by Jack Dann
As many ways as there are to protect the family, there are an equal number of ways to betray them. Father would make no mistake, and now neither can I. Thought of the dead traveller’s flesh reminds me of another need. I return to the wagon, and praying my apologies to the dead woman’s spirit, slice several thin strips from Marell’s mother’s inner thigh. Her petticoats hide my cuts. Scavengers will do the rest.
The meat is moist, and tender, and I slip it inside the cuff of my jacket, except for the strip I place under my tongue. I will draw upon the dead woman’s wisdom as I travel, suck her courage and love from the meat. When I return to Marell, we will already be family.
I have only one thing left to do, and then my journey homeward can begin. I reach into the wagon and pull out a long, oiled skin, opening it to reveal the rifle that lies inside. Father showed me, once, how to work such a weapon, when I had hunted with him on enough occasions to prove I was worthy of further teaching. Anything can be a weapon, he told me, and all weapons must be understood.
I load the ball and powder from the packets within the skin, tamp them down, and heft the weight of the rifle as I turn to face Father’s corpse. The searchers in the Thaw must see an enemy, a cause for the carnage around them. And the trail needs to end here, with that enemy defeated and dead. I aim down the barrel, at the spot just above his right eye. I want to say something, to make some sort of apology. But that is not our way. What we do is always for survival. I press the trigger. The flint catches. A single boom echoes across the open space.
Father’s head snaps back, and forward, and the ruined eye socket that stares at me bears nothing of his likeness. I turn away, repack the rifle, and begin to clean the site of my presence.
When I am finished, I climb the rise over which I first arrived, and view my work, nodding in satisfaction. The site lies as I discovered it, and the snow will soon muddy even the few tiny marks I made in leaving. The journey home will be hard, and dangerous, but I can undertake it in the knowledge that the hunt was successful, and the family will remain safe from pursuit. And I am alive.
I shoulder my burden, lean into the wind, and begin the journey home.
It takes two days to reach the house, two days of trudging through thickening snow banks, slipping across puddles of ice, and tucking my face further and further down into my coat to deflect the shards of pain that shatter against my skin with every gust of wind. By the time the house shimmers through the storm, and I slump against the doorway with just enough strength left to drop my fist against the wood in the right series of knocks, my eyes are all but sealed shut, and I no longer feel anything except the icicles in my lungs. I scarcely register the arms that drag me inside, or the bodies that crowd around me in front of the kitchen fire, lending their warmth and welcome to the heat creeping into my bones. By the time I open my mouth and accept a few swallows of mulled cider, I am too warm, and shrug children from my chest and shoulders. Soon, I struggle out of my over-garments and stand alone, swaying, in my shirtsleeves, gesturing to whoever is nearest for another shot of the revitalising cider. My mug is refilled. I swallow it in one long draught, cough, and spit into the fire as the dram hits my throat and spreads its magic out along my limbs. I turn away from the flames. The family has gathered around the far edge of the table, Mother at their head.
‘Kester,’ she says, as much warning as greeting. I give her a small, acknowledging smile.
‘Mother.’
I retrieve the pile of treasure from where it was stripped from me, and heft it onto the table. Youngsters are despatched to store the haunch of meat, and snares, and take the seeds down to the cellar. Mother takes possession of the jars, and places them high upon a shelf, out of the reach of little fingers. When everyone has returned, I pull my satchel from the pile.
‘Gather everyone here.’
‘Kester — ‘ Mother steps forward, arm half-raised.
‘Now.’
She stops, and turns to the children.
‘Quickly.’
We wait, not looking at each other, until the whole family arrives. Marell is amongst them. She is dressed in family clothes, her hair tied back in the way Mother prefers. She stands between two older boys, towards the back of the group. When the entire family is assembled, I open the satchel. I remove Father’s clothing, and spread it out on the table so everyone can see. I hear shock, and some of the children strangle back cries. Mother stands with a hand over her mouth. Her eyes are fixed upon me. She knew, the moment I arrived at the doorway. Now she can not pretend otherwise. I untie Father’s knife from my thigh, then step around the table and present it to her. She takes it without word, and I turn my back.
