MYTHIC

A QUARTERLY SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE

ISSUE #6 | SPRING 2018

INTRODUCTION

SHAUN KILGORE

I WANT TO WELCOME you all to the sixth issue of MYTHIC, an issue packed with a great mix of stories. I’m happy to share them with our subscribers and our Patreon patrons who are helping me keep going. Your help has been crucial and I want to take the opportunity to thank you all. I hope to find more readers and subscribers as I continue releasing issues since I’m still very committed to improving MYTHIC by adding new features and providing the authors—the lifeblood of a fiction magazine—with higher compensation.

On a personal note, it has been tough for the last few months as I’ve been striving to read all of the submission that have hit my inbox and done the necessary work of putting together this issue. This was largely due to a series of health issues that struck my family. Sadly, I lost my father back in February and there have been ongoing health challenges with my mother.

As I’ve had to grieve and make adjustments to my own situation, I’ve struggled with other obligations, including those to this magazine. But, I’m here now and I want to make sure that I give you the best magazine I can.

MYTHIC is a special thing to me and I hope soome of you’ve grown to appreciate it as well. If you lie what we’re doing, sign up and support us on Patreon or buy a subscription or just an issue.

I am still working on plans to enhance the magazine issue by issue but those will largerly be determined by funding.

With that siad, get busy reading these great stories! Thanks again.

--- --- --- ---

Interested in submitting stories to MYTHIC? We prefer electronic submissions. You may eamil us at the following address: submissions@mythicmag.com.

We do accept paper submissions. You can send them to the following address:

Shaun Kilgore

MYTHIC Submissions

420 Commercial Street

Danville, IL 61832

For more complete submission guidelines and any other information, you may visit our website.

www.mythicmag.com

KNOWN ISSUES

WILLIAM DELMAN

MY CAR SWERVED OFF Harvard Avenue and slid over Beacon Street, laying down a scimitar of scorched rubber. The 59 bus screeched behind me, horn bellowing, and somehow missed the rear bumper.

Head spinning, I stabbed at the blue button on my rearview three times before the textured nub clicked under my index finger.

The maniacal compact continued its chase of the other car with the single-minded focus of a lawyer on too much Dexedrine.

A recorded female voice cooed through the Bose system, “Welcome to iDrive, Mr. Khole. I am connecting your call.”

The engine roared through a downshift, and the nimble hatchback changed lanes, cutting off a steroidal pickup, before nearly ramming the back of a garbage truck.

When the autodrive smashed on the brakes at the last second, it threw me against my seatbelt hard enough to hurt. Then it blared the horn like an angry teenager, dropped a gear, and changed lanes, resuming the pursuit. I let loose a string of incoherent curses just as the service tech picked up.

“Whoa sir! I’m going to have to ask you to calm down, sir.” The tech’s voice bled with annoyance.

“Calm down? Sure. Sorry, I was just having my third near-death experience thanks to your homicidal system. It’s road raging after this EQ that cut us off back in Brookline. Can you reboot it, or kill it or whatever? I’m locked out!”

There was a moment of silence. For a petrified heartbeat, I thought my call had been disconnected, but then I heard the customer service tech counting to ten before saying, “My name is Steve, and I’m here to help. Is this Mr. Khole?”

“Yes! And my Particle is trying to murder me, Steve, so if we can move this along—”

“I understand, Mr. Khole, I just need to check on a few things. First, can you please verify your identity with your pin number, and—”

I cut Steve off with a loud string of emphatic expletives. Traffic was clotted around Kenmore Square like cholesterol in an artery, so the Particle jumped on Beacon Street’s wide sidewalk, blasting its horn and scattering the pedestrians like pigeons.

I bruised my fists pounding the inert steering wheel until the Particle careened on to Commonwealth, nearly causing a half-dozen accidents and sending me reflexively into the crash position.

I thought of my husband Tim waiting at home with two expertly grilled lemon pepper sword fish steaks and charred asparagus. Assuming he’d kept his promise for once and stayed out of the liquor store.

Meanwhile, Steve was still talking, saying something about a “driver initiated failure.”

When I looked back up from my lap I could see the other vehicle, now only about 50 feet away. The shiny EQ was snaking through traffic, leaving a river of brake lights rippling red in its wake.

“Any idea why the car is showing me this error, Mr. Khole?”

“What? No! Like I said, I was going home when this EQ came out of nowhere and nearly clipped the front end. The other driver took off, and my car started chasing—”

“Nothing else happened? You are sure, Mr. Khole?”

I started to give a colorful reply, but my stomach interrupted by replacing the words in my mouth with my lunch. The Particle drifted hard right onto Arlington, before deep breaking left on Boylston and curb jumping back on to the sidewalk to avoid another glut.

I could hear a cacophony of sirens now, getting closer, and shamefully wiped my mouth on my sleeve. “Why is this still going on?” I moaned. “I just want to go home. Cars aren’t supposed to do this!”

“Please Mr. Khole, try to remain calm. Our competitors at EQ have been having problems with their systems that occasionally lead to dangerous situations like this one.”

“I’m not in an EQ!”

“Of course not. Unfortunately, this EQ’s malfunction triggered a known issue with our operating system. We’re expecting to have it patched in our next agile release, but this situation is obviously more urgent than that, so—”

“Are you serious?” I squawked.

Then the Particle nearly hit a semi and killed me.

And again, flying into the six-way intersection near South Station and blasting down the 93 North on ramp.

And probably several more times after that, whipping in and out of traffic in the tunnels under Boston.

When I came out of my trauma induced blackout, soaked with sweat and shaking, the Particle was crossing the Zakim Bridge. The EQ was still ahead, but closer now, maybe forty feet away.

A small motorcade of police cars was maybe a hundred feet behind, taking up both lanes of the highway, and a cloud of media drones had coalesced in the sky. For a second I sat mesmerized, watching them dance like a murmuration of carbon fiber starlings.

“Still with us Mr. Khole?” Steve said, sounding vaguely concerned.

“I guess.” My voice croaked.

“Good. Good. We’re almost there. We’ve managed to clear the road in front of you, so the situation is under control.”

“Ha! That’s a good one, Steve.” I shouted. “That kind of material must be why you’re making the big bucks!”

Then I watched one of the media drones break formation. As it got closer I could see a little Fox25 logo on the insectile skeleton.

I ran a hand through my matted hair and tried to smile before realizing my vomit stained sport coat was going to undercut any attempt at nonchalant heroism, and after pulling alongside to briefly train its cameras in my direction, the drone retreated back to the cloud.

Suddenly Steve was clearing his throat on the line. “Excuse me, Mr. Khole. The police would like you to turn off your cell phone until this situation has been resolved.”

I hadn’t even thought of my phone until Steve mentioned it. I pulled it out of my pocket. There were notifications for a dozen missed calls. Four were from Tim, probably wondering where I was. I didn’t recognize the other numbers.

“Why? I need to call my husband back and let him know I’m okay.”

Steve coughed. “Mr. Khole, my supervisor Bob Openmeyer is going to be taking over now.”

A sonorous voice filled the air. “Yes, and thank you, Steve. Mr. Khole, I’m the New England VP for customer interaction here at Edison, and on behalf of the company I want to say we are just incredibly sorry you’ve been impacted by this EQ issue.”

His voice dripped from the expensive sound system like hot butter over fresh lobster, and for a moment I almost forgot I was trapped in a delusional self-driving compact. “I can only imagine how I’d be feeling right now, Mr. Khole. Probably afraid, out of control, and ready for this drama to end. Am I right?”

“God, yes.” I looked down at my cell phone again. I still had three pips.

“Good.” Bob oozed. “We have a couple options, but we won’t do anything without your permission, Mr. Khole. Do you understand?”

“I guess.” I was trying to spot the passenger trapped in the EQ, wondering if they were having a similar conversation with their tech people, but from where I was sitting the car looked empty. Maybe they’re laying down, I thought.

“That’s great, Mr. Khole, really great. I’m glad we have an understanding. So, the police have a chase car with an EMP cannon they’d like to use. How much do you know about EMPs, Mr. Khole?”

“Not much.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Khole. All you really need to know is it will fry all the electrical equipment. This includes your Particle, and everything in the car as well. Now, Mr. Khole, you haven’t been augmented in any way, have you? No pacemaker, no iC, or ocular implants or anything like that?”

“No, but you mean this thing would kill my phone?”

“It will, assuming you give the go ahead, but we think there’s a more serious problem. Your Particle is a genuinely top-end vehicle, meaning all the mechanical systems rely on direction from the electrical systems. This includes your brakes and steering controls.”

The HUD was showing 115 mph. 93 wasn’t a curvy road, but it did bend, and cars were still dotting the shoulders.

“So you have a plan B?”

“Well, Jaime—may I call you Jamie?”

“Whatever, Bob. Sure.”

“Thank you, Jamie. There are two other options, depending on how long you’re willing to let this continue. We could wait until the perpetrator’s vehicle runs out of power, assuming their EQ dies first based on your Particle’s superior economy. Now that could take a while, perhaps even a couple hours, and a lot can happen in a couple hours. We can’t even be sure the police will let this go on that long.”

“Okay. What’s the other option?”

“We prompt an immediate interdiction. Basically, you give us permission to instruct your vehicle to execute something called a pit maneuver on the perpetrator. Then the Particle will utilize its superior speed and handling to bring this chase to a safe and rapid conclusion with minimum damage to both vehicles. We’ve run a lot of simulations on this and think it’s a win-win.”

“You want to turn my new car into a battering ram?”

“Not exactly, Jamie. If everything goes right the Particle should only be in contact with the perpetrator for a moment, and once the program has finished executing our techs are very confident they’ll be able to disengage the autodrive.”

“Why can’t they do that now? Put the system into sleep mode or something?”

“The system was actually designed to make that almost impossible once certain emergency codes are triggered. To be honest, that stuff is a bit beyond me. My specialty is helping people achieve the best outcomes given their available resources, and I have to tell you I think your best chance is to initiate the interception.”

“Why can’t the cops do it? Just go by me and force the EQ off the road?”

“Apparently, they’re under orders not to make physical contact with civilian motors. Don’t ask me why.” He laughed, and my blood pressure rose a few points. “I can’t pretend to understand modern law enforcement. So, Jamie, what do you think?”

I realized my cell had just stopped buzzing. “Hold on. Let me think.”

I checked the number. While I’d been listening to Bob’s mellifluous pitch, Tim had called another four times. I hit the call back button. Tim picked up on the first ring. “Jesus Jamie! Tell me I’m not watching you on the news right now. Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking, chasing that car? Didn’t you see she was like twelve? This is exactly why I made you get rid of your M3!”

I held the phone away from my ear while he continued to yell.

“Hey Jamie,” Bob sounded annoyed, almost jealous, “not to be a bother, but do I hear another voice in the background?”

“Sorry Bob, can you hold on a second?”

“Sure Jamie, but we really need you to turn off your phone. As soon as that call came in it started interfering with the efforts my tech team was making to resolve your issue.”

“Right. Sure.” I said, realizing Tim was no longer yelling. “Tim honey? Are you still there?”

“How could you do this to us? I mean, isn’t this why we went through those anger management seminars, and the CBT sessions, and—”

“Honey please shut up and listen for second! The autodrive on this stupid spaceship lost its mind. I’m on with Edison customer service right now, and they say it’s some kind of glitch.”

“Hey, Jamie?” Bob’s baritone boomed from the Bose sound system.

“Whoa! You’re making my teeth rattle!”

“Sorry to interrupt,” he shrank back a few decibels, “but we might have to suspend our work if you don’t switch off your phone.”

“What’s he saying?” Tim asked.

“He’s saying my cell is causing problems. So, here’s the deal, okay? I can take my chances and hope the car doesn’t do anything really crazy before it runs out of fuel, or I can give them permission to try something called a pit maneuver. What do you think I should do?”

“This is insane. Don’t you think this is insane?” Tim said, slurring his words.

“Damn it, Tim. Have you been drinking? Tell me you haven’t been drinking. You promised.”

“Seriously? My husband is on television, being chased by the cops! So what if I’m drinking? I mean, seriously, Jamie—”

I hung up and turned off my phone. “Bob!”

“Still here, Mr. Khole, but I have to tell you—”

“Shut up, Bob. End this. Now.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Khole. You may want to brace yourself.”

After that, I honestly don’t remember much. Sure, there are flashes. I remember the girl in the EQ raising her head and looking back as the Particle came roaring up. I remember she looked like a scared 12-year-old before our bumpers touched.

I remember seeing the guardrail. And the light pole rising up in front of me like a scythe. And I remember dreaming—Kyoto in October, Fushimi Inari, Tim smiling.

When I came to in the back of the ambulance, I’m ashamed to say my first question wasn’t, “Is the girl okay, the other driver?” but, “Where’s my iPhone?”

In the hospital, a parade of doctors and nurses checked my head, heart, and limbs. Then a pair of police officers sauntered in a few hours later, wanting to hear my side of the story.

Finally, it occurred to me to ask.

“How is she? The other diver?”

“She was fine—a few bumps and bruises, maybe a mild case of trauma—but her parents are already talking about suing everyone that’s ever been born.” The skinnier cop sighed.

When Tim came stumbling in a few hours later, poured out of a taxi, half in a blackout, the emergency room nurses initially mistook him for a patient. Then I guess he spit out my name and managed to fumble his ID out of his wallet.

Now he’s passed out in the chair next to me, a bag of saline draining into his arm, waiting for a bed of his own. In the meantime, I’m breaking hospital policy.

My phone keeps buzzing with new emails and texts from reporters, lawyers, co-workers, and Edison customer service. But I’m ignoring all that.

I’m not even thinking about the conversation Tim and I are going to have when he wakes up and discovers he agreed to go into a rehab.

Instead, I’m on the BMW website, trying to decide if my new M3 is going to be Alpine White, or Black Sapphire. One thing I already know for sure though. It’s going to have a manual transmission.

About the Author

William Delman’s work has previously appeared in The Arcanist, Little Blue Marble, NewMyths.com, and many other fine publications. New work will soon be available from The Arcanist, The Centropic Oracle, Bete Noire, and Stupefying Stories. When he's not writing you can find William (occasionally) on Twitter at @DelmanWilliam, on Facebook at facebook.com/the2417project, or training in Brazilian Jujitsu at Fenix BJJ West Peabody. He lives in The Witch City, Salem, Massachusetts.

SHE IS CHOSEN

HENRY SZABRANSKI

I TUGGED FATHER’S HAND. “It’s my turn. Let me see.”

My little sister Alaina grinned down at me from Father’s shoulders. There was no way she was going to give up her position.

Father ignored me. He shouted into Mother’s ear, “It’ll be over soon. The Conveyor will make her choice and then we can all go home.”

It seemed the whole of Atiphar had packed itself inside the Temple today. The air beneath the dome was hothouse thick. Even sunlight struggled to penetrate the humid air through the star-like chinks in the roof. Moisture trickled down my arms, soaked through my sari, as I tried to gain a view of the candidates on their raised platform. But all I could see was a heaving wall of sweat-beaded backs.

I gave up trying to gain Father’s attention. It wasn’t fair. The only reason we had come here at all was because I had insisted.

“I don’t want to go,” Alaina had pouted as we broke our fast earlier that morning.

But my chatter had been relentless. “They say it’s a once in a lifetime event. There’ll be a face of Lyseda, and envoys from across the whole Heptatheon. They say—”

“Enough, Shanra!” Father had slammed his cup down. Hot tea spilled across the table. “It’s all I’ve heard for days.”

Mother quickly stepped in. “Perhaps we should go. You know how their grandfather was always going on about being there when Irisa was Chosen...”

Father glared, his lips pressed tight. Then he groaned in defeat and pushed back from the table. “Then let’s go. Before it becomes too crowded.”

Alaina had rolled her eyes at my triumphant grin, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to reach the great Temple of Lyseda and witness the spectacle of a lifetime; I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends at school, how I was there when the new Conveyor was chosen.

But now that we were here, my little sister on Father’s shoulders had the only clear view of the platform.

I shouted, “I’m going to the front!” Without waiting for a response, I formed my arms into a wedge and plunged headlong into the crowd. Immediately, a stray elbow collided with my ear, and the friction of the jostling bodies almost tore the damp sari from my shoulders—but I persisted until I reached the edge of the raised dais at the center of the temple. At last, a view of the candidates!

They sat on their imitation thrones, crowded by their families and supporters. The months-long public selection process had generated a constant stream of gossip and rumor, so much so that I felt I knew each of the remaining seven candidates personally. There sat Udella Sanmaran, silver bells and bows adorning her trademark plaits, parents hovering behind with smiles fixed on their faces; Rucuba Oengi, biting her lips, nervous, looking for all the world like she wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else; Dahna Cadiatris, my favorite, her pet sand-leopard limp across her lap and her wooden leg almost hidden beneath her midnight blue sari... They, and all the others, were just as I had imagined them. No one but the gods—and perhaps not even they—knew which of these girls the Conveyor would choose as her successor today.

The crowd roared in anticipation, and I let the frenzy infect me. I cheered and jeered in equal amount, my throat becoming sore, until I felt a vicious poke to my ribs. “Ow!”

Alaina wriggled up beside me and shouted into my ear. “You’re going to be in so much trouble, Shanra! Mother has no idea where you went. We’ve all been looking for you!”

My joy evaporated. I grimaced as I realized I would have to pay for my close-up view.

Loud trumpets blared before I could answer. Like a startled animal, the crowd fell silent and still.

The tall bronze doors at the back of the temple groaned open. Gasps rose from the crowd as a clutch of Ustormengi stickmen scuttled out, featureless and impossibly thin, animated by some ancient, forgotten magic. They drove into the crowd, clearing a path for the Conveyor and her entourage. A troupe of plumed guards streamed through the doorway after them, followed by a procession of nervous-looking dignitaries: priests, councilors, merchants and the like. The great and the good preceded the Conveyor like colorful sweetmeats before the main course.

Alaina tugged at my arm. Her voice quivered with excitement, all disapproval gone. “She’s coming!”

Trumpets blared again. Maidens draped in embroidered gowns scattered rose petals before the Conveyor’s bower as it slid into view. Fabric angel’s wings curved up to form a canopy over its bowl of plush cushions; an army of millipede legs bore the knurled and uneven shell across the Temple’s floor. The Conveyor herself lay collapsed within, pale and withered, her bulbous skull half-buried beneath a ceremonial headdress. High Priestess Irisa Omcheck III, two hundred and fifty-sixth Conveyor of Lyseda, looked more than half-dead already.

But it was not the Conveyor who drew my attention. Beside the bower strode a glistening, silver-skinned figure, twice as tall as any person. There were more gasps from the crowd. My heart pounded. It was one of Lyseda’s faces, an aspect of the god Herself. The rumors had been right! I stared in fascination as the crowd rippled and distorted across the creature’s reflective skin.

The bower crept towards the platform. One by one, the candidates stood. The crowd began to applaud. The noise mounted. It filled the temple—until the trumpets blared a final crescendo and a thick silence descended.

I glanced at Alaina. Her eyes gleamed.

“It’s time, it’s time,” she squealed, bumping her shoulder against my own.

I frowned as her voice pierced the anticipatory hush, but couldn’t help but mirror her grin. “See, I told you it would be fun.”

The crowd shuffled back as the bower edged closer to the platform. I grabbed hold of Alaina’s wrist and pulled her with me as the sinister-looking stickmen advanced. After a few moments I expected the backward movement to stop, but for some reason it continued. Stickmen waded into the crowd on either side of us. A muttering rose from the throng. The Conveyor had changed direction, away from the platform.

I peddled back, but a cold hard hand clamped down on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Mother or Father glowering down at me, but instead I looked up into a circular caricature of a head. I tried to shrug off the claw gripping my shoulder, but the sharp fingers dug into the flesh around my collarbone. I gasped in pain.

The crowd grew sparse around us. Only Alaina and myself were left, held firm by the stickmen. What was happening?

Millipede feet click-clacked across the marble floor. The Conveyor’s bower approached, the face of Lyseda accompanying it. Lidless, mirror-finish eyes looked down at me from a great height. My guts slithered. Had we done something wrong?

The Conveyor struggled up from her crimson bed. The tall bonnet tottered atop her head, and despite everything, I found myself thinking how ridiculous it looked. A sharp-nailed, twig-like finger reached out and pointed.

“I make my choice.”

The quavering voice was only just audible, but the remaining stickmen swiftly closed in. The face of Lyseda smiled, and silently echoed the Conveyor’s gesture.

Irisa Omcheck III looked straight at me and gave a thin humorless smile. She collapsed back into her red nest and the bower withdrew.

Someone—one of the petal-tossing maidens, I think—grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to one side.

“What’s going on?” Alaina shouted. More stickmen converged on her and raised her up. Someone tossed a floral crown over her head. She grabbed at it, tore it off, kicked her feet as she cleared the ground. A crimson-robed priest rushed up to her, kneeled, and grasped a flailing hand.

“Hush, my child. Hush. You are Chosen.”

“But I don’t want to be Chosen!” Alaina’s panicked words were quite clear.

I glanced across at the candidates on the platform. They stood, as one, dumbstruck.

A buzzing filled my ears. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t understand what was happening. Alaina couldn’t be Chosen. There was nothing in our family history, or in Alaina’s behavior, or anything at all about her that gave any indication she was special in any way. She wasn’t even meant to be here today. It was only because of me she was in the Temple at all.

“It’s a mistake,” I shouted. “There’s been a mistake.”

But no one seemed to hear me.

“SHE IS CHOSEN!”

The lilting, harmonic voice of the face of Lyseda rose above the confused rumbling of the crowd. People began to take up the cry.

“She is Chosen! She is Chosen!”

The chant spread through and beyond the Temple. It rippled into the packed square outside, out into the arterial streets, through the city, and out across the Heptatheon.

No one could stop it now.

MY PARENTS AND I were reunited in an small room deep within the Temple’s working complex. I waited alone for what seemed like days before I heard their familiar voices outside the door. I had expected anger, shouts, blame—but Mother just grabbed me in a crushing hug and rocked me back and forth without a word. Father stared at me, his face like a stone. He just asked me if I was unharmed, and then stood in silence.

Shock, I suppose.

We were at the centre of a frantic whirlwind of activity as a succession of temple officials bustled into the room. They demanded explanations, shoved scrolls at us, accused us of one unlikely thing after another. As the afternoon progressed, and the ramifications of what had occurred sank in, their tone softened.

My parents bore the brunt of their attention, but breathless adults in ceremonial garb kept asking me, “What’s it like? To be the sister of the next Conveyor?”

I shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

I began to say it a lot.

“My apologies,” a crimson-robed priest said. He breezed into the room. A tall, flat-topped hat crushed his wisps of pale hair. He beamed at us. “You must understand, this is a most unexpected situation. Our worthy bureaucrats have been quite thrown.” He spread his arms and bowed his head in greeting. “High Priest Prehar Mahoor. May Lyseda’s love be with you.”

“Where’s Alaina?” Father growled.

Mother laid a hand on his arm. She said, “She’s just nine years old, High Priest. She’s so young. Too young.”

“But of course you’re concerned for your daughter.” The High Priest turned and motioned to room’s opened door. “Come. The preparations for her inauguration are well underway.”

Mother gasped and Father scowled, but both followed without another word as Mahoor guided us through the labyrinth beyond. I was ushered out, too.

I tried not to gawk as we trod through the winding Temple passages. Only a day or two ago this would have seemed like an exciting adventure, an opportunity to explore the most sacred place in Atiphar, but all I could think of was my little sister, her despairing cries when she was taken away. I had to do something!

We passed an ornate, arched doorway. Two stickmen stood, motionless as carved stone, outside. I tried to peer inside but the High Priest slowed and pulled me back. His hand was rough on my shoulder. “Not there,” he warned me. “The Conveyor gathers her energy for tomorrow.”

I pulled away from his grip. I wanted to burst in to the Conveyor’s chambers; I wanted to demand the evil crone tell us the reason she had cast us all into this nightmare. Father marched over and took hold of my hand.

“Come,” he said, tight-lipped. He pulled me along after the High Priest, ignoring my protests.

We soon heard Alaina’s voice from further down the corridor. It echoed my own.

“Get away from me!”

The preparatory chamber looked like a blown-up version of the Conveyor’s bower: all plush cushions and satin curtains, alabaster statues of angels and dragons. The Conveyor’s maidens hovered around my sister, attempting to measure her with loops of silk. Mother ran to her. Father clamped my hand and held me back.

I stood at the threshold and watched as Mother hugged and fussed over the tearful Conveyor-in-Waiting. High Priest Mahoor sidled up to my father and whispered in his ear, words I could not hear. Father grunted. He leaned down and told me, “Stay here, Shanra.”

The High Priest took Father to a corner and spoke in hushed tones. The wide smile the priest had first lavished upon us had disappeared. Father listened without speaking, and I watched his face harden until I thought it must crack and fall apart. My fingernails dug into my palms.

Mahoor clapped Father on the shoulder. After a long pause, during which I thought he might turn and punch the priest, Father walked up to Alaina and Mother. He knelt beside them and hugged them both.

“Hush,” I heard him say. “You have been chosen by Lyseda, Alaina. It is a great honor. For you and for all the family.”

Mother glared at him, but he just continued to stare at Alaina. “Do you understand? We have no choice.”

Mahoor had crept up beside me. I jumped, startled, as he leaned down to whisper to me. “You’re welcome to stay awhile.” His sour breath stank. “If it will help calm your sister. But you’ll have to leave before dawn. The Chosen has to be prepared for her big day.”

“Leave my sister alone,” I hissed. “She wants to be free!”

He smiled, but he was staring somewhere over my shoulder. “Freedom? There’s no such thing as freedom in the Heptatheon, child. The gods rule over us, one and all.”

Father returned and quickly took my hand, glaring at the priest. “Go talk to your sister, Shanra.”

I stood, mute.

“Come. Your mother and I need to talk with the High Priest alone. Alaina wants to see you.”

“No.”

He knelt down beside me. For the first time in my life I saw tears in his eyes. He pinched my cheek, gently. “Please, Shanra. She needs you.”

I was so shocked that I let him pull me to where Alaina sat waiting atop a mound of pillows.

Her hair, scrunched by countless wooden rollers, looked like it had been attacked by giant locusts. Her fingernails had already been extended into near talons, painted mirror-surface silver. She looked so young and so frightened, my heart ached.

Mother crushed Alaina in a fierce hug and then stood back, her face hidden behind her hand. Father pulled her away. Mahoor ushered them both out of the room and then closed the door behind him. I heard a key turn and the lock click. The maidens with their silk tape melted into the walls made of veils.

Alaina and I sat in awkward silence, alone for the first time since she had been Chosen.

“Will you be there tomorrow?” My sister’s voice was quiet, but surprisingly steady.

“Of course.”

She frowned. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s all my fault. I wanted to see the new Conveyor chosen. You didn’t even want to come.”

Alaina stood up and jounced across the pillows to hug me. “Don’t be silly, Shanra. Of course I wanted to come.” She touched my face, and I saw her tears reflect my own. “I just didn’t want to be blamed for making all the fuss. You did exactly what I wanted you to!”

I stared at her in surprise. Then we laughed and cried together. The tension between us melted away.

“Did you see the look on the candidates faces?” Alaina giggled. “They were absolutely furious!”

I nodded in agreement. “Udella Sanmaran’s parents looked like they wanted to scratch someone’s eyes out.”

“Each other’s!”

We laughed and chattered, and spoke just as if we were back in our own shared bedroom at home. We talked of how ugly the old Conveyor looked, how officious the priests seemed, how vast and confusing the hidden innards of the Temple were.

Later, as night could be glimpsed stealing over the room’s large skylight and we both began to yawn, exhausted by the long and overly exciting day, Alaina grew serious. “Shanra,” she whispered. “You have to help me escape.”

I glanced around the room. I couldn’t see anyone else, but I didn’t doubt that if we attempted to leave—or at least, if Alaina did—a multitude of guardians would reveal themselves.

I shook my head. “I can’t. I don’t think we can leave.” I remembered Father’s grim face when the High Priest had spoken privately to him, and lowered my voice. “I think they might hurt Mother or Father if we try.”

Alaina’s face twisted with anger and grief. She hurled a cushion. “It’s not fair!” She threw herself down across the pillows.

I lay down on the soft mound beside her. “I know, little sister. But we cannot fight the will of the gods.”

Through the room’s large skylight I could see Lyseda’s full disc gleaming directly down on us from a dark bed of cloud. It had grown late. I felt a shiver of fear. It meant that dawn was closer.

“What are you going to do when you become Conveyor?” I asked.

Alaina didn’t answer for a while. I thought she had fallen asleep, but then she replied, “Travel. I’d like to travel.”

“To?”

“To the lights of Ustormeng, and the Upwards Falls on Mount Golgis. The One Way Gate.” She yawned. “See all those places, you know, that Grandfather used to talk about, the places he visited when he was young.”

I had never understood Alaina’s fascination with places other than home. She had always been the one, sitting on Grandfather’s knee, listening with avid attention to his tales of sea monsters and distant adventures. But now I humored her. “How about climbing the Rissenbar? Or catching sight of Ildaress through Death Door?”

Alaina gave a quiet mmmmm of agreement.

“How about seeing Thranrak’s Clasp? Or Sulashu’s Grave? They say it’s haunted, and pieces of the old god still lie there...” I reeled off my own fantasy itinerary, reconstructed from vaguely recollected fragments from Grandfather’s tales.

Finally, I asked Alaina, “Are you still awake?”

This time there was no reply.

THE NEXT MORNING THE TEMPLE was packed again. Gone were the cheering factions and gaudy flags of support for different candidates from yesterday. The crowd was hushed, respectful, expectant.

Mother, Father, and I sat to one side, on the platform that yesterday had held the spurned candidates. On it stood High Priest Prehar Mahoor, as well as the face of Lyseda, the dying Conveyor cradled in her bower—and Alaina.

My sister looked nervous, lost within a puffed-up confection of a gown. She kept glancing towards us, or up at the High Priest who stood grasping her hand. Her hair had been styled into extravagant loops over a crown-like scaffold that extended far over her head; the huge ruffled collar that rose from her back dwarfed even that. Her face had been polished and powdered until it gleamed like one of the alabaster statues in the bed chamber.

