by Ka Newborrn
She knew it wasn’t what the girl meant, but she didn’t care. And why would she? With the trees always boring their yellow eyes into her back, why should she speak at all? Shivering, she pulled her woolen shawl tightly around her shoulders and rose from the hollowed oak. The riverbed warbled between her toes.
“Are you ready for the birds, child?”
She nodded.
Elspeth called into the night sky with a polished agate recorder. A cloud of bird elves flocked to the riverbank in response. They carried a purple towel in their beaks.
Gemstones leaked from her spiraling coils as she emerged from the jet black water. She draped herself with the towel and patted down her hair and skin. Her caramel skin flushed with carmine in the night wind as she patted her herself dry.
Sitting down, she dabbed violet oil behind her knees and stained her cheeks and mouth with pomegranate seeds. She arched her back and allowed Elspeth to massage some of the oil into her hair and secure the loosened bits of pearl and crystal. The bird elves laid out a white peasant blouse, a pair of faded jeans and her favorite necklace, a moonstone pendant carved into the shape of a hummingbird. She slipped on the garments and lifted her hair. Elspeth fastened the necklace.
The bird elves frolicked as she devoured a plate of root vegetables and a glass of mead. They rocked their tail feathers along the ground and flew in a playful circle dance.
“The trip to Earth.” She looked up at the sky. “The stars. The planets. It does fill something inside.”
“You have everything you could possibly imagine right here.”
A lone bird elf abandoned his dance, perched himself upon her left shoulder and slowly licked her face. She winced and brushed him away.
"But it's unsettling."
In the distance, a thread of silver trailed across the sky. It rose from the pastoral valleys of Phialind, cruised westward towards the iridescent skyscrapers of Barterlind, and glided southward into the oat-colored flatlands of Sceptrelind, where it coasted amid a cluster of unassuming homes. But that was temporary. It would crest into Glaivelind Forest before morning, when it was time.
“It’s only a feeling. It isn’t real. Close your eyes to it.”
“The way you did?”
“Feed on it. Fill yourself. Let it nourish you.”
“Like a parasite draining a host?”
Elspeth held her tongue as they sat together and listened to the sky. The girl was right. She had closed her eyes to it and was subsequently enslaved by blindness.
It wasn’t so bad, really.
At least there was safety in it.
SCEPTRELIND
1991
Lilith
“Shit!”
Lilith stared in disbelief as the left heel of her red suede boots snapped off in a jagged patch of cobblestones a few yards from the Myling family residence in Sceptrelind.
She hadn’t expected rain, especially the likes of this, streaming down the sides of her face and saturating her smartly-tailored, loden green cashmere coat. Her fragrance was alluring, much like that of a wet dog. She pushed her sopping hair out of her face and turned up the collar, but the coat remained lifeless and soggy.
On a day like today, she observed while gazing at the blanket of grey sky, Barterlind would be flooded with hover cars. Sceptrelind was so hickish.
She bent down to retrieve her heel from the angry, pointy-sharp cobblestone teeth. Spotting it, she wrenched it free and shoved it into her pocket. “Nine hundred bucks for these fuckers and the heel snaps off after two days,” she growled silently. The cobblestones growled back. Her stomach chimed in harmoniously.
Just two days before, when Lilith and Ester had been interviewed tandemly, a live audience of squealing fans had admired these very boots. She had managed to hide her jaded nature behind an impeccably groomed exterior. She had listened politely while her younger, up and coming colleague described her rudimentary experiences.
The same impeccability extended to her etiquette, ensuring a careful tongue when placed in front of an adoring audience. No one would guess that she was paying Ester Myling’s parents a visit with the intention of telling them that their daughter was in trouble and needed to get the fuck out of this business before it was too late.
It was a tradeoff and an unfair one at that. It was a ruse designed to thwart your attention from the fact that you were being cheated out of your mind and your body. All the castles, loden green cashmere coats and red suede boots in the cosmos were insufficient compensation.
