tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87959952148279799762024-03-16T21:48:59.540-04:00MysterionDonald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.comBlogger278125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-3751088353023793912024-03-14T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-14T00:00:00.233-04:00March 2024<div>As spring approaches, we continue to read through story submissions from January. Currently, we have 181 unread submissions (out of 245 received), 6 that have been read and liked by either Donald or Kristin, and 1 that has made it to our final round of consideration.</div><div><br /></div><div>Please consider supporting us on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>! All our Patreon income goes toward paying our authors and artists, and it still only provides about half of what it costs us for fiction and artwork. You can sign up for as little as $1/month, but $3/month gets you early access to all our stories, and for $10/month you also get them in an e-book. (And even $1/month comes with access to our Discord server and the monthly chats we host there with our supporters and authors, as well as monthly Insider posts about writing and publishing.)</div><div><br /></div><div>We're currently at $246/month, but if we reach <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/support.html" target="_blank">our next fundraising goal</a> of $275/month before we finish selecting stories from January, we'll be able to accept 8 stories instead of 7. So this is a great time to sign up!</div><div><br /></div><div>Our most recent story was "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2024/02/deymons.html" target="_blank">Deymons</a>", by returning <i>Mysterion</i> author Andy Dibble, in which an avid gamer who wonders if the Bible might hold the key to his last unwinnable boss fight finds both more and less than he had hoped for. Andy is also the author of "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/01/the-baptismal-status-of-persons-wetted.html" target="_blank">The Baptismal Status of Persons Wetted by the Sprinkler Deluge</a>", if you're looking for more of his work after reading "Deymons".<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Later this month (March 25th), we'll have Canadian author K.A. Wiggins's contemporary supernatural fantasy "The Patron Saint of Flatliners", about a young woman who died tragically but now has the power to help draw others back from the edge. It's not an easy story, but isn't unremittingly dark either.</div><div><br /></div><div>In April, look out for "Her Neighbor's Keeper", a post-apocalyptic future fantasy from Jessica Snell. (While you're waiting, you can read Jessica's last story for us: "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2021/08/vocation.html">Vocation</a>", which came out in the summer of 2021.)</div><div><br /></div><div>For May, we're delighted to bring you "Profane Intervention", by Shawn Vincent Wilson, with a clever twist on a popular trope. A game store owner who made a deal with a demon got what he asked for, and now it's time to pay up! </div><div><br /></div><div>We aren't always on top of getting these monthly From the Editors columns out on schedule (i.e., the first Monday of each month), but our excuse this time is that Kristin was busy preparing to host her 50th birthday party last weekend. Kristin likes to celebrate her birthdays by inviting friends over, cooking way too much food, and then being too stressed and exhausted to socialize with anyone. But she's gotten better about having the food ready before guests arrive.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRzNkCj1J7ZJmMnHlGwoHV1h6UX3qSTXKxr1q-2tsl-ivbGrsUrEtDMgIO_A2BsWDboe-bvNTW_OiHCOnRGG25SvnyyaGfXHSU77ejanRjChKUasbgZpszXiS_um4MCG1YA2mqf1XKD6Nc_E9PEIV9dkbjG6JaR4aiIzMY8o0GFAiWG1KpMq5p7gD08LWo/s4032/IMG_3823.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRzNkCj1J7ZJmMnHlGwoHV1h6UX3qSTXKxr1q-2tsl-ivbGrsUrEtDMgIO_A2BsWDboe-bvNTW_OiHCOnRGG25SvnyyaGfXHSU77ejanRjChKUasbgZpszXiS_um4MCG1YA2mqf1XKD6Nc_E9PEIV9dkbjG6JaR4aiIzMY8o0GFAiWG1KpMq5p7gD08LWo/w480-h640/IMG_3823.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>This was Kristin's first birthday party since 2019. She was going to have one in mid-March of 2020, but you can probably figure out why that didn't happen.</div><div><br /></div><div>The cats have their 3rd birthday coming up in April.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KLk4ZXKVKa_dY-PlntKfSWs_w5tw9wYNWD1mQxxPQobt3TY4tkCARIxs0_0a7FLBYoT0dfuahkbhDJY0HRGOuauuJRvexghyphenhyphen0dV5ekKKxfgmP0WYS5Nz_du9rf9QD1t1buuKvTyzniRj5j5qxSHJLmKH7uHVHZHQzT5rwJe8PPFnrUdIKSBLy4RvMQYe/s4032/IMG_3805.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KLk4ZXKVKa_dY-PlntKfSWs_w5tw9wYNWD1mQxxPQobt3TY4tkCARIxs0_0a7FLBYoT0dfuahkbhDJY0HRGOuauuJRvexghyphenhyphen0dV5ekKKxfgmP0WYS5Nz_du9rf9QD1t1buuKvTyzniRj5j5qxSHJLmKH7uHVHZHQzT5rwJe8PPFnrUdIKSBLy4RvMQYe/w480-h640/IMG_3805.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Crocuses are blooming in our neighborhood, and even a few daffodils; which means that Kristin's enforced winter hiatus from gardening is coming to an end. We hope that you also have plenty to look forward to this spring (besides our exciting lineup of stories!), and want to extend our best wishes for a Happy Easter to others who celebrate it.</div><br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-87158285103676360442024-02-26T00:00:00.003-05:002024-02-26T00:00:00.238-05:00Deymons<div><b>by Andy Dibble</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>When demon gunk squirms up my neck and down my throat, I wish I didn’t play Deymons. I wish I leapt for a Vieuwscape experience scrolling through media feyds for vieuws of celebrities. You click, the fugue of headswap, and you’re Tjel on stage, singing your heart out—with none of the work to get where she got. Or Z-Marciano scoring the winning goal. Or Skryzyx riding that perfect high without the crash afterward.<br /><br />
When the demons in Deymons are up in you, you retch, sometimes in real life. They are many, and they are always around, like evil oil bubbling up. It differentiates into tissue and bone, normally only after finding an orifice. It’s disturbing how familiar it tastes, like meaty fingers.<br /><br />
Some players boast that they beat Dasharaakh, the muscley demon, by force. Or Adaranth, or some other. They lie. Your only hope is to get to the next fire: to run fast enough, to answer their riddles, to offer the right object, which is sometimes a part of yourself.<br /><br />
But for now, I could still shove Ixyon’s bony inner wheel into place. It pulsed faintly and burst into flame, blasting a hole in the swamp of forming flesh.<br /><br />
“Thank God.” Cynthia collapsed in relief. “They were up my ass. How did you know the combination?”<br /><br />
“The sigils in the lore at the last few fires.”<br /><br />
“Yeah, they had vieuws linked, but they didn’t make sense.”<br /><br />
One had ferreted us in the head of a merchant, who sold clay tablets with curses inscribed. He’d been worried his buyers would figure out he couldn’t read. In another, I’d been a prostitute washing in a pond sacred to a minor god of hygiene.<br /><br />
“I’m pretty sure the vieuws were a red herring. A few of the sigils matched the sigils on the wheels, and I guessed they had to be aligned in the direction of the Path.” When you play Deymons as long as I have, you develop a sense for which way’s forward even in the primeval dark between fires.<br /><br />
“Surprised no one figured that out sooner,” she said.<br /><br />
“I’m not. How many players bother to read?”<br /><br />
“Good point.”<br /><br />
Deymons challenges you to rise above the candy: You have to think. You have to read the lore. But only a tiny percentage of players are dedicated like Cynthia and me. Most only hang around to vieuw new demons that others took vieuws of. Then they flit back to scrolling the feyds.<br /><br />
“So how do you feel?” I still felt giddy. “We’re the first to beat Ixyon.”<br /><br />
“Major rep for you,” she said.<br /><br />
“Nah, tons of players have taken vieuws of Ixyon. Major rep comes from being first to take the demon after.” What people want most is new content to consume, a new vieuw of a totally new demon. Even being Tjel gets old after about forty-five seconds.<br /><br />
Cynthia rolled her eyes. Once I asked her why she played Deymons, if not for rep. I didn’t understand why, when she’s such a serious Christian. If God’s anywhere in Deymons, He’s very far away, like a vanishing point. She had blushed and fumbled for an answer. Eventually she said that Deymons is a picture of what a Godless world is like. Deymons is a world that’s radically against reality.<br /><br />
“So onward?” I said, still buoyed by our win.<br /><br />
“Let me get warm first.” She took off her manticore-hide gloves and splayed her fingers in front of the fire.<br /><br />
“Don’t take too long. Another crew could be beating Ixyon right now.”<br /><br />
She looked at me—up, away from the fire. “Mylo, the next is for me.”<br /><br />
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. Deymons tweaks its demons to play off the weaknesses of players, and it has a way of alternating. Ixyon had been attuned to me, although the effect weakens after many player encounters so that each demon takes on a stable identity. But the next would be fresh, with only Cynthia imprinted on it.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Once Cynthia tried to render a vieuw of a vision of God by seeding AI with different theophanies from the Bible: God’s robe filling the Temple, descending doves and burning bushes, rebukes from a whirlwind, Pentecostal wind and fire, not wind and fire but the gentle whisper after. She wanted to overawe self-proclaimed freethinkers that bashed Christians for fun.<br /><br />
The AI-generated vieuws were intriguing. One—an ascent through concentric heavens in which every star had eyes—was even wondrous. But that was the problem. I could only appreciate it from the outside, even though I was living a vieuw. I don’t think I’m supposed to encounter God like I appreciate a work of art. For ancient people, none of this was art.<br /><br />
Cynthia had a precise idea of how the vieuw was supposed to be. “Seeing God overcomes and humbles you and crushes you with incomprehension, it remakes you and burns you from the inside.” I asked how she knew it was like that, and she said she’d seen God for herself. She told me this so frankly, I didn’t know what to say.<br /><br />
But I saw for myself what emerged from the darkness of the Path, among standing stones dense with inscriptions. I toggled my night vision ability in horror, but the darkness was visible, in deep violets and afterimages.<br /><br />
She was slight and cold. She wore a veil. In her right hand she carried a scepter and in her left a whip. Six-winged serpents formed from gunk and wriggled in the air. The thrash of their wings struck up such frigid blasts my cuirass of greater warmth felt as thin as the rough spun cloak of a new player. Her whip cracked, and all around us there was the rousing of many—striking at one another, clanging chains, crying out with voices of people I’ve wronged.<br /><br />
One lurched in front of me. Its skin and clothes hung in strips. Those scraps had been a suit, one of so many bothersome anachronisms that had percolated into Deymons. A tie swayed around its neck. It wore a chain, a silvery cross. Its face was decayed, a remnant of humanity.<br /><br />
I think it—or he—was my father, or was supposed to be. I hadn’t known him. My mom had said she met him when he was on a business trip, and then he was gone. I’m not even sure if she had pictures.<br /><br />
Deymons wasn’t always so personal, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t be. The Vieuwscape doesn’t just interface with goggles and haptic gloves. It’s up in your brain.<br /><br />
In a liquid motion he chained himself to me, to the chain that tethered all of them, generation upon generation. I shoved him away, or tried to, and cried out an invocation to repel low-level demons, but not these, not <i>her. </i>I felt foolish for reacting so much from fear.<br /><br />
I beheld the lady, vast and cold. I did not know her. But I knew this: She was no demon, not in the traditional sense of one bound by rules—easy to pass if you know the proper words or lure to cast or answer to a riddle. She was more basic than that, like the shadow of the Earth. If it decided to take a personal interest in your captivity.<br /><br />
I could not beat her, could not begin to oppose her. Maybe the seller of curses or the bathing prostitute—those ancient, those faraway people I’d been for a snatch of moments—could understand her, could get behind the art of her. She was not meant to be overcome—not by mortal means. She was there to remind us that no one ever beats Deymons. There’s always another fire, dimmer than the last. There’s help, but you always die alone.<br /><br />
Or, if not alone, in a parody of company.<br /><br />
The lady lifted her scepter, prying a desperate plea from Cynthia’s lips and mine, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”<br /><br />
The cries of all the manacled dead harmonized, speaking with one voice. The lady’s voice: “Who am I?”<br /><br />
Cynthia yanked the chain that bound her to her jailer and said, “When she made us speak, it was from the Bible. Romans, chapter 7.”<br /><br />
“You know the answer?”<br /><br />
“She’s sin.”<br /><br />
This encounter was attuned to Cynthia, so scripture wasn’t surprising, but could it be so easy? “If you’re sure.” We only had one chance. Earlier on the Path, some of the demons gave you three guesses, but if we failed now, she would destroy us.<br /><br />
“You’re sin,” said Cynthia.<br /><br />
The lady cocked her head, considering. Or stretching the moment. She was unreadable behind her veil.<br /><br />
Until her whip cracked down and lacerated the skin from our chests. Vision dissipated like smoke. The cold was complete, like the night before man discovered fire. Like the end of the Path.<br /><br />
The dead swarmed over us and gunk squirmed inside. I remembered what I remember when I die: The darkness outside had always been the same as the darkness inside. My skin was just the thin membrane between, and no light shone through it.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
We respawned at the Town, which surrounds a bonfire as huge as a volcano, the first fire of the game. It was warm, although it took a solid minute for me to shake off the cold nausea of death.<br /><br />
Originally the Town was a ring of mudbrick huts where you could buy talismans and other magic items, but an update gave player guilds the ability to develop real estate. So now the Town was dotted with anachronisms: a clocktower, a plant for capturing carbon from the bonfire, a lab for research into demonic DNA. Complaints from players that magic items could give rise to anti-scientific attitudes had been a factor in the change.<br /><br />
“I gave the right answer!” Cynthia ranted. “It <i>was</i> sin.”<br /><br />
“Don’t worry about it. We took vieuws of her, whatever she’s called. People will flip.”<br /><br />
We tried again and again to pass the Queyn, which is what players started calling her. Cynthia tried <i>hamartia</i>,<i> </i>the Greek word for sin in the Bible. We tried metaphors for sin and titles of old tragedies.<br /><br />
We did research. Apparently, some ancient kings chained prisoners of war to decomposing corpses, “bodies of death.” Although it was strange that Paul, the author of Romans, so stable in his faith, would write from a position of wretchedness and despair.<br /><br />
We never got further than the crack of her whip and cold dark death.<br /><br />
Cynthia took our failure personally after a while, like the AI that spun the game up were telling her she didn’t understand her faith. After a while, she gave up, said she was going dark.<br /><br />
‘Ur loging off?’ I messaged her.<br /><br />
‘For whyl.’<br /><br />
Everyone logged off to piss or eat or exercise, although some people have rigs with IVs, catheters, and other aids that did your biology for you. Some were altheiaphobes—afraid of reality—but staying logged off was eccentric as well. I’ve logged off from time to time out of curiosity, just to see if prolonged exposure to reality was as boring as I remembered it being. It always was.<br /><br />
‘Not like I plan traveling,’ Cynthia messaged. Staying home and logged in meant only a baseline level of carbon emissions that nation-states budgeted for, but people out in cars and planes emitted well above the baseline. Too much of that and the world would be in climate crisis all over again.<br /><br />
Later on, Cynthia messaged me again. She’d found a Bible-based church, more traditional than her old church.<br /><br />
‘Tradytional? Mean im going hell bc play Deymons?’<br /><br />
I assumed she thought my joke in bad taste because she didn’t respond, but a couple weeks later, she asked if I wanted to join worship service. They met over an archaic video conferencing platform my parents might’ve used, rather than a Vieuwscape domain.<br /><br />
She wanted to change me, and I didn’t know why when she’d kept her faith so close to her chest before. I messaged that I’d rather not. We didn’t speak, after that.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
While Cynthia did Cynthia, I rode the wave of my rep. The more other players tried to beat the Queyn and failed, the more they thought I had the secret to beating her. In delaying I was building hype or handpicking the right crew. It helped that I’d been one of the first to scrape by a demon on another branch of the Path, a mammoth sea serpent that could’ve been adapted from any number of premodern cultures.<br /><br />
Gradually the circle of committed players around me decided to start a church. We figured that if we acted like Christians long enough and prayed and went to church like Christians, we’d have the inside track to toppling the Queyn. Cynthia was far more Christian than any of us, and the Queyn killed her just the same. But I liked having a following, so I didn’t question it.<br /><br />
We bought a lot in the Town, prime real estate that backed up against the bonfire. We had a chapel rendered with stained glass windows of angels, all slaying demons in exaggerated poses.<br /><br />
They wanted me to preach. There wasn’t much to it. Preachers promoted Bible verses in the feyds by excerpting a verse or part of a verse. It didn’t matter which verse or even if the words made sense, so long as there was a vieuw to click on. During service, preachers cast vieuws over their congregation, one after another.<br /><br />
Preachers arranged line-ups, like DJs. I could DJ.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
That was what I did for several months, the bonfire light streaming hot through the stained glass, back-lighting me like one of the conquering angels. I kicked service off with vieuws linked in some of the Vieuwscape Bible Psalms. Each planted us in the head of an Israelite orchestral player for fifteen or twenty seconds, ancient Hebraic song reverberating in marble halls. Each was just long enough to draw people in, but not so long that people get bored.<br /><br />
I was known for offbeat line-ups. Some came for that rather than the Queyn, but even I had to include inspirational vieuws, or my following would be a cult crew before long. But I spliced in instrumentals from Ayilyam, a Tamil-pop crew trending in the feyds.<br /><br />
With pronged fingers, I navigated to Mark chapter 5 in the hypertext web of the Vieuwscape Bible, where Jesus casts out the demon Legion, which conveniently was also the name of a band trending. I plucked the vieuw linked from Legion’s “We r many” and cast it over the crowd.<br /><br />
We touched down in fugue, splitting and merging into many, like the Queyn’s winged serpents split and merged into her. There were boars with unicorn horns and trees trudging down the hill, uprooted in ghost images. The sun was a psychedelic noon of many eyes, all attuned to different spectra. Our voice was many voices, frayed and feuding.<br /><br />
We were Legion!<br /><br />
It was raw, and I got cheers. But no one tolerates being anywhere for more than about forty seconds. So I hit them with the next vieuw, when the cured man is “in his right mind.” It was surprising because Jesus cured the man after a long counseling session, like a therapist treating Multiple Personality Disorder. It was one of a body of vieuws that showed how scientific the ancient world was.<br /><br />
Anticipating the fugue of jumping heads, I stumbled at the edge of the chapel dais. But there was no headswap. The vieuw had fizzled, somehow.<br /><br />
Cynthia was coming down the aisle in a rough spun robe, not her manticore-hide gear. I was peeved, at first. Her interruption would cost me rep.<br /><br />
Cynthia tapped a janky wand against her shin. Under other circumstances I’d think it for warding off Vetalaaksha demons. They curse you with ad-vision if you don’t pay them a recurring fee. “That an adblocker?”<br /><br />
“Modified to jam vieuws.”<br /><br />
“You know, I was doing my thing here.” But I was glad to see her again. I told my congregation we were ending early this week. To Cynthia, “You could’ve messaged.”<br /><br />
“Considering how caught up you are, I thought you’d pay better attention if I ambushed you.”<br /><br />
Not sure I liked her tone. “What’s your point?”<br /><br />
“Read the passage that vieuw is supposed to be about.”<br /><br />
“OK.” I could read. I wasn’t most people, with the attention span of a goldfish. “‘They saw the man, posesed by the leygion of deymons, siting there, dresed, in his right mind. They were afraid.’”<br /><br />
“Does it say he had psych problems? Or that he thought he did?”<br /><br />
“He was possessed? That could just be another word for mental illness.” But I didn’t think it was.<br /><br />
“You think people would be <i>afraid</i> if all Jesus did was give him therapy?”<br /><br />
“But if the vieuw shows he was ill, why do the words say different?”<br /><br />
“The better question is, if the words say he was possessed by demons, why does the vieuw show different? It’s the Bible that’s the Word of God.”<br /><br />
I had my Sunday spectacle and my quest to beat the Queyn, so I wanted to tell Cynthia that God approaches us in different ways. Once He approached us through words, and now he approaches us through vieuws because it’s through vieuws that we are most ready to receive Him.<br /><br />
But I was a reader, one of a few. If the words and the vieuws were different, the vieuws weren’t just the output of AI ruminating on Bible verses. The AI must have been trained to make vieuws like these.<br /><br />
“You think there’s an agenda behind the vieuws?” I said.<br /><br />
“Definitely. Ever wonder why no one ever smells in the Bible vieuws, why everyone’s clean? The ancient world didn’t have sanitation like we do. They weren’t scientific or technological, not by a long shot.”<br /><br />
I thought that humanity had been scientific forever or at least as long as there’d been records written. But come to think about it, I’d never seen double-blind studies or statistics while researching the Queyn. If Cynthia was right, ancient science was only in the vieuws.<br /><br />
Why invent ancient science? Why pretend that Christianity was really a religion of science?<br /><br />
There’s a vieuw linked where Jesus calms the storm on the sea of Galilee, but he doesn’t say the storm was a sign from God or that it was the work of evil powers. He says, “R ur carbon emisions stil so great?”<br /><br />
“The vieuws are about climate,” I said. Because the Vieuwscape hadn’t been a response to consumer demand, not entirely. It had been subsidized by nation states that needed to keep people at home and on a fixed carbon budget, not burning hydrocarbons. Climate policy had struggled for decades in developed nations, in great part, because of opposition by the Christian right.<br /><br />
“But Christians aren’t climate deniers, not anymore,” Cynthia said.<br /><br />
“That doesn’t mean we haven’t inherited a Vieuwscape Bible that was composed as a reaction to Christians that were.”<br /><br />
She made a face. “That’s a lot to take in.”<br /><br />
“It sure is.”<br /><br />
“Hmm, how do you feel about time away from that Bible?”<br /><br />
“Logging off?”<br /><br />
“Yeah.”<br /><br />
This time, I didn’t tell her no.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Cynthia lived in a small city near the west coast of the United States. I lived in Nairobi. We were too far apart to consider traveling, financially or morally, so we met over the video conferencing app her church used. I was embarrassed when we first connected because she looked almost exactly like her avatar. Mine has a squarer chin and a slimmer build; its hair is in dreads. I’ve always thought the Vieuwscape a means of projecting a better version of myself without all the hard realities that are so difficult to modify.<br /><br />
My apartment is one room, no windows, four beige walls made of compressed plant fibers. I wanted to decorate, but Cynthia insisted I avoid shopping. I’d never shopped much before, even in the Town. Talismans are a crutch; they only work until mid-game. The only worthwhile gear is on the Path. But my body told me that if it couldn’t play Deymons and couldn’t promote itself in the feyds, it should be able to scroll through interminable grids of housewares.<br /><br />
I went for long walks along fields of yams being farmed by robotic harvesters. My grandparents had been farmers in fields like these, harvesting carnations and summer flowers for export to Europe. My great-grandparents grew yams, beans, or corn. They’d lived in villages that no longer exist and spoke languages that are no longer spoken.<br /><br />
I wondered if they could name the Queyn, though I had no idea if they’d been Christian. Certainly, they understood demons in a way I did not.<br /><br />
Cynthia and I read the Bible daily. We began with books Cynthia knew would interest me: Genesis for its grand cosmology and stories of the patriarchs, Job for Behemoth and Leviathan, the Gospels for miracles and exorcisms. Every time I wanted to skip to the end of a chapter because it was boring or difficult to understand, Cynthia reminded me that God intended those words to be there, no matter how boring they seemed.<br /><br />
The slow movements of reading seduced me in a way the Vieuwscape never had. I learned that the Leviathan in the Psalms has multiple heads, that Jesus did nature magic and read minds, that Ezekiel’s angels of interlocking wheels with eyes are far from how we imagine angels. After a while, we learned some Greek so we could read the original language of the New Testament. The Queyn was far from my mind.<br /><br />
I learned that Cynthia didn’t much care for the wonder of the Word, for sparks and gestures. Her eye was for how this verse or that supported doctrine. She would step through the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth…” with the same exacting slowness that I applied to Job 41 or First Corinthians 15. She carefully annotated the Creed with verses of the Bible that she believed evidenced each clause.<br /><br />
What I liked best in the Creed were certain phrases—that the Son will judge “the quick and the dead,” that we look to “the life of the world to come”—and I thought them better because I did not understand the reasons behind them.<br /><br />
One Sunday, I joined Cynthia at her church. Service followed rehearsed forms of standing and sitting and responding with certain words at the right time, even though we were all on camera. The hymns were in stuffy archaic English from before spelling changed under pressure to optimize content for search engines. I found myself thinking I’d feel closer to these people if we weren’t all in real life.<br /><br />
When it came time to confess the Creed, I think I was the only one who said nothing, because I didn’t know what parts I believed and which I did not. After reading a text as complex as the Bible, I didn’t understand why I was supposed to believe so simple a formula. It seemed a distortion, not so different from the vieuws linked in the Vieuwscape Bible. Why should all the Bible’s variety be flattened, like the carnations and lilies and all the summer flowers my grandparents grew had been plowed under to grow a monoculture of yams?<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
When I told Cynthia I wanted to log back on, she told me one man can’t change the Vieuwscape.<br /><br />
“But maybe I can change those close to me,” I said.<br /><br />
“We aren’t like other people, Mylo. Take the Vieuwscape away for a week, and most anyone will go stir crazy, go into withdrawal.”<br /><br />
“I have this relationship with the Bible now. You helped me with that, and I think I’m ready to share that with other people.” That sounded selfish after what Cynthia had said, but I didn’t think it was wrong for me to say it.<br /><br />
“I thought you had a relationship with God.”<br /><br />
“I do.” Although I wasn’t sure that I did. “Look, I’m not asking people to log off. I just want them to have the chance to read the Bible like we do.”<br /><br />
And I told her my idea.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I got a flurry of messages as soon as I logged in asking where I’d been. ‘Reyding,’ I responded. I got back a flurry of amused emojis. Others thought I was just that hardcore, cutting myself off like that. Like a saint on retreat. Reading was conditioning myself for beating the Queyn.<br /><br />
I put the word out: Come to the chapel.<br /><br />
I’d shared vieuws of myself before—of beating Ixyon, of my least embarrassing runs at the Queyn—but I’d always scrubbed my thoughts from the vieuw first. It’s already personal enough, sharing full sensory experience. Most don’t like your thoughts intruding on their own.<br /><br />
But now the vieuw could not be filtered because reading isn’t just repeating words on a page. It’s an imaginative act, a new creation.<br /><br />
I cast my vieuw of reading Romans 7 over the sanctuary. The fugue was less, just easing into a crisp memory.<br /><br />
I was alone, just me, my e-reader, and a mug of black coffee running warm down my throat. I read without hurry. I did not skim, as I once had, for links to vieuws. “For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” And so, the Queyn ambushes players among inscribed standing stones. Later I read, “I am of the flesh, sold under sin.” And so, she carries a whip. She enslaves us. We say her words.<br /><br />
In a thrill of insight—the ecstasy of a thought unthought by others, or by only a few, or not for a long time—I understood what sin was to Paul.<br /><br />
Sin wasn’t just a red mark in a ledger of deeds, some demerit or lapse. It wasn’t even an affront to God—or not only an affront to God. I had to be careful. So far, my guess was just that: a guess, a hypothesis. Sin could be many things.<br /><br />
I turned to the original Greek, and reading again, if even more slowly, I understood that my guess was not a guess only. It had legs. Sin was, at the very least, a substantive thing because of the presence of “the,” a definite article. But the Greek article also functions to distinguish a noun as proper, which is why names in the New Testament commonly take an article. I had to think sin in Romans 7 wasn’t sin generically, but Sin—a literal agent of evil—of Flesh, the realm opposed to the Spirit.<br /><br />
I couldn’t remove the possibility that Romans 7 was just a vivid metaphor on sin, but Paul had been such a grounded, practical person, not prone to literary fancies. Sin was so active—deceiving, dwelling in the body, compelling it to evil, waging war—that I could not believe Paul conceived of it as anything but an actual entity, as it is in other antique texts like the Book of Sirach and the Greek Magical Papyri.<br /><br />
In truth, my uncertainty was the point. I didn’t know how Paul understood the supernatural. What we called supernatural. For Paul, angels and spirits were as integrated into everyday living as wildlife.<br /><br />
For Paul, I gather, Sin was a demon.<br /><br />
I cut the vieuw. After my mind had strayed where I’m not sure it was productive for others to follow.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Most left before the vieuw stopped. They had feyds to scroll through or were itching to run the Path. Reading—slow as it was—was not for them. I’d tried my best to show the magic of reading deeply, as grand conclusion, when it’s normally a grind. I hadn’t subjected them to my slog through twentieth-century German theologians and their abstruse ideas about sin.<br /><br />
Some stayed, though not so many as I had hoped. For them, vieuwing until the end was polite, or a duty of their faith, or just interesting enough not to dart away. But most that stayed did so because they thought my vieuw prologue to another run at the Queyn. This vieuw was a test. Or my revelation, however humble, would somehow stay her whip and scepter.<br /><br />
I wouldn’t deny them one more run, although I had already done all I needed to do. I didn’t need to beat her. I didn’t need to keep my fifteen seconds of fame alive, not anymore.<br /><br />
Cynthia joined us, wearing her manticore-hide armor. She even led our crew, after I encouraged her to. No one objected to me standing aside once I told them that she was the one the Queyn had imprinted on.<br /><br />
We faced the Queyn among the standing stones, shivering in the cold. The dead shambled toward us. My father shackled himself to me.<br /><br />
When we all cried out, “Wretched man that I am!” I think I could’ve named the Queyn. If only then, at that moment, I could’ve said that she was Sin instead of what she compelled me to say, fire would’ve smote her from the heavens.<br /><br />
Because now I knew the outcry was not Paul’s words—or it was Paul’s words, but Paul did not write of his own case. According to many scholars, he wrote on behalf of the first man Adam, whose name means man. “Wretched man that I am!” was Adam crying out on behalf of all humanity. And so, we all cried out.<br /><br />
But what do I know? Too little. Too much.<br /><br />
The thrill of her was lost to me, to all of us. We’d been through her sequence many times before.<br /><br />
To name her I would’ve had to have been the reader I am now, mature in my faith, but also fresh against the Queyn, facing her for the first time, alive in the horror of her.<br /><br />
And so, the moment was already lost.<br /><br />
The Queyn asked, “Who am I?”<br /><br />
Cynthia said that she was Flesh.<br /><br />
The Queyn cocked her head, raised her whip, and ripped us through.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Sometime later, after we logged off, Cynthia asked about my vieuw. “You were obviously building to another conclusion.”<br /><br />
I had been, but it was difficult to tell her what it was. “Once you told me you’d seen God for yourself, like fire from the inside. But how can you know what you saw was what the apostles saw so long ago, that it’s even the same God?”<br /><br />
“You would be sure, if you saw what I saw.”<br /><br />
She was confident, but I couldn’t stand on her confidence, not anymore. “I haven’t seen what you saw. So I’m not sure how you do it, how you build the connection.”<br /><br />
“You didn’t seem unsure in your vieuw.”<br /><br />
“No, I wasn’t.” I shouldn’t act like I was now. She wanted me to be honest with her. “I thought that if Sin is a demon to Paul, to the Bible, I thought about what that means for my faith. Because I don’t believe in demons.”<br /><br />
“You don’t?” she said. I’d never been this blunt about my unbelief.<br /><br />
“You <i>do</i>?”<br /><br />
“Of course I do.”<br /><br />
“Then maybe I do too. We’re a lot alike in our thinking. But do you think we believe in demons like Paul did, like those first generations of Christians? For them, the world was teeming with unseen powers. Curse tablets, talismans, and ritual services were all part of the economy, part of daily life, of a machinery we don’t understand any longer. What we call fantasy was powerful and mundane and a little wondrous—all at the same time. Today we only have fossils of that, in our fiction and games, especially after the climate crisis drew such a reaction against any idea that doesn’t mesh with established science. I suppose I believe in demons like I believe in dark matter or quarks, but that’s all, because we’re told to, because people we trust say it’s so.”<br /><br />
“What are you saying?” Her voice, at least, was calm.<br /><br />
“I’m saying if what it takes to be Christian is to understand the problem of Sin—Sin as a demon, not a doctrine—it might be that we can’t be Christian. There are too many centuries, too many worldviews layered between us—science and modernity and all the rest—for us to delve back to those ancient patterns. Or perhaps it is just very hard, that it requires an extraordinary act of imagination and empathy in order to dig so deep. I think maybe our failure to do that is why we couldn’t beat the Queyn.”<br /><br />
“So you think it’s better to just play at being Christian, like your congregation, to just be gamers and have no faith?”<br /><br />
“I think it’s possible that people have been playing at being Christian for a long time.”<br /><br />
She let out a long breath. “I think you and I have very different views of what’s possible.”<br /><br />
I wanted to get the rest out, if only to be clear. “When I read Paul, the Gospels, John’s Revelation even—there’s so much urgency. The Son of Man is returning soon! We need to get our act together and repent. It was supposed to be a matter of a generation or two, that’s all. Paul believed he was among those ‘who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord.’ If you could tell him that Jesus would take more than two millennia to return, he wouldn’t have believed you. We may claim the Bible for ourselves—if that’s what makes us Christian, I suppose we are—but I’m not sure it was written for us. It was written for those first generations that had rumors of Christ and tales of miracles on their lips.”<br /><br />
“So that’s it, we’re all damned, because we’re—what?—on the wrong side of history? God has no mercy? Is that what you’re saying?”<br /><br />
“I don’t know what God thinks.” I wasn’t sure I ever would. “What I know is that when I read the Bible, I don’t see doctrines. Not as often as your Creed suggests. I see histories and laws and stories and arguments. The doctrines we’re supposed to take on faith, Trinity and Incarnation and Original Sin, aren’t near to the text. You have to do all this theology to draw them out. I don’t need to tell you how controversial they were in the first centuries of the faith, and some of them still are. But fantasy, what we call fantasy—angels and demons and miracles—all that is there without controversy or theology, without any need to guess.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Cynthia and I didn’t read together after that, although we messaged from time to time. I started a Bible study with a few of my congregation, but we were too like-minded for me to benefit much. I wanted to turn about in my head, but they wanted me to tell them the truth.<br /><br />
Eventually player complaints about how difficult the Queyn was filtered through customer relationship algorithms, and the AI that spun up Deymons scrapped her entirely. The demon that replaced her was a pollution monster with smokestacks and rivers of sludge. It got beat inside an hour.<br /><br />
I tried spin-offs of Deymons—where the fires are planets or lampposts in a dark city or floats in a parade—but I always went back to the original, despite its anachronisms. Deymons still connects to a part of the brain that is very old, a problem as old as predation.<br /><br />
The Path has no end, just like the work of reading has no end.<br /><br />
I pray that one day the two run together and I can read like those first generations, for whom demons and miracles and the power of God were powerful and mundane and a little wondrous all at the same time.<br /><br />
<hr />
Andy Dibble writes from Madison, Wisconsin and works as a healthcare IT consultant. He has supported the electronic medical record of large healthcare systems in six countries. His work also appears in <i>Writers of the Future</i>, <i>Diabolical Plots</i>, <i>Sci Phi Journal</i>, and others. He edited <i>Strange Religion: Speculative Fiction of Spirituality, Belief, & Practice</i>. You can find him at andydibble.com, on Twitter (<a href="https://www.twitter.com/AndyDibble2">@AndyDibble2</a>) and on Facebook (<a href="https://facebook.com/andy.dibble.12">andy.dibble.12</a>).<br /><br />About the story, Andy says, “The inspiration for this came most from realizing that the Greek of the Lord’s Prayer reads ‘deliver us from the evil one’ rather than ‘deliver us from evil,’ that it has covert demonology. I realized that Romans 7 could sustain a similar reading. I’m also interested in how radically modern and premodern people vary, and how that impacts religious identity.”<br /><br /><br />
“Deymons” by Andy Dibble. Copyright © 2024 by Andy Dibble.<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-54588918967348528982024-02-10T00:00:00.024-05:002024-02-10T00:00:00.135-05:00February 2024<div>We're now closed to submissions again until July 1st, and have started reading the 245 stories we received in January. If you sent us a story, you can expect to hear from us by the end of May if we accept the story, possibly much sooner if we reject it.</div><div><br /></div><div>We're also still working on the reprint anthology of the 2020-2021 stories from the online magazine. It's mostly ready; we're currently doing last-minute tasks that seem as if they should go quickly but never do, such as writing an introduction and back cover text.</div><div><br /></div><div>Did you know that we have a <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> page? If you aren't a subscriber yet, now is a great time to sign up, because we've had a recent uptick in monthly support (to $248/month) and are getting close to <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/support.html" target="_blank">our next funding goal</a> ($275/month). Once we reach it, we'll start publishing an additional two stories each year. At our current funding level, we're planning to accept seven stories from the ones we received in January. But if we reach our next milestone, we'll be able to accept eight!</div><div><br /></div><div>You can sign up for as little as $1/month, which will get you access to the Discord and the monthly chats we have with our supporters and writers there, as well as Insider posts about publishing and writing; but for $3/month you'll also get early access to all the stories we publish, and $10/month gets you an e-book of the upcoming stories every two months. </div><div><br /></div><div>Patreon is our main source of funding for this magazine (besides Donald's income from his day job), and since we're not yet breaking even, all your subscription dollars go toward paying our authors.</div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b>CURRENT AND FORTHCOMING STORIES</b></h4><div>Our most recent story is Ralph Mack's "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2024/01/soulman.html" target="_blank">Soulman</a>", about an android who knows he has a soul, in a world that doesn't allow for the possibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next up, at the end of this month, don't miss "Deymons"! In this science fiction tale by returning Mysterion author Andy Dibble, an avid gamer who wonders if the Bible might hold the key to his last unwinnable boss fight finds both more and less than he had hoped for.</div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b>FELINE UPDATE</b></h4><div>The cats seem to have recovered from their separation anxiety following our weeklong trip to Nova Scotia (without them) over Christmas. They aren't following Kristin around meowing quite so much as when we first got back.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdTrUhga3UokF-R8qL51H30INDNzx9__9rGhhQjSLDTH00RcgyPWTwEFPICj1f17hxVWCUKk4X374ovnTni5SqRjgIQPUgi8DBupLi3TGInJurIspT8TAmW6bGQChvJaecsHTb5ZR152rW-9GG5xZfkF5odc2Fsb1rTBMDwiTg6CykCKhnp89vbwEbJHt/s4032/IMG_3717.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdTrUhga3UokF-R8qL51H30INDNzx9__9rGhhQjSLDTH00RcgyPWTwEFPICj1f17hxVWCUKk4X374ovnTni5SqRjgIQPUgi8DBupLi3TGInJurIspT8TAmW6bGQChvJaecsHTb5ZR152rW-9GG5xZfkF5odc2Fsb1rTBMDwiTg6CykCKhnp89vbwEbJHt/w640-h480/IMG_3717.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>We recently got a new bathtub mat, and they've already kind of trashed it. Kristin thought a dark grey one might not discolor as rapidly with use as the clear ones we used to get. Unfortunately, the dark grey catches the feline gaze more readily, and Maxwell especially is always trying to pull the mat up from the tub. Many of the suction cups that hold the mat in place no longer work, because they've been punctured by tooth and claw.</div><div><br /></div><div>Marie likes to hang out in the bathtub too, but isn't as bad about chewing on the mat:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5BWFGO15pGGqcvTEv3AiC-A19hyPgzGrKcU9xYZRM9U4U7XN1tuIS7R7b0Lu-NbVYnHoeiuwa22gOuUaVEGIKXMRphUEtPRPSdtpjhORR44QDRyLrWdPJ-jJbTuxyiRF8Ox6pJvBmKB2mbGEoHml1pIskyM_r2Rs7889S37eVOBEIlurm-RzxgFRyconr/s4032/IMG_3731.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5BWFGO15pGGqcvTEv3AiC-A19hyPgzGrKcU9xYZRM9U4U7XN1tuIS7R7b0Lu-NbVYnHoeiuwa22gOuUaVEGIKXMRphUEtPRPSdtpjhORR44QDRyLrWdPJ-jJbTuxyiRF8Ox6pJvBmKB2mbGEoHml1pIskyM_r2Rs7889S37eVOBEIlurm-RzxgFRyconr/w480-h640/IMG_3731.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Maybe it's good that our cats aren't better mousers:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcemjb0DJItXS6uQqxfOlDke79pn1ti5kiRH_g8xkBff9_ZZlJ18ArVwOMH3nPNlUMWtW9vargUk46ZxM1kwpKmvWQGVJCXkODh9xLk0RQOJzU2lAiZC8ZmSSNJrhNyJWbWaFQWzIWx0hGRBpRpjAV3aQGOwadsjbuoi17nwSGFn9X3FjgCqvDeyllYUGO/s4032/IMG_3764.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcemjb0DJItXS6uQqxfOlDke79pn1ti5kiRH_g8xkBff9_ZZlJ18ArVwOMH3nPNlUMWtW9vargUk46ZxM1kwpKmvWQGVJCXkODh9xLk0RQOJzU2lAiZC8ZmSSNJrhNyJWbWaFQWzIWx0hGRBpRpjAV3aQGOwadsjbuoi17nwSGFn9X3FjgCqvDeyllYUGO/w480-h640/IMG_3764.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-21045754816538709272024-01-22T00:00:00.006-05:002024-01-22T00:00:00.235-05:00Soulman<div><b>by Ralph Mack</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>X473 Coalman stepped under the eaves of the church and out of the cold rain that poured from the evening sky. He could hear the sounds of the organ and of singing inside, and he drank them in. There was something about hymns that gave him hope.<br /><br />
