The Seventh Mansion Read online

  * * *

  The only way to get the body through the woods is to drag it, walking backward, skull pressed facedown into his chest. Boots digging into the underbrush. Ferns shuddering in their wake. Starlight striping the length of the cape, shadows gathered in its stiff folds. Lone owl. Rustle of fox. He has to go slow, step carefully, arms and legs burning. Weave through the birch. Past the dead tree. The stream peeling back from the rocks. Walk right into the water. Splash and drag. Pull him through the gate. The sunflowers nodding on their stalks. Panting. Stepping over the threshold and something like gold, coming from the body, all around. No time to marvel. Still the ladder to go. Will have to. Undress him first. The wide skirt, the breastplate, each long boot, hinges at the back stiff with age; he takes it all off, exposing the armor’s lining of thick red velvet, unfaded, wet from where the water came through the boots. A pile of silver and gold on the living room rug but the treasure is here. Can you believe. That it is yours. The body pure, unadorned, so small without its armor. You must. Take care. Skull against his chest, legs hooked over Xie’s arm. Up the steps, then laid gently on the bed, quick stroke of the ribs and then several trips for the armor, stacked in the back of the small closet, the cape the hardest because it is almost too wide to fit, it scrapes the paint off the wall as he wedges it through. Lock the door. There. Turn to see. The skull nested on the pillow, barely a dent. Look at me. He kneels on the mattress, naked. Candlelight brightening the sides of the bones. The ribs a narrow bell, holding their fistful of air. Xie’s hand where the heart would be. He caresses the spine, the most beautiful, reptilian line in the body, fused with glue to replace the lost tissue; the coccyx, hands, feet, and jaw also glued, too delicate to articulate with the crude metal joints fastening the rest of the bones together. Only the bones held in place by the meat of a living body have been lost; the patella above the knees, three tiny bones in the inner ear. Otherwise the body is complete. He crouches between the femurs, kissing the top arch of the pelvis as he fits his arm through the gap, slow, as far as it will go, all the way to the shoulder, filling the hole with his flesh. Hand crawling up the spine, vertebra by vertebra. As deep inside the body as it is possible to be. He lays his head on the thigh, his arm gleaming between the wings of the pelvis, twisting beneath the ribs, finger grazing the darkest place on the body: the foramen magnum, a jagged circle the size of a silver dollar floating at the bottom of the skull, through which the spinal cord once connected the rest of the body to the brain. He fits his finger inside, stroking the dark interior of the skull, stirring its most private air. Certain that no one has ever thought to touch the body. In this way. For pleasure, to give pleasure. Hands trembling. Heavy breath. Do you like this. Cradled between its legs. Stroking the body from the inside. And then there is P., kneeling on the mattress, behind Xie, spirit but solid, a body as tangible as the bones, dressed as he was in the case, radiating that gold light, which is yet another body: the saint split in three. It’s the spirit that speaks, that says the word again: Beloved. The light over the sheets, crawling up Xie’s thighs. Xie turns the body over on its side. Belly to spine. Kiss at the top of the neck, hand skipping over the back of the ribs, gripping the crest of the hip. Holding your breath. The light stretching all the way to your neck. Turn me to gold, too. Let me drink it. Touching the body all over. P. touching you. The body draped now over yours. You have the skull in your hands and the light is. So bright. Pinning you to itself. Lips against his forehead. Against his mouth. Not hurting anyone. No. No one. Kissing the breastbone, the clavicle, the cheek. Dry, impossibly light. Perfect. The candle lit. A deep shadow over the body’s face, skull tipped forward, mouth against the bottom of the jaw, Am I all right, do I look all right to you. Beautiful. Yes. Show me. How hard you are. Let me hold you. Come, P. says, beside you, caress from temple to hip. The body above you. A bird’s weight. Rapture. Beloved. Thrusting up. Deep shadow. Deep night. You are. So. Happy.

