Sisters in Fantasy

by Edited by Susan Shwartz

  That I could understand—even though my business is looking for answers, there are some things I don’t question, some rocks I don’t turn over. So I could do without answers, except that there were horses that made girls beautiful, and Marcy—who wasn’t beautiful—loved horses. I found myself agreeing with Charlene: the rest really didn’t matter. “How did Kelly do it? Where did she get the power to overcome… whatever it was?”

  Charlene gave me a look far too old for the age she had been until this past week, a look Denise might have given me. “It took me years to figure that out, but… it wasn’t just Kelly who wanted it.” I must have looked as confused as I felt; she sighed and went on. “Look—she wanted to lead the parade. But the others—everyone in town, just about—wanted to see her lead it. Wanted her to be that perfect, golden image. Never aging, never sick, never faded, always up there with the flag, the dream that came true.” She sighed again. “And we couldn’t any of us get free of it. What it came down to, it’s what people really wanted, wanted bad enough to lose… whatever we lost.”

  She fell silent, and I thought of the town as it had been… as it was. That squatty ugly building—had it been new when Kelly rode in her first parade? I asked, and Charlene nodded. So the move to restore old buildings to their original stone and brick had bypassed this town, and new industries had settled elsewhere, and those here could not manage to move away. Things faded, grew vaguely shabby, blurred or frayed at the margins like a tape played too many times, but never progressed in normal aging. Other people? Charlene nodded. “Those closest to us slow down, but they can wear out and die. My parents did. People we didn’t know much, they seem pretty normal.”

  “And did you finish school?” I asked, suspecting the answer. “Go on to college?”

  “No.” The dark glasses went back on. “No, I didn’t do anything, but ride in that parade once a year behind Kelly and Sunny.”

  Whatever she could have been, whatever Kelly could have been, in those twenty years… all gone to feed the dream of glory, the yearly spectacle. Kelly, I figured, had had nothing much to look forward to; Charlene could have been anything. A tragedy, if you look at things that way. But it had been an accident, surely. If it hadn’t been for Kelly’s mistake, Charlene would have had nothing to complain of—in fact, she’d been a lot better off as a beauty than she had been plain and shabby and ignored. It was really her fault, for telling Kelly about the horse. I wondered what had broken the spell, or whatever it was—if we, with our camera, perhaps, had done it, by broadcasting the reality—but it didn’t matter now. It wasn’t as if I had a story; I didn’t need to tie up all the loose ends. Something else mattered more.

  I opened my mouth to ask her where the horse farm was, and stopped just in time. She’d want to know why I asked, and if I told her about Marcy she’d probably get mad. It had been a tragedy for her, she would be sure it couldn’t work right for anyone else. She probably never thought of it as wrong, or maybe wicked, until it turned bad for her. Women are like that: everything’s so personal to them. But Marcy was different. I could protect her, make sure nothing like this happened to her. Whatever the intent of this mysterious woman with magic horses, whatever the nature of the spell, it couldn’t possibly hurt Marcy with me to look out for her. I didn’t have to understand it; I just had to watch out for Marcy. I said good-bye and went back for a last visit with Kelly.

  Like I said, you can’t really blame Kelly. She’s too old for cute, but she’s still got that all-American grin with the dimple in the corner of her mouth, and if the gold in her hair will come from a bottle from now on, so what? I used a little subtle highlighting myself. She’s a good girl, a good wholesome small-town girl who liked all the right things: Mom, Pop, apple pie, the Tigers on the ten-yard line with a first down… and riding a golden horse down Main Street once a year with the American flag in her hand. It wasn’t Kelly’s fault that she got too much power too soon, that she had such limited dreams to freeze in the amber-gold of that palomino horse. She only wanted what we all want, to make the good times last forever.

  She understood that I only wanted the best for my daughter; if her father had been like me, things would have been different. She said Marcy sounded sweet, and she told me the truth when I asked her where the place was.

  I have this daughter I love so much it hurts, a girl brave and tough and wise beyond her years. She’s already learned to think of herself as homely. When the pretty girls walk by, when she sees the boys look after them, I can see her face stiffen, holding back the longing she’s too brave to show. She’s going to be fourteen next spring, and she wants a horse for her birthday.

