Authors: Anton Strout
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy
Alchemystic (2 page)
Now, let’s see what trouble we can get into this time, shall we?
As a means of contrast with the sublime,
the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source
that nature can offer art.
—VICTOR HUGO
One
Stanis
W
aking was easy. Something primal in the night sky called out to me like a banshee at the witching hour. When was the last time I had even encountered one of them? I wondered. I could not recall that…or much of anything. But that was always the way of waking, I remembered. The lingering disorientation of dreaming held its sway for a moment longer before slipping from my grasp like leaves on the wind. The haunting, faintly familiar face that had been the focus of the dreams faded.
Stanis,
the figure said, and nothing more. I fought to hold the image—that of a pale gentleman with wild black tangles of hair and kind blue eyes.
Had the hair always been black? I was not sure. Frozen fragments of my broken memories made me swear I recalled this exact same figure with a full head of gray as well, but already I could feel something in my mind pushing those thoughts aside as the routine of waking took over.
I stretched, every muscle in my form crying out with pure joy. As I relaxed my body, an intense itch flared down two long sections of my back.
My wings,
I remembered.
Of course.
I looked over my shoulder to find the giant stone wings like those of a bat curled close to my back. I worked the muscles
along my shoulder blades, the heavy wings extending, flexing out for a moment to relieve the itch they had called forth upon my waking, both pleasure and pain in the gesture.
A hunger awoke in my chest, but I forced myself to ignore it for the moment. It would win—as it always did—but for now I fought it off as my hearing focused in on the sounds of the city rising up all around me. The occasional bleat of traffic down below sounded out, much like the sheep I remembered that used to roam the vast fields that had once occupied this island.
Manhattan,
I recalled. Long ago, the whole island had looked more like the tiny park in front of the building where I had awoken, the one the humans called
Gramercy
.
A cool wind blew through the green leaves of the trees in it—had they not
just
been bare?
Was the word
Manhattan
even right, either? I was not sure and forced myself to concentrate through my still-lingering confusion of thoughts. I looked at the towers of glass and light rising up around me, hoping for familiarity and glad when I discerned a few that kept their long-standing forms, still unchanged in this modern world.
The tallest of the skyline’s towers still stood off to the north of my rooftop, its lone spire illuminated in bright lights—this time red, blue, and white. Sometime in the near future the sky itself would light up in colorful explosive bursts, the humans celebrating, cheering…but surely it was not already that time of year again? I did not understand the ritual, but it was something I used to mark the passing of the years.
I turned from the building and its light, looking south now. In recent times, the skyline had changed a great deal that way. Two of its other great towers had stood there, once the highest and most majestic points on that horizon, but now there was nothing where I remembered those structures to have been, which only added to my sense of disorientation.
Before I could wonder too long whether I was mistaken in my thoughts, that gnawing hunger rose in my chest again, a burning need to
do
. What, though, I still was not quite sure. It picked away at me like a hammer at stone until I could
ignore it no longer. The itching sensation between my shoulders rejoined it and I gave in to the pull of it all. Looking back over my shoulder, I watched my stone wings unfurl from against my body once more, stretching twice as wide as I stood tall. The itch died as I worked them, retracting the wings close to my body and then extending them to their fullest over and over.
My mind began to clear. All of the sensations rose to the center of my thoughts, a strong and unrecalled memory forcing itself forward—one of the rules.
Protect.
With wings extended, I leapt off my perch along the edge of the roof I called home, my body dropping into the night sky. As I tumbled down toward the park, my wings recalled memories of flight, lifting me before I struck the street full of traffic below. I set off, heading north, the red, blue, and white lights of the tallest tower a flaming beacon of orientation, all other thoughts leaving me as that one word once again consumed all other thoughts, burning them away.
Protect.
But just what I was meant to protect, I was unsure.
I flew.
Alexandra
P
unching clay felt a
lot
more satisfying than any sexy-time
Ghost
-pottery-wheel-spinning nonsense ever could. Each strike released my anger, my balled-up fists sinking rewardingly into the unfinished statue’s form, the clay still too soft to actually do any damage to my fingers or wrists. In my twenty-two years, I hadn’t been violent by nature; nor had I ever spent my time punching much of anything, but in the moment, rage held its sway over me and I couldn’t stop myself.
I pulled my hands free, flecks of clay flying and sticking into my long black hair. Normally I’d have already tied it up while working in our old unused Belarus family art studio on the seventh floor. But then again, normally, someone—namely my brother—wouldn’t have dressed my latest attempt at a Gothic-inspired statue so it was wearing a basketball jersey and mirrored sunglasses, one of its now-deformed hands wrapped around a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. As a final comment on my artistry, a half-smoked cigarette hung from its mouth, along with ten more discarded butts adorning the top of its head in an attempt at a Statue of Liberty–type crown.
