Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  Sometimes, in the darkest part of the night, I wish I had taken Pek Brifjis’s offer to return me to my ancestors.

  I work on the rock piles of the mine during the day, among miners who lift sledges and shatter solid stone. They talk, and curse, and revile the Terrans, although few miners have as much as seen one. After work the miners sit in camp and drink pel, lifting huge mugs with dirty hands, and laugh at obscene jokes. They all share the same reality, and it binds them together, in simple and happy strength.

  I have strength, too. I have the strength to swing my sledge with the other women, many of whom have the same rough plain looks as I, and who are happy to accept me as one of them. I had the strength to shatter Ano s coffin, and to bury her even when I thought the price to me was perpetual death. I had the strength to follow Carryl Walters’s words about the brain experiments and seek Maldon Pek Brifjis. I had the strength to twist Pek Brifjis’s divided mind to make him let me go.

  But do I have the strength to go where all of that leads me? Do I have the strength to look at Frablit Pek Brimmidin’s reality, and Carryl Walters’s reality, and Ano’s, and Maldon Pek Brifjis’s, and Ori’s—and try to find the places that match and the places that don’t? Do I have the strength to live on, never knowing if I killed my sister, or if I did not? Do I have the strength to doubt everything, and live with doubt, and sort through the millions of separate realities on World, searching for the true pieces of each—assuming that I can even recognize them?

  Should anyone have to live like that? In uncertainty, in doubt, in loneliness. Alone in one’s mind, in an isolated and unshared reality.

  I would like to return to the days when Ano was alive. Or even to the days when I was an informer. To the days when I shared in World’s reality, and knew it to be solid beneath me, like the ground itself. To the days when I knew what to think, and so did not have to.

  To the days before I became—unwillingly—as terrifyingly real as I am now.

  MARIGOLD OUTLET

  HE WAS TOO cold to sleep. Mommy put the blanket around him but the car heater was broke again and no matter how tight he pulled the blanket, he couldn’t get warm. Cold air was coming from someplace down near his feet. Maybe the car was broke there, too. Maybe they would fall through to the cold road and get smooshed, like the mouse he saw yesterday at the highway rest stop. He reached for Mommy’s arm.

  “Timmy, not while I’m driving! We could crash!”

  He took his hand away and pushed it between his knees, for warmth. His special pillowcase was there, the one that used to be blue. Mommy said he was too old to have it, but he did. She hadn’t noticed the pillowcase because she was driving. They were always driving. They had been driving for two years, on and off, ever since he was five. He was so cold.

  “Are we almost there?”

  “No. Go to sleep.”

  “It’s too cold to sleep.”

  “Well, is that my fault?” Mommy snapped. In the thin morning light her cheeks looked white and lines pulled down her face. Timmy pushed himself back across the seat, scrunching against the window. The glass was freezing.

  Of course it wasn’t Mommy’s fault it was cold. Nothing was Mommy’s fault. They had to keep ahead of Daddy, who was a bad person who would tell Timmy lies if he could find him. Tell him lies and hurt him. The cold was all Daddy’s fault. Like everything else when they were between towns.

  Timmy sat up straighter, to keep his cheek away from the cold window. The road started to have more houses on it, more signs. Maybe that meant they were nearly there. Sometimes Mommy didn’t tell the whole truth. That was Daddy’s fault, too.

  Timmy could read some of the road signs; they’d stayed in Cedar Creek since school started and he’d had the best first-grade teacher in the school, Mr. Kennison. Everybody said he was the best. He had a lot of boys in his class. The boys in other first grades were jealous of Timmy, although of course he hadn’t been Timmy in Dansville. He’d been John. He was only Timmy between towns, when they left one very fast, like they did this morning. John— Timmy—hadn’t even had time to pack his rock collection. Probably he would never see Mr. Kennison again.

  That made tears start, and Mommy would get mad if he cried again. She said he was too old to cry, and anyway all this was much harder on her than him and he should realize that. That’s what she said. If he cried, she’d slap him again, and then she’d cry. Instead, Timmy hummed. Sometimes that helped. Three blind mice. Three blind mice. They all ran after the farmer’s wife . . .

  “Shut up that racket!”

