A History of Glitter and Blood (10 page)

“Is it infected?”

“The glitter's getting in it.”

“It gets everywhere, I swear.”

She crosses her arms once, then the other way. “Scrap's drives him crazy,” she says. “Gets in his eyes, makes him sneeze. He's bad at fairies.”

He says, “Shouldn't you guys have figured out how to get rid of it?”

“We have creams.”

“You know those don't work. The glitter just causes us all a lot of trouble, you know?”

“It's a defense mechanism,” she says. “Biological. Probably.”

“It gets in your cuts and makes you sick.”

“It makes you less likely to eat us.”

He doesn't say anything.

“Glitter doesn't taste good,” she says. “You told me.”

“Yeah, but not tasting good will only get you so far when underneath the glitter you're . . . you know. Nutritious.” Beckan knows this already, that a tiny bit of a fairy will satisfy a gnome faster than ten tightroper bodies, or ten backpacker bodies, or the bits of animals the fairies used to throw down when they had any to spare and were feeling generous, or protective of their appendages.

He digs something out of the closet. “Let's bring him this. And these. These will fight the infection, the gel will help with the pain.”

“Oh. I . . . you don't have to come.”

Tier closes the doors, and immediately it's just the dust and granite of the tunnels and it doesn't smell like home, not at all.

“I haven't seen Scrap in a long time.”

She nods a little, still swallowing, still confused.

Tier gives her eye contact and a small sigh. “It'll be good to see him,” he says.

“Let me carry the medicine?”

“No . . . no. You should just stay a little behind me.” He leads her around, his hand on her head, like she is a toy he has borrowed and doesn't want to break.

She wants to tell him she's been up in the sky, so high that you can't see the holes to enter this dirty waste of a palace.

She stays behind him and avoids eye contact with every gnome that passes them on their way to the elevator. One man stops Tier with a hand on his chest. “You sick?” he says.

Tier says, “It's for Scrap.”

The gnome is quiet for a minute, then says, “Well.”

Tier says, “So we'll be going now.” The gnome lets them by.

The elevator growls as the gnome at the top pulls them up. “Thank you,” Beckan says to Tier.

“Hmm?”

“I was scared.”

“Lan isn't the friendliest, no.”

“He knows Scrap?”

“He's one of Scrap's clients. Who isn't?”

She should have guessed that.

“But he sounded afraid of him.”

Tier gives her a look.

She clears her throat. “Right.” Why wouldn't a gnome be afraid of Scrap? He killed the fucking king. It's a wonder he's still allowed down.

Tier says, “Lan shouldn't have hassled you. He . . . was looking out for me, really. Ever since my father died, it's everyone's job to babysit me.”

“Oh.”

“It's just . . . we're not meant to be without a king. We're antsy and upset. We can't get anything done. We're meant to be led.”

“Like how we're meant to run away?”

“Exactly. It's how we are.”

“Oh,” she says, again. Because what else is there to say?
I'm sorry my best friend killed your dad and ruined your species?

“It isn't so bad. If we had a new king, I probably wouldn't be able to skip out on my girlfriend to go aboveground with a fairy girl,
would I?” He steps out into the open air, nods at Leak by his post. “Remind me which way to your house?” he says.

She'd forgotten all about Rig.

Tier hadn't mentioned her.

Josha says, “I wish I'd killed Crate. I wish it had been me.”

“Noooo.” Scrap's voice is muffled in his pillow.

“It would have been perfect if it were me. It would have been
right
. And I wouldn't be making myself sick over it.” He watches Scrap. “I would have eaten him alive.”

“Shouldn't have happened,” Scrap says. “None of it. I shouldn't've let it happen.”

“Yeah. That's the other reason I should have been the one to kill him. If you hadn't had that minute of playing hero, everyone would have figured out by now that you are not a good guy.”

Scrap makes a noise like he's been hit, and Josha runs his hand over his face and says. “Shit.”

And then, two months after the fairies left, it happened.

