In an Absent Dream

by Seanan McGuire

  “All right, Katie,” said her teacher, Mr. Holmen, with a smirk as broad and unwelcome as his mustache. Looking at the rest of the class like he had a secret, he said, “I don’t mind giving the girls a little extra help with their math. It doesn’t come naturally to them, after all.”

  All the boys in class snickered. Even Johnny Wells, and she had been helping him with his math homework all the way since September.

  Lundy stood so fast that her math book fell to the floor with a sound like a slap. Mr. Holmen blinked at her, nonplussed.

  “I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom,” she said, a single staccato string of syllables with no pauses between them. She didn’t wait to be given permission. She turned and fled, running out of the room as fast as she could, leaving her bookbag behind.

  She stormed down the hall like it had personally offended her, and somehow it wasn’t a surprise when the door to the janitor’s closet—a door she walked past every day, several times—was gone. In its place was a tall oak door. A square made of graven fruit and flowers had been carved exactly at her eye level. BE SURE, read the words at its center, and in that moment, Lundy had never been more sure of anything.

  “Only wait here a moment,” she said politely, eyes on the door. “I need to get my bag.” Then she spun on her heel and marched back to the classroom.

  Mr. Holmen’s head jerked up when she stepped inside. “Detention,” he said. “You are not permitted to leave the room without permission.”

  “I have vomited all over the girls’ bathroom,” Lundy replied calmly. Some of the other girls looked shocked by this admission. Most of the boys snickered. She didn’t care. The wonderful thing about not having any friends was not needing to care what other children thought of her. Let them think that she was crass or rude for being willing to talk about the things her body did—or in this case, didn’t do. She was leaving.

  She was going home.

  “I am going to the office. I will tell my father that I am unwell.” Lundy walked to her desk and retrieved her bookbag, watching carefully as Mr. Holmen’s cheeks flared red. He hated to be reminded that her father ran the school. Lundy didn’t get many special privileges from it—if anything, she was punished more than she was rewarded—but in situations like this one, there was no way to beat a child whose card in the hole was the principal.

  “Do you need an escort?” he asked, the words heavy on his tongue, like stones. More of the class giggled, not at the vomiting, but at his loss of face.

  “No, thank you,” said Lundy. She slung her bag over her shoulder and walked away.

  Mr. Holmen would likely be fired when she disappeared, having left his classroom without a hall pass or a helper. Lundy found she didn’t care. He shouldn’t have treated her like she didn’t matter. He shouldn’t have treated her like his idea of a girl.

  The door was still there when she returned to the hall. Lundy smiled, and walked a little faster, until the knob was in her hand and the scent of fresh oak was in her nostrils, and when she stepped through, she felt her anger peel away, shedding it like a snake sheds its skin. The door slammed shut behind her. She didn’t bother looking over her shoulder. It was already gone, and so was she.

  * * *

  ONCE AGAIN, THE door to the Goblin Market had opened on a tunnel somehow carved into the living body of a tree, and once again, the tunnel ended with an unlocked door, where a single step could carry her from the safety of the passage out into the better, brighter world she had tried so hard to convince herself had been a dream. The mingled odors of a hundred impossible things struck her, and she stopped, breathing in deeply, letting the sounds and sights of the Market surround her, strengthen her, renew her.

  For her, it had been two years. It might have been twice as long for the Goblin Market, or it might have been no time at all, from all the changes she could see. Stalls had shifted. A few of the wagons were gone, while a few more had arrived. But the jumble of wares was as wild and unreadable as ever, and the people passing by were as strange as they’d been the first time. Lundy closed her eyes and kept breathing, filling her lungs with the Goblin Market, chasing all traces of school away.

  Her stomach rumbled. Lundy opened her eyes, laughing, and dove into the Market, letting her feet lead the way.

