Consciousness hits the tar. The pitch layers catch hold and drag it down, ignoring its floundering mammoth cry.
I’ve got lines of concrete channelling through my face – temple to brow to nose to cheek. Those lines must have been laid in the night, crystals forming come morning.
Gravity got turned up last night. It wants me to ram my head against whatever ground lies beneath my feet, press myself into the dirt until concrete meets concrete.
There is no world outside the gritty throb that laps and overlaps from scalp to chin, bleaching all sound into a vacant whine.
My eyeballs are first to turn inward, burrowing into the meat of my brain. My brow threatens to collapse behind them, pulled toward the sucking black core that yearns to subsume my entirety.
There’s a constant skittering, hollow clatters, the gentle knock of a skull against the door.
They’re pretty well behaved really. There was this one guy in the building next door who had a mammoth skeleton that he couldn’t close the door on, so it used to just follow around behind him. Man, you’d know he was walking down the street by this constant knocking sound, loud enough to shake your knees. He went crazy, that guy. Always screaming for the hulking thing to leave him alone. That’s what happens when you don’t deal with your skeletons.
I took time to get to know mine after I saw what happened to him. That one, the one that’s scraping on the closet hinges, it hatched that time I turned someone down while in queen bitch mode. That one, with those elongated digits, it showed up when I didn’t send a message to someone I once loved.
Skeletons hate being shut away, they want to lick up every drip of negative emotion you leak. That’s how they grow, tastes of guilt and shame and fear and regret. Sometimes mine escape the closet and run cool and smooth over my skin, chittering with delight when guilt blooms over me. They’re a bloody nightmare to get back in until they’re fed. Once they’re high on emotion, they slump into snoring piles on the mattress. I can scoop up a softened handful of bones and dump them back in and close the door.
Sometimes I pull open the closet door to take them out. It’s kinda perverse, I know, but there’s something about staring right at the scabs of your past mistakes and wanting to peel them off till they bleed. Probably not so smart anymore, some of those old bones are getting hefty.
Some folks say they don’t have anything in their closets, that you can beam pure positivity and starve those skeletons till they shrink up and die. Seems pretty unlikely to me, seeing as they’re dead to start with.
But I do know that one of mine once disappeared.
It had been made up of all these articulated segments of regret, they’d click one after the other against the door when it slithered free in the night. I’d first heard it after I’d lost someone I love in a messy puddle of pride, confusion and misery. It was years before luck struck and healed the heart wound that had brought that skeleton into being. And then the next night there was no click of coils in the closet.
I don’t know if I could heal those other wounds. Don’t know if I’d want to try either. That might just land me with something bigger clawing its way out.
And there’s something to be said for my skeletons.
Guppy’s eyes slid their way along all five inches of a slick steel blade, past a fine boned ivory hand, and up to the hardened eyes of a woman she’d never seen before.
‘You and your friend are going to keep your mouths shut and come with me. Nod to show you understand.’ The woman’s voice was a hushed rasp in the darkness. Guppy nodded, elbowing the boy behind her to do the same. She was painfully aware that any movement she made could press her throat against that skinny blade.
‘Good. We’re heading to the granary. If you try to run, you’ll get a knife in your back.’ The tone was brutally matter-of-fact. She gave Guppy a sharp shove after her knife slid away into the dark. ‘Move.’
They set off again, the sharp clicks of the woman’s heels punctuating their journey through narrow streets to the southern-most outskirts of the town. Here the cobbles turned to dirt, and the warm lights of houses fell away to leave them coated in murk. The boy’s gasps almost sounded shrill.
The granary loomed up from the darkness, blocky shapes afloat heavy stone blocks. The woman stalked to the store at the very rear, and reached up to open the wooden door. She beckoned to the children.
Guppy held the boy behind her, shoulders back and mouth set in a defiant line. The woman rolled her eyes and before Guppy could move, that blade was back in those fine white fingers, loosely held in lazy threat.
Guppy scrambled forward and gave the boy a boost up to the doorway, shooting a scowl at the woman before hoiking herself up behind him. The store was mostly empty, save for scatterings of grain underfoot. There was a scraping behind them, and then pitch darkness as the woman closed the door.
After a moment, there was a faint scrape followed by a soft hum, and a warm yellow glow burned through the black, emitted by the gleaming glass tube the woman placed by her thigh.
She sat leaning back against one wall, long legs between Guppy and the doorway. She was dressed in greys, head to toe, including a heavy woollen cloak stained with mud around its hem. Her face was all angles, the light catching planes and casting shadows so it appeared one half of her was made of darkness. Even her eyes were grey. The eye in the light was fixed on Guppy’s face.
