27
Blood frosted eyes perched from posts high up, lying in wait to soil the garments walking below. Pathways of broken glass formed like shining trails of breadcrumbs down the stone. People concealed under their heavy hoods, funneled in and out of the cramped and misty streets, disappearing into alleyways, or dimly lit shops to discuss whatever secret business they had. A stench fell over the stone, the stench of burnt oil and spoiled food.
“Fayhollow is immoral… and sinful,” Rose said, emphasizing the meaning of her words. “We’ll travel Stone Row through the city. I suggest this time, you stay inside the cart and talk to no one. I can’t save you from the people here. There aren’t any laws to protect us.”
Even under the sunlight, the smog covering the city made light impossible to penetrate. If not for a few candlelit lanterns, there would be endless dark. It recalled memories of dung infested London where Billy had lived for a brief stint before being settled with Ms. Menagerie in Woolbury.
London was unsettling and a circus of all the people you were to stay wary of. It was no place for a child or anyone for that matter. And now, looking through a mirror into the past, he admitted to truth. There wasn’t one youthful boy or girl he saw gliding through the muck. Fayhollow was inhabited by sinful adults.
The streets were endless.
Rose barely mouthed a word the entire time as they weaved through the chaos of Stone Row. Her eyes resembled that of a bird surrounded by a multitude of potential predators. They were for good reason.
Billy's eyes doubled her own.
“Whatcha got in ere,” queried a crone. She had a shrill voice and bore an unfashionable hat of an animal that was improperly skinned. “Are you in the market for bargaining?”
“Emm,” croaked another. He was shoeless and sat against a pile of rubbish. “Ow’ much you charging from the beast? I aven't eaten in tree days!” He stood up with a homemade knife in hand. Salvia ran down his grotesque beard and his jagged teeth stained black. “I think I’ll be having its leg for dinna’.”
“Not-not for sale,” Rose said, posing her chin high while adverting her eyes forward.
“Eye bet I can change that!” sneered the shoeless man as he stepped closer.
“And how about another hole for you to breath out of?” mouthed the husky call of a brooding bystander. He was cloaked in black, as was everyone, but his fat pig-like cheeks stood out from underneath his unevenly chopped locks. The shoeless man’s dagger looked like a steak knife in compassion to the great sword that so boastfully clung to the man’s gargantuan waistline. One flash of the polished blade and the man disappeared back into the rubbish bin from where he came. “Manners are a lost art here. My apologies Miss.”
Rose bowed her head in a gesture of gratefulness but opted not to engage in the conversation.
Where was the Rose who with the use of her tongue, defended herself viciously on the road out of Woolbury? Who made those men’s trousers wetten with fear? There must have been a heavy stone resting on her face because she stiff and stern and emotionless. It puzzled Billy.
The brooding bystander insisted he be compensated for his act of “protection”. And yet in keep from conflict, Rose flicked him a gold piece for his troubles, and he steered off into the same alleyway as the shoeless man.
"They must have been working together," Billy said.
The cart went down Stone Row with occasional standstills. Billy saw food stands selling what appeared to be rotten or spoiled products. Evidentially, people were still rather interested in buying. They passed by a plethora of gambling tournaments and boozing feuds. Billy saw the fingers of a man chopped off after failing to pay his debts. He flinched as a butcher’s cleaver made short work of it. His blood splattered all over the game table. It was a horrific place. A polar opposite of the world he knew. “Who would want to live here?” he asked, his voice low.
“The miserable sort— criminals, discarded children, and those without two gold pieces to rub together.”
She struck a nerve. “Like orphans?” he said.
“Yes. There’s an entire district overrun by them.”
Orphans in Fayhollow. “Where’s this district at? Are we close to it now?”
“It’s on the other side of the city. We won’t have time to travel there, unfortunately.”
“What’s the district name?”
“West Row.”
Billy found himself speculating over the idea of an entire district dominated by orphans. He longed for the idea of being with people he could relate to. Orphans were unwanted and less than those who had living parents.
