Viscera

by Gabriel Squailia

  “And if you do have any extra coin, be shy about it until it’s spent. It’s not that there’s thieving, much—but if you’re anything like me, you’ll help your friends until you’ve nothing left to eat with. Where did you say you were from, again?”

  The new girl, whose name he kept forgetting, opened her mouth to speak—then shut it, ducking into the doorway of Mr. Rue’s.

  Rafe was about to scold her when he saw what she’d seen and backed in beside her, just in time.

  Six men with scab-brown helmets were hauling a bent boy down the street. His mouth was bloody, his eyes purple and swollen, his breasts yanked out of his top.

  Rafe’s stomach churned. He pressed into the shadows, trembling.

  When the guards were gone, the new girl clasped him to her chest, her heart thumping in his ear. “It’s all right,” Rafe told her, squeezing her hard before he let her go, as much to comfort himself as her. “It happens, even here. If they come for you, just run, and if they catch you I’m sorry,” he said, but then he stopped talking, because she hadn’t taken her hands away.

  She was rubbing his back, her long arms reaching down over his shoulders. There was a strange intensity to the action. It didn’t seem sexual, but nor did she seem to be afraid any longer.

  Maybe it was a custom where she was from, some way of showing thanks. Not wishing to be rude, he reached up behind and touched her the same way—then froze when he felt the nubs on her shoulder-blades.

  Stubs, really.

  He could feel the jagged edges where whatever had stuck out had been cut off.

  Or ripped.

  She opened her mouth, moving her throat like she was trying to coax her voice along. It never came, but he heard her all the same, in a faraway sing-song.

  Those were my wings.

  “Oh,” he said, grinning as he backed away. “Well, there’s all kinds at Mrs. Dallow’s! I’m sure no one will look at them funny, if you decide to show your body. And I—I don’t do that, myself. Folk will give you space in the bath, if you ask for it.”

  What a long night this had become. He just wanted to put his face in Gingerbeard’s hair and breathe a while.

  “Let’s go, yeah? We’ll be safe inside.”

  Rafe felt better as soon as the boarding house was in sight. The front door was crooked, its stone doorstep so old that it sagged almost to the street in the middle. There were chipped flower boxes in the windows above, all overflowing with butts and bottles. Someone inside was singing an aria—beautifully, but at a volume so high that it must have annoyed anyone in the rooms adjacent.

  “Here we are, then: Mrs. Dallow’s Cut-Rate Boarding House! The finest sanctuary for bent folk in all of Eth, or at least the finest that orphans like us can afford. All right, I’ll tell you the bad news first: it’s noisy, and someone’s always bringing in lice. But it’s warm, always, because it’s built right on a stone-vent from the catacombs. Keeps your toes from getting cold at night, but you will get sticky as summer candy—another of Gingerbeard’s phrases. Sorry, I’m smitten, I guess you can tell! You’ll meet them presently.” Rafe remembered when the pronoun had seemed strange to him, and looked back to see if she was confused. “You met any twains yet? No? Gingerbeard is crosswise, like us, but—different. Different from me, anyhow. They’re neither man nor woman, unless it’s a night when they’re both, and those are my favorite kind. We call Gingerbeard ‘they,’ anyway, and some from abroad aren’t used it, and think we’re speaking of multiple people. But here, let’s go in and find them.”

  But the new girl wouldn’t go. She just stood on the corner, staring at the building like it might hurt her to enter.

  “Come on! It’s safe inside, and warm.”

  She shook her head, and pursed her red lips tight.

  “You have to,” he said. “It’s not safe here.”

  Maybe he was still high. The word seemed to have lost its meaning.

  Safe. Safe. Safe. Safe.

  She was moving her throat again.

  I’m not like you.

  “Of course you are! A girl to my boy, naturally, but I see you. ‘Like knows like, love.’ That’s another—” He stopped, stepping across the alley, squinting at her face, which seemed to be changing, though he couldn’t say how.

