The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven

by Jonathan Strahan

  Jack always dressed for poker. Tonight he was wearing a loosely tailored silk suit, deep-sea green, with a yellow shirt and a mauve tie, undone and draped around his neck. His ropy brown hair was cut rough, as if he’d hacked at it himself when drunk one night, or, as someone once said, as if he’d gone to a blind barber. The furniture in the room was old and carved, somehow heavy, graceful, and comfortable all at once, with influences both French and Chinese. The mahogany table and chairs carried so many layers, generations, of lacquer and polish that neither spilled drinks nor the sharp edges of those obscene good luck charms from Laos that some gamblers liked to fondle could possibly harm them. Even the drink stands by each player looked like they might once have held champagne flutes at Versailles (in fact, they’d originally served as writing platforms for a poetry contest a very long time ago).

  Neither the drinks nor the furniture held anyone’s attention right now. It was ten in the morning, twelve hours since Mr. Dickens, the white-haired dealer with the long spidery fingers, had given out the first cards. There were nine players—always nine in Jack’s games—but everyone knew that only two of them counted. Jack Gamble and the Blindfolded Norwegian Girl. Jack thought of her that way because she’d once won an online tournament with a block up to stop her ever looking at her cards, playing the players instead of her hand. The Girl had been playing poker since she was fifteen, and pro almost that long, and yet she looked, Jack thought, all sweet and round, like she belonged more at a PTO bake sale than a game with a million dollars on the table. There were some who thought she might be that rarest of creatures, a Secret Traveler, but Jack was sure that whatever talent she had was rooted in poker.

  Though he played in the highest stakes games Jack was not a pro. Poker just was not his only source of income. Some years it wasn’t even the largest, though in others it was all that paid the bills. Pro or not, Jack knew something about cards. Right now he held a pair of tens, spade and club, a decent hand in Hold Em, where two cards was all you got, and you had to combine them with five face-up “community” cards on the table to try and make your own best five card hand. The five card “board” had come up ten, king, seven, all hearts, and then a nine, again a heart, and finally a second king, the king of clubs. So Jack had a full house, three tens and two kings, nearly a dream hand, but the Girl had gone all in, and now the nearly was making him crazy.

  She could easily have a straight, or better yet, a flush, all she’d need for that is for one of her two cards to be a heart to go along with the four hearts on the board. Those were good hands, enough really for someone to ship all her money into the pot. But suppose she had a king-seven, or a king-nine? Then she’d have kings full, three kings and a pair, and there was no greater curse in Hold Em than for someone else to have a bigger full house. And she’d put her money in on the king, not the fourth heart. She could have just been waiting, but if he called, and lost, it would leave him with a long haul to get back even.

  He glanced at Charlie, but the old man sat so still he might have been a clay dealer buried with a Chinese emperor. There was no clock for the girl to call on Jack the way she might have done in some casino tournament, but Jack knew she could ask Charlie and he would tell her to the second how long Jack had been deliberating. Jack leaned back in his chair, turned a single black chip over and over.

  He was almost ready to fold—that damn tell seemed too obvious to be real—when he saw something that wasn’t there. Barely visible even to him, and just for an instant, a golden foxtail swept along the first four cards on the board, the hearts, lingering just for a moment on the king. Jack kept his face stone but he could feel a shock like an electric current in the long scar that traced his right jawbone. A flush! The Girl had the ace of hearts, and the four hearts on the table had given her a lock—if all she needed was a flush. She’d gone all in because how could you not, but she knew it was a risk—and now she’d lost.

  Jack was just about to move in his chips when behind him the door opened. Jack’s hand froze no more than an inch from his chips. Just a few seconds more, he thought, just this one call. But it was no use. He knew no one but the hotel owner, Irene Yao, would ever have opened that door without being summoned, and Irene would open it for one reason only. Someone had shown up with Jack Shade’s business card. As if he needed any more proof, her soft voice, its rough edge of age worn smooth with grace, said simply, “Mr. Shade.” It was only Mr. Shade when it was business.

