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Eleven

L ately I’ve been thinking a lot about Judy Jetson. Yes, that Judy Jetson, the teenager of the cartoon family with her perky blond ponytail and her impossibly thin waist.

Mostly her impossibly thin waist.

Because Judy Jetson is a visual example of how we science fiction writers missed a major societal change, one that was obviously coming, if any of us bothered to look.

Here we are, nearly at the end of the first decade of the new century, and we are so blasé about outer space that we no longer watch the space walks with rapt fascination or care all that much when yet another rover lands on Mars. Our astronauts float around an international space station, for heavens’ sake, and we shrug it off like it’s an every day occurrence.

Because it is.

Granted, we don’t have the flying cars, but we carry computers in our pockets (what do you think your high-end cell phone is?). We argue about the viability of cloning, but we don’t consider ourselves part of a science fiction universe.

Yet, to little ole me, the kid who watched Judy Jetson tease her little brother and ditch her parents like any normal teenager, we do live in a science fiction universe.

Only no one except high end models have impossibly thin waists. Our waists are impossibly fat. The culture has shifted. In hindsight, the shift was obvious.

How did SF miss it?

I mean, it would be logical for good old Judy Jetson to have an impossibly fat waist. She never exercised. She hardly lifted a finger. Even if she ate the prescribed number of food pills every day, she probably would have gained weight—unless there was some magic weight loss potion in those pills as well as the necessary nutrients.

I’ve been looking backwards because somehow in the past twenty years, I gained 60 pounds. That’s three pounds per year, less than the average American, who gains five every year. I’ve been fighting this weight gain since I turned thirty, mostly with exercise, but I didn’t realize I’d been losing the battle until my doctor complimented me.

Yes, complimented me. She congratulated me on remaining the same weight for three years running. In other words, she complimented me for not gaining weight.

Somehow that got through instead of her predecessor’s admonitions to lose the weight. In response, I stammered, “Is staying the same weight unusual?”

“I never see it,” she said. “Everyone gains.”

Well, I answered the wake up call and have so far lost thirty-six of those sixty pounds. And each half pound loss is a struggle. I added food portion control to my exercise routine and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong.

And, it turns out, where I went wrong is simple:

I consistently ate three-quarters of everything on my plate.

In the 1970s, when I hit my teen years, three-quarters of everything on my plate was three-quarters of what the scientists consider a normal portion. That left me room for a small dessert. In the 1980s, that three-quarters was the equivalent of a full portion. In the 1990s, three-quarters equaled a portion and a half. And I still ate my desserts.

Those plate sizes changed—not just in restaurants where portions grew astronomically, but at home as well. The plates I bought in 1995 are a third again as large as the plates I got in 1979.

But that’s not the only problem. The American farm breakfast, which I was raised on—eggs and hash browns and toast and sausage—has an entire day’s worth of calories. So does a cheeseburger and fries.

Our parents and grandparents ate these meals. How come they didn’t get fat?

They did. They pudged by middle age. Even though they’d been working on the farm—actual physical labor—or walking to their day jobs. They also died early of heart attacks and strokes because of those infamous clogged arteries.

Okay. So how come they didn’t get fatter when they were younger?

Simple.

They smoked.

Nicotine cuts the appetite. Smokers who quit gain weight because food suddenly tastes good.

I don’t know what the statistics were for smoking in 1970 because only the cigarette manufacturers had them, but what I recall is that it was more unusual to be a nonsmoker in those dark days than it was to be a smoker. And most nonsmokers lived with smokers.

When you look backwards, the causes of the societal weight gain are obvious: cut smoking by more than two-thirds, increase calories, and decrease exercise, and what do you get? A nation of fat people.

A disaster of untold proportions is coming. Twenty percent of all children are overweight. That’s more than double the percentage of ten years ago. These kids are starting life with a health problem that the rest of us crept into.

As a result, preventable diabetes has grown into an epidemic. Life spans have shorted dramatically. Everyone, it seems, is taking pills for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And even that isn’t staving off the strokes and heart attacks.

The health researchers are screaming about obesity rate, as are the doctors and the dieticians. But Americans aren’t listening.

Partly because we can’t imagine this predicted future.

And why can’t we imagine it?

Because of Judy Jetson’s impossibly small waist.

Even now, science fiction writers do not look at the implications of fat on our culture. We missed the trend for the past forty years, and we’re still missing it. Our science fiction characters are all thin—even those who never get out of their chairs. The jacked-in characters in the cyberpunk universe were scrawny, just like the folks who spent all their time not exercising on starships. Or the people who have robots to do their every task.

SF writers haven’t tackled the usual SF question: What if this goes on? We’re leaving it to the real scientists and the doctors and the child advocates. We’re dropping the ball.

I’m guilty of it too. I’m sure I haven’t faced this part of SF because doing so would have meant acknowledging that I had gained a third again as much of my body weight in 20 years. It would have meant understanding what I was seeing around me (and in my mirror). And that would have taken more self-awareness than I possessed.

At least until the doc broke through my wall of denial with her strange compliment.

So now I stare at Judy Jetson’s impossibly thin waist and I wonder if there’s some kind of girdle in that space-age dress that sucks the fat out of her system and uses that fat to power those skyways.

Because it’s a lot easier to think about Judy Jetson than it is to think about what the world will look like in thirty years if this trend continues.

But I can tell you this—as sure as I am that we’re not going to substitute pills for food in the future, I’m equally sure of one other thing:

We won’t look like Judy Jetson either.

Eleven

Family Matters

T he family has been around as long as multicellular life; in fact you might say it was responsible for it. Individual cells joined up and took on specialized roles in larger communities, eventually creating new and more adaptable life forms. Bees and ants have ’em, mammals and birds have ’em, and us naked apes have more kinds than anyone else, and more ideas about what that means.

Time was, everyone thought they knew what “family” was, though each member of the set “everyone” almost certainly had a different and very personal notion of what it was they knew. Family has been thought of as multigenerational, then nuclear, and recently in danger of collapse as an institution if every single example didn’t consist of a man, a woman, and some children. Maybe a dog, if it wasn’t a gay dog. Every now and again there’s a movement among some progressive types to do away with it altogether as hopelessly decadent. Nothing much ever comes of that.

In the last few years a lot of people with political power have taken it upon themselves to define family in such a way as to exclude a large percentage of humanity. They have deemed some members of society as injurious to the whole idea of family for nothing more than the desire to start one. They’ve even made a stab at rewriting the constitution not as a framework to guarantee rights, but to deny them in the name of protecting something that has never been in any real danger.

Wise people have always known that the idea of family is a powerful one. No-one is immune to its tidal forces no matter how loving or traumatic (or both) their experience of family may have been. We may be compelled or repelled (or both), but we are not—not one of us—unaffected. We fall at random into our first family and as it sets about creating us to some extent or another we also begin to form our later ones—our families of choice and commonality, our packs, our tribes—and we integrate all these into the richness of our lives.

Whether or not of common blood, families have lots in common: memories, feuds, impenetrable in-jokes, and if we’re lucky, forgiveness of our foibles. The best ones love us even if they don’t always like us. Like other multicellular organisms, they experience and learn, flex and adapt. They nourish us, encourage us, accept us. When they operate at their highest level they are not only our blood but our life-blood.

“Writers will happen in the best of families,” says Rita Mae Brown. And in the worst, no doubt. And then—liars that they all are—they invent families of every stripe and weave out of the whole cloth of their imaginations. Sometimes those families don’t have much in common with the Cleavers or the Brady Bunch.

The Æon Eleven authors present a look at the heart and soul of human association—the kind of look that can only come from the heart and soul of the artist. Melissa Tyler, whose first story sale leads off our issue, follows a family’s flight into the sky and into freedom with the help of “The Sky Spider.” Jay Lake, who most recently appeared in Æon Seven with “Whyte Boyz,” tells us of the first person to be thrust from the bosom of a mythical first family: “A Very Old Man With No Wings At All.” Ryan Neal Myers shows how two beings grow together—and apart—in “The Underthing.” Loyal siblings stand together against the might and magic of the constabulary in January Mortimer’s “Brighton Bay.” Devotion and sacrifice run down the bloodlines of the families in John A. Pitts’s “The Hanging of the Greens.” And Rob Hunter rounds off this issue with “The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie,” the story of a conflict between two families, neither of whom know the other exists.

And don’t miss the latest contributions from our regular columnists—Dr. Rob Furey and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. As usual they have much that is enlightening, entertaining, and valuable to say about the relationship of science and fiction to human experience. We value them and all our fabulous authors above rubies as members of our far-flung Æon family.

So sit down, relax, and spend some time with the family in Æon Eleven.

The Sky Spider

Melissa Tyler

“Why this story? Because people should talk about the future of Africa. Because zeppelins are cool. And because I have seen “the eye” in a goofy, harmless face, and it was pretty darn terrifying.”

T HE SHIP’S SPIDER was called Death-Eye. At any rate, that’s what the captain and I called him. The crewmen called him Deadeye, and my mother called him Mario.

It wasn’t until much later, when as a grown woman I read about the horrors of Africa in the mid-21st century—horrors I had not only survived but been happily oblivious to through most of my childhood—that I learned more about Spiders. The history books don’t call them Spiders, they call them “linemen,” and by that fact alone I’m quite sure the historians have never seen one in action.

I’d never heard of Spiders or linemen, or perhaps even airships, before the day we packed up and left our home. Before that trip I’d been the sort of self-centered child who paid no attention to what adults were doing. So when my family and Mr. Muenda walked into the steep, rocky hills behind the American compound, I never thought to ask the reason. I only wanted to know why we weren’t going in Papa’s truck.

We carried heavy backpacks, with Papa carrying both his and Manu’s. Mama said we couldn’t drive, but it wouldn’t take long to get there on foot. I was startled to hear her say that: as a ten year old girl, I’d just decided that “outdoors” was something left to little children, like my six-year-old brother. To me, my mother was the height of feminine achievement. She spent hours every week having her hair braided at the California Salon to make it curtain halfway down her back in ebony shimmers. Papa would call her “Adanech, my Zulu princess,” and she would look haughty and beautiful until they both laughed. She walked differently in the hiking boots than she did in her high heels, and I didn’t like it.

It was mid-afternoon, but sunless and humid. I cried, largely from anger and frustration, most of the way up. We climbed the trails until we passed between tall rocks with moss and webs in the dark cracks, and then stood at the edge of a big open place where the grass lay flat and brown on the ground. In the middle of the field stood a solitary man, small and old with wrinkled skin the color of dry leaves and eyes like little black beetles.

Mama touched Papa’s arm and said his name. “Jawara.” She used the tone of voice that usually meant “don’t”—as in “don’t forget and make us late” or “don’t eat the cake I meant for guests.” It sounded strange on the mountain. Then it was she, not Papa, who went to talk to the stranger. I didn’t hear much of what she said, or at least I don’t remember it.

When Mama told the man to give her a blindfold, however, I paid attention. She wasn’t rude, but neither was she asking. Her voice was firm, unafraid, and sounded nothing like the polite and sophisticated woman I knew as my mother.

“I have nothing,” the man told her. “I have no blindfold. I am very sorry, but I only have a radio and my gun. Death-Eye, the lady-mother wants a blindfold. Do you have cloth? A handkerchief, perhaps?”

I looked around, but couldn’t see who he was talking to. In the drab afternoon light I saw only Mama, Papa and my little brother Manu standing near the small man, and of course mean old Mr. Muenda was holding my hand. He held it too tight and wouldn’t let go, even when I tugged my hand. He just said, “Chiku, be still,” as rude as could be.

Papa was behind me, and I didn’t understand why he wasn’t the one holding my hand, why he hadn’t carried me when I said I was tired, or most of all why he hadn’t said we could stay home where it was bright and warm.

Then I saw the gray basket silently descending from the low pewter-colored clouds. Pearly-colored, small enough to fit in the bed of my father’s truck, and made of some stiff plastic ribbing, it should have seemed mysterious and magical, but it wasn’t. It was terribly frightening.

“Death-Eye says there is no blindfold,” said the little man, although I hadn’t heard anyone answer. “He says you must now hurry to board my airship, he sees people coming this way. Please stand back.” The basket settled on the ground and the cable that was attached to it began to go slack. The man opened a door in the basket and stepped inside. He used one hand to turn a crank and the other to carefully guide the cable so it wound neatly around a spool.

Mama said only, “Then you must give me your shirt. Be quick. Do it now.”

A strange smile flickered across the man’s face. For a second he tilted his head and looked at Mama, then began to unbutton his shirt. It was all too strange for me: my mother was too pretty to have done any of the strong, forceful things she did that day.

She went to the basket and took the shirt from the man. The cloth was light green like spring grass but the cuffs were frayed white. “Thank you. What is your name?”

“I am Captain Gabriel Bhengu, lady. Why is it you want a blindfold, that I must give you the shirt off my back?” he asked. “Am I so very ugly you must hide your eyes?”

“Not at all.” Mama was calmly folding the shirt so that it was one long length from one sleeve to the other. “You are rescuing my family, so I think you are very handsome. You and your friend Death-Eye, whom I look forward to meeting, and my good neighbor Muenda.” Mama turned to Mr. Muenda. “Please come with us.”

“I cannot, kind Adanech,” he said, shaking his head. “Not everyone can afford to fly away. Those who remain will need a friend and I…”

“Ha. A friend?” interrupted Papa. “You’re no one’s friend! Frightening the women and children with your stories even when I tell you it isn’t like that anymore. People like you thrive on fear.”

“You are a reckless man, Jawara,” Mr. Muenda replied crisply, “and you do not know who your friends are. You tell me you are safe in America, but America is far from here. Its flag may fly over the courthouse, but it waves in the African wind…and it is up too high to stop a rock from cracking your head open.”

“Enough!” the captain held up his hand, and everyone looked at him. For a moment he stood still and quiet, then suddenly he glanced sharply around the empty field. “They are closer than I thought, and very fast. You, Muenda. If you are leaving, you must leave now. My people say you should run—run quickly—to the south or east. Everyone else, get in.”

Papa said coldly, “Yes, run.” He stepped into the basket. “Chiku, Manu! Come along! The sooner we fly away, the sooner we come back.”

Mama knelt in front of Manu and tied the shirt around his eyes; it covered most of his face. I expected him to push it off and make a fuss, and Papa would say “Always a handful, our Manu, never a battle but a war,” but Manu didn’t move at all except to grab Mama’s sleeves tight in his fists and breathe in short gasps, in and out.

I joined Papa in the basket then turned to watch Mr. Muenda run away. That’s why I didn’t notice until then that Manu was refusing to get in the basket.

Mama was tugging his arm, but he’d planted his feet and was leaning all his weight away from her.

Papa said, “Manu! Come here!”

“Please come,” begged Mama, pulling harder until his shoes began to slide on the grass. “It will be all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Papa said to the basket-man, “My little boy is afraid of heights. It is because his mother coddles him.” He turned to me. “Chiku is not afraid to be up high, are you?” He looked down at me and I was proud.

“No, Papa!” I said happily.

“Go home!” wailed Manu. All you could see of his face beneath the green cloth was his mouth, open so wide it was square. He collapsed like a rag doll and started to flail and kick at Mama’s legs and feet. She lost her hold and in half a second he’d scrambled up, pulled the folded shirt off and was running back to the path that led home. Papa got out of the basket and started to run after him. Manu was halfway to the edge of the field and Papa had nearly caught up with him when three, or maybe four, men ran out past the rocks. Manu stopped, as suddenly and still as a bunny, with the shirt hanging from his hand.

A lot of things happened at once then: Mama screamed, the captain shouted something, the ground started to hop up in little puffs here and there, and Papa fell down.

And a man dropped out of the sky.

He came straight down, head first and as fast as a falling rock. Before I even understood what I was seeing, he’d slowed and stopped five or so feet from the ground. Still upside down, he stretched his arms out and in each hand he was holding a gun.

His first shots made him jerk and swing on the rope, but he wriggled and twisted and somehow was always facing the right direction. He fired one more time before suddenly dropping to the ground, where he lay flat and continued shooting until all the strangers were dead.

In my memory, he is very close to me, almost within reach. I’m told that wasn’t the case, that he was more than thirty feet from the basket. Also, oddly, I have no memory whatsoever of hearing gunfire; only screams against a background of silence.

After the last man fell, the Spider leapt up and ran over to Papa and Manu. It surprised me not at all that his legs were skinny and long. He went straight to where my brother was standing next to Papa, who was sitting down, and without pausing lifted Manu as though he were a wooden statue and not a little boy. One arm around his chest and one arm around his legs, he ran, carrying him sideways to the basket. Mama sat down and the tall man put one foot inside and put Manu in her lap; she wrapped her arms around Manu as if he would try to run away again, but he didn’t move.

That’s when the Spider looked at me.

His left eye was brown, as though just anyone were looking out of it. It nearly matched the color of the curly hair that tumbled around his face. He had smooth skin, a soft wide mouth, and a thin, pointed nose. It was almost a nice man’s face.

My attention was centered, however, on his other eye: an icy blue that was nearly white, with a pointy, star-shaped pupil. It seemed to look at me separately from the rest of him: mean and cold and angry. My breath froze in my throat, and I could feel my hair stand up. People say that all the time, of course, but I felt it actually happen all over my arms and legs and up to the top of my head: less like a tickle than an ache, really.

He looked at me for moment, and then without blinking he raised one hand and covered the scary eye. As simply as that he looked like a normal person; I wasn’t frightened at all. Then he turned to the captain and said something in a language I didn’t understand.

“Death-Eye says we should go up now,” said the captain. “He will bring your husband up himself.”

I only remember two things about the ascent. At one point, the Spider and Papa passed us going up. Later, Mama talked about how much blood there was, but I didn’t notice any. What I remember is that the two of them tied together made four legs and four arms. I recall laughing when I saw it, but Mama says I didn’t.

The other thing in my memory is that at one point I looked up and saw that a big part of the gray sky overhead wasn’t the sky at all, but a ship. It was huge—much bigger than I was expecting—and it seemed to be falling down to crush us. I remember covering my head and screaming. Mama says I got that part right.

“There is nothing more beautiful than an African sunset,” said Papa, looking through the glass of the cabin window. Outside were wide, wavy stripes of crimson and pink, orange and yellow. The colors were brilliant and clear. I thought the sky was laughing, the only way it knew how.

Papa was sitting in an inflated plastic sofa that they’d draped with cloth, with his bandaged leg propped up on a pillow. I was sitting on the floor beside him, happy just to be nearby; I hadn’t been allowed to see him in forever, it seemed. From the moment we were reeled up to the gondola, Papa had been in the captain’s office.

The cabin of the airship was almost all one big room—the captain’s office occupied one end—with a counter that ran along the three outside walls; in most places the surface was tilted so the controls or monitors or instruments could be easily seen. Above the counter were windows that gave a panoramic view of the sunset. Outside the windows was a wrap-around balcony with mesh floor and plastic chain railings, but I wasn’t allowed outside on the balcony, as I was reminded at every opportunity. Below the counters were what seemed to be long, low storage cabinets—that’s what I originally assumed—but in fact turned out to be little bedroom compartments far too small for even little Manu to stand up in. Each had a sliding panel door, and within was only a mattress and a tiny overhead light.

The captain’s office was near the tiny bathroom. There was a window between the office and the cabin, and since there was another window on the far wall of the office we usually had almost a 360-degree view of the sky, but that first day, they’d pulled a curtain across the interior window and told me to be quiet. I spent the rest of the day being as silent and well-behaved as I could manage. Manu had never stopped crying, so he and Mama spent the rest of the day in one of the little bedrooms; I went in and out frequently, and even though I couldn’t sleep, I was as quiet as could be until daybreak.

The next morning they pulled back the curtain and Papa waved hello at me, but I still wasn’t allowed in. Seeing the gray-brown hue of Papa’s face worried me almost as much as seeing him smile was a relief. Manu wouldn’t leave the little box of a bedroom, so I had to tell him all about it. . .but I left out how ill Papa looked.

That afternoon they finally let Papa into the big room. I was warned how dangerous his wound was, and that it was very important that he not move much so the styptic bandage inside his leg wouldn’t crack or slip before we got to the hospital in Yamoussoukro.

He held my hand when the sun started to set, though. Watching sunsets had always been our special time, and seeing one from way up high made it seem magical and important. The colors blazed above and on the horizon, and had soaked into the clouds that rose in spires. Where the billows were thick before us, blue and white shadows were combed through the red.

“It’s blood, you know.”

The only woman on the ship, not counting Mama and me, was looking at Papa with her hands on her hips. She was tall and thin like a stick doll. Pale. Her hair was short and yellow-white and she needed lipstick.

“It is not,” said Papa. He sighed and turned to look at her. “I am sorry, but it is already hard for the children. Stories like that give them the wrong ideas. If Manu hears you, he’ll have nightmares.”

“Are you saying I look like a storyteller? Me? That’d be a kick.” She rubbed her nose and sniffed. “Nah, I’m just telling it like it is. Sunsets like this? They only happen when the earth—you know, the planet—is wounded. That damn blight that’s killing off the grass is letting too much dust and dirt into the air. Usually it takes a volcanic eruption to cause colors like this. A big one.” She rubbed her nose again and looked out the window at the dazzling view. “Africa is bleeding to death. Bleeding into the sky.”

“Is there a volcano?” I asked. I thought that in a blimp we could fly right over it. I wanted to look straight down and see the lava.

She didn’t look at me but said, “Oh no. No, no. That’d be too easy. One nice little volcanic explosion, a cloud of poison ash. Maybe a mudslide.” She walked over to the long counter along one side of the cabin, still talking. “Lose a couple of villages, maybe. Big whoop. I bet on this stupid continent volcanoes go off all the time and nobody even notices.” She picked up a clipboard and kept walking, so it was getting harder for me to hear her. She was still talking as she clipped a canister to her belt and fastened the thin plastic tube beneath her nose. She walked out of the cabin onto the balcony that wrapped all around the outside and let the door click closed behind her.

Papa said, “She is a crazy woman, I think.”

“Ms. Goldblum. Yes,” said the captain. “That would indeed be true.”

He was wearing the same green shirt as yesterday, and had kissed Mama’s hand when she had given it back to him. Now he was sitting in a chair in front of a lot of buttons and dials and screens. I wasn’t allowed over there, either.

“But this is no surprise, I think,” he said with a grin. “We are all of us crazy.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Papa. “I think I must be so, and walking in a madman’s dream now. I wonder if I will wake up at home.” He shook his head slowly. “But then I remember, I don’t have a home anymore. With what I am told I am paying you, perhaps I will never have a home again.”

The captain laughed and said, “Your home would be a plywood coffin, or possibly even less luxurious, if your lovely wife hadn’t hired us. Think of it this way: you paid for a simple pickup and delivery, so the dramatic rescue you got for free. I’ve considered charging extra for gunplay and trauma treatment. You maybe didn’t notice at the time, but we do top-shelf evac work.”

“Running was a mistake. If we’d gone to the compound we could have appealed to the authorities….”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

I saw Death-Eye spin a line to the balcony.

He didn’t look like a person, he was all lines and jagged angles. It was fast. He appeared suddenly, his back toward me, crimped into a double-diamond with his hands on the line over his head and his feet gripping the rope beneath him. He jerked to a stop and hung for a second, suspended, then he wiggled for a second until he came free from the cable and unfolded down onto the balcony. Standing, he looked like a person again.

He detached two slim devices that looked like they were made of metal and leather; he twiddled and fiddled with them, and shook them hard. When he got them free he stuffed them into the deep pockets of his trousers and walked through the door into the cabin.

Papa hadn’t noticed any of it. The captain had, but just shook his head.

I said, “A spider!”

He turned toward me, and I saw his spooky eye again. Having it look at me was like a piece of ice touching my skin, and I inhaled so suddenly I squeaked. He immediately squinted his right eye closed and patted his fluffy hair all over, then reached into a pocket and pulled out an eye patch. He put it on and adjusted the stretchy string around his head. He looked at me, and didn’t look scary anymore. Just tall.

He stood still for a moment, then tilted his head to one side and pulled a second eye patch from another pocket. With his right eye still closed, pulled the first patch off and put it in his pocket, then put the second one on.

He began patting his shirt and pants all over. He stuck his fingers inside all his pockets and then walked over to Papa and without hesitating pulled an eye patch from Papa’s shirt pocket. He shook his finger at Papa as if to scold him and put the new patch on. Papa laughed.

Death-Eye kept searching and sure enough, there were eye patches everywhere. He pulled one from the coffee maker, and one from a little slot in the computer. The pale lady came back in from outside and sat down in a chair, and he pulled one from under her shirt collar. He picked up a magazine and a patch dropped out of the pages. Each time he’d carefully put the new one on and stuff the old one in his pocket, and then keep looking for more. He eventually came over to me.

“You?” he asked. I was wearing my coveralls, and he pointed to the front pocket.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t have one.” I was glad he wasn’t scary anymore. He made a funny face.

“You sure?” I nodded that I was sure.

“Okay I look you pocket? Okay?” He pointed at the pocket again. I looked at Papa, who was smiling. I nodded to him that he could look. He tugged the pocket with one long finger and we both peered inside. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, “Only candy.” I looked in the pocket that he still had pulled open. It was empty.

“What candy?” I asked. He looked at me and looked back in my pocket, then reached in and pulled out a packet of gum. I laughed in surprise. He held the packet up and sniffed it, then opened it and pulled out a piece of gum. He pointed at himself.

“Me candy please?” When I said yes, he put the rest back where he’d found it. This time I could feel it there. He stood way up, put the gum in his mouth and walked across the room. He opened a drawer and pulled out some tools, took his little metal devices from his pocket, and started to tinker with them.

Papa looked at the captain. “He’s very good,” he said. “I am surprised you have a magician. You use him to spirit people away I suppose.”

The captain leaned back in his chair. “He is useful, indeed yes, but his magic is only for children. I rarely see it.”

“What does he do, then?” asked Papa. “For that matter, what do you do? Do you carry passengers all the time?”

“Ah. Passengers? Not so much. Most people cannot afford such a luxurious way of travel.”

“Luxurious?” My father looked at the stark room’s sparse furniture.

“Safety is the only luxury worth what it costs.” The captain glanced at the controls, touched a few buttons and lights flickered on overhead. I hadn’t realized how dark it had become, but the clouds had lost their color except at the far edge of the sky. The lights were harsh and bright, and made mirrors of all the windows. The captain turned back toward my father. “You and your charming family will arrive at Yamoussoukro in five days. No harm will come to you.”

“You sound like my wife, talking as if there is a war.” Papa shook his head. “There aren’t any uprisings in American territory, even the outlying counties see daily benefit and improvements. American control has only helped the people here. Why should anyone want to hurt us?”

The pale woman, sitting in the chair, made a strange sound.

“Oh my god, you’re a westerner,” she said. “I missed that. ‘Why should anyone want to hurt us?’ Wow.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Papa. “I’ll have you know I was born in Kaketa.”

“Apparently, it didn’t stick,” she replied. She widened her eyes and waggled her head from side to side. “Oh, don’t get all offended. I think it’s sweet. You guys just don’t have the concept of ancient conflict, is all. Westerners fight a war, win or lose it, and then you know…you stop fighting. You intermarry and settle down in little wooden houses. You swap recipes and your art gets…what is it that art gets? Influenced. You translate the literature. Then maybe twenty or fifty years later you fight another war, but it’s a different war than the last one. I’m charmed, really I am.”

She grabbed a magazine and started to read.

“I am afraid to say there are real dangers,” said the captain. “Perhaps you could drive from your home to the city, and not be hurt. But you would not drive in safety. Here you are safe.”

“It’s done all the time.”

“Not so simply, I think,” the captain said. “Not ‘all the time’ successfully, either.

“This is an expensive ship, Jawara,” he continued. “Extremely expensive. Yet we make a profit because people like to know there is someone looking over them. We are guardian angels. Even the American military hires us, more often than anyone else. They pay us good money to keep them safe.”

“Now that’s ridiculous,” said Papa. “There is nothing you can do better than the military. Robertsport AFB has fighter planes with missiles and computers and satellites. They don’t need a balloon full of crazy people.”

The captain sighed and swiveled his chair around.

“Do you know how much it costs for a fighter plane to take off, fly around and land again?” He didn’t wait for Papa to answer. “A bit more than a million dollars. Then it is out of commission until any parts that have been vibrated out of working order are fixed. It costs more, of course, if they happen to fire one of those missiles. They prefer to send out their planes when they know there’s a good reason.”

“That is what the satellites are for,” said Papa. “They have cameras and computers that can count the spots on a cheetah.”

“Ah, but no one has said ‘we do not need you, we have satellites.’” He tapped a screen with a knuckle. “Perhaps if there is cloud cover, satellite angels go blind.”

“So do you.”

“No. We have many sensors, and large, powerful computers. We can see through clouds or oceans or walls.” He swiveled around again to look at us. “We can carry good equipment, because there are no vibrations to hurt it. We stay up for very long times, not just for a plane, but even a long time among airships. That’s because we have Death-Eye. There are maybe a hundred Spiders, but Death-Eye is our own angel, special for us.”

The captain glanced up when he said that, but I already knew Death-Eye was walking on top.

Everything sounds different on a working airship. There’s no sound of traffic or birdsong or even wind, since the captain preferred to “air steer” by raising or lowering the ship until he hit an air current heading in the right direction. The biggest differences, though, were the sounds of the ship itself. When Death-Eye walked on top, the whole ship grunted; when he went up or down a cable, it muttered and hummed.

Later that same evening, not long after the lights came on, Mama came out of the bedroom-box where she’d been with Manu. She looked around at the bright room and the people sitting in chairs and at the table. She laughed and came over to Papa and me.

“I was thinking that I’d have to stay hiding with Manu until we arrived in Yamoussoukro, but maybe not.”

“He is calmer now.” Papa said. “I knew he would be.”

“It is that the windows are all reflections,” she said. “Now it is night, he cannot see how high we are.”

Mama glanced around at the people in the room. Everyone was looking at her. People always look at Mama because she’s always so happy and pretty.

“Please,” she said, “little Manu has a great fear of tall places. Please do not mention that we are flying, that we are so high.” Death-Eye nodded and she smiled at him. When she turned to Ms. Goldblum, though, the woman shook her head so sharply that her short blond hair lifted sideways.

“Nope, not me. Why would you tell that kid we’re on the ground when we’re not?” She frowned. “He knows where he is.”

“Yes, he does,” replied Mama. “I do not lie to my children and I am glad that you believe truth is best. But when they can do nothing about a thing, a frightening thing, I do not call attention to it. That would be cruel, yes?” Mama held her hand, palm up, toward the woman. “You are a good woman, I know, and I think you agree with me.”

Ms. Goldblum’s frown increased. “I won’t say anything about the height to him.”

The captain tilted his head to one side. “I hesitate to mention that children who stay up late become unhappy, and loudly so.”

“During the day, we’ll sleep.”

“Oh come now, Adanech,” said Papa. “If he sees we are high but never fall, he will learn not to be afraid.”

“Like you know when to be afraid, smart guy?” Ms. Goldblum’s eyebrow’s pinched together. “You trust too much; you don’t ask questions. At least you do what you’re told.”

Papa looked shocked and the captain laughed.

“You don’t know me,” said Papa. “I make decisions, that’s what I do. That’s what I’m paid to do, every day.”

“If you had even the slightest hint of what world you’re in, you would have kissed this ship when we pulled you in.”

“I am only trying to say,” said Papa, turning away from her to address the others, “that my son can learn not to be afraid. When he sees Mr. Death-Eye here….”

Death-Eye pointed to his own chest. “Am Mario.”

Papa continued, “…sees Mr. Mario not falling, he will learn that he won’t fall.”

Ms. Goldblum rubbed her head. “But he will. That’s what Spiders do. They crawl around and fix things until one day they fall and die.”

“Oh.” Mama looked at Death-Eye. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Am okay,” he said to her with a shy smile. “No fall.”

“Maybe not you,” said Ms. Goldblum. “With you, there’s actually a good chance you’ll get shot instead.” She crossed her arms in front of her, uncrossed them, and then suddenly went over to her bedroom box, slid open the door and crawled in. She looked out. “That eye of yours? There’s no way you’ve got depth perception. Gunman or lineman, either way, don’t save for retirement.”

She slid the door closed. It smacked shut with a loud crack.

Papa stared at the little door and then turned to the captain. “I think she must be difficult to work with.”

“She is an extremely observant woman. That’s what she’s paid to do, every day,” the captain said. He glanced at his watch, then went and tapped on another small door. “Goldblum’s gone to ground,” he said loudly. “Shift change in half an hour.”

He turned back to Papa and winked. “But mostly we don’t talk to her much.”

Mama was still looking at Death-Eye. He fidgeted a little under her gaze, glancing away and back again. He reached into his pocket and offered her a piece of gum.

“Am okay,” he repeated.

“That’s a goat.”

I pointed at something else on the screen. Ms. Goldblum said, “That’s another goat.” She hadn’t even looked.

Her large monitor displayed a confusing mess of grays, dark and light. I’d noticed there were little white marks, like grains of rice, scattered throughout it. Only they weren’t rice, apparently they were goats.

The airship carried no entertainment, beyond a few worn decks of cards, to capture the interest of a ten-year old. My mother and Manu slept during the day and only came out after sunset; my father read the news and took naps. The first few days were a desert of boredom, but then I realized that against all expectation, Ms. Goldblum not only didn’t mind answering questions, her opinion of me rose the more I asked. When Papa told me to quit pestering her, she snapped at him not to poison me with his “culture of ignorance.”

“That one’s too big to be a goat,” I said, pointing to an unusually large white speck. “Is it a cow?”

“No cows down there.” She pushed a button and the monitor flashed a video image of the ground. “Mmm. That’s three goats. Go figure.”

“Why don’t you keep the real picture on?” I asked. “So you can see what things are?”

“‘Cause I don’t care what things are. I’m only interested in what’s there that wasn’t there earlier. The closer our current scan is to previous scans, the darker the wash. So unless a goat is standing in exactly the same place as previous image pickups, it shows as white. Rocks don’t show up at all. Grass moves a little, so it’s gray.”

“How often do you take pictures?” I asked. I could tell she thought it was a good question because she almost looked at me. She never looked at anyone when she talked.

“Us? Not often. Maybe every month or two. We correlate our info with satellite data to stay accurate.”

“So what are those?” I pointed to a larger, bright white blur beginning to come into view on the edge of the screen. There were similar smudges nearby, about the same size but fainter.

“Don’t know.” She flickered the video again, and I saw it was a car stopped on a road. She suddenly got busy, turning other monitors on and punching buttons.

“It’s a car,” I told her, trying to be helpful.

“Yes, it is.” She nodded. “So are the others, only they’re hidden off road. Looks like they’ve been hidden for a few days. Dead, hidden cars are not good. Captain?”

Normally she called him Gabriel. When she said “captain,” he looked up quickly.

“Don’t know for sure yet,” she said, “but I think we’ve got pirates.”

I stared harder at the screen, trying to see what she saw. “Really? Where?”

“Ah, now that is interesting,” he said, and turned back to his screen. “I will check the local news net.” Papa opened his eyes and yawned.

As the images slowly crawled from the edge of the screen, two bright white dots appeared at the edge. They weren’t like the rice spots. I started to point them out, but she’d already seen them and flicked the video.

“Well now, those must be the passengers. Looks like they think they’ll just walk the rest of the way. Well, they can try. The nearest civilization is more than 70 kilometers away, through pirate territory to boot.” She pushed down a little black lever and said, “Deadeye, you should come in.”

She shook her head and made a face. “Idiots. They shouldn’t have driven alone in the first place. What do they think trains are for?”

“Not everyone is as distrustful as you,” said Papa. She rubbed her nose but didn’t say anything.

The ship made a little hum as Death-Eye lowered himself onto the balcony. He detached the ascenders and moved his patch from his forehead to his eye before he came in. He smiled down at me and I smiled back. He looked at Ms. Goldblum’s screen and said, “Eh?”

The captain said, “They contacted the police at Greenfield Station a short time ago. It seems their front tires were blown.”

Ms. Goldblum said, “Both front tires? Oh yeah. These guys are in big trouble.”

“You are most likely right,” the captain nodded at her. “There have been some disappearances, it seems. Dunkwa has sent a sheriff. In a helicopter.” He tilted his head. “ETA is a little under 30 minutes.”

“Pirates on dry land?” asked Papa. “I don’t think you understand the word. What do these ‘pirates’ do?”

“It is not my word,” said the captain. “As for what they do, it varies by the level of sophistication or desperation of the individual. They nearly all set traps to catch unlucky travelers. Some will return the victims for money, some will simply kill everyone and take what they can find in the vehicle. A few will kill only the men, and sell any women or children. But of course, there is help on the way. Perhaps the sheriff will arrive in time?” It was a question to Ms. Goldblum.

“Mmm,” she said, looking at all her screens, twisting dials to make the image on the screen pull away and move around. “Ah, not today. Enter the villains from upstage right.” She pointed to a white patch, kind of squarish, moving down from the upper part of the screen.

“Ah, too bad,” said the captain. “Too close. That’s fifteen minutes away, maybe ten.”

Death-Eye raised his eyebrows, and glanced from the captain to Ms. Goldblum. He rubbed the edge of his eye patch with a fingertip and looked sad.

“Well, what are you going to do?” demanded Papa.

“I do not plan to do anything,” responded the captain, his voice low and steady. “My ship is not built for this sort of rescue. We have excellent camouflage ability: radar blockers, luminescent and matte dynamic emulators. We even have little lights on the skin to make us look like a starry sky. We are hard to notice…if you are not aware we are overhead. If someone is looking for a camouflaged airship, though…there we are. We are not invisible. And if someone wants us dead, Jawara, it only takes one missile. Many, many bullets, but only one missile.”

He shook his head. “I do not want a reputation among pirates as an enemy. As long as desperate men do not understand us, or what we do, they will not see us as a threat. They will leave us alone.”

“If you watch those people be killed,” Papa said, waving one hand at the monitors, “you will be a murderer yourself.”

“Ah, no. Murder is a legal term,” said the captain, tapping his chin with a finger. “And it is not a simple thing, to look at something and know what it is. Yes, I think those are pirates, coming to kill the innocent people. What if they are not? Perhaps they are biologists. Maybe they are out studying wildlife in the veldt and have heard the car’s distress signal. They could be rushing to help.”

“Doubtful,” muttered Ms. Goldblum. She twiddled the dials some more. After a few seconds she said softly, “Oh, shit. God stand between them.”

“What?” said Papa. He was trying to push himself up in the inflated chair, but couldn’t.

“I found children.” She stood up and changed to another chair, father down. Death-Eye made a soft sound and stared at the screens as Ms. Goldblum started typing at a keyboard. “They’ve hidden two kids off the road. They’re hard to see: I can’t tell if they’re under scrub, or partly covered. Shit. That’s why the adults are heading down the road. It’s a distraction.” She rubbed her forehead. “Might work. Morons. Driving kids across hell and gone. Damn them.”

She pushed a button and pulled a memory tab out of a slot. Without looking at anyone she held it up in her fingers. “There are four guys in that jeep.”

I was surprised at what happened next. The captain leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He said, “Four it is, then, if you must. It has to be all four.” I didn’t understand what he meant.

Death-Eye took the little plastic tab from Ms. Goldblum. She stood up and started to leave but the captain said, “Mind your station.” She came back, turned all her monitors off and then went straight to the bathroom. I heard her lock it.

Death-Eye went over to the door, and I thought he was going outside, but instead he opened a tall, thin cupboard between the door and the window. He pushed his eye patch up onto his forehead, then took a little box that rattled and put it in his pocket. Next he picked up the rifle and a small metal cylinder and snapped them together. He took out a little screen smaller than his hand and plugged it into the side of the gun. He slid the plastic memory tab into the side of the screen, and in a few seconds a green light began to blink.

When he started to leave, Papa said, “Can you really do something from this high?”

He stopped and turned. He looked at Papa with both eyes and then at the gun. He lifted the rifle with its little screen, as if to see how heavy it was, and shrugged. He glanced up, just for a moment.

“Yes,” he said.

“Ah, Jawara, you should not pester my Spider,” said Captain Bhengu. “He is a busy man.”

Death-Eye put on an oxygen canister and left the cabin. Papa told me not to watch him walk around on the balcony but to get the cards so we could play a game.

“I am glad you understand how these things are done, my friend,” said the captain. He was still leaning back with his eyes closed. “Good.”

We listened to Death-Eye move on the balcony for a while. Instead of getting the cards, I climbed up next to Papa and he held me close. After a while the captain spoke again.

“Do you know why I call him Death-Eye?” he asked conversationally. “My crew, they do not say it right. They call him Deadeye because he is very good with a gun. It is an old phrase for one who never misses the target, yes? They tell me I am saying it wrong.” He laughed. “But that is how he was introduced to me, many years ago. I was in the airport when an old woman pulls my sleeve. She points to a very tall young man and tells me I should hire him to work on my airship. ‘Do not be frightened of his eye,’ she says to me, ‘he is a man of good heart and strong soul.’”

Outside I heard two rocks being struck together four times. The captain only paused for a second before continuing.

“She tells me that when the Death God wishes to have a window to the living world, he chooses the kindest, most gentle soul being born, and trades him eye for eye. So I should be quick to hire him, she says, because I know that he is kind and good…and god-touched… that everything he sees, Death keeps safe.”

The Spider came in with his eye patch still pushed up and walked across to the captain’s office. He closed the door, and a moment later the curtains slid across the windows. The captain smiled.

“So I hire him to fly with me. Later I find out that the old woman is only his grandmother worrying that he will not get a job. She has as many stories about his blue eye as she has chances to think them up. Still, I very much like the story as she told it to me.”

“It is a good tale,” agreed Papa. His arm around me in a quick hug.

“It is better than that.” The captain opened his eyes and leaned forward. “Much better and much truer than that.”

That’s when Ms. Goldblum walked out of the bathroom, flinging the door open like she was angry at it. She crossed her arms over her chest, and flickered her gaze over the room without actually looking at anyone. “Fine,” she announced. “I’d kill for a cup of tea. Who else wants some?”

When we finally arrived in Yamoussoukro Military Port, there was an ambulance waiting on the tarmac to take Papa to the hospital. I’d meant to say goodbye to everyone, but at the end they were all so busy that I didn’t have a chance to do it properly. People kept moving around and doing things and suddenly Papa was in the ambulance and Mama was saying we had to go.

Instead of leaving, I ran. I ran all the way around the bottom of the airship as it swayed and grunted until I saw the Spider standing at a place where a cable was tied to a big metal loop that stuck out of the ground. When he saw me, he smiled and pulled the eye patch down over his eye. I went over to him. I wanted to hug him goodbye, but I wasn’t sure how. He was so tall.

Solemnly he pulled a packet from his shirt pocket and offered me a piece of gum, but instead of taking it I pulled on his sleeve. He bent down a little, and I pulled some more until he bent down a little further.

I was so embarrassed that my skin was prickly all over. To my own surprise instead of giving him a hug, I reached up and tugged off his eye patch. The elastic stretched as it came off his head and ruffled his curly hair, and suddenly I was looking at the pale, pointy center of the ice-blue eye.

“I like your eye,” I told him. “I just…I like it.” Clutching the patch in my hand, I ran away again without saying goodbye at all.

Two Cairns for Apollo

Greg Beatty

T exas is a patchwork
of urban blights, suburban
sprawls, desert squares,
knit together by highway.
In a square beyond Houston
grow two piles, stones, mostly.
Mostly people assume
they’re residue from Houston’s
many boom-bust cycles:
expansions that didn't.
Like most folk beliefs
they are right. Right
and wrong. These stones
were thrown by hand,
one at a tired time
by weeping men, homeless
in their dreams of stars,
astronauts forever grounded,
who take spare moon rocks
and stray ablative tiles
to toss them atop the cairns,
twin piles, sleep and death,
as they depart mission control
crying, not counting, muttering,
“Houston, the eagle is buried.”
Praying they're wrong,
their handbuilt graves wasted,
fearing they’re right
in the terrestrial squares of Texas.

A Very Old Man With No Wings at All

Jay Lake

“‘A Very Old Man With No Wings At All’ is a result of my hubris as a writer. I had this narrow, tiny vision of Garcia Marquez and Milton locked in mortal combat, and took notes through the keyhole of my inner sight. Somewhat less metaphorically speaking, I've always been fascinated by the concept of a stranger in a strange land. This story talks about the strangest of strangers in the oldest of lands.”

T HE HEAT WAS his oldest friend. In this place it wrapped him like the hand of the divine, vast and never-ending, flavored with salty grit as if God had lately been digging a grave in the sand. He had never understood how a place so close to the eye-blue sea could be so dry, either. The sun stole everything and gave back only light and shadow.

The old man lived beneath an ancient dhow long since taken by worms and the strange desiccation which eventually seized wood in this place. He liked to think of it as the process of making a fossil, direct petrification without benefit of æons of burial beneath the earth. The boat had once belonged to a man named Muusa. This always struck him as particularly appropriate, given the reed-banked sea muttering just outside the hull of his home.

Someone knocked on the wood. The old man started, unsure if he’d been sleeping, dreaming, or dying. He wasn’t certain there was a difference anymore.

“Enter into my presence,” he called in Adamic tongue. Remembering himself, he switched to Egyptian Arabic. “Peace to you.”

Butrus slipped between the hull and the sand. The boy lived in the fishing village perhaps ten minutes’ walk down the beach, and often visited. They traded stories, and the old man wheedled what little food he needed. Having never been young himself, he was vague on the ages of people, but Butrus always seemed a bit larger with each appearance.

“Oh, great sage,” said Butrus. He always talked like that. The old man suspected someone in the village had been reading to the boy. That sort of thing always ended in blood. “There are strangers come among us.”

“So?” He hated the whine that sometimes crept into his voice. He had been here far too long, but there was nowhere else to go. “There are always tourists. Smile and take their money. It is what you do, is it not?”

“No. Not tourists. Strangers. Different.”

There was something in the boy’s tone, the twitch of his eyes.

“Soldiers?” An image of men with crested helmets, carrying spears bladed like bronze leaves. No, no, that was wrong. Guns they had now. You could die before you ever heard the flutter of black wings crossing over your soul.

