This is Cast of Wonders, the young adult fiction podcast featuring stories of the fantastic. Welcome, episode 635. I'm Katherine Inskip, your editor and host. Our story for today is What the Godmouth Wants by Ryan Cole, a Cast of Wonders original. Ryan Cole is a speculative fiction writer who lives in Virginia with his husband and snuggly pug child.
His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Clarksworld, Podcastle, Escape Pod, Factor 4 and Voyage YA by Uncharted, among others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find out more at www.ryancolwrites.com. This story is narrated by Joe Moran. Born in Indiana, Joe Moran, he, her, loves fiction, audio and all things dramatic. He was trained to act and create soundscapes at Indiana University, playing parts in productions of Three Sisters and By the Bog of Cat.
She also streams on Twitch with her friends, playing social deduction games and chatting with a small but dedicated audience. This story comes with a content warning for homophobia, body horror and risk of drowning. And now, we've a tale to tell. What the God Mouth Wants by Ryan Cole Narrated by Joe Moran They call it a homecoming, when your own severed tongue finds its way back into your mouth.
When it slides all slippery and wet onto the stump that your parents cut out when you were six years old. When it gives you the power, the freedom to say what your lips never could. All in exchange for a decade of silence. Dallas doesn't care. Tongueless for years, he's ready to be whole again, no matter the cost. Better to say what the god mouth wants than not be able to say anything at all.
Carefully, he climbs down the slick rock of the cave wall, away from his father who waits on the surface. and he stops when his toes meet the icy ocean water. The tidal pool swells as the current comes in. White froth surges through the cracks in the cave, smothering Dallas in thick, dirty foam. It stinks of old seaweed and oysters and mud, of the oil spill steadily polluting the coast, killing the fish that keep his family alive, that kept silence alive, back when the town was still full.
when they hadn't had to resurrect a long-dead god in order to save those few people who remained. Now all Dallas can hear is its voice. A low bass rumble that creeps through the rock, pulsing like a heartbeat in the quickly rising tide. Yet still, he descends into the tongue-infested water, hoping this might be his last trip down, the last time he'll have to brave the dark and the cold, the currents so eager to sweep him away.
Sacrifices, his father is so fond of saying. We all have to do our part to make the godmouth strong. A lesson Dallas has heard for the last 16 years. He's done his best to be patient, waiting for the godmouth to grow, for it to bring silence back to its former glory, not just another ghost town on the Oregon coast. But how much longer can silence survive when there's barely any clean food left to eat?
A problem for tomorrow, for someone else to solve. The sooner he can find what his father has stolen, what every parent stole from their child in silence, in fealty to their god, the sooner he can speak. The sooner he can leave this town, this life that the Godmouth demands, this family who expects him to be who he isn't, what Dallas has been hiding from his father for years. Taking a deep breath, he dives into the water. He swims towards the never-ending pit at the bottom.
Ten feet down, he opens his eyes. Dark tongues flit by. They wriggle up Dallas' arms to his face, and they press into his eyes. His ears, his nose, salt-crusted tips bite into his flesh. He reaches for one, but it slithers away, cutting through the push-pull swirl of the current. His skull begins to throb with the voice from below. Down deep in the black. The voice that he's never been able to understand, that his father and the rest of the townsfolk crave.
Never before has he felt so much pressure, his head about to burst like an overripe melon. He kicks over to the rock wall, desperately searching. He digs into the cracks of the barnacled stumps, their gray-green tongue-tips thrashing to escape. Something eel-like slips into his hand. Only three inches long, no wider than his thumb. He runs a numb finger over its soft, bumpy surface.
It feels like what Dallas has been eager to find. His ticket out of silence. His voice. His tongue. He pushes it, wriggling back into his mouth. tries not to scream as it clamps to his stump, binding the godmouth's flesh to his own. With his breath nearly spent, he swims up for air. He reaches, hands trembling for his father to help him as he breaks through the surface, arms scraped bloody on the rocks as he pulls Dallas free.
Dallas crumples into a heap on the rock. He nods as his father wraps him up in a blanket. Tries to ask if he's okay. All he can hear, all he can think as he lies curled up on the ground are the alien words on his newly found tongue. The Godmouth's words, pressing on his teeth, pushing his lips to bring them to light. For the first time, he understands the godmouse voice, an echo of the rumble in the cave. You are mine.
Dallas doesn't wait long to use his new tongue. He hides in the alley behind Orson Brothers Shipping Co., crouched behind a trawling net that hasn't been used for years. If he tries hard enough, he can still smell the town, or what the town used to be. Deep fried crab legs on Saturday morning.
the reek of the fish market down by the wharf, the unwashed carpet in high tide arcade, where Dallas would spend most of his weekends alone, wishing the friends he used to know would come back, that Dallas could follow. But where would he have gone? No tongue, no voice, no way to get by. Not until today. His stomach starts to growl from so many lost dinners, so many months wishing for the godmouth to save them. Soon, his father says.
