The Rust Maidens Read online

  She runs her finger along a lonesome edge of the treehouse. “The butterflies come back here sometimes,” she says. “It’s like they remember this used to be for them.”

  “Not just for them.” I yank a rusted nail from the floorboard, and it shivers in my hand. I recoil and let it fall below into the dirt. “This place was for us too.”

  The construction crew works late tonight. Quinn and I go down to the sidewalk to watch the next house fall. It’s almost sunset when it crumbles. Lisa and Kathleen’s house, the one that should have been taken apart years ago.

  “It won’t be long now,” Quinn says, and the streetlight flashes off her arm. Something glistens there like polished metal, and all around the wound, her skin is already puckering. The same as old leather. The same as Jacqueline’s.

  I close my eyes. This cycle that none of us can break. God knows I’ve tried, but all I can do is make things worse. There was nothing I could do then, and there’s nothing I can do now.

  I need to stop pretending. I need to stop lying to myself that I can make a difference. This city evicted me once before, and it’s time to let it evict me again.

  “Take care of yourself,” I say to Quinn, before turning away and walking home alone, sobbing silently all the way.

  FIFTEEN

  “Phoebe, you have to come down.”

  “You can’t stay up there forever.”

  “It will only be worse the longer you don’t listen to us.”

  This had been going on all morning. My parents and the other parents and every nosy person awake at this terrible hour had been having a one-sided argument with me. Ever since I left the mansion and climbed up the treehouse alone.

  Only not quite alone. Eleanor fussed in my arms. That was the crux of the problem. I wouldn’t let my parents or Clint or anybody else up to claim her. Apparently, the world would prefer you leave a baby alone in a mansion or in a milk crate on an empty porch than care enough to protect her.

  According to them, keeping her up here wasn’t kindness. It was kidnapping.

  “I’m not a very good abductor if you know where she is,” I called down to the ground.

  “Phoebe, please,” my mother said, coaxing me the same way she did when I was a kindergartener who wouldn’t brush my teeth. “Just come down and it will all be okay.”

  But nothing would be okay now. An hour before sunrise, somebody—probably Clint or one of his rubbish parents—had called the police. Now I counted no less than six uniforms milling about the backyard like aimless cockroaches. Nobody could figure out what to do next. It was all “maybe try this” or “no, definitely try that” or “just berate the girl until it’s all too much and she gives the baby up out of mere exhaustion.” Not that anything could exhaust me enough to let them have Eleanor. Dawn had asked me to care for her. I’d failed the Rust Maidens enough already. I couldn’t fail them again.

  Indistinct voices on the ground. I strained to hear what their next plan might be. Three times, so far, the fathers had wedged a Craftsman ladder up against the window, but whenever they started to climb up, I kicked it back down again and hollered at them to go away. There was talk of bringing a fire truck into the yard, as though Eleanor was a mewing, wide-eyed kitten stranded in a too-high branch, but it was decided that the houses on Denton Street were packed too close together to maneuver the vehicle in successfully.

  “Too bad.” I sneered down at them through the window before I ducked back inside. Part of me feared that if the police couldn’t come up with any better strategy, they might just open fire, Bonnie and Clyde-style. That would solve the problem. That would solve me. Some people in this neighborhood would probably say that was the only way to solve me.

  I curled in the corner, Eleanor in one arm and my tartan thermos tucked under the other. The adults downstairs weren’t getting either one. The butterflies fluttered by, unfazed at the early morning hijinks.

  “Phoebe?” My mother’s voice, distant and strained. “What happened in the mansion?”

  I poked just my eyes over the window. “I don’t know,” I said. “What did Clint tell you?”

  “Nothing.” She pursed her lips and grimaced. “He won’t talk to anyone.”

  I grunted. Typical. “How about Mr. Carter? Ask him what he saw.”

  My father hesitated. Nobody in the yard would look at me.

  “He’s gone.”

