All of Us with Wings

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  A party was the last thing Xochi wanted. “I shouldn’t. I don’t want to leave Pallas.”

  “I really do feel better.” Pallas was working on her second helping of garlic bread. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were clear. “Don’t stay on my account. I’m just planning to read and go to sleep.”

  “You trying to get rid of me?”

  “It’s developmentally appropriate for you to go out at night, Xochi. Teenagers need to socialize!”

  Aaron frowned. “Why did I think you were, like, twenty-two?”

  “We’ve been all through this,” Kylen said. “The governess lied about her age.”

  “She told me she was seventeen the first day we met,” Pallas said. “Maybe you guys never asked her. You know what they say about assuming, Ky. But in this case, it’s just made an ass out of you.”

  “Why did I teach her that?” Kylen tossed a piece of dry spaghetti at Pallas and missed.

  “It’s just easier for people to think I’m older,” Xochi said. “That way I don’t have to explain why I’m not, like, finishing high school and applying to college right now.”

  “Why aren’t you?” Aaron asked. “You’re smart enough if you can keep up with Pallas. She’s pretty much a genius.”

  “I might go to college someday. I mean, I hope. I’ll be eighteen in September.”

  “Right,” Pad said, grinning. “No more jailbait.”

  “Offensive!” Bubbles called from the sink.

  “Really?” Pad looked confused.

  “Think about it,” Kiki said. “Bait. Like young women are asking for unwanted attention.”

  “When you put it that way . . .” Pad said, “I humbly apologize.” He bowed to Xochi.

  “I don’t think you’re sorry enough,” Pallas said, aiming a dishtowel at him and snapping it. The resulting chase spanned the entire first floor of the house.

  “Take it easy in there,” Kiki called, shaking her head.

  “Xochi, you have to come out tonight!” Bubbles was adorable in her ruffled apron, but not an efficient dishwasher. She’d been scrubbing the same pan for ages. “So I’m not the only girl again.”

  “Don’t worry about Pallas,” Kiki said. “I have some sewing to do, so I’ll be home. If she’s not feeling well again I can work upstairs.”

  “I’m staying home, too,” Aaron said.

  “You might as well just go,” Kylen said. “I’m sure Io and Lev would appreciate a quiet house when they get back from their date.”

  Something writhed in Xochi’s belly, larval monsters ready to explode.

  “Pretty please?” Bubbles tilted her head and batted her lashes.

  “I don’t know . . .” Maybe it would be better to go out, put some distance between her and Leviticus.

  “You’re coming; it’s final.” Bubbles hugged her, dripping dishwater down Xochi’s neck. “It’s nice having another girl around to play with. Kiki and Io have gotten so serious in their old age.”

  “It had to happen sometime,” Kiki said. “Anyway, watch me celebrate after I finish this collection.”

  “Are you going to do a fashion show when it’s done?” Xochi loved Kiki’s creations. She and Io dressed in them almost exclusively. Pallas said Kiki’s aesthetic was a cross between Victorian England and 2025.

  “I am,” Kiki smiled, the slight gap between her front teeth making her almost too-perfect beauty rakish and sexy. “I’m making a piece for you, too, you know. And Pallas. You two are going to walk in my show.”

  “Have you seen me walk? I mean, like, down the hall?”

  “Don’t stress. You’re gonna love it.”

  “Hey, Pallas,” Xochi said, “want to read together before I go out and do my socializing? I kind of want to know what’s going to happen to Mr. Frodo, if you don’t mind. Think he’ll make it out of that forest?”

  “He’s the protagonist, and there are two more books to go. He’ll be fine.” Pallas brought her plate to the sink and rinsed it.

  “Come find me when you two are done,” Bubbles ordered on her way out of the kitchen. “I’m loaning you clothes.”

  “Don’t make her too sexy, Bubbles,” Pallas said. “Remember, she’s only seventeen.”

  “Not when I’m done with her,” Bubbles called back. “You’ll need a chaperone just to look at her.”

