the gypsy that remains Who: Ezra and later Emilie Galloway, Johai Corauni Where: Sister Slaugher & Miz Deliverance's old train car, elsewhere in the underground. What: Miz Deliverance reunites with her favorite babies. When: June 29, after this.
so i'm back to the velvet underground, back to the floor that i love. to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that i was. and it all comes down to you. you know that it does.
In the dark of the tunnels, Jo finds her way.
This living never settled with her. She could never quite get used to this world of cement and steel, too used to the wild green mountain of her youth. The smell of dank mold and rusting metal was always a bother to her. She never ceased to remind Virgil of this. She never could stop telling him how she hated hiding in tunnels, could never stop asking him to leave this city behind and come with her to those endless Appalachians. He always said the same thing-- once they were done here. Once they were done.
Well now he's done, and she's still here.
She picks across the tracks. The rust smells like blood. Or maybe it is blood. This place has fallen hard, all of the things Virgil tried to prevent have come to pass. War amongst his children, bodies in the tunnels, blood on the tracks. Jo doesn't know what is left. She doesn't know how much more she can take.
Her eyes, now used to the sun, are still not sharp in the dark. Still, she never falters on her path. Maybe it's his ghost drawing her home, but she finds that old train car, the sides painted with images wild green mountains, of slitted-eyed snakes, of a big black cottonmouth swallowing the world whole. She traces her fingers against the door, the windows blocked out by draped lace. She takes a deep breath and slides the door open, stepping inside.
By some miracle, it is just as she left it. She's not sure if it would be crueler or easier if everything had changed. She steps up into the train car, instinctively kicking off her boots to leave them inside the door, keeping the subway's sludge and slime out of the sacred place. The train car still looks like a psychedelic blanket fort, the steel walls covered in blankets and tapestries, pillows piled up in a corner with a canopy of blankets overhead, battery-powered fairy lights burned out and dead. Virgil's discarded shirt from the night before he met the Dog King is still lying on the edge of the pillows that padded their bed. It hits her like a bullet, right between the eyes.
Tears wet her cheeks as she kneels down, picking up the candles scattered around the floor. She lights them one by one, casting light over the shadows, bringing everything she has left of him into focus. There are pictures pinned to the wall. There are designs drawn in Sharpie on the fabric. There are paper shapes and playing cards dangling from the ceiling on mismatched ribbons and twine. Jo shrugs off her backpack and tosses it aside, then crawls into the pile of pillows where he used to sleep beside her. She can still smell him there, peppermint and sweat. She reaches towards the old stereo beside the bed, a battery powered monstrosity with a tape still in the deck. It comes on at her bidding, clicking and shuttering to life. A song starts up, soft and blue, faltering with the waning battery.
He used to sing this in her ear. When she rolls onto her back and closes her eyes, she can hear his voice mingling with Joni Mitchell's smooth rasp. There's so many sinking now, you've got to keep thinking you can make it through these waves.
Dead and gone. Dead and gone.
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go, well I don't think so.
A sob rattles out of her chest, drowning out the whispers of the dying stereo. She's not sure she should have come back. She could never have stayed away.