All of Us with Wings Read online

  Down in the ballroom, Xochi closed her eyes and surrendered to the tide of bodies as Lady Frieda sang about doing it in the road. A set of arms wrapped around her waist. It was Bubbles, electric pink ringlets bouncing around rum-and-coke eyes. At twenty-four, she was the youngest person in the band and claimed the rest of them were less and less fun the closer they got to thirty.

  Bubbles took Xochi’s hand and pulled her toward the cluster of people around the DJ. The only familiar face was Pad’s. Xochi had been surprised at how efficient he’d been at the concert, running everything backstage with his clipboard and walkie-talkie. Now he was back to looking purely ornamental with his lilac-and-ivy wreath, shorn dark hair and jay-blue eyes, the mermaid tattoo on his forearm a warning most girls failed to heed: beware the siren song.

  The day Xochi moved in, Pallas made sure to tell her, “Watch out, Pad is a rake.” Now she’d seen it for herself almost every morning at the crack of dawn when Pallas dragged her out of bed and Pad’s night was just ending—the Pretty Girl Parade from his bedroom to the front door.

  “Happy Equinox!” Pad hugged Xochi, something he’d never done before. “You look gorgeous tonight, love. Did you cut your hair?” He reached over to touch it, wrist grazing her collarbone. His normal hint of an Irish accent was thicker than usual. A sure sign he was either flirting or drunk, according to Pallas.

  “Kiki did it.”

  “Well, that explains it. Kiki’s a genius.”

  “What about you? That set was incredible. And those lights! I had no idea you were so talented.”

  “Don’t you flatter him, Xochi,” Bubbles said. “He’s conceited enough.”

  “You wound me!” Pad clutched at his heart. “Really, I’m quite insecure. It’s why I need so much encouragement.” This was directed to the girl beside him. Tall and haughty, she resembled the others Xochi passed in the hallway outside his bedroom most mornings. Hair ponies, Pallas called them, the same thing she called the long-maned model horses she’d collected when she was little.

  A pale, slender boy with a lavender Mohawk and a blue crescent moon tattooed on his forehead emerged from the crowd with a gilded water pipe. He handed it to Pad with a kiss on the cheek and danced back into the crowd.

  “Is that a hookah?” Xochi asked.

  Pad took a hit and passed it to Bubbles. “It is,” he said. “Not something you’d expect the governess to know, though, is it?”

  “Depends on the governess,” Xochi said.

  Pad laughed and the hair pony glared.

  “It’s hash,” Bubbles said. “And a little tobacco.”

  Growing up on a pot farm, Xochi had inhaled enough secondhand marijuana to last a lifetime. The few times she’d consciously imbibed, the plant had not been her friend. But the hookah smoke smelled nice and it wasn’t exactly weed.

  She put the tube to her mouth as Bubbles leaned down to light the bowl. She was halfway through her inhale when the smoke changed direction, exploding out of Xochi’s lungs in a fit of rasping coughs. Laughing, Pad handed Xochi his beer.

  “You have to go slow. Here.” Bubbles inhaled and brought her lips to Xochi’s, blowing the hit gently into her mouth. Xochi had never kissed a girl—not that this was a kiss. But the plush lips, the soft hand on the back of her neck—it was something to consider. Bubbles’s breath must have cooled the smoke. It slipped down Xochi’s throat like a sip of water.

  “Better, right?”

  The smoke penetrated the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders, the start of a nice, civilized buzz. “Way better.” The hash was different from weed, but related. With the familiar dissolving of limbs came an added electricity, a psychedelic edge. The first wave of high hit gently enough, but it kept on coming. The music was so loud. Her heartbeat competed with the hammering bass.

  “I’ll be right back,” Xochi told Bubbles.

  “You okay?” Bubbles was almost too shiny with her sequins and coppery eyes.

  “Fine,” Xochi said. “I just need some air.”

  Anxiety shot through her body in time with the music, now a mindless surf-punk pound. The dancers had abandoned rhythm for contact, bashing into each other like dogs in the park. Xochi made her way to the foyer and stumbled over the smokers clogging the front porch and stairs.