  “Miss Yao,” Jack said, and turned around, and of course there it was, as always, on a small silver tray, a cream-colored card that contained only four lines: “John Shade,” and below that, “Traveler,” then Hotel de Reve Noire, New York, and in the final line no words, only a silhouette of a chess piece, the horse-head knight in the classic design named for nineteenth-century chess master Howard Staunton.

  Jack nodded to the Girl. “I fold,” he said. Just a few seconds more. But the rule was simple: everything stopped when the black knight appeared. He stood up and nodded to the dealer. “Mr. Dickens,” he said, “will you please cash in my chips and hold the money till I return?”

  “Of course,” the old man said.

  Harry Barnett, a pork trader from Detroit, said, “What the hell? You’re cashing in? Just like that? I flew in for this game. I had to wait two goddamn months for a seat. And now you’re just leaving?”

  The Girl stared at him, her apple-pie face suddenly all planes and angles. “Shut up, Harry,” she said, and though Barnett opened his angry mouth nothing came out. To Jack, the Girl said, “A pleasure to play with you, Jack.”

  “You too, Annette,” Shade said, then followed Irene out the door.

  Jack Shade met his clients in a small office on the hotel’s second floor. All that made it an office really was Jack’s use of it. There were no computers or file cabinets, not even any phones. The only furniture was an old library table and three red leather chairs. The only amenity was a cut-glass decanter filled with water and two heavy crystal glasses.

  The client’s name was William Barlow, “Will,” as he said to call him. Mr. Barlow didn’t look whimsical enough for Will. With his thin hair and saggy cheeks and his small nervous eyes he looked about sixty-five but was probably no more than fifty. Overweight and lumpy, despite his expensive suit’s attempt to smooth him, he breathed heavily, as if he’d just run up and down Irene’s polished ebony stairs. It probably was just stress. People were never at their best when they came to see John Shade.

  “Mr. Barlow,” Jack said, “do you mind telling me how you got my card?”

  “It was my wife’s,” Barlow said, and his head turned slightly to the left, as if he might find her standing there. “When she—when I was going through her things—I found it. In a jewelry drawer. It’s not—not a place I ever would have looked when she was…”

  Alive, Jack thought. He asked, “Do you have any sense of just why your wife had my card?”

  “You must have given it to her. Some time ago? Do you teach workshops? I mean, Alice used to go to a lot of workshops.”

  “I don’t teach,” Jack said.

  Barlow squinted at Jack. “What do you do?”

  “You came to see me, Mr. Barlow. May I ask why?”

  Now Barlow seemed intent on studying the grain in the table. “Strange things have been happening,” he said. “Really—” He took a breath. “At first I thought I was dreaming—it was at night mostly—but then it started during the day, and I thought—” He stopped, stared at his hands in his lap. “I thought maybe I was—you know—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but a moment later looked up. “But then I thought, maybe, what if I wasn’t? What if it was all real? Alice was into all this—all this strange stuff. If anyone could find a way—but what if she was suffering? Mr. Shade, I couldn’t stand that.”

  Jack said, “Do you mind telling me about the strange things?”

  As if he hadn’t heard the question Barlow went on, “I was supposed to go first. I mean, look at me. Alice kept
fit, she watched what she ate. My biggest fear was always how she would get by, after, after I was gone. And then suddenly—it’s all wrong. But at least, I thought, at least she won’t have to stay on alone. But if she’s suffering—”

  “Tell me about the strange things.”

  Barlow nodded. “I’m sorry.” He took a breath. About to speak again he glanced over at the water decanter, pressed his lips together. “May I?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jack said, relieved he would not have to find a moment to casually suggest his client drink a glass of water. “I’ll join you,” he said after Barlow had poured his glass. Jack poured himself exactly half a glass, which he drank down while keeping his eyes fixed on Barlow. The usual shiver along the spine jolted Jack, and he watched Barlow to see if he felt anything, but the client showed no signs of a reaction. Blissful ignorance, Jack thought, and realized how much time had passed, how many clients, since a man with a knife had called him Jack the Unknowing.

