The Triple Wick might be a whorehouse, but it’s a graveyard that greets them. Lines of people curled up outside, the lucky wrapped in sheets, the rest exposed, staring up endlessly at a cold, dank ceiling. Most are women; brothel workers — it always hits them hardest. Rivin knows this in his bones.

  His stomach twists as they draw closer, passing a rickety and crumbling fence leaning heavy with the sick. Each of them has skin the colour of a deep bruise, a bloom of violet, greens and blue, their scalps balding and scoured with bulging azure veins that also pulse the whites of their eyes, blooming there, bursting like tiny stars.

  Rivin’s chest is tight, his breathing too. It’s not contagious, he thinks, steely eyes wide with horror. Why have they been left out here to die?

  They don’t get much further than the bridge to cross, but it’s close enough to see the glint of voltage wire beneath the muddy surface of water, shining there like carefully laid teeth.

  They’re halted by a woman with urgent, glistening eyes. She’s dressed completely in matching garb, a tunic and headdress pair the colour of ash and ribbed with an ornate silver torso curled around her front. The only glimpse of her face is visible through a slim rectangular opening in a velvet mask; lashes curled up and tipped with flakes of white aluminium, glistening alongside studded tears that trail either side of her nose.

  “Welcome,” she says, and despite her teary eyes—and the mass of dead surrounding the cabin just as clearly as the water—the woman stands straight and practiced to regard them, appearing to smile. She steps closer, before her face blooms with recognition, eyes crinkling with mirth. “Baby Grey, it is you.” Her gaze flickers between Rivin and the others, “And you’ve bought new friends.” Her voice is smooth and wise, like water sweeping over ancient stone, and yet it feels to him like sandpaper, like skin through the grater. “Come to change your fates?”

  “We’re not here for that,” he explains, clearing his throat. He catches Roach’s curious glance from his periphery, angles his body to avoid it, and steps aside to reveal the two small beings peeking out from behind him.

  The woman’s breath hitches. “C-Coel?” Her hands, completely covered in a taut velvet fabric, tremble as she reaches forward, caught midair. “A-Abi?”

  “Hi Cloth,” Coel waves shyly from the hip.

  The woman does not embrace them, does not rush forward as they might expect; instead, her hand drops back down to her side, her eyes flinching at the state of their features, the rises, lumps and divots over once supple skin.

  “We’re back.” Abi’s voice quivers. “Has Mama been worried?”

  Cloth turns away. “No.” She cups her mouth over the fabric before turning to face them again, steeling her cold shiver. “No, she knew you’d be back.”

  “Where is she?” Coel glances around at the masses. “Is she… here?”

  Cloth doesn’t answer. “You can’t stay. You must leave.”

  “W-What?” The pair gasp in unison.

  “Not without Mama!” Abi follows.

  Cloth draws forward swiftly, waving her hands to quieten them. “Keep your voices down,” she pleads before turning to the others, glancing anxiously behind her. “Please, please, you must get them out of here.”

  “Gladly,” Chip scoffs. “This place is a dump.”

  “Not yet.” Rivin steps forward. “You heard them.” He narrows his eyes. “Where is she?”

  “Is she dead?” Coel’s voice doesn’t shake; he’s strong when he asks. “Did you leave her to die out here like the rest of them?”

  Cloth draws a breath, pinching her eyes closed before opening them, real tears joining the gems down her cheeks; she whispers, “No.”

  The siblings step forward. “We have to see her.” Urges Coel.

  “Take us to her!” Emphasises Abi.

  “Children,” Cloth squats, gently grasping for their arms. “Please, please. She thinks you’re dead; this is your chance—”

  “Mama does?” Abi sputters.

  “N-No.” She shakes her head. “Atrop—”

  The doors to the cabin shift, the front—an ornate and finely carved mural of three naked women ensorcelled by fire—crunching with golden gears as it unfolds. The sound appears to summon the dying, rousing many from their rest, gaunt bodies twitching against the dust as foggy water gushes through copper pipes and out from serpentine vents either side of the doorway, steaming into the boggy trenches below.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  “Clotho!” Someone calls from within, shrouded in a haze of steaming perfume. “Clotho!” The light behind the silhouette bleeds across the landscape, drenching the bodies of those crawling forward, dragging themselves towards it.

  Cloth hangs her head. Defeat sitting heavy on her shoulders. “Please… Please, you must leave.” Her voice hitches, betraying her.

  Coel wrenches his arm away, stepping around her and pulling Abi along. “Not without her.”

  “Who is that?” Sen asks under his breath, gesturing to the figure, clearer now as the steam disperses.

  Rivin looks too. He can see that they’re draped in a yellow tunic and a golden headdress, so tall they must duck their heads beneath the frame of the door and tilt their necks forward and down.

  “Mama’s sister,” Abi explains, following her brother.

  “Madame Atropos,” Cloth corrects, returning to her feet to clasp her hands in front of herself demurely.

  Coel’s head spins back. “Madame?” he asks, raising a brow. “Since when?”

  The women looks down again, staring at her feet. “Please run, Coel. She can’t see you. Please—”

  The figure, apparent now, clutches her chest as though pained. “Children!” She cries, outstretching her arms, reaching towards them but not moving, not daring to bridge the distance herself. “Oh, children! Come to me! I have awaited this day!”

  Rivin can see now that her headdress is an amber skull, its edges ribbed with small holes latched with dangling jewels, attached at the back to cogs and a jaw curving around her face. Like her twin, nothing but a thin sliver reveals her face; two eyes, one struck through with an angry twisted scar, retina whited-out and weeping, the other a stark and watchful indigo.

  Neither child moves forward, but Cloth hangs her head and turns to face the other, summoning a smile that looks painful, even behind the garb. For a second, her eyes shift backwards, again at the pair, her chest shuddering beneath silver ribs, before she looks ahead, and in a voice now cold of emotion or hope, she says, “Please follow me,” and advances towards the Madame.

  Reluctantly, solemnly, the siblings follow, and as they do, the figure keeps her arms outstretched like wings, golden hanging sleeves her plumage, and dips back her head to wait.

  Rivin glances to Roach, who has remained uncharacteristically silent throughout it all, arms crossed, her face passive and unreadable. She’s not watching the reunion, her eyes glued to the masses in the dirt, the bruised bodies of the diseased desperately seeking the light; several approach the edge of the filthy pond, calling out without a sound.

  It’s always been like this. Rivin fists his hands and looks away. No one cares for the sick.

  A flash of black hair behind his eyes stuns his stomach and lurches whatever small meal he’d managed before they’d left. He tries to push the knots away, the way they’d tangle around his fingers and toes and catch him up while he slept; fat clumps of pieces that used to belong to her now caught in his teeth, in his throat. He swallows it down.

  “Are we really going in there?” Chip questions, appearing over his shoulder. Rivin tries to pretend he’s not startled, that his heart doesn’t thunder against his teeth, that his blood isn’t all caught up and clotted.

  “You want to stay out here?” Slink follows, looking entirely unbothered as he steps on ahead, folding his arms behind his neck. “C’mon guys, this is the easy part.”

  Rivin swallows. Nods. He’s right. He looks up at the building, the beautiful mosaic windows glossing over the death and decay. As foreboding as Cloth’s warning was, this wasn’t going to be like the last time. No, never again.

  “You let me know if you need me,” Chip offers, moving on, his hand latched onto Ricket’s, who is prodding at Sen, pushing him reluctantly forward.

  “I’m going, I’m going!” The blonde hisses in response.

  Rivin follows, albeit reluctantly, trailing behind them as they cross the stone bridge. His legs feel too heavy, his soul too stressed, and for any other reason that might give him a minute of breath, he takes his time to end this moment. To remain the same person he’d promised to be. The person who’d never come back here.

  SPLASH. SPLASH.

  The water lights up right beneath his feet, sparking with an electrical storm, spiderwebbing blue veins of light through the cold and murky depths.

  He pauses at the edge, turns to face the source, the bodies now encased in the bog, fine crests of smoke rising from their backs. It looks like two fell in, still buzzing from the voltage, twitching against the now glowing spark of wire net.

  The vomit is coming again, hurtling up his throat, or perhaps that’s tears, perhaps that’s grief, perhaps that’s—

  “Baby Grey?” Roach inclines her head, suddenly besides him, hands folded over the frame.

  Rivin draws a sharp and shuddering breath, biting the inside of his cheek. He can’t pull his eyes away. “Don’t ask.”

  “Well, I’m askin’,” she returns, resisting a smile. “Is that your fightin’ name?”

  He sighs, scratching the back of his neck, before he turns away, draws a breath. “Sure.”

  The girl looks ahead, amber irises sweeping across the looming mansion and soaking over each rafter and beam, each peak of staircase or room hidden behind thick glass and dense curtain, unbothered by the stinking of flesh still clinging through incense and sick. “Maybe I don’t know everything,” she hums, amused.

  Rivin forces his lips to curve, continuing down the path. “You’re only just starting to get that?”

  She falls into step, returning the grin and sheepishly shrugging. “Fake it until you make it, right?”

  He glances back one last time, grey eyes flinching over the still waters. “Some things are better left buried, Roach,” he tells her, turning back to broach the doorway, but as he steps through he warns her quietly beneath his breath, “Leave this one alone, huh?”

  The girl only narrows her eyes but doesn’t answer, following along silently.

  Behind them, the door folds closed, sealing the dead and the dying beneath a cold blanket of putrid dark as one by one, like lights blinking out, each uncared-for returned, unmoving, to the dust.