Work Text
In retrospect, a black storm cloud should have been higher on the list of unfortunate omens.On the surface, It didn't appear markedly unique from any other summer storm that had rolled over Mayfield. The ink black harkening, the rolling clouds. The lightning that cracked veins down the hillside, sending your hairs on edge and pulse thrumming in an uncomfortable pattern. The same storm, different day.Naoise stepped from the train platform and ran down Starkhill Drive. Mayfield, as only twenty-thousand inhabitants would know, was composed of canals and cobbled streets, each holding an alphabetical title that connected them to the heart of the village square, not a geometric pattern with lines that intersected to cut off into culdesacs or side streets, an octagon with a singular beating entity in the epicenter; Lytch university. Like so many institution-based villages, Mayfield boasted its alums, naming streets after writers, engineers, and folklorists who had once graced the town but now sat in graves or rotted in mausoleums in the cemetery on the north side.The arcane history of the town could be traced back to the conception of Brittania, a genesis, an accident. Two brothers had cultivated a small plot of land for a generation: the Mayfields, or Maegdenwyrding, if you want to get specific. That was before the Romans, mid-celt, when you had yet to be slain for mild acts of paganism. The Mayfields did their best to breed livestock, but the land had other ideas. It rallied against them with avian flu, plagues and natural disaster. The storm that dropped flecks of water down Naoise's blue dress was a sprinkle compared to the floods that ravaged that cursed acreage of land in the south. What are men to do when God strikes with flood and fury? The cows wouldn't eat, and the children ate too much. So, the Mayfields made a deal. At least, that is what they told her at first-year orientation.Believer in divine interruption or not, it was impossible to disregard the otherworldly aspects of the village. Markus Selwyn had been the first man to step foot in Mayfield and declare it a site for future academics. His early endeavors included, but were indeed not limited to, constructing houses down the fork roads that would act as hideouts for artists and esoterics. That was in 1100, a supremely stupid year for politics, considering King William was floundering in a forest with an arrow in his chest. An equally unpleasant era for religion. Academia was the only facet of English life that held up well in the face of dishevelment. Markus Selwyn took one look at the green peasant grounds and saw an opportunity that only required a bit of coin and some indentured servitude. Thus, the fork houses were constructed, dark and sharply pointed edifices that would have fit well alongside the cathedrals of the Gothic Renaissance. Honestly, a man ahead of his time, one might have wondered if he had some assistance in seeing what the future of architecture would hold.The house that Naoise was running for was not a den for writers or a traditional home. Instead, a public house called The Nocturne, a dingy little pub near the corner of Starkhill, tucked between a church that had been converted into a grocery store and a bank that had been desecrated to make room for an equally functioning credit union, which probably turned Markus Selwyn in his grave. From what she could tell, he hadn't been one for alcohol or opportunities for the working class to afford luxury.The Nocturne was a particular breed of pub. Near to the surface it mirrored any other watering hole with it's glowing red 'open' sign, bars on the windows and cracked black marble that was both inviting and invoking of bad decisions made under neon light. Pubs in Mayfield were all generally the same: ash trays made of cement and a place to rest your head on a pillow of wet oak tables. Like late-night conversations you regret having made physical, then transferred to mattresses and sheets you hardly remembered stumbling naked into. A hole for the weak and weary to climb inside, to drink away their weaknesses and come back to when they were weary once more.The interior of the Nocturne was what set it apart from a run-of-the-mill pub. Naoise stepped into the foyer and combed her fingers through her sopping wet mop of hair that had once been blond but was now a sort of sink water tone thanks to the rain. She started toward the bar with two fingers raised. She brushed past velvet lounge sofa's, thicker than a king-sized bed, with emerald tufts and brass knobs. Past mirrors that covered the ceiling and every spare inch of gray wallpaper. The artwork in The Nocturne was all local, modern takes on cherubs, psychopomps, and waking nightmares: a nymph under the moon's glow, red eyes on the horizon, soldiers and gods, monsters, and mostly unclothed women. Unlike other establishments in town, it had flair.Naoise pulled herself onto the bar stool, alone, save for the bartender, who knew well enough by then to start mixing two Moscow Mules. Hemingway may have sipped on daiquiri's at this very bar when he brushed into town to give talks at Mitral house. He may have shared a joke with Cummings and Crane, which was likely a distasteful joke in nature, but he was tasting literally; lime, cane sugar, and salt. Naoise preferred vodka, the lower shelf kind, so cheap you could drop it in your car tank and make it to London before the fumes dissipated. She liked ginger beer, not ginger ale, never ale. Humanity had made many poor decisions, none so awful as watering down every drink they could get ahold of