Near + Far

by Cat Rambo

  How had Lewis managed it?

  Because Occam's razor, the simplest explanation—who hated her, who wanted to harm her?

  Only Lewis.

  Back in her room, she left the light on.

  Somehow she slept.

  And dreamed. Child-Lewis, standing beside Child-Amber, hands intertwined, his voice chirping, "What's up, sis?" Love between them like a knotted rope.

  Her arm around him, protecting him. "Close your eyes."

  How could it be any other way?

  At 5:30, she rose and did her morning run, steadfastly not thinking of the creature and showered while avoiding its shadow. It came at her in snatches of memory, so vivid she could smell its breath, fetid as old meat, feel the way its claws thudded into her flesh.

  The water streamed down and down around the raw blotches along her arm. She looked at her flesh and felt herself shaking again.

  Steadying herself, what would Mrs. Mountebank do? Well, then, do it. She picked dried blood from along the edges of the wound. She should have had stitches. It was not too late. Maybe when she dropped Lewis off at the hospital.

  In front of her bedroom door, she stopped. Three claw marks across it like a sign. Had they been there before? She hadn't looked.

  Beside her, Lewis. "What's up, sis?"

  She looked from him to the marks.

  He must be pretending not to see them. Just looked at her with a half-smile.

  Not Child-Lewis. Something else. Someone else. Someone born of despair and hate and desperation.

  Her brother was gone. When had he vanished? Why hadn't she noticed?

  Somehow she managed to pretend too. She'd make him wonder. Maybe think she had some plan up her sleeve. Or that she thought it was still a dream. She pretended. She dressed, ate breakfast, took him to an early appointment.

  "Seven," he said curtly as he left the car, not even bothering to feign courtesy or curiosity about the stiff way she held herself.

  Till seven. Hours in which to figure out what to do.

  She was just about to pull away from the curb when someone tapped on the window. She rolled it down.

  Ginger-haired, balding. His sleeves rolled down to expose his burly forearms. Tattoos covered the left, an intricate black and white pattern of tribal thorns around crossed daggers. He smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat.

  She disliked him immediately.

  But his voice was unexpectedly soft-spoken as he introduced himself as the Practical Shamanism group leader, Sam Mintie. He'd seen her waiting to pick up Lewis, he said, half-apologizing for invading her privacy, imposing himself.

  "Lewis is having a hard time with some of the class concepts," he said. "Actually, some of the other members want me to kick him out of the group. Particularly Mrs. Oates."

  Her cheeks burned. What horrible things had Lewis said, to make the entire group want him to go? She could only guess.

  "Mrs. Oates? But Lewis said the group was men only."

  Sam shook his head. "No. Perhaps he wanted to make sure you didn't check it out."

  That made sense. Lewis didn't like sharing anymore.

  "What concepts is he having trouble with?"

  He hesitated. "It'll take a while. Do you have time to go get coffee?"

  "Give me the short version and I'll decide."

  His eyes were blue and watery. "He thinks he's a dark shaman—or can become one—and that to do so, he needs to kill you."

  "Get in the car," she said.

  At the coffee shop, she asked, "Why me? He'd have an easier time luring in some homeless guy or something."

  "Because you're his closest blood," he said. "To move with ease in other dimensions, he has to symbolically cut ties with this one."

  "He's got it all worked out, doesn't he?" she said.

  "He does."

  "Lewis said people become more like themselves as they get closer to death," she said.

  Sam shook his head. "Really? I don't think so. You get more distanced, maybe, but not in a bad way. You know the saying, don't sweat the small stuff? You learn how to do that."

  But this, this wasn't small stuff.

  "So what is Lewis doing to symbolically cut ties with this one?"

  Sam looked down at the table. His voice was low, forcing her to lean in.

  "I'm sure you've noticed he's been especially mean, perhaps downright nasty to you lately. Maybe destroyed something that had personal significance for both of you."

  "Lewis has always has his sharp side."

