Sub Rosa, page 20
“Don’t worry, Little,” said First, distressed. She rubbed my back to soothe both of us. “Nothin’ even close to that is gonna happen.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I love you, Little.” Her hands found my shoulders and gave me the slightest shake, as if she could shake her love into me. “You’re the only one I love.”
“Arsen loved Jellyfish, didn’t he? You know what he did when I told him she was out there? He drove as fast as he could in the opposite direction.”
“If she was in the Dark, she’d come back by now. Even the girls that give up and don’t make it through their Dark Days come back.”
“What if she was killed or something?”
“There’s no killing on Sub Rosa,” First sighed, as if I had asked a truly stupid question. “Little, this is all startin’ to get to me, this nonsense talk. It’s this damn darkness, seems like the longest night God could make, and it’s makin’ everyone crazy. Why are we standing outside in this blackout? Let’s get ourselves back in.” She hug-dragged me back into the Mayflower.
XVIII
Arsen’s lullaby buzzed like mosquitoes over stagnant water. Each hook looped incessantly before it gave over to the next, the tune never progressing to the end of a song. “Are ya sure you’re not usin’ Glory magic?” First whispered in his ear. Arsen only shook his head so as not to interrupt his melody. “’Cause I’m sure gettin’ sleepy from hearin’ it.” She lay her cheek down on the table. Her mouth fell open in a sleepy smile, her breath steamy on the shiny lacquered wood tabletop.
I watched the orphans doze off in narcotic trances while still sitting. I wanted to topple them, press their pale heads against the floor. Why couldn’t they just lie down to sleep like everyone else? Every so often a word or broken phrase punctuated Arsen’s melody, revealing that his bedtime songs once had lyrics that he had either forgotten or didn’t care to perform. But whenever a stray “love” or “moonlight” or “dreaming of you” sprang from his lips, the orphans’ eyes would collectively pop open like the eyes of porcelain dolls, and they’d stare straight ahead, at who knows what, until their heavy eyelids lowered again.
First’s stomach growled. The sound was nonsense to me; I thought it was some sort of warped reverberation from Arsen’s hum before I realized it came from First’s belly. Dearest shook herself out of drowsiness and yelled, “I’m hungry!” into the kitchen. She climbed atop a barstool and spun and spun, until the seat was about ready to pop off, shouting, “Maggie, make me a cream pie!”
“You just ate,” came the reply from the kitchen.
“That was a long time ago,” Dearest protested. “Fauxnique, when did we last eat? Not since yesterday, right?” Fauxnique shrugged and looked to Ling for the answer. A bloodshot-eyed Ling twisted Treasure Anne’s hair around her finger as she thought about it. Since the blackout began, she had been braiding and unbraiding, vigorously twisting and unfurling pin curls, and even raking Treasure Anne’s scalp for imaginary nits. For Treasure Anne, this type of sisterly affection between a First and a Second was long overdue. She tilted her head toward Ling’s busy fingers the same way I often leaned into First. But after a few hours, I noticed Treasure wince as Ling yanked out hair elastics to start another hairdo. A noticeable collection of strawberry-blonde hair stuck to Ling’s black dress. “I’m not quite sure how long we’ve been here,” Ling said.
“If Arsen would quit that time-warped tune of his, perhaps we’d know how long it’s been,” grumbled the Dowager. A pair of wire-framed glasses had appeared at the end of her nose. She was nearing the end of her weighty old book with the tissue-thin pages.
“Breakfast, dinner, a snack, something,” Dearest persisted. She hopped over to another barstool, one that squeaked as she spun. Shirley briefly appeared from the kitchen in a flannel housecoat to slam down a jar of honey and a spoon on the bar. “This won’t tide me over for long,” Dearest called out to her after swallowing a spoonful of honey.
“You better share,” Portia warned her. Dearest hesitated for a moment, holding the already-dripping jar close to her chest, but when all three triplets motioned for her to bring the jar to them, Dearest slid down from her barstool perch and padded over to them, beads of spilled honey trailing behind her. That’s when I saw it—the horrible blood-sucker—a tiny spreader of parasites that flew down from who knows what god-forsaken place and landed on a fallen honey splat.
