Twig

by wildbow

  “Memory is a funny thing like that,” Jamie said. “Tell me about the woman?”

  “Women,” Daisy said.

  “Women,” Jamie said.

  I would have thought that women would get the attention of the other boys in the house, but they were clustered in the kitchen, talking nonchalantly. It made me think that something was up. I watched them, trying to figure out what they were doing, until Gordon interrupted, hucking balled-up clothes at me. I took the first, heaviest ball right in the stomach, then caught the rest out of the air.

  I took a step to the right, so some of the boys in the kitchen blocked Mary’s view of me, unclipped my suspenders, and switched shorts in roughly two seconds flat. I pulled off my shirt, stepping back into view.

  “I like how you stepped out of view of me, but you didn’t for Daisy,” Mary observed. “I see how things are.”

  “Do you?” I asked, smiling.

  “What I see,” Gordon commented. “Is the skinniest little bastard. Half of the people in this house don’t even eat regularly, and they’ve got more meat on their bones than you do, Sly.”

  I offered him an obscene gesture, pulling on the dark gray sleeveless shirt. In a proper outfit, it would have been an undershirt at best. For the here and now, it worked for casual wear in the poorer end of town. Shorts, shirt, no shoes.

  “Jamie,” Gordon said. But he threw—not tossed but threw—the clothes at me instead. I caught them, took them over to Jamie, and draped them over his back, as he hunched over his book.

  “I’ll change when the girls are through,” Jamie said.

  “Shy?” Craig asked, tone just a little mean and mocking.

  “Yeah,” Jamie said, softly. “Shy.”

  Gordon might’ve said or done something, because Craig replied, “Fair.”

  Helen and Lillian emerged. Both were wearing bag dresses. Bottom of the barrel clothing, perhaps in even a literal sense. When parents were counting every bit of money that came their way, some used the bags that oats or crops came in to put clothes together. Some of the farmers had caught on, and had taken to printing the dresses in simple patterns.

  Helen was, I suspected, going to stand out no matter what she did. She wore a slightly washed-out dress in a purple floral pattern, and was licking her hands and fingers, running them through her hair. Lillian’s dress was much the same, but checked in white and green, and considerably more washed out, and she wore her socks to the knee, while Helen’s feet were bare in her shoes.

  “I’ll be right back,” Mary said.

  “My bag?” Lillian was asking.

  “Leave it,” Gordon said.

  “But if I need the stuff—”

  “A full bag is the sort of thing that people are going to want to take. Leave it. Take only the essentials,” Gordon instructed.

  The boys in the kitchen were acting different again. It dawned on me why. They were very casually leaning over, looking—I crossed the room, moving to their side, and saw that the curtain, due to the poorly-positioned and bent nails at one end of the rod, didn’t cover the entire gap.

  I saw Mary in profile, undressing, felt a shock that was the opposite of unpleasant, momentarily paralyzing me. A knife’s blade dangling at her bare shoulder glinted, breaking the spell.

  I felt annoyance and anger at the boys. Very casually, I crossed the room, leaned by the doorframe, and pulled the curtain shut.

  Lillian was arguing about the bag with Gordon, and Helen was draped over the clothes that I’d draped over Jamie’s back, chin on his shoulders, watching him draw.

  Sure that nobody would see and that heads wouldn’t roll, I met the eyes of the glaring boys and glared back, drawing my finger across my throat.

  They found other places to be, scattering, some moving back upstairs.

  “Thanks for closing the curtain,” Mary murmured, through the curtain, her mouth not far from my ear.

  “You could’ve moved, or done it yourself.”

  “Thanks anyway,” she said. I could hear rustling. “You looked. I saw.”

  “Uh huh. Sorry.”

  “Boys will be curious,” she said, voice light and casual. “It’s nice to know I’m worth being curious about.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. “I was curious about the knives, that’s all. You hide them so well.”

  “That’s all? Good. Then come in, help me.”

  “Uh,” I said. My brain missed a stair, thudding heavily at the next one down.

  “Uh,” she said, echoing me, mocking.

  “Helen and Lillian usually help you with that,” I said. “If you need help at all.”

  She poked her head out to my right, holding the curtain tight, looked around the room. “Helen and Lillian are busy.”

  Her hand gripped my collar. She hauled me into the little space, then hauled me a half-foot to one side, so my back was to the gap in the curtain. “There.”

  She was in her underclothes, a camisole and knickers. She’d removed the ribbon from her hair, and it hung loose around her shoulders. The space was small enough I didn’t know where to look.

  She turned her back to me, hands over her nearly-bare shoulders. “Here. Hold it.”

  She held out wire. There were twists of metal at the ends. I took the wire from her, which was hard, given how fine it was.

  “Up,” she said, holding the dress up in front of her. “Down a little.”

  I adjusted as she required. It was a necklace, of sorts, the pendant a throwing knife, pointing straight down toward her belly button.

  “Can you connect the wires without moving it up or down?” she asked.

  I did.

  “You’re better than Helen, and she’s done this a dozen times,” Mary said.

  I was silent, watching as she pulled out more. There were ribbons and wires, straps and belts. I realized the band of her knickers was solid, more a belt than anything. I held her dress against her body as she judged the best possible length for the wires that connected to the belt.

  “If it had been just Helen in here, I don’t think you would’ve looked,” Mary said. “You have that mortal fear of her.”

  “Healthy fear,” I said.

  “He finally talks!” she said. Mary sounded merry. She was damn well enjoying herself, putting me in this situation.

  “And if it was just Lillian, you would’ve teased her. Said something or done something, to get a rise out of her. Then you would’ve protected her, holding the curtain closed like you did for me.”

  “She’s fun to tease.”

  “She likes being teased,” Mary said. She turned around, stepping closer, “Look over my shoulder. I want the ribbon to run along the same line the collar does.”

  I did. She had the ribbon held out, and I saw what she meant. A series of blades hung between her shoulderblades. I adjusted the slack. She held out another pair of ribbons, to draw out an ‘x’, pinning the blades in place.

  “Lil likes being teased?”

  “And you tease her,” Mary said. Her breath was hot against my shoulder. “But me? You don’t dread me. You don’t tease me.”

  “You fall somewhere in the middle?” I said, making it a question.

  She made a sound I couldn’t figure out. Something of a ‘phooey’ and a raspberry mixed together. She turned her back, picking through the knives and ribbons.

  “If I had to put it into words, I respect you,” I said. “There isn’t another one of the Lambs I’d rather avoid going up against, one-on-one.”

  She was silent. Then she slipped a ribbon through the armhole of the camisole, holding it diagonally against her back. She paused, and I took her signal to mean I should reach out and hold it in place. She turned her head, and I saw that she was smiling, eyes downcast.

  She worked on tying the ribbon, then did another diagonally, the other way, with my help. She set the knives in place, then looped threads around the blades to keep them at the right angle.

  Not a single sheath. Only blades, twenty-two
by my count, close to skin.

  She bent down, moving easily despite the close proximity to razor edges, skin brushing against the blades. She picked up one of Sam’s dresses. A washed out red, and pulled it on. I helped tug it into place, so the cheap fabric wouldn’t drag against any knifepoints. Without being asked, I did up the buttons at the back. Mary took the time to do up her hair in a loose, wild ponytail, wavy brown hair lasso’ed with a strip of lace torn from a dress that was already going to rags.

  “Did it bother you? The knives, the blades against skin? Back when you started, I mean. Was it something you had to get used to?” I asked. Mostly to fill the quiet.

  “I always liked it,” Mary said.

  She had a knife in her hand, and she hadn’t had one a second ago. She reached out, and I didn’t flinch, as she ran it down the inside of my right arm.

  “Sy,” she said, voice very quiet, eyes on the blade, as she moved it ever slower.

  “Hm?”

  “What’s going on with Gordon?”

  “Don’t know if it’s my place to say.”

  She adjusted the position of the knife, pricked me, made me jump.

  When I met her eyes, they were very close. Her face was an inch from mine. She was taller than me. Her breath touched the bridge of my nose and eyelashes. She was angry, annoyed.

  “He’s going to pieces,” she said, without a trace of that anger in her voice.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “How long?” she asked.

  How long?

  “It can vary. He might get lucky, they might figure something out—”

  “Weeks? Months? Years?” She moved the knife away. She raised it to the ponytail at the back, working with two ‘s’ shaped bits of wire.

  “Not years,” I said.

  She nodded, lowering her hands, the knife left where she’d placed it, hidden in her ribbon-tamed mane of hair.

  “If you’re looking for the courage to say something to him,” I said. “Or if you’re wondering what kind of window of opportunity you have, I can’t say for sure, but sooner is better.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders, pushing me away. The space was confined enough that my head hit one of the stairs that slashed up through one upper corner of the little box of a room. “What?”

  “If you want to say you like him.”

  “And you were mocking Gordon for being a doof,” she said.

  It was my turn to ask, “What?”

  “Nevermind.”

  “I know you like him. He’s handsome, he’s fantastic, you go together like peas in a pod.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said. “I’m saying that at this particular moment in time, Sy? You’re a bigger doof than Gordon.”

  “That is a baldfaced lie. I’m never a bigger doof than Gordon.”

  “What do you think this was, here, Sy?” she said. “Seriously. I’m trying to figure out what’s going through your head.”

  My voice was soft. I had a hard time meeting her eyes. I swallowed hard. “I think it was you inviting me in, lowering your defenses, and being beautiful and girly in a way that was very ‘Mary’. It’s—I don’t want to be weird, but every time I see a pretty girl, or have a nice moment with a girl, I’ll compare it to this. And a lot of the time, I’ll be comparing those things to this and they’ll be worse off for it.”

  She started to speak, then stopped. She frowned at me.

  “There’s a lot to be said for you being you, and getting to see a side of you nobody else has. Mary’s pretty neat, you know,” I said.

  She sighed. “See? That wasn’t a doof answer. I was prepared to yell at you, and now I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Well, you can start by not saying doof anymore. It’s annoying. You doof.”

  She poked me.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” she said.

  “Did too.”

  She pricked me again, just the tip of a knife, making me jump and bang my head on the stair a second time.