  34

  Little Green

  Motorcycles revved and faded as people left for the party. Pallas snuggled under the covers and closed her eyes.

  What was that noise? She got out of bed and peeked into the sitting room. It was empty and unusually dark, the pinkish gold of the streetlight gone. She thought of Ky and how streetlights went dark whenever he walked past them. She’d been small enough to ride on his shoulders when she’d first noticed it. She’d decided it was his hair, so black it absorbed all the lights.

  Pallas sat at the window seat, staring out at the fog. At first, it was like the flowing dress of a dancer, a costume from a black-and-white musical with feathers on the hem. Little by little, the fog cleared. Pallas blinked once, twice, three times. A small, exquisite green-skinned girl stood on the fire escape.

  Pallas should have been scared, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t even surprised. She knew this girl. She’d been dreaming of her for weeks.

  She put her hand against the window in greeting.

  Friend?

  The word popped into Pallas’s head like it was her own thought, but she knew it wasn’t. The green girl lay her hand against Pallas’s from the other side of the glass. Pallas glimpsed pearly nails and silvery webs between the fingers before the merchild’s tiny hand disappeared behind her own.

  “Friend,” Pallas whispered.

  The girl placed her other hand on her heart, so Pallas did the same.

  A strange sensation stirred in Pallas’s chest, little folds of meaning that aligned themselves into a perfect origami crane: Xochi.

  How do you know Xochi? Pallas said, but not with her voice.

  The green girl closed her eyes, so Pallas did the same. A movie played on the pink backs of her eyelids: two girls, candles, a bathtub. Pallas and Xochi sleeping on the carpet. A sister and brother leaping from the tub.

  The potion! Pallas recalled the goosebumps on her arms as she and Xochi had circled and chanted.

  Did we create you? Pallas asked. Her hand shook, sweaty against the skin-warmed glass.

  You called us.

  Us? Pallas asked.

  Next to the green girl, her brother appeared. He was taller than his sister, with hair as black as Kylen’s. He bowed his head, his mouth turned up in something like a smile.

  We must find Xochi, the green girl said.

  Pallas wanted to tell them where she’d gone. It felt like the right thing to do, but how could she be sure? As if she’d spoken her fears, the green girl grasped her brother’s hand, standing at attention. They spoke together in a dream-voice singsong.

  We want only to help her, to heal and protect her.

  We love her and honor her, we cannot forget her.

  The pair of them stood waiting for Pallas’s decision.

  Her dad always said that her brains lived in her entire body, not just her head. If she listened to her gut, nine times out of ten, she’d know what to do.

  She stepped back from the dream children. Planting her feet, she looked them in the eyes, each one in turn.

  She took a deep breath and opened the window. “Xochi’s not here,” she said. “She went out. But you can wait if you want to. It will be a while. She won’t be home till late.”

  Alarm filled the children’s eyes.

  You need to find her now? Pallas asked.

  The green girl’s hair spiraled round her head in affirmation.

  The party was at a warehouse, Pallas knew that much. There had been
a flyer on the mail table in the front hall. Like just about everything she read, the words were stored someplace in her brain. She just had to find the way back to them. Color usually helped. The flyer was yellow . . .

  “I’ve got it!” Pallas said, this time out loud. “If I make a map, can you follow it?”

  The girl’s eyes remained worried and confused. Pallas understood. She held her hands out across the sill. The green girl’s skin was slick and cool, the way Pallas thought a dolphin’s might be. She closed her eyes, sending the girl a picture of the way to the warehouse several times to make sure she wouldn’t get lost.

  Thank you. The girl bowed her head and set Pallas’s hand on her chest. Pallas sensed life there but not exactly a heartbeat.

  She bowed. “My name is Pallas. I will help you any way I can. But can you tell me, is something wrong? Is Xochi in trouble?”

  A wave of worry passed between the brother and sister. The green girl began to speak, but it was her brother’s voice Pallas heard in her mind, earthy and sweet, the way clove cigarettes smelled.

  You called us here; we answered the call.

  Debt-bound we follow; we try to mend all.