  Feet have a longer memory for certain things than minds do, and her feet remembered well the way to get to the pie stall, where Vincent the pie-maker was pulling a tray of sweet fruit pies out of the oven. A rack of lamb pies with baked quince cooled on the counter, next to a dozen butter chicken pies. Lundy’s stomach grumbled louder.

  “Hello, sir,” she said, with surpassing politeness. Even here in the Goblin Market, adults liked it when she was polite and looked tractable. Adults seemed to view mannerly children as somehow superior, and hence deserving of better treatment. It was silly at best and dangerous at worst—some of the nastiest bullies in school were capable of pulling out exquisite manners at the drop of a hat—but it could work for her, when she wanted it to.

  Vincent turned, eyes widening fractionally at the sight of her, in her pressed skirt and white school blouse. “You’re back,” he said. “Moon’s tried to claim your share of pies twice, but I told her a deal was a deal, and now it seems I’ll be paying them out anyway.”

  “How many pies are left on my account?” asked Lundy. It seemed like a safe enough question, and one that would require no additional payment.

  “Two meat and two fruit on yours; none on hers.”

  “Do you need pencils?” Lundy’s smile was sweet as she swung her bookbag around and dipped her hand inside, pulling out three pencils. These ones were unsharpened, with perfect erasers. She had been carrying them for more than a year, since the dim, gnawing idea of going back had first occurred to her.

  She had selected all her trade goods in threes, and she tried not to think about that, even as she knew, deep down, in the part of her that was still and would always be weeping, that Mockery had no more use for pencils or for pies. Mockery was over and done.

  Vincent’s eyes widened in earnest this time. He looked like he was fighting the urge to lick his lips as he said, “I always need pencils. They make keeping track of supplies much easier.”

  “These are better pencils than the last batch. They’d last you a long time, and the erasers haven’t been used at all.”

  Vincent rallied, sensing a bargain in the making. “Yes, but I don’t have a sharpener.”

  “Is that all?” Lundy smiled triumphantly as she produced a manual pencil sharpener from her pocket. “You could write everything down for a long, long time, if you had this.”

  This time, Vincent did lick his lips. “What do you want for it?”

  It was a dangerous question. It was a trap. “What would be fair value? If ten meat pies and ten fruit pies each was fair value for two pencils that had already been used…”

  “One of each, fruit and meat, every day, for a year.”

  “For all three—” Lundy caught herself. “For both of us?”

  Vincent wrinkled his nose. “Yes,” he said finally. “For both of you.”

  Lundy beamed as she put the pencils and sharpener down on the counter. Then she held out her hands. “Pies, please,” she said.

  They smelled like heaven. They smelled like coming home.

  * * *

  LUNDY WALKED UNDER the trees toward the Archivist’s shack with her hands full of pies, meat and fruit and flaky crust begging her to sit down and eat them all up, to glut herself until her belly strained against the waistband of her skirt and everything made sense again. She refused to take even the smallest bite. Two of the pies were for Moon, and she knew if she tasted even a crumb, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. Friends didn’t do that to friends.

  It was funny. She had resigned herself to never having friends when she was so little that she barely remembered making the choice, and she didn’t regret it, not for a moment. Most of the kids she went to school with couldn’t see past her father
to her, and the few who tried never seemed to like what they found when they reached her. She was too opinionated and too invested in following the rules. She liked the company of adults too much, she spent too much time reading. She was everything they didn’t want to spend time with, and if it hadn’t been for her father and for the reluctance many of them had to hit a girl, she would almost certainly have spent her weekends nursing black eyes and telling lies about where they’d come from.

  Moon probably wasn’t a very good friend. She was wild and she was strange and she followed the rules only because she knew she’d be punished if she didn’t. She cared more about fair value than she did about anything else. And Lundy didn’t care. Moon was her friend, her first friend and hence her best friend, and she was going to be so happy when she saw Lundy was back again. Back, with pies!

