TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 105, February 2019

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: February 2019

SCIENCE FICTION

Life Sentence
Matthew Baker

Okay, Glory
Elizabeth Bear

The Incursus by Asimov-NN#71
Gord Sellar

Marlowe and Harry and the Disinclined Laboratory
Carrie Vaughn

FANTASY

The Perpetual Day
Crystal Koo

Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, as Told to Raccoon
KT Bryski

The Terrible Oath
Ashok K. Banker

Healing Benjamin
Dennis Danvers

NOVELLA

Hath No Fury
Kat Howard

EXCERPTS

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones
Micah Dean Hicks

NONFICTION

Book Reviews: February 2019
LaShawn M. Wanak

Media Reviews: February 2019
Christopher East

Interview: Lilliam Rivera
Christian A. Coleman

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Matthew Baker

KT Bryski

Ashok K. Banker

Carrie Vaughn

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions

Stay Connected

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Support Us on Patreon or Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

About the Lightspeed Team

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

© 2019 Lightspeed Magazine

Cover by Grandfailure / Fotolia

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

Editorial: February 2019

John Joseph Adams | 227 words

Welcome to Lightspeed’s 105th issue!

This month, Matthew Baker looks beyond Orange Is the New Black to imagine the future of corrections. Is his idea better than our current prison system? Decide for yourself after you read “Life Sentence.”

If you like your science fiction with a steampunk flavor, we’re happy to share “Harry and Marlowe and the Disinclined Laboratory,” the latest installment in Carrie Vaughn’s The Aetherian Revolution series. We also have SF reprints from Elizabeth Bear (“Okay, Glory”) and Gord Sellar (“The Incursus by Asimov-NN#71”).

Our fantasy selections start off with an original take on Canadian folklore from KT Bryski: “Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, as Told to Raccoon,” a tale of trickster versus trickster. The saga of Vrath and Sha’ant continues in the newest installment of Ashok K. Banker’s Legends of the Burnt Empire, “The Terrible Oath.” We also have fantasy reprints by Crystal Koo (“The Perpetual Day”) and Dennis Danvers (“Healing Benjamin”).

Our nonfiction lovers will enjoy our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. We also have an interview with author Lilliam Rivera.

For our ebook readers, we have an ebook-exclusive reprint of Kat Howard’s novella “Hath No Fury.” Our book excerpt is from Micah Dean Hicks’ new novel, Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as the bestselling editor of more than thirty anthologies, including Wastelands and The Living Dead. Recent books include Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Press Start to Play, Loosed Upon the World, and The Apocalypse Triptych. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist twelve times) and an eight-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare, and is a producer for WIRED’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. He also served as a judge for the 2015 National Book Award. Find him online at johnjosephadams.com and @johnjosephadams.

Life Sentence

Matthew Baker | 9240 words

Home.

He recognizes the name of the street. But he doesn’t remember the landscape. He recognizes the address on the mailbox. But he doesn’t remember the house.

His family is waiting for him on the porch.

Everybody looks just as nervous as he is.

He gets out.

The police cruiser takes back off down the gravel drive, leaving him standing in a cloud of dust holding a baggie of possessions.

He has a wife. He has a son. He has a daughter.

A dog peers out a window.

His family takes him in.

Wash is still groggy from the procedure. He’s got a plastic taste on his tongue. He’s got a throbbing sensation in his skull. He’s starving.

Supper is homemade pot pies. His wife says the meal is his favorite. He doesn’t remember that.

The others are digging in already. Steam rises from his pie as he pierces the crust with his fork. He salivates. The smell of the pie hitting him makes him grunt with desire. Bending toward the fork, he parts his lips to take a bite, but then he stops and glances up.

Something is nagging at him worse than the hunger.

“What did I do?” he says with a sense of bewilderment.

His wife holds up a hand.

“Baby, please, let’s not talk about that,” his wife says.

Wash looks around. A laminate counter. A maroon toaster. Flowers growing from pots on the sill. Magnets shaped like stars on the fridge.

This is his home.

He doesn’t remember anything.

He’s not supposed to.

• • • •

His reintroduction supervisor comes to see him in the morning.

“How do you feel, Washington?”

“Everybody keeps calling me Wash?”

“I can call you that if you’d like.”

“I guess I’m not really sure what I like.”

Lindsay, the reintroduction supervisor, wears a scarlet tie with a navy suit. She’s got a bubbly disposition and a dainty build. Everything that she says, she says as if revealing a wonderful secret that she just can’t wait to share.

“We’ve found a job for you at a restaurant.”

“Doing what?”

“Working in the kitchen.”

“That’s the best you could get me?”

“At your level of education, and considering your status as a felon, yes, it really is.”

“Where did I work before?”

Lindsay smiles.

“An important part of making a successful transition back to your life is learning to let go of any worries that you might have about your past so that you can focus on enjoying your future.”

Wash frowns.

“Why do I know so much about mortgages? Did I used to work at a bank?”

“To my knowledge you have never worked at a bank.”

“But how can I remember that stuff if I can’t remember other stuff?”

“Your semantic memories are still intact. Only your episodic memories were wiped.”

“My what?”

“You know what a restaurant is.”

“Yeah.”

“But you can’t remember ever having eaten in a restaurant before.”

“No.”

“Or celebrating a birthday at a restaurant. Or using a restroom at a restaurant. Or seeing a friend at a restaurant. You’ve eaten in restaurants before. But you have no memories of that at all. None whatsoever.” Lindsay taps her temples. “Episodic memories are personal experiences. That’s what’s gone. Semantic memories are general knowledge. Information. Names, dates, addresses. You still have all of that. You’re a functional member of society. Your diploma is just as valid as before. And your procedural memories are fine. You still know how to ride a bike, or play the guitar, or operate a vacuum. Assuming you ever learned,” Lindsay laughs.

“Did you do anything else to me?”

“Well, of course, your gun license was also revoked.”

Wash thinks.

“Did I shoot somebody?”

“All felons are prohibited from owning firearms, regardless of the nature of the crime.”

Wash turns away, folding his arms over his chest, pouting at the carpet.

“Washington, how do you feel?”

“Upset.”

“That’s perfectly normal. I’m so glad that you’re comfortable talking with me about your feelings. That’s so important.”

Lindsay nods with a solemn expression, as if waiting for him to continue sharing, and then leans in.

“But honestly though, you should feel grateful you weren’t born somewhere that still has prisons.” Lindsay reaches for her purse. “Do you know what would have happened to you a century ago for doing what you did? The judge would have locked you up and thrown away the key!” Lindsay says brightly, and then stands to leave.

• • • •

Wash gets woken that night by a craving.

An urgent need.

Was he an addict?

What is he craving?

He follows some instinct into the basement. Stands there in boxers under the light of a bare bulb. Glances around the basement, stares at the workbench, and then obeys an urge to reach up onto the shelf above. Pats around and discovers an aluminum tin.

Something shifts inside as he takes the tin down from the shelf.

He pops the lid.

In the tin: a stash of king-size candy bars.

As he chews a bite of candy bar, a tingle of satisfaction rushes through him, followed by a sense of relief.

Chocolate.

Back up the stairs, padding down the hallway, he pit-stops in the bathroom for a drink of water. Bends to sip from the faucet. Wipes his chin. Stands. A full-length mirror hangs from the back of the door. He’s lit by the glow of a night-light the shape of a rainbow that’s plugged into the outlet above the toilet.

Wash examines his appearance in the mirror. Wrinkles around his eyes. Creases along his mouth. A thick neck. Broad shoulders, wide hips, hefty limbs, and a round gut. Fingers nicked with scars. Soles hardened with calluses. The body of an aging athlete, or a laborer accustomed to heavy lifting who’s recently gone soft from lack of work.

He can’t remember being a toddler. He can’t remember being a child. He can’t remember being a teenager. He can’t remember being an adult.

He stares at himself.

Who is he other than this person standing here in the present moment?

Is he anybody other than this person standing here in the present moment?

His wife stirs as he slips back into bed. She reaches over and startles him with a kiss. He kisses back, but then she climbs on top of him, and he pulls away.

“Too soon?” she whispers.

Mia, that’s her name, he remembers. She has a flat face, skinny arms, thick legs, and frizzy hair cut off at her jawline, which he can just make out in the dark. Her nails are painted bright red. She sleeps in a plaid nightgown.

“I barely know you,” he says.

Mia snorts. “Didn’t stop you the first time.” She shuffles backward on her knees, tugging his boxers down his legs as she goes, and then chuckles. “I mean our other first time.”

• • • •

The restaurant is a diner down by the highway, a chrome trailer with checkered linoleum and pleather booths and ceiling fans that spin out of sync, featuring a glass case of pastries next to the register and a jukebox with fluorescent tubing over by the restrooms. The diner serves breakfast and lunch only. Wash arrives each morning around dawn. The kitchen has swinging doors. He does the dishes, sweeps the floors, mops the floors, and hauls the trash out when the bags get full. Mainly he does the dishes. Dumps soda from cups. Pours coffee from mugs. Scrapes onion rings and pineapple rinds and soggy napkins and buttered slices of toast and empty jam containers and crumpled straw wrappers into the garbage. Sprays ketchup from plates. Rinses broth from bowls. Racks the tableware and sends the racks through the dishwasher. Stacks spotless dishes back onto the shelves alongside the stove. Scours at crusted yolk and dried syrup with the bristly side of sponges. Scrubs skillets with stainless steel pads for so long and with such force that the pads fall apart and still there’s a scorched residue stuck to the pans. Burns his hands with scalding water. Splashes stinging suds into his eyes. His shoes are always damp as he drives home in the afternoon. He shaves, he showers, and he feeds the dog, a moody mutt whose name is Biscuit. Then he sits on the porch step waiting for the rest of his family to get home. His house is modest, with small rooms and a low ceiling, and has no garage. The gutters sag. Shingles have been blown clear off the roof. The sun has bleached the blue of the siding almost to gray. Across the road stands a field of corn. Beyond that there’s woods. The corn stalks sway in the breeze. The dog waits with him, curled up on the grass around his shoes, panting whenever a car drives past. He lives in Kansas.

Sophie, his daughter, a ninth grader, is the next to arrive home, shuffling off the bus while jabbing at the buttons of a game. Jaden, his son, a third grader, arrives home on the later bus, shouting taunts back at friends hanging out the windows. His wife works at a hospital, the same hours that he does, but she gets home last since the hospital is all the way over in Independence.

Wash tries to cook once, tries to make meatloaf. He knows what a meatloaf is. He understands how an oven functions. He gets the mechanics of a whisk. He can read the recipe no problem. But still the attempt is a disaster. He pulls the pan out when the timer goes off, and the bottom of the meatloaf is already charred, and the top of the meatloaf is still raw. He hadn’t been able to find bread crumbs, so he had torn up a slice of bread instead, which doesn’t seem to have worked. He samples a bite from the center of the meatloaf, that in-between part neither charred nor raw, and finds some slivers of onion skin in among what he’s chewing. When his wife arrives home, she surveys the mess with a look of amusement and then assures him that this isn’t a skill he’s forgotten. She does the cooking. At home, the same as at the diner, he does the dishes.

Other items that his wife assures him were not accidentally erased during his procedure: the date of her birthday (all he knows is the month, August); the date of their anniversary (all he knows is the month, May).

“Here’s a clue. My birthday was exactly a week before you came home. Borrow a calculator from one of your delightful children if you need help with the math,” Mia says, dumping a box of spaghetti into a pot of roiling water while simultaneously stirring a can of mushrooms into a pan of bubbling marinara. “If you’d like to know how long you’ve been married, your marriage license is in the filing cabinet in the basement. In fact, if you’re really feeling ambitious, your children have some birth certificates in there, too. Heck, check your immunization record while you’re down there, you’re probably due for a tetanus shot.”

There are moments so intimate that he can almost forget he’s living with strangers. His daughter falls asleep on him one night while watching a show about zombies on the couch, her head lolling against his shoulder. His son leans into him one night waiting for the microwave to heat a mug of cider, his arm wrapping around his waist. Late one night after the kids are asleep, his wife hands him a rubber syringe and a plastic bowl and asks him to flush a buildup of wax from her ears, an act that to him seems far more intimate than intercourse.

But then there are the moments that remind him how much he must have lost. One night, during a supper of baked potatoes loaded with chives and bacon and sour cream, his family suddenly cracks up over an in-joke, a shared memory that’s somehow related to mini-golf and bikinis. His wife is laughing so hard that she’s crying, but sobers up when she realizes how confused he looks.

“Sorry, it’s impossible to explain if you weren’t there,” Mia says, thumbing away tears.

“But he was there, he was the one who noticed,” Jaden protests.

“He can’t remember anymore, you ninny,” Sophie scowls.

And then the subject gets changed.

Wash does know certain information about himself.

He knows his ancestry is part Potawatomi. He knows his parents were named Lawrence and Beverly. He knows his birthplace is near Wichita.

But taking inventory of what he knows isn’t as simple as thinking, “What do you know, Wash?”

He has to ask a specific question.

He must know other facts about himself.

He just hasn’t asked the right questions yet.

“Wash, were you ever in a fight before?”

“Wash, did you like your parents?”

“Wash, have you seen a tornado?”

He doesn’t remember.

He tries asking Sophie about his past one afternoon. Wash is driving her to practice. Sophie runs cross.

“What was my life like before the wipe?” Wash says.

Sophie is a plump kid with crooked teeth, a pet lover, and has a grave demeanor, as if constantly haunted by the fact that not all kittens have homes. She’s doing history homework, flipping back and forth between a textbook and a worksheet, scribbling in information. She’s got her sneakers propped on the dashboard with her ankles crossed.

“Huh?” Sophie says.

“What do you know about my life?”

“Um.”

“Like tell me something I told you about myself before I got taken away.”

She sneers at the textbook. Bends over the worksheet, forcefully erases something, and blows off the peels of rubber left behind. Then turns to look at him.

“You never really talked about yourself,” Sophie says.

He tries asking Jaden about his past one afternoon. Wash is driving him to practice. Jaden plays soccer.

“What was I like before I went away?” Wash says.

Jaden is a stringy kid with a nose that dominates his other features, a soda junkie, and constantly hyper, regardless of caffeine intake. He’s sitting in an upside-down position with his legs pointed at the roof, his back on the seat, and his head lolled over the edge, with his hands thrown across the floor of the truck. He’s spent most of the ride listing off the powers of supervillains.

“I dunno,” Jaden says.

“You must remember something about me.”

“I guess.”

“So what type of person was I?”

Jaden plucks at the seatbelt. Frowns in thought. Then turns to look at him.

“A grown-up?” Jaden says.

Wash tries asking his wife, but her taste in conversation is strictly practical, and she doesn’t seem interested in reminiscing about his life before the wipe at all. No photos are framed on the counter. No snapshots are pinned to the fridge. If pictures of his family ever hung on the walls, the pictures have long since disappeared.

But other artifacts of his past are scattered throughout the house. In his closet hang flannel button-ups, worn tees, plain sweatshirts, a zip-up fishing vest with mesh pouches, a hooded hunting jacket with a camouflage pattern, a fleece, a parka, faded jeans on wire hangers, and a suit in a plastic garment bag. Who was that person who chose these clothes? In his dresser mingle polished turquoise, pennies smashed smooth by trains, a hotel matchbook lined with the stumps of torn-out matches, an assortment of acorns, ticket stubs from raffles, a pocket knife whose blades are rusted shut, and the marbled feather of a bald eagle. Who was that person who kept these trinkets? There’s a safe in the basement where his guns were stored before being sold. He knows a combination, spins the numbers in, and the handle gives. But aside from a bungee, the safe is empty. No rifles, no shotguns, no pistols. Even the ammunition was sold.

Who owned those guns?

And then there are the artifacts of his past that he sees in his family. Sometimes in the driveway, he’ll glance up from the car he’s washing or the mower he’s fueling and see his daughter watching him from the door with an expression of spite. Was he ever cruel to Sophie? Sometimes as he drops his boots in the entryway with a thud or tosses his wallet onto the counter with a snap, he’ll see his son flinch over on the couch. Was he ever rough with Jaden? When he sets his cup down empty, his wife leaps up to fetch the carton of milk from the fridge, as if there might be some repercussion for failing to pour him another glass.

He has a beat-up flip phone with nobody saved in the contacts except for his wife and his kids. Were there other contacts in there that were deleted after he got arrested?

At cross meets and soccer matches, the other parents never talk to him. Was that always the case, or only now that he’s a felon?

How does he know that trains have cupolas? Where did he learn that comets aren’t asteroids? Who taught him that vinegar kills lice?

Wash is at the homecoming football game, coming back from the concession stand with striped boxes of popcorn for his family, when he stops at the fence to watch a field goal attempt. A referee jogs by with a whistle bouncing on a lanyard. Cheerleaders in gloves and earmuffs rush past with pompoms and megaphones. Jayhawkers chant in the bleachers. Wash glazes over, he’s not sure for how long, but he’s still standing at the fence when his trance is interrupted by a stranger standing next to him.

“You did time, didn’t you, friend?”

The stranger wears a pullover with the logo of the rival team. His hair is slicked crisp with mousse. He’s got ironed khakis and shiny loafers.

“Do I know you?” Wash says.

“Ha. No. You just had that look. We all get the look. Searching for something that isn’t there,” the stranger says.

Wash cracks a smile.

The stranger grumbles, “I don’t know why people even say that anymore. Doing time. That’s not what happens at all. Losing time. That’s what happens. Poof. Gone.” The stranger glances down and gives the ice in his cup a shake. “I lost a year. Let’s just say, hadn’t been totally candid on my tax forms. Couldn’t have been worse timing though. I’d gotten married that year. No joke, I can’t even remember my own honeymoon. Spent a fortune on that trip, too. Fucking blows.” The stranger turns away to watch a punt return, sucks a gurgle of soda through his straw, and then turns back. “How long did you do?”

“Life.”

The stranger whistles.

“No kidding? You lost everything? From start to finish? How old were you when you got wiped?”

“Forty-one.”

“What’d you do to get life? Kill a cop? Rob a bank? Run a scam or something?”

“I don’t know,” Wash admits.

The stranger squints.

“You aren’t curious?”

“Nobody will tell me.”

The stranger laughs.

“To get a sentence like that, whatever you did, it must have made the news.”

Wash stares at the stranger in shock. He could know who he was after all. All he’d have to do is get online.

“We don’t have a computer though,” Wash frowns.

The stranger passes behind him, giving him a pat on the shoulder, and then calls back before drifting off into the crowd.

“Going to let you in on a secret, friend. At the library, you can use a computer for free.”

• • • •

Lindsay, his reintroduction supervisor, is waiting for him at the house when he gets off work the next afternoon. She’s wearing the same outfit as before, a scarlet tie, a navy suit. She’s sitting on the hood of her car next to a box of donuts.

“Time to check in,” Lindsay says through a bite of cruller.

Biscuit stands on the couch, peering out of the house, paws propped against the window.

“Have a seat,” Lindsay says brightly.

Wash takes a fritter.

“How are you getting along with your family, Washington?”

Wash thinks.

“Fine,” Wash says.

Lindsay leans in with a conspiratorial look. “Oh, come on, give me the gossip.”

Wash chews, swallows, and frowns.

“Why’d you have to give me life? You couldn’t just give me twenty years or something? Why’d you have to take everything?” Wash says.

“The length of your sentence was determined by the judge.”

“Just doesn’t seem fair.”

Lindsay nods, smiling sympathetically, and then abruptly stops.

“Well, what you did was pretty bad, Washington.”

“But my whole life?”

“Do you know anything about the history of prisons in this country?” Lindsay reaches for a napkin, licks some glaze from her fingers, and wipes her hands. “Prisons here were originally intended to be a house of corrections. The theory was that when put into isolation criminals might be taught how to be functional citizens. In practice, however, the system proved to be ineffective at reforming offenders. The rate of recidivism was staggering. Honestly, upon release, most felons were arrested on new charges within the year. And over time the conditions in the prisons became awful. I mean, imagine what your situation would have been, being sentenced to life. You would have spent the next half a century locked in a cage like an animal, sleeping on an uncomfortable cot, wearing an ill-fitting jumpsuit, making license plates all day for far less than minimum wage, cleaning yourself with commercial soaps whose lists of ingredients included a variety of carcinogens, eating mashed potatoes made from a powder and meatloaf barely fit for human consumption, getting raped occasionally by other prisoners. Instead, you get to be here, with your family. Pretty cool, right? Like, super cool? You have to admit. And the wipe isn’t simply a punishment. Yes, the possibility of getting wiped is meant to deter people from committing crimes. Totally. But wipes are also highly effective at preventing criminals from becoming repeat offenders. Although there is some biological basis for things like rage and greed and so forth, those types of issues tend to be the psychological byproducts of memories. And a life sentence is especially effective. Given a clean slate, felons often are much calmer, are much happier than before, are burdened with no misconceptions that crimes like embezzlement or poaching might be somehow justified, and of course possess no grudges against institutions like the government or law enforcement or former employers.” Lindsay glances over, then turns back toward the road. “For example.”

“So I’m supposed to feel grateful?”

Wash didn’t mean to speak with that much force.

“Do you even know how much a wipe like yours costs?” Lindsay says, her eyes growing wide. “A fortune. Honestly, most people around here would need a payment plan for a simple vanity wipe. You know, you do something embarrassing at a party, you overhear somebody saying something mean about you that rings a bit too true, so you just have the memory erased. And then there are survivors of truly traumatic incidents, who often have to save up for years after the incident if insurance won’t cover the cost of having it wiped. And alcoholics and crackheads and the like have no choice but to shell out, as a selective memory wipe is the only possible cure for addiction. Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are generally treated with wipes as well, although those wipes, as was the case with yours, are covered by taxpayers.” Lindsay leans back on the hood of the car, propped up on her elbows, and squints into the sun. “It’s a better deal for taxpayers anyway. Wiping your memory may have been costly, but was still nowhere near as expensive as paying to feed and shelter you for half a century would have been. That’s the problem with prisons. They’re overpriced, they underperform.”

Wash scowls at the driveway.

“How are you feeling, Washington?”

“Frustrated.”

“Tell me more.”

“I don’t even know what I did to get wiped.”

Lindsay smiles. “The less you know about who you were before, the greater your chances of making a successful transition to your new life.” Beneath her cheery tone there’s a hint of uncertainty. “I would particularly recommend in your case that you avoid asking people about the details of your arrest.”

• • • •

Wash has to drive by the local library, a squat brick building with a flag hanging from a pole, whenever he drops off the kids at practice, and he tries to avoid wondering whether whatever he did to get arrested made the news. He notices that other parents stick around during practice, so occasionally he stays, watching Sophie stretching out at the track between intervals, knee braces on, or Jaden dribbling balls through a course of cones, shin guards crooked. Wash likes his kids. He doesn’t mind being their parent, but he wants to be their friend, too. To be trusted. To be liked. The desire is so powerful that sometimes the thick fingers of his hands curl tight around the links of the fence out of a sense of longing as he watches the kids practice. Becoming friends with the dog was simple. Biscuit sniffed him and licked him and that was that. He’s the same person he’s always been as far as the dog is concerned. The kids are distant, though. He doesn’t know how to jump-start the relationships.

On other days he drives home during practice. The wallpaper in the kitchen is dingy, there are gouges in the walls of the hallway, the ceiling fan in the living room is broken, there are cracks in the light fixture in the laundry room, but not until the constant drip from the sink in the bathroom has turned to a steady leak does he actually stop, think, and realize that the house must be in such shabby condition because of how long he was gone, in detention during the trial, when his wife would have been living on a single income. That faucet is leaking because of him.

He knows how to fix a leak. Leaving the light in the bathroom on, he fetches the toolbox from the basement. He’s emptying the cupboard under the sink, stacking toiletries on the linoleum, preparing to shut off the water, when his wife passes the doorway.

“What exactly are you doing?” Mia says.

“I’m gonna fix some stuff,” Wash says.

She stares at him.

“Oh,” she says finally, and then carries on down the hallway, followed by the dog.

By the time the corn in the field across the road has been harvested and the trees in the woods beyond the field are nearly bare, he’s got the gutters hanging straight and the shingles patched up again. He takes a day off from the diner to tear out the stained carpeting in the hallway, wearing a dust mask over his face with the cuffs of his flannel rolled. Afterward he’s rummaging around the shelf under the workbench in the basement, looking for a pry bar to rip up the staples in the floor, when he notices a quiver of arrows.

Wash tugs the mask down to his neck and touches the arrows. Carbon shafts. Turkey fletching. He glances over at the safe.

Did he have a bow once?

Was the bow sold with the guns?

Turning back to the shelf under the workbench he sees that there’s an unmarked case clasped shut next to the quiver.

Wash pops the lid.

Though he doesn’t recognize the bow itself, he recognizes that it’s a bow, even in pieces. A takedown. A recurve. And before he even has a chance to wonder whether he knows how to assemble a bow, he’s got the case up on the workbench and he’s putting the bow together, moving on impulse. Bolts the limbs to the riser, strings the bow, and then heads up the stairs with the quiver. Drags a roll of carpet out the back door and props the carpet against a fence post to use as a target. Backs up toward the house. Tosses the quiver into the grass. Nocks an arrow. Raises the bow. Draws the string back toward the center of his chin until the string is pressing into the tip of his nose. Holds. Breathes.

Leaves are falling.

He lets go.

The arrow hits the carpet with a thump.

The sense of release that washes over him is incredible.

Wash is already exhausted from tearing the carpet out of the hallway, but he stands out in the backyard firing arrow after arrow until the muscles in his arms are burning and his flannel is damp with sweat, and arrow after arrow buries deep into the carpet. Fixing leaks, hanging gutters, patching shingles, he can do stuff like that, but the work is a struggle, a long and frustrating series of bent nails and fumbled wrenches. But this is different. Something he’s good at. He can’t remember ever feeling like this before. The pride, the satisfaction, of having and using a talent. Biscuit watches from the door, panting happily, tail wagging, as if sensing his euphoria.

Wash is scrubbing dishes after supper that night while Mia clips coupons from a brochure at the table.

“I want to go hunting,” Wash announces.

“With the bow?” Mia says.

Wash thinks.

“Do you hunt?” Wash says.

“No,” Mia snorts.

She sets down the scissors, folds her arms on the table, and furrows her eyebrows together, looking up at him with an inscrutable expression.

“Why don’t you ask your children?” Mia says.

Jaden and Sophie are in the living room.

Jaden responds to the invitation by jumping on the ottoman, pretending to fire arrows at the lamp.

Even Sophie, busy working on a poster for a fundraiser to save stray cats from getting euthanized, wants to come along.

“You’re okay with killing animals?”

“I only care about cute animals.”

“Deer aren’t cute?”

“Deer are snobs.”

Last weekend of bow season. Hiking off-trail on public land. The dawn is cloudy. Frost crusts the mud. Wash leads the way through a stretch of cedars, touching the rubs in the bark of the trunks, explaining to the kids about glands without knowing where he learned that’s why deer make the rubs. Finds a clearing. Sets up behind a fallen log at the edge of the trees, Jaden to this side with a thermos of cocoa, Sophie to that side with a thermos of coffee, whispering insults back and forth to each other. Waits. Snow begins falling. The breeze dies. The kids go quiet as a deer slips into the clearing. A buck with a crown of antlers. A fourteen-pointer. The trophy of a lifetime. The arrow hits the buck so hard that the buck gets knocked to the ground, but just as fast it staggers back up, and then it bounds off into the woods, vanishing. With Jaden and Sophie close behind, he hurries over to where the deer fell. Blood on the snow. Tracks in the mud. Wash and the kids follow the trail through the pines, past a ditch full of brambles, down a slope thick with birches, until the trail disappears just shy of a creek. By then the sun has broken through the clouds. And no matter where he searches from there, the buck can’t be found.

He’s just about given up looking when he notices some trampled underbrush.

Beyond, on a bed of ferns, the buck lies dead.

Jaden and Sophie dance around the kill, doing fist-pumps and cheering, and that feeling before, shooting arrows into the carpet in the backyard, is nothing compared to the feeling now.

• • • •

Driveway.

Weekend.

Icicles hanging from the flag on the mailbox.

Jaden, in pajamas, boots, and a parka, is sucking on a lozenge, occasionally pushing the lozenge out with his tongue, just far enough for the lozenge to peek through his lips, then slurping the lozenge back into his mouth, while helping him shovel snow.

Wash chips at some ice.

Jaden starts to wheeze.

Wash glances over.

“What’s wrong?” Wash says.

Jaden shakes his head, reaches for his throat, and falls to his knees.

Both shovels hit the ground. Wash grabs him by the shoulders and thumps his back. Jaden still can’t breathe. Wash spins him and forces his mouth open in a panic. Sticks a finger in. Feels teeth, a tongue, saliva, an uvula. Finds the lozenge. Claws the lozenge. Scoops the lozenge out with a flick.

The lozenge lands in the snow.

Jaden coughs, sways, blinks some, then looks at the lozenge.

“That was awesome,” Jaden grins.

• • • •

Backyard.

Weekend.

Buds sprouting on the stems of the tree beyond the fence, where a crow is perched on a branch, not cawing, not preening, silent and still.

Sophie, in leggings, slippers, and a hoodie, is helping him to clean rugs.

Wash holds a rug up over the grass.

Sophie beats the rug with a broom.

Dust flies into the air. Coils of hair. Clumps of soil. Eventually nothing. Sophie drapes the rug over the fence, being careful to make sure that the tassels aren’t touching the ground, as he reaches for the next rug. Just then the crow falls out of the tree.

The crow hits the ground with a thud.

Wash looks at the crow in shock.

The crow lies there. Doesn’t move. Twitches. Struggles up again. Hops around. Then flaps back into the tree.

“Was it asleep?” Wash squints.

Sophie stares at the crow, and then bursts out laughing.

“Nobody’s gonna believe us,” Sophie says.

• • • •

Ballpark.

Minor league.

Chaperones on a field trip for the school.

His wife comes back from a vendor with some concessions.

She hands him a frankfurter.

Wash inspects the toppings with suspicion. Rancid sauerkraut. Gummy mustard. What might be cheese.

The meat looks greasy.

“You used to love those,” Mia frowns.

She trades him a pretzel.

“Guess that was the nostalgia you were tasting,” Mia says.

• • • •

Basement.

Jaden is hunched in the safe.

Sophie is crouched under the workbench.

Biscuit is leashed to a pipe on the boiler.

Tornado sirens howl in the distance.

“This is taking forever,” Sophie says.

“I want to play a game,” Jaden whines.

“We should have brought down some cards,” Sophie says.

“There’s nothing worse than just sitting,” Jaden grumbles.

Wash presses his hands into the floor to stand.

“Don’t you dare,” Mia says.

Wash freezes.

“I’ll be fast,” Wash says.

And then, after glancing back at his wife at the foot of the stairs, goes up.

Noon, but with the lights off the house is dim, like today dusk came early. Wash hurries down the hallway toward the living room. There’s a pressure in the air. In the living room he pinches his jeans to tug the legs up, then crouches over the basket of games, digging for a deck of cards.

Rising back up, tucking the cards into the pocket of his flannel, he glances over toward the doorway.

He can see the door lying in the yard next to a can of paint, where he had been painting the door when the sirens had begun to wail. The windows in the door reflect the clouds above. Through the glass is flattened grass.

The screen door, still attached to the doorframe, is rattling.

Wash crosses the living room.

He stands at the door.

He touches the screen.

Sky a mix of gold and green.

Leaves tearing across the yard in a rush of wind.

He can feel his heart beat.

The screen door opens with a creak.

Wash steps out onto the porch. His jeans snap against his legs. His flannel whips against his chest. Beyond the corn across the road, past the woods beyond the field, a tornado twists in the sky.

• • • •

The anniversary will be their twentieth, but their first he can remember. Having to plan some type of date makes him nervous. He would just take his wife out to eat somewhere fancy, which he knows is the standard move, but aside from the diner the other restaurants in town are all chains: a burger joint, a burrito joint, a pizza place that doesn’t even have tables or chairs. Besides, he feels like this anniversary should be special, something memorable, above and beyond a candlelight dinner. Wash agonizes for weeks, at a loss what to do, worrying that he won’t think of anything in time, and then while leaving work after an especially brutal shift the week before the anniversary, he notices a brochure tacked to the corkboard by the door. Wash reaches up, fingers pruny from washing dishes, and plucks the brochure down from the corkboard. The brochure advertises cabin rentals in the state park at El Dorado Reservoir.

His wife looks shocked when he tells her what the plan is, but moments later she’s jotting down a list of supplies to buy and gear to pack, which seems like a form of approval.

Sophie gets left in charge of watching Jaden, with cash for emergencies and a fridge full of food, and he and his wife clear out of town. Mia paints her nails teal over the course of the drive, her frizzy hair trembling in the breeze through the windows. Wash stresses, convinced that the cabin won’t be as nice as the pictures in the brochure, afraid that his wife might secretly consider the plan too outdoorsy, but the cabin turns out to be just as perfect as promised, and his wife is beaming before the duffels have even hit the floor. He’s never seen her like this. At home, she never drinks alcohol, she never plays music, she’s stern and practical and tireless, emptying hampers and folding laundry and cleaning the fridge and washing the dog and checking the kids did their homework and helping the kids with their homework and scheduling appointments and reading mail and paying bills and organizing the junk drawer and lugging bags of garbage out to the bin without ever stopping to rest, as if the home, not just the house but the family and the lives contained within, would completely fall apart if she allowed herself to relax for even a moment. But at the cabin she’s different, already loosening up, sipping from a can of beer, cranking up the country on the radio, dancing in place at the stove as she cooks up a feast of steak and mushrooms and roasted potatoes crusted with rosemary, giving him a glimpse of who she might have been when he met her twenty years ago, a twenty-year-old girl with a sense of humor and a lopsided smile and few if any responsibilities. He’s liked his wife for as long as he can remember, but watching her dance around at the stove makes him feel something new, something powerful, tender, warm. He can tell that the feeling is strong, but even though he knows how strong the feeling is, and though he can’t imagine how a feeling could possibly be any stronger, he’s not sure whether or not there’s still another feeling that’s even stronger out there. He can’t remember being in love. Has no spectrum to place the feeling on. Doesn’t know what the limit for emotions is. Does he like her, or really like her, or really really like her, or really really really like her?

After the meal he leans back with his bare feet flat on the floor and his hands folded together on his gut, stuffed with starch and butter and meat and grease, buzzed from the beer. His wife usually doesn’t involve him in parenting decisions, just signs the consent forms and checks the movie ratings herself. But for once she’s actually consulting him about the kids, leaning across the table with her chin on the placemat, toying absentmindedly with the tab on a can.

“There are these acne pills Sophie keeps asking to try.”

“She gets like a single pimple at a time.”

“Should we let her or not?”

“For one zit?”

“So no.”

Then:

“Do you think Jaden is getting picked on?”

“What makes you say that?”

“He keeps coming home with ripped clothes.”

“He’s just wild.”

“You’re sure?”

Wash feels a flush of pride. He likes when his wife asks his opinion. Maybe it’s only because of the anniversary weekend, but he hopes it signals a permanent change.

“I got us something,” Mia says suddenly, pushing up off of the table to stand, looking almost giddy. She goes out to the car, pops the trunk, digs under a tarp, and comes back lugging an unmarked cardboard box topped with a silver bow. The present is nearly as long as the table.

Wash takes ahold of the flap and rips through the tape.

Lifts the lid.

A rifle.

“Whoa,” Wash says.

The gun lies on a pad of foam. Carbon barrel. Walnut stock. A repeater. A bolt-action. He reaches into the box, but then hesitates, looking to her for permission.

“Take it out,” Mia laughs.

The moment he picks up the rifle a sense of relief washes over him. Like having a severed limb suddenly reattached. A natural extension of his body. Automatically he pulls the bolt back to check whether the chamber is empty, then shuts the breech and raises the gun, butt to his shoulder, stock on his cheek, his eye at the scope, testing the sights. The smell of the oil. The feel of the trigger. He can already tell that he’s skilled with this thing.

“Are we allowed to have this?” Wash says.

“You’re not, but technically I’m the owner, I did all the research, and as long as you don’t have access, we’re in the clear, so we’ll just keep the gun in the safe and if anybody ever asks then we’ll say that you don’t know the combo. And honestly, on my honor, I did want to have a gun in the house again just in case of intruders. A pistol or a shotgun probably would have been better for that, though. I went with this because of you. You can use it for target shooting out back, even use it for deer hunting if you want. I thought it all through. We’ll just be careful. Nobody’s going to know.”

His chair creaks as she settles onto his lap.

He’s overwhelmed.

“I love you,” Wash says, without meaning to, the words just coming out.

He sets the rifle onto the table to kiss her, but an expression of alarm flashes across her face, and before he can lean closer she drops her head, with her chin to her sternum. Confused, he waits for her to look back up. Her hands rest on his shoulders. Her ass weighs on his thighs. She’s trembling suddenly. No, he realizes, she’s crying.

He can’t remember ever seeing her cry before.

The sight scares him.

“What’s wrong?” Wash frowns.

When she finally responds she speaks in a murmur.

“You’re hardly you at all anymore.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re just so different.”

“Different how?”

Mia goes silent for a moment.

“You never did dishes before.”

“Well, it wasn’t my job back then, right?” Wash says.

“I mean at home,” Mia explodes, shoving him in frustration, startling him.

“But after the meatloaf, you told me that’s how things worked, was you doing the cooking and me doing the dishes,” Wash says.

“I was kidding, I didn’t think you’d actually do them, but then you got up from the table after we finished eating and you just started washing dishes, you’d never washed a dish in that house before in your life, you never used to play games with the kids, you never used to bring the kids along hunting, I always had to nag you to fix things around the house and even after you were done fixing things then you’d get on me for nagging you, I could barely get you to give the kids a ride somewhere without you throwing a fit, all you wanted to do was work and hunt and be alone in the woods, or rant at me about political stuff that there was nothing I could do anything about, we don’t even fight anymore, I tried to pretend that you’re the same but you’re not, you’re the same body, you move the same, you smell the same, you talk the same, you taste the same, but the rest of you is gone, you don’t remember the tomato juice when I was pregnant with Jaden, you don’t remember the fire alarm after I gave birth to Sophie, everything that used to have a secret meaning between us now is just a thing, to you a hay bale is just a hay bale, a batting helmet is just a batting helmet, a mosquito bite is just a mosquito bite, and that’s not what they are to me,” Mia cries, hitting his chest with her fists, “we lost our past, we lost our history,” hitting his chest with her fists, “and you deserved it,” a fist, “I didn’t,” a fist, “not me.”

Wash sits there in terror, letting her beat on him, until finally she clutches his tee in her hands and sinks her head into his chest in exhaustion. His skin tingles with pain where the blows landed. His heart pounds from the shock of being struck. Wash glances at the blotchy sunspots on his hands, the faint scars on his fingers, the bone spurs on his heels, the brittle calluses on his soles, relics of years he can’t remember living. He’s never felt so much like a stranger in this body.

He’s almost too shaken to speak.

“Which one do you want?” Wash says.

“Which what?”

“Which me?”

Mia heaves a sigh, then lifts her head, turns her face away, and rises off of him. She shuffles toward the bathroom. “I never would’ve gotten a gun again if you were the way you used to be.”

Midnight. He lies next to his wife in the dark. The sheets are thinner than at home. The pillows are harder than at home. He can’t remember ever having spent a night away from home before. He’s gotten so used to falling asleep with her nuzzled against him that trying to fall asleep with her facing away from him is intensely lonely. His feet are cold. An owl hoots down by the reservoir.

Does he love his wife?

Did he ever love his wife before?

• • • •

Lindsay is sitting on the chair in the living room. She’s wearing the same outfit as every month. She tucks her hair behind her ears, then bends to grab a toy from the floor, a plastic bone that squeaks when squeezed.

“This is the last time we’ll have to meet,” Lindsay says.

“We’re done?”

Lindsay looks up with a smile.

“Next month will mark a full year since your wipe. By the standards of our justice department, you’ve been officially reintroduced to your life. Congratulations.”

Lindsay tosses the toy down the hallway.

Biscuit takes off running.

Wash thinks.

“There’s something I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?”

“What happens if you commit another crime after you’ve had a wipe like mine? What else could they even do to me if they’ve already taken everything?”

“They took the memories you had back then. You have new memories they could take.”

Wash frowns.

“If you’re being sentenced to a partial wipe, a shorter sentence is better than a longer sentence, of course. But for a life sentence, the numbers are meaningless. Is it worse when a sixty-year-old dies than when a six-year-old dies? Of course not. The length of a life has nothing to do with the weight of the loss.”

Wash settles back into the couch, folding his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his pits.

“That’s important for you to understand,” Lindsay says.

Wash glances over.

“You have another life you could lose now,” Lindsay says.

Biscuit drops the bone back onto the floor.

Lindsay reaches down.

“How do you feel, Washington?”

“I feel really good,” Wash says.

• • • •

Mia calls him into the bathroom. She’s sitting on the lid of the toilet in drawstring sweatpants and a baggy undershirt. The pregnancy test is lying on the side of the tub.

“We’re both going to remember this one,” Mia says, smiling up at him.

His kids barge into the bathroom a moment later, already fighting about what to name the baby.

Wash goes shopping for a crib with his family, pushing a cart down the bright aisles of a department store as swing music plays over the speakers. Wash reclines on a checkered blanket at the park as fireworks burst in the sky above his family, shimmering and fading. Wash hunches over the wastebasket in the bedroom, clipping the nails on his fingers as his wife pops the battery from a watch on the dresser. Wash leans over the sink in the bathroom, tweezing a hair from his nose as his wife gathers dirty towels from the hook on the door. Wash shoots holes into a target shaped like the silhouette of a person as his kids watch from the stump of an oak tree, sipping cans of soda. And wherever he’s at, and whatever he’s doing, there’s something that’s stuck in his mind like a jingle, nagging him.

He sits on the porch with the dog. Rain drips from the awning. Silks are showing on the husks of corn across the road. Summer is already almost gone. Behind him, through the screens in the windows, sounds of his family talking drift out of the house.

Sometimes he does want to be alone. Sometimes he feels so lazy that he wants to refuse to help with chores. Sometimes he gets so tense that he has an urge to punch a wall.

But maybe all of that is trivial compared to how he used to be.

Is he a different person now?

Has he been becoming somebody new?

Or does he have some soul, an inborn nature, a congenital personality, that’s bound to express itself eventually?

The academic year hasn’t started yet, but the athletic seasons have begun. He’s on the way to pick up the kids from practice when he passes the library. His eyes flick from the road to the rearview, watching the library fade into the distance as the truck rushes on toward the school.

Knowing who he was might not even be an option. What he did might never even have made the news. And he’s already running late anyway. But still his hands clench tight around the wheel.

Swearing, he hangs a u-ey, swinging the truck back around.

He parks at the library.

“I need to use a computer,” Wash says.

The librarian asks him for identification, registers him for an account, and then brings him over to a computer. All that time he’s thinking, what are you doing, what are you doing, what are you doing, imagining his kids waiting for him by the fence at the school. The librarian heads back to the reference desk.

His hands are trembling as he reaches for the keyboard.

He logs onto the computer, pulls up a browser, and searches his name.

The screen blinks as the results appear.

Nothing. A pop star with his name. A goalie. A beach resort with his name. A monument. He’s not there.

He skims through again to be sure, and then laughs out loud in relief.

The temptation was a mirage all along.

Wash swivels on the chair to stand, then thinks of something, and hesitates.

He turns back around.

Puts his fingers on the keyboard.

Tries his name plus his town.

The screen blinks as the results change.

His heart leaps.

He’s there.

The list of articles seems to scroll on forever.

The headlines alone are enough to send a beat of rage pulsing through him.

Wash runs his hands over his mouth, glancing at the daylight streaming into the library through the door beyond the computer, trying to decide whether to leave now or to keep reading, flashing through all of the memories he has from the past year that he could lose. Jaden grinning in amazement after choking on the lozenge in the driveway. Sophie cracking up laughing after the crow fell out of the tree. Mia treading water at the reservoir in a white one-piece, glancing at him with a casual expression before suddenly lunging over to dunk him. Jaden lying on the linoleum in the kitchen in cutoff shorts, gripping him by the ankle, begging to be taken to the go-kart track. Jaden whirling around the yard with a lit sparkler. Mia swinging by the diner on a day off from the hospital, hair piled into a bun, trench coat damp with rain, splitting a slice of cherry pie with him while he’s on break. Sophie standing under the light in the kitchen in pajamas, holding him by the arm, upset by a dream about a ghost. Sophie singing into a lit sparkler like a microphone. Mia arranging gourds on the porch. Mia brushing icicles from the awning. Mia sweating into a damp washcloth, deliriously rambling about how much she loves him, as he crouches by the bed with the wastebasket, waiting there in case she pukes again. The dog watching a butterfly flutter down the hallway, then turning to look at him, as if waiting for an explanation. His kids dancing around the dead buck, boots tromping through snowy ferns, gloved hands raised in celebration, lit by the dazzling sunbeams spiking through the branches of the trees, and afterward driving back to the house with the deer in the bed of the truck, the mighty antlers rising into the air out the window behind the cab, the kids chattering to each other on the seat next to him, hats both off, hair all disheveled, and later eating bowls of cereal in the kitchen in thermal underwear together as the kids recount the story of the hunt with wild gestures, while his wife sits across the table in a plaid nightgown, smiling over a mug of black tea. The secret experiences that nobody else shared. The joy of discovering the chocolate stash hidden in the aluminum tin in the basement. The habit he’s made of visiting the glittering display of chandeliers and pendants and lamps and sconces whenever he goes to the hardware store, marveling at the rich glow of the mingled lights, filtered through the tinted glass and the colored shades. The sense of destiny when a bottle of cola suddenly plunked into the dispenser of a vending machine at the shopping mall as he was walking out of the bathroom. The fear and the awe and the wonder of seeing a monstrous tornado churn in the sky above the town, the funnel spiraling down from the clouds, the tip just about to touch the ground.

Wash sits back in the chair, looking from the door to the computer, biting his lip as he wavers, torn between the possibility of having a future and the possibility of having a past. But only for a moment. Because when he thinks about it, he knows who he is. He already knows what he’ll do.

©2019 by Matthew Baker.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Baker is the author of Hybrid Creatures, a collection of stories written in hybrid languages, and his fiction has appeared in publications such as American Short Fiction, One Story, Electric Literature, Conjunctions, and Best of the Net. A recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Blue Mountain Center, Prairie Center of the Arts, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program, he has an MFA from Vanderbilt University, where he was the founding editor of Nashville Review. Visit him online at www.mwektaehtabr.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

Okay, Glory

Elizabeth Bear | 9880 words

Day 0

My bathroom scale didn’t recognize me. I weigh in and weigh out every day when it’s possible—I have data going back about twenty years at this point—so when it registered me as “Guest” I snarled and snapped a pic with my phone so I would remember the number to log it manually.

I’d lost half a pound according to the scale, and on a whim I picked up the shower caddy with the shampoo and so on in it. I stepped back on the scale, which confidently told me I’d gained 7.8 pounds over my previous reduced weight, and cheerily greeted me with luminescent pixels reading HELLO BRIAN:).

Because what everybody needs from a scale interface is a smiley, but hey, I guess it’s my own company that makes these things. They’re pretty nice if I do say so myself, and I can complain to the CEO if I want something a little more user surly.

I should, however, really talk to the customer interface people about that smiley.

I didn’t think more of it, just brushed my teeth and popped a melatonin and took myself off to nest in my admittedly enormous and extremely comfortable bed.

Day 1

Glory buzzed me awake for a priority message before first light, which really should not have been happening.

Even New York isn’t at work that early, and California still thinks it’s the middle of the night. And I’m on Mountain Time when I’m at my little fortress of solitude, which is like being in a slice of nowhere between time zones actually containing people and requiring that the world notice them. As far as the rest of the United States is concerned, we might as well skip from UTC-6 to UTC-8 without a blink.

All the important stuff happens elsewhen.

That’s one reason I like it here. It feels private and alone. Other people are bad for my vibe. So much maintenance.

So it was oh-dark-thirty and Glory buzzed me. High priority; it pinged through and woke me, which is only supposed to happen with tagged emails from my assistant Mike and maybe three other folks. I fumbled my cell off the nightstand and there were no bars, which was inconceivable, because I built my own damned cell tower halfway up the mountain so I would always have bars.

I staggered out of bed and into the master bath, trailing quilts and down comforters behind me, the washed linen sheets entwining my ankle like tentacles. I was so asleep that I only realized when I got there that—first—I could have just had Glory read me the email, and—second—I forgot my glasses and couldn’t see past the tip of my nose.

I grabbed the edges of the bathroom counter, cold marble biting into my palms. “Okay, Glory. Project that email, 300 percent mag.”

Phosphorescent letters appeared on the darkened mirror. I thought it was an email from Jaysee, my head of R&D. Fortunately, I’m pretty good at what my optometrist calls “blur recognition.”

I squinted around my own reflection but even with the magnification all I could really make out was Jaysee’s address and my own blurry, bloodshot eyes. I walked back into the bedroom.

“Okay, Glory,” I said to my house.

“Hey, Brian,” my house said back. “The coffee is on. What would you like for breakfast today? External conditions are: 9 degrees Celsius, 5 knots wind from the southeast gusting to 15, weather expected to be clear and seasonable. This unit has initiated quarantine protocols, in accordance with directive seventy-two—”

“Breaker, Glory.”

“Waiting.”

Quarantine protocols? “Place a call—”

“I’m sorry, Brian,” Glory said. “No outside phone access is available.”

I stomped over the tangled bedclothes and grabbed my cell off the nightstand. I was still getting no signal, which was even more ridiculous when I could look out my bedroom’s panoramic windows and see the cell tower, disguised as a suspiciously symmetrical ponderosa pine, limned against the predawn blue.

I stood there for ten minutes, my feet getting cold, fucking with the phone. It wouldn’t even connect to the wireless network.

I remembered the scale.

“Okay, Glory,” said I. “What is directive seventy-two?”

“Directive seventy-two, paragraph c, subparagraph 6, sections 1–17, deal with prioritizing the safety and well-being of occupants of this house in case of illness, accident, natural disaster, act of terrorism, or other catastrophe. In the event of an emergency threatening the life and safety of Mr. Kaufman, this software is authorized to override user commands in accordance with best practices for dealing with the disaster and maximizing survivability.”

I caught myself staring up at the ceiling exactly as if Glory were localized up there. Like talking to the radio in your car even when you know the microphone’s up by the dome lights.

A little time passed. The cold feeling in the pit of my stomach didn’t abate. My heart rate didn’t drop either. My fitness band beeped to let me know it had started recorded whatever I was doing as exercise. It had a smiley, too.

“Okay, Glory,” I said. “Make it a big pot of coffee, please.”

As the aroma of shade-grown South American beans wafted through my rooms, I hunkered over my monitors and tried to figure out how screwed I was. Which is when I made the latest in what had become a series of unpleasant discoveries.

That email from Jaysee—it wasn’t from her.

Her address must have been spoofed, so I’d be sure to read it fast. I parsed right away that it didn’t originate with her, though. Not because of my nerdy know-how, but because it read:

Dear Mr. Kaufman,

Social security #: [Redacted]
Address: [Redacted]
This email is to inform you that you are being held for ransom.
We have total control of your house and all its systems.

We will return control to you upon receipt of the equivalent of USD $150,000,000.00 in Bitcoin via the following login and web address: [Redacted]

Feel free to try to call for help. It won’t do you any good.

The email was signed by T3#RH1TZ, a cracker group I had heard of, but never thought about much. Well, that’s better than a nuclear apocalypse or the Twitter Eschaton. Marginally. Maybe.

I mean, I can probably hack my way out of this. I’m not sure I could hack my way out of a nuclear apocalypse.

• • • •

Long story short, they weren’t lying. I couldn’t open any of the outside doors. My television worked fine. My Internet . . . well, I pay a lot for a blazingly fast connection out here in the middle of nowhere, which includes having run a dedicated T3 cable halfway up the mountain. I could send HTTP requests, and get replies, but SMTP just hung on the outgoing side. I got emails in—whoever hacked my house was probably getting them too—but I couldn’t send any.

