It was only a half hour from Victoria and Dmitri’s apartment in Inwood to Somberkill, the Averay family estate in Sleepy Hollow. Victoria told them to dress warmer than they had, helping Pippin by giving her a little black and white striped sweater with green crocheted bugs on it that she had been finishing all through that day. Pippin was delighted with the sweater, but hers wasn’t the only gifted thing; Victoria was constantly making things, and worked things up so quickly that all of her family members and friends simply did not need another crocheted scarf, or hat, or set of mitts, or shawl. She donated a great many, but they built up in a large 40-gallon tote box of the sort meant to store Halloween decorations until then, which she stored in her workroom. After taking the train back up to her apartment in Inwood, while they were getting ready to leave, she pulled all of them into her workroom and pulled out the box.
‘Take anything you want from here,’ she said, as she pulled off the lid to reveal the box was nearly full with crocheted things. Aix dove in instantly, pulling out anything black, holding things up; Pippin beeped, the sides of the box too tall for her to see over; but Aix quickly lifted her up and just set her down in the box, since she’d already taken off her shoes as soon as she got into the apartment. René and Marshmallow were a little slower to follow Aix’s lead, but not by much.
‘Wow,’ Aix said, ‘you know, you read about how it’s rude to ask a fibre artist to make you stuff, because it takes so long and everything...’
‘Broadly true, but you’ve seen how fast I go—and I switched to crochet years ago because I knitted much faster, and it was getting ridiculous. I have managed a sweater for one of my small nieces in a day—a challenge I did some years ago, when Gravity Falls was airing.’
Aix and Marshmallow giggled, knowing what she meant.
‘I feel a little left out of the joke,’ René commented lightly.
‘One of the main characters, Mabel, is said to knit a sweater every day,’ Victoria said, ‘My fibre arts group, at the time, decried this as a ridiculous notion that we should all try and see. We donated the sweaters to a local children’s charity after—but ‘twas I that proved it could be done,’ she said, a little proudly, ‘and that Mabel must use cottage technique, because that was the only one that allowed one to knit fast enough.’
‘Is this a ring shawl?’ Marshmallow asked, as she—carefully—pulled the gossamer-delicate length of it out of the box, standing up to hold it out and see the pattern. It was a cheerful yellow, which is why it had drawn her eye, it being the only yellow thing in the box.
‘Oh yes, that’s an experiment I did with spider silk.’
‘…Spider silk?’ Marshmallow breathed, and she and Aix both stared at it with wide eyes.
‘Like, golden spider silk?’ Aix asked. ‘From the golden orb-weaver? Where did you get this much spider silk?’
‘Cousin Cardozo—he lives in Abuelo’s hometown of Mexico City,’ Victoria said. ‘It looks very well on you, Marshmallow, you should take it.’
‘Is there any other spider silk stuff in here?’ Aix asked, digging eagerly. Pippin didn’t seem to be helping, she just burrowed and seemed pleased to roll around in the softness. Aix was a little jealous, imagining being small enough to make a bed of clothes. He saw a flash of iridescence, and pulled out another length of delicate scarf, this one black with iridescent seed beads. ‘Ohhh,’ he said, softly. ‘This is gorgeous...’ It was dense, like the yellow shawl, but with a different pattern, and as he pulled more and more of it out, he realised, ‘this is a hijab... isn’t it?’
‘It’s a whatsit,’ Victoria said, laughing. ‘I was having simply too too much fun beading and forgot it was supposed to be a scarf until it was too wide.’
‘It’s the perfect dimensions for a hijab,’ Aix said, holding it up, then wrapping it around his head and neck. He wasn’t Muslim any longer, but he still liked wearing the hijab, especially when it was cold or he was feeling particularly nervous. Being wrapped up in fabric made him feel safe.
René was quietly looking for blue things, as blue was his favourite colour—though only as an accent. In a pinch, he would wear navy, but modern men’s fashion since the Grande Renonciation Masculine was far too much like military uniforms for his piratical taste. Anyway, he looked best in black, with just enough blue to draw attention to his eyes; and ever since the 1980s, he’d been goth—many American vampires were, starting in the 19th century, when mourning had become a sort of art form in the west, and graveyards had become beautiful parks meant for the living to spend enjoyable time in.
Aix was as goth as René, his face still mostly hidden by a veil—even here, inside Victoria’s dwelling. René wondered if it was habit, religion, or the fear that followed plagues around. Then again, perhaps it was sensible, considering they were still travelling.
‘Keep staring, I might do a trick.’
René blinked, shook himself. ‘My apologies,’ he said, ‘I was captivated by your eyes again.’
Marshmallow made a very loud facial expression, as did Victoria. Aix just froze like a cornered rabbit.
‘O-oh,’ he said, and looked down into the box again—which meant he didn’t see Victoria silently encouraging René with a Look.
‘I wonder if I might have the pleasure of your company, once we get back. Perhaps for dinner—’ he saw Victoria shaking her head. ‘—or a movie?’
‘A movie sounds wonderful,’ Aix said. ‘I haven’t been in ages. I’m not even sure what’s playing.’
‘We can go to the Royal Below,’ René said.
‘Do they serve food or just popcorn and candy?’
‘Nothing, actually. Do movie theatres serve meals now?’
‘Pretty much,’ Aix said, with long-held disgust and frustration, ‘Hot dogs, nachos… really noisy, messy stuff like that. It’s awful.’ He brightened, ‘I can’t believe there’s a cinema I can go to again!’
‘Why don’t they serve food?’ Marshmallow asked.
‘Most of us monsters have very sensitive hearing,’ René said with a wry smile. ‘And we don’t like the sound of people chewing.’
‘Girl same!’ Aix said, laughing. ‘My misophonia is baaaad.’
‘The new Beetlejuice movie is playing soon,’ Victoria said. ‘Why don’t you see that?’
‘I’d love to dress up and go!’ Aix said. ‘I don’t have anything to wear, but I used to dress up to opening day all the time, especially with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.’ He straightened, tossing his head. ‘I had a very big hat.’ He was gratified when everyone laughed.
⁂
As René drove them up to Sleepy Hollow while Marshmallow slept in the back of her minivan, Pippin curled up with her, René had a chance to speak alone with Aix; but, as it happened, Aix spoke first, into the quiet.
‘What happens now?’ Aix said. ‘What’s waiting at the end of the road?’
