The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  Her mother walked along as if she had lived in Brid all her life. They stopped in a temple and Zilla bought a hundred candles. Ozma helped her light them all, while the priest dozed, stretched out on a prayer bench. Couldn't he tell how wicked they were? Ozma wondered. Only wicked, wicked people would need to light so many candles.

  But Zilla, kneeling in front of the altar steps, lighting candle after candle, looked like a saint in her gray dress. The air was thick with incense. Zilla sneezed and the priest woke up with a snort. This would be a very dull game, Ozma thought. She wished that Zilla had charmed the constable instead of killing him. She had not been at all tired of their life in Abal.

  Zilla led Ozma through a public square where women were drawing water from a well, and down a narrow street. The gutters smelled of human sewage. In Abal the finest houses had been outfitted with modern plumbing. There had been taps and running water and hot baths. And a public bath—even if Brid had such a thing, Ozma realized—would be out of the question, as long as she was a boy.

  "Here," Zilla said. She went up to the door of a two-story stone house. It did not compare to the house they had lived in, in Abal. When Zilla knocked, a woman in a housemaid's cap opened the door. "You're to go around to the back," the woman said. "Don't you know anything?" Then she relented. "Come in quickly, quickly."

  There was a vestibule and a front hall with a mosaic set in the floor. The blue and yellow tiles were set in a spiralling pattern and Ozma thought she saw dragons, but the mosaic was cracked and some of the tiles were missing. Light fell down through a vaulted sky light. There were statues standing in panelled niches in the wall, gods and goddesses looking as if they had been waiting for a long time for someone to bring their coats and hats. They looked dowdier than the gods in Abal did, less haughty, less high. There were ghosts everywhere, Ozma saw. Somehow it made her miss Abal less. At least Brid was like Abal in this one way.

  She didn't care for the gods. When she thought of them at all, she imagined them catching people the way that Zilla caught ghosts, with charms and ribbons. Who would want to dangle along after one of these household gods, with their painted eyes and their chipped fingers?

  "Come along, come along," said the housemaid. "My name's Jemma. I'm to show you your room and then I'll take you back down to the parlor. What's your name, boy?"

  Zilla poked Ozma. "Oz—Ozen," Ozma said. "Ozen."

  "That's a foreign name," Jemma said. She sounded disapproving. Ozma stared down. Jemma had thick ankles. Her shoes looked as if they pinched. As she hurried them along, little eddies of ghosts swirled around her skirts. Zilla sneezed.

  Jemma led them through a door and then up and up a winding staircase. Ghosts drifted after them lazily. Zilla pretended they were not there and so Ozma did the same.

  At the top of the stairs was a hall with a door on either side. Their room had a sloped roof, so there was barely room to stand up. There were two narrow beds, a chair, a basin on a small table, and a window with a pane missing.

  "I see there's a fireplace," Zilla said. She sank down into the chair.

  "Get up, get up," Jemma said. "Oh please, Miss Zilla, get up. I'm to show you down to the parlor and then I must get back to the kitchen to start dinner. It's a mercy that you've come. It's just been the two of us, me and my da. The house is filthy and I'm no cook."

  "Go on," Zilla said. "I'll find the parlor. And then I'll come find you in the kitchen. We'll see what we can do for dinner."

  "Yes, Miss Zilla," Jemma said, and made a little bob.

  Ozma listened to Jemma thumping down the stairs again as if she were a whole herd of maids. Some of the ghosts went with her but most remained crowded around Zilla. Zilla sat in the chair, her eyes shut tightly.

  "What are we doing here?" Ozma said. "How could there be anything in this place that we need? Who are we to be?"

  Zilla did not open her eyes. "Good people," she said. "Respectable people."

  The constable wriggled like a fish in Ozma's pocket. Good liars, he said quietly. Respectable murderers.

  There was water in the basin so that Zilla and Ozma could wash their hands and faces. Zilla had a packet of secondhand clothing for Ozma, which Ozma laid out on the bed. Boy's clothing. It seemed terrible to her, not only that she should have to be a boy and wear boy's clothing, but that she should have to wear clothes bought from a store in Brid. In Abal and in the city before Abal, she'd had the most beautiful dresses and gloves and cloaks, and shoes made of the softest leather. It was one thing to dress as a boy on the road, when there was no one to admire her. She slipped the constable out of the pocket of her old clothes and into the pocket of her shirt.

