Clarey, Flannie, and I wait beside the railroad crossing sign as the trolley pulls out of sight. The bell dings and the wheels clatter, a musical cacophony underscoring autumn gusts and street noise. Clarey absently touches the spot behind his left ear where a magnetic sound processor is connected to a titanium implant in his skull. The BAHA hides beneath all his hair, but I’ve seen it many times.
When he first got the bone-anchored hearing aid at the age of eight, he had a buzz cut and all the kids at school saw the metal protrusion. Having lived with Waardenburg syndrome his whole life, he accepted the surgery and new hearing strategies without blinking since he had family members who, along with sharing inherent physical traits, were deaf in both ears. But two fifth-grade boys couldn’t resist teasing him, so I got into a fistfight with them, winning them both a black eye, me a fat lip, and two days’ suspension for the three of us. Lark’s solution was subtler and more effective: she won Clarey instant popularity by claiming he’d changed into a robot overnight.
Clarey pulls up his hood to protect the BAHA from any stray raindrops, then kisses a clawed fingertip and salutes the clouded sky in silent tribute to my sister. He and Lark crushed on each other after the robot incident, and in sixth grade officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. As pure and true as that puppy love was, I’m convinced they’d still be a couple today had she not died at the beginning of eighth grade.
Clarey’s jaw twitches, and he drapes an arm over my shoulders. He’s only a few inches taller than my five-foot-nine-inch frame, so I fit perfectly in the groove of his lean body. His scent of flowers and special-effects chemicals—an amalgamation of nature and synthetic that brings more comfort than it should—envelops my senses.
A gust rushes at our backs, nudging us to start our regular route along Eleventh. Flannie trots a few steps ahead, her mechanical leg humming and clicking. Streetlights flicker to life up and down the curbs, a soft glow against the backdrop of clouds and the sun perched just above the horizon, ready to dip into the river. Fellow Astorians wave from passing cars and sidewalks bedecked with jack-o’-lanterns, plaid scarecrows, and miniature haystacks. Clarey raises a clawed glove in response and I mimic the gesture with one hand while gripping the duffel strapped over my shoulder with the other.
The snarling pumpkins and skeleton-shaped lights strung across storefronts make me ache to be home where there are no decorations. I look off in the distance, past the commerce and traffic, where Craftsman houses climb hills glistening with wet grass and fall foliage. Normally, the bright patchwork architecture and the warm oranges, reds, and yellows of the trees cheer me. Instead, I’m greeted with washed-out beiges, browns, grays, and blacks. As if to add insult to injury, a rainbow catches my attention where it peeks out between branches in the early evening haze. With the absence of color, the curved lines look more like talon marks scoring the screen of an old-timey noir film than a promise of clear skies.
Clarey catches the direction of my gaze and draws me closer. “All seven are there. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.” He lists the hues in a whisper, his warm breath hovering over my ear, keeping my secret shame between us. “The offer still stands,” he adds.
I shake my head in answer. He’s said all along he’ll fill the role of temporary colorist for my graphic novels, show me what shades to blend, what tints to add for depth or clarity. But my art is the one part of my life I’ve always had control of. I’m not handing it over to anyone, no matter how much I trust and admire them. It’s a matter of pride … of power. I’d rather give it up than admit I can’t do it alone. Being a tortured artist himself, Clarey understands my resolve on a level few others could.
Several store owners shout out salutations as our trio passes, a few offering appreciative comments on Flannie’s bobbing troll head and scaly hide. Having the only dog in town with an automated leg, Clarey gets more attention than he already did. It trickles down to me, since I’m the one who designed the metal prosthesis. Although, truth be known, I had some help from beyond the grave with that. I stiffen my shoulders under Clarey’s arm, determined not to let Lark seep into my thoughts again.
“Okay. Assessment time.” Clarey takes my tense muscles as cue to initiate distraction tactics. He drops a bone-shaped treat for Flannie on the sidewalk, then tugs the mask out of his pocket. He holds it up where mist clings like ethereal cobwebs around a streetlight. Empty eye and mouth sockets gape at me—jogging free that unwanted memory of Lark’s unmoving corpse when I found her on the lower bunk.
I bite my lip, wishing I could bring the piskies from my novels to life. I’d happily inhale their magical dust so the tiny particles could open my mind to the power of suggestion—allow me to change the memory’s details to something more palatable. If I could, I’d carve out that last moment with Lark and replace it with her smiling and blissful … however false it would be.
“Earth to Nix.” The mask’s beakish nose stretches out like an accusatory finger as Clarey shakes it to reclaim my attention. “Thinking of the gilded piskies again?”
I give him a chagrined smirk. “I thought you were a goblin today. Pretty sure telepathy is a Dracula thing.”
