The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  Don’t excite yourself, Bingo.

  *

  He stood in the Exercise Room, listening. Not with his ears.“Rogue?”

  In his mind his thoughts wandered alone. He pushed back the swing panel and peered inside the place where he was told to throw his soiled towels and garments. A narrow conduit of metal angled downward. He turned around and inserted himself head first. There was just enough room. His shoulders rubbed against the walls. The ceiling was only an inch above his nose. Once he was all the way in, the vent fell shut.

  He lay unmoving in the breathless dark. Then, bending his knees as much as he could, he pushed off with his heels. His shoulders squeaked against the walls. The conduit steepened suddenly and he dropped headlong, was flung into the open and landed in a big cart filled with damp towels, shirts and shorts. There was a sour stink of old sweat and mold.

  It was a tall, square room with a box window in the ceiling. Lying in the basket he studied the window, the quality of the light passing through it. Daylight? He had never seen a window. It occurred to him that he was looking at the sky. Cool drops of rusty water dripped down on him.

  Outside.

  He clambered out of the dirty laundry cart. It was wheeled and on tracks, but when he tried to push it the cart wouldn’t move. The wheels were rusted, and there was a fragment of broken glass in one of the track grooves. He followed the tracks to a closed panel in the wall. He pushed experimentally on the panel but it didn’t budge. Putting his ear to it he could hear a ratcheting, grinding sound on the other side.

  There were rungs attached to the wall. He climbed up past the laundry chute. At the top he discovered the broken skylight was latched shut. He slipped the latch and pushed it up on stiff hinges.

  The air was cool and unfiltered and clean. It was drizzling. Around him, sprawled in every direction, was the ruined splendor of a city in the midst of some fantastic transition. Things like huge robotic spiders squatted and twitched over skyscrapers. Other buildings appeared encased in liquid metal. He watched as a brownstone was slowly overcome by the stuff, like mercury poured over ancient brick. Blue arc lights stuttered randomly throughout the city, illuminating rising plumes of smoke. Air vehicles like tumbling decks of cards flickered in multitudes above the skyline. The greater part of the city transformation was occurring outside the degraded blocks in which his building stood. A blasted billboard sign on the roof swayed back on its one remaining strut, revealing a beautiful woman’s face, two stories high, and the word VIRGINIA SL-

  He looked up and allowed the rain to fall cool upon his face. He was crying, and he fought an urge to climb out onto the rooftop and never go back.

  *

  Bingo, I have another surprise for you!

  I have one for you, too, he thought. Weeks had passed, and the fresh shorts and shirts and towels had stopped appearing. This hadn’t surprised him. The automated laundry system was broken. Rogue was either unaware of that fact or deemed it unimportant. The system was designed into the original building structure, and Rogue had appropriated it for his secret facility. Though they, whatever “they” might be, were transforming the city and perhaps the whole world in some cataclysmic fashion, on a more primitive technological level Rogue and the Directors were inattentive. A useful thing to know.

  “What’s the surprise, Rogue?”

  I have decided to make a female companion for you!

  He stood up. “When?”

  I’m preparing the vats now. Growth cycle is calculated in tenday.

  “Ten days,” he said, to himself.

  Are you excited?

  “Yes.”

  I am too.

  Her name will be Virginia, he thought.

  The Directors are fools and cowards. The simple making of humans and educating them to their full potential is intensely interesting. I can do this thing.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  Do they fear one human can reverse the destiny of a century? Ridiculous!

  Two, he thought.

  During sleep cycle he kept his eyes open and dreamed in the dark of finding his name in the reclaimed City.

  That debut issue sure had some good names in it, didn’t it? Here’s another story bought for the magazine that actually broke one of those “hard and fast” rules of the magazine. I don’t believe there was another single Christmas or holiday story that appeared in the magazine after “Snow on Snow. No fault of Nina’s, as you’ll see. I’ve always loved this quiet little Christmas gift, and I’ve always loved Nina’s writing.

