SHORT STORIES
Copyright 2014 Natacha Cutler
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Moonlight Mile
Bows + Arrows
About the author
Connect with the author
Acknowledgements
Camila and Meryl, my girls. Thank you for supporting my writings since the very beginning; for reading them, for giving me books to read, for never ever finding it weird that I would write about us three, with super powers, in a dystopian world.
Genevieve, the best writing buddy I could possibly ask for; you continue to inspire me e v e r y single day with your brilliant mind and the incredible worlds you create out of thin air.
Ismael for the awesome cover and The Walkmen for the incredible soundtrack.
And lastly, thank you to my family and friends, especially my beautiful mother and loving grandpa; I hope you get e-books in heaven.
Moonlight Mile
And though your teeth have gnashed through death
Still you come to me so gently
And find a soft place on your body
And rub me with it
“cold discovery” smog
As a child she would wake up at night and sit at the edge of the bed, looking out the window into the darkness, with her tiny hands between her legs. At the beach, whenever her mother wasn’t looking, she would speak to the ocean, usually with a mocking tone, and wait with unfulfilled patience for its response for the waves to swallow her whole. She would also taunt the wind, sitting on the swing set in her grandparents’ garden, hoping its rage would send her flying through the air. She wasn’t fearless, no — she did all these things with her heart beating furiously inside her rib cage; if there was so much as a trick of the moonlight, and the shadow of a eucalyptus resembled something else, she would quickly hide under the bed covers and murmur a prayer of her own, a protection spell she had made up of big words whose meaning was foreign to her. She was always kind to the earth though; she would caress the blossoming flowers, tell them about all the great things they would see if they grew strong, like her baby brother her mother was carrying in her womb. She would sit by the orange trees and read out loud some of her favorite books and plant small kisses on the leaves of the avocado tree that had never given any fruit, in hopes her warmth would take a little bit of the longing for tropical weather away. She didn’t have any real friends, not because she was an antisocial child but because her family didn’t want her spending time with the other children from the village; they would try to explain to her that she was above them due to her intelligence and wealth, that she was special. But the wind never talked back to her, neither did the ocean nor the sunflowers nor the birds her grandfather collected in a cage bigger than the school she was soon of age to attend. No mythical creature ever knocked on her window and offered a hand with no flesh but bones. There was a desire for a dark power, a pull for the underworld her young mind couldn’t fathom; she would hope for nightmares where she could run with wolves whose eyes shined a bright crimson, where monsters would braid her long auburn hair and decorate her handmade pearl dresses with twigs from the darkest of forests. She envied the sister who would vomit snakes every time she spoke and pitied the one who was cursed with diamonds. She envied the taste of poison in Snow White’s mouth, not her prince’s lips.
The smell of blood overwhelms her, clouds her vision red. The boy who will be her undoing holds her body against the cement wall with one arm and is trying to clean the cut on her forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. His tongue rolls with words she cannot hear. There is a noise around them she has never imagined could exist, an incredible noise that twists an invisible knife into her stomach, pulls her skirt up, makes her own tongue roll with hunger; a hunger that digs her nails in the back of the boy’s neck until his moans are almost louder than the noise itself. The air explodes with a thunderous roar and it feels as if her soul is being sucked out of her through her mouth, through her nose, through her ears; the crowd of black silhouettes howls and she hears the boy then, realizes he has been repeating the same thing since he grabbed her from the pit - “You’re not dead.”
After leading her away from the noise he had asked her if she liked coffee and if so if she wanted to get out of that place and have some with him. They were already out in the street when she had told him she liked the smell of it but caffeine made her chances of entering a comatose state even slimmer, something that bothered her immensely. The boy who will be her undoing had tilted his head to the side and looked at her in a quiet, peculiar way. She had immediately realized he was trying to decide if she was truly worth perceiving, if she was not a normal person with the normal amount of weirdness but indeed a mad girl, and she had been able to pinpoint the exact moment when his decision had been made by the way his gray eyes had filled with a shade of darker, wanting, black. For some reason she had known he had an exuberant disdain for almost everything and this knowledge had frightened her.
Holding a large cup of black coffee, the boy that will be her undoing stays very still. They are sitting on opposite sides of a square wood table, knees barely touching under it. His arms and fingers are unusually long and thin, his hair golden, his sharp cheekbones pink from the cold night. The café is crawling with soundless corpses; when someone leaves she imagines them walking far out into the fields to dig their own graves. She has never been to this part of town, where everything is odd shaped and the constant fog of industrial smoke casts a funereal, yellow light to the sinners and gamblers roaming the streets. She tells him this and he speaks quietly, showing a gap between his front teeth, “I figured as much. Why tonight?”
