The Voiceless Feast

[Trigger warnings: This story deals with grief after death, heavy alcohol use on page, and brief mention of suicide.]

“You’re eating,” Scylla said slowly, his eyebrows raised in surprise at the small mortal swaying and humming tunelessly over a steaming pot.

“No,” Echo drawled, holding up the bottle in her hands. “I’m drinking. And you’re standing in my doorway like a pest.”

“And cooking,” he replied, pointing a finger at the small, uncontained fire she’d seemingly built so unceremoniously in the middle of the room.

She didn’t respond, just continued swigging from the bottle.

“It smells good,” he offered lamely.

Scylla stepped hesitantly in the room, ducking beneath the low threshold.

After leaving the hospital, she’d moved here—a single room in the artist’s district. It was filled mostly with half-finished pottery. A pile of blankets that might have passed for a bed was nestled in between a shelf and the wall.

There was no kitchen, just a basin caked with dried clay. In the corner was a kiln, on and blasting the room with warm air and light. Craning his neck to peer into its depths, he wasn’t sure if she was firing recent works or using it as some sort of makeshift oven.

He’d once chided her on the dangers of living here and breathing in dust from all the clay. She’d said nothing, just sat down at her wheel and started creating something vessel-shaped—and blatantly phallic—pointedly ignoring his comments until he’d left.

Scylla again eyed the pot simmering on the barely contained fire. It was filling the small room with rich smells of simmering white fish and something starchy while simultaneously wafting smoke thick enough to choke any being.

His eyes watered with the urge to cough. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut instead of berating her for her foolishness.

“What is all this food for then?” he asked, finally sliding his eyes up from the small bonfire back to Echo. She swayed a little dangerously on bare feet over the large pot, which was dangling from an iron rod set between two piles of bricks.

“Guests,” she replied tersely, shrugging. Echo didn’t look at him. Instead, she picked up a large wooden spoon and began stirring the contents in the pot, the metal rod rolling a little on its perch.

Scylla raised his eyebrows. He stepped closer, palms up, anticipating disaster. After a few moments of continued, sweltering silence, he finally said, “I didn’t realize you’d made friends. You don’t leave this place.”

Snorting indignantly, she shook her head. “Still watching me, then?”

Scylla frowned, dropping his hands. He reminded himself it was better not to fight with her. His gaze lingered on the side of her face for a long moment before he shook his head.

Biting his tongue, he wandered her space.

Clay vessels littered every available surface. Painted on their sides were small designs, each a story he didn’t pause to read.

Scylla ran his fingers over the smooth, glazed surfaces.

He cleared his throat, trying for light as he asked, “Are you going to the celebration in the market?” It sounded forced. “I believe there’s a group of traveling acrobatic sea-folk. They’re said to be quite the sight.”

She grunted. “I don’t do crowds.”

The stew was simmering happily now, making little burbling pops that sounded like the rise of bubbles in the sea. Through the corner of his eye he watched as she stirred with her left hand and drank with her right. His lips drew into a thin line.

She’d put her back between him and whatever new project she’d started—the sound of slicing coming from her workbench.

Under her breath, almost too low for him to hear, she was singing. “One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak.” Her voice was soft and lilting.

He cleared his throat. “I didn’t know you could paint.” Plucking a cup off a shelf, he tossed it lightly in his hand, hoping to get a reaction from her.

“You can learn a lot of skills while imprisoned with the proper tools,” she said flatly, not turning.

Scylla sighed. It wasn’t the burst of anger he wanted. It wasn’t enough to send her spitting, or to wash away a bit of this gloom.

His patience finally wavering, he deposited the cup where he found it with an audible thunk. “We’ve discussed this, you’re not in prison.”

“Oh but aren’t I? ‘A man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and leave.’” With the small knife now in her hand, she gestured toward the door—the cloth curtain stirring in the draft.

On any other day, he may have found it funny. But she wasn’t talking about cloth or walls. She meant the curling wall of water beyond, the living barrier that sealed the city. The one that he could pass through, and she could not.

“That is not what Plato meant,” Scylla snapped, then caught himself. He drew in a breath. Yelling wouldn’t help.

Vegetables hit the surface of the stew with a wet plunk. She moved to tend to it again.

“He wasn’t talking about walls,” he said more evenly, crossing his arms over his chest. “He was talking about death. About not having the right to choose it.”

Echo shrugged, raising her bottle to him in mock salute. In the moment before she tipped it to her lips and drained it, her jaw ticked. The look that passed over her face washed him with cool dread.

He couldn’t help it. He walked to her. His steps were slow, measured. Inwardly, he chided himself for approaching her like she was some animal primed to flee. At his sides, his hands twitched as if he might reach for her.

The smell of liquor on her breath was strong, laced with brine and juniper. Belatedly he wondered if this was the sea bean liquor she was attempting the first time he walked in here, and if she’d really perfected it or if it still tasted like licking a sour oyster.

She’d stopped stirring to watch him approach, one hand still white-knuckled around the spoon.

Her green eyes were dull, a little unfocused. She shifted from foot to foot, and it made her look impossibly young. She was, though, wasn’t she?

Scylla’s gaze traveled the length of her, heart sinking. He hadn’t noticed in the last year how her cheeks had hollowed, the firelight throwing shadows over a face that could have been a corpse. Through the thin fabric of her tunic he could make out the hard lines of her hip bones; her ribs.

