by Various
It was a sloppy job, the feathers far apart on the wings, crooked in places, but Jen hoped it was the thought that would count. She ran her hands over the finished product. For what she had to work with, it was a job well done.
• • •
Mina hadn’t sung the whole day. Instead she slumped on the couch with the television on, changing the channel repeatedly. Sam had tried to put on some Donovan, but Mina covered her ears. Sam left her alone. Alone was how Jen found her.
“Come outside,” Jen said.
Mina didn’t look up.
“Please come outside. I have something for you.”
“What is it?” Mina said.
“You have to come. I won’t give it to you if you don’t come.”
Without waiting Jen went outside and stood by the side of the pool. The sun was right in the middle of the sky, and it bore down on Jen’s fair skin like scalding water.
She had brought the wings out beforehand, and they lay on a lawn chair, spread in all their glory. Mina took her time coming outside, and the heat made Jen nervous. There wasn’t a sound in the air; it was too hot even for birds.
Without a sound Mina joined her. Jen took her hand, motioned to the wings. Mina let go. She ran her fingers over the feathers, over the wire clamps where her bones would go. She looked directly into the sun.
“I know this one,” Mina said. “You want to destroy me.”
“No I don’t. I want to free you.”
“These won’t fly. I’m no fool.”
Jen shook her head. “I know. But they may help you.”
For a moment Mina looked as if she might break right there beside the pool, and her pieces might tumble in where Jen would have to scoop them out of the skimmer. But then she smiled, and it was a genuine smile, unlike all the others Jen had seen cross Mina’s face. Jen knew this because it twisted her lips and showed all her teeth, even the bottom ones, and its ugliness filled Jen’s stomach with flutters.
• • •
When Mina left she took the wings on her back and nothing else. She didn’t ask them to drive her anywhere, just walked out the door and down the sidewalk. Jen and her mom watched her go, and when she disappeared around the corner they turned to each other.
“Want to go to the lake?” Sam asked. They hadn’t been since Jen’s father.
They went. They sunbathed and swam, and neither of them tried to drown. On the ride back home they hummed the siren song together, and even though Jen knew they wouldn’t talk about Mina she felt okay about it. She didn’t think there could be anything to say that they couldn’t get across with their eyes, with the way they would let their laughter echo in the huge living room as they watched late night reruns. They had shared a brief encapsulating darkness, and they knew that if they had to go there again they would come out unscathed, together, and their huge house would never feel as empty again.
Two years later Jen left the house and moved away to college. She studied sculpture, constructed wire pieces of old myths: Zeus as the bull, Persephone descending the underworld stairs, the harpies, and finally the Sirens, the bodies of women with beaks and legs of birds. And, of course, wings.
Her sculptures attracted the attention of several suitors in her classes, among them a girl who loved dressing up. The girl took Jen to a Renaissance Festival. Neither was sure whether or not it was a date, as nothing of the kind had been said. But there, among the pastel fairy wings and the long, elaborate dresses, Jen saw the wings she had crafted. They’d been added to, more feathers and even a couple of bells that rang when you walked, but they were certainly the same wings.
Attached to the wings was Mina. She stood before a crowd of fairgoers, her hair down to her waist, her clothes painted on her body, and she sang. Everyone stood silent and watched, but no one seemed dazed by the song. It wasn’t even the best song Jen had ever heard, but she knew it had been, once in her life—and, suddenly, she was grateful. She stayed until the end, and once the last word had flown from Mina’s lips, the wings on her back twitched. They folded in, and the sun came down on her like a spotlight, but she looked like just another ordinary person, in an ordinary time.
THE FERRYMAN
by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
First published in Goblin Fruit (Jun. 2013), edited by Amal El-Mohtar, Jessica P. Wick, Oliver Hunter, Caitlyn Paxson, and Dmitri Zagidulin
• • • •
the shadows come creepin into me;
they stain my bone-bar cage all dark.
swamp water cradles brittle bones
as the leaves of the willow part.
skin’s bloated, too full on rain water and the New Orleans moon.
they say a little water never hurt anyone.
i say there’s worse ways to die.
i seen snakes slipping up the throats
of children, crawlin into the world
across a bridge of untouched tongue.
i seen people with nowhere else to go,
hands strung to their sides, waiting, waiting.
they all got stories to tell,
till today. these shadows never speak.
my spine shrinks as they climb aboard and paw the water.
tar black ripples shiver the surface:
silence.
there’s worse ways.
Tim Susman became eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer with the publication of “Erzulie Dantor” in Apex Magazine (Nov. 2012), edited by Lynne M. Thomas.
Visit his website at timsusman.wordpress.com.
* * *
Short Story: “Erzulie Dantor”
Flash: “Diamonds Are Forever” ••••
Flash: “Goldeneye” ••••
ERZULIE DANTOR
by Tim Susman
First published in Apex Magazine (Nov. 2012), edited by Lynne M. Thomas
• • • •
WHISPERS PROWL through the rubble that surrounds the leaning house. Half-fallen buildings stand on either side, as though a careless giant strode through the town and only by chance missed the one house—surely when the gods choose to wreak destruction on all, they are not so capriciously merciful to one. An hour down the road, Haiti’s crushed and maimed capital, Port-au-Prince, is the center of a whirlwind of international assistance. But Bas-Le-Fond, gripped in the same fury and just as surely destroyed, has only a small aid station. And when darkness falls, the American volunteers remain in their tent outside the town to work, leaving Bas-Le-Fond to its residents, and to the whispers that stalk in the deep darkness hidden even from the light of the moon.
