by Marjorie Liu
It was a good life for Lucy and Barnabus, a happy life. A life together, a grand adventure, and one that lasted many moons, over many secret stories—each as sweet and golden as honey.
I had to write about a honeymoon from hell (yes, that was the assigned theme), but when this story was first released, astute readers probably noticed the honeymoon part was sort of . . . jammed . . . in there. I wasn’t interested in honeymoons. I was interested in heartbreak, and what happens when someone who has never experienced love and family begins to let those two things into their life—how it makes a person vulnerable, but also stronger than they’ve ever been.
That openness to love was a running theme in my Dirk & Steele paranormal romance series, about a “detective agency” that acts as a cover for supernatural creatures who use their powers to help others—as well as build a community built on trust and friendship. I so enjoyed writing those novels, which was how I got started as an author: the first book I sold when I was just twenty-four years old was Tiger Eye, the beginning of the series.
In the Dirk & Steele universe, it didn’t matter if you were human, merman, or witch; a shape-shifter, or a gargoyle: learning how to trust in love, be open to love from others . . . and to love in return . . . was the scariest thing of all.
“Where the Heart Lives” takes place many, many decades before the beginning of the series—here is the origin of the Dirk & Steele detective agency, and its founding principles of friendship and family.
After the Blood
Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
And lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips . . .
—PABLO NERUDA
I didn’t have time to grab my coat. Only shoes and the shotgun. I had gone to sleep with the fanny pack belted to my waist, so the shells were on hand, and jangled as I ran. I had forgotten they would make noise. Not that it mattered.
No moon. Slick gravel and cold rain on my face. Neighbor’s dogs were barking, and I wished they would shut up, but they didn’t, and I kept expecting one of them to make the strangled yip sound like Pete-Pete had, out in the woods where I couldn’t ever find his body. I missed him bad, nights like these. So did the cats.
The cowbell was ringing when I reached the gate, and I heard a loud thud: a hoof striking wood. Chains rattled. I raised the shotgun, ready.
“They’re coming,” whispered a strained voice, murmuring something else in his old Pennsylvania Dutch that I couldn’t understand. “Amanda?”
“Here,” I muttered. “Hurry.”
Hinges creaked, followed by the soft tread of hooves and wheels rolling over gravel. Slow, too slow. I dug in my heels, hearing something else in the darkness: a hacking cough, wet and raw.
“Steven,” I warned.
“We’re through,” he said.
I pulled the trigger, gritting my teeth against the recoil. The muzzle flash generated a brief light—enough to glimpse a hateful set of eyes. And then, almost in the same instant, I heard a muffled scream. I fired again, just for good measure.
Steven slammed into the gate. I ran to help him set the lock—one-handed, shotgun braced against my hip. I heard more coughs—deeper, masculine—and got bathed in the scent of rotten meat and shit. All those unclean mouths, breathing on me from the other side of the fence. A rock whistled past my ear. I threw one back with all my strength. Steven dragged me away.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, breathless—and gave the boy a hard look, his body faintly visible, even in the darkness. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Steven let go. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard him stumble back to the horses. I almost stopped him, needing an answer almost as much as I feared one—but I smelled something else in that moment.
Charred meat.
I stood on my toes and reached inside the wagon. Felt a blanket, and beneath, a leg.
When? I wanted to ask, but my voice wouldn’t work. I clung to the edge of the wagon, needing something to lean on, but that lasted only until Steven began leading the horses up the driveway. I followed, uneasy—trying to ignore the sounds of rocks hitting the fence and those raw, hacking coughs that quieted into whines. Sounded like dogs crawling on their stomachs, begging not to be beaten. Made me think of Pete-Pete again. My palms were sweaty around the shotgun.
