seemed as real as a photo, but the eyes and the way she held her hands looked subtly off.
Silently, I went down the hallway. A fair-size kitchen with white tile and a brushed steel sink and refrigerator and stove. A breakfast bar with ironwork stools to match the fence outside. A bathroom with the lights out. A bedroom, and on the bed, laid out as if in state, a corpse.
I could feel the blood leaving my face. I didn’t scream, but I put my hand on the door frame to keep steady. My stomach tightened and flipped. I stepped forward. Whoever he’d been, he’d been dead for a long time. The skin was desiccated, tight, and waxy; the nose was sunken; the hands folded on his chest were fleshless as chicken wings. Blackened teeth lurked behind ruined lips. Wisps of colorless hair still clung to the scalp. He was wearing a white shirt with suspenders and pants that came up to his rib cage, like someone from a forties movie.
I crouched at the side of the bed, disgusted, fascinated, and frightened. My mind was jumping and screeching like a monkey behind my eyes, but there was something wrong. I had touched my nose before I figured it out, like my body already knew and had to give me the hint. He didn’t smell like a corpse. He didn’t smell like anything. He smelled cold .
I had started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t a body at all but some kind of desperately Goth wax sculpture when the eyes opened with a wet click.
This time, I screamed.
“You aren’t Eric,” it said in a voice like a rusted cattle gate opening.
“I’m his niece,” I said. I didn’t remember running across the room, but my back was pressed against the wall now. I tried to squeak less when I spoke again. “I’m Jayné.”
He repeated my name like he was tasting it. Zha- nay .
“French?” he asked.
“My mother’s side,” I said. “People usually say it like Jane or Janey.”
“Monolingual fuckwits,” he said, and sat up. I thought I could hear his joints creaking like leather, but I might have only imagined it. “You’re here, that means something happened to Eric?”
“He’s dead.”
The man sighed.
“I was afraid of that,” he said. “Explains a lot. The little rat fuckers must have sussed him out.”
The skeletal, awkward hand rubbed his chin like it was checking for stubble. When he looked at me, his eyes were the yellow of old ivory. In motion, he didn’t look like a corpse, only a badly damaged man.
“Hey,” he said, “where are my manners, eh? You want a drink?”
“Um,” I said. And then, “Yes.”
He led the way back to the kitchen. I perched on one of the stools while he poured two generous fingers of brandy into a water glass. I’d seen pictures of people who survived horrific burns, and while he didn’t bear those scars, the effect was much the same. I could see it when his joints—shoulder, hip, elbow—didn’t quite bend the way they were meant to. He walked carefully. I wanted to ask what had happened to him, but I couldn’t think of a way to phrase it that didn’t seem excruciatingly rude. I tried not to stare the way you try not to look at people with harelips or missing hands, but my eyes just kept going back.
Guilt started pulling at me. Even if it was officially my place, coming in the way I had was rude. Clearly Uncle Eric had been letting the guy crash here. He poured a glass for himself, then took a wood cutting board from the cabinet beside the refrigerator and a knife from its holder.
“So,” he said. “He didn’t tell you a goddamn thing about all this, did he?”
“Not really,” I said, and sipped the brandy. I never drankmuch, but I could tell that the liquor was better than I’d ever had.
“Yeah. Like him,” the man said, and put a cast-iron skillet on the burner. “Well. Shit, I don’t know where to start. My name’s Midian. Midian Clark. Your uncle and I were working together.”
If I pretended I was listening to Tom Waits, his voice wasn’t so bad.
“What