  * * *

  Waking to the body against his, rib to rib, foot over foot. Long look at the skull, slow kiss. Not a dream. Before getting out of bed Xie takes the sheet and wraps the body. Careful as he straightens the legs, smooths his hand over the pelvis. Someone walking into the room would see only a pile of blankets on an unmade bed; you’d have to know the body was there to see it. Sun settling on the pillows. Dust rising from the mattress, fractions of skin and bone. Smell of sex. While he showers P. leans at the sink, watching through the curtain. You don’t have to be with the body? Xie wonders. P.’s grin. I am anywhere. Beckoning. Let me see you. Xie turns off the water, dries himself. P’s head dipped to his neck. Don’t make me hard again. Light against his back. Xie arching into it. Fingers against his throat. Even in the mirror you see him. The glass, the room, you: full. Gasping into the sink. Finish dressing, no breakfast, hair still damp as he pulls his hood up. Come with me. Through the woods. The birds calm in the trees when P. passes. Faint tracks from the night before, the drag of the body’s boots in the dirt, half covered with fresh leaves, the marks of other beasts. The birch not yet bare, leaves just starting to turn, branches a fragile lattice against the sky. Squirrels circling the trunks, reminding Xie of the mink, wary eyes, soft bodies. Where are the bones of those creatures, he wonders. Scattered over the roads where they were crushed, buried in the backyard where they were found biting the necks of someone’s chickens, silver chins matted with blood. All of them shot. He saw the pictures in court, someone giggling behind their hand as Xie wept in his, Ryan Moore gazing at him with the mild wonder of one animal about to eat another. Moore will pack his yard with mink, install a security system, a steel gate in the driveway. With Erik’s money. But don’t. Think about that now. P.’s boots ringing on the library steps. Ducking to keep his crown from hitting the jamb. Inside, Xie half expects P. to disappear, but instead he grows larger, illuminating the hideous room, grazing its low ceilings, the dusty stacks. Radiance. Pouring through the plate glass, splashing the cement walls, a man asleep at a table meant for a child, sweat glittering on his filthy brow. Hey, Karen says, folding her jacket over a chair. You’re bright and early. He nods, sitting. Yeah, I. Stops. Trying not to stare at P., sitting beside them. She blinks. You okay? Yeah, I’m fine. Hand over his mouth, trying to wipe the grin off, can’t. Sorry, I just. Didn’t sleep much. The sharp lip of P.’s boot cutting into Xie’s knee, can he really feel it or is it. Just his imagination. Another nudge: Can you feel that, beloved? Stifling a laugh. Opening his textbook to the chapter about the Spanish Inquisition. Xie giggles, helpless, forehead to the page. Seriously, Xie. Do you need to go outside for a minute or what? Deep breath, palms against his eyes. Straightening his face. No, I’m sorry. The fire alarm goes off. They both jerk in their seats. Jesus, Karen breathes. Someone sheepishly shutting the fire exit door. P. by the fire alarm box, one finger beneath the plastic cover.

  * * *

  At home his father back, television on. Xie glances at the attic door, desire so intense he can taste it: sulfurous, like licking the head of a match. Everything go okay here? Erik says. Yeah, fine, Xie breathes, perching nervously beside his father, doesn’t he feel it? P. glowing behind the couch, the body over their heads. Erik points to the screen with the remote. You hear about this? Xie blinks. A nun clutching a rosary, broken glass at the bottom of the case, P.’s sword on the stone floor, the church itself banal on-screen, lusterless in the afternoon sun. The news anchors speculating about black markets for Catholic treasure, Satanists, meth addicts. It is an unspeakable offense, the nun says, the relic is priceless, it is a body of God. A photograph of P., shown from crown to chest. The newscaster describing him as a macabre seventeenth century antique. Can you believe that? Erik says. Practically next door. Weird, Xie whispers. The weather comes on. Gold dripping from the ceiling. Which is it. Hallucination. Macabre antique. Body of God. Beloved.

