by Nick Mamatas
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.
The starving, ragged woman who stole an apple. Starving in body and in mind, starving in spirit if so base a thing as she can be said to possess a soul. Starving, and ragged in all ways.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
And as is the way of all exiles, she cannot kill hope that her exile will one day end. Even the withering gaze of the Cherubim cannot kill that hope, and so hope is the cruelest reward.
Brother, can you spare a dime?
“Take my hand,” the girl says, and Ann Darrow feels herself grown weightless and buoyed from that foul brook, hauled free of the morass of her own nightmares and regret onto a clean shore of verdant mosses and zoysiagrass, bamboo and reeds, and the girl leans down and kisses her gently on the forehead. The girl smells like sweat and nutmeg and the pungent yellow pigment dabbed across her cheeks.
“You have come home to us, Golden Mother,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes.
“You don’t see,” Ann whispers, the words slipping out across her tongue and teeth and lips like her own ghost’s death rattle. If the jungle air were not so still and heavy, not so turgid with the smells of living and dying, decay and birth and conception, she’s sure it would lift her as easily as it might a stray feather and carry her away. She lies very still, her head cradled in the girl’s lap, and the stream flowing past them is only water and the random detritus of any forest stream.
“The world blinds those who cannot close their eyes,” the girl tells her. “You were not always a god and have come here from some outer world, so it may be you were never taught how to travel that path and not become lost in All-at-Once time.”
Ann Darrow digs her fingers into the soft, damp earth, driving them into the loam of the jungle floor, holding on and still expecting this scene to shift, to unfurl, to send her tumbling pell-mell and head over heels into some other now, some other where.
And sometime later, when she’s strong enough to stand again, and the sickening, vertigo sensation of fluidity has at last begun to fade, the girl helps Ann to her feet, and together they follow the narrow dirt trail leading back up this long ravine to the temple. Like Ann, the girl is naked save a leather breechcloth tied about her waist. They walk together beneath the sagging boughs of trees that must have been old before Ann’s great-great-grandmothers were born, and here and there is ample evidence of the civilization that ruled the island in some murky, immemorial past—glimpses of great stone idols worn away by time and rain and the humid air, disintegrating walls and archways leaning at such precarious angles Ann cannot fathom why they have not yet succumbed to gravity. Crumbling bas-reliefs depicting the loathsome gods and demons and the bizarre reptilian denizens of this place. As they draw nearer to the temple, the ruins become somewhat more intact, though even here the splayed roots of the trees are slowly forcing the masonry apart. The roots put Ann in mind of the tentacles of gargantuan octopi or cuttlefish, and that is how she envisions the spirit of the jungles and marshes fanning out around this ridge—grey tentacles advancing inch by inch, year by year, inexorably reclaiming what has been theirs all along.
As she and the girl begin to climb the steep and crooked steps leading up from the deep ravine—stones smoothed by untold generations of footsteps—Ann stops to catch her breath and asks the brown girl how she knew where to look, how it was she found her at the stream. But the girl only stares at her, confused and uncomprehending, and then she frowns and shakes her head and says something in the native patois. In Ann’s long years on the island, since the Venture deserted her and sailed away with what remained of the dead ape, she has never learned more than a few words of that language, and she has never tried to teach this girl nor any of her people English. The girl looks back the way they’ve come; she presses the fingers of her left hand against her breast, above her heart, then uses the same hand to motion towards Ann.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don’t take it serious; it’s too mysterious.
By sunset, Ann has taken her place on the rough-hewn throne carved from beds of coral limestone thrust up from the seafloor in the throes of the island’s cataclysmic genesis. As night begins to gather once again, torches are lit, and the people come bearing sweet-smelling baskets of flowers and fruit, fish and the roasted flesh of gulls and rats and crocodiles. They lay multicolored garlands and strings of pearls at her feet, a necklace of ankylosaur teeth, rodent claws, and monkey vertebrae, and she is only the Golden Mother once again. They bow and genuflect, and the tropical night rings out with joyous songs she cannot understand. The men and woman decorate their bodies with yellow paint in an effort to emulate Ann’s blonde hair, and a sort of pantomime is acted out for her benefit, as it is once every month, on the night of the new moon. She does not need to understand their words to grasp its meaning—the coming of the Venture from somewhere far away, Ann offered up as the bride of a god, her marriage and the death of Kong, and the ascent of the Golden Mother from a hellish underworld to preside in his stead.
The end of one myth and the beginning of another, the turning of a page. I am not lost, Ann thinks. I am right here, right now—here and now where, surely, I must belong, and she watches the glowing bonfire embers rising up to meet the dark sky. She knows she will see that terrible black hill again, the hill that is not a hill and its fetid crimson river, but she knows, too, that there will always be a road back from her dreams, from that All-at-Once tapestry of possibility and penitence. In her dreams, she will be lost and wander those treacherous, deceitful paths of Might-Have-Been, and always she will wake and find herself once more.
Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of seven novels, including the award-winning Silk and Threshold, and her short fiction has been collected in Tales of Pain and Wonder; From Weird and Distant Shores; Wrong Things (with Poppy Z. Brite); the World Fantasy Award-nominated To Charles Fort, with Love; and Alabaster. Her most recent novel is Daughter of Hounds.
Visit her at www.caitlinrkiernan.com.
LOST SOUL
M P Ericson
Rajiv shuffled along the village street. With his right hand, he sprinkled incense before him so as not to pollute the path of others. His left, unclean, hand he tucked into the side of his dhoti, so as not to taint the air.
He kept his eyes lowered to avoid bringing evil. All he saw were his own toes scuffling through a drizzle of tulsi-scented sawdust.
At the pandit’s door he stopped, blew three times on the fingers of his right hand, and knocked.
Jagan’s wife opened the door. She withdrew hastily, then disappeared into the house. Rajiv heard a whispered consultation.
“You’d better come in.” Jagan sounded displeased, but he could not refuse a supplicant.
The room in which Jagan received his clients was large, the size of Rajiv’s whole hut, and smelled of sandalwood. A gilt statue of Kemshi, wrapped in scarlet silk, smiled from the shrine.
“You know it’s bad luck for you to leave your house before the month is out,” Jagan said. “I’ll have to purify my home and myself.”
“I know.” Rajiv looked up, knowing that Jagan had no need to fear evil. A pandit’s strength lay in dealing with such things. “But I had to come. I must ask you to bring back my wife.”
“That is not possible.”
“You did it for Kiran.” Rajiv thought of the fevered whispers, and how he had ignored them. When Kiran died, gutted by his own harvesting knife, Rajiv concluded the man must have been crazy. But lately, ever since Bela’s funeral, those whispers had begun to return to his ears.
“Kiran was a fool,” Jagan said. “He was too attached to his wife. We all know her death sent him mad. Whatever he told you, disregard it. Mere ravings.”
Rajiv met Kemshi’s gaze o
f promise.
“He said it was only a matter of price. I have savings. I can pay.”
“You have nothing but a house full of daughters, who all need dowries soon. If I were you, I’d think of ways to please the gods, so they may bless you with more wealth than you have earned.”
Rajiv dug out a pair of incense-bearded coins from the small woven pouch that hung at his waist.
“Two rupees,” he said.
Jagan chuckled.
“That wouldn’t buy me a meal. Go home.”
“It’s all I have.”
“As I said, you have nothing.”
“But I need her.” Too many nights he had spent sweating alone on his rope bed, straining to hear her soft breath from the floor beside him. “Kiran said you knew how.”
“Nonsense.”
“Just once,” Rajiv pleaded. If he could only hold her one more time, he would find ease.
Jagan studied him, as if weighing his soul on invisible scales.
“Even if it could be done, the task would be dangerous. Calling back the spirits of the dead takes great courage and meticulous preparation. And certain sacred offerings, which are expensive—or would be, if such a thing were possible.”
Rajiv looked at the mildewed coins in his hand.
“I have her bangles,” he said. “They were to be dowries for my daughters.”
“Very sensible.”
“They are worth six rupees.”
“Each?” Jagan asked in surprise. Rajiv winced.
“All together.”
“It is an insult,” Jagan said, “to suggest that I would do this work for less than ten rupees.”
Rajiv’s muscles clenched.
“But you would?”
“I might consider the possibility.”
Rajiv thought of his one remaining treasure.
“I have her beads,” he said. “They are worth two.”
She had come to him with twelve rupees in worth, and in fifteen years he only had to spend one. The remainder consisted of her clothes. She had burned in those as an offering to the goddess of death, in the hope of safe passage into the next life. He wished he had not squandered them that way.
“Ten,” he said. “All together.”
“You must pay in advance,” Jagan said. “Else you may find an excuse not to. And if you want this work done, time is short. At the end of your month of mourning, your wife’s soul will move on. There are only three days left. I cannot call it back after that. Even now, the links that hold it to earth are frail. There is no guarantee of success.”
Rajiv began to wheeze, his habit when frightened.
“Tonight?” he suggested.
Jagan consulted the shrine.
“It would be wise. Meet me at the graveyard before midnight. Bring the payment in full, and also the following three things: blood, bark, and seed.”
Rajiv stared.
“How?”
“That is for you to determine.” Jagan rose, a signal that the interview was over. “Remember to purify your path as you leave.”
When Rajiv got home, his mother had tidied the house and was waiting expectantly for midday prayers. Rajiv took his place on his straw mat, threw incense into the candle flame, and recited the verses his father had taught him.
The statue of Kemshi, fist-sized and badly carved, sneered at him from its net of cracking paint. He tried not to think of the opulence in Jagan’s house.
According to sacred verse, the goddess brought prosperity to those she favoured. The way to gain her blessing was by prayer and hard work. Rajiv wondered, in a rebellious corner of his mind, whether rich men like Jagan told such stories in order to justify extortion.
Ten rupees!
