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

by Jonathan Strahan

  She spent an hour pacing the parlor, occasionally grabbing books off of a shelf, flipping through them as she walked, and then tossing them down in random locations. The anger’s brightness faded, although the sense of injustice remained.

  Later, Abba came up to see her. He stood with mute pleading, not wanting to reopen the argument but obviously unable to bear continuing to fight.

  Even though Ruth hadn’t given in yet, even though she was still burning from the unfairness, she couldn’t look into his sad eyes without feeling thickness in her throat.

  He gestured helplessly. “I just want to keep you safe, Ruthele.”

  They sat together on the couch without speaking. They were both entrenched in their positions. It seemed to Ruth that they were both trying to figure out how to make things right without giving in, how to keep fighting without wounding.

  Abel paced between them, shoving his head into Ruth’s lap, and then into Abba’s, back and forth. Ruth patted his head and he lingered with her a moment, gazing up with rheumy but devoted eyes.

  Arguing with Abba wasn’t going to work. He hadn’t liked her taking risks before she’d gotten sick, but afterward, keeping her safe had become obsession, which was why Ruth even existed. He was a scientist, though; he liked evidence. She’d just have to show him it was safe.

  Ruth didn’t like to lie, but she’d do it. In a tone of grudging acceptance, she said, “You’re right. It’s too risky for me to go back.”

  “We will find you new friends,” Abba said. “We will be together. That’s what is important.”

  RUTH BIDED HER time for a few days. Abba might have been watching her more closely if he hadn’t been distracted with Mara. Instead, when he wasn’t at Mara’s bedside or examining Ruth, he drifted mechanically through the house, registering little.

  Ruth had learned a lot about engineering from watching her father. Attic space wasn’t complicated technology. The program came on its own cube which meant it was entirely isolated from the household AI and its notification protocols. It also came with standard parental access points that had been designed to favor ease of use over security – which meant there were lots of back-end entryways.

  Abba didn’t believe in restricting access to knowledge so he’d made it even easier by deactivating the nanny settings on Mara’s box as soon as she was old enough to navigate attic space on her own.

  Ruth waited until night-time when Mara was drifting in and out of her fractured, painful sleep, and Abba had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Abba had left a light on in the kitchen, but it didn’t reach the hallway to Mara’s room, which fell in stark shadow. Ruth felt her way to Mara’s threshold and put her ear to the door. She could hear the steady, sleeping rhythm of Mara’s breath inside.

  She cracked the door. Moonlight spilled from the window over the bed, allowing her to see inside. It was the first time she’d seen the room in her new body. It looked the same as it had. Mara was too sick to fuss over books or possessions so the objects sat in their places, ordered but dusty. Apart from the lump that Mara’s body made beneath the quilt, the room looked as if it could have been abandoned for days.

  The attic space box sat on a low shelf near the door. It fit in the palm of Ruth’s hand. The fading Image on its exterior showed the outline of a house with people inside, rendered in a style that was supposed to look like a child’s drawing. It was the version they put out for five-year-olds. Abba had never replaced it. A waste of money, he said, when he could upgrade it himself.

  Ruth looked up at the sound of blankets shifting. One of Mara’s hands slipped free from the quilt. Her fingers dangled over the side of the bed, the knuckles exaggerated on thin bones. Inflamed cuticles surrounded her ragged nails.

  Ruth felt a sting of revulsion and chastised herself. Those hands had been hers. She had no right to be repulsed.

  The feeling faded to an ache. She wanted to kneel by the bed and take Mara’s hand into her own. She wanted to give Mara the shelter and empathy that Abba had built her to give. But she knew how Mara felt about her. Taking Mara’s hand would not be hesed. The only loving kindness she could offer now was to leave.

  As Ruth sat in Ima’s studio, carefully disassembling the box’s hardware so that she could jury-rig it to interact with the television, it occurred to her that Abba would have loved helping her with this project. He loved scavenging old technology. He liked to prove that cleverness could make tools of anything.

