by Scott Hale
Softly, Edgar asked, “Where does it go?”
“My hideout,” she said with a toothy grin. “There’s a ladder. It’s slippery, sometimes, so watch your step.”
Auster rubbed the back of his head, at the ghost of a past spill. “Yeah, watch your step.”
“Audra,” Edgar called out, as his sister slipped into the hole and began her descent. “Now doesn’t seem the best time. Assassins, remember? We should be staying with the guards.”
Auster crawled past Edgar, under the desk. “All sense and reason leave her when she’s like this.” He lowered himself into the hole and added, “Let her have her fun.”
The ladder was slick, as she had warned. Edgar’s vision blurred as he stepped down into the darkness, the small chute awakening dormant claustrophobia. The stone the chute was comprised of told them its story in its colors, like the rings of a tree.
For Edgar, it was as though they were traveling back in time, to the days of Ghostgrave’s founding.
When his arms started to ache and his siblings started to pant, their feet found solid footing at the ladder’s end. Behind them, bioluminescent plants lit up the room they stood in, washing the earthen ruin in vibrant, lime green light.
It took Edgar’s vision a moment to adjust, but when it did, he couldn’t believe what he saw in the room. Old World remnants—boxes, booths, telephones, and turnstiles; boots, books, and coats. All of it was left out in the open, undisturbed. This place wasn’t a room at all, but a station; a subway station.
“Audra…” Edgar’s words trailed off as he leaned over a phonebook and tried to read its faded text. “What is this?”
She took his hand and guided him to a large fissure in the wall. It was from here that the roots of the bioluminescent plants flowed.
“My happy place,” she said, waving Auster over to join them. “See it?”
Edgar nodded. He’d seen the station and, through the fissure, the small makeshift study beyond. It was filled with plants and flowers, and there were tomes and tools atop a workstation which was covered in stolen supplies from their home above.
Edgar nodded again. He saw beyond the study, through a blown-out window, where train tracks laced a chasm, and a subway car sat on its side, like a wounded beast which had long since been left to die, forgotten and alone.
“Holy shit,” he said.
“Don’t let the Holy Child hear you call him that,” Auster joked.
“Audra, when did you find this?” Edgar took a step back, resting against the linoleum wall.
“Two years ago, in a fit of boredom.” She moved about the glowing garden as she spoke, tending to the needs of her children. “No one looks for me, so no one notices when I’m gone.”
Edgar wanted to interrupt her, to tell her she was wrong. But she wasn’t; she was right. This was the most he had spoken with his sister in weeks, and it wasn’t even until now that he realized it.
Auster leaned into a plant covered in hairs and pods. “You could start a sizeable clinic with all these. Is that your plan?” The pods split open and tendrils shot out, biting at the air, trying to get at his face. He jumped back, and said, “Never mind.”
“That’s part of the plan, yes.” She waved her brothers back to her. “Edgar can secure the places, and we can fill them with food and medicine. Auster, you could educate others, and then they could do the same. We start off small, but if we do it right, others will follow our example.”
“I can’t believe this is here. How is this here?” Edgar had been listening to her, but only barely.
Auster, keeping a close eye on the plant that had marked him for death, said, “What’s the other part of your plan?”
Audra ignored him. “There’s so little we know about the Trauma, Edgar. I think there’s a lot of places like this, twisted and displaced. It’s like the world was smashed together and pulled apart.”
“The other part of your plan?” Auster nagged.
Audra’s jaw looked unhinged, like an annoyed snake’s. “There, that subway car. Look closer, you’ll see it.”
Edgar stepped through the fissure, into the study. He went to the blown-out window. Looking closely, he then saw it; a stalk, thick and tough, coming out of the subway car, to taste the new scents that soiled the air.
Audra joined him. With a handful of debris, she reared her arm back and flung the junk across the tracks. Where it landed, hundreds of tiny mushrooms lit up their yellow fear. The light they made crept across the chasm, illuminating the car.
A stalk appeared, and then another, and then several more, followed by roots, engorged and lumbering. They slithered across the subway car, out its windows and doors. Each stalk, each root, seemed to be running from the same place, and when Edgar leaned over the sill, he found it. The appendages were connected to a bulbous base that had grown over half of the seats inside the subway car.
“Audra,” Edgar said. Instincts kicking in, he backed away. “What the hell is that?”
“A myth I’ve been working on. I read about it in a book Amon gave me. I didn’t think I’d get this far, but…” Her gaze darted back and forth between her brothers. “It’s known as a Crossbreed. After trying forever, this was the perfect place for it to bloom.”
For once, Auster’s voice shook when he spoke. “What does it do?”
“There’s two types,” she said, holding up two fingers. “One that kills, a Bloodless, and this one, which soothes. If the people already think we poison their food, then why not introduce something that may calm them down for once? Make them more willing to let us actually help them? We could do a lot if they would just… obey.”
CHAPTER VII
The Trauma shattered the world, and from its shards nations rose. In the smoldering folds of the midland, Vold stood unchallenged. It had been the first city to restore order, and so it was to this city people looked for resources and guidance. The accomplishment was not without its shortcomings, however, for it made of Vold’s leaders narcissists and egotists with delusions of utopia.
