Baker's Dozen

by Cutter, Leah

  “You weren’t the only one cursed,” Rose told her shyly, kissing the back of Patrice’s neck while she finished making the coffee. “I wasn’t ever going to find love until someone forgave me.”

  “You mean my Prince Charming is actually the high-school witch?” Patrice teased.

  “Something like that,” Rose said. “If you’ll let me.”

  “Maybe I will,” Patrice said, leaning back against her for a moment, feeling more and more settled into her own skin. “As long as you only use your powers for good. Like helping me find the perfect shoes for our next date.”

  “Deal.”

  Patrice knew life could only get sweeter after that.

  Author’s Note

  Normally I write a story and then come up with a title. Sometimes I’ll find the title before I’m finished writing. This was one of those rare occasions when I knew the title before I had the story. Admittedly, the title gave me something of the story—I knew the woman was cursed to revert into a teenager once a month—but it took a while to find everything else.

  The Secrets of 9s:

  A Tale of Anarchy Broken Into Nine Bits

  #1

  Alexis lived in the bottom of a teacup, swimming between the dregs, swallowing other people’s fortunes. The sharp points of her hair flared like a crown of thorns and matched both the diamond tips of her nails and her ruby-encrusted incisors. A white film spread across her amethyst eyes as she grew bloated on tasseomancy. Finally she had to vomit, regurgitating what she’d witnessed amid the jasmine and drowned leaves.

  Tess listened carefully for that soft gurgling, holding the impossibly fine green porcelain to her ear, telling her clients to hush yet again as the delicate tales poured out. It wasn’t a pure fortune, but Tess wasn’t pure herself. A matching white clouded her eyes, covering irises as blue as a summer morning. She let the whispered rumors of cataracts stand, not speaking of the drugs, dreams, and power she’d stolen to achieve her unseeing state.

  The fortune came with bouts of retching, spinning out the lives of the two young things sitting before Tess, with lily-white skin and beetle-red cheeks and lips. Both had sun-kissed hair, and the years had favored them, at least so far. She wasn’t surprised to learn that instead of the castles, their birthright had promised them they would both land in the moat. However, she’d learned to temper pain with hope.

  The slurry of words tapered off and Alexis started cursing Tess, as she always did. Tess lowered the cup, carefully placing the paper-thin china on the scarred metal table. She also raised her three-fingered hand, asking for more time as the words built pressure, the future undeniable.

  “Fecundity,” Tess croaked out, waving her hand at the one who smelled more of musk. “Blessed often, my child.” She almost managed to sound kind, as if it wasn’t a curse.

  Then she pointed at the other one who already smelled of smoke. “Fire and passion, burning in the flames,” she said benevolently. “Blessed with the spirit often,” she added.

  They both giggled at the absurdity, instantly denying the truth of the reading, as nervous as mares faced with their first bridle. They’d learn to take the bit, both of them. But neither would take a saddle gracefully, or eventually, at all. Riderless, Tess saw them, if they were smart and willing to sacrifice.

  Tess lowered her now shaking hand to the table, the cold metal shooting through her knuckles, the driving pain reminding her of her own past and heartbreaking lessons. Tess closed her eyes. The echoes swamped her and she drowned like Alexis in the dregs of her life.

  When Tess surfaced again, trailing swamp water and weeds, she heard the emptiness of her studio ringing louder than the bells for mass. She brought the cup up to her flabby lips and drank the dregs, swallowing Alexis and all the possible futures for sun-kissed young things whole.

  During the week, Tess would slowly pee them out, filtering the liquid, purifying the poisonous secrets of stillborn children and anarchist flames into her bowl, distilling the liquid until it was time for her to make her tea again.

  #2

  The first secret of 9s is: they always come back. They might disguise themselves with the coyness of 8s, the rigid line of the 1 hidden at their back. You might mistake them for 4s, marching sternly across burnt fields, and not see their friends, the fat 5s, until it’s much too late. Or they may glide through your living room as 1s, distracting you with their dancing and swirling, before they gather together for the ambush.

