by Gemma Files
“Now lay it out,” I told her. “Like you’re servin’ Sunday dinner. Go on, gal.”
“Where?”
“On him, of course.”
I flipped my hand a tad dramatically at the part of the swamp she’d scoped, and up rose Harlan Tearsheet’s body in response, or what was left of it. outer bits’d mostly been gnawed away, with the rest of it froze underwater for some good time, gone thin and sere and slippy; his teeth grinned like keys on a busted-up piano, eyes sunk so far back in his head you could hardly reckon their colour anymore, canted so they stared two entirely different ways.
Doll drew her breath and didn’t let it back out, like she was fortifying herself, or at least trying her best not to heave. But at this point, I think she’d seen enough of my works to trust I knew best what I was doing.
A string of hors d’oeuvres, still lightly smoking, trailing from throat to sternum to belly. She took one, bit the tiniest piece off and crunched hard, her tears silent, crying and chewing—offered me the rest, which I took a far larger bite of, seeing I’d barely had any food at all, the last twenty-four hours or so. Not since the Cornishes and I’d blasted our way out of prison on the wings of old Abramelin the Mage’s famous SATOR box...
It was better than you’d think, but not by much. And at the third chew in a row, old Harlan sat up straight-backed, as if run on strings. Turned his flap-jawed face my way, and said, in a voice still deep-buried: “That all looks good. Is it?”
Doll’s puke-face was back, full force. I just shrugged. “Hard to tell, without you taste it. Want some?”
“Well...just a bite.”
“Care for a sip of something, too, to wash it down?”
“Wouldn’t say no. I’m powerful dry.”
I nodded, and withdrew a half-bottle of rye whiskey I’d found in Tad’s inner pocket. Harlan slugged it down, what was left of his throat working queasily, then handed it back, peering.
“Don’t know you, do I?” he asked. “‘Cause...you got some of the Queen’s aspect to you, if I ain’t mistaken.”
“Don’t know me, no, I wouldn’t suppose. But I do know Her, and you—through that sister of yours, over there.”
Another creaky turn, slick in its socket, sickness-greased. “Doll...that you, gal? Told you not to go messin’ with my business, didn’t I?”
Doll snorted. “You’s the one went ‘n got yourself killed, Harlan—left me an’ the younger kids in a lurch so bad, had to turn ‘em over to the State ‘til I can produce you in court. Was stickin’ your thumb in Orpah Cleves’ eye worth all that?”
“She come at me crossways, when I wasn’t lookin’. That ain’t my fault.”
“Her comin’ at you any ways at all, that is your damn fault! Now I need you to go on to the nearest station and say your piece ‘fore witnesses, then come back and lie yourself down again. Court or no, once you’re on record, won’t matter a piss in a windstorm if they never see you again—hell, it’ll only prove you right, and Orpah that much more ready to kill to pay you back for whatever you said.”
“Look at me, sissy. I ain’t exactly fit to set under no hot lights.”
Since Doll’d already done the heavy lifting, I thought I might as well throw in. “Might be I could lay a glamour would get you lookin’ human-shaped once more, without even the stink to put a lie to it. How’d that be?”
They looked to each other, then back to me, and nodded just the once, in unison.
By the time Harlan set off to do what he’d pledged, he looked
thin and mangy still, but more like a meth-head than the walking dead. Turned out those eyes of his were a slightly darker shade of blue than Doll’s, his beard so fair it only showed at an angle. Doll and I huddled up in them swamp-side trees and dug deep, using the leaves and muck for cover, to dream the next half-day away. Letting my eyes drift shut, I chewed a few nightshade berries and slipped my body’s bonds, hovering above the tree-line ‘til I thought I glimpsed where Orpah might be laid in recovery—not her Momma’s old trailer, but one awful similar. Saw her inner circle knitting hands all ‘round her, greasing her wounds with a soothing slather of dogwood, club moss spores and Englishman’s Foot rendered up in unbaptized baby-fat, while they roasted what was left of Harlan’s familiar on the hot-plate; I guessed they probably meant to feed it to her later, maybe in a stew. For that’d get her back on her feet for sure, and smartish...but not quite fast enough.
