Not Quite Human

Chapter 1

Neil stared at the offensive piece of chicken sitting on his plate. He was ordinarily a huge fan of chicken, and this particular drumstick had done nothing to offend him personally. He certainly didn't pay much heed to the activists who urged people to go vegan — after all, they boiled plants alive and then preached kindness. Hypocrites.
No, it was the person who'd bought it for him that made the poor chicken so unappealing. He had nothing against his aunt, truly — he loved her. The fact that she and his mother weren't blood didn't make her any less family. What made him uneasy was the small, nagging detail that he found his godmother deeply, profoundly creepy. She was too strange, too different. She spoke in riddles, and she wore a smile that would probably make Jack the Ripper uncomfortable — a gross exaggeration, yes, but her grin never failed to make him squirm.
He felt a little guilty thinking that way. It wasn't her fault she was odd.
"Aren't you hungry, li'l Nay? Come now — eat up. There's no need to be shy. Godmamma won't tease..." she said, in that dreamy, floating voice of hers that reminded him of the girl from Harry Potter — Lovegood, or something like that.
Adding her to his already considerable list of problems felt unnecessarily cruel. He was fairly certain he'd once seen her deep in conversation with a large, ugly brown frog when he was little — the kind that, if it did turn into a prince, would only turn into an old, ugly one. Though that could simply have been his imagination. She was vivid enough to inspire all sorts of things.
For now, at least — touch wood — he was fairly confident the prince had forgotten about him. That was likely due to all the strange things happening around town. Most of the rumours sounded like nonsense, but a couple of the recent murders were genuinely alarming, particularly because the killers had left behind strange emblems, sparking whispers about some new and sinister cult. Which was, apparently, precisely why Aunt Glutton had come to visit.
"Why, this could get quite interesting," she had said.
One word: creepy.
After a dinner that was more unsettling than satisfying, the two of them made their way through the crowded streets, trying to get home at a reasonable hour. It was the sudden absence of his aunt's suffocating perfume that made him notice she'd fallen behind. His eyes swept the crowd, searching for the aggressively bright pink dress he was certain would stand out anywhere — and it did. He found her speaking to a scrawny man with an unusually sober expression, one that sat oddly on her face. The conversation ended abruptly when he caught up to them. His aunt flashed a quick smile and made introductions — the man's name was Wrest. Wrest, however, didn't bother to smile back. He studied Neil for a long, quiet moment before turning back to his aunt and saying:
"A merry candle flame may dance — but it flickers and dies at the gentlest breath of wind. Farewell, Miss Glutton."
His aunt muttered "stubborn git" under her breath as she pulled Neil along. "That man always had a habit of saying strange things — nothing worth a rat's tail, I'm sure."
Neil couldn't shake the unease. She clearly knew this man. "What does he do, aunt? For a living?"
She blinked once or twice before telling him the man was a doctor — "of sorts."
Neil frowned. One was either a doctor or one wasn't. Perhaps he was like the village healers in Incia, preying on the uneducated sick in the name of some obscure deity. He wanted to press further, but the set of his aunt's jaw told him that questions would have to wait — unless he fancied a thorough scolding, which would no doubt delight anyone unfortunate enough to overhear it.
"T'was bright from where I lay,
Knife at neck, buried in snow —
T'was bright from where I lay,
Faces staring, ill-prepared to let me go.
T'was bright, blinding light,
I needn't stumble no more —
T'was bright from where I lay,
A carved stone at my head.
T'was bright from where I lay,
In my tomb, my bed..."
Right. His aunt humming unsettling verse was her way of telling him to be quiet. An old habit — she'd start singing something grim whenever she wanted a conversation to end. On that cheerful note, they arrived home.
Spots came bounding up to Neil immediately, tail going, nose working, checking hopefully for any treats Neil might have smuggled in. A spoilt dog, no question — but Neil wouldn't have had it any other way. Spots was an extra son to his mother and something close to a little brother to him. The one time his father had raised a hand at the dog, Spots had bitten him hard enough that the man winced every time he sat down for a full week afterward.
Spots was, in short, a large ball of fluff and unconditional love — albeit one who was currently sitting by the door with his leash in his mouth, the picture of impatient expectation.
Neil laughed and led him out. He tossed a small treat into the air; Spots caught it without ceremony and demolished it cheerfully. Neil looked up at the night sky. The stars were out, bright and unhurried, and a small black cat sat at the edge of the alley, perfectly content with the stale fish it had found for dinner.
Not every moment in his life was good. But simple ones like this — quiet and small and bright — gave meaning to the rest.