Glass-coated clay, molded and formed to life with still eyes. Some would say that alive was the wrong word for the clay-skeletoned being. Some would say it was an abomination that never should have been made. Some would say, “Go infiltrate the workshop of the woman who made this monster and destroy it and I’ll pay you generously.”
Ally stared into the not-really-person’s eyes and tried to convince herself that the money was worth it. Its body was cold, it had no soul, it wasn’t too bad a crime to destroy it. Really, it was a good deed, the cold coming from it was infecting up frostily through bones. She had to concentrate to stop her teeth from chattering.
“Would you like something to eat?” asked the glass monster, voice warm despite how cold it must have felt, if it could feel cold.
“No, uh, I’m okay.” She hoped her voice sounded normal. “It was kind enough for Carolyn to let me shelter here while the rain passes.”
She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. If she had been Caroline, she wouldn’t have been letting people in her house, let alone in a private room with her creation. Maybe, Ally hoped, Carolyn realized on some level that what she had made was a mistake. Maybe she secretly wanted Ally to do what she had been paid to do. But no, she had seen the pride in the old lady’s eyes when she looked upon her creation. Wait, not pride, love. She had been pleased when Ally hadn’t looked scared of it, calling her a wise girl.
Other than the cold, there was nothing uninviting about the room. The rug was soft and the windows gave a nice view of the forest. It was perhaps a bit messy, the cluttered table was practically wallpapered with blueprints. For some reason, there was also a silver paint tube with the color of mustard leaking out of it.
“Does Carolyn paint in her spare time?” she asked the glass being, before remembering you should probably not make polite conversation with the monster you are tasked with slaying.
“Oh no, that’s actually her food. I don’t need to eat, but she does. She’s not a very good cook though, so she survives off of weird experimental rations they deemed too bad for soldiers and prisoners.”
There was laughter in the thing’s voice, it knew what humor was.
Ally realized the actual act of murder was going to be a lot harder than the infiltration. It would probably be harder than the escape, too. The window looked easy to slip through. It wasn’t that the glass of the thing’s chest looked hard to shatter. The clay within was soft as meat, so she didn’t worry about that, either. She realized that walking across the room would be the struggle. The grabbing of the knife in her pocket and moving it through the miasma of guilt that filled the room. Looking into the thing’s unfeeling eyes and knowing that just because it didn’t look betrayed, it still felt it.
She couldn’t do this. Her family was going to starve because she couldn’t even stab into clay. Suddenly, Ally couldn’t stand being in this comfortable room anymore. In this room, she was perfectly safe from the world outside and she didn’t deserve that. Not while her little siblings at home were hungry and she wasn’t doing the one thing she could do about it. She wished she could say her failure to commit surprised her, but it didn’t. She had always been an irresponsible sister. She considered leaning into that trait, clambering out the window into the rain, and running all the way home. That wouldn’t do though, the man who had hired her would send another innocent looking child, one as desperate as her and more willing to act. There was no point in sparing the creature only for some other kid to kill it. If she was going to be irresponsible, she had to commit to it.
She cleared her throat, “I have to tell you something.”
As the being twisted itself to face her, Ally wondered how Carolyn had gotten the glass to bend that way. “What is it, Ally?”
“I… didn’t just come here to get out of the rain.”
“What do you mean?” Its smooth, melodic voice sounded genuinely confused.
Ally decided to say it fast and get it over with.
“I was sent here to kill you. I’m not going to though, it feels too wrong. I was offered a lot of money to do it by a tall man in a long purple coat. He had brown hair and wore round spectacles too big for his face. He didn’t tell me his name, and I didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t have an accent, but he talked like a rich person.” She realized that the clay skeleton probably didn’t know what a rich person sounded like. “Like, he used a lot of big words just for the sake of using them, and his tone of voice was really impatient. Anyway, we met in public, in the city. so I don’t know where he lives. I also don’t know if he has friends helping him out. He probably does though. A lot of people wish you were never born.” She paused for breath. “Hopefully with this information you can, I don’t know, track him down or something.”
“I wasn’t born.”
“What?”
“You said a lot of people wish I was never born. I wasn’t. I was made.”