Some things were not right. People knew too much.

“They are angry, great sage. They search with boots and rifles.”

“For what?”

“You, sir.”

The old man thought about this a while. Butrus held still for a time, then began to wriggle. The old man mostly ignored the boy.

Who would come looking for him?

The heat brought memory, but memory was a broken kaleidoscope that someone had given him long ago, colored jewels that slipped between his fingers like fish too small for the net. The world had been air once, light and air without sun, stars, or world beneath. That he was certain of. Cast down, one could fall forever.

Laughing.

Free.

Tumbling.

Until earth was created beneath one’s feet.

Later there were trees. Monkeys screaming from branches. Muddy footprints saved in stone for the puzzlement of the future. God dictating to a mumbling fool with broken teeth and bad breath. Swords, some afire.

And people, little angels without wings, carrying their mortality leaden within their hearts. Sand…these people associated sand with time. He understood that. Sand was infinitely divisible and infinitely the same. Likewise time. There was only one moment, the present, but it was infinitely divisible into past and future.

It was those divisible moments that formed the shattered mirrors of his memory.

Noise brought him back. A flat crack, the same sound made by outstretched wings being torn free. Butrus shuddered and grabbed his knees. “They’re shooting now,” he said. Whimpering.

“Boy.” The old man’s voice was rough. “This is just a moment in the mind of God. It means nothing more than any other moment.”

The boy squeezed a tear, an offering. “My sister. She means something. Mama, my papa.”

Another crack. This one reminded him of how a hollow-boned body sounded, falling to earth from the infinitely divisible and unvarying altitude of grace.

“Please,” said Butrus. “You have power. We do not.”

“Power?” The old man was stung to laughter. He had lived beneath this dhow, a crab in a wooden shell, as long as he could remember. Everything else in his mind was a bright lie, a temptation apple-red. Even the apple was a lie. What power was there to a shattered memory and days spent gasping in the killing heat, nights spent listening to the plash of fish beyond the ankle-high surf?

“We are no one.” The boy was stubborn. “You are someone.”

His shoulders itched, now, muscles seeking something. He wore a faded burnous that covered him poorly. A Saxon—no, an Englishman—had given it to him some time ago, advising him to wash with kerosene to combat the lice.

When had he ever met a Saxon?

“I am no one. If they shoot, they shoot. If they kill, they kill. That is the way of soldiers.” The Saxon had been a soldier. An English soldier who pretended to be an Arab, with a motorcycle and fire-blue eyes that had seen the face of God. The old man had wondered where the land of Engle was, but the soldier had not troubled to tell him.

“You are the great sage.” Butrus’ face was closed, set. The boy was fighting, the old man realized, in the only way he knew how. Not even faith would stop bullets, or the rip of wings from a falling body. “You are someone, even if you do not remember. My grandfather says you have been here since the time of Caliphate.”

“That may be true,” the old man admitted cautiously. He searched his memory again, but all he found this time was heat. He could not remember the last time he’d crept out from beneath the hull to look up at the stars of heaven.

The boy brandished a pair of chicken feathers, his face quivering between triumph and utter collapse. “He told me you would need these.”

The old man gently took the feathers from between the boy’s trembling fingers. He turned them over, remembering again—pinions blacker than shadow, brighter than the fire in the sun. A span of wings which could cross the sky, brushing each horizon.

Oh, there had been glory once.

The stumps in his back wept fresh blood, staining the burnous a deeper brown.

“No,” he said slowly. Another series of shots rattled from down the beach. “I am not permitted to lift myself back up.”

Butrus began to cry, his little brown body shivering in the old man’s arms. How had he come to hold the boy? His back itched horribly, threatening to sprout anew. “No,” he whispered.

Pride. He had fallen once for pride; he would not fly again.

After a time, footsteps crunched on the sand outside. The boy’s tears were done. He lay limp on the old man’s lap. Already dead in truth, though the body breathed a little while longer. The old man knew this story. It was as old as the monkeys in the trees.

He touched the boy’s back, drawing forth the secrets locked in the letters hidden deep within the flesh. Like the kaleidoscope of his memory, all creation remembered what it had been. The chicken feathers helped, guiding him.

It took a great deal of time, but time was infinitely divisible. He watched a bullet burrow slowly through the brittle wood of the hull, but kept at his work. He saw two more follow. Still the old man worked.

“I have no gifts,” he whispered, “only knowledge.”

He set the boy free in a flurry of feathers as the wood of the dhow began to collapse. The bullets did not find the old man, any more than the weapons of the world ever would. The boy leapt upward into the bright sunlight in a spray of salt and sand. The old man was so much spindrift to the hard men on the beach.

“A gull,” one of them said in disgust. Another loosed a stream of gunfire into the sky, then gave up.

Only a moment in the mind of God, the old man thought, his back twisting in a vain attempt to take flight as a bright bird soared above the eye-blue sea, keening sorrow for its lost boyhood. He crawled into the shattered shadow of his boat and carefully sorted the bright jewels of memory, hoarding what he could.

The Underthing

Ryan Neal Myers

“There have been plenty of stories about adults being unable to shake the not-so-imaginary friends/boogeymen of their early childhoods. But they’re usually about letting go of the past, exorcising personal demons, or driving wooden stakes through cold, beating hearts, and I’ve always thought such solutions to be far too easy. I mean, what if you and It actually liked each other? What if your friendship with It contained just as much mutual jealousy and selfishness and compassion as any other relationship? And what if It could eat you if you made It angry?”

A FTER BRUSHING HER TEETH and changing into her pajamas, Constance retrieves the half-pound of ground beef that has been rotting for three days on her apartment balcony. It smells like vomit, but she’s used to it. She zaps it back to room temperature in the microwave, then carries it to the bedroom on a Fiestaware plate.

She pauses in the little bedroom, her toes pinching the carpet fibers as she thinks of what to say. On the wall is a body-length mirror, and she studies herself to see if she looks the way she feels. The worry on her face is hard to notice because her face is small and unreadable. She doesn’t have enough nose, and her dark eyes are sunk too deep behind her glasses. Her small frame is lost in the baggy folds of her pajamas.

“I smell beef,” says the low octave hum under the bed. “Ground. Lean. But you know I like the fat.”

For most people it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, but Constance isn’t wired like most people.

“You’re eating beef while I’m eating ramen, and you’re complaining?” she says, her voice almost as husky as the Underthing’s.

“It’s late,” says the Underthing. “I can smell how tired you are.”

“That’s my facial cream.”

“Is something wrong?”

How can she tell the Underthing about Bran? She thanks God for the Underthing’s blindness, or it would’ve noticed she’s been wearing contacts for the past week whenever she leaves the house.

“I’m tired,” she says.

“That’s what I’m saying,” says the Underthing.

Constance places the plate of rotting beef on the carpet, two feet from the edge of the bed-skirt.

A pair of black tentacles snatch the plate and scoop it under the bed like a gambler raking in chips.

“Go to sleep,” the Underthing hums around a mouthful of half-digested beef.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” says Constance with a sigh, not really asking, but simply preparing the Underthing for future discussions.

“You smell good to me,” it says.

“You’re useless,” says Constance.

She makes a running leap for the bed, landing on her knees in the middle of the mattress, something she’s practiced since she was a little girl. She slips under her sheets and reaches for the rotary switch hanging from the nightstand lamp.

“Goodnight,” says the Underthing, lips smacking.

“Whatever,” says Constance as she clicks the room into darkness. Years of sleeping above the Underthing have dulled the urge to pull the covers tight about her neck, but tonight she returns to the old habits, curling up small in the middle of the mattress. She doesn’t know what frightens her more: the Underthing’s untested jealousy, or the last few barriers she must lower to save herself from becoming an old woman who takes in stray cats. The Underthing would eat the cats, anyway.

Constance’s mind runs in circles as she closes her eyes, but the slow grind of the Underthing’s teeth soon lulls her to sleep, as it always has.

Constance wears contact lenses when she goes to the used bookstore downtown. It’s a hole-in-the-wall with its entrance in a back alley, a place frequented by college students and aging hippies.

Constance stands before a bookcase labeled “Our Recent Reads.” One of the shelves is labeled “Bran,” and it’s filled with everything from classic pulp to James Joyce. The most recent addition is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

From the corner of her eye she can see Bran at the far end of the store, shelving books. He’s twenty pounds overweight, but he’s tall and carries it well. He needs a haircut, but it’s all there. And as Constance pulls Heart of Darkness, Bran notices. He notices her every time she comes in.

“There are only three types of people who read that,” Bran drones as he walks toward her, his voice almost as deep as the Underthing’s. “English majors, the girlfriends of English majors, and people who just want to know what all the hubbub is about. Which are you?”

“Hubbub,” says Constance.

Bran stops in front of her with a smile. “Good. So you’ve never read it.”

“Nope.”

“You’ll hate it, but I won’t hold it against you.”

“Is this your favorite book?”

“No,” says Bran. “Just my most recent read.”

“So what’s your—”

“No, I hate that question. I don’t know you well enough to answer that yet.”

“Forgive me for being so forward.”

“Your name’s Constance, right?” Bran asks.

“How did you know that?”

“You wrote a check last time you were here.”

Constance feels as if she’s the only woman in town, though she can hear other patrons in the aisles behind her. She doesn’t know if she wants Bran to see her blush.

“Oh yeah,” she says.

Bran points to the book in her hand and says, “If you ever read that, I want to know what you think. It’s a short read, not a major loss if you find it a waste of time.”

“Isn’t this one of those books,” says Constance, “that everyone wants to say they’ve read, but no one actually does?”

“Yep.”

Constance hands the book to Bran. “I’ll give it a shot.”

Bran smiles.

In the dark of her living room/kitchen/dining room, Constance reads Heart of Darkness aloud. She wears her glasses as she sits on the loveseat, her knees drawn up to her chest and the book on her knees, the way she has always sat since she was a little girl.

“‘…No, it is impossible, it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone….’”

“Conrad has a very low ratio of content-to-prose,” says the Underthing from beneath the loveseat.

Constance lays the book down on her knees. “Yeah, I know.”

“You’ve been reading for a couple hours already and how many things have actually happened? Cut out all the pointless abstractions and you’ve got a ten page short story.”

“Some of it’s kind of pretty though.”

“Let’s go back to what we normally read,” says the Underthing.

“And what’s that?”

“Stories with plots.”

Constance stares at the book on her knees. She wants to finish it for Bran’s sake, but she wonders if she’s changing her routines too quickly. She wonders if the Underthing smells love the way sharks smell blood in the water.

“We’re already halfway done,” she says. “Don’t you want to be able to say you’ve read Heart of Darkness?”

“Either you’re wearing contact lenses during the day or you’re walking around blind,” says the Underthing.

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. I hear you put your glasses on the bathroom counter every morning, and I don’t hear you pick them up again until after dinner.”

“What’s this have to do with Joseph Conrad?”

“Do the contacts hurt your eyes? I can smell the saline solution you clean them with.”

Constance tries to sound annoyed to mask her guilt. “I got tired of glasses. I look better this way, but I didn’t think you’d care.”

“I don’t care. Doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Good.”

Constance searches for her place in the book.

“I really don’t care what we read,” says the Underthing. “Just so long as you’re safe and happy.”

“Always,” says Constance. “Now shut up and listen.”

“I thought you’d like to know I’ve eaten three spiders for you today,” says the Underthing from beneath the bed.

Constance stops on the carpet, curling her toes as she holds the plate of warm, rotting meat on her finger tips.

“Thanks,” she says.

“You have a bit of an infestation and I don’t want you getting bitten in your sleep.”

“Thanks.”

Constance places the plate near the bed-skirt.

“One of them bit me,” says the Underthing, the bass in its voice sending a buzz through Constance’s bare feet.

“Oh,” she says.

“So now I have a spider bite on one tentacle, and a splinter in another.”

Constance stands up and puts her hands on her hips. She’s never known the Underthing to try for sympathy, and it frightens her because she has no idea what it really wants. After all these years it still knows her better than she knows it, and she’s never taken that for granted. She tries to mask her unease behind annoyance—something she normally does well.

She sighs and says, “Are you in pain?”

“No,” says the Underthing. “Not really. But the spider bite itches.”

“I have anti-itch cream in the bathroom.”

The Underthing sniffs. “Ah, there’s fat in it this time.” Its tentacles snatch the plate of beef, scooping it under the bed-skirt with lightning grace.

The Underthing’s speed hasn’t made Constance jump in years, but it still makes her blink. She waits for the sound of its grinding molars, then makes her flying leap onto the bed, landing a little harder than normal because she jumps a little higher.

“Watch it,” mutters the Underthing as it eats. “You’ll make me choke, and I don’t think you have enough arms to do the Heimlich on me.”

“Goodnight,” says Constance as she lies down and reaches for the light switch.

“You know I love you,” says the Underthing.

Constance’s fingers pause on the rotary switch. “What?”

“I love you,” the Underthing mumbles between swallows.

Constance’s heart rises into her throat.

“I’ve always wondered,” she says, her voice miraculously calm despite the spinning in her head. “Do you think of me as a younger sister, or an older sister?”

Constance listens to the chewing and swallowing somewhere beneath her where the dust is afraid to gather and the spiders meet their match. The Underthing is taking too long to answer, and this makes Constance afraid. She’s glad it’s currently high on the rot of beef, unable to accurately taste her pheromones.

“Sibling rivalry,” says the Underthing, “is a mammalian concept.”

Constance clicks off the light and pulls the covers tight to her neck. “I’ve always thought of you as younger.”

“Goodnight,” says the Underthing.

Constance’s plan is to bring back Heart of Darkness and trade it in for something else only a moment before the store closes. That way Bran can offer to walk her home or invite her someplace, or at the very least talk to her without interfering with his work.

The street light changes before she can reach the button at the crosswalk, so now she has to wait through the entire cycle. She teeters on the curb, rocking on her heels as she grips the book in her small fingers. Her jacket is zipped to the throat.

“There are other bookstores, you know,” says the Underthing. “Ones that don’t close so early.”

Constance looks at the US mailbox standing a few feet to her left. The Underthing is getting too big to fit under such small spaces, and its tentacles poke out now and then like a dozen black tongue-tips.

“Why are you following me?” Constance asks, knowing the drivers idling next to her can’t hear.

“I’m not,” says the Underthing. “We just happen to be going the same way.”

The light changes and Constance marches across the street, arms swinging stiffly like clock pendulums. She scans the sidewalk ahead for places where the Underthing may be hiding, but she sees nothing for the next block.

“You shouldn’t be walking alone so late at night,” says the Underthing from a storm drain Constance didn’t see.

“I’m carrying mace,” Constance mutters as she passes. She checks her watch, sees she has two minutes before the book store closes.

“You know I’m better than mace,” says the Underthing from beneath a parallel-parked car.

“I was going to save it for a surprise,” says Constance as she speeds past the final block, knowing the Underthing could be under any of the half-dozen parked cars lining the curb. “But mother gave me some leftover pot-roast last Sunday. It’s been on the balcony all week.”

“Chuck or round?”

Constance trots across the last street, knowing she grows less and less attractive the faster she moves, but she can see the lights turning off in the store.

She reaches for the door just as Bran flips off the last light switch and steps outside with a jangle of keys.

“Oh, am I too late?” Constance asks, catching her breath as Bran stares at her. She can’t tell if the surprise on his face is the good kind or the bad.

Bran looks down at the book in her hand. “You know you own that now. This isn’t a library.”

“But I finished it and I don’t have anything else to read over the weekend and you’re closed until Monday.”

“Till Tuesday, actually,” says Bran.

“I know you better than I know myself,” says the Underthing. But Constance is the only one who can truly hear its voice for what it is.

Bran looks around, listening to the wind. “Cat fight,” he says.

Constance glances at the strip of shadow beneath a dumpster only a few feet away. She wishes she could talk back to the Underthing in public the way it can talk to her, with Bran hearing nothing but the bitterness of distant alley cats or the caws of flesh-glutted ravens. She would say to the Underthing, “You’ve held me back. You’ve filled my life with conversations and routines and security, and for that I thank you, but there are some things you’ll never be able to do for me. I shudder to think of doing those things with you, and I’m sorry.”

Instead, she feigns a shiver and says to Bran, “It’s getting cold out here.”

“I’m hot,” says Bran. “But I guess if I’d been out here for awhile I’d be cold, too.”

“He’s a real Shakespearian courtesan,” says the Underthing.

Bran glances at the alley at the end of the block. “They’re really going at it.”

He looks at Constance and says, “So, did you like it?”

“Like what?” says Constance.

Bran gestures to the book in her hand.

“Oh,” says Constance. “No. No I didn’t. But remember you said you wouldn’t hold it against me.”

“I didn’t like it either,” says Bran.

Constance smiles with relief. “I thought you were going to judge me based on my lack of literary pretension.”

“I would’ve judged you only if you had liked it. But don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

“He smells like grade ‘A’ choice,” says the Underthing. “But maybe he doesn’t count as red meat.”

Constance spots a wisp of shadow stretching slowly across the sidewalk, curving toward Bran’s right foot.

She stomps the tentacle under her heel, and it whips back under the dumpster.

“Damn it, girl!” says the Underthing. “I’ve always wondered what you’d taste like….”

Constance gasps as the tentacle wraps around her left ankle.

So many times she’s imagined herself being snapped under the bed, jerked under the couch, sucked down the nearest storm drain. Would he start with her feet and work his way up, or swallow her all at once? Why did she think it would never come to this?

“You okay?” asks Bran.

And the tentacle is gone, leaving the sting of cold on her ankle.

“I didn’t mean it,” says the Underthing. “I was just playing. I promise.”

Constance tries not to shake. She walks just out of range of the dumpster.

“I’m hypoglycemic,” she lies. “Blood sugar dropped all of a sudden.”

Bran stands beside her and says, “You need something to eat?”

The idea is so perfect, so easy, so heaven-sent, Constance temporarily forgets about the Underthing’s attack.

“I think so,” she says.

“My roommates are having a cult party tonight and they always order pizza,” says Bran.

“A what party?”

“Cult TV shows. Tonight we’re watching ‘The Avengers,’ the ones with Diana Rigg.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a sad hobby,” says Bran. “But you’re still more than welcome to join us. There’s usually more eating and talking than actual watching.”

Constance smiles.

“Let’s go home,” says the Underthing.

Constance frowns. She knows the Underthing would follow her to the party. That’s why she says “no” when everything within her is saying “yes.”

“I really don’t feel so good,” she says. “I should probably just go home.”

“You sure?” asks Bran. “I could drive you.”

“No. I’m okay.”

Bran frowns, and Constance knows she’s losing him.

“But thanks,” she says. “Maybe I can show up later, if I feel better.”

Bran brightens and pulls out a small pad of paper from his back pocket. “I’ll give you my address. We’ll be up till about midnight.”

Bran writes his address and hands it to Constance. She smiles and walks away.

Every time she looks back, Bran returns her stare.

When Constance returns to the apartment, the Underthing is already waiting under the loveseat.

“Would it really have been so bad?” it says.

“What are you talking about?” Constance asks as she drops her jacket on the floor.

“He’d last me all week,” says the Underthing.

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I want to talk about our relationship.”

Constance shudders, and she knows the Underthing can smell it.

“Why am I making you so uncomfortable?” it asks.

“You want me to move into a bigger apartment? My bed’s too small, is that it?”

“You know I would never hurt you, no matter what happened.”

“What are we talking about?”

The Underthing’s voice rises in volume but lowers in pitch, causing dishes to rattle and pipes to buzz. “I can’t decide if we should think of him as steaks or chops. You think he’s ‘the other white meat?’”

Now Constance’s fear borders on anger, and anger gives her confidence, which in turn feeds her anger, like a snake growing fat on the feast of its own tail.

“If you threaten Bran again,” she says, “I’ll chop you into sushi.”

The Underthing’s subwoofer sigh causes something to rattle and fall in the kitchen. “I have no desire to eat you, little girl.”

“I’ll only need Bran for a few hours a day,” says Constance. “You’ll always have the larger portion of my life.”

“Really, Constance? I suppose we’ll be reading James Joyce next, or maybe Thomas Pynchon.”

Constance grabs her jacket in a huff.

“Where are you going?” says the Underthing. “You stink of something I don’t know.”

“That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?” says Constance.

She reaches for the doorknob.

“In whatever life you two create,” the Underthing rumbles, “I’ll always be there! Under your table! Under your couch! UNDER YOUR BED!”

Constance freezes.

She always imagined herself as an old woman doddering over a half-deaf husband while the Underthing smacked toothless gums beneath her bed. But now she knows it’s impossible. The few times she imagined the Underthing leaving her, she always saw it slinking down through the kitchen pipes into someone else’s apartment, to someone else’s bed, another child, a little girl afraid of shadows, a girl in need of the Underthing’s deep, room-filling voice as she clutched her teddy bear tight, waiting for dawn. But the Underthing is too big now for spiders and mice. It’s too big for the simple pleasures of children.

Constance shakes because she knows the Underthing will not leave her peacefully. If it had been willing to leave easily, it wouldn’t have been her truest friend. And so she knows if she chooses Bran over the Underthing, one of them will die.

“You’re confused,” says the Underthing, its voice now a smooth, muscle-relaxing hum. “You have so many emotions oozing from your pores. Poor girl. I’ve frightened you, and it was never my intention.”

Constance has never allowed herself to imagine killing the Underthing. She may as well sever her own arm. But this is the Underthing’s choice, not hers.

Surely Bran can take care of her. Surely he’ll try as best he can.

She drops her jacket to the floor.

“I’m tired,” she says.

“The morning will be different,” says the Underthing.

“You’re hungry.”

“Yes.”

“Wait for me under the bed. I’ll be there soon.”

Constance glances at the couch and sees no tentacle tips, hears no rumbling breath or licking of teeth. She knows it waits for her under the bed because that’s their ritual, the sound of her barefoot approach adding to the pleasure of the rotting meat, night after night. She knows what it imagines.

On the balcony is a full pound of ground chuck on a glass platter. The pot-roast was a lie, but this is second best, four days old and spotted with maggots. She owns no weapons, and poisons are too easy for the Underthing to smell, so after she heats the meat, she unplugs the microwave and grabs a bread knife from the kitchen drawer.

She saws the microwave’s thick, three-pronged power cord from its base, leaving a ragged stump of frayed wire and rubber insulation. She packs the pound of warm, rotting beef around the severed end of the cord, then rubs the remaining several feet of exposed cord with meat to mask the smell of rubber. And then, with the platter in one hand, and the gathered tail of the cord in the other, she walks to the bedroom.

She feels no anger as she stands on the carpet, staring at the thin line of shadow under the bed-skirt. The Underthing has ceased to be the same friend and guardian she grew up with, and so it has already died to her. She feels as if it has been on its deathbed for a long, long time, and now she can finally let it go.

“That’s not a roast,” says the Underthing.

“I was lying,” says Constance. “I’m sorry.”

“It still smells good,” the Underthing says.

Constance places the platter on the floor near the bed-skirt, then leaps onto the bed with the three-pronged plug in hand. She readies the plug near the outlet beside her, where the nightstand lamp receives its power.

A pair of thin shadows lash out, scoop up the platter, and jerk it under the bed. Constance listens, and when she hears the first munch, she reaches for the outlet.

