ODD?

by Jeff VanderMeer

  There was an egg huddling in one of the little cups inside the fridge door. Where had that come from? Exactly what she needed. She was reaching eagerly for it when a stench from deep inside the fridge slid into her nostrils, a poisonous, vinegary tang. The Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce she'd made, last year sometime? was rotting in its glass jar. The pepper crusting the jar's lid had begun to corrode the metal. A vile greenness bloomed on the surface of the red liquid. Blaise kissed her teeth in disgust and dumped the mouldering sauce into the sink.

  Cornbread now.

  The egg was a little too big for its cradle, a little rounder than eggs usually were. Blaise picked it up. Its cold, mercurial weight shifted in her palm, sucking warmth from her hand. She cracked it into the bowl. With a hollow clomp! a mass disappeared below the surface of the liquid. A sulphur-rot stench filled the kitchen.

  “Backside!” Blaise swallowed a wave of anger. A bubble of foetid air popped from the depths of the bowl. Blaise grimaced and began to pour the swampy goop down the drain. The tainted milk and oil mingled with the pepper sauce.

  Something rubbery thumped into the mouth of the drain and lay there. It was small and grey and jointed. A naked, fully formed chicken foetus. Blaise's gorge rose. When the thing moved, wallowing in the pepper sauce remaining in the sink, she nearly spewed the coffee she'd drunk that morning.

  “Urrrr . . .” rattled the cold-grown chick. Slowly, slowly, it extended a peeled head on a wobbly neck. Its tiny beak was thin as nail parings. Its eyes creaked open, stretching a red film of pepper sauce from lid to lid. It shrieked tinnily as the pepper made contact with its eyes. Frantically it shook its head. Its pimply grey body contorted in agony. It shrieked again. Fighting revulsion, Blaise grabbed a cooking spoon and scooped it up.

  “Shh, shh.” She wadded a tea towel in her free hand and deposited the bird into it. It wailed and stropped its own head against the tea towel. Through the fabric Blaise could feel the bird's cartilaginous body writhing against her palm. Her skin crawled.

  “Arr . . .” the chick complained. Blaise filled the cooking spoon with water and trickled it over the grey, bald head. The bird fought and spluttered. Reddened eyes glared accusingly at Blaise.

  “Make up your mind,” she flared. “You want fire in your eyes, or cool water?” The chick tried to peck. Blaise hissed angrily, “Well here, then, take that!”

  She scooped some drops of pepper sauce from the sink with her fingers and flicked it at the bird's head. It yowped in indignation. Then, worm-blind, a tiny grey tongue snaked out of its mouth and licked some of the pepper sauce off its beak. “Urrrr . . .” This time it didn't seem to mind the taste of the pepper. It licked it off, then blinked its burned eyes clear.

  Its body a blur, it shook the water off. It sat up straight in her palm, staring alertly at her. It seemed a little bigger. It did have a few feathers after all. Blaise must have just not noticed them before.

  Her anger cooled. She'd let loose the heat of her temper on such a little thing.

  The chick opened its mouth wide; Blaise nearly dropped it in alarm. Its hungry red maw looked bigger than its head.

  Well, it had seemed to like the pepper, after all. Blaise scraped a stringy mass of it out of the sink and dangled it in front of the cold chick's beak. The chick gaped even wider, begging to be fed. Blaise let slimy tendrils fall. Red threads wriggled down the bird's throat. Ugh.

  The chick swallowed, withdrew its pinny head into its ugly neck, and closed its eyes.

  “That do you for now?” Blaise asked it.

  The chick purred, a low, rattling sound. It radiated heat into her hand. It wasn't so ugly, really. She tucked its warmth close to her breast.

  Someone knocked at the door. Blaise gasped, jolted out of her peaceful moment. She dumped the chick into a soup bowl. It squawked and toppled, legs kicking at the air. “Stay there,” she hissed, and went to answer the knock.

  It was the guy next door, lanky and pimply in a frowsty leather jacket. “Hi there, Blaise,” he leered. “Whatcha up to?”

  The red tongues of his construction boots hung loose and floppy. He was gnawing on the gooey tag end of a cheap chocolate bar, curled wrapper ends wilting from his fist.

  “Nothing much,” Blaise replied.

  Tethered by a leash through its studded leather collar, the guy's ferret humped around and around in sad circles at his feet. Something about its furtive slinkiness brought to mind a furry penis with teeth.