‘So. It seems you two managed to get yourselves into an impressive amount of trouble. That slaver you cheated is rampaging all over town. Names?’
The boy beside Guppy hitched in a breath, then said, ‘Nate, I don’t know hers, she can’t talk.’
‘Is that so?’ The woman’s shadow eyebrow rose. Guppy stuck out her tongue yet again, feeling aggrieved that today of all days she couldn’t donate a piece of her mind to all the people she’d met. The woman leaned forward, inspecting. One hand slid to a pocket on the inside of her cloak. Guppy stiffened, but the hand emerged holding a small brown glass pot, rather than a blade.
‘Take a fingerful of this and rub it over your tongue. It’ll help the swelling go down.’
Guppy snorted. As if she was going to chomp something a crazy knife kidnapper waved at her. Before the snort was over, said kidnapper was waving said knife in her other hand.
‘This isn’t a suggestion, girl. It’s an order.’
Guppy leaned forward and dipped a finger into the ruddy goop in the pot. She took a suspicious sniff. It smelled kinda lemony. Tentatively she swiped it over the tip of her tongue and then as the cooling sensation spread, she eased her finger over the rest of the swollen mass. Abruptly it became easier to breathe, as her tongue began to deflate. And the stuff even tasted nice. Neat.
The woman waited for a minute, then put the pot away.
‘Tongue?’ Guppy stuck it out again. The woman gave a sharp nod. ‘Right, let’s try that again. Name?’
‘Guppy. What’s yours?’ It came out with a bit of a sticky slur but at least didn’t hurt anymore.
‘You’ve got no need for my name, girl.’
‘Guppy, not girl.’
The woman stared at her. An eyeball thrashing had never had any effect on Guppy in the past, it wasn’t about to bother her now.
‘You can call me Grey. You’re in up to your necks. You’ve pissed off a major slaver and he’s got a good enough description of you that you’re finished in this town and probably the whole region. I’m going to do you a favour.’
Guppy raised her eyebrow in turn. ‘Does the favour involve your knife? That seemed real friendly back there.’
‘Silence.’ The woman snarled the word, moving her knife hand with gut watering speed and slamming it into the boards an inch from Guppy’s left foot.
Guppy decided she should probably shut up for now and hear the crazy lady out.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You seem to think you’re clever, child, when really you’re nothing but a petty thief. Still, a thief with potential.’ Grey frowned, pulling the knife from the board with a sharp tug. ‘You’ve accelerated my timeline a bit with your ridiculous plan – gods know what I’m going to do with him.’ Nate shrunk back from the shadowed glare.
She focussed back on Guppy. ‘Have you heard of the Cerium?’
Guppy shrugged, ‘They tried to bump the old king off afore he went and copped it anyway.’
Grey gave a slow nod. ‘The Cerium failed in their attempts on the former king’s life, but they continue to lay snares for the present king. They were nearly successful not two months ago when the king was at the Spring Palace. Their plots were discovered and the king was made safe. But they will try again.’
Guppy gave another shrug, ‘Don’t mean nothing to me. No king ever made a difference to my life.’
Grey shook her head, ‘So naive. The world as you know it would fall apart if the king fell. He has no heir, no family. The kingdom would fall to civil war, and that would certainly affect your life. And so I ask that you give something to save the king.’
Guppy stared at Grey. ‘Ask? That the kind of asking that involves that there knife you’ve been waving around? Seems to me that isn’t exactly asking.’
‘Ah, let’s say, I strongly suggest that you give something to save the king. You have a talent girl, one that the king would greatly value.’ Her eyes burned into Guppy’s. ‘You have a way with lies.’
Guppy met her eyes with straight out denial, ‘Nope.’ Her mouth flooded with sourness, stinging her still tender tongue.
Grey smiled as though she could taste the lie too. ‘Have you always thought it was just you? One girl in all the kingdom who can speak untruths without consequences? There aren’t many but those who are discovered are trained mercilessly and brought into service.’
Guppy frowned. ‘Trained mercilessly?’
‘It’s the kind of training that involves red hot pins under fingernails, mental torment, and unspeakable tortures, whilst being told to say “I’m fine” repeatedly without cease.’ Bleakness seemed to run over the woman’s features at her words.
Guppy swallowed. ‘Well, that doesn’t really sound like all that much fun, thanks and all that.’