  Yes, the 9s always come back. And it’s never a party.

  #3

  Ronald watched the workers from the other side of the park. He waited in sorrow as they herded the leaves from the still green grass, their tumbling colors not distraction enough for them to escape. After they’d been gathered, the workers slaughtered them, crushing veins that pumped no blood yet still bled, blades and serrated edges no match for wicked metal and powerful industry.

  Only after the decimation would Ronald approach, as solemn as a monk, gathering the bags of dissected leaf bodies, desecrating them further with manure and ash, dirt and coffee grounds, letting their bodies rot amid paper and trash until they transmuted into black gold, the finest compost in the city.

  Ronald wept with the passing of each brilliant leaf, the grass returning to its uncluttered state, and the whole circle of life starting again. He considered himself a Buddhist gardener: one plant could not see itself as more important than another—the rose held just as much beauty as the creeping, stinging vine; the taraxacum officinale could not triumph over oncidium sphacelatum; the hedge and the moss both equally deserved the sun and the rain.

  It was almost time for Ronald to collect his broken flock when the new herder joined the pack. Ronald had seen her before, the young woman with the sun-kissed hair. He liked how she didn’t force the leaves along a narrow path but instead danced with them, swirling in intricate steps, dancing to music only she and her charges heard.

  Ronald had approached her once, to humbly seek her wisdom, wishing to be blessed with her words as the rain blessed flowers. But her eyes had dazed him, honey-sweet and filled with ants and all she’d attracted there, swirling like nines going down a drain.

  It wasn’t that Ronald minded crazy. Many gave that appellate to him as he communed, naked as befits a priest of nature, with the slumbering irises, long buried under the snow. Or when he sprang up too full of everything, feeling the sap flowing through the pines as his blood flowed through his body.

  However, her type of crazy seemed to be the joining kind, like the crazy kids who padlocked themselves together to a drawbridge just before it opened, pitting body and will against gears and tides. And while Ronald supported his fellow trees, he still grew alone on the edge of the meadow.

  That didn’t mean Ronald didn’t appreciate her sprightly dance as she moved like Moses through the sea, parting the leaves before her.

  It was only after her passing that Ronald spied what she’d dropped. His disgust instantly overwhelmed his sorrow, bile filling his mouth and chasing away the sweet taste of salty tears.

  A pristine white box with a familiar red logo lay in her wake, the poisonous smoking sticks it had once contained consumed, leaving behind ugly butts and aching addiction.

  Ronald had never seen her smoking; then again, he’d never seen any of the crew leave something behind. He postponed both his fury and his grief, reminding himself once again that all beings were equal on their path to happiness.

  It was just that Ronald’s happiness involved the clearest field of grass, or else the sacrifice made by the leaves would be sullied.

  Ronald hurried across the empty expanse, laser focused on his target. As he drew near he was surprised to see that its body still had some meat on it. The lid was closed and the sides bulged slightly, as if the life still inside knew its days were numbered and it needed to escape.

  Still, Ronald reached down, undeterred by the electronic pulse he felt through the palm of his hand, or by the strange warmth of the crackling cel
lophane.

  “Hey—Miss—I think you—”

  The world suddenly went as bright as the sun, kicking straight through Ronald’s chest, exposing all the things that his skin and bones had hidden.

  For a moment, through the pain, Ronald communed with all things, his blood and brain matter a benediction, softly spraying onto the grass around him.

  Then the world was no more.

  #4

  Another secret of 9s: They are true anarchists. That holy trinity of 3s uses its cloak of order to hide its disruptive nature. The 9s don’t blow up a building because it represents something. No, that building is more like a mountain. It must be surmounted because it is there, nothing more.

  The 9s hide in maths encoded in the architecture of brick and stone. 9s are the same as entropy, except when they aren’t. They’re also best friends with it, and when that slow slide into decay, crumbling mortar, and rotting wood proves too slow, they help it along.

