Pausing to catch her breath as she walked home through the park one spring morning, Arna leaned against a maple trunk, and closed her eyes, until just the sun-lit blood in her eyelids filled her line of sight. Then, a small voice:
"I found one ... it's whole, too."
Opening her eyes suddenly, Arna's line of sight was still red-tinged, but she could make out the little girl standing before her quite clearly. The same stuck-out ears, only now they seemed to stick out all the more thanks to the girl wearing her shoulder-length hair in a lace-covered scrunchie. The hair was darker now, and slightly thicker, not baby hair. But the nose—it was Dehaan's, that much was apparent. And the mouth, something like hers, just as the eyes were hers, and her mother's, and—
The girl was holding a fallen egg in one slightly grimy palm, a tiny blue one with a smudge of dirt on one end. Looking past her hand, and the egg cupped there, Arna saw that the child was wearing some sort of uniform, not a school one, but a club outfit, not Brownie or Camp Fire Girl, but ... something dun-colored and two-piece, with a vest over that which had various embroidered badges and enameled pins affixed to it. And she had a beret-like hat on her head, which Arna had missed, because it was so close in color to the child's hair.
"It's beautiful. Not even cracked. What are you going to do with it?"
"Same thing I always do. But this is a really nice one. Not like the ones at home."
"Oh? And where is home?” Arna hoped the child wouldn't become scared of her, run away—
"Here's home ... sort of. I forget, you don't really know, do you? But I'm glad you didn't cut your hair. I always thought it looked better this way—"
Not caring if the girl was frightened or not, Arna knelt down and put both hands on the child's shoulders, feeling the coarseness of her vest and the underlying warmth of her lightly fleshed bones beneath the cotton blouse she wore, and as she looked into eyes that were oh so familiar to her, she asked, “Who are you? What is your name?"
"You know my name. And you know who I am—"
"Don't get weird, please ... just tell me your name, please—"
"Olitia Galvin. You knew that. Only now, in ‘Birders, we all took new names, for the birds we like best, and mine is Pules now, for pigeon—"
"That can't be your name. You were never born ... and I don't know who you are—"
"You don't like ‘Pules'? Daddy doesn't like it either, he wanted me to pick something like Zitkala or Doli, only I didn't like the Zee one, ‘cause it sounds like zits—"
"Stop speaking gibberish!"
"It's not ‘gibberish’ it's Indian—no, Native American names. Mine is Algonquin, and Zitkala is Dakota, and the other is Navajo—"
"I-don't-care! Why are you doing this to me? Where did you come from—"
"Here. Sort of. ‘Almost here’ is how most of us describe it."
"'Us'?” She stared at the child, who looked back at her with the same bland fascination of someone examining a flipped over beetle on the ground, its many legs flailing wildly, before it either righted itself or a bird swooped down and devoured it. As she stared at the child, felt her warmth under her curling, digging fingertips, she noticed that the girl wasn't scared of her, not at all, despite her being a stranger who'd grabbed her in the park, and started shouting questions at her. There was no fear in her body, or in her eyes, only a gradual dawning of comprehension, followed by a slight, sad smile on her lips.
