by Nisi Shawl
She stood, pushing me away from her. Her celestial face paled, a touch of cirrus in the sky. “You can’t mean it,” she said, quietly appalled. Bestowing immortality directly upon a mortal, as she had done, was inconceivable; the punishment for our deception would be of a kind with it. The gods are jealous.
“But I do mean it,” I said, rising and meeting her eyes without wavering. “No machine or half-animal is going to carry our child, Amma, not while I live.”
She stared until she saw that I was in earnest. Then, for the first time in my life I experienced divine wrath. She stamped the floor with one lovely foot and clenched her fists in front of her angrily heaving breast. “You fool!” she shouted, purple smudging her pale blue cheeks. She laughed harshly, metallically, an untuned gamelon. “You funny, funny fool.” Then she activated the first of the three circuits she had shown me years ago as we orbited the moon and had, of course, never disabled.
My mother’s name is gone, removed from my mind and all my records. And the erasure is permanent and self-reinforcing. Even if someone told me what my mother was called, I would forget the sounds as soon as they were said. Even if I wrote her name here as it was spoken, I would forget it as soon as it was read.
Amma is a capricious god, but thorough.
But shrewd as I am, I had made my preparations. Even as she was proving her remorse by destroying her other controls, I left and fled here.
I do not know if she was fooled by the death of my double. Nyglu was careful, but perhaps she will discover that he hid it for me when she thought she’d had it destroyed.
Perhaps she will not be deceived. Perhaps she will come and test my defenses. For all I can tell, though, she is even now working on another Shiomah, perhaps one just a little less hard-headed. I left her plenty of tissue samples.
It was foresight that made me search out this corner of the world, rich in plant life and rare minerals. It is mine through my efforts, and I have stocked it with my treasures. My horses and cattle and machines and Fertility Manna. My plunder and purchases.
And the men and women, my mortals. I will take very tender care of my little mortals. And they will bless the land in my name.
The Water Museum
When I saw the hitchhiker standing by the sign for the Water Museum, I knew he had been sent to assassinate me. First off, that’s what the dogs were saying as I slowed to pick him up. Girlfriend, with her sharp, little, agitated bark, was quite explicit. Buddy was silently trying to dig a hole under the back seat, seeking refuge in the trunk. I stopped anyway.
Second off, the man as much as told me so his own self. He opened up the passenger door of my midnight-blue ’62 Mercury and piled in with his duffel bag, and his jeans and white tee, and his curly brown hair tucked under a baseball cap. “Where you going?” I asked, as soon as he was all settled and the door shut.
“Water Museum,” he said. “Got an interview for a job there.” That was confirmation, cause I wasn’t hiring just then. Way too early in the year for that; things don’t pick up here till much later in the spring. Even then, my girls and me handle most of whatever work comes up. Even after Albinia, my oldest, took herself off ten years ago, I never hired no more than a couple locals to tide us over the weekends. And this guy wasn’t no local. So he was headed where he had no business to be going, and I could think of only the one reason why.
But I played right along. “What part?” I asked him, pulling back out on the smooth one-lane blacktop.
It took him a second to hear my question. “What do you mean, what part? They got different entrances or something?”
“I mean the Water Museum is three, four miles long,” I told him. Three point two miles, if you want to be exact, but I didn’t. “You tell me where you want to go there, and I’ll get you as close as I can.”
I twisted around to get a good look at the dogs. Buddy had given up on his tunnel to the trunk. He was lying on the floor, panting like a giant, asthmatic weight-lifter. His harness jingled softly with every whuffling breath. Girlfriend was nowhere in sight.
The hitchhiker twisted in his seat, too. “Nice animal,” he said uneasily, taking in Buddy’s shiny, tusky-looking teeth. “Sheepdog?”
“Nope. Otterhound. Lotta people make that mistake, though. They do look alike, but otterhound’s got a finer bone structure, little different coloring.”
“Oh.”
We started the long curve down to the shore. I put her in neutral and let us glide, enjoying the early morning light. It dappled my face through the baby beech leaves like butter and honey on a warm biscuit.