Mother is quick and fierce. I barely hear the knife as it slips from the sheath. I twist just as she lunges, catching her arm under my own and continuing the movement so she strikes the table with the front of her stomach. I lift her up so she lies face down amongst Father’s clothes. I pin her there with one hand and rake her skirt up with the other, exposing her hindquarters to view. I step over her leg, part her thighs with mine, and unbutton myself. I enter her in a sharp, violent thrust. She lies silent as I take her, letting me come in no more than a dozen short strokes. But it is enough. When I am finished I stand back, draw my trousers up and refasten them. She stays still for perhaps half a minute, then slides from the table and turns to face me. We meet gazes. She bends her head, and presents me the knife. I take it, recover the sheath from where it has dropped, and slide in the blade. Mother drops to her knee, and ties it to my thigh. I hold my hand out to her. She takes it, rises, and stands at my side.
‘Take her.’ I point to Marell, stiff with shock by the doorway. ‘Take her to her room, and educate her. Make sure she understands.’ The wristlet lies amongst the pile of treasures still to be distributed as gifts. I will give it to her, when she is ready. For now, there is much to be done. I must make my family safe for the Snow, and ensure that the infants are weaned, so their mothers will be ready to bear children when I visit them in the Thaw. And Marell must be taught her role, like Mother was taught before her, and she must understand her place in the family, as Mother understands hers.
Mother turns to me, and in front of the family, kisses me.
‘Yes, Father,’ she says.
AFTERWORD
Stories come to me from all sorts of places, but often a number of current obsessions will intersect in such a way that I’ll see them in a new light and be able to write about the resulting view. In this case, I fused a lifelong fascination with Sawney Bean with an illustration I recalled fronting an old Kate Wilhelm story, filtered through a documentary I watched about a pride of lions, and this is what came out.
Much of my work often springs from a sense of loss, and my characters often fulfil the actions of the plot despite the isolation and monstrous requirements it forces upon them. That probably says something deeply profound about my state of mind, but, in truth, no story is worth telling unless it imposes sacrifice upon the protagonist, and emotional and/or psychological sacrifice is, for me, the most telling. A friend once accused me of being genetically incapable of writing a happy ending — they were wrong, but I don’t manage it very often. That same friend also said I’d grow up to be Warren Zevon, so at least their view of me is entertaining!
In early 2007 I suffered a catastrophic hard-drive crash, in which I lost all my work. (Yeah, I know. I make backups regularly now.) ‘In From the Snow’ only survived because I was line-editing a hard copy at the time. It’s nice to see it in print: like Kester, it’s a survivor.
— Lee Battersby
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THE LOST PROPERTY ROOM
TRUDI CANAVAN
Aurealis and Ditmar winner TRUDI CANAVAN is the author of the bestselling Black Magician Trilogy, which includes The Magicians’ Guild, The Novice, and The High Lord. All three books entered Australian top ten SF bestseller lists and went on to sell internationally. Neilsen BookScan rated the trilogy as the most successful debut
fantasy series of the last ten years, and in 2006 it had sold over 500,000 copies.
Her second trilogy, Age of the Five, also received bestseller success. Priestess of the White reached number three in the Sunday Times hardback fiction bestseller list, staying in the top ten for six weeks. In 2006 she was offered a seven-figure advance for a four-book contract to write the prequel and sequel to the Black Magician Trilogy.
In the story that follows, Canavan conjures up a dusty, magical room in Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station so that we may see for ourselves the Draconian nature of consequence…
In the park, people were dancing in the rain, laughing and cavorting. Trinity rolled her eyes skyward. This pathetic drizzle was not worth getting soaked over. Already, patches of blue were visible as wind hurried the clouds onward. It would take much more than this to break the drought.
