The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  I gave him the saw, then me and Cody went and goofed around some more while Winter walked around the edge of the field, poking at brush and scrawny trees. After a few minutes he took the hacksaw to a spindly sapling.

  "Got it!" Winter yelled, and stumbled back into the field. "If we're going to find water here, we better find a willow first."

  It was early spring, and there really weren't any leaves out yet, so what he had was more like a pussy willow, with furry gray buds and green showing where he'd sawn the branch off. Winter stripped the buds from it until he had a forked stick. He held the two ends like he was holding handlebars, and began to walk around the field.

  It was weird. Cause at first, me and Cody were laughing—we didn't mean to, we couldn't help it. It just looked funny, Winter walking back and forth with his arms out holding that stick. He kind of looked like Frankenstein. Even Ms. Whitton was smiling.

  But then it was like everything got very still. Not quiet—you could hear the wind blowing in the trees, and hear birds in the woods, and someone running a chainsaw far off—but still, like all of a sudden you were in a movie and you knew something was about to happen. The sun was warm, I could smell dirt and cow manure and meadowsweet. Cody started slapping blackflies and swearing. I felt dizzy, not bad dizzy but like you do when the schoolbus drives fast over a high bump and you go up on your seat. A few feet away Winter continued walking in a very straight line, the willow stick held out right in front of him.

  And all of a sudden the stick began to bend. I don't mean that Winter's arms bent down holding it: I mean the stick itself, the point that stuck straight out, bent down like it was made of rubber and someone had grabbed it and yanked it towards the ground. Only it wasn't made of rubber, it was stiff wood, and there was no one there—but it still bent, pointing at a mossy spot between clumps of dirt.

  "Holy crap," I said.

  Cody shut up and looked. So did Ms. Whitton.

  "Oh my god," she said.

  Winter stopped, angling the stick back and forth like he was fighting with it. Then it lunged down and he yelled "Whoa!" and opened his hands and dropped it. Me and Cody ran over.

  "This is it," said Winter. He pulled a spool of pink surveyor's tape from his pocket and broke off a length. I stared warily at the willow stick, half-expecting it to wiggle up like a snake, but it didn't move. After a moment I picked it up.

  "How'd you do that?" demanded Cody.

  "I didn't do it," said Winter evenly. He took the stick from my hand, snapped off the forked part and tossed it; tied the surveyor's tape to what remained and stuck it in the ground. "Wood does that. Wood talks to you, if you listen."

  "No lie," I said. "Can you show me how to do that sometime?"

  "Sure," said Winter. "Can't today, got a towing job. But someday."

  He and Ms. Whitton started talking about money and who had the best rates for drilling. The next time my mom drove past that field, the drill rig was there hammering at the ground right where Winter's stick had pointed, and the next time I ran into Ms. Whitton in the hall at school she told me the well was already dug and all geared up to pump 100 gallons a minute, once she got her foundation dug and her house moved in.

  Not long after that, Winter announced he was going to Reykjavik.

  It was after school one day about a month later. Winter had dropped by to shoot the breeze.

  "What's Reykjavik?" I asked.

  "It's in Iceland," said my mother. She cracked the window open and sat at the kitchen table opposite Winter and me. "Why on earth are you going to Reykjavik?"

  "To pick up my wife," said Winter.

  "Your wife?" My eyes widened. "You're married?"

  "Nope. That's why I'm going to Iceland to pick her up. I met her online, and we're going to get married."

  My mother looked shocked. "In Iceland?"

  Winter shrugged. "Hey, with a name like mine, where else you gonna find a wife?"

  So he went to Iceland. I thought he'd be gone for a month, at least, but a week later the phone rang and my mom answered and it was Winter, saying he was back safe and yes, he'd brought his wife with him.

  "That's incredible," said Mom. She put the phone down and shook her head. "He was there for four days, got married, and now they're back. I can't believe it."

  A few days later they dropped by so Winter could introduce us to her. It was getting near the end of the school year, and me and Cody were outside throwing stuff at my treehouse, using the open window as a target. Sticks, a frisbee, a broken yo-yo. Stuff like that.

