The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

Rafe inhaled the leaf-mold and earth smells. Where Lyle had rested, a golden hair remained. He thought of his mother and sister and father. He thought of Victor and the wall of masks waiting for him at home. He thought of the frantic director who had begged him for costumes in two weeks for a play she wrote herself. Rafe wound the hair around his finger so tightly that it striped his skin white and red. “No,” he told her.

His mother was sitting in her robe in the kitchen. She got up when Rafe came in.

"Where are you going? You are like a possessed man.” She touched his hand and her skin felt so hot that he pulled back in surprise.

"You're freezing! You have been at his grave."

It was easier for Rafe to nod than explain.

"There is a story about a woman who mourned too long and the spectre of her lover rose up and dragged her down into death with him."

He nodded again, thinking of the faery woman, of being dragged into the dance, of Lyle sleeping like death.

She sighed exaggeratedly and made him a coffee. Rafe had already set up the sewing machine by the time she put the mug beside him.

That day he made a coat of silver silk, pleated at the hips and embroidered with a tangle of thorny branches and lapels of downy white fur. He knew it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever made.

"Who are you sewing that for?” Mary asked when she came in. “It's gorgeous."

He rubbed his eyes and gave her a tired smile. “It's supposed to be the payment a mortal tailor used to win back a lover from Faeryland."

"I haven't heard of that story,” his sister said. “Will it be a musical?"

"I don't know yet,” said Rafe. “I don't think the cast can sing."

His mother frowned and called Mary over to chop up a summer squash.

"I want you and Victor to come live with me,” Rafe said as his sister turned away from him.

"Your place is too small,” Rafe's mother told him.

She had never seen his apartment. “We could move, then. Go to Queens. Brooklyn."

"You won't want a little boy running around. And Mary has the cousins here. She should stay with us. Besides, the city is dangerous."

"Marco is dangerous,” Rafe said, voice rising. “Why don't you let Mary make up her own mind?"

Rafe's mother muttered under her breath as she chopped, Rafe sighed and bit his tongue and Mary gave him a sisterly roll of the eyes. It occurred to him that that had been the most normal conversation he had had with his mother in years.

All day Rafe worked on the sleeves of the garment and that night he, wearing the silvery coat, went back to the woods and the river.

The dancers were there as before and when Rafe got close, the faery woman left the circle of dancers.

"Your coat is as lovely as the moon. Will you agree to the same terms?"

Rafe thought of objecting, but he also thought of the faery woman's kiss. Maybe he could change the course of events. It would be better if he caught her off-guard. He shouldered off his coat. “I agree."

As before, the faery woman pulled Lyle from the dance.

"Lyle!” Rafe said, starting toward him before the faery could touch his brow with her lips.

Lyle turned to him and his lips parted as though he were searching for a name to go with a distant memory, as if Lyle didn't recall him after all.

The faery woman kissed him then, and Lyle staggered drowsily to the mattress. His drooping eyelashes nearly hid the gaze he gave Rafe. His mouth moved, but no sound escaped him and then he subsided into sleep.

That night Rafe tried a different way of rousing Lyle. He pressed his mouth to Lyle's slack lips, to his forehead as the faery woman had done. He kissed the hollow of Lyle's throat, where the beat of his heart thrummed against his skin. He ran his hands over Lyle's chest, feeling the way it rose and fell with a sigh. He touched his lips to the smooth, unscarred expanse of Lyle's wrists. Again and again, he kissed Lyle, but it was as terrible as kissing a corpse.

Before he slept, Rafe took the onyx and silver ring off his own pinkie, pulled out a strand of black hair from his own head and coiled it inside the hollow of the poison ring. Then he pushed the ring onto Lyle's pinkie.

"Remember me. Please remember me,” Rafe said. “I can't remember myself unless you remember me."

But Lyle did not stir and Rafe woke alone on the mattress. He made his way home in the thin light of dawn.

That day he sewed a coat from velvet as black as the night sky. He stiched tiny black crystals onto it and embroidered it with black roses, thicker at the hem and then thinning as they climbed. At the cuffs and neck, ripped ruffles of thin smoky purples and deep reds reminded him of sunsets. Across the back, he sewed on silver beads for stars. Stars like the faery woman's eyes. It was the most beautiful thing Rafael had ever created. He knew he would never make its equal.

That night he donned the coat and walked to the woods.

The faery woman was waiting for him. She sucked in her breath at the sight of the magnificent coat.