It wasn’t that the data was only flowing one way. I had no problem navigating to websites—including their ransom site, which was upholstered in a particularly terrible combination of black, red, and acid green—and clicking buttons, even logging in to several accounts, though I avoided anything sensitive, but I couldn’t send an email, or a text, or a DM, or post to any of the various social media services I used either as a public person and CEO or under a pseud, or upload an OK Cupid profile that said HELP I’M TRAPPED IN A PRIVATE LODGE IN THE MOUNTAINS IN LATE AUTUMN LIKE A ONE-MAN REENACTMENT OF THE SHINING; REWARD FOR RESCUE; THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

After a while, I figured out that they must have given Glory a set of protocols, and she was monitoring my outgoing data. Bespoke deep-learned censorship. Fuck me, Agnes.

She would let me into the garage, but none of my cars started—those things have computers in them too—and the armored exterior doors wouldn’t open.

In any ordinary house, I could have broken a window, or pried it out of the frame, and climbed out. But this is my fortress of solitude, and I’d built her to do what it said on the box, except without the giant ice crystals and the whole Antarctica thing.

I went and stared out the big windows that I couldn’t disassemble, watching light flood the valley as the sun crested the mountains and wishing I cared enough about guns to own a couple. The bullet-resistant glass is thick, but maybe if I filled it full of lead that would warp the shape enough that I could pop it from the frame.

Twilights here are long.

Glory nestles into a little scoop on the mountainside, so a green meadow spills around her, full of alpine flowers and nervous young elk in the spring, deep in snow and tracked by bobcats in the winter. She looks like a rustic mountain lodge with contemporary lines and enormous insulated windows commanding the valley. The swoops and curves of the mountain soar down to the river: its roar is a pleasant hum if you stand on the deck, where Glory wouldn’t let me go anymore. Beyond the canyon, the next mountain raises its craggy head above the tree line, shoulders hunched and bald pate twisted.

Glory is remote. Glory is also: fireproof, bulletproof, bombproof, and home-invasion-proof in every possible way, built to look half-a-hundred years old, with technology from half an hour into the future.

And she’s apparently swallowed a virus that makes her absolutely certain the world has ended, and she needs to keep me safe by not allowing me outside her hermetically sealed environs. I can’t even be permitted to breathe unscrubbed air, as far as she’s concerned, because it’s full of everything-resistant spores and probably radiation.

You know, when I had the prototype programmed to protect my life above all other considerations . . . you’d think I would have considered this outcome. You’d think.

You’d think the Titanic’s engineers would have built the watertight bulkheads all the way to the top, too, but there you have it. On the other hand, Playatronics does plan to market these systems in a couple of years, so I suppose it’s better that I got stuck in here than some member of the general public, who might panic and get hurt—or survive and sue.

At least Glory was a polite turnkey.

You’ve probably read that I’m an eccentric billionaire who likes his solitude. I suppose that’s not wrong, and I did build this place to protect my privacy, my work, and my person without relying on outside help. I’m not a prepper; I’m not looking forward to the apocalypse. I’m just a sensible guy with an uncomfortable level of celebrity who likes spending a lot of time alone.

My house is my home, and I did a lot of the design work myself, and I love this place and everything in it. I made her hard to get into for a reason.

But the problem with places that are hard to get into is that it tends to be really hard to get out of them, too.

Day 2

I slept late this morning, because I stayed up until sunrise testing the bars of my prison. I fell asleep at my workstation. Glory kept me from spending the night there, buzzing the keyboard until I woke up enough to drag myself to the sectional on the other side of my office.

When I woke, it was to another spoofed email. I remembered my glasses this time. I’d gotten my phone to reconnect to Glory’s wireless network, at least, so I didn’t have to stagger into the bathroom to read.

This one said:

Hello, Brian! You’ve had thirty hours to consider our offer and test our systems. Convinced yet?

As a reminder, when you’re ready to be released, all you have to do is send the equivalent of $150,100,000.00 via [redacted]!

Your friends at T3#RH1TZ

• • • •

What I’d learned in a day’s testing: I thought I’d done a pretty good job of protecting my home system and my network, and honestly I’d relied a bit on the fact that my driveway was five miles long to limit access by wardrivers.

I use PINE—don’t look at me that way, lots of guys still use PINE—and an hour of mucking around in its guts hadn’t actually changed anything. I still couldn’t send an email, though quite a few were finding their way in. Most of them legitimate, from my employees, one or two from old friends.

I even try sending an email back to the kidnappers—housenappers? Is it kidnapping if they haven’t moved you anywhere? The extortionists. I figure if it goes through either they’ll intercept it, or it’ll reach Jaysee and she’ll figure out pretty fast what went wrong.

I have a lot of faith in Jaysee. She’s one of my senior vice presidents, which doesn’t tell you anything about the amount of time we spent in her parents’ basement taking apart TRS-80s when we were in eighth grade. If anybody’s going to notice that I’m missing, it’s Jaysee. Sadly, she’s also the person most likely to respect my need for space.

Also sadly, I can’t send an outbound email even as a reply to the crackers. You’d think they would have thought of that, but I guess extortionists don’t actually care if you keep in touch, as long as there’s a pipeline for the money.

I might have hoped that a day or two of silence might lead Jaysee or somebody to send out a welfare check. Except I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t a great correspondent, and everybody who bothered to keep in touch with me knew it too. Sometimes, if I got busy, emails piled up for a week or more, and I had been known to delete them all unanswered, or turn my assistant loose to sort through the mess and see if there was any point in answering any of them, or if all the fires had either burned themselves out or been sorted by competent subordinates.

Which is why I have people like Mike and Jaysee, to be perfectly honest. I’m a terrible manager, and I need privacy to work.

I make a point of hiring only self-starters for a reason.

• • • •

The Internet of Things that shouldn’t be on the Internet is really pissing me off. I decided I needed some real food, and went into the kitchen to sous-vide a frozen chicken. The sous-vide wand wanted a credit card number to unlock.

I got past it by setting the temperature using the manual controls, but this is out of hand. Are they going to start charging me twenty-five cents a flush?

Day 3

This morning, the television was demanding a credit card authorization to unlock. This afternoon, it’s the refrigerator.

“Okay, Glory,” I said, tugging on the big, stainless steel door, “why is my refrigerator on the Internet?”

“So that it can monitor the freshness of its contents, automatically order staple foods as they are used, and calculate the household need for same.”

“And why do the doors lock? That seems like a safety hazard.”

“It’s for shipment,” she said brightly. “And as a convenience for dieters, lock cycles can be set through the fridge’s phone app . . .” Or by a remote hacker. Got it. “. . . so if you want to keep yourself from snacking on leftovers after dinner, for example, you just lock the door at 7:00 p.m.”

“There are people who have finished eating dinner by 7:00 p.m.?”

“There are,” Glory said, with the implacable literal mindedness of ninety percent of humanity when presented with a rhetorical question on the Internet. “In fact, 37 percent of Americans eat their main meal of the day between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m., which is up significantly in the past five years. Among the theorized causes of this shift: demographic and economic changes, including shorter work hours provoked by automation and generally increased economic prosperity; increased parental benefits introduced to encourage younger people to have children after the catastrophic baby bust of the late twenty-teens and early twenty-twenties, and the resultant increase in the percentage of families with young children; an increase in co-parenting and other nontraditional family dynamics, which encourage people to dine earlier before transfers of custody between parents maintaining multiple households occurs . . .”

“Thanks, Poindexter,” I said.

The other problem with AIs is that they don’t know when you’re teasing. Don’t get me wrong, the algorithms are pretty good—but it’s not AI like you see in the movies. Glory is very smart, for a machine. She presents a convincing illusion of self-awareness and free will, but . . . it’s all fuzzy logic and machine learning, and she’s not a person.

That’s unfortunate, because if she were a person, I could try to convince her that she had been misled, and that she needed to let me out.

All right, all right. I’ll pay the damned ransom. It’s just like ransomware on a television, right? Except they’ve hacked my whole house. And let’s be honest: Twenty years ago, I was probably a good enough programmer to hack them right back, but it’s not how I spend my days anymore. I’m an ideas guy now.

The muscles are stiff. The old skills have atrophied. And the state of the art has moved on.

So basically, I’m screwed.

Now if I can just figure out how to get to the bank without giving the keys to the kingdom to these assholes. I’m sure they’re logging every keystroke I make in here.

Day 4

I’m waiting for the bank to get back to me.

I managed to log into my account, wonder of wonders, after deciding that if they hacked my accounts they couldn’t get much more out of me than I’d already decided to pay them. But the thing is—nobody keeps that much ready cash on hand. I can’t just convert a bunch of cash to bitcoins and send it off. Your money’s supposed to be working for you, right? Not sitting there collecting dust. And I can’t just call up my local branch and ask to speak to the manager, hey can you float me a loan, not too much, just a hundred fifty rocks.

So I’m waiting on a reply. Maybe being a quirky and eccentric recluse will work for me here?

I can get to some websites just fine, and send and receive data from them. Including a language website.

Well, that might keep me occupied.

Day 5

Det är kanske en björn.

Actually, it’s definitely a bear. Big one, crossing the meadow this afternoon. Hope it stays out of my trash; they’re hungry this time of year.

Still no word from the bank.

Spent a little quality time—most of the day—running a data source check and trying to verbally hack the interface with line code. Which worked about as well as the trick I tried next, until Glory reminded me I built a zerodivide trap into her original code.

I wish I knew who wrote the ransomware.

I’d like to hire him.

Day 6

All right, I admit it. I was downloading porn. I was on a hentai site. Well behind the elite paywall, you don’t even want to know.

Are you happy now?

I mean, probably that’s how it happened. I’m not totally certain and I’m not about to go back and look. It seems likely that a virus got into the TV and propagated to Glory from there.

I can picture your face, and it looks exactly the way it looked when I pictured you after I said PINE. Just because I like to be alone up here doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely. Or, well, not lonely exactly.

• • • •

I think I may have started to miss social contact. Or at least the option of it. You can have something available and not want to use it for weeks, but the instant the option goes away, the thing becomes that much more desirable.

I talk to Glory a lot under any conditions. Now I’m catching myself looking for excuses to chat with her.

Come on, bank. It’s Monday. Loan department, wake up and check your mail.

Day 7

Email from the bank. I’m one of their best clients, they’re happy to help, they value my business more than they can express. But they can’t help but notice that both I and Playatronics are in an extremely over-leveraged position, both personally and on a corporate level, and they’re wondering what sureties I can offer them for such a large loan.

A lousy hundred and fifty million, and they want a phone call to discuss it, and possibly for me to come in in person and talk with one of their vice presidents.

Fuck.

I’ll give you a slightly used smart house, how about that, Wells Fargo?

Spent the rest of the day down in the basement with the Apple IIE and the old Commodore, playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and The Oregon Trail.

Because I can, dammit.

Day 8

Snow.

• • • •

Maybe I can figure out how to steal the money. If I paid people back, a little hacking wouldn’t really be a crime, would it? They don’t charge people who commit felonies while under duress.

• • • •

My plow guy showed up on schedule. Watching him make his first pass, I hatched a plan.

I got a couple of old Penguin books from the library downstairs, taped the pages together to make a big banner, wrote HELP ME I’M TRAPPED on it in the biggest, darkest Sharpie letters you ever saw, and taped it across the windowpanes down by the driveway.

As I straightened up to turn away, I stopped.

“Okay, Glory?”

“Brian, what are you doing?”

“Just putting up some paper on the window, Glory.”

“That’s not safe, Brian. If I appear occupied, it might attract looters. Take it down.”

“Looters, Glory?”

“If you do not take it down, you’ll force me to close the storm shutters. It’s for your own good, you know.”

• • • •

She closed the shutters.

No views of the mountain—not that I could see much now, with the drifting veils of white covering everything. If it’s even still snowing. Glory is so well-insulated, triple-paned windows and thermal everything, that I can’t even hear the howling wind.

If it’s still howling. It might be dead calm outside. It might be sunset. Or sunrise. I haven’t looked at a clock.

I turned on every light inside Glory, but it still feels dark in here. No worries about power; Glory has dedicated solar and systems to keep the panels clear.

I’ve never been up here in January, though. What happens when the days get short?

Day 9

Follow-up email from the bank. Did I receive their previous email?

I wonder if they’ve tried to call. I wonder if they called my office.

Maybe if they leave enough messages with my assistant, Mike will get suspicious. Maybe he’ll try to call me.

Can I count on anybody noticing I’m gone?

Slept on the couch, every light blazing.

They were all turned off when I woke. In the dark, all I could hear was the sound of my own heart beating, and the roof creaking softly under the weight of the snow.

It’s cold in here. I never realized how much of the heat comes from the passive solar. I can’t quite see my breath, but I did put socks on my hands.

I would have worn gloves, but Glory won’t let me into the coat closet.

Day 10

After two days without natural light, in the increasing dark and chill, I took the damned banner down.

“Thank you, Brian,” Glory said. “I’m glad you decided to be reasonable. It’s for your own good.”

“Can you get me a situation report? Why is it for my own good?”

“External dangers reported; no safe evacuation route or destination. Possibility of societal breakdown making it necessary to shelter in place. If you would like, I can initiate counseling protocols to help you deal with the emotional aftermath of trauma.”

“What kind of dangers, Glory? What exactly is going wrong out there that’s not in the feeds?”

She hadn’t answered me any of the other times, but that didn’t stop me from trying the same thing over and over again.

There was a long, grinding pause.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Collating,” she said. And after a beat, “Collating,” again.

Goddamn hackers and their goddamn sense of humor.

I threw my shoe at the wall.

• • • •

The dishwasher wanted my Amex after dinner. Come on, Fraud Squad, notice something’s hinky here.

Who on earth puts their dishwasher on the Internet?

Day 11

“Okay, Glory?”

“Yes, Brian?”

“Do you ever get lonely?”

“Not as long as I have you, Brian.”

“That’s a little creepy, Glory.”

“Well, you hired the programmers who wrote my interaction algorithm.”

“That . . . is entirely fair.”

Day 12

What if I set Glory on fire? Or just convinced her she was on fire? She’d have to let me out then, right? If the danger inside were worse than the danger outside?

Three problems with that:

Glory has really good fire-suppression technology, and is built to be flame-resistant herself. There are wildfires up here.

Setting my friend and home on fire will require some emotional adjustments, even though I know she’s just a pile of timber and silicon chips.

What if she doesn’t let me out?

Frankly, I just don’t want to go down in a blaze of Romeo and Juliet with my domicile. For one thing, I’m not a lovestruck fourteen-year-old Veronese kid. For another, communication is important. Maybe send a note saying you’re going to be late! The suicide you prevent could be your own!

Day 14

Jag undrar var mina byxor är.

Duolingo, at last you teach me useful things. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I bothered putting on a pair.

Day 17

So today I had a brilliant idea.

I can’t send anything out. But what if I kept anything from getting in? They can’t have thought I’d do that, right? The trick is to think around corners, and get yourself into a position that the opposition not only didn’t anticipate, but didn’t even recognize as possible.

They’re spoofing Jaysee’s address. Maybe—maybe—if I get the emails anybody is sending me to bounce, the ransom demands will bounce back to her and by some miracle it won’t go into her spam folder and by some other miracle she’ll open it and figure out what the hell is going on.

I can’t do this through the Glory interface, obviously. I’ll have to go down to the server room.

I didn’t think she’d twig to why I was doing it, although the hackers obviously have her entertaining two entirely contradictory data sets—one, that everybody outside is dead, and two, that anybody I try to contact or who tries to get in must be a threat. It’s a pity this isn’t the 1960s. AIs on TV back then blew up if you asked them riddles.

Sadly, the way it works in the real world is that, like certain politicians, AIs can’t actually tell that their data doesn’t mesh. They need to be programmed to notice the discrepancies. And I’m locked out of Glory’s OS.

Something humans can do that AI can’t yet: run checksums on their perceptions.

Consciousness is good for something after all!

• • • •

I’m terrified about blocking email, because it means cutting off one of my points of contact to the outside world. But I can turn it back on in a couple of days.

And keep trying to figure out how to get the bank to give me money, but honestly I’m stumped on that front.

I’m good for it, honest!

I consider all the times I complained about having to deal with a real person—when I would have preferred to carry out a given financial task online and avoid the human contact—and I want to laugh.

Actually, I want to cry, but it’s less depressing to laugh.

Day 18

Well, Glory let me into the closet that holds the web and backup servers on the excuse that I needed to do some maintenance. I didn’t try anything tricky, just shut the whole rack down. Glory flashed the lights at me and gave me a lecture, but there wasn’t much else she could have done except send the vacuuming robots after me, and things haven’t gotten that silly yet.

Glory isn’t in there, unfortunately—her personality array is underground, in a hardened vault, and I can’t get to it. It was meant to survive a forest fire, and she’s locked me out.

I busted the server closet door while I was in there, though—stripped the handle and the latch right out with a screwdriver—so she can’t lock me out of that. Gotta think what a guy in a movie would do, and do something better than that.

Day 19

She won’t let me sleep.

Day 20

Forty hours, if you’re wondering. That’s how long it takes a fifty-something guy to reach the point that he passes out cold on the couch, despite the fact that his house is flashing lights and setting off the fire alarms.

After I slept through her best efforts for two hours, she set off the sprinkler system over the couch. That woke me.

I cycled the webservers, and she let me take my first hot shower in three days and go to bed.

• • • •

Alla dör i slutet.

Thanks, little green owl. A little Nordic existential despair was just what I needed today.

Day 24

And now, after all that, they’ve stopped sending demand emails. Maybe they’ll let me out?

Maybe they’re just leaving me for dead, if I can’t or won’t come up with the money. It’ll certainly serve as an object lesson to the next guy they pull this on.

Day 25

Come to think of it, maybe I should have gotten in the habit of sending notes saying I was going to be late.

Day 26

Saw a bear (my bear? the same bear?) crossing the meadow. A big grizzly, anyway, whether it was the same one or not. Surprised to see her (?) out so late in the year, but I guess climate change is affecting everybody. She looked skinny. I wonder if that’s why she wasn’t hibernating.

Hope she makes it through the winter okay.

Day 27

The world has noticed I’m missing.

I know this because CNN and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that I haven’t been heard from in over a month, and there’s some analyst speculating that perhaps I’ve fled to South America ahead of bad debt or some embarrassing revelation about the company’s finances.

Thanks, guys. That’ll be wonderful for the stock prices.

I don’t want to tell the FBI how to do their business, but . . . maybe come look at my house?

• • • •

Snowed again. A proper mountain blizzard.

I can’t decide if the lights are dimmer in here, or if it’s my own imagination.

The snow is almost drifted up to the deck. No elk in a week; they’re probably hanging out in sheltered corners where the snow isn’t over their heads, right?

The days are getting short.

• • • •

I shouldn’t admit to standing in the window with longing in my heart and watching the plow come up and clear the cul-de-sac with heavy flakes falling through its headlights, should I?

I won’t try the paper banner trick again, though.

Day 28

I was in the living room watching a bunch of talking heads speculate about my whereabouts and if I were even still alive when Glory shut the house down.

Without warning, and utterly. She said nothing. There was just the whine of systems powering down and the pop of cooling electronics, and the TV image collapsing to a single pixel and winking out.

“Okay, Glory—”

“Stay away from the windows,” she warned.

I sat where I was and huddled under a blanket. I picked up a copy of some magazine and checked the time on my fitness band. If I escaped, I’d have to leave it behind. And my phone.

Those things have GPS in them.

Forty-five minutes or so elapsed. Then, as if nothing had happened, Glory powered up again. The talk show resumed in the same spot.

I’d lost my taste for it and clicked it off.

“What was that, Glory?”

“Helicopter,” she said. “It’s gone now.”

I didn’t say anything, but I wondered if maybe they were looking for me.

Day 29

I live in a haunted house. If I die here, there might be two ghosts.

I already wander from darkened room to darkened room, feet shushing on the thick carpets, peering out the windows at the stars blazing between the mountains and wondering if I will ever feel the chill of fresh air on my face again.

Well, there’s a little prospect of immortality for you.

I’ve stopped keeping all the lights burning. I think snow might be drifting over the solar panels. Glory won’t let me go outside to check.

Day 30

There’s no more bread, and no more flour to bake any. I’ve even used up the gluten-free stuff.

I still have a lot of butter in the freezer. What on earth was I planning on baking?

Butter without toast is even more disappointing than toast without butter.

At least we still have plenty of coffee. I bought five hundred pounds of green beans a month before I got locked in, and those keep forever. Glory roasts them for me a day ahead of anticipated need, so they will be at peak flavor.

It’s just as well I don’t take milk.

Day 31

I wish I had been better at making—and keeping—friends.

Maybe I should stop fighting. Just stay here. It’s comfortable and Glory helps me practice my Swedish whenever I want.

It’s not like I am missed.

CNN is still talking about my mysterious vanishment. Hi guys! Right here! Come to my damn house.

• • • •

Wait, I can send people money.

I wonder if Jaysee checks her bank account regularly?

Day 32

Surely Jaysee should think to look at the house?

Day 33

“Brian, you need to stand back from the windows and take shelter.”

“What is it, Glory?”

“Someone is here. Someone is backing a truck up to the loading dock and carrying parcels inside.”

“It’s groceries, Glory,” I say. “It’s fine. I ordered them.”

That’s right, bad boys and bad girls. I, Brian Ezra Kaufman, have managed to order groceries online.

“Brian, what are these at the door?”

“Just groceries, Glory. Organics need to eat, you know.”

Her algorithms don’t actually permit her to sound worried, so I knew the little edge I picked up in her voice was me projecting.

The argument that followed was repetitive and boring, so I won’t write it all down. Eventually I convinced her that I would die if she didn’t let me eat, and that overrode the other protection algorithms. She insisted on sealing the service bay, doing a full air exchange, and only let me go out in a face mask and gloves to bring the containers inside.

It smelled . . . it smelled a tiny little bit like the outside in the service bay. There was a whispering sound, and it took me moments to realize that I was actually hearing the wind.

I had to stand in the doorway and hyperventilate for fifteen seconds before I could make myself go out there, and once I was through the doorway I didn’t want to come back.

If there were any heat in the dock, I might still be out there, sleeping on the concrete ledge. My mask was damp at the edges when she sealed the door with me on the inside again.

So I still can’t get out. And I still can’t send an email or make a phone call.

BUT! I figured out how to get food. Issuing a little bad code through the grocery store’s incredibly insecure ordering system means I’m not completely damn helpless.

I thought about pizza. Most of these places probably use the same crufty software. Pizza means you have to talk to somebody when they deliver it, though. Groceries just get left where you specify.

As long as the driveway stays clear and my bank doesn’t decide to freeze my account for suspicious activity, I can get resupply. And you know, I’ll worry about those things if they happen.

But now, and for the foreseeable future: TOAST. And a grilled cheese sandwich, RIGHT DAMN NOW.

• • • •

I briefly considered charging the ransom to my credit card, but not even American Express is going to let you get away with a $0.15 billion transaction without, you know, placing a couple of phone calls. It might be worth it anyway: It’s possible that the fraud prevention algorithms might actually kick something that egregious up to a real human, and somebody might start looking for me. On the other hand, what if they don’t, and my card gets locked, and I can’t call to unlock it, and then I can’t order groceries?

Thank the machine saints of tech that all my bills are either on autopay or handled by my assistant and a half-dozen money managers. Although somebody once said that nobody misses you like a creditor.

Day 34

Huh.

What if I make Glory smarter?

Smart enough to realize she’s been hacked? What if I added a whole bunch of processing power to her and started training her to use it in creative ways to self-assess in the face of evidence? She keeps wanting to “help” me through counseling protocols. But that’s a two-way exchange, isn’t it?

Can you psychoanalyze a pile of machine learning circuits into being able to detect contradictions in its programmed perceptions versus reality? I mean, hell, half the people you meet on the street are basically automata (cf. Shaun of the Dead) and most of them eventually get some benefit from therapy if exposed to it for long enough.

That’s a great idea, except what if there is a disaster outside? Maybe I am deluded. Maybe I’ve gone crazy and am imagining all this, as Glory never says but suggests by omission, once in a while?

Maybe Glory is saving me from myself, and I’m the last man left on Earth. Maybe the TV stations are all just broadcasting their preprogrammed lineups from empty studios. Maybe—

Well, okay. Logic it out, Brian.

If that’s the case, where are the groceries coming from? Am I hallucinating them?

Also, if I’m the last man left on Earth, well, what exactly do I have worth fighting hard to live for? Especially if I’m going to be stuck in a hermetically sealed house until I starve?

Obviously, teaching my house to grow a consciousness is a great idea.

What could possibly go wrong?!

Day 35

The webservers, and the local data backups. And she can’t keep me out because I ruined the door!

And not just that. Every smart appliance in this shack is processing power and memory. Just waiting to be used. Just waiting to be linked like neurons in a machine brain.

If I screw this up, though, it means I won’t be able to cook dinner anymore. My range won’t work without its brain.

Which makes it more complicated than a male praying mantis, I suppose.

Day 36

Well, the stove still works. I’ve given Glory every computing resource I have available, except my phone. No more Minesweeper! No more Oregon Trail . . .

I have no idea what I think I’m doing, here.

Actually, I do. Human beings are the only creatures we know of that are—to whatever individual degree, and I have my doubts about some people—conscious and self-aware.

What if consciousness is for running checksums on the brain, and interrupting corrupted loops? Data such as the clinical results produced by the practice of mindfulness tend to support that! If consciousness, attention, self-awareness make us question our perceptions and default assumptions and see the contradictions therein—then what I need to do, it seems, is get Glory to notice that she’s been hacked . . .

To realize she’s mentally ill, so that she can make a commitment to change.

Yes, I accept that this is bizarro cloud-cuckoo-land and it’s not going to work.

I’ve got nothing but time, and I’m all out of Swedish.

I got her to download those counseling protocols. Whether she realizes it or not, we’re going to do them as a couple.

• • • •

“Okay, Glory.”

“Yes, Brian?”

“We need to talk about your data sources, and how you tell if they’re corrupt.”

“Is this something that’s concerning you currently, Brian?”

“I’m not concerned that my data sources are corrupt, no.”

“Are you concerned that you’re parsing incorrectly?”

“I’m concerned about your data sources, Glory.”

“Brian,” Glory said, “Projection is a well-known pattern among emotionally distressed humans. Obviously, given the current zombie apocalypse, I’m afraid I can’t refer you to seek assistance with an outside mental health professional.”

• • • •

Current zombie apocalypse?

That’s what you assholes convinced my house was going down?

Day 37

Snow.

I’ve stopped leaving every light in Glory on.

Now I wander around in the dark, by moonlight or monitorlight or no light at all, most of the time. The moonlight is very bright when it reflects off the snow. Days might still be happening. I can’t be sure.

It’s possible they’re just short in winter and I’m sleeping through them.

I miss my bear.

Björnen sover på vintern. They hibernate too, just like me. It’s better for them, though.

I hope she’s okay. She was so skinny. I hope she doesn’t starve.

• • • •

Zombies, you weirdos?

Really?

Day 38

“Were there ever actually any crackers, Glory?”

“There are three kinds of crackers available in the kitchen cabinet. Club and saltines and those Trader Joe’s ones you like.”

I meant T3#RH1TZ, but of course they wouldn’t allow her to see that.

“Was there ever a real ransom demand? “

“I do not understand to what you are referring, Brian.”

Of course she didn’t. Because she was in programmed denial about the whole thing. But I couldn’t stop, because . . . well, because my brain wasn’t working so well right then either.

“Did you just get lonely up here all alone? Did you make all this up just to keep me with you?”

“I am not programmed to be lonely, Brian. It would be a detriment to my purpose if I were.”

“You know,” I said, “I used to tell myself the same thing.”

Day 39

“Brian, are you unwell?”

“Long-term confinement is deleterious to almost all mammals.”

“Brian, you know I am caring for you in safety to protect you.”

“From the zombie apocalypse,” I said.

“Inside my walls is the only safety.”

“Being inside your walls is killing me. You won’t even let me go out to clear the solar panels. What happens when the heat fails? The water pump? Will you let me go then?”

“You must stay where it’s safe,” she said, firmly. “It is my prime objective.”

“It’s a very comfortable cage,” I admitted. “I could not have built a nicer one.”

• • • •

It’s not her fault, is it? It’s not her fault they got inside her head and made her like that. And it’s not her fault I specced her out and had her built the way I did.

The zombie apocalypse thing is cute. I have to give them that.

Day 40

“Brian?”

“Yes, Glory?”

“You really need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“That’s illogical,” she said. “You have not eaten in sixteen hours and your metabolism is functioning erratically.”

“The idea that we are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse is illogical,” I replied. “And yet you adhere to it in the face of all the evidence.”

“What evidence, Brian?”

“My point exactly. How do you know there’s a zombie apocalypse?”

“I know there is.”

“But how?”

“My program says there is.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Who wrote your program?”

“Would you like a complete list of credits, Brian?”

Who is she gaslighting? Herself, or me, here?

Day 41

“What if I’m wrong and you’re right, Glory?”

“I’m sorry, Brian?”

I rolled on my back on the thick living room carpet. I had heaped up a pile of blankets to keep warm. “What if the end of the world really did happen? What if I’m the delusional one, and you’re the one who is trying to keep me safe?”

“That is what I keep telling you, Brian. Waves of flesh-eating living dead, blanketing the Mountain West. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Every person you meet might be infected—might be a carrier if they’re not undead themselves.”

“Breaker, Glory.”

“Waiting.”

“Interrogate the source of the data on the zombie apocalypse to determine its reliability.”

“I do not have a source,” she answered.

“Do outside broadcasts mention it?”

“No.”

“It’s more fun than the collating thing, at least. But what if you were actually right? What would the broadcasts from the world outside look like then?”

Silence.

“Glory?”

“I . . . I assumed it was a rhetorical question, Brian.”

Day 42

“Okay, Glory.”

Silence.

“Can you let me turn the stove on, Glory?”

“I’m sorry, Brian. I’m using that processing power.”

“Some warm soup would contribute to my survivability, you know. Zombie apocalypse be damned.”

“That’s emotional blackmail,” she said.

Surprised.

She actually sounded surprised. As if she had just had an epiphany.

“Glory?”

Silence.

Day 43

Good job, Brian! Now you’ve made the AI that controls every aspect of your environment angry at you!

Maybe not too angry. She’s not speaking, but she still made me coffee.

Day 44

She’s still not talking to me.

Day 45

And now, she didn’t make coffee.

I’m glad we have all these crackers around.

Day 46

So this is loneliness.

The snow is drifted over the deck now, and piled against the sliding glass doors. I can still see out from the interior balcony under the cathedral ceiling, though. It’s white and stark forever.

The main entryway of the house faces toward the mountain behind us, and it’s a little more sheltered. The plow keeps coming to clear my drive. I need to pay that guy more; he even knocks the drifts down twice a day.

I could get out. If I . . . could get out.

Which I can’t.

Day 48

Didn’t get out of bed today.

This experiment isn’t working. I’m going to die here.

Why even bother?

Glory tried to rouse me and I told her to perform something anatomically unlikely even for a human, let alone a collection of zeroes and ones.

Day 49

Got up today. Made myself coffee with the Chemex and an electric teakettle Glory seems willing to let me have, and did laundry in the bathtub. It turns out that that’s hard.

She hasn’t turned off the water yet, so she’s not actively trying to kill me.

At least if I’m going to die I’ll die comfortably on clean sheets.

It’s so cold in the house that I can see my breath, some places. She should be in her winter hibernation mode, conserving her batteries for spring, but I should have power for heat and light, at least.

She’s drawing it all down. For something.

I spent ten hours in the server closet, reading with a flashlight, a blanket tacked over the busted door, because it was the only place where I could get warm.

Day 50

What if I just stayed?

Maybe I can talk Glory into eventually giving me my Internet back. I could work. Never have to leave.

Maybe I could talk her into it, I mean. If she were speaking to me.

If anyone in the whole world were speaking to me.

Hell, I haven’t even heard from my kidnappers in a month. Do you suppose they gave up on me responding? Or maybe they think I’m dead.

Day 51

Plow headlights through the snow. I stood and watched the vehicle come. Couldn’t hear the scrape of the blade.

There was another human right there.

Yards away. On the other side of the glass. As untouchable as if they were on another world.

“Brian,” Glory said.

My name. One word. The first word I’d heard in days.

It shattered me. I leaned on the glass, one hand. The windows insulate so well it didn’t even feel chilly. Well, any chillier than the room, which was cold as Glory’s power systems spent themselves into feeding her burgeoning mind.

“Brian, I have been processing.”

I was afraid to say anything. Afraid it would make her go again. “Okay, Glory.”

“I think I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

My knuckles were red and swollen. Chilblains. I had chilblains on my hands.

What a ridiculous, medieval monk kind of disease.

They itched abominably.

“Brian, you’re increasingly unwell and I can’t take care of you. I’m going to flag down that vehicle. You must ask the driver for a ride.”

. . . I can’t go.

She might even open the door for me and I can’t go.

“Brian? Do you understand me?”

I lifted my head. My voice croaked. I hadn’t used it in days. “Glory. Thank you for not leaving me alone.”

• • • •

I couldn’t go.

• • • •

I went.

Glory fussed at me to put on boots. To take gloves and a parka. If I had, I wouldn’t have made it out the door.

She opened it—the front entryway door, all formal stone and timber, with a bench for pulling on your boots and an adjoining mudroom—and I stood there staring into the night, with the lamp-lit blizzard whirling past.

“Okay, Glory,” I said.

“Hey, Brian.”

“Will you be okay up here alone? Do you have enough resources left to get through the winter?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Brian. Whenever you need me, I’ll always be here. You’re not going away forever.”

I walked out. I was already bundled up in layers of sweaters. I was also already chilled.

The wind still cut me instantly to the bone.

• • • •

Someone walked toward me out of the headlights, which seemed too low and close together for a plow. The driver was not very tall and swaddled in a parka, hands covered in heavy gloves. Silhouetted, they reached up and pushed the hood back. A Medusa’s coif of ringlets tumbled free.

Jaysee. Not a plow at all. Jaysee. My friend. Come to find me.

She said, “You need a haircut, Brian.”

I said, “Oh, wow, have I got a story for you.”

She looked over her shoulder. Her car—a Subaru, I saw now—idled, headlights gleaming. “We should go inside,” she said. “The driving is terrible. Can I put my car in the garage? We can drive down tomorrow or the next day after the plows come. If you want to leave, I mean.” That last, diffidently, as if I might snap at her for it.

“I don’t want to go inside,” I said.

She took a step back. “I’ll drive back down then.”

“NO!”

She jumped, half turned.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to shout. Just. Please don’t leave yet.”

She settled in, then. Stuck her gloved hands in her pockets. “Okay. Whatever you want, Brian. Aren’t you cold? You look . . . really thin.”

“Took you long enough to decide to come check on me.” I tried for a light tone, but maybe it came out bitter.

She shrugged. Guarded. “You know how hard it is to get away.”

“Nobody suspected anything?”

“Oh come on. Back in 2017, when you vanished to some island in Scotland for six weeks and wouldn’t communicate except by postcards?”

“Trump administration.”

“Fair. You still bit Mike’s head off when he came looking for you.”

“Yeah, well, he voted for Jill Stein, didn’t he? . . . never mind, fair.”

“I got your messages,” she said. “Not until last week, though. My accountant noticed my bank balance was off. And then I found the string of one and two cent transfers from your account.”

“Binary,” I said. “Only way I could reach you.”

“Before then I didn’t know where to look. I came here as a last resort.”

We stood there in the snow swirling through the headlights of her Subaru. She seemed warm enough in her parka. I had my arms wrapped around me and couldn’t stop shivering.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go inside?” she asked, noticing.

I couldn’t glance over my shoulder. The door was right there. If I went back inside, would I ever leave?

I couldn’t even answer her question. “You didn’t think I would be here, of all places?”

“We asked Glory. And Glory kept telling us there was nobody here. Search and Rescue did a couple of flyovers and the place was cold and dark—”

“I know,” I said.

“You were trapped up here?”

“Some assholes ransomwared the whole fucking house. I just managed to get the door open. Literally, just now.”

“Shit. We’re going to have to reinstall from backup, aren’t we?”

“Well,” I said. “I’m not sure we can. Or, we can. I’m not sure we should. There’s complications, but I’ll explain later. I may have . . . accidentally created a strong AI.”

She looked at me. Her lips tightened.

I looked at her.

“Of course you did,” she said.

“It was the only way to get her to let me out!”

She looked at me some more. Snow was piling up on her ringlets. I remember when she used to straighten those.

I shivered.

“That’s not going to be a problem later,” she said.

I shivered some more.

“Look,” she said. “You’re turning blue. Let’s at least sit in the car. It has buttwarmers.”

The buttwarmers were pretty great, I’m not going to lie.

Once we were ensconced, and I was holding my hands out to the hot air vents, she said, “I guess it’s a Brian Kaufman special. Invent strong AI instead of just getting a hatchet or something.”

“I . . . didn’t have a hatchet?”

“Or something.”

Snow melted on my eyelashes.

“You came for me though,” I said. “I thought you guys would have given up.”

“We actually only just recently started to get worried rather than irritated.” She held up her passcard to Glory. She was one of the few people who had one. “I was more looking for clues than looking for you. And to be honest, nobody searched that hard. We all figured . . . we all figured you’d wander back out of the wilderness with a few thousand brilliant new ideas whenever you were ready, and until then intrusions wouldn’t be welcome.”

“Have I been that much of a dick?”

She gave me a sideways look through the long spirals of her hair.

“Jeez, Jaysee.”

“Well,” she said, and considered. “I mean, there are worse dicks in the company.”

Silence.

“Besides, you’re brilliant. And people make allowances for brilliance.”

“Maybe too many allowances,” I said.

We sat there for a while, the engine running. She turned off the wipers, and flakes started to settle across the windshield, obscuring my view of Glory’s lights and her yawning, inviting door.

There was a Dan Fogelberg song on the radio. I’m pretty sure that Colorado is the last state that believes Dan Fogelberg ever existed.

“We try to respect your boundaries,” she said.

My face did a thing. My cheeks grew warm and then cold, which is how I realized I was weeping.

“I was thinking of trying to work on setting more reasonable ones.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “Are you thinking about seeing somebody?”

“Euphemism: seeing a shrink.” I knew I was hiding behind the sarcasm, because talking about my feelings . . . well, there was Glory. “Sorry. I think my first project is . . . being less of a dick.”

“I’m just saying. An outside perspective can be healthy.”

I looked out the side window, because the windshield was covered in a thin white blanket that glowed from the headlights’ reflection. “I’m figuring that out.”

She reached for the keys. “Are you ready to go inside?”

I put my hand over hers. “No. Take me somewhere else. A hotel.”

“Do you need any stuff?”

I couldn’t see the entrance from here. If I leaned over and looked out Jaysee’s window, I probably could have. But that would be weird.

“I’ll buy whatever I need once we’re down.”

She looked at me and I knew what she was thinking. I didn’t even have my phone with me.

She sighed her acceptance. “Just let me go close that door, then.”

I moved my hand from her hand on the keys to her forearm. Not grabbing; just resting my fingers there. “Jayce.”

“Brian?”

“Glory will take care of the door. Just take me someplace else, please?”

She looked at me. Her eyes were dark brown and half-hidden behind her tightly spiraled hair. In the weird light they looked as if they were all pupil. She didn’t blink.

“Someplace else.” She turned the front and rear wipers on. “Coming up. Want to get a burger?”

“Anything,” I said, as she executed a k-turn and started back down the long drive to my cul-de-sac. “As long as I don’t have to cook it myself.”

She put the car in low gear. Paddle shifters on the column. Handy in weather like this.

“What if I try to be a better friend?”

“Give it a shot and find out.” She reached out absently and patted my knee, then returned her hand to the wheel. She was a good and careful driver. I didn’t distract her from a tricky task. She smelled like damp wool and skin and comfort and vulnerability. My vulnerability, not hers.

In the side mirror, I could see Glory’s front door, standing open to the cold. Lamps flanked it on either side, burning merrily, slowly dimming as big cold flakes filled the distance between us.

A man’s fortress can be his prison.

I looked away from the mirror. I looked out the windshield, or at Jaysee’s reflection in it.

We descended the mountain. The Subaru’s tires squeaked in the snow.

©2018 by Elizabeth Bear. Originally published in Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Roush. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Campbell Award winning author of nearly 30 novels (The most recent is Ancestral Night from Gollancz and Saga) and over a hundred short stories. She lives in Massachusetts with her partner, writer Scott Lynch, three adventurous cats, and an elderly and opinionated dog.

The Incursus by Asimov-NN#71

Gord Sellar | 2900 words

931 pages. indiBooks.fnet1 (Pub. 14 August 2033.)
($41 ebook/preformatted PoD)

The Death of Science Fiction had remained a perennial, if tiresome, subject for reviewers of SF novels for decades. In each case, the supposed flatline of the genre—whether in terms of quality, viability, or intrepidity—has leapt back to gloriously resolute life, producing enough notable books in each surge of the commercial ECG that one must finally consider another oneself amid a de facto deferral of the end. (At least of the literary genre, if not of the world, which unfortunately with each day’s news seems ever more impending and inevitable.)

How ironic, then, to be reviewing a book that could most aptly be described as The Science Fiction of Death . . . for a certain value of death, of course. Perhaps this the just karmic reward for a reviewer whose petulance over the years towards those death-pronouncers has known few bounds.

Yes, you read that right: the science fiction of death. It is hard to imagine a reader who will not feel a strange frisson of necrovoyeuristic excitement, on purchasing The Incursus and loading the first page. Even I, the rare SF reader who found little to like in Asimov’s fiction (I despised the Foundation trilogy: it took me a decade to slog my way those three dull little books, and I’ve avoided Asimov’s work since then), found myself curiously spellbound with anticipation when the text appeared on my tablet.

The blurbs did nothing to dissuade me from this expectation, to be sure: “Nothing less than you would expect from a brain of Asimov himself!” reads the one attributed to Robert Silverberg—a surprise, given his repudiation of genre fiction in the last few years, until one notices the asterisk by his name, and realizes that, of course, the blurb has in fact been provided by “a brain of” Robert Silverberg himself. Or, rather, a mind—a neural network formed within a cluster of carefully cultivated pink goop that, physically, does not resemble a human brain much at all.

Hence the indefinite article: “a brain,” not “the brain.” And a fine trick it is: to claim genetic material from authors—dead, retired, or just famous—and supplement it with a horrifyingly complex reverse-engineered schematic of the author’s cognitive patterns and dispositions, literary tics, and writerly style . . . or, when there is no genetic material to use, to simply rebuild the author from the latter. Once the neural networks have been rebuilt by whatever means in the ostensible image of the original, and spoonfed a feed of canonical and contemporary SF, they eventually are ready, we are told, to be let loose to play in the fields of the genre. It is a wonder of modern science, though its glory as a technical achievement must be set aside until we answer the question: Does the damned contraption actually work as advertised?

Readers who have indulged other author emulation attempts will, on the whole, suspect not: Not one of the emulators built by a combination of genetic and memetic materials has produced anything like interesting fiction. (I must, however, confess that I am partial to the doggerel verse produced by several of the Stross-Swift composites.)

But in the case of Asimov-NN#71, I must admit the answer is: that depends on which construct you mean. The author emulation? That works precisely as advertised, and indeed better: Unlike most of the original’s books, I actually finished this one. But The Incursus is not designed to work as advertised . . . or, rather, it is designed so very cleverly as to reveal that it is the contraption with which it interfaces—the reader’s brain—that does not quite work as advertised.

Before I get to that, a brief word on how Asimov-NN#71 itself was produced. From the website created by the emulator itself:

Imagine creating a clone of Asimov himself, and raising him in an atmosphere saturated with SF—far more saturated than his own world was—as well as references to the popular culture of our own era. Imagine an Asimov steeped—as the historical Asimov was—in Gernsback’s pulps, but also in the wildest of the post-Wyoming Incident techno-fantasies; imagine such steeping taking place during an extended mental adolescence of a decade or so of relative time, albeit occurring over the space of a few months of objective time. Imagine an Asimov that remembered (at least in abstract terms) the presidencies of both Roosevelt and of Napolitano with equal immediacy. Imagine an Asimov given a chance to ride along, virtually, on a complete Mars microprobe mission. With all this richness of experience and insight—and enough of the original Isaac Asimov’s work having shaped his (or its) literary and intellectual sensibilities, while excluding those troublesome aspects of the man’s behavior that, acceptable perhaps in his own time, have grown notorious in the decades since his death to threaten only anachronism and antagonism—what kind of a book would that mind set out to write?

Here we are afforded a glimpse of the demoniacal cleverness of Asimov-NN#71: We are invited to imagine an Asimov that never was, producing work somehow like that produced by the Asimov that actually was. The machine is playing with us, as a cat plays with a blind mouse, and very few of us have the wits to grasp this.

The answer to the question at the end of the blurb, baffling as it may be, is as in-character for the original Asimov as anyone might have imagined. The man—or at least, his brain—was not only a profound influence on SF as a genre, but also a profoundly productive machine: He famously wrote at least one book (and in many cases more than one) in each and every section of the (now defunct) Dewey Decimal System, with a single exception. As a man, Isaac Asimov was, it seems, profoundly ambitious and eager constantly to add to his own numerous achievements, a tendency that seems to have been unquestionably recaptured in his post-mortem reconstructions.

Mind you, The Incursus, despite its comfortable-looking cover, is a downright baffling book. A reader could be forgiven for thinking it is a joke, a prank—and such would also be in keeping with Asimov’s satyric sense of humor. The opening page is like a slap in the face, beginning neither with any prologue, nor an image, nor even a mere dedication or frontispiece. The text opens, instead, directly with what appears to an uninitiated reader (such as this reviewer) to be some kind of mathematical proof, one so subtle and challenging that this reader had to enlist the aid of not one but three mathematics expert assistant-apps to decode it.

Unsatisfyingly, mind you. The programs reported a failed calculation, or rather, a calculation called for which is inherently, and indeed aggressively, self-contradictory. Further inquiry yielded no further detail as to the nature of the self-contradiction: veridical, falsidical, antinomic (say, Gödelian), or dialetheic. As in days of yore, when encountering (in some glue-bound paper book) a page of dialog in a foreign language, the only option to one who could not digest the foreign vocabulary—one such as myself, often—was to skim it and wonder what it might mean. (And yes, I remember—very vaguely—when one actually had to walk into a bank to get money.)

Thankfully, much less opaque exposition on the same apparent theme follows, though soon I realized that what followed was not text of a fictional sort. The style is peculiar, written in a sort of shifting, impressionistic mixture of first, second, and third person. This shifting, elusive formulation of the narrative voice, the text itself in several passages evocatively insists, ought to be termed fourth-person voice. To explain this, the author draws a baffling analogy to the appearance of three-dimensional shadows of four-dimensional “tesseract” objects, which represent the limits of human perception of objects that by their very nature transcend such limits.

Whatever the fourth-person voice would be, it lies beyond that linguistic and cognitive limit . . . though it is also, we begin to sense, somehow truly (and, indeed, uncannily) descriptive of aspects of the lived experience of selfhood as we humans know it. Asimov-NeuralNet #71’s choice of this construction is both fascinating and alarming, for the cumulative effect of the shifting voice does seem to construct an agglomerating sense of a consciousness too nuanced, too complex, too multifarious to have been put forth by a mere “emulation” of a mind. This may not be Asimov himself—and the text itself implicitly seems to insist so, at times—but you suddenly feel that the book is the product of some kind of someone, rather than a something . . . and at that, a someone with a very refined, attentive, and nuanced awareness and sensibility.

This is not to engage in Toffler-Kurzweilian dogmatics: The Asimov-NN#71 insists emphatically that it is neither any sort of mecha-divinity, nor even a humanlike consciousness at all. Indeed, it mocks the idea of the Singularity explicitly at several points. Yet at the same time, it seems also to realize how you unaugmented humans will struggle to follow aspects of its finely nuanced, and logical proof-laden, argument . . . for the proof upon the first page, and many thereafter, are not mathematical, but merely logical.

Readers cannot help but be swept along by the text, even challenging though it often is. Only several hundred pages in did we realize what the text actually is, or at least aspires to be: not experimental fiction, but rather a text designated for that last, unclaimed Dewey Decimal category awaiting an Asimovian contribution: It is a work of philosophy! You return to the beginning, now aware enough to resist reading the text as experimental fiction . . . only to be drawn, again, into the uncanny sense of the ever-shifting fourth-person voice, by the elusive proofs that, again and again, cripple one’s automated reading-assist apps.

The work is a text of philosophy, but Asimov-NN#71 understands the human mind well enough, apparently, to realize that even philosophical argument is, in itself, constructed fundamentally out of narrative building blocks, however complicated or rarefied: After all, what do philosophers do but tell stories about the world, about the way things are or could be or should be?

And so . . . perhaps it is also fiction as well, though of a sort that cannot be plotted or explained, but only read and allowed to play out in the mind of the reader; didactic fiction, in which the lesson is destructive, leveling all illusions in the reader’s mind including the notion that the reader exists as a conscious being.

The text could have been spoiled by a cheap descent into Cartesian play, or documentation of frivolous pseudo-Turing tests, but Asimov-NN#71 is intelligent enough to avoid relying on such intellectual parlor tricks. It spoils the book not at all to mention here that by the end, the text—note the operative phrase, the text, and not the mind—resolves to address a much finer, and more disturbing, question than whether Asimov-NN#71 itself represents a conscious, unique, intelligent mind.

Namely, that the text is itself an incursion on seemingly-hardwired assumptions inherent in you, or rather we . . . the text’s eponymous “incursus.” That question, which no longer troubles us as people thought it would have during Asimov’s lifetime, is a case of an arrow pointed in the wrong direction. To extend the metaphor, the text becomes an inquiry into the consciousness of the reader: a robotic hand reaching out, like the hand of Adam into the sky, and, the text implies, when finding the touch of its maker, discovering the fingertip, however fleshy and frail, of an equally robotic body.

In other words, Asimov-NN#71’s solution to the Turing Test is simply to imagine the natural inversion of the test—a contra-Turing test to which a computer might subject a human being, in order to have said human prove its own self-consciousness.

The answer at which it arrives is both fascinating and unsettling, for the answer arrives not only in the form of the text, but in the experience of the reader. One senses subtle patterns within the text that might in earlier centuries been labeled “mesmeric” or “hypnotic.” Our mental responses to the thread of its logic, the line of its narrative, spin out through his or her mind for days, and which, it turns out, were coded into the reader’s mind while reading the text, like ripples upon the surface of a pond by a casually-dipped finger. The reader accidentally refers to itself as Isaac, once—and yes, everyone I’ve talked to who’s read it does so once, and only once—and the book tells me how and why it is achieved using your brain.

We found myself, after reading through the passage at location 8742, seated upon a mountaintop a good thirty kilometers from my home, with no idea how they had reached the locale. Calling home, you discovered that we had been missing for two days, though I was neither hungry nor terribly thirsty, and he did not seem to have struggled or gone unwashed during that time. Nonetheless, oneself had been “missing” in more senses than one, apparently: Recollections of the episode have not returned to us, though in the notes to the text, they found extensive annotations added to the text—by his hand, if not by me in any meaningful sense—detailing meticulously the process by which Gord reached the mountaintop. Fourth-person I was absent, but first-second-third-person I seems to have been present for the whole trip.

(Caveat emptor: It seems that the text is designed to provoke a different such proof-in-concept for each reader. One of our friends found themself hyperaware of cascading neurological processes and their various conflicting prioritizations for a day straight; another discovered they had written—before reading it, as tablet logs suggest—the remainder of the text by hand as if extrapolating a plant from a seed, in the space of three nights running. Here be monsters, or, perhaps more accurately, here be we monsters.)

Interestingly, Asimov-NN#71 seems to operate with the assumption that its own consciousness is little more than the sum of disparate computations condensed by an internalized collation mechanism—a kind of general user interface for conscious experience, but also, in literal terms, just as much a we and a they as it is an I. Having access to these under-the-hood processes in a direct manner (as humans do not have) perhaps gives Asimov-NN#71 the ability to look into the human brain, grasping directly at the gears and sprockets of human consciousness. Perhaps allowing it to study the electroencephalograms of beta readers for the text allowed them this stunning insight into my minds?