  Unto the Daughters

  Nancy Kress

  Like Sheila Finch, Nebula award winner Nancy Kress deals with religion in a revisionist vein. All those millennia of theologians telling women what to believe and how to behave—and then the women go off and talk by themselves. “Unto the Daughters” would probably give such religious authorities nightmares (take that, John Milton!), but it seems perfectly reasonable—and hilarious in an ironic sort of way—to me.

  Ever want to know what the women are talking about when they’re alone? Read on, but at the risk of your assumptions.

  This is not the way you heard the story.

  In the beginning, the tree was young. White blossoms scenting the air for a quarter mile. Shiny succulent fruit, bending the same boughs that held blossoms. Leaves of that delicate yellow-green that cannot, will not, last. Yet it did. He always did have gaudy taste. No restraint. Just look at the Himalayas. Or blowfish. I mean—really!

  The woman was young, too. Pink curling toes, 228 breasts as barely budded as the apple blossoms. And the man! My dear, those long, firm flanks alone could make you ache inside for hours. He could run five miles and not even be winded. He could make love to the woman five times a day. And did.

  The flowers were young. The animals, tumbling and cavorting on the grass, were young. The fucking beach sand was young, clean evenly shaped grains that only yesterday had been igneous rock. There was virgin rain.

  Only I was old.

  But it wasn’t that. That was the first thing that came to your mind, wasn’t it? Jealousy of glorious youth, revenge by the dried-up and jaded. Oh, you don’t know, you sitting there so many centuries ahead. It wasn’t that at all. I mean, I loved them both.

  Looking at them, how could one not?

  “Go away,” Eve says. “I’m not going to eat one.” She sits cross-legged, braiding flowers into a crown. The flowers are about what you’d expect from Him, garish scarlet petals and a vulva-shaped pistil like a bad joke. Braiding them, her fingers are deft and competent. Some lion cubs tumble tiresomely on the grass. “I want to give you a reason why you should eat one,” I say, not gently. “I’ve heard all your reasons.” “Not this one, Eve. This is a new reason.” She isn’t interested. She knots the crown of flowers, puts it on her head, giggles, tosses it at the lions. It settles lopsided over one cub’s left ear. The cub looks up with comic surprise, and Eve explodes into laughter.

  Really, sometimes I wonder why I bother. She’s so stupid, compared to the man. I bother because she’s so stupid compared to the man.

  “Listen, Eve. He withholds knowledge from you two because He’s selfish. What else would you call it to keep knowledge to yourself when you could just as well share it?”

  “I don’t need knowledge,” Eve says airily. “What do I need knowledge for? And anyway, that’s not a new reason. You’ve said that before.”

  “A tree, Eve. A fucking tree. To invest knowledge in. Doesn’t that strike you as just a teeny bit warped? Mathematics in xylem, morality in fruit pulp? Astronomy rotting on the ground every time an apple falls. Don’t you wonder what kind of a mind would do that?”

  She only stares at me blankly. Oh, she’s dumb. I mean!

  I shout, in the temper of perfect despair, “Without knowledge, nothing will change!”

  “Are you here again?” Adam says. I
hadn’t heard him climb over the rock behind us. He has a very quiet footstep for someone whose toenails have never ever been cut, and a quiet, penetrating voice. Eve jumps up as if she’s been shot.

  “I thought I told you not to talk to this… thing ever again,” Adam says. “Did I tell you that?”

  Eve hangs her pretty head. “Yes, Adam. You did. I forgot.”

  He looks at her, and his face softens. That blooming skin, those sweet lips. Her hair falls forward, lustrous at night. I don’t think my despair can go any deeper, but it does. She is so pretty. He will always forgive her. And she will always forget everything he says two minutes after he says it.

  “Be gone! You don’t belong here!” Adam shouts, and throws a rock at me. It hits just behind my head. It hurts like hell. One of the lion cubs happily fetches it back, waggling a golden tail. The other one is still wearing the lopsided crown of flowers.

  As I slither away, half blind with pain, Eve calls after me. “I don’t want anything to change! I really don’t!”

  The hell with her.