  The complicated VR equipment that made it possible to immerse in attic space was far too bulky for Ruth to steal from Mara’s room without being caught. She thought she could recreate a sketchy, winnowed down version of the experience using low technology replacements from the television and other scavenged equipment. Touch, smell and taste weren’t going to happen, but an old stereo microphone allowed her to transmit on the voice channel. She found a way to instruct the box to send short bursts of visuals to the television, although the limited scope and speed would make it like walking down a hallway illuminated by a strobe light.

  She sat cross-legged on the studio floor and logged in. It was the middle of the night, but usually at least someone from the flock was around. She was glad to see it was Collin this time, tweaking an experiment with crystal growth. Before she’d gotten sick, Ruth probably would have been there with him. They liked going in at night when there weren’t many other people around.

  She saw a still of Collin’s hand over a delicate formation, and then another of him looking up, startled. “Mara?” he asked. “Is that you?”

  His voice cracked when he spoke, sliding from low to high. It hadn’t been doing that before.

  “Hi, Collin,” she said.

  “Your avatar looks weird.” She could Imagine Collin squinting to investigate her Image, but the television continued to show his initial look of surprise.

  She was using a video skin capture from the last time Mara had logged in, months ago. Without a motion reader, it was probably just standing there, breathing and blinking occasionally, with no expression on its face.

  “I’m on a weird connection,” Ruth said.

  “Is it because you’re sick?” Collin’s worried expression flashed onscreen. “Can I see what you’re really like? It’s okay. I’ve seen videos. I won’t be grossed out or anything. I missed you. I thought – we weren’t sure you were coming back. We were working on a video to say goodbye.”

  Ruth shifted uncomfortably. She’d wanted to go the attic so she could get on with living, not to be bogged down in dying. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  The next visual showed a flash of Colin’s hand, blurred with motion as he raised it to his face. “We did some stuff with non-Newtonian fluids,” he said tentatively. “You’d have liked it. We got all gross.”

  “Did you throw them around?” she asked.

  “Goo fight,” Collin agreed. He hesitated. “Are you coming back? Are you better?”

  “Well –” Ruth began.

  “Everyone will want to know you’re here. Let me ping them.”

  “No. I just want to talk to you.”

  A new picture: Collin moving closer to her avatar, his face now crowding the narrow rectangle of her vision.

  “I looked up osteosarcoma. They said you had lung nodules. Mara, are you really better? Are you really coming back?”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But everyone will want to know.”

  Suddenly, Ruth wanted to be anywhere but attic space. Abba was right. She couldn’t go back. Not because someone might find out but because everyone was going to want to know, what about Mara? They were going to want to know about Mara all the time. They were going to want to drag Ruth back into that sick bed, with her world narrowing toward death, when all she wanted was to move on.

  And it was even worse now than it would have been half an hour ago, before she’d gone into Mara’s room and seen her raw, tender hand, and thought about what it would be like to grasp it.


  “I have to go,” Ruth said.

  “At least let me ping Violet,” Collin said.

  “I’ll be back,” Ruth answered. “I’ll see you later.”

  On the television: Collin’s skeptical face, brows drawn, the shine in his eyes that showed he thought she was lying.

  “I promise,” she said, hesitating only a moment before she tore the attic space box out of her jury-rigged web of wires.

  Tears were filling her eyes and she couldn’t help the sob. She threw the box. It skittered across the wooden floor until it smacked into the mirror. The thing was so old and knocked about that any hard collision might kill it, but what did that matter now? She wasn’t going back.

  She heard a sound from the doorway and looked up. She saw Abba, standing behind the cracked door.

  Ruth’s anger flashed to a new target. “Why are you spying on me?”

  “I came to check on Mara,” Abba said.

  He didn’t have to finish for his meaning to be clear. He’d heard someone in the studio and hoped it could still be his Marale.

  He made a small gesture toward the attic space box. “It did not go well,” he said quietly, statement rather than question.