René stifled a rueful, Are you so sure you’re in trouble at all times, little one? and thought on how to answer. ‘My crew seemed in very high spirits, and Roseblade said there was already a party organising for your friend—and not just of the vampires. The news will likely have spread even to the capital by now. The party might even spill to the Underground, and earn visitors from out of town.’
‘...Well, fuck,’ Aix said, and René allowed himself a small laugh at the shock.
‘She was hated, chéri—hated because she had great power and used it to great harm and selfishness; and, unlike my former master, she was hated by many, many more than the vampires. She desecrated graves, used the dead as her minions, and plotted the death of innocent people whose only crime was to be other than human, or to help us—or to be dead. A perfect imitation of her mentor, with the addition of her revolutionary idea of collusion with the police force.’ He gave the word ‘revolutionary’ all the sarcastic topspin it deserved.
Aix was quiet for a while, thinking of all the fairy tales he’d been raised on, realising….
What had happened was that he’d been swept up into a story. Life suddenly made sense, in a way it never had before, in a way Aix had always hungered for, deep in his soul. It was a very big emotion, and yet he couldn’t cry, or make any sort of expression—it was too big to do anything but feel it.
‘And then,’ René went on, not knowing this turmoil inside Aix, ‘you came to us, and suddenly we had... helpful advice. Suddenly...’ René trailed off; it was not right to say Cthulhu was the one responsible—he had been acting in response to Aix’s feelings, Aix’s requests. He was a person, but so far he had only looked to Aix for guidance, and so had been Aix’s ally.
‘You had a fairy godmother,’ Aix said, in a small voice that sounded strange to his ears, ‘with great power to grant wishes, and—oh,’ he said, eyes wide, feeling something... something big and powerful and good, inside himself. He started to cry, and his voice started to hitch. ‘I got to help,’ he said, and dissolved into tears, trying not to cry too loudly, but trying to also not stop himself from crying. It’s okay to cry! It’s okay! he thought to himself, trying to drown out the fear that he was doing something so much a sin that he was about to get hit in the face.
Pippin felt the minivan pulling over and, after they’d stopped, she made her way to the front seat, climbing up into Aix’s lap, helping him cry with a pierrot’s special powers. Aix held her, and she patted him, glad to see René reaching a hand over to gently touch Aix’s shoulder.
In the darkness of the back, Marshmallow woke up, but stayed quiet, listening to someone—to Aix, she realised—crying really hard, seeing the silhouette of René reaching over and touching Aix’s shoulder. She didn’t really want to get involved, mostly because crying... wasn’t her forte. She’d never been great at knowing how to comfort people, because everyone was so different with what they found comforting in those moments, especially white people.
Don’t get involved with white people was her Bonma’s unofficial motto, and it had served her very well in her own time; but Marshmallow had white friends, and while it was surprising how many white people she encountered were still racist in ways they didn’t notice, her friends... weren’t, usually; and when they were they did listen, or they didn’t stay her friends.
And she did want to be a guardian of her neighbourhood, wanted to meet other monsters of colour, and protect her city from whatever there was….
And Aix and René were kind, and listened…
And maybe the monsters had a solution to defunding the police that lurked on every street corner and didn’t even live in the city….
Should she say something or would Aix prefer she stay out of it? What would she want someone to do…? She hadn’t known Aix long, but so far he had been... careful, but in a genuine way. He’d been very much alone, for many years, and he was aware of it, and he’d told her that, before that solitude, he’d hurt a lot of people by accident, and that was why he was so very, very careful, now; because he’d never wanted to hurt anybody, and hurting them by accident was worse.
René moved like some of her older friends did, was careful and polite and sociable but not too sociable, ready to leave at moment’s notice, always having his back to the corner, eyes scanning everything all the time, never staying in one place. He had old-fashioned manners, very charming, but there was something scared and tense about him, something he was good at hiding but Marshmallow was also very, very good at noticing. Aix was afraid of himself, but René was afraid of the whole world—which was odd, for someone that could just rip the throat out of anybody starting shit, for someone that a gun wouldn’t even stop. She didn’t know the exact story behind that, yet, but she could add—he’d had a pimp, and that pimp had been the guy Aix had shanked.
Yes, she’d met creeps before, and neither of these men were in that category. She felt safe enough to sleep around them, and she’d only woken up because the car had stopped moving, and not in a ‘we just got into a crash’ sort of way, either.
And now, through the sobbing, Aix was saying, ‘I got to be the fairy godmother,’ and, ‘I got—I got to help. I just—I just want to help—and—I finally got to!’
‘Yes, chéri,’ René was saying. In the light of the tunnel and Pippin’s Flash, Marshmallow saw Aix moving his hands even though he wasn’t talking, recognised the Pantomime: Helping friend protect friend everybody protect.
‘Yeye,’ Pippin said cheerfully. ‘En bees!’
Aix just cried harder. Marshmallow saw Aix’s bookbag nearby, the one with his laptop in it. She remembered him saying he typed better than he spoke, especially when he was emotional, and suddenly knew what she could do to help. She cleared her throat, tried to do it the way Bonma did it, all soft and yet letting you know very gracefully she was there.
She almost managed it.
‘Do you want your laptop?’
‘Yes,’ Aix said, grateful. There were a lot of things he needed to say, but all that was in his mouth was allusions, because he was too emotional to construct his own thoughts into unique sentences. That’s what allusions were for. Marshmallow took off her seatbelt and got it for him, handing it forward to René, seeing Pippin climb down and come over to Marshmallow.
In his seat, Aix was typing, even though he couldn’t see the screen, he didn’t need to. He’d learnt to touch-type before the age of twelve, it flowed out of him better than writing with a pen. His fingers flew over the keys, and he calmed down as the thoughts came out one pixeled letter at a time. ‘Thank you, Marshmallow,’ came out thickly, and he took a soft black handkerchief offered by René, blowing his nose. He wished he had some cold water to dash across his face. He looked in his bag for his baby wipes, they’d have to do….
‘Do you want to talk about where the crying came from, or do you want to do something else while the emotion passes through?’ René asked, not carefully but knowing full well there was not an elegant way to use true kindness he’d learned by studying psychological methods of healing.
‘I’m crying because I’m having the feeling of finally knowing where I belong, and—’ his breath hitched, ‘—a-and I’ve never had that, so it’s… it’s a lot,’ Aix said, feeling like a baby but pushing through it.