  “Just listen,” I say. “Just put your entire tiny mind on one thing for once and listen to me.”

  Eve sits sewing leaves into a blanket. Not cross-legged anymore: She is six months pregnant. The leaves are wide and soft, with a sort of furry nap on their underside. They appeared in the garden right after she got pregnant, along with tough spiderwebs that make splendid thread. Why not a bush that grows little caps? Or tiny diapers with plastic fastening tabs? Really, He has such a banal imagination.

  Eve hums as she sews. Beside her is the cradle Adam made. It’s carved with moons and numbers and stars and other cabalistic signs: a lovely piece of work. Adam has imagination.

  “You have to listen, Eve. Not just hear—listen. Stop that humming. I know the future—how could I know the future unless I am exactly what I say I am? I know everything that’s going to happen. I told you when you’d conceive, didn’t I? That alone should have convinced you. And now I’m telling you that your baby will be a boy, and you’ll call him Cain, and he—”

  “No, I’m going to call him Silas,” Eve says. She knots the end of her spider thread and bites it off. “I love the name Silas.”

  “You’re going to call him Cain, and he—”

  “Do you think it would be prettier to embroider roses on this blanket, or daisies?”

  “Eve, listen, if I can foretell the future, then isn’t it logical, isn’t it reasonable for you to think—”

  “I don’t have to think,” Eve says. “Adam does that for both of us, plus all the forest-dressing and fruit-tending. He works so hard, poor dear.”

  “Eve— ”

  “Roses, I think. In blue.”

  I can’t stand it anymore. I go out into the constant, perpetual, monotonous sunshine, which smells like roses, like wisteria, like gardenia, like woodsmoke, like new-mown hay. Like heaven.

  Eve has the baby at nine months, thirty-two seconds. She laughs as the small head slides out, which takes two painless minutes. The child is perfect.

  “We’ll call him Cain,” Adam says.

  “I thought we might call him Silas. I love the na—”

  “Cain,” Adam says firmly.

  “All right, Adam.”

  He will never know she was disappointed.

  “Eve,” I say. “Listen.”

  She is bathing the two boys in the river, in the shallows just before the river splits into four parts and leaves the garden. Cain is diligently scrubbing his small perns, but Abel has caught at some seaweed and is examining how it hangs over his chubby fists. He turns it this way and that, bending his head close. He is much more intelligent than his brother.

  “Eve, Adam will be back soon. If you’d just listen…”

  “Daddy,” Abel says, raising his head. He has a level gaze, friendly but evaluative, even at his age. He spends a lot of time with his father. “Daddy gone.”

  “Oh, yes, Daddy’s gone to pick breadfruit in the west!” Eve cries, in a perfect ecstasy of maternal pride. “He’ll be back tonight, my little poppets. He’ll be home with his precious little boys!”

  Cain looks up. He has succeeded in giving his penis the most innocent of erections. He smiles beatifically at Abel, at his mother, who does not see him because she is scrubbing Abel’s back, careful not to drip soap-stone onto his seaweed.

  “Daddy pick breadfruit,” Abel repeats. “Mommy not.”

  “Mommy doesn’t want to go pick breadfruit,” Eve says. “Mommy is happy right here with her little poppets.”

  “Mommy not,” Abel repeats, thoughtfully.

  “Eve,” I say, “only with knowledge can you make choices. Only with truth can you be free. Four thousand years from now—”

  “I am free,” Eve says, momentarily startled. She looks at me. Her eyes are as fresh, as innocent, as when she was created. They open very wide. “How could anyone not think I’m perfectly free?”

  “If you’d just listen—”

  “Daddy gone,” Abel says a third time. “Mommy not.”

  “Even thirty seconds of careful listening—”

  “Mommy never gone.”

  “Tell that brat to shut up while I’m trying to talk to you!”

  Wrong, wrong. Fury leaps into Eve’s eyes. She scoops up both children as if I were trying to stone them, the silly bitch. She hugs them tight to her chest, breathing something from those perfect lips that might have been “Well!” or “Ugly!” or even “Help!” Then she staggers off with both boys in her arms, dripping water, Abel dripping seaweed.