  Barlow looked around for a napkin, then in his pockets for a handkerchief, and finally just wiped his lips with his finger as Poker Jack kept the smile from his face. The client said, “I guess the first thing was the voices. The whispers. That sounds... you know... But they weren’t inside me. Or telling me to do things. It wasn’t like that.” He sighed. “It started a week or so after Alice’s death. I was in bed, still not used to being alone there, and watching the news. Alice used to hate it when I did that, said she didn’t want those images in her dreams. And there I was doing it, I felt so guilty.”

  “Mr. Barlow. The voices.”

  The fleshy head bobbed up and down. “Right. Sorry. Well, I heard sounds, voices. Like when you’re at a conference, and there’s whispering across the table or something, and you can hear them but you can’t make out the words? I figured maybe it was on the TV, one channel bleeding into another, so I turned it off. And the whispers just got louder. I mean, really loud, like a whole building full of people, all whispering to each other.”

  Not a building, Jack thought, and he wished to hell that however Alice Barlow had gotten hold of Jack’s knight she’d thrown the card away instead of keeping it somewhere her husband could pick it up and get the overwhelming urge to go see John Shade, Traveler.

  Barlow said, “This went on for days, Mr. Shade. Every night I thought I was, you know, that the grief had gotten too much for me. I finally told my doctor and he said it was normal—it sure as hell didn’t feel normal—and gave me some pills. To sleep. It worked for a couple of days but then I woke up, it was three in the morning, and the damn whispers were louder than ever.

  “Then one night I got the horrible idea that they were really there. Not in the house, but in the backyard. I don’t know why, but once I thought it I couldn’t stand it, so I put on my bathrobe and went down to the kitchen. I made sure to make lots of noise to scare anyone away, but when I got to the kitchen everything looked normal. I mean, it was still dark, but the door light was on, and the moon was pretty bright, and I could see the patio Alice had me make, and the flagstones, and it all looked fine. Normal.

  “But the voices! They were still there, louder than ever, but still whispers so I couldn’t make out a word.”

  “And so you opened the door,” Jack said. Barlow stared at him. “You thought, if you could prove to yourself once and for all that the whispers weren’t real they would have to go away.” Barlow nodded. “Let me guess what you saw. A forest?” Shaking now, Barlow nodded again. “Dense trees, with twisted branches and no leaves, going on as far as you could see. And flames. A kind of faint fire, so pale it didn’t give off any light or heat or even burn any of the trees.”

  Barlow whispered, “Oh God. Oh my God. I’m not crazy?”

  Jack managed to keep the regret out of his voice as he said, “No, Mr. Barlow, you’re not crazy at all.” Barlow sat back in the chair, mouth open. Jack said, “So you slammed the door and ran inside. Now tell me—is that when you found my card?”

  Barlow half-whispered, “Yes.” Behind him, for just a moment, Jack saw the flash of the golden foxtail as it brushed over Barlow’s shoulders and then was gone. A lot of good you are. You give me help on a hand too late for me to use it, but you couldn’t warn me this was coming? Out loud he said, “Mr. Barlow, what you saw was not a hallucination or a dream. It’s a real place, though very few people actually see it.” At least not while alive.

  “Then why am I seeing it? I’m not anything special. I’ve never been, you know, psychic or anything.”

  “It’s not about you, Mr. Barlow.”

  “But I’m—oh, God, it’s Alice. Of course. How could I be so—” His hands began to twitch and he clasped them together. “Is she, you know, a ghost?”

  “There are no such things as ghosts,” Jack Shade said. “At least not the way you see in movies. But sometimes people get stuck.” Sometimes, he thought, they can’t bear being dead. And every now and then someone alive gets pulled in and can’t get back. Or someone sends them there, and that was the worst of all.

  Barlow said, “Mr. Shade, can you help her? Can you get her out? Is that why she had your card?”

