Bones are Made to be Broken

by Anderson, Paul Michael

  She turned the glass, getting a panning view of the store, complete with paintings and mirrors and the CAVEAT EMPTOR plaque. She faced the front and saw the front display restored, along with Main Street. The firehouse had both garage bays open and the cherry-red trucks parked half-in and half-out like dogs. Cars were parked at a slant in front of the businesses. People walked the sidewalks.

  The glass shimmered again. When it resolved, it was the same view as before, but different. Something so minor—yet so fundamental—had changed. It took a moment for it to click in her head.

  The cars.

  The Hyundai Elantra was still the same, but the Oldsmobile next to it was gone, replaced by a sporty two-door. The emblem was unfamiliar on the hood. Along the door, she read TAKURI SPIRIT. She’d never heard of that brand before.

  Another shimmer, and the destruction was back on Main Street. The sky was overcast. The view reminded her of photos from the Dresden bombing raids.

  There are other worlds, the woman whispered in Janine’s head. World’s an angel’s breath away from this one, with an angel’s breath of difference.

  How? she managed to think, and then all thought was wiped away as her and Dale entered the view.

  They were holding hands, talking animatedly as they traversed the destruction of Main Street, both in their work clothes. Love among the ruins.

  Janine squeezed her eyes shut, her hand bearing down on the glass. Not all lost, the woman whispered. All within reach. If you reach for it.

  The pain of her grip cut through her and her eyes opened, looking down, and saw her hand was slathered with blood. A thin puddle of it lay between her work boots. She squeezed again and pain burned through her blood-stained palm. She relished it—it solidified the world around her.

  “What’s happening to me?” she whispered.

  She looked at the shard, at its blue-black edging that disturbed her, at its blameless surface which could shimmer any old time it wanted—

  She stiffened, looking at her bloody hand, then at the glass.

  The glass was perfect, not a drop of blood on it, even though it had to’ve been swimming.

  Is it … impervious to me? she thought slowly, each word a struggle.

  That was one option. The other was much worse.

  The glass absorbed her blood. It fed on her.

  She broke and bolted from the shop.

  “Where were you today?” Darlene asked and Janine jumped in her place on the rock outcropping, spilling her abnormal psychology text and notebook to the ground.

  “Sorry!” Darlene said and bent down to help.

  Janine snatched up her materials. “S’okay—you startled me.”

  Darlene sat down next to Janine. “I noticed.”

  Tonight might’ve been a replay of last night—Janine sitting away from the chattering crowds of professionals and volunteers, Darlene next to her.

  In Janine’s head, two voices argued incessantly.

  I saw those things today, one said.

  No, I didn’t, the other countered. I’m just stressed.

  Darlene cleared her throat. “So, anyway, where were—”

  “With the crew on Market and Main,” Janine said. Darlene looked at her—Janine hadn’t gone anywhere near Market Avenue, and Darlene might know that—and asked slowly, “Anything wrong? You seem … jumpy.”

  “Just tired and overworked,” Janine said. She thumped the textbook. “Trying to get some work done.”

  “Oh,” Darlene said and slid off the rock. “Oh. Okay.” She looked uncertainly at Janine. “But you’ll talk to me if something is wrong, right?”

  Janine offered her own smile. It felt like steel forks were hiking her lips. “When something is wrong, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Darlene nodded. “Okay, kid.” She moved into the crowds.

  I saw other worlds! the first voice shouted.

  No I didn’t! the second one yelled back.

  Janine watched Darlene pass Dale—again surrounded by the Area Directors, again gesturing—and put her hand on Dale’s forearm. It was a quick movement, a gesture of familiar hello, and Dale turned towards Darlene, beaming.

  Janine snapped the pencil between her fingers.

  Back in front of the shop the next morning, too early to hear anything but the call of birds. The past night was full of broken sleep, and her eyes stared out of exhausted hollows.