  He stopped humming and sounded out the road signs. Sometimes that helped, too.

  SLOW CHILDREN. 20 MPH. CURVE AHEAD. And a bright yellow sign with a flower drawn on it: MARIGOLD OUTLET. Timmy sounded out that one slowly. He didn’t know people were allowed to draw on road signs.

  “Well! It wasn’t as far as I thought after all!”

  He glanced at his mother. She was smiling. He decided to risk it. “Mommy, that sign said ‘Marigold Outlet.’ What’s an outlet?”

  “A passage for something to escape, like water from a pond. We’re here, Timmy.”

  She stopped the car. Timmy didn’t see any pond. But the house was different from the other ones between towns. It was big, and very white, with lawns and woods around it. It looked rich. Not like the others. He started to hum again, but softer.

  “Well, get out, can’t you? I’m certainly not going to carry you!”

  Slowly Timmy got out of the car. The house looked too rich. He pulled his pillowcase from between his knees and shoved it in his coat pocket. He had to be careful because it made a bulge Mommy might notice, and besides the pocket had a big hole. But he wasn’t going to throw the pillowcase out, no matter how hard Mommy slapped him.

  A tall, skinny woman with wire glasses hurried toward them across the lawn. She carried a cat, orange and white with thick long fur. “Betty?”

  “Yes,” Mommy said. “Are you Jane?”

  “Yes. Welcome to Marigold Outlet. And you must be John.”

  “Timmy,” Mommy said. She was looking hard at Jane’s coat. It was pale gold fur, like the cat, and just as thick and soft. Mommy pulled her own cloth coat closer and her mouth got that thin, mean line. Timmy tried to inch away without being noticed. Jane helped by holding out the cat to him.

  “Would you like to pet Boots? She’s very gentle.”

  Boots looked at Timmy from big yellow eyes. Timmy put a hand on her head. Boots started to purr, and Timmy looked harder into her eyes. There was something in there, some deep place. He petted her again.

  Mommy knocked his hand away. “If you don’t mind, he’s cold and so am I. Could we have the social amenities later?”

  Jane’s face changed. “Sorry. Come this way.”

  She led them across the lawn. On the wide clean porch, Boots jumped out of Jane’s arms and strolled around the corner, out of sight. Timmy watched her go, thinking about the deep place in Boots’s eyes.

  The bedroom was all for himself. There was a bed with a Superman cover and two pillows and a shelf of toys and books. Timmy stopped in the doorway and looked at the floor.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Mommy said. “It’s not yours.”

  “Oh, no, he can play with whatever he wants,” Jane said. “I just keep this for visitors.”

  “I don’t want him getting used to what he can’t have,” Mommy snapped. “It’s not like all of us can live like you.” Mommy was jealous, Timmy knew. Mr. Kennison had taught him that word. There were a lot of kids who weren’t in Mr. Kennison’s special first grade but wanted to be. They got mean to Mr. Kennison’s kids, and Mr. Kennison explained that they were jealous. Mommy sounded exactly like those kids. Timmy didn’t want to get slapped, so he didn’t look at the toys again. He crossed the room and climbed into the Superman bed.

  “Take off your shoes first, you little shit!” Mommy said. She was close to crying, Timmy saw. He pulled off his shoes. In the last house between towns, he slept
in his shoes because he was afraid that Eric Cheney, who lived there always and wasn’t between towns, would steal them. Eric stole everything.

  “Let me show you your room,” Jane said to Mommy. Mommy slammed the door. Timmy heard them move off down the hall, Mommy stomping. He wondered how long before Jane yelled at them to leave.

  When he was sure Mommy wasn’t coming back, Timmy climbed out of bed and onto a rocking chair. He peered out the window to look for Boots. The cat wasn’t in sight. The door opened and Jane caught him.

  She would hit him for being out of bed, like Mrs. Cheney at the last place. She would take away his pillowcase. She would tell Mommy . . . Timmy knelt, frozen, on the rocking chair.

  “Timmy,” Jane said, “what’s wrong, honey? Were you looking for something?”

  “No!”

  She came toward him. Timmy flinched. She stopped. “Were you looking for Boots?”

  How did she know? Mommy never knew what he was thinking. He looked at her warily. She smiled.

