Crackpot Palace (25 page)

“Almost,” she said, “but I've left parts of me between here and the beginning of the world.”

“A toe?”

Sister North's Sermon

No, only pieces of my spirit, torn out by pity, shame, guilt, and fear. I tracked Mina GilCragson. She's no scholar, but an agent from a ring of female thieves who specialize in religious relics. The toe was sent along the secret Contraband Road, north to the beginning of the world. I traveled that road, packing a pistol and cutlass. And I let the life out of certain men and women who thought they had some claim on me. I slept at the side of the road in the rain and snow. I climbed the rugged path into the cloud country.

In the thin atmosphere of the Haunted Mountains, I'd run out of food and was starving. Unfortunately for him, an old man, heading north, leading a donkey with a heavy load, was the first to pass my ambush. I told him I wanted something to eat, but he went for his throwing dagger, and I was forced to shoot him in the face. I freed the donkey of its burden and went through the old man's wares. I found food, some smoked meat, leg bones of cattle, and pickled Plum fish. While I ate I inspected the rest of the goods, and among them I discovered a small silver box. I held it up, pressed a hidden latch on the bottom, and the top flipped back. A mechanical plinking music, the harmony of Duesgruel's Last Movement, played, and I beheld the severed toe.

I had it in my possession and I felt the spirit move through me. All I wanted was to get back to the church. Taking as much of the booty from the donkey's pack as I could carry, I traveled to the closest city. There I sold my twice-stolen treasures and was paid well for them. I bought new clothes and took a room in a fine place, the Hotel Lacrimose.

I spent a few days and nights at the amazing hotel, trying to relax before beginning the long journey home. One afternoon while sitting on the main veranda, watching the clouds twirl, contemplating the glory of Saint Ifritia, I made the acquaintance of an interesting gentleman. Mr. Ironton was his name and he had an incredible memory for historical facts and interesting opinions on the news of the day. Having traveled for years among paupers and thieves, I was unused to speaking with someone as intelligent as Ironton. We had a delightful conversation. Somewhere in his talk, he mentioned that he was traveling to the end of the world. At our parting, he requested that I join him for dinner at the Aquarium that evening.

That night at dinner, I told Ironton our story. I showed him the toe in its small silver case. He lifted the thing to his nose and announced that he smelled wild violets. But then he put the toe on the table between us and said, “This Saint Ifritia you speak of. It has recently been discovered by the Holy of the Holy See that she is in fact a demon, not a saint. She's a powerful demon. I propose you allow me to dispose of that toe for you. Every minute you have it with you you're in terrible danger.” He nodded after speaking.

I told him, “No, thank you. I'll take my chances with it.”

“You're a brave woman, Ms. North,” he said. “Now what was the message you had for your Father Walter?”

As I told him that I wanted you to know I was on my way and to write a sermon for me, an enormous violet fish with a human face rose out of the water of the decorative river next to our table that ran through the restaurant. It startled me. Its face was repulsive. I recalled your telling me something about a giant Plum fish, Lord Jon, and I spoke the name aloud. “At your service,” the fish said and then dove into the flow. When I managed to overcome my shock at the fish's voice, I looked back to the table and discovered both Ironton and the toe had vanished.

I had it and I lost it. I felt the grace of Saint Ifritia for a brief few days at the Hotel Lacrimose and then it was stolen away. I've wondered all along my journey home if that's the best life offers.

Sister North yawned and turned on her side. “And what of the foot? Is it safe?” she asked.

He put his arm around her. “No,” he said. “Some seasons back I was robbed at gunpoint. A whole troop of bandits on horses. They took everything. I begged them to leave the foot. I explained it was a holy relic, but they laughed and told me they would cook it and eat it on the beach that night. It's gone.”

“I'm so tired,” she said. “I could sleep forever.”

Father Walter drew close to her, closed his eyes, and listened to the sand sifting in through the walls.

