Arachnodactyl

by Danny Knestaut

  “It’s me.” He made his way through the dark. Each step was judged and whispered about by the music boxes. He tromped down the stairs, and at the count of 17, turned and faced the dark kitchen, black except for a crack of red light leaking from the stove.

  “Dinner won’t be ready for a while yet,” Rose said.

  “Cross will never love you. Not the real you. Not the one I know.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He doesn’t spend any time in the dark with you. He always has a lantern. Is that why you wear the veil? To be in the dark even around him?”

  Rose set something down with a metallic clank. “What concern is it of yours?”

  “I can’t stay here any longer.”

  “I understand.”

  “No,” Ikey said. “That’s not it. I mean, Cross is kicking me out. I’m going to stay at the hotel. Admiral Daughton has put me in charge. Of the ship. Instead of Cross.”

  A slight knocking jogged across the room as Rose chopped something. Ikey inhaled. The scent of onion filled his nose.

  “So Cross has kicked you out because you’re replacing him at the shipyard?”

  “Yes. I tried to refuse. I tried to make a pact with Cross. I’m suppose to come up with some engine plans tonight. I told Cross I wouldn’t. That I’d tell Admiral Daughton I couldn’t do it. So then Admiral Daughton would have to hire Cross back.”

  “Why would you do that?” Rose asked.

  Ikey kicked his heel back until he felt the riser behind it. He sat on the step. “I didn’t want Cross to lose his job.”

  “Cross gets what he deserves. Why should Admiral Daughton pay him to sit at Turk’s Head?”

  Ikey sighed in exasperation. “What will you do if Cross can’t find work?”

  The chopping stopped.

  “What will I do? What concern is it of yours?”

  “I cost Cross his job. I was… He tried to make a fool of me. So I wanted to show him. I made the ship lift up. To the end of its mooring ropes.”

  “You lifted the ship?”

  “Yes. But when Admiral Daughton saw it—I mean, I didn’t want Cross to lose his job. I only wanted to show him that I’m not as stupid as he thinks.”

  “And what concern is it of yours what Cross thinks?”

  Ikey laid his head down in his hands and pressed his palms into his eyes.

  The chopping resumed. “If you lifted the ship, then you deserve the position. Congratulations. Cross had his chance.”

  “But how will you get by if Cross can’t find more work? Sharp said there isn’t work to be had here what with the mines and the harbor and the proper shipyard all closed. He said there isn’t a thing here to be had for anyone other than fishers and chambermaids.”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you?” Rose asked.

  “Spell what out?”

  Rose sighed. “Your concern would be touching if it wasn’t so misguided.”

  Ikey sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

  The chopping stopped again. A knife scraped across wood. “Pity will mask guilt, but only as a shrub masks the earth. If you earned Cross’s position, then you should have it. But you would give it up just to ease your own conscience and spin it into pity. The poor, blind, and disfigured Rose. What would the dear do without someone to save her?”

  Ikey’s hands gripped his knees. “That’s not it,” he said.

  The cutting board clunked to the countertop. A rhythmic and muffled clicking peppered the room, like a pot being stirred. “Then I’ll ask you again. What concern is it of yours whether Cross has work or not?”

  Ikey wanted to ask how she would eat without Cross’s income, but the words stuck in his throat, caged by her accusation of pity. Everything he thought ran face-first into those same bars. Did he pity her?

  Ikey took a deep breath. “Cross is kicking me out. Admiral Daughton is paying me a salary now and providing me lodgings at the hotel. I’ll never see you again, will I?”

  The stirring stopped. “Is that why you tried to give your position back?”

  Ikey laced his fingers together before him. “One of the reasons.”

  “And the others?”

  “How will you eat? How will you get coal?”

  “People have lost jobs before.”

  “Come away with me,” Ikey said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can stay at the hotel with me. I’ll rent you your own room. We can put curtains up. Like these. We can make it dark and black so no one else can see either.”

  The chopping resumed. “That’s quite an inappropriate request to make of a married woman.”

