With One Tongue

WITH ONE TONGUE

by A.C. Wise

In our master's house, we speak with one tongue. At night it is kept in a box of carved wood that smells of warm beeswax and honeysuckle. The one of us who wears her hair in a long braid guards the box, locking it meticulously each night before she sleeps; she wears the key on a chain that hangs to her breasts, cold metal held between her clothing and the warmth of her skin. The chain's links are like tiny clasped hands, their fingers intertwined, reminding us that we should be unified in all things, moving as one under the master’s direction.

The one of us who wears her hair in a long braid is always the first to wake when the sun comes in, slanting gold and long-fingered through the windows in the morning. She rises from her place on the floor, where she shuns even the small comforts of blankets or old flour sacks stuffed with rags, and instead sleeps on the stone outside the room where the box is kept.

The one of us with red hair keeps count of the days using chalk and a slate on the wall, so we know whose turn it is to speak. As children, we are taught how to use our one voice so our words are seamless, smooth, easy to hear, no matter whose mouth holds the tongue. We do not know if it is like this in other houses; no one would tell us even if we could ask the question.

Today, the one of us whose black hair is straightened from its natural curls will hold the tongue. We gather in the kitchen where the ovens are just starting to heat the air, and form a circle around her. We watch as the one of us who wears her hair in a long braid lifts the tongue from its box. Sometimes we imagine the tongue tastes of honey, matching the box's beeswax-and-flower scent. Our eyes should not be hungry, should not betray jealousy on the mornings when it is not our turn, but sometimes we cannot help it. We are not all as perfect as we ought to be.

The one of us with straightened black hair parts her lips. The tongue is pressed into place behind her teeth, and she closes her eyes. We all know the sensation, taking a thing familiar yet strange into our bodies, of us and yet not our own, holding memories of the one who held it before, the ghost of taste and the shape of its sounds. She lets out a breath and when she opens her eyes again they are warmer: now dark brown, flecked with bits of amber-gold. She smiles, but it flickers out like a candle—she knows that even in her mouth, the tongue is not truly hers. Then she smoothes the front of her skirt and climbs the stairs to serve our master.

The rest of us disperse in silence. There is another slate on the kitchen wall, chalk-marked with a rotation of chores. The one of us with covered hair and the one of us with hair cropped close to her skull will work in the kitchen side-by-side today. Every time the schedule brings them together, the one of us with covered hair remembers when she heard the one of us with close-cropped hair singing. A secret thing, a forbidden thing, a fleeting ghost of sound trickling from the upper reaches of the house. The master had been away that day, and the one of us with close-cropped hair had been charged with changing all the linens.

The one of us with covered hair had been working in the garden. She’d dropped the trowel she'd been using and had run inside: her feet bare, her soles turned up to the sun while there was no one there to see. She left muddy footprints inside on the cold slate-tile and hardwood floors layered with their ornate carpets, running with her skirts gathered in her hands.

Ahead of her, the song vanished around corners, a bird fluttering out of reach. The song opened a hollow inside her, and in that hollow's depths lay the sliver of a memory, someone else singing a long time ago. A mother? A sister? An aunt? She couldn't recall, and before she could seize it, the song and the memory both vanished.

Even now, she wonders if she dreamed it: if it was just wishful thinking that the tongue could be used for something as beautiful as music.

In the kitchen, the one with covered hair steals glances at the one with close-cropped hair. She hopes to catch the delicate movement of fingers forming words, or a smile. Anything to confirm that what she heard was real. She is certain that the one with close-cropped hair hides secrets beneath her skin, and she longs to share in them, even though the shadows beneath her eyes and the firm press of her lips betray her fear.

She watches the one with close-cropped hair peel and chop vegetables: how light catches in the fine hair on her arms, the way her muscles move as she wields the knife. As the one with close-cropped hair reaches for a pot, the one with covered hair catches her breath. Tucked in the crook of her elbow is a tiny black tattoo.

It is there and gone again as the one with close-cropped hair bends her arm. But its image lingers in her mind: a picture  that conveys a word, a name. It is something true about the one with close-cropped hair that doesn't belong to anyone in the master's house but her.

Shock goes through her like cold water, like lightning, leaving her fingers tingling as her hands fly to cover her mouth. The bowl falls to shatter on the ground, and a cloud of flour rises into the air. The one with close-cropped hair turns. She still holds the knife, and her hand tightens its grip. The one with covered hair notices, for the first time, that the one with close-cropped hair has eyes like new leaves.

There is a question in those eyes, a subtle flexing of the knuckles where she holds the knife. The one with covered hair jerks her head and presses her hands tighter against her mouth, fingers digging into her skin. The one with the close-cropped hair relaxes her grip on the knife, and she uses the knife's point to touch the ink at her elbow before pointing to the same spot on the one of us with covered hair.