"We're not supposed to do this, but all of us can do it without thinking about it. We just go back. To where we began. It just happens, ‘specially when we're babies. No one yells at us then, ‘cause we can't help it, but when we get older ... our there moms get mad if we keep going back here. Like you used to. Only lately, you've been cool about it, and don't mind when I go off. ‘Cause you know I'll come back. But it's been so long since I found you here, I forgot that you don't know. You don't understand, is how Daddy puts it. In my ‘here’ things are different. Everybody knows where the sudden babies come from, and they understand that sometimes, we go back. ‘Cause we need to. ‘Specially once we understand the sircum—sirsum—circus—"
"Circumstances? Are you trying to say circumstances?” Arna whispered, and with that, the child relaxed, and said, “Yeah. That other birds and bees stuff we learn about in science class. ‘Sudden babies are special babies,’ that's what Mr. Shale says. ‘Cause we come from here, and end up in the other here, where I live. For a long time nobody knew where we came from, just that some mommies would wake up with the baby inside, and not know where it came from. Some of them went from skinny to fat like that. It wasn't until they made the last Mars landing that Dr. Cholena discovered the part about all the different heres, which she said were like cards in a stack that was miles and miles high, all touching, yet not realizing there was even a stack of them. Something like that. We saw it on TV in the Classroom last year. Dr. Cholena, she's Indian, no, a Native American; she's not from India so I shouldn't call her that. But people used to call them Indians, too. But our ‘Birders nest-mother always corrects us if we make the mis—"
"So ... you came from here, in here—” she grabbed the child's free hand, and gently placed it on her abdomen.
Nodding, the girl said, “Way down inside there. Then, according to Dr. Cholena, the cards in the stack, they touched hard enough to lose all the space between them, and I went from your tummy to my mother's tummy. Which was the same tummy, only on a different card—"
The analogy was imprecise, but Arna could see why the mysterious Dr. Cholena had chosen it. It was simple enough that a child could understand it, without using words like parallel or universes—
"Why do you come?"
"Because when we find out why we're sudden, we figure out that we had to be something opposite here. Mr. Shale, he calls us ‘lost’ over here. I ... ‘spose I just wanted to know if you were looking for me. ‘Cause I was lost to you here..."
Such a simple concept, even a small child like Arna's mother could figure it out. Even if she couldn't voice it. Or act upon it.
"Ohhh ... kay,” she said slowly, then found herself asking, out of all the things she could have said, “I shouldn't cut my hair? Does it look that bad?"
Wrinkling Dehaan's nose, the girl said, “It makes your ears stick out more. Or look like they do. This is way better. Daddy says so, and he can't wait for you to grow it back."
"He can't?” Arna smiled, and reluctantly let the child go, but before Olitia could move away, or do whatever it was that she just did to go from here to here, Arna asked, “Can you tell me something?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is there a little boy in your class, by the last name of Beltran? A little Mex—Hispanic boy?"
"Ohhh ... Jonas-junior. He gets in a lot of trouble with his parents, ‘cause he keeps coming here. All the time. He keeps bringing over his pet birds, and leaving them here, ‘cause he thinks it's funny. And ‘cause we have so many of them in our here—"
"What kind of birds?"
"The pigeons ... our pigeons. I never see them when I'm here, unless some come over with me. But mine usually come back when I do. But Jay-jay, he leaves his here, on purpose. He says they're for his here-mom. She likes birds. And ours are neater than the ones here. Yours have too big of heads. His mom where I'm from, she can't make him stop, but his dad is cool with it. Says this here needs more birds anyhow. Like he knows, he's not a sudden, but he understands us sudden kids. Not like Daddy. But you, you're really good about it now. Not like when I was a baby and would just go while you were sunning yourself in our old back yard, before Daddy got promoted. You'd freak out, tell me later on that you were so afraid someone would call the police about a missing baby. But now, you're ok about me going, ‘cause you know I'll come back soon. Like ... I gotta go now. But I'll see you again ... ok?"
Trying not to stare at her, trying not to show how hungry she really was for her own flesh and blood, Arna nodded her head, and said, “Go on, before ... I miss you. I'll be waiting for you�
�"
In the distance, Arna heard the rumble of the big truck which brought the daily newspaper into downtown, and even though she knew she shouldn't, she couldn't help but glance at it ... and in that nanosecond, Olitia was gone.
But on the ground where the child had stood was the perfect bird's egg, pale blue and still slightly smudged with dirt. Cupping it in one hand, she walked to the news stand, and watched as the vendor cut open the bundle of paper, and tossed the string aside like so many long white worms onto the sidewalk. Giving him a couple of quarters with her free hand, she took one of the papers, and tucked it under her arm during the long, lonely walk back to the condo.
