Burning Girls and Other Stories

by Veronica Schanoes

  I took a couple of deep shuddering breaths, feeling sick to my stomach. I had never properly been trained for this and I didn’t know the safeguards that I should have had in place, that my bubbe would have had in place if she had been casting this spell. I felt very ill, weaker than I ever had before.

  I called Shayna in and showed her the letters written on the pad.

  “Not the Lord nor all the heavenly host will break a signed contract,” I told her. “You will have to do it yourself.”

  “And how am I to do that, big sister?”

  “You must force the demon to tear up the contract. Then she will have no power to take your little one. The demon does not have to listen to the names of the Lord and his angels, but she must answer to her own.” I tapped the paper. “This is her name. You must bind her with it and force her to make you free of the contract. It is the only way.”

  Shayna took the paper and started to sound out the name. Quickly, I put my hand over her mouth. We didn’t want to attract the creature’s attention before we were ready.

  * * *

  At sunset the next evening, we waited in one room: Shayna, me, Ruthie, and Sol with Yael in his arms.

  And then the lilit strolled into the room. She looked like me, this time. Just like me.

  Shayna started to shake. I took her hand. “Don’t be frightened,” I told her.

  Then Shayna turned to look at me and I saw that she was not frightened. She was angry. I gave her hand a squeeze and hoped that she wouldn’t let anger overwhelm our planning.

  The demon chuckled and spat. Her spittle sizzled and burned through our rug, my wedding present for Shayna and Sol. “Your bubbe is suffering a thousand torments as she reviews the ways in which your troubles are her own doing. You, Deborah, I will deal with later, for we have so much in common, after all.”

  I shook my head—no, we have nothing in common—and heard the demon say, “Now, Shayna meydle, give me Yael. Give me the baby girl.” She cracked her knuckles and grinned my grin, our bubbe’s grin.

  Sol tightened his arms around the baby while Shayna stared at the demon.

  The demon smirked and displayed the contract that had been signed twice, once by my bubbe and once by Shayna. “I fulfilled my end of the contract twice, giving your grandmother powers and doing your sewing. It’s not my fault she was killed before she could use them or that the mob took your brother before I could. I’ll just have to do what I can with this one instead.” She snapped her fingers. Yael disappeared from Sol’s arms and reappeared in the demon’s. Yael began to scream and claw at the demon’s hands with her tiny nails.

  “Abomination!” Shayna screamed, extending an arm and shaking her finger at the creature. “Abomination! Cursed in the sight of Adonai, Tetragammaton, and all his host! Abomination! I, Shayna, daughter of Rokhel, conjure you to forfeit the child Yael, daughter of Shayna! I conjure you to release me from our contract, a contract shameful in the eyes of God and man, a contract conceived and gotten by you, the lowest of the low, the slime of worms and shit of pigs! I conjure you to destroy this contract and leave this city, leave this earth, and spend eternity in the realm of unspeakable things! I conjure and bind you by your own soul, your own self, your own name—” Shayna pointed her finger at the creature’s heart and yelled, “RUMFEILSTILIZKAHAN!”

  The demon turned gray and began to spin in place. “The devil told you that!” she howled. “The devil told you that!”

  “Not the devil, unclean thing,” Shayna said, triumphant. “My sister.” And she seemed proud to have me by her side.

  The demon spun and howled wordlessly until the very air burst into flames and she and the contract she was holding imploded into burning embers that vanished in midair. Sol leapt to catch Yael before she fell to the ground. The only sign that a stranger had been in the room was the hole in the rug.

  * * *

  We had Yael, ours to keep forever, but not without cost. Finding the name of the demon had been powerful magic, and the exhaustion that followed, the weakness that comes when you do a great feat for which you have never been properly trained, made me sick, sicker than I had been for many, many years. Sicker than I had been since the old country.

  I tossed and turned with fever for days and a livid rash spread across my face and limbs. I burned so fiercely that Shayna brought in a doctor, who looked me over and pronounced, “Scarlet fever.”

  Scarlet fever! A child’s disease, after all—insult to injury, that was. But then again, conjuring the demon’s name had left me as weak as a child. My skin burnt so fiercely that it turned bright white. Shayna held cold compresses against my skin, but within minutes the heat from my body made them feel like they’d been warming in the stove for an hour. My fever climbed every day, burning what little sense I had left. Ruthie stayed home from work for days trying to spoon broth into my mouth so I wouldn’t dry out entirely, or so I am told—for again, I don’t remember much of those days. But with Ruthie home and me too sick to do any business, we were short of money, and Shayna went back to factory work.

  Sol’s mother found it a shame, a married woman in a factory, but Shayna told Ruthie that, actually, she did not mind. “With Sol and his brothers and his parents in the store,” she told her, “all I am is underfoot. In the factory, I’m somebody. I’m good at what I do there. I’m good enough that I think that someday I’ll get to be a sample maker, maybe even a designer.”

  And she was so happy, said Ruthie, with the work she found—a modern factory, large, airy, three floors, imagine that, she said, and so high up the girls needed elevators to come and go. And so easy it was for her to get the job there, she didn’t have to pay off anybody, she said—it was like magic, like an angel was watching over her.

  Too easy, in retrospect.

  I don’t remember any of that. All I really remember are the dreams—every hour I managed to sleep I was plagued with nightmares, dreams in which my eyes were worms of fire burrowing through my head, or my head and hands became so swollen that I was sure they would burst, or I was falling, falling so far that I would never stop, never come to earth again. The pink rash had become raised crimson blisters. For weeks this lasted, and then … one night, late in March, the fever broke, and I sweated through three blankets. Ruthie washed linens all night, and that morning I woke up hungry. Ruthie fed me some breakfast: a little soup, a little milk, a soft-boiled egg. For two or three days she tended me while I regained my strength, and then she went out to work.

  I was weak, and for most of the day, I sipped tea and tried to rest, but as morning shaded into afternoon the watery sunlight finally pulled me to my feet. Taking slow, tiny steps, I dressed myself and made my way down to Sol’s store, where I found him behind the counter and his mother minding Yael. His mother agreed with me that fresh air would do me all the good in the world, so slowly, painfully, I stepped out into the street.

  The sunlight, weak as it was, was painfully bright to my eyes. It bounced harshly off cold streets, all sharp angles and hostile edges. I pulled my jacket closer around my body; when Shayna had first stitched it for me, it had hugged me close, displaying my figure, but the weeks of illness had wasted me. A chill wind cut through a near alley and I trembled.

  What struck me most about the street was how quiet it was, unnaturally quiet. There were no children playing skip rope or taunting each other, no peddlers trying to sell their wares, no friends arguing good-naturedly or couples screaming at each other. Just my soft, frightened footsteps and the wind. For a minute I was convinced that the illness had taken my hearing as well as my figure.

  I walked carefully, keeping one hand on the buildings for support. When I finally got to the end of the block, the sounds of street life flooded back and I became dizzy with relief. I caught a bit of life from the remaining sunshine and went where my feet took me. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I wasn’t strong enough to get there as quickly as I needed to. But still, behind the street sounds, beneath the bustle, I heard that
sinking silence.

  I was three blocks away from the park when I heard the fire engines coming up behind me. They passed me easily, and by the time I arrived at the Asch Building I barely had breath enough to push through the crowd.

  The silence was gone. Screaming and roaring filled my ears and poisonous black smoke filled the sky. I didn’t understand what was happening—bundles of clothing trailing flames seemed to be falling from the sky while the few doors of the Asch Building were choked with people clawing and crawling over one another in order to get out. Once they did get out, though, they just joined the yelling throngs across the street, watching the falling bundles hitting the street with solid, damp thuds, one right after another. It wasn’t until I saw one of the bundles trying and failing to push itself to its feet that I realized what they were.

  This was Shayna’s modern factory, I knew it, and I knew it had been no angel that had gotten her the job there.

  I found myself out in the street, where firemen were frantic with their own futility. Their rescue ladders went up seven stories—the factory was on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. One woman staggered out of the building and immediately turned and tried to run back in. The firemen had to knock her out; she kept yelling about her daughter.

  I looked up. One girl stood on the window’s ledge. Already her skirt was beginning to smolder and even though she was so far above me, I swear I could see her face, unnaturally calm as she opened her purse and threw the money inside down to the street—and I remembered Shayna saying that today would be payday.

  She took off her hat and sent it sailing in the direction of the park and the wind whipped her hair around her face. I could see flames as well as smoke coming out of the windows now.

  Her dress was on fire.

  She smoothed her hair back and stepped off the ledge as if she were stepping off the curb and crossing the street. She plummeted and her skirts rose up around her, a flower of flame. She landed only six feet from me. A cinder hit my cheek and bounced away before I could move.

  Three women stood on another window ledge together. They linked arms, closed their eyes, and jumped, and their aim was good, but they tore right through the bottom of the safety net, and the firemen holding it were splattered with blood.

  “I didn’t know, I didn’t know they would come down three, four at a time, arms wrapped around each other’s waists,” the fire chief wept when Ruthie interviewed him later.

  I searched the faces of the women pouring out of the building, running to avoid being hit by the falling girls, their friends, but I didn’t find Shayna there. I ran through the street, pulling away from the men who tried to stop me, looking at the fallen, but I could not find my sister among them either.

  I looked up at the flame-filled windows. There was no more jumping now.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered.

  I wept while the building flamed with girls burning, burning here in America.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am grateful to my agent, Jennifer Udden, for her care and work with this collection, and I have been so fortunate to work with the amazing people at Tordotcom Publishing. Thank you to Ellen Datlow, an incisive, perceptive editor, and to Ruoxi Chen, infinitely patient, professional, and enthusiastic. Publisher Irene Gallo, whose faith in my work has bolstered me on many an occasion; and Emily Goldman in editorial, Mordicai Knode in marketing, Lauren Anesta in publicity, Amanda Melfi in social media, Christine Foltzer in art, and Lauren Hougen in production, sterling professionals all.

  My greatest source of support is also my longest-standing: my mother, April Schanoes, brought me to fairy tales and to Oz when I was a little girl, and has always had infinite reservoirs of faith in my work and love for me. I could not have written any of these without her.

  I would be remiss if I did not thank my fairy-tale crew: Cristina Bacchilega, Sara Cleto, Jeana Jorgensen, Linda J. Lee, Jennifer Orme, Psyche Ready, Claudia Schwabe, Kay Turner, Brittany Warman, and Christy Williams.

  All of us working in fairy tales owe a debt of gratitude to Terri Windling, and I particularly do. Terri brought into the world so much of the fairy-tale literature that has inspired me, and she has always encouraged me in my work. I am honored to know her.

  My friends have been a source of unstinting support and kindness: K. Tempest Bradford, Gina Costagliola, Rose Fox, Gavin Grant, Miles Grier, Sara Eileen Hames, Corey Hindersinn, Josh Jasper, N. K. Jemisin, Ellen Kushner, Amy Kwalwasser, Rowan Larson, Erika Lin, Marissa Lingen, Kelly Link, Kathleen Luce, Farah Mendlesohn, Stacey Merel, Miriam Newman, Chelle Parker, Ri Pierce-Grove, Xtina Schelin, Delia Sherman, Barbara Simerka, and Emily Wagner. Thank you all so much, from the bottom of my heart.

  I’m grateful to all my family, past and present, for their kindness and support, especially Suzanne Berch, Vanessa Felice, Barbara and Steve Goldstein, Paula Gorlitz, Gene Heyman, Georgia Hodes, Bonnie Johnson, Jonas Oxgaard, Helen Pilinovsky, David Schanoes, John Semivan, and Steven Zuckerman.

  Let me thank also the former and current children who have inspired me: Sophia and Asher Decherney, Emma and Cora Hodes-Wood, Sofia Rabaté, Kit Schelin, and Poli and Dasha Sotnik-Platt. I am grateful in particular to my marvelous godchildren, Bear and Aradia Oxgaard, and my miraculous, amazing son, Solomon Schanoes. Bear, Aradia, and Solly, you are my great loves, and I cannot imagine what life would be without you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  VERONICA SCHANOES is an American author of fantasy stories and an associate professor in the department of English at Queens College, CUNY. Her novella Burning Girls was nominated for the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award and won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella in 2013. She lives in New York City. Burning Girls and Other Stories is her debut collection. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Foreword by Jane Yolen

    1. Among the Thorns

    2. How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead

    3. Alice: A Fantasia

    4. Phosphorus

    5. Ballroom Blitz

    6. Serpents

    7. Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga

    8. Rats

    9. Lost in the Supermarket

  10. Swimming

  11. Lily Glass

  12. The Revenant

  13. Burning Girls

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  BURNING GIRLS AND OTHER STORIES

  Copyright © 2021 by Veronica Schanoes

  Foreword copyright © 2021 by Jane Yolen

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Elena and Anna Balbusso

  Cover design by Christine Foltzer

  Edited by Ellen Datlow

  A Tordotcom Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  120 Broadway

  New York, NY 10271

  www.tor.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-78150-5 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-78151-2 (ebook)

  eISBN 9781250781512

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  First Edition: 2021