  Ikey rubbed his hands over his face. They smelled of the iron picks he had handled to unlock the door.

  “What will Cross do when he gets back?”

  “I suspect more of the same. He’ll eat his dinner, then hide in the workshop and drink himself into a stupor.”

  “One year, an illness swept through our coops and killed most of our hens. There weren’t so many that my uncle and I couldn’t take care of them all. This was before Uncle Michael’s accident. So my dad got a job working on a nearby farm.”

  Ikey ran his hands through his hair. The tangles in it pulled at his scalp before letting go. “After a few weeks, he got fired. He didn’t say why, but he came back home with a swollen eye and a popped seam in his shirt. Uncle Michael yelled at him. Told him his family was depending on him, and he had let us down.”

  The chopping slowed to a stop.

  Ikey laced his fingers together again. “My dad and Uncle Michael got into a fight. In the barn. Because that’s where Uncle Michael had his workshop and his tools and where he spent all his time. And that’s where my dad found him. And…”

  Ikey rubbed his shins.

  “I was 12 years old at the time. And I picked up an axe. Off the nails in the wall. Because it was the biggest tool I could lay my hands on. I held it… ready to—I was going to take out my dad. He was beating the hell out of Uncle Michael. And I knew it wouldn’t stop there. Once he finished with Uncle Michael, he’d move on to me. Then my mum and my sister and my brothers. I wanted him to stop. I wanted to stop him. Right there. Help my uncle and my mum and everyone. If we… If we ganged up on him.

  “So I stood there with an axe on my shoulder, watching as my uncle and dad tossed each other around and rolled on the ground. I was waiting for an opportunity. I’d have the opening, and I’d know when to deliver the blow.

  “There was a lot of blood. It was on their faces. Theirs fists. Their shirts were splattered with it. And they kept going. Until finally Uncle Michael broke free and rolled away. He pulled a pitchfork off the wall. He pointed it at my dad, then nodded at me. He said—and flecks of blood flew off his lips—he said to look at me. Axe in my hands. Is that what he wanted for his son? To know violence like him?

  “And my dad looked down at me. His face was a mess. And I just—”

  Ikey swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “I started bawling. Crying because I—the shame. And I hadn’t any idea what I had done. Just that it was wrong. It was so wrong. And I saw it in my dad’s swollen eyes and I knew I had betrayed him and Uncle Michael and everyone by picking up the axe, but I didn’t know how.

  “And when Dad came for me, I was too stunned to react. I knew what I had done was wrong and I knew when I took my punishment quietly, it went easier. The more I screamed, the worse it was, so I clamped down on my tongue and closed my eyes and waited for it to pass like a storm that lashes and lashes and destroys everything but there is nothing you can do but hold on and wait it out.

  “But all he did was take the axe from me. He plucked it out of my hands.”

  Ikey pressed his palms against his eyes and thought of the cart. The unfeeling wood and iron. He drew another deep breath.

  “There was a clatter. The sproing of tines as Uncle Michael dropped the pitchfork. Then I heard a grunt and a scream. When I opened my eyes, Uncle Michael lay on the groun
d, his hands clutching his hip, and his leg twisted funny, and Dad standing there, panting, the axe in his hands, the head resting on the ground. Backwards. He had struck him with the blunt side.”

  Ikey shuddered. “Uncle Michael was saying something. Screaming. And it all lifted away like a fog because I could see nothing but his leg. The twist. His toes pointing off to the side like a doll’s leg. Like he was nothing more than rags. That there was nothing to any of us if we could be broken so easily. And I couldn’t take my eyes away from his toes. Even as my dad fell to his knees and grabbed me by the shoulders. He said it was an accident. He saw it. My uncle was trying to hurt me. Trying to get back at him. And I had done it. I had hit him with the axe but he’d tell everyone it was an accident. It’d be all right. It’d be all right if I stuck to his story.”

  The music boxes whispered their songs as Rose crossed the kitchen. Her hand settled on his head, then drifted to his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “That was unforgivable, what your father did.”