“West Row is dangerous,” Rose said hearing the optimism. “As are all places in Fayhollow. You need to understand what kinds of people live here. You’re not safe on your own. Many would pay a high price for your skin. The sooner you learn, the better off you’ll be. Cling to the shadows. Keep your head low. And most of all, don’t insert your nose into anyone else's business. We don't want a repeat of what happened in Lochwald.”
"That was not my fault!" he chimed.
They rented a chamber at the Headless King Inn. Rose had insisted that of all places to stay, this inn was the safest. Billy did not understand why as he observed the inn’s signpost; a beheaded man sitting at the base of a guillotine. The walls were covered in thick black paint, but it blended seamlessly into the night. A hidden and foul place for them to hide.
“See that he’s fed would ya?” Rose called to the innkeeper tossing him a coin. “And you, remember what I said about wandering? See to it that Lapis is tended to. I have an errand to attend.” She swung a heavy wrap over her shoulder before departing back onto the row.
The innkeeper, Ern, was a seemly decent fellow, as far as Billy could assume. He was missing a hand, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. “Potato stew is what we got. Franie, fetch the scrawny boy a bowl would ya?” A thick apron of hair draped down Ern’s chest, fitting over his large cauldron belly.
“Oh, no thank you,” Billy said politely. “I’m not hungry.”
“You all say the same thing,” Franie said with a bowl of potato stew in her boney hands. “Eat up. Tastes horrible, but it will nourish you the same.” Franie’s mouth smelled like rot. Billy winced at the stench. “Come on boy, before it gets cold.”
It is already cold, he thought. And what’s that, doesn’t even look like a potato. Ah. Here goes it. He lifted a spoonful to his mouth. The broth was darkened than ale and clumped together unnaturally. When the spoonful landed on his palate, the urge to vomit came immediately, but he held it down.
Franie and Ern watched every spoonful as if they were waiting for the stew to knock him unconscious.
“It’s— it’s great,” he lied, a stem of some sort was stuck between his front teeth. He needed to get out of there. He could escape to the room, but when he tried the innkeeper made it very clear, rooms were not to be lounged in, nor waiting in.
“They’re rules in these places. Haven’t you any manners?” The innkeeper yelled as he attempted to ascend the stairs.
Billy, by no means, was going to stay with a bad breath and fat innkeeper all day. On the contrary to Rose’s advice, Billy took refuge and submersed himself through the streets of Fayhollow. He left the inn under the shield of a heavy coat he’d swiped from a coat rack. He folded the tan hide collar upwards in order to hide part of his freckled skin.
“West Row,” he muttered at the less than skilled street name post pointing him in a believed direction. “Don’t look into people's eyes. Keep your head down.” He repeated to himself like a song.
Cross Lane, where he was now, eventually forked off into separate ways. Each of those streets looked far less lively, and his stomach boiled as he contemplated what may be down them. Luckily, or hopefully, it was luck, the signs pointing to West Row led him down an alleyway between two enormously sandwiched buildings. White-washed signage hung from the roof’s eave and swayed in the wind. Of a few, Billy saw Ernies Oddity Shop of Vile Thi
ngs, in mismatched black lettering or Randell's Rancid Run. Gothic in nature, the artwork hinted at the evidence to the mysteries to be concealed inside: a startled black cat, an ivory skull, and thin glass tubes of poison.
He scurried like a rat, keeping to the shadows, stepping aside when others trudged by. He noticed through the soot window panes of an unnamed shop, two people conversing over a sizable collection of crates. The man, who was leading the conversation or rather, dominating it, had a thick bushy-like beard rolling down his chest with black beads woven through. He had a set of eyes that remained Billy of a fox— globe-like and vibrant with color behind a narrow slit. He was undoubtedly yelling. Billy saw the cords of his neck tighten, and his ghostly complexion fill with ruby blood.
