Nebula Awards Showcase 2006

by Gardner Dozois

  I hadn’t thought of the book for years. I didn’t even know if I still had it. But for some reason, I felt an urge to pick it up and look through it.

  I went to the spare room, where I kept all the stuff I hadn’t unpacked yet. There were maybe two dozen boxes of books. I opened the first of them, then the next. I rummaged through Bradburys and Asimovs and Chandlers and Hammetts, dug deep beneath Ludlums and Amblers and a pair of ancient Zane Grays—and suddenly there it was, as elegant as ever. My one and only Limited Numbered Edition.

  So, for the first time in perhaps thirty years, I opened the book and began reading it. And found myself just as captivated as I had been the first time. It was every bit as wonderful as I remembered. And, as I had done three decades ago, I lost all track of the time and finished it just as the sun was rising.

  I didn’t get much work done that morning. All I could do was think about those exquisite descriptions and insights into worlds that no longer existed—and then I began wondering if Priscilla Wallace herself still existed. She’d probably be a very old lady, but maybe I could update that old fan letter and finally send it.

  I stopped by the local library at lunchtime, determined to pick up everything else she had written. There was nothing on the shelves or in their card file. (They were a friendly old-fashioned rural library; computerizing their stock was still decades away.)

  I went back to the office and had my computer run a search on her. There were thirty-seven distinct and different Priscilla Wallaces. One was an actress in low-budget movies. One taught at Georgetown University. One was a diplomat stationed in Bratislava. One was a wildly successful breeder of show poodles. One was the youthful mother of a set of sextuplets in South Carolina. One was an inker for a Sunday comic strip.

  And then, just when I was sure the computer wouldn’t be able to find her, the following came up on my screen:

  “Wallace, Priscilla, b. 1892, d. 1926. Author of one book: Travels with My Cats.”

  1926. So much for fan letters, then or now; she’d died decades before I’d been born. Even so, I felt a sudden sense of loss, and of resentment—resentment that someone like that had died so young, and that all her unlived years had been taken by people who would never see the beauty that she found everywhere she went.

  People like me.

  There was also a photo. It looked like a reproduction of an old sepia-toned tintype, and it showed a slender, auburn-haired young woman with large dark eyes that seemed somehow sad to me. Or maybe the sadness was my own, because I knew she would die at thirty-four and all that passion for life would die with her. I printed up a hard copy, put it in my desk drawer, and took it home with me at the end of the day. I don’t know why. There were only two sentences on it. Somehow a life—any life—deserved more than that. Especially one that could reach out from the grave and touch me and make me feel, at least while I was reading her book, that maybe the world wasn’t quite as dull and ordinary as it seemed to me.

  That night, after I heated up a frozen dinner, I sat down by the fireplace and picked up Travels with My Cats again, just thumbing through it to read my favorite passages here and there. There was the one about the stately procession of elephants against the backdrop of snow-capped Kilimanjaro, and another about the overpowering perfume of the flowers as she walked through the gardens of Versailles on a May morning. And then, toward the end, there was what had become my favorite of all:

  “There is so much yet to see, so much still to do, that on days like this I wish I could live forever. I take comfort in the heartfelt belief that long after I am gone, I will be alive again for as long as someone picks up a copy of this book and reads it.”

  It was a comforting belief, certainly more immortality than I ever aspired to. I’d made no mark, left no sign by which anyone would know I’d ever been here. Twenty years after my death, maybe thirty at most, no one would ever know that I’d even existed, that a man named Ethan Owens—my name; you’ve never encountered it before, and you doubtless never will again—lived and worked and died here, that he tried to get through each day without doing anyone any harm, and that was the sum total of his accomplishments.

  Not like her. Or maybe very much like her. She was no politician, no warrior queen. There were no monuments to her. She wrote a forgotten little travel book and died before she could write another. She’d been gone for more than three-quarters of a century. Who remembered Priscilla Wallace?

  I poured myself a beer and began reading again. Somehow, the more she described each exotic city and primal jungle, the less exotic and primal they felt, the more they seemed like an extension of home. As often as I read it, I couldn’t figure out how she managed to do that.

  I was distracted by a clattering on the veranda. Damned raccoons are getting bolder every night, I thought—but then I heard a very distinct meow. My nearest neighbor was a mile away, and that seemed a long way for a cat to wander, but I figured the least I could do was go out and look, and if it had a collar and a tag I’d call its owner. And if not, I’d shoo it away before it got into the wrong end of a disagreement with the local raccoons.

  I opened the door and stepped out onto the veranda. Sure enough, there was a cat there, a small white one with a couple of tan markings on its head and body. I reached down to pick it up, and it backed away a couple of steps.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said gently.

  “He knows that,” said a feminine voice. “He’s just shy.”

  I turned—and there she was, sitting on my porch swing. She made a gesture, and the cat walked across the veranda and jumped up onto her lap.