“What I am is the number one fanboy of The Goblin Chronicles. And you know I’ve wished for a sprinkle of piskie dust myself sometimes.”
Sadly, even if such magic were to exist, their nirvanic dust only works on freshly made memories. Time has etched every detail of Lark’s death in place so it’s a permanent part of me. The same holds true of Clarey’s final months with his mom, Breonna. Shortly after we lost Lark, Breonna developed pancreatic cancer. Clarey’s blond-haired, blue-eyed, Ken-Barbie dad jumped ship at the diagnosis, so Clarey and Breonna packed up and moved to Chicago where his grandparents could take care of their daughter and grandson.
While he was away, I reached my lowest low, and so did he—as Breonna withered and died within eight months. Not long after, Clarey found Flannie in the alley behind his grandparents’ house. She was just a puppy with a two-inch stump for her left hind, and had stayed warm by wrapping herself in an old flannel shirt discarded beside the dumpster. It was love at first sight for them both. He needed her to fill a void, and she needed him to survive—just like me with my goblins.
But despite having survived, neither Clarey nor I can ever forget what it’s like to see someone you love changed to a form you no longer recognize.
“Back to the here and now.” He ruffles my hair with a clawed glove. “To have a chance at that scholarship next year, I’ll need a top-notch portfolio. And who better to coach me than Mystiquiel’s most notorious paint slinger?”
The compliment once grounded me, reminded me I ruled over a land of monsters sketched and commanded by my hand. Although lately the mood lifter doesn’t pack the same punch, Clarey hasn’t dropped it as his default yet.
“So sock it to me.” He flips the mask around to face him and starts forward again, whistling at Flannie so she’ll follow. “Still working on the copper-wire horns and electric neck coils. But other than that, I nailed Scourge this time, right?”
Stepping in time with them, I lift one eyebrow. “The wig is phenomenal. And the features are perfect. You’ll have to help me with the rest …”
He squints upon realizing I’m referring to the paint job that’s ambiguous to me. “Well, you can almost see oily blood pumping through these veins.”
What I can see are the wheels turning in his head as he avoids the subject of color.
He tilts his head in thought. “The only way I could get more realistic would be to actually become a goblin.”
I smirk. “Don’t say that out loud, Clarence Eugene Darden.” I use his full name like his aunt does when he’s in trouble, in hopes of slowing his backpedaling. “We wouldn’t want the Goblin King to hear you and drag you into his realm to grant your wish.”
“If he’s anything like Perish, I’m already a goner. Unless I can get on the Motherboard’s good side.” Clarey laughs, the tension easing as we arrive at a subject on which we can both contribute.
I offer a half smile, thinking of the Goblin King in my graphic novels. Perish’s barbaric, scrap-metal-meets-flesh form would be considered disturbing at worst, monstrously beautiful at best, when viewed through a conventional human lens. Yet still I’ve managed to elevate his seductive abilities by refining his character. He’s a master of illusions and mind games, and a brilliant strategist with the intellect of any card-carrying Mensa member—qualities that make him almost impossible to resist or outsmart.
The only entity that can match him play for play is the Motherboard … a biomechanical being with a hive-mind consciousness, buried in the heart of Perish’s kingdom. Though Perish’s voice and image are crystal clear in my imagination, I can never quite picture the Motherboard. Her dialogues are always in the “royal we” and poetic, and I’ve placed her lair in the center of Mystiquiel, with a pinnacle that rises high enough to disappear into the clouds. This way, there’s no need for a detailed image.
In my stories, Perish and the Motherboard are locked in an eternal power struggle. When I’m writing their scenes, they draw me in with a bold fascination—often surprising me by the savagery of their maneuvers, by how each one takes the plot in directions I never expected.
I didn’t extend the same depth of characterization to Perish’s brother, Scourge. He’s a skinny, ruthless lackey—with a sharp tongue and a knack for deceit. Which is why Clarey prefers that likeness for masks. Scourge is one-dimensional, monstrous without complications.
Still, if Clarey’s going to get into New York’s Make-Up Designory after graduation next year, he has to devote equal attention to all the specs.
We arrive at Eveningside Street. Flannie is closest to me so I grab her collar where it peeks out from her aluminum scales. After looking both ways, I release her and together the three of us drop off the curb to cross.
“You’ve read all my novels,” I say, continuing our conversation. “You know the canon. Does he look the part of Scourge?”
“No. The coloring is still off.” Clarey’s feet slosh through puddles along the asphalt. “Your goblins are only gray if they’re full blooded.”
It’s a relief to realize the gray of the mask is true, not just a result of busted retinas. I halt as two cyclists roll by, splashing us.