“Goodnight,” she says, as the plug drives home.

The Underthing bucks the bed beneath her, and its scream shakes the walls, mixing with the pop and sizzle of frying flesh. Black tentacles lash out around the edges of the bed as the circuit breakers trip and the room goes dark.

The bed hides the burned carpet, but it does nothing for the smell. Constance will never sleep in that bed again because it would be like dancing on someone’s grave.

She walks the nighttime streets with Bran’s address in hand, her jacket zipped to the throat, her strides long and stiff, the smell of rotten beef and sizzled flesh washed from her skin. She wonders if Bran will completely fill the hole the Underthing has left. She wonders if she’ll find other Underthings, not all of them sleeping under the bed. She wonders if she’ll have to destroy them, too.

Or maybe, with someone like Bran, she won’t have to fight them alone. That’s what she believes as she knocks on his door.

Illustration by Marge Simon

The Gate

Marge Simon

W e are the Children of the Gestalt,
Keepers of the Gate.

Our gate is always open
to all those mortal,
to all who sweat and strive,
to needs and desires of the flesh,
to errors compounded,
and promises conceded,
to mysteries unsolved.

Come your silver ships of war—
with wonder did we look on them,
for defense was foreign to our ways.
Our skies weep scarlet tapestries.
There is blood on Father’s wings.

Mother sews the rubies in my cap.
Sister sings a song of courage
as I will the gate to close.
In the long quiet after, we know
you won’t be going home

to all who sweat and strive,
to needs and desires of the flesh,
to promises conceded,
to mysteries unsolved.

Brighton Bay

by January Mortimer

“Some years ago, while visiting a faded seaside resort, I came across a collection of Edwardian travel guides. These battered old books looked like they had seen the world—from Cornwall to the French Alps to Malay—and their original owner had annotated them in tiny, tidy handwriting. I wondered why he or she was travelling. And what kind of person circled not only names of hotels, the location of ladies’ hat makers and local train times, but also made notes on police stations and places to purchase assorted weaponry?”

T HE HOTEL POSSESSED an air of faded grandeur: of magnificence worn to tawdry pretence. Darns ill-concealed moth holes in the drapery and the dining room tables and chairs were hulking mahogany beasts. The place direly needed fresh paint and some loving attention.

What it did not need was a forest.

Unfortunately, there was one sprouting in the ballroom.

“How extra-ordinary,” I said. From my seat I could see trees growing from the beeswaxed floor, their branches reaching up to vanish into the cavernous ceiling. Vines crept through the grand double doors and into the dining room, snaking and spreading and rippling with a whisper of moving greenery.

I spread jam on my toast. “Edwin, I think they’re having a bit of a weed problem.”

My brother snorted and unfolded the morning edition of the Times. He glanced at the front page—where headlines shouted scornfully about Lloyd George’s budget and the latest exploits of the Suffragettes—and turned to the schedules of steamers and trains.

He said, “Pass the kippers, will you, Fiona?”

Edwin always did lack an appreciation of the absurd.

I passed the kippers.

The roars of the hotel proprietor, a certain Mr. Ralph Jones, echoed in his newly-leafy hall. “Vexed! I’m not vexed, Stanley! I’m furious! And do you know why?”

“Because your niece turned the ballroom into a greenhouse, sir?” a harangued voice asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I’m furious because she didn’t turn it back!”

Edwin tore out a square of newspaper and slipped it into his blazer pocket. “How does Australia sound? We could hop aboard a Cunard liner next Thursday.”

I was leaving that sorry affair entirely up to him, and told him so in no few words. “And Australia is teeming with the lowest of criminals,” I concluded. “Also, Dearest Brother, if you say ’then we should feel right at home’, I shall hit you.”

If Edwin thought we should take an extended holiday abroad, then Edwin could d--n well arrange it. I had other, far more intriguing, concerns.

For instance, there remained a forest growing in the ballroom. In the aether it pulsed blue and grey: a heartbeat of charmwork and youthful passion.

It tasted of tears.

This, I thought, is not right.

“Julia, you horrid child, clean this up!”

“You can’t make me!”

A young woman, maybe sixteen, bolted from the forest. She wiped tears as she ran, her hair and skirts streaming behind like pennants. The vines shuddered as she passed.

Other diners looked up from their bacon and eggs, disapproving.

I remembered my first spell—the portraits in Uncle’s study conjured into brief, abusive life—and the horrible emptiness when the magic faltered, broken by the bonfire’s flames. Oh yes, I understood young Julia’s reluctance to banish her forest.

“—Worse than woman drivers and twice as dangerous,” the proprietor said to his assistant. The hired assistant, Stanley, ripped ivy from the hinges and slammed the ballroom doors.

I pushed back my chair.

“Don’t do it, Fi. Whatever it is you’re thinking, don’t do it.” Edwin glanced up. His hair fell in eyes red and dry from lack of sleep. “Not until we’ve safely skipped the country.”

I patted his hand. “We are not ’skipping the country’. We are going on holiday.”

“That is not what the magistrate will say!”

Poor Edwin. He possessed nerves, you know. How he survived life in my company I shall never know.

I walked through the drab breakfast room, the equally drab lobby and away. Let Edwin fret; I was going to enjoy myself.

Behind, the trees wept leafy tears.

Not right at all, I thought.

It was not a good time to be on the coast. Autumnal rain blew at every opportunity, filling Brighton’s seaside air with an unfriendly chill. I strolled in the thin rain, holding my hat against the wind. Like the promenades and amusements in the city below, the hotel veranda was abandoned but for gulls and ghosts.

Or almost abandoned. At a rusting table, two people spoke in lowered tones: one sat, her feet tucked beneath the chair and hands laced on the table; the other loomed above, too close and threateningly tall.

In Stanley’s shadow, Julia looked china-doll frail.

The wind carried the man’s words, “…be ashamed! Have you any idea what an ‘accident’ like that could do to your uncle’s business?”

Julia’s hopeless anger rippled through aether like a summer storm. “I thought it was my business. Inheritance and such.” She laughed, a broken sound. “Silly me.”

“Julia!” Stanley leaned in. From a distance, blond Stanley radiated purity in waves. He dripped virtue. Rained it.

Closer, his expression showed the lie.

I dropped my purse. How clumsy! The coins made a satisfying clatter on the pavement. Stanley and Julia started; the good gentleman did not look pleased to see me. He fingered a silver snuff box as other men might finger a weapon.

“Good day, Miss Tamwell.” He nodded curtly at Julia and stalked off.

As I picked up my coins, the wind changed, carrying the crash of surf on sand clearly through the troubled air. On the beach far below, a bright spot of red blossomed: a Punch and Judy stand with an audience of matchstick children. Punch kills Judy, you know. He beats her when she becomes too troublesome. Beats her to death and leaves her limp puppet-body lying on the stage. Such a sordid tale of murder.

Why-oh-why did Judy never beat him back?

I addressed Julia, “Bonjour. Je regrette, mais…Où est le—?” The girl turned a blank face towards me and I said, in English, “I beg your pardon. I mistook you for someone else. Do forgive me. May I sit?” Edwin and I had booked into the hotel as a French gentleman and his cousin; if the police came asking for siblings from Kent, none were to be found here.

The girl brushed at her eyes with a sleeve. “Can I help you?” Power tickled my skin with feather touches. She was a young talent, just spreading her wings.

I said, “I could not help noticing a certain disturbance….”

Julia blanched. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t upset you, did I? I was, well, there was an aetheric accident and—”

I held up a hand. “Mademoiselle, as accidents go, I rated it a most impressive one. And the manager of the establishment, he was angry, no?”

I thought, You want to talk, don’t you, darling? Some b-----d has you under his thumb, and you’re dying to escape. Silly thing. She was waiting for a Prince Charming to save her.

Prince Charmings are notorious b-----ds, too.

Her face crumpled ever-so-slightly. “He’s my uncle. He’s always angry,” she said.

Uncles. That explained everything. Of all the relations a solitary young woman can be saddled with, Uncles are the worst. Always. The world would be better off without them.

I was glad mine was dead.

I dropped my French accent. “Julia, darling, as a fellow sorceress, I would like to offer my professional assistance.” Let Edwin worry about steamers and trains. I was bored and I was angry and now I was going to enjoy myself.

“Oh!” Julia said. “I mean—”

I smiled. “Excellent. But first things first. A forest truly cannot stay indoors; it is most irregular and d--nedly inconvenient.”

I took an early supper in the hotel dining room. Alone. I did not want company.

So of course, it was my brother’s duty to appear.

“There you are!” he said and sat at my table in a huff.

I said, “Do you know, I believe the sea air has made you more irritable than usual. And I hadn’t thought that possible.”

We glared at one another over the spread of shoe-leather pork and over-cooked vegetables.

He said, “What exactly have you been doing with yourself? And don’t say shopping, because I would happen to know you’d be lying.”

“Edwin, you have no tact, talent, nor any saving grace at all!”

Across the room, Uncle Ralph sauntered from table to table greeting guests, a simpering smile pasted on his fat face. I lost my appetite; after the stories Julia had told me, I did not think I could abide speaking to that disgusting specimen of a man. He was a lout and a bully, and as greedy as Midas besides.

“Where were you?”

“Out with the Suffragettes at City Hall, chaining myself to lampposts,” I snapped. “Additionally, I robbed a bank, wrote a full confession, and had tea with the police commissioner. In short, nothing to concern you.” I folded my serviette and made to rise.

Edwin caught my hand, his voice low and urgent. “You need to see this,” he said, and pulled out his handkerchief.

Edwin had spent the days of our flight from Kent—as the trains rattled along the railroad until I feared my teeth would be shaken loose—sewing charms into his handkerchiefs.

I took the square of cloth. In the aether the spell construct rang with a note of purple. He had sewn a map in blue thread, criss-crossed by wandering lines of red; a black knot marked Brighton.

A strand of red thread shimmered and disintegrated into dust and nothing.

“Ah,” I said.

“The false trails we set are being unpicked.” Edwin eyed the room, as if he suspected Constabulary sorcerers hid in the drapery.

“Are they here yet?” I pretended not to see his pallor; I felt quite sick myself.

He shook his head, a singularly unconvincing negative.

You will believe me when I say there are worse things than death. In our own fair England, the souls of criminal sorcerers are caged in stone for thrice-twenty years. It used to be more.

I visited the Tower of London once. I could hear the executed dead screaming inside the walls.

“There’s a midnight train. We should be on it.” Edwin fidgeted, eager to flee at once, to h--l with our belongings.

“I’m not done here—”

“Fiona, be rational!”

“You may get on the train—by all means—but you will be by yourself!”

Diners looked up; we winced as one and were silent.

I took a deep breath and re-examined the red threads and charm knot-work. “We should have the better part of a week. The diversion at Southampton has them confused. Is two days too much for me to ask?”

Yes, his face said. “Whatever you’re up to, it’s a terrible idea.”

“Edwin—” I stopped. For all his faults, nerves and ill-temper, he cared. He would not abandon me, not even if the Constabulary were knocking at the door. I poured him a glass of wine. “I am more than capable of taking care of myself. Don’t worry your head about little old me.”

Our suite was a cave of deep reds, gilt mirrors and the carved mahogany favoured during the reign of the late Queen. I thought the place bore amusing resemblance to an upper-class bordello, an observation that utterly mortified Edwin. He had done his best to hide his room under a strewn layer of possessions.

I picked yesterday’s blazer off the carpet and recovered another charmed handkerchief. An invisibility construct looped across the linen and something yellow clung to a corner. I wrinkled my nose.

“You had better be food,” I told it.

“Fiona?” Julia called.

She stood leaning on the balcony rail. With the hankie dangling between thumb and forefinger, I joined her, and together we watched the ebb and flow of the street. A motor car grumbled on its way, the beam of its headlamps catching on the hands and faces of pedestrians and conjuring them out of the dusk.

“Did you see Uncle Ralph?” she asked.

I nodded. “He resembles a certain barnyard animal, darling. Be glad you took after your father’s family.”

I listened to the evening sounds and brooded. Should we leave? As a charmworking sorcerer, Edwin’s talent lay in hiding things, but by necessity Constabulary sorcerers excelled in exactly the opposite….

I had taken on Julia’s cause as a lark and a distraction and just because I could. At this point, would my disappearance make so much difference to the girl?

“How did your parents die?” I asked.

Julia said, “There really was no way Uncle Ralph could have arranged it.”

For shame: I had not realised I was so transparent. “Are you certain?”

A happy couple exited the hotel towing two small children. I remembered being that small, clutching Edwin as he clung to me, and staring up at the stern, compassionate strangers and the iron-eyed man who was our uncle. “Your Mama and Papa are dead,” he told us “You shall come to live with me.”

“It was diphtheria,” Julia said.

Did it matter how the Tamwells had met their end? Uncle Ralph still reaped the rewards and all of Julia’s inheritance. When Julia came of age, what then? Somehow I doubted Ralph would happily relinquish his little hotel kingdom.

Out at sea, the sun committed suicide and the dark rose out of the water like a second tide and drowned us.

Julia said, in a small voice, “You are going to help me, aren’t you?”

Edwin and I never had any help. Perhaps that is why we turned into such bad eggs.

“Fiona?”

I patted the girl’s arm. D--n common sense. “Don’t be silly! Of course I am! You’ll need a change of clothes. And a notebook…I have one somewhere.” I turned from the balcony and headed inside.

“We’re going to arrange a kidnapping,” I explained. “Yours.”

Dawn came as a shimmer of gold, fast smothered under a blanket of rain. A fog skulked in from the sea, thick and white and flowing over the shore like spilt milk. I sat in the reading room adjacent to the lobby, listening to unseen gulls crying in the mist.

“You’re looking particularly bland this morning,” said Edwin. He sauntered in and threw himself down in the opposite chair.

“Go away,” I murmured.

“No.” He leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees. “There is a woman in my bedroom, dear sister.”

“That must be a new experience.”

“Quite, how droll of you to notice…except that she appears to be, in addition to invisible, the owner’s niece. What are you up to?”

“This isn’t the time. You need to leave before—”

—Gruff voices filled in the lobby.

I stood and brushed the wrinkles from my dress. “Too late.”

The police had arrived. More officers strode past the window, their starched uniforms dappled with rain-damp. Edwin sank into the depths of the chair. “Oh d--n and double d--n.”

“They’re not here for us!” I said. We still had time. Edwin’s charm said so.

Edwin had better be right.

“I know. I know.” My brother scrubbed his face. “Fi, just… stay out of trouble, will you?”

A newspaper, abandoned by some unknown gentleman lay over the arm of my chair. I unfolded it and gave it to Edwin: a paper shield. “I’ll try,” I promised.

Concealed in a vase of ornamental greenery, ready and waiting, was my tennis racket, a prop for the coming performance. Props are so useful: they focus the mind, create verisimilitude, and in a pinch, make wonderful blunt instruments.

“There’s something wrong in the aether,” Edwin whispered. “Can’t you feel it?”

And with that portent of doom, I opened the door and stepped into a lobby packed with policemen.

The tennis racket and I entered stage left and took position at the foot of the stair, as if waiting for a companion to descend. I had a singularly excellent view of piggy-faced Uncle Ralph as he stuttered to an inspector and young constable.

The Inspector asked, “And that was when the young lady was discovered missing?”

Ralph nodded, clutching his hat in both hands. Beside him, Stanley glowered at all and sundry and yet still managed to look like a harried saint. The silver snuff box flashed as he fidgeted.

“And the windows were broken? Hmm…. I see.” The inspector made a note. Then he made another. Then he said, “PC Dickie and I will require complete access to the hotel’s facilities, Mr. Jones! The grounds, the servants, the accounts….”

“The accounts!” Stanley said. “That’s the most— How’ll the blasted accounts help in the sorry business?”

“Ah.” PC Dickie nodded wisely. “That is a v’ry good question, sir. A v’ry good question indeed.”

His superior added, “Evidence, sir, is everything! Let me assure you, Mr. Jones, no stone’ll be left unturned ’til the young Miss is safe!”

Stanley shook his head and mopped his brow with a cuff.

A rather dusty portrait hung on the wall above Stanley’s head: a gentleman of middling years and a pleasant face. William Tamwell, Founder of Brighton Bay Hotel, a placard stated. He gazed at the proceedings with benevolent eyes.

“Did the young lady keep a diary, Mr. Jones?” the senior policeman asked.

Uncle Ralph spluttered a semi-coherent answer.

As a point of fact, Julia had not, but we had been quite thorough in manufacturing one. Letters and diary would be found and the merry goose chase would keep the constabulary happily occupied. I smiled to myself.

Then I stopped.

The Inspector’s eyes drifted in my direction; I gazed up the stairs as his attention prickled hairs on the back of my neck.

I’m not interesting. Ignore me. Go on, I thought.

He cleared his throat.

Of all the confounded luck.

The Inspector watched me with professionally narrow eyes, nibbling on the corner of his moustache. Here was I, of an appropriate age, a potential witness; might I know something of Julia?

I could be out the door before he spoke. But what would be the fun of that?

I could go to him.

I imagined Edwin having conniptions in the reading room.

“Excuse me, Monsieur, but I could not help but overhear…. Is Miss Julia unwell? We were to play tennis.” I smiled at the men: a bonny, guileless young woman.

“When was this?” Stanley demanded as Ralph blurted, “Julia is a bit—” Both paused, waiting for the other to continue.

The Inspector claimed the floor; he tipped his helmet and held a gold propelling pencil poised above a notebook. “Inspector Creighton at your service. When did you last see the young lady in question? And may I ask the time and whereabouts of said happenstance?”

Good lord! It was a good thing that I was not truly French. ‘Whereabouts of said happenstance’? What a dreadfully typical policeman.

The previous morning, I told him. After her discussion with Monsieur Jones’ assistant. Stanley shifted and rubbed the back of his neck.

“But where is Miss Julia?” I asked. “Has there been a burglary?”

“I’m afraid Miss Tamwell has been—” Inspector Creighton consulted his notes. “—abducted by person or persons unknown, some time between six and nine this morning.”

Really? Gosh, how delightful. Now it was time to make my exit.

I counted to five.

The tennis racket fell to the floor as my hands rose, shaking, to my mouth. “Oh, but this is dreadful. This is unspeakable! Il faut téléphoner à la police!”

Inspector Creighton’s moustache bristled in alarm. Noble policeman, he existed in a world where the crimes were dastardly, the criminal said “fair cop, gov,” and the women did not have hysterics in his presence. He cleared his throat. “Dickie! Get water for the Mademoiselle!”

Mademoiselle did not answer. Mademoiselle was too busy swooning into startled PC Dickie’s arms.

Stanley and Dickie half-carried me to the reading room. Stanley kicked open the door. Edwin! I thought.

Lace curtains billowed in the rain-soaked wind. The window stood open and there was no sign of my brother.

Bless them, but they wouldn’t leave. To hear the maids, you’d have thought I was upon my death bed instead of sitting in my suite’s comfortable armchair, nursing a generous brandy. On the house, I might add.

“Ce n’est pas grave!” I told the chambermaids. “Go! Shoo!” Finally, they scattered like sparrows and fled to spread the gossip.

A booming voice floated through the hotel. “Plucky gal! Makes trees, you know. Ta’ frighten the scoundrels, I’ll wager. Plucky gal. Just like her Mama.”

Uncle Ralph had also partaken of the brandy.

Invisible Julia giggled. It is quite disconcerting, having an invisible giggler at ones’ elbow.

“For an abducted woman, you are surprisingly cheerful,” I said. “I thought they would hear you, and then where would we have been?”

The aether wavered as the charm deactivated. Julia popped into view. “Don’t fuss so!”

What could I do? Edwin’s nerves were contagious. I stood and stretched the stiffness from my limbs. “And how did you spend your day?”

“Sitting mostly. Oh, but I fetched Uncle Ralph’s account book! He has Stanley do them, so he shan’t miss it. I thought we… oh, I don’t know… we could decide what my ransom should be.”

“Perhaps later, darling.”

In silent reproach, Edwin had left the map-charm spread out on a marquetry side table. I glanced at it.

My blood turned to ice; Southampton had not delayed the Constabulary sorcerers.

As if spurned on by my gaze, yet another red thread disintegrated.

No, impossible!

Edwin’s warning repeated in my ear, “There’s something wrong in the aether.”

“Oh blast,” I said, adding something rather too profane for me to record.

Julia failed to find my unladylike language another reason to giggle. “Fiona?”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing.” Had Edwin seen the state of his handkerchief lately? Where was he? Not in the suite. I checked the back room: no Edwin. Now all attention, I could feel the disturbance in the Otherworld: ripples, fast becoming waves. Edwin’s magic was eroding by slow increments. Why? Bad aetheric weather, something else? I didn’t know. Julia, meanwhile, edged away from the nearest window. “Look. More policemen,” she said.

She was right: a trio of officers strolled by the hotel, casting suspicious glances at innocent shadows.

“At least they’re getting their daily constitutional,” I said, distractedly.

Edwin and I needed to leave. And we needed to leave soon. There went the plan to ‘ransom’ Julia back to her uncle right out the window. Additionally, right when I needed him, my darling, paranoid brother was making himself scarce.

I pocketed the handkerchief, changed my mind, replaced it on its table, and ran fingers through my hair. “Typical, Edwin, just typical. Where are you?”

Julia shook her head, alarmed now, and frustrated. “What aren’t you telling me? Maybe I am a silly girl, like Uncle Ralph thinks, but I’m not foolish!”

True. I gestured vaguely; the chime of my bracelets reminded me of a time I had worn bruises like jewellery. “The police are eager to discuss things with Edwin and I.”

“Why!?”

“This and that.” “Murder, arson, theft. It’s a long story,” I didn’t say.

“You said you had an uncle—” Julia said.

“Yes,” I said. “I had an uncle.”

Awkward silence.

A clock ticked, an uncomfortable reminder of time.

I brushed my hands together, trying to dust away the past. “So, that ledger. Where is it?”

If you don’t have a plan, pretend otherwise.

Julia produced a small, battered book. On its yellowing pages, columns of numbers marched in an army of arithmetic secrets. The handwriting changed with the pages. There was the florid script of Julia’s father, there the half literate scribbles of Ralph, and last, the sparse, trustworthy print of Stanley.

I ran a finger down Mr. Stanley’s columns and smiled; I always did have a good head for figures. “This will do nicely,” I said.

The world has a natural order.

I padded through the corridors in my night dress and dressing gown, accompanied by the sea sounds and the dark. A draft ghosted in from the night, kissed my skin with cold lips, then whisked away to breathe in the curtains.

A natural order: low vermin and weasels feed on the helpless, while wolves and foxes dine on any and all, until the hounds run them into the ground. Uncle Ralph was a rat, living off what could not fight back. Trustworthy Stanley was the weasel, though Ralph did not know it.

And I—

I reached a lit doorway and pressed back against the wall. My right hand dug in my pocket as the left pulled a sheaf of papers from my sleeve. Inside the room, a man cursed low and constant under his breath.

—I’m the vixen.

I stepped into view. “It isn’t there,” I said.

In the lamp light, Stanley’s shocked eyes gleamed. He knelt on the floor of his own office, surrounded by a mess of ransacked files and emptied desks. Here, Stanley was no earthly angel: he was angry and seedy and sweating.

