Miscreations

by Michael Bailey

  setting text mode I hear her say to Maddie

  who has pillow in hand

  Maddie setting nononononoheddrron to palindromic prime plus Pi she says her eyes looking me

  I thought you’d want to understand

  dizzy sick

  sick

  i will put pencil down now

  END OF SELECTED RESEARCH NOTES

  NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND

  (ADDENDUM BY MADELINE BLAKE)

  My phone chimed an empty text from the prof’s iPhone, deep in his hole his finger moves. Dead but not dead. Aware but not aware. Neither here nor there. Everywhere and nowhere.

  Hadlee and I drove south through the night, Hadlee at the wheel, me navigating down Highway 89 toward New Hampshire. Behind us, the prof’s house and barn are burning the evidence to the ground although there may be few dog or monkey bones left in his well. For your information, casual reader or policeman or scientist or researcher of these documents, he’s not buried up the hill in the meadow behind his farm.

  Good luck finding him.

  His nonahedron is set to Pi.

  Professor Zach will understand infinity.

  He is a powerless god, living forever, but hardly alive.

  Unless there is an eventual end to Pi.

  Hadlee laughs aloud at the thought and so do I. She steps on the gas and speeds up. A ribbon of light outlines the eastern horizon.

  Dawn will arrive soon.

  We have a rendezvous.

  We nine paper dolls.

  My phone vibrates another empty text.

  Of course, Zach’s iPhone will soon lose its charge and he will experience never-ending melancholia. He should have known if you look deeper into Durer’s copper etching you can find the symbol for Pi hidden among the narrow black lines.

  And a squid eye too.

  My phone vibrates again.

  Finally, some text. Typed with one finger. Hadlee duct-taped his hand to his phone, leaving only his half-healed ring finger free.

  The text is gibberish.

  I think he begs for forgiveness.

  I turn off my phone, satisfied.

  In the end, we destroyed the remaining nonahedrons and the two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will misremember their doctoral work if anyone ever asks.

  What about the paper doll hyperplane?

  We existed but we never existed.

  But we leave you a clue. The universe should have mysteries. Something to keep art researchers and mathematicians and conspiracy theorists busy at night. A distraction for the masses. The disappearance of an esteemed professor and a radical new scientific theory? Or an apocalyptic etching and the musings of a depressed medieval artist?

  As we pull to the curb, I position the research papers on the backseat of the prof’s Volvo on a street in Brooklyn. Hadlee and I will walk from here to the gleaming towers of New York City.

  The others wait.

  We will find our way among the lesser beings.

  END ADDENDUM

  Not Eradicated in You

  Bracken MacLeod

  Look how desperately you wanted to bond with “parents” who would not love you. That is not a defect; indeed, it can be a strength. It proves that the ability to love has not been eradicated in you.

  – Andrew Vachss

  HARLOW

  Harlow had handed him the money already—the most she’d ever saved, the most she’d ever spent at once on anything—but he held on to the paper bag, looking down at her with narrowed eyes. “You sure you know what you’re getting into? I mean, anybody ever showed you what to do with something like this?”

  She shook her head. “Huh uh. But I’m good at figuring shit out.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” The guy smirked.

  “Is there a problem?” The problem was the same as it was for everyone she dealt with: No one took her seriously because she was a kid. A small one at that—when other girls her age shot up past the boys, growing tall, filling out, she stayed short and slender. Her torn, oversized black sweater made her look even smaller. Some people thought that because she was petite, she was meek. Being underestimated allowed her to get away with things other girls couldn’t.

  She held out her hand. She wanted what the guy had promised to sell to her. What he’d told her he could get, “no problem.” Finding a dealer had been easier than getting the money. Mostly she collected a little at a time, scrounging change here and there, sponging from friends. “Hey, can I borrow a dollar for the Coke machine?” Her friends knew she wasn’t “borrowing,” but it was easier to ask that way than to outright request a handout. She’d take their dollars and later, produce a can of soda she’d hidden in her backpack from the fridge at home so it looked like she’d done what she said she would with the money instead of pocketing it.