The whispers slide among the slabs of stone and concrete that have been scattered and torn like palm fronds, gathering around the one remaining house. They steal past the gate that hangs from a single hinge, passing easily through the twisted mockery its sturdy metal has become; they pass over the recent hand-dug grave without hindrance. Scraps of glass in the windows do not cut the whispers, nor does the torn tar-paper keep them out any more than it keeps out the moon, or the insects. The whispers dive through it into the living room where order struggles against the chaos that envelops the rest of the house. The floor, by the grace of a fine broom of bundled straw, is spotless, if one overlooks the streaks of dust that trickle in from the other rooms through empty doorways, and the congress of dirt that gathers in the dark corners, behind the couch where the woman sleeps.
Maisie, she is called, and the whispers pace around her crude bed, the torn and patched sheet that covers her. Her breathing is even, her eyes closed and at peace. The sheen of sweat gives her dark skin a glow in the paper-filtered moonlight, and gives off the smell of honest work. Her head lies on the armrest, with no cushion, and her feet hang over the other side.
As though hearing the whispers in her sleep, she turns to face the ceiling and lets out a long, low breath. Her hand falls across her lower belly, cradling a dream. Dust rises gently from the couch, but no other answer comes from the silent room.
The wh
ispers have fled already, down the street, past the broken and ruined houses. In the makeshift tent-city of bed sheets and curtains built by the town and the aid workers, the whispers settle in to breed and grow fat on the stories of the richest house left in town.
She dines on djon djon and mais moulu, one dirty blanket whispers to another. Seen it myself.
She has servants, still, reply stitched-together coats and a pillow stuffed with dead palm fronds. She calls them from the grave and they carry her to bed.
Her house is cooled by the spirits of the night. She keeps the best breeze for herself and sends the hot island air down to us.
And cool mango nectar. Fresh, not maggot-laced.
The servants walk into the back yard at dawn and they disappear into the earth again.
And why are we in this misery, here? Why do we have shit-stained blankets and rat-chewed clothes while Queen Maisie keeps her palace to herself?
There is one woman who might, in the right light, be a younger Maisie. She lies with a bundle of blankets at her chest, in the protective curl of her arm. In the darkness, her eyes gleam at the currents of whispers swirling through the tent. A smile like a spider lies concealed on her face. This is Sirène, named for love.
At her side lies a tall, lanky man whose hands are linked behind his head, the heels of his palms cupping his ears toward the ceiling. He wears no shirt, only a necklace of colorful beads carved with faces. His dark eyes are wide open and fixed on the bright glow that is the moon behind the roof-sheet. His chest rises and falls with each whisper, though the beads around his neck do not stir, and his mouth remains still as the night.
The whispers slow, curling up, bedding down. Outside, insects whirr and rats scavenge; down the hill, small tents go dark one by one, as exhausted volunteers retire for the night.
Inside the remains of Bas-Le-Fond, the rustle of the curtains and sheets dies into silence. The man and woman still lie, eyes still open. The woman makes to get up, but the man stops her with a whisper. Not yet. She lies back, impatient.
Maisie. She breathes the name like a curse. The man does not reply, so she goes on.
Locks her own sister, her own flesh-and-blood, out of her house. And why should I not have what she has?
The man remains silent, his eyes not moving from the sky. He is following the moon as it creeps toward the edge of the roof-sheet. The cloth flutters softly, dips in the light.
Apre bal, tanbou lou, the woman mutters to herself. She stares into her bundle of blankets and then up, around the tent, eyes wide and teeth bared. Even when the stillness of the tent relaxes her, she does not let her guard down.
The man’s teeth shine in the dim moonlight. He, too, looks at the bundle of blankets. Quiet, Sirène, he says. You’ll wake him.
He sleeps well, she responds. I have enough milk for him still.
You and the doctors.
The truth of this is a sour pill in her mouth. The grimace she makes would certainly set her infant son to screaming, were he to see it. But he sleeps, and she clutches him to her chest. She watches the people lying still in the tent, and her breaths come harsh and rushed.
Is it time? she whispers to her husband.
For a moment, he does not answer. Then he says, Consider what you do.
Do? I merely show her to them as she truly is. Selfish, stealing the life from us and from our son. Is she not a jé-rouge at heart?
She gestures about her, and goes on: What punishment of the gods would be worse than this? Who would punish me further? Erzulie Dantor, the warrior mother? She would fight for my son as fiercely as I do.
Tread carefully, wife. The rumors are one thing, but to name the spirits…
Be quiet and play your part. Is it time yet?
Finally, he says, Non. So Sirène lies back to wait.
The moon has crept to the edge of the roof. It is sliding past. The tent grows darker, the faint glimmers in the night grow fewer. Silence reigns.