  "Why are you trying to break the house?" a woman asked.

  I turned. Winter stood there grinning, hands in the pockets of his jeans, his gimme cap pushed back so the bill pointed almost straight up. Beside him stood a woman who barely came up to his shoulder. She was so slight that for a second I thought she was another kid, maybe one of the girls from school who'd ridden her bike over or hopped a ride in Winter's truck. But she didn't have a kid's body, and she sure didn't have a kid's eyes.

  "Justin." Winter squared his shoulders and his voice took on a mock-formal tone. "I'd like you to meet my wife. Vala, this is Justin."

  "Justin." The way she said my name made my neck prickle. It was like she was turning the word around in her mouth; like she was tasting it. "Gleour mig ao kynnast per. That's Icelandic for 'I am glad to meet you.'"

  She didn't really have an accent, although her voice sounded more English than American. And she definitely didn't look like anyone I'd ever seen in Maine, even though she was dressed pretty normal. Black jeans, a black t-shirt. Some kind of weird-looking bright blue shoes with thick rubber soles, which I guess is what people wear in Iceland; also a bright blue windbreaker. She had long straight black hair done in two ponytails—one reason she looked like a kid—kind of slanted eyes and a small mouth and the palest skin I've ever seen.

  It was the eyes that really creeped me out. They were long and narrow and very very dark, so dark you couldn't even see the pupil. And they weren't brown but blue, so deep a blue they were almost black. I've never seen eyes that color before, and I didn't really like seeing them now. They were cold—not mean or angry, just somehow cold; or maybe it was that they made me feel cold, looking at them.

  And even though she looked young, because she was skinny and her hair didn't have any gray in it and her face wasn't wrinkled, it was like she was somehow pretending to be young. Like when someone pretends to like kids, and you know they don't, really. Though I didn't get the feeling Vala didn't like kids. She seemed more puzzled, like maybe we looked as strange to her as she did to me.

  "You haven't told me why you are trying to break the house," she said.

  I shrugged. "Uh, we're not. We're just trying to get things through that window."

  Cody glanced at Vala, then began searching for more rocks to throw.

  Vala stared at him coolly. "Your friend is very rude."

  She looked him up and down, then walked over to the treehouse. It was built in the crotch of a big old maple tree, and it was so solid you could live in it, if you wanted to, only it didn't have a roof.

  "What tree is this?" she asked, and looked at Winter.

  "Red maple," he said.

  "Red maple," she murmured. She ran her hand along the trunk, stroking it, like it was a cat. "Red maple . . ."

  She turned and stared at me. "You made this house? By yourself?"

  "No." She waited, like it was rude of me not to say more. So I walked over to her and stood awkwardly, staring up at the bottom of the treehouse. "Winter helped me. I mean, your husband—Mr. Winter."

  "Mr. Winter." Unexpectedly she began to laugh. A funny laugh, like a little kid's, and after a moment I laughed too. "So I am Mrs. Winter? But who should be Winter's proper wife—Spring, maybe?"

  She made a face when she said this, like she knew how dumb it sounded; then reached to take my hand. She drew me closer to her, until we both stood beside the tree. I felt embarrassed—maybe this was how they did thing
s in Iceland, but not here in Maine—but I was flattered, too. Because the way she looked at me, sideways from the corner of her eyes, and the way she smiled, not like I was a kid but another grownup . . . it was like she knew a secret, and she acted like I knew it, too.

  Which of course I didn't. But it was kind of cool that she thought so. She let go of my hand and rested hers against the tree again, rubbing a patch of lichen

  "There are no trees in Iceland," she said. "Did you know that? No trees. Long long ago they cut them all down to build houses or ships, or to burn. And so we have no trees, only rocks and little bushes that come to here—"

  She indicated her knee, then tapped the tree trunk. "And like this—lichen, and moss. We have a joke, do you know it?"

  She took a breath, then said, "What do you do if you get lost in a forest in Iceland?"

  I shook my head. "I dunno."

  "Stand up."