  I’d seen that face earlier in the day, staring at me in sepia tones. I’d studied it for hours, until I knew its every contour.

  It was her.

  “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” she said as I kept gaping at her. “And quiet. Even the birds are asleep.” She paused. “Only the cicadas are awake, serenading us with their symphonies.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just watched her and waited for her to vanish.

  “You look pale,” she noted after a moment.

  “You look real,” I finally managed to croak.

  “Of course I do,” she replied with a smile. “I am real.”

  “You’re Miss Priscilla Wallace, and I’ve spent so much time thinking about you that I’ve begun hallucinating.”

  “Do I look like an hallucination?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one before, so I don’t know what they look like—except that obviously they look like you.” I paused. “They could look a lot worse. You have a beautiful face.”

  She laughed at that. The cat jumped, startled, and she began stroking it gently. “I do believe you’re trying to make me blush,” she said.

  “Can you blush?” I asked, and then of course wished I hadn’t.

  “Of course I can,” she replied, “though I had my doubts after I got back from Tahiti. The things they do there!” Then, “You were reading Travels with My Cats, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was. It’s been one of my most cherished possessions since I was a child.”

  “Was it a gift?” she asked.

  “No, I bought it myself.”

  “That’s very gratifying.”

  “It’s very gratifying to finally meet the author who’s given me so much pleasure,” I said, feeling like an awkward kid all over again.

  She looked puzzled, as if she was about to ask a question. Then she changed her mind and smiled again. It was a lovely smile, as I had known it would be.

  “This is very pretty property,” she said. “Is it yours all the way up to the lake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does anyone else live here?”

  “Just me.”

  “You like your privacy,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Not especially,” I answered. “That’s just the way things worked out. People don’t seem to like me very m
uch.”

  Now why the hell did I tell you that? I thought. I’ve never even admitted it to myself.

  “You seem like a very nice person,” she said. “I find it difficult to believe that people don’t like you.”

  “Maybe I overstated the case,” I admitted. “Mostly they don’t notice me.” I shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean to unburden myself on you.”

  “You’re all alone. You have to unburden yourself to someone,” she replied. “I think you just need a little more self-confidence.”

  “Perhaps.”

  She stared at me for a long moment. “You keep looking like you’re expecting something terrible to happen.”

  “I’m expecting you to disappear.”

  “Would that be so terrible?”

  “Yes,” I said promptly. “It would be.”

  “Then why don’t you simply accept that I’m here? If you’re wrong, you’ll know it soon enough.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you’re Priscilla Wallace, all right. That’s exactly the kind of answer she’d give.”

  “You know who I am. Perhaps you’ll tell me who you are?”

  “My name is Ethan Owens.”

  “Ethan,” she repeated. “That’s a nice name.”

  “You think so?”

  “I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t.” She paused. “Shall I call you Ethan, or Mr. Owens?”

  “Ethan, by all means. I feel like I’ve known you all my life.” I felt another embarrassing admission coming on. “I even wrote you a fan letter when I was a kid, but it came back.”

  “I would have liked that,” she said. “I never once got a fan letter. Not from anyone.”

  “I’m sure hundreds of people wanted to write. Maybe they couldn’t find your address either.”

  “Maybe,” she said dubiously.

  “In fact, just today I was thinking about sending it again.”

  “Whatever you wanted to say, you can tell me in person.” The cat jumped back down onto the veranda. “You look very uncomfortable perched on the railing like that, Ethan. Why don’t you come and sit beside me?”

  “I’d like that very much,” I said, standing up. Then I thought it over. “No, I’d better not.”

  “I’m thirty-two years old,” she said in amused tones. “I don’t need a chaperone.”

  “Not with me, you don’t,” I assured her. “Besides, I don’t think we have them anymore.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The truth?” I said. “If I sit next to you, at some point my hip will press against yours, or perhaps I’ll inadvertently touch your hand. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “And I don’t want to find out that you’re not really here.”

  “But I am.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “But I can believe it a lot easier from where I am.”

  She shrugged. “As you wish.”

  “I’ve had my wish for the night,” I said.

  “Then why don’t we just sit and enjoy the breeze and the scents of the Wisconsin night?”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” I said.

  “Being here makes me happy. Knowing my book is still being read makes me happy.” She was silent for a moment, staring off into the darkness. “What’s the date, Ethan?”

  “April 17.”

  “I mean the year.”

  “2004.”

  She looked surprised. “It’s been that long?”

  “Since . . . ?” I said hesitantly.

  “Since I died,” she said. “Oh, I know I must have died a long time ago. I have no tomorrows, and my yesterdays are all so very long ago. But the new millennium? It seems”—she searched for the right word—“excessive.”

  “You were born in 1892, more than a century ago,” I said.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I had the computer run a search on you.”

  “I don’t know what a computer is,” she said. Then, suddenly: “Do you also know when and how I died?”

