Velveteen (3 page)

Stretching her fingers toward the thin black crevice, Velvet felt the City of the Dead reach toward her with its familiar pull. It was as though she’d pressed her palm to the bathtub drain and was being sucked close. Her diaphanous fingers began to elongate, deteriorating into curling wisps of smoky thread that streamed into the crack. Her arms were next, the opaque flesh unraveling like yarn from a sweater.

Velvet clenched her eyes shut and ground her teeth.

No matter how many times she made the journey, she never got used to being torn apart. Disassembled. Even the word reminded her of what happened to Bonesaw’s victims. Shaking off the thought, she fell forward, rushing through somewhere thin and windy. She pictured a vast pipeline,
though she knew this was just her imagination. No one had any clue what lay between the daylight and purgatory … except maybe the flies. But it’s way too early to gross you out with their story. Suffice it to say, those nasty black bugs seem to know their way around a crack in the universe.

The buzzing was maddening.

There were times when Velvet thought she caught glimpses of vast caverns, as black as soot. But the images came so briefly and never lingered longer than the several seconds it took to travel.

A moment later—or maybe it was an hour—Velvet was spat out into the dimly lit cobblestone alley. Where light filtered in from the street several yards away, she could barely make out shapes of souls rushing past, arms loaded with packages, chatting to their companions, moving on to somewhere very important, no doubt.

And most likely, not just returning from a prohibited jaunt into the daylight.

Velvet snatched her clothes from the wooden box she’d stashed in the darkest corner of the alley. She supposed there was a chance that one day she’d come back and find the box empty, as scarce as fashionable clothes were in the afterlife—stolen by some urchin scouring the alleys for castoffs or something. But so far it hadn’t happened, and she hoped it never would. Nothing would give away a secret haunting like showing up in public naked.

One of the biggest sucks about going to purgatory instead of somewhere good like Hawaii or a college party was that most souls couldn’t manage to bring anything but themselves
through the cracks. Clothes included. Which was lame, because when Velvet was alive, she had the most amazing pair of Fluevog boots—toes as pointy as a pair of switchblades. Passage through the cracks stripped a soul of everything but its essence. It’s like this: Souls are made up of memories, which don’t look like anything in the daylight, but in purgatory, the memories are burning white coils, firework fuses. They thread through a soul so tightly and brilliantly that when a person first pops through a crack, sometimes they’re so bright you have to look away. In purgatory, the ether of a soul is transformed into flesh. On that first day, they’re given clothes by the station guides and taught to apply a thick coat of ash to pretty much everywhere that clothes don’t touch.

Souls look a whole lot like their human selves. Dirty, but human.

Or human-
ish
.

All you really need to know is this: If you ever have the misfortune to end up in purgatory, you’re going to arrive at the station naked. And yeah, it has the very real possibility of being embarrassing as hell.

Velvet had learned to keep a box handy for storing her clothing. There were no guides at this crack. And hopefully, there never would be.

She stabbed her feet and legs into her torn jeans, wrapped herself in the warm peacoat, and laced her feet into the combat boots. She grabbed a few handfuls of ash from the bottom of the box and rubbed it on her face and hands, and ran big clumps of it through her hair until she barely shone. She glanced at the thin sliver of black sky above her and watched as what looked like stars tore by with long trailing tails.

Velvet sneered. “Show-offs.”

Eyes narrowing to slits, she crept toward the opening of the alley, watching as the souls scuttled down the steep, almost suicidal slant of the street. She clung to the deepest shadows—no sense drawing attention where it wasn’t wanted. Two glowing eyes staring out of the darkness, while common in a city of dead people, can still be startling if you’re not expecting it. But as she reached the mouth of the alley, the other souls simply trudged on down the hill, wrapped up in their early evening business and blissfully unaware of the delinquent in their midst.

The passage let out between two shops. On one side, an advisor’s office was shuttered up, a Closed sign hung in its tiny window. Velvet never gave advisors much thought. She knew souls were interested in learning about themselves, growing, resolving their remainders, and all that. But she figured those people were just looking for a way out. An early release from prison, if that’s what purgatory was.