First step in the transformation, I thought. I felt ill.

There was utter silence beneath the dome as the old Conveyor uttered her final sermon. Her voice was not the coarse whisper I remembered from when she had made her choice, but the powerful, commanding voice that befitted her role—the Conveyor of the Word of Lyseda. She spoke of almost a century of service, of the changes she had seen and had wrought since her own inauguration. She spoke of the love of Lyseda for Her people, and of the plans the god still had for us all... and then, quite suddenly, her voice stuttered and grew weak, and her massive head drooped down and was still.

The face of Lyseda stooped down. Its huge hand eased the Conveyor’s conical head into a position of repose and kissed her on her desiccated lips.

Then it walked round and stood behind Alaina.

Mother gripped my hand tight. My heart hammered inside my chest.

To someone who did not know Alaina, the moment of change would have passed unnoticed: a slight flutter of her eyes, a momentary slackness in her jaw, a twitch of her mouth. Mother squeezed my hand even tighter.

I endured the pain. She had seen it too, and knew, as I did, that the Alaina we had known was now gone.

ALAINA STOOD, SMOOTHLY. SHE smiled and opened her eyes. Spoke with a newly confident voice.

“People of Atiphar, I will gladly serve you, and Our Lady Lyseda. I will listen to your concerns and let them be known to Her. I will listen to Her words and let them be known to you.” She smiled down at the hushed crowd. “May Lyseda’s love be with you.”

Quietly, behind her, Irisa Omchek’s bower slipped away.

“And also with you!” the crowd roared back, and then burst into applause.

Trumpets lifted high, pennants unrolled. The dignitaries arrayed on the platform around us nodded and smiled at each other. The applause thundered beneath the dome.

It seemed like the old Conveyor had chosen the new Conveyor well.

After the crush of officials queuing to greet Alaina began to disperse a little, I dodged through the crowd of robes towards her.

“Alaina!” I shouted. “What’s it like?”

She heard me above the hubbub of encircling adults. She squinted across at me and waved. Then she looked over her shoulder at a door that had opened across the temple. “I have to go. We’ll talk later.”

But somehow I knew we wouldn’t.

She headed a procession towards the doorway, into the inner sanctum of the temple. The crowd continued to cheer and applaud. A line of priests, officials, and other notaries filed in after her. Just before the door shut, I saw the mirrored face of Lyseda bend down and grasp Alaina’s arm, as if greeting a long lost relative. Alaina’s wide reflected grin dancing back at her, all twisted and distorted.

SOMEHOW I MANAGED TO escape from the ceremony and my parents and all the attendants that suffocated us. I stole back into the Temple complex, roaming through the empty corridors until they began to look familiar.

This time there was no sign of the stickmen guarding the old Conveyor’s room. No doubt they had been already re-posted to my sister’s side.

I crept into the darkened chamber. The ex-Conveyor lay sprawled across the satin sheets as if she had been thrown carelessly into the bower from a height, her legs askew and her arms outstretched to either side. Her over-sized head, swollen after decades of direct communication with Lyseda, was now bare, and lolled to one side. To my surprise, I saw her chest still moving. She was alive, though barely.

I approached and drew aside layers of silk net curtain.

“Why did you choose Alaina?” I prodded the bower. I had intended to be calm, respectful, but I found I couldn’t control the anger in my voice.

At first the old woman didn’t acknowledge my presence. I thought she might be too feeble to hear me—but then she mumbled and stirred. The gilded bower vibrated as the grotesque head lolled forwards and one sunken eye widened. The cloying smell of perfume failed to mask the underlying stench of decay. I gagged at the smell.

The old woman croaked something I couldn’t quite hear. Despite myself, I leaned closer.

“You looked so happy.” Her voice seemed both wistful and bitter. “So alive. Both of you.” With sudden energy, she rolled onto her side and a withered hand tried to grab my arm. I stumbled back.

She hissed, “The truth is, I could have chosen anyone. Anyone at all.” She looked at me, through me, and then fell back. “My one freedom.”

Her eyes rolled up and her breath came out in a rasping sigh. From another room I heard a chime sound, concerned voices, footsteps.

I turned and ran out of that cursed chamber as fast as I could.

LATER THAT DAY THE temple bells tolled, announcing the death of the old Conveyor.

For the most part, the city seemed too busy falling in love with the new Conveyor to take much notice.

SOON AFTER THE CEREMONY, Mother, Father and I were moved into a villa in the grounds of the temple. The villa was much larger than our old house near the banks of the Phar, but I never came to consider it home, only a glorified prison. On the rare occasions we were allowed to venture back out into the city streets we were always flanked by squadrons of guards. I had to withdraw from school, and temple-vetted tutors took over my education.

So much for impressing my friends.

At least, in the villa, my parents felt they were closer to Alaina, even if the only times we were allowed to see her were on state and ceremonial occasions -- and then, only from a distance. There was always some excuse, some sad-faced official apologizing, the Conveyor so busy...

Once I pushed through her retinue of guards, shouting her name. Her gaze had briefly flicked towards me. A faint smile had quirked her lips, and I heard her say, “Be gentle with her,”—but she did not stop and the guards swiftly bundled me away. After that, I was never allowed to approach too close again.

Over the next few years, I often prayed for Lyseda to take me, to enter me, to ride into my skin the same way She had my sister. I knew She had that power: Her influence could extend into our marked flesh, into our blood, our bones, our very minds. Burn away all doubt and treacherous thought. If only She chose to.

But nothing happened. I remained just myself. Merely Shanra. Merely mortal. Elder sister of High Priestess Alaina Avese, two hundred and fifty-seventh Conveyor of Lyseda.

Alaina never did travel. She did not need to leave Atiphar. As Conveyor, the world came to her. She probably didn’t even remember our last real conversation, that night before her inauguration.

But I did.

So that is why I ran away from the villa. From Mother and Father. From the Temple and its stultifying officials, and from Atiphar itself. I ran to escape the memory of the person my sister used to be. I ran from the sight of the gods, to lose myself, to forget what could have been.

I now travel the Heptatheon. From the lights of Ustormeng, and the Upwards Falls on Mount Golgis, to Sulashu’s Grave and the Rissenbar beyond. I go under an assumed name, evading all agents of the Temple. Attracting no attention. Making no mention of my monstrous, all-powerful sister.

And in the forgotten corners, at the abandoned edges, I meet others like myself: the outcasts, the apostates. The rebels.

Together, we gather.

Together, we organize.

And together, we will search for freedom.

To find if such a thing truly exists.

About the Author

Henry Szabranski was born in Birmingham, UK, and studied Astronomy & Astrophysics at Newcastle upon Tyne University, graduating with a degree in Theoretical Physics. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Diabolical Plots, Kaleidotrope and Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology, amongst other places. He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and two young sons. Find out more at http://www.henryszabranski.com.

THE LAST AND FIRST CHIMERA

TIMOTHY MUDIE

THE LAST, FIRST, AND only chimera woke when it recognized the silence. The trains rumbling through the tunnels around its den, the scattered shouts of track workers, the distant subdued mutter of hundreds of people waiting on the closest subway platforms; these sounds had been its constant companion throughout its hibernation. It must have been some time after they stopped that its ultrasensitive hearing informed its brain of the change, told it to activate, that something new was worth investigating. It opened its eyes in total darkness, but it had been designed to see in total darkness, to live under any and all conditions. Waking in a cold, damp hole some hundreds of feet beneath the earth did not bother it. After all, it had chosen to sleep here. It would have been far worse to wake up anywhere else. Waking up elsewhere would mean it had been captured, returned to the hated laboratory. Though it had been bred and built to survive the worst conditions imaginable—inside an active volcano, the remotest depths of the oceans, the barren center of an oasis-less desert—it could think of nowhere worse than the sterile white confines of the place where it was born.

It had been hiding from its creators for a long time, though it wasn’t sure how long or for how long it had been hibernating. Or how long it had been since the noises ceased. It could live in hibernation for a very long time.

Its joints popping and crackling as it stretched its spine, clenched and released its hands and feet, the chimera prepared to leave its den for the first time since it had escaped. Which was dangerous. But while the chimera had been designed to kill, it had learned curiosity. And it wanted to know what was happening outside.

UPON REACHING THE SURFACE, the chimera believed it might be the only creature left alive. The only intelligent creature at least; the subway tunnel and station that it traveled through were full of rats, roaches, pigeons. But the only humans it encountered were rotting corpses. Judging by the decay, it had indeed been less than a year since the noises stopped, though some of the bodies had been damaged beyond recognition, as if mauled by some beast with claws at least as sharp and numerous as the chimera’s own.

It came out of the subways in downtown Boston, the buildings standing tall and silent, like ancient sentries, the world around a vast ocean of slick black pavement, scattered brown dead leaves, garbage dampened and congealed into uniform gray mounds of goo. There were vermin here too, scavengers eking out an existence on the dregs of humanity. Still, in case there were humans still about, the chimera kept to the shadows, slunk between buildings, darted from alleyway to alleyway. It knew it would frighten anyone who saw it. It had scared the people in the lab, the scientists with their white coats, the angry security guards clad head to toe in black who chased it when it broke from containment and bolted from the lab, through air vents, burrowed through plaster and linoleum, bullets buzzing off the floor and walls behind it.

The chimera wandered for hours, and it wasn’t until it reached the banks of the river that it saw its first living person. A boy, no more than twelve years old, caught the chimera unaware as it made its way through a narrow park toward the water. Suddenly, there was a crash and the chimera froze, exposed in the middle of a plot of grass, nothing nearby to hide behind, no trees to scoot up and perch amongst the leaves. It turned its head in the direction of the sound and saw the boy, dirty and ragged and half-feral. The boy had overturned a hot dog cart, seemingly angry that someone had gotten to it before him, that he would have no desiccated peanuts or withered sausage. His eyes fixed on the chimera, which stood stock still, waiting for a scream, a cry for help, a rock thrown in retreat. The boy blinked slowly, twice, turned his back, and walked away.

WHAT DO MONSTERS DO when no one fears them? The chimera had never thought of itself as a monster, but it knew that that was how the scientists viewed it, how the people outside the laboratory would view it. On its mad rush to the train tunnels, its dash through station after station until it lost its pursuers, it was followed by panicked yelps and disgusted protestations of what that thing could possibly be. It had been created to kill, but it had learned to wonder. It had learned to think, discovered self-awareness. In that respect, from the point of view of its creators, it was a failure. Weapons shouldn’t consider the ramifications of their existence.

The chimera wandered the desolate outskirts of Boston, searching for humans. It kept to tall grass, slipped between overgrown shrubs. To get a better vantage point, it scaled an apartment building, but saw no smoke or artificial light or regular squares where someone might be growing crops. No signs of civilization. Neither were there ruined buildings, bombed out streets. It was as if a great wind had blown through the city and simply whisked all the people away. For a long time, the chimera sat on top of the building, perched on a corner like a gargoyle, its skin spontaneously shifting hue until it matched the stonework exactly. When it dropped to the ground, it startled a foraging family of turkeys, which squawked and flapped angrily as they fled across a parking lot and through a torn chain link fence.

Belatedly, the chimera realized its meandering was bringing it in the direction of the lab, its home. It didn’t think it was sentimental, and indeed its birthplace held few happy memories. Perhaps something is ingrained into all creatures, it thought, a pull toward their origins. Or maybe it was just unconsciously following the path of the subway down which it had escaped, the emergent geography of the city funneling everything toward the same few spots.

Before it reached the lab, the chimera was distracted by the loudest sound it had heard since awakening. A roar that shook its innards, mingling with a shrieking chorus so high-pitched and ear-piercing that the chimera could not place it as coming from any animal it had ever known, had no choice but to investigate.

As it turned out, the shrieks had come from a group of humans, but as soon as it could smell them, the chimera knew they were dead. Mangled torsos separated from shredded limbs, hair and blood and bone scattered across an overgrown grassy area in front of a wide building with stone columns. And feasting on the pile of flesh, muzzles buried deep in viscera, were two animals that the chimera had never seen before.

Mostly mouth and teeth from the neck forward, the creatures somewhat resembled the chimera from the neck back: lithe muscular bodies, four legs with hands and opposable thumbs and what looked to be retractable claws. Unlike the chimera they were tailless. When they scented the chimera and angrily whipped their heads around, it saw they were eyeless as well, a solitary pink mound on their forehead that presumably conveyed any sensory information. If they were like the chimera, they would sense infrared, ultraviolet, a spectrum of light and energy waves well beyond the human spectrum. The chimera froze, camouflaged itself, but one of the creatures leapt at it, tackling it and pinning it to the hard ground beneath the soft mat of grass.

The chimera thrashed under the larger creature. It hissed and spat and bared its fangs. It superheated its body in an attempt to burn it off like leeches. Useless. While one held it down, the second new monster investigated its prey. Head tilting back and forth, staccato clicks and whistles issuing from its throat, it assessed the chimera. It poked a claw-tipped finger at the chimera’s body, picked up one of the chimera’s own hands, examined it. The chimera stuck out its claws, but they looked puny, thumbtacks to the creature’s machetes. The creature grasped the chimera’s head and prodded its teeth, ran a finger along their points. Biting down as hard as it could, the chimera could not even break the creature’s skin.

More deep throat sounds, and the creature on top of the chimera stepped off and away. The chimera immediately slashed at the creature’s face with its claws, but they merely skipped off its rippling scaly skin. Without reacting, the creature turned and walked away, joined by its partner.

Huffing from exertion and anger, lying on its stomach, the chimera watched them go, their bodies shimmering and fading as they blended in with their surroundings. Just before they disappeared completely, it sprung to its feet and bounded after them. Not to attack, but to join them, to have companions in this strange forsaken world. It had taken no more than a few steps when one of the creatures spun and fixed it with an eyeless glare so disdainful that it stopped the chimera in its tracks. There would be no following of these creatures if it wanted to live.

The chimera watched them recede and vanish. Though whoever had designed these creatures had not granted them laughter, the noises that floated after them sounded to the chimera exactly like that.

THE CHIMERA WANDERED UNTIL it lost all track of time. It traveled along highways and backroads, crossed bridges, forded rivers, explored empty cities and towns. It basked in the sun and converted that energy to sustenance. When it saw the few scattered surviving humans, it approached, only to be met with anger and scorn just as often as it was outright ignored.

The new creatures, the deadly improvement to the chimera, lurked everywhere. Once, it came across a nest of them in the ruins of an airport, dozens of them, basking in the sun, some mating in the open. Smaller, surely just as dangerous versions, cubs, tumbling and snapping and fighting with a viciousness it never saw amongst the wild animals it encountered. The chimera hid from the creatures when it stumbled upon them, but felt their gaze as it journeyed across the dead country.

IN A HOLLOWED OUT town surrounded by overgrown fields of corn and soybeans, the chimera found an encampment of humans. High walls surrounded tents and haphazardly assembled shacks. The chimera stood atop the town’s water tower and watched the couple dozen people scratch the dirt, praying food would grow. It didn’t know why they didn’t venture into the fields, but it could guess. Every rustling stalk could hide one of the creatures. But why didn’t the creatures simply vault the walls, tear through them like newspaper? What did these people do to protect themselves?

After watching for a week, the chimera learned. A panel of wall slid open, a gate. Struggling against strong-handed men, a girl appeared, was shoved to the ground, her panicked screams audible from the water tower even if the chimera hadn’t had enhanced hearing. By the time she gained her feet and rushed back toward the settlement, the gate had closed, and though she pounded on it, it remained shut.

From its perch, the chimera willed the girl to be quiet. Wailing like she was would only draw unwanted attention. The chimera scanned the fields and saw movement, predators drawn to weakened prey. Without thinking what it was doing, it scampered from the water tower and bolted in the direction of the encampment and the crying girl.

The chimera reached the woman moments before the other creatures, which was the only thing that saved her life. The creatures burst from the field like water from behind a breaking dam, all claws and teeth and unearthly howls. As the creatures bore down on the woman, the chimera inserted itself between them, rearing up on its hind legs and showing its own formidable teeth. The unexpected resistance stopped the creatures, which stood back and studied the chimera for a moment. But only for a moment, and then one dove at it, claws outstretched. Though the chimera’s hide was thick and made to withstand attack, the other creature had claws designed to be even stronger, and they sliced through the chimera’s skin just below its shoulder, leaving behind a clean slit that immediately spurted bright crimson blood.

The blood shot from the chimera and hissed on the ground, blackening the dirt. A jet plumed from the injured chimera and caught the attacking creature across its side, sizzling, smoking, leaving behind a ragged wound from snout to shoulder. The creature stumbled and fell, unmoving. The chimera leapt at another creature, blood dripping. Droplets hit that creature and burned moth-holes into its scales. The chimera could not feel pain, lacked the receptors, and it figured the other creatures had been designed without them as well, but they understood injury. Self-preservation had been encoded into their instincts. They cried angrily, snorted in frustration, but bolted, gone as quickly as they had appeared, the only sign of their existence swaying cornstalks and the dead monster in the dirt.

Panting, examining its rapidly-healing injury, the chimera almost forgot about the woman. It was brought back to the moment by the sounds of her own panting and mewling, short sharp sounds punctuated by hiccupping gulps of breath. The chimera turned to her and simply looked. The woman had fallen during the scuffle, and now fought to control her breathing. She looked back, into the chimera’s eyes. It could not smile like a person, and anyway did not want to bare its teeth at the woman, but it slightly bowed its head, submissive. Choking back sobs, the woman stood, brushing dirt from her pants. Cautiously, she took a step toward the chimera, which stood absolutely still. Closer, until she could reach out a hand and touch it on the top of its head. Fingers crooked, she stroked and scratched the chimera’s scales. It hummed contentedly.

“What are you?” she asked, but the chimera couldn’t answer. Even if it could speak, it didn’t have words to describe what it was. Didn’t want to use the words it had heard its creators use. Weapon, monster, killer.

“Thank you,” the woman said. She looked back at the encampment. If anyone inside had heard the commotion, it didn’t change their minds about sacrificing her. Sparing one last glance at what had been her home, the woman began to walk away, angling toward a road that stretched into the distance. After a few steps, she turned back to the chimera, which remained in place, watching her. “Well,” she asked, “are you coming?”

Spine straight, wary of the danger pressing in on all sides, the woman walked out into the world, and the chimera walked next to her.

About the Author

Timothy Mudie has had fiction published in Lightspeed, Aliterate, Metaphorosis, Abyss & Apex, and several other magazines and anthologies. He lives outside of Boston, where he works as an editor at a publishing house.

LAMB AMONG LIONS

MATT SNELL

THE GREAT VIZOULI HAS gone mad with syphilis. His housecar shakes from left to right as roustabouts on either side struggle to keep it from keeling over. The wheels creak and axles groan, Vizouli curses in Rumanian and smashes the windows out. A small crowd has gathered to watch – myself, the acrobats, the animal trainers, and the canvasmen. Tensions are high because the Saturday night show is only an hour away, and Vizouli’s face is on all the posters. Ringmaster stands in the mud outside, doing his best to reason with him.

“Vizouli,” he shouts into the bullhorn, “You swine, you creep, you sodomite, you hack. I pay you good money to eat fire. Get out here and earn it before I put the torch to your stinking honey wagon.”

“Sa-mi bagi mana-n cur si sa-mi faci laba la cacat!” Vizouli screams.

“Not if you paid me!” Ringmaster flushes red and quivers with rage; he understands only enough Rumanian to know when he’s being insulted. “You’re finished, Vizouli! Get off my lot. God help you if we ever meet again. But I’m warning you — I’m not a man who takes humiliation lightly. I don’t care what it costs me, I will drag your name through the filth. When I’ve had my way with it you won’t be able to get a job tearing tickets for a two-bit rag show!”

The roustabouts abandon their posts and flee, and the crowd backs up. Ringmaster lowers the bullhorn and raises his whip, crouching until his jodphurs strain and his crimson tails nearly touch the mud. The housecar goes eerily quiet. I see my opportunity.

“Ringmaster,” I say, picking my way towards him, “I’ll do it. I’ll cover Vizouli’s act tonight.”

“Shh,” Ringmaster says, keeping a wary eye on the housecar. “He might change his mind.”

“But you said —”

“All part of the bargaining. Anyway, I need to talk to you about Lamb Among Lions. I’m serious this time, Ernesto: cover your privates. We’re a family show.”

I am coming to regret ever suggesting Lamb Among Lions. It’s a simple act, but it gets one of the biggest laughs of the night. After the trainer has nettled the cats through flaming hoops and forced them to dance a mazurka, he leaves. I go in, stark naked. I have no chair, no whip and no pistol, alone with six affronted lions. I tiptoe to the other side of the cage and whisper to the clown who holds the key. He shakes his head and holds it just out of reach. I turn around and realize the chute gate is unlatched. The act ends as I crawl through it on my hands and knees.

“Listen,” I say, “I’ve been watching Vizouli every night, and practicing for months. I’ve got a routine all worked out. Just let me show you.”

“It’s not the routines people come to see,” Ringmaster sighs. “They come to see poetry in motion, a beast in the body of a man.” He looks wistfully at the housecar.

“He’s probably passed out,” I say.

Ringmaster sticks his tongue in his cheek and stares angrily at the flecks of mud on his riding boots. He knows as well as I do that Vizouli’s fits are usually followed by a bout of catatonia. “Please,” I say. “Even the Great Vizouli was just Vizouli, once.”

Ringmaster turns to face me, and it’s as if he sees me for the first time. He takes one last glance at the housecar and says, “Ernesto, I like you. You remind me of me, when I squandered my inheritance on dancing animals. Sawdust in your shoes, the will to entertain. You saw me over a barrel and seized the moment, which speaks to your ambition. Now some would say to me, you’re facing insolvency, why put an untried act in place of your biggest earner? To them I would say, fortune favours the bold. Then I would turn to you and say yes, show us your fire act, thank you for your initiative, and please pull out all the stops.”

“And I would say deal!” I spit in my hand and hold it out for Ringmaster to shake, but he pats me on the shoulder and walks away.

I wipe my hand on my pants, but we had a verbal agreement. I look around for someone who’s borne witness to my coup, but they’ve all turned their backs and trudged off. Typical circus manners. I work hard all year and still they treat me like an outsider. To think of everything I’ve done: rosined horses’ backs so the stunt riders wouldn’t slip, made hundreds of candy apples, wheatpasted our bills onto the sides of grain elevators. Even the most insular won’t be able to ignore me when my new act makes its debut.

THE THING ABOUT THROWING myself at the lions’ mercy is, what else could I do? I had no saleable talents. Some people think a lion’s pity emasculates me, but it is a great and magisterial thing. You’ve got to be willing to throw yourself into those jaws and say, “Fine with me.” There is only so long you can terrify them before they figure out what’s behind your eyes. I have let a lion look into my soul, and what he saw there saved my life.

That is why I can’t and won’t do it every night. They must never figure out I’m exploiting them, for reasons of friendship and personal safety. Our lions are mangy, hemorrhoidal, gloomy. We dope them heavily for the pre-show promotion, so there won’t be any incidents when we pull their cages through the streets. When they come down from the drugs, they are disoriented and afraid. For a moment during my act, someone shares their vulnerability. It’s not something I talk about, and I imagine afterward the lions are embarrassed too.

Now I want to learn fire. No one feels the tug of shame after they’ve danced like a burning dervish, or exhaled a gout of flame. Vizouli has probably never felt shame in his life. He is nearly seven feet tall, hairless and muscled from head to toe, moves with more grace than all six lions combined. One night a drunken townie was talking while he executed the Triple Vesuvius, and Vizouli grabbed him by the shirt and tried to gouge out his eyes. Ringmaster threatened to garnish his wages, but Vizouli said it was the price of genius.

The price has been rather steep of late, which is why I think my time is now. On the surface, we are very different men. He looks like he was born in a furnace; I’m a water sign. But if you knew me before I ran off, you wouldn’t recognize me today. My scrawny arms are strong now from hammering pegs, and I’ve grown my hair out long like I always wanted it. I have faced down my fears one by one. I will have to think of a new name.

MOST PEOPLE HAVE RETREATED to their trailers after the excitement. The backyard, which is what we call the space behind the big top, is quiet. Nearby, chains rattle and the elephant trumpets. We keep a few carved and gilded tableau wagons back here, but mostly it’s housecars and hauling trucks. Watching their wheels sink into the muck I know it will be hell rolling out tomorrow, but at least someone has laid down a few planks as a gangway.

The gangway leads straight to Clown Alley. I hesitate, knowing the risks all too well. My loins are girded by the fact the clowns are my peers now, and it’s only fair they know. Besides, if I don’t share my good news with someone I might burst.

I follow the planks to where three perpendicular trailers form a courtyard. Wolfman Everett and Creebure sit at a table in makeup and bathrobes, a deck of cards and a bottle of rum between them. Wolfman Everett puts his hand facedown when he sees me.

“Ernie,” he says. “How’s your hammer hanging?”

“I’m guessing long and hairy, hard to carry,” Creebure says.

“Exactly right,” I say. “How are your hammers?”

Wolfman Everett and Creebure are physical opposites. The former is lank and ropy and looks better with his shirt off, even though he is covered in tight steely curls. I know because he does a bit where he bursts in naked to the waist and chases Creebure with an oversized knife, which other people seem to find funny. Creebure is fat and has terrible skin because he sleeps in his greasepaint. When he finally takes it off, his scowl loses its tragic dimension and becomes merely ugly. I try to be his friend, because he is actually the better clown — it’s his vocation, whereas Wolfman Everett used to be the human cannonball until he shattered his knee and couldn’t do it anymore. Still, Creebure makes it hard. The only one who seems to like him is Wolfman Everett, and they drink together until the wee morning hours.

“Fine,” Wolfman Everett says. “Just lubing up for the show. You doing Lion’s Pussy tonight, or whatever it’s called?”

“Lamb Among Lions.” I frown at the bottle of rum. I consider it unprofessional to drink before work, but Wolfman Everett and Creebure have given shows they don’t remember doing. “Actually, no. I’m covering Vizouli’s act tonight.”

“Bullshit,” Wolfman Everett says.

“I quit,” Creebure says.

“What the fuck you know about eating fire, Ernie?”

These two don’t like me because to them I’m still a Forty Miler, which is circus for someone who’s never left home. They were born to this. Creebure is probably illiterate, and Wolfman Everett definitely is. I offered to teach him, and he offered to beat me like a redheaded stepchild. Both claim to be veterans, which I think is a euphemism for jail time. A little resistance is to be expected.

“I’m not eating it yet,” I admit. “It’s more of an interpretive dance.”

“Like hell. We’ll do the tapeworm gag until Ringmaster can pick up a new fire eater.” Wolfman Everett looks at Creebure, who nods.

“It’s already decided,” I say. “Just keeping you in the loop.”

“Listen, precious.” Everett waggles a finger at me. “I seen that fucker chew on a live coal. Can you chew a live coal? Show me the evidence. I never seen anybody but Vizouli chew a live coal. You can chalk that up to batshit craziness. And now he’s queered the show tonight. I never queered a show in my life, I been shot out of a cannon with a hangover and six broken ribs. If you ask me, that guy is two weeks shy of the bughouse. And so is Ringmaster if he thinks letting that syphy bag of shit run this circus into the ground so you can piss all over it is a good idea.”

There is no way I can win this, so the best I can do is retreat before he saps the rest of my confidence. “Well it couldn’t be jealousy,” I say. “See you at the spec.”

“Hold on a minute,” Wolfman Everett pushes his chair back on two legs and digs in his pocket. “I want to show you something.”

He takes out his lighter and flourishes it in the air beside him. His chair falls forward as he leans in on his elbows. He snaps his wrist and the lighter opens with a clink. “Drumroll please,” he says.

Creebure makes a buzzing noise with his lips as Wolfman Everett flicks the flint-wheel three times. He shakes the lighter, and succeeds in lighting it on the fourth try. “Watch carefully,” Wolfman Everett says. He contorts his mouth in mock horror and twinkles his fingers as he drops his hand into the flame.

He watches for my reaction. His clown face is terrifying — thick arches run over his brow, and he blacks his eyes into triangles that meet a burnt-cork beard he hardly needs to embellish. His hand shakes but he holds it squarely in the flame. I can hear his teeth grind.

Just as I am about to cry for him to stop, Wolfman Everett snaps the lighter shut. “Christ Almighty.” He pulls his fist to his chest and holds out the lighter with his other hand. “Now you do it.”

“No chance,” I say.

“You piece of shit, Ernesto!” He lunges forward and pounds the table. Creebure grabs the rum bottle so it won’t spill. “Give me your hand.”

“I’m not burning myself for you,” I say.

“Firespinners always get burned!”

“Not if they’re careful,” I say.

“Even more so!”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Goddamn it, Ernie.” Wolfman Everett holds out his palm, to show me the blister like an opprobrious eye forming there. “This is for you.” He snatches the bottle and pulls from it deeply, watching me with a bloodshot squint. Then Creebure starts laughing, and Wolfman Everett wipes his lips and joins in. I walk back down the gangway as quickly as I can.

YOU COULD HEAR THE wheezing of the steam calliope from our house. I ran to the window: What is it? I said. I read in the paper it has sixty-seven whistles, Father said. We have to go, I said. You can hear it from here, he said. And I cried for three days, and the circus was in town for three days, and on the last day he relented so we went.

I must have been about eight, because there was more colour than I’d seen in my entire lifetime. The smell of hot peanuts and wild animals intoxicated me as we strolled up the midway. Sounds of ballyhoo and candy butchers hawking their wares, painted banners fluttering against the stars. I saw a board covered in lizards, a bug man selling chameleons. He kept them on a string and would pin one to your lapel for a nickel. I begged but Father wouldn’t get me one.

I couldn’t imagine children being allowed in the big top, but they let us in and we took our seats. It was so hot beneath the canvas Father unbuttoned his collar. Then the spec started, the parade of performers around the ring. I saw my first elephant, my first tiger, my first camel, my first ostrich. I was so moved by the way trapeze artists scoop each other around the waist to bring their partner onto the platform. Best of all was when they brought out a stool with a violin strapped to it, followed by a man with no arms.