  I squinted at them. “Gone?”

  My mother waved one hand in the air like it was all too much for her.

  “Kathleen says he packed up his pickup truck and left at dawn. Didn’t even say goodbye.” She sighed before adding, “Didn’t change his soiled clothes, either.”

  I let out a cackle that ricocheted off the sky. This was the best news I could expect. That bitter old beast finally realized what he should have always known: that his youngest daughter was more powerful than he’d ever be.

  Pack your bags, I wanted to say to everyone. Make like Mr. Carter and leave. Because those girls deserve this town more than you do.

  “What luggage did he take with him? A crate of Mad Dog 20/20?” I laughed again. “I assume he left his regret piled up at the back door. That’d be too heavy to carry.”

  “Phoebe.” My mother snapped her tongue and glared up at me. “You’re not helping.”

  I smiled at her. I wasn’t hurting anything either.

  The government men were the next to arrive, dragged out of bed earlier than any of us liked. The three of them consulted with the police and parents on the ground and formulated a plan of attack, which basically just involved Adrian positioning the ladder for a fourth try and climbing up himself. Though I considered knocking it down when he was halfway up, I didn’t. A clever scheme, to send him. Other than Jacqueline, he was the only one at this point that I would talk to. Though she would have been the most convincing of anyone.

  He was in the treehouse before I could decide what to do next, so I just crawled backwards against the wall.

  “I won’t give her to you,” I said, and cradled Eleanor closer to me.

  Adrian wavered in the doorway, bluish crescents rimming his bloodshot eyes. “They’ll arrest you, Phoebe,” he said, “and I won’t be able to stop them.”

  “So?” My body stiffened, defiant to the last. “Let them try.”

  He shook his head. “You know they’re going to take Eleanor one way or the other. You can’t stop that.”

  He was right. Either I gave her up now and saved myself from the county jail, or they took down the treehouse piece by piece to get her. And I didn’t know how to take care of a baby anyhow. Eleanor hadn’t eaten or had her diaper changed or had any of the things that I should have known how to do. No matter what the choice, I made the wrong one. I was failing Eleanor just by being near her. Failing her, and failing Dawn too.

  I squeezed Eleanor’s tiny hand. She babbled softly at me. Then, with every fiber of my body fizzling with defeat, I passed her to Adrian and tried not to sob. She squirmed and cried out in his arms as he carried her down. The parents rejoiced, and somebody took her away. Far from me. Far from where she belonged.

  I watched through the window, hating all of them. Even Adrian, who flashed his government badge at the police and worked his magic, sending them on their way, all of the officers mumbling and kicking the grass, disappointed they didn’t get to lead me away in shackles.

  When they were gone, I huddled in the corner and wished I didn’t exist. Dawn had made one request, just one, and I couldn’t even do that right.

  By the time I came down to earth myself, it was after dark, and the yard was empty. Nobody cared much now that Eleanor was safely back at home with Clint. As safe as anything with Clint could ever be.

  I stood frozen in the grass and stared at the house. In the yellow glow of the dining room, my parents drifted back and forth, clearing their plates after dinner, their mouths moving but not making a sound, at least not one I could hear. It was like watching a silent movie of your life, only w
ithout you in it. They didn’t look happy in there without me, but they didn’t look miserable either. I’d disturbed them enough today, so I just left them alone and sneaked between the houses to our driveway. The Impala was already unlocked, the key in the visor.

  I turned on the radio, reclined in the driver’s seat, and pretended I had somewhere to go.

  WMMS buzzed through the speakers. Request hour. I rolled my eyes and almost flicked off the station. Listeners were always so terrible at picking good songs. I didn’t know why the DJs let them choose to begin with.

  Something whispered behind the car, strange and tinny, butwhen I looked back, it was gone. Or it was never there at all. I was seeing ghosts where there were only shadows.

  The DJ came back on the air. “WMMS, what song would you like to request?”