Steven remained silent until we reached the house. Lamplight flickered through the windows, which were crowded with feline faces pressed against the glass. It felt good to see again. Steven dropped the reins and walked to the back of the wagon. He was a couple inches taller than me, and slender in the shoulders. Just a teen, clean-shaven, wearing a dark, wide-brimmed hat. His suspenders were loose, and his pants ended well above his ankles. A pair of old tennis shoes clung precariously to his feet.
“They hurt him bad,” said the boy, unlatching the backboard. “Even though he saved their lives.”
“He didn’t fight back?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
Steven gave me a bitter look. “They called him a devil.”
Called him other things, too, I guessed. But that couldn’t be helped. We had all expected this, one way or another. Only so long a man could keep secrets while living under his family’s roof.
I tried to hand my gun to the boy. He stared at the weapon as though it were a live snake, and put his hands behind his back.
“Steven,” I said sharply, but he ducked his head and edged around me toward the back of the wagon. No words, no argument. He did the job I was going to do, taking hold of those blanketed ankles and pulling hard. The body slid out slowly, but the cooked smell of human flesh curdled through my nostrils, and I had to turn away with my hand over my mouth.
I went into the house. Cats scattered under the sagging couch and quilt, while kittens mewed from the box placed in front of the iron-bellied stove. I left the shotgun on the kitchen table, beside the covered bucket of clean water I had pulled from the hand pump earlier that evening, and grabbed a sheet from the line strung across the living room. I started pulling down panties, too, and anything else embarrassing.
Just in time. Steven trudged inside, breathing hard—dragging that blanket-wrapped body across my floor. He didn’t stop for directions. Just moved toward the couch, one slow inch at a time. A cat peered from beneath a quilt and hissed.
I helped sling the body on the couch. A foot slipped free of the blanket, still wearing a shoe. The leather had melted into the blackened skin. Steven and I stared at that foot. I wanted to cry—it was the proper thing to do—but except for a hard, sick lump in my throat, my eyes burned dry.
“What about you?” I asked Steven quietly. “They know you brought him here?”
“I put the fire out,” he replied, and pulled off his hat with a shaking hand. “Don’t know if I can go home after that.”
I rubbed his shoulder. “Put the horses in the barn, then take my bed. This’ll be awhile.”
“Our dad,” he began, and stopped, swallowing hard. Crumpling the hat in his hands. He could not look at me. Just that blackened foot. I stepped between him and the couch, but he did not move until I placed my palm on his chest, pushing him away. He gave me a wild look, haunted. I noticed, for the first time, that he smelled like smoke.
But I didn’t have to say a word. He turned and walked out the front door, head down, shoulders pinched and hunched. Some of the cats followed him.
I stayed with the body. Sat down at the bottom of the couch, beside that exposed foot. It took me a long time to peel off the shoe. Longer than it had to. I wanted to vomit every time I touched that warm, burned skin. I peeled and pulled, and finally just cut everything away with a pair of old scissors. Steven passed through only once, from the front door to my bedroom. If he looked, I didn’t know. I ignored him.
I unrolled the body from the blanket. Worked on all those clothes—and the other shoe. Stripped off what had been hand
-sewn pants made of coarse denim, and a shirt of a softer weave. The beard I knew so well was gone. So was that face, except for blackened skin and exposed bone. His mouth was open, twisted into a scream so visceral his lower jaw had unhinged.
“Stupid,” I whispered to him, rubbing my eyes and running nose. “You had nothing to prove.”
Same as me. Nothing to prove. Nothing at all.
I had brought in a knife with the scissors—sterilized in boiling water and wrapped in a clean rag covered in some faded drawing of a black mouse in red pants. I did not want to touch the blade, but I did. I did not want to hold my arm over that open mouth, but I did that, too. Sucked down a deep breath. Steeled myself. Cut open my wrist.
Nothing big. I wasn’t crazy. But the blood welled up faster than I expected. My vision seemed to fade behind a white cloud, and I almost lay down on that burned body. But I took a couple quick breaths, grit my teeth, and stopped looking at the blood.
