The Years Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2009
Page 10
The wreckage had so far survived three rainstorms. The survivors gazed at it dismally from the shore, and concocted increasingly desperate and unlikely schemes for tearing away, burning, or explaining the flag, on the arrival of a Navy patrol—these being regular enough, along the nearby shipping lanes, to make a rescue eventual, rather than unlikely.
“And then they put out the yard-arm, and string us all up one by one,” the bo’sun Mr. Ribb said, morbidly.
“If so,” Araminta snapped, losing patience with all of them, “at least it is better than being et up by the leviathan, and we may as well not sit here on the shore and moan.” This was directed pointedly at Weedle, bitter and slumped under a palm tree. He had not been in the least inclined to go down with his ship, although he secretly felt he ought to have done, and it was hard to find that his unromantic escape had only bought him a few weeks of life and an ignominious death.
Araminta did not herself need to worry about hanging, but she was not much less unhappy, being perfectly certain the Navy would take her directly back to her family, under such guard as would make escape impossible. Nevertheless, she was not inclined to only eat coconuts and throw stones at monkeys and complain all day.
The island was an old, old mountaintop, furred with thick green vegetation, and nearly all cliffs rising directly from the ocean. Where the shoals had blocked the full force of the waves, a small natural harbor had developed, and the narrow strip of white sand which had given them shelter. Climbing up to the cliff walls to either side, Araminta could look down into the glass-clear water and see the mountainside dropping down and away, far away, and in a few places even the bleached gray spears of drowned trees below.
They had found the ruins of an old walkway, back in the jungle, while hunting: smooth uneven bricks of creamy white stone which led up and into the island’s interior; but none of the men wanted to follow it. “That’s the Drowned Ones’ work,” they said, with shudders of dismay, and made various superstitious gestures, and refused even to let her go alone.
But after three days and a rainstorm had gone by, leaving the black flag as securely planted as ever, hanging loomed ever larger; and when Araminta again tried to persuade them, a few agreed to go along.
The walkway wound narrowly up the mountainside, pausing occasionally at small niches carved into the rock face, mossy remnants of statues squatting inside. The road was steep, and in places they had to climb on hands and feet with nothing more than narrow ledges for footholds. Araminta did not like to think how difficult a pilgrimage it might have been, three thousand years ago, before the Drowning, when the trail would have begun at the mountain’s base and not near its summit. The men flinched at every niche; but nothing happened as they climbed, except that they got dust in their noses, and sneezed a great deal, and Jem Gorey was stung by a wasp.
The trail ended at a shrine, perched precarious and delicate atop the very summit; two massive sculpted lion-women sprawled at the gate, the fine detail of their heavy breasts and beards still perfectly preserved, so many years gone. The roof of the shrine stood some twenty feet in the air, on delicate columns not as thick as Araminta’s wrist, each one the elongated graceful figure of a woman, and filmy drapery hung from the rafters still, billowing in great sheets of clean white. An altar of white stone stood in the center, and upon it a wide platter of shining silver.
“Wind goddess,” Mr. Ribb said, gloomily. “Wind goddess for sure; we’ll get no use here. Don’t you be an ass, Porlock,” he added, cutting that sailor a hard look. “As much as a man’s life is worth, go poking into there.”
“I’ll just nip in,” Porlock said, his eyes on the silver platter, and set his foot on the first stair of the gate.
The lion-women stirred, and cracked ebony-black eyes, and turned to look at him. He recoiled, to tried to: his foot would not come off the stair. “Help, fellows!” he cried, desperately. “Take my arm, heave—”
No one went anywhere near him. With a grinding noise like millstones, the lion-women rose up onto their massive paws and came leisurely towards him. Taking either one an arm, they tore him in two quite effortlessly; and then tore the parts in two again.
The other men fled, scattering back down the mountainside, as the lion-women turned their heads to look them over. Araminta alone did not flee, but waited until the others had run away. The living statues settled themselves back into their places, but they kept their eyes open and fixed on her, watchfully.
She debated with herself a while; she had read enough stories to know the dangers. She did not care to become a permanent resident, forced to tend the shrine forever; and it might not be only men who were punished for the temerity to enter. In favor of the attempt, however, the shrine plainly did not need much tending: whatever magic had made it, sustained it, with no guardian necessary but the deadly statues. And those stones along the trail had been worn smooth by more than weather: many feet had come this way, once upon a time.
“All right,” she said at last, aloud, and reaching up to her neck took off the amulet.
She was braced to find herself abruptly back in her own former body, a good deal smaller; but the alteration was as mild as before. She looked down at her arms, and her legs: the same new length, and still heavy with muscle; she had lost none of the weight she had gained, or the height. Breasts swelled out beneath her shirt, her hips and waist had negotiated the exchange of an inch or two between themselves, and her face when she touched it felt a little different—the beard was gone, she noted gratefully—but that was all.
The guardians peered at her doubtfully when she came up the stairs. They did get up, as she came inside, and paced after her all the way to the altar, occasionally leaning forward for a suspicious sniff. She unwound the strand of pearls from around her waist and poured the whole length of it rattling into the offering-dish, a heap of opalescence and silver.
The lion-women went back to their places, satisfied. The hangings rose and shuddered in a sudden gust of wind, and the goddess spoke: a fine gift, and a long time since anyone had come to worship; what did Araminta want.
It was not like Midwinter Feast, where the medium was taken over and told fortunes; or like church services at Lammas tide. The goddess of the Drowned Ones spoke rather matter-of-factly, and there was no real sound at all, only the wind rising and falling over the thrumming hangings. But Araminta understood perfectly, and understood also that her prepared answers were all wrong. The goddess was not offering a little favor, a charm to hide her or a key to unlock chains, or even a way off the island; the goddess was asking a question, and the question had to be answered truly.
Easier to say what Araminta did not want: to go home and be put in a convent, to go on to the colonies and be married. Not to be a prisoner, or a fine lady, or a captain’s lover, or a man in disguise forever; not, she added, that it was not entertaining enough for a time; but what she really wanted, she told the goddess, was to be a captain herself, of her own life; and free.
A fine wish, the goddess said, for a fine gift. Take one of those pearls, and go down and throw it in the ocean.
Araminta took a pearl out of the dish: it came easily off the strand. She went down the narrow walkway, down to the shore, and past all the men staring at her and crossing themselves in alarm, and she threw the pearl into the clear blue waters of the natural harbor.
For a moment, nothing happened; then a sudden foaming overtook the surface of the water, white as milk. With a roar of parting waves and a shudder, the Amphidrake came rising from the deep in all her shattered pieces, seaweed and ocean spilling away. Her ribs and keel showed through the gaps in her half-eaten hull for a moment, and then the foam was climbing up her sides, and leaving gleaming unbroken pearl behind. The decks were rebuilt in smooth white wood; tall slim masts, carved in the shapes of women, climbed up one after another, and vast white sails unfurled in a wind that teased them gently full.
The foam subsided to the water, and solidified into a narrow dock of pearl, ru
nning to shore to meet her. Araminta turned to look a rather dazed Weedle in the face.
“This is my ship,” she said, “and you and all your men are welcome, if you would rather take service with me than wait for the Navy.”
She pulled her hair back from her head, and tied it with a thread from her shirt; and she stepped out onto the dock. She was nearly at the ship when Weedle came out onto the dock at last, and called, “Aramin!” after her.
She turned and smiled at him, a flashing smile. “Araminta,” she said, and went aboard.
WE LOVE DEENA
ALICE SOLA KIM
Deena wanted to know if I was following her.
I don’t remember which attempt it was, how many people I had been so far. But this time I was Pam, a girl who worked at the bookstore in Deena’s neighborhood. Pam, whose hair was the same color as her skin, a monochromatic honey shade that would have been boring and dreary on other people but looked delicious on Pam. I was reasonably sure that if Deena didn’t love me anymore, she would love Pam.
Deena said, again, “Are you following me?”
All she had needed was one look at me. Was it the way I was standing? Was it my little nervous cough, that identified me as surely as a DNA sample? I shook my head and sighed. I was like a ghost that had failed at whatever evil it was supposed to do, and could only be embarrassed at being found out, exorcised, and laughed at. Now I knew why there were ghosts that liked to smash things. I used the momentum of my sigh to leave Pam, whooshing out backwards and hanging in the air like mist behind her.
And then Pam wondered why she felt headachy and turned on—her heart was beating so strongly that it moved her stomach, her viscera in nauseating flutters—and all of this occurring in the lost moment between when she was shelving New Fiction and right now. Pam stared at her fingers, which were splayed out blushing and stinging against the countertop. I know because now I was someone else, and I was watching her.
My ex-girlfriend Deena killed people for a living. She was a Euthanizer for the local health bureau. I think I must be a sick person, because I thought that was sort of hot. But this is really hard to explain. I thought that people were lucky to have someone like Deena to lead them out of life and into the nothing-whatever of being dead. If you do not believe in something like St. Peter at the gates and beautiful angels who look like the best parts of men and women both, but you want that sort of thing, then Deena is your best bet.
Deena, the angel of Death, had hands that scrabbled like insects when she loaded and reloaded her licensed Death Ray in mere seconds. Her hair was always in a short bob, the ends curving into her cheeks like a knight’s helmet. It was Louise Brooks hair, but anyone could have that. Deena was just so pretty, in that same small-mouthed, secretive way.
The first time I met Deena, she killed someone I loved. His name was Melchior Pak, an old professor of mine. I had been one of the worst students in his seminar. We got to know each other when I started dog-sitting his Great Dane to improve my grades. That didn’t work, but we became friends after an argument abut whether the band Roxy Music was better before or after Brian Eno left. Mel had been pro-Eno. My youthful, Botoxed grandparents had taught me otherwise, back when I was a kid.
The last time I saw Mel, he was lying in bed, looking like hell in a pomegranate-colored velour tracksuit. I might look like a rich woman at the grocery store, Mel said, but I’m comfortable, so shut it. When Deena walked in, I barely noticed. I was watching Mel’s husband Gabriel, who was holding Mel’s hand and weeping. You might not think that people could possibly cry enough for the tears, all that water to spread like hungry lakes and make everything messy and salty, but that’s what Gabriel was doing. Mel had “Ladytron” blasting from his pricey Bang & Olufsen speakers. It was his favorite song, and perhaps his way of having the last word in the old Roxy Music argument.
There was very little ceremony. Mel patted Gabriel’s hand and whispered something in his ear. He motioned for me to come over, and took a slippery white envelope out from under his pillow and handed it to me. Don’t open it now, he said. But promise me you’ll look at it later. I tried to say something but he shook his head.
Then he nodded at Deena, who was perched patiently on a footstool. She stood and raised her arm, and a cloud of cameras coalesced, buzzing and spinning. I couldn’t hear them over the music, which had reached the sax solo, but a few of the cameras swept ticklishly past my eyelashes.
“This will be recorded for the archives of the health bureau,” Deena said. Then: “Goodbye, Mr. Pak.” She aimed the Death Ray at Mel. I felt a loud hum like cotton against my eardrums, and that was all—Mel was enveloped in a slithering gray fog. There was a moment of amazement in all of this, however; the sax was swirling and so was the fog, and right before the room clouded over completely, Deena looked me in the eyes, her gaze a pure laser-shot of information and future potential and, oh, everything. When the fog lifted, Mel was dead.
My friends tell me that I love Deena because of the incredibly fucked-up way we met, all the adrenaline and horror and twisted glamour. I love Mel. Deena kills Mel. I love Deena. My friends are over-simplifying jerks.
It was that and it wasn’t that. After Mel’s appointment was over, I found myself standing outside of his renovated Victorian. It was cold out and my feet felt as heavy as snowmen, stuck frozen to the ground. A long time passed before Deena came out of the house.
