Archive of Our Own

Many years into the future, mother, hanging clothes on a line between buildings, father, shaking out a rug from an open window, might have heard hammering, one or two blocks away, and thought little or nothing of it.

Kromer knew her father held no love for them. The notion brought her no pain, and she had almost forgotten the uncomfortable, stinging sensation of tears, even as snow fell over her. She rubbed her eyes, to prove it true.

There’s duty, of course. That’s something she could understand. Such was the reason her father hadn’t abandoned the old woman to her luck, to rot between stacks of yellowed books, despite the biting words she would always throw his way the second the man set foot inside her home, Kromer following him three steps behind.

Responsibility, some semblance of care, but never affection.

That was okay. The man had never kept any pretenses of love, and his daughter, in turn, had followed his honest example, never bothering with empty theatrics in the name of appearances.

She exhaled, warmth leaving her body. This morning, her father had finally deemed her grown-up enough to embark on the forty-minute-long journey without his company. Or perhaps he had grown tired of participating in such meaningless rituality, deciding to let his seven-year-old daughter carry its whole weight on her own. An extremely annoying weight.

What nonsense, she thought. “It’ll do our Franz good to spend some time with her grandmother”, that’s what he said, placing a heavy set of keys on her extended palm, then closing her fist, as if that would prevent her from opposing him. Sure, let’s go with that, she was good at playing along. A much more noble reasoning than admitting he wanted her out of his sight. Because no matter how hard he tried to believe himself a tolerant, rational man, the irrefutable truth was that her presence bothered him deeply, his uneasiness growing more apparent with each passing year.

Kromer repressed a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. To think that a mere child would have such an effect on him. She amused herself, imagining his impotent displeasure. If she had to guess, the thing that consumed her father with immature frustration was likely the fact that the two shared no physical resemblance whatsoever. No kind of resemblance, really. Men cared about petty affairs like that, or so she had heard.

“She is all Helena.”

The man looked nothing like his own mother either. Perhaps the only thing they shared was that severe, unlikable disposition, but his modest height and unimpressive physique didn’t do him any favors. It probably made him feel isolated among the family, the poor thing. Emasculated. That’s what Kromer would have concluded, if she paid the matter any mind.

Her feet stilled over the heavy, thick snow. Wearing such weighty leather boots made her move with far less dignity than she had wanted, and her childish, clumsy body was not helping her at all to maintain the air of elegant composure that she aspired to have.

“What’s the point of paving everywhere if they won’t bother maintaining the roads?”

“Cities desire everything to be in order. Comfort or its citizen’s welfare don’t play any role in it. If a city loses its order, it won’t be a city anymore. It’s as simple as that, a city does not live for its residents’ sake”.

Kromer thought that was perfectly fine too. A city didn’t need to be generous or kind.

Lost in her thoughts, her journey had come to an end before she had even realized it.

Unlike her small family of three, who lived in an unassuming, quaint residence on the periphery of Calw, mostly destined for those who would commute there during the day, her grandmother lived in a neighborhood clearly aimed at higher-income families. It wasn’t as Kromer had many complaints about her current living conditions, but every time she had to visit this part of town, a strange feeling of not belonging there settled inside her stomach.

Though what struck her as most curious was the fact that, in the middle of the many frankly opulent homes, with their charming red roofs, and beautiful trees that could bear fruit no matter the season, a manor like her grandmother’s was allowed to exist.

It must have been just as gorgeous as the rest, twenty years ago, but now, with mysterious black brambles, which Kromer couldn’t name, weaving their way about the walls, and windows boarded shut, its abandoned image clashed with the rest of the area in a way that would upset anyone’s sensibilities, especially those from the types of people who resided there.

Truly, it was a wonder why nobody had bought the propriety yet. She imagined most would trade the dilapidated old building for a trendy café in a heartbeat, or even just a grocery shop, so their cooks and nannies wouldn’t need to travel far.

With one hand resting over the rusted, ornamented iron gate, the other balancing a paper bag filled with plums, Kromer’s shoulders dropped. A gesture of silent surrender. There was no going back now, no matter how unpleasant her duty.

For a second, she stood in front of that small gate, the only thing that served as a barrier between the present and another relic of their abandoned past. That small moment of quietness, no piano lessons, no fretful preparations for the future, no stench of cognac, certainly wouldn’t last.

Once she was done stretching the moment for as long as the respectability of being on time allowed her, Kromer pushed onwards.

⁂

After repeated visits, Kromer had learned the old manor’s layout as well as the back of her hand. A two-floor stone building, whose only remarkable features were what had once been a rose garden –after years of neglect, the thing was more jungle than garden– and a pretty sizeable library on the second floor. One of the old woman’s hobbies? Maybe her deceased husband’s. Well, it made no difference to her.

And so, she made her way to the second floor, climbing the manor’s odd staircase. The construction was a little bit puzzling to her, two 360-degree spirals built with no central support, resting only on their base. She had even jumped on the steps with as much strength as her weight allowed her to, but while the wood creaked, the structure remained unaffected by her small fit of violence.

Wasn’t there some fable about something like this? 

Without knocking, as there was no need for politeness at that point, the child pushed a delicate crystal door located at the end of a seemingly unending corridor. Under the right light, it must have looked beautiful, as its colorful stained glass painted the scene of many butterflies resting over a wild flowerbed. However, in a gloomy, unlit room, such artistry was lost to her.

At the moment, the glass just reflected the sight of a small girl, coat unbuttoned, face chapped, and hair blown in all kinds of ridiculous directions.

Inside the library, there were two long sofas with red cloth and twisted designs carved into the ends, matching a large low table that most certainly hadn’t seen any use in a long, long time. Over her head, a large chandelier precariously hung from the ceiling.

She could smell a weak scent, like that of perfume or flowers lingering all around her. At the very least the wood and paper hadn’t started to rot just yet.

Despite the respectable size of the collection, Kromer struggled to be impressed by the sight. There were several bookshelves arranged in an orderly way; but otherwise, there was truly nothing of note. The shelves were filled with physical, paper books, all exquisitely bound. That much she could tell, even if she lacked interest. There were leather-bound books, cloth-bound hardcovers, books with gold and silver lettering and more. Apparently such things, books, were becoming oddities those days.