Her eyes widen slightly to ask a different question. The one with covered hair feels it rise in her chest: a bird with soft, brown-speckled wings, too fragile to hold lest the terrible weight of her wanting snap its hollow bones. She shakes her head again, her cheeks flushing hot. She wanted this thing, but fear is a well inside her, bottomless and dark.

The one with close-cropped hair shrugs. Shame floods the one with covered hair and she wishes that she could take back that movement of her head; wishes that she could push past her fear. She wants to shout—yes, she wants this thing, she wants it with all of her body. But those leaf green eyes are guarded again. The one with close-cropped hair gestures with the knife to the shattered bowl.

As the one of us with covered hair tends to the mess, her pulse races. Is it too late? Will the offer stand? Could the one with the close-cropped hair really give her a secret name of her own? When she glances up, the one with close-cropped hair is gone.

•••

As the sky bruises dark and the stars pinprick the night, the one of us with straightened black hair comes back down the stairs. Her movements are slow, pained. We circle like bees around their queen, touching at her with gentle hands. Our eyes ask questions, but the one who wears the key around her neck hustles her away. We do not see the tongue go back into the box, but the one of us with red hair makes a mark on the slate, signaling the end of the day. 

Later, when the one of us who wears the key around her neck sleeps, we gather around the one of us with straightened black hair. We speak in our own language of silence with fingertips and palms, with our lids half lowered. She turns her face away, but we still see the bruises, the marks that will become scars. 

The one of us with close-cropped hair brews a storm in her eyes. The one of us with covered hair breathes fast and shallow. The one of us with red hair looks down, covering her upper arm with her hand. Just visible beneath her palm is the ghost of fingers, red, as if a bruising grip recently held her skin. 

When the sun rises again, the one of us with straightened black hair and scars on her skin no longer appears on the rotation of days. She will continue to work in the master’s kitchen, cleaning his linens, scrubbing his floors, but she will do it silently. She will not hold the tongue in her mouth again. The one of us with red hair will not meet our eyes. The one of us who wears the key smiles in brief triumph. 

This morning, the light is less gold; it’s clear and cool like the sun reflecting off fast-moving water. The one of us with covered hair accepts the tongue today. It is pressed into place by the one who wears the key, and her fingers are warning sharp. The tongue does not taste of honey or song—only the memory of blood and teeth biting down. Tears heat the eyes of the one of us with covered hair, but she swallows these tastes down.

The one of us with covered hair closes her eyes and feels for the bird-flutter of hope and fear that’s inside her. The one with leaf-green eyes and close-cropped hair is watching her. Before the one with the key around her neck can shuttle her off to her duties, she rushes to the one with straightened hair and kneels beside her. She takes her hand, the fingers beneath hers calloused, rough, and warm.

"What did he do to you? Where does it hurt?"

The one with straightened hair opens her mouth, but no words emerge. Tears brighten her eyes, and her hands flutter uselessly. The one who wears the key grabs the one with covered hair by the arm, pinching and jabbing with her hard fingers until she's out in the hall, up the stairs.

The word why weighs heavy on the tongue as she climbs the stairs. It lingers as she enters the master's study, wanting to speak itself into the air. Is it her word? Or does it belong to the one of us with close-cropped hair? She cannot tell, but it tastes of sea-wet stones, and old salt, and she longs to spit it out. Instead, she looks down and avoids our master's eyes. He watches her as she scrapes old ashes from the fireplace in his study and lights the fire anew. He watches her as she dusts the room, straightens pillows, carries away trash. She tries to swallow the word she carries, and the stone of it lodges in her throat. 

The day lengthens and she completes the tasks required of her—but she cannot leave until she's dismissed. The one of us with covered hair waits, looking down at the patterns on the rug and the soft, rounded toes of her shoes. In her peripheral vision, the master's hand twitches. He caresses a glass paperweight, lifting it slightly as if to test its weight, a gesture redolent with bruises and scars. 

Heat rushes through her, and the word presses against her teeth. The word, like the tongue, is all of ours. Not hers, not belonging to the one with close-cropped hair. But before she can spit the word out, the one whose hair is in a braid enters the room. A look flickers hummingbird-quick from the one with the braid to the master, then alights on the one with covered hair. A slap cracks against the one with covered hair's cheek and the word shatters like glass in her mouth. The one who wears her hair in a braid drops into a curtsey and leads the one of us with covered hair away.

There is reproach in her eyes: sharp, fearful, full of warning. The one with covered hair notices her eyes are not quite blue; they are gray, threaded with secret colour like a pigeon's wing. We are all versed in the language of silence, but the one of us with covered hair cannot decipher the eyes watching her now. Is there fear for her position if one of the rest of us were to stray? Or is it the same fear that we all share? Is she loyal and, if so, to who?