  She kept everything she saved in a jar hidden in her bedroom closet behind a box of old stuffed animals where her mom never looked.

  It felt like it took forever to set aside enough, but she was patient and resisted the urge to spend even a little of her stash on other things … no matter how hungry she got. Eventually, she had enough, and now she stood in front of this man, having given it all away, waiting for him to hand over what was hers. Waiting to see if he’d treat her like every other adult she knew, or if he’d respect her.

  “I don’t know. You fuck this up and there’s no taking it back. There ain’t no training wheels on this shit.”

  She didn’t say anything, just held out her hand. He reluctantly passed the paper bag to her. It was smaller and lighter than she’d imagined. Harlow badly wanted to peek inside and reassure herself she hadn’t just spent a personal fortune on this man’s lunch. It seemed rude though. As if she didn’t trust him. She didn’t, of course, but she wanted to appear worldly, like she’d done this before—a hundred times, more often than she could count—and knew how something like this felt in her hand. Though they both knew this was her first time. Maybe it was a first for him, too. Selling to someone as young as she. Probably not, though.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  His jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. They were done. It was time for them both to leave. He sighed and held up a finger, silently asking her to wait a moment. He went to his car and leaned in through the window. A moment later, he turned around with an envelope in hand. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said as he walked back, holding it out. “I shouldn’t be selling any of this to you, but …” he trailed off. He told her that he wouldn’t be doing this deal except for the name she’d dropped. Dierdre—her best friend’s old after-school babysitter who sometimes bought them pints of Ruble vodka—said this guy owed her and gave Harlow his number. At first, he’d accused her of making a prank call. But then she said Dierdre’s name and he listened. Whatever he owed the babysitter, it had to be something.

  She reached out for the envelope and he yanked it back. “Look. I’m not fuckin’ around about how serious this shit is. You gotta do it right, okay? I mean, for real. People get hurt.”

  “I get it.” Her voice was as thin as she was.

  He let her take it. “Everything you need to know is in that or the bag. Pay attention. You can practice without the works, okay? But once you start using what’s in there,” he pointed to the bag, “it’s for real. No … backsies.”

  Frustration burbled up in the back of her throat. As much as she hated being spoken to like a child, she appreciated the warning. No matter how things turned out, she figured screwing it up still had to be better than not ever trying it. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Yeah,” the man sighed as he walked away. He waved a hand as if her gratitude was something he knew he ought to deflect. He climbed into his car and started it up. The thing rumbled like a storm, and Harlow felt the engine’s vibration throb in her chest. They were meeting under the Route 2 overpass because it was private,
but then he showed up in a car so loud no one could miss it. She didn’t get adults.

  He stuck an elbow out the window and looked at her a last time before peeling out, kicking up gravel and dirt. The sound of his car lingered in the neighborhood for a long time as he sped off to wherever it was that guys like him went when they were done selling their stuff to kids. Harlow turned and stalked back to the bushes where she’d stashed her skateboard and backpack. She slung the pack over her shoulder, and dropped the board on the asphalt. She kicked off and rolled home.

  ~

  Harlow pulled the house key out of her shirt collar and bent forward to unlock the door. The aluminum-beaded chain she wore the key on was too short to reach the keyhole without taking it off, or leaning close. Stooping over was more difficult and embarrassing, but she was too nervous about dropping it to take off the necklace. She’d had a different key on a nicer chain that had once been her grandmother’s; she’d removed it to unlock the door one afternoon and dropped it. The key fell perfectly, slipping between the boards of the front porch as though they weren’t even there, and before she could drop and snatch at it, the chain slithered through the gap, into the dark. It was after dark before she got inside, got something to eat. And then her mother had been furious about having to get another one made. Still, the next day, her mother gave her a replacement. She recognized how it would look to the neighbors if her tender-aged child had to sit outside on the steps waiting to be let in. Harlow stole a new chain off of a rotating display on the counter at the record store downtown. She threw away the dog tag with the stupid peace sign on it and replaced it with her key. The chain wasn’t as nice as her grandmother’s necklace had been, but it felt sturdier and was longer. Long enough, she could bend down to unlock the door instead of having to take it off and risk losing it in the hungry porch flooring.