  The night was uncommonly clear, with icy stars and an almost full moon. She walked past chalky pastel houses lining the street like beads on a candy necklace. Streetlights uncloaked the occasional bat.

  The breeze lifted the thin fabric of Xochi’s dress. She should be cold, but she wasn’t. She was hungry, though. She would go back and eat some food. Go to bed.

  Xochi stopped. How long had she been walking? If she was near the park, Eris Gardens couldn’t be far. But . . . wait. This wasn’t Buena Vista. This was a different park, one she’d never seen before. Her usual tactic of jumping on a bus and asking the driver for advice was useless this late at night. She spun in a full circle. Continuing downhill was the only logical move. She began to walk again, shivering now. She should have grabbed a jacket.

  She heard the bar before she saw it, hunched between two shabby Victorians, its cinder-block façade stained red by a flashing neon sign. A man was outside smoking, muttering, looking at the ground.

  No. Not the ground. He was looking at her, but not at her face. Xochi crossed the street.

  “Hey, princess,” he rasped. The word leaked out around his cigarette as his gaze lifted, now on Xochi’s chest. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  Xochi walked faster. The end of the block was just a few steps away.

  “Bitch, I’m talking to you. Don’t make me chase you now.”

  Xochi meant to keep walking, putting squares of dirty sidewalk between her and the greasy threat in his voice, but the air was too thick, the ground tilting and unstable.

  Some sane part of her rose from her body and hovered under the streetlamp, shrinking away from the figures below—hers in its thin beaded dress and his in a crusty army jacket and stained jeans. She saw herself turn and walk back until she was directly across the street from him.

  “Say it again,” she said, her voice unrecognizable. “Say it to my face.” What did she think she was going to do? Her blood buzzed and her skin crawled, slug damp with something that should have been fear.

  “Crazy bitch.” He laughed and dropped his half-smoked cigarette in the gutter. “Go back to the psych ward, cunt.”

  He stepped back, spat and pushed against the battered door of the bar. It opened wide, spewing speed metal and smoke, inhaling him into its dark, rank guts.

  3

  Pandora

  Pallas stomped down the attic stairs, bare feet cold on the wooden treads. She took the final flight on tiptoe, willing herself transparent—a ghost girl, nothing but a flicker of light on the periphery of any wasted partygoer who might pass by.

  Where was Xochi? With Bubbles, maybe, but then what? Just walk up and say hi? Pallas wasn’t supposed to be down here on her own. For the last several months, she hadn’t come down during parties at all. She tiptoed through the front hall, keeping close to the wall, the bumpy plaster cool under her hand.

  The dining room was dark, the table a wrecked memory of the beautiful spread Kiki had arranged. Two boys leaned against the wall, one with burgundy hair and black eyeliner, the other a time traveler from the Summer of Love or A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his leafy garland and fringed leather vest. They were younger than most of her family’s friends. Teenagers, maybe—an undignified word. In three months, Pallas would join their ranks. Her childhood would be over.

  She slipped into the kitchen, ducking under the breakfast table just in time to avoid her godmother. All she could see of Kiki were the tattooed vines that climbed up the backs of her shiny brown legs, disappearing under the hem of her black silk shorts.

  Pallas held her breath. Kiki was extremely
observant, sure to find Pallas out. Not that she’d do anything, except worry. But no—she went to the pantry.

  “Sorry it took me so long.” Kiki said quietly. “I think the coast is clear.”

  “It’s no trouble,” a man answered, stepping into the room. “My next client isn’t due for another hour.” Pallas placed the voice immediately. It belonged to James, a performance artist who owned the piercing shop up the street. But why was he hiding in the pantry? And was he really planning to see a client at two o’clock in the morning?

  Pallas pulled the tablecloth up an inch. James looked the same as ever, with his horn-rimmed glasses and silver-streaked hair. He used to come over once in a while for family potlucks, but never to big parties. Just like her mom, he avoided crowds.

  “I could do without the subterfuge,” James said. “But I do respect her need for privacy.”

  Who needed privacy? And why?

