In Veritas

by C. J. Lavigne

  “What happened to her?”

  “She died.” Privya’s voice is briefly arctic before she shrugs, softening. “She would have liked you. I don’t think she did know anyone else like her. You know you’re different? Not us, not them. They talk about science and physics, and we talk about dragons and one-sided doors. Most people can only experience one reality. Alethea always said everyone was right and also no one was right. I didn’t get it, really. I’ve had some time to think about it since.”

  “Doors that are and are not there,” agrees Verity. “Dragons that are rats. Cats that have four legs and six.”

  “God. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of those cats.” Privya sighs. Impatient, she fiddles with her hair and then pulls out the bun, letting the shoulder-length strands slide down. It makes her look younger—a teen girl killing time on the street, too small to be drinking coffee or feeling nostalgic about anything.

  “You’re like Colin. Older than you look.”

  Privya’s lips quirk. “That kid doesn’t know anything. I was there, the last time this happened. The time of gathering, I mean. They used to call it the Chalice. It’s mostly a metaphor. Think of it like a cup into which all the power pours, and we come together when it’s full enough to drink, or spill. Except it’s not much power these days. It’s weaker every time.” She shrugs one shoulder. “I remember when the sky would brighten with stars we’d never seen before, and fires would burn underwater and leaves would fall upward into the air and the people would dance. That doesn’t happen anymore. Now we might get a trickle of moonbeam or a few extra dragons. I can barely feel it now. I wonder if this time will be the last.”

  Verity feels a wisp of winter wind drift down the back of her coat collar. “Do they know? The others, I mean. Santiago. Colin.”

  “Not really. They’ve heard some of it, or at least the boy has. They’re hanging around this city because it feels like the place to be—like they can make a stand here.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Jihan knows.” Privya glances down the street, then back to Verity. “I’m not sure they know she needs you. I’m guessing she doesn’t even remember, what with the stabbing and all. She’s not all there. You probably noticed.”

  Verity blinks and raises her gaze to meet Privya’s again; she sees dark eyes, knowing and wry. “I don’t—” she begins, and doesn’t know how to end the sentence.

  When the silence draws long, interrupted only by the sounds of passing traffic, Privya shrugs. “Last time, they thought there was a way out,” she says. “Jihan almost killed us all. So, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily advise that path. It’s up to you, of course.”

  Verity stares at Privya, and then at the drift of Privya’s words in the air; she tastes silver and the electrical sharpness of truth, and feels all the colder for the warmth of the coffee in her hand. She wants, abruptly, to talk to Santiago or to feel Colin’s soft power across her skin. She wants Ouroboros under her hand, but she turns her head and sees only a woman and a baby stroller halfway down the block on an otherwise empty winter sidewalk.

  “That was probably a lot to take in. Look, her way isn’t the only way. And they’re not the only group in town.” Privya holds out a hand, offering a folded piece of paper. “Meet me at this address tomorrow night, around midnight, and I’ll show you. I’ll tell you what happened to Alethea.”

  Verity must look dubious, because Privya adds, “You know I’m not lying. Just meet me tomorrow. Don’t bring the dog. And, you know, take another look at that theatre in the meantime. Think about what I said.” She reaches forward and slips the paper into Verity’s front pocket, then takes one more sip of her drink, tilting her head far back, exposing the slim young line of her throat. Then, dropping her cup in a trash can, she flashes Verity a quick smile and takes three steps back, vanishing into the alley.

  “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.”

  -Unknown (often attributed to Buddha)

  12

  Being Colin is a lot like drowning.

  His lack of flight is an injustice. He has wanted to fly since he was a toddling child and first realized that the wings at his back stretched like a bird’s. Some days, he can barely walk. The joint of his knee aches like an old war wound, a remnant of the battles his mother fought for him.

  But Colin’s real curse is love. He loves the grubby child who clutches at the hem of his coat; he loves the driver who nearly mows him down on the crosswalk. Each person he encounters carves a hole inside him like a teenaged crush. He wants to save them all. Everyone he meets is his lover and his dearest friend—even the ones who swear at him on the street or avert their eyes when he huddles choking in a doorway.