  Maybe the pies would help Moon forgive her for running away when they were both hurt and grieving and confused. Death wasn’t fair. Death wasn’t fair value for anything, not for a world without Mockery, not for pies enough to touch the sky. But death didn’t follow Market rules, and Lundy had been hurt and confused and worst of all, unsure, and feet had such a long memory. Her feet had remembered what it was to run home for comfort, and that was exactly what she’d done.

  Lundy shivered with nerves as she stepped into the clearing in front of the Archivist’s hut, the trees heavy with their burden of birds. A few of the birds had disappeared in the two years she’d been gone, and new birds had replaced them. One, a snowy owl with eyes the color of the sky above a glacier, hooted mournfully at her.

  “Who-who to you as well,” she said politely. “You must not have been told to avoid asking questions. Who is Lundy, thank you and you’re welcome, and who I’m looking for is Moon, and when I find her, we shall have pies.” She felt terribly grown-up and pleased with herself, bringing paid-for pies to tell her friend that she was back again.

  All that faded when the Archivist’s door opened and the Archivist herself stepped onto the rickety porch. She stopped there, looking briefly startled before her expression softened, turning kind. “Lundy,” she said. “I wasn’t sure we’d be seeing you again.”

  “You still have books I need to read, ma’am,” she said. “I brought pies for me, and for Moon.” She stopped then, looking expectant. She didn’t need to pay for Moon’s location if she never asked for it, and waiting—especially silent waiting—could often work better than a question.

  When she had first returned from the Goblin Market, she had sworn to herself and to her father (her father! Who would have thought that someone who had been to a place like this, had an adventure like hers, could grow up to be as dull and ordinary as her father?) that she was never going to go back. The Market had hurt her, even if it had never intended to. It had killed Mockery. It hadn’t given either of them fair value.

  But she had known, hadn’t she? Even then, she had known, because even then, she had been practicing her questions that weren’t questions, finding ways to slide between the ask and the obligation. She had been intending to come back here from the moment that she’d left.

  The Archivist nodded, slowly. “You were younger before,” she said. “You still had a measure of protection about you, because no one wants to feel they’ve treated unfairly with someone who doesn’t understand. You’re not protected now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lundy, who hadn’t felt protected since she’d seen Mockery die.

  “You must be careful, and you must follow the rules. You can’t count on Moon to take your debts for you.”

  Lundy felt a pang of guilt. She had incurred two debts when she was in the Market for the first time, and Moon had taken them both, as per their agreement, without telling her exactly what that would mean. She assumed the other girl had paid them off by now.

  Maybe she would have a debt Lundy could take, to keep things even between them.

  “I will, ma’am.”

  The Archivist sighed again. “Oh, to be young, and innocent, and foolish.” She pointed to a small trail into the woods. “She’ll be by the stream this time of day. Remember, you didn’t ask, but you indicated. What you find is yours to bear.” She turned and went back inside.

  Lundy frowned at the shack for a long moment before she walked toward the narrow trail. It was well worn, as if someone walked it regularly. She followed it, the smell of pie still in her nostrils, until she heard a stream chuckling to itself. She walked faster, coming around a small bend, and saw the familiar, hunched shape of Moon crouching on the bank.

  “I came back!” she announced, pride and delight and joy in her tone.

  Moon turned.

  Lundy froze. It was the only thing she could think of to do; the only thing that wouldn’t drop the pies.

  The other girl’s eyes were still wide and orange, but they had grown larger, seeming to swallow half her face, becoming fixed and staring in a way that human eyes had never been intended to be. Her lips were pursed and shiny and looked as hard as a beetle’s shell—or a beak. And her fingers, oh. Her fingers had grown even longer, until they could no longer fold into fists.

  “Hello, Lundy,” said Moon.

  “I came … I came back,” repeated Lundy. “You…”

  “Debts,” said Moon. There was a smile in her voice, wry and sad, that never reached her pursed lips. “I was alone with you and Mockery gone, and I was sad and careless, and I guess I took too many. Now I’m almost tapped out, and the only fair value left for me will be the kind that flies away.”