  “I know when, not how.”

  “Please don’t tell me,” she said. “I’m thirty-two, and I’ve just written the last page of my book. I don’t know what comes next, and it would be wrong for you to tell me.”

  “All right,” I said. Then, borrowing her expression, “As you wish.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  Suddenly the little white cat tensed and looked off across the yard.

  “He sees his brother,” said Priscilla.

  “It’s probably just the raccoons,” I said. “They can be a nuisance.”

  “No,” she insisted. “I know his body language. That’s his brother out there.”

  And sure enough, I heard a distinct meow a moment later. The white cat leaped off the veranda and headed toward it.

  “I’d better go get them before they become completely lost,” said Priscilla, getting to her feet. “It happened once in Brazil, and I didn’t find them for almost two days.”

  “I’ll get a flashlight and come with you,” I said.

  “No, you might frighten them, and it wouldn’t do to have them run away in strange surroundings.” She stood up and stared at me. “You seem like a very nice man, Ethan Owens. I’m glad we finally met.” She smiled sadly. “I just wish you weren’t so lonely.”

  She climbed down to the yard and walked off into the darkness before I could lie and tell her I led a rich full life and wasn’t lonely at all. Suddenly I had a premonition that she wasn’t coming back. “Will we meet again?” I called after her as she vanished from sight.

  “That depends on you, doesn’t it?” came her answer out of the darkness.

  I sat on the porch swing, waiting for her to reappear with the cats. Finally, despite the cold night air, I fell asleep. I woke up when the sun hit the swing in the morning.

  I was alone.

  It took me almost half the day to convince myself that what had happened the night before was just a dream. It wasn’t like any other dream I’d ever had, because I remembered every detail of it, every word she’d said, every gesture she’d made. Of course she hadn’t really visited me, but just the same I couldn’t get Priscilla Wallace out of my mind, so I finally stopped working and used my computer to try to learn more about her.

  There was nothing more to be found under her name except for that single brief entry. I tried a search on Travels with My Cats and came up empty. I checked to see if her father had ever written a book about his explorations; he hadn’t. I even contacted a few of the hotels she had stayed at, alone or with her father, but none of them kept records that far back.

  I tried one line of pursuit after another, but none of them proved fruitful. History had swallowed her up almost as completely as it would someday swallow me. Other than the book, the only proof I had that she had ever lived was that one computer entry, consisting of ten words and two dates. Wanted criminals couldn’t hide from the law any better than she’d hidden from posterity.

  Finally I looked out the window and realized that night had fallen and everyone else had gone home. (There’s no night shift on a weekly paper.) I stopped by a local diner, grabbed a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee, and headed back to the lake.

  I watched the ten o’clock news on TV, then sat down and picked up her book again, just to convince myself that she really had lived once upon a time. After a couple of minutes I got restless, put the book back on a table, and walked out for a breath of fresh air.

  She was sitting on the porch swing, right where she had been the night before. There was a different cat next to her, a black one with white feet and white circles around its eyes.

  She noticed me looking at the cat. “This is Goggle,” she said. “I think he’s exceptionally well-named, don’t you?”

  “I suppose,” I said distractedly.

  “The white one is Giggle, because he loves getting into all sorts of mischief.” I didn’t say anything. Finally she smiled. “Which of them has your tongue?”


  “You’re back,” I said at last.

  “Of course I am.”

  “I was reading your book again,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone who loved life so much.”

  “There’s so much to love!”

  “For some of us.”

  “It’s all around you, Ethan,” she said.

  “I prefer seeing it through your eyes. It was like you were born again into a new world each morning,” I said. “I suppose that’s why I kept your book, and why I find myself re-reading it—to share what you see and feel.”

  “You can feel things yourself.”

  I shook my head. “I prefer what you feel.”

  “Poor Ethan,” she said sincerely. “You’ve never loved anything, have you?”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “That isn’t what I said.” She stared at me curiously. “Have you ever married?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” I decided I might as well give her an honest answer. “Probably because none of them ever measured up to you.”

  “I’m not that special,” she said.

  “To me you are. You always have been.”

  She frowned. “I wanted my book to enrich your life, Ethan, not ruin it.”

  “You didn’t ruin it,” I said. “You made it a little more bearable.”

  “I wonder . . .” she mused.

  “About what?”

  “My being here. It’s puzzling.”

  “Puzzling is an understatement,” I said. “Unbelievable is more the word for it.”

  She shook her head distractedly. “You don’t understand. I remember last night.”

  “So do I—every second of it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She stroked the cat absently. “I was never brought back before last night. I wasn’t sure then. I thought perhaps I forgot after each episode. But today I remember last night.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “You can’t be the only person to read my book since I died. Or even if you were, I’ve never been called back before, not even by you.” She stared at me for a long moment. “Maybe I was wrong.”