Remnant Tails Read online

  Green leaves.

  They fell like snow and disappeared before they hit the crimson of my grave.

  They fell around him.

  Him. An old man who seemed to glide over the snow that tried to entomb me.

  Through the snow, I saw a shoe made of fine material. It floated over top the deep snow leaving no footprints. The man wore an oddly colored green all over. It was so bright.

  A heavy, green coat, and fine green pants.

  His face was too far away for me to see.

  He was just going to walk past me.

  I grabbed his leg.

  Help me, I thought desperately.

  But that burst of strength left as soon as it came and my hand slid off his pants.

  “Bah! Stain my pants will you now! Help you! Pathetic beggar! Why! Why? Why should I help the likes of you! Why should I help anyone! Do I look like I give charity a hint?”

  I saw his nice shoe slip under my chin, and he nudged my head up so that I was facing him.

  I had absolutely no response to the yellow crystals narrowed at me behind the many, many wrinkles that were his face. I only heard my mother’s words.

  “If a creature so loathsome shall appear before either of you in the form of man. Eyes of crystal and a mass of no weight—”

  “Ah, you know of mine, and you have no fear. Look at you. If you weren’t already dying pitifully—” He bent over and touched a sore spot on my neck. “—I’d be in my very right to kill you, you miserable animal.”

  His cold threat felt numb in comparison to my failure. What was it that mother told me about crystal eyed creatures?

  “Tsk. I see you don’t care for such trivialities, seeing as your life isn’t what you hold dear. Then what would you say if I paid your brother a visit, eh?”

  “Take care of your brother, even when it’s hard. Promise me, Emare!”

  My brother! I had to get to him. Had… to!

  But even as I thought it, my body steadily became one with the lifeless snow that gathered on top of it.

  Will.

  “Pitiful.” I opened my eye at the old man. “You’ve given your body to labor and your life to your brother. Your thoughts belong solely to your cause, but your ‘mother’ occupies your mind. I see no reason to help you. What could you give me in turn?”

  What was it? It was something. She told me.

  “Ah,” he expressed, and wrinkles wrinkled over wrinkles as he smiled. “Would you give me them all?”

  “Then spurn them and refuse them any grant or disdain, for they are soul eaters and will turn your greatest passions against you, for they are demons. Promise me, Emare. That no matter how hard it becomes, that you will persevere for your brother’s sake.”

  “Would you ignore your mother’s dying words? Would you sell me your soul?”

  “—no matter how hard it becomes, that you will persevere for your brother’s sake.”

  “She contradicted herself, that mother of yours. Could it be that she never saw you as I do now? Another pitiful soul, I see. What’s that saying about the apple?”

  I could feel my life slipping away. What would I do for my brother’s sake? Would I break a promise that I made at my mother’s deathbed?

  No. I didn’t promise I’d die. Or even not to sell my soul. I promised to persevere. For my brother’s sake. I promised to persevere; to take care of him.

  I looked at the man, meeting his cat-like pupils in yellow crystals.

  I let it show that I’d do whatever it took.

  Help me!

  Suddenly I was filled with warmth, and with warmth came pain.

  I tried to cry out, but where I spoke was the source of all that pain.

  “No running before you can walk. How can you express pain before you can even speak?” the man told me.

  I felt my limbs again and pushed myself up.

  I could see how indecent I was at that very moment.

  My dress was burnt around the edges where it was slashed and torn, revealing my torso, and a long gash stretched up my chest and past my collar bone. I felt up my neck, following the gash. It went past my throat, across my face, through my eye, and a little past my hairline.

  I sighed.

  I felt vibrations and looked down both mortified and fascinated to see my wounds healing. Within seconds all that was left of them were leaf shaped spots all stitched by my scar like a vine.

  I looked up and gasped, surprised to see how close the old man had come to me.

  “I’ll need you to see perfectly when the time comes,” he said, and waved a hand in front of my face.

