Shades of Rust and Ruin Read online

  Growling, I erase the sketch, scrubbing until the scent of hot rubber and graphite burns my nose and holes score the paper. I rip off the page as if the action could hide my failure, but the jagged edges along the spine mock me. Crumpling the ruined drawing, I shove it under the markers.

  Outside, the Columbia River glimmers along the horizon to the right of the rails. The overhead lights juxtapose against the dreary sky and cause a mirror effect in the window, flashing a face made up pale enough to blend with my white freckles and matching eyebrows; black hair with choppy mini-bangs that barely cover my widow’s peak, and shorn sides and nape in contrast with the style’s chin-length crown. Sometimes I wear the peak stiffened to a faux hawk, but today it flops over my left ear like a raven’s wing.

  My former psychiatrist would say it helps me feel tougher on the inside when I look fierce on the outside. Truth is, ever since my sister’s face has been glaring back at me from my reflections, this is the only way I know myself. I blow a deep breath, fogging the glass before Lark’s angry eyes can lock me in.

  Across the aisle, the rhinestone-fringed fairy wings blink in a fluctuation of light as people begin to board. The married couple and their boisterous kids enter first. I don’t know them by name, but they’re fellow Astorians and regulars at our bakery, so they’re familiar enough with our family tragedy to give me wide berth this time of year. It’s the two girls getting on next that cause my already tense muscles to cinch tighter.

  They appear to be college age, and have matching bags that say “Welcome to the Goondocks”—a touristy catchphrase referencing The Goonies movie, shot in Astoria sometime back in the ’80s. The comedy-adventure film earned a cult following that in turn earns our town an annual income via souvenir shops and film locale tours.

  “Ugh. Almost five o’clock.” The first girl glares at her watch.

  I frown, unaware it was getting so late. My attention strays to my duffel and the antique pocket watch sewn onto one corner. Even though the hands move counterclockwise, Lark couldn’t bear to let it run down. The watch, like the bag, was our father’s, and she believed—as long as it was ticking—it somehow kept him with us. Illogical as it is to carry an antique that doesn’t keep time, it’s a tradition I uphold to honor her.

  “The trolley service ends in an hour, and we’ve barely seen anything in this slog,” the girl continues, stalling beside the center row. “Should’ve went to the hotel hours ago.”

  “I tried to tell you,” her friend answers, dripping behind her. “Hey, that guy on the Riverwalk said some good restaurants are off Eleventh. We can stop for dinner there, then Uber back to the hotel. Want to?”

  Nodding in agreement, the first girl tucks away her folded umbrella. After considering the empty spots close to the family and their hyperactive tots, she crinkles her forehead. Her damp curls resemble muddied rose petals, meaning they could be anything from auburn to poppy red.

  “It’s too noisy up here.”

  I stifle a groan as she heads toward the back and points at Lark’s hoodie. “Do you know who this belongs to?” She directs the query my way.

  “Um,” I stammer. “Yeah.” In an attempt to appear combative, I furrow my eyebrow where a gear-shaped ring spikes the hairs.

  The other girl catches up, her swinging ponytail a stale beige under the fluorescent trolley lights. I’d speculate it’s golden because it reminds me of the free-range egg yolks Uncle Thatch uses in his cupcakes, but I wouldn’t place a bet on it.

  The blonde jerks a thumb toward Lark’s empty hoodie, jangling her shimmery bangle bracelets with the movement. “So is she on here somewhere?”

  Only in spirit. I touch the tip of my tongue to my bottom lip’s piercing and maintain silence, hoping they get the hint and move on. If these clowns hijack Lark’s seat, I’ll lose my shot at drawing her. This is the one place I can capture her essence. Here where she sat, three years ago to this day, when our bond was finally growing strong again.

  “Well?” The first girl shakes some droplets off her flip-flop, dimpling the puddles gathered atop the rubber floor. “Is your friend coming or not?”

  I suppress the prickly sensation in my gut and shake my head.

  “Okay then.” The blonde lifts the hoodie—wings strung loosely around the floppy sleeves—and offers the bundle to me. I clutch the tiny motor box affixed to the back of the fake appendages, cradling the on/off switch against the groove of my palm. “Next time you see her, tell her invisible fairy princesses can’t hold seats.”