  A hushed voice crackled through, strange and soft but still so familiar. “Can you play “American Girl” by Tom Petty?”

  Everything in the world stood still.

  “Absolutely,” the DJ said brightly. “Is this a dedication to anybody special?”

  “Yes,” the voice whispered. “For Phoebe.”

  Jacqueline. I turned up the radio like I would find her in the static, but it was only those opening guitar riffs and that nasally voice that always sounded as close as family. How did she call from the mansion? There was no phone. And how did she know I was listening?

  Unless it was them that passed by a moment ago. Unless they weren’t visible in the night anymore.

  The payphone down the block. She called from the Ma Bell payphone, the same place I’d reached out to Kathleen from all those weeks ago.

  I was out of the car and running before I could think it through or figure out what I would say to her. I should have taken the Impala, but somehow, it seemed that maybe I could make it faster on foot. That I was so determined I might fly. I didn’t stop running, not until I got there where she wasn’t.

  Breathless, I stood in the empty darkness at the corner. My hand reached out and touched the receiver, but it was cold. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t here.

  But then headlights flashed on the payphone, and I saw it there, glinting. The shape of a triple moon, etched into the booth, made by a hand even stronger than glass. I looked to the street, hope surging through me. Somewhere, past these rows of crowded houses, a car backfired, and the smell of smoke and wet earth mingled in the air.

  I stared into the murk of the evening. There was no one. Maybe I was too late. Then, as I turned away, back toward Denton Street, toward home, there they were in the corner of my eye, moving away from here. Away from me.

  I slipped out of the phone booth and followed as best as I could. It wasn’t easy. Their bodies were more shadow than human. Everything about them shifted constantly. The color of rust one moment, a senseless gray the next. Only when they stepped against a clearing could I see them, their figures in sharp relief against the blank of the night sky, a sky that had no rot or want. Otherwise, they blended into the decay of Cleveland, and there was plenty of that to go around.

  At first, I could barely tell them apart. But the longer they moved and the more I followed, the better I could see them. They were one, but they were also still themselves. Jacqueline’s steps always softer than a ghost’s. Dawn cowering in on herself, ashamed at her mere existence. Helena and Violet, paired up together, eager to follow. And Lisa, leading them everywhere they went. Always so strange and unreachable, she was the first to change. That meant she knew the most about this, had felt the transformation stirring in her the longest. This was a role she’d been born to play, the de facto leader of girls who were now just like her. She was no longer alone. My heart swelled for an instant, that girl with no friends united at last with others that understood. But there had been a trade-off. Now I was the one who was alone. The world always balanced itself out like that.

  We were half a mile away from home before I realized there was only one place they could be going. Straight for the steel mill.

  I crept behind them, struggling to keep up. They glided through the rusted fence like it was water, but I wasn’t so limber. I had to climb over, and I had to wait until they were out of earshot. Otherwise they’d catch me following, and might disappear altogether. Maybe forever.

  This was such a strange place for them to go. But in a way, I understood. This mill had given us life. Food on the table, roofs over our head, a shape to our everyday existences. Now it was closed up, bound for rust, and soon to be forgotten. The girls were the same, and they understood that. They would take this place and repurpose it for themselves.

  They moved into the heart of the machinery and gathered around the blast furnace, so still in the darkness. Everything here was corroded and old, except for the door that led to the inside of the furnace, the space that used to heat up the rest of the mill. It was so odd to see that one spot of newness in a sea of rust, and these girls shadowed against it.

  Their voices were nails against glass as they whispered about what to do next.

  Then, apparently, it was decided, because they turned together toward the snarls of metal. Their hands extended as one into the darkness, toward the blast furnace. Though I couldn’t see their faces, I imagined them with a shared look of reverence. Worshippers at an altar, ready to give themselves over to a higher power.

