* * *
After dinner Xie cleans the attic. On his knees polishing the floor, laying new sheets on the mattress, clearing out old boxes from the closet. Dish of bones at the head of the bed, a branch on the pillow. The garden is ready; the attic is ready. When you hear Erik’s truck disappear down the road you drop silently down the stairs, black mask, black pants, the hammer in your hand.
* * *
At the threshold of the church you pause. Face slick beneath the mask. Wait for the fear to kick in but it doesn’t come: no one can hear you, stop you. Robed in the fresh dust of the woods, lungs drunk on its air. Pushing the door open. At last. You recognize the quality of the silence that always fills the church, not absence but expectation, a bubble longing to burst. The cabinet, freshly polished, as smooth as satin in the candlelight. The key gleams on its chain. The doors fall open and the body looks down at you, ravenous. Hand tight on the hammer you tap the glass, one, twice, then again, harder, full swing, and it falls like water, shattering over the stone. Splinters of glass cling to the black mask, in the fibers of which your blood remains, from the last time; you can still taste it. Shaking free of the shards. Hands trembling in the gloves. Climb into the case. Dust and bone and silver. Bracing your back against the wood. Deep breath. Leaning to put your mouth against his teeth, eyes shut tight as you let the kiss run through you. Beloved. Hand against his cheek. His brittle face. What you have waited for. Then: get the body free, strips of old leather strapping the body to a post. The knife cuts through the skin with a snap. In an instant he falls into you, groan of metal and velvet and bone. The glass cracks beneath your shoes. The body sighs. The crown slips from the skull. You put it on your own head.
* * *
The only way to get the body through the woods is to drag it, walking backward, skull pressed facedown into his chest. Boots digging into the underbrush. Ferns shuddering in their wake. Starlight striping the length of the cape, shadows gathered in its stiff folds. Lone owl. Rustle of fox. He has to go slow, step carefully, arms and legs burning. Weave through the birch. Past the dead tree. The stream peeling back from the rocks. Walk right into the water. Splash and drag. Pull him through the gate. The sunflowers nodding on their stalks. Panting. Stepping over the threshold and something like gold, coming from the body, all around. No time to marvel. Still the ladder to go. Will have to. Undress him first. The wide skirt, the breastplate, each long boot, hinges at the back stiff with age; he takes it all off, exposing the armor’s lining of thick red velvet, unfaded, wet from where the water came through the boots. A pile of silver and gold on the living room rug but the treasure is here. Can you believe. That it is yours. The body pure, unadorned, so small without its armor. You must. Take care. Skull against his chest, legs hooked over Xie’s arm. Up the steps, then laid gently on the bed, quick stroke of the ribs and then several trips for the armor, stacked in the back of the small closet, the cape the hardest because it is almost too wide to fit, it scrapes the paint off the wall as he wedges it through. Lock the door. There. Turn to see. The skull nested on the pillow, barely a dent. Look at me. He kneels on the mattress, naked. Candlelight brightening the sides of the bones. The ribs a narrow bell, holding their fistful of air. Xie’s hand where the heart would be. He caresses the spine, the most beautiful, reptilian line in the body, fused with glue to replace the lost tissue; the coccyx, hands, feet, and jaw also glued, too delicate to articulate with the crude metal joints fastening the rest of the bones together. Only the bones held in place by the meat of a living body have been lost; the patella above the knees, three tiny bones in the inner ear. Otherwise the body is complete. He crouches between the femurs, kissing the top arch of the pelvis as he fits his arm through the gap, slow, as far as it will go, all the way to the shoulder, filling the hole with his flesh. Hand crawling up the spine, vertebra by vertebra. As deep inside the body as it is possible to be. He lays his head on the thigh, his arm gleaming between the wings of the pelvis, twisting beneath the ribs, finger grazing the darkest place on the body: the foramen magnum, a jagged circle the size of a silver dollar floating at the bottom of the skull, through which the spinal cord once connected the rest of the body to the brain. He fits his finger inside, stroking the dark interior of the skull, stirring its most private air. Certain that no one has ever thought to touch the body. In this way. For pleasure, to give pleasure. Hands trembling. Heavy breath. Do you like this. Cradled between its legs. Stroking the body from the inside. And then there is P., kneeling on the mattress, behind Xie, spirit but solid, a body as tangible as the bones, dressed as he was in the case, radiating that gold light, which is yet another body: the saint split in three. It’s the spirit that speaks, that says the word again: Beloved. The light over the sheets, crawling up Xie’s thighs. Xie turns the body over on its side. Belly to spine. Kiss at the top of the neck, hand skipping over the back of the ribs, gripping the crest of the hip. Holding your breath. The light stretching all the way to your neck. Turn me to gold, too. Let me drink it. Touching the body all over. P. touching you. The body draped now over yours. You have the skull in your hands and the light is. So bright. Pinning you to itself. Lips against his forehead. Against his mouth. Not hurting anyone. No. No one. Kissing the breastbone, the clavicle, the cheek. Dry, impossibly light. Perfect. The candle lit. A deep shadow over the body’s face, skull tipped forward, mouth against the bottom of the jaw, Am I all right, do I look all right to you. Beautiful. Yes. Show me. How hard you are. Let me hold you. Come, P. says, beside you, caress from temple to hip. The body above you. A bird’s weight. Rapture. Beloved. Thrusting up. Deep shadow. Deep night. You are. So. Happy.
