The Poison Eaters: And Other Stories by Holly Black

Author:Holly Black
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fables (Young Adult), Mythology, Magic, Fairy Tales & Folklore - General, Fantasy, Fantasy fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Children's Books, Fantasy & Magic, Folk Tales, Fiction, Science Fiction, American, All Ages, Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9), Fairy Tales & Folklore, General, Short stories, Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 9781931520638
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Published: 2010-02-01T11:03:57.570000+00:00

The Coat of Stars

* * * *

* * * *

Rafael Santiago hated going home. Home meant his parents making a big fuss and a special dinner and him having to smile and hide all his secret vices, like the cigarettes he had smoked for almost sixteen years now. He hated that they always had the radio blaring salsa and the windows open and that his cousins would come by and try to drag him out to bars. He hated that his mother would tell him how Father Joe had asked after him at Mass. He especially hated the familiarity of it, the memories that each visit stirred up.

That morning he stood in front of his dressing table for half an hour, looking at the wigs and hats and masks—early versions or copies of costumes he'd designed. There were drooping feathers, paper roses, crystal dangles, and leather coiled into horns, each item displayed on green glass heads that stood in front of a large, broken mirror. He had settled on wearing a white tank-top tucked into bland gray Dockers, but when he stood himself next to all his treasures, he felt unfinished. He clipped on black suspenders and looked at himself again. That was better, almost a compromise. A fedora, a cane, and a swirl of eyeliner would have finished off the look, but he left it alone.

"What do you think?” he asked the mirror, but it did not answer. He looked at the unpainted plaster face casts resting on a nearby shelf; their hollow eyes told him nothing either.

Rafe tucked his little phone into his front left pocket with his wallet and keys. He would call his father from the train. He glanced at the wall, at one of the sketches of costumes he'd done for a postmodern ballet production of Hamlet. An award hung beside it. This sketch was of a faceless woman in a white gown appliqued with leaves and berries. He remembered how dancers had held the girl up while others pulled on the red ribbons he had had hidden in her sleeves. Yards and yards of red ribbon had come from her wrists. The stage had been swathed in red. The dancers had been covered in red. The whole world had become one dripping gash of ribbon.

* * * *

The train ride was dull. He felt guilty that the green landscapes that blurred outside the window did not stir him. He only loved leaves if they were crafted from velvet.

Rafael's father waited at the station in the same old blue truck he'd had since before Rafe had left Jersey for good. Each trip his father would ask him careful questions about his job, the city, Rafe's apartment. Certain assumptions were made. His father would tell him about some cousin getting into trouble, or lately, about how Mary was going to leave Marco. Rafe's father was sure Marco was messing around with another girl. With Marco, there was always another girl.

Rafe leaned back in the passenger seat, feeling the heat of the sun wash away the last of the goose bumps on his arms.

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