  SNOW ON SNOW

  NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

  Neil had looked for Peggy in all the sensible places and all the sensible ways, checking to see if she had used the credit cards to buy a plane ticket or a train ticket or (shudder) a bus ticket or even clothes or hotel rooms. After that, he had looked for her in the places where he didn’t want her to be, like hospitals, morgues, police stations. He had always prided himself on his attention to detail. He satisfied himself that Peggy was nowhere he or any other sensible person could find her.

  He lived with that certainty for a little while before it eroded, and then he looked for her in places that made no sense.

  He found a clue in the thirteenth thrift store on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. He recognized the shirt first by its magenta color — there were only three that color in a whole rack of shirts — and second by the little flower Peggy had embroidered on the label. She had had a way of branding everything she owned. It came from growing up in a large family.

  He looked around the store for other things she had worn during their brief engagement and even briefer marriage. One of the problems was that she had good taste; her clothes had been well-made and fashionable. Such things probably wouldn’t stay on thrift-store racks long.

  He found the second clue when he finally looked in the “costume” section and discovered her wedding dress, the lace and the crystal beads intact, along with the wine stain just above the right breast that brought the price down to $25. How he had scolded her for that stain as soon as they were driving away from the reception on their way to their honeymoon. How could she be so sloppy?

  Now that it was too late, he recognized that this was a brand as well. No one else would ever wear her wedding dress.

  The dress was in a plastic bag. He hugged it down off the wall, tearing open the plastic and smelling the dress. No trace of her scent remained after the dry-cleaning process.

  He took the wedding dress and the magenta shirt to the counter and bought them, earning speculative looks from the cashier.

  He would wear the dress if it would bring her back, he thought, returning his wallet to his back pocket and accepting the huge bag the woman gave him. Hell, he would put it on and walk around in public if he thought the dress could tell him where Peggy had gone. He wasn’t sure how she had done it, but she had left a brand somewhere on him, too, one that made him need to belong to her, as much as he hated the idea of needing anything. He had lost many things when she left, including the stiffness that held him back from ever making a fool of himself.

  He checked three other thrift shops without finding a sign of her, and then everything closed and he went home.

  He laid the wedding dress across the chair she had liked the best, bending its sleeves at the elbows and resting them on the chair’s arms, fluffing out the lacy hem so that there was room to pretend feet were hidden in the fullness somewhere.

  He baked Nestle Tollhouse cookies because he knew they had been her favorite, though he had never made them before. He mulled cider so that the whole apartment smelled of cloves and cinnamon and apple. He put the syrupy Christmas music she had preferred on the stereo. He sat in the chair across from the one where her wedding dress posed and tortured himself listening to songs he despised. As midnight neared, he went out to the kitchen, made up a plate of cookies, poured two mugs full of cider, then brought food and drink on a tray into the living room, setting the mugs on coasters beside each chair.r />
  He was ready when the church tower a block away struck midnight.

  The dress puffed and filled, shaping around a human form. Above the neckline, at the cuffs, flesh faded into sight. Her hair was still full and curly and dark around her pale face. Her eyes were dark now, like holes cut out of night. Her lips had very little color. She stared at him.

  He licked his lips. “Are you dead?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  He sucked in breath, though he couldn’t imagine her giving him any other answer. “Where did you go?”

  “Not very far,” she said. Her voice was cold as winter wind.

  “Did I kill you?”

  “No,” she said. And then, after he had taken a breath of relief, she said, “You drove me to kill myself.”

  He slumped in his chair. He thought of the thousand little suggestions he had made to her, just to help her realized her full potential, be a better person . . . or at least be a more convenient person. You couldn’t call that driving, exactly. Minor course corrections.

  Maybe if he had said less to her . . . but her little habits were so irritating. He hadn’t been able to help saying such things to her.