‘That is,’ René said softly, knowing from long practise how to echo and acknowledge without seeming condescending. He touched Aix’s shoulder gently, in comfort.
‘That’s… that’s cool though, right?’ Marshmallow said, unbuckling her seat belt and moving a little closer, perching on one of the few storage crates she had that had a lid on it. She couldn’t imagine not belonging somewhere, but she knew it was more common than the belonging and community she had.
‘It’s very cool,’ Aix said, with a watery laugh, wiping his face with a baby wipe, getting all the salt away from his eyes. ‘I’m good to keep driving now,’ he said, closing the laptop and putting it back in its case.
‘As you wish,’ René said, and waited for Marshmallow to get her seatbelt back on, and for Pippin to settle, before pulling back into traffic.
⁂
It wasn’t long before they were driving through the picturesque old streets of Sleepy Hollow, passing the old cemetery, where the trees that lined the road got bigger and bigger, until the sidewalks hadn’t been repaired over, but around, the roots, before giving up entirely. The road stopped being asphalt and started being cobblestone well before the fork, and the houses got older and more decrepit, with what few ‘For Sale’ signs there were being very old and well-worn by the weather. By the time they reached the end of the road, the canopy of trees was so thick overhead that it blotted out the light-pollution-orange night sky. An old wooden signpost was driven into the fork in the road. The brown street signs from the rest of the town pointed to the right-hand path, but the sign below was black-painted wood in the shape of a simple arrow pointing left, hand-lettered in reflective, glowing orange, and read ‘Somberkill’. There was another sign below it, also in wood, that had in red ‘If you DARE’.
‘Victoria told me about this sign!’ Aix said, as the headlights illuminated the hand-lettered addendum. ‘She says she made it when she was a kid.’
‘I know “kill” just means “creek” or whatever, but “Somberkill” is a little on the nose,’ Marshmallow commented, from the back.
‘I wonder what it means…’ Aix said, already pulling up a Dutch-English dictionary on his phone. ‘Oh, it is on the nose,’ he said, chuckling. ‘It means… gloomy, bleak, funer—’ he paused, having to concentrate so he read it and therefore pronounced it properly and syllables didn’t get flipped around or deleted altogether. ‘Fu-ner-e-al.’
‘So, Goth Creek,’ Marshmallow said, and they all laughed, as René turned onto the left-hand path, headlights landing on a very old speed limit sign for 5 miles an hour. The road was cobbles, so that was easy; but there was a very new-looking concrete sidewalk on the side by the retaining wall, that curved gently back and forth across the road, with reflective paint marking the crossover every time, the cobbles moved to frame the crossings, catshead stones making little curbs to protect the edges. It was such an incredible evidence of the love and care the family had for Victoria, so diametrically opposed to how Aix was used to old white families treating disability, that he would have liked the Averays immediately even if he hadn’t already met Sitrinne and Victoria.
The gate was Verdigris-green in the headlights, and swung open with a horror-movie-worthy creaking that they could hear even through closed windows, and René drove slowly through, the cobbles giving way to a paved brick circular drive, with a fountain at the centre, a weathered, larger-than-life bronze statue of a tall and very naked young woman tied to a stake, the fountain water spraying up from her feet, like flames. At the top of the stake sat an owl.
Aix wondered what the owl meant.
The house was all in shades of black, lit only by a dim red up-light at each corner—and there were a lot of them, as it was a towering Victorian Gothic Revival mansion, with many spires and square towers, gingerbread pointed and forbidding. The huge round window and the spires made it look like a cathedral. However, the round window wasn’t the usual perfect radial symmetry flower, but something more Nouveau. Lit from within, the colourful glass was very beautiful, but there was something sinister about it.
In combination with the fountain, it could not more clearly be a giant ‘Fuck You’ to Christianity.
On the veranda, near the front door, was a man with his long, white-streaked pink hair done up in victory rolls, face painted to match—including, Aix noted, the right shape of eyebrow and lip, which most retro people missed—and wearing an outfit that consisted of sailor-style shorts and blouse, both black, with black fishnet stockings and intricate tattoo sleeves down both arms. He waved as they pulled up, and came down the steps as they were all getting out of the van. ‘Hello, darlings!’ he lilted, and Aix realised “travesty” might be spelled with an I, not a Y.
He felt instantly predisposed to like Uncle Travesty.
‘Hieee,’ Aix said, his own Gay Voice a bit rusty from lack of use.
‘Well! I’m so glad the Dragon is going to people worthy of it!’ Uncle Travesty said, upon hearing this, and seeing everyone as they climbed out of the minivan.
Pippin beeped, coming closer to Uncle Travesty and reaching up, opening and closing her little hands in the Pantomime for ‘Pick me up’. He did, instantly endearing himself by tossing her up in the air and catching her, making her squeal and giggle happily, her Flash lighting up much brighter, tail wrapping around his chest when he swung her up onto his shoulders. ‘It’s in the mews, but don’t worry, dear,’ he assured Aix, as René got out the chair and Aix settled into it, ‘the paved path goes everywhere.’
‘Shall I push you?’ René asked softly.
‘Yes, please,’ Aix said, frustrated that he couldn’t push himself, but somewhat… tingly was the closest word… that René, who apparently was attracted to him, was offering to push.
René pushed Aix with all the gentleness and control of someone pushing the lightest thing in the world, and Uncle Travesty led them down a path that wound around ancient twisted oaks and witch hazels, tall stands of aspen with their eye-covered trunks, and weeping beeches with their long curtains that swayed with every breeze. There was little else but moss and lichen and mushrooms, it was darker because of the ancient chestnuts towering over all the other trees; even the squirrels running and up down them were black. Aix knew from his friend Sokeenun that this age of forest was completely extirpated; the Averays must have gotten here very early, and secured this patch of woods from the other settlers. He wondered: what was their relationship with the… was it Algonquin, in this area…? He hoped it was good, he’d listened to Sokeenun speak often of the chestnut trees that were the equivalent size of sequoias, the forest as tall and ancient before the white settlers came and cut it all down, infected the rest with invasive things like blight and earthworms.
