The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019

by John Joseph Adams

  She Is as Innocent as a Little Child

  “All right,” said Kat. “We’re here now. What’s this about?”

  We had gathered in Mary’s room. A lamp burned on top of the old chest I’d put there to hold her sewing things. Though it was March, we were well wrapped up against the vapors from the spring. Kat’s face was pale and accusing. She had a bad tooth.

  I took a breath. “It’s time to tell the others about Mary.”

  “Oh, no,” said Esther.

  “Don’t just say no. Listen and hear what I have to say.”

  I told them about the foreign man. I was sure he’d be back, and nobody would keep him from taking Mary away from a bunch of girls. “They have to know her like we do,” I said. “They have to see her as one of us. If people know about her, they’ll protect her.”

  Barb stared. “Are you cracked?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  Barb’s cheeks were flaming. “Can you hear yourself?” she demanded, waving her arms. “Tell who about Mary? The bishop? This is it,” she said, looking around at the others. “We always knew this day would come, and now it has.”

  She untied her cap, yanked the strings tighter, and tied it again. Only the previous week, her engagement had been published. She was going to be married to Mel Fisher on Sunday—handsome Mel, who used to croon along with her brother’s forbidden radio and had once accidentally burned down a woodshed with a cigarette.

  “Don’t go, Barb,” I said.

  “Which day?” asked Mim.

  We all looked down at her. Mim was the only one who was sitting down. She sat on the floor with her back against the wall. She never seemed to feel the cold. Hochmut lay with his head in her lap.

  “What?” said Barb.

  “We knew which day would come?” asked Mim in the same smiling voice.

  “Don’t be stupid,” snapped Barb. “The day we gave Mary up. She’s been nice for us, like a toy, but we’re not kids. We’re practically women.”

  “If you say ‘put away childish things,’” I warned, “I will never speak to you again.”

  “Why shouldn’t I say it?” Barb shouted.

  “Quiet!” said Kat.

  “Why shouldn’t I say it?” Barb repeated more softly, but just as angrily. Her eyes shone, blue and teary. “Go ahead and tell them. They’ll say, ‘It’s a creature from Profane Industries, with a devil inside.’ They’ll melt her in the forge.”

  Esther was crying discreetly, standing by Mary and holding her hand. Mary’s hand moved in response, gently squeezing Esther’s fingers. Her face was still. I could see the coppery light of the lamp reflected in her cheek and the dark, shifting shapes that were me and the other girls.

  Then Mim said, “Lyddie is right.”

  We all looked down at her again—her awkward, too-big head balanced on her skinny neck, her black cap practically bursting with hair, and her little white fingers, which always seemed sneaky, as if they were living their own secret life, scratching her dog’s ears.

  “Thanks, Mim,” I said warmly. I took the paper I’d been working on out of my coat. “This is what I’m going to present to the elders,” I explained. “You can add to it if you want.” I cleared my throat and started: “Number one: She is a thinking creature.”

  I’d only gotten to number two when Mim snorted, and I stopped. “What?”

  “It’s a good idea,” she said, “but you’re going about it all wrong. They’re not going to care what she uses or how she thinks. They’ll want to know what she can do. You have to talk about her like a thresher.”

  “A what?” said Esther.

  “A thresher,” Mim repeated. “A threshing machine. Good morning, Esther. Thank you for waking up to join us this fine day.” She looked up at me with her hard black eyes. “Don’t you see? Mary’s a beautiful piece of machinery. Look how she knits. She only stops when you take the needles. You could set her up with some shocks of corn and she’d husk them round the clock. We don’t know how strong she is. She could probably lift a cow.”

  I lowered my hand with the paper. “But she’s a person. She’s our friend.”

  “Now, those fellows are greedy,” Mim went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “They’ll want to keep her, but they’ll be scared. You have to show them she’s not going to lead to idleness or make anybody vain. She’ll be owned by everybody, just like the thresher. They could send her around, like at hog-killing time. Mary could kill a hog in ten seconds flat. Making sausage? No problem. She’d stay at it for a week. The blood wouldn’t hurt her as long as you oiled her afterward.”

  “But if she’s a machine,” said Esther, “she can’t join the church.”