The bomb that morning was the sound of a shovel hitting snow, scratchy and long and low. Beckan had covered her ears without thinking. She and Josha stood absolutely still in his apartment, staring at each other. Didn't yell.

They ran through the empty city, but they knew already it was Beckan's block. Her apartment building was all over the street. Thousands of pounds of brick and steel and furniture that was not hers. Occasional bits of something she recognized. A bit of carpet was the color of the one in her room. A leg of a chair that might have once been her father's. Even though she knew he was with her, she reached into her tote bag and felt around until she grasped her father's jar. Just to be sure.

What if she hadn't brought him that day?

Next to her, Josha was cursing so constantly it sounded like a chant.

A piece of metal shifted on the ground, and Beckan jumped backward. It slid to reveal a pit in the ground, and four gnome heads stuck out and lifted four roughly constructed guns. They ignored Josha and Beckan. They aimed at the sky and waited.

Far above their heads, it sounded like someone was laughing.

“Move,” a gnome growled at her.

She did, faster than she'd ever done anything.

“Come live with us,” Scrap said, so gentle, when she showed up, shaking, for her reading lesson, because she didn't know what else to do. “Are you kidding? Come in right now. Come live with us.”

Tier is quiet, so after a few blocks, Beckan says, “Well . . . ?”

He's distracted, peering around all the streets, shielding himself from the sun. A tightroper at a shop stand yells something at them and Tier hisses, but Beckan gives them each a gentle smile.

“Well?” she says again.

“Hmm?”

“Rig. What about Rig?”

“Must we?”

“Yes. We must.”

He groans and rolls his head back. “I don't know. I don't know what to do. We have nothing to talk about. She's scared and she's been through so much and she just needs me to be there for her. That's all she needs. We were in love.”

“Were?”

“And literally all she needs is for me to sit next to her and hold her hand and tell her I know, and I understand, and I . . . can't do it.”

“Just do it.”

“I
can't
. I know exactly how I sound. I do.” He runs his hand over his head and looks through a broken window to an old shop. “And I don't know why I can't do it. She starts talking, and she'll say something, and it's like I'm not even there. Like I'm back underneath 8th Street loading my gun or buried in the east wing under that pile of rubble or tearing apart some dead tightroper or looking and looking and looking for bits of Cricket and I just . . . I need what she went through to mesh with what I went through, and it doesn't.”

“You haven't even tried. Maybe it does.”

“You said it yourself. No one experienced this the same way.”

“So talk about something else.”

“There's nothing else to talk about. Everything is different now. I can't connect.”

“You can, though. You're just talking in all these abstractions and making it sound impossible.”

“Abstractions. I taught you that word.”

“Scrap did. When really it's just a matter of actually making yourself do it. Just start somewhere. Just hold her hand.”

He breathes out.

“Stop running off with fairy girls or something, I don't know.”

“I'm here to fix Scrap.”

“Uh-huh.”

He looks at her hard. “I'm not in love with you, Beckan.”

She shrinks inside of herself. “I know that.”

And it isn't that she's in love with him, or even that she wanted him to be in love with her. But believing that he might be has been like a hand reaching out to her, ready to catch her in case she fell.

A lifeline.

“I know that,” she says.

“Okay. I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Welcome to our relationship. It's fine.”

They hike up the hill to the cottage, and maybe it's just having Tier with her, but for the first time in months she really feels herself taking these steps up and
from
the city proper and into the outskirts. The center city has a smell, now, from the produce the tightropers ship in, and there's the buzz of music from up on their ropes and the consistent drone of chain saws and nail guns repairing their buildings. “For you,” a tightroper said to Beckan yesterday, with a smile. “All for you, Miss Fairy.” She can't hear any of that out here.

She figures she's past the point of believing their bullshit. She will die in that cottage and that's all right.

Josha, back in the kitchen, looks up when the front door opens. He snarls at Tier and stomps over to the refrigerator.

“Josha,” Beckan says. “Come on.”

He sucks some glitter off the back of his hand and spits it toward them.