 The one of us with covered hair pulls away from her confusion. She feels the one whose hair is in a braid twitch her fingers as if she wants to let go. In that moment, the one with covered hair breaks free, running to the one whose hair is cropped close who stands watching. The one with covered hair presses her fingers to the crook of her elbow, feeling her pulse.

"Yes," she whispers. 

It is her last word before the one whose hair is in a braid catches her again and the tongue is taken from her. Rough fingers hold her jaw with force that feels as though it could splinter the bone; she barely restrains herself from biting down. She expects to be stricken from the list like the one of us with scars, but she remains. She looks, a silent question, at the one of us with red hair, who in turn looks away. 

Something wakes in her, a new curiosity that makes the one of us with covered hair watch those around her more closely. Do they all dream? Do they all have something private like a name in ink, or a secret song? She notices the way the redhead moves. Even at her chores, her feet make a pattern, bolder when she thinks she's alone. Her hips sway. Her fingers tap her thighs, keeping rhythm.

She dances.

•••

The night is full dark when the one of us whose hair is covered creeps from her sleeping place. She finds the one of us whose hair is close-cropped, whose eyes are leaves in a storm, and holds out her arm. The one with close-cropped hair brushes her fingertips over the crook of the bared elbow. Something rises within the one of us with covered hair, pushing against her from within—the word, the secret. It is a feather, drifting from a clear blue sky, the grass after a soft summer rain. It tastes of new berries, fresh-brewed tea, and carries the scent of bread just out of the oven. And it holds the song of the one with the close-cropped hair in it as well. It is all of these things, and when the makeshift needle touches her skin, there is no pain. Only her feet pounding the earth flat as she rounds the corner of a stone cottage beside the sea, a riot of wildflowers, the hum of bees, and a woman—her mother? her sister? her aunt?—speaking a word into the bright summer air. Her name.

The ink takes shape, dark and true. It is a bird and a blade. It is hers, binding her to herself in a way that makes her blood leap and sing. The one with close-cropped hair smiles. Since she cannot thank her with words, the one whose hair is covered lifts skillful, ink-stained fingers to her mouth. With tears in her eyes, she kisses each one. 

•••

She is herself, alone in the dark, running her fingers over the ink on her skin. It makes her herself, more than she has ever been.

It makes me into me.

I am the one with covered hair. 

The next time I hold the tongue, I will not swallow my words. I will speak. I will shout. I will sing.

•••

When the one whose hair is close-cropped takes the tongue, the one whose hair is a long braid holds her jaw hard and leaves marks from her nails on her neck. The crook of my elbow beats with my pulse, whispering I am here again and again. I am afraid it will betray me; I am afraid that I almost want it to.

I long to hear the one with close-cropped hair speak her name, her true one, but there's no time. She's hurried away to her work, as I am hurried to mine. Silence lies thick and heavy as dust throughout the master's house. I jump at shadows, skin twitching and restless. The afternoon sun finally creeps apricot and mellow gold through the windows, and I hear her sing.

I leave the dishes in their soapy water, sprinting for the stairs. My hands leave wet patches on my skirts as I lift them, my legs flashing. She stands at the top, her mouth open, her throat open, pouring out song. Her eyes are light under lowering rain, concentrated and lemon-bright, a breaking storm. 

The one of us with braided hair seizes the one with close-cropped hair. The one with braided hair drags the one with close-cropped hair backward, but she never stops singing. I want to run to her, but the one whose hair is red throws her arms around me.

She pulls me down, clinging to me. Huddled at the bottom of the stairs we cannot see what is happening anymore, but we hear the scream. The one whose hair is red—the colour of autumn sunsets and fire—buries her face against my shoulder, wetting my neck with tears.

A week passes. Now the one whose hair is the colour of iron keeps the record of days. The one whose hair is red works the kitchen with me. We are not stricken from the list, but we do not rise on the list either, and our turns do not come.

The one of us with storm-leaf eyes and secret ink on her skin is gone. I carry her name in my heart. It is the sound of a song. 

A month passes, and it surprises me when my turn with the tongue comes again. The one with braided hair holds my mouth open, presses down hard. The tongue tastes wrong. No longer sharp with blood and resistance, but bitter, like medicine, like heavy, drugged silence. I try to curl it to speak, and it twists in the other direction. Against my will, it murmurs only reassurance and platitudes. 

"Yes," it says to our master. "You are very kind. We are very happy here. We would be nothing without you. Thank you."

Tears gather in my eyes. The master smiles as I clamp my lips over our traitor tongue. Behind him, the one whose hair is in a braid folds her hands. Her posture is stiff; the look in her eyes is regret and fear.