“Black fly!” I stood up and screamed.
First’s heavy head shot up with a start. “Little, you must be dream-in’. No flies ever come here,” she said before she and the rest of the Glories saw what I was pointing at. The fly stood firmly on its newfound sweet spot while gasps of “impossible” and “kill it” filled the room.
“No killing on Sub Rosa,” First recited our golden rule. The others stopped to consider this for a second before someone shouted, “What do we kill it with?”
“A flyswatter,” said Arsen. Unsure of what exactly a flyswatter was, the Glories looked around, confused. Dearest let out an impish battle cry and swung her spoon in the air, sending more honey droplets to the floor. The fly, unperturbed, moved to a newer drop of honey. Portia stared down at the fashion magazine in her hands for a few determined seconds before rolling it up and going after the fly. The ugly insect took off, spinning circles in the air above Portia’s head. Likka took up a magazine, too, and tore after the fly, but she tripped on the sticky floor and fell with a distressing thud onto her back. Her magazine landed beside her, its page opened to “101 Anti-Aging Tips,” and a photograph of a woman swathed in white gauze, fuchsia-pink letters dissecting her body that read, “Shield your skin from sun, pollution, and other environmental damage.” I wondered what the hell was going to happen next.
First, ignoring her aforementioned rule, began waving a dust rag in the air. She could reach the ceiling beams when she jumped from a chair. The fly kept buzzing. Ling shot hair elastics at it. The fly kept buzzing. The Dowager held her huge hardcover book over her head, then threw it down with a karate cry of kiai. The insect flew into the closed window, probably wanting to get away from this pitiful display as badly as I did. Its delicate opalescent wings fluttered on high speed as it beat itself against the glass.
“Is this for fucking real?” I yelled. It got the room’s attention. From the corner of my eye, I could see First about to tell me not to cuss, but she kept it to herself. “We’re going to let a fly beat us?”
“It’s not something we’re used to, Little. I mean, I for one am glad we don’t know how to deal with flies, or any other bug,” said Ling, slightly out of breath. The Glories around her nodded in agreement.
“We’re not used to being hungry, either, or being so tired that we fall asleep sitting up. Diamond is wearing glasses, for fuck’s sake,” I said.
“Oh, they’re not any different from any of my other antique collectables,” said the Dowager. “They just make reading a bit easier. Normally I wouldn’t read an entire book in one sitting.”
“Yeah, well, Treasure’s hair is falling out,” I huffed. “And Arsen can’t even get a children’s song right.” Treasure Anne clapped her hands over her head, and Arsen’s low hum finally fell silent. “And I’ll tell you where that fly came from. Not from the city. Like Ling said, we don’t get city flies here. That fly is from the Dark. I remember seeing them—that same size, that same colour—in the Dark. They’d cooked themselves on the one frigging light out there. Now this one’s going to die trying to get out the window.” It was true, the black fly moved feebly along the windowsill until its buzz was staccato, then slowed, until finally it lay unmoving.
“I wonder what else the Dark will bring to our door?” This was my way of breaking, I suppose. Since the blackout began, I had avoided pacing and muttering and fidgeting. But when I started unravelling, I wanted to unravel over everyone. I wanted to kick shit up. A brawl— the streak-free windows kicked in; the gleaming tables overturned. My city clothes twitched on my body. I felt hot. Why couldn’t I just walk out of here? I flung open the Mayflower door. The room held its breath. Something blew in as I stood there. It swirled in on the floor in a tender whirlwind. Blue money. “Shut the door,” the triplets screeched. The five-dollar bill breezed over toward their table. Likka stood up on the booth bench as if a mouse was scurrying below. “You let it in, you get it,” she ordered me.
The Glories glared at me as I scooped it up and into my jeans pocket. “She knows something,” Fauxnique hissed. “I knew it all along. She knows something about the Dark that the rest of us don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” First asked, stepping between me and Fauxnique.
“Little,” Likka called, still perched on top of the bench. “Fauxnique told us that Second Man told her that you found something in the Dark. Something that helped you make all that money. She thinks you found another Advent Alley.”
