Twig

by wildbow

  There was a small crowd of people packed in the short pathway that led to the stairs down from the train car. I got weird looks and some resistance as I worked to put myself in the midst of the crowd. Still, I found a bit of space in front of a slower elderly woman, and hauled the small case of luggage into the space with me.

  I moved with the crowd, onto the train platform and beyond it.

  The Baron Richmond had retired to Warrick after the fighting in Lugh. Named after his family’s territory overseas, the city was small, contained, and existed at his behest. It was a place I’d never been, and I’d never known anyone from the city. I’d heard rumors, however. Richmond House was on the outskirts of the town, and with that one detail, it was easy to give the rumors some merit. Monsters lived here, of the type that resembled humans and of the type that didn’t.

  The houses and buildings were new, but the style was old. The houses were riddled with details, with highlights of quality, pleasant touches and signs that people had attempted to make themselves at home here, but in other ways, I felt as though it was too restrained, too ‘safe’. There was a lack of authenticity that pervaded everything. It was early in the morning, and there were far too few people around—a twentieth of what I’d seen in Radham, the morning I’d left to visit Craig. It was considerably earlier, true, but even with that in mind, a mere twentieth?

  The houses, now that I paid closer attention, were individually different, but it was a posed sort of difference, as if a singular designer had decided that this house needed a porch, and that house needed a fancy chimney, and the next house couldn’t have either because it would be too similar… Yet there was a signal that something was wrong or odd in how that similarity had been avoided, the angles the houses had been placed at, and the palette chosen.

  I thought of it as a singular designer because the palette and the suite of options seemed so lacking in imagination or breadth. Either the designer had been working with a very limited set of options, or their sense for design was a limited one. Alone, given one house or three houses, it would have made for beautiful work. Held to the sword and told to set the standard for a city? It made for a city without enough soul to go around. Every construction a variation on the same theme, layered with snow.

  I looked for the tallest building around and headed in that direction, taking a longer, winding route as I aimed to get the lay of the land and separate myself from Mary. It was a church, the religious symbol sawed off of the tower on top of it.

  No, wait, had to remember. This was his city. The nobles and the churches didn’t get along, and the nobles had won that particular war a long time ago, well before this city had appeared. Interesting, then, that the Baron would have this city built up around him with an aesthetic he liked, and that he would include a church among it all. A church without the religion, judging by the nondescript stained glass and the lack of any symbol.

  The city was framed by flat terrain and by thick collections of pine trees. Richmond House peeked out through it, looking over the city. What drove the Baron or his predecessor to include a church here? Did it lend authenticity to Warrick, when and if Warrick was viewed from a distance, or was it something else? I made a mental note and hoped I would remember to make use of it.

  The train was slow to depart, and but for a hiss of steam, it made almost no noise in the process. I imagined it would creep away until it was out of earshot, and only then would it pick up speed as it normally would.

  I had a bad feeling. The city was so quiet it left my heart pounding, the thump of my heartbeat seeming to grow louder as I dwelt on it. I felt like I was being watched, and the dim lighting of Warrick in sunrise wasn’t quite enough for me to see beyond the frost-touched glass of kitchen or living room windows. In other places, the curtains blocked the view.

  My uneasiness swelled, and it took me a little while to put a finger to why. I could hear something, but it was indistinct, a low sound just below my threshold of hearing. Talking, movement, shuffling, muffled by intervening walls, but all throughout the city, it was taking place. A rumble of thunder without any lightning, muffled by snow, stone, and dense woods.

  The people on the street didn’t seem to care. Three out of four of them seemed to stare at me. They were men and women of varying ethnicity, all in dark, nice clothing, their hair neat, and just like the houses, they were individual but restrained. The personal touches were there, but nobody stood out from the pack. Faces were heavily lined, skin bore the marks of hard living, despite the apparent peace and class of the area. They walked with their heads down.

  I saw a pale man with coarse blond hair and stubble, both of which were turning white with age. He wore a fine suit jacket and shirt with slacks and shined boots, but he walked with a slave’s hobble. No chains bound him now, but once upon a time they had, and they had pressed hard against his ankles, doing permanent damage, so that he now limped slightly with both feet. He walked with both hands in front of him. When his footing was sure, he walked with his hands clasped in front of him. When he was unsure, he held his arms further apart, and walked with wrists up and hands limp and close to one another. A man who had been in chains so long that habit was impossible to break, a permanent scowl etched in his face.

  Except now he wore clothes nice enough that they wouldn’t look out of place in the upper-class dining area of Claret Hall.

  The rumble in the background intensified. I stopped taking the long way around and headed straight for the ‘church’, cutting through a path between buildings. Too late.

  Doors opened. People emerged in clusters. I stayed between the buildings, the church and Mary now in view, but a growing crowd was between us.

  The groups were made up of men and women, sometimes with a child or children, and each group accompanied by a monster. All were dressed well, including many of the more human-shaped creatures. Other humanoid experiments were left naked. A man without any eyes, nose or lips bared his teeth as he walked alongside a family of four. His skin seemed unnaturally thick, and was tough enough to let him walk barefoot in snow, his member swinging as he walked. Another had two and a half legs and tried to walk with each of them, moving forward with the help of an overlong arm riddled in old scars and stitches from surgery.

  Here and there, a man in a doctor’s coat or a professor’s coat walked alone. Here and there, again, the monsters walked alone, emerging from the larger buildings. There were more exceptions to the rule, men and women in uniform, stern looking, spreading out and standing at street corners. I could see one, a thug of a man with sleeves left too long, raising his nose to rub snot from the bottom of it with one extended finger, and I saw tattoos at his hand. An ex-prisoner.

  Prisoner, slave, working girls, beggar, people who had gone hungry for their entire lives and who wore that history on their bodies, even now that they ate well. I could see the signs, the scars, the marks of old diseases that coin and Academy science hadn’t erased, the sallow skin and premature aging. The picture was becoming clearer, but the monsters didn’t.

  As if it was a rule of law that none dared disobey, the monsters went without any acknowledgement at all. Not a word, not a gesture, nor a moment’s eye contact. Watching the scene, I genuinely wondered if I was imagining it all, if I’d put my mind to the wrong ends back at the train and somehow broke something.

  All of the families with children were headed in the same general direction, the men and women in other directions, off to find work or manage errands for the early morning.

  They can only go out with the monsters, and the monsters can’t come out while the train is here, I thought. Life under a strict schedule, a rule that was obeyed without question.

  They had been staring out the windows, watching for the train to depart, and eyes had fallen on me. It was security, the city laid out as a tableau, such that a stranger with a bag in hand stood out. That stranger might very well get reported on.

  I grit my teeth. If we’d failed before we’d even started—
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  No, I couldn’t think that way. They were frightened people, and the one thing they were frightened of above all else was the Baron. Would they speak out and speak up, if it drew his attention, when they had plausible deniability? Probably not.

  If I interacted with any one of them individually, however, they might feel compelled to pass on word to more important people. The police force, too, would be something to watch out for. They had a personal stake in reporting anything unusual.

  I looked at the thick copse of trees between the city and Richmond House.

  More security that way.

  I shook my head, turned my attention to the street of people that separated Mary and I, and timed my exit, joining the rear of a family with a four legged, hunchbacked thing at the head of the pack. A wagon that was making its way up the street would block the view of the nearest police officers.

  No sooner did I join the group than the hunchbacked thing turned, lunging past the two parents and one child. I hurled myself back, and I landed on my rear end, case of clothes falling free of my hand as I stared up at the hissing thing, my other hand near my jacket, where I had a knife stowed. Drool that had leaked from the corners of its mouth had frozen.

  A warning to stay away, nothing more, thankfully.

  The parents of the family didn’t look at me. Averted eyes, discomfort, disquiet. The child gave me a confused look, but didn’t speak.

  Looking back, I could see that the pair of women and little girls with a long-haired creature in a dress looming behind them had stopped in their tracks. They were waiting for things to move along, keeping a distance that went so far into the realm of ‘respectful’ that it veered straight into ‘terrified’.

  I picked myself up and collected my luggage. I mimed the body language of others, hurrying to the side of the wagon I’d been hoping to use for cover. I timed my movement past the rear of the passing wagon so groups of people would obscure others’ view of me. One of the officers further down the street was craning his head, hoping to see what had caused the brief commotion.

  Before he made it a point of interest, I hurried across the rest of the road and into the alleyway that I had last seen Mary in. I had to round a corner before I found her.

  “You made it,” she said, her voice quiet.

  I nodded.

  She leaned forward to peer around the corner and watch the procession of people.

  “I don’t even know,” I said, in answer to a question she hadn’t asked.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t show up,” she said. “Was it so important that we couldn’t be seen together? Plausible deniability if one of us gets caught?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “You look like a ghoul, Sy,” she said. “Dark circles under your eyes. You didn’t sleep?”

  I shook my head.

  “I was able to, just a bit,” she said. “I spent the rest of my time worrying and feeling lonely. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You’ve said as much three times now,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “You stayed in the luggage car?” she asked. When I nodded, she asked, “You don’t usually spend nights by yourself anymore. Was it lonely?”

  “No,” I said. I glanced around the corner to see the tide of families and their monsters. “No, it wasn’t too bad, except for the lack of sleep. My imagination kept me entertained.”

  Previous Next

  In Sheep’s Clothing—10.8

  “I promised you an explanation,” I told Mary, as I kept my voice low.

  “You did.”

  As citizens of Warrick glanced down the length of the alleyway beside the church, Mary and I had elected to move along, making ourselves harder to track and close in on. The people of this city seemed to have been terrified into compliance, and that raised questions about who the police were, standing in the midst of intersections and on street corners, watching over everything. I couldn’t imagine anyone committing any crimes in Warrick, given the atmosphere, and that suggested the local ‘law’ was here for the likes of us.

  The best thing to do was to stay moving.

  I braced myself. “Lillian and I broke up.”

  “Alright,” she said.

  “Alright?” I asked. “That’s it? You sum up your reaction with one word?”

  She turned her eyes to me, and I could see the emotion behind them. Dark things, sharp things, cold things.

  “Ah,” I said, in response to the look.

  “If it was Lillian standing right here and the positions were reversed, she would hit you. Several times, I think.”

  “Probably.”

  “Jamie would tell you off. Gordon would too, but he’d be blunt about it. Helen… I don’t know. I imagine she would go to Lillian and cling to her, hug her to make her feel better, and shoot you spiteful looks, all in an effort to make sure you knew you were the bad guy.”

  “Sounds about right.” Spiteful looks not because spite was something Helen really felt, but because it made sense.

  “But you like the attention. You crave it, it validates you and gives you something to use. You can twist the anger, the frustration, or the sadness into something else,” Mary said. “I’m not going to give you fuel or anything you can use. Lillian is my friend, and she deserves better.”

  Mary sure was evoking a lot of emotion for someone who’d just said she wasn’t giving me anything. Thing was, it was distilled disappointment. Her tone was what I might expect from an owner chastizing a puppy for shitting on the rug. The owner doesn’t expect much better from the puppy, but by golly and by gosh, they were going to let that puppy know they weren’t happy to be washing shit out of the rug.

  “I listened in on the meeting,” I said. I kept an eye out, looking everywhere but at Mary. “They know Lillian took Wyvern. They know about me and her. If I stay, she loses her black coat. If I leave… there’s no guarantee, but there’s at least a chance. We talked about it. Lillian and me. We kind of agreed. This is what has to be done.”

  “And this?” Mary asked.

  A part of me had hoped for a one-eighty, a shift of attitude. Another part of me knew she wouldn’t. Her aggression, the shift of topic to press the attack, it caught me off guard.

  “This… I needed to get away. The cards were right. It’s something we can use.”

  “She deserves better, Sy.”

  “There is no such thing as better, not here,” I said, my voice tense. I sounded hostile now. “What do you expect, Mary? It’s the Academy, it’s the nature of what I am and what she’s striving for and the fact that they can’t go hand in hand!”

  We’d stopped walking. I was facing Mary. Looking her in the eye was hard. Keeping my tongue under control was harder still.

  “What I expect, Sylvester,” Mary said. “That you don’t get into a relationship with her in the first place if you’re not going to bend over backwards and make things perfect. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Use it. Find a way to get Lillian her black coat without her heart being broken along the way.”

  “You might as well ask me to make pigs fly,” I said. “That coat she wants to wear? There is not one single genuine human being out there who has done the work, met the criteria and earned it without shedding tears along the way. It’s a reality, and it’s one we ran smack-dab into in Lugh, when we were asked to retrieve Emily Gage. She’s going to have to make the tough calls and face ugly compromises. Heartbreak comes part and parcel with the job.”

  “Not with this. Not with the Lambs,” Mary said. “We support each other. We make each other stronger.”

  That’s my cue to ask ‘And Gordon? You’re not experiencing any heartbreak right now?’ Then you say ‘that’s different, I knew what I was getting into’, and I retort that Lillian did too. That she knew I was a bastard. I say that, and you concede the argument and you hate me a little, for a short period of time.

  I didn’t want Mary to hate me for the short period of time we were abo
ut to spend together.

  ‘I know I could have handled the breakup ten times better, and if I were in my best frame of mind I could have even twisted the situation to our advantage or forced the committee’s hand. But I’m not doing okay. Losing Gordon hurts. I’m hurting as much as Lillian is, maybe even more. I’m just better at hiding it.’

  I say that, and you remember what I said in front of Duncan. You pry, and I don’t think I have it in me to lie to your face and stay clever enough to avoid dropping any clues about the fact that I plan to leave for good.

  It was like talking to the Mary I’d imagined in the train car, except this was a Mary I could look straight in the eye. The conversations played through my head, and I dismissed them all.

  “You’re right,” I finally said.

  “I know I’m right,” Mary said. “If you knew there was the dimmest possibility you were going to hurt her, you shouldn’t have entered into this relationship.”

  I almost went with the same sort of response I had just given, agreeing, offering little resistance. Almost. Instead, I said, “That’s wrong.”

  The look in her eyes was dangerous.

  “It’s wrong,” I said again. “This going as badly as it did doesn’t invalidate everything that came before. I don’t regret it, even knowing what it came to. I’m not going to be ashamed of it, I’m not going to apologize. If someone gave me the opportunity to take it all back, I wouldn’t, and I don’t think Lillian would either.”

  She broke eye contact, scowling a little more. She knew I was right.

  “If you avoid every relationship because it could go bad—”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” she said, glowering. “I’m saying she deserves better than that. If you wanted to date Fran and then say ‘oh, well, bad things sometimes happen’, fine. But Lillian has kept us alive, she’s staked everything on this. She’s a good friend, a true Lamb, and you don’t just roll the dice. Not with her. You don’t do that, Sy.”