The merchant was lesser in stature, hidden under a coat, and flinched with every bit of saliva exiting the fox man’s frustrated mouth. They cowered in fear as the man’s head looked like it was ready to pop off, but it appeared a deal, structured in his favor, was decided, and his cherry face reduced back down to its pale nature. A limp handshake was exchanged, striking the deal, and the man retrieved a plump coin pouch from under the bar table.
Billy pressed his freckled nose as close to the glass as possible. He had never seen so much gold in his life.
The man skimmed a good amount from the pouch and set what was left for the merchant to collect. As the merchant briskly stuffed the payment down their pockets, Billy caught a glimpse of a red jewel tied around their neck. “Odd.” The jewel resembled the one Rose carried, and come to think of it, the merchant was around the same height as well.
“Aye! What do you think you’re doing?” a voice cried. “Dropping ease?”
Billy swiveled around immediately, remembering to keep his head down. “Only having a look,” he lied. “I’ll be on my way.”
“If I ever catch you looking through the windows again, I’ll cut your eyes out and make you eat em, you got it?”
“Y-y-yes,” he stuttered and scattered away. Keep your head down, he told himself again, You’re going to get yourself killed. But that necklace. Why was someone wearing the same one as Rose? Billy contemplated as he tucked himself in the corner of a brick wall. Was that Rose or were jasper pendants commonplace in Fayhollow? But those the crates, were those the ones she was transporting in her cart? Billy’s gut told him so. He could not help but think why it was she would be selling them in Fayhollow. There were meant for sale at the King’s Capitol, at least, that’s what she said.
The merchant departed from the unnamed shop’s and waddled off towards Cross Lane. Billy marinated on the thought for a moment, but instead, continued down the alleyway writing down the sight as a mere coincidence. He proceeded the signs to West Row.
The alleyway eventually widened to the width of a carriage.
Billy wondered what time of day it was underneath the impervious grey. West Row was a kilometer from where he was now, and the people out on the streets had doubled since he set out to find the orphan district. It appeared as time went on, the more madman he had to narrowly avoid.
An oily looking fisherman sat on an overturned craft while he gutted his catch, flinging their multicolored insides down the cities water drains. The aroma was unbearable. But the few around him seemed not to share in the repugnance.
“Three golden ‘eaded tikes!” the wild-eyed man covered in fish innards yelled. “Gold for gold. Freshly caught this morning!” Chop! His knife said as it cleared the fish’s head clean off, bone and all.
The fish were vile in appearance. Billy was repulsed with what he saw, nothing like the elegance of the silver river trout he had dined on with Rose just nights ago. Instead, these “tikes” as they were called, had sinister red eyes and golden spines cresting from their backs into sharp dagger-like edges. The most horrid thing Billy noticed, was the enormous fangs that stuck out of the tikes lower jaw. What a beast. Who would eat such a creature? And yet, he couldn’t believe his eyes. People in the mass arrived and cleaned the fisherman’s stock, even rioting for more. “Cruel bunch,” he muttered.
Once he’d abandoned the stench from the creatures of the ravenous deep, he caught another signpost, but this time West Row’s indicator was absent. A crooked-headed nail was all that remained from where the wood was pried off.
“Which one is right?” Billy asked the post as if it could respond. Down one pathway, the street narrowed before opening up in a ground lined with canvas tents. The far-less fortunate, he thought. Down another pathway, Billy saw a group of men gambling. And the third, of which gave him the creeps just by looking at it, was covered in artifacts that made him queazy. Of the four options, there was one that seemed not to fit with the rest, but it had been boarded up from the inside. There would be no way to pass through it unless he was to climb over the barricade.
Between the lopsided boards, he stuck his eye to peek inside a crack. He saw nothing of a threat. The boarded off-street was empty. Desolate. Vacant.
“Aye, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, boy!”