It wasn't until she'd arrived home, and set the small egg in a place of honor on her worktable, that she unfolded the paper, and read one of the sidebar headlines:
ONCE EXTINCT BIRD DISCOVERED IN STATE
—and under that was an article describing how live passenger pigeons, previously deemed extinct since the early 20th century, had been discovered, a find recently authenticated by renowned ornithologist Dr. Luyu Cholena. There was a picture of her, along with that of a live passenger pigeon, which looked very much like a regular pigeon, only its head was smaller than normal, and it was a pretty bird, a most pretty bird indeed, for a young boy to bring as a present for his mother...
* * * *
A. R. Morlan's long-delayed short story collection Smothered Dolls will be out this year from Overlook Connection Press (www.overlookconnection.com, or P.O. Box 1934 Hiram GA 30141, USA), and includes a couple of stories previously published in Challenging Destiny, as well as three new stories, and several reprints. She also had a novelette published this January in Asimov's Science Fiction, in addition to her previous credits in magazines and anthologies like Full Spectrum IV, Cemetery Dance, F&SF, Weird Tales and Vanishing Acts. A. R. has six previous stories in Challenging Destiny, including “The Anabe Girls” from Number 22. She lives in the US Midwest, along with her house-full of companion cats.
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The Keys to the Yellow Kingdom by Matthew Sanborn Smith
Carlos had lost count of the steps somewhere after one hundred and seventeen. Now that he'd arrived in front of the Wonderbox, he forgot about the climb altogether. The thick jungle winds of Quintana Roo blew across the treetops and through this little temple atop the pyramid, too humid to dry his sweat. He sank to his knees, not once taking his eyes off of the miracle machine lest it disappear. An odd little thing, seven-sided, asymmetrical, shining and brown like fresh dung out in the sun. Its corners looked sharp enough to cut a man. A blood sacrifice, then? His imagination darted in a million directions at once. One of those directions couldn't help but wonder why nobody just grabbed the thing and ran off with it.
"Make me a writer,” he said, hunched low, his lips nearly touching it. “I want to be a writer more than anything else in the world. I want to be famous and have all the money I need to help my family."
"Doesn't work like that,” said an old, black man who appeared from behind a Doric column about twenty feet away.
Carlos jumped to his feet, prepared to defend, he wasn't sure what: his only chance at a life of ... his only chance at a life!
The man had been approaching but stopped short. No one was supposed to be here, at least that's what Carlos thought. What else could he want, but to get his own chance with the box, maybe by duping Carlos or even killing him to take his turn?
"Easy there, son,” the stranger said. “I'm three times your age at my best. Parts of me might be older. I can help you with that if you like."
"What do you want?” Carlos asked. What could he want? This man had money. His shirt was so white that it glowed and it must have been climate controlled as well; he hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Relax, Carlos."
"How do you know my name?"
"The man who sent you up, Mike, he teleed me. You had to give your name at some point in order to get in line, Carlos."
Carlos laughed, feeling spectacularly stupid. The old man laughed a little too.
"Not a lot like you that make it up here,” the man said. “You must want it pretty badly. What did you have to give? Next in line is an old rich woman. You seem to be in pretty good shape. Sex maybe?"
"Not just that.” Carlos spoke from tightened lips. “A year. What business is it of yours anyway?"
The old man threw up his hands.
"It's a person's passion I'm interested in. Most of what we get here are the spoiled rich who can already have anything they want. It's just a novelty to them. They go away happy, something to tell their friends."
"Who are you?” Carlos asked.
"I'm the man behind the curtain, Savon Kelly. I invented the Wonderbox.” Kelly offered his hand, but Carlos didn't move forward to take it.
"You live up here?” Carlos asked.
