Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 95

by Caroline M. Yoachim

  “Then what?”

  “Then we will see if my father spoke truly.” He knelt, retrieved a heavy leg bone, dipped the scarf into the water, braced himself, and daubed gingerly at the knob end, as he was expecting it to twist from his grip or burst into flame. When nothing happened, he washed the bone and then placed it next to the pile from which he had retrieved it. He leaned back, waiting for some reaction. None came. He found another bone, dipped the scarf and washed. This bone he set atop the first. Nothing happened.

  “May I help?” Julianja touched his shoulder.

  He shook her off without looking up. He sorted through the pile, found the skull and held it, gazing for a moment at the empty eye sockets. Then he scrubbed as if it were a dirty cook pot. Finally satisfied, he tried to balance it on the two bones in the new pile. As soon as he withdrew his hand, it toppled onto its side, staring up at them in mute reproach.

  “Must be all in all,” Miklos muttered.

  “Let me help.” She hovered over him.

  “No.” He pointed the jagged end of a broken femur at her and she backed away. “When I saw this in your garden, you were here but you only watched.”

  He continued his task with flagging enthusiasm. He finished the first pile and scooted across the dirty floor of the chancel on his knees to the second. He worked faster now, carelessly. She saw him gather a knot of finger bones, give them a single swipe and toss them onto the second pile. He seemed resigned, like a man forced to play out his part in some humiliating practical joke.

  As he washed, Julianja counted the bones to herself. Keeping a tally of his progress seemed like a kind of support, the only kind he would permit.

  “A kurva életbe!” Finally he hurled the filthy scarf at the pile, picked up an armful of unwashed bones, stood and let them drop, one by one, to bounce and scatter.

  “Miklos!”

  “The bones do not dance.” He spun away from her, eyes red, cheeks wet. “My father promised they would dance. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, everything I can do.” He shoulders sagged. “For nothing.”

  Seeing him so reduced filled Julianja with terror and pity and, yes, anger. She’d believed they would arrive safely at this place because he claimed to know the ways of the wide world. She’d trusted what he’d told her of his future. After all, hadn’t she herself shown it to him? But he’d deceived her—and probably himself. She realized he’d never told her that he had actually witnessed the lifting of the curse, only that she would be there when he tried. Seeing him now, defeated and unmanned, brought all her doubts back. And yet she wanted to help, if only because it was in her power. Julianja was powerful, in the same way the Tzigana had been. She was as certain of this as she was of the breath that swelled her lungs, the blood that pounded in her chest. When she bent to retrieve the scarf, it was like falling, at once inevitable and frightening. She picked a skull that poor Miklos had already washed and dipped the scarf into the bucket. As her hand touched water, she felt the finger she had pricked on the musk rose start to throb. A pink stain swirled in the clear water.

  “But you just watched,” cried Miklos. “Watched only.”

  The cold bone seemed to suck the warmth from the palm of her hand. Perhaps Miklos had experienced a true vision, but he had not seen all. When she swiped its brow, the skull blinked and gazed at her with milky, ghost eyes. She wanted to scream, but her throat closed with fear. Instead she turned his uncle’s terrible gaze on Miklos, who fell away as if she were showing him his death.

  “Look,” she whispered.

  All it took was a touch of the damp silk. Julianja might have called what the bones did a dance, although it was more like the rolling and tumbling of maggots. They would find their proper alignment and knit together. Watching them gather themselves made her feel unsure of her footing. It was as if the earth itself was twitching. First, one, then another, then all three uncles stood before them. But the uncles were no longer ghastly skeletons. A sinuous, indistinct glow suffused the bones, first as the flesh of transfigured, luminous bodies, then as the finery you might have seen at the Mátyás Palace in Buda. The shimmer of these magical creatures reminded Julianja of the way her legs had looked beneath the ripples of Lake Balaton.