One of those finally caught Kromer’s eye. It had certainly seen better days, its brown, unassuming cover all yellowed and blackened in places. It felt heavy in her hands, and once she brought it close and opened the cover, a moldy smell wafted from the pages and tickled her nose.

Choosing a passage at random, from its yellowed pages she began to read, if only to kill some time.

Undoubtedly, the night will come when the Academy of Science will not disdain to cast its gaze on the sewers of the world. On that night, a violent storm will break against their doors, and flame will put an end to the shameful year of 983.

We wait, with hope, with longing, for that night to come. But as we are now, in this twilight and midnight of the world, when sin flourishes everywhere, when charity has grown cold, evils and their iniquities superabound.

“But worry not, child, as they cannot interfere with the stars. For God’s will persists, even under the twinkle of a fading star.”

When Kromer looked up reflexively, she saw the old woman once again, sitting on a visibly aged rocking chair, fingertips extended in her direction. She frowned, seeing as they were twisted, bent like a withered birch branch.

She could have sworn the room had been empty when she arrived. No matter what others said, she was an attentive child, so there was no way she could have missed the presence of another human being in such close proximity, even if they were someone she didn’t particularly want to meet again.

“Ömchen.”

The old woman’s pale gaze seemed to look straight through her, or more aptly put, her extended palms, as if she were reading the contents of the book in Kromer’s hands. Not returning her greeting, her host lifted the teacup that rested on the small, bronze table to her right side.

What a frighteningly gaunt face. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but her eyes continued to be as off-putting as always. They held more intensity than any dying thing should, burning not from an inner fire, but merely reflecting back, like two still mirrors.

During every single one of her visits, the child found her there, drinking deep red liquid that never seemed to run cold. She must have been some kind of magician, the child had once theorized, as it was impossible for the old woman to stand up on her own, much less make tea, or even hold a kettle.

Kromer’s frown deepened, catching the overpowering fragrance steaming from the teacup, bold and sickeningly sweet.

Her mother did call her a witch quite often. Perhaps there was some truth to those words after all.

“Welcome or you have some nerve, which one do you think would be more appropriate to say, Fräulein?”

Her expression didn’t show it, but Kromer could hear the caustic smile in her voice.

“Then again, you’ve been here before, haven’t you?” Twenty-seven times, none of them pleasant. “And at the very least, you haven’t brought that bumbling fool with you on this occasion. That alone warrants some commendation.”

Sitting perfectly straight as she was, the old thing looked almost elegant, both of her feet planted over a carpet with an intricate geometrical design that resembled flowers. Red, blue and gold.

“Good afternoon, Fräulein. I’m happy to see you’ve taken a liking to my library.”

A shaking hand beckoned her to sit, and so Kromer obeyed, briefly dusting an old armchair that once upon a time must have been red, before sitting down to the right of the closest bookshelf.

Make sure the old thing hasn’t passed away. Clean what needs to be cleaned. Bring her fresh fruit and bread. That was the extent of her duties, not engaging in pointless small talk or entertaining her endless tirades. But despite knowing that, Kromer couldn’t bring herself to interrupt her. Having no reasonable excuse for delays would mean she’d have to finish her tasks quickly, and finishing her tasks quickly would mean getting home early, and getting home early would mean she’d have to endure whatever idiotic dispute her parents would most certainly be waging at that very moment.

Maybe she had gotten pushed out of the house to grant her father all the freedom to do what needed to be done. Then again, there were times when her presence didn’t serve as much of a deterrent.

“This old book collection, stored behind locked doors…” Huh, perhaps Kromer had underestimated the old woman’s strength. Her hand didn’t falter as she served her a cup of tea. “Well, little miss, wouldn’t you say each one of those books is like a casket?”

“You are spilling the tea”, she replied in a deadpan tone, calmly watching as the liquid overflowed the teacup and ran across the floor, the red velvet of the carpet, and then wood tiles and all.

“Yes, I think so too. These are the only things left of their authors. The only remnant of their souls, as someone more romantic than I would put it –the soul is nonsense, just poetic drivel, but their metaphor is suitable enough–. And if that’s indeed the case, then this place amounts to little more than a communal grave.”

“Does that make you a grave keeper?”, Kromer asked, but her voice showed no interest in learning the answer. The old woman, as if she had not heard the child –or perhaps, she simply had no interest in Kromer’s remarks–, continued.

“In a way, you could say that a library is a city. We are each but caskets, locked within this city.”

Having realized she was only making a bigger mess she would later have to clean up, Kromer abruptly stopped the old woman’s hand, cringing a little as she touched her wrinkled naked skin.

She wouldn’t catch the old woman’s illness, would she? So far, it had never been a concern, but the brief sight of blisters under her long sleeves was unsettling enough to bring the idea to mind.

“That’s enough for now, I’m not very thirsty.”

The old woman hummed in agreement, setting the heavy teapot to the side, and then fixing a loose strand of pale, blonde hair behind her ear. It was yet another one of her mysteries, how she managed to braid it every morning with such swollen fingers.

If Kromer had felt any love, or even just some paltry amount of pity for the old woman, she would have found the sight of her battered hands a real shame. She could tell they had been beautiful in the past, long and slender. Perfect for playing the piano that now collected dust in front of the living room’s window.

Everything inside the manor served the sole purpose of collecting dust. The piano, the multitude of books, and the rotting old woman.

Looking at the matter from that point of view, she mused, then it was really no wonder most of her mother’s friends trembled in fear or disgust at the prospect of getting old. That explained why they bit their tongues in envy at the sight of well-off ladies trading flesh for machinery.

How infantile.

Kromer took a sip of her tea, feeling its overly sweet fragrance pass down her throat and then its heat spread throughout her body. No doubt about it, it was the synthetic kind. She could tell by its violently saccharin flavor that it was cheap, despite never having tasted anything much better. Was there a time when the old woman could afford the authentic kind? Perhaps not, despite it being obvious that she used to live a much more comfortable life, having been born in a Nest, unlike Kromer. (In that case, she deserves this, doesn’t she?). Then again, there was a time when authentic tea was not just reserved for high-class connoisseurs. Would the old woman have answered, had Kromer asked?

“Authentic flavor” was a luxury only the wealthy could regularly partake in, her father had told her once. He had not said so with resentment, as her mother did, but instead lukewarm admiration. Was the manufactured authenticity of the food that K Corp was known for the reason why her father had decided to return, tail between his legs, to his childhood hometown? To a mother he felt no love for? Kromer knew the old woman would not answer, even if she knew his real motives.

