The Blue Smoke

I first saw the blue smoke when I was seven years old. My brother and his friends went down to the canal and I followed, thinking I was older and bigger than I was, and that’s where we found it coiled above the dirty brackish water, churning in hypnotic waves. My brother’s friend Rook dared their other friend Lind to throw a rock at it, but Lind said that was how you got the blue smoke to come break into your house at night, and besides, a rock wouldn’t do anything, it was smoke.

“I’ll do it,” I told them and walked over toward the low railing. Down below, the blue smoke stared back at me as I looked over the edge.

“Bad idea.” My older brother Hew said as he put a stone the size of a robin’s egg in my palm. “Just miss.”

But the blue smoke sat down there, boiling around itself, and I felt Lind and Rook staring at me, and I wanted the older boys to think I was as good as them. I threw the rock hard and it disappeared into the blue smoke’s body, barely disturbing the mass.

I thought there’d be a sound like the rock hitting the canal water underneath, but there was nothing. It just kept falling. It was just gone.

We stood and watched the blue smoke for a while after that. It didn’t move—it didn’t uncoil from its perch and come strangle me—and eventually Hew was like, let’s go sharpen sticks and chase stray cats, and we had to leave. But the blue smoke was still down there.

***

I dug my fingers into the railing and watched the blue smoke as Hew passed the bottle of wine around. Lind took a big drink, and the others gave him shit for hogging it, and when it was my turn I sipped and passed it along.

“You still afraid of that stuff?” Hew asked, leaning up against my shoulder. Down below, the blue smoke stared back.

“Nah. We’re not kids anymore.”

My brother smiled to himself. He was eighteen and about to go join the wall guard. His friends were joking loudly and another bottle of wine appeared, and I was pretty sure Lind might pass out wasted any second. It was a good send-off, as far as those went.

“I don’t believe any of the stories,” Hew said. “About dark magic? Or how it leaves the canal and eats bad children? I mean, those are obviously all bullshit. But it came from somewhere.”

“You really want to talk about the smoke right now?” I tilted my head and looked at him. “You’re joining the guard.” The rest was unspoken: there was an army on the march, and if it turned toward Aberfirth and there was a siege or a battle, Hew would be in the middle of it.

“The pay’s too good to ignore. You know how much we need the money. Besides, you’re the smart one.” He squeezed my shoulder and someone shoved wine into his hands. Serem called out that they were heading over to Madam Koll’s and we’d better hurry or all the good girls would be taken, or maybe all the bad ones, which amounted to the same thing. Lots of raucous laughter, and it wasn’t even a funny joke. Hew threw back a drink and passed the rest to me. “Come on, little brother. Cheer up. You can come stare pensively down at that stuff another time. Women await.”

“Sure, women.” As if we could afford Madam Koll’s. We’d end up in a gambling den once Hew’s friends remembered they lived in Rustlands and looked like the shabby gutter trash they were. But maybe tonight, Hew deserved a little distraction for once in his life instead of constantly worrying about Mother and working his hands to the bones down at the loading bays. He’s right, soldiering pays much better than moving boxes, but boxes don’t shoot muskets.

The others moved on. I finished the bottle and watched the blue smoke for a while. If the Macers stormed the walls, what would happen to Hew? What would happen to the city? Mother could barely get out of bed and Dad died three years back. If something happened—

The bottle was empty, and when I tossed it down into the canal, it disappeared into the smoke. I waited for as long as I could to hear the splash. Hew called my name from half a block away, and I had to hurry to catch him.

***

The canal was busy during weekdays. It cut across the center of Aberfirth that acted as both thoroughfare and promenade. I liked to stand next to the railing and watch the boaters push lazily along the waterways, shouting at each other and waving up to watchers on the bridges. Construction pounded on the buildings all around this section of the city, and would likely keep going for a while yet. Half of them were covered in scaffolding, and the other half were burned-out husks. Putting a city back together was like using spit to reassemble an eggshell, but the Burgomaster was pouring good money into the project, and Aberfirth was coming alive again.

Light glinted off the body of the blue smoke like it was made of glass.

“You’re way too obsessed with that stuff,” Cayla said as she brushed some hair from her face. I leaned up against her and draped an arm across her shoulder.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That smoke stuff? You’re always coming down here to stare at it.” She kissed my neck and looked at me through her lashes. “We have an hour before class, you know. We could get some coffee and sit down in the park?”

Lecture, work, more work, more lectures, a few hours in bed with Cayla, back home to check on Mother, more lectures and more work. The week spread out in front of me like words on a page, and it wasn’t such a bad story, it really wasn’t, except I remembered standing here years ago drinking wine and dreaming about a better life, and that life never panned out.

