The Starry Rift

by Jonathan Strahan

  31. No. Mum and me just thought it was more Nerys. Just a bit more imaginatively weirdo Nerys than usual.

  32. That night, when it started to get dark. You could see the orange pulsing under the door. Like a glowworm or something. Or a light show. The weirdest thing was that I could still see it with my eyes closed.

  33. The next morning. All of us.

  34. It was pretty obvious by this point. She didn’t really even look like Nerys any longer. She looked sort of smudged. Like an afterimage. I thought about it, and it’s . . . Okay. Suppose you were staring at something really bright, that was a blue color. Then you close your eyes, and you’d see this glowing yellowy-orange afterimage in your eyes? That was what she looked like.

  35. They didn’t work either.

  36. She let Pryderi leave to get her more chocolate. Mum and I weren’t allowed to leave the house anymore.

  37. Mostly I just sat in the back garden and read a book. There wasn’t very much else I really could do. I started wearing dark glasses. So did Mum, because the orange light hurt our eyes. Other than that, nothing.

  38. Only when we tried to leave or call anybody. There was food in the house, though. And Stuffed Muffins in the freezer.

  39. “If you’d just stopped her wearing that stupid tanning cream a year ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” But it was unfair, and I apologized afterward.

  40. When Pryderi came back with the dark chocolate bars. He said he’d gone up to a traffic warden and told him that his sister had turned into a giant orange glow and was controlling our minds. He said the man was extremely rude to him.

  41. I don’t have a boyfriend. I did, but we broke up after he went to a Rolling Stones concert with the evil bottle-blond former friend whose name I do not mention. Also, I mean, the Rolling Stones? These little old goat-men hopping around the stage, pretending to be all rock and roll? Please. So, no.

  42. I’d quite like to be a vet. But then I think about having to put animals down, and I don’t know. I want to travel for a bit before I make any decisions.

  43. The garden hose. We turned it on full, while she was eating her chocolate bars, and distracted, and we sprayed it at her.

  44. Just orange steam, really. Mum said that she had solvents and things in the laboratory, if we could get in there, but by now Her Immanence was hissing mad (literally) and she sort of fixed us to the floor. I can’t explain it. I mean, I wasn’t stuck, but I couldn’t leave or move my legs. I was just where she left me.

  45. About half a meter above the carpet. She’d sink down a bit to go through doors so she didn’t bump her head. And after the hose incident she didn’t go back to her room, just stayed in the main room and floated about grumpily, the color of a luminous carrot.

  46. Complete world domination.

  47. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and gave it to Pryderi.

  48. He had to carry it back. I don’t think Her Immanence really understood money.

  49. I don’t know. It was Mum’s idea more than mine. I think she hoped that the solvent might remove the orange. And at that point, it couldn’t hurt. Nothing could have made things worse.

  50. It didn’t even upset her, like the hose-water did. I’m pretty sure she liked it. I think I saw her dipping her chocolate bars into it before she ate them, although I had to sort of squint up my eyes to see anything where she was. It was all a sort of great orange glow.

  51. That we were all going to die. Mum told Pryderi that if the Great Oompa-Loompa let him out to buy chocolate again, he just shouldn’t bother coming back. And I was getting really upset about the animals—I hadn’t fed the chinchilla or Roland the guinea pig for two days, because I couldn’t go into the back garden. I couldn’t go anywhere. Except the loo, and then I had to ask.

  52. I suppose because they thought the house was on fire. All the orange light. I mean, it was a natural mistake.

  53. We were glad she hadn’t done that to us. Mum said it proved that Nerys was still in there somewhere, because if she had the power to turn us into goo, like she did the firefighters, she would have done. I said that maybe she just wasn’t powerful enough to turn us into goo at the beginning and now she couldn’t be bothered.

  54. You couldn’t even see a person in there anymore. It was a bright orange pulsing light, and sometimes it talked straight into your head.

