The drought goes on. We've never seen it this bad. And hot! I wish I knew if Iris was finding a way to keep on dancing and doing spells even with a broken leg. She is getting better. I should feel sorry for her with just that bouncy puppy out there, and I sort of do but not if she's a witch.
* * * *
I don't go over there as often as I did and I thought Daniel had stopped going over, too, but then I see him coming home from the wrong direction. He doesn't lie. When I ask he says he was checking on her. That she was up and had cooked apple tarts. He says they were delicious.
I ask if the worms were good.
I can just see them sitting on that smelly old couch gobbling tarts—which are no doubt full of that love potion of hers—one wispy dishwater blond and one dark, not very tall man with hairy arms. I don't see why either one would want the other.
Maybe if I dance all the harder.... Or maybe I shouldn't be enjoying dancing. And what about those herbs I cooked up that make me feel so energetic? I still have some of that tea left. I think I'll go on back to her place and steal some more dried green things.
* * * *
This time it's easy. There's nobody home. And here are the apple tarts. I shouldn't. Who knows what will happen? But they look so good.
I always bring something as an excuse. This time I brought apple turnovers. Same apples. My turnovers are good, too.
I take my time looking around again. There are some books in a different language. Those are probably exactly what I need, if only I could read them. I steal a small one. Put it in my pocket. It has diagrams. I might be able to figure something out.
I meet her and the puppy coming in just as I'm leaving. By the looks, she's been out crying over the graves of Red and Howie.
“I left you an apple turnover,” I say, “and I ate one of your tarts. I hope you don't mind."
I think, so there, if it's full of love potions then you're in for it from both of us. But she doesn't seem upset, and, anyway, I don't feel any different.
* * * *
Later Daniel comes home—from the wrong direction again. He looks glum. Or maybe just thoughtful. I feed him a whole batch of cooked up greens from Iris's house. I have no idea what they are.
That night he has really bad diarrhea. He's up and down so much I don't have a chance to go out and dance or do any such thing. And then here he is home all day. He doesn't complain, he never does, but I can see he's feeling terrible. I think of going over to ask Iris if she has any sort of herb that would help him, except that would let her know I was on to her.
I don't very often cook up a mess of greens. Daniel is looking at me with suspicion as if he thinks I was trying to poison him. When I make him tea, I think he gets rid of it on the African violets.
Later, sick as he is, he goes over to Iris's, and not even with food or anything as an excuse. He just goes. He stays a long time, too. At twilight I start over to see what's up but I meet him on his way home. He says he's not hungry for any supper.
All right, that's it then. Tomorrow is Sunday. We don't go to church that much, but I'm going and I'm telling everybody that Iris is, for sure, a witch and that Daniel is in it with her and that this whole drought thing is their fault.
Daniel falls asleep in his easy chair. He's exhausted. I wonder if it's from getting up and down all night long or is there another reason. To think I used to look at that dark, brooding face of his and think it was romantic. Now look at him, hair hanging over his eyes, shirt all sweated up.... I wouldn't want to kiss those cheeks, him badly needing a shave. How could Iris do that?
I go out under the ghostly gibbous moon. I'm so mad I can think up spells without even trying. Spell after spell after spell. And I can talk in tongues and dance as never before. I go on for hours. Until I see ... First there's smoke and then the twinkle of little fires. Like fireflies and then larger. I did that somehow. Then here come magpies, and all that black and white and screeching! and I'm dancing with them. I take one of the little fires and set fire to our corncrib. I don't need matches. Then I take some of that corncrib fire and set fire to our barn. And those magpies are still flapping around all over the place. And there's mooing and baaing and screeching.
And Daniel, rushing into the barn, freeing the cow and goat, and here's Iris, on crutches, and they're both looking at me and I'm dancing and dancing. Daniel says bad words. “What the hell?” and “Damn.” And worse even. And I say, “Neither of you can ever touch me."
