On my thirteenth attempt, the duchess of life grew jealous of her family, enamored with the love they shared with their conduits. Alexander was born too late and, without a retainer of her own, her affection and fondness for love’s first kiss withered on the vine. He proposed, and she retreated. Not one board was laid nor nail struck, and the tower died in its crib. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
Morta hated weddings. The lights, the cake, the candles, the sand, and the fucking vows.
Till death do us part?
As if she was responsible for that shit. Well, okay. Maybe she was responsible, but she was just doing her job. Morta didn’t choose the place, the why, or the how. She knew less about the why than they did.
Too much water.
Too little water.
Water in the wrong place.
Morta had a knack for the when, but never the why. She couldn’t answer their cries of anguish or face their burning hatred. Oh, and how they hated her.
“Why did you take him from me?!” shouted the widow whose husband bled out during a holdup at the Sixth Street Corner drug store.
A hemorrhaging of the renal artery.
“I didn’t mean. I just—”
“Give her back to me!” shouted the man holding his twelve-year-old daughter, bleeding from her nose and mouth.
A pulmonary embolism.
“I can’t. She’s, I just—”
“I hate you!” shouted the boy whose sister drowned in the white-water rapids.
Cardiac arrest, hypoxemia, and acidosis.
“She was your responsibility!” Morta pressed against her temple, her head pounding from an invisible heartbeat. “Why am I blamed for your negligence?! Damn you all! You’re nothing but maggots to me!? Do you hate me?! Well, right back at you, you insufferable pricks!” She pounded her fists on the bar, spilling a glass of water.
“My lady. Watch your language, please,” Igor said, wiping the counter and refilling her cup.
“Can’t I get anything stronger than water?” Morta asked, holding an ice pack against her head and wincing as the cubes dug into her cheek. “Water does nothing for me.”
“The maid of honor gets water. I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself,” Igor said, rattling a silver cocktail shaker in his hands at the head of the bar.
“Why you little…” Morta cleared her throat, growling under her breath. “You’ll make whatever I want you to make.”
“Lady Morta, no, I won’t. Today is your sister’s big day. We can’t have you drunk while you walk her down the aisle.”
Fuck, conduits had balls the size of the garden’s lesser moons. Morta wasn’t used to a machine that could say no to her.
She blushed.
Gawds, it was a real turn-on.
“Starting early, I see.” Nona came behind Morta, climbing onto the barstool next to her. “Good afternoon, sister.”
Nona was wearing a floral embroidered swing dress with a lacy collar and red heels. She tied her hair high and covered her metal scar with a satin choker. She smiled so sweetly it was sickening.
Morta twisted her lips, digging her fingers into her temple. She saw flashes before her eyes, images of her holding Nona’s lifeless body.
She was going to throw up.
“You look different,” Nona said, pursing her lips.
A cascading ruffle skirt with raw-edge lace, an invisible center back zipper, and a black sash tied in a bow across her waist? Yeah, no shit she looked different. Atropos caught her with her panties down playing Russian roulette and dressed her like a doll in a closet with one theme, angsty teen.
“Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze me, sister,” Morta said, repositioning the ice pack against her ear.
“Oh, I didn’t mean.” Nona held her fingers over her lips. “You look, um, beautiful. I just didn’t think that kind of thing was your style. I mean, I like your hair.”
A layered waterfall, straight as an arrow against her shoulders with a cinnamon twist on top. Morta liked it too, but Igor already had a chip on his shoulder. She didn’t want to inflate his ego further.
“What can I get you, little lady?” Igor asked Nona.
“Hello, Igor.” She smiled. “Just milk for me, thanks.”
Morta leaned against the bar, resting her cheek on her elbow. ”Guess we know one spot the halfbreed isn’t bleeding from.”
“Come on, sister. Don’t make it weird…” Nona blushed. “It’s not what you think.”
“But you’re always expecting, or did I get your role as a duchess mixed up?”
Nona didn’t respond, making fists against her lap, her lips quivering as if she wanted to say something but held her tongue.
By the tower, she was such a child. Morta’d kill the man who knocked her up if the pregnancy wasn’t half metaphorical.