It was dark, here, and only the greenish-gold flashes of summer fireflies, and the multicolour glow of Pippin herself, lit their path. From the tiny sounds of the black squirrels skittering around the trees and rustling the branches, to the scream of a fox or perhaps a coyote in the distance, the sound of running water, the step of a deer or other larger animal, they were suddenly plunged into a Wood.
‘The wood is full of shining eyes, the wood is full of creeping feet, the wood is full of tiny cries,’ Aix felt the urge to whisper softly, half-singing it as he’d always heard it at bardic circles of his youth, ‘We must not go to the wood at night…’
‘I met a man with eyes of glass,’ sang Uncle Travesty, in an eerie half-whisper, just as Aix had, ‘And a finger as curled as a wriggling worm. And hair as red as rotting leaves. And a stick that hissssssed like a summer snake….’
There was the rattling of a småtroll, red eyes regarding them from a distance, the rest of the joey barely visible in the vertical shadows of the trees and branches. Pippin beeped and waved. Uncle Travesty chuckled.
‘They’re very shy; not like you, my dear.’
‘Uu?’ Pippin said.
‘They live outside and guard for us, as they were bred to do. This wood is very ancient, you know; we found it quite before any of the other settlers, and we have always leased it from those who were here first, on condition we allow them to continue tending it properly, and using it, and so forth. There was the fire, but that’s all settled now.’
‘The fire?’ Marshmallow asked.
‘The house is the second house we have built here. You saw the fountain as you came in?’
‘Yes,’ Marshmallow said. ‘Is it, um, is it supposed to be a monument to the women that lost their lives in the witch trials?’
‘In a way, dear, in a way. It’s a statue of our Sitrinne, who was the last woman in America to ever be legally accused of witchcraft, in 1889.’
Marshmallow glanced at René and raised her brow. ‘That’s uh, that’s over a century ago. Didn’t you say you’d met her, Aix?’
‘Yeah,’ Aix said, shrugging like it didn’t bother him to find out someone he’d met was over a hundred and fifty years old. ‘They—that is, the Christians in the town of Sleepy Hollow—burned the original house down, with every resident sleeping inside. It was one of the most calculatedly violent actions ever committed by settlers against other settlers, and it gets mentioned in every account of the witch hysteria.’
‘They thought everyone was inside,’ Uncle Travesty corrected, and Aix grinned, knowing this part of the story well. ‘As it happens, they were wrong. The house was the only member of the family they destroyed; but houses can be rebuilt. Here we are!’ he said, because they were approaching a large carriage-house of old grey stone, with a black metal roof, the modern roll-up garage door the same sulphur yellow as the old, well-maintained wooden shutters and muntins of the windows. It was a taller-than-normal garage door, Aix had only ever seen ones that tall in elevation drawings.
Uncle Travesty got a ring of keys hanging off his belt-loop, and opened the yellow door on the side of the garage. ‘Wait here, doves, it’s a manual door.’ And he went inside, the door more than tall enough to accommodate the Pippin on his shoulders.
First, lights came on inside, and then the big door rolled up, revealing the trailer was not the usual box made of sheet metal, but a show-wagon, of wood, made to look like a ship, complete with colourful and intricate millwork and fretwork—and, like the figurehead of a ship, an intricately-carved and painted dragon was mounted to the front. Instead of roaring, its mouth was closed, nose pointed up, eyes lit from within and glowing amber, wings stretched back and folded, looking like they were made of real canvas, and might move. It had rainbow scales, and Aix knew then that Victoria had read the dragon fantasy series he’d grown up reading, because the dragon was obviously modelled on the cover art from it.
The wheels of the wagon were covered by the curved hull of the ship. The lights had come from the trailer—there were running lights, but they weren’t simply mounted and ugly, they were framed with millwork, worked into the design of it so they weren’t jarring. The side had porthole windows, the outside panelled in strips of steam-curved wood, each one painted a different colour to make a rainbow
‘It’s a dragon ship?’ Marshmallow whispered, covering her mouth, eyes wide with shock. Aix and René both laughed in wonder and delight.
‘It’s a dragon ship!’ Aix said, getting up out of his wheelchair, forgetting the brakes; René compensated, but the slight shift made Aix remember, and he sat back down briefly, pushing the brakes on before getting to his feet again. ‘Oh my god, she’s beautiful…’
Dragon Wagon was painted in gold right where the name of a ship would be, in circus lettering. There was a hiss of hydraulic machinery, and the dragon’s head moved, turning and tilting to look at them, steam coming from its nostrils. Marshmallow screamed, bouncing up and down.
‘It’s a puppet?!’
The wings spread, revealing the stringlight-lined metal ribs of the wings, and the canvas that made up the webbing between them, was what the awnings were made of.
‘Ahhhhh oh my god!!’ Aix was flapping and spinning in circles in overwhelmed glee.
‘This is so cool! this is so cool!!’ Marshmallow couldn’t believe it, watching as Uncle Travesty came out from the back of the wagon, where the door must be; Pippin was not with him. ‘We get to have this?’
‘Well!’ he said, all smiles. ‘It’s just been languishing in here, you know. Come!’ he motioned them, ‘Come inside! Now you have to remember, our Victoria was in her Terrible Pink Phase then, and it hasn’t been redecorated since about 1996….’
They followed him around the back of the wagon, seeing there was the traditional little porch wooden show wagons had—and the wagon was big enough to actually have a space for one chair on the little porch, and a dragon made of cast iron was holding a hanging lantern from its mouth.
‘There are some steps, I’m afraid—she had this before needing the chair,’ Uncle Travesty said, climbing up the colourful steps first, and looking down at Aix. ‘What would help, darling?’
Aix was assessing the steps and the railing around the little porch. He felt a touch to his shoulder, turned to see René.
‘Would you like it if I carried you up the steps, chéri,’ he said softly.
‘What, like a princess carry?’ Aix said, without thinking about it. ‘That’s the only one that wouldn’t rely on my joints being functional.’ Which wasn’t, strictly speaking, true; the fireman’s carry would work too. The thing was, fireman’s carry was humiliating and dehumanising, and Aix was learning that those were very much legitimate reasons to not agree to something. After the harrowing year and a half he’d spent being on the street and in the System, being dehumanised and humiliated, he’d learned just exactly what dignity and humiliation and dehumanising meant, by way of the System’s machinery letting him know just how valueless his life was, in the eyes of the government and wider society. Now that he had escaped the System, he didn’t like being agreeable and making himself “easy to get along with” anymore.