  "Stop sulking or I'll sell you to the priests." Zilla said. She was standing at the window, looking out at the street below. Ozma imagined Brid below them: dull, dull, dull.

  Ozma waited just outside the door of the parlor. Really, the house was full of ghosts. Perhaps she and Zilla could start a business here in Brid and export fine ghosts to Abal. When Zilla said, "Come in, son," she stepped in.

  "Close the door quickly!" said the ugly old man who stood beside Zilla. Perhaps he would fall in love with Zilla and beg her to marry him. Something flew past Ozma's ear: the room was full of songbirds. Now she could hear them as well. There were cages everywhere, hanging from the roof and from stands and all of the cage doors standing open. The birds were anxious. They flew around and around the room, settling on chairs and chandeliers. There was a nest on the mantelpiece and another inside the harpsichord. There were long streaks of bird shit on the furniture, on the floor, and on the old man's clothes. "They don't like your mother very much," he said.

  This was not quite right, Ozma saw. It was the ghosts that followed Zilla and Ozma that the birds did not like.

  "This is Lady Rosa Fralix," Zilla said.

  So it was an ugly old woman. Ozma remembered to bow instead of curtsey.

  "What is your name, child?" said Lady Fralix.

  "Ozen," Ozma said.

  "Ozen," Lady Fralix said. "What a handsome boy he is, Zilla."

  Zilla sneezed sharply. "If it meets with your approval, Lady Fralix, dinner will be served in the small dining room at eight. Tomorrow Ozen and Jemma and I will begin to put your house in order. Shall we begin here?"

  "If Ozen will agree to help me cage my friends," Lady Fralix said. "We can go over the schedule tomorrow morning after breakfast. I'm afraid there's been too much work for poor Jemma. There are one or two rooms, though, that I would prefer that you leave alone."

  "Very well, madam," Zilla said in her most disinterested voice, and a ha! thought Ozma. There were birds perched on Lady Fralix's head and shoulders. They pulled at her thin white hair. No wonder she was nearly bald.

  Zilla was a good if unimaginative cook. She prepared an urchin stew, a filet of sole, and because Jemma said Lady Fralix's teeth were not good, she made a bread pudding with fresh goat's milk and honey. Ozma helped her carry the dishes into the dining room, which was smaller and less elegant than the dining rooms of Abal where ladies in beautiful dresses had given Ozma morsels from their own plates. The dining room was without distinction. It was not particularly well appointed. And it was full of ghosts. Everywhere you stepped there were ghosts. The empty wine glasses and the silver tureen in the center of the table were full of them.

  Zilla stayed to serve Lady Fralix. Ozma ate in the kitchen with Jemma and Jemma's da, a large man who ate plate after plate of stew and said nothing at all. Jemma said a great deal, but very little of it was interesting. Lady Rosa Fralix had never married as far as anyone knew. She was a scholar and a collector of holy relics and antiquities. She had traveled a great deal in her youth. She had no heir.

  Ozma went up the stairs to bed. Zilla was acting as lady's maid to Lady Fralix, or rifling through secret drawers, or most likely of all, gone back to the temple to light candles again. Jemma had started a fire in the grate in the dark little bedroom. Ozma was grudgingly grateful. She used the chamber pot an
d then bathed as best she could in front of the fire with a sponge and water from the basin. She did all of this behind a screen so that she was hidden from the constable, although she hadn't been so modest while they were traveling.

  The constable did not have much to say and Ozma did not feel much like talking, either. She thought of a thousand questions to ask Zilla, if only she were brave enough. When she woke in the night, there were strange cracking sounds and the fire in the grate was shooting out long green tongues of flame. Zilla was crouched before it, adding things to the blaze. She was burning her ghost tackle—the long needles and the black silk thread, the tubes and ointments and all of her notebooks. "Go back to sleep, Ozma," Zilla said, without turning around.

  Ozma closed her eyes.

  Zilla woke her in the morning. "What time is it?" Ozma said. A thin gray light was dribbling through the window.

