Chapter 3: Falling
They made quick to the staying house and the basement office.
De'afi of the Mother's Land sat folded arms open heart at Viola's desk. Upon arrival of hir lesser-seen colleagues, ze shut up the radio with a twist of the knob.
Ze was tallest of the three with legs that went up forever and ever no stopping. Ze wore dense gray pants and a stolen faci peacoat in luxurious senior officer obsidian black. Ze'd replaced all the murder badges with buttons featuring slogans like Dead Pigs United and Give Us Justice, Give Us Peace.
Hir ink wasn't visible in the jacket, but Sadie Crane remembered hours tracing each and every tattoo while they giggled naked on the floor of hir room. A snake wound up hir left arm and across hir back. The tattoo kept going to hir right forearm where it stopped in a surround of whale sharks and swallows. An enormous intricacy of flowers interlocked by lengths of skinny vine--a family tree, each petal representing another member of hir extended blood and bones--painted hir shoulder blades and back. Hir neck bore a complicated pattern of overlapping scales. Shoalian in design, specifically the ark of South Shoal.
Thought: Looks like a scorn, a tattoo worn by deserters during the war between South and North Shoal. Nowdays, it's mostly anti-war guys of Shoalian descent or heritage.
"Back from the dead," the aviator announced.
Despite spending hir mornings and afternoons bent over scale models and diagrams of flying machines, hir skin was the warmish tone of sun-kissed citrine. Fitting then, that ze was built like a miner. Hir hair was shaved skin right and left side, a long snake of braid down hir back.
Thought: Kindness or hostility, what'll it be? You always got that choice.
"How's flying?" queried the anarchist.
"Got no complaints," the aviator said back.
De'afi tossed hir long legs over the chair and got to hir feet. Hir cloth traveling bag was hung over the chair. It held, of foremost value, hir commonplace and two paper packets of unspent matchsticks.
Thought: Ze wanted to draw comics for the newspaper. Once upon.
The journalist tugged a crate out from under her desk. At the bottom were items of clothing and books checked out from the local bookhouse. The top layer was her own personal research hoard. She was well-prepared for this conversation months in the making.
"It's about Sybil," she explained. "I been nosing around."
Her friends winced as if scolded. The first time in over six years they'd heard the name said out loud. And all the associated bile and baggage.
"Cripes," the anarchist groaned.
Viola sat herself down at the desk. She didn't believe in spirits, but she sure as shit believed in names. Names had power, this ancient sorta magic. They could summon, they could unmake.
"Kinda been doing this--like--whole thing since it happened," she clarified. "Since you've been gone. I got to thinking. About him. About this. About all of us here."
Thought: About the same age you were. Does everything just change when you're that age? Your whole life forever?
She shrugged, her eyes bright with merciless smarts. If you could tell a lie, it wouldn't be to her.
De'afi shot up a dramatic eyebrow. Hir folks were in theatrics, out on travel at the moment. Ze'd been meaning to get back to traveling. Bitter pills were best taken on the road.
"It's a Sybil thing?" ze tried to square. "For real, no fooling?"
"For real, no fooling," Viola said back.
Thought: You tire of it. Immediately, you tire of it. It grinds shut that little space in your skull where his memories sit, untortured.
"My best friend died, you know," said the anarchist suddenly, as if it was being spun out of them. "And no one believes my story."
Saying the words out loud was freeing. Their next few breaths came out easier.
They remembered that night like a confession. Tear streaks all down their dirty cheeks. The stench of forest in their wool shirt. Somewhere along the sprint, they lost their fur-lined outside slippers. Their feet ached, the soles freckled in dirt and small cuts. The elderly priest took care of their injuries. Adults in the other room shouted. Other adults came with lanterns and they all left around sunrise.
The priest held them and told them sweet little lies. About how they were gonna be alright, how it was all gonna work out okay. He gave them clothes to change into and rubbed some kind of aloe cream on the soles of their feet.
