THE FEEDING OF CLOSED MOUTHS
When the news said three more young men had been found dead in their homes, Grace knew her mother had come to town.
She’d left her mama bound and gagged at the bottom of the Edisto River almost six months ago. She was probably still there, counting each fiber in the coils of rope binding her, and seething over her only daughter’s betrayal.
But if she had gotten loose, she’d be on the hunt.
Grace scratched her scalp, brushed the ragged flakes of dandruff from her shoulders, then strode over to the sparse kitchen in her grubby one-bedroom apartment—the only one she could manage to get without references and with a cash bribe of an extra month’s rent. An efficient galley affair, only the width of her outstretched arms, the kitchen fit with the life she was trying desperately to lead now that she’d fled home. Small, secluded, cheap. Barely getting by. Not drawing anyone’s attention.
Still, it wasn’t enough to hide from her mother.
After double checking the deadbolt locks on her door, Grace yanked the cork from a bottle of gold tequila with trembling hands, her one indulgence in this new life of semi-poverty, and poured two fingers of it into a glass. No time to add a squeeze of browning reduced-for-quick-sale limes or make a syrup from her store brand sugar. She belted half the liquid in one gulp, braced herself for the fire to come. Instead a sweet heat drizzled down her throat to her belly, a trail of winter stew warmth that did nothing to sear away the fear building inside.
Next time, she’d buy the cheap shit.
Grace turned her attention back to the TV. The program was finishing up, but she’d heard the words ‘unbroken skin’ and ‘beatific smiles’ used to describe the victims. Her heart thudded in her chest, as thought it was looking for escape.
No blood or bodily fluids were found on the victims or at the scene. If anyone has any information—
Grace clicked the television off. She wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Not until there was news of the victims having unnaturally low hormone levels. Mama used to say she enjoyed drinking those bits most, testosterone’s sharp tang cutting through the fatty richness of estrogen. No need to worry until then, she thought, pouring another two fingers of liquor.
Even so, before Grace went to bed, she laid her broom inside the front door to her apartment, across the threshold. If her mother had found her, that would at least buy her some time.
I’m here for my skin, daughter.
Grace shoved the creature away, and it fell back against her closet, laughing. She cried out at the sticky wet feel of its body. Bathwater hot, slick as raw chicken meat. She rubbed her fingers against her nightshirt to wipe away that feeling. So familiar she wanted to clutch at it.
Her mother rose, leaving a reddish-blue swirl of blood on the white door.
You took from me when I would have freely given. Her teeth looked chalky in the dimness. You’ve worn my skin, Gracie gal. Now, we’ll see.
The slipskin hag pounced, grabbed her daughter by the arms. Pulled her face close.
“No,” Grace screamed. “Don’t touch me!”
Once you ran to my embrace, daughter, she whispered. Her breath was salt, dark ocean, and sea life feeding on dead things. Soon enough, you’ll seek it again.
Grace wrenched free, scooted away from the foot of the bed, up toward the headboard. Her mother followed, climbing onto the bed, the mattress barely giving under her weight. Grace’s heart thumped, but she was in thrall, unable to move as her mother grasped her ankle. She pulled and Grace sprawled flat on her back like a rag doll. She stared at the ceiling, frozen, as her mother made slow progress up the bed to straddle her prone form.
She kissed Grace’s forehead with her lipless mouth and vanished. Barely able to breathe after the lucid dream, Grace lay there, the imprint of that kiss making her flesh itch and crawl, immobile until the sun came up.
Its rays bathed her body, warming her limbs until she was able to take deep breaths again. Grace crawled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen where she turned on the tea kettle. Sunlight cut through the sheer curtains at her window, and turned the blank television screen an inscrutable shade of charcoal. While the water heated, she spooned instant coffee granules into a cup.