  For a moment I was seeing double, then everything evened out into one singular vision.

  “Ah.” But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

  My dress had transformed into a lovely, light brown dress made of a material that softly hugged me. Darker brown tights warmed my legs along with fuzzy legwarmers, and new brown boots. Over the dress was a fuzzy coat made of warm down, which made it unbelievable that it was winter.

  “In your pocket is a pound of cake. Tomorrow when he arises let him consume as much of it as he desires. Around your neck is as much as you need in your currency.

  “In the second level of the city, there lives a barren woman named Ann Setes, your father’s older sister, along with her husband. In exactly a month and seven hours take your brother to her house at 43-621 Opticon Place and let her take your brother as her own.

  “On the same day make your way to 723-4 Fleece Drive in the third level and beg Lave’ah for a job. She’ll refuse you at first, but it’ll soon work out. Do not return to the place that robbed you of both money and life.

  “From this point onward, you need to support your brother from afar. From tonight and after you’ve attained employment give only half your compensation to your Aunt, save a fourth for his future, and the rest will keep you alive.”

  I stared up in shock at the old man.

  Surely this wasn’t happening?

  The old man blew a white puff from his mouth that soon condensed and turned dark. The dark came, and I breathed it in where it settled inside of me, my skin suddenly feeling too tight for my body.

  “Ah! I knew I forgot something!” He snapped.

  Then he bent over and pulled up the crimson snow I just lay in and formed it in the air with his hands. He presented it to me, and still, in shock, I took it.

  It was warm though it was snow.

  “Blow,” he ordered.

  I inhaled deep and blew, surprised that I could.

  I was even more surprised to see something small and warm moving in my arms.

  I jumped as it cried out for a mommy it didn’t have.

  A newborn kid, crimson as blood with white socks. A baby goat made from crimson snow.

  I remained speechless though in complete awe as I held this new ball of life to my chest.

  “There now. I helped you. I expect the favor to be returned. Now listen closely. In this exact spot, you will meet me exactly six years from now. If you fail to do so you will find the consequences most unpleasant. The same is true if you do not follow all my other instructions. Remember, six years time,” he repeated, then he turned and walked off.

  A moment later he completely disappeared. There were no footsteps or any other sign that he was here.

  When the snow threatened to bury me and the little kid, I hugged it tighter to me and stood. I looked around, remembering that I couldn’t forget this place, and was too shocked to pale at the fact that I was in The Forest of Last Dreams.

  Someone had gone way out of their way to get rid of my body.

  Only the lost, monsters, and demons lived out here.

  I looked around and found a tree with a book carved in it, and followed a dim snowy path back into town. I knocked on the gate though I could’ve easily gone around to one of the many openings in the now dead fields to get in.

  Guards, faces whiter than snow at my reemergence, let me through the gate
s, their solemn whispers following me through the somber streets.

  When I was merely a house away from my own I stopped in front of the shiny gold ornamental mailbox of Ol’ Merva, my eccentric neighbor.

  I stared at my reflection.

  My new reflection.

  My long, brown, curly hair was now short and straight with a white streak where the gash had been. Cutting across my face was the vine from the gash that stopped above a green eye that couldn’t possibly be mine—because both of my eyes were dark brown—and continued down my face, throat, and disappeared under my coat.

  “I… look different.”

  With that, I continued on to my house and went in.

  I looked at the baby goat tucked in my arms.

  “This is your new home…Scarlet? Let’s go keep my promise, okay.”

  So Long the Farewell

  “Ah! No! Scarlet, don’t eat that!” I said grabbing a new knit from Scarlet!

  As usual, I had to wrest it from her to the ground.

  The naughty girl found chewing on just about anything a fun pastime and I didn’t have the heart to put her outside, much less let her live out there.

  “Why can’t you ever go after normal food? Or even Mr. Spanks’ ‘little notes?’ Why must you go after my work?” I asked before restless tension once again settled in my belly.

