Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 28 Read online

  “Where is he?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  The one with the wedding band said, “We can’t tell you. We’ve sworn an oath to never reveal how our tricks are done.”

  The one holding the re-folded cloth nodded to me. “Thank you for answering our invitation. You were a . . . most welcome audience. Keep the box as a souvenir.”

  My hand was still resting protectively over the box. “Is this what you do to everyone who breaks your silence?”

  The one with the limp answered. “No. We handle each in an appropriate manner. Some are changed. Some are made to forget. Some are disappeared. None of them are hurt, but none of them are able to reveal our secrets again.”

  One of them said, “Good night,” and they left me alone again in the coffee shop.

  It was the sort of night that most people would try to forget, but I had made a promise to remember. I stared down at the black box and, after a moment, opened it. Resting in the center of the black polished surface was a gleaming quarter, just where the Amazing Eric had placed it.

  And I remembered.

  Killing Curses, a Caught-Heart Quest

  Krista Hoeppner Leahy

  A curse-killer shouldn’t dream, but I do. I dream of a life where there is no drought, no mottling, and I never meet a Quixote. In that life, when I go home to Loblolly, I hold my own child, my dear wife beside me. In that life, I am not the last curse-killer left in the watersheds.

  But all I know is this life, lit by its own blanched moonlight, and this life started the night my Momma died.

  Momma always said death was the worst of the curses we couldn’t kill, and the night she drowned I found that out.

  One minute she was there—waist high in the night waters of Loblolly’s dipping pool—the next she wasn’t. All that long night, I dredged and re-dredged Loblolly’s crescent-shaped dipping pool, searched the milky waters, sifted the pulverized pine cone sand, ripped out handful after handful of black wattle, bootlace, and spider grass, but found nothing. Not a fingernail. Not a strand of silver hair. Not a curse-killing tooth.

  I might have drowned myself, chasing her through the watersheds in my grief, but all night the dipping pool stayed closed to me—the milky water’s louche opaque, the water itself violent in its stillness—no current tugging at my toes, as if Loblolly had been quarantined without warning, and with my momma’s death the tide too had died.

  Halfway through the night, fresh pain lanced my skin as my momma’s metal teeth began to grow in on my lips—my too sudden inheritance. Interlocking pinwheeled sieves of iron and aluminum spiraled into the bones of my jaw—harsh welcome to the clenched, deadly business of being Loblolly’s curse-killer.

  At dawn, as the waters were switching from milk to ink, finally the tide returned to life, lapping my toes where I sat on the pinecone beach, beneath the towering loblollys which gave our watershed its name. Before I could dive in to travel the waterways, see if I could find where my momma’d died, the tide swept in a Quixote.

  An armored knight of steely water, carrying a cirrus lance, with mad blue islands for eyes, he rode in on a horse of milky smoke, scented of coconuts and figs. He seemed to be followed by an oasis of palm trees.

  “That was that, my child, but this is this.”

  “This is this?”

  “So true. One fine, lost day, when I’d lost my faith to right wrongs, I sought counsel with your mother. Bless her and her beautiful teeth—she talked me out of killing my Quixote song. Rare for a curse-killer, plus she had those pretty teeth. So as a boon to her, I offered to right the wrong of her death. But she declined, noble soul, said I should fulfill my own quest. But to you, her only-born, I make the same offer, shall I undertake the quest to right the wrong of your death?”

  Talking with a madman, in the wake of my mother’s new absence, I had no idea how to respond.

  “Don’t you mean righting the wrong of her death?”

  “No, no, no. She’s dead. Gone. Too late. Death’s one of the curses you can’t kill, didn’t she teach you that?”

  I nodded, the metal of my new mouth stinging.

  “But your death hasn’t happened yet. If I undertake the quest in the present, I will return triumphant in the future, having righted a wrong not yet committed in the past.”

  I found myself nodding. Somehow he made a kind of sense. “And you can actually do this? Right the wrong of my death?”

