Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction

by Nalo Hopkinson

  “Patience. Her memories will take us where we need to go.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” said Jo, getting up to make a pot of coffee.

  “You were named,” said Thought.

  “Birdbrained?” said Jo. “But Eileen named Shelley too, ‘Hope.’ Surely hope is more useful than birdbrained for whatever it is you have in mind.”

  “I did have that thought too,” said Thought, swinging her beak around towards Memory. Memory shrugged and took off for the living room.

  Jo poured herself a cup of coffee and followed. She stopped in the doorway. There, in the middle of the floor, was the one picture she never wanted to see again. She’d considered burning it when the police officer brought it to the house, but in the end she couldn’t destroy anything that Eileen had made. It was a charcoal sketch of a woman sprawled back on a pile of cushions, completely naked except for an ornate beaded choker. She stared out of the canvas like she owned the woman drawing her. Jo’s hands shook so much that coffee slopped onto her jeans, scalding her thigh. The pain felt good.

  “This one’s not named,” said Memory.

  “I can name it,” said Jo, thinking of numerous unflattering nouns, but saying only: “Frida.”

  Frida had stopped at the Sudbury farmer’s market the first Saturday Eileen had gone down. Somewhere between her buying strawberry jam and greens the two women had hit it off and Frida had invited Eileen to drop by her store before she left for the day.

  “You would have loved her place,” Eileen had told Jo later that night. “It’s almost as good as being back in Toronto, with all the books and jewellery and little goddess figures. Plus she’s got all this raven paraphernalia because she’s Scandinavian. In her culture ravens are sacred. They’re the servants of Odin, the head of the Norse gods. Hugin and Mugin — Thought and Memory — fly all over the world observing people and then at dusk they return to their master to tell him all the gossip they’ve gleaned.”

  Eileen had used some of the money from the day’s sales to purchase a pair of concrete bookends in the form of ravens for Jo.

  Initially, Jo was happy that Eileen had found a friend in Sudbury, but each Saturday Eileen came home later. Frida invited her for dinner. Frida had some friends she wanted Eileen to meet. Frida wanted to see some of Eileen’s work. Frida wanted to put on a show of Eileen’s paintings at her store.

  With Eileen devoting more time to her painting and without Shelley to help, the garden required Jo’s attention seven days a week. She tried to make time to accompany Eileen to her show’s vernissage but in the end a sudden rash of potato beetles prevented her from going. That afternoon, one of Eileen’s pieces sold for a substantial amount of money, more than they’d made the whole summer from produce sales. Eileen was ecstatic.

  The following Friday, Eileen announced that she needed to do some painting in Sudbury and that she would have to spend the entire weekend there. The acrid taste of fear rose up the back of Jo’s throat.

  “I thought we were going to spend Sunday putting insulation in the shed roof so you can use your studio over the winter,” said Jo, chopping zucchini for ratatouille.

  “It’s only August,” Eileen said. “We’ve got plenty of time before winter.”

  “What about the garlic? It’s ready to be pulled.”

  Eileen sighed. “I’ll do it on Monday. What difference will one day make?”

  “A lot, if it rains.”

  “It’s not supposed to rain on Sunday.”

  Jo put down her knife and turned to face Eileen. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Eileen, but she wouldn’t meet Jo’s eyes.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Frida said I could crash at her apartment.”

  “So, you’re planning on spending the night with Frida?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Oh really, then tell me what it is like.”

  “I just need to spend some time in Sudbury painting. There’s nobody to paint out here in the middle of the bush.”

  Jo wanted to say, what about me, you could paint me, but instead she said: “It was your idea to move here.”

  Eileen sighed, again. “I know it was. I thought it would be fun just the two of us, you with your garden and your crows, me with my easel and acres of landscape to paint. But it turns out I paint people, not trees.”

  Jo said nothing.

  “Frida asked me to paint her portrait.”

  “And offered to sleep with you in return?”

  “Jo! That’s unfair. You don’t even know Frida. If you did…”

  “If I did, what?”

  “I don’t know what your problem is,” said Eileen. “I spend four hours on the road every Saturday to sell your produce. You could at least be happy that I’ve made a friend in Sudbury. One friend, in the entire year we’ve been living out here.”

  She marched out of the room. A few seconds later the front door slammed. Jo finished making supper and ate it by herself at the kitchen table. It was telling that Eileen had not included Shelley in the same category as Frida. She had no problem with Eileen having friends like Shelley.

  Which reminded her, before Eileen had come out with her plans for the weekend, Jo had been meaning to tell her that Shelley had phoned. It was the first time they’d heard from her since the incident with the minister. She’d left a message on the answering machine, something about needing Jo’s help with a poster on crows she was putting together at the vet’s. A poster and a petition to town council. She’d said that she would call back later, that they shouldn’t try to phone her at home because her mother would “freak out”.

  When Jo got up at 4 am to harvest vegetables for the farmer’s market, Eileen still hadn’t come to bed. Jo peeked into her studio and saw her huddled in a sleeping bag on the little camping cot that she usually used only for afternoon catnaps. She looked small and vulnerable and Jo wished she could unsay all the things she’d said the night before.

