“I’m sorry,” Justin cried, squirming. He’d peed, and she thought that the fog burns on her arm oddly felt a little better.
“It’s okay, buddy. We’re here, anyway,” she croaked, hugging his little body as he shook from the wet cold.
Emily grabbed the long metal handle, the touch burning her skin, and rushed them inside. Justin pulled off his plastic bag, grabbing at the back of his head. His face was swollen and red, burned. Emily wondered how bad she must look; how badly she’d been burned. She darted her eyes around the inside of the mall, finding dozens of faces staring back at them. Some familiar, some not. But all of them wearing the same expression—the same one she’d often seen on television after a disaster.
“Emily!” a woman’s voice called out. Ms. Parks, her ninth-grade English teacher, ran toward them. “Honey, you two are burned. Come on, we set up some help in the food court.” Emily set Justin down and fell to her knees, vomiting. Pools of red splashed onto the large brown tiles.
“We were in a car accident,” she was able to say before another wave of nausea hit her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, searched the empty faces. Her father wasn’t there. “My father?”
“Phone!” Justin said. Her phone was buzzing. It wasn’t just a text message. It was actually ringing. A call was coming through. She scrambled to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Emily, baby?”
“Daddy!” she nearly screamed. “We made it, Daddy! We made it to the mall.” The faces around them grew dim, and her father’s voice began to break up. More people offered to help her to her feet. She waved them off, intent on listening.
“Justin, and your mom?” he asked. “I can’t reach your mom’s phone!” Emily bit her lip. An image of her mother’s face came into her mind. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him what had happened.
“Justin is here with me,” she said, beginning to blubber. A babble of unintelligible words came next. “You can see us when you get here!”
“Emily, I’m so sorry,” he told her, his voice cutting in and out. “I’m so sorry this happened. It was all my fault. All of it.” She held the phone away from her head, trying to understand what he was saying.
“But the fog was an accident. Right, Daddy?” A moment of confusion and doubt snapped at her heart.
“I love you guys. Remember that, okay?” Her father’s voice went quiet then. She could hear him crying. And in the background, she could hear something else. It was the sound of a car horn. A horn that was stuck, blaring, and immediately her heart went still. Her arms and legs tingled, and she struggled to breathe.
“Daddy, what’s that sound?” she was able to ask before the first sobs set in. “Daddy… Dad, where are you?”
“Baby, I love you. But I’m not going to make it to the mall.” The car horn’s wail mixed with her father’s words. Visions of curious faces began to spin around her.
“Why?” she yelled at him. “Why aren’t you coming?”
“I hit something. It’s bad, baby. Got me trapped inside. I love you guys—”
The phone cut out a final time.
The view in front of her turned over, and she heaved. It turned again, and she was vaguely aware of being lifted. The faces that had stared were now carrying her, saving the daughter of the man who’d released a poison monster upon the world. Comfort came when she heard Justin’s voice, encouraging her to stay awake, like she’d done with him earlier. Her arm fell, and she felt his tiny warm fingers wrap around hers, tugging on them.
“Dad will be here soon,” he told her. “Daddy will be coming, just like you said, Emily.” And in that moment, she decided to never tell anyone what her father had done. She’d never say a word about the catastrophe he’d caused. Instead, the story she’d tell would be about the tragedy of two lovers, dying together, yet separated by a disaster. And she’d tell of the great accident, and how a young brother and sister fought and survived the day when the skies first went gray.
A Word From Brian Spangler
I am in awe of writers who’ve mastered the short story.
I’ve always had stories to tell, but until this past year, I never gave any consideration to the length. And when I started putting my stories out there for others to read, they tended to naturally run to about the length of a novel. So last year, when the opportunity came along to write a Silo Saga story set in Hugh Howey’s world of Wool, my initial plan was to again write a story that was novel-length. But as I worked out a plot, I reconsidered, and decided that I’d like to pull back and give a short story a try.
I discovered that it was a difficult challenge. We’ve all seen connect-the-dots puzzles; imagine trying to design a full-page connect-the-dots puzzle, but shrunk down to fit in a space the size of your palm. Compression. The short story presents the writer with a similar constraint: somehow you must fit all of your story elements, your relationships, your structure, into a very tight package.
“Going Gray” is my second published short story, and I hope I’m getting better at it. I wanted to tell the story of an accident—an accident with catastrophic consequences. “Going Gray” is about a disaster that changes everything we know and everything we do, and hints at the great accident referred to in my Gray Skies series.
I greatly enjoyed writing “Going Gray,” especially since I’d never planned on visiting what exactly happened centuries before Gray Skies takes place. But as in Gray Skies, the story really isn’t about the accident at all; it’s about how people react, how they change, adapt, and become someone else completely.
In fact, now that “Going Gray” is written—now that Emily’s world has been transformed—I’m already considering writing more “Going Gray” stories. (You see, even when I write a short story, I still can’t help but wonder what happens next!)
