“I miss him,” says Kettle, teeth closed. “I just do and waking up is like putting my hand on a stove, every time.”
“I know,” says Ship. “We’re going to see the blues man.”
He leads her down around the light well until it bottoms out in mud. There are crickets and frogs here; it’s comfortably dim.
The blues man hangs davincied, hooks in his wrists and ankles. “Knife’s on the stump,” he murmurs.
Kettle trembles on her first cut; by her sixth she’s steady. She drops the knife, shuddering. The bleeding blues man breathes deep. Together, they begin to heal.
Three weddings that summer, and Penny and Bram are sitting at a reception table with “if we’re thirty-five and single, then” yelling in their ears. Bram looks at Penny. Penny looks at Bram.
Penny writes a prenup that will give back exactly what they put in; single dad Bram has five-year-old Zinnia give him away. They save some money on health insurance. Bram gets an apartment down the hall: Zinnia, it turns out, is Penny’s biggest fan.
When they go out, alone, they wear their bands on slender necklace chains. Neither pauses to consider the semiotics of that.
There are no shadows here on the Canvas, Killington told her, but when they make camp the blank whiteness of everything doesn’t keep her from falling asleep. When she wakes to darkness–thick, heavy, like grit on her tongue–she’s frightened. She can’t remember the last time she was scared of the dark. Actually, she can.
She fumbles in a bag and finds the striker he used to light the balloon. “Nightmare?” Killington mumbles, stirring. “Wait–don’t–”
She’s clicking it, and the flare of sparks traces them both in shadow. Gnomon is there, then, behind her. His cane is a sword.
or was it too real for you? Message Box #43855.
A FRIEND IN NEED – I helped you look for your missing wallet last Wednesday at the St. Pancras stop. We never did find it, but I think we found something else to pursue. Drinks? My treat, of course. Message Box #99298.
WHITE KNIGHT – Wednesday, St. Pancras–I chased off the grotbag who was “helping” you at the station. I hope I’m not mistaken when I say there was gratitude in your lovely eyes. Let’s have a laugh over it together. Message Box #66728.
FORGIVE ME? I picked your pocket last Wednesday,
Chicago doesn’t have the French for what she’s seeing, but she needs it. English isn’t concise enough: she’d have to list cogwheels and levers by name, belts and screws and mangles. There are wax cylinders and ribbon cables, great discs on arms and tiny hydraulic tubes, the hiss of steam and an electric hum. Some pieces are gleaming and some are shattered. None of it ever stops moving.
Not far above her are people, cars and the lazy downtown sun: Chicago sees the arms rising into darkness and thinks, maybe she does have the French. Machinerie, diablerie, éminence grise. Grand Guignol.
The police are nice, but since the bullets went through the wall (instead of into the Internet) and almost hit her neighbors, they take her gun away. It bums Starla out. Why is there even an Internet if you can’t shoot anybody through it?
Then she discovers remote hunting: a webcam on a gun, in the woods, and when you click the button, the gun shoots where the webcam is looking. Starla pays up and clicks as fast as she can, until the clip’s empty. She giggles at the puffs where they hit dirt and trees.
“Pyeew pyeew!” she whispers. “Pshow!”
In the bathroom, dead, Barlowe examines his teeth. It’s either the fluorescent light or the way his eyes are now, but everything’s tinted blue, which is maybe why his teeth look so white. But no: he rubs them with a finger and they squeak. They’re the cleanest they’ve ever been.
The rest of him is indubitably rotting. No maggots, yet, but he smells like somebody peed in the maple syrup and that can’t be good. Also, his tongue appears to have rotted out.
“Hrrh hrh, brh mmrhr,” he tries. Then: “Hmm.”
Barlowe’s just realized he’s hungry, and, with surprise, for what.