Year's Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction & Fantasy

by Marie Hodgkinson

  “You’re scared, I know,” she says. “I was scared too. I wore a blanket for ages to cover up my legs and my tail so I didn’t have to believe what had happened. As long as you run on land, as long as you run on metal tracks, you can be the same engine you always were. But we’ve all had to cope with this change. Becoming something different. And maybe … maybe you can be squid and train. Squid live in the water, right? And trains on rails. Maybe you’re more than any of them because you can do both.”

  The train does not move, does not respond.

  Henrietta takes a deep breath and whispers all the words of encouragement she can find in herself. And slowly, just very slowly, the engine edges off the land and into the water. Henrietta feels the muscles of the train below her tighten in fear and then relax, relax in a way they haven’t in a long time, perhaps in forever.

  The engine is remembering something.

  The engine is remembering home.

  Below, the passengers in the first carriage scream as they hit the water, and behind them others run to the shoreline in terror, watching the train that has saved them vanish into the water. Henrietta screams too, a quiet desperate scream at the back of her throat. She has killed everyone. She has killed them all. She has killed her mother. She has killed everyone she remembers ever knowing.

  She barely watches two tentacles reaching back, pulling up the back of the last carriage to hold it out of the water. Henrietta imagines how heavy it must be, the wood and metal carriage, the track lengths tied to the roof and the terrified people below, and she feels every muscle in her body begin to ache in sympathy for the engine.

  Using all the strength in its tentacles, the engine, this squid train, moves across the sea, across this wide channel that is open before them. Land becomes visible quite early, but reaching it is a whole other matter. It grows so slowly in the distance that Henrietta worries they might not be getting any closer at all. There’s not much she can do, not much anyone can do, except gently encourage the engine, this hybrid of flesh and machine, melded and meshed together by the flood-metals just like all of them.

  They leave the passengers, the carriage, the soaked-through lengths of track, upon the shore, and travel back. The return journey is faster, and because they know now the journey is survivable and the flood-metals are travelling ever closer, the passengers have to draw lots to sit in the next carriage.

  The engine pulls the carriages, one after another, across this channel of water, a channel that Henrietta would once have thought of as impassable. As they connect up the final carriage, Henrietta thinks she can smell the flood-metals on the breeze that travels across the land.

  The engine is tired, so tired, by the time they reach land, struggling to hold up the carriage behind, but somehow it manages, and then moves slowly forward. The earlier passengers have set up the tracks to guide the exhausted train out of the shallow water and onto the beach. Water drips from the carriages, which are spread across the sand.

  Henrietta buries her face in the train’s thick, rubbery skin and says, “It’s okay, you don’t need to go anywhere else today.”

  Today, just for today, they don’t need to go anywhere. The flood-metals may too cross the sea, one day, but they’ve fallen far behind, and even Henrietta, standing atop the engine, cannot see their glimmer. Today, just for today, they sit out on the black sand and light a fire and share a meal. Henrietta takes plates to those who are too exhausted to get their own. The engine drinks deeply from the sea, and having rested, catches quick-jumping fish.

  The next day, they travel again. The carriages are still damp but most of their possessions have dried out in the sun. They’ve all been through worse, much worse, in any case. They travel through the day in this strange land. They see villages and farms but don’t approach them, not just yet. And when darkness falls on all of them, Henrietta pulls her blanket around her and walks slowly between the rows of seats, balancing as she crosses between carriages. The wind catches her hair and fans her blanket out like a cape. Most of the people are pretending to sleep, as if by pretending hard enough they could make it so. Perhaps they are thinking about the past and wondering about the future, wondering if the train will ever again be able to pause for more than a few hours, if they will ever get far enough away, or if the flood-metals will catch up with them once more.

  Henrietta doesn’t think about that. She doesn’t think about the past and the future. She puts a lot of effort into not doing. It’s the only way you can get through. You can cope with having lost near everything, and with the prospect of losing the little you have left, if you have nothing to compare them to. She opens the door of the engine cab carefully, quietly, and her mother shifts on her seat to make just enough room for her daughter and wraps her wings around her, nuzzling her gently with her hooked yellow beak as if she were still a little girl, as the train travels ever onwards, the purple sea crashing along the rocks of the coast.

  Spontaneous applause by Zoë Meager

  In Asteria’s dream, she is one in a thumping line of chorus girls. In Asteria’s dream, there is one from every curve of the globe, from every spectrum, one of black eye, one of green, one of pointed tooth, rounded tooth, snaggletooth, claw. In Asteria’s dream, she is one supple joint in a long row of marrow.

  In Asteria’s dream, blood pumps, hips swivel, and the crimson tendrils of their costumes breathe and bounce between them. Chests heave, muscles burn. The rush of breath, the thrum of body. In Asteria’s dream, all their legs are blades made for cutting.

