The twinkling points of light overhead were obscured by vast sheets of translucent silver. As they arched over her head, Peggy could see the delicate webbing of veins that criss-crossed the wings, and the long, thin spines of bone between which the membrane was stretched taut. As she had thought they would, the gargantuan appendages shaded the entire parking lot from the moonlight.
The wind that buffeted Peggy as the dragon’s wings began to beat was strong enough to make her stumble backwards. After flapping only twice, it had risen nearly out of her reach. As the great wings rose a third time, she stretched out one hand and brushed her fingertips across the dragon’s flank. Its argent scales were dry and smooth, like the garter snake she’d found in her friend Billy’s woodpile one summer. They were warmer than the snake’s scales, though: they radiated a gentle heat like clothes just taken out of the dryer. Then the wings came down, and Peggy tilted her head back to watch as the dragon lifted itself higher into the air. The windmill spun wildly, and loose papers skittered across the parking lot.
The dragon hovered briefly above Peggy and then continued to climb. The whoosh of air displaced by its wings reverberated through the night over and over again, regular as a drumbeat. She would have expected such a massive creature to be slow and ponderous, but each flap of its huge wings carried it a remarkable distance. Soon it was merely a tiny dot streaking across the moon, and soon after that it was gone.
As she got into her car and drove back to the motel, Peggy was still so lost in awe that she was glad there were no other cars on the road. Returning her car to its spot in front of the motel, she went back to her room, undressed again, and got back into bed.
*
Peggy woke up later than she’d intended to the next morning with a dull ache in her shoulders. I hope I haven’t missed breakfast, she thought as she hurriedly pulled on her blouse and jeans. Entering the small dining room, she was relieved to see that the bagels and toast were still set out on the long table. As she grabbed a sesame-seed bagel and shoved it into the toaster, she noticed that the manager of the motel and several of her fellow guests were clustered around the small TV that was currently broadcasting a morning news program.
“That’s terrible,” the manager lamented, shaking his head. He was an older man with wire-frame glasses and a thin ring of gray hair fading to white around his mostly-bald head. “Who’d want to do a thing like that?”
“I don’t believe this!” a man with a southern accent exclaimed. A plump, curly-haired woman whom Peggy guessed was his wife shook her head in sympathy. “We drove ten miles out of our way to see this dragon, and now it’s gone?”
That caught Peggy’s attention. “Gone? What do you mean, the dragon’s gone?”
The manager turned to her. “When old Dan who works in the gift shop went to open up this morning, he saw it was gone. Just vanished overnight.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, nobody knows, do they? The police are investigating, and they say they’ve found some tools from the maintenance shed sitting on the ground near where the dragon used to be. Now, there’s an acetylene torch in with that lot, so the best anyone can figure is somebody cut up the dragon with the torch and hauled it off in pieces. ‘Course, there’s no way that dinky little torch could’ve cut up something so huge in a matter of hours, but that’s the theory they’re working on for now.”
“So they think somebody stole it?” asked the man with the southern accent. “Who?”
“No idea,” replied the manager. “But somebody must’ve. It didn’t just fly away on its own, you know.”
The toaster dinged, and Peggy began spreading margarine over her bagel. She chewed and swallowed on autopilot, barely tasting it.
Her packing was done in a similar preoccupied state, her mind full of silver and flames and eyes that glowed like smoldering coals. When she set out for home, the placid strings and flutes of her favorite classical music station didn’t sound as hollow as they had the day before, and the empty state of the passenger seat and trunk seemed like the natural state of things instead of a gaping wound.
Yellow Eyes
Natasha Leullier
A trained archaeologist, Natasha recently gave in to her long-standing desire to write fiction. Bridging the gap between art and science turned out to be not so difficult, since her travels and field experiences often provide a unique source of inspiration. Unseen places, forgotten histories, and the dark recesses of humanity populate many of her stories. She has short fiction published in The Watermark and Beat to a Pulp. While she tends towards fantasy with a dark, literary flair, she does not feel constrained by or beholden to any genre. French-Canadian born, she now lives in the Boston area and edits professionally.
Darius concentrated on the babble of the nearby stream and the scuttling of insects beneath his ear, but in the distance he could still hear muffled screams. He pressed the left side of his body deep into the log’s soft, warm vegetation, as though to disappear entirely. The man to his right died when he hit the ground, and his skin was cold and wet, his arm stiff against Darius’s pliable flesh. As for the old tree, it fell decades ago, during the greatest storm the village had known. It was once a towering elm, taller and thicker than any left in the forest today. The rotting wood was now completely covered with new life—moss and fungus—as the humidity from the stream had spread like an infection.
Lodged between different kinds of dead, Darius struggled to breathe and his muscles cried out against the weight atop him. The man above, however, was still alive and breathing loudly, a raspy, whistling sound that reminded Darius of the noise the wind sometimes made when it swirled in the empty fireplace. Those were cold nights, with wood too wet to light and his family’s bony cow serving as their only source of heat. But the dying man, Cade, was hot. He had been fighting alongside Darius when the Yellow-Eyed man’s arrows pierced him. Three through the chest, like knives in soft butter. Cade stood still and gasped, then slowly, in no hurry to die, he stepped backward until he tripped over the corpse of a comrade. Cade collapsed onto Darius, an underfed youth with the stature of a mere child. They both went down with a bone-breaking crash, Darius’s old butcher’s knife firmly clutched in his hand.
The battle raged and Darius, so conveniently yet uncomfortably hidden, went unseen. The Yellow-Eyed men come the hour before dawn, bearing torches in the dim light, yellow flames dancing in their eyes. They vanish by sunrise, leaving villages empty of life, but otherwise intact. They trade in people, not coin.
It was mostly over, Darius knew, because the high-pitched wails told him they had found the women and children. His mother and sisters, including seventeen-year-old Audrey. His big sister cared for him when he was sick, ruffled his hair playfully, and always kissed him goodnight.
Darius should be terrified, “trembling like a leaf,” his father would say. His heart beat fast, but he remained listlessly calm, almost sleepy, as each minute stretched out. He found himself thinking of odd things, like how much he hated Cade. Brave and handsome Cade, whose family came from the town over the mountain range, where now only the Yellow-Eyed men reign. The village had welcomed the Overholtzers and their brawny son and their sack of golden chalices, candlesticks, and candelabras. Refugees, bringing strong arms and gold—who would turn them away? The village girls became silly and wore bows in their hair, even sweet, down-to-earth Audrey. It quickly became obvious that Cade had eyes only for her, with her shiny red hair, sturdy frame, and straight teeth.
“Good hips for bearing sons,” agreed Darius’s father when Cade requested her hand. Cade had blushed and mumbled something about “love.”
Darius did not want his sister to stop being his sister. If Audrey married Cade, she would move to his house and have babies, and would have no more time for him, like his own mother, always with a newborn at her teat. Now Cade’s blood dripped onto his forehead, and that seemed like a fine thing.
Darius’s fingers ached, locked around the knife he had yet to us
e against the enemy. The fighting was quick and intense, the onslaught aimed at the strong. Within what seemed like the first ten seconds of battle he saw his father struck by a blow to the head, finished by one thrust of a blade. His father had given him the old butcher’s knife, and Darius had oiled the rusty blade until it gleamed as well as it could. He remembered the time, years past, when his father used the same knife to outline a square in the pink flesh of a large hog, lifting the skin, a window onto its slimy innards. Darius had wrinkled his nose and stared. His father pointed towards the liver, then poked Darius’s own belly.
“You mean I have one of those?” Darius said in mild disgust, hands on his abdomen.
“That and everything else. We’re not so different from the pigs, and that’s good to know in battle.”
“What about the Yellow-Eyed ones? I thought they were demons.”
“They have the devil in their heads, but their bodies are just like ours.”