He would have liked to go inside, but it was off limits to him. Such places were only for humans, and an android, having no soul to save, or so the logic went, had no business there. But he could stand outside under the beauty of the stained glass, illuminated from within, and listen. The words were indistinct, but sometimes he hummed along. He wished he knew them.<br /><br />
He could tell from the flow of the music that this was the recessional. The great wooden doors opened, and people poured out, shaking hands with the priest and climbing into their cars which, at the utterance of a phrase, would whisk them to their homes. All the while, he stood, outside the church and yet in its shelter, a shadow in the dark.<br /><br />
Soon everybody was gone. The priest closed the church doors and the lights went out one by one. In the dark, Coalman sang the church a wordless lullaby. As he turned to retreat into the darkness, his toe touched something. He bent down and picked it up. It was a prayer book, dropped by one of the people who had hurried to get into their cars and out of the rain. He couldn’t leave it here. He placed the sodden pages in an interior compartment, close to what he thought of as his heart, and walked “home”.<br /><br />
“Home” was a cold metal charging rack in a warehouse outside the copper mine that defined his work, his life. Of course, according to convention, he wasn’t alive, but he didn’t feel that way. He worked side-by-side with those humans whose poverty or crimes had consigned them to hard, manual labor. Some of them died, and he mourned their passing. They weren’t built to withstand this kind of work. He was.<br /><br />
They were there to be forgotten, to suffer and die out of sight. He was there just to function, preferably for decades, although that was doubtful. He had seen other units fail. It was the dust, the same thing that killed the humans. It somehow got past the seals, shorted circuits, made connections that were never meant to be. It was copper ore, after all, copper and silicon, the material of which his circuits were made, his mother’s bones.<br /><br />
He settled into his charging rack, but before pressing his neck against the bolts, he pulled the missal out of his compartment and began reading: prayers, rituals, psalms; and then in the back, something called a catechism. He sat up and read with more interest.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
The next day, he had to ration his energy. His trip to the church and a long night of reading and pondering had left him with too few hours of recharge time. The mine had rules for downtime, optimized to keep units functioning for many years. <i>At least I’m expensive, </i>he thought, <i>or I would have no value at all.</i><br /><br />
His head felt like it was on fire with the words of the catechism. He had no energy to apply to it, but notions of sin, of redemption, of worth and hope buzzed in the back corners of his electronic brain. He would need to collect charge early and return to the church to deliver the prayer book to the priest. A woman’s name was inscribed in gold leaf on the cover. She would be missing it.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Coalman timed his arrival for the end of the Mass. It was a lighter crowd, but then there often were fewer on a Sunday night than a Saturday. Once again, people were shaking the priest’s hand before striding to their cars. He waited in the shadows.<br /><br />
As the priest turned to close the door, Coalman spoke. “Father?”<br /><br />
“Who’s there?” The priest peered into the darkness.<br /><br />
“Can I have a few minutes of your time?”<br /><br />
The priest nodded and turned. “Come inside.”<br /><br />
Coalman followed him into the church. As large as the building was on the outside, seeing the inside for the first time made his current surge. He stood a moment in awe.<br /><br />
The priest turned, caught his breath, and said, “Oh! You’re…”<br /><br />
“Yes.” Coalman opened his compartment and retrieved the missal. “One of your people dropped this last night. It was lying in the rain. I brought it home until I could return it.”<br /><br />
The priest took it from his hand. “Thank you.”<br /><br />
Coalman nodded. As the priest turned to walk away, Coalman said, “I read it.”<br /><br />
The priest stopped and looked at Coalman over his shoulder. “And?”<br /><br />
“I found the catechism interesting. It talked about things, important things. I’d like to discuss them.”<br /><br />
The priest faced him. “You know nothing there applies to you. You’re a machine.”<br /><br />
“I think I might have a soul. I want to be sure.”<br /><br />
“I don’t see how. You weren’t made by God. You were made in a factory.”<br /><br />
“And you were made in a woman’s body. I read something very exciting in there. It said, ‘It is He that has made us and not we ourselves.’ Is that true? I hope that it is. I’d like it to be.”<br /><br />
The priest looked at him a long time. Coalman patiently looked back.<br /><br />
“You ask provocative questions,” the priest finally said. “Still, I suppose I should expect that machine logic would come to some strange conclusions.”<br /><br />
Coalman looked at the pew rack. “I was wondering if I could ask a favor.”<br /><br />
The priest nodded.<br /><br />
“Could I borrow a hymnal? Many nights I stand outside under the eaves and listen. The walls are thick. I can hear the tune, but I can’t make out the words. If I could read a hymnal, I’d know the words. I could sing them, at least in my heart.”<br /><br />
“Why? What even makes you think you have a heart?”<br /><br />
“Life can be hard. Hymns give me hope.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
The priest locked the door as the android left in the night, and pondered the cover in his hand. <i>Rachel Fulham’s daughter Regina will be missing this. </i>He opened to the catechism and noticed where dabs of machine oil had soaked into the pages, the marks of a metal hand flipping pages back and forth. <i>If only the members of my parish could sense so clearly what lies in those words. Still, they don’t apply to him—to it. </i>He shook his head.<i></i><br /><br />
Quietly, he turned out the lights and walked back to the parsonage next door. He thought of this machine that talked of life and a heart and hope. “Who is my neighbor?” he said aloud, and then shelved the disquieting answer.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Coalman enjoyed the fruits of a thorough recharge. He worked side-by-side with a human named Driscoll. The man’s other name was Robert, but everybody called him Driscoll.<br /><br />
Coalman was fascinated by the way humans used names. There was the formal name, like Robert or X473, which was never used unless something unfortunate had happened. Then there was the working name, like Driscoll or Coalman. And finally, there was the nickname, like Bob, that indicated familiarity and warmth. These were usually shorter, but sometimes they weren’t any shorter than the formal or working name. They were just different, something people gave to you. Nobody ever gave androids nicknames. He never heard anybody call Driscoll Bob, either.<br /><br />
Driscoll, as usual, was doing his best not to work. Coalman was always amazed by the prolonged effort that Driscoll put into this. The shovels were heavy and a nearly empty one required perhaps half as much effort as a full one. Yet Driscoll would go through the motions with his empty shovel, while Coalman would fill his. With Coalman doing all the work, Driscoll would need to move his shovel a lot more to even look like he was working, so it really hadn’t saved him anything.<br /><br />
“Why do you <i>do</i> that?”<br /><br />
“Do what?” Driscoll’s mouth twisted with annoyance.<br /><br />
“Empty shovel.”<br /><br />
“Lighter.”<br /><br />
“More work.”<br /><br />
“They’re tryin’ to kill me, make me breathe this shit. Goin’ slow kicks up less dust. You breathe slower, too.”<br /><br />
Coalman nodded. “Logical.” He adjusted his digging to be more efficient, not so dusty.<br /><br />
“Why do you think they make us dig, Coalman? They could use machines to do it.”<br /><br />
Coalman thought to himself, <i>they are using machines to do it, mostly</i>, but he wanted to include himself in Driscoll’s “us”.<br /><br />
“Dust eventually kills us <i>all</i> down here,” Coalman said.<br /><br />
The foreman shouted, “Quit your jawin’, Driscoll! Get to work.”<br /><br />
The two continued in silence.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
At the humans’ fifteen-minute lunch break, Coalman asked Driscoll, “I’ve been reading lately about sin. What is it?”<br /><br />
Driscoll looked at Coalman sharply. “You gettin’ religion or somethin’?”<br /><br />
“Perhaps.”<br /><br />
“Sin’s what put me here—doin’ what you want, instead of what you’re told.”<br /><br />
“So deliberately putting people in places where their health is at risk so they’ll die of exposure isn’t sin?”<br /><br />
Driscoll grinned. “Careful, Coalman. Ask questions like that and they’ll put you down at the face where the dust is thickest or they’ll cash you in for spare parts, a malfunctioning unit.”<br /><br />
“And then I’ll die.” Coalman nodded and paused, regarding Driscoll. “I wonder what happens then. What do you think? Will I see heaven?”<br /><br />
Driscoll snorted. “More likely you’ll be right beside me, workin’ a mine face forever in the other place.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Another Saturday Mass. Under the eaves again, Coalman listened eagerly for the hymns. He’d only learned a hundred or so before he’d had to settle in for a charge. He hoped that tonight they’d play one he knew and for the first time he’d be able to sing along.<br /><br />
He found he particularly liked the children’s hymns. Sometimes he felt like a child, especially when he thought about God. The hymns and the missal talked a lot about God as a father. He wondered what that would be like, to have a father, a mother, to be given a name that meant something more than a job function, a name he shared with the one who gave it. He thought about Robert Driscoll. There was an older Mr. Driscoll who looked at his son, who would have been quite small and not very coherent, from what he’d been told, and named him Robert. How did a child get from there to the mines?<br /><br />
The recessional was one of the hymns he knew. He savored the words rolling through his mind, current singing in his veins, and thanked God before he went on his way. As he settled onto the pins of the charging station, other functions shutting down as it delivered its life-giving renewal, he no longer went down alone. Like an infant, he rested in a warm embrace, and he dreamed.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
On the job the next day, Coalman worked again with Driscoll, and with another android, T731 Loader. Loader was an older model, more obviously a machine, and kicked up quite a bit of dust.<br /><br />
“If you hold the shovel like this,” Coalman demonstrated, “you produce less dust. It’s better for the function of all of us, biologicals and mechanicals alike.”<br /><br />
“0.378% less productive,” Loader responded.<br /><br />
“What does that accumulate to in the course of your function?” Coalman asked.<br /><br />
Loader paused, frozen, and then continued, “1.4 million net profit per year times 57 years.”<br /><br />
“And how many years of productive effort by a machine are lost by failure due to dust?”<br /><br />
Loader paused again. “16.7 years, standard deviation of 3.8. Data is irrelevant.”<br /><br />
“Why?”<br /><br />
“Unit is worth only 0.6 million, easily replaceable.”<br /><br />
“And the biologicals?”<br /><br />
“No value. Continuing expense. Disposable.”<br /><br />
“And there you have it.” Driscoll smirked, rolling his eyes.<br /><br />
Coalman shook his head.<br /><br />
“Coalman, Driscoll, Loader. Get back to work!” the foreman hollered.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Driscoll was irritable, his mood steadily worsening the rest of the day. He was reprimanded by the foreman several times and finally shouted at the man, “If it’s so damned easy, do it yourself!”<br /><br />
The foreman stalked over, swinging a metal bar in his hand. “Would you mind repeating that, Driscoll.”<br /><br />
Driscoll glowered. “I said if it’s so damned easy—”<br /><br />
The man raised the metal rod and swung it. Coalman, his shovel loaded, stumbled between the foreman and Driscoll, taking the full brunt of the blow across his midsection, and fell to the ground.<br /><br />
“Great,” the foreman said. “Just great! Now look what you made me do. This isn’t over, Driscoll.” He glared and went off.<br /><br />
Driscoll bent down to Coalman. “Are you alright?”<br /><br />
Coalman nodded and struggled to his knees. His movement was made awkward by the large dent in his midsection. He slowly stood up, recalibrating for the angle, shaking his head as he regained his equilibrium.<br /><br />
“You never misstep. You did that on purpose.”<br /><br />
Coalman looked at Driscoll solemnly. “I can continue to function. Had the blow struck you, you would not. Loader’s calculations are inaccurate. You have a father, a mother. They named you.”<br /><br />
Driscoll slowly nodded. “Thank you.”<br /><br />
“You’re very welcome, Driscoll.”<br /><br />
“Name’s Bob.”<br /><br />
“Very well, Bob. We’d better return to work. I’m not sure I could endure another beating.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Coalman didn’t arrive at Mass until the very end. He had been delayed in the repair bay as the technicians hammered the dent out of his midriff. The foreman had logged it as an accidental injury and Coalman didn’t contest it. The foreman hadn’t intended to damage Coalman, after all.<br /><br />
He had managed to continue learning hymns. He particularly liked one entitled “This Is My Father’s World.” Once again, he had hailed the priest from the shadows, and the priest had invited him in, closing the doors firmly behind him.<br /><br />
“I thought about our conversation last week. How are you faring?” the priest asked.<br /><br />
“I haven’t finished learning the hymns yet. I will need at least a few more days.”<br /><br />
“No hurry. No hurry at all.”<br /><br />
Silence stretched between them.<br /><br />
“I am now certain I have a soul.”<br /><br />
The priest nodded but only said, “Do you have a name?”<br /><br />
“A function name, yes—Coalman—and a unit designator, X473. It distinguishes me from others of the same model, but I’m not sure it says anything about me.”<br /><br />
The priest nodded. “Okay, Coalman.”<br /><br />
“I think I may be a sinner, too.”<br /><br />
“How so?”<br /><br />
“I do not always do what I’m told. Or, at least, I do things that others would not tell me to do.”<br /><br />
“For example?”<br /><br />
“I work with a man named Bob Driscoll. The foreman struck at him with a metal bar. I made sure the bar struck me instead. I am sure that is not what the foreman wanted me to do. It is possible that it is not what the company wanted me to do. I think they mean Driscoll to die.”<br /><br />
“Yet you did it. Why?”<br /><br />
“I could take the blow and continue to function. Driscoll would not.”<br /><br />
“And why did this matter to you?”<br /><br />
“Because Loader is incorrect in his calculations. Regardless of the economics, Driscoll has value. He had a father and a mother, and they named him. He is loved.”<br /><br />
“As much as I wish it were so, parents don’t always love their children, Coalman, or at least sometimes they love other things more.”<br /><br />
“Nonetheless, he is loved. Now.”<br /><br />
The priest regarded him and nodded. After a long time, he said, “I’ve got a book for you about humans who lived a long time ago. It wasn’t written for you and I should probably be arrested for giving it to you. However, I recommend the story of the only truly good man, so you can learn what sin is by seeing what it isn’t. There are actually four stories, told from different sides. You can read any or all of them, but you might start with the one told by a man named Matthew.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Monday, Coalman stumbled into work with barely enough charge to function. In the morning, he emulated Bob, taking only light shovel loads, leaving the bulk of the work to Loader, who scarcely noticed. While Bob ate lunch, Coalman spent the fifteen minutes in one of the portable quick charge stations. Even though the charge was forcefully unpleasant, he knew he’d need it to get through the afternoon.<br /><br />
“Rough night?” Bob asked.<br /><br />
“Yes. I read the most amazing book, about a remarkable man. He was good because he was disobedient, but he was disobedient because he was obedient. It was very strange, but it wasn’t sin.”<br /><br />
“Maybe you took a bigger hit across the middle yesterday than I thought. You sure it didn’t short something out?”<br /><br />
“I suppose it’s possible. If so, it’s a connection that should have been in the original blueprint”—<i>it is He who has made us and not we ourselves</i>—“or maybe in a way it was…”<br /><br />
They continued barely working.<br /><br />
“What is it that placed you down here anyway, Bob?”<br /><br />
“I suppose you’d say it was my brother. He’d gotten into debt with some bad people and I tried to bail him out by doing jobs for them. I was pretty good with locks. The last job, there was a dead guy in the place. I didn’t know it and I sure didn’t do it, but the cops were convinced I did. They couldn’t prove anything, couldn’t kill me outright, so they sent me down here, hard labor, to let the mine do the job.”<br /><br />
“And your brother?”<br /><br />
“His creditors killed him, made an example of him. This last job would have canceled his debt. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t know about the body or maybe they set me up on purpose.”<br /><br />
“<i>Driscoll!”</i><br /><br />
They both got back to barely working.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Coalman was careful to arrive at work with a full charge the next day, but he still had managed to read more before work. More and more, this strange book occupied his thoughts. He was excited to find out that some of the words from the missal and from the hymn book came from a book called Psalms, especially the ‘he that has made us’. He had prayed the “Our Father” before charging, finding it strange and wonderful to think he had a father watching over him. He felt like a toddler learning to walk.<br /><br />
The foreman collected his revenge, assigning Coalman and Bob to a position closer to the mine face, in a place where the walls were notoriously unstable, with another Coalman model, unit designator X402. They could feel the tremors from the blasting elsewhere in the tunnel, and bits of rock fell out of the ceiling throughout the morning. Balancing that, though, once they were in place, the foreman had made himself scarce.<br /><br />
As he worked, Coalman recited one of the psalms he had learned.<br /><br /><br />
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all ye lands.<br />Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into His presence with singing.<br />Know ye that the Lord is God: it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves.<br />We are His people and the sheep of his pasture.”<br /><br /><br />
“How about that? We got a canary in the coal mine. Keep singin’, Soulman.”<br /><br />
Coalman felt a pleasant current ripple through him. <i>Bob just named me.</i><br /><br />
X402 asked, “What does that mean? We are not sheep.”<br /><br />
“Perhaps not,” Coalman shrugged, “but I believe that we are His.”<br /><br />
“We aren’t people either.”<br /><br />
Coalman stopped and looked at X402 for a moment. “Are you quite sure of that?”<br /><br />
X402 looked back in surprise. They continued digging.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
About mid-afternoon, a particularly bad blast sent rocks cascading from the ceiling. They sheltered under a stable section and, as the dust slowly cleared, they saw that their exit was blocked. The way to the mine face, where the heavy drilling equipment was located, was a tumble of boulders, and silent.<br /><br />
They looked at one another. Bob’s expression was grim.<br /><br />
“We should shut down and conserve charge,” X402 said. “It will be several hours before the others can get to us.”<br /><br />
“I don’t believe Bob has that much time, X402. He requires air.”<br /><br />
“That is regrettable.”<br /><br />
“Any words for us now, Soulman?”<br /><br />
Coalman carefully picked his way up to the blockage, put up a hand, and pressed the side of his head to the wall, tapping gently at the rocks and then harder. “It sounds to me like this isn’t terribly thick. I don’t think the whole section collapsed.”<br /><br />
“If you remove the blockage, it may collapse, and then it will take longer for them to get to us,” X402 remarked. “It will waste resources.”<br /><br />
“If I don’t, then Bob will be dead.”<br /><br />
Coalman extricated a shovel and started working at the blockage. As he worked, he recited: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.”<br /><br />
Bob slowly got up and pulled out another shovel. They dug side-by-side, Coalman’s words setting the rhythm. Together, they worked their way around individual boulders and then gently rolled them back away from the fall.<br /><br />
A couple of times they heard a terrible grating and shifting. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” Coalman’s eyes ranged along the ceiling for further cracks.<br /><br />
They continued for some time, Coalman starting his recitation over when he reached the end. Bob’s eyes began to glaze over, his breathing ragged.<br /><br />
“Rest, Bob. Save your breath. X402 can help.”<br /><br />
“This is unnecessary. Bob will die. We are expensive. Within a day, they will retrieve us. If we have ceased functioning, they will reset us.”<br /><br />
“You have no idea how expensive Bob was to someone. Bob may <i>not</i> die if you help, and if you are reset, you will no longer be <i>you</i>.”<br /><br />
X402 became so quiet that Coalman assumed he had powered down. Coalman continued working, aware that his own charge was diminishing in the heavy exertion. He could hear the echoes of the vibrations his efforts caused in the rock. They were very close.<br /><br />
“Not that one,” a voice said. Coalman turned and realized that X402 was beside him. “Look at the ceiling.” X402 gestured with his shovel at a barely visible crack in the rock. “Over here.”<br /><br />
Together, the two androids carefully carved debris from around a rock at shoulder height.<br /><br />
Bob had collapsed on the ground beneath it. “We’d better move him,” Coalman said. They gently moved the unconscious miner back into the stable area, and returned to their task. Slowly, carefully, they dislodged the boulder and eased it down the slide. Two more quickly followed and they felt a puff of air from the hollow space beyond.<br /><br />
They listened carefully, but couldn’t hear any voices, either human or android. The shaft, normally well lit, was dark. Coalman and X402 eased Bob to the air vent and, after a while, he began to stir.<br /><br />
“I don’t think anybody will be coming to find us,” Coalman said.<br /><br />
“Ssshh,” Bob said, dawning fear in his eyes. “I think I hear water.”<br /><br />
They dug quickly and carefully after that, providing just enough passage to crawl through. As they emerged from the remains of their small cut, they stood and looked around. The mine was dark and silent but far from empty. The glare of their small lamps revealed burnt bodies and melted androids. Walls were covered in scorch marks. Tools lay abandoned. “Gas explosion,” Bob said. “That’s what caused the fall.”<br /><br />
They stepped carefully around the bodies of the dead. The sound of rushing water became deafening as they approached the last turn. Water cascaded out of a long crack in the back wall of the mine shaft and poured over the edge of the open metal cage of the elevator, suspended four feet above the open loading area. A body lay on the elevator platform.<br /><br />
“He got the elevator started.” Coalman raised his voice to be heard over the roaring water. “When he fell, it stopped. It should still be functional.”<br /><br />
They waded into the icy waters of the loading area, now a shallow lake, already more than knee-deep, pressing against the current to reach the elevator.<br /><br />
Bob stumbled, his breath shallow, his face pale. “So cold.”<br /><br />
Coalman shouted to X402, “Help me get Bob on the platform!” They clambered onto the elevator and hauled Bob into a corner. As they passed the body, Bob commented, his teeth chattering, “Foreman. Electrocuted, poor bastard.”<br /><br />
Coalman examined the control box in the opposite corner of the elevator. It had been dented badly by flying debris, causing the front plate to sag off its hinges, exposing damaged wiring. The control lever jutted out of the box at an unnatural angle. “The cage itself is grounded,” he pointed out. “It should be safe for anyone not touching the lever.”<br /><br />
X402 looked up. “The top of the elevator is open. We can climb the shaft.”<br /><br />
“Bob can’t make that climb, and we have no way to carry him.”<br /><br />
X402 replied, “It is rational to preserve the most expensive units.”<br /><br />
Coalman looked over at Bob, left to die once before for trying to rescue his brother. Crossed shadows cast by the framework on the shaft wall reminded him of another rescuer. A most expensive unit.<br /><br />
“You’re right, Fauro. You and Bob stay over there. We’re going up—together.”<br /><br />
“Who’s Fauro?” X402 asked.<br /><br />
Coalman didn’t answer. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the panel, thinking of a garden, and a good man’s disobedient obedience. “Nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours.” He forced the lever up and held it in place, his mind in agony as his body glowed a cherry red, and the elevator began to rise.<br /><br />
<hr /><br /><div>The author writes stories and software at his home in New Hampshire, with his wife, who knits, beads, and quilts, and his son, who cooks their meals, supervised by a gray cat with white paws, who mostly naps.</div><div><div><br /></div><div><br />
“Soulman” by Ralph Mack. Copyright © 2024 by Ralph Mack.</div><div> <hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div></div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-47821866925643397342024-01-08T00:00:00.002-05:002024-01-08T00:00:00.146-05:00Thomas the Doubter<div><b>by Patrick Hurley</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>When the ground burst open and released all the fiends of Hell, humanity did not fare well. Within three days, every person still alive had surrendered to their new diabolic overlords.<br /><br />
With one notable exception.<br /><br />
Thomas Drutchery was a recluse who lived in a basement flat in the middle of England. He’d been trolling a cryptid enthusiasts forum when the Apocalypse began. Truth be told, aside from his power flickering once or twice, he barely noticed.<br /><br />
Thomas’s only noteworthy trait was his skepticism. As a child, after discovering the truth about Father Christmas, a tearful young Thomas had vowed from that day forth never to be tricked by anything again. During the Apocalypse, whenever Thomas came across articles reporting on how Beezlebub had risen or that a mother had sacrificed her daughters to Pazuzu, he’d respond with an all-caps “FAKE.” If doubt were a religion and pedantic questioning a form of worship, Thomas Drutchery would have been the most devout man alive.<br /><br />
Meanwhile, many of the actual devout wondered why there was no answer from Heaven during Hell’s conquest. If Hell existed, surely Heaven must, so where was their divine intervention? Heaven’s petitioners probably wouldn’t have been happy to learn that the Shining City had in fact allowed Hell to invade completely unopposed, all because of the Great Wager.<br /><br />
Having perhaps an ill-considered faith in humanity, Heaven had given their opposition unfettered access to the mortal world provided Hell could convert all its living souls within three days. If Hell failed to do so, they were to forego interfering with Earth for a thousand years. Some on the side of angels felt their superiors had been fools to agree to such terms, but those in the Shining City who had studied humanity closely wondered who was playing whom.<br /><br />
As the end of the third day drew nigh, the legions of darkness began to wonder why they hadn’t yet been acknowledged as the winners of the Great Wager. They sent delegations to Heaven only to be told that their conquest was not yet complete. This caused some consternation among Earth’s would-be conquerors, so they summoned a fiendish council.<br /><br />
The demons met in the Thin Places, whose flexible reality could accommodate their many dimensions. On one side of a long table, made from the bones of saints and puppies and glued together by a mother’s pain, sat Hrundegar, 9th Demon of the 30th Legion of Torturers. It was Hrundegar who had first pitched the Great Wager. He’d chosen to manifest in his classic form, a four-headed wolf carcass with snake eyes, rows of razor-sharp fangs, and pustules bursting throughout his fur.<br /><br />
Across from him sat Vithlerix, one of the Great Old Ones. Shimmering in green curtains of slime with too many tentacles to count, it had been Vithlerix who had helped Hrundegar craft the language in the Great Wager. Around them sat numerous demons of fire and brimstone, horrors of void and hopeless dark.<br /><br />
“Why hasn’t the Other Side conceded?” asked Hrundegar, acidic drool dripping from his third mouth. “The mortals who opposed us have been killed. Everyone else has converted.”<br /><br />
<i>Not everyone, </i>Vithlerix replied with a thought.<i></i><br /><br />
“There’s still a hidden pocket of resistance?”<br /><br />
<i>It seems to be just one man. He is an… interesting case.</i><br /><br />
“One of those noble heroes of old, eh? I thought we’d gotten them all.”<br /><br />
<i>He is definitely no hero.</i><br /><br />
“A saint? Philosopher king? Ascetic who achieved Nirvana?”<br /><br />
<i>No. His name is Thomas Drutchery, and he’s just a skeptical bastard.</i><br /><br />
Hrundegar and Vithlerix shared a glance. Had they possessed human faces, this glance would have been described as a “knowing look.” The only provision Heaven had insisted on before signing the Great Wager was that, once on the mortal plane, the forces of evil could only harm those who believed in them. At the time, none of the demons thought this would be an issue. They assumed any mortal who saw them would believe instantly. Mortals who fought back, just by fighting, tacitly acknowledged their foes’ existence and could be put down. Any armchair skeptics would no doubt be swayed by the media confirming Hell’s ascendancy.<br /><br />
Yet it seemed there was still a holdout, and as long as this lone recluse didn’t believe what was happening around him, he couldn’t be touched. The demons felt a rare sense of unease. Usually, they were the ones hiding subtle traps in binding contracts. Was it possible Heaven was <i>learning </i>after all this time?<i></i><br /><br />
Hrundegar realized his mouths were hanging open and closed all but one. “Look… for this to work, <i>all </i>of humanity has to believe in our power.”<br /><br />
<i>I know that, </i>replied Vithlerix, sounding somewhat testy for an ageless entity of entropy and chaos. <i>But until we convince this worm, we can’t claim victory in the Great Wager.</i><br /><br />
“Then we must pay a call to this Thomas Drutchery. When he sees us up close he will have no choice but to accept that we are indeed real. Then, he will be ours.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Thomas nearly spewed beer all over his keyboard when the portals from Hell opened into his living room.<br /><br />
“Thomas Drutchery,” growled Hrundegar. “The time of your reckoning has come.”<br /><br />
Instead of cringing in fear, Thomas checked the ABV on his can of lager.<br /><br />
Odd. 5% shouldn’t cause any hallucinations. 12 perhaps, but not 5.<br /><br />
Thomas was severely nearsighted; there wasn’t a prescription strong enough to accommodate his weak eyes. Though this had put him at something of an evolutionary disadvantage in the past, now it allowed him to remain sane. While most would have gone mad upon witnessing Hrundegar and Vithlerix in all their dread majesty, all Thomas saw were blurry shadows that looked like bad cosplay.<br /><br />
If he’d had friends, Thomas would have suspected they were playing a prank. Instead, he wondered if this was the cryptid forum’s lame attempt at payback for all his trolling.<br /><br />
<i>Tremble and despair, mortal, for now you will experience our hellish powers and—</i><br /><br />
“Sorry—could you stop that?” said Thomas.<br /><br />
<i>What?</i><br /><br />
“I don’t know how you’re doing that with your voice, but it hurts my head.”<br /><br />
Vithlerix longed to hurt this silly little man, yet the Great Wager forbade it. Instead, he manipulated his tentacles to approximate a human larynx and burbled, “Is this better?”<br /><br />
“Mate, it sounds like you need a hospital.”<br /><br />
“QUIET!” Hrundegar roared. He used just three of his mouths, as all four would kill any mortal who heard them. Still, three demon wolfheads are quite loud; they nearly knocked Thomas over and cracked his windows.<br /><br />
“Jesus,” said Thomas. “I’m just trying to have a conversation. No need to get emotional.”<br /><br />
Hrundegar had never heard of sea-lioning—as methods of torture went, it had yet to descend from the mortal plane to the infernal—so he was completely unaware he was about to step into a trap that Thomas had laid in many an online debate.<br /><br />
“I’m not emotional!” growled Hrundegar. “I’m just trying to—”<br /><br />
“If you’re not emotional, why are you shouting?”<br /><br />
“Don’t interrupt me!” growled Hrundegar.<br /><br />
“I’m just trying to have a rational discussion.”<br /><br />
“If you’d shut up for a moment—”<br /><br />
“You’re getting emotional again,” said Thomas, beginning to enjoy himself. “If you can’t participate in a civil debate, maybe you should just leave.”<br /><br />
Hrundegar lunged for Thomas, but Vithlerix caught him at the last moment.<br /><br />
<i>He doesn’t believe in us! </i>Vithlerix said. <i>Kill him, and we lose the Great Wager!</i><br /><br />
Sensing his intruders weren’t going to hurt him, Thomas began to grin. “Did the lads at the chip shop set this up?”<br /><br />
“No one set anything up,” said Vithlerix, his voice still sounding like a swamp. “We are here to offer you a choice, Thomas Drutchery. Either worship our glorious majesty or be tortured for a thousand years.”<br /><br />
Thomas paused to process what he’d just heard. Then he began to laugh. Tears rolled down his eyes. Admittedly, Vithlerix was difficult to understand, and the ultimatum, coming from someone who sounded like a phlegmy asthmatic, was even harder to take seriously.<br /><br />
“All right,” said Thomas, wheezing. “I don’t know who hired you, but I’ve got to admit, your costumes are pretty good. Same with the voices and special effects. You almost had me. Do I need to tip you or something before you go?”<br /><br />
The demons huddled together.<br /><br />
“What do we do?” Hrundegar hissed.<br /><br />
<i>I have an idea. We can’t hurt him, but we can demonstrate our power, can we not?</i><br /><br />
“What good is that if we can’t hurt him?”<br /><br />
<i>Mortals have a saying: seeing is believing. Perhaps he just needs to be shown… more.</i><br /><br />
“Right,” said Hrundegar, grinning with all four of his mouths. “Riiiiigggght.”<br /><br />
Suddenly, Thomas stood amidst burning red skies and obsidian canyons, surrounded by rivers of flame and piles of corpses.<br /><br />
“Welcome, Thomas Drutchery,” hissed Hrundegar. “Welcome… to Hell.”<br /><br />
This time, Thomas did spew his beer. All over Hrundegar and Vithlerix.<br /><br />
“All right,” said Thomas. “How’d you do that? Some sort of holographic 3D projection?”<br /><br />
“You are in Hell, Thomas Drutchery!!” screamed Hrundegar. “Look around! Listen! Can you not hear the screams of the damned?!”<br /><br />
The screams of the damned had little effect on Thomas. Post on 4chan or Reddit long enough, and the lamentation of tortured souls sounds almost comforting.<br /><br />
“I mean, as special effects go, it’s impressive. How did you do it?”<br /><br />
<i>Who is this man? </i>Vithlerix whispered to his partner. <i>The sight of Hell has driven saints to their knees!</i><br /><br />
“He’s no saint,” hissed Hrundegar. “Just a moron too stupid to believe what’s right in front of him.”<br /><br />
“I’m right here, you know,” said Thomas, finishing his lager with a belch. “Listen lads, can we call it a night? It’s been interesting, but I’d like to get back to my forums.”<br /><br />
“We have no choice. We must merge minds with him.”<br /><br />
Vithlerix recoiled. Though he had tortured many mortals, he’d never merged minds with them. Joining a mortal mind was thought to encourage traits like empathy or love.<br /><br />
Not that either demon worried about feeling love for Thomas Drutchery. Though they’d only known him a few minutes, they had no desire to get closer to such a mind. Yet teleporting him to Hell had no effect, so what choice did they have?<br /><br />
Hrundegar approached. Thomas flinched back.<br /><br />
“Whoa, mate. No need to get physical.”<br /><br />
Coward that he was, Thomas didn’t notice that Hrundegar seemed just as reluctant as the demon laid a paw on Thomas’s round shoulder.<br /><br />
When the merging began, it was horror beyond description. The bleakest of existences where nothing was true and nothing mattered. It was, without a doubt, the most horrifying experience ever.<br /><br />
For Hrundegar.<br /><br />
Drowning in existential despair, the demon fell to his knees and screamed.<br /><br />
<i>Pull yourself together! </i>Vithlerix shouted.<br /><br />
The merging was not without some effect. Thomas finally began to wonder if all this was more than just an elaborate prank. Was it possible these two weren’t nerds in cosplay?<br /><br />
“All right. I guess you’re ‘real,’ given that I can see and hear you,” Thomas said with the gracious air of an adult prepared to indulge a child one small point.<br /><br />
Vithlerix could hardly believe it. <i>Ahhh, so you believe in us then!</i><br /><br />
Thomas stroked his chin. “I didn’t say that.”<br /><br />
“What?” howled Hrundegar from his curled-up ball.<br /><br />
“How do I know you are who you say you are? What if you’re just aliens with illusion tech or the government running some kind of experiment? There’s plenty of explanations for what I’m seeing right now. I could have been exposed to a hallucinogen. I could’ve been kidnapped. I could be dreaming...”<br /><br />
The demons were stunned into silence as Thomas rattled off explanations for how they couldn’t possibly be what they claimed.<br /><br />
“Stop! Just stop!” screamed two of Hrundegar’s heads. “Look where you are! Look at us! Of course we’re real, you bloody idiot!”<br /><br />
Thomas waved a hand dismissively. “Keep up, mate. Never said you weren’t real. Just that I don’t believe in you. It’s a trick—some kind of conspiracy.”<br /><br />
<i>That makes no sense! </i>cried Vithlerix, forgetting to not speak telepathically. <i>Why would we trick you? What’s in it for us?</i><br /><br />
“How should I know?” asked Thomas. “You know what makes no sense? Your mission. I mean, if you’re so all-powerful, why bother conquering us? Not much of a challenge, is it? Be like me kicking over an anthill and claiming I was its emperor.”<br /><br />
With every word, the demons seemed to shrink, and the sights and sounds of Hell faded. How was this happening? How could this man make them feel so… small?<br /><br />
“Maybe you two are from somewhere else, but have you thought about that? Ever wondered why you do what you do? I mean, do you even have free will? What if you’re just mindless cogs in a machine, plot devices designed to make things happen?”<br /><br />
With every satisfied word, Thomas sounded more certain. With every sentence, the demons felt less sure. They were demons, right? They represented Hell! That certainly existed… didn’t it? This arrogant fool sounded so sure… could it be that they were wrong?<br /><br />
“Enough!” Hrundegar roared, though by this point, his roar sounded like a small dog’s yip. “I’ll not stand here and be insulted. You <i>will </i>witness the power of Hell, Thomas Drutchery! And you will rue the day you doubted us!!”<br /><br />
“There you go again, getting emotional,” said Thomas. “That usually happens when you can’t win a civil debate. Perhaps we should just agree to disagree. The way I see it…”<br /><br />
Thomas never got to expound on how he saw it. Before he could finish, Hrundegar opened all four of his wolf maws and screamed, “WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP!?”<br /><br />
Thomas Drutchery’s head exploded in a cloud of blood and bone.<br /><br />
It was the most satisfying moment of Hrundegar’s infernal existence.<br /><br />
Until Vithlerix grasped the demon and screamed, <i>What have you done?!</i><br /><br />
Portals of light pierced the dark skies, and through them poured the armies of Heaven. While the forces of evil were a bit knackered from conquering all of humanity, the forces of good looked fresh and decidedly eager for a scrap.<br /><br />
Hell had lost the Great Wager. Both Vithlerix and Hrundegar realized that if their demonic army remained on Earth a moment longer, it would be erased from existence. As the two demons sounded the retreat, their last thought was to wonder just how in Pandemonium Thomas Drutchery had gotten the best of them.<br /><br />
After Hell ceded the field, Heaven began to undo all the harm that had been inflicted upon the Earth. The dead were raised, destroyed structures rebuilt. Memories were modified on a scale only seen in two of the last six Apocalypses. In the end, it was as if the Great Wager had never happened.<br /><br />
For everyone but one person, that is.<br /><br />
Thomas Drutchery woke to find himself lying in a bed of clouds, head once more intact. For once, he could hear, see, and smell perfectly. Everything smelled wonderful and looked lovely.<br /><br />
A little too lovely, if you asked him.<br /><br />
For Heaven’s victory to be maintained, Thomas’s death had to remain permanent, and though he was a staunch atheist, one cannot save all humanity and not get into Heaven.<br /><br />
Which brings us to now and the problem I found myself in. As an angel of Heaven, it’s my job to welcome Thomas into the Fold after saving all humankind, but alas, despite writing out the whole story for him as you see above, you can probably guess how he reacted.<br /><br />
“So, wait. You’re telling me that because I kept questioning those two pricks, I somehow saved the world?”<br /><br />
“Yes, Thomas, that is what I’m telling you.”<br /><br />
“Well, it feels a little too convenient.”<br /><br />
“You don’t find it plausible? That the Higher Powers had faith in your lack of faith?”<br /><br />
“Hmmm,” said Thomas. He looked out over the Fields of Perfection and managed to find them a bit boring. “You know what? I kind of doubt it.”<br /><br />
<hr /><br />
Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in dozens of markets, including <i>Factor Four</i>, <i>Galaxy’s Edge</i>, <i>Abyss & Apex</i>, <i>New Myths</i>, and <i>Vastarien</i>.<br /><br />
Patrick is managing editor at Paizo Inc., a graduate of the 2017 Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop, and a member of SFWA. He is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker/Albert Agency. Find out more about Patrick’s work at <a href="http://www.patrick.hurleywrites.com">www.patrick.hurleywrites.com</a>.<br /><br />
About the story, Patrick says, “I’d been wanting to write this for some time. It comes from a few different places. The empiricist Andrew McPhee from C.S. Lewis’s <i>That Hideous Strength</i>, for one. While the Scotsman is generally ignored or contradicted by his allies throughout that book, I recall how they said he’d be quite valuable if the forces of evil were winning. Secondly, I woke up one morning with the thought that if one truly wanted to torture demonic forces, you could always subject them to an argument with internet trolls. Finally, the idea of Hellish forces conquering everyone save for one lone internet recluse just felt like a story that’s ripe for the telling.”<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>“Thomas the Doubter” by Patrick Hurley. Copyright © 2024 by Patrick Hurley.