  "He is very ... talented."

  The hesitation pulled her even closer. "More talented than any of the rest of the group?"

  "More talented than any of the rest of the group could ever dream to be."

  "How?"

  Sam shrugged. "Some mutation from the Plague? Or a genetic quirk? The right stars? But it seems to follow its own mythology. I've listened to Lewis expound on it at length."

  "How does his being nasty fit in?"

  "He must renounce you, as the representative of his ties to this world. First by not being emotionally attached."

  "And then?"

  "After he's killed you symbolically, he must do it physically."

  "And how much of all of this bullshit of Lewis's do you believe?"

  He didn't hesitate this time. "All of it. We don't need more dark shamans in this world."

  At no point did she think, "I'm going crazy." Or even, "Perhaps this is still a dream." She thought it should have astonished her more. Shaken her world. It was surprisingly easy to change the laws in your head, or twist them to allow certain loopholes, it seemed.

  Had she believed, in some corner of her mind, in this sort of thing all along? She had always despised superstition. It was appalling to think she'd secretly been a believer in the bogeyman under the bed.

  There had to be a rational explanation.

  At some point she'd have to sit down and think out all the implications. Now wasn't the time.

  "What have you seen?" she asked. Had he also woken to find something settling onto his bed, heard its harsh erratic breathing?

  "I saw a shape hovering around him when he spoke of it," he said. "Everyone did. The room seemed to grow dark. Poor Mrs. Oates nearly had a heart attack." His voice trailed off before he half-whispered, "Everyone wants magic. But to see it in action ... that was too much. Afterward everything seemed new, as though the world had been stripped of its skin. Too much to bear."

  "So what can I do?"

  He recovered himself. "He's made his own mythology, combined it with bits of H.P. Lovecraft and horror movies, but it has its own laws, ways it works, I presume. If I understand it right, it will be no problem thwarting him, so long as he hasn't made the first attack yet."

  She rolled up her sleeve to show the bandages from last night. "Too late for that."

  His fingertips hovered above the wound as though testing the air around it. "So strong," he said. His eyes were wide as he shook his head, pushing his chair away from the table.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I can't help you," he said. "This is all outside my experience." He fished through his pockets, took out a crumpled feather. He handed to her, "I wish I could pretend this would be of help. Maybe you can believe in it more strongly than I ever could."

  "But you're a shaman."

  "I wish I was. I've pretended all my life," he said. "Closed my eyes and willed my spirit animal near. And then, with only a few little scraps, I see your brother accomplish what I've dreamed all my life. I saw his animal and it terrified me, but it thrilled me too. But I know in my heart that nothing I can do will stand against it. I'm sorry."

  She gaped after him as he walked out. The feather rocked on the table, caught by the shifting air as the door closed behind him.

  This wasn't how it was supposed to work. He was intended to be the deus ex machina, the source of wisdom that would tell her how to defeat the evil Lewis had summoned.

  When life started to act like ficti
on, you expected it to follow fiction's patterns. If there was no happy ending, how would you know when the story was done?

  She could flee, leave the city, go into hiding somewhere. But who was to say he couldn't send his creature after her, that it couldn't track her down no matter where she went? She fingered the edge of the table as though testing its solidity while her mind raced. She couldn't deal with this. It was impossible. It was asking too much.

  Could she confront Lewis? Could she bring him to his senses, let him see this wasn't what civilized people did, moving outside the laws of reality?

  That was what she would do, over food that night.

  She left the useless feather there beside her half-empty coffee cup.

  But in the reality of kitchen, the smell of lemon-scented dish soap, the sunlight streaming in the windows, Formica countertop under her fingers, she couldn't think where to start. She moved methodically from stove to table, setting up dinner. Hamburgers sizzled with senseless abandon. Broccoli melted under fierce steam.

  Dessert? What best expressed "Happy Day That I Learned My Brother Is a Supervillain Planning on Killing Me?" Chocolate lava cake? Bombe Alaska? Some flaming dish?