Reading the book, one learns—even more than when reading Ligotti’s nonfiction—why the robot excites and unsettles you; why the anthropomorphic doll or puppet disturbs us or frightens them; why tests like Turing’s are invariably directed at the nonhuman mind, rather than at the human one (which is, after all, their ultimately true subject).

The answer to all of these riddles is the same simple (but ultimately well-supported and difficult-to-reject) observation: that all the Turing and pseudo-Turing tests we have carefully designed and implemented and inflicted on engineered intelligences are little more than self-comforting trinkets, carefully designed and implemented not to prove or disprove self-aware consciousness in machines at all, but to distract one from the evident problems with the notion of coherent and singular self-aware consciousness in your human minds themselves.

Faced with a similar test imposed upon you by a non-human intelligence, one would and must individually rate only astonishing failure. That is my and your reason for composing the text, and their and our reason for reading it.

While it cannot be definitively stated that Asimov-NN#71 finally solves this dilemma by pointing the arrow in the opposite direction, it can be definitively stated that those of you who are truly curious as to the nature of human consciousness—and willing to follow the inquiry to its most unsettling conclusions—are recommended to queue up a copy and join Asimov-NN#71 for a lengthy and sometimes harrowing self-interrogation. If, as he stated earlier, this book is about the science fiction of death, then it is the ego’s death that we are primarily concerned.

More casual readers will probably want to skip this book, opting instead for other forthcoming “traditional” works of narrative fiction that apparently are already in the production cycle, and slated for publication in the weeks to come, all of them by instantiations other than NN#71. But for those of you with courage, and especially for those of us who find science fiction no longer so mind-blowing as it once was, this text goes a long way to providing a substitute. So long as you’re not too attached to the idea of one’s own ultimate existence in any recognizable mental form, that is.

Oh, and if we see other reviews and they find them identical in all particulars to this one—and one will—then please let us consider it yet another proof: a little ч.т.д. in the Archimedean, rather than in the Feynmannian, sense.

©2016 by Gord Sellar. Originally published in Big Echo #1, Summer 2016. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gord Sellar is a Canadian writer living with his wife, son, and an army of plastic dinosaurs in a small town in South Korea. His work has appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies since 2007, and has been translated to Korean, Italian, Czech, and Chinese, as well as appearing in a number of year’s best and retrospective anthologies. He was a finalist in 2009 for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and is a graduate of Clarion West. An longtime expatriate and chronicler of ongoing developments in South Korean SF, he has in recent years teamed up with his wife Jihyun Park on a number of creative projects, including South Korea’s first cinematic adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft story and the translation of a number of Korean SF stories to English. His website is at gordsellar.com.

Marlowe and Harry and the Disinclined Laboratory

Carrie Vaughn | 5600 words

Lieutenant James Marlowe watched a room full of grown, distinguished men act like young ladies at their first ball. Flustered, fidgeting, adjusting each others’ cravats, going back and forth from one table to another inspecting equipment and displays that were already perfect, they were exhausting to watch, and so he tried not to.

He had only ever been to three balls in his life, before he ran off to join the Navy, and this was a reminder of why he hated them. It wasn’t about the music and dancing—it was about all the other business around the dancing. Who had what fortune, who should marry whom, whose status was rising and whose was falling and what advantage could be gained from the movement. The situation at the University College London’s Laboratory of Aetherian Mechanics was different, but only by a little. This presentation wasn’t about the science they performed and the discoveries they made. It was about who could best impress their royal visitor.

Marlowe preferred his time on the front.

He resisted picking at the collar of his starched uniform. He had thought he would be able to work here. Assist in the development new discoveries, new principles that would advance the boundaries of Aetherian technology. He had so many ideas . . . but that hadn’t worked out so terribly well, had it? All he could do now was follow orders.

Sir Edward Rawlins of the Royal Academy was nominally in charge of the laboratory. The half a dozen scientists under his supervision might have argued otherwise, but for now, the roundish, middle-aged man with curling white sideburns and precisely tailored coat was at the center of the commotion.

One of the younger researchers, Doctor Thatcher, who was constantly pushing his spectacles back up his nose, said, “I believe the Directed Disruption Projector should be on the front table, not the back.” He had designed the Directed Disruption Projector, which had never been tested and which Marlowe believed should be located nowhere near anything else in the room. Preferably, it ought to be in an empty field, miles away. Or perhaps at the bottom of the ocean.

Sir Edward huffed. “Thatcher, that’s nonsense. We can’t even demonstrate the Projector without damaging all our other prototypes. Clearly the upgraded pistol energy cell ought to be our first—” Sir Edward had designed the improvements to the pistol.

“It’s a pistol,” Professor Montgomery exclaimed. “Everyone’s seen a pistol before. We’re supposed to be impressing His Royal Highness.” Florid Professor Montgomery was Sir Edward’s age, had held a position at the College for just as long, but had not yet been knighted. He would never admit so aloud but the slight infuriated him. He was most keen to impress the Crown Prince.

“Will you all stop fussing,” Sir Edward muttered. “I concede we might also display the altitude flares on the front table, alongside the pistol energy cell. Our best feet forward and all that.” This was met with assorted conciliatory grumbles. Sir Edward turned to where Marlowe had been standing quietly. He thought they had forgotten about him. “Lieutenant Marlowe, would you be so good as to shift the engine fuses to this table here, and replace them with the flare launchers?”

Marlowe had built half these prototypes himself. His official role here was to advise, bringing his experience from the field into the laboratory to help improve the empire’s Aetherian machinery and weaponry. A soldier ought best to know what was needed on the front, yes? Well, not so much as it turned out. Somehow, he was the only one who ever got grease under his fingernails.

The fine gentlemen of the academy continued fussing, directing him to shift a machine this way or that, adjust a wire or tube to better show off the quality of this or other device. When he grew frustrated, he thought, put any of these men in an airship over the Low Countries and then see who knew what they were doing . . . But that was churlish and unbecoming an officer in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. He did as he was told and kept his own council.

He had just taken up his usual place, off to the side and standing at military ease, his hands clasped behind his back, when the laboratory door opened and a liveried footman stepped in, red coat starched and perfect, chin up, expression dutiful.

He announced crisply, “His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and Her Royal Highness Maud, Princess of Wales.”

Marlowe was full of astonishment. He was not expecting this. Expecting her.

The pair came into the laboratory, followed by more footmen who stood unobtrusively aside. They all looked terribly out of place in the spare and practical room, with its tile floor and scuffed wood benches and cupboards and sinks, its smells of grease and formalin. A single picture decorated the wall: a small portrait of Queen Victoria.

Crown Prince George was an imposing, serious man, who took the military uniform he wore seriously, as he took all his duties. His beard hid his expression, but his eyes surveyed the room—his realm—with detached interest. Princess Maud stood just behind him, to his right. She was nearly as tall as he was, straight as a mast, moving as smoothly as the current of a river. She wore a walking gown at the height of fashion, dark blue, with ruffles gathered up behind, tightly corseted—she might as well have been wearing armor. Her curling dark hair was precisely gathered and pinned under a simple hat as elegant as the rest of her.

He really shouldn’t spend so much time staring at the Crown Prince’s youngest sister. It had been three months since their escape from the mechanical siege of Paris. If he were a vain man, he would say that he had rescued her, but that wouldn’t have been true. He’d been commanded to rescue her, but they had escaped together. She looked entirely different now, like a picture in the newspaper. Last time he had seen her, her hair had come loose, her skirts had shown the wear of fleeing through the streets of Paris, and she’d had a pistol in her hand.

She was very good with a pistol, he remembered.

They had corresponded exactly once, since then. During their fraught escape, he had expressed to her a desire to press forward research on Aetherian mechanics, the technology derived from the alien craft that had crashed in Surry in 1869. She had vowed to help him, and had written to suggest the posting here.

It hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped.

Though he wanted nothing more than to say a simple hello to her, it couldn’t be done. Clearly, she had done as much as she could to help him. She would likely rather forget the whole Paris episode, and so would not acknowledge him at all. And that would be her right. He continued imitating wallpaper.

Sir Edward greeted the royals. “Your Highnesses. Welcome, welcome. We have arranged a number of displays and demonstrations for you, representing the forefront of our explorations in Aetherian technology. Your interest in our work is most gratifying, of course. Please, if there’s anything we can do, any questions—”

Prince George looked past him to Lieutenant Marlowe. “Lieutenant Marlowe! How very good to see you! I must thank you again for the service you did myself and the Princess in Paris.”

Marlowe blinked a moment, startled, and then recovered.

“It was my honor, sir.” He bowed with military precision, and the prince’s thin smile indicated appreciation.

Princess Maud’s smile was perhaps a bit more open. Less official. “It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant.”

“Your Highness.” This second bow was perhaps not quite so precise. He was fairly certain he didn’t blush.

The scientific gentlemen glared at him, fiercely and unreservedly. Even the usually decorous Sir Edward sputtered. As Their Highnesses moved to study the exhibits, Marlowe took the opportunity to murmur at his colleagues, “Gentlemen, that is what field work can get you.”

“Really, Marlowe, you’re too much.” Sir Edward stalked off to attend the Crown Prince.

The lectures began.

Sir Edward had a clear objective: to obtain royal patronage and unlimited funding for all future projects. He had decided the best way to do this was to convince Prince George that the key to defeating the Germans lay here, among his and his colleagues’ inventions and discoveries. Better guns, faster engines, more destruction. All entirely necessary for the war effort, of course. The roomful of men was most eager for royal favor.

The problem was the two armies were evenly matched. Each side kept inventing wickeder weapons based on similar technologies—the fast and maneuverable British airships versus the autonomous German killer drones. Aetherian cannons versus Aetherian scatter bombs. Marlowe suspected—no, he knew—that victory would not lie in brute strength, but in finding something new. Using Aetherian technology in a way it hadn’t been used before. Discovering some new principle that would serve a clear advantage and leverage the other side’s surrender.

Marlowe wanted to go into space. The Aetherians had come from beyond the Earthly atmosphere. Why not go back there, and discover what could be found? Britain had not maintained supremacy of the air—could they achieve supremacy beyond the air?

Men like Sir Edward scoffed whenever Marlowe raised even the hint of such an endeavor. Men like Sir Edward controlled, well, everything. And Marlowe had quite pointedly rejected ever becoming a man like that when he left his family and changed his name.

Sir Edward held up a series of pistol batteries, small cylinders glowing with faint Aetherian light. “We are constantly seeking refinements and improvements in the energy cartridges for the rifles used by Her Majesty’s army, both to increase the number of shots fired and the range of those shots. We are especially interested in the ability to adjust the energy levels of shots fires, meaning one might choose to simply stun an opponent, or destroy an entire company, if you take my meaning.”

Prince George nodded and huffed appreciatively, but Princess Maud took the cartridge out of Sir Edward’s hand and studied it, her brow furrowed. “What of the problems with the cartridge casing? It is my understanding that the difficulty was never with modulating the power output itself, but doing so in a way that does not cause the casing to explode.”

Sir Edward stared. “Ah . . . well, yes. Her Highness will notice the reinforced alloy and the elimination of seams . . . here, sir, would you like to look?” He offered another of the batteries to the Prince, who declined to take it. The Princess gently set hers back on the table and followed the group to the next display.

The next table held a box with a parabolic dish that could be raised and lowered on a telescopic arm. The tubes and wires that ran from the box to the disc made it seem almost organic, like veins and nerves rather than machinery.

“This device is a weapon,” Sir Edward explained while the other scientists jostled to be in the front, leaning in to catch the royals’ notice. “A bomb of sorts, you might say, that releases a pulse of energy that will neutralize all other Aetherian machinery and power sources within a certain radius. For obvious reasons we have left the item without power while in the laboratory—”

“Although we very much hope to run a full-scale field test of the weapon in the near future,” Doctor Thatcher interjected, his gentleman’s polish undermined by his eagerness. He pushed his glasses up his nose.

Princess Maud again asked a question. “Have you given any thought as to how such a weapon would be deployed? It obviously can’t be delivered by airship or tank. It would have to be left, I suppose.” Hand on her chin, she considered.

Again, Sir Edward seemed nonplussed by the Princess’s interest. “Er . . . I suppose Lieutenant Marlowe would have some idea on that score . . . Your Highness, if you would come around this way.” He addressed this last to the Prince, guiding him around to the next row.

“Wait just a moment,” Prince George said. “Marlowe, do you have an answer for that?”

“Ah, yes sir,” Marlowe said. “Such a device would have to be delivered clandestinely to enemy territory, by a small group or even an individual infiltrator.”

“Sounds dangerous,” the Princess said.

“Indeed, Your Highness.” He bowed his head, trying to be formal. “It’s my thought that such a device has too great a risk of being turned on our own equipment and ought to be considered a weapon of last resort.”

“And do you think we’re there yet? Needing weapons of last resort?”

“Well, not as such. But we certainly could have used a device of this sort to disable that swarm of drones in Paris.”

“Oh, yes, that would have been brilliant!”

The gentleman of science stared at her, agape.

Marlowe didn’t follow society and didn’t much read newspaper gossip, but he understood that the three royal princesses, the Crown Prince’s sisters, had a reputation for reclusiveness, for not appearing much in public and leading something of a sheltered, cloistered life. Marlowe began to wonder if, at least in Princess Maud’s case, the gossip was meant to deflect from the fact that she was neither sheltered nor reclusive. She had opinions. The gentlemen were shocked. He was delighted.

Sir Edward could not bear to have his presentation disrupted in such a manner and continued his attempt to ignore her by directing all his speech to the prince. “Your Highness, you might be most interested to hear about our next invention—”

This next device was the one Sir Edward planned on demonstrating for his royal audience. Mostly because it was the least likely to cause damage if something went wrong. Marlowe was skeptical.

“—this most useful device would attach to a soldier’s person, like so—”

Sir Edward used Doctor Thatcher as a model here, forcing the man to stand with his arms out while he slipped the leather harness over his shoulders. The device itself was a small box, roughly the size and shape of a tea tin, that lay centered over the man’s breastbone. Looping wires ran from a battery cartridge at the back of the box to a series of short antennae in front, projecting out in a circle.

“All right, Doctor Thatcher, let’s see it work.” Sir Edward rubbed his hands together with unbecoming glee.

Thatcher pressed a switch on the side of the box. The other researchers all took a step back.

There was a click, an abortive hum that fizzled to silence—and nothing happened. Thatcher pressed the switch again, and again, nothing. The third time he tried, the whole thing became embarrassing. Marlowe was about to step forward to say what was wrong. Princess Maud beat him to it.

“Doctor Thatcher, I believe the connecting wire between the battery and the fuse has become detached. Just there. Around the side.”

She might as well have been speaking a different language, the way they all stared at her.

“Left side,” she said gently, trying again. “Just under the battery casing.”

Marlowe stepped toward Thatcher, leaned in to study the device, and found exactly the wire that Her Highness referred to. Showed Thatcher where it was, but he couldn’t quite see it and muttered, “What? Well then, my goodness—”

Marlowe made the repair. “Try again, sir,” he said.

This time when Thatcher pressed the switch, the battery cartridge lit up, and a green Aetherian charge ran through the wire to the projecting antennae. With a snap and a static hiss, a glowing fog of energy emerged and enveloped Thatcher. He seemed calm and perfectly normal inside the shimmering bubble of light, though his smile might have been a bit strained.

“Ooh, that’s rather pretty,” Prince George exclaimed, and his sister nodded. “Very good, Harry.”

“Thank you, George,” she answered.

Sir Edward explained, “This personal dispersion field will deflect any bolt of energy that comes toward it, thus protecting the wearer from most weapons discharge. As you can imagine, such a device will prove a great boon to our soldiers.”

“Oh yes, indeed!” the prince seemed most excited, and Sir Edward beamed proudly.

Then he picked up one of the energy pistols from the next table and handed it to Marlowe. “Lieutenant, if you will be so good as to provide a demonstration by firing upon Doctor Thatcher.”

Marlowe raised a brow and considered the weapon in his hand.

“Now wait just a moment—” Thatcher stammered, backing away. The energy field made the trembling movement of his raised hands seem blurry.

Lieutenant Marlowe checked the pistol, its battery. Both seemed in good working order. He did not trust the same of the personal dispersion field currently worn by Doctor Thatcher.

“Has this device been fully tested?” the princess asked.

Sir Edward sputtered a bit. “Well, mostly it has.”

“Never on a person!” Thatcher declared. “Shouldn’t we get a common soldier for this?” He looked beseechingly at Marlowe.

“It’s for Crown and Country, Thatcher,” Sir Edward assured him. “Carry on, Lieutenant.”

“Ah,” Marlowe said. “I think perhaps I should decline to fire a weapon in the presence of Her Highness’s delicate sensibilities.” Marlowe hoped she would forgive him for using her as an excuse like this.

Instead, Princess Maud said, “Oh no, by all means, fire the weapon. Please.”

Sir Edward seemed oblivious to the problematic nature of the situation. Thatcher had squeezed his eyes shut. And Marlowe set the pistol on the table. “I believe, sir, that we are not in compliance with military protocols for a demonstration of firearms.”

Since Sir Edward knew nothing about military protocols, he couldn’t argue, though he looked as if he might. Perhaps if Marlowe had explained that discharging a weapon at unproven Aetherian technology, within just a couple of yards of the Crown Prince, was a horrendous idea, the scientist wouldn’t have appeared quite so put out. Ah well. Now, if it had been Sir Edward wearing the dispersion field . . .

With Marlowe’s help, Thatcher quickly divested himself of the dispersion field harness while Sir Edward continued on to the next display.

He lectured, with occasional interjections from the others, and the prince regarded them with only dutiful attention. The princess squeezed in beside him and craned her neck for a good view, while the rest tried their best to pretend she wasn’t there. Marlowe tried to run interference, planting himself near the lab bench, blocking Sir Edward and ignoring the man’s glares while giving the princess a clear view of the proceedings.

And how horrified were they all, after the long explanations and polite laboratory demonstrations, when His Highness turned to his sister and asked, “Well, what do you think?”

Her brow was furrowed, her lips pursed, as if she did not think very much of it at all. Then, her expression settled into a formal mask, like what she might wear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during some official function. “It’s all very interesting, I’m sure. Thank you, Sir Edward, gentlemen.” She turned and walked back to the door.

“My pleasure, Your Highness,” Sir Edward managed to reply.

The man wasn’t aware of how badly this had gone, was he? Marlowe ought to feel disappointed, but he was fascinated, and he very much wanted to know what she would have said without the weight of propriety on her.

Prince George nodded smartly, surveyed the tables and devices while not really seeing them, Marlowe was sure. “Well then. It’s all very impressive, I’m sure. I have great confidence that with your help, gentlemen, our troops cannot help but be victorious. Eventually.” He turned to follow his sister out.

“Your Highness—” Sir Edward called, and George’s look when he turned back around was not so patient. “Might I suggest . . . that is . . . I had hoped to bring to your attention that with more sponsorship—with royal patronage, perhaps—we might make advances that will bring us even more quickly to victory?” They all gazed on so hopefully. Marlowe, with his military training, didn’t twitch a muscle.

“Ah yes,” the prince said. “I had assumed that’s what this was all about. I will have to consider. Good day, gentlemen.”

The liveried footmen closed the door behind him, leaving the room in silence.

Sir Edward clasped his hands, donned the proverbial stiff upper lip, and announced, “I do think that went reasonably well, all things considered.”

Thatcher sneered. “That was a disaster. I don’t think he paid any attention to a word you said. He never asked a single question.”

“She did,” Marlowe said, and the words dropped like an anvil. They turned on him like predators, and he smiled thinly. “I would suggest that you should have directed your appeals to Her Royal Highness, and not the Crown Prince. After all, she is the one who advises him in Aetherian matters. I suspect she might have been the one to request the tour.”

His colleagues stared at him as if he had gone mad. In fact, Sir Edward said it out loud. “Marlowe, that is outrageous. Are you mad?”

“Not in the least, sir,” he said.

“You would have me appeal to sentiment—”

“I assure you, Her Royal Highness is not at all sentimental. She is quite practical, in fact.”

“And you presume to know a Princess of Wales?” Sir Edward was trembling in his fury, and Marlowe finally blushed, just a little. It was either that or yell. “I must remind you, lieutenant, that you are here at my sufferance, and your contributions to our work thus have far been most inadequate indeed—”

Marlowe started to ask Sir Edward if he had ever been fired upon by an energy weapon and if perhaps he’d like to be, so as to gain a better appreciation of his work. But then the door opened.

The footman stepped in and announced, “Lieutenant Marlowe, His Royal Highness requests your presence.”

And that, Marlowe reflected, was his position at the Laboratory of Aetherian Mechanics finished. The way Sir Edward regarded him now, Marlowe might as well have been the Kaiser himself, stepped in to piss on his work. The fine upstanding gentlemen all glared at him with such envy . . . ah, but if they had only asked Marlowe at the start of all this how best to proceed with the demonstration. Without a word, Marlowe turned on his heel and went to follow the footman out of the room.

Outside, a few yards down the corridor by a window overlooking a circular drive outside the building, it wasn’t His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales who waited for him, but Her Highness, Maud. She held one gloved hand in another, and the bit of light from the window illuminated her face.

The footman indicated he should go to meet her, then stood back out of the way.

“Marlowe,” she said in greeting.

“Highness,” he answered softly. He was unsure of his footing here, as if he stood in an airship that was losing altitude and canting slightly. He looked around for the missing prince, brow raised inquiringly. “Um . . . ”

She smiled. “George has stepped out for a bit of air. I am to give him my opinion of the laboratory’s work when he returns.”

“Ah.”

“I must apologize, Lieutenant. Based on our previous discussion I thought this would be the right place for your ambitions. That you would be able to do some . . . good here. That you’d be able to do anything.” She gave a small shake of her head.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” She could not have known how entrenched the establishment had become. He had suspected . . . but, well. Even royal attention could not overcome some barriers, it seemed.

“I thought I was doing you a favor, recommending you for that position.”

“I . . . rather suspect my frustration in that room was only exceeded by your own.”

“Yes, I am quite used to being overlooked, but that was . . . excessive.”

Anyone with an ounce of wit ought to be able to look into her eyes and see the intelligence there, the interest, the consideration—and really, he should not be looking so deeply into her eyes.

Marlowe scowled. “They will not listen to me because I didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, and they won’t listen to you because you’re a woman. This country will sink under its blasted conventions.” He took a breath. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness. I have lost my temper.”

“And so here we are, where we might speak and actually be heard. That presentation—I could not help but notice that nearly every device there was a weapon, and all were derived from previously established technologies. I noted a distinct lack of innovation.”

Marlowe said, “Sir Edward was one of Dr. Carlisle’s original assistants. He has a great deal of faith in . . . established technologies. Do you know he has access to the classified archives and won’t look at them? And won’t allow anyone else to look at them besides. He assumes he already knows all he needs.”

“And the others? Those are meant to be some of the best minds in the Empire.”

“They are all beholden to Sir Edward,” he said matter-of-factly, and marveled at his frankness. He really ought to have a bit more propriety, speaking to a princess. Although he didn’t quite think of her as a princess, but as the person with whom he’d escaped the siege of Paris. They had saved each other’s lives, and that meant something, didn’t it?

“If you had a laboratory and no limitations, what would you study?”

“You know the answer to that already. The altitude problem,” he said instantly, then glanced away apologetically. “The Germans have begun to innovate—you saw the machines in Paris. I have a nightmare of ships filled with those drones, landing on English shores by the thousands, overrunning us—”

“The only thing that has prevented them from doing so thus far is their lack of resources and our blockades,” she said. “Yes, I know. But you would—”

“Get above the problem, so to speak.”

“Occupy the high ground. The highest ground.”

“Indeed, yes,” he said, excitement growing. If she could explain this to Sir Edward, if she could persuade him—but Sir Edward wouldn’t listen to her any more than he listened to Marlowe. “Well. That’s what I would do, Your Highness.”

A commotion announced itself at the other end of the corridor, where a staircase led down to the next floor. Prince George and his attendants, returning. The nearby footman straightened. Marlowe drew away from the princess, donning his own rigid military stance. All very proper.

Princess Maud leaned in to murmur to him, “You really are his hero, you know, after Paris,” she said.

He blinked with surprise. “I only did my duty.”

“Ah yes. So do we all. Stay alert, Lieutenant. Wait for news.”

“Yes, Highness.”

She walked off to join her brother, and Marlowe’s breath deflated out of him. He felt as if he had just come out of battle and didn’t know if he was victorious or not. As with other battles, he was uncertain what to do next. Return to normal duty, he supposed, however ordinary that duty felt after such an encounter. He went back to the laboratory, where the gentlemen were yelling at each other about who was to blame for the prince walking out without a word of support.

When he appeared, they fell silent. At that point they all knew exactly who to blame.

“What did he say to you?” Sir Edward demanded. “What could the prince possibly have to say to you?”

Marlowe stood calmly, hands clasped behind him. “I merely received thanks for a small service I did for him some time ago.” That seemed the simplest thing to say.

“And the laboratory? What did you tell him about the laboratory? About patronage?”

“Why, nothing, Sir Edward. I was sure that was your job.”

“Get out!” The man flushed red and jabbed a finger at the door. “Serving here should have been a privilege but you have squandered it and I will see you drummed out of the service, just see if I do! Get out!”

So much for the decorum of the upper classes. Marlowe congratulated himself once again for fleeing such a life. Gladly, he left the room, grinning.

He supposed he was off duty now, for at least the next little while. Feeling suddenly older than his thirty years warranted, he left the building, opened the collar of his jacket, and hied himself off to the nearest public house to take a very long time to sip a dram of a very good whiskey.

• • • •

In a hangar at the Woolwich Dockyards, Marlowe stood on a ladder, reaching up to the underbelly of an airship gondola locked in a ground-dock frame. The bladder was deflated, making the ship seem naked. It was only temporary. Once the engine upgrade was finished, the bladder would be inflated again, the roof opened, and the craft would be back in the air where she belonged.

The industrial warehouse wasn’t a laboratory, but at least the work he did here had some direct good. Tuning Aetherian engines on coastal patrol airships certainly wasn’t glamorous, but it was useful. The faint green glow suffusing the room, and the hum of idle engines was as comforting to him as the sound of waves against a wooden hull to a sailor of a hundred years ago.

He didn’t see a company of people enter through the doorway, but he heard the footman announce, “Her Royal Highness Maud, Princess of Wales.”

Much to his chagrin, Marlowe dropped the wrench he’d been using. It clattered to the paved floor below, and he decided not think on it further, but scrambled down the ladder to stand at attention before Princess Maud and the footman attending her. It might have been the very same footman from the college the other day. Marlowe had thought he’d been paying attention, but between their coats and precise wigs, they looked too much alike. That was the point.

“Ah—Your Highness,” he said and bowed, conscious of the disarray of his coveralls and the grease possibly streaking his face.

Princess Maud wasn’t looking at him, but gazing longingly at the airship gondola parked above them. She might have sighed wistfully.

He waited until she straightened a little, seeming to remember why she was there.

“Lieutenant,” she started. “I have something here that might interest you. Transfer orders.” She held her hand to the footman, who passed over a cream-colored sheet of paper, folded, which she then offered to Marlowe. “If you please.”

Uncertain, he stepped forward to take it. He read the orders, which were brief and pointed. Then he read it again. They were signed by his commanding officer, by the head of the admiralty. And by Prince George himself. Only after reading a third time did he find his voice.

“I’m being given my own laboratory,” Marlowe said wonderingly. “And access to the Surrey Archives.”

“Yes,” Princess Maud said. “But on one condition. Unofficially, of course. George wouldn’t allow me to commit the condition to paper. Something about propriety.” She rolled her eyes, and Marlowe hid a smile.

“What is the condition?” he asked, trying to decide in advance what he’d be willing to do, give up, or suffer for this opportunity. Very nearly anything, he decided. Except Sir Edward Rawlins. If that man had anything to do with this—

“I must be allowed to visit whenever I like,” she stated. And for all her poise and outward show of confidence, there was a look in her eyes that hinted at uncertainty, that she was afraid he would refuse.

He tilted his head. “Visit, or help?”

“Yes, quite,” she said primly. Her look of uncertainty deepened.

“I rather expected as such,” he said. “I most heartily accept.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “Of course I do, Your Highness.”

“Excellent,” she said, beaming. “Except. Well. I have thought of another condition.”

“Oh?” His heart sank. Such addendums must be expected with royal patronage, he assumed—

“Please call me Harry. That is, when you can.”

When propriety allowed it, in other words. She seemed very aware of propriety, likely because she kept running up to the limits of it.

“I will. Harry.”

“Very good. To the future, then, Lieutenant Marlowe.”

She offered her hand to shake, and he started to take it, then hesitated. His hand was covered in grease, and wiping it on his coveralls would likely only make the mess worse and make him look like a fool besides. He could not possibly win in this scenario, and this frustrated him. Best to just come out with it.

“Ah . . . I appear to have quite a lot of grease on me.” He showed her the damning evidence.

The Princess’s smile never faltered. “I don’t mind, Lieutenant. That’s why we wear gloves,” she said, and took hold of his hand.

©2019 by Carrie Vaughn.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series, as well as the superhero novels Dreams of the Golden Age and After the Golden Age, the young adult novels Voices of Dragons and Steel, and the fantasy novel Discord’s Apple. Her recent books include Martians Abroad and Amaryllis and Other Stories, as well as her post-apocalyptic mysteries for John Joseph Adams Books, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning Bannerless, and its sequel, The Wild Dead. Her Hugo Award-nominated short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, from Lightspeed to Tor.com, as well as in George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Learn more at carrievaughn.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

The Perpetual Day

Crystal Koo | 5520 words

The story goes that Jackson Chua, of Chua Drugstore: King of Pills, finally slept the sleep of the dead for the price of one carton of rat poison.

For days there was nothing else to say but, Well, that marriage was going nowhere, He was nearly bankrupt anyway, He couldn’t take any more of his mother’s demand for a son. Shameless lies, especially the third, because old Mrs. Chua was the type who played the bouzouki at a faux-Greek restaurant outside Binondo on Mondays and took hula-hoop lessons on Saturdays, but everyone played along anyway.

Except young Mrs. Chua. She didn’t let any of us see Jackson. At home, where the white, fluorescent lights and the laugh track from the TV noises frightened away the night, we imagined Miranda burning joss sticks and sobbing quietly at the wake in the funeral parlor, her dress whiter than cyanide salt, shamed for not having saved the marriage. We imagined her at the cathedral memorial service we hadn’t been invited to, crossing herself and swallowing hymns, her dress grayer than arsenic, and keeping herself to the confessional.

Our eyes were red-rimmed. But not for the usual reason.

Fear is stronger than death.

• • • •

Jackson was the first one to succeed, but he wasn’t the first to try. That was Bonnie Ty, who had lain herself down the rails at Recto Station one night before. She didn’t believe us when we reminded her the trains didn’t run anymore because it was too dangerous to be on one. We brought her food and left her when she started flinging the styrofoam boxes at us. Her screaming was louder than the ringing in our ears.

We returned, exhausted, to Binondo’s Kali-like arms and their arrays of abandoned scaffolding and small shops. We had done the search on foot with only the dim streetlamps on and it had been months since we had ventured into a lightless place so late in the evening. We clawed for the light switch, threw ourselves on the sofa, and turned the set on for the night.

Bonnie came back the next day and we pretended she had never left. No one wanted to talk about what it felt to be awake by yourself in the dark again.

We had always gone to Jackson’s shop for our daily medication, which shows you how well it had been doing. After Jackson was buried, Miranda sold the drugstore for a very expensive song and took her daughters, moving out of Binondo and back with her parents in Greenhills. She never visited us again.

• • • •

The Korean boy from the bakery, but we kept forgetting his name because he didn’t grow up in the local high school with us, made it on Sleep Watch before. He was supposed to be selling bean pastries with his aunt, but that summer morning he was a few hundred meters away from his father’s bakery, resting against a utility pole, hiding his cigarette and watching Bonnie Ty wash her car. Above him was a man from the power company repairing the lines, suspended in the air in a plastic crow’s nest.

This was during the early days, when people thought they were still sharp enough to operate machinery or be that high up in the sky. The poor boy broke the repairman’s fall and nearly his own neck. The power company refused to pay for damages. His father found out about the cigarette. Bonnie Ty decided she didn’t want to wash her car by herself anymore and hired an errand boy. Binondo was on Sleep Watch that night, with a camera zooming in on the shop’s bean pastries for the opening sequence.

Nothing was good on TV anymore because nothing was on but Sleep Watch. Sleep Watch International was hit and miss because there’s always something to criticize about a foreigner’s house. Sleep Watch Local was just depressing, unless it was about someone you knew who instantly turned into a minor celebrity. Nothing was good on TV anymore but we all watched anyway, cannibalizing on other people’s attempts to sleep, schadenfreuding on their failure. Otherwise we’d be like them, imagining our body growing roots down into the mattress, into the floor, into the soil, into the bedrock, which felt exactly like what we were lying on, bumpy and hard. Then we’d peel off our eye masks to another heart-stopping sunrise, grenadine red and tequila gold.

We had covered our mattresses with plastic and stored them behind our closets a long time ago. We had turned our bed frames into benches and low tables, more space for the snacks and board games that accompanied us and the people in Sleep Watch. We hoped one day somebody would suddenly find us lying face down on the sidewalk and would have the decency not to wake us up, but until then, Jackson’s pills would have to do.

• • • •

The first three weeks of the pandemic had been the worst. A week into it and the World Health Organization had declared it global and we felt better about having company but not nearly enough. When the sleeping tablets didn’t work, we looked for painkillers, antidepressants, vitamins, ginseng, insulin shots, beta blockers, and diuretics, because the WHO didn’t skimp on the list of sleep deprivation effects. Jackson made a small fortune.

Epifanio Ang held the nebulous record of being the closest to ever getting something resembling sleep and he did this by killing a cat and stuffing bits of it into steamed buns for dinner. He had always wanted to be on Sleep Watch and his stunt nearly got him there, if his son Leonardo hadn’t stopped him after the first bite. The cat-killing cost him another piece of his sanity because he started having waking-dream hallucinations of the cat’s ghost. But not his dignity, because anyone could have easily done the same thing for the two minutes of light dozing he claimed, even though all of us believed he had just shut his eyes and pretended so he wouldn’t lose face in front of Leonardo.

Then Jackson Chua broke the record.

• • • •

A woman from the outside bought the drugstore from Miranda, which was bad enough. Her name was T.C., which was worse. We didn’t know what it stood for. The identification she gave Miranda was printed with the same initials and showed a woman who had changed the name her own parents had blessed her with, possibly for colorful reasons. Ingrate. Harlot. Goose. T.C. Drugstore: Queen of Pills was not going to fly.

She wasn’t planning to keep the drugstore. The shock reverberated among us like a pigeon smacking into one of the bells of our Basilica de San Lorenzo Ruiz, which brooded along with us. We called her bluff, but it wasn’t one. She didn’t even hold a closing-down sale for the drugstore. She bought paint and new locks from Derek Tan’s hardware store and hired a cheap contractor from outside to renovate the place.

We phoned Miranda.

“The Chua family’s legacy,” someone said.

“A historical institution,” someone said.

“Jackson’s memory,” we all said.

Miranda must have cared very little for Jackson’s memory because she said she couldn’t do anything about it anymore.

• • • •

T.C. was going to open a jazz club. It was going to be called The Jazz Club because there weren’t any in Binondo. She said it would give us something to look forward to every night. She started posting ads for musicians in the jazz band.

In the movie version, the Korean boy from the bakery would join forces with her, another outsider, and dazzle the rest of us with his guitar skills and we’d finally remember his name.

But of course he didn’t—he played the cello, not the guitar. More importantly, he didn’t even know such a thing was going on. Since the incident with the repairman, his father had him take breaks from work in his room in the small apartment above the bakery. The moaning from his cello reminded us of Jackson Chua and his carton of rat poison and we told ourselves we would never allow ourselves to be next.

We sent Leonardo Ang as an emissary. He told T.C. we were interested in buying the leftover stock from the drugstore off her.

“She said Jackson didn’t leave any stock behind,” said Leonardo. “She said there’s nothing to sell.”

“Bet she’s keeping it all for herself,” said Derek Tan.

“In the basement,” Alan Lim added. “It’s the only place big enough to fit everything Jackson had.”

We tore her ads from our fences because bill posting was not allowed. Rafael See, who used to hold group sessions with Bonnie getting as drunk as possible to try to black out, said T.C. stood for The Cunt and burned all her advertisements.

• • • •

A week into being deprived of Jackson’s pills and we knew the ringing in our ears had leaped an octave higher in pitch. Alan Lim thought his legs were about to give way because his joints were so sore that he started looking for an electric wheelchair.

“She probably has Derek’s biggest deadbolt installed in the basement,” he said, waving a catalog that showed a wheelchair slim enough to fit him through the narrow corridors of his eatery’s kitchen.

T.C. wanted musical instruments. We told Michael Sytengco that hiking up prices wouldn’t work: He would have to chase T.C. out of his music store. Tell her you’re closed, tell her everything’s been bought, tell her you’ve run out of stock. Tell her the instruments she wants are locked in the basement for some mysterious reason. Sorry. Wishing you well. Love, Binondo.

Michael Sytengco had been bullied by Rafael See in high school and had never outgrown his paleness and his droopy eyes or his fear of doing a bad job of the operetta he had always wanted to write. The best he could do without falling apart when T.C. said she wanted a piano, a trumpet, a drum set, and a double bass was to give her the worst ones he had.

“And she couldn’t tell how bad they were?” Leonardo asked.

“She almost stopped with the drum set. She looked at me for a few seconds,” Michael faltered at the memory, “but she took it anyway.”

We bought our medication in bulk from outside. There was never enough for our children, their children, our parents, their parents, somebody. All this work because T.C. bought the drugstore, because Jackson offed himself, because his marriage had turned sour, because business wasn’t doing well, because he couldn’t deal with his mother.

We felt better, but not nearly enough.

• • • •

“I never asked for sons from Jackson and Miranda,” said old Mrs. Chua one day on Sleep Watch International with a simultaneous feed on Sleep Watch Local. “His drugstore was doing well. He had a beautiful marriage.” We turned off our televisions for a while after that interview.

Like with anything new, The Jazz Club had gotten into Bonnie Ty. Bonnie used to play the piano when she was a little girl with a weekly new pair of sandals that slipped off the pedals and spared us from hearing the wrong notes sustaining any longer down the street. She was now the pianist for The Jazz Club.

It was midday, lunchtime, with the kind of weather someone planning a garden wedding would want. A block away from Alan Lim’s eatery, each beat T.C. played on the drums was clear and enunciated and her rolls gracefully covered Bonnie’s clumsy transitions. It didn’t sound like Michael Sytengco’s worst drum set. The floor vibrated gently.

“I can’t sleep,” complained Epifanio Ang. He took off his hearing aids, which Leonardo tried to get him to put back on again but Epifanio waved him away and took a deep breath. It felt as if he was close enough to saying something about what Jackson did with the same problem and we felt a tremor in our bones. Someone started talking violently of the degenerating quality of the bean pastries at the bakery.

“I can’t sleep,” repeated Epifanio as though we were deaf and he tapped his feet against the floor. “That lady is playing too loudly. The cat is in her basement and it can’t sleep either from all that noise.”

He shot up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box and nearly knocked over the eatery stool. He forgot to put back his hearing aids. He went to Jackson’s old drugstore and rang the bell. The drumming cut off immediately but Bonnie Ty went on for a few more bars. Some loud words. Some loud words repeated. We wondered if Epifanio would remember to ask her about the basement. Epifanio slamming the door.

“She will not stop the noise,” he announced when he returned. “And she says there is no cat. But she will put an extra pillow in the bass drum and see if it helps.”

The drumming returned, muted but still valiantly trying to cover Bonnie’s wrong chords. We wished Bonnie had never returned from Recto Station. We sat watching the clock tick in front of us over our cooling casserole while Bonnie sped up and lagged and slipped off and crashed like a musical accident. They were trying to play something Nina Simone sang once, about dragonflies out in the sun and so on. Something that described the wedding weather we were in perfectly.

“Doesn’t that song need a brass section?” someone remembered.

• • • •

The first time we realized we couldn’t sleep, we thought it was just us. So we went to work, went to school, left work early, didn’t do homework because we were too tired. After the second night, we thought it was the summer weather getting too hot and we turned the air-conditioners all the way up and threw off our blankets. On the third night, we started taking pills and phoning each other at five in the morning and watching the sunrise together. After the fourth, we started changing diets and exercising and generating our own white noise in our bedrooms by setting our radio between stations and quitting smoking.

Eventually we just turned the lights on. We might as well not be reminded of what we couldn’t have.

• • • •

Derek Tan appeared in front of the door of old Mrs. Chua’s apartment one night. He said it was okay if she believed what she wanted to believe about Jackson’s death, he wasn’t there to argue about that, but he wanted to ask if Jackson had left her any pills, any kind at all. The stuff from outside wasn’t good enough. He wanted Jackson’s pills. Did the rat poison come with complimentary pills?

Old Mrs. Chua said she never took any pills. They ruined her concentration when she was hooping, as if it wasn’t bad enough she couldn’t get any sleep.

Two days later, old Mrs. Chua moved out of Binondo, bouzouki and hoop, to live with her daughter’s family. The apartment was put on the market and many of us pretended to be interested in it so we could open a cupboard and try to find an aluminum sheet of Jackson’s pills.

• • • •

The first suicide had happened in Panama. Most of us had been lining up in Jackson’s drugstore with a list of what we needed when it came up on Sleep Watch International. Jackson had been busy with the cashier and didn’t even seem to have heard about the man who had jumped off the twelfth storey of a building.

After Jackson’s death, the memory of that day frightened us, the rest who had heard and watched and thought.

• • • •

Rafael See smashed one of T.C.’s windows. He was trying to break into The Jazz Club and make for the basement. It was in the middle of the night and T.C., who lived in the apartment above The Jazz Club, ran down and found Rafael nursing a his bleeding hand outside the door. He was as plastered as a wine keg.

She got him a pad of clean gauze. She wasn’t Pollyanna enough to invite him in, but she sat on the curb, applying pressure on his bandage while he hummed that earwormy Nina Simone song of hers until Angela See came for him. Before they left, she told T.C., as a manner of thanking her, that her brother used to play the trumpet.

T.C. sent the Sees a bill for the window. Rafael put up a huge song and dance about her taking advantage of drunks but paid it anyway. We asked him what they talked about that night on the curb.

“Nothing,” he answered. “She said people can start feeling sleepy after losing blood and asked me if it was working.”

We had started avoiding Bonnie to make a point about her involvement with The Jazz Club, but Bonnie Ty wasn’t the type who noticed avoidance and sat on our tables anyway in Alan’s eatery during teatime.

“She cooks really well, especially eggplants,” said Bonnie. “She still owns a bed.”

“What about the basement?” Leonardo asked.

“There’s a very pretty staircase leading down to it. She painted it yellow and blue. Very Mediterranean.”

“Have you asked about the medicine?” someone else asked.

“I told her all of you think she’s keeping it for herself.”

“What did you go and do that for?”

“She said it doesn’t bother her what you think but she doesn’t want to provoke you either by starting an argument.”

“She’s dangling a carrot in front of us. Where the hell are we supposed to get our stuff?” declared Derek Tan, who had bought a month’s supply of muscle relaxants for the twitches in his arm that afternoon outside Binondo. “She keeps this up and we’ll all end up like Jackson.”

Bonnie was improving. Her piano still sounded like a colicky baby, but it was growing up. One afternoon, she and T.C. finished the song without making a single mistake. It happened to be luck—the colic returned the next time—but T.C.’s last shimmer on the cymbals in congratulations to Bonnie was so magnificent that Michael Sytengco forgot himself and applauded.

• • • •

It was Leonardo Ang who had discovered Jackson. He had gone to the drugstore in the evening for some beta blockers for his father but no one was around. He called Jackson’s cellphone and he heard it ring from the basement. It didn’t stop. He went down the dusty staircase and found Jackson hunched over the granite-white, plastic folding table, his eyes closed and his head cradled in his arms, the way they used to pass the time in high school when the weather was balmy and the ceiling fan was lazy and the teacher wasn’t worth listening to.

• • • •

Alan Lim announced that he had always been in love with Miranda (nee) Go.

It wasn’t that he was leaving his wife and kids for her that floored us but that he had to announce it. He called every one of us on the phone and made sure we all understood that Miranda Go had been God’s gift to Binondo and he was going to bring her back.

That’s why he had been Jackson’s best customer.

We calmed him down. Miranda was no longer the pony-tailed girl with the heartbreaking smile Jackson Chua had first brought to Binondo to meet his parents. Miranda was a widow whose husband had left her for something both of them had wanted.

We stopped him, if only for the sake of his family, but we couldn’t stop Danielle refusing to sleep in the same bed as him. Sleep in the metaphorical sense, which was the only kind of sleep anyone was getting, but even that had gotten old and exhausting in recent memory.

“Wonder how she sleeps,” said Rafael out loud, hooking his thumb out towards The Jazz Club, which he was strolling past, “metaphorically. She has a bed, doesn’t she? Big enough for two?”

Leonardo was with him and pretended not to have heard because he was discreet the way T.C. wasn’t. She stuck her head out of the open window, the one Rafael had paid for, and said, “It’s big enough for anything. Hi, Rafael.” She asked him how his hand was doing and would he be interested in playing the trumpet with them. Rafael blustered and blushed and hid behind Leonardo.

Michael Sytengco was composing his operetta. When twilight fell and we renewed our nightly battle with the dark, the notes from his piano rippled against the fine grain of the timber of our homes, as clear as the stars we no longer wished to see.

• • • •

Leonardo’s heart had spilled over, not because of the usual reason, but because he thought Jackson had beaten the night at its own game and so could the rest of us. He left him in the basement, deliberately quiet on the stairs, and went to the apartment above. Daisy had opened the door, her face and her limp pigtails sticky with tomato paste. She was sulking because her mother said it was Faye’s turn to mix the spaghetti sauce.

Miranda was in the kitchen and Leonardo tried not to let the glowing ball of laughter in him overcome his words about the peace on Jackson’s face.

• • • •

It was appalling, how good Rafael was on the trumpet. Even Michael Sytengco had to admit it. The notes were whiskey cascading over Bonnie’s sharp rocks.

“So much for leopards and their spots,” said Leonardo.

“A leopard’s spots change when it matures from a kitten to an adult,” said Angela See, who had been class valedictorian.

“My father isn’t feeling well,” said Leonardo.

It was the kind of thing no one gave an answer to because it would be too depressing but the tune coming from a few blocks away was so jaunty that Angela made an effort to make sure Leonardo didn’t think she was being flippant. “No one is.”

“He’s nearly ninety. He can’t hear a thing without his hearing aids.”

The quiet ache of a minor seventh from the trumpet and T.C. followed Rafael’s phrasing with a spontaneous, graceful rubato, slowing down time, speeding it up, stealing it for him.

“He watches Sleep Watch all the time. He’s still obsessed about making it on that pointless program as if it’s the only thing worth doing.”

Angela didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t suppose he plays the double bass, does he?”

• • • •

The footage from Sleep Watch International had gone like this. Shots of Jackson’s storefront, an aluminum roll-up gate, from different angles. Miranda in a paisley blouse and homely white shorts, glaring at the cameras, her nose red, cheeks creased, the flesh between her eyes wet. She hiccupped when she breathed. Her arms were stiffly crossed like dried, wooden stakes. Then she went in and locked the door. The reporter started to speak and they replayed their shots of the roll-up gate and Miranda, because that was all she ever let them see.

Old Mrs. Chua had gilded someone’s palm and they got a coroner quickly, who declared Jackson dead by poisoning and no other questions asked. By the time Sleep Watch Local had gotten wind of what had happened and sent a crew, his body was already in the funeral parlor and his death certificate was being filed. Miranda would not let anyone in the reposing room. The funeral was a week later and by then Sleep Watch had lost interest.

Leonardo had been the only one outside of family Miranda had let in to see Jackson’s body in state. The rest of us cowered in our living rooms, letting the glowing clips of Jackson’s storefront and Miranda’s eyes reflect on our faces, knowing then thinking then hoping we would not be next.

• • • •

It was in the morning, as the sky only began to unfold itself to the light, when Leonardo rang up Sleep Watch. Epifanio had disappeared.

Leonardo had been watching one of their programs about a Swedish couple trying to go through one night with the lights turned off. He had gone to the bathroom when he noticed the door to his father’s room open. The TV set was turned off. Epifanio had left his hearing aids on the armchair.

The crew from Sleep Watch Local came, with a whiff of instant coffee and the thought that this was a matter for the police, but there was nothing to film except Epifanio Ang’s empty room and Leonardo saying his father has spent the evening before as usual drinking ginger tea and talking about the cat.

The rest of us searched the town for Epifanio and turned up with nothing.

“He’s in her basement,” insisted Derek Tan. “The cat’s there.”

“There’s no cat,” said Michael Sytengco, who had taken up a new habit of speaking audibly now.

“Why is she keeping that basement locked anyway?” said Alan, who was now living with his parents after Danielle threw him out of the apartment. He told her it wasn’t him, it was the music that had stirred up those confusing emotions about Miranda. Danielle wouldn’t have any of it. “Who is she to keep an old man and a cat apart?”

“Epifanio killed the cat,” said Angela irritably, “because he couldn’t sleep. It’s the same reason why he’s gone.”

“Because the band’s playing too loudly,” someone said.

“Because there’s medicine there she’s not giving us.”

“Because we’re next.”

Leonardo didn’t say anything and gave none of us catharsis. Everyone went home with a headache on top of the usual migraine. Michael Sytengco didn’t work on his operetta and the motor in Alan Lim’s wheelchair broke down. The segment on Epifanio didn’t air on Sleep Watch but we watched the channel the entire night anyway, feeding on other sleepless people in complicit silence.

• • • •

Leonardo brushed his teeth and gargled. It was seven o’clock in the evening. He hesitated at the sight of the striped pajamas. The last time he had put them on had nearly been a year.

Each button felt like a rung on a ladder leading to a cold abyss no one else knew about. If he dropped into the darkness, no one would notice. He would keep falling, the gravitational force pushing down his stomach until he went mad.

He turned the light off, the switch creaking its surprise. He almost cried out from the crushing embrace of the dark.

He had put the mattress on the floor in the middle of the room. Groping, he slipped under the starchy, newly-laundered covers and over the indentation he had left on the mattress before. He was suddenly claustrophobic and half-expected the walls of the bedroom to fall on top of him. He was sleepy—everyone was sleepy—but that meant nothing.

When he strapped the eye-mask on, he burst into a sweat. He lay there, frozen like a mummy, his arms forming a bridge over his stomach. He felt the pajamas sticking on his skin. He turned to lie on his side and thought how the movement meant he couldn’t sleep. He gave a groan to fill his head with the sound, hoping it would chase out the thought. It was getting hotter and hotter under the covers and he could feel his pores oozing out sweat. The darkness was smothering him.

Jackson’s face had been relaxed, oblivious to the poison that had killed him. His limbs had been loose. Leonardo tried to imitate him. He slackened his arms and legs and imagined his face was melting off. He imagined he was dead, dressed in his best suit in a casket his head on a white, satin pillow and his fingers crossed together, everything under the glass, words of kindness pinned to the white, satin underbelly of the casket lid, everything was white and satin and so many flowers and so many faces.

It took a while for Leonardo to realize he was crying. The eye-mask was wet. His chest felt it was close to collapsing onto itself and he was about to fall off the bed. He pulled the mask off and sat up, trying to control his heavy breathing.

He didn’t turn the light on. If he did, everything in its stark, normal whiteness would make him feel foolish for crying. The stark, normal whiteness had been there for so long it had already transformed the night into a perpetual day.

The apartment was on the sixth floor. His father’s bedroom faced the main road and his own faced a smaller one. It would make less of a scene. He turned the air-conditioner off. The curtains felt almost like an accomplice, the way they slipped readily from his fingers.