  “I don’t really know why she had my card. But I will try to open a way for her.”

  “May I ask—what do you—” He looked away.

  “My fee is fifty thousand dollars,” Jack said. Maybe he couldn’t actually refuse someone who had his card, but the clients didn’t have to know that.

  Barlow hardly seemed to care as he stared again at the desk. “This place. Where Alice is. Is it Hell?”

  “No. It’s actually just what you saw, twisted trees and cold fire.”

  “Does it have a name?”

  “Yes. It’s called the Forest of Souls.”

  Jack arrived the next morning at Barlow’s house, just after dawn. Gone were Gambler Jack’s silk suits and bright shirts and ties. In their place he wore a black shirt with black buttons, and black jeans over black boots. Black Jack Traveler.

  He spent two days and nights in the Westchester McMansion, a house that reminded him of the bland food your mother gave you after stomach flu. The dull creams and light browns of the walls were matched by furniture that might have belonged in a conference room. Barlow had said that Alice took courses and workshops, and in fact there were large faceted crystals and stone incense holders on knickknack shelves in the living room, and a few books scattered around the paneled den with breathless promises of some imminent shift in “world consciousness” (clearly, Jack thought, if they had any idea what that term actually meant they would never dare to write a word) or promises to choose the “quantum reality” you want and deserve. Somehow it all seemed like dust floating on a deep impenetrable pool, a well of emptiness.

  Only in Alice’s dressing room did color manage to break through the dull fog, with yellow walls and light blue trim to match the bottles of perfume and vials and jars of European creams and makeup. The first time Jack went in there he just stood in the center of the room and breathed deeply, as if he could take the color into his lungs and spread it through his body. He realized he’d been closing himself down in the rest of the house, maybe even before he entered it, in a kind of psychic expectation. Only here could he find a place to begin his search for trace elements of Alice Barlow.

  Jack spent a lot of time in that room, the door closed to his client, the lights full tilt as he touched and smelled Alice’s clothes, her makeup, each elaborate bottle of perfume. He lined his eyes with violet kohl, and painted his lips dark smoky red, and probably would have tried on some of her clothes if Alice had not dieted herself down to a size two. A wedding picture in the living room had shown Alice at about an eight. By the time of her death, apparently, a significant part of her had already vanished.

  Some women diet for social approval or self-esteem, but Jack was pretty sure Alice did it to diminish her place in the world. “What were you running from?” he whispered to the mirror as he held a silk camisole against his cheek. Was it Barlow? Jack sh
ook his head. The man was as dull as the house. He wasn’t the cause of Alice’s desire to disappear, he was just part of her strategy.

  Jack had made sure to warn Barlow not to come in during his “psychic investigatory procedures” in the dressing room. Subtle, even dangerous, energies ran through the room at such times, he said, and if Barlow just knocked on the door he could bring down the entire framework Jack was constructing. All of that was partly true, but mostly Jack did not want to repeat the scene of some years back, when a client had walked in on Jack Shade wearing his dead wife’s clingy black dress.

  Outside the dressing room, Jack talked with Barlow for hours about Alice, their marriage, the things they did together, Alice’s hobbies and interests, which apparently came and went. She’d tried knitting, book clubs, French cooking, but gave them all up after a few months. The cosmic crystal phase had lasted longer than most, nearly a year when she died, but Barlow suspected it had already begun to fade. There’d been a lot more of the “dolls and things,” he said, and then one day he noticed she’d gotten rid of about half of them. He’d never asked her what she’d done with them.

  There were no kids. Alice had had “medical issues,” Barlow said, and when she said she didn’t want to adopt he’d just agreed. “Maybe I should have pushed it,” he told Jack. “Maybe she would have been happier.” Jack didn’t know if that was true, so much of what Barlow said seemed layered over with guilt like archaeological sediment. Maybe if he’d done more, he said, read some of her books, joined the cooking classes, they could have traveled more. She always seemed to pick up on trips, especially Paris, she loved Paris. Just like the song, Jack thought.