The Beautiful Dead (21 page)

I search the
bedroom a third time, the bathroom a fourth. I stop in the middle of the
kitchen, staring at the floor in bafflement.

I cover my
mouth and focus my eyes on the wall as though expecting an answer to materialize
on it. I clench my teeth to keep from panicking, holding myself steady,
pretending I have a working nervous system with which I might express said panic.

But I know
better than to be a slave to my fears. I should’ve expected this since the
moment I first met him. He’s gathered what he needed. He’s used me for what I’m
useful for. There is only one explanation for his absence.

He’s gone
home.

C H A P T E R – F O U R T E E N

Swinging open
the door, I limp down a short hall and into the room where the magic happens.
The Judge is still neatly arranged on the working table in thirds, and it
appears I’ve interrupted a dialogue.

“There’s the
runt,” the Judge mumbles.

I sigh. “We’re
alive, we’re safe, and we’re home. What’s your problem with me now?”

“Home we are,
but neither safe nor alive.” She snorts, then awkwardly turns to address the
Refinery girls. “Are we waiting for something?—Or am I yet re-erected?”

The one called
Roxie and the twelve-year-old are here waiting for their assignments from the
large-in-charge Marigold. It’s fateful that these three should reunite, the
same team that helped me so long ago, the ones to whom I owe credit for, in
essence, creating Winter.

“When I’ve my
sword-bearing arms again,” the Judge grunts at me. “I will decide with the
Mayor’s counsel what to do with you.”

“Have at it.”
I exhale, leaning against the door and choosing not to go on talking. Last
thing I’d want to do is encourage the stiffly Judge. I stare at the
cherry-colored wall, feeling powerless, abandoned, and sad. I really shouldn’t
be surprised that John has left. I only wish I had known to say goodbye the
last time I saw him.

“It’s time to
begin!” Marigold chirps excitedly.

As I wait my
turn in the Refinery chair to fix my leg and arm, the twelve-year-old
straightens the Judge’s spine with a two-headed hammer thing. Roxie is
scrubbing the Judge’s arms down with a sandpaper brush while the expert
Marigold manipulates her legs and hips with giant stitches that shimmer … and
all my thoughts are John.

“Why did the
army of Deathless men kneel to you back at the Grounds?” asks the Judge sitting
up, her back being patiently sewn together.

Put on the
spot by her out-of-place question, I realize I hadn’t thought on it at all
since my time in the cage. Why
had
that ghoulish army bowed down to me
as they did when I so shamelessly faced them in that murky field, sword in
hand? I found it strange then, and remembering it, I find it stranger now.

“And why were
you
chosen to speak to the King?” she goes on, not bothering to mask her tone of
voice. “No one speaks to the Deathless King and survives. Not even the Mayor of
Trenton has ever seen him.”

I feel the
eyes in the room on me, perhaps others as curious about my answer as she is,
but I don’t have one.

“I really wish
I was never chosen,” I retort, annoyed by her questioning. “What does it
matter? We’re out of that vile place, aren’t we?”

“We already
had one traitor in our midst,” she says, getting to her point—perhaps her point
all along since we found her shattered remains in the woods. “You were closest
to him, were you not?”

“What are you
implying?” I ask heatedly. “Are you trying to say that I’m a
D
—
Deathless
like Grimsky??”

“Are you?”

“NO,” I shout,
angry that I’m having to defend my honor, yet again. To my own kind, no less.
“I could’ve left you in the woods, in pieces and alone and helpless. Perhaps
that would’ve been the better choice, had I known how utterly grateful you’d be
otherwise.”

With that, I move—or
rather,
hop
—my way out of the building and into the street, clumsily
sitting on the front steps of the building with flames in my eyes.

I’m fuming
because I’ve been made a fool of, too. Grimsky, the one everyone in town knew I
was coupled with, the one I’d confided in, the one I’d entertained some concept
of love with … He is now the traitor. At least once the news spreads, as it
seems to do so easily in Trenton, he will be the bad guy … and I, the fool.