  * * *

  As it gets colder, the meetings get longer, fuller, no beer but plenty of hot tea, which Xie drinks nonstop. Having to pee every fif
teen minutes. He knows a few of the other people by name, exchanges small talk, reads the notices in the bulletins, but Xie always ends up with Peter, whose eyes find his as soon as they walk in the door. Hands on Xie’s shoulders, little slap from behind. Listen, there’s a group of us thinking about occupying the rodent research lab at the university, I thought maybe you’d like to join us? Next weekend. Xie flushing. I’m still on probation, he says, if anything happens, like, the littlest thing—Peter groans. Hey, I didn’t think of that, sorry. Next time. Friendly grin, as always, no big deal, but Xie can’t meet his eyes. If something happens to Xie then the body is alone. Unwilling to risk it for some mice in a lab, admit it, you came here with FKK to do what Peter’s asking you to do and now you just want to be home. With it. Pathetic. Xie rubs his face on his sleeve. He goes to the bathroom again, then slips out the door, you never touch it without thinking of Nova bursting through it, why can’t you tell anyone. About what she said. That furious smile. He walks the perimeter of the building, his breath white in the air. Hands half frozen inside his hoodie. Such an enormous church, twenty times the size of the one in the woods, merely functional: ugly gray stone, no candles, no colored glass. P. never comes here, is never anywhere with regularity except the woods, the attic; he is not a dog, he won’t come when you call. Xie passes a window, ankle-height, opening onto the basement. Peter’s red head bent toward Jo, Leni on the couch with her arms around her knees, watching a video on someone’s phone. As far as he knows, most of the saints worked alone. When they brought Pancratius to Diocletian he was already an orphan. After he refused to kill the lamb he was beheaded with the same knife he had been offered, but first he was forced to watch the flesh of that other neck part from bone. A god bleeding at the feet of its deniers before becoming, once again, merely an animal. Through the window Peter takes the box of produce you brought from your garden and passes it around. Leni takes a tomato, the first you have grown in the cloche, and feeds it to Jo. You can’t think, now, about those mice; if only you could explain why. What would it be like. To say his name out loud. To publicize the most private ecstasy. But then it would be destroyed; Pancratius knew this, that to speak of the beloved was to invite death. He did it anyway. How can anyone know you, if they don’t know this. Does it matter. If in truth you are barely here. He goes back inside. I’m sorry I can’t come to the protest. Peter waving his hand. No worries, farmer. Next time. Tiny broken veins in Peter’s cheeks, his nose, loose stomach stacked above his belt. People age out of radical activism, he had said once. They move on. But not Peter. Xie looks around the room; there is no way to know who is here to learn how to make vegan mac and cheese and who is here to build a bomb. Jo in the car saying, Don’t worry, we’ll represent. You know the researchers get the mice pregnant just so they can cut the babies out of them while the mothers are still alive? Leni in the back with Xie, her boots in his lap, no seat belt, cheek cradled against her palm. Jo, could you just not talk about that right now? Why not? It’s what they do. They put them on these tiny crosses, I mean they literally call them cruciform, and they pin their legs— And Leni half shouting, as mad as she ever gets: We know! We just spent two hours watching it on the stupid video! That look in her eyes the same as in those of so many of the people in the meetings, a mixture of hurt and fury, everyone sick with what they read, see, feel. Knowing you could break into a lab and fuck with shit all you wanted but there would always be more people who thought it was okay to drive a knife into the belly of an animal than there were those who knew it was wrong. Did it hurt, he asks P., in bed, touching the neck of the body, between the fourth and fifth vertebrae. Did it hurt knowing you would die or was it a relief. P. doesn’t answer, lying beside the bones, the light settled all over, gold on silver on gold. Impenetrable. Supreme. Xie takes the jaw of the body between his teeth, gentle: you will never get over this taste, part earth, part air, P.’s hand on your cheek, bridging flesh to bone with a spirit belonging to neither, free, and for a moment you can believe, surrounded by the beloved, that death has never visited any body for long.

  * * *

  So I have the stuff in here, Jo says, the boxes in the popped trunk full of empty canisters, filters, spare fuel lines. Unfolding a thick packet of paper covered in diagrams and smudged green ink. Erik frowns, squinting in the dim light of the garage. Whose instructions are those? A guy in town wrote it out for me. He done this type of conversion before? Jo shrugs. His friend did one. Erik looks at her, then pulls his phone out of his pocket. Reads. Xie helps Jo unload the equipment onto the table in the corner, plus four gallons of used vegetable oil that smell like rancid french fries. Erik props up the hood of the Jetta. You sure you want to do this? he says. It’s a nice car and it may not run the same. Yeah, she says, I’m sure. What about your parents? Jo grins. I’ll say you had nothing to do with it. We just need to like put in the new fuel system, settle the oil for a week, and, boom, we’ll be ready to go. Great, Erik says under his breath. Barest hint of rain in the air, more of a mist, sun filtered gray onto the blacktop through the garage door. Jo rests her knee on the fender. Can you show me what’s up? she asks, and Erik makes room, head leaning close to hers, low voice, See this? Xie goes inside to make lunch. P. at the stove, stirring a pot of chili. Xie takes a tomato, a knife. Spill of seeds. P.’s perpetual grin. Is it soft, beloved. Yes. Pressing a piece between his teeth. P. drawing in the juice on the cutting board, the tip of his finger turning red. Fidelitas. What does it mean, Xie asks. It means that you are mine. Jo bangs in and he freezes. Almost sure no one can see but still. It scares him. Though she is just pouring water. Thinking he is all alone. Xie wipes the knife over the juice on the board, clearing what was written there, folding the tomatoes into the pot. Jo’s hands black to the wrist, grease on the glass as she drinks. Your dad is being fucking awesome about this, by the way. Squints. What’s on your lip? Um. Xie wipes his mouth. Just tomato. Jo bends over the stove. When did you learn how to cook? He shrugs. About the same time I learned how to garden. She hits his arm. On our commune, you’re the housewife, ’kay? ’Kay. She goes back through the door. Xie takes a bite of the chili. Burns his mouth but swallows. Another bite. Another burn. He laughs with his mouth full. What the hell is the point. If you burn french fry oil you’re still putting nitrogen in the air, you are still. Driving your filthy fucking car. Leaning over the sink, the laughter drying up. He snaps an arm from the aloe plant on the sill, rubs it against his lip. Why did you laugh like that like you are losing your mind. P.’s hand on his chest. Sliding up his neck, his chin, his forehead. Seeds in the sink. Finger bones tapping his temple. Stand up, beloved. He stands. Breathes. His father’s footsteps at the back door. Xie? You okay? I’m okay I just. Burned my mouth. The beans spitting down the sides of the pot. Erik cuts the flame. Angles to look at Xie’s face, pulling away the aloe. Squints. You’re fine. Don’t eat out of the pot. Xie snorts. Yeah, right. The mist clinging to the window. Thanks for doing this, Xie says. Erik nods, scrubbing beneath his nails with a brush. I’m happy to. I just hope it works okay for you guys. Jo revving the engine in the garage, her ecstatic whoop. Xie presses the arm of the aloe back into the dirt, lip throbbing. Above the sink three heads reflected in the window, P.’s crown gleaming between Xie and his father. Erik catches his eye in the glass; he smiles. Xie smiles back.

