It began with a trickle at first; a knock on the door announced the arrival of James Footer and his two young children with a wax-topped jar of fresh honey, the children gaping at Lisa from behind their father’s legs. Ten minutes later, elderly widow Joan Sunland came with a wrapped box filled with linens for their table, placed a wrinkled hand on Lisa’s head, and then left without a single word. Five minutes after that came Terri and Steve and Giles, neighbors from Old Farm Road, along with their families, bearing fresh vegetables from their gardens. Terri ran a specialty clothing shop in town and brought organic blouses and pants for Lisa to make her more comfortable. She had served Lisa’s great-grandfather, Terri said proudly, and was happy to be able to continue the tradition now.
That seemed to be the end of it, and Susan had put away the produce in the fridge and they had already gone up to bed when the sounds of vehicles could be heard below. Susan went to the window and stood motionless for a long moment.
“Come here,” she said to Burr, her voice little more than a whisper. “You won’t believe it.”
He went and peered through the glass. The road that wound up toward the house was full of cars, a long line of them and more coming, twinkling headlights snaking all the way up to their front steps.
Burr went down to greet them, but it was soon apparent that they hadn’t come for him. He got out of the way as the people laid their gifts at Lisa’s feet. She stood radiant before them in a way he’d never seen before, the power in her seeming to thrum so that every person who set foot near her could feel it.
There was no point in trying to refuse the gifts, and no one would accept payment for anything. Susan began to help move them to other rooms, and while she did, Christian Burr slipped out the back. He walked through the moist grass, under the moonlight sky to the forest’s edge, and followed the path inside.
He could remember how often the neighbors and friends of the family had come by to see his grandfather. It had never seemed particularly unusual when he was a child, and now, in hindsight, he remembered his grandfather’s stories and understood better why they came. The Leshy can be kind. The Leshy can be cruel. That is the way of Nature and that is the way of the Leshy. When the Leshy is kind, it is best to say thank you.
It wasn’t bribery, not really. It was simply the tradition that had grown in the old country and that was now carried onward in Glen Ridge, a town that had always prospered since Arthur Burr came along.
Burr followed the path deeper into the woods, moving through darkness without a single misstep. Earlier that day he had found the rest of his grandfather’s papers in the basement. These papers were now a tool for reaching Lisa and teaching her. She would never be like other children; he knew that and he understood it better now. But she needed to be reminded that she was part of two worlds, and Christian suspected that was where he came in.
The Leshy was the protector of the woods, and in turn, he would serve as her steward, to keep her safe from a changing world that failed to understand the old ways.
Your father said the light of stars was held in your eyes, that he saw this when you came from the womb, his grandfather had written. That light is passed, one to the next. And once every few generations, it is allowed to shine forth. It is your job to assist with the transition.
It was the natural order of things, really.
Sometime later Burr reached the clearing. The huge tree, now missing a limb, reached upward toward the pregnant moon. There was no sign of the old man Talbot’s body. He was gone, absorbed by the forest he had sought to control. The oddly shaped tree where he had been reached toward the greater tree as a child reaches toward its father.
The great oak did not seem interested in reaching back.
Calculating Route
Michael Koryta and Jeffrey David Greene
The GPS was exactly the type of birthday present you could expect from David—cheap, thoughtless, and sans gift receipt.
Robin had gone overboard in her gratitude, because while the USS Relationship was sinking she still wanted to pretend they could carry on, or at least turn around, but even as she kissed him she thought, What yard sale is this thing from?
It didn’t have instructions, didn’t even have a box. Just the display unit and the power adapter that plugged into your cigarette lighter, the thing so obviously secondhand that it should have had someone else’s name written on it. In fact, she discovered when she turned it on, it as good as did have someone else’s name on it: the home address was already programmed in, and it wasn’t hers, and she couldn’t figure out how to change it. Lovely.
Hardly a splurge from David, then, but she didn’t need a splurge; all she needed was at least the imitation of compassion and caring. They’d been together five months, and anyone who’d been with Robin for five months should have known a few things about her, one being that she didn’t venture outside of her comfort zone much. Her daily routes—work, grocery store, gym, dog groomer, rinse and repeat—were well trod. The more thoughtful gift would have been a blindfold to make the trips challenging, not a GPS to keep her from getting lost driving the same damn roads she drove every day. With her birthday falling just ahead of Valentine’s Day, he had another chance, though. Maybe she’d get the blindfold next.
Even the name was generic: StreetDreams2000. No Garmin or Magellan or even TomTom, nothing anyone had ever heard of, and with a number affixed that made it seem dated, more than a decade behind the times.
She loathed it not because it was pointless but because it was a perfect symbol of their relationship, and it became an even more perfect symbol when she actually went so far as to hang the dumb thing up in her car just to please him. There was no point to pleasing him, she knew this, and yet here she was, still trying. Now that was a symbol, and not one she wanted to consider too deeply, though it was hard not to when it stared her in the face on every drive.