She had too much on her mind for any of that. It seemed frivolous, too. Why not just do your job and leave well enough alone? You move on when you’re meant to. At least, that’s what Velvet believed.

She crouched and quickly backed into the crowd as though she’d been retrieving something from the ground. She nearly bumped into a very smartly dressed woman in a dark suit and pillbox hat. The woman’s face undulating in the flickering gaslight that hung nearby.

“Excuse me. I was just—” Velvet stammered, figuring she’d need some excuse. But the woman merely rolled her glowing eyes and scuttled away on heels far too high for the
uneven cobblestones of the Latin Quarter, her ankles popping.

A quick scan of the other passing faces revealed none of Velvet’s acquaintances, thankfully, so she took a deep breath and turned the corner, only to have to fling herself back into the alley, falling onto her butt with an aching thud. That souls could still feel physical pain was a cruel joke.

A rush of souls muscled past her, waving banners and brandishing torches like angry townspeople chasing the Frankenstein monster. Black smoke ribboned from the flames, blending into the inky forever night. Their expressions were uniform, lots of glowering and sneering and hate.

“Down with the station agent!” they shouted venomously. “Depart! Depart!”

Velvet shook her head as one of the fanatics stopped short and plastered a flyer on the stone wall, crimson ink glaring and glue dribbling from it like tree sap.

“You ought to join us, you know.” He nodded casually, eyes blazing in his head with the kind of fire only someone completely brainwashed could muster. “Our way is freedom.”

“Dude!” Velvet bristled, readying for an argument. “Do you know who I am? What I do?”

The man shrugged and bolted back into the throng. Within a few seconds, their crazed numbers thinned and their shouts dwindled to distant whispers. The street’s regular inhabitants were left shaken. They gathered in small groups to discuss the Departurists’ intrusion—an otherwise pleasant purgatory evening ruined.

Velvet changed her mind about the advisors next door. If the alternative was joining a crazy cult, more power to those poor souls who want to simply talk it out.

She pushed herself off the ground and brushed the ash from her clothes before taking the corner again.

The building that made up the opposite wall from the advisor’s office housed the Paper Aviary. Big picture windows clouded with age were crammed with the most amazing origami birds. Not mere cranes folded to resemble their counterparts in the daylight, the birds perching inside looked real—like for real, real. Velvet was particularly fascinated by the current display. Rows of crows lined up on thick black wire were glaring down at a lifelike diorama of a small schoolhouse and playground and a smartly dressed woman sitting on a bench. The folds were so tight in each of the little miracles, that they disappeared into the bodies, becoming feathers, beaks, even tiny talons; the creases hung perfectly from the schoolhouse like real clapboard; and she didn’t even know how it was possible to make such a lifelike person in miniature. It was simply amazing.

She recognized the scene instantly.

Alfred Hitchcock’s
The Birds
.

Velvet’s mother was a movie freak—one of the few things they had in common. Almodóvar, Jarmusch, Kubrick, and, for sure, Hitchcock. While most of her friends had been out seeing the big Hollywood blowup piece-of-crap movie of the week, Regina Monroe had carted her grim little daughter off to the Orpheus for some “cultural enlightenment.” She was fond of the word “Philistine” and mismatched terms such
as “mass-market under-education,” whatever those meant. And she often curled her lip as they’d drive straight past the multiplex to the tiny theater with busted seats and old popcorn. But she’d been right about the movies, and
The Birds
was one of Velvet’s favorites.

When she looked past the scene and deep into the shop, Velvet jumped.

A pair of glowing eyes pierced the darkness. Velvet very nearly turned to run, before Mr. Fassbinder stepped from the depths of the back room and into the lantern light. He grinned pleasantly and crossed the room toward the door. It opened with a scrape, a wave of ashes roiling at its base.

“Good evening, Ms. Velvet. You like the new diorama?” A special glint glowed from under Werner Fassbinder’s felt hat. Today he wore a fedora; on other days when she visited, he’d tip a porkpie in a funky little way. Like a beatnik, she thought they were called, or a hipster, maybe. He wore his wavy black hair a little long, just brushing the wool shoulders of his peacoat. His old-fashioned style gave a hint as to his true age—though he looked to be only in his late twenties. Velvet wasn’t certain how old Mr. Fassbinder was, exactly, but she couldn’t bring herself to call him Werner, despite his many requests.