"I must have it,” she said. “You shall have him as before."

Rafael nodded. Tonight if he could not rouse Lyle, he would have to say goodbye. Perhaps this was the life Lyle had chosen—a life of dancing and youth and painless memory—and he was wrong to try and take him away from it. But he wanted to spend one more night beside Lyle.

She brought Lyle to him and he knelt on the mattress. The faerie woman bent to kiss his forehead, but at the last moment, Lyle turned his head and the kiss fell on his hair.

Scowling, she rose.

Lyle blinked as though awakening from a long sleep. Then, touching the onyx ring on his finger, he turned toward Rafe and smiled tentatively.

"Lyle?” Rafe asked. “Do you remember me?"

"Rafael?” Lyle asked. He reached a hand toward Rafe's face, fingers skimming just above the skin. Rafe leaned into the heat, butting his head against Lyle's hand and sighing. Time seemed to flow backwards and he felt like he was fourteen again and in love.

"Come, Lyle,” said the faery woman sharply.

Lyle rose stiffly, his fingers ruffling Rafe's hair.

"Wait,” Rafe said. “He knows who I am. You said he would be free."

"He's as free to come with me as he is to go with you,” she said.

Lyle looked down at Rafe. “I dreamed that we went to New York and that we performed in a circus. I danced with the bears and you trained fleas to jump through the eyes of needles."

"I trained fleas?"

"In my dream. You were famous for it.” His smile was tentative, uncertain. Maybe he realized that it didn't sound like a great career.

Rafe thought of the story he had told Victor about the princess in her louse-skin coat, about locks of hair and all the things he had managed through the eyes of needles.

The faery woman turned away from them with a scowl, walking back to the fading circle of dancers, becoming insubstantial as smoke.

"It didn't go quite like that.” Rafe stood and held out his hand. “I'll tell you what really happened."

Lyle clasped Rafe's fingers in a bruising grip, but his smile was wide and his eyes were bright as stars. “Don't leave anything out."

Paper Cuts

Scissors

000—Generalities

When Justin started graduate school in library science, he tried to sit next to the older women who now needed a degree as media specialists to keep the same job they'd done for years. He avoided the hipster girls, fresh from undergrad, wearing black turtlenecks with silver jewelry molded in menacing shapes and planning careers in public libraries. Those girls seemed as dangerous as books that unexpectedly killed their protagonists.

He wasn't used to being around people anymore. He fidgeted with his freshly cut hair and ran shaking fingers over the razor burn on his pale skin. He didn't meet anyone's eyes as he dutifully learned about new user interfaces and how to conduct a reference interview. He wrote papers with pages of citations. He read pile after pile of genre novels to understand what people saw in inspirational romance or forensic mysteries, but he was careful to read the ends before the beginnings. He told himself that he could hold it together.

At night, when all his reading was done and he'd printed all the papers he needed for the next day, he tried not to open Linda's book.

He'd read it so many times that he should know it by heart, but the words kept changing. She was always in danger. She'd nearly got run over by a train and frozen on a long march to Moscow while Justin had sat on his parent's pullout couch in the den and forgotten to eat. While his hair had grown long and his fingernails jagged. Until his friends had stopped coming over. Until he'd remembered the one thing he could do to get her out.

One afternoon, Justin checked the notice board and saw a sign:

Looking for library student to organize private collection: 555-2164. $10/hour.

His heart sped. Finally. It had to be. He punched the number into his cell phone and a man answered.

"Please,” Justin said. He had practiced a convincing speech, but he couldn't remember a word of it. His voice shook. “I need this job. I'm very dedicated, very conscientio—"

"You're hired,” said the man.

Relief made him lightheaded. He sagged against the painted cinderblock wall of the hallway.

After, in Classification Theory, Sarah Peet turned half around in her chair. Her earrings swung like daggers. “Rock, paper, scissors for who buys coffee at the break."

"Coffee?” His voice came out louder than he'd intended.

"From the vending machine,” she said and made a fist.

One. Two. Three. Rock breaks scissors. Justin lost.

"I take it black,” said Sarah.

100—Philosophy and Psychology

The private collection that Justin was supposed to organize was located in the basement of a large Victorian house outside New Brunswick. He drove there in his beat-up Altima and parked in the driveway. He didn't see another car and wondered if Mr. Sandlin—the man he was sure he'd spoken with on the phone—had forgotten that he was coming. According to his watch, it was quarter to seven in the evening. He was fifteen minutes early.