The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine

by Jonathan Strahan

  She goes by a mirror, stops to smooth her hair down, collect it into a ponytail.

  Wraps the blanket around herself like a shawl, goes out into the snow. He’s there, under the hawthorn tree. She shivers, tells herself it’s because of the cold. There isn’t much snow on the ground yet. She tells herself she hasn’t been asleep too long. He hasn’t been waiting long.

  He wears the same coat. His face is the same. He isn’t as old as she thought he was, that first time. Only a few years older than she. Than Daniel. He hasn’t aged. She has. Where is he, when he isn’t here?

  “Are you a ghost?” she says.

  “No,” he says. “I’m not a ghost.”

  “Then you’re a real person? A Honeywell?”

  “Fenwick Septimus Honeywell.” He bows. It looks better than it should, probably because of the coat. People don’t really do that sort of thing anymore. No one has names like that. How old is he?

  “You only come when it snows,” she says.

  “I am only allowed to come when it’s snowing,” he says. “And only on Christmas Day.”

  “Right,” she says. “Okay, no. No, I don’t understand. Allowed by whom?” He shrugs. Doesn’t answer. Maybe it isn’t allowed.

  “You gave me something,” Miranda says.

  He nods again. She puts out her hand, touches the place on the justacorps

  where he tore away the fox. So he could give it to her.

  “Oh,” Miranda said. “The poor old thing. You didn’t even use scissors, did you? Let me fix it.”

  She takes the piece of damask out of her pocket, along with her sewing kit, the one she always keeps with her. She’s had exactly the right thread in there for over a year. Just in case.

  She shows him the damask. A few months ago she unpicked all of the fox’s leg, all of the trap. The drops of blood. The tail and snarling head. Then she reworked the embroidery to her own design, mimicking as closely as possible the feel of the original. Now the fox is free, tongue lolling, tail aloft, running along the pink plane of the damask. Pink cotton backing, a piece she cut from an old nightgown.

  He takes it from her, turns it over in his hand. “You did this?” “You gave me a present last year. This is my present for you,” she says.

  “I’ll sew it back in. It will be a little untidy, but at least you won’t have a hole in your lovely coat.”

  He says, “I told her I tore it on a branch. It’s fine just as it is.” “It isn’t fine,” she says. “Let me fix it, please.”

  He smiles. It’s a real smile, maybe even a flirtatious smile. He and Daniel could be brothers. They’re that much alike. So why did she stop Daniel from kissing her? Why does she have to bite her tongue, sometimes, when Daniel is being kind to her? At Honeywell Hall, she is only as real as Elspeth and Daniel allow her to be. This isn’t her real life.

  It’s ridiculous, of course. Real is real. Daniel is real. Miranda is real when she isn’t here. Whatever Fenwick Septimus Honeywell is, Miranda’s fairly sure it’s complicated.

  “Please,” she says.

  “As you wish it, Miranda,” Fenny says. She helps him out of the coat. Her hand touches his, and she pushes down the inexplicable desire to clutch at it.

  As if one of them were falling.

  “Come inside the Hall,” she says. “Just while I’m working on this. I should do it inside. Better light. You could meet Daniel. Or Elspeth. I could wake her up. I bet Elspeth knows how to deal with this sort of thing.” Whatever this sort of thing is. “Theater people seem like they know how to deal with things like this. Come inside with me.”

  “I can’t,” he says regretfully.

  Of course. It’s against the rules.

  “Okay,” Miranda says, adjusting. “Then we’ll both stay out here. I’ll stay with you. You can tell me all about yourself. Unless that’s against the rules too.” She busies herself with pins. He lifts her hand away, holds it. “Inside out, if you please,” he says. “The fox on the inside.” He has lovely hands. No calluses on his fingertips. Manicured nails.

  Definitely not real. His thumb smooths over her knuckles. Miranda says, a little breathless, “Inside out. So she won’t notice someone’s repaired it?”

  Whoever she is.

  “She’ll notice,” he says. “But this way she won’t see that the fox is free.” “Okay. That’s sensible. I guess.” Miranda lets go of his hand. “Here. We can sit on this.”

  She spreads out the blanket. Sits down. Remembers she has a Mars bar in her pocket. She passes that to him. “Sit.”

