FEAST
For a moment the snow stops and through a gap in the clouds the moon shines like a hunk of ice in a highball glass. Silver washes across the windowsills and sparkles off the ornaments on the Christmas tree before fading to the dull orange light of a streetlamp. Henning struggles with a string of dead bulbs. He tests one and it shocks his finger. “Shit!”
Once he’s sure neither he nor the tree are ablaze, he asks, “Are these safe? When did you buy these? They’re ancient.”
Connie doesn’t look up from her sheaf of papers. “They’re yours. You stole them from your mother’s house after the funeral.”
“I didn’t—”
She peers over the top of the pages. “Your father’s watch, your suit, and the sugar bowl too. You didn’t want your sisters to have them.”
“Oh, right,” he says. “I tore my good pants on the bathroom window.”
“You’d been invited. You could’ve used the front door.”
“It was locked. They don’t give keys to dead people. Ah—” He finds the dud in the string and replaces it with a fresh one. The Christmas lights glimmer among the fir branches. “That’s better. What do you think? Connie?”
She clicks her tongue as she rifles through another stack and scribbles in the corner. Still in her sweatpants, she curls herself deeper into the couch; the piles of thumbed-through letters and research logs surround her like a fortress. And he’s wanted to better understand what kind of doom-filled prophecy she’s latched onto ever since he came across the rumpled leaflets laid out on the kitchen table, but it all went over his head. Sea level rise recorded in centimeters, urban flooding, coastal erosion, significant loss of habitat and life by 2050—every bit as dour as a book by Mother Shipton. Besides, 2050 was eons away.
When Henning steadies her pen with a fingertip, Connie frowns.
“Sweetheart. You’ve been slaving on this project for weeks. Take a break. Get in the holiday spirit. Validate my decorating.”
“You would’ve been one of those idiots who popped champagne on the Titanic.” She pauses. “…It’s a nice tree.”
“Thank you.” He kisses behind her ear and under her cardamom perfume lingers the sourness of cigarettes. “Have you been smoking again? You know it makes me wheeze.”
“Are you telling me I stink?”
“Of course not,” he says, nuzzling her shoulder until she chuckles and pushes him off.
Something about her seems burned out. Blue tints her lips and the circles under her eyes. He knows if he asks her why she’ll dodge his questions, and if he fights her, they’ll be late to the party. So he relents, leaves her a milkshake of vanilla ice-cream cut with an ounce of whole blood on the coffee table and changes into the Merhinger suit he pilfered in Illinois.
“What are you wearing?” He calls from the bedroom. “I want my tie to match.”
“Your enthusiasm is misplaced. It’s only a party.”
“A Paulfry party, at the mansion. And I finally got an invitation. Well, you got the invitation but they added me as ‘guest.’ I heard he’s bringing in a jazz band from Chicago. They worked with Jelly Roll Morton. Never did get to hear him live.”
“So? You’ll mingle with avarice and folly for an hour. People dance, gossip, fuck in the bathroom. All things I’ve done several times on several continents.”
He pokes his head out of the bedroom. “Sorry I haven’t lived as adventurous a life as you.”
“Hen—”
He retreats to the mirror where an empty suit floats on air and she follows, turning him toward her so she can fix his tie. Below the window, carolers sing as the snow begins anew and gathers in the corners of the glass panes. It reminds him of sneaking downstairs to catch Santa Claus, only to find his parents dancing to the Savoy Christmas Special on the radio in the kitchen. This is the season of wonder, of trees growing indoors, of spiced wine and Pierniczki and points of light burning in the dark. On nights when Connie feels generous, they masquerade themselves among the holiday revelers in Boston Common, the shoppers and the bell ringers and the families with little ones swaddled in heavy coats. Sometimes he imagines what it might be like to walk with a child on his shoulders as they point out every illuminated snowflake and star.