“That’s what you’re caught up on here?”
“Yes. The rest of it made sense.”
Ally blinked. The rain pounded against the window.
“A lot of people have already tried to kill me and Carolyn. They usually weren’t very polite about it though, they didn’t ask to be invited the way you did. Carolyn has all manner of creations much scarier than I am, so they were never much of a problem. For example, you may have noticed it is incredibly cold in this room right now. That is because of this.”
The being reached under one of the blueprints on the table behind it, and withdrew its arm with something cupped in its glass hand. Slowly, Ally stepped across the room to peer at it. When she did, it felt like her face was about to freeze off. The object looked like a statuette of a snowflake, carved from some gray veined white rock. Marble maybe?
“Carolyn told me that if you tried to hurt me, all I had to do was break this in half. Then it would have gotten so cold you wouldn’t have been able to do much of anything. Whatever the tall man in the long purple coat and his possible friends have planned, Carolyn and I will be fine.”
Ally let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. It felt good to know she couldn’t have actually done any real harm. It felt even better to know that if her family failed to scrape by this month, it wouldn’t be her fault for not doing something about it. She had made the right choice. Still, beyond the relief, there was confusion.
“If she knew what I was here to do, why did she let me in at all? Just because I asked politely?”
“Sort of yes! Since I’m made of glass, it’s too dangerous for me to go outside. I’ve never really talked to anyone other than Carolyn before. She thought it would be a positive life experience for me to speak with you. She thought it would help me learn how to be my own person.”
The way the being recited reminded Ally of her littlest brother Zane, repeating the words their parents verbatim. He would raise his chin and seriously explain in his little voice that Ally needed to hurry up and get ready, or stop wearing a hole in the floorboards with her pacing. Soon he would start going to school, and would probably do the same thing with his teacher’s words. He too, was learning from other people so that he could become his own person.
“I’m sorry I didn’t teach you much.”
The rain grew quieter, as if ashamed.
“What do you mean? You taught me a lot!”
“From what I remember we sat in silence for like half an hour before I spoke at all, and even then it was only because you talked to me.”
“That told me a lot though! Carolyn talks so much I’ve never had to start a conversation before. Now I know that some people are more quiet than her, and I learned how it feels to be in a room with another person but not say anything. Also, I learned what a rich person sounds like. I still don’t know exactly what kind of person I want to be, but if it turns out to be a rich one, that knowledge will be very helpful.”
Ally laughed, “Rich isn’t a personality trait, you can’t just decide to be it. You have to have money.”
“Ah, now see? You’ve taught me something else! Is that why you took the money? Do you want to be rich?”
Ally had always assumed that everyone wanted to be rich, at least a little bit. Even the people who were already rich must have wanted more money. Outside, the rain slowed to a drizzle.
“Not really, we just needed the money. My family and I.”
The being nodded, either it already knew how money worked, or it didn’t care to ask. Ally walked over to its side and leaned against the table. They stood there like that for a while, their bones soaking up the snowflakes cold. Eventually, the rain grew so weak Ally could no longer hear it out the window.
“I suppose you should be leaving now,” the being’s voice was forlorn.
“Yeah, it was, uh, good to meet you,” Ally said, and she meant it.
“Likewise. I will tell Carolyn what you said, about the tall man in the purple coat.”
Ally nodded, and headed for the door. She had never been talented at saying goodbye.
Quietly, the being said, “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
Ally didn’t know what to say, until all of a sudden she did.
“What if I didn’t have to?”
“I think you do have to. You said you have a family, they will probably worry if you aren’t home soon.”
“Well okay, true, but what if I came back another time? I could come here and teach you things, like a tutor. I could also bring you interesting stuff from outside, Carolyn could pay me some money, so it would help me and my family out too.”
After she said it, it felt like a silly idea, too perfect to be true.
“Oh! Carolyn is going to love that idea. Maybe you could teach me how to cook? I’d like to make Carolyn some food that’s actually fit for human consumption.”
Ally smiled. She didn’t have to convince herself the money was worth it at all. Outside, the clouds began to clear away, the world washed clean.
Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash