《Petal & Husk》


 Prologue

    Prologue, in which two are born and two are reborn


    Georgia, 1976


    The night was thick with humidity. The limbs of beech trees waved slowly in the southern wind, crickets warbling their summer choruses in the grass beneath them. It was early in the season, storms around every corner. That night was no exception.


    The sky blew powerful gales, shaking birds from their branches and forcing children to take cover indoors. Beneath the onslaught of the storm, there was a dram of sunshine to be found. Though, if you asked the nurses on call, they might have a different recollection of what took place that evening in their provincial hospital.


    The mother had gone into labor with an eerie punctuality; she and her husband gliding through the hospital double doors no more than five minutes before her water broke, silently pooling on the reception lobby linoleum. When the nurse behind the desk asked how they¡¯d timed it, he had flashed a dazzling smile.


    ¡°We¡¯ve done this a few times,¡± was all either of them would say, and it came in such convincing tones that soon the nurses left it alone. It was a rare blessing for parents to be this calm and collected in the face of an incoming child. This was a couple who knew their business, they thought.


    And they were beautiful ¡ª not only in their perfect features, smooth skin, and kind voices, but in the way they moved; like synchronized swimmers, dipping and dodging the hospital workers around them, who seemed fumbling clumsily in comparison. When asked to sign her name in, he had produced a pen and slipped it into her hand before she had finished reaching for it. And though she kept her eyes locked on his the entire time, she penned a single word on the dotted line with impeccable handwriting.


    ¡°That¡¯s a lovely name!¡± exclaimed the nurse behind the desk, ¡°Is that Spanish?¡± The mother¡¯s smile was radiant.


    ¡°You know, I¡¯m not sure I remember. Isn¡¯t that funny?¡±


    The couple settled into their room with an air of calm at stark odds with the impending life event. The nurses saw none of the nerves usually associated with bringing a new life into the world, so much so that they saw fit to leave them to it, rather than get in their way. Neither of them said a word once they settled in; him sat next to her bed with her left hand clasped in both of his, and her laying back in bed like she might drift off to sleep. They looked picturesque; two lovers taking a date to a hospital, rather than hospitalization for a birth.


    There was no inkling in the heartbeat, no changes in the vital signs that the nurses monitored to warn of the baby¡¯s coming. One moment there was serenity, the next there was chaos.


    The mother went from silent to screaming loud enough to wake the devil himself in a blink. Her jaws unhinged to force out more air than could fit in her body, teeth snapping together and apart, trying desperately to rend relief from the air itself. The nurses, bless their hearts, rushed to aid her, but were batted away. She swiped at any hand that reached for her, possessing a strength wildly unfitting for her size. The nurses realized they should have insisted when she refused an IV, because when four of them finally wrenched one of her arms down long enough to aim a syringe, her muscles were flexed so tight that the needles snapped against her taut skin.


    Her husband remained calm, planted in a chair in the corner of the room, watching the nurses struggle. They couldn¡¯t hear over his wailing wife, but he hummed quietly to himself.


    The doctor arrived, only mildly concerned for the thrashing woman in the midst of labor. She had not been present when the couple had arrived, and so took this to be little more than a stubborn mother with lofty ideas of her own pain tolerance. The doctor could not know how departed this reaction was from the woman¡¯s original demeanor. The attendant nurses breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the doctor, a much-needed guiding light. Her stern face said, No pregnancy is without complications. We will simply have to give it our best for mother and child.


    Unfortunately for these nurses, even the most experienced resolves can be shattered by the unknown.


    It took a single look at the emerging child to disconnect the doctor from her rational moorings. There was a deformity to the skull, a sharp point at the top of the crown, like a cone was pushing through the scalp. The whole head, as she placed hands on it, was hard, almost sharp at its edges. Her patient on the bed still thrashed wildly, and the nurses had to resort to piling themselves on top of the woman to keep her still. The doctor¡¯s hands were slippery with blood and feces, and the danger of losing hold of the child¡¯s now slick head brought her briefly back to the task at hand. Then the child was out, and the extent of the malady became clear.


    The doctor had to swallow hard to tamp down the bile rising in her throat. This was the most hellish. She wanted to try and find words of comfort, something, anything to prepare the mother for what had happened. She had no explanation for the nightmarish child she held in her hand. Yet when she looked to the mother, she was shocked to see a beaming smile. Teary eyes looked straight at the bundle in the doctor¡¯s arms.


    ¡°He¡¯s¡­beautiful,¡± her voice sounded like dead leaves, hoarse from screaming. The rasp of her voice seemed to unlock something in the room, and the body jerked into motion in the doctor¡¯s arms.


    Then the mother¡¯s head snapped back again, this time howling with a pitch and volume that sent one of the younger nurses running from the room.


    There had been no indication of a second child. The doctor was spurred to action, pushing the wriggling malformity into the arms of one of the remaining nurses. There was another child making its way into this world, and she could not afford to freeze in the face of a continually unfolding nightmare.


    The doctor knelt to assess the situation and was instantly blinded. She thought it was blood, but it was too dark, near black, and no matter how much she wiped her face, she could not get it out of her eyes. There was a writhing shadow that grappled her head, and it blinded her completely, replacing the room with impenetrable nothing. Then there was quiet, and the doctor slept.


    Later that night, a man carried an exhausted woman to a station wagon parked behind the hospital dumpsters, laying her across the backseat with great care. He left for a moment and returned with two blanketed bundles, humming softly. He set his cargo down gingerly beside his wife, started the car, and drove his family home.


    And so it was that the family welcomed Petal and Husk into the world.


    A different area of Georgia, the same night


    The house on the hill stood stoic in the face of the night¡¯s violent unfolding, utterly unmoved by the winds pounding at its doors and windows. It was early yet, only just gone dark, and the house staff had yet to rise for the graveyard shift. All except one.


    G¨¦rard, the butler, groundskeeper, and head of staff, paced the halls with an urgency that felt out of place. He possessed no real reason to believe anything at all was amiss. There had been no noise to rouse him from his bed, no telltale clattering or hushed voices. He had helped the young master entertain those hangers-on who loved nothing more than to listen to a prodigy for a few hours before going back home to their own, more stupid children. He and the young master spoke briefly about school before he had set him pleasantly to bed. And still, G¨¦rard had been awakened by something. Something that had plopped itself down in his chest and poured itself a cup of tea to kill time while he hunted it down.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    So now he stalked the halls; flinging open doors to accuse empty rooms, shifting silently onward to scour for an intrusion that rang in his bones.


    He had looked in every bedroom, peered down every dreary corridor, and yet the dread would not subside. In fact, with each room he cleared, his hackles rose higher, the tension mounting inside until he felt he might burst from it¡ª the one cup of tea hadn¡¯t been enough and the little bastard had put the kettle on! G¨¦rard knew that there was something amiss in the house this night, even if he was incapable of finding it.


    What he found, when he found it, he could never have predicted. For years after this night, he would tell friends and confidants that he still hears the high-pitched tone that pierced his mind when he saw it. Like a whistling kettle.


    The foyer of the house wasn¡¯t austere, but it had a beautiful staircase that led down to a wide balcony in the center of the room. The balcony connected to the second floor before splitting into two separate staircases leading the rest of the way down. It was old and worn, letting out sighs of exhaustion when climbed upon, but the dark wood and curling railings maintained the beauty of their craftsmanship. The high walls were covered with old photos of a long family lineage in ornate wooden frames, interspersed with the occasional antique mask or ceremonial sword obtained on travels throughout the years. Looming double doors at the entrance to the home were inset with ornate glass, which spat twin spearheads of moonlight onto the rug leading from the door to the stairway. Through the doors set into the stair wall were the servants¡¯ quarters, where soon the night staff would be rising and starting their shifts.


    G¨¦rard worried what would happen once that door was opened and they saw what he saw now.


    The blood had stayed on the rug, which was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it was lucky that there would be no stains on the centuries-old wood flooring; on the other hand, the antique rug would never, ever, be clean again. The blood was fresh, but it had already begun soaking into the ancient fibers.


    The heap of viscera used to be a woman, at least from the details G¨¦rard could see in the mess. A pearl earring here, a platform shoe plastered wet with maroon there, a discarded finger with painted nails. A curl of blonde hair clinging sadly to a flap of skin that was once scalp. That unmistakable, cloying smell in the air. While the air was full of the steel of blood that squirmed its way into Gerard¡¯s mouth, there was another smell which confirmed his suspicion. His inhuman nose caught the hint of perfume in the air, like a bouquet of flowers deposited in a butcher¡¯s bin.


    And above the heap of body parts, a single, small figure. G¨¦rard recognized him by the mop of curly black hair that covered his face. He stood almost three feet tall in gray cotton shorts and a short sleeved black button up shirt. The smart black loafers were irreparably ruined by the gore they stood in, incrementally more soiled by the blood dripping down on them from his upturned palms.


    He turned slowly to look up at the butler on the balcony, who was surprised to see his face blooming scarlet. The boy wept.


    The violence was suddenly less disturbing for Gerard in the face of this sobbing child. He had never seen the young master cry.


    ¡°Geddy,¡± his reedy voice came through hiccupping coughs, ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to¡­ I wouldn¡¯t...¡±


    Then the doors to the servant¡¯s quarters kicked open, and all hell broke loose.


    Louisiana, the same night.


    Stanley Skinner woke up on the inside of a dumpster, bruised and beaten. He felt, rather than saw, his thick-rimmed glasses askew on his face. He had been deposited here earlier in the day by his arch-nemesis at school, Theo Norman. Norman was a brute of an eleven-year-old, and enormous, to boot. Stanley would say his frame was evidence he was the last surviving neanderthal, but only when he was out of earshot.


    Earlier that day, Stanley had taken the change he¡¯d saved up over the past weeks to see if he could afford the newest issue of Doom Squad after school. When he found out he was several pinched pennies short, he was crestfallen. It must have shown on his face as well, as the store clerk behind the counter, with his bird¡¯s nest of hair and the lip piercing which both fascinated and perturbed Stanley, reached under the glass countertop and handed Stanley the floppy issue completely free of charge.


    The sun came out on the boy¡¯s bespectacled face and he practically leapt out of the shop with joy (after a good few profuse, blubbering ¡°thank you¡±s to the clerk).


    It is unfortunate that altruistic good so often attracts miserable little bastards, like sharks to blood. Theo Norman had been waiting around the first corner Stanley turned, and if he hadn¡¯t planned on assaulting him before he saw the free and easy grin skipping towards him, that had quickly changed.


    And so now Stanley was awake, covered in garbage juice, and so sore he thought his mother might forgive his usage of one of the softer four letter words.


    With plenty of wincing, in both pain and disgust, Stanley slipped and skidded his way out of the large dumpster. He had just touched feet to the tarmac in the alleyway when he realized what was missing: where was his comic? He had to spend another fifteen minutes back inside the dumpster, which was much harder to get into voluntarily, until he finally found where it had landed.


    He slowly pulled the comic out of the trash. One staple of the binding hung dangerously loose to the pages, bottom corner dripping with that same, indefinable liquid that trash bags create.


    The cover, with its fiery title font, and an image of two heroes laying side-by-side in some sinister lab, looked like¡­ well, it looked like shit, in Stanley¡¯s opinion. Gone was that crisp, untouched sheen. It had been soiled.


    He dove back into the dumpster with practiced ease, just long enough to find the least-disgusting plastic shopping bag. He gingerly placed the comic''s remains inside for safekeeping.


    Stanley was wondering how he would explain his garbage-drenched state to his mother without sending her into a rage to the Norman¡¯s household, when his eye caught on the other dumpster, deeper in the alley.


    It was very faint, he wasn¡¯t even sure he was seeing it, not really, but it looked like a sliver of green light was eking out from under the lid of the other dumpster. There was a smell, separate from the stench he¡¯d been surrounded by before, something sweet; if sugar could go rotten with the same intensity as spoiled meat.


    Now, a rational person might decide this was the appropriate moment to retreat from the alleyway altogether, escaping the glowing, stinking trash, and call the police. Or maybe the CDC, or some other appropriate government agency to go do their job and deal with what lay in the garbage of a strip mall in that town in the South. Anyone rather than one of the town¡¯s children.


