Psychopomp: A Novella (5 page)

Now, when I gave plasma, it was as much about the credits as it was about staying away from Verm. Afterward, I walked the familiar, narrow streets that were strangely uncomfortable reminders of my life. There I’d sat in a stall with my father and watched him sell fish, the memory so brief and hazy it was barely a memory at all. There Anden had shoved me down during a game with other neighborhood children. There was the school, where I’d laughed with my friends.

I evaluated the memories one by one, deciding whether or not they alone were strong enough to hold me here in the only place I’d ever known.

A crooked fence with bits of trash stuck in the links came into view. I squeezed myself through a jagged hole on the far side. The old pool gaped before me, empty and cracked, grayed with ages of dirt and graffiti.

Picking my way among the broken lounge chairs, I sat on the crumbling edge of the pool. My feet dangled over the edge. The weight of the darkening evening fell heavy upon me. The skin beneath my breasts was slick with sweat, but I shivered as the bottom of the pool turned black with shadow and pulled up my feet. There had never been any water in there as far as I’d ever known. I didn’t know how to swim and never would. Deep water scared me.

I remembered learning, in school, about chunks of ice that had once floated on the edges of the world. Potential sources for drinking water, they’d melted before anyone could transport them economically.

The thought of icebergs filled me with deep unease even though they didn’t exist anymore. In the old days most of the berg would have been underwater, a vast uncharted landscape, an inverted blue mountain, a submerged cathedral for ghosts. It scared me to think of all that ice just
lurking
beneath the surface, a frighteningly massive expanse hiding from view.

But the underwater part, the eerily beautiful part you couldn’t see except in old photographs, was the part that melted fastest. And when it did, when the top was heavier than the bottom, the iceberg flipped over like a mythical, ungainly beast, creating waves that crashed in the cold sea. Once flipped, the berg would have looked like an entirely different piece of ice, displaying secret and heartbreaking shades of blue and green.

I longed for change, for happiness, but by now I knew I had to create these things for myself. Nothing good would just happen to me. But the very idea of initiating change—leaving my home, my town, the people I knew—paralyzed me with fear. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’d lived in shit so long I’d gotten used to the smell of it. This was where I belonged. Submission was in my blood.

Anden would have reminded me I didn’t know how to take care of myself. In a land rendered barren by drought and chemicals, I wouldn’t stand a chance on my own.

On the way home, at the tail end of evening light, I spotted something unexpectedly green in the gloaming. Green, the rare color of life and nature. I rubbed my fists to clear my gritty eyes and blinked. The plant sprouted hesitantly from a crack in the asphalt beside someone’s rot-smelling trashcans. It was a delicate little blossom with a fragile gossamer spray at the center.

I knew I should have left the little flower alone to grow, but I took the thin, slightly rubbery stem between my thumb and forefinger and plucked it. It felt like nothing beneath my careful fingertips. The leaves cradling the blossom like the palm of a hand were plastic-smooth.

I stared, a slight revulsion tingeing my fascination. I’d never seen a real plant, just growing wherever it pleased. I’d seen the wilted fruits and vegetables the ambassadors sometimes delivered in splintery crates. But that wasn’t the same.

Like bitter secrets, our crops grew in controlled environments. The massive greenhouse labs loomed at the far edge of Cizel, to the north. It had taken years and thousands had starved in the process, but now our food was removed from the things that made it unsafe to farm outdoors: chemical residue, dry soil, lack of water. Anyone with a yard composted to provide soil for the greenhouses. Nobody in Marshwick had a yard. All we had was pavement and the sea.

Even if I left Marshwick and tended myself in isolation, I feared nothing could remove the poison from inside me.

My eyes clouded with tears when it hit me how breathtaking and miraculous the little flower was. How anomalous, how repulsive. I felt so tender toward it for one fleeting moment.

Then anger, powerful and sudden, overtook my whole body. I crushed the flower in my fist, but the satisfaction was weak. I grabbed the petals with the fingers of both hands and began tearing it apart.

There was a party in Cizel, Verm told me. We were going to it.

“You got us invited to a party?” I was confused.