  “Boots is a great cat. You can play with her in the morning. But she has kittens, so she doesn’t stay away from them long.”

  Timmy nodded. Kittens. They would go into that deep place in Boots’s eyes. The kittens would be safe there. He wanted to see the kittens so bad, he ached.

  Jane said, “If you’re not sleepy, would you like to see the kittens?”

  He made himself not answer. It could be a trap. She could get him to do it and then hit him for it, like Mommy sometimes did when she was too tired or too jealous. He didn’t move, not so much as a bit of his face. But Jane took his hand and led him down the hallway and down a lot of stairs to the basement. Timmy started to breathe hard. Eric had taken him to the basement, too, at Mrs. Cheney’s, and . . . He looked for a place to run.

  But Jane just led him to a big box where Boots had four kittens sucking on her belly. Two gray, one orangey like Boots, and one all spotted black and orange and white. Timmy stroked that one’s head, and when Jane didn’t yell at him, he did it again.

  “They’re almost ready to leave Boots,” Jane said. “Would you like one for your own? To keep forever?” Immediately Timmy pulled his hand away. “Mommy wouldn’t let me.”

  “I could talk to her . . .”

  “No!” He stood. “I’m going back to bed now.”

  “Okay,” Jane said. She was watching him, hard but not mean, the same way Mr. Kennison watched him sometimes. Used to watch him. “You can come down here to see the kittens anytime you want.”

  No, he couldn’t. Mommy wouldn’t like it. “Don’t drool over things you can’t have!” she would say. “Don’t you make me feel bad enough already about the way we have to live? All on account of you?”

  Timmy went back to bed. The Superman cover was warm and soft. It had bright colors. He was tired, but he lay awake a long time, thinking about the deep safe place in Boots’s eyes.

  “He’s withdrawn emotionally almost to the point of noncommunication,” Jane said into the telephone. “And yet the rage underneath is tremendous. You can feel it.”

  Timmy hid in a little cupboard under the stairs and listened. This big old house had lots of places to hide. He’d had two days to find them all.

  “I know what the rules are,” Jane said. “Claudia, don’t lecture me on the rules of this, I already know them . . . Of course she’s had a bad time. But I’m telling you, this is more than just tired resentment for a bad deal. She slaps him, she’s verbally abusive, she isn’t capable of any real connection with him at all. As a snap diagnosis, I’d say she’s a borderline personality with narcissistic character structure . . . No, Claudia, I don’t need to be reminded not to blame the victim!”

  Jane took a deep breath. She was really mad. Timmy held his pillowcase closer to his cheek. Cradled in it was a kitten, one of the grays.

  “I’m sorry, Claudia. I didn’t mean to lose my temper. But I’m telling you, in my professional capacity as a counselor, that this case is different. Please just check the court transcript, see how it looks to you. I mean, we both know it does happen, not every man awarded custody gets it just because he makes the money, sometimes a woman really is unfit and what she tells us could be a vengeful fabrication . . . No, of course you won’t be able to tell for sure, and it’s an insult to me to think I’d contact him without the organization’s permission. I resent your even suggesting it. But if you could see this kid. . . No, never. Not once. I’ve never heard him offer any conversation, let down his guard. I’ve never even seen him smile. And she—”

  The kitten purred. Could Jane hear it? Frantically Timmy tried to muffle the purring with his pillowcase. The kitten purred louder.

  “All right, Claudia. All right. Another week. But please just see what you think of the custody hearing transcript, won’t you? Terry can get it for you.”

  Timmy squeezed the kitten in the pillowcase. It had to stop making noise. It had to, or else Jane would hear and find him where he wasn’t supposed to be and then. . . His head opened up into the dark place, the place always next to him, where the bad thoughts were. Nobody must find him! He squeezed the kitten harder. It started to squawk.

  “I tell you, Claudia, that Timmy is repressing dangerously, and I mean dangerously. If he doesn’t find some outlet for his feelings soon—”

  The bad thoughts all came rushing in. Timmy squeezed harder. The kitten stopped squawking. The cupboard was suddenly too dark, too small. He couldn’t breathe.