She had sensed something different about Ester as soon as they started working together. The universe didn’t revolve around the thoughtful young woman. She was a fragment of it. A rare, bright and precious one. Lilith respected this and instinctively wanted to protect it.
Staying in the Luminatrix business would be suicide for Ester. Lilith felt certain of this. During the interview, Ester had described an unfinished series of Earth cases. She was too sensitive for such a heavy load and would most likely snap, much like her nine hundred dollar kicks. Hjulder would be only too happy overlook this casualty in exchange for two cents’ worth of evolutionary insight. That was a steep price to pay for someone else’s cheap shot. The sooner she put an end to it, the better.
She glanced down at the address scribbled on the waterlogged strip of paper, then looked back up at the house. 7 Storyville Lane appeared smaller and lonelier than she had anticipated. She cursed again, knowing that it would be damn near impossible to make a good impression while wearing wet cashmere. Lightning flashed, followed by a lagging, distant thunder clap as she approached the unadorned front door, which was the color of sun bleached bones. She hesitated then knocked, gathering up what remained of her dignity and courage.
She waited nearly thirty seconds without a response. “Hello?” She cupped her hand to a window just to the right of the door. “Mrs. Myling?” She waited a few seconds and knocked again, but again nobody came. She tentatively turned the knob and was surprised to find that the door yielded and slowly creaked open.
Another lightning bolt sliced the night sky as Lilith stepped into the doorway. “Hello?” She stepped out of her boots and waited for a response. “Mrs. Myling?”
The house was dark except for the flickering light from a blaring television in a room off the hallway. Lilith peeled off her coat and hung it on the rack next to the door. Holding her elbows in apprehension, she took a few steps forward and peered into the room. She was suddenly face to face with herself.
“Tonight’s rebroadcast is an evening with Lilith Brisbane, Hjulder’s best and brightest, and Ester Myling, a rising new star with an exciting career ahead.” The host’s voice was at once presentational and vapid. It belonged to Clyde Briberis, a popular tabloid reporter from Barterlind, and it was a voice Lilith would recognize anywhere. He had been a stage actor at one time but started covering news stories when the theater fell out of vogue about two decades before. He was the vainest man that Lilith had ever encountered. Which was saying something. Before the cameras started rolling, he barked at his crew for a solid hour until he was convinced that his hair, makeup, lighting and camera angles were spot on.
In the light from the television screen, Lilith could make out the kitchen from the hallway. The cold tile felt good beneath her feet, which were still burning from the pinch of her silly boots. She groped around the wall until she located a light switch. There was a note on the counter.
Back in two weeks, Lumen. Please water the plants and fetch the mail.
She opened the refrigerator and peered inside. A sizable platter was covered with tin foil. She lifted a corner of the foil. Underneath, she found a roasted chicken with cornbread dressing and gravy. Her eyes lit up. Her stomach screamed.
“I always admired you, Lilith, from the time I was a little girl,” Ester’s canned voice chirped from the family room. Lilith looked through the wooden bars of the kitchen partition to catch a glimpse of the program. “Your appearance does not precede your accomplishments. Yet here
you are, so beautiful!”
Lilith pushed her dripping, matted hair from her face and scowled. She should’ve never worn a tank top and red jeans to the interview. Despite the fact that a tailor had sewn the side pockets of the pants down to make her figure look narrower and her bones were sticking out everywhere, she looked like a bona fide hippo in front of the camera.
“When I was a little girl I begged my mom to let me have seaweed and mushrooms for dinner just like you!” Ester gushed in fangirl mode. “Do you still run for two hours each day? Are you still into inversion therapy?”
Lilith set the platter of chicken onto the counter. She pulled off a drumstick and brought it to her nose, inhaling. Six biscuits were lying in a plastic bag behind the space in the refrigerator where the platter had been. She snatched up the bag and set it next to the platter.
“Yes, please share your secrets for staying fit,” Clyde grinned, staring at Lilith’s breasts. Earlier that year, three hooligans had roughed him up in front of a popular bar in Phialind and knocked out four of his teeth. Lilith heard the scuffle outside and ran out to see what had happened. The perpetrators had scattered when she came out onto the sidewalk. Maybe she had screamed, maybe not. She only remembered kneeling beside him on the concrete and observing his mangled, bleeding mouth. “Wiwif!” he had cried in way she found grotesquely comical. “My teef! Fine a fucker a fucked up my teef!”