    But eleven-year-old Stanley Skinner was not, in that moment, his normal rational self. He was a sad young boy, defeated and disheartened; he had experienced such highs and lows in such a short amount of time that he no longer knew which way was up. To a boy like this, with tears in his eyes and hurt in his heart, the ruined story of his superhuman heroes still drying in a bag in his hand, a glowing dumpster might seem to make a certain sick, cosmic sense.


    -


    Stanley would later tell his mother, tears soaking through bandages in his hospital bed, that the moment he had lifted the lid of that dumpster, it had ¡°¡®sploded.¡± He would beg her not to be mad at him. His mother would weep tears of joy that her sweet little man was safe, saying she forgives him for being so silly, if only he promised to never do it again.


    And when the doctor came in to tell them it seemed very likely that his eyesight would heal perfectly, mother and son clutched one another and wept with joy again, thanking the Lord for the miracle.


    And even when the doctor pulled her aside and made her very nervous talking about impossibilities and things they didn¡¯t understand in an attempt to prepare her for possible complications once the bandages came off, his mother knew he would see again. She swore to care for him through whatever recovery would bring.


    But even that didn¡¯t seem necessary. After a few more days of rest, Stanley had his bandages removed to find that he could see perfectly fine. Moving his eyes was somewhat strange; ticklish, but not painful.


    His mother thought at times they seemed to reflect flat, slate gray, but didn¡¯t want to alarm anyone by mentioning it.


    He would still need new glasses, but colors seemed somehow brighter, the fuzzy forms more defined in some way; he couldn¡¯t tell quite how. The doctor said he would spend one more night in the hospital, just to be sure, and his mother could get him in the afternoon, if he felt up to it. They could even get his new glasses on the way home.


    That night in the hospital, Stanley realized his dreams of an origin story, in a sense. The thing in the dumpster that had so spectacularly ¡°¡®sploded¡± and sent shattered pieces of Stanley¡¯s glasses shooting into his eyes was a certain type of thing, something profoundly weird and not of his world. As it escaped our world through the reflecting panes of glass in Stanley¡¯s frames, it left in its wake twin spirals of gnarled refraction, like horrible non-Euclidean hallways stretching the space from pupil to retina. The resulting detritus was not physical enough to harm his eyes in any way, but it was physical enough that it caught the light differently. The leftovers bent the light as it entered, reflecting and refracting it back onto Stanley¡¯s optic nerve in new ways, unveiling to him things that would to other people¡¯s eyes stay hidden.


    And in the dead of night, among the ill and broken, the dying and the newly-born, a hospital is full of things most people should never see.


    When Stanley Skinner¡¯s mother picked him up the next morning, he was a different boy. The doctors warned her of the possibility of nightmares following his accident. While no change was evident in his sight, he¡¯d had a rough night. He had wet the bed.


    When she walked him to the car, she noticed how he refused to take his eyes off the floor, how he trembled with every breath, and went to great pains to avoid people in the parking lot as they walked out. When he got his new glasses, he didn¡¯t put them on for a good while. Once he had, he studied her face, as if testing her, as if she might be someone different than his own mother. And though his mother passed his scrutiny and he made it home safely, Stanley Skinner¡¯s life was never the same.

 Chapter 1

    Present-day Georgia, the house on the hill


    One hair at a time, Gerard plucked his mustache into symmetrical obedience. The old butler did not wince as he pulled the hairs out, the only sign that he felt it at all being a sharp exhalation from his nose after each pull. An errant breath would sometimes blow the captured strand out of his tweezers, falling to disappear in the fuzz of the bathmat he stood on. This bothered him. He preferred to see the fruits of his labor.


    In his grimy bathroom mirror, Gerard¡¯s gray eyes surveyed his work. He¡¯d always anticipated pulling off the look of a severe older man, and he¡¯d been right. He had the kind of face that belonged to a headmaster of a school for rowdy boys, all sharp cheekbones and enormous, dark pits for eyes. With a face like his, and hair that was mostly suggestive at the best of times, Gerard¡¯s mustache was his remaining bit of vanity.


    It was not a bushy piece of facial hair, nor the curly affair that some other parts of the American South so adored, but it was meticulously even. There was not a hair out of place on either side of his thin mouth, and each one stopped before the place where his lips met. It was an unimpeachable mustache.


    Satisfied with his work, the butler retired his tweezers to the mirror cabinet and moved to the bedroom to begin his stretches.


    His room in the house was uniform, modest without being sparse. The heads of the house had allowed him to decorate on his own, so the bedspread, oval rug, and floor-length curtains over the single window were the same shade of navy blue.


    He began his daily stretches, exhibiting a flexibility that would make a gymnast blush. No man as old as Gerard could twist their body in the ways he could, but then no man was as old as Gerard.


    Once he had sufficiently limbered up, he began to dress for the day¡¯s work. The same white dress shirt with bone buttons beneath a solid blue single-breasted jacket and pants to match. He used to wear a bowtie, but the mockery had gotten to him. Now he wore a thin black tie, as nondescript as he could find.


    He was halfway finished applying his cufflinks¡ªbone to match the buttons¡ªwhen the sound of a crash somewhere in the house interrupted him.


    He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He¡¯d have been more frustrated, were this not the exact same time he had heard the sounds of nonsense arising over the past few mornings. Maybe they were becoming more punctual, after all.


    The butler finished doing up his cuffs and slipped into his favorite black leather shoes. Time to gather the children.


    Husk was the best at seeking. He usually won their morning sessions of hide-and-seek when he was the seeker. He had an uncanny talent for it, born from a natural blessing. Yes, Husk always knew he had been special. His sister¡¯s rubbish hiding spots rarely crossed his mind.


    ¡°Petal?¡± the small 10-year-old creeped through the usual haunts in their shared room. He snatched back the curtains from the window; nothing. He threw the doors to their wardrobe open; nothing! ¡°Petaaaaaaal, where aaaaaare yooooou?¡±


    She might be giving him the runaround now, but Husk knew that his sister would give herself up, eventually. He only had to wait for her to sniffle, or sneeze, or forget what she was doing and wander out of hiding.


    Until then, Husk simply had to keep stomping around seeking for her, as was his specialty.


    After determining that she was nowhere to be found in their room, he passed into the hallway and scurried to the bathroom. His little grubby hands pulled him up over the lip of the claw-footed bathtub to peer into its porcelain bowl. Nothing. Nothing in the towel closet, nothing under the sink, not even anything floating in the toilet water, hopeful though he was.


    Husk was getting very cross now. Surely he had checked all the places where Petal could have hidden. They were strictly forbidden from playing anywhere away from the small top floor of the house they occupied, and he had already seeked the two bedrooms within an inch of their lives.


    He stepped back into the gloomy hallway, hopeful that he had missed a Petal-shaped vase somewhere. But there was nothing out of the ordinary, only the shadows flickering under the lights embedded in the wall.


    If Husk had better eyes, he might have noticed how much darker it was in the hallway than usual. If he weren¡¯t so easily distracted, he may have realized that the lights in the wall should not have been flickering. They were 60 watt lamps, not candles. If he had better luck, he could have noticed the thickening of the air, how his throat had gotten scratchier the longer he stood there. Alas, he was a near-sighted scramble of a child, cursed with the worst luck in the world.


    He still scanned the hallway, trying to catch what he had missed. There, beneath the base of one of the tall lamps at the end of the hall¡ªsomething snagged his attention.


    Something was wedged beneath the heavy lamp, but he struggled to make it out. He was aware now of the feeling in his throat, but his curiosity had overtaken him. Surely, this had to do with where Petal was. He walked deeper into the shadowy hall.


    As he stepped towards it, he saw a pair of familiar black shoes behind the lamp. He lifted the edge of the base, pulled the strange mass from underneath it, and was greeted by the limp face skin of his sister.


    Gerard had one foot on the stair when he heard the scream. It pierced even the butler¡¯s deadened ears, rattling the windows in their panes two floors down. And worse; it was unmistakably Husk.


    By the time the noise abated, Gerard was halfway up the next flight of stairs. On rounding the corner to the last stairwell, slingshotting himself off the banister towards the top floor, the butler came face to face with a child¡¯s skull.


    The lower jaw was missing, and there was a pronounced mound forming a shallow cone at the center of the crown.


    It sniffled, pathetically.


    ¡°She¡¯s cheating,¡± Husk pouted, slumping his tiny shoulders. He was sitting on one of the bottom steps, resting his skeletal head in his flesh-and-bone hands.


    Gerard took a deep inhale through his nostrils, uncurling his body from the hunch he had sprinted upstairs in.


    Husk held his other hand up, offering a strange, sagging, something to the butler. Gerard took it gingerly, delicate as he knew it was, and Husk turned away and sniffled. Without sinuses, Husk couldn¡¯t actually sniffle, but he¡¯d gotten very good at faking it when he wanted it to be clear that he was having a strop.


    ¡°Husk,¡± Gerard knelt down to the young child¡¯s level, ¡°I understand your indignation. Let¡¯s try to remember not to screech quite so loud this early in the morning. Anyone would think the house was burning down, and I do not appreciate being unduly worried.¡±


    His ward tilted his head towards Gerard, but wouldn¡¯t fully look at him.


    ¡°Sorry, Gerard. It was very frightening!¡± Husk turned to look up the stairs into the darkness above, ¡°I hate when she does that. It was only hide-and-seek.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Gerard stood up and tucked his cargo under his arm, ¡°it is disturbing to see Miss Petal ensconced so. I shall see to it.¡± He looked down and saw the little man still churning up a tantrum, affected huffs and puffs accompanying every breath. The butler rolled his eyes.


    ¡°Well¡­ at least you¡¯ve won your game, eh, Husk?¡±


    The boy perked up.


    ¡°Have I?¡±


    ¡°I should think so. Cheaters never prosper, and in our house they certainly don¡¯t win.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Husk hopped up from his seat on the stairs, wiping imaginary tears away with his meaty fists, ¡°well, that¡¯s alright then, isn¡¯t it?¡± He turned a cheery face towards Gerard, the violet pinpricks in his eye sockets twinkling brightly. It was a surprise to the butler how easily the boy shifted his moods. He had always heard children to be implacable in their tantrums, but perhaps that only applied to normals.


    ¡°Very good, young sir. Now, I think it¡¯s time I go and retrieve your sister,¡± Gerard started his way up the steps, ¡°it¡¯s nearly time for breakfast.¡± If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡°Ooh, can I watch?!¡± Husk clasped his hands together and tilted his head up to his caretaker, pleading.


    ¡°Certainly not. It¡¯s dangerous, even for a proper nightmare, like me. Young troublemakers like you should steer clear.¡±


    ¡°Aw!¡± Husk slumped back down on his step, resting the roof of his skeletal mouth in his hands, all set to sulk again, ¡°I never get to watch.¡± Gerard placed a gentle hand on the rising peak of his skull.


    ¡°There, there, Mister Husk. Maybe when you¡¯re my age.¡±


    -


    Gerard came off the stair into pitch black. The house was never afforded much light as a general rule, but the top floor hallway was so dark it looked as though it could be miles underground.


    Balancing the folded parcel in one hand, Gerard used his other hand to extract a lighter from his jacket pocket and flick it open. The meager flame did nothing for the length of shadow he was surrounded by, but it would do for what the butler needed. He waved it slowly from side to side, looking for a change in the void. He called into the darkness.


    ¡°Miss Petal? I believe we¡¯re done with playtime for the morning, if you¡¯d kindly come join us for breakfast. I¡¯m not one to miss my scrambled eggs, you know.¡±


    For a long moment, there was only silence. Then there came a noise like dry leaves against concrete, a whisper falling on him from directly above.


    Gerard¡¯s head whipped up and stared intently into the blackness above. He strained to define the sound, trying to discern words from the rasping noises. It was soft at first, but it built slowly as he focused.


    ¡°¡­WIIIIIIIIINNING¡­¡±


    ¡°Yes, well,¡± the butler could not stifle the shiver that ran along the length of his spine, but he kept his footing, ¡°it¡¯s hardly winning when you¡¯re bloody well cheating, and you know that. Your brother is very upset with you.¡±


    ¡°AHHHH¡­HUSSSSSSSSSK?¡± Gerard pulled at his collar. The air around her had gotten smothering, and he was beginning to get short on breath.


