Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  Then there is confusion. The red light extinguishes, and white beams flash in the darkness. They catch and glint off white metal—glittering eyes, gleaming brows—the silver masks of the gendarmes.

  Hidden in my cubby, my scent as obscured as my body, they do not detect me. They converge on a single spot, Pena, huddled between shelves.

  “By order of the queen, you are hereby accused and convicted of treason,” one gendarme says.

  I cannot smell anything over the sickening jasmine, but I can see the terror on her face. She glances at me, and there is a beseeching in her eyes, and a question, but she looks away before I can understand it.

  “The penalty for treason is death, citizen,” a gendarme, perhaps the same one, says. “Do you wish to repent? Identify your co-conspirators, and we will allow you to return to the way of the mask.”

  Pena lifts her head. “Never.”

  They don’t ask again. They activate their loops, and I’m reminded of the day of the saffron mask. I’m ashamed of the gladness I felt then.

  They don’t skin her, but this is as gruesome, if swifter. A gendarme kneels over her as she is pinioned on her back by bands of blue. Bracing himself, he staves in her face with his fist. I want to look away. It is an obscene violation, a perverse defilement to damage a citizen there—to do any violence which might cause harm to a mask. But Pena isn’t wearing a mask, and I don’t look away.

  He strikes again and again until there is nothing left of the front of her head but a wreckage of bone and pulped wetness.

  9. The last mask.

  The gendarmes are as efficient in disposing of Pena’s body as they were in dispatching her. When they have gone, the red light comes on, and I dare to creep out. As I untangle myself from a length of burgundy velvet, my hand falls upon an unmistakable shape—Pena’s green and toffee mask. The sight of it, so soon after the atrocity of her execution, unhinges me. I start crying, and I cannot stop. But it doesn’t matter, because her mask will hide my tears.

  Somehow, I make it to Center at Corridor and the familiar confines of my quarters. Safe.

  But I am not safe. I cannot forget the First Queen’s memories, which the gendarmes would surely kill me for having, and more, I cannot erase the beseeching question in Pena’s eyes.

  I tear off her mask. It’s not the unmasking hour, but I don’t care. I’m weary of masks, even a blameless one without an oversoul. Pena’s death burdens me with shame and guilt—like being flayed again, but with the pain inside.

  I am surrounded by masks. Each is a player in some fabricated theater—artist, victim, rake, entrepreneur, lover, spouse, friend. None of them is real, but I can put them on and escape these feelings.

  But I won’t.

  One after the other, I destroy my masks. The ones that shatter are the easiest. I hurl them at the floor and shards spill across the tile. The ones that burn, I commit to fire. But the metal ones I must work at, smashing one upon another until they are twisted out of all recognition.

  I save the sable mask for last out of a sense of propriety. Although it is metal, it is oddly malleable, and it crumbles between my hands. The lenses fall out of the eyeholes and tumble among the broken bits of ceramic and glass on my floor.

  I stand amidst the debris that was my life and don the only mask I spared, Pena’s green and toffee one.

  * * *

  My lover glances at me in her cerulean-with-voile mask, and lets me in. She thinks I am her servant girl.

  “Where did you go?” she demands. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you? And where is my suitor?”

  Her quarters are much like mine, much like every citizen’s. There is a mask room, a kitchen, and a bedchamber. I brush past her, and she follows, continuing to scold as we enter her kitchen. I find what I need in one of the drawers: a tenderizer mallet, heavy and solid. Even when I turn with it upraised, she doesn’t relent.

  “Are you ignoring me, you slut?” she shouts. “How dare you!”

  Only when I yank off her mask does she become afraid, and by then, it’s too late.

  I smash the mallet into her face. She stumbles, and I ride her as she goes down, hammering the metal tool into her face over and over. Bones and flesh mash together into pulp, and still I persist. I must be thorough.

  Pena did not have time to teach me the secrets of her league of named. But through her, I have learned enough. I have seen how the gendarmes kill. I do not have their loops or their strength, but I know how to murder so that my victims will not wake.

  Pena also taught me to know who I am.

  I am chaos in this ordered society, the flaw in a carefully wrought plan. I am turbulence in the queen’s eternal river.