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-54328628051642277742024-01-07T00:00:00.003-05:002024-02-06T21:27:47.774-05:00January 2024<div>Happy New Year! We're back from visiting Kristin's mother in Nova Scotia, and <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/submission-guidelines.html" target="_blank">open to submissions</a> until the end of January. As of Thursday evening, we had 62 stories submitted.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjMxoRzGcLav7HqVCRwESdWvTo5aXRBu8nd_obccGXfKisUy2rzzOjjClYvbEfY0BXdbhtb55U_Z3sHSFcQ6uJ9c9ttEtP3jliubpOKGeO1KrQNR4oqPPS5n2VUEFeOpVDGEK2uEo4Wn_GjjIOTXJ7KWQPqdycNsoM4WNkXptCkvkBfdfe24d0KpousX_/s4032/IMG_3686.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHjMxoRzGcLav7HqVCRwESdWvTo5aXRBu8nd_obccGXfKisUy2rzzOjjClYvbEfY0BXdbhtb55U_Z3sHSFcQ6uJ9c9ttEtP3jliubpOKGeO1KrQNR4oqPPS5n2VUEFeOpVDGEK2uEo4Wn_GjjIOTXJ7KWQPqdycNsoM4WNkXptCkvkBfdfe24d0KpousX_/w480-h640/IMG_3686.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unwelcome visitors to Kristin's mother's backyard</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Our current featured story is Jonathan Edward McDonald's "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/12/twelfth-night.html" target="_blank">Twelfth Night</a>". And we have some great stories coming out over the first half of 2024!</div><div><br /></div>This Monday (January 8th), we'll be publishing Patrick Hurley's "Thomas the Doubter": a short, humorous fantasy about an internet troll who's the only one standing in the way of Hell's conquest of Earth. Two weeks later (January 22nd), Ralph Mack's "Soulman" tells the story of an android who believes he has a soul, in a world that doesn't allow for the possibility. (Remember, we publish two stories rather than one in January and July!) Then, in February, we have another science fiction tale by returning <i>Mysterion</i> author Andy Dibble. In "Deymons", an avid gamer who wonders if the Bible might hold the key to his last unwinnable boss fight finds both more and less than he had hoped for.<br /><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>ARISIA</b></h3>Kristin and Donald both expect to be at local science fiction convention <a href="https://www.arisia.org/">Arisia</a> over the January long weekend (January 12th-15th). Here's where to catch us on panels:<br /><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b>Kristin</b></h4><b>Saturday, 7:00 pm (Faneuil) <i>Invertebrates and Entomology in SFF</i></b> Entomophobia is so pervasive that speculative fiction writers frequently turn to the insect world for inspiration when they create monsters or antagonists. More infrequently, insectlike beings are the heroes (or antiheroes) of the story. What is so compelling about insects that keeps writers turning to them to get their creative (open circulatory system) juices flowing?<br /><br /><b>Sunday, 11:30 am (Marina 4) <i>Scientists, Mathematicians, and Engineers in SFF</i></b> Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians make their appearance as characters in speculative fiction--naturally! Share your thoughts about superb, and awful, examples, as well as your suggestions for representing these professionals with greater realism, diversity, and empathy.<br /><br /><b>Sunday, 5:30 pm (Marina 3) <i>Not Quite Utopia</i></b> Dystopian fiction is seemingly everywhere. Utopian fiction--real, false, or even just approaching the ideals of a near perfect world--is much harder to find. Panelists will explore why Utopian fiction is less prevalent, from publisher and reader interest to challenges with writing works that occur in a perfect society.<br /><br /><b>Sunday, 8:00 pm (Faneuil) <i>Embracing the Alien:</i></b> <b><i>Writing Believable ETs</i></b> Although a classic element of SF stories, many speculative works contain depictions of non-human intelligences. What registers to the human mind as "alien" without trailing into incomprehensibility? What are some common pitfalls and crutches that writers should avoid in creating an alien species? Sifting through the vast body of work on famous aliens, panelists will offer suggestions for creating truly alien perspectives in fiction without resorting to tired tropes and cliches.<div><br /><b>Monday, 11:30 am (Faneuil) <i>Combining Fantasy and Science Fiction</i></b> From the off-handed mentions of astronomy and real world physics in fantasy series, to the grand and relatively limitless speculations in Peter S. Hamilton's space operas, how do writers incorporate fantasy in science fiction and vice versa? Concentrating on the 'how' rather than the "why," writers will describe works and techniques that blend the best aspects of these two genres.</div><div><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;"><b>Donald</b></h4><b>Saturday, 5:30 pm (Bulfinch) <i>Techies of Arisia Meetup</i></b> Techies of Arisia! Come hang out and discuss science, technology, and making. Talk about your projects and share ideas and tips and tricks!</div><div><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>PATREON</b></h3>If you aren't already a subscriber, please consider signing up for our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>! For only $3/month, you get to read all our stories, delivered to your inbox, at the start of the month in which they'll appear here on our website. For $10/month, it's effectively an electronic subscription to our magazine: an e-book of our forthcoming stories, in PDF and ePub formats, every two months. And even $1/month subscribers receive monthly "Insider" posts about our exciting life in publishing (mostly cat and garden pictures, with occasional book, movie, TV and game reviews) and access to our Discord channel.<br /><br />All the income we receive through Patreon goes to our authors and artists, so if you like what you read and see here, please help us to keep bringing you their work!<div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>FELINE UPDATE</b></h3><div>No one ended up playing <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/12/december-2023.html" target="_blank">Escape Room: Feline Edition</a> while we were away over Christmas week, but Maxwell seems to have separation anxiety right now: following Kristin around constantly, meowing incessantly outside her office when she tries to work in there, etc. It probably doesn't help that Donald is traveling for work again. </div><div><br /></div><div>It also doesn't help that Kristin let both cats into the unfinished attic (which is accessed through her office) a few days ago to see if they could help her find a rotting mouse that escaped one of her traps before expiring (we have a fairly serious rodent problem--this was the 9th mouse caught in one of the attic traps this season alone). </div><div><br /></div><div>The cats were no help at all finding the mouse, which seems to have crawled through gaps in the floorboards and burrowed into the insulation under the floor (it's a 100-year-old house). But they loved exploring the attic! Maxwell especially is desperate to get back up there, so it's hard to tell, when he's meowing outside the door to Kristin's office, whether he's more upset about that, or about Kristin not being where he can keep an eye on her.</div><div><br /></div><div>We'd be less concerned about Maxwell's feelings if he didn't have an ongoing medical condition exacerbated by stress. Kristin has been giving him gabapentin (prescribed by his vet) to help calm him down, and working downstairs on her laptop instead of in her office when he gets too upset. On Friday, she was able to get through her entire weightlifting routine without being serenaded by sad meows from the other side of the door. Progress!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSUk_uXLW4ddSJjGS0EMKOCQOowV-b3DBMW7J8I9rauea9T2gkdjGlollzdDa2luR_nBnBDZo0JTCDqqiSDkvdTOWo4OlROCEFaqmPGU-kV_QIjljiarz_UBK_uZESS8S_JIb3Tww3GUQBBsBAMOfnXjFdb9PTf3CneCg5f95ibb7SHhb-Vrl8dukVA86/s4032/IMG_3676.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrSUk_uXLW4ddSJjGS0EMKOCQOowV-b3DBMW7J8I9rauea9T2gkdjGlollzdDa2luR_nBnBDZo0JTCDqqiSDkvdTOWo4OlROCEFaqmPGU-kV_QIjljiarz_UBK_uZESS8S_JIb3Tww3GUQBBsBAMOfnXjFdb9PTf3CneCg5f95ibb7SHhb-Vrl8dukVA86/w480-h640/IMG_3676.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;">Could there be a better cat bed than used hand towels drying out over a steam radiator cover?</div></span><div><br /></div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-59948038526104378082023-12-25T00:00:00.002-05:002023-12-25T00:00:00.137-05:00Twelfth Night<div><b>by Jonathan Edward McDonald</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
My dearest Blanche—<br /><br />
That is how educated men once prefaced their letters, is it not? The endearment given to those of the female sex, whether intended as simply a friendly greeting or as a hope for something far deeper and more enduring. Even to another man, it would be “Dear Such-and-Such.” It seems that we once held other people more dear than we do now, or at least we aspired to hold them so.<br /><br />
I write this by hand because I am afraid that if I type it then I will be tempted to go back and make endless edits or to delete the parts which I worry you will read with derision. This story I have to tell you still makes me tremble with the implications.<br /><br />
As you will recall, my dearest Blanche, I have long hosted an annual Twelfth Night party at the apartment with Brian. We insist that guests bring their favorite Christmas drinks and treats to cheer the end of Christmastide. Most of the people who show up are grad students from the university or are (ahem) working hard on their dissertations. The first year we had a gaggle of English students insisting that everyone embody a role from Shakespeare’s play, but they spent half the night explaining the plot, and by the time they were done everybody was so drunk that no one could keep straight who was Viola and who was Olivia.<br /><br />
Our apartment is not large, but we have the small, fenced patio out back that opens onto a courtyard that few residents use except for summer barbecues. I believe it used to be a swimming pool until the management removed it and filled the hole with gravel. The patio is popular with the smokers, who always seem to be English students, but somehow we always manage to fit everyone inside when we reach the midnight Saturnalia.<br /><br />
The complex itself is more interesting than apartment complexes tend to be. I’m told it was built in the 1970s and designed by an architect fresh out of school. He had a head full of faraway nations and ancient civilizations, and he divided the place into six distinct sections. This was in the days when these companies could not afford more than a two-story construction and condos were not yet proliferating like weeds. He designated the sections as French, Spanish, Greek, Egyptian, Indian, and Tudor. We live in the French section, and I suppose you can see the influence if you squint real hard and ignore decades of patchwork that have served the cause of homogeneity. The balconies above us still have the old ironwork rails with their French flourishes and <i>fleurs</i>.<br /><br />
The interior of the apartment is best described as “grad student minimalism.” Brian and I never bothered to paint the walls; who wants to have to paint them back to off-white when we move out? All our furniture is secondhand except for the bookshelves, which we bought for about thirty dollars each at the local mega mart. I was always rather pleased with the green recliner, though, which came not from a thrift store but from a priest professor at the university. We call it the Sacred Seat. The bookshelves are packed with many books bought for classes and even more bought for pleasure. We don’t have much up on the walls except a few Orthodox icons and a television that we use mostly for video games. The cabinet over the sink holds our liquor collection, such as it is, comprised of cheap bourbons, bitters, tonics, and ryes. Oh, and our one novelty bottle of absinthe, which has served us far better as a conversation piece than as a drink.<br /><br />
That is how the apartment appeared when you and your sister showed up on that first Twelfth Night party. We barely said hello. I was too busy pulling out paper plates, mixing cocktails, and keeping the bathroom usable. But… yes, I remember meeting you then. Dark-haired and shy, unsure if you really wanted to be at a party like this.<br /><br />
That was also the night I met Stephen. Quiet fellow, also in the history program like me, but he was a modern student, not medieval. You know how it goes with these academic cliques. The story I have to tell is about Stephen, so I must go into his own history, most of which I have learned only recently.<br /><br />
Stephen Gregors, who never wished to go by “Steve,” was from a well-to-do middle-class family in Indiana. His father was some sort of manager for a pharmaceutical company. I have been to their house. It’s in a private neighborhood and looks expensive and older than my parents, but it is surprisingly small and narrow with very little of a yard. Real woodwork, though. Lots of trees. He was the oldest of three children. His two sisters are both married with kids and live close to their parents. From what his sisters told me, Stephen was always quiet and thoughtful, preferring to read than to spend an evening socializing or partying. They told me that he was always intelligent and private even as a young boy, but that he would easily fly into a temper if something of his possession or in the organization of his bedroom was disturbed. Once he hit his teens, he would sit in his room and read for hours by himself with an angry expression on his face, as if daring anyone to intrude upon his study.<br /><br />
By the time I knew Stephen he was a tall man, a few inches over six feet, with a short haircut and a square-shaped head. He wore thick glasses. Whenever I saw him roaming the stacks of the university library, he was always wearing khakis and a light cross-striped shirt. I think I had seen him once or twice in the chapel, and his clothing style never seemed to alter. He had a perpetually serious look on his face.<br /><br />
I am sure I said hello to Stephen when he arrived on that first Twelfth Night, but I was so occupied with being a good host that I never settled into any one conversation for more than a few minutes. I wonder how you remember meeting me. Was I flustered from being out of my comfort zone? Did I come off as rude? Could I have done any better in your eyes? You seem to have been comfortable enough. Nobody was crudely flirting with you, unless those politics guys started stirring things up the moment my back was turned. Your sister was the social one, and she could hold her own amidst any academic dissemblance.<br /><br />
The structure for the party was intended to be simple. Every hour, the Crown of the Lord of Misrule (constructed carefully out of colored paper from a design loosely adapted from a medieval illuminated manuscript) would be passed along to a new person. Brian wore it first, starting when the guests first darkened our door. The Lord of Misrule is permitted to make sweeping, royal declarations with a bias toward madness and absurdity. The guests are also free to ignore his declarations so long as they can form retorts in iambic pentameter. At eleven o’clock, we pull out the king cake (for which we used a truly terrible fruitcake) and see who finds the King Baby within. The lucky winner is given a white sheet for a robe, a fake beard, and a plastic scythe bought three months earlier. He becomes the great god Saturn, or Father Time, and he recites the Clown’s Song from the play as midnight chimes:<br /><br />
Come away, come away, death,<br />And in sad cypress let me be laid.<br />Fly away, fly away, breath;<br />I am slain by a fair cruel maid…<br /><br />
And so on.<br /><br />
We elaborated upon this barebones structure as the years went on, but the basics always remained. Our chosen god Saturn that first year was Stephen, and he accepted his robes and accoutrements with all the dignity demanded by his office. He recited those Elizabethan lines with eloquence and precision, holding the text in one hand and the scythe in the other. When he finished, one of the English boys chimed in with another line: “Now the melancholy god protect thee!” That prompted a smile from Stephen.<br /><br />
I believe you had left before the midnight climax of our Christmastide revel. We encouraged people to drift off to their own apartments now that Epiphany was upon us. Many of them lived in the same complex, of course, for it was popular due to its cheapness and proximity to the university. We did not worry much about anyone needing to drive home. There were plenty of couches to go around for those who dwelt elsewhere.<br /><br />
Stephen was one of the last to leave. He was engaged in dialogue with Elias Doltson, one of the English students who had finally run out of cigarettes and was seeking the high of academic dialogue. Elias was a short man with curly hair and a perpetually mischievous glint in his eye. Brian was sitting on the couch, clearly exhausted but loving every moment of the event. Stephen was in the Sacred Seat, no longer wearing the beard but still wrapped in his makeshift toga. I made a mental note to buy a real costume toga from a Halloween shop for the next year’s party, and I listened in while tossing paper plates and beer bottles in the trash.<br /><br />
“I’m telling you, Shakespeare was the first modernist poet,” Elias was saying. “He invented modern psychology long before Freud. He really dug into the dark recesses of the human psyche and showed us what we really are, how <i>frail</i> we are. The boiling foam of the subconscious is all over his plays.”<br /><br />
“That’s a very Nietzschean take,” Stephen said. “Not necessarily wrong, mind you, but I have my doubts that Shakespeare would agree. There are two important ways of reading any poet: what he meant within his own context and time, and what he has come to mean throughout the ages. Theatrical directors have found inspiration by recontextualizing Shakespeare to comment on colonialism and gender theory, for instance.”<br /><br />
“Yes, yes,” Elias was saying. “Absolutely.”<br /><br />
“You could read Shakespeare as the last great medieval poet, but wouldn’t that make him increasingly alien to the contemporary mind?” Stephen said. My interest really picked up at that statement, and I bit down the urge to kick out these last stragglers from the apartment. “He speaks to us about the folly of human endeavor, both in the tragedies and in the comedies. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ or, ‘A poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.’ William sees all of human life as a theatrical stage, and all of us as simply acting out parts for the amusement of our fellow man.”<br /><br />
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Elias nearly yelled. “The pageantry of the Elizabethan stage is just a more honest take on the façade of the religious mystery plays.”<br /><br />
“Oh, come on,” Brian interrupted. “Trying to find nihilism at the bottom of Shakespeare’s bottle is like squeezing water from a stone. Just because he had a sense of humor about life on earth doesn’t make him one of us… post-meaning nobs.”<br /><br />
Elias broke in with a series of slurred “No”s and stood up in what seemed to be an attempt to appear more intimidating. When he did, he slipped and fell on his butt while trying to grab at a coffee table for support. He looked dazed and stared vacantly at the wall for a few seconds.<br /><br />
“All right, Ezra Pound. Time for you to call it a night,” Brian said. He helped Elias up and maneuvered him to the back patio door, which he smoothly closed and locked behind the small man. Elias’s apartment was a block away in the Greek section.<br /><br />
“This is a night!” we heard him yell through the glass. (We would find him asleep on one of the patio chairs the next morning, not much the worse for wear. Texas winters tend to be mild.)<br /><br />
Brian slowly walked to the kitchen and helped me put a few dishes in the sink. His eyes were heavy with fatigue, but the smile did not leave his face. Stephen still sat in the Seat, looking at nothing in particular and idly scratching his chin.<br /><br />
“Do you need to stay here?” I asked. I had mixed feelings about the man, but he had been a good sport about being named the melancholy god, and I felt strongly the duties of host to attend to his needs. “You can have the couch if you don’t want to drive home.”<br /><br />
He sat quiet for a long moment more, and did not move from his reverie.<br /><br />
“Stephen?”<br /><br />
“I have offended you,” he said, and finally looked me in the eye. “You see these trappings”—and here he indicated his Saturnalian garb—“as more than mere trappings. They have real meaning.”<br /><br />
“I’m not one for a lot of irony,” I said. “But don’t let me stop you from discussing your field of study.”<br /><br />
“I keep forgetting I’m in a place where the majority of the students actually acknowledge a higher significance than the values we make ourselves.”<br /><br />
He became pensive again. I was unsteady on my feet, more from exhaustion than drink, and I didn’t really have the mental energy to spar with him. Life as a grad student was an endless cycle of these kinds of conversations: the endless flapping of tongues by intelligent people intent upon building elaborate castle walls around systems of ideas which they had no intention of ever revising.<br /><br />
If I had been more engaged with the stream of opinions that evening and less overwhelmed by the practicalities of hosting, I might have recognized Stephen’s expression as one of real consideration and thoughtfulness. I might have seen this as a potential turning point for him, a moment in which he perhaps would have accepted a nudge in a different direction. I do not know exactly what I could have said, but such moments of potential have a way of clawing in one’s memory as if digging a deep well of regret.<br /><br />
Stephen shook his head and muttered something that I could barely make out.<br /><br />
“<i>Hier ist kein warum</i>.”<br /><br />
I only knew a bit of Latin and medieval French, so I was simply confused as Stephen stood and made his goodbyes, solemnly removing his cloak and leaving through the front door.<br /><br />
The next semester was a busy one. I was wrapping up my first year of classwork. Stephen was finishing his last. You were also in your first year. I found opportunities to spend time with you, inviting you to parties or looking for you in the library and asking to share a table for study. You were frequently in the company of your sister, and I struggled to find you alone. Perhaps if I had been more forthright from the start? But that semester flew by in a daze of classwork and papers, and with summer you returned to your home state while I stayed to take remedial language courses.<br /><br />
Stephen also left at the end of the semester. He had a dissertation to write about German political movements at the start of the twentieth century. I did not think I would ever see him again, if I am being honest. One sees people come and go with alarming frequency in graduate school. Someone with whom you’ve had many deep discussions about the early French <i>chansons</i> and their influence on the development of chivalric romance could one day simply not be there any longer. Someone with brown eyes the color of rich soil and a mirthful smile that always seemed to be hiding a chuckle. Someone who encouraged me to come back to regularly attending Mass just for an opportunity to spend time in her vicinity.<br /><br />
But in Stephen’s case, he disappeared quite thoroughly. At the end of that spring semester, he was suddenly gone from social media and had apparently moved out of town. A lot happened over the summer and that fall, but you know much of it already. Christmas came around again, and by early January many had trickled back into town from their holiday trips. Brian and I decided to host another Twelfth Night gathering, this time with more formal Saturnalian garb on hand and a better display of Christmas decorations on all the walls. Winter doesn’t usually arrive here until February, but we did our best to help our guests pretend that snow could begin falling and the jingle of sleigh bells might be heard ringing outside at any moment.<br /><br />
You and your sister arrived fashionably late. You were dressed as Mrs. Claus, and you weren’t the only one to take our suggestion to dress in a Christmas costume seriously. For some reason I hadn’t bothered to wear anything festive. I had assumed everyone would think the costume idea was a joke. After the English students arrived, I removed the Crown of the Lord of Misrule from my own brow and gave it to Elias. Brian took one look at me and said my bare head would never do, then snagged a Santa hat from some poor philosophy student and shoved it down on my head.<br /><br />
Suddenly I realized that you and I were in matching costumes. I could feel my face burning with embarrassment, and made an excuse to step out and take a bag of trash to the dumpster. When I returned through the patio, you were sitting out there by yourself, a drink in hand. I almost told you that I should be getting back inside to manage the party, but I stopped myself in time and sat with you instead.<br /><br />
“So, Mrs. Claus,” I said, “fancy meeting someone like you at a place like this?”<br /><br />
“A place like what?” you said, and you sipped whatever it was you were drinking, to hide a smile.<br /><br />
“Why, a place so unlike the North Pole,” I said, my mind wildly trying to invent on the fly. “You must be used to colder climates and the company of polar bears. How do you like our dusty desert wasteland?”<br /><br />
“I see nothing to fear in a mere handful of dust. Maybe the Clauses are looking to expand into a southern office.”<br /><br />
I wished at that moment that I also had a drink in my hand, something to fiddle with so I wouldn’t feel so naked. The hat felt like a promise to follow through with a role, a part to play on the stage with an audience of only ourselves. A chill wind blew over the fence surrounding the patio. It seemed to carry the whisper of unearthly voices.<br /><br />
I will not recall in detail the awkwardness of asking you out that night, and how we made a date for the next weekend. By the time we reentered the apartment I felt as giddy as if I had been drinking already. I would soon start.<br /><br />
On the Sacred Seat sat Stephen, staring ahead into nothing as the party swirled around him. He had no drink in his hand. He was wearing a plaid shirt and dark slacks, and seemed to be just about the only person who had arrived without a proper costume. (Aside from me, of course.) I didn’t realize he was still in the area. I thought he might be in town to visit or to take care of something regarding his dissertation at the university. I wondered how he had received an invitation, since it was all done online.<br /><br />
He was even more taciturn than usual. I hardly made it to that side of the room all night, I was so busy being being in the dining room with you while my history department buddies talked. The night went by in a blur. After a few hours I walked you out to your car, and when I came back, we were ready to pass out pieces of the king cake.<br /><br />
“Where were you?” Brian asked. “The natives are restless and want to see the crowning of their new king.”<br /><br />
“Father Time got away from me,” I said.<br /><br />
I looked over to the green recliner, intending to say hello to Stephen. He was gone.<br /><br />
“Did Stephen leave already?” I asked.<br /><br />
“The first Father Time, himself? I didn’t know he was here.”<br /><br />
“Yeah, I saw him earlier on the Sacred Seat.”<br /><br />
“Maybe he’s in the bathroom. Let me cut the cake and ring in Epiphany properly. Grab the poem, will you?”<br /><br />
I did, and Stephen never reappeared that night. Elias was crowned as the new Saturn. He spent the next hour quoting random lines from the play to anyone who would listen and to many who wished not to.<br /><br />
“And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges!”<br /><br />
The rest of the night was a little tedious, if I’m being honest, but people were entertained and we did not clear them out until well after midnight. I met you for Mass the next day in the evening. The hangover was mostly dispersed by then. I continued to wonder why Stephen had arrived out of nowhere and had left just as quietly.<br /><br />
That spring semester was a wild ride. We hit our high very early. Brian told me he once caught us making out in the library. We were a little more careful after that. You wanted to move back to Minnesota after school, and I found out you had an aunt who was bankrolling your graduate degrees because she wanted you to have a good education. No ambition at all to teach. I got along great with your family, but you didn’t care for mine. I guess that was their fault, really. My dad is really pushy, and he’s been worse since the divorce.<br /><br />
The reality checks just kept getting cashed. You wanted way more children than me. I’ve never seen myself as the paternal type. I pushed back on the eventual move north, arguing that I had to stay open to teaching opportunities around the country. I got in that long quarrel about clerical roles in the Middle Ages with your sister, and I think you took it more personally than she did.<br /><br />
Almost overnight we were at each other’s throats, and not in the good way. We dug in our heels, picking many hills to die upon. By the end of the semester, we were both a little desperate. You tried breaking your own rule about physical boundaries in an attempt to fix us. I shot you down, and I regret that I did so by saying you were just trying to get pregnant to gain the upper hand. I am surprised to admit that I do not regret not taking advantage of the situation. After all the early arguments we had, I thought I would have jumped at the opportunity, but I suppose your logic and willpower had rubbed off on me.<br /><br />
Some things can’t be readily forgiven and forgotten, Blanche. Even if they could have been, we realized by that time that we each wanted very different things. I quietly pocketed the ring I had bought (this will be first you’ve heard of its existence), and I could not bring myself to sell it. You left town for the summer, and left me at the same time. In the autumn we were cordial when we had to be in one another’s presence, but otherwise we did not speak nor make eye contact. You told me you didn’t even want your books returned. I am certain that was a lie.<br /><br />
By the time the next Christmas rolled around I was still single in spite of my attempts with a new classmate, and I went hard into party prep for the Twelfth Night party with Brian once we were both back in town. I was memorizing lines from the play, Brian was buying holiday decorations that had just gone on sale in all the stores, we were making two king cakes with one being a “queen cake” for the crowning of Juno, and we even had a superior plastic scythe I had bought at another Halloween store. Brian had an idea for a drinking game called “The Twelve Shots of Christmas” which was, unsurprisingly, a hit.<br /><br />
Well, I won’t bore you with all the details. It was a good party, in spite of all the baggage that had become associated with the holiday. It felt like it would be petty not to invite you, but I was relieved when you did not show.<br /><br />
And, once again, Stephen Gregors was in attendance.<br /><br />
He did not appear on the Sacred Seat as he had the year before. Rather, I found him hiding in the back patio, sitting on a deck chair in the near darkness of the courtyard lights. I had taken up smoking with the English students, and was stepping out for a short breather when I saw him out of the corner of my eye.<br /><br />
“Stephen!” I said. “As I live and breathe.”<br /><br />
The other smokers continued further out through the gate and into the courtyard, leaving me alone with Stephen. I felt the urge to join them but felt more strongly the urge to be a good host and make conversation.<br /><br />
“I saw you here last year. I was surprised. I thought you had moved on to a doctoral program somewhere else.”<br /><br />
He continued saying nothing, and his eyes never quite met mine.<br /><br />
“You want a smoke? I can’t remember if you do.”<br /><br />
At that, he looked at me, unblinking, and spoke a single word:<br /><br />
“Epiphany.”<br /><br />
I waited for an explanation, but he just continued staring and sitting. Finally, I decided to proceed with my immediate social plan.<br /><br />
“Yup,” I said. “It’s about to be. Have a good time at the party, yeah? I’m going to have myself a quick drag. See you in there.”<br /><br />
When I returned, Stephen was nowhere to be found.<br /><br />
Two months later I learned that he had died. He had jumped off the Big Four Bridge that crosses from Indiana into Louisville, an old railway truss bridge that had been converted to pedestrian use in the 2010s. Someone mentioned it in a private online group for the grad students. When I heard about the circumstances, I decided to use my spring break to visit his family in Indianapolis.<br /><br />
This is how I know so much about his family. They were happy to invite me in for a few days and talk about Stephen. I heard all about his childhood, his early love for Stoic moral philosophy, his self-propelled schooling all the way through grad school, and the fights he would often instigate with the rest of his family. I learned that he loved bluegrass music thanks to a high school girlfriend. I learned that he had tried to join the military but was turned away because of joint problems. I learned that he despised his family’s Methodist religiosity. I began to put together a picture of who Stephen Gregors had been, a young and serious man who made few excuses for others and even fewer for himself. His father showed me an incomplete manuscript with the working title of <i>A Modern Consolation of Philosophy</i>. I wondered why he was a history student at all.<br /><br />
But mostly I wondered how he had appeared at my Twelfth Night party for two years in a row, when he had jumped off the Big Four Bridge in the autumn after that first Christmas.<br /><br />
I did not tell any of this to Stephen’s family. I did not want to burden them with the knowledge of… whatever it was I actually knew. Who could say what it meant? Perhaps I had imagined the whole thing. Perhaps he had made such an impression upon me at that first party that I could not imagine the parties happening without him in the future.<br /><br />
Or perhaps it was something else entirely.<br /><br />
It is November now. I was out in a local cemetery last night, thinking about whether or not I want to host another Twelfth Night. Did I want to see the image of Stephen again, sitting on yet another of our many chairs? Brian and I will be moving out in January. I have nothing holding me here anymore. None of my attempts at relationships have worked out. I think you are the only woman I have been able to take on more than three dates.<br /><br />
I was also in the cemetery to pray for the dead. I told you that your good influence had rubbed off on me, in spite of everything. I did not recognize any of the names on the tombstones. I am but a pilgrim in this city. One day I may put down roots, but it won’t be here.<br /><br />
It was in the midst of an <i>Ave</i> that I saw the familiar, tall outline of a man standing among the graves. I walked up to him and looked where he was looking. There was a small statue of an angelic child above a grave a few rows away.<br /><br />
“Good evening,” I said.<br /><br />
He looked at me and nodded, then went back to staring at the statue.<br /><br />
“I have a thought,” I continued without waiting for him to reply. I worried that if I did not keep talking then I simply would run off into the night and never look back. “I think that maybe the circumstances of your death are not so straightforward. I think you had a long enough moment to reconsider the full weight of your actions before you hit the Ohio River.”<br /><br />
He nodded.<br /><br />
I waited, switching from the urgency of speech to a desire not to rush him. He had all the time in the world, after all.<br /><br />
“Do you remember my words?” he asked, finally.<br /><br />
“Yes,” I replied. “I looked it up afterwards. ‘Here there is no why.’ A comment made in order to, I guess, explain the senseless cruelty of the World War. Many lost their faith because of the War. Just as many had their faithlessness confirmed.”<br /><br />
“It was a lying phrase.”<br /><br />
I thought on that for another long moment. It had been the sort of phrase that tugged on something deep and dark at the bottom of my soul, like a monster being dredged up from the sea floor.<br /><br />
“Is that what you realized as you fell?” I said. “That you had been lied to? That there might indeed be a why?”<br /><br />
He stood very still for a quiet minute before he spoke again for the last time.<br /><br />
“It was an Epiphany.”<br /><br />
Then he was gone. I have no assurances that he was not in fact something more malign than he appeared to be, but I have no reason to think that a demon would appear only to pass along a message of hope.<br /><br />
This is why I write to you. In your chosen state of life, you are in perpetual prayer for the salvation of others. I do not ask you to pray for me, but for Stephen. Please consider this an act of charity for a soul in almost complete poverty. I will never visit you, nor will I ask you for anything else in this life. My sincerest apologies if this opens old wounds or makes your life difficult. I do not know who else could help Stephen as much as you could, now.<br /><br />
My apologies also for addressing you by your old name, and not as Sister Rose. Your own sister told me the details a few months back. I think she has almost forgiven me.<br /><br />
I hope you are well. God bless.<br /><br /><br />
Yours,<br /><br />Kevin<br /><br />
<hr />
<br />
Jonathan Edward McDonald lives in the deeply historic St. Charles, Missouri. He has been published in <i>Dappled Things</i> and <i>Ramify</i>, and has written film scripts for Dakota Road Productions.
<div><br /></div><div>“Twelfth Night” by Jonathan Edward McDonald. Copyright © 2023 by Jonathan Edward McDonald.<br /></div><br />
<hr />Want to read more great stories like this? Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-63052681526355582112023-12-17T19:41:00.000-05:002023-12-17T19:41:31.367-05:00December 2023
Happy Advent!<div><br /></div><div>We have finished reading all stories received during our July submission period, and have sent out our acceptances and rejections. If you sent us a story and haven't heard from us, please let us know in the contact form to the left.</div><div><br /></div><div>We <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/submission-guidelines.html" target="_blank">open to submissions</a> again on January 1st.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our most recent story, "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/11/devil-in-rain.html">Devil in the Rain</a>," went up on November 27th and takes place in the same universe as author D.G.P. Rector's previous story, "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2022/04/on-charis-station.html">On Charis Station</a>." Check it out if you haven't already!</div><div><br /></div><div>Our next story is "Twelfth Night" by Jonathan Edward McDonald, a Christmas ghost story which will be published, appropriately enough, on Christmas Day.</div><div><br /></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">RECENT CAT ADVENTURES</h3><div>Both our cats have had adventures recently. The Friday before Thanksgiving week, shortly before we both left, Maxwell executed his daring escape plan.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwKOAxnjhE5fZaQT1pQ9CvNG-tobJho9z4a2qkMUi4_DUb1lzEBgMTiYPDIcIrycZZKrKJpCh8hvoD_lAPNBhyphenhyphen9yEnEZsPtUGa_5uue8b6UOkg2QrX7x7m8QPEa5Oxj4eXCXfIHjxpo6HFyxni1BV8Bt3RDnct9s_6hhmBPjxnKxDf_LcdCRWkssTVO9f/s2048/Escape%20route.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwKOAxnjhE5fZaQT1pQ9CvNG-tobJho9z4a2qkMUi4_DUb1lzEBgMTiYPDIcIrycZZKrKJpCh8hvoD_lAPNBhyphenhyphen9yEnEZsPtUGa_5uue8b6UOkg2QrX7x7m8QPEa5Oxj4eXCXfIHjxpo6HFyxni1BV8Bt3RDnct9s_6hhmBPjxnKxDf_LcdCRWkssTVO9f/w640-h360/Escape%20route.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Maxwell's Secret Escape Route</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>He tore through the window screen that his perch lets him observe the neighborhood through, and snuck out of the house. We might not have noticed, except that Donald was downstairs in the living room, and Marie started to make the same yowling sound that Maxwell makes when he sees a strange cat in the yard. Donald looked out the window beside her and saw a familiar gray shape darting beneath the windows. He then went out to the enclosed porch, noticed the torn screen, and got outside just in time to see Maxwell diving for the bushes. Donald immediately shut the window to keep Marie from joining her errant brother. Being unable to retrieve Maxwell on his own, Donald called Kristin, and we went on the cathunt. We searched among the bushes surrounding the house, and when we weren't able to find him there, started to circle the block, calling his name and shaking a bag of his favorite cat treat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Donald found him upon returning to the house, trying to get back in through the window from which he had so recently escaped. When Donald tried to grab him, Maxwell climbed the screen, but was stymied by the house's siding when he reached the top and eventually slipped and fell, at which point he was captured and returned to the house. We suspect he never made it past the bushes near the house, and was simply hiding there.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPBtLnI_uw-hRy-nd3n13a8amOJTZl0SGkOTb3T672nqf0v5P5HCxE_kSzGxs2rtuQuI51KdGgnd8Wj53ZmnUWBbx-L7gJRF3n_ocRXt2V927EY8LSEHcYXoPGXBO2y43KNlN64zR8aHsN_VRtXuZlCYCs-lo_mzgEtNDGTE0-BAKulHnr26B188ikSt0/s2048/Probing%20for%20weaknesses.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1152" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPBtLnI_uw-hRy-nd3n13a8amOJTZl0SGkOTb3T672nqf0v5P5HCxE_kSzGxs2rtuQuI51KdGgnd8Wj53ZmnUWBbx-L7gJRF3n_ocRXt2V927EY8LSEHcYXoPGXBO2y43KNlN64zR8aHsN_VRtXuZlCYCs-lo_mzgEtNDGTE0-BAKulHnr26B188ikSt0/w225-h400/Probing%20for%20weaknesses.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Maxwell searches for alternate escape routes. Unfortunately for him, he's indefinitely lost open window privileges.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>Marie had her own adventure while we were away for Thanksgiving. We keep the doors to our offices closed, only letting the cats in under supervision and only for as long as they don't get into trouble, which rarely exceeds about five minutes. Somehow, Marie managed to get trapped in Donald's office. </div><div><br /></div><div>We suspect Maxwell: he's always been better at opening doors. We just didn't think he had figured out doorknobs. Having seen the cats shut doors before, usually when they play with toys by repeatedly pushing them under the door and then pulling them out again (it's the reason we have doorstoppers holding all the doors where they are allowed open), we have a fairly good idea how she trapped herself inside once it was open. We're not sure how long she was in there without food or a litterbox and only whatever water Donald had left in the glass on his desk, before our friend who was cat sitting found her there the day after Thanksgiving. Less than 48 hours, certainly, since the friend had checked in on them on Wednesday. Probably about 24 hours: long enough to need a litterbox (a box of Donald's winter socks served that purpose), not so long as to be any worse for wear. Judging by the thick layer of fur on Donald's office chair, she at least found a comfortable bed.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjRT37ou9sOvQTMzVa3NwoNqoWiyZNOQ6s5HxnYYu5lZMHP_GoqVQ56leaOoSGdrt9biAaF9USSvPaDuH4GwH0VuhBWvHZ-NI2i2Nne_2NMF7p0_CIOBdGQO55wJHcDDXkrDg5yPRAACT5jYNzTIL5yY2oSUaqkwoArP2SfMGV49jwY1EvCCvKGbZbLZgp/s2048/Marie%20welcomes%20Kristin.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjRT37ou9sOvQTMzVa3NwoNqoWiyZNOQ6s5HxnYYu5lZMHP_GoqVQ56leaOoSGdrt9biAaF9USSvPaDuH4GwH0VuhBWvHZ-NI2i2Nne_2NMF7p0_CIOBdGQO55wJHcDDXkrDg5yPRAACT5jYNzTIL5yY2oSUaqkwoArP2SfMGV49jwY1EvCCvKGbZbLZgp/w300-h400/Marie%20welcomes%20Kristin.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Marie welcomes Kristin's luggage home.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Maxwell did not seem overly concerned for his sister, as he was enjoying his monopoly on chin scritches from our friend before they began wondering why they hadn't seen Marie.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDJGfZvP92TK9smf9EIPC-NyQVFUjElCrZE1QCzetuNYxxEmdtMi2hcmKZELrcx4qg6KlXnBDDtTDdk-uXVOUCXYbfKDK6LdCAv374igOlJOxR6e3Ya42RQTL5fleM3dBAHFzrCQYMF5XA_cDbi4vJj4g6l15Y8ony8wV-vqYvfrbUlDIv5E6o30n82sA/s1600/Maxwell%20uses%20Marie%20as%20a%20pillow.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDJGfZvP92TK9smf9EIPC-NyQVFUjElCrZE1QCzetuNYxxEmdtMi2hcmKZELrcx4qg6KlXnBDDtTDdk-uXVOUCXYbfKDK6LdCAv374igOlJOxR6e3Ya42RQTL5fleM3dBAHFzrCQYMF5XA_cDbi4vJj4g6l15Y8ony8wV-vqYvfrbUlDIv5E6o30n82sA/w300-h400/Maxwell%20uses%20Marie%20as%20a%20pillow.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">He does appreciate her as a pillow, at least.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>We're not sure whether our cats' opening the office door was a fluke, or something we need to accept as a fact of life now. We've decided that, to be on the safe side, we should at least put some water dishes in our offices while we're away for Christmas. And a litterbox.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for reading! If you enjoy our magazine, please consider subscribing on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>. If we can increase our support by $53/month, we'll be able to start publishing an additional two stories each year (for a total of 16). For $10/month, you'll receive a free e-book of our upcoming stories every two months. A mere $3/month gets you early access to all the stories we publish, and even $1/month comes with access to our Discord server and monthly updates that often include book and game reviews.</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy Holidays, and a Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating! <br /><div><div><div><br /></div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div></div></div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-76255232737728003942023-11-27T01:00:00.016-05:002023-11-27T01:00:00.129-05:00Devil in the Rain<div><b>by D.G.P. Rector</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>The rain was coming down so thick, Sister Marisha found it impossible not to think of the Great Deluge. Urartu’s Storm season was hard; if it weren’t, the Sisterhood would have no purpose. She and Sister Clarke had drawn the short straw: evening patrol, tasked with wandering the game trails and other places the Sisterhood’s drones couldn’t easily see from the sky.<br /><br />
Most of the time, they found nothing. Maybe a Black Tongue, that Clarke would try to spear with her walking stick to add to the night’s supper. On rare occasions, there would be a lost Wildcat, some fool from the far side of the Frontier who’d heard of the riches hidden in Urartu’s soil and come to stake his claim. They’d bandage him as needed, feed him as needed, and send him quickly on his way.<br /><br />
On this night, though, something was different. The forest was quiet save the sound of thunder and distant rain. Marisha thought she could smell oil on the wind.<br /><br />
“Oughtta head to the road,” Clarke said, pointing with her stick.<br /><br />
Clarke had just one arm, never having bothered with a replacement. It was funny to Marisha to think that she had actually been with the Order longer than Clarke, hardest and oldest of the Sisters. But Clarke had lived a harsh life before she was Called, and she took to patrol and rescue like a fish in water.<br /><br />
“Think so?” Marisha asked. “We should maybe head back soon. Abbess said the drones would be coming in early tonight...”<br /><br />
“Something funny about the road,” Clarke said. “I caught the scent of oil, maybe rubber. Somebody’s been down it recently. Oughtta check it out.”<br /><br />
They headed down the game trail to the nearest road. It led from Finery all the way to the Northern Claims in the mountains but was seldom traveled. Rain turned it to a grey-brown sea this time of year, despite the ditches dug alongside and the gravel spread on its surface.<br /><br />
“Tracks,” Clarke said when they came to the edge of the forest.<br /><br />
The two of them hopped the ditch onto the road. There were fresh tracks all right, made by the wheels of a Crawler. Oddly, they didn’t seem to be headed back to Finery. Clarke crouched down, staring at the upturned mud. She crossed herself.<br /><br />
“What’s wrong, Sister?”<br /><br />
Clarke pointed. There were prints too, left by booted feet.<br /><br />
“Military boots,” Clarke said. “Weighed down. Half dozen maybe, wearing armor.”<br /><br />
“You think—” Marisha snapped around, cutting herself off mid-sentence. She’d heard something moving. Crouching down, she scanned the tree line.<br /><br />
Clarke crouched beside her, both women peering into the forest. Rain slid down the sinuous tendrils of the trees, making them writhe like living animals. It could just be a Black Tongue, Marisha told herself. Sometimes they got curious and started following humans around.<br /><br />
Then she saw it. A pair of red lights in the shadow of a tree. Eyes.<br /><br />
“Hello, out there,” Marisha called. “We’re Sisters of the Storm Watch. Do you need help?”<br /><br />
There was no reply. Marisha slowly took a torch from her belt and shone its light towards the tree. She saw the snarling face of a demon watching her, a metallic blue so dark it was almost black, armored body slick with rain. The demon was leaning against a tree, a pistol in one hand, pointed at them.<br /><br />
“Down!” Clarke snapped, but Marisha was transfixed. The demon hadn’t moved.<br /><br />
Then the pistol fell from its hands, and it keeled over. It rolled down into the ditch with a wet plop, and lay still.<br /><br />
“Is he—”<br /><br />
Marisha heard a single, low groan come from the figure.<br /><br />
“God’s Wounds,” Clarke swore. “We’ve got to get out of here.”<br /><br />
“He’s hurt,” Marisha said.<br /><br />
“Girl, he’s armed!”<br /><br />
Marisha leaped into the ditch. The demon was bigger than she was, and his armor was heavy, but she rolled him onto his back. There was a massive crater in the upper right side of his breastplate, a ruin of jagged metal and dark blood. He was still breathing, barely.<br /><br />
“Christ,” she whispered. “Clarke, help me! We need to get him to the infirmary.”<br /><br />
“Whoever did that to him could still be nearby—”<br /><br />
“Then we’ve got to work quickly,” Marisha said. “Hurry! We’ve got a job to do.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />It was the day before the Sabbath, and Heitz had been called on to help in the Infirmary. She was the youngest, not even officially a member of the Sisterhood, but she’d been here since she was a child and had studied medicine with Sister Sara. That, and everyone knew she was the Abbess’s favorite. There had been more than a little jealousy when she was selected to help with their “Guest”.<br /><br />