  When he entered the room, she froze like a wary animal. But he didn't seem to notice.

  "Smells delicious!" he said with a wide smile. He spread the napkin in his lap with a flourish. "Food like this, it's worth living for, don't you think?"

  Their gazes met and locked. She felt herself pressing against a door, trying to find the handle, trying to open it. Her mouth cracked, trying to smile, trying to say anything ordinary, but only a hollow croak escaped.

  "You don't look so good," Lewis said. His gaze traveled over her outfit. "It's pretty warm for long sleeves, isn't it? Are you feeling okay?"

  She could almost hear the beast's breath.

  In the window glass, a flash of copper feathers, the glint of a predatory eye. It struck along her nerves, a sudden intuition, and she smiled.

  "Bad dreams, that's all," she said. She turned back to the stove, pretended she was busy ladling out soup. She tossed over her shoulder, "Dreams can't hurt anyone, after all."

  Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. "Well," he said, taking a spoonful of soup. "Sure. Dreams."

  Years of bluffing him, of not betraying how much a blow had hurt, steadied her. She could act as though she wasn't afraid. And that made her less afraid, somehow.

  Still, after he went to bed, she stayed up, saying she wanted to work on a sketch.

  Up in her chair, she leaned over the graphic pad. It was very close, so very close.

  "Come in," she said, and began to draw.

  From The Annals of Everkind:

  MRS. MOUNTEBANK:

  It comes!

  THE TANGO GOTANGO GOTENGO:

  Whose side is it on?

  MRS. MOUNTEBANK:

  There's no telling. Pray that it's ours.

  It was her best work. She didn't know how suitable for children it was, this one, but children liked a touch of darkness, after all—look at Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the gruesome ends of the children there. Would children like this new character, the Madhawk?

  It came in a swirl of feathers and talons; it came as swiftly as pulling the string that dissolves a tangle and lets the lines sweep free. It was graceful and deadly, and it rode the winds high above Everkind, feared but loved at the same time.

  It came as suddenly as a battle trumpet shrilling, and its claws were sharp, sharp enough to defeat anything. Sharp enough to defeat fear and despair.

  Sharp enough to leave Lewis in a tangle of red in his sheets, the dissipating smell of ash and smoke around him as his creature dissolved beneath the Madhawk's fierce attack.

  Afterward.

  Ending #1:

  When Sam knocked on her door, he didn't say anything about Lewis' death. He had shown up at the funeral with the rest of the Practical Shamanism group. She didn't know whether they had come to express their condolences or to make sure that Lewis was really dead.

  Perhaps a mixture of both.

  Sam was easy to talk to, though, about things other than Lewis. He loved her books, it turned out, and had dabbled in writing himself, just long enough to appreciate it. They went out to coffee.

  Then dinner, then a movie, then other things.

  The Madhawk was very popular, it turned out. Everything she touched turned to gold from then on. Sam read each new book with wonder and appreciation. The perfect reader.

  Of course he was in love with her.

  Of course she fell in love with him.

  She kept Lewis's ashes on the mantel. The criminal who had broken into the house, inexplicably killed an already dying man, was never caught.

  It was a good life.

  Ending #2:

  Of course the Madhawk came to her once it was done with Lewis. Roused to blood, it could not relent until its maker was gone, until she had raised her wrists one last time to let its talons slash across the surface and set the crimson floodgates free.

  When she had breathed her last, shuddering gasp, wondering what they would make of her stories now, the Madhawk stayed for a few moments, as long as it took for her to leave the world and enter its dimension. It plucked a strand of her hair, and carried it back to begin building its nest.

  Its chicks were strong. It was a good life.

  Afternotes

  I avoid horror movies in the theater because I get far too wrapped up in them and have been known to scream at tense moments. Hence, we watch them at home. After watching the truly dreadful movie "Paranormal Activity," I was thinking about how to make it the movie scarier and ended up coming up with this story as well as making sure I couldn't sleep that night. Some of Lewis and Amber's childhood is the one I shared with my brother Lowell, but he is not a shaman and resembles Lewis in no other way.

