by Marian Gray
“Hank, have you forgotten that I am a blackhand?” Aunt Margot snapped.
I cut in again before they had a chance to turn on each other. “If you feel this way, Uncle Hank, then how come when I first asked you about the Imperial Black, you shut the conversation down right away, wanting nothing to do with it.”
He feebly looked to Aunt Margo before turning to me. “Because you were just returning to us. How would I even begin to explain all this to you when you haven’t even stepped foot out the front door?”
“Or is it because you’ve been talking to other researchers and highborns, and everyone’s buzzing about getting the band back together?” Aunt Margot cocked her eyebrow.
I jumped in again, ignoring Aunt Margot’s question. “When you attended Blacksaw, were you a part of the Imperial Black?”
He cast a severe glance in Margot’s direction before returning to me. “No, my mother detested them. She would have disowned me if she ever found out.”
“Could you have joined the Imperial black when you are going to school?” I leaned in, digging deeper into his answer.
His face drew into a solemn, serious expression. “If you’re asking if they had gone underground, I think it’s possible. I wouldn’t doubt it. But if you’re asking if I had any knowledge of their existence—the answer is no. They never attempted to contact me.”
“Probably because your mother was the bigger badder wolf. Your membership wasn’t worth having her come after them.” Aunt Margo giggled to herself.
Uncle Hank folded his hands in his lap. “Yes, my mother was a force to be reckoned with. It probably was rather wise of them to not poke the bear.”
“Would you disown me if I joined the Imperial Black?” I asked.
The question made the tension in the air churn into the consistency of butter. It melted and used around us, but where the heat was lacking, it was thick and difficult to get through.
“Zuri, I’m going to tell you something that my father told me the day that I got my hands tattooed. I’ve never repeated these words before, but I think you need to hear them.” Both Aunt Margo and I pricked up, perched at the edge of our seats. “When the historians write our tales, no matter what, your name will be entered into the books. You need to decide now what you want that story to be, because the choices you make will color that image for forever.”
“Is that why you refused to fight in school?” Aunt Margo asked.
He nodded. “I didn’t want to go down in history as a bully or violent or aggressive. I prefer to liken myself to Ferdinand the Bull. I may be big and full of power, but I just want to sit on the grassy hillside and smell the flowers.”
Aunt Margo reached and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly with a wide smile on her face. “And that’s why I fell in love with you.”
“Now that you got your heavy question out of the way, I have one of my own.” Uncle Hank turned to me. “How are your sessions with Dr. Raby coming along? He tries to update me as much as he can, but communication is limited.”
“It’s good and bad. The oil injections are working, but it’s only a short-term bandage essentially.”
“Oil injections?” Aunt Margo repeated, disgust dripped from her tongue.
I held out my hands with the palms up, showing them the bite-sized red dots on my skin. This last injection hadn’t healed up quite as well as I would have hoped. “He goes in through the palm as to not disturb the ink on the hand and injects a mixture of oils deep within.”
“And you’re okay this, Hank?” Aunt Margo gaped. “This is highly illegal. This could see both Dr. Raby and Zuri locked up for a long time.”
Uncle Hank ignored her. “So if this is what he’s decided upon for short-term, what’s the long term plan?”
I sighed. “Surgery. He has a theory that our hands operate like valves. The more open the valve, the more essences we can pull and push through her hands. I don’t know exactly what the surgical process would entail, as he’s still researching, but I will ultimately end up with a scalpel pressed to my skin.”
Aunt Margo shook her head. Her blonde curls whipped against her cheeks. “You can’t do this. That is so dangerous. It could render you flup from the slightest mistake.”
“I know.” My eyes drifted to the ground, staring at the battered wood floors. “I haven’t agreed to it yet because I’m afraid of losing the little that I already have.”
“Hank, say something.” Aunt Margo beckoned.
He shrugged his shoulders. His mind was still pondering the matter. “I’m not sure what to say. This is Zuri’s power and Zuri’s hands. It’s her body. She needs to do whatever she feels is necessary.”
Aunt Margo threw up her hands. “Oh, Hank. You’re basically giving her your blessing.”
“No, I’m not.” He shook his head. “I’m simply reminding her of her own bodily autonomy.”
An unexpected knock on the front door silenced us all. Nobody moved, frozen and unsure if our ears were playing tricks on us.
“Is that someone at the door on Christmas?” I asked.
Aunt Margot and Uncle Hank turned to each other. Worry marked their gazes.
The knock beat out again, only it was a little louder this time. The ominous sound sent them into action.
“Zuri, you come down with me. Hank, lock up the second floor. Don’t leave any rooms out that you wouldn’t want the party going through.”
The three of us rose from our seats, and I followed Aunt Margot down the carpeted stairs. She pointed at the couch in the living room, commanding me to sit nearby the formal Christmas tree. She continued into the foyer and opened the front door.
“Merry Christmas,” a familiar voice slithered out.
“Merry Christmas, Chief Inspector Cowell.” Her voice was civil but pointed. “To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?”
He chuckled. “To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anybody to be home. I anticipated you would be spending Christmas with family elsewhere.”