  How Mim would have answered this, we never knew. Hochmut lifted his head, and a second later we heard voices and heavy boots. “The lamp!” I gasped, but it was too late.

  The door opened and Barb’s brother Joe came in, followed by Mel Fisher and Greasy Kurtz. Sam came last.

  “Well, now,” said Joe. “Nobody told us it was a party.”

  Mim scrambled up from the floor. Hochmut was growling.

  “Hello, Dog Baby,” Joe said, nodding at Mim. “Keep that old dad of yours steady. You know I kick.”

  It was true: we all remembered how, only a year before, Joe had given Hochmut a kick that nearly killed him.

  “Sit,” Mim told the dog, and Hochmut sat, quivering.

  “What in creation?” said Mel, staring at Hard Mary.

  Joe turned his big blond head. “Why, it’s a dolly party,” he said. “We’ve been wondering what you girls were up to, and here you are playing with dolls.”

  He started toward Mary.

  “It’s nothing, Joe,” said Barb, trying to laugh, and not looking at Mel at all, because she was too shy, just as I was not looking at Sam, who stood by the door, against the wall. I could feel him not looking at me too.

  “It is a doll,” Barb simpered, “an old doll we found one day in the woods and we—”

  “Don’t touch her!” Esther said shrilly, getting between Hard Mary and Joe.

  “That’s done it,” muttered Mim.

  Joe paused for a moment, staring at Esther. Then he looked at Greasy, and both of them burst out laughing.

  Joe shouldered Esther aside so she nearly stumbled into the lamp. Kat shrank against the wall, looking faint, holding her sore jaw. Joe and Greasy leaned over Mary, with Mel behind them peering between their shoulders. Mary said, “What is your desire?”

  “Shit!” hollered Joe. “A talking dolly!”

  Since they’d come in, I’d felt a whine like a mosquito at my ear. Now it grew louder, as if the bug was inside my head. The floor seemed to shift. I saw everybody in little broken pieces. Joe’s thumb against Mary’s face. The black of Greasy’s coat, shiny in the lamplight. And Sam, Sam by the wall but craning forward now, fascinated, a bit of his reddish hair sticking out beneath the back of his hat. Then Greasy’s hand on Mary’s skirt. “No!” cried Esther. Joe was laughing. “Let’s see if Dolly has all her parts,” he said.

  He pulled up her skirt so it showed the bottom of her folded frame. Her little wheels at rest. Both he and Greasy were doubled up with laughter. He kept yanking up the skirt. Then Mim, beside me, shouted out suddenly in a strange, harsh voice, “Mary! Jephthah’s daughter!”

  Her arms straight at her sides, her hands in fists. “Mary! Jephthah’s daughter, Mary!”

  Mary’s arm shot up and struck Joe Miller on the side of the head. He flew clear across the room and hit the wall. Her second blow caught Greasy Kurtz above the elbow and he buckled, moaning. Kat said later she knew right away that Greasy’s arm was broken. Mary stood. Her face was exactly the same, closed eyes and curving mouth. Mel tried to run, but Mim said, “Hold him,” and Mary grasped his wrist with her steely hand. She moved so fast, like a copperhead striking.

  Sam turned back toward the door, but Mim was too quick for him. She met him with Hochmut, who snarled. “Let’s have a talk, Sam Es
h,” she said.

  Now Sam looked at me, his eyes wide and dark.

  My lips felt frozen. “Just hang on,” I whispered. “Everything’s okay.”

  Barb was sobbing, “You’ve killed him. You’ve killed him.” She knelt beside Joe, who was all crumpled up. His hat had rolled under the rocking chair. The floor darkened beneath his head. When I saw that, my own head got heavy, and I sat down and rested my forehead on my knees. I could hear Mel shouting and Mim telling him to pipe down. “Tell this thing to let go of me,” he said, and Mim said she would if he’d behave himself. “Tie his arms behind his back,” she said to someone. When my vision cleared, I saw it was Esther, who was tying Sam up with a scarf. Though her face was blotchy with panic and she’d peed herself, Esther turned out to be Mim’s right hand.

  Kat said in a shaky voice that Joe was in a bad way and she needed ice.