In present day, Sadie Crane exhaled. In the corner of their eye, a black fox loomed. Watching. Wanting to know what they did next.
"'You ain't a liar, I know that," the aviator said, throwing Sadie Crane face-first back into reality.
The aviator tossed hir arms over Sadie Crane's shoulders. Hir days and nights were flying machines. Sybil Basalt-Eislane was not a flying machine. The past years, it was a mercy to remember that.
Thought: No one believed you. They were right not to.
"I'm not, yeah," said Sadie Crane. "It's--cripes."
The lucky jackalope's foot was Sybil's. He found it three days before his untimely passing. He gave it to Sadie Crane for keeping safe, said they'd know better what to do with it. He said it was of the woods, whatever that could mean. And Sadie Crane never got around to asking what that meant or why he'd given it to them or why it smelled so deep and earthy and old.
Dreams of leaving Alcoast turned into nightmares of staying. Last of the bitter left-behinds. The newspaper headlines shouted the biggest tragedy Alcoast has ever seen. The tantalizing promise of an exclusive tell-all interview with the the victim's best friend. The one who should have been taken that night.
"He was like, dunno," they told it straight. "Upset about something? Breakup? Got into it real bad with his folks? Dunno, whatever. He wanted getting gone. Always. And--guess I kinda did too? I was having a bad week."
They couldn't be sure who said things like the woods or hiding out where the trees grew wildest and barely anyone thought to live. In that abandoned old shack made by calloused hands long ago lost to All Creation, where Sadie Crane and Sybil would escape when the stress got too much. In one version of this story, Sadie Crane found matches in White Doe's dressing box and suggested they go out camping a few days.
Thought: The pants were soft. You remember. And for a moment, you felt like you'd never touch them again.
In another version of this story, Sybil discovered the matches while digging around in his traveling bag. Along with several ticket stubs and a pack of coffee cigarettes.
"I was just fooling," the anarchist kept going. "I was like hey, why don't we start a fire? You know? But Sybil's never--"
Sybil never took a joke. Sadie Crane wasn't sure he even knew how.
Thought: No, you're sure he never did. And it wasn't the fire. Whatever attracted that Thing, it wasn't the fire. You know this. A feeling.
They were paraphrasing the confession they gave to the faci officer who took their statement. Nothing was done. It was over. Sybil was gone and there wasn't a damn thing to do about Sybil being gone.
"It had, like--antlers," they squared. "And a deer skull head, head of a--like a deer. But a skull, you know? It was tall. Nine--cripes, I dunno. Eight feet? Nine? Taller than Black Sparrow and she's six feet everything. Whatever. Real tall. Kinda loomed over us, right outta darkness. Wearing this, uh--cloak thing? All over its body? Like what those--the Penitents wear. The Saints and the priests with their fingerbone-necklace--things? This thing didn't have a fingerbone necklace, whatever. It had antlers, just antlers. Big and long like gnarled branches and white as bone."
What happened next couldn't be described, but Sadie Crane tried their hardest. Best they did for the priest, best they did for the journalists and the teachers and their guardians. But it came apart in their head. The adults said it was trauma. They didn't believe in the old forest spirits. They believed in their gods. But there were more things. Out in the wilds of mind and dream.
The thing with antlers kinda--bent over Sybil, reached out bone-white skeletal fingers to stroke at Sybil's face. The gesture was so tender, so benign. Sadie Crane said nothing, watching those bone-white skeletal fingers and breathing flatly. Maybe if they'd shouted real big, if they'd made a noise other than this wet little whine they released after Sybil toppled forward onto the ground. Maybe. But there were no maybes in hindsight.
Thought: It wasn't a person. If it was a person, you would have done something. He'd be alive.
"We didn't--we couldn't have known it'd be there," they whimpered. "The woods that day, just--just this thing. I dunno. This thing that--"
"Ended Sybil's life" was how that sentence was meant to finish, caught inside another burn down Sadie Crane's throat. The weeks after had been isolated and frantic, reading through sympathetic descriptions of the Victim in local newspapers and magazines. The slow realization of how much they were focusing on their head shit. Rinse and repeat. Every morning for three months after.