  We want only to help her, to heal and protect her.

  We love her and honor her, we cannot forget her.

  “Be careful,” Pallas said. “This city is beautiful, but it can be dangerous.”

  “I will be safe,” the green girl said, speaking aloud as Pallas did, her voice almost too high and sweet to hear. “I am not alone.” She clasped her brother’s hand.

  Pallas blinked. Her eyes must have stayed closed a moment too long, because when she opened them again, the window was closed and the brother and sister were gone.

  35

  Funtime

  Walking between Bubbles and Pad, Xochi felt the eyes of the people in line. She met their curious stares, secure in her glamorous armor. Back in Kiki’s room, Bubbles had laced her into a black satin bustier with a pair of red velvet shorts. Kiki had done her makeup and loaned her a cropped military jacket and tall black boots. In the bedroom mirror, Xochi was a lion tamer, a cabaret dancer, a completely different person.

  “Who is that?” Xochi asked, not realizing Bubbles was right behind her.

  “The girl you’re about to be,” Bubbles said. “Any second now.”

  As they walked past the people in line shivering in their scanty outfits, Xochi realized the girl in the mirror hadn’t been her future self, but the girl she could have been. A girl raised by Gina. She might not know how to interpret dreams or have a library card, but she could rock a pair of hot pants and knew how to walk in heels.

  Kylen strode ahead of them, bypassing the line and breaching the velvet rope that kept most people out. A muscled doorman held it open, waiting for Xochi and Bubbles and Pad. When they were inside, he pressed a stamp to each of their wrists in turn: “VIP.”

  Inside the warehouse, the music was bassy and loud. Xochi’s eyes adjusted to the phosphorescent dim of the cavernous space, the white concrete walls and floors translucent purple in the blacklight.

  It was a “gallery/party/performance space,” according to Bubbles, where a group of artists lived and worked. “It’s an intense scene,” she’d warned Xochi earlier. “Super druggy and kind of wild. But the DJ’s supposed to be awesome.” On every wall, massive photographic prints showed details of hundreds of modified bodies, close-ups of tattoos and piercings, some in places that made Xochi cringe. Disembodied, flesh and bone took on new identities, some abstract, others morphing from flesh to sea creature to flower.

  “Who did these?” Xochi yelled, her lips against Pad’s ear.

  “Alice somebody. From New York,” Pad shouted back. “Io and Leviticus used to hang out with her.”

  A pair of girls glared at Xochi from across the room. Hair ponies headed straight for Pad. “Incoming,” Pad said. “Gotta bail.” Xochi gave him a shove, a head start for his getaway, but he caught her arm and pulled her back so his mouth was close to her ear. “Please do watch yourself, love. These parties are on a whole ’nother level.”

  Gripping Bubbles’s hand, Xochi followed her deeper into the building, a long rectangle with a high, bare-beamed ceiling. Away from the massive speaker stacks, the music wasn’t quite so oppressive. Bubbles pulled Xochi into the dancing crowd.

  She fought the impulse to bolt, letting the heavy rhythm pound into her body. A dandyish girl in a skimpy tank and skintight jeans held the hips of a voluptuous Latina with dark ringlets and lavender eyes. A regal drag queen with perfect makeup shimmied with a short guy in leather pants. Two Mohawked boys rocked out with a topless hippie girl, her long brown hair fanning out around her face. Xochi closed her eyes. For a long, tranquil while, her brain was Leviticus- and Gina-free.

  Thirst tickled her body out of the rhythm. She looked around for Bubbles, but found herself alone in the gyrating crowd. A keg was the only option for something to drink. Xochi swallowed the cold amber beer and followed the flow of the crowd to a platform on the far end of the building. Some sort of performance was happening on a stage to the left of the DJ, but Xochi wasn’t close enough to watch. Seeing a door labeled girls, she waited in line and took her turn, willing herself not to think.

