Lightspeed Issue 46

by Charlie Jane Anders

  Odysseus returned, inside the time that Penelope had woven out of nothing. He slayed the suitors, his fate and theirs, intertwined.

  And Penelope smiled to have her husband home, and still she wove.

  • • •

  I don’t remember exactly when my sister started weaving. It didn’t seem important at the time. Kacey collected hobbies, the more unusual the better. Previous enthusiasms had included making her own candles, training homing pigeons, spending the better part of a year making stained glass images of saints, and keeping bees for three years.

  I liked the beekeeping. There was a fall where everything tasted golden and sweet. I still have some of the honey.

  But no matter how good or bad she was at any of these activities, Kacey eventually grew bored. She required novelty, and when that wore off, it was on to the next enthusiasm, the former discarded like dust.

  Weaving, however, stuck.

  • • •

  Here is an old story. Some might say it is ours, and it might well be. In it, there is a choice, which is the thread from which all fate is woven. The choice is this: beauty or virtue. A curse will be set upon the women, who for one half of the day will be ugly, and for the other will be beautiful. The implication is that virtue only goes with one, and you can guess which. Needless to say, it is not to the women who will be so cursed that the choice is offered.

  Days and nights do not divide evenly. There are the betweens of twilight and dawn, and who is to say that beauty and virtue cannot coexist, that women cannot be as complex as time? Still, the choice is presented as an absolute, either one thing or the other.

  The stories, the old ones, the ones that contains this cursed choice, they ask: What do women want? They pose this as the highest question, upon which the very fate of the world might hang. Then they send a knight on the quest to discover the answer, as if a woman’s desire were a dragon to be slain.

  Only one choice between two things for three sisters.

  If you meet us during the day, we are ugly. If you meet us at night, we are beautiful. Such was our chosen fate.

  Spin. Measure. Cut.

  • • •

  There was a maze, and in that maze was a monster.

  There was a young woman, and in her hand, there was a ball of thread. Thread Ariadne had spun, thread she had enchanted. It would unspin and untangle, and make a path, a line to safety, in and out of the woven twists of the maze. Its twists and blind ends were paths she knew full well, for she was the guardian of the labyrinth’s secrets, and of its monsters as well.

  And well a man might fear to walk, where a woman with a spindle stands. But the man was not afraid, either of the woman before him, or of the monsters in the maze. He had unwoven their secrets. She had given him the ball of thread.

  The man Ariadne saved abandoned her. She had thought there were bonds of love between them, bonds of loyalty, but he cut those threads, and left her to her own fate. In one fate, she dies. Hanged by her own hand, with thread she herself wove. In the other, she becomes a goddess.

  Give honey to the mistress of the labyrinth.

  • • •

  When Kacey took up weaving, it wasn’t something simple. No, Kacey wove tapestries. She stuck very close to tradition—linen for the warp-thread, and wool for the weft-thread, and her images were scenes from mythology.

  She particularly liked making tapestries of women weaving. I asked her if that wasn’t just a little recursive, and she laughed and said that was the point.

  Long after I expected her to grow bored and find some new preoccupation, Kacey kept weaving. She started selling her tapestries, and then she started selling them for serious money. She opened a gallery, and I worked there a few mornings a week.

  The two women who came in that Wednesday morning looked like they belonged in a show on the BBC. At first I thought it was a woman and her mother, but when the light shifted, I thought them the same age, perhaps sisters. They were timeless, elegant, in well-tailored suits and heels, with hair rolled back and perfect red lipstick. They walked through the gallery slowly, occasionally pausing before a tapestry, then spent a long time in front of Kacey’s depiction of the Three Fates.

  “We would like to buy this.”

  “As a gift for our sister, who is ill.”

  Their voices were so similar I couldn’t tell one speaker from the other.

  “It’s a lovely piece,” I said. “I hope she likes it.”

  “We’re sure she will.”

  “It reminds us of us.”