From that day, Darius observed the pigs his father butchered and often wished he himself could kill one. But his father always slit their throats, bleeding them while they squealed to their death. No part was wasted. Instead, when the honey melons growing in the garden were ripe, Darius offered to slice them, stabbing them wildly and pretending the hard, slick thud was that of the enemy’s chest cavity. Here, with the earthy smell of decaying wood doing little to cover Cade’s sweat and acrid breath, the thought of cutting the enemy’s flesh repulsed him. And it seemed a shame to sully his blade when there was so little left to save.
Darius tried shifting his position, to catch a glimpse of the events. Sprawled on his back, with Cade’s face nestled against his shoulder, his only option was to tilt his head backwards, hoping the movement wouldn’t draw attention. It was hard to make out what was happening, with people looking as though walking on their heads. With the light of day almost upon them, the tall men dressed in black appeared less sinister, their eyes dull. Some wiped their blades on the grass while others rounded up the last of the weeping women. Darius saw a flash of red, and wondered if it was Audrey with her fiery hair, or just more blood. He felt a pang of regret, but continued to stare, immobile as his kinsfolk were marched away, easterly, toward the mountains. Besides, he knew they would survive, and he would have lost Audrey, anyhow. She could still have babies, on the other side of the mountain range. It was all the same to him.
The sun was high and flies were buzzing by the time Darius extricated himself. Cade was long dead, as were all the other men, young and old. He headed directly to the small wooden structure that served as church and council hall. He bagged the chalices, candelabras, and all objects shiny and marched west. As he passed through the village gate, he smiled. Perhaps in the next village he would be greeted as the new “Cade,” by eager parents and girls wearing pretty bows.
This story first appeared in The Watermark, Spring 2013
Revision
Penelope Schenk
Penelope Schenk moved to the UK from the US in 2002; she lives with her partner and their French Bulldog on a narrowboat in Oxford. She has recently begun submitting stories for publication, and blogs at pschenk.wordpress.com.
At least it was a job. Two years as an researcher on one of the sorriest outposts in the system made it seem like an appealing option. Better yet, it was on Delfinio. I’d been looking for an excuse to return, now that the war was over. India’s call had come as a complete surprise; she’d been my thesis adviser, but we hadn’t had much contact in recent years. I knew she was head of the anthropology department at one of the New Sweden universities.
“Got wind of a project that’s right up your alley, John. Qual gig back on Delfinio; figuring out what happened when a rather unusual community of folks calling themselves ‘Editors’ was terminated using lethal sonic weapons a couple months ago. This on the say-so of some intervention-happy senator. Four survivors. The way I heard it, higher-ups at the Health Ministry went apeshit when they found out about it. New director wants to throw some money at it and commission a report. Ideally, one that’s completed before anyone gets wind of what’s going on.”
I’d written my thesis on Delfinio’s Walleyed Foal sect, and spent three years interviewing the handful of shell-shocked survivors up in the mountains where they still lived. High-control groups had always held a certain fascination for me; couldn’t tell you why.
“I’m game,” I told her, silently adding and broke. “I hear Delfinio’s still dangerous, but I do want go back. You know how it is.”
“Do I ever. Just got back from a 3-month stint there myself. The threat level is manageable – – at least it seemed that way to me. Health wants work to start next week. I’ve sung your praises, told them you’d be ideal – – I would have gone myself if it didn’t clash with the end of term. I’ll send you what information I have – – call me on my office number if you have questions, OK?”
“Sure thing. Hey. Thanks, India.”
“No problem. Take care of yourself kid.” She hung up.
The prospect of A. employment and B. time on Delfinio was a lot to take in. I’d grown up there. Dad got out by the skin of his teeth four years ago; at the time, most of his radical friends insisted that the political winds were shifting. Right up until the day they were taken out in a drone strike.