A large clump of cornbread dressing fell from the chicken and onto the counter. Lilith stared at it and tried to determine how many calories it contained.
“I fight tooth and nail for it, Clyde.” She raised an eyebrow and winked. She caught him off guard with the comment, but he recovered his capped smile with a quickness. His profile was at a perfect angle in the lighting, which was positioned at the sides and from the back to give him a subtle ethereal quality not afforded his guests. He smoothed the side of his hair with his hand and began again.
“Tell us about your latest cases, ladies. Lilith, we’ll start with you.”
“Ester should go first.” Lilith heard her voice drift from the television set. “I’ve been through so many before. I’d like to hear a fresh perspective.”
Forty calories. Fifty, tops. The dressing was greasy, and a far cry from the raw vegan diet that she preferred. She might allow herself to make sparing exceptions, but chicken was just plain wrong.
A chicken wasn’t an animal that Lilith would typically choose to consume. They were full of yellow fat and their skin was pocked and rubbery. Nor could you enjoy their blood. It was poison, everybody knew that.
Deer and elk, on the other hand, were creatures she might consider. They ran free in the wild with graceful, lilting energy. They were lean, sinewy and full of the spirit of the forest. The taste of their blood would nourish more than just her body; she could relate to the shapes of their souls.
“Lilith! Lilith!” the audience roared. She brushed her hands on her red, tailored jeans and slyly pushed the younger girl in front of the camera.
Maybe just a biscuit, she thought. They had been stored separately from the roast chicken, but not really. Biscuits were made with chicken eggs. Egg yolks were brimming with fat. Egg whites were brimming with mucous. But, supposing for the sake of supposing you were breaking it down to percentages. Eggs were only a binding ingredient, perhaps fifteen percent of the composition, if that. Biscuits were mainly flour and salt.
“I know how everyone likes a juicy love story, but I really don’t have a romantic case to speak of just yet.” Ester’s voice was timid yet confident amid the barreling crowd. “But I’m still working on the Jana Case. She wasn’t ready to accept me. I have to finish it.”
Salt wasn’t really an issue. Despite the hoopla about sodium restricted diets, salt was a friend to anyone with a raw foods lifestyle because it helped one’s body maintain a steady mineral balance, and, when consumed with adequate fluids, prevented the onset of dehydration. Coarsely ground, non-iodized sea salt was best, of course, but that flour. It was white.
Clyde’s powdered face perspired with lust. “Tell me more about this Jana Case,” he said, raising a penciled eyebrow, “and why you didn’t invite me to watch.” Lilith felt her cheeks darken. Despite herself, she actually felt embarrassed for him.
All of the nutrients in white flour had been bleached away, leaving just a sticky, intestine-clogging paste behind, but at least it was wheat. Wheat was a grain and therefore passable in tiny amounts, although generally not allowed when adhering to a raw foods regimen. She could make an exception.
Ester remained patient. “As I said earlier, the context wasn’t romantic, but it’s a very important case. Others were involved. A man named Lasse. A woman named Margaret. They’re all connected to my future.”
Except for the fact that wheat was the most indigestible grain there was, and if she were to make an exception for grain, the only tolerable ones would be oat groats, quinoa or millet.
“What did you say was the purpose of being there, again?” Clyde was losing interest. He caught a glimpse of his refection in a monitor and tilted his head.
Her favorite way to enjoy oat groats was by crushing them and blending them with herbal coffee substitute, agave syrup and ice to make a smoothie. She could make an exception for oat groats, but these biscuits were made of white flour. White flour was difficult to justify, but it was wheat. Wheat was a grain and thereby passable in small amounts, and while it was generally not allowed in a raw foods regimen she could make an exception. Wait a minute. Hadn’t she just gone over this in her head? It had turned out to not be alright, right?
