Skyglass: Chapter 5

MOSS

An hour after nightfall, Marko and I arrived at Sable and Yunayuna’s ship, the Pixilikker, for dinner. A mandatory band feast, Sable had called it. Apparently, she had good news to share–but I was skeptical. The whole thing seemed like a stupid scheme to get me to eat.

I sat beside Marko, with as much sullenness as I could muster, at the large dining table Sable and Yuna had set up on the Pixilikker’s bridge–a vaguely rectangular space cleared of accumulated junk. I stared at the soul-painted walls because, at the moment, they didn’t have eyes for me to make contact with. All they showed was a real-time projection of the forest outside. A light snow was falling, dusting the moss-thick bows.

The door to the bridge slammed open. It was Phoenix. She gave no greeting, just strode toward the table, her eyes hard, her mouth grinless.

“You’re late,” Devin said as she took the empty chair beside him. “Is that why you’re angry?”

For a moment, she just stared at him. I tensed, studying her. Her face was streaked with ash. What had gotten her so pissed and dirty?

To my relief, Phoenix drew in a slow breath and puffed it out, smiling hugely as she did so. “HA!” she said. “You are so sweetly gullible, my little mallow-muncher. I never get angry.”

Devin looked at her bug-eyed for a moment, then returned her grin. “Never?” he asked. “You should try it sometimes; it’s kinda like a drug, only…fizzier. And super spicy.” He gave her a friendly nudge, then started to load his plate with salad and Marko’s homemade brownies.

I rolled my eyes and speared a buttered potato fingerling from the heap Phoenix had just dumped on my plate. I stuck it in my mouth.

Devin gasped audibly, nearly choking on his mouthful of greens and candied hazelnuts. As it was, Marko (who was sitting across from him) still got peppered with green confetti. The singer finished gulping down his bite of salad, then pounded a fist on the table. “Moss. Did that potato GO IN YOUR MOUTH?” He thundered out the last four words in disbelief.

I ate another, hoping the shock might prove deadly.

Regretfully, he was still breathing and flabbergasted even after I’d swallowed. He threw a buttered roll at me; Sable dropped a slab of carrot cake on top of my pile of potatoes. I nudged the roll off the side of the table and continued to ignore my bandmates. It was either eat something and invite everyone to stare and point out the obvious, or not eat, and be forced to make excuses. At least eating meant I didn’t have to talk.

Once Marko had helped Yunayuna dole out mugs filled with steaming nut brew (a dash of pear brandy in each), Sable leaned her elbows on the burned and dented tabletop. She took a quaff from her cup, and then made her announcement:

“I know our egos are all sufficiently large enough that I needn’t say this,” she began, “but Skyglass is good. Our music is pure–and I told a friend of mine exactly that, which lead to…an offer of sorts.” She paused for another drink.

Devin pounded the table enthusiastically. “Go on, go on!”

“There’s a very…well known venue in orbit around the Earth, located at the Midmoon-ExTOP. It’s called the Star-Dusted Ventriloquist. You’ve heard of it,” she said confidently, and for once, I found myself agreeing with her sentiments without the help of a knife. Everyone knew the Ventriloquist.

“I…encouraged the owner to give me a favor,” she went on. “But unfortunately, despite the fact that his life is now at my mercy, he’s still a bit of a rotsucker–he’ll let us play a show, and enjoy whatever fame and fortune may or may not come of it, but we have to prove ourselves first.” Sable looked Devin in the eyes. “We’ve got to send him a demo.”

Devin hissed–he actually hissed. “Why,” Devin began, voice sharp, sharper than the knife that had appeared in Sable’s hand, “even make the offer?”

I groaned silently, steeling myself for one of Devin’s tirades, but I was relieved nonetheless. His fury meant this stupid idea of Sable’s would remain just that: a stupid idea. None of us would ever agree to a demo. Our guitarist was the only member of Skyglass rogue enough to be such a blatantly unorthodox purist.

Phoenix banged her hand on the table. “What the sweet, everlasting piss, guys? It’s just a demo. Just a recording–no different than a Blowup, or any other sort of immortal art.”

“But that’s just it,” Zinn murmured from across the table. “Recording a demo goes against our nature. What we make when we play is fierce and alive. Its beauty is in its impermanence and, more importantly, its pure ability to immerse.”

Phoenix laughed, but Sable spoke before she could. “You’re all a bunch of rotting idiots. I’m a purist, too–but I’m also practical.” She stood. “You want to be heard? This is how we do it. Don’t think of it as a compromise. Think of it as a sacrifice.”

Devin just growled and shoved away his half-eaten slice of whipped-cream-smothered cake. “The answer’s no,” he said, words sticky around his last mouthful. “A show in space would be a lovely time full of the glitteriest piss, sure. But our music’s too volatile to be recorded. It just wouldn’t work. We perform. That’s it.”

Sable flicked her knife at him; the blade spun point-first into his cake, shattered the plate, and stuck–humming–deep in the table.

Phoenix rapped her sharpened, orange-painted nails on the table. “What if all you had to do was perform?” she asked. “What if,” she grinned then, “what if we sent that guy up in space a Blowup? I’d just need more music from you, a couple hours with Zinn’s p-com, and then we’d be set. All you guys would have to do is play a show, while I play my Blowup–and we send the guy the sweetly resulting mashup.”

Sable looked at her pensively. “Devin?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

The singer grunted, then reached forward and grabbed a handful of cake. He licked it free of whipped cream, spitting out the occasional shard of pottery.

He wrinkled his nose in thought, then said, “Give us a taste, make us a sample, and if it’s scrumptious, we’ll go for it.”

The smallest of satisfied smirks trickled onto Sable’s face. She hid it well, but I was pretty sure I saw relief–which made my stomach shrivel up around chewed-up potato.

“Very good,” she said. “But my friend needs the demo soon. He won’t hold our slot forever.” She grabbed her mug, gulped the remaining brandy, and sat down, gesturing at Yuna with her empty vessel. “Another!”

Yunayuna smiled softly. “Get it yourself.”

Zinn shrugged, and I slumped in my seat, wallowing in the low-level disgust that accompanied the prospect of playing any show. To my misfortune, however, I was getting used to that disgust, and the ache of food in my gut made me even less inclined to speak than usual, so I just wallowed. I didn’t protest.

After dinner, we moved outside, where Yunayuna had lit a giant bonfire to ward off the cold. Winter had arrived just days ago. Wet snow-cinder fell on my hood as I stood in the shadows just beyond the fire’s sphere of heat. I was cold, and I felt faint despite the three fingerlings and bowl of salad I’d eaten–but I didn’t mind. The darkness, the bonfire creaking and fuzzy in the haze, the vagueness and impermanence of it all–everything was gauze. Nothing could hurt me. Nothing, I promised myself.

Marko came up beside me, hands wrapped around a mug of mulled cider. He offered me a sip. It smelled rotting wonderful, but I resisted–both his offer, and the urge to lean toward him. Well, not toward him, but toward his warmth. I was just cold. It was so pissing frigid out here.

“Do you want my coat?” he asked.

I shook my head, told him I was fine. I was enjoying the cold. It made me wonder how bitter it had to be outside and above Raith, to make it cold enough to snow within the Gut. Part of me wanted to be up there, to feel the chill. Part of me wanted to be frozen.

“You wanna go out to the cloud gardens tonight?” I asked.

“Uh.”

I’d surprised him. For some reason, that made me happy, but shouldn’t have–instability meant I had no control.

“Never mind,” I said. The anesthesia of high, crystalline atmosphere sounded nice, but bedtime sounded even nicer. And though the gardens would be cold, they were too memory-laden to numb me properly.

Marko stomped his feet in his boots and spat to one side, peering at me for an uncomfortably long moment. Snow caught in his hair. “I just worry… You won’t get cold? Colder, I mean.”

“I’m not cold,” I lied.

“Liar. But if you want to go, we’ll go.” He smiled. “Now, even, if you want.”

I nodded. We said our goodbyes and made our retreat. When we reached his van, Marko opened the door for me; it creaked as he broke the ice-seal that had formed during dinner. I crawled inside.

While Mark opened the other door, I stared back toward the bonfire. Devin was leaping up and down in a drift of gray. Whether he was trying to get warm or riding a sugar-induced high, I had no idea. It was frigid, but he’d downed a small horde of Santa-shaped Peeps after the show, so it could have been either. Nearby, Phoenix and Yunayuna were holding a lively conversation. Sable looked bored as she caught snowflakes on the tip of a knife. Zinn watched Phoenix’s fluttering hands with distant, firelit eyes.