The stairs up to the porch were the arched type that Aix had seen while researching vardos and showman’s wagons, having wanted one because his friend Sokeenun had introduced him to the wonders of the Road Trip, and he very much wanted to just travel about freely, exploring the world. The steps were carved and painted in three colours—magenta, purple, and teal, very ‘90s—and did not seem as steep as trailer steps usually were. Even so, there were no rails on the sides, and open treads, and he’d already sprained his foot and his ankle, severely, twice, in the past year, by falling down stairs.
René was smaller than him—not shorter, but thinner—and it made Aix’s instincts say René was going to have trouble holding onto his seventh of a ton. Except…
Except he was a vampire, and vampires were stronger than humans.
‘Just be aware my joints will dislocate if you stress them,’ Aix said.
‘I need to hear a yes or a no, cher petit,’ René said quietly, and Aix felt… felt the Implication in René using that phrase, even as he shivered a little at the endearment; French was his first language, the endearments in your first language just meant more….
‘Yes,’ he said, a little breathless.
‘Put your arms around my neck.’
Aix swallowed down his urge to reply to that with something like yes, sir and just did it, moving with René as he shifted and put one arm behind Aix’s knees, the other just under his shoulders, and—suddenly Aix was in his arms, and feeling light as a feather from how easily René was holding him, not straining at all.
Aix hadn’t always been fat—he’d always been tall, but he’d actually spent most of his teens and twenties underweight—but the world had always treated him like he was fat, and now he actually was fat, and he had done it on purpose just like his fat icon, Nero Wolfe. So, it was novel to be treated like he weighed nothing at all, rather than the seventh of a ton he’d made himself.
René was struggling to not comment on how soft and warm Aix was, how much he was enjoying carrying him in the traditional manner one carried precious creatures like damsels and princesses; it had been so very long since René had met a boy so pretty as Aix, and he wanted him, especially given his other boy, Cameron, also wanted Aix. His face, veiled though it was, was so close that René could feel his breath, as well as hearing his heartbeat. A vampire’s sense of smell was strong enough to know exactly what someone smelled like between the legs, since it was just a stronger version of a person’s personal scent, and Aix was… delicious was the only word—not in the sense of food, he was not at all appetising, but in the sense of sex.
Having gotten up the steps, René carefully set the boy down on the porch, only allowing himself to gently rub Aix’s back, until he seemed steady again, following him inside.
The door opened into a large living area with very colourful carpet with a clown pattern, the sort of carpet you expected at a bowling alley or arcade, which was even on the steps of the spiral staircase that went up to a hatch in the ceiling that obviously led to the roof. The carpet would have been startling but for the kitchen beyond, which was open and circular, looking so atomically mid-century modern that it went straight into googie, with curved purple counters flecked with gold, to the circular overhead light that had gold stars painted on the frosted shade. The kitchen had a teal linoleum floor, magenta cabinets, and all the appliances were sparkling magenta pink—the wall oven, the small coffee maker, the blobject fridge with freezer. The metal was all gleaming brass, including the poles that acted as a room divider of sorts, and had an empty planter box on them.
Aix fell in love with the trailer instantly.
The walls were the usual wooden panelling one expected in a circus wagon or vintage trailer, but painted purple, teal, and magenta, with gold tracing to make it more circus-like. There were magenta velvet curtains hanging around the windows, cut in the shape of a circle.
As Aix moved into the kitchen, he saw that there was a dishwasher beside the sink, but it was not the kind with a door at the front, but the kind that was part of a sink and loaded from the top. He’d seen them before, but not so big and fancy as this one, nor with a pink sink. The sink faucet was in the shape of a dragon too, and the below-counter storage was all drawers in pink, the top cabinets having sliding doors of frosted magenta-pink acrylic glass. Aix opened them, in a sort of dream-like trance, and saw they were full of neon Tupperware dishes, from the square plates and cereal bowls of Aix’s childhood to the matching mugs and tumblers, there were even storage containers, spice jars with purple lids, pitchers, everything. The drawers had familiar catches to keep them falling open, and Aix pushed down the lock to open the drawer all the way, finding all the gadgets in them. Aix only recognised a few of the Tupperware ones—they were all so strange and unique—but there were other tools, nested measuring cups and the squoval spoons in a familiar shade of lime green, mixing bowls in rich violet, and Aix wondered…
‘Did Victoria bake?’ he asked, looking up and seeing Uncle Travesty sitting at the kitchen counter, on one of the wide, padded stools.
‘I believe that was Sachiko’s sphere—oh, she was a lovely girl, exchange student that ended up staying quite a bit longer than she had planned. Did our Victoria ever tell you about her?’
‘No,’ Aix said, still opening drawers and sliding open cabinets, slowly, still not quite able to believe…. He felt the trailer shifting, turned to see Marshmallow coming from the very front… back… fore, Aix decided—a ship should use ship terms—of the trailer, all smiles.
‘This trailer has a pink bathroom, Aix. It’s like, pink pink, not that pale one from the fifties you showed me. You gotta see!’ She knew not to grab and pull Aix, because of his joints, but she motioned him to follow and he did, going down the hallway and noting the closets, the bunk beds that each had their own circular bubble-window, and Marshmallow was pulling him into a bathroom that took up the entire width of the trailer, and was tiled in little white tiles that had scattered coloured tiles in every shade of pink mixed in at random, and the fixtures were hot pink, including the tiles of the shower, which also had a roomy, curvy bench in it, that looked like it would be very comfortable to sit on, as well as ledges and brass grab-bars that were actually pretty to look at.
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Marshmallow said, seeing Aix’s delight.
‘What in the Barbie Dreamhouse…’ Aix murmured, feeling a lopsided smile spread over his face. Smiles were always a gamble, given the nerve damage jaw surgery had given his face, and he had a bit of an autistic disconnect between facial expressions and what he was feeling; but sometimes, he was so overwhelmed with delight that he had to smile.
‘I knew you’d love it! Come see the bedroom—I want the bunks, you can have this one…’
He followed her through the bathroom to the main bedroom taking up the fore of the wagon; it had a large mattress, a full or a queen Aix reckoned, encased in a black cover, and all of the wood was stained pink, the cabinet doors covered in bevelled mirrors, the drawer-pulls the curvy shape Aix knew from his own 1950s childhood home, though these had somehow been chromed in pink. The curtains were Barbie-patterned fabric, and there was another door on one side of the bedroom, though it didn’t have a window and was only visible by the crack around it and the red safety handle. Aix hadn’t seen another door on the outside, was this a hidden door? That made him feel safe….
