by Anth
I really don't want to see any more, but I've seen worse. It may be my job to see worse, but I still feel sick to see you like this, Angel. What's this, a dull spot on the wall behind you, like a bruise made of sawdust? Did you hit yourself against the wall? Why are your wings just hanging there, all crumpled? They've shaken loose Why are you holding your arm like that? It looks like it's broken. Is there something wrong with your face? Don't tell me It can wait.
My poor wooden angel. The earthquake's shaken her all loose from herself, I know all about that.
I'm not going to let her suffer any longer than she has to,
It hurts to see her like this, unanchored. [ try to lever her back to her place on her pedestal, make her comfortable, but she's heavy. I'd forgotten how heavy she is. Every few minutes her head and shoulders bounce a bit against the wall when the ground reminds us to take it seriously. I remember, I remember how that feels.
Push. Pull. Sick Shove. Swear. Plead. Pull, don't cry. There are splinters where her hair was.
This isn't working. I've got to get focused here. I'm in San Francisco. California. My name is Andrew. Andrew Patrick Malone. I go to the University of San Francisco. Dick Nixon is president. There's a war on. Focus.
Hold her hands. My hands hold her. She lurches, half-doll, half-dancer, and I pull her upright again, As I pull, her wedged, twisted, bent parts scrape against the wall spilling the dust of her insides everywhere But she's upright.
I made her myself, a long time ago. There's birch bark in her. and brown, papery leaves for her wingfeathers. I found a smashed chair in the garage and made the pieces into a skeleton for her. Slats for her ribcage, chair legs for her delicate forearm bones, and the seat for her hips. Then I worked outward, tying everything together with roots twined and knotted together. Roots are what bind her together, binding everything to make a single Angel.
[ feel a little lightheaded. Something's changed. Roots, Roots are beautiful things. The tragedy's that they're almost always buried, down in the earth where no one can see them. The smallest, palest Mowers, blooming upside down in the dark, whispering to each other with no one eise to hear. In my Angel, like everything else here in the shadows, everything works upside down, and for once the roots walk around out in the open, above ground. That's the secret. Here, it's the flowers that work to bind the roots in place.
The aftershocks are finally winding down. The ground loses interest in saying whatever it had to say and trails off, mumbling to itself more and more qui-et!y until the night is silent again.
I hate earthquakes Either they wake you up at three in the morning or they kill you before your eyes are open. I'm always afraid I won't be able to tell which is which before it's too late: whether I'm awake or dead, whether it's the first day of the world or the last.
Outside my windows, morning's breaking and the sky cuts itself on the pieces Dawn turns the sky red in streaks like gashes and they bleed for awhile, but then the white sun finally rises through the fog and the clouds go white again. Gradually, the room goes gray It settles into the routine of morning like the colorless dust on floors and walls. Dust trying to settle in an empty, wooden room.
Someone used to like to say I always "took the weather too personally.' I wonder if I should remember who it was. Whether I take the morning too personally or not, the light helps me evaluate the damage, which is the important thing. The house really doesn't matter, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong that wasn't wrong before. The plaster's still cracked, the pipes are still rusting, the windows still broken. If anything, the earthquake only managed to shake the dust off things It's a tough old house,
The important thing is-aiways the Angel Her wings need new weaving before I lace them back into her shoulders, but first I need to mend that hole in her side. Experimentally, I trace the jagged, splinlery edges of the crack and gently kiss her dust off my fingers. My poor, shaken Angel. It won't hurt long.
What if I can't fix this? For courage, I look down into the perfect curves of her face, to draw balance from her, but instead, I draw only dust. I can hardly recognize her. The fall shifted something in her cheek. Now when she smiles at me, her roots unwoven and exposed, I feel weaker, Weaker and so very tired. Please don't look at me I ike that.
