Marshsong

by Nato Thompson

  She caught her breath and screamed at him. “Why didn’t you tell me there were others? What are you afraid of that you keep it all locked up inside yourself?”

  “Others? Heh, heh. Y’all twisted up on a clothesline, ain’t ya? Gotta a big wind blowen through ya and ya tell yaself it’s a hurricane. Well, well, ain’t you just a curious one? Oughta put ya on my knee and give ya a whip from a tether, I ought.” In one quick motion, Marty swiped with the clippers and clipped her right arm clean off. It fell to her bare wet feet and Isabella reached for it with her left. He clipped that as well and she stood their stubby and useless. “Now get outta ma chair and get a red eye for ma home comin.” He grabbed her hair and flung her into the Aliber.

  Breathe and swim. She coughed, reached out and was relieved to see her arms stretch out before her. They felt numb and pushed through the water faintly. Her mind twisted inside her and her thoughts were to crawl upon the cave floor and sleep. So away, away from the shack and to her home. Back against the slight current she swam, but the darkest part of the evening still lay before her.

  As she approached the shore in front of the cave, the glimmer of fire played along the water’s edge. The crackle of sticks and the flutter of wings grew nearer as her frail body pulled itself from the current. There, upon the banks of the Aliber danced her dear brother around and around a fire. His hands spun about in the night and the trees were filled with ravens and their beeswax eyes. They peered over him as he chanted, cawed and ran. Circling round and round, his pants were torn and his shirt burned upon the pyre. The language he spoke she could not comprehend and for a second she realized his eyes had turned yellow—the pestilent malaria of the Raven. She crawled upon the floor of the cave and gave herself to the morning.

  Chapter 18

  Evening came and with it the sordid package. The Stallhammer crew pulled their boat up upon the shore and were already playing cards on a foldout table. Their hands were permanently greasy; their orange overalls covered in mud. The table creaked back from the weight of their hirsute forearms. They flicked the cards into a pile, drank their jugs of Fenyan’s Grey and chewed their tobacco.

  “Evenin',” they grumbled as Isabella raised her head from the floor. Their mutton chops blew restlessly in the thick air. Her head was still dizzy from last night’s events and she sat up to gain balance.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” she mumbled. She pushed herself up onto her feet and realized she was still naked. The Stallhammers bickered over cards and lost interest in her as soon as they had said hello. Their stay would only be a few hours and then it would be back on the circuit. Sitting next to their plumber’s boots was the package wrapped in the usual pale parchment with the red twine holding it together—yet another to add to the growing pile of things to do. Last night hadn’t been a dream. She plodded over to the tub and slid in. She pulled her head from the water trying to rinse out the fog that had crept into her mind. What a mess.

  Fennel, dressed in typical black cut-off shorts and t-shirt, walked briskly outside the cave and grabbed the package.

  “Ah hah!” he laughed, tossing it into the air. “Business as usual boys?”

  He danced into the cave and leaned against the tub.

  “Just when things look as though they are about to shatter into a thousand pieces, the great god of routine and grind comes and knocks on our door. Iz, look at me! I’m better, sis. Bolder! Grander! Wiser! I’m better than ever. New and improved and twice the gangster I used to be. And lookie here, the big boss man seems to be putting our ship to sail again. It even includes a little letter addressed just to me.”

  He laughed his high squealing laugh and clicked his heels. He showed her a letter with the name Scratch penned on the front. He disappeared toward his desk and giggled merrily. He definitely did look better. The glint was back and the spring in his step as well. Isabella tucked last night’s mad dance back into a deep pocket in her mind and got dressed.

  The package was, of course, to be delivered to the School. Isabella took this as a sign that Marty was, in fact, returning any day. If she were going to make a break, it would have to happen any time now. The thought of leaving her brother made her sick and she put her head back under the water. There was only one way. She would have to be strong.

  A sadness couldn’t get out of her as she put on her clothes for the night. As she watched her brother dance around the edge of the cave enjoying his new burst of energy, she delivered the money to the Stallhammers.

  “Here you are, gentleman,” she said, looking them over. Their mouths, billowing with wet tobacco, moved up and down like laborious jackhammers.