  By the time Jo returned from the garden, the sun was up and Eileen was packing painting supplies into the back seat of the car. Jo wanted to say something that would make things right between them again, but she couldn’t think of anything, so she opened the trunk and began loading the produce in silence. When everything was safely stowed, Eileen got into the driver’s seat, closed the door and started the ignition.

  “I love you,” Jo called after her as the car drove away.

  If Eileen had heard her, she gave no sign of it.

  Jo went to bed early, determined not to watch the clock, but sleep eluded her. Around midnight the phone rang. She leaped out of bed, hoping it was Eileen, but a man’s voice answered her hello.

  He informed her that he was a police officer. He went on to say that while driving home Eileen had been in a head-on collision with a cargo truck an hour outside of Sudbury. She’d died on impact. The truck driver, who was uninjured, had told the officer that Eileen had swerved to avoid a deer and had lost control. He’d slammed on his brakes but there wasn’t enough time, there wasn’t anything he could do.

  At that point Jo simply abdicated all responsibility. Telling herself that Eileen wouldn’t want to be buried in the bush, she gave the officer Eileen’s parents address and phone number in Guelph and told him that they would want the body, that the funeral would be there.

  The officer showed up the next morning with Eileen’s paints and easel and the sketch of Frida. Jo tried to send him away but he insisted she take the things. The car was in Jo’s name, so the contents belonged to her.

  If she hadn’t acted so jealous, maybe Eileen would have slept at Frida’s and then she would still be alive. Another thought streaked after the first: maybe, possibly, some small part of her would
rather have Eileen dead than with Frida. That’s when Jo began to run away from her thoughts and memories, collecting all of Eileen’s paintings and stacking them against the wall, then retreating to the couch and closing her eyes on the world.

  Jo placed the sketch of Frida on the mantelpiece next to her own portrait. It deserved a place of honour as the last piece of art Eileen had set her hand to. She would not lie to herself anymore; it was a well-crafted drawing of an attractive woman.

  Frida’s obvious desire for Eileen smouldered off the page, and yet something was missing. There was none of Eileen’s trademark whimsy in the sketch.

  “There’s nothing to this,” she said to Thought. “It’s just a simple nude.”

  Jo turned her attention to “Birdbrained”. It was full of herself, her loves and her passions, from Eileen blowing her kisses to the border of dancing crows. She looked back at Frida.

  “Did Frida send you as a curse on me?” she asked.

  Thought found this so funny that she fell over.

  “That’s the silliest thought I’ve ever heard,” she said between her rasping barks.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “You just have to remember,” said Memory.

  “And think,” added Thought.

  A gunshot went off, nearer this time, followed by another. Both ravens sprang into the air, cawing fretfully, their cries echoed by crows farther away.

  “They’re shooting crows, aren’t they?” she said. “Shooting them on my property.”

  Thought and Memory settled down, one on each end of the mantelpiece, and nodded in unison.

  “They’re afraid of them because of West Nile, even though there’s at least a hundred other species that carry the disease. Damn it, that’s why Shelley called, she wanted me to help with her campaign.”

  “It’s the same old story,” said Memory. “People using scapegoats to assuage their fear. It’s a narrative Odin doesn’t want to listen to anymore.”

  “That’s why we’re interfering in the mortal plane,” said Thought. “We’re trying to change that story.”

  “But I don’t see how my getting involved could possibly help. People around here seem to feel the same way about me and Eileen as they do about the crows.”

  “Not everyone feels that way,” said Thought. “Hope has been weeding your garden these past few days.”

  So Shelley knew what had happened. Somehow knowing she was not alone took some of the edge off the pain, but Jo shook her head. “I still don’t see what I can do.”

  “Pick up the threads of your narrative and return to weaving your life again,” said Memory. “Move back out into the world. Change it and be changed by it.”

  “Everyone is a hero in their own story,” said Thought. “But it takes love and courage to be a hero to others.”

  “Eileen was like that,” said Jo, grief opening up like a chasm before her. Her legs turned to water and she sat down heavily on the sofa, letting her head fall forward onto her hands.

  With a whirr of wings and a brush of feathers, the ravens landed on the back of the sofa. One of them hopped onto her shoulder.

  “Eileen was not the only one,” whispered Memory into her ear.

  “But I didn’t love her enough,” said Jo. “If I had, I wouldn’t have got mad at her. I wouldn’t have insisted that she come home that night. She would still be alive.”

  “You loved her truly,” said Memory.

  “You had a moment of doubt, that’s all,” said Thought, landing on her other shoulder. “After all, you’re only human.”

  Tears welled up in Jo’s eyes and slid down her cheeks. Her heart gave way and she began to sob in earnest. Thought and Memory murmured soothing sounds into her ear and preened her hair. Jo cried until exhaustion overtook her and she fell asleep.

  The phone rang, dragging Jo out of a deep slumber. She rolled over on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. It was intact; no hole marked where Memory had forced his way in.