Startled, he vaulted over the crooked boards into whatever lies beyond and found himself alone while the instigator yelled unflattering comments through the wood. Billy half felt like cutting one of the man’s fingers off as he shoved them through to grab hold of him, but he quickly saw the lost West Row indicator lying flat in a puddle of shadowy water. “Then this is the way,” he said under his breath, thankful that it was so.
“Get back here you swine!” the instigator called from behind, “I wouldn’t if I was you!” But Billy hadn’t even given no thought to turning around now.
He was now in the district of West Row, he felt it in his bones. There was a piece of chilling news to the atmosphere of this row. He didn’t flinch at the sound of water droplets echo on the stone as he had elsewhere. This was a safe place, his mind even told him. And yet, no one was to be seen. Were they hidden? Or better yet, had they abandoned the place to escape the wickedness outside?
A collection of abandoned lights.
Billy was under a vapor of silence. The air was so cold, he could see the exhaustion from his breath float in front of his face.
The silence died. A loud noise jolted the dust from the brick walls encasing the front of the houses. Another noise rang out. And before he could distinguish what was going on, a charge of children ran from the shadows with weapons in hand towards the origin of the disturbance.
Billy heard the rounded and innocent voices of children clash against the deep and seasoned growls of men. He was standing in the middle of a feud or more like— a battle between old and young, innocent and corrupt, a war.
Amateur crafted arrows zoomed overhead missing their targets. Occasionally one landed its mark and the rounded voices cheered. One boy, in particular, looked to be leading the charge. He was deep in sword combat with a man triple his age.
“Nix you beast!” yelled the dark hair orphan. “You won’t take any of us alive!”
Nix parried the boy’s strike with a cutlass of his own, “We shall see once I take your head!” The man had silver eyes that were wondrously evil beneath a red hood, he sounded irritable and quick-templed. Nix made a mockery with each strike the boy made, ruffling up his dark hair with his free hand. “Your rein of shenanigans has come to an end,” he sneered finally counter striking.
There was an urge to help, but Billy fell back to the shadow, wanting to avoid a conflict that was not his own. He’d learned a valuable lesson in Lochwald about meddling in matters he did not understand, nearly lost his life in the process. No. Billy would stay away from the conflict.
“Fire!” cried another child in the windows above. A sea of arrows fanned out from the archer's bowstrings.
Explosions proceeded from both sides and what seemed like a well-organized attack of misfits, appeared to be working well against the enemy positioned by West Row’s barricaded gates. “For freedom and family!” they all shouted.
Never in his life had he seen such a display of courageousness f
rom children. They clashed with those twice their age and size and yet somehow they matched their skill. So far, the only causalities fell at the hands of the aggressor. One by one, they were overrun and outnumbered by four children at once.
“What are you doing?” a voice whispered in the dark from behind the alleyway.
Billy turned, spooked that he hadn’t noticed the things going on behind him. The hooves of a horse clopped as the voice came into the light along with the white skin of a horse. It was a shining beacon amidst the dull and dreary grime of Fayhollow.
“I wouldn’t advise proceeding." She was a lengthy brunette. “Not something to get caught up in.”
“Hadn’t planned on it. I only meant to look—“
“This your first time in Fayhollow then?” the woman asked straightforwardly.
Billy nodded his head. “Yes…yes it is.”
“Follow me then,” she offered with a motion of her hand. “I can show you to safety.”
As if the conflict of West Row had no more relevance, he gladly followed the white horse.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Oh, yes…that— that’s nothing to worry about,” she lied, glancing at where she’d broken a suture.
“Looks nasty.”
“Thanks. I’ve had far worse.”
The ruggedness of this woman was far less than the women he’d known in Woolbury. Her presence would shake Violet to the core. So very lady-like and yet able to manage her own affairs. “What were you doing inside the district?”
“Same as you, I suppose. Just passing through. Isn’t that what all sane people say when they enter this forsaken place?”
Billy didn’t understand but agreed nonetheless.
“Where are you headed?”
The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar Page 22