Summary: Taylor eats things she shouldn't and then makes money, and in between eating things and making money, Taylor mends some bridges
(1)
Even much later, after months had passed, Taylor would be unable to explain what possessed her into taking that first bite.
There she was, fresh from hell; half-delirious, half-manic, smattered in foul smelling blood from shoe to throat. She’d fallen on all fours. Her locker door, that big green slab was beneath her. But the green paint, the undercoating, the graffiti and smears of crusted blood, it had all burned and gone. The sturdy sheet of iron that was left spread beneath her hissing waves of cherry red and gold. The linoleum around her shattered. The molten iron roiled and belched. Behind her, her locker sagged into itself, the wall behind it coughing thick black smoke and flames.
Taylor fell back onto her haunches. Around her, the corridor smoldered. The fires climbed. Moments later alarms blared to life over the intercom.
It was nighttime now. Taylor curled up on her bed, her back to the headboard. A fingernail moon was out, the stars were up, every light in the house was off, in hers and beside hers and across the street, and she sat in that perfect dark, a spoon cupped in her hands. She took a breath.
The spoon collapsed. A puddle of red-gold light bloomed in her palms, pleasantly cool to the touch. By that light Taylor saw her hands, her knees, her feet, the foot of her bed. Beyond that, the suggestion of a dresser, the back of a chair, a cluttered desk, and finally the far window with her own reflection in it. Taylor bit her lip. What a ghastly underlit face it was…
Taylor turned away from her reflection and watched the molten steel, for minutes or maybe hours. If she looked close enough she could almost see herself in it. But this reflection was different. Warmer. Flattering somehow. She gently blew on it and watched the surface ripple with strange viscosity. She wondered what would taste like. Salt and pennies? Would it be warm? Too hot? Soft? Smooth or grainy?
Taylor lifted her hands to her lips. The sensation that flooded her mouth was – like taffy, the inviting way that her mouth began to water and the steel played against her tongue. The flavor was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, salty, chalky, earthy, sharp and cold and smooth and-
Gulp
Taylor probably should have been concerned. But she hadn’t been to school in days, closed for repairs as it was, and the weekend was just ahead. School seemed like a different world. Different from her own, separate and distinct, and that was the world with problems, not hers. She felt no guilt or stress, no pressing urges to confess or run. She had begun to think like that more, lately.
Time passed simply for her. Taylor slept at night. She rose in the morning. Her father seemed conflicted, but when they talked at those breakfasts and dinners, she was smiling, and so for the moment he asked no questions. Those first days Taylor roamed the house, sampling the odds and ends that wouldn’t be missed.
Cluttery things like wood or plastic were awful. Just awful. Blegh.
Metal was thoughtful. like chocolate and black coffee. Not bad. Not great. Filling. Missing something.
Oh, but glass. Glass was sweet. Like cotton candy and hugs and good dreams and lazy Sunday mornings. It chewed and stretched like soft taffy, and in the right light the sun would catch and spin inside it, caught fast. Taylor could watch it gleam for hours, coaxing it into shapes in her palm. If she could resist the urge to eat it. She rarely could.
Gulp
She hadn’t gone to school Monday, shit was missing, and honestly her excuses were getting worse. Her dad could only pretend to believe her for so long.
Barging in that evening saying, “Taylor did you – augh wow your room is an oven!”
“I’m cookin’ up dreams, dad.”
But could he blame her? If he knew how it felt – the soft satisfaction dripping down her throat like velvet.
Tuesday over breakfast asking, “Taylor what happened to the bathroom mirror?”
“Oh it uh – broke. I’m fine I just was, I – I took it to the dump – took it to dumped… I dumped it on a corner. Somewhere else. So you wouldn’t… cut yourself on it.”
It was harder to feel guilty. Maybe if she tried, if she really tried. But her head was swimming most times. Soothingly warm and easygoing, so unconcerned with her own public standing it was as though she was dreaming.
Wednesday afternoon looking two shades concerned. “Taylor what happened to the microwave?”
“That’s a good question father I’d better go investigate.”
Was she eating enough? She hadn’t had much actual food in what seemed like days. Was that alright? She felt alright. Better than alright. Warm and tingly, every second of every day.
Thursday morning waiting for her. “Taylor, what happened to t – “
“Bye dad!”
But her happiness could only counteract mandatory schooling and 'everything being fucking broken' for so long. Judging by the face he’d made when she ran out the door, that length was nine days. So she’d been getting more impulsive, so what? You know what else was impulsive? Like. Tigers or something. And they totally had their shit together.
The point was, she had to stop eating her house.
It was with this in mind and not much else that Taylor found herself prowling around the skeleton of Brockton Bay’s shipping industry.
Huge abandoned warehouses, stacks of tanker-sized shipping crates, crunchy gravel-sprinkled tarmac, dandelions and thistles, mosquitoes and cicadas, and in those rare instances where she had an unobstructed view of the bay she could see undulating waves of masts and rusted hulls, a second ocean just above the first.
There was no route. She went whichever way looked the least sketchy. But it was night in Brockton Bay’s docks so that was an exercise in futility. No one seemed to be out, except her, which was strange but welcome, and she decided not to question it.
Taylor tried brick. It was a complicated taste, like running your paper cup through the whole soda bar. In this metaphor this included the iced tea, a classic novice mistake. The taste didn’t want to leave her mouth. Taylor flossed the brick remnants with her tongue and spat the glob of molten rock at a puddle, then squawked and ran away giggling because holy goddamn shit ass was it loud.
But those industrial size glass panes! Wowzers. Taylor took a chunk from a warehouse she was nearly almost maybe positive was abandoned and nibbled as she wandered, the glass liquefying around her teeth as she bit down.
As she ate, and ate, and ate some more, completely lost to hedonism, her head seemed to blow up, feeling heavy and fuzzy, and her chest began to tingle, hot flashes coursing down her, leaving her flushed and stumbling.
Taylor giggled.
Things went downhill, or perhaps uphill from there. She felt hot. Unseasonably hot, and thirsty and hungry. She roamed the docks as a belligerent drunk: kicking bottles, cackling, spitting glass at mosquitoes, all those things that drunks do. She left an imprint of her face melted into the side of a warehouse. Every impulsive and intrusive thought was fully realized. But as the night went on the veneer began to peel away.
Was it day? Night? It was harder to think. Her internal monologue got quieter and quieter, and now it didn’t seem to be there at all, and she was simply… simply was. This was not entirely unwelcome. The complications, and aches and worries all peeled back, and it was only her, just her. No Emma. No dad.
Cackling.
Spitting.
Skipping.
Tilting?
Swaying…
The day-night spun and swirled. Was that the sun coming up? Stars burst behind her eyes, her ears rang and ached, every sound seeming to come from right beside her, and as she stumbled to her knees it seemed as though she were in a hurricane, a calamitous racket of crashes and gasps, battering at her sides.
She saw her own hands on pavement, fingers splayed and bloodied from where they’d split on something sharp. But that wasn’t quite blood, was it? It looked like a demented oil slick; coils of glimmering red and silver and orange. It smoked as it spread on the pavement.
Taylor’s mind surged in like pounding headache, hissing forwards, and for a brief moment filling her head to burst, searing hot and cold and terribly loud. She wanted to scream. She tried to scream.
Why the hell did I come out here
What is happening to me
What did I
Why did I
Am I dying
I’m scared
I’m sorry
I don’t want to die
I-
Something grabbed her and yanked and she was flying back, through twisting lines and swirling fractals, hands and legs and eyes and alien things; senseless pulsing flesh laid out in mountains and valleys. It pulled her under, smothering her. She gasped and it flooded her mouth, wiggling, clawing down her throat.
Taylor blinked. She was on her hands and knees. She was warm, but the night was deliciously cool. She was alive, still. Not dead. That was good. Not dead was good.
None of the frantic, heart pounding terrified thoughts from before had carried through. Instead that space between her ears was quiet. She could almost cry. That quiet…
She stood and wiped her hands on her pants. When she checked, she found that beneath that swirling, hissing blood lied smooth unmarred skin.
The time was - Taylor looked up - probably around two in the morning, going by the light. Taylor was tired. She should get home.
Danny was asleep on the couch. How he’d managed to sleep with that much worry on his face Taylor had no clue. Was it proper to wake him or to let him sleep? If he slept like that he’d wake up with a crick in his neck.
Taylor poked him good. Poke. “Dad.”
Danny jerked awake with a grunt, rising unsteadily once his brain caught up.
Taylor hugged him. “Love you. Go to bed.”
Danny contributed to the hug on autopilot, saying things and making sounds that a human might make at three in the morning, two seconds after waking up.
Taylor said, “Goodnight.” She went to bed. Holy hell was it comfortable. “Wow,” said Taylor, wrapped in fireplaces and clouds.
She was up again four hours later and no worse for wear. Danny was at the table when she entered the kitchen.
He said good morning.
Taylor said good morning.
She sat down. He’d made her fried eggs. They weren’t bad, all things considered. And it was remarkably nice of him, given how tired he looked. Also considering that the little skillet had vanished Wednesday so he’d probably had to use the saucepan. Pretty pro, dad.
He asked how she was.
She said great.
He said good.
Clattering forks. Rustling paper.
He asked if she was going to school.
It was Friday, right? Yeah, sure. Why not.
She asked about his work.
He said things were chugging along. Like a very old, busted steam engine.