    ¡°Quite,¡± he shifted his hold on his precious cargo, turning it in his hand. He needed to resolve this quickly, ¡°now come down and get dressed so you can apologize for spoiling your game.¡±


    ¡°NOT SSSPOILING! DON¡¯T WANT TO!¡±


    The darkness around Gerard suddenly grew thicker, tightening and flexing like a muscle. The thumb of fire his lighter produced diminished, sinking him further into the sticky shadows. He bristled at the cheekiness of his ward, but also with real tension. There was danger here, and he needed to nip it in the bud.


    ¡°Now, Miss Petal, if you don¡¯t stop this at once, I shall have to tell your mother about your misbehaving.¡±


    ¡°¡­MOTHERRRRR?¡± Gerard¡¯s light ticked up slightly as some of the black shrunk away. He seized his opportunity.


    ¡°Yes, the lady of the house. Somehow I doubt she would approve of your naughtiness, don¡¯t you? You and I both know how she feels when you run around without clothes, don¡¯t we?¡± He flicked open the folded sheaf of delicate material he¡¯d been carrying, letting it unravel to its full length.


    As it unfolded, it revealed itself for what it was: an empty sleeve, shaped like a child-sized wetsuit in the design of a young girl, complete with a head and hair in ginger pigtails. Even to the butler, it was haunting in its emptiness, with open holes at the mouth and eyes, and black bars of undergarments painted onto the skin.


    Once the feet fully unfurled, there was a sharp intake of air from the ceiling and everything moved at once.


    The force of displaced air through the hallway punched the wind out of Gerard, staggering him. As he recovered himself, the hall revealed itself in its normal brightness, the lights on the walls returning to a steady, electric glow. A quiet creak turned his attention to the door to the children¡¯s room, which stood slightly ajar. Through it he could see shadows flickering against the wall, dancing as though in firelight. One of those shadows thickened as Gerard watched, resolving into a solid, inky blackness, filling the bottom four feet of the cracked doorway. From this patch, a small hand punched out into the hallway, flexing open and closed repeatedly with an impatience that rippled its glossy surface.


    ¡°Don¡¯t look!¡± The voice squeaked through, pitchy, accusing, and demonstrably less sinister.


    Gerard flicked his lighter closed and walked his young ward¡¯s skinsuit over to her grasping hand. She snatched it away from him and attempted to slam the door, but the butler laid his hand against it, holding it fast.


    ¡°Now, Petal,¡± Gerard fixed his eyes on the two indents he could see at the top of the small pillar of shadow, ¡°we have talked several times about this sort of behavior, have we not?¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir¡­¡± If a shadow could be ashamed, this one was. He could hear the sound of shuffling feet and there was an impossible blush of shame fading purple across the ebony of her face, ¡°I just!... Husk always wins¡­ and that doesn¡¯t feel very good, and I thought, well, I¡¯ve only really got the one thing that I¡¯m good at to win this sort of game, and I thought it¡¯d be alright if I was careful! I didn¡¯t mean to lose it, I promise, Gerard!¡± The longer she was in contact with her skin, the more grounded Petal became, and the words began to spill out of her in a torrent.


    The old butler sighed. Sometimes, he felt that he had more in common with the average nanny than expected.


    ¡°I understand, Petal. No one likes to lose. But it is not safe for you to do that, you can¡¯t control it. As you get older we can talk about how to use what you can do, but not now. Now it¡¯s too dangerous, and if you do it again, I won¡¯t be the one to bring you back. Do you understand?¡± His gaze bore into her, daring her to disagree.


    ¡°Yes, Gerard. Not ¡®til I¡¯m ready. I¡¯m sorry,¡± the blush in the darkness deepened.


    ¡°Good.¡± The butler gave a single nod and stood. ¡°Now, breakfast is in five minutes. Your brother and I will be waiting for you in the dining room. He turned on his heel and walked coolly to the stairs, leaving the door to creak closed behind him.


    On his way down, the butler gathered Husk and, placing a hand on the back of his bony head, led the boy away from the hallway he was trying to peer into. The little monster looked expectantly up to his wizened watcher.


    ¡°Is there bacon today?¡±


    Exactly four minutes and fifty-three seconds later, the three inhabitants of this peculiarly haunted home sat around a dining room table located just off the kitchen on the first floor.


    Luckily, Petal was back in her human suit, with only the occasionally visible crinkle at the suit¡¯s edges, pigtails laid over her shoulders where she could easily reach them when nervous. The shadows in the room all stayed in their proper places. Unluckily, there was no bacon.


    ¡°Well, children,¡± Gerard dabbed a dot of hot sauce away from the corner of his mouth, ¡°in what ways will you be busying yourself while I¡¯m out today?¡± The children were usually left to their own devices. They were almost never brought outside the house, barring the most dire of emergencies. The people in town still gave Gerard strange looks, and he looked human. Mostly


    ¡°I¡¯m going to be in the garden!¡± Husk was speaking between mouthfuls of eggs, shoveling them under his top row of teeth into whatever passed for a mouth beneath. ¡°I¡¯ve got lots of dead bugs to find.¡±


    Gerard nodded sagely, ¡°Yes, I imagine so, Mister Husk. And what about you, Petal? What are you doing with the day today?¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Petal had already finished her eggs. She didn¡¯t like anyone to see the way she ate, disturbing as it was even beneath the disguise, ¡°I don¡¯t know yet, erm¡­ I¡¯ll probably go in the garden, as well. Get some air.¡±


    ¡°Yes, that sounds excellent, doesn¡¯t it?¡± The butler tried to nod reassuringly at Petal, but she somehow appeared to become less comfortable. Gerard was not the best at bedside manner, but he still liked to make an effort.


    The first few years of being a caregiver had been easy. Every day had been an opportunity to teach his wards something new. Gerard had used some of his early decades to complete a few advanced math degrees, and the twins were quick studies.


    So quick, in fact, that by their tenth year they had exhausted all of the subject material Gerard had prepared for their primary curriculum. They could not only recite the capitals of every state in the country, they also had a basic understanding of each of their different ecologies and economies. They were surprisingly competent in the subjects Gerard thought to put to them, but there were certain subjects that they each took their special shine to.


    Husk could tell from a single discarded clump of fur or fragment of chitin what kind of creature had left it and how long ago. He was endlessly fascinated with how things decompose, and loved spending his days in the garden.


    Petal could hear a person¡¯s accent and determine where they came from, as specific as the county, by the time she was eight. Though a quiet girl, she was always engaged, always watching. She preferred to observe while her brother tore through the shrubs lining the backyard¡¯s edges.


    Gerard often wondered what his two charges would grow to be, with their odd affinities and abilities. But it was not his job to be curious.


    He waited until they had all finished their breakfasts before collecting the plates and loading them into the old dishwasher.


    He came back into the dining room where the twins were finishing tidying up. He stood there patiently, giving them time to finish their post-meal chores. Once they had returned to stand beside their chairs and started the dishwasher, Gerard cleared his throat and pulled out a thick, iron coin from his jacket pocket.


    ¡°Call it in the air, please, Mister Husk,¡± he flicked the coin up powerfully, the metal singing as it somersaulted above him.


    ¡°Heads!¡± the small boy barked out his answer the second the coin jumped. It spiraled back down into Gerard¡¯s hand with a thunk, and the butler opened his fingers to reveal it. On the top of the coin was carved a crude pelvis with laurels framing it on either side.


    ¡°Ah! Tails, I¡¯m afraid, Husk. Petal, you¡¯re in charge of the house while I¡¯m out today,¡± the young boy groaned in disappointment, and Petal allowed herself a small dance to celebrate. ¡°You remember the rules?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir!¡± Petal never forgot the rules, ¡°don¡¯t answer the door. Don¡¯t irreversibly ruin anything in the house. Don¡¯t let anyone see you. And don¡¯t let Husk stink the place up!¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t stink!!¡± Petal had added the last one in, much to Husk¡¯s frustration, but Gerard favored her with a small smile.


    ¡°Be that as it may, Mister Husk, you¡¯ll be good and listen to your sister, won¡¯t you?¡±


    The boy¡¯s hollow eyes cast around the room, looking for any kind of escape from this pending obligation. Finding none, he affected a dramatic sigh.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll listen to Petal.¡± For one without lips, Gerard found him very talented at mumbling when he wanted to.


    ¡°Good man. I¡¯ll be back at the regular time today. Is there anything you¡¯d like while I¡¯m out?¡±


    ¡°Bacon!!!¡±


    ¡°Anything not meat?¡±


    ¡°¡­¡±


    ¡°Very well. Be good, children.¡±

 Chapter 2

    Present-day, Astro Bowl parking lot


    Stanley Skinner was tired of sleeping in the van.


    At first, he¡¯d felt lucky when the owner of the bowling alley, a former friend from high school, had agreed to let him park here overnight. However, waking with a twinge in his neck made it hard to feel grateful.


    Stanley reached up, parting the thick pair of curtains installed over the windows. He winced as the light stabbed him in the face. His glasses were still in the center console up front, but the light didn¡¯t need to be sharp to tell him he¡¯d overslept, again.


    There were several things to do today, and there was no time to doze. Of course, there was nothing he wanted more than to stay on the flimsy mattress pad for just a moment longer. But he had a duty to fulfill.


    While owning his business was a point of pride, Stanley missed living in someone else¡¯s house. No rent to pay. No apartments to lose by not paying rent. No strange things coming out of the woodwork at night to harass him. No supplies to constantly restock. No morning joggers pounding the pavement outside the thin walls of his makeshift bedroom. Being independent had its drawbacks.


    He sat up, wiped sleep from his eyes. The clock hanging from the pegboard read 7:45AM. Only fifteen minutes until the hardware store opened.


    Stanley stretched as much he could and swiped a handful of baby wipes from the dispenser lodged in the backseat cupholder. He certainly missed showers.


    After washing up to an acceptable degree, he dressed in a tan painter¡¯s jumpsuit, thick rubber boots, and nitrile gloves. He brushed his teeth briefly, using a canteen of water and a plastic cup to rinse and spit. The glasses would go on last.


    Having finished his cramped morning routine, Stanley took a deep breath. Then, working his way around the seats, he opened each of the curtains covering his windows, letting the light fill his mobile home base.


    He kept his eyes down until the last window was open, at which point he slowly took in the blurry nightmare that surrounded him. For Stanley, the gift of sight was a double-edged sword.


    The sun blasted white light down on the rectangle of tarmac he was parked in. The trees swayed in the breeze, their green leaves washed out in the brutal sunlight.


    There was a jogger making their way around the lot on the sidewalk, ponytail and headphone cable bouncing in time.


    There was only one occupant on the bus stop bench to the left, where the road ran parallel to the bowling alley. A senior citizen.


    At the doors to the bowling alley, someone fumbled with a keyring. Stanley hadn¡¯t seen an employee with that build before, but the splash of red with a blue stripe was enough to identify the uniform.


    He perched one knee on the console between the front seats and slowly turned his head around, trying to absorb it all. He let the dull shapes float around his visual field. He wasn¡¯t technically on the clock yet, but being your own boss could blur that line.


    The jogger continued to bounce around, passing the senior citizen on the bench with what might have been a wave. The old person did not wave back. The bowling alley employee finally made it inside, the glass door reverberating as it swung shut behind him.


    Stanley was hoping against hope that something would reveal itself without him needing his glasses. The frames were sliding around in his hand, wet with sweat from baking in the sun. He wavered.


    Stanley hated his glasses, despised the clarity that they brought.


    And then, relief.


    The jogger had just made it around the corner when the tree shook. It was the trunk that caught his eye; the wind might be able to shake leaves, but no American Yellowwood had a trunk that serpentined in the air, drawing curly shapes beneath its branches.


    Stanley slid his glasses into his breast pocket. He could keep them off for a little longer.


    He pulled away from the front windshield, careful not to move too quickly. Moving too quickly could rock the van, alerting his prey. He opened one of the tool boxes resting behind the passenger seat, pawing through the contents.


    His hand passed over a thick, heavy contraption, a wooden base with metal mechanisms latched back into a storage position. He had received it from a priest he had met in the first years of his entrepreneurship. That priest had been the one to introduce Stanley to the Clergy. The holy man had been instrumental in professional development, and was kind enough to let him raid his stores in exchange for the occasional freelance assistance. Stanley¡¯s productivity had increased several fold once he had the proper tools for the job.