‘Where’s Pippin?’ he asked Marshmallow, and a cabinet opened and Pippin giggled from inside.
‘She found all the cabinets,’ Marshmallow said.
‘And it’s really okay by you if I take this bed?’ Aix always felt bad wanting the “best” of anything, even when he needed it.
‘Sure,’ Marshmallow said. ‘The bunk beds actually fit an adult person, and I like the idea of having a little burrow. There’s a whole laundry machine in one of the closets opposite; this thing is equipped.’
‘I’d love to go to Pennsic with this…’ Aix said, because despite the inside, the outside was very period-esque. Certainly, nobody objected to dragony things in the SCA….
‘Pennsic,’ Marshmallow echoed, the word sounding vaguely familiar. ‘Oh, some of the clown people talk about Pennsic. It’s some kind of… campground?’
‘Yeah, some kind,’ Aix said, grinning. ‘It’s a mass camping event like Burning Man, except better, because it’s basically a medieval town that pops up for two weeks.’ He started back down the hall, ‘It’s sooooo cool, it’s part of the SCA and there’s battles, and fire-walking, and I thought I’d never get to go again, because I can’t sleep in a tent anymore, but if I have this…’ Getting to the kitchen again, he looked at René, who had stayed in the living room area, chatting with Uncle Travesty. For a moment, he had been imagining René coming with them; but he realised in the next moment that it was impossible. Vampires didn’t leave their territory, all the stories said that….
René saw something behind those eyes shift, saw hope shatter, and wondered. ‘Aix? What is it?’
‘I was just thinking about how much I like camping,’ Aix said. ‘About inviting you with us. With me.’
‘I have never been,’ René said, looking around the trailer thoughtfully from his perch on one of the counter stools. ‘But I can, now,’ he said, half to himself, the idea that his master and the necromancer were gone and he was free to make his own choices, to live openly and outside the nightclub, was still very new, still something he kept having to remind himself over and over. He smiled.
‘I would love to go,’ René said, Come to that, he thought, ‘And I think I would not be the only one of us to enjoy such a thing.’
Aix held back from speaking his thoughts, and it was very difficult, because he was someone that spoke his thoughts aloud in order to have them at all; but he knew that expressing disbelief never came out well when he did it, his tone was too harsh. ‘I’ll have to get a car, then.’
‘You find one you like and I’ll restore it for you, precious,’ Uncle Travesty said. ‘Only our Victoria says you love cars, and there’s nobody in the family—other than sister Nikki and I—who do.’
‘I… yes, I’m a Car Guy,’ Aix said, a little haltingly.
‘You are?’ Marshmallow said, more than a little shocked. ‘You don’t seem like a car guy.’
‘I don’t really have a lot of opportunity. I didn’t get to take auto shop class or learn from my dad or anything like that…’ Aix said, sitting on the last empty counter stool, which put him next to René. ‘He got a lot sicker when I was a teen, plus his mom died and… a bunch of other bad stuff happened. So I never got taught how to drive or change oil or do anything like that. And I’m not… strong,’ he said, still getting used to the fact that “can’t” had to be part of his vocabulary now.
‘That’s what power tools are for, dear,’ Uncle Travesty said, with more than a touch of the mad scientist in his cackle. ‘Goody! Victoria says you need a driving teacher, and I haven’t had the pleasure since she was sixteen. Well, come, let’s have a look at your conveyance, my dear,’ he said to Marshmallow. ‘I haven’t had the pleasure of a minivan’s company in ages.’
Travesty gave the minivan a once-over after Marshmallow pulled it into the garage; he even hauled it up on his lift and had René help him rotate the tires. ‘You get this undercoated every year!’ he exclaimed in delight.
‘Yes sir,’ Marshmallow said. ‘Simon has a car fund set up so everybody has enough to maintain the car they have. This used to be his van before we got him the clownbus. We also have a garage at my house, and I wash it off all the time in winter in there, so the salt doesn’t eat at anything.’
‘You are quite possibly the most fascinatingly, delightfully perfect car owner of your generation I have ever met, my dear.’
‘I can’t um, I can’t afford a new car, so I gotta take care of this one,’ Marshmallow said, blushing a little, digging her sneaker’s toe into the pavement and hunching bashfully. She always telegraphed her emotions very cartoonishly, because it was more fun and she felt clowning was more than just a job or even a hobby.
‘Well that’s a refreshingly practical attitude, I have to say—particularly in this day and age. I see someone has installed a backup camera with a set of children’s tools,’ he went on, lipstick-red lips pursing in disapproval. He sighed through his nose. ‘These young mechanics these days, honestly.’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘Well it isn’t dangerous, but it’s messy and inelegant; don’t worry, dear, I can fix it in two shakes. But I’ll have to have you leave the garage, as I only have the one set of welding goggles.’
Marshmallow went out of the garage and Uncle Travesty closed the yellow door behind her.
She then stopped dead, because there was a huge melanistic Nightwatch clown crouched down in the driveway, and Pippin was teaching him a clapping game. Like all Nightwatchers, he had a face that was all big pointy teeth and glowing red eyes, and he was stretched out, long and spindly, like a stick insect. Marshmallow had seen a lot of Nightwatchers—because Simon specialised in rescuing them and there were a lot of them that needed rescuing—but most of them were kind of small, because most of them were under twenty, and crossed with drag queens, and Nightwatchers grew and grew their whole lives, like snakes. This one must have been one of the very first generations, because he was enormous; and for the first time in a long time, Marshmallow was actually scared—not in the way you were scared of other people, it was just her hindbrain realised That Is A Very Large Wild Animal With Very Long Sharp Teeth And Claws, and freezing had been drilled into her by Bonma. If there was a scary animal, you did not move until it went away.
Pippin came over to her, and jumped up and went on tippy-toes trying to grab her hand, and Marshmallow couldn’t bring herself to move at all, swallowing, eyes still glued to the Nightwatch.
Pippin frowned, studying Marshmallow’s thoughts and realising quickly she was Ascareded; she went over to New Friend and showed him what Catmommy had taught her, about getting down and rolling over on your back and Play Wiggling to make friends. New Friend copied her, and huffed excitedly when this made the human laugh.
Marshmallow knelt down on the ground near Pippin, petting her like she was a little cat, before offering the back of her hand to the Nightwatch. Nightwatchers didn’t have much to pet, their plumage was more like quills, but Simon had taught Marshmallow how you could get down to the base and gently rub the soft, warm skin, like when you rubbed the base of a cat’s ears.
‘Aw, you’re just a pussycat, huh?’ she said, and gently pet him, feeling the very low churring rumble that Nightwatchers made when they were happy.
⁂
René sat quietly at the kitchen bar, watching Aix and thinking. Aix had been wandering to and fro, pulling a tiny notebook from his pocket and making notes as he opened drawers and cabinets. René was pleased to see how organized he was, it was a trait he liked very much—Cameron was the same, always tidy, always making notes; it was why Cameron had studied accountancy while he’d been working as a stripper at the nightclub. René wondered if Aix had any ambitions; he didn’t know exactly what kind of person Aix was—well, other than what he knew from Aix’s author notes on his writings. He was wildly creative and likely a very good fuck because of it. Certainly, the kinky ideas he had were wonderfully new….
I’m single. Since you were asking.
They had a date for… what day was it? René pulled out his phone for the first time in a while, turning it on, to see several worried messages from Cameron, increasingly panicked, before seeming to calm down. René sent an answer—mobile phone messages had to be vague, even with the Knockermade phones.
I apologise for the radio silence. I am safe now, and on my way home with our new Guardians.
It seemed a paltry way to summarise all that had happened, but Cameron replied immediately.
Sorry for freaking out. Things got really touch-and-go here for a bit. I’m okay now. Call me when you can.
‘That’s a pretty phone case,’ Aix said.
‘It is the phone himself,’ René said, ‘the knockers prefer a wooden case.’
‘And buttons!’ Aix said, excitedly. ‘How much are they? Do they come in pink?’
‘They are all custom-made, I am sure you can get the exact shade of pink you want. Or the exact wood.’ He offered the phone. ‘Would you like to see?’
‘Yes, please!’ Aix said, gently taking the phone, turning it over in his hands to see the swivel below the screen, that had a tiny keyboard on it. ‘Wow, this is like my old Razzle… is the operating system customisable? Like with colours and icons? Can you put apps into folders?’
René chuckled. ‘Yes. You know what you like, then.’ That was a good sign for a potential submissive….
‘I’m from the nineties, and we had a regular computer, not a mac,’ Aix said, gently running his fingertips along the edges of the phone, finding buttons but not pushing them, careful, so careful… ‘I immediately learned how to customise everything, from the colours of the windows to the colour of the little wiggly underline on a misspelled word. I don’t tolerate this new thing where electronics don’t let you customise how the interface looks. I wonder what Knockers are like.’
‘They are very focussed, like all of the folk. Perfectionists. Very inventive.’
‘Does… do we have our own internet?’ Aix asked, handing the phone back and sitting down at the snackbar with René, leaving one stool between them, because that seemed polite.
‘We are still making the transition. It must be done carefully, to remain hidden. Particularly when it comes to wireless signals.’
‘Ahh, yeah, understandable. Cable internet’s better anyway. Do we have our own satellites?’
‘I hear things are being done with leylines.’
‘Leylines are real? I thought Aleister Crowley and them invented that shit.’
René chuckled. ‘They did, but the Knockers took inspiration from the idea of having a single line that carried transport and things like electricity or communications. They built out the tunnels to support not only trains, but power lines and telephone lines as well. We call those the leylines, though each one has its own name. You should ask Jargoraad, he is the public educator about civil engineering projects.’
‘We have official public educators?’ Aix said, wide-eyed. ‘That’s so cool!’
‘We have newspapers too, and magazines. There is even a sort of broadcast system, but not via wireless signals. It’s all the way the telephone lines used to be.’
‘So there’s, like, a switchboard? You dial in to whatever station you want to listen to?’
‘Exactement. Exactly.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Aix said, after a moment struggling with whether to even comment. ‘My first language was French. I’m not—I’m not fluent anymore, but I’m a lot more fluent than most Americans.’ Another pause he was all too aware of, ‘If you want, we could um. I would like to get back into practise.’
René felt a smile spread over his face, as he listened to Aix stumble through such a kindness. He’d gotten into the habit of repeating himself in both languages when Americans stopped being multilingual. It was still exhausting, to have to translate every little word and comment and emotion. To have that not only recognised but then to be assured he could relax around Aix… well, René knew all about masks, and about taking them off. ‘I would enjoy having another person to speak French with. Your accent, in the Dreamland…’
‘Oh no,’ Aix said, with an abashed smile and hiding in his hands. ‘It’s still got a Quebecois twang, doesn’t it?’
René chuckled gently, putting a hand on Aix’s shoulder. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of, chéri, it is still the accent of a native speaker. Did you learn from family?’
‘My mom studied in Quebec, so she came back with the accent and taught me when I was little. I guess it stuck even though all my other education was Parisien.’ He frowned. ‘But you… well, your accent is really faint but is it l’accent Midi? Am I saying that right?’
‘Mais oui, I am from Grasse. Most Americans, even the French speakers, they find it incomprehensible. Muddy, I have heard from a New Orleans friend.’
‘Aw no, I like it. It’s round and dark and sort of… hm, could you say…’ Aix paused, knowing from experience that “say something in French” resulted in a literal repetition of that phrase. ‘ “How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail”?’ he decided, pulling from one of the many poems in his memory.
René was pleased to say something so novel, noticing Aix closed his eyes to listen.
‘Yes, very dark cool colours, phthalo blue and green sorts of colours,’ Aix said, with a little nod, before opening his eyes again. ‘I’ve never heard that accent before.’
‘How do you decide such things?’ René asked, delighted.
‘Decide? No, I have synæsthesia. Sounds are colours and textures and visuals and tactile sensations.’ Aix huffed a laugh, looking down at his hands. ‘There’s a famous synæsthete who once said he thought the lights went down at the theatre so everyone could see the colours of the music better. That was when I realised other people didn’t experience music the way I did.’
‘What a beautiful way to experience the world.’
‘A lot of people have it a little bit. What colour is Tuesday?’
‘Red.’
‘See? You have it too. Tuesday’s yellow-but-also-red for me, and Monday’s a sort of blue-black.’
