Eclipse One

by Jonathan Strahan

  Perhaps she could see them again.

  If she just went into that glowing, beautiful entrance, down the rainbowed stairs . . .

  She took a few steps toward it, across the Mall, then forced herself to stop. She looked back at the sheet-wrapped body.

  Nana had taken good care of her. She had to do this one thing. Even though Nana had not asked, she knew it was what she wanted.

  Turning, she ran under the deep concrete overhang of a nearby building and huddled down to wait out the shower.

  Electric rains drifted across the face of the Castle, making it look magical. She could see the top of the Washington Monument; the anti-terrorist doors had long since been removed and she and Nana had hiked to the top one lovely winter morning, and that was one of the few times she had seen Nana cry. "My city," she had said. "My beautiful city."

  Ella thought that she heard one vagrant melody, in her head, faint, like birdsong through the closed window in the spring, like all the loveliness she had ever known, like flat clean sheets, like glowing polished wood, like bright tulips, and she began to sing her own songs, loudly, songs that Nana had taught her. "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," "From the Halls of Montezuma," and "Beautiful Ohio." She stood up in the concrete alcove and shouted, "B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name-o." The echo was almost like a round, as if Nana was singing with her, overlapping her sounds to make chords.

  But it was so hard to think that her own parents had been wrong. And it made her angry that Nana had never told her the truth. She began to cry, then wiped away her tears.

  The shower was over. The slight green buds on the trees lining the Mall sparkled in the morning sun.

  And five people approached the wagon holding Nana.

  Three were women and two were men, walking across the tall, dry winter grass of the unmown Mall. They were of various ages. One woman, with long blonde hair, was wearing shorts and a sweater. The two men wore business suits and red ties. The other two women were middle-aged and also wore suits.

  The wagon was about two hundred feet away from Ella's shelter.

  She wasn't sure what to do. She decided to stay in hiding until they passed.

  But apparently they had spotted the wagon, all alone out there, and were heading toward it. She could hear them faintly.

  "What's this?" asked one of the men. He bent down and began pulling at the sheet. The women murmured excitedly, and the blonde woman smiled broadly.

  "A body! What luck!" She picked up the wagon handle.

  Ella, heart beating hard, ran out from beneath her alcove. "Stop!"

  They all turned, looking surprised.

  "She's . . . mine."

  Ella was closer now, about twenty feet away.

  "Why, how could she possibly be yours?" asked one of the middle-aged women. "You're far too young to have your own body."

  "We need her," smiled the blonde woman. "For the greater good. So that more of us can get out. And change things. You come with us, sweetie." She gestured toward the Metro entrance, still glowing.

  "She's not very old," muttered one of the men. "She can wait a while."

  Ella fumbled in her pocket. The gun got caught on some folds, but finally she got it out. She held it steady, as Nana had taught her. "You can't have her."

  "Why, you greedy little—"

  Ella thought sure he was going to say "bitch." She fired over his head.

  The blonde woman turned pale. Ella was glad. She was afraid that they would not care if they were shot. "Get away or I'll shoot you all."

  They all looked at each other uneasily. One of the middle-aged women crouched down and held out a hand. "I . . . used to have a daughter like you, honey. I know you're scared and lonely. Come with us and we'll help you out."

  Ella advanced steadily, still holding the gun on them. "I have plenty of bullets."

  One of the men pulled on the blonde woman's arm. "Come on. It's not worth it. It took us a long time just to get our bodies."

  "But—two!"

  Still, they backed away slowly, as of one accord. They did not turn away from Ella until they were farther away, and then they ran toward the Metro entrance and disappeared into the glow.

  It was then that Ella knew for sure: she did not want to go down into the Metro. Not ever.

  A gray overcast crept over the sky, threatening a day of spring drizzle. Ella figured she had about three miles to go. She'd better get started.

  Independence Avenue was right across the street. Now it was just a few blocks' walk, past the Washington Monument and the Vietnam War Memorial. She had gone there with Nana several times. Her son's name was on the wall.

  Ella picked up the handle from where she had let it clank to the sidewalk and trudged on. She smelled the dampness of the river and knew well where it was anyway. She and Nana often sat on its banks and watched the beautiful lights of traffic wind along the Virginia shore, and from time to time Nana dressed them both up in finery, took a taxi to a restaurant full of crushed velvet and dark wood, high above the river, sipped a tiny bright drink before dinner as she watched the lights hungrily, sometimes through a glimmer of tears, and taught Ella to like snails.

  She stopped.

  No. Neither of those were true. They were stories Nana had told her, many times, stories about how it would be again once everything was right. Once the electric rains were over.

  She was getting tired, she realized. Tired and hungry and thirsty. After a long trudge, while the sky became steadily more gray, she finally glimpsed them: the magnificent naked people, the man astride the horse, the woman leading it.

  And across the bridge, set on a hill, the white mansion.

  Ella's arms ached, but the wagon didn't seem quite as heavy now though she dreaded the hill. The river was swift and rushing below the bridge and she felt as if the dragon of light was bursting through her own chest as she walked across the arch of the bridge.

  Once across it, she had to turn back, not forward, to get her bearings, crossing the main highway via another circle and running up the asphalt until the angle of the hill stopped her. There were only four turns now. And here—

  Here was the stone that said Admiral James Tolliver.

  The man who had rescued her, and then died.

  To the right was another stone for Nana: Rose Ann Tolliver.

  Nana always hurried past these stones, but Ella always saw her glance at them; saw tears well in her eyes. Perhaps she thought that Ella didn't know her real name. Perhaps she was pretending that Ella had never seen the newspaper articles.

  Perhaps she was pretending that, by rescuing Ella, her husband had ingested the electric rains, and was lost somewhere, uploaded to an unknown future. There was no body here, beneath the stone that read National Hero. He had given his life to help prevent what had actually happened. Maybe.

  Or maybe, because of him, it had not happened everywhere.

  Ella, grunting, tipped the wagon sideways. Rose Ann Tolliver tumbled out. Ella pushed and pulled on her until she was roughly aligned with the headstone. It was all she could do. She had no shovel. She got out Nana's old driver's license and slipped it inside the sheet. She saw fresh flowers on some of the graves. Maybe there were real people here. Maybe they were taking care of things. She was not sure she wanted to meet them, though. Just because they took care of Arlington Cemetery did not mean they were sane. But they might bury Rose Ann Tolliver next to the memory of her husband.

  There was the Pentagon, to her right. Five sides, Nana had taken care to teach her the shapes, but somehow Ella thought she had already known.

  She sat below the decaying white mansion and thought of the things that could happen. The things Nana had said might happen. The day that she said might come, the day that Nana told her she had to live for.

  All the people living in Washington the day of the attack, the ones caught in the electric rains, the ones who had rushed into the Metro and been uploaded, would be downloaded. The world would be new, peace-lovi
ng, like Ella's parents had believed it could be.

  Those people would go about their lives in Nana's timeless, beautiful Washington. They would go to office jobs, come home to families, eat snails in French restaurants or dim sum in Chinatown. They would think, read, do research, go to concerts and plays. They would walk the lovely, tree-lined streets of Washington with friends and relatives.

  They would not be afraid of the rains.

  But when would that be? Ella wondered.

  And why would they be any different than the people she had just met?

  How long was she supposed to polish the furniture, iron the sheets, and plant the dwindling supply of tulip bulbs?

  And how was this supposed to happen?

  Were there really people elsewhere? Normal, old-fashioned people, not rain-mad? In California? Was anyone flying the monitor planes?

  Was there any place the electric rains had not reached, a place where they were doing all the things Nana had longed to do, or figuring out how to do them very soon?

  What would happen if the electric rains fell on her and there was no place to run to, no Metro where she could be uploaded? Would she just go mad herself?

  Nana might not have thought that these were good questions to ask. But she did.

  Ella rose from the damp ground and brushed leaves from her pants. She picked up the wagon handle. The wagon would be useful.