The idea was simply to have it visible, she had no intention of using it, but the device turned on every time she started the car. In this way, at least, it was ahead of other models she’d seen, because it didn’t even have to be plugged into the cigarette lighter to function. That fascinated her. Turn the key, and the screen came on, as if they were linked, but she’d never attached it to the car in any fashion beyond the suction cup that held the mount to the windshield. It should have no way of knowing that it was even inside of a vehicle, as far as she could tell, but, to be fair, Robin wasn’t a gadget girl, and she was used to marveling at things other people understood, like the way her iPhone would upload photographs to her computer without instruction. One of her friends had sighed with exasperation while trying to explain the concept of “cloud” file storage. Robin figured the StreetDream2000 must run on something similar.
Still, she didn’t need it on, and so if it had just shown her the map in silence while she drove, fine, she could deal, but instead the thing talked. A chipper British voice asked her over and over again if she’d like help finding her destination. Finally she told it yes, just to shut it up, and the voice activation was remarkable, much better than those customer service robots that made you wish you’d been born in the day of the rotary telephone. She gave the address of her insurance office just one time, and it was a tongue twister, so she was sure the device would never understand, but immediately the British voice came back with: “Calculating route to Twenty-Three Thirty-Two Coriander Courtyard, Marietta, Georgia.”
It took her a few miles to realize its flaw: the voice activation might have been top of the line, but once it was talking to her, she’d mindlessly followed the instructions, as if she was the robot, and made a left turn three miles ahead of where she needed to turn. She was swearing at the GPS, and at David, and considering a U-turn, when she realized she was on a one-way street. Nothing to do now but follow through.
The street kicked her out into a small subdivision that had sprung up in recent years where once there had simply been fields and For Sale signs. She’d never driven out to see th
e place, and once she got there she was curious, so she followed the GPS instructions through the winding streets, eyeing the look-alike brick homes, and suddenly found herself at a stop sign facing the back of the business park that included her company. She looked at the clock and said, “I’ll be damned.”
Robin knew exactly how long it took her to drive to the office, and, even if she’d caught nothing but green lights on the way, she was four minutes early. The shortcut through the neighborhood was a true time-saver. It might not sound like much, four minutes, but it felt like plenty. And if you did the math, that was eight minutes each day, and forty minutes per week, and two hours each month. Which meant it was exactly one day of free time added onto her life each year.
A day of your life back? She smiled at the StreetDreams2000. The gift that kept on giving, indeed.
THE MAGIC DIDN’T work everywhere, of course. The grocery store run was the same as always, and the gym, but on Saturday she saved six minutes on the trip to the dog groomer, twelve minutes round-trip. It was funny how you never considered a change in route once you’ve determined the best way. Or at least she didn’t. Maybe more creative types did. But once Robin locked on to something that worked, she didn’t change it up without a good reason. The neighborhood that was saving one day of her life each year in four-minute increments had been behind her office complex for years and she’d never even thought to consider the driving possibilities it offered. The idea of a computer telling you where to turn seemed like anti-independence, but it didn’t feel that way. Robin had always had an irrational fear of getting lost—perhaps one of the reasons she didn’t explore alternative routes—and the GPS gave her confidence to try. After it saved her thirty minutes at least cutting through Atlanta rush-hour traffic to meet David for dinner downtown on Monday night, she began to think that perhaps it had been a very thoughtful gift, after all. Maybe he recognized some shortcomings in her that he didn’t want to say out loud, and this was a gesture. It was an awful lot to assume about a used GPS, but, still, they had their best night together since the early weeks, and she couldn’t help but feel a connection to the gift.
She wanted to go home with him after dinner, in fact, wanted to have sex. No, check that—she wanted to fuck. And that wasn’t a word she liked hearing for lovemaking; even in the movies, it gave her an involuntary sour face. The word belonged as an insult, not tied up with romance. But on Monday night, it was exactly what she wanted, and it was exactly what they did, even though he was working the late shift, which meant he was tying his shoes at midnight when she was pouring an unprecedented third glass of wine, watching him get dressed while she lay still tangled in the sheets.
“You wanna just . . . stay here?” he asked. “I mean, you can.” He looked at her and then around the house with unease, as if she might take to prowling through the drawers and closets. She’d never been alone in his house before.
“No, I’ll go home,” she said. “It would be weird without you here. And lonely.”
The last part she never would have said, but she managed to not only get the words out, but to do so coquettishly, and somehow it led to one more round of sex and a spilled glass of wine and David running out the door already twenty minutes late for work while she stood barefoot on the sidewalk and laughed.
What a night. What an odd, wonderful night. It had taken on an amusing fog to her, the wine good-natured as it settled into her bloodstream, and she was sleepy, and for just a moment, one long lonely hesitation, she thought about staying. She could be asleep within minutes, and maybe this was just the sort of thing they needed.
In the end, though, she couldn’t do it. Got dressed and found her keys and left despite the alcohol buzz. It was no doubt a product of the buzz that she thought the GPS turned on before she turned the key in the ignition. She wasn’t used to being drunk, or anywhere in the neighborhood of drunk, but hand to God she felt she’d barely slammed the car door before the screen lit up. Maybe not, though. Surely not. As the engine warmed, the polite British voice asked for her destination, same as always, trustworthy, and she said, “Home” before remembering that it wasn’t programmed right for that.