‘You seem to have learned much without formal training, so I think we can proceed to the practical. We need people to act on the kingdom’s behalf against those who are suspected of being members of the Cerium. We need spies, Guppy. And spies need to be able to lie.’
‘And what about Nate here, he can’t lie.’ Guppy turned to the boy, ‘You can’t, can you?’ He shook his head, face pale. ‘Right, he can’t lie so he’s no good as a spy, right? I’m not about to hare off and leave him to the slavers.’
Grey tapped her long fingers against a grey boot. ‘The boy is a bit of an unforeseen problem. Perhaps we can try to teach him the skill. If not, we’ll leave him somewhere far enough away that the slavers won’t recognise him. My word on it.’
‘Riiiight. The word of someone who abducts boys and girls at knifepoint. Real trustworthy, I’m sure.’ Guppy reeled back as a ringing blow hit her left cheekbone. Grey seized her by the neckline and yanked her back the other way until they were nose to nose.
‘You’ve got lip, girl. If you keep using it, I’ll start slicing pieces off. If you try to sneak off, I’ll hack you into fish food. And whatever I do to you, I do to him.’ Grey nodded at the trembling boy at Guppy’s side.
Guppy shoved her furious response down. Time to be smart.
‘Fine. So what’s going to happen to us?’
Grey eased back. ‘Tomorrow we leave this dump and head for Casta. Get your heads down for now.’
She picked up the light tube and the glow winked out with a hiss.
‘And in case you get any ideas, you should know that I sleep with a blade in each hand.’
It was the retching that woke him. That, and the feeling that his lungs had been set on fire and scoured out with sand. Kilter dragged in air between strained coughs that spattered the ground black.
It took him a few wheezing minutes to realise that the hacking sounds weren’t all emerging from his own mouth. He opened gluey, dirt-filled eyes to see five of his staff were similarly occupied.
They were in the Blue Dining Room, sprawled on the well-polished boards – no, Kilter thought muzzily – what should have been well-polished boards, but these boards were clouded and dusty. The room looked peculiarly dark, the window panes letting in only a small amount of grubby light.
They’d been in here to discuss the upcoming gala in celebration of the princess’ sixteenth birthday, when whatever it was had hit them. His body felt weak, his legs barely kept him upright. He stared at the white faces in front of him and abruptly dragged himself together.
‘Right. We need to check room by room, if we were affected by this sickness, perhaps others have been too. I’ll head to the Royal Chambers; split up and work your way through the ground floor. Get others to help -’ He broke off.
Wailing screams were coming through the open doorway.
Kilter wobbled his way into the Great Hall, having sent the others on their way. A few serving staff were slumped against the oak length of the table that ran through the centre of the hall. They turned blurred, puzzled eyes to him as he walked toward the huge fireplace that dominated the far wall.
Mrs Napfas, the head butler, was crouched in the fireplace, skirts streaked with black smudges as she held a small figure to her breast.
Kilter knelt and reached out a hand to the woman’s shoulder. Her cries had become nothing more than a rambling, aching string of denials.
She pulled away from his touch with a moan, and clutched the body tighter. And it was a body, he saw. Limp and still. With a head that resembled a burnt match end. The boy’s name was Tallo, and he had been so very proud to take on duties last autumn, lighting lamps and fires. It appeared that he had been tending the Great Hall fireplace when the sleeping sickness had fallen upon him, and he had tumbled forward into the fire he had so lovingly built up.
Tallo was not the only victim of this strange sickness.
The gardeners had suffered more than most, their skin had been strangely beaten and burnt until it was curiously grey leather, and most had lost fingers and toes to what seemed to be frostbite.
It had taken hours to find the master gardener. A kitchen boy spotted a limb buried in the bizarre wall of thorns that had sprung up around the palace circumference. After shearing away what they could, the man’s body lay pale and punctured on the lawn, drained of life by the myriad thorned snakes that wove in and out of his body.
Two washermen had been found crushed beneath a curiously crumbled wall. The head cook had been found dead with a terrible slice to his wrist. The bodies of two bathers were pulled from copper bathtubs. At least five of Kilter’s staff never awakened, presumably due to the head wounds that they seemed to have incurred through violent falls. And several of those who had awoken in one piece were now coughing blood.
He’d done his best to keep the staff functioning, but there was no way to hold back the murmurs of fear: this had been retribution, they must have done something to deserve it, the deserving had lived – Mrs Napfas had nearly gouged the eyes out of the sanctimonious chamber maid who spouted that last one.
