Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  “Pardon?” Dom asked.

  She opened her eyes and lifted her head. “You have to seal the knife in there as well because it will be attached to my soul.”

  “Yes, of course,” Dom said. “Didn’t I say that?”

  “And you know the incantation?” Tara asked.

  “I do, but I dare not speak the words aloud. I’ll recite the incantation only in my head, so the words won’t lose their power. That’s how we have to do it down here where the air is moist.”

  Tara nodded and rested her head back on the rock.

  “You’ll feel my hand on your shoulder and then you won’t hear me speak again until your soul is in the box. Remember, you must keep your eyes completely shut.”

  Dom put his hand firmly on her shoulder so she would feel his presence and know to keep her eyes shut. He also liked the soft feel of her flesh beneath her dress. He flipped the knife around so the pathetic blade was in his palm. He touched the handle of the knife to her forehead.

  “Oh!” Tara exclaimed, when the knife touched her skin.

  Dom traced the knife handle up the swoop of her beautiful nose and across her moist, full lips. When she moaned, a shiver ran down his spine and he struggled to not press too firmly on her shoulder. Dom summoned his courage and ran the knife handle down her chin and her silky smooth neck. He tried to maintain a consistent pace as his hand approached her undulating chest. She arched her back as he touched the handle between her breasts, past the box, and made a line down the center of her belly.

  His hand clutched the blade of the knife and he felt the hammered copper bite into his palm. Dom’s head swam and his legs weakened as the knife handle approached her pelvis. Tara pulled her feet up onto the rock and pointed her knees towards the sky as the knife handle reached her privates. Far away from his reality, Dom heard Tara gasp. Time slowed, and might have stretched forever if not for the blood.

  The blade cut a straight line across the middle of Dom’s hand, and his blood ran in a rivulet down the handle and dripped on Tara’s yellow dress. Dom returned to his senses with a crash, and suddenly saw the scene from over his own shoulder. Tara’s manic gasps and his own trembling, dripping hand were their own stupid tragedy. He could not detach himself from them. He moved his hand rapidly away from her crotch and up towards her breasts. With the handle, he dragged a smear of blood upwards.

  Tara expelled a final gasp as he drew the knife back to the box and placed it inside. He closed the lid and removed his other hand from her shoulder. Tara’s eyes flew open as he used his good hand to pull the box from her chest.

  He thrust his cut hand into his pocket and twirled it into his handkerchief.

  “Did it work?” Tara asked, as she blinked against light from the setting sun.

  The wind kicked up and nearly tore the question from her mouth. Tara shielded her eyes from the dust. Dom pushed the box towards her and she took it without looking down. Her eyes sought Dom’s, but between the dust and the setting sun over his shoulder, she couldn’t see his face.

  “Did it work?” she asked again.

  His answer was carried off by another gust of wind.

  “I can’t hear you. Please tell me, did it work?” she asked. She looked down at the box and saw the streaks of blood on her dress.

  “It was not without complications,” Dom said. “But yes, it worked.”

  34 BETROTHED

  TARA WRAPPED HERSELF IN her orange cloak and tried to hide the blood as best she could. Dom dropped her off and hurried down the path away from her aunt’s house. He didn’t make it to the corner before a scream erupted from the house. Dom paused and turned, debating if he should go back to Tara’s aid.

  He didn’t get the chance to decide for himself.

  Jetsan ran from the house, waving his hands and screaming nonsense words. The man looked so horrified and angry, Dom looked around and wondered for a second where Jetsan was headed. The older man came straight for Dom and rained furious blows on Dom’s head and shoulders. Dom raised his arms and growled. Jetsan grabbed him by his new suit and dragged him towards the house.

  Dom found himself in the front room, cast into a seat in the corner. In front of Dom, Jetsan paced and ranted.

  “I asked you to do one thing. One thing!” Jetsan said.

  Dom rewrapped his hand in his handkerchief. His wound still wept a little blood.

  Behind Jetsan in the doorway, Tara briefly appeared.

  “Uncle, it is not my body’s blood. It’s blood from my soul. Tell him, Dom, it’s blood from my soul,” she said. Her aunt’s hands pulled her back and she disappeared into the house.

  “How can I send her back now?” Jetsan asked. “Her box is defiled, and her reputation destroyed.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re supposed to show me gratitude. I showed you the same generosity I would show my own son. I lifted you from the mines, and gave you the opportunity to become a legitimate businessman.”

  “Sir?”

  “And now you’ve dragged my reputation into the gutter with hers? Washed away like the foul water from your dastardly metal pipes?”

  “It’s my blood,” Dom said. “It is not from her body or her soul. It’s from my hand.” He held up his bandaged hand and displayed the blood-soaked cloth he gripped against his wound.

  “Who cares where the blood is from? Is that all you children care about is the blood? You’ve broken the seal on her promise box. You could have done anything to her body and I would not have cared. Didn’t I tell you that I only cared about the box?”

  “Yes,” Dom said. “But the blind woman told her that she should cleave her soul from her body.”

  “Her what?” Jetsan asked. “I told you that I cared about an actual physical thing: a box. A single, actual box, and you tell me about her soul? Send her soul to the wind. I cared about the seal on that box. Take the soul. Give me back that paper seal.”

  Tara’s aunt appeared in the doorway with her arms folded. When Jetsan finished his rant, she snapped her tongue and he walked quickly to her. She took Jetsan by the elbow and led him from the room.

  Dom unwrapped his hand again and looked at the cut. It ran right down the line on his palm. When he opened his hand, the white edges of the cut pulled apart and a clear fluid seeped. He dabbed it with his handkerchief. Some spots of blood stained his new suit, but most of it soaked into the black lining of his pocket. Dom hoped he would get a chance soon to rinse it in cold water so he could keep his new suit clean. Dom rewrapped his hand and strained his ears to hear a woman’s wail coming from deep in the house.

  Tara’s aunt appeared again in the doorway. Her arms were still folded.

  “You’ll marry Tara as soon as possible,” she said.

  “Yes,” Dom said. Happiness bloomed in his belly. He struggled to keep a smile from his face. It seemed impertinent to smile while she held such a grim expression.

  “We’ll send a special messenger—one who knows how to travel through the snow—into the mountains with the box. When he returns, you’ll marry.”

  “I’ll take the box,” Dom said. He wanted a heroic journey through the snowy passes to prove his worth. He wanted to return the box to Tara’s betrothed and claim his hold on her body, offering the other boy her boxed soul.

  “No, you will not,” Tara’s aunt said. “You will not trudge off into the snow and die just so you can shirk your responsibility to my niece. You will stay here and earn enough money to pay for a proper ceremony. You will establish yourself in a legitimate house. You will prove yourself worthy of stealing her opportunity.”

  “Yes,” Dom said. His chest swelled with his new mission. He would do all those things and more. He had won his right to the most beautiful body he had ever seen, and cleaved it from her immortal soul. Now he would provide for her with the magic from his hands.

  35 MATRIMONY

  FORBIDDEN FROM CONTACT WITH Tara until the messenger returned, Dom (Torma) threw himself into his work. He spent his days hu
stling through installations and his nights working to fabricate the parts he’d need the next day. He worked so hard that his palm would not heal, and he joined his pipes with his sweat and blood. While his hands worked, his mind wondered about Tara. Forgetting that he had fabricated the cleaving ceremony, Dom wondered about the personality of Tara’s new soul.

  With word of his engagement spreading, his prestige grew. His monopoly on plumbing became an asset rather than a hindrance. He didn’t intend to raise his prices or demand payment up-front, but the market did those things anyway. The wealthiest households paid a premium to move up on his list, and Dom hired more men to help him.

  Two of his protégés excelled, and he elevated them to apprentices. Dom (Torma) considered them extensions of himself. Their work was the perfect reflection of his own, yet he still checked every joint himself so he could guarantee the quality.

  His customers celebrated his work. Each completed job led to three new requests. Dom’s ledger ran black. His supplier of pipes and fittings couldn’t keep up with his demand, so Dom attacked the problem in two ways. He developed his own foundry near the mine, where he could source coal, copper, and carbide. Word floated down the river that Dom had work for a casting designer, and a man arrived to apply for the job. As his factory took its first humble steps, Dom also sent word to the manufacturers who sold to the suppliers. He developed a direct relationship with those manufacturers. Through his correspondence, he intuited their secrets while he bought his parts directly from the source.

  When the messenger returned from Tara’s mountainside village, Dom (Torma) sat at the throne of a burgeoning empire.

  He and Tara married in a lavish winter ceremony and took residence in a beautiful house near the western circle. From their balcony, they could watch the evening performances of star-crossed lovers in the circle below. The same circle where they had gone on their first date. The same circle where Dom cleaved Tara’s soul from her body.

  36 THE BALD MAN

  FORGET CARD TRICKS AND claims of paranormal activity. What I need now is a conversation with my boss. That’s not so easy though. He’s made it deliberately hard to get in touch with him.

  As soon as the street magician mentioned a bald man, I knew who he was talking about. The height, age, and blue shirt were just the final nails in the coffin. My boss always has at least two angles on everything, but after all these years I was convinced that I was the only person he had looking into street magicians. My whole department seemed like a casual hobby. Why would he have two separate groups for a hobby?

  I pack a light bag, close up the office, and head north.

  I like to take 684 out of the city and then hit 84 in Connecticut. That takes me right to Hartford, where I can grab 91 and head straight north. It’s a long trip, but it’s better than spending six hours battling traffic to upstate New York and then cutting over. There’s something depressing about spending that long on the highway and never changing states. I like to mark my progress by crossing borders. The name Connecticut is based on a Native American word that means something like “long tidal river.”

  Connecticut is nice to drive through as long as you’re not near the coast. It’s still a bit developed and paved, but there are some stretches with trees and hills to look at. This time of year, when every color is green, I love to crack the windows as I drive through Connecticut. After months in the city, there’s nothing like smelling all that green. Plus, it still has the undercurrent of exhaust, so I’m reminded of home.

  The name Massachusetts is based on another Native American word which means something like “beside the blue hill.” Massachusetts is a nightmare. It doesn’t matter what time of year, or what time of day. It’s tempting to say the drivers in Mass are stupid, or crazy, or careless, but I believe all those things are wrong. I believe that the drivers of Massachusetts are financially incentivized by their state government to seek out and do harm to other drivers. Should a driver find the need to slow down for an accident, traffic signal, deer jumping across the road, whatever, they can be sure of one thing: there’s a driver whose mission is to collide with their vehicle.

  Mass is the only state I know where commuters are encouraged to drive in the breakdown lanes. Imagine that! There’s a margin on the side of the highway built as a safe place for motorists having mechanical trouble, and the state is encouraging people to travel there. Granted, it’s only on certain roads. Granted, it’s only during certain times of the day, like rush hour. But once they opened that possibility, breakdown lanes everywhere become free game. They’re not just considered valid travel lanes, they’re used as high-speed express passing lanes by the first guy who feels that driving ten miles above the limit in the right lane is dangerously slow. He will pass you going one-hundred miles-per-hour on a chunk of road that’s nearly fifty-percent gravel, while giving you the finger.

  Fortunately, I don’t have to spend long in Massachusetts. I take 91 straight through and the only real city I pass through is Springfield, which is barely a city. Where I’m from, they have a word for cities with less than two-hundred thousand people: adorable.

  All that bad-mouthing aside, the landscape of Massachusetts is kinda pleasant. It would be even better if travelers could get a glimpse of it instead of spending loads of energy trying to avoid potholes in the highway.

  Vermont—that state is aptly named. Vermont is French and means “green mountain.” All they have in Vermont is green mountains. As long as a car’s transmission and brakes are in good shape, it’s a great place to drive. I had to drive a van up there for my boss one time and by the time I got to the passes—twisty, windy roads that go straight up and over the mountains—I thought the thing was going to fall apart. It barely had enough steam to get up to the top, and then I barely had enough leg strength to hold the brake pedal down as I descended.

  A driver can open the windows all the way, once they get up into those mountains.

  I pull off the highway to get a tank of gas before I make my final assault on the mountains. I’m paranoid about getting stuck without gas. I’ve been up here enough times to know where the gas stations are, but still, they are few and far between.

  I set the pump and wander inside.

  “...each time. It’s really the best. You dig for it yourself, so you have that satisfaction, and commitment to it that you’re not going to understand unless you’ve experienced...” The clerk is lecturing the only person standing in front of the counter as I walk by.

  The clerk has a multi-colored knit skullcap, a beard long enough for a rubber band, and hollow, haunted eyes. He gestures with hands that are thin and boney. Vermont has a strange cast of characters. They’re all incredibly liberal, but equally independent. Imagine hippy libertarians who want to contribute heavily to eradicate social injustice and inequality, but keep the government out of their bedrooms, and living rooms, and backyards. I’m not too political, so I don’t know if I’m slandering them properly. You probably have to go there yourself to understand.

  I grab a bag of Cheetos, a soda, and a homemade vegan peanut butter cookie about the size of a frisbee. When I come back to the register, the conversation ends quickly between the clerk and his disciple.

  “Are you the Toyota?” he asks me.

  “Yes.”

  “Please don’t leave it pumping when you come inside,” he says. “Sometimes they don’t shut off and then it spews gas all over the pavement.”

  “You ought to get that looked at,” I say.

  “Yeah, or you could just be, you know, responsible for your pump.”

  “It’s your pump,” I say.

  This could turn into a fight. The guy is probably right. I’m a big enough person to admit that. Nonetheless, I’m always on edge in Vermont. Great place, great scenery, really nice people, but it totally rubs me the wrong way when someone tells me how to be a better citizen. I would think he would have spotted the New York plates and just understood that. Maybe he did and he’s just looking for a fi
ght. That idea calms me down a bit. I can respect someone who was busting my balls in the hopes of starting a fight.

  He backs off anyway. It’s the Vermont way.

  “Whatever. You could be a person, but whatever.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  Before I cross over the passes into the real mountains, I have to follow a little stream north. The road twists and turns through the valley right beside the stream. This is one of the areas that was flooded out a few years ago when that hurricane went right through the middle of the state. I still see it everywhere. There are roads that used to go somewhere that are now just blocked off at the head. Most of the bridges over the stream look shiny and new. I even see some downed trees that weren’t in anyone’s way so they were just left there. It’s nice. It’s like nature did a clean sweep through here and everything started over.

  Aside from trees and cows, what you see most of by the side of the road is solar panels. They’re tracking panels, using little motors to follow the sun. It’s funny—all through New England there are plenty of flat places with few trees and a clear view of the sun all day long. But most solar panels up here are in the mountains, where there’s always something blocking the sun. Like I said, hippy libertarians. I should ask the boss if they have some extreme tax incentive for solar power up here or something. I think Germany has that same type of deal.

  I take a deep breath when I turn onto the road that goes up over the pass. I shouldn’t be nervous. My little car has made it through these mountains plenty of times, but there’s something different up here. There’s no safety net. About three-quarters of the way to the top, the pavement ends on a dirt road. I never see anyone else up there, and it’s just dirt road, trees, and sky. That’s when my cell phone starts to beep at me. It’s complaining that it has no signal.

  You’d think that way up there on a mountain, it could see plenty of towers. I go ahead and turn the phone off. It will just burn through the battery, looking for signal.