*
STET
This exercise is useful when you’ve made a big decision and then realise that you’ve made the wrong choice. It requires nothing more than intense concentration on the moment just before the action you now regret. Some insist that the use of STET to remove controversial amendments to the Delfinio constitution sparked the recent Civil War, but his has been consistently denied by the Editors.
*
I’ll say this for the Delfinio Health Ministry: they don’t mess about. No sooner had I signed up for the project than they sent me first-class shuttle tickets and reservations at the Toto. They also arranged literature access of the sort I hadn’t had since university. Platinum Level; materials recently re-classified and now restricted to Military Academicians. India hadn’t lost her touch.
I’d requested, and been granted, a second researcher on the project. Julie and I had started in the same PhD program at Delfinio U. We’d co-authored a paper on the splinter group that eventually morphed into Walleyed Foal. Our work got a lot of attention when WF was eliminated – – conference gigs, book deals, vid appearances. Despite this, neither of us had secured permanent academic positions; she was currently teaching Intro to Cultural Anthropology at Lunar U.
*
Julie rocked up the evening of the day we’d planned to start work – – some hitch with her travel plans. Didn’t surprise me; Delfinio’s post-war infrastructure was sketchy at the best of times. I’d paid a generous bribe at the airport to ensure that my gear made it ‘safely’ to the hotel.
I briefed her over breakfast the next morning. She’d read the background information I’d sent her the week before. Impressive, as there was a lot of it. I thought she seemed nervous, but then it sometimes took people a day or two to recover from an IP jump. When I asked about the Lunar U. position, she rolled her eyes and snorted.
“That? It pays the bills. I’ve been wanting to get back to research for ages.”
I smiled and leaned back, taking a sip of syncaff . “And now you have. So. What are students are like these days?”
She laughed. “The same. They have different gadgets. A couple in this crop seem promising. If they’d focus.” She checked her phone again, then suddenly looked at me as though she’d just remembered where she was.
“And what about you? It’s been a while, John.” She smiled wanly and pushed egg substitute around on her plate.
“Uh, different things. Large corporations trying to find out why their staff isn’t motivated. Kinda soul-destroying stuff.”
“Ouch.”
Just then my phone buzzed, informing me that our driver had arrived.
She was waiting out front in a beat-
up beige transporter, drumming her fingers on the dashboard. When she saw us, she hopped out and carried our bags to the vehicle. She introduced herself as Alice, and confirmed that she’d be driving us the fifteen kilometres to the Editor compound each morning and back again in the evening. Julie sat in front. The Delfinian was wiry and thin, in faded fatigues and a old T-shirt. From the back seat, I had a clear view of the her profile when she turned to address Julie. She looked familiar somehow, and as we drove through the outskirts of New Wichita it dawned on me that she’d lived next door to us when I was in high school. I leaned forward.
“Alice... Sandell?’ I had to shout because of the road noise.
She smiled, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “John? I thought I recognised you from somewhere. How’ve you been?”
“Not bad. You?”
She hesitated. “How long have you got?” Her smile faded. “We lost Dad in the war; Mom’s living with me now. We manage. I’m lucky to have this job.”
“Hey, I’m sorry to hear that. Jesus.” I’d met her parents a couple times; they once invited the whole neighbourhood to a backyard barbecue. This made a big impression on everyone at the time; it was a very Earth thing to do.
I was about to ask Alice more about what happened when she said we were approaching the compound. She turned left off the paved road onto a long and dusty driveway. I could see a cluster of low buildings about two hundred yards ahead of us, backing onto a rocky hillside. Scattered clumps of trees provided a little shade from the hot Delfinio suns.
The pre-assignment briefing had been accurate; Editor Central was definitely isolated. I couldn’t see anything in the immediate vicinity but tall grass and what I initially took to be a ring of scrubby bushes encircling the compound. The background hum of native crickets was louder than I’d remembered. The buildings were nondescript; standard red brick construction. The few decorative plants in beds next to the buildings had withered, adding to the air of desolation.
Luna Station Quarterly - Issue 018 Page 6