  The guy took a hopeful step closer. “Want some company?”

  Not this again. “Um, maybe another time.” She remained blocking the doorway, hoping he'd get the point. The ferret sneezed and rubbed fretfully at its snout. Oh, goody: The guy next door's ferret had a head cold. Gooseflesh rose on Blaise's arms.

  “What, like this evening, maybe?” asked the guy. His eyes roamed eagerly over her face and body. The familiar steam of stifled anger bubbled through Blaise. Why couldn't he ever take a hint? She wished he'd just dry up and fly away.

  There was a thump from the kitchen. The ferret arched sinuously up onto its hind legs, its fur bristling. Blaise turned; her blood froze cold. A creature something between a chicken and an eagle was stalking menacingly out of her kitchen. It was the cold chick, grown to the size of a spaniel. Its down-feathered neck wove its raptor's head in a serpentine dance. Its feet had become cruel, ringed claws. It stared at her with a fierce intelligence.

  The guy goggled. “What the . . . ?” At the sound, the chick's fiery-red comb went erect. Nictitating membranes slid clear of its eyes, which glowed red. Blaise felt a peppery warmth flood her body briefly. Frightened, she stepped aside. The chick turned its gaze full on the guy. It hissed, a sound like steam escaping. The guy next door looked down at it, and seemed immediately held by its stare. He whimpered softly. Heat danced between the chick and the guy next door, then he just, well, vaporized. In a second, all that was left of him was a grey smear of ash on the hallway carpet, and a faint whiff of cheap chocolate.

  “Oh my God,” Blaise said, feeling frantically for the open doorway.

  The ferret growled. The chick pounced. Blaise leapt out of the way. Jesus, now they were between her and the way out.

  The ferret wound itself around the creature. The chick's beak slashed. The ferret yipped, sneezed. Drops of ferret blood and mucus flew. The cold chick flexed a meaty thigh to slice a talon through the ferret's middle. The ferret arched and writhed in extremis. Knots of bloody intestine trailed from its belly. The cold chick twisted the ferret's head between the cruel tines of its beak. Blaise heard the ferret's neck snap. Holding it down with its claws, the cold chick began to devour the ferret with a wet crunching sound. Blaise could hear her own panicked sobbing.

  The chick sucked up looped coils of gut with little chirps of pleasure. Then it blurred. When Blaise could see it clearly again, it was the size of a rottweiler. Its feathers had sprouted into rich burgundy and green plumes. It snapped up the rest of the ferret, then crouched in the doorway. It looked at her, and Blaise knew it would burn her to death. A keening sound came from her mouth. Heat washed over her, but then the membranes slid down over the chick's open eyes. Blaise could still see its piercing stare, slightly opaqued.

  “Mmrraow?” it enquired fondly. It had a satisfied look on its beaky face.

  It wasn't going to eat her. It had done this to please her, and now the guy next door was really dried up and gone. “That isn't what I meant,” Blaise wailed. The chick cocked its head adoringly at the sound of her voice.

  Blaise sat down heavily in her tattered armchair, trying to figure out what to do next. The chick groomed, rattling its beak through its jewel-coloured feathers. Its meal was still altering its body. It blurred again, it morphed. Four clawed, furred front legs sprouted to replace its chicken feet. The chick—cocka-trice—looked down at its own body, stomped around experimentally on its new limbs. It made a chuckling noise. Would it have stayed a slow, cold chick if it hadn't eaten the ferret? Or the burning pepper sa
uce?

  It belched, spat up a slimy black thread; the ferret's leash. It pounced on the leash and started worrying at it. Sunlight danced motes of colour through its plumage. It was very beautiful. And it would probably need to feed again soon.

  I not going to be second course, Blaise thought. She moved to the door. Happily torturing the leash, the cockatrice ignored her. She grabbed her jacket from its peg and locked her door behind her. She left the apartment.

  The clean fall air cleared her mind a little. The animal shelter, yeah, they'd come and take the beast away.

  She had to pass the Venus-built lady's garden on the way. There was a man in the yard with his back to her: a slim, bald man with a wiry strength to his build. Shirtless, he was digging beside the otaheite tree. His tanned shoulders made a V with the narrowness of his waist. With each thrust of the shovel, corded muscles flexed like cables in his arms and back. Blaise slowed to admire him. He pumped the shovel smoothly into the earth with one bare, sturdy foot, but something stopped it from sinking any farther. He went down on one knee and began tenderly pulling up clods of dirt, crumbling them between his fingers. Blaise crept closer to the gate and craned her neck to see better. The man sniffed at the dark soil in his hands and poured a handful of it down his throat. His Adam's apple jumped when he swallowed.