  But it wasn’t to be. Unlike the chain-link fence, their fingers didn’t go through the furnace. Instead, their bodies were solid and whole, like normal girls. At this, Lisa shook her head, and the others mimicked the movement. Something was wrong or not quite right, or not quite ready.

  With their heads tipped down, they were gone as quickly as they’d appeared, and I guessed where they were going. Back to the mansion. Back to their temporary home.

  I turned, desperate to cut them off before they got there, to figure out a way to move faster than darkness, when a voice like a distant bell draped over me.

  “Hello, Phoebe.”

  It took me a moment to realize that Jacqueline was standing right in front of me.

  Her eyes were filmed with oil, and her skin—if you could even call it that now—was a tapestry of pewter-colored metal and broken glass and water that dripped thick and viscous from her body. There was almost nothing of her left. Unless this was who she really was, and the best friend I thought I’d known was the imposter.

  “Hello,” I said, my voice much steadier than I expected.

  We walked together, out of the mill and down toward the lake. All the way, my guts roiled with fear that someone might spot us. What would they do if they saw Jacqueline like this? Would they steal her away from me? Or now that she was changed, would they just scream and flee, the same as Mr. Carter?

  It didn’t matter, because Cleveland was quiet tonight. We were alone. We were safe.

  At the shoreline, we nestled in the sand. It wasn’t our usual beach, but this was all part of one lake, wasn’t it? The water was the same everywhere. Poisonous, but ours.

  There was a small space between us, more than I usually left. I didn’t know how close she wanted me.

  “Are you afraid of me?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  She laughed, and the sound like whirring machinery hummed on my skin. “You would say that.”

  “It’s true.” I tried to smile back at her, but couldn’t. “What does it feel like?”

  “Not as bad as you’d think.” She traced a triple moon sign in the dirty sand between us. “It’s painful sometimes. Change always is.”

  I hesitated before asking the same question she’d never had a chance to answer at the clinic. “Are you scared?”

  She inhaled a heavy breath. “I’m not,” she said.

  There was a flash of hope in her dark eyes that had never been there before. Dread rose up inside me as I finally understood.

  “Jacqueline,” I whispered. “Do you want this?”

  She wouldn’t look at me. “I wouldn’t have c
hosen it,” she said. “This chose me.”

  But that wasn’t the whole answer, and we both knew it.

  “So you didn’t choose it,” I said, “but it doesn’t bother you, does it?”

  Jacqueline gazed at me, and everything in her looked lit from the inside. “It doesn’t feel wrong, Phoebe. It feels like the only way.”

  Like fate, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say it. This force of nature stronger than both of us, pulling Jacqueline away from me. And her, my best friend, willing to listen to its siren call. Maybe she’d been straining to hear it all her life. I couldn’t give her a future she wanted, so something else did it for me.

  We watched the waves ripple in the moonlight.

  Then I peered at her in the dark, struggling to discern her from the shadows. “Would you like to go in?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I can’t, Phoebe.”

  She didn’t have to explain. I’d figured it out already. Lisa had vanished for a moment in the water. Maybe she did it on purpose, or maybe she didn’t. All I knew was that the decay was hungry for the girls, and the girls, in their own way, were hungry to go to it. But it had to be the right time and place. It had to be what the Rust Maidens chose. They had a say in that much.

  I wanted to tell her that it was all okay. That we could fix this. But I knew that wasn’t true. Not anymore. It had gone too far.

  So we just sat together quietly, the way that we used to. Back when we thought our lives would turn out differently. Back when we didn’t know what to think.

  Just before dawn, the boats started to come in, and we couldn’t stay in the open any longer. Together, we clambered to our feet, and with her eyes uncertain, she reached out and took my hand. My fingers tingled with her touch. I expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. Nothing about her was painful. Either that, or everything was, and I was too numb now to know the difference.

  On Denton Street, the neighborhood was awakening, and we sneaked together through what was left of the dark to get her home before one of the mothers saw what she’d become. It was too early for a scream like that.