    The priest had called this contraption a crucible. Something about a holy container for the unholy to burn, and so on. Stanley was of a more mechanical mind.


    He hefted the crucible onto a shoulder. The mental checklist was nearly complete, but he had mere moments. The tight space forced him to move at excruciating speed. It took a long time to turn around enough to reach under the driver¡¯s seat.


    Stanley pulled out a small wooden box. It was a square container, one he had built himself. There was weight to having a hand in the making of your own tools. He opened the brass clasp. Inside was a rank of nine wooden stamps, each topped with a different letter. There was guesswork to this part, but he¡¯d gotten pretty good at discerning his needs from a glance. He was out of time, anyway, so instinct would have to do. He picked one and put it in his free breast pocket.


    The box went back under the seat and Stanley hopped up onto his haunches. One hand onto the sliding door handle, he pressed his eye up to the edge of the left window curtain.


    He hadn¡¯t seen it arrive, but the bus was pulling away. The senior citizen was still on the bench. Stanley couldn¡¯t see the wiggling shape by the tree or in the grass.


    The glasses resting on his chest made themselves known again, his head compiling logic faster than he could control and alighting on them with burning awareness. No time to put it off any longer.


    Balancing the crucible on his thigh, Stanley pulled out his glasses and flicked them open. With his other hand he gripped the handle to the sliding door. He pushed his glasses onto his face.


    The lines inside the van went sharp and he saw his home for the briefest moment. The mattress pad, crushed into the floor space beneath the shelves. Shelves mounted on the walls, packed with a dozen or more red toolboxes. Some were full of more tools like the crucible, others journals Stanley had filled with priceless notes on his clientele. Others still had sealed books or pens that wrote on their own; artifacts above Stanley¡¯s paygrade. Above the shelves, the van was walled with pegboards holding a variety of mundane tools. He had saws and hammers, plumbing hose and pipe wrenches, aerosol misters and paint rollers. There wasn¡¯t a job Stanley couldn¡¯t pretend to be doing. Hanging from the very top line of the pegboard was a line of small cages, wrapped in a blue tarp.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Aw, heck. He knew he¡¯d forgotten something. He hadn¡¯t got something to put it in. Too late now.


    With a single movement, he wrenched open the door, flooding his home with the fraught light of day.


    The senior citizen was still sitting where he¡¯d left them, the curls of gray hair newly textural on the other side of his glasses. He could also see the predator that had been in the tree. It squirmed and flopped in the grass behind the bench.


    It made Stanley¡¯s skin crawl to look at it in full detail, even though it was still a good sixty feet away. It was covered in an oily sheen, overlapping scales shining such a dark green that they looked black against the pale gray of the sidewalk. Stanley saw the single orange eye at the top of the snaking body, roiling with menace as it closed in on its target. Beneath the eye, a vicious mouth dripped sizzling spittle between a cornucopia of teeth. The trail it had chewed through the blades of grass was yellow and dried-out where it had passed. It was now very close to the senior citizen, lifting the front end, the end with all the teeth, towards their turned back.


    When the van door slammed into its open position, the wyrm whipped its head around to face the parking lot. As the snout angled towards the sound, Stanley caught his first glimpse of the putrid pink underbelly between the chitinous plates building the creature¡¯s back and sides.


    He knew where to aim through practice and hard-learned lessons, but the crucible also had an eye of its own. The burnished iron head of the bolt in the chamber had been a dull gray before Stanley opened the door. Now it steamed with heat, burning red-hot as the monster¡¯s soft stomach came into sight. The stored arms flexed out into position, forming a T-shape aimed at the hellish trespasser. Stanley inhaled and exhaled once, hard, and fired.


    The bolt did not fly as much as explode towards the creature, thin flames washing over Stanley on exit. From his point of view, a neon orange line burst across the parking lot, drawing a connection between him and the wyrm. There was another burst of light as it hit the beast, orbs of fire blossoming where the bolt head pierced the gooey flesh of its belly. Stanley could hear meat sizzling, but before he could grimace in disgust, the machine in his hand shifted gear. The neon bar of light resolved into a thick, molten chain that jerked suddenly backwards into motion. The wyrm was yanked from the senior citizen, jaws snapping at the grass as the chain dragged it away from the street and onto the asphalt of the parking lot. The crucible wound the chain back to the van, wrenching it towards Stanley as each glowing link clanked into place.


    Stanley was sweating buckets as he struggled to keep hold of the wooden handholds. The metal was so hot it steamed, and the speed with which it reeled in its catch made it shake and shudder violently. Stanley¡¯s teeth clacked together; he almost bit through his tongue.


    The wyrm was getting closer every second. Its scales kicked up sparks where they skidded over the concrete, adding to the molten fire still dripping from the chain. Stanley couldn¡¯t hear it, but saw the jaws working angrily, clacking open and shut, trying to shift the iron bolt head from its stomach.


    As the crucible neared the end of its chain, Stanley leaned forward and tipped the crossbow down. As the wyrm skittered towards the open door, the new angle brought it up to slam against the edge of the vehicle, crunching its stomach and folding it around the metal floor.


    Careful to hold the crucible steady, its bolt slotted back in the slide but the head still lodged in the wyrm, Stanley pulled his left hand off the handle and clutched the thing at the nape of its scaled neck.


    The wyrm, previously stunned after the impact, now bucked against Stanley¡¯s hold. Rancid spit flicked from its maw onto his coveralls. With one hand, he gripped the monstrosity, the nitrile gloves peeling away from the heat. He released the crucible and fumbled with the wooden block wedged into his breast pocket.


    The thing thrashed again, whipping its tail against his body. Stanley felt an exposed strip of skin above his ankle cut open, a mouth of pain gasping for air. He needed the stamp, now.


    The wooden block finally slid free and he flipped it up to see the symbols carved in the sides. Curling waves wrapped around the bottom half of the stamp. He had no choice but to trust his instincts.


    Stanley jammed the stamp into the eye of the thing and held it in place. The snake shuddered through its entire body and stiffened. Stanley held his grip and his breath, trying desperately to hold onto hope, as well. The thing in his hands spasmed once, twice more, before falling limp on top of him.


    Stanley promptly followed suit, collapsing onto the floor of the van, one hand still clutching the beast¡¯s neck. Instinct scores, yet again.


    Not one to rest overlong, Stanley sat up and, after glancing about for witnesses, slid the van door closed.


    He moved to pull a cage free from the clothesline overhead. He was still shaky, his muscles throbbing and his hand blistered around the monster. Despite his faith in the stamp, he would not risk letting even the slightest pressure off of his client¡¯s neck. Carelessness had cost him enough already. He nearly brought the whole clothesline tumbling down on him as he snapped at carabiners with one hand.


    Once the wyrm was safe inside, he slid the extra deadbolts he had welded on closed, and pulled a stick of blue chalk from the counter. Using the chalk, he filled in the runes needed to enchant his converted cat carrier.


    Stanley was a modern man, with a mind for modality. Whenever he bought a new cage, he would carve the basic building blocks of his charms into them, leaving blank spaces for more specific portions. This way, a little thrice-blessed chalk was all he needed to connect the various sigils in whatever way best suited his client. Bespoke business.


    On this cage, he filled in the empty spaces with dreams of the sea, swirls of ocean current, and beds of seaweed to keep the eel ensorcelled and docile. Once the circuits were successfully closed, Stanley slid the cage beneath one of the workbenches and drew a tarp over top of it.


    Testing the metal for warmth, he lifted the crucible and released the latch that returned its arms to their storage position. Van now secured, he exited through the back door. He was careful to close the door behind him, in case his client was a light sleeper.


    Regaining himself a little, Stanley strode across the tarmac towards the bus stop in his scorched jumpsuit. The senior citizen had not moved an inch during the last three minutes.


    ¡°Well managed, Dolores,¡± Stanley chirped as he stepped onto the sidewalk, scanning this way and that for passersby. Dolores said nothing. Satisfied with his reconnaissance, Stanley walked to the bench and wrapped his arms around her waist. He was feeling for the strips of black fabric he had affixed to the bench the night before.


    ¡°Seems like the Velcro works great!¡± With a swift movement, Stanly lifted the mannequin off the bench, pulling her free from her fasteners and up onto his shoulder.


    As graceful as he could, Stanley ran like hell back to the van. Next time pull the van around, he thought as the dummy¡¯s padding jostled the glasses on his face.


    Stanley had seen the trails of dried-out grass on his second day sleeping in the lot. That was last week. Last night, hehad crept about laying his little trap. Now he thought he might feel a bit more at peace, knowing his neighbors were this much safer, thanks to him. He hoped it might help his sleep.


    He pulled open the sliding door and threw the granny in.


    Rather than step over his newly-deposited colleague, he opted for the other side of the van. He needed to store the stamp.


    Stanley pulled the door only slightly ajar, the presidential mask of Dolores¡¯ face staring at him accusingly from the floor. He reached over her lopsided wig and pulled the box from beneath the seat.


    The square of Sator stamps were his most delicate charms, modest in form to offset their potency. Opening the box, he slid Leviathan¡¯s stamp back into place among its comrades. Stanley made the sign of the cross once, twice, three times, closed the box, and set it back in its compartment. He placed it under the seat; under Dolores¡¯s watchful eye.


    As he slid the door shut again, Stanley heard the door to the bowling alley clatter open. He peeked over the hood of his van to see the same employee who opened standing at the top of the stairs. Stanley had been wrong, he had met this one before. Stanley thought his name might be Devin. He was looking around the lot, and saw Stanley almost at once.


    ¡°Hey, did you hear that?¡±


    ¡°Hear what, sorry?¡± Stanley removed his glasses and began to clean them. He had found the squint came in handy when attempting to feign ignorance. Stanley wasn¡¯t a natural liar.


    ¡°Sounded like a gun went off,¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t hear anything! Might¡¯ve been a car backfiring.¡±


    ¡°Hell of a car¡­¡± maybe-Devin jutted his chin towards Stanley, ¡°they got you working already this morning?¡±


    Stanley was confused until he looked down and saw the streaks of black that slashed his jumpsuit. He put his glasses on and shrugged.


    ¡°No rest for the wicked, I guess.¡±

 Chapter 3

    The highway


    Gerard enjoyed driving. He still drove the family Oldsmobile, a hulking black boat of a vehicle that he had learned to maneuver through the tightest spaces without the slightest scratch.


    He remembered when the interstates began their creep across the countryside in the 60s; he had been a staunch opponent of the idea.


    Man¡¯s most disturbing quality was their ability to proliferate. Any attempt to amplify the speed at which that expansion occurred was a recipe for disaster in Gerard¡¯s mind, even now.


    However, after experiencing the open road himself, his opinion had lost some of its old bite. Now, he maneuvered his car through the Georgia rain with an almost cheery air.


    It felt good in whatever passed for a soul in the old butler, making his way through the world in something so deliciously ominous in form. He was astounded by how many Normals let their children in automobiles. His love for his car was born of his taste of the gothic, but its ability for sudden and indiscriminate violence was certainly a plus. Last time Gerard had checked, the general public was supposed to rally behind the sanctity of their rapid lives. In the driver¡¯s seat, a smirk pulled at one corner of his mustache.


    Not so different, after all. Martin¡¯s voice in his mind drove the corner of a smile back down. For a dead man, his brother-in-law had never quite seemed to finish sodding all the way off. At least, Gerard didn¡¯t feel like he was gone.


    The rain had gone from a drizzle to wide sheets as he¡¯d gotten into town proper.


    No one in town noticed the regularity with which the sun disappeared. It had been at least ten years since they had seen a straight week of clear days. They seemed to accept it in stride, and all the better for them. Even Nasties need groceries.


    Gerard pulled into the grocer¡¯s parking lot, his large hearse wagon groaning as it ascended the slick tarmac of the ramp.


    The first time he¡¯d come here with Martin, the grocer¡¯s had been one of a number of businesses in the strip. Now, Walsh¡¯s had expanded their square footage a great deal, and they were the only business still in operation. A few years ago, the owners had even purchased one of the neighboring stores when it went bust, converting it into a walk-in meat freezer.