The royal family, meanwhile, were uncharacteristically quiet. When Kilter had attended them earlier, he had been ordered to depart and to take the chamber servants with him.
He returned that evening, wearied by the deaths and the increasing fear that this sleeping sickness might have spread beyond the palace, that his wife and daughter might –
The door to the Princess’ chamber opened and the Queen stepped out, shutting the door behind her.
‘Kilter! The floor is disgusting, get someone up here to clean.’
Kilter’s face remained blank, ‘Yes, Ma’am.’
From behind the Queen, the door rattled and the sound of furious shrieking slid around its edges.
The Queen pursed her mouth and tapped her fan against her hand.
‘I trust I have your complete confidence, Kilter?’
He gave another nod, managing not to wince at the sound of pounding fists on the door.
‘The Princess is going through a difficult time, Kilter. The, er, gentleman prince who awakened her, and indeed awakened us all, did so with unexpected vigour. Vigour that resulted in his leggings being around his ankles, shall we say,’ she fanned herself as a flush rose over her cheekbones, ‘My daughter, hysterical madam that she is, has refused to marry the young man.’
She paused. The door gave another thud as something broke on its opposite side.
‘The King is ensuring that the gentleman does not leave our company until the matter is settled. And I dare say confirming his pedigree.’
The Queen sighed. ‘Still, we’re awake! Curse broken, we can put it all behind us now. The staff are expected to return to their duties, Kilter. No more unseemly hysteria.’
He gave yet another nod, then hesitated, ‘Curse, Ma’am?’
‘The sleeping curse, Kilter.’ She said it as though it were a stupid question. ‘All rather tiresome but there are worse ways to spend a hundred years!’ She gave a thin laugh, ‘A rather extended beauty sleep, one might say.’
He watched her glide away to the royal chamber. And clamped down on his own rising bubble of hysteria.
One hundred years.
One hundred years.
Impossible.
Kilter put out a hand to grasp the wall (tapestried with a rather fetching myrtle tree).
He had kissed his wife and daughter a fond farewell only yesterday. They were only to be away for a week.
One hundred years.
***
There was no escaping the truth, once the first carriages of curious city dwellers arrived. Their declarations of welcome for the slumbering palace were an unconvincing veneer for gossipmongering.
Kilter broke it to his staff bluntly and gave them no room to mull before assigning them to their duties. They would grieve later.
The thorn hedge was torn down, popping with cherry red sparks as treacherously springy bundles were heaved into the burners. Dirt and dust were chased from room to room, blackened silver laid out for polishing, the mummified contents of pantries replaced with fresh produce from the city.
And then the Governor arrived. She was attended by a full coterie of officials who wore identical sneers of derision, their garments impossibly bright against the drab greys and faded browns of the castle.
Though her staff made it clear that the palace was a pathetic remnant of a former age, they seemed rabid for gossip. The city was simply desperate to know the truth behind the palace’s disappearance and awakening.
The city had assumed that the palace had been swept by plague, and thus the thorn hedge had been secured as a no-trespassing zone monitored by the Governor’s guard. An eager courtier admitted that the current Governor had made multiple attempts to get through the thorns – a palace would have been a useful tool in the battle to legitimise herself as ruler of the kingdom.
She had been white-faced at the word that someone else had succeeded, let alone a prince of the neighbouring kingdom that had been toying with annexation plans since the palace had fallen.
The Governor had no intention of ceding control to the Queen. Her family’s influence had kindled in the days of confusion that followed the disappearance of the palace. There was no way she would allow ancient, dusty, and unnecessary monarchs to take back power.
The Princess meanwhile, such a child! To refuse a marriage with the only man ever likely to want such a poor match. And they’d heard that she was still refusing to leave her chamber. Didn’t bode well for the fate of the kingdom.
Kilter watched the tales of intrigue spool out across the Great Hall, gritted teeth held behind a smooth facade. His eyes never moved from the haunting mass of the fireplace.
These men and women meant no real harm, perhaps, but how could they lust after a story such as this? One of death, rape, endless loss.
He allowed himself to drift into memories of his family.
Don’t disclose they advised. I have no tidy disclosure to make, no Latinate phrase to impress or Wikipedia page to authenticate.
I am unfranked.
I have a messy mouthful of words that stutter their way into the world. A tendency to tail away.
No it isn’t great, yes it does affect my working patterns.
Don’t read their expressions, don’t downplay.
I’ve got two-pilled dexterity of mouth, should have taken one, but the fear of pain was worse than a clumsy tongue.