I thought he might be able to play Mary Had a Little Lamb. The armless man kicked off his shoes, rolled off his socks, and took the bow between his toes. He laid it to the strings and played the most heartbreaking music I’ve ever heard. It was just one violin, and the tent was so silent you could hear every note. I had the overwhelming sense he knew something we townies did not. Not just how to play the violin with your feet, something more. I wish I knew the name of that piece. I wanted to run away and join the circus from the moment I heard it.

Instead I went to school, and whenever I showed my true self the nuns would make me kneel on bottle caps and pray. Back home Father would whup me again and say boy, I command you to forget your wicked fantasies. The circus is a haven for deviants, misfits, and unnatural individuals. Something deep inside said fine, I know exactly where I’m meant to be.

They managed to subdue me enough that for several bloodless years I apprenticed as a tailor. I was a prisoner of the back room, until Ringmaster’s circus happened to pass through and revive me. I volunteered to repair ripped canvas or stoke the boiler on the calliope, anything so long as they’d have me. He said yes. I didn’t even go home to pack a bag.

THE VILLAGE WE ARE playing tonight is visible on the horizon. I can see the church spire, taller than anything else. Away from the top and the town, flat and dreary fields stretch in all directions. A scruffy wood borders them in the distance. Dr. Barnacle’s trailer sits under the single remaining tree on the lot. I know he set up there for privacy, but I need wise counsel.

I clump over the field towards his camp. His vardo, which is the right name for a painted wagon, is the oldest one in our procession. It’s green and vermilion, with a domed roof and rounded windows. Dr. Barnacle says it’s healthful for the subconscious to sleep in a room that isn’t square. A light burns inside, where Mrs. Barnacle is resting. Dr. Barnacle stands outside, shirtless with his suspenders hanging down around his knees. His great summer squash breasts spill out in opposite directions. He is shaving, which he does with exaggerated care. His basin, mug, lather brush and shaving kit are on a small folding table, and his mirror hangs from a low branch. As he manipulates the razor and pulls at his slack jowls he sees my reflection approach.

“Ernesto,” he says. “How now, my boy?”

“Fine,” I say.

“Ah, but take heart! I so look forward to Lamb Among Lions each night. Forty years of restless travel, and I have never seen the like. The spotlight falls upon a boy who has been thrust into the den of lions. He is naked, defenseless. His long black hair falls about him, he shivers with fear. Yet his eyes, large and wet, seem to search for communion —”

“It’s my act, Doctor.” I sit down on the steps of the vardo. “You don’t have to describe it.”

“I thought you might like to know what other people are seeing.”

“No. It just gets in the way.”

“Very well.” He splashes his razor in the basin. “My intuition tells me you have come seeking advice.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” Dr. Barnacle is our mentalist, but his insight extends far beyond guessing the colour of someone’s handkerchief.

“My dear boy,” he says, “You are aware of the extreme mental effort it requires to plumb the future. Those energies must be conserved for the performance. In point of fact I am digesting right now, tonight we had rabbit, it was delicious.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s just that I’m at a crossroads.”

Dr. Barnacle turns to me. Half his face is covered in shaving cream, the other cleanshaven. His expression is weirdly dual as he sizes me up and take a deep breath. “Very well,” he says. “I can see you are in turmoil, so I will ask the spirits what preys on your mind. A simple case of nerves, or something more — a premonition.”

My throat goes dry as I wait on the steps. “I’m ready,” I say.

Dr. Barnacle winds his temples like a watch. His lower lip flutters and his eyes dart beneath their purple lids. “Oh,” he says.

“What do you see?”

“I see you,” he says. “Standing in the spotlight, afraid the audience will see you shaking. You are about to perform, but you seek more than than the approbation of the crowd. If that is your goal Godspeed, and may women fall in heaps at your feet. But no, I see what you desire is the ineffable, the confrontation with the self. A conflict that never ends, but is actually not a conflict, more a conversation. To exceed your humble limits through sheer grit, a grit others would never admit or conceive of belonging to you. But it does, and it is yours alone.” Dr. Barnacles eyes pop open and he thumps himself over the heart. I jump because he seems to have forgotten that he is holding a straight razor in his fist.

“Do I succeed?” I ask.

“Wait! The road ahead of you is not clear, I cannot part those mists. Back! Back! No, your path is shrouded in doubt. It is easier for me, because I have a wife. Glad is our union, as she guides me sometimes the lover, sometimes the shepherd, along the path of life. But you, I see that you are lonely. I say to you, do not go the way of your idol, for his is a dark and purulent end. You must forge your own destiny, from the blaze within.”

With these words, calliope music begins to drift into the camp. It signals half an hour to show time, but more than just that. It symbolizes devotion and sacrifice. Ezekiel, the organist, has gone deaf playing it. In order to reach the back corners of the country it must be ungodly loud, and old Ezekiel sits in the middle of a maelstrom. He has rendered service to the circus, and so too shall I.

I stand up from the steps of the vardo. “Thanks, Doctor. I think that’s what I needed to hear.”

Dr. Barnacle has turned back to the mirror, plumped his chin, and resumed shaving the other side of his face. “A pleasure, my boy. A case of nerves is natural when one is young and inexperienced. Remember never to start into the ring on your left foot, and everything will come out aright.”

“Of course,” I say. “Now I better get into my costume.”

“Costume, indeed!” Dr. Barnacle shakes a few drops of bay rum from the bottle, slaps it on his cheeks, and winks. I watch him button his shirt and shrug into his greasy coat before I leave.

THE BIG TOP SPREADS like an enormous mollusc over the grass. Beside it, a distended version of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” emerges from the cloud of steam around the calliope. The string lights along the midway glow, where townies are lined up passing around a mickey. I am both sick at heart and full of purpose. That is the feeling of grace entering an empty vessel.

In the backyard the performers are warming up, swinging their arms and doing squats and stretching. My costume is hidden in the back of the truck where I sleep, underneath my bedroll. I don’t have Vizouli’s gift for improvisation, so I’ve built my routine around a concept: Moth to a Flame.

The outfit is white and periwinkle. It has gossamer wings, a silver belt, and fur around the collar. It fits me tightly enough to dance, but still flutters. I apply a bit of blue eyeshadow in the side mirror and dress to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” ignoring the few passersby who give me odd looks. They never batted an eye while I waited naked to be stuffed into a lion cage.

If I get a chance I’ll ask Ringmaster to change the billing to the Impossible Ernesto. Or the Improbable. Neither feels quite right, but Incredible seems too flat. It probably starts with the letter I, in any case. I take a deep breath and smell the earth beneath me, the anticipation of my fellow performers. Just in time for spec.

The lineup has already started at our entrance to the big top. We may be small compared to some shows, but there are a lot of us all the same: Wolfman Everett and Creebure at the head of the pack, followed by Bernadette astride the elephant, four generations of the Astounding Kempflers in identical outfits, the horses, and everyone else, all in full regalia. I take my place as the band strikes up.

I go through the flap and into the tent, to the sound of trumpets. The smell of sawdust and farmer’s musk surrounds me. As soon as the procession spreads out, I start waving my staff. Creebure and Wolfman Everett pump children’s hands in the front row, while some of these townies are clearly having their first experience with an elephant. They gasp and recoil as she veers close to the rail, then cheer as she makes the curve. In all this pageantry I can’t be sure anyone even notices me, but I feel loose and limber. Even a Double Vesuvius doesn’t seem out of reach.

After we’ve completed a lap of the tent the procession files out, and I slip behind the bleachers to watch. Ringmaster welcomes the crowd with his usual spiel: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world’s most astounding etcetera. It’s a decent turnout, though there are plenty of empty seats. First up are Wolfman Everett and Creebure with some slapstick.

They rush out, squabbling over a peacock-feather hat they both want to wear. Creebure shoves Wolfman Everett in the mud, puts on the hat and struts off. Wolfman Everett rises and kicks him in the back. With each laugh they coax out, the top feels fuller. I have to admit it’s not an easy job and they do it well. Almost too well, because each time the townies guffaw it gets harder to imagine stirring their emotions. The sudden urge to pee strikes, but getting out of my costume is a performance in itself. I visualize long nights of practicing until my wrists ached, of trying to decipher in my head what others seemed to know in their bones. It may not have come naturally, but I was shaking off the old chains.

I look up just in time to see the lions do the mazurka, then the trainer bows and takes his exit. I feel a momentary shock of adrenaline as the roustabouts tear down the cage, like I have missed a cue. As if reading my mind, Dr. Barnacle appears beneath the bleachers.

“Ernesto! What in blazes?” he hisses.

“Shh.” I point to the townies seated at the other end. “Keep your voice down.”

“By God, what are you wearing?”

“I’m filling in for Vizouli tonight,” I say. “You saw me shaking in the spotlight, remember?”

“Sweet Christ, boy, I’m a charlatan.” Dr. Barnacle blanches. “Can’t you tell hokum by now?”

“Give yourself some credit. This is the part that’s shrouded in doubt.”

He grabs me by the arm. “There’s no doubt, you fool, you’ll immolate yourself. Signal to Ringmaster and call it off.”

Just as he says it the roustabouts carry the last pieces of the cage away. He’s too late, because the ballyhoo has already begun.

“Now, for the first time,” Ringmaster spreads his arms to encompass the ring, “an experience you’ve never had before! Some men go their whole lives with their shoulder to the wheel, or tied to apron strings. Our next performer chose a different path. He has traveled the Orient and learned the secrets of the swamis, he has drunk from the mighty Ganges and wrestled crocodiles. Friends, you are about to see a primal force of nature contained in mortal flesh. I give you… the Great Vizouli!”

A cold shock descends as I realize Vizouli has recovered, and Ringmaster didn’t even bother to tell me. Yet the seconds go by and Vizouli does not come stalking past. I look to Ringmaster, who beckons me with glittering eyes into the ring. A sting more hurtful than the first settles in as I realize that I am playing Vizouli tonight, and not because he thinks I do a good impression.

“This charade demeans us all, boy,” Dr. Barnacle whispers. He squeezes my arm with one hand.

I yank my arm away. The rest of the world slanders them yet I give them real love, and this is how I am repaid. Maybe I should have tried to win their respect by force of spite. I glare at Dr. Barnacle, snatch up my staff, and make my way into the ring.

He doesn’t follow me, but in my anger I forget to lead with my right and enter the ring on my left foot. A terrible omen according to Dr. Barnacle, but what does a senile old codger who drinks Sterno know about anything. Ringmaster bows out as I sweep into the ring. The prop crew has left a dish of kerosene beside the center pole, and a brazier burning nearby. I dunk the wicks in fuel, then flick the staff to remove the excess.

Pockmarked farmers and their dour wives stare at me. Butchers shuffle along the rows selling bags of popcorn, children crawl over the empty seats. They came to see strong bodies in feats of strength or leering clowns, not a feeble ex-tailor. I’ll just have to ram my act down their throats.

The first wick flares up as it touches the brazier. I slap it with a bare hand and carry the flame over to the second. I hold my burning palm out to the audience before I clench it to extinguish the fire. The crowd murmurs, and I hope Wolfman Everett saw it too. Next comes the burnoff. I lay the staff across my open hand and roll it with the other. Fuel flies spitting off the wicks and explodes on either side of me.

The band plays Vizouli’s music. It’s sinuous and well-suited to Step One: Moth by Night. The moth flutters through dark space, represented as a simple figure eight. Steady now for Step Two: Moth Spies a Flame. It’s an abrupt armpit catch as the moth draws up short, then an around-the-neck spin as it circles back.

A smattering of applause rises from the audience. Step Three: Moth Circles the Flame. The staff passes under my legs and I draw my arms up so the crowd can see my wings. Then I toss the staff higher than I meant to, and wait underneath wondering if I’ll break my fingers or drop it.

I snag it neatly and segue into Step Four: Moth Embraces Flame. It’s a flurry of movement as the moth realizes its mistake. I scurry backwards and execute a series of back-passes, but almost run into the center pole. The crowd laughs.

That possibility hadn’t occurred to me, never having practiced in the top. Everything depends now on Step Five: A Moth Consumed. I execute the entire sequence at double speed as the moth tries to save itself. My arms nearly tear from their sockets, but I am barely conscious of the fire whooshing around me. All I can think of is the Double Vesuvius, which I’m going to make a Triple Vesuvius. I’ve never landed one before, but there is not much to lose.

At the climactic moment my leg kicks out, my arm extends all the way up, and the staff leaves my hand. I’m blinded by burning traces, so all I can do is listen to the weird whistling of the staff as it travels. I count the first rotation, then the second, then the third.

After that comes a long silence. I wonder if the staff has gotten tangled in the highwire, until it glances off my hand and strikes me across the back. It springs out in front of me and I jump after it, catching it just before it can touch the ground. The wicks sputter out on cue.

The crowd bursts into applause. The hiccup must have looked intentional, like a flourish on an already difficult trick. My back hurts but I bow deeply. I am elated, and emptied of thought as the noise cascades around me.

I’m still standing there when it dies down. I know I should leave, but seem to have forgotten how. A sea of expectant faces stares back at me. “I am Ernesto,” I shout. “The Incendiary!”

“You’re on fire, Ernie!” hollers a teenaged hick in the front row. A girl points and I look back, expecting Creebure or Wolfman Everett with a cream pie. Instead I see a lick of orange flame. I reach to pat it out, but it transfers to my sleeve. Flapping at it ignites the other one. Fire snakes up my elbows and the crowd peals with of laughter. I smile, as if this part of the act. Yet I am becoming unbearably hot. A wave of my arms, and I am engulfed.

I pitch into the sawdust as the windy sound of an inferno rises in my ears. Behind it I hear the band launch into “Stars and Stripes Forever,” our secret emergency signal. I thrash about frantically until the pain crests, and for a moment I am above myself, watching my body. Then I am back inside the agony trying to undo my belt buckle, but it is too hot to touch. I roll gasping onto my hands and knees.

My long hair burns like a halo as I look up at the crowd. I have well and truly impressed them: some scramble over their seats, others stay frozen in horror. At that a sort of calm comes over me. From the tent flap Creebure and Wolfman Everett are running towards me with a bucket and a fire blanket. I can’t see their faces, but they look infinitely far away.

About the Author

Matt Snell is a writer based in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Existere, Punchnel’s, Blood & Bourbon, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Bourbon Penn, and PRISM International. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

FROST-DEAD, FIRE-LIVING

GABRIELLE FRIESEN

THE MOUNTAIN HAD SWALLOWED up Kria’s parents.

Her mother, Antonia, had gone first. Antonia knew the dangers of the snow. She hunted cautiously, respecting the whims of the mountains and the weather, even if it meant abandoning a chase. There was always another day. It would not end her family’s hunger if she died frozen in the ice.

This winter, their larder was well stocked – there was no reason to risk more than a day out. They all knew this. Kria’s father Seorus had even fought with Antonia about it the night before she left. There had been no need for Antonia to go out hunting. Yet she still put on her deer-headed cloak and went out into the snow. She had kept insisting that it was “important.” Kria could hear a danger in her mother’s voice, a strange upswing on her words that she had never used before.

Kria had watched her leave from the window of their cabin. Her mother had walked out into the snow, passing by the dogwoods that grow all around their home. The dogwood branches were so red as to reach into a deep purple, and the branches gave off a strange heat, melting back the snow around the trees.

When Antonia went out hunting, she always took a branch of the plant with her for protection, tucked into her belt or slung over her back, and the villagers in the valley below the mountain would make the trek to the cabin to similarly collect the protective boughs from Seorus. As soon as she was old enough, Kria had walked alongside her father and watched the way he trimmed the branches. It had been his mother’s duty before it was Seorus’, and it would be Kria’s in the future.

The dogwood warded away even those things that her mother could not kill, out in the darkness and the cold. When Antonia left, she avoided the dogwoods, and did not take a protective bough to ward off the beasts and cold of winter.

“Tonia will be home soon, no need to worry.” Seorus kept repeating to Kria at odd moments over the course of the three-day absence.

“Antonia will be home soon, no need to worry.” On the fourth day, Seorus used her full name, as if it would call her back from the mountains.

Kria could tell by the way her father’s eyes kept scanning to the window and the snow falling outside, and the way his beard grew unkempt, that he was anxious for Antonia’s return, just as fearful as Kria was. When he at last braved the weather to look for her, the snow had risen so high that he had to shovel a tunnel out of the doorway. Kria helped him, but she dug slower than she could have. She didn’t want her father to leave. She knew he would not take her with him. A twitchy excitement animated her father’s movements, however, and he finished rapidly even with Kria’s half-hearted help.

He bundled in furs and coats against the winter. His words were clipped, like he had started reading aloud from a book midway through a sentence. “Stay here and head to the village in spring.”

‘If I do not come back’ was what he had skipped over. He too, ignored the protective boon of the dogwoods.

Seorus joined his wife in the mountains. Kria was left alone, and the snow kept piling up around the cabin.

Five days after her mother left, two without father, and the sun had stopped in the sky, hanging always just above the horizon. The light reflected fiercely off the snow, penetrating the house at all hours. It was a far cry from normal winter, when the sun would peak up above the horizon for a scant hour every day. Kria could barely sleep, it was so bright, and she lay in bed and gazed at the wide-open curtain that separated her parent’s sleeping quarter’s from the rest of the house. At the sight of the hanging curtain and the empty bed in the unnatural light, Kria made up her mind. She too, needed to go out from their home into the cold. She needed to find her parents.

The villagers had told her stories, during her summers spent below the mountain. Stories about hunters filled with bravado or desperation, and foolish travelers who had been trapped out in winter. Faces half-gone from frostbite by the time would-be rescuers ever found the bodies. Whole caravans lost in the blinding sheets of snow. Animals driven mad by the glare of the sun. Kria shook even before she opened the door of the cabin to the cold outside.

“I have to be brave. I have to be brave,” she mumbled into the scarves wrapped around her face, hoping it could be true. Her parents needed it to be true. Kria crawled into the tunnel her father had carved, and pushed through the snow banks engulfing her house.

Before the cabin was fully out of sight, she stopped to turn back and look at it. It was so small already, sinking into the snow around it. The dogwood trees stood still about her. They stood, familiar and dark, surrounded by bare patches of earth, untouched by winter’s chill. She was too small to bring much with her, only a rope and one of her father’s trimming knives. Kria cut two small slivers off the nearest branch of dogwood. Her mother always carried a full bough, but Kria was far shorter. She did not want to be slowed by the branch catching and dragging on the ground. Instead, she slipped the small chips into her gloves, letting them rest directly against her palms. She closed her hands into fists around the warmth of the wood and turned again to make her way towards the mountain.

Their home lay at the roots of the mountains. Kria did not know for certain whether her parents had climbed higher into the foothills, or descended into the valley. A river ran in between; if her parents had headed towards the village below, they would have needed to cross the river.

Kria hoped they had crossed and headed down to the valley, where at least someone might find them, but she doubted they had. Her mother normally hunted in the woods on the mountain, and both her parents had cast furtive looks upon the peaks before they had left. There was something in the air, in the way the sun was frozen mid-way through the sky that tugged her towards the mountain. The shadows cast by the trees all pointed that way. She ignored the feeling and headed towards the village. Even if her parents were not there, she could raise a search party, or at least borrow someone’s dogs to help her search.

She came to the frozen water while there was still warmth in her body and walked right up to its edge. This was as far as she had ever gone alone, visiting in the summer to catch the small silver fishes that congregated in the shady parts of the river. She had always tried to do it with her bare hands first, before she settled into using a net and rod, grasping at handfuls of the tiny animals, so thick in the water that not all of them could squirm out between her fingers, leaving her clutching a few glimmering prizes. She would take them home for her father to clean and cook after she had laid them out one by one in a shimmering line on the dull wooden table.

Now, most of the river was a dead, solid mass, no small darting fishes left in the iced-over shallows. In the very center of the river, where the current was the quickest and the strongest, the ice had been broken up, large ice flows crashed against one another as they were whipped along. Her father had told her never to go deep into the river, as she would risk being yanked under. Kria did not want to disobey her father or to risk the danger of the water. With the mountain to her right, looming dark against the frozen sun, she still hoped her parents had made the crossing and looked for an easier path across.

The river hissed, carving up the ice. The sound bounced off the trees, in cacophonous splitting echoes. The noise made Kria’s teeth ache, so she grit them against the reverberations.

She found no easier crossing. The sun still hung in the sky. The mountain still loomed, and Kria felt a strange tugging inside her, urging her towards the peak. She ignored the pull of the mountain, set on heading to the village. She made to test the ice to see if she could walk towards the still flowing center. She thought she could leap across the moving ice flows to the other side.

Instead, she watched her own feet carry her away from the river’s edge, and towards the forest. She turned her head to watch the ice receding in the distance, unable to will her legs to stop. They crunched through the thin layer of solid snow and into the powder below without her input. She climbed higher into the forest unwillingly, while she internally tried to battle her own movements. Something drew her higher up the mountain.

The trees offered little shelter, snow still heavy and deep between them. The wind had caused huge snow banks to catch and form at the base of the largest trees, and Kria struggled to wade deeper into the forest. Each step was laborious, the snow so deep and the weight of her own body almost too much to carry. She shook her head, trying to keep her eyes clear of snow, fearing they would freeze shut, and leave her blind on the mountainside. Her eyelashes already had ice clinging to them and she feared any more. Warmth still rose up her arms from the dogwood chips resting in her gloves and against her palms, at least. The smell of the wide open icy sky filled her nostrils.

The light of the unsetting sun cast long shadows on the gleaming landscape.

Her face was beginning to numb, even under all her layers. She took to talking to herself to stave off the cold. “I must find Mother and Father, and I must find shelter. I must find shelter. I will find Mother and Father, and then we must find shelter.” Her bluing lips got caught up on ‘shelter,’ the l dropping in and out of place, ‘sheltler,’ ‘shetler.’ She wanted to stop so badly but was certain she had just set out. It hadn’t been long, but she was so tired. There was such a horrible ringing in her head. Why wouldn’t the sun just set? It wasn’t offering any warmth, just too much light reflecting off the snow that Kria had to squint against.

She paused to catch her breath, her throat burned with cold, and gasped at what she saw. She had come to a ridge, hidden by the glare of the sun, and almost wandered off the glacial edge in all the blinding light. If she had not paused to catch her breath, she would have fallen down the embankment. She stared out across the glacial carvings before her, the break in the forest covered only in boulders and ice.

In the winters, things existed that did not, could not otherwise. She watched a shape lurch along in the distance, massive against the boulders. The sound of cracking ice and stone rose from around it. Kria stood still, resting; waiting to see if she should run.

The living carnivorous glaciers awoke in the winter. Slow, limping things, they picked up speed as the temperatures dropped, and as they ate. Rapid, predatory icebergs. Unlucky travelers in the mountains were crushed and absorbed in their ice. Kria could just see the ice’s last victims from where she stood: dark blots in the monstrosity’s gleaming body. Bones and corpses still suspended, frozen in the ice.

It had not seen her, so Kria waited, while her limbs grew colder. The glacier turned, crushing closer, but not at a chase speed. It merely made its way across the landscape. As it neared, Kria drew a great gasp of freezing, biting air into her lungs.

Stuck out from the ice were her mother’s arrows, the burgundy shafts of dogwood unmistakable. The arrows had sunk deep, rivulets of water melting out from around the heated dogwood shafts, cascading down the glacier’s body. Kria stared, eyes flitting all across the glacial mass. Taking in bodies, body parts, skeletons. Nothing and no one that looked like her mother. Her mother’s body was not suspended in the ice, Kria almost wept as she took in the bodies. But the arrows meant her mother had clearly met with the glacier.

The living glacier scuttled past Kria in a wide berth. Though it pained her to stay standing still in snow up to her knees, she waited until it had passed far beyond her. Finally, she forced her numb legs to move, pushing down through the snow. The icepack had carved a small glacial valley, knocking over trees and dragging along boulders. She would follow its trail and hopefully find her parents along the way.

A mistake, as the wind and snow cut frigid against her, no trees to break it up. Kria’s body had moved past shivering, and her face had gone too numb to keep up her chanting reminders. She began to forget what she had come out into the glaring whiteness to do, and she was very tired. Tired and beginning to be warm. She wanted to sit a moment and remove her boots. The heat emanating from the pieces of dogwood branch in her gloves was no longer radiating up her arms. She placed her hands on her cheeks to try and transfer the warmth from the woods to her face.

Kria paused, nearing the edge of the glacial expanse, ready to lose her heavy scarves, unsure why she was out on the mountain. The sun blinded her, the sky blurring into the land.

In the far distance, Kria could make out a dark shape squatting amongst the looming trees. Kria couldn’t tell what it was; it could have been another hulking monster crouched out of the wind, or a glacier waiting to swallow her in its ice, but she headed for it regardless, scarves left behind in the snow. Something pulled her towards it. An upswing in her mind. She wanted to rest, but she wanted to reach the dark shape even more, whatever it was, beast or embankment. A troll’s mouth would be warm, at least. She had forgotten her parents and the stalled sun. All Kria knew was the snow and the ice and an aching desire to just lie down and rest. The shape slumbering in the distance would be a good place to sleep.

She reached the thing, at last. A cabin, cold and iced over. The windows were dim and frosted over. The door was frozen shut, rime covering the frame. Kria wondered how long the cabin had been here – her mother had never mentioned neighbors, or a cabin so close to theirs on the mountain. She reached for the handle, only noticeable as a small bump in the ice, no longer feeling the bite of cold metal through her gloves. Inside she could light a fire. Inside she could sleep.

The door creaked and groaned as she pulled, straining against the ice until at last it splintered, the door swinging open.

Beyond the doorframe, the cabin was dark. There was no fire, but there were voices. Kria nearly called out, but the darkness scared her.

The hearth in the cabin, so much smaller than the over-large one in her home, was unlit and cold. Her parents sat at a rotting table, calm and relaxed. They sat as they did in their own home as if they were ready for dinner, one on either end of the table. Only there was an empty, fourth chair. And in the center chair, where Kria would sit, there was another girl.

Much as Kria wanted to call out for her parents, the sight of the other girl stopped her. The girl’s face was blue at the lips and corners of her eyes, her cheeks blackened like charcoal. The tip and left side of her nose were gone. Bits of her fingers were missing as well, the remaining tips blistered and bubbling black. The other girl didn’t blink, her eyes frozen over with hoarfrost. The girl had not seen her yet, but surely her parents had noticed the door opening.

Neither of them turned to her. They were enraptured with the frost-dead child, speaking softly and lovingly to her, as if she were their child – as if she were Kria.

The unlit house was so cold that her parents would soon become like the girl, frozen and dead, but not as alone as the girl was. Her father’s cheeks were darkened with frostbite, the same as the frost-dead girl. Her mother’s ears were blistering with the cold, great black masses ready to burst. She had thrown the deer-head cloak from her head, forgoing even that small bit of warmth, and this scared Kria the most. The frost-dead girl would make them like her, and keep them there in the dim cabin, to stave off the loneliness that came in death.

Kria swallowed her fear and crept further into the cabin. She wanted her parents back; she would not leave them to this dead girl. The other girl’s eyes did not turn to her even as she came close. It was like she could not see her. Kria reached out for her father’s hand, hoping to grab him before frostbite set into his fingers.

The frost-dead girl blinked, ice flaking from her eyelids, and she finally focused her eyes on Kria. Seeing how close she was to her prizes, she opened her mouth, and she shrieked. Kria jolted back, raising her stiff arms up to protect herself. Kria’s parents made no reaction, merely freezing more in place. The girl’s howling slowly resolved itself into words, still at a volume that rattled the icicles coating the walls.

“You won’t take them from me. They’re mine now.” The frost-dead girl leapt from her chair as she continued to cry out, advancing on Kria. “They belong to me!”

“Please, let them go.” Her words came slowly. She was exhausted. Kria did not know if the girl could even hear her above her own screeching. She raised her own voice, too tired to do anything else.

“You can’t have them! I won’t let you take them,” Kria yelled at the frost-dead child. The girl ceased her own yelling to frown, and as she did, the ice coating the windows of the house deepened and entered further into the cabin. Kria advanced on the frost-dead girl, willing her legs to move just a little more. She had to reach the frost-dead girl and strangle out whatever frozen air still animated her lungs. Even if she too joined the girl in the cabin, filling one of the empty seats at the table, at least she could try and save her parents. Two people would at least walk away warm and breathing if three could not.

The girl did not back away from Kria, only screaming louder and louder as she approached. The air grew colder as Kria limped nearer to that wailing mouth, the ice and sound threatening to shatter the cabin around her.

At last the dead girl reacted, seeing Kria would not stop, bringing her arms over her face to shield herself from Kria’s reach. Kria grabbed hold of the other girl’s frostbit hands to shove them away from her face so she could lash out at the girl’s crying mouth. As she touched her, her fingers seared with cold before the pain burned away to numbness, the black of frostbite blooming along her fingertips. But her palms were fire-hot, the dogwood chips warm like beating hearts against her skin. It was not Kria who cried out in pain; the frost-dead girl screamed as the warmth Kria held touched and burned her ice-spreading fingers.

The girl howled and wept, crying ice flows, as she tried to pull away from Kria, who refused to let go, not out of any strength left in herself, but out of sheer exhaustion. Kria was so cold, cold deep in her bones, even her marrow frozen over. The act of letting go required more warmth and energy than she had left.

The frost-dead girl no longer exuded ice from her body, the sheets of ice over the cabin windows beginning, with the faintest trickles of runoff, to melt. Kria did not see it, could only see she was winning against the cold, dead girl in the cold, dead cabin, and so, with nothing left in her body but the dimming warmth in her beating heart, she pulled the girl tight to her in an embrace, in a hug to keep the warmth in. Kria held on, and the frost-dead girl continued to sob as the ice melted from her body, melted from Kria’s parents, melted from the cabin.

The frost-dead girl seemed to melt too, going limp in Kria’s arms, no longer exuding otherworldly frost. She was just as dead as she must have been at one point, her body a sad, regular cold. Kria held onto her, her face too numb to cry.

The keening that she had thought was the melting was actually coming from herself. She tried to stop the sound, unsure what to do with the body she clutched, and slowly realized that someone was calling to her. Her parents were awake.

Antonia and Seorus rushed to their crying daughter on unsteady limbs. Antonia could barely hear her through frost burned ears, and Seorus’ face seared so badly he could hardly see. But they found their daughter as she had found them.