  Yet he missed her so fiercely he couldn’t think of anything else.

  He had watched himself going through the days since she left, observed how often he had something helpful to say to other people, and how much they resented him for it. He wondered how he would have felt if someone was always telling him he was doing something wrong.

  But of course he never did anything wrong, so that would never happen.

  He had tried keeping still about the mistakes other people were making. It nearly choked him sometimes to keep his comments inside. He did it anyway. Without his helpful advice, people kept making stupid mistakes, the same ones, over and over.

  After another long cold moment he said, “Is there any way you can come back?”

  She reached for the mug of cider and poured it down the front of the wedding dress. He jumped up, ready to run for a towel, ready to tell her that she hadn’t needed to do that and if she really cared about herself she wouldn’t make mistakes like that. She watched him with eyes that had no backs.

  “Is that an answer?” he said after swallowing several times. He sat down.

  She reached across, lifted his mug, and poured its contents into his lap.

  The cider had cooled enough not to burn him. The heat was actually pleasant before it turned cold. He sat as cider soaked into his good wool pants and into the upholstery of his favorite chair.

  She smiled at him. She stood and came to him, climbing in all her lace onto his lap. He put his arms around her and hugged her tight, not quite sure she was solid, but willing to pretend with all his might. Her beads scratched his neck. He hugged her as though the world would end in a moment. She lowered her lips to his. Her kiss was ice cold.

  The clock struck and she vanished, leaving piled stained lace in his lap. He shivered and shivered and sat in the sticky cider wetness as long as he could stand it, then rose and cleaned what he could.

  Maybe next year she would stay longer.

  Louise and her good friend Kay Kenyon both appeared once in Talebones, in this same issue (#29), with a fabulous cover by Bob Hobbs. They both were also loyal subscribers. You realize, don’t you, Louise, that this time your story appears before Kay’s story? Really...it was an alphabetical choice the first time! This story was written to be read aloud for a fundraising dinner put on by Humanities Washington in support of literacy in Washington State. It’s intended to honor the many dedicated medical professionals in her family. I published her story collection Absalom’s Mother, which is a must-read.

  NIGHT SHIFT

  LOUISE MARLEY

  Violet stands in the hallway, listening to the clicking of heels on concrete, the slamming of car doors, the purr and then fade of the engine as the car backs down the long driveway, turns into the street and drives away, leaving her alone. Leaving her in silence.

  Violet is not used to working in silence. The hospital was never quiet, not even during night shift. Sirens wailed, alarms buzzed, even low voices carried. Violet feels exposed by the quiet in this house of strangers. She feels isolated.

  She’s tempted to turn on every light in the house, to banish the night. She shakes her head, trying to laugh at herself, and flicks off the hall light instead. A streetlamp haloes the porch and the lawn. Through the front window it casts a rectangle of diluted light that glows on the parquet floor of the hallway. Violet walks back into the bedroom to dim the Little Mermaid lamp beside the rented hospital bed. She smooths the blanket over her sleeping patient, then stands for a moment looking down at her.

  She is so young, this pretty child. Young enough, heedless enough, to plow her pink ten-speed, with its fluttering ribbons and rock band decals, straight into the side of a moving bus. But old enough, Violet is certain, that she will hate the patch where her long, fair hair had to be shaved off. That square of naked scalp marks the site where the surgeon inserted the shunt that saved the her life. The ICP monitor beside the bed measures the flow from the shunt to track the pressure in the injured brain. Automatically, Violet scans the monitor, to be certain the numbers are steady. It’s not necessary for her to do it, the alarm would sound if the pressure began to build. But Violet has been a critical care nurse, a good one, for forty years. She leaves nothing to chance.

  How many patients has she had like this one? she wonders. Surely they must number in the hundreds. And with each of them came terrified parents, pastors and lawyers and counselors and police. Their fear disturbed her sleep, their anger ruined her appetite. Their grief, piled up over the years, still drags at her steps. She’s ready for the retirement that awaits her in three weeks, ready to retreat to her apartment and her books and her cats. This is her last patient, her last struggle with the tireless adversary.