  Next time … Next time … Next time. The words pound at my temples, overplaying the conductor’s five-minute warning for people to find their seats. The last time I was with Lark was at the funeral. She looked so alive I half expected her to link our pinkies. To ask why I let her die. When she didn’t, I leaned over the coffin’s edge and pressed my nose to hers, close enough to count the stitches clamping her eyelids shut. That was when it hit me that my sister was truly dead, and we would never mend those busted fences between us.

  Both girls slide across the bench, leaving soggy streaks over Lark’s empty seat. They may as well be smearing her memory with their wet yoga pants. I watch her smile fade; her eyes—lit up as she demonstrates the flapping fairy wings, her latest robotics innovation—grow dim; the machine oil smudging her fingertips—which juxtaposes with the dried glitter on her palms—peels off and erodes along with her fingerprints. Her very identity wafting away on colorless, tattered tulle appendages. Grief swells in my throat.

  No. I won’t let these strangers see me break down; won’t let them know how hard it’s going to be to get out of bed before midnight tonight to face the date that stole my family; won’t admit how often I wish the calendar would skip straight through to November first every year so I could abandon staying awake for twenty-four hours—the one means to ensure my survival and the safety of those I love.

  Gulping down the knot of emotion, I thread my jacket’s arms through the elastic straps of Lark’s wings, centering the mechanism at my back. With a flick of a switch, the wire pinions flap behind me.

  I reposition my right hand around the pencil and skim through a dozen storyboard panels—disparate-size boxes waiting to be filled with unnatural creatures formed of metallic slivers that sprout from enchanted flesh. When I first began drawing Mystiquiel, I tried to veer away from the dreams, choosing instead to conform to the traditional fey lore I’d heard all my life.

  The eldritch species—dryads, elves, trolls, gnomes, piskies, sprites, wights, sprigs, and more—were flesh and blood, scales and bones, all stitched and sealed with leaves and twigs and sap. They looked like their images in books and movies. But my muse wouldn’t let those changes stick. I couldn’t move forward with my stories and drawings until I abandoned those attempts and reverted to the blueprints and the denizens I saw in my sleep: an urbanized Astoria, inhabited by cyborg faeries and goblins, and warped by magic, steam, and galvanism.

  I turn several unfinished pages, until I arrive at a partly drawn figure of Angorla, a feisty goat-faced hobblegob. Hobblegobs, a dwarfish breed of goblin with mismatched legs that make their gaits floppy and off balance, deceive their attackers by blending into the scenery. This gives a false sense of calm before they reappear, razor-sharp claws morphing into deadly harvesting tools. One sideswipe of a sickle, and they leave their enemies in a pile of shreds.

  I cast a cursory glance at the tourists in Lark’s seat. With my body blocking my work, I draw myself as Angorla, shading and smoothing the grayscale lines that in my dreams are prismatic: copper ram’s horns, patinated green and protruding from my head, red circuit board eyes flashing at the top of my cheeks, my skin the texture and tensility of silvery spider silk.

  Patina and brass … which markers do I blend together to depict antiquity? Or the luster and depth of new metal? I wriggle against the plastic box poking my spine. The wings have already run down because I forgot to replace the battery after fishing them from Lark’s keepsake box.


  I clench my jaw and burrow deeper into the scene appearing on the paper. Under my pencil, the trolley morphs into a rusted serpentine beast—Mystiquiel’s living, mobile dungeon. The sides of the cars become metallic ribs, and the floor scaly flesh. I can almost smell machine oil combined with musk, feel heat rising in white vapors, hear the pings of metal and the buzz of voltage and the feral snarls of eldritch prisoners peering from behind the seats.

  Next, I sketch the two girls as caricatures in clown masks. Their exaggerated features quickly come into view—triangle-lined eyes wide with shock to find themselves aboard a living trolley alongside a monster wearing my face and clothes. Moving on to my hands, I draw steel weeding forks in place of fingers. The prongs twist in the girls’ hair, braiding dual-toned strands into a thick rope that tangles around both their heads until they spin off their bench like a two-headed top, splitting their clown masks in half and revealing their true horrified faces.

