Chapter Twenty The Nova
Chapter Twenty
The Nova
It was far too hot for a veil, but I wore it anyway.
My scalp itched from the beating sun, the whining of bugs from the scalding-dry dirt calling to me among the hot stones.
By midday, the sun and smog together made the outdoors unbearable. Sweat clustered on my shoulders and crawled down my back. The light bounced from the dry path and into my face among reflective pieces of granite headstones.
The vitiligo on my hand was already red. My cheek stung; surely it would be pink under the deep blue lace of the veil.
My dress was a similar shade, an Astrium star brooch pinned to my collar.
My sleeves were slightly sheer and patterned, but no matter how light the fabric, I was still clammy as a fever patient.
The heaviness of my petticoats under the dress put more stress on me than I was used to.
A walking suit was built for that—walking.
Moving. Doing important work. This ceremonial mourning attire was built for wallowing widows with nothing to do.
That may have been harsh. But it was true. They didn’t build clothes for woman who worked, because then they would do work. Fashion was a prison.
“We were thinking, as the executor of his will, if you would send us some support in these trying times? We have to pay for Clara’s finishing school, and the funeral—”
“I paid for the funeral.” My eyesight was trained on the ground, making sure not to trip. A bead of sweat raced down my brow, then tickled by my ear.
“We organized the catering,” his mother corrected.
“Yes, because the most important part of a funeral is making sure the living don’t starve for the hour they’re there.”
Her wrinkled lips pressed together, somehow creating more lines. “I have responsibilities to my living child.”
“And I respect that,” I sighed, “but I think there is a more appropriate time to approach me for money, and it isn’t this instance. What happened to the rent you collect from the tenements you inherited from the last familial passing?”
She didn’t like that answer; her arm looped in mine stiffened.
I loved my sister-in-law, and Dorian, but their mother made it so not one thing could happen without her centering herself.
Every donation needed a photograph, every goodwill needed a public announcement, and apparently every child gone meant she could leech the sympathy from everyone in her general vicinity for the entire mourning period.
Maybe I would donate it all to the cat sanctuary.
We approached the grave, the black stone polished enough to make it as reflective as a mirror. Time would wear it down as the years went by. I imagined lichen and weeds sprouting around, the carved name fading with centuries of corrosion.
But for now, it was shiny and new. Pretty to view for all who pretended to care.
His mother placed a small bunch of flowers just under his name.
She stayed crouching, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
It would be cold to call her performative; that was her son.
But I felt a certain kind of way while sharing grief; to perform so publicly when all I’d like to do was retreat home felt false.
Knowing the grave was empty made me smile, but only for a minute.
She backed away, allowing me my turn. I tucked a couple of bulbs and seeds into the partly freshly turned dirt.
Hopefully flowers for years to come. There were no more flowers from the garden, and I’d forgotten to buy some on the way over.
The prearranged bouquets were ugly, anyway. Devoid of meaning and care.
Dorian Christopher Fairfax
1845–1875
Beside his name on the double-depth plot:
Lucia Nina Collesano-Fairfax
1845–
A shadow cast over me, a silhouette backlit in the reflection of the black headstone.
“There you are.” A male voice.
I wasn’t expecting anyone, and it wasn’t my brother.
Slowly, I craned my neck up, squinting at whom it might be.
Then there he was, a star-shaped mark and striking pale eyes.
Heat crept up the back of my neck, not the humidity from outside, but the settling dread from within. A panic that felt like a slow internal bleed.
He held a hand out to me.
“Oh, you’ve learned manners?” I hissed through my teeth, taking his hand to stand up.
“Hello!” My mother-in-law waved impatiently.
I glanced at her along the path, her brow cocked as high as ever.
I could already see a sneer forming, possibly a rumor blooming between her ears.
I didn’t need anything libelous floating around her tearoom later, her guests gossiping about moving on or disrespecting the mourning period—with a man who looked so closely related to her son, no less, adding salt to the wound.
