Beneath Ceaseless Skies #214

by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

  When his hands undid the first of her buttons, only then did she stand and go, running through the door of her once-secret-space of a bedroom and then through the front door of a house she hadn’t called home no matter how her husband insisted. Along the path she ran until she came to the woods’ threshold. As she went, she shed her clothes. A woman of the woods needed no clothes.

  At the river she stopped. She closed her fist and pounded the tree where first she had seen Apollo and his lover entwined. Her knuckles bled when she pulled them away. She cradled the vial of syrup in her palm, the way we all did, the way you hold both a blessing and a curse.

  “Go ahead and do it,” Apollo said, advancing toward her. His voice cracked under the strain of its want. “You all do it. Be like the rest of them. Leave me alone.”

  Daphne knew that other women might comfort him. Other women might pull him close and pretend to love him to stop the flow of tears from his eyes. But men needed to cry the same as women. She wouldn’t comfort him like I tried to comfort him, those days we spent in the woods. She swallowed the syrup in one deep gulp.

  * * *

  Guardian

  Though I promised not to bring Apollo back to Daphne, I couldn’t control his desire to see her again. I turned and found him standing before me. In his arms Dryope the girl struggled to escape. He held the blade of his lumberjack’s ax to her throat. In her hands she held a vial of changing syrup, the very one I kept locked in the curio.

  “If you let me take Daphne, I’ll let the girl go.”

  “But your vial is empty.” I raised my hands in the air, conceded to victimhood in the name of saving a girl’s life. “You have more?”

  “I’ll take her wood,” he said.

  “But she’ll die. She can’t change back if she’s dead.”

  “She’ll be better that way. She’ll be mine that way.”

  “And what do you intend to do with this other vial? The one you stole from me?”

  “I’ll return it.” He grinned. “I brought that one for you. I know how failure makes a woman desperate.”

  I tensed not from anger but from guilt. I didn’t want to give Apollo what he wanted, but it seemed I had little choice; Daphne couldn’t speak, couldn’t beg me to save her. Plus, if I let him go with what he wanted, I had a better chance of coming out alive. If I didn’t barter, if I gave nothing, he might kill the girl, kill me, kill Daphne: all of us. I was of a logical mind. Logic told me to take as few chances as possible. With the syrup, I could give the girl back the body she had chosen for herself, all those years ago. Without it, without the woman, we might all be no more than fodder for the swollen earth.

  “You may have Daphne,” I said. “You have word of a Guardian of the Orangery.”

  Apollo let the woman loose. She ran to me, and I pried the syrup from her hands. Better to wait until Apollo had finished his deed. Better to wait until the monsters had gone before I let myself be alone once more.

  He didn’t speak to Daphne but wrapped both hands tight around the handle of his ax the moment he was near enough. The woman beside me tensed and looked away. I didn’t look elsewhere. It was my burden to watch what I wouldn’t didn’t stop. In so many years, had the world not changed?

  Apollo had claimed himself a lumberjack; what I knew of him, then, was that he, and others like him, had made a profession of hunting wood. And to what end? My hut was strong and warm and contained no wood of which to speak. Though the Orangery had not changed, the world had surely grown around it, Apollo evidence enough of that.

  Apollo struck. I uncorked the syrup and advanced upon him. He struggled to yank the dulled ax from wood grown thick with time, one hand pushing against the bark while the other worked at freeing the ax. With my knife, I pinned his hand to the bark. I pulled his head back with his hair and poured the syrup down his throat. He didn’t struggle, shocked, I think, to taste a liquid so rancid on the tongue, the bitterest medicine there ever was.

  He stumbled from Daphne, roots forming their armor around his feet then up his legs, encasing his cock, his torso, the arm that still held tight to its ax, his face, its mouth hanging wide as though to wish liquid out. His tree was no more gnarled, no less beautiful, than any others in the Orangery.

  I left him unmarked.

  Without the syrup, I could not help the girl pursue her highest of desires—to change back—but I taught her to read, to write, to care for the trees. The wind outside the Orangery whispered through the cracks in the hurried patching I’d completed for the wall. I’d looked too long at Apollo’s naked body. I knew enough to understand that it wasn’t the thrill of a monster that so intrigued me but the thrill plain and simple, and if within the Orangery’s walls the tides could turn, why could a Guardian not leave her post to pursue a life of which she’d only read?

  I went to find a man worthy of my skin, to sate the curiosity of my body. I went to experience stories with a different ending than the trees’. Perhaps, I thought, the women of the wood would like to hear them. Perhaps it would call them forth once more.

  * * *

  Guide

  And this one, you ask? He was no one: an admirer of Daphne. We don’t even celebrate his name.

  * * *

  Guardian

  I watched the guide return to the cabin that once was mine, so many years ago. The roof was gone, given way to the sky.

  “What happens when it rains?” I asked, stepping out from the shadows.

  At first, Dryope did not recognize me. I’d changed, that much was certain. I’d hated and loved. Outside these walls, there was so much love to go with the hate. After a breath, Dryope smiled. “You,” she said. She stepped into the light so that I saw her face weathered only slightly by age. “Were you here the whole time?”