But Connie sees everything as an indulgence or a hunting ground, or lately, something worse. Once, he asked her if there was any good news in all her models and projections, and she said New England was less likely to be swallowed by wildfires, so they were less likely to go up like kindling. Fire was not kind, especially to them. But there were other losses, other sacrifices to be made.
Her eyes linger beyond the glass of the window. “Someday it won’t snow here,” she says.
He doesn’t speak, only runs a hand through her tangled hair and glances at the clock. If they don’t hurry, they’ll be late.
“Maybe,” he says, “in time.”
♦
The Essex Coastal Scenic Byway is aptly named: a long, winding road with the mansions of the nouveau-riche to the left and the brewing Atlantic to the right. The gabled Victorian of the Paulfry estate stands out among the new construction like an old dame. Golden light glows from the windows and the low thrum of music seduces partygoers as they walk up the grand staircase to the entrance. The doorman—a six-and-a-half foot gentleman with a brow ridge as steep as El Capitan—nods to the guests as he ushers them in. When Connie steps to the threshold, he bows and welcomes her in. The bell on the end of his striped hat jingles. Henning follows; the giant’s hand lands like a slab of pork on the middle of his chest.
“Invitation only,” he says.
“Oh, it’s in my front pocket.” Resting under the doorman’s enormous thumb. The doorman sniffs.
“He’s my escort,” Connie says.
His brow lifts. Henning’s surprised it doesn’t cause an earthquake.
“My apologies, Ms. True.” His hand retreats and he looks down his nose at Henning’s crumpled jacket. “Come in,” he says, flatly.
“I think he likes me,” Henning says as he offers Connie his arm. She pats it and they walk through the foyer to the grand ballroom. He forgets the doorman’s manhandling—how could he not, with the way ballroom twinkles, festooned with strings of light, velvet garland and greenery? Across the dance floor, a woman in a chartreuse tuxedo waves around her heel—red bottom flashing like a flag—as she leads a crowd in a carol: Avec des jouets par milliers…N’oublie pas mon petit soulier! The jazz band rolls through “Embraceable You” and the fae on the trumpet plays so sweetly that his gossamer wings flair on each crescendo. The women here have drenched themselves in sapphires and rubies and the men wear suits Henning knows cost more than he’s made in his lifetime and after it. But it’s the tree that amazes, all fifteen feet of it dressed in baubles and bows and yards of glistening fabric.
“Would you look at this?” he says, gesturing at a table set with crystal bowls of punch, cherries, oranges and ripe strawberries, “incredible.” He pauses. “Damn. I forgot a gift for the host.”
“He won’t notice. Too self-absorbed, these simpering monsters,” Connie replies as she tugs at something hidden in the bust of her blue gown.
“You drink this and tell me it’s monstrous.” He ladles out a glass of punch. The metallic scent hits and his mouth waters. The floating orange slices in the bowl have an arterial tinge. Just as he’s about to comment on the unusual freshness, he knocks over the tray of a passing waitress and silverware falls to the floor. Something else, too—a small pink pacifier amongst the forks and spoons.
“I’m sorry,” he says, reaching down to help as the waitress scrambles for it. He finds the pacifier first; his fingers brush against her hand and she flinches back as if electrified. Her eyes are clear, pupils huge. She’s unglamored, unveiled of any illusionary magic. She knows what they are. Shame burns through him.
Connie yanks him up by the collar. “You’ll draw attention to her,” she hisses. “He’s coming.”
“Who?” he says, when a hand claps down on his shoulder and the bloody punch sloshes over the lip of his glass. The man appears at Henning’s side as quick and silent as smoke.
“Me,” the man says. “So you found a fresh one, Constance? You always did like them modern.”
“Pleasant as ever,” Connie replies.
“You’re the one who finally accepted my invitation. Something about the party must have drawn you out of your hermitage.”
“Yes. He wanted to go.”
Henning clears his throat and offers his hand. “John Henning. And you’re...?”
“Paulfry.” His grip nearly crushes Henning’s knuckles. “Stephen Paulfry.”
