Two vampire brothers hunted by a budding witch. A girl captures souls in the shape of butterflies. A drug addiction invites a fairy to a 1920s dinner party. Something in the dark likes Plum Shelley. Welcome to "Rottin," a short story collection h...
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"Never tell a child, you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body."
~ George MacDonald
ACT I: THE NATURALIST & DEATH
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I watched a man die.
He was throttled good and proper with a length of baling twine; grasping, grasping, grasping in vain at the gloved hands that clenched behind his neck and twisted the breath clean out of him. His tongue swelled against his aged lips as the life sludged from his pores, slow, like a drip of hot wax along a candle's edge.
I watched it all from the salt-crusted window, standing no taller than the sill; him on his knees, me on my tiptoes in the sand, crushing the bed of broken seashells.
I wasn't supposed to be a la plage that day. Not at the cove, not on the Lord's Day. Not in my white patent leathers and stockings. Not with the light pink ribbon in my hair—
But Monsieur Mazet tended our beach and Maman's rock garden.
He owned the butterflies.
He liked to show them to me.
And I loved to look. Those wisps of nature encased in jars—the rusty caps punctured and leaching air—were magical.
They filled the shack when he died. Hapless victims. Aimless. The jars that once lined the walls on flotsam shelves were smashed open in the murderous struggle. Freed, the butterflies nestled on the peeled wallpaper; dancing, drunk on the tabletops. Fragile wings on spindle-legs toddled up the inside of the window, clinging to the glass beyond my nose. Through a tangle of curls and scaly feathers, I saw Monsieur Mazet die, his body falling face-first on the dirty, wood floor.
Thump. Thud.
My breath sounded as loud as a bellows to my ears.
The man with the black gloves stood over him. He carried things in a leather bag that made me think he was a doctor.
A wide glass bottle.
Silver tweezers, like the ones for Maman's eyebrows but longer, thinner—meaner.
He wasn't a doctor.
There was a vial, too, and he sprinkled water on his gloved hands. One after the other. Peppering droplets on his thumb and wetting his forehead in the sign of the Cross.
Then, he rolled Monsieur Mazet over; easier than our housemaid, Madame Hector, rolling out the living room rug after its monthly beating.