  * * *

  He sits at the base of the thickest birch. Owls. Mockingbirds. Rustle of mice. Shine of centipedes. From here he can see the light of the church. Not afraid of it anymore. Loves it. Loves that it is always there. Sometimes he goes to light a candle, sit in the pews. Someone built this place knowing hardly anyone would come; there is so little room for those who do. And yet. Here it is. The grass high at its sides. In the missals: I look forward to the resurrection of the dead. And back through the woods with P.’s hand in his, to the dark house, to the body, fresh from the night, the window open, the sound of the stream. The body in his arms. Candles stuck all over the floor, he stole them one by one from a local cr
aft store. Matchbooks free from the tobacco shop because the owner likes his patch that says Take Nothing, Leave Everything, he laughs and says, But you take my matches. Borrow pinecones, pieces of bark, stones, black feathers from the woods to dress the body in, the dish of bones at the head of the bed. Rub the skull with oil. Tie a piece of grass around the finger for a ring. You wear the crown. Wish you had the sword, but the real one is in the church and P. never lets you touch his. Pretending to make cuts with it all over your body. Once held it to the back of your neck. Could he do it, if he wanted. Kill you. He can make his body so heavy against yours, can appear twice as large as he was in the church, impossibly tall, his armor untarnished, his sword ablaze. In the woods, he bends you over a stone, lifting his skirt, you pant into the moss. You fuck the body but P. fucks you. How is it different from what so many others experienced, Maria Galluzi, Matilde of Magdeburg, Teresa de Ávila filling page after page with lust for Christ, a desire so consuming it could fill a mind, a room, a life. But you want the vessel, not just the light; you want a hand, a face, a shape, and that is what you have been given, though you can’t understand why, when you don’t even believe in gods or spirits or saints. Why, when you have faith only in this one life, did he show himself to you? You don’t ask. You just close your eyes and let him come.