  In Asteria’s dream, the dancing girls are arm-in-arm and nothing else exists. The orchestra, drowned. The audience floating up into space. Businessmen, bosses, bankers ascending to the empty reaches of the theatre, past its velvet stretches, towards the chandeliers and painted skies, sucked into the dark air of its lungs. Up they throw the money and down the money falls. It catches between the soft wood and hard strings of the first violinist’s bow. It is sucked into the many tubes of the tuba player, into the creases at the back of every flautist’s knee.

  In Asteria’s dream, the chorus girls are chopping the money into confetti. A swirling fluttering green and grey between their legs. She looks out to the darkness and sees only stars. In Asteria’s dream they are tumbling, the chorus line, they are head over heels for the mystery before them. A combine harvester, bladed and bright, they dismount the stage in unison, catching their costumes on the stage lights, so with smouldering fires at skirt and bodice and stocking, with haloes of hairspray wavering and garter elastic snapping in the heat, they bump over the orchestra and careen unbridled into the vacant rows of the theatre.

  In Asteria’s dream, there is a deep calm darkness, full of confetti and women and chance.

  Hearts Made Marble, Weapons Shaped From Bone by A.J. Fitzwater

  My horn is sharp and I thought I would never hesitate when they inevitably came for my family.

  But I did.

  *

  A few definitions first.

  Hesitation: a horn which slices through flesh so easily is a burden, one all unicorns must contend with.

  Burden: whatever those without horns told me it would be. Tread careful now, They’d say, even your hooves strike sparks and your tongue might be set aflame.

  Family: anyone we damn well choose it to be. Sisters and siblings of all definition. My family is legion, because my hearts are weak, They sneer.

  They: Capital T. The Enemy. Simple in name. Don’t let that fool you. They are not simple in deed. They are patient and Old.

  They also have no idea. The longer the stars spin, the more a unicorn’s heart turns to stone. We became the source of marble in this world, hard and unyielding as a statue whose hands are pressed lovingly into flesh, veil delicate across face. Beauty that pierces right through.

  A singularity, my horn is made of tougher stuff still.

  *

  Breaking of a uniq
uine; an insidious word and deed, turning the wild and free into beasts of burden. They say we enjoy serving, that it benefits all of us Beasts to come together, but that’s a lie. My spine is not for bending or mastering.

  They don’t come for us in the night, as you would expect. The full light of day is Their cover.

  A corral and harness, for our safety.

  A bit, for silence.

  A bone-saw, at the ready.

  A knife and goblet, for our blood.

  And all the while, silence rings from the gold-glass cages of the menagerie.

  *

  A few things about lies.

  Virgins: a whopper as big as unicorns. What is it about a hymen – a simple piece of skin, something as flexible as a tongue – that makes a woman pure? What about the women who don’t have hymens? We don’t have them, and yet…

  Blood: prick us, unicorns bleed black and gold. Another burden, another thing stolen from us.

  Blood again: that of virgins, of which we do not drink for immortality or power. You’re thinking of vampires.

  Blood, yet again: unicorns drank blood long ago, but not for the purpose you think. I have no taste for it. It is a past we are careful not to forget.

  *

  I’m ashamed to say I hid in the deepest part of the forest, an orchard where even They hesitate to tread. Through the leaves and lashes, I see white: the stain of a rolling eye, muscle rippling under unicorn coat, snow falling on tongues.

  This attack comes from a simple Arm of The Enemy, but I can feel His presence all over them, oozing hot and cold: the dankness of blood-mucked boots and batons and bridles; and sweat stinking like damp cardboard and stiff, old wool, yellow at the pits and crotch.

  Blood spots my hide from where I bite and my horn pricks to keep from screaming. I am no use to my family dead.

  But what use am I when I hesitate? I could have run Them through then and there. Stopped the madness.

  But how mad is too mad? My hesitation always said: if I run this Betrayer through today, will there just be a bigger wound tomorrow? Dare I prove them right about unicorns? Dare I prove to myself?

  I am paralysed as They suck eagerly at the throats of my family, lead the ones away they believe are female.

  Bits jangle, heads bow.

  A voice rises, prelude to a scream, but They point a sister’s horn in its direction, push her flank, and the sound gurgles to a stop.

  *

  More lies:

  Unicorns are not actually white. Nor pure. You’re seeing us in the wrong light.

  Angle the prism a little stronger and you will understand what I mean.

  *

  When the snow melts, churning the fallen forest of our home into pink slush, I run. From place to place, always finding sanctuary, but not for long. The more unicorn They harvested, the more they wanted. Our horns made excellent swords.

  A horn is not a weapon unless you have the right head to wield it.

  Just as blood is not something abstract. My family’s blood is painted into masterpieces They hang in every museum, decorate every textbook.

  And the hearts. Oh, my sisters’ hearts…

  My deep family take me in. They too are afraid and I don’t blame them. Look what we’ve become, so few. They frown at me and I can see it in the whites of their eyes: do something, why don’t you do something.

  I run for what feels like forever. You do what you must do, day by day, minute by minute, to survive.

  Deep in my hearts, I know I want to do it. One burns hot, one burns cold, a balance I can’t tip.

  What is the worst that can happen?

  I would die.

  What is the best that can happen?