  55. When the spaceship landed.

  56. I don’t know. I mean, it was bigger than the whole block, but it didn’t crush anything. It sort of materialized around us, so that our whole house was inside it. And the whole street was inside it too.

  57. No. But what else could it have been?

  58. A sort of pale blue. They didn’t pulse either. They twinkled.

  59. More than six, less than twenty. It’s not that easy to tell if this is the same intelligent blue light you were just speaking to five minutes ago.

  60. Three things. First of all, a promise that Nerys wouldn’t be hurt or harmed. Second, that if they were ever able to return her to the way she was, they’d let us know, and bring her back. Thirdly, a recipe for fluorescent bubble mixture. (I can only assume they were reading Mum’s mind, because she didn’t say anything. It’s possible that Her Immanence told them, though. She definitely had access to some of “the Vehicle’s” memories.) Also, they gave Pryderi a thing like a glass skateboard.

  61. A sort of a liquid sound. Then everything became transparent. I was crying, and so was Mum. And Pryderi said, “Cool beans,” and I started to giggle while crying, and then it was just our house again.

  62. We went out into the back garden and looked up. There was something blinking blue and orange, very high, getting smaller and smaller, and we watched it until it was out of sight.

  63. Because I didn’t want to.

  64. I fed the remaining animals. Roland was in a state. The cats just seemed happy that someone was feeding them again. I don’t know how the chinchilla got out.

  65. Sometimes. I mean, you have to bear in mind that she was the single most irritating person on the planet, even before the whole Her Immanence thing. But yes, I guess so. If I’m honest.

  66. Sitting outside at night, staring up at the sky, wondering what she’s doing now.

  67. He wants his glass skateboard back. He says that it’s his, and the government has no right to keep it. (You are the government, aren’t you?) Mum seems happy to share the patent for the colored bubble recipe with the government, though. The man said that it might be the basis of a whole new branch of molecular something or other. Nobody gave me anything, so I don’t have to worry.

  68. Once, in the back garden, looking up at the night sky. I think it was only an orangeyish star, actually. It could have been Mars; I know they call it the red planet. Although once in a while I think that maybe she’s back to herself again, and dancing, up there, wherever she is, and all the aliens love her pole dancing because they just don’t know any better, and they think it’s a whole new art form, and they don’t even mind that she’s sort of square.

  69. I don’t know. Sitting in the back garden talking to the cats, maybe. Or blowing silly-colored bubbles.

  70. Until the day that I die.

  I attest that this is a true statement of events.

  Signed:

  Date:

  NEIL GAIMAN was born in England in 1960 and worked as a freelance journalist before coediting Ghastly Beyond Belief (with Kim Newman) and writing Don’t Panic: The Official “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” Companion. He started writing graphic novels and comics with Violent Cases in 1987, and with seventy-five installments of the award-winning series The Sandman, established himself as one of the most important comics writers of his generation. His first novel, Good Omens (written with Terry Pratchett), appeared in 1991 and was followed by Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, and Coraline.

  Gaiman’s work has won the Hugo, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Locus, Geffen, International Horror Guild, Mythopoeic, and Will Eisner Comic Industry awards. His
most recent books are Anansi Boys, The Sandman: Endless Nights, and a picture book, The Wolves in the Walls (with longtime collaborator Dave McKean). His short fiction has been collected in Smoke and Mirrors, Fragile Things, and M Is for Magic. Upcoming is a new novel, The Graveyard Book. Gaiman moved to the United States in 1992 with his wife and three children, and currently lives in Minneapolis.

  Visit his Web site at www.neilgaiman.com.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I was going to Australia, where editor Jonathan Strahan would look at me, I had no doubt, with enormous, hurt, puppy-dog eyes if I still didn’t have a story for him. I was in Minneapolis Airport, waiting to get onto a plane to San Francisco, where I would change planes and fly to Sydney.

  It occurred to me that it might be fun to write a story in which you only got answers and had to figure out what the questions were, and put the pieces together in your head yourself. I turned on the computer and started to write.