  Ruth turned her head away. He’d been right, about everything he’d said, all the explicit things she’d heard, and all the implicit things she hadn’t wanted to.

  She pulled her knees toward her chest. “I can’t go back,” she said.

  Abba stroked her hair. “I know.”

  THE LOSS OF attic space hurt less than she’d thought it would. Mara had sealed off those tender spaces, and those farewells had a final ring. She’d said goodbye to Collin a long time ago.

  What bothered her more was the lesson it forced; her life was never going to be the same, and there was no way to deny it. Mara would die and be gone, and Ruth had to learn to be Ruth, whoever Ruth was. That was what had scared Mara about Ruth in the first place.

  The restlessness that had driven her into attic space still itched her. She started taking walks in the snow with Abel. Abba didn’t try to stop her.

  She stopped reading Jewish poetry and started picking up books on music theory. She practiced sight reading and toe-tapped the beats, Imagining choreographies.

  Wednesdays, when Abba planned the menu for Shabbat, Ruth sat with him as he wrote out the list he would take to Gerry’s on Thursday. As he Imagined dishes, he talked about how Mara would like the honey he planned to infuse in the carrots, or the raisins and figs he would cook with the rice. He wondered what they should talk about – poetry, physics, international politics – changing his mind as new topics occurred to him.

  Ruth wondered how he kept hoping. As Mara, she’d always known her boundaries before Abba realized them. As Ruth, she knew, as clearly as Mara must, that Mara would not eat with them.

  Perhaps it was cruel not to tell him, but to say it felt even crueler.

  On a Thursday while Abba was taking the truck to town, Ruth was looking through Ima’s collection of sheet music in the parlor when she heard the click of crutches down the hall. She turned to find Mara was behind her, breathing heavily.

  “Oh,” said Ruth. She tried to hide the surprise in her voice but failed.

  Mara’s voice was thin. “You didn’t think I could get up on my own.”

  “I…” Ruth began before catching the angry look of resolution on Mara’s face. “No. I didn’t.”

  “Of course not,” Mara said bitterly. She began another sentence, but was interrupted by a ragged exhalation as she started to collapse against the wall. Ruth rushed to support her. Mara accepted her assistance without acknowledging it, as if it were beneath notice.

  “Are you going to throw up?” Ruth asked quietly.

  “I’m off the chemo.”

  Mara’s weight fell heavily on Ruth’s shoulder. She shifted her balance, determined not to let Mara slip.

  “Let me take you back to bed,” Ruth said.

  Mara answered, “I wanted to see you again.”

  “I’ll take you. We can talk in there.”

  Ruth took Mara’s silence as assent. Abandoning the crutches, she supported Mara’s weight as they headed back into the bedroom. In daylight, the room looked too bright, its creams and whites unsullied.

  Mara’s heaving eased as Ruth helped her into the bed, but her lungs were still working hard. Ruth waited until her breathing came evenly.

  Ruth knelt by the bed, the way Abba always had, and then wondered if that was a mistake. Mara might see Ruth as trying to act like she was the one in charge. She ducked her gaze for a moment, the way Abel might if he were ashamed, hoping Mara would see she didn’t mean to challenge her.

  “What did you want to say to me?” Ruth asked. “It’s okay if you want to yell.”

  “Be glad,” Mara said, “That you didn’t have to go this far.”

  Mara’s gaze slid down Ruth’s face. It slowly took in her smooth skin and pink cheeks.

  Ruth opened her mouth to respond, but Mara continued.

  “It’s a black hole. It takes everything in. You can see yourself falling. Nothing looks like it used to. Everything’s blacker. So much blacker. And you know when you’ve hit the moment when you can’t escape. You’ll never do anything but fall.”

  Ruth extended her hand toward Mara’s, the way she’d wanted to the other night, but stopped before touching her. She fumbled for something to say.

  Flatly, Mara said, “I am glad at least someone will get away.”

  With great effort, she turned toward the window.

