Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #222

by TTA Press Authors

  "Take your time,” said Ballantine, smiling. “You need to get your eye in.” He reached out and took her hand, placing her fingers on a small grooved disc at the base of the lens. “This adjusts the focus,” he said.

  She practised twisting the dial. She could see things in the water, spools of a greenish threadlike substance and bulbous brown spores that Ballantine said were a kind of algae. All these things interested her but it was the other thing she was looking for, the thrashing transparent monstrosity she had glimpsed before. Suddenly it shot into view. She could see now how it moved, propelling itself along with the spidery, whip-like tentacles that grew along the margins of its body. There were shadowy shapes inside it, coils and wisps of blue and red that could have been veins or some kind of rudimentary internal organs.

  The fact of the thing astounded her. She found it difficult to comprehend, that it existed and played out its life, but without the means of the microscope she might never have known it was there.

  "What's it called?” she said to Ballantine.

  "A paramecium,” he said. “A slipper animal."

  "Do you think it sees us?” she said. “Does it know it's trapped under the glass?"

  Ballantine moved to stand beside her. His long shadow fell across the microscope, darkening her field of vision. “That's an interesting question,” he said. “I should think we're light years from any kind of reasonable answer.” He reached out and touched her hair. It was a kind touch, the merest hint of a caress, but it disturbed her to have him so close. She drew back from his hand, thinking about the slipper animal. It occurred to her that a single barrel of water might contain millions of them; an invisible city, a universe, a microcosmos of unseeable beings.

  What can we know of them? she thought. We might never have an answer.

  "Do you know who you look like?” Ballantine said. “You look like your Aunt Chantal."

  Chantal was her mother's younger sister. Melodie had always known she had an aunt, but Bella had always told her she lived abroad. Then one evening at the end of winter she had come to the house. Melodie had just had time to take in her aunt's fair head and narrow waist, the black bag she had with her that looked like a doctor's bag, and then she had been sent to her room. Downstairs there had been supper and there had been an argument. Her mother had done most of the talking. Melodie had heard her shouting from the top of the stairs.

  She knew that Chantal meant singer, that her aunt's name had to do with music, like Melodie's own.

  "I've never met her,” she said to Ballantine. She put her eye back to the viewfinder. To her surprise there were now two slipper animals. They confronted one another for a moment, then slid noiselessly past, like two buses on a narrow road. The idea that Ballantine knew her aunt somehow was thrilling and dangerous, like something in a spy story. It seemed to bind them together in some mysterious, underground way.

  "What will you do with the creatures once we've finished looking at them?"

  "I don't know,” he said. “What would you like me to do with them?"

  "Put them back in the water outside."

  "All right,” he said. “I will."

  "They look like monsters."

  "Invisible monsters.” He picked up the flask with the rest of the water and held it up to the light. “We're surrounded by them."

  There was the sound of a car outside. Ballantine moved quickly away from her and crossed through into the hall. Melodie got down from the stool. She listened to the low, puttering hum of the engine, the slide and crunch of wheels on gravel. There was the sound of a car door slamming and then her mother's voice, raised in anger.

  "What have you done with my daughter?"

  Ballantine answered, his tone low and measured. She couldn't make out what he said. A moment later her mother appeared. She was wearing the mirror sunglasses she kept in the glove compartment. They made her look young and hard. It was impossible to gauge her mood.

  "I thought I told you not to go in the house?"

  "It was hot in the drive,” said Melodie. “Mr Ballantine said it would be safer if I came inside."

  She dropped the word safer with a soft thud, the ace she had kept hidden in her hand. Her mother hesitated then shrugged. She turned away then, and Melodie knew she had got away with it, that Bella Craven had decided to let her disobedience go unpunished. She was carrying a nylon string bag, its narrow blue handles twisted about her fingers. The bag was full of provisions. Melodie saw the stained greaseproof paper that meant there was some kind of meat.

  The kitchen was a brick-built extension, tacked onto the side of the house like an outside privy or a coal store. There was a concrete floor and a scrubbed pine table, an enormous stained porcelain sink. The fridge was vast and upright, like a steel coffin turned on its end. The inside was stacked with glass jam jars, full of what looked like mud.

  "You shouldn't keep food in here,” said Bella. Red patches stood out on her cheeks.

  "It's perfectly safe,” said Ballantine. “There's nothing to worry about."

  Bella stepped up to the table and began to unload the provisions. When she turned on the tap above the sink a trickle of brownish water spluttered out. Melodie watched as she rinsed the potatoes and carrots, working at the dirt with the pads of her fingers. She was surprised to see her using the water straight from the tap. At home she boiled everything.

  Her father came in from the car carrying two cases of bottled water. He steadied himself against the doorpost, easing one of the cartons onto the floor.

  "Don't leave it there, Doug,” said Bella. “It'll get in the way."

  The meal was served in the dining room, which was a curtained alcove just off the hallway. The meat was leathery and a little salty but Bella had done her best with it, steeping it in a sauce made from onions and the orange Ceps mushrooms that for some reason had been plentiful in the town. Bella Craven had always been able to make a little go a long way. She prided herself on that fact.