  To assign them a motive beyond “just because” is wrong. There is no guild or secret handshake. True 9s disdain those who gather for solidarity.

  Each 9 stands completely alone. It is their greatest weakness, as well as their greatest strength.

  The 9s are pure anarchy at heart.

  #5

  Linda felt bad wishing her customers would just leave so she could sit down and prop her feet up. Her consignment store “Nu 2 U” was barely making it as it was. However, her ankles had long ago succumbed to the swelling, making her legs into elephant stumps and her fingers into logs. She really couldn’t go back to Daddy for another “loan” and Chuck, her husband, wouldn’t help her out either. He didn’t approve of her working in the first place.

  But Linda couldn’t just stay home. She had to do something, and the rounds of charity lunches, bridge tournaments, tennis matches, and just general networking didn’t satisfy her itch. She wanted both her husband and her father to recognize her worth outside of themselves; she had to make this business work.

  The two giggling girls in the shop reminded Linda of herself at that age, frivolous and naïve, as unaware of the world outside her golden bubble as a deep-water fish of the waves on the surface of the ocean. She still sometimes thought of herself that way, living at the bottom of a pond, misinterpreting the signals from the air, the ripples distorting the messages of bombs and blood that she thought she should understand. She felt the currents even in her watery cavern; it wasn’t change, but something ancient and rustic, shaking free and raising its alien fists in the air.

  At least Linda, even at that age, had better taste than these two. The girls had walked straight past the darling Versace clutch sitting in the center of a nest of artfully arranged scarves and gone straight for the knock-off Coach bags instead. Linda wondered again if she should switch locations when her lease ran out. The walk-ins just didn’t appreciate the vintage Louis Vuitton pants suit carefully hung on the wall, looking as if it were alive and dancing, or the Alexander McQueen wedding dress that stood in the center of the room, with the amazing blue and white crystal bodice and ruffled white skirt.

  But the baby would be there before the lease came up.

  This baby would make it.

  Finally the girls left—empty-handed, no surprise, Linda knew they’d just been shopping, not buying, looking for a way to waste a few hours. She gratefully sat and raised her feet. Her toes were tingling, not a good sign. Her doctor had already threatened complete bed rest, but Linda wasn’t convinced. They’d tried it before, and it hadn’t helped. She’d still lost babies two and three.

  The chimes over the door rang, another customer. Linda bravely put a smile on her face. “Good afternoon!” she said, as perky as the cheerleader she used to be.

  “Linda?”

  It took her a few moments to recognize her old friend. “Bridget!” While Linda had dyed and cut her hair, Bridget’s was still sun-kissed and long. Her eyes were unchanged as well, wide, constantly surprised, and the warm amber of honey. She wore a khaki-colored blouse and matching pants. Over the breast pocket was a badge, proclaiming “Parks and Recreation” with a brilliant yellow pine tree embroidered on it. It was obviously a fake, at least, obvious to Linda. The stitching was too precise. It had to be hand-made, copied from the real thing, not machine-generated by the thousands for state employees.

  “How are you? What have you been up to? I haven’t seen you in, like, forever!” Linda asked breezily.

  “Junior year of high school,” Bridget said slowly. “That long summer. Before you found Laura and Chris and Tony and John.”

  Linda was surprised at Bridget’s vehemence. They’d been kids. Lifelong friendships rarely lasted a week at that age. As the silence grew thicker than molasses, Linda finally replied, “They were—what I needed.”

  At that Bridget nodded and smiled. “Yes. Exactly.” She looked curiously around the store. “This is yours, isn’t it?”

  “Mostly it’s consignment. But a few of the pieces are mine.” Linda came out from behind the counter.

  “You’re pregnant,” Bridget said, staring at Linda’s midsection and taking two steps back.

  “Yes,” Linda said, her hands falling naturally into a protective curve over her belly.

  “Is it your first?”

