by Dia Reeves
“What?”
“I smelled Drabbin cooking her earlier. I smell her right now. On your breath.”
Their faces were so utterly blank, Rue didn’t know whether she was seeing an expression brand new to her or if they simply didn’t understand what she was saying. But it was so simple.
“Shirley? She was your servant? She died in the music room my first night here. You’ve been eating her this whole time, and you didn’t even know her name? I would never eat someone I didn’t know. Not that I’m criticizing. I don’t believe in judging other people’s long-standing traditions.”
As the Westwood children stared at their empty bowls of stew, their blank expressions filled with…horror?
Yes.
Definitely horror.
Chapter 14
Toctoctoctoctoctoctoctoctoc—
Rue sat up, eyes on her bedroom window where the sound was coming. Nothing was visible from her vantage point, but two shadows had commingled, painting the wall in winged shadows.
“Cindy? Mindy?”
Rue went to the window, but Cindy and Mindy were gone, though they left behind their usual dead animal tribute, a possum this time, in danger of tumbling below into darkness. Cindy and Mindy understood a lot of things, but not the difference between edible and inedible. Not where heartless were concerned.
Instead of lying awake, Rue flopped face-first in Stanton’s pillow, and let her hopes lull her back to sleep and into a dream about her family. A lovely dream because it didn’t hurt to think about them when she was asleep.
But her dream was short-lived.
This time, a moan woke her.
She stared crabbily into the dark before hopping out of bed to investigate; she didn’t go far.
Stanton lay curled in the fetal position in his bed, making the awful noises that had dragged Rue from sleep.
Sterling tossed a blanket over his brother, grabbed the blanket off his own bed, and tossed that one over him too.
“Was it something he ate?”
“Save the jokes for when he’s not dying,” Sterling snapped, not even looking at her.
“Should I call someone?”
“Who? No one can help him.”
“Westwood could help by not stealing his soul.”
“Fat chance.”
Rue left the drafty doorway and climbed onto the left-hand bed—Sterling’s bed—and positioned herself beneath the painted sun on the ceiling, as though it would ward off the chill. When she was comfortable, she told them what Drabbin had told her in the kitchen.
“So I figured why would Westwood need to feed you human flesh to increase your souls unless he was stealing it? Not too much obviously or you’d be as weird as Drabbin and Grissel. The thing that gets me is how you didn’t even know you were eating people.”
“Of course we didn’t know,” Sterling said. “Dad doesn’t always…tell us everything.”
“But why does Westwood want your soul in particular? To see what it’s made of? To make you hurt for the hell of it?”
“Not for the hell of it,” Stanton said, struggling to sit up and failing.
“But it does hurt, having a piece of your soul sucked out of you. Stanton handles it better than I do. I take weeks to recover. Stanton only takes a day, maybe two. Which means he’s the one always getting hurt.” Sterling smoothed Stanton’s sweaty hair. “He’s a tough son of a bitch—I’m just back up.”
“Well I’m tougher than the both of you,” said Rue. “Maybe if Westwood took my soul he’d leave yours alone.”
“He’d put you in his lab,” said Stanton, shivering, as corpse-white as Grissel. “And when the servants go to Dad’s lab, they never come back. He likes to experiment too. Intense experiments that make ours look like Disneyland.”
“A lab on another world. It’s so insane, but insanity can be fun sometimes.”
“Don’t talk like that,” said Sterling. He kicked the bed, jiggling her. “You’re not going to Dad’s lab. We might not even go back. The bone machine is brutal. It’s no fun having your soul torn out of you piece by piece.”
“You mentioned it before. The Apparatus.”
“Animus Apparatus.”
“But you call it the bone machine.”
“Because that’s what it’s made of. Flesh is better—souls are naturally attracted to flesh—but Dad thought a machine made of human skin would be too gruesome. He said clean, elegantly carved bone would do just as well and look nicer. Very important for everything to look nice.”