A sound from somewhere up above the art studio, on the roof of the building itself, snapped me out of my red rage,
making me step back from my now-even-worse-looking statue-in-progress. Whatever potential I had seen in it was now lost, its form pummeled and twisted like something Salvador Dalí would have envisioned. I let out a long sigh and wiped my now-gray hands down the front of the overalls I preferred to wear in the art space. They weren’t exactly flattering, but function won out over fashion in my book, some of the clay getting on the straps of the black tank top I wore underneath them. My whole ensemble was coated in enough clay, it was most likely trash-bound anyway.
I walked across the large open floor of my family’s building, out of my great-great-grandfather’s art space with its dozens of historic pieces and hundreds of puzzle boxes, past his rows and rows of private library collection before sidestepping around one of the many mid-nineteenth century sofas there.
Having heard the sounds on the roof, which I was sure meant my brother, Devon, was up there, I threw open the door leading out to the small terrace just below it, walked out, and turned to face it as I stared up into the night sky.
“Hey, asshole!” I shouted. “Get the hell down here, right now!”
No response. Typical Devon. I stormed back in, leaving the July air to pour into the building, which was musty enough to need a good airing out every once in a while anyway. I went back over to the art studio, heading for the table I had left my shoulder bag on. I tore it open with such a fury I shocked myself, worried for a moment that I had ruined it. That thought riled me even more, to the point that by the time I found my phone, my hands were shaking.
I clicked on “Devon,” then waited for it to dial through, my eyes panning the room as I stood there. Part of me was already secretly glad I had destroyed my work. Compared to everything else around the art studio—here thanks to the long-lost talents and skills of my great-great-grandfather Alexander Belarus—mine was a pale imitation.
“Yeah?” my brother’s voice barked into the phone, causing me to jump. Short. Curt. So very Devon.
“Get down from the roof,” I said. “Now!”
His usual heavy sigh came through the phone. “Lexi, what are you rambling on about now? I’m not even home. I’m waiting on a meeting.”
I pulled my phone away from my face and checked the time. “At this time of night? It’s nearly eleven!”
“Listen,” he said. “Sometimes you’re dealing with contractors, unions, architects, zoning, permits…and that shit waits for no man. Got it? You take the meetings when they come. C’mon, I realize you have no grasp of the family business—”
“Nor do I
have
to,” I said. “That’s what they have you for. I have zero interest in real estate development.”
“Aww,” my brother mocked. “I thought you were all about family and the Belarus legacy, Lex.”
“Moving property and writing contracts are
not
the Belarus legacy,” I said. “It’s the actual art and architecture that our great-great-grandfather crafted for this city. You’d know that if you actually opened a book in our family library or just looked for once at one of his pieces of art here. Speaking of which…”
Devon chuckled. “Hey, you
just
said you wanted me to spend more time in the art studio, right?”
“Not
defacing
my art,” I said. “I would appreciate it if you’d keep your hands off of my work.”
“That’s not work,” he said. “Dressing up, learning the family business…
That’s
work.”
“Firstborn son gets all those perks,” I said. “Not me.” I had never even been on our father’s radar for that type of stuff. Devon was the favored scion. Truthfully, I didn’t care about all the construction and landlording…and Devon knew it, this not being the first time our differences on honoring the family’s name had put us at odds. “Our true legacy, I have always and still believe, lies in the beauty of the buildings our great-great-grandfather designed, Devon. My work as a sculptor is the best way I know how to pay homage to that. You,
dear
brother, don’t care about design or craftsmanship. You care about cold, hard cash.”
“You should take an interest in the family business,” he said, his voice dark now, his business tone.
I laughed into the phone. “Are we the mob now, Devon?”
“Carving pretty things isn’t where the money is,” he said. “That’s why I did what I did to your precious statue—to prove my point. That stuff’s not important for the Belarus name. It’s land. It’s property. Jesus, Lexi, do you have any idea how this company runs? This is about land in Manhattan, about who controls it, and who can earn off it. No one cares who designed the buildings.”
“Half this city owes Alexander Belarus a debt of gratitude!” I shouted.
“Fine, Lex, I’ll build him a museum. We’ll put all his stuff behind glass, charge admission. Then we might make some money. You’d be happy. I’d be happy. Everybody wins. Will that suffice?”
“Not really,” I said, unable to let go of my anger, my short nails digging into the palm of my free hand. “You’d probably just screw up everything in the museum like you did here in the studio.”