Just that mouth. Just that mouth I held my wrist over. Swallowing all those little drops of my life.
It took a while. I didn’t want to make a mistake. This was the worst I had ever seen. So bad I began to wonder if this was the end, the last and final straw. Got harder to breathe after that. My throat burned. Cats pawed my legs and took turns in my lap, butting my chin and kneading my thighs with their prickly little claws. One of them licked a charred finger, but didn’t try to chew, so I let that go.
My wrist throbbed. So did my head, after a time. I kept at it. Until, finally, I noticed a little color around his lips. A hint of pink beneath the blackened skin. I closed my eyes, counting to one hundred. When I looked again, it wasn’t my imagination. Pink skin. Signs of life.
I pressed my wrist against his burned mouth and felt his lips tighten just a hairsbreadth. Good enough for me. I was exhausted. I didn’t move my wrist, but stretched out on the couch beside him, ignoring the smell and crunch of cooked skin. A cat walked up the length of my hip, while another perched on the cushion above me, licking my hair. Purrs thundered, everywhere.
And that mouth closed tighter.
I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
I woke choking, water trickling down my throat.
But there was also a hand behind my head and something hard on my lips, and both flashed me back to the bad days. I sat up fighting, heart all thunder. My fist slammed into a hard chest.
A naked man squatted in front of me, gripping a cup of water in his hand. Scared me for a moment, terrified me, part of me still asleep—but then I took a breath and my vision cleared, and I saw the man. I saw him.
He was bald, scorched, raw. Not much better than a half-cooked chicken, and certainly uglier. But his eyes were blue and glittering as ice, and I smiled crooked for that cold gaze.
“Henry.” I wiped water from my mouth, trying not to tremble. “Aren’t you a sight?”
“Amanda,” he replied. But that was it. Only my name. That other hand of his still held the back of my head. I looked down. My wrist had been bandaged. I saw other things, too, and dragged the quilt from the couch to toss over his hips. His mouth twitched—from bitterness or humor, I couldn’t tell—but he leaned in to kiss me.
Just my cheek. Slow and deliberate, lingering with our faces pressed close. I slid my arms around his neck and held tight.
“Don’t make me cry again,” I whispered.
Henry dragged in a deep breath. “How did I get here?”
“Steven.”
He leaned harder against me. “Did anyone see him?”
“We haven’t talked about what happened. But I’d say yes.” I pulled away, speaking into his shoulder, a patchwork of pink and blackened flesh. “He said you saved lives.”
“I gave in.” Henry’s fingers tightened in my hair. “I killed.”
“Monsters.”
“I killed,” he said again, shivering. “I violated God’s rule.”
You did what you had to, I wanted to tell him, but those were cheap words compared to what he needed, and that was more than I could give him.
Bedsprings creaked from the other room. I glanced toward the window. Still dark out, but it had to be close to dawn. I heard birds, and the goats, and farther away, that dog barking. I tried to stand. Henry grabbed my wrist. “You need to rest. What you did last night—”
“I’m fine,” I lied, blinking heavily to keep my vision straight. “Stay here.”
But he didn’t. He wrapped the quilt around his hips and limped outside with me, followed by several cats, bounding, twining, pouncing in the grass. Little guards. Cool air felt good on my face, and though Henry did not take my hand, our arms brushed as we walked.
I had built the rabbit hutch inside the barn. Horses stirred restlessly when we entered, and so did the goats in their dark pen, but the chickens were quiet. I felt all the animals watching as I undid the latch and reached inside for a sleek brown body. The rabbit trembled. So did Henry, when I handed it to him.
“I wish you wouldn’t watch,” he murmured, but almost in the same breath he bit the rabbit’s throat. It screamed. So did he, but it was a muffled, relieved sound. I looked away. All the other rabbits were huddled together, shaking. I could hear Henry feeding, and it was a wet, sucking sound that made my skin crawl and my wrist throb.
