Frequently Asked Questions About the Dead Woman Beneath Sang-D’Heloise Subway Station

1) How do I find her?

Descend the stairs to the northbound platform. Trail your finger across the cracked mosaic wall, lingering on the faded jellyfish for good luck. At the far end of the platform, the orange barrier reads Danger: Electrified Tracks. Pretend you are there to catch a train. Wait.

When the last car of the train leaves the platform, slip under the barrier, down the service ladder, and into the tunnel. You have five minutes—if you're lucky, if it’s not rush-hour—before the next train comes. Hurry.

Walk along the tracks, keeping your right hand against the grease-grime tunnel wall, avoiding the third rail to your left. Bring no light with you; ensure you are not followed. We cannot afford to move her again.

Keep going. It's farther than you think, harder to reckon distance down in the hot dark wetness as adrenaline pounds the locked door of your heart. Walk until you reach the rust-iron door tagged with the face of the nameless martyr. Knock five times.

Wait in the dark until your soul screams you cannot wait any longer. The door will open with a blast of air, dry and cool. Enter quickly; lock the door behind you.

Let your eyes adjust. Do not flinch when you see the corpse sprawled out on a stained and tattered recliner. Call her by her name: Aya.

2) Does she take insurance? Do I need payment?

No. Bring nothing but your hopes, your questions, the desperate yearning needs you dress yourself up in late at night when no-one is there to react in horror to the parts of you they call a monster (the corpse will tell you the truth: you are not a monster).

3) Where did she come from?

This is the story the corpse will tell you:

Aya was born atop a craggy pine-covered mountain that rose out of the desert plain like a tumor. When she died, they laid her body in a crypt carved into the mountain so the thin dry air would preserve her.

When she was newly dead, the living would come on her birthday, sweep away the dust, and string her crypt with flowers. They would eat and drink, sing and laugh, and ask for her advice.

Most precious of these petitioners were those who—like she had done herself—transitioned from one role, one body to another. The words back then were different, but today we call us trans, nonbinary, queer.

She cared for them, her people within the people. She led them down the path she had already walked, gifting them the words and names they needed, the knowledge of herbs and unguents and knife-cuts to make their bodies cleave to their souls.

Centuries passed, the rains moved, the people changed and forgot. Aya thought that she might perform her service forever—death being constant, unchanging—but the world changed around her until one day there was nothing outside her crypt but sand and ruin. She slept.

When she awoke, two eons later, her body was pinned to the wall like a lepidopterist's butterfly. Small children and harried mothers gazed at her from the other side of the glass. She might have been content to remain there in the natural history museum except for two things.

First, the curators had affixed a label to her: Male preserved copse, sessile, late thistle era. An impossible insult. Second, as the visitors watched her, she watched them. She recognized us, hiding within oversized hoodies, looking downward, avoiding the gazes of others that told us our bodies didn’t fit.

She was needed, and so when the guests departed and the guards dozed, she crashed through the glass and strode out to wander the dark and noisome places of the city. The curators called it an inexplicable theft. They hunt her still.

4) Is that true?

Does it matter? The stories the powerful tell about us are more real to them than the truths we speak with our bodies. Tell your own story; never dull the keen edge of it for their sake.

5) What services does she provide?

If you are reading this—perhaps on a creased pamphlet gifted to you by someone who has already walked the path you so desperately want to follow, or perhaps on a dim computer screen, tilted away so no-one will see—then surely you already have some hint of what you seek?

Perhaps you are new to the path, or perhaps you were under the care of a doctor when the new laws passed. Aya—and her priests—will provide everything the doctors and therapists and surgeons provided, but not like they did. She is one of us and knows us and loves us like they never did.

6) What should I wear?

Wrap yourself in whatever clothes will safeguard your heart. Aya is two eons old and has no understanding of the messages encoded in cloth and fit. She cares more about your words and your will than wool and linen.

7) Will she accept me? Am I trans/nonbinary enough?

Yes.

8) How can I help?

Donations are always appreciated. In particular, we need:

• Dehumidifiers, the better to keep Aya preserved.

• Medical supplies (alcohol wipes, syringes, gauze, etc).

• Medicine (vials of estradiol valerate, testosterone undecanoate, spironolactone, etc)

• Priests. Fill out the contact form and our volunteer coordinator will be in touch.

But what Aya needs most of all is a world where you and her do not have to hide, where she could offer you help in the light of day (perhaps in the botanical garden where the wind-weaving pines of her homeland grow).

So call your alderman, demand they repeal the laws that seek to cut us neatly out of the fabric of society. Sing proudly upon the marble steps of the assembly house; storm their offices; slice yourself upon their paper-strewn desks so they might see the blood their bloodless laws will shed.

Make them understand that we exist, we have always existed, and will not vanish silently because they desire their profit to remain peaceful. We intend to thrive, and if the dead themselves rise up to aid us, and the future holds the promise of our descendants’ transition, then how can they hope to prevail against us? We are building our salvation down in the dark beneath the roar of the subways.

We hope you will join us.

© 2022 Ann LeBlanc

About the Author

Ann LeBlanc is a writer and woodworker, whose stories about queer yearning, culinary adventures, and death can be found in Fireside Magazine, Mermaids Monthly, and on the lips of the dead. She lives online at annleblanc.com or on twitter at @RobotLeBlanc