  “Yup,” Gary said, his face a maze of wrinkles and warts. “Think we don’t know. McFly is as undependable as he is screwy. First he heads out of town without even a note or nothin'. Now he can’t stop pesterin' us.”

  “He is sending more?” Isabella asked, her head clearing up at the news.

  “Sure is. You didn’t know, little pigeon? Heh, heh, heh! I s'pose he keeps you out of the loop. Well, I wouldn’t worry yer pretty lil head about that. Just remember to sign the stuff out, that’s all.”

  “I’ll be perfectly blunt, Mr. Stallhammer. It’s very early in the evening and I am still waking up. My inability to appreciate your sarcasm, if that is what it is, could easily result in your maligning misfortune. I advise you to save yourself and your limbs as it appears we will be seeing each other the following evening as well.”

  The Stallhammers grumbled again and resumed playing cards. They were a sordid batch of boatmen. Part of the upriver delirium. Their shipments had been arriving at the cave as long as the Manzanita’s bloomed and briared.

  Isabella and Fennel waved goodbye to the gruff cadre and boarded their boat. The week's previous events played on Isabella’s mind. She scratched her ankle from the mosquito bites and felt strange about heading into Barrenwood. Just as the town opened itself up, she could feel Marty’s pipe coming down the river. Fennel, on the other hand, felt little apprehension. His vision had cleared and in the agony of his fevers he had found an eerie calm—a cruel oasis in which he perched his hat. The maladies of his sister were of little concern to him. He had signed the pact if you will, and his destination was assured. He nodded his head vigorously to his internal conversation and rowed the boat more eagerly than ever.

  As they pulled in toward Le Chevalier Noir, Fennel cackled and leapt toward the other side. “Ha, ha, ha, Heinrich, surprised to see us?”

  “It has been some time, I . . . ” Heinrich mentioned as his varicose hands pulled the boat to shore.

  “It has been some time because, my good sir, we are diversifying our portfolio. As you see, we are once again couriers. Paddling gods like Mercury delivering the goods, the proverbial crap if you will, to the proverbial mob. But think you not—no, don’t you think at all—that we are somehow burdened by the relegation to manufacturing plant workers. The assembly plant stratagems are entirely welcome to us. At least, in so much, as we have made peace with our treacherous fate. Have you made peace with your fate, Heinrich? Is your conscience clear?” Fennel squinted one eye, rose up on his tippy toes and stared at Heinrich. “Well, right, fate can be dull. Fate is cruel, my good man. And the ability to endure cruelty is a mixed bag that only the choice few are bestowed with. But the score still goes unsettled. You, Heinrich, are our unwilling accomplice in our escapades. Well, to be quite frank, both you and my sister are. Oh, we’re all so unwilling! So unwillingly plodding along the line of fate! It really tears at the soul, doesn’t it?”

  “Terribly,” Heinrich uninterestedly added. “Lady Isabella, the Persembes have sent urgent word to you. I have left the letters in the Red Room.” His eyes caught Isabella’s with a peculiar glint for a gnat wing second, but Isabella cast her eyes down and avoided anything more.

  “Fennel, if you will allow me just a second,” she responded with peculiar deference. He smirked, jumped in the air, and then tapped his wrist with his cane.

&n
bsp; “Five minutes I give you, dear sis. Five is all. We have places to be and places to do. I’ll not be delayed by the effete needs of your aristocratic coterie.”

  Isabella turned and quickly scuttled off to the Burgandy Salon. She could feel Fennel’s cold eyes on her back. Everything was off. The balance had gone lopsided.

  “Probably a hang nail, folks! Or, possibly an invitation to an ever so knotty potty! I swear the agony of piddling with such high-class morass! Isabella, five minutes, I tell you!”

  She closed the door to find a letter awaiting her on the table. Isabella scanned it to see if there was news of Castilla or Minasha or Big Boy Charlie. But there was none. It was a letter from Sibel and it was a cry for help.

  Dearest Isabella,

  Help me. Please. I am tormented and my skin turns against me. This cannot be love because how could something be so cruel. The only thing cruel is me and my own pathetic mind turns the knife deeper into my gut. Peter is dumb as a widget and I adore him so tenderly. He comes to me every night. He loves me fully. He smells like wood chips and hair grease. His hands are rough and his lips soft as satin. He even sings to me, dear Isabella. He sings into my ear beautiful pop songs that would embarrass anyone but from his mouth they are angelic. He flutters and loves and holds me and when he does I shake. I shake with a fever. Is it hatred? Is it nausea? Is it love? It makes me sick.