‘But you hear colours everywhere, with everything?’
‘I do yes. Languages and dialects are whole palettes of colour. It’s why I like certain accents, and why I’m picky about timbre. I hated my own timbre until I got on T. It’s hard to live with a voice that makes your own body recoil in agony—and no, it wasn’t dysphoria of the regular sort. I had a good voice, and brassy is perfectly acceptable timbre for a head voice; but I hated hearing it, it was so yellow and pointy and painful.’
‘And it is very different in a lower register; though I would describe you the perfect voice for jazz.’
Aix giggled, feeling warm and bashful from the praise. ‘Thank you,’ he managed, after a bit of wiggling that resembled Pippin’s pleased wiggling. ‘Yes, I’m not sure how I sound now to others, or what operatic range I am anymore, but I can sing along with baritones, sometimes I’m a little lower than them.’
‘Mm, and I think it very powerful, the way you simply re-key a soprano or tenor’s song to your range, and refuse to be constrained by convention.’
‘I have all those songs memorised and I’m supposed to, what, just forget them all because my voice got lower? No thank you. I still know the notes,’ Aix said with a comical toss of his head, before sobering. ‘René…’ he began, feeling nervous but a little daring, ‘do you have auditions for jazz singers—you know, for your nightclub? I would need help learning how to audition, but—’
‘You auditioned tonight, cher petit, and you were more than qualified. I even recorded some audio, though I wished to have your permission before I sent it to our theatrical program director and musical director. It was during your rendition of “Feed Me” with Xander.’
‘Thank you for asking but please do not record me without asking ever again,’ Aix said, his voice clipped and formal because he had just felt a cold jolt of horror and betrayal. He didn’t expect René to notice—no one ever noticed Aix’s emotional state because apparently he didn’t make any fear or sadness expressions when he was afraid or sad.
Immediately, René knew something was wrong; and he wasn’t the only one. There was a loud alarm-honk from outside, and further honking that resembled the tiniest, angriest goose, as Pippin ran to Aix’s side, her Flash going—of all colours—green and orange, and she jumped up on the counter, putting herself between Aix and René and baring her little teeth, hissing and fluffing up. This would have been adorable, except that there was accompanying hissing that was a lot more foreboding from outside, as the surrounding Nightwatch clowns picked up on her alarm call.
René opened his phone, slowly, and tilted it toward Aix as he pulled up the recording and deleted it. ‘Je suis desolé,’ he said, carefully gentle, as he always was when having accidentally trod on a tripwire for someone’s fears. ‘There he is gone now.’ He did not say further, not knowing the exact shape of trauma—but it was trauma, from the way Aix had frozen and his pulse had started racing, his scent gaining the tang of panic.
‘I need space,’ Aix said the words with difficulty, and got up with difficulty, and went outside, sitting on the steps of the trailer and scooting his way down. Marshmallow came over to him, looking worried and offering her hand. Aix took it—Marshmallow was about his general size, and therefore he wasn’t worried about pulling her down on top of himself—and got back on the ground again with her help. She didn’t let go of his hand.
‘What did he do?’ she asked, and Aix didn’t realise until he heard her angry tone that she was worried about him.
‘He recorded my voice without asking,’ Aix said, and it sounded like such a small thing; but it wasn’t, not to him. His ex-husband had done the same during sex once, and Aix still wasn’t sure if the file had ever been truly deleted, because he couldn’t remember. And anyway, that opened up the idea that his ex-husband had done the same lots of other times without telling him, because his ex was, and this was important, a fucking liar. And also not here.
Not here.
‘I can’t—I can’t—I can’t talk to you about this,’ Aix said, narrowly avoiding just repeating the first two words over and over like a broken record. That was the kind of stuttering he had, and it was coming back in full force. He walked away from Marshmallow because he needed to just not talk to another person right now, bringing up why would just make the emotional flashback worse. Pippin stayed with him, clinging to his chest, as he just walked, off in a random direction, barely hearing anything, not caring, not able to think about anything just needing to leave.
‘Hey!’ Marshmallow jogged up to him. ‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ she said, ‘but I learned the buddy system, especially at night or in the woods—and it’s kinda both right now.’
Aix kept walking, tamped down the very loud urge to explain, to reassure, to entertain her. She doesn’t need entertaining, she IS an entertainer, he told himself. It was surprisingly effective, just like her assurance that she was just using the buddy system—a Safety Rule, which was, for Aix, inviolate and set in stone and inarguable—even by his Imp of the Perverse. You didn’t argue with safety rules. Ever.
Marshmallow was curious, but she also knew how to spot a breakdown; Aix was starting to make sense, maybe because she was starting to see his mask slip, or maybe because this was a situation where she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what to do. She liked rules, and knowing what they were. She didn’t always follow them, but she preferred deciding to break them to just breaking them because she didn’t know they were there in the first place. But she knew the rules—nobody gets to walk off alone, nobody. Especially if they’re upset. Especially if it’s the woods. Especially at night.
She wondered if singing would help Aix. He liked to sing, and he had pipes. She figured something easy. ‘Daaaaaay-oh,’ she sang, and snuck a glance over. Even in the dark under the trees, Pippin’s Flash was lighting things enough for her to see his face relax a little.
‘Daaaaay-oh,’ he sang back, a little shaky.
‘Daylight come and we wanna go home!’
She got him singing, and was extra-silly when she riffed with him, and soon she got him to be silly with her and Pippin, without talking. He was a little shy, afraid of really letting go the way clowns did; but he seemed more able to get around it when he wasn’t speaking.
It was novel, to play in what felt like the middle of a fully wild forest in the middle of the night without fear; but aside from the sounds of smaller nighttime animals, like bugs and birds, they only heard the clicks and rasps of Nightwatchers around them, saw the red glows from their very dim Flash. They were being watched over, protected.
The dark and the relative quiet helped Aix calm down, as did Marshmallow and Pippin goofing around without necessarily needing him to join in; but not making him feel he couldn’t, either. He wasn’t good at playing, anymore, and he knew it; he knew why, also, but breaking through his embarrassment and fear of being laughed at rather than with was very difficult. It was one of the reasons he was so fascinated with clowns; they were free, truly, from that terrible phobia, and even embraced it, tried to provoke it on purpose.
He wished he could do that, because being afraid made life so very difficult.