“Mrs. Fairfax, this is my cousin.” I patted his arm. “He came to help support us in this trying time. As you know, my mind is away from me.”
Her head cocked, though more in interest than distaste. “Oh! I was unaware. Your mother didn’t—”
“It was a surprise to all of us.” I smiled. “If you don’t mind, he and I have to discuss some things. I can meet you somewhere later for dinner.” I dug my nails into his sleeve, dragging him past.
I didn’t bother to look back at her. I could escape her insistence if I just walked fast enough.
“Cousin?” Altair scowled. “I am not—”
“There are strict rules. Being seen alone with another man, not related, means I will be socially flogged.” I walked faster, sweat beading at my temples. “If you must see me, if anyone asks, you are my cousin. From the old country. It’s best if you pretend not to understand English.”
“Oh, so you do understand rules. Certainly a surprising development from where I’m standing.” His dark brow rose, nearly disappearing behind the cowlick curl of his forelock.
“You know, for a cosmic entity from whence I still don’t know entirely where you came, you sure seem to have plenty of jokes.”
“Irony is universal” was all he said. “You seemed so keen on breaking rules last time your claws were buried in my back.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I ground my teeth.
“Yes, you do—”
“Stop talking.”
“Why? You’re getting red—”
“Because you keep talking about it.”
“What is it, then? I would have thought you’d be happy to see me again, due to your insatiable ambition.” He hummed, tipping his head toward me. “Unless you’ve decided to give up on the Otherside?”
“Why would you say that?” My head snapped up at him.
The reaction made his face settle in an amused, cocky expression. “That certainly got your attention.”
“You don’t scare me, not even with that last stunt you pulled.”
“What scares you, then? I thought for sure that last incident would swear you off from it. What happens when you inevitably get stuck again like a mouse with its tail in a trap? The only reason you haven’t been swallowed whole yet is because of me.”
“That’s all right, you’re going to help me, since I’ve been so kind to you. I’ll be ready to explore the unknown in no time, with a professional like yourself at my side.”
“Maybe if you proved to be trainable, or in any way intellectually pliant.”
There was no use entertaining him with any more retorts; he would just continue to poke and prod until I had some sort of public meltdown. He thought he was clever, but he wasn’t much greater than any other annoyance right now.
The sounds of my boots scuffing along the path were my focal point.
One boot after the other, don’t step on your skirt, ignore the dust on your petticoat, pay no mind to the itch on your burnt scalp and cheeks, finish the day.
The path wound around the expansive lot.
Miles of headstones as plentiful as wildflowers, the phantom cityscape of Aisl Park just past the smog overlooking the rolling hills of stone.
Occasionally a collection of tombs, possibly a sparse creaking tree keeping watch.
It felt like lately I only came to Alton Heights for the cemetery, not that there was anything else to see.
It was one of those places I’d never had the desire to explore.
Now, I was forced to become familiar for these visits.
At some points you could be passing a grave as old as the city itself and, next to it, someone put in the ground yesterday.
They were running out of room, maybe only another generation of lots to be filled, but soon no new graves would be made.
I supposed undertakers would market communal graves, rebranding the mass burial pits that made up the foundation of the surrounding islands of the peninsula, soon covered by prisons or isolated hospitals.
Even then, they’d be understaffed, underfunded.
Some graves still had their rusted safety bells dangling on their crosses. Many graves were equipped with cages to prevent graverobbing, knowing that no other living soul would be there to stop it.
I turned off the beaten path and headed between a collection of columbaria to escape the blistering sun. A thin patch of shade presented itself against the wall, which I took to like a creature allergic to light.
“Are you almost done looking at rocks?”
“They’re not rocks, they’re people.”
“No, these are rocks.” He knocked against a niche.
“Within them are people.”
“Were people.”
“Why are you so hung up on semantics?”
“I’m just practicing your world’s terminology, that is all.” There was a crooked smile, barely contained. Then he approached.
I pressed my back to the crypts, but he just got closer.
His body was blocking my way, my eyes level with his clavicle.