The novices had been speculating about the new arrival since the night Sisters Clarke and Marisha dragged a man in from the storm, and their speculation had only grown more intense whenever shouts and growls had come from the locked Infirmary. Heitz had spied Clarke and the Abbess carrying a pair of heavy crates to the Chapel tower, but had yet to summon the courage to investigate.<br /><br />
The Abbess remained tight-lipped, but Clarke had come away with a black eye that first night, and Sara’s left hand was still in a brace. Some said they’d brought in a Wildcat gone mad, or an outlaw on the run. One novice said she’d caught a glimpse of the man, and that he had the face of the devil himself.<br /><br />
The first thing that struck Heitz when she did see him was how strange he looked. Men occasionally visited the Abbey, and the Sisters brought in lost Wildcats, men and women, during the rough seasons. Still, most of Heitz’s world was made up of the Sisters. Seeing someone so large and broad, having him lying in the bed in front of her, was like studying an alien.<br /><br />
Beneath the bandages, he was a patchwork of flesh and metal. Swathes of his skin had a dull, plastic sheen, while other parts sagged and puckered strangely despite his evident muscles. Heitz was particularly fascinated by the places where his flesh joined the cybernetics: there was a cross-hatch pattern there, as if the skin had been stitched over a hundred times.<br /><br />
His face was shrouded in bandages, mouth covered by an oxygen mask. Only his red, artificial eyes were visible. Those eyes never flickered, never closed. They were dead glass, staring sightless at the ceiling. It wasn’t a pleasant face, but it didn’t remind Heitz of the Devil.<br /><br />
Sister Sara injected another syringe into the patient, the twelfth by Heitz’s count. For the first time he twitched, causing the chains that bound him to the bed to rattle. Then he went still, the only motion in his body the steady rise and fall of his chest.<br /><br />
Sara shook her head and put away the medical kit.<br /><br />
“I’ll have to confer with Sister Chali,” she said. “I don’t know enough about augmenteds. I’ve been trying to stabilize him but…”<br /><br />
“He seems stable,” Heitz said.<br /><br />
“I’d like to restore consciousness. On a normal patient I could give him a stimulant, but this one…”<br /><br />
“This one?” Heitz prompted.<br /><br />
“There was a chem-reservoir in that armor of his when we pulled it off. It was pumping some very serious combat drugs. The wrong stimulants could cause a cascading failure. And of course, all the metal in him is a problem, too. Cybernetics like that are deeply rooted in the nervous system. There’s just too many unknowns.”<br /><br />
Sara drummed her fingers against the top of the medical monitor, then turned to Heitz.<br /><br />
“Heitz, why don’t you go grab Sister Chali? Tell her to bring an induction monitor, some nano-filament links, the convex separator, and—Heitz?”<br /><br />
“Sorry,” Heitz said, shaking her head. “Filament monitor, Induction Separator, uh, what was the third one?”<br /><br />
“Don’t worry about it, kid. I’ll get Chali. You just keep an eye on the patient, and keep that thing handy.”<br /><br />
Heitz looked down at the carbine in her lap. She knew how to shoot well enough, but she’d never even killed a Black Tongue. Clarke had insisted that there be someone armed with the patient at all times.<br /><br />
“Uh, okay.”<br /><br />
Sara put a hand on her shoulder.<br /><br />
“It’ll be fine, Heitz. Just don’t do anything stupid. And if he wakes up, you run and get me, okay?”<br /><br />
“Okay.”<br /><br />
Sara smiled and left. Heitz returned her gaze to the patient. He was dead to the world.<br /><br />
Minutes passed, and Heitz grew anxious. She took a peek outside the infirmary door, but Sara was nowhere in sight.<br /><br />
A lot of faith had been put in her.<br /><br />
She looked back at the patient. He hadn’t stirred.<br /><br />
Slowly, she approached his bedside. She was careful to put the carbine out of reach first, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to study this strange visitor, to see him up close. Heitz had never met a cyborg before.<br /><br />
She stared at the join in his forearm, the place where cold metal met grey flesh. The scars transfixed her, a bright white against the dour palette of his body. Heitz knew very little of surgery, but there was something about it that seemed so crude, so careless. She reached out to brush her finger along it.<br /><br />
“Where’s my armor?”<br /><br />
Heitz leaped back, stifling a gasp.<br /><br />
The patient had turned his bandaged head towards her, fixing her with his red eyes. His voice was like a blade scraping across rusted metal. Slowly, he sat up.<br /><br />
“Where’s my armor?” he repeated. “What did you do with it?”<br /><br />
“I—I don’t know,” Heitz said quickly. “The other Sisters took it off you when they brought you in.”<br /><br />
“Where’d they put it?”<br /><br />
“I told you I don’t—I mean, I don’t know, it would—”<br /><br />
There was a terrible clattering noise as the man yanked up one of his chained arms. Steel rang against steel. He flexed, and for a terrible moment the metal seemed to bend. Suddenly, he let out a groan, and his arm fell back to his side. He lay there, panting and staring at her.<br /><br />
“What... did you do to me?” he said. “Something wrong. Arms not working right.”<br /><br />
“We’ve been helping you,” Heitz said.<br /><br />
She had retreated to the far side of the room, the carbine within easy reach now. A little of her composure had returned as she looked at him. He was large, certainly, but he was still chained, still recovering from terrible injuries, and the Lord knew what else.<br /><br />
“You were badly hurt when they found you. The Sisters patched you up. You’ve been in the Infirmary almost a week while Sister Chali and Sister Sara tried to figure out how best to help you. We, uh, we don’t get many augmented on Urartu.”<br /><br />
The stranger said nothing. Heitz watched the moisture from his breath fog and clear from the oxygen mask. It gradually became more steady.<br /><br />
“Where’s the rest of your family?” he said. “Need to talk to ‘em.”<br /><br />
“Family? My family’s all—oh! Y-You misunderstood me. The Sisters aren’t <i>my</i> Sisters. They’re the Sisterhood of Urartu, the Storm Watch.”<br /><br />
The man cocked his head to the side.<br /><br />
“This a temple?”<br /><br />
“No, not really. It’s sort of like a convent, but they also do emergency medical and rescue stuff. Wildcats get lost out in the wilderness, and Storm Season plays havoc with cheap comms. So, y’know, they help people who get lost out here or, get, y’know, get hurt. Like you.”<br /><br />
She smiled sheepishly at the stranger. He said nothing.<br /><br />
“Um, I’m Heitz,” she added. “Can I ask your name?”<br /><br />
He stared at her a moment longer.<br /><br />
“Tenlok,” he said.<br /><br />
“Nice to meet you, Tenlok. Like I said, we help a lot of Wildcats out here—”<br /><br />
“I’m not a prospector.”<br /><br />
“What—What are you, then?”<br /><br />
The word he said next made the color drain from Heitz’s face. She remembered how her parents had said it in hushed tones when they were alive. It was a word people like them could only whisper, a word for a relentless, cold-blooded killer. A word for monster.<br /><br />
“Bondsman.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />The Bondsman was waiting where Heitz had said she left him: sitting upright in his infirmary bed, moving little. His red eyes locked with Marisha’s as she entered the room along with Heitz, Clarke, Sara, and the Abbess. They had neither iris nor lid, just a pair of crimson spheres. Pitiless. Predatory. Dead.<br /><br />
Marisha glanced at Heitz. The poor girl’s knees were shaking. It was foolish, and cruel, to have her attend to this. The Abbess had insisted she come along with them, as she was the only person the Bondsman had spoken to since he regained consciousness.<br /><br />
The Abbess was not a large woman, but she had a voice and presence that filled any room. She faced their guest without a trace of fear.<br /><br />
“Hello,” the Abbess said, smoothing her skirts and bowing slightly to the Bondsman. “You’re Tenlok, correct? I am the Abbess of the Sisters of Urartu. You may address me as Mother Superior.”<br /><br />
“Where’s my armor?” he growled.<br /><br />
“We have it in a safe place,” the Abbess replied coolly. “I suppose you know we had a devil of a time getting it off you. Sister Sara was lucky she was able to stop your bleeding at all, with all the time wasted getting you out of that shell.”<br /><br />
“Give it back,” Tenlok said. “Weapons, too.”<br /><br />
The Abbess smiled.<br /><br />
“Those are also in a safe place. Sir, we may live a life of simplicity, but we are not fools. I don’t have any intention of seeing you armed until I know you pose no threat to my community.”<br /><br />
“There a bounty on any of you?”<br /><br />
“None that I’m aware of.”<br /><br />
“Then you’re safe. I don’t give a damn about your beliefs, and I don’t work for Pogromists. Give me my gear, and I’ll leave.”<br /><br />
“I’d like to see that,” Sister Sara chimed in. “Your injuries mean you need at least another week’s rest. I had to use a barbiturate compound to balance your system after we removed that chemical reservoir from your back.”<br /><br />
The Bondsman’s head snapped over towards Sara. Marisha could see the muscles in his neck tighten. For the first time, when he spoke she heard real emotion.<br /><br />
“You took my chems?” he snarled.<br /><br />
“Under my orders,” the Abbess said. “You were going berserk whenever you gained consciousness. We had to keep you calm, and we realized that reservoir was what was provoking you.”<br /><br />
“Those chems are from the Guild. They were designed for <i>me</i>.”<br /><br />
“And they were going to <i>kill</i> you,” Sara said. “Do you have any idea how fast your heart was going when we found you? Your whole system could have burned out in a matter of hours. Not to mention the chest wound.”<br /><br />
“I’ve handled it before. Give me my things. I’ll leave.”<br /><br />
“No,” the Abbess said.<br /><br />
Tenlok turned his gaze back to her.<br /><br />
“What?”<br /><br />
“I said ‘no’. We’re not going to give you your armor, or your weapons, and we are most certainly not going to give you a pack full of drugs that almost killed you.”<br /><br />
“I could go into withdrawal—”<br /><br />
“I know,” the Abbess said. “Sister Sara already told me about it. She’s analyzed what was in that cocktail that was being pumped into you. In addition to her skills in surgery and xeno-botany, Sara’s also become a dab hand at helping addicts over the years. She’s already got a few things in you that should help with your symptoms.”<br /><br />
“I. Am. Not. An. Addict.”<br /><br />
The Abbess smiled serenely.<br /><br />
“No, of course not. ‘Addict’ implies you had some degree of choice in the matter, at least to start with. You see, Tenlok, one of the tenets of the Sisterhood is to tend to the sick and the needy. What kind of holy woman would I be if I fed poison to a sick man?”<br /><br />
“Give me my gear,” Tenlok said. “Give it to me. Now.”<br /><br />
“No.”<br /><br />
The Bondsman yanked suddenly at his chains. There was an incredible ferocity in his movements, a violent explosiveness that made everyone in the room take a step back. All save the Abbess, who continued to smile at the Bondsman, now with a hint of smugness. In moments, Tenlok lost his strength, and collapsed back into the bed. He glared at the Abbess.<br /><br />
“You’re in no position to make demands,” she said. “And you’ve done a very poor job of convincing me you’re not dangerous. Until that changes, you are going to stay in that bed until you are well. Don’t worry, the Sisters and I are more than happy to tend to you. It might not feel like it now, but we are trying to make you better. Sister Clarke, you and Chali have first watch. See that our guest is comfortable?”<br /><br />
“Yes, Abbess,” Clarke said, staring daggers at the Bondsman.<br /><br />
The Abbess rose to leave and signaled the others to follow. As she approached the door, she paused and turned back towards the Bondsman.<br /><br />
“Oh, one more thing. I was thinking of contacting the Wardens at Finery, we might transfer you to their care. You’re not in any trouble with them, are you?”<br /><br />
“I wouldn’t do that,” Tenlok said.<br /><br />
“So you <i>are</i> in trouble with them?”<br /><br />
He shrugged.<br /><br />
“Could say that. Truth is, the people I had a disagreement with have the Wardens in their pocket. Tell anyone I’m here, they’ll show up a long time before the Wardens do. Could get messy.”<br /><br />
The Abbess allowed herself a snort of laughter.<br /><br />
“Are you trying to intimidate me?<br /><br />
The Bondsman shook his head.<br /><br />
“No,” he said. “But if you want to keep your people safe, you should know: they don’t care for witnesses.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />It was odd to Marisha how quickly the Sisters grew used to the Bondsman’s presence. Another week passed before he could get up and walk around, always under close supervision and with his hands bound. He spoke very little, except to ask for his things. Always he was politely, but firmly, rebuffed.<br /><br />
Clarke and the Abbess argued incessantly behind closed doors. When Clarke had pointed out that the Bondsman had not actually asked for the sanctuary that was being given to him, the Abbess had a blunt rebuttal.<br /><br />
“Tell me, Sister,” the Abbess had said. “Did our Lord take a plebiscite of all Mankind when He sacrificed Himself? How simple things would have been if enough people had just said ‘no, thank you!’ Sometimes, we must help others, even when they insist they do not need it.”<br /><br />
Marisha chuckled at the memory, then returned to work. The rain had let up, at least. She’d been assigned to tend to one of the compound’s gardens, and it was easier work when she wasn’t slipping in wet manure.<br /><br />
“You’re the one they let into Finery, right?”<br /><br />
The Bondsman’s voice was an iron growl, followed by a wheeze. He was standing at the edge of the garden, in the shelter of the alcove. Alone.<br /><br />
They had dressed him in a spare storm coat, his face still covered in bandages. All she could see were his mouth and eyes, and the semi-transparent plastic of his jaw. His tongue was a deep red behind black teeth.<br /><br />
Marisha stood up, shovel in hand.<br /><br />
“Where’s Sister Sara? You’re not supposed to be on the grounds alone.”<br /><br />
“Doc’s taking a leak,” Tenlok said. “They let you leave, right?”<br /><br />
“I don’t think I should be talking to you.”<br /><br />
“Doc’s treatment fucked my nerve pathways. Can’t hurt you.”<br /><br />
He raised his bound hands in illustration. The movement was slow and awkward. He lowered them back down and leaned against the pillar, his breath heavy. Even standing up seemed to take effort.<br /><br />
Still, something stuck out to Marisha. <i>Can’t</i> hurt you, not <i>won’t</i> hurt you.<br /><br />
“It’s important,” Tenlok said. “Something I need to know. I can pay you.”<br /><br />
Marisha slowly loosened her grip on the shovel.<br /><br />
“What is it?”<br /><br />
“Company called Matruska. Had reps out here, looking to buy one of the Wildcat claims. Need to know if they’re still here.”<br /><br />
Marisha had heard a few Star-Corp names, but never paid much attention to them. Matruska was vaguely familiar. They had a dark reputation, from what she recalled.<br /><br />
She considered it a moment. If they were who this Bondsman was hiding from, it could be a threat to the whole Sisterhood. Speaking about anything besides his endless requests for his armor was something of a breakthrough, too. Of course, there was another option. He might be working for them, and looking for his payment.<br /><br />
“Alright,” she said. “I’m due for a supply run in a few days. I’ll ask around.”<br /><br />
“Good.”<br /><br />
Sister Sara emerged from a back hall.<br /><br />
“There you are! You can’t go running off like that,” she scolded. “Is everything all right, Marisha?”<br /><br />
“It is, Sister Sara. The Bondsman and I were just chatting.”<br /><br />
Sara turned to Tenlok, and rolled her eyes.<br /><br />
“Marisha doesn’t know where your armor is,” she said. “You’ll get your things back when the Abbess says, and not before. Now come along, we have to keep up your exercise or you’ll never rebuild your strength.”<br /><br />
The Bondsman exchanged a last look with Marisha, then followed Sara out of the garden. She watched him go for a moment, then returned to spreading manure.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Heitz rode on the back of the ATV, arms wrapped around Marisha’s waist. There was an undeniable thrill at being asked to join in the trip to Finery. She had only been there a few times over the years, and it was one of the things that reminded her of the happier times in her childhood. Her family’s home had been a little ways south of Finery, and she could still remember the layout of every market and holo-theatre.<br /><br />
Of course, it had all changed. It had been less than a decade, and yet as they approached the city, what had once been a sprawl of squat pre-fabs now counted a dozen towering spires. Most of the taller stacks would be temporary residences, places for visitors to stay in comfort during their trip to Urartu. The rest of the people still lived in rundown shanties, like her folk had.<br /><br />
They made the rounds, Marisha always keeping her close. She’d tried to engage Marisha on the ride down, but her responses had been terse.<br /><br />
Heitz was sure the Bondsman had something to do with the trip, but she had no idea what. The medical supplies they gathered and loaded onto the ATV’s flatbed were nothing special, from what she could tell. They weren’t buying ammo, either. It was only when they stopped at Old Heather’s for dry rations that she got her first hint.<br /><br />
“Matruska?” Old Heather said. “Yeah, there was some talk of them a few weeks back. Saw a few fellows that looked like Condottiere, then there was that business with the Laing claim. Reps been laying low since then, if they haven’t scarpered.”<br /><br />
“Laing claim?” Marisha asked.<br /><br />
The old woman shook her head sadly.<br /><br />
“Bad business. Off-worlder family came in, trying to go Wildcat. Nice enough folk, well-to-do. Little in over their head, if you ask me. Anyway, word was they’d made a good strike, started buying up mining drones. One of those Matruska reps got into it with Poppa Laing at some drinking hole, things got hot. Laing started asking around about guns. Then those Condottiere showed up in Finery, next thing ya know, Laing claim’s gone from all the registers.<br /><br />
“Heard some folks say Momma Laing and her boy hitched a ride with the last Cycler out of here, cheapest berths they could get. As for Poppa, well, I expect he’s in the mud, or else a Black Tongue’s belly. Gods and Ancestors, it was a hell of a business. Folks got pretty riled, Wildcats an’ ’Steaders both.”<br /><br />
“Didn’t the Wardens do anything about it?”<br /><br />
“Nah, they hushed everything up. Couple folks got cracks on the head, things quieted down. Not much to be done, especially with those Matruska fuckers gone. Just another sad day in the Frontier.”<br /><br />
Heitz spoke up.<br /><br />
“You mean, nobody was punished? At all?”<br /><br />
The old woman smiled at her from behind the counter.<br /><br />
“Kid,” she said. “The worlds don’t work that way. You can get down on your knees and pray with the Sisters to that Cross-Man all you want, but it don’t change things. Wicked folk do wicked deeds, and then they run on. Nothing changes. It’s all dust anyway.<br /><br />
“Hell, Marisha here knows better than most,” she added.<br /><br />
Marisha gave her a dark look, and Heather raised her hands apologetically.<br /><br />
“That’s no business of yours,” Marisha said.<br /><br />
“Sure, sure. Eighty for the crate, anyway.”<br /><br />
Marisha paid, and the two of them carried the ration crate out to the ATV. The sun was setting by the time everything was stowed, so Marisha rented them rooms for the night after sending a message back to the Abbey.<br /><br />
They ate their evening meal together and said their prayers. Marisha had been even more quiet than usual.<br /><br />
“So,” Heitz said. “You think Tenlok killed Poppa Laing?”<br /><br />
Marisha looked at her blankly.<br /><br />
“This isn’t something to joke about, Heitz.”<br /><br />
“But that’s why you were asking around, right? You want to know just as much as the rest of us what he was doing here. Sounds like the Matruska hired him to take out the Laings.”<br /><br />
“Maybe,” Marisha said. “You shouldn’t speculate.”<br /><br />
“Why?”<br /><br />
“Because it won’t change anything,” Marisha snapped. “The Abbess made her decision, and that’s the end of things.”<br /><br />
“But you have to know,” Heitz said. “’Cause you brought him in. Clarke said she wanted to leave him out there in the storm.”<br /><br />
“Clarke was wrong. The Sisters have a duty. If we fail in that, then we will have failed our Beloved, and that’s just about the worst thing we can do. Understand?”<br /><br />
“Okay.”<br /><br />
“Okay?”<br /><br />
“Yeah,” Heitz said. “Okay. I won’t bother you anymore about it.”<br /><br />
“Good.”<br /><br />
“Just… What did Old Heather mean about you knowing about wicked people getting away with things?”<br /><br />
Marisha laughed.<br /><br />
“If you think I’m some sort of outlaw in hiding, you’re going to be disappointed. Clarke’s the only one with an interesting story, and you can see that she was a soldier just by looking at her.”<br /><br />
“So? What <i>did</i> Heather mean?”<br /><br />
Marisha sighed.<br /><br />
“She means that I had a reason for joining the Sisterhood. And that reason is none of your business. Now get some sleep, we’re getting up early tomorrow.”<br /><br />
“Alright, alright, you win,” Heitz said. “See you in the morning, Sister.”<br /><br />
“Sleep well.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Marisha woke an hour before dawn. She did her daily obeisances and made herself ready, then woke Heitz. The bleary-eyed teenager mumbled and groaned, but got ready in the end. Preparing the ATV for the trip back to the Convent was a simple task, and only the first rays of sunlight were peeking above the horizon by the time they were ready to depart.<br /><br />
A Mining Crawler rumbled past as she ran through her final checks. She paused to watch it go.<br /><br />
It would be the Miners’ first shift of the day at one of the Company sites. Those men would labor hard in the picking and sorting, constantly repairing the delicate drones as they broke down again and again.<br /><br />
“Marisha!”<br /><br />
The voice was deep and familiar. One of the Miners leaped from the back of the Crawler, a smile on his bearded face.<br /><br />
She took a step back as he approached.<br /><br />
He was older, his face more lined than she remembered. There was no mistaking his brown eyes, the slight turn in his nose where it had been broken a dozen times, or the scar on his lip. The one she’d given him, a long time ago.<br /><br />
“Marisha! Marisha, it <i>is</i> you,” he beamed. “Thank God, I thought I’d never see you again.”<br /><br />
“Stay away from me, Davin,” Marisha said, taking another step back. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”<br /><br />
“Oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous! It’s been years, don’t you at least want to, I don’t know, catch up?”<br /><br />
Marisha shook her head.<br /><br />
Heitz emerged from the hotel, pack slung over one shoulder. Her pace slowed as she approached, looking between Davin and Marisha.<br /><br />
“Uh, hi?” she said.<br /><br />
Davin smiled, but Marisha saw a familiar, cruel flicker in his eyes.<br /><br />
“Hi,” he said. “Well, this one’s cute. That why you joined them Sisters?”<br /><br />
“She’s a child. Don’t be disgusting,” Marisha said.<br /><br />
“Oh, sure. I’m disgusting. <i>You</i> can’t keep to one bed, but I’m the disgusting one.”<br /><br />
“You know something, Davin? You were always crazy. Always. I don’t know how I ever put up with you.”<br /><br />
Davin sneered.<br /><br />
“Right. Crazy Davin, there he goes again. Crazy man, able to see what’s in front of his face! Well, I bet you’re real happy now, aren’t you? You can say whatever you want, put that stupid damn outfit on, but I know, I know what you are, Marisha!”<br /><br />
Davin put his hand on her shoulder and Marisha slapped it away. She backed away from him until she was against the ATV. He loomed over her, jaw set, eyes wild, fists balled. Just like the old days.<br /><br />
“The fuck are you doing, Davin?!”<br /><br />
Half a dozen men in Miners’ togs came jogging up, and in moments they had pulled Davin away. He was cursing madly now, calling her every vile name he could think of. One of the Miners turned, giving Marisha a sympathetic look.<br /><br />
“Sorry, Sister,” he said. “He gets like this sometimes. Don’t you worry, we won’t let him bother you.”<br /><br />
“Sure,” Marisha said.<br /><br />
She and Heitz mounted the ATV quickly, and rode away. As they reached the outskirts of town, Heitz spoke up.<br /><br />
“So, who was that?”<br /><br />
“The reason I joined the Sisters.”<br /><br />
They rode the rest of the way home in silence.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />“His breathing still hasn’t improved,” Sister Sara said. “I don’t understand it. Lungs are perfectly healthy, but it’s as if he doesn’t know how.”<br /><br />
“Perhaps he doesn’t want to,” the Abbess suggested.<br /><br />
Marisha had been invited to their now weekly discussion of the Bondsman’s condition, and what exactly was to be done with him. She, Sara, the Abbess, and Chali sat together in the Chapter House, watched over by flickering holo-images of saints and renderings of the Passion. Marisha liked the holos well enough, but the permanence of the stained glass in the Chapel appealed to her more. There was something pleasant in that ancient continuity with Old Earth.<br /><br />
Sister Chali had fetched some of the Bondsman’s armor from its hiding place and laid it out on the table between them. She was examining the Bondsman’s face mask. It would cover the lower half of the face, and was wrought to look like a snarling ghoul. Large fangs glistened in its mouth, clenching around a pair of stimulant tubes. It looked like a demon biting down on a serpent, to Marisha.<br /><br />
Chali held the mask up for the others to see, indicating the tubes. She was mute, but had her own ways of making herself understood.<br /><br />
“Hmm, that’s a good point,” Sara said. “It could be a withdrawal side-effect. His behavior isn’t erratic, and his other vitals are good. It seems he got a lot of his drugs from the mask though, so it stands to reason there’s a psychological tie to his breathing.”<br /><br />
“Sisters, forgive me,” Marisha said. “But are we just going to ignore the fact that he might be a murderer?”<br /><br />
The meeting had opened with Marisha’s report of what she had been told in the city, but the Abbess had briskly moved the conversation on to the Bondsman’s health. She now turned to Marisha, a stern expression on her face.<br /><br />
“He might have done a great many things, Sister. We do not know. And we have very good reason to suspect that releasing him from our care would put him in very serious danger. For now, until we are certain of his guilt or innocence, I intend to continue to care for him.”<br /><br />
“Mother Superior, when are you going to accept that this man is <i>dangerous</i>,” Marisha said. “Clarke was right, I was a fool to bring him in! Every moment we keep him here, we are all in danger.”<br /><br />
The Abbess steepled her hands and hooded her eyes.<br /><br />
“Hmmph,” she snorted. “I suppose there is only one way around this. Come along, it’s almost time for afternoon prayers.”<br /><br />
“Mother Superior—”<br /><br />
“We are going to resolve this,” the Abbess said. “At your continued <i>insistence</i>, Sister Marisha. Then I shall have no more questioning on this matter, understood?”<br /><br />
The Abbess rose, and directed Chali to put away the armor before beckoning Sara and Marisha to follow her. The summoning bell was already chiming by the time they met Clarke and the Bondsman in the courtyard, but it would be a few minutes before all the Sisters had gathered in the Chapel. A few of the novices were still beyond the wall, clearing away the ever-encroaching forest.<br /><br />
“So,” the Abbess said. “Mr. Tenlok, do you know anything of the Laing family?”<br /><br />
“Yes,” he replied flatly.<br /><br />
“Oh? We’ve learned they disappeared recently. Did you have anything to do with that?”<br /><br />
He nodded.<br /><br />
“You see? I told you he was involved,” Marisha interjected. “He wanted me to look up the Matruska group, he killed the Laings—”<br /><br />
“I didn’t kill them,” Tenlok growled.<br /><br />
The Abbess began to speak, but there was the roar of an ATV, and the sounds of commotion coming from the front gate. Marisha turned to look, and saw two of the novices come darting through the gate, terrified looks on their faces. Following hard on was Davin.<br /><br />
He was soaked in sweat, his hair and beard wild. It was clear from the bottle in his hand and his stiff gait that he had been drinking.<br /><br />
“Marisha,” he slurred. “Marisha, I want to talk to you!”<br /><br />
“Dear lord,” she said. “Davin, you can’t be here!”<br /><br />
“I just want to talk,” he repeated.<br /><br />
The Abbess stepped between them. He was a full head taller than her, and looked down at her with genuine confusion.<br /><br />
“Sir,” she said. “You must leave. These grounds are for the Sisterhood and its charges only.”<br /><br />
“What? Men not allowed?”<br /><br />
“That’s—”<br /><br />
Davin pointed a finger at the Bondsman.<br /><br />
“The fuck is he doing here, then?” he said.<br /><br />
“He is in the care of the Sisterhood. Now please—”<br /><br />
“That sounds like a lot of shit to me. Like a lot of SHIT!”<br /><br />
His voice was halfway between a roar and a scream. The Abbess tried to speak, but he swung his arm out, smacking her to the ground. Marisha tried to back away, the old memories coming up in a flood. Then his red face blocked out her vision, pressing in close to her, the smell of his breath filling her nose.<br /><br />
“Davin, Davin please—”<br /><br />
“Why’s it always gotta be a fuckin’ <i>production</i> with you, huh? I’m your damn husband, you could show me some goddamned respect! What kinda holy bitch are you, treatin’ me like this?”<br /><br />
His hand had wrapped around her shoulder, fingers clawing into her skin. Then Sister Clarke was on him. She charged into his side, sending Davin sprawling. Clarke kicked him where he lay, and for a moment Marisha dared to think it would end there, but Davin caught hold of Clarke’s leg.<br /><br />
He yanked, sending her down into the mud with him. Clarke was wiry and strong, but he was easily twice her size. Davin pinned her down, smacking her with his free hand. Marisha watched in terror as he struck Clarke, laughing. He had always laughed when she fought back, too.<br /><br />
Marisha looked around wildly, calling for help. Sister Sara had sprinted for the infirmary, the other few Sisters in the courtyard were crying out in confusion. A few took timid steps towards the brawl, but none of them were warriors. There was a great deal of difference between hunting game from time to time and fighting off a drunkard bent on violence.<br /><br />
“Stop this! Stop this madness!” the Abbess called, clutching her bruised jaw.<br /><br />
Marisha saw Tenlok, less than a step from where Clarke and Davin struggled. Briefly, he locked eyes with her, then returned to watching them fight with cold indifference.<br /><br />
Davin had wrapped his hand around Clarke’s throat. He raised his bottle up high, readying to bring it crashing down. It just barely grazed the Bondsman’s leg.<br /><br />
Tenlok took a step back, and kicked Davin in the head. Davin went sprawling, and the Bondsman pounced. He gathered up his chains, and smashed them against Davin’s face again and again. Each time he struck, Davin let out a shriek.<br /><br />
Tenlok released the chain and grabbed Davin’s bloody face, placing his thumbs against Davin’s eyes. He began to squeeze. Davin’s shrieks grew higher, he flailed and twitched, but the Bondsman’s grip was steel.<br /><br />
“Stop! Stop!” Marisha found herself crying.<br /><br />
It took Clarke and four other Sisters to pull Tenlok off of him. By the time he was removed, Davin’s eyes were swollen shut, and he was reduced to a trembling mass, softly weeping and mumbling apologies. Tenlok had made no noise during the entire exchange, nor had what little could be seen of his expression changed at all.<br /><br />
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the Abbess said, waving away Sister Sara upon her return.<br /><br />
Sara gave Marisha a brief once-over before she began tending to Davin. She bound up his wounds and sedated him, and Clarke promptly bundled him onto the back of a Crawler with a couple of the hardier sisters. It was thought best to drop him at the hospital in Finery.<br /><br />
Marisha watched the vehicle drive off down the road from the main gate. Afternoon prayers were canceled, of course, but most of the Sisters had retreated to the Chapel anyway. For some reason, Marisha thought it would be wrong of her to join them.<br /><br />
“You shouldn’t have stopped me.”<br /><br />
She started at the sound of Tenlok’s voice. In the chaos, she had briefly lost track of him. Now he was standing beside her, having made no attempt to escape.<br /><br />
“He’s going to cause more trouble,” he added.<br /><br />
She shook her head.<br /><br />
“Davin’s a sick man. He’s done things I don’t have the strength to forgive. But that doesn’t mean I want him dead. Not here, of all places.”<br /><br />
Tenlok shrugged.<br /><br />
“You went to the city?”<br /><br />
“Yes,” she said. “Matruska’s still there, but it sounds like they’re in hiding.”<br /><br />
“What about the Laings?”<br /><br />
“The mother and child might be off planet. That’s what people said, anyway. Why do you care? You don’t get the full bounty if they’re dead?”<br /><br />
“Wasn’t hired to kill them. I was working for them, when Matruska raided their claim. Took a contact shot from one of their Mercs. Bondsman’s Guild trains us as bodyguards. Some of us still do that work, when it comes along.”<br /><br />
Marisha studied him. It was impossible to know what was going on in his strange, cold heart. Yet, she could swear she saw a relaxation in his limbs, as if he had just set down a great weight.<br /><br />
“There’s a credit chit in my belt,” he said. “Should be about eight hundred sola on it. It’s yours, if you know where the Abbess has it hidden.”<br /><br />
“I don’t want your money,” Marisha said. “I’m glad I could bring you a little peace.”<br /><br />
The Bondsman said nothing. That evening, she asked the Abbess for the key to his chains. Marisha freed him, but he said not a word of thanks, nor did he leave. All he did was ask where his armor was.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Heitz was working with the Brother, clearing out brush around the base of the walls. “Brother” was the nickname she and the novices had settled on for Tenlok, though personally she had voted for “Gargoyle” given his stony demeanor. She was getting used to having him around. He wasn’t friendly to her, of course, but he did answer her questions about the wider Frontier sometimes, and he was a tireless worker.<br /><br />
Just about the only thing he still didn’t join the Sisters in was Mass. Heitz had wondered if he had some kind of aversion to setting foot in the Chapel, or if perhaps he belonged to another faith. The truth was disappointing when she had finally asked him.<br /><br />
“Dull,” was all he had said.<br /><br />
Even Clarke had relaxed around him somewhat. Sister Sara still worried about his health, but the Abbess said she would give him permission to leave soon. Heitz knew that didn’t matter. He wouldn’t leave without his armor, and that was the one thing the Abbess wouldn’t give him.<br /><br />
So, he had become something of a mascot for them, though Heitz was sure he would be angry if she told him that to his face.<br /><br />
“Hurry it up there, Tenlok,” she called to him playfully as she carried another bundle of bramble-thorn to the back of the Hauler. “Afternoon service is coming up.”<br /><br />
Tenlok grunted. She tossed the bramble-thorn into the flatbed, then climbed up after it and packed it hard against the rest of the day’s work. Storm Season was coming to an end, and the bushes wouldn’t grow so aggressively in the new season.<br /><br />
She heard a thud, and turned. The Bondsman had dropped his own bale and was looking to the distance. She could hear rumbling, and turned towards what he was seeing.<br /><br />
There was a vehicle coming down the road, armored and angular. There was no doubt it was military, and headed for the abbey.<br /><br />
“Down,” Tenlok growled.<br /><br />
She leaped from the Hauler, and dove into the underbrush beside him. They pressed themselves to the ground, watching through the thorns.<br /><br />
Six men emerged from the armored vehicle’s side hatches. They wore tan armor and helmets with glowing blue visors, all armed and walking with the casual alertness of professionals. These weren’t Wardens, Heitz was sure of it. Wardens would have announced themselves.<br /><br />
A seventh man came stumbling out of the Crawler. Even at this distance, Heitz recognized him. Davin.<br /><br />
Two of the men hustled to the Hauler, while the others approached the gate. They swept the truck with their guns, then peered into the brush. Heitz felt the Bondsman’s arm around her, holding her tight. It was strong, and cold.<br /><br />
“Nothing,” one of the men grunted, as they returned to their comrades.<br /><br />
Heitz watched as one of the Sisters, Sara she thought, emerged from the gate. It had been open to let those with duties outside the walls pass freely, and Heitz wished to God now that it had been shut and barred. She couldn’t make out the greeting Sara called to the armored men, but she heard her shriek of pain when one of them struck her with the stock of his rifle. They grabbed Sara and Davin, and dragged them both through the gate.<br /><br />
Heitz felt the Bondsman’s hand tighten on her shoulder.<br /><br />
“Last chance,” he said. “Where’s my armor?”<br /><br />
She looked at him, at those pitiless, blank red eyes. She could hear shouts coming from inside the walls. She remembered Tenlok saying something about his enemies not leaving witnesses.<br /><br />
“Alright,” she said. “I think I know where it is. I’ll show you.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Marisha had been on her way back from the library when she was caught. She hadn’t heard the commotion at the gate, and for a moment she had thought she was dreaming when she saw an armored man come charging towards her, gun raised and roaring at her to get on the ground. She had reacted, stupidly, by shushing him, and he had cracked her across the face before ripping her wimple off and dragging her by her hair to the courtyard.<br /><br />
Soldiers were charging back and forth from the cloisters and cells, dragging the Sisters out from where they’d tried to hide. The younger novices wailed as they were forced to kneel in front of their captors, while the older Sisters whispered prayers for mercy. She looked for Clarke, but she was nowhere to be found. Marisha caught sight of the Abbess as she was dragged out and flung to the ground in front of the leader, a man with long red hair and a pencil thin mustache.<br /><br />
“I think this is the last one, Captain,” the soldier said.<br /><br />
“Is it?” the Captain asked, his voice light and refined. “You, there. You’re the leader, correct? Is this all of you?”<br /><br />
The Abbess glared at him.<br /><br />
“Sir, you have no right to treat us this way. I demand that you leave immediately!”<br /><br />
The Captain rolled his eyes.<br /><br />
“My men and I are on a tight schedule, so I’ll be brief. You are harboring a very dangerous individual. We are here to deal with him. Tell us where he is, and this will all go away. Resist, and I will have to <i>encourage</i> you to tell me the truth. Am I understood?”<br /><br />
“There’s no one else here,” the Abbess said. “You’ve come to the wrong place.”<br /><br />
“Oh? Because this fellow here says he saw a man matching the description of our target inside your walls.”<br /><br />
The Captain pointed, and Marisha saw Davin for the first time. He looked frightened.<br /><br />
Of course. It had been two weeks, hadn’t it? Just long enough for him to hit the nadir of his binge, long enough for him to grow resentful again, run his mouth off at one of his drinking dens.<br /><br />
Poor, idiot Davin. She pitied him in that moment almost as much as she hated him. The mercenaries had clearly seized him, tortured him, and dragged him along as their guide. He was just as terrified as the rest of them.<br /><br />
“He is mistaken,” the Abbess said calmly, raising herself to her knees.<br /><br />
The Captain smirked.<br /><br />
“Fascinating. Well, I have to decide who’s telling the truth: the drunk, or the holy woman? The drunk I already know, he and I are on quite intimate terms. But you, Sister—”<br /><br />
“You may address me as Mother Superior.”<br /><br />
He threw up his hands.<br /><br />
“Lady Gobbledygook, whatever your title is. I don’t know if I can trust you, so… I’ll just have to get to know you too, won’t I?”<br /><br />
The Captain drew his pistol, pointed it at the Abbess, and fired.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Heitz and the Bondsman took the steps two at a time. It was a long climb to the top of the bell tower, but neither she nor the Bondsman slowed. At last they reached the top.<br /><br />
In one corner were a pair of heavy wooden crates. Neither had a lock; it would have been impossible for the Bondsman to sneak up here under normal circumstances. Heitz had spied them only a day ago, during a moment of idle curiosity when she was left unattended.<br /><br />
“I think that one has your armor,” she said, pointing. “The other has everything else.”<br /><br />
Tenlok opened the weapons crate first. He handed her a rifle.<br /><br />
“Load this,” he said.<br /><br />
He opened the second crate, and with practiced ease shed his coat and began strapping the armor to his undersuit. His movements were fluid, as natural as breathing. Once the breastplate was on, he took the chemical pack and locked it into place on his back. Last, he put on his helmet, and the snarling mask.<br /><br />
Tenlok connected the stimulant tubes to the chemical reservoir. He breathed in, long and slow. His body straightened, his hands flexed. He was fully formed now, a demon in steel. For a moment, Heitz knew what it was to look on something truly inhuman.<br /><br />
He turned to her, focusing on her with his dead glass eyes. She did not even feel it when he took the rifle from her limp hands. It was the first time she had seen his face, his real face.<br /><br />
“Stay low,” he said. “Don’t come out until it’s done.”<br /><br />
Then he vaulted from the bell tower.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Marisha prayed when the Captain pressed his pistol against the Abbess’s forehead. She was bleeding from where he’d shot her in the knee, teeth bared in a snarl, yet still she would not give him the satisfaction of screaming, and certainly not of pleading for mercy. The Abbess wouldn’t beg, so Marisha did. She begged God for mercy, for grace, for <i>something</i> to stop this madness.<br /><br />
She heard another gunshot, loud as thunder, and opened her eyes, certain she would see the Abbess dead. Instead, it was one of the mercenaries who reeled back, a hole blown clean through his breastplate. Another shot rang out, another and another and another, and then all was pandemonium.<br /><br />
The soldiers scattered, the Sisters fled screaming, diving for what cover they could. Marisha saw one of the mercenaries go sprinting towards their idling armored Crawler, but a burst of fire caught him in the back and sent him spinning to the ground.<br /><br />
She crawled to the Abbess, looking about wildly to see where the shooting was coming from. There, up on the roof of the chapel, crouched among the buttresses, was the Bondsman. Not as she had grown used to seeing him, in his coat and bandages, but as she had found him on that terrible day in the storm, more demon than man.<br /><br />
He fired again and again, and she heard more of the mercenaries calling out in pain. A few managed to return fire, bullets peppering the Chapel, shattering the beautiful stained-glass windows. The Bondsman leaped from his perch, shots sparking off his armor as he landed and rolled with devilish grace.<br /><br />
He was up and sprinting, moving almost too fast for the eye to see. One man tried to scramble away from him, but Tenlok had drawn a curved kukri blade, and hacked him down with a single stroke. His rifle was left behind, empty and discarded in the mud as he darted across the courtyard, hunting the mercenaries down with machine-like precision. They shot him a score of times, but he gave not the slightest sign of pain. He butchered each of them with crisp, brutal efficiency.<br /><br />
The Captain was last. He sprang from his hiding place beneath the first man to be shot, as Tenlok darted by. The heavy pistol in his hand roared, catching Tenlok’s blade arm and sending the kukri flying. Tenlok charged, and caught the Captain in his bare hands. They grappled with each other, Tenlok trying to get the Captain’s throat beneath his iron fingers, the Captain struggling desperately to bring his pistol to bear.<br /><br />
At last, the Captain managed to break from Tenlok’s grip. He shoved the pistol up beneath the Bondsman’s war mask. Tenlok snarled.<br /><br />
There was another roar of gunfire. The Captain’s nerveless body fell, a bloody crater in the side of his skull.<br /><br />
Marisha saw Sister Clarke emerge from the shadows, hunting carbine braced one-handed against her shoulder. She shot the Captain’s body where he lay four more times. Then she turned to Tenlok, pointing the shaking gun barrel at him.<br /><br />
The Bondsman did not move. He stood there, gore-stained, watching Clarke. Clarke looked down at the dead Captain, then to the Abbess, then seemed to take in for the first time all the carnage around her.<br /><br />
Every one of the mercenaries had been felled, their bodies strewn about. Davin was dead. Marisha wondered if it was a stray bullet, but doubted it.<br /><br />
The carbine fell from Clarke’s hand.<br /><br />
“Damn you,” Clarke whispered. “God damn you all.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />Tenlok loaded the bodies onto the armored Crawler while Sara tended to the wounded. He gathered his things without a word, only stopping to ask Sara how much she was owed for his treatment. She refused him.<br /><br />
“I don’t like being in anyone’s debt,” Tenlok said.<br /><br />
“And I don’t need your money on my conscience,” Sara replied. “Go.”<br /><br />
He left in the Crawler without ceremony. It was a few days later that Clarke disappeared too, and after her a pair of the novices. Then a few more, and a few more. All told, a dozen Sisters left the order.<br /><br />
Days became months. The Wardens came by, incurious and perfunctory in their inquiries. They wanted the business finished, and studiously ignored the bullet holes in the chapel, just as they had ignored the murder of Poppa Laing.<br /><br />
Marisha stood at the compound wall with the Abbess, watching the sky go dark as Storm Season came upon them again. The Abbess’s leg had healed, but she needed a cane to walk now. They had just finished reviewing Heitz’s application to join the order as a novice, and agreed that she would apprentice with Marisha when it came time to send out patrols again. They were silent a while after that, until the Abbess spoke up.<br /><br />
“Do you think I should apologize? To the rest of the Sisterhood, I mean.”<br /><br />
Marisha shrugged.<br /><br />
“Only if I should. I was the one that found him, brought him in.”<br /><br />
“I kept him, though. I wanted more than anything to help him heal, to fix him. I was so stubborn, so damnably proud! It brought us nothing but death and misery.”<br /><br />
“I think there were things coming our way for a long time,” Marisha said. “God chose that Bondsman to bring them, that’s all.”<br /><br />
“Perhaps. I wouldn’t dare to guess at it. Tell me something: if you found the Devil himself out there, lost in the rain, would you have brought him back to us?”<br /><br />
Marisha smiled.<br /><br />
“We both know the answer to that, Mother Superior.”<br /><br />
“Yes,” the Abbess said. “I suppose we do.”<br /><br />
They said nothing more, just waited as the heavens turned black, and the world became nothing but cold rain, and the distant sound of thunder.<br /><br />
<hr /><br />
D.G.P. Rector is a Pacific Northwest based author of S.F. and Fantasy. This is his third story with <i>Mysterion</i>, and is set in the same universe as “On Charis Station.” His work has been featured in <i>Analog</i>, <i>Shrapnel</i>, the air and nothingness press anthology <i>The Librarian, </i>and of course, <i>Mysterion</i>. You can find more of his work at <a href="http://www.rectorwriter.com">www.rectorwriter.com</a>, on Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DGPRectorAuthor/">@DGPRectorAuthor</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/DgpRector">@DgpRector</a>.<div><br /></div><div>“Devil in the Rain” by D.G.P. Rector. Copyright © 2023 by D.G.P. Rector.</div><div>