“No.” He looked at me scornfully. “But I know how to get information from people. Ain’t nobody gonna check for an invitation long as we’re dressed right.”

“But—”

“I know you don’t got nothing to wear. That red dress won’t work. So I got you this.”

A scrap of fabric dangled from his hands. The dress was gold, glimmering. It plunged in the front and would skim the tops of my pallid, doughy thighs.

I wished people would stop giving me dresses.

Verm looked pleased, so I took it from him. “Why?” I said. “Why are we going to a party?”

He shook his head at my stupidity. “How else am I supposed to get sponsors?”

“For what?”

A sound of exasperation escaped him. “Rich people will pay me to fish for them, Marlo. I can charge whatever I want. That’s how we’re gonna get out of this place. Don’t you want a better life?”

I nodded.

“Your brother tried to cheat me. He thought I didn’t know, but I did.” He paused for a moment, thinking, and then turned his eyes to me. “We could end up living in the mansions some day. We’d never be hungry.”

Not the mansions, I thought to myself. Never the mansions.

Though snatches of memories had come to me in dreams and nightmares, they were no clearer to me now. The room where I’d pulled the needle from my arm seemed cavernous in my mind. But I didn’t know how I’d gotten out.

It seemed stupid to keep dwelling on it. Something horrible may have happened to me, but there was nothing I could do about it now.

Later, I showed the dress to Blanca, but she could tell I wasn’t grateful.

“You have to make an effort,” she informed me. “You have to show him why he should be with you instead of someone else. That means looking pretty and doing whatever he wants in bed, and not arguing with him. That’s the only way any man can love a woman, really.”

“Oh.”

Her advice seemed a sad and desperate way to get someone’s love. But she would know, I guessed, because she and Harkin had been together almost two years. She’d had boyfriends before him, too. I didn’t have any experience other than Verm, and I wasn’t sure that counted. If love was what he gave me, maybe I was better off without it.

“Stay away from Harkin,” she warned suddenly. “He hasn’t been too interested in sex. I seen him looking at you.”

“Qué?”

She gave me a dry, weary look. “Don’t be stupid, Marlo.”

I stared. I’d helped Blanca. I’d taken the baby so she could nap or wash up. I’d held that fattening little girl and wiped the snot from beneath her runny nose, and she’d looked at me with eyes that subtly changed color each month she got older. And in return Blanca warned me against making advances toward her boyfriend.

“I’m not interested in him,” I said, “and I don’t want him coming near me.”

Her face softened. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

Verm came into my bed again that night. I guessed it would be a regular thing. He told me not to cry, so I didn’t. But sometimes I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes I had to force the tears to stop.

Every night, after he’d finished, I turned away and balanced on the edge of the bed so I wouldn’t have to touch his body. He didn’t seem to mind the space between us. In sleep he looked like a different person, a gentler person. It was the only time I could find something redeeming in his face.

The hallway was empty and dark except for the night light near the stairs. His music called her. She opened the attic door and climbed the stairs to discover the angel who played for her.

She hadn’t expected the attic to be so empty. She’d expected boxes and old furniture draped in sheets. There was only the upright piano, old and scratched. A big window facing the front of the house let in smoky blue city light.

Claire saw the angel sitting at the bench, head bent obsessively over the keys. He was mostly bathed in shadow, only a few patches of white skin illuminated. He didn’t look up, but she knew that he knew she was there because he’d stopped playing.

“That was beautiful,” Claire said. Her voice sounded better, she thought. As if she used it often.

He raised his head, squinting at her. Her insides jumped at the sight of his chiseled cheekbones, acute jaw, and rectangular eyes beneath slashed eyebrows. His face was so sharp and arresting beneath the strands of lank black hair that fell across it. His only soft feature was his mouth, wide and lush. He didn’t use it to smile. That had stopped long ago.

She drew forward, enraptured, until she was close enough to see the color of his eyes—ice blue, to reflect the state of his heart—and the overwhelming bitterness they contained. They’d been so happy once, always twinkling with laughter. But she liked them better this way.

“I’m Claire,” she said. “Claire Toussaint. Do you remember me?”

Something flickered in those hard, cold eyes. And then he began to play once more.