I counted the seconds. Counted until they added up to minutes. Then I took another rabbit from the hutch and held it out, head turned. Henry took it from me and walked away. No longer limping. I heard the rabbit scream before he reached the door.
I did chores. Freshened the water for the goats, brushed the horses down with handfuls of hay and the palms of my hands. Thought, again, about building a pen for some pigs and how much I’d have to trade upriver for several in an upcoming litter I’d heard about in town. I wanted to get set before winter. Trees needed cutting, too, for firewood. I had been putting that off.
When I left the barn, I found Henry near the garden, digging a hole just large enough for two dead rabbits. Soil was wet and smelled good, like the tomatoes ripening on the vines. I saw light on the horizon.
“I’ll finish that,” I said. “You need to get inside.”
“I need a walk,” he mumbled. I realized he had been weeping. “I don’t want to see Steven.”
“Too bad.” I crouched, taking his hand. His skin appeared healthier, burn marks, fading. “You may be all he has now. Besides, it’s too close to dawn for a walk. Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid,” he echoed, and pulled his hand away. “You should have seen how my dad—how they—looked at me. How they’ll look at Steven now. My fault, Amanda. I was too weak to leave.”
The rabbits were still warm, but hollow, flattened. Drops of blood coated their throats. I tossed them into the hole Henry had dug and pushed dirt over their bodies.
“Staying was harder than leaving,” I said, but that was all. The house door creaked open, somewhere out of sight, then banged shut. Henry tensed. I backed away. I doubt he noticed. Too busy watching his brother, who strode down the path toward us—just a shadow in the predawn light, shoulders hunched, hands shoved deep in his pockets, hat tilted low over his eyes.
I left them alone. Went back to the house for my shotgun and a coat, and then headed down to the fence. Looking for monsters.
Cats followed me.
The land had been in the family a long time. Long enough for stories to be passed down, stories that never changed except for the weather, or the animal, or the person: stories involving my kin, who were neighbors and friends to the Plain People. Or the Amish, as my mother had called them, respectfully.
She was dead now, gone a couple years. She and my father had both survived the Big Death, though cancer and infection finally killed them. Mundane, compared to what had destroyed most everyone else: a plague that struck cities, a virus that killed in hours or days. My brother was lost that way—gone to college
in Chicago, which didn’t exist anymore. It was for him that I didn’t like hearing stories about the Big Death, though some refugee survivors seemed to get kicks from the attention they received when telling the tale. Blood in the streets, and riots, and the government quarantining the cities and suburbs with tanks and barricades, and guns. No burials for the millions dead, no burials for the cities.
Just the forests that had grown up around them. An unnatural growth, some said. Cities of the dead, swallowed by trees. And, in the intervening years, other strange things. Unnatural visitations.
But folks didn’t like to tell those stories. Plague was easier to swallow than magic.
The fence around my land was made of wood and planks instead of strung barbed wire. Maybe my great-grandfather had built the thing, or his father—I didn’t know for sure—just that it was older than living memory, and had been tended and mended over the last hundred years by people who knew what they were doing, so many times over, there probably wasn’t much original wood left in the damn thing.
It was a good fence. And I’d made my own additions.
Still dark out. Skies clearing, revealing stars. I checked the gate at the end of the driveway. Couldn’t see much on the other side, except for a splash of something dark on the gravel. Blood, maybe. No body. Dragged away into the woods with Pete-Pete’s bones. I undid the lock, crossed over. Shotgun held carefully. Cats walked with me, but didn’t hiss or flatten their ears. Just watched the shadows beyond the road, in the trees. I didn’t hear anything except for birds.
“Hiding from the light,” said a quiet voice behind me. I didn’t flinch. One of the cats had glanced over its shoulder, which was warning enough.
Henry stepped close, still naked except for the quilt. I said, “You should be in the house.”
“I have time. Not safe here, all by yourself.”
“Got an army.” I held up my gun and glanced at the cats. “Steven?”