  I could die.

  *

  There it lies: I am a coward.

  *

  Fear can be a powerful weapon. It depends on how you use it, how far it will take you, if you know how to wield it.

  Snow can pack down into a glacier, bones upon bones, grinding along, carving out the land, making way for the river to get to the ocean and start the process all over again. Water back to water. Blood back to blood.

  As the saying goes: take the bit between your teeth.

  *

  Cracked yellow bricks finally end beneath my splintered hooves. I make sparks no more.

  Tarnished golden gates bar the way into the Glass Mountain. The Enemy’s Sanctuary. This is where the heart of darkness lives, within the middle of the light. Such a cliché. Light, dark, good, evil. But you also thought unicorns were made from snow and candy and ate virgins until now, didn’t you?

  Because my hide is camouflaged, stained with the sweat of all my family who propelled me along, They don’t see me slip between the cracks. Snow has that habit when it melts, a trickle finding its way through. And then when it refreezes it expands, widening the cracks.

  At the centre of the Glass Mountain, the conceit: a single great building, pillars made from the marble of my sisters’ hearts. Seeing my sisters’ veins running black and gold through the stone breaks the last shred of dignity in me and I can only crawl the last few feet.

  He looms between the pillars, reverent hand stroking the stone. The Enemy. I quell my scream – not yet! – at the lascivious repugnancy.

  His darkness hides in the glare of the spotlight, a mirage for the viewer’s greatest fears: cockroaches seething within a shadow, debonair sweptback hair and bright eyes, a cane toad in prince’s clothing.

  A grin slicks its oily way across His face. He’s not afraid, because now my family is reduced to a mere shadow He thinks I am hobbled.

  I won’t forgive myself for the lies I had to tell myself to get here, but I will not forgive myself more if I don’t try.

  I need my fear, like it needs me.

  Good girl, He croons, sweet girl.

  Lies, lies. When I am done with this, I will never Be Good again.

  He avoids my horn with practised ease. Thinks He doesn’t need to threaten the bridle, the bit.

  Yes, come closer.

  Pretty girl, He whispers. The flesh of His fingers roiling like a maggoty corpse sink into my mane, pick out thorns and burrs as if doing me some courtesy. Then, the horror of those fingers curling towards my hearts. He just can’t stop Himself even though He has everything. More, more, ever more. He’s grabbing for more stone, yet one more brick to prop up His edifice.

  No, I can’t do it. I can’t be like Him. This is not what unicorns are made for, though we are made for just this purpose. Let him take my hearts and be done.

  Pretty girl.

  So close I can taste the citrus-over-rot of His breath.

  The horn is a lie.

  So easy, it doesn’t even require thought. Simple genetic muscle memory.

  The bone of the singularity, a black hole devouring any light that dares to come near, enters His chest with the greatest of ease.

  Ribs crack, a wet tearing sound of laughing wings and skittering carapaces.

  *

  What they don’t tell you is when a unicorn uses its horn, it’s a one-time deal. We maim to kill.

  With a flick of my head and the searing pain of starlight scouring my skull, my horn tears off.

  Blood.

  Blood everywhere. Black and gold and red all mixed together.

  *

  Laughter.

  Evil laughs in my face, my twisted bone of confection lodged in His chest, point protruding out the back, blood dripping at each end.

  I expected there to be some sort of muscle to fight through, no matter how scarred and hard and atrophied. But there is nothing.

  A black hole cannot eat what is simply a void.

  Those ugly hands twitch and keep reaching for my hearts.

  Smile, little girl.

  * />
  DON’T TELL ME TO SMILE.

  *

  This is not how the myth goes.

  *

  Another thing they don’t tell you about unicorns:

  There is a dangerous place in our chests, right beside our hearts, where embers are banked. Waiting.

  We can burn it all down with just one scream.

  This is also a one-time deal. And it takes everyone, the dealer and the dealt.

  These embers have simmered since the first uniquine ancestor crawled up from the mud. All it takes is a single spark upon our hot tongue to ignite. It is a secret we have kept too long and too well, reserving it for the right time.

  And Each Time never seemed to be the right time. So angry, They said, so ugly. And slowly we let it drain from our myth along with our colours. We did not want to let our ugliness let the world drown. Perhaps we should have learned to let the scream out in small sips.

  Perhaps. Perhaps.

  *

  With a grimace that grows to a maw, I peel my lips back to reveal broken, rotten teeth burned from behind, acid staining my tongue.

  *

  With what little I have left, I strike a hoof against the gold bricks. The air shivers sparks.

  A scream of purple-black-silver light death.

  Flesh melts, simple wax. Blood boils away, the red first and easy, then the black and gold glimmering to vein-roped tar, which evaporates with the released triumphant bellows of my sisters. Bones crack, letting out their sweet, juicy marrow which I suck out to power the last of my scream.

  Bones collapse into grey dust in the final blast. I swallow the dust, every speck. There must be nothing left of Him in this world; it will go with me as the untameable fire within expands and consumes.

  Soon. The anger will take me soon.