  “Put Abel down,” Abel says dramatically. “Abel walk.”

  She does. The child looks at her. “Mommy do what Abel say!”

  I go eat worms.

  The third child is a girl, whom they name Sheitha.

  Cain and Abel are almost grown. They help Adam with the garden dressing, the animal naming, whatever comes up. I don’t know. I’m getting pretty sick of the whole lot of them. The tree still has both blossoms and fruit on the same branch. The river still flows into four exactly equal branches just beyond the garden: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euphrates. Exactly the same number of water molecules in each. I stop thinking He’s theatrical and decide instead that He’s compulsive. I mean—really. Fish lay the exact same number of eggs in each river.

  Eve hasn’t seen Him in decades. Adam, of course, walks with Him in the cool of every evening. Now the two boys go, too. Heaven knows what they talk about; I stay away. Often it’s my one chance at Eve, who spends every day sewing and changing diapers and sweeping bowers and slicing breadfruit. Her toes are still pink curling delicacies.

  “Eve, listen—”

  Sheitha giggles at a bluebird perched on her dimpled knee.

  “Adam makes all the decisions, decides all the rules, thinks up all the names, does all the thinking—”

  “So?” Eve says. “Sheitha—you precious little angel!” She catches the baby in her arms and covers her with kisses. Sheitha crows in delight.

  “Eve, listen—”

  Miraculously, she does. She sets the baby on the grass and says seriously, “Adam says you aren’t capable of telling the truth.”

  “Not his truth,” I say. “Or His.” But, of course, this subtlety of pronoun goes right over her head.

  “Look, snake, I don’t want to be rude. You’ve been very kind to me, keeping me company while I do my housework, and I appreciate—”

  “I’m not being kind,” I say desperately. Kind! Oh, my Eve… “I’m too old and tired for kindness. I’m just trying to show you, to get you to listen—”

  “Adam’s back,” Eve says quickly. I hear him then, with the two boys. There is just time enough to slither under a bush. I lie there very still. Lately Adam has turned murderous toward me; I think he must have a special dispensation for it. He must have told Adam violence toward me doesn’t count, because I have stepped out of my place. Which, of course, I have.

  But this time Adam doesn’t see me. The boys f
all into some game with thread and polished stones. Sheitha toddles toward her daddy, grinning.

  “We’re just here to get something to eat,” Adam says. “Ten minutes, is all—what, Eve, isn’t there anything ready? What have you been doing all morning?”

  Eve’s face doesn’t fall. But her eyes deepen in color a little, like skin that has been momentarily bruised. Of course, skin doesn’t stay bruised here. Not here.

  “I’m sorry, dear! I’ll get something ready right away!”

  “Please,” Adam says. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

  She bustles quickly around. The slim pretty fingers are deft as ever. Adam throws himself prone into a bower. Sheitha climbs into his lap. She is as precocious as the boys were.

  “Daddy go back?”

  “Yes, my little sweetie. Daddy has to go cut more sugarcane. And name some new animals.”

  “Animals,” Sheitha says happily. She loves animals. “Sheitha go.”

  Adam smiles. “No, precious, Sheitha can’t go. Little girls can’t go.”

  “Sheitha go!”

  “No,” Adam says. He is still smiling, but he stands up and she tumbles off his lap. The food is ready. Eve turns with a coconut shell of salad just as Sheitha is picking herself up. The baby stands looking up at her father. Her small face is crumpled in disappointment, in disbelief, in anguish. Eve stops her turning motion and looks, her full attention on Sheitha’s face.

  I draw a deep breath.

  The moment spins itself out, tough as spider thread.

  Eve breaks it. “Adam—can’t you take her?”

  He doesn’t answer. Actually, he hasn’t even heard her. He can’t, in exactly the same way Eve cannot hear Him in the cool of the evening.

  You could argue that this exempts him from fault.

  Eve picks up the baby and stands beside the bower. Fragrance rises from the newly crushed flower petals where Adam was lying. When he and the boys have left again, I slither forward. Eve, the baby in her arms, has still not moved. Her head is bent. Sheitha is weeping, soft tears of vexation that will not, of course last very long. Not here. I don’t have much time.