“When are you due, Nona?” Igor asked, sliding a sugar milk cocktail across the bar with a grape floating in the center.
“I—” Nona stirred the drink and took a long sip. “I’d rather not talk about this.”
“You know what?! Who gives a shit!” Morta downed the shot of water, slamming the glass against the bar. “As if anything but a limp umbilical cord is going to pop out of her!” She glared at Igor. “Enjoy your chat, fucking traitor!”
Morta stood, pushing the barstool over and turning to leave, but Nona caught her arm.
“Please, sister, wait,” Nona said. “I’m trying, okay? We always fight. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Then what do you want, Nona?!”
“I just want to talk to you.” She lay her head on Morta’s shoulder, her hands so soft and fragile. She could break at any moment. “I know you’re upset and I don’t mean to pry so soon after you’ve died,” she whispered. “You can always talk to me if you’re hurt. You’re not alone, sister. You can share your pain with me.”
Morta rolled her eyes but couldn’t bring herself to kick a puppy. She sighed, embracing Nona, who was a full head shorter than her.
Gawds, her sister felt like porcelain, an unblemished floral pink tea cup teetering on the table’s edge. She chewed on her lip, Nona closing her eyes as she rested her cheek against Morta’s chest.
“I heard,” she said. “That you’ve been resisting the knife, and I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. Going against your nature mustn’t be easy, but I’d happily share my needle with you. We could become sisters of fertility. I can teach you.”
“That’s your gig, not mine.” Morta pushed Nona off her, squeezing her shoulders. “I’m fine, really.”
“But it could become yours too!” Nona’s eyes turned a brilliant emerald color. “Please, think about it. They’d come to love you and include you in their prayers. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Of course, that sounded nice. To hear the call of the faithful and not the sneers of the broken. To taste the fruit of the first offering and not the crumbs left behind. Morta had thick skin, but she needed to shed, her spirit becoming sickly pale and racked with doubt. Their words were cutting deeper and her sisters’ tears sank in.
Father above what she wouldn’t give to be dealt a different hand.
“I’m fine, Nona,” Morta repeated, squeezing her hands.
“So you’re just going to bottle it up!” Nona’s face turned red, steam rising from her nape. “You don’t have to keep playing our big sister anymore! Let us help you!”
“I don’t need your help!” Morta doubled over, her head pounding as if she were going to split apart.
“Fine!” Nona turned on her heels and stormed off in a humph. “Die alone, like you always do! See if I care!”
“Nona, wait!” Morta reached after her, but she was already gone, dipping into the crowd of Gnatu, who dribbled and wailed like newborn children. “Oh, fuck, that’s not what I meant…”
“Smooth, my lady.”
“Shut up, Igor!” She slammed her fist against the bar. “Where in the tower’s name is that girl’s retainer?! Go after her! You know how reckless she can be!”
Igor lifted his abdomen, stepping over the bar, his fangs clicking together as he trailed after Nona.
Morta sighed, turning towards the grand staircase of Decima’s luxury liner. She tried her best to drive thoughts of Nona from her head, gazing toward the barnacle-covered grand piano and the bent hands of the grandfather clock, its face cradled in the arms of scantily clad wooden figurines.
The ship had seen better days. Morta walked the deck on its maiden voyage, speaking with the passengers she was about to fuck. Morta liked a more personal touch, drinking on the Hindenburg and dancing on the Sultana. Eagle-eyed historians picked her out of photos before every major disaster on the peninsula. They called her the widow—an inaccuracy for sure.
Dead girls didn’t marry.
An Olympic-class ocean liner designed with the highest standards of the era. Who knew the Basilisk’s floating city would mess her up? Morta didn’t. She just cut the threads. The sediment building up so thick on their tapestries that she didn’t need Atropos’s henpecking to know where to slide the knife.
Unsinkable her ass. Mortals could be so stupid it pissed her off.