If her mother had been able to send her such a vivid nightmare, she had to be close by. She felt drained, but Grace knew that was her mother’s kiss. Even through dreams, the kiss of a hag could cause drowsiness, even temporary paralysis. Growing up, she’d only gotten them when she was fussy or sick and unable to sleep. One whisper-soft kiss and she’d fall into mist-filled slumber. All other times, affection was limited to tight hugs, rocking embraces, gentle fingers twisting her hair into elaborate braids.
The kettle whistled and Grace filled her cup, forgoing milk in order to get the sharp, bitter taste she’d sought from the tequila without success last night. Blowing on the coffee, she shuffled into her room to get dressed. She cursed, slammed the cup down on her night table, then went to get a damp rag to clean the blood from her closet door.
She’d been stupid. Forgetful. Only blocking the door with the broom. Her mother would have had to count—out loud in that childlike singsong tone Grace used to love so much—each and every bristle on that broom before she could enter the apartment. By that time Grace could be up and away with a head start, out the back door. Or to the kitchen to throw salt at her mother over her shoulder. But she had forgotten the window.
Even in this northern city, far from the marsh where she was born, her apartment could be close and tight in summer. She’d left her bedroom window cracked open a fraction of an inch to let cool night air seep in. More than enough for her mother to enter. Grace wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The clock on the microwave flicked, changing to the top of the hour. Grace scratched at the back of her neck, flicked the flakes of blue-tinged skin from under her nails, and swigged the last of her cold coffee. Then she left the apartment.
Dozier’s was a family-owned grocery store. Once they’d been the big pigs on the street, before supermarkets and online food deliveries took over. Now they were down to one less-than-industry-standard location. But it was cheap and nearby and Grace’s ill-gotten money wouldn’t last forever.
A bell clanged as Grace swung open the door, making her jump at the brash sound. Heart leaping, Grace bent to grab a basket. Assailed by the scent of bleach-rinsed meat, she breathed through parted lips. The freezer section made an unwell-sounding hum/clack, and she danced past it, headed for the dry goods. Only two kinds of salt sat on the shelf, each with the picture of a white girl in yellow who wasn’t smart enough to keep her salt out of the rain. Grace plunked two cartons of each in the basket, then headed for the oils.
The selection here was larger. An assortment of peanut, canola, corn, and olive oils took up an entire section of eye-level shelving, leaving the solid shortenings to the lower racks. Grace picked up a bottle of sunflower oil, the brand her mother used to buy.
“Do you use that for everything?” young Grace asked, her head in her mother’s lap as she massaged the warmed oil into her hair and scalp. In the oven, a chicken drizzled with the oil and seasoned with gray sea salt roasted.
Her mother chuckled, then nudged Grace with her knee to indicate she was finished and she could sit up. “Well, why not?”
Grace’s mother rubbed her oiled hands into her sturdy arms, leaving them shiny and glistening. Today, she’d shaped her skin into one of Grace’s favorite appearances. Similar to one of the round-cheeked TV mothers who wore starched aprons over too-pretty-to-stay-home dresses. Her light blue skin now sported a deep brown shade and her hair was a tight Afro. Gold hoops dangled from her ears.
“We’re children of the sun, Gracie. Daughters of the marsh. Anything that thrives in heat, helps us flourish. Grow tall as sunflowers.” Her indulgent smile revealed purplish gums above paper white teeth.
Her mother went to the kitchen, her movements a slithery stutter. Grace watched, silent, while the knife in her mother’s hands crackled through the crisp skin, and parted the juicy flesh below. Her mama filled a plate with chicken, fluffy rice, and buttered vegetables. Her mother turned away to head toward the dining room, while Grace stared at the chicken in the tray, now missing a breast and a leg, her stomach protesting loudly. She wasn’t tall enough to see the veggies in their pans, but the rich smells tortured her.
From the dining room, her mother called. “Grace? Closed mouths don’t get fed, you know. Learn to ask for what you want.”
“Mama?”
“Yes, Gracie?”
“I’m hungry. Will you fix a plate for me?”
“Of course, baby.”