“It’s better to just spill the rest on the floor…”, she grumbled, noticing her companion had not taken any more sips from her own cup.

A library is a city. The nonsensical words of the old woman’s dying mind echoed inside hers.

Kromer retraced her steps from earlier that day. She had walked along the town’s structured streets, and in each artificially quaint building lining those streets, were the same kind of people, each and every one of them shutting themselves away in their own box. Sometimes, those boxes took the form of a body.

She sighed, lightly shaking her head. If the physical illness itself was not contagious, there was still a chance her sickness of the mind was.

“Ömchen”, she said, in the same mockingly sweet tone as before, tinted with night-shaded sneer. “Do you happen to have honey and milk? The real deal, none of that synthetic rubbish.”

⁂

After that, it snowed like there was no tomorrow. The world and Kromer grew older.

“I don’t know how anyone can bear it,” her mother had mumbled, face hidden between her shaking hands. To anyone else, she would have looked frail. A suffering, helpless thing. But Kromer knew better. “The bodies, the sinew burning…”.

She knew the woman was biting her lower lip until the flesh was left exposed, gripping long locks of white hair while trembling not in grief, but anger. Or was it revulsion? It was hard to exactly decipher that which she was trying to bite down and swallow, for Kromer’s mother had always left unsaid more than she had spoken.

“I cannot”, she repeated. “I simply cannot.”

“I don’t expect you to understand it, and in fact, it’s not your role or place to understand, but this is a great opportunity”, the man argued, trying to stop his wife from pulling on her hair. She had beautiful, long snow-white hair, fit for a princess or a queen. That was the reason why he had fallen in love with her.

“You can only say that because you’ve not seen it.”

You see, Kromer’s mother was a factory worker. She had once been a nurse, but after they had moved to the fairy tale-like town, her skills had to be repurposed.

“Don’t treat me like an idiot. Do you think I don’t k—"

Of course, that was a lie. He didn’t love her one bit, as she was now. The man thought then, from the bottom of his heart, that the sight of her shaking body, swollen eyes, and bleeding lip, was nothing but hideous. Did she want others to look down on him? At least his daughter, lacking as she was, knew how to keep her composure. She never cried, screamed, or bothered him with misplaced affections. Because good girls are seen, not heard, and Franz understood that much.

His wife, on the other hand, did not.

The man sighed.

There’s no longer much of a need for you, but that’s not to say that you can’t become something else. Better, even. Worry not, you are still plenty useful. You can become useful, for them and for me, despite your faithless indiscretions.

“Is there no meaning to us being ourselves? Is that what you are trying to say? That no matter how we celebrate, no matter how we grieve, we were all long just an inferior, disposable, worthless p—"

“That’s enough.”

And that, too, was Kromer’s cue to leave.

She would never understand her mother’s heart, nor would the woman ever open it to her daughter, but her words were something Kromer could agree with. If the world could be divided into useless and useful, whose intellect would have the right to make that judgment? It wouldn’t be that man’s, who would only distinguish between weeds and roses to reap profit from the useful. That was too mundane of a reason, Kromer thought.

But maybe they were both wrong in trying to find any satisfactory explanations. Maybe the only reason for this was a starved dog’s logic about greed.

For a brief moment, she felt genuinely sorry for her mother, the emotion replacing the usual pity mixed with vague, piled up frustrations. She had married such a worthless thing. But there was nothing the child could do for her, at least not at that time.

“Please.” She whispered, not to him. “Please, free me from this city.”

Unfortunately, words unheard are as words unspoken.

“Is she not coming?”

“She isn’t.”

Her father sighed, something he did quite often, while mumbling about losing a considerable amount of money due to the woman’s neurosis. His grip tightened around Kromer’s wrist just enough for it to be painful, but she didn’t care enough to voice her thoughts on the matter.

“Can’t even control herself, that one... You mustn’t become that type of woman.”

At that point, Kromer stopped listening.

She quite liked how their steps, uncoordinated as they were, sounded against the road’s cobblestones. The streetlights were also charming, faintly glowing blue and gold, as it would soon be Christmas. It seemed there was still some room for inefficiency within the town, as long as it was in the name of beauty. Everyone has an image to maintain, especially once they’ve achieved (achieved? Could one truly speak about efforts and worthiness in a place like that?) a certain status.

That must have been the reason why her father was parading her around on their way to the theater of all places, dressed in white, frilly clothes. Kromer wasn’t sure which part of the whole affair was more ridiculous.

In any case, he seemed to be sorely misinformed. A cute little girl would not earn him any points with the type of company he wanted to keep. Rather than that, perhaps what he needed to change was—

“We’ve arrived. I trust you know how to behave.”

His suit, for starters. It didn’t fit his frame whatsoever, sitting awkwardly on his shoulders, the sleeves too long and wrinkled. It reminded her of a child wearing his father’s clothes for the very first time, dreaming of crossing that coveted threshold into adulthood.

A mechanical arm offered Kromer a piece of paper as they made their way up the front stairs, which she accepted out of curiosity, despite ignoring the employee’s greeting. If her father noticed her small discourtesy, he did not show it. Or perhaps, he thought of them— of himself, as someone who was now deserving of occasionally reinforcing his higher position, and letting others know he was not like them. He was better, naturally. He was someone.

Kromer didn’t care for that sort of nonsense, she just found the touch of a stranger unpleasant, doubly so when it was someone like that. But still, she was a kind person. Or rather, she knew how to make kind gestures, and so, her expression didn’t morph into one of disgust.

The program for the night’s premiere was beautiful, pale pink and red roses decorating its margins, the performers’ names written in gold. Some of them had even come from other Nests, just to tour around K Corp. It was hard to remain completely unimpressed, despite her lack of real interest in— what was it, again? Well, whether it was a comedy, a tragedy, an opera or a drama, she—

On the page, it read,

The Cast

Коще́й, The Immortal …

Prince Иван …

Елена, The Most Beautiful …

The Firebird …

The Chorus …

Her father was not a man of the arts, and so he didn’t stop to read the program with Kromer, making her consider that he simply didn’t care. The play (it was, indeed, a play) might as well have starred a bunch of circus monkeys, and it would have been all the same for him. But he bought her a cup of hot chocolate, just like the other families did for their children, and asked if she’d rather sit on his lap as they waited, in case her new shoes were uncomfortable to wear, so Kromer judged his performance to be adequate.

“Keep it up and you’ll get full marks today.”

“Pardon?”

Kromer shook her head, smiling. See? She was also capable of being cooperative, as long as there was some kind of reward waiting for her.

“Did you rent all of the gallery’s seats for us?”, she asked, her hands absentmindedly caressing the balcony’s plush railing. From up there, she had an unobstructed view of the orchestra tuning their instruments.

“Do you have any idea of how much that would—” A crass slip of the tongue. That was not the place for her father to be so honest. “Somebody else had purchased some seats already, but maybe next time, sweetheart.”

She bit her cheek, repressing the expression of disgust that threatened to leave her. Later. They were playing nicely so far.

Then again, wouldn’t it be funny to watch him lose it in front of so many distinguished people? Kromer weighed her options for a second, and decided her momentary amusement wouldn’t be worth what would surely come afterward.

“No need, no need. The idea just crossed my mind, for some reason, but of course, it would be wasteful. Being here with you is more than enough.”

Alright, maybe that was overkill. His baffled expression showed that he didn’t believe a word she had just said. The child would take note of that.

“Just take a seat, you’ll fall if you keep leaning over the balustrade.”

“Yes, sir.”

A pointed look.

“Papa.”

That was better.

Kromer smiled as she sat beside him, lamenting the fact that she had drunk her hot chocolate instead of making it last. She could use something to wash away the disgusting aftertaste that word left in her mouth.

Even still, she made sure to keep her lips flat in a barely-there smile. It had always been her right to have a locked door between herself and the world, its key hers to hold. She wouldn’t allow anyone to change that, especially someone like him.

Just as the lights were getting dimmer, a sign of the show being about to begin, the velvet curtain behind them moved, revealing the apologetic face of a beautiful woman. Kromer gauged her father’s expression once more, considering the possibility of him arranging their seating just to meet her –she certainly wouldn’t put it past the man–, but he looked too surprised for it to be the case.

Besides, the lady was clearly way out of his league. Just a glance at her elegant blue dress, leather gloves and delicate jewelry told her that much.

After whispering a small Please excuse us (oh, only then did she notice the boy beside her, most likely her son, judging by the uncanny physical resemblance. Definitely out of her father’s league), she sat down. Before the man had the chance to answer with one of his typical asinine comments, the place went completely dark, hushing the audience’s murmur.

Breaking the silence, the sound of a spotlight echoed through the room. Under its light, falling like snowflakes, a masked man, dressed in black and blue as dark as the night. He extended his arm, gesturing to the other side of the stage with chivalrous devotion.

“Hello, Miss Porcelain Doll.”

There stood a young woman, equally masked, dressed in white and gold as bright as the stars.

The triumphant sounds of wind instruments announced her presence, and the woman, or rather, the porcelain doll, lifted her skirt in a curtsy.

Her sickly-sweet voice then replied, “Good evening, my puppeteer, no, our conductor. I’ve been waiting.”

Quietly, playfully, violins and violas joined in.

“I’ve been waiting for so long. So long, I’ve waited. For you to delight me with one of your stories.”

Despite her lukewarm expectations, Kromer found herself immediately engrossed, perhaps because the man’s voice made her skin crawl. What about it disgusted her so deeply… Was it love, pity, commiseration? Something she knew very well about, or something she would never be blessed with.

“Ah, but these stories, the ones I’ve brought with me tonight… They might be interesting, but they might as well be dissatisfying— meaningless, worthless…”

“I care not, my heart can bear it. Please, tell me. One of those stories about flowing rivers and rotting apples and soaring wrens.”

The man, now in front of the porcelain doll, bowed with reverence, and then kissed the back of her hand.

"As you wish, I shall show you a fairy tale.” Their fingers intertwined, sealing his promise. “Until you bore of it, until you need it no longer."

They spun together to the center of the stage, so lightly, as if they could walk above the ground, his steps always guiding hers.

“Now, shall we begin? Shall we end it? Has it already begun, is it already over? Let me tell you a tale! One tale, no— countless! Or a hundred, if I may…”

Following the conductor’s signal, the music’s tempo went faster, faster, faster, until each note reverberated inside her ribcage. Then, after a sharp stop, the man looked at the audience, offered them his most charming smile, and said,

“Because fairy tales belong to children.”

⁂

“Back in the day, people did things differently.”

Auto-da-fé, Kromer repeated each syllable inside her head, small fingers tracing the precise, golden calligraphy adorning the bottom of the page. As most books did, it described the remnants of folklore, now deteriorating in the minds of the elderly.

“I won’t be the one who’ll declare those days as merely things of the past, however… Yes, having an interest in history won’t hurt. That’s why such a field of study exists, so that we do not again forget what we have once forgotten. To reclaim what once was.”

The old woman put on airs as she made such assertion, as if she were reciting it from a stage.

During Kromer’s twenty-eight visit, the old woman had declared that she would take the role of her teacher. History, mathematics, the old myths people had believed in before the advent of science, monuments to utopias as romantic as utterly impractical, or how many individuals died by the fires of Saint Anthony, truth and forgery. Her lessons –if one could be kind enough to call them that– would abruptly shift focus without rhyme or reason.

The realms of truth and knowledge are two completely different places, she would retort to Kromer’s sarcastic doubts. Truth is what resists knowledge.

To her incredulity, the old woman now stood straight, or as straight as she could, something Kromer had never seen her do, didn’t think her capable of doing, fighting the tangled mess of thorned vines that threatened to eat the manor’s backyard, only assisted by an aged cane. She could offer some help, Kromer supposed, but that had never been part of her duties. Besides, it was comfortable there, sitting over the terracotta tiles, a tattered old book on her lap, and gentle sunlight warming her legs.

What was she even doing? Kromer was sure the old thing was about ready to roll over and die. Was it just stubbornness?

Ever so slowly, the now-gardener kneeled on the ground, and for a second the child thought in amazement that her unspoken desires had come true. Of course, that was not the case; her hopes remained useless, as she would not be freed from her duty for another six months.