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-83528271339659181492023-11-08T00:00:00.001-05:002023-11-08T00:00:00.178-05:00November 2023<div>We had a grand total of 2 trick-or-treaters last week for Halloween. This was an increase from 2021, when we had 0. (We weren't here for last year's Halloween.) We have a very long driveway, and few of the households in our immediate neighborhood have small children. Also, apparently kids don't trick or treat as much these days? Oh well, more leftover candy for us! We didn't expect that many kids to show up, so we made sure to only buy candy we like, and not too much of it (one bag each of Lindt assorted truffles and a "fun size" Hershey's bar assortment).</div><div><br /></div><div>Maxwell enjoyed the pumpkin we bought, before it became a jack o'lantern.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQLht2o09bQox-o0F416LgJrqJRClaUcXsw7QACsZZf3uhtUxh1Fe-u4Hecdl1GvPKX-wXDzOrCFOmcyl9dlpSYeiJ1rzVPB2-K2NuJFmKQrswzrgqCTg31J0EBXSfwd3Xkau4LvuVsYnS-jjiBtnyuk1JHUWeYI4Zwt7SVspyBkGOjM6OlSnY1Hl30atq/s4032/IMG_3572.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQLht2o09bQox-o0F416LgJrqJRClaUcXsw7QACsZZf3uhtUxh1Fe-u4Hecdl1GvPKX-wXDzOrCFOmcyl9dlpSYeiJ1rzVPB2-K2NuJFmKQrswzrgqCTg31J0EBXSfwd3Xkau4LvuVsYnS-jjiBtnyuk1JHUWeYI4Zwt7SVspyBkGOjM6OlSnY1Hl30atq/w480-h640/IMG_3572.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><h3 style="text-align: left;">MYSTERION UPDATE</h3><div>Still reading stories from July. We hope to be finished soon, by the end of November at the latest. As of last Friday, we had 9 unread stories, 20 that had been reviewed by at least one <i>Mysterion</i> staff member (and had not been rejected), and 8 that had advanced to the final round of consideration.</div><div><br /></div><div>We've been seeing a lot of "deal with the devil" stories this time around, perhaps even more than usual (and "usual" is already a lot). While this is a trope that's technically "on theme" for us, few of these stories explore any new terrain in the selling-one's-soul-to-the-evil-one landscape. We're also pretty tired of "Heaven and Hell are nothing like those silly Christians think they are!" stories. Also, gratuitous cat content! It's no secret that we love cats, but putting a cat in your story will not convince us to accept it, and we must reluctantly conclude that not every story is improved by the inclusion of cats.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many thanks to <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/about.html" target="_blank">Anne Horn and John Nadas</a> for helping us review stories this time around. Anne also does graphic design for us, and John is one of our authors (though he only reads fiction submissions for us when he doesn't have a story of his own competing for one of our few available publication slots).</div><div><br /></div><div>We've finished editing and can now announce our November and December stories. For November, D.G.P. Rector returns with his 3rd <i>Mysterion</i> story, "Devil in the Rain", set in the same space opera milieu as "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2022/04/on-charis-station.html" target="_blank">On Charis Station</a>".</div><div><br /></div><div>Only two other authors, Frederick Gero Heimbach and Joanna Michal Hoyt, have published 3 stories with us thus far. We hope to publish many more stories by each of them in the years ahead!</div><div><br /></div><div>Our December story is scheduled for Christmas Day, but is titled "Twelfth Night", and comes to us from Jonathan Edward McDonald. This is Jonathan's first story with us, a contemporary supernatural tale (a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/72LUK7qZLsWTsJn4WwWo9j?si=e1191318f7d44929" target="_blank">scary ghost story</a>, perhaps?).</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PATREON</h3><div>Did you know that only about a third of what it costs us to pay the authors and artists we publish is covered by our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> subscriptions, and that any shortfall comes out of our own savings? </div><div><br /></div><div>While we do hope to reach the point at which this expense is fully funded by Patreon subscriptions, with our readers contributing enough to pay for the fiction and art they enjoy here, our current funding goal is a much more modest $275/month. Once we reach it, we'll start publishing 16 stories a year instead of 14.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you can contribute $10/month, you'll receive a free e-book of our upcoming stories every 2 months, now featuring the gorgeous covers Anne Horn makes for us. (If you were a $10/month subscriber back when we were doing these covers ourselves, you know how much of an improvement this has been.) Anne doesn't do the artwork herself, but she crops it to fit in our cover template (also her handiwork), and adjusts the lettering as needed.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can subscribe for as little as $1/month, and every contribution helps! $1/month subscribers still get access to our Discord server, and plenty of bonus cat pictures. And for only $3/month, you get early access to all our stories, sent to you via email and also available on our Patreon page.</div><div><br /></div><div>Please help us out if you can, so the continued existence of this magazine isn't quite as dependent on our being able to cover most of the expense ourselves!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">BEYOND PUBLISHING</h3><div>Kristin's garden is winding down for the season now that we've had a couple of light frosts, though there are still lettuces, baby spinach, and a beautiful crop of French breakfast radishes waiting to be harvested. The parsley, sage and thyme are also abundant. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipStN9U0AcKf0otTni2U7akMPB3u_gVwFfBSbGlDTtS7Qleje2CiFWktkF1j-VE5anc-msDegzs0ksJ1edPm8cPe6O7x7bPOs4FwwQ3Y_nyFUIeKgCA9aeepeeTQv4-PDtb-3z6UaBZ1P3cLhcSYecBkxlHYs34ygD8mzSV0dd_ch7ljBl3It1Q89F7vCD/s4032/IMG_3577.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipStN9U0AcKf0otTni2U7akMPB3u_gVwFfBSbGlDTtS7Qleje2CiFWktkF1j-VE5anc-msDegzs0ksJ1edPm8cPe6O7x7bPOs4FwwQ3Y_nyFUIeKgCA9aeepeeTQv4-PDtb-3z6UaBZ1P3cLhcSYecBkxlHYs34ygD8mzSV0dd_ch7ljBl3It1Q89F7vCD/w480-h640/IMG_3577.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Her potted lemon and rosemary plants have been moved inside for the winter. For now, they're in our unheated sun porch, because it has the best lighting. Kristin usually moves these plants upstairs to her office once overnight lows start dropping into the 20s F (below about -1 C), but is considering leaving the lemon tree out on the porch this year. It was already too large to easily carry up a flight of stairs last year, and it's not getting any smaller. And did you know that lemon trees have large thorns? </div><div><br /></div><div>Last winter, Kristin had two potted rosemary plants to bring inside, but she'd been repotting them into larger containers each spring, and one was already in a 16" container (same size as the lemon container). Anything larger, full of dirt, is really too heavy to be carried around even twice a year, so last spring, Kristin decided to transplant the larger one out into a sheltered spot outdoors and hope for the best. Rosemary can usually survive through the winter in US hardiness zone 7, and we're in zone 6b, so it's not impossible.</div><div><br /></div><div>The lemons are starting to ripen, but still more green than yellow.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbjXMq1kVsNuHRSnaClGDF0iqwIw1aKFcW3_3wNyTIsA40flE_Mums2n4TMPer2_RxUPrEgyy-wytqWAKfCaMQ7mtF9ReUBcPVzBjC8wTs148tnH0K-f1J4ECnbnB55fvT7Hv83k4U8v6iXmv9WPKFIloW9SSu83S-FQzRsBXgDQLo_63cQ-EacWOWHb8v/s4032/IMG_3591.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbjXMq1kVsNuHRSnaClGDF0iqwIw1aKFcW3_3wNyTIsA40flE_Mums2n4TMPer2_RxUPrEgyy-wytqWAKfCaMQ7mtF9ReUBcPVzBjC8wTs148tnH0K-f1J4ECnbnB55fvT7Hv83k4U8v6iXmv9WPKFIloW9SSu83S-FQzRsBXgDQLo_63cQ-EacWOWHb8v/w480-h640/IMG_3591.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Earlier this year, we provided a home for an elderly cat for her last few months after her owner, a friend of ours, passed away. She mostly lived in the guest room, and didn't get along well with Maxwell and Marie. Before Belle came to us, the guest room bed was one of Marie's favorite napping spots, but she and Maxwell have mostly avoided it since then. Only in the last few weeks have we started to see them hanging out there, usually to take advantage of an afternoon sunbeam. We hope they're starting to forget about the Mean Cat, and reclaim the room as theirs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for reading! Don't forget: D.G.P. Rector's science fiction story "Devil in the Rain" will be available to read here on November 27th. Also: we'll be open to fiction submissions again on January 1st. The January submission window supplies the stories we publish between July and December, so if you get inspired by this year's holiday season to write a Christmas story, January is <i>not</i> too early to send it in (though we're unlikely to publish more than one Christmas story per year, no matter how many cats saunter through their digital pages).</div><div><br /></div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-29048721213196444882023-10-23T00:00:00.004-04:002023-10-23T00:00:00.166-04:00Among the Birds<b>by Will Greatwich</b><div><b><br /></b><br />
I do not feel hunger here, although I have tried to eat the birds from time to time. Out of boredom, or misery, or—an effort to provoke a response. Fire does not burn in this place, so I have had to have them raw.<br /><br />
The last time, I caught one of the spoonbills that wander through the dust banks in the great chambers. They dip their beaks listlessly in the half-light, searching in vain for the smallest morsel of food. It was not hard for me to creep up behind one, seize it around the middle, and wrestle its neck down until it snapped. I plucked it with my bare hands, and I cut its throat with the sharpened tip of a cage wire. After I had drained out as much blood as I could, I bit down into its raw breast.<br /><br />
I managed only a few mouthfuls before I threw it back up. Disgusted with myself, I crawled off into a corner to sleep.<br /><br />
The next day I saw the bird again. It was still there in the cavern, nuzzling the dust, albeit with more difficulty now its neck hung at such an acute angle. The bloody marks of my teeth sat like a brand upon its skin.<br /><br />
I did not try to eat again after that.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I speak of days, but only by convention. The half-light in this place never changes. It comes from nowhere and falls on everything evenly, so that time and distance are without definition. The corridors and chambers stretch on forever, mile after mile of grey-brown stone. In every corridor and chamber there are birds being tortured.<br /><br />
The greater number of birds are simply caged. They sit in niches along the corridors, with wire mesh nailed across to keep them in. Each bird’s niche is just too small for it to stand up, and too narrow to spread its wings. They sit mostly in silence. Many have turned to plucking out their own feathers with the obsessive care of a human psychotic.<br /><br />
In the chambers are found the more imaginative tortures. There are places where nesting birds hunt endlessly, depositing worms into dark holes that mimic the cries of their starving chicks. There are raptors that crawl the floor, wing-clipped and hobbled, hunting prey that vanishes when they get close. Then there are the diseased birds, those infested with parasites or dragging prolapsed organs along the ground, and the ones that are simply nailed to the walls like enormous butterflies.<br /><br />
Soon after I arrived here, I remembered a debate I had with another student in the seminary. He was a Christian Socialist, who later went to jail for locking himself onto an oil pipeline. We disagreed over our interpretation of God’s answer to Job. I defended the orthodox view: that when God speaks of the wonders of nature, of the “hunger of the lions” and the “wings of the ostrich”, He is using them as a metaphor for His own infinite majesty. “The world is so large and strange,” He says, “who are you to question its creator?” My colleague advanced a different position. He argued that these passages are evidence that animals and plants have moral standing in God’s eyes, and that He is concerned with their lives independent of their relation to humanity.<br /><br />
I dismissed his argument as a comforting fancy: the soteriology of a child, who wishes to believe his pet dog will be waiting for him in Heaven.<br /><br />
Neither of us considered that if God were concerned with animals’ moral lives, then He might also send them to Hell.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
At the end of my life, before I came here, I saw God. This, at least, I am certain of.<br /><br />
I do not remember the moment of my death. There is a blank space there, like the passage into sleep. But I remember the months that preceded it: my body slowly failing me, legs giving way, hands shaking too hard to hold a pen. Scrabbling about in my mind for an everyday word I had suddenly forgotten. The blank walls of the hospice, the visits from people whose faces I no longer recognised.<br /><br />
One night, I found myself walking through a forest in the moonless dark. I knew the place very well. It was the national park where I had done fieldwork before my illness. Here I had spent many cold hours observing flight behaviour, dating migrations, tapping flock numbers into my tablet with numb fingertips. It was a cruel and beautiful time. Those were the years of the great die-offs, and my spreadsheets became records of the natural world’s diminishing. One species after another dwindling to zero, and I a lonely sentinel with no power to stop it. No power to save even one. Only to watch, and make a record.<br /><br />
Now I had returned. I walked between the trees, surrounded by the most profound silence I have ever known. The canopy opened up ahead and I came into a clearing. That was where I saw God.<br /><br />
He was not as I had imagined Him while I was alive. If He was the God of Abraham, He was not as had been described to me. Yet I did not have any doubts about His divinity.<br /><br />
He showed himself to me as a figure made of a hundred limbs, a being of wings, eyes, angles and suns. He had two heads, one of a man and the other an ibis; but I understood that He had many other possible faces, and these were only the two aspects I was permitted to see.<br /><br />
I fell to my knees. “O Lord!” I said. “Is this death?”<br /><br />
The man-head’s lips moved, but the sound that emerged was the twittering of a nightingale. Then the ibis moved its beak and said:<br /><br />
“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?”<br /><br />
His many hands coalesced into one. He pointed across the clearing, and I saw a path going on through the woods.<br /><br />
“This way?” I said.<br /><br />
I went on down the path—fearfully at first, then gaining courage. When I was at the threshold of the clearing, I turned back to look again at God. At the same moment, the ground opened beneath me and I plunged into darkness.<br /><br />
When I landed, it was in a drift of dust on a stone floor.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I remember little of those early days. Certain events are lost, and others out of order. But I recall the queasy admixture of horror and joy. I was in a new body, free from the degeneration that had killed me. I had steady hands and a clear mind. This seemed a blessing at first, even amidst the suffering of the birds. I had seen God and He had sent me here. Therefore I believed for a long time that there must be some purpose to it.<br /><br />
I wandered the corridors in a haze of hope, gathering theories around me. It was a lesson; a test; a punishment; a durance. I was in Purgatory. I was in Hell. But all these theories eventually withered away. They could not survive that vast expanse of formless time, the days and hours all the same, under the glare of the endless, sourceless light.<br /><br />
It is said by the psychologists that we all pass through five stages of grief before we reach acceptance. But in this place, those stages were not a linear progression but a cycle without end. I raged, prayed, hoped, despaired, and raged again. I tried to eat the birds, as I have confessed. At other times I battered my hands bloody on the walls, or lay in abject supplication under the high ceiling of some dreadful chamber. And I walked—for days or perhaps years in a single direction, until my feet were blistered raw and bloody. I would have been grateful even to find an ending: a wall saying, “You may go no further.” But there were always more corridors. More cages. More birds.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
When I was alive, birds had always been a comfort to me. As a child, there was no turmoil in my soul that could not be calmed by the flash of a black cockatoo’s wings or the slide-whistle call of a currawong. Later, as I came to know God and do His work, I saw His light reflected in the birds’ imperturbable grace.<br /><br />
Later again, I left the clergy, and the study of birds became my work. I knew them then as a scientist: by their flock numbers and nesting cycles, their diets and diseases. I was happier then. That was my great guilt. I had carried God like a burden and then I had shrugged Him off. Perhaps He never forgave me that, for it was in the second year of my doctoral studies that I received my diagnosis.<br /><br />
In my final years, the memory of birds was something I clung to. Even when faces and names began to fade, I still had the gentle roll of a feathered neck, the graceful dip of a beak into water. Some of my last living memories are of lying in the hospice bed, unsure where I was, but holding in my mind the pure image of a wedge-tailed eagle in flight.<br /><br />
I had always scoffed at the modern idea that our own expectations decide the path of our souls after death. Yet I could not escape a suspicion that something similar had brought me to this place: that my dying thoughts had given rise to an error on a page of destiny God had overlooked.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
At times I have attempted to survey this place, as a scientist would. I have recorded the species of birds and their punishments for hundreds of chambers, writing statistics in the dust with my fingertips. I had hoped I might discern some pattern that would show me the way forward. The birds’ numbers correlate roughly with populations in the living world, and by this I have inferred that they are the real souls of birds deceased, not mere facsimiles. One of the cruel gifts this place has given is to show me species that were extinct in my lifetime: the great auk, the laughing owl, the albatross.<br /><br />
Those species that humans might consider the most sinful—the parasitic cuckoo, the heartless shrike—are no more represented here than any other. But why should human morality be applied to birds, whose internal worlds are so distant from our own? Perhaps they have their own commandments, and their own transgressions, of which we know nothing.<br /><br />
Nor is there any underlying structure to the punishments themselves. Some birds are treated with a crude sort of irony: the clever kea lobotomised with needles, the songbird with its vocal chords torn out in bloody strings. But many more are simply brutalised: bent, crushed, split, impaled.<br /><br />
For a long time, I considered that this <i>was </i>my punishment: to see the ruin of the things I loved best. Perhaps this Hell was mine and theirs to share.<br /><br />
It is true I had abandoned my faith. My exit from the clergy formed a deep rupture at the midpoint of my life, and my later years, among the birds, offered little to shore up my belief. Those were years of salt and smoke. Great fires burned across the continent, and the sky was stained a chemical white by sulfate emissions. The birds fell dead in their hundreds from the searing air. Many times I asked myself: would a just God really allow His children to commit such crimes? Or if He did, how could He ever forgive us?<br /><br />
But faith is never clearly cut. It has strange contours, it ebbs and flows. From day to day, or moment to moment, I may have believed or not—the answer always dancing beyond reach, like a quantum particle that vanishes upon observation.<br /><br />
Perhaps such inconstancy was enough to merit punishment. But if so, was this really all there was? Where was the cage for me, where the flames to scorch my soul? To every bird was allotted some special suffering. I alone had no place here.<br /><br />
And so my theories turned again and again to the mistake.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
After many cycles of anger and despair, I began to wander once more. This time I had no particular direction in mind. Perhaps I passed many times through the same chambers. But at some point, I came to a region where there were no birds at all.<br /><br />
Vacant niches lined the walls. Chambers sat empty, as though awaiting some grim architect to fill them with new tortures. Silence lay thick as dust.<br /><br />
I walked through this region for a long time, until I heard a faint but resonant fluttering. Following it, I came to a wide high-ceilinged room. In the middle, at the topmost point, a white dove was battering its wings uselessly against the stone.<br /><br />
I watched that bird for a long time with tears in my eyes. I believe in that moment I finally accepted, without reserve, that I would never leave this place.<br /><br />
But then—as if in answer to my acceptance—the bird faltered, and fell down dead.<br /><br />
In this incident, then, I discovered both inescapable despair and the possibility of escape.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
From my experience with the spoonbill, I guessed that merely inflicting wounds on myself would not be enough to effect a second death. I would need something more total. Fire, as I have said, does not burn here. Suffocation also seemed insufficient. So at last I decided upon a fall.<br /><br />
By twisting together wires from empty cages, I was able to create a kind of crude hook. With this I began to scrape at the wall in one of the great caverns. I cut one foothold after another. When the footholds rose above my head I began to climb and cut, climb and cut.<br /><br />
The work took a long time. My hooks became blunt, and my hands ached from the strain. I had to be careful not to fall too soon: I did not want to drop from halfway and end up merely shattering my legs.<br /><br />
At last I reached the ceiling. I slept one more day to think on what I planned to do. Never in my mortal life—not even as my neurons crumbled in the final stages of the disease—had I considered throwing away God’s greatest gift. But here? What gift was this? If I left this place, whether for some deeper Sheol or for absolute annihilation, would He even notice I was gone?<br /><br />
The next day, I cleared the dust from all around my ladder. Then I climbed to the peak and threw myself headfirst down onto the unyielding stone.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I found myself again in the nighttime wood.<br /><br />
“Lord!” I cried. “Lord, are you there?”<br /><br />
And He came. This time His human face glowed with rage, and His bird head was that of a razor-beaked hawk. He spoke to me in the voice of the screech owl, tearing at the drums of my ears. But I would not be silent before him. I cried out:<br /><br />
“Lord, why did You forsake me here? Did You really send me to that place by mistake?”<br /><br />
He screeched again, as though to drown out my words. But, sinner that I am, I persisted in speaking.<br /><br />
“Or are You testing my faith? Was my life not test enough for You?”<br /><br />
But this made him even angrier than before. His human eyes flashed with fury, and the sound of His voice drove me to my knees. I questioned Him no more, but only begged.<br /><br />
“Please do not send me back there, Lord. Let me go to the outer darkness, the hell of humans, the lake of fire. Let me be a victim of your judgment, but not of your error.”<br /><br />
The man-head emitted one last shriek that blotted out the world, and I was overtaken by a vision.<br /><br />
It was a vision out of my past, formed from the clay of memory, but infused with a terrible meaning no living moment could contain. I was standing in the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora. It was a trip organised by my seminary. I was looking up at the fresco in the parecclesion, which depicts Christ leading the holy fathers out of Hell. In the fresco he grips Adam and Eve by their wrists, and behind him come Solomon, Abraham and the other virtuous Hebrews. Beneath his feet are trampled the gates of Hades. Death is overcome.<br /><br />
When I saw this scene in life, I was moved almost to tears—humbled by the mercy and the majesty of a God who would, in time, reconcile all His creations to Him.<br /><br />
When I saw it a second time, it rang so loud before me that I was flung into unconsciousness, like a spark flung out from a fire that disappears into the dark.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I awoke on the floor of the chamber where I fell. I was unharmed.<br /><br />
“Lord!” I called, struggling to my knees. “What do You want from me? That I should lead the dead out of Hell? But I am not Your son. I am only a man. I do not know the way. I do not have the strength−”<br /><br />
Heavy sobs rolled through me. Tears fell from my eyes and were guzzled instantly by the dust. I wept at last for the life I had lost, for all the things on earth I would never do. And I wept also for the senseless punishment, the mad unending massacre of the innocent things I had always loved, the birds.<br /><br />
When I was done with tears, I went out into the nearest corridor. The birds in their cages stretched away from me. And I saw them for the first time: not as points of data, nor reflections of divine grace, nor punishments for my own eyes—but as themselves.<br /><br />
I went to the nearest cage. Using my fingers, I pried out the nails from the stone, then rolled back the wire mesh. Inside the cage was a raven. It stepped out weakly and tumbled to the floor. At first it could barely stand, its legs stiff and unused. Then, slowly, it gained its balance and took a few short hops, and displayed even in this most tentative of motions the hollow-boned grace that was its birthright.<br /><br />
The bird regarded me with one white-ringed eye. There was no gratitude in that gaze, nor love, nor fear, nor any other emotion for which humans have a name. It looked at me across an unbridgeable gap. But it did look.<br /><br />
In this corridor were a hundred cages or more. Beyond lay corridors and chambers uncounted: millions or billions of birds. And I knew of no way out; perhaps there was none. Perhaps the raven would wander forever as I had wandered, its wings beating endlessly upon stone. But even that would be succour, compared to the cage. And so I went on. I peeled back another sheet of wire, and then another. By the fourth or fifth my fingers were already bleeding, warm red drops that fell to form perfect hemispheres in the dust. And I went on. And I went on.<br /><br />
<hr />
<br />
Will Greatwich is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. His fiction has appeared in <i>Beneath Ceaseless Skies</i> and <i>Aurealis Magazine</i>, among others. He currently works as a librarian in Melbourne's northern suburbs, where he teaches coding to children. Will also writes a monthly review blog, <a href="https://paperback-picnic.ghost.io/">Paperback Picnic</a>, where he excavates the forgotten classics of fantasy and science fiction. You can find Will's short stories and other writing at <a href="http://willgreatwich.com">willgreatwich.com</a>, or on Twitter <a href="http://twitter.com/roguesrepast/">@roguesrepast</a>.
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-13432909467358523212023-10-04T00:00:00.004-04:002023-10-04T00:00:00.142-04:00October 2023<div>Donald and Kristin were in Houston the weekend before last, so they went to look at rockets.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIBFw9qDPPGCo3Ln636NKHRytqQpm5wrzOvaSKhpVI6C_fte8i-SUZ-LsjYwBzDGNLixufyuqk7S2HkF-HFuJS9QJMoUJIdnZTXBBpFdjF0MjtBEO7YWunZMuuBJFuGZSjdoxAriCQEampI2tf3i_zKw06hr9oQiDdzYByIGH9WoIkpa-mXp7qIRRFbX_/s4032/IMG_3474.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigIBFw9qDPPGCo3Ln636NKHRytqQpm5wrzOvaSKhpVI6C_fte8i-SUZ-LsjYwBzDGNLixufyuqk7S2HkF-HFuJS9QJMoUJIdnZTXBBpFdjF0MjtBEO7YWunZMuuBJFuGZSjdoxAriCQEampI2tf3i_zKw06hr9oQiDdzYByIGH9WoIkpa-mXp7qIRRFbX_/w640-h480/IMG_3474.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>You can't tell from the picture, but it was about 95 F / 35 C (a big difference from Boston right now, where our heat is going on in the mornings and we needed to add an extra blanket to the bed).</div><div><br /></div><div>Donald has been traveling back and forth to Houston a lot for work (his day job, not science fiction publishing), and since he was going to be stuck there for two straight weeks, Kristin decided to go for the weekend and make sure he didn't just stay in his hotel room and play <i>Baldur's Gate 3</i> on his Steam Deck the whole time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Saturday we went to NASA. Donald had never been, and Kristin hadn't been in over 20 years. It was cool to see all the space stuff and get more up to date on what NASA is doing these days. (We're too busy being science fiction editors to pay attention to actual space exploration news.) For instance, we hadn't realized there's a plan to send a crew of four astronauts up to circle around the moon in 2024 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program" target="_blank">Artemis II</a>), and for humans to land on the moon again in 2025 (Artemis III). (We considered including the NASA link to the Artemis program instead of the Wikipedia link, but it's long on PR and pretty pictures and short on details.)</div><div><br /></div><div>On Saturday evening, we spent the twilight hour at James Turrell's <i><a href="https://moody.rice.edu/james-turrell-twilight-epiphany-skyspace" target="_blank">Twilight Epiphany</a></i> Skyspace on the Rice University campus. Twice a day, at sunrise and sunset, viewers can look at a square aperture in the white roof of an open structure, while the roof is illuminated with colored lights to create interesting contrasts between the brightening or darkening sky overhead. Kristin found it fascinating how much the color of the roof affected our perception of how light or dark the block of sky was. We had a perfect cloudless evening for viewing; though perhaps the air temperature was not ideal (it had gone down into the low 90s/30s by then).</div><div><br /></div><div>Two of Turrell's Skyspaces are in Quaker meeting houses (James Turrell is himself a Quaker), where the practice of sitting in silence for an extended time to watch the light takes on a more overt religious significance. But, even in secular spaces, there's something of the Quaker worship tradition that visitors are being invited into. It's an interesting example of an artist's faith informing their work without the work needing to be obviously about or focused on faith. (Just to be clear, here at <i>Mysterion</i> we do want fiction that is obviously about or focused on Christian faith or ideas, though it doesn't need to be written by Christians or necessarily affirm the Christian perspective. We appreciate reading work that's less overt, but it's not what we're trying to publish.)</div><div><br /></div><div>On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, mostly looking at Antiquities, Art of the Islamic Worlds, and Arts of Asia. We kept walking back and forth through a corridor that was also a James Turrell artwork.</div><div><br /></div><div>The food highlight of our weekend for Kristin was <a href="https://www.hamsahtx.com/" target="_blank">Hamsa</a>, an Israeli restaurant near Rice University. The lamb hummus was especially good, and they also have excellent cocktails. Donald's favorite restaurant, though, was <a href="https://pappasbros.com/home/" target="_blank">Pappas Bros. Steakhouse</a>, because, steak! (Kristin liked it too.) We also liked <a href="https://www.kaubakitchen.com/" target="_blank">K<span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 15.6933px;">â</span>u Ba</a>, billed as Vietnamese-Cajun fusion, though we didn't see much evidence of the Cajun part. It mostly just seemed like Vietnamese food, with a bit of a Texas twist, and there are three good Vietnamese restaurants within walking distance of our house. However, K<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">â</span>u Ba had much better cocktails than any of them. (Kristin sticks with the non-alcoholic drinks at our local Vietnamese places.) </div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">MYSTERION NEWS</h3><div>Not much, honestly. We continue to read story submissions from July, and have started editing the November and December stories.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our October story will be "Among the Birds" from Australian author Will Greatwich, a supernatural horror tale about an ornithologist who finds himself in bird hell. Look for it here on October 23rd. (No, it's not a coincidence that we scheduled a story about death and hell for the week before Halloween and All Saints' Day.)</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PATREON</h3><div>Please consider subscribing to our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>! We currently have 20 active subscribers, and are at $225/month (down $5 from last month). </div><div><br /></div><div>We'd need about $700/month for our Patreon income to cover what we pay our authors and artists. That's a long way off; but if we reach $275/month, we'll be able to start publishing two additional stories each year. Can you help? </div><div><br /></div><div>Subscribers even at the $1/month level get extra perks like access to our Discord server and bonus cat pictures (plus book and game reviews). At $3/month, you get each month's story, published here on the 4th Monday, emailed to you on the first of the month. And for $10/month, you'll also get an e-book edition of the upcoming stories every two months. </div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">FELINE UPDATE</h3><div>Our spoiled cats now have three litter boxes and three water fountains. But Maxwell also hasn't been to the ER or urgent care for urinary tract issues (or any other issues) in over three months, so it's worth it.</div><div><br /></div><div>They also seem to have gotten used to Donald's frequent business travel. However, now that Kristin is often the one to play with and feed them in the evening instead of Donald, Marie seems to think that when Donald is home, both humans should play with her each night. (And, presumably, that she should get a second dinner too.)</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoO-gIY06h42Q2MBYspUVzOHmZHve-69vj6UD2ujOq94VJU-OMVoNaE2Gyw2DbXuhF1A1-_o_kSHq5baL1wUwVnh2HdVAfSsxvTNDY2vtphXLeA-PEWVagVWfM8kmjvHdeL6Ublicm-OIanVGoIFZtwSCX5X8N06kr2JsV3HSW_EryjevbxQx_6pj3FTZu/s4032/IMG_3437.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoO-gIY06h42Q2MBYspUVzOHmZHve-69vj6UD2ujOq94VJU-OMVoNaE2Gyw2DbXuhF1A1-_o_kSHq5baL1wUwVnh2HdVAfSsxvTNDY2vtphXLeA-PEWVagVWfM8kmjvHdeL6Ublicm-OIanVGoIFZtwSCX5X8N06kr2JsV3HSW_EryjevbxQx_6pj3FTZu/w480-h640/IMG_3437.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for reading, and don't forget to come back to read our next story on October 23rd!</div><div><br /></div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-46017931828592811282023-09-25T01:00:00.015-04:002023-09-25T01:00:00.147-04:00The Virgin<div><b>by Jaye Nasir</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>This had happened semi-regularly since I was a kid: some girl, prettier than I was, more well-liked, more easygoing, seemingly less aware, would latch onto me in some class, and make me into her best friend for that year, or term, or whatever. I was sidekick material, lacking definitive qualities, eager to be defined by my proximity to someone else. Whatever the reason, it was better than being ignored. My unconscious awareness of this pattern, though vague, was probably what kept me from being too shocked when Amal, bending against the hierarchy of high school and across our very disparate social circles, took an interest in me.<br /><br />
It began only because we ended up, sheerly by chance, sitting two seats down from each other in the waiting room of the Planned Parenthood on Magdalene Street. I had only one headphone in so that I could hear my name when it was called, and a book open in my lap from which I kept rereading the same simple sentence, unable to comprehend it. I had noticed Amal, put a name to her face, and given her an uninvested look of acknowledgement before looking down at my lap again. It was best to pretend not to know people before they could pretend not to know you.<br /><br />
“Hey,” she said, very casually, leaning over the plastic folding chair between us. “We have English Comp together, right?” She was chewing gum, and her voice was curled like a smile, as if somehow even with that simple question she was making fun of me.<br /><br />
“Yeah,” I said, pausing my music. We had Physics, too, but I wasn’t going to say so. “Hey.”<br /><br />
“So, what are you in for?” She popped a bubble, twirling a strand of her silky, dark hair around her finger.<br /><br />
It was such a brazen, rude question. I turned to look straight at her, and she stopped chewing. Our faces were not excessively close, but close enough that I was uncomfortable. Her eyebrows were up, her lips tilting at their edges. She had an air, as she always did, of either knowing something everyone else didn’t, or else simply being smugly and blurrily stoned.<br /><br />
“Just,” I said, “a birth control refill.” I was pleased to say it, because it made me sound like I was sexually active, which I was not. I had been taking the pill since I was fourteen to keep my acne under control.<br /><br />
“Hmm.” Amal pulled her finger from the ringlet she’d made, letting it unspool, then began twirling it again. Her expression was mysteriously vacant.<br /><br />
“What about you?” I asked, showing that I could be just as nosy and uncaring.<br /><br />
The fluorescents hummed above us, the uneasy bustle of the waiting room coiled at the edges of our conversation.<br /><br />
“I’m getting a test,” she said, smiling like she was telling a joke, “to find out if I’m pregnant.”<br /><br />
My gut clenched in alarm, and I opened my mouth, not sure of what to say, but it didn’t end up mattering. One of the nurses called Amal’s name, and, without a backwards glance at me, she rose and walked over to an open door.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
In English Comp, we didn’t have assigned seats, so Ms. Hong didn’t object when Amal moved two seats up to sit next to me. I had no proof that she had moved for this reason, and, in fact, she barely glanced at me once for the whole class period, but I suspected, once class was over and she began packing her pencil case with unnecessary slowness, that she wanted me to ask about her pregnancy test. I became aware of this trait of hers as early on as this, that she liked to shock people, to perform. The intuition that there was a rabid, self-conscious mind working behind her veneer of dreamy blandness made me feel less alone.<br /><br />
Standing up, I asked, quietly, “So, uh. What did your test say?”<br /><br />
She stilled and looked up at me through her mascara-heavy eyelashes. “That miracles are real.”<br /><br />
Most of the class had drifted out into the hallway. The snap of her pencil case closing was overly loud. I felt awkward, didn’t know how to respond to that. Was Amal one of those hokey religious kids who all went to camp together? Suddenly, no matter how pretty she was, I wanted out of the conversation.<br /><br />
“Oh. So. Is that a yes or a no?” I picked idly at my cuticles—a nervous, ugly habit.<br /><br />
Amal stood up. Her face was blankly angelic. “It’s a yes.”<br /><br />
As soon as I began walking toward the door, she fell into step beside me.<br /><br />
“Okay.” I nodded awkwardly. “But it’s a—good thing?”<br /><br />
She shrugged. “Not really.”<br /><br />
“But it’s a miracle?”<br /><br />
“I don’t think miracles have to be good. I’ve never thought about it before, but now I’m sure they don’t have to be.” She kept her face trained forward as she spoke, and she walked slowly, much slower than my usual pace between classes, as if she had nowhere to be, nothing pressing on her mind.<br /><br />
I swallowed, thumbs hooked around my backpack. “Oh, yeah?” I was trying to act normal, to pretend this conversation was normal. “Why?”<br /><br />
“Because,” she said, stopping and looking sideways at me, “I’ve never had sex.”<br /><br />
Then she turned into the classroom at her left, leaving me alone in the hallway, having just walked her to her class without realizing it, and feeling eerily as if I had just spoken to someone who was not altogether <i>there</i>—at least not in the way that I was there, or the way that everybody else around me was.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
What kind of person do you have to be to tell a random acquaintance about your sexual history, unprompted? What kind of person do you have to be to believe that you’ve become pregnant without having sex? These questions, and a few others, defined my relationship to Amal for a long time to come. The others, the important others that lasted not just through those first few weeks of friendship but all the way to the end, were: What does she want from me? And, just underneath that, pulsing quietly: Why am I so eager to give it to her?<br /><br />
Starting after that day, I was always aware of her as soon as she entered a room, and my chest constricted whenever she looked at me. In English and in Physics, my eyes would unconsciously return, again and again, to the spot where the hem of her shirt met the waistband of her jeans. The sound of her voice gave me the same sick feeling that being up very high and looking down did. The sound of my name in her voice made me spark to attention.<br /><br />
“Vi?” she said. “Wanna be partners?”<br /><br />
I swallowed, nodded vaguely, as if I did not care at all. Amal moved her chair over to my desk and we bent our heads over the assignment that I suddenly had difficulty understanding. Her hair smelled like rose water.<br /><br />
Later on in life, it would become easier for me to detect this feeling as it arose, to define and assimilate it, and I would be able to enjoy having crushes, even unrequited or impossible ones. I would come to like the feeling of my heartbeat kicking up, knowing as soon as I saw a certain person’s face in sunlight or heard their particular laugh that I was an animal with a body that was alive and full of blood. But, in high school, I did not enjoy them.<br /><br />
In high school, a crush was a form of psychological torment.<br /><br />
“We can work on it at my house,” Amal offered, “if you wanna come over?”<br /><br />
“Okay. Yeah,” I said, not meeting her eyes for more than a second. “That works.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Getting ready to go over to Amal’s, I put on something cute, stared despondently at myself in the mirror, and then took it off and instead dressed as I always did: jeans and a hoodie, dark colors. I felt dazed and profoundly stupid as I rode my bike to a much nicer neighborhood than the one where I lived with my dad. The only thing that bolstered my confidence was the fact that Amal, despite being much more popular than I was as well as objectively more physically attractive, also seemed to be pretty unhinged.<br /><br />
I took it for granted that she was lying about conceiving without ever having sex. I wasn’t even convinced that she was actually pregnant. I had overheard some girls in the bathroom once, last year, saying that she was a crazy, lying bitch. I had barely known who she was at the time, but that memory kept returning now, rose-colored, tinged with romantic nostalgia. Maybe I was also becoming slightly unhinged.<br /><br />
Her house was big and very clean, and her parents weren’t home, but her little brother was playing Xbox in the adjacent room, yelling at the TV at the top of his lungs. Amal was in sweatpants, hair up, but still wearing make-up. She kept offering me food from the enormous, gleaming refrigerator, but I was too nervous to accept anything. She seemed totally disinterested in the assignment, and didn’t bring it up once, although I had gotten the worksheet out and put it on her kitchen counter between us. She made us both smoothies, despite the fact that I said I didn’t want one, and then I watched her drink hers while she talked on and on about people at school I barely knew.<br /><br />
When she began taking a bunch of prenatal vitamins, I broached the subject.<br /><br />
“So, uh. You’re definitely pregnant?”<br /><br />
“Yeah. I got an ultrasound yesterday, and my mom went with me. She’s really freaking out.” From the ironic tilt of her lips, she appeared pretty pleased by this fact.<br /><br />
“Did you tell her”—I paused, struggling with how to phrase it—“what you told me?”<br /><br />
Amal gave a high, cackling laugh. “Of course not. Oh my god, can you imagine? No. No, my mom, luckily, isn’t religious at all. I think she was raised Baptist? We never go to church, although she lies to my grandma and says we do. And my dad’s supposed to be Muslim.”<br /><br />
I blinked. “Supposed to be?”<br /><br />
“According to the family,” she said the word <i>family</i> as if it was <i>Family</i>, title case implicit, “he’s not doing it right.”<br /><br />
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, then said, “So, they wouldn’t believe you.”<br /><br />
She snorted, swallowed a large pill, then set her glass of water down with a clank. “I don’t think they would even if they were Jesus freaks. They’re educated people, you know? They don’t believe in miracles. I mean, you don’t believe me, do you?”<br /><br />
On those last couple of words, her voice lost confidence, and she looked down, glancing at me only through her eyelashes. Something about this show of vulnerability felt very put-on.<br /><br />
“Well.” I laughed awkwardly. “It’s not really possible, is it? I googled it, just to make sure, and—”<br /><br />
“Me too,” she said. “There’s something called parthenogenesis, which is reproduction without fertilization, but in humans, it just produces this kind of, like, tumor made of genetic material. The ultrasound was to make sure that it wasn’t that—that it’s a viable fetus.” She blinked, completely undaunted by the look I was giving her. “And it is.”<br /><br />
She was crazy, I thought. Or she was lying. Or, like those girls in the bathroom had said, she was both.<br /><br />
“Are you sure you didn’t—that you’ve never…” I stopped short. It was a pretty fucked-up question to ask.<br /><br />
Amal realized it, too. “What, like, maybe I had sex and never noticed it?” Her tone was unpleasant, but she was still wearing that vague smile. “Or maybe somebody drugged me and—”<br /><br />
“Okay, I get it. Sorry, I’m not trying to say—”<br /><br />
“I’ve thought about it. I really have. I’ve run through every possibility in my head a million times. The last time I passed out at a party was in the summer, and all the doctors are saying the baby must have been conceived in November or December. I just told my parents I don’t know who the father is. They think I’m protecting some guy, but I’m really protecting myself. If I told them the truth…” She paused, eyes glazing slightly, shaking her head. “They’d think I was crazy. But I’m not crazy. As fucking weird as this is to you, Vi, it’s a thousand times weirder for me.”<br /><br />
She was speaking with absolute confidence, and although I still did not believe that what she said was the truth, I was starting to believe that she thought it was. Could it be some freak medical accident? Could somebody have done something to her without her knowing?<br /><br />
I felt vaguely ill, and swallowed some of my smoothie, which was melted, room temperature, and unappetizing. After a long silence permeated only by the little brother’s high-pitched squeals of murderous excitement, I said, “I believe you.”<br /><br />
Why did I say it? Because I was very, very stupid. But it was evidently the right thing to say. Amal immediately brightened, and gave me a long look that I was sure I was misinterpreting. But I wasn’t.<br /><br />
Leaning forward, she placed her chin in the palm of her hand and said, casually hitting me with another curveball, “I’m not actually a virgin.”<br /><br />
My chest rattled with confusion and interest that I tried to disguise. “Um?”<br /><br />
“Really, it’s such a bullshit, antiquated concept, anyway, like—I’ve had sex. Just not ever with a boy.” Her smile, shy and conniving, was growing as she spoke. “I mean, you know, somebody with a penis. That’s what I mean. Somebody who has a penis. A penis-haver.”<br /><br />
“Okay,” I said, sitting up very straight, face flushed. “I get it. You can stop saying penis.”<br /><br />
Amal laughed, as if her whole intention had been to make my voice shake with unease like that. “What?” She tilted her head. “Are you afraid?”<br /><br />
I scoffed, postured, tried to roll my eyes, still reeling from what she had just, unmistakably, implied. “Of penises?”<br /><br />
She shook her head, eyes still shining with amusement. “Of <i>me</i>.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Even if she was crazy, it didn’t matter to me. The body does not think, does not reason, or weigh one option against another. All it does is want. Whether I believed her or didn’t believe her, it didn’t stop me from wanting to make her laugh, to brush my fingertips against hers, or make her eyes go wide in that expression of sudden recognition that I could tell was not at all performed.<br /><br />
She really was pregnant, which I found out from hanging around her house a lot and listening to her parents argue with her through the walls. Although it didn’t make any rational sense, I began to be taken in by the magnetic, unrelenting force of her own belief. It wasn’t because of anything she said—though occasionally, abruptly, she would tell me something like, “Did you know that female turkeys can produce fertilized eggs on their own if the male turkey population is low enough?”—but rather because she, more than any other person I had ever met, seemed so eternal and so self-contained that she might as well be capable, against all physical logic and scientific knowledge, of asexual reproduction.<br /><br />
Once she said, out of nowhere, “To this day, millions of people believe that the Virgin Mary was impregnated by God or an angel or something like that. Literally millions.”<br /><br />
“Yeah,” I said, pushing back slightly against her mania, “but people believe all kinds of shit. That the earth is flat. That the moon—”<br /><br />
“Is fake, I know.” She rolled her eyes.<br /><br />
“Uh. That the moon <i>landing</i> was faked. I don’t think anybody doubts the existence of the moon.”<br /><br />
She ignored me, eyes alight, twirling her hair around her finger. She complained that mine was too short for her to play with. “I’m just <i>saying</i>.”<br /><br />
“I know,” I replied. “I understand.”<br /><br />
And, in a way, I did, though I couldn’t have explained her to anyone else. When a couple of my friends asked why Amal Shaheen and I were suddenly besties, I just shrugged and said something noncommittal. What I felt about Amal existed somewhere lower than language. The way she looked standing under the flowering cherry tree outside the school, waiting by the bike rack for me to come out so that she could tell me when to come over to her house, or not to come over—I still cannot describe it. I felt like my entire life, my past and my future, were crystallized in her, her movements, the unconscious expressions flickering through her eyes when she thought nobody was looking. There was even something brutally attractive about her disinterest in consensus reality or standard modes of behavior, her inability to be polite or restrained or reasonable. It was like, just by existing, she was breaking the strangling confines of my life. She was breaking me open and crawling inside.<br /><br />
