Machina Obscurum

by J. Edward Neill

That never made much sense to little me, but then again lots of what Grandpa used to say confused me. He was all sayings, all the time. He had proverbs for everything, like, ‘Wine’s good for sleeping, but bad for waking,’ and, ‘Never eat a noodle that won’t stick to the bricks.’

  I guess what mattered is that we were happy in our skinny house. We loved it even when it sagged with all the others. We loved it in winter, when the hearth would roar and warm us like a second sun. And we loved it in summer when the vines crept up the walls and the rain drummed on the shingles all night long.

  I loved Grams especially.

  For as much as Grandpa was all sayings, riddles, and stories of the old world, Grams was rooted in hard truths and harder work. While Pa smoked his pipe and sipped himself clumsy with his wine, Grams baked us bread, swept the floors, scrubbed our dirty clothes, and walked to markets near and far to fetch makings for supper. We always used to think she’d be upset with Pa for his glooming, smoking, and lazing about. But no, she never was, leastways not that she’d let us see.

  “You work so hard, but not Pa,” I remember my little brother Gio saying to Grams one morning while Grandpa was away. “How come?”

  “Your Pa’s worked hard enough,” she said while sweeping.

  “Is it ‘cause he’s got all the coins?” Gio blurted. “Cousin Sully says if you have lots of coins, you don’t have to work.”

  Grams laughed at that. “Maybe that’s true. Maybe a little.”

  “Why?” I butted in.

  “Well…Gio’s right.” Grams stopped sweeping. “Not because of what Sully said. But because Pa’s coins let us live this life. Without the coins, we’d have to work harder. I’d be out in the fields. Pa would be at the mill, or maybe the cobblers, or maybe slaving long shifts at the tannery. Life wouldn’t be as simple.”

  “Did Ma and Da work at those places?” Gio asked. “Is that why they’re gone?”

  “Gio—” I scolded him.

  “No, it’s a fair question,” Grams sighed. “Truth is…I’m not sure why your Ma and Da left. I think Pa knows, but it’s not his favorite thing to talk about. ‘Scared of their own shadows,’ Pa used to say. Though I don’t hardly know what he meant. Not really, anyway.”

  Gio thought on it for a moment. He was only five winters along, ‘but already smarter than sunshine,’ Pa always liked to say. “How’d he get all the coins?” my little brother asked. “He’s got big piles upstairs. More coins than everyone on Osso, all added up.”

  Maybe it was the way Grams stopped sweeping, or maybe it was the quick shadow flooding her eyes, but I knew just then Gio had asked the right question. Or maybe he’d asked the wrong one, and I was too dumb to know the difference.

  “Gio, dear,” said Grams, “you’ve finished your breakfast. I think it’s time you went to play. The cold snaps will be here in a few weeks. Not many more days as pretty as this.”

  “Awwww, but Grams—” he complained.

  “Run along.” She managed a smile. “Be back for supper. I’ll have pie for you. You too, Mia. Until dusk, you’re to play. Come back tired and dirty, else no pie.”

  “But Grams—” I echoed my brother’s protest.

  “Apple pie,” she said. “Your favorite. Now go.”

  I couldn’t argue with apple pie. Neither of us could. We dashed out the door and played all day. Just as Grams had hoped, we came back at dusk, and neither of us remembered to ask about the coins.

  In a few weeks came autumn.

  And in a few weeks more, winter.

  The seasons were like that in Ellerae. Springs and autumns were quick as sparrows flying past the window. But summers and winters were like old men shambling down the road. The hots and colds were slow and seemed to last forever. Summers were long. Winters felt like eternities.

  I suppose we never much minded. With Pa’s coins, we never wanted for anything. Which was good, I guess. Until it wasn’t.

  It was during the coldest day that winter I wandered up to Pa’s room on the top floor. The downstairs was flooded with family. Cousin Sully had died a few days prior, and every relative in Ellerae had turned out to mourn and ‘eat all our pie,’ as Gio had realized. I couldn’t stand the crush of family pinching my cheeks, talking about how tall and pretty I’d grown, or how pale the winter had made me. I preferred the quiet of Pa’s old and oaky study. I liked the way his pipe’s smoke filled the whole room.

  When I cracked his door open and crept inside, I found him sitting beside his biggest window, staring onto the street below.

  “Hi, Pa.” My voice was barely a whisper. I wasn’t sure if he’d be upset with me invading his privacy.

  “Come in, Mia.” He glanced at me. His cheeks were red and his eyes glazed. I knew right away he’d been sipping wine.

  I sidled across the room and propped my elbows on his desk. I saw what he’d been staring at: a white streetlamp blazing beneath the window.

  “When Ellerae goes dark,” he murmured, “our little streetlamp is always the last one burning. It’s the same every night. All the others go out, but ours stays lit. Funny how that is.”

  I looked out the window again. Dusk was settling and Ellerae going dark. Snow dusted every roof on Osso, while the clouds, greyer than Pa’s beard, scudded across the sky. Sure enough, our streetlamp burned steady. It looked like a little moon, paling the cobblestones and making shadows dance on the houses’ sides.

  “It’s pretty,” I remarked.

  “Maybe so.” Pa looked at me. “Reminds me of home. We had one lamp just like it in Veni. Just one. After the storms came, it was the only thing left standing.”

  I suppose I should’ve caught the sadness in his eyes. Thinking back on it, I can see it clear as day.

  “What storms, Pa?” I asked.

  “The ones that took Veni away,” he sighed. “They were strange, those storms. They came from the sea and the mountains. From all directions, it felt like. And when they were finished with us, the streetlamp was the only thing left. Even when I trotted away on the last living horse, the post was still standing…and a little fire flickering behind the glass. But nothing else survived. Not a stone. Not a brick. Not a single crooked plank. It was all gone, all washed out to sea. Like the ghosts had come to take everything away. Everything but me.”

  I was old enough to allow a solemn silence to pass. Only after we looked out the window for a long while did I dare speak again. For the life of me, I can’t say why I decided to ask him what I did.

  “Pa, where’d you get all your coins?”

  “In the city by the cliffs.” He looked out the window. “A big city. A beautiful city. They didn’t need their money anymore, so I helped myself.”

  “Oh,” I exhaled.

  “Aye,” he puffed. “And just like Veni and just like here, there was a streetlamp. I remember it now. It burned at the city’s edge. A pretty little light, yellow and fierce. Same as Veni, it was the last thing I saw when I left.”

  “Oh,” I said again. “What was the city called?”

  “Tessera.”

  I shrugged. I’d never heard of such a place. Sure, there’d been stories about Veni, but never one about a beautiful city by the sea.

  I suppose I should’ve asked Pa more.

  I didn’t.

  The next morning, I clomped downstairs from my bed and sank into the chair next to Gio. It didn’t much matter that a snowstorm was howling outside. Gio looked as sunny as ever in his life.

  “What are you so cheery about?” I asked him.

  “Auntie Lessa gave me a present. If you’d been downstairs, you’d have got one, too,” he declared.

  “I’d have got one what?”

  “A ring!” He beamed and hoisted a slender golden band up for me to see. I tried to grab it, but apparently he being two years younger made him ten years faster. “It’s mine!” He grinned stupidly. “Auntie says it was Sully’s. When I’m bigger, it’ll fit me. Auntie says it’ll protect me from everything. And if I wear it, I’ll l
ive forever.”

  I couldn’t have rolled my eyes farther back even if I’d tried. “You’re so dumb,” I blurted. “If it protected Sully from everything, why’d he go and die?”

  “They don’t know he’s dead.” Gio made a face. “He’s just missing.”

  “Missing five days. In winter. Face it, Gio; his bones are powder by now. He’s probably blowing around with the snow, ooooo ooooooooooooo!” I made a sound like a groaning ghost.

  “That’s enough, Mia,” Grams scolded. “You’ll scare him.”

  As she ladled breakfast mash into my bowl, I sank deeper into my chair. “Scare Gio?” I grumped. “Not hardly. He knows all about dead people. There was uncle Vin last year, and Brick-maker Lupa, and Cobbler Sams, and—”

  “Yes, dear,” Grams said mildly. “Now eat your mash.”

  Completely jealous of Gio’s ring, I nibbled at my breakfast. It was salty, just the way I liked it. Grams had never made a bad meal in her life. Her food tasted like love. No wonder Pa had married her.

  And the longer I sat there, trying to be mad, the more Gio’s smiles wore me down. I couldn’t stay angry with him. No chance. He kept sticking his tongue out at me and giggling. And when he crossed his eyes and balanced his spoon on his nose, I burst out laughing.

  “You noodle.” I rolled my eyes again, though not half as far back. “When you’re done with your mash, I’ll hold you up by your ankles and pour it all back out of you. Right out your nose, it’ll drip. Bloop, bloop, bloop!”

  And we laughed again.

  And finished our breakfast.

  And played inside our skinny house all day long.

  If I’d tears left, I’d cry. But I can’t. Not anymore.

  Because that day was the last I ever spent with Gio.

  I remember waking up a few days after he disappeared. I sat there in the predawn gloom, listening to the wind howl, waiting for my little brother to pounce out of the darkness and start tickling me. I held my breath for what felt like hours. He’s coming, I convinced myself. He’s been hiding all this while. It’s just a game for him. Any moment now, he’ll jump on the bed and we’ll cuddle until Grams calls us down for breakfast.

  But he never pounced. Never laughed. Never tickled me ever again.

  Twenty-three days after he vanished, Grams called for another mourning. It was like Sully’s, only quieter and without any pie. People had talked during Sully’s. They’d told stories about him, about the nutty things he used to claim, and about all his silly superstitions.

  But at Gio’s mourning, no one much talked at all. Pa didn’t even come home for it. ‘Too heartbroken,’ Grams wept. ‘First his children, now this.’

  As I sat in the darkness of Pa’s oaky study, Grams came up with a candle. I couldn’t ever remember seeing her in that room before. And I don’t think she ever came up again.

  “Mia, you should come down. The other children…they’re worried.”

  I looked out the window. Evening was drawing down, and the pale streetlamp was already burning. Come to think of it, I didn’t recall seeing anyone lighting its little fire.

  “They’re not worried,” I mumbled to Grams. “They’re scared.”

  Grams stood beside me. “Why should they be scared, dearie? This was an accident. It’s not as though—”

  “…it’ll happen again?” I finished her sentence. “But that’s just it, Grams. It might. Gio’s not the first, you know. A few weeks ago, it was Lito. And last autumn, Alesio. And that little girl, Rosie. And that’s just the children.”

  “You sound like Sully’s family,” Grams gloomed.

  “Well maybe they’re right.” I cupped my chin in my palm. “Maybe we should move to the countryside like the Angelos did. Or the Bruenis. I like Ellerae and all, but—”

  Grams hugged me then. I tried to resist her. I really did. But after a while my tears broke and I started sobbing. All my reason, logic, and fear flew out the window and burned up in the streetlamp’s flame. All I could think of was Gio, and the giant hole in my heart he’d left behind.

  For two years that felt like two hundred, I kept to myself.

  Sure, I went to school. I breakfasted with Grams and went to Auntie Lessa’s and tried to play with the other children. I went fishing on Lake Po, shopped at market with our neighbors, and talked whenever spoken to. But it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing really did. I knew Gio wasn’t coming back. I hoped, but I knew. Whenever I lay in bed alone, which was far too often, I felt it way deep down inside. I’d never known how huge a part of me he had been. Without a real mother and father, he’d been my truest family. He’d been more than Grams, more than Pa, more than all the rest of the world put together.

  Two years, and nothing.

  As I wallowed through the summers and hid myself away during the winters, things changed in Ellerae. I didn’t pay much attention, of course. I was lost in my own head, present in body but otherwise a ghost. Should I have listened to all that happened? Yes. Did I? No. Not really. When Auntie Lessa vanished, I barely batted an eyelash. When four more children from school didn’t come home, I was the only one who didn’t cry. When Grams hobbled into the house after going to market, she’d murmur about a farmer disappearing, a wife gone missing, or a whisper of a rumor of shadows in the alleys stealing one life every night.

  But I barely heard it.

  Even though I didn’t much listen, Grams told me everything. About life. About death. About everything. If I think hard about it, I know why she chose me to talk to. I know why she came to my room instead of Pa’s. He wasn’t around much, after all. Off drinking, I presumed. Hiding away with the other old men. Gambling and grumbling about how Ellerae was falling to pieces.

  Grams just wanted someone to talk to.

  But I was deaf to it.

  I felt like a nine year-old going on ninety. I felt old. Sad. Bitter.

  That winter, when Osso Street finally went on curfew because of the vanishings, I must’ve been the only kid who didn’t care. It’s not so bad, I told myself. It’s quieter this way. I won’t have to pretend to play anymore. The curfew started two days after the Issepe Twins went missing during a trip to their uncle’s vineyard. One vanished on the first night. The second disappeared the very next. The whole street must’ve cried their eyes out. But not me. Why didn’t they just come home after the first night? I remember thinking while Grams was sniffling about the whole thing. Could’ve saved at least one of them.

  It was the last time in my life I wished I’d had Ma and Da back.

  For just one winter night, I let myself think about them. I didn’t much remember my parents, not anymore, but even so, I fantasized about them coming back. I imagined they were strong and brave and able to help me shut the rest of the world out. With them in my head, I dreamed of a better life. No crying. No empty days and emptier nights. Just me, them, and Gio, together and happy.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t love Grams anymore.

  I did. I really did. But she hadn’t protected Gio. And for that, both she and Pa had become less to me.

  Come a night at winter’s end, I broke curfew.

  I couldn’t be in the house anymore. Not that night. Grams had cooked and accidentally set out a plate for Gio. Afterward she’d burst into tears, and Pa had slunk out the back door again. Not that I could blame him for it. The house was too quiet, too dead. I needed a walk. I needed to get away.

  So, even knowing I’d get in trouble, I walked up and down Osso Street twice. The darkness was heavy. The snow was deep and cold, but I barely felt it. I wore my boots and mittens, and yet some part of me knew that even if I’d gone out in nothing but my skin, I’d have been fine. No one was awake, of course. Locked behind their doors. I shook my head. Afraid of ghosts.

  I don’t know why, but I wasn’t afraid. Not even a little. Not my night to vanish, I knew.

  When I came up the street a second time and saw a woman weeping beneath our streetlamp, I wasn’t even startled.

  “What’s t
he matter?” I walked up to her.

  Kneeling in the snow, she looked up at me, but said nothing. Her bare hands were whiter than the moon, her eyes glazed with tears half turned to icicles.

  “Can I help?” I asked. It felt compassionate at the time, but in truth it might’ve been the stupidest question I’d ever asked.

  “No,” she sobbed. “No help. Not for me.”

  “It’s safe, you know,” I blurted. “Someone’s already gone missing today. The little boy at Osso’s end. Didn’t you hear? You don’t have to be afraid.”

  She looked at me again. Her eyes were as blue as Lake Po, her sorrow twice as deep. After a breath, my heart sank into my boot bottoms. Oh God, I thought. She’s his mother.

  I tried to speak. I couldn’t. The night air froze my lips together, or was it the cold in the woman’s eyes? She stood up and squared my shoulders in her frostbitten hands. I swear I almost died.

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” she said through her chattering teeth. “Of all the places in Ellerae, not here especially.”

  “What do you mean, not here?”

  She clutched my shoulders so hard it hurt. She looked so wild and full of terror in her heartbreak, I thought for a moment she meant to shake me to pieces. But instead she glanced up at the streetlamp and shook her head like a slow, sad pendulum.

  “The streetlamp.” She shivered. “Glows colder every night. You watch it, little girl. It’ll burn brighter tomorrow. And when it finally gets you, it’ll burn brightest of all.”

  She released my shoulders and staggered away into the darkness. My fearlessness dried up. Quaking, I fled back inside and took every word of Grams’ wrath without saying a word.

  For many nights afterward, I hid in my room. Even when Grams decided I’d been punished enough for breaking curfew, I stayed behind my door. I ate supper on my bed. I made fortresses of Gio’s old blocks and towers using my stuffed dolls. Grams understood, I think. She sang songs through the keyhole, pushed sheaves of paper for me to draw on under the door, and traded me candles for dirty dishes whenever I finished supper. I loved her for it. But not enough to come out. Because I knew the parts she left out of her songs. People are still disappearing. She just doesn’t want to tell me.