  “Well, truthfully, my fine young toothy friend, I don’t know. Who am I to say whether or not this quest would be privileged to come in the near, far, or caught-heart party?”

  “Caught-heart?”

  “Caught-heart, always present, never here, the outlandish and unsatisfying, while always promising satisfaction never-failed-or-fulfilled-quest. Many wronged deaths I have sought to right remain caught-heart quests.” His watery steed stamped, hooves roiling the water into steely, bloody fountains.

  While he made no sense, something about this caught-heart quest eased my grief. If I couldn’t right the wrong of my momma’s death—that much at least I thought was true—if I had to live without her, going on a quest with this strange Quixote didn’t sound half-bad.

  “When do we leave?”

  He threw his arms in the air, speckling his smoky white steed with water droplets. “No, no, no. You must remain here! I will undertake the quest alone, for how can I seek your death, to right its wrong, if you are not here, living your life? A gracious offer, my fine young toothy friend, but you must seek your life, while I seek your death. Understand?” He aimed his cloudy lance at my chest.

  It had all been too much. A sob rose up, choking me. For a moment I could neither cry nor breathe, my mouth filling with fresh blood from my too-new teeth.

  “Don’t cry on my armor!” A fine mist spumed from his watery lips, and his smoky steed reared. “I will return when I have sought and fought your death! Troubadours will sing of my quest!” The sun rose over the loblollys, dispelling the smoke and shadows of the Quixote, and the coconut and fig scented promise of his oasis.

  In that cold, lonely dawn, having just survived a visitation of a true Quixote or my own shock and grief—I didn’t know and didn’t know who could I ask—at last, when I finally realized I was all by myself, I wept.

  So I lived my life, lonely as it was, best as I could.

  In the years after my momma’s death, the drought worsened, and on at least one other occasion the volatile, contracting waterways claimed lives. In the wake of those deaths I looked for the Quixote, but he never appeared again. Instead I found drought and desiccation, and slowly pieced together what must have happened to my momma.

  Veldblau’s waterfall—their entry point to the waterways, akin to our dipping pool—had been first and hardest hit by drought. When she’d opened a whirl to Veldblau that night, the parched waterfall had called her and her curse-killing mouth with such sudden force, the whole waterways system had seized. Gone into a kind of watershed wide quarantine, cutting off Veldblau to save the larger system.

  Goodbye Veldblau. Goodbye momma. Hello loneliness.

  Veldblau was gone, but there were other watersheds to tend, and as the only remaining curse-killer, plenty of curses to be killed—jealousy gone wrong, bad luck, a vex, a hex, klutziness, Casanova smile, Midas touch, colic cry—the list went on. I did not shirk my duty, nor the waterways and our dipping pool—where the ordinary folk saw in its beauty and danger reason to fear, I saw reason to live. Perhaps not much reason can be found in the promise of a mad Quixote, but reason enough to keep on living. A lonely reason, but loneliness was all I had, until, when I was eighteen, Midas came to live in Loblolly.

  I’d just killed a combination curse on Tun Grier’s vines.

  I’d worried it was mottling—a beastly curse to kill, often necessitating quarantine, and dangerous precursor t
o drought. But luckily it was nothing more than a nasty combination of bad luck and a hex. By that time my metal mouth had grown thick with knowledge of those particular curses, and the simplest pinwheel form of my curse-killing sieve had sufficed.

  Grier was Loblolly’s Dionysus, and he’d rewarded me with a case of strawberry wine, two bottles of which I’d consumed as I sat by the dipping pool, in the shade of my momma’s favorite loblolly pine. Sweet thick strawberry wine ran down my lips, and its stickiness seemed a welcome, happy thickness against my mouth’s metal crunch.

  Sitting under my momma’s favorite loblolly pine, I was counting curses—how many I’d killed and how many I could not—when Midas walked out of the dipping pool. At first I thought the wine must have razzled my head, and I was seeing another Quixote walking out of the inky waves—but no, this man was not smoke and water, but flesh. A man who could have been my older brother, no less, with his lanky limbs, amber-freckled skin, and mop-top of silver hair. Course he lacked a metal mouth.