I’ve got weevilling cramps riddling my face, eating into my brow.
What did she just say?
How can we make this role work?
Focus on outputs not hours in the office, let me pick my brain when it’s ripe not rotten, trust me, respect me, realise that this is worse for me than for you.
Anxiety was small and wrinkly when he nestled into my chest cavity.
Two giant eyes goggled outward at the world beyond my body, decided it wasn’t for him, and he settled back inside.
Now full-grown with a handsome sheen, Anxiety makes himself felt.
He doesn’t like breathing into armpits on trains, or overhearing people who roll anger around their mouths. He doesn’t like navigating new places, or new people.
Sometimes he doesn’t like leaving the flat.
Two unsteady feet hold my stomach in a death grip, with a squeeze-claw-squeeze when he shifts.
He flutters gusty wings in agitation, fluffing against lung and making it harder to draw breath.
And then there’s the head bobbing. An endless tapping that fills my gullet and knocks again and again on my chest wall.
He’ll calm when he’s talked to, sung to, or breathed at.
And he’s as greedy as his out-of-body brethren, deflating when fed.
Enamel worn by the acid of life and the fracturing punches thrown by fate.
To you, who life has rubbed until all loss devastates, I’ll tell only tales of romance before it cracks, never stories of the broken pieces.
To you, so weighed down by clouds of darkness that you cannot carry mine too, I’ll give only the gossamer and tuck away dragging tendrils of sadness.
And to you, for whom feelings are glowing iron between icy teeth, I’ll give only carefully cultivated words to amuse, shorn of the emotions that tumble alongside.
I’ll brick away my broken pieces, my tendrils of sadness, my tumbling emotions, and keep each of you from harm.
But remember, there is more to me than meets your tooth.
I was carrying out the arcane and unusual hobby of pulling on my pants – knickers, not trousers – on Thursday, when one of my sacroiliac joints gave a forbidding clunk.
Possibly a(nother) sign from the Universe, this one telling me not to wear pants? (On previous occasions I’ve been putting on trousers, reaching for things, drying my feet, playing catch, or plugging something in, so I guess those are all out too.)
I’m now marooned on my mattress like an upturned turtle (or like a beached walrus as my mother flatteringly suggests). Walking is currently a spine-drenching shriek-inducing slow drag. My neighbours must be thinking I’m having quite the time of it, given the gasps, moans, swearing and thunks I’ve been making when trying to get to the loo. At least alternate reality me is enjoying herself.
Notes for Future Self
Keep the loo roll holder topped up (or else no loo paper for you).
Move all necessities to lower cupboards (but not too low). Or raise the entire floor of the flat. Or get taller.
Stock more painkiller packs by your bed, ditto emergency food for stomach lining. Don’t eat emergency food in non-emergencies, idiot.
Keep antiperspirant next to your bed. For the love of all the gods.
Those fan remotes you thought were stupid? Turns out, not so stupid. Dig those out.
Take the rubbish out whenever possible so it doesn’t fester for days when you can’t move. Adopt a zero tolerance policy for flies.
Rig charger cables to loop over the top of the bed so you don’t spend fifteen minutes wriggling millimetre by millimetre to reach them.
Keep instant edible things in the flat that aren’t just raw tomatoes and celery.
Get a bottom buddy. [NB. Not what it sounds like] [NB2. Not much better than what it sounds like].
Her tongue felt as swollen as a ten day old sausage, and had turned a similar grey-green colour. Guppy poked at it dubiously in her warped tin-kettle reflection. It didn’t pop, which was probably a good sign.
She really hoped it didn’t fall off.
She had made her way out earlier, keenly aware that it might raise suspicions if she wasn’t spotted in her usual haunts. Happily, she never really spoke to anyone anyway (at least when she wasn’t lying), so her silent blistered mouth hadn’t been a problem.
The whole town seemed to be aflutter over yesterday’s incident. The baker’s wife was enjoying the attention, dramatically recounting just how horrifically traumatic it had all been, with one hand pressed to her bouncing bosom. Guppy snorted in disgust, then casually scooped up some particularly moist horse dung and dropped it in the woman’s carelessly unattended basket.
The boy had been taken to the lock-up, according to a man nursing a wobbling tankard. The boy had been wheeled away in the night, according to an over-excited milkmaid. The boy had never existed and it was all a conspiracy designed to make people think that – Guppy didn’t stay to hear the rest of that theory.