  “Was I wrong? Are you not—bent? Like me? Crosswise?”

  That word has no place here.

  A thought struck him as he noticed how smooth she’d become. No shadow of stubble darkened her lip now. Maybe she’d been taking her Esther, which meant she did have coin. And the poverty put distance between them, because if anyone had ever been dying to take his Tester, it was Rafe.

  Esther and Tester, that’s what Gingerbeard called them. One makes you softer and one makes you rougher, and neither can we afford, my love.

  However spoiled she might be, though, he couldn’t just leave her here. Not with those helmeted monsters roaming.

  Rafe had a wicked idea.

  “Look,” he shouted, pointing behind her, “the guards are coming back!”

  It was cruel, but effective. She scurried in, and he followed.

  She was staring up at the walls in the lobby, and he remembered doing the same, once. Everyone who landed at Mrs. Dallow’s was asked to tell about themselves on a big piece of paper, and the joke was that no one ever told the truth—so there were pictures, stories, and made-up songs about all sorts of faraway lands and lost titles. Some had even made certificates of origin. The entry room was plastered with papers, each one stuck up haphazardly with paste, and Rafe was just about to explain the custom to the new girl when he saw.

  She was rubbing her back against the wall, like her stumps were itching, and all the papers were coming down.

  It was raining castles and princes in gowns.

  He stepped toward her.

  “Are you all right?”

  I need help.

  “How can I help?”

  Ask Little Gem.

  Rafe felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t remember telling her about Little Gem.

  He must have forgotten. It must have been the drugs. He must have been getting confused, because they were upstairs already, outside of the bathroom, and he couldn’t remember climbing those creaky steps.

  Don’t worry.

  “Right.”

  So they went into the bathroom.

  Little Gem was there, in the tub, naked.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” he said.

  It was even harder for Little Gem to have her clothes off in front of people than it was for Rafe.

  Ask her.

  The new girl put her hands on his shoulder-blades and gave him a push.

  Rafe didn’t want to be rude to either of them.

  Ask her how to help me.

  His skin felt tight. It felt like he’d forgotten how to say no.

  “Gemmie?”

  All he could see was her brown back bent over in that deep, deep tub.

  Something had been drawn on her skin.

  A door.

  “Gemmie, love, I need to help—what was your name again?”

  “Let her touch your back,” said Little Gem, her voice oddly raspy, like she’d been screaming all night.

  It bothered him that he hadn’t seen Little Gem’s face. She was curled around something, or someone.

  “Let her touch your bare back,” said Little Gem.

  This Rafe truly didn’t want to do.

  But he pulled his clothes off, feeling the pit of his stomach burning.

  “All right,” he told the new girl, “you go ahead.”

  Then he must have gotten confused again, because he was up high, his arms tied to the ceiling. He looked down at his body, feeling that awful rush that always came when he could see his breasts, rising into panic now because there were people around.

  “This isn’t right,” he said, hating his high, plaintive whine as it echoed through the room.

  “It’s what she needs,” rasped Little Gem, her voice e
choing up from all the way down on the floor.

  Rafe could see into the tub from where he hung. It was deep, very deep, and it seemed like it was getting wider. There was room for both of them in there, Little Gem and the wiry woman she was cradling in her arms.

  She was broad-cheeked, dark-skinned, with a gray mess of hair that was months overdue for a braiding.

  His flesh prickled as he realized that he knew her.

  He’d killed her.

  In the farmhouse.

  She was his, he saw. His very own unquiet dead. She’d be with him always, following him from place to place.

  That bothered him. Not that she was haunting him—that part he deserved.

  It bothered him because that killing had happened in a world apart from this one, a colder, wetter place, full of trees.

  Which meant that none of this was real.

  The boarding house. Little Gem. Mrs. Dallow. All of it had gone away from him, and he couldn’t remember why.

  The new girl, very tall, her limbs and neck spindly and strange, touched his back. Her hand was wet.

  She was washing him, with soap. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t stop it.