On this kind of bright, sunshiny spring morning, I found it hard to credit that a bunch of men I didn’t even know were bent on my destruction. Despite the evidence to the contrary sitting right there next to me on the plaid, woven vinyl seat cushion, it just did not make sense. What were they so het up about? Their lawns? Browned-off golf courses, which shouldn’ta oughta been there in the first place? Ranches dried to dust and blowing away.… Yeah, I could see how it would disturb folks to find the land they thought they owned up and left without em. I just did not agree with their particular manner of settling the matter.
I drove quietly with these thoughts of mine awhile, and my killer sat there just as quiet with his. Then we came to that sweet little dip, and the turn under the old viaduct, and we were almost there. “You figured out yet where you’re headed?” I asked.
“Uhh, no, ma’am. Just drop me off by the offices, I guess….”
“Offices ain’t gonna be open this early,” I told him. “Not till noon, between Labor Day and Memorial Weekend. C’mon, I got nothing better to do, I’ll give you a tour.”
“Well, uhh, that’s nice, ma’am, but I, uh, but don’t go out of your way or anything.…”
I looked at him, cocked my chin, and grinned my best country-girl grin, the one that makes my cheeks dimple up and my eyelashes flutter. “Why, it’d be a pleasure to show you around the place!” By this time we were to the parking lot. I pulled in and cut the ignition, and before he could speak another word I had opened my door. “Let’s go.”
The hitchhiker hesitated. Buddy whined and lumbered to his feet, and that must have decided him. With what I would call alacrity he sprang out on his side of the car onto the gravel. Ahh, youth.
I let Buddy out the back. Instead of his usual sniff and pee routine, he stuck close to me. Girlfriend was still nowhere in sight. The hitchhiker was looking confusedly around the clearing. At first glance the steps are hard to pick out, and the trail up into the dunes is faint and overgrown.
I grabbed my wool ruana and flung it on over my shoulders, rearranging my neckerchiefs and headscarves. “You got a jacket, young man?” I asked him. “Shirtsleeves’re all right here, but we’re gonna catch us a nice breeze down by the Lake.”
“Um, yeah, in my—” He bent over the front seat and tugged at something on the floor. “In my duffel, but I guess it’s stuck under here or something.”
Came a low, unmistakable growl, and he jumped back. I went around to his side. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it out for you,” I said. “Girlfriend!” I bent over and grabbed one green canvas corner of my assassin’s duffel bag and pulled. This is Girlfriend’s favorite game. We tussled away for a few minutes. “She’s small, but she’s fierce,” I commented as I took a quick break. “You got any food in there, a sandwich or something?”
“No. Why?”
“I just noticed she had the zipper open some.”
The hitchhiker got a little pale and wispy-looking when he heard that. He stayed that way till I retrieved his duffel and gave it to him to rummage through. He took a while finding his jean jacket, and by the time he’d dug it out and put it on he looked more solid and reassured.
So now I knew where his gun was. Should I let him keep it? He’d be a lot easier to handle without a pistol in his fist. Then again, the thing might not even be loaded, depending on how soon he’d been planning on meeting up with me; simpler for him t
o explain an empty gun to any cops stopped him hitching rides. And I’d be able to get him relaxed faster if he was armed.
He threw the bag over his shoulder, and I locked the car. Girlfriend had already started up the trail. Of course he wanted me to walk ahead of him, but Buddy just looked at him with his dark, suspicious eyes and Mr. Man decided it would be okay if this time he was the one to go first.
I love the dance I chose when I made this path, the wending and winding of the way. As we climbed, we left the beech trees behind and ascended into the realm of grass and cherries, of white-backed poplar leaves, soft as angel fuzz. Poison ivy shone waxily, warningly, colored like rich, red wine.
We walked right past my offices. They look like part of the dune crest, coming at em from this side. I cast em that way, wound em round with roots, bound em with stems and sprinkled pebbles lightly over the top. The windows are disguised as burrows, with overhangs and grass growing down like shaggy eyebrows.