  By the time I got to San Francisco, I had a first draft of this story almost done, and I sat in baggage claim and e-mailed it to Jonathan.

  Very few stories write themselves. This one did. Just in time.

  THE SURFER

  Kelly Link

  In the dream I was being kidnapped by aliens. I was dreaming, and then I woke up.

  Where was I? Someplace I wasn’t supposed to be, so I decided to stand up and take a look around, but there was no room and I couldn’t stand up after all. My legs. And I was strapped in. I was holding on to something. A soccer ball. It slid out of my hands and into the narrow space in front of me, and it took two tries to hook it up again with my feet. The floor kept moving up and down, and my hands were floppy.

  “One more pill, Dorn. Oops. Here. Have another one. Want some water?”

  I had a sip of water. Swallowed. I was in a little seat. A plane? I was on a plane. And we were way up. The clouds were down. There was a woman who looked like my mother, except she wasn’t. “Let me take that,” she said. “I’ll put it up above for you.”

  I didn’t want to give it to her. Even if she did look like my mother.

  “Come on, Dorn.” My father again. Wasn’t he supposed to be at the hospital today? I’d been at soccer practice. I was in my soccer clothes. Cleats and everything. “Dorn?” I ignored him. He said to the woman, “Sorry. He took some medication earlier. He’s a bad flier.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “A bad flier.” I was having a hard time with my mouth. I tried to remember some things. My father had come by in his car. And I’d gone to see what he wanted. He was going to drive me home even though practice wasn’t. Wasn’t over. I drank something he gave me. Gatorade. That had been a mistake.

  I said, “I’m not on a plane. This isn’t a plane and you’re not my mother.” I didn’t sound like me.

  “Poor kid,” the woman said. The floor bounced. If this was a plane, then she was a something. A flight attendant. “Wouldn’t he be more comfortable if I stowed that up above for him?”

  “I think he’ll be fine.” My father again. I kept my arms around my. My soccer ball. Keeping my shoulders forward. Hunched so nobody could take it. From me. Nobody ever got a soccer ball away from me.

  “You gave me Gatorade,” I said. The Gatorade had had something. In it. Everything I ought to know was broken up. Fast and liquid and too close up and then slow like an instant. Replay. My lips felt mushy and warm, and the flight attendant just looked at me like I was drooling. I think I was.

  “Dorn,” my father said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Saturday,” I said. Our first big match and I was missing practice. My head went forward and hit the soccer ball. I felt the flight attendant’s fingers on my forehead.

  “Poor kid,” she said.

  I lifted up my head. Tried as hard as I could. To make her understand me. “Where. This flight. Is it going.”

  “Costa Rica,” the flight attendant said.

  “You,” I said to my father. “I. Will never. Forgive. You.” The floor tilted and I went down.

  When I woke up we were in Costa Rica, and I remembered exactly what my father had done to me. But it was too late to do anything about it. By then everything had changed because of a new flu scare. Costa Rica could have turned the plane around, but I guess by that point we couldn’t have gotten back into the States. They’d shut down all the airports, everywhere. We went straight into quarantine. Me, my father, the flight attendant who didn’t look anything like my mother, after all, and all the other people on the plane.

  There were guards wearing N95 masks and carrying machine guns to make sure we all got on a bus. Once we were seated, a man who really needed a shave boarded and stood at the front. He wore an N95 mask with a shiny, tiny mike-pen clipped to it. He held up his gloved hands for silence. Sunlight melted his rubbery fingers into lozenges of pink taffy.

  People put down their cells and their googlies. I’d checked my cell and discovered three missed calls, all from my coach, Sorken. I didn’t check the messages. I didn’t even want to know.

  In the silence you could hear birds and not a lot else. No planes taking off. No planes landing. You could smell panic and antibacterial potions. Some people had been traveling with disposable masks, and they were wearing them now. My father always said that those didn’t really do much.