  I tune out the rustle of last-minute arrivals boarding the trolley, barely noticing when people amble down the aisle toward the middle section. A flush of heat rushes through my ears and cheeks as my pencil dances to an uninhibited rhythm I haven’t managed in months. Lark’s image appears in the panel, her wings and fairy costume swirling effortlessly from the graphite tip. She perches right where the girls pushed her off, and the two of us high-five while the tourists writhe on the floor beneath a frenzy of rat-pack sprites brutally ripping away all their shiny jewelry. A shadow comes to loom over us all—tall, horned, and powerful—in the shape of my goblin king ready to claim his newest captives.

  For the final touch, I etch puddles across the floor around the girls’ supine bodies and busted masks. Then I stretch out my sketch pad for inspection. Did I mean for those puddles to be formed of raindrops or blood? My stomach flips at the question, because I really don’t know. And no matter what color I choose, it will all look the same to me.

  As daunting as that thought is, an even more disturbing realization surfaces: this is the first time I’ve drawn Lark alongside characters from my graphic novels, and the first time Halloween masks have made an appearance in my sketch pads. My dreamscape is the one place in my life where Lark hasn’t left a footprint, where our family curse hasn’t infringed. I must keep Mystiquiel separate and secret, so I’ll always have that sanctuary.

  I’ve barely managed to erase Lark’s face when a warm, strong hand cups my shoulder and stops my eraser at the tip of her wings, just as the trolley door whooshes closed.

  3

  family ties and alibis

  “It’s so great to see you drawing again!” the perky voice greets me.

  I glance up at Uncle Thatch’s adorably goofy grin. He’s slim and a good five inches taller than me, and while I’m seated and he’s standing, he looks exactly the way I used to see him when I was a little girl: larger than life … a hero … my mother’s younger brother who became my and Lark’s guardian a couple of months after we turned three, when our parents died in a car crash along Highway 101—on Halloween night.

  I’m so surprised by his appearance, it takes me a second to realize he’s carrying two Styrofoam cups in a cardboard holder and napkins from my favorite bistro.

  “Hey,” I mumble, hiding the sketch pad against my chest in hopes he didn’t see the violence of my freshly drawn scene. I scoot myself and the duffel closer to the window to make room for him before the trolley lurches forward. “How did you know—?”

  “Where to find you?” He sits down, offering one cup to me. His large, dark eyes bulge with emotion, magnified by the black glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. “I know how much this date and place mean to you, kiddo.”

  I take the proffered coffee with my free hand and hold it close to my face. Brown-sugar-and-cinnamon-scented steam curls around my cheeks, lips, and nostrils like a caress. “Mmmm. Cinnamon Dolce. Nectar of the godssss.” I practically purr as I take a sip and let the cozy flavor roll over my tongue and down my throat.

  “Since it’s been a few weeks, figured you might be needing a fix,” Uncle teases, spurring a genuine smile out of me.

  “You’re the best.” I take another swig and give his elbow an affectionate nudge.

  October is the month I avoid all my favorite haunts, no pun intended. Lark and I were too young when Uncle came into our lives to remember or understand the incident that brought him to us. And over the span of a decade Uncle managed to convince me and my sister that the date was normal, ensuring we took part in traditional fun activities and encouraging us to trick-or-treat even into the beginning of our teen years—so we wouldn’t “grow up too fast.” All that effort fell to rot once we lost Lark, too. There’s no denying that Halloween is out to get you once it’s slaughtered almost everyone in your family.

  Now, during this season, things once familiar become strange and sinister beneath the black light of Lark’s glaring absence. The gory costumes and ghoulish decor—images that are benign to most—rise as nightmarish relics that chase me inside, force me to avoid the streets at all costs every October thirty-first … to stay holed up like a mole, burrowed and blind beneath my own safe traditions.

  Even in this moment, as the trolley picks up speed, the rail’s click-clack-clickety-clack, the falling rain, and my jacket’s jingling chains merge together in a harmony that should be nostalgic and relaxing. Instead, it feels off-key—rusty chimes strummed by a ghostly fingertip—melancholic and hollow, just like my sketches.