My assassin’s Nikes made soft little drumming sounds on the boardwalk, following the click of Girlfriend’s nails round to the blow-out and the observation deck. The promised breeze sprang up, ruffling our fur and hair. I watched my killer’s reaction to his first sight of the Museum.
His shoulders straightened and relaxed, though I hadn’t noticed they were crooked before that. He walked up and leaned against the wooden rail. “All that water…” he said.
I came up and joined him. “Yes,” I said. “All that water.” From the deck you can see it, as much as can be seen from down here on the Earth. Shadows still hung beneath us, but further out the Great Lake sparkled splendidly. Waves were dancing playfully, like little girls practicing ballet. They whirled and leapt and tumbled to rest just beyond the short terminal dunes five hundred feet below where we stood. “All that water. And all of it is sweet.”
I took my killer gently by the arm and led him to the river side. That’s where the work I’ve done is easiest to take in: the floating bridges over Smallbird Marsh, the tanks and dioramas and such. “Where you from, kid?” We started down the steps.
“Colorado.”
“Pretty?”
“It used to be. When I was little, back before the drought got bad.”
I stopped at a landing and waited for Buddy to catch up. He’s all right on a hillside, but this set of stairs is steep and made out of slats. They give under his weight a bit, and that makes him take them slow and cautious, ears flapping solemnly with every step.
I smiled at my assassin and he smiled shyly back. It occurred to me then that he might not know who I am. I mean, I do present a pretty imposing figure, being a six-six strawberry blonde and not exactly overweight, but on the fluffy side. I’d say I’m fairly easy to spot from a description. But maybe they hadn’t bothered to give him one.
I dropped his arm and motioned him on ahead. “By the bye,” I called out, once he was well on his way. “I don’t believe I caught your name. Mine’s Granita. Granita Bone.”
He sorta stopped there for a sec and put his hand out, grabbing for a railing I’d never had installed. Well, I thought, at least they told the poor boy that much.
“Jasper Smith,” he said, then turned around to see how I took it.
I nodded down at him approvingly. Jasper rang a nice change on Granita, and the Smith part kinda balanced out its oddness. “Pleased to meet you, Jasper.” Girlfriend barked up at us from the foot of the stairs. “All right,” I shouted down at her, “I’m a-coming, I’m a-coming.”
“Sheltie,” I explained to my killer. “Herding animal. Makes her nervous to see us spread out like this.” By that time Buddy had caught up and passed me. He knew this walk. I followed him down.
At the bottom, I chose the inland path, past pools of iridescent black blooming with bright marsh marigold. Stabilizing cedars gave way to somber hemlock, still adrip with the morning’s dew.
“Water Music,” I told Jasper, just before our first stop.
“I don’t—”
“Hush up, then, and you will.” Even the dogs knew to keep quiet here. It fell constantly, a bit more hesitant than rain. Notes in a spatter, a gentle jingle, a high and solitary ping! ping! ping! Liquid runs and hollow drums grew louder and louder until we reached the clearing and stood still, surrounded.
It was the tank and windmill that drew him first, though there’s nothing so special about them. I went over with him and undid the lock so the blades could catch the morning’s breeze. The tank’s got a capacity of about four hundred gallons; small, but it usually lasts me a day or two.
With the pump going, the pipe up from the river started in to sing. It’s baffled and pierced; totally inefficient, but gorgeous to my ears. From the other pipes and the web of hose overhead, drops of water continued to gather and fall—on glass and shells, in bowls and bottles, overflowing or always empty, on tin and through bamboo, falling, always falling.
Adding to the symphony, Girlfriend lapped up a drink from a tray of lotuses.
“Wow, Granita, this is really, uh, elaborate,” said Jasper when he’d pretty much done looking around.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“Yeah, but isn’t it kinda, umm, kinda wasteful?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. But like my mama always said, ‘You don’t never know the usefulness of a useless thing.’” Right then I just about washed my hands of good ole Jasper. But he hadn’t even seen any of the other exhibits, so I decided I’d better postpone judgment. My assassins did tend to have a wide stripe of utilitarianism to em. At least at first. Couldn’t seem to help it.