Six sat on the city’s council; six sons in each’s shadow. Starved for splendor, the six sons turned eastward and saw, in the Nameless Forest, prospects. With forked tongues, they bought favor and labor, and forged their fates in the glories of hell.
The Forest received them on an orange summer day, the cool breeze its cool breath, calling them its way. In the trees they saw towers, and in the vermillion veins gold fortunes. Rivers gave way to crops, and caves to foundations. On the crests and in the crevices, the sons imagined cities, beacons for greatness built on unspoiled plots.
They sent word of their findings to their fathers afar, and went to work on the earth, digging deep, digging hard. The men complained of headaches, hallucinations, and horrors, but the sons paid them no mind.
The excavation took many as they carved out the sweltering depths, and those that persisted did so only by the fortitude found in the vermillion veins above. The six sons did not know why they were digging, for they had all they needed on the surface, but they dug all the same.
In the buzzing night of the third month, the Nameless Forest spoke.
“Drink our blood, and we shall drink yours.” The words echoed through the chasm they had created, eroding the will of the workers so that they fled. The six sons shouted commands, threatened violence, but in the end, they ran, too.
The company did not make it very far: The tunnel out had collapsed. The six sons turned on one another, attributing blame and misfortune to everyone but themselves.
“Bring us blood,” the Nameless Forest bellowed, as they scuffled and wept in the humid dark, “and we’ll bring you home.”
The six sons ceased their fighting and did as they were told. The Nameless Forest promised itself to them, and they to it. The six sons fed the remainder of their men to the chasm, to the vermillion veins that waved like reeds in the bloody swamp that their camp had become. They returned to Vold, and to their fathers, with a proposition.
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��Let us purify the city, as you’ve always wanted,” they said eagerly. “The undesirables, the unmentionables, those that do not contribute enough, and those that question too much—give us them all. They will toil in the sun and perish in the night, and the treasures they will find will be yours, and Vold will flourish.”
The leaders conceded to their sons’ demands after one taste of the vermillion veins. Soon, the damned were packed on the midlands paths, and together marched to persecution songs. The six sons quartered the Nameless Forest in accordance to crime, and over these six wards, they ruled as kings. Those that died were dispersed to the depths and fed to the voice that gave safe passage.
The six sons, with mouths bloodied from vermillion addiction, quickly changed the terms of the agreement. The veins made them feel as gods, and as gods they owed nothing to mortals. The supply lines were broken, and barriers erected, and the six sons took six thousand from the continent and kept them for themselves, so as to appease their subterranean benefactors.
Vold vanished overnight, for reasons lost to history, and the six gods ruled over their tiny kingdom, each indulging in the crime of their governing. And when all that could die had died, they themselves were consumed, and then forgotten.
Many had told Edgar he would be disappointed with his first sexual encounter. But as he lay watching Lotus’ breasts rise and fall with her breathing, he was glad they had been wrong.
He could recall every detail of the night, and he would remember every detail for all the nights to come. It didn’t matter if she loved him, because she had brought him calmness in a place of chaos, and the confidence to keep moving forward.
“I know they’re pretty, but there are better things you can do to them than stare,” Lotus said, never opening her eyes.
Half-tempted to take her up on the proposition, Edgar resisted and sat up. “Thank you for that.”
“No—thank you,” she said, still pretending to be asleep. “It’s slim pickings around here, let me tell you.”
As Edgar freed his feet from the blankets, his thoughts returned to the task at hand. Anathema, Blackwood, Chapel, and Atlach; these were villages of which he knew nothing and yet had been asked to destroy.
With the possible exception of his abductor, he had never killed anyone before. To murder four strangers at the command of some creature clearly capable of doing the job itself seemed ridiculous. No, Edgar wouldn’t let the Forest have him so easily. He would appear as though he would do as he was told, but only until the moment presented itself when he could do otherwise.
“What is it?” Lotus asked, finally opening her eyes to find his face wracked with concern.
“I’m so confused.”
“Is this not what you expected?” Lotus rose, stretched. “It will be, once you leave Threadbare.”
“And if I were to say no?” Edgar had no intention of forsaking his home and family, but Lotus’ nakedness made him entertain the notion all the same.
“Then you’d be another drop of blood on Crestfallen’s dress.”
“How is it you’ve escaped such a fate? And everyone else here?”
“I’m sure she has her reasons.” Lotus got out of bed, her body silencing any arguments. “I don’t care to know them.”
“What if I stayed?”
Edgar watched with some sadness as the mayor of Threadbare slipped back into her pants. Lotus’ room, where they now rested, complimented her well, despite the fact that it was at odds with her tough, assertive personality. The room, much like the entire house, had a softness to it, as though everything were covered in a veil of sleepy haze. The walls were muted shades of gray and blue, and many of the shelves were covered in small, childish trinkets; mementos perhaps, from Lotus’ early years.
“And why would you do that?” She looked over her shoulder, green eyes glowing in the candlelight.
“To better understand this place.” It was a lie, and yet there was some truth to it. “How you survived, how you’ve functioned.”