  “If you’ll give me her address, I’ll be happy to arrange delivery,” I said.

  “We would prefer to pick it up.”

  “We would like to meet the artist, too. We enjoy meeting other weavers.”

  “You both weave?” I asked.

  “All three of us do.”

  “We always have.”

  Kacey would love them, I knew, so I made the appointment, then wrote it down on the back of one of her business cards and handed it to one of the women.

  She looked at the name on the card, and handed it to the other, who asked, “Is this her given name?”

  “Yes.” I smiled. “Our mother loved Greek mythology, though we wanted more usual names, growing up. I’m Andromeda, so I go by Anne. Lachesis usually goes by Kacey.”

  Kacey joked about it now, how Mom had chosen such an apt name for her. She had even woven her own image into the tapestry of the Fates. “Though when she’s weaving, she goes by Lachesis.”

  “Our mother loved that name as well.”

  • • •

  Or perhaps that is not how we appear, one thing and then the other. Neither time nor fate runs straight, and it may be that we are not so absolute as all that. We are not two after all, but three.

  Mother, maiden, crone.

  Interchangeable. Symbols. Other words for times of life, for destiny, for fate.

  You might see those words and think of them as a progress. Phases through which a woman passes, though it is true that not all women choose to become all of these things. For us, they are now, they are always. We are all three of us each of them. They are things that have been, and things that will be. Fate does not change you. It reveals you.

  Maiden. Mother. Crone. One, two, three.

  • • •

  There was a woman, violated by a man, and then violated again, her tongue torn out so she could not speak of his wrong. But Philomela refused to accept silence as her fate, and wove her story into a tapestry, so that it might speak the truth of her fate, no matter what he willed. She sent the tapestry to her sister, who spoke her story.

  Sometimes, the thing that matters is the speaking.

  A nightingale sang, and in that singing Philomela is remembered, always.

  Another woman, who wove and wove all the visions that came to her in a mirror, wove herself protected, wove herself even into the framework of her loom. And then came a knight, and then came a night, and then came night eternal and unwoven, and Elaine’s body on a boat to Camelot, and that is a fate, too.

  So long as there have been stories, and women, there has been magic in the weaving of a story. Eve spun. Joan the Maid wielded spindle and distaff before taking up arms to lead France in battle. Arachne wove, and so well it was as if she had eight arms, and then she did. Some unnamed girl’s father promised on her life that her skill with a spindle was so great it was as if she spun straw into gold. Another girl—nameless too—wove nettles in silence to free her brothers from their swan-shapes.

  We are all of them. They are us. Every woman who has spun her thread, and woven her story. They are our sisters.

  There was a woman, and she wove.

  There was a woman, and she wove her own fate.

  • • •

  We are time simultaneous. We see all in a point.

  For you, life spreads out. Birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, middle age, old age, death. Between each are breaths, heartbeats, minutes, and months. Time for you i
s linear, the beginning and the end of the thread.

  We see you in all those times as one. Now, always, then.

  We weave a story. We spin out its threads. And so life is a tapestry, and life is a story, woven.

  And then, when it is fated, we cut the thread.

  • • •

  The tapestry was still hanging in the gallery the morning after it should have been picked up. I figured it was because the two women had decided to have it delivered after all—it was heavy and awkward to carry—and looked in Kacey’s files for the order change.

  Instead, there was a note on her stationery: “It has a different fate. So do I. Love you.”

  I never saw her again, except for once.

  Spin.

  Measure.

  Cut.

  © 2014 by Kat Howard.

  Kat Howard is the World Fantasy Award-nominated author of over twenty pieces of short fiction. Her work has been performed on NPR as part of Selected Shorts, and has appeared in Lightspeed, Subterranean, and Apex, among other venues. Her novella, The End of the Sentence, written with Maria Dahvana Headley, will be out in August from Subterranean Press. You can find her on twitter as @KatWithSword and she blogs at strangeink.blogspot.com.