  Linda pressed her lips together and nodded, blinking against the sudden welling in her eyes. Damn hormones. This would be the first. She would bear this child to full term.

  “Do you remember that crazy, blind fortuneteller we went to? Just before the summer ended?”

  Linda hadn’t, but she did now. “She listened to our fortunes in the tea leaves,” she said slowly, the scene coming back to her: the sour-smelling room, the money they’d dropped into the tin bowl, the scarred metal table, the fat fortune teller with flabby lips like a frog. “She said you’d be touched by fire.”

  “Yes,” Bridget said. “And that you’d be blessed often. Have you been? Pregnant, many times?”

  “Yes,” Linda admitted. She blinked to keep away the tears. “And you? Has the fire touched you?”

  Bridget grew more still than the sea at midnight, solemn and filled with dark, hidden things. “Yes,” she said softly, as if afraid to let that secret out into the world. It fluttered between them, the unseen butterfly, wings stirring currents all the way from there to China.

  “You should go home early,” Bridget told her, taking another step backwards, toward the door. “Get off your feet.”

  Linda waited, listening for the rest. She’d grown good at that, waiting for Daddy first, then for Chuck, then for the doctors, waiting in all the ways a woman waits for bad news.

  “Yes. Get home before the fires.”

  The wings of that secret blossomed and wrapped around the pair of them standing in the center of the shop. Linda thought of the messages she’d seen, the destruction and random killings. They weren’t spoken in a language she understood. She couldn’t follow their story, or the hidden players.

  Their warnings she could heed.

  Bridget left without saying goodbye. Linda felt grateful she’d been saved the platitude of claiming she wanted to stay in touch. She considered telling someone, but who would listen? She didn’t know any facts or details. Just a soft, whispered warning that got her to hurry out of the shop, locking the door hours before it was closing time.

  That night a bomb went off in the building next to Linda’s store, an old neighborhood bank that had been bought out by a heartless national corporation. News teams went off on tangents about the message, but Linda knew they were in the dark about the target, just as underwater as she was.

  Linda found that the front door of her store had been shattered when she finally got through the police lines later that afternoon. Glass scattered both inside and outside the store. She didn’t know if it was from the firefighters, the blast, or another party.

  The gaping hole in the door wasn’t enough to clear out the intense smell of smoke in the shop. Linda had to stop and bring a tissue over
her mouth before she could move more than a few steps. Her stock was ruined—too many of the pieces would never be clear of the scent. At least she had good insurance. She would set up another store, smaller, more selective and eclectic.

  The only thing missing was the Alexander McQueen gown, gone as if disgraced by the mess. Linda couldn’t begrudge Bridget that.

  Who knew anarchists had good taste?

  #5.83

  A not-so-secret secret of 9s: they’re hyper-local. Not just local goods from the local farmer’s market and the little local boutique specializing in local artists, but microclimates of economy divided by mere blocks, pitting the green grocer at the top of the hill against the one at the bottom. They want news only about this corner, drink only at the pub three doors down, and speak only to the barista who lives in the flats above the coffee shop. They name the flowers in the gardens on these three blocks differently than the flowers one block over, complete with family and genus. Five, maybe ten blocks, is too far away.

  In that way, 9s are kind of like Buddhists. No future or past. It all must be here and now.

  #6

  Tess dozed at the back of her shop, dreaming of tortoises mating on a midnight beach. The waves raced quicksilver behind them while the reptiles moved like living rocks, slow, deliberate, with shell-piercing need. The male held the female down with cruel tenderness, the tips of his claws scratching delicately at her armor, while the female pushed back, already bored with her biological necessity.

  When they finished, instead of lumbering off alone, they trundled back to the ocean together, moving synchronously, their front claws touching now and again, as if they’d hold hands if they could. They left sprays of stars in their wake across the empty sand. The stars all had holes where their hearts had been. There wasn’t enough sand, spit, semen or even 9s to fill them, no matter how hard the stars tried. They were always hollow, empty inside, overcompensating for their brilliance and magical abilities.