    After he¡¯d parked and killed the engine, Gerard pushed out into the rain, one hand held ineffectually overhead. Through the gloom of the storm, Gerard could see the up-lit sign over the store, white letters over chlorophyll green: WALSH¡¯S PRODUCE.


    Michael and Susan Walsh had run the two staple stores in town since before even Martin had lived here. They were each of them in their 60¡¯s, but their bright smiles and lively personalities made them seem barely a fortnight into their middle ages.


    When Gerard made it inside, partially soaked around the edges, it was Michael that greeted him from behind the counter.


    ¡°Mornin¡¯ to ya, Gerard,¡± the old Irishman said his name like his parents had (jer¨Crod) and the butler often caught himself slipping into the brogue when he heard it. ¡°Christ, but your man his lordship doesn¡¯t half love sending you out when it¡¯s pissing it down, don¡¯t he? Hellish timing.¡±


    ¡°And a balmy day to you, Michael. Indeed he does. Er, doesn¡¯t. I think it¡¯s his daft brain. Only remembers things when the weather¡¯s right,¡± Gerard had been drying his hands on a hanky, and brought himself to the counter and offered Michael a dry hand to shake. ¡°Good to see you. chum.¡±


    Despite being a stereotypical Normal, Gerard liked the grocer. Martin had spoken fondly of him. When Gerard took over as caregiver for the twins, he¡¯d gotten to experience Michael firsthand. He was as cheery as he was caustic, and nothing sparked his ire like the affluent.


    ¡°Aw no,¡± Michael shook Gerard¡¯s hand, but his face was twisted, ¡°don¡¯t be calling me that. We can be mates or pals¨Ceven comrades, but don¡¯t be calling me ¡®chum.¡¯ Sure, we¡¯ll be going for some aul croquet next, eh old boy?¡± Gerard laughed heartily, expelling a single sharp breath out of his nostrils.


    ¡°Alright, mate. Yes, it¡¯s true. My employer sends me into the elements too regularly, but you haven¡¯t seen what my day is like when it¡¯s nice out. Nasty.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t envy you, Ged lad. It¡¯s bad enough ye¡¯ve got to do the bidding of some rich tosspot, nevermind all that King¡¯s rubbing off on you,¡± Michael said, shaking his head.


    When Gerard took over, when Martin and Vanessa went away, the story agreed upon was that he butlered for the bedridden millionaire who bought the house on the hill after the previous owners left. It was convenient. Under the old setup, Gerard was usually in the house all night, asleep all day. No one in town was likely to recognize him.


    This had the added benefit of putting him immediately in Michael¡¯s good graces. The self-starting immigrant grocer was always on the side of a working man.


    ¡°With your support, I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll pull through, Mr. Walsh,¡± Gerard said. The grim butler flicked his chin at the paper Michael had on the table. ¡°Anything of note in the local goings-on? You know I don¡¯t get out.¡± Michael unfolded the paper, and Gerard turned away to stalk the aisles. He preferred not to be watched while he shopped.


    ¡°Yer lucky, lad,¡± Michael¡¯s voice came through the paper¡¯s centerfold as Gerard pulled a basket, ¡°This hasn¡¯t got anything half as awful as yesterday¡¯s.¡±


    Michael read a paper a day. He would first make his way through the handful of local newspapers available: the Times, the Tribune, the Chronicle, and the Rest. This usually took him until Wednesday, at which point he began to read whichever rag called to him from the rack by the door. Gerard had once seen him reading a paper called Fun Fungal Facts for Friends, and watched him for signs or symptoms of some mind-bending Nasty for weeks afterward. The man just seemed to need something to read at the counter. Which suited Gerard just fine. He needed something to distract from his grocery list.


    What was the right amount of vegetables to make their diet look believable while not overloading the amount of cannibalism the man-eating plants would suffer?


    He had tried the children on a Normal diet before. It had been too unpredictable. Now they managed to find a safe food option once every few months, but his progress was easily thrown by the children being children, and having child palettes. One day Triscuits were perfect, the next day they made Husk break out in hives. They used to eat carrots with the joy of horses, until they made Petal so gassy that it caused her brother to lose consciousness.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    This week, Gerard needed eggs, corn, and chocolate chips. The chocolate was a compromise. Husk learned of the existence of meat from the brief amount of television he¡¯d caught, but for obvious reasons they were never to eat meat.


    Above all else, Gerard¡¯s duty to the children was to control their potential for bloodlust. Keeping them from the taste of any kind of flesh was one of the surest ways he could think of to keep that side of their nature from them. So, to placate his boneheaded ward: chocolate chips.


    Additionally, he grabbed a random assortment of items from each food group. Spaghetti noodles as grains, a bag of apples for fruit, and a block of cheddar cheese for dairy.


    For himself, Gerard collected an armful of canned tomato soup, to be seasoned to hell and back until palatable. As he foresaw the taste, the pang of thirst that hit him stretched miles between his parched mouth and the shrivel of his stomach. It wasn¡¯t difficult to hold at bay anymore. But it was always worse.


    With a shudder, Gerard stood. He shook nostalgia from his tongue and moved to check out.


    Michael was still telling him how boring today''s paper was. Nothing so helpful as a Normal able to carry on both sides of a conversation for you. Gerard hardly even had a chance to say something suspicious.


    He placed his basket on the counter, and Michael trailed off with a wave of his hand.


    ¡°Sorry for waffling, mate. Got all you need here?¡±


    ¡°Yes, thank you.¡±


    The silence grew between them as Michael rang Gerard up. The butler wasn¡¯t fussed, but he saw Michael''s face. He was twisting up around his lips, the lack of conversation starving him, as though he were drowning on air. Mentally, Gerard let out a sigh.


    ¡°What happened in yesterday¡¯s paper?¡± As soon as Gerard¡¯s voice broke the surface of the silence, Michael gasped like a drowning victim.


    ¡°Ah! What now?¡±


    ¡°You said that yesterday¡¯s paper was awful, or something.¡±


    ¡°Ahh, that,¡± Michael turned his eyes down as he bagged up Gerard¡¯s purchases. ¡°Proper awful, mate. Surprised you haven¡¯t seen on t¡¯news. Them girls what went missing?¡± Gerard shook his head. They didn¡¯t have a television in the house; too much opportunity to absorb violence. ¡°Well anyway, they¡¯ve gone missing from all over, think the count was up to 5, yesterday. All young ¡®uns, barely out of childhood.¡± Michael sucked his teeth, and Gerard thought he sensed a social cue.


    ¡°Terrible stuff,¡± said Gerard. ¡°The police think they¡¯re connected?¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t be sure of that, no. From what t¡¯paper said, the police still aren¡¯t fully convinced it ain¡¯t just kids.¡± Michael slid the last bag over to Gerard, and the butler counted out exact change. The cashier leaned forward onto his elbows on the counter, and spoke in a hushed voice, his white whiskers hovering disturbingly close to Gerard¡¯s hands, ¡°However, I happen to know from a mate down in Thomasville, where one of dem was nicked from, that their parents are after the police for not doin¡¯ their jobs. Properly¡ª calling it negligence. See, the families are saying there¡¯s clear connection between the lot, and they¡¯re scared he¡¯ll strike again!¡± The grocer¡¯s eyes were wide as he leaned back, letting it sink in.


    Gerard finished collecting his groceries and receipt. When he spoke next, he tried his damnedest to sound casual.


    ¡°Where did they say they were taken from, again?¡±


    The setup was always the biggest pain. You could weave as many charms or tripwires as you wanted, no one had ever managed to come up with an easy way to magic up a Mess Room.


    Oh yes, any number of vile Nasties from worlds beyond could be summoned to spit acid or fire or some such on your many enemies, but Satan forbid some wizard pen a dusty old tome on how to get blood out of suede.


    Gerard had gone back for another cache of supplies, but he needn¡¯t have. There was a sizable stock of tarpaulins, duct tape, and rope in what was once servants¡¯ quarters in the house. Buying supplies was a way for Gerard to drum up the momentum he needed to actually do it.


    Unlike his last undertaking, there was no build-up. He¡¯d taken none of the usual preparations, no researching potential loose ends, there were no false identities scrounged up to hide behind as he gathered evidence.


    There were just five missing children and a hunch. He disliked the concept of hunches, but when they were this strong, they were impossible to ignore.


    As Michael had rattled off neighborhoods that had lost a girl over the summer, Gerard had listened, drawing a map in his mind. To make it to each of them in a single night would be impossible. They spanned the width of the Southern half of the state. But if Gerard¡¯s hunch was correct, he wouldn¡¯t need to go that far.


    Monsters¡ªthat is, the monsters that Normals produce¡ªwere always up to some silly rubbish like this.


    Oh, I¡¯m off to do my very own satanic ritual. What shall I use? Should probably be something proper hellish, like a pentagram! The star of Satan himself, muahaha!


    That was how Gerard imagined it.


    You might as well add a bleeding sixth point while you¡¯re at it, lads, he thought to himself, maybe you¡¯ll get lucky and summon the Mashiach!


    But for all his griping, Gerard was secretly relieved. Normals latching onto iconography was dependable. Under the shelter of the open car trunk, he drew out the points Michael had given him in order of the disappearances.


    There, perfectly in the center of this prick¡¯s pentagram, was a remarkably remote steel mill. In fact, he couldn¡¯t be sure, but Gerard thought he knew that mill to be abandoned. He might have even busted a punk here once before, back before the twins were born. He had been out at night more often, then. They began to bleed together after a certain point.


    So, he had to count his curses. It wasn¡¯t that they were wrong to use a pentagram, in any case. What little he retained of Martin¡¯s attempts to teach him magic did include the sacrilegious star, but hardly to the extent the Normals seemed to think.


    Gerard didn¡¯t have especially high regard for the arcane arts. He preferred to work with his hands. But even he knew that among the flavors of magic, shapes didn¡¯t top the list.*


    (*Although, it was a bit of a ¡°low floor/high ceiling¡± situation. Gerard knew that an arcanist focused ONLY on shapes could make even the most primal of Nasties go mad. One needed more than a star loosely factored into the choice of venue for that, though.)


    A trip along two tarmac arteries would lead him to the approximated epicenter. An hour¡¯s journey from the house, at most. He would return home, put the children to bed slightly early, gather what he needed, and be on the road by 9PM.


    There were still some grooms he could raise to patrol the grounds, and the enchantments on the lock would shut the house down if he locked it from outside.


    A sneering voice whispered in his mind. All of his justifications echoed with guilt. Surely the right thing to do wouldn¡¯t need so many excuses.


    He shook the notion from his head, focused on the road ahead. What he was choosing to do was difficult. There were precautions required to do it right. And he did it not for himself, but as a public good.


    This was a habit he¡¯d picked up from (and indulged in) Vanessa. A healthy way to supply his needs while still maintaining the almost-spotless moral record of the family.


    The risks were known, and they were necessary.


    Whatever ritual this plonker had planned, Gerard was sure it wouldn¡¯t kick off until midnight. All of the hours that the Normals thought of as ¡°witching hours¡± were after midnight.


    Silly. As a creature bound by the hours of the sun, it was hard for Gerard to see why witches might make a difference between midnight, or 1AM, or 3AM. But in this case, the knowledge of Normal theatrical tendencies served Gerard well. His schedule was assured.


    I¡¯ll be back in no time.

 Chapter 4

    The House


    Husk loved being in the garden.


    Once, the house¡¯s back patio had opened onto a broad expanse of hill, the yard sloping away from the house and down into the loose forest. But for as long as Husk could remember, the edges had been hemmed in by tall, dense hedges on all sides. The children were free to frolic without fear of being seen.


    Today, the bone-headed boy was through the doors outside almost before Gerard had left the house.


    Husk¡¯s favorite thing was a dead thing. He tried to find something dead every day, if the weather permitted. While Gerard might offer any number of corpses from the family crypts, there was something special about digging up your own. There were pieces of dead bugs, small fragments of bone to find. If he was lucky, he might find a whole person one day!


    Far back as he could remember, Husk had been called a necromancer. Gerard often impressed upon him the terrible power of his inherited art, most unholy of magics. From his father, apparently.


    Despite his caretaker¡¯s best attempts, Husk wasn¡¯t very interested in his potential. It had never fit him. He hadn¡¯t raised any dead, or blurred the lines between life and death, besides where his head joined his neck.