He swallowed, guilt coating his mouth like acid. How had he not noticed? It was so obvious.

Gently he took her hands, prying the bottle from her cold fingers and placing it on the floor.

“Echo,” he said thickly, “you’re not okay. You need help, let me help you.”

Bristling, she tore her hands from his, leaving behind their cold, ghostly imprint.

“I don’t need your help,” she spat. “Get out.”

Echo turned from him, back towards the workbench where a scattering of vegetables were piled.

Scylla opened his mouth. To say what? To chide her about the dangers of clay dust again? Apologize?

Her knife fell hard on the body of a thick vegetable, the sound of the blade splitting through root like the crack of bone. He snapped his mouth shut.

The vegetal head rolled to his feet, leafy head a patter over the uneven floor. It knocked into his boot. A turnip.

Scylla took that as a sign, swallowing the rest of the fight and striding towards the door. On his way out, his gaze cut towards a table, neatly laid out under her only window. It was small and lumpy, made of lobster traps, stray bits of netting spilling out from under a blanket, thrown over the mess as a tablecloth.

It was set with six clay cups and bowls. No single piece matched the other, but each paired vessel had a similar design.

He didn’t linger.

His legs took him towards the square, where the Harvest festival was. But, as he drew closer down the street of packed sand, he realized the distant sounds of music and laughing had begun to quiet.

Scylla looked up, towards the water that shimmered beyond the shield keeping the kingdom dry. The light had almost completely bled out of the sea.

Was it really that late already?

People would be heading back to their homes for the Voiceless Feast. It was a tradition on Harvest, a silent feast with empty places set for those gone to the next life. With the plague, there were plenty—

Salt.

He stumbled to a halt. The memory hit him like a maelstrom.

Last Harvest he’d spent the night celebrating. The next day he’d gone to the hospital. He was going to make Echo leave—she’d been fully recovered and just… empty. He was ready to try anything, even attempt to drag her in hospital garb to a festival. Just one day she wouldn’t have to think of it all.

Instead, when he’d walked into the hall, Ceto had stopped him.

“Nice work,” she’d said. “The girl ordered six trays of food yesterday. She must be on the mend.”

But, when he’d walked into her room, any joy he’d felt at her potential recovery had died in his chest.

He’d found her curled up on the floor, shivering in her sleep. Trays of food sat around her in a circle, untouched. The room had felt near bursting with sorrow.

He’d never asked about those she’d lost.

Great Above. Had he always been this thick? Of course. She was from the Above, but so was most everyone, in some way, who lived in Under Sea. They had the same salts-damned customs. Stupid.

Scylla cursed under his breath. Before he could think better of it, he spun on his heel, heading back the way he’d come.

Through the gap in her curtain, he could see that the glow had dimmed. Tiny flickers cast shadows over the walls from candles inside vessels and on her sill.

He stepped up to the small window, peering through.

The makeshift table was now set with candles and surrounded by six pillows. The clay bowls were filled to the brim with a hearty smelling stew, steam rising from them and dancing in the light.

Warm looking bread sat in the middle of the table, impossibly golden and soft. The clay cups were over-filled with some opaque, greenish-pink liquid he couldn’t decipher.

He only hoped it wasn’t some mix of murky slip water.

Echo was to the left of the head of the table, the solo inhabitant, surrounded by five empty seats. Her head was buried in her hands and, by the look of her shaking shoulders, she was crying.

Without thinking, Scylla calmly ducked through the threshold.

Breath held, he took his time.

Walking along the shelves, he scuffed his feet—a little, just so he didn’t startle her. Carefully, he chose a cup and a bowl before heading to her workbench to pour himself a drink from a pitcher, filling his bowl from the pot.

The fire was, thankfully, doused.

He worried his lip as he approached the table, meeting her stare as he did.

Scylla expected anger, but she met his gaze with blurry, tear filled eyes.

He paused, waited.

After a breath, Echo nodded. Slow at first, then with a bit more enthusiasm. He settled himself on the opposite corner, careful not to disturb any of the settings.

A ghost of a smile lifted the corner of her mouth, even as fresh tears cut glittering tracks over her cheeks.

Scylla raised his glass to her, taking a sip. When the liquid hit his tongue, he couldn’t stop the surprised sound that bubbled past his lips. With an apologetic gesture he took another taste, taking his time to savor the flavor of it.

It was incredible.

The rhyme she’d been singing rolled over him like the soft rise of a current. One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. Only now did he realize it meant punch.

Citrusy and bright, something sweet that danced over his tongue. Sugarcane spirit trailed fire down to his belly in a way that made him feel pleasantly warm, and bubbles kissed away the burn.

She must have bartered a fortune in exchange for the sugar and the citrus.

Scylla closed his eyes in delight, clutching the cup to his chest. He held the liquid on his tongue, savoring it. So rarely he’d tasted citrus in Under Sea, he didn’t know how he’d gone on without it from here.

It was too valuable, too rare.

He must have been smiling, because when he opened his eyes, Echo was looking at him with bewilderment. The steaming bowl of stew pressed between her hands, halfway to her mouth.

In thanks, he tipped his cup to her, and over the lumpy table she tapped her cup to his in cheers.

Echo offered him her spoon for the stew, and together they ate in silence.