Flannie’s ears perk, as if she’s considering giving chase, but all it takes is a cluck from Clarey’s tongue and she’s glued to his heels again. “Since the royal family has frost elf in their lineage,” Clarey continues musing aloud, “I’ve got to find a way to showcase Scourge’s lustrous complexion.”
Swiping water off my face, I fall into step with them. “When I’m working on my goblin panels, I always use blending stumps and metallic-colored pencils. So you need a medium that’s fluid and flexible … that will coalesce like the belly of a seashell. You know, that shimmery shift from pearly white and petal pink to silvery blue.” I wince while describing past techniques, knowing I couldn’t possibly accomplish the same precision in this moment.
Clarey peels off his gloves and tucks them into his pocket alongside the mask. “Not so easy with 3D latex. I’ve used all the iridescent paints out there. Nothing captures the fluctuation … the luminance. I even tried stirring pearl powder into the paints. The tonalities still blend together. That’s where I’m getting stuck.”
I cock my head. “You know … maybe you could try some of Uncle’s squid ink. Make your own paint with flour, salt, and water, then—”
“Use the ink in place of food coloring,” we say simultaneously as we step onto the sidewalk a few shops from the bakery.
Clarey looks impressed. “That could totally work. The color variants would be boss!”
I smirk, wondering where the idea came from, and also why I’ve never considered it in the past with my own art; it’s almost as if someone whispered it in my ear.
Uncle Thatch is the only baker I know who uses the rare squid ink in his recipes—partly to replace the salt, but also for its unique multi-tonal effect on the pastries. Drawn from a deep-sea albino cephalopod, the ink looks black until the instant air touches it, then pales to something resembling melted pearls. Uncle places one drop in each batch of batter he mixes, except in our bestselling Berry-Berry macarons. These contain two drops and no other coloring, which makes its effects more visible. The cookies themselves are glossy and opalescent, as if formed of clouds gilded by a sunrise. The subtle, shifting pastels are magical enough, but the visual takes a back seat to the exceptional flavor. The filling contains butter and heavy cream, sweetened and tinted with mulberries, blackberries, gooseberries, and pomegranate juice. The shimmery cookies, sandwiched around a velvety center as red as clotted blood, are most popular during Valentine’s Day and the Christmas season, but remain a steady favorite any time of year.
“But … wait. That stuff’s expensive.” Clarey voices my own unspoken concern while scratching Flannie behind her ear. “Do you really think your uncle would let me try it?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure he’d be up for sharing, and he’s the only one with a key to the safe. Maybe I could sneak some when the shipment first arrives, before it’s put away. I wouldn’t need to take much.”
“Only a drop or two will do,” Clarey says, reciting my uncle’s personal adage for using the ink in moderation when he cooks. “But he’ll know, right? When the air hits it … it’ll lighten in the vial. A dead giveaway.”
“Well, it darkens again after a couple of minutes once the stopper’s back in place. So … as long as I can get it done with time enough for the ink to return to normal before he checks the shipment, I can pull it off.”
“There’s my naughty kitten.” Clarey gifts me with a sexy wink.
I narrow my eyes. “You realize that doesn’t work on me, right?”
“So sad.” He tweaks the sprocket-shaped piercing at the outer edge of my eyebrow. “All that mechanical know-how and you still can’t jump-start your heart.”
I scoff and push his hood off playfully, releasing his white streak along with all the dark locks surrounding it, and relishing that his hair isn’t affected by my mood blindness.
“It’s got nothing to do with mechanics, Buster, and everything to do with chemistry,” I say. If I gave in to the urge to run my fingers through his curls, he’d see right through that lie.
His hands catch mine when I start to pull back, latching us together. “So maybe I should buy you a chemistry set this Christmas.” He rests his thumbs against the thin skin of my wrists where my heart drums an undeniable rhythm of excitement. His eyes glitter with something between playfulness and daring.
I try not to think about the pallor of his irises, concentrating instead on the softness of his skin and the heat of his touch against my pulse points. There’s no lack of chemistry here. But Clarey liked Lark first … used to call her his little gearhead. So I can’t help but think any spark he feels is because I remind him of her.
Worse yet, Lark told him she loved him a couple of months before she died. She fell hard, for all the reasons I have: his witty and artistic mind, his eclectic love of music, his eccentric fashion sense, and his appreciation for outdated words such as “ratfink,” or dicta like “check out this newfangled gadget” and “I’m in a funk.”
Hijacking my sister’s robotics is one thing, but stepping into a romance that should’ve been hers feels like a betrayal. I have enough guilt piled on my plate, and can’t afford for my world to get any more anemic than it already is.
So, squelching the flutters in my belly, I deliver Clarey a snide one-liner to get myself off the hook: “Just buy me a microscope so we can look for your mind—’cause I’m pretty sure you’ve lost it.”