Aunt Margo shook her head with an uneasy smile plastered on her lips. “Just the three of us here today.”
“Mind if I come in and have a look around? It is awfully cold out here. I would be truly appreciated if you would allow me to warm up my hands.”
Aunt Margot didn’t say yes or no but stood aside and opened the door a little wider. Just as uncle Hank was tumbling down the stairs, Cowell stepped into the foyer. His head craned this way and that, running his eyes down every nook and crevice. The sight of it made my blood run cold. After a few awkward seconds, his icy blue eyes landed on me, puncturing all warmth.
“Merry Christmas, Zuri.” He forced a smile.
“What are you doing here, Cowell?” Uncle Hank asked.
“As I told your lovely wife, I thought I’d pop in and warm up my hands—see what the Ebenmores were up to.”
“I would assume a whitehand home would be more accommodating, no?” Aunt Margot asked.
Cowell snickered. “You’re probably right, but at the moment, you all are my favorite blackhand household, not to mention the talk of the town. Oh, and Zuri’s test scores came in.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick envelope, holding it up for all to see. “She was remarkably average.” His arm extended out to me, offering me my test scores. The front flap had been peeled back.
“Last time I checked, that wasn’t a reason to receive a visit from the Sightless Sons,” Aunt Margot quipped.
“Times are changing.” His eyes bore into me. “You know, I was expecting a little more from you. Anticipated he would either be great or you would be snuffed. What happened? How is it that you are just simply average?”
“All anybody ever likes to talk about is my maternal family. I do have a father. He’s out there somewhere and he may just be a simple commenter.”
He noted. “Highly unlikely but sure, if that’s the story that you want to spin right now, I’ll buy it.”
“Are your hands warm yet?” Aunt Margot hadn’t left
her position by the door.
Chief Inspector Cowell glanced over his shoulder at her. “Just one more moment. I wanted to let Zuri know that I am looking forward to spending a wonderful spring semester with her at Blacksaw.”
My stomach curdled and decayed and withered, sinking to the bottom of my toes. I felt as though all the essences were being pulled from my very being, leaving me nothing but ashy emptiness. “They’re sending the Sightless Sons to Blacksaw?”
“Yes, some new information has emerged.” He watched me, studying my face.
“What is this new information?” I asked.
His brow lifted and he smiled at me, amused. “My, you’ve got a curious one on your hands.” Nobody said a word a reply. “I like that, Zuri. It’s that burning curiosity that we look for when selecting inspectors for the Sightless Sons. Maybe you should think about joining after you graduate.”
He turned on his heel and marched toward the door. Just as he reached the foyer steps, he turned back around and looked at me. “Tell you what. Since it’s Christmas, I’ll let you know. When forensics examined the wound on each victim, they both noted a clean almost surgical like precision in the severing of the appendages. The hands are being removed the exact same way they were twenty-five years ago. Given that that information was never revealed to the general public, it’s safe to assume that he’s back.”
“Thank you.”
Aunt Margo and Uncle Hank both scowled at me, but I was only doing is Dr. Raby had instructed. I was preparing. Perhaps if Chief Inspector Cowell felt as though I were on his side, he’d cut me some slack.
Cowell placed his hat back onto his salt-and-pepper hair, tipped it in my direction and left. Even with the door closed, it felt as though the outside chill would permanently be in the home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They had been reluctant to let me go on my own. Uncle Hank said it would be rather inappropriate for a highborn young woman to be out in the city by herself. But I pushed and with a little of Aunt Margot’s help, convinced him that he was playing by archaic rules.
I stepped outside the front door without a chaperone. As I walked to my destination, I buried my hands in my coat pockets, not wanting to focus on the task ahead of me. Instead, I allowed my imagination steal me away. Chief Inspector Cowell’s tip off had made me rethink my approach to uncovering the assailant’s identity.
If the information provided was true, then it completely absolved Anouk. She was my age. There was no way she could be the Hand Collector, considering it was the original butcher we were facing now.
The other part I found awfully curious, was his description as to how the hands had been removed. It showed care on the Hand Collector’s part. Whoever was doing this, wasn’t just hacking and running. This was a delicate procedure. I had never considered any of the school’s medical providers. There was only one nurse that I knew by name, and she had been serving Blacksaw her nearly forty years. It was a stretch to believe that after a successful fifteen year career, she would begin slicing off hands in the ‘90s, take a break, and then returned to her hobby twenty-five years later.
No, it wasn’t somebody in medical. I shook my head.
There were was only one group of individuals that I witnessed carrying around tools that could offer such a clean cut—the stiziologists. Some of the professors at Blacksaw specialized in the revered tradition of tattooing. They obsessed over skin types and textures as well as cataloging every type of ink that had ever been used and might be one day used. Several leaders in the department had even begun researching new techniques of implementation such as possibly flaying the top layer off and laying the pigment down deeper in the hand. This would require surgical like precision.
I took out a fountain pen that was no bigger than the size my palm and scribbled down two words onto the patch of skin: Anouk and stiziologists. When Idris, Ross, and I met up for spring semester, I would need to make sure that I told them of my discovery.