  I can’t take this, she thought. “I have to settle it now. Put the fantasy away and see the reality—whatever it is.” She wasn’t aware she’d spoken aloud.

  She stepped into the shop and breathed the stale air. Goose-pimples broke out along her forearms.

  At the corner of Welston and Main Street, a figure appeared.

  Darlene.

  She moved around the rubble of Main, trying to avoid crunching over broken glass, her eyes glued to the dilapidated building. On her face was an expression of worry.

  Something was missing, an intangible feeling in the air. An emptiness.

  She went to the glass on the counter, disappointment weighing on her heart. It was wrong here, she thought. Whatever had been here before had departed.

  She picked the jag up and felt nothing.

  It was a hunk of glass. No shimmer, no disquieting blue-black of the edges, no visions. A broken artifact of an unimportant time.

  Did she see old blood on the jag’s back? She thought she did.

  Her eyes watered. She sat on the floor to keep from falling.

  “I imagined it,” she said, her voice phlegmy. “I imagined it all.”

  And someone who imagined such things was …

  “Insane,” she said. “Someone who imagines such things is insane.”

  A hallucination, a breakdown. The stress of this project, the stress of schooling, the stress of breaking up with Dale—oh yes, we said it was amicable and we might’ve even believed it, but let’s call a spade a spade, it had been stressful, it had hurt—it was all crushing her and she just never got a break—

  Her crying went on for a few moments. By the end, she did feel a little better. Yes, it still hurt—finding out you were hallucinating didn’t feel good—but she felt cleansed.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Okay, okay. I got this. I can handle it.”

  She needed a break. She needed to leave the project, go back to campus—no, home; she needed to go home. She’d have to take her Modern Cultures and Urban Renewal courses, might even have to push graduating back, but did that matter?

  This was her mind.

  When you starting seeing other dimensions through a piece of glass—

  “It’s just gotta stop,” she said. “It’s just gotta stop.”

  She sighed and looked down at the glass.

  It shimmered, making her reflection ripple.

  She snapped her eyes closed. I didn’t just see that.

  She counted to ten and, warily, she opened her eyes.

  The glass continued to shimmer. Through it, she saw the clean and maintained service counter.

  “Oh no,” she moaned. “Oh no, not this. If it’s not real, not this.”

  Who said I’m not real? the woman whispered.

  And as the glass brightened in her hand, Janine fell in.

  The expression on her face was very much one of relief.

  Darlene jerked when Janine drop out of sight. It looked like Janine had plummeted through a trap door.

  Of course she didn’t, she thought. See her head?

  She did—but only by standing straight and leaning over the jumble of broken concrete she hid behind. If Janine were to look up—

  But Janine didn’t. She sat on the filthy floor, staring raptly at the glass she held in her hands.

  Oh, babydoll, she thought, what’s going on with you?

  She’d watched Janine talk to herself, then cry, then become fixated on the glass in her hand. Janine, who always stacked the deck against herself and took a grim sort of satisfaction out of achieving wha
tever goal she’d made, was almost unrecognizable to Darlene now. She hadn’t been eating or socializing, and for the past few days had looked like she was sleepwalking. She hadn’t shown up for work yesterday, but only Darlene and Dale had noticed.

  And then she’d come here. Darlene guessed she’d also visited this hovel yesterday.

  She didn’t want to interfere—doing so might crack the fragile shell Janine had—but she didn’t know how much longer she could stand by the sidelines.

  The woman—The glass woman, Janine thought—stood before her and that was because Janine wasn’t simply looking through the jag. Like Alice with the looking-glass, she’d gone through.

  The shopkeeper was all curves and angles, a cartoon of the perfect hourglass-figure female. Her clothes were so black Janine couldn’t see if she wore a dress, shirt and pants, or something entirely different. Her skin was the color of milk. Her face was thin, but not narrow—the nose a blade, the lips full and red, the eyes almond-shaped (it didn’t occur to Janine that the woman had her features, only exaggerated). Her midnight-black pixie haircut hung like velvet curtains, framing her face.