A steady, confident hand plunged into one of the thorny bushes, and then pulled harshly at the root, not minding, or perhaps not feeling it pricking her unprotected skin.

She has truly lost her mind. But again, Kromer felt no inclination to stop her. Despite her many oddities and general unpleasantness, the old woman had proven herself to be occasionally entertaining.

From this angle, she had an unobstructed view of the old woman’s body, now not hidden between the oppressive shadows of her library.

“…”

Yes, she could clearly see it now. The skin of those arms was covered in blackened and purplish spots. Much like a specter, her hands eaten off. The child wondered if it hurt, if she could feel anything at all, if maybe it was the pain itself that moved her.

With a drive that was out of character coming from her, Kromer stood up, book forgotten, and quickly made her way to her grandmother’s side, stepping off the tilled path and into a tall growth of grass and weeds. Their needle-like leaves brushed against her bare knees, making her skin crawl. Kromer couldn’t help but allow the disgust to show on her face as she walked, but didn’t stop.

“Hey.”

“Has that fool taught you no manners?” Useless as a piece of moldy bread, she whispered.

Kromer shrugged. “He hasn’t taught me much of anything.”

“And that might be a fortunate thing.”

She couldn’t help but agree.

“Speaking of him, my father…”

Her small hands settled over the old woman’s bony shoulders, almost hugging her but not quite. Kromer could feel their sharp edges as she leaned over her body, even over the thick cloth of her dress. Such contact didn’t elicit as much disgust as it did before, having realized that, if her illness was contagious, she would have caught it a long, long time ago.

That day, the child was in a kind mood, and so she decided she would reveal a very important secret to the old woman.

“My father wants to turn you into a doll.”

The woman laughed without turning around to face her, pulling on another root, and then another, until the earth under the rose bush was left uncovered. She didn’t sound surprised.

“Oh, does he now?”

Kromer nodded; her gaze focused on the old woman’s nape.

“He sold you, to be exact. I don’t think he cares much about what happens. He repeats that it can be done, since it’s the only thing that can be done, but is unable to explain how that is. Mother says that the broken parts of a person cannot be rearranged together into something else. Well, they can, but they should not. In any case, he doesn’t care about what happens.”

As she spoke, her companion started to dig into the ground, barehanded. Kromer got even closer, resting her head over hers in a gesture devoid of any love. With some more effort, perhaps she could have been able to feel the movements of the woman’s muscles, nerves, or even viscera.

“He doesn’t care, but what he thinks matters very little. In the end, he is but a gear, and the gears will keep turning.” A sigh. “What a futile endeavor, to steal away the real presence of your body, make it absent, and destroy it. But still, the gears will keep turning. There was once someone who used to say such a thing, but that’s neither here nor there.”

The scabs blemishing the old woman’s skin were now filthy, the earth threatening to infect her wounds, but Kromer didn’t say a thing. Fretting over it was pointless, as her hands covered in scales never seemed to get any better. This didn’t upset her, nor did it upset the old woman; she probably knew herself a lost cause. There was no undoing decomposition— so reason dictates.

Leaning to one side with some playfulness, her young body hovering over hers, the child tried to catch sight of whatever was buried in the garden.

“I knew you would hate the idea, and because I pity you, I’ve come with a proposition for you.”

“Those things are just stand-ins for their lost sense of self. No, not lost, forfeited.”

She had said so many times in the past, when Kromer languidly rested her head over the old woman’s skirt. Nothing is immortal, but that knowledge was not a curse, but a great gift. The gift of selfhood. For people only have what they know they must lose, or what they are willing to lose. Selfhood, which is torment, blessing, humanity. It changes and shifts inside a chrysalis, and then it’s gone, like a butterfly torn to pieces by the winds. But –she asked– would you give up the craft of your hands, the passion of your heart, to buy safety for yourself, for a piece of eternity? Doing so would make you no better than a butterfly larva crushed inside its cocoon.

“Would you like me to kill you?”

After giving it much thought, the child had concluded that was the best solution she could offer the old woman. Even if she didn’t love her, the notion that she, as small and powerless as she now was, could change someone’s fate for the better made her smile.

“There’s little of you that needs to remain, for that process to work. But no matter how much they want to get rid of, they’ll still need a working brain.”

And so, she smiled, proud of her compassion.

“Don’t give them that satisfaction.”

Which was to say, die on your own terms. And since humans failed to die all the time, it only made sense for her to be of assistance.

“A fortunate death will still elude me, that much is true.” She was now elbow-deep in the soil. “But that’s not important to this story, as we haven’t reached its commencement yet, and it’s not me who must attend to it.”

Her lips twisted in a smile, in victory, though she probably didn’t realize it, and from the earth, she pulled a fragment of the sky.

“This will grant you a beginning.”

The old woman laughed and laughed, finally turning around. Holding the piece of glass in Kromer’s direction, she looked at her through it. Was that the first time she actually looked at the child?

“Of course, of course, I knew this blood of mine was destined for greater things. That truth persists, despite everything else.”

No, she wasn’t. She was looking through her, her irises lost in a place unseen.

“So you are aware of it, that you and I share blood. And here I thought the old lady’s feeble mind was too far gone to remember…”

“Impudent brat.”

“You’ll turn down my gift.”

“I don’t waste my time with unneeded things, and neither should you. Instead, let me show you a fragment of what’s to come.”

Both of her hands, dirty, bleeding once again, enveloped Kromer’s and, with strength unfitting for such a frail body, forced her to kneel on the ground. Immediately, a gentle cold chilled her hands, and then sharp pain shot up her arms.

“This is my gift to you.” In other words, a prayer for the future.

“A mirror…?”

A piece of mirror cut her extended palms. Although they burned, she didn’t avert her eyes.

What the child saw through the looking glass was—

“Be it a blessing or a curse, it does not matter.”

“I didn’t say anything about blessings or curses. In fact, what makes you think I believe in it?”

But she did believe in it. A clinging, restless feeling of hope engulfed Franz Kromer.

“You are the same as the wishes of the women who burned to death from Saint Anthony’s fire. You are the same as what they saw in the land beyond the mirror.”

In a fairy tale she had read long, long ago, there was once a mirror –the devil’s mirror–, which had the most peculiar power: If a good, pious thought passed through anyone's mind, it showed in the mirror as twisted desire. A beautiful rose garden would appear to be a pest infested, rotten dump, once reflected in the mirror.