“What do you want?” he said.

I let the ledger pages flutter free. Stanley stilled; he recognized those pages.

I said, “I think the good Inspector would be quite interested in a certain little book, don’t you?”

The silver snuff box gleamed as Stanley played with it. His saintly aura returned and a halo fairly shone above his head. The aether rippled; somewhere upstairs, Edwin’s charms frayed a little more.

Stanley said, earnestly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Indeed.

I pulled a loose thread from my dressing gown’s embroidery.

Stanley squalled, his hand blistering. The snuff box tumbled to the carpet, red hot and smoking. I watched as Stanley’s trust-me charm melted into a molten pool.

Edwin was not the only one handy with a charmed needle. “Stanley, darling, you and your nasty little accoutrement have made my life difficult,” I said. “And you have been so very busy with Mr. Jones’s accounts, too. How ever will he pay Julia’s ransom?”

In the night-blackened window my reflection smiled a predatory smile and stood at ease, hand in gown pocket. Stanley—the weasel, the amateur little magician—cradled his burnt hand and glowered. His house of cards was falling and he knew it.

“You took her!”

“Clever boy. Regarding the ledger, please consider the usual threat said.” Interested parties, registered post, etc. Or a significant amount of cash. “Also, if anything were to happen to Julia, would you care to wager who would get the blame?”

A brass candlestick lay amongst the tumbled papers; I watched Stanley’s hand creep towards it. He was going for it. Any moment….

I said, “We’ll start with your pocket watch and go from there.”

The man struck. He exploded to his feet, candlestick raised, his face a snarl of desperation.

I took my hand out of my pocket and Stanley froze; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared down the barrel of a dainty pearl-handled revolver. In the window reflection, the muzzles were very dark.

“Allow me to rephrase,” I said. “Give me your pocket watch and five hundred pounds, or I shoot you through the head.”

Stanley’s pupils went huge. “You wouldn’t.”

“Are you a gambling man?” I smiled wider. ”Can a woman be dangerous, Mr. Stanley? Come now, tell me what you think.”

The scream echoed ear-splittingly in the narrow confines of the station. I held my hat in place as the 8am locomotive panted its way to the platform, a turret of steam and three carriages dragging in its wake.

Julia embraced me. She would be in the papers soon: the Plucky Gal, escaped from abductors and returned safe to the bosom of her family by the Noble Efforts of His Majesty’s Constabulary.

Further down the platform, Uncle Ralph, Inspector Creighton—his moustache ironed to curly-cues of celebration—and PC Dickie stood in unnecessary guard. Stanley, strangely enough, was nowhere to be seen.

He had been called away, poor dear, to the bedside of an ailing aunt.

In Australia.

Where he would feel right at home.

Julia asked, “Must you go?”

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “My brother is, for once, quite correct. And your escort is making Edwin terribly nervous.” Not that he had need; with the corrosive effects of the snuff box at an end, we had manoeuvring time. Also, a delightful, unknowing volunteer was setting the Constabulary sorcerers a false trail.

I hoped they liked Australia.

I tucked my arm through Julia’s and we walked along the row of carriage. “I suppose it’s not wise to stay at a crime scene,” Julia mused.

“Just so. Now remember, avoid the good Inspector’s questions. Carry on, cry, faint if you have to. Melodrama is the word of the hour.”

I winced as my back twinged and informed me that the train journey would be agony. The long midnight hours spent in the hotel grounds with a shovel would punish me for my sins. Oh, how I ached!

Julia asked, “Do you think I should draw a map? Like pirates do?”

Porters hefted the last of our trunks aboard, watched over by a fretful Edwin.

“Fi!” Edwin said. “Please don’t dawdle!”

I squeezed Julia’s hand, laughing. “Darling, I am of the firm belief that if one can’t remember where one has buried a large amount of misappropriated currency, one simply doesn’t deserve to keep it.”

And with that I boarded the train.

Metawonder

—or—

Trash Your Oscilloscope

I n a recent conversation a non-scientist friend told me that she had turned from science because of the strict and impersonal image of oscilloscopes and their ilk. They seemed cold and inhuman to her. OK, not Skynet inhuman; they may be machines but not yet self-programmable ones. Hardware and equations can be abused. They can damage young minds that might otherwise have been given science’s big gift of that sense-a-wondah, but were instead robbed of it forever by bad science teachers with no sense of wonder to share.

Science education is in a lamentable state. Not just from the rumbling approach of anti-science and its medieval siege-craft, but from within as well. The removal of wonder and further distancing itself from the human imagination undermines the traditions and origins of science itself. Imagination is the insatiable hunger within us all that drives the need for scientific inquiry. If imagination is not fed, it will wither and atrophy. Unexercised it transmogrifies into a terracotta lump of impermeability. Imagination drowns in a swamp of listed facts and like any sinking thing grabs what’s near, and science sinks along with it.

Admittedly and with a measure of chagrin, since I know what is to follow in this missive, I am not dismayed by the occasional oscilloscope. But peering into a round screen with verdant waves can hold amusement for only so long, and then it has to mean something. When the lesson is to see wave crests and troughs, length and amplitude, that’s all well and good. However when the hardware is the example of science, the real point is lost. The oscilloscope is only a window to where the real action is. How about radio storms from Jupiter? Take that trip and the oscilloscope becomes merely incidental, forgotten background noise.

Wonder comes from science—of course it does. But science is not the sole proprietor of it. Wonder is a broad treasure chest of things. Wonder is finding some of my childhood memories hidden away in rusty coffee cans. Surveying deep stretches of stars and knowing someone is dreaming back. A praying mantis looking over its shoulder and staring me in the eyes. Wonder is a baby gorilla spread prone and lightly snoring against my chest. If you know how to quantize these things, please don’t tell me; I don’t want to know. I want to keep them just as they are.

It’s a wonder that we can wonder at all. And perhaps the very thing that ultimately makes us human. Is it an appreciation of magic? Or is it the desperate need to understand a fundamentally incomprehensible reality? In the end it may simply be my own awareness of what I am, awash in an endless sea of what I am not. We can grab Descartes by his ruffled collar and dismember “Je pense, donc je suis,” “I think, therefore I am,” with laser scalpels all day long and still not get close to the real meaning behind those words. Even treating this statement as syllogism one might argue that the finer points risk pointless burial beneath scrutiny and dialogue. Really, it is preamble, argument and conclusion all in one well-packaged phrase. Read Discourse on Method for your pleasure if you will, but know that his idea as stated above was his only irrefutable conclusion, tightly wrapped in its own verisimilitude.

An earlier philosopher, Plato, discussed paideia, the physical, mental and spiritual progress of all individuals, who are born already with knowledge. So each of us is dealt a hand with which we begin a marvelous journey. From his own base Plato asked epistemological questions about the world and about illusion and how we see a difference, if there is a difference. For him knowledge of reality itself was not a universal concept, but a shifty shadow-image laced together from “individual” and “out world” experiences, filtered through our private senses.

Given that, of course we cannot really know what’s what between us. If reality is an amalgam agreement between “out there” and inside, then it meanders about on infinitesimally unique pathways. Your own private pathways. Lucid and individual, we really do exist in nested universes, each of us both god and tourist in our own space.

So how about you? Do you know where you came from? What you are? How much of you is traceable along 10,000 years of human civilization? Back when, remember, the world was filled only with a few scattered campfires around which your great great to the n^th grandparents listened rapt to gesticulating shamans and storytellers? So much, my friends, so very much.

I are human and so am you. Unique and separate, social and collective, a myriad of things we cannot know and yet deeply understand. Walking paradoxes of baffling potential presenting face and words to convey the chaotic storms of emotion and mystery within. Simply human.

As I have quoted before we are the universe trying to figure itself out, so maybe we shouldn’t rely on a single set of tools to do that. It shouldn’t all be calculus and figures, machines, cold equations and stochastic functions. And certainly not oscilloscopes. No, not oscilloscopes, because there is so very much more. More than particles, more than valence electrons, more than instincts and numbers. More than anything you can count and measure.

I want to be able to lie on my back, look to the heavens and have the stars carry messages for me; I don’t want my imagination stifled. I don’t want empirical blockades always springing up in the middle of my garden path; I want to close my eyes and fly to a private garden for secret rendezvous. I want to experience the love of a woman, and not have her emotions reduced to evolutionary origins. Because that’s not what it is. It’s a feeling, a gift, a treasure of boundless value. Don’t dissect it. You don’t have to scrutinize it. Enjoy it. It’s amazing. And without it, nothing else really matters.

—Fin—

The Cathedral of the Never-Was

Mikal Trimm

I t sits upon the lip of the volcano, and
The virgins, consumed
By native prejudice and
Godly appetite, dance
On slender toes, ever tempting
The precipice, enticing
The coming harvest with
The boiling of their blood.
Their skin is smooth obsidian, their blood
Magma-rich, and their children,
The seed of Fire within them, flow
From their boundless loins
With molten abandon.


And the Cathedral of the Never-Was,
Looking down upon its congregation,
Constructs itself with the skeletons
Of the cold, dead offspring of
The daughters of Man, while
The sons of the Gods are immortalized,
Their images painted in shadow-colors
On its walls, their fused bones rising, statues of grief,
From its floor.

The Hanging of the Greens

John A. Pitts

L EGATE ATTICUS SPURRED his horse forward through the thickening snow. The expectancy of combat pulsed through him as the air hummed with the foul taint of magic. Once again the Gauls called upon the Fey to assist them.

At the top of the ridge, above the tents, he stopped to survey the troops as they prepared for the day’s battle. The left wing moved into position—three cohorts strong. The center had been in place since sunup. He grimaced at the ragtag formation of the four cohorts on the right. Their skirmish line spread across the field like a ragged scar. The new recruits needed discipline.

“Damn this winter.” He spat onto the frigid ground. “It takes a heavy toll on Caesar’s best.”

Several of the men blamed the Gauls for the harshness of the weather. Frigid nights concerned Atticus less than Caesar’s inattention. How many cohorts had Caesar lost since fall? Twelve? Fifteen? Caesar mourned the losses in his family, haunting Rome in his anguish, allowing the front to languish. But the deaths of ten thousand or more solid legionnaires due in no small part to an inexcusable lack of attentiveness spoke ill for the coming campaign. Rumor abounded of the Gauls’ victories over the past seasons. No few of them mentioned the druids and their allies, the Fey. Atticus had witnessed the woods working against Caesar and his men. When they crossed the Meuse into Belgae, huge trees had flung themselves into the river and carried many good men to a watery grave.

His horse moved restlessly beneath him, anxious for battle, no doubt. Atticus watched the woods in front of him, watched the snow falling from the gray sky. This winter, we will crush them, he swore to whatever gods cared to listen. In response, the snowfall thickened around him, muffling the sounds of the men and horses. The curses and mutterings faded along with the clinking of armor and weapons. Atticus shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

A thick blanket of new winter snow covered the hollows for miles around Hindman, Kentucky. Schools had been closed for a week and a festive mood crept along the back roads and trailer parks like a hunting beast. Once again, the warm glow of Christmas graced the little country church deep in Tadpole Hollow.

The women of the church bustled around the hall. A fire burned merrily in the huge fireplace along the eastern wall, filling the hall with warmth. Children played with the wooden nativity set. Christmas music droned in the background, adding a nice undertone to the quiet, eager exchanges between the parishioners. Excitement reached a tight pitch as the festival preparations began to finish up.

This was a most special celebration, for two of their own had returned from exile. The women-folk orbited around Sally Preston and her young daughter Candace. Beauty Queen Sally had left Tadpole Hallow after high school, following a charismatic preacher-man she’d met during a tent revival. Anyone could have told her that the hell-fire-and-brimstone preaching wouldn’t stop at the tent, but she didn’t see it. After six years of broken dreams and broken bones, Sally had left the Right Reverend Winston and returned to her home, a skittish woman whose beauty had been marred by too many bruises and too little hope.

Junie Stimpleton, once Sally Preston’s best friend, passed through the meeting hall wielding her two-quart jar of eggnog like a weapon—parrying and thrusting, darting and dancing around the crowd of old and young alike. She watched Sally like a hawk, protective and distant at the same time. Every time the jar emptied, she swung back to the kitchen to report to Mabel.

Mabel Carpenter puttered in the small kitchen, putting the final touches on a tray of warm, doughy Christmas trees. Sprinkles of green sugar added the coup de grace.

The final cohort moved into place. The creak and groan of the war machines gave Atticus a warm feeling of confidence. The time for the dance was upon them. Experienced troops manned the scorpions, moving about the machinery with ease, loading the bolts with precision and care. The ballista units, however, had suffered heavy casualties in the last battle and the newly conscripted crews handled the stones and counter-weights with all the discipline of geese. Atticus watched the men as they moved about the bulky war machines. He was struck by the whiteness of their breath and wondered how many of them would fall steaming onto the cold packed earth before this day was through.

Reverend Thomas E. Sykes held court with the local men folk. Tonight they would enter the wild woods and gather the raiment for the celebration of winter’s promise of resurrection.

“This year, we’re taking three vehicles. Bobby Stinnet will drive his new pickup and take the Farley brothers. Now, Bobby, you watch out for those two—never saw a pair of twins that wasn’t up to some form of mischief.”

The tall, fair-skinned boys grinned at the reverend, nudging and jostling each other when they thought he wasn’t looking.

“Ed will take Michael and Kyle in his Blazer. And I’ll drive up with Deacon Smith in his Lincoln.”

The other men sniggered. Deacon Smith hiked up his britches and glared at the others.

“Ridin’ in style won’t do you no good, Reverend,” said Kyle Pruitt. “That sled won’t make it anywhere near Dwarf or Rowdy.”

“I got the trunk loaded down with twenty-pound bags of cement,” Deacon Smith said. “You just make sure you boys don’t get lost. If I recall, we pulled you and Mikey out of the ditch over by two-nineteen last year.”

“Black ice, that’s what it was,” Michael said. “Ain’t cause I’m a bad driver. I got a C-plus in Drivers Ed.”

“All right, boys,” Reverend Sykes said. “We know you’re an excellent driver, Michael. We all run afoul of black ice in our lives, now, don’t we, fellas?”

All the men nodded and answered in a chorus of “Uh huhs.”

“Now,” the reverend continued, “we once again honor an ancient tradition of rebirth and immortality. We pay homage to the good Lord and honor his commitment to the everlasting life that is our right when we accept him into our hearts.”

“Amen,” they chorused.

“And in keeping with the traditions of this glorious season, we once again take up sickle and saw, knife and hatchet to harvest the bounty of the forest in the service of our Lord.”

“Amen.”

“I been watching that stand of oak out on the Mercer place,” said Tim Farley. “Me and Jim climbed up there around Thanksgiving and checked on the mistletoe. Looks like a good crop this year.”

“That’s good news, boys. And Kyle—you and Michael are in charge of holly this year. Make sure you get plenty, and try to get some with berries if you can.”

“Aw, Reverend. Them holly bushes got prickers,” Michael said.

“Wear gloves, idjit,” Deacon Smith said, tapping his fingers on his can of pomade. “You were supposed to get the holly last year when you conveniently got stuck in that ditch.”

“Remember, Michael,” said the reverend. “You are in the service of the Lord. Surely you can’t think that taking a few holly boughs could be any harder than wearing that crown of thorns. You didn’t hear Christ Almighty whining about the prickers, now did you?”

“No sir, Reverend.”

“Good. Now men, don’t let the mistletoe hit the ground. Can’t have it tainted. And Deacon, I want to harvest some laurel if we got the time.”

“Oh, we’ll make time, Reverend,” Deacon Smith said with a broad smile. “We’ll do it up like the old days.”

“Let’s be careful,” Reverend Sykes said. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Gram tells about a fellah getting killed bringing in the greens,” Michael said. “Musta been forty years ago.”

The men looked from one to another.

“Thirty-seven,” Reverend Sykes said. “Old Mabel’s first husband, God rest his soul.” He looked at each of them, holding eye-contact for a brief moment. “No accidents. What say you?”

“Amen,” said the men.

Atticus watched the Gauls move in and out of the shadowed wood, many howling along with their huge hounds.

He waved the emissaries out across the left wing. The men hesitated, looking around in dismay. The last three engagements had seen the emissaries returned without their heads. Why Caesar insisted on giving these barbarians a chance to surrender this late in the campaign he just couldn’t understand. This spoke of a weakness that could very well prove to be Caesar’s greatest flaw. Strike first, Atticus believed. Let the gods sort the innocent from the guilty.

“What are the men doing, Momma?” Candace Preston asked, twisting her left foot back and forth as if she were putting out a cigarette. She tugged at one straw-blonde pigtail.

For a moment, no one said anything. Sally Preston put down her cross-stitch and looked at her daughter thoughtfully.

“They’re bringing in the greens,” Mabel Carpenter said before Sally could respond.

Candace stared at the old woman. She looked about four days older than dirt and had a disposition to match any of the snakes the men folk would be passing around later as they sang hymns.

“What for?” Candace asked.

“Child, didn’t your mother teach you anything?” Mabel asked. “They’re gathering the laurel and holly, pine and mistletoe, to decorate the church and celebrate the season of renewal.”

“But why do we do that? Hang the greens, I mean?”

Mabel shot Sally Preston a narrow-eyed glare. Sally wouldn’t meet it. “Well,” Mabel began, “the greenery represents everlasting life.”

“You mean like in Heaven?”

“Yes, honey,” Sally said.

Candace grimaced as old miss Mabel glared at her momma again. “How long you going to be telling that child such fabrications?”

Candace looked around the room. Many of the women looked away. Her momma’s eyes grew large. “She’s only a child,” her mother said. “She ain’t ready to hear that sort of wives’ tale.”

“Wives’ tale?” Mabel growled. “There are few tales told in this church, young lady. You should know better than that.”

Her momma hung her head and stroked Candace’s hair quietly. Around the room the other women worked with bowed heads. The whisper of thread being pulled through linen slithered through the silence.

“You come over here, little’un, and I’ll tell you the real story.” Mabel held her hands out to Candace, who looked back and forth between her mother and the old woman.

“Calliope,” she called over. “You take the young ones upstairs and sing carols while we have a talk.”

“Yes’m,” Calliope Smith said with a nod.

The riotous noise of a dozen children scampering up to the sanctuary echoed through the hall.

As the last child vanished Mabel smiled sweetly and held out her arms. “Come on, honey,” she crooned. “Let old Granny tell you a little story.”

Atticus and his men huddled in a defensive formation, panting from the most recent skirmish. Blood dripped from his torn scalp, a present from a thick oaken cudgel. The fever of battle faded as the dead steamed at their feet. This was nothing compared to the engagement just days before. That fight had been swift and merciless. Of the seven cohorts under Atticus’ command, two of the more experienced had held the skirmish line, protecting the baggage and siege engines. The new cohorts had fallen, breaking under the fierce barbarian onslaught, and now were sport for the crows. Of the remaining cohort, two centuries of battle-hardened legionnaires remained. They hunted the Gauls, if one could call two hundred men hacking and burning their way deep into the primal forests a hunt.

The forest was eerily quiet as the men caught their wind and tightened up their formation. Atticus walked ahead several paces, away from the protection of his men, but also away from the sound of their breathing and the stench of their sweat. He needed to listen, to smell clean air and think. This ambush had been small, two-dozen men and their large, slavering hounds. The gods favored him, Atticus surmised, for he had lost just three men this time. How many more days must he pursue the mad druids and their ilk?

“Legate?”

Atticus whirled around, his short dagger flashing out. He lowered his blade when he recognized one of his scouts. Control there, Atticus, he thought to himself. Keep a grip on things.

“Bellicus, what say you?”

Bellicus held out a small, squirming sack. “We caught one of the pixies alive this time.”

“Excellent,” Atticus said with a grimace. They walked back toward the rest of the troops. “How did the men fare?”

“We had a narrow escape,” Bellicus said. “They magicked a great oak to fall across our path as we scouted ahead.”

Several of the battle-weary men within hearing cringed as if they had been struck. Their fear of the wild ones lay across the group like a thickening fog.

“Show some spine,” Atticus snapped. Even the veterans quailed at the magic of the Fey.

“And how did you capture this…thing?” Atticus asked as he poked the swinging bag with his dagger. A tiny yelp escaped the canvas. The men around them hurried about their business, giving the bag glancing looks, as they made ready to move.

“This one took too long gloating,” Bellicus said with a wicked grin. “Your idea of the nets has proven a good one, Legate.”

Atticus grunted and poked the bag once more. “Any way to make this creature speak?”

“Oh, he’s been speaking all right,” Bellicus said, casting his glance from side to side. “The others are sure that the tiny creature is cursing us with every breath, but we can’t make out anything he says.”

“There’s got to be a way to get some information out of this little bastard,” Atticus said. He slapped the bag, sending it rocking back and forth in the scout’s grip. This time the noise that escaped took on a more sullen quality.

While Bellicus held the bag carefully, Atticus forced his dagger into the opening and carefully pulled the cloth aside, peering into its depths. A small winged creature lay in the bottom, tousled and very, very angry. Atticus noticed how the wings shimmered in the thin light. These creatures had haunted his dreams when he slept and bedeviled his days when he rode. It astounded him how something this small could cause Caesar’s army such great anguish.

“Here,” he said, closing the bag in his thick fist and walking toward one of his guards. “Take this to the fire,” Atticus said with a growl, “and we shall see what we can see.”

“Yes, Legate,” the stout warrior said. The centurion took the bag and made his way toward the back of the gathering men. Atticus watched as all but the most experienced men flinched, as if the bag held their worst nightmare.

Atticus returned his attention to his scout. Bellicus appeared to be at least forty summers old, but that could just be hard campaigning. Young or old, he had served the legion well.

“Is there more to report?”

“Adun fell to the barbarians.”

Atticus thought back to the young scout, barely old enough to leave his mother’s side. “What happened?”

“The Gauls, they swarmed over him like rats, pulling him from his horse and into the brush before we could stop them.”

“Damn. Did they take him alive?”

“I believe so, sir. We saw no blood on the saddle.”

“Pluto’s balls!” Atticus struck his fist into his hand. “Which way did they go?”

Bellicus shook his head. “We lost them, Legate. My apologies, but we did have one bit of luck.”

“What is that?” Atticus looked the grizzled man in the eyes.

“My men spotted an eagle, sir,” he said with a shy smile. “An eagle that is ahead of us and leading us into the very heart of the enemy. That portends well, does it not?”

Atticus looked back over his assembled men. “Jupiter’s servant oft brings hope of victory,” he said to the smiling scout. “But as oft it portends great suffering.”

“Aye,” said Bellicus, his smile slipping a notch.

“I wonder what it portends for young Adun?” Atticus said.

Bellicus’ face fell.

“It will be another long night. Come, let us see to your little prisoner.”

Atticus soon determined he would gather no information from the pixie. Perhaps it would serve to bolster his men’s courage instead. He gathered the troops, forming a semi-circle around the legion’s altar—the symbol where new recruits swore their oath to Rome, and to the legion. It would serve another purpose this day.