  I grappled with my breath to no avail.

  Fear ruled today. Uncertainty was its commander.

  Six years. They all but flew by. Slowly. Just not slow enough.

  “Naaaaa,” Scarlet bleated in my ear.

  I tittered a bit and got up, pulling Scarlet to me. I took a hard breath and recalled a sniffle.

  “You can’t do this at your new home, Scar. They’ll think you mad. You’re not human so you can’t do as you please as you do here. Come now. Let’s get ready.”

  I looked at the knit Scarlet had attempted to chew. It was for Madame. Madame Commora Retor. Our best customer at the parlor. I’d never be able to finish the knit she requested in time. And though I told her this when she ordered it a week ago she persisted. I’d turn it in and Lave’ah would assign the job to someone else. This knit just served as a reminder to what my fate was.

  “Death,” I said out loud, Scarlet giving me a confused look. “Nothing,” I told her, though I knew otherwise.

  It was inevitable, and that inevitability grew stronger and stronger over the years. Everyday my skin, my bones, they felt stretched and grew painfully tighter. Everyday I’d have less and less energy and would have to eat more and more. More and more frightened people became of me and me of them.

  Tonight, finally, I’d break the promise to my mother once and for all; for persevering was a choice I’d no longer have.

  Bang! I heard outside.

  Scarlet ran upstairs. As usual, as I ran to the front.

  The seedy, browning green flesh and sickly sweet smell of rotting sweet-melon was all over the front door and porch.

  “Witch!” The nasty Larken boy from around the block shouted from a scooter when he was a safe distance away.

  “Oh! Really! Then be lucky I haven’t cursed you yet, you insufferable cur! Grow up already!” And I meant that. He was several years older than me with no prospects.

  No wonder Maive Darrel turned him down.

  He turned wide-eyed to stare at me, not seeing his mortified mother walking their mongrel, and with shocked yelps and pitiful cries, they all collided. I cursed yet another family because that’s what strange people did. That and clean a lot of ill meaning messes from their humble fronts.

  I shouted, “Serves you right!” Then sighed after slamming the door.

  Today was a cleaning day anyway.

  I filled a bucket with detergent and water, grabbed my best brush, and began scrubbing.

  Scrubbing and thinking.

  I learned only a year ago that it was okay to scream and shout when I was angry. To not care what people thought about me. Even so, it still shook me up.

  People were meant to hurt each other but it didn’t mean that it was right. Or maybe I was just wrong and life was meant to be spent overcoming your own hurt and not spreading it.

  It only served to frustrate me which was good for scrubbing.

  Unfortunately, I cleaned too often, so when I did go for a full house scrub it only took mere minutes. Today I was making it difficult by cleaning the fabrics and textiles too.

  All my possessions fit in the small burlap sap I carried to and from work every day. All Pohlin’s old possessions were packed away in his room. When I was done with the couch that’d be all I’d have to do at the house. Well that and the sweet-melon all over the porch, but I was avoiding that until after I ate again. Sometimes my cravings were humiliating.

  “Naaanaaa?” Scarlet asked.

  I threw off my gloves and pat her head before taking a seat in the kitchen. I grabbed the last head of cabbage and put it down for her, which she helped herself to.

  I sighed.

  “How come I haven’t figured it out yet, Scar? Aren’t we supposed to be wise and philosophical before we die? Are people supposed to hurt each other or aren’t we? And if we are supposed to hurt each other then why does it feel so wrong? Was I wrong to scare the Larkens? It’s not like I could curse them, though.”

  Scarlet bumped me with one of her small horns while eating and I sighed.

  “I suppose you’re right. I am a goat too, therefore I should behave like one and not let it bother me. After all, all is said and done. I’ll go get the sheets from the back.

  Clean up after yourself when you’re done.”