Taylor sighed contentedly.
The teapot whistled. He stood and filled an old French press.
He asked if there was anything she needed.
Taylor beamed. “I got all the stuff I need right here, pops.” It was the truth. There was an all-she-could-eat buffet out there, near the water’s edge. Also perhaps in the water. It was a two birds one stone situation if she could make it work.
He smiled. Some of the tension left his face.
Taylor washed her plate. “Have a good day at work.” She stepped foot out the door.
“Taylor, backpack.”
“Oh right. Thanks dad.”
It was a complicated expression that saw her out.
The school was open again, fortunately. It’d have been a wasted bus trip otherwise. The metaphorical foot of Winslow was all tarps and char and smoke damage. The whole place smelled like burning, even from the edge of campus where Taylor walked.
She got to class.
People talked.
Taylor sat.
Bells rang.
Gladly said things.
Bells rang.
The day passed like that, a blur of sit talk ring bell sit ring bell talk, and then suddenly it was lunch.
Though in fairness it couldn’t really be called lunch. Taylor envied Hollywood high schools, with their sneeze-panes and actual food variety. She loaded her tray with spaghetti and plastic forks.
Taylor found a seat at an empty table and prodded her meal, not really feeling the lunch vibe. Seriously, what was she supposed do to with plastic? Open a plastic store? Stupid. But actually smart, because this place having metal utensils? That would be stupid. As was opening a plastic store.
Shadows fell across the table. Taylor looked up. She recognized these people.
“What are you doing in here?” Emma asked. “You know pigs are supposed to eat outside, right?”
Insults aside, that was actually a good question. What was she doing at school? A favor to her father, but beyond that Taylor wasn’t sure. She remembered dreams of English and teaching and having a little apartment to call home. But that was before, when Emma was with her, not against her. After that was always so nebulous, put in terms of stomach-this and turn-the-cheek that, outlive, outgrow. ‘To where’ never had an answer.
Emma said something horrible. Sophia sneered and was physically imposing, and yet also… slightly off. Was her heart not in it? It didn’t look to be. Madison was there as well, being Madison.
Taylor knew she should react somehow, but she hadn’t been listening. First due to introspection, second due to something about Emma’s lip gloss and the way it just… gleamed as she talked.
“Well?” asked Emma, having kept on talking while Taylor tried to figure out what was going on.
“You’ve got pretty lips,” Taylor said, honest and a shade fond. For a moment she drifted back, caught in nostalgia as Emma worked up a zinger. “Do you remember when we practiced kissing?”
Emma blanched. Sophia quirked an eyebrow. Madison drifted back a bit. “It doesn’t even really feel that long ago. Three years, maybe?” She snorted. “Tongue. Like, you don’t think it’s going to be that loud right? But then here comes dad clomping up the stairs-”
Emma cut her off with a probably biting remark involving the word ‘freak,’ Taylor knew because she caught the sharp ‘F’ – Emma had this way of saying F’s that had made her giggle nine times out of ten. Taylor bobbed her head to the side, full of sass and marmalade: “Fah-reaky. And really, what was he worried about? What did he expect to find? It was just us. Like he wouldn’t have been happy for us were that the case, you know? You were already family.”
Emma, the closest a human can come to being spiritually parried, made noises that didn’t quite resolve into words but came appreciably close all the same.
Taylor looked at her. Really looked. Angry was a bad face on her. But this wasn’t quite anger, not just. Anger wasn’t supposed to burn that much. And anger didn’t look like it was about to cry.
They’d drawn a crowd. A movie crowd; butts down feet up, awaiting entertainment. Taylor could understand. She knew how things like this were supposed to go. How they’d always gone. Madison was off in the wings, there in spirit if nothing else. Sophia hadn’t moved, but she was resting on her heels now, away from the conversation.
Emma said something. Something pretty terrible, going by a nearby eavesdropper’s scandalous gasp. Taylor didn’t hear it. She was watching the lines play over Emma’s face.
Taylor stood.
Emma stepped back. Then a glimmer of frustration flashed across her face and she took two steps forward, her jaw clenching to hide the tremors, something strange flashing in her eyes as she rounded the edge of the table and waited for Taylor there.
Taylor walked around the table. Now they stood face to face.
Emma said something more.
Taylor hugged her. In the two seconds that it lasted Taylor noticed how much taller she was now; Emma was nearly a full head shorter. Her hair smelled like strawberries. She was small, or maybe Taylor was long, the way her arms fit around Emma with room to spare. Taylor remembered getting pencil lines drawn on their doorway, Emma standing on her toes, nudging the tip of the pencil higher up with her head like they couldn’t all see it.
Then Emma shoved her to the floor, snapping her from her daze. She looked furious. Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes.
Taylor propped herself up on her hands. Emma took her tray of untouched spaghetti and emptied it over. She said something, her lips still hypnotizing and gleaming, and then she stormed away, out of the cafeteria. Madison followed hot on her heels. Sophia lingered.
Taylor rose to her feet leisurely. Spaghetti and sauce slopped down her shirt. Sophia approached. When Taylor had gotten enough off to her satisfaction she glanced up and noticed Sophia there, waiting just inside her personal space.
“Do you want a hug too?”
Sophia’s eyebrows rose. She shot a meaningful glance at the spaghetti sauces stains. “No thanks.”
Taylor hummed. “Well.” She looked down at herself. “I should probably go.”
Sophia hummed. “See ya later, Hebert.”
The weekend came and went. Monday afternoon found Taylor playing hooky.
She had been thinking about her future. What she really needed was money. It was all that anyone needed.
The house needed money, too. She could see the writing on the walls. More importantly, she could see the writing on their mail. Bills. So many bills. Now she understood why they didn’t have phones; he couldn’t afford them. She wanted to help.
Taylor had ideas of how her power could be used for profit. But she needed to investigate.
Firstly…
Sunday night, after Danny was off to bed, Taylor skulked around the docks again. This time she took her backpack. She filled it with slabs of glass and metal, a smorgasbord of clears and greys and rusted browns.
She also explored a great deal. Not for any grand reason, just the siren call of the inner child that delighted in finding new places, new caves and forts, and the adventure of it all. She melted her way into shipping crates. Opened big thundery warehouse doors. Drew a flower on a wall with her finger. She toyed with the idea of swimming out and poking around those dilapidated boats, but no, she’d save that for a full moon. And a swimsuit.
Secondly…
Monday afternoon Taylor went to the boardwalk. It was all beachfront and stalls and hot-dog vendors. The vibe was that of a giant vaguely-elitist farmers market. Probably the best place for her to sell odds and ends and not need to worry about permits or advertising. The light there was good, too. Clear in the morning, gold in the evening. Shimmery. The kind of light that would catch and spin.
“Excuse me,” Taylor said. The T-shirt vendor turned. “Hi. Could you tell me if there are hoops I need to jump through to get a stall like yours?”
He smiled. “Well you’ll need a table. And a beach umbrella, something to keep the sun off you.”
“Okay,” Taylor said, committing that to memory. “What else?”
“That’s it.”
Thirdly…
A cursory internet search revealed an unhelpful list of compounds that, when combined with molten glass, would produce colored glass. But… Cobalt? Gold? Uranium? Where was she supposed to get uranium?
A day passed in their garage, Taylor sitting cross-legged, kneading mixes of glass and random metals together. She found that combining the compounds by chewing them together made them significantly prettier. But also significantly more delicious. Such was the duality of man. Or something.
Honestly there were probably videos of the subject but it was more fun to just screw around and see what happened.
She tried her metal stash, she tried vitamins and metal-ey sounding supplements from around the house, she tried money, nickels and pennies. The glass spun with blues and violets and yellows, the colors keeping separate somehow instead of muddying together into brown or grey. No reds. She got a beautiful, fiery orange, but no reds. Another time, then.
By the end of the day she a modest selection of products. Amulets, paperweights, small vases. Boring but reliable, and they’d shine like no one’s goddamned business.
Goddamn. Look at ‘em go. Taylor ate a little glass bear. “Shit.”
Tuesday morning found Taylor setting up her little folding table near the ass end of the boardwalk. The best spots were taken or too official looking for her to seem anything but a sham.
She found herself parked between that friendly T-shirt vendor from before and a struggling artist; the man sat in a wicker chair framed by wall dividers that were cluttered with frames and prints.
The first day was uneventful. A woman passing by summed up the situation, remarking, “Eh,” as she shrugged and then carried on. Taylor empathized. She didn’t look particularly legitimate, sitting at her no-shade table in a T-shirt and jeans.
Later that day came her only and most baffling sale.
An older woman picked up her heart pendant. At least it was probably the heart, it could also have been the bird. Her sculpting was a work in progress.
The woman held it to the light. She tapped it with her nail. She weighed it in her palm. She also sniffed it, Taylor was the least sure about what that was about. Finally she asked, “How much is this?”
Taylor said, “Two-fifty.”
The woman handed her two hundreds and a fifty.
Taylor, having meant two dollars and fifty cents, said, “Um.”
But the woman was gone. Taylor watched her fast-walk away, hurrying off into the distance like she’d stolen something. “Alright.”
She closed shop and bought a proper half-tent and card stock.
Taylor set up shop again the following morning, feeling prim and proper beneath the shade of her half-tent.
Things sold slowly and without incident.