  “Right,” Kiki said. “Such a delicate flower.”

  Io, then. People always said Pallas’s mother was sensitive. But Kiki’s tone was strange tonight.

  There were more footsteps. Pallas’s dad’s beaten-up motorcycle boots appeared in the doorway to the stairwell leading up from the basement recording studio.

  Kiki inhaled a bit too quickly. James stuttered a moment before saying hello.

  “I’d better be going,” he said. “Happy Equinox!”

  The back door squeaked open, clicked shut. There was silence. Finally, Kiki spoke.

  “Hey,” she said. “You okay?”

  Huddled perfectly still, Pallas thought of the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

  “Lev?”

  “I’m fine.” Her dad’s voice sounded like pages in an old book, crackly and stiff and easy to rip.

  “Full of surprises, our girl,” Kiki said, her voice almost too quiet to hear.

  Their family was always talking things over, checking in. It was exhausting, really. Her dad and Kiki were clearly headed for a long, heartfelt talk, and Pallas would either be trapped or found out.

  Fabric rustled. Kiki’s shoes approached her dad’s—a hug! Perfect. Pallas made her escape.

  In the parlor, party guests lounged on the antique furniture, drinking wine and passing around a joint. A tall, shirtless man covered in rose tattoos tuned his violin. In the corner, a gnomish girl took out a silver vial and tiny spoon. She’d be kicked out if anyone from the house saw. Hard drugs weren’t allowed, but people did them anyway.

  The violinist began to play a slow, eerie snake-charming melody for a curvy, dark-haired dancer, his bow keeping time with her hips. As she danced, the fur around her shoulders shifted—not a piece of clothing after all, but an actual animal, possibly a ferret. It cocked its head toward Pallas, button eyes bright. She felt the pull of her younger self, a whimsical person she could no longer respect. A younger Pallas would have danced with the woman and her ferret, and she’d never have noticed the drugs. Kiki said it was temporary, this unforgiving eye. A symptom of puberty—another awful word, almost too grotesque to think about, let alone say.

  Pallas stepped back into the hall and scooted up the front stairs under the velvet rope that cordoned off the private part of the house. The quickest way back to the attic was through her mother’s wing, to the old servants’ staircase. Maybe Xochi was back. Maybe they could read together after all.

  The library door was ajar. Last year at Solstice, they’d found puke on the fluffy sheepskin rug by the fireplace. Pallas turned on the light, but everything looked fine. Along with Leviticus’s enormous record collection, the library also had one of the best secret compartments in Eris Gardens. At the age of seven, Pallas had scoured the house to find them all.

  To the left of the early Americana shelves was a piece of paneling that was really a door. It opened when she pressed, quiet thanks to the olive oil she’d used on the hinges back then.

  She stepped into the cramped space with its rusty metal bucket and pile of rags, maybe as old as the house itself, and pulled the door closed behind her. Something metallic twinkled in the darkness, a pile of wrappers from the chocolates she used to eat here when she was forlorn. Now her head nearly touched the top of the compartment. The party noises were muffled, but a haunted, romantic piano piece filled the small, dark space. It was Schubert, Io’s music, the record scratchy from constant use.

  At the back of the compartment, down by the floor, was a hatch of sorts leading into Io’s large walk-in closet. Unlike the other secret passageways in the house, it was shabbily constructed, a square cut into the wall with an unpainted wooden flap on rough hinges and a scarred handle that might once have belonged to a chest of drawers.

  Pallas opened the flap an inch but couldn’t see a thing. She tried to stretch flat on her stomach, but her legs had gotten too long. She curled on her side and tried again. Her nose itched from the dust. She pulled the knob carefully, expecting a second darkness.

  Instead, the closet door was open and Pallas saw her mother.

  Io stood naked in front of her gilded, full-length mirror, peering over her shoulder like a nude in a famous painting. Pallas looked quickly from her mother’s small breasts, concave belly and ballerina thighs to her dreamy green eyes, pink cheeks and wavy champagne hair. Io was always beautiful, but in this moment, she was so perfect she hardly seemed real.