Each tongue that we cut makes the god mouth stronger. Each mouth that can speak with its voice gives it light. Dallas is sick of just sitting and waiting, but there's still one person he can't leave without. Slate sneaks into the alley after dark. Sandy hair, all windblown. Cover all splattered with fish guts and oil. He crawls over the trawling nets, checking behind to make sure he's alone. And when he sees Dallas there, at their usual spot, he smiles.
and presses him up against the wall, their lips so close that it makes Dallas flush, still scared for his father to find out what he does, to know who he is, the person the godmouth says he can't be. Dallas kiss a slate hard. The tip of his tongue slides over Slate's teeth, exploring the crevices he's never felt before. so different from the dry pecks on the lips he was so used to. He whispers I love you into Slate's warm mouth, though Slate just smiles and never says it back.
And all of it, while resisting the godmouth's urge to push Slade away, to tell him, I never want to see you again, to make him believe they weren't so alike, that people like them weren't welcome in silence. Dallas recoils. His throat starts to swell. His jaw seizes up. His whole mouth pulses with a heavy second heartbeat. He swallows the words as his tongue tries to speak them, tries to betray him, tries to erase the one good thing in his life.
You okay? Says Slate. He reaches for Dallas, but Dallas shrugs him off. How to convince him? What can he say that will make him understand? Dallas starts to panic. What if Slate says no? Slate's already found his tongue. He's had weeks to get used to the godmouse voice, even though he tries to hide it. So Dallas settles for... Slate cocks an eyebrow. Leaving, he says, but you just got your tongue back, and we've barely even used it.
Dallas licks his lips, in awe of the taste of his own salty skin. I have to, he says. Once the godmouth emerges, it won't let us meet. It won't let us be us. My dad says the town will go back to the old ways. I don't want to be here to find out what that means. Slate shoulders slump. His smile disappeared. Dallas knows what he's thinking. Of Sandra DeMarco, Slate's adopted older sister. The reason why Dallas hasn't told him this before. The reason why no one else has tried to leave silence.
It was an accident, says Slate, though they both know it wasn't. Hard to believe that a 16-year-old girl could slit her own neck and throw herself into the god mouth. Sacrifices, his father had said when they'd found her. Some people are just willing to give more than others. Dallas remembers how unhappy she'd been. How much she'd avoided the Godmouth's cave. He wondered who benefited more from her death, silence or the godmouth, her body enriching its tongue-filled waters.
You can't go, says Slade, his face gone pale. What if they find you? Well, says Dallas, he does his very best to hide the crack in his voice. I was hoping you might want to come along with me. Slate bites his lip. He looks over his shoulder. I don't know, he says. Dallas tenses up, too soon to dream. He should have known better than to think he'd agree, to hope they could try to build the life together he'd always wanted.
I'll think about it, says Slate. How much time before you go? That was probably better than Dallas could have ever expected. At least it wasn't no. Maybe the two of them still had a chance. Tomorrow morning, he says, before the godmouth wakes up. Slate doesn't answer. He just smiles and nods. For the rest of the evening, they hold tight to each other, their lips and their tongues too busy to speak.
Later that night, Dallas starts to prepare. He has to pack light, just a t-shirt and jeans, a few granola bars, whatever he can cram into the pockets of his backpack. He doesn't have much money, only $23. Barely enough to buy a bus ticket out, if the bus still ran. His best pet is following the highway out of town to a city farther inland, where the godmouth's influence can't yet reach.
and hoping the sheriff doesn't send out a patrol, doesn't try to come catch him like he thinks they did to Sandra. She didn't get a funeral. Didn't get an obituary in the silent sentinel. The local newspaper, his father still operates. All Sandra DeMarco got for trying to escape was a watery grave in the black of the godmother.
Dallas tries not to worry. He'll have Slate there with him, alone in the woods with no one to watch them, no one to tell them what they do is wrong, where Dallas can touch him and taste him all he wants. Just one more night, and then Dallas will be free. He hears his father's voice from all the way up in the office on the second level of their house. Dallas, can you come up here?
Dallas hesitates. He can't just ignore him. He knows from experience, disobeying his father never ends well. When Dallas knocks on the half-open door in the office, his father is hunched over and typing at his desk. Dallas can see the old newspaper stacked along the cramped office walls. Their ink now faded. Oregon ravaged by California oil spill. Economic collapse threatens silence his future. Caves along the coast, are they the power we need?
