“Yeah, that’s me. You looking for something in particular? Chances are we have it.”
“I’ve walked down this street hundreds of times . . . I’m sure this store was never here before . . . I can’t believe you’re real. That this place is real.” Sandra had been right: her friend Aydee must have been younger than she appeared. Looking at this Aydee—a little taller than the Aydee she knows—Sandra can tell that she can’t be more than twenty-five, maybe even only twenty. She’s exactly like her friend described: long, braided hair; beautifully smooth creamy brown skin; strong shoulders.
“Don’t tell me you’re from one of those worlds where I’m a comic-book character or something. . . .” The bookseller lets out an irritated breath. “Look, you can click your heels all you want, but this place is real and so am I.” She collects herself and continues in a friendlier tone. “Sorry. There’s been a bit too much of that recently. Let’s start over. . . . What can I do for you?”
Sandra looks around, and she’s struck by a missing detail. “Where are the dogs? She always told me this place was full of dogs.”
“She?” Aydee scrutinizes Sandra. “I’ve seen you . . .” Aydee shakes her head, and her eyes narrow suspiciously. “No, the dogs . . . I don’t mind them, but that’s always been more Lucas’s thing. They’re with him, and he’s not here anymore. You know him?”
“I’ve heard about him.”
There’s an awkward silence.
Aydee says, “You’re shivering. Do you want a cup of tea?”
Aydee sips her tea, listening quietly to Sandra’s story.
Sandra repeats, “Say something. Do something. We have to help her. You have to find her. Save her.”
Her voice simmering with anger, Aydee says, “I think you should leave.”
“What?”
“Leave.”
“But—”
Aydee gets out of her chair, grabs Sandra by the arm, pushes her outside, and locks the door to Lost Pages.
Sandra scours the neighbourhood for Aydee—her Aydee—while city trucks clean away the mountains of slush and snow. Sandra doesn’t return to the apartment. After the storm, the temperature warmed up to above freezing, even at night. The quilt keeps her warm enough. She knows she should go to work, but she can’t stomach the thought of cleaning up the mess at the tattoo parlour anymore. It’s time for a change, even though she has no idea what that might entail. First, she has to find Aydee.
That other Aydee is no hero. My Aydee would never treat anyone like that. She’s loyal and brave and strong of heart and . . .
A group of kids in the park—homeless ecopunks who hang out with a pack of dogs—say that they know Aydee and Russet, but they, also, have not seen either of them recently. The punks are mad about the dog stabber, about how the police aren’t making any effort to solve the crimes. They’ve lost five of their dogs to the stabber in the last year; most recently, one was killed the day of the storm.
One of the girls—she can’t be more than twelve—takes Sandra aside.
The girl whispers, “Do you have tampons or something? I’m bleeding.”
“I think so. . . . Is this your first time?”
“Yeah.”
As Sandra digs a handful of tampons out of her purse, she realizes that it’s been more than two months since her last period.
That night, Sandra almost goes back to the boys—it’s their baby, too—but in the end she decides it’s better for everyone if the boys never know about this, better if she never sees them again. She’s still not sure whether she’s keeping the child or not. Probably not, though.
The last few days, Sandra has been too focused on finding Aydee to be afraid for her own safety. Now, realizing that she’s pregnant, Sandra has become hyper-aware of her body and of its fragility.
She can’t find a place to sleep. Everywhere there are men who look at her as if she were a piece of raw meat. She understands how vulnerable Aydee would have felt without Russet to guard her.
It’s been almost a week, and there’s still no sign of Aydee.
After yet another night during which she doesn’t allow herself to sleep, Sandra hopes, now that the sun is up, she won’t feel so much like prey.
She goes to the park where the ecopunks hang out during the day. Maybe she can nap next to them. They’re nice kids. She wishes she knew where they went at night. Maybe she’ll ask if she can tag along, at least for a while.
When they see her, the girl who asked about the tampons yesterday runs toward her, yelling, “Aydee’s back!”
Sandra finds Aydee and Russet foraging in the dumpster behind The Small Easy. She hugs her friend. “I looked all over for you!”
“We hid out in that Greek place with the orange awning. It closed for a family emergency or something, and they didn’t lock the back door properly. There was tons of food. Russet loved it! We hightailed it last night when we heard someone unlocking the front door.”
Aydee extricates herself from Sandra.
“Plus, I stayed away because I was still ticked at you.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t live there anymore. I . . .” Sandra doesn’t know where to begin. Or what to say about the other Aydee, if anything at all.
Aydee cuts in, saying, “So you met her, huh? I know you used to think I was just this crazy lady, but you were nice to me anyway. You always listened.”
Sandra is shocked. “Did you meet her, too?”
“No. I told you, I know everything that happens to her, and now she’s very angry, very confused. All these years, she thought that my life was just a nightmare that haunted her: her worst fears of how her life would have turned out if the lioness hadn’t intervened. She’s terrified that her whole life is a fantasy. That only I’m real. It’ll be better for her if we never meet.”
“But I thought you wanted her to save you?”
“No . . . I was wrong about that. I’ve got my own life. And I’ve got Russet. We do well together.” Aydee laughs, opening her arms to let Sandra in. “And we have each other too, now, right?”
In Sandra’s dream, she and Aydee are playing with her child—she’s not sure if it’s a boy or a girl—in a big park full of dogs, including Russet. Everyone is happy and playful. Russet rushes up to her and licks her face. He steps back and barks, then licks her again. He does this several times until Sandra wakes up to the real Russet’s tongue on her face.