  The official waited a few more seconds. The skin under his eyes was grayish and pouched. He said, “It’s too bad, these precautions that we must take, but it can’t be helped. You will be our guests for a short period of observation. Without this precaution, there will be unnecessary sickness. Deaths that could be prevented. You will be given care if you become ill. Food and drink and beds. And in a few days, when all have been given a clean bill of health, we will let you continue with your business, your homecoming, your further travel arrangements. You have questions, but I have no time for them. Excuse me. Please do not attempt to leave this bus or to go away. The guards will shoot you if you cannot be sensible.”

  Then he said the whole speech all over again in Spanish. It was a longer speech this time. Nobody protested when he disembarked and our bus started off to wherever they were taking us.

  “Did you understand any of that? The Spanish?” my father asked. And that was the first thing he said to me, except for what he’d said on the plane, when it landed. He’d said, “Dorn, wake up. Dorn, we’re here.” He’d been so excited that his voice broke when he said here.

  “If I did,” I said. “Why would I tell you?” But I hadn’t. I was taking Japanese as my second language.

  “Well,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. And don’t worry too much about the machine guns. They have the safeties on.”

  “What do you know about machine guns?” I said. “Never mind. You got us into this situation. You kidnapped me.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Dorn?” he said. “Leave you behind?”

  “I have a very important match tomorrow,” I said. “Today. In Glenside.” I had my soccer ball wedged between my knees and the back of the seat in front of me. I was wearing my cleats and soccer clothes from the day before. For some reason that made me even more furious.

  “Don’t worry about the match,” my father said. “Nobody is going to be playing soccer today. Or anytime soon.”

  “You knew about this, didn’t you?” I said. I knew that doctors talked to each other.

  “Keep your voice down,” my father said. “Of course I didn’t.”

  There was a girl across the aisle from us. She kept looking over, probably wondering if I had this new flu. She was about my height and at least twice my weight. A few years older. Bleached white hair and a round face. Cat’s-eye glasses. Her skin was very tan, and she wasn’t wearing a disposable mask. Her lips were pursed up and her eyebrows slanted down. I looked away from her and out the window.

  Everything outside the bus was saturated with color. The asphalt deep purplish brown. The sky such a thick, wet blue you expected it to come off on the bus and the build
ings. A lizard the size of my forearm, posed like a hood ornament on the top of a Dumpster, shining in the sun like it had been wrought of beaten silver, and its scales emeralds and topazes, gemstone parings. Off in the distance were bright feathery trees, some fancy skyscrapers, the kind you see on souvenir postcards, mountains on either side of us, cloud-colored, looking like special effects.

  I couldn’t tell if it was the drugs my father had given me, or if this was just what Costa Rica looked like. I looked around the bus at the other passengers in their livid tropical prints and their blank, white, disposable masks, at the red filaments of stubble on my father’s face, pushing out of his skin like pinprick worms. So okay. It was the drugs. I felt like someone in one of my father’s Philip K.

  Dick paperback science fiction novels. Kidnapped? Check. In a strange environment and unable to trust the people that you ought to be able to rely on, say, your own father? Check. On some kind of hallucinogenic medication? Check. Any minute now I would realize that I was really a robot. Or God.

  Our bus stopped and the driver got out to have a conversation with two woman soldiers holding machine guns. There was a series of hangar buildings a few hundred yards in front of us. One of the soldiers got onto the bus and looked us over. She lifted up her N95 mask and said, “Patience, patience.” She smiled and shrugged. Then she sat down on the rail at the front of the bus with her mask on again. Everyone on the bus clicked on their cell phones again. It didn’t seem as if we were going anywhere soon.

  There was a clammy breeze, and it smelled like some place I’d never been to before, and where I didn’t want to be. I wanted to lie down. I wanted a bathroom and a sink and a toothbrush. And I was hungry. I wanted a bowl of cereal. And a peanut-butter sandwich.

  That girl was still looking at me.

  I leaned across and said, “I’m not sick or anything, okay? My father gave me a roofie. I was at soccer practice, and he kidnapped me. I’m a goalie. I don’t even speak Spanish.” Even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t making much sense.