That afternoon a pretty blonde stopped by, all green eyes and freckles. She held a pendant to the light. “Oh wow. What is this?”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward in her chair. “A bird? Or – he might be a bear. My sculpting is a work in progress, sorry.”
“Oh,” she said. “That explains the wings? Or is it a heart? I meant what’s it made of.”
“Glass.”
“Glass?”
Taylor nodded. It was glass, after all. Glass mixed with some metals she’d salvaged for color, but that was just how glass was colored. The internet told her so. And would the internet lie? Answer’s no.
The blonde pursed her lips and then held up the birdbear. “And you make these yourself?”
Taylor nodded.
“Huh.” She returned the bearbird to its natural habitat, looking over the rest of Taylor’s table as she did. “I’ve never met a glassmith before. Neat. You must have some serious equipment to get this kind of quality. What’s your setup?”
Taylor wouldn’t know where to even begin with that lie. “Trade secret,” she said. “Or whatever.”
The blonde smiled unnervingly; sly and wily. The look suited her. “Well, I wouldn’t know what you were talking about anyways. Just curious. Say, how old are you?”
“I’m 15.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Well what are you doing out here, then? Shouldn’t you be off having fun? That’s what skipping school’s all about.”
“This is fun,” Taylor said. And it was. Those green eyes were ten shades of gorgeous, moreso when they flickered with I know something you don’t.
The blonde’s grin softened. “You really need the money, then?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Do you take commissions?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Neat.” Bottle green eyes glimmered as she smiled. “Cause. Much as I like Mr. Bearsy here-“ she jostled the pendant look at that sucker gleam “-I’d like something or a more… birdy, flappy variety.”
“I can do flappy birds,” Taylor said. “That said it might come out more triangular than bird-ular.”
“I find that risk acceptable. How much is this going to run me?”
Taylor shrugged. “Twenty bucks?”
Another angular smile. “Let’s say fifty, and you need to work on your pricing.”
“I do?”
“You do.” Green eyes roved her table. “A shade amateurish, but endearing, and fantastic color.” She gestured from left to right, jabbing a finger at each of her price tags in turn. “Twenty, forty, fifty, eighty.”
Taylor, looking at the same objects and price tags as the girl was, asked, “Are you sure? That seems…”
“I’m sure – what was your name?”
“Taylor.”
“Lisa. And yes, I’m sure. Even that’s pretty modest, honestly.”
Taylor looked over her dominion once more, in all its glimmering delicious glory. Were they really worth that much? The woman from the day before had seemed to think so. “Well. Thank you - for the advice, Lisa. I’ll have your flappy bird by tomorrow morning, same place. Stop by and pick it up whenever.”
Lisa grinned. “See you tomorrow then, champ.”
Taylor watched her whisk off, bemused and charmed. She re-wrote her price tags.
And hour came and went. Taylor passed the time tracing the fractals of light dancing inside one of the vases near the edge of the table.
She sold three pendants, a paperweight and a vase. Among them, confused mister bird-bear. She almost didn’t want to let him go – but there he went, jostling away around the neck of another woman. Taylor wouldn’t have minded, but it didn’t seem like the woman had even wanted him.
Taylor bit her lip. Goodbye, sweet birdbear. A flight of angels carry thee to thine box in her attic.
Finally, the day came to a close. A hundred-forty-five bittersweet dollars warmed her pocket as she packed and left.
One cramped bus ride home later Taylor lugged her shop upstairs to her room.
Another less-cramped bus ride later Taylor was wandering around her new haunt – the boat graveyard. The sun was almost gone, the air cooling down, the sky was dark blue and getting darker. She had the whole day left, it felt like.
The distant tide called her. Taylor puttered around on the concrete edges of the docks and yards, the bay on one side, the docks on the other, waking along concrete dividers like balance beams.
She lost a solid twenty minutes trying to pet a stray cat. It possessed the sort of demeanor that left it casually pattering ahead instead of running, moving faster when Taylor did, slower when she slowed – preserving a taunting separation between them. It was one tricky customer.
As she wandered Taylor filled her backpack with even more odds and ends.
It got dark soon enough. Very dark, actually. She forgot a flashlight yet again, and so walked by the light of a handful of steel.
It wasn’t terrifically bright. It probably did more bad than good - keeping her eyes from adjusting properly. But the dim orange light it cast was so eerie and candle-y, this thin circle around her that quickly faded out in to blackness – it felt like walking down a spooky hallway; delicious. Taylor crouched and skulked around like she was in a horror film.
She poked around those shipping crates again – the giant ones that get stacked on super-tankers; twenty feet long, eight feet wide, nine feet tall. There was a pile of them next to a defunct warehouse, and Taylor climbed up the pile, politely knocking on the ones she passed to check for occupants before making her handholds and footholds. No one responded to her knocks – how they’d resisted the allure of these clubhouses-in-the-making Taylor would never understand.
She reached the one at the very tippy-top of the pile, two and a half stories up, and melted her way inside. It was largely empty. Some dust and debris cluttered the floor – Taylor swept it out with the sides of her shoes. To make the crate hers, she cut out a square out of the wall with her finger, replacing it with a cobbled together sheet of glass.
It was tough work getting the big glob of glass to play nice. Taylor discovered that she could sort of – move it, when it was melted. Make it wiggle and ooze, or not wiggle and not ooze. She gathered the mass into her hands, keeping it balled up, like a big jiggly water balloon. It was fiercely pretty, and she lost about two minutes playing with it and making bloob bloob noises with her mouth - arguably the most fun she’d had since that morning.
She made it flat next, straining some part of her she hadn’t known existed beforehand. And then, suddenly, the crate had its first window; a crystal clear portal to the bay, the surface of the glass rippling and swirling in unintentional fractals. When Taylor lookout out through it, the sliver of moon caught in it, trapped in its web, and traced out sharp white lines and circles, as though it were filling a hollow carving with incandescent liquid. Taylor wondered how it would look in the sun.
It got late. More late. Taylor shouldered her score and headed home, nibbling at a stick of rebar as she walked.
It was a long trek though bad neighborhoods. Taylor thought she might get accosted. She was surprised it hadn’t happened already, she was in Merchant territory after all. But no one stopped her. It was strange, really, but she decided not to worry about it.
Danny wasn’t up waiting for her this time. Taylor was relieved. He worried too much.
She wasn’t tired yet, and so snuck down into the basement, adding her haul of scrap and parts to a pile in a corner. Next she sat down against a filled-to-bursting gorilla rack. Taylor recalled an order for a flappy, birdy thing from earlier that day, and set to work.
“Wow,” Lisa breathed. The blue bird twirled on the end of a string. In the afternoon glare it looked like it was on fire, the way sparks seemed to gather in the center and pop. “Who’s gonna wear who, huh? Pretty.”
Taylor said, “…Hm?” How hard she resisted the urge to eat the commission would be her little secret. Provided Lisa stopped lording it over her like that. “Do you like it?”
“Very much. Ah, and here you are, master glass-smith.” Fifty dollars in crisp tens changed hands. Lisa set the pendant around her neck. It suited her, but she had the features to make anything look good. “How’s it, then?” She struck a pose.
Taylor was salivating. “I – uh… Great.” Them glimmery collarbones, yowza.
Lisa smiled, seeming inordinately pleased with herself. “You up for another commission?”
“’Course I am,” said Taylor. “Anything for my favorite customer.”
“I’m thinking something to put on a hair clip. A little flower, bout yay big.” She spread her fingers an inch apart. “What do you think?”
Taylor could picture it on her already; a simple metal clip holding back a lock of hair. She could see the flower on it. Green for her eyes; simple and elegant. Taylor liked it. “I like it.”
They squared away the details. Lisa left with a parting wave, but Taylor’s smile refused to leave, even when the older woman from days prior appeared in the distance and started shooting her suspicious looks. Did she have something on her face? Taylor checked – just that goofy smile.
The woman approached, looking over her wares. “These are new,” she remarked, looking over a few vases.
Taylor nodded. “Made them yesterday – er - last week. Whichever sounds the most reasonable.” Smooth.
The woman made an even more suspicious face at her. “You make these yourself, then?”
“I do.”
“By yourself.”
“Yeah.”
The woman nodded to herself. Her eyes went to one of her new vases, and then to the card stock with the price. “You’ve raised your prices.”
“I uh –“ Was that poor form? Taylor had no idea. “Yes?”
The woman picked up a vase. It was blue and green - the same way the water in the Philippines was blue and green. Warm and alive, somehow. “Eighty, for this?”
Taylor checked her memory. “Yeah.”
The woman hummed. She fished a hundred dollar bill out of her purse. Taylor handed her a twenty. The exchange felt oddly tense and standoffish, and once it concluded the older woman seemed to hang there, unsure if she should leave.
“Thank you,” Taylor said.
The woman cleared her throat and left.
Taylor shrugged.
The rest of the day came and went without issue. Two hundred and sixty dollars warmed her pocket as she packed up her shop and caught a bus home.
Her dad wasn’t back yet, same as yesterday. Taylor tossed her shop into her room and her money into a sock in her dresser. Then she caught another bus to a worse part of town.
Her haunt had been waiting up for her. It was eight or nine-o-clock. Bright enough to see by, but only barely. Taylor passed that indecisive gloomy period brightening up her fort on the shipping crate pile.
She ferried up backpacks of sand from the bay, heaving her backpack onto to crate-roofs like a shot-put, taking it up one level at a time and dumping it out inside, until a reasonable mound occupied the far end of her crate.
Inside, she working by the dim light coming through the window, and the glow given by small bracelets of molten glass she kept wound around her wrist. She made handles on the sides of the crate, then used those handles to reach the roof of the crate, melting a five foot section out of the roof and replacing it with smooth glass.
It was a long, involved process. Taylor got a lot of practice coaxing oozing glass across the ceiling to spread out into the hole – from the inside it looked like the sky was being devoured by some kind of alien blob monster.
By the time she was done the moon was overhead, a slightly bigger sliver than yesterday. She could see it through her new skylight, it and the stars, both clearer than in town. The inside of her crate smelled like burning. Taylor left it open to air out when she left.
It was fiercely dark still. In the areas with no streetlights Taylor fished a length of rebar from her pack and made it into a glowing whip. It was intoxicatingly woobly, undulating this way and that way as she padded along, and she amused herself by helicoptering it around, snaking it along the ground, dazzling herself in the dark.
Her father wasn’t up waiting for her, and Taylor took care to be extra sneaky when she got home. She spirited away to the basement, not tired at all, and eager to get to work on things for tomorrow.
Taylor upended her backpack full of sand near her pile of cluttery odds and ends. Most of of the sand, at least. Ten pounds or so she kept in reserve. What if she got hungry later? Forward thinking, all part of growing up.
She snagged a handful of sand from the pile and went to work. Lisa was owed a flower, wasn't she?
Hm…
Well with eyes like hers it would need to compliment them. Taylor had her artistic integrity.
That left green or red. She didn’t have a way to get a hold of gold ingot to make red. She’d hoped to find some on circuit boards and the like, but found exactly zero of any sort, for whatever reason. So the flower would have to be green.
Taylor bit off a mouth full of glass, then took a nibble out of a chrome-finished engine part, one she’d “salvaged” from a seductively shiny motorcycle.
Chew.
Chew.
Chew.
Bleuh. She drooled it into her hands. It was a pleasantly sharp emerald, leaning more towards light than dark. Well, actually it was cherry red with heat, but Taylor could tell. Good color. She flattened the blob into a small disk in her palm, and as she narrowed her focus the surface rippled like a Ferrofluid, blossoming up and blooming.
She called back the heat, and cherry red turned to glittering emerald. It was a simple daisy. Ovular petals sprouting out of a round bud; an inch across.
. . . . .
Taylor saw Lisa coming from ten seconds out, the girl looking fetching in a pretty blue sundress. So she’d been keeping an eye out, so what?
“Taylor!” Lisa called, tossing out a wave that Taylor enthusiastically returned. “Good to see you. How’ve you been?”
“Been great,” Taylor said, beaming. “You?”
“Oh I get by,” Lisa returned. “Well. The ceremonial pleasantries have been exchanged. Is it done? Is it? I’m excited. Can I see it?”
Taylor reached down into her bag beneath the table, hidden by the tablecloth on the front and both sides. She pulled out the flower.
Lisa let out a soft gasp, then fetched a simple metal clip from her pocket and handed it over. “I don’t suppose you can attach it here?”
“I was planning on it.” Taylor bent over and performed her magic beneath the table, pretending to be rummaging through her bag and using strange tools. She probably wasn’t fooling anyone, and had the sneaking suspicion that Lisa could tell – going by the knowing smirk spread across her face. Taylor’s work done, she handed Lisa the clip.
Lisa clipped a section of her bangs and smiled winningly, striking a pose. “How’s it, then?”
“You look like summer.” Like a summer spirit. Gold and green in a swirling blue dress. All she needed was a field of wheat behind her.
Lisa chuckled warmly. “Sweetheart. Here you are.”
A crisp hundred dollar bill changed hands. Taylor frowned and tried to hand it back. “I can’t-“
As Taylor’s deliberations began Lisa grabbed a vase from the table, held it over the tarmac, and dropped it. Taylor winced in anticipation of the crash.
The vase hit the tarmac with thud, like she’d dropped a mallet. It didn’t bounce or roll around. Just thump, the corner of the base hit the ground, a small spray of dusted tarmac heralding the landing. Then clunk, it fell on its side. Taylor’s noise of alarm tangled in her throat at the anticlimactic ending.
Lisa put the vase back where it belonged, leaning over and whispering as she did, “Glass doesn’t hurt the ground when you drop it, Taylor.”
“… Ah.” Speaking of, glass probably didn’t glow like hers did either. For a moment she felt something like worry, the closest she’d come to it since that first night on the docks.
Lisa smiled easily, still leaning over the table, and the worry was gone, poof. How could Taylor worry with bottle green eyes gleaming like that? “So you can. Believe me, you can. You’re trying to make money, aren’t you?”
Taylor nodded.
“I’ve been where you are. You can do better.” Lisa handed her a card. “Call me.”
Lisa left with a wave. Taylor looked over the card. On the front was a phone number. On the back was a doodle of a flower. The petals were dollar signs. The middle was a smiley face. Taylor put it in her pocket, careful to keep it from bending or creasing.
An hour or so passed in silence. Then a woman walked over, dark haired and olive skinned. Around her neck – Taylor saw and almost gasped – birdbear?!
“Hey,” the woman said, a smile blooming across her face as she took in Taylor’s expression, and her stall. “ I think you sold this-“ here she jostled the necklace, birdbear sparked, “-to a friend of mine a few days ago?”
“I did,” Taylor said.
“Good, good. I um.” She cast a nervous glance around and then leaned in a bit. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Uh, sure?”
The woman leaned closer still. When she spoke Taylor could see pearly white, perfect teeth peeking out from behind her lips. “I have another friend, and he took a look at – oh, I meant to ask to, what is he?”
“He is a birdbear, miss.”
Another smile, and a chuckle. “Well, a friend of mine happened to take a look at Mr. birdbear, and noticed that he wasn’t exactly… Normal?”
“...Okay?”
The woman pursed her lips and leaned closer still. “You wouldn’t happen to be a parahuman, would you?”
Taylor replied, innocuously, “Um…”
“Oh – it’s fine. I can keep a secret, I don’t want anything. I just was worried for you. I’m pretty up to date on the cape scene. It’s very dangerous for new tinkers, you know?”
New tinkers? Was she a tinker? More to the point - “Dangerous?”
The woman nodded. “Mmm. My friend works with the protectorate. We talk sometimes. The gangs keep an eye for new capes. They keep people stationed around docks and old industrial - most new tinkers end up salvaging parts around there when they’re starting out. I would advise you to avoid those areas.”
Taylor thought back to how she’d spent the last few nights and replied, “Um.”
“Oh don't worry, you’ll be alright, as long as you keep a low profile until you’re ready.”
Taylor cackling, spitting glass, swinging a whip of rebar around.
“UM.”
“Well, that's all I had to say. I like Mr. Bearsy very much, by the way. And – here.” The woman handed her a card. “My friend wanted me to give you this.” And then she left, with a parting flash of those pearly white teeth.
When she was gone Taylor turned the card in her hand. It was from the local protectorate. She shrugged and put it in her pocket next to Lisa’s.
Another half-hour passed. A little girl bought a starfish necklace. As she bounced off to her parents a familiar old woman approached, looking her table over.
“These are new,” she said, gesturing.
Taylor hummed in the affirmative.
“You really do make these?”
“Yes, I do.”
The woman looked over her wares once more. “Well I’ll be…” She turned her eyes to Taylor, not suspicious for the first time since Taylor had watched her scurry away days prior. “How much do you make a day?”
Taylor shrugged. “Around two hundred?”
The woman fished a card from her purse, writing a phone number across the back. Then she offered it to Taylor. “How would you like to add a few zeroes to that number?”
Taylor took the card. The woman left with a matronly smile. Taylor turned the card in her hand. It belonged to a jewelry store she didn’t recognize. The woman had crossed out the number printed on the card and written a different one beneath it. Taylor bit her lip. She put the card in her pocket with the others.
The day slowly wrapped up and came to an end. Taylor packed her shop and left, two hundred and twenty dollars and three ‘business’ cards warming her pocket on the bus ride home. She looked out the window on the ride back, mulling things over. Money. Safety? Green eyes and a smile...
It was clear who she had to call.
some non-spoiler story information before you start reading:
this could be considered an AU, kind of.
I've erased Coil, he doesn't exist. Lisa is just Lisa. Undersiders don't exist.
This will not get high-octane, Taylor doesn't fight anyone (at the moment, in my current outline.) Very much just slice of life.
I don't address the Endbringers, Scion, S9, any of that. So. Yeah. These things will not get involved. I usually just pretend they don't exist in the things I read and write anyways.
this will not be long. Shorter than Burn Up, maybe around 24k? (Off the cuff estimate.)
This will eventually be Lisa / Taylor. I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea - if it isn't yours, sorry? My hope is to present it as well as I can, but I am the last person who should ever write about romance. SO. We'll see.
Basically this fic is me exploring the threads from the snip that I thought could be fun: the relationship between Taylor and Lisa, Emma, and to a degree, her father, with some light-hearted exploring along the way.
That's all I can think of right now. If you're still here and still interested, carry on.
this could be considered an AU, kind of.
I've erased Coil, he doesn't exist. Lisa is just Lisa. Undersiders don't exist.