There's also something wrong with her eyes. I made them out of heartwood, the palest, tenderest treasure of the vegetable kingdom. This morning, they're infected with something red, accusing, and feverish, instead of looking softiy at me, they glare It's not my fault. Does her left look darker? Bloodshot as dawn. I wonder what it means for an angel's eyes to go all red in earthquake weather. Something in the air? The delicate fibers in the heartwood chips seem dried out, like fruits left out in the air for too long. Red in heartwood A bad sign, whatever it is. and it needs to be fixed.
It reminds me of how Ceille looked, how red and tired-looking her eyes got when we had the argument and didn't look back. They looked like golden islands in a watery red sea. The first continents must have looked like that, when everything was earthquakes and Atlantis swam on the magma ocean and rain fell for a hundred thousand years I remember thinking, "This must be what real life is like: red and bottomless, brimming over, dilating, afraid to blink."
Ceille. Celatia. That was her name She always used to tease me about taking the weather too personally, getting too nervous when it was just the world,
Now it's my Angel who's crying. It's not my fault. I'd do the crying for her if [ could take the time, but there's too much to do and it's not my fault [ didnt mean to say the wrong thing, Ceille. It just got to where I couldn't keep quiet any more.
I wish [Jd told you sooner.
This Angel of m ine. She may be made of wood, but even broken like this, she's the only angel I have That means something
Whatever happened to Ceille, i wonder. I don't think I ever saw her again, after the gold continents of her eyes got red. I went off to school and woke up every day and made my face and voice work. She wrote me for a few months, but I could never bring myself to open the letters. Finally, I had the accident, and the mail stopped coming
Sometimes, around this time of the evening, the wooden angel reminds me of her,
And I begin to work.
The first parts covering the gaps in her side. As gently as [ can, I unroll her bark skin from the wound's edges and unlatch her rib cage. It slides easily on its hinge; when I first made her, I made sure that I'd be able to adjust her heartstrings whenever I needed to. Ceille taught me that much. Then the work begins, and one by one I knot each of her roots and twigs back into place in the weave of her body. The tremor and the fall knocked whole tissues of her loose and distorted what was left. This will take awhile, but it distracts me from how hurt she is
It's a complicated trade, making things, making people, but its what we Pardoners do. Every one of her now-frayed threads needs to be laced by hand, woven back into the fabric of my Angel, coerced to follow the pattern on its own. Most of these roots and things in here have been dead for a long time, and they've gotten dry and stiff The dry parts don't go out of their way to help you, especially if they're old bits of the weave that have come loose in an earthquake. They need to be coaxed, one by one, gently bent back and ever so slowly re-knotted about one another in the corset of her small Angel's body.
Pardoners. Pardon me. When I was younger, I was always apologizing I took responsibility for everything. Taking the weather personally. It got to be a habit, then a responsibility by itself, even when, really, I wasn't sorry at all. Ceille always used to poke me when I did that. What did she say? "There's a difference between truth and manners." was that it? It doesn't matter. I work for Manners, for the pale ghosts up in the Presidio, and not for not truth.
As the day goes on, the wind picks up outside, and the sky never recovers from being cold and white. Funny, these ghosts of absent weather When you sit still for a bit and listen closely, the wind blows up off the ocean, and no matter how hard it shakes the hous
es and oid, jagged trees it can't blow the fog away. The sky has faultlines, too, and every so often it stumbles up there on the tightrope; ghosts of absent weather.
Finally, her insides are all back in place and I tie the laces of her ribcage tight. Not even scars remain to embarrass her, I owe her that much at least. I crumple up some newspaper headlines I've been saving and fill her empty corners with them, assassinations and wedding attempts. No time for hugs; the most I can manage is to trail my fingers across the memory of her wound- Arm comes next.
She was wrong, that girl Ceille. It's the weather that takes me personally. As I wind the vegetable tendons in her graceful pianist forearm, I can hear this dry ocean wind pour down the streets in gusts, shearing what's left of the seeing, hearing leaves of the elm trees. All around me out there wooden giants are going blind, and the isolation of winter's starting again. Unless they sleep with their roots twined, every one of them is alone now. I'd almost feel sorry for them.
I caught one in the air once. A falling leaf, I just put out my hand and it fell right into my fingers. I'd never caught a leaf on the fall before i felt so proud, turning it over in my fingers to look at it and marvel.
And it was all diseased, infested. There was some kind of fungus in its side that had made it grow a patch of little, tiny centipede legs. A leaf with legs, or hair, or tentacles That was the leaf that I managed to catch in the air, before it even hit the ground.
I braid the tender, new-sprouted roots of her open wrist as carefully as I can, holding every tendril of her Mesh between my fingers as if it were something living, and I look at her face. Her veins, her nerves, the tendons of a cheek muscle to let her smile and sob. When I first made her, I had to weave every thread of angel separately. I worked without rest breaks. I worked without slowing. When I got too exhausted to touch her anymore with my hands, I held her roots between my teeth and nudged them into place with my face, kissing her to perfection.
Other people in my age cohort were always making visits to see their families, their loved ones, anything they'd left behind, f had my wooden angel for all of that I wove her out of the wooden thoughts of plants. and the others struggled and despaired, and now they are all gone and only I remain. But I am a Master Pardoner, and I have perfected my trade. Everything a Pardoner can teach you is woven in my angel's hair
The wind's picking up. You can always tell when the weak joints in the nouses begin to rock, slowly and gentty, and underneath your brain you think you're at sea Strong weather tends to follow earthquakes, which makes sense when you think about it. It's like this new science, ecology: everything's connected, and when you unbalance one piece of it. the others wobble too. I like to think of it as some kind of circus act, tightropes again. Once the seismic plates lose their balance, the tightrope swings wildly, disturbing the other acrobats. At the bottom of the world, everything's roots are connected. For better balancing
I was going to be a writer, you know. In the style of Professor Tolkien at Oxford, and David Lindsay and Mervyn Peake, I was going to make worlds. She was going to be an actress. I never had anything perfect enough to publish before the accident. The Presidio crowd must be hating this weather, though. Especially Brannan; he's always going around saying, "When the wind blows, Cradle will rock." I can see him now. huddled in a packing crate with his money, trying to take it with him just in case. Not the best kind of boss I can think of, but there are worse.
The nice thing about work is that it gives you something to do with your time. Every now and then, they send someone down from the Presidio with a work order: "This manacle seems to be fraying; this thrall's chains need to be let out a bit so it can sleep; could you work this line of thralls into the new buttresses for the Citadel; think about techniques for getting Beacons," Brannan thinks he needs to move his money into a smaller, tighter box. The Spaniard doesn't trust his harbingers any more so he sends a prerecorded oratorio, burning cold and whispery. He wants some pikes.
They all like my chains best, of course. I teamed manacles when I was building my angel out of gathered roots. If you want the deepest secret of manacle-molding, it's there: gather the heartstrings of your thrall and put them in his mouth, and let your thrall chain himself for you. Chains have to work out from the inmost if they're going to work at all They've got to start near the face, I chain all the new acquisitions.
I'm touching up the delicate roots of her face now Reweaving a face is one of the hardest tricks of the trade, harder even than names. There are thousands of roots in any expression, and every single one has to speak with its own voice if you don't want to end up with just another death mask. Anyone can craft a still life. Anyone can map someone's scars and memories. What I do is make dead things that seem to move, to breathe when you're not paying attention.
It takes complete concentration over a period of several days to put a decent face on anything. I tend to charge extra for custom work; "brave" faces, "strong" faces. It's not that t mind the extra effort, but it's distracting, and the request usually goes against the grain of the material.
I love her face, It's my best work, only the best raw ingredients. She reminds me of Ceille. That's ingredients enough.
After awhile the day starts again, but the wind never stops. If anything, it's getting worse. Behind the familiar white of the sky, the clouds look like sore, black bruises forming. Looks like a storm coming soon. All the leaves have fallen.
