#escherich

(A short story featuring Yersinia and Escherich Mourningstar, before the contagion.. . and before things got really interesting.)

  I watched the long fingers of Escherich's slender hands as he sketched in soft graphite. He was drawing her shape from memory, but anyone not in the room would have thought he'd had the original model right there before him. Every curve and plane of her body seemed exact. . . though I was fairly certain he'd never actually seen that particular girl naked.

  He paused, frowning at the page a moment. “It's not right.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he was already tearing the page from the book. This was the thirteenth version he'd scrapped. I was counting. I closed my mouth again, sitting stiffly in the old yellow corduroy beanbag chair I'd made him when we were younger.

  “It's not . . hell.” Escherich ran his fingers through wild dark hair, the light catching and making the colour seem green. We had the same hair. From our father. Our mother's had been a fiery red.

  “You'll get it,” I whispered, meaning the words to sound soft and reassuring. He looked at me with that scowl but then nodded, turning to another page. I let the tension drain from my shoulders when he didn't yell.

  “Come here,” he said.

  I unfolded from the beanbag stretching as I did so that the bones in my spine all popped deliciously. I had been sitting there still as a statue for the past hour, and it felt good to move again. Carefully, I stepped over the scattered papers, my movements silent, my bare feet only lightly touching the soft wool of the braided rug.

  “I want to try something different,” his voice was patient and calm, detached even, like a doctor speaking to a patient. He stood, gently moving my limbs and body into position as if I were a mannequin. I suppose, really I was. A mannequin to help him put a skeleton to the true form he was creating.

  “What's her name?” I asked, my voice almost silent. He just smiled, really more of a smirk, and put a finger to my lips before turning back to his desk. He then lifted the graphite stick again, touching it to the new paper.

  I watched the lines begin to form on that crisp sheet, smudges creating shadows and contrast to the girl with my skeleton who looked nothing like me. His hands moved like whispers over her body, forming her curves; full hips, smaller breasts, all pale as smoke in shades of gray and white and black.

  I stood, statue still, silent, watching. How long had passed? Half an hour? An hour? Two? Finally there she was, Escherich staring down at her as if she'd cursed him. Maybe she had.

  “What's wrong?” I whispered. I sounded myself like a ghost. Haunting, alone. Haunted. No echos in that nearly empty room.

  For a long moment I thought he wasn't going to answer. His eyes were fixed on the form of the girl on the paper. . . I did not dare move to place a hand on his shoulder or turn him. “Your hair,” he said. Was he speaking to the girl? He looked up then, his pale blue eyes fixed on me.

  “My. . .?” the force of his gaze was such that I almost stumbled back. I held my pose.

  “Give me your hand.”

  I felt my hand moving towards him almost against my own will. His fingers closed around my upturned palm. “Her name is Lana,” he said, speaking like a man under a spell. I lifted my eyes to his, catching his haunted blue gaze with my own. There was a sharp pain in my fingertip. “Perfect.” I could feel the soft hair of a brush dab against my finger and he released my hand, turning back to the drawing.

  Red hair. Of course she would have red hair. They always had red hair. I felt the muscles in my jaw clench up, let my eyes close so I wouldn't have to look at the iron oxide-red of the strands as Escherich painted them. So I wouldn't have to imagine them pouring over pale shoulders, down to perfect breasts. My blood painting his perfection.

  “There,” he said finally. I opened my eyes. He was smiling. Suddenly I felt like I could breathe again. “You can move now.” I felt my own lips returning his smile as I relaxed, shaking out my stiff arms and once more stretching my back. He was watching me.

  “You all done then?” I asked, picking up my robe from the floor. I probably needed to study for my anatomy exam anyway. That's what I'd been doing before Escher called me over. The soft silk-satin of the robe kissed my skin as I wrapped it around my form.

  He looked at the finished drawing once, then let his pale eyes drift around the room, to the discarded half-crumpled pages, then to me. I wondered what he was seeing as he looked me over. Or who.