My fingers held onto the railing, and the smoke uncoiled itself, little tendrils reaching up into the air, searching for something.

I watched, mouth opening to tell Cayla to look, to look, the blue smoke was moving, it’d never moved like that before, but I couldn’t speak. The edges elongated, little fingers waving in the sunlight, wriggling like worms, like the hungry worms in Hew’s corpse, like the body-eaters feasting in the mass graves under Heroes Park, and one long line of the blue smoke extended up the wall toward me in a twisting, spiraling pattern. I reached out to meet it, not sure what it wanted but unable to stop myself, leaning forward, forward, the center of my gravity tugging me toward the canal, but not toward the water, leaning into whatever the blue smoke hid—

“What are you doing?” Cayla’s hands, grabbing me back. My weight reversed and I was on my feet again. She looked horrified as she held onto my jacket. “Hey, seriously, are you okay? That wasn’t funny, you asshole.”

“I’m fine.” I looked over my shoulder, but the blue smoke was back in its shape. A roiling thundercloud. “It’s nothing. Bad joke. Let’s get coffees.” I took her hand. Otherwise, I might turn back to the blue smoke. I didn’t understand what just happened, and I didn’t want to know. The worry on her face brought me back to reality. “I’m fine. I promise. Just a stupid joke.”

Her face relaxed and she punched my shoulder. “You’re an ass.”

I forced myself to smile and turned her away from the canal. “I’m buying. We’ll grab a good bench and people watch for a while.”

“Not going to try to convince me to go back to your place?”

“That’s after class.” I kissed her cheek, and she beamed at me, her face flushed and deep brown eyes smiling, and I was more sure than I’d ever been that I wanted to be with this girl for the rest of my life. It came over me like a chill, rising from my knees and into my chest. Cayla was right. This fit, and I’d be an idiot if I turned my back on it.

“You’re a pig. But it works, because I like it.” She laughed as we began walking together, my hands in hers.

***

The blue smoke stared back at me. In the dark, it looked heavier. The street lights cast orange streaks along the pavement, and no matter how dark out it got, the blue smoke always stared back at me. That was why I liked it: I felt seen. I felt like I was a part of something bigger. The houses on either side of the canal loomed over the water and cast shadows across the blue smoke, but it remained curled in on itself, the only part of the city that hadn’t changed over the years. New construction, new smells, new sounds. New trees planted along the promenade. This section of the city had been a dumpster pit back before the war, and now it was changing. Clean streets, clean houses. The clean folks walking along the avenues. Even new boats churned through the water. The world was new, and the blue smoke continued.

I held a palm full of rings. Some nice rings, some cheap ones. Copper, silver, gold, a couple gemstones. Ruby and emerald. Tarnished and worn from years of wear and neglect. I used to sit with my mother and hold her hand, and sometimes I’d twist the rings around her fingers in little circles. Gifts from my father, she’d told me once. And the simple silver one was from Hew after his first soldiering payment came through. I have that one now, perched on the tip of my thumb.

I threw them into the canal. Into the hungry face of the blue smoke. I kicked over the empty bottle of wine at my feet and it spun away, fell into the dimness below, and splashed into the water, floated away, carried by the current, but the blue smoke stayed. What the hell was it? What was it hiding? I threw another ring and it disappeared. No sound, no plunk of something small hitting water. Just nothing. I threw another, and another, until the blue smoke began reaching out like it was hungry.

“You want this?” I said and threw another. The long, thin tendrils reached. “You really want this, you sick fuck? I hate you.” I threw another, and another. “I hate you so much.” I threw until I had nothing left.

But the blue smoke kept coming. I’d never seen it reach so far before, coiling up the wall, through the mortar joints like worms, wriggling toward my boots. I let it touch me; I bent down to stroke it. I expected something thick and heavy and alive, but it was only smoke. My fingers passed right through. It was chill and damp, and my hand felt clammy on the other side.

“You can’t keep doing this.” Cayla’s voice. I looked away from the blue smoke and found her standing a few feet away wrapped in a heavy coat. It was cold. That was right, it was cold. “I know you’re hurting. But you can’t keep coming here.”

“Cay, look—“ I turned, but the blue smoke was gone. It was back in its shape, coiled around itself.

“The city’s getting rid of it. You heard what the Burgomaster said, right? They have a theory about why it’s here, and in a few months they’re going to get rid of it. Can you just leave it alone until then? Please?”

She looked tired. Two kids and not a whole lot of money between us, especially after Mother’s burial expenses. She didn’t blame me. At least, she didn’t say it out loud, but we both knew. I could do almost anything in this city, renewed and growing every day, and instead I always end up back here.