The rain might relieve her of the chore of watering her garden. She was heartily tired of bucketing grey water from the washing machine, shower and kitchen onto her plants. Restrictions only allowed her to use fresh water twice a week, and her small fernery needed a lot more than that.
As she reached the shelter of Flinders Street Station, she paused to shake and then fold up her umbrella before joining the queue of people filing through the turnstiles. The ticket machine sucked in her ticket then spat it out, the clunk within excessively loud and heavy for the processing of such a light bit of card. Once on the train she opened her bag and took out the cover of her umbrella, carefully placing it underneath her wet umbrella on the seat beside her. Then she took out her knitting.
Pausing to admire her handiwork so far, she smoothed the neat stitches of a striped sock, then set to work. Suburbs, bridges and stations flashed by unnoticed as she knitted through the tricky patterning of the heel. Counting stitches and rows. Slip, knit, slip, knit, turn, purl back across. As always, the absorbing rhythm soothed her. Eventually she recognised the familiar sound of the boom gates a suburb from her station. She was just two rows from the end of the heel. One station to go before she must pack it away. She hunched over her work. Her needles and fingers flew. As the train pulled into the station she finished the last stitch, stuffed her work into her bag and hurried out of the train.
The air was full of glitter. Sunshine lit thousands of tiny droplets as they drifted toward the ground. A sunshower. Pretty.
As the train pulled away from the station the droplets abruptly gained weight and size. She groped for her umbrella and froze, her stomach sinking as she realised it was still lying on its cover, on the seat beside the one she had just vacated. On the train.
The rain hammered down on her head in mockery. She ran to her car.
Reciting directions under her breath, Trinity made her way down the corridor, not completely sure coming here had been a good idea. Her shoes clacked on the hard grey linoleum floor, the sound echoing loudly no matter how lightly she tried to walk. At the end of the corridor a window framed a square of perfect blue. The rain of the afternoon before might as well have been a dream, for all the good it had done. None of the gardens or parks she had glimpsed out of the train window looked any less brown and withered. The dams and reservoirs were still between twenty and thirty per cent full, according to the morning news.
The directions she had been given stated that the room she sought was at the end of the corridor. She thought back to the call she had made that morning.
‘Hello? Is this “lost property”?’
‘Yes. How can we help you?’ The voice had been sexless, but had the dryness of old age.
‘I left my umbrella on the train last night. The girl I just spoke to said that if anyone has handed it in it would have come to you. Did you receive any umbrellas since then?’
‘Oh, we get lots of those. Sometimes dozens of them, if it’s been raining a bit. Was this last night, did you say?’
‘Yesterday afternoon, about five.’
‘Well, it might not have come through to us yet. Why don’t you come in this afternoon?’
‘Can’t you … can I leave my phone number? Could you call me if one comes in like mine. It’s black and —’
‘It’s better you come in, dear.’
Trinity hadn’t argued. Old man or woman, like all mature aged workers in this day of privatisation and downsizing, he or she was probably understaffed. She doubted there was anybody free to hunt for her umbrella among all the others that came in on rainy days. It was surprising, really, that a service like a lost property room still existed.
So she had asked for their opening hours, scribbled down directions, and left work early to retrieve her umbrella on the way home.
Now, reaching the end of the corridor, she wondered for the hundredth time since making that call if one umbrella was worth losing an hour’s flexitime and getting lost in the bowels of Flinders Street Station.
Then she felt a now-familiar pang of loss. The umbrella held memories. Good memories of a holiday, a spontaneous purchase and friendship made and treasured. She didn’t want to let go of that umbrella any more than she wanted to let that long-distance friendship to end. Perhaps that was silly.
Anyway, she was here now. The door she faced wore a small metal sign that read: ‘The Lost Property Room’. She sighed and knocked. A moment later the door opened and an extraordinarily tall old man beamed down at her.
‘Come in,’ he said, his high voice recognisable from the phone call the day before. She found herself in a small room. Opposite the entrance was another door, but of carved and polished wood — surprisingly ornate in this place of utilitarian practicality. The old man slipped behind a thoroughly modern desk of glass and metal and checked a notebook.