    He just liked to make friends that looked like him; a bit of both!


    But it wasn¡¯t just the potential of new friends drawing him down. Husk loved the way the dirt felt. The seemingly solid soil breaking beneath his nails.


    Without eyes, ears, or a nose, Husk¡¯s senses were weak approximations, powered by latent necromantic magic in his skull. That¡¯s what Gerard thought. His sense of touch, however, was the genuine article. Touch was how Husk met the world.


    The garden was covered in pairs of holes where Husk had plunged his arms up to the elbows in the dirt. He would stand there, content to spend several minutes sifting through all the different things he could feel underground.


    Once satisfied, he would slowly pull them up, careful not to collapse the short tunnels he had made, before bounding away to the next dig site.


    He adored feeling new things: a different type of grass with thicker blades; the varying fuzz on the backs of different bees; the cool, smooth stone of the house, where it turned to rough, choppy bricks at the bottom. The way things felt was the best!


    Gerard hadn¡¯t realized Husk sensed differently until the twins were five. Husk could remember the tests.


    They¡¯d been doing paints. The butler had noticed Husk mistaking the blue, the purple, and the black pots. Gerard had been nervous, terrified almost. But at the end of many examinations, Gerard was reassured the boy was in no danger. He was just different.


    As far as his caretaker could tell, Husk¡¯s sense of touch was exceptionally sensitive. His skull was mostly numb, but from the neck down he was so in tune that he felt even the lightest contact. Even a light pinch was enough to set him howling.


    Husk had adapted quickly, once Gerard explained. Before, he might stub his toe and sob for an hour. Now, thanks to his time in the garden, he knew how to retract the hand that found thorns before it bled.


    It was harder this way. Husk preferred to rush into things, favored leaping over looking. But that was then. He had been 5, a baby. Now he was basically an adult.


    After plunging an even dozen pairs of holes in the dirt, Husk went down on hands and knees. Satisfied with the soil caked on his forearms, now it was time to find friends.


    In the remaining grass, Husk passed what passed for eyes past the different pieces of detritus that littered the garden. He scurried like a squirrel, kicking up grass behind him as he went.


    There were, as always, dead flowers in pieces and parts, fallen from atop the hedgerows. There were signs of bug activity¨Cclippings of wings and the odd discarded limb. There was a new pile of droppings, possibly from a stray cat or raccoon. Sometimes it helped to not have a nose.


    At the back-right corner of the garden, Husk stopped. There, poking through the blades of green, was a patch of dusty orange.


    Carefully, quietly, Husk lifted himself onto his knees. He kept one violet eye on the new intruder.


    He crept slowly towards it. It didn¡¯t seem to be alive, but it was hard to tell. If it sprang up, Husk would leave it alone. He didn¡¯t care about the living.


    The boy drew closer and more color emerged. The orange patch grew, stippled in a way Husk couldn¡¯t discern. Soon, a brown edge walked off the bottom edge of orange, and Husk saw a perfect, black circle¨Cthe orb of a beady eye.


    Husk¡¯s fingers parted the grass to reveal a small, dead bird.


    From the second-floor window, Petal could see her brother¡¯s bony head bobbing back and forth across the garden.


    She didn¡¯t share his love of the outdoors. It was sometimes enjoyable to watch him from the window, safe from the draining sun. But Petal knew why he rushed to the garden so quickly as of late. And that made it harder to enjoy.


    Petal had always known she had magic. Hard to ignore, with a body like hers.


    At least Husk¡¯s head was the only odd part of him. If he were caught outside the house somehow, Normals might believe he was wearing a mask. Not Petal.


    Nevermind the boundless shadow that she became outside of her suit, the suit itself only ever convinced Normals because they¡¯re stupid, and only see what they want to believe. If they could really see her, they¡¯d scream their little heads off. She knew because it had happened, once. Gerard had made her promise not to brood in the windows facing the street, after that. Not her fault some moony Normal mistook her for a damsel in distress.


    Petal knew what she looked like. She didn¡¯t look like a normal girl. She looked like the daughter of a scarecrow, inside her suit.


    Gerard had tried his best, but he wasn¡¯t a seamster. And it wasn¡¯t as if being one would even help: from the patterns he¡¯d brought back from the store, Petal could tell there was precious little information on the best ways to create a person suit.


    So Petal had never thought she was normal.


    She looked back into the house extending behind her. In the foyer beneath her, there was a grandfather clock; a dark and imposing block of wood in the corner furthest from the stairs. It cast a shadow even in the dim light that leaked through the front doors.


    When she looked into the heart of the shadow, she thought she could feel it reaching for her.


    She didn¡¯t see anything, so instead Petal imagined the hand stretching out to her, bridging the distance between the deepest dark and where she stood at the balcony rail.


    She brought her hand out, trying to hold it where she thought the hands would meet. She thought of hide and seek this morning. The freedom when she didn¡¯t have to fit into a shape. The calm that washed over her in shadow.


    Petal strained and flexed her gloved hand toward the darkness, holding it up until it felt like it was going to fall off.


    Still, nothing reached out to her.


    She dropped her arm, trying not to let out a huff. The house was quiet.


    The floorboards creaked under her feet, echoing in the dark as she made her way up to her room.


    Husk had broken into the greenhouse again.


    On discovering The Bird, whom he was tentatively naming ¡°Birdie,¡± the little monster had scurried to the greenhouse at once. Instead of heading for the door, he snuck around to the opposite wall; the one against the hedgerow. There, he found the secret loose panel that he had pulled away from its neighbors during his youth. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Once in position, he pulled the glass panel away from its housing, leaving a window slightly above skull-height. Through an incredible feat of acrobatics, Husk vaulted himself over the window¡¯s edge onto the table within¡ªall while holding Birdie carefully in one grubby hand.


    Now inside, Husk went to the most secret of his hiding places; the rusty biscuit tin, unearthed in the garden. When he had first found it, it had been full of spools and bobbins wrapped in disintegrating thread. Now, it was full of treasure.


    Pulling away the lid, the Husk took stock of his collection. There were four bones (rabbit, bird, snake, and the jaw of a raccoon), an almost-complete exoskeleton of a cicada, a three-inch-long piece of snakeskin, and a single, pristine fox tooth.


    Husk loved his treasure.


    Skinny was first to arrive. He¡¯d found it difficult to open up. Husk didn¡¯t mind. He was happy to pass his fingers over each small, bubbly section of Skinny¡¯s papery body. As he ran his fingertips over the flaky detritus, he found himself thinking about the moment, the day that the skin had stopped being a part of the vital body¡ªSkinny¡¯s body.


    It was the first snakeskin he¡¯d seen, and the first dead thing he¡¯d ever touched. Husk had slipped his prize back into its hiding place and thought nothing of it. Until there was a similar experience with the carapace, Husk Jr.


    During a science lesson, Gerard had told Husk that sometimes an empty body or a shell was called a husk. He had been waiting for a proper name to appear since he had found the shell on the patio step, as Shelly seemed girly and Buggy felt rude, and he leapt at the chance to create a junior.


    Once he could steal a moment alone in the greenhouse, Husk had held his progeny over his head and declared his name with not a little ceremony. Gerard had told him all necromancers did rituals, even for small stuff.


    Again, Husk was struck with an image. This time it was much more detailed.


    His son was under pressure, being pushed on from all directions. The pressure kept building until it felt as though he were being pushed from the inside out. Then, Husk Jr felt the most shocking, tearing pain. It felt as if the world was splitting apart. And then it was over, and Husk Jr had been having a lie-down in the grass ever since.


    Husk Sr, while a model father and actively blossoming necropath of some magnitude, was only 8 when this occurred. He could make neither heads nor tails of his overactive imagination. He hadn¡¯t felt any of the pain he envisioned his son going through, but being so close to it had been not very nice.


    Husk had chills for the first time in his life that day. He did not like it.


    The feeling was exacerbated when he looked down to find Husk Jr standing up in the biscuit tin, balancing on end, his hollow antennae pointing impossibly skyward.


    Husk Sr had stared at him for barely a moment before Jr tipped over and resumed his typical relation to gravity, rocking as he came to a rest.


    Husk had gotten the lid on and kicked the tin under the table before the momentum faded. He didn¡¯t go in the greenhouse for weeks after that.


    It wasn¡¯t until he found Rupert¡¯s jawbone that Husk began to see.


    Rupert the raccoon¡¯s jawbone had risen from the soil after a particularly torrential  rain during Husk¡¯s eighth year. Not being the type to practice caution, the moment he¡¯d seen it, Husk had rushed over and picked it up.


    As his hand wrapped around the small bone, the world around him faltered and Rupert came rushing in.


    Rupert had been a massive raccoon. The type that made you curious about the contents of the neighborhood''s garbage cans. He had reveled in being a scourge while he¡¯d been alive. When he was growing up, his turf was terrorized by a stray dog, Venus. Rupert learned from her example the way to intimidate scavengers into sharing, how to show yourself to humans in the way that would unnerve them most, to create a reputation among those who cooked meat and fish in their puny fields.


    Rupert had bided his time, growing fat on banana peels and the occasional sugary treat stolen from the schoolyard.


    Oh, but when the weekend of the loud noises above came and Venus vanished, raccoons were living large. With no larger mammals to rule the roost, Rupert seized power in his tiny hand. He grew so brazen as to walk in the streets. After all, who would question him?


    That was until he was struck down by the enormous black demon that came on blurring feet and belching poison. Rupert had gone from road king to roadkill after a fortnight at the top.


    When the demon stopped, its enormously wide arse blushing with the effort, Rupert thought he might still be saved. But the man-thing that stepped down from the demon and approached him only clicked his tongue and took Rupert¡¯s body with him.


    This person¡ªRupert was dead, and though he could no longer smell or hear or see, the spirit has a funny way of approximating what it has recently lost¡ªdidn¡¯t smell right.


    Rupert thought it was a man. The men-people often grew fur over their mouths, and that seemed to be all the fur this fellow had. And he was cold. When his hands had held him, Rupert felt them close around him like stone. He held out hope that he might be saved by this non-person.


    When the demon came to the building on the hill, the non-person gathered Rupert¡¯s remains and whisked them around the rear. There, a patch of yard was chopped out of the ground with a single stroke of an arm. Rupert was unceremoniously chucked inside, and a blanket of sod was slid over his limp body. There he moldered and decomposed, his skeleton eventually breaking apart and shifting around, until this very moment, and Husk was back in the garden.


    Husk dropped the jaw. He stood there, staring at it in the dirt.


    This went well beyond the imagination of a little boy, even to the little boy in question. Again he had felt something close to real when he saw those images. Though the collision with the demon didn¡¯t hurt, it had been extremely unpleasant.


    What was even more upsetting was that Husk recognized the demon. It was Gerard¡¯s car. Had Gerard killed Rupert? Husk hadn¡¯t been able to see well after Rupert died, but the mustache and the car together seemed irrefutable.


    Husk sat motionless in the garden for a time after that. As the twins weren¡¯t technically alive, time felt a bit different for them. It was easy for Husk to pass an afternoon outside, propped up on his haunches, watching the jawbone like a riled cat.


    He only came back to himself when he heard Gerard¡¯s car pulling up the drive.


    Husk scrambled then. He was afraid of the bone piece, but even more than that, he wanted it. He couldn¡¯t risk losing it. Besides, Husk was in no rush to reveal his new abilities to the older monster. But Gerard was very strict about not going into the greenhouse.


    He and Petal had confided in one another that despite the excitement Gerard built up around their monstrous evolution, they both felt nervous. They were 7 when they¡¯d that conversation, and Husk was 8 when he found Rupert. Now he was 10, the age Gerard had predicted they¡¯d start to show signs. And 10 was halfway to 20, which was the same as being halfway to DEAD. Petal had reminded him that they were already kind of dead, but the panic remained.


    Back in the garden, Husk, reluctant to touch the jawbone with his skin again, kicked it along the yard towards the greenhouse, relying on his velcro sneakers to protect him. Rather than try and take Rupert up through the secret panel, Husk elected to keep him safe under one of the stepping stones that lead to the greenhouse door.


    Once he had ¡ªextremely carefully¡ªkicked Rupert under a stone and set it back down on him, letting the weight push the bone into the soil, Husk had scurried back to the house.


    He was questioned, of course. The children were expected to have tidied by the time Gerard got home in the evening.