In the dark, she reaches out to pet him, and her hand falls on something sticky. Sandra immediately thinks of the dog stabber and knows that this is blood. She shouts, “Aydee! Russet is hurt! Aydee!” Where is she? The last thing Sandra remembers before going to sleep is resting her head in Aydee’s lap right here next to the dumpster.
The dog starts running; Sandra has no choice but to follow. She’s not fast enough for him, so he keeps having to stop and run back to her to make sure she’s following.
Russet reaches Aydee, who’s on the ground, leaning against the wall of an alley. He whines desperately, kissing her face, darting quick, worried glances at Sandra. She realizes that Russet isn’t covered in his own blood.
There’s blood pooling around Aydee; she’s holding a hand against her ribs. She holds Sandra’s gaze and says, “Take me to her.”
“Her? Who? . . . That other Aydee? No! I have to get you to a hospital.”
Aydee coughs blood. “Too weak to argue. Do as I say. Please. She knows we’re coming. Knows what to do.”
Sandra is anxious to get Aydee looked at by a doctor, but she doesn’t dare betray her friend’s wishes again. As Sandra kneels down to wrap Aydee’s right arm around her shoulders, she sees a man lying face up on the ground next to the opposite wall.
There’s just enough light for her to see that his throat is ripped open. Next to his chewed-up right hand, there’s a bloody dagger.
Weakly, Aydee says, “Russet had run off. I found him—” Aydee coughs again, and Sandra winces at the pain on her fri
end’s face. Aydee continues in a whisper: “Guy was giving him steak while pulling a knife on him. I screamed. Ran to save Russet. Guy stabbed me. Then Russet got him.”
The other Aydee is waiting for them outside the door to Lost Pages. When she sees them, she rushes over and helps Sandra carry the wounded and barely conscious Aydee into the shop.
Russet sniffs the other Aydee. His tail perks up, wagging enthusiastically, and he runs rings around the three women.
Inside, the other Aydee says, “This is my fault. If only I’d . . .”
Sandra doesn’t trust this Aydee. Her Aydee is going to die, and she’s powerless to prevent it. Unable to keep the anger out her voice she says, “So, how are you going to save her? She always told me you were a hero. But you’re just a coward.”
Before the Lost Pages Aydee can reply, the wounded Aydee opens her eyes and says, “It’s you. It’s really you.” Blood gurgles out of her mouth; she coughs, spitting out more blood.
The other Aydee says, “Yes.” Tears stream down her face.
The blood-stained Russet sniffs both Aydees intently.
The Lost Pages Aydee pulls a pendant from under her shirt. The palm-sized jewel reflects shades of green, blue, and brown. She clasps it in the wounded Aydee’s hand, then enfolds that hand with both of hers. She bends down, brushing her face against her doppelganger’s. She opens her mouth and kisses her double’s bloody lips and . . .
. . . green, blue, and brown light explodes into the bookshop.
Sandra loses all sense of herself; she experiences life—simultaneously, chaotically, blissfully—through the bodies of countless creatures: flying in strange skies, swimming through primordial oceans, worshipping monstrous deities, smelling alien flowers, hunting elusive prey, hiding from ravenous predators, giving birth to a litter of exotic animals . . .
As the Godlight fades, Sandra feels that a lifetime of ignored wounds have been healed. With calm joy she looks at Russet licking the other Aydee’s hand. But panic rises within her when she notices that her Aydee has disappeared.
Sandra screams, “Where is she? What have you done to her?”
There are tears on Aydee’s face. She moves closer and opens her mouth, but she seems unable to speak.
Baring her teeth in fury, Sandra pushes her away. Then Aydee erupts with laughter, crying even harder. “Sandra, it’s me! It’s both of us. We’re one person again. Finally.”
Aydee lifts her shirt, and there are fading scars where she’d been stabbed. Sandra looks at her face, and it’s true: the new Aydee’s face is a composite of both their faces, not as worn as the one, not as smooth as the other.
Aydee says it’s good to have a dog in the bookshop again. It amuses her when Russet intimidates customers by following them around.
These strange books about secret histories, lost worlds, and weird gods; the otherwordly clientele; the tenuous connection with any one reality—Sandra’s fascinated by it all, and amazed that she’s really working at Lost Pages.
As Sandra leafs through the book whose cover painting bears a curious resemblance to her tattoos—admiring the ornate hand-drawn illuminations but still unable to decipher the writing—she hears Russet snore from the foot of the bed. She yawns, puts the heavy tome aside, and gently presses her hands against the not-so-subtle bulge of her belly.
Sandra blows out the candle. She lies down and spoons Aydee.
The Daily Star, November 15
News Briefs, page A7
The body of the heavily tattooed young Caucasian woman discovered wrapped in a quilt on Green Avenue in the aftermath of the freak snow storm that hit the city in late October has still not been identified. The coroner’s office has found no evidence of foul play and has concluded that hypothermia was the cause of death. The young woman was pregnant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claude Lalumière (lostmyths.net/claude) is the author of the story collection Objects of Worship (ChiZine Publications 2009) and the chapbook The World’s Forgotten Boy and the Scorpions from Hell (Kelp Queen Press 2008). He has edited eight anthologies, including the Aurora Award nominee Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction (Edge 2008), and he writes the Fantastic Fiction column for The Montreal Gazette. With Rupert Bottenberg, Claude is the co-creator of Lost Myths, which is both a live show and an online archive updated weekly at lostmyths.net.
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