Chapter 5: Windsweep
Alcoast was made to be passed through, a stopping point on the way to somewhere better.
Thought: Unless you're a masochist.
Viola scrambled off the motorbike and popped her helmet like a jar lid. Alright, let's never do that again. Motorbikes bad. Motorbikes loud and fast and bad. Her breathing creased and she sagged into the bike, anxious dents stabbed into her forearm.
The anarchist steadied her. She was light in their arms, a butterfly caught in the windsweep. How could one person weigh so little? How could one person smell so nice?
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," said the anarchist quickly. "Too fast, sunshine?"
Sunshine. There it was again, like a toothache. She recalled a paper packet of sunflower seeds and a warm hand toned deep copper. Alcoast Town Fair said the packet, seeds crunch crunch crunching between Viola's teeth. The good old days. She was probably about thirteen years old, just a nervous little kid clinging to her big sister.
"Fuck," she said, both in the past and in the present.
She pitched forward and away from the motorbike, hand grabbing her throat. The memory of Alcoast Town Fair dissipated like steam off a cast iron pan, leaving behind vague impressions she could split with her fingers. Current year 1999. She was a full adult with full adult problems and one very dead friend.
Another motorbike slowed to a crawl and then to a halt. This baby sported a sleeker hand clutch and a headlight four times more powerful than the one on Sadie Crane's machine. The luggage sidecar--a smallish bullet--was attached to the machine's right-hand side. The design was cobbled together from a pair of blueprints sourced through a public inventors' archive in Eudora, partially inspired by the delivery bikes in Ru Divine's capital city of Suzette. Smooth fucking ride.
The aviator swung off, placing the flats of hir feet on the ground.
"Helen's high water," ze griped.
"Hell and high water," the journalist corrected with a sneer.
The architecturists among you might have called the farmhouse rustic. It was no more rustic than any other building holding vigil within Arcadia's entrails. We won't mince words here. It was certainly a lesser told tale, as the saying went in Turaq and upper Kat-Ari. It had been lived in, but not for some time. Those who knew the history steered clear and travelers didn't stay overnight.
"Kinda haunted," the anarchist observed. "Like--every building's gonna get haunted, leave it well enough. No matter if anyone died here. Ghosts all around us."
De'afi nodded. The lasting stains of habitation, the wonderfully bad and the miserably good culminating in a neutral mundane. From decay, renewal. From renewal, agony.
Thought: We die everywhere. Every day. Little parts of us. That's where ghosts come from.
"Ghosts ain't real, space cadet," said Viola.
Thought: Yeah they are.
"What, you don't believe in red walkers either?" the aviator grilled.
Thought: "Red walkers". In Ru Divine, they call them "bloodsuckers". "Vampires".
"They're called cops and they suck," the journalist replied.
The front door creaked open to reveal--ah. There were the old sofa chairs, eaten to rags by varmints. There was the dining table, from which they ate sugar bread and rice pudding. During the cold months, they'd eat through their preserves and whatever they'd frozen in the icebox.
Thought: And whatever the townsfolk brought you, blankets and food and games to play. You've never done anything alone.
Aforementioned aside, the room was almost naked. The wood stove crouched like some enormous beast, a sink for washing, a hefty dressing box and a modest storage trunk keeping vigil near the stairs. The stairs led to a small loft space just below the ceiling, under which lay some blankets and an oil lantern for reading. Sadie Crane had already packed up the rest and sent it to their guardians.
Thought: Even without them, it feels like home.
They got started sprucing up. De'afi brought extra blankets from the hall closet and a cloth for the dining table. Viola lit the wood stove. Their spirits bettered, Sadie Crane opened the storage trunk.
"Take whatever," they said.
Viola opened the dressing box and took out some clothes, stacking them in neat piles on the floor. She stuck to her cloaks and pants, never wore anything that wasn't hand-me-down. The merchants came by with their wares, fabrics with names like "chiffon" and "crepe". And fashion magazines from Ru Divine, Eudora, the upper villages of Kat-Ari. Sadie Crane and Sybil and De'afi read those magazines like gospel, but Viola hated them like the plague. As if Viola M'et-Sepirot-Keita cared more than jack-nothing about fashion, long as she breathed.
Thought: You didn't really care about fashion. You just thought the models were nice-looking and the outfits were funny.
A few silk gowns and a pair of linen pants had been left. She didn't mind a little silk, maybe cotton or even denim. Those were good solid fabrics.
Arcadian silk was made from spiders--or something like that--and it lasted. Wasn't even a tiny bit like those dresses in Ru Divine. Those gowns made of paper and dainty slippers and shoes with little block heels, upper crust fashion. De'afi thought the block shoes kicked ass. Viola didn't get the appeal.
She was thinking aloud. Hir palms spread eagle, De'afi pressed a buttery white cloth over the dining table.
"Block shoes are cool," the aviator insisted. "They look badass. You could, like, brain someone dead with one of them. Like kill them right through the head."
"They always got paper gowns on, that's no good," Viola argued.
"I think those are for maybe, uh--torture?" the anarchist chimed. "Torturing the upper class? Set 'em on fire or something? Dunno. No damn way anyone wears that for real."
"Oh, yeah, no way," the aviator agreed. "Like, it'd get soaked up real bad when you're out picking the fields. Guess maybe they don't have that over there? Or maybe only the guys who don't work or nothing wear 'em?"
"You know where Sybil's stuff got to?" she asked, cutting the speculation short. "Isn't that why we got after this place? For his guitar? Ain't seen it a spell."
"I got an idea, yeah," the anarchist replied.
Sadie Crane pried open the storage trunk, fingers nudging under the gaps. That trunk was brimming with mementos and nightmares. Their journal from that time. A portable radio, from the cold months when Sybil would stay over and they'd listen to audio theater. And a small box of Sybil's things, the last to be contemplated.