    (At the same time, the butler expected a certain degree of mischief from his charges, and Husk got away with only a minor interrogation.)


    That night, under the cover of darkness, Husk had whispered to Petal the details of his vision of Rupert¡¯s death. After listening, Petal asked him whether he planned to tell Gerard, and Husk was quiet for a while.


    ¡°Yes. Of course I do. Eventually. Just¡­¡±


    After another moment, his sister shifted in the bunk below him. Husk slept on the top bunk because he was oldest.


    ¡°Just what?¡±


    Husk held his hand up. He saw passably in the dark, and he watched the way his skin bent when he flexed his fingers.


    ¡°It¡¯s not what I expected. I¡¯ll tell, obviously. I just want to know what I¡¯m telling. It didn¡¯t feel¡­ right.¡±


    Husk swung his outstretched hand over the side of his bunk, dangling a pinky into space.


    ¡°Promise you won¡¯t tell,¡± Petal¡¯s pinky found his in the dark.


    ¡°I promise.¡±


    And so, Husk had tried to practice in secret as best he could. He gathered more treasures in his tin, each of them singing the ballads of their demises in his mind. For all he tried though, he could not produce more of an effect on the remains than the same brief balance-at-attention that he had first seen in Husk Jr.


    So far as Husk could tell, necromancy was the sort of magic that was meant to create nightmares: raising skeletons and zombies, or disintegrating Normals with barely a glance. He found his other bones and learned their stories, but that was all there ever was. The tooth hadn¡¯t even moved. He hadn¡¯t expected there to be so many feelings. Some days, after watching a memory, it was all Husk could do to keep from lying down in the grass himself.


    But today was different. He had never found a whole body before. Birdy would be his very first zombie. It had to be perfect.


    First, he cleared a small section of floor, kicking aside dried leaves and old snail shells. Then, he arranged his other children in a circle, creating a macabre clock face out of the remains. Finally, he gingerly placed Birdy down on her side in the center of the circle, using an old rag so as to avoid skin contact.


    There was only a single break in her form: a small gap in her side, framing three slashes of white bone. Husk imagined that hole was the window through which he would spy the secrets of his magic, currently imprisoned in the bars of her ribs.


    Once everything was in place, the grimy boy sat and drank the scene in. There was a hallowed feeling to this moment, and though Husk wasn¡¯t sure how best to pay respect to it, he knew he would want to remember it. He tried to memorize the way the dim light of the overcast day filled the greenhouse around him. The tracks his tennis-shoed feet had left outside the bounds of his ritual circle. The various states of bloom on display through the plants Gerard kept on the counters and hanging from the ceiling.


    Only when he was satisfied with his mental snapshot did he look back to Birdie, and reach out a hand to touch her.


    When the vision came to him, he was ready for it. He breathed one gulp of fresh, bright air, and then he was gliding through open air.

 Chapter 5

    The House, that evening


    Husk was lucky; Gerard was preoccupied at dinner.


    What they called the second meal of the day varied. When your day starts at noon, when was lunch? This meal was dinner because Gerard called it such.


    During dinner, it was easy for Petal to stay quiet. She preferred not to be the center of attention, and the two gentlemen she ate with respected her privacy as often as possible, especially when she was eating.


    Had Gerard been less wrapped up in his own mind, he might have noticed how far Husk got through his meal without an exclamation of any kind. Most unnatural for any 10-year-old boy, nevermind this one in particular.


    At a certain point, Husk had been so quiet for so long that even Petal took notice. She kicked her brother sharply under the table, and after a brief yelp of pain, he deciphered her featureless glare and caught wise.


    ¡°Ah! Ah, I uh¡­I wish we were having risotto!¡± Husk said, pushing the cheesy spaghetti Gerard had made around the plate emphatically, ¡°Spaghetti is so booooring.¡±


    Gerard only grunted, dabbing at the line of tomato soup that settled on his mustache before speaking. ¡°We shall have to wait until Wednesday, young Husk. A steady schedule is tantamount to a healthy diet.¡±


    Husk threw his skull back and spewed a dramatic recreation of a sigh. Then, once he was sure that Gerard had returned to his plate, Husk snuck a peek at his sister. She was organizing her own plate with her head down, but as Husk looked up at her, she slowly slid her other hand up so only he could see her upstretched thumb: mission success.


    After the appropriate amount of time eating or at least moving their dinner and the minimum required questions from their caregiver about their day had been answered, the twins slid out of their chairs and cleared their dirty dishes. They stood at attention behind their chairs for a while. They almost never left dinner before Gerard finished. Neither of them felt quite confident in their position to ask for an early dismissal, so there was nothing to do to wait.


    Or, that was what Husk thought. Petal surprised him and Gerard when she spoke.


    ¡°Is there anything else we can help with before we get ready for bed, Gerard?¡± To Gerard, the sound of her voice, clear and high, was like a pail of water thrown in his face. He had been lost in thought, staring ahead through the high, narrow windows above the sink. He came back to the room to realize the twins had cleaned their plates away without him noticing.


    ¡°Oh. Erm, no. Thank you, Petal.¡± Gerard tried not to stare at the girl, but he found it difficult. It wasn¡¯t as though she never spoke, but it was rare to hear her project so well. ¡°Ah, and well done tidying your plates up. I can easily finish cleaning up for the evening. You may retire early, if you¡¯d like.¡±


    The twins only squirmed with excitement a little as they thanked Gerard and headed towards the stairs. Their caretaker followed them part of the way, stopping in the foyer at the foot of the stairs to watch them go up.


    ¡°Does anyone need me to come up later to put them to bed?¡± They were old enough now not to always need it, but it was an old habit of his he hadn¡¯t been able to break. They responded in unison, as usual.


    ¡°No thanks. Goodnight!¡±


    ¡°Very well. Goodnight, children!¡± As the twins scurried up to their floor, Gerard couldn¡¯t help but feel a little guilty. He had been distracted at dinner. He hoped the ease with which they went down for the evening didn¡¯t have to do with his behavior. Maybe tomorrow they could do something special together, to make it up to them. He loosened his bowtie and went to clean up.


    He couldn¡¯t know that they fled not from him, but towards the secrets of Husk¡¯s greenhouse ritual.


    By night, driving became significantly less sufferable for Gerard.


    Oh sure, by day it¡¯s bearable enough, when his freedom of movement was already limited by the light of the blasted sun, but at night the car felt slower than a sleeping snail. However, with his necessary cargo packed nearly into the trunk, the car was really his only option. It was one thing for a Normal to see a shadowy, animalistic figure flitting through the streets and get a bit of a fright that they rarely thought of again; it was another thing entirely for them to see that same shadowy figure tromping around with a pack twice their height strapped to their back and teetering back and forth as he balanced. There was a limit to the strangeness that would swallow before they decided they needed to do something about it, or even worse, call someone else to do something about it.


    And so, he drove on. His headlights chopped a yellow pie slice out of the road ahead of him, the lines feeding monotonously into the car beneath him


    He tried not to think about how hungry he was.


    Stanley had no idea where he was going tonight. There had been a brief outline provided, as ever. But this one had been spectacularly brief.


    Bodies found mutilated in unclaimed territory, marked below. Proceed with the utmost caution.


    When he¡¯d peeled it out, he hadn¡¯t thought much of it, just gathered the usual bells and whistles and set his mind for the task ahead. The coordinates put him smack in the middle of nowhere, some kind of metalworks or warehouse¨Cit didn¡¯t really matter. He¡¯d planned the route out on his map and began driving, but it didn¡¯t take long before he stopped focusing on the road. He kept thinking about the note.


    Were the clergy ever so curt? Stanley chewed on his cheek. Typically, the amount of details they left behind for him bordered on the absurd.


    The false cigarette disposal bins outside a number of churches across the country, recognizable only by the small indigo cross stenciled on the North face. One of these butt boxes stood in front of a church in Marion county that Stanley¡¯s Auntie had let him know about. Usually, the small scroll he unspooled from within the box¡¯s opening stretched at least the length of his forearm. The clergy all worked together to prepare assignment outlines. This was useful for gathering the wisdom of the many minds they counted among their members. It was less useful for the chaotic hodgepodge of detail, advice, blessings, and preemptive corrections.


    Remember ample holy water. And don¡¯t try to bless it once you get there, be prepared!


    Approach only under the light of day; if you go at night, you¡¯ll face the entire nest at once. Best to ambush during the day, when the fewest of them are awake.


    On your way home, please grab some honey from the nuns in Quincy. I¡¯ll have cookies ready for your return, and their honey is the best for tea.


    It wasn¡¯t even necessarily that the clergy were verbose, though they certainly were. It was impossible for so many voices to converge on a single message. It had seemed impossible.


    Stanley had been worried it was something he had done. Could he have somehow soured this relationship between him and the church? He couldn¡¯t think of anything. In fact, if he was being honest, it made him uncomfortable at times how much of a fuss they made over him. To say they liked to dote on him during his rare visits to the diocese was an understatement. It was like a crowd made up entirely of smothering Aunties, only instead of his Mother¡¯s saccharine sisters, they were wrinkly old priests. All the clergy were a good deal older than him, and apparently always had been.


    When Stanley first encountered the diocese, a few years ago now, their field operations had dwindled and died, leaving them to scribble and scurry around their hermitage.


    The information they gathered was very valuable for Stanley¡¯s work, so any rift between them would be problematic. But for the clergy, his ability to survive through a few good doses of blunt force trauma was of incomparable value to their mission. He was a necessary asset to them. He only knew of one other freelancer actively working for the clergy, Jalissa, but she stuck to a diocese in the West coast as far as he knew.


    It was hard to imagine them turning a cold shoulder on half of their workforce, even if said half sometimes treated his monster hunting as a job and not as some sort of crusade, or trial, or holy mission. If he was being honest with himself, he had to stop himself from having too much fun with this gig. The careers counselor at school used to admonish his love of comics, but they ended up being closer to accurate than any trade school pamphlet he¡¯d ever been given.


    Stanley took a deep breath, trying to bring his focus back to the road. He wouldn¡¯t be having any fun this evening. His knuckles rose up from clutching hands; eight cats raising their hackles in fear at the night in front of him.


    If the clergy weren¡¯t being curt with him when they wrote this missive, then they were being ominous on purpose. Because they were worried. They were scared.


    Proceed with the utmost caution.


    The kind of work he did meant that he was no stranger to danger, even sometimes a potentially lethal amount.


    But apparently, whatever he was now heading towards was more frightening than any of the dangers he had faced before in the eyes of his benefactors.


    Stanley typically respected the clergy¡¯s need for secrecy. For obvious reasons, the priests couldn¡¯t let the general public know the finer details of their work. Without the ability to see the targets of their particular ministrations, the average onlooker would see the clergy as a cult of batty seniors in not-so-fancy dress. Deeper than that, when the first diocese was founded, they were more of a protection business than anything else.


    Their oldest relics came from the time of the crusades. Unassuming mantles and wood-plank shields used to guard pagans and Jews from spilled-over holy violence. Almost a full century of development of the most magical sheets and cloaks under which the clergy protected the secrets of their wards. Stanley liked to browse the dusty shelves of relics when he visited. It was like a trip to a museum.


    Stanley sucked his teeth, tasted salt from the line of sweat settling over his top lip. The night was warm, and the van was a little old for air conditioning. He had to wipe his hands on his coverall legs to stop them sliding on the wheel.


    He checked the clock. He should arrive in thirty minutes. The night still stretched before him, unswayed by his mental anguish.


    Truly, Stanley understood the need for secrecy. Most of the time. Usually. But at this moment, trundling through the dark Southern countryside, their omission of details only fed Stanley¡¯s worst imaginings.


    Inhaling slowly, he fought to tamp down the lump of bile rising in his throat. As he exhaled, he pulled a cassette at random from the center console and slid it into the tape deck.


    The deck whirred and he continued to breathe, timing himself by the strips of road paint vanishing beneath the windshield. His breath training was only good for pausing a panic exactly where it was. The moment he got distracted or switched back to automatic breathing, he¡¯d be off to the races again. Music was a more lasting antidote. It let him experience time in a way separated from impending doom, real or imagined. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    When the first sounds of Raising Hell ground their way out through the van¡¯s speakers, Stanley could breathe a little easier. His hands, though shaky, drummed loosely along to the beat over the steering wheel. Run-D.M.C. would make 30 minutes survivable. Whatever came after that, he would deal with it.