  A Drink for Teddy Ford

  Robert Jackson Bennett

  It was often said in certain circles of town that no event could hope to match Jerry Ulkridge’s New Year’s Eve parties. The entire year was spent in anticipation of what the next one might feature. Could he possibly beat the ice sculptures of ’21? The champagne fountain of two years back? Would the first chairs of the symphony make an appearance again, performing in their elite quartet? No one could say for sure, and many would have fought or even killed to find an invitation nestled in the corner of their mailbox, promising admission to those merry, oh-so-exclusive wonders.

  So it would have shocked anyone to know that Teddy Ford had received such an invitation, but had no intention of attending. He did not plan to go out at all that night, having spent the waning days of the year confined to his one-room apartment, lying on the bed and smoking and sipping wine with the radio on, and he’d decided New Year’s Eve would be no different.

  But early in the evening his friend Michael Creamier came calling, and would not be turned away. “Are you completely unaware of what you’re missing, old son?” he called through the closed door. “Are you totally out of your mind? Are you barking, Teddy? Please, tell me.”

  Teddy did not answer.

  “Listen, sport, it’s high time you forgot about her,” Michael said. “Better to have loved than lost, other fish in the sea, chin up, and all that.”

  “Leave me alone,” said Teddy.

  “Come on, Teddy, there’ll be plenty of replacements at Jerry’s! This I promise you, my boy. This I swear.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t want to go. Listen, son, do you like girls? Do you?”

  Teddy sighed.

  “Well, really, one’s as good as another, I say. Now toss your glad rags on and foot it on out here. I will be very disappointed in you, young man, if I’m forced to come in and fetch you. Very disappointed indeed. Besides, you have to admit—it’s your own fault you lost her, old boy. You said so yourself.”

  When Michael proved relentless, Teddy finally surrendered, and both of them, dressed to the nines, ventured out into the winter night to catch a cab to Jerry’s labyrinthine townhouse atop the hill. All his old school chums would be there, Michael assured him, and that would cheer him up, wouldn’t it? But the idea simply depressed Teddy more. He did not think he could stand their jocular, wheedling greetings and their overweening bravado. But lots of people came to Jerry’s parties. Perhaps someone would offer an interesting diversion.

  Things did not bode well when the valet ushered them inside. They were nearly bowled over by the bellowed hellos and inundation of violent handshakes. There was a vigorous round of how-d’ye-do’s, and those that needed to be called bastards were gleefully called bastards. Teddy tried his best to smile and shook all the necessary hands, hating himself all the while for his capitulation. Then he was swooped into the parlor room to see Jerry’s new level of decadence.

  As it turned out, the New Year’s Eve party was a masquerade. Ornate tin masks with the visages of animals were piled on a table by the door, and a big tin lamb mask was stuffed onto Teddy’s head and he was shoved into the party. There he saw the masks were just the beginning: Not only had Jerry booked a top-notch jazz band, but he’d also hired ballerinas from the local company to twirl through the crowd like living decorations. Bars lined the party floor on either side, and guests adorned with fantastic faces were already shambling across the room cawing laughter, with highballs dribbling from their gloved hands.

  “Can’t believe they’re ossified already!” cried Michael happily, eyes glinting through his bear mask as he bounded over to the bar to catch up. Teddy reluctantly followed.

  It was, as expected, a satisfactorily merry occasion: Debates were held in the corners as to whether or not Jerry had outdone last year, with an even split on the issue. But Teddy did not join in; he did not accept any proffered cigars, or get caught up in conversation, and he barely noticed when his friends tried to usher a ballerina his way.

  “What’s with Teds?” he heard someone ask.

  “Bastard’s nursing a broken heart,” someone answered. “Been dippy for over a month. Some schoolteacher or other. You know him. Always the romantic, Teddy.” And they laughed.

  Something cold and terrible calcified in Teddy’s heart. He ordered a pony of scotch, and another, and then another, and sometime around eleven, when everyone was very tight indeed, Teddy found himself propped up against the bar listening to a discussion about cocktails.

