Spoonbenders
Page 43
He’s a little disappointed that it’s not real gold. But not too much. He runs his hand across the jagged chunk carved out by the bullet, and the dent makes him feel simultaneously more vulnerable and more mighty.
That’s a helpful state of mind, it turns out.
He rises out of his body, and keeps rising. The rooftop falls away. The treetops become a blur of orange and red. He turns in the air, wondering where he should go. South, he decides. There’s someone he’d like to check in on.
He’s not that great at Chicago geography, but simply by thinking of the place he wants to go, his ghost self finds the way. He slips into the building, then down to the basement.
Princess Pauline stands in her royal stall, chewing hay with solemn dignity. She pays no mind to the tubes running into her body, and ignores the uninvited guest hovering near her.
He floats down to look into the Plexiglas window in her side. In June it was difficult to see the artificial heart that powered her, but now he can get as close as he wants. He nudges his point of awareness forward, letting his ghost head and ghost eyes slip past the window.
The World’s Most Powerful Psychic thinks, This is the grossest thing I have ever done. Still, it’s pretty cool. The heart is far larger than he expected, a hunk of plastic nestled in the tissue of the cow. Her Highness doesn’t seem to mind the intrusion.
He feels a sense of professional camaraderie. She’s his partner in transparency; he can’t be seen, and she reveals all. “Glad you’re doing okay,” he says to her, though of course she pretends not to hear.
He levitates through the layers of cement, through plumbing and phone lines, until he’s back in the sky above Downers Grove. The sun is setting, and the clouds are glowing a peculiar shade of pink. Interesting. He zips up to see them, and then he’s inside the water vapor, blinded by white.
Higher, then. Navigation, he’s been learning, is an act of imagination.
He rises above the cloud layer. Far above him, the sky deepens from purple to black. The moon is a quarter in shadow. Somewhere on its surface is an American flag. He wonders if it’s still standing, and what it looks like up close.
In an instant, he’s there.
Acknowledgments
Many people read drafts of this book and offered advice and encouragement. My undying thanks to Liza Trombi, James Morrow, Gary Delafield, Matt Sturges, Dave Justus, Andrew Tisbert, Fleetwood Robbins, Nancy Kress, and Jack Skillingstead.
My children, now inexplicably grown up, were in my heart on every page. Thank you, Emma and Ian Gregory.
My thanks to my editor, Tim O’Connell, who saw what this book needed—and what it didn’t. It should be illegal to laugh so much while doing such hard work. Richard Arcus of Quercus and Kiara Kent at Penguin Random House Canada provided valuable notes on the penultimate draft. My agent, Seth Fishman, as well as the entire team at the Gernert Company, has been magnificent from start to finish.
There are others who helped me without knowing it. The Chicago Cubs taught me everything I needed to know about fate, faith, and suffering. You bastards broke my father’s heart year after year—until you didn’t. My thanks as well to the gullible members of Congress who funded Project Star Gate for decades, and provided so much material for this novel.
I owe an apology, however, to one of my heroes, James Randi, aka the Amazing Randi. His lifelong crusade to investigate psychics, faith healers, mediums, and frauds of all paranormal stripes inspired a story that might provide aid and comfort to the enemy. And so, though it seems ridiculous to have to say this in the twenty-first century: none of it’s real, folks. There are no mind readers, no remote viewers, no water dousers, no one who can warp kitchen utensils with the power of their mind—except in fiction. But isn’t that enough?
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daryl Gregory is the author of Afterparty, The Devil’s Alphabet, and other novels for adults and young readers. His novella We Are All Completely Fine won the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and now lives in Oakland, California.
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