* * *
Waking to the body against his, rib to rib, foot over foot. Long look at the skull, slow kiss. Not a dream. Before getting out of bed Xie takes the sheet and wraps the body. Careful as he straightens the legs, smooths his hand over the pelvis. Someone walking into the room would see only a pile of blankets on an unmade bed; you’d have to know the body was there to see it. Sun settling on the pillows. Dust rising from the mattress, fractions of skin and bone. Smell of sex. While he showers P. leans at the sink, watching through the curtain. You don’t have to be with the body? Xie wonders. P.’s grin. I am anywhere. Beckoning. Let me see you. Xie turns off the water, dries himself. P’s head dipped to his neck. Don’t make me hard again. Light against his back. Xie arching into it. Fingers against his throat. Even in the mirror you see him. The glass, the room, you: full. Gasping into the sink. Finish dressing, no breakfast, hair still damp as he pulls his hood up. Come with me. Through the woods. The birds calm in the trees when P. passes. Faint tracks from the night before, the drag of the body’s boots in the dirt, half covered with fresh leaves, the marks of other beasts. The birch not yet bare, leaves just starting to turn, branches a fragile lattice against the sky. Squirrels circling the trunks, reminding Xie of the mink, wary eyes, soft bodies. Where are the bones of those creatures, he wonders. Scattered over the roads where they were crushed, buried in the backyard where they were found biting the necks of someone’s chickens, silver chins matted with blood. All of them shot. He saw the pictures in court, someone giggling behind their hand as Xie wept in his, Ryan Moore gazing at him with the mild wonder of one animal about to eat another. Moore will pack his yard with mink, install a security system, a steel gate in the driveway. With Erik’s money. But don’t. Think about that now. P.’s boots ringing on the library steps. Ducking to keep his crown from hitting the jamb. Inside, Xie half expects P. to disappear, but instead he grows larger, illuminating the hideous room, grazing its low ceilings, the dusty stacks. Radiance. Pouring through the plate glass, splashing the cement walls, a man asleep at a table meant for a child, sweat glittering on his filthy brow. Hey, Karen says, folding her jacket over a chair. You’re bright and early. He nods, sitting. Yeah, I. Stops. Trying not to stare at P., sitting beside them. She blinks. You okay? Yeah, I’m fine. Hand over his mouth, trying to wipe the grin off, can’t. Sorry, I just. Didn’t sleep much. The sharp lip of P.’s boot cutting into Xie’s knee, can he really feel it or is it. Just his imagination. Another nudge: Can you feel that, beloved? Stifling a laugh. Opening his textbook to the chapter about the Spanish Inquisition. Xie giggles, helpless, forehead to the page. Seriously, Xie. Do you need to go outside for a minute or what? Deep breath, palms against his eyes. Straightening his face. No, I’m sorry. The fire alarm goes off. They both jerk in their seats. Jesus, Karen breathes. Someone sheepishly shutting the fire exit door. P. by the fire alarm box, one finger beneath the plastic cover.