I opened my eyes again to find Doll already upright, braced like a human pointer-dog, as Harlan shouldered his clumsy way back through the bushes, duty done and glamour long-dropped. Looking like nothing so much as a rag-doll stitched together from green meat whose joints were already giving way under pressure, and grateful-glad indeed to do so.
“Ma’am...sis,” he managed. “That’s an awful long way, ain’t it? Here, and back.”
Doll blinked, fiercely. “Ain’t done both, just yet,” was all she said.
“Well, take it from me. I do crave a rest.”
“Lie down, then,” I suggested.
“Can’t. You know why.”
We all did: He’d vowed himself to the Queen, to do Her worship and spread ill in Her name. Wouldn’t get to quit ‘til She Herself called halt, if She ever did. But then again...She had offered an alternative arrangement, too. As Miss Doll well knew.
I watched her a while, wondering if she’d share that knowledge, or what she’d do with it, after. For moral dilemmas do amuse me, when there’s no other entertainment to be had.
“I’ll take it on, then,” she said, at last, so soft it was like she was talking straight into her own neck. And then…
…it was after, their pact sealed with a kiss, Harlan’s barely skinwrapped bones tumbled once more half-nude and sticky on the ground at Doll’s boots. She had a trace of him still left on her mouth, black as axle-grease, and a look on her face like she didn’t know whether to spit vitriol or bust out crying. A spasm shook her from the solar plexus out, a spectral upper-cut, but she didn’t let it defeat her; just gasped, laid one palm on the place where I could only assume her long-deferred Mark was finally coming in, then straightened up once more, tall and proud. And licked her lips.
I clapped my hands, grinning. “Gal,” I said, “here’s proof the Queen misspoke, not that She’d ever admit it, ‘cause you got grit truer than most I’ve seen. For just like Harlan stood up for you, you stood up for him, like I somehow knew you would—and now, your brother’s debt is yours.”
“That ain’t what I wanted.”
“No, but it’s what you got. Listen, though: It’s better this way, truly. Better you be what you are, ‘cause the other don’t work out—never, not really. No matter how much you might like it to.” Saw her squint around a bit while I was talking, and knew her full Sight must be coming in; this was only confirmed when her gaze wandered back my way, shock of what she saw making her gasp once more, and louder. Gently: “Yeah, that’s right. So how do I look now, in my full ornament?”
“Like...somethin’ I can’t stand to see, hardly.”
“Hmmm. Then you really do been holdin’ out, pretty girl; what-all you got’s far more’n just a smidge, and always was. Go on and enjoy it, while you can.”
She gave a bitter, hitching little laugh of her own at that. “Think Orpah and hers’ll stay content to let me roam, now they know I been workin’ against ‘em in your company?”
“Aw, well, now...I wouldn’t worry yourself too much about her.”
—
Nearest motel was in Step-Stair itself, though Doll left me long before that, trudging down-road with what-all I could find of my Momma hugged in both arms like a makeshift pouch-cum-bundle wrought from the skirt of Tad’s hellacious-long jacket. Orpah and hers had rendered her skeleton like animals, cracked half the bones and cut the rest all to rounds for small magicks. But I’d found one gone hollow yet otherwise intact, maybe part of her femur, a one-note flute. I let ‘em dry a while on the radiator while I had myself a nice, long ho
t shower, first in my clothes, then out of ‘em. And then, once my jumpsuit, undershirt, bra, panties and socks were hung up on the show-rod to reassume their natural colours, I sat down naked and cross-legged to breath a few long, low breaths through that last piece of the woman I’d come from, waiting to see just how long it’d take before her voice came moaning out the other end.
...Whaaaat is’t yooouuuu...waaaant fr’m meeee, Allfair...?
A bare whisper, marrow-caught: “You know, Momma.”
A sigh came back, then a long silence. Followed, like night follows day, by this:
...Lisssstennn...
I put my ear to the bone’s mouth and did, hard. And when I was done I said, “Thank you, ma’am,” like any dutiful daughter, before crushing the fragile little tube of calcium and rot to dust with my bare hands, letting the last of it fall free onto the towel I sat on.