They stayed there all night, long after the Thing with Antlers vanished into the pitch dark. Next to Sybil's unmoving body, like a part of them thought he might get back up. No, not a part. All of them thought he might get back up. The impossibility that something--a spirit, an entity--ended Sybil's life. That was the stuff of bad fiction. It didn't happen to real living breathing people.
By the time Sadie Crane gathered up enough nerves, the fire had gone out hours ago. Bursts of light peeked timidly over the treetops and Sybil was still as the grave. They tried for his pulse and felt nothing.
They ran out the woods. Straight to the church, where they knew the priest was gathering townsfolk for the morning prayers. Their guardians held them tight and let them cry for a long time before anyone tried to get it out of them. And that was when the sympathy turned to whispers and disbelief and suspicion.
"He had--he had a future, you know?" the anarchist despaired. "Like--Plans. Capital P, right? So I gotta--I had to--you know? You get it?"
Thought: Tell me I did the right thing. Tell me I was right to leave. Tell me all those months I spent torturing myself over his death were worth it.
Sybil was still doornail dead when the adults carried him out of the woods next morning. Anyone knew what went down, they weren't talking. It made the local rags, word got around. And no one believed a damn thing out of Sadie Crane's mouth, about something taking Sybil's life. Forest spirits were ancient folktales, bedtime stories told to children. None of that was for real, the adults told them. Like hell it wasn't.
They left for university in Perant a year after the incident. They traded lively community centers for student homes.
Viola did not speak freely, for a moment anyhow. She did not believe in old forest spirits, but she believed whatever Sadie Crane said happened happened. In whichever form that took.
De'afi squeezed hir fists and eyes very tight. The first time ze heard everything, not just pieces filtered through town gossip. Ze bit off contact after Sybil died. Couldn't square with all the bad feelings.
Thought: We will get out of here some day. All of us.
"Damn, that sucks bad," ze offered. "Sorry."
Ze looked down the wall of clippings, hir lips pursed together and wondering. Did not do well with this feeling sorry for themselves and other people thing. That was too much sorry.
Thought: We all come from tragedy.
"What's all this, what's it gotta do with Sybil?" Sadie Crane asked.
Viola pulled from the crate a journal bound in thick brown leather. The journal said AFTER GRADUATION in aggressive capitals.
She opened it, showing off page after page of close-together scribbled writing. Over the inside front cover, blotches of yellowed glue held a photograph in place. Shot on one of those fancy newfangled instant cameras from the ark of Eudora. Alien eye lens, proud jutting brow, and a slit mouth spitting out photos.
The photograph told a story for the ages. Viola hunched up sitting on the desk pretty as a picture, her dreads tight-pulled into a bun over back of her head. Rightside of her, De'afi with hir mullet of curls and a leather battle jacket. FASH FUCKS DIE HARD in big paint splattering lettered up back of the jacket. Fronted with pins declaring HISTORY BY THE VICTORS, FUTURE BY MY OWN BLOODY HANDS. Left of the desk, Sybil with his long rope of pitch dark braid coiled over shoulder and chest.
"We were gonna tour," said Viola. "After graduation, remember? We were gonna play at The Spinners Club. No big plans, just gonna take the wind wherever."
Thought: But you scattered. Dust.
"I think we should go," said the journalist. "The Spinners Club. And rest is--rest is wind. We're free birds. We don't need to stay here."
Her eyes were bright with possibilities, an expression she hadn't worn in years.
De'afi laughed out loud and flung hir fists into the air.
"The tour to end all tours!" ze shouted. "Road trip for the ages! Fuck yeah!"
Sadie Crane ripped the journal out of Viola's hands.
"There's no Spinners Club, sunshine," they snapped.
The Spinners Club hadn't been a thing since five years back. They'd read in all the anarchist rags, how it was a dead scene and all the Punks stopped going and the music dried up and now it was just some building middle of dick-ass nowhere. Sadie Crane felt as if Sybil's ghost had something to do with that. He'd kill the whole world if he couldn't be in it.