This will not get high-octane, Taylor doesn't fight anyone (at the moment, in my current outline.) Very much just slice of life.
I don't address the Endbringers, Scion, S9, any of that. So. Yeah. These things will not get involved. I usually just pretend they don't exist in the things I read and write anyways.
this will not be long. Shorter than Burn Up, maybe around 24k? (Off the cuff estimate.)
This will eventually be Lisa / Taylor. I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea - if it isn't yours, sorry? My hope is to present it as well as I can, but I am the last person who should ever write about romance. SO. We'll see.
Basically this fic is me exploring the threads from the snip that I thought could be fun: the relationship between Taylor and Lisa, Emma, and to a degree, her father, with some light-hearted exploring along the way.
That's all I can think of right now. If you're still here and still interested, carry on.
(1)
Even much later, after months had passed, Taylor would be unable to explain what possessed her into taking that first bite.
There she was, fresh from hell; half-delirious, half-manic, smattered in foul smelling blood from shoe to throat. She’d fallen on all fours. Her locker door, that big green slab was beneath her. But the green paint, the undercoating, the graffiti and smears of crusted blood, it had all burned and gone. The sturdy sheet of iron that was left spread beneath her hissing waves of cherry red and gold. The linoleum around her shattered. The molten iron roiled and belched. Behind her, her locker sagged into itself, the wall behind it coughing thick black smoke and flames.
Taylor fell back onto her haunches. Around her, the corridor smoldered. The fires climbed. Moments later alarms blared to life over the intercom.
It was nighttime now. Taylor curled up on her bed, her back to the headboard. A fingernail moon was out, the stars were up, every light in the house was off, in hers and beside hers and across the street, and she sat in that perfect dark, a spoon cupped in her hands. She took a breath.
The spoon collapsed. A puddle of red-gold light bloomed in her palms, pleasantly cool to the touch. By that light Taylor saw her hands, her knees, her feet, the foot of her bed. Beyond that, the suggestion of a dresser, the back of a chair, a cluttered desk, and finally the far window with her own reflection in it. Taylor bit her lip. What a ghastly underlit face it was…
Taylor turned away from her reflection and watched the molten steel, for minutes or maybe hours. If she looked close enough she could almost see herself in it. But this reflection was different. Warmer. Flattering somehow. She gently blew on it and watched the surface ripple with strange viscosity. She wondered what would taste like. Salt and pennies? Would it be warm? Too hot? Soft? Smooth or grainy?
Taylor lifted her hands to her lips. The sensation that flooded her mouth was – like taffy, the inviting way that her mouth began to water and the steel played against her tongue. The flavor was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, salty, chalky, earthy, sharp and cold and smooth and-
Gulp
. . . . .
They were calling it arson. Talking about charges and ‘we’ll do this when we find whoever did that.’ Standard affair for anything that happened in Winslow - Wile E. Coyote came in and painted the illusion of concern over a tarp. More likely than not nothing would come of it. Still the chance remained - it wasn’t like they couldn’t figure out who – It was her locker.
Taylor probably should have been concerned. But she hadn’t been to school in days, closed for repairs as it was, and the weekend was just ahead. School seemed like a different world. Different from her own, separate and distinct, and that was the world with problems, not hers. She felt no guilt or stress, no pressing urges to confess or run. She had begun to think like that more, lately.
Time passed simply for her. Taylor slept at night. She rose in the morning. Her father seemed conflicted, but when they talked at those breakfasts and dinners, she was smiling, and so for the moment he asked no questions. Those first days Taylor roamed the house, sampling the odds and ends that wouldn’t be missed.
Cluttery things like wood or plastic were awful. Just awful. Blegh.
Metal was thoughtful. like chocolate and black coffee. Not bad. Not great. Filling. Missing something.
Oh, but glass. Glass was sweet. Like cotton candy and hugs and good dreams and lazy Sunday mornings. It chewed and stretched like soft taffy, and in the right light the sun would catch and spin inside it, caught fast. Taylor could watch it gleam for hours, coaxing it into shapes in her palm. If she could resist the urge to eat it. She rarely could.
Gulp
. . . . .
She hadn’t gone to school Monday, shit was missing, and honestly her excuses were getting worse. Her dad could only pretend to believe her for so long.
Barging in that evening saying, “Taylor did you – augh wow your room is an oven!”
“I’m cookin’ up dreams, dad.”
But could he blame her? If he knew how it felt – the soft satisfaction dripping down her throat like velvet.
Tuesday over breakfast asking, “Taylor what happened to the bathroom mirror?”
“Oh it uh – broke. I’m fine I just was, I – I took it to the dump – took it to dumped… I dumped it on a corner. Somewhere else. So you wouldn’t… cut yourself on it.”
It was harder to feel guilty. Maybe if she tried, if she really tried. But her head was swimming most times. Soothingly warm and easygoing, so unconcerned with her own public standing it was as though she was dreaming.
Wednesday afternoon looking two shades concerned. “Taylor what happened to the microwave?”
“That’s a good question father I’d better go investigate.”
Was she eating enough? She hadn’t had much actual food in what seemed like days. Was that alright? She felt alright. Better than alright. Warm and tingly, every second of every day.
Thursday morning waiting for her. “Taylor, what happened to t – “
“Bye dad!”
But her happiness could only counteract mandatory schooling and 'everything being fucking broken' for so long. Judging by the face he’d made when she ran out the door, that length was nine days. So she’d been getting more impulsive, so what? You know what else was impulsive? Like. Tigers or something. And they totally had their shit together.
The point was, she had to stop eating her house.
It was with this in mind and not much else that Taylor found herself prowling around the skeleton of Brockton Bay’s shipping industry.
Huge abandoned warehouses, stacks of tanker-sized shipping crates, crunchy gravel-sprinkled tarmac, dandelions and thistles, mosquitoes and cicadas, and in those rare instances where she had an unobstructed view of the bay she could see undulating waves of masts and rusted hulls, a second ocean just above the first.
There was no route. She went whichever way looked the least sketchy. But it was night in Brockton Bay’s docks so that was an exercise in futility. No one seemed to be out, except her, which was strange but welcome, and she decided not to question it.
Taylor tried brick. It was a complicated taste, like running your paper cup through the whole soda bar. In this metaphor this included the iced tea, a classic novice mistake. The taste didn’t want to leave her mouth. Taylor flossed the brick remnants with her tongue and spat the glob of molten rock at a puddle, then squawked and ran away giggling because holy goddamn shit ass was it loud.
But those industrial size glass panes! Wowzers. Taylor took a chunk from a warehouse she was nearly almost maybe positive was abandoned and nibbled as she wandered, the glass liquefying around her teeth as she bit down.
As she ate, and ate, and ate some more, completely lost to hedonism, her head seemed to blow up, feeling heavy and fuzzy, and her chest began to tingle, hot flashes coursing down her, leaving her flushed and stumbling.
Taylor giggled.
Things went downhill, or perhaps uphill from there. She felt hot. Unseasonably hot, and thirsty and hungry. She roamed the docks as a belligerent drunk: kicking bottles, cackling, spitting glass at mosquitoes, all those things that drunks do. She left an imprint of her face melted into the side of a warehouse. Every impulsive and intrusive thought was fully realized. But as the night went on the veneer began to peel away.
Was it day? Night? It was harder to think. Her internal monologue got quieter and quieter, and now it didn’t seem to be there at all, and she was simply… simply was. This was not entirely unwelcome. The complications, and aches and worries all peeled back, and it was only her, just her. No Emma. No dad.
Cackling.
Spitting.
Skipping.
Tilting?
Swaying…
The day-night spun and swirled. Was that the sun coming up? Stars burst behind her eyes, her ears rang and ached, every sound seeming to come from right beside her, and as she stumbled to her knees it seemed as though she were in a hurricane, a calamitous racket of crashes and gasps, battering at her sides.
She saw her own hands on pavement, fingers splayed and bloodied from where they’d split on something sharp. But that wasn’t quite blood, was it? It looked like a demented oil slick; coils of glimmering red and silver and orange. It smoked as it spread on the pavement.
Taylor’s mind surged in like pounding headache, hissing forwards, and for a brief moment filling her head to burst, searing hot and cold and terribly loud. She wanted to scream. She tried to scream.
Why the hell did I come out here
What is happening to me
What did I
Why did I
Am I dying
I’m scared
I’m sorry
I don’t want to die
I-
Something grabbed her and yanked and she was flying back, through twisting lines and swirling fractals, hands and legs and eyes and alien things; senseless pulsing flesh laid out in mountains and valleys. It pulled her under, smothering her. She gasped and it flooded her mouth, wiggling, clawing down her throat.
Taylor blinked. She was on her hands and knees. She was warm, but the night was deliciously cool. She was alive, still. Not dead. That was good. Not dead was good.
None of the frantic, heart pounding terrified thoughts from before had carried through. Instead that space between her ears was quiet. She could almost cry. That quiet…
She stood and wiped her hands on her pants. When she checked, she found that beneath that swirling, hissing blood lied smooth unmarred skin.
The time was - Taylor looked up - probably around two in the morning, going by the light. Taylor was tired. She should get home.
. . . . .
Danny was asleep on the couch. How he’d managed to sleep with that much worry on his face Taylor had no clue. Was it proper to wake him or to let him sleep? If he slept like that he’d wake up with a crick in his neck.
Taylor poked him good. Poke. “Dad.”