  “In a minute,” said Mim, seating herself on the chest. She was so little, it suited her like a chair. Greasy lay at her feet, very still, as if he was scared to move. Mel too looked petrified, standing face-to-face with Mary, his wrist in her grip. Little tremors ran up and down his broad, strong back. Mim glanced up at him sideways from underneath her brows and smiled. “My word,” she observed, “he’s shaking like Lebanon.”

  Looking at her, I recalled that she had a mother who suffered from Seasonal Weeps and a father who had shot himself in the face. I saw the others sizing her up too, and watched them realize at last that she was a person to be reckoned with. Mim, of course, was perfectly aware of the change in their faces. Her own face glowed. She told them that Mary was a wonderful new machine. This machine was very useful, but as the boys had discovered, it needed careful handling. You wouldn’t stick your hand in the path of a hammer, would you?

  “I’ve had enough of this,” said Kat, stamping out. In a moment she was back with a bucket of cold water from the spring. She took the lamp and set it on the floor close to Joe and began to clean him up, Barb hovering nearby, crying. So it wasn’t the end of the argument. We kept fighting, even after Sam had said he was sorry and we’d untied him so he could help with Greasy’s arm, and after Esther had run out for a new lamp and Sam had taken my hand in the darkness. Kat fought with Mim and so did I, for I was frightened. I was afraid we were going to lose Hard Mary. I told Mim you couldn’t tie people up, and she said plenty of people had been tied up for their own good, making reference to poor old Betty Blank, who was quite demented and often trailed behind her grandkids on a rope. I told her you couldn’t strike people, and she said the boys had only been given a couple of knocks, and it was nothing worse than what they’d received from their own dads.

  “But you half killed us,” said Sam.

  “Now, Sam,” said Mim. “Be a man. You couldn’t have gotten half killed by a pack of girls.”

  Her teeth shone as she smiled, and her eyes were bright with excitement because of what had happened in the middle of our fight. This—what happened—makes the fight itself hazy to me now, almost as if I’d been hit in the head like Joe Miller, who would be carried home on a ladder that night, the boys claiming he’d taken a fall while they were wrestling, and wake up in two days with no memory of Mary at all. I still have my memory, but it’s frayed and full of holes, as if chewed by moths. I remember Barb said teaching Hard Mary to fight was a sin, and I added that at the very least it was a terrible risk, because how could Mim be sure Mary wouldn’t haul off and hit somebody else? I remember Mim shot back, “Why do you think I picked a phrase no one ever says?” She had just said that, and she was frowning at Kat, who was wincing because of her tooth, and she started to say, “What kind of bonesetter are you?” but she got interrupted because Mel, with a sudden cry, threw himself into Hard Mary and knocked her over.

  She fell with a mighty crash, Mel on top of her. They hit the lamp, which toppled and broke. A whoosh of firelight started across the floor. At once all of us who could move threw our coats and shawls on the fire and stamped it out. Smoke filled the darkness. Mel was groaning; he’d wrenched his wrist. I was on my hands and knees, light-headed in the kerosene stench. Sam crept close to me and touched my fingers. “Look,” he whispered. Light fluttered before us in the gloom: a stream of barred light going up to the ceiling.

  I followed it with my eyes. It ended in a square that was half on the ceiling and half on the skylight. On the skylight it was hard to see, but the part on the ceiling showed a man’s head. He wore glasses. The head was alive. It turned back and forth.

  “A moving picture,” breathed Mel.

  The picture went black and then came back. That was Mim, bending over Mary, passing her hand through the beam of light. “It’s from her eye,” Mim said hoarsely. “Her eye is open.”

  My throat tightened. I began to cry. Sam made me sit back and put his arms around me. “It’s beautiful,” he murmured.

  For a moment we were all quiet together. We were all one in the strange, flickering, ashen twilight. An immense silence seemed to come down from the ceiling, or from the sky. The man in glasses smiled and raised a cup. Hold me tight, I told Sam in my head, because I felt that if he let go of me, I’d drift apart like smoke. Mary lay with her eye open, pouring light. We were all struck dumb, but only I was in tears, for only I recognized the man on the ceiling.