  “Hello, stranger! What is this bee-yoo-tiful place?” he called, with a foolish grin that reminded me of the boy I’d once called myself.

  I scrambled to my unsteady feet. “This here’s Loblolly.”

  “Almost as bee-yoo-tiful as the Oasis.”

  “Kind of you to say. You from Tatouage then?”

  The Oasis and its wild paradise could travel anywhere in the watersheds, but was most often found in the southern tip of Tatouage.

  “That I am.”

  “Welcome. I’m the local curse-killer.”

  “Course you are, that mouth is more than wine-stained, any fool can see that. Quite an honor to meet you.” He reached out his hand. “Call me Midas.”

  I flinched, fell back against the loblolly trunk. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not be turned to gold, Midas. I like my life.”

  Oh how he laughed. He picked up a pinecone, did something reminiscent of a pirouette, and tossed me the pinecone—which, in spite of myself, I caught. Its brown petaled scales were touched with golden hues, like any loblolly cone, but no hint of gold metal to be found.

  “Don’t worry. How’d I recognize that metal trap of a mouth if I hadn’t been freed of my curse before now?”

  “You . . . who killed your curse?”

  “Oh, I don’t know her name.” He squinted up at the sun. “But she sure had some mighty crooked teeth.”

  “Where was this? Here?” The questions flew out.

  “Naw, over in Tatouage. But she was from here all right.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Loblolly’s the only watershed had a curse-killer for at least a generation. I liked her, in spite of those crooked teeth. Liked her enough, I almost let her talk me out of having my curse killed.” He scratched his chin, looked down at the open bottle.

  I’d forgotten my manners. “Please, sit down.” I plopped down in the needles, leaving the trunk open for Midas. “You care for some strawberry wine?”

  “What a bee-yoo-ti-ful idea. Here, oasis fruit.” With a face-shattering grin, he untied his knapsack, spilled out coconuts, apricots, plums, citrus-seeds, figs. He took a long pull from the bottle, settled in against the tree.

  “What brings you to Loblolly?” I tossed a grapefruit citrus-seed in my mouth, the tart zest welcome after the wine.

  “Drought’s closed a lot of tributaries down, fewer folk coming to see the Oasis, or visit Tatouage. Thought I’d take a look for myself in the open waterways. Figure I’m old enough to want a wife, best go and find her—might die waiting if I wait for her to find me!” He laughed. “A toast. To finding wives!” He tipped the bottle back, drank deep, passed the wine to me.

  I hesitated.

  “Come on, curse-killer, no need to frown, you wouldn’t be sitting all alone drinking this wine by yourself if you’d found a wife already, and sharing wine will share our luck.”

  “To finding wives.” I sipped, passed the bottle back. I licked the sticky sweet off my lips, forcing myself to patience. “What did you mean, about Loblolly’s curse-killer talking you out of killing your curse?”

  He took another long pull, then sighed. “Before the killing, she told me I’d miss my curse. Said I’d miss the touch of gold, its kiss, every day of my life once I grew old enough to really know what missing meant. I didn’t listen. All I knew was I didn’t want to be a Midas anymore. My mother died in labor, and I’d never known my father. My aunt did all she could to raise me right, but she wasn’t a Midas. I longed for human touch. So very, very much.”

  He popped two figs into his mouth.

  “My aunt knew something about that, for she missed holding me, I know. Being held through golden silks and thin cottons is better than nothing, but it’s not skin-to-skin. So I said I was sure, and the curse-killer with the crooked teeth killed my Midas curse.” He tipped the wine back, and the red juice burbled in the bottle, gurgling out with a soft sigh.

  “When she was done, the curse-killer had tears in her eyes. Said when I missed the gold, I should look for it elsewhere. Then she said if I ever changed my mind, to come find her, she’d give me a resurrection. I’ve never forgotten her advice, or the tears in her eyes.”