Danny jerked awake with a grunt, rising unsteadily once his brain caught up.
Taylor hugged him. “Love you. Go to bed.”
Danny contributed to the hug on autopilot, saying things and making sounds that a human might make at three in the morning, two seconds after waking up.
Taylor said, “Goodnight.” She went to bed. Holy hell was it comfortable. “Wow,” said Taylor, wrapped in fireplaces and clouds.
She was up again four hours later and no worse for wear. Danny was at the table when she entered the kitchen.
He said good morning.
Taylor said good morning.
She sat down. He’d made her fried eggs. They weren’t bad, all things considered. And it was remarkably nice of him, given how tired he looked. Also considering that the little skillet had vanished Wednesday so he’d probably had to use the saucepan. Pretty pro, dad.
He asked how she was.
She said great.
He said good.
Clattering forks. Rustling paper.
He asked if she was going to school.
It was Friday, right? Yeah, sure. Why not.
She asked about his work.
He said things were chugging along. Like a very old, busted steam engine.
Taylor sighed contentedly.
The teapot whistled. He stood and filled an old French press.
He asked if there was anything she needed.
Taylor beamed. “I got all the stuff I need right here, pops.” It was the truth. There was an all-she-could-eat buffet out there, near the water’s edge. Also perhaps in the water. It was a two birds one stone situation if she could make it work.
He smiled. Some of the tension left his face.
Taylor washed her plate. “Have a good day at work.” She stepped foot out the door.
“Taylor, backpack.”
“Oh right. Thanks dad.”
It was a complicated expression that saw her out.
. . . . .
The school was open again, fortunately. It’d have been a wasted bus trip otherwise. The metaphorical foot of Winslow was all tarps and char and smoke damage. The whole place smelled like burning, even from the edge of campus where Taylor walked.
She got to class.
People talked.
Taylor sat.
Bells rang.
Gladly said things.
Bells rang.
The day passed like that, a blur of sit talk ring bell sit ring bell talk, and then suddenly it was lunch.
Though in fairness it couldn’t really be called lunch. Taylor envied Hollywood high schools, with their sneeze-panes and actual food variety. She loaded her tray with spaghetti and plastic forks.
Taylor found a seat at an empty table and prodded her meal, not really feeling the lunch vibe. Seriously, what was she supposed do to with plastic? Open a plastic store? Stupid. But actually smart, because this place having metal utensils? That would be stupid. As was opening a plastic store.
Shadows fell across the table. Taylor looked up. She recognized these people.
“What are you doing in here?” Emma asked. “You know pigs are supposed to eat outside, right?”
Insults aside, that was actually a good question. What was she doing at school? A favor to her father, but beyond that Taylor wasn’t sure. She remembered dreams of English and teaching and having a little apartment to call home. But that was before, when Emma was with her, not against her. After that was always so nebulous, put in terms of stomach-this and turn-the-cheek that, outlive, outgrow. ‘To where’ never had an answer.
Emma said something horrible. Sophia sneered and was physically imposing, and yet also… slightly off. Was her heart not in it? It didn’t look to be. Madison was there as well, being Madison.
Taylor knew she should react somehow, but she hadn’t been listening. First due to introspection, second due to something about Emma’s lip gloss and the way it just… gleamed as she talked.
“Well?” asked Emma, having kept on talking while Taylor tried to figure out what was going on.
“You’ve got pretty lips,” Taylor said, honest and a shade fond. For a moment she drifted back, caught in nostalgia as Emma worked up a zinger. “Do you remember when we practiced kissing?”
Emma blanched. Sophia quirked an eyebrow. Madison drifted back a bit. “It doesn’t even really feel that long ago. Three years, maybe?” She snorted. “Tongue. Like, you don’t think it’s going to be that loud right? But then here comes dad clomping up the stairs-”
Emma cut her off with a probably biting remark involving the word ‘freak,’ Taylor knew because she caught the sharp ‘F’ – Emma had this way of saying F’s that had made her giggle nine times out of ten. Taylor bobbed her head to the side, full of sass and marmalade: “Fah-reaky. And really, what was he worried about? What did he expect to find? It was just us. Like he wouldn’t have been happy for us were that the case, you know? You were already family.”
Emma, the closest a human can come to being spiritually parried, made noises that didn’t quite resolve into words but came appreciably close all the same.
Taylor looked at her. Really looked. Angry was a bad face on her. But this wasn’t quite anger, not just. Anger wasn’t supposed to burn that much. And anger didn’t look like it was about to cry.
They’d drawn a crowd. A movie crowd; butts down feet up, awaiting entertainment. Taylor could understand. She knew how things like this were supposed to go. How they’d always gone. Madison was off in the wings, there in spirit if nothing else. Sophia hadn’t moved, but she was resting on her heels now, away from the conversation.
Emma said something. Something pretty terrible, going by a nearby eavesdropper’s scandalous gasp. Taylor didn’t hear it. She was watching the lines play over Emma’s face.
Taylor stood.
Emma stepped back. Then a glimmer of frustration flashed across her face and she took two steps forward, her jaw clenching to hide the tremors, something strange flashing in her eyes as she rounded the edge of the table and waited for Taylor there.
Taylor walked around the table. Now they stood face to face.
Emma said something more.
Taylor hugged her. In the two seconds that it lasted Taylor noticed how much taller she was now; Emma was nearly a full head shorter. Her hair smelled like strawberries. She was small, or maybe Taylor was long, the way her arms fit around Emma with room to spare. Taylor remembered getting pencil lines drawn on their doorway, Emma standing on her toes, nudging the tip of the pencil higher up with her head like they couldn’t all see it.
Then Emma shoved her to the floor, snapping her from her daze. She looked furious. Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes.
Taylor propped herself up on her hands. Emma took her tray of untouched spaghetti and emptied it over. She said something, her lips still hypnotizing and gleaming, and then she stormed away, out of the cafeteria. Madison followed hot on her heels. Sophia lingered.
Taylor rose to her feet leisurely. Spaghetti and sauce slopped down her shirt. Sophia approached. When Taylor had gotten enough off to her satisfaction she glanced up and noticed Sophia there, waiting just inside her personal space.
“Do you want a hug too?”
Sophia’s eyebrows rose. She shot a meaningful glance at the spaghetti sauces stains. “No thanks.”
Taylor hummed. “Well.” She looked down at herself. “I should probably go.”
Sophia hummed. “See ya later, Hebert.”
. . . . .
The weekend came and went. Monday afternoon found Taylor playing hooky.
She had been thinking about her future. What she really needed was money. It was all that anyone needed.
The house needed money, too. She could see the writing on the walls. More importantly, she could see the writing on their mail. Bills. So many bills. Now she understood why they didn’t have phones; he couldn’t afford them. She wanted to help.
Taylor had ideas of how her power could be used for profit. But she needed to investigate.
Firstly…
Sunday night, after Danny was off to bed, Taylor skulked around the docks again. This time she took her backpack. She filled it with slabs of glass and metal, a smorgasbord of clears and greys and rusted browns.
She also explored a great deal. Not for any grand reason, just the siren call of the inner child that delighted in finding new places, new caves and forts, and the adventure of it all. She melted her way into shipping crates. Opened big thundery warehouse doors. Drew a flower on a wall with her finger. She toyed with the idea of swimming out and poking around those dilapidated boats, but no, she’d save that for a full moon. And a swimsuit.
Secondly…
Monday afternoon Taylor went to the boardwalk. It was all beachfront and stalls and hot-dog vendors. The vibe was that of a giant vaguely-elitist farmers market. Probably the best place for her to sell odds and ends and not need to worry about permits or advertising. The light there was good, too. Clear in the morning, gold in the evening. Shimmery. The kind of light that would catch and spin.
“Excuse me,” Taylor said. The T-shirt vendor turned. “Hi. Could you tell me if there are hoops I need to jump through to get a stall like yours?”
He smiled. “Well you’ll need a table. And a beach umbrella, something to keep the sun off you.”
“Okay,” Taylor said, committing that to memory. “What else?”
“That’s it.”
Thirdly…
A cursory internet search revealed an unhelpful list of compounds that, when combined with molten glass, would produce colored glass. But… Cobalt? Gold? Uranium? Where was she supposed to get uranium?
A day passed in their garage, Taylor sitting cross-legged, kneading mixes of glass and random metals together. She found that combining the compounds by chewing them together made them significantly prettier. But also significantly more delicious. Such was the duality of man. Or something.
Honestly there were probably videos of the subject but it was more fun to just screw around and see what happened.
She tried her metal stash, she tried vitamins and metal-ey sounding supplements from around the house, she tried money, nickels and pennies. The glass spun with blues and violets and yellows, the colors keeping separate somehow instead of muddying together into brown or grey. No reds. She got a beautiful, fiery orange, but no reds. Another time, then.
By the end of the day she a modest selection of products. Amulets, paperweights, small vases. Boring but reliable, and they’d shine like no one’s goddamned business.
Goddamn. Look at ‘em go. Taylor ate a little glass bear. “Shit.”
. . . . .
Tuesday morning found Taylor setting up her little folding table near the ass end of the boardwalk. The best spots were taken or too official looking for her to seem anything but a sham.
She found herself parked between that friendly T-shirt vendor from before and a struggling artist; the man sat in a wicker chair framed by wall dividers that were cluttered with frames and prints.