  Was everybody eating something strange today? All Blaise had wanted was cornbread.

  The man looked round, saw her, and grinned. It was a friendly expression; there were well-worn smile lines pared into his cheeks. She grinned back. His lean face had the rough texture of chipped rock. Not handsome, but striking.

  He reached into the womb of soil again and tugged out the rock that had stopped his shovel. His fingers flexed. He crushed the rock between them like a sugar cube and reverently licked up the powdery bits.

  The cottage door opened, letting the Venus-built lady out. She had changed into a sweater and close-fitting jeans that made her hips heart-shaped. She had a basket slung over one shoulder.

  A smile broke onto the man's face the way the stone had cracked between his fingers. He offered a stone-powdered palm. “It's sweet,” he said in a voice like gravel being ground underfoot. “The fruit will be sweet too.”

  The Venus-built lady smiled back. Then she looked at Blaise. “So come and help us then, nuh?” she asked in a warm alto that sang of the tropics. “Instead of standing there staring?”

  Blaise felt heat warming her face.

  But what about the cockatrice?

  The problem was too big for her to deal with for the moment. With an “Um, okay,” she chose denial. She let herself into the garden, trying shyly to avoid eye contact with either of them. “What you doing?”

  “Getting the otaheite tree ready for winter,” the man replied. “It won't last out in the open like this.”

  “I bury it in the soil every winter,” the Venus-built lady told her. “Then I dig it up in summer, and it blooms for me by the fall.”

  “And that works?”

  “It works, yes,” the Venus-built lady replied. “It bears, and it feeds my soul. Is a flavour of home. You going to help me pick, or you want to help Johnny dig?”

  Standing this close to her neighbour, Blaise could taste the warm rose spice of her breath. Even her skin had the scent of the roses she ate. Blaise looked at Johnny. He was resting comfortably on the shovel, watching both of them. He grinned, jade eyes bright.

  Who to help? Who to work close beside? “I will help you pick for now,” she told the Venus-built lady. “But when Johnny get tired, I could help him dig.”

  Johnny nodded. “The more, the merrier.” He returned to his task.

  The otaheite apples seemed to leap joyfully from their stems into the Venus-built lady's hands. She and Blaise picked all the fruit, ate their fill of maroon-skinned sweetness and melting white flesh, fed some to sweaty Johnny as he dug. The woman owned a flower shop over in Cabbagetown. “Is called Rose of Sharon,” she laughed. “Sharon is my name.” Blaise inhaled her flower-breathed words.

  Johnny was a metalworker. He pointed proudly at Sharon's wrought-iron railings. “Made those.”

  The ruddiness of this white man came from facing down fire every day. Blaise imagined him shirtless at the forge, forming the molten iron into beautiful shapes.

  “I need help at the shop,” Sharon told her. “You don't like the job you have now, and you have a gentle hand with that fruit you're picking. You want to come by Monday and talk to me about it?”

  Blaise thought she might like to work amongst flowers, coaxing blooms to fullness. “Okay. Monday evening,” she replied.

  She and Johnny dug out most of the soil from around the tree's roots while Sharon steadied its trunk. Then all three of them laid the tree in its winter bed, clipped its branches, and covered it with soil.

  “Good night, my darling,” whispered Sharon. “See you soon.” The bleeding hearts quivered daintily. The roses dipped their weighty heads.

  The sun was lowering by the time they were done. The shelter would be closed, but probably the cockatrice was asleep by now. Blaise stood with Sharon and Johnny beside the giant's grave that held the otaheite tree. She ached from all the picking and digging; a good hurt. Johnny put a hand lightly on her shoulder. She felt the heat of it through the fabric. He smelt of sweat and fire and earth. On Johnny's other side, Sharon took his free hand. She and Johnny kissed, slowly. They looked into each other's eyes and smiled. Sharon slid an arm around Blaise's waist. Blaise relaxed into the touch, then caught herself. Ears burning, she eased away, stood apart from the warmth of the two.

  “I should go now,” she said.

  Sharon replied, “Johnny likes to take earth into himself. Soil and rock and iron.”

  “What?”

  “It's what I crave,” Johnny told her helpfully. “And plants nourish Sharon. What do you eat?”