I rounded the corner and the site before me nearly knocked the breath out of my lungs. Like a stately mansion carved into the side of the mountain, St. George’s Sanatorium stared out into the Appalachian Mountains with bright green blooming turrets.
This was where I was born. The place had been restructured into a general hospital in the ‘60s but retained its traditional name.
Mustering the small bit of courage I contained, I lifted my chin and marched my way across the cobblestone road and onto the cliffside stairs. The inside was bright white, and a flat taupe-colored rock without any seams served as the floor. I crossed the wide lobby and headed straight to the reception desk.
The tall pointed ceiling gave way to a large opening that allowed the morning sunlight to pour through. It was exactly where I pictured the gates of heaven to be contained. Pristine, pure, sterile, and white.
“Good morning, how may I help you?” The receptionist asked. She was young. No more than a year or two older than myself.
“I am hoping to locate a record.”
“And which record might that be?”
“My birth certificate.” The reality of it all cracked open on my head and oozed down to my toes. It was cold, wet, and stifling.
“Unfortunately, no unauthorized individuals are permitted into the medical archive. However, I can phone down, and have somebody retrieve the document for you.”
“How long do you think that will take?” I had a switch to flip in about two hours. We were spending New Year’s with my mom. Given Uncle Hank and Aunt Marot had no idea where I was, I thought it best not to be late.
Her lips flatlined into a thin purple line. “I’m sorry, I can’t say for sure.”
A large group of individuals burst through the front doors with a woman howling in pain. Several of them begin calling for medical attention.
“As you can see, we’re quite busy here today.” She glanced down at the paper before her and lifted her pen. “Your name please.” I counted at least twelve names ahead of my own.
“Zuri Ebenmore.”
Her body stiffened and movements became rigid and rush. In one quick slam, she placed her pen back on her desk. “I am so sorry, Lady Ebenmore. I didn’t recognize you. I will get somebody on this right away and will have you in and out of here quickly.”
“Thank you.” I stepped away from the marble countertop and to the nearby waiting area. I watched as she lifted the handset of an old rotary phone and placed the receiver against her ear. She was too far away for me to hear what she was saying, and I was terrible at reading lips but I did spy the utterance of my name.
“Lady Zuri Ebenmore?”
I faced forward to find Nicholas Adder standing before me, and my heart thumped hard. Warning bells went off in my head. There was a 50-50 chance that the Hand Collector himself was right in front of me.
“Lord Adder, what are you doing here?” I glanced at both of his hands, eager to find any cuts, blood, or other possible evidence.
He glanced over his shoulder. “My wife is giving birth.”
“Oh, were you the ones that came in screaming?” I didn’t realize until after it was out of my mouth how unusual that question sounded.
He nodded. “Yes, we were the ones causing all the ruckus.”
“Well, I guess congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you. It will be our third. Still don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet though.” He sank into the arm chair next to me. For somebody about to add another baby to the family, he didn’t seem as nervous as I would expect them to be. “What are you doing here? Margot and Hank are okay, right?
“Yes, both of them are in perfect health. I’m here for myself, looking into a few documents, doing a little research.” I tried to make it sound as though my mission before me was nothing but a lighthearted task.
A hundred wrinkles appeared on his forehead. “Research into what?”
“Family lineage. You know how we highborns are. Obsessed over both growing and pruning the tree.” I mas
saged my hands in my lap, attempting to wring out all the anxiety that was building on my sweaty palms.
He nodded. “Yes, we are.” His green eyes dipped down to my lap. “May I?”
“What?”
He held out a gloved hand, indicating he wanted me to place my own hand into his grasp. “I’ve never seen the Ebenmore transition before. I’ve heard it’s a rather unique spectacle.”
I kept my hands where they were. “Unfortunately, I don’t have it.”
“No?” He shifted to the end of his seat. “Then, may I see what your transition is like?”
My heart beat rapidly in my chest, quick and light as though it were running for its life. Several people had made comments about the colors on my hand, but nobody had requested to see them out of nowhere. Was he wanting to review my wares before he decided to steal them and then wipe my memory?
“I don’t—”
“Please, just give me your hand.” His insistence was verging on demand.
“Nicholas, what are you doing?” An older woman with silvery chamomile hair called to him. She was short, standing no taller than 5’2” and had the cheery disposition of a proud grandmother.
Adder rose from his chair. His face burned an unnatural shade of red. “Just chatting with a student.”
“Well, you’re needed upstairs. She’s about to start pushing.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “Enjoy the rest of your day, Lady Ebenmore. I’ll see you at Blacksaw in the spring semester.”
I forced a smile that probably looked more like a grimace and waved him off. As soon as he was out of sight, the receptionist called me back over to the desk. Before her laid a manila folder. The first two letters of my last name had been tabbed atop the pale beige label.
“This is it,” she said. Her well manicured fingers lifted the heavy paper flap and a chart of the night sky stared back at me. “This was the arrangement of the stars when you’re born.” She explained. “And here is what the moon looked like.” She went on to show me every piece of paper that was included in my birth profile, but the one I so dearly desired was not revealed until the end.
