Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1

by Neil Gaiman

  “What did you ask?”

  Ava shook her head. “I won’t tell you. But part of-” She stopped, got up, and walked to the window. I sat still, waiting for some sign about what to do-go to her, sit, talk, keep quiet…

  Touching the window glass, she slid her fingers in a long arc across the condensation there. I could almost feel the cold wetness under my own fingertips. What she said next took me completely off guard.

  “Did Eamon Reilly ever tell you about his past? About his childhood?”

  “Eamon? What does he have to do with this?”

  “A lot.” Ava began rubbing both hands back and forth very fast on the glass, as if trying to erase something. Then she turned to face me. “Just go along with me on this-it’s all of a piece. Did you ever talk to him about his past?”

  “No.”

  “Eamon’s father was a pilot. He terrorized his family for years, beat them all up and did many other terrible things-a genuine sadist. One of his favorite tortures was to fly really low back and forth over their house in a small plane when he knew everyone was home. Eamon said it was so frightening that the kids and their mother used to all hide under the beds or in the cellar because they were sure one day he’d crash the plane into the house and kill them.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “The guy was also a drunk who luckily drove his car off a bridge one day and died.”

  “Jesus! So that’s why Eamon has…what, issues?”

  “Yes. Once I got so fed up with the way he was behaving that I slapped him. Only then did he tell me some of the stories and details of his childhood. Finally I began to understand why he is the way he is. It doesn’t make him any less exasperating, but boy, with that background…”

  “Terrible. Poor guy.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if that’s the whole reason for him being so peculiar, but it’s gotta contribute.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I asked, “But what does it have to do with the silent child?”

  “One of the things Lamiya told me was that I’m part of a curse.”

  I slowly uncrossed my arms and then didn’t know what to do with them. “What do you mean, you’re cursed?” My voice sounded both skeptical and desperate at the same time. How useless your hands and voice are at moments like that. They’re all just in the way; none of them knows what to do or how to behave in a crisis that’s suddenly dropped on you in the form of one word-like “cursed,” or “dead,” or “cancer.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m part of a curse. But I guess in some ways I am because of the role I play in this.

  “Lamiya said that after I returned to America I’d get pregnant, which I have. But my child will be cursed to live exactly the same life as its father whether it wants to or not. Only some unimportant details will be different.” She stopped and said nothing else but continued staring straight at me. I think she was letting her words sink in.

  “She didn’t say who the father would be?”

  “No, she wouldn’t. She said whoever made me pregnant, they’d be the one carrying the curse.”

  “So that could be me too, Ava.”

  “Yes it could, you’re right. We’ll find out with a DNA test, but I wanted to talk to you first before I did it. You’re obviously a big part of this.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said cynically and meanly, although I didn’t want to. I never wanted to be mean to her, but why was she telling me this now? Why not before?

  More silence.

  “I love you Ava, but this is nuts, absolutely nuts. It sounds like one of the Arabian Nights-the silent child, a djelloum, a curse…How can you know it’s true?”

  “Because of the things that have happened since I saw her. Things Lamiya said would happen. Every single one of them has taken place: the pregnancy, my affair with Eamon, and most of all you.”

  “What do you mean, me?”

  At that moment the washing machine that had been chugging along in the background chose to ping and stop. Ava went silent and didn’t look like she was going to answer my question anytime soon. I made a face and walked across the room to get the laundry. Opening the door to the machine, I bent down to pull the wet wash out.

  “Ava?”

  “What?”

  “Your washing machine is full of letters.” I pulled out a large white wet K and laid it across my palm. After looking at it, I held it up for her to see. About ten inches long, it appeared to be made of wet cloth. I looked in the machine again and saw that instead of clothes, it was full of a droopy pile of wet capital block letters.

  Ava did not seem surprised. In fact, she nodded when I held up the K.

  “I put them in there.”

  “You put them-where’s our laundry?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  “But why? Why did you do that? What are they? What are they for?”

  “Take out four more. Don’t look at which ones-just reach in and take out four. I’ll tell you why when you’re done.”

  I wanted to say something but didn’t. Reaching into the washing machine, I plunged my hand into the large, soft, wet heap of cloth letters like I was choosing numbers for bingo. When I had four, Ava told me to lay them out together on the floor so that they spelled something. The letters were K, V, Q, R, and O.

  “They can’t spell anything because there’s only one vowel.”

  She was far enough away so she couldn’t see what they were. “Tell me which ones you chose.”

  “K, V, Q, R, and O.”

  She slapped both hands down on her lap. “Those were the same letters Eamon chose.”

  “What? Eamon did this too? You also had him take wet letters out of the washing machine?” I realized my voice was way up there, close to shouting.

  “Yes, it was a test for both of you. I knew what the answer was going to be, but I had to do it anyway.” The tone of her voice said this was no big deal-why was I making such a fuss?

  A test using wet letters from the washing machine? Eamon had done it too? The silent child. A Yit. A curse. For the first time in all the years I had known her, I looked at Ava now like she might be the enemy.

  “DO YOU THINK AVA’S CRAZY?”

  “Of course she’s crazy. Why do you think I left her?”