Just before the moon climbs its sickle way up the sky, she takes the tongue from me again. I remember her fingers almost releasing my arm the last time I carried the tongue. I wonder if there is secret ink on her skin, a bird in her heart. I wonder about the choices she's made. I cannot ask her: the tongue in my mouth is heavy and numb, drugged with words that are not mine. 

After the tongue is locked away, the one of us with hair like snow brews tea and we gather in the kitchen. The one whose hair is red and the one whose skin is scarred hold me between them. I sip in silence, washing the taste of ash from my mouth.

•••

In the kitchen, in the bedrooms, in the dining hall, we grow our language without words. Stolen glances, fluttering movement, looking away. I remember the one of us who sang. I learn how to use ink to write secret things in the crooks of other arms. I do not disappear from the roster, but as the days slide past, the tongue remains drugged and disobedient in my mouth. It feels like a test. I do not complain. 

On a day where the sky is clouded gray, the one of us whose hair is straightened, whose skin is scarred and whose lips are dark like plums, finds me in the kitchen. She touches my arm. The ghost of a smile, crooked and pained, slides across her mouth. She presses something into my hand, and my fingers close around it. She touches her lips, her finger bisecting them. Her eyes meet mine, then she is gone. I look at the thing she pressed into my hand—a straight razor, stolen from the master's bath chamber. There is a question in her eyes, not a demand. Pearl-handled, the razor is strangely light in my palm; it is an opportunity, unburdened by expectation. My blood pounds.

I keep it hidden in the folds of my skirt. When my turn finally comes again, it is still there. The one with the braid in her hair pries my lips open. Her fingertips are soft, as though she has been washing her hands over and over again, but her grip is rough as ever. The tongue holds the aftertaste of soap, and no hint of bitter medicine. I move it around carefully, chasing the ghost of words spoken before me. This time, the tongue does not disobey. 

"I'm sorry," I say. 

My words startle the one with her hair in a braid, even though I suspect her of washing the tongue clean, every bit as complicit as the one who placed the razor in my hand. We are all in this together, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t afraid. Her eyes go wide. She shakes her head, turning away. I climb the stairs, and she does not follow. I remember the ghost of her hand, opening to let me go. 

I enter our master's study. He smiles, his fingers caressing the paperweight. My own fingers twitch toward my skirt, a movement that betrays me. Or perhaps the fear is written on my face. He lifts his hand from the paperweight and rests it on his desk, palm up.

"Return the razor, and all will be forgiven. Say you're sorry, and we'll pretend this never happened."

It would be safer to do what he says. But instead, I take a step backward, toward the hall, toward the stairs. He rises, and I hold my place in the door. For just an instant, doubt flickers in his eyes. It is enough. My fingers close around the razor's handle, and I rush into the hall.

I stand where the one of us with leaf-coloured eyes stood and sang. In her place, I scream. My voice isn't like hers, but it's all the song I have to offer. The tongue doesn't resist me. I shout her name, and my own, all the secret names we've taught each other since she vanished. My throat aches, but the others come—the one of us with red hair, and the one of us with scars, the one with the braid, and the one with hair like snow. 

Our master reaches for the razor, for me, and his hand trembles. His expression is pained at the cacophony of my voice. He looks like he wants to cover his ears. Never has he heard such noise from one like me. Too swift for him, too swift for doubt, I bring the razor down, slashing through our tongue, filling my mouth with blood. 

Choking on the red, I go to my knees, but I cut again. My fingers are slick crimson, but I do not stop.

The one of us with red hair reaches me first. I press the razor and a sliver of the tongue into her hands. She stares, wide-eyed, and then opens her mouth. She pushes the tongue past her lips, and more hands reach for me. I divide and divide our voice, leaving smears of crimson on their skin.

The fraction of the tongue left to me is so small my voice is a whisper. But it doesn't matter; they speak with me. My voice is my own, and it's joined by the one of us with red hair, the one of us with scars on her skin, and even the one of us whose hair is in a braid. We speak at once with our bloodied mouths, our quiet voices together a roar. 

My mouth tastes of copper and hurt, but I refuse to close it. The master tries to shout over us, but we drown him out in a babble of words. Our voices may be small compared to his, but together we are heard.

A.C. WISE's fiction has appeared in publications such as Tor.com, the Dark, and The Year's Best Horror Volume 10, among other places. She has two collections published with Lethe Press, and a novella, Catfish Lullaby, forthcoming from Broken Eye Books. Her work has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and winner of the Sunburst Award. In addition to her fiction, she contributes a monthly review column to Apex Magazine, and the Women to Read and Non-Binary Authors to Reads columns to The Book Smugglers. Find her online at www.acwise.net and on twitter as @ac_wise.

With One Tongue can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 1.2.