  The phone rang again and Jo sat up. The portrait Eileen had painted of Birdbrained stood on the mantelpiece next to the one of Frida. Jo took a deep breath, feeling a now familiar ache between her ribs.

  The phone rang again.

  She leaned across the sofa and grabbed the receiver. As she brought it to her ear, a small black feather came loose from her hair and wafted down to the floor.

  Mermaid

  by Rhea Rose-Fleming

  today I walked on the roof of the mouth of the sea.

  When she inhaled

  exposing the ridged dark grey sand

  of her upper palate,

  I picked my way down from the bluffs and cliffs,

  her grin,

  sauntered the highest thin hot line of shore,

  her lips,

  side stepping the barnacled rocks,

  her teeth,

  not in rows but scattered

  knocked around by the endless

  grind and mastication of her hunger.

  In her mouth empty of ocean,

  bits of kelp stuck between rocks,

  fish jellied in the sun,

  tiny watery soft creatures sucked

  their hard doors closed,

  goeducks like great fringed pores

  spit up at me, envious of my mobility.

  Stepping over the small tidal pools of saliva,

  toe-dipping into the deep bowls of cool, live chowder

  skipping past shards of molluscs, cockles and butter clams

  dashed and baking

  I printed with my bare feet, the soft wet skin,

  of her mouth.

  When she exhales and returns to the cleaned

  picked and tickled squeaks the flutters and stale claws,

  when she rushes her wet tongue across

  the ridges of her sandy palate

  sensing sucking swilling flavours

  over ancient roof,

  will she remember?

  among the voracious clicks and scuttles

  soft shooing of sand hiders

  and the grinding bump of rocks

  chewing,

  the taste of the salt

  left behind from my

  two bare feet?

  The Coin

  by Casey June Wolf

  Likner walked away from the girl with the message from his mother. They hadn’t talked long, but she had carefully taken the red cuvette of mangoes from her head and given him two, then lifted the heavy load back onto the curl of cloth that rested on her braided hair.

  His baby sister had died. He had seen her only once — she’d been so tiny. She had lived with their mother and Likner’s other sisters on the steep mountainside on the road to Vertierres. It might be a good idea, he thought, to visit his mother soon. Maybe he could find a coconut for her. But the idea made him feel leaden. He pushed it out of his mind, and headed for the boulevard, nipping the top of the first mango and peeling it with his teeth.

  Likner followed the narrow street to the boulevard by the sea where the sun, hot since rising, climbed above the barely moving water of the bay. Here the sea bumped gently against a long concrete wall instead of washing along a beach, and the road that followed the wall was surprisingly smooth. The occasional rusted taxis and big 4x4s could race on it unhindered by potholes and cracks, by market stalls or crowds of people.

  He started off toward downtown. His gaze shifted from the sea and low mountains to the tiny makeshift fishing boats, and back to the road he travelled. Here and there, small groups of people sat on broken benches or dangled their legs over the seawall, talking low among themselves. On the other side of the road were the houses of the people who owned the 4x4s. He scanned the tall palms in their
yards for their great pale fruit.

  He passed a littered beach, the empty tourist market, and then the docks. As he came abreast with a pair of rusted freighters standing in the oily water of the bay, he could see a little clutch of boys down the street by the bakery. He had expected to find them there. It was nearly Karnaval and they were dressing us as zenglendoes to “rob” the patrons at Bagay La. He watched as they huddled around the door, waiting for customers to come back out.

  At six, Likner was the youngest of these boys living on the streets of Okap. Like him, they wore shorts and dirty t-shirts that hung like dresses, and nothing on their feet. But they had also smeared their skin with motor oil, and cobbled together fake knives and guns.

  In other places in the city, grown men dressed as soldiers walked with musicians who carried the noisy homemade instruments of the rara band. They were stopping traffic at busy corners and demanding coins to let the vehicles pass. The boys knew the methods well. They crowded around a handful of blans who were coming out of the door. Likner hung back watching as the others brandished their weapons menacingly, smiling beneath the ferocity of their scowls. Two missionaries brushed past them with wry grins and flip remarks in Creole. A third, a pale white woman, followed. The boys closed ranks around her and held out oily hands. She shook her head and said something incomprehensible that wasn’t Creole, didn’t sound like French, might have been English. Bouki grinned and made as if to smear her clothes with oil if she didn’t hand something over. She winked and moved forward. They let her by.

  The blan was sitting on the low wall beside the sea. The water made impatient little pushes at the concrete, urging bits of garbage back toward the shore. Down the block the beach rose, littered with plastic bags and old, rough-made chairs, well-stripped car frames and a blend of mango pits, coconut husks, and shreds of sugar cane fibre that gave off all together a thick dank smell of rot. Bouki and Benji were already with the blan, working her. Likner walked up slowly. She was shaking her head. Turning her pockets inside out. Benji snorted. Sure she had no money. His closed face locked and he turned away. Bouki shrugged and turned away from her, unconcerned.