  I am a liar, Isabella. He can’t even conceive of it. He doesn’t understand why I would lie. I don’t understand either. But I do. The more in love with Peter I am, the more I find myself forcing my strange desires on other men. I’ve been very naughty. Naughtier than ever. I compensate for Peter’s adoration in strange dark ways. I’m getting strange to myself. I don’t know why. Am I afraid? Am I evil? I am evil. You know this about me. You see it in me. You know this about me. You are evil, Isabella.

  Free me. Please, Isabella. I can’t take this.

  With desperation,

  Sibel

  Isabella crumpled the paper in her hand. This wasn’t the news she needed. Tormented love. The last thing she needed to hear about: Sibel caught in a fog of delirium while the world burns. It made Isabella’s lips quiver. She hungered to eat it. Not in a kind way, but in a way that she knew would only make Sibel scream in terror. She scampered out of the room to find her brother staring directly at her as though he had only stood there and waited the entire time.

  “The hand of thunder moves our wings! I do hope you enjoyed your brief moment, Isabella. Time is not on our side for any l'amore dalliances. As Mercury is ever so inclined, we are bound by duty to be lightening-fast in our potlatch. Diligence! Long live diligence and precious responsibility! Heinrich, adieu, adieu, adieu!”

  Fennel bounded straight up to the roof—his calves eager to find the roof gutters and chimneys. He dashed madly to the streets with his cape curling against the wind. By the time Isabella had caught up with him, he had the horses in tow. He sat upright and magnificent on the back of Zarathustra who chewed on his bit with eager animosity. His bristling white teeth loomed with the unnerving gel of plaque setting the edges. The wind bustled madly in the air.

  And so they rode. Rode and rode into the pitched black algae of Barrenwood. Penom Poe spit eggshells and banana residue into the gutters. Energetic children clambered on horse carts and tossed their plastic playthings at each other. Mothers swept the sidewalks with brooms made from the hair of walnut trees and grandfathers hobbled and bobbled their nuts. It was on to the Miser’s Quarters then the Mortestrate where the city was under siege—bars clamped on windows and the wrecking crews bashed against the walls of section eight homes. Automotive rust, coal residue, paint shards and brick cinders rose up in the wind and cluttered their hair. Down along Maxwell Street they carried themselves. The neighborhood torn asunder by the city’s tyrannical reconstruction.

  Renew the breeze—the multitudinous banners read and the bright red paint of the words scorched the desiccated wood chips that once constructed the town. Homes piled upon each other and faint hobo camps lurked on the edge of their destruction. The fire picked up their black eyes and their songs sang against the back of the demolition crews.

  “I ain’t never been a rambler. It’s never been up to me.” They sang. “It’s a sure bet it ain’t an accident. Gimme a drink. Gimme some peace.”

  The Mortestrate in all its tragic up-ending also lent a steady flow of the water that both twins could taste. Water poured through the banjo and the exploding homes split against liquid sorrow. The force of the city was unleashing such a sad song and poverty was a riverbed. Isabella watched the hobo camps disappear against the skyline of cranes, steamrollers, and cones. She hoped to pick up the bricks with them one day. To reconnoiter with destruction. The brick dust air swirled into her mouth and left the sickness there. She sipped on her fish sauce and considered handing some to Fennel, but then retracted. He didn’t look at her, but she could feel, quite clearly, his strong almost virulent disapproval. The ascent toward the top of the Billington Hills became increasingly barren with the flora and fauna going brown and thin as they rode.

  The School of Divine Line lived in chalk and its hospice was flatly impressive. It stood on the top of Billington Hill where the sandstone cliffs and boulders began. Snake holes riddled the front path and the orange baked earth cast a dull brown light even under the moon. From the top of Billington Hill, Fennel and Isabella could overlook Barrenwood. A telescope sat perched on the Manifest Rock for visitors to peer through. The monks were known to follow the movement of the stars from here, but Fennel suspected they would be better suited looking in their own bedrooms down below. Fennel leapt over to the telescope and began searching.