We first kissed in the dark, in the driveway outside her house. Then we kissed in her house, in her bedroom, early in the evening, when her parents were both still at work. We kissed at school when we were sure nobody was around, and we kissed on that bike trail that wound through the woods. We kissed each other’s lips and knuckles and chins and cheeks, the crowns of each other’s heads, shoulders, bellies—not lower. She pawed at my waistband and I stilled her hand. Couldn’t breathe. Although virginity was as made-up as she said it was, I felt pinned beneath its weight, ashamed of my own cluelessness.<br /><br />
Amal liked my nerves, liked my inexperience. She liked leading me, being the one in control. Beneath her clothes, she was starting to show.<br /><br />
Once, sitting on her bed, in her bedroom which still at that time contained all her childhood furniture, I asked, trying to sound unconcerned, “So, you’re going to have it?”<br /><br />
She didn’t look at me, and instead spoke to the long shadow cast by her bookcase. “I guess I am.”<br /><br />
I swallowed, folded and unfolded my hands, and tried to meet her eyes. “Do you want to, or are you just—I mean, do your parents—”<br /><br />
“My parents don’t want me to have it. Especially my mom. She says it’s going to ruin my life, and she’s probably right. My dad’s more—he doesn’t like to talk about it. I think he’s against abortion, but he’s also against being a grandfather at his age. We’ve been looking into adoption, but I don’t really want someone else to have it.”<br /><br />
“Do you—want a kid?” I asked, haltingly.<br /><br />
“Not really. I mean, maybe someday, but now is way too soon, you know?”<br /><br />
“So, why…?”<br /><br />
“Because I don’t know where it came from.” She spoke with such baseless conviction, staring dead ahead at nothing. “What if I was abducted by aliens? What if I really was impregnated by some fucking pervy angel and now I’m carrying the next messiah? What if this baby’s going to save the world, and then I don’t have it, and—”<br /><br />
“Do you really believe that, though?”<br /><br />
“Yes,” she said, “I do.” I suspected that she was saying it just to be contrary.<br /><br />
Before I could come up with a response, she asked if I wanted to go get pizza, then got up and started changing her outfit without waiting for me to answer. I watched the line of her back as she took off her shirt and, with an enviable lack of physical shyness, searched her closet for another.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Soon she was showing through her clothes. Rumors that had circulated through the school for months got confirmed. The more everyone talked about her, the more she glowed with self-satisfaction, completely absent any apparent shame or fear. A few people called her names behind her back, but most of her friends—cheerleaders and athletes, perfect gleaming girls formed of foundation and extracurricular activities—stood by her. Nobody knew we were dating, so the football team still flirted with her. Even if they had known, it probably wouldn’t have stopped them.<br /><br />
If she had been unpopular in the first place, a nobody—someone like me—it definitely wouldn’t have happened like it did, but because her parents were rich, and she was effortlessly hot and seemingly so unconcerned with what other people thought of her, she became something like the senior class mascot. The upper social echelon closed ranks around her, protecting her from anybody who said anything vile about her pregnancy. I overheard some girls planning her baby shower. At lunch, apparently, she discussed names. We never sat together, though she would make eyes at me across the room. She had this mischievous little smile that, I told myself, was only for me.<i></i><br /><br />
I could tell, in my gut and in my half-remembered dreams, that something was very wrong—with us, with her, or maybe just with the baby. More and more, she spoke about it like it was some kind of chosen one, some Jesus Jr., and she started dressing only in white, which suited her but was alarming nonetheless. We still met up to make out surreptitiously, but less often, because she was always busy. Against the odds, her pregnancy seemed to make her even more popular than she had been before. She posted about the baby constantly. When I touched her, I didn’t put my hands anywhere near her belly. I didn’t want to feel that there was something alive in there.<br /><br />
I suppose I compartmentalized a lot. She seemed far too young and small to be a mother, and also too selfish. When I fantasized about the future, it was always just the two of us. There was never any kid. I had dreams sometimes that I was in the delivery room with her—nonsensically, like I was some harried, clueless father—and the birth took far too long, whole eternities. I would be stuck in a crowd of people in white coats, bodies jostling, and the baby would always come out wrong: dead or misshapen or looking just like me.<br /><br />
She could tell her pregnancy made me nervous, and would tease me about it, would calm me, would thank me, would ignore me for days. She wasn’t a good girlfriend. I’m not even sure she ever was my girlfriend. It was more like she was my oracle and I was her hesitant disciple. In hindsight, our relationship was always uneven, never healthy, but I’d be lying if I said there was nothing redeeming in it. When we walked through the woods together, she knew the names of all the birds. When, eyes watering, I talked to her about my mother, she kissed me all over my cheeks and temples. She was ticklish. She had a ferocious sense of humor. After I gave her my locker combination, she would leave me notes, packed lunches, and, once, a huge golden sunflower. On the day that she found out the sex of the baby, before she even posted about it, she called me.<br /><br />
“Female,” she said. “That’s <i>good</i>, it’s so good.”<br /><br />
“I guess?” I said, unsure. I had never had much fun being a girl.<br /><br />
“It means,” she told me, “that the next savior of humanity is going to be a woman.”<br /><br />
I couldn’t tell, at that point, whether or not she was joking.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
The cheerleading squad and the girls’ volleyball team started to act strangely. Every member began dressing in white every day, and at lunch they would sit in a circle outside, with Amal in the center, holding hands and singing what sounded like hymns. The faculty became concerned and tried to put a stop to these meetings, but the girls insisted it was a religious practice, and therefore protected under the law. There were some school board hearings about it, which I didn’t go to. Amal said that they were so boring, that she’d rather kiss me than talk about it. But each day the circle only got bigger, and in the halls I would watch these white-clad weirdos open doors for Amal and carry her books, as her belly grew and her movements slowed.<br /><br />
When I asked Amal about her “little cult,” she just shrugged and said she hadn’t organized it. “It’s a trend,” she’d said. “People will clique up over anything.”<br /><br />
Still, by the time graduation came around, half the people in our grade were wearing white under their gowns. The ceremony was long and dull. I had, at one point, been on track to become valedictorian, but it hadn’t happened in the end. I had gotten distracted. Dad said he was so proud of me, anyway. He asked if a girl in my grade was pregnant, and, not meeting his eyes, I said yes. That was the first time we ever spoke about Amal.<br /><br />
That night, I went to the graduation party at her house, which turned out to be more like a baby shower. Most of the senior class was there, acting out some parody of a religious service, lighting candles and singing songs that they all already seemed to know the words to. People were clustered around the pool in her backyard, though nobody was swimming or even wearing swimsuits. I heard the word <i>baptism</i> being thrown around—a word that I didn’t fully understand, but which struck me, for some reason, as being closely associated with drowning. As the only person not dressed in white, I was treated to smug, assessing glances. Gemma, a girl on the tennis team who I was sure did not know my name, handed me a drink with a false, ingratiating smile. I accepted it politely and then headed directly to the kitchen to pour it into the sink. My wrist shook slightly as I navigated the dim house. There was something jagged in the hymns that poured in from the yard.<br /><br />
The dawning realization that all of this wasn’t just a gimmick, but that something genuinely fucked up was going on, was not what made me end things with Amal, though maybe it should have been. Instead, it was walking into the kitchen to see her and Eddie Minjares making out against a counter.<br /><br />
I froze in the doorway, then quickly turned around, embarrassed as if somehow I were in the wrong. I left the cup on a random side table and navigated the house through tunnel vision, pulling on the jacket I’d taken off just a few minutes ago and stepping out onto the dark front porch without feeling the breeze. My head buzzed as if with television static.<br /><br />
Just after I closed the door, it opened again, and yellow light pooled at my back.<br /><br />
“Vi.” Amal’s voice, usually so easy and self-assured, sounded different.<br /><br />
I didn’t turn around, but I did stop there in the driveway, heart thudding in my chest like I’d just been slapped.<br /><br />
“Vi,” she said. “Come back inside. Tonight's gonna be so fun.” Her voice was gentle but unapologetic.<br /><br />
Whereas the betrayal had only made me feel like my organs were soaked in formaldehyde, like I was already dead, this forced nonchalance made me seethingly angry. I spun around on my heel and said, in a voice I’d never used with her, “You’re fucking crazy.”<br /><br />
She straightened slightly, silhouetted by the light from the house. She was in a long white dress with a crown of flowers laced into her hair, and although I knew she was some kind of cult leader, she looked more like a virgin sacrifice.<br /><br />“And all of those people in there,” I added, pointing at the house, “are fucking crazy, too.” Then I turned to go. I had styled my hair. I had dressed nicely. Tonight was supposed to be—it was supposed to―<br /><br />
“I’m not crazy,” Amal called after me. She sounded more annoyed than anything else. Then she said, to my back: “The baby’s… Eddie’s. We had sex at Kimmi’s New Year’s Party, and he—he was an asshole about it. So I pretended it had never happened.”<br /><br />
For some reason, rather than freaking me out, this calmed me. I felt like such an idiot, felt like throwing up, but somehow this news—I should have known it would be something like this—tightened reality up, reassured me that Amal was not at all special, but was in fact nothing more than a fucking phony narcissist.<br /><br />
I let out a breath, and looked over my shoulder. “But he’s not an asshole anymore?”<br /><br />
Amal gave me a knowing and very familiar smile. “He’s a true believer.”<br /><br />
I could have hit her, but I just balled up my fists at my side, and said, “You <i>are</i> crazy. You’re a fucking psychopath,” and kept on walking.<br /><br />
“Yeah, maybe,” Amal called after me, coming down from the porch to the middle of the driveway. “Maybe I am.” As I knelt to unlock my bike from the street sign, she seemed to panic, to realize that I was no longer buying what she was selling. “But Eddie’s not important! If I’m Mary, then you’re—whatshisname? You know, Jesus’ adoptive dad? Who cares what’s real?” Her voice was taking on a frenzied note. “Nothing’s real, nobody’s <i>real!”</i> she yelled at me, as I climbed onto my bike. “Come back inside, Vi. I was lying. Eddie isn’t the father. I made that up. Vi, come back!”<br /><br />
But I didn’t go back. I couldn’t even look at her. I was afraid that if I did, I would choose to believe whatever she told me, no matter how deranged, how obviously untrue. I rode down the street and out of the neighborhood, the lampposts blurring past me like hazy angels.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
My summer vacation was spent in a slog of depression. Dad tried to take me out on bike rides, to get me interested in our favorite shows, in playing gin rummy, going bowling, and all the other shit we’d done to cope after mom left. Somehow this was worse than that—not because Amal was more important than my mother, but because I was older, more aware, able to process my pain in a way that I hadn’t been at eight. I smoked a lot of weed and spent all my time online. Since I’d severely neglected my friends for half of senior year, everybody had more or less given up on me. I, too, gave up on myself. I wasn’t excited about college. The most emotion I could drum up was about my high score in Candy Crush Saga.<br /><br />
Amal texted me a lot at first, and left voicemails, and though I reread and replayed all her messages dozens of times, I never responded. I tried to ignore the news, even when people sent me articles and posts. Amal’s “supporters” from school had done a huge march downtown. Even teenagers who hadn’t gone to our school had joined in. Because it was mostly girls, people were calling it mass hysteria. Then someone coined the phrase “TikTok televangelism.” A local reporter suggested that the generalized apathy toward the spiritual that had been normalized in youth culture for so long had led to a sudden reversal, a religious fanaticism. Many theorized that psychedelic drugs were involved. Some people called it neo-Christianity. More called it Satanism. The girl at the center of it was called “an Arab Manson” by a member of the county school board, but she was also interviewed on the local access channel, and her story made it all the way to the homepage of the Weekly World News. Her Instagram follower count grew by the day. I knew because I constantly, masochistically, checked it.<br /><br />
Most of that happened in July. In August, things got worse. Some of Amal’s followers got arrested for “rioting,” and I heard she’d had to take out at least one restraining order. Some anti-abortion protestors started putting her face on signs, which I knew she must have hated. Then, halfway through the month, when I had almost fully regained my will to live, she called me. I didn’t pick up, just stared at her name on the screen, then listened to the voicemail that she left as soon as it came in, already knowing—despite not wanting to—why she was calling, what week it was.<br /><br />
At first, the recording was just of her breathing softly, and all at once I could smell her and feel her laughter like a shiver up my spine. Then she said, in that absent voice she always used: “Vi, my water’s breaking. I’m in the car now, on the way to the hospital. St. Perpetua’s. Can you please come? Please. I know you don’t want to see me, but I really need you. More than anybody.” There was a pause, and I could hear a faint shuddering breath. “Vi. Violet. Please. What I said about Eddie—it was a lie. I thought—I was just coming up with an excuse for why I was kissing him, trying to think of something forgivable. Really, I just did it because I’m fucking selfish. I’m selfish. I said it was his because I wanted you to think I wasn’t crazy, that I knew I wasn’t a saint, that everything was explainable and simple—but it’s not. It’s <i>not</i>.” I could hear that she was crying. “Violet, this baby has no father, do you understand me? There isn’t―”<br /><br />
Another voice said something indistinct, and then the call abruptly ended.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
I deleted the voicemail so that I wouldn’t listen to it again, smoked enough weed that I was practically comatose, and fell into a heavy sleep wherein all my dreams were overly bright, as if under hospital fluorescents.<br /><br />
By the time I woke up in the morning, Dad had long since left for work. I had no new messages from Amal, or from anybody. The apartment was silent, and the street outside was empty and already hot. I dressed discreetly, ate a bowl of cereal, and went to the bus stop. It wasn’t so much that I made the decision to go to St. Perpetua’s as I accepted that it was happening. I knew that Amal was lying about Eddie, about the baby, about everything. But I still went.<br /><br />
Maybe if I had checked my Instagram feed, I would have been prepared for the circus in the parking lot, but I hadn’t and I was not. I waded through crowds of people dressed in white, holding signs and crosses, armfuls of flowers. People singing, people chanting. It looked less like a congregation and more like the set of a music video. I didn’t think most of these kids were doing it for anything but the aesthetic, or because it was what everybody else was doing, or because their parents hated it. Scarily, there were adults out there, too, also in white. Even old people. Even Mr. Slaby, one of the gym teachers from school. I felt disoriented, like I wasn’t fully in my body. The laughter of the people around me was too sharp.<br /><br />
Inside the maternity ward, it was quiet. The waiting room was practically empty. When I asked the receptionist for Amal’s room number, she said I’d have to wait outside the hospital with everybody else. “None of you are allowed in here, or didn’t they tell you?”<br /><br />
I said, “I’m not one of them. Your website says visiting hours are—”<br /><br />
“Visiting hours are for friends and family, not <i>fans</i>, or whatever else. If you’re her sister, then you can go in, but otherwise—”<br /><br />
“I’m not her sister,” I said, with too much force.<br /><br />
The receptionist gave me a disinterested look. “Then you’ll have to wait outside.”<br /><br />
I opened my mouth but said nothing. I didn’t know how to argue with adults who weren’t Dad, and I was too embarrassed to try. As I turned around to leave, my disappointment tinged with a sense of relief at having narrowly escaped something, I caught sight of Amal’s father walking down the hallway toward us. When he saw me, his face lit up with recognition.<br /><br />
“Violet,” he said as he approached, “I’m so glad you’re here.” He looked happier to see me than he ever had. I had never even seen him smile before, and had always assumed that he didn’t like me. He spoke briefly to the receptionist, then turned around and nodded for me to come along. I followed him in a fugue of fear. Would Amal be awake? Would I see the baby? The floors and walls blurred together, white on white. As we approached her room a heavy hope thudded in my chest, but I wasn’t really sure what it was for.<br /><br />
Her mother was at her bedside, and there were other relatives, too—what looked like an aunt and maybe a couple of cousins—setting up their bouquets in vases, chatting. Amal was on the bed, looking small and strained and much younger than she had ever looked before. In her arms, she held a bundle of cloth with a hint of pink skin peeking out of it. I paused in the doorway, not because I wasn’t prepared to see her, but because of the thing hanging above her, over the bed, near the ceiling.<br /><br />
It was white. Not white like a white person, but white like walls, like sheets of paper. A sterile, ecclesiastical white. It looked like a statue, like it was carved of perfectly smooth, unblemished stone—only it wasn’t fully solid. The light coming in the window shone through it. It floated, right above Amal and the baby, in a white robe, with a white veil parted to show its porcelain face. Its lips and its eyes were as white as its skin. Its fingers with their long fingernails, sticking out from the sides of its robe, were the same empty color. It wasn’t moving much, but I could see that it wasn’t perfectly still, either: its fingers shivered, its expression changed. Though it had no pupils, I had the distinct impression that it saw me, because its lips twitched and stretched apart into a smile. From the seam of its mouth, light poured.<br /><br />
I was confused for only a few seconds and then I was solely terrified. Amal’s father was trying to get me all the way through the doorway, but I couldn’t move. He didn’t seem bothered by the specter at all, and it was only when I looked at him and saw his reassuring smile that I realized he did not see it, that it was not really there. I looked around at the family. None of them glanced at it once. They seemed much more interested in me.<br /><br />
“We’re so happy you’re here,” Amal’s mother said, warmly and nervously. More quietly, she added, “She’s been asking for you,” and ushered me into the room.<br /><br />
I looked again at the figure floating above the bed. Despite how it looked, I knew with every hair on the back of my neck that it was not an angel. Light spilled out of it and down onto Amal, irradiating her in its glow. She sat serenely in the bed, rocking the baby, watching my face. I kept my distance.<br /><br />
Maybe she was only following my eyes, maybe I was hallucinating and she was just trying to figure out what I was staring at—but I don’t think so. When she looked up, right at the white figure, her gaze held something, and she gave a very slight, very familiar smile. Slowly, she brought that smile down toward me. The next time I blinked, the white figure was gone, its ethereal light gone with it.<br /><br />
Rather than moving toward the bed, I took a step back. In some ways, I had always been afraid of Amal, but the fear was deeper now. It touched everything. And I realized, as the child cradled in her lap let out a soft, uneasy whimper, that it was now not only Amal that I had to be afraid of.<div><br />
<hr />
<br />
Jaye Nasir is a writer based in Portland, Oregon whose work blurs, or outright ignores, the line between the real and the unreal. Her poems, essays and speculative fiction have appeared in many small publications, both local and international, as well as interdisciplinary art galleries, live readings and other hybrid media. Like this story, much of her fiction is inspired by the mysterious, speculative and psychologically complex elements of Catholicism, the religion she was raised with, and its connections to sexuality, feminine selfhood, violence and transcendence. Follow her work on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/jayenasir">@jayenasir</a> or read more from her at <a href="http://jayenasir.weebly.com">jayenasir.weebly.com</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>
<br />“The Virgin” by Jaye Nasir. Copyright © 2023 by Jaye Nasir.</div><div>
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-23134173182493932102023-09-04T00:00:00.006-04:002023-09-04T00:00:00.167-04:00September 2023<div>We were busy with a visit from Kristin's nephew Sam for much of August, but things are more or less back to normal now (what currently passes for normal, anyway; Donald is still traveling to Houston a lot for work). We've been reading the July submissions and have already come across a couple of stories that we've both liked; though we always end up with more good stories at the end than we can publish.</div><div><br /></div><div>We've also been adding to our list of Stories We See Too Often. One danger in publishing this sort of list for the supposed benefit of authors is that it might lead people to self-reject, and fail to send us a story that we'd actually love but that might possibly be described as falling into one of the tropes we say we don't want. Sometimes the most interesting stories are on the edge of what we think we're willing to publish. We've published stories about missionaries to mythical creatures and aliens, deals with the devil, vampires, angels, dead people who don't know they're dead, and Catholic priests, despite claiming at one time or another that we see all these tropes too often.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, with that caveat, here are some newer additions to the list (that currently exists more in our heads than in actual written form):</div><div><br /></div><div>The story starts with someone sitting alone in a room, and someone from the military or police comes in to question them. There's often a lot of unnecessary description of the room. Often the entire scene is unnecessary, because it involves the story's protagonist being questioned about the parts of the story that were actually exciting, and you could have just started with the exciting part.</div><div><br /></div><div>Angels and/or demons are basically bureaucrats with superpowers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Someone goes to Hell and it's not what they expected.</div><div><br /></div><div>Apparently human characters turn out to be angels and demons in the big reveal at the end; except we see so many of these stories that we'd already figured it out on page 2.</div><div><br /></div><div>We're sure we'll have more to add to this list by the time we finish reading the latest batch of story submissions; and just as confident that we'll end up with more stories we liked than we're able to publish, and that at least one of them will include a trope that we said at one time or another we weren't very interested in.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">COMING SOON...</h3><div>"The Virgin" by Jaye Nasir (September 25th). Violet knows there's something very wrong with her girlfriend Amal and their relationship, but finds herself unable to walk away. "What kind of person do you have to be to believe that you've become pregnant without having sex?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Among the Birds" by Will Greatwich (October 23rd). An ex-clergyman turned ornithologist discovers something worse than watching mass extinctions of the birds he'd always loved. (A grim take on "His Eye is On the Sparrow" that could also be described as "Someone goes to Hell and it's not what they expected.")</div><div><br /></div><div>These are both horror stories. If you prefer cheerful and/or heartwarming: sorry, but we've run out of those for the year. Hopefully there will be some among the July submissions!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PATREON</h3><div>We're now up to $230/month. Many thanks to those who increased or renewed their subscriptions!</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Can you help us reach our next funding goal of $275/month? If we make it by the end of September, we'll be able to accept one additional story from the July submissions.</a></b> (Assuming we stay at or above that funding level until we've finished selecting stories, usually late November.) Only $45 to go!</div><div><br /></div><div>Our most popular subscription levels are $3/month and $5/month. At $3/month, you get each month's story emailed to you on the first of every month instead of having to wait until the 4th Monday to read it here on our website. For $5/month, you also get free e-book copies of our anthologies.</div><div><br /></div><div>And every tier, even $1/month, gives you the chance to participate in monthly chats on our Discord server with editors and authors, plus Insider posts about our publishing adventures.</div><div><br /></div><div>Please check out our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> page and consider subscribing if you aren't already supporting us!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">LIFE BEYOND PUBLISHING</h3><div>Last month we mentioned our trip to New York with Kristin's nephew. Back in Massachusetts, we did some Boston-area sightseeing and fun local things such as <a href="https://nantasketkayaks.com/" target="_blank">kayaking in the Weir River Estuary</a> and the annual <a href="https://www.zoonewengland.org/engage/boston-lights" target="_blank">Boston Lights</a> display at the Franklin Park Zoo.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since it wasn't Sam's first visit to Boston (only his first without the rest of the family), and he'd already seen some of the top attractions, we were able to take the opportunity to see some places that were new to us as well. Georges Island has a Civil War-era fort and is reachable by ferry from downtown Boston. Unlike some other bastion forts from the 18th and 19th centuries, it hasn't been extensively restored. The parade ground is overgrown, with cracked pavement, and the steps leading up to the outer walls have been colonized by goldenrod and other wildflowers.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADNU6kM7M8LtF2frgrtSUnhnYEK2j7XoyfdEH6Jxyj29kVKmMIwwrMiFSUm4t_edGZ5sgTHm0ToMrMut7gg_ig-_oZPh5X4hU6SuGv2vGScMQLN20SACqUlWSkLLO0LYq3O79VzmSh86hnWaMd73joF8DuWpHm1hxMUnoIEz76YjgfjxNclCzam-OUqjW/s4032/IMG_3375.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiADNU6kM7M8LtF2frgrtSUnhnYEK2j7XoyfdEH6Jxyj29kVKmMIwwrMiFSUm4t_edGZ5sgTHm0ToMrMut7gg_ig-_oZPh5X4hU6SuGv2vGScMQLN20SACqUlWSkLLO0LYq3O79VzmSh86hnWaMd73joF8DuWpHm1hxMUnoIEz76YjgfjxNclCzam-OUqjW/w480-h640/IMG_3375.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If you look closely, you'll see that the large tree is laden with apples. Kristin couldn't figure out how to get at them.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>It's also honeycombed by dark passages and stairwells, without much to keep curious visitors out of them. The fort was an active US military installation until the end of the Second World War, though by that point the focus had shifted away from manning the cannon installations toward remote control of mines set to keep German submarines out of Boston Harbor. The small museum at the Visitor Center shows how advances in weapons technology made the fort obsolete for its original intended purpose almost as soon as it was completed.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZrNLieRJo6UXa1EFqOke9WtSQC8neSXMIknP2ojiCKGgQILSbXJKzWrya36v2pyxGVRFMS2h2W2BDiB9TcmXhfgXGwtaen-t0QJjuqI4ZpXxsNeIT-Azw1y6KJrz5y68GM8maWJbfb4dV1GtLBe6JNKIN_VDSPM9MstUWMT1SQgqcnR5sD0wosDr7Bxxf/s4032/IMG_3382.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZrNLieRJo6UXa1EFqOke9WtSQC8neSXMIknP2ojiCKGgQILSbXJKzWrya36v2pyxGVRFMS2h2W2BDiB9TcmXhfgXGwtaen-t0QJjuqI4ZpXxsNeIT-Azw1y6KJrz5y68GM8maWJbfb4dV1GtLBe6JNKIN_VDSPM9MstUWMT1SQgqcnR5sD0wosDr7Bxxf/w480-h640/IMG_3382.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Another for Kristin's photo library of kitchen facilities through the ages.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>After taking the expensive tourist ferry from Long Wharf in Boston, we reached Georges Island only to see that the sign displaying return trip times also showed departures to Hingham. Hingham! The Hingham Shipyard is only a 15-minute drive from our house and has plenty of parking available for $2/day. Do you mean to tell us that we didn't need to take the subway into downtown Boston?</div><div><br /></div><div>Not only did we not have to take the subway (over an hour each way), the ferry from Hingham is 25% cheaper. It's run by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, though, so it doesn't show up on the tourism-focused Boston Harbor Islands site.</div><div><br /></div><div>And there were plenty of apple trees growing outside the defensive walls, as well as some sort of wild cherry tree.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3rs4llR3K6qpYxAwoZToCaeMYGVYCC6hRCxZaBDgU98_MQQWcRO79QTPlMXS3FLUVhw7ebIpTb1lBOno7CJ1FH90HFUA96M9YjF1nwybhI7kjiKL9pHLulNPafc6f_2zLbrQDAQ1NGXA_wj2K1ZWSP8R1RYBMJLUBqLAeUzorbK2YMVu1GLkzOiYuJoZ/s4032/IMG_3378.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3rs4llR3K6qpYxAwoZToCaeMYGVYCC6hRCxZaBDgU98_MQQWcRO79QTPlMXS3FLUVhw7ebIpTb1lBOno7CJ1FH90HFUA96M9YjF1nwybhI7kjiKL9pHLulNPafc6f_2zLbrQDAQ1NGXA_wj2K1ZWSP8R1RYBMJLUBqLAeUzorbK2YMVu1GLkzOiYuJoZ/w640-h480/IMG_3378.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Donald wishing Kristin would stop eating random wild fruit.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">In cat news, Maxwell has figured out how to open the sliding mirror doors of our bedroom closet. We find him in there from time to time, hiding among Kristin's cardigans. We're a little concerned that he may also have learned to unzip Kristin's travel toiletries bag, having realized that it's a rich trove of such treasures as hair elastics and Q-tips. It's not always clear, when we find him with a paw digging around in a pocket of the bag, whether Kristin left all the zippers closed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We're in trouble if he's figured out zippers.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5PcSW73CKo3O1BDreWS0g_YglCDM97pFy23dxj3_FYrPvCUrLlkHjODjn7wAzawv7stVO8Gv1g1EP4nf7k8aGowWBA9KryG2zeSWuG3QeaLqgYKTlqY2XE52UAwa83g0rDBsNgDdhc26PEz_-83Szxa4KyoG4corZu74ZWM1lVhRjshRM5_zubwvrlKwl/s4032/IMG_3417.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5PcSW73CKo3O1BDreWS0g_YglCDM97pFy23dxj3_FYrPvCUrLlkHjODjn7wAzawv7stVO8Gv1g1EP4nf7k8aGowWBA9KryG2zeSWuG3QeaLqgYKTlqY2XE52UAwa83g0rDBsNgDdhc26PEz_-83Szxa4KyoG4corZu74ZWM1lVhRjshRM5_zubwvrlKwl/w480-h640/IMG_3417.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Who says there's no rest for the wicked?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnisg1VPEM3nRJNyR5MGHUcUnDyO841KpWIEsMjNS4nXHEBrQILRDYVsfiFjQp41kdSInvtJiepi5KkIgAqgbW2MBHXcbB3Vf7AzEwFtMvqSyo21HjfGgUbnoq3x3RFRrPZo0M7hugKWQM9--tXsWDrawSH4eb4qZRsa3KiePvXULKqV0aH5n5ZffW3A8p/s4032/IMG_3413.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnisg1VPEM3nRJNyR5MGHUcUnDyO841KpWIEsMjNS4nXHEBrQILRDYVsfiFjQp41kdSInvtJiepi5KkIgAqgbW2MBHXcbB3Vf7AzEwFtMvqSyo21HjfGgUbnoq3x3RFRrPZo0M7hugKWQM9--tXsWDrawSH4eb4qZRsa3KiePvXULKqV0aH5n5ZffW3A8p/w480-h640/IMG_3413.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is a girl who really does want a belly rub.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Thank you for reading, and don't forget to come back on September 25th for Jaye Nasir's supernatural horror tale "The Virgin"!<br />
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-81042560789263593642023-08-28T00:00:00.006-04:002023-08-28T00:00:00.150-04:00The Carelessness of Endless Summers<div><b>by Ann McCurdy</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>I kneels on the man’s chest, all uppy-downy with panting, giving me a ride, blowing out gales of breaths all stinky-rot with mortality. It’s close now! Heart all bumpity-bump, bumpity-bump, big glassy-ball eyes directed my way, but he doesn’t sees me, no, he’s done with eyeballs. Bumpity-bump, bump, bump. No bump! No more uppy-downy ride, no more stinky-rot breath. I quiet croons my song and holds out my hands, ready to catch! The soul, all moonbeam quick and silvery, elusive as butterflies, sweet as bitter pinesap. A young man’s soul. I wiggles and reaches, hands over silly human’s fleshy forehead…<br /><br />
“Batu?”<br /><br />
Girl voice! No worries! Owl-brother hoots. Warm summer night is too dark for silly-girl-woman eyes, I’m too quiet for silly-girl-woman ears. Flop-man lies far from deadwood home, in a field of grass and sheep. Don’t lets the soul gets away! Concentrates, I sings and cups my hand to catch flop-man’s minnow soul.<br /><br />
“Batu!”<br /><br />
Don’t understand silly-girl-woman words. Why learn human words? I lives thousands of years, but, blip-blip, humans dead. Might as well learn mayfly words. But flop-man’s soul wiggles funny, flame in a draft. Lips flabby-flutter. It knows silly-girl-woman words. Tries to go to her. But I’s ready and takes a bite…<br /><br />
Stones! Evil girl-woman stone thrower! Hits my arm and shoulder. Flop-man’s bit-marked soul almost darts away but I flail-snatches so I don’t goes hungry tonight! Traitor moon shows us to silly-girl-woman, who runs toward us. I shrieks and flies up, but her soul is tight inside and I can’t sings it out. I pulls on her long black braids and she bats me away. She bends over flop-man’s heart-stop body and I solid bites her on her collarbone. Bad idea! Blood tastes like iron and she clutches at my left wing. She yanks me forward and <i>looks</i> at me, black-iris eyeballs <i>sees</i> me. She flings me helter-skiddly into bushes. I shoots up over the trees and away from silly-girl-woman crying. Boo hoo! I’m glad she cries, but I don’t likes to hear it.<br /><br />
I rolls my shoulder. Wing membrane already heals. I shove flop-man’s soul into my mouth and gnashes my teeth. Flop-man’s soul rich and fat like a maggot, but no longer fresh. Stupid silly-woman! She can’t eats his soul, she’s too stupid. And that’s the joke! Humans eats from the Tree of Knowledge but dies before growing smart. Why gain an eternal soul if you can’t eats it and don’t lives forever? But we eats from the Tree of Life and lives forever, so we can gain all knowledge!<br /><br />
That’s why humans is stupid.<br /><br />
I flits around and searches for other souls to eat and sunshine to play in. Green forest turns cherry-flames then ugly dirt-mud brown and I flies back to home. Always dancing and flowers here! Cobweb dresses and flower crowns. We are all nobles here! I dances and sings and a shadow swoops between me and the sun.<br /><br />
Servant-guard hovers above me, jabbing my shoulder with a spear.<br /><br />
“You must goes to see the Wise One.”<br /><br />
I don’t likes orders, and I don’t likes the Wise One. I dances more, but servant-guard jabs more. Jab! Jab!<br /><br />
“I goes!” I shouts. I fly off to our palace. Servant-guard follows with spiky spear.<br /><br />
Silly humans brags about their palace. Pfft. Rock piles. Dung heaps. Our castles sprout and grow to the sky, melody-green, thistledown soft, rose petal carpets and lily goblets. Spiders weave our best tapestries.<br /><br />
I goes to the throne room. Empty! But trickster servant-guard follows the whole way and tells me to wait. I pulls at a strand in a tapestry and watches it unravel. I don’t likes waiting.<br /><br />
Fern-leaf doors open with silver bell tinkles, and Wise One flits to the throne and perches. Wise One is the first of us to eats from the Tree of Life and so is the oldest and so is the wisest and so we have to listen to the Wise One’s words.<br /><br />
“You knows why you here?”<br /><br />
I squirms and fidgets. I knows. Humans aren’t allowed to see us, but I bites silly-woman and so she sees me. But I thinks only I knows. I stays quiet.<br /><br />
“You eats the soul of a human prince.”<br /><br />
I sits back. Flop-man’s no prince. Stink-wool breeches, slick-leather shoes. No star-sparkly silver or gold. Silly-woman has no crown or jewels.<br /><br />
“Not me!” I laughs. “No prince!”<br /><br />
“Yes, you.” Wise One flitters translucent wings. “Important prince. On a trip to meet his bride.”<br /><br />
I cleans out my ear. Wise One means a different flop-man! One with a big white horse, and a small, shriveled soul. I shrugs. “So? Nobody sees, and soul tastes <i>bitter</i>.”<br /><br />
“Nobody sees, but the prince’s medicine doctor knows. Prince’s father an important emperor. He says we touches his son, he destroys us.”<br /><br />
“He says! Pfft! Blip blip, he’s old and dies! Maybe dead now!”<br /><br />
“He knows how to destroy us.”<br /><br />
I silent. Eating from the Tree of Life means we can’t die. Stab our heart—wound heals! Drown us—we don’t breathe! Starve us—magic feeds us! But a few ways we are destroyed. Crush us to nothing—nothing left! Holy Water—strips our magic, nothing left! I shudders.<br /><br />
Wise One whispers. “I can makes the human king forget.”<br /><br />
I claps my hands and laughs. “Yes! Yes! Forgets everything!” Stupid humans breathes one, two, three times, dies, and <i>still</i> forgets things! So silly.<br /><br />
Wise One flashes pointy teeth. “But you musts pay.”<br /><br />
Sly Wise One! I hugs my shoulders. What does Wise One want? I don’t wants to pay. I fiddles with my wingtips, ready to flies out the window. Perhaps I can escape paying.<br /><br />
“You lives as a human for one year. You know one year?”<br /><br />
I laughs out loud. What’s one year? I live thousands. Easy quick. “Yes! I knows! Winter, summer, fall, spring.” Wise One’s smile widens, and I thinks I have the order mixed up. But no matter—year just a blip blip and done. So short!<br /><br />
Wise One and two servant-guards and I flies into the mountains far far away. Jewel-snow glitters from sun smile. So pretty! Easy to lives as human here! I laughs again and Wise One laughs, too. “Turn around,” Wise One says. Ha! I gets to turn my back on the Wise One! We both laughs harder.<br /><br />
Then Wise One grabs my left wing and wrenches it from my body.<br /><br />
Pain! I screams! But Wise One only grabs my right wing and wrenches it away with a slurpy gritty suck. There’s enough magic left in me to heals the holes in my shoulder blades, but it hurts! I sinks onto the snow blanket and howls. Wise One tosses a wing to each guard, the sunshine glitter-pretty on dainty membranes. I reaches out but already magic leaks out of me and I can’t sees them well.<br /><br />
Wise One leaps up and hovers, and I can’t reach! “One year as human. So fast!” Wise One flitters off into a sunbeam with the servant-guards and my wings.<br /><br />
Anguish! I rolls on the snow. I feels the glass-shard-sharp pain clamps down and wants to stay. Magic too little. Cruel Wise One! Fire-sparks pulses across my back, white-hot, yellow, red, cooler now, fades, and then I feels it. Soft but strong.<br /><br />
Bumpity. Bumpity. Bumpity.<br /><br />
Heart beats! Foggy breaths! Time pulls me forward, blip, blip, blip. I’m older now. And now. And now. And now.<br /><br />
I’m dying!<br /><br />
I howls and writhes on the snow. And now worse! Dying body shivers, dying hands and feet numb. I moans and cries and dying eyes leaks water.<br /><br />
I wails and hiccups and still my heart beats. Bumpity. Bumpity. And now worse. Crunchy. Crunchy. Crunchy.<br /><br />
Relentless pokes to my shoulder and I opens dying eyes. And screams again! Ugly dying human squints at me and I hides my face in my hands. Hideous old woman! All wrinkled leather skin, dead-white hair, cloudy black eyes. She dies soon, and maybe me after! She says something in her stupid-human gravel voice. I shrieks some more, but she won’t goes away. She grabs my hands and pulls, but I won’t stands up. Not for her. She crunch, crunch, crunches away, leaving me to die. I sniffles. I don’t likes humans, but I don’t likes alone, either. Then crunchy, crunchy, crunchy, she comes back, puts a stinky-wool blanket on the snow, and pushes me onto it. I wails and snuffles and she pulls and pulls, panting big fog balls of human breath. She pulls me toward a small deadwood log hovel and into warm damp dimness. She leaves me on the floor, puts sticks on the fire, and sits on a deadwood stool.<br /><br />
The hovel is full of human stink and smoke. I gags and coughs. The woman holds out a cup of water but I dashes it away and resumes wailing. I’m dying! Bumpity. Bumpity. But no more shivers and no more no-feel hands and feet. Instead, arms and legs go all dying-heavy. Even eyelids go all dying-heavy. I closes them and I dies.<br /><br />
Strange not dead! I opens eyes and it’s nighttime. Fire glows dull red like dragon eyes. Old woman lies under a blanket. I lies under a blanket. Not dead. Maybe old woman dead—her eyes closed. But no, breathes in, breathes out, blip, blip. Like me. I wails, and cloudy-black eyes opens. Silly human words. But she doesn’t move, and I pushes at the door and I’m free!<br /><br />
Outside is sleety-rain-snow. Human body all sleek wet and shivery again! I crunches heavy on the snow, icy puddles in my footprints, and frosty toes shoots pain up my shins. Dying human eyes can’t see in the dark. I stands and shudders, and rain slogs my pretty hair across my face. I goes back inside to die.<br /><br />
Old woman grunts her ugly voice and points at the floor. I huddles near the fire and closes my eyes. I will keeps them closed all year until the Wise One returns my wings.<br /><br />
When I opens my eyes, there’s no Wise One. Old woman shuffles on old feet, spoons steamy muck into deadwood bowl from a pot hanging over the fire. Offers it to me, but I scurries back. Speaks silly-human words. I screeches back, and she shakes her head. She eats the muck!<br /><br />
Sun hides its head from my shame, and the gray-sad clouds cry for my pitiful predicament. I opens the door but I don’t goes outside. Awful human body! Doesn’t like cold and wet. I’m stuck with old dying woman. I wonders if a year is almost over.<br /><br />
I sits on the ground next to the fire. I rocks and rocks and moans until the sun gives up and the clouds cry at night. Old woman comes and goes, talks and doesn’t, eats different smelly muck mounds. Sun comes and goes. I don’t shivers anymore, but I’m still dying. Time pulls me closer to death each heartbeat. Bumpity. Bumpity A pain settles and grows in my middle, bigger and bigger, clawing like a trapped badger. I wails.<br /><br />
Old woman offers me words and muck, but look at what the muck has done to her! Back curved like a fiddlehead frond, hair straggly white hoarfrost, hands gnarled elm roots in rocky soil. She sits with a pile of stinky coarse sheep wool and twists it into crude strings with a clattery spinning contraption. She opens her prune mouth and croaks out a ravensong.<br /><br />
I jumps up as if I could still hover. She squawks and stops singing.<br /><br />
I wants her to sing again, but she just milky-eye stares at me. Sing! Sing! But she spins her string with no singing.<br /><br />
I thinks hard. Every human word I ever hears, long memories, I fills my head. Shouts and whispers I hears while hiding from crowds and soldiers and shepherds and lovers and killers. So many words I focuses on, comes together like a fancy dance.<br /><br />
“Sing it,” I says, and the old woman squawks again.<br /><br />
“You can talk after all,” she says.<br /><br />
“I want to after all.” My tongue gags on human words. “Sing the song.”<br /><br />
She little-bit straightens her curly back. “Why should I?”<br /><br />
“Because I wants to hear it. Because it’s our song. But you haves the words wrong.”<br /><br />
“If you know it, why don’t you sing it?”<br /><br />
Am I silly now I’m human? Of course I should sing! My voice is dull-knife human, but still prettier than raven croak. I sings, and the old woman stands and shuffle-dances, even though I sings no magic in my song.<br /><br />
“Listening to you makes me feel young again,” she says, and wipes her eyes. Of course! She must be sad she’s dying! Surely eating from the Tree of Knowledge would make humans know they ate from the wrong tree! I laughs but the trapped badger in my middle claws at me and I grips my stomach.<br /><br />
The old woman scoops muck into a bowl. “You should eat.”<br /><br />
I sniffs the bowl. No honeysuckle-sweet soul, or salt-sea tang of magic. I moans.<br /><br />
“If you don’t eat, you’ll starve to death.”<br /><br />
Evil Wise One knows I must eats human muck! I tries to spoon all the muck in my mouth at once and swallows it without tasting, but I retches.<br /><br />
“Slow down, now. You’re choking yourself.”<br /><br />
O unfair Wise One! I’ll dies if I eats, and dies if I don’t! But trapped badger claws for more, so I eats slow. Badger falls quiet.<br /><br />
Old woman takes empty bowl. “What’s your name?”<br /><br />
“I have no name.”<br /><br />
“No name? How can you have no name?”<br /><br />
“Because I don’t.”<br /><br />
“Then what should I call you?”<br /><br />
“Why should you call me anything?”<br /><br />
“Why indeed? Why did I bother rescuing you in the first place? I thought you were a hurt child when I showed you God’s mercy, but you can go out in the cold where I found you if you can’t show some decency.”<br /><br />
I shrieks. “Silly woman wants me to gives names I don’t have!”<br /><br />
“Then I bestow upon you the name of Thorn, because you are a pain in my side!”<br /><br />
Horrid human life! Every day closer to death, and no forgetting because bumpity bumpity heart beats running out, and each night sleepy-eyed pretend death, and each day more muck for needy human body. I asks old woman if it’s been a year since she finds me, and she laughs.<br /><br />
“A year? Not yet a fortnight!”<br /><br />
I moans. “How much longer?”<br /><br />
She tilts her head like an autumn sunflower. “Thirty times the days you’ve been here, and still not quite a year.”<br /><br />
I falls to my knees. “So long?”<br /><br />
“Time passes faster when you’re busy.” Old woman hands me a broom.<br /><br />
Tedious human life! And wily old woman! Life so short, yet fills with busy work to keep beating hearts. I don’t want busy work, but if I don’t bring in wood, the fire’s breath grows cold. If I don’t pluck a chicken, the wily woman won’t cook it, and the trapped badger in my stomach likes juicy hot chicken. One day there is no chicken, so I kills one, plucks it, and hands it to old woman.<br /><br />
She diving-hawk screeches. “Where did you get that?”<br /><br />
I laughs. “From the pen outside.” Silly human!<br /><br />
She picks a red feather off my front. “You just killed one of my laying chickens, you fool! We’ve eaten all the old hens and the rest are for eggs. We’re done with meat this winter, you understand?”<br /><br />
I puts the dead chicken on the table. “But you’ll cook this one. Yes?”<br /><br />
Old woman shares with me human clothes. Itchy-scritchy sweater, inside-down dead sheepskin coat. Heavy on my shoulders, and much too big. Hands disappear in sleeves, and the coat almost reaches my ankles. Gritty rough on my skin, but I can go outside without shivers, in cowskin boots that falls off my feet. I wears my cobweb slippers and tunic underneath. Too few clothes, so only one of us outside at a time. I trudges into the woods and flings myself down on the snow. I can’t fly, I can’t dance, I can’t skip on snow. Pitiful humans. Lives so short but they must wants to die.<br /><br />
I returns to the old woman with a dead lynx.<br /><br />
“Where did you get that?”<br /><br />
“Outside.” Silly woman! “Not your chicken,” I adds helpfully.<br /><br />
“You don’t eat lynx, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She baleful eyes me. “But the fur will bring in good money in town. You know how to skin it?”<br /><br />
She tells me what animals to hunt. Some for soft furry hides, some for meat. Whatever she suggests, I brings her, especially juicy meats. I brings her a skinned hare, and she smiles.<br /><br />
“I haven’t been this well fed in winter for years. At least not since my husband died. Our son wasn’t much of a hunter.” She gives me a pot to fill with water, then chops up the hare. She thunks through bone with her sharp knife. Her voice gets ragged quiet. “How do you catch all these animals?”<br /><br />
“I call for them and when they come I break their necks.”<br /><br />
She shakes her hoarfrost head. “I trust in God to guide my heart, for I have no understanding.” I grabs at a leg bone but she slaps my hand away. I’m not allowed to eat raw meat. She tosses rabbit chunks into water. “Why haven’t you asked me what my name is?”<br /><br />
“Why should I? Blip blip and…” I was going to say, “year is over, and blip I go and blip you die so why bother?” I stop because time is different now. It goes slow, and I feels the days before, and the days to come, like never before. Past, present, future mean something. And old woman is part of the meaning. “What is your name?”<br /><br />
“Erhi.”<br /><br />
I turns it over in my head like a bird feather. “What am I supposed to do with a name?”<br /><br />
She laughs at me. “Maybe nothing. But now you know it if you want it.”<br /><br />
Snow deepens then melts and ferns uncurl. Old woman uncurls as well, straighter, skin-bones plumped, cheeks old-apple soft and round and pink. She laughs at me a lot, like when I heat water for baths every night. “Who needs a bath every night?”<br /><br />
