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this whole black velvet poison-flower. Lotus feet in tiny jade-green slippers, curled and atrophied like mushrooms; nine-inch nails girt with golden sheaths so long, so sharp they scratched the tablecloth beneath as she gestured, cut the air around her, made it bleed. And worst of all, what might be a train or even a tail switching drily under the table, its jewel-scales rustling along the floor like toxic leaves . . .

Best to leave Yau Yan-er alone, Jin-ah—it’s safer. She’s NOT like us. Not like—

(anyone)

My Hell friend, Jin thought, unable to stop herself. My REAL Hell friend.

“And now, as the old tale goes, you have seen the witch in her true ornament,” Grandmother Yau Yan-er said, softly. “For we are seldom any of us what we seem, Song Jin-Li-ah, as you will always do well to remember. Perhaps you too will be something other than you seem, in time.”

A ghost; the idea came to her, numbly—maybe that, yes. Everyone would be a ghost, eventually, after all.

Everyone but Mrs. Yau.

“Thank you,” Jin said again, bowing her head. As was only polite.

“You are most welcome. And remember this, too: You may still return to see me yet—when you are older, perhaps, and have come into your full power. Whenever—if ever—you feel most . . . comfortable.”

“And how will you be then, Grandmother, if I do?” Jin-Li Song was unable to stop herself from asking, no matter how she tried—lips tight around the question, mouth dry and strained, as though the word itself were carved from salt.

But Grandmother Yau Yan-er just inclined her beautiful head further, obviously seeing no insult was intended. And murmured, so softly it might only have been to herself—

“Oh, me? As to that, I will probably be . . . ”

. . . much the same.

SATAN’S JEWEL CROWN

I walked into Satan’s Jewel Crown, having no horse, then stopped a while at the town pump to order myself before going any further, taking time to splash my face and beat the dust from my brother’s old coat. As I did, a little girl playing by the saloon door looked up when my shadow fell across her, gawping—maybe at my height, which has always been noticeable, or the bandage ‘round my throat, which I suspected might have commenced to bleed through once more, during the last and hardest phase of my travels.

I had a rifle across my back and a knife in my belt plus another, smaller knife in my boot, all donations; my pack was full of dead things’ heads, well-wrapped, which I’d heard some towns were now paying good money for, then turning in themselves later on for government bounty. I hoped to at least be able to swap these for a few nights’ room and board, and perhaps (if I was lucky) a fresh pair of boots, since the ones I was wearing were both down at the heel and slightly too tight, as my blisters could testify.

So I smiled down at the girl, hoping to make a better impression. But: “Are you a lady?” was all she asked, at which my heart lurched, thudding traitor against my ribs, where I’d wrapped myself to bind those poor things I’d once called breasts down far enough to imply their lack. Yet I trusted in my voice—that awful rasp, made worse by thirst and rough weather—to give that very idea the lie.

“I look like a lady to you?” I inquired of her, therefore, in return. And on hearing me, she shook her head, falling properly silent . . . though to be frank, she still did not seem entirely convinced.

Such an odd little thing, all eyes, in a solemn, peaky face. We stood there admiring each other a moment, while I studied on what to say next. Luckily, it was at this very point that her mother came out, dressed in low-cut muslin, hair gold-glinting in the last of the sun. Saying, as she did—

“My daughter’s touched, sir—has been ever since the War, the night her father died. It’s these times, y’see; they weigh particular hard on small things, and the soft.”

I nodded at that, honestly enough—I’d certainly found them so, after all—then smiled again, to which she gave me just the slightest sketch of a smile back, both faint and weary: something worth cultivating, even in that state, polishing up and finding its full shine, so you could admire it at closer quarters. And I knew I was lost.

“Have t’keep my eye on her from now on, I s’pose,” I told the woman—Anthea, her name was, and is. The girl’s was Esmee, called Meem, for reasons I never thought to ask. She I let go, at her own request. Yet Anthea, my lovely wife, I hold to still.

And thus it began, the tale I’m calling on you to pen. Take it down at my direction, leaving nothing out, but I warn you, do not think to elaborate, either—for though my handwriting may be disreputable, I can cipher with the best of them.

“I have a secret wound,” I told Anthea, on our wedding night, several months from that same day. “From the War—don’t like to speak of how it happened, as I’m sure you can understand. So let me do for you, my darling, please. Tell me what you like, and let me do my best to supply it.”

“You’re the only man I’ve ever known who talks like that,” she said. “Sometimes . . . ”

“Sometimes?”

“ . . . you talk like you’re not one at all. A man, I mean. But only sometimes,” she hastened to add, for she did not wish to offend me. And hid her face in my shoulder, embarrassed.

“Perish the thought,” I said.

It was a good choice, in hindsight, though I mostly do not count myself philosophical. For what is life but a series of secret wounds, as well as what those wounds leave behind? Our scars hold us together, more than anything else. Wouldn’t you agree?

Well. It’s a thought, only; an opinion, whatever that’s worth. Even in my current position as mayor, not to mention this cursed place’s sole surviving citizen, I surely can’t legislate you share it.