“My family is fond of bone too. I befriended a stag in the dark park once, and Father killed it; made a necklace of its horns. For himself. What did Westwood say when you confronted him about Shirley?”
It took Sterling a few tries to spit the words out. “He said he thought we knew.”
“He has had a lot on his mind,” said Stanton, panting as though being in pain was exhausting. “But his reasoning makes sense. Whenever I lose a piece of my soul, a piece of Sterling’s soul fills in, to balance things. We never knew that until Aunt Grissel pointed it out. So even though I’m losing more and more of my soul to the bone machine, Sterling is losing his to me. It really does make sense that Dad would try to heal us. That he’d try anything. We made him promise to stop feeding people to Karissa though. That was just…”
“Evil?” Rue suggested.
“Pointless.”
“But you’re not going to stop?”
“It’s for a good cause,” Stanton said, after a long pause. “We understand that.”
“He should have told us,” said Sterling. “I don’t care how busy you are. How do you forget to mention cannibalism?”
“Cannibalism isn’t the point. We’re helping Dad create the greatest invention of all time. If it’s a success, everything’ll be fixed. And none of this will even matter—”
Stanton’s breath caught as he twisted on the bed and made more of those awful noises, tearing the sheets, hurting the bedding in the same way he was being hurt.
Sterling shot to his feet, threw more wood on the fire. Didn’t stop, even when the flames grew almost wider than the fireplace. Didn’t stop until Rue joined him.
He turned his back to her and said, “The pain’s not as bad when Stanton’s warm, but warmth is impossible in this drafty-ass house. I can’t even do anything for the pain. He’s alone with it.” He stumbled over “alone” as if it were an obscure Babylonian word.
Rue briefly left the room, and when she returned, she tossed the toadstone at Sterling and hopped back into his bed.
“Put it in your brother’s hands,” she instructed.
He didn’t question her, just closed Stanton’s hand around the stone.
Nothing happened.
“It is superstition,” Sterling said. “Told you.”
“Not if it belongs to you.” Rue sighed. “You can have it, Stanton.”
The toadstone began working right away, she was pleased to see, the green stone bulging organically in time with Stanton’s breaths, the pain visibly untying its knots from his body. His cheeks regained their color—pink instead of red, but a step in the right direction.
By the time the toadstone had stopped bulging, Stanton was sitting up, the covers pooled in his lap as he traced the cracks that had developed in the formerly smooth organ.
“Back when drakes breathed fire,” Rue told him, “the toadstones absorbed their pain and rage and converted it into fuel. That’s why drakes are so friendly; their toadstones suck all the bad feelings away.”
“What do you want for it?” the twins asked.
“I just gave it to you.”
Sterling sat opposite her on his bed. “Nobody gets or gives anything without some kind of catch. So what is it?”
“I’m glad Stanton’s not in pain.” She looked at her knees. “That’s enough.”
They sat together in a somewhat charged but comfortable silence, until Sterling said:
“Take this.” He gave her one of his pill
ows. “You can keep it in your room. On your bed. With Stanton’s.”
She smelled it, breathed him in: warm and green, like sunlight through leaves.
“You cracked it,” she said, so that she wouldn’t say something really stupid. “I’ve never seen that before. You must have been really hurt.”
“Sorry,” said Stanton. He didn’t sound sorry; he sounded blissful.
“For what? It’s yours. Crack it all you want.”
“Are you magic?”
Rue said, amused, “There’s no such thing as magic, Stanton. But if there was, toadstones are, not me. It feels good just to hold it, doesn’t it?”
Stanton agreed. “You should have it back.”
“Is Westwood and his bone machine done with you?”
“No.” The bliss faded slightly.
“Then keep it.” She laughed as the bliss returned full force. “I’d give anything to feel the way you do.”
“Impossible,” Sterling said. “You’re heartless. That’s why the toadstone never cracked for you. It sucks out feelings. How can you feel intensely about anything without a heart?”