A man cleared his throat behind her and Grace whirled to face him, startled from her reverie. She clutched the container of oil in a death grip, ready to drop the basket and bolt from the store if need be. Her experiences on her job had taught her betrayal; her experiences with men had taught her fear.
“Must be a pretty intra-sting bottle.” A store employee said from the side of his mouth. He leaned his full weight on the broom he held, crushing its grimy bristles into the mismatched floor tiles. His apron, bearing the name of the store, was a stained dishwater gray. “Been staring at it so long.”
Grace winced at the treatment of such a useful protection tool. Her skin contracted, twitched as though reacting to a brush of fingers across its surface. Goosebumps pimpled her arms and her scalp prickled with sweaty heat. She wondered how long the man had been watching her, and if it had been a lecherous leer or a will-she-steal glare.
Unsure which was worse, the urge to flee gripped her and Grace turned on her heel, then hurried toward the checkout, the man’s raucous laughter following her. On her way, she picked up another broom for the back door in case her mother decided to visit again. Of course, Grace was exactly the kind of person who would steal, but not from a dank cesspool of a place like Dozier’s. She’d stolen from WorldWide First, the largest bank in the Southeast. Her former employer.
All Grace had to do was wait for the day after the cash shipment arrived. Katrina, the new manager, was lazy when it came to security procedures. Although it had been an enormous gamble that the woman hadn’t gotten around to changing the locks or the combinations, Grace had been right. She’d spent six laborious weeks training Katrina and couldn’t understand why the bank had hired someone with such a lackadaisical approach. Grace hated her attitude, but bit her tongue to complete the task. Little did she know the woman would soon replace her.
Her district manager had been sympathetic, but unyielding. “She’s a sales magnet, Grace. She gets out there, brings in the dollars and that’s what shareholders want.” He’d met her eyes at least, when he’d given her the severance letter. “The days of sitting behind a desk waiting for business to come in are gone.”
“But I...I keep our current customers happy.”
“I know that.” He sighed, running a hand over his face. “It isn’t enough anymore. I’m sorry.”
While Grace wept, her mother had been angry, her skin lifting and falling in rage under her fitted dress. “I told you these people…” She slammed the kettle down on the stove. “You have to fight this.”
“Mama, I don’t want a fight.”
Grace twirled the cup of green tea in her hands. It was from a local shop, a first harvest from the only tea plantation left in the country, but she barely registered the grassy flavor. Months, perhaps years of litigation over a wrongful termination was the last thing she wanted. The bank had money to spare for that. She didn’t. Even the thought of the publicity made her want to shrink inside herself.
“Want me to ride him?”
Grace looked up, shocked. Her mother rarely spoke of her horses, those she rode like a ghost possessing a willing body. Once, during the times where myth and magic ruled, those rides had been to deliver messages, but now it was almost exclusively to feed. And to take revenge.
“Would you do that for me?” Grace wiped her tear-stained face with the back of her hand. “And it would be a her.”
“Doesn’t matter,” her mother replied, carelessly resting her palm against the hot stove burner as she reached up into a cabinet for her favorite orange pekoe blend. “And of course I would. You’re my daughter.”
Fewer and fewer people believed in the old ways of calling hags to ride their unfaithful partners into weakness and submission. There were enough requests to put food on the table, but in Grace’s late teens, meals had gone from fresh fish and roasted chicken to dried pasta or canned beans. So Grace had gotten a job at the bank. At first, she fumbled in her interactions with people, fighting to remember all of the procedures and regulations, stumbling over her words. But as she grew used to the customers, her usual anxieties ebbed away, allowing her to feel confident outside of her home and her mother’s protection for the first time in memory.
Could she live with herself after having her mother drain an ex-rival? Not a complete drain, just enough to put Katrina out of commission for a while. The woman’s smug face flashed in her memory, a triumphant smile on her lips as Grace handed over her set of keys to the building and the combinations to the vault.
“Can I do it?” Grace asked.