  He loves even Jihan, though there are times when he screams at her blank face, or when he sends her away. He washes the blood from her hands time and time again. He touches her cheek and senses only the mercury whirl of her insanity. He feels her stroke his hair sometimes, in the night silence, and his love for her fountains in the emptiness of his gut.

  They come to him in the shadows between walls. They come to him dying, with the outside world settled cancerous and subtle in their bones. He lays his hands on them. He enters them and makes them whole; he returns to himself lesser than he was before, knowing that they will only falter again. He heals them and he grieves for them. He wonders if it’s his own unshed tears that pool inside his lungs and suffocate him: the swollen weight of the wounds he can’t fix.

  youre using ‘love’ a lot i dont like that word

  You said it was all right, for Colin.

  hes the only one but it still creeps off the page

  I’m sorry. I’m trying to explain. Can I keep going?

  yes sorry too

  Colin is never sure which pains are his own and which he coaxes from others. It all runs together after a while. It drips into his joints and swells there. Exhaustion drags wetly at the ragged feathers of his wings, until the tips drag on the ground and he staggers with the need for air and sleep. That is when a child will come to him with a sick puppy or a fevered mother. That was when Jihan plunged a knife into a startled, innocent woman with a face like a frightened ghost.

  The lives around him are the waves that crash into him and the undertow that pulls him down and threatens to drag him out to sea. When he was small, it was the trickling need of an emaciated squirrel. When he grew, the seeping moisture of the wound within his mother’s womb blocked his air. Now the cries of the dying come in sea foam flows that break against the thin fragility of his body.

  Maybe the metaphor is too laboured. The point is that it sucks to be Colin because the begging never ends and he can never say no because he loves them all too much, but every touch kills him a tiny bit more. So he drowns in need, and then he drowns in whiskey or gin, until he can’t stand and because he can’t stand.

  It’s a hell of a life for an angel.

  DECEMBER

  Verity stands outside the old theatre just beneath the sign that reads MCLUHAN’S. She wraps her fingers tightly around the strap of her bag, looking at the posters for the cancelled concert. The faded papers that fill the admission window have been bolstered by new editions in bright greens and blues, stapled down the twin columns that line the entrance to the main doors.

  Verity had hoped for Ouroboros, but there is no sign of dog or snake. She is alone except for the light wind that teases the flyers and tugs at the edges of her hair; even the traffic on Bank Street seems to have paused behind her.

  Verity remembers the rusty kitchen knife in her gut. She remembers, also, whirling eyes and cracks of silver eternity. When she thinks of Privya’s small smile, though, she sighs and takes three steps forward. She almost hopes the theatre door won’t open, but today it swings easily outward at her pull. She slips inside, her boots quiet on the threadbare carpet, and she pauses to wait for a challenge that doesn’t come. The ticket booth is
boarded over, and since she last came inside, someone has painted a yellow anarchy symbol on the thin plywood. Daylight filters weakly through the papered windows behind her. Dimness rings in her ears.

  She remembers the knife. It was dull and cold.

  She takes a breath.

  She walks to the door marked ‘employees only’ and turns the knob; it, too, is unlocked. The glow of the lit candle greets her as she enters, illuminating the dusty shelves and the bucket of water by the door.

  It glimmers in the eyes of Jihan, who is waiting. Her silver gaze shines like a mirror when she lifts her head, and the candlelight gleams in the flyaway strands of her hair.

  Verity freezes. The door swings shut behind her and the space of the little closet seems very small.

  Jihan doesn’t say anything. As before, she wears nothing she seems to care about—a mint-green sweater now, too large, pulled over stained jeans and solid brown boots that are laced and tied today. She still has Verity’s scarf tied around her arm, its bloody edges stiffly protruding from their rough knot. In rags, she is regal. Beneath the shredding strands of knitted wool, the lines of her are sleek and unforgiving as a blade.