Kria shied away from their outstretched hands, still clinging to the other girl. Before anything else, before Kria would allow her parents to hold her, she gently laid the frost-dead girl on the floor of the unlit cabin. She folded her hands across her chest, although unable to uncurl her fingers, and smoothed the icicles from her dark hair.

“I was so scared for you,” Kria managed to whisper to her parents, as they pulled her away from what was left of the frost-dead girl.

“Kria, Kria,” was all her mother could say.

“We couldn’t turn away from the cabin, we tried so hard to come back to you. We couldn’t turn away.” Her father’s voice was so quiet and low, like snowflakes swallowed up in the landscape.

Her mother pulled her away from the side of the other girl and gently led her towards the door. Her father followed behind. As they crossed the threshold of the dim cabin, even as they once more entered the cold outside, warmth returned to them. Antonia’s ears no longer blistered, Seorus’ face was unharmed, and none of their fingers were gnarled and withered with frostbite. Seorus laughed at this, high and frantic. Antonia removed her deer-headed cap to place it on Kria’s head. It fell across Kria’s eyes, and as she pulled it back, she began to cry.

The body of the frost-dead girl would stay as it was through the winter, frozen in this final death. Her frostbitten fingers curled into her palms forever, seeking the warmth that was once there. Kria wondered how she had died and why she was alone. Kria did not want to leave her alone anymore. Not like the bodies in the icepack, and not alone like Kria had almost become, although it would have been the frost-dead girl’s fault. Kria still could not leave her. She pitied her.

Going back inside the dim cabin, she tried to pick the girl up, to at least take her away from that lonely place. Antonia and Seorus returned to Kria’s side. The girl had been their daughter’s age when the cold took her.

The family, sad and cold, but alive, carrying their tragic charge, walked out of the frozen cabin. It was an ancient and decrepit thing, sinking into the earth around it. It seemed so much older now, looking at it in the light of the finally setting sun, now unfrozen from its stilled trajectory across the sky. The family made their way down the mountain, creeping past the roving icebergs that roamed between them and home. Serous made to cover Kria’s eyes as they passed, but she had already seen the bodies.

At last they came to their own cabin. The sun had followed them as they walked, sinking behind the mountains as they crossed the threshold into home. The journey back seemed shorter to Kria, and she wondered how long the dim cabin had been so close to theirs.

When they got to the door, Kria was frightened her parents would leave the girl outside, and just as frightened they would bring her in, and she would freeze over their cabin. But Serous carried her inside and laid her out before the hearth. The ice did not follow them in.

Seorus busied himself with gathering up his gardening tools, and Kria was too tired to wonder at that. Kria sat in her mother’s lap while her mother untangled her hair. She watched her father’s work, so she did not have to look at the girl laid out on their floor. She would cry if she looked at her.

Serous collected everything he needed, and Antonia nudged Kria from her lap. The two went back outside, Seorus carrying his pruning tools, following after Antonia, who cleared away the snow from the dogwoods that surround their house. Kria did not go outside after them, for fear of the cold, but stayed near the door, keeping her parents in-sight through the window. Her mother stood tall and straight against the cold, and her father worked quickly, as if he had no fatigue from the ordeal in the cabin on the mountain. Kria only worried for them when their faces turned away from the house.

Before Seorus made any cuts, he sent up a prayer, and Kria could see the pillars of warm air escaping his mouth in the still winter air. When he finished, he reverently cut away at the dogwoods, building up a small pile of branches. Antonia gathered them up when he finished and carried them back inside the house. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon.

Inside, Antonia handed the kindling off to Seorus, who knelt beside the dead girl, crooning to her a lullaby Kria half-remembered. Her father was building a funeral pyre in their hearth, small and crooked, without the benefit of larger boughs. Kria thought it would make a sad funeral, but at least it would be in the warmth of a home. The thought of the smoke from the girl’s body repulsed her, and she started to cry again.

“Don’t worry, Kria,” her mother assured her, as her father finished the pyre. Kria’s parents lifted the girl to place her into the fire, and Kria wiped away her tears before she rushed to help them. When they lit it, Kria looked away, not wanting to see the flames consume the frost-dead girl. The sound the fire made caused her to look back. The boughs of the dogwood burst under the flame, and released smoke that circled around the girl’s body.

The frost-dead girl stirred, like a dreamer waking, unharmed by the fire around her. Her fingers flexed, palms against the cinders, and she breathed in great gasps, a drowned thing resuscitated. The smoke from the dogwoods encircled her head and entered her lungs clean air as she drank up warm air without the chill of death. The girl sat up. Up, alive, fire-living. Apologies fell from her lips like embers, hot, living things, and she started to sob.

“I’m sorry. I was so cold and lonely. I couldn’t stop it.”

Kria dashed to the hearth to pull her free, again holding the girl in an embrace.

“It’s all right, you’re all right now.”

The family did not turn the girl back out into the cold. Instead, they made and set out one more chair at the table, a place for Lark. Kria helped her father collect the wood, and her mother to shape the chairs. The snow continued to pile up against the door, but their cabin was bright and warm. The closeness to death and the memory of frostbite was forgotten, and winter forgiven.

About the Author

Gabrielle Friesen’s deepest fears are dogs and the ocean. She works as a museum collection assistant, protecting the remnants of ancient crabs and clams from the onslaught of time. Her work has appeared in The First Line Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and the Story Seed Vault. She can be followed on twitter @BeteMonstrueuse for thoughts on monsters and bees.

LIFE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE BOTTLE

HAMILTON PEREZ

THE PLACE DIDN’T LOOK good, that was clear straight off. Dead vines hung with skeletal fingers across the open iron gates. The detritus of leaf litter and trash tumbled ominously across the yard. I could already feel a nervous thirst pulling at the back of my tongue. A thirst for something heavy, something that burned sweetly. I sipped my coffee instead.

I hadn’t talked to Allen face to face in almost three years; now I’d come to tell him our best friend, Clark, was gone—killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver in the middle of the night. Tragically, not the sort of conversation you work up to over drinks.

I’d gotten the news from Clark’s mom, a woman I hadn’t spoken to in almost ten years. I’m a terrible friend, turns out—lousy at keeping in touch when people aren’t within arm’s reach. I didn’t know, for instance, that Clark’s Dad passed away, or that Clark was going to propose to his longtime girlfriend.

So I guess I was begrudgingly grateful when his mom offered a sort of penance. “I tried calling Allen,” she told me. “I don’t think he answers his phone anymore. Do you think you could get ahold of him?”

“You can count on me!”

It took me some time making it out though. My world faded into a blur of low-lighting, faceless bodies, and heavy spirits. I still don’t remember much more than fragments. Pictures of places I shouldn’t be and people I shouldn’t be with. I guess you could say I took the passing pretty hard.

I’d first found Clark in sixth grade. He was inevitably the first person you noticed on the schoolyard blacktop. Tall and early-matured, with a naturally straight smile and the scruffy foreshadow of facial hair—wish fulfillment incarnate for every developing preteen at Merrett Stone Middle School.

Even then, he had this habit of collecting misfits. We were drawn to him. His little moth-men, flying out of the shadows, redeemed in the light of his coolness. To be caught in his orbit felt like coming home. You were safe, accepted. You belonged.

Now he was gone and I felt like my wings were ripped off me. Like God was a cruel child tearing pieces off insects. I was Icarus plummeting to the sea. What could I do but bring my thirst?

I parked the car next to the old fountain, now cracked and parched. The mansion loomed ahead like a hungry, living thing. I straightened myself out, shaking off the hangover fog as I marched to the door. Canary, meet Cat.

Don’t get me wrong, Clark may have been my best friend, but Allen was my other best friend—with other being the operative word. Once upon a time the three of us were thicker than fat thieves, but distance and time take their toll, and I wasn’t sure I could tackle Allen and all of his otherness by myself.

Lightly I knocked, and waited. Nothing. I’m not here to sell him Girl Scout cookies, I told myself, so I made a fist and I hit it against the door, and the door cracked open. You’d think it would creak like some haunted house cliché, but it was quiet as anything, and it creeped me the hell out.

“Allen? You in there? It’s me,” I cleared my throat, “It’s Ben.” No one answered.

I stepped to the open door and it slammed in my face. “Allen?” I startled. Nothing. I rapped on the door again. Harder this time. Still, no answer. This just wasn’t going to do.

The door was unlocked, and it opened without any trouble. Inside, I found the white marble floors against white walls and white balustrade curling along the white staircase looked just as sanitarium as I remembered. But there was one thing out of place.

Across the foyer, a heavy wooden door stood like a guard where a hallway used to be. It looked like something from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, made of sturdy planks stapled together with thick bands of iron. That door ought to have sent me running; instead I walked right up to it and knocked.

As if in response, something skittered softly through the walls. Mice, I told myself. But the ta-ta-ta-tap, ta-ta-ta-tap, sounded like a hell of a lot more than four legs.

Questions began to murmur through my head—an Inquisitor muttering fears and doubts in hushed tones: Why a dungeon door when the front door’s unlocked? Why a dungeon door at all? I brushed it off. I just wanted to get through this.

The door had an ugly pewter knob and, like the first, it was unlocked. Also like the first, it didn’t creak at all. Instead there was weeping and a young girl’s voice.

“Are you a prince?”

The girl was a cotton-and-cloth doll of about two feet. In her knitted hands slumped a plush dog with big X’s stitched over its eyes. “Did you come to wake up Cassie?” said the doll, her black button eyes fixed on me. “All she needs is a kiss from a prince.”

One thing you’ve got to understand: Allen isn’t like most people. Tragedies can warp the best of us, and Allen suffered them more than most. So when I saw this doll, I told myself she was just a part of his life’s work. Weird work to be sure, but some people knit cosplay outfits for cats.

“Does he just let you walk around the house?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

“The door was left open. It isn’t always, but sometimes.”

“Oh. Is, um, Allen home?”

“I’m Allen,” she said, offended.

I reflected on that a moment. I was pretty sure I hadn’t taken anything that morning, but we were getting to that point of weird where you realize you’re either dreaming or those weren’t just any mushrooms you put in your eggs.

Meanwhile, the Inquisitor in my head was getting louder with his questions. No, no no, I told him, Shhhhh… and I rubbed my sore temples to quiet him.

“What do you mean, you’re Allen?” I asked, afraid of the answer she might give.

“When will Cassie wake up?”

I had some vague recollection of Allen having a dog whose name might have been Cassie. “Sorry, kid. I think Cassie needs her rest.”

Her black button eyes turned to the lifeless doll in her arms. “She… dead?”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “Dead’s a strong word.”

Her face scrunched like Kermit the Frog. It was hard not to imagine a hand behind her eyes curling into a claw. The doll turned away from me and stomped down the hall, disappearing into an open room.

“Allen?” I called after her—or him, or anybody really. At that point, any Allen would do. I just needed to see this through. No one answered though, so I followed her down the hall.

Around me, the walls were still decorated with the family crest and old hunting paraphernalia—rifles in need of some polish, African shields crossed with spears. Further down were the same portraits I grew up watching closely because I knew they watched me too. Allen’s great-great grandparents who’d acquired the family wealth stared back at me, their smiles grim and hard-won. Then there were Allen’s parents, and beside them was little Allen and his little brother, Matthew.

Now I was just alone with the ghosts on the wall, and it sent shivers down my spine and into less savory places as well.

Before entering the room, I noticed a cheap deadbolt had been installed on the door and frame. The Inquisitor was hammering at my head now. Hello?! he said. This is bad!

Shhh…

The last time I was in that room, I was helping Clark move out of it. He and I were the only roommates Allen ever had, though we each lived there rent-free for years. Clark was the first to go, no longer willing to watch Allen retreat deeper into the house. I left shortly after, unable to live with so much empty space. Apparently, so was Allen.

The room was completely unfurnished, instead full of dolls of all sizes and shapes, from little stuffed animals all the way up to Snuffleupagus monstrosities. Bullies like egg-shaped monoliths ran across the room knocking over whomever they could reach with their tiny arms. Little puppet children played games or asked explicitly for attention.

One doll I recognized despite his safari hunter outfit. He blasted a rubber rifle at those in his path, exploding red confetti all over their faces. Seeing him stirred something in me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or throw up.

In the middle of this mess was the doll that came to me in the hallway. She was banging her dead dog over the head of a shriveled, white-haired grandmother. “You left the door open!” the young girl squealed. “You killed Cassie!”

“Everybody listen!” I shouted, and all the dolls stopped what they were doing and faced me. “I need to find Allen.”

They all just stared with unblinking, black button eyes.

“I’m Allen,” said one.

“I’m Allen,” said another.

Soon they were all correcting one another, in an awful chorus of “I’m Allen.” Their ringing voices didn’t help my hangover any, and they just kept going. I felt like Laurence Olivier searching for Spartacus.

“I’m Allen. I’m Allen. I’m Allen.”

As I tried calming them down, the door behind me slammed shut. Suddenly, I was the stupid guy in horror movies that goes further in despite all the signs he should leave.

“Hey!” I shouted as loud as I could, banging my fists against the door. “Hey! Let me out! Let me out of here!”

“I’m Allen! I’m Allen! I’m Allen!” continued behind me.

Finally, the door opened, and there was Allen. He had a beard as untamed as the outside green, and at first I thought he was a squatter. He said something, but his voice was drowned out by the puppets, so he pushed past me and shouted, “I’m Allen,” and they all fell silent.

“Sorry,” he said, turning to me for a hug. “Ben! How are you, man? What are you doing here?”

Nice to see ya, it’s been awhile, oh, Clark? He was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver…

“Um, I’m okay…” I said. “Is there a place we can talk?”

“Sure, let’s get out of here.” The dolls watched us with their blank stares as we stepped out of the room. Allen shut the door behind us, and then we were just alone.

“I tried knocking…” I told him. Now I was without words, my purpose being there had all leaked out through my toes. Better than other places, I guess.

“Yeah, sorry, I was working. I never hear it when people come over so I just leave it unlocked.”

“Do people come over often?”

“Oh, um—Hey! I should show you around! You haven’t seen the place since I remodeled.” He began walking down the hall when one of the doors closest to me rattled violently against its frame.

“Whoa!” I startled, practically jumping into Allen’s arms. “What’s in there?”

“Nothing…” said Allen, distantly, and the rattling stopped dead. “Absolutely nothing. You can’t go in there. No one can…”

In general, that’s not the sort of thing you want to hear about the creepy room in a house. I knew I had to get through this quickly so I summoned up my nerve. “Listen man, there’s no easy way to say this…”

Allen turned to me expectantly, his eyes clear and breakable as glass. Despite the patchy beard, in that moment he looked like old Allen again. Just a lonely kid trying to understand the world and why it’s so cruel. I couldn’t do it to him.

“…What are those things?” I said, pointing back to the first room.

“Oh!” he said, and laughed. “Sorry, I forget they need explaining—weird what you can get used to. They’re my Griefings!”

“Allen… Listen, man, what the hell is a Griefing?”

“It’s where you take your grief and you make it into a puppet.” He said it simply like it was some new trend he got from a how-to video some friend’s friend shared on Facebook.

“That’s a thing?” I scratched my head.

“It is now. Come here, you want to see something else?!”

Allen hustled excitedly to one of the doors. This one had a sliding peephole which unnerved me. I remember thinking to myself: Please don’t be a captive. Please don’t be a captive. And God, I really wish he had just kidnapped somebody.

“Check this,” he said, grinning, and opened the slider.

Like the room before, this one had no furnishings. Instead it was full of strange, pulsating mounds of milky bubbles. They were layered with yellow veins and some were deflated like popped blisters.

As the quiet came over us, I found an irrepressible urge to fill it with something. “Allen… I’m afraid I have some bad news…” When I looked back at him, his face drew quizzical and I couldn’t take the worry in his eyes. “…I’m afraid your pet deposit is shot to hell.”

He laughed and I smiled and it was nice for a moment, but then something lashed at the peephole, all teeth and legs. I fell back and hit the other end of the hall, my heart trying to break from its cage.

“Whoa! You okay?” asked Allen, his hand outstretched to me.

I swatted him off. “Of course. It’s only a giant, man-eating spider monster locked in your little brother’s old bedroom…” His face softened, hurt. “How often do you check the locks? Is it a lot? I hope it’s a lot.”

“It can’t get out,” he said. “I won’t let it. Took too long to capture the first time…”

“Allen… aside from Ridley’s secret inspiration for the Alien, what the hell is it?”

“Anger,” he said. “That’s my anger. And don’t get all judge-y, mister. You’ve got one inside you, too.”

“Why are you keeping it here? Why haven’t you killed it? Or at least flushed it out an airlock?” I thought back to those strange sounds coming from behind the walls. The sound of too many feet thumping on the other side.

“I don’t think you can. Not for real. Not forever. But the important thing is that it’s contained. And look at me!” he said, smiling, “Do I look angry?”

“Allen, you’ve never looked angry.”

“Neither did Dad…” He said it like a mere awkward fact, some embarrassing history we should scrunch our faces at.

“Sorry.” That was a whole pile of corpses I didn’t want to dig up.

“Stuff your sorry’s in a sack, mister. This is nothing! The enterprise, the full enterprise, is this house. Every room has taken months, sometimes years, of dedicated work. I’ve made some breakthroughs though. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that sits inside a person. You wanna see more?”

“I shouldn’t, Allen. Listen, I only brought the underpants I’m wearing, and they’re basically shot at this point, so I think I should—”

“Ah, okay, I understand, no problem,” he said. “Well, you know the way out. Thanks for stopping by.” Allen was never one for subtlety. He was ready for me to leave. At least that we had in common. But then I saw something impossible.

Standing at the end of the gallery hall was Matthew, Allen’s long-dead little brother—still eight years old, still wearing his awesome Spider-man pajamas: the blue ones with Spider-man’s face all over.

I only saw him for a second before Allen came in for a quick hug. So quick in fact that he pulled away before I’d even realized we were hugging. The kid was gone now, and I wondered what Allen was hiding…

Please don’t be a captive. Please don’t be a captive.

“What the hell!” I found myself saying. “It’s been years! Show me this project of yours.”

“Enterprise,” he corrected, and I swear, I was ready to punch him in the face if he tried To boldly go…

DURING THE OFFICIAL TOUR, I found the house where we used to have slumber parties and midnight games of flashlight tag had become something much, much darker. Allen tried to explain it in “rational” terms. If you think of the brain as a computer, then this enterprise was like his virus scan. Cleaning the hard drive by quarantining malware.

“The first room you saw was grief, obviously. The next was anger. And then regret, envy, and sloth.”

“Yeah, the sloths kind of gave that one away.”

“Those headless monkeys though—they were confusion. That one’s not very intuitive I suppose, but that’s what came out.”

“What about the shaking door?” I asked.

“Ahead is the parlor,” he went on, his face nothing but an enthusiastic smile. I almost thought he was about to sell me a used car. “I think you’ll find this room’s changed quite a bit since your last visit.”

There was no lock on this door which gave me hope. Maybe the kid-that-couldn’t-be-Matthew was in there. I tried to assure myself that there was a perfectly healthy reason Allen had a dead little brother look-a-like running though his house in pajamas…

As soon as Allen twisted the knob I pushed myself past him and through. Inside, the walls were plastered all over with the broken reflective shards, and everywhere staring back at me were eyes full of shock and wonder and awe.

The familiar, alien faces moved when I moved, they winked and smiled when I gasped. Every reflective surface beheld some strange and attractive version of myself—an ideal me—and I had no idea I had so many ideals.

In some I looked like an English professor, others a playboy, but in all of them I was surrounded by admirers. I was the focal point. The center of attention. The life of the party. In those mirrors I saw everything I’d always wanted my life to be. Dangerous and profound and wild and wise.

But aside from all of me, the room was empty. “Nothing in here…” I said, faintly wondering about the boy while stepping further in.

“What do you mean?” asked Allen.

Across the room I saw myself caked in dirt and dried blood, wearing black leather, black denim, and boots. My face was a handsome mess of stubble and scars.

“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about?” Allen said behind me. I then noticed the closet door ajar and moved toward it. “Don’t go over there!” Allen called nervously as I crossed the room. That told me I was onto something. I yanked the door open and looked within.

Inside, there was nothing and nobody. Just more reflections of myself. But these weren’t the sunny images that had drawn me in. Here I lay in a hospital bed, jaundiced and breathing heavy. Here I sprawled across a gutter, a halo of broken glass glittering around my head. Here I sat in a grungy apartment, sunlight creeping through the cracks of the blinds, while I watched TV and drank through the day.

Alone. Alone. Alone.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the closet “For every fantasy,” said Allen, gently, “there’s a fear.” I couldn’t look from the bloodshot reflection of my eyes as they shrank further and further until they were mere dots of red—as distant and lonely as Mars.

Allen dragged me out, shutting the door behind us, and helping me regain my bearings.

“I need a drink,” I said instinctively, wanting to wash away the anxiety that now wracked my limbs. Saying it aloud made me feel dirty though. I needed a drink to forget I needed a drink.

“Eh… the bar’s been turned into Secret’s room. We can go there, but every time you open a bottle a secret gets out.”

“What’s down this way?” I said quickly, remembering my real purpose. I pulled myself together and carried on. After all, alcoholics are known for their constitution.

ROOM AFTER ROOM WE went. The library was now covered in chains that kept unanswered questions from flying off the shelves. The walls of the rotunda squirmed and writhed like living things. I was grateful there was no closet there. No place to hide skeletons or what one might want to do with them.

Finally, we came to the wine cellar. I had a bad feeling about that one right away. Allen was answering questions less and less, simply saying, “You’ll see,” with a gesture, and avoiding eye contact. I was definitely getting a Cask of Amontillado vibe.

“Are we uh, really at the wine cellar already? Aren’t there other rooms left?” I asked. “Maybe one that we overlooked before…”

“None we can go in…” he said distantly, and gestured for me to go down into the dark.

“Where’s the light?”

“There’s no light down there. You’ll see.”

“You’re not coming in?” I asked.

“That would defeat the purpose. But if you still need to understand why I’ve done this, embarked on this enterprise to boldly go…” I tuned him out at that point. Just bury me, dude.

As he shut the door behind me, I saw down the hallway behind him, the boy in the god damned Spider-man pajamas. The door shut before I could speak.

“Just holler when you need to come out,” Allen said from the other side. I was about to tell him I’d seen enough before I’d seen anything at all, but then a purple light flashed behind me and drew me back around.

Hands against the railing, I made my way down the steps to the bottom. There were no shelves, racks, or casks down here. It was completely gutted. A black nothingness, an oblivion made to be forgotten, to sit unknown at the foundation of all things.

Then a nimbus of light whirled and waved in front of me. An aurora borealis of scarlet and amber-gold splashed across the room like a Tequila Sunrise. Whispers crept from every corner, words of love and grief and fear—eulogies and distant screams for help.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Like floating through the Pillars of Heaven. In the dancing lights I glimpsed the fuzzy outline of people I used to know, of familiar places, of memories long forgot, slowly coming into focus.

There was me, Clark, and Allen, all of twelve years old, pitting our miniature barbarian, monk, and cleric against a roaming pack of owlbears. The laughter rolled from our mouths like the dice from our hands.

Emerald Shooters, Cosmopolitans, and Adios Mother Fuckers swirled and splashed about me, ushering in memories I hadn’t thought of in years. I smiled as I watched our happy childhood spill out, all a mess and out of order. I saw us as men, as children, as teens. I saw us making nachos with specially imported white cheddar and freshly baked chips, only to burn them to carcinogens in the microwave. I saw us bringing girls back to the house, only for them to be drawn to Clark and his natural charisma.

But there were other, darker times as well. There were funerals, and heartbreaks, and Clark moving out of the house. I never realized what a big deal that was for Allen. It was the end of a fellowship, and the last time we’d all be together.

The lights turned crimson and violet, darker and darker they grew. Merlot and Bloody Mary’s poured around me, threatening to wash me away.

Some days, Allen just paced through the house, roaming the halls alone with no one to talk to and nothing to do, trying to keep himself occupied, afraid of what he might do if he stopped.

I watched him walk the halls like a deranged warden, removing locks, turning knobs, and moving on.

I witnessed him as an adult stitch together his first Griefing, and the doll become animate with the strange life he imbued it. And I saw him slumped on the tile floor, exhausted, his back against a door that thumped and shook furiously.

Further back, I saw him at fourteen, running scared. Behind him, his father wielded a gun, a madness in his eyes that made him almost unrecognizable.

On my left appeared Allen’s mother, slumped against the foyer staircase with a red smear across her blouse. From my right came a tiny voice, whimpering, but no one appeared.

It took me a moment to recognize—it was Matthew that was crying, little Matthew that called for help. Allen ran towards the weeping, but where Matthew should have been there was only a shadow and a voice. “Why, Allen?” he wept, “Why’d he do it?” Behind them came a wild shout, and then the Clack! Clack! of metal locking, and then I had enough.

“Allen! Open the door!! OPEN THE DOOR!” I called, searching through the black for the way out but the darkness was without end, unfazed by the bright and colorful memories crashing through the room. Up the stairs I went, but in the black I tripped and twisted my leg, crumpling further down the steps. “ALLEN!! ALLEN!!” I called, afraid to see more, afraid to be stuck in this.

Behind me came the screams, the sounds of bare feet smack, smack, smacking against the tile as they ran, gun blasts that blew through my nerves, rattling my bones.

Light cracked open before me. I pulled myself to my feet and shambled up the stairs, ignoring the pain that throbbed all over. The door was slow to open. I pushed my weight against it, but it resisted.

“Allen! Allen, let me out!”

Was this it? Was he trapping me?

The door cracked further, inch by terrible inch, until it opened enough that I threw my body into the light, collapsing on the floor and drinking it in.

“Sorry,” said Allen’s shaky voice. “The door is lined with lead to keep them from getting out…” I was too overwhelmed to think on what I just saw. “Did you see what you needed to?”

My head ached, my body shivered. I wanted to break down and cry. They weren’t even my memories. I opened my mouth to speak, and something horrible came out.

“Clark is dead.”

I don’t think that’s what I meant to say, but that’s what spilled out of me, and when it did I felt like I’d knocked over an urn which then shattered across the floor. “I’m… God, I’m so sorry, Allen.”

“Wow…” he said, and looked away from me.

I struggled to my feet. I’d twisted my ankle pretty bad in there. But Allen needed to know and there was no running left in me. “It was a drunk driver, middle of the night. Wrong place, wrong time. Just wrong.”

“That’s going to take a while to process…” he said, as far off as another galaxy. His fingers twitched nervously against each other, and I got the sense he was anxious to stitch together another doll.

“Allen, let’s just get out of here,” I said. “Let’s grab a beer and talk…” I placed a hand on his shoulder, but he felt further away than ever.

His eyes found me then, though I didn’t see Allen anywhere in them. “Thank you for visiting,” he said, backing off. “I’ll be okay though. I just have a lot of work to do. You should go.”

“Allen, come on. Don’t be like that.” I stepped toward him, but he pulled further back, avoiding eye contact. “Allen, we’re friends. We deal with this together.” With every step I took, he took two away from me. His eyes would look anywhere but at mine, until I asked bluntly: “Where are you going?!”

“GET AWAY FROM ME!!”

It was a roar, and with it doors burst open all through the house, their locks and chains clanging and broken. Even the led-lined cellar door slid off-kilter from its hinges.

Allen’s face was a contorted mess, and Allen wasn’t anywhere in there. There was a fire in his eyes that said he could really do anything. I stepped back, afraid, and the fire dissipated.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that… Listen, I appreciate you coming by. But you should really go. I’ll be okay. I just have a lot of work to do… I’m sure I don’t have to show you the way out?”

“No… I think I can still find my way.” I turned back and started walking.

“Take the stairs,” Allen warned. “Not the gallery hall.” He pulled a rifle from a locked cabinet and started loading it with feathered darts. In the cabinet I spotted a black suit of metallic body armor, and hanging beside it were spears, swords, axes, and nets. I thought of Allen’s anger roaming through the gallery hall; the portraits watching passively as it went room to room looking for victims, only finding another expression of himself.

Just past Allen, standing in the mouth of the cellar door, was Matthew. He watched Allen with the same fear he’d had for their father. I recognized him now, knew what he was. Some memory I couldn’t help or save or dispel.

I WAS ALMOST OUT. I’d made it to the foyer and down the steps to the ground floor, when I noticed the dungeon door I’d first entered this nightmare through was still shut. It might have been the only one in the whole house that didn’t burst open.

Well, that’s what a dungeon door is for, I told myself. But that got me wondering if the shaking door beyond it was still shut as well.

If Allen had no problem showing me his room of spindly horrors, his painful memories, his Griefings, or his chamber of fleshlights, what dark thing did he keep locked in there?

Cautiously, I opened the dungeon door and peered within. The family portraits had all fallen to the floor. They sat lopsided against the walls, the glass cracked, held together only by splintered frames. The spears and shields and coat of arms lay in a heap like unsorted trash. Every door hung open and swayed as if a wind blew through that lifeless hall.

I stepped inside, lightly closing the door behind me, and walked slow and quiet all the way to the formerly shaking door, which was now just a gaping hole. The air coming out of it smelled centuries old. It blew in my face, brushed my hair, whistled in my ears. The light from the hall couldn’t penetrate this room. It was all blackness, vast and unbroken. Another memory room, I wondered. But no. There was no memory here.

I ventured in, waiting for whatever part of himself Allen had locked away to present itself. There seemed to be something crouching in the darkness ahead of me, only slightly darker than the blackness around it. I walked toward it, and the figure slinked further in.

Please don’t be a captive. Please don’t be a captive.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Still the shadow pulled away.

One moment it seemed small and animal-like, cute even, like a Pokémon hiding in the dark. The next, it was human-shaped, some twisted shadow of my once-friend. Deeper in I followed, never stopping to realize how impossibly far I’d gone—past the length of rooms, great halls, and houses.

And then the figure simply vanished, blended with the black and was gone. Amazed, I turned back around, only to see the exit was a long ways off. The wind now chilled me to the bone, made my whole body rigid. And then I heard the Pop! Crack! Pop! across my skin, as ice wrapped around my limbs.

Time to go, I thought, and started toward the door. The floor cracked with each step. Only then did I realize it was glass, with nothing but the void beneath. If it broke, I knew I would fall forever. Never stopping.

