A Second-Hand Murder. Pt 1

Bauery rotted each rainfall. Gas lamps failed to light the pocked cobble roads with their sallow glow, and no municipal man or woman would relight the flames. Sawdust stable beds became putrid in the humidity, and the shallow sewers rose above their retention.

She’d found a safe space above in a second-floor loft. Bare bodies loved rainfall. She swayed on the balcony with the wind and let the storm cleanse her while her clothes dried inside.

Her room was a squatter’s paradise, but she’d scared them off with a coin and a strongman. Now, her conquest dangled with a half filled clothesline. A second woman sat on the bed, with a full head of black curls. She owned most of the clothing on the line, save for posh fur coat Essa swiped off some half dead hag down by portside. As far as the blond girl knew, she was nameless. She went by nothing other than her looks, with a whole reputation centered around her black bob and little red lips. Any moniker that arose from the lips of lessers that she deemed fine, she went by. Usually Mistress.

She was grandiose in every way except her finances, and denied being a liar and a thief. After all, Essa secured them this room.

The blond girl returned from the balcony after a small while, only after hearing snores from the other woman. She was glistening with rain, hair matted to her face. Now she’d smell like sea salts. The room was not as putrid as some of the others. The hotel was called Her Majesty’s Quiltery and Second Hand Home, an overly pretentious title for a dead brothel. As far as she knew, Mistress wanted to take it over. She just wanted to survive. Essa watched her snooze on the bed while she retreated to the washroom, where two dirty towels hung on a rusted rack. Essa dried herself with the lesser of two evils.

”Em…” Essa called from the washroom door, towel dangling about her figure. She’d taken to calling her that over Mistress.. She didn’t like the idea that this woman had power. Certainly not over herself.

”What.” She awoke gently, thunder lifting her from her sea of rest.

”I’m going out… I need to find food.”

”Fine. Don’t be late.”

She hated her. She followed her in here and couldn’t be bothered to leave. Privacy was the most valuable commodity to a girl like herself, and it was the easiest to ruin.

Essa left after grabbing a blouse and that fur off the hanging line. Once she was wrapped up, she left swiftly from the stolen room and traipsed along the Quiltery’s hallways, adorned in ancient peeling wallpaper and badly stained oak panels. The place was supposed to be homely, but nothing, especially in Bauery, was permanent. Fungus exploded from barren patches in the wall, making steps for lemmings and rats. She thought some were so thick at the base she may even be able to climb the wall, but the stalks were powdery and frail, just like the wallpaper. Stripes… God, she hated stripes. But the beds weren’t moldy yet, so for now she’d make due.

Essa sidled against the wall when she reached the front door, brown eyes pressed to the crack to watch spirits cross the roads in the rain. They’d inherited the mainland’s ghost problem. Manifestations of the dead mourned for the tortured living in the rains, electrified by the lightning and moisture. Vines grew over the door’s frame, telling her it hadn’t been opened in some many months. She entered from underground, and that’s how she’d leave. Best to leave the dead alone.

Her feet met with wet carpet past that main door, but to leave she needed to reach the squatter’s corridor, where the tunnels lay. She passed two more musky stairwells, blocked by vegetation and more virulent fungus. The girl felt inclined to hold her breath as she passed, wet carpet squishing underfoot. The sensation of cold licking up her heels made her shiver, until she reached stone and slate rock. All that remained of the end corridor was brick rubble and a violent overgrowth, where green found footings in every crack and scratch.

Essa descended the stone steps until she was in the depths of the tunnel. The smell was better in here, since water and air flowed through it instead of stagnating like in the quiltery. Buzzing electric lights hung in strings at the top, giving the flora light. Vines crept up the walls to steal their smoldering glow.

These tunnels connected Bauery’s various districts, but were nothing more than an afterthought made by homeless and squatters who owned nothing but the clothes on their back, and stolen shovels. Essa took the quiltery tunnel as far east as it went, passing another few old souls who hid in the wet to avoid their woes. Farther down, the tunnels smelled of salt and fish brine. She knew she was close. The tunnel ended in the cellar of another dilapidated building -- an apothecary -- abandoned ages ago. Though the place smelled awful, she thought the remaining bottles of tinctures and glowing medicine still looked nice, even through fractured bottles. The building still continued to settle, even more so in the storm winds. The ambience carried Essa upstairs cautiously. The girl crept along until she was confident no one was on the main floor. Any and every sound made her ears twitch in fear that someone lingered above -- even the rattling of glass. Nature’s sounds led her to imagine grotesque figures making foli for the sake of scaring her.

The first floor still looked serviceable. Book cases lined each wall, sidled with short bureaus and glass cases full of obnoxious potted plants and flowers so bright they might poison you by looking at them. Much of the glass had been salvaged by scalpers, sold off for a meal. The windows were gone. Rain poured in, as well as sour wind. The plants were happy as ever…

A case on the far wall burst with thickets and wild berries. She didn’t have anything to carry them back with, so she snuck over and began plucking the ripe violet things from their mother branches. The thicket grew out of composted books, wormy covers of dead novels, and in some places the wood fused to the bookshelf, like it was going to bring it back to life. She ate until her lips were winestained, turned purple with sweet little bruises.

Essa spied out the open windows and saw soaked kiosks. The food was still fresh… Fires put out by the rain, shopkeep driven home by the wind. The closest one had fried trout and rice already made in bowls. Quickly, she shed her clothing and darted out into the rain, retrieving two bowls and seeking shelter in the apothecary just as soon as she’d left. She ate with her fingers, sticky rice binding troutflesh to lips until she thought she was full. The girl snuck a few more berries off the thicket while she re-dressed and embarked on a journey home.

She ran into a stout Clayborn after departing the apothecary cellar, who simply pushed her aside and continued on his way. Her heart beat out of her chest with the fear of his touch, but was grateful he’d carried on and more or less ignored her.

The tunnels were crowded on the way back. Clusters of squatters hid in stone pockets dug by the passive shuffling and shivering of the homeless, like footprints in a forest path. The quiltery remained empty though. The squatter’s corridor was more or less the same. She passed the front door with broken vines, headed up the first floor stairs, and sought out Em’s room. No… Her room. For what reason did she think Em owned it? Certainly Essa didn’t own it either, but she’d definitely liberated it.. That filthy… She took credit for everything.. The thief.

Essa took the doorknob in hand and turned it like a child’s wrist, listening to it cry in kind. Em lie on the bed still, hidden partly by the clothesline. Her body was limp with sleep, but she made no noise. The girl moved further inside and noticed that Em now lacked a head… She lied in a pool of her own blood, with an axe wound to a neck she no longer had. Her head spun. Oh, her head spun… Viscera dangled from the stump, which is what made Essa curl about her core and retch.

Em was a thief. That was true. A liar, a whore, and so was she. It was no surprise that someone wanted her dead. But to see her there, disembodied from what made her a person, put knots in her belly.

Essa left swiftly. Her feet kicked up water as she darted downstairs, down the corridor, eyes wide shut, until she reached the quiltery’s main door. The once pristine vines were broken now. The door had been opened. No squatter took Em’s head, and no hooker took her life either. The handle creaked, and when she touched it felt warm. A clayborn’s hand. God. She stayed silent when witnessing the murder, but feeling the knob turn without her doing so made her shriek. God... She could feel Em’s ghost in the rain too.