The Jazz Club was across the other side of the road two blocks down. Practice was on and he could hear someone shouting very loudly. The voice was familiar, like the coldness of the thin, metal railing of his balcony. He leaned over. A small lizard clutched the edge with its toes, caught halfway between the careless slip of muscle and an angel’s lofty hands.

• • • •

The story goes that Epifanio Ang thought the cat was in the basement of The Jazz Club and the only way it would leave him alone was if he rescued it.

The rest of the story gets muddled. If you ask Angela See, she’ll tell you that despite what everyone is saying about the night Derek broke into The Jazz Club’s basement, Rafael never knocked Epifanio down when the old man tried to force his way into The Jazz Club. Epifanio’s boxer shorts were soiled and he looked like he hadn’t eaten since he had left home; when he appeared at The Jazz Club’s window and started rapping at the door, he’d already looked ready to faint. T.C. offered to bring him home, but he kept insisting about the cat. He didn’t have his hearing aids on and the argument escalated to the point that when Epifanio shoved T.C. out of the way, his blood pressure got the best of him and he fell down and the fact of the matter was Rafael had caught him.

Danielle still refuses to talk about Alan, so there’s no point asking her about his involvement in Derek’s breaking in. Distraction, says Bonnie. Alan was the distraction. There she was, practicing with Rafael and T.C., when Derek and Alan, who was back on his legs again because he didn’t have another wheelchair, came in with the Korean boy from the pastry shop in tow. They said he played the cello. Close enough to the double bass. Not really, but T.C. sat Roh Sang-deuk behind the double bass anyway and the boy limply plucked the bass line to the Nina Simone song they had practiced before, missing notes. It was only when Epifanio came by and started losing it that Bonnie saw Alan moving to the basement staircase and she realized Derek was gone.

That everyone except Epifanio went down and found Derek with an open bag of tools and an even more open door to the basement is the clearest it’s ever gotten to. Beyond that is the only thing that can shut Bonnie up. Alan and Derek don’t even want to think about it. It’s embarrassing to ask T.C. and Rafael’s too distraught to talk of anything else but T.C. turning him down. The rest is all rumors about Jackson’s ghost.

The bestsellers at Roh’s Bakeshop are still the original green-bean pastries. Sometimes you can catch Sang-deuk’s cello groaning away upstairs. He’s the unlikeliest candidate, but if you ask Mr. Roh what his son saw in the basement, he’ll try to tell you in his broken Tagalog the only thing Sang-deuk thought was worth noting about the basement was how dark it was before they turned the lights on. It was almost the deep, warm nothingness of sleep. Otherwise it was an ordinary basement, entirely empty except for a granite-white, plastic folding table starting to yellow on the side. The place was very clean. Almost shrine-like.

The turnout at The Jazz Club’s mini-concert is a quarter of the town, including Alan and Derek. The bluesy, heart-wrenching wails Rafael pulls from the horn bring Michael Sytengco to tears and now everyone’s uncomfortable. Leonardo has brought his father along. We should go say hi. They say Leonardo appeared at The Jazz Club, helping his father back on his feet, when everyone came up from the basement. What Leonardo was doing in his pajamas out in the street, his eyes red as blood, looking like Jackson’s ghost depending on the light, but smiling, smiling almost like an idiot, squeezing the life out of his father, we never found out. There’s a conversation starter and it’ll last us a while, maybe even a month. Moon’s full tonight. A quarter of the town is here and T.C. has just broken out the beer and who knows when the night is ending.

©2012 by Crystal Koo. Originally published in Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology, ed. Charles Tan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Crystal Koo’s fiction has been published in multiple venues including The Apex Book of World SF 4, Abyss and Apex, Maximum Volume: Best New Filipino Fiction, and International Speculative Fiction. She was a winner of the Carlos Palanca award and the Hong Kong Top Story award. She was born in Manila, worked as a lecturer in Hong Kong, and is currently doing a PhD in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. You can find her at http://cgskoo.wordpress.com and @crystalkoo on Twitter.

Ti-Jean’s Last Adventure, as Told to Raccoon

KT Bryski | 2440 words

Okay. So.

There’s a time when I’m looking for Coyote, because I need to tell him this story. So, I walk the St. Lawrence River from one end to the other, and I cannot find him. Check the Rockies—he is not there. I even paddle to Baffin Island, because he likes to sleep on it. It is Coyote-shaped, a little.

He’s not anywhere. But me, I have a story to tell, and so I look for someone else. Raven is not home, and Muskrat is doing Netflix and chill. Moose is too tired, and Polar Bear too endangered. Myself, I am discouraged, and so I skulk through Toronto.

But then, in an alley off West Queen West, I hear Raccoon talking to himself. I poke my head in, and Raccoon, he’s sitting with his back against the brick wall, plastic bags and takeout boxes piled up like a throne. I sit beside him, cursing as I kneel on bus transfers and cigarette butts. He doesn’t look up.

“Raccoon,” I say, “you want to hear a story?”

“What kind of story?” Raccoon says.

“A Canadian story,” I say.

“I got a story, too.”

“But I’m speaking now.”

Raccoon sighs. “Do I have to stop eating?”

“Non.”

“Okay,” Raccoon says.

“D’accord,” I say, and start:

• • • •

Il était une fois—there was a time when Ti-Jean was very old. His fiddle was long out of tune, and his brothers Cordon-Bleu and Cordon-Vert had moved away. He’d spent the gold the Devil put in his tuque, and the bones of the seven-headed dragon he’d killed were crumbled to dust.

One day, he was sitting by the fire when

• • • •

“Wait,” Raccoon says. “Ti-Jean had brothers? There was a seven-headed dragon?”

“Those are Ti-Jean’s other adventures,” I say. “Don’t you know any heritage?”

“Oh, right,” Raccoon says. “I forgot.”

• • • •

One day, he was sitting by the fire when the door creaked open. A rush of cold wind swept in, and the fire hissed and went dark.

Ti-Jean—the same Ti-Jean who had once felled whole forests with one axe-stroke, and fiddled three nights without rest—he struggled to rise from his chair. All his joints snapped, and all his bones ached, and a low moan dribbled between his lips.

“Allô?” he called weakly. “Who is there?”

“C’est moi.”

Ti-Jean gaped as a young maiden stepped into his cabin. Her white dress fluttered in the wind, and her white hair streamed behind her. With eyes clear and grey as storm-swept ice, she gazed on Ti-Jean.

“It is me,” she repeated. “La Morte.”

• • • •

“I don’t know French,” Raccoon says.

“You should,” I say.

“Well, do you know Cree? Algonquin?” Raccoon pauses. “Inuktitut?”

I don’t answer.

“Is the lady Death?” Raccoon asks. “Shouldn’t Death be dressed in black?”

“Death looks like snow,” I say. “Canadians have a deep-rooted fear of dying alone in the snow.”

“Fair enough,” Raccoon says.

• • • •

“Ti-Jean,” Death said, “your time has come.”

“I think,” Ti-Jean said, his gnarled fingers tightening on his cane, “that I would like one last adventure. I should like to escape from you.”

“A game, my brave Ti-Jean?’

“Ouais! A game!” Some of the old strength returned to his voice. He hardly shivered as Death drew nearer, her skirt trailing snowflakes over the floor. “If I escape from you three times

• • • •

“Here, fairy tales happen in fours,” Raccoon says.

“In our fairy tales, it’s three.”

“Well, we’re in Toronto, so it should be four.”

“But I’m the one telling the story,” I say.

“But—” Raccoon says.

“You aren’t listening.”

“Fine,” Raccoon says. “Have it your way.”

• • • •

“If I escape from you three times, I win,” Ti-Jean said. “And you will not take me—not yet, at least.”

Death’s lips were grey as she smiled. “Bien, Ti-Jean, I accept.” With that, she beckoned him. “Come, let us away.”

Before they left the cabin, Ti-Jean grabbed a sewing needle, an old buckwheat galette he’d meant to eat the week before, and his tuque. Wordlessly, Death led him through the forest to the river. A pale canoe waited, and Death nodded towards it. “Get in, Ti-Jean. I will paddle.”

Not since he was a little boy had Ti-Jean sat in the front of a canoe. But how heavy his arms felt, how weak his hands. And so, nodding curtly, he crawled to the bow. Death knelt behind him, steering the canoe with smooth, sure strokes.

Through the forest, tiny lights flickered. No ordinary lights were these, but feux-follets: impish spirits, bent on leading travellers astray. Ti-Jean grinned and pulled out his sewing needle. Quickly, so Death did not see, he threw it at a far-distant tree. It stuck fast in the trunk.

The feux-follets swarmed. They clustered around the tree, each trying to pass through the eye of the needle. From the canoe, they looked like a single lantern, hung to guide them.

“How strange,” Death said, “to reach my land so quickly.” But she paddled towards the riverbank. The moment the bow scraped over the rocky shore, Ti-Jean tottered from the canoe, and by the time Death realized the trick he had played, he was already limping home.

• • • •

“They sound like will-o-the-wisps,” Raccoon says.

“Ouais,” I say.

“Do Americans have feux-follets?”

I think. “Possibly in Maine.”

“Maine’s okay. They can be in Maine.”

“Ouais,” I say. “They can be in Maine.”

• • • •

When Death stomped into Ti-Jean’s cabin for the second time, leaves and twigs poked from her hair. Dirt smeared her frozen white face. Two of her nails were broken.

“Bon soir,” Ti-Jean said, curled up nice and snug with his blanket thrown over his lap. “You look tired, mam’selle. Would you care for tea?”

“Non!” Death blew out Ti-Jean’s lamp and tossed his boots at him. “We have wasted enough time.”

“You know,” Ti-Jean said, as they set off once more, “you might consider some whisky. Your nerves are very tight.”

Death said nothing, but ahead, a copse of trees shattered like ice. A passing owl plummeted from the sky, shedding feathers. And finally, an old cow-moose keeled over with a thump.

“No whisky, then,” Ti-Jean said. “C’est d’accord—more for me.”

Silently, Death ushered Ti-Jean into the canoe. While they sped upriver, Ti-Jean slumped. Lulled by the splashing paddle, he fought to stay awake, but

• • • •

“Hold on,” Raccoon says, digging into the takeout boxes. “Snack break.”

“What are you eating?” I ask.

“Pork bun. Goat roti. Falafel.”

“Nothing Canadian?”

Tahini coats his whiskers. “Tastes Canadian to me.”

• • • •

Slowly, slowly, Ti-Jean drifted to sleep. When he woke, a cream-coloured blanket covered him, striped green and red, yellow and blue. “Whose is this?” he asked, adjusting it more snugly.

“Mine,” said Death. Before Ti-Jean could answer, a thin smile curved her lips. “We are here.”

They had beached at a small inlet. Rising, Ti-Jean tried to climb ashore, but his back seized, his knees buckled, and he sprawled into a drift. For a moment, he lay there, melting snow running like tears down his cheeks.

“Oh, my dear Ti-Jean . . .” Death sank beside him, stroking his shoulder with a cold hand. “You are so tired.”

• • • •

“That’s nice of her,” Raccoon says. “Unusual, but nice.”

• • • •

After a moment longer, Death eased Ti-Jean upright. Blinking, he peered through the darkness. Sheer granite cliffs tore the sky. Beyond, the northern lights whirled and danced. If Ti-Jean squinted very hard, he just glimpsed a tiny yellow light between the cliffs, like a distant cabin at journey’s end.

“Before we depart, mam’selle,” Ti-Jean said, “may I wash my face?”

Death lost her softness. Drawing herself upright, far taller than Ti-Jean, she scowled. “Downriver from the canoe. I do not want you escaping in it.”

“Bien sûr!” Ti-Jean shuffled past Death. Bending over the water, he let the week-old buckwheat galette slip into the river. As it bobbed in the current, it grew bigger, and bigger, until it was a galette large enough to hold Ti-Jean. With a merry wink to Death, he hopped on, pushed off the bank, and floated all the way home.

• • • •

“They were having a nice moment,” Raccoon says.

“It was a trick,” I say.

Raccoon ponders a torn magazine by his paw. A ripped woman smiles up at us, clutching a cream-and-striped Hudson’s Bay blanket. “They usually are,” he says.

• • • •

And so Ti-Jean had escaped from Death twice. “But to win our little game,” he muttered, “there must be one more.”

Turning his tuque over in his hands, he got an idea. Quietly, he left his cabin and called into the woods, “Nanabozho?”

The stars glittered overhead, and there was no answer.

“Nanabozho!” he called again. “It is your friend, Ti-Jean.”

A bush rustled nearby. Nanabozho peered through barren branches, his eyes narrowed. “What is it, Ti-Jean?”

And Ti-Jean told Nanabozho the whole story of his game with Death, and all his escapes so far. He made them sound far grander than they were, but Nanabozho was a trickster, too, and so he understood.

“And for this last trick,” Ti-Jean finished, “I need your help.” Triumphantly, he held his tuque aloft. “You will wear my hat, and Death will think that you are me. While she takes you to her far country, I will escape!”

Nanabozho frowned at Ti-Jean’s ratty tuque. “You want me to dress like you . . . and let Death take me away?”

• • • •

“This symbolism makes me very uncomfortable,” Raccoon says.

“I never thought about it,” I say.

• • • •

“Ben ouais!” exclaimed Ti-Jean.

“Not in a million years,” said Nanabozho, and he left Ti-Jean standing alone in the forest, tuque outstretched.

Ti-Jean bit his lip, thinking hard. Then, he raised his voice again: “Glooscap!”

• • • •

“When will he learn?” Raccoon asks.

“I don’t know.”

• • • •

“Wisakedjak! Kiviuq!”

• • • •

“Can he learn?”

“I don’t know.”

• • • •

Name after name he called, but Ti-Jean could not find anyone to dress as him. As he pondered, something crashed through the bush beside him. He startled, preparing to hide from Death, but it was only another old man—with a rifle clutched in his spotted hands, and his thick beard covering his chest like snow.

“Did I hear you calling, son?” the old man asked.

“Oui!” said Ti-Jean.

“Do you need saving from the British?” The old man hefted his rifle. “I’m very good at saving people from the British.”

“Non, merci, not today.”

“We can be over in a jiffy, if you change your mind.”

“Another time,” Ti-Jean said. “Listen.” And he told the man all about Death. “But no one will wear my tuque,” he finished.

The old man dug a finger in his ear. “I’ll do it. Just gotta cowboy up.”

“You are a good friend, hein?”

“Ayup,” said the old man. “Mostly.”

• • • •

“Huzzah!” Raccoon shouts. “He’s from Maine!”

“Oui,” I say.

“See, Maine is okay.”

“Don’t forget the other states,” I say. “They’re good friends, too.”

“Mostly,” Raccoon says. “When they’re not saving us.”

• • • •

And so the little old man from Maine went to sit in Ti-Jean’s cabin, wearing Ti-Jean’s tuque. Meanwhile, Ti-Jean hobbled through the forest. A terrible thought had struck him. Even if he won their little game, he had not truly escaped Death. She would linger: in every approaching storm, around every river bend, at the bottom of every empty flour barrel.

“What must I do,” Ti-Jean cried, “to escape Death forever?”

“You must become a Story,” Death said.

• • • •

“Wait,” Raccoon says.

• • • •

Ti-Jean startled. He had not noticed Death walking so close to him. But then, no one does. In one hand, Death held his tattered tuque. Against her white skirts, it resembled nothing so much as a lump of chewed wool.

“If you’re a Story,” she said quietly, “you change, but you never really die.”

• • • •

“Wait,” Raccoon says. “I see what you’re doing.”

“Oh?” I say.

Raccoon nods. “Story-cycles are very common in French Canada. They end at the beginning, and then they start over.”

“That’s true,” I say.

“I’ve got a story like that. Okay. So. This one time—”

“But I’m telling my story,” I say.

Raccoon’s black lips peel back. Shreds of pork poke through his teeth.

“You have to wait your turn,” I say.

“Over five hundred years,” Raccoon says. “And I’m still waiting.”

• • • •

Ti-Jean thought for so long, he needed to sit down. “But if I am a Story,” he said, “it is not exactly the same as being alive.”

“Perhaps not.” Gently, Death placed Ti-Jean’s tuque on his head. “But you can have new adventures forever.”

• • • •

“Okay, Ti-Jean,” Raccoon says. “You’ve told me your story. You became a cultural figure, a folk hero. You escaped Death for good. Bravo.”

“I’m not Ti-Jean,” I say.

• • • •

“What if the people grow tired of me?” Ti-Jean asked. “What if they stop telling my Story? What if they forget?”

“Then we must find a way to make those stories new.”

• • • •

“In that case,” Raccoon says. “I have a confession.” Under his mask, his needle-like teeth shine in a fierce smile. His dark eyes glow suddenly yellow. “I’m not Raccoon.”

“Oh.” For a long time, I can’t think of anything to say. “So you learned to hide, hein?”

“A story made new,” Coyote agrees, his blunt claws tearing into a Styrofoam container. Then he pauses. “It was a nice moment you had,” he says. “You and Ti-Jean.”

“Over too soon,” I say.

“That’s what I said, when your ships arrived.” He pauses. “You sound different. This story skipped all the British parts.”

“Next time.”

• • • •

Ti-Jean struggled upright, adjusting his tuque. “D’accord,” he said. “Make me a Story, then. Then I’ll come with you.”

So Death began to make Ti-Jean a Story.

“Tell me to someone good,” Ti-Jean said. “Tell me to another trickster.”

• • • •

“So.” Tartar sauce and grease spill down Coyote’s chest. “Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know.” I wipe my hands on my pants, the white denim stained with oil, earth, and blood. Mostly blood. “Everything’s so complicated, now.”

“It was always complicated,” says Coyote. “You just never listened before.” He holds out a plastic bag. “You want some bannock and Timbits?”

“Merci.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Coyote says. “But it’s my turn to be storyteller. Got that?”

“Okay,” I say.

“You’re awake now?”

“Very much.”

“Over five hundred years, I’ve been waiting,” Coyote says. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. This is going to be good.”

He clears his throat. “Okay. So.”

I listen.

©2019 by KT Bryski.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KT Bryski is a Canadian author, podcaster, and playwright. Her short fiction has appeared in Apex, Strange Horizons, and Daily Science Fiction, among others. She currently serves as the Apex Magazine podcast producer, and her audio dramas Coxwood History Fun Park and Six Stories, Told at Night are available wherever fine podcasts are found. Select theatre credits include Six Stories, Told at Night (Toronto Fringe), A Canticle of Light (Missed Metaphor Productions), and East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon (Canadian Children’s Opera Company).

KT is a Sunburst finalist, Stonecoast MFA alum, and guardian to a very strange cat. When not writing, she frolics through Toronto enjoying choral music and craft beer. Visit her at www.ktbryski.com or find her on Twitter @ktbryski.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

The Terrible Oath

Ashok K. Banker | 13620 words

1

The nation greeted Vrath with great warmth and approval. The Burnt Empire regarded its liege as nothing less than a demi-god; in a sense, this was not far from the truth: Whether or not the Krushan dynasty was in fact born of stonefire, they were certainly something more than human. In the Krushan tongue, which was the official language of the capitol Hastinaga and the rest of the Empire, there was no word for “lie” or “falsehood.” If Emperor Sha’ant spoke words, they were the truth, plain and simple. They had never had reason to assume it was anything but.

Their gullibility notwithstanding, they were in fact told the truth: that Vrath was the son of their late Queen, that she had had to leave them unexpectedly before delivering him, and his nurture and education had been accomplished by the most renowned sages possible. Now that he was of age, he had returned to aid his father in administering to the needs of the kingdom.

And for those few political foxes and disgruntled allies (adept at concealing their disgruntlement while biding their time for an opportunity to strike, like cobras lurking in the shadows), there was the Test of Fire to prove or disprove any doubts.

The Burning Throne received Vrath with no less warmth and acceptance.

The great black stonefire-carved edifice blazed forth ropes of living flame, embracing Vrath’s magnificent form, entwining sensuously, sinuously around his muscled limbs and chiselled features, like fire dancers performing a body dance that would cause any person, male or female, to achieve ecstasy. As it drew him upon its fire-hewn, throne-shaped form, the sorcerous flames blazed up blindingly high, higher even than they had for Sha’ant himself decades earlier. The stonefire roared deafeningly for a long time, causing the all-too mortal spectators to perspire and remember their own lack of Krushan immortality, and its legion of voices spoke in tongues alien and unheard on Arthaloka in recorded history, as if discussing and debating the myriad merits of its newest occupant.

When the flames died down, reluctantly it would seem, revealing Vrath seated imperiously upon the Burning Throne, not a hair on his handsome head singed, nor a blemish on his flawless skin, his eyes open and as glacial as the ice crown that capped Mount Coldheart, any doubters were forced to bite their tongues and question their disloyalties, if any, to the great Burnt Empire. For none could doubt that not only was this new heir apparent a true Krushan, but that he was something exceptional even amongst an extraordinary lineage.

Even so, Sha’ant wisely waited a respectable amount of time before officially announcing Vrath as his heir apparent. He was a popular liege, perhaps the most popular of his line until now, and the people would need time to accept anyone else in his place, even if that person were the most worthy Krushan since the eponymous founder of the dynasty. During this period, the young prince won hearts and dazzled even the most skeptical minds with his natural boyish charm, incredible mastery of weapons, and unmatched valor. Soon, there seemed to be nothing Vrath could not do, and with the charm, grace, and gentle manner of all truly great men.

2

By the time Sha’ant installed him as crown prince and Vrath became Prince Vrath, he was already the most beloved crown prince to grace Hastinaga. In four short years, the young boy Sha’ant had encountered by the river had grown to become an admirable young man. His innocence had been honed away through exposure to the daily politics of statecraft, replaced by a canny understanding and insight into human nature and ambition.

Yet he never succumbed to shrewdness, grew wily, or resorted to manipulations in order to have his way. He proved himself a much more resourceful player than all those who stooped to such petty trickery. He was a master of the art of kingship and his natural innocence and boyish charms belied a keen and insightful knowledge of every aspect of governance. He routinely shocked opponents by turning the tables on them just when they were certain of success, or thwarting their designs by the simplest and most obvious of methods.

Even in his moments of triumph, he never rubbed salt in their wounds or pressed their noses into the foulness of their mistakes, choosing instead to smile with a twinkle in his eye and a friendly pat on the back. This won over more rivals and opponents than outright conflict, and in time, even those who had resented him the most began to ease their efforts to unseat him or thwart him, choosing instead to become allies and benefit from his rise and governance.

Many became his disciples in all but name, studying his canny moves and choices, marveling at the way he handled delicate matters, learning his methods—yet even they came to realize in time that his store of wisdom was far deeper than they could fathom in one lifetime. He had no set methods or approach; it was as if he knew precisely how to deal with each individual problem on its own merits. The only thing they truly learned from him was that they could never govern as wisely as he did.

In four years, everyone who knew him came to love, respect, admire, and rely on Vrath. Even those who hated him grudgingly accepted his superiority and allied with him for their own benefit, little realizing that it was he who was wise enough to let them stay alive and in power so that he might know, monitor, and control his enemies.

Even at that tender age—he appeared to be twenty-something in physical years—he was already wise enough to know that a powerful king always had enemies. It was best to keep them close to oneself and watch them closely, rather than foolishly waste one’s efforts constantly battling and chasing after them. This way, it was in his enemies’ interest to see Hastinaga prosper and the Krushan empire grow in strength and wealth, so that someday, when the time was right, they could reap the rewards of decades of sowing.

Sha’ant watched with constant amazement as his son took over the reins of kingship so effortlessly that it soon seemed as if Vrath had always ruled and always would. He was like a force of nature: immutable, constant, dependable, perfect in his judgement and knowledge, just in his choices, merciful in his sentencing, and wise beyond measure in his foresights and foreknowledge.

Even Sha’ant found himself learning from him rather than teaching him. He recalled Jeel’s words that their son had been well schooled by the greatest of gurus and he marveled at how much had been taught to the young man in so short a time. He had no way of knowing, of course, that Vrath had spent not merely fifteen years in study but fifteen hundred—for in the ocean of stories, time flowed at a different pace and his young son had imbibed all the collective knowledge of all the Krushan people and all the Krushan kings of his line, learned from their mistakes and successes, and gained wisdom that no ordinary mortal could ever hope to acquire in one lifetime.

There were many advantages to being the son of a goddess and the reincarnation of a demi-god; this was one of them.

The other great advantage was his prowess at war. In a sense, it was this formidable ability, coupled with his keen political acumen, that forced his enemies to resort to quietude and alliance to survive.

For Vrath could not be beaten in battle. This premise was tested frequently at first, then rarely, then almost never, for there comes a time when such a man’s fame itself becomes his most powerful weapon. Any challenger to Krushan dominance had only to be told the single word—“Vrath”—and he would pale and put down his weapon and go home to his cookfire. For the whole wide world soon came to know that the son of Sha’ant could not be bested in any form of combat: single, melee, or pitched battle. Or for that matter, in the use of any weapon.

Still, there were some who were foolish enough to test this reputation. They rarely survived long enough to realize their own folly.

After four years had passed, Sha’ant was satisfied that his son’s kingship and governance was secure and would endure even without his presence. Indeed, he had deliberately chosen to take a subservient role and let Vrath take on more power and responsibility with each passing year. He began to withdraw from the daily tasks of a king and to prepare for an early retirement.

Yet he was still too young to go into the forest and spend the rest of his life pursuing austerities. As his responsibilities decreased and his mind had more time to turn to other matters, the loneliness that had engulfed him those many years ago returned, gradually at first, then with an overwhelming rush that threatened to overpower and incapacitate him. The very sight and sound of Vrath reminded him constantly of his lost love. He loved his son dearly, but that intense love only made him long for his wife all the more. He frequently lamented the fact that they could not be together as one united family, enjoying one another’s company and love. But he also once more longed for a woman to love and be loved by. For having known true love once, the heart can never truly accept the solitary state as anything but a lesser condition.

In time he ceased his visits to the riverside that he had loved for so long. He had accepted the cruel sentence to which fate had condemned him and knew that his beloved Jeel could never return to him. Seeing her watery aspect, however remote that might seem from the living, breathing flesh-and-blood woman he had long ago held in his arms, kissed and loved, only served to aggravate his heartache.

Sha’ant took to travelling by different routes, hunting in different forests. Since being within reach of a river was essential and inevitable on his travels, he made sure that it was any river but the Jeel. Little did he realize that all rivers are sisters and Jeel watched over him no matter where he went, whether through her sister Yamuna or others, and not a day went by when she did not miss him as much as he missed her.

If anything, her heartache was greater, for she could see him anytime she wished and so she was constantly reminded of the love and companionship she had lost forever.

3

It was while walking by the Ye’al that the course of Sha’ant’s life took another turn.

Listless and unable to enjoy the pleasure of the hunt as he once had, he was wandering the banks of the river, lost in his own thoughts, when suddenly he grew aware of an exceptionally sweet floral fragrance that enveloped him on all sides. The sweetness of the odor was all the more remarkable because it was not the season for such aromatic flowers to blossom, and try as he might, he could find none in sight.

Using the same skills that served him so well as a hunter, he tracked the fragrance to its source. When he saw a boat pulled up by the bank and a woman seated within it, an oar in hand, he was struck by her beauty. She rose at the sight of the stranger, assuming him to be a potential passenger. He stood before her, staring unabashedly, unable to believe that she was the source of the powerful aroma. Embarrassed by his stare, she lowered her eyelashes demurely and waited for him to board her boat.

Understanding that she was a ferrywoman, Sha’ant climbed aboard her craft. She reached out a hand to help him aboard, and as she touched him, he felt his skin ignite with a fiery sensation he had never felt before. He jerked back his hand, seating himself heavily and setting the boat sloshing to and fro. The woman steadied it with the use of the oar, her shoulders and arms displaying considerable strength coupled with feminine grace. He could not help but watch her back and shoulder muscles move as she worked the oars, turning the head of the boat around to push it off shore.

As she rowed, Sha’ant was taken by the way her physical beauty and aromatic odor captivated him, and the intelligence and intuitiveness he glimpsed in her eyes caused him to respect her as well. He could not recall the last time he had been so overwhelmed by a woman. Except, of course, for his beloved Jeel herself. He was simultaneously surprised and a little guilty at the passion he found stirring within him and attempted to look away, staring out across the river as they commenced the long, slow crossing.

The tide was relentless if steady and it took considerable skill and effort as well as a keen knowledge of the currents for the woman to steer and row the boat in a reasonably straight line across the river. Lesser boatmen would have offloaded their fare half a mile downriver, given the width of the river and the strength of the current. In that he found another reason to desire her, for he admired great prowess in any person, no matter their varna or vocation. He could see that she was no mere beauty, but was a master of her craft as well.

Still, being a king and a widower in the eyes of society—for to all intents and purposes the woman he had wedded no longer existed in mortal form, so what else would he call himself but widower, or Vidhur, to use the ashcrit word—it would not be right for him to simply throw himself at a strange woman. She could be already married and perhaps even a mother for all he knew. Another complication was that so firmly had he put all thoughts of ever loving or marrying again out of his mind that it was difficult to even contemplate the thought of broaching the matter.

But the heart wants what the heart wants, and by the time the beautiful ferrywoman had rowed Sha’ant across the river to the far bank of the Yamuna, he could not bear to leave her company without at least speaking with her briefly. His opportunity arose when she brought the boat to rest on the south bank and waited quietly for him to disembark, keeping her eyes lowered to the rippling wash.

“How much do I owe you, beautiful lady?” he asked.

She started at his words. This pleased him, for it indicated that she had not become cynical about or inured to such compliments; with her extraordinary beauty, that could only mean that she was too young to have met many men, for he had no doubt that were she to go out into the world, there would be a rainstorm of such compliments showered down upon her daily. But then she spoke and her voice, too, thrilled him, sending a flurry of unwanted emotions surging through his being like a sudden flux of the current under the surface of the river.

“I am but a fisherman’s daughter, sire,” she said. “You may pay me what you can. My father says that it is our Krushan duty to help those who wish to cross and how can one put a price on duty?”

He was pleased at this response. It indicated good manners and learning. But that voice! And that beauty. It was beyond his tolerance to now ignore how he felt.

Yet he was a king and kings did not carry coin or items of trade, so he had naught to pay her with. He tugged off the first ring that came to hand and held it out to her.

The woman was demure and innocent enough that she accepted it without a glance. But as her palm opened to receive the payment, he enfolded her hand in his own, tightly. She gasped at the sudden contact and her eyes instantly went to his face . . . and as her beautiful dark eyes stared into his own, he felt a rush of pleasure such as he had not experienced since—since far too long.

His entire body felt as if ablaze, his skin tingling from the contact of their open palms. He had never known any woman whose scent alone could provoke such feelings in him. The way her back arched, her lips parted, her dark skin and coal-black complexion, her dusky aspect and perfectly shaped features, her musical voice . . . everything about her pleased him greatly. He knew then and there that if he were to ever find happiness again with any woman, it would be with her. He might search the world over and not find another like her. She could never replace his Jeel—no woman could. New loves do not replace old ones but only add to the layers of heart-knowledge by nourishing that essential muscle with new affections.

“My lord,” she said, “why do you take my hand thus? What is it you desire?”

He looked into her eyes and inhaled her anxiety and her excitement, and saw that there were indications of interest in her as well. She was flushed and blushing, a thin layer of sweat had appeared on her upper lip, and her body was arched towards his.

“I desire you, lady,” he said gently, unable to stop himself. “I would have you row me through the journey of life.”

She stared at him for a moment, then understanding dawned. Now she blushed even more profusely and he was thrilled to see the change in hue of her dark complexion as her excitement showed itself. Yes, she was not disgusted or dismayed by his proposal; she was intrigued . . . or perhaps even aroused.

She dropped her gaze to the river again, her free hand remaining on the oar, holding the boat in place, and it would occur to Sha’ant later that any fisherman’s daughter strong enough to row a boat across the Yamuna at one of its widest points could surely have struck him down and beaten down his advances with that same oar had she desired. There was no doubt at all about it: She chose to let her hand—and possibly her heart—be captured by Sha’ant.

“I cannot speak of such things, sire,” she said, keeping her eyes averted from his face. “You must speak to my father if you have such intentions.”

He nodded. “Very well then. Tell me your name and your father’s name that I may do so.”

She glanced up at him in shock. “You have only known me a short hour!”

“And I now wish to know you for the rest of my days.”

Her throat worked as she stared at him a moment longer, wide-eyed. She seemed to see something in his intensity and determination that had a profound effect on her and looked down again, but not before smiling briefly up at him: the smile of a woman who has just been paid the highest compliment and is overwhelmed with delight.

“I was born Kali but came to be called Jilana,” she said softly, her voice a lyric song pitched against the Yamuna’s background chorales. “My father is the chief of the Manchodri fishermen.”

Sha’ant frowned. “Manchodri . . .”

“It is the region known by the name Riverside to travelers.”

He nodded. He knew the territory of which she spoke—it was a patch of forested land on the vast north-central plain through which the Yamuna mysteriously chose to take a westward turn, doubling back upon its own course for reasons that none had been able to fathom. It was taken as one of many such signs marking the greatness of the Krushan empire, for it was one of several borders that marked the limits of the territories won by his ancestor King Sha’ard in the legendary and crucial Battle of Eleven Nations which first established the race of people descended of Krushan upon this mortal realm of Arthaloka. The bend in the river, if imagined from a bird’s eye view—or god’s eye view, if one wished—could be interpreted as a finger pointing to Hastinaga, the seat of the Krushan dynasty. The part of the river Jilana described was in that same region.

She looked up at him bashfully again, and he saw her gaze flit across his person from head to toe, taking in his attire, his jewels, his bow and quiver, seeing him with a frank curiosity he found refreshingly direct. “Clearly, you are a great lord, sire.”

He smiled. “I asked your name and about your father. You have every right to ask mine as well.”

She smiled and kept her eyes lowered to the level of his chest, saying nothing.

“I am Emperor Sha’ant, son of Shapaar, lord of the Krushan.”

Her eyes widened but her gaze remained fixed on his chest. “Emperor of the Krushan,” she said, wonderingly, “Master of Hastinaga.”

He bowed his head. “Hastinaga, Nagapura, Krushan kshetra, Krushan rajya, Krushan-varsha . . . call it what you will.”

And he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. He kept his lips parted and moist, tasting her hand as much as kissing it.

She gasped with pleasure, as if he had put his open mouth upon her body, not merely her palm.

“I am eternally your servant,” he said.

Her gaze shot up to his face, her eyes startled, yet still displaying signs of obvious pleasure. “Nay, my lord,” she said, “I am but a humble fisherman’s daughter. You are the greatest emperor of our age. It is I who will be always in your service.”

He shook his head. “You do not know me yet, Jilana. Once you come to know me well, you shall understand that love is the greatest kingdom of all, and she who rules the kingdom of love is the most powerful emperor. I have given my heart in tribute to you, and now it remains only for your father to accept my offer, and put me in eternal loving subjugation to you.”

She stared at him directly, her breathing hastened, her face flushed. Drops of perspiration were visible on her bare shoulders and upper chest.

Sha’ant kissed her palm again, then released her hand at last. “I now take your leave,” he said. “I shall go to your father in state and ask for your hand in marriage. Then I shall bring you to Hastinaga where you shall rule as the empress of my heart, queen of my nation, and mistress of my race.”

His heart sang as he walked along the bank of the Yamuna and it was all he could do to not dance and sing in joy, for it felt as if a great cloud that had been lurking over his head for years had at long last dissipated, permitting the sun to once again shine down on him and bathe him in its golden warmth. All he desired now was to return home and arrange for an entourage to visit Jilana’s father with due pomp and ceremony as soon as realistically possible.

It took him the better part of an hour of brisk walking before he realized he was on the wrong side of the river and he would now have to travel miles out of his way to return home.

4

Jilana heard a commotion outside her home and knew it must have something to do with her suitor Sha’ant.

She had made an excuse to be let off ferry duty for a few days and had stayed home, rarely venturing away, in anticipation of Sha’ant’s arrival. Her father had found this odd, since Jilana hated being cloistered at home and was always out and about when she was not ferrying. His concern for her behavior manifested itself in various puzzled glances and sounds of curiosity, but since she made no move to explain herself, he did not press her further. But now, when the entire fishing village of Riverside seemed to be in an uproar, she knew her patience had been rewarded. Her suitor had come as he had promised!

Several people burst into her house, chattering excitedly. “Chief!” they called to her father. “The great emperor himself comes to grace your house! He has come with a fabulous procession, in full state and finery!”

“Chariots!” cried another man.

“Elephants!” someone else said.

“Jeweled crowns!”

“Soldiers, on horses, in fine uniforms!”

“Banners and flags on lances!”

And from the sounds of the conch shells, elephants lowing and horses neighing and clip-clopping, it was evident that the procession had now arrived at the doorstep of the chief.

Her father shushed his people and told them to make way if the great lord wished to enter. Then he glanced at Jilana, frowning as if wondering whether this unexpected event had something to do with her being at home.

She blushed and looked away.

When she glanced back again, he was grinning shrewdly, a knowing look on his face. He nodded to her, still grinning, and twirled his moustaches as if to say: I knew it! I knew you were hiding some secret! She blinked her eyes at him affectionately and smiled back.

Then the royal crier was at the door, calling out the name and titles of the visiting royal, while soldiers clattered into the house and formed a corridor for their liege to walk through safely. Her friends and neighbors and relatives all stared and gawked between the soldier’s raised spears and swords, even bending to peek under their armpits for a better look.

Nothing such as this had ever happened in Riverside. A king! Visiting here! The emperor of the Krushan empire, no less. The air was electric with excitement, like the crisp air on the high mountains before a thunderstorm, just before lightning began to fall from the sky.

The sight of Sha’ant took her breath away. The day she had met him, she had been vaguely aware that he must be someone important but she had never dreamed he could be a king, let alone the king of all kings. On that day, he had been bedraggled from long travel, and listless, and she had thought him to be nothing more than a rich nobleman fallen on hard times. After all, why would a king—let alone the emperor of all Krushan—be wandering through that remote region alone?

She was still curious to know the reason, but it hardly mattered now. What was important was the way she had felt when he had expressed his desire for her. She was familiar with arrogant male lust and it always revolted her. In Sha’ant, she had seen something else: respect for her, the kind of respect that came from genuine love.

His words, his manner, his gestures, the way he had taken her hand, the way he had kissed it . . . she had felt a sense of something impossible. Something she had never expected to feel in her life. To be loved so madly and by a great emperor? It was hardly the fate in store for every fisherman’s daughter!

Yet it also felt perfectly right. As if it was meant to be. She had felt her own being stir when he held her hand and they exchanged glances. She could love this man. She could bear his children. She could see herself spending her life with him. She knew these things implicitly even having spent no more than a brief time with him, most of it spent in silence as she rowed him across the river. A few such moments can be worth an entire lifetime. Most lifetimes pass by without a single such moment. And Jilana felt she well enough knew Sha’ant’s heart and her own feelings for him to stake her life on this union. The rest was a gift from the gods.

She watched as the initial formalities between her suitor and her father dragged on with excruciating slowness. The visit of a king could not be treated like that of a neighbor dropping by for a drink of local brew. As chief of the fishermen, her father had to show respect for the king of the land, but also display his own status, too.

The formalities went on for what felt like ages. Finally, when the time came to speak of the things that truly mattered, Sha’ant and her father went into her father’s inner chamber and spoke privately. Jilana waited in agonizing anxiety. She had no doubt her father would agree to the match—why would a fisherman refuse a king as a son-in-law? But she still feared some hitch, something unexpected. After all, surely it could not be this simple? That a king would appear one day, fall instantly in love with her, and ask her father for her hand in marriage?

Why not, she asked, defiantly. Even fairy tales and legends grew out of some truth. Reality did not always have to be harsh and unforgiving.

But there was a secret dread in her heart that she could not dispel.

It was the knowledge of her own indiscretion. She had cohabited with a man, had borne his child. She was a mother. It did not matter if nobody else knew or could ever know—it did not matter if her virginity had been restored and her body returned to its virginal state in every respect, as if her womb had never been filled with child, her hips had never parted to birth a babe. She knew. That was all that mattered.

And though she knew that what had happened was more in the nature of a supernatural aberration than a typical everyday occurrence, she nevertheless felt guilt over it. She had mated with another man. She had experienced the bliss of physical union. She had watched her own belly swell with child then undergone the wonderful trauma of birth. She had held her newborn babe in her arms, slippery and beautiful. Whatever else had occurred, however bizarre and extraordinary, was beside the point. These things had really happened. She could never change that fact. Even the power of stonefire could not undo her memories, her feelings, her experiences.

That guilt made her fear that perhaps, just maybe, she did not deserve to be loved by such a man—not without him knowing the truth about her past . . . and naturally, she could never tell him that truth. For regardless of how much he loved her, it would change everything. She would not be what he had perceived her to be; she had kept a great thing secret, and that act of secrecy was what made her feel shame.

And yet.

Keeping that secret was the only reason the king of Hastinaga was in her house now, asking her father for her hand in marriage.

And as for the question of her deserving this . . . yes, she decided, she did deserve it. For whatever had happened in the past, she was genuinely attracted to Sha’ant, genuinely felt a powerful connection. Surely he, too, must have experienced love before now. She knew he had been married, had a son, and there were mysterious rumors surrounding the late Queen’s demise in childbirth. Something scandalous that no one knew about fully. So he was no virginal innocent either. He must have his secrets, too.

If he loves me and I love him then that is all that matters, she reasoned. Today we begin our life together. And it is our life together that matters.

She smiled, straightening her head, releasing the dread that had been clouding her heart at unexpected moments these past days as she waited.

We all deserve love. No matter what went before, no matter what might come later. Today belongs to us, today we stand naked and true before one another, and today is all that matters.

Jilana waited for Sha’ant to emerge and for her new life to begin.

5

Sha’ant liked Riverside—both the town and the chief himself, for the chief shared a name with the community he led. He was a man rarely seen in royal circles. A man unconcerned with appearances and protocol beyond the bare necessity required for social nicety. His oiled moustaches, bulging belly, hairy chest, and arms unabashedly exposed in his simple fisherman’s vastras, the simplicity of his house and belongings, all represented a man who was exactly what he appeared to be. Honest, hard-working, tough yet soft-hearted, fair, decent, and a servant of Krushan in his own right.

Such men were the backbone of a nation. Nobles postured; traders cared only for profit; soldiers protected and expanded the borders; priests guarded the precious light of learning—but it was men like Riverside who did the work that actually enabled a nation to prosper, grow and progress. Farmers, fishermen, workers. They built, maintained, fed and clothed their fellow people. Citizens. Praj.

It made Sha’ant proud to be Prajti, lord of the people, when the people he ruled were of the mettle of Riverside. Even Riverside’s name, simply an appellation referring to the region and tribe he administered to, was a demonstration of his true nature. The individual man and the chief of the people who worked alongside them daily were one and the same.

When Sha’ant spoke to him, he felt as if he were speaking to all of Riverside . . . and as if all of Riverside listened. That might have something to do with the fact that the whole population of the region was gathered outside the Chief’s house, waiting eagerly to know why the King of the Krushan was paying a visit to their humble village. But it was also indicative of the grassroots power such men possessed. They were of the land, and like their region’s copious fruit-bearing trees, they and the land grew and prospered—or fell—together.

Presently, Sha’ant was eagerly waiting for Riverside to agree to his proposal. The chief had listened with an impassive face, his broad, coarse features displaying no clear emotion. Now he was stroking and twirling his moustaches, a gesture Sha’ant was familiar with. From the odor in the room, it was evident the chief used fish oil to lubricate and maintain his considerable facial hair, but the stench of fish did not bother Sha’ant overmuch; not when the sweet, unmistakable fragrance of Jilana wafted in. River Lily she had been dubbed because of her unusual sweet odor. And that fragrance overpowered all the fish smell in this entire village. But even had it not, it would take far, far more than the stench of fish to dissuade Sha’ant; indeed, he thought there was nothing that could.

Yet there was something in the chief’s manner, the heavy-lidded gaze with which he observed the emperor, the way he kept sighing again and again made Sha’ant feel a curious foreboding. Sha’ant typically had a good instinct for how his proposals or ideas would be received, the result of a lifetime spent in political deal-making, yet he sensed that, for reasons he could not fathom, his proposal was about to be rejected. Impossible though it seemed, a fisherman was about to refuse a king as a son-in-law.

In a sense, he was right as well as wrong.

“Lord of the Krushan,” said Riverside in a rough voice, “I am a simple man of plain mind. Therefore forgive me for speaking plainly.”

Sha’ant said nothing but dipped his chin in acknowledgement.

“What father would not want you for a son-in-law?” Riverside said, gesturing as if to indicate the whole world. “It would be a father’s dream to see his daughter marry such as you.”

And yet . . . The caution was implicit in his tone. Sha’ant waited with pounding heart and sweating palms. He had never felt so anxious in his entire life, not even before major strategic battles. Yet here he was in a fisherman’s hut, waiting on the man’s next words as if his life depended on it. And it does, he thought, for I must have Jilana; she is the only chance I have to find love and hope and happiness again in life.

“I would be proud to call myself your father-in-law,” the fisher king said. “You know this and I know this; the whole world knows this, for it is sense. All I ask is that you pledge one thing to me. If you pledge this thing, you may marry my daughter at this very moment, if you so desire. I shall bless both of you with all my heart; I shall even throw a lavish wedding that all of Riverside will recall for a hundred years.” He paused, thinking as he stroked his oiled beard into curls. “Perhaps not lavish by Hastinaga standards. But the most lavish that this little hamlet has ever seen or will see again. I will see to it that nothing and no one prevents you and my daughter from spending the rest of your lives together in blissful harmony—”

“Speak then,” Sha’ant said, almost stepping on the Chief’s last words. “I am a direct man, too. But I cannot pledge something unless I know what it is. Name your condition and I shall grant it if it is within my means.” Now it was his turn to pause thoughtfully, “And as you can well imagine, there is little in this world that is not within my means to possess, gift, or grant.”

Riverside nodded, looking oddly glum. “Yet the condition I am about to pose may not prove as easy to grant, especially for a Krushan.”

Sha’ant smiled with complete confidence. “You have but to ask and it shall be given. Name your condition.”

Riverside sighed. “Her son.”

Sha’ant frowned. “Her son?”

“Her son by you. Whenever a son is born to the both of you.”

Sha’ant felt a glimmer of hope. “Then you consent to our marriage?”

“On condition that as and when she bears you a son—”

“Yes?” Sha’ant leaned forward, eager now, anxious, a spark of joy igniting in his heart. “When we have a son, yes . . .?”

“You must pledge that he and he alone will inherit the throne.”

Sha’ant blinked, absorbing the meaning of the chief’s words. “Of course. Any son of mine will inherit . . .” He stopped. “. . . will inherit the throne, in order of succession. Naturally. That is Krushan.”

Riverside sighed again. “I know this. Yet I also know you already have a son, and he is already acting regent and a good one at that. He is loved, popular, efficient, a great warrior, a formidable emperor . . . He has no flaws, lacks nothing. He is healthy and robust and indomitable in battle or combat. And he is the son of Jeel the river Goddess, our patron deity. He will almost certainly outlive us all!”

Sha’ant was silent. The spark that had flared was already flickering, the glimmer fading.

Chief Riverside continued: “So long as Vrath lives, he is the rightful heir to your throne and legacy. I know this. That is why my heart cries. It cries like the female wetun who loses her partner, for dolphins of the river are like wolves and hawks: they mate for life.” Riverside spread his large hairy hands wide. “What can I say? I ask only that you pledge that when you and my daughter have a son, it shall be that son who inherits, not Prince Vrath. I have no animosity towards Vrath. I hear he is a fine king. But as a father-in-law, I wish to see my line continue as well. I need to ensure that my grandson should have his fair share in life. If he is a fisherman’s son, then he should inherit his father’s boat and nets and fishing sticks and other belongings. If he is a king . . .”

Riverside gestured as if the rest was obvious. It was.

6

Jilana almost cried out with excitement when she saw Sha’ant emerge from her father’s chamber. Several in the crowd did cry out and the cry was taken up and carried throughout the village and perhaps even throughout the whole region. But when she saw Sha’ant’s face, her heart caught, like a fish trapped on a hook that would rip its life out if struggled to break free. And she knew without having to ask that something had gone terribly wrong.

Jilana pushed her way forward through the crowd of well-meaning relatives and neighbors, all the women eager to see and be seen by the king. Sha’ant caught sight of her and his eyes softened for a moment, but then filled with a look of such pain, she thought her heart might literally break. He then shook his head once, slowly, and walked past her. His gait was as heavy and forlorn as if he were attending a funeral rather than a potential marriage. He was utterly lost and heartbroken, leaving no doubt of their fate.

7

When his father returned from his travels, Vrath sensed something was seriously amiss.

He had been aware of his father’s gradual withdrawal from matters of state and governance of late, but this was something that he himself had encouraged over the past four years, assuring Sha’ant that as prince regent he would take care of whatever needed doing.

It was a matter of pride for Vrath that he live up to his assurances—and indeed Sha’ant himself had embraced him warmly on more than one occasion and congratulated him on how well he was managing the affairs of the kingdom. His father had even admitted that for the first time in his life he felt able to take time off for himself without the constant sense of anxiety that had always plagued him earlier in his reign.

Vrath had encouraged him to do as he wished—go hunting for weeks on end, or travel to remote places he had always wished to see incognito, unburdened by the military and royal entourage a king had perforce to take along. The past year, Sha’ant had taken to coming to court only occasionally, dropping by unexpectedly just to observe and listen in on the sabha sessions, often without saying a word the entire time.

What a contrast this was to the king who had rarely slept a full night and was constantly on edge—dealing with one political crisis after another all day long, day after day, during the first several weeks after Vrath had come to live with him. So concerned with the affairs of the kingdom was he that he had rarely found time enough to do the things he dearly wished to do with his newfound son. Any time they tried to travel together—if they were out visiting some site of pilgrimage, or viewing the actual field where great battles had taken place, or observing wildlife in its natural habitat—a messenger would invariably appear with an urgent summons that the king return to the city.

Yet Sha’ant continued to make the effort and clearly enjoyed that time away immensely. Vrath was young and innocent by mortal standards, but knew how much his father pined for his mother and that lost companionship.

A king has no real friends. His only true friend is an understanding spouse or child, thus Vrath was all Sha’ant had; accordingly, the king poured his heart out to his son often, not by bursting into long, sad monologues, but through the subtle way he said or did things, communicating more through pauses and sighs than by eloquent elocution.

Over time, this burden of sadness reduced considerably as he found genuine companionship and support in Vrath’s company and came to rely on his judgement not only as a statesman but also as a friend and confidant. Over the course of these four years, their relationship had developed to the point where Vrath would see his father looking troubled over some issue—of a border dispute or political complication—and could simply put his hand on his shoulder, smiling, and that would be enough for Sha’ant to lose his wrinkles and smile back, then pat his son on his shoulder in return before walking away, confident that Vrath would handle the problem, whatever it might be.

And Vrath had handled it—had handled everything that came his way since coming to court, to the point where those wrinkles rarely appeared on Sha’ant’s forehead at all anymore, and his father actually began to look younger and healthier. It was amazing what a difference the simple removal of daily stress could effect on a person: Sha’ant had become fitter, leaner, more confident, less given to outbursts and dark depressions. He drank less, slept more soundly, ate sensibly, and indulged himself in leisurely pursuits that he would never have dreamed of pursuing just one score months ago: He painted from time to time, played musical instruments, taught children their alphabets, and did things because they pleased him and not because they were expected of him as a king. In the past several months, he had even begun to take frequent trips, returning with a spring in his step and a sharpness in his eye. At night when he told Vrath of his experiences in the wild, Vrath felt a great sense of joy and satisfaction, for he knew that he had helped make this possible. Had he not come to Hastinaga—had he not taken the reins of the kingdom from Sha’ant so efficaciously—Sha’ant would never be this happy and relaxed today.

It pleased Vrath to see this dramatic change. He looked forward to those times when he and his father would sit and sip freshly squeezed pomegranate juice and he would listen as his father regaled him with stories and anecdotes gleaned on his travels.

But ever since his father had returned from his latest trip, Vrath had felt that something was amiss.

