So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction

by Christopher Barzak

  The snow had stopped. Before we drove out of Poniwok, Gwen made sure to check that the truck's snow chains were securely fastened. No shrinking violet by any means myself when it came to anything physical, I'd nevertheless been happy to stand aside and admire the way her hands worked the steel belts into submission.

  ---

  The creek was a frozen-over lake of decent size, walled to one side by a crescent of black spruce and lodgepole pine forest. It looked dark in there. I didn't say anything because the thought of coming across vulnerable in front of Gwen made me wither.

  We got out of the truck. Despite the fact that it had stopped snowing, weather conditions still seemed decidedly bleak all 'round. The chilling wind still had the ability to bear straight down into the core of my bones. Hesitantly, I closed the truck's passenger door.

  "Come, on Laura. Toughen up."

  I looked sideways across the bonnet of the truck and saw Gwen grinning smarmily. Then she turned around and walked off toward the sickled forest before I could save face with a clever comeback.

  I set off after her, having by now at least mastered the art of walking through knee-deep snow. When I caught up, she was already standing at the edge of the forest.

  Out of breath, I said: "I didn't know there was profit in killing moose."

  "There isn't, really. It's cheap, illegal game. Tastes like beef and it's low in fat. Last I heard you could get a hind quarter for $150 in Sydney."

  "That's awful."

  "Mmm. The poaching thrives because there's been no concentrated effort to clamp down on the illegal selling of moose." Gwen's eyes narrowed as if she was scanning for something inside the drawn-out darkness between the trees. A stilted demeanor had replaced the easiness with which she usually carried herself. Resentment colored her face.

  "I didn't think that sort of thing happened here."

  Gwen's shoulders relaxed somewhat. She gave me a sideways glance. "Happens everywhere. Always has. People have forever had an uncanny knack for disturbing the natural rhythm of the world. Scarier still--they seem to be getting better at it al the time."

  "Yeah." I couldn't think of anything else to say. Again, my God-given talents left me in the lurch.

  "Come on." Gwen motioned me to follow. I was relieved to hear the lightness return to her voice.

  "What exactly are you looking for?" Things became even darker as the first trees closed in behind us. The bare branches of the trees looked oddly petrified. "Surely you can't kill a moose with a trap?"

  "Nope. Not kill. Seldom catch, either. But they hurt themselves something awful trying to break loose. Makes it real easy to track them down with a rifle."

  "How very sporting."

  Gwen's hand suddenly shot out and pushed back against my stomach. Adrenalin buzzed through my limbs. I stopped dead.

  On the ground, right at the tips of my boots was a small, cleared piece of ground. A vicious looking spike trap nestled there, hidden by a makeshift barrier of stacked snow, its jagged teeth patiently waiting for something to snap on.

  "Careful," Gwen breathed. Steam rose from her lips and wafted lazily out into the cold. "They trap writers from the big city up here, too."

  "Holy shit."

  "Here." She took the collapsible steel baton from her belt and handed it to me. "Be kind to a moose. Stick it in there."

  I did. The trap sprung shut with a sadistic clang. There was a tight, rustling sound from inside the trees. I tried to stare through the black curtain of gloom but my eyes didn't seem to want to focus.

  "Fairies," Gwen said. I looked at her and laughed, relieved at her attempt to break the tension and lighten the mood. She hadn't taken her hand from my stomach. I could feel the heat from her fingers radiate through my parka, crawling past the fabrics of my clothes beneath my skin and settling there like a restless animal,

  It was the most alive I'd felt in a long time.

  A gun blast sounded suddenly, close, crackling like lightning through the cold air. A pierced, bursting sound that came from someplace between the thick brush of trees. Whiskey jacks shuddered and rose from the trees in a unanimous beating of wings.

  The heat in my stomach suddenly became hot, disproportionate. In an untethered moment I remember thinking--

  --Gwen--what are you doing to me--?

  I looked up from the sprung trap to Gwen's face. Why was my vision blurry on such a crisp day? And things sounded...distorted... Were those birds?

  The world shifted.

  Gwen's face seemed superimposed against the gray sky. She was saying something, her lips moved, but I couldn't hear again. A high-pressure sound filled my ears, whistling--

  Why did Gwen look so anxious? We disabled the spike--

  Look at her strawberry hair thrashing about her face. I felt the pressure of her hand intensify. I looked down.

  Something seeped slowly through her fingers and dropped blood red on the disrupted snow. It took me a moment to realize.

  And then the heat began to hurt. My knees buckled. Seconds after I felt the clammy iciness against my scalp and Gwen's hands ripping open my jacket, buttons popping. Was that snow falling? Again?

  "Jesus it hurts..." My voice sounded foreign.

  "Look at me, Laura. Look at me--you're not going to die. Just relax. Look at me."

  I did. Her eyes so calm... dark but somehow ethereal.

  Everything became displaced.

  Strange how I could feel things--hear them from a place where I wasn't quite sure where I was. Not sure whether the extreme brightness was snow or impending death hastening in for the kill, I decided to shut my eyes.

  The brightness remained but was somehow calming. Someone spoke but the words sounded distant, muted.

  Gwen?

  Sounded like--

  ... pissing off to some nowhere neverland! Ruth's words echoed dully in my ears.

  No feeling. Slipping away... should have stayed in New York...

  Esther Fromgard? Leaning over me, looking down at the blood on my clothes.... What was Esther doing in the woods? Who was minding the store?

  "He's dead," she said, looking away to her right. A crow cawed somewhere close.

  Gwen's voice: "Should have killed him myself." My eyes blurred again.

  Esther: "Not your job... won't stop, still. Others will come... think you've gone soft."

  The rustle of feathers, something large. "Laura..."

  The word drifted loosely.

  ---

  Koki eventually came by to fix the generator. His ankle healed before my injured abdomen. I hadn't even been aware that he'd been at the house.

  Esther told me. She brought me steaming chicken soup every day. I didn't dare move from the bed, save for the insistent calls of nature which were bad enough. My insides were torn, and I felt it. I reckoned a slug to the gut would do that. I also realized, with some pride, that maybe I was tougher than I thought.

  "Lucky," Esther said to me between puffs of nicotine. "A hair's breadth to the left and you would have been crow's meat."

  "Was it the poacher?" I managed to ask. Everything hurt.

  Esther flicked her cigarette butt out the bedroom window. "Yes. A poacher." She didn't say what kind of poacher.

  Ruth demanded that I move back to New York. I said no, but reminded her that a near-death experience would definitely make for good publicity. She was somewhat appeased by that.

  Gwen visited. Always when I was asleep. Don't ask me how I knew. Maybe it had something to do with the crow that would come and sit on my windowsill when no one else was there. Even when it snowed. Especially when it snowed, and the world outside looked like a white, boundless battlefield.

  ---

  It took me a good five weeks to get back on my feet. By this time I'd gotten pretty tired of chicken-soup-a-la-Fromgard, but at least I'd written another twenty-five thousand words. Terry McKenna was happy, I was happy. This was good.

  A part of me obviously needed Poniwok. Writer's block had hit me with a venge
ance after I'd finished the second book in the McKenna series. I'd come to the Yukon partly because I thought that, with fewer distractions, my mind would become clearer. Focused. The Big Apple was a master at telling its own tales. But she became jealous when other stories infringed upon her territory. Poniwok was brutally different. It invited tales to be spun.

  On the fifth Monday morning after getting shot between the cedar trees I went down to Poniwok's Detachment Office. Dolly Matera, the receptionist clerk greeted me with churning enthusiasm.

  "Dolly, it'll take more than an errant bullet from a poacher's rifle to keep me off my feet."

  "That's the spirit!" Dolly chimed. If she had a bell, she would have rung it. I didn't tell Dolly that, no--it was mostly stubbornness.

  "Damn... poachers," Dolly affirmed the sentiment I'd been thinking for the past five weeks with a faraway look in her eyes.

  I asked: "Sergeant Morrigan, is she in?"

  Dolly perked. "You know, she just popped out." She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I think the sergeant took up smoking again." Dolly had a gleam in her dark, almond-shaped eyes. Her face, framed by a wild head of hazelnut hair that perfected the just-out-of-bed-look made her look like a mischievous pixie bent on monkey business.

  "Of course, you didn't hear it from me," she added innocently. "The Morrigan's never been this hell-bent on impressing someone."

  The Morrigan? Probably one of those horrid Americanisms. I readied myself to leave. "You'll tell her that I was here? Just to show I'm not completely pathetic."

  Dolly gave me a chiding look. "Pathetic? Hardly. You did persuade death to look the other way, after all. That takes some doing, believe me. But I'll be sure to tell her anyway."

  I was sure that just about the whole of Poniwok were aware of Gwen and mine's flirtation. No one seemed in the least bothered by it. I was delighted. Being pleasantly surprised by people was still one of my biggest fancies.

  Back home I ignored the digital clock on my laptop that read half an hour shy of noon and poured myself a double scotch. The liquid went down ruthless and strong. It burned away the slight reminder of a sting that had been plaguing between my ribs ever since I'd got shot.

  Laura, you were shot. Almost killed. It sounded like something that would happen to Terry McKenna, not me for godsake...

  As if it wanted to affirm my status in the land of the living, the weather had turned conspicuously pleasant. Practically overnight, the perpetual gray mass in the sky had become tattered enough to let in short rays of sun and sketchily scattered patches of blue. It seemed a bit extraordinary, this sudden change in climate. I decided to forget about the peculiarity soon enough though and to enjoy the change while it lasted. Who knew how long before it all dissolved into rain, sleet and snow once again?

  The crow hadn't been on my windowsill for two days. I was starting to miss its company.

  Ruth would have a field day with me. This place is making you superstitious, Laura. I could just see her: black Stella McCartney suit, cell phone glued to one ear, cigarette waving aimlessly in the other hand. Well I say: what's wrong with a little superstition?

  I was about to sit down and check my e-mails when a single knock on the door interrupted my flow. If that was Esther with more chicken soup...

  Then a familiar voice outside said: "Come on, open the door. It's getting hot out here."

  I smiled, shook my head. Only Gwen would find the sun annoying. My heart thumped double beats. I opened the door.

  "Wow. Spiderman," Gwen said.

  I'm unashamed to admit that I was momentarily distracted by her perfect breasts beneath the faded Mountie T-shirt. "Spiderman?"

  Gwen indicated my own T-shirt. It had been a gift from my famous comic-book cartoon-artist brother. "Leaps tall buildings in a single bound?"

  "I think that's Clark Kent. Superman?"

  The atmosphere was charged with the stupidities of small talk and lust. Neither of us moved. I smiled, expelling a panicky laugh. Then Gwen came inside, pulling the door shut behind her and we were kissing even before I heard the latch click into its slot.

  There it was again. Bluebells. And her mouth; her lips, her tongue hot and her hands as eager as mine. Jesus--my head felt like it was going to spin off my neck. Gwen's hands were warm on my bare skin as they slowly roamed up

  my back. Her touch was searing, relentless. I pulled her against me and thought I'd die a sensational death when her erect nipples brushed mine.

  We made love on the flimsy couch in the living room. The thing had been there when I moved in. Previously, I'd thought it was probably good for nothing but taking up space. I was wrong.

  Gwen was tough. In control. I couldn't stop touching her. The feeble couch protested a gratifying number of times.

  Maybe you didn't run away from something.... Maybe you ran toward something....

  The words from a dream the night before, the only thing I could remember from my sleep upon waking.

  The weather had clouded over again and viciously so. The police pickup shuddered and slipped as Gwen maneuvered it across the rocky road, past the creek, out into the open.

  It had been three days after our initial tryst on the couch. At night, when I knew Gwen was sitting behind her desk in the Detachment Office in the center of town I couldn't sleep. She'd bewitched me. I felt restless whenever she wasn't with me.

  Gwen slammed her foot on the brake. The pickup came to a jerking halt. Before I could ask what going on she was getting out of the truck. I followed suit. I'd learned by now.

  It was dark out. The night bled a deep hue of blue, reflecting mutedly off the snow-covered ground. Gwen pitched herself on the bonnet of the truck and looked up into the sky. A moment later she held her hand up, pointed at the stars and said: "It's starting."

  I looked up. It was as if someone had taken a container of green and yellow paint and thrown it across the canvas of sky above us. Without a sound or introduction, the night was lit up by the extraordinary brilliance of the aurora borealis. It pitched and washed across the sky in slow ribbons of yellow and lime green, feeding the night sky's palette. Strands of red occasionally whorled and surged in between.

  It was a magnificent sight. As if doors had opened between worlds. The strands of color shimmered and shifted across the sky in broad, open arcs. Some disappeared behind us, back toward the creek. Others hovered, altered color.

  I looked at Gwen. She stared at the display of colors intently. From the corner of her eye I could see their dancing reflection.

  "The Tuatha De Dannan, marching across the sky." The statement carried reverence.

  "The fabled Fairy People."

  Gwen nodded, pleased at my recognition. "When they were defeated by the Milesians, some of them retreated underground, to live in the Sidhe. The Faery Mounds. Others ascended. To keep the balance. When they move across the sky like this, they bestow the blessing of the Faery upon Earth."

  If I'd left New York only to see what I was currently experiencing it would have been worth the effort.

  We watched the lights. Sometimes Gwen became silent. I detected a curious sense of longing in her at those times.

  I don't know how much longer we sat there, entranced by the wizardry of the night sky, but as we got ready to leave, Gwen bent down to pick up something. As I opened the passenger door of the pickup she offered me a kiss spiced with promise and a full, blooming sprig of bluebells. I didn't ask where she'd found them. I never wanted to break the spell.

  Lynne Jamneck is a South African writer who has published short fiction in various markets, including Jabberwocky Magazine, H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, and Spicy Slipstream Stories. For Lethe Press, she edited, selected and introduced the SF anthology, Periphery. She regularly contributes articles on genre fiction and writing to Suite101. Currently, she is at work on her first speculative novel, as well as studying toward a degree in English Literature and Religious Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington, New
Zealand.

  Mr. Seeley

  Melissa Scott

  The house was empty when he got home. Emptier than empty, the kind of quiet that usually went with a long time away. Tully hesitated on the back porch, for a second almost afraid to call, then shook himself, and let himself in through the kitchen door. "Joe?" The counters were clean, the dishes not just washed but put away, and dinner not yet begun. "Royelle?"

  There was no answer, not from the maid--who shouldn't be there anyway, it was dusk and long past quitting time--and not from Joe Farr, who should be. The flower shop had been closed when Tully came through town, and Joe usually came straight home after he'd locked up. Tully scuffed his feet on the worn bit of canvas just inside the door, and came all the way in, scooping off his cap.

  "Joe?"

  The house was silent. Tully hesitated, biting his lip. All the way down from Troytown, he'd been looking forward to seeing Joe standing in the kitchen finishing whatever Royelle had made, looking forward to him looking up with that smile on his face to ask Tully to stay to supper. Royelle made too much again, he'd say. Can't have it go to waste.

  Tully scuffed his feet again, reached for the light switch, and changed his mind. He wasn't really supposed to be there, his place was in the room over the garage, but when Joe was here, he was more welcome than a mere employee ought to be.... He shoved the thought away, stuck his hands and his cap into his pockets. Probably he should head back to the garage; maybe when Joe came in, he could wander over, pretend he'd come to ask something about the day's deliveries. He turned to leave, and jumped as someone knocked at the door.

  It was a colored boy--no, not a boy, a dwarfish little man, one shoulder hunched up and a grin that was all too simple to be trusted, a very black little man in pale cloth trousers and a dust-pale collared shirt.

  "You Tully Swann?"

  "I'm Mister Swann." Tully tried to look disapproving, but his heart was racing too hard. Jesus, the boy had startled him, coming up on the porch like that.