Stephen-fucking-Paulfry, Henning thinks as the handshake breaks and he rubs the mark left on his palm by Paulfry’s ring. The host seems lifted from a Lucky Strikes poster, suit immaculate and glossed hair greying at the temples. But something in his smile is pinched, unkind, and Henning grieves that he can’t shove the gold ring down his throat.
The host scowls as the waitress reaches for the last spoon near his feet. He steps on it and she freezes. “What’s this? Is she bothering you, Constance?”
Henning bristles. He opens his mouth and Connie elbows him in the ribs.
“I haven’t noticed anything except your tree,” she says, and with a few steps turns the host towards the glittering lights and places herself between him and the waitress. Paulfry’s face relaxes, and as he brags about the price of decorations, the retinue swarms them in a haze of jubilance and booze. The waitress flees before Henning can slip her the pacifier. He sticks it into his pocket as the guests clamber around Connie like puppies.
It’s surreal, watching the fingerprints of Connie’s old life raise as the woman in the chartreuse tuxedo—“Imogene,” Connie calls her—throws an arm over her shoulders. He knows Connie best bathed in moonlight, crouched in the field counting fireflies, cataloguing whatever wild places are left. She’s as poised here as she is when examining vernal pools, except for the strain in her voice, the tightness of her mouth.
And then the attention of the crowd shifts and the guests fix him with stares that remind him of very eager dogs just before they bare their teeth.
“Where’d you find him, Constance?” asks a diminutive priest with a reedy voice.
“I’m from Illinois,” Henning answers.
“A farm boy?”
“Oh, no. I grew up in Chicago. I sold merchandise door to door. Pools, gravestones, bibles–”
“A business man!” Paulfry snatches a glass of port from a waiter’s tray. “What college did you go to?”
“I was recruited to play football at the University of Illinois, but the Crash happened, and my family had mouths to feed, so…Always wanted to go back, but, you know how life is.”
“My parents were patrons of Harvard.”
“Oh.”
Imogene adjusts her lapel. “You played American football! Tight end?”
He blushes. “Halfback.”
“How long ago did you turn him?”
Connie drinks from a flute of champagne. “About fifty years.”
“A young one!” a guest says.
“A toy,” whispers another.
“I’m very lucky Connie found me,” Henning says. He feels her squeeze his hand as the guests glance at one another. Silence lingers for a moment before Imogene announces that her newest collaboration, a polka-grunge-garage band named Stinky Bohemian Girl, would be playing its maiden show at T.T. the Bear’s. The partygoers fawn. The awkwardness drains away. He can’t help but notice the rest of the staff now, how hard they try to remain invisible, how underneath the spice and perfume he can smell their fear.
“Let’s go,” Connie murmurs, but servers with tiny bowls of soup flank them before they can escape. There’s nothing to do but eavesdrop on Imogene and the priest’s argument.
“It’s an arresting story, spiriting a child away in the middle of the night to avoid a slaughter,” Imogene says, “but the innkeeper is such a puzzle. Tell me, Father Burke, did the innkeeper make it to heaven for doing the bare minimum?”
The priest caresses his balding pate. “I cannot say. Only God can truly understand our intentions.”
“Well I wouldn’t have let a poor woman give birth in a filthy stable.”
“I’m sure all of us would have given up our very own beds,” Paulfry says.
Henning tips the entirety of the bowl into his mouth and it dribbles at the corner. It’s heavily spiced, but the meat tastes like soil. The guests snicker.
“Someone’s hungry,” Paulfry says. “You act like you’ve never had terrapin before.”
Connie frowns. “Turtle soup? It’s illegal to harvest here, they’re endangered.”
“Oh? Then I’ll have to eat them while I can. You only get so many chances.”
The crowd laughs and nods. Henning forces down the mouthful as Connie fumes.
“I propose a toast,” the host says, holding his glass aloft as the other guests, except Connie, raise theirs, “to our great feasting.”
When the crowd clinks their glasses, Paulfry upends Henning’s punch and it splatters all over his lapel. The guests snicker as Henning stands helpless, bloody punch seeping into his shirt.