“I heard some people talking once. They said the smoke’s been here since before we built all this.” I gesture at the canal and the houses. “What’ll happen when it’s gone?”

“Nothing. It’s smoke.” Cayla turned away. She might’ve put a hand on my arm or kissed my cheek, but not anymore. “Come home.” She walked off and didn’t look back.

I watched her turn the corner, then stared into the smoke again. Gone, like everything else, but that couldn’t be right. The blue smoke endured. That’s what it did, and what it had to do.

***

The machine rumbled. The cobble stones jumped under my feet and the great canal seemed to bend and twist as mist and exhaust fumes dumped into the air. There were shouts, human noises over the machine, and I leaned against the railing trying to get a better view. My usual spot was closed; they said it was too dangerous for anyone to get near the machine. Instead, I’m on the bridge, and all I can see are indistinct person-shapes in the gloom, and the constant grind of the world coming undone.

It was a vacuum. It was a dredger. The canal sat empty and quiet, the water blocked and redirected further on, all for the blue smoke, a thing which had been here for untold histories, for longer than the city itself and definitely longer than anyone alive, a feature of the landscape like the water itself or the rocks on which the city was built, the blue smoke was the city, and they wanted to get rid of it. For what reason? Out of fear? Did progress really demand that much sacrifice?

My fingers turned white gripping the edge of the railing, and I tried to imagine a world without the blue smoke, and couldn’t see it.

Nobody came this time. Cayla was at her father’s house with the kids and she wasn’t coming home anytime soon. It wasn’t because of the dreams, she said, not because I thrashed all night and kicked her in my sleep, or because I had trouble keeping a job and had no motivation to do better in the world, or because I’d forgotten her birthday or neglected her needs or any of the thousand little human problems that came with a relationship. It was none of that, and when she tried to explain, I couldn’t hear it, not over the sound of the machine. And then she was gone.

That was fine with me. I stayed in my spot watching the world continue for hours until night came and they were forced to stop. When it was quiet, and there was nobody else around, I slipped around the makeshift barricade keeping the street closed and crept closer to where the blue smoke curled at the bottom of the canal, unmoving, surrounded by dug-out holes and dirt piles, by spider-legged diggers and elephant-nosed movers, somehow smaller than it’d ever been before. Reduced and in pain. I could hear it screaming.

I climbed over the railing. There were six inches of ledge on the other side, just enough to stand on. I positioned myself directly above the blue smoke, right where it lay thickest in the canal water, but there was no water underneath it, that had always been a lie, like all the other lies we’d been told about this city. Like how it wouldn’t fall, it wouldn’t burn, it would bring peace and prosperity and long life to everyone in its walls. I remembered the taste of wine and my brother laughing. I could still see my mother sunken on her bed. And beneath me, the blue smoke coiled into itself, tighter and tighter, anticipating me. I didn’t want change. I couldn’t love with another change, with the world moving on.

“Please.” It was Cayla’s voice. But that couldn’t be right. She was safe with the children on the other side of the city. “Please.” My mother’s voice. Strong and clear, like she’d been when I was a kid. “Please.” My brother. My poor dead brother, lying in pieces on the ramparts. I reached out for them and the blue smoke reached back, its fingers uncoiling. It felt smooth on my skin as it slid up along my ankles, up inside my trousers, reaching along my calves and my thighs; it felt cold and warm, and I heard my mother laughing, and my brother singing, and Cayla whispering goodnights to our half-awake children, they were growing too fast, and there was only one way this could end, only one way I could save them all.

The machine gleamed in the night. A boxy amalgamation of wires, pipes, glass tubes, and instrument panels. The smoke rose from my jacket, from the sleeves of my shirt, rising around my face, sliding up my nose and into my lungs. I saw my brother raise a bottle; my mother pushed herself out of bed with a smile; Cayla laughed at a joke; the children threw themselves on top of me. I tilted forward, angling toward the machine, and the smoke poured from my collar and danced around my face. Forward, forward, out into space, out over nothing, directly above the machine thirty feet below, with the blue smoke rushing all around me in chaotic patterns, before I jumped.

Quiet, the rush of air, then the impact. Glass shattered and metal creaked, crumbled, snapped. Gears broke and cracked, and pipes bent under my weight. Above me, the blue smoke whirled in patterns through the air, and below me, the machine was a shattered wreck. It wasn’t such a long drop; maybe I’d be fine after all. Maybe the blue smoke would help me finally let go. Maybe I’d get up and walk away from all this. Maybe I’d never look over the railing again.

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