The most reliable source, the guards, were thankfully just as chatty as the rest of the townsfolk. The boy had been taken to the guard house overnight, but was now being held at an inn while awaiting collection by a private owner. It took her another hour to figure out which of the inns was housing the boy, and the rest of the afternoon to finish her preparations.
She went for tried and true, and nicked a pinny from the pile of washing on Mother Arbie’s back doorstep. It was unfortunately a pinny for someone with the approximate girth of two large beer barrels, but she figured if she wrapped it around enough times, it’d do. This unfortunately had the effect of turning Guppy into an immobile starched cylinder, and she had to redo the whole affair three times before she was able to walk in it. The multiple attempts had also resulted in considerable muck spreading over the formerly-known-as-white surface, so she was a bit dubious about being allowed anywhere near a kitchen at this point.
Still, she figured people should bloody well be grateful to have an extra pair of hands about. Even if said hands were attempting to steal a small grubby boy.
It was the inn on the north-eastern road, which headed off toward the capital city and the coast. It was a clean enough place, big stable round the back and six or seven rooms upstairs. It was usually frequented by traders (most of whom stayed for as short a time as possible), and the occasional staffer (they didn’t like to be called slavers anymore, something about making it hard to fit into decent company).
Two deep breaths and Guppy headed in, with only a slight pinny-induced waddle. It was mostly quiet in the corridors, all the noise was coming from the kitchen at this time of night. She found herself a basket and swiftly started stuffing it with various towels and cloths. Basket under one arm, she headed upstairs and knocked on the first of the guest doors. Silence. She pressed her finger to the latch and pushed on the heavy wood.
Empty, just a greyish bed in a greyish room.
Rooms two and three were the same, so it clearly wasn’t peak season for the inn. Room four gave a muffled shout to come in, and she popped her head around to see an overstuffed gentleman attempting to pull a brilliant purple coat over his straining arms. He barely glanced at her when she asked for laundry and so, after a quick scan of the room, she left him to his herculean effort.
Room five was silent. She thumbed the latch open and peered in, then immediately felt her heart kick into a faster beat. Gotcha.
The boy didn’t look up. He was tied to the head of the bed by a length of rope that allowed him as far as the chamberpot but no further. His mouth was stuffed with something that looked like it might taste even worse than the flavours she usually encountered. That pinched face was nearly clean, but the raw red eyes suggested it might have been washed with tears rather than pump water.
Guppy snuck in, gently pushed the door closed and set the basket down on the floor. The boy was staring at her. She held a finger to her lips, then pulled the rag out of his mouth. He retched, spat, and began to gnaw at the cord at his wrists. Bonds undone, he stood and glared at her.
‘What are you doing here?’ His tone was not in the slightest bit grateful.
Guppy frowned and shook her head, his glare hardened.
‘You could talk well enough yesterday.’
She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue for inspection. His recoil made her suspect that it hadn’t improved much from its earlier inflated state.
She stuck her thumb behind her at the door, beckoned. He just sat down on the bed, mouth firmed into a belligerent line. Guppy waved her hands frantically in front of him, gave him a none-too-gentle yank.
‘I don’t know who you are, but you weren’t on my side yesterday. There’s no way I’m going anywhere with you.’
He was clearly mentally defective.
She slapped her hands in exasperation against the mottled pinny and stomped around, reaching for the door.
It nearly hit her in the face.
The man behind it quirked a thin gold eyebrow at her. He was slickly dressed in a dark green tailcoat and pale gold trousers, making her think of a particularly skinny tree.
‘And who are you, er,’ his nose wrinkled pointedly, ‘Young lady? Two for one deal is it?’
Guppy scowled and gave him a vicious kick to the shin.
The boy stared in horror as the man crumpled thanks to Guppy’s follow up knee to his delicates. She reached over the man and grabbed the boy’s arm to drag him out the door, scuttling down the narrow steps and out the back entrance. Extremely angry swearing was audible from the open window above.
Guppy lowered her head and pelted faster, boy in tow.
She’d already decided she couldn’t take him to her usual sleeping place, too much risk they’d be seen. But there was a mostly forgotten cellar full of rotten potatoes behind old man Leecher’s house, and she’d spent a night or two there without any hassle before.
She could hear the boy starting to wheeze, and though she gave a scornful huff, she eased up the pace. They couldn’t run through the streets anyway, not without someone seeing and remembering.
They were five streets away from the house when she heard sharp footsteps behind them. She bustled the boy into the shadowed side of the cobbled street and hustled him onward, one ear listening to those footsteps in their wake.