Was it only the cold that made my body so heavy? That made it so damn hard to move? That fogged my mind and made concentration impossible? I focused on getting through the door, on just getting out, until I forgot nearly everything else. Who I was. What I was doing.

Something came over me then. My will to go on, to walk out that door, sank through my stomach and far down below. I just stood there, the open door right before me, but I couldn’t see anything beyond its frame except another wall.

Maybe there isn’t anything beyond the frame, I wondered.

I tried to push myself onward and out, but the distance was too far. I’d never make it. It wasn’t worth the walk. Nothing was worth anything. Why was I even here? There was nothing. Nothing but a door to a wall. What was that to struggle and fight for?

Hours, days, weeks might have passed with me just standing there. My stomach growled but I never hungered. My throat grew parched, but I never thirst. I’d not only lost my will to live, I’d lost my will to anything.

Then one of the Griefings, the girl-puppet from before, peaked around the corner. Even from so far away, I could see the hope and fear and sadness in her black button eyes. “Please…” she said. “Please, please, please don’t be dead…” Her cloth-face scrunched absurdly, and it broke whatever was left of my heart.

The numbness that engulfed me lessened. Sensation dripped like icy shards down my arms. I ventured a step, and then another, and then again, each one threatening to break me. The glass beneath cracked and snapped and branched but never caved, and the distance that seemed so impossible to cross was actually not so far as it felt.

Once I made it through the doorway, I collapsed against the wall, exhausted. “You saved me, Allen,” I said.

“Couldn’t let you go,” the doll replied. “Once someone goes, it’s like they’re not real anymore. That’s what that room does to you. Makes you shadows and nothing.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I dunno. I think it’s the end. Everybody’s got one.”

I thought of Allen’s memories, of him leaning against the same door, of him removing the locks, of the pieces tearing him apart and holding him together.

“Thank you…” I said to the doll.

The girl giggled. “You’re nice. I hope you come back.”

“I’ll try,” I told her.

“Well, that’s all any of us can do.”

Glancing down the length of the hall, I saw a sloth slowly sauntering our direction. Further down, was the shadow of some skittering, many-legged creature.

I wanted a drink something fierce then. It would have been real easy, if I’m being honest. After all, it had been a mistake to turn back around the first time. And Allen wanted me gone. And I knew a real good dive just a bit down the road.

But instead, I stood up and dusted myself off. I picked up little Allen in my arms and carried her to her room. “You’ll be safe here,” I told her and locked the door. I then scooped up the sloth, grabbed one of the fallen spears to protect us, and headed back in to help my friend catch his demons.

About the Author

Hamilton Perez is a writer and freelance editor living in Sacramento, California. When not writing, he can be found rolling 20-sided dice or chasing squirrels with the dog. His stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Metaphorosis, and Syntax & Salt. You can follow him on Twitter @TheWritingHam.

EVEN DRAGONS DIE

STEPHEN TAYLOR

IN THE KINGDOM OF Vermilione, we once had a dragon. Many kingdoms knew about dragons, talked about them—great creatures of fire and wind, old as the earth itself—but we actually had one. He was the only dragon in the world, I think. He served us, and we served him. Now I am one of the only people left who remember the dragon Ilses.

I most remember a day early in the autumn, when harvest was just ending, and waves of blushing leaves began to fall around the castle. Vermilione had a beautiful castle—still does—flanked by great red hills. I walked in the center courtyard by the linden trees, heading for the west yard, eager to see Ilses. A guardsman stopped me at the courtyard doorway.

The man crouched to where he could meet my eyes and I could smell his hot breath; a big soldier, thick and bald-headed. He asked me what a young lady of royalty was doing out so early, on her own, heading toward the dangerous west courtyard. He tried to make me feel at ease, but he could no more fool me than I could shoulder him aside. He was nervous about something.

“Are you excited for your father to return?” he asked, still blocking the doorway.

I nodded. “He said he'd bring something from the north holds. But he asked me to keep an eye on Ilses while he was gone. So I need to go visit him now.”

“Ah, of course. Of course you do, Princess Peldena. But the master healer is in there right now, and I think his work will have to be finished before you can visit Ilses.”

The master healer? What would he be doing with Ilses? If I had have been a year or two older, perhaps I would have realized what it meant.

“Princess, why don't you run along?” the soldier suggested. “Master Deon will take care of the dragon, and you can visit him later.”

Since it sounded reasonable enough to me, a ten-year old child, I walked away.

That was how the day began for me. I sometimes wish I remembered it less.

It was later in the day that I decided to go and see what Master Healer Deon was doing. I noticed that a soldier still watched the doorway to the west courtyard, so I climbed up a winding stairway behind the main wing of the castle. From the second level I headed out along an open colonnade overlooking the courtyard. Deon was there, sure enough, and so was Ilses.

Ilses was an old, old creature, but the dragon looked strong in a way that evaded age. His scale coat was deep red, and a single black stripe ran from snout to tail-tip on each side of his head. His spines were like ebony lances, his face a horned mask, and his hooked wings, brilliant scarlet, were wide and light as ship sails in the wind.

I saw instantly that something was wrong with him.

Ilses lay curled at the center of the courtyard, eyes darting to his sides where several men in green healers' coats tried to approach him. Before any of the healers could touch him, he snarled and snapped close beside them. Not to hurt, but to warn. The healers scurried out of range, only to try approaching again a second later, while Deon and a few others shouted orders from the edges of the yard. Several soldiers stood guard by the courtyard entrances. Between the shouts I heard Ilses whimpering—a low sound like rusty hinges. Foam lined his muzzle and his own blood dripped on the cobbles below his mouth.

“Don't rush him now,” Deon called. “Step in slowly, and hold the salve out.”

“He’ll chomp our arms off, Deon!”

“He’s not mad—just ill,” Deon growled. “Slowly now, ease toward him. Past his neck.”

Three of the healers had stepped halfway to Ilses' long body when he jerked sideways and snapped his jaws at them. Deon cursed and cuffed the men cowering around him, but he would step no closer than they would. “We'll just have to wait until he's tired, that's all.”

“Princess Peldena!”

I jerked around, suddenly dizzy and blurry-eyed, to find an old chambermaid reaching for my hand. “Come away from there,” she urged me. “You shouldn't see that awful sight.”

I pulled away from the chambermaid, probably telling her to leave me alone. I can't remember for sure, only that my eyes stayed fixed on Ilses. And his eyes met mine, his deep round eyes. Again he whimpered, and I mouthed his name in response.

ILSES HAD ALWAYS STAYED in the west courtyard, where he had space and a comfortable measure of solitude. Normally I could visit him at my leisure, but master healer Deon had all entrances to the courtyard blocked off that afternoon. Once they knew that I had watched from an outside corridor, they blocked it off too, and Deon personally came to explain things to me. Child and fool that I was, I probably needed the explanation.

“Ilses is very sick, Princess,” Deon said, “and angry too. It's dangerous for anyone to go near him right now.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “He's afraid of your men. He knows me. Maybe—”

“He needs rest right now. I'm sorry, Princess Peldena, but I can't let you go near him.” Deon sighed, looking me in the eye. “You understand, don't you? He's not well enough to see you. Perhaps in a day or two. . .”

I went over things in my head, trying to work something out so that I could visit Ilses. Deon's men had to be the problem, and I could take better care of Ilses myself if only they would let me. I was the one who was meant to care for him, after all. The royal family and a few hand-picked others had tended him as long as he’d been part of Vermilione. He was no stable beast. He was practically a god, because he was a dragon. Because he was the only dragon in the world.

Late in the day I thought of a simple way to see him. I needed only ask my sister, who could surely brush past anything Deon or the guards or even father's steward said.

Raldél was eight years older than me, and had always been twice the princess that I was. She was tall and elegant, with long blackish-red hair and eyes. She was calm and clever, she was selfless, and the kingdom of Vermilione knew it. No one would stop me from visiting Ilses if she gave me permission, and she had always treated me as if I were the future queen, not her.

I loved Raldél more than I loved anyone else. Maybe that's why I was blind enough to think she wouldn't know about Ilses yet.

I found my sister studying, though she set her books aside the instant I entered her room. That was Raldél, smiling and ready to help the younger sister any other girl would have shunned. I wonder if she did shun me, ugly awkward Peldena? She concealed it well, if she’d ever wished to. I can never measure how much I miss her. She’s dead too now.

“Have you heard the news from father?” she asked eagerly. “A message just arrived.”

I shook my head, almost forgetting why I had come. “What does he say?”

Raldél pulled a smoothed parchment from her desk. “He says that his negotiations in the north holds have finished early, so he'll be able to return within the next week. He also said to make sure we have a good welcome ready. It sounds like the northerners are good-hearted but thick in the head.”

“They haven't hurt him, have they?”

Raldél laughed. “I'm sure that they've treated him very well, in their own ways.”

She read father's letter with her normal grace and power. She showed me a map, and how many miles father would have to travel, then she let me read some of what she was studying—almost as if I could help her with it. I was happily distracted until Raldél lowered her voice and asked, “Have you visited Ilses today?”

“Not today. Master Deon says he's sick. He says I can't visit until Ilses is feeling better.”

“He wouldn't let you visit yet?” Raldél asked with a frown.

“No, but if you say that it's alright. . .” I looked up at her dark eyes. “Can you speak to him, Raldél?”

My sister looked puzzled. “You haven't seen him at all?”

“Just from outside the courtyard, and they won't even let me go there now. I know he's sick, though.”

“And that’s all Master Deon told you, that Ilses is sick?”

“Yes, and that I couldn't visit him for a day or two. But he's going to be alright, isn't he?” I asked, still peering up to watch my sister's dark eyes.

There was a moment, only a moment, before Raldél took my hand and said, “We will visit him, Peldena. Don't worry—Master Deon will let us once I speak to him.”

Raldél had me wait in the central courtyard while she found Deon. A guardsman still stood blocking the west corridor, but he let us pass when Raldél returned. She carried the faded gray smocks we always wore when tending to Ilses, plus a basin of oil and half-crushed herbs.

“Master Deon is leaving Ilses' care to us now,” she explained. “As it should be.”

I nodded. “He'll be more comfortable if it's just us. How long can we stay with him?”

“As long as he needs us.”

“Until he's well?”

“As long as he needs us.”

When we reached the west courtyard, there was no sign of Deon's healers. Just Ilses, resting at the center of the yard and whimpering softly with every few great breaths he took. We pulled the smocks over our dresses and approached him, Raldél speaking softly. Ilses stirred when he heard her voice, lifted his head a little and turned his eyes to meet us. I smiled. I almost thought Ilses smiled back at me. I put my hand on his neck and found it cold, shaking slightly.

Raldél handed me the basin of oil. “Here. Mix those herbs in, and then we'll spread it over his coat.”

I coughed at the bitter smell. “Is it some kind of medicine?”

“Yes, for his scales. Hurry now, while it's still warm.”

I used a small pestle to finish crushing the herbs, turning my face away as dry, woody scents drifted up. Raldél poured several vials of amber liquid onto Ilses' snout and neck, rubbing extra amounts over some markedly dark patches of scales. When she was done with the liquid she added a few drops of atherpetal oil to my mixture, then a handful of colorless powder. She had me mix it into a thin paste that made my eyes water no matter how far away I held the basin.

The sun was setting by the time our ointment was finished. A few servants spread red lanterns around the courtyard, which gave just enough light for us to see where Ilses' scales were dry or cracked or still glinting from Raldél's rubbing. Ilses was almost rigid when we started spreading the ointment, muscles locked throughout his neck and body, and he gave several great coughs before Raldél could rub anything around his closed jaws. She made sure we were slow and careful, and soon Ilses began to relax and almost sigh as if his pain was fading. His eyes followed us as we worked. I think I was happier those short moments than any other time I tended him.

A servant watched silently from the walkway above the courtyard, and someone brought a platter of food to us soon after sunset. We settled by Ilses' neck and ate quietly, listening to his eased breath and feeling the great current of his body. Fireflies, perhaps the last we saw that season, faded in and out against the courtyard walls.

“Peldena,” Raldél said slowly, setting her food aside. “Did Master Deon tell you what's wrong with Ilses?”

I must have tried to remember something, but couldn't. “Is it bad for us to be near him too long?” I asked.

“No, it's alright for us. But his sickness is worse than normal.”

Perhaps something in her voice warned me. Or maybe, just as it was every other time, I didn't notice my sister's fear.

“What do you mean?”

She breathed, and said, “Ilses is dying.”

I wonder if I believed her. Either I believed, or I convinced myself that she was wrong, that Deon was wrong, that Ilses could never die. He was the dragon of Vermilione. He was the only dragon. Somehow I knew that he would always be part of our kingdom.

I remember Raldél holding me and stroking my hair. I must have believed her then.

“What can we do?” I sobbed, tightening my hold on her hands.

Ilses approached me before she could answer. He turned his neck to face me, eyes coming so close I could count the flakes of broken scales in their corners. As tears dropped down my face, Ilses lifted his snout and breathed a response, a signal to me. If only he could have spoken. If only I could have said something that he would understand, before he withdrew and lowered his head to the ground. Perhaps neither of us needed to speak to be understood.

Raldél met my eyes. “We’ll stay with him,” she said firmly. Her eyes were watery but she didn't cry. She gripped my hands and cradled me, while Ilses' neck cradled the both of us. “We'll stay with him as long as he needs us.”

The night was mercifully warm, as if the summer was just coming instead of going. We stayed huddled by Ilses, though his body needed the evening warmth more than we did.

“If father were here, would he know what to do?” I asked.

“Sometimes there isn't anything we can change.”

“But Ilses—”

“Even dragons die, Peldena,” Raldél said, and it was the only time I can remember her speaking coldly to me. I deserved it. I must have doubled my sister's pain at losing our old friend, the way my ignorance forced her to explain what no one else would explain.

After a long time Raldél said, “Ilses has lived a long life, hasn't he? The longest life of any being in the entire world. Hasn't he?”

I nodded my head.

“Then maybe he needs a rest. We can let him finish everything he's started. If father were here, I think that’s what he would do.”

“You mean, do nothing?”

She paused, stiffening. “ . . .I wish I had told you he was sick before today.”

Perhaps Raldél somehow blamed herself for Ilses’ illness. I thought nothing of it at the time, but I can’t help but wonder now. I put my hand on Ilses' snout, suddenly amazed at how he calmed when I touched him. Then I said farewell, and I believe that he understood me again.

“Now let him try and sleep,” Raldél said, and we eased ourselves away.

His breathing slowed and softened like the night air around us. Raldél led me to the corner of the courtyard, still close enough to see him, but far enough at the same time. It was a good distance. She always felt just what was right. I leaned on her shoulder and let my eyes close, let my thoughts ripple to nothing as they had the previous night, and probably would the next and the next over. I doubt that Raldél slept.

When I awoke the next morning, our lanterns were cold shells and our backs were stiff and Ilses was dead.

About the Author

Stephen Taylor's dream job is to write novels, conduct an orchestra, and walk around outside all day. Since this job doesn't exist, he writes short stories, plays his violin, and works a desk job. His short fiction has previously appeared in The Colored Lens and The Future Fire magazines. You can follow him on Twitter @staylortay.

WITH GREAT POWER COMES

NOT-SO-GREAT PLAYLISTS

FREDRICK OBERMEYER

JUSTIN BIEBER IS MY Kryptonite, Howard Galveros thought. Oh, that’s just great.

Howard lay moaning on the lawn outside his white colonial house in rural Maine. On the back porch near him, a laptop blared Justin Bieber’s “Baby” through its speakers. With each note that little Canadian bastard warbled, more pain tore through Howard’s body.

Please, God, make it stop! Howard thought.

Howard struggled to drag himself across the small space between the grass and the porch. By the time he got there, he was ready to pass out. He reached out with his right hand to hit the volume down button on the laptop keyboard, but he was so weak that his hand fell next to it.

He considered waiting for the song to end, but he didn’t think he could take another second of it.

He lifted his leaden hand and stretched out his right index finger until finally he managed to press the volume down button. His strength returned as he pushed the button some more and the music faded.

Out of idle curiosity, Howard had already tried two of Bieber’s other songs, “One Less Lonely Girl,” and “Boyfriend,” wondering what new superpowers he would gain. Only to receive extreme agony and weakness each time for his trouble. Like a fool, he had tried “Baby” to see if any Bieber song wouldn’t affect him negatively.

No dice.

Howard grabbed the legal pad and pen on the table near him and wrote: “Bieber = Kryptonite! NEVER PLAY HIM AGAIN!!!” Above that line were some other song-granted superpowers he had tried over the past few days.

“Kelly Clarkson – ‘Stronger’ (super strength).

“Little Mix – ‘Move’ (telekinesis).

“Rachel Platten – ‘Fight Song’ (instantly know and master all martial arts).

“Fall Out Boy – ‘Light ‘em Up’ (blinding flashes and other light powers).

“Sia – ‘Unstoppable’ (invulnerability).”

While Howard considered his next song, he thought about the first appearance of his powers.

One month earlier, he had woken up one ordinary morning and found that he could gain different superpowers and the knowledge of how to use them simply by listening to cheesy pop songs. As long as the song played, the power remained. And when it ended, the power disappeared.

He didn’t know how or why these songs gave him superpowers, since they hadn’t before that day. Nor could he find any explanation for the phenomenon. It just happened, and that was that.

Unable to find any answers, Howard simply accepted it.

Nevertheless, he wanted to be careful with which songs he played, since he didn’t know the consequences of each one and didn’t want to end up hurting anybody.

Least of all himself.

Following some more thought, Howard decided to try “Firework” by Katy Perry next. He brought up the song on Youtube and increased the volume. Howard’s hands glowed with intense warmth and orange fire oozed out of his fingertips and palms.

“Cool,” Howard said. “I mean hot.”

He turned and launched a fireball at a nearby elm tree. The projectile blasted the top half into ash and splinters and caused the lower half to burst into flames.

“Shit!” Howard said.

He ran back inside the house, grabbed a fire extinguisher, rushed back out and sprayed the flames over the burning elm. Smoke drifted up from the scorched tree, and he coughed.

Howard returned to the patio and wrote on his pad:

“Firework – Katy Perry (fire powers--be careful!).”

Okay, what next? Howard thought.

After some more thought, he played One Direction’s “If I Could Fly.” He floated off the ground and gasped in shock and delight.

Flying had always been one of his favorite dreams and now it was real.

Eager to test his limits, he flew higher into the air. As he passed the treeline, the sound lessened and gravity reasserted its hold on him. Trembling, he floated back down. Closer to the music, he found that he could stay aloft with no problem.

I’ll have to take the music with me, Howard realized.

He landed, shut off the laptop and walked inside his home. Shortly thereafter, he emerged with his iPod attached to an armband and earbuds. He downloaded the song, played it on a loop and put on the buds and band.

When the song played again, he shot up into the sky. Soon he was above the treeline and going higher still. His breath misted as the air grew colder, and he shivered. Even with his heavy coat on, his extremities became numb.

I shouldn’t go too high up, since the air will be colder and thinner, Howard thought. And the fall will be higher.

He flew out across the countryside, racing over bright green trees and winding roads. As he flew, he spread his arms out and smiled, reveling in the sensation of flying.

Truly it was the best way to travel.

When the song ended, gravity returned. Howard screamed as he dropped. But the song looped, and he became airborne again. He shivered and decided to return home.

On his way back, an object appeared in the air to his right. At first he thought it was a bird. As it flew closer, though, he got a better look at the object. It looked like a white military surveillance drone he had seen on the internet.

His heartbeat quickened as it zoomed past him.

Howard expected the craft to turn around and shoot him out of the sky or at least follow him. Instead, it continued on its merry way.

Shaken, he landed in his backyard, shut off the song and removed his earbuds.

Maybe I shouldn’t test my powers out in the open, Howard thought. The last thing I need is somebody coming after me.

Unsettled, he strode back inside his house.

THE NEXT MORNING, AFTER a late ten o’clock breakfast, Howard went outside with his coffee. Since Howard was a happily single, multi-millionaire trust fund baby, he had the luxury of getting up when he wanted to.

He walked across the large open field behind his house and looked for the drone. He didn’t see it.

Maybe it was a civilian drone, Howard thought.

He sipped his coffee and sighed.

A sharp buzzing noise came from overhead and grew louder.

Howard dropped the cup and looked up. Transparent ripples appeared across the blue sky, distorting the clouds. Unseen winds blasted the leaves off nearby trees. Howard turned and ran for the porch, more leaves plastering his face.

He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Near the back porch, the feedback whine of speakers boomed through the air, followed by music.

It was Justin Bieber’s “Baby.”

Howard shrieked and collapsed near the porch. Weakness slammed down on him like a million pound weight, making him moan.

Not the Biebes! Howard thought.

The ripple faded to reveal an enormous aircraft with VTOL engines. Wheeled landing struts emerged from the craft’s belly, and it set down near Howard.

Stealth camo, Howard realized. But who is it?

A hatch on the craft’s starboard side opened and ten men in olive drab tactical gear, body armor, helmets and rifles fanned out towards him.

Howard pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to crawl away. However, he only made it a few inches before he collapsed again.

The men grabbed him and ziptied his arms behind his back. Another person put something on the back of his neck. It pinched into his spine and seconds later he was out.

SOMETIME LATER, HOWARD AWOKE in a small white cell with thick metal bars. Everything was silent, and he caught his reflection in a mirror outside the cell.

He was bound in a white straitjacket that was hooked to the floor with chains and had noise-canceling earphones strapped to his head. The cell smelled like burnt rubber, and he sniffled.

“Let me out!” Howard said.

He couldn’t hear his own voice.

Outside the cell, a door slid open and ten people entered the prison area. Eight men and two women of various ethnicities, all in identical black business suits and ties. One woman was white, the other ebony.

At the head of the pack was an Asian man; he was around six feet tall, well-muscled and had short black hair going gray.

Howard frowned as they stopped next to the bars. The Asian man took a remote control from his suit pocket and pressed a button. The earphones beeped and Howard could hear again. The faint buzz of plane engines came through the walls.

“Good afternoon, Howard,” the Asian man said in an American accent.

Howard considered asking them who they were and why they had kidnapped him. But the cold looks in their eyes seemed to say that they had gone way beyond the normal letter of the law. So he opted for a cautious, “Uh, hi?”

“I was wondering if we might have a little chat.”

“Oh sure.” Howard nodded towards the bars. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere at the moment.”

The Asian man smirked and said, “My name is Derek Warchek, and I work for an unofficial department of the United States government called S.A.I.D.”

“S.A.I.D.?”

“Yes. Special Anomalies Investigation Division.”

“S.A.I.D., huh?”

“That’s what I just S.A.I.D.”

“Ha-ha, that’s funny.”

“I like to think so.” Warchek adjusted his cufflinks. “Anyway, Howard, we brought you here today because I’d like to offer you the opportunity to join us. You see, we’ve had you under surveillance for some time, and we feel that you could be a very valuable asset to our organization.”

Howard sighed. “Gee, Derek, that sounds real tempting. And I’d like to help you there, but I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to serve your country?”

“Not particularly. And besides, I’ve got better things to do.”

“Such as?”

“Pounding my face into the nearest brick wall until I pass out.”

Warchek’s face remained stolid. “I’m sorry to hear that, Howard. Unfortunately, if you refuse to help us, I’m afraid that doesn’t leave us with very many options.”

“Why not just let me go? I haven’t hurt anybody.”

“I’m afraid not. You see, in the interest of national security and for your own safety, we’ll have to detain you for an indefinite period.”

“Oh, that’s just great.”

“Unless, of course, you choose to help us.”

“Suppose I say no? What then?”

“As I said, then that will leave us with few options.” Warchek waved at Howard. “I’ll tell you what. This is a big decision, and I understand that it might be overwhelming for you. So I’ll give you some time to think it over. And I’d advise that you think it over carefully because the next decision you make will affect the rest of your life. However long or short that may be.”

Howard swallowed hard.

Warchek took out his remote control and reactivated the earphones. Then he nodded to his people and left.

Funny how silence made time stretch out. Without a clock or any noise, he had no idea how much time passed.

Howard thought about telling them to take their offer and stick it where the sun didn’t shine. Unfortunately, he was afraid that they might do a lot worse than detain him.

Still, the idea of being captured angered him. Damn it, he was an American citizen, and he hadn’t done anything wrong.

What other choice do I have but to say yes? Howard thought.

Time passed as he mulled over his decision.

Sometime later, the door opened.

The ebony female agent entered the room, dragging an unconscious guard by the arms. She was wearing a dark blue flight suit and a parachute pack. She deposited the guard in a corner, then she sealed the prison area door and walked over to the cell. She stopped next to the bar and typed a code into the nearby keypad.

The cell door slid open.

She entered the cell, tore off his earphones and undid the straitjacket.

“It’s all right,” the woman said, and tossed the straitjacket on the cell floor. “My name is Emily Kazen, and I’m here to help you.”

“What?”

“I don’t have much time to explain. Here, take this.” She took out an iPod with earbuds and a belt clip from another pocket. “And let’s go. We have to get off this plane right now, and you have to help me.”

“Wait, help you. How? I--”

“Look, I sabotaged the security cameras, PA system and their iPods, so they can’t see us or play Justin Bieber to stop you. It won’t last, though, so we need to move.”

“But wait--”

Before he could ask more questions, Emily grabbed him and shoved him out of the prison area. Outside, she led him down a long, wide, hexagonal metal corridor.

While following her, Howard clipped the iPod to his belt and said, “Wait, who are you? And what’s going on?”

“President Colburn ordered me to take you to a safe location.”

“But why?”

“S.A.I.D. is going to recruit you as an illegal assassin, against the President’s direct orders. And if you don’t cooperate, they’re going to brainwash you into helping them--”

Red ceiling lights flashed and a quiet alarm rang through the corridor.

“Howard, your iPod,” Emily said. “Play ‘Unstoppable.’”

Howard shoved the buds into his ears, grabbed the player and scrolled down the playlist, looking for “Unstoppable.”

Footsteps echoed down both ends of the corridor. Emily grabbed Howard and shoved him towards the corridor’s end, which ended with another corridor heading right. Up ahead, three agents with dart rifles popped out from the next hallway.

Howard finally found “Unstoppable” and hit play.

His skin became like steel and Emily ducked behind him. The agents fired their rifles at once. Dart-like taser rounds bounced harmlessly off his hide and landed on the floor near him.

One brave agent rushed up and slammed Howard in the face with his rifle butt. Or rather he tried. The blow made him shudder and stumble back. Emily slid away from Howard, punched him in the face and knocked him down. The other two agents fired again and one taser dart hit her. She yelped, fell and shuddered on the floor.

“Emily!” Howard said.

Three more armored agents appeared behind Howard at the far end of the corridor. They flicked out retractable stun batons from their belts and ran at Howard.

The agents ahead of Howard slung their rifles, drew their own batons and charged.

Trapped on both sides, Howard ran at the two remaining unarmored agents. They tried to raise their weapons, but he rammed into them and knocked them back against the opposite wall. Their heads struck the metal wall and they slumped to the floor. Unfortunately, the impact also caused the iPod to come loose and the song shut off. His hide returned to normal.

Vulnerable again, Howard snatched the iPod up and glanced at the screen. It was off “Unstoppable” and had accidentally switched down to Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.”

With the other agents nearly on him, he had no time to return to the previous song. So he played “Fight Song” and clipped the iPod back to his belt.

The knowledge of all martial arts forms appeared in his mind. The first agent swung his baton down on Howard, but Howard caught his arm and punched him in the throat. The blow dropped him.

The second and third came at him together. Like Jason Bourne on crack, he ducked one baton swing and dodged another, grabbed the second man’s stick and jammed it into the side of his buddy’s exposed neck. While the third man seized and collapsed, he flipped the second man over his shoulder onto the floor, pulled his baton free and zapped him in the neck.

Another two down.

Two more unarmored agents with dart pistols came running down the far end of the corridor.

Howard rushed them.

At close range, the first agent fired while the second agent’s pistol jammed and he struggled to clear it. Howard ducked the dart, smacked the gun out of his hand with the stick and side-kicked him into the wall. His helmeted head hit a nearby strut and down he went. The last agent threw away his jammed gun, staggered back and struck a fighting pose.

Howard leaped into the air, spun around and delivered a perfect roundhouse jump kick to the man’s chin. The man’s jaw broke with an audible crack, and he fell.

Howard landed and struck his own fighting pose, ready to take on a hundred more if necessary.

No other takers were around, though.

Impressed with himself, Howard smiled and tossed away the baton. But then he remembered Emily.

He rushed over to her and said, “Are you all right?”

“Barely. Help me up.”

He picked her up and tried to drag her, but her weight slowed him down.

“Play Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Stronger.’ That might help.”

Howard put her down and did as she said. His muscles bulged under his clothes. Afterwards, he gathered Emily up easily, ran around the corner and down the hall to a metal ladder shaft.

“What now?” Howard said.

“Climb to the bottom,” Emily said.

Howard climbed down three levels and hopped down to the grated floor on the bottom.

“Okay, now where do I go?”

“Rear bay is to your right,” Emily said. “Down the corridor.”

Howard carried her down a long corridor to the bay. There, he put her down and looked at the door controls. A nearby panel was shining with red lights. Howard found the open door button and pressed it.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it,” Emily said. “Warchek must’ve locked out the controls.”

“So now what?” Howard said.

“I don’t know. Let me think.”

While she thought, Warchek and several agents appeared down the hall from the bay and ran at them.

“Stop!” Warchek said.

“Howard, pull down that door lever to lock it,” Emily said.

Howard rushed over to the bay door and sealed it. Although it bought them some time, now they were trapped.

“Howard, I got it,” Emily said. “‘Firework.’ Katy Perry. Blast open the rear bay door.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do it!”

Howard switched to “Firework” and played it; his muscles quickly shrank back to normal.

He grabbed Emily with one hand, turned back and blasted the rear door with a fireball from the other. It exploded outward and Howard and Emily were sucked out of the plane. On the way out, his iPod tore free from his belt and flew off into space.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, Howard thought.

The pair hurtled down through the sunny afternoon sky. Howard screamed and clamped onto Emily, his heart slamming into his throat.