His hand rose and picked up the fabric of the veil, but he did not lift it from my face. Through the lace, I watched him roll it between his fingers, the tiny glass beads shimmering in the direct light. His skin even seemed to shimmer, like shattered glass.
“I don’t wish to be your enemy.” His voice was smooth, almost alluring. Like he wanted to ease something out of me. “I think it is time you started trusting me, especially after that last misstep of yours.”
“I don’t trust your appetites.” At this point, my back was flat against the surface. Its alignment couldn’t have been straighter in my attempt to mold to the wall. “I was perfectly fine.”
“If by perfectly fine you mean a crying, sobbing mess trying not to come . . .” He leaned down at my ear. “Well, I suppose a correction is in order if you do prefer your body to be knotted and seeded like that every day, until you turn to dust.”
“You are an evil, malevolent abomination,” I said slowly, “but you know that, don’t you?”
“I am neither good nor evil. There is no such thing outside your limited minds.” He poked his finger directly into my forehead, the back of my head smacking against the stone behind me.
I glared up at him, trapped between the dead and the beast. He truly mustn’t have tried to blend in. His resemblance to Dorian was suspect. I understood why he thought it would be appealing to me. But he wasn’t him.
Altair was more lax in composure: the curls of black hair dangling in front of his face, the less formal attire. Then there were the eyes. They were a mesmerizing iridescence, like he was trying to show off. To be different. To appear human, but making sure anyone who looked at him felt inferior.
To add insult to injury, the star on his forehead, where the beast’s third eye usually was, mimicked the vitiligo on my chest specifically. I knew I was unique; my markings were one of a kind and ever changing. He couldn’t take that from me.
A sharp sound of someone’s nose in a handkerchief in between conversation made every muscle in my body tense. In my panicked state, I grabbed him, burying my face in his chest.
He lurched forward, his hand slapping against the wall beside my head.
I shrugged my shoulders, attempting my best mournful posture.
“Oh! Apologies, I’m so sorry,” a nasally, tired-sounding woman said. There was an awkward silence, the sounds of crunching dirt under shoes. I couldn’t hear if she had fully walked away, so I just stayed there.
“Do you ever get tired of performing?” It sounded like a joke.
I reached down between my skirts to pull a spring-loaded blade from my tie-in pocket, the pop of the blade opening before it reached between his legs.
I looked up at him, my chin almost touching his chest from the proximity. “Laugh at me again. Do it.” I pressed it harder, high between his legs.
“I don’t know what that would do—”
I held it against his thigh. “That is your femoral artery,” I interrupted. “If this shape of yours functions like a real person, you’ll bleed out right here.”
“And if you do not get the reaction you desire, what then?”
“It would be greatly cathartic.”
He clenched his fist by my ear, then leaned down.
I thought his illusion faltered, a flash of white in his eyes, a certain muscle in his face twitching that did not belong.
Even the sharp whispers jolting in and out of my audible purview.
His words were smooth and clear. “Do you really think you can threaten me?”
I could feel my nostrils flare, a frustrated shove of breath from my lungs, but I did not concede my weapon. “The night is your territory; daylight hours are mine.”
“The natural laws of the cosmos have no clock.” He cocked his head, leaning down as if we were sharing secrets.
Our lips were close; he glanced at mine twice before his smirk only grew.
The only thing between us was the veil, my only mask giving me any sort of coverage.
It was like every time he looked at me, really looked at me, I was naked.
Ironically, I had been in the nude during previous encounters. But not this—this was different. Now the beast was collecting my insecurities.
“One thing I can admit is that you are interesting to watch,” he purred.
“What an honor to be your little study,” I whispered, “or is it more like stalking prey?”
“Do you want it to be?” His gaze flicked from my lips to my eyes. “To be my prey?”
“That depends on the reason for the hunt.” It was like the words fell from my lips, no thought behind them.
My taunt made him exhale, then lean closer.
But I’d already slipped away from him, my neck and face hotter than before, and it wasn’t from the sun.