If ever the heavens above had chosen a worse time to punish the damned earth for the treachery and the ruinous havoc its inhabitants had wrought upon the star-strewn skies of the galaxy, it would have been the day it chose to send the boy made of crushed little stars: Elio Wesley.

Though wind and coastal storms usually tormented the fog-laden, peculiar little town of Melancholy that was brimming with eeriness and the hush before an attack, the air was unusually sweet-smelling and clean that day, carrying with it no forebodings of the prophecies the clouds had spun that very day, marking the fated doom of religious Melancholy with no remorse. A fine rain misted over the opulent town, washing the ruin-kissed, crumbling Victorian stone spires of the heaven-reaching buildings and the crisscrossing, crow-burdened power lines that nearly every noble estate had now in the rains of above. Magnificent spires and domes jutted out over the lower, rambling cottages that ran out to the coves at the brink of the sea. Light cloudbursts ran into the streets like the pomegranates that the townfolk so loved to bite into, despite how costly they were becoming.

But the town was in a good mood. As though an orphic, heavenly being had set their fingers upon Melancholy, many fish had been caught that day, so much so that they were being sold for half-price at the fish markets that dotted the anciently adorned canalfront stores and the brightly lit bridges, and the resplendent half-sirens who only a handful knew the true lineage of seemed to sing all the more passionately into their mics for it as luscious, ethereal witches emerged from their hideouts to conjure up their tricks for the night.

Oh, the way they danced in their sheer, bejewelled silks and glittery skin! This was something the townsfolk deliciously loved to argue about: were sirens the more seductive and beautiful, or witches? Sometimes, when too much foul magic had been devoured, for the town did so dearly love to draw out the luscious aurora threads of it from any old trinket and eat it in the hopes that they, too, would become one of the wild fey folk who danced above on the whim of the winds and played with hearts as viciously as if they held a grudge, terrible brawls would start. And when everyone slunk out of their tall, ornate brick townhouses the next morning it was to gather in the beautiful churches and pray fervently to their Almighty Father. Even the rats hid on those nights.

But this was a good night.

Strolling players danced and performed in front of the exquisitely grand, brightly painted marvels of townhouse architecture, ornate in their glorious, lore-steeped splendour as above, women hung their wet laundry from the power lines in the hopes that it would soak up at least some of the sweet, blood-orange smell Melancholy boasts. They were in luck: the gangs that usually cavorted throughout the stores, wreaking havoc as they laid smoking, ash-stained carnage to the churches and carnival-like pleasure clubs, were all slumbering that night.

Yes, tonight really was a good night.

Though they were past soaked, the fiddle players continued their haunting, ghostly melody, letting it thread its way through the hazes and mists that lay over the town like unwanted magic. As it always was, the usuals were out that terrible night: elderly crippled Crookdancer let his fingers fly over the sorrowful melodies that spun their way out of his soul, and Salty Romeo with his grimy earbuds, who was as quiet as if the cold hands of a ghost had sewn his mouth shut themselves with thread made from the skin of the dead, let out piercing, earsplitting notes every time he caught sight of the gruesome, ravishing costumes that all luxurious ladies of the freak shows donned.

Men were wont to do that when they glimpsed the frightful, horrid scraps of fabric those majestic girls and psychics and bone-benders alike wore. Colourful, frayed cloths over their eyes that were always stained crimson, antlers and rabbits ears that burst bloodily out of the backs of their skulls like those odd, unearthly accessories had been woven together in the depths of the performers' souls, lacy, ruffled dresses for the girls that showed more of their breasts than all the ladies of Melancholy combined.

It was no secret what all those performers were after, though. All the fiddle players and trapeze artist freaks desired was some coins and bits of metal and jewel to be thrown into their hats. Those things were the best of all: precious, treasured keepsakes that they hoped had collected a few broken remnants of magic before it found its way to them. They desired it even more than the bits of wine-soaked seed bread and date pastry that wealthy little aristocrat boys flung to them every so often.

Magic. How the people loved it!

And it was said that Melancholy had the most of the magic.

Why not? Its folk were utterly obsessed with the idea of it. "It's entrenched in the earth of the place," Luca Rinos, the local trinket shop owner, would have said.