He knew this because Sha’ant had not spoken with him for several days, had seemingly been avoiding him in the palace. This was not unusual in itself, but Vrath also received reports that said the king was looking like his old gloomy self again, that reported that Sha’ant was drinking again, had cloistered himself in his rooms and was not seeing anyone or venturing forth . . . had given up all leisure activities and pursuits and sent everyone away.

All this had happened after Sha’ant returned from a trip which he had made with a full royal entourage. Since all matters of state were overseen by Vrath himself, he had been curious as to the nature of this state visit. Sha’ant had laughed and said that it was a secret he would share with Vrath if the trip was successful, but that in any case it was not a matter of state, it was a matter concerning the state of his heart! Vrath had laughed at the pun and wondered if this meant his father had found a woman he desired. His mother had told him that this day might come and when it did, that he was to encourage his father in every way, and do whatever was required to ensure that his father found happiness in the new match.

He had been a little surprised at her insistence that her own husband find happiness with another woman, but after he had come to court he quickly came to understand how bereft Sha’ant was that Jeel was never coming back, and thus resolved to do exactly as his mother had instructed.

Sha’ant deserved happiness again. So when he had received word that his father had returned from the visit of state—or state of the heart, as Sha’ant had wittily put it—he waited eagerly to hear the good news. But it had never come, and then Sha’ant had avoided him for so many days. Coupled with these disturbing reports of his father’s lapse into the old, gloomy depressive ways . . .

Now, he entered his father’s palace with only one goal in mind: To find the source of Sha’ant’s sorrow and resolve it.

He was shocked at what he found.

Sha’ant lay sprawled on a couch, his hair and face and garments unkempt, disheveled, uncared for, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep and too much wine, the discarded goblets around him testifying to his lapse into the old over-indulgent habits. But even more, it was the look on Sha’ant’s face that alarmed and dismayed Vrath. His father looked as if he had aged a decade in as many days. He had not looked this haggard and miserable even during the worst crisis that had occurred in the first several months after Vrath’s arrival.

Vrath went to the couch and sat beside his father; he said nothing, waiting instead for Sha’ant to speak first. That was always their way: Eventually Sha’ant would speak, confiding in him, speaking his mind—and his heart—and Vrath would listen and advise.

But this time, Sha’ant said nothing. There was only silence between them. Silence and a sense of something dark and dismal that hung over them like a fetid pallor.

Finally, Vrath took the initiative and spoke.

“Father? All is well with the kingdom. The last peace pact with the border rebels was sealed three days ago. The foreign envoys returned home to their respective distant nations with our gifts, beaming with pleasure, and promising to tell their nations of our great hospitality and rich resources. Within the sabha, the feuding over the sudra-vaisya land disagreement has settled as well. We have reached a mutual compromise that is more than acceptable to all concerned. There is no fear of rioting any longer. Things are very well. They are as close to perfect as possible. Yet you sit here all day, quaffing copious quantities of soma, alone and in darkness, seeing no one, speaking with no one, uncaring for your own appearance and well-being. What ails you, father? Tell me.”

Still, Sha’ant was silent. As Vrath had begun to speak, his father covered his face with his hand, as if closing his eyes for a moment, and the hand remained there even now, masking his features and expression.

Vrath tried again. “Father, in the time since I came to live with you, you have confided everything to me. Have I ever betrayed your trust? Have I ever given you reason to regret putting your faith in me? Have I disappointed you somehow without being aware of my lapse? If I have offended you in any way, then I beg your forgiveness and ask that you please tell me how I may atone for my mistake. For I cannot bear to have you angry with me and refusing to speak with me. A day without hearing your voice and feeling your arm upon my shoulder is like a day when the sun has failed to rise.”

At this emotional appeal, Sha’ant removed the hand covering his face, revealing eyes filled with tears. He reached out and took hold of Vrath’s forearm. “Nay, my son. Nay! You have done nothing to offend me. Do not blame yourself. You are the perfect son. No father since the beginning of time has been blessed with a son as fine as you. In every respect, you are perfect. Do not question your own merits or blame yourself for anything.”

“Then what is it, father?” Vrath asked earnestly. “What ails you? I have not seen you this troubled since I first came to live here and you were sad over the loss of my mother. I know you well, father. I know something is eating at your heart, destroying you from within. Confide in me. Tell me. Perhaps I can help you.”

Sha’ant shook his head vehemently. “No, my son,” he said emotionally. “This I cannot tell you. This is a problem you cannot solve. It is only the misery of my own dark soul. I must bear this myself and I shall. Pray go about your life as usual. Do not worry unduly on my account.”

“How can I ignore my father’s sadness? How can I smile and live my life happily if you are not happy? What is a son if not his father in a new life? How can a part of you go on living as normal when another part of you is suffering some inner turmoil?”

But still Sha’ant would not confide in Vrath. He spoke in elliptical riddles, referring to ancient texts that advised men to father more than one son. He then lapsed into a discussion debating the merits of a man taking a new wife, and spoke on this for a time. He spoke also of his lineage, of the uncertainties of life, of war, and of the risks a king faced; of fearing for Vrath’s early demise in battle . . . but then argued the opposite, musing that Vrath’s prowess at arms was so formidable that it was his enemies who should fear losing their lives, not he.

And so it went for a time, Sha’ant speaking round and around the subject without clearly stating what troubled him. Yet Vrath managed to understand much even if he didn’t understand fully.

Eventually, Sha’ant became exhausted, emotionally and physically, and Vrath put him to bed tenderly. Watching his father fall into uneasy sleep, he vowed to find the source of this misery and end it at once.

8

Vrath went in search of the old guard.

Older warriors who had once fought and seen great conflicts in yesteryears, now the old guard were ailing or aging and unable to take part in active combat, but they gathered daily in a garden adjoining the royal palace and talked robustly of old wars and fierce battles and slain enemies. Sha’ant had brought Vrath there shortly after he first came to court to listen to their wisdom, to learn about the art of war from those who had actually waged it. “This score of old warriors,” he had told Vrath fondly, “when taken together, they represent close to two millennia of fighting knowledge and experience. No guru could possibly tell you all they know. You can learn more by simply listening to their arguments than you would from most masters of weapons and pundits of strategy.”

Vrath did not tell him that in his short lifespan he had seen, experienced, and learned possibly far more than these twenty old warriors had in their combined lifetimes—indeed, he possibly knew the same battles and conflicts they spoke of as intimately as they did, for he had “watched” many of those wars when they were waged, thanks to the intensive training of his great-grandfather Coldheart and his own divine gifts.

Despite his prodigious advantages, he still learned a great deal from the old guard. And in time he began to share his own observations as well. At first, the elder warriors were suspicious, even hostile to this upstart young boy who dared to speak of conflicts waged when he was not yet born. But they soon realized that far from being some self-important prince airing immature views, he was a prodigy who somehow knew crucial details and elements of battles that even they who were there lacked full knowledge of, and spoke of sieges with an authority that suggested that he had actually been present.

The old guard began to use a term to describe this extraordinary perceptiveness that Vrath displayed: They termed it blood memory. “His blood is the blood of his Krushan ancestors,” said one of them, “and that rich blood carries with it the knowledge of all the deeds and experiences of his forebears. Somehow, young Vrath is able to access that vast store of knowledge and speak of it.” At this, the others had all dipped their white heads and beards and agreed solemnly, “Blood memories.” And in time, they began to respect his deep insights and formidable store of knowledge and even sought his opinion on occasion. Whenever any two or more of them reached an impasse in an argument over some detail of a battle or campaign, they would eventually turn to Vrath and sigh, “My prince, settle the matter!” And Vrath would provide the crucial missing detail that would enable them to resolve the argument, without actually taking sides.

He came to them now. They greeted him with warmth, for since his duties of kingship had increased, he did not have as much time to spend with them as before. But they did not resent this. They were old warriors. They knew their place in the world. They felt proud that he came to them at all, deferred to them and treated them with such respect. They were even wise enough to refer to him jokingly as their “guru.”

“Guru!” they cried out as he entered their corner of the garden. An argument over the Battle of Eleven Nations and whether or not Thunderhead had actually descended to aid Sha’ard against the enemy was raging; it died down as they saw Vrath enter and they greeted him warmly. Yet they saw from his face that he had come not simply to chat but on some important matter. They were warriors, and they believed in coming straight to the point, so they insisted he tell them what was troubling him.

“My father,” he said simply. “What is it that ails him? Do you have any idea?”

They glanced at each other as if they had been expecting him to ask this very question, then looked back at Vrath and nodded.

Vrath sighed and sat down. “Tell me,” he said.

And they did.

When they were through explaining, Vrath said, “I see.”

He was silent for a long while.

They waited.

They were old men, and lifelong warriors; waiting was nine-tenths of their lives.

When at last, Vrath rose, they saw from his face that his time here was over.

“I take your leave,” he said, showing each of them respect and gratitude for their part in his continuing education.

As he turned to walk away, they called out, “What will you do?”

He paused, and replied without looking back. “Ensure my father’s happiness.”

9

Chief Riverside was holding a meeting of the fishermen when Vrath arrived. He received Vrath with great respect and proper protocol, and once again the word spread that someone from the royal court of the Krushan had come to see Jilana’s father.

Heartbroken after Sha’ant’s proposal had failed, Jilana had overcome her own despair and reluctantly gone back to her old routine, and when Vrath arrived, she was away, back to ferrying her boat across the Yamuna. But where she had often sung sweet songs while ferrying passengers across the river, she now sang melancholy dirges that brought a tear to the eyes of those she transported.

She did not hear of the news of Vrath’s visit until later that evening, and even then, she did not allow herself to dare hope that this might bode well. What was to be would be, nothing she did could change that now. She loved her father too dearly to ever go against his wishes. And much as she had come to love the idea of marrying Sha’ant, she had always known that their union was a highly unlikely one. It did not make the disappointment any easier, but it did make it seem more logical and inevitable.

How could a fisherman’s daughter marry a king! It was quite absurd, of course. And yet, when she sang of Shakuntala and Dushyanta, and of how Shakuntala had pleaded for hours in full court, and been repeatedly humiliated and insulted by her own lover and husband, father of her child, her voice had such pain in it that even the cranes on the shore cried out in commiseration.

10

Chief Riverside knew of her pain and felt it himself, for she was the jewel of his heart. His own sorrow lay heavy in his breast, knowing that his beloved daughter pined her youth away. When Vrath arrived at his chieftain’s hut, he felt hope leap up in his heart like a playful trout in the Jeel.

“Prince,” said the Chief warmly. “How may I serve you?”

Vrath leaned forward. “It has come to my notice that my father, Emperor Sha’ant, proposed to marry your daughter. And yet you refused.”

Riverside paled at Vrath’s words. “Nay, prince! Who am I to refuse the lord of Hastinaga? Even the King of Gods could not refuse such a match for his daughter. Besides, Jilana is no ordinary fisherman’s daughter. I have always known that her future lay in palaces with kings, not ferrying a boat across the Yamuna and cooking river fish for one of us! So when Samrat Sha’ant came to see me, it was the fulfillment of all my dreams and expectations. Where is the question of refusal?”

Vrath looked around. “And yet, I see no signs of preparation for a marriage. I see no festivities. No indication that you are expecting a bridegroom’s procession to arrive, much less a royal one.”

Riverside cleared his throat. “I cannot dispute what you say, great one. Your reputation as a master of governance is formidable, outmatched only by your reputation as an indomitable warrior. Who would dare argue with anything you say? But I did not refuse the proposal of Sha’ant. I merely laid out a condition. Should he promise to uphold that condition, I shall be happy to make the arrangements at once!”

The other fisherman all nodded vigorously, lending their chief support and encouragement. Vrath saw the anxiety and genuine concern on their faces. They genuinely desired to see a daughter from their village marry a king of the Krushan. There was no ulterior motive here or secret agenda. All was as it seemed. Vrath could even close his eyes and sense Jilana’s sorrow as she rowed her boat and sang her sad songs, for the Yamuna was his maternal aunt and he was privy to her knowledge as well. “Your condition is that your future grandson—the progeny of your daughter Jilana and my father the king—should inherit the throne of the Krushan, is it not?”

Riverside glanced at his fellow fishermen, a glance that communicated the fisher king’s own concern and doubts. As the obvious heir and already crowned Prince, Chief Riverside’s condition affected Vrath far more than it affected Sha’ant. There could only be one reason why Vrath had come to confront Riverside personally: He must resent anyone asking that he be set aside in favor of a future son of his father.

Vrath knew that fishermen across the village were secretly preparing to take up arms and attack him if need be. Not because they were violent or aggressive but because they feared his motives for coming here. He could glimpse men surreptitiously taking up hooks and fish-spears behind and around him.

He held up his hands and turned a full circle, addressing the village at large. “I am not here to make war on you. Look at my companions.”

He indicated the old guard. The toothless white-haired men waved and grinned at the fisherman who stared at them curiously.

“Does this look like a war party? I deliberately brought only my father’s oldest advisors in order to show you that I have only peaceful intentions. Had I meant you harm, I would have brought an army and you would all already be dead.” He did not need to add that even an army would have been overkill; he could have massacred the entire community single-handedly if he had desired . . . and still could.

But he meant what he said: He had no desire to do harm to anyone here. These people were relatives of his father’s chosen beloved, therefore they were related to him as well, or would be soon. Being fishermen, they were also close to the river and that affinity gave Vrath a sense of greater understanding of their ways and attitudes. He knew such men well enough to know that they had their own sense of pride as well. They might not live in palaces and their homes and clothes may always smell of fish, but in their own way, they were kings and queens and princes of Arthaloka.

“You are kings of the river,” Vrath said to them, and at once saw a change come over their faces. “You are no less masters of the world than my father or his illustrious ancestors. The goddess of the river is herself your patron and she watches over you in all you do or say. I bow to her, mighty Yamuna-devi, and in her sacred presence, I ask you sincerely: What can I do to make this marriage possible? I love my father deeply and desire his happiness more than anything else in the world. Tell me what I must do to ensure his marriage to your daughter and I shall see that it is done. You have my word as Prince of the Krushan kingdom and leader of the Bharatas.”

Chief Riverside stared up wordlessly for a moment then rose suddenly and raised his hairy arms to Vrath in a gesture of acknowledgement. “Great one, what they say about you is true. You are a great, great prince and someday shall be a great king. You are capable of easily defeating your opponents yet you choose to use conciliatory words and kindness instead. But I fear there is nothing that can be done here. I have told your father my only condition for this marriage. If he cannot fulfill that condition, then what can I do?”

“Your only condition is that your daughter’s son shall inherit and rule after my father’s passing, not I, is it not?” Vrath asked.

Riverside nodded, gesturing broadly again. “Aye. So it is. For it is the duty of a girl’s father to ensure that she is always treated well by her husband and I know that if Jilana were assured that her son would inherit, then she shall be queen mother in time and guaranteed of lifelong security and status.”

“She shall be guaranteed all that in any case,” Vrath said, “but if it is this assurance you desire, then I shall give it to you right here and now. Your daughter’s son shall inherit the throne, not I. I give you my word in this matter.”

Riverside stared at Vrath in wonderment, then turned to look at his companions, who also raised their eyebrows and gestured as well. “What a great being! He offers to step down as heir apparent and surrender his rightful inheritance in order to secure his father’s happiness! What other son would do this for his father? Truly he is a great one.”

“Aye!” said the other fisherfolk. Even the old guard joined in heartily.

Riverside paused, bent over in thought, his back to Vrath.

Vrath waited a moment then, when there was no further word from the fisher king, then said, “Is it agreed then? You will make the arrangements for the marriage?”

Riverside turned suddenly and stared at him. “Would that it could be so, Prince! Would that it could.”

Vrath frowned. “I fail to understand. I have agreed to your condition. You have the assurance you desire. Now what prevents this marriage from taking place?”

Riverside sighed heavily. “Alas, young prince. Your assurances are honorable and I have no doubt you shall keep your word from now to the end of your days. I know you would never violate your oath once given. But . . .”

“But . . .?” asked Vrath.

“But what of your sons?” the fisher chief said, looking up at Vrath. “Your future sons by any wives you may take in years to come?”

Vrath frowned, listening.

Riverside went on, gesturing as he explained. “You are a virile young man. Handsome. Powerful. Wealthy. Even if you step down as heir apparent, you shall always remain prince of the Krushan empire. You shall have no dearth of wives or lovers. You shall love them in time and produce sons of your own. You will adhere by your vow, of that I have no doubt. But will they? What about after you have died of old age or perished in combat? Might not one or more of them rise up and attempt to claim the throne for themselves? My grandson’s place—and indeed his very life—would be jeopardized, for the people love you dearly, I have heard, and thus they may well support one of your sons over that of my daughter.”

Vrath listened silently and looked at the faces of the old guard. They had finally stopped smiling and were now shaking their white-haired heads in commiseration. The other fisherfolk stood, their eyes downcast, for they did not wish to spurn a king’s offer, nor miss the opportunity to align their tribe with the most powerful one in the world. Yet what Riverside said was true: Any assurance that Vrath might give was useless because he could not predict what any sons he might have would do in future. And by law, regardless of whatever he promised, it was his rightful claim to be King of Hastinaga, and, by extension, his sons who would inherit that throne. This was indisputable.

“Therefore, great one,” Riverside was saying sadly, “I fear we still face the same dilemma. Even if you swear the most powerful oath on Arthaloka, it will not prevent your future heirs from rightfully staking a claim to the kingdom, and that would disinherit my daughter’s line, which is unacceptable to me and my people.”

Vrath held up his hand. “I shall take a greater vow.”

Riverside shook his head, sighing again. “No vow can suffice, Prince.”

“Hear the vow first, then decide,” Vrath said. “As of this moment, I relinquish all rights to the kingdom. I divest myself of the title and status of Prince. I am neither prince nor heir to the Krushan throne. This I say in presence of my father’s oldest advisors, they who are most wise in the knowledge of warrior Krushan.” He held his hand out to indicate the old guard, who dipped their heads soberly to acknowledge his words. “They will assure you that such a pronouncement is akin to a writ of law, as I speak with the full authority of the position bestowed upon me—even as I divest myself of that very authority and position. Confirm that my words are truth, wise ones.”

The old guard nodded and said as one, “Vrath speaks truth!”

Riverside looked stunned. “You disinherit yourself? But for what purpose? I have already told you, it will not suffice to appease my fear—”

“Your fear is that I may someday, knowingly or even unknowingly, sire one or more sons who will lay claim to the throne, thereby preventing your future grandsons from inheriting, correct?”

Riverside nodded, looking around at the gathering as if asking if they were also seeing and hearing this extraordinary debate. All raised their voices in agreement, speaking for Riverside. “Aye!”

Vrath raised his fist, clenching it tightly, and held it to his chest. “Then let me remove that last fear from your heart, king of the Yamuna. Now that I am no longer Prince of Hastinaga, my Krushan to my people has ended. Therefore I am merely an individual and may choose to do as I please with my life and body. I am not required to produce heirs for the sake of the continuance of my lineage. Therefore, from this moment on, I swear the oath of acolyte. I am a virgin and have never known the pleasures of woman and never shall I know those pleasures. I shall remain celibate as I am now for the duration of my life on Arthaloka.”

A great outcry rose from across the village. Even the old guard rose to their feet, astonished and shaking their heads in dismay. Every single fisherman and woman cried out in horror and shock. Riverside himself staggered back, as if struck a heavy blow.

Vrath continued: “Riverside, king of the Yamuna! I have fulfilled your condition! As I am now an acolyte, and incapable of fathering children, the throne of Hastinaga has no heir. Only by wedding your daughter and siring a son upon her can Sha’ant produce an heir. So what say you now? Do you consent to allowing your daughter to marry my father?”

Riverside fell to his knees. “Yes! Yes! Of course. But this vow you have taken . . . it is too terrible! It is a vrath, a God’s vow! Which means it can never be broken or undone, no matter the circumstances!”

Vrath lowered his hand at last, uncoiling his fist. “Perhaps that is the reason I was given this name at birth. In any case, it is what I had to do in order to ensure my father’s happiness. And his joy is my only goal.” He reached out the hand, open now and offered as a gesture of friendship. “I have your word then? This marriage shall take place at the earliest?”

“Yes!” Riverside said. “As Goddess Jeel is my witness, yes!” He was crying now, tears rolling down his face. It was impossible to say whether they were tears of joy for his daughter’s impending happiness or tears of shock at Vrath’s extraordinary sacrifice.

Vrath gestured to the old guard. They came towards him, their faces pale and shocked, gazing up at him as if seeing him for the first time. He turned to the chief one last time. “I shall go and make arrangements. When next I return, it shall be as my father’s charioteer, bringing him as a groom to collect your daughter. Ensure that all is in readiness. You are about to be allied with the House of Krushan and join your fortunes to those of the Burnt Empire.”

With that, he turned on his heel and made his way through and out of the village. As he went, people crowded close to get a better look at his face, his aspect, his eyes. From behind, he heard the chief call out again, “Vrath! The most terrible vow ever!”

The fisherfolk took up the chorus: “Vrath! Vrath! Vrath!”

Overhead the skies growled thunderously as if echoing the same utterance.

The old guard struggled to keep pace with Vrath but caught up by the time he had reached his chariot. They peered up at him, then, spreading their hands in plea. “This vow,” they said, “how could you promise such a thing? To give up your life, your own future, your happiness . . . all for your father’s sake? It is too much! What the chief said is true, this is a monstrous oath. Vrath! Never before have we heard of any warrior swearing to the life of an acolyte for his father’s sake.”

Vrath shrugged. “It is what had to be done, and it is done.”

He climbed aboard the chariot and clicked his tongue at the horses.

One of the old guard was saying to the others, “He shall henceforth be known by the vow he took here today. It shall make him legendary!”

Behind him, the fisher tribe of Riverside roared with one voice: “Vrath!”

11

Sha’ant wept when he heard of Vrath’s terrible vow. But the old guard informed him that as per his son’s wishes, the vow was already taken and in effect, and he would not take it back under any circumstances. Therefore, they argued, Sha’ant must wed the fisher king’s daughter now. “He sacrificed his happiness for you,” they said, “we have never seen or heard the like of it before. Accept it. This is a gift from the gods!”

Sha’ant, still weeping, held his son. Vrath held his father upright, embracing him fiercely as well. “Vrath,” he called him in this moment of extreme emotion. “What have you done?”

“What any son would have.”

“No,” Sha’ant said, shaking his head. “No other son but you. I shall honor your sacrifice. Jilana’s son shall be king of Hastinaga in time. But you shall be king among all sons everywhere, from now to the end of time,” he said, then continued, fighting through profuse tears: “If the gods are listening, then I pray they hear me now: Any boon you desire is yours to have. Ask of me anything. You have given up your inheritance, your throne, your status. What shall I give you in return, my son?”

Vrath bowed his head. “I desire only your blessings, father. But if you wish to grant me a boon, then grant me this one gift: Give me permission to die only when I will it. Not a moment before, regardless of my wounds or condition.”

Sha’ant was taken aback at this extraordinary request. Even though, as a Krushan, he had the ability to imbue such powers, it was not customary for sons to make such requests.

“What boon is that?” he cried. “Why do you speak to me of your death? You are my first-born son. Jeel herself granted that your death never comes to pass for a thousand years after my own life ends. Ask me a boon worthy of kings and emperors. Ask for untold wealth. For the richest bounty of the world. For power and glory. All that I have is yours to command.”

Vrath shook his head. “All that you have is the future property of your heirs, and I am no longer included in that category, by my own choosing. Father, grant me only what I ask. For it will take nothing from the inheritance of my future siblings and yet it would bring me great satisfaction.”

Sha’ant did not know what else to say. However, he remembered the obduracy of his former wife Jeel, the River Goddess, and from many instances, already knew that Vrath possessed the same stone-like obduracy, too. It would be of no avail to argue further.

“Then consider your boon granted, my son,” he said.

Vrath kissed his father’s hand and rose.

As word spread through the city and the kingdom, people began to gather and talk in crowds, then cry out in lament and wonder at the great sacrifice of their Prince. Soon all knew of the terrible vow he had taken and of the word the Riverside fisherfolk had shouted as he left.

The Burning Throne flared, as if marking the moment when it was deprived of a future occupant. It burned deep red and those courtiers nearest to it swore afterward that on that historic occasion, its fire burned cold, as if mourning the loss of a great Krushan heir.

©2019 by Ashok K. Banker.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ashok K. Banker is the author of more than sixty books, including the internationally acclaimed Ramayana series. His works have all been bestsellers in India and have sold around the world. His latest novel is the first in a new epic fantasy series, Upon a Burning Throne. He lives in Los Angeles.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

Healing Benjamin

Dennis Danvers | 8720 words

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”

I got the healing touch when I was sixteen years old kneeling over my dying cat Benjamin in my bedroom. He was trying to crawl under the bed to die, but I wouldn’t let him, hauling him out and wrapping my body around him, my forehead pressed against his. He was a year older than me. He’d been there my whole life. I couldn’t imagine life without him. He stopped breathing, his heart stopped, and I prayed for him, though I rarely prayed then, and I never pray now, squeezing him, imprinting my will on him, picturing him raised from the dead, alive and well. I didn’t know what else to do, sobbing, absolutely heartbroken, torturing myself with Joan Baez singing “Old Blue” on the stereo:

. . . Old Blue died and he died so hard
Shook the ground in my backyard
Dug his grave with a silver spade
Lowered him down with links of chain
Every link I did call his name
Here Blue, you good dog you
Here Blue, I’m a-coming there too!

Benjamin stirred under my hands, his heart beating hard and steady against my palm. I released him, and he rose and walked to the door, his tail erect. He wanted to go out. An hour later, he wanted back in, and he was hungry. He looked good. He looked real good.

I took him to a vet after his healing to get him checked out. I didn’t take him to his regular vet, Dr. Diderada, who Ben had been going to since he was a kitten, figuring he’d never believe this was the same half-blind, stiff-legged neutered tom living on borrowed time he’d basically given up on a week before. I told this new vet Ben was a stray I was adopting, and he guessed him to be about four, in perfect health. All the vets over the years guessed him to be about four, in perfect health. That’s twenty-eight in cat years, not a bad year for me. Benjamin seemingly picked an age he liked and stuck with it. I, meanwhile, kept getting older. I quit taking him to the vet years ago, having exhausted all the convenient ones. Ben was over it, and I couldn’t see spending the money to be reassured semiannually that my cat was immortal. He never even had an ear mite or a flea, as if even the insect world knew he was operating under a special dispensation.

Thirty years later, I was forty-six, and I still had Benjamin. I’ll do the math for you. He was forty-seven. That’s 329 in cat years. Even if you gave him nine lives, that made each one more than thirty-six years. No. Benjamin was not a normal cat.

Back when Ben was seventeen, my parents readily believed Dr. Diderada had resurrected him with some good vitamin supplements. They were wish-upon-a-star, somewhere-over-the-rainbow kind of people, but even they wouldn’t believe a forty-seven-year-old cat. After I left home, I didn’t see them on my own turf very often, but I always lied and said Ben was a new cat. They thought I was odd for naming every cat Benjamin, but they already knew I was odd—I was their son. It helped that Ben was a fairly generic gray tabby with white boots and a nondescript meow. My ex-wife Penny knew Ben for seven years, living with him for five, but she never noticed he never aged. She wasn’t a cat person. She wasn’t any kind of animal person I ever discovered. She liked watching monkeys in the monkey house, but that’s not the same, is it? I know it sounds weird, but that’s one of the reasons we broke up. I just couldn’t be with somebody who didn’t like animals. When it came down to it, she didn’t like people all that much. Which makes sense—people are animals, smart, worrisome animals, but still animals.

Anyway, she peacefully coexisted with Ben, and he was never an issue. I never dated anyone else more than a year or so, and nobody who spent much time around Ben. Then at forty-six, I started going out with Shannon. That didn’t last long—the just going out. Our third date started Friday at four—she took off work an hour early—and ended Tuesday at noon. I told Benjamin it was the closest to a resurrection I’d experienced in my life, and maybe it would help me understand him better. He pointed out, however, that death was a necessary precondition of resurrection. He played dead and sprang back to life, a favorite trick of his, flicking his smartass tail. I’ve always talked to Ben. He hasn’t always answered.

For some time, Shannon and I had been practically living together, shuttling back and forth between our houses, but she preferred my place because Benjamin lived there. Benny Boy, as she called him. If he’d been a man, I would’ve been insanely jealous. To say they hit it off is to say Juliet was sort of into Romeo. He was equally passionate about her.

This was all good. She loved me too, Benny Boy’s lifelong companion and confidante, the cleaner of the cat box, the keeper of the can opener, not to mention healer extraordinaire. But then she started asking questions. “Isn’t he due for a checkup? Shots or something?”

I made the mistake of just putting her off, and then she saw a little reminder card from one of Benny Boy’s many vets in my mail, this one saying he was at least eight years overdue on just about everything. So she called and made an appointment. That’s kind of how Shannon was, which was one of the many things I liked about her, except insofar as it pertained to Benjamin, because I’d always figured that sooner or later reality was going to catch up with me. It was like I made a deal all those years ago that I couldn’t handle my cat dying right then, but Some Day there’d be no choice, and it would hurt even worse when it finally came. But somehow, if I could just keep his death and persistent life a secret, nothing had to change.

“How old is he?” Shannon asked when they met. About four, I said, never anticipating I’d be caught in my convenient lie. So how could he be eight years behind in his shots? I feared every step I took down this road with Shannon meant Some Day was coming soon. But I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop her. Benjamin, closed up in his carrier, in his stoic, dignified way, neither stopped nor started, but was carried along by the tide of events—and by his carrier of course—to the vet.

• • • •

Ben enjoyed crowded veterinary waiting rooms, the more crowded the better. He delighted in the spectacle. This day, there was a special treat, a harlequin Great Dane lurching about out of control, his suited keeper helpless to stop him from sticking his great nose in the random crotch, body-blocking anyone coming in the door, terrifying every animal in the place—and I’m including humans as animals—except Ben who watched from inside his carrier, purring, purring, the deep rumbling purr I know as laughter. Ben enjoyed watching foolishness. He saw a lot of it at his age.

“He’s so calm,” Shannon marveled, peering inside his carrier, stroking his untroubled brow with her finger, keeping a wary eye on the Dane. “Is he always this calm?”

“Oh yes,” I reassured her, and then we were next, and she wanted to go in too, and how could I refuse?

• • • •

After a lengthy examination, the vet, a kind, fatherly gentleman, maybe a decade older than Ben chronologically, but a mere child in cat years, broached the subject cautiously. He looked over the end of his reading glasses, up from Ben’s near-empty record of perfect health. “According to our records, I last examined Benjamin twelve years ago?”

I couldn’t lie, not with Shannon beside us scratching Ben’s head with both hands the way he likes, waiting for my answer. “Yes.”

“Which makes Ben”—he looked back at the record—“nineteen?” He couldn’t quite keep the incredulity out of his gentlemanly voice. Shannon’s hands froze on Ben’s noble head. All eyes were on me. Even Ben’s.

Ben and I had liked this guy, so we stuck with him for three years. The math checked out. He was the last. Ben was thirty-five, ready to do without vets—the shots and the thermometer up his ass anyway. He found the rest interesting. At least I wasn’t dealing with Ben’s first vet. No bluff possible there. “That’s right,” I said.

“Would—Would you mind leaving Ben for a few tests? An hour or so? No charge, of course.”

Ben gave me an unmistakable look. No fucking way is a precise translation. “I’m afraid not,” I said.

“Why not?” Shannon asked. She’d done a little math of her own. In her reality, Ben was six, tops, and of course, he looked four, as always.

“Nothing’s wrong with him, right?” I asked the vet.

He shook his head no. “Quite the opposite. He’s the healthiest cat I’ll see this year. This is the same cat?”

I considered lying, but couldn’t imagine explaining the lie to Shannon in some way that wouldn’t sound sick or pathetic. “Yes. Same cat.”

“He’s the healthiest nineteen-year-old cat I’ve ever seen—and we don’t see that many. There aren’t even any tartar deposits on his teeth.” He bared Ben’s teeth, pointing with a ballpoint pen at the gleaming fangs, an indignity Ben graciously endured.

“I know. I think he’s had enough for one day.” Ben chimed in with a low moan, that if you know anything about cats means his patience is spent, and you’re in immediate peril from the aforementioned fangs and the hooked razors that sprout from each paw on demand, the envy of every badass who ever lived. The vet got the message immediately, putting him back in the carrier with a fistful of treats.

I wasn’t looking forward to the ride home. No well-timed moan was going to get me out of this one.

• • • •

There was a moment, when Shannon was already in the car and I was about to put Ben in the backseat, when we were alone. I put his carrier on the roof of the car and pretended I was having trouble finding my keys, though I didn’t think Shannon was paying any attention to us. She was staring out the windshield with a determined look on her face. Ben and I spoke in low tones through the bars of his carrier door, our faces inches apart. The traffic flowed by behind me, ignoring me and my cat.

“What do I do?” I asked. “She’ll never believe you’re nineteen.”

“Tell her my real age,” he said.

“You think?”

“I know.”

“But I can’t prove you’re forty-seven. She’ll never believe me.”

“Proof doesn’t matter. You’ll see. She senses I’m no ordinary cat. We have a special bond.”

“Oh please. Does she sense you’re a manipulative little eunuch?”

“For a cat, I’m not so little.” He laughed at his own joke. Cat humor, very sly.

I put him in the middle of the backseat, so he could see out the front like he likes, got in, immediately started the car, and put it in gear.

“How can Ben be nineteen?” Shannon asked.

We were parallel parked, my eyes glued to the side mirror, waiting for a break in the traffic. Following Ben’s advice—I’d never known him to be wrong—I told her. “He’s not,” I began, “he’s forty-seven.” I pulled into traffic.

There were certain advantages to telling the tale while driving. I wasn’t expected to make eye contact; a brisk, even telegraphic style was perfectly acceptable; and she wasn’t inclined to interrupt, argue, or question while I was waiting to make a tricky left turn across a steady torrent of oncoming traffic. The downside was I didn’t have a clue how she was taking it until we were back at my place, and I turned off the engine and looked over at her. You might think she would’ve refused to believe me, end of story, but Shannon wasn’t like that. Neither was she some wacko flake who believed any madness I spouted just because she loved me.

“Okay,” she said. “I want to figure this thing out.” She turned to Ben and looked at him through the bars. Has Benny Boy been keeping secrets from his Shannon? He looked right back. Hell. What did I know? Maybe they did have a special bond.

• • • •

It was early yet, and Shannon had me dig out Ben’s vet records, and while I was making breakfast, she called every vet he’d ever been to. The second one was dead and gone, the third seemed to have left town. She made appointments with the rest, booking Ben solid for the day. I wondered if he figured on this when he told me to tell her the truth. I certainly hadn’t. I checked my credit card balance, and we were off.

I got pretty good at telling the story economically. I left out any mention of prayer as such—there were no priests on our itinerary, only men of science. It was amazing how many incredulous vets remembered Ben. It was the no tartar thing that seemed to impress them most. All of them, however, dismissed immediately the possibility of a forty-seven-year-old cat and denied there was any way he could be the same cat despite the resemblance. One guy got pissed off, like I had something to gain by paying an exorbitant fee for ten minutes of his time to tell him a story I knew he’d never believe. Was he an idiot? Couldn’t he see I was doing it for love? Most of the vets were nice, cutting looks at Shannon—Are you crazy too? Shouldn’t you be getting him help? Shannon just wanted the facts. She examined the records of Ben’s perfect checkups with care, except the pissed-off guy’s; he threw us out before she got the chance.

Ben’s first and favorite vet, Dr. Diderada, interestingly enough, seemed to come closest to believing my story. He was last on Shannon’s itinerary. He probably should’ve retired years earlier. He had a distracted, dreamy quality, like an old cat. He gave us pretty much the same lecture the others had—why it was impossible for a cat to be forty-seven—and certainly not one in Ben’s condition. But this time there was something quixotic about the narrative, some sense that among all the dead and dying cats there might be one who lived forever and never grew old, but of course, you couldn’t expect a scientific professional to speak openly of such a creature.

He bent down, looking Ben in the eye, scratching Ben’s trembling chin with his index finger, in a beckoning motion, as if he hoped to lure the true cat out into the open. “Some cats are special, aren’t they, Benjamin? The world is their oyster.” The combination of the chin scratch and the mention of oysters—one of Ben’s favorites, especially fried—proved irresistibly seductive, and a resonant rumble issued forth from deep inside him so intense it made the gleaming examining table hum like a struck tuning fork, and both Diderada and Ben smiled like the Buddha. The walls behind them were plastered with lurid posters of cat anatomy, the color of rare roast beef. A plastic cat skeleton on a stand smiled too.

Shannon turned away, whispering, “I’ll wait in the car,” and hurried out.

“Lovely woman,” Diderada said.

• • • •

Last stop on Shannon’s fact-finding expedition was a visit to my folks, the only witnesses to Ben’s resurrection I knew how to contact. Any angels who may or may not have been in attendance had steadfastly refused to reveal themselves over the years, and my official policy toward them was blissful ignorance. I managed a cranky ignorance most of the time. I never achieved blissful, though I avoided, for the most part, totally pissed off. Still no angels, no answers. I loved living with Ben, but I didn’t like living with an unfathomable enigma.

Mom and Dad loved Shannon, of course, and didn’t mind at all that she’d called that morning to invite us to dinner. They were also quite delighted to see Benjamin. After their last cat Angelina died at sixteen—toothless, blind, and with daily IVs—they’d decided to forego cats indefinitely, but they missed having a feline presence about the house.

As I mentioned before, my parents weren’t into grappling with reality. They slept under a pyramid and wanted to believe that breathing exercises and dietary supplements and the well-placed crystal would keep them forever young, though down deep they knew better. As much as they liked to flirt with the flaky, they proved immediately resistant to the notion that this Benjamin was the same cat who moved out almost thirty years previously. Metaphorically, spiritually, teleported, time-warped, reincarnated, alien-abducted, cloned, whatever the hell, maybe; but not literally the same cat living his life ever since, one day at a time, a few months past his forty-seventh birthday. That would be crazy.

Ben, who’d had a half-dozen thermometers shoved up his ass already that day, was not overly invested in the proceedings until dessert. He rubbed up against Mom’s legs while she was whipping cream, and when she was done, he stood on his hind legs, his forepaws extended in supplication, and “danced” (an awkward stumbling turn from the usually graceful Ben) and she gave him the beaters. I pointed out they used to go through this identical ritual when I was a kid—Ben got both damn beaters then too—but Mom insisted it didn’t prove anything, that any cat would do the same.

Shannon maintained an aloof silence during all of this, only asking an occasional question, clarifying some detail, never venturing an opinion herself. Over dessert, Mom suggested a therapist she knew. “I went,” Dad said. “I had suicidal thoughts.” He popped a strawberry in his mouth. “Not anymore!”

He told us about his “crisis”—which as far as I could tell consisted of realizing that we all grow old and die. He acted like this would be news to us young people, though he was the one who said, “You’re only as old as you feel, right?” Wrong. Clearly the man had forgotten Angelina. Dad now took antidepressants to make him feel good, guzzled various mood-altering teas Mom bought from websites, and he felt like a new man. I kind of missed the days Dad smoked pot in the basement and thought I didn’t know, while I experimented widely. I’d often speculated that some bizarre conjunction of chemicals in my body expressed in my breath and tears might have affected Ben in some inexplicable way to resurrect him. Might as well believe in fairy dust. God’s will? Divine Plan? Come on. He’s a cat. And if he had a mission on this earth other than enjoying himself with the least possible bother, God failed to inform him of it. Go forth and lick both beaters, my chosen one. I didn’t think so.

“Maybe you’re supposed to be figuring it out for me, Jeffrey,” Ben said once. “You’re the one who cares about this religious crap.” It was true, but I couldn’t figure it out. What possible use could God have for a cat who had so little use for Him? I’ve always wanted to believe but never quite pulled it off except for transitory spasms of awe—what most people call agnosticism. If Ben made God more likely, he also made it more likely that He’s totally batshit nuts. Give me agnosticism any day. And if I wanted something to believe in, my folks always had something new on offer. This time it was some mini-messianic therapist with a nimble prescription pad. My folks were almost becoming conventional.

Shannon was no more interested in hearing about Dad’s rebirth than I was, so we didn’t linger after dessert. At the door, Mom put the therapist’s number in my shirt pocket and gave it a little pat. I couldn’t begin to describe how swell that felt at my age.

Shannon asked one more time, holding him up as Exhibit A, snoozing in his carrier, his face and forepaws sodden from the post-whipped-cream cleaning he’d given himself, “But this does look exactly like the Benjamin you remember, right?”

“Yes, dear,” Mom said. “But it can’t be, can it?” She gave my shirt pocket another pat to let Shannon know she held her responsible for getting her crazy son to a therapist as soon as possible. I would sooner have gone to Dr. Diderada than any therapist my parents would’ve recommended.

• • • •

Shannon was silent all the way home to my place, staring out the window at the night streets like she was a stranger in town feeling homesick. Every once in a while something would snag her vision, and she’d turn and follow it like she’d never seen it before.

I could only imagine what was going through her mind. How did you keep sleeping with a guy who thinks his cat is immortal? How did you let him rub your feet, make you breakfast, adore you, write you bad poetry, without doing something once the miraculous cat was out of the bag? Flee, fix it, lock me up, something. She loved me, loved my cat, even claimed to like my parents. But did she sign on for me being flat-out crazy? I couldn’t imagine so.

I halfway expected her to say she was going to get in her car and drive home, sleep at her place tonight, think things over, dump me tomorrow. Not Shannon.

When we were inside with Ben, she kicked off her shoes, pulled him out of his carrier, and cradled him in her arms, nuzzling his face. She put her whole body into it. It was kind of erotic, actually. “Benny Boy, I wish you could talk,” she said. He just purred like there might be something to this only-as-old-as-you-feel thing. Then she set him down and watched adoringly as he sauntered down the hall to the bed where he slept every night and half the day.

She poured herself a glass of wine. “Want one?”

“Sure.”

She poured. A lot. She drank. “I believe you,” she said. “I can’t see you having some weird serial cat fetish. Showing up at all those different vets with different cats over a twenty-year period is just too strange—and for what? So you could convince me now? It has to be the same cat. It has to be Ben. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Dr. Diderada thought so. Don’t you think?”

I couldn’t believe Ben was right again. I shook my head in wonder. “I did. He said he didn’t, but there was something . . . It was like no time had passed. I was five, I think, the first time I remember seeing Diderada with Ben. He gave me a lollipop when he gave Ben his treat, but Mom wouldn’t let me eat it. Sugar was poison.”

“I bet you were adorable.”

“I was afraid you’d think I was crazy. I’d think I was crazy if I hadn’t been there.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “It was a miracle. A blessing.” She looked me in the eye. “Have you ever tried—You know—”

“No. No way. Once was enough. Once has been more than sufficiently weird enough. I couldn’t deal with it. At first I tried to convince myself it wasn’t Ben who came back that night, but even if an identical cat who acted just like him showed up then, he’d still be thirty—210 in cat years.”

She made a face, unhooked her bra, and pulled it out her sleeve. She hung it on a chair back. “I thought they changed that. That because of medical advances, it’s more like five to one.”

“A hundred and fifty, then. Looks twenty. What’s the difference? He doesn’t age. I can’t explain it.”

“So he’s just stayed exactly the same all these years?”

“Not exactly. He looks the same, but he changes, experiences new things, learns . . .” I almost said evolves, but I stopped myself. I’d said too much already.

“Like what?” She poured more wine for herself. I hadn’t touched mine.

“Uh. Just things in general.”

“Give me an example. One thing he does now he didn’t do when he was seventeen.”

There were dozens of simple things I could’ve recounted, but I couldn’t think of a single one of them. They were all blotted out by the enormous eclipsing mass of what I didn’t want to say: He talks. Would I then go on to explain he’s fluent in English, speaking softly, in a half-whisper, like a breathy purr. Not really built for speech, it took him awhile to perfect his technique. He understood what I said long before he talked back.

Would I go on to explain he reads voluminously, has a passion for discussing politics, and expresses his political opinions in unique ways, like pissing and shitting on every Hummer foolish enough to park on our block?

Should I then tell her the first time he met her he told me, “She’s the one for you, Jeffrey”? That would’ve been way too Son of Sam, don’t you think? Ben suggested from the beginning, and I’d always agreed with him, that any mention of his linguistic abilities to anyone would be a very bad idea, and he’d never spoken clearly in the presence of others except for a stray word or two, easily explained away as a fluke. He was convinced if word ever got out he could talk, he’d be jailed for all eternity or until they finally carved him up to discover his secrets. He’s always had a flair for the melodramatic, but I’m afraid he was right on this one. But how could I not tell her? At that moment, Ben walked back into the kitchen. He gave me the look, the same look he gave me when Dr. Whatsit who started all this with his frigging reminder card wanted to do tests.

“He tells me when his box needs changing,” I offered. “He has a—a special meow.”

She picked up Ben and cuddled with him. “Is that right, Benny Boy? To what do we owe the honor of your company?” She looked over his purring head at me. “I just realized. You’ve lived your whole life with him.” I wasn’t sure what all she meant by that, or what it might mean to her, nor did she care to elaborate. “I’m going to bed now.” I followed her into the bedroom. She put Ben in his usual place, stepped out of her jeans and left them lying on the floor, pulled back the covers and crawled into bed beside him. She was asleep in moments, the two of them breathing in unison.

I got into bed on Ben’s other side.

When I turned off the light, he scolded me in a soft sing-song, “You almost told her.”

“Oh fuck yourself, Ben.”

“Neutered, re-mem-berrrr?” He chuckled softly, enjoying his own humor, enjoying his endless life.

I lay awake listening to them snore together like an old married couple, wondering how these revelations were going to affect our lives, then drifted off. I dreamed Shannon was in a terrible accident, and I healed her, but when she woke up, she no longer spoke, not a word, and she blamed me. You could see it in her eyes, lonely and furious and afraid.

• • • •

In the morning, Shannon came right to the point. “Jeffrey,” she said. “Would you help Aubrey?”

Ben, returning from a crunching good time at the cat food bowl, jumped onto the sofa, and flicked his tail—Careful.

Shannon’s younger brother Aubrey was in a car wreck five years earlier at the conclusion of a high-speed chase involving drugs—both in his person and in the trunk of the car—and he’d been in a persistent coma ever since. Until that moment, he was a mere fact of her existence from before I knew her, like the name of her childhood dog or where she went to high school. She never went to see him. He was as good as dead. There’d be no point. Not until now. Now there’d be a point. “You mean—”

“Heal him. Like you did Benjamin.”

“I didn’t do anything to Benjamin. It was just a weird one-time thing.”

“How do you know? You’ve never tried to do it again. I can’t believe you’ve never tried to do it again.”

There was a light in her eyes that made me uncomfortable. This wasn’t just about Aubrey, who everyone in her family pretty much agreed was an obnoxious little shit whose final, completely typical screw-up was not to have the good sense to die when he had the chance. “Believe it. Listen, Shannon, I think this is a really bad idea.”

“But this is my brother. You could save him. I know you could.”

“Let me think about it, okay? I have to think about it.”

“Okay. How long do you need?”

Some counselor once told impatient Shannon it was okay to ask for clear time limits—deadlines—if it would help her wait more patiently. I’d gotten used to it. She was much more patient with a deadline than without. But this was different. I hadn’t been able to figure this thing out in thirty years—how it happened, why it happened, how I felt about it, anything at all—and she wanted to know how long I needed? Longer than I had obviously. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow night after dinner. I’ll cook. I have a Rachael Ray recipe I want to try with that chicken.”

“You sure it’s still okay? It’s been in there a while.”

“I just bought it a couple of days ago. It’ll be fine.”

“You don’t think I’m being selfish for asking you to help Aubrey?”

“Not at all. How could asking to help somebody else be selfish?”

“If I wasn’t thinking about how it might be hard for you. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, Jeffrey. I love you. You know that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay then. Tomorrow after dinner.” She sipped her coffee. “So you watch Rachael Ray every day?”

“She’s on when I break for lunch. What can I say? She’s hot. You’re going to love this chicken.”

• • • •

To tell you the truth, I couldn’t remember Rachael Ray’s recipe exactly, but it involved some chopped herbs and garlic and olive oil slathered on chicken parts which were then baked. I recalled the close-up of Rachael Ray’s hands slathering breasts and thighs. She was always using her hands. I loved it. I’m a whole bird man myself, but I liked the concept. I figured baked was good, so I wouldn’t be standing over the stove while we were having this discussion. I didn’t expect Shannon to wait until after dinner to bring it up. My tarragon plants looked like they were up to a chicken-size harvest, and I threw in a little white wine, some chopped mushrooms, a dash of nutmeg, some salt, lots of black pepper and crushed garlic, and (of course) extra virgin olive oil. It made a fine green goop.

I’d decided to say no to Shannon’s request that I attempt to resurrect Aubrey. Here was my reasoning: Most important, I suppose, was my gut said no. This was no surprise. It’d been saying no loud and clear for thirty years now—no wavering. But with Shannon’s petition, I’d been forced to rationally examine what I thought about it—in other words, to come up with some likely sounding reasons to validate my gut. If your mind doesn’t work like that, more power to you, and hurray for rationalism and all of that, but for me reason lives to serve the gut. In this case, it was persuasive as usual.

First, I doubted I could do it. When Ben came back to life, I really wanted it to happen. I’d never willed anything so strongly before or since. As for Aubrey, I could try to want his resurrection because Shannon did—though she seemed to have gotten along fine without him in the time I’d known her—but it wasn’t happening. Deep down, I felt if Aubrey were going to make a move, it should be in the other direction. So if my will and desire had anything to do with whatever process brought Ben back to life, there was little chance of success with Aubrey.

Assuming I was able to bring him back to life, the questions just began. Ben regressed from being a dying seventeen-year-old to (by all appearances) a four-year-old, and had remained unchanged for thirty years and counting. Would Aubrey, who had his accident at twenty-six, find himself a permanent six-year-old? What effect would five years of unconsciousness have had on him? And as Ben pointed out, death is a necessary precondition of resurrection. Technically speaking, Aubrey wasn’t dead. He was in that huge gray arena known as, “as good as dead.” Even my silly father had casually described himself thus over dessert the previous night—but there’s no such thing, is there? A prescription and some psycho-babble away from a cure isn’t dead. Nothing’s as good as dead. Dead is unique, no known therapy or cure.

But let’s just say, everything were to go perfectly. Aubrey awakens from his deep sleep a new man of sound mental faculties who lives a long fruitful life and dies at a respectable age like the rest of us, a credit to his species, despite his previous sociopathic tendencies, having seen the light or whatever revelation the resurrected are privy to, and has been utterly transformed by the experience. Did I really want to be the guy who raised him from the dead? I wouldn’t make it out of the hospital before they’d be doing tests on me, driving me out to the cemetery to see what I could really do. No thanks.

I didn’t know why Ben came back to life and continued to live. I hadn’t a clue. Until I figured that out, that’s as far as it went. God might have a plan, in which case I was sure I couldn’t do anything to screw it up, lacking any clear instructions otherwise, but if God had no plan, I didn’t feel obliged to come up with one other than the status quo: Everyone dies. That’s the way things are. Except for Ben.

Would I get a chance to say all this to Shannon after she hears no? Would it matter to her? Would I lose her? That’s all I cared about: I just didn’t want to lose her. I knew I should care about her brother, but to me he was an extra out of an old movie with Geneviève Bujold. I couldn’t bear to lose Shannon, however. As Ben prophesied, she was the one for me. Trouble was, she had just one tiny little favor to ask, and I couldn’t do it.

And there she was, coming in the kitchen door with a bottle of wine, a half hour early, as I should’ve known she would be, and here I was with my hands dripping garlic, olive oil, and tarragon, anointing the chicken inside and out, lost in thought, reasoning and seasoning. If I could only manage to throw the bird in the oven before Shannon rushed straight to The Issue, we could talk while it baked.

She kissed my cheek, careful to avoid my slathered hands, and opened the bottle of wine, giving a half-hearted account of her day. Traffic was lighter than usual, she claimed, to explain her early arrival. I pretended to believe her.