Rajiv finished his prayers, and sat staring at the beads wrapped around the statue’s neck. He had hoped they would bring him wealth, as marriage to Bela had never done. Five girls she gave him, and a son who did not live.
All Kemshi had done for him was persuade the goddess of death to carry off two of the girls with fever. At least now he had only three dowries to pay.
His eldest daughter set down the offering of rice and ghee. Rajiv scowled at her. She ought to have sense enough to die, too, if she could not have been born a boy.
“I’ll be lucky to get you married,” he said.
“I don’t want to be married,” she snapped back.
Rajiv lashed out. The punch sent her tumbling, and she thudded against the thin boards of the wall. Blood seeped from her nose and mingled with a dribble of tears.
His mother slapped her, more from reflex than malice, then gave her a clean rag to dab away the mess. Bright patches soaked through the cloth. Rajiv burst forward and snatched the rag from her grip, then stormed out of the house.
At least he had obtained the blood.
He rolled the rag into a tight ball, stain innermost, and tied it around his wrist.
Heat pressed down between the houses. From the stream came splashes and chatter, as women washed clothes while children played. His daughters should be down there, too, making themselves useful instead of littering the house.
Rajiv turned into the mango grove at the back of the village. The shade eased his temper. He scraped at the trunk of a tree, fingers working to rip away a strand of bark. Dirt and fragments packed under his nails, curving into leers.
Above him dangled ripe fruit, shining like festival lanterns. He plucked one and ate it, savoured the intense perfume. Sweet juice dripped from his chin.
When he was finished, he tied the damp stone and the strip of bark into the rag at his wrist.
His store of incense lasted just long enough to get him home. The girls scrambled away as he entered, and his mother gave him a disapproving look.
“You shouldn’t keep going out,” she said.
Rajiv shrugged, and retired to the privacy of his room. He lay on the bed, panting with heat. Sweat trickled over his skin.
The reality of what he was engaged in burrowed through his mind. Bela was dead, her body burned. Nothing remained of her but ash.
He still wanted to make the attempt, before his last chance of seeing her was gone.
Night hung thick around Rajiv as he stole down the street. The air, clogged with warmth, stuck in his lungs.
The graveyard lay well outside the village. It took him longer than he thought to get there. By the time he arrived, and saw Jagan’s shape loosen from the black void of the palisade fence, the stars already told of midnight.
“Did you bring everything?” was Jagan’s only greeting. Rajiv handed over the bundle. Jagan grunted acknowledgement, and led the way into the burial grounds.
“Understand two things,” he said as they stood by the grave. “First, I can perform this calling only once, and your wife will be with you only until dawn. Second, you must not return here until I have concluded the final rite for your wife. The ceremony I am about to perform will draw the attention of evil spirits. I can hold them off, but if you were to come here without me, they could use you to gain access to our world.”
The remnants of Bela’s pyre felt like dust underfoot. Rajiv stood aside, his feet tickled by blades of grass, while Jagan placed each item in turn at the corners of the grave. A quiet murmur told of the ritual performed.
“Blood, for life. Bark, for growth. Seed, for renewal.” Each utterance was followed by the recital of a sacred verse and the scent of melted ghee poured over the offering.
At the fourth corner, Jagan silently placed a secret item of his own. Then he seated himself by the foot of the grave, and began to chant.
A chill passed over Rajiv. The night closed in around him, as if fingers gripped his limbs. He began to shiver. Tales from childhood surfaced in his mind, stories of demons that crept into the homes of the living and gnawed all flesh from the bones of sleeping men.
He wanted to tell Jagan to stop, but could not utter a sound.
At the end of the recital, Jagan remained in a pose of meditation. Rajiv waited.
Jagan rose, and began to walk out of the graveyard. Rajiv hurried after him.
“It didn’t work?”
Jagan said nothing, only walked on towards the village. From behind, Rajiv heard the padding of feet.
He swung around. A shape moved in the starlight. Eyes gleamed in a featureless face.
Rajiv swallowed. Fear cramped his limbs. He turned from the figure and hurried after Jagan. The footsteps followed, obediently keeping pace with the two men, never drawing closer.
At Jagan’s door, the pandit stopped.
“Remember,” he said. “Only this one time.” He went inside, and Rajiv was left staring at blank wood.
The footsteps had stopped, but resumed as Rajiv continued. When he arrived at his own house, he dashed inside and slammed the door shut. He could not explain the sense of dread he felt, but he knew he did not want that creature in his home. Not even if it was Bela.
He heard the careful silence that meant his mother and daughters were awake and anxious not to appear so. Without speaking, he crossed to his own room and lay down on the bed. What the creature would do, alone out in the street, he did not know. Perhaps she would stand there, obedient as a woman should be, until the time came for her to return to the graveyard. Or perhaps she would vanish, now that he had no more need of her.
The regular tap of bare feet on dirt approached him. A body slumped to the floor beside his bed, and lay without breathing.
Sweat rushed to Rajiv’s forehead. She was right there beside him. He could feel her presence, tangible as the ropes under his back. A faint smell of cinders prickled his nose.
“Bela?” he whispered.