It's true, I'm in charge ... of all of it ... I see that now ... of the drought and of them. I say, “Bitty tatty go bo bat zakky yat.” And I hear my laughter going on and on and on as the moon hides behind cinders and the ground comes up and welcomes me.
Copyright (c) 2007 Carol Emshwiller
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* * *
Short Story: PAID IN FULL
by Susan Forest
Susan Forest's recent sales include stories to On Spec and Tesseracts Eleven. Readers can check out her website at www.speculative-fiction.ca to learn more about her fiction. The author's current story for Asimov's was inspired by Calgary's Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association's annual short story readings. This tale exposes us to some exquisitely alien animal husbandry and it explains why it is so hard for some debts to be...
“Freddy, could you keep my gnat in your barn for a bit?” Willy asked. “The tide undercut my stable's foundations yesterday and it's collapsed."
“Willy, you know I can't do that.” Freddy tightened a bolt on his aphid milker.
Willy seemed to survey the windswept farmyard perched above the sea—house, machine shed, aphid shelters and the massive, two-storied gnat barns with rows and rows of bins. The briar-grass prairies that fed Freddy's aphid grubs stretched, uninterrupted, to the apricot smudge of the horizon.
“Just for a few days, Freddy,” Willy said. “There's a friend."
“My bins are all full as it is.” Freddy checked the other bolts. “And you know my wife'd fuss about it no end."
“Martha.” Willy said the name without inflection, but he leaned his gangly frame against the feed conveyor and squinted into the blustery sky with an air of reproof. “Is she running the farm, then?"
Freddy tossed an aphid hook into the bed of his pickup and wiped the grease from his hands. “She's right, Willy. We've got an extra male gnat until auction, as it is."
“It's just for a day or two, and you know my female will sleep during the day. No trouble. It'd mean a lot to me."
Freddy pushed the button on his remote and observed as the aphid strokers mimed milking a juvenile. Satisfied, he flipped the machine off and peered out at the restless waves foaming on the tide pools below the bluffs. “You need your own bins, Willy. You should have built your barn in the lee of the hill while your larvae were young."
“Shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.” Willy touched the pad on his rain slicker and stepped up its water resistance. “You're free with advice, Freddy. But that does me no good now. You know I have no credit with the bank. I had to sell all my larvae, just to meet my payments."
“You can't keep coming to me for favors whenever something goes wrong."
Willy raised his brows. You owe me nothing, his look said. And everything.
Freddy sighed. “Where's your gnat now?"
“Tied to my dory with a rope."
“Is it a big one?"
“Fair big."
Freddy powered down the milking machine and zipped up his oilskin against the chill wind. “Well, show her to me, then."
“You're a good friend, Freddy."
“I'm not saying I'll do it."
They walked down the bluff to the rocky beach where Willy's boat was drawn up on a spit of sand. Slate clouds rested on the ocean and salt gusts whipped up a fine spray.
Willy hauled the canvas from the stern. The gnat lay, all sticklike legs and proboscis, compound eyes and long abdomen, crumpled across the whole width of the boat, one lacy wing folded under the seat.
Her waxy exoskeleton gleamed like ivory, etched with spidery hairs, pale and delicate.
Freddy's gut wrenched. “I thought she was a Dark."
Willy blinked at the insect. “She was. She was a Dark."
“Well, she's not now, is she?” Freddy took a step back and scanned the sky. Of course, there would be no wild gnats flying now. Sunset behind the clouds would not come for another couple of hours.
“By God!” Willy cried. “First the tide undercuts the piles bracing my barn, then Louise goes home to her mother. Now this."
“You've got to kill her,” Freddy said. “Now, before she wakes. I'll get my axe."
“But she wasn't a white gnat,” Willy protested. “Someone's taken my gnat.” He looked up and down the beach. Back the way they had come, a rocky headland rose over the crashing waves, while in the opposite direction, a rickety wooden pier bobbed with the surge, deserted.
Freddy surveyed the cliffs behind them. “Not a soul's been here all afternoon, Willy. And it's five miles—of nothing—to the settlement.” He walked around the stern of the dory and scrutinized the tattoo on the bony plate in front of the gnat's wing. “LC0042376."