  I lick a dribble of coffee from my lip ring. Uncle Thatch gives me a napkin. I take it, then nod at his bakery T-shirt and gray khakis. “I thought you were at work. Isn’t there a shipment today?”

  He slurps from his cup. “Not until six thirty. Which gives you plenty of time to get there and do the recycling.” He winks at me. “For now, I’m going to keep you company.”

  “So … Clarey texted you.” I hike my pierced eyebrow, feeling the hardwire stitch as it pulls tight.

  Uncle shrugs. “Let’s just say neither of us wanted you doing this alone.” His long striking nose wriggles as he pastes on a worried smile I’ve grown far too accustomed to seeing.

  I breathe in more fragrant steam. “I wasn’t asking for a babysitting service. Just someone to hold Lark’s seat. And … well. Infestation.” I motion to the girls having their own quiet conversation on the other side of the aisle.

  Uncle Thatch glances at them before turning back to me. He gulps some coffee when he notices Lark’s wings sprouting from my shoulders. It’s obvious he’s battling whether or not to fish for details. Instead, he motions to the sketch pad still pressed against my midriff.

  “You were drawing like mad when I got on. Should we toast to your writer’s block being over?”

  Writer’s block. I take a long draw from my cup, letting the hot liquid scald me, punishment for the latest lie I’ve told him to downplay my lack of interest in drawing. I also haven’t been honest about why I dropped art class this year. Better to let him think I want to pursue a mechanics elective in honor of Lark, just like I’m riding on the trolley today as some kind of “tribute” to her—not a last-ditch attempt at rebooting my retinas.

  If I come clean, he’ll want to send me back to the psychiatrist. But there’s no need. I’ve already googled my condition: retinal sensitivity affected by depression … changing the way the world looks—washing out all the vibrancy. I know the root of my despondency, and am pretty sure they don’t make meds that can cure guilt. Most importantly, I can’t have Uncle worrying more about me than he already does.

  “Sure.” I tap my cup to his, the deception souring on my tongue. “Just needed some inspiration, I guess.”

  Uncle grins as the girls on the other side of the aisle giggle over something on their phones. “Good. And I see you even found a couple of new characters to put in the story.”

  “Oh yeah. Kind of.” So he did see the sketch. Since there’s no longer any need to hide, I lower the pad to my lap.

  Uncle finishes his coffe
e, then places the empty cup between his feet so he can study the drawing closer. He looks at the wings on my back again, as though making a connection. “Aha. Inspiration. And … is that you or a hobblegob?”

  “Me, becoming one.” I force a smile from behind my cup.

  He keeps his attention on the drawing, and something passes over his face … a disturbance that drains his olive complexion. He rakes fingers through his thick black hair. The silvery strands that developed after we buried Lark make a temporary appearance before blending into the rest again.

  “Those are just rain puddles,” I say, feeling my own face grow pale as I try to decipher what caused his discomfort.

  He nods, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “Oh sure. Didn’t really notice those.”

  Then I understand. Even though I smeared away most of her face, there’s no missing Lark in the fairy costume. A blatant reminder of her final Halloween night with us. I want to reach out and hug him, but instead I say, “I—I was erasing her because it didn’t feel right … putting her alongside monsters and masks.”

  Uncle releases a sound, something between a cough and a groan. “Sure. I mean, whatever you think. It’s a great start to a new panel, either way. You should show it to your art teach—um, to Miss Sparks.”

  “Nah. It’s only a doodle.” The trolley arrives at Fourteenth Street, and the hissing brakes muffle my quiet response. Still, Uncle heard me. He’s wearing the same determined expression he dons when he’s concentrating on an intricate icing design or nailing down a new macaron flavor.

  I drink the rest of my coffee in silence while at the front half of the car, plastic shopping bags rustle and all the other commuters—besides the two tourists, Uncle, and me—stroll down the aisle to take the exit. No one’s waiting to board at the stop, so the door swooshes closed and the trolley dings, announcing its surge toward Eleventh. Patty must be eager to wrap up her conducting shift.