"No, no,” Kelly said, laughing. “There's not even a reclaimer up here, never mind food or water. I should probably have one put in, to tell you the truth. It's a long way down if you've got to hold it. No, my offices are down below. I just take the lift up now and then to help out."
"Wait a minute, there's a lift and you make people walk up all those steps? I mean, I'm young and strong, but the woman behind me, Darby, she's eighty-three!"
"Eighty-three! Good God, man, you did want it badly!"
"Get off of that! There are elderly people! There are the disabled!"
Almost on cue, a pair of artificial hind legs swung out silently behind Kelly and seemed to be fulfilling their only purpose, holding him up as he leaned back.
"It's theater, Carlos. It's all theater. My little box there is the wonder of the ages. You don't stick something like that in a booth on a street corner. People expect some work. A little climb. We get a major whiner now and then, we'll give him a ride up. The old and the bent ones that make it on their own, those are the serious ones, even if they use it for stupid things.” He shook his head, maybe waiting for Carlos to smile along with him.
"Stupid like what?” Carlos asked.
"One man used it to gain a lifetime supply of beer. One woman asked for someone to love her. Another man used it to get his dog into the best obedience school."
"Why is it stupid for a woman to ask for someone to love her?” Carlos asked. The request didn't sound stupid to him. A heart's desire. Wasn't that why he himself came here?
"Because she didn't need this box to do that for her,” Kelly said. “That was already within her reach before she got here. There were people all around her that not only would love her, but did love her. Look at you. If you want to be a writer, go ahead and write, you don't need this box. Here, let me give you something."
His hind legs folded back in against him. They reminded Carlos of a paraplegic's exoskeleton. Kelly bounded to the box and fell to one knee. He put his hand on the seven-sided box just long enough to blink. He reached behind it and pulled out an odd yellow pad with a pencil clipped to it. Kelly handed it to Carlos.
"This is all you really need,” Kelly said. “Mind you, this set is special. New blank pages are generated from the board at the bottom as old ones are torn off. And the pencil never grows short."
"Thank you. That's incredible, but..."
"But that's not what you expected."
"No, it's not. I meant for things to change. I could have bought a thousand datapads with the money I spent coming here."
"A lot of people don't understand. That's one of the reasons I come out from time to time."
"It's all a lie then?” Carlos asked. “The box doesn't really change things?"
"You betcha it does. You just don't need it. It can alter the very state of reality, boil oceans or birth stars."
"So ... so..."
"What is it?” Kelly asked.
"So, why is everything the way it is then? The world I came from—people are suffering every day. Why hasn't somebody fixed it?"
Kelly nodded before Carlos finished.
"Wel
p, first off, most people don't even think to ask for it. They ask for money for their brother's replacement heart at best, the ones with good intentions. There's some that want world peace, or to end hunger. None of them have asked for it the right way."
"Then..."
"Then what?"
"Then why don't you ask for it?"
Kelly let out a sigh, folded his arms, and leaned back on his hind legs once more. He studied his shoes.
"You know how to fix everything and you don't?” Carlos asked. “You must be ... you must be the devil or something. People are suffering out there. My family, so many times we had to eat things that we found, if we were lucky enough to eat at all. I grew up sleeping in the filthy trunk of my father's 35 Dodge Septimus with McDonald's wrappers lining my shoes. Maybe you can't see any of that from way up here. Children are being hurt, women are losing their babies, men are losing their lives! Why don't you fix it?"
"Easy, easy there, Carlos. You don't understand. I can't. I've tried, but I can't. I don't know how to ask for it either."
"But you made the machine!"
"Let me explain it, son. Let me explain it. The universe plays itself out the only way it can. Everything is fixed from the beginning, no matter what we like to imagine. And everything's the way it is because of the ground rules at the moment before the big bang. That shirt you're wearing, it had to be blue, because the ground rules in place at the very beginning led to an unimaginably long chain of events that had to lead up to that blue shirt on you at this time. Nothing else could have happened."
Challenging Destiny #25 Page 19
