by Kelly Link
We snuck through the Harrises’ fence and ate blackberries until I felt sick, then came away with our hands and mouths stained deep purple. She would tell me no more about the River Riders. The first big secret between us, unless you counted all the things we knew about the adult world that we never said. All the way back along the river’s edge, I thought I felt eyes on us. But I saw nothing besides a swarm of starlings pecking at the ground.
I saw the cars in the driveway a long way off. Two of them, one flashing red and blue lights. Cassie had frozen at the top of the rise. She looked at me, wide-eyed, then crouched down in the tall grass.
“I should go home,” she said.
“They’ll be there, too.” I’d never seen her look so helpless. “I’ll go talk to them. You sneak to the fort and hide below. It will take a while, because Momma will be on the lookout, but I’ll come get you when it’s clear.”
She set her jaw fiercely. “Okay,” she said, and then, as if to reassure herself, “Okay.”
We made our way down toward my house. At the windbreak we separated. I saw Cassie moving among the trees, hunched over, and then she was gone. I stood up straight and walked home.
Momma was waiting on the porch, and in the living room were two cops and the government people. They sat me down, asked if I’d seen Cassie. I hadn’t.
“This is very serious,” Momma said. “These nice men need to find Cassie right away.”
The government man put his hand on my shoulder. I jumped, and he pulled it back. “It’s about her father, Moira,” he said. His voice was a low rumble. I looked to Momma, and saw everything in her expression.
“He’s dead,” I said. Mom knelt and hugged me, and I felt the adults shifting uneasily behind her.
“Yes, honey,” she whispered.
“I don’t know where she is,” I said after a while, wiping at my eyes.
“You weren’t playing with her today?” Momma asked.
“I wanted to, but she never showed up.”
I could see she didn’t believe me.
The cops’ radio squawked, and one stepped out onto the porch. When he returned he shook his head. Momma understood him. “Cassie needs your help, Moira. Where would she go?”
I looked at my toes and thought hard.
“Would you excuse us for a moment?” Momma asked the adults, and after a few moments they went outside.
“Moira,” Momma said, gently touching my cheek. “This isn’t like when you help her hide from the school people. We need to help her.”
“Momma, I—I can’t.” My voice quavered; the uncertainty behind my words hung in the air.
“You have to, darling. Please.”
Momma’s gaze held me.
“The fort,” I said. Momma took my hand and we went out to the others together. She told them quietly. We all trudged out to the fort in the gathering darkness. They crouched and peered inside, but there was nothing to see. I thought of Cassie in her fraying clothes, of the desperate way she devoured sweets. I thought of her roaming freely long past my bedtime, of the deals her people had made with the River Riders from which I was forever excluded. I could feel myself caught between ugliness and ugliness, a feeling I’ve since come to know well. I buried my face against my mother’s side and told them about the cellar.
I couldn’t watch them as they pulled apart one wall of the fort and forced their way down into the cellar. My eyes were burning, and I kept pressed to Momma. I couldn’t face Cassie.
But when they came up the silence lingered, and finally Momma said, “Where else could she be, Moira?”
I looked up at the worried faces, then rushed past them, through the open door. Nothing but roots and old junk and our plastic table in the dirt. No Cassie. Never again.
They looked for weeks, but I stopped my search the next morning. Down by the river in the fresh mud was one footprint, the worn sole of Cassie’s boot. And beside it, two strange points, each like a malformed star. The hair on my neck stood up, but look as closely as I might I saw no eyes watching me. The river swept past, down toward the Osage.
A few days later I built up the courage to go back to her house, but there was no one there. She had taken nothing from her cramped room. One wall sagged. The others were lined with my sketches.
For a while I’d see her “missing” poster at the Post Office or on lightposts when we’d drive into Osawatomie. And then they were gone too.
That was the last summer I’d be free to do what I wanted. When school started in the fall, Momma insisted I trade my pants for dresses, and when the next summer rolled around, she made sure I had plenty to keep me busy, too busy to go running around unattended. Of course, she had good reason, and on my own it wouldn’t have been the same, anyway.
And that’s the end of it. Almost the end. When I left for college, I thought I had left the river behind me for good. But one rainy summer I drove home to visit Momma, and found a package waiting for me beside the back door, a small box wrapped in brown paper and bound with twine. No return address, no postage, just my name, scrawled in a hand I thought I recognized. Inside was a package of strange cookies, wrapped in delicate paper the colors of a Kansas sunset, and etched with words in no language I knew.
I went out to the treeline. I had never rebuilt the fort, but the decayed cellar door opened for me. I knelt beside the dirt-clotted table. In the twilight of that cellar, I tore open the package. The cookies were a swirl of colors, blue and brown and silver, like the different faces of the river. They smelled like the air after a storm, and tasted of sugar and blackberries. I ate the whole bag, slowly.
Sweet, Sweet Side Dish
Nicole Kimberling
I never used to understand why anybody would want to be a side chick—until I became one to a Siamese cat who I call The Visitor.
I’ve lived with cats for twenty-eight years, but this year on the 4th of July, my last four-footed roomie died. And there I was—living in a house with a cat-sized door and no cat to use it.
And that was okay. Sometimes a person just isn’t ready to commit to a full-time relationship—but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t mind a little harmless petting every now and then.
The Visitor lives down the street. He wears a collar and has a full-time family but when they all go to work or school or hiking or whatever it is they do on Sundays, The Visitor comes slinking around my place.
It’s just a casual thing. We don’t plan it. No strings.
Maybe I have a little lunch meat to give him, maybe I don’t.
That’s when I started to think about the carefree joy of being a side dish.
Unlike the main course, the side dish isn’t ever going to be the star of the show. She likes it that way. She can be the adventurous one—the one with a little zazz—the one who isn’t held accountable for being perfect and making everyone happy.
And she might not even be the only side dish. There might be three, or at a big meal as many as five other players on the table. She might even share time with another side, such as with the symbiotic relationship of mashed potatoes and gravy.
The important thing about sides is that they are easy and flexible so I give you my favorite side: Roasted Eggplant with Dressing.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Then take at least one but up to three Italian “globe” eggplants and stab them a few times with a skewer or knife or chocolate fork whatever sharp thing is handy. You are trying to pierce the skin so that the eggplants don’t explode. Don’t sweat the details. Just make a couple holes.
Wrap each eggplant in aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet. (The sheet here is not strictly necessary. It’s a precaution, taken in case some of the juice runs out of the roasting eggplant.)
Roast the eggplants for about three hours, or until they are very soft. If for some reason you are unexpectedly called away
during this process, don’t sweat it—just turn the oven off and turn it back on when you get back. Having an eggplant on the side is supposed to be a worry-free thing, not something that causes stress.
When the eggplants are soft, put them, still wrapped in foil in a bowl in the refrigerator. Don’t attempt to cut them when they’re hot—you’ll only burn your fingers. Make it easy on yourself for once.
Sometime in the next six days or so, when you feel the need for something extra, unwrap one of the eggplants. Cut off the stem then dice the flesh (it will be very wet) and scoop the flesh, with the juice into a bowl.
Go look at what you already have in your refrigerator and spice cupboard. Do you have some other fresh vegetables like cherry tomatoes or bell peppers? Chop those up and throw them in there too. Why not?
Then you’ll have to think about the dressing. Eggplant being as sweet and versatile as it is, you have a lot of options.
So here are a few suggestions:
Yogurt, mint, sesame and lemon dressing—for this you add a couple of spoons yogurt or yogurt substitute, some kind of mint (fresh, dry, the stuff out of an herbal tea bag, whatever) a good squeeze of lemon or lime juice and some sesame product. Again the sesame can be any sort of sesame, you could use tahini, toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds that you grind up, that little packet of oil that comes with dry ramen noodles. Then add salt to taste.
Soy/ginger dressing—here you could go two ways. If you have something like gochujang hanging around you could make a Korean style salad by combining soy sauce and fresh ginger with gochujang and sugar in equal parts (so if you have 1 tsp of soy sauce use 1 tsp of everything else) then adding a toasted sesame oil.
If you prefer a simpler side (and sometimes we all, in our hearts, just want the simplest side possible) combine soy sauce and mild vinegar in equal parts then add a pinch of sugar and some chopped green onion. Mix with eggplant and you’re done.
For a sweet, teriyaki-type side, cut the eggplant lengthwise into long wedges the size of small bananas and arrange on a plate. Then make sauce: In a cold skillet combine 4 Tbsp soy sauce, 2 Tbsp sugar and 1 Tbsp cooking wine (2:1:½ ratio). Add 1 small onion sliced thinly. Turn on heat and bring to boil. Sauce is cooked when the liquid has reduced by about half. Ladle this over eggplant wedges and serve.
So what if you need to turn one of these eggplants into a main dish in an emergency? Just to fill in for one night?
Well, that’s not the nature of the side dish, but you still have a couple of options. One is quick and easy eggplant parmesan.
Take one of the baked eggplants, remove the stem and slice into thick rounds. Arrange them in a single layer in a baking dish, then cover with any spaghetti or Italian-style tomato sauce. Cover the top with shredded cheese then broil until hot and bubbling. (For a vegan option, coat the top with Italian-style breadcrumbs that you’ve moistened with olive oil then bake for 20 or so minutes at 350 till the breadcrumbs are browned.)
And if you find that you or one of your dining companions don’t like eggplant at all? Hey, that’s okay. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like you’re going to see it every day at breakfast. You’re just trying it out for one meal.
And then maybe another meal a couple of days down the road when you feel like you might need to boost your potassium levels. You can change your mind.