  Requiem Duet, Concerto for Flute and Voodoo, by Eugie Foster

  Movement 1:

  I could ignore the boys at school. By and large, they left me alone. Guess I wasn't pretty enough or interesting enough to be worth their attention, which was fine by me. It wasn't like I wanted to cram my feet in suicide heels or dangle door-knockers from my ears like some hoochie bimbo, anyway. But the girls were trouble. Since Mom and I had moved from Chicago to New Orleans into the pink and yellow house Gran had left us, they'd honed in on me like they had something to prove.

  "What's the matter, Zoë? You goin' cry?" Kyana especially took my existence as an insult. She dangled my backpack from one hand; the other rested on her cocked hip. Around us, Kyana's crew packed closer.

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the alley wall. "What are you? Seven? Like I care if you dump my Social Studies book in the bayou." I hid the battering thud-ump of my heart in my throat, my mouth dry as sand.

  The backpack held a couple school books, some scribbles of homework, and a pencil or two. No big loss. Except today, I'd shoved Dad's gudi flute inside when the voice in my head warned me to get it out of sight, a second before the girls from school came at me.

  "What'd you call me?" Kyana's eyes narrowed.

  "Too subtle for you? I'll break it down. You sound like you get your lines from B-movies. I mean, does it get any lamer than 'you gonna cry?'"

  Kyana's hands curled into fists, and she let my backpack tumble to the alley's muddy ground. The tip of Dad's flute, made from the fragile wing bone of a crane, glinted from the half-open bag. More than anything, I had to keep them away from it.

  "You ain't nobody here," Kyana spat. "You mouth off all big, but you ain't."

  "Look who's talking. The littlest nobody in nobody's-ville."

  "Say what?"

  "Geez, I wasn't using big words."

  Kyana slapped me. Surprise rocked me almost as much as her stinging palm. I'd seen it, watched it happen back in Illinois, but never been the target of real violence before.

  She swung again, and I shoved her away. Hard. Harder than I expected. She stumbled and fell onto the muddy ground. A gasp, a moment of laden silence, and half a dozen outraged faces turned to me. Not good.

  "Bitch."

  "Freak."

  Like birds swooping, the girls plucked debris from the alley floor.

  Duck! The warning rang in my head.

  I ducked. A rock missed my face by inches, shattering on the wall at my back.

  Look out!

  A jagged hail flew at me. I couldn't move fast enough. My thigh lit with pain as something slammed into it, and before I could yelp, a piece of rubble hit my shoulder. I went sprawling. The other girls stampeded at me, kicking and scratching.

  I curled into a ball. Voices clamored in my head, garbled and deafening, flash-bulb counterpoints to the thud of blows.

  Suddenly, the abuse stopped. Like a storm blown out, Kyana and crew dissipated, the sound of running feet scattering.

  "Konmen to yê? Can you get up?" A guy's voice, thickly accented.

  I uncurled, ears still buzzing, my body a raw ache from neck to ankles. "I-I think so."

  I first thought my rescuer was an old man, slender as a whippet in his oversized shirt, but his face had no wrinkles
. He was probably my age, maybe a year or two older. But his pale hair, not blond but chalk white, gave the impression of "old." It swung around his ears in short dreadlocks, the ends ornamented with twists of metal, colored beads, and knotted string.

  He leaned down, hand outstretched.

  I hesitated. The pallor of his hair created an eerie contrast against the darkness of his face, made the whites of his eyes luminous.

  Go ahead, the voice in my head murmured.

  I reached up. Hand to hand, his skin wasn't much darker than mine.

  He hauled me up. "You want en ambulance?" Ambulance came out with a drawl at the end, partway between a Southern accent and a French one.

  I pulled away. "Nothing's broken, I don't think."

  "You are bleeding."

  I glanced down at my torn pants where a dark wetness spread through the gash at my thigh. "Whoa." The sight left me dizzy, and I reached to the alley wall for support.

  The stranger kneeled and pulled the tear wider with a jerk.

  "Hey!"

  "Your leg, c'est pa bon if glass remains."

  "Glass?"