  This isn’t real, Janine thought. I’m hallucinating.

  “Oh, it’s real,” the woman said. “Don’t you see that?”

  Janine looked around and had to admit it certainly felt real. She could feel the slight heat from the recessed lights. She could smell the wood polish. She saw the paintings and the CAVEAT EMPTOR placard, the lettering done in blood red.

  She looked towards the display window—unbroken and missing no pieces—and saw only black swirling with blue. She turned to the woman, confused.

  “We’re between places—between worlds.”

  Janine looked down at the jag of glass. It had frozen in mid-shimmer, but she could see her hand through it. She saw no wounds, however, no blood. She held up the glass. “How … how does this work?”

  “That’s a piece of my display window.”

  “I saw things,” Janine persisted.

  “My glass has always been a window into my customer’s deepest wishes. The things they simply, when they know they can have it, cannot live without.”

  “I saw different worlds!” Janine yelled at her.

  The woman’s eyes twinkled. “Some of the items desired aren’t necessarily tangible.” She smiled, her full red lips peeling back to reveal sharp, white teeth. “But, for the right price, always accessible.”

  Janine looked down at the glass again. The disquieting blue-black edges seemed more prevalent over here. “What could I want from multiple worlds?”

  The woman shrugged. “Depends, Janine. It was giving you options, like any good salesperson. Which world caught your eye?”

  Before Janine’s mind formed the image of her and Dale, the woman nodded and said, “Yes. That was a good option, wasn’t it?”

  She waved her hand at the display window. The desolate Main Street winked into place, with her and Dale walking along the opposite sidewalk.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Her feet were moving before she was aware of it, approaching the window.

  The sky was gunmetal grey, with streaks of black like the angry slashing of an artist’s charcoal pencil, but she and Dale paid no attention. Their work clothes were grimed with the evidence of a day’s hard work, and they held hands and talked animatedly. Although Janine could not hear what they were saying, she heard the sounds. The happy sounds.

  “A lovely picture,” the woman said. “A lovely couple, don’t you think?”

  With an effort, Janine tore her eyes away and retreated from the vision. The woman frowned, her eyes become flinty, but she covered this with an expression of confusion. “Don’t you like that option, Janine?”

  Janine bit her lip. Her eyes wanted to go back to the window, but she refused to turn. She’d felt the comfort from those two outside, the surety of their world. The Janine of that world felt no stress, or, rather, none she couldn’t handle. In that world, Janine and Dale were a team. But a part of her moaned—

  “It’s not real.”

  The woman looked offended. “Of course it is, Janine.”

  “No it isn’t! Dale and I broke up and I have too much to do alone! That wasn’t real! ”

  The woman approached, nodding sympathetically. “I understand, Janine—really, I do. But what you must understand is that what you saw could be real.”

  “How?” The word—and the earnest tone—was out before Janine could stop herself.

  The shop keeper smiled warmly but Janine noticed that the smile didn’t touch her eyes. She looked down, still smiling, and Janine followed her gaze.

  The jag of glass. Through it, she could now see the old scabbed-over cuts on her palms.

  “It’s a small price. But you have no idea its value.”

  Janine looked at her, bewildered. “My blood?”

  “It’s a small price, like I said. And, for it, you’ll get your deepest wish.”

  She squeezed the jag. Her scabs broke open even as the blue-black edges cut her afresh. Blood flowed, began to patter on the hardwood. The pain was immediate, galvanizing.

  Sadness swept the woman’s face. “No, Janine. That’s not enough.”

  Her hand stole over Janine’s. She raised Janine’s hand so the jag was between them. “Harder, Janine—just a little harder, and you’ll have all you ever wished.”

  “But what happens if I can’t?”

  The woman’s expression did not change, but brightness flashed in the display window. Janine looked and saw with a complete lack of surprise Darlene and Dale now walking hand-in-hand, the sky a blameless blue, the sun shining. Janine felt a green spurt of jealous anger.