A Note About “Relic”

Although this story may, like the previous one, seem to have something to do with religion, it's really more a story about faith. It appeared in
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists,
edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. What's nice about writing fiction for the VanderMeers is that it goes without saying that the weird, the idiosyncratic, is always warmly welcome. In this particular instance, Jeff told me not to worry about the length of the story but to “go long” if I liked, and I did. “Relic” was inspired by my reading of the book
Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead
by Peter Manseau, a fascinating study that details the myths, legends, and crazy true-life stories behind the remains of saints and the sacred from many religions. Besides Manseau's work, I have to admit, I also lifted the idea of a scene from Richard Bausch's great World War II novel,
Peace,
a book I highly recommend. “Relic” is one of two or maybe more stories in my collection that deals with an errant foot, but then
Crackpot Palace
has many secret passageways that connect its rooms, so that two tales told in different styles and seeming to have different concerns might actually be secretly linked through image or idea.

Glass Eels

B
etween a spreading magnolia and a forest of cattails that ran all the way to the estuary stood Marty's dilapidated studio. The walls were damp, and low-tide stink mixed with turpentine and oils. It was late on a Saturday night in early March. They drank beer and passed a joint. Len spoke of insomnia, a recent murder out on Money Island, and a buck he'd seen with pitch-black antlers. Marty told about a huge snake on the outside of the studio window and then showed Len his most recent paintings—local landscapes and a series of figures called
Haunted High School
.

“That chick looks dead,” said Len, pointing at a canvas with a pale girl in a cheerleading outfit, smoking a cigarette. In the background loomed an abandoned factory, busted glass and crumbling brick. A smokestack.

“She's haunted,” said Marty. “I gotta sell a couple of these in the next gallery show in Milville on Third Friday. I need enough to fix the roof. We're fuckin' broke.”

“I heard there was a guy in a van buying glass eels before daybreak in the parking lot behind the burned-out diner on Jones Island Road,” said Len.

“The state banned it back in the nineties, didn't they?” Marty asked.

“Yeah,
they
banned it,” Len said and laughed. “I heard one kilogram is going for a thousand dollars. That's two pounds of eel for a grand.”

“How many eels is that?”

“You gotta remember,” said Len, “they're only two inches long, see-through thin. So you have to do a fair amount of dipping to bring up two pounds, but not enough to call it work.”

“Are you saying we should do this?”

“Well, we should do it just once. Think of your roof.”

Marty nodded.

“Shit, I could use the money for my prescriptions,” said Len.

“How much can you make in a night?”

“Most guys do about a kilogram and a half to two. Some do a little better. But there are times when a person'll bring in twenty or even more.”

“How?”

“They know a spot no one else knows, a certain creek, or gut, or spillway, where saltwater and freshwater come together and the glass eels swarm. And I was thinking today, after I heard that they were going for a grand, that there was a place my father would take me fishing for eels at the end of July. We'd barbecue them.”

“How long ago?”

“Thirty years.”

“You think we could find it?”

“Nothing changes around here,” Len said. “Myrtle's Gut. Down the end of your own block out here. At the marina, we get in a canoe and paddle a little ways and there's a big island of reeds. It's pretty sturdy to walk on, but the water is everywhere and if you take a wrong step in the dark you could fall in up to your neck. There used to be a trail through the reeds into the middle of the island. Sort of at the center is a spot where this creek comes up from underground and winds its way for three turns, once around a myrtle bush, on its way out to the Delaware.”

“That ain't real,” Marty said.

“Yeah,” said Len, “that's what it is. A freshwater creek that runs out to the reed island beneath the floor of the bay and then surfaces.”

“And the eels that go there swim underground up into the freshwater streams?”

“Eels will do anything they have to do to get where they're going. On their way back out to sea to spawn, if a creek dries up, they'll wriggle right across the land. Years ago on a full-moon night in August you could club eels passing through. It was an event. The guy who owned the best meadow for it had a stand nearby that sold corn dogs and lemonade. Everybody clubbed a couple. There were guys there who'd take your eels and smoke them for you for a half dollar.”

“Sounds like
Lord of the Flies
.”

“The underground protects them on the way out, so why not on the way in?”

“How do you see them at night when they're so small?”

“They're like tiny ghosts, especially in the moonlight.”

“So we go out there in a canoe?”

“We'll need a couple of coolers and some nets, a couple of flashlights.”

“I can't run, man. If we get caught, there's no way I can run.”