"I wanna fix it up," Viola squared. "Put it back. It ain't gotta end like this, space cadet. We can put it back. Turn it into like, a memorial. And that can be our reason for getting gone. The reason we stay gone."
Thought: We can put him back. That's what she means.
Gods alive. Didn't they stop talking about this after Sybil croaked? Wasn't that the whole point? The Spinners Club was Sybil's idea. No Sybil, no Spinners.
Sadie Crane stared down the others for agreement, hoping beyond hope they'd come to their senses.
"I got stuff to do," Sadie Crane tried. "The farmhouse--"
"And what about after?" the journalist interjected.
"Where we gonna go then?" the anarchist shot back fast as lightning.
"You got buddies in La Mort, right De'afi?" asked Viola. "Reckon we could bunk with them. Not like they got a buncha stuff going. And then we're out, go wherever we damn well."
De'afi didn't say anything back, having dumbed hir speech to enthusiastic fist pumps and furious air strumming.
Thought: You have stretch marks and dark whorls of hair on your stomach. He did too.
Dread spidered up Sadie Crane's spine. The anarchist let that dread expand in their chest for eight whole seconds, pushing out past their lungs and rocketing up into their throat. Ah, there it was! A sentence! Exciting, isn't it?
"Nothing's gotta be this way," they admitted. "Lotsa magic and spirits in this place, since the king got dead. The royals took it all for themselves, but--we can get it back. It's gonna come back. I can--I can go and--"
"You think you're a revolutionary now?" demanded Viola. "You wanna be a revolutionary? What about getting away? What's more important to you, space cadet?"
Smatterings of coal-dark ran corner of their vision, dripping and dropping like inky smears ceiling to floor.
"You," Sadie Crane said back. "Always."
The journalist turned away, her cheeks darkening.
"So it's--it's been this for a while," the journalist articulated best she could. "The hurt's been here. It's been here. Don't you think that's gotta stop?"
Her eyes shut and she thought about the egg coffee her baba used to make. She'd eaten rice cookies or sometimes those little cakes with the sugary melt icing glaze. She lost a part of herself when Sybil passed. She wanted it back.
The loneliest Punk in All Creation. Sadie Crane got used to feeling bad.
Thought: You're not a Punk. Punk ain't a thing. You're just a dream-chaser, trying to resurrect a dead part of yourself because you think it can--what? Save you? There's nothing left to save, Sadie Crane. You can't put out the fires. You can't undo the circumstances of your birth. You can't un-hear the jackalopes. All the original Punks vanished off somewhere and do you know why? Because they saw the writing on the wall. Punk is Dead. And so are we.
"Our life's a fuck," pronounced the aviator.
Sadie Crane swallowed a hot lump in their throat. The last time they saw Sybil Basalt-Eislane alive, his eyes were laughing. Lines creased in his face. He was beautiful and Sadie Crane loved him harder than anyone should ever be loved.
A swell burst in Sadie Crane's ribcage. A single drawn out note of music. A water droplet skittering down a fogged pane of glass. The adoring purr of a motorbike engine. The pillars of All Creation.
The three shared a smile. The smile was kinship and isolation. The loneliest Punks in All Creation. It wasn't much, but it was honest living.
End of Chapter 3
The one thing I learned first and foremost was that The Sannites do not believe in "family". Or, no, I should be clearer on that. They do not believe in just blood relations. When I asked the chief--an elderly person, blind and wearing many rings on their fingers ze had personally scavenged from shipwrecks--how that works, ze said (translated): "They are all my family. Every child born in the village is my child." The children are raised all together and every person in the village over sixteen is treated as their guardian. There are about forty villages on the Sannite Islands and it's the same for every one of them. I did not know this. My family left the island before I was born.
--Excerpt from "Where We Come From: Language, Culture, Death Rituals" by I'ani of the Mother's Land