Her mother’s eyebrows raised almost to her hairline. “You’re only half hag, baby. I don’t know that you could. It might—” She scratched her neck where it met her hairline. “Do you want to?”
Grace nodded.
“I suppose you could wear my skin…”
Outside Dozier’s, Grace breathed fresher air again. Her skin still jumped, and she rubbed her arms to calm the feeling it was trying to get away from her, pull itself from her bones and muscle. The bleached meat smell clung desperately to her nostrils, but she stopped to take a deep sniff of a nearby florist’s bouquet to clear it. Slowly with the introduction of more good scents—fresh roasted coffee, sugar-glazed donuts, breakfast grease—her stomach settled from the clenched tension of keeping her nausea at bay.
Instead of jogging home, she headed for a café, the only one empty at this time of morning. No wonder. It stood out in this run down area, windows clean and polished, the sign unmarked as yet by graffiti. Probably came with a gentrified price tag, as well.
Didn’t matter. She placed her hand on the door handle, the metal cool against her heated skin. She rarely splurged, not since the robbery, and she missed the feeling of sitting down at a table knowing you can buy anything you want. Choosing based on her tastes and not her wallet. No one was here to see.
Even more, she missed her mother. Her laugh, her food, her stories about why she decided to leave her family in the marsh to live with a human man who wouldn’t live nearly as long as her. But Grace broke that mother/daughter bond the night she decided to keep Mama’s skin.
Hag skin had given her more power than she’d ever felt—she was stronger, her body able to change into anything she wanted. She wasn’t sad, fearful little Grace anymore. She was strong. Six months she’d been living alone in near poverty, each day going under the floorboards in her closet to look at the bundles of bills still bearing the WorldWide First straps, only taking form the stash in dire moments of need. It was unlikely, but having a glut of the money resurface some five states away might send signals to the police. Best to keep to the poorer neighborhoods where no one checked, no one cared.
And in a case right next to the money, was her mother’s skin.
A few times, she’d taken the skin out of the suitcase and wore it while she pranced naked in front of the mirror, the perfectly sculpted Katrina looking back at her. High cheekbones, small upturned breasts, narrow feet. After a while, it would get too tight, too heavy, and she’d have to take it off. But the fearlessness lasted.
Maybe she’d put it on when she got back to the apartment. It had been a while since she’d worn it. Maybe she’d wear it to Dozier’s and look for that seedy shop worker. She pushed away from the café door, her desire for the brew gone. Grace headed back to the apartment, her mind racing with thoughts of sipping a rich, sweet hormone in the cool evening air.
Unbidden, memories of the last time she’d seen her mother surfaced, burning hot, making her face feel like flames licked her flesh from the meat side.
“I can’t give it back, Mama. I’m sorry.” Grace kissed her mother’s fingertips, the creature’s bare knucklebones scraping her lips. “This won’t kill you, but it’ll be uncomfortable. I’m sorry. It’s so hard to be me. I’m not strong like you. I—”
Grace shook her head, empty of anything more to say. She pushed her mother’s body, bound in coil after coil of rope, out of the weathered rowboat and paddled back to shore.
Heat was a wall between Grace and comfort. Unable to sleep, Grace tossed on the sweat-damp sheets. Burning inside, she sat up, her mouth dry and tacky. Her t-shirt stuck to her twitching skin like dank mud.
Grace padded to the kitchen, and stood in the door of the fridge gulping strawberry soda. The carbonation fizzled down her throat, bubbling away the thick coating in her mouth. She filled an empty jelly jar with coarse-grained salt, topped it up with sunflower oil.
She ran a lukewarm shower. The water drizzled over her, beading on her skin, and she scooped up handfuls of the salt-oil mixture and scrubbed away the nervous, sour sweat. She’d change her sheets too; that would help her get some much needed rest.
Grace scrubbed herself roughly to relieve the rippling, shifting sands feeling of her own skin. Her pores were opening and closing, desperate for something she couldn’t provide. She ran her fingers across her scalp.