And for that, the people celebrated. A miracle had come to pass. Or so, they asserted, because for the very first time they could see how the world and its people truly looked. This is a blessing, they sang, they feasted, they gripped the mirror until it shattered into hundreds of millions of pieces, or perhaps even more. As small as a grain of sand, the shards went flying throughout the wide world, and once they got into people’s eyes, they would stay there, the glass distorting everything they saw.

But the most pitiable of all were those who would take a fragment of the devil’s mirror into their hearts.

“My child, you’ll do good to remember this.” And Kromer would remember those words, ten years into the future. “Whenever you look into a mirror, you too will be observed by what resides in it.”

That was the moment when something within her began to fester.

Icy mirrors, fiery roses, ambiguous affection.

Before the end of summer, the old woman would die.

⁂

“Did you throw it all away?”

“Franz.”

“Even the intestines? I read they are five feet long, so there’s no way they would fit inside that thing…”

Her father sighed, rubbing his temples.

“Don’t ask complicated questions. I know they repurpose the fat. The only thing that stays is the brain, cerebellum, and nervous system.”

He struggled pronouncing cerebellum, the word coming out half-slurred.

“I heard from Beck that the meat gets sold to— what was it… this or that district… There, they use it to—”

“No one in their right mind would buy meat like that. The only thing left to do was to burn it.”

His voice sounded defeated. Ah, so he had actually hoped, prayed with all of his stone-like heart, for the procedure to succeed.

Ha.

“Your breath reeks”, she said, looking down at the man spread across the couch, then walking backwards just before a hand could grab her by the hair. It was getting too long for comfort, but her mother liked how ladylike it made her look.

It only then occurred to Kromer that perhaps her previous judgment had been slightly off the mark. If so, the truth was sadder, more pathetic than she could have imagined.

This thing wasn’t even capable of loving itself any longer.

Then, almost imperceptibly, whatever remained of the season lapsed away.

⁂

The day they buried what had been her grandmother, Kromer met a child whose face she would quickly forget.

But that didn’t matter. It was the most irrelevant part of the story, in fact. So unimportant that she wouldn’t bother remembering it for more than a week.

Three o’clock on a December afternoon; a moment’s blankness.

Then, what are you thinking?

Kromer blinked once, twice. She had dozed off.

She was inside a church. A church filled with the faithful, chandeliers, tunes, and prayer. The congregation, or what was left of it, had assembled for the special occasion. How fortunate they were.

Right in front of her, that thing— the priest, all dressed up in ceremonial black, continued to screech some ritualistic words to its audience all the way from the pulpit. Most were absorbed in his supplications.

“Most regrettable—”

“…this loss—"

Small as it was, it surprised Kromer that people had even shown up, as the old woman wasn’t a particularly beloved member of the community. None of them even knew her name, and so she wasn’t deserving of being called a ghost or haunting. Maybe an event like that was intriguing, a rare occurrence those days, so the novelty would attract some curious spectators. She could only recognize some faces, a couple of her father’s coworkers, the regular busybodies she had seen around town, and, perhaps most surprisingly, the elegant woman from the theater.

If there was some entertainment to be derived from such poor performances, then it was lost to her. She hoped the public would find her acting disappointing, so they would leave the church with the absolute certainty of having wasted their time.

“…because to die is our most human quality.”

“—go from city to city, carried along by the rivers.”

“As the minds from old conceived the soul to be.”

That voice was supposed to ring meaningful to her ears, but it did not. She should have wanted to join the chorus of mumbling voices, joining in that togetherness. Be one in spirit, be whole, all earthiness left behind if only for just a moment. But of course, like always, the prayers failed to elicit any feeling within her. He would call it another one of her personal failings.

Bored out of her mind, the child lifted her gaze towards The Procession of Saint ▇▇▇▇, above the Reverend Father, robed in blue and gold –lapis lazuli grinded into pools of ultramarine blue, and thinly crushed gold foil, its details lost to time–, and for the first time in her life thought that the world was incredibly ugly.

The whereabouts of the soul? Such a thing doesn’t exist, for them or for us. Though the reasons, of course, greatly differ.

“I know, you don’t need to say that to me…”. After all, she was way too old to need those kinds of romantic reassurances. Sure, there might have been some solace to be found in the belief that— how was it that they put it… snow or shale, calf or wolf, rose or lichen, each would be accepted into the City’s light. Something like that. Maybe believing that would make the heart feel lighter, less guilty. But truly, she had no need for that.

To her left, a couple of old spinsters were muttering over rosaries, mumbling prayers different from the ones she knew from her mother. Dregs of the old faith that would fade away without its conductor.

Not a second after the unbearable litany was over, she walked past them, head high, ignoring their attempts to catch her attention and express just how sorry they felt. How sorrowful it was, for a young girl like her to learn about loss. Here, feel how their hearts ached for her.

It’s me who feels sorry for you.

“Miss Kromer.”

The priest regarded her with practiced sadness, but merely out of obligation. Which was better than pity, Kromer supposed. Everyone’s pity was misplaced, for she had held no love for the old woman since the very beginning, and she certainly had not held any by the time of her death.

“I didn’t see your mother back there.”

“She’s unwell. You know her, she has a… weak constitution. So it’s just my father and I...”. Whispering, she added, “… and a couple of nosy others.”

“Be understanding. The members of the community just want to show their support during these trying times.”

“… Right. Of course.”

Did he feel grateful, having found some use for the old, long-untouched graveyard after so many years of disuse? Or did he find it cumbersome, having to fulfill a duty that shouldn’t have been his own?

Kromer couldn’t tell, as the priest’s face remained frozen in mechanical composure. Perhaps it felt nothing.

“Still, such a contradiction is difficult for me to ignore…”

Her father was certainly an odd one, she had heard the parishioners whisper after the wake. Oh, don’t say that, he was just granting an old woman’s dying wish. Born in another era. Born with inexplicable, forgotten values. She could not survive the age of science, no matter with how much desperation her son had tried to fit her inside a body that would allow her to transcend her withering husk. There was nothing that could be done about it, some people just didn’t possess what it took. But at least there wouldn’t be more pain.

What a shame. What a tragedy. One that must not be repeated, one that must be avoided at all costs, for there was nothing more horrifying than that.