Near the ground, Emily pulled the ripcord. A gray parachute burst out of the pack and slowed their descent. Howard hazarded a look down and nearly fainted.

“It’s all right, Howard,” Emily said. “Just hold on and look at me.”

He tightened his grip on her and the pair floated back down to Earth. Emily adjusted the chute’s course, and they drifted towards grassy farmland full of cows.

A few seconds later, the pair landed with a squish in a big pile of cow crap. Howard sighed. Whether from relief or disgust, he couldn’t say. Either way, though, at least they were down.

A nearby cow turned and mooed at them.

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you too,” Howard said.

“Well, it could have been worse,” Emily said. “We could’ve landed in a thumbtack factory.”

“True enough.”

They stood and looked past the cows. Nearby was a farm with a barn, windmill and an old red truck.

EMILY “BORROWED” THE OLD red truck from the farmer with the help of a concealed pistol in her suit. From there, they left the farm and headed south, stopping only briefly on the shoulder for Emily to make a brief cell phone call to her people. According to her conversation, her suit’s GPS indicated that they were in Iowa.

When she ended the call and resumed driving, Howard said, “Now what?”

“We’ll make it to the rendezvous point by nineteen hundred hours and then my people will evac you to a safe area,” Emily said.

“How far is the rendezvous point?”

“Far enough. Just help me by keeping an eye out for S.A.I.D. agents.”

“Okay.”

They reached the rendezvous point around magic hour, the dusky sky a beautiful shade of gold and orange. They pulled onto a vast green grass plain next to a large cornfield full of fully-grown stalks.

Emily parked the truck in the middle of the field and said, “They’ll be here in five.”

“Okay,” Howard said.

The pair got out and waited.

Five minutes later, the roar of another invisible aircraft came from overhead, its jet wash blasting the cornstalks. It quickly decloaked and began landing.

Emily took her smartphone out from her suit and fiddled with it.

Justin Bieber’s “One Less Lonely Girl” played from the phone.

Howard shrieked and collapsed.

“What are you doing?” Howard said through gritted teeth.

“Sorry, Howard. But our side needs your talents more than the Americans.” Emily took out a pair of metal handcuffs from her suit and cuffed his hands behind his back. Once he was bound, she shut off the music.

“Your side?”

“I’m a Russian mole, sent in to penetrate S.A.I.D.”

“Wait, Emily. You can’t--”

“I’m not Emily. My real name is Tatiana Stalin.”

“You mean like the dictator Stalin?”

“That’s just a coincidence.”

“A black woman named Stalin. Now I’ve heard everything.”

Tatiana/Emily barked out a command to her smartphone in what sounded like Russian. Over a dozen Russian agents in armor and tactical gear emerged from the landed plane. Howard wondered if S.A.I.D. and these guys all shopped at the same store.

The agents converged on Howard.

Nice work there, Howard, he told himself. You just served yourself up to a foreign power on a silver platter. Way to go.

The Russians picked Howard up and carried him back towards the plane.

“Cheer up, Howard,” Tatiana said as she walked alongside him. “You’ll like Russia.”

“Oh yeah, sure. I hear the gulags are lovely this time of year.”

Tatiana tsk-tsked him.

A few hundred feet from the plane, several more transparent blurs rushed out from the cornfield and surrounded the Russians. The blurs decloaked and revealed more troops in green armor. These ones appeared to be Asian. Red laser sights dotted the Russian agents, and they froze.

One man appeared at the head of the new group. It was a Latino man who looked like Pancho Villa, except with a thinner mustache. He said something to his men in another language, then in English: “Put Galveros on the ground and back away, Tatiana. We’re taking him for ourselves.”

“No way, Chong,” Tatiana said. “We got him first.”

“And who are you?” Howard said.

“Ed Chong,” the Latino man said. “Head of the Chinese Special Weapons Division.”

Great, Howard thought. Now the Chinese want me too. Who’s next? The Salvation Army?

Ten whisper-quiet black cars decloaked out of the blue and pulled up to the scene. Warchek and twenty other American agents rushed out of the cars and aimed their guns at the Russians and Chinese.

Tatiana said something in Russian. The Russian agents holding Howard put him on the ground and reached for their weapons. The Chinese also aimed at both the Americans and Russians.

I had to ask, Howard thought.

“Hold it, you two,” Warchek said. “You’re not taking Galveros anywhere.”

“Try and stop us,” Chong said.

“How did you find us so fast?” Tatiana said.

“Our people tagged Galveros after we brought him on board,” Warchek said.

Tatiana drew her pistol from her suit, pulled Howard to his feet and jammed the weapon against his head.

“I’ll kill him before I let you take him back,” Tatiana said.

“Kill him and you die,” Warchek said.

“Fine by me. I’m ready to die for my country.”

“Uh, guys, could you not include me in the whole killing and dying thing?” Howard said. “I mean, if you guys want to kill each other, then fine. Don’t let me stop you--”

“Shut up!” Warchek and Tatiana said in unison.

Howard shut up. Caught in a three-way standoff between the Americans, Russians and Chinese, Howard didn’t know what to do. Except pray that a bullet didn’t strike him.

As the three sides stood stalemated, a Russian female agent took a small MP3 radio player out of her pack and played “Light ‘em Up.”

“Howard, blast ‘em with your light!” the agent said in a Russian accent.

Unwilling to pass up a good opportunity, Howard closed his eyes, charged his body with light and exploded it outward.

Screams filled the air.

When he opened his eyes, all the agents were stumbling around blind and many had dropped their weapons. Even Tatiana had let him go, dropped her gun and was rubbing her eyes.

The Russian agent opened her eyes, kicked the nearest man aside, then she switched the radio to “Stronger.”

Howard broke the cuff chains and rushed forward to the female Russian agent, knocking aside several blind Russians and Chinese in his path.

“Somebody get him!” Warchek said as he staggered around.

Tatiana said something in Russian and Chong in Chinese. Howard plowed through a few more blind agents and reached the lady.

“Who do you work for?” Howard said. “North Korea?”

“No,” the woman said. “Another group who wants to keep superheroes free.”

The agents began to recover their sight and some of them reached down for their guns.

“Shit, hang on.” She switched the radio to “Move.” “Howard, use your telekinesis.”

Howard raised his hands and levitated all the weapons he could see into the air. A few agents tried to jump up and grab their guns, but they flew out of their reach. Howard flung them all hundreds of feet away into the cornfield.

Two nearby Russian and two Chinese agents staggered over to Howard and tried to tackle him. Howard froze them in mid-step and hurled them back several feet into the nearest cornstalks.

Empowered, Howard turned and mentally swatted all the other agents away from him. They flew screaming across the field like ants in a tornado and ate grass.

Howard turned to the woman and said, “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”

“Fine. We just--”

Warchek drew a pocket pistol from an ankle holster, staggered up and fired three times at the pair. The bullets smacked the radio out of her hand and the music stopped. Both Howard and the woman froze.

“Nobody move,” Warchek said, pointing the pistol at them. He turned to the S.A.I.D. agents. “Grab them.”

The American agents got back up and ran towards the pair, but the Chinese and Russian agents bolted up and the three groups crashed into each other. Warchek tried to fire, but with so many moving bodies, he couldn’t get a clear shot. Tatiana and Chong ran up and tackled Warchek.

Like a bunch of spoiled children on the playground, the agents from all three countries bit, clawed, kicked and punched each other. The fighting grew so crazy that it seemed like they forgot all about the pair and focused on trying to kill each other.

“Is there any way we can stop them?” Howard said.

“Should we?” the woman said.

Howard shrugged.

“Here, I brought some back up.”

She took an iPod Nano with earbuds from her pack and handed it to Howard. He put in the buds and scanned the playlist.

Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” came up.

It’s worth a shot, Howard thought.

He played the song and gained the power to give his enemies temporary amnesia for about an hour. He focused on all the agents and blanked them.

Looking confused, all the agents stopped fighting and stumbled up.

“What’s going on?” Warchek said. Blood spilled from his nose and split lip.

Tatiana said something in Russian. A shiner on her right eye.

Chong said something in Chinese. Bleeding claw marks on his forehead.

Everybody looked like they didn’t have the slightest clue where they were or what they were doing.

“Don’t mind us,” Howard said. “We’re leaving.”

“Uh, okay,” Warchek said.

Howard and the woman walked past the group. At the field’s edge, Howard and the woman got in a S.A.I.D. car and sped away.

Thanks, Taylor Swift, Howard thought. You saved our lives.

DOWN THE ROAD A ways, Howard glanced at the woman and said, “Who are you again?”

“Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself back there,” she said. “I’m Megan Carmel.”

“Who do you work for? And how did you know about my powers?”

“I’m from the Superhero Protection League. We’re a private international organization dedicated to ensuring governments can’t exploit superheroes like yourself. And we found out about your powers the same way the others did: we spied on them and stole their intelligence.”

“Forgive me if I have trouble believing you.”

“Perfectly understandable, considering what you’ve been through. Unlike those governments, however, we won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.” She nodded as they entered a nearby small town. “Stop here. I’ll get out.”

He pulled over at the nearest corner. She took out a card from her coat and handed it to him. “There’s my number if you change your mind.”

“Okay,” Howard said.

“Good luck out there.”

“Thanks.”

Megan got out, closed the door and walked down the street.

Howard looked at the card, uncertain if he could trust anybody anymore. Still, the opportunity might have promise.

Howard pulled away from the curb and drove on into the night.

About the Author

Fredrick Obermeyer enjoys writing science-fiction, fantasy, horror and crime stories. He has had work published in NFG, Electric Spec, Newmyths, Perihelion SF, Acidic Fiction, the Destination: Future anthology, and other markets.

STRANGE BODIES

ERICA RUPPERT

STRANGE BODIES WASHED UP on the beach that summer. Those who ventured close could see the long white forms were not fish. They had scales and hands, fins and wild hair that grew like manes down their narrow backs. The latest priest came down from the village to anoint their cold dead faces with oil before the men weighted them with stones and threw them back to the sea. It was the way it had always been done.

IT WAS A COOL summer, and a rainy one. The sky was often grey, the sea winds chilly. Peter went down to the beach every morning to walk among the rocks, and to see what the waves had cast up overnight and left abandoned. If he saw a white form on the sand, he left it for others to find. Their rites were not his purpose.

Instead he filled his pockets and bag with polished stones, rare unbroken shells, scratched and dulled bottles that still held their shapes. He carried them back up the hill to his faded house and set them out like figurines on a shelf. Once there was a necklace, silver with opal cabochons, only one of its jewels dislodged by the busy water. That he wore always, hidden by his collar. He told himself it was his wedding gift to Sarah, for giving him such a fine child, but he knew he lied.

YOU ARE OURS, WEAK voices said from the waves. Peter stood at the edge of the sea and looked into the grey waters. The waves turned like curving glass. He could not see through them. He wondered if the voices were real, or if he only wished them.

Peter had dreamed of those voices many times, enough that he half-believed they were memories and not his imagination. The voices made him remember things, shadows and light that might be true. They made him think of his mother, whom he had never known. His father had not even kept a picture of her, no mementos at all. He only said sometimes that Peter reminded him of her, although he would not say how.

He only told Peter to avoid the sea when the white bodies washed in.

WHEN HIS FATHER DIED his warnings faded, and Peter followed the tides as he would even when the bodies came. Peter still thought of all the holidays when he was a child, when the families here had gathered in one house or another at the new year to share another set of myths about mothers and children, about other sacrifices and returns, the parables behind his father’s flat cautions. He imagined it still went on like that, the stories passed on year after year, sons and daughters taking their warnings and learning their duties. Since his father died he stayed away from that community. He knew what he knew.

He was bent over at the waterline with a twist of wet rope in his hands when a pale body sliced through the glassy water at the edge of his sight. He stepped back, quick fear in his throat. Then he recognized what she was.

He held his breath as she swam up the beach on the slick of a breaking wave. She was as familiar as his own skin, the colour of pearls, sunless, sinuous, her pale hair growing down between her shoulders and tangled with weeds. He reached out his hand to her and she took it, her own hand slender and bony. It flexed within his grip.

She was beautiful as the eel is beautiful, as the serpent is. She had teeth like an eel. Peter knelt in the surf for her and she twined her long elastic legs with his, and she sang to him with a reedy, comforting voice.

When he woke his oiled coat was soaked through and he was numb from the cold sand beneath him. The tide had gone out, and the grey water was empty.

PETER BELIEVED HE COURTED her across the long, chilly summer days. She came when he called her the name he believed he had given her, Nomi, Nomi, Nomi. Whispered it sounded like waves raking sand, the sound he imagined her skin made as she slid over the sand to reach him.

Once he reached out for her face and she slashed at him with her sharp eel-teeth to remind him what he owed, and his hand had slowly bled a watery pink fluid until the lips of the wound sealed together.

SARAH STOOD WITH HIM at the waterline. She tried to take his hand but he pulled it away from her, careful of the bandage. She looked at the dirty wrappings, and at Peter’s eyes. She did not ask him what had happened.

“There’s another,” Peter said, pointing to a pale shape in the surf.

Sarah crossed herself, unaware she did it. “Is it coming in?” she said, leaning against his arm. He shrugged her off, intent on what the sea would bring him.

The body rolled in the waves, limp as an empty dress. Peter walked into the water lifted a sagging arm into the air. He pulled on it, bringing the head and neck out of the water. The skin was still unmarked by scavengers. He didn’t know this one, though the open opal eyes were like Nomi’s.

Up on the beach, the baby began to cry, a thin wail torn away by the wind. Sarah looked over her shoulder at their daughter, knew she was safe in her blankets.

“Shall I run for Father Tom?” Sarah called to him over the sound of the waves. He looked up at her. Sarah’s eyes were calm. For a moment he hated her.

“We don’t need him,” he said. “The sea will keep her.”

SARAH SAT IN THE rough grass beside Peter as he sorted his collection. The baby slept beside her, swaddled against the cool air. The salt wind pushed her hair back from her face, and she squinted up at the far, misty sun. Metal clinked as he dropped green coins into a pile. She turned at the small noise.

“Father Tom’s sermon today was about false idols,” she said, “and how we risk our souls to have too much faith in the fancies of the sea. He said our people have been tied to the sea so long we believe it is our mother, and we forget our father.”

“I don’t know why you go there,” Peter said, his voice level. Sarah did not respond. “What else did he say?” he asked.

“He said he’s writing a history of us,” Sarah said, scraping her heels in the turf to expose the sand beneath. “He saw how thin the records are. He wants to complete them if he can. He’s talked to most of us about it.”

“A real scholar,” Peter said.

Sarah did not catch his tone. “Oh, they don’t like him. Father Henry was never this much of a bother,” she said. “My father says it will be interesting if he can do it.”

“If he can,” Peter echoed.

HE DREAMED OF HER. He dreamed he swam out into the wide sea, although he could not swim, that his pants and cloak billowed and filled with salt water and carried him on. You are ours, they sang. Nomi and her kin swirled around him like a dance of serpents, until she reached for him, took him in a cold embrace. He felt like a child against her, and clung to her in sudden fear of the sea. She smiled with her eel teeth before she put her chill lips against his ear. Breathe, she murmured, and slipped with him beneath the waves.

PETER CLIMBED THE hill up to his house, a cold wind at his back. As he reached his yard he saw Father Tom leaning in his doorway, his coat pulled around him, trying to escape the wind. Peter walked up to the old man and dropped his bag beside the door.

“I’ve come to talk to you,” Father Tom said. “Sarah might have mentioned it. You’re one of the last. For the history.”

He did not want to let the priest into his house, but he opened the door and stood aside to let Tom enter before him. It was only politeness to let a man get out of the wind.

Peter fed the stove to make a little warmth. It was a strange, cold summer. He could not remember one like it. He set the pot on the stove. “I’ll make us tea,” he said.

The priest settled himself in a chair and pulled a ledger from his pocket. He was less concerned with politeness than Peter was.

“Who was your father, boy?” Father Tom asked without waiting, his pen poised to record Peter’s answers.

“Peter Kannet, same as me.”

“And is he still living?”

“My father’s been dead three years, sir,” Peter said, his eyes cast properly down.

“How did he die, boy? Did he drown?”

“No, sir. Plague. And I never knew my mother.”

“Is her family still about?”

“No, sir. She was from away. My father met her wandering, or so he told me.”

The priest scratched down the details, then paused to read over the page. He turned back a few pages, scanned them, looked up again.

“This was not your father’s first marriage, then. There is a record of another, a Mary Andrems.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. It was long before me.”

“Andrems, like your Sarah.”

“Probably the same. People don’t move off from here much. Or come.”

The priest looked at Peter where he stood by the stove.

“That has some romance to it, but the truth is it leads to unhealthy traditions.”

Peter smiled thinly at the old man.

“That’s really why you came, then, isn’t it? Not for our immortal souls.”

Peter stepped close to the priest where he sat, letting his closeness make a threat.

“You came to see the bodies in the water.”

Father Tom stood up abruptly, forcing Peter to step back.

“I came to see the bodies,” he said. “That’s true.”

Tom flipped through the ledger as he stood there, holding his ground. He traced a passage with his finger, nodded to himself.

“Here, tell me what you think of this. Local history has it that the white bodies wash up here every few decades, every generation or two. As if this shore is a sacred place in a long migration, and not all survive the journey. The landsmen always weigh them down and send them back to their sea. It is only right.”

He closed the ledger and tucked it back deep into a pocket.

“Who told you that pap?” Peter said.

“Your Sarah, among others. People talk, given time,” Tom said. “Do you believe it? And the rest, like your families did?”

Peter looked past him to the small dirty window that faced the sea.

“Doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said.

PETER WENT TO THE beach as the tide slid in. The sky was heavy with possible rain and the air too sharp for summer. White skin flickered like light in the water.

“Nomi,” he called. He liked to think she listened for him, and responded. Better that she loved him than that she had trained him to seek her out.

A pale shape drifted under the surface, pulled by the incoming tide. He waded in to reach it, to see if it was her, dead like the others.

“Nomi?” he called again. The dim light tricked his eyes. Did she drift or did she float?

As he came close the shape turned in a tight circle and disappeared into deeper water. He knew what she had come for. The memory of it was real, if nothing else was.

“FATHER TOM SAYS IT’S a sin, that we’ve let too much go,” Sarah said. She clutched at her skirts, lifting them out of the surf. The sky above them hung dark. A storm was coming fast on the rising wind.

Peter put his arm around her, trying to keep her calm. He wished they had talked plainly before now. Sarah knew, in the same way he knew. He only wished he had said it aloud.

“It’s no sin,” he said. “It’s older than his sin, so it can’t be. This is what our father’s did. And our mothers.”

He steered her back up onto the sand. Suddenly he did not like the sea at his back. It held too much it never showed. He made himself be stern.

“The priest has to scare you to turn you away from this,” he said. “If what he preaches is true, he wouldn’t need fear to convince you.”

She kept her eyes turned down, tilted her face away from him.

“Do you remember her?” Sarah asked suddenly. Her voice was caught in the wind, thin as a phantom.

Peter thought before he answered her.

“Sometimes,” he said. “I think I do. But I can’t always tell if I remember her or the other stories.”

Sarah nodded slowly.

“I think that’s how it’s always been,” she said. For a moment she leaned against him before she stood straight.

“Let’s be done with it,” she said.

He kissed her sharp cheekbone, already beginning to miss her.

“Who has our girl?” he asked her.

“My sister,” Sarah said. She turned to face him. “After this Anne will have the baby baptized.”

“That priest doesn’t know what he thinks he does, with his history and family lines,” Peter said, with brief anger that she kept hanging on to it. He did not want the possibility of another option. Not now, on the last day of summer, when Sarah knew what was expected, when they were already waiting, when time had run down. “Now are you willing or not?”

“I am,” she said. Her voice was steady.

Peter held her close for a long moment, absorbing some of her warmth. He watched the sea through her blowing hair. Nothing white moved in the waves.

“And I,” he said at last, and held her away from him. Then he drew the long knife he had at his belt, slid it into the sand between them as a wave washed up, pulled it free and held it up to show her. His father, Sarah’s father, every man born here had told him what was needed, Peter thought. He did not think he had dreamed this. “Sarah,” he said, and she lifted her chin as she took the knife from him. Her hands trembled slightly, and she clasped them together around the handle, holding it at her waist.

“It’s sharp as I can make it,” he said. “Wait, one second.”

Peter took the silver necklace from under his collar and flung it into the sea.

Sarah’s eyes followed its shining arc and its splash into the waves. Then she drove the wet blade up under his ribs, setting it deep, driving grains of sand and salt water into the wound. He grunted at the heavy pain, and reached for his belly. She grabbed at his hands as the blood pulsed out, to keep him from pulling the blade free. His blood was pale, a thin red as if it had been watered down.

Peter broke her grip and staggered past her, wading up to his knees in the grey surf. He stumbled, falling into the water, still holding his head above it. His blood made a red slick in the rising waves, then swirled away to nothing. They would smell it in the water. He hoped they would follow it. He hoped they would accept him.

“Nomi!” he coughed into the wind. His voice was weak. He called again, and thought he saw her long white body slicing up from the deep water. Then there were many white bodies in the choppy waves, and many opal faces lifted to see him. Any might be Nomi, or none. He fell forward and recovered, wiped at his eyes and called her name again.

The storm broke with a single flash of lightning and a sudden steady rain. The sea was pocked with it. The pale faces sank away, invisible beneath the dark, rough water.

“Nomi!” he cried again. The breath caught in his throat. It tasted of salt.

She came, then, shrouded in a breaking wave, slithering up to him in tightening circles with a hunter’s patience. She watched him with her wide, unblinking eyes, and she might have smiled. He tried to reach for her, but she turned like a fish and was gone.

Peter pulled himself almost upright, and looked around him in the empty water for her white body. Rain clouded his eyes. He looked up the beach, saw the shadow of Sarah still on the sand, huddled in her coat against the storm. He wanted to go back to her where she waited at the waterline, but a susurrus behind him turned him again toward the open sea. He grew dizzy. The voices were blurred in the rain, but still they whispered, You are ours. He did not have the strength to turn back again, but he would not have to. They would have him.

About the Author

Erica Ruppert writes speculative fiction and poetry from her home in northern New Jersey. Her work has appeared in Unnerving, Weirdbook, and PodCastle, among others. She is, very slowly, working on her first novel. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

WHEN THE SKY MEN CAME

MEGAN NEUMANN

I WAS DRUNK THE night the sky men killed everyone. I’d been drunk every night for the last three weeks, every night since Hank died—night after night of wine-fueled tears and me shouting at the sky from our back porch. I’d had the cops called on me. Neighbors were tired of my rants. They’d tried to comfort me at first. My ex-husband even tried to say I’d get better, and I’d learn to live with it. They all wanted to forget about my dead son and move on, but I wouldn’t let them. I’d keep disturbing their peace. Why should they have what they wanted when I never would again?

I sat on my porch cursing and weeping when a ship streaked across the sky, leaving a trail of blinding white light. I shut my eyes, still seeing the light inside of my eyelids. When I opened them, I was blind. I stumbled from my porch into the backyard, groping around me, blinking, my sight slowly returning.

When I looked up to see what had streaked across the sky, I saw them. The ships—hundreds, maybe thousands—hovered. They were black disks, smooth and enormous. Windows lined the sides, and I swore I could see some kind of creatures staring out the windows. I watched as the ships shot beams of light onto the surface of the Earth. In those beams, I saw the bodies—bodies of my neighbors, strangers who lived down the street, random people driving in their cars. Everyone floated up in those beams and hovered a hundred feet above the ground’s surface. I thought they were being sucked into the ships, but no. Midway through the beam, they were obliterated. Their bodies turned to black ash and disappeared before my eyes.

I screamed, ran into the house, and hid behind the bolted door, shivering.

Then my heart lifted. This was it, the answer to my suffering. I would be with my boy again soon. I unbolted the door and rushed back into the yard. The ships still hovered overhead. I fell to my knees and opened my arms.

“Thank you!” I cried. “Thank you! Thank you!” I don’t know what I expected to happen. Maybe I’d be bathed in the warm light, feel it lifting me as if I were a child being scooped into my mother’s arms. Or maybe I’d feel an unbearable jolt of pain so jarring I would pass out or writhe in agony as they lifted me from the ground. Either way, I was ready. I needed to be taken. I needed this life to end.

But nothing happened.

I kneeled in the yard with my arms out wide until I couldn’t hold my arms up any longer and my knees felt numb. The ships still floated above me, but their lights went out. Then, in the blink of an eye, the ships vanished.

I didn’t know what to do or to think. I’d been left again. I screamed out for the ships to take me too, but there was nothing but silence. Eventually, I slumped over in the yard and slept on the cold, damp grass.

When I awoke the next morning, the streets were empty. My neighbors had disappeared. No news—no nothing—was on the television. My internet was out. I waited two days for something to happen, for those ships—and whatever sky creatures or men piloted them—to come back and finish the job, or at least for some other survivors to come by and rescue me. When no one did, I decided to leave my house and find someone else. Others had to be out there. I couldn’t be the only one left.

AFTER WEEKS OF BEING alone, I found the only other human on a beach a hundred miles from my home. When I first saw him from behind, I wanted to shout with joy because I thought he was Hank. He had the same scruffy black hair and the same bad posture. I ran toward him, my heart racing. But as I moved closer, I realized it wasn’t Hank. Of course, it wasn’t. Hank died before the sky men came. He couldn’t be here now.

He sat hunched on a log in front of a fire, his young face blank as I approached. He hadn’t noticed me yet. Waves crashed loudly onto the shore, and my footsteps couldn’t be heard, though I suspected I was making little noise. Weeks moving through the world alone and frightened had made my steps silent, cautious.

When I was close enough to the flame to feel the heat on my face and arms, I said, “You shouldn’t have lit a fire.”

He stood, stumbling backward over the log. “Who are you?” His voice cracked as he spoke. Closer now, nearer to the flame, I saw he was even younger than I thought—ten or eleven maybe, a year or two younger than Hank.

“My name’s Rachel. Who are you?”

“Jonathan,” he said. He stared intensely at my face and then gave me a once over, his eyes moving over my sinewy arms, my torn clothing. Apparently deciding a haggard, middle-aged woman was nothing to stand over, he sat on the log again. “What do you want?”

“I was drawn to the fire. Like I said, you shouldn’t have lit it. Who knows what else will be drawn to it? There could be wild animals out here."

“Who cares?” He didn’t look up as he said this. I was no longer interesting to him. Just like my Hank had been before the sky men. By the time he was ten, Hank had lost interest in me. Boys past a certain age weren’t interested in anything their mother’s had to say.

“Are there others nearby?” I asked, though I knew the answer. No one was nearby; no one was anywhere. I heard my answer in the silence surrounding us, the waves and crackling fire the only noise. The world was empty.

I’d traveled for weeks, trying the closest, largest cities first. All empty. I stood in the streets and screamed until my throat ached. Nothing. I gave up on finding anyone and was resolved to die. I’d been afraid to die before the sky men, but I wasn’t anymore.

I wanted to die somewhere I loved, so I picked the beach. I told myself, You’re alone and you’re going to die. Might as well die somewhere beautiful.

Now here I was, ready to die. Instead, I’d found a boy, a boy so much like Hank. For an instant, I wanted to weep and hold him, stroke his hair. Of course, I didn’t. Even after the end of the world, I knew it would be wrong. I knew it would frighten him. I still had some sanity.

He didn’t answer my question. Maybe the answer was still too painful. Maybe he didn’t want to say it aloud. Speaking something aloud made it truer than when it lived only in your mind.

“May I sit with you?” I asked.

He gave a noncommittal shrug. This was probably the best response I’d get. I sat beside him. On the ground, I found a stick partially buried in the sand. I picked it up and poked the flames.

“How have you survived this long on your own?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a few moments, but finally he said, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I was a Boy Scout.”

I laughed aloud at this and quickly realized I’d made a mistake. He sighed and scooted to the edge of the log, away from me. I’d thought he’d be ecstatic to find another person, but he must be wary. Like me, perhaps he wondered if the other person was even real.

“How did you survive so long?” he asked after a long silence.

“I was a mother,” I said. It was as good an answer as his, probably better.

“Was?”

I nodded, and we sat in silence. He must have assumed the sky men left me without children, and like everyone else, my children had been destroyed in the beam of light from the ships.

“My son died before this happened.” I waved at the empty beach. “He was only twelve. A little older than you, I’m guessing.”

Jonathan nodded.

“When this happened,” I said, “when everyone disappeared, I felt relief. Weird, huh? I thought my pain from losing my son would end with the world. But I was left behind to survive.”

Jonathan looked at me in the dim light of his dying fire. Only a few glowing logs were left. One broke apart, sending sparks into the air. From the light of the sparks, I saw Jonathan's face, his eyes. Tears ran down his cheeks. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I guess we can survive together,” I said, wanting to comfort him. I hadn’t meant to upset him. I’d stupidly assumed he would be strong enough to hear my story. I should have known better. He was still a child.

He pushed my arm and stood. “Don’t touch me! I don’t know you!” He stomped away, along the shoreline, kicking up clumps of wet sand. I watched his silhouette fade into the darkness. Then he was gone as if the sky men had plucked him up from the ground.

I AWOKE ON THE beach near the cold ash of the previous night’s fire. Jonathan sat on the sand with his feet in the water. I walked to him and stood on the edge of the lapping water.

“You came back,” I said.

“My mom died,” he said, “before this.” He picked up a clump of wet sand and tossed it into the surf. “It was just my dad and me and my brother. I thought we’d never make it. I thought we’d die in our house after she was gone. Starve to death or just do something stupid. We didn’t know how to take care of each other. My dad stopped leaving the house except to buy cigarettes and alcohol. And my older brother just left one day. Then it was just me and my dad with no food. And my dad was so angry all the time.”

He glanced at me, checking I was still listening. Of course, I was. I nodded to him to keep going. Seeing him in the daylight I could see how being alone had affected him. Or maybe he was like that before the sky men. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark circles. He was too thin and needed nourishment. I vowed to make sure he took better care of himself if he decided to stay with me.

“Then the bombs came,” he said. “Killed everyone except me. Just like you I was happy. I thought I would die too and be with my mom. But I’m still alive. How can I still be alive?”

