An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon

This close to the end of the day, she lost the ability to modulate her naturally abrupt manner for the comfort of others.

Aster carried that knowledge inside her. These men had the means and opportunity to destroy evidence, to protect their legacy, but not one of them thought earnest discussion of reanimating a person’s limbs for the purpose of manual labor warranted deletion from their official record. Forget the horrifying cruelty—the incompetent science of it all.

She’d thought she’d trained her mind out of its predisposition toward excessive literalism, but there it was, persistent as ever, making a fool of her. “It was a ridiculous thing to say,” the Surgeon went on. “Hyperbolic and, even when not taken literally, probably an exaggeration.”

He turned back to her, eyes expectant, hopeful—like she might just lay her forgiveness upon him as easily as one bestows a goodnight kiss upon a child’s cheek.

The whole point of occupying a position of power was that you got to do what you wanted with impunity. It seemed a waste of time to bother with rationalizations.

I have done at least one good thing: become a person my father would hate.

She’s keen on schedules and keen on people sticking to them. We’re similar in that way. I like cycles and repetition. I like a good sense of rigor in my day. It helps me mark the passing of time. It helps me honor each moment. I have no personal sense of time, no real feel for what it means when sand passes through an hourglass. Sometimes it takes an hour. More frequently, it’s an instant, days, universes.

People do not know what to make of me, and this pleases me. I don’t want to be scrutable.

“Though Careful is not my middle name, I will endeavor to behave as though it is,”

“Aster, you’re not my intellectual equal. You’re my intellectual superior,”

Omfggg

Theo, hand on his cocked-out hip. It wasn’t a gesture he’d perform in public, and it was good to see him behave so unconsciously, letting his body move in the ways that came naturally to him.

Throwing up

She was standing on the edge of a new world and so ready to jump. How Lucifer felt upon leaving the Heavens. He didn’t fall. He dove.

though only a few cubits separated them, Aster felt that to touch his hand she’d have to first journey across a gulf the width of the universe itself, which she understood from her studies of physics was constantly expanding.

People were so often mean that when they weren’t, there was a tendency to bestow sainthood upon them. Aster did not reward common decency with her affection.

I expect to see you. If not, well wishes.

THEY GAVE HER A CHOICE

She looked neither male nor female, but if one were to pick—and people so did like to pick—they would choose male,

Family meant: to be determined. There were some words that meant everything and others that meant nothing: love baby god dark.

Aston would listen attentively and hiss at Theo to be quiet as he made jokes under his breath about Patrocles’s mustache actually being the thing that was under otherworldly physiomatic constraints.

Aster’s was filled with Flick’s frozen foot, freshly gathered from the botanarium. She had written and attached a note that said, Now that you are sovereign, please consider reevaluating the atmosphere controls in the lowerdecks.

Get his ass

Nothing is more sad than a person who believes in something that’s so clearly not true.

I don’t have romantic feelings. I never fell in love with a person the way princesses falls in love with princes. I never wanted to be with nobody in bed. Aster, though, my love for her is—it’s malignant. And if I try to chop it off, all the bits of love will spread everywhere else and infect me worse.

He was born the most loving, kindest soul, and stayed that way, the very opposite of me.

He’d been searching for her through the crowd, who knew for how long.

“It’s not right to make fun of someone for the way the Heavens made them. Do the stars laugh at the planets? The bee at the sunflower? And so forth? Huh, child? No. So stop taking joy in the plights of others.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re in one of your moods.” “The mourning of a child’s murder is not one of my moods, so please do not dismiss it thus.”

You keep thinking there’s a reason for everything, ’cause you can figure some out. There ain’t. All the bad that’s happened to you, it was never about you. It was about them. You can’t blame yourself.

What would you have me do? Pretend not to care about you? Not think about you? I wish I could. I wish I could not think about you.”

“You thought we were what? What do you delude yourself into thinking you are to me?”

Sorry?! I know weare protectin her but godDAMN

Dearest Aster (and that you are, I swear it, more dear to me than any other),

“You are mean because inside you’re tiny. So tiny you cannot hold up the weight of your own body. You must inflate your ego just to fill the skin.

Memories could not be unmemoried, only shuffled so as not to be in the forefront of things.

What was a person’s self but carefully articulated mimicry?

“I believe in unseen things,” she replied, imagining the billions of atoms floating around her.

“I’m giving it to you because your writing is abysmal. I bid you use it.” He gestured to her to-do list. “No. I believe you are trying to woo me. Sorry, but I am unwooable.”

theo lovvs A s T E R with alll his hart.

“No. Your quarters are fine. I thought there might be a Book verse against that. There shan’t be any Asters past dark.” He smiled at her attempt at humor, for which she was grateful.

“And if we run into a guard?” “Then I will kill him, Aster, should they wish to report you to the Sovereign. I will kill him regardless. I will kill him for being a potential threat. It is really that simple. I should have killed those men who came for you before. I didn’t because I lacked faith. I have prayed on the matter and am feeling resolved.”

Aster raised her right hand and saw the cast. There was black calligraphic writing on the white gauze. Beneath lies Aster’s hand.

Why is this so cute

“Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling,” she said, the fog of anesthesia wearing off. She could see him clearly now. The curl of his lashes. The white flecks of skin over his dry lips. “Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn’t decide what it wanted to be?” “I think it doesn’t matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not,” he answered.

“Is that so? Then I am magic. I say it, therefore it is true,” she said. “It is true. You are a very rare magic, Aster. Don’t you know that?”

The most important thing to know about me is that I have an extremely nice bum, the type you’d like to smack, spank, grab hold of, lick, bite. It’s a bum that will be passed down in stories. So what happened was Giselle’s bum. Once upon a time there was Giselle’s bum. Brer Boar saved the world from Giselle’s bum. It’s be-all, end-all bum.

I’m a bad, bad girl (sultry pouty face), and I need to be punished.

Lmfao

do you think of me at night? I am a religious man. religiously devoted to me. so you are a god? aye. That would explain the curious hold you have over me.

She hates it when I talk like this, because it reminds her of how different she is, and more than that, how we all notice that difference.

She’s glass. I’m glass. We’re all glass, busted up, unrecognizable from our original selves. We walk around in fragments. It’s a circus act.

Maybe she’ll save me. Maybe I want to be saved.