  The crowd was thinner when Xochi came out of the bathroom. She squeezed her way into a spot close to the stage. A man, naked and heavily tattooed, hung above a platform by thick metal hooks threaded through the skin of his chest. She checked the faces of the people around her, but no one was alarmed. She made herself look again.

  His waist was unnaturally small, bound in a wide leather belt. His hair was dark and threaded with silver. It flowed back from his head as he leaned into the tension between gravity and his flesh. Xochi’s examination reached his face. It was James! She expected to see blood dripping from the wounds in the skin above his pierced nipples, but there was nothing. This was less a crucifixion than a display of an unusual piercing done some other strange night and long since healed.

  Remembering their conversation, Xochi wondered—what was he releasing now? What divinity would fly in to fill the void?

  Xochi exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.

  “Not into pain?”

  Xochi turned. Red hair fell in loose waves around starry gray eyes lined like a silent film star’s over a nose dusted with freckles, sparkling with a diamond stud. Xochi recognized her from somewhere.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Pain,” the redhead said. “You had quite the look on your face. But we’ve already established you’re the sweet and innocent type.”

  The redheaded lighter-stealing stripper! Of course. The way she was talking to Xochi, it was like they were still having a smoke outside Mitchell Brothers. “Not physical pain,” Xochi said. “Emotional drama is more my style.”

  The redhead leaned closer. She smelled like jasmine and fire. “Elaborate, please.” Her voice was clear, creating a pocket of quiet in the loud room.

  “Love. Hate. Sex. Fate,” Xochi said into the seashell of the girl’s ear. “You know, the basics.”

  “The basics are the best.” The redhead seemed to have made a decision. Taking Xochi’s hand, she led her away from the stage. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “I bet you could use a drink.”

  Xochi pictured the girl in the mirror. What would she do?

  The redhead stopped at an unmarked door and unlocked it with a key from a thin chain around her neck. Candlelight revealed a windowless room with a mattress on the floor covered by a floral tapestry, a stack of old leather suitcases, and a stuffed clothes rack in the corner. There was a small bureau and a wooden crate beside the bed. The rest of the room was bare.

  “You live here?” Xochi asked.

  “Yes.” The redhead pulled a flask from behind a pillow and took a long drink before passing it to Xochi.

 
; “Um, I’m Xochi, by the way.” Xochi took a sip from the flask. Tequila, but nicer than the stuff she and Collier used to pinch from Evan’s dad. She sat on the floor opposite the bed and leaned against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her. She felt for the square edges of Kiki’s cigarette case in her pocket. “For luck,” Kiki had said when she’d tucked it in. “And now you don’t need a bag.”

  “Is it okay if I smoke in here?” It seemed to Xochi like smoking was all she did these days.

  “I’ll join you.” The redhead kicked off her shoes and shifted to a cross-legged position on the bed. Xochi passed her the cigarette case. The girl turned it over in her hands before extracting a cigarette and handing it back.

  “I’m Justine.” Xochi loved the husky break in her voice. “And I know this cigarette case. Doesn’t it belong to a stacked, leggy seamstress?”

  “You know Kiki?”

  “I do. And I know who you are, too.”

  Xochi was beginning to understand why Pallas hated her family’s notoriety. She waited for questions about Io and Leviticus, comments about being the babysitter. Justine leaned back against the bed without any apparent discomfort at the growing silence.

  The music thumped. Xochi could hear the crowd getting drunker. She was drunker herself. She took another swig from the flask and passed it back to Justine.

  “Okay,” Xochi said. “I give. How do you know about me? Io and Leviticus, right?” Their names flowed together—a couple, no matter what he said.

  Justine laughed. “Sort of. I’m a friend of Pad’s. You came in with him and Bubbles and Ky, and I recognized you from the other day. The adorable new nanny at Eris Gardens has been gossip for weeks. I’m guessing that’s you.” She got up to light a stick of incense.

  What was Xochi supposed to say to that? She took another swig. Fuck it, she thought. She was here to have fun, not freak out. This girl knew Pad? Great. She smiled. “So, tell me about our Irish friend. All the dirt you’ve got. I need ammunition!”