Bellicus held the squirming creature, distaste and fear warring on his scarred face. Atticus took four nails from the dwindling supplies and held them up as he walked around the circle of his troops. These men needed something to raise their spirits, fire their blood. Once he’d completed a full circuit, he returned to Bellicus’ side and looked down at the tiny winged monster. “Suffer,” he hissed between clenched teeth, as he drove the first nail into the tiny arm, pinning it to the legion’s altar. The eerie cries of the pixie rang in his head as he drove the second nail into its arm. The sound paled in comparison to Adun’s nightly torment. By the time he’d nailed the legs, the cries had stopped and blood flowed freely from the mutilated limbs.

Atticus collected the blood from the crucified pixie into a bowl. He held it aloft and cried to his men: “Each of you come forth and dip your thumb in this bowl. Then rub this foul blood onto your blades so that they know the taste of the enemy.”

Candace listened as Calliope Smith led the other children in carols up in the sanctuary.

“Christ wasn’t born in December,” Mabel said, snapping her fingers in Candace’s face. “Pay attention child.”

Candace turned to face the old woman, putting on her best smile.

“Scholars have always thought he was born in the spring, during lambing season,” Mabel finished.

“Then how come Christmas is in December?” Candace asked.

“Paul decided that the best way to bring the pagans into the fold would be to take over some of their festivals and symbols.”

“Oh,” Candace said. She watched her mother twisting her apron in her lap, obviously uncomfortable with the whole conversation.

“So, when Paul set out to build him a church, he took the celebration for the Winter Solstice and made it into a Christian holiday. Gave the pagans a comfortable transition into the faith, so to speak.”

“So, are we pagans then?” asked Candace.

The women around the room stopped their stitchery, waiting for the answer.

“What we believe is very old,” Mabel said. “Older than Christ. But one thing does not discount the other.”

“So you’re saying we are pagans?”

“Hush, child and let me get on with my story.”

Atticus jerked awake as the night’s first agonizing scream broke over the camp. He rose, flinging aside the warmth of the animal pelts. A second, more guttural cry, echoed through the chill night air. He pulled on his boots and threw open the flap of his tent. The moon soared above the tree line. Somewhere out there, one of his own suffered under the beaten copper knives of the enemy. He stomped toward the fire, toward those who also stood and watched the moon, dreading the next tortured cry.

Another shriek sounded through the night. The horses picketed along the southern edge of camp whinnied and stamped. The guards moved closer to the watch fires.

Atticus paced from the fire to the horses and back. His men watched him, eyes begging for action. The attempt at finding Adun the previous night had cost him fourteen good men. The enemy toyed with them, but Atticus would not act until light.

Reverend Sykes and his boys made their way across the open country through the thickening snowstorm. They’d left the vehicles parked along the side of the main road and packed in the climbing gear, the baskets, and the scythes into the deepest part of the Daniel Boone National Forest. The men struggled to find their way, wading through thigh-high snow that filled the dips and leeward side of trees. Great gouts of condensation swirled up around their faces as they breathed the frigid air. They made their way toward a huge stand of laurels and oaks where they would harvest the best of the trimmings in celebration of the hope of eternal life.

They followed the circling eagle as the sun vanished in the early afternoon gray. The remaining scouts, who had been out since the last meal break, returned near dark with an unexpected surprise—a living prisoner. Atticus watched the scouts moving towards the rest of the men, walking at a man’s pace. Behind Bellicus trailed the prisoner, a druid. Proudly the man stepped, more returning prince then captured foe. His deep brown robes were fine wool. His hair was long, braided like a woman’s, and his beard, though white as the snow, was full and long, trimmed with care. He nodded at Atticus as the scouts stopped before their leader.

“What say you?” Atticus asked Bellicus when the man dismounted.

“We found the old man conversing with one of the fey,” he said with a frown. “The eagle led us to him. He seemed to be waiting for us. The fey retreated as we approached, but this druid remained.”

The druid bowed his head briefly and spoke in thickly accented Latin. “I am Leucix. I have come to answer your prayers.”

Atticus turned at the words. “So, graybeard, you speak Latin?”

The old man nodded.

“And what prayer do you answer?”

“Why, your desire to find my queen.” The smile that stretched his face lent no joy to the hazel eyes.

“Bind our new friend near the fire,” Atticus said to Bellicus. “I will question him on his desire to lead us onward.”

Bellicus nodded. “As you say Legate.”

Atticus stared into the gray sky, looking for the eagle. What games were the gods playing at?

His first inclination had been to torture the information out of the old man and leave his crucified body behind for others to see. As he approached the druid with his dagger drawn, the eagle cried into the bright, cold sky. It circled the camp before perching atop one of the nearby laurels. Atticus shook away his trepidation and looked toward his new prisoner.

The guards pointed toward the eagle and talked amongst themselves.

The prisoner watched with a smile. “Even your gods believe me, Roman.”

Atticus frowned at the eagle but could not discount its significance.

“The gods are fickle, druid. They act on their own designs,” Atticus shook his head. The signs were pointing toward the druid, toward following him into the heart of the land. “But, who am I to discount so obvious an intervention by father Jupiter? I will listen to your words and judge them. If you speak plainly, perhaps I will allow you to guide me to your misbegotten queen.”

“You are wise to be cautious,” the druid said with a slow nod of his head. “Your essence burns bright against the soothing green of our mother’s tapestry. Our worlds will be changed in the fires of your spirit.”

The next morning Bellicus on horseback led the prisoner on a long rope tether. Within an hour of sunrise, Atticus found his troops on a broad path, straighter than the game trail they’d been following. This lane appeared well groomed, yet no tree seemed to have been felled to clear it. It was as if the trees had grown away from it, or had moved out of the way.

By midday, things began to change. Works of men—totems and markers—began to appear. Then just before nightfall they discovered the carrion trees.

All along the road, as far as they could see, the trees dangled with the dead, grinning down upon the moving column. Wooden cages hung among the branches. Each held the broken corpse of a Roman soldier. He recognized several of them from their armor. Crows stripped the flesh from one soldier whose broken hand hung down from the cage as if reaching for the newly arrived troops.

Leucix spoke as they passed under them. “So heralds her coming.”

“Who comes?” Atticus asked his wearisome prisoner.

“Titania. Marabus calls to her with the screams of your dead.”

“Shut it, you,” Bellicus growled, yanking the rope that bound the old man.

The druid stared at the scout, cocking his head to the side like a crow. “She will peel your skin from you while you yet breathe.”

The blow intended for the prisoner stopped in the open palm of Atticus’s outstretched hand.

“’Ware, Bellicus,” Atticus said. “We have further need of this old man. Better to save the anger for those ahead of us.”

Bellicus glared at the old man. “Apologies, Legate.”

“How much farther then?” Atticus asked, bending down from his horse.

“Oh, you draw further and further into her web.”

Atticus closed his eyes and ground his teeth. “Days, man. How many days until we reach the center of this tangled weave?”

“Oh, a few more nights I would think, master,” the druid said. “Do you chase your death so? ”

“I chase not my death, foul sorcerer, but the death of your brethren. Now tell me again what the pixie told you.”

“The Fey spoke of many things, tree-killer. But mostly she spoke of your end.”

Atticus bit back the retort that sprang forth. Patience. “Did she say anything particular about our end?” he asked through a forced smile. “Or did she just babble like an old man?”

Leucix grinned. “Oh, she spoke of your blood flowing to feed the roots of the most ancient of trees,” he said.

What useless drivel, Atticus thought. Caesar was a fool to parley with these savages. Putting the entire country to the sword would be a service to Rome.

For the better part of an hour, the reverend and his men struggled through the intense undergrowth, trying to find their way in the increasing snowfall.

“I don’t like this,” Deacon Smith said. “The night seems to have turned against us.”

“Now, Deacon, don’t you fret,” said Kyle Pruitt. “We know the road’s back south of here. We walk an hour in that direction; we’ll hit the interstate even if we miss Slade.”

“I’m sure we’ll find what we are looking for, even if we don’t find the exact spot,” said Reverend Sykes. “God will provide.”

They turned to continue when, to a man, they spotted the laurels and oaks atop the hill to the right.

“See,” said the reverend. “The Lord parts the curtain and shows us the path to our salvation. Gentlemen, I give you Drynemeton, the temple of the oaks.”

They left the ridge and waded into the dip before the rising hill. The snow lay deep here and the bracken grew thick. As they fought through the air seemed to grow thicker, more difficult to breathe. After several minutes of intense effort they broke out of the underbrush and into the clearing as if they had pierced a thick membrane. The stifling air became light and clear.

For the briefest of seconds, each man held his breath, and the stillness of the glade washed over him.

The moment passed. Their ragged breathing echoed in the stillness once again. The snow here blanketed the wood with a pristine coat. Not one branch or fallen twig marred the white surface. The laurel they had spied from the ridge rose tall and proud around two stately oaks.

“These trees must be hundreds of years old,” Tim Farley said in a whisper. “I ain’t never seen trees grow like this. They’ve formed a circle.”

“That’s interesting.” Deacon Smith blew moist steam into his thick brown mittens. “The opening faces to the east.”

“Gentlemen,” said Reverend Sykes. “Before you lies the work of our Lord and Savior, whose hand guided the placement of these trees.”

The men turned slowly, taking in the splendor of the grove. The full moon broke through the clouds and shone down on them, and the air twinkled.

“Jiminey,” said Kyle Pruitt.

Atticus rode through the thickening snowstorm toward a huge forest clearing. He halted the troops just before a shimmering haze, which cut across their path like a wall.

“Here your fate awaits you,” the druid croaked, pointing with one bony hand.

Atticus stepped his horse forward a few paces and the world seemed to fade around him. One minute he struggled through the whirling snow and bracken of thick winter forest, the next his horse carried him into a bright spring glade. He looked around wildly, losing sight of his men. As he stared, a few men seemed to pop through the barrier to trample the grass that covered the glade in a thick blanket. Bellicus, Leucix and a dozen men entered before the fog firmed into a thicker wall, cutting off the wintry world.

“And so the trap is sprung,” Atticus said as he looked back toward his men on the other side of the barrier. “Just we few to stand before the queen of the Gauls?” he asked no one. He glanced backwards for a moment; his men hammered against the translucent wall in vain.

“We are gravely outnumbered here,” said Bellicus.

“Thank you for that intelligence,” Atticus said. “We will trade our lives for the lives of these hell spawn.”

Bellicus only nodded.

“Stand ready men,” he swept his gaze over the few who stood with him. “We are the sacrifice that ends this charade. May our actions spare the others.”

He turned, shivering as the snow slid off his shoulders. The warm air caught in his throat. The pungent aroma of springtime filled his head. Flowering shrubs and budding trees permeated the air with a miasma of odors that confused his winter-deadened senses.

Hundreds of tiny pixies flitted about the glen, their wings flashing iridescent colors as they flew in and out of the trees. From the shadows, men, women and children could be seen. The Romans fingered the blades of their swords.

“Bring no battle here,” a rich alto voice said from deeper in the glade.

From the shade of the forest stepped a maiden with black hair and piercing green eyes. She wore a dress of leaves and a small circlet of red and white flowers adorned her hair. A halo of light shone around her as she moved forward.

“Marabus,” the old druid breathed, falling to his knees.

Atticus whirled around to the druid. “Marabus?” he hissed. “This woman-child is the leader of your tribe?”

“Yes,” said the prisoner. “Since my father’s father’s father’s time.”

“No wonder the Fey are your allies,” Atticus said pitching his voice low. “You follow their queen.”

Laughter tinkled down from the trees. Marabus chuckled like the water flowing over the rocks in a quick-moving stream.

“No, foolish Roman. I do not pretend to take the rightful place of Titania, Queen of the Fey, may she reign forever. I am but one of her humble servants.”

Atticus shook his head. “I think humble too light a compliment for you, Queen of the druids.” Surely his eyes played tricks. She was so beautiful.

“I am but a leader of a single tribe. Why must you insist on giving titles, foolish man?”

“What should I call you then?” Atticus asked.

“Why, Marabus, of course. Haven’t you listened to Leucix? He is accounted very wise among our people.”

“You do me honor, Marabus,” Leucix said.

Atticus stared at him.

“Do you like what the deaths of your men have wrought?” Leucix asked.

“What do the deaths of my men have to do with this unholy place?”

“It took the sacrifice of many of your men to open this refuge,” Marabus said. “You have managed to drive us from our homes, which should be enough for you—and yet you have followed us to your own demise.” She bowed her head for a moment. The soft buzzing of the fluttering wings hummed against the background of breathing men and horses. When she raised her head once more, tears rolled down her pristine face. “You see, enemy mine, you will not be permitted to leave this glade.” She opened her arms to encompass the greenery that surrounded her. “Titania has lent her magic to this place. Her power will protect us. Lay down your arms. There is no war here.”

Atticus wound the reins tighter in his fist. “We hold no peace with the Fey.” Hades! To be trapped here, after all this? “You have sacrificed many of Caesar’s good men to create this place,” he said sweeping his hand across the wide green wood. “But your efforts are in vain. Caesar’s troops sweep through Gaul as we speak. We are but a small part of that iron fist.”

Marabus laughed. The men quailed about Atticus, the fear apparent on their faces. He felt hope dwindle as the shattering laughter pierced him. “The storm that rages outside this refuge will sweep all the lands of Gaul, freezing your precious Caesar in a winter colder than his black heart.”

“You lie,” Atticus growled. Why did his head throb so?

“You have no chance to spare him and his legions.” She smiled. “We have struck a bargain with Titania, to live out our lives in this realm in exchange for freedom from your Caesar. Your blood can enrich this land. How is up to you. The trees thirst, but we can come to a truce, mix our blood in other ways,” she tilted her head to the side.

Atticus found breathing suddenly harder. Fire burned through his veins. Passion rose in him, unbidden.

“You cannot hurt us,” she crooned. “This is a place of magic. Titania provides more than springtime in this sanctuary. You are trapped as we are. Give over your blood lust and join us.”

“What if she speaks the truth?” Bellicus’ harsh whisper grated through Atticus’ head. “Her words make sense. If we are trapped here after all, why fight them?”

“Your magic is strong,” Atticus said, fighting the wave of surrender and lust that flowed over him. “You will not bewitch me with your words. If we are trapped here, then we will make you pay for our lives with your blood.”

“Your weapons of bronze are useless here,” she said again. “Come to me, embrace me and be at peace.”

The sound of pixie wings rose to a fevered pitch in Atticus’ head. He slid from his horse and leaned against the saddle. She spoke truth, he knew. They were trapped here and she would hold them with her magic. He pushed himself away from the horse and stumbled toward Marabus. His men did not move to stop him. The pixies’ incessant buzzing seemed to fade. Stillness fell over everything. No one moved but he.

Marabus stood amongst the flowers and the greenery, resplendent in power and beauty. Atticus could feel the last bit of his anger in the back of his mind like a fruit pit, hard and firm. She killed my men, he thought, yet she is so beautiful. He squeezed his eyes shut and in his mind bit down hard on the pit of anger, releasing the poison that resided within. Hatred and bile flooded him, pushing against the tide of her magic.

He stumbled into her arms and the world seemed to stop. In one brief instant Marabus had won. She cradled Atticus’ head to her bosom and threw her head back in laughter. The Romans were lost. Atticus screamed in anguish as woody tendrils slid out of her fingers and began burrowing into his scalp. For the briefest of moments, the buzzing stopped as Atticus slumped against Marabus. Then her smile faded to shock. Atticus fell back from her, trailing roots like woody tresses; in his fist he grasped a bloodied dagger.

“But, how?” she gasped as blood flooded her mouth and spilled down over her dress.

“Cold iron,” Atticus said as he slid to the ground. Blood poured from the spots where her fingers had begun to take root in his scalp. “Caesar has wise men of his own. We know of your weaknesses.” He rose to his knees beside the dryad. “Take them,” he cried, waving his left hand toward the huddled druids and their families.

The stillness shattered at his words, and the cacophony of sound and colors resumed. His men surged forward shouting “Mars vigilia!” as they rushed into the midst of the stunned crowd. Atticus fell forward over the body of Marabus, his mind filled with flashing reds and greens, vibrant flowing colors of a rushing summer. He felt the first breaths of wintry cold blow through the glade as the barrier ebbed with the flowing of Marabus’ blood. The cries of the dying filled his head, shredding the remnants of Marabus’ final words. He slipped into darkness and the acrid scent of decay.

Reverend Sykes stood at the bottom of a huge oak. The twins used loggers’ gear to scale the monster tree. Once at the top they began to harvest the mistletoe. Deacon Smith caught the plants as they fell from the sky. Not a single leaf hit the ground.

“This reminds me of a tale my gran used to tell,” Michael said. “Ain’t this the way the old druids gathered the mistletoe?”

“Could be,” Reverend Sykes said. “My daddy was a preacher in these hills, and so was his father. Before that we came over from France. I learned to gather the greens from them.”

“Look,” Michael said. “That moon sure is pretty.”

“Yeah,” Deacon Smith said. “Really lights up this old grove, don’t you think?”

“A night of magic,” Reverend Sykes said. “Come on down boys, I think we have enough for this year’s celebration.”

“Yessir,” Tim and Jim said in unison from fifty feet overhead. The twins shuffled down the tree. Jim hit the ground first and hustled over to stand under his brother.

“Hey, what’s that?” Tim called out from twenty feet up.

“What’s the matter?” Jim called.

The other men formed a circle around the tree, looking upwards. Something flashed past Tim’s head—something golden and fast.

“Oh, Jesus,” Tim said as he jerked back against his safety lines.

“Is that a bird?” Deacon Smith asked.

“Don’t look like no bird I’ve ever seen,” Michael said.

Tim’s line snapped.

The men scattered. Tim fell the last twenty feet, his body limp. Jim dodged to the left, but managed to put himself directly under Tim. The boot spikes slashed Jim’s face and left arm. Tim bounced at the end of his tether and jerked back into the air, his body spinning. Two more rebounding drops finally halted his movement. He hung against the tree, tangled in line, spread-eagled with his head lolling to the side. Jim lay at the bottom of the oak, the deep red blood flowing from him, bathing the oak’s thick roots.

“God Almighty,” Deacon Smith said as he fell to his knees by Jim’s side. He clamped his gloved hands over the young man’s neck. Blood quickly turned the pale yellow leather maroon. “Sliced right through his carotid.”

Michael looked around the clearing. Blood flowed from Tim’s throat, which appeared to be cut. Reverend Sykes stood dumbfounded with one hand over his mouth, the other clutching the cross around his neck.

“Michael,” the reverend said, “you run and get to the trucks.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped a splash of blood from his face. “Get one of the rangers up here as quick as you can.”

Michael took off, heading towards the highway.

Several small winged creatures flew from the top of the oak after Michael. Fifteen feet from the glen he fell with a cry.

Reverend Sykes walked over to Deacon Smith and placed his hand on his shoulder. “You got your gun on you, Bill?”

Jim’s eyes stared upwards, unseeing. The flow of blood around Deacon Smith’s fingers had stopped flowing. “Gun?” he asked looking up. Dozens of winged creatures burst from the trees with the overwhelming miasma of rotted flowers. Iridescent flashes spiraled upwards into the frigid sky.

“God in heaven,” Reverend Sykes said as the buzzing of wings filled the air.

Atticus sat propped against a tree, his head swathed in bloodied linen. Around him his men collected the bodies of the fallen Fey.

“Hang those as a warning to our enemies,” he said. “Just as they filled the trees with our dead, so shall we fill the oak, laurel, and birch with the bodies of theirs.”

As his remaining fifty men prepared to make the long march out of the forest, the tree trunks ran green with the blood of the Fey.

“And so you see,” said Mabel, “we are the last to honor the pact—children of children, back to the cold days before Christ.”

“But what do we repay?” Candace asked, her eyes wide.

Mabel wrung her hands together, massaging the great swollen knuckles. “Blood—”

Several women in the back began to sob.

“—for blood. Titania demands recompense. Each generation pays a tithe…” she sighed heavily, her breath rattling in her bony chest. “… and a little more.”

Candace looked back at her mother. Sally Preston shook her head slowly, mouthing “I’m sorry,” at her daughter. Tears flowed down her face.

Junie stood forward, placing her hand on Sally’s shoulder. “It’s just the men folk that pay the blood,” she said, her voice as steady as a beam.

“But we pay in heart-ache,” Deacon Smith’s wife said from the back of the room. “We carry the burden.”

For a long moment, the only sounds above the crackling of the fireplace were the quiet sobs of the mothers and wives of the eight who walked the deep woods.

Mabel’s eyes never wavered, just stared off into the distance. The women in the church watched her with reverence and fear. Mabel fell to her knees, the breath chuffing from her in painful sobs. “Three,” she croaked. “A trinity for our Christ.”

Candace pulled away from her mother to stand with the other women, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

“Who, then?” Junie begged.

“I see them,” Mabel whimpered. “Their blood flows into the sacred grove.” She raised her hands in supplication. “My…” a sob choked her for a moment. “My grandchild. My promise.” She clasped her hands into fists, and raised them to her forehead. “Oh, my Michael.” She shrieked, falling prostrate to the floor.

“Who else?” Junie said, falling to her knees beside Mable and bending her head downward. For a moment there was muttering and Junie raised her anguished face to the other women. “She’s taken the twins.”

Vivian Farley began to keen, a low anguished lament that rose upwards to a wail.

“It is done,” the deacon’s wife whispered. “Perhaps this time it will be enough.”

Passing Beneath Stars

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

B y starlight's gleam I saw his face,
And cursed his name beneath my breath,
All dazzled by his mortal grace.
By starlight's gleam I saw his face,
While I lived, young, at fairy pace,
Grow dim and old, and fade in death.
By starlight's gleam I saw his face,
And cursed his name beneath my breath.

The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie

Rob Hunter

“The scenario: warriors from the Planet Xenon have landed a battle cruiser in your dooryard. But wait…just who, exactly, is the alien invader here? Parallel universes need not be remote, and anything so small as an ant is easily dismissed. An untimely swarming before the garden party? Suck ‘em up with a vacuum cleaner. We shall agree to disagree then—the ants and us—as to whose house this is. Tomorrow perhaps. My relationship with the carpenter ants of rural Maine goes back almost thirty years. I trust ‘The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie’ shows a proper respect for them. They were here first. As for the starry-eyed back-to-the-earthers from the glittering megalopolitan sprawls to the south—well, I was one in 1973. And size doesn't matter.”

H AIL TO OUR MOTHER, who caused the messenger, the soldier, the worker, who scattered the seeds of her body as she came forth from Paradise, great and white, fat with honeydew, her diadem a ring of captive queens.

Hail to the goddess who shines with her bright wings, triumphant in the face of the deceiver.

Hail to our mother, who dropped her wings, who poured forth abundance as she came from Paradise.

See how they love her, gathered near!

“Oh, Jim—it’s a full cape,” trilled Ginny Levitan. The house was a daisy chain of architectural whimsy, a ramble of weathered ells, wings and add-ons in the style of whatever moment. Their house-to-be cuddled coyly behind a tangle of alders and runaway roses.

The house was not unoccupied. Ten-by-ten-inch white spruce sills had been shaved thin from the inside out, resonant as a fiddle back for over a century. Raddled with passageways, the sills still supported the house. Beneath the floors, past wide boards of ancient pumpkin pine pumiced, oiled and varnished by successive generations of householders disappeared, dead, or run away, lay the galleries of the Long Walkers.