Kromer rolled her eyes.

She would repeat it again, if anyone cared to listen: she had no affection for that mismatched collection of flesh and scraps of metal that now slept six feet beneath the ground, decaying, rotting, rusting. Kromer needed no consolation, no kind, half-hearted words, no pats on the back. Really, enough was enough. There was no one for her to grief, and there was no remorse for the good she had not done or the love she had not given.

Of course, that was not the old woman. No matter how much the priest intoned that life and death are one, life elides into death, corpse and spirit. There was nobody to whom she could— would offer flowers or the smoke of censers. The old woman was nowhere, nothing remained, and that was the end of it. She was there just to play the part of a grieving grandchild, because, after all, it turned out her father did have some sense of shame. It required barely any effort out of her, so Kromer supposed she had little reason to complain.

But for some reason, the child had found herself with a new, perplexing feeling settling deeply within her chest. It made her teeth clench with novel sincerity every time her gaze met her father’s over the dinner table.

Despite her inexperience, Kromer correctly guessed that what she was feeling was resentment.

“What I saw when I looked at her—" Her father had tried to reason with his wife. It wasn’t the kind of conversation a young child should witness, but the two adults had been too engrossed in their argument to shoo her out of the kitchen. It took him just a beat too long to finish his sentence, as if he had struggled choosing how to name her. “Was an aberration caused by something else than just old age. An affliction. An affliction is what the doctor called it. What’s so wrong about trying to cure it with the means this Nest has granted us?”

Her mother hadn’t answered him, as she knew, just like Kromer knew, that the man did nothing out of filial piety, much less out of kindness.

“Wouldn’t you have done the same, if you were in my shoes?”

Kromer didn’t like many things about her mother, but that cold, stubborn anger was one of the rare qualities she did appreciate.

“I would have told that doctor of yours to find another test subject. Better yet, from the very beginning I would have told that… businessman to shove his words right up—”

“Helena.”

“My God.” Her mother was truly an old-fashioned person, Kromer mused, her right hand stirring a cup of milk. “Why make a dying person go through that? It’s… wrong. I know what I’ve said before, but it’s— And to what end? Only to— won’t you at least give her a proper burial?”

Honey, honey… where was it? She couldn’t swallow the taste of the artificial sweetener her father was so fond of.

“You wanted to torture that woman.”

Kromer had nodded her little head in approval. Those people, the ones her father wanted so desperately to belong to, could weave big dreams of merging with machine, of living more than their natural time allowed them to, but that old woman could not. Would not. Of that, she was certain.

What her father had done was not the desperate last resort of a loving son, nor was it a regretful mercy kill, or anything of the like. It was no different to the neighborhood’s kids playing around with a blind, dying dog, until the poor thing gave up. Kromer had watched them do that twice, actually. Well, before moving to Calw. Those things didn’t happen in Calw.

Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a stray dog here.

In any case, the man had deserved his wife’s relentless words, and the silent fury that came afterward. Regardless of his childish cruelty, forcing his own mother inside a brass coffin, he had always been a bad man. For as long as she knew him. And bad men deserved to suffer, Kromer sentenced.

Perhaps the old woman would have gotten a laugh out of the man’s failures, if she could have witnessed them. It was a sweet thought.

“I think I’d like to have a last moment with… her, alone”, she said in a whisper, not waiting for the priest’s answer. He would have to extend to Kromer the same understanding that was demanded of her. Turn a blind eye to her rudeness, if you’d be so kind. It was way too early in the day to return to her father’s side.

Over the churchyard, the sky was white as clay. It had rained all night, but now there was only quietness, occasionally interrupted by birdsong.

The last time she saw the old woman was also the first time she set foot inside her bedchamber.

After months of the same tired old routine, her seemingly unending strength –or stubbornness, perhaps, no, most definitely stubbornness– finally dwindled down, little by little, bit by bit, until it was impossible for her to hold the weight of her own body.

Back then, the old woman, the witch, Ömchen, laid in her bed, staring at the tobacco smoke swirling above her. As the hookah that sat at her bedside quietly toasted tobacco leaves, she inhaled shallowly from a golden mouthpiece, holding the smoke in her mouth and letting it sluggishly seep down into her lungs.

“Is it painful?”

She exhaled, watching the gloomy room fill with ashen swirls, and shook her head.

“Is it fun?”

“Quite so.”

The child had slipped through the thin gap in the door and walked towards the bed, fanning the air as she pulled an old stool next to her, and then sat down cross-legged. Resting her elbow on a knee and her head on her palm, she bent forward, looking closely at the old woman.

She smiled— happily, joyfully, annoyed, forlorn. But smiling, she said,

“You will die.”

“I’ll die again. Or I’ll keep dying.”

Once more, neither were truly speaking to one another. That’s how most of their conversations went.

“Father’s misguided attempts will fail, and you will die. You’ll finish dying, if that’s how you’d rather put it.”

“That’s quite the promise, little miss.”

With her free hand, the child had held onto a broken piece of glass. What should have been resting on the vanity, she had taken, and she now used it to observe the old woman, much like someone would use a magnifying glass.

“Should have accepted my offer. Or do you not care about preserving your dignity? Whatever of it remains… There’s still time to regret it.”

The illusion that she saw projected by the mirror was that of the old woman’s body sectioned into four parts. Legs still attached to her pelvis, two arms flipping through the pages of a book –blank, page after page–, and her sleeping head. Curiously, her torso was nowhere to be found.

The old woman exhaled once more, and the smoke danced as if on stage, drifting to all four corners of the ceiling. It had nowhere to go, like the stagnant and empty breath of a bird who missed its chance to hatch, bound by its egg’s unbroken shell.

“You have my sincere well-wishes, Fräulein. This time, end this boring comedy, this idle tragedy… This story no child would ever enjoy.”

Then, her grandmother reached out to touch her face.

“That will suffice. For us.”

From the instant the phrase slipped between them, something ended. Or perhaps, began.

In the present, a hand –much smaller, lacking in confidence– grabbed the sleeve of her black dress, lighting pulling on it.

Kromer turned around. Two eyes, soft, bright, unremarkable, looked at her.

It could have been her general bad mood, or maybe just the unsolicited interruption, but for whatever reason, her frame tensed up.

“… Well?”