After a
generous while of waiting, the Judge bursts from the building, not caring to
glance in my direction as she marches off, all in one piece, toward her
whatever-destination. It doesn’t matter what she says or does; she owes me her
life whether admitted or not. But in trusting Grimsky all along, how many lives
have I cost?

“Your turn,”
the pudgy-nosed Roxie says at the door.

I hesitate,
wondering if I should chase after the Judge and talk reason into her, but figure
it wouldn’t help. She needs time to cool down. Then she’ll realize I’m not the
one she needs to fight. We could help each other, should she finally understand
I’m on her side, attitude or not.

“I’m ready,” I
announce unnecessarily.

All too soon,
I’m back on the working table myself. Death and sword-puncture and almost-shattering
later, I sit on this table for the third (or is it fourth?) time and let the
women do their work. My leg is easily restructured from within, though I can’t
say how because I’m looking the other way. The functioning of my exposed
forearm gets fixed, but after having tried six different ways to get the flesh
to stick to the bone, the twelve-year-old mutters under her breath, cursing in
ways a girl her age ought not to … though her actual age might be questionable.

“Forget it,” I
say, lifting myself off the table. “Just leave it as it is.”

“I—I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.
And will.” I look down at the visible bones with fondness, exposed like an
actor on a stage, proud and true and fearless. I think for some reason on the
wound I gave the Deathless King, and how she said she’d wear it proudly. “The
look’s … grown on me.”

“You can’t go
out in public like that, dear,” Marigold tells me, her voice careful and sweet.
“See my beautifully ruined upper arm?—How I rid it of its flesh to bludgeon
those fell Dead with my steel-plated humerus? Even I must get this mended,
pretty as it is.”

“I want mine
left alone,” I insist stubbornly. “It’s like a badge to me, and I’ll wear it
with pride. My Raise is the one who gave this to me, after all.”

“It’s law,”
Roxie states tiredly. “That’s why we’ve a Refinery at all, to cover up these
deathly blemishes.”

“But this is
not a
blemish
,” I retort. “It is bone. My bone. We all have them, and
I’m not covering mine up.” I put a little weight on my mended legs, which hold.
Turning back to my trio, I say, “Thanks for the feet.”

“Always,” the young
girl responds, staring uncertainly at my exposed forearm.

“What was it
like?” asks Roxie suddenly.

I tilt my
head. “What was what like?”

“The
Deathless,” she says. “Being captured by them. Kept in their dungeon … What was
it like?”

“Great fun!”
Marigold blurts, putting away her tools.

I take a
patient breath before addressing Roxie. “I’m sorry. Maybe sometime I can talk
to you about it, but for now, it’s a bit fresh on my mind. I hope you understand.”

“I don’t.” She
puts down a carving scalpel and lifts her brow. “My business is in restoring
the dead. Turning the wretched into the beautiful. I’m fascinated by a society
that believes in neither of those things.”

“I would
suggest not being so fascinated.”

“You met the
Deathless King?” she presses on.

“I’m sorry.” I
smile wanly. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“There is no
tomorrow,” she says. “Not for our kind.”

“Later today
then,” I correct myself, annoyed. “Much, much later. As in, days from now,
today.”

Roxie and the
twelve-year-old just stand there, one of them staring at my half-repaired arm,
the other watching my eyes, her own filled with something I can’t quite
distinguish—suspicion, beguilement, it fails me. Marigold starts to whistle to
herself, cleaning off a metal-bristled brush in a basin of liquid like it’s
just another day.

“Thanks for
the leg,” I say again before leaving.

Really,
there’s nothing important for me to do at all. The Judge is going straight to
the Mayor, no doubt. I have no Grimsky to talk to since he’s, well, elsewhere
and elsewise. Helena’s Final Life has been ended, the image of her silent head
on the floor of the Black Tower still freshly burned into my retinas, so I
haven’t her to consult with.

Add to all
that, my Human’s disappeared. John, my secret companion in this town. I hadn’t
fully appreciated his importance to me until I ransacked my tiny house in
search of him and turned up empty-handed.