“Oh my!” Paulfry says as he grips Henning by the shoulders and turns him towards the ballroom, “Why don’t you get cleaned up. Restroom’s that way. Just put down your things wherever you like. Constance, let me show you my newest Monet—” and the group whisks her away before either can put up a fight.
Struggling through the clot of revelers, Henning ducks into a hallway lined with doors. The first yields a butler’s pantry with hutches full of ceramics and silverware. The clamor of the kitchen staff echoes from behind a red door at the far end. The floor’s a mess: an open crate of tangerines, a pile of muddy clothes, an odd-shaped something covered with paisley cloth. Henning steps in, searching for a wedge of lemon to take out the stain, when Something coos. Under the cloth—more like a shawl—Something wiggles. He hesitates, glancing around for witnesses and finding none, lifts the shawl. The baby in the car seat looks up at him and smiles.
“Huh.” He drops the shawl and pulls it up again. The baby laughs. Kneeling down, he makes funny faces, a couple peek-a-boos, before gently pinching her nose. Two gold charms dangle from the collar of the girl’s coat—a hand with two outstretched fingers and a diminutive, twisting horn.
“This must belong to you,” he says, retrieving the pacifier from his pocket. He rubs it on his shirt before dangling it in front of her, and when she whacks it out of his hand, the pacifier falls into the folds of the shawl.
“So who do you belong to?” he asks. The child shoves her fist into her mouth.
There are, he’s sure, a million reasons for this girl to be here. Outrageous childcare expenses. Bad parenting. As normal as finding the family dog in the middle of a house party. Who is he to judge, even if he had more self-respect than to abandon his own offspring just to kiss Stephen Paulfry’s ring?
Behind the red door voices swell. Footsteps, squealing metal. Curious. Henning cracks open the door and peers inside.
When he was a boy in Illinois—back when he ate food for more than just pleasure—and the larder grew too lean, he took the family hound to the outskirts of the city and hunted rabbits. Sometimes his kills were not so clean and the hound would trot up to him with a screaming bunny in its mouth and he’d have to end the small beast’s misery up close. He never forgot the whites of their eyes, the way they trembled between life and death.
He sees this now in the eyes of the naked man and woman in the cage. The man slumps against the woman’s knees and stares at nothing while her lips mime supplications and the blood matted in their hair smells like wine. On the other side of the cage, two waiters argue over who will deliver them.
The woman’s eyes find Henning’s. They cross some invisible divide, the space between the wounded rabbit in the pasture, the hunter peering through his scope. He freezes, caught.
“Mia figlia,” she pleads.
The waiters have decided and the loser throws a drape over the cage. He crosses himself and wheels it out of the kitchen.
Henning slowly closes the red door. Only when the lock makes a small click does he realize he’s been holding his breath.
The child blinks at him as he flings open cabinet doors and drawers, searching for anything to conceal her. He can’t take the car seat—they’ll know, they’ll stop him, of course they will—if not Paulfry then certainly the seven-foot ogre at the door. But maybe, while the guests are feasting, he can find Connie and slip out.
Someone’s screaming in the ballroom.
He trips on the tangerine crate and kicks it. His toe crunches against the wood and he curses. Goddamn, that’s a sturdy box.
Huh.
In the pantry, the car seat sits empty, tangerines strewn across the floor.
♦
The band breaks into “Smokestack Lighnin’” and the howling of the singer turns his skin to gooseflesh—if the child follows, she’s sure as dead. The ballroom reeks; he holds back a gag with his tongue.
Everywhere he turns there’s red: an arc sprayed on a white linen tablecloth and the marble floor, a handprint on a waiter’s crisp shirt, a trail from bust to navel on a reveler’s gown, uncountable hands, mouths. He hovers at the edges of the party, far from the empty cage, trying to spot Connie’s blue dress. He finds her smoking a cigarette in front of the Christmas tree. Her hands are clean.