  “Somewhere, lookie lookie, somewhere,” Fennel mumbled. “Iz, not all that long ago, I got myself a clue. Yes, a clue, to that villainous beast who was putting our dearly beloved lunatics out to sea. It’s that doctor. The one at Wellington Manor. The one that smells of apple tobacco, gin, and root. He is out there, hunkered down and so proud. I can see his home tucked back in the hopes of hiding. But, oh, we can see now, can’t we?” He turned to her and smiled wide. His eyes looked fierce and his teeth like steak knives. She managed a smile back.

  “That doctor is nothing Fennel, but I’m glad you found him. He is a tool. Surely you know that. Would it be possible for me to give the telescope a whirl?” she asked.

  He turned the telescope so she could use it. The gears bent and careened. She dialed in the glass and pointed toward where she figured the Duke’s home must be. Only the most perceptive eye could detect it, but there, the deep grey against black revealed the silhouette of the coal mansion. The façade leaned against the horizon with cruel ramparts. She imagined the dusty scrolls, ruddy cherubs and fecund passings in the halls. She pretended the windows with their glowing coterie were opening up to her—the dizzying clamor of blood red scribes and edifices to incineration. In that instant, her blood burned her bones. The fog lifted and she was instantly on course. She must return. She must return now! This feeling rose up in her with such urgency it nearly scared her. Something in her told her to run now or lose it all. Marty’s packages, plotting, and disciplinary folklore must surely wait. Her brother, too, sadly, must be left behind. He had made his choice. She looked up from the telescope and her blood dropped deep into the heels of her socks.

  Fennel’s eyes studied her with a slow piercing cruelty that startled her. It was menacing.

  “Don’t, “ he slowly stated, “for an instant imagine it. Don’t think it. We are staying the course. The loss of some of my hair has at least given me the enlightened understanding of my role in matters. I will lead for now. Just stay the course.”

  He walked back toward the entrance to the school. Isabella, subtly surprised by her own immediate adherence, found herself picking up the package and stepping in line.

  As they headed to the door, Fennel did something he had never done before. It was new and it was odd and it was done without the slightest recognition o
f just how unique it was. Instead of knocking on the front door as they had done so many times in the past, her brother opened the front teak door and stepped inside. Instantly the smell of coriander filled the nose. Stained glass appeared everywhere with various scenes from the universal history of man’s great voyage toward manifest destiny. The slaves of Egypt tugging on chiseled stone as architects ingeniously deduce what will be. Diagrams abounded with cartographies of ocean depths, mountain trails, urban planning, the circulatory system and the neurological matrix. Hardly a universe ruled by gods, but one where even the gods themselves submitted to depths, fathoms, and leagues. The distance between salivation and salvation were quite in demand at this temple. But yes, dragons were present as well. Quetzalcoatl, Vishnu, Lock Ness and even Brigham Young, all shown in miniature blue, green and golden glass. A shined mirror was above the mantle and Fennel took a gander. Yes, he was looking different, he thought. He grabbed some of the thin sand that littered the Fourier floor and swirled it into his hair.

  “For a more cunning and dynamic you, we suggest, New! Floor sand!” he smiled at his reflection. His hair was now pointing in every direction—a dusty tarantula black salad that so obviously pleased him. Soon enough, one of the many monks presented himself from the interior. He wore the coriander colored robe. His complexion was sallow with a tanned face and thinly trimmed eyebrows. The lines against his mouth were heavily creased and he stood with perfect posture.

  “Evening is here,” he said solemnly. A strange greeting indeed. He stiffly put out his hand and each of them shook it. Firmly. His face showed hardly a trace of resonance. Hardly even present. His eyes a pair of bark chips.

  “We have brought you this package,” said Isabella and she hoisted it up for him to see. Her arms held out the package and the monk slowly looked down.

  “Yes,” said the monk and he nimbly took it from her. He opened the envelope slowly. His delicate long fingers peeled the wax sealed sides of the envelope. It felt odd to Isabella that these monks in all their regalia were able to read Marty’s drunken scrawl without consternation. His writing was a boy’s stick in the mud. The monk put the letter back and looked up quickly.