There’s your replacement family, I told myself, as Mark started the van. I buried my nose in my collar and stared at my hands. They were pressed between my legs for warmth. Didn’t do much, though. Insulation only worked if you had it. And heat. You needed heat.

One of the van’s side doors opened.

“Hi–I’m coming, too.” Phoenix stuck her head in.

I wanted to tell her to piss off, but didn’t. Every time she opened her mouth, strangely warm air came out, so I shrugged, silent. If she kept me warm, I wouldn’t complain.

We took a little-used airway up through the city. Encroaching branches left minimal scrape-room for our passage, the snow piling against the windows until the van was warm enough to heat them. Milky streams crept across the bioplast. We broke through the green sky, into a stretch of grubby clouds. Marko nosed the van toward a branch-cradled platform just above treeline.

We settled in a low drift at its edge. The dirty snow fell limply, dry as dead skin as I stood outside and leaned against the vehicle’s nose. Marko and Phoenix were still inside, but I doubted they were talking. He’d put on music, something loud and primal and handmade, lots of percussion–I approved. The van’s walls muffled its sound, but the vibrations still drove into my bones.

The skeletal wraiths of frost-furred rhododendrons reached around me. Overhead, the clouds were thick, and paler than they’d been when we’d arrived; the snow at my feet was almost bright. Further off, I saw a bruise against the silvered ground–a giant crocus, probably. They’d been growing here since my childhood. With the help of a little elven brainpower, the plants here bloomed year-round.

At the far edge of the cloud garden, hidden by the orchestrated plant life, was a hut that I knew even better than the dependable flowers: Dad’s hut. Or at least, it had been his. The cloud gardens had been his meditation assignment when he’d been alive. As a child, I had come here with him every morning for five hours. While he’d slid needles into his forehead, I sat on the dirt floor and played with goat bones, snacked on sweet-fried wheatberry cakes. The cloud gardens had always been agonizing for dad–he’d liked the quiet, the artistry, the impossible dualism in winter. But the gardens were only that: art. An aesthetic waste of slave energy.

What am I doing out here? I’d already forgotten. Something about stilling myself, but I couldn’t be sure, and it didn’t matter, because all the rotting memories weren’t helping. I wondered if I should eat something when I got back to the apartment. To help center myself, though I’d already gorged myself back at Sable’s. I’d picked up some cabbage flakes a couple of days back; maybe I’d have them with hot, salty water and lemon juice. I wanted to see how long I could survive on broth and nothing else. I liked the idea of living on liquid; most of it would just come out as piss, help keep my stomach flat.

There was heat at my hip. I looked over and found Phoenix beside me. I hadn’t heard her leave the van. I turned away, nose in collar, eyes searching out the pink flare of rhodie blossoms.

“Oh, what’s wrong, sweetling?” she asked.

I laughed. Vapor filled my hood. “Why should I tell you? You don’t care.”

She titled her head back, letting out a breath that looked like smoke. “Nope, I don’t. Your feelings are like a lick to my cheek–they mean not a thing. I am, however, curious.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t explain my gratitude, but I think she understood. I liked that she wasn’t pissing around, making things up so I’d feel better.

“So?” she pressed. “Tell me, tell me.”

“My parents,” I said, not bothering to explain. She didn’t need to know about their suicides, and I didn’t feel like telling her. “The plants, the snow–every rotting thing makes me think of them. And then I start the puzzle over again, you know?” I wondered why my mouth was moving. I knew I had to get a hold of myself, otherwise I might eat too much, or say too much…but right then, out where no one who mattered could hear me, I stopped caring. I liked the feel of cold air in my mouth too much to keep it shut.

“Why are they dead?” I asked her. Only the question wasn’t for Phoenix; she just happened to be standing beside me while I spoke my guts out. “Why? It’s the same thing over and over. This piss I’m always asking myself. How could they… Why…?” I was talking through my teeth and the back of my throat had closed off.

“It’s a secret,” Phoenix said, which made me frown; I hated that she was even bothering to reply. “A stupid, pathetic secret,” she went on. “That’s the answer to whatever piss you’re trying to figure out. Everyone has secrets, even someone as boring as you. Your parents had them, too. You can bet on it, sweetling.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No!” She sounded delighted. I looked at her, trying to understand, but looking didn’t help. She was just wet and foggy; for once, her hood was down, and snow turned to rain when it reached her.