  "Goodbye, Nana," she said, and walked down the narrow cemetery road heading west.

  SHE-CREATURES

  Margo Lanagan

  We were bringing the kegs over. Everything had gone exactly to plan. The moon was new, a little white smile in the sky. Dassel had kept his mouth shut and I thought he was to be trusted. Bertoldo's back had not given him the gyp and so he had been able as much as Dass and I to walk about the beach and hoist the kegs that lay all over—"like babies," said Dass in glee, "like little black happy babies"—all over the sand.

  The lads up the coast had timed the tide exactly right casting them out of the cave and the cove. Oh, we were a strange band, working by night and out of sight of one another—but not out of mind. I had been as good as there, dressed dark in my place in the line under the headland, passing the kegs along. I had felt their weight, all but heard the slosh of them in my palms.

  Put it out of your head, Fion had said in the night, her face above mine.

  I'm not moving! says I in protest.

  No, but I can hear your brain, wheeling and crackling in your stillness. You're stiff as a poker, and not in a good way. And then she started fiddling and fumbling at me.

  Gawrd, woman, I've got to keep my wits about me this night.

  I reckon . . . she says, with a hold on me like a warm, dry mouth, like a spell. It ran up my spine, the feel of it, quieting my worrying brain, I reckon you're already awake; you may as well. Don't you think so?

  Anyway, that was hours ago and now we were into the men's-only business, well and truly, the wagon loaded and the road to Leightman's barn curving away among all the breasts and bums of this land, and the Elder Cooper with his bag of gold in the hay with which to give us each our divvy, and the Younger at watch over Constable Mastiff in the Arms, keeping him rotten with the best of the last haul's Spanish, keeping him immovable in his cups.

  "I am glad we made it this far," says Dass, "before them clouds set in."

  "You'll not chat," says Bertoldo low. "'Tis a windless night and, as we have learned to our detriment, sounds carry weird in this place."

  Dassel came up to my elbow and spoke quiet. "What detriment is that?"

  "Jon Plaice in the gaol and forty barricks confiscated."

  "Oh, I did not know he were gaoled for this! I thought it were for dumping his refuse on the common."

  "It is because you are a new bloke," I said. "People will tell you all manner of nonsense. No—" and I eyed the cartwheel, which had a tiny squeak that I'd thought I greased over. "It was because he broached one of them. He was not used to such quality. He sat by the roadside singing and, before you know, old Widow Pussmouth has stridden off in the middle of the night and fingered him to the constable. 'Twas not Mastiff then; 'twas a man you'd not want to meet even in your first-born innocence. Just his look at you made you guilty of something, even if you could not recall it."

  "Keep it down, Cottar," said Bertoldo then, and I could hardly snap back at him, seeing I had just been preaching for silence, so we went on awkward among ourselves, listening nervously to the crunch of the wheels on the road and the fall of the donkey-hooves and of our feet and the rub of our trousers and rasp of our breaths, of which Bertoldo's was the most stertorous and interfered-with by phlegm. Dassel's I couldn't hear, his lungs were so young and uncrushed as yet by life; my own was somewhere between his and Bertoldo's, cold in my chest and then hot in my throat and nostrils, and you could hear the heartbeats in them.

  It distresses you so, maybe you should not be involved, Fion had said when Frost had proposed this last one. There's nothing gives the game away so fast as some sweaty man going all guilty about his days.

  It is just too clean an opportunity, I told her, and I went through the plan again.

  I cannot see the hole in it, she said when I had finished. So what is making you so twitchy?

  I don't know. Maybe you are right. Maybe I am getting too old for shenanigans like this.

  Did I say that? And she cuffed me, just soft, back of my head, passing to get the kettle off the fire. Bertoldo must be twice your age.

  He doesn't have a wife and children on him—

  Ooh, I wonder why. Such a jolly feller. And high fun in the bedroom, too, I'm guessing.

  And neither does that Dass, I point out. Maybe it is that.