She said, “I liked Mr. Pak. Funny guy. He chose a very nice-sounding song, too. Mr. Pak was in a cult, did you know that? I’m sure you knew that.”
Mel’s parents had been Mindiites. He was born in their compound, lived there until he was twenty-six years old, when the leader died under mysterious circumstances and the cult disbanded. Mel talked only about the robes and rituals, not the philosophy of the cult, which was still a mystery to the rest of the world.
“I need to ask you about something,” I said.
“Mr. Pak really loved you,” Deena said, as if she hadn’t heard me. “It was your first time at one of these, right? It’s not a morbid thing, to want someone at a euthanasia appointment. It means he loves you and wants you to be the last thing he sees.
“I wish he hadn’t chosen today,” I said.I wish he had chosen next week, or the week after, or next year. Some other time.”
Deena’s eyes were flat and calm. “That’s why choosing is treacherous. The people that love you don’t realize that you choose the right day for you. They only want you to delay that day for as long as possible, so the appointment might never happen. But then there’s no point in choosing.”
I rubbed my eyes and looked down. I tried to stare at something that wasn’t a signpost to something sad. A rock. A dogwood tree across the street. A wrinkled club flyer stuck under my car windshield. No, that was a sad thing. They were all sad things and looking at them made me feel worse. Deena was probably the only beautiful thing for miles.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I guess you’d know.” I tried to smile at her. My face felt shiny and painful and peeled. Then I felt a light touch on the small of my back, more like an animal’s paw than a human hand.
“Would you like to get a cup of coffee with me?” Deena said.
I was Martin, a homeless man who usually sat near the Trader Joe’s where Deena shopped. I was gradually learning Deena’s entire schedule. I had a paper sack of old books with the covers ripped off—Edwardian romance novels and Tom Clancy and diet guides. I was always reading. There were so many ills in my body. My teeth were loose. My stomach felt beat-up, empty, like a smashed soda can. I often had migraines so bad that it felt like my left eye was pulsing in and out of its socket, as though I were a squeeze toy. When I was Martin, it was harder for me to think. All my thoughts across all bodies sometimes acted like a card catalog that had been upset onto the floor. Things grew in my brain and their root systems were destroying everything.
A young man passing by flipped a coin into my paper cup and I thought about where I left off and everythin
g else began. The sun sank into my skin and I sighed—a brief flare of joy. Oh, I was forgetting myself. Oh, everything I had done, all the people I had been, everyone who I’d given the Me Virus, the Deena Disease, which I suffered alone.
But there was no time for such thoughts now. I was on a mission. I saw Deena park her car and walk into the grocery store. I was also Celeste now, and I hurried out of my apartment to meet Deena. I chose to inhabit Celeste because of her proximity to Trader Joe’s and because she was older, attractive rather than cute, perhaps someone that would please Deena. Which was all I needed.
When Celeste-me passed Martin-me, I put a twenty into Martin’s cup. He would want it later.
Inside Trader Joe’s, I found Deena looking at olives. She was holding a little jar in her palm like a hand grenade.
“You don’t want those,” I said. Deena turned around and I saw her liking what she saw. A pulse of happiness ran through me.
Deena said, “What do you recommend?” She raised her chin imperiously, like a teenage boy trying to look taller than his friends. It was a good sign. Deena tried to intimidate people she was attracted to. You could call it a bad habit of hers, but I always took it to mean that she was shy at heart. I’m kind of a sucker.
“These.” I picked up a squat jar of pepper-stuffed olives. “These are awesome.”
“Oh huh,” she said. “I knew someone who loved those olives too. She was practically addicted to them.”
I talked just to say anything.Lots of people love olives. Except for my Dad. And my sister. And some other people I know. They hate olives.”
“And she said they were ‘awesome’ too,” Deena continued, as if the word was a large bug that had flown into her mouth. “She said ‘awesome’ so often that it kind of lost all meaning, do you know what I mean?”