  Silence stretches as Verity breathes and Jihan just stands there, watching.

  “Hi,” says Verity, finally. It comes out stammered. Her mouth is dry.

  The other woman might as well be a statue. Her shoulders are as proud.

  But they are there and the room is very small, so Verity says, “Please don’t hurt me.” Impulsively, she continues, “I don’t know if I’m afraid or sad.” She’s surprised at her own words, leather and rain on her tongue. “There’s a girl in the market. Privya. She says you want to escape, and you want me to—I don’t know. I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t know about the between until Santiago showed me.” Her words come tripping faster to fill the silence. She is aware of her own heartbeat drumming in her chest. “I’m sorry.”

  She is almost disappointed when Jihan fails to react. Verity isn’t certain if she breathes.

  Then the other woman has gone past to the theatre lobby, and the door is closing behind Verity, though Jihan’s passage creates no wind and the candle’s steady glow is unchanged. Verity stands alone in the dimly-lit closet and sighs. The whisper of air through her lips is not entirely steady; she brushes her fingertips across her side, just along her ribs, tracing the pucker of a scar that isn’t there. Then, shaking her head, she steps forward toward the shelves, reaching for the door that only exists within the wall.

  The world shivers around her, and she steps into the tall dark hallway between that reeks of sweat and worse things. The space is different than before. She realizes the prickles on her skin are voices rippling, and even an edge of drifting laughter.

  The line of lights in the distance is unchanged, as are the burning candles that guide her way. She walks past piled boxes and bulky shapes draped with dusty sheets. The scent of lilac and coal comes to her, and she stops to wait for Ouroboros as the snake drops down from somewhere above, landing in a soundless, inky coil on the floor in front of her feet.

  “Where were you?” she asks it. The snake only looks at her with flat golden eyes. It flicks a forked tongue and then wends its way apologetically around her ankle and up her leg, wrapping itself around her until its head rests at her shoulder. It’s an odd sensation; Ouroboros is cool and rough. Its weight is transient, as though half-imagined, though she suspects it could be heavier if it tried. Today the snake is about three feet long, and narrower around her chest than it was on the ground.

  “Hm,” says Verity. She continues forward beneath the unsteady glow of the lights. Ouroboros brushes its head lightly against her ear.

  The impossibly long hall is nowhere near full, its spaces still frequent and shadowed, but Verity sees shapes drifting ahead. There are more people here than the last time. They don’t shrink from her as before. Someone says, “Hey, Vee,” as she passes; she blinks, and recognizes a purple-mohawked young man from three weeks before. He is slouched beside a table beneath an array of four candles, a worn paperback book in his hands. She waves uncertainly as she steps over his legs.

  Verity walks on, the snake across her shoulders. She passes a garland of tinsel that someone has hung along the wooden slats of the wall. She passes a mural of a starlit field newly painted in pinks and blues, the strokes rough and dimly illuminated by the lantern that sits on the table a few feet away. The streaks of colour sing in her ears.

  She passes the worn couch where Colin sat the last time she was there, and she doesn’t look at the stain on the floor, though she steps around it and her boots feel heavy on the planks. She doesn’t see a grouping of empty beer bottles in time and kicks one, freezing as it rattles and clinks across the floor. Her shoulders pull in and she realizes it is Ouroboros tightening. She wonders if the snake means to be reassuring.

  She bends and puts the bottle back, lining it up neatly before she carries on.

  The area that was lost to darkness before is lit now with a continued and irregular line of candles, the wax in all sizes and shapes. The tiny flames are lined on small tables, set on chairs, or perched in wall sconces.

  Verity can still hear voices, but she is alone with the snake when a bare, seemingly infinitely tall wall looms in front of her, and the hallway—which has, until now, been perfectly straight—turns a sharp ninety degrees to the left. She touches her fingertips against the wood and turns, following the trail of candles. There’s a stronger glow ahead, nearly eclipsed by the scent of pine and the constant high-pitched whine the walls leave in her ears.