    A gurgle rippled up his body from his stomach.


    Shoot. He should have eaten.


    As soon as Gerard had left the drive, Petal was in Husk¡¯s bunk, her knees tucked up to her chin, her eyeholes glittering with anticipation.


    Husk couldn¡¯t stop himself from flinching a little when she appeared. She moved so quickly in the dark, even in her costume.


    ¡°Go on then,¡± even aware no one was home, Petal still whispered, ¡°Tell me everything.¡±


    Husk sat up in his bunk, his penguin pajamas rustling against the sheets as he did.


    ¡°Alright, then. But no interrupting!¡± And he told her everything.


    Birdie had been shot. Luckily, she had barely felt it, but it had still come as quite a shock, for her and Husk both.


    Birdie was a Carolina wren, one of a family of six who had moved South from her parents¡¯ nest in North Carolina. They tended to dense, wooded areas, but Birdie could not deny her love of the wide-open air.


    There was no substitute, no amount of safety¡¯s reassuring whisper in her breast, that could outweigh the joy of submerging herself in sky.


    Her wings would pump and flex, her feathers ticking with every minute change in the wind, her bones ringing from within at the lightness of atmosphere, until she burst through a cloud or reached her own limits. Then Birdie would surrender to the void below, spinning and careening in freefall, her heart singing loud in her chest.


    She never saw what hit her. There had been no sound, no evidence of an attack. One moment she was flying, the next she was dead; in a freefall that felt like sinking. Birdie had no way to know whose back garden she¡¯d fallen into, only that her sick, sinking-falling feeling ended abruptly in a forgiving collapse of grass, and that was where she¡¯d stayed for some time before Husk found her.


    When Husk came back to his own body, he did not move right away. He did not want to look at Birdie¡¯s body, he didn¡¯t want to be back in the greenhouse. He felt so sad.


    He always felt sad after watching the last memories of his new friends. In the transition between life and death, he felt the fear that wracked their minds. Fear of everything ending, fear of something worse. Birdie was afraid to never fly again.


    Husk didn¡¯t know how to, but he wanted to let them know it would be alright. Everyone was fine afterwards. They all seemed to have experienced bits of their post-mortem journey, to some extent.


    But then again, Husk had no way of knowing whether his new friends saw the moments between their deaths and his arrival, or if that was something he was doing.


    Husk didn¡¯t know what he was doing.


    Something clicked against the ground ahead of him, bringing him back to the greenhouse. He kept his eyes closed. It usually happened like this, afterwards. Experiencing the world through the senses of a small animal, then experiencing that animal¡¯s subsequent death, only to then be promptly booted back into his own, barely sensate skin left Husk dazed. He liked to take a moment to check in with the different parts of his body.


    The flying didn¡¯t help. He had never felt anything like that before.


    But there was another reason he hadn¡¯t looked up yet. Even once he had come back into his own body, Husk only opened his eyes to look down at his feet.


    Husk was nervous.


    This magic felt weird. Not bad, necessarily. But definitely not what he thought necromancy would feel like. He didn¡¯t think it was meant to make him so sad all the time.


    Birdie was the first full body Husk had found, ever. If he looked up and she was only standing at attention like his other, partial progeny. Husk might quit being a wizard forever.


    After what felt like a week, Husk slowly lifted his eyes. There, still in the center of his refuse ritual circle, Birdie stood tall and proud, looking straight at her father.


    Husk waited. Birdie did not move. Husk replicated one of Gerard¡¯s favorite Normal gestures, bringing his chest up and dropping it again with an exhalation; an undead approximation of the sigh. Maybe Husk could get a Normal job that didn¡¯t require anyone to see him. The first Nasty night janitor.


    He stepped closer to Birdie, and she hopped away from him, clear outside the bounds of the ritual circle.


    Husk gasped involuntarily, making the sound and all. Birdie¡¯s head cocked to one side.


    They passed another half minute like this: Birdies dun, lifeless eyes fixed on Husk at a slanted angle, Husk with a hand over his chest and one foot thrown awkwardly behind him from where he had flung his body back.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t!¡± Petal had gasped as well, still stage-whispering.


    Husk flapped his hands in her face, whispering harshly back, ¡°Shut up! I did, so. I said no interruptions!¡±


    Petal smacked down his flailing hands like swatting flies. Once the back of his hands were pink and stinging, Petal settled back down and gestured for him to continue.


    Husk relaxed first. His leg muscles gave out before his will. After regaining his footing, he approached Birdie warily. Birdie cocked her head again and Husk just resisted flinching. He stopped approaching.


    ¡°Hello, Birdie,¡± Husk thought maybe even if she didn¡¯t understand speech, she might just understand him, because of magic. ¡°My name is Husk. I¡¯m your Dad. Sort of.¡± He slowly held a hand out to her, extending his index finger. ¡°You can come up here, if you like.¡±


    Birdie skipped back and forth, her little feet making the same clicking sound on the floor of the greenhouse. She did not seem keen.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, we can wait.¡±


    Two half-dead creatures stared at one another for several minutes. Husk thought she had gone back to sleep.


    Then, as if nothing had been stopping her, the wings flickered once and she was airborne, her small clutching hands landing weightless on Husk¡¯s outstretched finger.


    Husk was careful not to yelp with joy. There was something like a pulse passing through her feet into his finger. He felt a connection spark to life at her contact.


    ¡°Thank you very much,¡± he said. He bit down on a wobble in his throat that felt like a sob. He reached out his other hand as slowly as he could towards her. When she did not shy away, he used his first two fingers to smooth the feathers at the back of her head.


    He knew what it was like after she had died. The feeling of his fingertips touching her would maybe have registered, but with a dullness over it.


    But nonetheless, Birdie leaned her head back, pushing back against him. Husk thought it must be different now, after having been brought back. She pushed against his hand and made a trilling kind of click with her beak and whatever was left of her vocal chords.


    Husk thought he might cry, if he could.


    Instead, he stood in the greenhouse giving his new friend pets and scratches for the better part of a half hour. He found it very soothing, and even when he pulled back, most of the time Birdie would lean over or hop along the length of his finger to get back to where his hand was.


    Eventually, Husk had to break himself away from this new delight. Being raised outside of Normal society was not something he had ever regretted, but there were some things he was jealous of.


    Television, live music. He wanted to see what all the fuss was about church. And he was jealous of Normals who got to keep animal friends.


    From the window in their room, Husk had seen neighborhood Normals jogging with dogs that ran alongside them without any leash. He had seen stray cats following packs of Normal kids, to the manic delight of the pack.


    But Birdie was better than any of those Normal animals. She was dead, just like Husk. And she could fly, which was really cool. His throat pinched with emotion again.


    Husk physically shook himself, causing Birdie to leap away onto the desk. He held up an apologetic hand to her. Now was simply not the time for mushy feelings.


    Now was the time for experiments.


    ¡°And then we did some experiments.¡± This Husk said with dialectical flourish, and a wiggle of his fingers. Petal had been hanging on his every word, and now clapped her hands and bounced up and down on the bed. She thought her brother was ever so clever.


    ¡°What experiments did you do?¡±


    ¡°Erm, all your basics. Flying experiment, following experiment, words experiment. Basically, she¡¯s your average bird, just a dead-er. Can¡¯t talk, but I think she sort of understands me.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s amazing, Husk,¡± Petal said.


    ¡°We¡¯ve only gotten one trick down so far, but she¡¯s very good at it. She plays dead like it¡¯s nothing,¡± said Husk. ¡°I had to pause the experiment early because Gerard came home. But I¡¯m sure she¡¯s alright in there. Zombies don¡¯t need to eat, right?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re really becoming a necromancer.¡± Petal¡¯s voice sounded different.


    Husk was quiet.


    ¡°What? It¡¯s good. I think you¡¯re amazing for picking it up so quickly, Husk,¡± Petal said. He could hear it, though. The understanding hurt him at first, but he knew that the film of tension that had stretched across the dark between them, if broken, could solidify the dregs of jealousy floating in his sister¡¯s voice into real, icy resentment.


    Neither of them had human faces. There were no cheeks or chins, no twisting lips or pinching brows. Emotion was not something either of them expressed in the usual way.


    They had only had the other to model behavior with¨Cbesides Gerard, who was rarely ever visibly emotional. The twins had practiced making voices to go along with the emotions described in the books they were taught from.


    Husk knew every different inflection in his sister¡¯s voice. He knew how she sounded when she was doing an emotion on purpose, and when she was actually feeling something. He knew that he and Petal tried to hide their real feelings; tried to sound calm when scared, or acting nice when they felt naughty. That was why he knew that the crystal-calm of Petal¡¯s voice, warm and friendly, was trying to cover up the pain she was feeling inside.


    Husk reached out to her, placing his hand on hers. They sat there in the dark for a long, silent time. Husk passed his thumb slowly back and forth over the worn leather of her outer skin.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t try to do it,¡± Husk¡¯s voice had shrunk in the dark. ¡°It just happened.¡±


    Petal remained silent.


    ¡°Besides, I still don¡¯t think it¡¯s the same as what Gerard talks about all the time. I couldn¡¯t tell her what to do or anything. She was just a bird. Didn¡¯t even feel like I had done it, I didn¡¯t really do anything.¡±


    After another short silence, Petal¡¯s voice bubbled back up, ¡°What did it feel like?¡±


    Husk had to think. He had felt like it happened around him, without him, at the time. But now that he thought of it, he realized that wasn¡¯t exactly true.


    ¡°It was like¡­I was doing her a favor. Like, she needed someone to hold something for her. They all felt like that, like watching their stories, seeing what happened to them, was enough. And then, because I did that, we got to hang out. It didn¡¯t hurt or nothing. I got a bit tired after, but¡­¡± Husk trailed off.


    The tension had deflated a little. Husk could feel Petal¡¯s curiosity overpowering her bad feeling. Husk wished he knew how to console her properly. ¡°All I mean is it will happen to you, too. I wound up finding out on accident, and it all feels wrong. I think you¡¯ve just got to wait.¡±


    Petal was quiet again. Husk was worried he¡¯d tipped the conversation in the wrong way by talking too much.


    ¡°Petal?¡± he said. Her drawn face didn¡¯t move in the dark, but Husk thought he could see her shoulders shifting. Finally, she let out a sound. A whiny, keening gurgle was seeping out of her like a balloon leaking air. Petal was having herself a cry.


    ¡°Oh, Petal!¡± Husk wasn¡¯t whispering anymore, ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±


    ¡°That means all the animals in, in¡­ outside are all stuck there waiting, with no one to listeeeeeeen!¡± Petal threw her small body into her brothers, burying her face in his shoulder. Husk had to resist a giggle. For how scary she could be, Petal was really a sweetie.


    Husk stroked her back and held her while she cried. Unlike the twins¡¯ affected expressions, there was no confusing one of their emotional breakdowns. When the twins really let go, it was a proper to-do. Without tear ducts, they leaned heavily on sound for that kind of catharsis. When Petal cried, it sounded like the wail of the banshee and the screech of colliding metal and the squeal of an animal who has realized it is headed to the block. It reminded Husk of Gerard¡¯s Whale Sounds CD. He hummed back to her in sympathetic reply.


    They sat there for a while, crying and humming and wailing and shushing. Finally, Petal¡¯s cries petered out, and they sat in the dark silence together, comfortable.


    ¡°Promise,¡± Petal said in her normal voice, ¡°that you¡¯ll listen to as many of them as you can. Don¡¯t¡­don¡¯t overdo it. But I can¡¯t bear the idea of all those pretty birds lying around waiting, just because Normals decided they don¡¯t need funerals, or whatever.¡± Husk laughed.


    ¡°I promise.¡± He had never been given a quest before, and Petal had trouble asking someone to pass the salt. ¡°I want to make as many new friends as I can. Maybe tomorrow I can introduce you to Birdie!¡±


    ¡°Please!¡± Petal said. She paused. ¡°What about Gerard?¡±


    Husk¡¯s excitement evaporated. But he had prepared for this. He faked a big breath, trying to steel himself.


    ¡°I know. I¡¯ll tell him tomorrow.¡±