In front of her, a child trembled like a leaf. He wasn’t able to hold her gaze for more than a second, and now he nervously looked over his shoulder, trying to find someone among the small group of adults by the church’s steps, some of them chatting, others smoking on their own.

She did not recognize him. Calw was tiny, so there was a good chance they had crossed paths before, but he didn’t look familiar in the slightest. Then again, her social circle amounted to just her neighbor’s kids, Beck, the odd but not completely insufferable girl from her piano lessons, and… That was it, really.

The one Kromer did recognize was the businessman exchanging quiet words with her father. They were too far away for her to understand their conversation, but she was able to read her father’s apologetic body language all the same.

Her eyes widened, not exactly shocked, not completely speechless, having reached a most natural conclusion. Indignation ignited inside her stomach, then died down.

“Do you want to take a look around?” Kromer asked him, though she wasn’t really asking as she grabbed his hand, already hating the contact. She would get this duty over with, as she always did, no matter how tedious. “Do you want me to show you?”

“That’s not what I… Uh, my father…”

He might as well be a newborn puppy, the way he acts. Her observation was not affectionate or positive, it was dispassionate at best.

He followed her easily, without any effort. Kromer barely had to pull on his hand. Such a small hand. His fingers actually intertwined with hers.

“I’ll show you everything there’s to see here. Although it’s not much, maybe you’ll be able to learn something new.”

He was nothing, nothing at all. Just a crack where the light slipped through.

“But—"

“It’ll be fine as long as we are within his sight. Didn’t he send you my way to cheer me up, make friends, or some crap like that?”

The kid gasped and told her –despite his ineptitude with words– that she wasn’t exactly wrong. Kromer found herself hating him.

In the blink of an eye, she was able to imagine, even accurately predict, their whole dynamic. Just like authorities, institutions and traditions did, fathers also outlived their usefulness, if they even had some to begin with. But being unwilling to grow old gracefully and wither away, they become parasitic upon the future. Even grotesquely attempting to renew their youth by any means.

The more she thought about it, the more Kromer stomped on the ground, still wet and muddy from last night’s downpour, until the leather shoes and white socks that her mother had so lovingly chosen this morning got completely ruined.

“This—” Kromer extended her arms to their limits as she spoke, “is where people are grieved for and wept over. That old woman’s grave is just over there.” She gestured, pointing to the left with one of her legs, briefly and dismissively.

The world did not begin with this child’s father, and it will not end with him. He is— no, he was just one pulsebeat in the throbbing river. Now, the thing can’t even compare to a pebble.

Surrounding the pair was a small collection of gravestones. Most of them battered by time, flowers turned to dust, names inscribed in stone barely legible. Here and there you could recognize a Beloved or a Father or an outdated religious symbol. The old woman’s grave stood out in the middle of such a sorry sight, as she was probably the first person to be buried there in more than a couple of decades. It was just the natural result of most people either preferring cremation or the other, much more appalling alternative.

“T-That’s…”

“Sad?”

“Perhaps it’s insensitive or imprudent of me to say but… Yeah, it’s very… sad.”

“Soon, they’ll get rid of the need for these kinds of sorrows. In fact, I’m sure their ultimate goal is to get rid of the need for any kind of sorrow. Perhaps soon, in the near future, there’ll come a day when we won’t even need sad songs.”

Not minding her manners –it was rare that Kromer did–, she sat on the only decently clean grave that there was. Her shoes were killing her.

“Doesn’t that sound absolutely wonderful?”

“No, you— You shouldn’t sit there…”

“Oh, here? Don’t worry, she doesn’t mind. Wouldn’t mind. We were actually super close, so I’m sure granny wouldn’t mind it at all. But if she is upset, she could just come back to life like everyone else with those robot suits.”

“Did she…?”

The child nodded theatrically, with way more effort than it was needed.

“They buried her inside that metallic carcass just in case the procedure actually worked after some time, and she could rise from the dead.” She lowered her voice and made gestures with her fingers for better effect. The boy flinched. “Humans always cling to the most impossible of hopes… Like when people used to get buried with bells around their necks, in the hopes that there was still some life left in them. After waking up, they would make them ring and be rescued from the jaws of death.”

“Did something like that ever work?”

She laughed unkindly.

“Of course not.”

“O-Oh…”

“Gestures and rituals aren’t about their effectiveness. In fact, they rarely ever work, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth performing.” The girl said, only believing half of her words. “Did you know? They used to pour millet and poppy seeds on graves, to feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.”

His expression showed he found it kind of morbid.

“Though there aren’t many birds to feed, just, huh, the controlled species… I think that when my parents were young, that used to be different.”

“And feeding near putrefied scraps seems unappealing…” Absentmindedly, she added, “Perhaps tonight the rain will anoint this abandoned machinery.”

A light breeze rustled the leaves of the trees near them. Kromer rested her tired face on her palms, and whispering, she spoke with sincerity for the first time in the day.

“When I close my eyes, I can’t recall her face. And you? Can you remember your father’s face?”

Her companion was taken aback, and tried to argue against it, but ultimately couldn’t. Whatever was in his mind, died inside his throat.

Knowing she wasn’t the only one to have experienced that kind of loss made her smile, even if the boy hadn’t quite realized it yet. There would come a day when that unquestionable truth would become inescapable to him. He would learn that mothers rage, and fathers kill, and friends betray, and he would wish he had listened to her that day, so it had been easier to come to terms with the fact that they lived in a world where such horrors exist.

Kromer jumped from her seat, her feet splattering mud all around them, and held the boy’s hands, grinning condescendingly. She could finally truly smile, because she had been assured of her own superiority.

“Well, with all that I’ve told you, perhaps you’ll be able to teach him a thing or two about death.”

Not that it would change anything. The story had already started inside that manor’s threadbare room. Its mechanism would keep turning, because it was the future she was promised.

“I don’t know, I don’t want— Hey, let go—"

The child’s complexion was pale and glistening with sweat, as if he was about to vomit. Nervously, he freed himself from her grasp, blindly walking backwards until he tripped over an exposed root, hurting himself in the process.

“Ah.”

They looked at each other for a quiet moment. The sky opened, and the fresh, sweet aroma of jasmine entered her lungs.

There was someone calling out his name. Kromer wouldn’t remember it.

When her father took her hand, dragging her out of the churchyard, she did not look back.