Arachnodactyl

by Danny Knestaut

  Ikey let himself in as directed, dropped the key where indicated, and hesitated at the thought of striking a match and lighting the lantern by the backdoor. Instead, he closed the door behind himself and counted his steps toward the sink. He reached out and found a dish of soap. Beside it, the faucet handles. He twisted them until water ran cold and murmuring into the hollow belly of the sink. Ikey washed his hands and gritted his teeth at the pain until the burning consumed itself and was reduced to a dull sizzling sensation. He splashed water over his face and wiped with the towel hanging from the peg beside the sink.

  He stood straight. His back wailed with the effort. The air sat in his mouth full and ripe, filled with soap and water and the pungent loam of his sweat. The bitter, sulfurous grit of coal smoke peppered it. And it was the world. The thick jelly of odors and the chuckling of water splashing into the basin. The sink beneath his hands, cold and metallic, and between the sink and his hands were gloves of pain that simmered and sizzled.

  This was the world.

  Ikey twisted the faucet back to off. Water dripped and pinged the bottom of the sink. Its cadence grew longer and more settled with each moment. And nowhere in his head floated an image of the drops, or the sink, or of anything other than a vista of blank—his eyesight becoming a thing he could step out of, remove like a pair of trousers.

  Ikey took a deep breath. He stepped away from the sink and into the dining room as the back door swung open. A long shadow filled the doorway.

  “Could you not find the lantern?” Cross asked from behind.

  “I don’t need it,” Ikey said. He moved around the dining table and took his place. He settled his hands into his lap, palms up.

  Cross struck a match. It flared and lit the long edges of his face. He placed the match to the wick, then flicked the match outside before settling the lamp back into place with one hand and closing the door with the other. The brilliant, pale light of the outside was choked off again. Cross stepped toward the sink. The water ran. The stairs creaked as Rose ascended. The water shut off, and few seconds later, Cross picked up the lantern and set it in the middle of the dining room table. He stepped back and placed his hands on his hips. A wry smile creased his face.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I still need this lantern. I can’t see your pretty little face without it.”

  Ikey glared.

  Cross chuckled under his breath as he moved to his seat.

  After a few minutes, Rose served Cross a plate of beef, carrots and onions, and a slice of buttered bread. He tore into his meal as Rose served the same to Ikey. She then took her place at the table with nothing more on her plate than a few slices of carrots and one small piece of beef.

  “How was your first day, Ikey?” Rose asked.

  Ikey picked up his fork. It felt huge and clumsy in his hand. He speared a piece of carrot and held it before him. A response alluded him. He didn’t want to hand Cross the satisfaction of saying what he truly thought, but he didn’t want to lie to Rose, or blow off her question.

  “You’ll have to forgive him,” Cross said around a mouthful of beef. “He’s had a perfectly rotten day. Poor guy spent it listening to Sharp’s incessant babble in the boiler room. On top of that, he’s blistered his hands to the point he can’t even toss off proper tonight.”

  Fire flooded Ikey’s cheeks. His dad’s fists had limits. His rage burned itself out like a bonfire, and in the cool ashes that followed, a terse peace would last for a day or more. Conversely, Cross’s sharp tongue knew not exhaustion or weariness. If Cross raised a fist against him, at least the man would shut up under the exertion.

  “Topping it off,” Rose said, “he has you to contend with at all hours. How dreadful.”

  Cross speared a forkful of vegetables. “No one has to contend with me. It’s my house, and he’s free to leave.”

  “You know perfectly well it’s not that simple,” Rose said.

  “I don’t give a bloody deuce how simple it is,” Cross said. He shoved the fork into his mouth. “What is simple is the idea that if you want something in this world, you have to work for it. Ain’t nobody going to hold your pecker for you. And ain’t nobody going to coddle you after a day’s labor. At the end of the day,” Cross said as he pointed his fork at Ikey, “the simple fact of it is that you got what you worked for. And if all you got is a handful of blisters and a bruised sense of entitlement, then that’s more than you had at the beginning of the day, when you started with soft paws and an inflated sense of your own importance.”

  “I believe that’s enough,” Rose said.

  Cross leaned toward Ikey. The lantern light glinted in his wet eyes. “Ain’t no one in this world gives a warm shit about you. About any of us.” Cross brandished his fork and swept it across the breadth of the room. “You work your fingers down to the bloody bones, and all it guarantees you is—that if you worked hard enough—you get another chance to do it again. And that’s your chance. Over and over and over again until there’s nothing left of you but a pile of whittled bones bound with cold drool.”

  Cross set his fork on the table and pointed a finger at Ikey. “And if you’re lucky. If you work hard, and you’re real lucky…” Cross glanced at Rose before returning his gaze to Ikey, “you find a brief moment of comfort to crawl into. Because it never stops, Ikey.” Cross shook his head. “It never stops. Until you’re dead. Dead dead dead.”

  Cross looked down at his plate. Nothing remained but swirls of grease peppered in bread crumbs. “Is this it?” he asked of Rose. “That’s all you got?”

  “I’m not the one who controls the purse strings.”

  “See what I mean?” Cross asked, a hand rolled in Rose’s direction. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some supper.”

  Cross pushed himself away from the table and stomped toward the stairwell. He halted mid-step, turned around, and snatched the lantern from the table. “If you won’t be needing this…” He carried the lantern down the stairs.

  Darkness filled the room like water.

  Ikey let out a long, pent-up breath.

  “I’m quite sorry,” Rose said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. Dinner is rarely such theater.”

  “Why do you stay?” Ikey asked.

  The front door slammed. The music boxes flared, then sung themselves down into a quiet anticipation.

  “Why do you ask?” Rose responded.

  Ikey reached out to the plate before him. His fingertips traced the round, smooth edge, then dipped down to the center. He touched a piece of beef and pinched it between thumb and forefinger.

  “My dad beat on my mum all the time. He used to…” Ikey trailed off. What he wanted to say didn’t fit in the bits of flesh and bone that made up his mouth.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rose said. The satin of her dress whispered. Her fingers materialized on his forearm.

  “She never left because she had nowhere to go. She had my sister and my brothers and me to look after. Her family was back in Ireland. We never had any money.”

  “It must have been hard. Living like that.”

  “Why do you stay?” Ikey repeated.

  “Why would I leave?” Rose asked.

  Ikey picked up the morsel of beef and passed it between his lips. The juice of it flowed into his mouth as he chewed, his teeth clamping down on the flesh.

  Ikey swallowed. “Cross…”

  “Cross has his ways,” Rose said, “and his peculiarities. But he is hardly the brute your father appears to be. He has never raised a hand against me.”

  “He’s mean.”

  “The world is mean. And he brings it in with him. Trails it like you’re trailing the odor of coal smoke.”

  “You don’t have to put up with it. I’d never be mean to you.”

  “I don’t ‘put up with it,’ as you say. It’s not personal.”

  Ikey ran his fingers around his plate again. They encountered a carrot. He plucked it up and stuck it into his mouth. He closed his
eyes and the world remained the same. The carrot held a sweetness. And for that moment, Ikey wanted to find the world as perfect as a well-done carrot bathed in the juices of beef and caramelized onion. But his hands burned. His back ached. His chest felt lined in felt. And his conversation with Rose felt like trying to grasp a greased eel.

  “Are you his servant?” Ikey asked.

  The fingers disappeared from his forearm. “I’m no one’s servant.”

  “He introduced you as his wife. But you don’t wear a ring. Neither does he.”

  Silence stomped through the room. Ikey expected the force of it to set the music boxes to singing.

  “Are you finished eating?” Rose asked.

  Ikey looked in her direction. He saw nothing there, of course.

  “Aren’t you going to answer my question?”

  “What question was that?”

  Ikey swallowed. Which question indeed. “Do you love Cross?”

  “I don’t recall you asking that.”

  “Answer it.”

  The chair scraped across the floor. Rose’s skirts whispered about her movements.

  “I don’t have the answer you’re looking for.”

  “What?” Ikey asked. He sat back in his chair. The pressure against his spine relieved a modicum of the pain. “What does that mean?”

  Rose sighed. Ikey imagined the veil shifting before her face, fluttering as if in a breeze.

  “Life is complicated, Ikey.” She moved around the table and set her plate on top of Cross’s. “It’s not as simple as yes or no, or will I or won’t I. Are you done?”

  “I’m sorry…” Ikey began.

  “With your dinner,” Rose said.

  “Yes.”

  The rustle of her skirts and the click of her boots told of where she was. If Ikey reached out, she’d be there to touch, next to him. He jumped as she dropped the plates onto his and they clattered with an unexpected volume.

  “If you’re going to pressure me say it,” Rose said, “then I’ll go ahead and say it, because of everything that is said about me, I want the true statement to be the claim that I am brave. And the truth is, who would have me, right? I’m the ghost of a woman. A woman’s shadow. Good for cleaning a house and preparing a meal, but little else. And so…”

  The plates rattled as Rose scooped them up.

  “I don’t need your sympathy, Ikey. I don’t need it at all.”

  Rose stomped away and the music boxes chanted with each step. She dumped the plates into the sink, then returned to the dining room. Ikey remained seated. He slumped into his chair and tried to work out what had happened. It was as if he had mixed flour and salt and the resulting mixture had exploded in his face.

  “Can I help?” Ikey asked.

  “I don’t need your help. I’m quite capable.” Rose’s footsteps clicked away from the sideboard.

  Ikey stood. He placed his fingertips on the table and traced the edges, as well as the outlines of chairs as he made his way around. Water ran in the scullery. Rose returned to the sideboard and picked up another set of dishes, then returned to the sink. Ikey followed her trail of noise until the water was suddenly louder, clearer as it ran into the tub.

  He stopped. Everything in his head felt stupid. Too daft to share or do anything more with than hide. Bury it inside himself. But Rose’s scorn burned worse than anything he had felt during the day.

  “Please don’t be mad at me,” Ikey said.

  Dishes clattered. “I’m not mad at you. You can’t help being who you are.”

  “You make me feel daft.”

  The water splashed, then changed, and then Ikey realized he was hearing Rose’s laughter braided with the filling tub.

  “Daft? I make you feel daft. Like I need… Oh, bother.”

  “You move around in the dark like there’s nothing there. Like it’s nothing. And when I try…” Ikey took a deep breath. “I kick things. I bark my shins. And when you tried to teach me to knit…” He began to run a hand through his hair, but stopped at the first stinging reports from his fingers. “I couldn’t believe how hard it was. And you just do it. And you cook and you clean and you serve us meals and I can’t believe how you do it. It’s like I’m blind. Like you can see in a way that I can’t. There is this whole world that I knew nothing about until I met you, and I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t fit in my head.”

  Ikey pressed the tips of his fingers against his lips to shut them.

  “There’s nothing to it,” Rose said.

  “And that’s what makes me feel so daft,” Ikey said, his fingers dropping away. “Just how easy it is. I can close my eyes and pretend to not see a thing, but I can’t—I mean, you can tell when a lantern is burning and I can’t. Not unless I open my eyes. How is that?”

  “The smell. The sound. It hisses.”

  Water lapped at the sides of the tub as Rose scrubbed at the dishes.

  “And your hands,” Ikey said.

  The lapping of the water cooled in intensity.

  “They’re amazing. I’ve never seen anything like them. They take my breath away. They’re so… The elegance of them. The craft. It’s the only way in which I pity you. That you can’t look down at your own hands and see how beautiful they are.”

  Ikey trembled. Surely Rose knew, could feel the air lapping at her skin as it left his shivering muscles in ripples like a pond. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

  The scrubbing resumed.

  “Cross said your hands are blistered, didn’t he? You can give them a rest tonight. I’ll take care of the dishes. Do you wish to skip knitting lessons tonight? If you’d like a bath, help yourself.”

  Ikey’s fingers curled around the edge of the door’s trim. He took a deep breath, nodded once in the dark. “Yes,” he managed, and bit down on his tongue. He turned and stumbled on to the stairwell.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ikey’s hand drifted out before him as his feet propelled him through the dark and the chattering music boxes. He could strike a match, but it wouldn’t seem right. It would be insincere after everything he had said. Though his mind reeled with the words that had dropped from his mouth, he attempted to reconstruct what he had said as if putting a machine back together. Or one of Cross’s music boxes. His words didn’t seem to fit together the way that… the way they went into people’s ears. Square pegs and round holes and all that.

  Likewise, the words of men were easy to handle. They were designed to impress some, assure others, or cut down a few. They were shifting, twisting blades and pikes and they danced in slow and deliberate motions. Even when they weren’t easy to avoid, such as Cross’s words, Ikey knew what the words meant. He knew he was meant to feel small.

  Rose’s words… they fit together like the music boxes. Like something Cross designed. They answered questions he hadn’t asked. They eluded what he wanted to know. They were dark words. Hidden. But damn him for not asking point blank what he wanted to learn.

  His toe thumped against wood. Ikey widened the arc of his arm. His hand bumped against the newel post of the stairs. He counted another 17 steps before he reached the top. The wall ran beneath his fingers as he proceeded down the hall. Once he felt the bathroom’s doorway under his fingers, he stopped and slipped in.

  The bathroom’s layout eluded his memory. The tub sat off to his right, the sink at his left hand. The commode sat on the other side of the sink. He reached out to his left. Cool porcelain appeared under his touch. He placed his hand onto the sink. It soothed the angry, open blisters. He took several deep breaths, then pulled his hand away. The skin stuck to the sink and peeled away with a wet sound.

  He could not operate the bath tub in the dark. He’d never had a bath in a tub with running water, and though Rose had told him how it worked, he’d never find the plug or the chain or the knob without light. Or bath linens for that matter.

  How much practice must be required to be Rose. To know where everything waited, and to set her hand upon it b
ecause she knew it was there.

  Ikey sighed and slipped a hand into his pocket. He produced a match and struck it against the doorjamb. The orange-white blob hissed and thrashed into life.

  A candle sat on a narrow table to the right. Ikey lit it, then located what he needed for a bath. As water rushed into the tub, Ikey undressed and left his clothes in a smoky pile on the floor. Once he turned the spigot off and placed his soap and washcloth in reach of the tub, he cupped a hand around the flame and blew it out. As the darkness leapt out from the shadows, he felt that Rose was near. That she could be near. She was darkness itself.

  Ikey straightened his back and the muscles there groaned for his effort. He listened for long legs and sharp-heeled boots on the stairs, of tinkling music boxes. He inhaled deeply and smelled only acrid tallow.

  After his bath, he left the candle and his clothes in the water closet and padded down the hall in the dark, his fingers trailing along the wall and his bare feet pressing into the cool wood. Once he reached his room, he swept his hand out before him until he found a bed post. Feeling along the edge of the mattress, he found the nightshirt, shimmied in, and crawled over the mattress to the window.

  The curtains had been returned to their place over the course of the day. Ikey shoved them aside and lifted the window. Below, light fell into the yard from the windows of Cross’s workshop. Above, stars glimmered in patches torn from the clouds. A waning moon softened the dark outside, and a group of men burst into barking laughter somewhere in the distance.

  What was his uncle and dad doing at that moment? How did Uncle Michael fare without Ikey around to help him dress, go to the bathroom, take him out to the barn for work? Ikey’s chin dipped as he thought of Uncle Michael in his chair, imprisoned as his brother-in-law laid out cold in the back room, snoring and reeking of beer.

  Had they gotten the nursemaid as promised? It seemed unlikely. She would ask questions, ask Uncle Michael what happened to him. Dad didn’t like that. But Uncle Michael brought in money. His brother-in-law would have to respect that. He’d have to make an overture at caring for the man.