Asimov's SF, February 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Bobby was walking up the fork toward the hospital, so we followed. I looked up once at the villa on the hill, but it was so far away—as if the hospital and it couldn't possibly be related—that I didn't really worry about anyone watching us. Without binoculars they wouldn't be able to see us.

  When we reached it, the building was even bigger than it looked from the garden. It was wood and corrugated metal, big and tall, with lots of windows around the top of it to let light in, so that the light would fall on what was inside. It didn't look like a hospital. Why build one this way—just one floor, all those windows? Maybe it hadn't been a hospital originally. Buildings got appropriated during war. I knew that.

  It was big and quiet and no one else was there. Birds whistled in the groves on either side of it. The sounds of the cars on the coastal road didn't reach this far. It was peaceful.

  Bobby was already at the front door, which was unlocked, a big chain dangling from it, the lock that once held it in place long gone.

  "I can't believe no one's ever been here,” Keith announced. He meant kids—kids like us, or him and his brother. No one had used spray paint on the outside walls. No one had broken the high windows with rocks.

  Bobby didn't answer. As if on a mission, he'd pulled the chain aside, opened the door, and stepped inside. We followed.

  What I saw inside made no sense for a moment, and then it did. I'd been right. There was only one floor. The high windows let the light in, and it fell on a dusty, littered pavement. It had been a factory of some kind, but the machinery had been removed during the war. Cots must have covered the floor when it was a hospital, hundreds of them, with partitions that were no longer there, and tables for medical supplies and equipment, whatever hospitals had back then. Other than medicine and gauze and splints and surgery, what could you give wounded soldiers that might help them heal? You could give them sunlight—and the windows did that. Had it been a cold building, though? It had to have been, all that glass and the high ceiling; and you'd need blankets, lots of them.

  Bobby was kicking at something, a piece of wood. There were no signs that anyone—beggars, gypsies from the south—had been here in recent times, lighting fires on the floor to stay warm or cook with.

  The light from the high windows reached most of the floor, but in the four corners there were shadows.

  Something made a noise, a tiny noise, in the corner nearest us, and we turned, waiting to hear it again.

  "Rat?” I said.

  "Who cares?” Keith said—as if this, like everything, were a test of his courage.

  The sound came again, but not from the same corner. A creaking this time. The floor was cement. Only the building itself was wood. Why wouldn't an old wood building creak?

  "More than one,” Bobby said, snorting.

  Keith went to the corner nearest us, kicked the litter around to show off, jumped when the creak came again—this time from the great beams near the ceiling—and walked back looking as nonchalant as he could.

  "Scared now?” Bobby said to him.

  "Fuck you,” Keith answered.

  "Fuck you too, dipshit.” Bobby was laughing. Nothing scared him; that was obvious.

  "Isn't that a table?” I asked. I could see a table in the shadows of the corner where Keith had kicked at things—the corner where the first sound had come from.

  "Who gives a shit?” Keith said. “This is boring. Let's go back and knock that statue over."

  "Can't,” his brother said, looking up at the windows now. “It's bolted down."

  So they'd tried. Were they the ones who'd taken the head?

  This embarrassed Keith, and when Keith felt embarrassed, he got angry.

  "What are you looking at?” he said to Marco, who was looking at both of them. Keith's friend was looking at them, too, but Marco was the annoyance—the one who shouldn't be along because I, not Keith, had asked him.

  Marco didn't need to understand Keith's words. He knew the tone. He knew it better than I did. He simply shrugged.

  "Nothing in here.” Bobby was heading for the door. Keith followed, and in a moment, relieved, so did the rest of us.

  * * * *

  We found Bobby standing on the side of a little hill beside the building, still looking up at the windows. “They're perfect,” he said, and they were. Not one of them was broken—on this side of the hospital anyway. But that's not what he meant.

  He notched an arrow—he seemed to know what he was doing—took a breath, and let it fly.

  The arrow didn't shatter the window. It didn't bounce off it. It went through it like a bullet, making a hole about the size of your fist. I felt it go through. We all did. A perfect hole in perfect glass. This was even better—more exciting—than if the window had just broken. You couldn't do that with a rock. This was precision. We stared, amazed.

  "All right!” Keith shouted.

  "Beautiful,” his brother whispered.

  Then the guilt hit. This was not what I thought we were going to do today. It certainly wasn't what my dad thought we were going to do. And it was not what we should be doing. Trees or bushes or bottles or a shack or an ox cart—that was one thing, but this ... an old building someone owned, perfect windows, ones we were breaking. I could hear my parents discussing it—trust, betrayal, “he's not the son we thought he was.” Vandalism—which meant destroying something you didn't care about but that someone else did.

  Not to be bested by his brother, Keith had notched an arrow, too, even as Bobby notched his second, and was letting it fly.

  Neither Keith's friend nor Marco nor I were notching arrows. Not yet.

  "I don't think...” I started to say. “My dad—"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake,” Keith said. “Why did you even come, Brad?"

  That was the most shaming thing he could have said, and it worked. It meant: “You'll never have the courage. You'll never be a real man.” Keith was a master at shame.

  "I don't think—” I started again.

  "No one cares what you think,” he said.

  "It's an abandoned hospital,” Bobby was saying, not looking at me, though meaning it for me.

  He was right. It was abandoned, and abandonment meant that no one cared—no one cared enough about it to keep it up. How could this be vandalism if no one cared? It wasn't as if we were going to set fire to the place. If Keith or Bobby started to do that, I'd run. I'd shout “No!” I'd take Marco with me and we'd run. I wouldn't be a part of that, and because I knew I wouldn't—I swore I wouldn't—

  —it was easier to notch the first arrow.

  And because I notched mine, Keith's friend and Marco notched theirs.

  We all let fly. We were following one of my dad's rules at least. We were standing on a hillside, in a line, and the windows were so high no one could possibly get shot. Wasn't that—safety—more important than the windows?

  Keith and Bobby had more arrows than we did, so when we ran out, we just stood there watching them. Most arrows had hit windows, and we'd all tried to make sure—for the perfection of it—that each window had only one hole in it.

  "Well, go get your arrows,” Keith said smugly.

  "Not if you're going to keep shooting."

  "We're not going to keep shooting,” he said. “You think we're stupid?"

  I wanted to say, “No, but I don't trust you,” but didn't.

  "They're your arrows, too,” I said instead. “Why don't you and Bobby come?"

  "Because we don't need them yet."

  Bobby wasn't saying a thing. He was looking at the windows, as if counting.

  "Okay,” I said instead, “but don't shoot."

  "Jesus, what a wimp."

  Bobby laughed at that, but was still counting. I looked at the windows. There were only two that didn't have holes in them. When we got back to the hillside, Bobby was going to take those two windows himself, I knew. Our shooting was over, and so was Keith's. We could always go to the other side of the building, but on that side we might be seen
from the villa. We were done—unless of course Bobby said, “Screw perfection. Let's hit those windows with everything we have,” and the one-hole-per-window rule no longer mattered. But I didn't think he would. He liked the perfection too much.

  I started down the hillside to the building's front door, Marco and Keith's friend behind me.

  Inside, arrows were scattered everywhere, and we started picking them up. Before we left the house, we'd all marked our arrows so we'd know who they belonged to—so that was no problem—but it was going to take awhile to find them all on a floor this big, littered as it was with wood, corrugated metal and other junk. Keith and Bobby would have to wait. We were the ones doing the work.

  Just as Marco—who was standing about twenty feet away from me—picked up an arrow, looked at it, and said, “Di qui sono le freccie con le croci?” Who do the arrows with crosses on them belong to?—a window above us, one of the two that were still intact, cracked; and the arrow that passed through it arced slowly through the air, down through the sunlight, hitting Marco in the neck, near his shoulder.