“Shit.” She grinds out the cigarette on a sliver bell and flicks the butt into the branches. “I know I said I quit, but—where’s your coat? What is that?” She nods towards the shrouded crate.
“Don’t panic,” he says, panicking. “We need to leave, immediately, right now.”
Connie’s brow furrows at the small, muffled giggle coming from the crate.
“Hen, what did you do?”
“You may have to break the doorman’s nose. No, wait—”
Despite his whining protest, she raises the edge of the linen and looks into the crate. The baby, swaddled by a Merhinger jacket, sucks on the sleeve. “For fuck’s sake, John. Put it back.”
“No!” He pulls the crate away. “You saw what they did to those people.”
“It’s not your business.”
“She’s just a baby!”
“She’s a libation, a nightcap.”
“So was I, once.”
“And I should have kept it that way, for your own good!”
“Lover’s quarrel?” asks a voice. The iron scent of blood wafts between them as Henning’s shoulders hunch, and he turns, shifting the crate from one side to the other. Stephen Paulfry tilts his head as he sucks on his fingers. “Oh please, not at Christmas.”
“You’ve returned,” Connie says, “joyous.”
“The host needs to eat too.” He digs at the underside of his thumbnail with an incisor, then points. “What’s that?”
“This?” Henning replies as he gently jiggles the crate. “Nothing.”
“It’s moving.”
The fabric creases as if gripped by tiny, searching fingers, and Henning shoves them down with his palm.
“It’s a surprise—a gift.”
Paulfry squints. “Open it then.”
“N-no, I, well, have to check its freshness. I want it to be perfect.” He sends a frantic glance towards Connie. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
Connie says nothing, but the tension in her face and the soft bite of her cheek reminds him of how she looks hunched over her reports and projections. The thin line of her mouth reads like an omen.
“Hm.” The host steps closer to pinch the edge of the shroud.
“Is this one of my tablecloths?”
“Tablecloths, they’re all the same.”
“I import mine from Egypt.” He shrugs. “Either way, I’m sure if you picked it out it is as perfect as it’ll be.”
He yanks the edge of the covered crate. It nearly pulls Henning off balance and he grips it tight. The teeth come out as they round on each other to play tug of war as nails loosen and wood splinters, until one good tug breaks the crate apart.
The baby tumbles out. Henning catches her by the ankle and uprights her against his chest as she screams. Now the whole ballroom has eyes on them and the drop of blood that glistens on her cheek.
They surround, jackals dressed in jewels, a green top hat, a priest’s collar. Despite their feasting they still hunger. He sees only mouths, waiting. He turns to look for an escape, finds none. Connie is gone.
The girl chokes on her own sobbing and he tries to hush her as Paulfry advances, his steepled fingers pressed to his chin.
“You know, when we first met, I only thought you were stupid, not a thief. I was going to share.”
“She’s just a little child, for god’s sake—have mercy—”
Paulfry stops, frowning. “Mercy? You’re not taking it for yourself?” He snorts. “What, were you going to buy a baby carriage? How maternal, you’re positively lactating.” Laughter ripples through the circle of guests.
Henning swallows, throat dry, as the child whimpers. “Let her go, she’s barely a mouthful.”
Paulfry holds up a hand and the guests quiet. “The point of a delicacy is not that it fills you, it’s that you can afford to have it. And I paid very well for our delicacies today.”
He snaps his fingers. The doorman emerges from the foyer and makes his way through the ballroom, glamour wavering as tusks curl over his lips. The crowd fidgets in anticipation.
“The problem,” Paulfry says, “with people like you is, somehow, you still think of yourself as a man. Maybe even a noble man, like that has value. But it doesn’t. It does not matter. That child? She doesn’t matter. And you—Jonah?—you don’t matter as well, so no one will notice when you disappear.”
And as the crowd readies to pounce, the stench of smoke rolls over them. Strings of light pop in the branches of the Christmas tree as flames run up the yards of gold ribbon and ornaments shatter from the heat. The tree blazes like a sun.