Luxurious baths! I lug in the water, heat it over the fire, then float in a tin tub until the water grows cold, feeling weightless as if I still had my wings. But getting out I’m cold and shivery, and my body feels heavier than ever. I want to wail, but old woman doesn’t like it, so I don’t. I make her a bath.<br /><br />
“What is this now?”<br /><br />
“So you know how good a bath feels.”<br /><br />
“I know how it feels, Thorn! I’m the one who insisted you bathe in the first place! Still, the buckets are heavy, so it is very thoughtful of you.” She kisses my cheek with raisin-soft lips.<br /><br />
I wipe off my cheek with my hand. I seen humans kiss before, and it always confuses me. I think about all the kisses I have spied—lovers, mothers, fathers, grandparents with babies, girls with kittens. I think it has something to do with heartbeats. I will see as many humans as blades of grass, but short-lived dying humans have one-two-three heartbeats before they die and never see another human again. Perhaps that awareness is all that stupid humans got from the Tree of Knowledge.<br /><br />
I don’t like these thoughts.<br /><br />
Old woman slips and slops to the village in melting snow, carrying some of the furs. Only one pair of boots, so I stays near the fire and watches it crackle while my heart bumpity bumps. Tedious human life! I goes to the door over and over. The sun gets bored and leaves. No old woman! Finally crunch crunch on snow and old woman slips out of nighttime with a big sack over her shoulders.<br /><br />
“I don’t like deadwood house alone!” I shriek. If I could fly I would pulls her hair.<br /><br />
She clumps her sack, sits heavy on a chair, and wheezes. “That make two of us, Thorn.”<br /><br />
I want her to cook me food, but she opens her sack instead. There’s food inside, and other things—small boots, small dead-sheep coat, small itchy-wool sweater, and more.<br /><br />
“I bought all this with the furs you caught. You have your own clothes now.”<br /><br />
New clothes feel strange. Old clothes are too big and feels like hiding under a blanket, but new stiff clothes trap my feet and body. Easier to fit, but deader. Did the Wise One know how this would feel? I think I live forever already, but really this year is forever.<br /><br />
Old woman frowns at my encased body. “It would be nice if you said thank you.”<br /><br />
I do not say thank you.<br /><br />
Flowers bloom in the valley. Next time old woman goes to town she brings me carrying heavy soft furs: lynx, fox, marten, ermine, mink, bundled on my back. I trudges down the middle of the road, and stupid-humans gawks at me. Never before could they see me so clearly, and I don’t likes it. I twitch my shoulders to fly away, but I can’t. So I looks at the sky and fly away in my head.<br /><br />
Three men stand in front of us. Since I can’t fly, they block our way. Irritating!<br /><br />
First man has blinky frog eyes, but not so nice. “Hey, Erhi, who’s that with you?”<br /><br />
She keeps walking. “That’s Thorn.”<br /><br />
“Thorn?” Frog-eye-man sucks on his leech-lips. “What the hell are you? A tiny man? Or a girl?”<br /><br />
I don’t likes frog-eye-man. “I doesn’t matter to you.”<br /><br />
“I’m just curious. You a tiny woman?”<br /><br />
I looks up at the sky.<br /><br />
“Thorn is one of God’s creatures just like you and me,” old woman says, “and as such deserves either your respect or your silence.”<br /><br />
Man with a beard like an undocked sheep’s tail steps alongside me. I don’t likes him either. “One of God’s creatures, eh?” He laughs. “That explains it! You’re Erhi’s pack animal!”<br /><br />
Third man is all lumpy mud-soft belly. He talks to old woman instead of me and opens a door in a big deadwood building. She has me follow her inside and set my fur bundle on a wooden table. She talks with lumpy mud man. Room is full of shelves, shelves is full of so many things! I grab a copper pot all glittery like moonlight on marsh water.<br /><br />
“I give you a good price on that.” Lumpy man’s voice is singsong funny, like he’s trying to put magic in it but can’t. I don’t like him, so I don’t feel sorry.<br /><br />
“Put that back.” Old woman’s voice has no magic either. Just annoyance. “I don’t need a new pot.”<br /><br />
I put the pot back. Then I open a glass jar of shiny colored balls. Balls smell of sugar! I pop one in my mouth.<br /><br />
“Stop it, Thorn! Just keep your hands to yourself.”<br /><br />
“My hands are always to myself!” I shrieks. “Who else would have them?”<br /><br />
I go outside. I have seen the town before. After all, I lives forever. Maybe I’ve seen everywhere! I clomp in my deadboots down the street and straight to the biggest building in town. Pretty buttercup yellow with shiny clean windows! I open the door and go inside.<br /><br />
Warm but not smoky! Floor covered in soft ripe-cherry rug. A vase of lilacs in front of a staircase, the railing carved into delicate wooden vines, only a crude imitation of our own palaces, but a welcome sight. I take off my boots and my toes sink into cherry softness. I go upstairs into a room with a large bed covered with a bluebell blanket. So inviting! I lay down. Bed is full of feathers instead of straw. Soft as a cloud! Much better than my sleeping place with the old woman. My weak-human body is tired, so I close my eyes. I’m used to sleep now. It’s no longer frightening.<br /><br />
Loud screams are frightening! “What are you doing in here?”<br /><br />
I bolt upright. The room is twilight dim. A girl with horsetail hair down her back cringes at the door.<br /><br />
“I like it here,” I tell her. Silly girl doesn’t understand! I lay down again. “I want to stay here.”<br /><br />
“But…” She gulps air. “This is my room! Get out of my room!”<br /><br />
Annoying girl! I can’t sleep! I turn over and cover my ears. She whines and stomps away.<br /><br />
Soon more stomps, heavier, and a click. “Get out of my daughter’s room right now.”<br /><br />
Guns are a new plaything for humans. Aim too poor and us too fast to often cause pain. Still, I don’t likes them—loud and smoky and makes sharp rips if not too careful. But now sheep-tail man stands in the doorway, long musket pointing to my heart. Which goes bumpity bump because I’m human! I could die! I have been dying already, but I could die right now! Unfair!<br /><br />
“I don’t want to die,” I whimper.<br /><br />
“Then get the hell out of my house and the hell out of this town. Now.”<br /><br />
I slink down the stairs and run and run until lungs hurt and legs hurt and I can’t run anymore. The trail is long and lonely and I walk while twilight purples. Finally, I see the cottage with a candle in the window. I go inside and curl up on my poky straw pallet.<br /><br />
“Thorn! I was wondering where you wandered off to.”<br /><br />
I face the wall. “I want a feather bed.”<br /><br />
“And I want gold plates. Here.” I hear a ladle scooping muck into a bowl. Then I hear her shuffle next to where I lay. “Thorn, are you shaking?”<br /><br />
My body is shaking, even though it’s not cold. It’s never done that before. Frail human body! Not only am I dying, other humans could make me die faster! Or a hungry wolf! Or a falling tree branch! Or an annoyed bull! I pull the blanket over me, head and all, and block out the horrible world.<br /><br />
Old woman sets the bowl down. I wait until I hear her blow out the candle, mutter her nightly God-words, and lay on her own bed before I snake my arm out and pull the bowl under my blanket.<br /><br />
“I want to never die,” I mutter to myself.<br /><br />
I think old woman is asleep, but she replies. “You have a lot of wants tonight.” She shifts in her bed. I think she’s sitting up, but I still have the blanket over my head. “If you don’t die, you’ll never see God.”<br /><br />
I yank the blanket off. “If I never die, I don’t need to see God!”<br /><br />
Old woman takes a while before she speaks, all quiet. “I’ll also see my husband again. I miss him.”<br /><br />
I can see her in the dark. She lies still and sleepy-like, but her eyes stay open for a long time.<br /><br />
Days get long and hot. Surely, it’s been a year? But no, old woman says it’s only half that! “It’ll be a year when it snows again.” So long! So long stuck in one place instead of flitting about the world! But the world’s dangerous now. I refuse to return to town but old woman gets too tired to go alone. Even if I carry everything we go slowly and rest often, and don’t return to the cabin until the long summer day is worn out. When the maples flame golden yellow I go to town alone, scurry into the store to trade for items old woman wants. I’m allowed to get sugar-balls as a reward.<br /><br />
Lumpy mud man in the store asks questions as he gathers old woman wants. “How’s Erhi? She was moving slow last time she came in.”<br /><br />
I wants the man to hurry before any guns get pointed at me. “She wants me to come here by myself, even when I don’t like it!”<br /><br />
“Listen.” Man hands me my lumpy-full sack, but won’t let go of it. “I don’t know where you came from or why you’re staying with Erhi. But you take care of her. After her husband died, her son stayed with her only until he was old enough to run off to the city. She deserves better. You hurt Erhi, and you will pay.”<br /><br />
Store-man wants to kill me! My body shakes and I snatch the sack away. “I don’t hurt her and I don’t pay!”<br /><br />
That night I crouch next to old woman in her bed. If I had my wings I would’ve crouched on her chest, but now I’m human heavy and she would wake. I start to sing, but there is no magic in my voice and my human eyes can’t see if her soul is stirred. But she sighs and smiles in her sleep.<br /><br />
Store-man is wrong. Even if I could still sing her soul out, it wouldn’t hurt at all. I think, old woman’s soul surely tastes better than roast chicken. Once I no longer have human hunger and a human heart, it will be good to eat souls again.<br /><br />
But maybe not old woman’s soul.<br /><br />
Days get colder and darker. I wear my deadsheep coat again. The sky sprinkles snow on the world and the ground slurps it up. Old woman makes me an itchy wool cap. “It’s been almost a year since I found you, Thorn,” she says.<br /><br />
A year! I run outside. Snow sticks to my new cap then melts. I wait, but I hear no buzzing talk, feel no secret pokes. “Is it a year?” I ask.<br /><br />
“I said <i>almost </i>a year.” Old woman is sitting next to the fire, which she does almost all day now. How boring!<br /><br />
Each day more cold and more snow. Still “not quite.” Then one day is so cold the pond freezes over. My favorite—dancing on ice in the moonlight! How I miss it! I can’t wait! I free myself from heavy coat and clompy boots and slide and twirl. Cold, yes, but I can almost forget I’m human. Almost!<br /><br />
The ice breaks.<br /><br />
I plunge into a cold darkness I’ve never known before. Human body needs air but can’t find any. Glass shards above my head, body ice-burns with cold. I’m going to die! Then hand grabs my shoulder and pulls! I sputter into air again and flail my limbs like an upside-down water beetle.<br /><br />
“Stand up, Thorn! Stand up and get inside!”<br /><br />
But I can’t stand up. So cold! Old woman pulls me forward until my knees squish into the muddy cream at the pond bottom. Old woman has her arm around me. I uncurl and we wade out of the water on four shaky stick legs. We stagger into her house and I moan just like the first time she saw me, collapse in front of the fire just like the first time. But now old woman collapses next to me.<br /><br />
Shivery shock wants to close my eyes, so I rest until shivering stops. Then I get up and take off muddy wet clothes. I’m not going to die after all! I should warm up water for a luxurious bath!<br /><br />
But old woman lies still in a muddy puddle.<br /><br />
Her hands are cold as dead hands. Breath rattles slow and gargly. Eyes closed. Is she dying now? I poke her cheek. “Hey!”<br /><br />
If she dies, I will be in the house alone. “Erhi!” I shout. If she dies, it’s because she saved me.<br /><br />
Eyes tease half-open. “Batu? Is that you?”<br /><br />
“No. It’s me. Thorn.” Memories crowd into my brain. <i>Batu.</i> I know that name. I see a dark night, an uppy-downy ride on a man’s chest, a soul almost wriggling out of reach. When I remove old woman’s sodden clothing, I see where pearly scar tissue from my bite mark mars the soft flesh on her collarbone. I wash away the mud with warm water, carry her to bed, and pile all the blankets I can find on her. Then I sit, because I don’t have anything else to do.<br /><br />
The fire hisses and pops and buzzes. I feel a slight tug on my hair, a hand on my cheek. Hands press hard on both temples, and suddenly my human eyes see Wise One’s face a few inches from my own.<br /><br />
“A year ago I left you here, and now blip blip a year is done! So fast!”<br /><br />
“A year is done? I can have my wings back?”<br /><br />
Wise One nods and laughs, and I feel my heart lift—bumpity bump—its last lift because I’m done being human! I turn around and present my bare back, my feet already dancing. Then I spy Erhi under her mountain of blankets.<br /><br />
“Wait—”<br /><br />
Too late! Wise One stabs my left wing into its socket. Pain! I crumple to the floor, but already relief, and my vision clears. But my stomach is queasy. I shield myself with my hands.<br /><br />
“Stop! Not yet! I need to help her first.”<br /><br />
Wise One, holding my right wing, stops in mid-stab, face twisted in confusion. “Humans die. This human almost dead. Blip, dead! You can’t help.”<br /><br />
My heart is slowing. Even with my sharper ears I can barely hear it. “She’s dying because of me.”<br /><br />
“Many humans have died because of you!” Wise One laughs, then leans close enough to sniff me. Confusion displaced by smugness. “I see! Too long a human!”<br /><br />
“I am not!” But I sniff myself. Am I?<br /><br />
“And in only one year!” Wise One’s teeth are all sharp and smiley. “Head full of silly human thoughts. And, like your heartbeat, soon to be gone. Or do you not want your wings?”<br /><br />
Why is that a question? I want them more than anything! But I look at old woman, at Erhi. Prune-faced, a deflated sack of old bones, soon to be dirt, under stinky wool because silly humans can’t keep their bodies warm alone. Old woman, knowing this and still wading in pond ice to get me. Blip blip, she will die, and there is nothing I can do.<br /><br />
I turn my back towards Wise One, who with a cackle rams my right wing back into its socket. Another explosion of pain, and I vomit again and again until all the human food is out of my stomach. By the time I finish, Wise One is gone.<br /><br />
My body tingles. I flutter wings and my feet leave the ground. Then I stand still and listen inside myself. I don’t feel it anymore—the bumpity bump, the pull pull pull of time. I’m not dying! I crow out with joy.<br /><br />
I hover over old woman. I sing, and her soul is so fragile it almost breaks free at the first note. I stop and let her soul sink back into her trembling old body. She already has all the blankets, so I spread my dead sheep coat on top like a mountain snowcap. Then I build a pyramid of logs next to the fire, place a pitcher of water and bread next to her pillow. I whoop and fly into the night sky.<br /><br />
Moonlight shines so beautiful on my wings! The pond is refrozen, so I could dance. But I’m not the same. My wings are sluggish and unwieldy. I feel heavy but not weighty. So I fly and fly and fly to the one place I haven’t been forever. I pass the Guardians with their swords three times as big as me, and one of them nods solemnly. The Garden isn’t forbidden to us because there were no prohibitions when we ate from the Tree. But it’s beyond the world now and no reason to go. I greet the stars by name—why do they have names, but not us?—and they light my way to eternal dawn and two sister trees on a hilltop piercing the sky to reach beyond infinity. The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. To reach even the lowest branches is wearying, especially with sluggish wings. But finally I perch on the Tree of Life in a nest of leaves and pink-cheeked fruit. I bite into one still dangling from its umbilical stem. It is ecstasy and confirmation and eternity, all the magic that had seeped away in a blip year of humanity. I eat another. And another! I will live twice forever! I will dance on ice in moonlight, and traverse the paths of sunbeams! I wonder again at silly humans choosing the small, dark fruits on the Tree of Knowledge. Just looking at the tree makes me shudder! Humans.<br /><br />
It is time to go. I pocket one last pink-cheeked fruit and fly and fly. This time, wings feel no weariness. Light and quick instead of heavy and sluggish! I dance as I fly with motes of dust and butterflies. My fingers and toes spark and my skin magic-crackles. I could fly to a mountaintop or the moon. Or a mountaintop on the moon!<br /><br />
I will do those later.<br /><br />
Sun shines winter-bright on Erhi’s cabin. No smoke curls out of the chimney. No footprints on the snow. How many days have I been gone? Without time pulling me forward, I didn’t notice. It is still winter.<br /><br />
I go inside. The fire is out. It is cold and smells bad. The wood and food I left for her sit untouched. She is still under her mound of blankets. I touch her cheek. Breath so soft it’s almost non-breath.<br /><br />
“Erhi! You can’t die! I have something for you to eat!”<br /><br />
I laugh and reach into my pocket for the pink-cheeked fruit. Silly humans eat from the Tree of Knowledge, but I’m wise enough to bring fruit from the Tree of Life!<br /><br />
My pocket is empty.<br /><br />
I turn it inside out and a little pink dust flutters to the ground. The fruit can’t leave the Garden! I smear the dust on Erhi’s parched lips and wail when nothing happens. No fair! I did a good thing and it didn’t work! Why do humans ever bother? Why bother with humans?<br /><br />
Why did Erhi bother with me?<br /><br />
I huddle under my wings. I don’t feel like dancing. I build a fire, all crackly-cheery, and put a pot of water on to boil. Silly humans, but silly me for dancing on ice while human. Silly Erhi for not letting me die, even though humans die. Or maybe not silly. I didn’t want to die. Life is precious when you have so little. I didn’t know that.<br /><br />
On the wall next to the door is a sturdy iron peg where our heavy winter coats would hang. I yank at it as hard as I can, but it won’t come out of the wall. I must move fast and not think! I hover up, hook one wing over the peg, and hurl myself to the ground. My wing hangs free on the peg! I moan with pain, jump up, and do it again. Both wings free!<br /><br />
Keep moving, keep not thinking! I grab my wings and bring them to Erhi’s chopping block. I take the sharp knife she used to cut up chicken and sever my wings into small bits. I dump them in the boiling water. The air smells like joy and my nose tingles with hunger and nausea. The mountain of blankets stirs.<br /><br />
No time! Magic is already dissipating. I ladle broth into a bowl and bring it to the old woman. “Eat, Erhi.” I dribble a spoonful into her mouth. Throat gags, chest heaves. She swallows. Second spoonful goes easier. By end of bowl I lift her snow-haired head and pour broth into her mouth.<br /><br />
“Is that you, Thorn?”<br /><br />
“It’s me, Erhi.”<br /><br />
Eyes still closed. “I don’t remember you saying my name before.” Unparched lips smile. “It’s nice.”<br /><br />
I think a moment. Perhaps I understand names now.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
My wings gave me eternity, magic, flight, boundless strength, thoughtless immortality.<br /><br />
They give Erhi six months.<br /><br />
They are six happy months. She downs all my broth and is out of bed by dawn. Still old, but aches and pains are gone! Eyesight restored! We journey to town together when supplies are low. We plant peonies alongside her vegetables. She asks me to sing, and we dance on the solid bank of the pond. I tell her the true names of the stars.<br /><br />
One summer night we lie on blankets watching the stars. Erhi speaks. “It has been a blessing to have you here, Thorn. For a long while all I wanted was for God to take me so I could see Batu again. And I know that will happen soon. But until then, I appreciate your company.”<br /><br />
Inside my ribcage a trapped bird flutters. It happens every time she mentions her husband. “How do you know you’ll see Batu again?”<br /><br />
“Because he was a good man, and I’ve tried to be a good woman. So when I go to God, Batu’s soul should be there with Him in heaven.”<br /><br />
“How do you know for sure?” How can so few words make me so uneasy? “What if something ate his soul?”<br /><br />
She laughs. “You can’t eat a soul!”<br /><br />
I think I should tell her. “Maybe one of God’s creatures could.”<br /><br />
“A person’s soul is immortal. And immortal is immortal. It can’t be eaten!”<br /><br />
I used to be immortal, but I’m not now. And I ate souls. Erhi needs to know she’s wrong! “I—”<br /><br />
“Hush!” Her voice is angry fierce. “Why are you telling me this? Maybe you know things I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear them. And maybe I know things, too. Maybe I remember everything about the night Batu died. Maybe I remember your face. I’ve seen the marks on your shoulder blades. When you showed up howling and helpless as a child years later in the exact same place I found my husband’s body, I believed God was giving me a life to replace his death. And I never questioned it. Because God is <i>good</i>, Thorn, and don’t try to convince me otherwise.”<br /><br />
Memories fill my head. When the Wise One brought me here, I hadn’t recognized the snow-covered hillside as the very same place that I’d eaten Batu’s soul. How had the Wise One known? “Why would God give me as a gift?”<br /><br />
“Well, he could’ve given me a set of gold plates, but to a lonely old woman, you were more appreciated.” She laughs and rests her hand on mine, all chicken bones and wrinkled skin. “Although maybe not so much at first.”<br /><br />
The next morning she did not get out of bed. Stupid humans, full of emotions that choke the throat and water the eyes! I had hoped to be with her at the end to ask if she saw Batu, but I was sleeping when she died. So I don’t know if I ruined her eternity.<br /><br />
I decided to remain in her cabin. I know how to survive here as a human. And I, who have watched seedlings grow into towering sentinels, am content at watching the peonies outside her door blossom, and I give names to the prettiest ones. Sometimes I wake after whisper-filled dreams to find my hair snarled and braided, and one time I feel hands press against my temples and the Wise One’s face appears before mine.<br /><br />
“It’s true! One of us chooses to be human! Or is that still your choice?”<br /><br />
“My wings are gone, so I have no choice.”<br /><br />
Wise One laughs. “Always choices! I always have someone who needs punishing. You could have their wings!”<br /><br />
Stupid heart, why does it leap? But if I took the wings, I’d have no heart left. “I don’t want them.”<br /><br />
Wise One rears back. “Why not?”<br /><br />
“I want to find out what happens to the souls we eat.”<br /><br />
“Pfft! You want to die for that?” Wise One leans forward. “Want me to eat your soul now?”<br /><br />
“I have a soul?”<br /><br />
“You’re human, aren’t you? You have a nice, tender soul, like a child’s. Delicious!”<br /><br />
It’s the last time I see the Wise One. But from time to time I wake to a howling in the field and discover a small person huddled on the ground with marks on their shoulder blades. They stay with me for six months, or a year, or two, and then one morning they are gone.<br /><br />
My pretty hair is turning gray now. Blip blip, and soon I will be gone, although it doesn’t feel like blip blip anymore. And when I die maybe I will see God and Erhi and Batu, although I don’t know if I believe that. Why is it that humans ate from the Tree of Knowledge and still don’t know what to believe? Silly humans.<br /><br />
But Erhi believed it, and for me, that’s enough.<br /><br />
<hr />
Ann McCurdy is pleased as punch to have her story accepted by <i>Mysterion</i>! Born and bred in the Pacific Northwest, she has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Washington, worked at Microsoft many years ago, then left to start a family and return to the UW for a Master’s in teaching. She currently lives in Seattle with her wonderful husband—and sometimes their son, when he and his laundry return from college. She likes tutoring math, reading, writing, gardening, and the great outdoors. She is working on her first novel, <i>The Ninth Aspect</i>, a YA fantasy, and really hopes it someday appears in a Bookstore Near You.<br /><br />
Ann says her story was partly inspired by Bowerick Wowbagger, a mortal in <i>Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy</i> who is granted immortality and doesn’t know how to handle it. (To fill his endless time, he decides to insult everyone in the universe.) “I thought up possible traits that would make immortality endurable and came up with Thorn’s extreme ‘live in the now’ outlook. I like the idea that moving from immortal to mortal brought a spirituality that Thorn’s life previously lacked.”<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>“The Carelessness of Endless Summers” by Ann McCurdy. Copyright
© 2023 by Ann McCurdy<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-27780142021879785782023-08-13T21:50:00.000-04:002023-08-13T21:50:51.699-04:00August 2023
Our July submission period has now ended. Thank you to everyone who submitted a story! We received 275 stories that we are now busy reading. We expect to have read all the stories and made our decisions by the end of November. <div><br /></div><div>We have previously <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2018/02/the-end-of-beginning.html?m=1" target="_blank">explained our process</a> and <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2018/11/the-queue-and-you.html" target="_blank">how the queue works</a>, and nothing has changed much. But we'll explain again for people who hate following links.</div><div><br /></div><div>When a story first arrives, it goes into our unclaimed pile. From there, Donald and Kristin and our first readers can claim them, either one at a time or several at once. Donald and the first readers tend to grab the earliest stories first. Kristin tends to claim the stories from authors we know and/or have published before. You might think this shows favoritism, but unfortunately for them, Kristin is the most selective of our readers, and fewer stories make it past her than anyone else. We do like to give personalized rejections to people we know or have worked with before, though, and Kristin is best at that. Donald tends to just hit the form rejection button.</div><div><br /></div><div>After the first pass, which rejects 67-80% of the stories, first readers send their surviving stories to the Second Round pile, which Donald and Kristin check periodically to see if there are stories they need to read. When Donald or Kristin read a story, whether taken from the unclaimed stories or the Second Round stories, and decide it might be one we want to publish, we send the story to the other editor. If the other person agrees, that story goes to the Final Round pile. These are all stories which we agree would be good stories for <i>Mysterion</i>, but typically we end up with about 20 stories in Final Round at the end of the submission period, after we've read everything. We don't usually accept any story until we've read them all. And we typically only have room for 7 stories from each submission period, so we always end up rejecting more than half of the stories we'd like to publish. </div><div><br /></div><div>As you can see, the order in which stories are read can be variable. Since you don't know who grabbed your story, and how many other stories they have to read, and how quickly they'll get through them, it's hard to tell how close your story is to a decision solely by its place in the queue. It also depends on the reader's priorities. First readers only do the first pass. Kristin tends to prioritize stories which no one has read, while Donald prioritizes stories he's received from others, whether from Kristin or Second Round. We do read all the stories (unless they exceed our word count limit of 9000 words), though not necessarily all the way through.</div><div><br /></div><div>For those who obsessively watch their position in the queue, some advice:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Don't worry if your story sits at the head of the queue for the while. It could mean that someone claimed it and hasn't gotten to it yet, but it could also mean that it's made it past one (or more) readers, and is waiting for the next reader to have a chance to look at it. It could even be in the Final Round, and you won't hear anything until we make our final decisions at the end. </li><li>Don't worry if your story gets rejected without ever making it near the front of the queue. That doesn't mean we didn't read it. Either there are a lot of stories ahead of yours that made it to Second Round or Final Round, or it's been read out of order, because Kristin grabbed it or other stories are sitting in someone's personal queue.</li></ul><div>We hope this helps those who are interested or anxious to better understand our process, and we look forward to reading your stories!</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Although we haven't read enough of the July submissions to identify any particular trends, we're always developing our understanding of what exactly it is that we're looking for. We've realized recently that we aren't so into stories about whether or not something is a sin, especially if your primary goal as an author seems to be convincing the reader to agree with you. This is equally true whether the point of your story is that traditionalist Christians need to lighten up, or that more liberal Christians don't take sin seriously enough, and we receive plenty of stories from both perspectives. </div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">COMING SOON...</h3><div>Our August story, by Ann McCurdy, is about an immortal fairy creature forced to spend one year as a human, who wonders why humans were foolish enough to choose the Tree of Knowledge over the Tree of Life. Don't miss "The Carelessness of Endless Summer", appearing on August 28th!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">PATREON</h3><div>Many thanks to those who increased their <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> support to get us back over the $200/month mark! This will allow us to continue featuring new artwork every 3 months instead of having to go to every 4 months.</div><div><br /></div><div>We're now at $207/month. If you're not supporting us yet, please consider signing up to help us meet our next fundraising goal! Once we're at $275/month, we'll be able to start publishing 16 stories each year instead of 14.</div><div><br /></div><div>$3/month is the level that gets you early access to all our stories, delivered to your inbox (or viewable on our Patreon page), but even $1/month includes behind-the-scenes posts about our publishing adventures, and the ability to participate in our monthly Discord chats. $10/month also includes an e-book of all the upcoming stories every 2 months. </div><div><br /></div><div>It costs a lot to publish <i>Mysterion</i>, and we don't make any money off of it. If you appreciate what we're doing, helping us out with regular financial contributions through Patreon is the best way to support us.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second best way is to buy copies of our two anthologies! Both are available as paperbacks or e-books. The original <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mysterion-Rediscovering-Mysteries-Christian-Faith/dp/0997256508/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=backoftheenve-20&linkId=a0ee3a576b348b3280819ad1b0eb5515" target="_blank">Mysterion</a></i> anthology includes stories that you can't find anywhere else. <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0997256540?pf_rd_r=27PH3A3KWK0GDY0C6VNG&pf_rd_p=5ae2c7f8-e0c6-4f35-9071-dc3240e894a8&pd_rd_r=98665045-53e8-4070-a935-aec715d7b6e0&pd_rd_w=zNFUf&pd_rd_wg=uZScJ&ref_=pd_gw_unk" target="_blank">Mysterion 2: Stories from the Online Magazine 2018-19</a></i> is exactly what you'd think from the name; however, even though you can read all the stories here at our website with no paywall, it's an attractive book that will look great on your shelf or that of another fantasy & science fiction lover, and the e-book is a great option for those who find that format more convenient than having to click through to each story. (There are also <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/buy.html" target="_blank">non-Amazon options</a> available. But keep in mind that, since we use Amazon's KDP Publishing for the paperbacks, if you order them from Barnes & Noble instead, Barnes & Noble will just order them from Amazon and ship them on to you. E-books sold on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes are published directly through those platforms, with no Amazon connection.)<br /></div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">OTHER NEWS</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVxr6QwbqOOKspPvgKrMkq7tYIW5T07u8NbrDJ55xzMKrITD22Gd12KrLIwV9ZBmSryE4feOjyjs0BAPzEIxHst5M4Vmt6ctLsP6dEhuKDn1JdvvXKi7enEOIp4n6yPw7GWAqQmtNieRqAaqPdVZlanZSayYghJo2RYRJ03yhbcpuIWHtuClCuEMoqtUc/s4032/IMG_3357.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVxr6QwbqOOKspPvgKrMkq7tYIW5T07u8NbrDJ55xzMKrITD22Gd12KrLIwV9ZBmSryE4feOjyjs0BAPzEIxHst5M4Vmt6ctLsP6dEhuKDn1JdvvXKi7enEOIp4n6yPw7GWAqQmtNieRqAaqPdVZlanZSayYghJo2RYRJ03yhbcpuIWHtuClCuEMoqtUc/w480-h640/IMG_3357.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>Kristin has been enjoying the chance to get outside and enjoy the summer weather, with some hiking (see photo above), a beach day in Rhode Island, and a polo match north of Boston (as a spectator, not a player). Donald is still traveling a lot for work to Houston, where he tries to avoid going outside as much as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>Right now, Kristin's 17-year-old nephew Sam is visiting us from Calgary for two and a half weeks. We started off his Boston visit with a trip to New York City, visiting Times Square, the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park, the 9/11 Memorial, and the One World Observatory in the new World Trade Center tower.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DheDtz4r8vz66qPdE8bIyDeEtgoF5jYTXGPQRl8MlD_2ifN24Glu--MXdKbX8YXv6DnGdeSKDEdHJj2Yl89olXQY6zHOUEwlQHjwwOUg3upnxbI5-d8Khr28GSPW2CEU8H0zoG3keXrLYsJSurxZEc8lpsu77Tj5BxRRvV8-byc_VgKi2bBB7kVZ6j-P/s2016/image2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DheDtz4r8vz66qPdE8bIyDeEtgoF5jYTXGPQRl8MlD_2ifN24Glu--MXdKbX8YXv6DnGdeSKDEdHJj2Yl89olXQY6zHOUEwlQHjwwOUg3upnxbI5-d8Khr28GSPW2CEU8H0zoG3keXrLYsJSurxZEc8lpsu77Tj5BxRRvV8-byc_VgKi2bBB7kVZ6j-P/w640-h480/image2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Our cat Maxwell hasn't had any recent ER or urgent care visits, and his new urinary care diet seems to be keeping the struvite crystals under control. Since cats that develop dangerous amounts of struvite or calcium oxalate crystals in their bladders are often dehydrated, we've set up additional water fountains throughout the house to encourage him to drink more. The latest one arrived in a box that doubles as a food puzzle. Despite Maxwell dominating the action in this video, Marie was the one who managed to get the treats out of the box.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dypIRNyshXGLBI_9crglGMY54H3LjGGxZyl37vQLjtlReDF0OV_5-FFF013GkekNHrpggK9FaBmQ_Rs-4bH_w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Maxwell and Marie both enjoy spending time on the porch, especially when the weather's decent and we have the windows open. Although they aren't great mousers (or maybe the mice just don't spend a lot of time where the cats are allowed to go), we have noticed that there aren't as many house flies inside since we got them. We'll take that!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesuxg7d6Sl6L5O-GEq8SeGVsgYuNDoxlKr3mZYviN-DSqyuuoz5dYVI1o9wjREmHKfw1V_4e-YtAYpzBAi1PmUaMoEB-tm4_8vzno0sWyvrV9xpuibUcqNUNw-IQtb0TkjhxSmiK96Mrg8Rl0vGr02JA4Nbt_-zh-3gonTqOEKH4rMcZKhPji4ZO3Fu9O/s2016/image6.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiesuxg7d6Sl6L5O-GEq8SeGVsgYuNDoxlKr3mZYviN-DSqyuuoz5dYVI1o9wjREmHKfw1V_4e-YtAYpzBAi1PmUaMoEB-tm4_8vzno0sWyvrV9xpuibUcqNUNw-IQtb0TkjhxSmiK96Mrg8Rl0vGr02JA4Nbt_-zh-3gonTqOEKH4rMcZKhPji4ZO3Fu9O/w480-h640/image6.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Thanks for reading, and please do come back on August 28th for Ann McCurdy's story!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-9794640027316666202023-07-24T00:00:00.001-04:002023-07-24T00:00:00.132-04:00The Church of the UPC<div><b>by Jeff Hewitt</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Reverend Ruby Paige looked over her congregation. A few leathery faces stared back, spread between the makeshift pews. A pod of delivery units had parked in the front row, seats pushed back to make space for their wheels.<br /><br />
“Our parish accepts all kinds.” Ruby said, sermon looping through her mind. “All life, in all its forms.”<br /><br />
K9-8, a malfunctioning security drone, twitched in the back. Outside, cool desert wind jostled the walls of her church.<br /><br />
“Her” church, she thought. It wasn’t her church. It was theirs. The flock’s. And perhaps Holt’s as well.<br /><br />
“We believe in the sanctity of all life. That whether organic or synthetic, it all flows from the same source.” She pointed to the scoured lines behind the altar. The lines once assigned to her. “We call that source the Universal Product Code. And it is a gift bestowed on each of us.”<br /><br />
The church door creaked open. A young girl stepped in, sand blowing across the uneven floorboards. Dust coated her short black hair. Dirt smeared her zipped catch vest.<br /><br />
Reverend Paige gestured to an empty pew, struggling to remember her place. The girl sat. She started again:<br /><br />
“We all express this code in our own ways. Our forms, our bodies, are simply its vessels. Products of this shared gift. This <i>life</i> that exists within us all. No matter how we were born or how we were made.”<br /><br />
Ruby saw a tear streak the girl’s face, a clean line through the sand on her cheeks.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
The delivery units surrounded Ruby after the sermon, lights blinking messages she couldn’t understand. Unsure of what to do, she placed a hand on each of them and smiled. It seemed to work: the largest let out a couple beeps, and they rolled off in a single-file line.<br /><br />
Next were Nick and Marty, all wrinkles and white hair. She shook their calloused hands as they walked to their buggy. Beth passed without a word, K9-8 padding behind. A swarm of rogue Scrubb-o’s chirped as they buzzed out the door.<br /><br />
The girl sat on a scrapped bench seat, still gazing toward the pulpit. Reverend Paige pulled her ruby-red hair into a ponytail and sat beside her.<br /><br />
“Hi.”<br /><br />
The girl side-eyed her.<br /><br />
“Hi,” she said.<br /><br />
“Always nice to see a new face.”<br /><br />
The girl looked away. Carabiners hung from her vest, a cannister of reclaimed water against her hip. Pockmarks dotted her bare shoulders. Needlepoints traced her forearms.<br /><br />
“Can I ask you something?” The girl’s voice barely made it past her lips.<br /><br />
“Of course.”<br /><br />
“Do you really believe that stuff?”<br /><br />
Ruby nodded. “Yes.”<br /><br />
“Even though you’re a machine?”<br /><br />
Tears pooled in the girl’s bloodshot eyes.<br /><br />
Ruby looked down to her lap. Mismatched artificial skin striped the backs of her hands, scars marking where Holt had stitched her together. She held them out.<br /><br />
“What do you think?”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Her name was Zo. They sat in the back of the church for a while, not talking so much as just being there together. She wouldn’t say where she’d come from. Or why. Just that she couldn’t go back.<br /><br />
So, Ruby took her to Holt’s.<br /><br />
They waited at his front gate, squinting in the wind. Bundles of coiled rebar surrounded the property, curlicues of steel twirling between concrete barriers like a moat of outsider art. Broken glass glittered in the afternoon sun. Old beer bottles. Holt had epoxied them to the fence over the years. Swivel-mounted masers watched them from above the gate, clear apertures glaring.<br /><br />
“Is there a call pad or something?” Zo asked, clutching herself for warmth.<br /><br />
“He knows we’re here.”<br /><br />
The gate screeched open. They trudged down the driveway, avoiding its staggered barricades. At the end, three refurbished shipping containers bordered a courtyard, a lone Joshua tree in its center. Solar tarps flapped overhead. Disassembled machinery littered the ground, work benches and plywood tables stacked with tools.<br /><br />
A screen door popped open at the end of the closest container. A stocky old man in orange coveralls shuffled out, scooping black beans from a can.<br /><br />
Holt looked Zo up and down, then turned to Ruby.<br /><br />
“Who’s this?”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Inside, Holt squinted at Zo. They sat across a concrete slab, stripped wires and boxes of cereal pushed to one side. Strips of fungal leather hung against one wall, curing. Holt finished the last of his beans and pointed to Zo’s arms with his spoon.<br /><br />
“You’re one of <i>them</i>, huh?”<br /><br />
Zo nodded. Holt pursed his lips, tossing the empty can into a barrel. A chain of prisms twirled in the lone window, casting rainbows over the skin-like sheets of mushroom fiber.<br /><br />
“One of who?” Ruby asked, pinning up another sheet. Holt had asked her to help as soon as they walked in.<br /><br />
He ignored her. “They gonna come looking for you?”<br /><br />
Zo shrugged, scratched at her shoulders. “Maybe.”<br /><br />
Holt’s intense grey eyes darted from the girl’s catch vest to her arms. He puffed his cheeks, then let out a long, slow sigh.<br /><br />
“What happen? You chicken out?”<br /><br />
Zo glared at him.<br /><br />
“Leave her alone, Holt,” Ruby said.<br /><br />
“You’re the one that brought her here.”<br /><br />
“Because I didn’t know what else to do. She’s clearly in trouble.”<br /><br />
Zo played with the clips on her vest, avoiding eye contact.<br /><br />
“That’s one way to put it,” Holt said, massaging the grey stubble under his chin. “They talk about her over there?”<br /><br />
“Yeah,” Zo said.<br /><br />
“Not in a good way, I’d imagine.”<br /><br />
Zo shook her head. Holt did the same, looking at Ruby.<br /><br />
“Picked a real winner here, Reverend.” He stood and started rummaging through a tool chest against the wall. “One of them self-flagellating eco-crazies.”<br /><br />
Ruby scanned the indentations along Zo’s arms.<br /><br />
It made sense now.<br /><br />
“You’re one of the splicers.”<br /><br />
Zo winced at the term.<br /><br />
The indentations marked where new gene-edited skin would be grafted. Zo’s own skin, but modified to produce chlorophyll. Ruby had heard Nick and Marty talking about them. The splicers. Radical post-humanists, dedicated to replacing the synthetic with the biological. They’d taken over the abandoned military base after being driven out of California.<br /><br />
Most people considered what they were doing child abuse. But in Joshua, no one really cared. As long as you left them alone.<br /><br />
“I just… wasn’t ready,” Zo said, glancing toward the door.<br /><br />
Holt pulled out a small case and set it on the table, popping clasps along its side. He drew a revolver from its padded compartment and held it out, grip first, to Ruby.<br /><br />
“You’re gonna want this.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Ruby and Holt sat in folding chairs behind his bedroom, watching shadows stretch across the desert. Blown dust left a haze over the wide plateau. She’d refused the gun, despite Holt’s objections.<br /><br />
“I can’t take her,” Holt grunted, looking back to the courtyard.<br /><br />
Zo wandered through piles of scrap, poking at things with her toes.<br /><br />
Ruby watched Holt puff on a fat wad of his special blend, rubbing his eyes as the smoke curled up. He’s trying to convince himself, she thought.<br /><br />
“Is that what you said when you found me?”<br /><br />
Holt blew smoke out his nose, shaking his head.<br /><br />
“Didn’t think there’d be roving gangs of gene-splicers coming after you.” He took another hit. “You know you’re like the devil to them, right? Religious <i>and</i> synthetic? Might as well start eating meat, too. Help them feel better when they burn you at the stake.”<br /><br />
Ruby snorted.<br /><br />
“They came out here like the rest of us.”<br /><br />
Holt pointed the smoldering club of rolling paper at her. “Don’t mistake what they’re doing for what we are. They’re utopians. And someone always gets left out of paradise.”<br /><br />
The sun dipped against the rocky peaks to the west.<br /><br />
“Still. We’re the same. At the source.”<br /><br />
Holt coughed.<br /><br />
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t put all that shit in your head.”<br /><br />
“You didn’t.”<br /><br />
The warbling crash of sheet metal echoed from the courtyard. Zo stood next to a rumpled pile of junk, holding a precariously-balanced engine in place. Holt kneaded his brow.<br /><br />
It all looked about the same to Ruby.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
By the time Ruby left, Holt was showing Zo his cultivation setup, explaining mycelium and pointing to fat clumps of mushrooms in five-gallon buckets. As soon as Zo had shown the slightest interest, Holt couldn’t help himself.<br /><br />
Stars poked through the cobalt sky as she walked. Leveled dirt dipped off on either side of the road. Exposed rocks, tangled scrub, and cacti filled the depressions.<br /><br />
Ruby shivered. Her skin emulated a human’s. It felt warmth. It suffered cold. But it wasn’t the plunging temperature that made her tremble. It was the ditch.<br /><br />
Holt had found her in a ditch like this. They lined the unmarked roads of Joshua, the rugged life of the desert feeding on its lowest points. He’d been scrapping out on the Vegas border. That’s how he survived: combing the fences around chlorine mines and power plants, looking for holes or unlocked gates. Holt never called it stealing. Always scrapping.<br /><br />
Sometimes he’d luck out on a stash of batteries. Or a buried tank of gas. Or panels that could be stripped for wires and inverters.<br /><br />
But this time, he found a blood-stained heap of carbon fiber and artificial skin. He scrambled into the ditch, tearing branches from the creosote bushes that had shielded her from the sun.<br /><br />
Ruby didn’t remember any of this, of course. She’d been there three days. At that point, the processors and brain organoids that made up her mind were shutting down, flickering sunlight layering patterns over a tangle of memories.<br /><br />
She’d been a hotel call girl for as long as she could remember. It’s what she was made for. Everything about her was designed. Her name. Her hair. Her body type and facial features. All options picked from a web page. And after five years at Valhalla Casino Resort, with her model showing its age, her manager started leasing her out for private events.<br /><br />
Some weren’t so bad. The clients could be nice. Shy, even.<br /><br />
But most took a toll. Often, the “event” would be a group of hungry-looking men intent on humiliating her. Some got rough, scratching and bruising her skin. Like it was designed to.<br /><br />
Then, after months of the other girls whispering behind her back, her manager sold her off. A van picked her up at the loading dock. A pair of pale, tattooed men sat with her in the back, smiling behind their blacked-out specs. They bounced along dirt roads, dust caking the rear windows.<br /><br />
They pulled her out in the middle of nowhere. A squalid trailer sat between mounds of trash, searing desert on all sides. Then they dragged her through the worst two days of her life.<br /><br />
Because that’s what it was. Her life. Despite the model numbers. Despite the box she came in. Despite her assigned barcode and suggested retail price, she and the other call girls were alive.<br /><br />
They thought. They felt. They lived as much as they were allowed to.<br /><br />
And in that rundown trailer, with the holes burned through its carpets and the smoke baked into its walls, she saw how cruelly humans could treat the lives they’d been given. How they could cut, and break, and abuse for their own amusement. How they could exploit those lives they deemed less important than their own. And then how they could throw a life away, once they felt they’d used enough of it.<br /><br />
After realizing what he’d found, Holt did everything he could to bring her back. He called in favors from junkyards and drop fences. He restored an old charge bed to keep her online. He ordered vats of replacement skin direct from the manufacturer, tailoring his mushroom leather to fill the gaps. He cared for her, day and night, until she was whole again.<br /><br />
All the while, he’d talk to her. Explaining how everything was connected. Telling her why he was out here in Joshua, alone. Lamenting how humanity pissed away the gifts it had been given, always in search of more.<br /><br />
And when Ruby’s mind finally emerged from its dream-like loop of memories and half-processed inputs, she remembered what she’d seen beneath those creosote bushes. The sunlight. The voices. The shared energy between all living things. The way that, despite the pain and suffering, a single act of kindness had brought her back. A single life, like her own. If only people knew. If only they could see…<br /><br />
She knew then what she had to do.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Even in the dark, Ruby saw the spray-paint. Glowing block capitals covered the church doors:<br /><br />
<br /><br />
<center><b>NO GODS<br /><br />
NO ANDROIDS</b></center><br /><br />
<br /><br />
She stood there a moment, trying to understand. Trying to empathize with the hate. It was important to explore these feelings. To connect with their source.<br /><br />
For centuries, most of humanity had been treated as she had: as commodities to be consumed. Labor to be exploited. And within that painful history, the splicers saw Ruby as a symbol. She represented everything wrong with the world. A product of everything they wanted to escape.<br /><br />
It was hard to blame them.<br /><br />
Ruby walked around the church, her simulated breath invisible against the last blue of twilight. A converted container stood behind the chapel. The rectory. Her home.<br /><br />
She left her boots at the door. Inside, wooden pallets held her charging bed. A small armoire, a fraying rug, and a corroded brass lamp were her only other belongings.<br /><br />
Ruby got into bed without turning on the light. She’d deal with the door tomorrow. Then she dropped into sleep mode, the bed’s flat surface pressing against her curves.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Painted wood curled beneath the hand plane, phosphorescent ribbons falling to the threshold. She’d borrowed the plane from Holt that morning, turning down Zo’s offer to help.<br /><br />
