Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

“A boy?” I repeated stupidly.

He nodded. “Like you—” By this I could only imagine he meant another Paphian. He continued respectfully,

“He wore flowers in his hair and said you awaited us here. Are you ready to go now?”

I stared at them dully, counting five. The boy Oleander. A girl his age, her scalp smooth and bald as a stone, who opened and shut her mouth constantly, as though gasping for air. The child Bellanca and another small girl who drooled and said nothing, and the boy I had met earlier with Pearl’s troupe by the Rocreek.

“I’m Martin,” he announced shrilly, poking at his thin chest. “She’s Octavia,” pointing at the silent girl.

I said nothing, imagined killing them, either with my sagittal or my hands. But I felt no desire to kill them, or do anything to save myself; Because hadn’t I led them here, hadn’t I betrayed my people to them? How many of those at the niasque had been murdered or captured by lazars? And Ketura among them, and Fancy too perhaps—

“Wait,” I said, beckoning Martin. “I’ll go with you; but tell me, was there a woman, or a little girl, did you see a little girl—”

“Lots,” Martin said helpfully. “I saw some, they took some—”

Oleander frowned. The sequined rags made him look foolish, and the others seemed to pay him little attention, but he obviously felt that he must act the leader. “Shut up, Martin,” he ordered. He tapped a long-nosed gun tied about his waist with a leather thong. He turned to me, drawing himself up and scratching at an oozing cut on his thigh. “You are Raphael Miramar? The one they call the Gaping One?”

I hadn’t the strength to argue. “Yes.”

“Well, you’re to come with us. Tast—The Consolation of the Dead says so. Please.” His voice cracked. He coughed, glancing to see if the others had noticed. The silent drooling Octavia had wandered to the edge of the chamber and glanced down at the Great Hall. Bellanca and Martin were dabbling with the ruined cosmetics. The remaining older girl yawned, her slack mouth working as though she would say something to me, but no words came. Before I could move away she shuffled toward me, hands reaching for my hair.

“Get away!” I scrambled backward, terrified of her scabbed hands, the slack curl of her mouth. But she did not listen, only continued to gape like a dying fish as she tried to touch me. I cried out and swiped at her. A flash of violet as I struck her arm. She gazed at me curiously, her fingers brushing against my hair.

“Pretty,” she said thickly. She sank to her knees. As the other children watched she died, her face and hands erupting with crimson petals.

Oleander stared at the girl, then turned to me. “What did you do to her? To do that? The colors.” The others lifted their heads for my answer. Bellanca stuck her thumb in her mouth and gazed at me with wide eyes.

I stammered, “She was—I didn’t want her to touch me!”

“She was looking at your hair,” explained Martin. “She lost all her hair, she was just looking at your hair—”

“Shut up!” I whirled to raise my fist at them so that they could see the sagittal glowing there. “Take her—get it out of here!” I kicked at the girl’s corpse and stumbled away from it, shielding my eyes.

After a minute I heard Oleander command them, “Do it.” The smaller children scuffled for a little while, dragging their burden. The door wheezed open and shut. When they returned I stood panting in the center of the chamber, glaring at Oleander as he fingered his swivel nervously. He cleared his throat.

“You—we’re supposed to—you’re still to come with us.” He raised his eyes and smiled, looked more sober as I bared my teeth at him.

“And if I don’t?” I snarled, when from the chamber entrance rang the scholiast’s harsh voice.

“ Flee, cousins. The House of High Brazil is beset by lazars. Flee, cousins. The House —”

A crash. The scholiast fell silent. The door swung open to show a tall slender figure silhouetted against the pale light.

“Dr. Silverthorn!” Bellanca cried. She and Martin ran to greet him. Oleander bit his lip, drew the gun from his makeshift belt and pointed it at me. From across the room Octavia made a thick clucking sound and waved. Her fingers had rotted, flesh and bone, all the way to the second knuckle.

“Dr. Silverthorn,” began Oleander. He shifted the gun from one hand to the other. “It’s him. That boy. The one he told us about.”

The figure stepped into the light where I could see him for the first time. I gasped and looked away.

“I understand that the Consolation of the Dead wishes him to be returned alive, Oleander,” he said, disdain icing the words Consolation of the Dead. A thick voice—he had difficulty forming the words—but kindly and intelligent for all that. “Will you put that damned thing away and let me see him? And where is Angeline?”

Sheepishly Oleander tucked the gun back into his belt and stepped away. I heard the other children whispering as they surrounded the newcomer and plucked at his clothes.

“He killed her, Dr. Silverthorn. I saw it—”

“That one, the one he told us—”

How can they bear to touch him? I thought as I tried to calm myself.

Because in that brief instant I had seen a horrible thing: a man of bones whose clothes flapped about him like gulls taking flight, with a nearly fleshless face drawn into the hideous grimace of a skull picked clean of skin and sinew.

I STARED AT THE floor, trying to keep my heart from racing. That awful face! I heard the scrape and rattle of his feet upon the floor, the crackle of his stiff clothes as he moved slowly among the remaining children.

“Dr. Silverthorn, can we go home now?”

“Dr. Silverthorn, did you see the party?”

“Dr. Silver—”

“Shh, children,” he hushed them. A rustle as he crossed the room. He finally stopped a few meters from me. I heard his breathing, a thick glottal sound as though he choked upon the air. Still, if the children did not fear him I could at least make a show of boldness. I turned to face him.

He stood there, a shrunken scarecrow of a man all in white, his long tunic stained with dirt and grass. White gloves covered his hands, a loose white scarf wrapped his throat. Only his face was not hidden: pink and white and gleaming as a piece of fresh meat, the veins and capillaries stretched like vines across the tendons and smooth solid bones of his skull. My eyes filled with tears.

“Ohh …” I cried. In spite of myself I was moved to pity at the mere sight of this stranger. “Why have they done this.to you?”

He shook his head very slowly, as though if he moved too quickly the tenuous strands that held him together might tear. “But don’t I know you?” he murmured as though he had not heard me. He stretched out one gloved hand to brush the tears from my cheeks. “Wendy Wanders?”

I shook my head. “No—I am Raphael Miramar.”

My tears stained the tips of his gloves. He drew his hand to his face and stared at the damp cloth, then turned his gaze back upon me. Once perhaps those brown eyes had been tender; perhaps even now they regarded me with pity or wonder. But with no flesh upon his brow, no lashes to droop across those swollen orbs he could only stare rigidly, a fine sheath of flesh flicking up and down when he blinked. “Raphael,” he said, shaking his head. “Yes, of course—the Aviator told me, the children spoke of you, they saw you by the river. …”

With a soft creak he swiveled his head to look behind him, to where the children waited. “Poor things, they are tired,” he murmured, then returned his attention to me. “But you are not Wendy?”