Buddy stood where the trail began again, panting and whining and wagging his whole hind end. He was looking forward to the next stop, hoping to catch him a crawdad. The fish factory’s never been one of my favorite features of the place, but Buddy loved it, and it turned out to be a big hit with Jasper, too. He took a long, long look at the half-glazed ponds that terraced down the dune. Me and some of the girls had fixed up burnt wood signs by the path, explaining the contents of each one, but Jasper had to climb up all the ladders and see for himself. He disappointed me by flashing right past all my pretty koi. Can you believe it was the catfish that caught his fresh little fancy? He must have spent twenty minutes to check out those mean, ugly suckers. Though, to give him his credit, he dallied a fair while with Yertle and that clan, too.
Meanwhile, me and the dogs kept waiting on my killer to make his move.
We looped under the deserted highway and came back by Summer Spring Falls and the Seven Cauldrons, then started across the marsh over the floating bridges, which Buddy doesn’t like anymore than the stairs. Maybe it’s the way the wicker that I wove em from sorta sags, or the dark breezes stirring up between the chinks, or the gaps you have to hop over going from one section to the next.
The breeze picked up again as we headed towards the beach. Small clouds, light on their feet, flickered past the sun.
I let him get behind me. Wicker creaks. I could hear his footsteps hesitate, sinking lower as he stood trying to decide was this the time and place. We were alone, he had a good clean line of sight, nothing but the wind between his aim and my broad back. But when he stilled and I turned, his hand wasn’t doing nothing but resting on the zipper of his duffel bag, and that wasn’t even open yet. His eyes were focused over my head, far off in space or time. He was listening.
Red-winged blackbirds. Sweet and pure, their songs piped up, trilling away into silence, rising again from that pool of quiet, sure and silver, pouring over and over into my ears. “When I was a boy…” said Jasper. I waited. In a moment he started again. “When I was a boy, there was a creek and a swamp, where the river used to be. I didn’t know, I thought it was just a fun place to play. Some birds there, they sang just like this.”
Well, making allowance for a few inaccuracies (swamp for marsh, and the bird songs had to vary a little), this sounded pretty much like his truth. And it made actual sense to me, not like them pipeline dreams of those cowboys sent him here.
Now we were getting somewhere. Closer. He’d be making his attack real soon.
I turned back around and trudged a little more slowly along the baskety surface of the bridge. The back of my neck crawled and itched, like itty bitty Jaspers and Granitas were walking all over it. I kept myself in hand, though, breathing deep and regular, balanced on the bubbling well of power beneath my feet, telling myself soon—soon—
He didn’t stop, he just slowed down a hair. I didn’t hear any zipper, either, but when I turned again he had finally pulled his goddamn gun out and it was pointed straight at me. Was it loaded, then? He seemed to think so.
My chest cramped up and my temperature dropped like I’d been dumped head first into Superior. I could wind up contributing my vital nitrogen and phosphorus content to the cycle like right now. I let my fright sag me down and grabbed the rails as his eyes hardened and his gun hand tensed. He was a lefty.
With a sudden lurch I threw myself against the side of the bridge and tipped us all into the cool, ripe waters of Smallbird Marsh. The gun cracked off one shot, just before we all made a nice big splash. I shrugged out of my ruana and kicked off my clogs and I knew I’d be okay. Fluff floats. Buddy woofed and Girlfriend yapped, all happy and accounted for.
Girlfriend and I pulled ourselves right up onto the next basket, but the menfolks stayed in a while longer. Buddy loves to swim, and he’s good at it, too. Jasper was floundering, though, wrapped up in weeds and trying to breathe mud. By the time I got him hauled out he wasn’t more than half conscious. Still had a grip on that gun, though. I pried it loose and tossed it back.
Now how to get him up to the offices? I thought about it while I whipped a few of my scarves around his wrists and elbows and ankles and knees. My sash in a slip knot ’round his throat for good measure. I shoved him till he sat mostly upright. “Ain’t this a fucking mess?” I asked him, tilting his head so he could see the tipped over basket, then back around to me. “I just had my hair done, got the dogs back from the groomer’s yesterday, now you pull this stunt! What in the name of every holy thing were you trying to do?”