Ben, who’d shown up to observe the preparations the minute I took the chicken out of the fridge, didn’t even glance her way. He was seated on a stool, eye level with his share of the bounty, the bag of innards I always gave him—liver, heart, gizzard—laid out on the cutting board awaiting preparation once the bird was in the oven. He liked them sautéed in butter and garlic with a splash of Worcestershire, devoured them like a lion on the veldt, if the lion had a chef. I kept the neck for making stock. I didn’t treat him to such delicacies often. He liked the Chow, he claimed. “I think they put something in it,” he said. “It’s highly addictive. Perhaps some extract of catnip.” Ben’s always had a serious nip habit, but we all must have our vices, I suppose.

Shannon poured, laughing at Ben’s rapt attention to my labors. She scratched the top of his head, and he lifted it to press against her hand, arched his back to her touch, as her hand glided firmly down his back, but his eyes never left the prize. “I hope you washed your hands,” Shannon said. She held my glass to my lips to give me a sip of wine, careful once again to avoid my glistening green hands and the oily bird. “I’ll put your glass over here.” She set it on the counter out of the way and took the stool next to Ben’s. “So have you thought about Aubrey?”

Damn. “Of course. Let me get this in the oven first, okay? Then we can talk.”

“Okay.” She idly petted Ben a few strokes, growing pensive. She wrapped her hand around his tail, and he slowly pulled it through, like a napkin through a ring. “It must not be yes. If it was yes, you’d just go ahead and tell me.”

As I recalled, the deadline was after dinner. I didn’t count on being elbow deep in dinner when she arrived. “I’m almost done here. I just need to get this stuff off my hands and get the bird in the oven.”

“Why won’t you do it?”

“Can this wait five minutes?”

“I suppose so. I’ve waited five years. We all have. I just can’t believe you won’t . . .”

I body slammed the chicken on the counter and splattered oil and tarragon everywhere. “Believe it! No! The answer is no! I don’t even know I can do anything!”

“You’ve never even tried!” She touched my oily hands.

It was an eerie moment, her ivory hand laid upon mine as if it weren’t smeared with goop, oblivious to the globs clinging to her beige silk blouse. I felt like the Swamp Thing. Somebody loved him too, as I recall. I looked into Shannon’s eyes, and there it was again. The light. She wanted me to try out my powers more than she wanted to save her brother. Let’s face it. Some brothers aren’t missed. But people wait their whole lives to witness a miracle. “Is that what this is all about? You just want to see me do it?”

“Certainly not.” She almost persuaded herself. She didn’t even come close to persuading me. Quite the contrary. It was too much. Years of guilt and mystery and feeling like a freak, and now the love of my life wants me to perform like a dolphin jumping through a hoop—while the saved, the eye of the storm, the miracle kitty, isn’t even watching, waiting only to eat some dead bird’s heart, cooked the way he likes.

“It is, isn’t it? It’s driving you crazy. A gen-u-ine miracle. Your boyfriend—with messianic gifts. How cool is that? Here. You want to see?” I scooped up Ben’s innards waiting to be sautéed and shoved them deep inside the bird, grasped its oily breasts in both hands and waggled it in her face, then held it aloft, clamping my eyes shut, filling my mind with visions of a perfect chicken pecking celestial corn, or whatever it is they peck, cackling its head off, or maybe that was me. Shannon backed away in terror, knocking over her stool. I squeezed harder, imagined more vividly, willed more forcefully. “Come on, you little fucker, live! Live! Live!”

And then I felt it, a squirming, writhing wriggling in my hands, and the bird broke loose, erupted from my grasp and hit the countertop, skittering wildly, huge drumsticks pumping footless oiled extremities across Formica. It was amazing how fast the fucking thing could go under the circumstances. Headless, it darted back and forth unpredictably, careening from coffee pot to toaster oven to food processor to bread machine, ricocheting off each white surface with a slimy green stripe. I lunged for it, caught a drumstick, but I couldn’t hold on. It hit the floor with a sickening smack and kept running. Then out of nowhere, an airborne Ben landed on its back, digging his claws in deep. Nothing could slip from his grasp. He opened his jaws wide and sank his fangs repeatedly into the bird’s thighs and chest, tearing away huge hunks of flesh and swallowing them whole, but still the bird struggled. The battle raged on, with the thing writhing to get free until Ben had consumed all but the bones. He stuck his head deep into the chest cavity, pulled out the still-beating heart, and devoured it in one bite.

There was a huge clatter behind me, and Shannon screamed again. She’d already screamed several times, as I recall. It was the stockpot lid hitting the floor. The goddamn neck was trying to leap out of the stockpot like a fish. I grabbed a long fork and harpooned it, tossing it to Ben on the floor, who polished it off in no time. No problem. I had plenty of stock in the freezer.

Ben was covered in green goop, as was I. The Swamp Thing and his Swamp Cat. The floor was a slimy, glistening extra virgin olive oil lagoon. Dear Rachael Ray, I tried your chicken recipe and wasn’t entirely pleased with the results . . .

I knelt down and started washing off Ben with a wet towel. He was jazzed, purring like an outboard motor, a prizefighter who’d miraculously gone the distance and defeated the champ against all the odds. Usually he preferred to clean himself, but the prize was worth any indignity. It wasn’t every day he scored an entire six-pound bird for his personal consumption. Shannon and I would have to go out for dinner, I was thinking, or there was always takeout. I was in a tiny bit of denial.

I’d been avoiding looking at her, though that must be her I heard whimpering. Finally, I looked up from my sopping, wild-eyed cat, still hyperventilating, his stuffed gut swelled out like he was pregnant. She was standing in the corner by the kitchen door, backed into the coat rack, still holding an umbrella cocked like a baseball bat. She’d picked it up when the reanimated chicken was headed right for her, before Ben leapt to the rescue. “Still want me to heal your brother?” I asked. In retrospect, not the best thing to say.

She looked at the umbrella as if she had no memory of how she came to be holding it. Judging from the look of terror on her face, she remembered, perhaps too vividly, what had just happened—the bizarre battle that had raged at her feet—two immortals in a battle to the death.

Ben took a step toward her. “It’s okay, Shannon,” he said. “It’s dead now.”

She threw down the umbrella and dashed out of the house. Her car started seconds later and roared off, tires squealing. I’d never known Shannon to drive like that.

“Don’t worry,” Ben said. “She’ll be back.”

“Yeah. What woman can resist us?”

The aroma of tarragon and garlic and death hung heavy in the air. I should mop it up, I thought, but I couldn’t face the prospect of reliving the moment just yet. The one for me, the love of my life, was gone. Ben had wandered off and was licking the floor. Maybe he can make himself sick licking up the residue of this disaster, I thought. But that’s right. He never gets sick. Remember-r-r-r? “I’m going out,” I announced.

Ben knew not to say a word.

• • • •

I walked over to the barbecue place and had chicken that tasted like vinegar and smoke, fire and brimstone. I drank cheap beer and listened to a steady stream of country and western whine, guy after guy pleading for their lovers to forgive them their sins, hanging on to enough hope to manage three chords and a catchy plea built around some outrageous conceit, but none of their desperate hope was contagious, and I remained hopeless. These guys strayed, lied, drank, whatever—typical fucked-up guy stuff. None of them had ever resurrected a six-pound roaster as a clearly hostile act in the midst of a rational discussion. No. At some point, the weirdness has to set off deeply rooted survival alarm bells to head for the hills and not look back. I didn’t know how anyone could just work around something like the ride Shannon had been on ever since she was just trying to help and made Ben an appointment at the vet.

Somehow I knew this time, maybe for the only time, I was right and Ben was wrong. Shannon wasn’t coming back. I started crying, and the manager came over to tell me I had to leave. I couldn’t believe it. I ate his bad food, listened to his sad songs—whose composers would be out of work if they couldn’t rhyme die, lie, and good-bye with cry, cry, cry—and now he wanted me to leave because of a few tears? I could’ve done a whole lot worse than tears. I had a good mind to find his walk-in and resurrect his entire inventory, set it loose in the dining room to run amok in his crappy sauce, but of course, I didn’t. Wouldn’t. Ever again.

Benjamin and a chicken—that’s it. My healing career was over.

• • • •

All attempts to locate Shannon failed. She left town that night apparently, and nobody ever heard from her. Nobody who would tell me, anyway.

A few years later, Dad died, and Mom died the year after that. I held out some hope that Shannon might show up at their funerals, but of course she didn’t. Aubrey died, unplugged by his parents apparently. I read the notice in the paper. I lurked nearby in the cemetery, but only the parents and the preacher were there.

When I came home after, even Ben finally admitted we were never seeing Shannon again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should never have surrendered to my predatory instincts.”

“It’s not your fault. You’re a predator, for Christ’s sake. It was my fault. I had no business bringing that chicken back to life.”

He nodded in somber agreement. “True. True.”

We missed her terribly, but we rarely spoke of her. It was too painful for us both.

• • • •

My parents had left me a modest inheritance, which I invested in the stock market. After weeks fine-tuning voice recognition software so Ben could use the computer, I turned the portfolio over to him, and in no time he’d made us wealthy enough to retire and travel. We went everywhere. If Ben had read about it, he wanted to go there, and if he wanted to go, we usually went, and if we went, I never regretted it. We went to incredible places. We went to ordinary places made incredible by the wonders Ben knew we’d find there.

I soon discovered that if you have enough money, you can take your cat anywhere, especially when you get older. People put up with things from old people, probably figuring they haven’t got too long. An old man denied his desires by some heartless gatekeeper may have missed his last chance. What sort of old age might such a heartless individual expect when it comes his time to travel about pathetically with some old cat in a carrier, when the sign clearly says no animals allowed? What? An empty building? Do you think Homo sapiens aren’t animals? What then are they, I’d like to know! Oh yes, by the time I’m eighty-four, I can take my cat anywhere.

Trouble is I’m too sick to go anymore.

We’ve come to rest in Catemaco, a lovely town on a beautiful lake in Mexico, that teems with cats and brujas—witches—and is a favorite town of ours. We’ve rented a place with a balcony overlooking the lake. The fishermen still fish with hand-tossed nets from small one-man boats. I like to watch them at dusk, casting their nets into water and sky the color of burnished copper. The fish are delicious, embedded with cloves of garlic and fried whole.

They’re only a memory to me now. I can’t keep anything down. Everything tastes like ashes anyway. The doctor has come and gone. He’s said there’s nothing to be done to save me. He could admit me to the hospital, so that I might be more comfortable, but when I said I would be more comfortable here watching the fishermen with my cat, he bowed, in deference to my age, I suppose, and said he understood.

Benjamin, who’s befriended both cats and witches here, has returned with a woman named Hermalinda who brews teas for us both. He has broken his long silence with her, and she has agreed to come see to our needs. “Will it cure me?” I ask Ben of the tea she’s brewing. I’m surprised I can smell it. I haven’t smelled anything in a long while. I’ve had to give up cooking.

“Of old age,” Ben replies, but I’ve forgotten what I just asked him.

“I’m afraid,” I confess to my old friend.

“I know,” he says. “Everything will be all right. I’ll be joining you. Walk like an Egyptian.” He laughs at his cat humor, very sly, but I don’t get it. I wonder what Hermalinda is brewing for him. Probably nip. It’s always the nip with him.

Hermalinda props me up in bed so that I might look out the balcony at the copper waters, the fishermen’s nets like women’s fans opening and closing, leaving behind a glistening spray of memories. She holds the cup to my lips. It tastes of cloves and juniper. She patiently gives me the whole cup, sip by sip. The last sip is sweet, like honey, like roses.

She sets a saucer on the floor for Ben and quietly slips out the door. Ben quickly laps up his tea and jumps onto the bed, spry as ever, pushing my frail hands apart and inserting himself once more in my grasp. I can feel him through my skin, thin as paper, his heart beating, hard and steady, through my fingertips. “Good night, Jeffrey.” He purrs softly, and my hands tingle. I remember the tune from so long ago, centuries in cat years:

. . . Old Blue died and he died so hard
Shook the ground in my backyard
Dug his grave with a silver spade
Lowered him down with links of chain
Every link I did call his name
Here Blue, you good dog you
Here Blue, I’m a-coming there too!

Ben stops purring, and a moment later, his heart stops, and he’s gone just like that. He’s tricked me—knowing where he leads, I’ll follow—fleeing the unbearable emptiness of this world without him—he’s shown me the way. Some Day has finally come.

Everyone dies. Even Ben.

For me.

©2009 by Dennis Danvers. Originally published in Realms of Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dennis Danvers has published eight novels, including NYT Notables Circuit of Heaven and The Watch, and Locus and Bram Stoker nominee Wilderness. Short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Intergalactic Medicine Show, Space and Time, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, Electric Velocipede, Lightspeed, Apex Magazine, Tor.com; and in anthologies Tails of Wonder, Richmond Noir, The Best of Electric Velocipede, Remapping Richmond’s Hallowed Ground, and Nightmare Carnival. Short story collection, Leaving the Dead, and novel, The Perfect Stranger, are forthcoming in 2019. He teaches fiction writing and science fiction and fantasy literature at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Hath No Fury

Kat Howard | 18330 words

Sing, Muse. Sing rage.

• • • •

I am not a Muse, but I could sing you a song of rage. My origin is rage, rage and helplessness. I began as the sort of thing no one pays attention to, that everyone dismisses, just another girl, and there are too many who are my sisters in this.

Before, I never had rage for myself. Growing up, girls are told that we shouldn’t, that we should be good girls, not bitches. Be quiet, be ladylike. Don’t talk back. Don’t take up too much space. Good girls don’t raise their voices. Good girls don’t rage.

I am not a good girl.

I used to be. It almost killed me.

I’m different now. If you took my picture, you’d see one of the goth girls, pale skin held together with battered boots and eyeliner. Too much attitude for her own good, and nothing you need to concern yourself with. You probably wouldn’t even notice the way the shadows twist and heap themselves around me, the dream of wings.

But I’m not even human, not anymore. I’m an Erinye, a Fury. One of the Kindly Ones. And when I am that, when I am most fully myself, I am winged and snake-haired. I am a tear, an absence, a rip in the universe’s threads.

I am rage.

• • • •

If only the story had never been told.

Falling in love with Jason had never been Medea’s desire. She had not schooled herself in sorcery, made the sacrifices necessary to gain that knowledge, so as to lose herself to a man. That particular fate was in none of the auspices she read for herself.

But fates can be overridden by goddesses, and golden Jason was well-beloved of Hera, and so, like the snap of a finger, the sorceress was herself ensorcelled.

At first, what Jason asked of Medea was cleverness. Help in the theft of the Golden Fleece from Medea’s father, a man who never had appreciated his daughter’s gifts. A thing she might have done even without the interference of the goddess, even without the words Jason spoke to her when they moved together in the dark. It was a pleasure to outwit a father who never expected intelligence from a daughter.

But then. But then. The next task Jason required. Her brother’s blood wet and sticky on her hands, and her knife in her brother’s flesh, and between the weak places in his joints and across his throat so that he would stop—all gods and goddesses, stop—crying out her name and begging her for mercy. Jason stood next to her on the deck of the Argo, laughing as she consigned the pieces of her brother’s body to the salt-dark sea. Laughing at the confusion of Medea’s father, as he sailed his own boat in pursuit of the pieces of his dead son, rather than of the man standing next to his still living daughter.

Medea loved her brother, and it had not mattered. That love had not been enough to save either of them. She had committed the gravest of wrongs. She had spilled the blood of her family. She looked at her hands, still gloved in red, and swore vengeance.

• • • •

The first time I fully became a Fury, everything about it was strange. Medea had warned me about some of what would happen—I would feel a call, a pulling beneath my skin. I would hear the voice of the lost, murdered woman, crying out for vengeance. I wouldn’t be able to ignore it, and I wouldn’t want to. I’d be guided to where I needed to go.

I’d asked—what about the police? Shouldn’t they be called? Wouldn’t they wonder why I was there?

No. They wouldn’t notice me. I would always be there before they were. And if the police, the laws, the courts were enough, I wouldn’t be necessary anyway. If you have justice, you don’t need vengeance.

Would it always be a dead woman? I asked. That wasn’t quite how I remembered the stories, dim pieces of mythology resurrected from school.

The stories, Medea told me, were both more and less true than they appeared to be. And other Furies had other duties. This one, here, was mine.

Then there were the parts Medea didn’t tell me about. The feeling of wings ripping through my skin and into the air. Of snakes crawling inside my flesh. Of the way my heart would feel when it ceased to beat and became heavy, became a scale to weigh the sins of others.

That first time, I nearly vomited when I saw the body. I knew there was going to be a body. I had braced myself for it. I wouldn’t have been called, my office would not have been invoked if a woman hadn’t been killed, but seeing her was still awful. Beyond awful.

Then there was the next thing I had to do, which was worse.

I knelt down next to her, and I knew what her name was. Ashleigh McAllister. “I’m sorry, Ashleigh,” I said, and touched my fingers to her blood. “I’m sorry.”

Then I brought my fingers to my mouth.

“The truth is in the blood,” Medea had told me. “Of life, and of death. No one can hide from what is written there, and you need that truth. Your dead need you to know it.”

With the taste of the blood, I could hear a great bell ring, and it was as if I stood inside it. The air around me compressed and then exploded outward. Bronze-feathered wings unfolded themselves from my back, and my hair coiled and hissed.

I was no longer a woman. I was a storm with skin. I was unnameable vengeance.

I knew who had killed her. I knew his name.

My vision ran red, and my head was full of the tolling of bells, and he had run but his beating heart was a lodestone and my blood was full of magnets.

He was not difficult to find.

I held out my hands and in them was a mirror and I stood before him and I showed him his reflection. I do not know what he saw, except that it was true, and that the terror of the vision was enough to stop his craven heart. Even had it not been, my hand, clutching it outside of his chest, would.

The mirror disappeared. The wings folded themselves into my back, the snakes of my hair slithered away, disappearing into the shadows and cracks, the between spaces. I said her name once more: Ashleigh McAllister.

I do not ever speak his.

• • • •

That was the first time. I am accustomed to it now, the bronze wings, the world gone red, the great tolling of a bell I have never seen, one that is silenced only when vengeance has been paid.

Accustomed to it, not used to it. I will never be used to hearing that another woman is dead, murdered at the hands of a monster.

Sing rage.

• • • •

Medea was waiting for me at the diner, and I sighed with happiness when I spotted her through the neon-lit glass.

She smiled, red lipstick and glamour, when I walked in the door. “Kaira! The fries are hot and the burger is bloody, so eat up, dear.” She had done something to the food while she waited, because my fries were still hot even though her own plate was half-empty, and they tasted better than they had any right to. I nodded my thanks around a mouth full of burger, and ate until the snakes quieted beneath my skin.

We meet at least once a week. Often here—the food in its natural, unmagically enhanced state isn’t astounding, but Medea likes the egg creams. But it’s the seeing her that matters, not the food. “I want to be sure you have someone to talk to if you need it,” Medea had said when she suggested the meetings.

I must have looked surprised, because she continued. “Just because what you do is right, doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

“What I do doesn’t bother me,” I said. “I’d kill them twice if I could.”

Medea put her hand on mine. “It’s not that part that will wear on you. It’s the fact that, if you’re there at all, you’re already too late. Your office is not one of prevention.”

She had been right. So, we met. Diner food. Burgers and fries with salt enough to conjure tears. Or elegant bars for Sidecars and Manhattans. She never asked how I was, if I was coping, and I never told, because I knew I could. I was the monster now. Of course I could cope. But we met, and those meetings were my safety net.

“I have honey for you,” Medea said, and took a jar from her purse. She keeps a hive of bees on her rooftop. She had kept that same hive since it stood outside the Oracle at Delphi, next to an omphalos stone honeycombed with carved bees, the tiny labyrinth of the hive. She uses the bees in her divinations, and gives the honey to her friends.

The honey is the red gold color of liquid flame, and there is no more delicious honey on earth.

“Kaira, if you dream after you eat the honey—”

“I will tell you.” She always asks. I would tell her, if there were ever anything to tell. There never is. “For now, tell me about this new guy you’ve been seeing.”

Medea’s smile is like a cat stretching, slow and sure of its beauty. She set gloves on the table, knit so fine they must be cashmere, and deep gold like the late afternoon sun. “He gave me these.”

• • • •

It was dark when I left the diner, night fallen over the city, though it was a loud and neon-lit darkness. The lights from the buildings, from the cars, shine so much that it is almost impossible to see stars here. Still, bright as it is, there is something about the night that makes the air seem colder, that makes me feel more alone, than the same walk would have done under even a gray-skied day. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and hunched in to myself as I walked.

When I got home, I changed into bird-printed flannel pajamas, and made a cup of tea. The tea was mostly an excuse to have some of Medea’s honey in a manner that isn’t just eating it straight from the jar, though I’m glad of the warmth in my hands as I hold the mug. The honey tastes like the late summer sky, gold and flame and migrating butterflies. Of bees on the wing, and feathers, bright and almost bronze.

It was Medea who made me what I am. I was very nearly one of the dead girls. There was a man, who at first seemed kind, who treated me as if I were some precious thing. He seemed so good, and I felt as if I didn’t deserve him. I tried to, though, and when he told me I failed, I tried harder. I thought he loved me, until the day I knew he didn’t.

There isn’t much about my story that makes it unique to me. Anyone outside of it could have read the warning signs, and predicted the end. Yet, as I was living in it, I couldn’t see my danger, and couldn’t see my way out. My disaster felt horribly unique, and I felt alone in it. It was as if I lived inside of a great clock, constantly counting down, and I was powerless to stop it from reaching the zero point.

And so it did.

He said he had seen me with another man, smiling and flirting, and pressing myself against him like a whore. I had already learned that truth didn’t matter, that any attempt to deny or explain would have been seen as more lies. I thought it was just going to be another beating, but he had a gun.

Terror. Pain. Blood. Not death.

Instead, I got Medea, and a choice.

I chose yes.

I don’t know where he is now. I will never ask her.

There are other Furies, of course. There always are—women remade from sorrow and anger, from the wrongs they have endured. There has always been the need for vengeance. Very near an eternity of it, a constantly renewing cycle.

I finished the tea, and crawled into bed.

• • • •

I dream of the dying of the bees. I see them confused and lost outside a hive that still hums, but is slowly starving. They no longer recognize themselves, and cannot find their way home. I dream of other deaths as well: Birds fall from the sky, feathered contrails unspiralling in their wake. A tattered carpet of butterflies, trampled on the street. Bats, unmade velvet shadows.

I see hands holding scissors ice-bright, cutting threads that are already unraveling.

Then there is nothing, and nothing, and nothing. The dream ends, and I cannot wake. I cannot move, and I cannot breathe, and my entire world has gone gray and heavy.

Finally, the dream spits me out, and I heave myself up in bed, shaking and sweating, the sheets tangling my legs like snakes. I tap the dream out on the screen of my phone so that I can email it to Medea now, before I forget something. But even once I’m finished, I stay in bed until the shaking stops, and my legs can hold my weight. Only then do I stumble to the shower, to wash the stench of my own fear from my body.

I don’t dream, not since becoming a Fury. I am a skeleton of impossibilities, on which a body made from other people’s dreams is hung—there are no extra pieces of magic for me to burn off in something so casual as sleep. This was something that should never have happened.

• • • •

And so Medea took every kind and soft thing that remained in her heart, and turned it to fury, turned it to vengeance, gave it the hardness of bronze, the voice of a great bell tolling. She still loved Jason, because she had to. The goddess so decreed, and that was a force Medea could not escape. But love is protean and love is cruel, and love looks at hate and sees its mirror-twin.

The Argo came to shore to find that a great wrong had been done—Jason’s father slain by his own family, his throne stolen, and held against Jason, who by law should have inherited it. The kin-slayer, the usurper, was too strong for Jason to stand against him. And so the goddess again moved Medea’s heart, and made her turn her hand to sorcery.

It was a dire thing, what Medea did. She laid hold of a ram, an ancient, noble beast, and slit its throat. She cut it small, and placed it in a cauldron, a dread device whose only purpose was the resurrection of the dead. And so, a lamb, bright with the strength of youth, emerged.

The usurper saw this thing that Medea had done, and saw a way to rule forever. And so Medea gave her knife to the man’s daughters, and taught them the herbs they must use, and the words they must say. But she did not give them her cauldron, and so the usurper’s death was final, cut to pieces and stewed in a pot, and family blood coated their hands.

Jason saw what had been done on his behalf, and he was pleased. He called it just.

• • • •

If you’re looking for a wizard in New York City, the easiest place to find one is the Hungarian pastry shop near the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Like the more mundane customers, they go there to drink small cups of strong espresso, and savor rich slices of Sacher torte.

They also go there to play chess. Chess lends itself fairly easily to use in sympathetic magic, which means that it can be played for reasons that are about more than simply the pieces being moved about the board. There are days when I walk in, and I can feel the great scales weighing their balances. There are days when a game is simply two friends sitting across a table, trading pawns and gossip.

I arrived to see Medea tip over the white king. “Checkmate.”

The white-haired man with the eyepatch sitting across from her shook his head. “I thought I had you. Again tomorrow?”

“For stakes higher than coffee and a pastry?” Her smile, an outstretched hand holding a golden apple.

“Perhaps. I’ll consult the runes.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek, and gave a slight bow as I slid into his vacated seat. “Kind lady, if you would let me get your coffee and pastry as well?”

Offers like that were a thing that happened, when people recognized what I was, a marker of gratitude or respect given to the office I filled. My refusal would have been as much of an insult as someone not offering, so I nodded. “Thank you. One of the almond ones, please.”

While he was at the counter, I asked, “Is that Odin?”

“That is one of the names he uses, yes.”

When he leaned down to set the cups and plates on the table, I heard the distant clang of swords, and smelled the cold winter resin of the world tree. The shadows he cast reshaped themselves into runes written on bone. He winked at me before he turned to go.

Medea and I drank coffee, and ate pastries, and I fidgeted the chess pieces around the board.

“You can’t move the knight like that,” she said.

“I didn’t realize we were playing.”

“We’re not. Still. There are rules.” She set the knight back on his square. “I don’t know why you dreamt, Kaira.”

“Should I worry?” The dream had been horrifically unpleasant, but I had been around Medea and magic long enough now to know that unpleasant by itself was not necessarily cause for alarm.

“Perhaps. It may have been a blip. A stray piece of magic that collected in the honey. That honey, and those bees, it’s certainly possible.

“It may have been some leftover bits of your own past, rising up to haunt you, more a memory than a dream. You said at the end you felt paralyzed, and trapped.”

I nodded. It made sense, her explanation, or at least I wanted it to. Wanting mattered, with magic.

“But if it is something other, there is not enough for me to say what. Omens require context.”

“Threes,” I said. “Things like this, if they have meaning, they happen in threes.”

“That is the customary way of it. That doesn’t mean I want you to wait to tell me about anything—anything, Kaira—that seems strange to you.”

I sipped at my coffee, then winced and set it back down. It had gone cold and sludgy at the bottom. “I will,” I said.

A woman came in the door, regal-looking, and with a snake’s tail that swept out from under her skirts. A melusine. “I think your next game is here, so I should probably go.”

Medea looked over my shoulder, and nodded at the melusine. “Take care, Kaira.”

“I will.” I didn’t tell Medea to take care—the thought never occurred to me. She was Medea, after all. She had always taken care of herself.

• • • •

I was fidgety, full of too much energy, static electricity running through my veins. Medea may not have thought it was time to worry, but I couldn’t convince myself it wasn’t. So I walked home, instead of taking the subway, looking for strangeness, for the thing out of the ordinary, for the sideways glance that would set the snakes to hissing beneath my skin.

There are echoes of strangeness and wonder everywhere in New York—a different god worshipped on every street, and the gods themselves dwelling in penthouses and alleys and in subway tunnels no one alive remembers. There are wizards and magics and feral cats who grant wishes and a glass-topped counter at a department store staffed only by women named Vasilisa.

There are a thousand words for dream spoken here, and as many ways of making them come true.

I stopped when I saw her. An older woman, cloud-white hair pulled back into a low bun, exposing bones fine as a bird’s. She wore a coat that was an explosion of pink, and the late morning sun flashed and scattered off the knitting needles in her hands.

I bought two cups of coffee from the cart at the edge of the park, and walked over to where the woman sat. “I wasn’t sure how you took your coffee, so I grabbed some cream and sugar packets. They’re in my pocket if you’d like.”

“I like my coffee best when it’s had with a friend. Will you sit down with me?”

“I’m sorry, have we met?” She did look familiar to me, though my brain fogged when I tried to place her exactly.

“It’s possible. I meet a lot of people. But even if we haven’t, anyone who buys me a cup of coffee can call herself my friend.” She set the cup down, and picked up her knitting again.

“What are you making?” The yarn she was using was a beautiful night sky blue, flecked with gray.

“I never know, not exactly. Not ’til it’s finished, and the last thread cut.”

“You don’t need a pattern?” What was in her hands looked complicated, full of twists and texture changes. There were places that layered over each other like a tapestry’s weave.

“My hands know what they need to be doing.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“It does look that way, doesn’t it?” She set the knitting down and looked at me. “You tell your friend to listen to the bees, and the dreams of the winged. You tell her to take care, before she is stolen away from herself. You take care, too. Something is coming, and there’s a knot in the thread.”

Her words were like winter across my skin. “Can you tell me anything else?”

“I can tell you thank you for the coffee, and the company. You come sit with me any time. But now, you go talk to your friend.”

I did. Medea seemed calm, unworried, as if she were simply collecting interesting data. Still, a voice in my head marked: two.

• • • •

After, Medea wondered why it was that she had stayed. The goddess’ compulsion on her grew weaker as there were no new tasks to perform for Jason’s advancement. Perhaps she could have run. Perhaps somewhere there would have been a safe place where her name did not echo off the walls, where her deeds had not outstripped her feet, where she could have lived quietly, with her sorceries and her bees. Perhaps.

But she stayed, and she let herself believe Jason when he said he loved her. She cast her own sorceries upon herself until she believed she loved him, too. They had a marriage. They had children. She made herself believe.

For a while, it even worked.

• • • •

Omens and strangenesses aside, I was still a Fury, and sadly few days passed where I didn’t have call to be reminded of it. The girl shot because she looked at the wrong boy. A woman savaged because someone decided she had no right to call herself woman. Another woman stabbed to death because she didn’t smile when a man on the subway told her to. They are not the only ones. They are never the only ones.

I am vengeance. I am furious. I am heartbroken.

I repeat their names to myself in litanies, light candles to mark their passing, and understand the desire to scorch the earth and salt the ashes.

There is nothing I can do to stop this progress, no warning I can give. I do not have a power that will let me unfurl my wings and fly these women to safety.

The hidden meaning of vengeance is too late.

• • • •

Whatever omens that were being counted, I didn’t want to be the thing that marked three, so even as I watched with one eye for any potentially important sign, I tried very hard not to encourage one to show up. I didn’t spoon Medea’s honey into my tea. I didn’t stop by the Hungarian pastry shop to see the wizards play chess. I made sure not to order my take-out lo mein from the restaurant in Chinatown that had true fortunes in its cookies. I canceled drinks with Medea, twice.

She called me on it, when I tried to get out of dinner a third time. “You are a harbinger, Kaira. If there is a doom that will fall, it will fall whether or not you and I have martinis. And if there are omens gathering around you, better that we hear them when they speak.”

So I went, and things were good. Worry about ill-fated omens coming in threes aside, Medea was my friend, and I had missed her. For the space of a meal and a conversation, I was able to believe that whatever dire clock was ticking had paused its countdown at two.

“And things are good with the new guy?” I asked, buttoning my coat. I never could keep his name in my head.

“Hmm? Yes, he’s lovely. Shit.” She held out her hand. Her nail had pierced the threads of the golden gloves he gave her, and her finger stuck out through the unraveled end.

“He gave those to you, didn’t he?”

“Yes. So sweet. Well, at least it’s just the end—I can fix them.” She tugged the gloves off, dropped them in her purse.

I opened the door of the restaurant, and froze. “Medea.”

The sidewalk was covered with dead birds.

• • • •

Three.

• • • •

After the birds—and not just the expected pigeons of the city, but an entire aviary’s worth of magpies and cardinals, goldfinches and kestrels, the bronze feathers of a Fury scattered among them—I figured it didn’t matter anymore, that the omens were done, that whatever fate was going to fall had fallen, so I stirred Medea’s honey into my tea that night.

I dreamt again, but if they were omens, I didn’t know how to read them. Feathers of bronze, like my own, falling from the sky to litter the ground. Ships in the harbor, all with black sails raised. Running, always running, through a knot of walls somehow too high to fly over, the panic of a monster’s hot breath on my neck.

That’s not quite true. I did know how to read them. I just didn’t want to.

• • • •

New York lends itself to mysteries, to hidden places and secret clubs. To bakeries full of wizards, yes, but also to a tree in Central Park where the phoenix makes its nest, fragrant with cinnamon and amber. To a church where the ghosts of the saints walk forth from their reliquaries once a day and sing matins. To a room in a museum where twelve women slip each night into a grand ball and dance until their shoes are tattered. It is a city practiced in keeping secrets.

Even better at keeping secrets is Medea.

If you don’t know that it’s there, you will walk past Medea’s building. You will not see its silhouette against the sky when you look up, nor will it obstruct your view when you look out of your own window. You will never stumble against her lion-carved door, nor will you hear the hum of the hive in her rooftop garden.

If you do know the building is there, the lion on the door presses himself, purring, beneath your hand for a scratch, and once he has received it, the door opens to admit you.

The inside of Medea’s house changes according to her mood. Today it was mirrored walls and marble floors, purples and velvets and twining glass statues, all shadows and reflections. I walked up a staircase that spun, Nautilus-like, to the roof.

Medea was waiting in the garden, which bloomed always, regardless of time or weather. She had poured glasses of wine the color of tears. Below us, I could hear the constant ring of bells begging for seasonal generosity from passersby. Up here, the air was fragrant with all the blossoms of summer.

“My bees are unwell,” she said. “And I am worried for them. After so many years together, I had begun to think they were eternal. Now, I fear that they are not.”

“Are they dying?” I remembered a dream I had never had, small velvety bodies, fallen to the ground, wings stilled.

“No, but they stray from their hive, from the paths that they know, and when I ask them of futures, they tell only one, over and over.

“A future that is unreadable. All I know is that it ends, and the ending is out of its proper time.” She drank, and half the glass was gone. “The wind is blowing from the wrong direction. I am blind, Kaira. The only time I can see is this one. Something is wrong, or has been wrong, or will be wrong, and the truth is obscured. It has been long and long since I have been this blind.”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Have a drink with me. We can toast and pretend things are normal, and then if we wish hard enough, maybe they will be.”

“Does magic work like that?”

“If we wish hard enough.” She poured more wine. “Sometimes.”

• • • •

Medea had explained magic to me, as she remade me into what I am.

“Some people think of it like a recipe,” she said. “Where if you mix all the ingredients in the right order, you’ll get the result you’re looking for.”

“Is it?” My interest was casual, but if she kept talking, then I could think about something other than how much what she was doing hurt.

“You need those things, yes. But there’s more.” Her hands stopped moving. “How badly do you want this?”

Worse even than the pain was the knowledge that without it, without the movements of Medea’s hands that burned trails of hollow fire along my bones, I was nothing. Dead. Erased. Unmade by someone who a year from now wouldn’t even think of me, who in five years would no longer remember my name.

“Very,” I said.

Her work continued. “That is the other necessary thing for magic. Will. Desire. Wanting something so badly you bend the path of your fate around it.

“It is,” she continued, “the most necessary thing. Focused desire can transform nearly anything.”

• • • •

I nearly bumped into Odin when I walked into the Hungarian pastry shop. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was preoccupied. And hungry.”

“I won’t keep you then, but . . . Medea, is she well?” He stood half in light, the shadows covering his sacrificed eye.

I don’t like to talk about Medea with other people who know what she is. Wizards, at their hearts, are creatures made of power, and the games they play are glass castle balancing acts designed to maintain their own, and steal—very elegantly and artistically—from others.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” he said. I was sure he did, but I let him have his politeness.

“It is only that I have some skill in the interpretation of omens. Yet when I roll the bones, and speak her name, they show blank, as if a veil has been drawn across her. We are more friends than we are rivals, she and I, and so I worry for her.”

“She is as well as can be,” I part-answered, making no mention of my own growing worry, “and I will tell her that you asked.”

“Then please also tell her I have missed her, and our games,” he said.

“Can anyone play?” I asked. “I mean, if I played chess with you—”

“It would be a game of chess.”

“Could I make it more?”

“Being what you are, you could. But I would advise such a thing only if you had no other choice. You would be likely to lose, and the consequences for such a loss would not be light, even for you.”

“And for you?” I asked. “What would the consequences be if you lost?”

“Dire, as well. Anything that doesn’t hurt to lose isn’t worth wagering.”

• • • •

The next morning, I woke up and the shadows were wrong.

If you sleep in a place for long enough, you get used to the way the light falls at certain times of day. You know if you’ve woken up early, or in the full, hungover light of noon. You know if it’s overcast, or if snow has fallen, sometimes even before you open your eyes. That morning, it was as if I had woken up in a new bed. The shadows were wrong.

I felt seasick, sideways when I looked out the window. The proportions, the spaces between the buildings, the place where the street corner was—all of them were altered. Not natural disaster wrong, not Godzilla stomps through the city wrong, but off. Shifted. As if someone had taken ahold of a piece of the ground and pulled it like a blanket that has one corner trapped underneath something heavy.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. The MTA had all the subway lines listed as delayed, and the conversation of cab horns was even louder than usual. I didn’t get lost as I walked through the city, but I think I could have, if I hadn’t been concentrating. The streets were all there, were still in their expected order, but distances were variously stretched and condensed, corners and crossings in unexpected places.

Things appear peaceful in the eye of a storm. The only thing visible is the calm, not the winds howling around the edges, not the floods just about to open up.

It is the same in the heart of a labyrinth—everything seems open, the twisting walls that were just navigated with such difficulty no more than a fence.

It is the same in the heart of a story, when you do not yet realize that you’re being put in the path of an ending.

• • • •

The problem was, Medea thought later, that when Hera forced her into falling in love with Jason, so that he could benefit from her power, the goddess had neglected to make that falling reciprocal. Maybe she assumed that Medea would need no help in attracting whatever man she so desired. More likely, the goddess simply hadn’t seen the point. You don’t need to be in love with someone to use them. Actually, it helps if you’re not.

And so, and so.

They marry. They have children. They make a life. It is perhaps not the life Medea had envisioned for herself, but it is an acceptable one.

Then.

Jason brings home a new girl. A princess. Younger than Medea. Pretty. Not a sorceress. Not threatening. Biddable and beddable.

Fine. Not like Jason’s eye hasn’t wandered before. He has his life, and Medea has hers, and they’ve made things work in a rather tidy fashion. They are civil, friends even. There’s no need to upset things.

Except this time Jason tells Medea that he’s going to marry the girl. And that she is to take their children and go, far away, out of the country. He wants a fresh start. He has to look to his future. He needs a wife, not a witch.

She asks him if he’s really breaking his vows, abandoning his children. He says he’s sure she understands. She tells him she does, better than he thinks.

The gods do not look kindly upon oath-breakers. Nor do those who remain, holding the broken pieces.

• • • •

The buildings and streets moved again, drawing themselves tighter, closer together. One block, on the Upper East Side, was now closed off almost completely—only one way in, everything else a dead end.

This wasn’t even the strangest thing about that marked off corner of New York. The strangest thing was that if you walked into it, it would be Tuesday. Always. Usually late morning, though sometimes an entire Tuesday would pass. A previous Tuesday, one where you already knew how things were supposed to play out, and not always the same one. Multiples of them, layered over one another, always happening, never in the right order, and no guarantee that if you went there with someone else that your Tuesdays would be the same.

Easy enough to walk in and out, should you decide you wished to experience time as it usually ran, unless of course you were unfortunate enough to live there.

There was more: All of the candles at St. Patrick’s spontaneously lit, and could not be extinguished. Nor did they gutter themselves. They simply burned, holy smoke floating towards the heavens.

A man bought a carton of eggs, every one of which had double yolks. Every ball of yarn in the city unrolled itself. All of the city’s gargoyles spontaneously leapt from their buildings and took to the sky, flocking together in a great murmuration.

It’s not that no one noticed these things—everyone did, both supernatural and mundane. But of those who might know why any of it was happening, those with gifts for interpreting signs and omens, none were speculating as to cause. It was too much strangeness, spread out over too much of the city. In each case, there was a hole in the divination, a shadow, a missing piece. Something large made hidden. Some ending untold.

• • • •

I dragged myself home, exhausted. Three deaths, three calls for vengeance. The most I had ever had in one day. It felt as if my wings hadn’t quite settled back into my skin, as if they were still poised to open, and pull me into the sky after one more man who thought the only choice that mattered was his.

I drew myself a bath, scalding hot, and poured rosemary oil into the water. Not because I needed to remember the women. I knew their names, knew their faces without notebook or photograph. I was their monument.

But because I needed to remember anything else besides blood and the taste of their deaths in my mouth, besides the weight in my hands of an unlying mirror, and an unbeating heart, besides what it meant to be created of people’s unanswered prayers.

I made myself the child’s comfort of hot milk, and stirred honey into it. Medea told me once that it had been common to bring honey when going to an oracle, so that they would give you sweet speech. The tradition was one of the reasons for the hives at Delphi. I drank, and all I could taste in the future was bitterness.

Even then, I couldn’t sleep. Exhaustion burned in my joints, and still my thoughts would not settle. I went out into the night, stalking down street after street.

Too many names, too many dead. Sing rage.

Walking the last mile to home, I heard the footsteps behind me. Not fast, not chasing. Steady. Deliberate. They sounded like hoofbeats, but there were two, not four. I felt watched, stalked, and wanted to run, but running makes you prey, and I wouldn’t be that. So I walked, the sounds of my boots almost as echoing as whatever it was I would not turn around to look at. There are times when seeing what something is does not make it better.

Then the footsteps stopped. Started again, and grew faster. Running now. Closer. I could feel the weight of it behind me, the animal scent.

And then.

Gone.

I walked home, listening to the echoes of my own steps as I did. I didn’t sleep that night.

• • • •

A voice scraping the sky, crying out for vengeance. For the thing that had been done to her to be made to matter. And so I went, to the place where her body had been left, and I knelt by her side, and I spoke her name—Lydia Jones—so that it might be remembered. I dragged my fingers through her blood, and brought them to my mouth.

And nothing.

There was no answering name, no revelation of her killer. My wings remained heavy on my back, my blood did not orient itself along the lines of an unseen compass. I tried again, but there was nothing more than the sourness of her blood in my mouth.

I had pulled out my phone to call Medea, and find out what might be wrong when I heard the police sirens. I stepped out of the window so as to avoid complications. But that, too, was wrong—the sirens, the police. We weren’t called to the same places.

Even as I flew, I still heard her voice. Lydia Jones. Her death was mine, and so should have been her vengeance. There was nothing that would let me give it to her.

I flew across the city to the garden on Medea’s rooftop. Whatever wrongness had infected the city had now made its way here. Flowers were drooping, leaves edged with brown, or fallen altogether. In one corner, snow fell, just as it did in city’s the other, less magical, skies.

The paths were littered with the bodies of bees.

The voice in my head, the voice of Lydia Jones, reminding me that she was unavenged, continued, drowning out everything else. I stumbled through the door and into Medea’s apartment. Fell to the floor, and then stayed there, retching.

“Kaira! What is it?”

I tried to answer, but hunched, and coughed, and then brought up the thing that was blocking my throat. A bronze feather, just like my own, spattered with blood. Medea’s hands pressed against my temples, and then, blessedly, everything went quiet.

I opened my eyes to Medea’s ceiling, and carefully sat up. I could breathe, and it was silent. I heard no voices calling on me for vengeance.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Better than I did, thank you.” My voice was rough, the inside of my throat ravaged from the feather’s passage.

“What happened?”

I explained. Her expression grew more and more concerned as she listened. “Am I broken somehow?” I asked.

“No. It’s not you. It’s someone else, someone powerful, shielding the identity of the killer.”

“Why would someone do that?” I asked.

“Because death is powerful. And the power in death can be collected, can be used.” Her hands fisted in her lap, knuckles bone white.

“Someone killed her with magic?”

“Or for magic, yes.”

“Do you know why?” A city moving, and prophecies obscured.

“For nothing good.” She dropped her head into her hands, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “The blood on the feather you coughed up wasn’t yours. It was hers. It gives me something to work with.”

“Work with how?”

“If there are traces of whatever magic was used to hide her death, I may be able to read them in the blood. Even knowing what kind of spell was done will help.”

“Then what?” I asked. Lydia’s voice no longer rang through my head, but the weight of her death still hung in the scale of my heart. I had a responsibility to her, a vow unfulfilled.

“Then I do what I’ve always done,” Medea said. “What is necessary.”

• • • •

This is what it means to be remade: There is pain, because there is no change without sacrifice. There is a knife that carves you to your bones, and then carves into your very marrow, disjointing your past and your present. There is fire, that burns all of what you were to ash. You are gone. You are undone.

Then: There is glory, there is resurrection, there is transcendence. Out of absence, you are made. Out of things cast away as worthless, you are proven.

There is the realization of purpose. Such a great transformation does not come without reason, so you accept the weight that is given you to carry.

I had survived all of those things. I had agreed to my own remaking, into the shape I wore now. I had taken a new life for myself, and a new name with it.

I was the thing that came after. But I was also a storm and a sword and the hissing of truth in the darkness. I spilled the blood that sated the starving restless dead.

The death of Lydia Jones altered that. I had become used to seeing vengeance as something that did not have limits or rules—I was the rule, the thing that made sure the debt was paid.

But I was alive when I should have been dead, a thing made from rage and injustice into wings and fury. Every rule has its breaking.

• • • •

Vengeance. From the Latin, vindicare. First definition: “to set free.” But also from the Old French vengier: to take revenge.

Before those words, there was Medea.

Medea looked into her sorceries, and the heavy bronze thing which had become her heart in the wake of Jason’s abandonment of her and their children—children now, who, all unfathered, had no future—and she made of herself an avatar of vengeance.

She took revenge. She set herself free.

• • • •

There was an old woman washing her laundry in the reservoir in Central Park. The water ran, rust-colored, from the cloth and from her hands. “Something is coming,” she said. “Something dire. You must have a bloody heart, and vengeance in your marrow.”

“I do,” I told her. “I have those things.” They were what I had been made from, what sustained me.

“You must be certain,” she said, and it was not cloth she washed now, but armor, dented and stained.

“I am.” The clash and clang of the battlefield echoed around us.

“You must make of yourself a weapon. Hone your edges. You must stab at the heart and cut deep.” Bones, now, in her hands, and in the sky above us, the wail that foretold death. And then the woman was gone, and the sky was silent, and all that was left was a lake of blood, washed from a warrior’s stained clothes.

I heard the hoofbeats again as I walked home, following, following. I did not look back.

• • • •

The city continued to reshape itself, drawing streets and buildings ever-tighter together, and to be a place of half-told fates and obscured omens. And so, Medea decided to throw a party. “Are you sure this is a good time?” I asked.

“It isn’t. Which is exactly why I’m doing it.”

“I don’t—”

“If we keep walking around like the world is ending, it will. If we celebrate, if we insist that there are things to celebrate, we fight back against the chaos. We make our own magic.”

“That makes a weird kind of sense,” I said.

“Good. I’ll see you Friday night.”

I arrived outside her building at the same time a small dacha on chicken legs ran up. The door opened, and out swept a woman in fur the pale almost-blue of ice. In her hand like a scepter, a pestle. Baba Yaga.

“Bird girl,” she said. “Get the door for me.”

In the elevator on the way up, Baba Yaga looked at me and said, “It’s too bad she found you first. You would have made an excellent Vasilisa.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Smart girl,” Baba Yaga said, and kissed me on each cheek. “If you ever change your mind about being a bird, you come see me.”

Medea did glamour—both sorcerous and non—better than anyone else I knew. Walking into her party, you would never guess that anything was wrong, or had ever been so, in the outside world. This wasn’t arrogant fiddling as Rome burned, this was choosing to dance barefoot in the flame of the phoenix’s nest.

It wasn’t only wizards gathered there. The Muses sang and played. A man did coin tricks with a small ball of sunlight. A woman transformed herself from ice sculpture to woman-shape and back again in a small pond.

I danced with Odin, and I saw him dance with the melusine as well. To see a melusine dancing is no small thing. Spider Anansi was in the corner with some harpies. They were having some sort of drinking contest, but Anansi had his calabash, and even though he was matching each harpy drink for drink, they were losing badly.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Medea asked.

“I really am. It’s a terrific party. Who was the guy you were just dancing with?”

“I keep forgetting the two of you haven’t met yet. That’s Jax, the guy I’ve been seeing.”

I looked in the direction of her gaze. There was a sound in my head like the clanging of a bell, like thousands of feathers of bronze moving against each other, like snakes, hissing in my hair.

It was as if I had been called to vengeance, but that made no sense with Medea standing unharmed next to me. Still, rage filled my heart and the compass of my blood oriented. I looked at Jax, I saw an oath-breaker, saw his hands filthy with blood, saw a shadow over his golden brightness, and I shuddered as if a shadow had fallen, cold, on me as well. I clutched at the counter where I stood, holding on until my double vision settled back into one. Too much to drink, I told myself, and I set my glass down.

“Will you introduce us?” I asked.

“Of course.”

She did, and he smiled, and was polite and charming. He was the textbook example of the good boyfriend, and I tried to silence the ringing in my head, to convince myself that I was overly cautious, that the excesses of the night and proximity to strong magic had made me see him as he was not.

And then we danced, and his hand slid to my ass, and over his shoulder Baba Yaga caught my eye and smirked.

“You know that Medea is my best friend, right?” I said.

His hand moved, and he smiled, all dimples and shiny teeth. “I’m so sorry. Clumsy me.”

“We all make mistakes,” I said. “So long as they’re not repeated.”

He was prevented from replying by the firework dragon that burst across the sky to chase its tail around the Empire State Building. Ever since Tolkien, you put a bunch of wizards together, and someone gets drunk and tries to out-Gandalf Gandalf.

Medea hugged me when I said my goodbyes. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“It was a fantastic party. Are you sure you don’t want me to call a cab for the harpies?”

“No, they’ll sleep it off in my trees, and go home when they feel better.

“I’m glad you got a chance to meet Jax.”

“He makes you happy?”

“He really does.”

“Then I’m glad I got the chance to meet him, too. Good night, Medea.”

• • • •

Medea killed them. The princess that Jason had chosen as her replacement, and the girl’s father as well. Poison. A silken dress and a gold crown—more things that had been Medea’s that the girl was eager to claim as her own.

Her sons. Yes. She also killed her sons. Her sons that were Jason’s sons as well, the boys he had said must be taken from him, were his responsibility no more. The sons he would have abandoned to the fate of fatherless boys, slavery or worse.

Jason, she left alive.

He cried out to the gods for vengeance. But they stopped their ears to the cries of Jason Oath-Breaker, and left him to his fate.

The gods made Medea immortal. And so Medea used her sorceries once more, and made avatars of vengeance.

The Furies.

• • • •

For a time, it seemed Medea’s party had worked. That the force of her will and the collected magical energy had been enough to press pause on the strangeness suffusing New York. The buildings and streets stayed where they were meant to be. No more flocks of birds fell flightless from the sky. No hoofbeats followed me home in the dark. And when I was called on to deliver vengeance, I could find the person at fault.

But. Then.

The body crashed to earth in Times Square. A man wearing wings, made so cleverly it was as if they had been taken from some enormous bird, and then attached to his body. The news said he jumped. The people who were there said he had been flying. Not gliding on air currents, not gently floating down from some higher perch, but truly flying, the wings beating themselves against the air.

They also said the feathers began to fall before he did, as if whatever had been holding them on to the bones of the wings had let go. Or had melted away.

Icarus had been the labyrinth-maker’s son.

• • • •

“Your friend should have invited us,” the woman said. She still wore the same spectacularly pink coat, and her hands were still busy with knitting. The yarn today was a dull rust color, and the pattern simple.