Just some of the thousands of stories they've run over the last several decades, since Dallas' grandfather first moved to silence. The legacy Dallas' father won't abandon. Too stubborn, stupid to know when to leave. He waves Dallas over to the draft on his desk, a headline that reads, Is the God Mouth Ready? The untrusting look in his eyes makes Dallas flinch, remembering the purple-blue bruises from the last time.
You were with that boy again, says his father, eyes narrowed. No, I wasn't, thinks Dallas. But the second he lets those words settle on his tongue, his head starts to throb, his eyes start to water. There's a needle-like pain in the root of his mouth, where the once-empty stump sat naked for years. And the more he resists what the godmouth wants, what it tries to make him say, the more the pain grows.
It sharpens until the tongue stump is white-hot and searing. Yes, says Dallas, and he sighs in relief when the pain melts away. Silence. His father's jaw clenches as he glares. Dallas backs away, afraid of what his father will try to ask next. What Dallas will say even though he doesn't want to, desperate to leave while he still has the chance.
Stay away, says his father. It's for your own good. That boy and his kind are what's wrong with this town. What the caves can help fix. Dallas just nods, too scared to even speak. Am I clear? Says his father. Dallas says, yes, without the godmouth's help. It's residue sticky like saliva on his teeth. More than ever before, he can feel its power bloom. The more Dallas speaks, the more he uses the Godmouse voice, the stronger, more potent, more dangerous it becomes.
He slips out of the door before his father can catch him, hurries downstairs. His mind is still focused on the low bass echo in the well of his mouth, pulsing to the rhythm of his father's last words, their two tongues feeding on the force of each other. Who is he really speaking to anymore? His father or the godmouth? He crawls into bed and counts the hours till sunrise, still not sure which one scares him more.
The next morning, Dallas waits for Slate by the docks. Gulls caw overhead as the tide comes in. The dock bells ring as the fishermen arrive. They gather at the opposite end of the wharf, boarding the boats that always come home empty. but no sign of Slate. Dallas tries to stay calm. Maybe he was tired from the prior day's haul. Anything but the reason Dallas still can't admit, which the godmouth places on the tip of his tongue.
When he gets to Slate's house, a rundown two-story on the other side of town, He knocks on the door, jaw clenching with worry, hoping and praying that the godmouth is wrong. When Slate cracks open the door, Dallas sighs in relief. He keeps a safe distance, his hands in his pockets. No way to tell who might be watching from inside. Slade's mother or Dahlia, his tongue-less little sister. And Dallas can't afford for them to start to suspect. Where were you? says Dallas with a half-hearted smile.
Slate looks away, just shrugged. My sister needed me. No sly, subtle wink. No camouflage smile. No hint of the language they've spoken for years. That silence and their parents had taught them they needed. not able to say what they both truly want. I'm all ready, says Dallas, leaning in too close, pretending he can't feel the pulse in his mouth. I have food and clean clothes packed for almost a week. By then we could make it all the way to Eugene.
Maybe bend if we're quick. As far as we need to. As long as the codmouth isn't there. Slate glances over his shoulder into the house. He picks at his fingernails. Listen, he says, I don't think I can come. Dallas just stares back. I don't understand. Slate lowers his voice. I can't leave my mom. She and Dahlia need me. And the work is picking up. The catch has been better these last few weeks. If I stay, I can make enough to keep things afloat. Keep everyone happy.
A bald-faced lie. What he means is for everyone to be happy but him. What about me? Says Dallas, cheeks flushed. Slate backs away. I'm sorry, I... I hope you can find what you're looking for. His whole face throbs with the words he wants to say and the tears he wants to shed and the salt-thick saliva that pools in his throat. He wants to grab Slate's hand, wants to tell him he's wrong, to remind him of all the good things they could still share. But his own tongue stops him.
It swells, starts to wriggle, and instead it says something he tries to keep hidden. The words coming out no matter how much he resists. Fine! I never wanted you to come with me anyway. Slade's eyes widen with hurt or surprise. Then he slips into the hallway of the home he wants to save, and before Dallas can stop him, he slams the door shut.
Now that Slate knows, Dallas can't wait. What if he tells one of the men on his crew? Or Dahlia? Or his mother? Word spreads quickly in a town-like silence. It's only a matter of time before Dallas' father finds out. Dallas has to change course, has to find another route, the long way that no one in town will expect. which means more travel, more food, Dallas hurries home, and he stuffs more clothes into his already full backpack.
Thankfully, his father, for once, isn't there. No one to stop him from raiding the pantry. No one to keep him from picking the lock on his father's office door, creeping inside, and poking through each moldy drawer of the desk. searching for coins or a bit of spare cash. Drawer after drawer he comes up empty, dreading the voice that he fears might come the, what the hell are you doing, that sends a shiver up his spine. The same voice that's starting to echo in his mouth.