Website: writtenbybrian.com
Twitter: @WrittenByBrian
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=833244111
The thick, white damask and heavy beading of her wedding gown was no armor against their hate. She could feel their loathing burrowing into her back like a dagger. It was not just her corsetry which crushed her breath from her breast. Their silence there in the king’s chapel was more chilling than the screams of war. Still, the wedding continued. She looked up at the carved statues of strange saints over the altar, their long and sharp features judging her wrongful presence, just like every stone in the castle whispered back in her echoing footsteps that she should fly. She glanced at her bridegroom: this king, this widower, this enemy. How could she look upon this day with anything but the heaviness of duty? But she would do her duty, no matter the cost.
But what cost! She was the daughter of a dead king, the man who killed the family and friends of these, her new subjects. Peace was her pitiful dowry, but peace bitterly bought by abdicating her rule, stolen from her by her uncle who would take over the northern throne while she ascended in the southlands as a despised queen. Here, she would be no more than a figurehead, a pretty bird in the courts with no more power than a sparrow.
She glanced once more at this King Stephen, the man whose command was responsible for killing her father, whose armies slaughtered thousands of fathers and sons of her own people. The back of his rough, hairy hand was cold beneath her resting palm. It sought no warmth or comfort from her. In fact, it seemed to repel it. Or perhaps it was her own revulsion which thought it so. She was gladdened that he had no interest in her, that he did not even meet her carriage at the gate upon her arrival. There would be no pretense of affection. Only duty.
There were whispers that King Stephen had once been a mighty king. His dark, blonde curls caused women to swoon, and his bear-like physique caused men to quake. But now he was broken. There were rumors that he still longed for his long-since-dead wife, unnaturally so. They said his cries for his Queen Mary could be heard echoing through the halls late at night.
They said that the old queen went mad. That her death was by her own h
and. That this king who was to be Joanna’s husband drove his wife to such ends with his cruelty and wickedness.
The priest interrupted Joanna’s thoughts, murmuring the words which bound these two royal lines, these two people, Joanna and Stephen, together for eternity. King Stephen turned and took a necklace from a velvet pillow. He placed it over Joanna’s head, letting it dangle from her long, pale neck, his brown eyes still never meeting hers, his face blank and joyless. His tanned and weathered hand slid a large golden ring with a stone the color of blood upon her finger. He kissed her chastely upon the cheek when instructed by the cardinal, his coarse brown beard scraping against her delicate skin.
And then the ceremony was done. Their guests broke out into polite, half-hearted celebration. It was only noise. All spirit was dead. Keeping her hand atop his, Joanna and this man made their way through the mirthless court, more actors in a pageant than new husband and wife.
Thus begun the rule of The Mad Queen Joanna.
* * *
She sat stiffly in her bed waiting for him. Her long black hair had been braided and arranged by her assigned handmaidens, every fold of her gown placed, the candles lit so that they highlighted her beauty and cast the rest in shadow.
Her uncle swore it would be her head if she failed in this stately pact of marriage. He controlled her father’s armies, and so he controlled her. Thus she found herself sitting in this empty bridal bed waiting unwanted for a king.
She wondered how many times Stephen came to this chamber when the old queen was alive. What passion had these walls seen? What was it about Queen Mary that caused him still to mourn?
She knew his advisors used logic to convince him to take Joanna as his wife. The line of succession was barren and unclear. “What better way to ensure the peace than to have a child born with two bloodlines, of north and south, a child to heal the wounds of a centuries-old rift?” they had urged.
Her uncle’s face had boiled red when she refused this plan. “You shall bend to the will of the state or else find yourself without! The lives of thousands of your subjects depend upon this. Do you forget your duties to those you lead? Your anointed duty to protect those who have pledged their lives to you? You shall win his heart, and if you cannot, we will find a woman who can!”
The wind began to blow and howl outside, and suddenly her window swung open. She leapt up, undoing the enticing picture her ladies had painted for the king. She reached out and grabbed the lead-paned glass before it could smash against the stone of the building and break. She pulled it back into place and double-checked the latch, then grabbed the purple velvet curtains and drew them tight.
As she turned, she caught her reflection in a looking glass over the dresser. She seemed a stranger. Who was this woman, she thought to herself, this new queen of the southlands? She stepped forward. Her face was tired from the travel, tired from the ceremonies, tired of all.
“Do you think you can really make this king love you?” she asked her image, leaning until her nose almost touched the glass.
Out of the corner of her eye she spied a dark figure at the edge of the mirror. The king! She turned quickly. But no. There was no one there. She looked again at the glass, pressing her forehead against its cool surface. She was alone. She climbed into bed, blew out the candle, and pulled the covers to her neck.
The wind continued its empty howl.
* * *
“Did you sleep well, my king?” Joanna asked Stephen at dinner the next night. The sounds of celebration in the Great Hall hid her words from prying ears.
He did not look at her, his eyes glassy and blank. “I was sure you would be quite exhausted from the day’s festivities and did not wish to trouble you.”