The first day was uneventful. A woman passing by summed up the situation, remarking, “Eh,” as she shrugged and then carried on. Taylor empathized. She didn’t look particularly legitimate, sitting at her no-shade table in a T-shirt and jeans.
Later that day came her only and most baffling sale.
An older woman picked up her heart pendant. At least it was probably the heart, it could also have been the bird. Her sculpting was a work in progress.
The woman held it to the light. She tapped it with her nail. She weighed it in her palm. She also sniffed it, Taylor was the least sure about what that was about. Finally she asked, “How much is this?”
Taylor said, “Two-fifty.”
The woman handed her two hundreds and a fifty.
Taylor, having meant two dollars and fifty cents, said, “Um.”
But the woman was gone. Taylor watched her fast-walk away, hurrying off into the distance like she’d stolen something. “Alright.”
She closed shop and bought a proper half-tent and card stock.
Taylor set up shop again the following morning, feeling prim and proper beneath the shade of her half-tent.
Things sold slowly and without incident.
That afternoon a pretty blonde stopped by, all green eyes and freckles. She held a pendant to the light. “Oh wow. What is this?”
Taylor’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward in her chair. “A bird? Or – he might be a bear. My sculpting is a work in progress, sorry.”
“Oh,” she said. “That explains the wings? Or is it a heart? I meant what’s it made of.”
“Glass.”
“Glass?”
Taylor nodded. It was glass, after all. Glass mixed with some metals she’d salvaged for color, but that was just how glass was colored. The internet told her so. And would the internet lie? Answer’s no.
The blonde pursed her lips and then held up the birdbear. “And you make these yourself?”
Taylor nodded.
“Huh.” She returned the bearbird to its natural habitat, looking over the rest of Taylor’s table as she did. “I’ve never met a glassmith before. Neat. You must have some serious equipment to get this kind of quality. What’s your setup?”
Taylor wouldn’t know where to even begin with that lie. “Trade secret,” she said. “Or whatever.”
The blonde smiled unnervingly; sly and wily. The look suited her. “Well, I wouldn’t know what you were talking about anyways. Just curious. Say, how old are you?”
“I’m 15.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“Yes.”
She laughed. “Well what are you doing out here, then? Shouldn’t you be off having fun? That’s what skipping school’s all about.”
“This is fun,” Taylor said. And it was. Those green eyes were ten shades of gorgeous, moreso when they flickered with I know something you don’t.
The blonde’s grin softened. “You really need the money, then?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Do you take commissions?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Neat.” Bottle green eyes glimmered as she smiled. “Cause. Much as I like Mr. Bearsy here-“ she jostled the pendant look at that sucker gleam “-I’d like something or a more… birdy, flappy variety.”
“I can do flappy birds,” Taylor said. “That said it might come out more triangular than bird-ular.”
“I find that risk acceptable. How much is this going to run me?”
Taylor shrugged. “Twenty bucks?”
Another angular smile. “Let’s say fifty, and you need to work on your pricing.”
“I do?”
“You do.” Green eyes roved her table. “A shade amateurish, but endearing, and fantastic color.” She gestured from left to right, jabbing a finger at each of her price tags in turn. “Twenty, forty, fifty, eighty.”
Taylor, looking at the same objects and price tags as the girl was, asked, “Are you sure? That seems…”
“I’m sure – what was your name?”
“Taylor.”
“Lisa. And yes, I’m sure. Even that’s pretty modest, honestly.”
Taylor looked over her dominion once more, in all its glimmering delicious glory. Were they really worth that much? The woman from the day before had seemed to think so. “Well. Thank you - for the advice, Lisa. I’ll have your flappy bird by tomorrow morning, same place. Stop by and pick it up whenever.”
Lisa grinned. “See you tomorrow then, champ.”
Taylor watched her whisk off, bemused and charmed. She re-wrote her price tags.
And hour came and went. Taylor passed the time tracing the fractals of light dancing inside one of the vases near the edge of the table.
She sold three pendants, a paperweight and a vase. Among them, confused mister bird-bear. She almost didn’t want to let him go – but there he went, jostling away around the neck of another woman. Taylor wouldn’t have minded, but it didn’t seem like the woman had even wanted him.
Taylor bit her lip. Goodbye, sweet birdbear. A flight of angels carry thee to thine box in her attic.
Finally, the day came to a close. A hundred-forty-five bittersweet dollars warmed her pocket as she packed and left.
. . . . .
One cramped bus ride home later Taylor lugged her shop upstairs to her room.
Another less-cramped bus ride later Taylor was wandering around her new haunt – the boat graveyard. The sun was almost gone, the air cooling down, the sky was dark blue and getting darker. She had the whole day left, it felt like.
The distant tide called her. Taylor puttered around on the concrete edges of the docks and yards, the bay on one side, the docks on the other, waking along concrete dividers like balance beams.
She lost a solid twenty minutes trying to pet a stray cat. It possessed the sort of demeanor that left it casually pattering ahead instead of running, moving faster when Taylor did, slower when she slowed – preserving a taunting separation between them. It was one tricky customer.
As she wandered Taylor filled her backpack with even more odds and ends.
It got dark soon enough. Very dark, actually. She forgot a flashlight yet again, and so walked by the light of a handful of steel.
It wasn’t terrifically bright. It probably did more bad than good - keeping her eyes from adjusting properly. But the dim orange light it cast was so eerie and candle-y, this thin circle around her that quickly faded out in to blackness – it felt like walking down a spooky hallway; delicious. Taylor crouched and skulked around like she was in a horror film.
She poked around those shipping crates again – the giant ones that get stacked on super-tankers; twenty feet long, eight feet wide, nine feet tall. There was a pile of them next to a defunct warehouse, and Taylor climbed up the pile, politely knocking on the ones she passed to check for occupants before making her handholds and footholds. No one responded to her knocks – how they’d resisted the allure of these clubhouses-in-the-making Taylor would never understand.
She reached the one at the very tippy-top of the pile, two and a half stories up, and melted her way inside. It was largely empty. Some dust and debris cluttered the floor – Taylor swept it out with the sides of her shoes. To make the crate hers, she cut out a square out of the wall with her finger, replacing it with a cobbled together sheet of glass.
It was tough work getting the big glob of glass to play nice. Taylor discovered that she could sort of – move it, when it was melted. Make it wiggle and ooze, or not wiggle and not ooze. She gathered the mass into her hands, keeping it balled up, like a big jiggly water balloon. It was fiercely pretty, and she lost about two minutes playing with it and making bloob bloob noises with her mouth - arguably the most fun she’d had since that morning.
She made it flat next, straining some part of her she hadn’t known existed beforehand. And then, suddenly, the crate had its first window; a crystal clear portal to the bay, the surface of the glass rippling and swirling in unintentional fractals. When Taylor lookout out through it, the sliver of moon caught in it, trapped in its web, and traced out sharp white lines and circles, as though it were filling a hollow carving with incandescent liquid. Taylor wondered how it would look in the sun.
It got late. More late. Taylor shouldered her score and headed home, nibbling at a stick of rebar as she walked.
It was a long trek though bad neighborhoods. Taylor thought she might get accosted. She was surprised it hadn’t happened already, she was in Merchant territory after all. But no one stopped her. It was strange, really, but she decided not to worry about it.
Danny wasn’t up waiting for her this time. Taylor was relieved. He worried too much.
She wasn’t tired yet, and so snuck down into the basement, adding her haul of scrap and parts to a pile in a corner. Next she sat down against a filled-to-bursting gorilla rack. Taylor recalled an order for a flappy, birdy thing from earlier that day, and set to work.
. . . . .
“Wow,” Lisa breathed. The blue bird twirled on the end of a string. In the afternoon glare it looked like it was on fire, the way sparks seemed to gather in the center and pop. “Who’s gonna wear who, huh? Pretty.”
Taylor said, “…Hm?” How hard she resisted the urge to eat the commission would be her little secret. Provided Lisa stopped lording it over her like that. “Do you like it?”
“Very much. Ah, and here you are, master glass-smith.” Fifty dollars in crisp tens changed hands. Lisa set the pendant around her neck. It suited her, but she had the features to make anything look good. “How’s it, then?” She struck a pose.
Taylor was salivating. “I – uh… Great.” Them glimmery collarbones, yowza.
Lisa smiled, seeming inordinately pleased with herself. “You up for another commission?”
“’Course I am,” said Taylor. “Anything for my favorite customer.”
“I’m thinking something to put on a hair clip. A little flower, bout yay big.” She spread her fingers an inch apart. “What do you think?”
Taylor could picture it on her already; a simple metal clip holding back a lock of hair. She could see the flower on it. Green for her eyes; simple and elegant. Taylor liked it. “I like it.”
They squared away the details. Lisa left with a parting wave, but Taylor’s smile refused to leave, even when the older woman from days prior appeared in the distance and started shooting her suspicious looks. Did she have something on her face? Taylor checked – just that goofy smile.
The woman approached, looking over her wares. “These are new,” she remarked, looking over a few vases.
Taylor nodded. “Made them yesterday – er - last week. Whichever sounds the most reasonable.” Smooth.
The woman made an even more suspicious face at her. “You make these yourself, then?”
“I do.”
“By yourself.”
“Yeah.”
The woman nodded to herself. Her eyes went to one of her new vases, and then to the card stock with the price. “You’ve raised your prices.”