  Ikey gripped Rose’s hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Not because of me.”

  “Cross is not your dad. He has never raised a hand against me, and he wouldn’t dare.”

  “But the things he says about you…”

  Rose squeezed Ikey’s shoulder. “He’s a frustrated man. The world says he should live his life a certain way, but then it presents him with a different reality. That doesn’t excuse any untoward words spoken in spite, but you can either understand where he’s coming from and choose to be patient with him, or you can expect from him what he cannot give, and find yourself in constant disappointment, locked in a power struggle with a man whose greatest fear is not having the power to leave a legacy.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “I didn’t offer one.”

  “Why do you stay? With him?”

  Rose withdrew her hand and returned to the other side of the kitchen.

  “This arrangement suits me, given the circumstances.”

  Ikey rested his forearms on his knees. Weariness settled over him. Words felt weightier. They required greater effort to lift out of his throat and shove into the dark chasm he and Rose floated in. A lid was lifted off a pot and placed on the top of the stove. A knife scraped across a wooden cutting board. The darkness filled with a soft murmur of bubbling and the scent of chicken stock.

  “It suits you?” Ikey asked. His words sounded larger to him now, and softer, mushy like water-logged wood. But they still dropped away like stone. He was surprised they didn’t crash to the floor and stir the music boxes.

  “It suits me.” Rose replaced the lid with a clank.

  “And that’s good enough? Is that all you want in life?”

  Rose stepped up to the oven. Hinges squealed as she opened the door. The scent of bread exploded through the room and Ikey’s mouth watered.

  The door shut with a squeal and clang. A pan was dropped onto a wooden surface.

  “That may be the first time anyone has ever asked me what I wanted,” Rose said.

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Honesty,” Rose said, then added, “and respect. Though I suppose there isn’t much of a difference between the two.”

  “Cross doesn’t respect you.”

  “I thought you had asked what I wanted, not for an account of what I had.”

  Ikey hung his head. Talking to Rose took great effort. He wanted to be in the sitting room with her, planted on the ottoman and listening to the solid and reliable chatter of knitting needles between them. That was easy to understand.

  “I respect you,” Ikey said.

  “Then why aren’t you honest with me?” she shot back.

  Ikey lifted his head to the dark. “I am. I am honest with you.”

  “Are you? Then why are you here? Why are you sitting on the steps and speaking to me?”

  Ikey buried his fingers in his hair again and tugged.

  Rose approached. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to set the table. Will you be eating with us tonight?”

  Ikey stood and stepped aside. “Cross told me to be gone before he got back.”

  “And so that is it?”

  “What else is there?”

  “What do you want?”

  Ikey sucked in a breath. What he wanted welled up inside him, larger than himself, larger than his body. It was larger than his ability to understand or process it, to reduce it into units of meaning that got attached to words and articulated like confetti spewed from the mouth. It was all pointless and ridiculous.

  “I can’t wait for you to figure it out, Ikey.” The stairs creaked as Rose ascended.

  Ikey resisted the urge to reach out and touch her, feel her pass. If he touched her, if the satin of her dress passed under the tip of his fingers, he’d be snared. Stuck. Hooked to her and dragged along like an animal on a leash. And what good was he to her? Unable to navigate this unpredictable world in the dark, equipped with wits that responded to the simple logic of mechanics and little else. People. Holy hell.

  Ikey stood with his back to the wall and listened as Rose ascended the stairs and crossed the room to the china hutch. The door clicked as she pulled it open. Porcelain murmured under her touch as she selected plates. The floor creaked beneath the heels of her boots as she carried the plates to the table, as she went on with life and left Ikey downstairs, alone with his thoughts, inert and free to do with himself whatever he wanted.

  She didn’t need him. And that was the truth. Whatever arrangement existed between herself and Cross, it suited her. She didn’t need to be saved, rescued, or pitied.

  And as his words caught up to him and he recounted what he had said to Rose, telling her what he had never told another soul, he realized she would have nothing at all to do with pity—neither the receiving nor the giving of it.

  Ikey climbed the stairs, lifting the weight of his boots and planting them onto the wood one after the other until he reached the top. As Rose rifled through utensils, Ikey walked around to the next flight of stairs and climbed to the hall. In the spare room, he felt around the dresser with his toe until it nudged his satchel. After he slung it over his shoulder, he descended the stairs.

  “I won’t be staying for dinner,” Ikey announced as he hitched the strap over his shoulder. He wished the tools inside would have clanked together, rang out like a solid period to punctuate his statement. Nothing doing.

  “Suit yourself. If you ever need a warm meal, you know how to let yourself in.”

  “Thank you,” Ikey said. He stood a moment more and waited for her to say something more, or he waited for something worth saying to appear in his head.

  Rose approached. Ikey straightened his back.

  She brushed past him and descended the stairs.

  Ikey let himself out the backdoor.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The clerk at the hotel raised an eyebrow and took half a step back as Ikey approached the front desk.

  “Admiral Daughton reserved a room for me.”

  “Ah,” the clerk said as studied his ledger. “Would you like a chance to freshen up before I notify Admiral Daughton of your arrival?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The clerk’s finger stopped several rows from the bottom of a column of figures. “Oh.” His face flushed and he looked back at Ikey. A wide smile creased his face, but it did not reach his eyes. “Please excuse me. I mistook you for another guest. I’ll have someone show you to your room immediately.” The clerk rang a small bell. A bellhop appeared and tried to take Ikey’s satchel. Ikey’s grip tightened around the strap as he shifted away from the bellhop’s reaching hand.

  Once the bellhop opened the door to Ikey’s room, Ikey stepped inside and allowed his eyes to wander the contents. Ostentation crowded the room. The abundance of furniture and seascape paintings crossed its arms and refused to budge as Ikey peered through the light and airy atmosphere for a single dark corner or a heavy drape of which to push out the afternoon li
ght.

  “Will this do?” the bellhop asked.

  “Can I get heavier curtains?” Ikey asked.

  “Heavier? How so?”

  “Thick. Heavy. I want curtains that blot out the light.”

  The bellhop rocked back on his heels. “I’ll ask into it, sir. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “No.”

  The bellhop lingered a few seconds longer. As Ikey turned to ask what he wanted, he slipped out the door and closed it behind him with a soft click. The carpeted hallway absorbed the man’s footfalls. He floated away like a ghost.

  Ikey dropped his satchel by the door, stumbled to the bed, and then collapsed onto it. Weariness sifted off his bones like dust. He closed his eyes and listened. A conversation bubbled in the next room. A woman laughed. Her laugh ended in a quick, startled yelp.

  Ikey went to each window and pulled the drapes across, but they were nothing more than hideous layers of muslin and lace designed to offer a compromise between privacy and the illusion of open airiness. Once drawn tight across the windows, the light in the room decreased only a fraction.

  Ikey dropped to his knees beside the bed and brushed aside the skirt. In the darkness underneath, he made out the familiar and solid shape of a chamber pot. Ikey crawled under the bed. He closed his eyes, but the feeling of being adrift did not come on him. The nearness of the bed’s box springs pressed against him. The scratchy softness of the carpet grounded him. The woman’s laughter started up again, escalated in pitch, and faded away.

  There would be no pretending here. There would be no way to mask this world and pretend it was Rose’s. Ikey was exiled.

  He shimmied out from under the bed and stood. A vile longing filled his stomach, and then drained away like a plug had been yanked from the bottom of him and what remained swirled out to a dark recess hidden in the earth below. The carpet absorbed his footfalls. Nothing sang of his departure from the bedside, or his approach of the window. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred except another swell of laughter in another room. Again, it cut off in a yelp.

  Ikey slipped the curtain back and watched people mill around below. A team of horses pulled a carriage up Khyber Pass. Their heads bobbed as they strained against their yokes and their load.