry out for her, but the barber leaned closer, gagging me with a stink like rotten eggs, and whispered, “I learned to cut hair in prison, son. You know what that means?”

  I shook my head side-to-side.

  “It means if you don’t sit still, you’ll be taking one your ears home in your pocket.”

  I blinked once, twice, and decided this wasn’t worth the candy. I dived off the seat, got hung up in the white cloth, twisted, and rolled across the floor. Ma squealed. The barber stomped on one frayed end of the cloth, and it ripped even as I threw a hand between my neck and the cloth, forcing the tied end to let loose. I rolled twice more and clambered to my feet.

  Evading the barber’s long, spindly arm, I raced through the back room and, heedless of Ma hollerin’ for me to get my ornery ass back in there, I sprinted through the open back door.

  I ran like the homestead was on fire, faster than I thought I could after having been sick so long. But it felt good to run, and since my only thought was keeping away from that barber, I made a straight line across the prairie. When I came upon a creek, I leapt over the embankment. My feet splashed in the shallow water and slid forward off a slimy stone. Arms flapping, I threw myself backward trusting the embankment to catch me.

  But it didn’t.

  Though my hands slapped against dirt, the rest of me kept going into a giant hole. It started about even to my knees, widened outward and rose up past my head. My fingers dug in, but I couldn’t hold myself up.

  I fell, screaming, then lost my breath as I hit rock two feet down. I bounced and began sliding, headfirst, down a steep slope. My chest hurt, and I hadn’t the air to shout anymore or I would’ve. Twisting onto my belly, I threw my arms and legs around, trying to stop or slow down, but this wet and muddy surface had soaked my clothes, and I was as slick as the greased pig at the county fair. Then, finally, I plopped into a thick mud puddle and stopped.

  I clawed into a sitting position and wiped the crud from my face. It was all dark around me. Darker than night.

  When I’d recovered my breath and my heartbeat stopped roaring in my ears, I could hear Ma yelling from far above.

  “I’m here! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” I tasted something funny in my mouth, pushed my tongue at the spot. “My tooth’s gone!”

  “That’s okay, boy.”

  Realizing that I was tasting blood, blood like that on the rags of everyone leaving that brown and blue door, panic tried to set in. Then Ma shouted, “Can you climb up?” It gave me purpose that fought off my fright.

  I tried and tried but couldn’t climb. “I can’t! It’s too slippery.”

  “Stay right there. I’ll get your pa.”

  For the first few minutes I listened to water dripping somewhere far away and remained perfectly still. Except for my tongue, that is, which kept flicking over the spot where my tooth had been. It’s gone.

  Gone!

  I felt my chest, then all around me. Mud, more mud, and even more mud. My eyes adjusted so I could detect my hand in front of my face now, but I couldn’t find the tooth. Without it, there’d be no penny fr
om the little winged woman, and now that it was out, I reckoned I ought to have given her a try.

  I shed a few tears, but it was cold as a frog’s butt sitting in wet and mucky clothes, and soon I was thinking how this wasn’t so different from how I started getting sick before the winter came. I’d played in the creek near the cabin, found a baby bear and followed it until its momma found me. I’d run across the creek, fell in the water, and come up with a mouthful of moss and a crawdad pinching my nose. After yanking it off, I ran and ran… going farther up the creek than I’d ever been. When I’d lost the momma bear, I’d stopped. The creek bank was high and slick, and I couldn’t climb out, so I’d rested on a rock until I was ready to head back.

  Ma said that spending most of that afternoon and evening with my feet wet and cold, with maybe a belly full of crawdad water, was what made me get so sick.

  The last thing I wanted was to spend another season in bed, missin’ out on all the fun I could’ve been havin’, so I kept feeling around, determined to find some way of getting out of this cold mud. I discovered a ramp of smooth stone angling upward a few feet away from the thick mud puddle. Crawling onto the edge of that slope, I sat and scraped the mud off as best I could, then wiped my hands on the walls around me, thereby realizing this tunnel was smooth and round.

  Every other cave I’d been in—and I’d been in several—was jagged and irregular. Only people made things like this. And if someone had made it smooth and round, there had to be a reason.

  That was when I realized, I wasn’t in a hole in the ground. I had discovered a secret place.

  The distant dripping sound seemed louder and caught my attention. In moments, it became clear that it was not dripping but small splashes, like steps.

  Someone’s comin’!

  Facing the sound, hopeful and frightened, I spied a dim glow. Despite having just cleaned myself off, I crawled across the mud pit I’d landed in and learned that I sat in a hole high up on the wall of a great stone room. A few inches down from the hole sat a fancy platter. Beyond, it was a long way down to the floor.