  “No, no, I heard your tour. I hid behind a woman and her daughter. I’ve gotten good at blending in.” I stood so that I, too, caught the light. Time had not been as kind to me, for I’d lived the kind of life some would be ashamed of. I’d known a hundred men, women too. I’d embraced Dionysus and explored other states of reality. I’d exhausted many of the world’s possibilities. I wasn’t ashamed. “I’m impressed with the amount of people on your tour. We never had so many. I did tell people about this place, in the hopes that you wouldn’t stay too lonely, but I suspect it’s your lively storytelling that’s drawing them in.”

  “Thank you,” Dryope said.

  I motioned up. “You didn’t answer my question, about the rain.”

  “I like the rain,” she said.

  “Ah.” I remembered, then, that before she became human again she had not lived under a roof for over a thousand years. It is strange the things you forget for an instant, as though you could make the world disappear by forgetting it. I smiled to myself; one of my lovers and I used to play that game, forgetting pieces of the world, seeing if we could make them stay gone. We never could. I tried to forget the horrible things that happened to Dryope. But how can you forget things you never knew? “So there has been no relief for you?” I meant the memory of bark, the memory of hands of which she spoke. “I thought you said you didn’t remember the skin. But in your tour—”

  “I remember.” She pursed her lips, a human habit she must have picked up from those who visited the Orangery. “Sometimes I don’t know if they’re memories I’ve embellished, or if they’re true. But they feel true, when they come at me in nightmares. I never used to have nightmares, before...”

  “I’m sorry.” I stepped forward. “May I?” I held out my palm. She nodded. I grasped her hand. “I’ve brought you something. I searched for them everywhere. I destroyed them all, except this one.” I slipped the vial into her palm. “For you, I thought an exception should be made. After all, I’ve learned that it is more painful to lose something than to never have known it at all. And I am responsible, after all. I never should have led him to you, never should have offered you in in Daphne’s place.”

  She looked down at the vial. Then in one fl
uid motion she tossed it into the fire at room’s center. The liquid poured into ash.

  “Are you back for good?” she said. “Are you here to replace me?” She pursed her lips again. “I don’t want to go.”

  I had intended, yes, to take back my old post. To free Dryope. After all, the Orangery needed someone, for once, who knew the world in all its shades of grey. Too long had the guides told terrible stories and known only the world’s terrible truths. Too long had we subjected the trees to their grief retold and nothing more. I had brought with me stories of light to soothe the dark.

  But she had thrown the vial into the fire. It had been her choice to stay in her skin, and now it was her choice to remain in the Orangery. Why shouldn’t she? I could build a bed of leaves for myself, could even make a new cabin if she did not wish to share. As I had learned outside the Orangery walls, light came in many shapes, including the shape of a companion, a friend to hold your hand and quell your nightmare shaking. I would do this for her, if she wanted me to.

  “No,” I said. “I’m here to join. Should you wish it.”

  Copyright © 2016 Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

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  Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s fiction and poetry has appeared in over fifty magazines and anthologies both literary and speculative including Clarkesworld, The Toast, Lightspeed, and previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. She recently released an audio fiction-jazz collaborative album, Strange Monsters, with her partner Peter Brewer, centered around the theme of women’s voices. She’s been reprinted in French and Polish, for numerous podcasts, and on io9. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program and created and curates the annual Art & Words Collaborative Show in Fort Worth, Texas. She is active on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle and on her website www.bonniejostufflebeam.com.

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  THE JEWELED NAWAB JUNGLE RETREAT

  by Priya Sridhar

  I’m the only person honest enough to chronicle what happened to Madam Coates. The hotel concierge, a bald and ever-sweating British man, gathered us staff in the Jewelled Nawab Jungle Retreat and swore us to secrecy about the rules that she had ignored. If we so much as breathed a word to a private detective or a pale-faced guest with glasses that turned out to be a journalist, we would be kicked out on the street with only the clothes on our back.

  The white Europeans started building the Retreat on the jungle’s edge, hoping to lure in more elegant tourists with the promise of large, elusive game. They believed that if they had conquered Asian kings, then surely they could conquer the violent Scarlet Viceroys whose wings were larger than the bed sheets we would hang out to dry, the Garuda Eagles whose talons could carry off an elephant, and Mahesh the Sand Raksha, whose roar could make the ground shake.

  I write this because although Madam threatened my livelihood, she deserves one truthful account. Someone needs to remember the power of the jungle, and of the great beasts that lurk within the retreat. I still Mahesh’s roars at night, echoing against my darkest dreams.

  * * *

  I am the oldest sister of three girls and one little boy; my little brother studies in the local school. Amma realized we needed an extra pair of work hands, cut my hair short, and dressed me in a boy’s dhoti, white pants with a tail in the middle. She started to call me “Ram” instead of “Rani,” and sent me to work in the fields. My small hands became callused and blistered, and my skin became as dark as tealeaves left to dry in the sun.

  I began to pilfer books when I picked up my younger sisters from school, and I read their assignments. Numbers made me relax at night, as did the thought that our universe was bigger than the tiny village where cows and goats ate up all the garbage and left enough dung cakes for weekly firewood. One time I wanted to become a doctor and cure the aches of my grandmother, who lost ten children before having my Amma; when I betrayed this ambition to my sister’s schoolmaster, she taught me how much work and money one needed to learn how to cure a grandmother’s aches.

  When I hit my teens, and discovered that my breasts remained small, I realized that I could keep earning money for the family, so that my brother Kartika would never have to leave school. Amma didn’t know that I had taught myself the Western words, so that I could read the papers and write for advertisements. The Jeweled Nawab Jungle Retreat was new then, and they wanted people to sweep the floors and gather luggage. They paid more than the farmers offered during the harvesting season did.

  I left home that night, only taking enough of my farm’s wages to pay for the fare to the Jeweled Nawab Jungle Retreat; I would walk home if I had to. The rest would pay for the family’s food for the next week. If I failed, the farmer would hire another boy for harvesting.

  Around dawn, I approached the Jeweled Nawab Jungle Retreat. It was new then, with the painted walls a pristine blood red, shaded by thick leaves. Strange winds came from the nearby trees, however, and once or twice the ground shook beneath my feet. I struggled to stay upright and walk with dignity.

  The hotel concierge was a light-skinned Indian man with a trimmed mustache; he took one look at my clothes, caked in dust from the road, and started talking to me. He was sitting on the veranda like a king waiting for honored foreign guests, a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

  “So you wish to work for us?” he asked, in a voice with the sharp, guttural European accent, talking slowly in Tamil.

  “Yes, sir,” I responded. The dust had caked on my head, and could have passed for expensive sandalwood paste.

  “What is your name, boy?”

  “Ram, sir.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “From Sri Mamba, sir.” This was a lie; I came from a small village.

  “Heh!” he snorted. “From the city, eh? I don’t just accept anyone. Can you speak English?”

  “I can understand it, sir,” I responded. “I have read the letters, but at times I do not know how to pronounce them.” Then I repeated the phrase in English, to the best of my ability.

  He snorted again. Then, inspiration striking him, he reached for the newspaper and spread it in front of me.

  “Read this, boy, and perhaps I will hire you.’

  I blinked and stared at the letters. Printed words marveled me, as they always did in the village.

  “Bomb explodes in Oxford shire, killing twenty. On Monday, Oh-Gust Twenty-Four, a bomb exploded in the center of Oxford. The ah-sail-lant was a young man, in his late twen-tie-ess, a student in the chemical sciences.”

  The Concierge’s eyes widened. He pointed to another article on the paper.

  “Read this.”

  This was on the House of Parliament’s policy on economics. This was easier, since it featured more numbers. Again I read it aloud, mispronouncing some of the words.

  “Hmm.” The concierge said. “Hmm. And I suppose you can read Greek as well.”

  “I could learn it fast,” I offered. “I like to read.”

  “Arrogance!” He patted my head, as if I were a performing monkey. “Maybe you will be an amusement for the guests. Can you sweep? And clean? And carry heavy items?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, trying not to get irked. “I will do anything you ask me to, as long as I get paid.”

  “Hmm!” He considered this. “I can pay fifty rupees a week, as well as meals.”

  “Also, am I allowed to read the books in the library? When I am not working, of course.”

  The wicked glee returned to his eyes again. Perhaps there was jealousy there, or the traces of smugness.

  “Boy, you will be working so hard that you won’t have time to read. But let me tell you this: if you can entertain the guests with your fancy words, then you can earn tips. If you can master Greek in a month, then you can read all the books you like in the library.”

  I did not like the concierge’s mocking tone, or the way that he studied my rough hands and my soft voice. But be
cause of what he promised, I agreed, and I changed into my work clothes that day. The guests arrived in the evening, and I was instructed to read the newspaper for them. At the time I didn’t understand, but I later heard them calling me a “dancing bear.” I didn’t like the sound of that phrase.

  The concierge gave me the smallest servant’s quarters; it had probably once been a broom closet. When I lay down to sleep, eyes aching from so many letters, I swore that I heard a distant roar and that my thin sheets shook.

  It took me two months to teach myself Greek, reading in the late hours of the night, and another month to work up the courage to demonstrate my ability to the concierge. He laughed when I told him, his booming laugh echoed around the room, like the sound of a library door slamming shut.

  “You honestly thought that I meant that? I was joking.”

  Rebellious, I opened a book of Ovid’s poetry which I had brought with me and read it aloud, slowly and carefully.

  He chewed on his lips, and told me I could read one book a night, and I had to record which book it was. I decided to shut up, continue working hard, and send Amma the extra money. She was able to buy proper clothes for my sisters, and to save for their dowries.

  “But what about you, Ram?” She would write. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

  I never responded to that question. Instead, I sent most of my wages to her and prayed that my breasts would stay small. Eventually Roger Smyth, the sweating white-skinned man, replaced the concierge who hired me, and he never challenged me to learn Latin or practice Greek. He also allowed me to buy ear plugs so I wouldn’t hear the distant roars.