The Gnatu dredged her up, of course. What other ship would they choose for the girl they dotted on the most? The gymnasium, the library, and the Olympic-sized pool. They stitched her all into the bedrock of the garden, now a conjoined twin with the Cathedral. Metal corrosion, broken wheels, weak railings. They had to rebuild the grand staircase from the bottom up and weld the bow back together. The softer woods like pine had all but degraded, light fixtures and electrical wiring hanging from the ceilings and tile hidden beneath mountains of silt.
The Gnatu were diligent, cleaning the remains and refurbishing the interior: dark mahogany, cast iron gates, at least four elevators, and a human foot.
The foot was an accident.
How in the tower’s name that survived, Morta would never know. Decima found it stuck in the electrical of a ceiling fan in the captain’s quarters. Morta could still hear her sister’s screams and ever since, she refused to sleep in there. For a grown woman, she could be such a baby.
Her younger sisters were practically twins in that department.
Morta rolled her eyes, walking up the staircase and sliding her hands across the intricate wood railings. She stumbled, black heels catching on her tiered ruffle skirt.
Fucking Atropos.
The Gnatu gathered before her, arranging themselves diagonally in a marked echelon formation. They saluted, palms forward, their rusty knees shaking.
“Give me your report,” she said, crossing her arms.
“Mistress, the pews have been moved into the parlor and the railings dusted. We’ve cleaned the hands and swept the stairs. The blushing bride is almost ready. She’s so beautiful.”
“Good. I want everything perfect for my sist—” Morta paused, noticing hesitation amongst the troops, whispers, shifting glances, and a shuffling of feet, a nook stuck between their joints. “How many of you popped the question to her today?” she asked.
The Gnatu froze, their hands stuck to their brows.
“How many?!”
They shuttered, more than half raising their arms.
“Gawds above, how many of these weddings am I going to do!?” She grabbed fistfuls of her hair, her face turning red. “Get out of my sight!”
The Gnatu scattered like kitchen mice, hiding beneath the railings, under the pews, and in the clock's face.
She was going to have to have a serious talk with Decima. These ceremonies were getting out of hand. Even she only had a funeral once a year and Nona’s baby showers weren’t any more frequent. Four weddings in three months? Her sister was getting greedy.
Morta sighed, leaning against the railings of the grand staircase. She looked over the parlor at the pews arranged, forming an aisle down the center. That girl from the peninsula, Leah, sat on the right side of the service, swinging her legs and giggling loudly. She rode sidesaddle on the back of Caladrius’s neck, flapping her arms and grinning.
Morta smiled.
That kid reminded her of Nona as a girl with curly hair and a love of cute bows.
“I’m glad somebody is having fun,” she said, sitting on the pew beside them.
Leah beamed, her cheeks full of color. “Hi Morta,” she said. “This place is so beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it.” Morta parted the girl’s bangs, heat dispersing from her fingertips, the child’s lips almost ruby red. “And I see your magic is stable.”
“I can’t hurt anyone here.” Leah blushed. “And I’ve made a friend.”
Caladrius flapped his wings, scratching the floor with his claws.
He’d grown since Morta had last seen him becoming an oversized rooster. Something seemed off about him, uniquely different from the conduits. His pinions were soft, and the ratchet set beneath his gold penciled breast feathers became more like bone and cartilage. It was as if he were half organic rather than just mimicking it.
Perhaps it had something to do with Nona’s blood in his split wire loom tubing…
“Hello, Aunt Morta!” Caladrius said, rubbing his curved yellow beak against the girl’s cheek.
Leah embraced him like a teddy bear, a sparkle in her eyes and a familiarity in her touch that suggested something more than friends.
Those two had become close in the last two days.
Morta frowned, grabbing hold of Caladrius’s beak and forcing his mouth shut. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said. “You and Nona haven’t had the talk yet.”
“Morta.” Leah tugged on Morta’s sleeves. “When the wedding is over, can I come back and visit?”
“Two days ago you were scared to come with me and now you don’t want to leave?”
“It’s just that—” Her blush deepened. “I want to play with my friend.”
Caladrius worked his beak out of Morta’s hand. “I will take her,” he said. “I will grow big and strong and carry her through the gate with my wings.”
Morta sighed, rubbing her temple. “If Nona’s okay with it, I don’t mind.” She stood, walking towards the grand staircase. “Leah.” she looked back over her shoulder. “Aren’t you afraid of death?”