  It took me a moment to figure that out. Then I laughed, and Vala smiled at me. Again she looked like she was waiting for me to say something. I wanted to be polite, but all I could think was how weird it must be, to come from a place where there were no trees to a place like Maine, where there's trees everywhere.

  So I said, "Uh, do you miss your family?"

  She gave me a funny look. "My family? They are happy to live with the rocks back in Iceland. I am tired of rocks."

  A shadow fell across her face. She glanced up as Winter put his hands on her shoulders. "Your mother home, Justin?" he asked. "We're on our way into town, just wanted to say a quick hello and introduce the new wife—"

  I nodded and pointed back to the house. As Winter turned to go, Vala gave me another sharp look.

  "He tells me many good things about you. You and he are what we would call feogar—like a father and his son, Winter says. So I will be your godmother."

  She pointed a finger at me, then slowly drew it to my face until she touched my chin. I gasped: her touch was so cold it burned.

  "There," she murmured. "Now I will always know you."

  And she followed Winter inside. When they were gone, Cody came up beside me.

  "Was that freaky or what?" he said. He stared at the house. "She looks like that weird singer, Boink."

  "You mean Björk, you idiot."

  "Whatever. Where is Iceland, anyway?"

  "I have no clue."

  "Me neither." Cody pointed at my chin. "Hey, you're bleeding, dude."

  I frowned, then gingerly touched the spot where Vala had pressed her finger. It wasn't bleeding; but when I looked at it later that night I saw a red spot, shaped like a fingerprint. Not a scab or blister or scar but a spot like a birthmark, deep red like blood. Over the next few days it faded, and finally disappeared; but I can still feel it there sometimes even now, a sort of dull ache that gets worse when it's cold outside, or snowing.

  That same month, Thomas Tierney returned to Paswegas County. He was probably the most famous person in this whole state, after Stephen King, but everyone up here loves Stephen King and I never heard anyone say anything good about Thomas Tierney except after he disappeared, and then the only thing people said was good riddance to bad rubbish. Even my mom, who gets mad if you say something bad about anyone, even if they hit you first, never liked Thomas Tierney.

  "He's one of those people who thinks they can buy anything. And if he can't buy it, he ruins it for everyone else."

  Though the truth was, there wasn't much that he wasn't able to buy, especially in Paswegas. People here don't have a lot of money. They had more after Thomas Tierney's telemarketing company moved into the state and put up its telephone centers everywhere, even one not too far from Shaker Harbor, which is pretty much the end of nowhere. Then people who used to work as fishermen or farmers or teachers or nurses, but who couldn't make a living at it anymore, started working for International Tierney Enterprises. ICE didn't pay a lot, but I guess it paid okay, if you didn't mind sitting in a tiny cubicle and calling strangers on the phone when they were in the middle of dinner and annoying them so they swore at you or just hung up.

  Once when she heard me and Cody ranking on people who worked at ICE, my mom took us aside and told us we had to be careful what we said, because even if we hated the company it gave people jobs and that was nothing to sneeze about. Of course a lot of those people who worked for ICE ended up not being able to afford to live here anymore, because Tierney gave all his friends from away the expensive jobs, and then they bought land here, which used to be cheap, and built these big fancy houses. So now normal people can't afford to live here, unless they were lucky enough to already own a house or land, like my mom and Winter.

  But then Thomas Tierney got caught doing something bad, sneaking money from his company or something, and ICE got bought by a bigger company, and they shut down all their operations in Maine, and all the people who worked there got thrown out of work and a lot of them who did own their own houses or land got them taken away because they couldn't afford to pay their bills anymore. Then people really hated Thomas Tierney; but it didn't do any good, because he never even got in trouble for what he did, I mean he didn't go to jail or anything, and he didn't lose his money or his house down in Kennebunkport or his yacht or his private airplane.

  As a matter of fact, the opposite happened: he bought the land next to Winter's. Winter dropped by the day he found out about it.

  "That sumbitch bought old Lonnie Packard's farm!" he yelled.

  Me and Cody looked at each other and sort of smirked, but we didn't say anything. I could tell Cody wanted to laugh, like I did—who the hell actually says "sumbitch"?—but at the same time it was scary, because we'd never seen Winter get mad before.