Willy kicked the sand. “She's the one. Elsie."
“Then this is your gnat,” Freddy said. “No one took her."
“She was a Dark when I put her there this morning!"
“She's been bitten by a wild White, Willy. You've gone and let her fly at night with them."
Willy whirled to face him. “Well, I had no bin to put her in last night, then, did I, Freddy?"
“Cut her to bits and throw her into the sea!"
“I can't!” Willy ran his bony fingers through the shock of lank hair that continually fell into his eyes. “Freddy, she's my last gnat. I sold the others before auction. But Elsie's a female. She's full of eggs."
Freddy shoved his hands deep in his overall pockets. “Your last gnat?"
“She's all I've got, Freddy. Once I've got eggs, I can get a loan for a new barn."
“And your aphids?"
“Sure, I have a few. A dozen, to feed her young."
“Willy, your farm used to be profitable—"
“Shut it!” Willy bent over, all elbows and knees, fingers clutching his hair.
“Well, now.” Freddy stood over the dory, uncomfortable at Willy's anguish. He shuffled the pebbles, waiting for Willy to get control of himself.
But how could he? It was easy for Freddy to stand there, watching and helpless. His farm churned out four million gnat larvae a year for sale all over the galaxy, feeding them on the honeydew of fifty thousand aphids, five to seven prime females and at least two stud males every breeding cycle. He didn't have the problems Willy had.
Willy straightened, gazed out to sea, sniffing back his outburst. “She's just tired,” he said huskily. “Her color'll come back. Just a few days, Freddy. Till she lays her eggs. Then I'll be on my feet again."
What could he say? Hadn't he told Willy to build his barn in the lee of the cliffs, not by the sea, where the footings could be undercut? Hadn't he told Willy to keep breeding his first mating pair instead of buying and selling gnats at market? Hadn't he told Willy that Louise was too young, too flighty to be a farm wife?
Willy turned and eyed him.
Freddy brushed at a wayward mist of salt water carried from the surf by the squall. “Willy..."
“Freddy, I'm a proud man,” Willy said hastily. “I would never have come to you—"
“Willy, she's been bitten by a White."
“She's not!"
“She's been bitten by a White. She's dangerous. I can't keep her after dark. She'll bite my males and suck the blood from them; she'll bite the females and turn them White. She'll even bite you, Willy, if she sees you after dark."
“She wouldn't. I've raised her from the egg."
“She's a gnat. There's no difference between Elsie and a Wild but a few dozen years of breeding.” Freddy puffed out his frustration into the salt air. “Listen. You can stay with Martha and me until you get on your feet again. You can—"
Willy shoved the canvas over the back of the dory. “Never mind."
“Willy—"
“A bin. Just a single bin, for a couple of days.” He bent to the bow of the boat and pushed it toward the sea.
A flush of anger washed over Freddy. “If I let a White in my barn for even an hour past sundown, I'll have no farm left!"
Willy grunted with the effort of pushing the boat across the rocky beach. The waves lapped her stern.
Freddy recovered himself. “Now, don't be going off pig-headed."
A swell washed around the back of the boat and, returning, sucked at the dory.
“Look, dark's coming on. Leave the boat. Come and spend the night."
Willy gave a final push, wincing with the strain, and the boat lifted on the water.
“Willy, come back."
Willy sloshed through the waves and steadied the boat.
“You stubborn goat!” Freddy waded into the foam and pulled at Willy's rain slicker. “There isn't time to get back to your place before dark."
“Get off !” Willy shoved his elbow into Freddy's stomach and knocked him into the water, almost unbalancing himself.
Freddy took a mouthful of salt water with the next wave, then dragged himself, spluttering, out of the surge. He staggered to shore as Willy hauled his long legs into the boat and adjusted the oars. The fool! “I'm calling the settlement sea patrol."