  Violet checks the girl’s catheter and IV, and then slips softly from the bedroom, walks to the kitchen at the end of the hall. A pot of tea waits for her there, and a plate of freshly baked cookies. She kicks off her worn Birkenstocks and eases herself into a chair. As she takes a paperback from the pocket of her cardigan, she thinks that there are advantages to doing home care. She knows the cookies weren’t baked for her. The girl’s mother made them, just that afternoon, in hopes that her daughter would be able to eat one. Violet appreciates them just the same. She pours a cup of tea and lifts the warm cup in her two hands.

  Before it touches her lips, the ICP monitor begins to beep.

  Violet jumps to her feet, and the scrape of the chair’s legs on the tiled floor is loud in the silence. She sets the cup down, missing the saucer. She thrusts her feet into her sandals and hurries back down the hallway. In less than twenty seconds, she is at her patient’s bedside.

  The child’s eyes are open wide, staring at the flashing, beeping monitor, and then shifting to Violet’s face. “Mom,” she whispers. “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear, it’s all right,” Violet murmurs. “It’s all right. Your mom will be home soon.” She reaches to shut off the alarm, sees with a sinking heart how much the pressure has risen. “I’m just going to check a couple of things, dear.”

  The girl sighs, and her eyelids flutter.

  Violet touches her shoulder, and when there is no response, her cheek. “Are you awake? Can you talk to Violet, sweetheart?”

  The child’s eyelids lift, and her blue eyes glisten in the light from the Little Mermaid lamp. They focus on a point somewhere beyond Violet’s shoulder. “Angels,” she breathes. “Mom! Angels are coming.”

  “What?” Violet’s hands are busy, taking her pulse, reaching for a thermometer. “What was that, dear?”

  The girl draws a shallow breath. “Angels,” she sighs. “Mommy . . .”

  “Yes, tell me about it,” Violet says. She is reaching for the med tray, drawing up a dose of Mannitol.

  “Angels,” the girl says, her voice trailing low. “White and blue. Ove
r the water . . .” She falls silent as Violet injects the Mannitol into the Y-port of the IV tube, then reaches for the phone.

  It’s all too familiar, wearily familiar, Violet thinks. She speaks to the dispatcher, even as she raises the head of the bed to high Fowler’s position, hoping to increase the flow from the shunt, even as she scrabbles among the notes on the bureau for the number of the surgeon’s service. When the surgeon calls back, she is terrified that it might be the parents, calling from their dinner party. Her relief when she hears the doctor on the line makes her voice tremble. She reports on her patient’s status, on the call to the paramedics, agrees she will travel with her patient to the OR. She forces herself to be calm when she calls the parents, to reassure them, but their alarm makes her heart race.

  And then the calls are complete, and she can only wait. There’s nothing more she can do for her patient, nothing until they reach the hospital. She stands beside the girl’s bed, holding her hand, pressing it to her own breast as if she can will the child to breathe, to live. She finds herself praying for the ambulance to hurry, to save this girl for her suffering mother, her worried father . . . for Violet herself.

  Violet doesn’t want to end her career like this. She doesn’t want to stand helplessly by to watch another precious child slip away, to see her parents broken by sorrow.

  She looks up, searching for the clock in the unfamiliar room, trying to judge how much time has passed. From the corner of her eye she sees a mote of darkness, something vague fluttering just out of her sight. It’s as if a black moth had come in from the night, found some window left open or door left ajar, and has come to hover in the hall. Gently, Violet lays the child’s hand down. Her heart beats like a drum in her chest as she steps to the door of the bedroom.

  She peers toward the kitchen, where she can just see the teapot cooling beside the untouched plate of cookies, her cup askew on the table where she left it.