  Yes indeed, your burden of responsibilities. Poor helpless Fion and those rickety babs hardly able to lift their own weight. Which given her character and the fact that all our sons and the daughter too looked to be building like bullocks—

  Is it that I have the most to lose of them, I mean, I said, should we be nabbed?

  By whom exactly? I cannot see that person, anywhere near your plan.

  Now the moon was coming and going a bit. Whenever it was gone, I could see things only by memory and the sounds they made.

  "Like your head is wrapped in cloth," came Dass's murmur.

  "Rain would be good," said Bertoldo quiet behind, "to shush over your remarkings. You could blether all you liked."

  "Sorry," said Dass, when he might have bristled and riposted, so I thought more of him for holding himself back. "It's so quiet, I forgot. It feels like we are the only people in the world."

  "Well, we are not," said Bertoldo. "The night is sprinkled with ears. If only lightly in these parts, still ears they are. It only takes the one with a waking brain behind it." He sounded almost as if he relished the thought of that ear hearing, that person running for authority.

  Dass's feet came to a decisive stop.

  "Uff!" Bertoldo had run in the back of him. "What the bloody—"

  "Sh!" hissed Dass. "There is someone up ahead."

  I held back the donkey and we stood searching.

  "I cannot say," I whispered. "Anything I'm seeing may be as much a flash in my eye as a movement of light up there."

  "It's there; I saw it," he says. "Some big lamp moving, and then quelled and covered, suddenly."

  The donkey made a disbelieving noise with its lips.

  "You and I will go up there." Bertoldo made himself sound tired, and Dass stupid. "Cottar, stay and mind the cart, and we shall go and see if it is safe to proceed. Come, lad."

  "We must go very careful and quiet."

  "Oh, really? I had not thought o' that until you said it."

  Then I was alone in the dark—well, there was the donkey, but he were never much company. "Stormcloud," my daughter had wanted to call him, after his coat, but I was more inclined to think of him as Boss-Eyes or, when times were hard, Ribs, or Nipper in the days after he had just bitten someone. He was not a nast
y animal, but he had not the nobility for a proper name or decorative.

  Anyway, there he was, his shoulder stolid at my elbow as I tried to fix Dass and Bertoldo's few sounds to shapes moving away up the road. Again, the blooms of night-blood across my eyeballs were more distinct against the dark than anything. I knew we were near Martin's copse; I could smell a wisp of fox from the earth there. I looked up in hopes of some stars, but there were only a couple of places torn in the rolling cloud, closing up like water over little drowning white faces. I had to wonder if I even existed, now that their sounds were gone, Dass and Bertoldo's, now that I could see nothing, and nothing see me. I had to wonder if I were not drowned myself, and dissolved back into the darkness of un-creation, just as before I was born.

  "Are we done for, Fion?" I whispered just to hear myself. "Has Mastiff got wise to us, and is waiting up there, with men and muskets?"

  It was a long time wondering. Other stars whimpered above me and were sunk again. I began to think this was some dreadful scheme of the others, to have me caught like Plaice all alone with this load, that they had gone ahead to advise the law that I was here and ready for the picking, the goods on my cart with my donkey undeniable. Someone was going to leap from the trees any moment, and I would be collared and carted off to the roundhouse at Duggley, never to see Fion again for year on year, or hear her dirty laugh, or feel her scurrying hands on me. Nor see my boys nor girl again, who were just getting interesting, and would have good natter with you, bringing you odd pieces of the world that they had noticed, and asking you to explain them.

  I hardly know how to tell what next went on. Even having seen it myself I cannot credit its happening, let alone expect that you will believe me.

  First, just as in the Holy Book—although God knows there was nothing else holy about it—first, there was light. It grew unnatural, very weak at first, grey and cold and seemingly sourceless among the trees up ahead. Dass and Bertoldo moved against it, and then they stilled like shapes cut out of black paper, all frozen elbows and knees, and then they skittered off to one side and crouched, just cut-out heads poking out of a cut-out tree.