And he was not wrong, either. How many times had he himself heard the hum of it, the hum that local Mells were so used to that they dismissed it as the only the voice of the town whispering its starlight poetry words to its lover, the moon?

The moon. Like the boy with eyes like the moon.

Elio Wesley.

Later, some would say that the boy came through the canals. Marie Selena, a refined psychic who'd been performing out of the same antiques shop for years, swore up and down the mortal realms that she'd seen him.

And yet, others still claimed that they saw him themselves, a boy who utterly exuded that which all the religious folk who had threaded pieces of their soul into the bright fabric that was Melancholy feared so badly that even the eerie, bloodthirsty freak shows who plagued the damp canals and dark, crooked alleys had recoiled from him.

Perhaps it was the eidolon-mimicking way he moved as he passed dark, silent churches made of dark, gleaming squares of marble tile and dusty stone, with such provocative, languid grace as those lisping legs, fisherman's sea legs, wove their way about canal rats and bright amber streetlights.

Still, there was no doubt. That night had smelled of malice, no matter how peaceful it had been at the start.

When Elio Wesley was first seen, it was at the Luca Rinos' antiques shop. Who would have guessed that those faded, crumbling bricks would possess such enormity once Elio Wesley was discovered? No one.

Least of all the owner, who'd thought to himself, There's something mighty strange about that lad as he went outside to smoke his cigarettes and thank his Lord Almighty for so many customers that night.

Still, he did not think much of the boy later. Luca was already lost in dreams of the embrace of one of the local acrobats, a rosy-cheeked, ethereal doll who put him in mind of his dead wife. She claimed to be half-siren like those spendthrift dolls who crooned into mics at bars, and he'd heard her singing as she perched like a blossom on top of the power lines, suspended precariously over the canals, so precious and luminous, rivaling the moon that always seemed to grace Melancholy with the best of its lights.

Maybe she really was. Who was he to judge? He was a local, he'd heard the folklore that the grandmothers liked to spin, and he'd seen the ones who were rumoured to be. Like little Louisa Rose, that high school dropout who was always hanging around the pleasure clubs she shouldn't have even known about. Her voice did carry something fierce, and she'd garnered a considerable amount of witchcraft scraps and magic threads from the antique pendants and such that her captivated townsfolk always gave her after such a show.

Lucky thing.

The first thing Elio Wesley did was walk up to one of the outsiders, those elusive, orphic beings on the fringes who were always a bit odd, as though sense had been plucked from their minds and turned into one of the bright stars that were scattered across the sky. That was one of the old Melancholy folklores - every star was a mind lost, a piece of sanity slipping through someone's fingers. And were the outsiders ever insane. They uttered to themselves silent stardust words like they were a part of the star-crossed, blood-soaked earth, hearing its melody weave throughout all that the city did, and they were half-feral, more creature than mortal.

Nobody talked much to these people, except for when they wanted odd jobs done. Like putting the family's precious monthly rations of salt and clay cat statues about the house, to ward off the most feral and detested pests that crawled this wretched realm's earth, unwanted pixies. Or putting the cat who had died a month ago back in his grave after he crawled out yet again, resistant to the throes and bloody, strangling fingers that death had stubbornly sunk into his matted fur. The like.

It was all very normal in the town of Melancholy.

So Elio came up to a girl, one with honeyed cat eyes the color of the wildflowers that all the townsfolk sorely missed whenever those odd, peculiar few who always seemed to make the plants want to dance above the raw earth with the fairies forever left town. As he did so, stares followed. And yet, nobody told him that this girl had already died three times, once screaming out in broken anguish greater than the melancholy of the stars as she was forced by men to dance until she died of the mad luring darkness that called her, once falling off of one of the cliffs after hearing the call of her ghost-eyed dead mother, who she told everyone who passed with dreamy eyes for days that she could see twirling just above the treacherous coves that fringed Melancholy, and once when the wind took her and carried her to the stars in the embrace of death, betraying her as it dropped her from the highest point and dancing away joyfully as her broken body lay splayed in the canal for all to see. Oh, the men were cruel that night. They were indeed, as they spat on her body and tore off her clothes, trailing her like delirious slum rats as the canal calmly brought her to the embrace of the wild, rampant sea. Truly, the wretched grip of the gods had twisted their minds until they had no more sense than the little sailing boats and gondolas that dotted the seas.