to emulate 7-UP. If she wanted faint hints of cough syrup in her cocktails, she would go back to the nursing house at the university; at least that suppressant had sedatives in it.At that time on a Sunday, the bar was sparsely populated. Two male students sat in a booth in the far corner, dark hoods pulled over their eyes, examining what seemed to be an anatomical textbook, but it was hard to say. The disciplines at Lytch University were of a wide range: classics and biology, architecture, and history. The only thing that connected them was the title before each: "esoteric." Esoteric medicine, esoteric arts. Theology (that didn't require an esoteric predeterminer. All schools of thought at Lytch were specialized and obscure, especially religion.)Naoise wiped a bead of dew from the copper mug that held her mule. While doing so, she met the eye of one of the students. White hair, wisps of it plastered to his forehead. Dead eyes, the type not often seen outside of vintage noir photographs. Beneath the hood of his black jacket, he wore a white button down, unclasped at the collarbone and showcasing skin the shade of bleached ivory. His jawline was so sharp it could have struck gold, a tell-tale sign that he was a lengthy talker, the congressional type, better fit for a political pulpit where he drew on about humanitarian rights while simultaneously taking handouts from tech companies mining cobalt in the Congo. He was handsome in an untrustworthy way. His gaze fell back to the textbook, not daring to look up again between the time it took Naoise to finish her first drink and move on to the second.It was better to be a bit drunk when playing with the dead. Naoise opened her white canvas bag and splayed the notes from the night before over the countertop. Last summer in the next town over, someone had died rather ceremoniously. By the time the police pulled his body down from the makeshift pyre, he was half ash, crisped around the edges like a Sunday roast left in the oven too long. He had been a rambler, and enjoyed Naoise's company, babbling on at length about his life pre-cremation. She had asked him what had led up to the event, who, why. To that, he had vanished into the star-covered sky, flew down the hillside, and spoke no more into the tape recorder.On the train back to Mayfield, she had written down everything that she could on the dewy paper. The ink was smudged in tendrils at the lines, blurring an important sentence together."What was your name?" She had asked."Stephen Drillidge,"Or,"Stephen Mildred,"It was impossible to know now. The local papers hadn't disclosed his identity, which led her to believe they had never discovered it in the first place. Simply, another sacrifice on a long list of sacrifices in the area. Likely, a transient, a homeless man, a male prostitute. The type that didn't make headlines in any great detail beyond the excruciating circumstances of their final breaths. He had been a playwright in London; she knew that much. A failed one. Though he hadn't disclosed the failure, no well-off playwright ends up with their hands nailed to a coffin and lit ablaze. Broadway wouldn't allow it.Not that she had a wide margin of space to talk about failure. The tape recorder was ruined. The pages turned into a pulpy pile of mush with every drop of dew that slid down the copper moscow mule mug. A pointless night, a waste of train fare. The only portion of the conversation that stuck in her head like a thumbtack drilled in her temple was how he said her name. Naoise Socran. She hadn't given it to him, he hadn't asked, he knew. It was very uncomfortable when they did that.Spirits were not the best companions to have. Ephemeral, fleeting little bastards that would trap you in with a song, a riddle, a shadowed opportunity to walk the veil and dissect what happened once we passed into that tremendous blinding light. Then, once you were hooked, they would fire off in two hundred different directions, talk your ear off about how much they missed their mother's cooking, how they should have told that girl they loved her.How come to think of it, you sort of resemble her. Are you related to the Hillsdale family down in Brighton? You could be her granddaughter; your eyes are green enough.It was mostly a lot of shit to wade through.In the reflection of the liquor shelves behind the bar, Naoise could see a distinctly male form swagger his way to the stools. He leaned in, trailed a finger over the rim of her copper mug, and smirked once more. Naoise might have argued that it was disgusting to place your grimy hands over someone else's drink, but it wasn't as if she had paid for it yet, and by the sly look on his face, he was about to offer a refill."Do you go to Lytch?" He asked, voice sharp and northern like he was trying to get the words out before any more time was wasted."No," she quipped, "I live here because I like the weather and the exuberantly high rent."He smiled, staring out the stained windows toward the rain that broke like shattered glass over the pub walls. "That's funny. What are you studying?" His eyes went to the paper and narrowed at the unintelligible writing.Men like him, that is to say, men with money, didn't often frequent the Nocturne. She could tell he was a rich boy by the gleaming gold wristwatch that couldn't have been a replica. He leaned on the bar like he owned it, yet was careful not to get any vodka spills on his well made shirt. It was a little awful to watch. She wanted to hurt his feelings for the sake of it but hadn't been flirted with in a while."Theology," she said."And do you prescribe?" He asked."I'm not inherently religious, no," she returned.He held his hand out, natural piano player fingers wrapped around her palm and engulfed her wrist."Abraxas Malfoy," he said."Naoise Socran," she returned.Abraxas nodded slowly, "Irish?""American, from Boston. But we all seem to think we are Irish in some degree."He hadn't yet let go of her hand, lingering on the soft spot of her wrist, thumb to the vein and pressing. "Deas bualdah leat," he said."You speak Gaeilge?""I study linguistics," he said, smooth like honey, "and other things. Wait until you hear my Latin."As the evening bore down on Mayfield, Naoise would hear his Latin. He would speak it in fluent sentences as if he were giving a perfectly learned liturgy, chin pointed down, and perfect teeth bared. He smelled like whiskey and intrigue, salt from the glass rim of his cocktail, and the faintest hint of tobacco smoke. All the while, his friend slept in the booth with a dark mop of hair covering the textbook they had pondered over. Even when the pub filled, Abraxas stayed, wooing and cooing in various languages until Naoise's swimming head told her to leave him there.Abraxas was tall and slim, a limber lad with big hands. He was also, as she had expected, violently rich. He paid his tabs with fifty-pound notes that never seemed to cease. He would explain that his father was a purveyor of fine art but had never actually had to work a day in his life. The Malfoy's well was so deep he could have one hundred grandchildren and never have to pawn a single necklace to pay for their tuition. He was a bragger. Especially, the more he drank."How old are you?" He asked."Eighteen," she replied."Fresh blood, that's good," he said, stirring his whiskey with a signet ring adorned pinky, "So you haven't started classes yet?""Not quite," she returned, "I just got to town a few weeks ago to scope the place out and attend orientation.""This is my second year. I'm happy to show you the ropes."He talked more than the spirits and would likely regret every word by morning.Yes, in retrospect, the storm should have been a larger omen than she anticipated. By the time Naoise officially excused herself, Abraxas was in too good of a mood to head back to his dorm. He left the sleeping companion at the table, disregarding his safety, and followed her toward the heart of town. The evening was brisk; the storm had ceased but had left a stark chill over the landscape. That summer, Mayfield had been unusually warm, but a town surrounded by heavy woods and lakes was always cold in one way or another, be that metaphorically due to the copious tree cover or literally once autumn chill crept down the canals and lifted fog like faeries dancing on the surface of the rushing water.Cautionary tales of bodies left in those canals made Naoise keep one eye pointed toward Abraxas at all times. He walked with a briskness, a strong swagger like he couldn't wait to get where he was going. By the time they made it to the turn-off toward campus, where the small damn roared, she knew why."You live in Mitral house, right?" He asked.Naoise raised a brow, "How did you know that?""I keep an eye on the comings and goings around here," he returned, "Especially when wide-eyed, sweet-looking girls are talking to the dead."That ink had not been quite smeared enough. Or, he was a stalker. One couldn't outright tell and was fearful to ask. Instead, Naoise kept her eyes ahead to the steeple of Mistral house in the distance. To the promise of students around to ensure he didn't pull a dagger out and flay her alive to wear her skin like a pair of patent leather gloves."Does it work?" He asked. "When you sneak off the cemetery, go to Bradhurts and Amsdale to dig through lives. Do you get what you're looking for?""Yes," she said, which was a half-truth, so she added, "Mostly. They talk."Abraxas stopped, cocked his head, and took her in like a mouse caught in the cookie jar. "Then I have a proposition for you," he said, "If you'll take it."Trying to figure out the exact place that one went wrong in hindsight is often like wading through a haystack in search of that bloody needle that pricked you years ago. In a month's time, hell, in a week's time, she would survey the memories from that night and find that Abraxas sort of looked like a needle. The way he asked the question was sharp and pointed and didn't exactly leave room for one to decline."What do you need to talk to the dead for?" She asked."Oh, heavens, not me," he laughed, "No I prefer to keep my hands clean. That will be entirely you.""And in return?" Because where there was a risk, there was also a benefit. It was a rule to life. Naoise unconsciously patted her canvas bag, aware of the lack of contents in her wallet. Aware, of the excess in Abraxas's."It's open for discussion," he said. He was less drunk than he had seemed at the bar. Naoise watched, eyelashes fluttering against a gust of pine-scented wind, as he pulled a notepad from his pocket, clicked a gilded pen three times, and wrote down an address."I hope to see you there," he said, pressing it into her palm. "Saturday. Bring a bottle of wine."Naoise nodded. The address was on the serpentine road. Internally, she mapped all of the houses up and down the street. None of them belonged to the university, as far as she knew. They were all private homes for alums and rich kids. She would have liked to say it didn't send a spark up her arm to watch Abraxas wave with two fingers and disappear into the shadows at the campus threshold. She would have preferred to say that she wasn't violently intrigued.