  * * *

  At Jo’s, pumpkins lit up on the lawn, a huge cauldron belching smoke. Jo dressed in a brown curly wig and overalls patched with blood, Leni with a monocle and Victorian skirts shredded at the hems, a stick of dynamite strapped to her boot. What are you? he asks. Guess. He squints. Both of them have red smeared over their mouths, black beneath their eyes. Zombies? Zombie feminists, Jo says. I’m Andrea Dworkin, obviously, and this here’s Emma Goldman. And what are you? An eating disorder? Xie shrugs. Just bones. Jo shakes her head. That is incredibly basic. They sit on the porch handing candy to trick-or-treaters and watching Jo’s parents’ friends drink red punch ladled from a crystal bowl filled with plastic eyeballs. Hey you, a woman says, tight black dress, knee-high boots. Too cozy next to Jo. Beautiful night, isn’t it? These your friends? Leni smiles, skittish. Introduces herself. And who’s that there? the woman says, leaning to look at Xie, who ducks his head. Jo smirks. Oh, that? That’s your worst nightmare, she says, teeth stained pink from the punch. Xie chuffs. The woman laughs, short, dismissive. Well, you guys look great. We’re not guys, Jo says, and the woman blinks. What? You called us guys, there’s at least two women sitting here. Oh—I’m sorry, young ladies, the woman says, smiling, and Jo smiling back, but mean: You really need to think harder about the gender bias you’re enforcing in your everyday speech. What? Jo lifts her chin. You heard me. The woman’s smile collapses. Well, I will certainly take that into consideration. A pause. Xie looks at his hands, white tendons painted over black gloves. Flex. Unflex. The woman pushes herself up from the step. Nice to see you, Jo. They watch her go. God, who was that, Leni asks. My dad’s boss, Jo says, lighting a cigarette. His boss? Leni’s mouth open. Oh my god. Xie shakes his head, You say “guys” all the time. And Jo’s grin, Yeah, but I’m not a clueless twat, so. Shrug, dragging on the cigarette. They sit until the candy bowl is empty, then heave up from the porch, striking through the crowd, out beyond the circle of yellow light toward the woods. Xie pinches Jo’s cigarette from her fingers. Don’t. Folding the warm butt into his pocket. A year ago she would have rolled her eyes but now she nods, Sorry, sorry. No flashlights. Strong moon. Is it full? Leni squinting. Nah. Almost, though. No birch here but thousands of ash, sweetgum, deep red leaves gone black in the dark. Impossible not to step on the seedlings, there are so many, and no paths; his hand on Leni’s shoulder, stepping where she steps. We should sleep out here, Jo says. Leni grimaces. I don’t want to get eaten. No one is going to eat you, Jo scoffs. Except Jo, Xie says, a moment too late but they still crack up, hushed, the light of the party dwindling behind them. Blue line of mountains flat against the sky straight ahead. You can pretend that this is all there is but you know there is a golf course a mile to the east, bigger than this patch of woods, and Jo’s father owns part of it. Xie has never asked what it’s like for her, to have the same last name as the one on the billboards, her father’s big grin looming over the freeway. A kiss of wind against Xie’s face. Kicking up the dust of the dead leaves. You know Nova used to come here all the time, she writes about this exact place in her book, Jo says. How she came out here after her dad literally disowned her. A branch whips against Leni’s head, knocking her monocle from her eye. He disowned her? That’s fucked up, she says, fumbling for the monocle in a patch of ferns. Where is she now? Xie asks. Is she coming back? Jo grins, mock-spooky voice: Nobody knows. Seriously? Yeah, seriously. After the meeting she kind of disappeared. She’s probably in Guatemala kicking some corporation’s ass and the fewer people who know about it the better. Xie thinks of the way Nova looked before she left the church, both freer and more trapped than anything he had ever seen. They stop at a clearing, a few charred trunks marking the bald spot made by an old fire. Sit in a circle. Eat hard candy from Leni’s pockets. It’s so crazy about that skeleton that got stolen, Leni says, stroking the sleeve of Xie’s costume. I’ve lived here my whole life and I didn’t even know that thing was there. Did you? Xie rolls a stone beneath his shoe. No. Nobody did. Yeah, except the guy who stole it, Jo says. Do you think it was Satanists like they said? Leni asks. If there were any Satanists around here we’d definitely know who they were, Jo says. It was probably some weirdo who actually goes to church. They’re the ones who put him there in the first place. Like how can you call Satanists weirdos if you’re the one going around digging up bodies and dressing them up in crazy shit? Leni tips her head back, dried blood stuck in black gems all down her throat. I think it looked kind of cool. If I was a skeleton I’d want to look like that. But they locked it away, right? Yeah, because they knew it was fucked up. Jo cracking a lollipop between her teeth. Xie rubs his arms. These woods not like his, thicker, darker, more fragrant, denser canopy means denser decay, so much rot all around. Half of the woods in the county cleared in the last thirty years, and in his lifetime almost all the rest will join what has vanished. Life cut down and down. Leni taps Xie’s shoulder with her stick of dynamite. You always smell so good. Quality vegan diet, he says, and she shakes her pink hair. Nah, she says, grinning. It’s the sweet scent of celibacy. Jo cackles. Xie’s flinch hidden in the sockets of his makeup. From far off the sound of a coyote. Do you hear that? They do. Going still. Jo howls, head back, and Leni and Xie join her, first for fun, then for real, louder and louder, until Jo’s phone rings. She answers. What, she says, then rolls her eyes, hanging up. It’s my dad. He says they can hear us all the way at the house. She lifts her middle finger above her head. Can you hear this? she shouts. Leni snickers, pushing on her arm. Jo puts her head in Leni’s lap, reaches to touch first Leni’s pointy chin, then Xie’s white cheek. I love you and you. Closing her eyes. The coyotes sing. They sing back.