From beside the woman, a low whisper rises in a falsely high voice: give me your baby, let me take care of your baby.
She comes upright again, this time wrapping her arms around her baby. With convincing fear, she says, Non, non.
Give me your baby. I will take care of your baby.
(It is important that the whispers exist, in case there is someone awake to listen.)
Her shrill scream shakes the town, sets sheets rippling and eyes flying open, her own baby to wailing. What? Who goes? Is it the ground again?
They have become used to earthquakes, but not this. Their eyes, shining in the dim tent, cluster like fireflies around Sirène. The night is alive again.
The lanky man’s arm slides casually over the ground to a stick he has placed there. Propped up on his side, watching Sirène with a practiced look of the same hungry fascination that feeds all the other eyes on his wife, he pushes behind his back at the stick until it meets the wall of the tent. Then he jabs, a quick motion that parts the sheets and lets a ray of moonlight in.
What was it? he asks with just enough urgency and fear.
Jé-rouge! Jé-rouge! Sirène seems incapable of saying anything else, gulping breaths and clutching her infant to her chest. She pours terror into the words, striking at the hearts of her townspeople. Jé-rouge! And then, as if finding her tongue: It bewitched me! It wants my baby!
The lanky man springs to his feet and points to where he broke the wall of the town’s tent a moment earlier. It escapes! he cries, and folds his body to dive through the partition into the night. It runs! It is a shadow-wolf now, look! Look at the red of its eyes!
By the time the sleep-muddled men have struggled out of the tent, he is halfway up the street. We must not lose it! he calls over his shoulder. Come! Catch it!
The men hang back. Let the houngen catch it, they mutter. How powerful are we, compared to a Vodou priest? Who knows what the shadow-wolf might do if we surround her? Turn on us, eat us. Turn us into jé-rouges ourselves. Non, we suffer enough.
So they follow at a safe distance. They watch the houngen lope up the street over rubble and garbage, pointing at shadows ahead of him. His certainty and the trickery of the moon work a magic of their own on the trailing men.
Oh, I see it.
Do you?
There, by the fence—no, it vanishes. Wait! There!
Yes!
They hurry with deluded confidence. An invisible jé-rouge might be anywhere; in the shadows of their minds, they are certain they see this one running toward the house five steps ahead of the long-legged houngen. He sweeps aside the twisted gate, and the tortured screech of its hinge stops the following people for a moment.
Then he is through the door, the priest, with a clatter of wood frame and a pounding of feet and a cloud of dust. The men gather around the gate, murmuring that he is the best houngen they could hope for in these times.
The talk of bravery quiets with passing moments, as they strain to see glimmers of red in the dark house. No movement comes from within. The men exchange uneasy glances. Should we go in? Bah! What can we do? He will catch her.
Scuffling from the house. Sharp cries, a woman’s voice, cut by the sharp retort of the houngen. They emerge from the door, the priest’s hand a vise around the arm of Maisie.
Brother, brother, she wails, why do you do this?
Quiet, she-wolf, he snarls. My magic is more than a match for yours. Plead to your dark goddess all you like.
Jé—? Her voice falters. She looks up and sees for the first time the crowd of men, eager, surging toward her. Non, mwen pa!
Jé-rouge, jé-rouge! they chant, though her eyes are wide and brown, without even a glimmer of red. As the houngen brings her to them, her cries are lost in theirs, drowned as her body is tossed by the mob.
To the square! The priest releases Maisie to the care of the men and strides across broken ground down the street. The men pull her along behind them, opening cuts in her bare feet, more than once forcing her so quickly that she falls to the grou
nd. When they arrive at the square, Maisie’s knees and hands are red with scrapes, her feet a bloody mess.
They push her across the wide crack in the paving stones, over the rough edges thrust up from the earth, to the center. To the statue.
The statue of Negre Marron, affectionately called Faithful Pierre by the village, reaches out across the hills to the sea. The aid workers think it a charming historical monument. They cannot see, looking up, the smoothly worn metal on the inside of the elbow, nor have they been present on a night when the statue dons a top hat and coat and smiles down on the town’s chants of Samedi, Samedi!
Maisie is brought to the statue, made to climb the pedestal. She resists, but one of the men seizes her arm and twists, sharply, until she cries out. She has seen people torn to pieces by a mob; whatever awaits her can be no worse than that. And still, there is a chance she may plead her case, may still return home to sleep on her couch this night.
There may be a shortage of housing, of food, of water, but there is no shortage of rope. The men fashion a loop, hand it to the priest. He places it around her neck and throws the loose end over the elbow of Faithful Pierre. The statue’s other hand is at its waist, and here the priest secures the rope.
Maisie stifles a sob in her throat. Faithful Pierre smiles down at her in bronze, pointing out over the slope of the hill to the sea, but she cannot follow him.
The women approach, and Maisie cries out here: Sirène! Sister!
Sirène approaches slowly, her expression hidden by the cloak of darkness. She picks her way across the pieces of rubble, one step at a time, delicately. Around her, the women call indignantly. Quiet, traitor! Creature! Cannibal! You never will have this child, never.