  They ate in near-silence. At one point Doug asked Ballantine if he could get a radio signal at the house, and Ballantine said he could, though it was intermittent.

  "I don't really miss it, though,” he said. “Except for the music."

  Melodie finished her food and then asked if she could go to the bathroom. She felt anxious without knowing why. The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, a narrow closet of the old-fashioned type that used a sandbox instead of the new chemicals. Beside the closet a steep flight of steps led to the upper floor. At the top of the stairs was a long landing with a window at either end and two rooms leading off. In one room a large hooded perambulator stood under the window, surrounded by stacks of packing cases. The other contained a large iron bedstead and was obviously where Ballantine slept. There was a photograph on the night stand, a woman with light hair and a birthmark high up on one cheek.

  Melodie crept back down the stairs. From the dining room she could hear her mother, her voice lowered but bitter with complaint. Through a gap in the curtain she could see all three of them around the table, the welter of dirty dishes pushed to one side.

  "I'm only here because Chantal made me promise,” said Bella Craven. “Don't you go thinking I like it."

  "Aren't you going to tell me how she is?” said Ballantine. “I'm presuming you intercepted all my letters.” There was a force of violence in his voice that hadn't been there before. His eagle's face looked stricken, his pale eyes coldly crystalline. He leaned forward as he spoke, one hand making a fist.

  "She's recovering, no thanks to you,” said Bella. “She doesn't want to see you again."

  "I don't believe you."

  "It's a wonder she hasn't gone crazy,” said Bella. “You and your insane life, your foul experiments.” She sounded close to tears. Melodie remembered the last time she had seen her mother cry, when she had run over a cat that had been crossing the road in front of their house. She had screamed at Melodie, who had been in the back seat of the car looking at the road atlas. She lik
ed the road atlas, with its coloured symbols for churches and wind farms and viaducts, the journeys you could go on simply by turning the page.

  "Chantal isn't crazy,” said Ballantine. “She has a brilliant mind, which you have done your best to stifle."

  "Let's stop this,” said Douglas Craven. “This isn't going to do any good.” He tried to take his wife's hand but she pulled it away. “Will you come back with us tonight?” he said to Ballantine. “You'd be much better off in the city. This isn't a good place to be."

  Ballantine turned to him, his piercing eyes softening a little. “Thank you Doug, but this is my home."

  "This is hopeless,” said Bella. “Vile. I knew we should never have come here. Where in God's name is Melodie?"

  Melodie coughed loudly and came back through the curtain. The three adults turned to look at her.

  "We're leaving,” said Bella. “Get yourself into the car.” She started to clear the table. Doug Craven rubbed at his eyes.

  "I'll just go and check the lights,” he said.

  Then it was just the two of them. He stared at her, seemingly entranced. For a second she was afraid he might grab hold of her but at the last minute his resolve appeared to desert him. His hands fell limp to his sides.

  "Wait,” he said. “Wait here.” He disappeared into the hall. Melodie waited, listening to the sound of her mother loading the dishes into the steam cleaner. In a few moments Ballantine returned. He held something out to her, a square white envelope. There was no name written on the envelope, though she could feel there was something inside it, several sheets of paper folded in half.

  "Will you do something for me?” he said. He leaned forward slightly, putting his face close to hers. “Will you give this to your aunt when you next see her? It doesn't matter when that is. It doesn't matter if it's years from now. Just give her this and tell her it came from me."

  The blue of his eyes was shimmering, lucent, a pale bright turquoise. Melodie took the letter and put it inside her purse. Ballantine touched the top of her head, so gently she could barely feel his hand.

  "It's like seeing her face,” he said. “It's almost as if you were sent."

  Suddenly her mother appeared. She pulled Melodie against her, snatching at her shoulders and arms. Her hands were damp with steam.

  "Into the car,” she said to her. To Ballantine she said nothing at all. Melodie went outside. Her father was standing by the car. As she watched he came over to Ballantine and handed him something, a small bundle that might have been money.

  "Think about what I said,” he said. “If you need anything just call.” Then he got into the car. From the back seat Melodie saw him put his hand on his wife's knee but Bella refused to look at him.

  The engine coughed into life. The wheels caught on the gravel and they were away. Melodie gazed back at the house. Ballantine was still standing there, looking towards the car, looking at her. She hugged her red plastic purse and said his name to herself, touching the back of her teeth with the tip of her tongue.

  It began to get dark. They drove for more than an hour until at last the lights of the rest stop glimmered up towards them through the dusk. Her father parked the car and they got out. Melodie stood on the cracked tarmac breathing in the smells of diesel and scorched undergrowth. She wondered if Ballantine were still standing there in the doorway, looking out on the bramble and nettles that had once been the lake. She wondered what moved in its depths, what invisible monsters. What secrets that might yet come forth.

  Copyright © 2009 Nina Allan

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  [Back to Table of Contents]

  YS—Aliette De Bodard

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  Illustrated by Mark Pexton

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  Aliette de Bodard is a half-French, half-Vietnamese writer who lives in Paris. She has now made several appearances in Interzone—look out for another, ‘They Come Bearing Gifts', in a future issue—and recently made her debut in our sister magazine Black Static. Aliette was recently shortlisted for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She is currently working on a novel (her third), which will involve Aztecs, blood magic and hungry ghosts. Visit aliettedebodard.com for more information.