“This is hardly the time for yesterday’s gossip,” First scolded.
“Now, now, Candy,” said Fauxnique. “It’s not the girl’s title that is in question. It’s just that maybe she knows a way out of here. A passage through the Dark? I’ll go there myself if I have to. Anything to end this blackout.”
Portia patted the bench beside her and, despite First tugging at the back of my T-shirt, I sat down on her cue. “Think,” Portia commanded. “Remember. Did you see an Advent Alley in the Dark?”
“You can’t see anything in the Dark, that’s the whole problem,” said one of the orphans, not loudly, though orphans’ voices are so rarely heard that everyone turned to the Dowager’s booth. The Dowager herself turned her head to see which one of her orphans had spoke.
“Please, Sadie, you’ve never been to the Dark,” said Arsen. “You’ve barely seen anything outside of the Mansion.”
“It wasn’t me who said that, idiot,” snapped Sadie orphan. Isabella (at least I thought it was Isabella) sunk down in her seat. Arsen looked as if he had a comeback, and Diamond and Sadie were poised to fight again, but then he shrugged and turned away.
Portia tried me again. “Did you see or hear anything, anything that could have been an Advent Alley?”
“Or anything that might have come through an Advent Alley? A live one, with money?” Fauxnique said from the booth beside us.
“You made $500 in two days,” said Myra. “Couldn’t all be from zombie men.”
“Picture the money, Little. It’s in your hands now. What do you see?” The counterfeit hypnotist, Portia, drawled her words. The only thing I could see was her flickering eyes as she rolled them back in a mock trance. It must have taken a fair bit of willpower on her part not to use any of her Glory charms.
“Oh, for the love of fuck,” Fauxnique said, running her hands through her bubblegum hair. “Arsen, what kind of dowry did the kid bring back? Crumpled small bills or warmer?”
Arsen slid further into his booth, shaking his head. “I won’t get tangled up in this.”
“Too late.” The Dowager sauntered across the Mayflower to Arsen’s booth, her wooden-heeled boots punching the over-lacquered floorboards. “You’re already tangled. We all are, sorry to say. And Little, as you are well aware, earned more than her dowry, including three one-hundred dollar bills. Crisp bills.”
“That’s city money!” Dearest shouted, standing on top of the bar.
“Second Man was right all along,” said Fauxnique. The triplets leaned in to me looking for answers. The throng of orphan black lace stirred. I looked at First, hoping I remembered right—that there were no rules in the Dark. I didn’t want to say something that could get me in trouble.
“I’m pretty sure there was a truck.”
Portia’s hands landed on my cheeks. “A real truck!”
“A real truck,” I said again, even more sure as I repeated it. “With a real radio that was tuned into a city station.”
First cupped her hand over her mouth. “Radio? Little, are you sure?” she asked. “The city must have been very close to get radio.”
Dearest began chiming, “Little can save us, Little can save us.”
“Why Little?” First asked. “What should she have to go?” But it was too late, the Glories clapped and cheered my name. Dearest jumped up and down, kicking flatware off the tabletop.
“Go with her, Arsen,” First pleaded. “Little can show you the way out of here so you can call for help.” The Glories clapped again. The triplets started fixing their lip gloss as if the blackout was about to end in mere moments.
“No cars,” the Dowager protested. “Especially Arsen’s bellowing, over-revved engine. Whoever goes there has to go on foot.”
This quieted the Glories for a moment, even First, who was the only Glory who had actually journeyed by foot into the Dark and back out again. Dearest leaned her elbows on the table beside Arsen. “Will you go with Little?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” added Likka. “It only makes sense for Arsen to go. When he reaches the city he can call the other Daddies.”
“What are you still sitting there for?” Myra asked him. The triplets slid out of their booth, chanting, “Go, Arsen, go,” like crazed cheerleaders. They crowded around him.
Arsen fumbled with a cloth napkin on the table. The gold and ebony ring he wore on his finger was loose and turned backward. His hand must have shrunk ever so slightly during the blackout. There was dirt, dirt, under his fingernails as he pressed his palms against the table. He was going to push himself up. Stand and face what he was being called to do.