  Marco screamed. I may have screamed too. I don't remember. All I remember is Marco—pale, eyes frantic, hands shaking—grabbing at the shaft, wanting to pull it out, but not wanting to because when he touched it, it hurt too much. Keith's friend ran over and we both stood beside Marco. There wasn't much blood, but there was this arrow sticking out of him, and we didn't know what to do. We'd seen lots of westerns, but we still didn't. Did you try to pull it out? It didn't have an arrowhead on it. It was just a wooden arrow with a smooth metal tip on it. Could you pull it out safely? Were you supposed to wait and let a doctor do it? How could you pull it out safely if the person was trembling and might at any moment start screaming and flailing at you?

  "Stop moving!” I said.

  "Che dolore! Che dolore!” Marco was saying, but he wasn't crying. He was being strong.

  "I know it hurts, Marco, but you've got to stop moving. It's in your neck."

  We could hear shouting outside on the hill. Keith and Bobby had heard Marco's scream and knew why he was screaming.

  They were inside in no time, running toward us, Keith without his bow, his brother still holding his. I jumped to conclusions.

  "You shot him, you asshole!” I screamed at Bobby, not caring if it made him mad. “Keith said you wouldn't keep shooting and you did."

  Bobby was looking at the arrow, at Marco's neck, Marco's face, how hard he was shaking. He took Marco by the arm—his good arm—and said, “We need to get him out of here."

  "You shot him,” I shouted again.

  "No, I didn't,” Bobby said. He didn't say it angrily. He just said it, as a fact, looking at Keith.

  Then I knew what had happened. There had been only those two windows left. Keith had known his brother wanted them. Not to be bested, Keith had gone for one of them. Even though we were inside, he'd gone for it, thinking, “What's one arrow in such a big building and only three boys?” When he'd heard the scream, he'd dropped the guilty weapon.

  "You said you wouldn't shoot,” I said to Keith hoarsely. It was stupid to keep saying it, but I didn't know what else to say.

  "Fuck you,” Keith said back, and I thought he was going to hit me.

  "We need to get him out of here,” Bobby said again, his hand on Marco's good arm as he tried to guide him toward the door. “Tell him to stop wiggling, Brad. Tell him it's dangerous."

  "I already did,” I said, but did it again.

  Marco did his best to stop wiggling, to not grab at the arrow again, and we were all heading toward the door—

  When a figure, a woman, stepped from the shadows of the corner.

  We stopped dead. Were we imagining this? No, it was definitely a woman, a young woman, and she was looking at us silently. Where had she come from? Was she the one who'd made the first sound, and had been watching us all this time? But Keith had checked that corner, hadn't he? He'd kicked litter around there, hadn't he? He'd have seen her. There'd been a table in that corner, nothing more, right? Or had he missed her in the shadows? Had she been sitting on the floor maybe, and he'd missed her? Why would anyone do that, though? Why would anyone, especially a woman, sit in the shadows of this building watching us?

  Not knowing what else to do—you could tell that even Bobby wasn't sure how to handle this—we continued toward the door; but when we were almost to it, she stepped in front of us. She was smiling, and clearly she was not going to let us pass.

  "Where the fuck did she come from?” Keith whispered.

  She was wearing a little cape—a gray one. It was hot that day, but she was wearing a cape. She was crazy, that was obvious, or she wouldn't be here. She wore a dress, basically the kind all the young women wore on the passeggiata in the evening at the waterfront—the kind they'd been wearing for decades—and she was pretty, though her eyes were a little far apart and her lipstick wasn't on quite right. She was wearing a little cap, too—a cap made from the same gray cloth as the cape. She didn't seemed scared of us, and she didn't seem frightened by what had happened to Marco. She seemed concerned, sure, but calm, as if this happened all the time, boys and arrows and screams and wounds.

  What do you do with a calm crazy woman standing in your way in an old building? We weren't sure. We just knew we needed to get Marco out of there and to a real hospital.

  "Voglio aiutare," she asked calmly.

  "What did she say?” Bobby asked.

  "She wants to help,” I answered.

  "Right,” Keith snorted. “He needs a doctor."

  "Yes, he does,” Bobby said.

  Marco was staring at her as if in a trance—as if this were all a dream. He was in shock, and in shock you can be awake but dreaming, too.