  “How you mean? I don't understand.”

  Sharon said, “You must know the things that nourish you. Sometimes you have to reach out for them.”

  No, that couldn't be right. The bird birthed of the heat of Blaise's anger had eaten as it pleased, and it had turned into a monster.

  “Urn, I really have to go now. Things to take care of.”

  “Something we can do?” Johnny asked. Both his face and Sharon's held concern.

  Blaise looked at this man who ingested the ore he forged, and the woman to whom flowers gave themselves to be supped. She took a deep breath and told them the story of the cockatrice.

  Blaise's hallway still had the oily smell of cheap chocolate, burnt. She stepped guiltily around the ash smear on the carpet. “This is my place.”

  “Careful as you go in,” Sharon warned.

  The apartment was close and hot. It reeked of sulphur. Blaise flicked on the light.

  The TV had been gutted. It lay crumpled on its side, a stove-in, smoking box.

  “Holy,” Johnny growled. The couch was in shreds, the plants steamed and wilting. The casing of the telephone was melted, adding its own acrid smell to the reek.

  Blaise could feel the tears filling her eyes. Sharon put an arm around her shoulders. Blaise leaned into the comfort of Sharon's petal-soft body and sobbed, a part of her still aware of Sharon's rosiness and duskiness.

  A bereft screech; a flurry of feathers and fur and heat; a stinking hiss of pepper and rotten eggs. The cockatrice rammed full weight into Blaise and Sharon, bearing them to the floor. Sharon rolled out, but the cockatrice sat on Blaise's chest. Its wordless howl carried all the anguish of Mummy gone and leave me, and the rage of Oh, so she come back now? Well, I going show her.

  Blaise cringed. The cockatrice spat a thick red gobbet at her face. It burned her cheek. The drool smelled like rotting pepper sauce. Blaise went cold with horror.

  Suddenly the creature's weight was lifted off her. Johnny was holding the cockatrice aloft by its thick, writhing neck. Blaise scrabbled along the floor, putting Johnny between herself and the monster. Johnny's biceps bu
lged; the rock-crushing fingers flexed; the cockatrice's furred hindquarters kicked and clawed. It spat. Johnny didn't budge. Fire had met stone.

  “Kill it for me, Johnny, do!” Blaise shoved herself to her feet.

  “Oh God, Johnny; you all right?” Sharon asked. “Yes,” he muttered, all his concentration on the struggle. But his voice rang flat, a hammer on flawed steel.

  The cockatrice thrashed. Blaise's belly squirmed in response. The animal made a choking sound. It was dying. Blaise felt warmth begin to drain from her body. Her heat, her fire was dying.

  “You have to go,” Blaise whispered at it. “You can't do as you want, lash out at anything you don't like.”

  Sharon gripped Blaise's shoulder. Where was the softness? Sharon's hand was knotted and tough as iron-wood. “You want to kill your every desire dead?” she asked.

  The cockatrice sobbed. It turned a hooded look of sorrow and rage on Blaise. Then it glowered at Johnny. Blaise saw the membranes slide back from its eyes. She lunged at it.

  Too late. The heat of its glare was full on. The air sizzled, and Johnny was caught. Sharon screamed. Johnny glowed, red as the iron in his forge fires.

  But he didn't melt or burn. Yet. Blaise could see him straining to break the pull of the cockatrice's glare, see him weakening. Her beast would kill this man.

  “Bloodfire!” Furious, she charged the cockatrice, dragged it out of Johnny's grasp. She heard Johnny crash to the floor.

  The cockatrice broke away, fluttered to the carpet. It glared at her. Hot, hot. She was burning up with heat, with the bellyfires of anger, of wanting, of hunger.

  “Talk to it,” Sharon told her. “Tell it what you want.” Blaise took a step towards the cockatrice. Birdlike, it cocked its head. It mewed a question.

  “I want,” she said, her voice quaking out the unfamiliar word, “to be able to talk what I feel.” God, fever-hot. “I want to be able to say, You hurt me.” The cockatrice hissed. “Or, I'm not interested.” The cockatrice chortled wickedly. “Or,” Blaise hesitated, took in a burning breath, “I like you.”

  The cockatrice sighed. It leapt into her arms, its dog-heavy weight nearly buckling her knees. Its claws scratched her and its breath was rank, but somehow she hung on, feeling its strength flex against her. She held the heat of its needing body tight.