  He looked down at the floor. The tub was gone, and the ghost from the farmhouse was sitting on a stool. Little Gem sat behind her, both hands on her back, staring up at Rafe.

  “She’s better at it than me,” said Little Gem.

  She had gold buttons for eyes.

  Tiny men were dancing on their faces.

  “Better at what?” he called down.

  “Lookit.”

  Little Gem was pointing.

  Rafe looked.

  The woman from the farmhouse was pulling paper streamers out of her arm, red and rustling, leftovers from the Second Masque. They were tumbling into a bucket on the floor.

  There were so many, and the new girl was kissing his back. It didn’t feel right. Nothing did.

  “Gemmie?”

  Something had begun to worry him.

  “Gemmie, where’s Gingerbeard?”

  She gave a rattling sigh, and climbed out of the tub.

  “Everywhere,” she said.

  There was something wrong with Little Gem’s arms.

  “Where’s Gingerbeard?” Rafe said again.

  “All around,” said Little Gem, gesturing. Her arms were slashed open from elbow to wrist.

  He was starting to remember.

  It made him angry. He’d intended not to dwell on such things.

  Behind him, the new girl made a sound like ughhhhh. She’d stepped in something, and she took her hands off his back to scrape it off her shoe.

  “Stop fucking around, Gemmie,” he shouted.

  “Lookit.”

  Little Gem pointed down.

  Rafe saw what the new girl had stepped in.

  It was Gingerbeard.

  There were pieces of them everywhere.

  The pieces formed a trail, and the trail led out of the room.

  Rafe struggled against his ropes. He had to get down and collect them, or he’d never be able to put Gingerbeard back together.

  But Rafe couldn’t get free. The new girl had opened her mouth wide and started licking his back, far down on the left side. Her tongue was cool and moved slowly, deliberately, up toward his neck.

  The ghost sighed. She’d filled one bucket, then called for another.

  But Rafe was looking past her, into the room he shared with Gingerbeard, number 17, where the lights were off.

  It wasn’t empty.

  “There you are,” he whispered, relieved.

  Gingerbeard would get him down from here.

  “Hello, lovely,” Rafe called.

  Gingerbeard, silhouetted by the light outside, turned their head.

  They’d been looking down at the street, and now they were looking up at Rafe.

  Their hair was up, all bushy and curly.

  It would smell sweet and musky at once, like curried honey, and he couldn’t wait to put his face in it and breathe.

  Although they stood in darkness, Rafe could tell from the cut of their dress what they were wearing. It was the one with the purple flowers, the one Mr. Rue made. The two of them had nicked the fabric from the curtains of a house that burned down on Lank Street half a year ago.

  My smoky lilac, Rafe had called them the first night they wore it.

  But the dress was sagging tonight. Gingerbeard had a substantial body, and it was Rafe’s greatest joy to wrestle it around. Now, though, they barely filled out the purple fabric, because of how much the—

  “Fuck,” whispered Rafe.

  —because of how much the guards had left on the ground when they executed them on the corner.

  They’d never come to bed last night.

  Gingerbeard was walking toward the light.

  Could hardly even tell who it was.

  Worth risking quakes, to those pig-fuckers.

  To make an example.

  Of all of us.

  Rafe closed his eyes, fixing his mind on the ghost from the farmhouse. If she was here, then none of this was happening.

  Which meant that Gingerbeard wasn’t here.

  Rafe would not see them.

  Rafe would not remember this.

  It worked, somehow. When Rafe opened his eyes, room 17 was gone.

  Not the new girl, though. She was still behind him, and her tongue had traced an archway up from his left side to a point between his shoulder blades, then down again, all the way down on the right.

  A door, like Little Gem’s.

  It didn’t tickle any more. It stung.

  Then it tugged, like the new girl was sliding her hands into his flesh and pulling the door open.

  “She’ll climb inside,” rasped Little Gem. “She’ll be safe there, snuggled up in your chest. That’s how you can help her. She’ll sleep in you, and her wings will grow.”