—
For this is what she’d told me, at least in part: Every coven does have its devil, just like Orpah said. But whoever it is ain’t never the Adversary Himself, any more than every corner-shop drug dealer’s the Man. Hell’s a franchise that way, like any given Piggly-Wiggly. And back in Chatouye, France, where my kin come from, that devil was one of them who chose wrongside-wise during the Schism—a mighty creature, silver-tongued and armed to the back teeth, well-versed in every sort of chaos. When I’d last seen him, he’d looked like a man, dark-bearded and sad-eyed as any given Homeland Security wanted poster sketch, but back when my Momma first saw him, he might’ve looked somewhat different. Still, I didn’t much care so I didn’t ask, and she certainly didn’t volunteer.
He knew my name, of course—that’d been the basic point of my meeting him at all. And now, thanks to Gley Chatwin’s new-laid ghost, I finally knew his.
“Come to my call, first of my blood; come quiet, come sweet, in a form most pleasing to my eyes, meaning me no harm. O Raum Goetim, teacher of warcraft and morality, I invoke thee: Venez, venez, diable des belledames Chatouyennes. Venez, o antrecessor. Venez, venez, prince et pere. Venez, dieu. ”
I shut my eyes and waited, expecting—hell, I don’t know. A bad smell. A scratch at the door, like claws. A pounding of hooves along the roof and a clatter down where the motel should’ve had a chimney. But when I opened them, all I saw was Samaire Cornish sitting ‘cross from me, with eyes the colour of cancer and pupils set slant as a goat’s.
All at once, I recalled my rude state, and blushed. Felt my nipples come up so hard under the double ropes of my hair that they fair turned sideways, too.
“Gley’s gal, is it?” this vision asked, soft enough, though it ran all through me like a hot shiver. “Haven’t seen you in...hmmm. Never at all, I think, as an adult. Should I be insulted that you only seem to require my presence now, when you so obviously want something…or someone?”
“Hadn’t thought you’d kept that firm a track on me, frankly.”
“Seeing how many other seeds I’ve sown, over the years? But perhaps I’m sentimental that way, little Alleycat.” “She” leaned closer, voice dropping further yet. “Still, I notice you don’t answer.”
“There is a gal I’m lookin’ to find, yes. We got unfinished business, her and me.”
“A woman such as you, I’m sure, could find more than your share of girls.”
“No doubt, but none like this one. I think you might recall her Momma too, somewhat—Moriam Cornish?”
“Aaaah, yes. Sweet little Morah, reduced to salt and slime; her man fought monsters, so she made herself even more of one, to help him. But blood told in the end, as it always does. For hunted to truck with hunter is an invariably foolish choice.”
“S’pose so,” I agreed. “And yet...”
“And yet?”
Yet I was willing to test that theory nonetheless, loath though I might suddenly find myself to say so. But then again, it wasn’t like I had to; “she” laughed out loud at the very thought, mocking Samaire’s natural gravity. And I shivered again, want run all up and down and through me like a skewer, at the idea I might one day be able to make this illusion’s sombre prototype chuckle the same way—if only a little bit, for a very little while.
Still wearing my sister’s shape, my Daddy laid his hot hand on my forehead, invisible claws denting my skin, heavy with the thrown-star weight of frustrated millennia. And he told me what to do.
Family. Like I’ve said before, no matter where the various and disparate elements of yours may come from, once seen in action...it really is something.
—
Piece by piece, throughout the coming night, I pulverized the rest of Gley Chatwin’s bones, making ‘em into a sort of marrow-laced, grey-brown porridge. That handful on the towel I mixed my own blood with, fashioning it into a drab little wren-sized bird. The rest, meanwhile, I ate with a spoon rooked from the motel’s restaurant, mouthful by gritty mouthful. And wished them into Orpah Cleves as I did—her stomach, her bowels, her bloodstream—for if she wanted my Momma’s power so damnable much, I reckoned, she could just go on and choke on it, like them gals at Salem vomiting up their irons nails and rag-dollies and soaking hanks of hair.