I beat him to it. “I go alone,” I repeated until everyone else was quiet and seated. Arsen slumped back into his seat. Al, Shirley, and Maggie reappeared from the kitchen. Al helped Maggie perch herself on a barstool. She held his hand as she looked at me with hope in her old eyes. Dearest pulled her shirt collar up halfway over her young face as she waited for me to speak. The simplest and most honest thing I could have said is that I really knew nothing about a second Advent Alley. It was Jellyfish who discovered the men in the truck. Maybe she had lured them somehow with her glow. But I didn’t dare say her name. Besides, who was I to deny their hope? I was their hero. I opened my mouth and every Glory leaned forward in anticipation.
“I don’t need Arsen. There is a guide in the Dark who has helped me before, and if I’m lucky she’ll help me again. I haven’t forgotten how to use a phone. If I find my way to the city I will call the Daddies. Arsen, I want you to stay here. If I get lost, you’re the only person with a car who knows how to find me.” Arsen exhaled in relief. He nodded in hasty agreement at my request. I didn’t want him with me, anyway. Whatever I found in the Dark, an alley to the city or Jellyfish or anything, would be mine and mine alone. I wasn’t about to share my glory with him.
“I’ll need supplies,” I announced, and the Glories eagerly sprang up to help me gather whatever I needed. Matches. A thermos of Maggie’s coffee. A box of pushpins. Dearest offered me the last of her stash of almond confetti, wrapped in silver and gold foil. I asked Shirley for a pen. She hated loaning them out, but she called me “an angel” and gave up her nicest felt-tip. From Ling I borrowed a couple of hair elastics, which she pulled directly from Treasure Anne’s hair. I emptied my purse, then repacked it with only the supplies I needed.
I had a plan: with the elastic bands I’d fasten the pen to the end of my hair so I wouldn’t lose it. Once I was in the Dark, I could use phantom hand to draw on my T-shirt. I’d make a map of the path I’d travelled on my back. I knew I’d worn white cotton for a reason. Paper would be too easy to lose; one gust of wind and I could kiss my map goodbye. This was too valuable, it would be the very first map of the Dark. I imagined we’d name it after me, something like “Little’s path.”
The pushpins I’d use like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. Whenever I felt a telephone pole or a wooden door soft enough, I’d mark it with a tack. I figured if I charted my way in then I would be able to find my way back.
My last task was to say goodbye to First. As she walked me to the door I wondered if she’d kiss me again or if she’d be too upset with me for going and send me off brusquely. I made a game out of it—a gamble. Like pulling petals off a daisy. If she kissed me, my journey would be lucky, if she didn’t …
“I love you,” I said the second we were out the door. I suppose I wanted my dramatic farewell scene. Her kiss was the softest and warmest a kiss could be, like it was behind the curtain, but too quick.
“You don’t have to go,” she said. “I never meant for you to have to go.”
“I choose this,” I said. I walked away with my lips tucked in-between my teeth so I didn’t change my mind. A solid minute, maybe two, passed before I heard the swish of the Mayflower door open and close. Let me be. I’m sick with worry for my Little, I imagined her saying to the other Glories.
It was my fingernails that alerted me to the Dark. Their faint green glow began to beam neon bright, and I was in. The polish had been saving itself for the real Dark. It still wasn’t enough to light my way. All I could really see were my own hands and anything within one inch of them, which looked to be pretty much empty air. I found an elastic hair band and Shirley’s pen inside my purse. Reaching behind me, I fastened the pen to my ponytail and guided phantom hand to it. Phantom hand took its position at my back, and the felt-tip skipped against my T-shirt for a few strides before it fell into perfect pace behind me. I drew a short line for each ten steps I took. When I stopped, phantom hand would push me onward. I thought I was making it up, but each time I slowed my pace it pressed harder against me. “Don’t,” I whined, and it quit its poking. It’s as scared as you are, I told myself. It doesn’t want to fall behind.
There was every reason to be scared. The chronic hum. The chilly air. The slippery concrete beneath my feet. The fact that I had no idea where to look. I figured since I had only just entered that I was on the outskirts of the Dark. I decided to walk left. I would circle the entire perimeter. Map from the outside in.