  Once inside, she shut and locked the door behind her. If she didn’t remember to unlock it later and her mother had to use her key to get in, she’d undoubtedly say, “What? Are you afraid someone’s going to steal you?” Then, she’d laugh that bitter laugh at the too-familiar-by-repetition jape and lock the door after her as if it weren’t the exact same gesture of self-assurance her daughter had made. It wasn’t that Harlow was afraid of someone coming in to kidnap her, but she felt better behind the locked door. It was something in her life she could control.

  The house was dark. Though it was still early and bright outside, Harlow didn’t bother to open the heavy curtains. She took her skateboard to her bedroom and propped it next to the door inside, using her backpack as a brace to keep it from sliding down and clattering on the hardwood floor. Her stomach rumbled and she thought about going to the kitchen to find something worth eating. She thought there might be some leftover Chinese in the fridge, though it was from last week and she wasn’t sure if it was still good.

  The thought of the paper bag still concealed in her backpack tugged at her like a hook in her skin. Though she was excited to see, she hadn’t opened it. Not outside. She didn’t want to be caught out with what it contained. What she hoped was there. Her “works” the man had called it. It might still be a rip-off—she could imagine the guy now, getting high with Dierdre and laughing about the stupid girl who gave him all her money for nothing. It made Harlow want to cry. The babysitter had been so convincing—she’d seemed so sympathetic, like she wanted to help. Told her to tell the guy Dierdre said she was cool. But, Harlow had no idea what something like that really meant. So here she was with an expensive lunch sack filled with probable nonsense and a deepening despair over her proven naïveté.

  Sniffling and pushing down her disappointment, Harlow forced herself to confront her gullibility. She unfolded the top and peered in. Her heart quickened and she pulled out a small cardboard package of skinny black birthday candles. She dropped to her knees and spilled the rest of the contents on the floor in front of her. A stubby compressed charcoal stick fell out, the tip chipping on the floor shedding little pieces of black like brittle shadow. Two plastic film canisters tumbled after and rolled away, labeled with light brown masking tape—one read GYD and the other BLD. An incense cone and a small rolled piece of paper followed last. She opened the paper and read it.

  She hadn’t been cheated. This was exactly what she’d asked for.

  It didn’t seem like much, and most of it had likely cost the guy less than five dollars to get, but then, you couldn’t just go to the Rexall Drug and ask the pharmacist for everything he’d given her. The candles and incense and charcoal were easy to find, sure. But that last part. The little slip of paper. That wasn’t something just anyone could just get. That was special. You had to know. That was worth the price.

  Excited, she dug in her pocket for the envelope the man had given her. He’d seemed to go back for it as an afterthought, but opening it and unfolding the page within, she saw he’d prepared it for her carefully. She didn’t know why he’d held it back, or exactly what she’d done to convince him to give it to her, but reading over it, she felt a shiver of anticipation streak up her back. Everything she needed to know was written out for her in clear detail. Step-by-step instructions. And the incantation.

  She jumped to her feet and ran into the kitchen, snatching a bowl for the blood and earth in the black plastic film canisters and a long, sharp knife from the drawer. On her way back, she darted into the living room and grabbed her mom’s lighter out of the drawer in the coffee table. She consulted the list again and found the last thing she needed in the hallway closet: a pair of scissors.

  In her bedroom, she sat on the floor and began reading the page carefully. The dealer’s voice in her head like an echo trapped in the walls of her room slowly escaping.

  Pay attention. You fuck this up and there’s no taking it back.

  She read the words in a whisper, “Asmodel, king of the East, Azazel, king of the South, Paimon, king of the West, and Mahazuel, king of the North, send and bind your servant to me …”

  Slow down. People get hurt.