He picked up his golden goblet and drank the hot, mulled wine in one draught. A servant stepped forward and filled it again, then backed away and out of earshot.
“I am at your command,” Joanna replied dutifully, just as she had promised when her uncle threatened her with violence if she uttered anything but words of seduction and support. “Shall I expect to see you tonight?”
King Stephen bit into a turkey leg and chewed. “No.”
She was unable to hide her smile.
She reached out and placed her hand upon his. He stopped chewing and stared at her offending touch. She leaned closer to him, careful to project nothing but the image of a supportive wife, and whispered, “My liege, rest peacefully knowing that you and I perhaps share much more in common than you think.”
She then withdrew her hand and settled into her own meal, feeling more content than she had in ages.
* * *
She looked upon his indifference gratefully as the days passed. Indifference was better than forced interest.
Winter crept in with its frozen breath, the short fall color having left the land. The trees were barren, skeletal. The ground was brown and dead, killed by the early frost. Joanna wrapped herself in her thick capes and frequently walked the grounds, her ill-tempered court trailing behind, wondering who this queen was that would force them to endure the elements when warmth and comfort for their gossip could be found inside. The winters were twice as bitter in the north, and Joanna did not understand their desire to cloister themselves in hot, smoky rooms when the final days of freedom still stretched before them.
So the days passed. Each night, she would see King Stephen at the evening meal. Still his eyes continued to be glassy and blank, unseeing, unwanting. It was as if she didn’t exist. He was impervious to the rumors of their unconsummated marriage and the kingly duties he would not partake of. His obsession for his dead wife made him blind and deaf.
She heard that each night, the king retreated to a wing of the castle and threatened death to any that followed him. They said all the portraits of Queen Mary had been removed from the walls and that King Stephen kept them in a locked room which only he held the keys for—a chamber to which he retreated each night, surrounded by her presence so that her face would fill his dreams.
Joanna only knew he did not trouble her, and that was all that she cared about.
It was several months into their marriage when a wrinkled advisor stepped before Joanna and begged an audience. She turned and dismissed the ladies about her.
“My queen,” he stated, bowing low. “There is great threat to the kingdom and I am afraid that you alone are the key to the stability of the throne.”
“Pray, tell you, what is this great threat?” Joanna asked.
“There is no heir…” he replied, awkward and uncomfortably.
“Ah,” she replied, folding her hands and resting them upon the front of her wide, golden skirt. “And so I promise you that my door has never been barred to the king. These words of caution and request must fall upon his ears.”
“Nay, my queen, we have advised him such, and he still is unable to part with the thought of his past wife. I know you women have wiles and ways to trick even the most chaste man to fall to his knees. I pray you, use such tools to sway him.”
“You forget, sir, that I, too, had no desire for this marriage. It was brokered by my uncle, and if a childless family is what this bond brings, it rests entirely upon your head,” she replied.
“Nay,” said the advisor, neatly arranging the sleeves of his coat before meeting her eyes, “I am afraid it is not my head that shall pay the price if you do not fulfill your duties.”
Her blood turned cold in her veins. “What?” Joanna asked. “Do you threaten me, sir?”
He withdrew a folded slip of paper from his sleeve and passed it to her. The words on the front were gibberish, but she did not have to break the wax seal to know who sent it.
The advisor informed her anyway. “A message from your uncle.”
Fear made her hand tremble. Her uncle had seemed so bent upon revenge for her father’s death, but then he betrayed her and forged this marriage contract. What cruel command did he send now? She bravely held out the message for the advisor to take back, her heart pounding
. “You shall have to bring up this matter with the king.”
He merely bowed. “Nay, it falls to you, my queen, to bring up such matters with His Royal Highness. Remind him that his duty did not end with the end of his Queen Mary. So many lives depend upon it.” His voice dripped with insinuation before he backed away and left.
She stared at the advisor until he turned the corner and was gone. How she hated him. How she hated her uncle. How her loathing burned.
She strode into her room and threw her uncle’s note onto her dressing table, unread, not wanting to know the words it contained.
She stared at herself in the glass, gripping the gilt edges of the mirror. Could she turn this king? Could she melt his heart of stone to look upon her when she herself wanted it even less? Could she sway this king to save her own life?
She thought she caught a reflection of something out of the corner of her eye, but when she glanced back, there was nothing there.
Ah! she thought. Her mind would give her any distraction to keep her from this decision. But the distractions were imaginary. Nothing could forestall this forever.
She looked back at the note and breathed deeply. She would see it was done. Whether she touched King Stephen’s heart or merely his loins, she would bind him to her and do what was demanded.
But how? she wondered.
If she was to know this man, know this enemy, she must discover his secrets, she decided. Where did he go each night when he dismissed all his guard and threatened death to any that might follow him? Surely he would not condemn his new bride if she was to see where he crept? What if there was some other secret he held and these pinings for a dead queen were nothing but a ruse? What if there was some secret she could use to gain his confidence, or to hold as power over him until he granted her the required child?
From the Indie Side Page 6