Only one drawer left. He cringes at each sharp squeak of the metal as he jiggles it open. No money inside. Mostly empty like the rest. All he can see is a printed out draft of tomorrow's newspaper, November 21st, written clearly in the corner. A bold, silent sentinel is typed across the top. Beneath it is a headline that doesn't seem to make sense. DeMarco Boy Drowns in the Water of the Godmouth. The article is real. As real as any other Dallas has proved over the years.
It goes on to say how Slate went missing on the morning of the 20th, and how his mother and sister went out looking that evening. How they found him face down, his body food for the crabs. A terrible tragedy. How sad for us all. But Dallas knows better. He can see past the lie. A cold dread prickles his goose-pimpled skin. The draft was typed out long before he saw Slate. The ink is already dry, but it hasn't happened yet.
Breathless, he throws the paper back into the drawer. He snatches his backpack and runs out of the office, hoping he can make it to the Godmouth first. At noon, he slips into the entrance to the cave on the far edge of town. This close to the water of the Godmouth's grave, its voice is overwhelming, like a thick film of grief. It makes Dallas feel dirty. His thoughts feel dirty. His lust and his longing for Slate feel dirty.
He leans his head first over the lip of the pool, and he searches the slowly rising cylinder of water. Empty as always. An insidious thought routes Dallas to the edge. What if whoever is going to hurt Slate finds Dallas inside? They won't let him just go. They'll throw Dallas in too, make sure he can't talk. Both of them face first and silent in the water. He hears a gruff voice near the faraway cave entrance. Two more close behind.
He panics, his feet slipping on the wet rock. The voices grow louder as he slowly descends into the godmouth's water, toes icing over as he dips into the foam. He clings to the wall as quiet as he can, and he holds at a spot where the rock juts out. He's too scared to even breathe. Over here, says one of the voices from above. Dallas tenses up. He knows that voice. He's had to endure it every day, every night of his life. His father.
How's the tide? says another, much younger man. Dallas can hear a slight tremor in his voice, a sign that he knows what they're doing won't help, that the town they're so eager to save is already dead. Tide strong, says his father. The current's coming in. Dallas can't see, but it sounds like they're dragging something up to the edge. Ready to lift? Says the younger nervous man.
Don't do it, thinks Dallas in the seconds in between. Please, God, don't do it. But something else creeps up the cavern of his throat. A gurgling echo that smothers his tongue, contorting its muscle. the same as the echo he hears in the cave, in the rippling water now up to his waist, the godmouse voice. Two words. Do it. Slate crashes into the water beside him, splattering Dallas in salt mist and foam. He sinks under the waves, doesn't come up for air.
Dallas reaches for Slate, but he slips through his finger. He can't let go or his father will see. He can't risk having the men come in after him. But at the same time, he can't just let Slate drown. He kicks off as soon as the next wave crashes, dives into the surf. Keeping as close to the rock wall as he can, dark tongues dig into his outstretched fingers, slicing him bloody with their salt-crusted tip.
Still, he keeps swimming, chest on fire, his hands gone numb. At 15 feet down, his fingers touch skin, the collar of a t-shirt. He snatches it. fighting the whip of the current, and he uses the wall to propel himself up. Dallas emerges by the overhang of rock. Slate floats limp. He still has a pulse, but his breath is shallow. Too weak to swim. So Dallas just waits. His whole body shivering, one arm wrapped around Slate's cold weight.
Give him to me, the godmouth rumbles from below, the echo of its filthy words pulsing through Dallas. For the rest of the afternoon, Dallas fights back. He chokes down the white-hot pain in his throat, and he whispers the same words over and over, afloat in the slowly sinking tide. I won't. Later that evening, once Dallas is certain the men above are gone, he drags Slate up to the surface of the cave. They lie there together, gasping for breath.
Slate rolls over to face him. You saved me, he whispers. Dallas just smiles. He squeezes Slate's hand, building up the courage to ask him one last time. Come with me, he says. No words in response. Just a brush of their lips. all of Slate's warmth pressed into one kiss. By nightfall the two of them are well on their way, ignoring the echo of the voice on their tongues, which fades into nothing as they leave silence behind.
Body horror elements aside, there's a lot of resonance to current events in stories like these. The mainstream media's window of acceptable discourse is widening ever further towards fascism. Equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives are unfairly maligned. and it becomes ever easier for our communities to take those little steps that make life intolerable prejudice becomes internalized and we speak it in our own voices, finding shame where none is deserved.
The town of silence in this story is thrown in their lot with something terrible, all for the sake of a greater good that is anything but. It's easy to condemn a community like that. Harder, perhaps, to recognise it in ourselves. Worryingly, I think we really do need to.
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