On the way
home, despondent and dejected as ever, I make a point to pass Hilda’s Singing
Seamstress. Hilda is there as expected. She looks overjoyed to see me and
waves. I wave back—seeing as I’m in a hurry to get home and cry myself to
sleep—and her face collapses. Confused by her reaction, I carry on down the
street, rounding a corner. Is she still put off by the hole in her red dress?
It wasn’t my fault; it was the Judge’s for stabbing it. By the time I reach the
crossroads in front of the pottery shop where the owners are closing up shop,
it dawns on me what caused the adverse reaction: the sight of my unsightly arm.

I feel a pinch
of hurt. I would rather it have been about the dress.

Hurrying down
another street full of trinket vendors who are only open two or so hours at a
time (the consequence of being your own boss, I suppose, is eternal laziness) I
pass a group of men who recognize me. I wave with my other hand this time,
careful not to make the same mistake. They see my other arm anyway and recoil.
One man is polite enough to lean in as I pass and point out my “wound” to me—as
if it were a silly oversight of mine—to which I reply, it isn’t a wound.

I don’t get
what everyone’s fuss is about. It’s just a harmless gash … A harmless
bone-exposing gash.

Not caring to
pass any others who’d recognize me and then make a point to react nastily, I
head straight home without further detour. Getting to the door, I clutch the
handle and close my eyes. Fondly, I remember a time when someone awaited me
inside.

Hand still
resting on the knob, my gaze is pulled to the porch right next to mine, the
porch where a certain handsome someone and I shared many glasses of
pretend-wine. Someone who is no longer my neighbor. Someone who saved my life
in one way only to betray me in another. Someone the whole town will learn to hate,
once the gossip spreads as gossip does.

I sigh. Both
John and Grimsky … just memories now. I push open the door and shut it behind
me. The silence of an empty, lifeless house swallows me, floods my ears with
rushing, crushing noiselessness.

“John … You
selfish, brutish, Human mooch.”

With a sudden
conviction, I turn the house over once more, bedroom to bathroom to kitchen to
den. I realize I can’t even find his writings, his notes, his scribbling. He must’ve
taken them with him. There’s no note he’s left me, nothing. Not even a goodbye
of his own. I was certain he would not have left without notice of some kind,
at least. Maybe his hunger had taken the best of him, inspiring him to quest
out in search of his own food sources. Maybe he’s gone for good.

I step out of
the house, not bothering to lock it. I need to find him, and optimism is
pointing me in the direction of … somewhere in Trenton. Somewhere in or around
or beyond all of Trenton.

But before my
quest for a missing Human has the chance to begin, my neighbor Jasmine from
across the courtyard is on her porch, beckoning me over. “Winter! Winter!—Come
hither, my long-lost pet!”

“I can’t!” I
call out in a half-hush, as if I’ll wake anyone from their sleep. “I’m busy!—I
don’t have time!”

“This isn’t a
matter of vegetables and tomatoes, my rabbit! This is a matter of your life!”

That gets my
attention well enough. Putting a pause to my immediate priority, I briskly
cross the courtyard and step onto her porch, following her into the house.

She quickly
shuts the door behind us. Wasting no time, she turns to address me with
strained eyes. “You know it is against the Law, yes?”

I stare,
confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You know it
is punishable by permanent exile, yes?”

“The arm?—Are
you talking about the arm?”

“Your arm is
the very, very least of our concerns,” she says, her voice trembling. “I’m
talking about—”

“My Raise?—or
my time as a prisoner? Grim?—Does everyone know already?”

Turning
suddenly, she rushes into her bedroom. A moment’s moment later, she returns
with a small satchel which she slips over my shoulder. “My pet, you should take
this. It will help you.”

“What is this
for?” I ask, my hand moving to the buckle to examine its contents.

“Leave it
shut. You’ll need it later once all is settled.”

“Once all what
is settled?”

And then there
is a knock at the door. Jasmine and I turn, either of us more alarmed than the
other.

“Expecting
visitors?” I whisper doubtfully.

Jasmine
hurries to the door. I have a sudden urge to tell her to stop, but she opens it
before I can speak and greets pleasantly her guests: The Mayor and two burly
men I’ve never met.