Thought: Burn everything away. You'll find him again. You'll find a version of him you can love.
The anarchist dug through the trunk and pulled out a box no larger than a rat. That was all the space they had for him, a rat's coffin. He would have laughed and laughed and laughed his round little ass off, at what stayed of Sybil Basalt-Eislane. The last of what they took from Sybil's house in Alcoast.
They opened the box and the watchers all held their breath. A journal, a guitar pick, a threadbare scrap of blue cloth. Punk magazines from about two decades back.
Thought: This is it. This is him. His every breath and every thought and every being alive. This is Sybil Basalt-Eislane.
And then the kicker. The real kicker. Viola saw it first, with her detective eyes. She pointed.
"No patches," she said.
De'afi sprang jackrabbit fast into action. Hir eyes pored frantically over Sybil's stuff, looking for the patches. Hir panic hitting the upper atmosphere, ze bolted full tilt and ripped the box from Sadie Crane's hands, almost breaking their wrists.
"What in All Creation's last sloppy fuck?" De'afi howled.
"Hey, ouch!" the anarchist squealed.
Breathing heavily, the aviator dragged hir eyes away. Ze was sorry for that, truly sorry. But ze'd just seen--oh gods alive. It was his. All his. The guitar pick he liked to play with. The notebook full of poetry and lyrical shit. His stupid magazines he read instead of books. All. His.
But the jacket patches--the patches De'afi made him--they weren't in the box. Damnation. Ze took care making those jacket patches, ze never took care with anything. He'd worn them proudly on that tattered cotton thing he liked to toss over his shoulders when it got cold out. He--damn it all.
Viola held De'afi's shoulder.
"Sorry, my love," she said.
The aviator brushed her off and stuffed the box into Sadie Crane's hands. Ze stormed into the corner and sulked like a big angry bear, a quivering lower lip and bushy eyebrows pinched into an angry V. Viola stayed where she was. Best to give hir the space.
Thought: You make more of yourself out of Sybil's life.
Coal-dark smudges rose from beneath the floorboards at Sadie Crane's feet. It dripped from the walls like pitch black out of a popped artery. They didn't need this. They needed all and everything else, but not this.
They flipped through the journal, years of memories unfolded. They did not recognize the places in the photographs. Landscapes and skyscapes prettier than dreams. Sky bloated with hot white stars. The corner of a radio tower, half out of frame. A lake under midnight moon, winks of starshine reflected on the unnaturally mirrored surface. They flipped back to the first page, their fingers sliding over gleaming photo paper.
Viola stood beside them, keeping hands to herself.
"That's an instant," she said. "My big sister has one of those. All the faci got them too, I think. Cuz they're real modern, good for photo taking if you wanna do it profesh."
They quivered. The Stranger peered at them from behind the camera lens. In their mind's eye, The Stranger's head creaked around like a patio door. "Why do you care so much?" he asked.
Thought: We got our noses broken real bad once. That makes a bond. In blood.
They gripped limp paper between their fingers and palm, grinding their nails into the left corner. Was that all? A bond in blood? Called to kiss every broken nose he ever had? What a load of--what an absolute load of the worst. An absolute load of the worst.
In another lifetime, an instant camera spat a scene onto photo paper. It could never be good as the original, but the likeness was enough. One millisecond of time that would never come again. The Stranger heaved a sigh, set the camera down, and watched the stars.
"Gods alive."
The words burst through gritted teeth as the paper broke loose from their fingers. The outburst dissipated whatever memory, real or imagined, grew fungal in their head. They were back. Sybil Basalt-Eislane was deceased going on years now. Abakris was choking themself dead on tar cigarettes. De'afi and Viola were the only ones left.
Thought: This sounds like one of those tragedy novellas.
"Are you good?" the journalist wavered.
Sadie Crane had gone quiet and blank. They could hear the roots of their hair and their fingernails growing, their eyes filmed over coal-dark. Through the haze, bodies moved. Had there always been four? Had one of them always had antlers?
Thought: And on some level, It's always waited. You know these things. You know they wait. These fragments of past, all they do is wait. For you to come back, pick them up, cut your skin on them.
Shape One grabbed Sadie Crane's shoulders.
"I gotcha, space cadet," she said.
Shape Two approached, whining like an injured canine. Ze was sorry. So very sorry. For however much--jack, it felt--that was worth something in this turvy world. Ze'd loved Sybil, but not enough to save him. No one loved Sybil Basalt-Eislane enough to save him.
Thought: No, wait--there's something--
They heard jackalopes screaming in the distance, lonesome begging bells. Sadie Crane stood forefront, all eyes on them. Their head crushed inward like sheet metal, a coal-dark blur speared hot through their sight line. They forgot to breathe.
They took the guitar pick, casing it between their fingers. They rubbed it, like he would. Held it, like he would. Loved it, like he would. Loved it like their last kiss, the final breath they stole from him. Greedy greedy Sadie Crane wanting it all to themself.
Thought: Your nose is bleeding.
End of Chapter 5
You see, the world's just a bunch of stories happening all the time. While I'm writing this, some bearded sheep herder in Kat-Ari is giving birth to a baby. While I'm writing this, a woman is kissing her girlfriend's wife under an awning at a cafe in Ru Divine. While I'm writing this, four people are making love inside an abandoned shack in the wilds of the Eudorian countryside. While I'm writing this, some distant cousin of mine I'll never meet or know about is leaning on the button of total war in South Shoal. Radicals are winning and radicals are dying. Am I so much different than the revolutionists in Ru Divine's capital city of Suzette? Am I so much different than the bombers of South Shoal?
--Excerpt from "Godkiller: The Politics of Life and Death" by End of All Things