“Taking you home,” the British voice said, and she corrected it.
“Thirty-Seven Thirty Collins Drive,” she said. “New destination. Thirty-Seven Thirty Collins Drive.”
“Calculating route.”
No bold ideas from the GPS this time, just out to the freeway, same as always. She was enjoying the haze of wine and sex and her mind was on David as the dark road rolled by, thinking that maybe she’d made a mistake, maybe they did work, maybe she should finally break down and suggest a trip out of town, to that place in the mountains, the one where—
“In 10.6 miles, take Exit 29E—Sandy Plains Road,” the GPS intoned.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured, and for the first time she really felt sad about her decision. Maybe she’d imagined the uneasiness on David’s face, maybe he wanted her to stay. God, could she get through one day of her life without so many maybes?
“Take exit ahead.”
Maybe, she thought as she exited the highway, the problem wasn’t him, or even them, but her. She was set in her ways, she knew this, and his gift of the GPS had proven that it wasn’t always a good thing. She’d benefited from some changes. And now, being set her in ways had her going home alone to an empty bed. No, it wasn’t always a good thing.
“In one mile, turn right onto Hiram Avenue.”
She wouldn’t have taken Hiram. She glanced at the map, trying to see how this was a good idea, but it was zoomed in tight. When she tried to adjust it, the British voice chastised her.
“We ask that you refrain from operating the GPS keypad while your vehicle is in motion. Thank you.”
Well, the hell with it, then. She’d take Hiram and see if this shortcut was as good as all the others.
What Hiram was—long and dark. What Hiram wasn’t—a shortcut, not that she could see. The pleasant wine fog was fading, and she was suddenly aware of how late it was and remembering all the reasons she didn’t like to be out alone at this hour. Robin hated being scared, and these situations were ripe for fear. Just when she was about to make a U-turn and return to the highway, the StreetDreams2000 interrupted her fear with a reassurance:
“In three-tenths of a mile, turn right onto Sterling Street.”
Progress. She knew Sterling Street, or at least knew one end of it. She imagined she had to be at the far opposite end now, but her internal navigation wasn’t great, so she trusted the GPS and turned right. The darkness ahead and lights in the rearview mirror made her second-guess this immediately, but the GPS voice told her “Continue to follow the road” and she figured the only thing you could do to make a bad shortcut worse was to deviate from the new plan.
She made a left turn on South Ballanger, and then another right, and she had the idea that the GPS was doing the same thing it had done to shave four minutes off her drive to work—cheat by cutting through residential neighborhoods. That relaxed her, as it was already a proven technique.
“Turn right onto Sampson’s Ferry Road.”
She’d been driving for twenty minutes now on a trip that should take no more than that, and she no longer recognized anything. Maybe it was time to give up on the genius of the StreetDreams and double back to Sterling Road. The only problem with that was that she was no longer certain how to double back. The route to get here had been convoluted. The iPhone had a GPS option but she didn’t like the idea of driving and using her phone, and she certainly didn’t want to pull over in this dark stretch of desolate road to play with her phone. It looked like she was driving down the streets of a neighborhood that hadn’t been built yet, the pavement fresh but the lots on either side empty. Not a streetlight in sight.
“In five hundred feet, bear left.”
Bear left? There was no place to go. The road dead-ended, and now she saw that it was exactly what she’d suspected—an unrealized residential develop
ment carved into what had once been farmland. Her headlights were shining on a large lot map and a sign that boasted DREAM HOMES STARTING AT $400,000, COMING NEXT YEAR!
They were still selling lots, but no construction had taken place. The sign looked old and dirty, too, and she wondered whether next year had really meant this year or even last year and the development plan collapsed beneath the real estate market and the economy. Regardless, she needed to figure her way back out of these winding roads.
She pulled onto the hard-packed dirt and gravel to turn around. Ahead of her a weathered, decrepit barn loomed against the night sky like a discarded set item from a B-movie horror flick, and the British voice said, “You have arrived at your destination. Welcome home.”
“This is not home,” she snapped as she put the car into reverse, and then she paused before pressing down on the accelerator, struck by a sudden, alarming realization: this had never been home for anyone. Even if the GPS was a secondhand gift, as she’d suspected, no one would have programmed an empty lot in an undeveloped neighborhood into it as their home address.
Something moved in the rearview mirror then. A ripple of shadow, and Robin screamed, a sound so loud and high and hysterical that she couldn’t believe it had come from her.
And all for nothing, too. Because the shadow was gone. She stared in the mirror and saw nothing but empty black fields, and ahead nothing but that weathered sign boasting of unbuilt dream homes, and she knew that it was time to get the hell out of here because she was starting to get scared, really scared, and Robin had led an overly cautious life for many years rooted in one simple principle: she hated to be scared.
Now the time had come to admit two things—she was scared to stay here, and, for a completely irrational reason, she was scared of the GPS. She didn’t like the way she blindly, dumbly trusted it, and four minutes saved going to and from work each day wouldn’t mean much if it led her down the wrong street sometime. An empty, dark street.
Dark Duets Page 47