  Jane hung up the phone. He heard her footsteps walk away down the hall. The front door opened and closed. Timmy tumbled out of the cupboard. He breathed huge gasps of air. The bad thoughts slithered back into their place . . . slowly, slowly.

  He reached into the cupboard and pulled out the pillowcase. The kitten came out with it, lying still. Timmy still breathed hard. He was afraid to touch it. Don’t be dead, he thought hard at it. Don’t be dead.

  After a minute, the kitten started to move and mewl.

  Timmy carried it carefully down the stairs and put it with the others in Boots’s box. Boots wasn’t there. He went back upstairs and sat on his bed, taking off his shoes first. He sat very quiet, not moving, not talking. If he did that he could keep the bad thoughts away, sometimes. All he had to do was go completely quiet. Not move. Not think. Just hum, and let the humming fill up the places in his mind . . . cut off their tails with a carving knife, you never saw such a sight in your life . . .

  After a long time Jane came into the room. “Timmy, it’s almost lunch. Have you been playing here all morning?”

  Timmy didn’t answer.

  Jane looked around the room. Timmy knew she was looking for signs of his mother. Timmy hadn’t seen Mommy since dinner last night, when she yelled at Jane for having such pretty dishes. He didn’t know where his mother was this morning. Jane said gently, “Would you like to have a peanut butter sandwich? And then maybe we can go see the kittens.”

  He looked down at his shoes, careful to move not even a little bit of his face.

  He found a place outside, against the back of the garage, under a big drooping bush that made a solid cave even though there weren’t any leaves on it in winter. The bush-cave was cold, but Jane had bought him a new warm coat and boots and mittens. Timmy kept them in the cave, so Mommy wouldn’t make him give them back, and changed into them when he went out there. From a little hole in the bushes he could see the road sign: MARIGOLD OUT. But nobody could see him.

  But on the third day Jane pushed aside the droopy branches and crawled into the cave. “Timmy. May I come in, please?”

  He stared at her.

  “I’ll only stay a minute. Look, I’ve brought you a present. Your mother said you couldn’t have a kitten to take with you when you move to your new home, so I brought you this.” She put a box on the snowy ground.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Won’t you look at it first?”

  Timmy didn’t answer. The box was small, metal, black. There were glass-covered holes on o
ne side, a small switch on the other, and a panel to cover the power pack. Jane pressed the switch.

  A cat jumped out.

  No, not out, through—the cat jumped right through the walls of the box. It was a big gold-colored cat, bigger and golder than Boots. Its eyes were bright green. It walked around in a circle, its tail raised high, its eyes watching everything. It started on a second circle, bigger this time, and when it walked over Timmy’s knee he could see the torn knee of his jeans through its tail. The cat was made of light.

  “It’s a holoprojection,” Jane said. “Nobody even has to know you’ve got it except when you want it to come out. The projector will fit in your pocket.”

  The cat made a third circle, then pounced on a mouse that Timmy couldn’t see. But the cat could see it. Its green eyes sparkled. It let the mouse go, chased its tail for a minute, then stopped and sat still.

  Timmy reached out and pressed the switch on the box. The cat disappeared. He pressed it again and the cat reappeared, sitting on the ground. After a few minutes it started to walk in circles again.

  Timmy waited until it was once more sitting still, then he crouched on the frozen ground and brought his face close to the cat’s. In its eyes there was a deep place, even deeper than in Boots’s eyes.

  A deep safe place where nobody else could go because the cat was made of light and Timmy could press the switch.

  “It’s yours,” Jane said. “What will you name her?”

  Timmy stared at the cat, then off through the bushes at the road sign. The flower was still on it, hand-drawn, pretty.

  “Timmy,” Jane said again, but not making him answer, not ready to slap or yell, “what will you name her?”

  “Marigold,” Timmy said.

  He played with Marigold every day. Not in the cave under the bushes because that wasn’t secret anymore, but under the kitchen porch, where a part of the trellis was missing; in the cupboard under the stairs; behind the long sofa in the library, which smelled of musty books; at the top of the stairs to the boarded-up attic; in the woods, where it turned out there really was a creek leading out from a big pond. Never in the cellar, where Boots and the kittens were. He didn’t need Boots. Marigold was better. And she never purred.