‘Trinity Hunder,’ he said. ‘Lost an umbrella, right?’
‘Yes,’ she said, reaching for her purse and identity cards.
He waved at the carved door. ‘Go on in.’
No security checks, then. Not just old fashioned decor, but old fashioned trust. She shrugged and moved to the door. As she reached out to the handle he made a small noise.
‘One word of warning,’ he said. She turned to look at him. His expression was solemn. ‘Only take what is yours.’
‘Of course,’ she replied. Not so trusting after all, she mused.
The wooden door opened easily. Beyond it was a corridor, shelving on both sides, lit by strips of weak fluorescent lights. She had almost expected oil lamps or candles, to match the door. The room extended a long way, the far wall indistinguishable in the dim, dusty light. She stepped inside and turned as she sensed the room was broader than just this long corridor … and caught her breath in wonder and dismay. So many rows of shelves extended into the distance, she could not see the end of them.
The Lost Property Room was enormous.
‘How am I going to find the umbrellas?’ she asked aloud. A moment later she noticed the shiny bronze letters at the end of each wall of shelving. ‘Cr-Da’ shone proudly at the end of the shelf to her right. Smiling, she started walking.
She still hadn’t spotted the far wall when she came to the ‘Uk-Us’ sign. Walking between the shelves, she chuckled as she saw the row of small guitar-like instruments painted with hibiscus flowers and hula girls. They must get a lot of stringed instruments, if they had an entire shelf just for the ukulele.
A mysterious array of bones, some freshly white, others dark with age, puzzled her until she saw the label ‘ulna’ on the front of the shelf. Perhaps mislaid by a medical student? A disturbing alternative occurred to her. But surely any skeletons found on trains were handed over to the police.
Conscious that time was running short before her usual train home, she quickened her pace, passing purple light globes in several different shapes, jars of a dark brown powder, strange discoloured metal disks — some with Celtic knot patterns worked into their surface, a small glass-topped box containing a collection of pretty butterflies and a biology specimen jar with a strange cord-like object floating within.
At the end of t
he shelf she found the umbrellas. Just as she expected, there were a lot of them.
Paper parasols were piled alongside frothy lace and fur-trimmed fancies. Brightly coloured and patterned cloth and plastic contrasted with the more common black and navy. Sizes ranged from huge beach umbrellas in cream or rainbow colours, to tiny children’s umbrellas, and even some that must be for dolls. Of the usual, city worker’s umbrella, far more of the straight, metal-tipped kind were here than the collapsible kind she preferred. Yet both kinds were endlessly varied, some bearing monograms of famous designers or menswear manufacturers, company logos or the team colours of several different sports, cartoon characters or artwork. Some were plain, some sported carved wooden handles, some were cheap plastic, some wore slip covers and others were naked.
Of the one she had lost, there was no sign. She went through the shelf once, then again more carefully, running her hands over them, picking them up and putting them down again. All in vain. Her umbrella wasn’t there. Either it hadn’t reached the Lost Property Room yet, or someone had picked it up on the train and decided to keep it.
Disappointed, she stepped back and regarded the collection before her. All these umbrellas. And she was umbrella-less. Then she looked closer. Some of the less modern ones were dusty. Fingerprints marked where she had touched them. Clearly they had been lost long ago. Their owners hadn’t come back to claim them, and probably never would. What harm would there be in taking one in place of her own? She remembered the old man’s warning, but shook her head. It wasn’t like she was stealing, since they no longer belonged to anybody.
Still, it might upset him. Examining the dustier umbrellas more closely, she thought back and asked herself if she’d given him any particular details of her lost umbrella. She could remember saying it was black. She might have described it as collapsible.
Of the dusty, collapsible umbrellas, one had a wooden handle carved into a simple but delightful representation of a duck’s head. Smiling, she picked it up, took out a tissue from her bag and carefully wiped the dust away.