His face twisted in pain, and he started to cry. I didn’t know how to answer him. I knew I should comfort him, but the only thing I could think to say was, “What bombs?”

“The bombs that killed everyone,” he said, exasperated, as if the words pained him.

When he saw my blank expression, he said, “You had to have seen them. They fell down from the sky. There was a big light, and everyone just exploded and disappeared. Why didn’t we disappear too?”

“There were no bombs,” I said. “It was the sky men. In their ships. They took everyone in their rays of light.” Saying this aloud, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. But I had seen it happen. I saw it happening to hundreds of people.

He shook his head slowly, standing without taking his eyes from me. Then I saw it in his expression—he thought I was insane. Or maybe he knew what I was thinking—he was the insane one. One of us had to be.

“Jonathan, there were no bombs,” I said firmly. “Ships in the sky beamed people up like in old sci-fi movies.”

“I saw the bombs falling and exploding! Clouds of smoke covering everything. Everyone died. I watched my dad’s body turn to ash and blow away in the explosion. I ran outside, and I saw everyone in the street die too!”

Maybe he was tricking me, but I when I looked into his eyes, there was only truth. He saw the bombs. And I saw the sky men. Were we both right? Or had neither happened? Or maybe it was something else entirely? A thought occurred to me then, a dark and terrible one. I didn’t want to follow the thought at first, but I needed to know.

“What happened to you on the night you saw the bombs?” I asked. “Right before the explosion. What were you doing?”

He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t really remember. It feels like it was so long ago. My dad, I think he was drunk again. He was mad at me for something. He said it was my fault. Maybe he hit me. Yeah, I think he did. Hard too. But he would hit me all the time. Does it matter now? I don’t really remember anything else after that until the first explosion when I went outside and saw the light from the bombs. What happened to you?”

“I was drinking,” I said. “I drank too much that night. Like I’d been doing ever since my son died. But I’d had more the night the ships came. Maybe I’d taken something too. To help me sleep. I don’t really remember much until the ships came into the sky and—” I stopped and stared at him, waiting for the realization to hit him as it had hit me.

Then his eyes grew wide, and he let out a small gasp. “Did we both? Are we—” He stopped himself from saying anything else. Tears formed in his eyes. We sat in silence for a long time after that.

Then he asked, “Why did I see the bombs? Why did you see the ships in the sky?”

“Maybe everyone is different?” I suggested.

“Is this what happens to everyone? Are we supposed to think everyone else has died when we die?” He looked at me, his face a mess of confusion and fear. “That’s horrible! Is that what my mom thinks?” His voice had grown loud, nearly shouting the last question.

“I don’t know.” I’d grown tired, not wanting to think about it anymore, but he was still questioning, still wanting answers.

“Where are we then?” he asked, his voice a whisper. “Is this hell?”

“No,” I said, my strength had gone, but I couldn’t let him believe that. “No, maybe it’s some kind of heaven?”

“Heaven? How?”

“Heaven because you lost a mother, and I lost my son. Now we’re together.”

He rose quickly, and I could tell I’d upset him even more.

“What kind of heaven is that? Why aren’t I with my mom? I don’t even know you! I don’t want you as my mom!”

I rose too but kept my distance. I needed to be cautious. Everything I said, I knew, could make him run away from me. Then what would happen to him? Would the sky men take him too? Was this my one chance at finding peace?

“Maybe heaven’s not about giving you what you want,” I said slowly. “Maybe it’s about giving you what you need. Maybe we need each other?”

He stood tensely in front of me, and I knew he would either leave me forever like Hank or stay depending on what I did next.

I slowly reached my hand toward his. He didn’t move. I took his hand in mine. I could see the cynicism in his eyes. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t this boy’s mother, and I would never see my own son again. But I had to try. I pulled him toward me and hugged him tightly. His body was still tense, but I felt him relax. In that moment, I knew he wasn’t going to pull away, and for the first time since Hank had left, I was happy it wasn’t the end.

About the Author

Megan Neumann is a speculative fiction writer living in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her stories have appeared in such publications as Crossed Genres, Daily Science Fiction, and Luna Station Quarterly. She's a proud member of the Central Arkansas Speculative Fiction Writers' Group and is particularly appreciative of their loving support and scathing critiques.

THE KEEPER OF THE LIBRARY

JOHN MICHAEL GREER

“I GOT A VERY odd email yesterday,” said Jenny Chaudronnier.

She and Owen Merrill sat by a glass-topped table in the rose garden behind the Chaudronnier mansion, lingering over the remains of an alfresco lunch. An odd pair by most standards: the one short, angular, with a mop of mouse-colored hair forever needing to be brushed back from a thin plain face; the other big and broad-shouldered, with hair and a neatly trimmed beard the same sandy color. A crisp salt-tinged breeze set rose-leaves fluttering around them. Over the roofs of the sprawling Georgian mansion, the vast gray mass of Kingsport Head loomed up into the summer sky.

“Odd how?” Owen asked, picking up the wine bottle and motioning with it. A quick smile and shake of her head told him what he’d expected, and he refilled his own glass.

“A woman from Cincinnati named Joyce Tamaguchi. She says she inherited a copy of the Book of Eibon—the 1634 Cassel edition of the Latin translation—and she wants to talk to somebody who knows the book and its history.”

“And how is that odd?”

“She didn’t use any of the words or signs of recognition.”

Owen set his glass down. Those who revered the Great Old Ones, Earth’s primal gods, had ways of identifying themselves to one another; those ways varied—the Starry Wisdom used one set of words and signs, the Esoteric Order of Dagon another, the various lineages of witches and sorcerers had their own—but you didn’t try to make contact without using at least a few of the standard signs. “None at all?”

“She said she was writing to me because my doctoral dissertation was on the Book of Eibon—which is true, of course, but...”

She let the sentence drop, incomplete. Owen considered her. His tour of duty in Iraq had ended more than a decade back, but the habits he’d picked up dodging bullets and roadside bombs there had served him well in the face of less ordinary dangers. “Bait for a trap, maybe.”

“Maybe.” Her fork speared a sugared grape. “She’ll be in Arkham next week. If you can spare the time—”

“Of course I’ll come,” Owen reassured her.

That got him a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Owen sipped his wine, remembering other dangers the two of them had faced together over the years. “Any time.”

THE BIG HOUSE AT the end of High Street had seen no shortage of changes since the Crowninshield family, local gentry then, had it built right after the Revolutionary War. The fields around it had given way to expensive suburbs in the 1920s, and those had slipped rung by rung down the economic ladder thereafter. Now the circle was completing itself; most of the houses had been demolished, and gardens were springing up here and there to supply farmers markets in Arkham, Bolton, and other nearby towns.

The old farmhouse still stood, though, a great mass of whitewashed stone with an ornate porch framed with Doric pillars, back behind a gravel parking lot edged with neatly trimmed hedges. A sign—RESTAURANT LA FRENAIE—kept discreet watch beside the front door. A baker’s dozen of expensive cars sat in the parking lot, gleaming in the bright summer sunlight, as Owen climbed out from behind the wheel of the Chaudronniers’ elderly black Cadillac and went to open the door for Jenny. He’d found a jacket and tie for the occasion; her dress, a deep red that made her hair look a little less drab, had the understated elegance of old money.

Someone was waiting for them on the porch. Joyce Tamaguchi, Owen guessed, and gave her an assessing look as they walked toward her. She was maybe forty, expensively dressed, with a flawless complexion, black hair falling in a braid to the small of her back, a shoulderbag well up in the four-figure price range. One thing stood out above all such details: she was scared. Not just nervous—frightened for her life.

“Ms. Chaudronnier?” she said, stepping off the porch to greet them. “I’m really grateful that you could meet me.” Hands got shaken, Owen was introduced—“my research assistant,” Jenny said—and they went inside. The entry was cool and quiet, or would have been the latter except for the maitre d’hote, who came bustling over. “Ms. Chaudronnier! I very nearly said ‘good afternoon,’ but of course it is always a good afternoon when you favor us with your company. The usual place, I trust?”

“Thank you, Jules,” said Jenny. “Yes, please.”

“But of course.” His gesture took in all three of them. “Please come this way.”

Presently they were settled around a heavy oak table in a little nook off to one side of a long rambling room, well away from listening ears. The nearby window looked north across the lower Miskatonic valley toward hills topped with gray standing stones; another further off looked east toward the sagging gambrel roofs of Arkham.

Water, wine, and a cold consommé appeared, and the waitress made herself scarce. “I’m really not sure how to begin this,” Joyce Tamaguchi said then. “It seems—well, superstitious, to be frank. But some of the things that have happened since my uncle died just don’t make sense, unless...” She considered her wineglass, sipped.

“Perhaps you can start with the book,” said Jenny.

“Of course.” She gathered her thoughts. “It’s been in the family for a while—since the nineteen-sixties, I think. My great-grandfather Michio Tamaguchi was a great collector of books. He was interned in the government camp at Manzanar during the war, you see, and of course the family lost everything they owned, including a collection of old books they’d brought over from Japan. So after the war, when he went into the construction business and made his fortune, he put quite a bit of money into replacing the books they’d lost, and the habit stuck.”

“And this particular book was one of his purchases?” Jenny asked.

Joyce nodded. “I don’t know the details of how he got it, but yes.” She tasted the consommé, took another spoonful. “And this is where things started getting strange. His daughter-in-law, my grandmother Kazuko, moved here from Japan after the war, and she’d trained back there as a miko—I don’t know if you know what that is.”

“Not to speak of.”

“A spirit medium in a Shinto shrine. Her family had connections with one of the really ancient shrines up in the mountains of Kumano, and that’s where she spent the war years when she was a girl. But she said there was something wrong with this book, and she did some kind of ceremony every year because of it.” She made a little helpless gesture. “I don’t know anything more about that. She didn’t talk about it, and everybody in my dad’s generation and mine basically thought of the entire business as a silly old superstition.”

Owen and Jenny glanced at each other. “Go on,” Jenny said.

“So the book was in my great-grandfather’s collection until he died, and my grandfather and grandmother inherited it along with most of his books. My grandmother had it until she finally passed away three years ago, and it went to my great-uncle Ray Tamaguchi, who was grandfather’s younger brother. He’d had it for just over three months when they found him in his study one morning. They said it was a heart attack. He had the book in his hands, and the most appalling look of horror on his face.

“His son Ray Jr. inherited the library along with the rest of the estate. He lived in Texas, and had everything shipped down there. He and Dad used to talk on the phone every Wednesday evening—they were really close; they were both book collectors, they used to quarrel all the time over who had the best collection of this or that, and try to outbid each other at auctions when something really fine was offerred—and after a year or so, Dad said, he started talking—”

The waitress came back with a platter on her shoulder, and Joyce fell silent. Once salads were on the table and the wine steward had set out and filled another round of glasses, she went on. “He started talking about hearing footsteps in the house. Not ordinary footsteps.” She put her fingernails against the table, drew them across to make a low harsh sliding sound. “Like that. Dad thought he was just getting old. But a year ago, they found him dead too.”

“Another heart attack?” Jenny asked.

Joyce’s face tensed. “Yes—and his heart was perfectly sound. He’d been to his doctor not three weeks before, and got a clean bill of health.”

A silence settled at the table for a time. Owen picked up his wineglass, considered it, took a good-sized drink.

“So my father inherited the book from him along with the rest of his collection,” said Joyce then. “I’ll be brief: the same thing happened to Dad. He mentioned the footsteps to me in a couple of phone calls, and then he died eight months ago in his study in Denver, late at night, with the book open on his desk: another heart attack, the doctors said. He lived in a penthouse apartment on the top floor of the building, by the way, and there were security cameras in the halls and guards on call. No one saw or heard anything.”

Owen glanced at Jenny, then turned to Joyce. “And nothing was stolen?”

“Nothing—and there were quite a few things worth stealing.” She poked at her salad. “The family’s very well off these days. Tamaguchi Construction has a net worth of fourteen billion dollars, and it’s closely held. We’ve all got the freedom to pursue our hobbies pretty much as far as we want to.”

Jenny nodded. “And so the book came to you.”

“Just a month ago, after Dad’s estate was settled.” With an uncertain smile: “I picked up the family passion for book collecting when I was still a girl, so I got the collection, and The Book of Eibon came with it.”

“Do you have it with you?”

“Of course.” She reached into her shoulderbag, got out a dark brown archival box tied neatly shut with a ribbon. “If you need to handle it—”

Jenny had already pulled a pair of cotton gloves from her purse, then got out another pair many sizes larger and handed it to Owen. She slipped the gloves on, untied the ribbon, and opened the box.

Owen craned to see the book. It was an octavo volume bound in pale brown leather, with letters in faded gold leaf on the cover: Liber Ivonis, the Latin title of Eibon’s tome. Jenny took it from the box and opened it gently to reveal an ornate seventeenth-century title page, then handed the volume to Owen, who turned it this way and that. The leather of the binding was so fine-grained and thin he wondered if it came from something smaller and more fragile than a cow. On the spine, Liber Ivonis was written near the top; toward the bottom was, of all things, a small paper label with a Dewey decimal code on it, 133.024 EIB. Owen blinked; he’d heard of private collectors that used library cataloging systems for their books, but not many of them.

He paged through the book, found nothing out of the ordinary, and gave it back to Jenny, who paged through it carefully, gave the back flyleaves a particularly close inspection, and then returned the book to its box, tied it shut, handed it back to its owner and took off her gloves.

“I’m sure all of this must sound like complete nonsense to you,” Joyce said then.

“Not at all,” Jenny replied. “All this is most interesting—but it’s only fair to warn you that you’re in very serious danger.”

“I know,” said Joyce.

Owen glanced up from his salad, watched her.

“I’ve heard the footsteps twice now in my home in Cincinnati,” she said. Her face tensed visibly. “Whatever it was that killed Roy Jr. and Dad, it’s after me.”

“ANYWHERE YOU CAN find a parking place,” said Jenny.

Afternoon blazed golden above the ancient facades and sagging roofs of Arkham’s old downtown district as the Cadillac nosed down Lich Street toward the old Miskatonic University campus. Streetside parking wasn’t too hard to find, and in half a block Owen eased the car into a space alongside a long-disused burial ground where great gray willows sent their roots twisting among illegible headstones.

He got out of the car, went to join Jenny on the sidewalk. “Where now?”

A gesture indicated the university buildings to the west. He shrugged, followed her.

A scattering of colonial-era houses stood cheek by jowl with ornate Victorian homes and tacky postwar commercial buildings along the street. Then, looming up stark and gray into the sunlight, a great windowless structure in a faux-Egyptian style faced the street, with a double door of bronze facing the sidewalk and a sign over it: PETTIGREW FOUNDATION.

“Here we are,” said Jenny. “You’ve heard about this building, I hope.”

“Just that it’s got some relationship to the university,” Owen said. “And there was supposed to be some kind of trouble about it a while back.”

“Two for two.” She pulled on the handle of one of the bronze doors, and it swung smoothly open. “The university doesn’t like to publicize the fact, but it’s open to the public most afternoons.” She gestured. “Shall we?”

Inside was a vestibule lit by two pale lamps. Beyond that stood a second pair of doors, with a sign beside it:

PETTIGREW FOUNDATION LIBRARY

Open to the Public Mon-Sat 1 PM—6 PM

Mornings By Special Arrangement

“There’s a librarian,” said Jenny in a low voice. “Keep him distracted—and see if he mentions books bound in human skin.” Owen gave her a startled look, and she smiled at him and pulled one of the inner doors open.

On the far side, a long dusty room stretched into distance, rose to skylights of milk glass set into the ceiling. Bookcases lined the walls, and balconies where a second and third story would otherwise have been allowed access to the higher shelves. Next to the door was a desk with a little standup sign that said, unnecessary, LIBRARIAN. Further in, chest-high glass cases filled the center of the room, and a dark cabinet of wood and glass stood beyond that.

The librarian was an old man in a well-worn black suit, with round rimless glasses over a pale flabby face. “Can I help you?” he asked.

Owen went over to the desk at once. “Thank you! I didn’t even know this place was open to the public until one of my friends told me about it.” With an expansive gesture: “So what’s all this about, anyway?”

The old man smiled blandly. “Oh, I know, we’re not very good at publicity, are we?” He got slowly out of his chair. “The Pettigrew Foundation Library has the east coast’s largest collection of books on death and the afterlife. What you see here—” He indicated the shelves around them. “—is the public collection. The really valuable things are in a vault offsite these days, I’m sorry to say, but even here we’ve got some very special things. Researchers come from all over to consult the collection here. Would you like to see some of our prizes?”

Owen agreed with as much enthusiasm as he could fake, and the old man beamed and led him further into the room. A sidelong glance told Owen that Jenny had made a beeline for a set of old walnut cabinets along one wall, and was paging through something in a narrow drawer.

“These are souvenirs from haunted houses,” said the librarian, gesturing toward a glass case with oddities in it: a dinner plate cracked in half, a length of rusted iron chain, a human skull, and more. “The founder of this library spent many years investigating them. She had a particular fascination with the ones where gruesome things happened—suicides, sudden deaths, attacks of insanity. The plate there was broken by a poltergeist in Kingsport; the chain and the skull are from a house down in Partridgeville, in New Jersey, where an unwanted daughter was chained in the basement and left to die. The ghost wasn’t happy at all, poor thing, and killed the people responsible and the next three families who moved into the house.”

Another glance back showed Jenny copying down details from something into a notebook from her purse. Owen followed the old man, listened gamely to his chatter.

“Now here’s something really choice,” said the old man. “This isn’t usually let out of the vault, but we prevailed upon the trustees to give it an airing.” His laugh sounded like someone shaking dry twigs in a bucket. “A fine copy of Morryster’s Marvells of Science, the 1651 London edition, with a small difference.” He glanced at Owen. “Bound in human skin.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes.” The old man gazed down fondly at the tome. “There was quite a fashion for that in the late Renaissance and the early modern period. Books of anatomy, especially—why, there must be twenty or thirty copies of Vesalius in existence with bindings of that type. They would take a cadaver that was going to be dissected by medical students, you see, and skin it, and then treat the skin exactly the same way you would any other delicate leather.”

It took an effort, but Owen kept his reaction off his face. He considered the book, read a few lines of the text. “Do you have any other books like that?”

“Why, yes, we do.” With a wistful smile: “The library used to have the largest collection of books bound in human skin anywhere in the Western hemisphere. We still have five, counting this one: two copies of Vesalius, Morryster here, a volume of Paracelsus, and a really rare item, a Greek manuscript of the Testament of Carnamagos from the fourteenth century.”

“That’s got to be worth a fortune,” Owen said, impressed.

“Oh, it’s been appraised.” The old man shook his head, and his smiled frayed. “We had a little disagreement with the trustees—oh, many years ago. They simply didn’t understand the importance of the Foundation’s holdings. Fortunately the quarrel didn’t last long.” He turned. “Ah, and over here’s something else you really should see—”

Fifteen minutes later, they came to the cabinet at the far end of the library. It stood easily eight feet high and five wide and deep, with a pane of glass set in the front. Within, Owen could see only darkness. In front of the cabinet stood a wooden desk, and on it was a curious device: a porcelain hand with its index finger extended, balanced so delicately on the end of an ornate metal post that it swayed faintly back and forth in the library’s unquiet air. In front of the finger was a placard with the alphabet on it, so arranged that the hand could point to one letter at a time.

“I suppose in a certain sense this is the prize of our collection,” said the old man. “Do you know about Mavis Pettigrew?”

“Not even the name,” Owen admitted.

“Ah, well. She was our founder, and our patron saint—well, after a fashion.” The same dry rattling laugh sounded. “She was a librarian at Miskatonic University’s Orne Library, the old library here downtown, of course, not the one in the new campus across the river. Hired in 1917, retired in 1951 as a very rich woman. You see, she used to put a little bit of each paycheck into buying stocks, and in 1924, I think it was, she decided to start putting money into a little startup firm called the International Business Machine Company, which was later known as IBM. So she had plenty of money after her retirement to devote to her avocation, which was the investigation of life after death. She was very much involved in what used to be called psychical research, attended seances, visited haunted houses, made a special study of astral projection, corresponded with mystics from all over the world, assembled the collection of books you see around you, and created the Foundation before she died. And here she is.” He gestured at the cabinet.

Owen glanced at him. The man’s expression hadn’t changed, but something cold showed in the depths of his eyes. “She was very protective of her collection,” he went on, “and so she put it in her will that her body was to be put in a glass tank full of a special solution she’d devised, and that was to be placed in a cabinet in the main room of the library.” Indicating the porcelain hand: “With a device she’d used to try to communicate with ghosts, as you see, so she could talk to the library staff if she wanted.”

Owen turned to face him then. “Does she?”

“Oh, there are stories.” The bland sweet smile didn’t waver. “We read her the annual report every year, and tell her when anything out of the ordinary happens, but it’s not as though she talks to us, dear me, no. Probably just as well—old Miss Pettigrew was very strong-willed, you know, and it really wasn’t a good idea to ignore her advice.” The man’s dry laugh set Owen’s nerves on edge. “No, not at all.”

Owen turned back to the cabinet, stared at the dark glass. After a time, very faintly, he could see shapes within it, drowned in the dark fluid: withered limbs, rags of clothing, a face like a skull still framed with wisps of hair. Long spidery hands with hooked fingernails clutched at nothing. He could not shake the impression that the eyes were open, and looking at him.

“SO WHAT DID YOU think of Joyce Tamaguchi?” Jenny asked as the Cadillac sped up.

Owen, behind the wheel again, glanced at her. “I think she’s honest. If she’s trying to trap you she’s the best liar I’ve ever met.”

“Oh?”

“She’s genuinely frightened—and you’re not the one that scares her.”

“Fair enough.” Gnarled pines fled past as the road straightened, rose to a crest ahead. “I was able to confirm the main details her story in the card catalogue at the library.”

“Do you have any idea what all of this is about?” Owen asked then.

“It’s pretty clear,” Jenny told him. Stray flickers of red light from the setting sun splashed across her face, found unexpected highlights in her hair. “I’ll need to look up a few things in the library back home, and make a few phone calls, and then—”

The last of the pines fell behind them, and Kingsport came into view, huddled around its central hill. Beyond it, the great mass of Kingsport Head glowed crimson in the sunlight.

“Then,” said Jenny, “if we’re very, very lucky, we might be able to save Joyce Tamaguchi’s life.”

Owen gave her a wary glance, kept driving.

TWO DAYS LATER THE Cadillac nosed back into another parking space alongside the burying ground on Lich Street. Heavy mists off the Miskatonic River veiled willows and headstones, contended with the pale disk of the morning sun. Owen got out of the car and headed for the sidewalk, then turned as a half-familiar figure approached them out of the mist.

“Ms. Tamaguchi,” Jenny said.

“Yes.” Her face was haggard with dread. “I heard the footsteps again last night. They were right outside my hotel room.”

“I thought that might happen. Do you have both books?”

Owen gave Jenny a puzzled look.

“Yes,” said Joyce. A motion of her head indicated her shoulderbag. “The other one arrived by courier last night.”

“Good. And you remember everything I told you on the phone? Excellent. We can—”

Jenny stopped in midsentence. Somewhere in the fog, not too far away, something was moving toward them. Its footfalls sounded like fingernails sliding across a wooden table.

A sudden gesture from Jenny, and the three of them hurried down the sidewalk to the door of the Pettigrew Foundation building. Owen held the door open, waited until the others entered, then closed it, hoping that whatever followed them wasn’t too close behind.

Joyce knocked on the inner door at once. Moments passed, and then the lock clicked and the old librarian opened it. “Come in, come in,” he said. “You’re Ms. Ta-mi—” He stumbled over the name.

“Tamaguchi,” said Joyce. “Yes. My friend Ms. Chaudronner made an appointment.”

“Of course.” He stepped out of the way, let them enter, locked the door behind them. “Now, what can I—”

At that moment, a phone rang audibly in another room. The old man looked apologetic. “I’m very sorry—do you mind if I get that?”

“No, not at all.”

He turned and walked away. “Quickly,” Jenny hissed. Joyce gave her a panicked look, but headed toward the far end of the room, and the cabinet with the glass front. Owen and Jenny followed her. Off in the distance, somewhere behind them, the faint sound of sliding footsteps came through the hush.

Joyce stopped in front of the glass, faced the thing inside. “Miss Pettigrew,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’ve come to return an overdue book.”

Nothing happened. Owen gave Jenny a worried glance, then turned back to the cabinet and the gaunt half-visible presence in it. The silence seemed somehow deeper, he thought, and then all at once realized what had changed: the sound of the footsteps had ceased.

A sudden sharp inbreath—Joyce’s—drew his attention back to the cabinet and the table in front of it. As he watched, with the slow pace of movement in a nightmare, the porcelain hand wavered slightly, pointed at Joyce, and dipped, until the extended index finger pointed at the desktop.

Joyce swayed, and then made herself open her shoulderbag. She pulled out the archival box and set it on the desk with shaking hands.

For another long moment nothing happened Then the hand stirred again, moving in an arc, indicating that she should open it. Joyce pulled a pair of white gloves from her handbag, put them on, took the copy of Liber Ivonis out of the box and set it on the desk. “It’s—it’s been kept in very good condition,” she said. “If you like, I can turn the pages so you can inspect them.”

Another moment passed, and then the hand turned again with agonizing slowness, and dipped at two of the letters on the placard: NO. Then it rose, pointed toward the librarian’s desk.

“Of course,” said Joyce. She put the book back in the archival box, tied the ribbon, and handed it to Owen, who carried it to the desk. As he neared that end of the library he could hear the librarian’s voice, muffled by a closed door, answering what sounded like an interminable seriess of questions about the library’s collections. He set the box on the desk, hurried back.

“I know there must be a considerable fine for something this overdue,” Joyce said then. “I hope this will be adequate payment.” She took another, smaller archival box out of her shoulderbag, set it on the desk in front of the porcelain hand.

The hand moved in another glacially slow arc, and Joyce opened the box and took out the contents: a small book bound in thin pale leather. “It’s the fourth book of Borellus’ De Mysteriis Scientiarum Antiquarum, the 1676 Geneva printing, light foxing and rubbed covers but otherwise very good condition. You’ll notice the binding—”

YES, the finger spelled out.

Owen was staring at the cabinet and the dim shapes within it. The eyes in the skull-like face were open, he was sure of it, and as he watched, they seemed to widen, gazing down at the little volume on the table with a look of utter fascination.

“I’d like to offer this as a donation to your library—if that will cover the fine.”

YES, the finger repeated.

“Is there anything else you want from me?”

NO. The finger pointed at the door. Joyce backed away, and then the three of them went to the desk, where Joyce set down the papers confirming her donation of two books. The librarian was still answering questions on the phone.

Owen glanced back at the glass-fronted cabinet as they left. It must have been a trick of the light, but he was sure for a moment that he could see the skeletal presence within, still gazing down fixedly at the little volume of Borellus.

“A STRAIGHTFORWARD CASE, ALL things considered,” said Jenny.

Owen gave her a wry look. “I’ll take your word for it. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how all of that worked out.”

They were sitting in the rose garden behind the Chaudronnier mansion again. Above, seagulls wheeled and called out with lonely voices against a stark blue sky. The clatter and rumble of Kingsport in tourist season came through the surrounding hedges as a dull hum.

Jenny sipped at her wine. “Well, to begin with, I knew by the time Joyce Tamaguchi finished her story that there was a ghost involved, and a ghost of a very particular type.”

“How so?”

“The footsteps.” She ran her fingernails across the glass-topped table, making a low sliding sound. “Quite a few of the old tomes talk about a particular kind of ghost—the Old Hag, which sits on the chests of sleepers and suffocates them. One of the things survivors have reported over and over again was that exact sound, as the ghost approached them.”

“Okay,” said Owen.

“So it was a matter of figuring out why three members of the Tamaguchi family had fallen afoul of that kind of ghost. The book was obviously the heart of it all, and so I looked for anything that would point me to its previous owner. What I found was an old accession stamp in back, indicating that it had been the property of the Pettigrew Foundation. So when we visited the library, I went into the old card catalogue—they still had it, fortunately—and found out how it left the Pettigrew Foundation’s hands.”

Owen considered that, and then said, “I’m guessing this gets into the disagreement with the trustees the old man mentioned.”

“Exactly. Mavis Pettigrew’s will made the board of regents of Miskatonic University the trustees of the Foundation. Of course they made all kinds of promises to her while she was alive, and once she was dead, they tried to sell off the most expensive items in the collection and funnel the money into the university coffers. Care to guess what happened to the two regents who pushed that plan the loudest?”

“Heart attacks,” said Owen.

Jenny nodded. “Three weeks apart. The others dropped the plan in a hurry, but a few books had already been sold, including the copy of The Book of Eibon that Joyce Tamaguchi’s great-grandfather bought.”

Owen considered that. “I wonder if the people who bought the other books from the collection ran the same risk.”

“Possibly,” said Jenny, “but I’ve made some inquiries and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of it. No, The Book of Eibon had one feature that made it more important to Mavis Pettigrew than the others—the binding.”

“Because it was human skin? I don’t get it.”

Jenny sat back, sipped more of her wine. “Collectors get into strange competitions,” she said then. “Back in the middle years of the twentieth century, there was a definite rivalry among some of the premier east coast scholarly libraries over who had the largest collection of exotic bindings, and books bound in human skin were prized items. Brown University down in Providence had four, I believe, and the University of Pennsylvania had five—but the Pettigrew Foundation had six. The largest collection of such books in the New World, in fact.”

Light dawned. “Until the trustees sold one.”

“Exactly. So I knew immediately that the volume had to be returned to the Pettigrew Collection—but would that be enough to stop Mavis Pettigrew’s ghost from pursuing Joyce Tamiguchi? I couldn’t be sure. That’s when I thought of the obvious thing to offer.”

“Another book bound in human skin.”

“Exactly. Joyce could afford it, and it only took me a little time online to find a rare-book dealer with something suitable for sale. So she bought the book and had it sent by courier—and after that it was just a matter of arranging for a friend to call the library a few minutes after we were scheduled to arrive, and keep the librarian talking while Joyce did what she had to do.”

Owen refilled his own glass, motioned with the bottle to Jenny; this time, she didn’t refuse. “Okay,” he said then. “All of it makes sense—well, except for the business about the book being overdue. What was that about?”

