Ruth Less had banged on the way station’s second door for a long time. Why wouldn’t the two sweet-smelling ones and the stinky one who smelled like something that had stuck to her foot come out and play? Be a noble and loyal snack like all the others before them. Even the rude pecking puffins.
“Eyev yerfut. Eyev yerfut.”
Bang, bang, bang went the club of her arm against the door. She didn’t mind when they hid, if it wasn’t for a long time. It was more fun. She liked fun. Fun was good. Heady said fun was good, and Heady had been nice to her.
“Wudlick shewbak? Wudlick shewbak?”
The shoe-foot she had taken from Rack had words written across the bottom in black ink. “Lester” was its name. “If you found this, bring it back. If you took this, you can fook right off.” Then some numbers.
Eventually, Ruth Less tired of banging on the second door. She could have banged on it much longer. She could have eaten the frozen human snack on the floor, too, while she waited for the other, more important snacks to come out. But the frozen snack had almost no smell at all, so it was not alive in any possible way, not even the usual after-death way. Besides, Squishy would take care of them, and if not, well, she would leave another brain-tentacle outside the door, to continue the banging. She had plenty of them.
The other one, Alice, had left no trace, except some tracks leading back down the mountain. Ruth Less had no specific orders about Alice, didn’t like the smell of her, and also there was a taste around her, as of some other … being … one much more powerful. There were things about Alice that Ruth Less didn’t understand, and since she understood so much through her pouch, this made her reluctant to follow the woman.
Nor did Ruth Less care much for the shadows and masks lurking still well above them all. They were like mist or mirrors, neither of which she liked to eat.
Which left the first door.
Wretch had said, “Do not be curious,” then had had to explain “curious” to her—a word that because it was forbidden tasted delicious to her. She could obey Wretch and yet also Tuft and Speck if she killed the Jonathan-thing eventually, but also remained “curious” along the way.
Besides, Heady had told her more than once that Wretch’s orders to her would be just like her games of keep-away with Speck and Tuft. That the point of the game wasn’t to win right away, but to play. To have fun. “Winning right away would spoil it, don’t you think?” Heady had said.
For that reason, Ruth Less had taken the time to smell the giant blue polka-dot flowers and study the points of light in the sky at night. For this reason, Ruth Less had also, laboriously, read some of what was in the books carried by the snacks in the funeral procession by the lake. She read by running her snuffling mouth parts over the pages, because then she could taste the ink, and some instinctual talent of her species to interpret meant she could taste her way to comprehension. So she could begin to understand this world. Without really using words, for reading by taste did not register as “words” to her. Any more than the mountain goats had told her stories once in her gullet.
In this spirit, Ruth Less told herself it was pointless to bang on the second door any longer when she could be curious somewhere else. For example, it might be useful to open the first door.
And so she did.
And, oh my!, the marvels within! Amazing death piggies to play with, gambol with, and then lovingly devour!
After that the figure made of comet fire that appeared at the threshold of the mansion—a Celestial Beast, Mamoud the Sharp had called it at the campfire. As Ruth Less had lurked not so near but near enough to pick up on words. The Celestial Beast also known as “Comet Man,” the lonely one who needed a hug but who destroyed beings even as he “read” them.
Ruth Less knew what a hug was from Tuft and from Speck. She loved hugs, even though they were unnatural to her species. Members of her species did not mind being alone for long stretches of time; indeed, one might register affection by biting off the head of your best “friend” in the world she had come from, since large congregations were only really for the purpose of devouring and gorging on one another. But she had learned about the idea of “togetherness” from Tuft, from Speck, and something about it had tasted nice.
When all the piggies had traveled, in various states of having been read, into Ruth Less’s bulging belly, she approached the man of light. When he just stood there, burning, and did not shy away, Ruth Less wrapped the Comet Man in an embrace with her many arms, some of which popped out of the top of her head. He wasn’t mad at her about eating the piggies. He said there were many more left over.
It was a long and firm hug, as the Comet Man wept tears of flame. He smelled like burnt coal and smoky ash and yet also like the seared salt shore of a sea on fire. It was a comfortable smell to Ruth Less, and she was glad she had been curious.
For the fires did not bother Ruth Less. She had been made fireproof and coldproof, and, indeed, they only had need to part when her hug grew so strong that it would have snapped the Comet Man in half and snuffed him. Although she doubted he would have stayed snuffed for long, as this Celestial Beast was quite powerful.
As they drew apart, the Comet Man regarded her with affection from the gaping empty holes of eyes surrounded by orange-yellow flame as the mansion behind them melted at the edges and more death piggies grew in the pit that was the front lawn.
The Comet Man began to sing to Ruth Less.
Soon she would have to be on her way, eager to show her pouch to even more of the people and creatures of this world. For this was one way Ruth Less grew, and with each new pouch-ing, Wretch’s orders made less sense to her, as she learned more and more about Aurora.
Why, perhaps she would put the Comet Man in her pouch. Then she would be able to spout flame and know even more, become even larger. On the inside. For now, just on the inside.
But not yet. Instead, she would just listen.
For the song was made of emerald smoke curling into the heated air, not of words at all, and she thought it was the most beautiful song she had ever seen.