Circling Vultures
A few days before the new moon, the air condensed with unrest as we awaited the next attack. The sun hid behind dark clouds, and fog thick as slate patrolled the hedge maze. The Keeper packed her pipe for the third time before noon, lit it, and took a deep drag as she stood beside her wall of windows. Smoke the hue of blackberry jam unfurled from her stummel, a carved cluster of foxgloves rimmed in gold. Avice didn’t approve, much to my amusement, nose squinched as if she’d stumbled upon a corpse instead of sweet, velvety euphoria in smoke form. But I didn’t mind. Smoking calmed the Keeper and, with the encroaching marching, me.
When Avice made some flimsy excuse and left – she wasn’t fooling anyone, likely the Keeper had lit up to get some space – I considered approaching her. Now was my chance. Yet every time I pressed those tiny motes together to form lips and attempted to speak, only fear creaked out. And creak, it did.
The Keeper furrowed that lovely, sun-kissed brow, and whipped her head around. But by then, I’d scattered and fogged up her window. Her shoulders dropped with a sigh, and she puffed her pipe. The citadel was constructed by the Divine Daughter’s cohorts long ago, when there was still wind and, like all old structures, it too was prone to groan.
I cursed myself. She was here. Alone. With me. She could answer my questions, could save me from this miserable existence. But I was a coward. Her searing glare from the garden had yet to heal, and that’s when she’d been happy moments before. Now, her crimson gown bunched tightly around her back; her free arm cinched her torso. She was already on edge; would my voice not push her over? I attributed her foul mood to the group of seven envoys who’d arrived last night. The way they eyed her sparkly videira, I didn’t blame her.
For once, my attention floated to the staff. Even the savvy was rigid, and that worried me. They always seemed calm. From what I’d gathered via the gardener and the chef during one of their not-so-secretive trysts in a hedge maze alcove, everyone was on high alert. These seven would stay over the next few months, vying for the Keeper’s position. I didn’t like it, and more, I was confused by it.
Impotent of any gumption, I forced my glimmer out her door and twisted through the Hall of Keepers. Row after row of large, oval portraits in filigreed frames showcased the Keepers’ inaugurations and the day they passed on their ruby videira to their successor. All the former Keepers, upon stepping down, were old, frail, deep wrinkles trenching their skin. But this Keeper? My Keeper? Gabriella França Costa, endearingly called Bee by her closest mates? – Wait. How did I know that? I shrugged and chucked it into my ever-growing collection of questions without answers – Bee’s big amber eyes were still bright and clear with youth, her copper face, smoother than silk. Only on the rare occasion when she smiled did tiny threads appear around her eyes. So why now?
She had coughed nonstop at dinner last night. Avice was concerned, but the Keeper claimed she’d choked on wine. If today were any indication, I’d put all my coin on her smoking habit. Yet, cloudcane pulp, unlike other forms of pipe tobacco, soothed the lungs. It was even prescribed to those suffering from breathing ailments. And that’s all she smoked. So, something else then. Was she…could she be…. No! She was not dying. A woman tough as the Keeper would never bow to sickness.
I returned to my stoop, glaring at the group as they ambled into the stained-glass foyer. So why were these vultures circling? Surely, one of them was to blame for this cruel turn of events?
“Every half century or so, this repeats. Nothing to fret over. A new Keeper will rise, and the former will spend the rest of her days relaxing on one of the southern isles,” the eldest gargoyle said, irritated. They were always irritated. They didn’t care for my questions. Told me to stop wasting my energy. Better to preserve it for the upcoming attack.
I pitied them. How tedious their existence must’ve been, hunched over the neighboring spire, only awakening before each scrim attack. What kind of life was that? Their glimmer, milky and dull, drooped inside their feline-crow frame. Even it had curdled with time. Had they once been like me, desperately trying to escape, only to resign themselves to this lackluster life? I shivered. Was this my future too?
“Does your mind ever shut the raze up?” said a voice of rusty nails.
Where had that—
“Here.” The elephant-headed gargoyle with the seal body glowered.
“You can hear my thoughts?” I said, unnerved. I’d tried talking to this dour gent when I’d first awoken. I’d failed.
“Not all, thank the Divine Daughter. Just the loud, obnoxious ones.”
I winced. “My apologies.”
He grumbled something unintelligible. A flood of possibilities, of questions, swept my chagrin away. Had I found a confidant, a friend? Or at least someone who could—
“I’m not your mate,” he spat. “Our stone bodies may’ve been sculpted and placed upon the citadel at the same time, but you’re not the spirit who arrived after the great wars, after the typhoons and tidal waves and tempests. Nay. You arrived here much later, methinks. The Scorned Son had already relieved us of the wind’s burden.”
“Burden? But—”
“Your shock confirms you aren’t an ancient one.” He cocked his head, smug. “These days, every soul is reminiscent, placing the wind on a pedestal as though she were a martyr. But if you were from my time, lived through the atrocities caused by her, over her, you wouldn’t call her a saint.”
The wind, a villain? I couldn’t process it. My mind was a mess, but this stone body remembered the wind’s stolen kisses, her delicate caresses—
“Didn’t say she was a villain. All make mistakes. Most are forgivable. But our kind, and more so, humans, tend to revere the gone, latching on to only their favorable memories. Yet even roses have thorns.”
“What exactly…is our kind?”
The elephant-seal paused for a moment. “The spirit once inhabiting your vessel was a guardian of the citadel, like me, like the rest of us. But you? I’ve no clue what or who you are, other than you aren’t my mate.”
I began to ask if he remembered when his friend left, so that I might construct a timeline, but his glimmer, once bright as the midday sun, darkened to full night. And any more questions I asked, then pleaded, were answered with hollow silence.
I still didn’t know what I was, only that I wasn’t like them. Progress, if slight. I should’ve been pleased. But the confirmation that I was indeed different, that I wasn’t supposed to be here, that I was an aberration or perhaps even a body thief, only caved me in more. So, I returned to my previous plan. One of these seven foreigners had clearly conspired to take the Keepership before she was ready. I would find them. I would stop them. I’d remove the source of her suffering. Then, surely she’d forgive my past trespasses, whatever they were – even roses had thorns, the elephant-seal would agree – and help restore my memory.