  “Menken was correct,” declared Otto Eyison through his immense swan mask. “A martini is a sonnet. A perfect sonnet. It’s their best export.”

  “Gin or vodka?” asked someone.

  This elicited so many awful glares that the speaker physically recoiled. “What?” he asked defensively.

  “A martini is always made with gin,” said Patricia Aberforth. “Never vodka. Vodka is a recent perversion.”

  “As is the shaker,” said Otto.

  “Oh, but I like the shaker,” said Patricia. “It gives it that nice chill.”

  “It’s a French innovation,” said Otto with disgust. “Crushes the gin. Smashes the ice. A stirred pitcher is the proper form. Can’t be beat, like I said.”

  They next evaluated the strengths of the negroni, a rather new and delicious cocktail, though it did have the misfortune of being Italian. Teddy stared at his own glass, as he was not entirely sure what was in it, though he’d been drinking it for the past half-hour. He grew bored and went outside to the townhouse’s courtyard, where he wandered through the starlit statues. When he came to the steps down to the garden, he sat down and gave a great sigh. After a moment he began to feel tired, and rested his head against the handrail.

  “Cold night, isn’t it?” said a voice.

  Teddy sat up and turned. He saw that one of the courtyard statues was not a statue at all; it was a tall, thin man wearing a stork-like bird mask. He stood very still with a flute of champagne in one hand. Even at this distance Teddy could see his small, sad eyes shining in his mask.

  Teddy agreed that it was a very cold night.

  “I almost hesitate to ask what could have driven you out into this chill weather,” said the man, walking over.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Teddy. “The conversation, I suppose. They’re debating cocktail knowledge like it’s a philosophy course, or something.”

  “Ah, but it can be, in a way,” said the man. “I, for instance, have always personally felt that a cocktail should most resemble a life.”

  “A what?” said Teddy.

  “A life.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, a lot of work goes into a good cocktail,” said the man. “Many
ingredients, much preparation. It can take hours or even years of labor to get the ingredients ready and mix them properly. And then, once it’s all done, why, it all seems to go by in a heartbeat, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” said Teddy, but thought to himself: Did he say years?

  “Yes,” he said. “Just a few sips. A fleeting taste. A pleasant suffusion of warmth, beginning in the belly. And then it’s all over. Much like a life. That is what a real cocktail should be. It should mirror the greater experience, shouldn’t it?”

  Teddy smiled, confused. “I think I’d like to try a cocktail like that.”

  “Would you?” said the man. He thought for a bit, then tossed out his remaining champagne. “Well, everyone gets one eventually. And it seems your time has come. Here, my dear soul, let’s go back inside. I shall make you one.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”

  “But I insist,” said the man. “Come. Let me educate you a little.”

  Teddy wobbled to his feet and followed the man to the bar, where his new friend reached over and plucked up a large Boston shaker. “You don’t mind, do you?” the man asked the barman.

  The barman, startled, shook his head.

  “Good.” The man skillfully spun the shaker around in one hand. “Now. What sort of drink do we want?”

  “Well, I’ve always been partial to scotch,” said Teddy.

  “Scotch? For your year’s last moments? Oh, no. No, no. That’s much too coarse. But what is it we need? What drink is fitting for such an end?” He turned to the window. Outside the winter night seemed even more barren and lonely than before. Snow was beginning to fall, and the gray light of the moon made the statues in the courtyard look icy and lonesome.

  He turned back to look at Teddy. “I think what we need,” he said, “is a cocktail of heartache.”

  “Of what?” said Teddy.

  “Heartache,” he said again. “And unless I’m mistaken, you just might have that in spades. Am I wrong?”

  Teddy opened his mouth, taken aback, but for some reason the man’s small, sad eyes calmed him. He shut his mouth and lowered his head a little. “No,” he said quietly.

  “I see,” said the man. “It is evident that you’re quite tormented. Someone is lost from your life, perhaps never to return.”