  He nodded at the shard of soda bottle lying nearby. "They do not like you, it seems." He squinted at the wound, and before I could stop him, he dipped a hand beneath his shirt and came out with a sprinkle of white powder to toss over the cut.

  "What're you doing?"

  He glanced up. "For the bleeding and pain. So you do not faint."

  "I won't faint. I've never fainted in my life, even when Dad--" Then I remembered the flute. Pushing past him, I stumbled to my backpack.

  "Oh, no," I groaned. "Dad's gudi."

  Someone had stepped on my pack, by accident or on purpose, it didn't matter. Although still in one piece, slivers splintered off the bone instrument, leaving gaping holes and cracks cobwebbing its length. I lifted it, cradling it as though it were a hurt animal.

  "Your pape, he be glad it was the flute and not your bones treated so rough."

  "I doubt it. He's dead." Furious, I kicked my bag, remembering too late what a bad idea that was. But the pain was muted, not the zing of a fresh cut. I leaned to inspect my thigh. Whatever he'd thrown on, it worked great; the bleeding had stopped, and it hardly hurt at all.

  "Then you be glad bone mends," he said. "Dead bone easiest of all. Vien à Campo Santo, come to me."

  "Huh--?" I unbent too fast and had to shut my eyes against the woozies. When I opened them, he was gone. Neat disappearing act. Also, kinda creepy.

  By the time I got home, my head had joined ranks with the rest of me, throbbing and complaining. All I wanted was to flop in bed and sleep until tomorrow, or next week, or forever. But Mom would do a deep ender when she got home from work if she saw me battered and bloodied. So I stripped off my pants and the soiled polo shirt and dumped them in the washer. I hated that the schools here had a uniform policy, and these were secondhand and ill-fitting to boot. All the same, I hoped they could be saved. We couldn't afford replacements.

  In the stark bathroom light, I cataloged my injuries.

  'Least you didn't get kicked in the face. Rufus's voice. I'd named him after a cartoon character from my childhood. I'd named them all: Millie with her mellow voice and motherly advice; Rufus, squeaky and teasing; and Uncle Grim, grump and plushy umpa in one.

  "To make up for it, they kicked me extra hard everywhere else," I said. A bump swelled my shoulder, red and painful, and bruises blossomed up my arms and down my back. "You might've told me that stupid alley was a dead end."

  Then you'd never learn how to walk through walls.

  "Ha ha." I wasn't mad, not really. Sometimes they don't think like people do, don't get how constrained I am by wheres and whens.

  But I can count on them. They've always been there for me. Uncle Grim, always upfront the way grown-ups never are, told me about Dad.

  I'd been watching TV in my room, can't even remember the show now.

  Your father just died.

  Don't know how long I sat there with everything gone to static in my head and my chest tight as a tripwire. It never occurred to me not to believe Uncle Grim; none of them have ever lied to me.

  When the phone rang, Millie told me I had to go to Mom, to reach her before she got to the phone. I didn't make it in time. I caught her as she collapsed, sobbing, to the linoleum.

  I taped a square of first-aid gauze over the gash before pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved raglan. Situation dealt with, my legs began to shake. Right on cue. Take care of business first, then lose it. It's how I work. I didn't cry at Dad's funeral. Still haven't.

  I sagged to the floor, shivering. Glass. They'd thrown glass at me.

  What if that guy hadn't come along?

  You're stronger than them, Uncle Grim's gruff voice chased the "what if" images away.You'll be fine.

  I gulped a mouthful of air. "Uncle Grim, what am I going to do about Dad's gudi?"

  In my tiny room, the flute rested on my bed. Dad had been the only one who'd ever played it, his breath transformed into sounds of wings and water. I'd wanted to learn how to make those sounds so I could keep that part of him alive. I'd even gotten up the nerve to ask the school music teacher if she knew someone to teach me. She seemed nice and asked to see the gudi. A pretty harmless request. But now I'd never play it. No one would.

  Tomorrow, Uncle Grim said. Take it to Campo Santo.

  "Campo Santo? What that guy in the alley said?"

  No more chit-chat, Rufus called before Uncle Grim could answer. Mommy's home.

  I had time to wrap the flute in my softest t-shirt and tuck it into my pack before the jangle of keys sounded from the front door. Time to put on my best lying face.