Let her be filled so full it made a cage ‘round her heart, a bonemeal box locked so tight that weary muscle couldn’t even beat, let alone bust itself free; let her worshippers find her in the evening still and stiff, red lips gone blue, a discreet touch of vomit in her stormy hair.
For power has its price, after all.
Oh, I still think on Doll Tearsheet sometimes, unlike those fools the M-vale psych hoped I’d hold in my heart; think on her hard-bitten love for that brother of hers, the burden she’d fought so hard not to have to carry. I didn’t begrudge her attempts to skew fate, either. Everyone’d dodge a bullet if they could, ‘specially those can see it comin’.
But in the end, like Orpah—who I’d known far longer, and more intimately—she was just one more piece of collateral damage in my life’s long rampage. Sweet Maybelle Pine, for example, who was my helpmeet and accomplice in lockdown, and who I do keep a small part of my memory left clear for, if only to recall how good she’d been at her marital duties. or wonder, in turn, over how she could ever’ve been stunned enough to think she had to kill herself over me, when I’d gone so far out of my way to make sure she wouldn’t have to.
Some people just don’t like to be left behind, is all. While others—myself included—expect it. Because even when we’re cheek-to-jowl with “normal” people, it’s like there’s no one else there at all.
Didn’t have to be that way, though. Not anymore.
The bird, through whose tiny blinking eyes I aimed to glimpse the object of my desire, shook itself slowly awake, regarding me with that Let me do thy will, Lady fetch-stare. Then crept onto my palm so’s I could throw it up into the air and watch it flap off north-wards with its tiny beak open, scenting the air for any trace of my something-sister’s trail.
Mark me, Princess, I thought, hoping ‘gainst hope that Samaire Cornish might somehow hear me, if only in her dreams. I’m comin’. Straight as the little dust-bird flies, though maybe not quite that straight. Ain’t no chain gonna hold me down, and nothin’ in my way that’ll be left standing, after—that sister of yours very much included.
But first, I needed me a ride. So I paid my bill with the last of Tad’s cash, strode out to the parking lot’s gate, cocked my hip, stuck out my thumb...and grinned.
IMAGINARY BEAUTIES
…hitherto we have been permitted to seek beauty only in the morally good—a fact which sufficiently accounts for our having found so little of it and having had to seek about for imaginary beauties without backbone!—As surely as the wicked enjoy a hundred kinds of happiness of which the virtuous have no inkling, so too they possess a hundred kinds of beauty; and many of them have not yet been discovered.
—R.J. Hollingdale’s translation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Daybreak
Rice Petty was leant up against the University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building cafeteria
wall with Rammstein blasting in one ear, admiring the slick purple vinyl sheen of her own boots and wondering idly if she could get away with charging (yet another) new strap-on to her Daddy’s Visa, when Horatia Wint slouched in: all head to toe in black, a weird Renaissance-style sugar-loaf wool cap with a gold brocade top jammed haphazardly down over her ears, dripping melted snow from the January blizzard outside. She stood there a moment shaking her head, waiting for her glasses to unfog; as they did, Rice saw her eyes were both slightly squinted against even this dim light, and probably far larger than that heinous degree of prescription made them look—a pale, peculiarly penetrating shade of green, like mouthwash, or maybe absinthe. Her nose was snub, her jaw square, her mouth decisive. She didn’t look like she had any friends, or wanted any.
And: Oh yeah, uh huh, save some of that for me, please. Hey baby, hey baby, hey.
For Rice, it was violent pull at first (close-up) sight—like, lust, whatever. Certainly worth a walk-by, anyhow.
After relentlessly and heteronormatively fucking her way through high school, Rice had called dick break in university (with occasional time-outs to peg some random male bitch, here and there), and was enjoying the result; nice to have a different sort of reputation, if nothing else.
Meanwhile, though she’d also thus far coasted through her
courses by playing the hypercognate card—previously registering Horatia’s existence mainly through smart-dar, as potential competition rather than possible prey—Rice knew her own complicity in accepting that particular categorization had always been little more than a scam, a quick hit of public recognition without academic expectations. Sure, she had enough eidetic memory to ace any test she’d ever taken, but her study habits were for shit—and it was there, in the personal projects part of the equation, where the cracks were already starting to show.