Four streets away.
Three streets away.
Two streets – the footsteps had gone silent. Guppy whirled, pushing the boy behind her.
And found the sharp edge of a blade beneath her chin.
When I was little, my skin was nearly white enough for my Chinese family.
‘If you got rid of your freckles you would be so beautiful!’ they would say, whitening cream in hand.
When I was older, my skin seemed far too white – a failed attempt to inherit my mother’s tone, the smooth brown that delights in sunshine and burnishes with ease.
Now I opt out of the hunt for sun, at home in the bioluminescence of my father’s skin.
And yet increasingly I feel disquiet. This pale passport allows me to elude assumptions, it is an all access pass to no questions asked.
And the world doesn’t check the blood running beneath.
My half-blood friends whose dice rolled brown are forever asked where they’re from, forever questioned why they’re here.
I think of those times when they wrenched away children who were ‘white enough’. Those times when you might be less of a dog if your luck ran pale. Those times that seem to be circling back around.
And I hear the ‘Go Home’ howls, see the snarling fever as it spreads.
One day I might be lucky that I’m nearly white enough.
And for the first time, I fear that my family are not.
The Pain Killer was born for the second time when his family died.
Or more accurately, after he had watched his wife, children, parents and siblings rot to pieces in front of him. Their screams had been just another sound in the hell that had become their village. One after another, no matter the water poured between cracked lips, the bandages placed over festering flesh. There was nothing he could do.
And when his oldest child finally passed, and he looked down upon himself and saw the rot beginning to spread across his tanned torso, he began to laugh. He wrapped his shaking form around the stinking remains of his loved ones and he gave himself away to the void.
The void had sent him back.
He now wore a thick grey fur cloak, a long way from the thin woven clothes his wife had made for him when he had lived before. A continent away, centuries past, but the loss burned fresh within his body.
He had spent weeks journeying to this town. As he approached, a familiar wailing rose from inside the walls. The snow on the road was splattered with red.
He could see the pain even from this distance, a dark miasma in a frenzy above the buildings. Meaningless slaughter had released the pain that had been held in those bodies, leaving it to dart and swirl until it found a target amongst the living.
Though pain could be generated by humanity, it could not easily be removed from the world. It might transform into grief, or physical pain, or mental anguish, it might linger for weeks or decades, moving from host to host. But it would not naturally dissipate.
The Pain Killer was one of the only ones left with the knowledge of how to ground pain. He had met others at major catastrophes, their interactions limited to professional nods of acknowledgement. But there seemed to be more and more pain erupting across the world, and fewer and fewer of them left to face it.
A light-haired young man had his hands pressed to the rough stone of the town wall. His head was bent, back heaving with deep retches interposed with sobs. Pain roiled around him, an impossible amount attempting to burrow its way in.
The Pain Killer kept his distance. He inhaled, and began to draw the filaments away from the bent figure, bracing himself against the lashing anguish. He channelled the darkness into the ground below, trapping the writhing mass in depths warmed by the Earth’s core. As he worked, the figure of the young man unbent, still burdened by grief but no longer maddened by it.
The Pain Killer eyed the young man. There were so many here that could be born into another life. Into this life. He could taste rage, grief, blood in the air. And there was more and more pain in the world, spreading from man to man like pestilence.
And yet even for the sake of the world, he would not have another be born again as he had been. He would not cause another to ‘live’ as he lived.
She tasted lies young. Much younger than most other children of the town, who were strategically warned by mothers and nursemaids that if you lied, a four-headed serpent with teeth as long as your arm would bite your tongue clear off. And you would also be sent to bed without supper.
Guppy had no mother, no nursemaid, went to bed without supper more often than not, and never encountered a four headed serpent.
What she did encounter was taste.
The first time had been after she swiped a particularly fine looking meat pie left cooling in the baker’s window. Belly full of evidence, she had widened her eyes in panic at the baker’s wife and hurriedly denied any knowledge whatsoever of meat pies in general, let alone this specific pie (it had been remarkably buttery and crumbly, with a firm meaty middle, riddled with chunks of apple).
At her bumbled denial, Guppy’s mouth had flooded with eye-drenching sourness, a taste that seemed to be dissolving her teeth as well as her tongue.
She’d managed a wavery smile convincing enough to send the baker’s wife off after another target, before sticking her mouth under a spigot and scrabbling at her tongue with dirty fingers. The taste of pie was long gone.