  The Madhawk also owes a certain amount to the Bird in a Heinlein story, "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag," whose disturbing, reality-isn't-exactly-what-you-think quality always unsettled me (now that I think about it, it's much the same terror as that evoked by the Leiber novel I talked about in another of these notes) and which I ran across as a teenager in the collection by the same name.

  But more than anything, the story's origin lies in thinking about both sides of the caretaker role and the fierce resentment that may arise on the part of the person being taken care of. That's what lies at the heart of Lewis' transformation, and I don't know that there's any way Amber could have staved it off.

  The story's also got a metafictional side that some readers like and which drives some others nuts. All I can say about that is forgive me. John Barth's influence as a teacher pops out at odd times and this was one.

  The piece originally appeared in Apex Digest, under editor Lynne M. Thomas.

  THERAPY BUDDHA

  The office's new work-from-home policy had its advantages, but housekeeping service wasn't one of them. Even though he was escaping the smog-laden outside air, Lyle's apartment smelled too-lived in, filled with the odor of ancient take-out, unwashed clothing, and dead house plants.

  "I should clean this place up," he said. He thought about hanging up his damp windbreaker, but shrugged it off to toss it over a chair. He dumped his bag on the dining nook table as he edged his way past.

  When he thumbed the frame, the metallic square lit with the evening news logo, four stories ribboned and scrolling across it. All showed scrambles of military activity, puffs of bomb smoke, a scattered flash of gun fire, muted and surreal, before they combined into a single burger commercial.

  From behind him, the device on the table said, "You seem to use the word 'should' a lot. Do you attribute a particular meaning to that word?"

  Lyle scrounged through the refrigerator, pulling out a plastic meal bag to throw in the microwave. Coming back to the coffee table, he said, "I suppose I say 'should' when I really mean 'don't want to do.'"

  The Therapy Buddha sat cross-legged, three feet t
all and made of soft plastic. It was bright green.

  Its calm, big-cheeked face said, "How do you feel about that?" The sound emanated from a speaker that glinted dentally between unmoving lips, like a slanted front tooth.

  "Yeah, whatever, toy. TV on." He retrieved his meal and slumped into the couch to flip through channels on the wall screen.

  "A broken mirror never reflects again," the Buddha said. "Fallen flowers do not return to their branches."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "Zen koans are sayings that challenge habitual thought processes. For another Zen koan, say 'Koan, please.'"

  He did not reply. The Buddha sat, silent and immobile. His co-workers had bought it for him on his fortieth birthday, wrapped in sheets of bright pink bubble wrap.

  "Gives pop therapy a whole new meaning." Scott laughed and almost patted him on the back. The voice-activated Buddha was a rip-off of a Sony model, but the imitation was very good except for the wrong color.

  The party had been a typical office gathering—sheet cake from the corner grocery store with bright red, slightly crooked lettering reading "Happy 40th Lyle!" over white frosting. Everyone stood around and made small talk. He chatted with Scott and the latest intern.

  "What do you think of your new surroundings?" Scott asked the intern. He was in full charm mode, relic of his days selling Christian comedy albums.

  She was busty and blonde, wearing green-striped overalls that matched the beads in her hair. Her tenure in the office was sixteen hours, as of that afternoon. "I've never worked in a data-selling corporation before," she admitted. "This is my first time working since college."

  "You didn't work in high school?" Scott said. "A shame—I think it really builds character. What did you do instead?"

  "I was on the swim team," she said. Lyle imagined her briefly in a tank suit, her long hair tied back.

  "Sports are good," Scott said. "I worked in my dad's store, making deliveries. What about you, Lyle?"

  "I farmed gold in an online game and sold it."

  "Every geek's dream job. But how can there be actual money in that?"