by Various
“At first, perhaps, but then I was taken by her manners, her bravery,” Lord Southland said.
“Claude may not be brilliant,” she said. “But he is respectable and well-rounded, in the manner of English education. And he has thought a great deal about spiritual matters.”
“Spiritual matters!” her father exclaimed. “I thought I had brought you up better than to believe in a crutch that supports feeble minds in their mediocrity!”
Had he raised her as an atheist? I was appalled, but I knew I would be able to teach her otherwise, patiently and carefully, as a man must do with his wife.
“I want to believe in something other than science,” she said, and I thrilled at the earnestness in her voice. “I want to believe in something free and fierce, something that stands outside society.”
Her theology was muddled, but she could learn. Her father’s sound of disgust and frustration made me smile.
That evening we stood on the terrace overlooking the sea. I could not resist pressing the issue. “Desiree, do you think we are well matched in mind?”
She hesitated, taking a breath.
I did not mind. I knew I outstripped her, but I could reach down, lift her to new heights of thought, of philosophy. Some hold that the Negro brain is structurally inferior to ours, but Desiree had already proved that she could get her mind around such things as mathematics and mechanics. I would show her theology’s wonders, the careful construction of a passage explicating God’s glory. We would read Milton together, and other poetry that would elevate her soul.
* * *
I decided to search for proof of Tyndall’s intentions, for evidence that he was not a man of science, only pretending to be one in order to seduce my gullible bride-to-be. Desiree always thought the best of people. It was up to my more rigorous mind to make sure she was not being too trusting.
A massive book lay on the table in Tyndall’s study, its pages well-thumbed. I turned it to study the spine.
A chill ran through me and I pulled my hand away, as though from a coiled serpent. It was King James’s Dæmonologie.
Using a handkerchief, I turned it to me and opened it. The words burned up at me:
This word of Sorcerie is a Latine worde, which is taken from casting of the lot, & therefore he that vseth it, is called Sortiarius à sorte.
Was Tyndall a sorcerer, then? What unholy designs did he have on Desiree? This was far, far worse than I had imagined.
A cough sounded behind me. I dropped the book and spun.
Tyndall.
He had the gall to stand there, polite inquiry on his face. “Some light reading, Stone?” he said.
I pointed at the book. My hand shook with emotion. “No honest man has such a book in his library! What foul magics do you practice?”
“I have never claimed to be an honest man,” he said dryly.
“Demon!” I hissed.
He shook his head. His tone was still polite, as though we spoke about the proper slicing of a breast of pheasant or the correct garnish for a trout. “I have been called that before, on my visits to this land,” he said. “But elf is more accurate.”
“I know a demon when I see one! You admit you are not human? You want not just Desiree’s body, but her soul!”
He snorted. “Her soul is her own. I want only her clever mind and machines, to entertain my Queen’s court.”
I gestured about the room. “Then all this is just illusion!”
He shook his head. A smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, as though it pleased him to speak so straightly to me. “No, the real Lord Tyndall is…elsewhere. He will return when I am done, none the worse for the wear. Indeed, his fortunes will prosper as a result. As yours could.”
“You mean to threaten me.”
“I mean to say that the financial chains binding you to your fiancée could be replaced with other gold, of my own forging, as recompense.”
“Desiree is more than gold to me,” I said. “A good wife is a treasure. Fairy gold is said to melt away, or become dry leaves in the light of day.”
“So you refuse to give her up?” he said.
“She may not be much,” I said. “Prideful, and a little wanton, and overly obsessed with this world’s trumperies. But she is mine, and I will have her, and the rich dowry that comes with her, and the inheritance that will befall her when her father dies.”
“Do you love her?”
I hesitated too long. In the silence I heard a little gasp of betrayal behind me. I turned just in time to see the tears in Desiree’s eyes before she fled.
* * *
She was nowhere to be found. No matter where I searched, even with the help of Tyndall’s servants, who were looking for their absent lord, mysteriously vanished as well. But when I let myself into my chamber that night, I knew she had been there. A tang of oil and steel hung in the air like dragon’s breath.
I first saw the note on my writing desk. Desiree’s handwriting was clear as copperplate.
It read:
Claude,
I do not think we will suit after all. But I have left you something that will, I think, let you have the kind of woman you desire. She comes with my dowry—I will not need it where Tyndall is taking me. I wish you only the best, Claude. I hope you wish me that in turn. The key is on the mantle. Remember to wind her up every seventh day.
-Desiree
I looked around and finally saw the shrouded figure by the fireplace. I pulled away the cloth covering it. At first it looked like Desiree standing there, stiff and rigid, dressed in a gown of pale blue moiré that I recognized as the one she had worn to Lady Allsop’s ball. But closer examination showed that the skin was dyed cloth laid over a harder surface, the hair sewn onto the scalp. A hole nestled in her décolletage, just big enough to accommodate the brass key I retrieved from the fireplace.
I inserted the key and twisted it, hearing the ratcheting of the cogs and gears inside my clockwork bride, until her eyelids unshuttered and I stepped forward to take her in my arms.
As we waltzed, I wept. Wept for my Desiree—not just what I had thought she would be to me, but for what she had been, for her clever hands and heart and laughter, and that she had loved me as much as I had loved her. Tears stained her silk bodice as I held her close, sky blue darkening to stormy. The fairies hung in a circle around us, abandoned by their former mistress. I wept, and we danced.
She danced very well indeed.
Copyright © 2010 by Cat Rambo
Books by Cat Rambo
STORY COLLECTIONS
Eyes Like Smoke and Coal and Moonlight (Paper Golem Press)
The Surgeon’s Tale & Other Stories, with Jeff VanderMeer (Two Freelancers Press)
ANTHOLOGY
World of Fantasy: The Best of Fantasy Magazine, ed. with Sean Wallace (Prime Books)
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The highway is empty and then it isn’t. The headlights suddenly catch something moving at the next bend. “Deer,” whispers the assistant; the driver lifts his foot from the pedal. Deer would be reasonable, and that’s what they see for the next moment, sharing that small fine thrill. But the shape is wrong, isn’t it? Unlikely as it seems, they realized that a person is walking on the narrow shoulder. A woman walking in the same direction that they’re headed, and judging by the strong gait, she is young. But this is miles from anywhere, and it’s late on a moonless night, and there hasn’t been another vehicle in the last twenty miles.
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The driver glances at the assistant.
“Ask,” he says. “See what he wants.”
The assistant is a thin, plain woman named Molly. She has big eyes and a tiny crooked mouth and an elegant, ill-suited nose that isn’t quite three years old. Tattoos of black anchors cover her body, each anchor dipped in blood. Her forearms are sprinkled with burn scars. What might have been a bullet hole forms a crease on her long neck. Everyone who knows Molly has a favorite story about her wild past, but even the true stories fail to capture the magnificent awfulness of her first thirty years. The last four have been better, if only by comparison. Her present employer is a difficult, arrogant man who loves making impossible requests, and while she hasn’t done her present job cheerfully or perfectly, she’s proven a neurotic capacity to try almost anything to make her boss smile.
Molly peers into the back seat. “Sir?”
From behind the driver, a sleepy voice asks, “What?”
“There’s a hitchhiker,” she says. “Going our way.”
“A lady?”
“I wouldn’t mention it otherwise.”
Pernell is in his middle forties, though the sharp face and hair implants allow him to pass for thirty-five. He is something of an artist and something of a craftsman, but his genuine talent—what sets him apart—is his capacity to manipulate others. Irresistible charm is his first tool, followed by measured threats, and when it will do the most good, a bulldog’s fury. Pernell doesn’t smoke or drink, and he will punish employees who experiment with drugs. But his virtues reach only so far. He has a fondness for poker, hence this late-night drive back from the nearest casino. And he adores young women. “Pull over,” he decides. “Let’s have a look at her.”
The driver nods. “Middle of the night, strange car. We’ll probably spook the girl.”
“Probably,” Pernell agrees. “You think she’ll run?”
“Maybe.”
“Think you can catch her, Steve? Before the trees, I mean.”
The driver used to play tight end in the NFL but escaped with both knees intact. Freshly retired, he decided the perfect job would involve working for some rich bastard with more money than common sense. And after a couple false starts, Steve found himself in heaven baby-sitting this goofy asshole. “Oh, I’d catch her,” he says. “Before she even got off the road.”
Pernell leans forward. “You know, that might be worth trying. Just to see if you could do it.”
“I would.”
“Do I hear a wager?”
“It’s your money,” says Steve.
Molly breaks into a wild little laugh, and just as quickly falls silent, hands wrestling in her lap.
Steve lifts his foot. The whine of the tires dissolves into the soft crumbling of lost gravel. On the last of its momentum, the Escalade rolls past the girl. Everyone waits for her to shout out and sprint toward the forest, and they certainly expect her to glance up. But she doesn’t react. Her stride remains quick and efficient but never hurried, never alarmed. Her face is tilted forwards, eyes focused on a rectangle of color and changing light. In her late teens and carelessly pretty, she has a face that seems to gather up the available light, giving her features interesting, appealing angles. The rectangle is some kind of digital player. Nothing else in the world seems to matter. The engine is silent, running on its batteries. The Escalade has stopped rolling. The loudest sound in the world is the purr of the passenger window. Then with a soft caring voice, Molly asks, “Do you need help?”
The girl stops walking but continues studying the player. She says nothing. Maybe she’s deaf, or maybe something else is wrong. Unsure what to do, Molly looks at Pernell, and he rolls one hand impatiently, and Molly sighs and pushes her face out the open window, beginning to repeat the question.
“I don’t need help,” the girl interrupts.
“All right,” says Molly. “I guess. But it’s awfully late, isn’t it? You probably want to be somewhere else, don’t you?”
It’s the hearty voice of a caring sister.
The girl looks up. What is odd but goes unnoticed is how she ignores the face in the open window and the driver too. Looking past Molly, she tells the back seat, “I would accept a short ride, however. If that wouldn’t be too much bother.”
Pernell laughs, smirks. “Come aboard.”
Steve unlocks the doors.
But the girl starts to walk again, slowly, touching the player’s screen. The screen fades. She pulls wireless headphones from both ears and tucks them into a pocket and slides the player into a small pack riding on her belt. Each move is precise. Stopping ahead of the front fender, she turns, everyone expecting her to look at the license plate. But her eyes remain fixed on the windshield. It seems to be intentional, standing in the light like this, showing everyone a fetching and quite pretty and apparently fearless young woman. Jeans and sandals and a tight shirt decorated with embroidered dragons, each dragon flying toward the sky. There is no such thing as caution. The girl’s trust is boundless. At least that’s what Pernell sees when he watches what stands before him, and he smiles, smug and happy, taking this as evidence of a life full of endless good fortune.
The girl opens the back door and climbs inside. It isn’t surprising or important to find a man sharing the seat. Settling in quickly, she pulls her pack out of the way before fastening her seat belt.
“What were you watching?” Pernell asks.
The girl sits up straight and pats her knees with both hands. Her smile is endless. Even in the near-darkness, her teeth glow. If she didn’t seem so detached it would be easy to believe that she was thrilled with her circumstances. As it is, everyone makes the same guess, that their passenger is full of pot and pills.
Pernell starts to repeat the question.
And she interrupts, naming the movie. She stares at the front seat, describing the scene where she froze the player, and then she explains what she thinks of the work so far. “I don’t like it. It’s silly. A cartoon with live actors and a contrived story, and people must be very bored to pay money to enjoy it, and how much business has it done?”
“Four hundred million,” Pernell says.
“Silly,” she repeats.
That seems to kill the conversation.
But Molly hates silence. She turns, angrily asking, “Do you know who just saved you from walking?”
Still smiling, the girl finally glances at Pernell. And to be helpful, he turns on the overhead reading light, acting as if he’s posing for a publicity shot, smiling in that all-occasion way.
“You’re up in Fairview,” the hitchhiker remarks. “You’re making that movie.”
Pernell nods and turns off his light, and searching for a safe disarming topic, he asks, “So what movies do you like?”
Her response is a quiet, slicing laugh.
He isn’t certain what to make of that response, but as soon as he starts to repeat the question, she interrupts.
“I don’t like any movies.”
Everybody squirms. But it’s Steve who talks for the rest of them, asking, “Why the hell not?”
“Movies are piles,” she replies instantly, with a happy defiant voice. “Piles of images and piles of sound stacked up by too many hands, and they’re usually quite unstable and too often stupid, and when you get down to it, they can be awfully dangerous too.”
A critic has fallen into their midst. Seeing her duty, Molly asks, “What do you mean, dangerous?”
“Movies shape society,” the girl says. “But they’re clumsy and self-gratifying and far too easy with their lessons. There’s little reality inside them, and never any science. Commercial films are built to convince everybody’s twelve-year-old self that no problem is complex, every solution bringing a bullet or a timely kick to the groin.”
“My dear,” says Pernell. “How old are you?”
“I’m not twelve,” she says.
Steve grunts and says, “Thirteen, maybe.”
Molly laughs, but not Pern
ell. He invests the next several moments imagining the passenger naked, her fine strong body stretched across his leather seat. Youth has always entertained him. Girls like this, barely above childhood, love to make important noise. Throwing a few abrasive complaints at the world helps their mood. But that’s all this is. Noise. He refuses to be insulted. He lets her hear a big solid laugh, unconcerned by it all. During her brief, obscure life, this girl has accomplished nothing. Both of them know this, and there’s no reason to be offended.
Molly feels insulted. Looking over the headrest, she asks, “Do you know anything about the movie we’re making?”
“Remaking,” the girl says.
Pernell chuckles. “Oh, and you don’t approve of remakes, I suppose.”
“I don’t approve or disapprove,” the girl says cryptically. “But life evolves.”
“What’s that mean?” Molly asks.
“Future generations often improve on their ancestors. It happens with species and with art. Not that improvement is inevitable, of course. Nothing can be inevitable.”
Their passenger isn’t the only one who can be brash. Pernell says, “Well, I’ll promise you this. My movie will be the best version ever.”
The girl looks forward again. “That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Molly shivers. “The original movie’s wonderful. It’s a classic.”
“Hardly,” the girl says.
Loyalty is the best kind of strength, and Molly’s strength extends far beyond one difficult boss. Movies were the one reliable joy in an otherwise miserable childhood. She grew up watching every kind of film and worshipping those pretty faces, and she still utterly adores the medium. Classic movies have been better companions than any man and most women, and it infuriates her to think that somebody so young and smug can treat the loves of her life with this dismissive scorn. “What do you mean? Everyone knows it’s a great film.”
“What I mean.” The girl doesn’t hesitate. She pauses. Allowing a few moments of silence, she builds the space for a careful explanation. “The original film was directed with some skill. I will admit that much. And several of the actors didn’t hurt themselves too badly. And if the only point of the story was to play with the paranoia of the day, then the product was a passable success.”