  "I can't blame Lonnie," Winter went on, shifting from one foot to the other and tugging at his cap. "He had to sell his lobsterboat last year cause he couldn't pay his taxes, and then he had that accident and couldn't pay the hospital. And it's a salt farm right there on the ocean, so he never got much out of it except the view."

  Cody asked, "Why didn't he sell it to you?"

  Winter whacked his palm against the wall. "That's what I said! I told Lonnie long time ago, ever he wanted to sell that land I'd take it. But yesterday he told me, 'Winter, your pockets just ain't that deep.' I said, 'Well Lonnie, how deep is deep?' And he pointed out there at the Atlantic Ocean and said, 'You see that? You go out to the Grand Banks and find the deepest part, and I'm telling you it ain't deep as Thomas Tierney's pockets.'"

  So that was that. Tell you the truth, I didn't give much thought to it. Where we snowboarded in the woods was safely on Winter's property, I knew that; besides which it was late spring now, and me and Cody were busy working on that half-pipe behind Winter's house and, once it was done, skating on it.

  Sometimes Winter's wife would come out and watch us. Winter had made her a bench from a hunk of oak, laid slats across it and carved her name on the seat: VALA with carved leaves and vines coming out of the letters. The bench was set up on a little rise, so that you could look out across the tops of the trees and just catch a glimpse of the ocean, silver-blue above the green. Vala was so tiny she looked like another kid sitting there, watching us and laughing when we fell, though never in a mean way. Her laugh was like her eyes: there was a kind of coldness to it, but it wasn't nasty, more like she had never seen anyone fall before and every time it happened (which was a lot) it was a surprise to her. Even though it was warmer now, she always wore that same blue windbreaker, and over it a sweatshirt that I recognized as one of Winter's, so big it was like a saggy dress. It could get wicked hot out there at the edge of the woods, but I never saw her take that sweatshirt off.

  "Aren't you hot?" I asked her once. She'd brought some water for us and some cookies she'd made, gingersnaps that were thin and brittle as ice and so spicy they made your eyes sting.

  "Hot?" She shook her head. "I never get warm. Except with Winter." She smiled then, one of her spooky smiles that always made me nervous. "I tell him it's the only time winter
is ever warm, when he is lying beside me."

  I felt my face turn red. On my chin, the spot where she had touched me throbbed as though someone had shoved a burning cigarette against my skin. Vala's smile grew wider, her eyes too. She began to laugh.

  "You're still a boy." For a moment she sounded almost like my mother. "Good boys, you and your friend. You will grow up to be good men. Not like this man Tierney, who thinks he can own the sea by buying salt. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who thinks he has power." She lifted her head to gaze into the trees, then turned to stare at me. "Except for one thing."

  But she didn't say what that was.

  I had always heard a lot about Thomas Tierney, and even though I had never seen him, there were signs of him everywhere around Shaker Harbor. The addition to the library; the addition to the school; the big old disused mill—renamed the ICE Mill—that he bought and filled with a thousand tiny cubicles, each with its own computer and its own telephone. The ICE Mill employed so many people that some of them drove two hours each way to work—there weren't enough people around Shaker Harbor to fill it.

  But now it was empty, with big FOR SALE signs on it. Winter said it would stay empty, too, because no one in Paswegas County could afford to buy it.

  "And no one outside of Paswegas County would want to buy it," he added. "Watch that doesn't drip—"

  I was helping Winter varnish a crib he'd made, of wood milled from an elm tree that had died of the blight. He wouldn't say who it was for, even when I asked him outright, but I assumed it was a present for Vala. She didn't look pregnant, and I was still a little fuzzy about the precise details of what exactly might make her pregnant, in spite of some stuff me and Cody checked out online one night. But there didn't seem much point in making a trip to Iceland to get a wife if you weren't going to have kids. That's what Cody's dad said, anyway, and he should know since Cody has five brothers and twin sisters.

  "I think they should make the mill into an indoor skate park," I said, touching up part of the crib I'd missed. "That would be sweet."