The song was one of sorrow and fear. Claire could feel it in her chest as she leaned dreamily on the piano. Its melody left her drained and helpless, her legs like the jellies in the Marshwick harbor. Her adoring eyes blurred with tears, and through them she could see something huge and dark looming behind the angel. His shadow, maybe, or something else. It streamed behind him like a shroud, but sometimes it unfolded toward the ceiling.

After a while, his fingers stilled and the last notes faded from the air. “I will write songs for you,” the angel said, staring down at the keys.

“How did you get here?” Claire asked.

“This is where I fell.”

“Why did you choose me? Why did you call me, but none of the others?”

“I called to everyone,” the angel revealed. “Only you heard me.”

Claire felt relieved but also heartbroken.

“It’s because of my sister,” she said, “isn’t it?”

He only looked at her, and in his eyes she could see his heart breaking all over again.

~

It was Ethan’s smile that really disarmed the girls of the institute. Claire figured this out when he secretly began slipping her little gifts. She lined them up on her windowsill: strawberry lip balm, a flameless candle, an antique silver key, little candies, a crystal to catch whatever sunlight shone through the haze, and half an oyster shell coated in shiny pink lacquer.

At first she thought the gifts were from the angel. But he would have no way of getting such things. Claire found herself meeting Ethan’s eyes across a sea of heads, and he would offer a lazy, secretive smile just for her. His velvet eyes would glimmer, as if he knew something about her even she didn’t know. She never returned the smile and always turned away before he could see her blush.

Before he could see how scared she was of him.

The next night, full of wild emotion, she ran up to the attic. The angel stood as she burst from the stairway. He was long and lean, all shadows and skin. His eyes, she thought, softened at the sight of her, though his face remained severe. She ached for him, as she always had.

“I love you,” she cried.

“You’re not even sixteen,” he said, dismissing her.

But his song that night was poetry without words. In it, her hair was dark melting chocolate. The sun shone from within her earthy eyes. Her lashes fluttered against his bladed cheeks. Her hands were little birds singing on his skin. It was as if he played her very wishes.

Claire understood the music was an extension of him. He touched her with it instead of his hands. He manipulated the sounds, wrapping it around her like the finest cloth, eliciting the most forceful of emotions. It was better, almost, than the touch of mere fingers.

“Thank you,” she said when the song ended. She didn’t tell him she was still so full of longing it hurt.

I wore the gold dress the night of the party.

Harkin came with Verm and me. The center of Cizel, so far from the fug of fish and grime, smelled sharp and sweet. Getting off the rail, we passed metallic plants with broad leaves that released pure oxygen into the air. They emitted watery light, like bioluminescence.

The haze wasn’t as bad here because of the air purifiers. Lights sprang out from the tops of buildings, purple and green, slicing through the night. We walked on smooth sidewalks, too astonished to talk to each other. We’d known everything in Cizel was better and cleaner, but this was a different world.

Most of the buildings we saw were dark, but one ahead of us beckoned. There were no windows on the face of it. It was white, glowing as if the sun reflected off it. In front, white steps inlaid with soft cyan lights led up to the open door.

We’d arrived.

“Just don’t talk and try to look pretty, if you can even manage that,” Verm said as we entered.

We heard loud music and the roar of voices from a room at the end of a long, low-lit hallway. No one tried to stop us as we walked toward it.

Just inside the door, we all stiffened and stood up straighter. The room was round, lined with floor-to-ceiling aquariums. In each one a single large jelly floated, slim tentacles and frilled arms waving. The tanks cast the room in pale shades of purple and blue. They were beautiful. No one even glanced at them.

My widened eyes roved greedily over the people. I saw a man with black metal hair shining with refracted light. It flowed to his shoulders in a sheet of tiny squares hinged against one another. One woman had skin like the nacreous underside of an oyster shell. Another had gold studs embedded along her collarbone. Several people wore coral arrangements as headdresses.

Their mouths seemed always open as they talked over the pulsing music. They all had suspiciously perfect smiles. I kept my lips pressed shut over my crooked teeth.