The circle breaks and the revelers scatter into tables, chairs, each other, climbing over waiters and stepping on dress trains while the doorman approaches, indomitable as a siege tower. And then everything slows. Lacunae reveal themselves in a pattern, a path. He knows where to go. But first—
Henning swings his fist, sending the host careening into a plate of canapés. He clasps the baby tight against him as he runs through the gaps, dodges a screaming empusa, jumps over the shards of a serving bowl. The doorman’s clawed hands reach for him, so close Henning can smell his breath—he jukes left, missing the giant’s lunge, and does not look back when he hears the doorman hit the floor, trampled by the guests. He flees, down the steps and driveway and into the street where Connie’s running the car, one arm waving out the window while the other leans on the horn. He dives into the passenger’s side and fights to close the door as Connie peels out onto the highway.
♦
Only after he searches for an inhaler in the glove compartment and the vise on his lungs loosens and the baby stops crying can he take a true, deep breath. The dashboard clock reads 3:15; its cream-colored light reflects off the steel lighter Connie holds against the steering wheel. They drive in silence, listening only to Henning’s hummed lullabies and the drone of the car as it flies up the Byway.
“I’ve been to better parties,” Henning says.
“Shut up,” Connie replies, eyes fixed to the road, “just let me think.”
He cradles the sleeping child in his arms. “…You’re heading north?”
“Yes. We can drop her off at the firehouse in Manchester and find a place to stay until I can negotiate a truce.”
“You don’t think they’ll ask questions? Call the cops?”
“Then we’ll leave her outside the door.”
“She’ll freeze to death!”
“It’ll be a mercy compared to what Paulfry will do to her if he finds her! I’ve seen what happens!”
“It will be in every newspaper and on every broadcast by tomorrow morning and he’ll know exactly where she is.” He inspects the scratch on her cheek; it’s already crusted over. The charms on her collar sparkle under the bloom of each streetlamp they pass. “Maybe we can take care of her for a while. I basically raised my sisters, I remember how to keep babies alive.”
She slams on the brakes and a tight grip on the door is the only thing that stops him from slamming his head into the windshield. The baby whines and he rushes to calm her.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” he starts to say, but stops as Connie’s glare burns through him. Her teeth glimmer in the half light.
“I will toss that child into the sea if you suggest we keep her. I will eat her myself.”
“I’m not saying—why are you being cruel?”
“Tell me something,” Connie says, “are you prepared for the day she breaks a bone playing in the dark? For when she’s lost and you can’t search for her because it’s the morning? When she opens the curtains at daybreak and maims you, when she splits open her thumb and you devour her? Could you bear that guilt? And if you’re lucky enough not to have killed her before she’s grown, could you watch her die of old age? Could you resist turning her?”
He hesitates. “So what if I did? You turned me. It could be the three of us.”
“If you care for that girl at all, you wouldn’t condemn her to the world that’s coming. And you say I’m cruel.”
The fury drains from Connie’s face like a rush of blood. She sighs, then presses the gas pedal and drives on.
“We need to go. The day’s almost here.”
Beside the road and under the cliffs, the ocean stretches into the black horizon and heaves itself against the rocks, as if trying to scramble onto shore. In the quiet they can hear its howling.
They’ll wait out the day in Manchester, Connie says, and then they’ll rehome the child. Relatives, strangers, a childless fae, she didn’t care. Henning nods; the baby slumbers. He tucks her head under his chin and breathes in her scent of newness, of baby powder and milk. He thinks of all they’ll need as he cleans the blood off her cheek with a wet thumb. A cradle most definitely, bottles, diapers. New pajamas, perhaps a yellow raincoat. Toys. Books. He’s too distracted by his list to notice that he sticks his thumb back in his mouth, until he tastes a vague metallic sweetness.
Snow falls thickly, insulating them in a darkness cut through only by their headlights, but even now the cloudy edge of the Atlantic turns a soft grey. Dawn approaches. The three travel north, outracing a star. §