Jenny took another sip of wine. “In life, Mavis Pettigrew was a librarian,” she said. “And ghosts are creatures of habit—that’s why so many of them haunt the same places at the same times, sometimes for centuries. You’ve probably dealt with as many librarians as I have—you know how pleasant they tend to be when somebody brings back an overdue book and pays the fine, especially if the person who brought it back wasn’t the one who checked it out and didn’t return it. So I gambled that a dead librarian would respond the same way.”

About the Author

Born in the gritty Navy town of Bremerton, Washington, and raised in the wastelands of mid-twentieth century suburbia, John Michael Greer has been writing since about ten minutes after he figured out how to hold a pencil. He is the author of more than fifty books on a range of subjects from the future of industrial society to Druid nature spirituality, and currently blogs at www.ecosophia.net. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife Sara.

THE EARTHLY SPIRIT

SHAUN KILGORE

SUMMER’S LUSHNESS WASHED EVERY flower and growing thing in the gardens. The fragrances of the blooms, the scent of the grass and earth, and the movements of living creatures throughout. The rains had come again and refreshed the natural pulsing life of the world. Elise rejoiced in the twittering birds and scampering squirrels. Filled with an indescribable wonder, the girl felt at one with the host. Dressed in naught but a linen shift, the breeze brushed the hair on her bare skin sending flashes of pleasure through her as she raced among the trees and shrubbery and bounded over the beds of flowers glistening with dewy moisture and dwelling there in a multitude of colors and shapes.

Elise lost herself in the growth of the garden, pausing in her ambling only to sip cool, sweet water from a brook that wound through the interior. She spent endless hours among the shaded places of the thick boughs and sunned herself beneath the open skies when she grew too cool. Elise was alone but very happy in her little piece of paradise. None of those that dwelled in the austere house ventured out in the heat of the day. The dwelling place of her family was wood and stone with little color or ornamentation to disturb the clean lines and coldness that belief and tradition demanded. The contrast was great indeed between the untamed wildness of the garden, long abandoned by the inhabitants, and the ancient seat of her family. Elise cared little for such things. She felt more at home in the gardens and ignored her mother’s imprecations and softly-worded comments about her daughter being a little ‘heathen.’

Elise did not know what the world meant but she assumed her mother did not mean it as a compliment. She said it with such a pinched look of distaste. Her sallow skin and sad eyes were sometimes too much for Elise to bear so she fled the stuffy walls and spent the long summer days living in her beloved garden. She couldn’t understand why her parents and her elder siblings chose to ignore such raw beauty. They kept it all at arm’s length, believing that they world they lived in was a messy, unruly place not worthy of praise or enjoyment. She heard her father mutter about the punishment of sensation, of living in decaying flesh, and wishing for the sweet release into the higher realms where the heavenly creatures and God Himself dwelled.

Elise banished such unhappy thoughts and tiptoed through the soft grass.

She tracked the group of groundhogs rooting through the brush. Each careful step brought her closer to them, a mother and her young, until she could make out their little faces with their twitching noses and roving eyes. Elise smiled, filled with a barely containable delight.

Her giggle sent the animals running.

Elise wandered around some more, taking care not to trample the flowers in her path. Her eyes alighted on every bulb and bloom. She stopped and whispered to them and treated them like friends. She sometimes thought they spoke back. Elise bid them farewell and continued her travels.

In time, the sun journeyed westward and began its descent. Elise paid it scant attention for the summer days were exceedingly long. The girl wished to delay her return to the house for as long as possible. No one would notice her return so there seemed little point in hurrying. Her family would be wrapped up in their pale, lifeless concern. Her father would be ensconced in his dust-ridden study with its many books, endlessly scribbling figures on long sheets of paper. Her mother would be sitting in her somber parlor, darning with needs or sewing something useless to pass the time. Her brothers, she could not guess but she knew it would be unbearably boring.

Elise spent the last few hours of daylight running and playing among the trees. Her dancing and singing floated on the warm breeze. The time came when the sun was hanging low, near the edge of sight, coloring the sky all in deep oranges and purples, painting the clouds with a majesty unrivaled by the works of men. Only when darkness began to close in, did she retreat to the great house with its lamp-lit windows.

Elise clambered up a small, rarely used set of stairs and entered a part of the house used only by the servants. Lamps burned from sconces set on the paneled walls. There was no one else in the halls when Elise padded down the cool floor. When she reached a second set of stairs that led directly to her chambers, she bounded up them lightly, barely making a sound.

Elise tiptoed to her door. There was only a lone lamp burning. None of the servants had been up to light the rest. Likely the rest of her family was engaged elsewhere in the house. She didn’t care too much. If they wanted her, they’d send one of the servants. Elise opened her door and entered the room. A lamp burned, but it was very low, giving off a scant bit of light.

Her father was waiting for her.

Elise gasped and took a step back out.

“Come in and sit down, child.”

“Yes, father.”

“Please cover yourself.”

Elise felt her face flush. “Yes, father.”

She pulled on a shawl and sat the other chair. She waited. Her father twisted the knob on the lamp and flame grew higher. Elise fidgeted with the itchy wool. Her father watched.

“Is something wrong father?”

“You could say that, yes,” said her father. “Elise, we--that is to say, your mother and I--have allowed you tremendous liberty up until now. You have always been so vivid and filled with life, but now that you are getting older, we must give way to our better judgment. You are nearing the cusp of womanhood. There are certain responsibilities that come with that, both for us and for you. Society and right conduct demand it.”

Elise frowned. She didn’t understand.

Her father thought as much. “Elise, let me speak plain.”

“Okay,” said Elise hesitantly.

He stood up, clasping his arms behind his back. “Elise, we are sending you to city. There you will attend the Brighdon School for Girls.”

Elise blinked. “I’m leaving home?”

“Yes,” said her father.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Tears rolled down Elise’s cheeks. “Tomorrow?”

“Yes, it has all been arranged. Mora will be up here later to help you pack.” Her father went and knelt in front of Elise. “It is for your good, child. You must understand that. You cannot continue indulging in all of your whims and fancies. The time has come to put them behind you so you might grow to be a proper lady.”

Elise did not speak. She didn’t know what say. Her father lingered a few moments, talking about the new life she would have and what she would learn at the Brighdon School. Elise wiped more tears from her eyes and nodded silently. When he finally left, Elise ran to her bed and wept until Mora came for her, bearing a tray with dinner and offering a consoling shoulder for the girl to cry on.

THE SUN WAS WARM on her face and she could smell the sweet aromas of flowers wafting on the breeze, but Elise felt cold inside. Wrapped in layers of linen and wool, the girl was suffocating. She couldn’t feel the breeze on her arms or legs. Her hair was braided and wrapped on her head--not flowing freely. The collar on the dark blue dress clinched tightly at the neck and added to the choking effect. Elise wanted to rip the buttons, but removed her fingers. She clasped her hands in front of her.

Elise stood before her family’s lacquered carriage. Her baggage was already loaded. The drivers were seated and waiting for her to climb aboard. Her father stood next to the open door, his face smooth, his gaze even. Lined up beside her, were her brothers, Wylam and Jorge, and her mother.

“Elise, darling, it is for the best. I hope you see that,” her mother said. The woman exuded enough motherly affection to shed a few tears she dabbed away with a frilly handkerchief.

“That Brighdon School will turn you into a proper girl too, Lisie.” added Wylam. The boy was a year older than she. His smug expression was cut short with a clap on the back of the head.

Jorge, the oldest, gave Wylam a withering glance. “Quiet, you. Give our sister a proper farewell.”

Wylam sniffed and rubbed his head. “Take care, Lisie.”

“Goodbye, Wylam,” Elise said softly.

Jorge broke from the line and came to stand in front of Elise. He was taller and looked down at her. “You’ll do fine, little sister. Just mind your teachers. Make some friends. They’ll help you forget this place.” He smiled warmly.

Elise was overcome. She jumped into her brother’s arms and squeezed him tightly. “Goodbye, Jorge.”

“Goodbye, Elise.”

Her family became composed and excruciatingly proper as her father helped her into the carriage--though her mother still dabbed at her cheeks. No more was said.

“I know this all seems harsh, Elise, but you must know it is time you grew up. You mother and I only want to provide you the best opportunities in society. You will be fine. I promise you. Please write to us as time permits. I should like to be updated on your progress.”

Elise nodded. “Yes, father.”

Her father stepped away, pausing to squeeze her hand, before joining the others. Elise stared at them through the open window. Her father motioned to the driver and the carriage jerked once before setting off down the road. Elise stuck her head out and watched her home fade behind her. Her family grew smaller and smaller until they were lost from sight. All she had known had come to an end. Elise fell to the cushioned seat and sobbed. She cried until herself to exhaustion and a fitful sleep came over her.

Elise later awoke to the jouncing of the carriage over rougher roads. She sat up, stretching achy muscles. At once, she unfastened the buttons of her collar. Then she turned to look out the carriage again. The world beyond was strange and unfamiliar. She was well beyond any point she had ever traveled in her short life. The land was all rolling hills, wide pasture lands, dotted with stands of trees for miles to either side of the ribbon of road that cut through it. She could see houses in the distance, great houses and small clusters of plain cottages. Some could have been villages but the carriage did not venture nearer to them. Elise borne along on a road she knew as Highland. The road led to the city of Farrington. It was there that she would live now, dwelling as a ward of the Brighdon School. Elise knew nothing about her new home and did not care to. As the carriage rumbled along, she entertained notions of leaping from the moving conveyance and making her escape. Only the thought of breaking a leg or her neck stopped her from acting on her plan.

THE CARRIAGE ROLLED DOWN the fine brick roads of the city. Elise’s eyes roved wildly across the many sights and her ears were overwhelmed by the incredible volume of noise generated by the other carriages rumbling along the cobbled street, the crowds of people shouting and carrying on a thousand different conversations. There were proper ladies clad in a fine dresses in just about every imaginable hue. Elise, already sweating in her dress, was astonished than none of them seemed the least perturbed by the summer’s heat. Some still carried parasols, which like afforded some shade during other times of the day.

Elise tried to block out the cacophony, sliding the windows of her carriage shut. This softened the din just enough to provide some relief. Outside, her driver cried out as they passed into an intersection, screaming for the right of way. The carriage weaved slightly as they took the turn, causing Elise to cling tightly to the cushioned seats.

The new street was slightly less congested than the first, but more than crowded enough to keep Elise uneasy. So many people, she thought. She’d never seen so many in her whole life. There probably were so many in the entire area surrounding her family’s home. The street was practically clogged with foot traffic, many of them men and women dressed in grays, blacks, and blues, with only a few accents of color on hats, scarves, ties, and parasols.

What was worse than the suffocating numbers of people was the utter lack of trees and green things in Farrington. All was relentless brick, stone, wood, and concrete. Elise searched vainly for a single flower, and only happened to notice a man carrying a handful of white lilies in his hands. Her heart fluttered in a deep panic. Elise closed her eyes for a time just to shut out the disturbing sights. She imagined herself back in her garden. The familiar sights and sounds of that beloved place served to calm her enough that Elise cracked open her eyes again. She sat up straight and leaned against the glass and watched the buildings pass by. She tried to note numbers and read the signs plastered everywhere. Strange names for strange places, Elise thought.

“I want to go home,” she said quietly to nobody.

THE CARRIAGE STOPPED.

Elise swallowed the lump in her throat and peered out the wind. The carriage shifted on its springs as the driver got down and extended the step outside. Then he rapped on the door.

“Miss, we’re here. We’ve arrived at the Brighdon School.”

Elise found her voice. “Thank you, Donaven.”

The driver opened the door and helped Elise to the ground. She wasn’t used to the cumbersome length of her dress and nearly lost her footing when her legs became tangled in the folds. Elise grit her teeth and with Donaven’s aid, placed her feet on the brick walk.

Out in the open, she finally took a real look at the building set slightly back from the street. A brick walkway, worn smooth from frequent use, stretched straight up to a wrought-iron gate. The gate, topped with statues of birds in flight that made it a minor work of art, stood open. The walk continued up a succession of tiered steps until it stopped at the heavy wood door the color of night. It was set in a soaring building of dressed white stone of four stories and marked by a repeating pattern of birds sculpted along the top. Though it was resembled the austere styles of the other buildings Elise had seen so far, the birds stood out, making it different.

The driver left her standing there while he removed her luggage from the carriage. The lot of it was deposited beside her. Elise muttered a meek thanks and continue to stare at the school. She bit her lip to keep from crying. Then a girl near her age walked past her spot on the walk. She glanced at Elise out of the corner of her eye, smiled slightly and gave a polite nod, then went through the gate. Elise’s gaze followed her up the walk. At the door, she stopped and rapped on the door. Immediately, it came open soundless. A tall, slender woman in a dark blue dress with her blonde hair bound in tight curls appeared and ushered the girl in. Then she noticed Elise.

The woman said nothing but proceeded towards her, the clacking of her shoes seeming louder than it ought. Her pale face remained passive until she was standing a few paces before Elise.

“Hello,” she said in a sweet, lyrical voice that belied her age. The hair was white more than it was blonde and Elise could see the fine lines in her face now that she was so close.

Donaven hastily pulled his cap from his balding head. “Good day, Mistress.”

“Miss Haymore, Genevieve Haymore. I’m the headmistress of Brighdon.” She looked directly at Elise. The girl flinched. “Is this Miss Elise Priar?”

“Indeed, mum,” answered Donaven.

Miss Haymore ignored the driver. “Is this right, child? You’re Elise Priar?”

Elise tried to speak. “Y...yes, Mistress. It...it is.”

“Good. We’ve been expecting you.” Miss Haymore addressed Donaven again. “Driver, if you would please bring Miss Priar’s things to the entrance hall, we will take care of them from there.”

“Yes, mum.”

“Miss Priar, please come with me.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Elise squeaked.

Leaving the carriage behind, Elise followed the headmistress up the walk. Donaven came up behind them, straining the carry her luggage without scraping it on the stone steps. They came to the imposing door. Elise hesitated at the threshold.

“Come along, dear.”

“Yes, mam.”

Elise put a foot through first the moved through. The entrance hall was large and dominated by a broad, stone staircase. At the moment they entered, she saw other girls moving about, many carrying books of various kinds, but each girl was wearing the same dark blue dress with the same bird in flight emblem embroidered on the breast.

No one paid them much mind. They were all hurrying about with a focused air about them. Whispered conversations among the students remained the only sound to disturb the general quietude of the stone edifice. Though it wasn’t cold, the austere décor and stone walls made her shiver. This was where Elise would live. There wasn’t a single growing thing to be seen, only unfeeling marble and limestone.

“Welcome to Brighdon. Child, I know you are confused and even fearful, but it will all become familiar to you in time. Come. I will show you to your rooms. Then we can talk about your lesson schedules.”

Elise nodded numbly and allowed herself to be drawn up the stairs by Miss Haymore. They passed other girls. There were polite greetings but none stopped for a more than second before going on their ways. Elise, with her nerves jumbled, barely glanced up at all as she ascended one flight after another. Miss Haymore scaled up every stair until they reached the top where the landing made a square around them like the others. The only difference was that directly above them was the bird spreading its wings in flight as part of a brilliant mural that covered the ceiling. Miss Haymore did not linger there so Elise hurried after her.

As they walked down one of the halls, the headmistress pulled out an iron ring that jangled with several keys. As though on cue, a few of the doors flew open and girls in various states of dress and undress poured out to stand in front of their doors.

“Good afternoon, girls. Considering none of you have lessons, I am introducing you to Miss Elise Priar. She is new to Brighdon.”

The girls gazed curiously at Elise.

Elise felt her cheeks grow hot and averted her eyes.

“Yes, well, she’s a bit skittish yet. Miss Priar?”

Elise snapped her head up. “Yes, Mistress?”

“You will be in room seventeen. Your roommate is Ferris Ward. She is currently in class so you’ll have time to settle in before she returns.” Miss Haymore paused. “Thank you ladies, you may return to what you were doing.”

One and all, the girls piled back into their rooms, sometimes whispering, but little else. Elise was left standing there with the headmistress.

“You will be given your schedule tomorrow. Since you’ve arrived here during the middle of the term, we will have a few assessments you will have to undergo so we can determine where to place you.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Suddenly, the woman reached out and touched her shoulder. “It will all be alright, Miss Priar. Believe me.”

Elise gave a half-hearted nod and let the headmistress show her into the room.

THE FIRST FEW DAYS went by quickly because Elise was busy being tested from morning till late afternoon. She barely had time to think about home or anyone while undergoing the battery of assessment tests that the instructors at Brighdon thought was necessary to determine her place in the curriculum. Elise considered failing the tests on purposes, but somehow she thought Miss Haymore would know it. She had little doubt that she would stay no matter how she performed. Elise, though young, had some idea that money was exchanged between her parents and the school to ensure her educational future.

In the end, Elise took the effort to perform as instructed and answer the questions to the best of her ability. She tried to ignore the appraising looks as the scores were tallied. The instructors met with her in turns and some offered compliments on her aptitude and comprehension. She was a very smart young girl. That opinion was almost universal. Elise realized that her father had provided a very sound education all on his own and that she would be ranked with second year students in some cases.

Elise wasn’t sure what that meant. She was fighting off her nerves and anxious to step outside into the sun. She hated being cooped up inside the stone walls. On the fourth day after her arrival, Elise reported to Miss Haymore’s office.

“Elise, welcome. Please sit down.”

Elise, still fidgeting with her collar, did manage to sit properly despite the stiff fabric of her dress. She waited while the headmistress finished writing something on the sheets of paper gathered before her on the desk.

Presently, Miss Haymore set the pen down and looked at Elise. “Well, you have done remarkably well with all of the tests, Miss Priar. I would have to say outstanding in truth. Your previous education was handled beautifully.

“Thank you, Mistress.”

“It’s a credit to your parents, child. They understood what was needful despite what you’ve chosen for yourself.”

Elise felt her throat tighten. What did Miss Haymore mean? What did she know about her?

“Beg pardon, Mistress, but what do you mean?”

Miss Haymore kept her face as smooth as stone. “The letter that your father sent as part of admissions explained that you’re a clever girl but prone to daydreaming and were left to your own devices to wander the grounds of your home unattended.”

The headmistress frowned.

Elise trembled. She felt exposed and ashamed in front of this stranger. The feelings were odd. She was rarely embarrassed. Surrounded by the cold stone, the sparse appearance of the room, and the austerity of the school in general, Elise wanted to flee more than ever. She did not belong in such an unfeeling place. The trees and the flowers beckoned her. The birds and the sly squirrels were her friends and she missed them.

Tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

“Miss Priar, are you well?”

Elise brushed the tears away. “Yes, Mistress.”

“As I was saying, with all of that in mind, I do think you need to spend some time learning a few fundamentals of etiquette as you pursue the academic schedule that has been established for you. You seem a backwards girl though you are polite and you have a kindly way about you. These will serve you as the teachers at Brighdon seek to refine you and shape you for good society.”

“What is good society, Mistress?”

“You will understand it better once your lessons begin.”

Miss Haymore spoke a bit longer about some of the rules and policies of the school. Most of them sounded like common sense to Elise so she nodded while half-listening. She flinched, though, when the headmistress stated that attendance at chapel services was mandatory for all the girls and that this would be a regular outing into Farrington. She had never been to church services but from what she’d heard from her brothers they were dreadfully boring events with the priests intoning the virtues of temperance, humility, and bodily denial for health of spirit and devotion to God. But, they are required, Elise thought. There would be no way to avoid them.

Miss Haymore finally stood up and dismissed Elise. “Tomorrow, classes begin for you, Miss Priar. It will take some time for you to catch up with the other girls given your previous workload. A new life is truly beginning for you, dear. Be bold and embrace it. Be diligent and practice patience. Say your prayers and all will be well.”

Elise left the office and marveled at the woman’s confidence. She was far from trusting of the otherworldly and faceless God that her family and most everyone else devoted themselves.

“Maybe I should run away before tomorrow comes,” Elise said matter-of-factly just as one of the girls passed her. The girl, redheaded and pale, gave her a shocked look and nearly ran into the wall.

Elise cracked a small smile and climbed the stairs.

THE CHOIR LED THE congregation in devotional hymns. The sounds of their voices resonated off the white stone walls of the chapel. Elise mouthed the words but did not add her voice. The songs were familiar ones from when her parents occasionally visited their local church in the country, but such visits had been rare in Elise’s short life. She tried to hide her discomfort with the songs that spoke of death and the glory beyond its dark gates.

She waited in silence with only an occasional cough to break it before the priest climbed to the podium carrying the sacred book with him. He the blue vestments of his station hung loosely over his slender frame. His mouth was puckered in a sour smile that left his eyes squinting. The light from the chapel’s lone oculus struck his pale, sickly skin. The gem-studded circle that crowned his sweaty brow caught the light and sparkled.

“Welcome, dear friends,” the priest intoned.

Elise looked about her, looked at the faces of the other girls, lined up to either side of her in the pews set aside for the Brighdon students. Some looked bored and distracted. Others more attentive to the clergyman’s voice. Miss Haymore stared fixedly sat the priest. The headmistress only had eyes for his words. Words that droned out with little vibrant inflection to disturb it.

Elise listened to the priest extol the common virtues she had heard when her mother was moved to lecture her wily daughter on propriety and self-denial. Life was filled with curses and whatever good was bestowed upon men came from God to coax us to the truth. Life was cursed because, somewhere in ancient times, men broke sacred laws and sinned against their Maker. Part of the curse was the degradation of the spirit by its habitation of corrupted flesh and bone. All of creation was subject to destruction. The hope of all was to forsake the love of such things and strive to put away the fleshly sensations. Piety, sobriety, asceticism were honored and preferred--and considered marks of holiness.

Elise grew colder as the priest spoke of the natural world as corrupted and beyond saving, not worthy of notice except for the provisions if afforded men to carry out necessary tasks of living. The words were like knives poking Elise so that she wanted to shout at the priest and tell him he was wrong. The earth was good in its own right, not in the estimation of supposed virtues prescribed by some distant God.

Shackled in her unyielding dress, her hair bound in tight braids, Elise herself felt distant from the living pulse of life that she had enjoyed in her garden so recently. The birdsong, the foraging beasts, the smell of the flowers, were what mattered to Elise. They cried out to be heard, the voices of the earth. She was attune to their melodies.

Elise stifled a sob. She wanted to leave that horrible place. She needed to be feel the sun on her face. Trying not to get noticed, she shuffled down the pew until she was at its edge. Slowly Elise stood up and crept backwards toward the chapel doors. Everyone was lulled by the priest’s speech and did not note her movement. A few moments passed and she was in the vestibule and then out into the daylight of the city.

Elise did not stop on the steps she kept walking the streets of Farrington, not knowing or caring where she went. She knew she would be missed eventually. There would be consequences for leaving the chapel, but Elise didn’t care now. The summer air touched her face, though it’s sweetness was muted by so many different smells emanating from the city surrounding her. She wanted to run but the clothing and shoes she wore were encumbering her enough to keep her at a steady walk. Elise glanced at street signs as she moved down one and then to another street. Farrington spread out so far that there seemed no end to the stone, brick, and plaster of the environment. Carriages and carts littered the streets in lower numbers. Fewer people moved about unhurriedly on the less-crowded walks. The sabbath drew many away to tomb-like buildings throughout Farrington.

Elise walked several blocks in the rising heat. She was soaked through with sweat within an hour. Part of her wanted to leave the city, but she’d gotten tangled up by the layout of its streets and wasn’t sure how to get out. The day passed as she wandered about, ignoring the odd looks she got from passersby and struggling with her hunger when the scent of hot grilled meat or fresh-baked bread strayed in her path.

Elise came to a part of the city where the streets grew into wide boulevards divided by small areas of grass where scrawny trees spread their pathetic shade for no one. The carriages roving about were finely detailed and colored and pedestrians wore richly embroidered dresses and suits. She had come to the abode of Farrington’s wealthy.

More appraising looks came her way as she kept to the sidewalks. She was dressed reasonably well for someone of her station. Elise was puzzled by the stares at first but realized that she was traveling with out chaperon during a time of day when most children would be supervised in some fashion. Her present would be remarked though she did know whether word would be sent to the school.

Elise decided to keep her head down and not meet the eyes of those that ghosted the quiet neighborhood. In time, she noticed the trilling of birds growing louder. She glanced up and gasped at what lay before her: Trees. There were several trees and other shrubs sheltered beyond a metal fence. Tall wrought-iron gates stood open and a brick road penetrated its interior. Elise stared wide-eyed. She grinned and went inside.

Just beyond the gates, she left the brick path and took to the grass, heading into a stand of trees. She touched the leaves as she wove through them, letting her fingers trail across the rough bark. The sob she had held in broke out and Elise collapsed against the tree’s trunk, the familiarity of it suffusing her with joy.

The breeze picked up and the rustling of thousand leaves in the boughs above was like a welcome from old friends. The birds alighted the branches around her and filled her ears with a music that made the hymns in the chapel seem foolish and sad imitations in comparisons. Grasping in the darkness for a light that was unknown to them.

Elise set about removing her shoes then her stockings. The warm air brushing her toes made the girl sigh. She stood up and walked in the grass. She giggled and pranced around. Next, Elise undid the braids that made her head ache. Soon, she bounced among the trees with her hair once more flying free. What was it to worship in a house made of cold stone singing praises for a world beyond the senses, a place where all of the earthly joys that made life meaningful were dispelled?

Elise stopped and looked around at the trees. “Here and now. That is what is worthy of worship. Nature and its thousands of beauties. Life and its preciousness reflected and honed by its twin, death itself.

The revelation gave Elise peace. She left the city park and once more entered the world of stone. She returned to the Brighdon School for Girls and took her punishment. She learned what it was that she was expected to learn, but the girl never forget the quiet truth of nature. She carried the divine spark of the present world as she grew into a woman. Elise gave into that earthly spirit and in so doing lived as few did.

About the Author

Shaun Kilgore is the author of various works of fantasy, science fiction, and a number of nonfiction works. He has also published numerous short stories and collections. His books appear in both print and ebook editions. Shaun is the publisher and eidtor of MYTHIC: A Quarterly Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine. He lives in eastern Illinois.

THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY

Edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman

Reviewed by Stephen Reid Case

Tachyon Publications, 2017

HOW DO YOU TELL signal from noise? Right now there’s a torrent of fiction, a veritable plentitude of new writings, being published every day. A huge array, online and offline, in magazines or as novels and collections, in print publications and electronically, published through standard avenues or self-publishing, is available for the choosing. Electronic publishing has opened the floodgates as far as sheer volume goes. But this means there is a great deal of noise being produced, and it becomes difficult to wade through it all and find the sharp, lovely signal of narrative that is doing good work.

A favorite magazine (like this one) helps— knowing that you’re having curated fiction delivered to your doorstep quarterly. Ideally, a good anthology is also a tool for wading out into this noise. A skillfully-assembled anthology provides a few things: a sampling of the best of what’s currently out there, a barometer of sorts as to the state of a genre, and a roadmap of where to go next. All of these things provide a filter to start separating out signal from the wash of background noise. The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by SFWA Grandmaster Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman, purports to do this for contemporary fantasy by highlighting the “new voices” shaping the genre. And it succeeds in all three respects: as sampling, barometer, and roadmap.

Let’s take if first as a sampler. Is it an enjoyable read? Is it balanced? Is it a book you’d want to pick up off the shelf, even if you didn’t care about finding new authors or the state of the genre, if you just wanted a fun book to read? Almost uniformly, the stories in here are gripping and elegant. Some, like Brooke Bolander’s “Tornado’s Siren,” in which a tornado falls in love with a young girl and the strange courtship that follows, are whimsical and lovely. “A Kiss with Teeth,” by Max Gladstone, is a modern take on a common vampire trope with surprising pathos. Ursula Vernon’s “Jackalope Wives” provided a gorgeous, dreamy fable of the American West. And none of these stories really stood out from the quality of the rest of the pieces. As a sample platter, New Voices hit all the right notes.

What about that second aspect, providing a barometer of the state of the genre? Here as well, the anthology succeeds admirably. The stories compiled indicate that contemporary fantasy right now is cutting, built of shadow and longing. “Left the Century to Sit Unmoved,” by Sarah Pinsker, gives a heavy dose of this, a surreal piece about longing and disappearance and coming of age in a sleepy midwestern town with a mysterious hole at its center. “The Tallest Doll in New York City,” by Maria Dahvana Headley, gives us urban fantasy in the gilded age, as two skyscrapers fall in love on Valentine’s Day, carrying their respective inhabitants along with them. Another excellent example of the way fantasy right now can balance the everyday with the softly incredible was Hannu Rajaniemi’s “The Haunting of Apollo A7LB,” in which a haunted spacesuit comes to call on the woman who fashioned it.

Perhaps most valuably though, the anthology functions as a roadmap. With so many excellent pieces, where does one go next? New Voices provides a stepping-off point for those who are looking for what to read next. The stories form a nicely cohesive whole, but they introduced widely varying authors. If a reader preferred the grim humor of Chris Tarry’s “Here Be Dragons,” for instance, or the literary and political subtlety of E. Lily Yu’s “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” then one knows has been introduced to an new author to explore. For me, I found the short, almost Borgesian pieces by Adam Ehrlich Sachs, collected in this work under the title “The Philosophers,” the most compelling. I was also quite taken with the concluding work of the volume, “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” by Usman T. Malik, a dizzying story within a story mixing of fable and family history. For each author in the collection, the biographical introduction that starts each piece gives guidance on where to find more of their work.

In sum, if you want an excellent sampling of contemporary fantasy, from urban to ironic high fantasy, that provides a feel for the contours of the genre today and a useful roadmap of new authors to explore, then this volume is definitely worth your time and attention.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

MYTHIC

A Quarterly Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine

ISSUE # 6: SPRING 2018

Copyright © 2018 by Founders House Publishing LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All Contents are copyrighted to their respective authors

and used here with their permission.

Cover art copyright © Philcold/Dreamstime.com

Published by Founders House Publishing LLC

MYTHIC: A Quarterly Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine

is a project and publication of Founders House Publishing LLC.

www.mythicmag.com

www.foundershousepublishing.com

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional,

and any semblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts

thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.