It’s all good, cause it’s just a little something on the side.
The Opossum
Michael Werner
I need to clean the opossum’s eyes, the subject said.
This is a two-person job. Can you help me?
Certainly, the researcher said.
He liked animals and was eager to please.
The opossum was kept in a small shed behind the house.
The subject’s wife had rescued it.
The subject carried out an armful of old towels,
The researcher a bottle of medicine and a pair of nail clippers.
The opossum was under a wooden crate with a tiny door.
Its eyes were full of green foam.
I’ll lift the crate away, the researcher said.
You pin him down so he can’t bite or scratch.
The researcher lifted the box. The subject pushed the opossum against the floor.
Good opossum, brave opossum, the researcher crooned.
The subject said, my wife told me that the average life-span is a year and a half.
This is a very old opossum.
The researcher tried to fill the opossum’s eyes with drops.
The opossum clenched its eyes shut.
This isn’t working, the researcher said.
The subject said, let’s try each eye a couple more times.
The researcher put in more drops.
He wiped around each eye with an old washcloth.
Turn him over, the researcher said.
I’ll take care of his nails.
The subject held the opossum in his lap.
The researcher worked the clippers.
The nails had grown into thick yellow spirals.
Each nail took a very long time.
The researcher said, something’s wrong with his left rear foot.
It was blackened and knobby, and its nails were gone.
The subject looked at the crushed paw.
I don’t know what happened, he said.
The subject set the opossum down.
It scratched long bloody streaks in its coat.
The researcher and subject backed out of the shed.
They blinked in the sudden light.
Two Poems
Holly Day
Despite My Reservations Regarding Apocalypses
the dragon outside my bedroom window tells me
that the end is coming soon, that it’s okay to
get drunk
fucked up, fuck around, because it’s all going to come crashing down
so very soon
that there’s no reason to practice prudence or prudishness. it blinks its gigantic
blue-green eyes at me through the crack between the flowered bedroom curtains
so beguilingly I have no choice but to believe it’s true.
later, in the kitchen, the dragon curls up around my tiny dinette
tail delicately tucked around its body and out of the way of my heavy feet
watches me cooking dinner, tells me I should order a pizza instead
because there’s no reason to keep any money in my bank account
or worry about cholesterol or being fat or the evildoings or shady associations
of certain corporate pizza places
when the end of the world is so close
so very close
that the dragon can already taste the smoldering embers of burning cities on its tongue
already knows what I’ll look and smell like when I’m dead.
Christine
You are dream etched in lipstick
written in the curls of black rubber
blowing across the burnt asphalt outside. You have become a part
of an imaginary phonograph collection, something to listen to
while I dig epitaphs out of marble
one letter at a time.
I will pound these mountains down until they are
knee-high tombstones, irregular doorstops, bags of gravel fit only for
garden paths and country roads. My plans sound like gunfire
in my sleep, I am determined
to obliterate this cartography of love
damn myself to illiteracy and ice.
IN OTHER LANDS
BY SARAH REES BRENNAN
AVAILABLE IN TRADE CLOTH, AUDIOBOOK, AND DRM-FREE EBOOK
“I loved this book.
I loved it. But early on I wanted to smack Elliott, the fourteen-year-old boy who is chosen, from our world, to go to the Borderlands because he can see magic. And I might have stopped reading, had I not distinctly heard (not making this up, I swear) a voiceover saying: Once there was a boy named Eustace Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” — Michelle West, F&SF
“I have rewritten the first paragraph of this review a half-dozen times, trying to find some way to make clear that Sarah Rees Brennan has created a nearly perfect YA fantasy without gushing. I can’t do it. In Other Lands is brilliantly subversive, assuredly smart, and often laugh-out-loud funny. It combines a magic-world school setting with heaps of snark about everything from teen romance to gender roles, educational systems and serious world diplomacy.” — Colleen Mondor, Locus
“In Other Lands is at once a classic school story, a coming-of-age tale and a parody of Harry Potter. It’s hilarious and sneakily moving. Elliot Schafer is Harry Potter if Harry had been abandoned instead of merely orphaned. Convinced of his unlovability, he wields sarcasm and braininess as weapons. . . . Brennan subverts the familiar Y.A. love triangle in uproarious, touching, unexpected ways, and her commentaries on gender roles, sexual identity and toxic masculinity are very witty. Elven culture, for instance, views men as the weaker sex. “A true gentleman’s heart is as sacred as a temple, and as easily crushed as a flower,” Serene informs Elliot. When another elf tells him, “I was saddened to hear Serene had launched a successful attack on the citadel of your virtue,” Elliot assures her, “The citadel was totally into surrendering.” Best of all, over four years in the otherlands, Elliot grows from a defensive, furious, grieving child into a diplomatic, kind, menschy hero.” — New York Times Book Review
Dayenu
James Sallis