“It’s leaning,” said her husband. “And I don’t think it’s quite a cape—too many floors and chimneys.” Theirs was a marriage defined by silent protocols, forgotten but honored. No fights. Not today. Not yet, at least, but it was still early. “Anyway it’s most likely got issues—rotted sills, bats, beetles. Something, carpenter ants. The carpenter ants own New England,” said Jim. “Bob Vila said that once on This Old House. If we’ve got ‘em, we’ll never get rid of them. Or maybe Norm Abram said it.”

The house clung to a granite outcropping, the Ledge locally. An overgrown path led out back. “Hold on. I’ll do some reconnaissance.” Jim picked his way down the ragged slate of the ledge to get around for a better view. He stopped to examine a shrub, a dwarf juniper stunted by the perpetual on-shore wind, and gave the shrub a yank. From the rocks below came a delayed rattle of pebbles—there was a sheer drop to the shale beach. Ginny went to thumping clapboards and poking in the remains of a perennial bed. Sandpipers dodged the pebbles and scurried after small things left by the tide.

As Jim scrambled around the far end of the house he stumbled and fell clutching at a tussock of witch grass. It was a long way down. His heart galloped in his ears; he’d better get started on that exercise program. He gingerly picked his way back to his wife. There she was, trying to look in a window. “The place goes on and on,” he shouted.

“What?” The wind took her words. Ginny rubbed at the windowpane with her sleeve to get a better look inside. Her cry had startled a flight of swifts from one unused chimney.

“There’s an outhouse,” Jim bellowed through cupped hands. There was a mild medicinal odor of gin from the juniper branch.

“You what?” Ginny called. Her husband was at the far corner of the house; he must have circled the place. The wind that twisted the juniper shredded her words. The chimney swifts twittered, circled, then flew off.

“I said we have outdoor plumbing. I almost fell over a cliff. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No. A privy? Really?”

“Yeah, stuck on way down at the end so they didn’t have to walk through four feet of snow in the winter.” He dusted off his knees and tried to look none the worse for wear. “Neat.”

“Think we can afford it?”

“Let’s find out.” They called and made an appointment. Barbara Casmirczak, a licensed broker, would meet them the next morning.

The Lady Mother of the Long Walkers was singing.

Her ululations were a requiem: the kidnapped queens, her sisters, were dying. Large, pallid bodies lay lifeless in an orderly row. This was not the usual order of things. The queen suspected a slaughter by slaves, rogue elements running wild.

The Mother of Us All, goddess and progenetrix, had summoned her Master of Messengers. “You will be my eyes. I seem to be blind.”

“And wingless, goddess, as it was meant to be when you went forth from Paradise.” The goddess had been blind for all the generations that called her goddess and mother, but the royal scout—Indltainalyei, known as Indil—thought better of reminding her of this.

“Indil?”

“Yes, Lady.”

“My sister, is she dead? Go and give her a poke, would you?” The great white presence that was the Lady Mother of the Long Walkers indicated the row of captive queens on their dais beneath her, deferentially lower.

“Which sister, Lady?”

“Pick one. The closest. Use your celebrated initiative.” This was as close to sarcasm as the Lady Mother allowed herself to come. She felt the threat of immediate extinction excused some flexibility.

The Master of Messengers approached the nearest brood queen.

“Well?”

Indltainalyei, known as Indil, hooked into the supernumerary queen’s eye with the distal spur of a middle leg. The head detached and bounced dispiritedly away down a slight grade into a connecting chamber. “Your sister would appear to be indeed dead, Majesty.”

The Mother of Us All, goddess and progenetrix, sighed. “Indil, Indil, what shall I do with you?”

“I am your Master of Messengers, Lady.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes. But which one?”

“Ask the Icaros, Lady. They will tally me out when I am enumerated at the doorway to beyond the sand.”

“Suppose you ask them, then tell me. Are you not an individual? But then I suppose it is too much to ask you to think for yourself. And a rain of oily poison has enflamed the nannies and the soldiers. Look into it.”

Indil pretended not to hear.

“Hi, I’m Barbara. Call me Babs.”

The woman was waiting when they pulled up, fiftyish and an almost natural blond. A great body, Ginny noticed, and eager—attractive, with the too-even tanning that spoke of hours at the spa. The woman wore a no-nonsense blue power suit with crisp shoulders and a deep cleavage that announced she was all business but could play hard, too.

“Babs Casmirczak, your estate representative.” Babs negotiated a minor adjustment to her breasts. They jiggled back into their snuggery. Too casual, practiced, too unconscious this gesture, designed to draw an onlooker after them. The woman leaned forward to shake hands.

“Jim Levitan.” Jim’s eyes lingered at Babs’s tanned clavicle, then dropped into her cleavage. He pulled himself up short and threw an arm across Ginny’s shoulder. He still held the woman’s hand.

“This is Virginia Levitan,” said Jim Levitan. He did not say, My wife, Ginny. Ginny Levitan added Babs Casmirczak to her catalog of affliction, right after menopause, and dubbed her The Real Estate Vampire.

The Vampire turned to Ginny. “Hi there?”

The woman ended every sentence with a question mark like a high school girl. Moves and boobs were her stock in trade. The Vampire was a people person. Ginny figured Babs and she were about the same age.

“Command me, Lady. I am your Master of Messengers.”

“But you all look so alike,” said the Mother of Us All.

“We are not the same. Your sisters leaven the moiety, Lady. The captive queens strengthen our blood lines.”

“But you are the same.”

“The same as yesterday, Lady.”

“Indil, don’t lark about. You are worse than one of the nannies, rolling my eggs and clucking lullabies. Indil?”

“Yes, Lady?”

“If my sister is dead, and believe me she has been thus for some days, where then is Housekeeping? They should be hauling her off.”

“They have gone mad, Lady.”

“And you did not think to tell me.”

“I am yours to command, Lady.”

“And I neglected to ask. Very well. Go out, beyond the sand. Tell me what you see.”

“Yes, Lady.”

“While you are gone I shall recite the annals. Rains of poison have enflamed the nannies and the soldiers. I shall now sing.”

The Master of Messengers departed, down the dais, stepping over the large white corpse of a supernumerary queen.

The Real Estate Vampire rummaged in her bag, dipping and jiggling. “I do have the key. Oh, here it is.” She produced a large key ring with a green tag, held it up triumphantly, and they were in. The great mahogany door swung on silent hinges.

The men must have oiled it, thought Babs.

She probably had it oiled, thought Ginny.

“Nice door. Lignum vitae, the captain brought it home from the Indies. Architectural detailing…” said Babs. She let her sentence hang, an inflected question with no answer.

“Nice door.” It was mahogany, thought Ginny. There probably was no captain; the woman was winging it. She heard a remote fluttering; a trapped bird banged its head again and again against a windowpane on one of the upper floors.

“Oops.” Babs dropped her set of keys. At the jingle the trapped bird gave a last desperate flutter. Then there was silence. Jim leapt forward to retrieve the keys but with a sidelong glance at his wife let Babs pick them up. As she straightened she shrugged her décolletage out of play and tossed back her hair. Jim studiously examined the turnings of a baluster.

“I know it seems a little bleak now. But wait till you see the kitchen.”

Kitchens were a girl thing. Ginny noticed a pair of running shoes in Babs’s shoulder bag. For a fast getaway after a quick sale? Ginny doubted it.

Nodding dismissal to the Master of Messengers’ retreating second abdomen, the goddess, the Mother of Us All, intoned the chronicles of the Long Walkers. Her emissary felt the tremulous trilling rise behind him as he gaited down an access gallery. The Lady Mother noodled vaguely recalled scales, a bagpiper testing a psychic melody pipe, a music that was new when the moon was closer to the Earth and the pine forests shivered to the cry of the giant red wolf.

There was nothing, not a clue of colony-wide madness and death in all the millennia of her kind. Time was smooth; the madness of the great-headed soldiers was but a stutter. The poisoned rains were nowhere in the annals.

Indil passed out of the brood chambers and turned upward toward the light.

“The owners left in a hurry but the house is broom-clean. We had the exterminators in. Just in case.” Babs was improvising as she went along, but she figured that they had. “And here…” She attempted a piece of stagy business involving her arm and a window blind. “You have a wonderful oceanfront view. Without all the extra taxes…” The blind collapsed, scattering slats across the floor. The Real Estate Vampire stepped gracefully aside as a minor dust cloud settled on her Clark walkers. “…because of the road. Between your property and the shore,” she finished.

Aplomb, grace under fire. Gotta hand it to her, thought Ginny. Already it is our house; we have a view. She took a surreptitious peek at her husband.

“Really?” said Jim. Evidently the hustle was working.

“You’ll love the kitchen, it’s original, or restored, whatever.” Babs led them down a narrow, twisting inside stairwell that seemed to revolve around the big central chimney. The Real Estate Vampire tossed back her hair. It fell into an effortless arrangement, styled. “They were going to open a colonial-style bed and breakfast before they divorced. A walk-in fireplace with a brick oven, Dutch tiling, terra cotta floors… Ta-Dah!” A wonderland of cooking paraphernalia depended from chains and hooks, there being a scarcity of shelf space.

“The kitchen is indeed a panoply of pots.” Jim and Babs stared at her. “That was a joke,” said Ginny Levitan.

Negotiating a series of switchbacks, the Master of Messengers gained a main tunnel where Icaro the soldier saluted him.

“Hail Indil.” Mandibles gaped; antennae swept the floor beneath his massive and, compared to Indil, oversized head.

“Which Indil am I? The Lady wants to know.”

The Icaro caressed a scented ceiling. “Thirty-seventh. That’s the tally.” He consulted other patches of olfactory memory that clung to the walls of the passage. “Weather report: south southeast, go against the wind. Dry today.”

“Thanks for the meteorology. Any of the others back yet?”

“No. There is a thing out in the world that kills them.” The Icaro groomed an antenna. “Die well, Master of Messengers. The world is ours. Hail, Indil Thirty-seven.” Icaro the soldier returned to his post.

“If they are dead, these Indils one through thirty-six, how do you know?”

“Food exchange and perhaps I will tell you,” said the Icaro, exposing his underbelly, a gesture of trust. Indil had no food to share but mounted the Icaro and massaged his abdomen. “Ahh, that’s it, right there.” The soldier was ecstatic.

“So how do you know they are all dead? Dead is dead.” Indil Thirty-seven clutched at the Icaro’s compound eye with his mandible. There was the urge to squeeze, ever the slightest. The Icaro felt the adjustment in Indil’s grip and his ecstasy diminished.

“Careful there, Indil. You could die here and now.”

“Pardon me if I breathe your air, Icaro. Go and milk a louse.”

Mandibles snapped as the soldier threw off the Master of Messengers. “One made it home. Number One, not the pronoun. Died right where you are standing. Housekeeping came and cut him up for the common pot. Those guys are right on the ball.”

“Eat any of the returned Indil number One before Housekeeping made away with him?” asked Indil Thirty-seven.

“Just a nibble,” said the Icaro. Odd you should mention it, scout. I have been having the digestives ever since.”

“We have gone too far, then,” said Indil.

“Where is too far? Beyond the sand?” The Icaro was perplexed, for he was a creature of duty.

“Too far is wherever you do not return from,” said Indil Thirty-seven, Master of Messengers.

“Well then, we have gone too far. We must die, scout.”

“Hail then, Icaro. And farewell for I too must go beyond the sand. Icaro?” There was no reply. The Icaro had died standing, his joints locked. The dead Icaro’s sweet death-sign was in the air. From two levels down there was a rustle as Housekeeping felt the snap of the soldier’s final rigor.

Indil Thirty-seven gaited away.

“And down there…” Babs Casmirczak peered over the soapstone sink to check on the view from a kitchen window “…is Delsey’s Head where they laid the keel of the Barbary Princess, the last of the opium clippers. That was in 1853.” Ginny wondered if the Barbary Princess got laid a lot. She just bet that Babs did.

“Wanna look?” Babs wriggled off the sink.

Jim took her place and with some effort got the window pried open. The tide was coming in. The kitchen looked out on a prospect of ocean and the outdoor privy. The stunted juniper was gone. He must have loosened it. “Whew! It’s a long way down. At least we’ve got some air.”

Jim Levitan thumped a floor joist with a heel. He bounced up and down a few times. “Huh. Springy. Any trouble ahead?”

The word trouble hung in the clammy air. “Like insect damage?” said Ginny.

Ginny Levitan caught a slight movement at the corner of her eye. Indil Thirty-seven, Master of Messengers, threaded through a fisheye astigmatism of glittering implements, his passage mirrored in a hanging dangle of polished copper bottoms. A dot, the messenger moved in his myriads.

“Our house seems to have an infestation,” said Ginny. She added a plague of ants to her catalog of affliction. Babs first, then menopause, then ants.

“New England. Carpenter ants everywhere. Bob Vila said that.” Jim nodded knowingly. “I saw this one show where…” He was the expert; he watched home improvement TV. “Poison is tricky stuff, Ginny. We can learn to live with the ants.”

Like we have learned to live with each other, thought Ginny Levitan. “There’ll be more.” She reached out to squash the ant.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, honey, it’s just one ant.”

“I don’t want them,” said Ginny.

“We had some men in,” said Babs, uncertain as to just what the men had done; they had probably done something. “The men put out some bait. They sprayed…” said Babs.

Underfloor, maddened by the dust precipitated by Jim Levitan’s footfalls, the Icaros cast about, blindly killing any living creature that struggled past. A line of foragers passed the entranceway each carrying a grain of rice; they died under flashing mandibles. There was a distant clicking as Housekeeping readied to clean up after the slaughter.

Indil Thirty-seven scuttled through a grouted aisle separating tightly fitted slabs of terra cotta.

“Shit. It’s gone down a crack,” said Ginny.

The Real Estate Vampire shrugged. “You know these old homes…” They were assured the house was sound.

Jim thumped the floor one more time for good measure. Through the thunder, the Master of Messengers still heard the song of the Lady Mother.

“Ginny. Ginny…”

Jim’s wife had that someplace else look of hers. Ginny was hearing God’s dial tone, somewhere. Again. She was gone.

“Ginny?”

“You don’t hear it?”

“For Christ’s sake, Ginny! Not here.” To his immediate shame, Jim Levitan was angry at his wife for perhaps dying just as they were about to become homeowners. We can save the epileptics for our curtain call. Or at home. This home, ours if we just…

“Snap out of it, goddammit,” he whispered in her ear. No response. Ginny Levitan’s pupils were centered and small, her eyes expressionless. For her, time had stopped; she was off counting the lines of force from the Earth’s magnetic field.

“Ginny…” this was a hoarser whisper, more urgent. Jim Levitan felt, and rightly, that his wife having a fit during a house tour would damage their credibility in future negotiations. “Poor Jim, his wife has fits…” the word would get out and the neighbors would not exchange invitations for drinks, smorgasbords, croquet, whatever the hell they did in Maine. They were socially ruined before they had even begun.

Jim took a fast check, one unmonitored quick peek to see if the real estate agent had noticed that she had lost half of her house tour.

Babs had stopped cold. The Moen faucets, her next destination in the directory of detailing, were forgotten. “Hey, you okay?” She smiled at Jim and knelt next to Ginny. She suspected one of those small strokes she heard about on TV. They were a sign of aging. Tiny pupils. Weird. Maybe she was on dope. You never could tell.

Ginny willed her eyes into a coherent focus. “You really don’t hear it?”

“Hear what?” said Babs. Maybe the house was settling.

“A song, sort of. Music, singing,” said Ginny.

Jim Levitan steered his wife to an upholstered window seat. The cushions had been covered with newspapers as a dust cover. The papers crinkled as they sat together. “Honey?”

“I was hearing something strange. Like a cheap battery radio playing Armenian music in a far-off room. I just imagined it. I’ll be fine.” Jim looked at her for several long moments, silent.

Babs picked right up with her pitch. “…completely rewired. I mean new. And they pulled out the stops on the plumbing. A thousand dollars a pop in all the bathrooms.”

Ginny rubbed her eyes, checking for any for residual damage. Normal. Jim was such a worrywart.

Babs smiled a thin, grim smile. “They spent all they had. They went broke before they opened.”

Unchaperoned, Jim and Ginny examined their dream house. Babs Casmirczak had run them through to closing in a record five days. The Levitans adored the house, their house. It was an easy sale for Babs.

They called in a contractor for a thorough inspection.

“Whippy,” said the contractor. He bounced up and down a couple of times to demonstrate what he meant. The brass drawer pulls of a bleached oak dresser jiggled and rattled, its mirror tilted threateningly. “See? Whippy.”

“Strange air, strange air,” beneath their feet an Icaro plodded by at the ready, his giant head swiveling from side to side, alert. Work parties made careful soundings lest a shivered exterior wall let in strange air and unwanted light.

The contractor jumped again. He looked wise and said, “Four-foot centers. This used to be the attic. You hear things at night?”

“Like what?” Jim readied himself for a quaint, historic tale of a sea captain’s ghost.

“Yes,” said Ginny before the man could reply. “A clicking sound. In the walls. Like somebody cracking his knuckles. But not.” Jim looked at his wife and registered exasperation.

“A clicking?” asked the contractor. “Real steady?”

Ginny nodded and glared back at her husband. “I know what I hear, Jim. Yes, even over your snoring.” Touché.

Ginny walked the man to the door. “Whippy,” he repeated his diagnosis. Ginny felt her head getting tight, a warning.

The contractor waved and called from the street. “You got ants, lady. Better call the exterminator.”

“Wha…?”

“Bugs. A potential infestation. They could be big trouble down the line. Carpenter ants,” said the contractor. “Gotta get ‘em early. You don’t want to hear an estimate.” The contractor left a card. He neglected to say when “early” was.

Ginny’s eyes were glued shut with the mucilage of sleep. She rubbed them at their corners to loosen the bond. Ouch, too much light. Her eyelids slammed shut. Slowly, slowly, Ginny Levitan, née Bujac, eased them open, squinting at a hazy morning through a paling of lashes. She tried to remember her father. They had splashed through the puddles together, puddles with their upside-down skies.

“Well, honey, that’ll bring in Chicago.”

Ginny’s dad had erected a TV mast when she was six years old. Her favorites were Buffalo Bob and his sidekick Howdy Doody, the freckle-faced puppet with, she supposed, red hair. Color TV had yet to reach Racine, Wisconsin. Dad had bought her a metal lunch pail with a color lithograph of Howdy with red hair so it must be so. She tried to remember her imaginary playmate. “How’s your little playmate today, Ginny?” Dad thought the Flim-Flam Man was an elf. Dad had named the Flim-Flam Man: “Careful Baby, the Film-Flam Man goin’ getcha!” There would be giggles and a laugh as he swung her high into the fluffy friendly clouds. Dad believed in the Flim-Flam Man, too.

“She flashed her tits at Jim, Dad, the Real Estate Vampire. Oh, I wish you were here. I wish the Flim-Flam Man was here.” Dad gave no response. Dad was dead. Her father’s face faded.

Shifting her breasts to each side, Ginny balanced over the side of the bed and allowed her head to dangle to the floor. The world was refreshingly different upside down, like the sky in a rain puddle, blue with high summer cumulus clouds that she once obliterated with her little girl yellow galoshes.

“Carry your lunch pail today?” The Flim-Flam Man had red hair, just like Howdy Doody. But he was more, well… masculine. Ginny Bujac, for that was her name then, liked his tight curly hair, the corded musculature of his shoulders and forearms. He was a comfort when the other kids picked on her.

“That was in Racine, Wisconsin, fifty years ago. I splashed the sky away,” said Ginny.

A line of ants, single file, marched across the pine flooring beside her nose.

“Hello, ants,” said Ginny. A lone ant appeared from under the baseboard. He was carrying a grain of rice and headed against the flow of traffic back down the line of marchers.

“Hello, Little Ginny,” said the Flim-Flam Man.

“You are a figment.”

“Really,” said the Flim-Flam Man.

“Of course. I am nuts. You were all well and good when I was six years old, but…”

“Ginny… we splashed the puddles and made the sky go upside down, didn’t we?”

“Well…”

“Together?”

“Always together.”

“You’ve got ants, Little Ginny. You heard what the contractor said. Better call the exterminator.”

“Dad…?”

The Flim-Flam Man smiled, a hearty manly smile. “They could mean big trouble down the line. Carpenter ants,” said the Flim-Flam Man. “Gotta get ‘em early.”

Ginny decided to kill the ants herself.

Ginny found out that she was a loser at the game of life by accident. It was the running shoes. She noticed them in her husband’s gym bag and recalled the pair of shoes in Babs Casmirczak’s bag. Jim had been working out three, four nights a week at the Bangor YMCA, a good hour-plus drive away. He had said, “I’m closing in on 58 and I want to slow the process.” Reasonable enough.

Dinner was on the table. A bouquet of purple periwinkles in a jelly-glass vase sat between them. “Macaroni and cheese. Again?” The implication was that Ginny was trying to fatten him up against all the good work he was doing at the gym. Ginny noticed that Jim was putting on a spare tire despite all his workouts.

“Help yourself, enjoy,” said Ginny. Jim tucked right in.

Two nights later and Jim was a no-show. Ginny called the Bangor YMCA. A valley girl voice, sounding knowledgeable, all chirpy and preppy, assured her they were, indeed, open till 9:00 P.M. “Levitan? Jim Levitan? I’ll call down and have one of the trainers check the sign-in sheet.” Ginny was on hold. After five-plus minutes, the chirpy girl returned.

“No, he’s not signed in. But that doesn’t mean anything; it’s just suggested, not required. In case of an emergency. Do you want him paged?”

No, Ginny did definitely not want him paged. “Thank you for taking the trouble.”

“No problem. Say, why don’t you sign up? Our Seniors’ Special…” Ginny hung up on her. Later on, ten-ish, Jim arrived, hair slicked back and still wet from the shower.

“Good workout?”

“Terrific.”

“You know… I was thinking of maybe joining myself.”

Jim started to talk, then hesitated, “It’s a long drive…”

“Just over an hour…” Long enough to get your hair dry if that’s where you were. “You do it. We could get the family rate. Or I could sign up on the Seniors’ Special.”

“You’re not that out of shape.”

“Thanks for noticing.” She pulled one shoe from her husband’s gym bag. The tissue paper from the factory was still wadded into the toe. He had never laced them up. “Nice shoes. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were having an affair with Babs, the real estate agent.”

Jim flushed, turning the color of a boiled lobster from his neck to the part in his hair. “Uh… What?” He shuffled his feet and looked away.

Ginny slept in the guest bedroom from then on.

“Sister, sister, can you hear me?”

“Yes, I can hear you.” The voice—which Ginny feared only she could hear and at that only in her mind—quavered with the peculiar quality of an overseas radio transmission, the heterodyning phase shifts she had heard from her father’s short wave radio: “Shhhh, pumpkin, that’s London calling, the BBC World Service.” Or Moscow, or Mozambique.

“Sister, soon it will only be you and I.”

Ginny Levitan struggled to be awake, rubbing muzzy cobwebs from the edges of her consciousness. “Who are you?” She could not locate the source of the voice.

“I am the Lady Mother. Except for myself, of course. I did not know my mother but I must assume that there was one. My fecundator, the Father of Us All, died at the moment of consummation.”

“My father died twenty years ago.”

“Ah, sister, so did the Father of Us All.”