  "Five in the morning. Time to wake and dress and wash your face," Zilla said. "There's work to do."

  Zilla made a porridge with raisins and dates while Ozma located a broom, a brush, a dustpan, and cloths. "First of all," Zilla said, "we'll get rid of the vermin."

  She opened the front door and began to sweep ghosts out of the front hall, through the vestibule, down the front steps and into the street. They tumbled in front of her broom in white, astonished clouds. "What are you doing?" Ozma said.

  "This is a respectable house," Zilla said. "And we are respectable people. An infestation of this kind is disgraceful."

  "In Abal," Ozma said, "fashionable homes were full of ghosts. You made it the fashion. What is different about Brid? What are we doing here?"

  "Sweeping," Zilla said, and handed Ozma a brush and a dustpan.

  They went through the smaller dining room and the larger dining room and the breakfast room and two sitting rooms which seemed to Ozma pleasant at best. There were souvenirs of Lady Fralix's travels everywhere: seashells, souvenir paperweights, music boxes, and umbrella stands made from the legs of very strange animals. They all seethed with ghosts. There was a ballroom where the ghosts rinsed around their ankles in a misty, heatless boil. Ozma's fingers itched for her ribbons and her charms. "Why are there so many?" she said.

  But Zilla shook her head. When the clocks began to strike eight o'clock, at last she stopped and said, "That will do for now. After Lady Fralix has dressed and I've brought her a tray, she wants your help in the front parlor to catch the birds."

  But Lady Fralix caught the birds easily. They came and sat on her finger and she fed them crumbs of toast. Then she shut them in their cages. She didn't need Ozma at all. Ozma sat on the piano bench and watched. Her hands were red and blistered from sweeping ghosts.

  "They need fresh water," Lady Fralix said finally. So Ozma carried little dishes of water back and forth from the kitchen to the parlor. Then she helped Lady Fralix drape the heavy velvet covers over the cages. "Why do you have so many birds?" she said.

  "Why do you have a ghost in your pocket?" Lady Fralix said. "Does your mother know you kept him? She doesn't seem to care for ghosts."

  "How do you know I have a ghost?" Ozma said. "Can you see ghosts too? Why is your house so full of ghosts? In Abal, we caught them for ladies to wear on their dresses, but the ladies only pretended that they could see their ghosts. It was fashionable."

  "Let me take a look at yours," Lady Fralix said. Ozma took the constable out of her pocket. She did it reluctantly.

  The constable bowed to Lady Fralix. My lady, he said.

  "Oh, he's charming," said Lady Fralix. "I see why you couldn't give him up. Would you like me to keep him safe for you?"

  "No!" Ozma said. She quickly put the constable back in her pocket. She said, "When I first saw you I thought you were an ugly old man."

  Lady Fralix laughed. Her laugh was clear and lovely and warm. "And when I saw you, Ozen, I thought you were a beautiful young woman."

  After lunch, which was rice and chicken seasoned with mint and almonds, Zilla gave Ozma a pail of soapy water and a pile of clean rags. She left her in the vestibule. Ozma washed the gods first. She hoped they were grateful, but they didn't seem to be. When she was finished, they had the same sort of look that Zilla wore when she was bamboozling someone: distant, charming, untrustworthy.

  Ozma's back and arms ached. Twice she'd almost dropped the constable in the pail of water, thinking he was a clean rag.

  Zilla appeared in the vestibule. She reached up and touched the robe of one of the gods, a woman with a wolf's head. She left her hand there for a moment and Ozma felt a terrible jealousy. Zilla rarely touched Ozma so gently.

  "Be careful with the tiles," Zilla said. She did not look particularly dirty or tired, although she and Jemma had been beating birdshit out of the carpets and upholstery all afternoon.

  Lady Fralix came and watched from the balcony while Ozma cleaned the mosaic. "Your mother says she will try to find tiles to replace the ones that have been broken," she said.

  Ozma said nothing.

  "The artist was a man from the continent of Gid," Lady Fralix said. "I met him when I was looking for a famous temple to the god Addaman. His congregation had dwindled and in a fit of temper Addaman drowned his congregation, priests, temple and all, in a storm which lasted for three years. There's a lake there now. I went swimming in it and found all kinds of things. I brought the mosaic artist back with me. I always meant to go back. The water was meant to cure heartsickness. Or maybe it was the pox. I have a vial of it somewhere, or maybe that was the vial that Jemma thought were my eyedrops. It's so important to label things legibly."