Chapter 15
The following Saturday, the weather was much less dreary than it had been in a long time, the wind brisk, but absent any trace of snow or rain. The sky so thinly lined with gray that Rue could almost see the blueness just on the other side. She sat on the patio, on a cold metal chair, bandaging the pumpkin-sized head of the cackler kneeling at her feet.
She had almost completed her task when it snapped its needle-y teeth at her knee, but Rue was too quick for it.
“If you could avoid being a jerk for two seconds, maybe people wouldn’t kick you in the head all the time. I’m trying to help you, and don’t act like you don’t understand me.”
The cackler settled down and allowed her to finish nursing it.
“There. All done.” She helped it rise. “Now do yourself a favor and don’t come around here again. Go back to the dark park; it’s safer there.”
Drabbin came out of the kitchen door dragging the upper half of a corpse in one hand, and the lower half in the other.
She and the cackler exchanged a look, and Rue said, “See?”
The cackler took off and quickly disappeared down the hill.
Drabbin, startled, said, “What kinda lethiferist lets vermin run free?”
“She was injured and cranky and far from home. She won’t come here again.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked her not to.” Rue followed Drabbin’s gory trail to the incinerator, studying the corpse halves.
She couldn’t tell if it was staff or a stranger because his face was burned off, and he was nude. More than nude. Rue could see through him: bones, stomach, a heart in excellent condition.
“Why is he transparent?”
“The mister made him swallow a glowfish.”
“Why?”
“To see inside him,” said Drabbin as though she was slow.
“But why is he in pieces? And why are the pieces so ragged?”
“Because the fish exploded out of him, didn’t it?” Drabbin kneed her away from the body as his phone rang. “Never mind all your questions.” He put the phone to his ear, biceps flexing stylishly. “I’m burning him right now, ain’t I? Be a lot faster if someone wasn’t calling me every five minutes. Aye, John. Aye, directly!”
“He won’t fit in the incinerator,” Rue said when Drabbin put his phone away.
“He will if you chop him into bits; use your brains, me lass.”
Rue helped Drabbin put word to action. The cackler had interrupted her in the middle of burning the last of the pupae, and the sooner Drabbin finished his job, the sooner she could finish hers. After the chopped pieces were blazing in the incinerator, Drabbin wiped his bloody hands on his apron and reached for Rue.
She dodged him easily. “I told you no touching.”
“Don’t pretend to mind.” He grabbed his phone, which had begun ringing again, and switched it off. “And anyway I’d rather you touched me. With those claws.”
When he caressed her fingertips, Rue hid her hands behind her back. “You’re crazy.”
“Ain’t crazy to want to feel something. Use your claws on me, and I’ll tell you a secret. Any secret you wanna hear.”
Rue didn’t even have to think. “Why does Westwood need souls?”
“He wants one for Grissel.”
“But not for you?”
“I don’t want some used soul. I want my old one back.”
“Is that possible? I thought it was eaten.”
“Anything’s possible. And if the mister’s too busy to sort it out, maybe I can. I have all sorts of potions and nostrums in my room. Ain’t none of them worked, but there’s hope yet.” Drabbin removed his butcher’s apron and pulled his black shirt over his head. He had gotten much paler since she’d first seen him, and the chill air didn’t raise one goose bump on his flawless skin. “Come on, then,” he said, when Rue hesitated.
She took a swipe at him, slashing him across the nipples. She did it with her left hand, which was naturally weaker, but even so Drabbin staggered backward and crashed into the incinerator, clutching his bleeding chest.
“Too much?” she asked, cleaning her claws with the wet wipes from her pocket before retracting them.
The joy in Drabbin’s face was almost holy in its purity. “Too perfect.”
She gave him his apron, so he could use it to stanch the blood flow. Instead he used it to reel her in, to put his face near hers.
Rue turned away. “You can’t have any part of my soul. She’d get mad.”