  Movement 2:

  The next day, I dreaded seeing Kyana at school. But she wasn't in homeroom for roll call, didn't show for English or Algebra or P.E. Without her as ringleader, no one tripped or pinched me all morning. It was turning into one of the best school days I'd had here. At least until lunch, when I caught Michelle gesturing with her index finger and pinky in some obscene salute behind my back. Of course, the other girls picked it up, and everywhere I turned, I saw finger horns aimed at me.

  Still, it was better than being pelted with glass.

  As soon as the last bell rang, I hurried out the school's double doors. I was not going to let them corner me again. I jogged the several blocks to Arts Street, my leg not even peeping at the workout, but when I came to Independence Square, Uncle Grim stopped me.

  That way.

  "That way" from a disembodied voice is not on par with Mapquest directions, but this time, I didn't need more specifics. A block away, a black gate marked the entrance of an aboveground cemetery. Two alabaster statues flanked the gate, one of a woman with hands steepled in prayer, the other with them folded over her chest. Curlicue iron letters formed "Saint Roch's" in an arch with smaller lettering beneath that read "Campo Santo."

  "This is creep factor on steroids, guys."

  Zombies and vampires and ghouls, oh my! Rufus chanted. Zombies and vampires and ghouls, oh my!

  "Oh, shut up." I stepped through the towering gate onto a paved walkway. Mausoleums, like rows of little stone houses, lined the avenue. Stone doors faced out, some with elaborate entrances complete with steps and guardrails, as though the residents might pop out for a stroll at any time.

  I kept to the path's middle, as far from the doors as I could get.

  Once, years and years ago, I'd asked the voices if they were ghosts. Millie told me I was being rude. There's no arguing etiquette with her. I never asked again.

  A bigger-than-belief crucifix on a stone mound marked the lone intersection--a cross within a cross. At the white feet of the stone Jesus, a statue of a little girl reclined, sleeping or dead, a wreath of alabaster flowers in her hands. The path ended behind them in a tiny chapel while more tombs bordered the crossroad.

  "Zombies and vampires and statues, oh my," I muttered. "Okay, now what? Should I yell or whistle o
r something? I don't even know the guy's name."

  Maurin, Uncle Grim said. It's Maurin.

  "Maurin? Maurin what?"

  "Bonjou." The voice came from my back.

  I yelled and spun around.

  As silent as any ghost, the guy from yesterday stood in the shadows of a marble-gray tomb.

  "How is it you know me, ti fii? Maybe I be flattered they still talk of Maurin the Hollow." He pursed his lips. "Or maybe not."

  My heart slowed from its gallop. "Tifi--what? I'm sorry, I don't speak--is it French?"

  He arched an eyebrow as white as his hair. "Not French. Kréyol Lwizyàn. You do not know this city's past, its culture, yet you know me?"

  "I just moved here--"

  "And still my name falls like dépomm-yé labouch," he drawled.

  I blinked. "De-huh?"

  Dépomm-yé labouch "like fruit from your mouth," Millie whispered.

  Poetic, sort of. But since when did Millie speak Creole?

  "Who gossips of me in your ear?" Maurin asked.

  Go ahead, Uncle Grim said. Tell him about us.

  "Uh." I bit my lip. "There's three voices who tell me things. No one else hears them, but I'm not schizo. Really."

  Maurin relaxed, the tension pouring from him like water. "Ah, the loa. They know me well and may speak of me as they like." He bowed shoulders and head. "We shall call iyèr, yesterday, professional courtesy then. Mais the next time you send your loa to fetch me, I expect appropriate compensation."

  He turned to go.

  "Wait!"

  He glanced back.

  "You said something yesterday about mending Dad's flute?"

  Maurin grinned, the whites of his teeth brilliant. "Come into lamézon." He gestured with a flourish at the chapel.

  I wasn't ready to go anywhere with him. I crossed my arms. "For the record, I didn't send any loa the other day. I don't even know what a loa is."

  He eyed me sideways. "You call them something else? The mystères, the invisibles, the spirits, perhaps?"

  "My voices?"

  "Wè. The ones you serve."

  "I don't serve anyone. They're my friends."