The girl paused, looking at her slippers. “I was,” she said. “But you’re so nice.”
Morta shook her head. Yeah, right. She thought, taking the steps to the upper level.
“May I escort you, young lady?” came the voice of a luminescent apparition.
He was a butler, wearing a frock coat with a notched collar and an antique silver pocket watch hanging from his trousers. He came down the stairs opposite her and bowed, offering her his hand.
Decima had been here. That was easy enough to tell. She enjoyed plucking the severed fate of the dead. Tattered remains of a tapestry Decima wove or would weave past, present, or future. Hard to tell, really. Morta couldn’t remember all the people she fucked or, perhaps, it was just that she hadn’t gotten around to fucking them yet.
She humored him, taking his hand, her fingertips passing through his palm.
Echoes of past tragedies were never solid.
“Thanks,” she said. “Do you know where the bride is?”
A look of horror crossed his face as a reflection of bitterly cold water came down the stairs from the glass atrium above. He vanished, swept away in the swirling sea, his bones long dissolved in the nutrient-starved waters of the abyss.
“Damn corpse.” Morta sneered.
She didn’t have any right to judge, but it was still irritating.
She found Decima at the top of the stairs fidgeting with a yellow lily, her long white hair, purple freckles, and naturally red lips accentuating her eyes, scarlet like blood, not a drop of makeup. Her dress was traditional, fitted at the bust and waist but loose along her hips, her skirt covering the length of her feet.
A shame.
Her sister had the hips but refused to wear anything that brought attention to her legs.
“He loves me,” Decima said, peeling off the petals. “He loves me not.”
“So, I killed your butler, sorry,” Morta said, reaching the top of the stairs.
“I plucked his thread close to the stem. It’s not your fault.” Decima pulled another petal, fixated on the stigma and style.
“What are you doing?”
“She’s worried about whether they love her. I try to tell her, but she won’t listen, so I let the flowers speak. Sorry, dear. You’ve caught us so soon after lunch,” Decima said in a haunting voice, spittle dripping from her lips.
She uncurled her serpentine calves, the tiny spider-like digits along her forelegs scratching her tymbal muscle, her eyes glowing, a sinister dawn.
Red sky in the morning, sailors’ warning.
“Lachesis,” Morta said, beads of sweat forming along her brow. “Please, this is Decima’s big day. Don’t take that from her.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Decima just needs to powder her nose. She’ll be out in a moment.” She smiled, crooked and wrong. “Honey, you and I must talk to Atropos about your dreadful attire.”
Lachesis slithered across the floor, far more dexterous than her clumsy sister, her hands wrapping around Morta’s shoulders, her chin resting in the crook of Morta’s neck.
“You’re all so much like my beloved daughters.” Lachesis’s tongue flicked against her ear. “I want you to be at your best.” She burped, the smell of clotted blood and stale sweat filling the air. “Excuse me,” she said, holding her fingers over her mouth, bits of tissue dangling between her teeth. “I really must watch what I eat.”
Morta closed eyes, her hands shaking. “Thanks for sparing the child, at least.”
“As if I would ever harm such a sweet little girl. Besides, how could I say no to your requests? You and I have been partners for a long time and you know how fragile Decima’s heart is.” She leaned close, kissing Morta’s neck and leaving a bloody print. “Although I must admit, I was surprised. Have you grown fond of mortals? Perhaps the rumors about you are true.”
“I do not love them!” Morta balled her hands into fists, her cheeks turning red.
Lachesis slithered around Morta, laughing loudly, an echo in her voice that was both lasting and haunting. “Oh I know, sweetheart,” she said, pinching Morta’s cheeks. “You love to pick wings off flies, but please forgive me if I warn you all the same.” She embraced Morta, her claws digging into her lower back and sliding along her spine like the tip of a knife. “Accept no deals and make no promises with beloved Nona. She is dangerous, Morta. Life cannot exist without checks and balances.” She smiled with that crooked grin, eyes glowing a wicked red. “Tapestries aren’t whole until they’re cut.”