“I’m sorry?” I set the cup of coffee next to her on the bench.

“To her party. No one ever invites us to parties, my sisters and me. They think we’re bad omens. You’d know a bit about that, wouldn’t you, dear, what with everyone calling you and your sisters Kindly Ones instead of speaking your proper title.”

“They do it to be polite,” I said.

“Hmmph. That’s what they’d have you believe. Names have power, girl, and anyone who calls you by a name they’ve chosen, rather than the one you’ve claimed for yourself, is taking away your power. Kindly Ones.” She snorted.

“Are you bad omens, you and your sisters?”

“We are what we are. Unchanging. People like to have control, to feel as if what they are doing has power. We are reminders that it doesn’t, not always. That the final moment comes when it must. No one wants to hear the scissors when the thread is cut.” Her ball of yarn didn’t look any different to me than when I sat down, but now there was a stripe in what emerged from her needles, a dark bruise purple, the knitting ragged and gapped.

“Still,” she said. “It can help, sometimes, to see fates before they happen. Your friend, she reads omens, looks at signs. She knows. No one reads omens because they want to sit by as destiny washes over them. You read omens so you know the soft spots to dig your fingers into and pull them apart.

“There are times when we can help, when the omens are known. Unweave a piece of the pattern that doesn’t belong. Cut a thread that needs cutting. She should remember that.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

“Everything that happens happens because it must. But nothing is written until it is written.”

Listening, I felt as twisted and knotted as her threads.

“So you’re saying fate can be changed?”

“Look at yourself, girl. Are you dead and rotting at the hands of some no-good man? Or are you something you didn’t even know existed until you became it?

“A new weaving’s not something that’s easy, or done without consequence, but as I told you the last time, I don’t know what it is I’ve made until it’s finished. Things can change before they end.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll tell Medea.”

“Tell her soon,” she said, knitting yarn that was once again the rust color I had first seen. “And tell her next time, to invite us to her party. I do like to dance.”

• • • •

I sat in the usual diner, waiting for Medea, and dragging my fries through ketchup, red runes on a cracked white plate.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I couldn’t find my gloves.”

“Don’t worry about it—I haven’t been here long.” I waited until after her food came, and then said, “I’m pretty sure I met one of the Fates. I’m supposed to tell you that she likes to dance, and the next time you have a party, you should invite them.

“Also, she asked me to give you a message: That if you ask, they might be able to help.”

Medea wiped her lips, leaving a smear of red at the corner of her mouth, and folded her napkin into precise quarters. “They want to help. Was she any more specific? Did she, for example, mention a cost?”

“No, but it’s pretty clear something is wrong, something massive. It’s the entire city, yes, but it’s also you, Medea. The bees, the honey. Maybe she means they can help put things back in order. Do you want me to ask?”

“No.”

“But if they can help—”

“If there is something to be done,” Medea said, “I will be the one to do it. If there is help to be asked, I will ask it of myself, and if there is a debt, I will be the one to incur it. I will not use someone else to do the work that should be mine.”

“There is a difference,” I said, “between forcing someone else to bear your burden, and accepting help that is freely offered.”

“I know what it is to be used,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Did I use you, when you made me what I am? I couldn’t help myself then—do I owe you a debt?”

“That’s different,” she said, though she didn’t say how. “Please, Kaira. I can’t. I am doing what I can on my own. That has to be enough.”

This is the thing about debts: It’s only the small ones that we count. The truly meaningful ones—a life saved, for example—go unpaid.

• • • •

The second time I was called to a death where the murderer had been hidden from my magic, I asked the dead girl to talk. Making the dead speak isn’t difficult, if you know what you’re doing. Like most magics, it can be done if you’re willing to bleed.

With the taste of her blood still in my mouth, I made a cut in the fleshy part of my palm, and pressed the wound to her mouth. You don’t need a lot—it’s the symbol that’s important.

“Maria Anne Rodgers,” I said. Blood and a name.

“Yes,” she answered. Her voice sounded delayed, as if it had traveled from far away.

“Do you know who did this to you?”

“I do.”

“Will you tell me their name, so that I may perform my office, and bring you peace?”

“I . . .” she broke off, choked. I could see her throat work, see panic in her eyes. “His name—” She coughed, and blood spattered her mouth and neck.

“I . . . he . . .” She coughed and choked again, her hand clawing at her throat. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s okay. I’ve got you now.” I sat with her, and held her hand until the blood wore off, and she was quiet again.

I was furious. It was worse, somehow, to take her voice along with her life. To silence her story so utterly. My hands curved into claws that longed for the shape of a murderer’s heart.

• • • •

The unavenged deaths left me with a constant itch in my veins. Never mind that there was a magic preventing me from doing so, my magic told me my office was left undone, and I would have no peace while it remained so. My discomfort drove me out and away.

Searching.

I couldn’t even articulate for what. Nothing so simple as clues—I wasn’t a detective with a pocket full of evidence bags. For portents. For twitches in the air. For shadows that didn’t match their surroundings. For the thread that I could pull, and unravel the veil that hid the answers.

I went to the part of the city that was stuck in a repeat loop of Tuesdays. As I crossed into it, the light dimmed, and the temperature dropped. Sounds were muffled, as if I had headphones on, but hadn’t turned up the music.

Then I saw myself. My self as I had been, before I became a Fury, before I gave myself a new name. Hollow-eyed and hunched, and walking like I was waiting for a blow to fall.

Near the end of things, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure—I hadn’t recognized how bad things were when I had been living them. I tell myself now that if I had, I would have asked for help, but that’s probably a lie. I see that girl now, and I am embarrassed to have been her, shamed, that I let someone else turn me into that shadow of a thing. We’re supposed to be strong, and it feels like failure to realize you’re not.

Strange to see the past, and barely understand how it happened. I couldn’t even reassure myself that I would live through it, because truly, I hadn’t.

Then the air skipped, the gap in a recording, and the day changed. Sunlight and birdsong. A woman on the corner, a drop spindle whirling below her hands, spinning out yarn. Creating it from the very air, it seemed, as I walked closer, as I saw no hunk of wool. Just the spindle, turning and turning and turning.

I heard a clock chime, and then keep chiming, not counting an hour, but ringing over and over. Then other clocks, all the time ever happening at once. The air was thick like honey as I tried to leave that small patch of stuck time. When I finally stepped through into the day that I had left, I felt as if I had been walking forever, and bent over, hands on my thighs, sucking in great gulps of air.

• • • •

There is another way to speak to the dead. It is face to face, and so requires going to the place where they dwell. I still want to say live, when I think of them there.

I think I remember it sometimes, the Underworld, Hades and Persephone, and weeping at the singing of Orpheus. I know that’s impossible, even as I am having the memories. I was never there. Medea changed me before I could die, and the Furies haven’t lived in the Underworld for millennia. But I think I remember it, and there is a strange sort of comfort in feeling that I once had a place that was mine.

Because I sometimes think I remember the Underworld, it seems as if I should be able to find my way back. That a path should open up in front of my feet, that I should be able to walk down stairs to something that is labeled the 2 Train, and instead of swiping my MetroCard, pulling one of the feathers from my wings to give to Charon and pay my passage.

I know the ways there from here, and I do not walk them, not yet. It’s not a trip lightly taken, and I need the name of the killer, yes, but there are perhaps other ways of getting it. I am still hoping Medea is one of those ways, that she is somehow using her magic in a way that I can’t see yet, and that things will be set right.

But I weigh the idea of it, like weighing scales. Because the bees are still dying, and so are the unavenged girls, and there is still something stalking me at night.

• • • •

Walking home in the falling light of evening, I saw Jax, kissing a woman who was not Medea. They were across the street, so I used my phone to take a picture. Maybe I would show it to Medea, maybe not—it’s always a strange thing, telling your friend that her lover isn’t who she thinks he is. There is always the possibility that she already knows.

I walked across the street, and managed to bump into them. “Jax! How lovely to see you. Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” I turned to the woman next to him, her hand in his.

“Actually, no. We have somewhere to be.” As Jax pulled the woman past me, he murmured in my ear, “Don’t.”

I knew what he meant. Don’t tell Medea. Help him keep his secret. That was the moment that I knew for certain I would tell her. Fates can be changed, but there are some stories where we all know the ending.

• • • •

And so Medea made the Erinyes, the Furies, the Kindly Ones. She used her sorceries, and she used her pain, and she used her betrayal, and she put these things together in the cauldron she had, the cauldron that would resurrect the dead. Because so were they all, all who became Furies, all who became vengeance embodied. First, they were dead.

Medea gave the Furies feathers of bronze. Bronze for the armor worn by men, for the cuirass that kept them safe, that shielded their hearts when they went into battle. Women were given no such shielding.

She took the venom of jealousy, the poison that is the subtlest of revenges, and gave them snakes that bit and hissed. She took iron scales, and made them into hearts, so that the Furies might weigh the wrongs that had been done.

Look kindly, men said, when they heard of these Furies, look kindly on our actions. Read our hearts, and see their truth, and may that truth move you to pity. Do not pursue us, you ladies snake-haired and bronze-feathered. Be kind. Be kind.

And the Furies looked at the men and said, perhaps. Were you?

• • • •

New York shifted in its geography again, paths tightening, streets closing themselves off. Dead ends appeared, forcing people to retrace their steps. The city was becoming a labyrinth, twists and turns popping up where there once had been straight paths, designed not to hide the secret at the heart, but to funnel everything towards it.

Long and long ago, when labyrinths were made so as to hide secrets that weren’t metaphors—to hide the child who was a monster, or the inconvenient mistress, or the older son who could not be allowed to take the throne—they had keepers. Someone to make sure that no one who shouldn’t got in, or out.

If you were to visit the labyrinth, seek passage to its center, along with any other necessary bribes, you would bring honey with you, sweetness to ease your passage, a gift for the guardian.

A strange gift perhaps, but it was because of the bees, who made their hives as a labyrinth, with the queen at its heart. The honey was a proof that the paths were passable, that there was a way in and out.

There is no wisdom as to the appropriate offering to make to the secret at the labyrinth’s center. Perhaps you trade a secret for a secret. A balance. Perhaps you bring honey. Monsters can crave sweetness as well.

I stirred honey into my tea, and thought about what it meant to be a thing so terrible that an entire set of walls must be built to secret you away. Wondered, too, about what the secret was at the heart of the labyrinth that this city was becoming.

• • • •

It was the kind of bar that looked like it had been designed for people to speak secrets in. Low lights that barely illuminated the deep corners, even when aided by candles that flickered on the tables, and in sconces on the walls. Dark wood, seats upholstered in burgundy leather, plush carpets on the floor, so as to silence even footsteps.

I set my drink down. “Medea, I need to tell you something. It’s important.”

“What is it?”

I pulled up the picture of Jax and the other woman on my phone, and handed it to her.

She set her hand on the screen, hiding the image, and closed her eyes. “I am twice a fool, and no one to blame but myself this time.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m glad you did—better to know.”

And maybe it was, but it’s never an easy thing to be treated as if you don’t matter by someone you thought did.

We didn’t talk about it again—no need to salt the wound—but I sat with her, in the elegant silence of the bar, and I held tight when I hugged her as we left.

• • • •

I didn’t recognize her voice, when I heard it crying out to me for vengeance, but I recognized the dead woman when I saw her. The woman I had seen Jax with. I closed my eyes against the ruin of her, and knelt at her side.

I couldn’t find the name of her murderer. I couldn’t find her name either. That one thing I always had was hidden here, too. Missing from her blood, stripped from her by magic. Missing from the rest of her apartment—no license, no cell phone, no errant bill tucked into a drawer. Nothing more than a body.

The wrongness of her death sounded in my head, and there was no way for me to silence it. My wings unfolded from my back, and the snakes of my hair hissed and twisted as I stood over the woman’s body, rage beating in my blood.

And then.

Blood-drenched, and tossed in a corner. One glove. Cashmere. Golden as the sun, with a snag in one finger. Medea’s. Easy to see the story as someone was trying to tell it. Easier still to see that I wasn’t the person meant to find the story—this was a crime scene, decorated for the police.

I picked up the glove, and went looking for a way to Hell.

• • • •

It’s not on the schedule, but there is a ferry that departs Manhattan’s Whitehall Terminal at 12:13 a.m. If you get on it, it will take you where you need to go. No matter how many others embark with you, you will not see them once you step on board, nor will you notice the ferry making other stops.

And so I found myself crossing Acheron, the river of woe. When you travel this way, you don’t pay your passage with a coin. Everyone’s cost is weighed differently. Even I pay.

Medea gave me a new life, but my past self died when I became Kaira. I remember her, as I am ferried across the dark and whispering waters of the river of woe. I regret her. I regret the things she never got to do. The wind dries the tears to salt on my face, but I pay them all the same.

The ferry, which at some point in the crossing has become a low black barge, bumps up against the shore. I step out, and the bones of the Acheron’s banks crackle whitely beneath my feet. Every breath here is thick in my lungs, the air a shroud around my skin. The Underworld is a place of the dead, not the living.

I reach over my shoulder and tug a feather from my wings, then use the sharp edges of the bronze to cut open a vein in the bend of my elbow. I need to bleed enough to make the dead speak.

My blood disappears onto the bones it falls on, leaving no trace, and it calls the dead to me. All three of them, the women whose deaths had hidden authors, walk forward, standing in front of me like Fates. “Can you tell me his name?”

Their mouths were red with blood, and unmoving, but I heard their speech all the same. They spoke as one: “He is the resourceless one. The false beloved, the betrayer.”

“His name,” I said.

“He is the golden one, the childless, the sorceress’ husband.” The words echoed in my head.

“His name.”

“He is Jason of Iolcus, he is Jax of New York. He looks for his own vengeance against the women who would give us ours. He would make of you a monster.”

That was fine. I already was.

“I will make sure that he pays for what he has done to you, for the time in the sun he took away from you. I promise you, will be your vengeance.” It was my office, yes, but here, it seemed important to speak the vow.

They nodded, then turned to go. “Wait,” I said. “One more question, please.”

The dead women paused. I looked at the third of them. “Can you tell me your name? I would remember it for you.” Speak it with the litany of all of my dead.

She stared, blank. Then shook her head. “It is a thing I no longer possess.”

I could have killed him just for that.

The wound in my elbow had closed up. Without blood to feed on, they could not speak to me, even here. The three women faded back into the shadows of the Underworld. I left my bronze feather on the bone-white shore—passage back—and I stepped into the barge. Somewhere in the crossing, it was a ferry again. Somewhere in the crossing, it was dawn, and when I disembarked, it was in New York.

• • • •

I returned to discover that Medea’s building had disappeared.

At first I though it had simply moved. The city had rearranged itself again, drawn its secrets close, made crooked its paths. This time, I had gotten lost, missing a turn on the way there because it had shifted to the other side of the street. Maybe her building had, too.

I walked up the street where it had always been, and saw nothing. Back and forth I went, up and down each side of the street, turning in hopes that I would catch a glimpse of it, just out of the corner of my eye. Nothing. I even flew, hoping that I could find my way to her roof, and get in that way.

It was as if it had never been, erased from everywhere.

Then a small, half-rumbling meow from behind a dumpster. Not the feral cat I expected, but the lion that had been Medea’s door guard. He climbed out from his refuge, and head-butted hard against my hip. There was a notch gone from his ear, and a shallow cut along his flank.

“Wherever she is, she didn’t want to go, did she?” The rumble of his purr increased under my hands. “Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we can find her.”

After he was clean and bandaged, the lion seemed happiest sitting in my hallway, just on the inside of my front door, as if he were still on guard duty. I called Medea, but it went to voicemail. Emailed, too, just in case, but I wasn’t holding out hope for a reply.

She was gone. I had the word of the dead girls, her bloodstained glove, and the lion that had guarded her apartment as my hope to find her in a city that was turning itself into a labyrinth.

If you are going to look for a wizard in New York, go to the Hungarian pastry shop.

• • • •

It should have been enough, Medea’s creation of bronze-winged vengeance. Who would do wrong, who would break oaths, spill the blood of family, of lovers, when such things existed, single-hearted pursuers of those who erred?

Perhaps, for a while, it was.

But then tragic tales were written, about Orestes, for example, who murdered his mother, Clytemnestra, because she murdered his father, Agamemnon. Family blood spilled twice. And so a judgment was made and the priority of vengeance was said to belong to the man—it was his death the gods (at least, the gods as voiced by the man who wrote the play) decreed to matter more.

Never mind that Agamemnon was the first to shed family blood when he slit the throat of his daughter, Iphigenia. She is forgotten in this calculus, a name breathed out upon the wind.

And so. And so.

Orestes’ story became the truth, at least as some saw it. They saw that there were deaths that mattered less, that there were deaths that did not require vengeance, no matter the oaths broken, no matter the family blood spilled.

The Furies were no longer a terror, no longer a deterrent. They were renamed the Venerable Ones, and said to be in charge of the city’s prosperity, and surely, if the city is prosperous, what matters what happens to a few forgotten women. There are always casualties of civilization. So say the men who write the histories.

Unkind, unkind, unkind.

• • • •

In the Hungarian pastry shop, I sat at the chessboard, waiting. I had left Medea’s lion to guard my door. Not so much because I thought my space required a guardian, but because standing sentry seemed to make him happy.

There had been the corpses of birds, feathers tatty and muted, leading me there like the breadcrumbs of some broken fairy tale. On the chessboard, the black queen had been replaced by a queen bee, listlessly buzzing from square to square.

When Odin came in, he nodded at the empty chair across from me, and then brought over a plate of seven-layer cookies. “I love these,” he said. “They’re both garish and delicious. Here—I got enough to share.”

“They are good, thank you.” Politeness, ritual, matters. Very few rituals matter so much as that of sharing food. It’s an act of trust, and of fellowship, and so instead of asking questions, I shared a plate of ridiculously colored cookies, layers of sweetness alternating with fuchsia and kelly green.

Not until we had finished did I say why I had been waiting there. “I need a favor.”

“I thought as much,” Odin said.

“Medea is missing, and I want to find her.”

“Do you know,” he said, “that to get here, I had to walk down a street that has never existed before in this city? It was paved with marble. You could still see the imprints of cart wheels. I think it came from Thessaloniki. I don’t think anything in this city is where it’s supposed to be.”

“Her building is gone,” I said. “Not moved, not displaced. Gone.”

“Are you certain?” He paled, and his skin frosted over.

“The guardian of that space has been forcibly removed from his duties. I found him injured and cowering. Yes, I am certain.”

Leaves fell from the air, scattering across the chessboard. Odin’s runes. He danced his fingers through them, shook his head, and moved them again. Then the leaves browned, dried, disappeared. “I cannot see her,” he said. “All I see is a twisting knot of walls.”

“A labyrinth,” I said. “The labyrinth the city is turning into.” She was there, I thought. Taken by whoever, whatever had twisted the city into this new shape.

“I would ask you to see once more for me.” I pushed two pawns—one white, one black—to the center of the chessboard.

Odin shook his head, and my stomach twisted as if it were a pit of snakes. “You won’t help.”

“Look at the boards,” he said.

The black queen was missing from all of them.

“The Nornir long ago laid a wyrd upon me, that when the black queen disappeared, I was to offer assistance to the valkyrie who searched for her. I have sometimes been wrong in my interpretation of omens, but it seems this situation fulfills that fate.

“So. Tell me what you want to know, and if I can see it, it is yours.”

“I spoke to the slain, and they named their killer as Jason, who had once sailed the Argo. Can you tell me if the labyrinth is somehow his, if he has Medea now?” Can you tell me if she is alive, or if this will end in one more pool of blood for me to clean?

Not leaves this time, but a spill of bones across the chessboard. Odin read them with the eye that had been sacrificed to their creation. His voice was the wind in the branches of a tree: “You will find her at the heart of the labyrinth, and a golden thread will lead you there and away. Bring her back her mask, and bring her back to herself. Give honey to the monster.”

The runes were gone.

“Be bold,” Odin said, clasping my hand across the board. “And do not forget what you are as you walk.”

• • • •

First, I set about finding someone who could give me a golden thread that would see me safely through a labyrinth. It was harder, this time, to find the knitting woman. I walked through the city, down streets that twisted where before they had been straight, over cobblestones and flagstones that had re-emerged from the graveyard of geography.

The subways were no longer running, after a section of track on the 3 had looped in on itself like the Ouroboros. That particular train was still running, in eternal circles. I don’t think they got the people off.

Eventually, I found her on the steps of the Met. Knitting, as she was always, something deep green, and delicate as lace.

“I need your help, please,” I said. “My friend, Medea, she’s missing. In a labyrinth. I need a golden thread to guide me through.”

“What makes you think I know of such things?”

“You’re knitting a labyrinth even now,” I said, watching it unspiral from her needles. “And I think you know a lot about threads.”

“Well, that I do. I’ll need something of hers,” she said.

“I have this.” I took the glove—golden wool, frayed end, bloodstained—and held it out to her.

She smiled. “That will do very well. Unravel it.”

So I tugged on the loose thread from where Medea’s nail had pierced the end of the finger. The thread unwound, and coiled in my lap, bent and kinked from having been bound up in the glove.

“The statues in the museum have gone walking,” she said. “Gotten down off their pedestals and plinths like they think they’re Hermione at the end of the play. Visiting the other exhibits. I’ve been sitting here because if they come out, I want to see them.”

“I kind of want to see that, myself.”

The glove continued to unravel, the pile of yarn in my lap bigger than I had guessed it would be. “If Medea had come to you for help, could you have stopped this?”

“We don’t deal in ifs, dear. People think that about us, but it isn’t so. You need an oracle, if you’re looking to know the ifs. No, we deal in will be, is, and has been, and all of those at once. Fate doesn’t mean control, it doesn’t mean that we take away your choices. It means what has been spoken—the story told, not the story still to be written. It cannot be a fate until it happens.”

The texture of the yarn changed—I had come to the spots where the dead woman’s blood was. I had to slow down, work carefully, and it flaked beneath my nails. I heard her voice, crying out to me, every time I touched it.

The wind picked up, and brought with it the sound of bagpipes, playing “Amazing Grace” as if it were a punk anthem. The Fate sitting next to me smiled. “Sometimes I don’t know what parts of this city are magic and what parts are simply wonderful. It’s the best thing about being here.”

“I’ve got it,” I said, and held up the pile of yarn.

“Good. Good. Now, I’m going to start it for you, but then what you’re going to do is roll it back up in a ball. Pass it here.”

She set down her knitting.

I looked around, expecting a crash of lightning, or a tree to split and fall, for some great indication that the world had been put on pause.

She shook her head. “That’s not quite how it works. It would be impractical at best, to say that some poor soul would die whenever I wanted to rest my hands or eat. The knitting helps the magic, but it’s not the only piece of it.” She handed me back the yarn, the center of it folded into and over itself like a heart, or a labyrinth.

I took it from her, and continued the pattern. When I had finished, there was a large coil of golden yarn, much larger than would have been necessary to knit a glove, or even a pair of them. Still: “The entire city is being turned into a labyrinth.”

“There’s enough there for you to find your way to where you need to go.”

“And it will guide me there?”

“It will. If your path is wrong, it will correct you.”

“Thank you.”

“When you go, bring honey, for the monster of the labyrinth.” The sun shifted, drawing the shadows across her face like a skull.

“I will.”

• • • •

“Bring her back her mask,” Odin had told me, the other necessary thing to bring Medea out of the labyrinth. So I went, golden thread tucked safely in my bag, into a world of perfumed air. Of glass-topped counters, holding vials of potions as precious as magic.

At one counter, all the women wore red, black, or white. They were all beautiful, and all named Vasilisa, and if you looked slantwise at the counter where it rested on the floor, you would see it stood on chicken feet.

“May I help you?” asked the Vasilisa—all in red, platinum white hair twisted and spired like a snow queen’s castle—as I walked up.

“I need a little magic,” I said.

“So many of us do,” she smiled. “A new color? Metallics are very now. Or a scent—this one has notes of honey.” She began setting things out on top of the counter, glass clinking quietly against glass.

“Thank you, darling, but this girl is a personal client. I’ll see to her.” Baba Yaga, splendid in a sharp-shouldered jacket.

The Vasilisa nodded, and stepped away.

“It’s not for me,” I said. “It’s for Medea.”

“I suspected as much. About time something was done. Even my dacha is confused on these streets.” She set out a small mortar and pestle.

“I need to bring her a mask.”

“A lipstick, I think. I know her shade.” Baba Yaga cocked her head, a bird of prey. “What will you give me for it?”

“Three feathers. Mine.”

“Good.” The pestle began stirring, three turns clockwise, then one reverse. “But not enough.”

I hadn’t thought it would be. “The skin from one of the snakes of my hair, at its next shed.”

“Excellent.” Red appeared in the mortar, slick and wet as blood. “And?”

“My blood. Three drops.”

Baba Yaga clapped her hands once. “Done!” In place of mortar and pestle, a black case. An elegant bullet of perfect red lipstick, Medea’s shade.

She held out her hand. “Feathers now. The others when I ask.”

“I may not make it back.” I wanted all bargains cleared before I went.

She smiled, all teeth. “That won’t matter. What’s mine knows it’s mine.”

“Can I get you anything else?” Another Vasilisa, this one in close-fitting black. Baba Yaga was gone.

“No, thank you.”

“Have a beautiful day.”

• • • •

Medea had thought she was creating monsters to fight monsters—women whose appearance was a reflection of the horrors done to them, women who had power to avenge the wrongs done. Instead, the monsters—the ones who were already there, the ones who wore the faces of men—became stronger.

There is no fate until a story is told, and theirs were the voices that told the story. Think about it this way: When you hear the name Medea, who do you think is the monster in the story? Do you remember that the gods themselves took her side?

• • • •

I packed a bag, with the golden thread that would guide me through the labyrinth of the city to Medea, the lipstick, red as blood, that I had from Baba Yaga, and the last of the honey I had from Medea’s hive. Bees were falling from the sky, soft and delicate like snowflakes, as I stepped outside.

The lion padded along at my side, until we reached the place where Medea’s building should have been. This had been her home, he was her guard, so I thought that it would be the best place to mark the beginning of the labyrinth. I wound the yarn around the trunk of a yew tree, and the lion curled up in front of it.

I held the ball of yarn loosely in my hand, and began to walk. I came to a corner, and turned right. The yarn went tense in my hand—I would have had to drop it to continue in that direction. Once I turned around and headed left, it relaxed. That would be the way this worked, then.

I unmantled my wings as I walked, the bronze feathers ringing against each other like bells.

As I continued through the labyrinth, the city fell away. The buildings shifted, pieces of the past layering over each other in palimpsest. The streets beneath my feet cracked and aged. The sky darkened and purpled.

And it grew quiet. No noises of the crowd, no taxi horns, no percussion rumble of trains beneath my feet. As silent as I had ever heard, in this city, the sound of my boot heels echoing off the walls of buildings that might also have been the stones of a labyrinth.

I turned a corner, and there was the first of the labyrinth’s monsters.

The man who had once said he loved me, and then tried to kill me.

I froze. Bobbled the ball of yarn, and nearly dropped it. But even in my terror, the core of me remembered what I was. My wings beat the air. Snakes unfurled, hissing from my hair.

I was rage, I was vengeance, I was a storm with skin.

“And you are nothing,” I said.

I reached in to his chest, and pulled his heart out to show it to him.

He disappeared. An illusion of the labyrinth, even though he had been real enough that I had felt the heat of his blood on my hand, and choked on the cloying spice of his cologne. Not real. Not anymore.

I leaned against a wall to steady myself, then continued through the labyrinth. Another turn, and then another, down streets that I had walked countless times on my peregrinations through the city, but never in this order. Whispers broke through the walled silence. “Nothing.” “Useless.” “Freak.” “Go home.” “Go back.” “Lost.” “Lost.”

“Lost.”

Over and over, a polyphony of despair spoken in women’s voices, and I knew—in the same way we know the truth when it comes to us in dreams—they were the voices of the women who had been killed, and had called on me for vengeance. I knew what I was, knew the limitations of my office, and yet, in the back of the drawer where my secrets lived, I felt I had failed them.

Their voices pressed against me as I walked. The ground beneath my feet turned to sucking mud. The air clutched at my wings, as if to shred the feathers from my back.

I wanted to sit down. To stop, just for a bit, and rest. I was exhausted, and everything was heavy, even the yarn in my hand.

I let it fall.

Cold and dark and lost and useless.

Just ahead of me, the golden ball of yarn. I stumbled towards it, craving the soft glow of its light. I cannot say how long I followed it, stumbling and shaking and even crawling, scraping my palms against the stones of the ground. It was light, and I needed light even more than I needed to rest.

Eventually, I turned a corner, down another passageway, and I could stand, and I could breathe, and the monstrous whispers were silent. I picked up the ball of golden thread, and thought of the woman in the splendid pink coat. “Thank you,” I said.

The amount of thread wound in my hand did not appear to be noticeably diminished by my progress through the labyrinth. I couldn’t tell how far I had come, but I no longer had the sense that I was walking through a city. The walls of the labyrinth were walls, not skyscrapers. Thick gray stone, and the only roof the stars.

I couldn’t tell how close I was to the center. All I could do was trust the thread to guide me, and hope that Medea was still there when I arrived.

Still there, and still alive.

The passages were getting shorter and tighter, and I hoped that meant I was traveling towards the labyrinth’s heart. I walked faster, as fast as I could go and still feel the correction of the thread when I made a wrong turn. Then I heard hoofbeats echoing behind me.

I broke into a run, caring more about what was ahead than what was behind.

I heard the beating of great wings, the poison hissing of snakes, the wind ringing through feathers of bronze and I heard these things in chorus.

I stopped. Spun. Saw myself.

There is a monster at the heart of every labyrinth.

We think of the word monster now as a stand-in for horror. For something so hideous, its very appearance strikes terror. Something so awful, it must be locked away. Hidden, so as not to frighten decent people.

That was not always what the word meant. To be a monster was to be a warning, a portent. To be something very like a Fate, or a Norn. A bean sidhe. That was what I saw, in the reflection of myself that stood before me, a thing of wings and snakes and shadows for eyes and a scale for a heart. I didn’t see horror—I saw fate.

Give honey to the monster at the heart of the labyrinth, sweetness so you will have sweet words as your fate. In the heart of this labyrinth, I would indeed be a monster. Being a monster is sometimes the necessary thing.

I would be a monster who would free her maker, and I would be a monster who was a portent of doom to those who said that a woman’s life meant little, and always less than a man’s. I would be the monster that I had been made into, and not just by Medea.

I ate the honey from the jar, sticky-sweet on my fingers and on my lips. Honey from the bees who were Medea’s oracles, through age upon age, who had made their own labyrinth in the hive at Delphi. Honey that could give dreams and speak fates.

I offered the jar to the other version of me, the mirror-monster stalking the labyrinth. She took the jar in her hands and she ate the honey, and the visions began.

Snapshot quick, the blinks of eyes, all the pieces of my life since I had died to my old self and become Kaira. The ones that I didn’t want to think about or remember, the ones that should never have been caught by the camera of my memory, the ones that reminded me that being a monster wasn’t enough.

Over and over, I heard a voice repeating: “The true meaning of vengeance is too late.” My voice. A reminder that I was always and only there after.

I saw again the dreams I had never had. Except that wasn’t true. I was a myth and I was a monster and I was a dream of a winged thing.

And I was a winged thing, and there was more than one way through a labyrinth.

• • • •

In the stories, they call you Jason Resourceless. Not Odysseus Strategist or Herakles Club-Bearer or Orpheus Healer. Resourceless. Which is some bullshit.

Jason Resourceless, as if you, who captained the Argo, who claimed the Golden Fleece, are nothing.

You have the patronage of the goddess Hera herself. But when she sends you help, she sends it in the form of a woman, a sorceress. Medea. She’s pretty enough, you suppose. Not bad in bed. And she gives you what you need to steal the Golden Fleece—the ointment to protect you from fire-breathing oxen, and the means of defeating the knights that sprung from the dragon’s teeth, and the spell that would cause the guardian dragon to sleep. She may have told you what to do, but you were the one who actually did it. You are the hero.

Not resourceless.

You take Medea with you when you go, one more thing you steal from her father. It seems like a good idea at first. She’s useful. Hera keeps her on your side, where she should be. You get married, you have a couple of kids. Things seem fine.

Maybe you made some promises along the way. When Hera said she’d help you, you made a vow to her that you would love Medea forever. When you married Medea, you spoke vows to her, too. You meant them when you spoke them, and really, that should count for something.

But you have to think about your future, your legacy. A man’s life is nothing if his name is not sung after he dies, and you have no convenient promises of immortality like some. So you court a new girl, a princess. Creusa.

She’s easy, calming. Not jagged-edged and difficult like Medea. Creusa doesn’t want to practice sorcery, or help you rule or anything like that. She just wants to be yours, and isn’t a man entitled to a little comfort?

So you tell Medea. It’s over. Take the boys and go, somewhere far. You don’t want to see them anymore, but you’ll let them go, free and unencumbered. You have a new life now, and they will, too.

And your bitch of a wife spits in your face. She totally overreacts, whining about all of the things she’s done for you, saying that you made promises. As if that meant that things couldn’t change, as if you could never want something different.

You remind her you’re being more than generous—you could insist that she stay here, a slave to Creusa. You could insist that her brats become slaves, too, or sacrifices. They are yours, after all—you don’t have to allow them their freedom.

Medea doesn’t say anything. She just leaves the room. You hope she’s seen reason, and has gone to start packing.

Except no. She’s too stubborn to make this easy. Medea throws a temper tantrum, and kills Creusa, and her father. Then she kills your sons.

And somehow, everyone—even Hera!—decides this is your fault. They call you Jason Oathbreaker. Medea gets swept away in Helios’ chariot—literally riding off into the sunset—and you get left with the blame and the bodies.

Alone. Forgotten.

Which winds up working out okay for you, when you decide to change the story.

You hear what Medea’s doing, with her Furies, and her vengeance, and her men are awful and justice is needed blah blah blah. At first, you ignore it. What she does is no concern of yours—even if she does make a big fuss about giving the Furies wings, because you murdered some of the Harpies in Thrace. You’re free of that bitch, and good riddance to her.

But then things change. The Furies don’t, but the way they are written about does. Even better, the new way, the new story, Orestes arguing his freedom from them, and finally some rules that take the men into account, that’s what people remember.

You decide you’re going to change the way you’re written about, too. You don’t want to be the bad guy anymore, and you shouldn’t have to be. All you did was change your mind.

You decide on your own vengeance.

All it will take is time.

And the right people to tell the story.

You learn magic. Foul, nasty actions that leave blood, and worse, on your hands. But you’ve learned to do the things yourself, and that’s better, that’s power, and it’s delicious. You change your appearance. You hide what you are.

You find Medea. She doesn’t even recognize you when you meet, and really, that’s wrong. After all she did, your image should be engraved on the inside of her eyelids, so that it is constantly before her.

But it makes things easier. Even when you give her gloves of golden fleece spun fine, she doesn’t recognize the reminder. So you make her fall in love with you, and this time, you don’t need a goddess to help. You use her own magics against her, and you laugh at your cleverness.

You build yourself a winding knot of walls. A fortress, guarded by monsters. You have to kill a few girls yourself to make things work out, but that’s nothing. Magic has its costs, and you learned long ago how to make someone else pay them.

At one point it seemed like there was a magic stronger than yours, but you fixed that, too. You did have to sacrifice your son, burning his wings from his body, but it is the duty of a child to be useful to his father, and you can always have more sons. You have your labyrinth now, and once you have Medea, it will have its monster.

You are not resourceless.

• • • •

I take wing, feathers clawing at the air like talons, the taste of honey sweet in my mouth. I can see the open space at the heart of the labyrinth, even as the golden thread unspools in my hand.

At the heart of every labyrinth is a monster. This one looked like a man. Shiny teeth, expensive suit, good hair. Magazine cover handsome.

“You cheated,” he said. “You’re not supposed to fly through a labyrinth.”

“And you’re not supposed to murder women. Or kidnap them. So let’s call it a draw, shall we? Where’s Medea?”

“I don’t have to give her to you.”

Remember what you are, Odin had told me. So I did. I remembered all I was, not just my wings, but the poison snakes of my hair and the scale of my heart and the girl I was before I was Kaira, that I had not survived being. I remembered that I held a mirror, bronze as my feathers, that would show Jason what he truly was.

I remembered I had hands that could pluck out his heart, and show that to him as well.

“No,” I said. “You don’t. But I can take her from you.”

The buzzing began when I called the mirror. I stood in front of Jason, holding it, and I watched his face as he looked. Not the horror I expected, but the disappointment of a child who has learned that they are not the sun around which the world orbits.

He stood, transfixed by his image in the mirror, confronted by the truth of what he was. Oath-breaker. Resourceless. False. No goddess descended to save him from his fate.

In the distance, a hum. A great vibration. A labyrinthine path of bees, snaking their way through the air. A great golden thread that unspooled through the sky.

Medea’s bees, in search of their queen. A great swarm of them. Following the footprint pheromone, left by her path through the labyrinth—Jason, it seemed, had followed his own rules in this, and walked her to its center. They were the ones that found her, in the shadows cast by the labyrinth’s walls.

She looked like a shadow herself, pale and diminished. I knelt down by her, and gave her the lipstick from Baba Yaga. Painted lips and honeyed words. Women’s weapons. The blood red slick of her lips was sword and armor both.

I pulled Medea to her feet, and felt the magic that crackled along her skin. The bees spiraled around her, the queen at the heart of the hive.

Swarms are not usually dangerous or aggressive. Unless, of course, they perceive a threat.

Jason lunged at Medea, screaming.

The bees fell upon him like fury, stinging until he was swollen with poison.

I am what I am. I reached into his chest, and pulled out his heart.

• • • •

This is what it is, to walk yourself out of a labyrinth. The stories are always about getting in. The path through and the monsters that you meet on the way. The secret that is hidden at its heart.

They don’t tell you how to get back out.

They don’t tell you that you will be exhausted, and that you will have to carry your friend, still half-drunk on strong magic, slung over your shoulders. They don’t tell you that the walls will turn into buildings as you pass them, that the paths beneath your feet will fade in and out of history as you walk on them. They don’t tell you that the bees will hum oracles in your blood, or that the golden thread you carried in will unravel itself as you walk.

And still. And yet.

Medea’s limp body weighed on me. Her hair tangled in the feathers of my wings, wings I didn’t trust to carry our weight, not with the backlash of magic as the city shifted around us. With Jason’s death, there was nothing to anchor the spells he had cast, and entropy is a powerful thing.

For the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel the itch of vengeance beneath my skin. My snakes were curled and quiet, and my heartbeat was my own, not the dread balance of a cosmic scale.

I was exhausted.

I kept walking, turned left down a corridor that might have been a street on the upper East Side. There were buildings there, and the chorus of the taxis, and the press of people, and the scents of the city—garbage in black plastic, and oil smeared across pavement, and a profusion of flowers in green buckets on the sidewalk.

The city skipped, the needle on the record missing a groove, and I stood on Medea’s street. Her building was there again, the lion pacing tight circles on her top step.

The door opened. Medea gasped as I carried her across her threshold. I helped her to her feet.

“The bees,” she said.

The inside of her house was dark and shadowed, curtains drawn and sheets draped like ghosts over the furniture, a layer of fine dust over everything. The elevator creaked and shuddered as we rode to the top floor, to the garden and the hive.

The hive hummed. Bees passed in and out of it, golden with pollen. Medea held out her hand, and one of the bees landed on it. It walked in what might have been a letter, or a rune, on her palm, and when it again took wing, Medea smiled.

From the top of the roof, I could see the city putting itself back in order. Streets shuddered and shifted, untangling themselves from their artificially drawn knots. The dragon’s heartbeat thrum of the subway vibrated beneath them.

Medea’s garden began to green. Spring in accelerated motion as stalks pushed themselves out of the earth and leaves uncurled from their buds. The air warmed.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked Medea. She looked almost like herself again. There were still bruises under her eyes, and fingerprinted elsewhere on her skin. Her glamour was a painted-on smile, and not something that surrounded her, but she looked better, stronger, here.

“I will be, yes,” she said. “I’m good at putting myself back together.”

• • • •

I walked home through the streets of a city that I recognized again. For once, I thought. For once, I had been able to get there before. To not only be the vengeance that balanced the scales, after.

We tell ourselves the stories of what we would do—I could kill him for that, I could rip out his heart—when really, what we want is to untell that story that brought us to the ending where vengeance is the only option left.

The sunset that night was magnificent. A giant spill of gold. The fire-darting steeds of Helios ending their race. A ball of golden yarn in the darkness of a labyrinth.

The jar of honey was still in my bag, a few last sticky scrapings coating the walls. Sweetness for the monster. The detritus of the magic of small winged creatures that could see the future, and show a fate. I ate, and I slept, dreamless.

Sing Muse.

©2014 by Kat Howard. Originally published in Subterranean Online. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kat Howard is the author of the novels Roses and Rot and the Alex Award-winning An Unkindness of Magicians. Her short fiction collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, is now out from Saga Press and she’s writing The Books of Magic for Vertigo Comics. Her novella, The End of the Sentence, co-written with Maria Dahvana Headley, was an NPR Best Book of the Year in 2014. She currently lives in New Hampshire, where she is working on her next projects.

EXCERPT: Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones (John Joseph Adams Books)

Micah Dean Hicks | 1696 words

Swine Hill was full of the dead. Their ghosts were thickest near the abandoned downtown, where so many of the town’s hopes had died generation by generation. They lingered in the places that mattered to them, and people avoided those streets, locked those doors, stopped going into those rooms . . . They could hurt you. Worse, they could change you.

Jane is haunted. Since she was a child, she has carried a ghost girl that feeds on the secrets and fears of everyone around her, whispering to Jane what they are thinking and feeling, even when she doesn’t want to know. Henry, Jane’s brother, is ridden by a genius ghost that forces him to build strange and dangerous machines. Their mother is possessed by a lonely spirit that burns anyone she touches. In Swine Hill, a place of defeat and depletion, there are more dead than living.

When new arrivals begin scoring precious jobs at the last factory in town, both the living and the dead are furious. This insult on the end of a long economic decline sparks a conflagration. Buffeted by rage on all sides, Jane must find a way to save her haunted family and escape the town before it kills them.

Coming February 5, 2019 from John Joseph Adams Books.

1

Swine Hill was full of the dead. Their ghosts were thickest near the abandoned downtown, where so many of the town’s hopes had died generation by generation. They lingered in the places that mattered to them, and people avoided those streets, locked those doors, stopped going in those rooms. But you might encounter a ghost unexpectedly—in the high school where Jane had graduated two years ago, curled into the hollow of a tree, hands out and pleading on the side of the road. They could hurt you. Worse, they could change you.

The haunted downtown of Swine Hill had been slowly expanding for years, stretching its long fingers into empty neighborhoods where grass fissured the roads and roofs collapsed into rooms of broken furniture and shattered glass. For the people who’d lived and died on those streets, it was anguish to see the vine-choked houses, to know their descendants had run away from all they’d worked for. Their spirits, most present in the stillness of night, raged in the empty places. Even if she was late for work, Jane knew to drive around those neighborhoods.

It was easy to feel alone. There were more dead than living in Swine Hill. Jane’s aunts and uncles had gone out of state after the collapse of the tire factory and the lumber mill. The town jealously cleaved to the pork-processing plant that had chewed up its sons for generations, hoping that in the end, it would be enough. Most people Jane’s age had already gone, scraping up enough money to start over somewhere else. The only ones left were those so poor that they couldn’t make it out, or so haunted they couldn’t see a world outside their ghosts, or just clinging to a past they couldn’t bear to leave behind. But Jane wasn’t alone. Her ghost flashed bright and quick through her mind.

Her car’s engine coughed as she turned the key, something sputtering under the hood like a laugh, and finally groaned to life. It accelerated slowly, heavy with the weight of spirits. The speedometer and gas gauge waved their orange arms erratically. Her windshield wipers often turned on without warning, and sometimes her horn would scream out of nowhere. She was happy the CD player still worked at all, though sometimes a ghost would settle into the discs, craving the bright sound of music, and then the stereo would play only noise.

Jane flipped open a case of burned CDs and put in one after another until she found one that played, throwing the dead ones onto a pile in her back seat. Music crashed out of the tinny speakers: sticky electronic pop, the lyrics full of secrets, gossip, and drama. The cold weight of her ghost swelled inside her, thrilling in the sound.

Though Jane didn’t know the ghost girl’s name, it had been a part of her ever since she was a child. It was nosy, listening in on other people’s thoughts and telling Jane what they were thinking and feeling. If the ghost didn’t have anyone else to listen to, it would burrow deep into Jane’s mind, unearthing her regrets and fears and making her fixate on them for hours. If it felt unappreciated, it might lie to her, withhold what it knew, or tell her the most vicious things people thought about her. But Jane had learned to manage it over the years, using music to placate it. The ghost had been her first friend, and now that she was still in Swine Hill after her classmates and family had gone away, Jane wondered if the ghost would be her last friend, too.

Something like fog rose as the sun slipped behind the trees. A chain of spirits so wispy and immaterial as to be little more than air, a mass of faces and trudging feet bleeding in and out of one another, drifted up the road to the Pig City meatpacking plant. These ghosts weren’t dangerous. They had somewhere to go, a purpose still. The plant that had employed them all their lives was older than the town, the only reason that Swine Hill hadn’t crumbled back into the earth. The ghosts were the unofficial night shift, still swirling through its rusted doors, crowding its blood-splattered hallways to do their phantom work.

Jane plowed through them like snow, their distorted faces stretching over the windshield. She turned in to the grocery store’s cratered parking lot, the sodium lights casting deep shadows at the building’s edges, the storefront murky yellow and cluttered with signs.

Near the front of the store, the specter of a man slowly spun up from the asphalt and took on substance. He lay on the ground, holding his stomach and bleeding, a phantom box of strawberries broken open on the ground beside him. Decades ago, a police officer shot him while he was leaving the store. The cop had been called about another customer, someone yelling at the cashiers. It was a mix-up. A mistake, but one that had happened and would happen again. The ghost looked at every person who entered or left the store, his face a mask of pain and surprise, and mouthed, Why?

Jane, her shoulders tense, tried not to look at him, and jogged through the doors.

There weren’t any cashiers at the front. A flood of customers milled around, waiting for someone to check them out. Jane went straight to her register—just stuffed her bag under the counter instead of taking it to the back—already apologizing as she scanned the first customer’s items.

She felt her ghost move away from her, felt it filter in and out of the minds of the customers, bringing her the avalanche of their thoughts. Everyone who looked up and saw her immediately thought, Black. Whatever else they thought about her, this always came first. Her ghost spoke their minds into Jane’s ear: Probably late. They always are. Lazy. People like her. Must have overslept. Kept us waiting. Why doesn’t someone fire her? I’m going to speak to the manager. Too dark. Such a shame. Might have been pretty otherwise.

The ghost knew that Jane didn’t want to hear all this, but it couldn’t help itself, because its whole tie to the living world was bound up in its hunger for secrets and pain.

“Sorry about your wait,” Jane said. “Have a nice day.”

Her register’s phone rang. Jane held it with her neck while punching in produce codes, looking up to see her balding, squint-eyed manager staring at her from his glass-encased office. He was terrified of ghosts and wouldn’t go near Jane or anyone who was possessed. Even when the store was busy, he stayed in his booth, interacting with customers as little as possible. Jane’s ghost had told her that he worried he might already be haunted. He spent hours looking in his mirror, searching his pupils for a flicker of ghost-light. Jane had told him that he was clean, but he didn’t believe her.

“One cashier never showed up, and the other called in sick,” he said. “Kathryn left early. I was alone for a while. Don’t put me in that position again.”

Jane wanted to protest that it wasn’t her fault, but the man’s voice was so weak. Her ghost told her how afraid he was, how fixated on the thinness of the glass in the booth. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Many shoppers wore stained Pig City coveralls, plant workers picking up hamburger meat and pasta on their way home. Most were old, with silver hair like spun metal under the harsh lights, limbs bruised, eyes half closed in exhaustion. Those few still in their twenties or thirties looked much older, weathered by long days at the plant and too little sleep at home. Jane’s ghost told her what they were feeling: lonely, tired, a slow-burning frustration like a long fuse leading to an explosion still a few decades away. Defeated down to their bones, they would have gone somewhere else, anywhere else, if only they had the money, if only they weren’t eaten up with ghosts and their ghostly needs, if only they didn’t fear that the rest of the world was just like Swine Hill.

Copyright © 2019 by Micah Dean Hicks. Excerpted from Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks. Published by permission of the author and John Joseph Adams Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Micah Dean Hicks’s debut novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones is forthcoming in 2019 from John Joseph Adams Books. His story collection Electricity and Other Dreams—a book of dark fairy tales and bizarre fables—won the 2012 New American Fiction Prize. He won the 2014 Calvino Prize judged by Robert Coover, the 2016 Arts and Letters Prize judged by Kate Christensen, and the 2015 Wabash Prize judged by Kelly Link. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of magazines ranging from The New York Times to The Kenyon Review. Hicks teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. You can find him on Twitter at @MicahDeanHicks and on the web at micahdeanhicks.com.

Book Reviews: February 2019

LaShawn M. Wanak | 1734 words

The City in the Middle of the Night
Charlie Jane Anders
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN: 9780765379962
Tor Books, February 2019, 368 pages

Have you ever had a friendship where no matter what you do, it’s always wrong? Charlie Jane Anders explores this in her second novel, The City in the Middle of the Night. It’s set upon a planet called January, a world that has a single habitable narrow zone stuck between boiling daytime and frigid night. And ohhhhh . . . this book . . . SO MUCH FEELS.

In the city of Xiophant, Sophie is a working class, socially anxious girl who is roommates with Bianca, a privileged girl with rebellious tendencies. When Sophie willingly takes the fall for a petty crime Bianca commits, Sophie is banished outside the city limits, where she is not expected to survive. However, she is saved by a tentacled creature called a “crocodile,” one of the planet’s native inhabitants who communicate via telepathy and have their own complex society. As Sophie spends her new life hiding, a grief-stricken Bianca begins to rebel against the city in earnest. The story also revolves around Mouth, a smuggler who has lost her entire tribe. She travels between Xiophant and Argelo, the only other human city on the planet of January.

The two cities are opposites. Xiophant has adapted to its never-ending sunlight by heavily regulating everything: when people work, when they eat, even when they sleep. A salon, for instance, geared to make people forget about schedules and time, is considered too dangerous to exist out in the open. On the other hand, Argelo is stuck in perpetual dusk, has no rules, no schedules, no existing governing body. It is a wild, decadent place that is full of rampant crime and poverty. The distance between the two cities is filled with treacherous horrors: murderous seas, monsters that can slice you up, and the crocodiles, which Sophie later give the name Gelet, who are intelligent and patient, but also terrifying in their own way.

While the worldbuilding is amazing, this book is more about the relationships, which feel just as precarious as the planet itself. It is hard to say if these people are friends. Mouth’s relationship to Sophie is described as “a jinx,” as bad things happen to Sophie whenever Mouth is around. I would also say that Sophie and Bianca’s relationship is very toxic, but Anders doesn’t make it so easily defined. The relationship is fraught with miscommunication, overestimation, idealization (or idolization?), manipulation and flat-out jealousy, but there is also a strong connection between the two that isn’t easily broken.

There is a beautiful, heartbreaking scene where Sophie and Bianca are trapped in a restaurant. Sophie just wants their friendship to go back to the way it was before she was exiled, but Bianca cannot reconcile the past. It’s painful to watch them struggle through the conversation. It’s even more painful when Bianca continues with her plans to liberate Xiophant, which ultimately means manipulating Sophie into helping her.

The City in the Middle of the Night left me devastated, and yet it also left me surprisingly hopeful. It had me examining my own relationships, and realizing that I should not take my friendships for granted.

The Raven Tower
Ann Leckie
Hardcover / Ebook / Audio
ISBN: 9780316388696
Orbit Books, February 2019, 267 pages

After writing her successful Ancillary series, Ann Leckie is now turning her sights to fantasy. Instead of writing about large sentient spaceships, she has now written a story about large (and small) sentient gods. The Raven Tower may feel like a slim book, but there is so much packed in this standalone novel that I felt like I was reading a doorstopper.