Lotus shook her head. Pants still unbuttoned, she walked over to Edgar, pushed him down, and straddled his waist on the bed.
“We survive like everyone else, I imagine. There’s no secret to it. You stick with what’s constant and make the best of it. When you come back, if you’re still dying to know, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Come back?” Edgar’s hand traveled cautiously to her hips. “Is there a way out through here?”
Lotus shrugged. “Misspoke. Wishful thinking.” She shifted her weight down onto his crotch.
“Are you like this with everyone who comes to Threadbare?”
She leaned forward, her lips taunting his as she closed in. “I would be, if more people came to Threadbare.”
Edgar tensed, cocked his head. “Crestfallen spared me.”
“Guess that makes you special.” Lotus pressed her lips hard against his. When she finally pulled away, all the clothes she had put back on were on the floor again.
Lotus was the worst kind of distraction. The kind that would make a man fail to notice the thief in his pocket, or the dagger at his throat—and then not care for either when he did.
The brisk morning air reminded Edgar of this, the cold clearing his thoughts. He followed Lotus through Threadbare. The village glistened in the early light, not one inch of it untouched by dew. They were headed to the gates that surrounded the village, and yet Lotus seemed to be taking the long way, as though she wanted to show off the village. But there wasn’t much to see. A few buildings here, empty stretches of grass there. It was a place suspended in time, half-built, wholly forgotten; a place that didn’t belong, not here, not anywhere.
Edgar tore his eyes away from the village and looked upward. He shuddered as he stared at the sky, where red clouds lumbered along the flickering firmament. Were they ill omens, he wondered, or an everyday occurrence? Edgar rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, and waited for the dream of Threadbare to come to an end.
“Keep to it,” Lotus said. She pointed to the narrow path that wound through the gate and trees ahead. “And you’ll get there soon enough.”
“Where?” Edgar turned around to have one final look at the village. But he wasn’t the only one. The men, women, and children, with their tools, spools, toys, and dolls were standing in the fields and at the stores, watching him as he watched them.
“That’s up to you.” She spun Edgar around to face her. “You’re a pawn. You know that, right?”
He nodded, though he hadn’t really considered this obvious fact until now. “Crestfallen could kill me after I’m done.”
“Yep.” Lotus slapped him gently on the cheek. “But if she doesn’t, then something else will. But that something else isn’t offering you a way out.”
“I’m getting the impression I’m not the first to come through here.” Edgar searched Lotus’ face for the formation of a lie.
“You’re not.” She stuck out her tongue to catch the fat drops that had begun to fall around them.
Lotus had given him a cloak. He lifted its hood over his head. “How many quests has she given out?”
“Quests?” She laughed, stepped away, and pushed open the gates. “Are you a hero, now?”
“Feels like it.” Edgar cringed as the gate whined open.
“Then get to it, hero. Your princess—” she made a curtsey, “—awaits your return.”
Edgar furrowed his brow at the woman, the mayor of Threadbare. In that brief moment, he hated everything about her he had loved, and would love again.
Grumbling, he said, “Just follow the path?”
Lotus smiled and said, “Don’t stray. Stay sane.”
When Edgar could no longer see Threadbare through the trees, he stopped where he stood and looked over his belongings. Lotus had provided him with the cloak which he wore, a knife, and several curatives; two bags with a week’s worth of food and drink, and starters for a fire. The clothes that he wore beneath his armor, which had been thoroughly cleaned, were ne
w as well.
Lotus had groomed him, soothed him, and for what? His being here was too coincidental. He should have died days ago, when the carrion birds came to tear him apart, long before the bell had rung and called them off. Had Crestfallen seen something in him when he sank into the field of satin? Or was the absurdity of her request nothing more than the result of an insane mind too long exposed to an insane world?
“Don’t think about it,” Edgar told himself, continuing down the path. “Don’t stray. Stay sane.”
The mantra was easy enough to say, but following it was another matter entirely. Like set pieces from a play, the Nameless Forest shuffled in oddities and impossibilities across the woodland stage for Edgar to behold.
Red suns tempted him to stray from his course, to see better the cracks that marred the orbs. Branches twisted upon themselves, breaking their bark to reveal white bone beneath. Yellow fog poured out of porous rocks, and where it went, plants and weeds burst into flames. Thousands of animal calls, man-made growls, and child-like screams followed Edgar for the better part of an hour.
At times, he even felt the brush of fur, scale, and tooth against his skin, as though these suffering specters walked beside him.
These things he could ignore because, in the end, they were no threat to him. However, what he couldn’t ignore was the field of barbed wire that now lay before him, stretching out in all directions, for what seemed like miles.
Crouching, he saw that, where the path went, the metal had formed a series of arches through which one could crawl. To stick to the path, he had to go through here.
So, with a sigh of defeat, he fell forward, face to the dirt, and wondered why his abductor couldn’t have taken Lena instead.
“Edgar?” a girl cried out, desperate and pained.
At the mouth of the barbed wire field, Edgar looked up and spotted a rustling coil not too far off. A hand, bloodied and barb-bitten, pushed through the wire.