  There are people here, too, clustered in the close quarters. “Hey, Vee,” someone says again. “Did you hear?” Verity isn’t sure what to answer; she vaguely recognizes a pair of weathered cowboy boots and the series of red flowers someone has drawn in marker on the leg of a pair of denim jeans.

  Bodies make way for her as people press against walls; Verity whispers thanks. On her right, she passes modest piles of food, mostly boxed cereals and granola bars. Leering cartoon mascots seem out of place, printed on cardboard over brightly coloured breakfast bowls.

  Ouroboros stretches slightly—Verity suspects the snake has actually grown physically longer—and winds its way up through Verity’s hair. “Stop that,” she tries, to little effect. “Sorry,” she adds, to a woman squeezing from her path, “not you.”

  As she walks, the flotsam in the hall becomes noticeably older; she slips past the remnants of a miniature horse-drawn carriage, its doors missing and its roof gaping open. It was once painted red and gilded with strips of something long since pried off.

  A river of conversation surrounds Verity now, and she can see children’s laughter dancing golden among the dust motes and candle flames. She approaches a circle of lanterns blocking her path, arranged on tall, heavy iron stands—flames kept safely out of the way of tiny fingers, and a space cleared where faded pillows are tossed on the narrow floor. Six children, ranging in age from perhaps two to twelve, sit playing with a small number of toys; Verity sees a porcelain doll with curling hair, a wooden top, and a carved rocking horse.

  The little girl Sanna kneels separately, facing the wall, and has her right hand extended, playing with the misty taste of wild grass.

  “Be still,” murmurs Verity to Ouroboros. The snake wraps itself lightly around her neck.

  Verity crouches next to the girl and turns her own hand palm up, catching the whiff of grass between her fingers.

  The little girl doesn’t look up, but she pauses. Verity holds her breath, unmoving, and the snake takes her cue, until Sanna reaches out and strokes the bit of flavour with one small fingertip.

  “It’s from the rocking horse,” Verity says. “The taste of its tail. It was a living horse’s hair, once. Maybe this is ... phantom? A memory. A bit of its field.”

  “It’s no good,” says the pillowy-looking boy who was previously spinning the wooden top. His plaid shirt is worn but carefully mended. “She doesn
’t talk. Doesn’t play. Just sits there, mostly.”

  “She might play,” offers Verity, gently, “if you are slow, and let her figure out one thing at a time. A sight, a scent, the sound of your voice. It’s all the same to her until she learns. She’ll talk one day.”

  “Huh.” The kid sounds unconvinced. His compatriots have stopped playing and are looking curiously at Verity and Sanna.

  “What are you looking at?” asks a girl wearing a superhero t-shirt and a denim skirt.

  All the words are pecking at the green on Verity’s palm, chasing it with sparkles and a texture like worn shag carpeting. Sanna takes her fingers away, looking back to the wall.

  Verity straightens, feeling the light cool weight of the snake around her neck. “Is Colin here?”

  The boy with the wooden top waves further down the hall. “Can I touch Ouro?” he asks, interested.

  Verity is startled. “Maybe?” It’s as much a question for the snake as a response to the boy. She walks over, feeling the eyes of the children on her, bright and interested. She waits to see what Ouroboros will do, but feels it slide down from her neck as it winds down her right arm, tracing rings down to her wrist. It blinks golden eyes at the boy, rearing its head three or four inches in the air. It seems to have gotten smaller; it is barely more than a ribbon.

  Verity raises her arm and waits as the boy lifts a tentative finger. She watches the look of awe on his face—feels his anticipation shiver across her cheekbones—and wonders if this is how Santiago feels, with the impossible shadow at his beck and call. She has no control over the snake, but she and Ouro are both patient as the boy strokes black scales.

  “Cool,” breathes the boy.

  The other children cluster in Verity’s space suddenly, their small hands cayenne-scented on her hips and her arms as they, too, reach for the snake. Ouro arches its neck, looking generally pleased with the attention.