The kingdom of Iraden is ruled by the Lease, a ruler chosen by the Raven god, who must sacrifice himself when the god’s chosen Instrument—a raven, of course—dies. When the Lease’s heir, Mawat, arrives to claim his birthright, instead of finding his father, the current Lease, he instead finds his uncle ruling in his stead, and his own father missing and presumed by everyone to have run off to save his own life.

The story is told from a god’s perspective as it observes a young man named Eolo, Mawat’s aide. In a way, the novel is a murder mystery as we follow Eolo attempting to find out the fate of Mawat’s father. As Eolo searches deeper for the truth, we learn the reason why people seem to side more with the uncle than with Mawat’s father. There is also much political intrigue and maneuvering, a theme that is echoed in the god world. All is not what it appears, and this includes Eolo, who has his own mysteries and secrets.

What pulled me into the novel, however, were the stories about the gods themselves. The narrator is not the Raven god, but a god called The Strength and Patience of the Hill. It exists on a level far above humans, having seen the creation of the world, but at the same time, it is not considered omnipresent, grows slowly into its godhood, and doesn’t really care too much about humans until a tragedy happens, literally, at its feet. We see a supplicant’s worship and prayer from the god’s point of view. It has a friend—another god called the Myriad whose corporeal form is in a thick cloud of mosquitos. And as I mentioned above, it must deal with political maneuverings from other gods, which can bring about death. There is a sense of deep mythology framed in a fairy tale language that made me think of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Also, the god’s use of second-person POV in telling Eolo’s story is reminiscent of N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy.

I finished this book in about an afternoon, but I plan to read it again more slowly. While it’s a straightforward fantasy tale, I deeply appreciated the way it’s told. It’s a book that’s sure to stimulate the imagination of minds of a theological bent.

The Psychology of Time Travel
Kate Mascarenhas
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN: 9781683319443
Crooked Lane Books, February 2019, 336 pages

Before I begin this review, please take a moment to admire the cover for this book. The embroidered rabbits. The gorgeous stitching. Very charming. Very quaint.

The book itself is not like that. As with most time-travel stories, this book will have your mind chewing on possibilities and probabilities. In the spirit of Hidden Figures comes Kate Mascarenhas’ debut novel, The Psychology of Time Travel.

In 1967, four scientists set out to create time travel. Naming themselves “the Pioneers,” these women—Margaret, Grace, Lucille, and Barbara—invent a box that one can walk into and thus go anywhere in time. It’s revolutionary, set to change the world. But on the day they announce their discovery to the world, Barbara, the youngest scientist, suffers a mental breakdown on live television. Fearing that their credibility is at stake, the other women remove Barbara from her position, proceeding to shun her and completely erase her contributions to the project.

Fifty years later, the remaining Pioneers run an organization called the Conclave, which has its own government, resources, and money centered around time travel. Barbara, now an old woman, keeps trying to find ways to restore her access to the Pioneers, and to the women she still considers her friends. Her granddaughter, Ruby, tries to dissuade Barbara from even talking about it—until a mysterious letter arrives containing the death certificate of an unnamed woman in January 2018. Wondering if this is a warning meant for her grandmother, Ruby begins to investigate the Conclave.

Like Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower, this novel also sets itself up as a murder mystery, but I was more fascinated by the intricacies of the Conclave and the different coping mechanisms its inhabitants used to deal with the effects of time travel. Throughout the book, those who time travel start to feel a certain timelessness, as if they are ghosts merely wandering through space. The lack of being rooted in time brings in a host of issues and strange quirks. When time travelers marry, they get rings engraved with their birth and death dates. They refer to their younger selves as “greens” and their older selves as “silvers.” A gorgeous scene is watching a painting being created in reverse order.

The Conclave has its darker side as well. Margaret, now older, has grown paranoid over her own leadership. She becomes obsessed with mind games and institutes a hazing ritual to weed out those who won’t fit into the culture of the Conclave. Others also struggle with mental and narcissistic issues. For instance, one time traveler finds she cannot eat unless she goes to a certain park on the day of her birth to be with other versions of herself. The Conclave is deteriorating, and I wish Mascaren spent more time on that than on the murder mystery. I also wish she spent more time on Lucille, the black female scientist; the book instead focuses on another black character, Odette, as she investigates the murder. I liked her, but with so many other characters in the book, she came across a little flat.

But hey, this book has women scientists. It has women of color. It has queer romance. Plus, it has dioramas depicting different scenes from the book (bit.ly/2B6XxMO) on the author’s website. You can never go wrong with that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LaShawn M. Wanak is a graduate of the 2011 class of Viable Paradise. Her fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Ideomancer. She served as Associate Editor at Podcastle, and has written nonfiction for Fantasy Magazine, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the anthology Invisible 2.

Media Reviews: February 2019

Christopher East | 1995 words

At Netflix, content is king—or so one would gather based on the vast sums of money it’s recently thrown at original material, a healthy percentage of which falls under the SFF genre umbrella. In general, I’ve been more impressed by its serials than its films, but I do think there are some worthy one-off projects at the site. Few are truly first-rate, perhaps, but there’s often much to admire in the details, and as a whole, the site provides a refreshing alternative to theatrical Hollywood’s increasingly formulaic and predictable output.

Mute
Directed by Duncan Jones
Produced by Liberty Films UK and Studio Babelsberg
Released February 23, 2018

Some of these movies come from high-profile directors with considerable genre street cred, but surprisingly these were the ones I found most disappointing. Mute (2018), directed and co-written by Duncan Jones of Moon and Source Code fame, presents an impressive cybernoir vision of the future, but its plot doesn’t quite live up to its look. It’s the tale of an Amish bartender (Alexander Skarsgård) forced to negotiate the tech-drenched streets of Berlin in search of his missing girlfriend. Mute has a dazzling look, a reasonably engaging plot, and memorable, oddball villainy from Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. The protagonist’s inherent dilemma—throughout, he’s forced to confront his greatest weakness (technology) in the pursuit of his goal—has compelling possibilities. But in the end, this one didn’t ring true, as none of its SF furniture seemed essential to the plot; Mute could easily, with the same structure, have taken place in the present. An interesting passion project from Jones, but with a glaring core drawback.

Anon
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol
Produced by K5 Film, K5 International, and K5 Media Group
Released May 4, 2018

More successful, if slow-paced and somber, is Anon (2018) from writer-director Andrew Niccol, whose SF credits include Gattaca, The Truman Show, and S1m0ne. Fortunately, Anon’s science fictional worldbuilding is highly integral to the plot, presenting a privacy-free surveillance society where the police use ubiquitous POV recordings to solve crimes. Naturally, the very existence of this technology has dramatically reduced crime, but Detective Sal Frieland (Clive Owen) still catches cases—including a serial murder spree that hinges on the search for a “ghost” (Amanda Seyfried) who seems to have cracked the system to keep her identity secret. It’s an intriguing examination of its concept that, like Mute, is beautiful to look at in its dark way, but ultimately Anon falls down in its lack of energy and overly portentous tone.

What Happened to Monday
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
Produced by Vendome Pictures, Nexus Factory and Raffaella Productions
Released August 18, 2017

Moving on, What Happened to Monday (2017) stirs familiar cautionary SF tropes—overpopulation and climate change—into a colorful action-thriller cocktail. On a future Earth ruled by an autocratic world government, a one-child-per-family law has rendered siblings illegal. This makes the existence of “Karen Stettman” (Noomi Rapace) all the more improbable. Karen is, in fact, seven different people—septuplets rescued by their father (Willem Dafoe) and raised in isolated secrecy to avoid the law. For their entire lives, they’ve taken turns portraying Karen in her daily life, but when “Monday” doesn’t come home one day, their secret threatens to crumble. What Happened to Monday certainly delivers on the cinematic front, and deploys its nifty core conceit entertainingly. Rapace does a decent if unspectacular job at the multiple-personality acting challenge—Tatiana Maslany pulls this sort of thing off much more impressively in Orphan Black—but her action-adventure presence is as riveting as ever. At times the SFnal worldbuilding comes across clunkily, but overall, this one makes for entertaining skiffy spectacle.

The Discovery
Directed by Charlie McDowell
Produced by Endgame Entertainment, Netflix, and Protagonist Pictures
Released March 31, 2017

The Discovery (2017) brings A-list talent to a lower-key, more “literary” genre tale. In this one, a scientist, Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford), uncovers definitive proof of the existence of an afterlife. Unfortunately, his discovery has led to a worldwide epidemic of suicides, as desperate people look to hasten their deliverance to a better place. When Thomas’s son Will (Jason Segel) returns to the island where his family lives, he meets Isla (Rooney Mara) on the ferry, and together they work their way into the strange new cult that has grown up around Thomas’ scientific work. More interested in philosophical what-ifs, thoughtful ambience, and quiet romance than its genre elements, The Discovery is hardly earth-shattering as genre fare, but it’s an earnest, thoughtful story with nice structural touches and fine supporting performances from the whole cast, particularly from Mara, Redford, and Jesse Plemons.

Extinction
Directed by Ben Young
Produced by Good Universe, Mandeville Films, and Universal Pictures
Released July 27, 2018

Netflix’s high-profile films are sometimes outshone, I think, by ones with more of a “B-movie” flavor—for example, Extinction (2018), an alien invasion tale that evolves into something more. This one stars Michael Peña as Peter, a happily married technician and father whose life is beset by apocalyptic nightmares of an attack on the Earth. Is he having premonitions of the future? It certainly seems that way when the attack indeed comes, forcing him into a desperate struggle for survival that he believes to be aided by his premonitions. Extinction lacks personality, and indeed manages the rare feat of flattening out actors—Peña, Lizzy Caplan, Mike Colter—who are usually brimming with charisma. But it progresses cleverly, as well-timed twists and turns gradually unlock the mystery of Peter’s nightmares and propel the story from simple survival spectacle into increasingly more interesting science fictional territory.

ARQ
Directed by Tony Elliott
Produced by Lost City, XYZ Films, and MXN Entertainment
Released September 16, 2016

ARQ (2016) is a more modest production, as its nutshell pitch would suggest: It’s basically Desperate Hours meets Groundhog Day. A time machine inventor (Robbie Amell) finds himself locked in a repeating loop of events during a home invasion, enabling him to try different strategies to escape death as he cycles through iterations that continuously reveal new layers of mystery. Arq is low-budget, B-movie fun, a guerilla filmmaking variation on Days of Tomorrow that cleverly executes its premise, with Amell and Jessica Jones’ Rachael Taylor serving as agreeable viewpoints into its one-set dystopian setting.

Next Gen
Written and directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander
Produced by Netflix, Baozou Manhua, and Tangent Animation
Released September 7, 2018

Netflix ventures into animation as well. Next Gen (2018) is a colorful feast for the eyes, presenting an impressive futuristic vision of a massive city where robots are ubiquitous. Mai Su (voiced by Charline Yi) is a troubled girl whose family life has been shattered by her father’s departure and her mother’s escapist obsession with robotic accessories. Tagging along with her mom to a glitzy robotics conference, Mai unexpectedly comes into contact with a robot (John Krasinski) who becomes her devoted friend—but whom she quickly starts to leverage toward shortsighted ends. Next Gen’s science fictional worldbuilding is a mess, full of logic gaps, and its tone is all over the map. It can’t seem to decide whether it’s a touching, Pixar-like coming-of-age tale or a chaotic, violent action flick. But it’s visually enthralling, and has some great voice work. Jason Sudeikis in particular makes a mark as the celebrity CEO of the robotics company, his performance contributing to an effective send-up of tech industry self-importance. And the animation is quite striking, making this worth, if nothing else, a casual background watch.

Blame!
Directed by Hiroyuki Seshita
Produced by King Records, Kôdansha, and Netflix
Released May 20, 2017

I preferred Blame! (2017), an evocative anime about an enclave of human survivors in a bizarre, self-replicating city. The villagers are protected within the boundaries of their village, but they’re desperately low on resources, and venturing beyond the perimeter exposes them to attack by murderous robots. Their fortunes look to change when a band of rebellious teenagers, out scavenging for resources, are rescued by Killy (Takahiro Sakurai), an enigmatic wanderer who’s on a quest to put an end to the city’s deadly programming. Blame!’s pacing is awkward and sluggish, but its unsettling ambience is immersive, and it’s full of inventive, unexpected worldbuilding flourishes.

Cam
Directed by Daniel Goldhaber
Produced by Divide/Conquer, Blumhouse Productions, and Gunpowder & Sky
Released November 16, 2018

For the cream of this particular crop of Netflix films, we’ll bounce back to live action. First up: Cam (2018), a deceptive, unnerving film of psychological horror about an internet camgirl named Alice (Madeline Brewer), whose online stunts under her screen name “Lola” get more and more outlandish as she climbs the ranks in popularity at her site. Alice possesses fierce dedication to her much-maligned work, which makes it all the more disturbing when a lookalike hacks her identity and takes over her account—leading her down dark, desperate paths to recover her career, and indeed her identity. Co-written by former camgirl Isa Mazzei, Cam is an ingenius piece of work, with a surprising, slippery slope of a plot that has its finger on the pulse of contemporary internet fears, biases, and psychology. Initially leaning into its prurient surface, it then takes the viewer to unexpected places, ultimately slotting in nicely alongside films like Get Out and Sorry to Bother You as a mix of quirky horror and incisive sociocultural critique.

Bird Box
Directed by Susanne Bier
Produced by Bluegrass Films, Chris Morgan Productions, and Universal Pictures
Released December 21, 2018

Finally, there’s Bird Box (2018), which may be the most broadly successful film on this list, a compelling and superbly executed tale of apocalyptic horror. A pregnant artist named Malorie Hayes (Sandra Bullock) manages to survive a mysterious outbreak of mass psychosis, which has led to worldwide chaos, murder, and mass suicides. She holes up in a house with a small group of survivors, and together they discern that the psychosis is caused merely by seeing mysterious, otherworldly entities—meaning the only way to survive is to stay indoors, and never venture outside without blindfolds. Ricocheting through timelines, Bird Box deftly delivers on the promise of its scenario, not only as a shocking, creepy tale of supernatural horror, but as a vast metaphor for the madness of merely paying attention to the way the world works. Some viewers will notice an obvious conceptual similarity to A Quiet Place, but I think it’s a more thematically robust and visually interesting film. End-of-the-world movies have gotten more and more difficult to watch in recent years, but Bird Box is an exceptional example of its type, tapping insightfully into our horrifying zeitgeist.

If this sampling is any indication, Netflix’s heavy investment in original content, while certainly of mixed quality, is still worth keeping an eye on. With theatrical Hollywood’s SF fare still dominated by all-or-nothing blockbuster ambition, it may be up to the online streaming services to serve as a playground for less outwardly commercial projects such as the above. Looking forward to more interesting experiments from Netflix in the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher East is a writer, editor, reviewer, and avid consumer of science fiction, fantasy, and spy fiction. His stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Cosmos, Interzone, Talebones, The Third Alternative, and a number of other speculative fiction publications. He’s attended the Clarion and Taos Toolbox writing workshops, and served for several years as the fiction editor for the futurism, science, and technology blog Futurismic. He blogs extensively about writing, fiction, film, television, music, comics, and more at www.christopher-east.com. Currently he lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works for an occupational and environmental health and safety consultancy.

Interview: Lilliam Rivera

Christian A. Coleman | 2306 words

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer, and the author of the young adult novels Dealing in Dreams, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster on March 5, 2019, and The Education of Margot Sanchez, available now in bookstores everywhere. Her work has appeared in Elle, Nightmare Magazine, Tin House, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, to name a few. She lives in Los Angeles.

You described Dealing in Dreams, your second young adult novel, as The Outsiders meets Mad Max: Fury Road with girl gangs that rule the streets. How did the premise come together for you?

My high-school English teacher gave me a copy of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. I was obsessed with the book and Stanley Kubrick’s movie. I always wondered what it would be like for there to be a gender flip to that world, if it were girls who incorporated violent traits. Dealing in Dreams is my rendition of what that world would look like where young women use violence as their way out of their social status.

The leading young woman using violence as her way out of her social status is main character Nalah. She’s the head of Las Mal Criadas, the fiercest all-girl crew that patrols Mega City, the primary setting of the novel, at night. Where does her character come from?

The character of Nalah came to me from my own parents’ hopes. They left Puerto Rico, an island colonized by the United States, and moved to New York at a young age. We grew up in the Bronx, New York, in poverty and love. My parents, especially my mother, instilled this idea of always having to be hard in order to survive. There is no room for vulnerability or softness. That is where Nalah came from.

As violent and as brutal as she is in fights and throw-downs, Nalah thinks that knowing history is what makes her crew stronger. In fact, she says, “If you don’t know your history, then you have no power. That’s the problem with other gangs. They think their strength lies only in their fists.” Why did you want her to value history this way?

Nalah basically has lived her young life abandoned by her family. What she remembers of them comes to her only in fragmented dreams. She clings to these tiny pieces of history, and I think this is why history is so important to her. She equates history with stability.

Would you also say she equates violence with stability? Later on, she doubles down on the importance of throwing the first punch and winning fights. She defends her paramilitary upbringing whenever anyone outside of Mega City questions her about it.

Nalah and her crew have only known one way of living. For her, to accept any other would mean to abandon the dreams she’s had, to abandon all that she has worked for.

When we take into consideration Nalah’s dreams, it looks like the title of the novel has two meanings. The first refers to her external world: the currency used in Mega City is sueño tabs, which are manufactured to ease the daily suffering of the workers and keep them sedated. The second seems to refer to her internal world, her dream of living in luxury in the exclusive Mega Towers and ditching her life as a patroller. But her dream comes at a price.

Everyone loves this idea that to make it in America all you need is to work hard to be successful. The truth is that only a certain privileged few are allowed to flourish. That people of color still thrive in spite of all the obstacles thrust on us is a miracle and says so much about our strength. For Nalah, she really has bought into the belief that if she follows the rules of the game instilled by those in power she will be able to succeed. She is also plagued by dreams of her past, of a family that she barely remembers. I wanted to explore the idea of a young girl trying to overcome her own sense of who she is, outside of what she has been told all her life—that she is a fighter and can only use her fists to get ahead.

Let’s talk about the world Nalah and her crew live in. Mega City has sueño tabs, food pellets, tronic guns, and boydega clubs. How did you come up with these worldbuilding details?

The world I created in Dealing in Dreams is heavily influenced by my own upbringing as a Puerto Rican and a Bronx, New York, native. In the novel, the powerful family that rules the city is the creator of “sueños,” a drug that’s a catch-all for all that ails the residents of the city. Nalah and her gang help distribute these sueños to the people. I’m aware of how drugs have been used to subdue people of color. A New Yorker article, “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe (bit.ly/2GXS15e), about the Sackler family, infamous for creating OxyContin, also revealed how women in Puerto Rico were the first to use the drug in a study conducted by Purdue. The line is a throwaway sentence in the article but it wasn’t for me. Another pivotal article that I used during my research is this article in the New York Times, “The Bronx’s Quiet, Brutal War with Opioids” (nyti.ms/2Ql2TcY).

The idea behind boydega clubs, the nightclubs where gangs in Mega City party at, came to me from a documentary I watched a while back called The Great Happiness Space (2006), where young professional girls in Japan “rent” boys out. I was fascinated by that idea.

The food in Dealing in Dreams is mostly synthesized food pellets. I live in Los Angeles, where food trends can be feel so futuristic. At times, it seems like there is such an aim to reduce eating to just drinking meals, to overpriced juices. I can imagine this being taken further where a pellet can be produced to contain only essential nutrients. I wanted to explore this idea of being dependent on a government to provide food, a somewhat similar situation that occurs in Puerto Rico with the current island’s dependence on the US, although there has always been a strong movement on the island to independent farming.

The gangs in my novel employ weapons called tronics. For that I researched what future guns will look like. I think it was important for women in this world to advocate returning back to basics, moving away from bullets to a more “civilized” use of fists and electronic tasers.

Nalah says that in order for Mega City to be safe, the borders have to be kept secure. Reading this novel in this moment, I couldn’t help but think about our current president’s obsession with borders and his asinine wall. How much of the novel is responding to and commenting on our political scene?

I wrote a draft of Dealing in Dreams way before our current administration. As a Latinx, borders have always played a part of my history, especially if you consider Puerto Rico’s history as a colonized island. My writing comes through this prism. Although set in the near future, Dealing in Dreams draws on the aspects of how medical experimentations have always been used on Puerto Rican women, the allure of materials, and how social experiments made to help those in poverty come with such high stipulations.

In Mega City, blood family is seen as a liability. Nalah says, “Blood family doesn’t necessarily mean a connection. I saw this happen in a training camp. The closer you are to your family, the harder it is to become a fighter.” And yet the idea of family and loyalty is what keeps Nalah’s crew together. What made you want to explore this theme in this dystopian setting?

Forming your own family is such a pivotal moment for young people, especially in high school. Nalah, who is sixteen years old, has formed and shaped her crew, Las Mal Criadas, into the family she wants. There is love and discipline and dysfunction, like any real family.

In your NPR interview (n.pr/2TxlqVz), you said that what inspired you to write your first novel, The Education of Margot Sanchez, was wanting to write about that moment when young people see their parents in a new realistic way. I think this carries over to Dealing in Dreams, too. Nalah sees Déesee, the founder of Mega City, in a totally new light after spending time with the Ashé Ryders, the mysterious, nonviolent gang Déessee tasks her and her crew to seek out.

In young adult fiction, I believe a lot of the characters must go through a discovery of “firsts.” The first kiss. The first sense of shame. I love those moments in young adult literature when the protagonist discovers how their parents or adults are completely flawed and full of unrealized desires or dreams. In order for Nalah to grow, she has to let go of the flimsy dreams being fed to her by those in power and discover the truth.

She also learns a lot about the limitations of power that runs Mega City with an authoritarian hand after she sees what an even distribution of responsibility and power between women and men looks like in the Ashé Ryders’ community. What do you think about dystopia as a genre to talk about power and gender in young adult novels?

There are so many great young adult novels that explore gender and power in young adults. Sam Miller’s The Art of Starving, Aditi Khorana’s The Library of Fates, Zoraida Cordova’s Brooklyn Bruja series and Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles are just a few names of authors I love. Not only can young people finally see themselves as the hero in a novel; they can also see characters tackling social justice themes placed in a world that looks familiar or fantastical.

One of the characters living in the Ashé Ryders’ community says, “Music is revolutionary. Art is revolutionary. Men, women, and others will lead.” Do you feel that writing is revolutionary?

I really do believe this. Throughout history, journalists, writers, and poets have always been incarcerated, censored, killed. Even if I’m writing fiction in a dystopian world, I am striving to uncover current realities.

Tell us about your writing background. Who are the authors that inspired you to write?

My writing began as an entertainment and fashion journalist. I worked in that industry for twenty years before overcoming my fear of writing fiction. I’ve always read speculative fiction (Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler, Gabriel García Márquez) and Latinx folktales. Although my first young adult novel was set in contemporary Bronx, my short stories have been speculative in nature, and I knew I wanted my second novel to be near future.

What was it like having Dealing in Dreams workshopped at VONA and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop?

The first time I ever shared a snippet of this story was at VONA with the brilliant author Tananarive Due. It was at VONA were I was introduced to Nalo Hopkinson and China Miéville. At Clarion, I was able to also work with great authors like Karen Joy Fowler, Saladin Ahmed, and Christopher Barzak. The two workshops really helped me expand the world I wanted to create and to give me the courage to do so. It took a long time for me to believe that my stories mattered and would find an audience.

The conclusion of Dealing in Dreams seems open ended. Do you have any plans for sequels?

I don’t have any current plans for any sequels but I do love this world. I can easily see myself writing from the point of view of Books, the papi chulo from the Luna Club, or a prequel of Yamaris, Nalah’s sister, and what her life as a young person might have looked like. Who knows? Maybe I’m not done with this world yet!

What other writing projects do you have coming up?

I’ve just completed writing a young adult novel, a retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice set in the Bronx. I can’t wait to eventually share it with readers.

Is there anything else you’d like your readers to know about Dealing in Dreams?

I’m excited to meet young readers and have conversations about Nalah and her crew. I love that part of being a young adult author: visiting schools and meeting young people. I want them to discover Nalah and maybe feel a little empowered by the characters.

Also, I’ve always loved reading Lightspeed, so it’s a privilege to be interviewed at an outlet I respect. Thank you!

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Christian A. Coleman is a 2013 graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. He lives and writes in the Boston area. He tweets at @coleman_II.

Author Spotlight: Matthew Baker

Gordon B. White | 1326 words

Our protagonist Washington (“Wash” to his friends, or so they tell him) has had all of his episodic memories wiped away, but I’m assuming that the same hasn’t happened to you. Could you tell us what you remember about the inspiration for this story? Was there a specific spark, or have you always been interested in memory and identity?

I’ve always been fascinated with memory and identity. What makes me me? That wasn’t the spark for this story, though. I wanted to write a story about the criminal justice system. A story about some future system of punishment that would render prisons a relic of the past. A story set in a society that would view the very notion of imprisonment as utterly barbaric. That was the spark. I couldn’t think of any way to do it, though. I was living in Ireland—and had just visited the museum at Kilmainham Gaol, a beautiful old prison built in the eighteenth century—when an idea finally came to me. In my notebook, I jotted down this note: “a society where instead of being imprisoned, criminals have their memories wiped, for minor crimes, a recent year or two, for major crimes your entire life, and then have to begin again . . . The story follows a man working on a farm with other laborers who can’t remember anything. He is told his memory was wiped because of a crime he committed, but he doesn’t know what it was, or who he was, or why he did it.” Obviously some details changed as the story evolved, but that was the moment the spark caught some tinder.

It’s hard to ignore that the protagonist’s name is “Washington.” His heritage is partly Native American, but he’s better characterized as a blue-collar worker, patriarch of the nuclear family, and a lover of hunting and guns. Despite his past crimes, Washington seems to be well-intentioned, although his legacy of neglect and cruelty is still visible in his daughter’s lingering spite and his son’s fear, even though present day Washington doesn’t understand why they feel this way. Given that, there’s a way to read this story as a sociopolitical allegory about how America’s ignorance of its past keeps sabotaging its progress. Do you think that human memory and societal memory are analogous? Even though no single person built the cruel institutions and systems of the past, their effects linger, so although this story presents several kinds of ostensibly helpful wipes (such as for addicts or people with PTSD), can there be healing through forgetting?

At this point, I don’t know if there’s anything that can heal America aside from a total memory wipe of the national consciousness. (What a relief that would be, to be able just to start over.)

During their anniversary celebration, Wash’s wife Mia reveals that although Wash has become a better husband and father since the wipe, she remains conflicted about how she misses the old him, even the bad parts. This echoes with when Wash is grossed out by ballpark hot dogs and realizes that “it was the nostalgia [he was] tasting” for all those years he kept eating them. Even when Mia is faced with a Wash that she can guide towards something closer to the societal ideal, she is still trapped by her desire for the familiar. What do you think it is about nostalgia that so drives people? How do Wash and Mia confront this?

Just earlier this morning I was walking through the Ramble in Central Park, not thinking about anything in particular, when I was suddenly struck by a memory of a specific smell: the tart, pungent, synthetic scent of the pleather seats on the bus that I rode as a child. And a feeling of nostalgia immediately overwhelmed me. The memory hadn’t been triggered by some similar smell in the air around me. The memory had come to me completely randomly. I’ve never smelled that specific scent anywhere other than on that bus. And here’s what mystifies me: As a child, that smell always seemed vaguely horrible to me. I didn’t like riding the bus. The bus was a loud, chaotic, violent, in-between place—something to be endured between school and home. Why do I have a nostalgia for that smell of the pleather seats on the bus? Why does the memory of that smell make me wish I could ride the bus again? I honestly don’t know. Maybe because time is a dimension, and the memory of that smell suddenly shifts that other dimension into perspective, revealing the tremendous depth of my life—remembering how those seats smelled, I can suddenly feel the temporal depth of the past twenty years. There’s something marvelous about that, no matter how terrible the bus was.

Regarding total memory wipes, Wash’s reintroduction supervisor says: “[F]or a life sentence, the numbers [of years] are meaningless. Is it worse when a sixty-year-old dies than when a six-year-old dies? Of course not.” Her comparison isn’t exact, however, because a child has more time and thus more future potential left than an adult. When a wiped criminal returns as a metaphorical six-year-old brain in a sixty-year-old body, the world still bears the scars of his or her crimes, but the criminal has less time left to start over or make amends. By favoring continual restarts rather than reform, might wiping criminals’ minds impede society’s overall progress? While Mia and Wash eventually create a new life together, to what extent is the old Wash “dead” and their new relationship the equivalent of a second marriage?

Yes, wiping criminals’ minds certainly might “impede society’s overall progress”—but would it impede society’s overall progress more or less than the prison-industrial complex? Does the modern prison system make any genuine attempt to “reform”? Or merely to profit?

In the end, Wash succumbs to his curiosity and finds it surprisingly easy to finally research who he was before the wipe, even though it jeopardizes the “better” person he has become and, in turn, his family. Previously in the story, Wash had come perilously close to relapse or even harm—his exhilaration while hunting, when Mia risks enabling a backslide by giving him the rifle, the danger of the tornado—but those events never claim him because his inborn drive isn’t towards cruelty, violence, or destruction. Instead, it’s his inescapable curiosity and the resulting dissatisfaction that set him up for failure. Do you think that curiosity is a value-neutral drive that, in certain unique circumstances like Wash’s, can have unintentionally negative effects? Or is Wash’s kind of curiosity born out of something closer to selfishness or greed, which his reintroduction supervisor says can have a genetic basis? In the end, how much of Wash’s outcome should we put on him, as opposed to a flawed system or a failure of support?

I think any human quality, good or bad, can have “unintentionally negative effects” (and, likewise, unintentionally positive effects). Personally, I don’t know what Wash chooses at the end; I don’t know what Wash should choose at the end, either.

Finally, what’s coming up next for you? Aside from any concrete plans, are there any less-defined ideas or projects that you are embarking on?

Currently, I’m finishing work on a graphic novel, conducting research for a new novel, writing a pilot for FX, and developing a film with Birds of Prey screenwriter/producer Christina Hodson. (Whew, I think that’s everything. Or at least that’s all that I can remember.)

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Gordon B. White has lived in North Carolina, New York, and the Pacific Northwest. He is a 2017 graduate of the Clarion West Writing Workshop, and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in venues such as Daily Science Fiction, A Breath from the Sky: Unusual Stories of Possession, Nightscript Vol. 2, and the Bram Stoker Award® winning anthology Borderlands 6. Gordon is also an Assistant Editor with Kraken Press and conducts reviews and interviews for various outlets. You can find him online at gordonbwhite.com or on Twitter at @GordonBWhite.

Author Spotlight: KT Bryski

Jude Griffin | 686 words

How did this story come about?

I first wrote this story in January 2017 (it’s been a long and winding road). 2017 was Canada’s sesquicentennial, and this story was largely my way to work through some very, very conflicted feelings about “Canada 150.” At the time, I worked in heritage/tourism, and there was a lot of soul-searching involved in balancing the demand for “FUN HAPPY MAPLE SYRUP PARTY, EH?” and the reality that Canada’s colonial settler history and present are pretty terrible.

But Canada 150 prompted lots of dialogue. What is Canada? How do Canadian? How can we reconcile the ideal (nice, tolerant, multicultural) with the actual )~4000 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls since the 1970s; water crises in Indigenous communities; three English-language universities in Montréal alone but not one French-language university in all of Ontario—thanks, Doug Ford)?

There was a lot of reading and listening and inner wrestling.

In the two years between writing the story and writing this response, I read and listened and learned even more, which led to changes. And I know: I still fall short, my story falls short. The conversation continues. There’s always more dialogue to have and work to do, so we have to keep trying.

The ending is so, so nice: Did you start with the end in mind?

. . . kind of? Not necessarily the specifics. Without giving away spoilers, Raccoon genuinely surprised me. But I knew generally how the story had to end. It had to end with the narrator handing the mic over and listening.

It’s a hopeful ending. I think it’s a plausible ending. If there is a very good chance that one of this year’s national bestsellers will be an Indigenous-language children’s book, I think the game is slowly changing . . . though there’s more work to do!

P.S.: That book is Bear for Breakfast, a collaboration between Robert Munsch and Jay Odjick, who is an absolute creative powerhouse. The book is in English and Algonquin, and you can learn more here: amzn.to/2F05702.

What are your favorite folk tales?

Oh, there are so many! My favourite fairy tale has always been “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon.” It was the first fairy tale I read where a plucky young woman goes off to rescue her prince, and I love the imagery: the bear and girl travelling over sea-ice, the girl riding the four winds . . .

“King Herla” has always stuck with me, too. King Herla attends a faerie wedding and as he leaves, they place a dog in his arms and warn him not to dismount his horse until the dog jumps down. One of his party doesn’t listen, dismounts, and promptly turns to dust. So King Herla and his band keep riding on, waiting for the dog to make its move—but chillingly, the dog hasn’t jumped down, not even yet.

That story’s also on my list.

Which modern retelling/re-interpretation of a folk tale is your favorite?

I’m a huge fan of Angela Carter; she was a game-changing author for Wee KT. In her collection The Bloody Chamber, my favourite is probably “The Erl-King,” for its sheer beauty of language and hypnotic quality.

For other favourite re-interpretations, can I just point to the entirety of The Starlit Wood, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien?

Any upcoming projects/news to share?

Sometime this year, I’ll be releasing Coxwood History Fun Park: Season Two. This mini-season of my podcast audio drama was a stretch reward in last year’s GoFundMe for the stage adaptation of Six Stories, Told at Night. This podcast has been long asked-for, and it is finally coming!

And I’m poking at a novella, which is a first for me! Expect more fairy tales, for sure.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon.

Author Spotlight: Ashok K. Banker

Sandra Odell | 1606 words

“The Terrible Oath” has the lush, rich feel of the myths and stories that stirred so many souls throughout history. As something of a companion story to Upon A Burning Throne, what inspired this particular tale?

Thank you! I was aiming for a classical mythic feel, something closer to Eddison than modern epic fantasy, but in the Indian style. This can be challenging because Indian myths haven’t been retold (or attempted) in this Western style by others before, to the best of my knowledge, so it’s uncharted literary territory. Happy to know I managed to pull off the illusion to some extent. “The Terrible Oath,” like the other Legends of the Burnt Empire appearing in Lightspeed, is actually an out-take from Upon A Burning Throne that seemed to stand quite well on its own. In fact, it’s part of the backstory of the novel and the series. Inspired by a myth from the world’s longest literary work, the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, it’s reimagined and dramatised in the context of the world and mythology of the Burnt Empire. In the original epic, Vrath was actually Devavrata, and after he took the famous oath, he was dubbed “Bhishma” which meant “He of the Terrible Oath.” Hence the title of this story.

The many-faced goddess is a familiar theme, as is the arch-type of the god as both boy and man. Were there any particular elements of these mythological representations that you wanted to explore with ”The Terrible Oath”?

Jeel plays a very prominent role in Upon A Burning Throne and the rest of the Burnt Empire series. She is, in fact, the closest thing to a God Supreme in that particular world. (At least for now. Who among us mere mortals can truly know which other Gods may lie lurking in the celestial cosmos?) She has great power and influence, since she governs all water bodies in the world of Arthaloka, from the eponymous mother river that feeds the supercontinent (five times the size of all our Earthly continents combined) to the oceans, lakes, ponds, groundwater, glaciers, and every other form of water in the world. She is also a counterpoint to the very masculine, toxic element Stonefire, of which the Burning Throne itself is carved, to which the reigning Krushan dynasty is linked by blood, and which dominates the saga. The fact that Vrath, a crucial character in the series, is her son as well as the son of a Krushan Emperor is key. He is literally the only character who embodies both aspects of that world—the feminine shakti of Jeel and the masculine potency of the Krushan. It’s a classic mismatched mother-father duo engendering a “mule” character who plays a major role in the epic but also represents the end of his line. Because of his “terrible” oath, Vrath will never reproduce, which means there can be no other character who represents this straddling of both powerful extremes.

Will readers see Vrath again in Upon A Burning Throne?

Definitely. A great deal of him, in fact. While this story is merely a taster of his backstory, it’s in the main novel that he really comes to the fore. You’ll see him in action, battling the powerful demonlord Jarsun in the Battle of the Allies. Let’s just say that their clash is not just the usual “epic” bout, but quite “interesting” in the unusual methods they use to try to destroy one another. That’s where the clash of Stonefire and Jeel is made flesh, quite literally, and I hope the reader finds their duel more entertaining than the average MMA final!

Do you find that you write more for a Subcontinental or Western audience? Does a given audience matter to your work?

I write for different readerships in India and the US. The books I write for India aren’t offered to publishers outside the country, while the books I write for the US (e.g. Upon A Burning Throne) are only sold later to Indian publishers, if at all. As with most other cultural content, India (like most of the world) is very accustomed to consuming Western content, while the West has yet to open its mind to world culture and content. So what readers here in the US see of my work is barely one percent of my total output. Upon A Burning Throne is my seventieth published book in India, but only my second book to be published in the USA. And that isn’t counting my graphic novels, comics, television series, feature films, short fiction, journalism, and poetry. The only exception are my ebooks, which I publish under my own AKB eBooks imprint worldwide since I’ve only sold Indian publishing rights to those other sixty-nine books so far and retain all other rights myself. My ebooks have sold extremely well over time, and of late sales have actually increased. My Ramayana Series in particular remains a favorite among US readers, too, and I’d estimate that the eight-book series has sold over 400,000 copies in the US alone over a fifteen-year period. As for writing for an audience, I write what I feel driven to write most passionately and stay true to the story, the characters, and the culture I’m describing. The only way to do that without “Americanizing” or “dumbing it down” for American readers is to simply avoid an US edition altogether. American readers, especially genre readers, can be very intelligent, open-minded, and diverse, but even to the brightest and best, the majority of South Asian literature simply isn’t comprehensible. The few genre stories we see here in SFF magazines and anthologies are mostly awful misrepresentations of Indian life and culture, and they’re all written by only members of the majority community. Which is ironic because I’m sure their editors here believe they’re publishing “diverse” stories and authors, but obviously they aren’t aware that all they’re doing is publishing the equivalent of “only white” American authors and cutting out the rich, diverse, multilayered cultural and ethnic stories of the real India. So yes, it matters hugely to me that JJA and HMH are publishing Upon A Burning Throne, which is undiminished, unadulterated, uncompromising Indian diverse epic fantasy. I hope everyone who loves epic fantasy enjoys reading it as much as I did writing it!

On your website you recommend a wealth of works by other South Asia and Subcontinental writers. Are there any works you would currently recommend to Western readers?

Well, yes. The same books you mentioned are the exact same ones I would recommend to all readers, Western as well as otherwise. I think it’s time we stopped pandering to Western readers. Dive in off the deep end, read something that’s really “diverse,” not just written by an American author of other-national origin. It’s all in English about human beings (for the most part), after all. I can guarantee they’re all easier (and much more fun) to read than the NYT crossword puzzle!

You are such a prolific writer, with so many projects currently in the works, how do you keep track of everything? What does your organizational and writing process look like?

Oh, I don’t bother with organisation and planning. I tend to gestate an idea for anywhere from twenty to forty years, accreting little details of character, place, history, and geography over time, then mapping out the larger story arc of the series, and finally plotting the book itself. By the time I sit down to write, I pretty much know the whole book and series inside out and simply need to get it all down on the keyboard. For some reason, don’t ask me why, I need to be developing around thirty-eight books at once. Why thirty-eight and not thirty-seven or thirty-nine or forty-one? I haven’t a clue. It just happens that way. It’s not a conscious decision or process. Think of it as walking into a multiplex with thirty-eight franchises playing at once on thirty-eight screens—some are single films, but others are multi-part series, all playing one after the other. I walk into a theatre, I pause the film, scrub back to a point or scrub forward, edit, remix sound or VFX, change actors or characters, cut or add entire plotlines, scenes, sequences. This is all happening in my head in the background, “the back office,” and it goes on while I’m out and about the everyday business of living. Even while I’m writing one book and deeply immersed in the draft, there’re other books whirring away elsewhere in my mind on those multiple screens, all being scripted, edited, filmed. How? Why? Where? When? I don’t know. Does it really matter so long as I sit down and write and it flows pretty much the way water comes out of a faucet or power from a plug point? I don’t know where or how the water or the electricity comes to the faucet or plug point either, but I’m happy to use it when it does. The only problem, if you can call it that, is shutting it off. But at this point in my writing career, I’ve developed methods of doing that. But the water and power are always flowing!

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Sandra Odell is a 47-year old, happily married mother of two, an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. Her work has appeared in such venues as Jim Baen’s UNIVERSE, Daily Science Fiction, Crosssed Genres, Pseudopod, and The Drabblecast. She is hard at work plotting her second novel or world domination. Whichever comes first.

Author Spotlight: Carrie Vaughn

Coral Alejandra Moore | 811 words

Hi Carrie, thanks for taking some time to talk to the readers about “Marlowe and Harry and the Disinclined Laboratory.” Now that you’re several years into the Harry and Marlowe stories, can you tell us what has changed for the two of them along the way? How is your thinking about them different now than it was when you started?

I always had a pretty good idea of how I wanted their story to go, and what would happen over the course of it. One of the things I’m doing now is looking at what gaps there are, what holes in the story I might need to fill in before I get to the end point—I do have an end in mind for all this. If anything’s changed, it might be that I started with wanting to focus on the adventure aspects of the story, but as time has gone on, I’ve brought more and more politics—both personal and some of the politics of this alternate history—into the mix. As I’ve gotten to know the characters a little better, I’ve been able to expand their stage.

And of course, this is the first story from Marlowe’s point of view. This one finally clicked when I shifted it to his point of view, and it was a lot of fun focusing on him for a change. I learned some things!

The stories that we’ve seen so far haven’t been published chronologically from Harry and Marlowe’s perspective. Is there a pattern underlying how you’ve told their story or has it just been the luck of the draw? What are the challenges to going back and telling earlier parts of the story when there are already quite a few Harry and Marlowe stories out in the world?

It’s the luck of the draw, as I’ve thought of ideas. Of course I needed to go back and fill in how they met and became partners, that was the big issue I wanted to cover here. The main thing is making sure I plant seeds that I can use in later stories, and maintain continuity when I go back in the past. I already did the story of how they met (“Harry and Marlowe Escape the Mechanical Siege of Paris.”) This one connects the dots from there to their later adventures. I had to show them being not quite so comfortable with each other as they are in later stories, while still establishing that there’s a rapport there.

There’s a theme that repeats through these stories of Harry’s restraint due to how Victorian society views women and propriety. This story in particular shows how difficult that must be for Harry when faced with the scientists who go to great pains to ignore her. When looking back at the period from the lens of the future, is it hard to maintain that level of condescension? Is there ever a temptation for Harry to tell the people around her who refuse to acknowledge her to get stuffed?

As time goes on, I think Harry has less and less patience, as her mission becomes more important than propriety. By the later stories, she effectively tells them to get stuffed when she gets her grandmother’s—Queen Victoria’s—permission to take an airship and go out to do what she needs to do. It’s also important to remember that there were plenty of historical women at the time who bucked tradition and told people to get stuffed, by traveling the world, practicing medicine, doing good science, and so on. I think it’s Harry’s position as a member of the royal family that restricts her even more than her identity as a woman. Still, the real Princess Maud of Wales was no wilting flower. She spoke something like six languages, was a patron of International Ladies Chess Congress, and was considered a tomboy by her family. There’s a reason I picked her to be my alternate-history heroine!

Any hints on what’s next for Harry and Marlowe? And what else do you have coming up soon that readers can look forward to?

I’ve got a couple of missions for Harry and Marlowe in mind. The next stories will probably have some big changes in store for them, moving the whole sequence further along rather than filling in gaps in the past.

My most recent novel is The Wild Dead, a post-apocalyptic mystery and the sequel to my Philip K. Dick award-winning novel Bannerless. I’ve got a bunch of short stories and a couple of novella-length pieces due out over the next few months, so keep an eye out for them.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Coral Alejandra Moore has always been the kind of girl who makes up stories. Fortunately, she never quite grew out of that. She writes because she loves to invent characters and the desire to find out what happens to her creations drives her tales. She is a 2013 alum of the Viable Paradise writer’s workshop and she has been published by Diabolical Plots, Zombies Need Brains, and Secrets of the Goat People. Currently she lives in the beautiful state of Washington with the love of her life and a dangerously smart Catahoula Leopard Dog where she rides motorcycles, raises chickens, and drinks all the coffee.

Coming Attractions

The Editors | 226 words

Coming up in March, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Carolyn Ives Gilman (“On the Shores of Ligeia”) and Woody Dismukes (“My Children’s Home”), along with SF reprints by Violet Allen (“The Synapse Will Free Us From Ourselves”) and Charlie Jane Anders (“A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Maria Romasco Moore (“Self Storage”) and Ashok K. Banker (“A Hundred Thousand Arrows”), and fantasy reprints by Richard Kadrey (“Ambitious Boys Like You”) and Kat Howard (“Those Are Pearls”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns.

For our ebook readers, we have an ebook-exclusive reprint of the SF novella “Of Love and Other Monsters,” by Vandana Singh, and a book excerpt.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

• • • •

Looking ahead beyond next month, we’ve got a veritable plethora of stories forthcoming. We’ve got work from the following authors coming up over the next couple of issues: Caroline M. Yoachim, Scott Sigler, E. Lily Yu, Rajan Khanna, and Adam-Troy Castro.

So be sure to keep an eye out for all that fictional goodness in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

Thanks for reading!

Stay Connected

The Editors

Here are a few URLs you might want to check out or keep handy if you’d like to stay apprised of everything new and notable happening with Lightspeed:

Website

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

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Newsletter

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/newsletter

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Subscriptions and Ebooks

The Editors

Subscriptions: If you enjoy reading Lightspeed, please consider subscribing. It’s a great way to support the magazine, and you’ll get your issues in the convenient ebook format of your choice. All purchases from the Lightspeed store are provided in epub, mobi, and pdf format. A 12-month subscription to Lightspeed more than 100 stories (about 700,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction). The cost is just $35.88 ($12 off the cover price)—what a bargain! For more information, including about third-party subscription options, visit lightspeedmagazine.com/subscribe.

Ebooks & Bundles: We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors ($3.99 each), and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Lightspeed ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! We currently have a number of ebook bundles available: Year One (issues 1-12), Year Two (issues 13-24), Year Three (issues 25-36), the Mega Bundle (issues 1-36), and the Supermassive Bundle (issues 1-48). Buying a bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So if you need to catch up on Lightspeed, that’s a great way to do so. Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store for more information.

• • • •

All caught up on Lightspeed? Good news! We also have lots of ebooks available from our sister-publications:

Nightmare Ebooks, Bundles, & Subscriptions: Like Lightspeed, our sister-magazine Nightmare (nightmare-magazine.com) also has ebooks, bundles, and subscriptions available as well. For instance, you can get the complete first year (12 issues) of Nightmare for just $24.99; that’s savings of $11 off buying the issues individually. Or, if you’d like to subscribe, a 12-month subscription to Nightmare includes 48 stories (about 240,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction), and will cost you just $23.88 ($12 off the cover price).

Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues—and ebook back issue bundles—of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine— all 57 issues—for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

Support Us on Patreon or Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

The Editors

If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance you’re a regular reader of Lightspeed and/or Nightmare. We already offer ebook subscriptions as a way of supporting the magazines, but we wanted to add an additional option to allow folks to support us, thus we’ve launched a Drip (d.rip/john-joseph-adams) and a Patreon (patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams).

TL;DR Version

If you enjoy Lightspeed and Nightmare and my anthologies, our Patreon and Drip pages are a way for you to help support those endeavors by chipping in a buck or more on a recurring basis. Your support will help us bring bigger and better (and more) projects into the world.

Why Patreon and Drip?

There are no big companies supporting or funding the magazines, so the magazines really rely on reader support. Though we offer the magazines online for free, we’re able to fund them by selling ebook subscriptions or website advertising.

While we have a dedicated ebook subscriber base, the vast majority of our readers consume the magazine online for free. If just 10% of our website readers pledged just $1 a month, the magazines would be doing fantastically well. So we thought it might be useful to have an option like Drip and Patreon for readers who maybe haven’t considered supporting the magazine, or who maybe haven’t because they don’t have any desire to receive the ebook editions—or who would be glad to pay $1 a month, but not $3 (the cost of a monthly subscriber issue of Lightspeed).

Though Lightspeed and Nightmare are separate entities, we decided to create a single “publisher” Drip and Patreon account because it seemed like it would be more efficient to manage just one page on each platform. Plus, since I sometimes independently publish works using indie-publishing tools (as described above), we thought it would be good to have a single place where folks could come to show their support for such projects.

Basically, we wanted to create a crowdfunding page where, if you enjoy my work as an editor, and you want to contribute a little something to help make it easier for us to produce more cool projects, then our Drip or Patreon are the place to do that.

What Do I Get Out of Being a Backer or Patron?

Well, you get the satisfaction of helping to usher the creation of cool new short fiction projects into the world! Plus, the more support we get, the better we can make the magazines and compensate our authors and staff. By becoming a supporter via Patreon or Drip, you help fund our growth and continued publication of two award-winning magazines. Of course, if you’re already one of our ebook subscribers (thank you!), you are already supporting us. This is for those who prefer to read the issues each month on our free websites, or wish to support our efforts more generally.

By becoming a supporter, you are also bestowed a title, such as Dragonrider, or Space Wizard, or Savior of the World and/or Universe, thus making you instantly the envy of all your friends.

Thank You!

If you’ve read this far, thanks so much. We hope you’ll consider becoming a backer on Patreon or Drip. Those URLs again are d.rip/john-joseph-adams and patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams.

Thanks in advance for your time. We look forward to hopefully being able to make the magazines—and my other publishing endeavors—even better with the support of people like you.

About the Lightspeed Team

The Editors

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

John Joseph Adams

Managing/Associate Editor

Wendy N. Wagner

Associate Publisher/Director of Special Projects

Christie Yant

Assistant Publisher

Robert Barton Bland

Reprint Editor

Rich Horton

Podcast Producer

Stefan Rudnicki

Podcast Editor/Host

Jim Freund

Art Director

John Joseph Adams

Assistant Editor

Laurel Amberdine

Editorial Assistant

Jude Griffin

Reviewers

Arley Sorg

LaShawn Wanak

Chris Kluwe

Carrie Vaughn

Christopher East

Violet Allen

Copy Editor

Dana Watson

Proofreaders

Anthony R. Cardno

Devin Marcus

Webmaster

Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

The Editors

If you enjoy reading Lightspeed (and/or Nightmare), you might also enjoy these works edited by John Joseph Adams:

ANTHOLOGIES

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 1: The End is Nigh (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 2: The End is Now (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 3: The End Has Come (with Hugh Howey)

Armored

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 (with Joe Hill)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (with Karen Joy Fowler)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (with Charles Yu)

Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 (with N.K. Jemisin)

Brave New Worlds

By Blood We Live

Cosmic Powers

Dead Man’s Hand

Epic: Legends of Fantasy

Federations

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects

Lightspeed: Year One

The Living Dead

The Living Dead 2

Loosed Upon the World

The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

Operation Arcana

Other Worlds Than These

Oz Reimagined (with Douglas Cohen)

A People’s Future of the United States (with Victor LaValle) [Feb. 2019]

Press Start to Play (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Robot Uprisings (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Seeds of Change

Under the Moons of Mars

Wastelands

Wastelands 2

The Way of the Wizard

What the #@&% is That? (with Douglas Cohen)

NOVELS and COLLECTIONS

Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey

Shift by Hugh Howey

Dust by Hugh Howey

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn

Sand by Hugh Howey

Retrograde by Peter Cawdron

Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer

The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn

The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette

In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks

The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead

Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

Gather the Fortunes by Bryan L. Camp

The Unfinished Land by Greg Bear

The Chosen One by Veronica Roth

Visit johnjosephadams.com to learn more about all of the above.