  I’d had too much wine, or not enough, for one of my teeth ached sharp and bright, filling my mouth with gold, burnished beyond, sunlight, fire, hue of a fresh cut peach, dark stars you see when you close your eyes at night . . . I swallowed, bit down. The taste disappeared, but I knew what it meant, surprising as it was. “She was my momma. Your curse-killer.”

  “Figured as much.”

  My turn to tip the bottle back. A resurrection made for a trickier curse-killing, and I wondered why my momma’d bothered. Something in his story didn’t make sense. “But, you call yourself Midas now.”

  “Well. Your momma was right. Once I was old enough to understand what missing meant, I changed my name back. Helps to find gold. Look. Ta-da!” He tossed me another golden-hued pinecone. He smiled, a wide-open foolish grin, and even though his eyes smiled wide with his grin, they also shone bright and wet. “Took me a while to figure out ‘resurrection’ was just a fancy way of helping me remember who I’d been.”

  “Midas.” I squinted in the strawberry-tinged sunlight. “The resurrection’s more than a way to remember who you were—it’s dangerous, but I wear my momma’s mouth, and I think I could resurrect your curse for you, if you wanted.”

  For a moment his eyes pooled wide, but then he smiled, “Naw. I have my heart set on finding a wife. Holding my own baby. Living skin-to-skin. Maybe years from now, if I can’t find a wife, I’ll take you up on your offer. What’s your name anyway?”

  “My friends call me Petech.”

  “Petech. If we’re going to be friends, seek wives and the like, I have to ask you a question.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t you ever smile?”

  And even though I was a curse-killer, even though I still wore my momma’s metal mouth, and wanted to make her proud, in the warmth of newfound friendship, tasting of strawberry wine, on that sunny afternoon, I confess I smiled.

  Oh then how I lived. Thank the curses for those years of laughter and friendship and looking for wives—half the fun the looking, and half the fun the friendship, and loneliness only something to remember, not something to bear. The drought receded, and while we heard of a case of mottling here and there, those were joyous years of peace and water.

  Year after year, I killed curses and he sought a woman’s kiss sweeter than the kiss of gold. We celebrated our successes and mourned our failures with feasts of oasis fruit and Tun Grier’s strawberry wine—until the year Grier died, and his vines died with him.

  We sent him to his peace in the waterways, as befit any watershed-born, and though I lingered to see if a Quixote would come to pay his respects, none did. />
  But I was glad I’d lingered, for late in the night a wonder of a walking-tree came to pay her respects to our Dionysus.

  We met, and once met, never parted. My beloved Purla.

  That was that, I thought, remembering the Quixote’s words, but this is this. As I fell heart-first into her verdant eyes, I felt like I might be embarking on a caught-heart quest of my own.

  And thank the curses, she and Midas got along bee-yoo-ti-fully. Everything was simple and sweet as fresh syrup, until the night honey gathered over Purla’s branches as our baby girl Melisande struggled to be born. Oh how the curse of love plays roulette.

  Hours passed in a riot of foliage and fruit—pine, magnolia, honeycombed maple, cottonwood, cherryfern, golden aspen, sour plum, coconut palm, giant redwood—just a few of the varieties that emerged from my beloved Purla’s limbs through the long hours of labor. As I held her trunk tight through every contraction, every new orchard burst, my skin was transformed too by sap and loam, wood and leaf, bud and bloom. Except for my metal mouth, which resisted the leafing upheaval, my skin reeled with every forest seeded since the world began. Never have I loved my wife so much.

  A final long groan of wood splitting, and then out of Purla’s birthknot, into my hands, slipped a sappy, beautiful mess of a perfectly formed baby girl. Except for the sap, the miniature twigs of her fingers, tightly curled leaves instead of wisps of hair, she looked ordinary enough. Ten toes, two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears—perhaps a slight lignin feel to her almond-shaded skin. All in all, a better curse than I’d feared. But she was awfully quiet. Too quiet.