  One was dressed in an antique red cap with a feather, black velvet breeches and a red leather doublet with golden buttons. The second wore a green tunic embroidered with gold thread under a surcoat of silk so fine that it might have been spun from emeralds. The last wore a robe of midnight blue trimmed with ermine. Around his neck hung a heavy gold chain from which depended a brooch in the shape of a scroll inlaid with letters of lapis lazuli. All three uncles bore a resemblance to Miklos, although each was distinct. The red uncle was a jaunty rake who gave Julianja a sly look that made her flush. The green was older, more kindly, a man of substance whom she felt she might trust. She imagined that the solemn blue uncle, the eldest, had judged her at a glance and found her wanting.

  “You have served our family well, Miklos Kemény.” The green uncle stretched, as if waking from a nap and not from the dead.

  The blue was as impassive as an owl. “Much better than your father Miklos or his father Benci or his father Benedek, or his father Ambrus, who was the son of Lajos Kemény, our own dear brother.”

  The red winked at Julianja. “No one of your line ever thought to bring us a beautiful witch.”

  “I am not a witch,” said Julianja. But the words seemed to twist on her tongue. After all, hadn’t her blood just brought the three uncles back to the world of the living? Hadn’t she felt the stirring of her powers last night at the lake?

  “Yet you are clearly the one we have been waiting for,” said the green. “What is your name, child?”

  Julianja stiffened. She felt the uncles seeking to sway her. But why? They were Miklos’s ancestors. This was his quest.

  The blue uncle scowled at her. “Say it!”

  “Julianja,” said Miklos. “Her name is Julianja. What does it matter, her name, if the curse is lifted?”

  “Come close, Julianja.” The red uncle crooked his finger and it was as if he had tugged at a tether around her waist. “You have done our family a great service, but there is something yet we must ask of you.”

  The green gave her his gentle smile. “Know that, in life, we three brothers cast a charm so that we would not pass completely from this world when our bodies failed. The nature of that charm was such that we could exist between life and death in a place of our devising.”

  “We realize now that was a trap,” said the blue, “and we have chosen you to help us escape it. We bind you by your name to choose a spouse this day. Whomever you chose will return to full life. The others will pass on.” He glared at his brothers as if daring them to differ. “We are so agreed.”

  “What is this?” Miklos pushed past to confront the uncles. “What of the curse, of me and my family?”

  The red uncle looked bored. “You have done well, Miklos son of Miklos.”

  “Yes, I have,” he cried. “I have done all . . . ”

  The blue held out his hand, palm facing Miklos, who immediately fell silent, although the muscles of his jaw worked as he struggled to speak. The uncle rotated his hand, palm upward, and flicked it twice toward the sky. Miklos lifted off the ground a few inches, dangling like laundry from a branch. He twisted frantically against invisible knots until the blue uncle closed his fist and he sagged into unconsciousness.

  Sensing Julianja’s outrage at this ill treatment, the green uncle apologized. “We understand why he is angry, but there is still much to explain and little time. Don’t be afraid, we won’t harm him. He is of us, a Kemény.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Julianja, and was pleased to discover that this was true. “But neither am I impressed by the way you treat those who help you.”

  “You may be right. Perhaps we have been too long away from the world.” The green spoke to her, but she guessed that he was also chiding his blue brother.

/>   “Only choose,” said the blue, “and we will be done with curses.”

  “Choose,” agreed the red.

  “Yes, choose.” The green opened his arms wide, as if to embrace her.

  She straightened, threw back her shoulders and found the inner strength to defy them, for all their magical power. “And what if I do not? Will you compel me?”

  “You mistake us, Julianja.” The blue seemed offended. “We would not compel such a decision.”

  Red laughed. “We would rather entice you.”

  “For such a woman as you,” said the green, “the bride price would be very high indeed.”

  You will understand why this would give Julianja pause, as a penniless orphan who was many days journey away from a household that might not welcome her return. She tried not to show her interest. “I would hear more,” she said.

  The red spoke first. “Choose me so that I may fill your senses to overflowing. In this world that men have made, there is precious little room for a woman’s pleasure. You will blush at the thought, but I will lead you to a new world, where desire never wanes and cries of ecstasy fill the long night. You will never grow weary of love, nor bored of our marriage bed, for I will be a student of your body, so that I may learn all that you secretly crave but know not how to ask for. I will be all men to you and any man you fancy. This is within my power to offer you, Julianja, for all the days of your life.”

  As she listened her cheeks burned and she imagined bare legs entwined, strong arms enfolding her, her blood shouting so that it drowned out all thought. She remembered then what Erzebet had whispered to her about the power of love, and understood for the first time.

  The green bowed to her then. “My brother speaks truly. But the world he offers is a small world indeed. You have five senses, yes, but we are more than our senses. Choose me and together we will make a place in the world beyond the bedroom door. I will comfort and support you, and keep you forever safe from evil. Our friends will love us and strangers will admire us. You will be proud of all we accomplish together. Oh, and our beautiful children! I will be the father to them that every mother hopes for. I will cherish and nurture them so that they will prosper and bring joy to us. We will get kings and philosophers! This is within my power to offer you, Julianja, for all the days of your life.”

  This future she knew, was no trick of imagination. She looked into the green’s smiling eyes and saw a great house, a long table laden with joints of meat and exotic fruit. Silver plate, crystal goblets and raven-haired children laughing, as she would laugh and laugh as she told them of her impoverished years with Tzigana. Julianja thought then of Dorottya, struggling to hold the dead witch’s household together.

  The blue regarded her sternly. “My brothers speak the truth. Do not doubt their promises, but consider what I alone offer you. You have a talent that must be expressed, or you will surely live a life of regret. You deny that you are a witch. But witch is a word that men call women who have powers they do not understand. Powers they fear. I will help you understand who you are, discover what your unique abilities might be and what they can accomplish. Pleasure and the regard of others will only distract you from the task of knowing yourself, which is our true life’s work. I can show you the greatness which seethes within you. Don’t throw away this chance, Julianja, or you will rue what you’ve lost all the days of your life.”

  This speech frightened her, for she knew already that she was powerful. She could only guess what she might be capable of. The blue expected more from her than she expected from herself. She wasn’t sure that she wanted this greatness he spoke of, even if it did dwell within her. Had Tzigana made a similar choice to perfect her abilities? If so, Julianja had witnessed its cost. She had been powerful, but never happy.

  And yet, as tempting as each of these offers was in its own way, the manner in which they were being offered annoyed her. The uncles were so confident that what they proposed was what she must want. “Why must I chose any of you?” She stamped her foot. “What if I want all of what you offer? Or none of it? And if I do chose, why should it be one of you? Why shouldn’t I choose him?” She turned to gesture at the slumbering Miklos. At least he was a man of honest flesh and blood, not a construct of bones and dark magic.

  The red uncle sneered in disbelief. The blue uncle shook his head sadly. Only the green uncle pleaded with her. “Would you really choose an ordinary life, when we can make dreams real? He may be a good man, but what he can give you is just the smallest part of what we offer.”

  “Nevertheless . . . ” she said, but when she turned back to them she found that she had chosen, as so many of us do, without meaning to. Was it because she refused to embrace their choices and had argued with them? Or because she truly wanted Miklos? No matter. In the flicker of indecision, the moment passed. The uncles were gone and in their places were three sorry mounds of dust.

  Miklos groaned and slumped to the floor of the chancel.

  You may ask, what happened next? That evening and the next morning and ever after? You may wonder, as Julianja did, whether she was bound by the charm of the uncles. Since she had thwarted them, she believed she was not. She considered the unconscious Miklos, whom she had freed from his family curse. Should she now accompany him to the castle of Kisvárda? And if she did, would she ever understand why?

  Recall what Tzigana told Miklos, father of Miklos, back when that brave and disappointed man ventured into her garden. No one’s mind can hold an entire life at once. But believe this: Julianja would think about that summer afternoon for years to come. Not every day, but on occasion. Because, like all of us, there would be times when she was frustrated with her life, when she could not help but imagine what might have been.

  And yet there is one last thing for you to know. Before she went to awaken Miklos from his trance, before she decided what she would do with him, Julianja overturned his leaky bucket. The pink-tinged water she had used to wake the bones spilled down the broken altar stone and darkened the thirsty earth. She carried the bucket to the piles of dust, knelt and scooped three handfuls from each into it. As she did this, she vowed to the witch Tzigana, Mária Magdolna and the Blessed Virgin that someday she would scatter the treasure of the Kemény onto the roses in a charmed garden that would be hers, and hers alone.

  About the Author

  James Patrick Kelly made his first sale in 1975, and since has gone on to become one of the most respected and popular writers to enter the field in the last twenty years. Although Kelly has had some success with novels, he has perhaps had more impact to date as a writer of short fiction, and is often ranked among the best short story writers in the business. His story “Think Like a Dinosaur” won him a Hugo Award in 1996, as did his story “10^16 to 1,” in 2000. Kelly’s first solo novel, Planet of Whispers, came out in 1984. It was followed by Freedom Beach, a mosaic novel written in collaboration with John Kessel, and then by the solo novels, Look Into the Sun and Wildside, as well as the chapbook novella, Burn. His short work has been collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Strange But Not a Stranger. His most recent book are a series of anthologies co-edited with John Kessel: Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, The Secret History of Science Fiction, Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, and Nebula Awards Showcase 2012. Born in Minneola, New York, Kelly now lives with his family in Nottingham, New Hampshire.

  Seven Years from Home

  Naomi Novik

  Preface

  Seven days passed for me on my little raft of a ship as I fled Melida; seven years for the rest of the unaccelerated universe. I hoped to be forgotten, a dusty footnote left at the bottom of a page. Instead I came off to trumpets and medals and legal charges, equal doses of acclaim and venom, and I stumbled bewildered through the brassy noise, led first by one and then by another, while my last opportunity to enter any protest against myself escaped.

  Now I desire only to correct the worst of the factual inaccuracies
bandied about, so far as my imperfect memory will allow, and to make an offering of my own understanding to that smaller and more sophisticate audience who prefer to shape the world’s opinion rather than be shaped by it.

  I engage not to tire you with a recitation of dates and events and quotations. I do not recall them with any precision myself. But I must warn you that neither have I succumbed to that pathetic and otiose impulse to sanitize the events of the war, or to excuse sins either my own or belonging to others. To do so would be a lie, and on Melida, to tell a lie was an insult more profound than murder.

  I will not see my sisters again, whom I loved. Here we say that one who takes the long midnight voyage has leaped ahead in time, but to me it seems it is they who have traveled on ahead. I can no longer hear their voices when I am awake. I hope this will silence them in the night.

  Ruth Patrona

  Reivaldt, Janvier 32, 4765

  The First Adjustment

  I disembarked at the port of Landfall in the fifth month of 4753. There is such a port on every world where the Confederacy has set its foot but not yet its flag: crowded and dirty and charmless. It was on the Esperigan continent, as the Melidans would not tolerate the construction of a spaceport in their own territory.

  Ambassador Kostas, my superior, was a man of great authority and presence, two meters tall and solidly built, with a jovial handshake, high intelligence, and very little patience for fools; that I was likely to be relegated to this category was evident on our first meeting. He disliked my assignment to begin with. He thought well of the Esperigans; he moved in their society as easily as he did in our own, and would have called one or two of their senior ministers his personal friends, if only such a gesture were not highly unprofessional. He recognized his duty, and on an abstract intellectual level the potential value of the Melidans, but they revolted him, and he would have been glad to find me of like mind, ready to draw a line through their name and give them up as a bad cause.