  “You left her? She said it was just the opposite-she left you.”

  Eamon snorted and pulled his earlobe. “Do you know the saying-never fall in love with a psychiatrist because they’re the craziest people of all? Well, let me amend that to war correspondents too. Never fall in love with a war correspondent either. They’ve seen too many really bad things. All that pain and death gets into their bones and screws up their heads. Ava’s gyroscope is bent, man.

  “Did she tell you her story about the silent child? Is that why you’re here?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He picked up his vodka and took a sip as if he already knew what I’d say. “That was all right. It was a mad thing, but at least it was entertaining. It was a really good story. But then came those letters in the washing machine, and then the frozen animals-”

  “What frozen animals?”

  He slapped my shoulder. “She hasn’t done that to you yet? Ah, more surprises in store for you there, pal! The longer you hang out with Ava, the funner she gets. I left after the frozen animals. That was it for me. Phew.”

  “But what if the child really is yours?”

  Eamon put his chin in his hand and looked at the floor. “Then I’ll do everything I can to make sure Ava and the baby are comfortable and well cared for. But I won’t live with that woman. Nope. She’s as crazy as they come.” He spoke calmly and with resolution. He’d obviously thought all this through and was now at peace with his decisions.

  “But wait, Eamon. Just for a minute imagine that what she said was true is true. What if you are the father, and the kid is cursed to live your life?”

  “Nothing’s the matter with my life. I have a good one.”

  “What about your father and the things h
e did to your family?”

  “Yes, that stuff was terrible, but I don’t plan on doing the same things to my family if I end up having one someday.” He smiled at me. “I also don’t have a pilot’s license, so you don’t have to worry that I’m going to fly over Ava’s house and dive-bomb it.

  “And by the way, what about your dad? Was he a good man? What if you’re the father of her kid? Does she have anything to worry about with you?”

  “I never knew my father. He left my mother when I was two.”

  “Well, there you go! I’m sorry to hear that, but in a way it means you could be more dangerous than me if there really is a curse. Because you don’t know what kind of guy your father was, or is. He could be much worse than my old man.”

  We looked at each other and our silence said we agreed on what he had just said.

  Eamon chuckled and shook his head. “Poor Ava-in a worst-case scenario, if that curse is true, she may be doomed either way: me with my monster dad, and you with your mystery dad who could be Jack the Ripper.”

  I said weakly, “But maybe my father’s a great guy.”

  “Great guys don’t abandon their families.”

  “You abandoned Ava.”

  His voice dropped to a low grumble. “She’s not my family. I never said I wanted to be a father.”

  Sometimes people say things, often inadvertently, that make up your mind for you. The moment after Eamon said he didn’t want to be a father, it clicked in my mind that I did want to be the father to Ava’s child-more than anything else in the world. It was as simple as that. I loved her and yearned to be her partner for the rest of my life if she’d have me. I didn’t care if her child was Eamon’s and I didn’t care if there was a curse. Most important, I didn’t even care if Ava Malcolm was as crazy as a fly in a jar. I wanted to be with her and would do anything to make that happen.

  When I told Eamon that, he raised one arm and crossed the air with it, as if he were a priest giving me a blessing. “I don’t know if you’re an idiot, a masochist, or the greatest guy on earth. You know people don’t get better as we get older-we just get more of who we are. If Ava’s crazy now, she’s only going to get crazier.”

  “I know. But maybe she’s not.”

  “True, maybe she’s not. But the alternative to her being crazy is that there really is a curse and you’re going to have to face a whole different bunch of crap. Either way, you’re in the hot seat.”

  “Maybe but maybe not. You know she’s going to the hospital today to get the results of the DNA test.”

  Eamon, took a deep breath and let it out in one hard hush. “Call me and let me know the results, will you?”

  “I will.” I put out my right hand and we shook for a long time.

  He smiled. “You’re a good guy, you really are. Sticking by Ava like that, no matter what? That’s stand-up stuff.”

  “Eamon, before I go, tell me about these frozen animals you mentioned before.”

  “No, you don’t need to hear about that now. Maybe it was just a thing she did to me. Forget I even told you.” He patted me on the shoulder again and walked out of the bar.

  When I got back to Ava’s apartment, she wasn’t there, so I let myself in. On a table in the hallway, impossible to miss, was a sheaf of papers with a yellow note on top. In large black letters it said PLEASE READ. I picked up the papers and saw there was more written in smaller letters on the note.

  “This is the DNA report. It says that neither you nor Eamon are the father of my child. I’m a coward and don’t have the nerve to be here when you learn that. I’m going to spend the afternoon with my sister and will be back later. Please be here then so we can at least talk about it. I’m so sorry that I lied to you about not being with other men. There have been others since you and I got together.

  “Whether it makes any difference to you or not now, I wasn’t lying about Lamiya and the curse. I don’t know who the father is, although until today I was certain it was either you or Eamon. But Lamiya was real. The curse is real. My deepest love and affection for you is real. Please be here later. I don’t deserve that, but I can ask.”

  Stunned, I tried to look at the other papers in the sheaf but everything was numbers and graphs and at the end a summary I couldn’t understand because my brain was flying south fast and had no more room in it.