It was clear the three of us didn’t belong at the party, though Verm tried to pretend otherwise. These people were well-fed and healthy because they could afford all the fish and produce they wanted. Their smooth skin glowed with artificial youth.

Verm put a hand on my arm and dragged me to the bar, Harkin trailing behind. He handed me a drink and looked around for someone to impress. Tiny beads of sweat on his hairline gave away his nervousness.

I felt exposed and vulnerable even though no one in the crowded room was paying attention to me. All I wanted was to leave.

When Verm wandered away from me to insert himself into someone else’s conversation, I seized the opportunity to slip away on my own. My arm hurt where he’d held it.

A long table near the bar held the food. The aquarium light fell over large fish, platters of shrimp, mysterious dips, and colorful fruits of great expense. Dried curls of seaweed garnished the dark, iridescent plates.

The vast quantity of it all twisted my stomach with wanting. I picked at the food until I’d eaten about all my stomach could hold, and still I hungered for more. I always took what I could get. We’d taken so much from the ocean that sometimes it gave nothing. This was luxury. This was waste.

Harkin walked over and handed me another drink, then stood beside me in the water-ripple air. His sun-bleached hair had been nicely combed for the occasion, but now it flopped over one eye. I tried not to notice him leering drunkenly at my chest. I didn’t think he’d do anything, but I remembered Blanca’s warning.

“You must be exhausted,” I said. “With the baby.”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

“She’s beautiful,” I added. “Blanca, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She loves you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t hurt her. Don’t leave her.”

He looked at me. “Qué?”

My faced flushed with embarrassment. “Nada.”

I edged away from him, along the glass walls, until I came to an opening. I walked out onto a semi-circular balcony overlooking the city, struck by the night landscape of glimmering glass and colored lights. Pale streaks of blue and violet from inside teased at the edge of my vision. I’d drunk too much and I thought I might hurl over the edge of the balcony.

There was a sound behind me and I snapped my head around. I saw a shape in the shadows and thought it might be Verm, wondering why I’d left him on his own. But the man who moved forward was taller and dark-haired. His hollow-cheeked face was clean-shaven.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, noticing the tension in my body. My eyes were heavy with mistrust as I backed away from him. He didn’t pursue me, but he looked me up and down studiously. “You aren’t from the city.”

“Marshwick.”

“Rueville,” he said. It was a town like ours, only too far from the sea to fish. The man looked at his hands and rubbed a spot of dirt from a crease in one palm.

“That’s nice,” I said rudely. I didn’t know why he bothered talking to me.

Suddenly, the building shifted beneath our feet. A violent roar sucked the sound from the air. As the floor lurched up, I reached blindly for the edge of the balcony, but my hand sailed past it. Quickly, the stranger grabbed me and pulled me upright. I fell against him and stayed until the shaking stopped.

“What was that?” I asked as I pushed myself away from him. My voice sounded distant. Brushing a few strands of hair from my face, I looked inside. People were screaming hysterically and tripping over each other to get to the exits. In the chaos, I couldn’t see either Verm or Harkin.

“You’d better get out of here,” the man said. Then he turned and hauled himself over the edge of the balcony.

“Wait!” I cried, flinging myself after him. I leaned forward and saw him hanging off the side of the building. He flashed a quick grin and began climbing down to the street.

Without stopping to think about it, I followed.

He’d made it look so easy, but my fingers started hurting almost immediately and it was hard to find a foothold. More than once I slipped down and thought I’d fall to my death, but I always managed to catch myself.

Then I felt a pair of hands on my waist, helping me. Once my feet were on the ground, I shoved them away. But I didn’t have to, because he’d already let go.

Defensively, I stared at the man and then up at the balcony I’d just climbed over. It really wasn’t so high, but my heart pounded with adrenaline.

When I turned back to the man, he was gone.

Taking several deep breaths to calm myself, I walked toward the front of the building on shaking legs. People surged through the street in satiny outfits, shouting and shoving mercilessly to get to their magnet cars or the rail. People had fallen on the steps, bloodying their shins.

Another bomb exploded down the street and I let loose a stream of panicked tears. Armpits tingling with shock and fear, I turned and ran from the screams and shattering glass.