“I don’t want your soul, you silly git.” He kissed her, and if he was trying to de-soul her in some sneaky way, Rue couldn’t detect it. “Open your mouth, so I can do a proper job.”
“Anything between us would be improper. I can’t imagine what Stanton would say.”
“To hell with Stanton. Ain’t nothing improper about feeling good.”
She eyed his chest and the sodden apron between them. “That felt good?”
“Gets harder and harder every day to feel anything now that me soul’s gone. You’re a right help, you and those claws.”
He kissed her again, and she let him.
Why not let Drabbin do as he pleased? Mating was fun. She’d never done it with a human, but from all accounts it was the same process. She could even make Drabbin hold her afterward so that she could pretend she belonged to someone, for a while at least.
“Even your kisses have claws,” Drabbin said, appreciatively. “Bet I could get all my feeling back with you, a heartless girl who wouldn’t be afraid to give me what I need.”
“Are you in need, Cousin Drabbin?”
Sterling stood on the patio, a roll of sheet metal the color of the sky in his arms. He tossed it at his cousin’s feet. “Because Dad’s got all sorts of chores in the lab that will fulfill you.”
“I just took him some sheet metal yesterday.”
“Yesterday is not today. And turn your phone on; I’m not your damn secretary. And here’s a tip: when a girl scratches you up like that? Maybe take a hint that she’s not interested.”
Drabbin picked up the sheet metal, deeply amused. “You have no idea what this one’s interested in, boy.” He winked at Rue and disappeared into the house.
Sterling looked mad. “Dad already told him he’s not allowed to screw around with the servants anymore.”
“I’m not a servant, so that rule doesn’t apply to me. Me and my weak feelings. Maybe if Drabbin and I work at it, we can find something as intense and real as people feel.”
“You don’t need him for that. You need a heart. I’ll make you one.”
“Out of what? Paper?”
“Paper is more than you have.”
“I have a heart.”
“That doesn’t belong to you.”
“I have feelings.”
“Fine, you have feelings. I just told you I will
make you a heart.”
“A heart that is only mine?” What he was proposing suddenly struck her. Painfully. “What would I be? My family already thinks I’m weird.”
“Who cares what they think? You’re with us now.” He fingered the red stains on her formerly pristine collar. “Why don’t you help me with something?” He walked her a short distance to the driveway where a blue car was parked. A storage trailer was attached to the back and this is where Sterling led her.
“I’ve never seen a car like that.”
“It’s a Renault Dauphine,” said Sterling as he opened the trailer to reveal a mass of cramped boxes. “It’s French. And old. And a rust bucket. But it belonged to Mother.”
“She was a Francophile?”
“She was. My middle name is Pierre. And if you tell anyone, I will pack you up in one of these boxes and ship you to Bahrain. Stop looking so excited!”
After rounding up a few stray servants to empty the majority of boxes, Rue and Sterling grabbed the last two and carried them up to the second floor, to Westwood’s bedroom.
On the far wall, a portrait of Elnora dominated the space. She lounged elegantly in an evening gown the same blue as her eyes, which couldn’t be seen because she was laughing so hard that tears spilled down her dimpled cheeks. Much smaller photos of the rest of the Westwood clan orbited Elnora’s portrait like stars around the sun. Random green rugs dotted the reddish wooden floor, and Karissa skipped from one to another, bouncing a yellow ball to the pop music blasting from the stereo. Stanton knelt on the floor near the bed, cutting open the stacks of boxes the servants had deposited, and his pleas to change the station were gleefully ignored.
After dropping off the last box, Rue tried to duck out, but Sterling caught her arm.
“Look who came to help,” he yelled over the music.
“Rue!” Karissa flew forward and hugged her.
“I think your ball just rolled under the bed,” she said, but when Karissa released her to fetch it, Rue still had to contend with Sterling blocking the doorway.
“Take off your coat,” he told her. “Get comfy. You might as well.”
“I have some stuff to finish burning in the backyard.”