Seafolk and fiddle players alike whispered as he strolled casually towards her. "The wraithlisp," they whispered. "That strange lad is going to the wraithlisp."

Perhaps it was the way the slight, phantom eremite girl held herself, blending into the brightly-painted, dream-like buildings of beige and orange as she stepped out of the way of others, that pulled the threads of the midnight boy towards her. Her back was so straight. Her eyes were so watchful, hidden as they were amongst the strands of her dyed-blonde fringe, framed by dark hair that curled, as it always did, in the slight damp of the salt air. Whatever it was, the effect was the same on the boy.

Elio was ensnared in a second.

"Pardon me," he asked as he hurried to approach her. Behind, the crows on the laundry-hung power lines cawed as mournfully as if one of their own had passed. "Miss?"

To all of the hopeful girls watching him discreetly as they passed, this was too much. Handsome, yet good-mannered, as well? Mell boys were never both - all lookers and lover dolls were, as a fact, horrifically ill-mannered. To have both was as unheard of as a girl courting a freak show man.

Obviously, the girl felt none of this. Rather, she flinched at his words, stiffening as she recoiled. While the shapeshifting, aurora threads of her did nothing but entice the boy towards her, she could not even stand to look him in his oblivion-freckled eyes, so fearful was she of what she would find there. This was a monstrous boy who was woven together and formed from bewitching gossamer scraps of misshapen magic and the earth's blood, from soul ripped from others and the diseased, bone-cold flesh of the dead's fingers. Demjinni, her mind whispered. Demon. How else could he be so mystical and pretty?

The smallest of frowns graced her smooth, rosy face as her clouded, red-rimmed eyes roved over his dark hair. Close the fence, eijschlos. Don't let demjinnis in, came her father's voice. Daddy was right, because even as he left more and more dark constellations of scars lashed across her pain-ridden back that she could never stop itching, he knew what was best for her. So she turned away, as her father always turned away from her when she dragged herself back to her bedroom in the deepest shame the cruel gods of pain could have conjured up to riddle her, back mutilated and dripping hot blood, ghost-ridden eyes bleary with all the pleas to her father that never fell from her lips because at home, Daddy sewed her mouth up tight because he liked to hear her scream. The girl rubbed the small, invisible holes about her mouth as she turned away. She was a monster. Little monster. Eijschlos.

Elio did not see this. In fact, he saw none of her discomfort. He felt only that tug on the souls buried within his cold flesh, the beauty of her dark waves as they swung over her shoulder in the fancy, elegant hairdo she had done herself.

"Pardon me?" Elio asked again, moving closer.

And yet she slipped away again. How persistent this one fink boy was! She sorely wished he would just go away, walk through the mud and chicken droppings that infested all the back yards and hidden alleys of the ancient, dingy shops, as all the others in her life had. She'd seen many a boy try to court her, telling her wooing words of how she looked like an exquisite, gossamer fey who danced on the zephyrs of sweet ecstasy, how her captivating beauty transcended even the most unreachable of all the realms with the blissful oblivion it evoked. But it wasn't true, of course. No, Mell boys were abominable, and though this one seemed to be made of different materials, he was still the same. How did she know? Daddy had told her so. And he'd broken her fingers, cut them off, made her new ones from the flesh of the dead he'd buried in their damp, flower-forsaken yard, and sewn them back on to punish her when she was found kissing Louis Callahan.

A crease formed between Elio's eyebrows, like he wanted to say more, but he did not. Rather, instead he merely dipped his head in acknowledgment and apology, staring down at her in the misting rain that had begun to turn his dark hair wet, before turning and walking away, tipping an imaginary hat as he went.

Slowly, the girl's hunched-up, recoiled posture straightened out, like a siren blooming from the sea's bewitching, shapeshifting forms and reaching for the moon's rays. In the midst of the misty rain and the crows' ever-watchful caws, the curious, mesmerised townsfolk stared, as they were wont to do. She was an oddity, a peculiar thing. The day that they ceased their staring would be the day she died.

What a strange boy, the girl thought as she watched him go.

Still, was not everything strange in Melancholy?