As she rubbed, she felt an indentation down the middle of her head she didn’t recall being there. A cry caught in her throat as a burst of fiery pain engulfed her scalp, worse than the chemical burn of a bad perm.
Don’t scratch, don’t scratch.
Grace let the water beat on her scalp to no avail. Her body was rippling, growing. Her skin was stretching, fissures opening on the surface of her skin. Stretching to accommodate...something.
More salt oil. A little relief. But the water was too much of a lubricant. She clambered out from under the spray and grabbed handfuls of scrub to grind into her twitching skin. Flakes of brown fell from her body and she screamed. But she couldn’t stop. The scratching felt so good. So right.
Finally, she gave in. Dug her nails into her skin to rake across its surface.
Not enough.
Slipping on the water and oil on the tiled floor, Grace reached for the rough sponge again and ground it over her body. Her hair tangled in the fibers, but she yanked it free, the sensation of stretched follicles a pleasure-pain she’d never felt before. She slammed her back into the textured wallpaper, scraping against it, leaving blue-brown streaks of herself.
Vaguely, from far away, she heard a whisper in the next room.
Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six…
She wanted to respond, but the change was on her. This molting, shedding of humanity, and she couldn’t stop it.
Grace turned to the bathroom mirror, spattered with minute flecks of toothpaste. Her reflection stared back at her: a pied combination of brown and hag-blue skin. She shrieked as the blue skin pulled, tugged to be free of its former shell, itching where it met the brown. Grace yanked open the cabinet.
Grace grabbed her boar bristle hairbrush, dragged it along her scalp, relishing the welcome scrape. She keened as her hair came out at the root, along with ragged, mottled flesh on a muted pop.
That sound brought Grace’s mind back to the night of the robbery. Mama had hugged her, then parted her own hair down the middle with her fingertips. With a sharp tug, her scalp parted with that same soft pop, and she shrugged off the suit of flesh Grace had loved so much. She helped Grace into her hide, pulling it up over her nude body like a stocking. The skin snapped tight, and with Mama’s help Grace shaped it with her will to become Katrina’s exact copy.
The skin found the locks on Katrina’s door no barrier. Grace walked the long hallway of her beachfront home, moonlight reflecting off the water and onto the numerous awards lining the walls. Katrina slept on top of the sheets, sprawled out on her back in the middle of the bed. Grace’s anger rose, making the skin flare with a cold fire. Then she scented hormone—fatty, briny, lush—and her mouth watered.
She kissed the woman’s ankles, a moth wing brush of lips. At her knee, Grace lingered, deepening the kiss, flicking her tongue over the smooth skin. Katrina murmured, still in the arms of sleep, turned over on her side. Up the bed Grace moved, immobilizing the woman under her touch. Before Grace could move to her arms, Katrina woke.
Seeing her own face above her, shadowed with lines from the slats of Venetian blinds, Katrina opened her mouth to scream. Quickly, Grace pecked her on the throat and the sound died before it began. Katrina’s mouth worked, but no sound emerged.
Grace blew her a kiss.
The woman managed to get her hands between their bodies and pushed. Grace fell backward, over balanced with the weight of the skin. Katrina tried to leap from the bed, but her body from the waist down wouldn’t move. She pulled herself up on her elbows, reached toward the phone on her bedside table.
Unable to change her voice, Grace stayed silent while she launched forward again, pulling at the woman’s arms. Katrina’s muscles bulged with the strain of holding her off while she scrabbled for the phone with her one free hand. Katrina’s nails scraped the bedside table, trying to drag salvation closer.
No more time. Her fingers were about to close over the phone. Grace knocked the hand holding her at arm’s length away and dropped face first onto the other woman’s chest, pressing her lips against her heart.
Katrina emitted a strangled gasp, then went still, her arms collapsing to the bed. Grace’s tongue, proboscis slim, slithered out. It pressed deep into the woman navel, pushing through to gain entry to her body. The holes in that tongue drew the hormones like a lodestone, filtering them from the blood. She gulped once, twice. Then yanked away, disgusted, the hag tongue coming free with an illicit squelch.