  He examines the Mars bar. Unwraps it.

  “Oh, no,” she says. “More rules? You’re not allowed to eat?” “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never been given anything before. When I came. No one has ever talked to me.”

  “So you show up when it snows, creep around for a while, looking in at the windows. Then you go back wherever when the snow stops.” Fenny nods. He looks almost abashed.

  “What fun!” Miranda says. “Wait, no, I mean how creepy!” She has the piece of embroidery how she wants it, is tacking it into place with running stitches, so the fox is hidden.

  If it stops snowing, will he just disappear? Will the coat stay? Something tells her that all of this is very against the rules. Does he want to come back?

  And what does she mean by back, anyway? Back here, to Honeywell Hall?

  Or back to wherever it is that he is when he isn’t here? Why doesn’t he get older?

  Elspeth says it’s a laugh, getting older. But oh, Miranda knows, Elspeth doesn’t mean it.

  “It’s good,” Fenny says, sounding surprised. The Mars bar is gone. He’s licking his fingers.

  “I could go back in the house,” Miranda says. “I could make you a cheese sandwich. There’s Christmas cake for tomorrow.”

  “No,” he says. “Stay.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll stay. Here. That’s the best I can do in this light. My hands are getting too cold.”

  He takes the coat from her. Nods. Then puts it around her shoulders. Pulls her back against his chest. All of that damask: it’s heavy. There’s snow inside and out.

  Fenny is surprisingly solid for someone who mostly isn’t here. She wonders if she is surprising to him, too.

  His mouth is just above the top of her head, blowing little hot circles against her hair. She’s very, very cold. Ridiculous to be out here in the snow with this ridiculous person with his list of ridiculous rules.

  She’ll catch her death of cold.

  Cautiously, as if he’s waiting for her to stop him, he puts his arms around her waist. He sighs. Warm breath in her hair. Miranda is suddenly so very afraid that it will stop snowing. They haven’t talked about anything. They haven’t even kissed. She knows, every part of her knows, that she wants to kiss him. That he wants to kiss her. All of her skin prickles with longing. Her insides fizz.

  She puts her sewing kit back into her pocket, discovers the joint Elspeth gave her, Daniel’s lighter. “I bet you haven’t ever tried this, either,” she says.

  She twists in his arms. “You smoke it. Here.” She taps at the side of his face with the joint, sticks it between his lips when they part. Flicks the lighter until it catches, and then she’s lunging at him, kissing him, and he’s kissing her back. The second time tonight that she’s kissed a boy, the first two boys she’s ever kissed, and both of them Honeywells.

  And oh, it was lovely kissing Daniel, but this is something better than lovely. All they do is kiss, she doesn’t know how long they kiss; at first Fenny tastes of chocolate, and she doesn’t know what happens to the joint. Or to the lighter. They kiss until Miranda’s lips are numb-ish and the justacorps

  has come entirely off of her, and she’s in Fenny’s lap and she has one hand in Fenny’s hair and one hand digging into Fenny’s waist, and all she wants to do is keep on kissing Fenny forever and ever. Until he pulls away. They’re both breathing hard. His cheeks are red. His mouth is redder.

  Miranda
wonders if she looks as crazed as he looks.

  “You’re shivering,” he says.

  “Of course I’m shivering! It’s freezing out here! And you won’t come inside. Because,” Miranda says, panting, shivering, all of her vibrating with cold and with want, want, want, “it’s against the rules!”

  Fenny nods. Looks at her lips, licks his own. Jerks back, though, when Miranda tries to kiss him again. She’s tempted to pick up a handful of wet snow and smush it into his Honeywell face.

  “Fine, fine! You stay right here. Don’t move. Not even an inch, understand?

  I’ll get the keys to the Tiger,” she says. “Unless it’s against the rules to sit in old cars.”

  “All of this is against the rules,” Fenny says. But he nods. Maybe, she thinks, she can get him in the car and just drive away with him. Maybe that would work.

  “I mean it,” Miranda says. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

  He nods. She kisses him, punishingly, lingeringly, desperately, then takes off in a run for the kitchen. Her fingers are so cold she can’t get the door open at first. She grabs her coat, the keys to the Tiger, and then, on impulse, cuts off a hunk of the inviolate Christmas cake. Well, if Elspeth says anything, she’ll tell her the whole story.