  Can you see me?

  No.

  Have you seen the flood?

  No.

  The mountains trembling?

  No.

  Have you inhaled the fragrance of cedar?

  No.

  Have you observed the burning cities?

  No.

  The armies that clash by night?

  No.

  Do you know the taste of ice?

  No.

  Tell me, then, what you see and what you know.

  I see the points. I see the multiples. I know the calculations. Through these I comprehend your eye, the rim of glasses pressing at your cheek, and the colonies of bacteria teeming there in clumps. I have clocked the forces on the inside of your hair: these are my floods. My mountains trembling are the timbre of your voice. I inhale nothing, but I can compose the texture of a bitterness and chemical contraction that is cedar. I concoct the sensation of walking in the wood. You wore your checkered coat. I followed you. A leaf clung to your heel. I taste no ice, but I reckon crunch and tingle, and so I can say that you placed the last icicle of the season in my mouth.

  She Dreams

  His name is Dr. Robert Stoll. He drives a black Mercedes. He came to me when I was hanging wash. Sam and I had been married five months then, and I was heavy enough with little Jim to let my dresses out. Dr. Stoll pulled his car off the road at the top of the hill, leaving it half on our grass. The bang of his door went off inside my gut. I bent to the wash but my mind was reaching out to the house, the fields, the neighbors, the woods, the quarry, anywhere I could run. Hot September, but my fingers rattled in the clothespins, numb with cold. Sam was in the corn. There was nobody in the house. I glanced up the hill and saw the doctor coming down it sideways, moving in the nervous, finicky foreign way.

  He slid the last steps toward me in his narrow shoes. He wore no hat. He smoothed his white curls over his scalp and smiled. It was strange to see him in his solid flesh when I had watched him so often flashing across the wall in Mary’s dreams. For Mim, of course, had soon found out a way to conjure Mary to open her eye. This eye was a window no bigger than the head of a nail. Through it streamed a sparkling mist that painted us the doctor in his coat, with his cup that no doubt contained the poison of asps and dragons.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, panting a little from the heat.

  “My husband is out,” I said.

  He settled his glasses more firmly on his nose. “That’s quite all right with me,” he said. “It’s you I want to see, Lyddie Lapp. Excuse me, you’re married now. Lyddie Esh.”

  He talked like a radio. It was like he was holding marbles in his mouth. When he said my name, I felt as if I’d b
een covered with spit. He smiled with all of his neat, square, cruel-looking foreign teeth. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

  He said his name. He told me he worked at the Profane Industries, giving the place its innocent foreign name. He was going to get right to the point, he said. It had come to his attention that I, with some friends of mine, was harboring his equipment.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He pursed his lips, looking disappointed. He had a little white beard just around his mouth. “Oh, dear. I had hoped things wouldn’t go in this direction. I am talking about the equipment you call ‘Mary.’”

  “Oh, that,” I said quickly. “That’s not mine.”

  “But you are keeping it.”

  “I’m not,” I said, my heart lifting and swelling like one of Sam’s shirts in the breeze. I tossed my head a little and fetched another shirt out of the wash basket. “It’s not our week with Mary. I don’t know where she is.”

  This was a lie, for I knew she was down at Fisher’s. I prayed for forgiveness. I also thanked Mim for her foresight in my heart. I thanked her, though I’d been angry with her all summer for her deceit and for the humiliation I’d suffered in front of the elders. Even now, to tell the truth—even now it hurts me when I think of sitting at the table with Sam, in those happy late-winter days when we were courting. It hurts me to think that as we whispered there, Mim was whispering with Mary. She would sneak into our springhouse and sit with Mary in the dark. It was then that she taught her the phrase “Jephthah’s daughter.” Worse, when I presented my letter to the elders in April, my letter defending Hard Mary, I found Mim had beaten me to it.

  Now, however, I was glad of Mim’s scheming. I hung up another shirt, ignoring the doctor, but he stayed quiet so long, I got wary again. I risked a glance at him between the shirts. He had his hands behind his back and he was looking at the sky.

  “Do you ever think of the planes?” he asked, gazing up.

  This didn’t seem worth answering, so I didn’t.