  Ozma wrung dirty water out of a rag. "Your mother is very religious," Lady Fralix said. "She seems to know a great deal about the gods."

  "She likes to light candles," Ozma said.

  "For your father?" Lady Fralix said.

  Ozma said nothing.

  "If your ghost needs blood," Lady Fralix said, "you should go to the butcher's stall in the market. I'll tell your mother that I sent you to buy seeds for the birds."

  There was nothing to do in Brid. There was no theater, no opera, no chocolate maker. Only temples and more temples. Zilla visited them all and lit hundreds of candles each day. She gave away the dresses which she had brought with her from Abal. She gave away all her jewels to beggars in the street. Zilla did not explain to Ozma about home or what she was planning or why they were masquerading in Brid as a devout, respectable housekeeper and her son. Zilla used only the most harmless of magics: to make the bread rise, to judge whether or not it was a good day to hang up the washing in the courtyard.

  She made up simple potions for the other servants who worked in the houses on the street where Lady Fralix lived. She told fortunes. But she only told happy fortunes. The love potions were mostly honey and sugar dissolved in wine. Zilla didn't charge for them. Neighborhood servants sat around the kitchen table and gossiped. They told stories of how the mayor of Brid had been made a fool of, all for love; of accidental poisonings; who had supposedly stuffed their mattresses with bags of gold coins; which babies had been dropped on their heads by nursemaids who drank. Zilla did not seem to pay any attention.

  "Lady Fralix is a good woman," Jemma said. "She was wild in her youth. She talked to the gods. She wasn't afraid of anything. Then she came to Brid to see the temples and she bought this house on a whim because, she said, she'd never been in a town that was so full of sleepy gods. She claims that it's restful. Well, I don't know about that. I've never lived anywhere else."

  "There's something about Brid," Zilla said. She looked cross, as if the word Brid tasted bad. "Something that drew me to Brid, but I don't know what. I don't know that I'd call it peaceful. Ozen finds it dull, I'm afraid."

  Ozma said, "I want to go home." But she said it quietly, so that Jemma wouldn't hear. Zilla looked away as if she hadn't heard either.

  Ozma developed calluses on her hands. It was a good thing that there was nothing to do in Brid. She spent all her time mopping and dusting and carrying fire wood a
nd beating upholstery. Zilla's nose was always pink from sneezing. The constable grew bored. This was not what I expected death to be like, he said.

  "What is death like?" Ozma said. She always asked the ghosts this, but they never gave satisfactory answers.

  How do I know? the constable said. I'm carried around all day in a young girl's pocket. I drink the stale blood of market cattle. I thought there would be clouds of glory, or beautiful lecherous devils with velvet bosoms, or a courtroom full of gods to judge me.

  "It will be different when Zilla has done what she needs to do," Ozma said. "Then we'll go home. There will be clouds of glory, and my pockets will be lined with lavender and silk. Everyone will know Zilla and they'll bow to her when we drive by in our carriage. Mothers will frighten their children with stories about Zilla, and kings will come and beg her to give them kisses. But she will only love me."

  You think your mother is a blackmailer and a thief and a murderer, the constable said. You admire her for what you think she is.

  "I know she is!" Ozma said. "I know what she is!"

  The constable said nothing. He only smirked. For several days they did not speak to each other, until Ozma relented and gave him her own blood to drink as a peace offering. It was only a drop or two, and she was almost flattered to think that he preferred it.

  It was hard work keeping Lady Fralix's house free of ghosts. Ozma said so when she brought Lady Fralix's breakfast up one morning. Zilla and Jemma had gone to a temple where there was a god who, according to his priests, had recently opened his painted mouth and complained about the weather. This was supposed to be a miracle.

  "Your mother wants me to let my birds go free," Lady Fralix said. "First the ghosts, now the birds. She says it's cruel to keep things trapped in cages."

  This did not sound at all like Zilla. Ozma was beginning to grow tired of this new Zilla. It was one thing to pretend to be respectable; it was another entirely to be respectable.