“I was restless.”
“Aren’t you always?”
“Yes. Do your bones hurt?”
“Not particularly.”
“They have cut you open.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Will you show me?”
“You’ve seen plenty.”
“I’m getting terribly sleepy.”
“I can’t take you home.”
“I know this.”
“And I can’t leave you alone here, not ‘till morning.”
The boy that will be her undoing stands up takes some coins out of his coat pocket and leaves them next to the empty cup before offering her his long, bony hand. His mouth comes deliciously close to her face, the smell of his breath making her flush her eyelids, “There’s still blood in your hair, angel.”
In my room she takes off her saddle shoes and puts them neatly on the floor by the door. My mouth waters at the sight of her legs covered in bruises, purple constellations I want to study with my tongue before they fade; I want to devour her flesh. I have wanted to devour her flesh since the very first second I saw her, the purest of godsend creatures in the middle of the filth, about to get bit by the sharpest teeth. I watched her lick the blood as it reached her full, perfectly round lips. I watched her yell, turning my heart into shreds.
“I may be stuck in a dream,” she says, with a light shrug, and lies down in my bed. I don’t move. I watch her from the other side of the room, the way her hair falls on my pillow, and wait until she closes her eyelids. I wonder for how long my sheets will smell of her. Her breathing, slow and steady, fills me with a terror so overwhelming my throat burns with vomit. My hands tremble as I open the door and run out of the building into the familiar night.
The sky is low, you are safe here. They have told you this would happen, they have warn you that one day a bird would come and you’d be spellbound. They have told you “Kid, you’ll have to pluck her feathers before she gets to whatever life you still have inside of you.” In your wo
rst nightmares your mother begs you for help while the flames burn her naked body; you can see her skin peeling as you hear your father’s grave voice laced with disgust, his strong grip on your shoulder, “Just like a snake.” In your worst nightmares wild animals of the north eat your mother’s raw, pink flesh, her insides scattered across the snow; he made you pick them up and put them in crystal jars. Your father was a collector. In your worst nightmares your mother cradles your infant body against her chest and kisses your temples with her dry lips while you wrap your tiny fingers around her blonde hair. She tells you you have your father’s hands, your father’s eyes, “But you have my heart” she says. You held your mother’s neck with your father’s hands and squeezed, harder and harder, until her emerald eyes popped out. Your father’s tongue licked the black empty holes. His favorite knife, the one with the ancient runes, scalped your mother’s head. In your worst nightmares it’s just you and him, in your old house, quietly drinking your mother’s blood out of tall cups made of gold.
The kid looks like hell. I tell him this, kid you look like hell. He apologizes for the late hour, I slap his shoulder, nonsense, I say, come, come inside. He sits on the couch, hands curled into fists, shaking fists, shaking legs. Kid, what happened? I’m in a tight spot, he tells me. Well aren’t we all. Kid jerks me a nod, I pour us two glasses of scotch. Whatever trouble you’re in, we can get you out. Kid sighs, actually sighs, and it doesn’t take me long to understand it. I whistle. Yeah, he breathes. What’s her name? Lola, Gilda, Delilah, who knows. Kid is hell; She’s possessed by the skies. I bet she is, I tell him. You know what to do. Kid, look at me. Kid. Can’t I just let her go? No dice, she’ll come to haunt you like your mother did to your father. Kid, we warned you, you knew this. I know this. Where is she now? In my bed. Kid, I swallow, you’re playing with fire here. Nothing happened. Nonetheless, you must take care of this immediately. What if I don’t want to? Kid, don’t be stupid. Your father, and me, we used to drink out of the same bottle. I know this. I chuckle, You know everything. I do. Kid won’t stop shaking, I pour us a double. There’s a chance it might not be her, he cries. You wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.
The boy that will be her undoing crawls next to her, carefully not to wake her from her slumber. He doesn’t know that in her dream they’re not only touching but also touching in places her grandmother would never speak of. In her dream the boy’s long, thin fingers caress her breasts as their kisses deepen, she just might explode; he’s better than noise. His tongue tastes of apples and poison, he moans her name and bites her ears, her neck, her divine secrets. The winter sun rises; she opens her eyes out of breath, both hands between her thighs, to find the boy staring at her. For the longest time none of them speak, at least not with their tongues.
“It’s my birthday. That’s why I came here.”
“To celebrate?”
“To live.”
The boy's hand come close to her face, touching her cheekbone ever so slightly, like he had never touched a person before.
“What do you do?” she asks.
“I build coffins.”
“I thought you were a poet.”