  “Go away now.”

  SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE, but Ruth stood at the door that night when Abba went in to check on Mara. She watched him kneel by the bed and take her hand. Mara barely moved in response, still staring out the window, but her fingers tensed around his, clutching him. Ruth remembered the way Abba’s hand had felt when she was sleepless and in pain, a solid anchor in a fading world.

  She thought of what Abba had said to her when she was still Mara, and made silent promises to the other girl. I will keep you and hold you. I will protect you. I will always have your hand in mine.

  IN THE MORNING, when Ruth came back upstairs, she peeked through the open door to see Abba still there beside Mara, lying down instead of kneeling, his head pillowed on the side of her mattress.

  She walked back down the hallway and to the head of the stairs. Drumming on her knees, she called for Abel. He lumbered toward her, the thump of his tail reassuringly familiar. She ruffled his fur and led him into the parlor where she slipped on his leash.

  Wind chill took the outside temperature substantially below freezing, but she hesitated before putting on her coat. She ran her hand across the ‘skin’ of her arm. It was robotic skin, not human skin. She’d looked at some of the schematics that Abba had left around downstairs and started to wonder about how different she really was from a human. He’d programmed her to feel vulnerable to cold, but was she really?

  She put the coat back on its hook and led Abel out the door. Immediately, she started shivering, but she ignored the bite. She wanted to know what she could do.

  She trudged across the yard to the big, bony oak. She snapped off a branch, made Abel sit while she unhooked his leash, and threw the branch as far as she could. Abel’s dash left dents in the snow. He came back to her, breath a warm relief on her hand, the branch slippery with slobber.

  She threw it again and wondered what she could achieve if Abba hadn’t programmed her body to think it was Mara’s. He’d given her all of Mara’s limits. She could run as fast as Mara, but not faster. Calculate as accurately as Mara, but no moreso.

  Someday, she and Abba would have to talk about that.

  She tossed the stick again, and Abel ran, and again, and again, until he was too tired to continue. He watched the branch fly away as he leaned against Mara’s leg for support.

  She gave his head a deep scratch. He shivered and he bit at the air near her hand. She realized her cold fingers were hurting him.
For her, the cold had ceased to be painful, though she was still shivering now and then.

  “Sorry, boy, sorry,” she said. She reattached his leash, and watched how, despite the temperature, her fingers moved without any stiffness at all.

  She headed back to the house, Abel making pleased whuffing noises to indicate that he approved of their direction. She stopped on the porch to stamp the snow off of her feet. Abel shook himself, likewise, and Ruth quickly dusted off what he’d missed.

  She opened the door and Abel bounded in first, Ruth laughing and trying to keep her footing as he yanked on the leash. He was old and much weaker than he had been, but an excited burst of doggy energy could still make her rock. She stumbled in after him, the house dim after her cold hour outside.

  Abba was in the parlor, standing by the window from which he’d have been able to see them play. He must have heard them come in, but he didn’t look toward her until she tentatively called his name.

  He turned and looked her over, surveying her bare arms and hands, but he gave no reaction. She could see from his face that it was over.

  HE WANTED TO bury her alone. She didn’t argue.

  He would plant Mara in the yard, perhaps under the bony tree, but more likely somewhere else in the lonely acreage, unmarked. She didn’t know how he planned to dig in the frozen ground, but he was a man of many contraptions. Mara would always be out there, lost in the snow.

  When he came back, he clutched her hand as he had clutched Mara’s. It was her turn to be what Abba had been for Mara, the anchor that kept him away from the lip of the black hole, the one steady thing in a dissolving world.

  THEY PACKED THE house without discussing it. Ruth understood what was happening as soon as she saw Abba filling the first box with books. Probably she’d known for some time, on the fringe of her consciousness, that they would have to do this. As they wrapped dishes in tissue paper, and sorted through old papers, they shared silent grief at leaving the yellow house that Abba had built with Meryem, and that both Mara and Ruth had lived in all their lives.