  “Stop,” he said, or tried to say, and something about the sound of his own voice made him frightened.

  It wasn’t like the other noises in the dream. This one was real.

  He tried it again. “Stop.”

  It came out like a wheeze from behind him. It had nothing to do with his mouth or throat.

  He struggled to open his eyes.

  Light came through, a little.

  It was enough to motivate him.

  He pushed his tongue between his teeth and bit, hard.

  The pain helped. His eyelids wavered up, offering him a blurry slice of the world past his dream.

  This wasn’t the boarding house. It was some wide, flickering chamber, full of animals and bric-a-brac.

  Little Gem was gone, and the new girl, and Gingerbeard, for which he was grateful. But the ghost of the woman he’d killed in the farmhouse was here, sitting on a stool, bleeding into a bucket.

  Her arm was open, not the sort of slice you made to keep your desire to die at bay, but the kind you made when you had finally decided to embrace it—a long, confident cut between the tendons.

  The kind that had carried Little Gem away in the boarding house bathtub.

  The ghost looked bored. Her blood had slowed to a trickle, which seemed to irk her. “Some more here, Umber.”

  A deflated brown bear came shuffling to her side, bringing a tray of tea and cakes. She nodded her thanks, shoving one cake after another into her mouth, swallowing them quickly, not stopping to chew. The sustenance seemed to replenish her arteries, though not her energy. Her blood came gushing back as she kept on chewing, looking like she might take a nap now.

  But she was startled by another voice.

  It was Jassa’s.

  Suddenly Rafe remembered more than he cared to.

  “Ah!” Jassa cried, helplessly, like a dog chasing a rabbit in a dream.

  With great effort, Rafe shoved his pupils to the corners of his eyes.

  Jassa was hanging from the ceiling, too, her bare ass to him. A tall woman stood behind her, painting on her back with a brush.


  He could tell the woman was crosswise, just barely—like knows like. She was beautiful, in presentation still more than in form, and he found himself aching at the sight of her.

  Not because he wanted her. Because it had been so very long since he’d been among his people.

  Yet something gave him pause about associating her with Little Gem, Gingerbeard, and the rest. Maybe it was the clear understanding he suddenly had that she would have had nothing to do with any of them at the boarding house, since they were the grubbiest possible sort of bent orphans and she was some sort of forest queen.

  But then, maybe the distance he felt had nothing to do with being bent at all. Maybe it was because of what she was—doing.

  She dipped her paintbrush in ink that seemed somehow too black, and started to paint a door on Jassa’s back. It was a trapdoor, and she sang to it, a pretty melody in some dusty-sounding language he’d never heard before. The ink began to hiss, and the door swung slowly down and open, showing him the white tips of Jassa’s severed ribs peeking out amidst her muscle.

  The ink that lined the doorway flashed, though it was a flash that took light out of the room, not in. Rafe was blinded, for a moment, by that too-black darkness, and from the ghost’s muttering it sounded like the others were, too.

  When Rafe found he could see again, Jassa’s back was cut neatly open, lying flat like one of those beds that swung down from the wall in Mrs. Dallow’s tiniest rooms—pansy-pantries, she’d called them. That’s where Rafe had hidden himself away after Gingerbeard’s murder, at least until the tlak had run out, but he’d found a sort of claustrophobic comfort there that was entirely lacking in the swung-down trapdoor of Jassa’s back.

  It was a plank of raw meat, and her organs were lying atop it in a tidy little bundle.

  Steam was rising off them.

  Like a red loaf of bread.

  Rafe couldn’t stop staring.

  Because whatever had been done to her had been done to him, too. He could feel it, the weight of his openness pressing down behind him, the lack of breath and pulse in the cavity of his chest, the dizzy wrongness that somehow hadn’t killed him. Wherever his mind might have gone, whenever he might have escaped to, all this was really happening, and the carnage at the boarding house had passed. That one had led to the other was undeniable, but he struggled to keep himself here, in the present—and to survive.