Willy glared at him and pulled on the oar to turn the boat into the surf. He pulled again, pulled again, and the dory made way toward the ocean. Before long, Willy was only a speck, bobbing on the waves.
Freddy trudged up the bluffs to his house. He took one last look at the sea and cloud, darkening to charcoal, before slipping into the warmth and light of his home.
The aroma of roasted meat filled the kitchen.
“Isn't Willy staying over, then?” Martha stood by the counter, cutting through the carapace of a tender young aphid grub. She looked up at Freddy. “Oh. I see you two have had a falling out."
Freddy patted her cheek, then rang up the sea patrol.
They ate their dinner. With every gust of wind or creak of the wooden house, Freddy's eyes were drawn to the window, hoping to see Willy through the glass, but the grey day slipped toward night, and Willy did not return.
“I shouldn't have let him go.” Freddy peeled the meat from the inside of the shell and dipped it in melted butter. Rain spattered on the window.
“You tried to get him to stay with us,” Martha said. “You called the sea patrol. You did what you could."
“I didn't give him a bin for his gnat."
Martha put down her fork. “How long are you going to let the man bleed you?” she asked. “How long has it been since Willy killed that White for you? Fifteen years, Freddy."
“He saved my life. That White had her proboscis in my leg and she was sucking—"
“Sure, and since then you've lent him money, you've paid his gambling debts, you've given him aphid eggs—"
Freddy raised his hands to stop her words, but had none of his own to fill the space.
“You're a good man, Freddy. Too good.” She rose and took his plate. “You did the right thing. It's all we can do to cling to this rock. Let Willy stand on his own two feet."
Freddy pressed his lips together and shook his head. He pushed away from the table and sat in the living room with a newspaper on his knee. The panes of glass in the window turned black and reflected the lamplight.
Martha finished the dishes and stood in the doorway. “Come to bed, Freddy. He'll not be coming now. If he stays out after dark, the Whites will swarm him."
“Just another minute.” Freddy adjusted his newspaper as though he had been reading it. Rain rapped on the windows.
“Turn out the light,” she said. “It just attracts the gnats."
As if to prove her point, a slap sounded against the wall and a white wing flashed moment
arily outside the window.
“Freddy.” Martha's face paled. “Turn out the light. You know I don't like them."
He switched off the lamp. “You go on up. I'll be there in a bit."
She tugged on his arm. “The Whites are out,” she whispered. “It's too late. Come up."
Reluctantly, he followed her up the stairs, but he couldn't sleep. He lay under the covers listening to the rain and wind beat against the house, playing out possibilities in his head. Had the sea patrol reached Willy in time? Would he pass the rocks at the headland so the surf wouldn't hurl him on the cliffs or sweep him out to sea? Would the Whites find him, tossing in the waves? Freddy dozed off and woke a handful of times, dream and imagining melding together with the roar of the storm.
Freddy woke to someone shaking him. Martha. “Freddy!” she whispered. “Freddy, wake up! What's that sound at the door?"
The room was still pitch black and the rain struck the windows in sheets. But, yes, there above the storm he heard the sound of pounding. And was that a voice, or just the wind calling out?
“It's Willy,” he said. “He's come back."
She gripped his arm. “It can't be Willy. It's hours since he's gone."
The pounding came again.
“There, that's him,” Freddy said. “He's calling.” He flung the quilt back.
“No!” Martha cried. “Don't go down! Stay with me!"
“It's Willy."
“It isn't! Don't open the door!"
Freddy flipped on the light. Immediately, something hit the bedroom window. A gnat.
“Turn it out!"
“It's a swarm,” he said. He turned out the light, but in his mind he saw Willy at the door, the swarm gathering.
Slap, and slap again. Wings hit the windows, glinting momentarily, pale against the black of night.
The pounding came again, followed by a scream of anguish.
Freddy bounded down the stairs and turned on the porch light.
“Don't!” Martha called from the bedroom, her footsteps scurrying behind him. “Don't open the door!"
He reached for the knob, but Martha wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him back.
Asimov's SF, October-November 2007 Page 10