  “You’re…” Lundy stopped, swallowing hard. “You’re becoming a bird.”

  “Yes.” Moon blinked those impossible eyes. “I thought you knew. Do girls normally have orange eyes, in the world you’re from?”

  “No. But I don’t know the world you came from. It could have been ordinary, for you.” Lundy forced her legs to carry her closer. It’s not contagious, she thought, and all those cages, she thought, and she had never wanted to run away more in all her life. “I brought pies.”

  “Did you give fair value?”

  “Three pencils and a sharpener, and we both get pies for a year.” She held out her left hand, offering its contents to Moon. “You must be hungry. Eat.”

  Moon started to reach out. Then she froze, and pulled her hands away. “I haven’t paid for them.”

  “Two of the debts you carry are mine. Doesn’t that mean I can give you pies to start paying them off? A year of pies, Moon. Isn’t that worth anything?” They had both been there, when Mockery fell, when everything changed. Wasn’t that worth anything?

  “I…” Moon paused. “It might be.” Carefully, she reached out and took a pie, closing her impossible eyes as she brought it to her hardened mouth.

  Her first bite was more of a nibble than anything else, like she could no longer stretch her lips properly. Her second bite was more enthusiastic. By the end of the pie, she was gobbling, and she was smiling, her lips softening back into something ordinary, something human. She opened her eyes and beamed at Lundy.

  “It was enough!” she crowed. “It was enough to give fair value! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Lundy held out the second pie, trying not to wonder what part of Moon’s changed body represented her second debt. She had agreed, on that first dizzying visit, to take a debt for Moon, but she hadn’t known what she was agreeing to. Shame came immediately on the heels of the thought. The debt was hers. If Moon wanted her to carry it, she could.

  Besides, she thought. Her eyes were orange before, but they weren’t so big. Maybe every debt matters more when you’re already carrying so many.

  As if she had read Lundy’s thoughts, Moon asked, shyly, “Do you want to take that debt for me now?”

  No, thought Lundy, and, “Yes,” said Lundy, and Moon slipped her hand into Lundy’s. Her skin was cool, like it no longer regulated itself quite right. Like she needed a coat of feathers to protect her.

  There was a tingling sensation that moved through Lundy�
�s hands like a shiver. When Moon pulled away, her fingers were shorter, once more almost ordinary. Lundy looked at her own hand. Her nails were sharper, pointed like claws.

  She looked up at Moon. Moon smiled at her hopefully.

  “It’s not so bad,” she said. “You can pay that off, easy.”

  “Then let’s get started,” said Lundy.

  7 FLY AWAY, FLY AWAY HOME

  MOON WAS BIRD enough that she was perfectly comfortable sleeping in a tree, with only the night air to wrap around herself. Lundy, being still almost entirely a human girl, had other ideas about bedding. As the sun went down she found herself standing in front of the Archivist’s shack, one hand raised in the beginning of a knock, unable to quite finish off the gesture.

  She had sliced her own skin repeatedly with her sharp new nails, forgetting they were there when she went to brush her hair away from her face or scratch at a bug bite. If she slept outside where the mosquitos were, she would wake up flensed. But if the Archivist wanted fair value for sleeping on her floor …

  The Goblin Market had seemed like a beautiful adventure on her first visit, a place where the rules made sense and the penalties were fair. Then it had become something terrible, a place where friends could die and not come back. Maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle of those two things, but now she understood how much there was to lose, and she was afraid.

  Her hand was still raised to knock when the door opened and the Archivist looked at her. First at her face; then at her fingernails. A smile tugged at the corners of the Archivist’s mouth.

  “I see you found your friend,” she said. “I assume you’re looking for a place to sleep.”

  Afraid of questions she couldn’t pay for, Lundy nodded silently.

  “I have books that need to be organized. It will take some time. If you’re willing to work an hour each night, I can give you a warm spot by the fire. Does that seem like fair value?”