  Still in my coat, I walked into the living room with the papers in hand and sat down on the couch. The couch where we’d had so many good talks and sex and silent, contented times sitting together and reading or just being. I tried to look at the papers again but it was not possible, so I leaned forward to toss them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  A large-format book of photographs I had never seen before was there. The title of the book was Freeze Frame, and every picture inside it was a striking rendering of dead animals, fish, and reptiles…the whole animal kingdom, frozen. Every single picture was of dead frozen creatures-on their backs, their sides, on ice in markets, on empty snowy roads where they’d obviously been hit and killed by passing cars. The book was gorgeous, poignant, and macabre all at the same time. As I leafed through it, I kept thinking of Eamon’s question about whether I had encountered Ava’s frozen animals yet. Was this what he was talking about, this book? Or was there more?

  I’d looked at perhaps ten of the photos before I came to the marked page. A green Post-it note was at the top, bent over onto the page by constant use. The photograph was unlike any of the others in the book. It was of a woman dressed in black holding an infant in her arms. It is snowing-the world around her is white. She and the child are the only color there. But the child, or what little we can see of it because the woman is holding it so that it looks like she is hiding it from the photographer, looks dead and so white in her arms that it could be frozen too, like all of the other subjects in the book.

  But what is most arresting about the photograph is the look on the woman’s face. She is totally serene. If she is holding a dead child, she has risen beyond her grief into something holy or inhuman. She is at peace, or a kind of transcendent madness that has given her peace. The image was so powerful and beautiful-there is no other word for it-that I stared at it for what must have been a solid minute. Only after that hypnotic first impression had passed did I look at the bottom of the page where the credits for the pictures all were. The photographer’s name was not listed, but the location where it had been taken was Sabunçu, Baku, Azerbaijan.

  Jeffery Deaver. THE THERAPIST

  One

  I MET HER BY CHANCE, in a Starbucks near the medical building where I have my office, and I knew at once she was in trouble.

  Recognizing people in distress was, after all, my profession.

  I was reading over my patient notes, which I transcribe immediately after the fifty-minute sessions (often, as now, fortified by my favorite latte). I have a pretty good memory, but in the field of counseling and therapy you must be “completely diligent and tireless,” the many-syllabled phrase a favorite of one of my favorite professors.

  This particular venue is on the outskirts of Raleigh in a busy strip mall and, the time being ten thirty A.M. on a pleasant day in early May, there were many people inside for their caffeine fixes.

  There was one empty table near me but no chair, and the trim brunette, in a conservative dark blue dress, approached and asked if she could take the extra one at my table. I glanced at her round face, Good Housekeeping pretty, not Vogue, and smiled. “Please.”

  I wasn’t surprised when she said nothing, didn’t smile back. She just took the chair, spun it around, clattering, and sat. Not that it was a flirtation she was rejecting; my smile obviously hadn’t been more than a faint pleasantry. I was twice her age and resembled-surprise, surprise-a balding, desk-and library-bound therapist. Not her type at all.

  No, her chill response came from the trouble she was in. Which in turn troubled me a great deal.

  I am a licensed counselor, a profession in which ethics rules preclud
e me from drumming up business the way a graphic designer or personal trainer might do. So I said nothing more but returned to my notes, while she pulled a sheaf of papers out of a gym bag and began to review them, urgently sipping her drink but not enjoying the hot liquid. I was not surprised. With aching eyes, head down, I managed to see that it was a school lesson plan she was working on. I believed it was for seventh grade.

  A teacher…I grew even more concerned. I’m particularly sensitive to emotional and psychological problems within people who have influence over youngsters. I myself don’t see children as patients-that’s a specialty I’ve never pursued. But no psychologist can practice without a rudimentary understanding of children’s psyches, where are sowed the seeds of later problems my colleagues and I treat in our adult practices. Children, especially around ten or eleven, are in particularly susceptible developmental stages and can be forever damaged by a woman like the teacher sitting next to me.

  Of course, despite all my experience in this field, it’s not impossible to make bum diagnoses. But my concerns were confirmed a moment later when she took a phone call. She was speaking softly at first, though with an edge in her voice, the tone and language suggesting the caller was a family member, probably a child. My heart fell at the thought that she’d have children of her own. I wasn’t surprised when after only a few minutes her voice rose angrily. Sure enough, she was losing control. “You did what?…I told you not to, under any circumstances…Were you just not listening to me? Or were you being stupid again?…All right, I’ll be home after the conference…I’ll talk to you about it then.”

  If she could have slammed the phone down instead of pushing the disconnect button, I’m sure she would have done it.

  A sigh. A sip of her coffee drink. Then back to angrily jotting notes in the margins of the lesson plan.

  I lowered my head, staring at my own notes. My taste for the latte was gone completely. I tried to consider how to proceed. I’m good at helping people and I enjoy it (there’s a reason for that, of course, and one that goes back to my own childhood, no mystery there). I knew I could help her. But it wasn’t as easy as that. Often people don’t know they need help and even if they do they resist seeking it. Normally I wouldn’t worry too much about a passing encounter like this; I’d give a person some time to figure out on their own that they needed to get some counseling.