“Well, that’s just it. I’m not finished with the Jana Case yet, but it’s going to be prolific.”
“Earth mama Jana?” Clyde was condescending.
“That’s right,” Ester said evenly.
“What about Margaret and Lasse? Will they be important cases, too?”
“No. But their children will be.”
“Heavy!” Clyde pursed his lips.
“The Joseph Case,” Lilith snapped, irritated by the way the smug, third-rate actor-turned-douchebag was treating Ester. “I lived in his house for eleven months. He stayed in the basement all the time working on chemical experiments. He forbade me to go down there because his projects were top secret. He hardly ever came upstairs. He said he didn’t need a job because he’d invested his lab tech earnings in the stock market and turned a giant profit.”
Chicken or biscuits, biscuits or chicken? At times like these it was best to simplify it to protein or carbohydrates. Cruciferous complex carbohydrates won over fatty animal protein every time, but then again, lean game was leagues ahead of the gluey white starch of simple carbohydrates. “Fuck!” Lilith snatched up the drumstick and bit into it greedily. The grease spread like a virus on her clean tongue and stormed her senses like a sniper’s bullet.
“One day, Joseph’s friend, Peter, stopped by the house. He brushed past me and went into the basement where Joseph was, despite my protesting. I could hear them arguing; it was intense and angry. It worried me, so I opened the door a crack and yelled down the steps to see if everything was okay. Joseph snapped at me. He said they were fine and told me to drive to the store to pick up something for dinner. I hadn’t planned on going out; we lived in a rural area and the closest grocery store was ten miles away. Anyway, I got into the car and drove to the market. I took my time picking out food. I wasn’t looking forward to coming back to a fight.”
She ran out of the kitchen and down the hallway until she came to the bathroom. A digital scale decorated with a fluffy pink cover lay on the floor. She stepped on it and waited for the results to register. 108. She stepped off and tried five seconds later. 108.5.
It had to be a mistake. The drumstick was the only thing she had eaten all day. Her penultimate meal of thirty-and-one-half kernels of popcorn had been consumed the evening before. A carefully rationed amount of popcorn could never cause a weight gain overnight, but it was salted popcorn, and the sodiu
m could contribute to water retention. However, salt was your friend on a raw foods diet. The minerals were important, but popcorn wasn’t raw and didn’t require mineral supplementation, so now she was paying for the thrill of the moment. Additionally, she really hadn’t needed the extra half kernel; she had told herself that at the time. The thrill and the salt were both long gone, but here she was, consequently overweight some twenty-four hours later with no one to blame but herself. She stripped naked and stepped back on the scale. 106. She turned the scale forty-five degrees to the right and tried again. 105.5.
Hot tears streamed down her face as she put her clothes back on and wandered back into the kitchen. The chicken basked in the spotlight of the counter as the television audience clapped. Lilith sniffed it longingly. Then she carefully replaced the aluminum foil and returned the platter back to the refrigerator. Holding her stomach, she walked to the family room and collapsed wearily into the couch. She stared at the television and tried to ignore her fatigue.
“When I arrived back at the house about an hour and a half later, Peter’s truck was still in front of the house. I went to the basement door and called out to Joseph. He said he was busy. I made dinner. A half hour later, he came up the steps. I asked him if Peter was staying for dinner. He told me that Peter had run off after the argument. So I asked him why Peter's truck was still in front of the house. He stammered a bit, then told me Peter had a few shots of whiskey and was too drunk to drive. Joseph drove off in Peter’s car later on that night. He came back on foot, when I was almost asleep. When the police came by a few days later, they told us that they had found Peter’s body a few miles away, and wondered if we knew anything about it. Joseph stammered again, but they had a search warrant. He tried to keep them from going down into the basement, but they pushed past him anyway. They found his meth lab and a good deal of Peter’s blood. They took him away in handcuffs. I never saw him again.”
Lilith laughed wryly as she sank deeper into the Myling’s couch and reached into her pocket for a vial of cocaine. She collected a bit with a practiced scoop of her pinky finger and snorted.