“Charming,” Beckan says.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

“I'm just here for Scrap,” Tier says. “I'm not trying to do anything.”

“Scrap doesn't want to see you.”

Beckan says, “Oh, he told you that?”

“He doesn't want to see any of you.” Josha gestures at Tier. “He's miserable going down there, and the last thing he needs is one of you lurking around here when he's sick. Becks, you should go see him, he's shaking. I'm out of things to say to him. I don't know.”

Beckan doesn't push. Josha and Scrap have always had the most strained relationship in their pack, but they are largely all right and that isn't something she wants to compromise. Scrap is going to be okay, but this illness is messing with their precarious semblance of calm.

“Okay,” Beckan says. “That's fine. But Tier brought medicine and he wants to check Scrap to make sure we have everything he needs.”

Tier says, “If he doesn't want to see me, I'll leave. Quietly. Okay?”

“Doesn't the smell of blood get you all riled up?”

Beckan says, “Shut
up
, Josha.”

“They eat fairies.”

“I'm not hungry,” Tier says. “Okay?”

Josha slams the door to the refrigerator and storms out to the living room.

“Don't worry about him,” Beckan says, but Tier has already disappeared down the other hall. He knocks on each door until he hears the sleepy voice telling him to come in. Beckan trails behind. She isn't nervous. Of course she isn't.

Tier would never eat Scrap.

Even though Scrap killed his father.

Nothing to worry about.

Except the feeling in her stomach isn't nervousness as much as it is anticipation, as if something inside her is cranking to slip something else into place. The horrible thought she can't shake is that, if Tier were to eat Scrap, there would be something correct about it, something final, something meaningful.

It would go nicely in a book.

On the other hand, Scrap is her best friend.

“Come in,” Scrap says again.

Tier opens the door and says, “Hello.”

Scrap sits up, his face pink, his eyes shiny and wild like a small animal's. “Hi.” He scoots over on the bed, makes room. “Tier, hi.”

“Hi. Heard you're not feeling well.”

Scrap looks up. “Hey, Beckan.”

She cocks her head toward Tier. “Pay attention to him.”

Scrap watches Tier unwind the bandage on his arm. “It hurts,” he says, softly. “I'm not being brave.”

“Sure you are.”

“No.”

“This is going to be okay,” Tier says. He examines the wound and spreads lotion on his fingers and dabs Scrap's arm. Scrap doesn't wince. “You should be resting more.”

“I can't. I have to keep going down there.”

“I'll tell them you're sick.”

“No!” Scrap's head snaps up. “No, no, don't. Please don't.”

“Okay, hey. Hey. Calm down.”

Beckan sits on Scrap's other side and puts her hand on his forehead. He doesn't feel so hot anymore.

“Don't,” Scrap says. “Please.”

Tier says, “Okay. I won't. It's all right.”

Scrap takes a long time to calm down. It isn't until Tier is done rebandaging his arm that Scrap slumps into his shoulder, shaking, and puts his arm around him.

“Oh.” Tier hugs him, slowly. “Oh.”

“I'm sorry,” Scrap says.

“Oh.”

“I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do with these things I've done.”

I don't know if I can write any more today.

I'm so tired, Beckan.

Beckan moved in, and it wasn't long before Josha, who was spending all his time with them anyway, did as well. His father had already abandoned the city (he thought Josha was behind him and for whatever reason it appeared he'd never turned around to check) and they were already a pack.

Cricket and Scrap left sometimes and came back with money—Scrap always with more—and she never thought much about it. She had no idea that soon she'd be going too, and she had no idea what it would do to her and what it would come to. She didn't know she should start hating Scrap with every bit of her, that she couldn't have started hating him fast enough, she really couldn't.

Scrap sleeps, but Tier shows no signs of leaving, no matter how long Beckan lets the silences sit or how many times she drifts toward the front door. Something about the cottage, or possibly about Josha still sulking in the next room, adds a level of discomfort to their relationship that she's never felt down in the mines. Tier seems completely oblivious.