  "Marco?” I said, and he didn't answer.

  She was looking at him as if she knew him—which made no sense. How could Marco know her? He wasn't acting like he did.

  "Let me help you,” she said in Italian, and Bobby didn't ask for a translation.

  She came over to them, and Bobby stepped back.

  "What are you doing?” Keith said to Bobby. “She's crazy. We need to get out of here."

  Bobby was staring at her as if in a dream, too.

  She was close enough to us all that you could hear the rustle of her dress, smell her perfume, even smell the wool of her cape and cap—as if it were winter and they were wet.

  She took Marco's good arm—Marco let her, and so did Bobby—and led Marco to the corner. We followed.

  There was indeed a table there, and it wasn't empty. It was covered with all sorts of things, the very things I'd imagined had once been on tables here. Hadn't Keith seen them? First-aid things, gauze and bandages and needles and bottles of tablets and rubber tubing and thread for stitching.

  "Those weren't there—” Keith started to say, but didn't finish.

  The woman was pulling the table out into the light, and we were helping. She sat Marco down on a stool—the one she'd been sitting on in the shadows, I guess—and inspected the arrow, where it entered his neck above his T-shirt. With scissors from the table she cut away his shirt, and then, giving him something to bite down on—a thick wad of gauze—she pulled the arrow out carefully, watching the angle of it.

  Marco should have been screaming, at least crying, but that would have embarrassed him; and besides, she was right next to him, her perfume in his nose, the smell of her clothes, too, and her touch, the touch of someone who seemed to care, even if she was crazy. He was looking up at her puzzled, but grateful.

  She had a glass of water on the table, too—perhaps because she'd been thirsty, sitting there in the abandoned building all day. Who was she? Why was she here? Why did she have a table covered with first-aid things? Were there men, migrants from the south, living in these olive groves and she wasn't crazy at all; she was married to one of them and sat here in case one of them got hurt? Or was she crazy as a loon and did this because she thought she was someone else and was waiting for someone wh
o'd never come? But if she was crazy, where was her family? Where did she live? Why did they let her do it? Alone in an abandoned building where men—men more dangerous than us—could stumble in one day and maybe hurt her?

  She gave Marco three pills to take with the water, which he did, and did not try to stitch up the perfect little hole left by the arrow.

  "Ha bisogno di un'iniezione,” she said.

  "He'll need an injection,” Keith's friend—whose Italian was obviously better than the brothers'—said.

  "Sure,” Bobby said. He was looking impatient, as if the mystery of the woman had been only a moment's dream, and getting out of this place was what really mattered—which, for Marco's sake, was true.

  "Dovete portarlo subito in ospedale,” she said.

  "Hospital, yes,” Bobby said before anyone could translate it.

  Then she said something that stopped my heart. She looked at Keith and Bobby, who were side by side now, cocked her heard just a little, and asked gently:

  "Perche avete rimosso la testa della statua?"

  Keith and Bobby had no idea what she was saying, and it took me a second to find the courage to tell them.

  "She wants—she wants to know why you took its head ... the statue's head."

  Keith jumped, and even Bobby, calm as he usually was, stepped back.

  "What?"

  She was waiting for an answer. Then she said: “Perche? Perche la testa di una donna morta tanti anni fa e cosi triste nei suoi ultimi anni...."

  I looked at Keith's friend, but the Italian was beyond him.

  "Why?” I began—wishing I weren't the one to have to do it. “Why the head ... of a woman dead all these years ... and so sad during her final days...."

  Keith was looking at Bobby. Bobby was looking back. They'd both lost some color in their faces.

  Keith said, “No one could have seen us—it was night. It was—"

  "Shut up, asshole,” Bobby answered. “Who cares if she saw us?"

  As Bobby guided Marco through the door, and Keith—looking both afraid and angry —muttered what sounded like, “Bitch!” everyone followed, but I trailed behind. I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop looking at her, and neither could Marco. Even as Bobby pushed him through the door, he was looking back at her as if he did know her. A chill ran down my neck.