Velvet grinned. “It’s fantastic. I love that part of the movie, too. So creepy.”

“Hitchcock had a way with tension,” Mr. Fassbinder agreed.

She nodded, remembering the flocks of birds gathering behind Melanie Daniels, the snotty-ass main character, who
totally deserved to get pecked in the head. Each time the camera panned, there’d be more and more, until she turned to see that they were everywhere.

Very Hitchcock.

“Is that why you chose this scene?” she asked. “Are you tense?”

Mr. Fassbinder shrugged and tucked a long lock of hair behind his ear with heavily bandaged fingers. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a statement about all the hustle and bustle we’ve brought into our afterlife.”

Velvet cocked her brow. “If you say so.”

“But you are one to talk about being tense.” Mr. Fassbinder’s eyes crinkled sympathetically. “You look wound up tighter than a grandfather clock.”

“Do I?” Velvet flinched. She hadn’t meant to convey anything in her body language, but when she looked down, her fists were balled up tight. She spread her fingers quickly.

Mr. Fassbinder shook his head, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and led her toward the door. “Come inside and take a closer look. I have some parakeets today. These actually chirp.”

“Really?” Velvet stopped, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Would I lie?” he asked, a sinister but familiar grin twisting the corners of his mouth.

They had played this game before, she the unwitting victim to his creepy shopkeeper—sick, considering Velvet’s history. But it was all in good fun. Mr. Fassbinder was the kindest man she’d ever met, and he always knew how to
cheer her up. Better than anyone else, it seemed. He was definitely attractive—in that distinguished teacher sort of way—and when he was younger, was exactly the kind of boy Velvet would have sought if she’d lived to do so, but those thoughts were fleeting. He was, after all, super old, and thus thinking about him that way made her feel creepy.

Creepier than usual.

Velvet giggled, triggering wild guffaws from Mr. Fassbinder as they stepped inside.

He hadn’t been kidding about the parakeets.

The display tables, normally lined up in rows and packed to overflowing with birds of every imaginable variety, were pushed to the edges of the main room to make room for Mr. Fassbinder’s masterpiece. A huge globe made of densely gathered black spikes and needles hung from the ceiling, as though a giant sea urchin had made its way from the ocean and somehow invaded the place. Pocking the sphere were little round alcoves, each home to one or two green birds with yellow breasts. Hundreds of black eyes all seemed to stare in her direction.

“Wow, that’s insane.” Velvet felt her hands creeping up to clutch her shoulders. The structure of the thing was really bothersome. It looked like a planet or a fortress. And the birds didn’t seem happy there.

They seemed imprisoned.

“But wait.” Mr. Fassbinder reached out—the bandages on his fingers spoke volumes about how much work had gone into the project—and tapped one of the spikes, sending a little quake through the nest. The birds responded by chirping wildly, tiny paper beaks quivering with their ululations.

The sound rolled over her, giving her goose pimples. The birds sounded alive. Each of the parakeets rocked back and forth as it sang; some even ruffled their feathers. Despite her reservations about the nest, Velvet couldn’t deny the awesomeness. She applauded.

“But what is it?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“They’re a very specific type. They’re called monk parakeets, and they live communally. South American birds. The spikes are to defend against predators. It’s really quite genius.”

“So that’s like their dormitory or something?”

“Exactly.”

Dorm
. The thought pinged around her head and triggered a memory.
Crap!

Velvet stomped her foot. “Just remembered, I told a friend we would sit together at salon tonight, and I’m totally going to be late.”

“Maybe you can come back tomorrow, then. Come by and I’ll make you a special bird.” Mr. Fassbinder’s smile and the offer of one of his magnificent paper birds stripped the horror from Velvet’s day.

She rushed forward and hugged him. “Absolutely. And we’ll talk.” She turned to walk away, but stopped and added, “About movies.”

“Perfect!” Mr. Fassbinder waved. The thin strips of cotton woven around his paper-cut fingers fluttered in the air like ribbons.