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APARTMENT 1C
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Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1D
APARTMENT 1DANNIVERSARYMonday, 3:24 PMWe are a walking history of our failures,” Marta said as she snapped the napkin open and laid it across her lap. “A stumbling catastrophe of unbelievable screw ups that, as you can plainly see, screwed us up.” She laughed, the tight smile on her gleaming lips held a moment longer than needed. “Really, it’s just been an endless array of aborted endings. Until now, I mean.” Her pudgy hand lifted her champagne glass—her sixth, but who was counting?—in yet another toast to the elegant man seated to her side. “And for that, we thank you, Mr. Peabody.”“I promise, this time we’ll get it right,” the stranger said with a small nod.Even here, surrounded by the decay that was Eidolon, he seemed to fit. Untouched by the yellowing walls and the splintered baseboard, the brown stains running from the ceiling or the thin windows that rattled when the wind blew and rain pelted the glass, as it did now, this Peabody was neither tall nor short, neither han
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1E
APARTMENT 1EUMBRAThere was something living in the walls.Still wearing her only black dress, a rose taken from the cemetery in one hand, her bright pink backpack in the other, she’d watched the stain in her new bedroom. Round and raised in the middle, like a bubble, it was different than the others.And it was alive.She’d known it the moment she’d walked in. Had felt it as she’d turned to put her backpack on the creaky bed. Had expected, when she first saw the stain two weeks ago, to see a face, two eyes, lips, a nose and cheeks and teeth, pushing from the wall.But there’d only been a wide brown circle. A stain that wasn’t a stain. One that wasn’t long and dark like the others. One that hadn’t dripped from the ceiling to the floor. One that sat alone, removed from the others. Just like her.“What kind of name is ‘Umbra?’” were the first words Gran had said when the big lady with the onion bagel breath first dropped her off. The State had decided this was where she had to be
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast PROLOGUE
PROLOGUEThere is a place on Eidolonthat stands five stories tall.Beyond locked doors,dreams dreamt no more,the tenants await their fall.And on this dayon “Eye-da-lon,”which waits five stories tall,vindication sweetfeeds the hunger repleteas the walls inside whisperLet’s eat.
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast APARTMENT 1A
APARTMENT 1ALUCKYMonday, 3:24 PMIt’s said all of Shanghai wept when she died.It’s said over three hundred thousand marched in a funeral procession four miles long that blustery March day in 1935. It’s also said that somewhere in the sobbing throng several women committed suicide. Their silent screen Goddess, Ruan Lingyu, ending her life with a fistful of sleeping pills at the too-young age of twenty-four spawning a grief only death could calm.Whether or not myth wrestled with fact to become legend, and some claimed it did, everyone agreed this was a sad full stop to the short sentence of what might have been a glorious career.A week later, in one of the many squalid shacks that still hug the outskirts of Shanghai, an early birth followed this now iconic end, the young mother’s overwrought anguish shocking her into the delivery of a small, sickly daughter. A dangerous unlucky beginning for a dangerously lucky life.Or at least that’s what little Ruan Liu’s family said.Dec
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWOIn a shining villa in the center of Shanghai, her thighs burning, her back aching, and her knees rubbed so raw they all but whimpered, Lucky kneeled, silent, waiting and more exhausted than any almost twenty-four year old should be.The Revolution had arrived almost a decade ago on the heels of a brief, bloody civil war. The Communist storm which had darkened the horizon for years had finally crept in and swept out the poor, the infirm, the religious. And now, outside the city, in the rural areas, thousands were dying in what was feared would be an historic famine. The old and weak falling first. Small children left to starve in the fields under the watchful eyes of hungry prey. The trees plucked of their leaves and stripped of their bark, the birds silent in their absence.But far from the devastation and desolation, Lucky worked.Her father dead and her mother dying, the family had abandoned Bad Luck Lucky. Closed their hearts, closed their pocket books, and closed th
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREENestled in a pile cluttering the coffee table sat a discarded pouch of Lipton bleeding into the sunken oval of a porcelain saucer.“It’s good, isn’t it?” Evangelical said. She lowered the mug into a nearby abyss, the porcelain finding the saucer and a watery pool of its own russet-hued blood with a gentle clank.“It can fell armies,” Lucky heard herself saying.And raise kings, came the remembered words from Madame Xuo’s red room.The vengeful wraith of the woman with the white face and a slash of scarlet for lips waited opposite Lucky. From a small, low chair that had once sat in a distant past, she was near the window in the here and now, her eyes low, her tongue crawling with secrets and lies and things best left unsaid.“I’m sorry?” Evangelical said.Madame Xuo stared at Lucky, her knees not kneeling as they rested not on the grimy grey of a familiar carpet, but on ancient boards that were cracked, splintered and covered with dust. Nearby, Yin Ying stood too ta
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOURHer teeth were missing, she heard someone silently say, a girl from a distant, remembered conversation.Lucky’s tongue felt thick as it moved. Her teeth were safe and sound.She stood in a hall. A narrow hall. One with many doorways and an end that didn’t end, the long space leading to an unavoidable dark.The low table was gone. As was Yin Ying and the brazier. The dragon no longer whipped ‘round the baseboards and the wiggling of her flesh had quieted.The red remained. A haze that snuck along the floor, and climbed the walls, and ducked into the shadows hugging the ceiling.Lucky blinked, and then blinked again. Fingers flexed and her chest rose in a deep breath. Her mouth tasted of sick. And a sour burn stained her throat, stinging her nose when she swallowed.She’d drunk the tea. She remembered. She closed her eyes, the heat of the red room returning.A dragon chased its tail. Two clay pots waited. Madame Xuo sat silent and watching and dead. Then alive, bendi
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVEBelow her, the waves of Hangzhou Bay slapped the pilings of the dock. Around her, men worked, barefoot, the thick denim of their pants rolled up to the knees. Or stood, smoking strong tobacco rolled in cheap paper.She needed help, but couldn’t speak. There’d been a hall. A narrow space with a low ceiling and many doors. The light was red. The walls reflected red. The floor more glowing red. Even the shadows waiting at what could be the end of the hall—for the hall had to have an end, yes?—were red.Madame Xuo had stood in a mountain of bodies. Arms without fists that flailed and hit. Crude legs that thumped the floor as they tried to crawl, and lift, and stand. Teeth too large for mouths that sliced faces in two. Gashes that still whimpered, still wept, still bled.And Madame had spoken. There’d been a warning, and then blood. But the air, it was cool and inviting. There’d been silence, then. And knowing what the future held, she’d stepped into the dark, the shade, th
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