  “Ow,” I said. “Someone’s going to hear that and wonder.”

  “Answer the question. Why did I bring you in here?” she grilled me, still holding the knife.

  “Because you think you like me,” I said.

  She moved the knife to my throat, threatening. “I like you, Sy.”

  Only Mary would say as much with a knife to someone’s throat.

  “You do. Some. And,” I said. “When we’re in danger, Gordon’s the one you turn to. Gordon’s the one you ask about, the one you leap to the defense of. He’s your first pick when we’re pairing off. He’s the one you show interest in. When Shipman was there, you stepped into the background more. When she left the picture, earlier today, well, you started wanting to show off to boys. Even if it meant giving some strange boys a thrill by allowing them a peek, knowing you probably wouldn’t see them again. Letting Sy in as you’re getting dressed, telling yourself you have confidence and that you’re pretty, which you are. I don’t think you’re aware, but Gordon’s more important to you than I am.”

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, intense, then again, less intense, “Yes.”

  She shifted her grip on the knife, frowning. I saw her move a little in frustration, not sure where to go or what to do. I thought she’d storm out.

  Instead, she held the knife to my throat again. “This is supposed to be one of those times where you lie. You bend the rules and you play unfair and you keep your stupid mouth shut, and you and I fumble our way along and there’s more like more of this and it’s good.”

  “If I could’ve, I would,” I told her. “Really.”

  “You should’ve,” she said.

  “But we don’t have the luxury of time. The Lambs won’t be around forever, and within a couple of years, maybe a couple of months, or weeks, or days, or hours, there’ll be one less Lamb. Then one less, then one less,” I said. I paused. I didn’t like saying the words. “Like I said… the sooner the better.”

  Her expression shifted. Just a bit. A little bit of fragility.

  I wondered, for a moment, if the expiry dates had ever really sunk home for her.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  Her head bowed, her forehead coming to rest against mine.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, gain. I reached out to rub her upper arms, felt knives under fabric, and shifted to her shoulders instead.

  She nodded, the movement of her head making mine move in turn.

  She stayed like that for several more seconds, then straightened, stepping away, head turning as she rubbed at the corner of one eye. I watched as her expression changed. Neutral, safe. A poker face as good as any I’d seen on her.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said.

  “You’re excused,” I said, smiling a bit.

  “We need to catch these ‘ghosts’,” she said. “Because I damn well want to stab something right now.”

  Then she swept the curtain aside and stepped out into the kitchen.

  There was jeering. I heard the ‘thock’ of a knife striking a surface, and most of the jeering stopped.

  I drew in a deep breath, then stepped out of the little room.

  More jeering. I didn’t have a knife to fling at them.

  Jamie approached, bundle of clothes in his arms. He paused to lean close as he reached me, to say, “You’re blushing.”

  “Am not,” I said.

  He stepped inside. I held the curtain closed as I had with Mary.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re not. I wanted to get a dig in.”

  “Too frigging bad,” I told him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I cocked my head to one side. I mulled over the question for a bit.

  “Not sure,” I said.

  “We’ll distract you with a good mystery,’ Jamie said. “How’s that? Foxhunt.”

  I smiled.

  Previous Next

  Lamb to the Slaughter—6.3

  My finger
traced a symbol that had been etched into the woodlike growth at one corner of a building. Two ‘v’ symbols.

  Lillian and Mary were looking.

  “A death happened here,” Gordon spoke.

  I nodded. “Older cut. The weather’s worn away the splinters and hard edges. Not relevant.”

  “There are a lot of foxes,” Mary observed.

  “Probably Craig’s mice, trying to put the pieces together. Leave a mark wherever the ghosts were seen or suspected to be active, try to trace their paths or find clues,” I said. “Jamie?”

  “It’s useful, honestly. I’m drawing up a mental picture.”

  “Can you draw up an actual map?” Gordon asked.

  “Not while walking. It’s in my head. I’ll remember. I’ll put it down for you guys as soon as I can.”

  “Good,” Gordon said.

  “If you need a second to stop and try to pull ideas together, let us know,” I said. “I know how your head works. I don’t want you so caught up in drawing that mental map with all its symbols that you can’t stop to look at it and get a sense of what it means.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon said. “That makes sense. Whatever you need.”

  “Okay,” Jamie said. He offered me a smile.

  We were spread out, walking as a pack, some more off to one side than the others. Our core was Lillian and Jamie, however, with both me and Mary close by. Helen was off to one side, swishing her skirt with her hands periodically, walking backward now and again, in her own little world. Gordon was leading the way, looking alert and wary enough that it was liable to tip off anyone who saw, if they were even watching.

  I wasn’t so sure they were.

  “Ghosts,” Mary commented, in a way that suggested she was thinking aloud.

  “Yeah, someone else named our enemies for us, this time around,” I said.

  Mary continued, “Ones that will throw one child off a building to claim another. They’re elusive, they show up in a black carriage and never where the mice can approach or deal with them. They disappear, and their victims disappear with them.”

  “We’ve been at the Academy for two weeks, waiting for your appointments,” Lillian said. “I haven’t seen any captured children around, have any of you?”