Grace felt the woman’s neck. Her pulse fluttered like a wild, trapped thing. No harm done. She was fine. Grace pushed herself up from the bed, then checked her Katrina reflection in the mirror. Not a hair out of place.
She entered the bank alone, the sky still purple with night. The vault timer had expired, and the lock clicked open while Grace as Katrina accessed the contents. She’d pulled out the card with the combinations on it in view of one of the cameras, and filled two shopping bags with stacks of bills. She worked quickly, head down. Within eight minutes, it was done. Grace left the vault open, but locked the door to the property when she left.
Her mother’s skin had made her feel invincible. The tough hide responded to the slightest command, forming around her body like a couture garment. And she hadn’t wanted to give it back.
Only now did she realize her mother hadn’t resisted. Or spoken. Grace had been so drunk of the power of the hag skin, of defeating her rival, of a successful theft that she’d been willing to do anything to keep this feeling. So much had been done to her. It was time she had a little power for herself.
Now Grace flailed naked in her one-bedroom apartment where the floorboards wouldn’t come clean and the stove was on its last leg, with a duffle bag full of money she was afraid to spend.
Her back hit the porcelain of the tub, and it felt cool on her new skin. She hissed, and slowly stood on unsteady feet. The water from the showerhead still spluttered, barely covering the whispered counting coming from the other room.
One oh two, one oh three…
Her skin contracted hard. Grace pulled sheets of it from her body, each piece a triumph. Again, she rubbed her body with the loofah, snagging it against a damp piece of herself and pulling it free.
Too soon, she heard gentle footsteps, softer than plops of foamed milk into coffee. Her mother’s shadow fell across her, blocking out the dim light from the painted over bulbs. She tried to scramble up, to throw something, to scream. Her hands, slippery with oil and new skin, slid on the linoleum. Grace tried to crawl away, to hide, but where? She could see the broom she’d brought leaning up against the doorframe, each bristle counted.
“It was stupid to keep the skin in the shape of that damn woman.” Her mother’s voice was a reprimand, and Grace took it like the blow it was meant to be.
“If they’d found this, you woulda been in trouble.” She shook the suit of flesh in Grace’s face. “You don’t have the sense you were born with.”
She shook the skin again, flicking out the Katrina likeness to allow it to take on its original Alice in Wonderland shade of blue. Mama stepped into the skin like coveralls, slipping her arms inside one at a time, then pulling the smooth bald head over her muscle and bone face. The skin roiled, becoming the round-cheeked TV mother angry at her kid’s lack of judgment.
Mama reached over, knocking Grace’s feeble punch aside, and grabbed the back of her neck, holding it to get her nails under a piece of loose back skin. Grace gurgled as she worked her nails in, yanked it off with one rip.
“That’s the last of it, Gracie.”
Grace coiled her body into a ball.
“I didn’t think you’d turn, to be honest,” Mama said. “Hmph. Guess you never know.”
She lifted Grace and placed her in the bathtub, plugged the drain. Filled the tub with water, salt, a few drops of her own reddish-blue blood.
“Soak in there until you feel better. First change is always the hardest. It gets easier. No, no, don’t move.” She kissed her daughter’s temple and Grace slumped into the warm, blood-enriched water, smelling of dark oceans and sea life eating dead things. So familiar. So much like home.
“I’ll be here when you wake up, baby. Be in plenty of time if you want to get to that man in the store before it closes.”
Mama sat on the closed lid of the toilet, rifling through the shopping bag of crisp bills, counting softly. “And I’ll help you through this. You don’t even have to ask.”
***
Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, SC and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of publications, including FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Strange Horizons, and Lightspeed Magazine. Her debut novel Root Magic is a 2022 Walter Dean Myers Award Honoree and a Nebula Award Finalist for outstanding children’s literature. Find her online at edenroyce.com.