  Of course she didn’t, but I still stacked the chairs on the table and covered every bit of furniture. I put away all the furnishings and locked up anything valuable. I finally ended by boarding up all the windows and packing all the perishable foods in a shopping bag.

  When it became too gloomy in the house, Scarlet and I sat outside eating the perishables.

  Everything we didn’t eat would be Scarlet’s.

  I climbed the tree in our front yard like I had so many times before and stared into the sky.

  Boy, would it be nice if I could sleep on a cloud? Then my worries would seem so far away. I hope I get to sleep on a cloud.

  I shook my head and jumped down.

  Scarlet immediately came to greet me, and I hugged her.

  She smelled sickly sweet like sweet-melon.

  I cried, “Come on, Girl!”

  ~~~

  The boy wouldn’t meet my eyes as he fought a frantic Scarlet.

  She shared my aversion to strangers.

  The woman, the mother, the wife, she scorned me from the window.

  Most people distanced themselves from me like her.

  The man, Lough, though he was confident and sure in this deal we had arranged months before, now he seemed reluctant.

  “So there’s nothing else I need to know?” he asked for the third time as if I was keeping secrets from him.

  I kept all the frustration I was beginning to feel towards them, all of them, at a thin boundary right below my voice for Scarlet’s sake.

  She isn’t going to grow canines and eat you in the middle of the night, if that’s what you’re thinking, I thought impatiently, but kept it to myself because Scarlet needed a home and I didn’t need to plant any suggestions in anyone’s heads.

  “No, that’s basically it. If you can care for her as any other goat, that is what she needs. Scarlet loves other animals and doesn’t have a violent bone in her body. She has a very healthy diet and has never had any problems at all, though she loves to chew textiles.”

  Lough nodded like there was a spring in his head he couldn’t stop and I felt hopeless. No one else would take Scarlet but him because of her unique coloring in lieu with her unique caretaker. However, he was the only angora farmer that didn’t slaughter his animals that’d take her.

  “Good, good. That sounds fantastic. Is there anything else I need to know?” An
d I just about sighed. Didn’t he know how hard this already was for us?

  I shook my head, my eyes watering again. I had never seen my darling so frantic. Not since she was new to the world. I wonder if that demon had a plan for her after I was gone. He had to know that I wouldn’t be able to care for her, so was she just supposed to turn back into the red snow.

  I turned away from her cries.

  Not while my heart still beats.

  I wiped my eyes and shook my head.

  “No,” I said harshly, “so if we’re done, I want to know if she’s in good hands here.”

  I stared at Lough for a good long moment, and something in his demeanor changed. He gave me an apologetic smile.

  “Yeah,” he said, extending his hand out to me. “The best,” he confirmed.

  My shaky sigh signaled I was close to my breaking point. Scarlet would be in good hands, so I took of his hand and squeezed a bit as a threat before shaking. I’d haunt him if she weren’t good in this very hand.

  “Thank you.”

  And so not to give Scarlet false hope, I turned away and let the tears meant for her to fall along the street.

  Who cared who watched.

  ~~~

  “Oh! It’s absolutely darling!” Manna expressed, squeezing the half-finished print to her face. “Soft too. You didn’t make this with silk? Is this angora? Ahhh! Please let me have it? Sis doesn’t know about it yet, does she? Oh, please, oh, please. You told Madame you wouldn’t be able to finish it anyway, and I’m sure Tiny can make it? Right, C?”

  We both turned to Celia, but she was ignoring us.

  I… didn’t blame her. Anger through withdrawal was just the way Celia expressed herself.

  Especially now that she was on her own.

  After today, all she’d have is this place.

  Life never gets any easier. Only a different perspective.

  “Hey, sourpuss! If you haven’t noticed we’re about to lose a friend. You think you might want to pull your head out of Mrs. Briggs’ toe funk for a minute?” I sighed at Manna, but her tactlessness was what I appreciated most about her.

  She spoke her mind. It was just weird how she used our customers’ most disturbing aspects as references.