“Forget it, no one's gonna see us. Nobody gives a shit. The last time I saw a cop down here was about a year and a half ago when Mr. Clab's coffin went on a voyage. Remember, they found it on the beach next to the marina?”

“The cop said there was an underground stream beneath the cemetery that washed the box out to the bay.”

“You see,” said Len, “there's your proof of what I'm saying.”

L
en and Marty sat on the damp ground beside the spreading myrtle bush at the second bend in the gut. There was a breeze. Between them lay a pair of lit flashlights like a cold campfire. They were dressed warmly, with hats, gloves, and scarves. Beside them were coolers and nets. Len took out a joint and said, “We gotta wait for the moon.”

“Why?”

“The tide. The moon's gonna rise in about five minutes, nearly full, and in a half hour it'll be a good way up the sky and big as a dinner plate. The eels will come in with the tide.”

“It's dark as shit out here,” said Marty.

“Nice stars, though,” said Len. He passed the joint.

Marty took a hit and said, “The other night, after you left, it started raining hard. I went up to bed. When I got under the covers, Claire's back was to me. I knew she was awake. I told her what you said about the eels, and I told her if something happened where I got caught she would have to bail me out. A few seconds passed and, without turning around, she asked, ‘How much can you make?' ‘Maybe a couple of thousand,' I told her. The rain dripped in. She said, ‘Do it.' ”

Len laughed. “That's what I call a working marriage.” He leaned forward and took the joint from Marty's hand.

“Do you think Matisse ever did this?” asked Marty.

“I don't think Matisse was ever a substitute teacher.”

“The other day they sent me to teach English in a separate school for all the truants and delinquents. They call it the Hawthorne Academy. Jesus, it's the worst. Fights, a couple an hour. Crazy motherfucker kids. They're being warehoused by the state until they reach the legal age and can be released into society.”

“Haunted High School,” said Len. He pointed into the sky. “Here comes the moon.”

“Nice,” said Marty.

They sat quietly for a long while, listening to the flow of the gut and the wind moving over the marshland. Len lit a cigarette and said, “I saw a guy in town this afternoon. I think I remember him from 'Nam.”

“Oh, lordy, no Vietnam stories. Show some mercy.”

“I'll just tell you the short version,” said Len.

“Never short enough. When do the eels show up?”

“Listen, I saw this guy, Vietcong. We never learned what his real name was but everybody on both sides called him Uncle Fun. I was shown black-and-white photos of him. We were sent into the tunnels with an express mission to execute this guy. The tunnels were mind blowing, mazes of warrens; three, four floors; couches; kids; booby traps. He was a fucking entertainer, like a nightclub act, only he played the Vietcong tunnel systems instead of Vegas. He told jokes and sang songs. For some reason they wanted us to cancel his contract ASAP.”

“You're a one-man blizzard of bullshit,” said Marty.

“Fuck you. Intel said that at the end of every performance he laughed like Woody Woodpecker.”

“What was he doing downtown this afternoon, trying out new material in the parking lot of City Liquors? You been taking your pills?”

“Shit, they're here,” said Len. “Grab a net.”

The moon shone down on the bend in the gut and the water bubbled and glowed with the reflection of thousands of glass eels. Len and Marty scooped up dripping nets of them like shovelfuls of silver.

“Do we need to put water in the coolers to keep them alive?” asked Marty.

“Are you kidding? They're tough as hell. They'll keep for hours just like they are.”

“The black eyes creep me.”

“A glass eel the size of a person would be the Holy Ghost.”

M
arty drove his old Impala. Len was in the passenger seat. The nets were in the back, the coolers in the trunk. They headed north, away from the marina, past Marty's house, and turned at the cemetery onto a road that went over a wooden bridge. It led to a narrow lane lined with oak and pine. The deer looked up, their eyes glowing in the headlights.

“You know that giant tree up at the end of the road here, where you make the turn? The one with the neon-orange pentagram on it? Star with a circle around it. What's that all about?” asked Marty.

“That's Wiccan, I think. Nature witches, they've been here for a long, long time. They mark the important crossroads.”

“Witches?”

“I've run into a few. You hear stories about spells and shit, but I never witnessed any of that. They just seem like sketchy hippies.”