  The woman’s eyes recaptured Janine’s. “You know that could happen, Janine. But, if you pay my price, you’ll never see it.”

  A part of Janine’s mind quailed before the shopkeeper like a cornered animal. The rest of her howled—she could have a normal life! Without stress! With Dale!

  The woman’s eyes burned. Janine realized they were the same color of the jag’s edging. “Pay my price and gain your wish.”

  Janine’s hand rose. Blood fell across both sides of the glass jag in thick rivulets, obscuring the frozen shimmer. The blue-black width popped with vibrancy.

  And she turned the jag towards her throat.

  Darlene froze when the glass began to glow, but seeing Janine set the tip against her neck broke the paralysis. It seemed like her feet didn’t touch the ground as she burst into the destroyed shop. She slapped Janine’s hand and it was like striking marble, but the chunk of glass merely traced a red irritated line across her flesh instead of slashing her throat. Instantly, Janine’s eyes cleared, her face registering shock.

  Darlene panted, “Janine, baby doll—”

  Teeth-grinding rage replaced the shock. “You took it from me!” she howled. “You took him from me!”

  Darlene recoiled, and Janine launched, raising the chunk of glass over her head.

  “I was almost free!” Janine screamed and brought the chunk down.

  The jag, a third of an inch thick, should’ve shattered against Darlene’s breastbone. Instead, the glass pulsed once, triumphantly, a burst of bluish-black, as the tip of the jag buried itself deep into Darlene’s chest. Darlene’s back arched, her face a pained stamp of surprise. Blood flooded Darlene’s gaping mouth. Rays of bluish-black light spread over Darlene, covering her.

  Janine jerked away, squealing. She pressed against the ruins of the service counter and goggled.

  A wind swirled within the shop and Darlene was no longer strictly three-dimensional. Blue-black light wrapped Darlene in its embrace. The jag of glass in the center of Darlene’s chest beamed.

  And then Darlene was gone. For an instant, Janine saw a Darlene cut-out, blue swirling into black, and then the wind died with a pop as air rushed to fill the space where she’d been.

  The world fell silent. For a long moment, nothing moved.

  Janine’s legs lost
all power and she slid down the front of the counter.

  Gone, she thought. She’s gone from the world.

  A world where Janine and Dale would never walk down Main Street, hand-in-hand. A world where she felt no comfort, or release.

  That was a lie! a part of her screamed. The glass lied! Don’t you see that? Didn’t you see what happened to Darlene?

  She didn’t. Couldn’t.

  Darlene was gone and she was still here.

  Janine Laughlin opened her mouth and began to scream.

  To Touch

  the Dead

  People died, and then they received a serial number.

  With bodies cremated, a handful of personal belongings became someone’s earthly remains, new artifacts in the People’s History Project, sealed and placed in metal alloy containers which were themselves stored in great underground Halls.

  And if ghosts existed, if these people had souls, they resided in the traces of psychic memory resting like a patina of dust on their belongings, slowly eroding away.

  Now:

  Gregor had stopped wearing the traditional Memory Coordinator robes months ago, so he froze when the seated duty guard outside the Dead Hall said, “You need the proper ID to enter this area, sir.” The name on his badge—as shiny and new as the guard, Gregor thought—was Herbowitz.

  “I have it,” he said, nonplussed, fishing in his pockets for his card.

  The guard eyeballed him. “It’s against regs to be out of uniform.”

  Gregor pulled out his card. He looked down the empty hallway as he handed it over. “I don’t see it offending anyone.”

  Herbowitz snatched Gregor’s identification, face reddening.

  At least he’s someone who hasn’t already heard about me, Gregor thought, and, before he could stop himself, the image of Amelia came to him—pretty Amelia, seven years old, her porcelain skin dotted with blood.

  Amelia, who he’d met only in flashes of psychic memory.