  * * * *

  September, and the wind blows Françoise back to Quimper, to roam the cramped streets of the Old City amidst squalls of rain.

  She shops for clothes, planning the colours of the baby's room; ambles along the deserted bridges over the canals, breathing in the smell of brine and wet ivy. But all the while she's aware that she's only playing a game with herself—she knows she's only pretending that she hasn't seen the goddess.

  It's hard to forget the goddess—that cold radiance that blew salt into Françoise's hair, the dress that shimmered with all the colours of sunlight on water, the sharp glimmer of steel in her hand.

  You carry my child, the goddess had said, and it was so. It had always been so.

  Except, of course, that Stéphane hadn't understood. He'd seen it as a betrayal, blaming her for not taking the pill as she should have—oh, not overtly, he was too stiff-necked and too well-educated for that, but all the same, she'd heard the words he wasn't saying, in every gesture, in every pained smile.

  So she left. So she came back here, hoping to see Gaetan. If there's anyone who knows about goddesses and myths, it's Gae-tan, who used to go from house to house writing down legends from Brittany. But Gaetan isn't here, isn't answering her calls. Maybe he's off on another humanitarian mission, incommunicado again, as he's so often been.

  Françoise's cell phone rings—but it's only the alarm clock, reminding her that she has to work out at the gym before her appointment with the obstetrician.

  With a sigh, she turns towards the nearest bus stop, fighting a rising wave of nausea.

  * * * *

  "It's a boy,” the obstetrician says, staring at the sonographs laid on his desk.

  Françoise, who has been readjusting the straps of her bra, hears the reserve in his voice. “There's something else I should know?"

  He doesn't answer for a while. At last he looks up, his grey eyes carefully devoid of all feelings. His bad-news face, she guesses. “Have you ... held back on something, Ms Martin? In your family's medical history?"

  A hollow forms in her stomach, draining the warmth from her limbs. “What do you mean?"

  "Nothing to worry about,” he says, slowly, and she can hear the not yet he's not telling her. “You'll have to make an appointment with a cardiologist. For a fetal echocardiograph."

  She's not stupid. She read books about pregnancies, when it became obvious that she couldn't bring herself to abort—to kill an innocent child. She knows about echocardiographs, and that the prognosis is not good. “Birth defect?” she asks, from some remote place in her mind.

  He sits, all prim and stiff—what she wouldn't give to shake him out of his complacency. “Congenital heart defect. Most probably a deformed organ. It won't pump enough blood into the veins."

  "But you're not sure.” He's sending her for further tests. It means there's a way out, doesn't it? It means...

  He doesn't answer, but she reads his reply in his gaze all the same. He's ninety-percent sure, but he will still do the tests, to confirm.

  She leaves the surgery, feeling ... cold. Empty. In her hands is a thick cream envelope: her sonographs, and the obstetrician's diagnosis neatly typed and folded alongside.

  Possibility of heart deformation, the paper notes, dry, uncaring.

  Back in her apartment, she takes the sonographs out, spreads them on the bed. They look ... well, it's hard to tell. There's the trapeze shape of the womb, and the white outline of the baby—the huge head, the body curled up. Everything looks normal.

  If only she could fool herself. If only she was dumb enough to believe her own stories.

  Evening falls over Quimper—she hears the bells of the nearby church tolling for Vespers. She settles at her working table
, and starts working on her sketches again.

  It started as something to occupy her, and now it's turned into an obsession. With pencil and charcoal she rubs in new details, with the precision she used to apply to her blueprints—and then withdraws, to stare at the paper.

  The goddess stares back at her, white and terrible and smelling of things below the waves. The goddess as she appeared, hovering over the sand of Douarmenez Bay, limned by the morning sun: great and terrible and alien.

  Françoise's hands are shaking. She clenches her fingers, unclenches them, and waits until the tremors have passed.

  This is real. This is now, and the baby is a boy, and it's not normal. It's never been normal.

  * * * *

  That night, as on every night, Françoise dreams that she walks once more on the beach at Douarnenez, hearing the drowned bells tolling the midnight hour. The sand is cold, crunching under her bare feet.

  She stands before the sea, and the waves part, revealing stone buildings eaten by kelp and algae, breached seawalls where lobsters and crabs scuttle. Everything is still dripping with brine, and the wind in her ears is the voice of the storm.

  The goddess is waiting for her, within the largest building—in a place that must once have been a throne room. She sits in a chair of rotten wood, lounging on it like a sated cat. Beside her is a greater chair, made of stone, but it's empty.

  "You have been chosen,” she says, her words the roar of the waves. “Few mortals can claim such a distinction."

  I don't want to be chosen, Françoise thinks, as she thinks on every night. But it's useless. She can't speak—she hasn't been brought here for that. Just so that the goddess can look at her, trace the minute evolutions in her body, the progress of the pregnancy.

  In the silence, she hears the baby's heartbeat, a pulse that's so quick it's bound to falter. She hears the obstetrician's voice: the heart is deformed.