  She started over, careful to say each name as it was written on the page with the man’s hints at pronunciation. Az-mo-del. Ma-ha-zoo-ell. She studied the symbol drawn at the bottom of the page and traced it on a piece of paper before attempting it on the floor. Using the round, removable lid to her laundry hamper, she traced a circle on the floor with the charcoal. Surely it was big enough. She began drawing the sigil on the page inside of it, careful to get all the lines and angles right, and placing the six black candles at the points.

  “By your mistress, Lilith, I call you. I know your name.”

  She pried the lid off the first canister and poured the desecrated graveyard dirt into her bowl. Dark menstrual blood followed from the second—she couldn’t use her own, she was a virgin—beading on top of the dry earth and turning muddy black. Fertile soil; infertile blood. She lit the cone of incense and set it in the lid of one of the canisters. “By the bowl and blade and blood and soil, answer me. I know your name.”

  Finally, she took a small lock of her hair in her fingers, and cut. She dropped it in the bowl and whispered, “Come to me and stand in my circle. I know your name; you are bound to it and to me.”

  Harlow picked up the kitchen knife with a trembling hand and held the tip over her wrist. It was going to hurt. But everything hurt. Why shouldn’t her pain get her something that she wanted for a change?

  She pressed the tip into her skin and watched the swell of blood rise up out of her and slip over the side of her arm into the bowl.

  “I know your name. Come stand in my circle. I know your name, Ertzibat.”

  CAROL

  Carol felt a tinge of exasperation at having to pause to fish her keys back out of her purse. The kid was home and there was no reason for her to lock the goddamn door. The porch light wasn’t on and it was dark and the keys had somehow slipped down to the bottom of her bag, though she’d just dropped them in a second ago. One ann
oyance piling atop another after a day full of them, like a cherry at the zenith of all her troubles. She dragged the keyring out of her purse and cycled through looking for her house key. Feeling more than a little buzzed from the after-work drinks she’d had with Billie, she missed it the first pass around. Finally, she found the right one. Once inside, she slammed the door behind her, making a point of entering the house noisily.

  She stood in the gloom for a second, listening for her daughter, before flipping the light switch. Nothing. The kid wasn’t home. Just perfect. That was worse than locking herself in. Where was she at this hour? Carol dreaded getting a call from a parent asking if it was okay if Harlow had stayed for dinner. She and little Suzy-sweetheart were having the best time and we had stroganoff and Harlow says she loooves stroganoff. I just wanted to call to let you know I’m bringing her home as soon as they’re through with dessert. “Don’t bother,” Carol would be tempted to say. Except, it was a weeknight and she couldn’t count on the unlikely mercy of a sleepover that’d make it easier to go out and have some fun—maybe bring someone home without having to sneak a guy past the kid up late watching something she shouldn’t be on HBO. Not that Carol cared what Harlow watched, except when it came back on her at Parent Teacher Night. Did you know that your daughter has seen the movie The Entity? We had to have a talk with her because she was describing it to the other girls, Ms. Sackett. It’s inappropriate. We’d encourage you to take a greater interest in your daughter’s viewing habits.

  And while we’re at it, can we talk about her hair? And her clothes?

  Carol hung her purse on the doorknob and plopped down on the sofa. She stared up at the blankness of the ceiling. She needed a bump to give her the energy to slip into character, and then she’d start phoning around to see where her daughter had landed. Oh, I’m so sorry, Terri, she’d say. I hope she wasn’t a bother. I got caught up at work and the time … well, you know how it is. Of course they didn’t know. PTA mommies who stayed home and drank chardonnay in the afternoon while she had to work—had to work because that asshole Stephen ran off. She glanced at her watch. “Jesus,” she sighed. A quarter to ten. When did she get to ride off in a fancy red sports car and enjoy life? Hell, she was thirty-two and at her sexual peak and look at where she was. Cutting it off with Billie before either of them could really get a start on the evening so she could get back to her budding delinquent daughter—who wasn’t even home!