“Where are you?”

“Where I have always been. I am singing.”

“Uh, that’s nice.”

“No, it is not nice, as you say. But it is necessary.”

“If you are not just some imbalance with my endocrine system, where are you?”

“I might ask you the same question if I knew what it was. Sister, sister. I cry alone, always alone. Into the emptiness, the great darkness outside the galleries, beyond the sand. I have reached out in my despair and you have answered. Where have you been?”

“Racine, Wisconsin, then Chicago mostly. Jim organized seminars for the University. Then here, to Maine. We retired early.”

“I do not know of these things. Where is early?”

Ginny rummaged in the drawer of her bedside table for the card of that therapist Jim had recommended. She deliberately tore the card apart. “There. He says I am nuts. What does that make you?” The shredded bits fell to the bedroom carpet like confetti behind a parade.

“What I have always been, the Lady Mother of the Long Walkers. Sister, I need your help,” the voice sang.

Ginny stirred the fallen confetti with a toe. “About now I’m the one who needs professional help. Just what did you have in mind?”

A wordless singing went on for several minutes.

With a burst of pre-menstrual energy, Ginny was beating the blues by cleaning out the attic when she discovered the ancient can, tucked away where the roof timbers met at the eaves.

“Rodenticide, kills ants and other household pests,” she read. “Arsenic trioxide.” The label was printed on parchment colored paper in red ink. There was a picture of a rat, looking feral and healthy. A skull and crossbones adorned one corner. She carried the can to the kitchen where she spread some newspapers and prised off the lid. The can was full of a dense, white powder.

And the phone was ringing.

Yeah?” Ginny was trying to read the label on the can of ant poison. She balanced the phone against her ear while she rummaged in a drawer for her spare glasses.

“Shit,” said Ginny.

“What?”

“I just spilled my poison. Who is this?” Ginny decided there was not enough poison spilled to do any real damage and squeegeed up loose powder with a wet paper towel.

“Spilled your what?”

“Forget it.”

“Ginny?”

“Yes.”

“Ginny, it’s Linda.”

“Linda.” Who the hell was Linda?

“Linda Throckmorton. I haven’t seen you since high school.”

“Oh, God. Linda.”

“I wanted to call and tell you how sorry I am about your father. His death?”

“Linda, that was twenty years ago. Have you just heard?”

“I didn’t know what to say at the time. I couldn’t call. And now…”

“Better late than never.” A pause. “Linda, is that why you haven’t talked to me for twenty years, because you didn’t call when my dad died?”

“Yes.”

“Linda, where are you?”

“California. Bob teaches at San Jose State.”

“Jesus Christ, Linda. We were friends.”

“Ginny, I’m so miserable. We, I, am in counseling, A.A. My marriage is a mess; I’ve been going to Weight-Watchers, Jenny Craig…”

“You’re fat, you’re seeing a shrink, you’re drying out and Bob is fucking the cheerleaders and you’re sorry my dad is dead. That about right so far?”

“Oh…” There was silence, then a quiet sobbing.

Ginny watched a line of ants struggle with the task of transporting rice from a bag of basmati down from the kitchen counter back to their nest. Her rice from her cabinet. She reached for the can of arsenic trioxide and slammed it down on the counter, hard. The lid popped loose, sending a cloud of gray-white dust into the air. Ginny dived for the paper towels and moistening one placed it against her nose. She juggled the telephone. She had twisted the cord into an electrical macramé.

“Get a grip on yourself. Linda. We’re fifty-six years old, for Chrissakes—terminal ennui, the death of marriage, blah, blah, blah. And forget passion. I started high impact aerobics to tighten up my ass. Now Jim is fucking Babs Casmirczak.”

“Babs What-zack?

“Casmirczak, the Real Estate Vampire. She’s the agent who sold us our dream house. Jim is fucking her and I’m suing to get some equity back.”

“And you’re suing for divorce?”

“Or something, anything. Or I will be.”

There was snuffle at Linda’s end of the conversation. “Ginny, this took a lot of courage for me.”

“Pick up the phone Linda—just once in twenty years—it’s not heavy. A little penitence goes a long way. Fuck you. I am one royally pissed-off screaming termagant.”

“I called you every day, in my mind. I’ve been in therapy. I was there for you, Ginny.”

A reedy skirling of tiny bagpipes, “Sister, sister, help me…” The bagpipers ceased but the song continued, a song with no content.

Trailing the telephone cord behind her, Ginny went to the refrigerator and pulled out a container of yogurt, full of fat and with sugary fruit syrup on the bottom.

Linda said something, stopped, waited for a reply. Ginny hummed tunelessly. “What’s that?” Linda was still on the line.

“Oh, you’re still there; I thought I heard someone breathing. That’s The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie. I was watching ants walk cross the kitchen counter just now. Bertolt Brecht. I learned it in college. A theater course.”

“We did Showboat in high school, remember?”

Ginny peeled the seal from the yogurt container. Elbows on the kitchen counter, her fingers traced idle swirls in leftover poison dust. “The ants are emptying a five-pound bag of rice. Grain by grain. I thought the ants’ achievement deserved some recognition.”

Linda sang, “It’s just my Bill, an ordinary guy…”

“They work all day for a chance to work the following day, the coolies. They get to eat whatever spills. They sleep under a bridge if they are lucky. Then they die.”

“Like Ol’ Man River. In Showboat.” Linda’s small, snot-filled voice rose and fell in the earpiece. “‘He jes’ keeps rollin’ along…’“

“Not really. The coolies will never get there. They will all die. Their children will finish the trip. Then their children will die.” Ginny’s hands played with the old poison can, prising off the lid, squeezing it shut. The lid became jammed. A large ring of keys, Jim’s keys, with Babs’s Century 21 advertising bauble, lay on the table. Ginny bent a key getting the lid off. “Ouch.” A bright spot of blood shimmered on the white powder, her blood. Ginny cursed Linda Throckmorton. In far California Linda took a snot-filled gulp, a warning that she was taking on air for an extended conversation. Ginny hung up the phone.

That song again, the Armenian music from a distant radio.

“Hello. Are you there?” said Ginny.

“I cry alone, always alone,” said the Lady Mother of the Long Walkers. “I remember the sun,” the singer trilled, “the great light. And the blessed wind with white blossoms falling upward. They promised much but I was betrayed.”

“That’s true love for you, once in a lifetime. Jim is fucking the Real Estate Vampire.”

The Lady Mother did not ask the meaning of vampire or even fucking a vampire. Ginny figured the concepts were a given. After all, the voice was her hallucination.

“Kill your husband, sister, as I killed mine. He has betrayed you after all…” The Lady Mother became hushed and insinuating. “Sister,” she said, “I ripped out his organs of generation. He was so beautiful.” Her song rose and fell. “The eggs, my eggs, my larvae, my pupae, the hatchlings, are dying, my sister queens are dead and lying in a row…”

“I have my own problems.” Pictures of tunnels, shafts and galleries, brood chambers and a purposeful thronging skittered across Ginny’s mind. Large white bodies lay dead. “Jesus Christ. You’re an ant.”

“If you say it, sister, then it is so.” The Lady Mother of the Long Walkers was sure and composed.

Ginny felt an early tingle of migraine, a hometown nova about to bloom in her head. Where was the Dilantin? The first time this music played she had had a seizure. She could kill the ants and stop the singing in her head. And, so it followed with ineluctable logic, why not Jim, too. The idea was not unpleasing. Virginia Levitan, née Bujac, was not sure that her husband deserved killing just for having an affair—or really bad taste in women, meaning Babs. He had said she was fat. Fat and fits. And he had criticized her right in front of the Real Estate Vampire. Death happens for reasons. She trusted that the ants would appreciate this.

“I have seizures. Prozac wasn’t invented yet. I got Dilantin. I got the anticonvulsants. Try Dilantin for twenty years. I have hair on my tits. I hear voices; I am dizzy. I foam at the mouth and fall down. Boom. Like that. Right on my hairy tits.”

“Sister.”

“Yes?”

“There is one I can trust, a messenger. You will help him.”

Ginny Levitan, cuckolded wife, awakened to the reasonableness that her rear end was cold. Coffee-making odors and subdued businesses filtered in from the kitchen. Motion was not on the menu until she got sufficiently coordinated to figure a way through the overnight tangle of knotted bedclothes. Her foot was caught.

Too early. This was as early as days got. One extravagant fling got all the covers over back on top of her and Ginny was in the secret garden of her own woman smells. A click from the kitchen, low radio morning sounds. The refrigerator lunked shut, more coffee aroma. Her wandering husband had come home.

“Yoo-hoo, Ginny, coffee’s on and the bathroom’s clear.”

Reveille. Considerate Jim.

Jim came into the bedroom, tousled Ginny’s hair and gave a desultory peck on the nose. He ran a hand up the inside of her thigh.

“Don’t.”

“Indil Thirty-seven, Master of Messengers, I would have you visit my sister.”

“Your sister is dead, Lady.”

“This is another sister. A woman.”

“Lady? I am sincerely sorry for the deaths of your sisters.”

“Master of Messengers, you are a fool.”

“Yes, Lady.”

“I have talked with my sister and now she is going to kill us all. Then there will be no more Long Walkers. This I cannot allow. It is my duty. And her husband, too,” the Lady Mother added as an afterthought. “My sister, the new, the living sister has revealed to me that I am an ant. You too are an ant, as are the workers, the Icaros and even Housekeeping and the nannies. She believes that we are insignificant.”

“What is an ant, Lady?”

“Why, we are. And have been so since the moon filled the sky and the seasons did not change.”

“What may I do for my Lady?”

“Kill the woman and, failing that, bring home her corrosive powders to destroy the Icaros. The poison rains have made them mad. I can always make more.”

“What is a woman?”

“Do I have to tell you everything?”

“Yes, Lady.”

At the granite-topped center island of her renovated, better than new, kitchen, Ginny poked around in the drawers the previous owners had left chock full of utensils.

“Ahh…” She came up with a silver-handled mold for forming decorative cones from confectioner’s sugar. Dipping it in the can of poison she pressed out mounded ellipses in a half-circle.

Indil Thirty-seven, after navigating the grouted alleyways that separated the tiles of the kitchen floor, struggled with clicking articulations over the polished stone lip of Ginny Levitan’s countertop. Another obstacle, a range of white powder mountains, lay ahead. He made for a valley.

“Oh…” As Ginny shifted her weight on the high stool she set one mound of white, white powder into motion. Snow, snow, white and deadly, drifted a millimeter deep to bury a miniature alpine pass. She watched a lone ant struggle out from under the arsenic fall and skitter back to the edge of the polished granite slab.

“Hi there. Is that you?” Ginny felt ridiculous asking.

“Thus far, sister of the queen.” The words were close and foreign, a strange accent. Was that the Armenian music? And mixed with the tiny, tinny bagpipes, too.

“Who are you?” No answer. Ginny Levitan faced the windows, her eyes focused on nothing. A busy day, today, voices in my head.

“They are killing the captive queens, the Icaros are,” said the voice.

On the countertop the lone ant groomed its antennae as a miniature bagpipe band played from the poison buffet. “You are going to kill your husband. He is wearing out, then?” The ant was dusted white from its struggle through the arsenic.

“I am doing the wearing out. Would you kill my husband? If you were me?”

“Whatever advances the colony. My colony is killing its spare queens. This is usual in times of dwindling food or an overabundance of foragers. But Housekeeping’s behavior is not normal. They will kill the Mother of Us All.”

“Holy shit. You are the messenger.”

“Your sister, the Mother of Us All, said she had prepared you for my coming.” The ant was diffident.

“All this is for real, then?”

“What is real? Solid? Then that is what this must be.” The messenger was pleased, having figured things out by himself.

Ginny licked off her fingers, then self-consciously wiped them on her khaki shorts. “You are an ant. I am talking to an ant.” She had meant to kill them, the ants, and felt contrite.

“So that is indeed what you call us. I have learned this twice today. And are you perhaps the great presence shutting out the light? Thank you for sharing your air with me. Ant. Indeed. I am a Long Walker, messenger and scout.”

“You work like rice barge coolies: no future, no past, only the work and a scrap of food,” said Ginny. “You are an ant. I could kill you.”

“Should I consider this a warning or a call to combat?” Indil Thirty-seven crouched defensively on his second and third leg joints and tucked his abdomen under his thorax.

“Fight me? You are an ant.”

“So?”

“I am bigger than you. I would win.”

“So then I must die.” Indil Thirty-seven groomed an antenna. “Could we not work together?”

Almost flattery. Ginny crossed her legs. “Some men find me attractive.”

“You are a men? What is a men?”

Ginny explained.

“Then if I were a men I, too, would find you attractive,” said the ant. “But the joy of duty you find shallow. Duty is the greatest satisfaction imaginable. Soon there must be a swarming. I have no wings. Housekeeping will cut me up alive for it is not in me to resist them. I will be their last meal then they, too will die.”

“Then you all die and are eaten.”

“Self-death and the violent ending of another are expediencies. We are familiar with these,” said Indil. “Your husband. Will you eat him or may I take him home?”

Ginny uncrossed her legs.

“I could call 911,” said Ginny, remembering the arsenic. “For all of us.”

“You could. Who is 911?”

Ginny explained medical emergencies. “Are you real?” This was stupid, of course he wasn’t real.

“Ah, yes, 911. For your husband. The Lady Mother could call Housekeeping and they would come to cut him up for that is the way of things.”

Ginny washed her hands at the sink and thrust a spoon into the container of yogurt. “What do you do with the rice when you haul it home?”

“We eat it. You have eaten the white powder. You will die. Then again, perhaps not. But then, so will I for I have unwisely walked through it. Or not. Whatever is the will of the Mother of Us All.”

“My name is Ginny, by the way.”

“Thank you, Ginny. I am the Master of Messengers. Today I am Thirty-seventh. This is my time, Ginny. Is that a sweet, sticky thing you have there? Don’t lick the spoon, lay it near me. Gently, gently now.” The Master of Messengers walked through the sticky blueberry essence, then the powder, covering his tarsal joints blue and white. “At present you are pondering the choices of suicide or killing your husband.”

“How did you know?”

“The Mother of Us All has informed me of this. I gather that either option will advance your colony’s sense of duty. However, both choices bring you unease.”

“Breathe well, Long Walker. Thank you for sharing your air.”

“May you sing like a queen, Mother of men. This is a dark and doubtful life we have around us.” With the easy clicking gaited grace of one born to duty, the Master of Messengers escaped beneath a baseboard molding to make his report. He had the gift of obedience.

Jim Levitan came home late again, moist and fresh from a recent shower. The reek of French milled soap did not cover the smell of sex, likewise moist and recent.

He found the house a symphony of aromas. His wife greeted him with powdered doughnuts, home-baked, lightly fried in sesame oil and covered with white, white powder. Confectioner’s sugar, he guessed.

Ginny Levitan wondered whom she would call; perhaps Linda Throckmorton with her belated atonements.

Hail to our mother, who caused the messenger, the soldier, the worker,

Who scattered the seeds of her body as she came forth from Paradise.

See how they love her, gathered near!

The Indil, master of messengers;

The Icaro, a soldier, a terror:

A stirrer of strife, A maker of war;

The worker, humble and wearied.

She is our mother, goddess of the earth, she offers food in the desert, and causes us to live.

Our lives are the wonder.

And I am the master of messengers.

Mother of Us All, be merciful.

Our Authors

Greg Beatty (“Two Cairns for Apollo”) and his wife live in Bellingham, Washington. Greg has a BA from the University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Iowa, both in English, and attended Clarion West 2000. His work has appeared in 3SF, Absolute Magnitude, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov’s, Fortean Bureau, HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, Paradox, SciFiction, Shadowed Realms, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, and The New York Review of Science Fiction, among other venues. In 2005 Greg won the Rhysling Award in the short poem category, and, more recently, two of his poems won first and second place in the Bay Area Writers League Princess of Mars Poetry Contest.

Greg’s poem “Seeking the Lovetrino,” appeared in Æon Six, “The Dolls of Mother Ceres” in Æon Seven, and “Unnatural Poetry Workshop in ”Æon Nine.

Visit Greg on the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~gbeatty/

Rob Hunter (“The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie”) is the sole support of a 1993 Geo Metro and the despair of his young wife. With the onset of late middle age he does dishes, mows the lawn and keeps their Maine cottage spotless by moving as little as possible. In a former life he was a newspaper copy boy, railroad telegraph operator, recording engineer, and film editor. He spent the 70s and 80s as a Top-40 disc jockey. Rob’s wife, Bonnie, is the secretary at a nearby rural elementary school. She is a gifted quilter who beguiled her new husband with the kaleidoscope of patchwork geometry. The nearest town to the Hunters that anybody is likely to have ever heard of—because of Stephen King’s The Langoliers—is Bangor, Maine where there are real parking meters and a traffic light. They drive down every six months or so to watch the light change and see the trains come in.

Visit his website at http://www.onetinleg.com.

Dr. Rob Furey (“Parallax”) worked on his PhD in Gabon, West Africa, on social spiders. He has returned to his study site several times for his own research, with students and once as a forest guide for a natural history film crew from the UK. He has faced down cobras, retreated from army ants, and slept on open wooden platforms in African swamps. Later he went to French Amazonia to work on another social spider species. Not only did he spend time with the spiders, but he watched a gunfight between gold prospectors and French army troops while he ate a meal of roasted tapir. Since then Rob has returned to the tropics several times, usually with students. He spent time as a student himself attending Clarion West. He has published a couple of stories in anthologies since then in addition to articles for dusty tomes on arcane spider behavior. He is currently part of the charter faculty at Harrisburg University, the first new private university in Pennsylvania in over 100 years.

Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon with his books and two inept cats, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His recent novels include Trial of Flowers from Night Shade Books and Mainspring from Tor Books, with sequels to both books in 2008. Jay is the winner of the 2004 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached through his blog at http://jaylake.livejournal.com.

Jay's most recent appearance in Aeon was "Whyte Boyz" in Æon Seven.

January Mortimer (“Brighton Bay”) lives in London with her goldfish, Hedgehog, and a frightening number of house plants. She is currently employed as an ecologist, so wherever she is right now, it is probably muddy and full of frogs. When not standing in a field or ditch somewhere, she uses her spare time to collects old books, old photographs, and large quantities of utterly useless old junk. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Fantasy Magazine, Ideomancer, and Heliotrope.

Online, January can be found at http://Januaryhat.Livejournal.com.

Ryan Neal Myers (“The Underthing”) lives with his wife in a small town in Northern Idaho—a magical place where gray-haired hippies shake hands with well-educated farmers. Ryan is neither. He graduated from Clarion in 2001, has a degree in creative writing, makes short films in his living room, and writes everything from cyberpunk to children’s fantasy. He almost sold a big-budget screenplay to Hollywood, almost lived in Australia, almost flew a UH-60 Blackhawk, and almost looks cool in his leather jacket. His sunglasses are clip-ons.

John A. Pitts (“The Hanging of the Greens”) is a transplanted Kentucky boy who makes his home in the Pacific Northwest. By day he’s a computer consultant. He writes at night, after his family has settled into their nightly routine. His other stories have appeared in Fortean Bureau and the anthology From the Trenches from Carnifex Press.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch (“Signals”)’s novels (science fiction, fantasy, mystery/crime, and romance) have been published in 14 countries in 13 different languages. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won Hugo awards for both editing and fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in six Year’s Best collections. She has also been the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel, the Ellery Queen Reader’s Choice Award, the Science Fiction Age Reader’s Choice Award, and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and been nominated for the Locus, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards, and the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award.

From 1991-1996 Kris was the editor of the prestigious Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Before that, she and Dean Wesley Smith started and ran Pulphouse Publishing, a science fiction and mystery press in Eugene, Oregon. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast.

Visit Kris’s website at http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com/.

Marge Simon (“The Gate”) freelances as a writer-poet-illustrator for genre and mainstream publications such as Nebula Awards 32, Strange Horizons, Flashquake, Flash Me Magazine, Dreams & Nightmares, The Pedestal Magazine, and Story House. She is former president of the Small Press Writers/Artists Organization and the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She has received the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry and the James Award for art. Her poetry collections, Night Smoke with Bruce Boston (2003) and Artist of Antithesis (2004), were Bram Stoker Award finalists.

Marge’s short SF/fantasy fiction collection, “Like Birds in the Rain” (Sam’s Dot Publications) is self illustrated and will be out in 2007. Her collaborative dark SF poetry collection with Charlee Jacob, VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet (Dark Regions) and Night Smoke with Bruce Boston (Kelp Queen Press) will also be available this year.

Marge's poem "Yours or Mine?" appeared in Æeon Two.

http://hometown.aol.com/margsimon//

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff (“Passing Beneath Stars”) is an Aurora Award winning poet/author who lives with her family and other odd creatures in a small town on Canada’s west coast. Her stories and poetry have appeared in On Spec, Weird Tales, Aoife’s Kiss, Dreams and Nightmares, and Talebones, as well as in various anthologies and online publications.

Marcie’s poem “But You Don't Remember” appeared in Æon Six, and “This Girl on a Train” in Æon Eight.

Mikal Trimm (“The Cathedral of the Never-Was”)’s short stories and poems have appeared in numerous venues over the last few years. Recent or forthcoming works may be found in Helix, Postscripts, Weird Tales, Black Gate, and Interfictions, among others.

His novel, The Greatest Freaking Book Anyone Has Written EVER! is not forthcoming from any publisher at any time in the future.

Mikal’s poem “Lost on the Shores of Avalon”, which was shortlisted for a Rhysling Award, appeared in Æon Six.

Visit Mikal’s blog at http://catchingflies.blogspot.com.

Melissa Tyler (“The Sky Spider”) is a cheerful cynic who was raised by Yankees in the swamps of East Texas. She lived for twenty years in Austin, Texas, but has recently moved to the Pacific Northwest to delight in the novel experiences of changing seasons, regional foods that won’t try to kill you first, flora that’s not armed, and drizzle. She’ll fill her time with the three R’s: reading, writing, and researching, as well as the obligatory remuneration. Æon has obliged her by being the first magazine to buy one of her stories, and thus will be her favorite magazine forevermore.

I n Æon Twelve your editors will welcome the return of three Æon authors of the past:

Dev Agarwal (“Angels of War,” Æon Three) returns with another story of humankind’s creations gone wrong, the Salusa. We may once have been their masters, but now we’re only “Toys.”

Lisa Mantchev (“Mirror Bound,” Æon Nine) explores a universe of dreams, decisions, and choices that form us in “Her Box of Secrets.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (“The Game of Leaf and Smile,” Æon Four and “Thinking,” Æon Eight), shows us a metaphoric vision strangely achieved in “Fitzwell’s Oracle.”

We’ll also be offering four stories by authors making their first Æon appearances. Sarah L. Edwards depicts a world of quietly magical folk and their animal companions in “Wild Among Hares.”

John Kratman pays a speculative visit to a great Crow Nation of the not-too-distant future in “Harry the Crow.”

Hugo Award-winner David D. Levine casts some “Moonlight on the Carpet” in a gently-terrifying tale of the same name.

And finally, come along to a wacky, wonderful world at the end of the human story as Katherine Sparrow bids you “Welcome to Oceanopia.”

We hope to see you in the future!

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