“I uh –“ Was that poor form? Taylor had no idea. “Yes?”
The woman picked up a vase. It was blue and green - the same way the water in the Philippines was blue and green. Warm and alive, somehow. “Eighty, for this?”
Taylor checked her memory. “Yeah.”
The woman hummed. She fished a hundred dollar bill out of her purse. Taylor handed her a twenty. The exchange felt oddly tense and standoffish, and once it concluded the older woman seemed to hang there, unsure if she should leave.
“Thank you,” Taylor said.
The woman cleared her throat and left.
Taylor shrugged.
The rest of the day came and went without issue. Two hundred and sixty dollars warmed her pocket as she packed up her shop and caught a bus home.
Her dad wasn’t back yet, same as yesterday. Taylor tossed her shop into her room and her money into a sock in her dresser. Then she caught another bus to a worse part of town.
Her haunt had been waiting up for her. It was eight or nine-o-clock. Bright enough to see by, but only barely. Taylor passed that indecisive gloomy period brightening up her fort on the shipping crate pile.
She ferried up backpacks of sand from the bay, heaving her backpack onto to crate-roofs like a shot-put, taking it up one level at a time and dumping it out inside, until a reasonable mound occupied the far end of her crate.
Inside, she working by the dim light coming through the window, and the glow given by small bracelets of molten glass she kept wound around her wrist. She made handles on the sides of the crate, then used those handles to reach the roof of the crate, melting a five foot section out of the roof and replacing it with smooth glass.
It was a long, involved process. Taylor got a lot of practice coaxing oozing glass across the ceiling to spread out into the hole – from the inside it looked like the sky was being devoured by some kind of alien blob monster.
By the time she was done the moon was overhead, a slightly bigger sliver than yesterday. She could see it through her new skylight, it and the stars, both clearer than in town. The inside of her crate smelled like burning. Taylor left it open to air out when she left.
It was fiercely dark still. In the areas with no streetlights Taylor fished a length of rebar from her pack and made it into a glowing whip. It was intoxicatingly woobly, undulating this way and that way as she padded along, and she amused herself by helicoptering it around, snaking it along the ground, dazzling herself in the dark.
Her father wasn’t up waiting for her, and Taylor took care to be extra sneaky when she got home. She spirited away to the basement, not tired at all, and eager to get to work on things for tomorrow.
Taylor upended her backpack full of sand near her pile of cluttery odds and ends. Most of of the sand, at least. Ten pounds or so she kept in reserve. What if she got hungry later? Forward thinking, all part of growing up.
She snagged a handful of sand from the pile and went to work. Lisa was owed a flower, wasn't she?
Hm…
Well with eyes like hers it would need to compliment them. Taylor had her artistic integrity.
That left green or red. She didn’t have a way to get a hold of gold ingot to make red. She’d hoped to find some on circuit boards and the like, but found exactly zero of any sort, for whatever reason. So the flower would have to be green.
Taylor bit off a mouth full of glass, then took a nibble out of a chrome-finished engine part, one she’d “salvaged” from a seductively shiny motorcycle.
Chew.
Chew.
Chew.
Bleuh. She drooled it into her hands. It was a pleasantly sharp emerald, leaning more towards light than dark. Well, actually it was cherry red with heat, but Taylor could tell. Good color. She flattened the blob into a small disk in her palm, and as she narrowed her focus the surface rippled like a Ferrofluid, blossoming up and blooming.
She called back the heat, and cherry red turned to glittering emerald. It was a simple daisy. Ovular petals sprouting out of a round bud; an inch across.
. . . . .
Taylor saw Lisa coming from ten seconds out, the girl looking fetching in a pretty blue sundress. So she’d been keeping an eye out, so what?
“Taylor!” Lisa called, tossing out a wave that Taylor enthusiastically returned. “Good to see you. How’ve you been?”
“Been great,” Taylor said, beaming. “You?”
“Oh I get by,” Lisa returned. “Well. The ceremonial pleasantries have been exchanged. Is it done? Is it? I’m excited. Can I see it?”
Taylor reached down into her bag beneath the table, hidden by the tablecloth on the front and both sides. She pulled out the flower.
Lisa let out a soft gasp, then fetched a simple metal clip from her pocket and handed it over. “I don’t suppose you can attach it here?”
“I was planning on it.” Taylor bent over and performed her magic beneath the table, pretending to be rummaging through her bag and using strange tools. She probably wasn’t fooling anyone, and had the sneaking suspicion that Lisa could tell – going by the knowing smirk spread across her face. Taylor’s work done, she handed Lisa the clip.
Lisa clipped a section of her bangs and smiled winningly, striking a pose. “How’s it, then?”
“You look like summer.” Like a summer spirit. Gold and green in a swirling blue dress. All she needed was a field of wheat behind her.
Lisa chuckled warmly. “Sweetheart. Here you are.”
A crisp hundred dollar bill changed hands. Taylor frowned and tried to hand it back. “I can’t-“
As Taylor’s deliberations began Lisa grabbed a vase from the table, held it over the tarmac, and dropped it. Taylor winced in anticipation of the crash.
The vase hit the tarmac with thud, like she’d dropped a mallet. It didn’t bounce or roll around. Just thump, the corner of the base hit the ground, a small spray of dusted tarmac heralding the landing. Then clunk, it fell on its side. Taylor’s noise of alarm tangled in her throat at the anticlimactic ending.
Lisa put the vase back where it belonged, leaning over and whispering as she did, “Glass doesn’t hurt the ground when you drop it, Taylor.”
“… Ah.” Speaking of, glass probably didn’t glow like hers did either. For a moment she felt something like worry, the closest she’d come to it since that first night on the docks.
Lisa smiled easily, still leaning over the table, and the worry was gone, poof. How could Taylor worry with bottle green eyes gleaming like that? “So you can. Believe me, you can. You’re trying to make money, aren’t you?”
Taylor nodded.
“I’ve been where you are. You can do better.” Lisa handed her a card. “Call me.”
Lisa left with a wave. Taylor looked over the card. On the front was a phone number. On the back was a doodle of a flower. The petals were dollar signs. The middle was a smiley face. Taylor put it in her pocket, careful to keep it from bending or creasing.
An hour or so passed in silence. Then a woman walked over, dark haired and olive skinned. Around her neck – Taylor saw and almost gasped – birdbear?!
“Hey,” the woman said, a smile blooming across her face as she took in Taylor’s expression, and her stall. “ I think you sold this-“ here she jostled the necklace, birdbear sparked, “-to a friend of mine a few days ago?”
“I did,” Taylor said.
“Good, good. I um.” She cast a nervous glance around and then leaned in a bit. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Uh, sure?”
The woman leaned closer still. When she spoke Taylor could see pearly white, perfect teeth peeking out from behind her lips. “I have another friend, and he took a look at – oh, I meant to ask to, what is he?”
“He is a birdbear, miss.”
Another smile, and a chuckle. “Well, a friend of mine happened to take a look at Mr. birdbear, and noticed that he wasn’t exactly… Normal?”
“...Okay?”
The woman pursed her lips and leaned closer still. “You wouldn’t happen to be a parahuman, would you?”
Taylor replied, innocuously, “Um…”
“Oh – it’s fine. I can keep a secret, I don’t want anything. I just was worried for you. I’m pretty up to date on the cape scene. It’s very dangerous for new tinkers, you know?”
New tinkers? Was she a tinker? More to the point - “Dangerous?”
The woman nodded. “Mmm. My friend works with the protectorate. We talk sometimes. The gangs keep an eye for new capes. They keep people stationed around docks and old industrial - most new tinkers end up salvaging parts around there when they’re starting out. I would advise you to avoid those areas.”
Taylor thought back to how she’d spent the last few nights and replied, “Um.”
“Oh don't worry, you’ll be alright, as long as you keep a low profile until you’re ready.”
Taylor cackling, spitting glass, swinging a whip of rebar around.
“UM.”
“Well, that's all I had to say. I like Mr. Bearsy very much, by the way. And – here.” The woman handed her a card. “My friend wanted me to give you this.” And then she left, with a parting flash of those pearly white teeth.
When she was gone Taylor turned the card in her hand. It was from the local protectorate. She shrugged and put it in her pocket next to Lisa’s.
Another half-hour passed. A little girl bought a starfish necklace. As she bounced off to her parents a familiar old woman approached, looking her table over.
“These are new,” she said, gesturing.
Taylor hummed in the affirmative.
“You really do make these?”
“Yes, I do.”
The woman looked over her wares once more. “Well I’ll be…” She turned her eyes to Taylor, not suspicious for the first time since Taylor had watched her scurry away days prior. “How much do you make a day?”
Taylor shrugged. “Around two hundred?”
The woman fished a card from her purse, writing a phone number across the back. Then she offered it to Taylor. “How would you like to add a few zeroes to that number?”
Taylor took the card. The woman left with a matronly smile. Taylor turned the card in her hand. It belonged to a jewelry store she didn’t recognize. The woman had crossed out the number printed on the card and written a different one beneath it. Taylor bit her lip. She put the card in her pocket with the others.
The day slowly wrapped up and came to an end. Taylor packed her shop and left, two hundred and twenty dollars and three ‘business’ cards warming her pocket on the bus ride home. She looked out the window on the ride back, mulling things over. Money. Safety? Green eyes and a smile...
It was clear who she had to call.
. . . . .
Last edited:
