How Long 'Til Black Future Month?

by N. K. Jemisin

  The woman glares at her. “This little monster just killed Thoroa—”

  “Wait,” Ykka says again, harder, and this time she stares the black-haired woman down until the furious tension in the woman’s shoulders sags into defeat. Then Ykka faces the girl again. Her breath puffs in the chilly air when she speaks. “Why?”

  The girl can only shake her head. “He owed me.”

  “Owed you what? Why?”

  She shakes her head again, wishing they would just kill her and get it over with.

  Ykka watches her for a long moment, her hard face unreadable. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. “You said you learned early how it was done.”

  The black-haired woman looks sharply at her. “We’ve all done what we had to, to survive.”

  “True,” said Ykka. “And sometimes those things come back to bite us.”

  “She killed a citizen of this city—”

  “He owed her. How many people do you owe, hmm? You want to pretend we don’t all deserve to die for some reason or another?”

  The black-haired woman does not answer.

  “A city of people like us,” the girl says. She’s still giddy. It would be easy to make the city shake now, vent the giddiness, but that would force them to kill her when for some impossible reason they seem to be hesitating. “It’ll never work. They used to hunt us down before the rivening for good reason.”

  Ykka smiles as though she knows what the girl is feeling. “They hunt us down now, in most places, for good reason. After all, only one of us could have done this.” She gestures vaguely toward the north, where a great jagged red-bleeding crack across the continent has destroyed the world. “But maybe if they didn’t treat us like monsters, we wouldn’t be monsters. I want us to try living like people for a while, see how that goes.”

  “Going great so far,” mutters the black-haired woman, looking at the stone corpse of the vinegar man. Thoroa. Whichever.

  Ykka shrugs, but her eyes narrow at the girl. “Someone will probably come looking for you, too, one day.”

  The girl gazes steadily back, because she has always understood this. She’ll do what she has to do, until she can’t anymore.

  But all at once the girl snaps alert, because the stone-eater is now standing over her. Everyone in the corridor jerks in surprise. None of them saw it move.

  “Thank you,” it says.

  The girl licks her lips, not looking away. One does not turn one’s back on a predator. “Welcome.” She does not ask why it thanks her.

  “And these,” Ykka says from beyond the creature, with a sigh which may or may not be resigned, “are our motivation to live together peacefully.”

  Most of the braziers in the corridor are dark, extinguished by the girl in her desperate grab for power. Only the ones at either far end of the corridor, well beyond the ice circle, remain lit. These silhouette the stone-eater’s face—though the girl can easily imagine its carved-marble smile.

  Wordlessly Ykka comes over, as does the black-haired woman. They help the girl to her feet, all three of them watching the stone-eater warily. The stone-eater doesn’t move, either to impede them or to get out of the way. It just keeps standing there until they carry the girl away. Others in the hall, bystanders who did not choose to flee while monsters battled nearby, file out as well—quickly. This is only partly because the corridor is freezing.

  “Are you throwing me out of the city?” the girl asks. They have set her down at the foot of the steps. She fumbles with the crutches because her hands are shaking in delayed reaction to the cold and the near-death experience. If they throw her out now, wounded, she’ll die slowly. She would rather they kill her, than face that.

  “Don’t know yet,” Ykka says. “You want to go?”

  The girl is surprised to be asked. It is strange to have options. She looks up, then, as a sound from above startles her: They are rolling the city’s roof shut against the coming night. As the strips of roofing slide into place, the city grows dimmer, although people move along the streets lighting standing lanterns she did not notice before. The roof locks into place with a deep, echoing snap. Already, without cool outside air blowing through the city, it feels warmer.

  “I want to stay,” the girl hears herself say.

  Ykka sighs. The black-haired woman just shakes her head. But they do not call the guards, and when they hear a sound from upstairs, all three of them walk away together, by unspoken mutual agreement. The girl has no idea where they’re going. She doesn’t think the other two women do, either. It’s just understood that they should all be somewhere else.

  Because the girl keeps seeing the corridor they just left, in the moment before they carried her down stairs. She’d glanced back, see. The stone-eater had moved again; it stood beside Thoroa’s petrified corpse. Its hand rested on his shoulder, companionably. And this time as it smiled, it flashed tiny, perfect, diamond teeth.

  The girl takes a deep breath to banish this image from her mind.

  Then she asks of Ykka as they walk, “Is there anything to eat?”

  On the Banks of the River Lex

  Death lay under the water tower on a sagging rooftop, watching the slow condensation of water along the tower’s metal belly. Occasionally one of the water beads would grow pregnant enough to spawn a droplet, which would then fall around—and occasionally onto—Death’s forehead. He had counted over seven hundred hits in the past few days.

  Sleep appeared and crouched beside Death, looking hopeful. “You look bored. I don’t suppose you’d care for a little oblivion?”

  “No, thank you,” said Death. He was always scrupulously polite, to counter his reputation. He waited until another drop fell—a miss, alas—and then turned his head to regard Sleep. “You’re looking a little detached yourself.”

  At the refusal, Sleep had sighed and sat down beside him. “I thought I would be all right,” she said. “I should be all right. Animals sleep, even plants in their way. But it just isn’t the same.”

  Death reached out to touch her hand. It was his own silent offer.

  “No thanks,” she said, though she did take his hand. He was glad. Others rarely touched him, if they could help it. By this gesture he understood: not yet.

  He sat up. The sun had just risen above the city. Clouds like strings of pearls girded the sky. A flock of tiny birds—Death guessed hummingbirds, migrating back from the south—passed through the rust-rimmed hole in the MetLife Building.

  “What’s that?” asked Sleep.

  Death followed her finger and saw a cluster of flowers. The rooftop on which he lay was thick with meadowgrass, and one very determined ailanthus grew in the dust and silt of one corner. There were many flowers amid the meadowgrass, which was why Death liked this roof so much. He would be sorry when it finally caved in.

  “Just a daisy,” he replied.

  “No, beyond that.”

  They got up and walked around the roof’s holes for a better look. Beyond the daisy, fighting its way up through the grass in the shadows of the roof wall, was a flower Death had never seen before. Its shape was something like that of a crocus, but its roots were shallow, like all rooftop flora. There was no bulb. And its petals were a lush, deep matte black.

  “That’s different,” said Sleep.

  Death crouched to peer at the flower, then reached out to stroke the satin softness of one petal. Not just different. New.

  Something tickled his cheek. He reached up to brush it away and found his fingers wet. Glancing back at the water tower, he wondered how he could’ve missed his count.

  Death liked to walk across bridges. For this reason he had claimed a home for himself relatively far from the center of town. This was in a big ugly gray stone of a building that had once been a factory, and then had been colonized by artists, and then by trend-obsessed young professionals. Now it was ruled by cats. Death passed perhaps a dozen of them on his way down the stairs, including one mother briskly carrying a mouse and trailed by t
wo gangling adolescents. As usual they ignored his presence, merely slinking out of the way as he passed. On the rare occasions when one would deign to look at him, he nodded in polite greeting. Sometimes they even nodded back.

  He had attempted, once, to entice a kitten to live with him. This was something he knew humans had done. But he kept forgetting to bring food, and because he did not sleep, the kitten was unable to cuddle with him at night. After a few days the kitten had left in a huff. He still saw its descendants around the building, and felt lingering regret.

  The Williamsburg Bridge had not yet begun to warp and sag like the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. Death suspected there was some logical reason for this—perhaps the Williamsburg had been renovated more recently, or built more sturdily in the first place. But in his heart, Death believed that he helped to keep the bridge intact. By walking across it, he gave the bridge purpose. For all things created by humankind, purpose was the quintessence of existence.

  So Death walked into town every day.

  There was much activity in town when Death arrived.

  “The twins have opened a Starbucks at Union Square!” said a stranger, when Death stepped off the bridge on Delancey. He nodded in pleasant response to this, though he was not certain what a Starbucks was or why the twins would have bothered with it.

  Still, everyone seemed so excited about the Starbucks that Death wandered uptown, curious. Most of the streets were empty, except for cats and a few coyotes. The coyotes were not as bold as the cats; they mostly tried to keep out of sight. At Fourteenth Street and Avenue A, Death found the Dragon King of the Western Ocean playing bagpipes on the corner stoop. He sat on the gnarled root of a young oak that was slowly crushing an ancient, spindly cherry, and destroying the sidewalk in the process. Skirting around the growing sinkhole, Death sat down to listen until the Dragon King was done.

  “Thanks,” the Dragon King said. “It’s good to have listeners.”

  “You’re very good,” said Death.

  “Always wanted to learn this thing. It’s just so ugly, you have to love it. I looked all over the mainland, even in Hong Kong, and couldn’t find one. Had to come here finally. Thank little apples for the Chinese Diaspora.” The Dragon King set down the bagpipes carefully. “Are you going to Starbucks?”

  “I was thinking about it, yes. Are you?”

  “Course not. I hate coffee. People used to offer it to me all the time—nasty, vile stuff. Now, a Krispy Kreme doughnut? Got one of those once, thought I would die of joy.” He let out a wistful sigh.

  “I’ve never tried coffee.” People, in the time before, had made very different offerings to Death.

  “You probably won’t have any today either. Mawu only found a few bricks of the freeze-dried stuff; I bet they’ll run out by noon.”

  “Oh.” Death felt mildly disappointed.

  “Let’s go anyhow. I’m bored.”

  They walked over to Union Square, where as usual the south-end steps were filled with worshippers. Not people, for all that most of them had adopted the forms of people in homage. Just others of their kind who were willing and had the strength to assist those in need. But this time the line around the square, trailing from the Starbucks all the way to the collapsed bank on the opposite corner, was long enough to rival the crowd on the steps.

  The Dragon King clapped Death on the shoulder. “See what I mean? Good luck getting a taste.”

  “Anything new is worth trying,” Death replied with a shrug.

  The Dragon King sighed. “I know you don’t need it, man, but you really ought to try a service.” He nodded toward the square. “Way better than coffee.”

  “Others need it more than me.” They both fell silent, embarrassed, as a thin, waiflike creature shuffled past. It was difficult to tell if this one was male or female or one of the androgynes, because its clothing was ragged and its face too hollow for easy recognition. Its gaze was fixed on the square. As Death and the Dragon King watched, the creature crossed the street; the worshippers there opened their ranks at once to admit the newcomer.

  “Damn,” said the Dragon King. “I think that was one of the Bodhisattvas. I used to know all those guys. Girls. Them.”

  Death nodded, solemn. He had known them, too.

  The Dragon King glanced at him guiltily. “Look, I know I don’t need it either. The oceans are still around, the rain still falls. But it’s not the same, you know?”

  “I know that,” Death said, a little taken aback. “You don’t have to justify it to me.”

  “Damn straight I don’t.” The Dragon King glared at him for a moment; in the distance, clouds rumbled with faint thunder. But almost as quickly as the Dragon’s anger had come, it seemed to fade, and he sighed. “Well … anyway. Thanks for listening to the music.”

  The Dragon King then crossed the street to join the throng on the steps. Death watched him for a moment, contemplating. They would help the ones who needed it most first, but beyond that they helped everyone, offering worship in whatever form necessary—blood, prayer, sex—for hour-long increments. If not for them and other groups like them, many would have given up, or faded away, by now.

  Would they die for him, if he asked it? Death wondered idly.

  Then he turned and went to the end of the Starbucks line. They ran out of coffee before he got halfway there.

  But the twins had attempted another experiment, which Death did get to try: cookies. He sat at one of the small tables in the crowded café, and peered dubiously at the plate that Lise had set in front of him.

  “They’re good,” she said.

  “They’re green,” he replied.

  “That’s because we made the flour from crabgrass seeds,” she said. “It makes them a little bitter, but otherwise they’re good. Look, real raisins.”

  Wild grapevines had overrun Brooklyn Heights. “Ah. As I recall, Mawu did make passable wine for libations once.”

  “Yes, the bottles that didn’t explode or turn to vinegar. He’s still working on the technique. But raisins are easy. Grow some grapes and ignore them. Try it.”

  Death picked up the cookie and nibbled. It was, to his great surprise, good. He said as much, and meant it.

  “You don’t have to sound so shocked,” Lise said, annoyed. She stormed away behind the counter and resumed work on some contraption that she must have rigged to bake the cookies. She and her twin brother, Mawu, were good at creating new things. Almost as good as people had been.

  “I need to talk to you,” said an angel, coming over to sit across from him. She did not ask to sit, but angels did not ask permission.

  “Of course,” he said. Lise glared at him from behind the dusty old counter, and he remembered the ritual of sitting in a café. Small talk was necessary before business could be conducted. It was respectful to treat the twins’ endeavor in the spirit it was meant. “How have you been? Is, er, is life good for you?” He had not meant that the way it came out. Hopefully she would not think he wanted to kill her.

  “The life of mankind has passed on, and we are but shadows in its wake,” she said truthfully, ignoring the polite fiction that the ritual demanded. He winced. At the counter, Lise sucked her teeth. “I came to tell you that the Lex has overflowed its banks. I talked to Ogun; the pumping system is completely unsalvageable. Took everything he had to keep it going this long. He thinks the entire Upper East Side will be underwater within a year.”

  Death spat out a raisin pit, and fished in his mouth for a bit of grass seed hull that seemed to have gotten stuck in his teeth. He did not have to have teeth, he supposed, but he generally liked them, except at times like this. “Why is that a problem?”

  “The English Nursery Rhymes. They all live on the Upper East Side.”

  “Why can’t they move?”

  She looked at him with annoyance, though this was mild, her being an angel. He thought she might be Gabriel; the rest were less tolerant of those outside their circle. “There are more kindergartens and schools in
that part of town than any other.”

  Which explained why the Rhymes had claimed that neighborhood. Death considered. “What about Park Slope?” This was a neighborhood in Brooklyn not far from his home in Williamsburg. He remembered visiting there often, in the old days. It had been a hotbed of gang activity once, but later, before the people had gone, there had been many children.

  “They can’t make it that far. They’re not like the rest of us that had thousands of years and dozens of cultures to strengthen them. To get to Brooklyn, they’d have to travel through several neighborhoods that didn’t have many kids, and across the East River. It’s too much for them.”

  Death frowned, a slow suspicion eating into his enjoyment of the cookies. He sat back, silent for a long moment, and gazed at her until she sighed and said it out loud.

  “You need to help them,” she said. She spoke softly. A rarity. “It’s worse to wither away. You know that.”

  “My help is always available. To those who ask.”

  “They’re children! They sing and rhyme and bounce around—they don’t know to ask!”

  He remained silent, not bothering to point out the obvious. The Nursery Rhymes weren’t children, any more than he was a man, or she a woman. There were no more children.

  “It isn’t right.” She looked away. Her hand lay on the table. Her fingers tightened into a fist, then relaxed, then tightened again. Her wings, which dragged the floor behind her chair, fluffed and settled. “Letting them suffer when they don’t have to. You know it’s not right.”

  It was not. Inadvertently he thought of the Bodhisattva he had seen, shambling its way toward survival. “They might want to try.”

  “They don’t think that far, Death. They’re full of nonsense. But they suffer as much as the rest of us. It’s amazing they’ve managed to hang on this long.”

  He shook his head slowly, but sighed. “I’ll speak to them,” he said at last. “I’ll try to make them understand, and then ask what they want. Life—even its shadow—deserves that much consideration.” He leveled a hard look at her. “And I will abide by their decision.”