  Pallas’s hand shook with the effort of holding the flap open just enough to see without being seen. With a little laugh, Io turned to face the mirror and Pallas saw what her mother had been admiring.

  Embedded in the flesh in the small of Io’s back was a set of small silver hooks, much like the fasteners on Pallas’s own Victorian boots. A black ribbon crisscrossed her mother’s bird-boned spine, connecting the hooks like laces on an invisible corset. Pallas almost gasped, shoving her fist into her open mouth to stop the sound.

  Now she understood: the kitchen, the pantry. Kiki. Her dad.

  These were piercings. Done tonight. By James.

  Pallas closed the flap and sat up. There was a momentary silence, a mechanical whir and click. The Schubert was on repeat. She heard the rasp of the needle as it searched for the right groove, the opening chords of the Trio in E-flat.

  Pallas had once flipped through a book of photographs of outlandish piercings and tattoos she wasn’t supposed to look at. Io’s disturbing new hooks and ribbons weren’t attached to some unimaginably painful private place, but like the piercings in the book, they were definitely sexual—frightening, powerful and secret.

  Pallas sat doll still, eyes closed. She imagined she was made of porcelain with a painted face and glass eyes and real human hair. She waited until the Schubert was over and the dressing room door creaked and clicked.

  She opened the hatch again, the darkness in the cupboard combining with the dark of the dressing room, scents mixing: rose water, old wood and L’air du Temps, Io’s special-occasion perfume. Her legs cramped as she crawled out of the cupboard, her nightgown smeared with the fine black dust the house seemed to exhale.

  The grand staircase was littered with empty bottles and forgotten jackets. A lone couple argued in a corner. Tears streamed down the girl’s face, but the boy could have been a statue with his folded arms and bored expression. Pallas flicked on the hall light. It wouldn’t be so easy for him to ignore his girlfriend now.

  A burgundy rectangle perched on the newel. A box of clove cigarettes. Pallas hesitated, then palmed it. The edges of the box dug into her hand. It was small, but it was something.

  She trudged back to her attic. Not a ghost girl after all, but still completely invisible.

  4

  Persephone

  watch the animals, Loretta always said. How do they get over a fright?

  Xochi walked. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, her long strides pushing past the barred windows and trash-filled gutters into a ne
ighborhood where the Victorians had better paint jobs and greenery softened the city streets.

  Don’t make me chase you.

  Crazy bitch.

  Psych ward cunt.

  She sat at a bus stop. When Xochi was small, she and her mother had had a cat, a war-scarred tabby abandoned by the previous tenants of their apartment. He came home one night with a hot lump of pus bulging from his shoulder. There was no money for the vet, but Xochi’s mom knew what to do. She wrapped the cat in a towel and made Xochi hold tight as she opened the abscess with a sterilized knife. What swelled in Xochi felt like that.

  It wasn’t being called a bitch or a cunt. Those words were nothing, bouncing around her head like half-filled balloons. She sat there and breathed, in and out. She let herself shake. A car passed by, breaking the quiet of the street. A memory hovered: a clothes-strewn airless room; a still life of a girl lying rigid on an unmade bed; eyes wide, uncrying.

  Of course, Xochi thought. Of course it’s that.

  There was a book she’d read once, a fairy tale about a girl without a tongue.

  How do animals get over a fright?

  First, they get away.

  Xochi had done that.

  Then, they take stock.

  She stood. The familiar Walgreens at Haight and Fillmore was on the next corner.

  What was next? She rubbed her bare arms, sticky with spilled beer and sweat. The blunt ends of her hair grazed the back of her neck. It’s over, she told herself in Loretta’s voice. It’s over now and you’re okay. Eris Gardens was just a few blocks and one insanely steep hill away. All she had to do was walk.

  Xochi set out, but her bladder screamed mutiny—another disadvantage of city living. If she’d been out in the woods, she could’ve just squatted, problem solved. The hill was going to be murder, but there was no getting around it.

  Across the street, a man unlocked a storefront. She’d read a profile on the owner of Pagan Piercing in the free weekly paper, but the middle-aged man at the door looked more like a college professor than an underground legend.