“I’m my father’s secret,” she said abruptly. “And I’m going to kill him for it.” Her voice sounded different now. Hoarse. Like it came from some place raw and scab-less.

Something in me went terror-still. I was a rabbit. Caught in the stare of her wolfish words.

“Why would you ever do that?” I asked, breath snared somewhere in my lungs. “Your dad…”

“He made me.”

I laughed, a mirthless caw. “That’s what parents do. Your dad stuck his cock in your mom, or maybe she sat on it. And then you grew.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Her voice was quiet and ragged now. She glanced over her shoulder, toward Mark in the van, but there was snow over the window, and the bioplast still shook with music.

Phoenix pushed up a sleeve and bit her arm. Bit it until her teeth broke through. She held up the wound to my face; a red-orange light gleamed through her teeth marks. Brightness like I’d never seen. A molten bead rolled toward her wrist, steaming but leaving unmarked flesh behind.

“I’m fire,” she growled. “Or I was, once. I was an inferno. Before my fireself was taken from me. Before I was ripped from my sisters, my home.

“I have a pair of fathers, see. Number two stole me from my mom, the sun. Maybe you don’t get my desire for patricide, but I bet you understand loss.”

I looked away from her. The snow at my feet was red. “How are you going to kill him?” I asked. It wasn’t the right question, but it was the only one in my mind.

“I don’t know,” was her answer. She gripped her fingers across the wound she made; the seams between them filled with thick liquid fire. “When I first woke up in this stupid human body, on a slab in my second father’s satellite, I still had power. Enough to blast myself free and run. But it faded fast. My true fireself–it’s less than a scrap of cold ash now.”

She grinned horribly. “Doesn’t matter, though. Even if I never get my strength back, he’s gonna die with me screaming in his face. Somehow. I just have to find him first. That’s why I’m here, in Raith–he’s somewhere near. And when I do find him, I’ll kill him.”

I didn’t know how to swallow what she was saying–two fathers, one mother, and a hunger to kill kill kill. The desire for emptiness I got. The goneness. If she hated her second father like she said she did, emptying herself of him made sense.

But I couldn’t stomach the means to that absence. I knew what death did to a person; I wanted emptiness because of death. But Phoenix wanted to make emptiness with murder. She wanted to kill her father, and no matter how much he’d pissed on her, I couldn’t fathom that desire. I wished I could swap my hole for her parental excess.

“Just make sure no one catches you,” I told her. “I don’t want to be trapped in your bloodlust.”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll be as careful as a giant waltzing on ice candy.” She started to move back toward the van.

“What about…” I started to say, then trailed off, wondering if I even cared. I sighed. I’d ask anyway. “How can you can turn into a cat?”

She grinned again, and though it was terrifying, it somehow made me feel a flicker of life.

“The first live, wriggling thing I ate was a cat. We wanted to know each other, so I opened my mouth and she stepped into my heat. She became fire, I became cat.” She was still grinning, and I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not.

Phoenix pulled down her sleeve. Vapor rose with the heat beneath it. “You done with this grimy snow yet? Let’s go home. I’ll make you something calorie-free.”

Home. It wasn’t the word I would have used.

Still, I climbed back into the van. Inside, Marko was staring hard at his knife, stabbed into the steering wheel before him. I’d only seen the blade in its boot sheath; he’d never used it in front of me.

“You should’ve come out with us,” I said. “The snow’s very…gray. The crocuses are out.”

His laugh was halfhearted. He pried the blade from the wheel, stuck it in his boot. “Home now?” he asked.

I thought of my bed and how cold I was. “Yeah. Thanks.”

On the way back, I recited the ingredients for Mom’s spice cake over and over in my head, to distract myself from hunger. From the cold. From Phoenix’s death lust. It was funny–I called it ‘Mom’s recipe’ but she’d only made it once. She’d hated baking, which meant I’d had to self-fulfill any cake cravings thereafter. Not that I’d had any of those in a long time.

But still: Dried ambrosias, hazel flour, ground cinnamon bark. Caramel, goat’s milk, hard cider…

Back in the apartment, I went to bed. I skipped the cabbage flake soup and narrowly avoided the bowl of greasy pilaf Phoenix tried forcing on me. It was a good thing no one had told her about my previous carob fixation. Carob…

No. Instead, I thought about the only recipe Mom had ever appreciated: handmade goat-skin drums.

Step one: find a goat. Step two: kill it…

Proceed to Chapter 5, page 3–>