In a land where lying was accompanied by such unpleasant consequences, most everyday folk stuck to the truth, or at least as near the truth as would mitigate the risk of tongue scorch and public shaming. Guppy, however, began to try lie after lie, exploring the flavours and learning to tolerate the taste until she could keep all trace of the terrible mouth experiences from her face.
She discovered that white lies tasted bitter-sweet, less dreadful than bold-faced lies, but still with a lingering edge of after taste. Lies of exaggeration bubbled with rotten fumes akin to the smells from a dung heap. Lies of fabrication, including tales told to entertain, would result in an explosion of salt, as though your tongue were caked in crystals.
She got away with it all too, until she encountered the boy.
He had been visiting the market for a week now. He looked about six or seven, with a painfully thin face that often had tear tracks streaking through the dirt. Guppy had watched him clumsily swipe food from several of the stalls, and was pleased to see that the stallholders who noticed his thefts kept quiet, eyes sympathetically watching his frail frame.
Then the boy stole from the wrong stall. The baker’s wife set to screeching as soon as she saw her missing loaf, drawing the swift attention of a town guard, who hared after the boy and had him pulled up by the collar in a few strides.
The boy had had the sense to ditch the bread as soon as the woman had started her howls, but the baker’s wife pointed one plump finger directly at Guppy, who had unfortunately been front and centre for the entire debacle. There was no time to dart elsewhere.
The guard turned to her, the boy gasping in his grip.
‘Girl. Did you see this boy take bread from the woman’s stall?’
Guppy gulped. She could lie, but it was fairly clear that the boy was the culprit and she didn’t want it revealed that she could speak untruths. But if she told the truth, the boy was probably headed for a life of slavery. The boy’s eyes were huge in his haggard face, beseeching her with silent pleas.
‘I saw him.’
Guppy looked down, unable to meet his gaze. And as the guard whirled away with the boy in hand, she felt a curious burning begin in her mouth. Within moments, her tongue seemed to catch alight, scorching the roof of her mouth into blisters, and forcing a whimper to escape her well-trained lips.
Later, as she lay with a rag dipped in cool water inside her mouth, she thought that this must be the taste of betrayal. The result of speaking what you know is wrong in your heart, no matter the technical truth.
The boy’s eyes continued to haunt her.
Swollen-tongue be damned. He wasn’t going to disappear on her watch.
In order to preserve your innocence, Gentle Reader, we’ll add in a 1950s style bathing dress that goes down to the knee, and a balaclava.
I’m bothering to shave my legs for the first time in two weeks, due to their upcoming starring role in A Dress. This is the first attention that my legs have gotten beyond a cursory scrub (I hasten to reassure you, Dear Reader, that I did in fact continue wash during these two weeks), so I’m going through the routine of soak-scrutinise-soap-shave.
I’m not a particularly strong competitor in the hirsute leagues, so two weeks is about enough to make my (very pale) legs look a bit grubby. On closer inspection, I notice a tenacious bit of dirt that doesn’t seem to be follicular in nature.
I splash water. No effect.
I scrub. No effect.
I tug with nails, and voila, success.
Unfortunately, said dirt is wriggling.
Slightly more luckily, I don’t give into my first instinct, which is to dunk my hand in the bath water to wash it off. Instead, the leg dirt is deposited on the side for closer inspection.
A google and a sinking suspicion later, it is confirmed.
It was a tick.
People with a fear of arachnids should really be saving all their animosity for ticks. They’re literally man-eating spiders that burrow their heads into flesh – if they existed on a larger scale, they would be terrorising cinema-goers. I feel like the humble house spider should be appropriately recognised for its decision not to suck out your blood through your skin, or give you a bacterial infection that can be debilitating for life.
The tick might have been a message from the universe telling me to shave my legs more often. In which case, you should have sent that tick along in Winter, mister, that’s when the real growing season takes place.
The universe may instead, of course, be telling me that I should spend the entirety of summer in a wetsuit that covers me from ankle to mid-neck to wrist. I will take this under advisement.
I would also like the universe to note that ‘carrier ticks’ are not going to catch on as a means of communication. My preferred means of contact are by post (pigeon or snail), email or hallucinatory dreamscape.
There is a faint possibility that ticks are an alien species attempting some sort of mind meld with the human race via their blood streams. In this case, I would again ask them to note that I am contactable via email, post, and am entirely abductable if they would like a chat.
I’m happy to note that I didn’t contract Lyme Disease – it’s important to keep an eye out when you’re in a part of the world with ticks. NHS guidance on Lyme Disease and ticks can be found here.
Medically Unexplained 