  Then she’s out the door again. Says the worst words she knows when she sees that the snow has stopped. There is the snow-blotted blanket, the joint, and the Mars-bar wrapper.

  She leaves the Christmas cake on the window ledge. Maybe the birds will eat it.

  DANIEL IS STILL asleep on the couch. She wakes him up. “Merry Christmas,” she says. “Good morning.” She gives him his present. She’s made him a shirt. Egyptian cotton, gray-blue to match his eyes. But of course it won’t fit. He’s already outgrown it.

  DANIEL CATCHES HER under the mistletoe when it’s past time for bed, Christmas night and no one wants to go to sleep yet, everyone tipsy and loose and picking fights about things they don’t care about. For the sheer pleasure of picking fights. He kisses Miranda. She lets him.

  It’s sort of a present for Elspeth, Miranda rationalizes. It’s sort of because she knows it’s ridiculous, not kissing Daniel, just because she wants to be kissing someone else instead. Especially when the person she wants to be kissing isn’t really a real person at all. At least not most of the time.

  Besides, he’s wearing the shirt Miranda made for him, even though it doesn’t fit.

  In the morning, Daniel is too hungover to drive her down to the village to catch the bus. Elspeth takes her instead. Elspeth is wearing a vintage suit, puce gabardine, trimmed with sable, something Miranda itches to take apart, just to see how it’s made. What a tiny waist she has.

  Elspeth says, “You know he’s in love with you.”

  “He’s not,” Miranda says. “He loves me, but he’s not in love with me. I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”

  “If you say so,” Elspeth says. Her tone is cool. “Although I can’t help being curious how you’ve come to know so much about love, Miranda, at your tender age.”

  Miranda flushes.

  “You know you can talk to me,” Elspeth says. “You can talk to me whenever you want to. Whenever you need to. Darling Miranda. There’s a boy, isn’t there? Not Daniel. Poor Daniel.”

  “There’s nobody,” Miranda says. “Really. There’s nobody. It’s nothing. I’m just a bit sad because I have to go home again. It was such a lovely Christmas.”

  “Such lovely snow!” Elspeth says. “Too bad it never lasts.”

  DANIEL COMES TO visit in the spring. Two months after Christmas. Miranda isn’t expecting him. He shows up at the door with a bouquet of roses. Miranda’s aunt’s eyebrows go almost up to her hairline. “I’ll make tea,” she says, and scurries off. “And we’ll need a vase for those.”

  Miranda takes the roses from Daniel. Says, “Daniel! What are you doing here?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Daniel says.

  “Avoiding you? We don’t live in the same place,” Miranda says. “I wasn’t even sure you knew where I lived.” She can hardly stand to have him here, standing in the spotless foyer of her aunt’s semidetached bungalow.

  “You know what I mean, Miranda. You’re never online,” he says. “And when you are, you never want to chat. You never text me back. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “No,” she says. Grabs her bag.

  “Don’t bother with the tea, Aunt Dora,” she says loudly, “We’re going out.”

  She yanks at Daniel’s hand, extracts him violently from her life, her real life. If only.

  She speed walks him past the tract houses with their small, white-stone frontages, all the way to the dreary, dingy, Midlands-typical High Street. Daniel trailing behind her. It’s a long walk, and she has no idea what to say to him. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, either.

  Her dress is experimental, nothing she’s ever intended to wear out. She hasn’t yet brushed her hair today. It’s the weekend. She was planning to stay in and study. How dare he show up.

  There’s a teashop where the scones and the sandwiches are particularly foul. She takes him there, and they sit down. Order.

  “I should have let you know I was coming,” Daniel says.

  “Yes,” Miranda says. “Then I could have told you not to.”

  He tries to take her hand. “Mirandy,” he says. “I think about you all the time. About us. I think about us.”

  “Don’t,” she says. “Stop!”

  “I can’t,” he says. “I like you. Very much. Don’t you like me?”