I'm buried deep in her face, with roots knotted around both hands, vegetable rings on all my fingers, Every contour in her face matters. The way it used to get a little lopsided when she laughed late at night. The way her chin jutted when she talked about her parents Her forehead. Every fiber is the most important thing in the world. You need absolute precision to fix a face, and complete concentration You have to be able to close your eyes and rebuild it from memory. Faces are complicated, mysterious things. When I'm doing one, I don't notice the weather. I don't apologize. You cant afford it on facework.
I'm buried deep in her jawline. where everything comes together, law, neck, earlobe, Hairline and the roots of her teeth. Suddenly, a noise. I turn slightly without realizing it and pull something loose from her throat. It sounds like a scream of some kind, but also like a police siren and like the call of large birds, and then it cries again.
Company?
When I pull out to get the door, I'm stuck in her and she won't let go. Her jaw's snarled around my fingers. I try to disentangle myself, but the roots of her face argue with me, and the siren screams again Let me go, Angel, I'll be back soon. Please.
Something bangs downstairs, but my hands are stuck Crazy thing. Before, alt I could think about was how beautiful Ceille's face was, but I could never let myself get close enough to touch it. Now here I am, and her cheek won't let go. No matter how hard I try to slip out, she won't let go. Finally I'm reduced to yanking my fingers out of her face, one by one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I try not to look, but I know she's watching me with those red eyes. Masses of half-knitted root flesh rip out with my fingers.
Another bang. No time to cry, no time to fix things. I wedge the door open and it's one of Brannan"s Greenback messengers, wearing his Crown of Thorns and Brannan's colors. The faded, almost-yellow green the shade of collectors paper dollars, trimmed in much darker green for Emerald Legion; the color of shadows cast by leaves in sunlight He looks like he's in a hurry. Young. The house moans with the wind, but somehow he manages to stand tall. The weather doesn't affect him, but he's letting it into my house.
He touches a finger to the point of his Crown of Thorns in salute, and I tug at the Pardoners' banded chain on my arm in return, my fingers still a mass of knotted roots. I look like I'm sprouting. I wonder what they want in the Presidio now. Surgical tools? Bayonets?
He glances at me and into the house and gets a little skittish All the Presidio errand boys do that. There seems to be something invisible on the walls that only he can see", and he develops a kind of tic, always d
arting his head about. Nod. jerk his head to check behind him. as if he's heard something. Smile, glance down in horror to check out his feet Wasteful use of one's time. And energy The harbingers always remind me of magpies.
He starts with the usual preamble and steals another minute of my working time. I wish he'd hurry up. He's stilted, pretentious, and even a bit arrogant around the mouth, but not in any way of which he's self-conscious. Of course.
Shoddy face-work it looks like he did it himself. I could fix that around the mouth. All it needs is to pull his lip back a bit on this side, give him a little humility.
"Brannan the Shopkeeper, LXIVth Hegemon of the Legion of Thorns, Thane of the Inflators. Greenback Despot and True Founder of the Dominion of San Francisco, sends this message to Malone, Master in the Guild of Pardons. In Charon, all."
In what must have become a sleepwalker habit, he pulls the black leather collar of his uniform open and shows me the brands on his throat. I've seen it before and nod, go ahead. He gives his message. Apparently a party of old-time Temperance workers managed to escape from the Winchester House up in San Jose and got caught trying to hook up with Lo Ma Cameron's people near Chinatown, Needless to say, "Greenback" Brannan wants only the best manacles to graft onto his new "investments." The best for his money.
None of this matters to me. Brannan and the others get their toys, and they leave me alone. But now, I've got an angel's face drying in my fingers, and the errand boy goes on, listing the members of the Winchester group, their marks, visible signs of child-bearing on one of the females, and I catch myself noticing that none of this matters to me. Is this a bad thing? f think it used to bother me when things like this didn't matter. He seems to be winding down so I force myself to pay attention. ". . . Terms of payment satisfactory. [ can't ask you to labor on the Sabbath of course, so you can start measuring for the bridles tomorrow night, or as it suits you. Yrs, Samuel Brannan, Hegemon so on, so forth. Message ends."