“Why would you think that?”
She points at the notebooks at the nightstand.
“I write about my nightmares.”
“Most poets do.”
The three old men stood at the top of the hill with the cemetery at their feet. You couldn’t see them behind the morning fog but they could see you. They could see everything, for this was their job, to watch over the dead. They were the undertakers. John, the oldest, and softer, cared for the gardens. Silas, the quiet middle brother, dug the dirt. And Thanatos, the younger, talked to the bodies. He was a smooth talker, a patient listener, and his task was the most crucial of them all: to keep the bodies from rising. You couldn’t see them now, at the top of the hill, but if you stayed impossibly still you would be able to hear their words, like the fog, creeping.
“The kid gave me the buzz last night. He looked like hell.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened.”
“Jesus. Already? He’s what, twenty one?”
“Who’s the broad?”
“He doesn’t know, she came out of thin air. He thinks she’s from upstate, probably loaded with dough.”
“Won’t the parents rain on us?”
“If the kid delivers…”
“Give him some credit, will you.”
“I’m just saying, he’s too much of a daisy.”
“Listen, I told him where things stood. He’s going to bring us the girl if things get messed up.”
“Poor kid.”
“Yeah but we all knew this was going to happen sooner or later.”
The instructions had been clear: his son ought to kill his one true love. How would he know who is one true love would be, his son had asked, or will I have to kill every person that crosses my path? There was fear in his son’s eyes but he held his chin high with defiant shoulders. He didn’t understand how love is a weakness, how it can bring a God and his kingdom to ruins. You will simply know, the father said, like I did with your mother. When you feel like punching a hole into the earth with your bare hands just to have this woman, you will know. And she, just like your mother, will betray you.
“You will do as I say,” father said.
“You will not disobey me,” father turned around, into the fire, his dog walking at his feet.
“Or you shall never see your mother again.”
If I don’t kill this girl, this girl who came here, out of all things, to live, Silas will not dig me a grave. If I don’t follow my father’s orders he will not grant me death. There is no bigger punishment and he knows it. To live, eternally, only to rot inside with guilt. I thought I could cheat my fate by making sure the whole city knew about my curse; I talked about it in school, I wrote letters to the local newspaper, I kept to myself. I learned not to desire partnership. I exiled myself in such a way and for that I believed my plan would work. For that, I didn’t prepare myself.
“What were you doing at the factory last night?”
“What is this factory.”
“Where we met.”
“I followed the noise.”
“The music.”
“There is no music like that where I come from.”
“It’s called punk,” I couldn’t help but smile. “It’s mostly what we got here. There are no soft sounds in this part of town. This is no place for a girl like you.”
“How can you possibly know what sort of girl I am.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I am important. Just like a harsh sound.”
Outside, on the street, it took exactly fifty eight seconds for the boy that will be her undoing to entwine his fingers with hers. It felt as natural as breathing and neither questioned it. He pulled her hand a little, head down, in a hurry. “Watch out for the cannons,” he said, as if she was carrying precious stones in her pockets. Despite being early morning the sun seemed to be weak unlike at home where it burned brightly and painted your skin darker if you stayed outside for too long. Here, every soul was pale, and they all stared at her with cavernous eyes. “Poor girl,” she heard a female voice whisper. More voices followed, a shapeless choir of pity but also warning, turn back turn back turn back turn back. The boy stopped on his wheels. “We’re here,” he announced. Here was where the boy worked, a decaying cemetery, the biggest she had ever seen. It smelled of moss and roses and wet leaves. “It’s beautiful,” she gasped. Her hands flew to the iron bars of the tall tale gate with excitement, eager to be let in.
“You have to stay here and wait for me,” the boy said.
“But I want to see the tombstones!” she plead.
“Don’t you have cemeteries where you come from.”
“Not like this.”
“Like what then.”
She thought for a second.
“Deathle
ss.”
You could not see the three wise men on top of the hill but they could see you.
“Is that the girl?”
“Why is she still alive?”
“I knew the kid was soft.”
It had not been easy, letting go of her hand, leaving her unprotected at the entrance of hell. But wasn’t he the creature she should fear the most? Wasn’t he the danger itself? She had promised she would wait for him. “Until the very earth under my feet erodes,” had been her exact words. He had looked back at her, this girl dressed in his wool grey sweater and worn out black pants, this girl who looked directly into his eyes, reaching reaching reaching, and smiled innocently, this girl who surely had been carved out of love, this heavenly angel, foolishly waiting for him.
“What did you promise her,” John asked as soon as he reached the top of the hill.
“One day. That’s all I ask.”
“Kid,” They echoed.