  It’s a horrible conversation. Like stepping on a baby mouse. A baby mouse who happens to be your friend. It doesn’t help that Miranda knows how unfair she’s being. She shouldn’t be angry that he’s come here. He doesn’t know how she feels about this place. Just a few more months and she’ll be gone from here forever. It will never have existed.

  They are both practically on the verge of tears by the time the scones come. Daniel takes one bite and then spits it out onto the plate.

  “It’s not that bad,” she snaps. Dares him to complain.

  “Yes it is,” he says. “It really truly is that bad.” He takes a sip of his tea. “And the milk has gone off, too.”

  He seems so astonished at this that she can’t help it. She bursts out laughing. This astonishes him, too. And just like that, they aren’t fighting anymore. They spend the rest of the day feeding ducks at the frozen pond, going in and out of horror movies, action movies, cartoons – all the movies except the romantic comedies, because why rub salt in the wound? – at the cinema. He doesn’t try to hold her hand. She tries not to imagine that it is snowing outside, that it is Fenny sitting in the flickering darkness here beside her. Imagining this is against the rules.

  MIRANDA FINISHES OUT the term. Packs up what she wants to take with her, boxes up the rest. Sells her sewing machine. Leaves a note for her aunt. Never mind what’s in it.

  She knows she should be more grateful. Her aunt has kept her fed, kept her clothed, given her bed and board. Never hit her. Never, really, been unkind. But Miranda is so very, very tired of being grateful to people.

  She is sticky, smelly, and punch-drunk with jetlag when her flight arrives in Phuket. Stays the night in a hostel and then sets off. She’s read about how this is supposed to go. What you can bring, how long you can stay, how you should behave. All the rules.

  But, in the end, she doesn’t see Joannie. It isn’t allowed. It isn’t clear why. Is her mother there? They tell her yes. Is she still alive? Yes. Can Miranda see her? No. Not possible today. Come back.

  Miranda comes back three times. Each time she is sent away. The consul can’t help. On her second visit, she speaks to a young woman named Dinda, who comes and spends time with the prisoners when they are in the infirmary. Dinda says that she’s sat with Joannie two or three times. That Miranda’s mother never says much.

  It’s been over six months since her mother wrote to either Elspeth or to Mira
nda.

  The third time she is sent away, Miranda buys a plane ticket to Japan. She spends the next four months there, teaching English in Kyoto. Going to museums. Looking at kimonos at the flea markets at the temples.

  She sends postcards to Elspeth, to Daniel. To her mother. She even sends one to her aunt. And two days before Christmas, Miranda flies home.

  On the plane, she falls asleep and dreams that it’s snowing. She’s with Joannie in a cell in the prison in Phuket. Her mother tells Miranda that she loves her. She tells her that her sentence has been commuted. She tells her that if Miranda’s good and follows the rules very carefully, she’ll be home by Christmas.

  SHE HAS A plan this year. The plan is that it will snow on Christmas. Never mind what the forecast says. It will snow. She will find Fenny. And she won’t leave his side. Never mind what the rules say.

  Daniel is going to St. Andrews next year. His girlfriend’s name is Lillian. Elspeth is on her best behavior. Miranda is, too. She tells various Honeywells amusing stories about her students, the deer at the temples, and the girl who played the flute for them.

  Elspeth is getting old. She’s still the most beautiful woman Miranda has ever seen, but she’s in her sixties now. Any day she’ll be given a knighthood and never be scandalous again.

  Lillian is a nice person. She tells Miranda that she likes Miranda’s dress. She flirts with the most decrepit of the Honeywells, helps set the table. Daniel watches everything that she does as if all of it is brand new, as if Lillian has invented compliments, flirting, as if there were no such thing as water glasses and table linens before Lillian discovered them. Oh newfound land.

  Despite all this, Miranda thinks she could be fond of Lillian. She’s smart. Likes maths. Actually, truly, really seems to like Miranda’s dress, which, let’s admit it, is meant as an act of war. Miranda is not into pretty at the moment. She’s into armor, weaponry, abrasiveness, discomfort – hers and other peoples’. The dress is leather, punk, studded with spikes, buckles, metal cuffs, chain looped round and around. Whenever she sits down, she has to be careful not to gash, impale, or skewer the furniture. Hugging is completely out of the question.