“Me and Claire call it the Devil Tree. Which way am I going there?”

“You want to make a left. Then, in a quarter of a mile, make a right. I hope the buyer's there again.”

“How much do you think we've got?”

“I'd say about eight grand. Maybe more.”

“Jeez.”

“These eels have never been successfully bred in captivity,” said Len. “When it comes to eels you can only take.”

“You trying to make me feel guilty?”

“Yeah, but fuck it, we need the cash. The parking lot of the old diner is up here on the right, just past these cattails.”

B
ehind the burned-out shell of Jaqui's All Night Diner, in a parking lot long gone to weeds, Len and Marty stood before the open back doors of a large van. Inside was a lantern that gave a dim light. Behind the lantern, a teenage girl sitting on a crate aimed a shotgun at them.

“We'll see what you have,” said a heavyset man to their right. He wore a tweed suit jacket and had a pistol tucked into the waist of his jeans. Before him on a makeshift wooden platform was a large antique balance scale, one end a fine net, the other a flat plate holding four-kilogram cylinders of lead.

“Snorri,” called the buyer, and a huge guy with a crew cut, wearing a shoulder holster, appeared from around the side of the van.

“Pour these gentlemen's eels, I have to weigh them,” said the buyer. Snorri lifted the first cooler and carefully poured out the eels into the net of the scale. The weighing took a while. Every time the scale moved it creaked. The wind blew strong and whipped the reeds that surrounded the parking lot. The girl with the shotgun yawned and checked for messages on her phone.

“That's the last of them,” said the buyer, clapping his hands. “One more calculation, though. I subtract for the water the eels have on them. I only pay for eels, not water.” He laid three small white gull feathers on the flat plate of the scale and leaned over to read the difference. “You have a little more than nine kilograms here. I can give you eight thousand.”

“I heard it was a thousand a kilogram,” said Len.

“One hears what one wants,” said the buyer.

“I know from a reliable source that last night you were paying a grand.”

“Supply and demand,” said the buyer.

“Explain it,” said Len.

“Eight grand or I can have Snorri explain it to you in no uncertain terms.”

The girl in the van laughed.

“We'll take the eight grand,” said Marty. “Chill out,” he said to Len. “We're talking eight grand for an hour and a half of fishing.”

“Okay,” said Len.

Snorri stepped back, taking the gun from its holster. The buyer leaned into the van and stuffed eight stacks of banded hundreds into a yellow plastic grocery bag. He handed the bag to Marty. “Check it,” he said.

Marty held the bag open and counted the stacks in a whisper. He reached in and felt the money. He lifted the bag and smelled it. “Thanks,” he said.

“An hour and a half,” said the buyer. “That's very fast for what you brought in.”

“We don't mess around,” said Len.

“Where were you?”

“Over west,” said Len, “in the woods by the bay south of Greenwich.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Have Snorri explain it to you,” said Len and laughed on his way back to the Impala.

T
hey got in the car. Marty backed out past the remains of the diner and onto the road. “Why'd you have to be such an asshole with the guy? I thought they were gonna shoot us in the back with every step I took.”

“They're not gonna shoot us. Think about it, they need us. If we're getting a bit less than a grand for a kilogram, think what the buyer is making per kilogram from aquafarms in Asia.”

“Too many guns for me.”

“Quit your cryin', we've got four grand apiece. You can get your roof fixed and I can medicate. Harmony will reign.”

“I'm happy for the four grand,” said Marty. “In your honor, I'm gonna paint a series, maybe eight canvases, each a scene from the career of Uncle Fun.”

“Put him in a tux and make him look like a North Vietnamese Bobby Darin.”

“Hey, there's somebody behind us.”

Len looked over his shoulder. “We'll know soon enough if it's a cop. When you get to the Devil Tree, keep going, don't make the turn. Head down the road a ways and then turn back by the old glass factory. We can lose him in the dunes.”

“Could just be somebody out driving.”

“I kind of doubt it,” said Len. “We've got eight thousand dollars in cash here and it's three in the morning on one of the loneliest roads in the world. When you get to the tree, hit the gas. We'll see if he keeps up.”

“I can't drive fast at night. I can't see dick.”