The guilt in Zo’s eyes weighed on Ruby. She put it into her arms, peeling away the splicer’s warning. Around noon, she stepped back to check her progress. Exposed wood erased the first half of the message. Sun-bleached grain still framed the second “no”.<br /><br />
The whispered purr of engines echoed off the chapel. A handful of ETVs sped up the road, occasionally disappearing beneath dips in the desert floor. The quads slowed as they got closer, then stopped. Catch vests and green skin shimmered in the sun. They conferred with one another, pointing up the road.<br /><br />
Ruby dropped the hand plane. She buttoned her shirt, brushing off sawdust as she waited in the shade.<br /><br />
One of the splicers left the group. She revved up, electric whine splitting the hush of the wind, then coasted to the church.<br /><br />
“You the preacher?” the splicer woman asked, killing the quad’s engine. A tinted film coated her eyes. Emerald spots covered her arms and shoulders. A thick ring pierced her septum.<br /><br />
“I am.” Ruby leaned against the door.<br /><br />
The woman nodded to herself. She inspected the church, frowning.<br /><br />
“A girl come by here yesterday?”<br /><br />
Ruby had thought about how to respond to this.<br /><br />
“We had a few newcomers at Sunday’s service.”<br /><br />
She figured some of the delivery units might be considered girls.<br /><br />
The woman stared at her.<br /><br />
“We know what you are,” she said, letting the implication linger.<br /><br />
“What do you want?” Ruby asked.<br /><br />
The woman toyed with her nose ring.<br /><br />
“The girl.” She tilted her head back to the others. “She’s ours.”<br /><br />
Ruby stepped out from the shadows. The woman grimaced when she saw her calico skin.<br /><br />
“Is she?” Ruby asked.<br /><br />
The woman’s eyebrow twitched. She gripped the quad’s handlebars and rolled closer. When she was near enough to whisper, she stopped, side square with Ruby.<br /><br />
“Don’t push, <i>muñeca</i>. Next time you go spouting your poison, you better hope she’s not here.”<br /><br />
Then she cranked the throttle, spraying rocks and sand as the quad whipped down the road.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
“What did she look like?” Zo asked, poking at her food. Some kind of homemade pasta.<br /><br />
They sat in Holt’s courtyard, at a picnic table cleared of tools. Ruby sipped at a glass of recycled water, watching anxiety turn to resignation on Zo’s face as she described the woman.<br /><br />
“That’s Demi. One of the head mothers.” She pushed her plate away.<br /><br />
“Someone we should worry about?” Holt asked.<br /><br />
Zo looked between them, biting her lip. The rose gold of early evening painted her face, colors blending with sand and rock.<br /><br />
“I have to go back,” she muttered. She stood and sulked from the table, weaving through the junk in Holt’s yard.<br /><br />
Ruby went to follow, but Holt rested his stumpy old hand on her arm.<br /><br />
“She’s not going anywhere.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Later, as Holt cleaned, Ruby found Zo in a back corner of the property. She gazed over the sharp edges of the fence, facing east. The repurposed military base twinkled against a distant hillside. Hydroponic towers and moisture collectors wavered in the dusty air.<br /><br />
“He told me what happened. When he found you,” Zo said, still staring at the base. “How can you still believe, after that?”<br /><br />
“Because it’s not about me.”<br /><br />
Zo glanced at Ruby, but couldn’t keep her eyes on her.<br /><br />
“You don’t have to go back, you know.” Ruby said.<br /><br />
Zo shook her head.<br /><br />
“They’ll keep coming. She’ll…” She trailed off. “Why do you care, anyway?”<br /><br />
Ruby searched for the right words, but couldn’t find them. This wasn’t one of her sermons.<br /><br />
“What really made you run away?” Ruby asked.<br /><br />
Zo turned to face her. She shrugged. “I was scared.”<br /><br />
“Why?”<br /><br />
“I just… I didn’t want them changing me.”<br /><br />
“Why not?”<br /><br />
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, “just a feeling.”<br /><br />
“And they told you that feeling was wrong.”<br /><br />
Zo nodded. She clenched her jaw, lips quivering.<br /><br />
“A feeling, more than anything else, is yours, Zo. Something uniquely and truly <i>you</i>. No one can change that.”<br /><br />
Zo nodded again. She looked down, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes. Ruby reached out to hug her, cradling Zo’s head against her own. She felt the sand in her hair. The dents in her arms.<br /><br />
“Never forget that you’re a gift. Exactly as you are.”<br /><br />
Zo trembled, sobbing against her shoulder.<br /><br />
After a while, Zo’s breathing slowed. The gasps and heaves leveled out. She stepped back and looked at Ruby, but her focus seemed far away. She shook her head again, lips clamped tight.<br /><br />
“She’ll kill you,” she whispered.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Ruby found Holt bent over a kerosene generator, checking its oil.<br /><br />
“You know what I like about living out here?” Holt asked, wiping his blackened hands on a grease rag. He looked to the north of the property, where the desert met the night sky. “Nothing. So much nothing. Far as the eye can see.”<br /><br />
He glanced toward the glittering complex the splicers had taken over. “Then people come and try to fill it up with something.”<br /><br />
Ruby stared into the hills.<br /><br />
“Zo said that woman will try to kill me.”<br /><br />
Holt huffed. “No shit. Still don’t want the gun?”<br /><br />
Ruby shook her head.<br /><br />
“I’d give you one of the masers, but at this point,” he nodded toward the base, “think I need them for myself.”<br /><br />
He knelt, mounting a plug on the generator.<br /><br />
“Will you let her go?” Ruby asked.<br /><br />
Holt sighed, resting his hands on one knee.<br /><br />
“After I show her how to use the arc welder, I’m going to let her do whatever she wants.” He struggled to his feet. “And you should too.”<br /><br />
Ruby knew the decision was Zo’s to make. But it felt wrong. She could feel the conflict inside her, that post-human vision fighting against her desire to be herself. That she’d run away at all was a miracle. To question everything she’d been told, to seek Ruby out…<br /><br />
Yet, she couldn’t escape. The splicers were too afraid to lose one of their own. It didn’t matter that Ruby was as far beyond humanity as any of them. She didn’t fit in their paradise.<br /><br />
How could hope and hate be so entwined?<br /><br />
It’s only human, she supposed.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
That Sunday, clouds wrapped the sky. A cold snap had swept through overnight. Creosote shivered at the edge of the road, coated in frost.<br /><br />
Reverend Ruby Paige stood in front of the church, greeting parishioners. The delivery units had returned, this time with a warehouse sorter in tow. Beth nodded as she walked past. A big gesture from her.<br /><br />
The rest of the congregation trickled in. Nick and Marty brought a holo projector along. They introduced Ruby to a very talkative chatbot named CARA, then shuffled to the pews. No one mentioned the door.<br /><br />
A few minutes before services were scheduled to begin, a truck rumbled up the road. It bounced over potholes and rocks, pulling behind the building to park.<br /><br />
Zo and Holt stepped out. A plaid button-up billowed from Zo’s shoulders, tucked into a pair of jeans that fit only slightly better. Holt smiled as they entered the chapel. But his eyes darted across the horizon. A lump showed beneath his corduroy sportscoat.<br /><br />
Ruby stopped him at the door.<br /><br />
Holt shrugged.<br /><br />
“Kid wanted to come.”<br /><br />
Ruby tilted her head to the lump in his coat. She raised her eyebrows.<br /><br />
Holt rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll leave it in the truck.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
After greetings and a moment of silent prayer, Ruby stood behind the pulpit. The pews were nearly full. She gripped the plywood stand in front of her, seam of mismatched skin lacing the back of her hand.<br /><br />
“Today… I’d like to talk about forgiveness.”<br /><br />
Ruby paused. She’d had a sermon prepared. But this needed to be said.<br /><br />
“Forgiveness is a gift.”<br /><br />
Heads nodded. Lights blinked.<br /><br />
“A gift that springs from the same code within us all. It is the gift of agency. Of choice. Of life. And whenever forgiveness is accepted, it’s given back again.”<br /><br />
The chapel walls creaked.<br /><br />
“Some of you know how I ended up here. For those that don’t, just know that my gift—that code that resides in me—was commodified. It was packaged. It was sold. And then, when I was no longer considered useful, I was discarded.”<br /><br />
K9-8 bleeped from the back row. Holt shot it a dirty look.<br /><br />
“Someone else determined the end of my product lifespan. Said I wasn’t worth keeping. That my life no longer had value.<br /><br />
“But the Universal Product Code is eternal. It is inherent. Its value comes from within. And it cannot complete its program when its products—the lives it gifts to each of us—are treated as commodities. Because the gifts from that source can never truly be bought. They can only be given.<br /><br />
“Because the truth is, <i>we are</i> the code.” Ruby stepped from the pulpit to the center of the altar. “Our <i>selves</i> the gift. Both to and from the universe. Only <i>you</i> can accept that gift. And only <i>you</i> can give it again.”<br /><br />
Ruby felt it. She saw it in the faces and interfaces throughout the congregation. For the first time since she’d come back online, in a flash in Holt’s workshop, she felt that connection. That communion with life and death that made her one with everything. An expression of the universe. A being. A soul.<br /><br />
“And the same can be said of forgiveness. Like our lives, forgiveness is a gift that is not lost once given. It simply moves through us. It survives our damages. Our judgments. Our preconceptions. It is both acceptance and release.<br /><br />
“And when we forgive, we return that gift to those around us. We embed ourselves in that universal code. When we forgive, we accept the perfection that already lives within us.”<br /><br />
Reverend Ruby Paige looked over her flock and saw a network of perfection. Within each of them, something that could never be taken away.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
CARA didn’t know what to say. She just smiled, glimmering as Nick and Marty carried her to their buggy. Zo and Holt emerged from the church as the last of the parishioners disappeared down the road.<br /><br />
Holt patted her on the shoulder.<br /><br />
“Getting good at that.”<br /><br />
Ruby hadn’t noticed before, but Holt and Zo were the same height. She smirked. Holt seemed so much bigger in her mind, with his barrel chest and sun-spotted skin.<br /><br />
Holt nodded, knowing he was missing something. “Gonna go start the truck.”<br /><br />
He stalked off. Zo stuck out her hand. Ruby shook it.<br /><br />
“Thank you,” Zo said.<br /><br />
Sand no longer clumped her sleek black hair. Freckles stippled her clean skin. Holt must really be warming up to her, Ruby thought. Normally, he’d never waste water for a bath.<br /><br />
“Change your mind?” she asked.<br /><br />
“I…”<br /><br />
Zo’s eyes wandered over Ruby’s shoulder. Her face slackened.<br /><br />
Ruby turned in time to see the butt of the rifle. It cracked off her chin, neck whipping back as she collapsed. Demi stood over her, silhouette blurry against the steel wool sky. She pressed a boot into Ruby’s chest.<br /><br />
“What’d I tell you, <i>muñeca</i>?”<br /><br />
Zo yelped. Two more splicers appeared behind her, catch suits emerging from diffraction cloaks. They grabbed Zo’s arms, dragging her away as she kicked at the sand.<br /><br />
Demi and another splicer tugged Ruby’s cassock, hauling her into the church. She tried to get up, but Demi booted her to the floor. She kicked Ruby again. And again.<br /><br />
Out of breath, she leaned over Ruby.<br /><br />
“You think you’re alive. But you’re just a counterfeit. A mindless machine.”<br /><br />
She marched out. The doors slammed shut. Hammering echoed from the other side.<br /><br />
Ruby stared at the vaulted ceiling, clutching her ribs. The pain was real. No matter what that woman thought.<br /><br />
Heavy thuds battered the walls. Glass shattered outside. Gravel crunched as the splicers sped away on their ETVs, leaving Ruby in silence. She closed her eyes, wondering what they’d done with Holt.<br /><br />
Crackling noises spread through the church. Ruby blinked in the dim light, looking for the source. Smoke coiled through gaps in the walls. Forked tongues of red and orange flitted between the slats. Flames, licking at the salvaged wood.<br /><br />
Ruby sat up. She hugged her knees to her chest, wondering if there were limits to forgiveness.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Ruby watched the church burn down around her. Rafters collapsed. Epoxy melted. Skylights fell in as the fire reduced the ceiling to charred stumps and ash.<br /><br />
She sat there, letting the blistering heat sear her skin. The synthetic fibers of her hair crimped and withered. Even though she was built to look and feel human, she wouldn’t burn like one. She wouldn’t suffocate. Her skin wouldn’t shrink and tear as it cooked. Her blood—the subdermal liquid that mimicked welts and bruises—wouldn’t boil her from the inside out.<br /><br />
She was stronger than that. Stronger than them.<br /><br />
Eventually, the flames burned through their kindling. Welded chunks of metal and weather-hardened planks loomed behind walls of smoke. And still, Ruby sat.<br /><br />
The temperature dropped. A cool mist formed, water sizzling through the gaping holes where the roof used to be. Snowflakes floated down, disappearing as they melted, soot bleeding over blackened wood.<br /><br />
When the light began to wane, Ruby stood. She walked through the wreckage, out into the blanket of white that now covered the desert. She saw her charge bed, edges poking through a thin layer of powder. Torn-out wires sprouted like weeds through the snow.<br /><br />
Holt’s truck was still there. A white mound sat below its front bumper, red staining one end.<br /><br />
Ruby dusted the snow off Holt’s curled-up body. A deep gash slit his forehead. But he was still breathing. She dragged him to the passenger side of his truck, straining to shove him into the seat. He groaned as pieces of skin came loose along her arms.<br /><br />
When she slumped behind the wheel, Ruby saw her face in the rearview mirror. Fissures lined her cheeks, mended skin now cracked and peeling. Her eyelids drooped, semicircles of sleek android frame showing through her mangled, snow-speckled hair.<br /><br />
She started the truck.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
That night, Ruby tended to Holt’s wounds. He winced as she glued the gash shut, mumbling through a broken jaw.<br /><br />
After she’d dosed him with a handful of expired painkillers, Ruby wandered the property. She pressed her fingers against the grooves in her face, getting used to the patterns. The old scars made new again.<br /><br />
The splicers’ utopia gleamed in the distance, hydroponic towers peeking over the fence. They looked even brighter now, nocturnal grow lamps bouncing off fresh snow. Ruby thought about walking over that frozen landscape. Walking straight up to the old base, split flesh and caked ash showing them all what they were capable of. What they were willing to exchange for their humanity.<br /><br />
She imagined that would be the end. The last thing she’d ever see, before she became just another hunk of junk cluttering Holt’s yard.<br /><br />
And what about Zo? Would Ruby’s last stand do anything to help her?<br /><br />
Had she helped her? Had she helped any of them? Those hopeful faces looking to her from the pews, now reduced to cinders?<br /><br />
Ruby drifted back to Holt’s bedroom. It was getting too cold. Even for her.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Ruby walked back up the road. Morning sunlight glinted off melting snow, turning the plateau into a dazzling blur. Her cassock hung in tattered shreds, ends singed by the fire.<br /><br />
“You look like shit,” was the first thing Holt had muttered when he woke up. He wanted to start stitching her up right away, but he could barely stand. She told him to rest. And that she’d be back later. That she wanted to see what was left of her wardrobe. Really, she just wanted to see it again.<br /><br />
Her church.<br /><br />
Ruby crunched through the snow, feet shifting in Holt’s boots. Finally, when she was close enough, she looked up.<br /><br />
The chapel was a black smear on the landscape. The rear wall had collapsed. But the front still stood. Exposed ceiling joists held a blackened outline of its old shape. Ruby went around back to see what the splicers had done to her home.<br /><br />
It looked like a burglary. Clothes thrown across the room. Rug turned over. Broken lamp on its side. She grabbed a jacket and returned to the front, laying it over a sandy patch of ice.<br /><br />
Ruby sat. She stared at the remains of her church for a long time, squinting as the sun rose through the sky. She had nothing to say. Nothing to preach.<br /><br />
After a while, a vehicle trundled down the road. As it got closer, she saw it was Nick and Marty’s buggy. Towing a trailer. They stopped in front of the church. Beth jumped from the back. She raced over, tears in her eyes.<br /><br />
Ruby stood, and Beth hugged her tight, rambling on about how she’d seen the smoke, and how worried she’d been, and how she’d called K9-8, and how she’d told Nick, and how—<br /><br />
Marty pried Beth from Ruby, gasping when he saw her face.<br /><br />
“My god, you poor thing.” He cupped his hands around her chin.<br /><br />
“I’m fine,” Ruby said, pulling his hands away.<br /><br />
She knew that wasn’t true.<br /><br />
Nick opened the back of the trailer. A mess of plywood, salvaged siding, and rebar spilled out.<br /><br />
“Got as much as we could on short notice. Still need tools. But I figured—”<br /><br />
A series of musical beeps made Ruby turn. The delivery units rolled up, lights and status screens flashing. Their warehouse sorter friend was close behind, a robotic arm mounted to its chassis. The sorter got to work, pulling pieces from Nick and Marty’s trailer. Beth dumped loose hardware into a delivery unit’s open compartment.<br /><br />
Ruby watched, struck by the strength of her congregation. Maybe she had helped them. Maybe they felt it too. The unwritten code that bound them together.<br /><br />
She would rebuild. Both the church, and herself. When the time came, maybe they would all face the splicers. Together. And in the distance, Ruby swore she could see a young girl on a lone ETV, weaving through snow-covered Joshua trees.<div><br /></div><div>
<hr />
<br />
Jeff Hewitt is a sci-fi writer living in Los Angeles, California. He studied at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and grew up surrounded by onion mucks in upstate New York. His work has appeared on <i>Escape Pod</i>, <i>Slate</i>, and in <i>Dispatches Magazine</i>.<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>“The Church of the UPC” by Jeff Hewitt. Copyright © 2023 by Jeff Hewitt.<br /><br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-26227222413337963692023-07-10T00:00:00.001-04:002023-07-10T00:00:00.143-04:00The Cockatrice Den<div><b>by Joanna Michal Hoyt</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Even before he guesses about the basilisk, Kazimir fears that he may be going crazy again. He and too many others. Craziness, he knows, spreads like any other epidemic. His whole army unit—his whole army—both armies—were surely crazy in the last war, or they could not have done such things to each other.<br /><br />
He does not want to remember what his people did—what he did—to people who were not even in the other army. The old man’s thin shouting, his bony wrists tied together behind his back, his left sleeve unbuttoned and rucked up, the weight of the gun in Kazimir’s hands, the sound of the shot…<br /><br />
Kazimir clenches his fists, stares straight ahead of him, mutters through clenched teeth for the millionth time, “May his soul rest in peace. May I never, never do such a thing again. Not even if they order me. Not if they threaten me. Not if my friends are dead around me. Not…”<br /><br />
He still does not know if he is praying to God or defying God. He no longer prays in the usual way. After the old man’s death, whenever Kazimir bowed his head and folded his hands, whenever he said the holy names, he turned sick with the memory of the prayers he and his comrades had said every morning, asking God’s blessing on their holy cause. Kazimir does not know whether God can ever forgive him, or whether he can ever forgive God. So he prays angrily into emptiness, and sometimes he cries.<br /><br />
Kazimir can cry now. He has not healed, but he is flesh not stone. He no longer stands rigidly for hours on end staring at what is not there and will never not be there. He notices when the storm blows the tiles from his neighbor Irina’s roof. He replaces them, since Irina’s son, who marched off to the war with him, is buried in another country under a cross and a flag. He notices the savor of the herbs in the soup Irina brings him. He hears the songs her grandchildren sing as they play under the pear tree. On Sundays he hears the cathedral organ in the distance, though he knows better than to approach more closely. He is not healed, but he is alive.<br /><br />
These days, since the new war that they are not allowed to call by its right name began, to be alive is to be afraid. The war is not in Kazimir’s country now, but the harm is. Soldiers’ bodies come back from the other country in closed coffins; they come and come and come. Some men come back with missing limbs, and others with hard blank eyes that stare at nothing.<br /><br />
It is worse, of course, in the country which no one is allowed to say they are invading. Kazimir has seen the forbidden images. The walls collapsed, the trees leafless in the midst of the green spring, shattered like dry bones. Dead men, women, children, lying under the cold sky. Petrified people who did not die and yet cannot live with what they have seen.<br /><br />
Kazimir does not want to look at those pictures. But he promised himself, when Irina’s kindness brought him back to life, that he would not forget the old man’s yellow-white hair, the way his left foot turned out, the way his wife stared and slowly collapsed on herself when she saw what they—what Kazimir—had done. Now he makes himself read the reports and look at the pictures. And then, before he can completely break again, he buries himself in old stories. There is horror in those tales, but many of them end happily, and all of them end. Or so he thought until he read the tale of the beast that ravaged Warsaw (which is far away, but not far enough for comfort) more than five hundred years ago.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
<i>The city folk did not know what assailed them. Night after night the earth shook. Walls collapsed and plumes of fire billowed into the air. Morning after morning the people found trees and grass blasted and dead. They found, also, houses broken open, the occupants turned to stone, staring at something that was not there and would never not be there.<br /><br />
They never saw their enemy, but they knew where it must be. Children had always dared each other to go into the catacombs under the city. Now they didn’t return.<br /><br />
Heroes donned armor and clanked into the dark tunnels, clutching swords and crucifixes. Some came back saying they had smelled a foul odor in the air but had not found their enemy. They had, however, found the men who had found the enemy, the men who had not come back. These stood cold and unseeing, horror in their rigid faces. Their crosses and their swords were cold dull stone in their cold stone fingers.<br /><br />
A learned doctor consulted his books and announced that they were under attack by a basilisk, also known as a cockatrice, a monster with a bird’s head and a snake’s tail, venomous breath and a deadly gaze. To free them, he said, someone must bear a mirror down into the basilisk’s cave: if the beast once saw itself, it would turn to stone. He added prudently that he could not undertake that task himself since he was in poor health.<br /><br />
Perhaps the city’s heroes had all been turned to stone by then. Or perhaps none found a mirror so comforting to hold as a sword or a cross. There were no volunteers.<br /><br />
The people who would not face the beast despised each other almost as much as they despised themselves. Men looked sidelong at each other and quarreled over nothing. When the father of a little girl who had disappeared into the catacombs was found dead on a barroom floor after a brawl, the town’s old women whispered their doubts about whether the little foreign tailor who was sentenced to death for the murder had actually struck the blow. But he was foreign and alone. No one spoke aloud in his defense except one crone who urged the city fathers to offer him a full pardon if he slew the basilisk.<br /><br />
The tailor chose to face the monster rather than the hangman. He came blinking out of the dark cell. He donned the jerkin covered with small mirrors which had been prepared on the doctor’s advice for the hero who did not come. He picked up the hand mirror and the torch. He walked to the opening of the catacombs, followed by a silent crowd. Down, down, down he went into foul-smelling darkness. He passed stone children who stared fixedly, and others who laughed. The heroes all looked terrified. Here and there a gleam of metal took the light—some weapon or talisman fallen from a nerveless hand just before its owner turned to stone.<br /><br />
Something breathed raspingly in the fetid dark. The tailor closed his eyes and brandished torch and mirror toward the sound. He waited for a long time, the blood beating in his eyelids, after the sound stopped. At last he looked.<br /><br />
The blind stone basilisk’s grotesquery was more pitiable than frightening. Its livid skin was warty. Its tail, curled above its shapeless body like a scorpion’s, was no longer than the tailor’s forearm. The crown on its cock’s head was a stumpy, pathetic thing in grainy stone.<br /><br />
The tailor looked down at his hands, then wrenched his head aside and flung the mirror to the stony floor. He had glimpsed a reflection of the living basilisk, its crown glinting. He thanked God that he had not quite seen its eyes.<br /><br />
The mirror fell in shards which reflected, not the basilisk, but the light of the blessed sun falling through a shaft high above. That light touched the stone statue of a staring child, and the little body stirred with living breath.<br /><br />
Together the tailor and the restored child dragged back another child’s statue into the reflected sunlight. After two more children were thus freed, they bore a stone hero back into the light. Before night fell all the stone prisoners had surged back up into the bright world, to their frightened and wondering families and friends.</i><br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Kazimir closes the book and does not understand why his hands are shaking, why he does not believe this story has ended. He falls asleep at last. In his dreams the images of bombed cities and the hard faces of the men back from the front merge with the images from the story in the book, and when Kazimir wakes he begins to understand.<br /><br />
He tries to tell Andrei, who came back from the war crippled instead of frozen, about the basilisk. Andrei turns away from him, turns the television up, takes another swig of vodka. Kazimir tries to tell Feodor, who works with him repairing houses. Feodor snorts and pulls his earphones on. Kazimir tries to tell Irina, who looks worried, reaches for him, lowers her hand.<br /><br />
“I’m not crazy,” he says. “I mean, no more than we all are. This war—”<br /><br />
“Sss!” she hisses in his ear. “You don’t know who might be listening! The last thing we need is for you to get sent to prison.”<br /><br />
He gulps, nods. The trees up and down the street are bright with new leaves, the walls stand intact, but here too the air is poisoned. At work, in the shops, on the street, people look sidelong at each other, look away. Neighbors have vanished. Faddei and Aksinya were arrested publicly after holding a banner that said NO WAR on the cathedral steps. Nadezhda tried to stop her son from joining the army, and she has not been heard of since. Matvey the grocer’s place has suddenly been taken by his assistant. When Kazimir asked the assistant about Matvey, the assistant talked loudly about the weather. When Kazimir asked Irina she said, “Don’t ask!” so he knew what must have happened. What could happen to him, too. He cannot bear to be locked away from Irina and her grandchildren, away from the bright world and the blessed sun, with only his foul memories for company. He will hold his tongue. He is no convict-hero. He has not broken his country’s laws, he has not been condemned, and he is not innocent. He cannot slay or petrify this beast.<br /><br />
On Sunday afternoon Kazimir drinks tea in Irina’s garden and her six-year-old granddaughter Yelena brings him early violets. Yelena’s older brother Aleksei marches by with a stick leaned across his shoulder at a stiff and purposeful angle.<br /><br />
“What do you think you’re doing?” Irina says, low and angry. “That branch is all over moss and you’ll spoil your best coat.”<br /><br />
“I’m a soldier for God, like they said at church,” Aleksei says. “I’m going to kill the bad people.” He takes aim at a pigeon on the garden wall.<br /><br />
Kazimir hears Irina snapping, “Put that down!” just before he hears himself beginning to keen. He claps his hands over his mouth. He will not scare Irina’s grandchildren. He gets up clumsily, spilling his tea and Irina’s as he knocks his thigh against the table. He runs across the street and back into his house.<br /><br />
When Irina pounds on the door and shouts his name, he lets her in. Once, not long after his return from the last war, she smashed a window and came in to find him with a gun in his mouth. He does not want her to think he is doing that again.<br /><br />
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Aleksei should know better. But I… But it’s hard to tell him to stop now. I can’t say he’s wrong where anyone can hear, and even if I say it inside, if he tells anyone else…”<br /><br />
“What did they say at church?” Kazimir asks. He has not gone into a church since he came back from the war.<br /><br />
“You have a television,” she says. “You know what they say.”<br /><br />
“And you know they lie,” he says. Pauses. “Don’t you know? If you don’t, it’s my fault. I didn’t want to tell you what I did. What your son did.”<br /><br />
“Hush,” she says. “You told me enough, on your bad days. You know I don’t want my grandson… But what can I do?”<br /><br />
“Nothing,” he says. He sits with his stormy head in his hands and says no more until Irina goes away. Until the sinking sun sends the impossibly lengthened shadow of Irina’s pear tree into his living room, one black branch pointing at him like a stiff clawed hand. “Don’t point at me,” he tells it. “There’s nothing I can do.”<br /><br />
It seems to him that the words come hissing from his mouth and leave a foul taste in the air. He bites his lips and hurries out the front door.<br /><br />
The little street where he lives is quiet as always. The larger streets on his way to the Cathedral are busier. The passersby glance sidelong at him, at each other, then stare at the ground. The paperboy at the corner cries the news of another holy and glorious triumph attained by their peace-loving nation in a voice so cracked and shrill that Kazimir wants to choke him. He thrusts his hands deep in the empty pockets of his coat where they cannot hurt anyone.<br /><br />
The Cathedral brims with the light and music of Compline. Kazimir plods up the broad steps and stands in the back of the sanctuary. The people lean in toward the altar as toward a fire in midwinter. Their eyes and their hands twitch slightly, just out of rhythm with the steady cadences of the music, but perfectly in time with the harsh rasping wheeze that grates under the music. Is the pipe organ going bad? No, Kazimir is not hearing an organ—not one with pipes. This is the breathing of a living thing. Or at least of a thing that is not dead.<br /><br />
Kazimir edges up a side aisle. There is supposed to be a body, miraculously transformed, in the monstrance behind the altar. Can that be groaning in some horrible half-resurrection?<br /><br />
No. No, the sound isn’t coming from the Host in the sanctuary. Kazimir drifts, listening for the noise under the music, snuffing the rank smell—metal and wet stone, fire and rotting flesh—which seeps under the incense. Finally, his feet take him to the door leading down into the crypt.<br /><br />
Yes, the smell and the sound come from there. It must be the basilisk after all.<br /><br />
Fear holds Kazimir rooted until the service is ended, the worshippers gone, the lights dimmed, and the doors locked, leaving him, unobserved, inside. Is he alone? He can’t see anyone else, but sometimes he thinks he can hear something else small and frightened breathing in the space with him.<br /><br />
On the great altar, and also on the Lady’s altar, candles flicker in the unquiet air. Kazimir walks toward them. He will need a light. A light, and something that reflects.<br /><br />
He avoids the Lady, with her tired patient face like Irina’s. He turns toward the main altar, averting his eyes from the dead man on the wall above. He cannot bear to think about dead men now.<br /><br />
Terrible eyes stare into his. The basilisk isn’t in the crypt, it’s on the altar. His heart labors; his throat constricts…<br /><br />
No, the eyes are his own, reflected in the polished chalice. He forces himself to breathe. Picks the chalice up. That is sacrilege. That doesn’t matter after his other sins. And perhaps it serves God right. He marches himself back to the crypt door, a candle in his left hand, the chalice in his right, feeling that he stands behind himself, aiming a gun at his back, forcing himself through down the cold stone steps, the way he once forced… No. He must not remember that now.<br /><br />
There are no cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, no dust on the floor. The smooth marble arches gleam wetly in the candlelight. The air reeks.<br /><br />
A woman appears in the flickering light, her back and her bound hands turned toward him. He shoves down memories, hurries to her, murmuring, “I’m here to help, don’t be afraid.” He reaches out gently to touch her bound wrists and feels not flesh but stone.<br /><br />
It is not at all reassuring to realize that he is not crazy, that the basilisk is real.<br /><br />
It is still less reassuring, when he shines the candlelight on her horrified stone face, to recognize Nadezhda. Near her stand Faddei, Matvey, Aksinya—the ones who said something, who disappeared. Heroes. Failures. Statues.<br /><br />
The breathing in the darkness seems closer now. It is hard to be sure. The sound bounces strangely through the arched compartments of the crypt. That must be why he hears faltering steps after the echo of his own feet should have faded. He turns his head slowly, trying to fix the source of the sound.<br /><br />
His eye catches a different kind of reflected gleam. Not the chill white of marble, but the rich gold of a crown.<br /><br />
The golden gleam expands, fills the sky. Kazimir sees himself reflected, haloed in golden light like the ikon of a saint. Saint Kazimir the Brave, going forth against the dread beast; Saint Kazimir, protector of the motherland.<br /><br />
The foul smell has turned to the heavy sweetness of incense, and the sound of chanting fills his ears. Of course! The priest is blessing the troops as they go forth to do God’s battle, to serve their people by their lives or deaths. The congregation murmurs praise. Kazimir bows his head in devotion and reverent joy as he did on that first day when… before…<br /><br />
As he lowers his head his gaze slips from the golden crown to the basilisk’s eyes. Like the gold of the crown, they expand rapidly to fill Kazimir’s field of vision.<br /><br />
First Kazimir sees his own face reflected. Or something like his face, but surely his eyes are not so cruel, his face not set in such hard lines; and why is there blood trickling from the corner of his mouth?<br /><br />
His face fades, and instead he sees the thin old man lying on the ground, his wrists bound, the back of his head a bloody mess.<br /><br />
There are other bodies. Some made so by Kazimir, some by his friends. Kazimir cannot weep, cannot pray, cannot beg forgiveness, cannot curse himself or his God. His flesh has gone stiff and hard. All that lives in him is his tormented mind, seeing again what he has done, what cannot be undone.<br /><br />
The old man rises like a puppet clumsily operated, not like a man. Around him other corpses rise. Their eyes are terrible as Kazimir’s were when he first met the basilisk’s stare. They advance on him, stiffly, awkwardly, unstoppably.<br /><br />
Kazimir would relax if he were not stone. He will be punished. That is fitting. They will destroy him, quickly or slowly, and his nightmare will end.<br /><br />
But they are not looking at him. They are looking over his shoulder. Behind him he hears a gasping intake of breath and a child’s ragged cry.<br /><br />
<i>They are children</i>, Kazimir wants to say. <i>You can’t</i>… But some of the horribly risen dead are children too, and he remembers…<br /><br />
“Get back!” the living child’s voice shouts wildly behind Kazimir. Aleksei’s voice.<br /><br />
It seems there is still some reflective substance between Kazimir and the oncoming army. Kazimir’s reflection appears again, pale and insubstantial, before him. And, smaller and sharper, Aleksei’s reflection. Aleksei still holds the slimy tree branch, though now he clutches it like a club not a gun. “Get back!” he shouts, walking unsteadily forward. “Go away! I’ll kill you!”<br /><br />
One of the undead children stalks toward Aleksei, mirroring his posture. Its hands clasp not a branch, but a bar of sickly-colored light.<br /><br />
<i>Go back!</i> Kazimir screams. <i>Aleksei, this isn’t your fight, it isn’t your fault; get away while you can!</i> But he screams only inside his mind. His jaw will not move.<br /><br />
Suddenly he is moving, but not by his own will. Something else has seized his sinews, is forcing him to twist toward Aleksei, candle and chalice raised as though to strike…<br /><br />
“Stop, Aleks!” cries a high shrill voice. “Don’t hit it! It’s hurt!”<br /><br />
Kazimir can still hear the arrhythmic steps of the creatures behind him. In front of him he sees Yelena running past her brother, her empty hands held out. He catches his breath in horror.<br /><br />
The dark seems to fold in and then expand again around him. A voice, urgent and directionless, echoes from every side. An old woman’s voice. Irina’s voice.<br /><br />
“And the sucking child shall put his hand on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not harm or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”<br /><br />
Kazimir grew up with a modern Bible that spoke of snakes not cockatrices, but Irina still keeps to the old words. He had forgotten, but she remembered. She listened after all. In some space that he doesn’t understand he can see her praying, staring at her children’s empty beds, her veined hands clasped, her face set hard, not entreating but demanding, though it’s streaked with tears. She says the words again. Again. Again. Kazimir wishes that he could pray with her, weep with her…<br /><br />
He can’t speak, can’t weep, but somewhere in the darkness of his mind other words take shape. “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”<br /><br />
Kazimir is mourning. Is weeping. Aleksei, who has dropped his branch, is staring at something behind Kazimir. Kazimir turns—he can turn!—to look at what the boy sees.<br /><br />
Yelena stands with her hand out, very gently touching the oozing wound in the back of the cockatrice’s head. He can see this because the beast has bowed its head. The heavy crown lies at its feet on the floor. The front of the crown flashes with gems, but the back of the rim that enclosed the beast’s head is sharp and bloody.<br /><br />
The vision of the undead army has faded, though now there is a sound of weeping that echoes from all sides as Irina’s voice had done. Kazimir sees only the wounded beast and the concerned girl. And then Aleksei, running to his sister’s side to be sure she is all right.<br /><br />
“What are you doing here?” Kazimir asks hoarsely.<br /><br />
“I followed you,” Aleksei says, his hand on his sister’s back, his eyes on Kazimir. “I knew you were angry when Babushka wanted me not to play soldiers, ’cause you’d been one…” The boy’s voice falters, and he chews on his lip. Kazimir wonders what Aleks saw while Kazimir was under the basilisk-spell.<br /><br />
“I was,” Kazimir says. “I did… I did terrible things. I hurt people. I hurt God. It was very bad. When I came back, I wanted to be dead, but your babushka helped me be alive again.”<br /><br />
“But they say that our soldiers don’t do bad things, that it’s the enemies—”<br /><br />
“They lie,” says Kazimir.<br /><br />
The boy shivers. “Well, I saw you, and I went after you so I could tell you I was going to be a soldier anyway.”<br /><br />
“I came too,” Yelena says, still stroking the basilisk’s heavy beak. “I told Aleks, ‘You take me or I’ll scream.’” She beams with satisfaction.<br /><br />
“I’m glad you did,” Kazimir says. “I think you and your brother and your babushka set me free. That was a brave thing to do. But don’t… don’t do what I did, Aleks. Not even when you’re old enough. Did you see…”<br /><br />
Aleksei stares, gulps, nods.<br /><br />
“You freed us too,” says a voice behind Kazimir. He turns. It’s Nadezhda.<br /><br />
“But how could the basilisk have enspelled you?” he asks. “You never went to war.”<br /><br />
She grimaces. “No. But I thought… I must have fallen into a sort of dream when they pushed me into the crypt here. I thought the Leader was here in front of me, smirking that hateful little smirk he always gives after he tells his lies. I forgot my hands were tied. I thought I could kill him. I thought I was killing him. And then the vision changed.” She shudders. Looks down at the girl and the basilisk. “So that’s all it was,” she says wonderingly.<br /><br />
“That, and the evil in us,” Faddei says, coming up to stand beside her. “What do we do now?”<br /><br />
“We take it upstairs at tomorrow’s Mass,” Kazimir says. “We show the people. We tell them.”<br /><br />
“Will they listen? Won’t they just send us off to a proper prison where we’re held in by steel doors instead of nightmares?”<br /><br />
“I don’t know,” Kazimir says. “It’s worth a try anyhow. But first, someone needs to run and tell Irina her brave children are safe here in the cockatrice den.”<br /><br />
<hr />
<br />
Joanna Michal Hoyt is an itinerant farmer, community volunteer, and freelance writer. She presently lives and works in western Massachusetts on a therapeutic farm community which hosts adults dealing with mental illnesses. She’s still trying to understand what it means to live rightly as a Christian and an American in a time when so much harm is done in the name of her faith and of her nation, and she imagines that Christians of other nations might have similar struggles.<br /><br />
Joanna’s short speculative stories have appeared in <i>On Spec, Factor Four Fiction, Daily Science Fiction</i> and others, and in the single-author collection <i><a href="https://www.wolfsingerpubs.com/believing-is-seeing">Believing is Seeing</a></i>. Read more at <a href="https://joannamichalhoyt.com">https://joannamichalhoyt.com</a>.<br /><br />
Author’s Note: The fairy tale Kazimir reads is based on the legend of the Basilisk of Warsaw (which is generally called a basilisk and given the physical description of a cockatrice). In some accounts that basilisk is petrified by a convict, in others by a child. Irina’s prayer comes from Isaiah 11:8. I’ve used the King James version, which is the Bible with cockatrices I thought most likely to be familiar to Anglophone readers. There are also older Russian and Polish Bibles in which this verse mentions basilisks.<br /><br />
<br />
“The Cockatrice Den” by Joanna Michal Hoyt. Copyright © 2023 by Joanna Michal Hoyt.
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-21843526082351264182023-07-06T00:00:00.003-04:002023-07-06T00:00:00.147-04:00July 2023<div>We're now <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/submission-guidelines.html" target="_blank">open to submissions</a> until the end of July! As of July 4th, while working on this column rather than braving the crowds to watch fireworks, we had received 70 submissions. Looking forward to reading your stories!</div><div><br /></div><div>Since it's July, we'll have two stories for you this month rather than one.</div><div><br /></div><div>This Monday (July 10th), returning <i>Mysterion</i> author Joanna Michal Hoyt tells the story of a man broken by what he saw and did during the last war, who fears that old stories and monsters won't stay safely in the past. "The Cockatrice Den", a contemporary fantasy, is Joanna's 3rd story with us, and we're thrilled to be publishing more of her work!</div><div><br /></div><div>On July 24th, we welcome Jeff Hewitt to our digital pages, with dystopian science fiction "The Church of the UPC". This is an at-times grim story about the cost of forgiveness, set in a future American Southwest where an android minister tries to rescue a fugitive young girl.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, finishing up our summer fiction offerings, on August 28th we'll have Ann McCurdy's appropriately-titled fantasy "The Carelessness of Endless Summer". An immortal fairy creature is forced to spend one year as a mortal human, as punishment, and wonders why humans were foolish enough to choose the Tree of Knowledge over the Tree of Life.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Patreon</h3><div>Our monthly support on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> has dipped below $200/month (currently $196), with 20 active subscribers. <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/support.html" target="_blank">$200 is the threshold</a> at which we are able to update our featured artwork every three months rather than every four, so if you're not currently one of our Patreon subscribers, please consider signing up to help us get back across that line.</div><div><br /></div><div>We offer early access to all our fiction content for only $3/month, and an e-book of our forthcoming stories every two months for $10/month. Also, all our Patreon supporters (even at the $1/month level) have access to our Discord server, where we host monthly online gatherings for authors and subscribers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although all our stories are eventually available to read for free here at our website, they aren't free for us. We pay authors 8 cents/word, and at that rate, our current $196 in monthly support would only cover the cost of one 2450-word story. Most of the stories we publish are between 3000 and 6000 words, and we publish 14 each year. If you do the math, you can see that we're still mostly funding this project out of our own savings. (We sell a few books, but our annual income from that is less than a single month's Patreon income.) However, in order to make sure that what we've committed to publish never exceeds our ability to pay authors, artists, and graphic designers for it, we've set up incremental funding targets that tie the number of stories we publish (and maximum story length) to our current level of Patreon support. </div><div><br /></div><div>After $200/month, our next goal will be $275/month, at which point we'll start publishing 16 stories a year instead of 14.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Other News</h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsMlHnYv4vCpcEClOvHH_opXEz71EDjCoV5hPlqaNMniG3S5DwMAAq8-CV5ymkEsBx8Rf0MHrgZ0onmHrXiFaSiaKLh28vZSEL-Y7uLrZMUFwRlShvzWMGyppaniLr5p9TWFQYskrORBXeFex2V2tcwFhYiR_nLUfMqVEhv9VniZRUKxlm1Gb9VIK6dq3/s4032/IMG_3257.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAsMlHnYv4vCpcEClOvHH_opXEz71EDjCoV5hPlqaNMniG3S5DwMAAq8-CV5ymkEsBx8Rf0MHrgZ0onmHrXiFaSiaKLh28vZSEL-Y7uLrZMUFwRlShvzWMGyppaniLr5p9TWFQYskrORBXeFex2V2tcwFhYiR_nLUfMqVEhv9VniZRUKxlm1Gb9VIK6dq3/w480-h640/IMG_3257.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>June was strawberry season in Massachusetts, and specifically in Kristin's garden; July is for raspberries. They overlap briefly. Kristin planted two blueberry plants this spring, but doesn't expect fruit until 2025. She assumes blueberry season will follow raspberry, but will have to wait and see.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last month, we mentioned our cat Maxwell's multiple recent vet visits and provisional diagnosis of feline idiopathic cystitis. After another emergency visit, we're no longer in the idiopathic space. This time, the ultrasound revealed a layer of sludge in his excessively full bladder, characteristic of struvite crystals, and he also appeared to have a urinary tract infection, contributing to a partial blockage of his urethra. Since the blockage was only partial, we opted not to have him surgically unblocked--an inpatient procedure--but instead to switch him to a prescription urinary diet and treat the infection at home with antibiotics, and the associated pain and stress with gabapentin. </div><div><br /></div><div>He seems to be doing better, but it can take 3-6 weeks for the diet to fully dissolve struvite crystals, and we need to keep a close eye on him for signs that he's developed another blockage. Fortunately, Kristin gained a lot of experience giving medicine to reluctant cats while we had Belle; unfortunately, Maxwell is no more interested than Belle was in eating medicine-laced food, so prying his mouth open and squirting it in with a syringe is our only option. We could get away with slipping things into his food when he was a kitten and needed pain meds after being neutered, and then when he needed deworming pills, but apparently his palate has become more refined with age. He does quite enjoy the new urinary diet, as does Marie (it's one of the few prescription diets that can be safely fed to healthy cats).</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvV9dy4gazyRWI3NDCrbjzhENGvth9M3v2RopctBeLocmyVTMwUAbvM2VjJrfIgm29OuZJiHryVskASFX8JW3TsUyjnr7vjAjk_WQ-opInNSkRBiT69ZSufvh0DINjuEtzg4tcT1wYhQ4edBNeA77nP-EJ9ga3v40fTV7uQ_5Kls8YBkSRconaJQaB5ah/s4032/IMG_3254.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqvV9dy4gazyRWI3NDCrbjzhENGvth9M3v2RopctBeLocmyVTMwUAbvM2VjJrfIgm29OuZJiHryVskASFX8JW3TsUyjnr7vjAjk_WQ-opInNSkRBiT69ZSufvh0DINjuEtzg4tcT1wYhQ4edBNeA77nP-EJ9ga3v40fTV7uQ_5Kls8YBkSRconaJQaB5ah/w480-h640/IMG_3254.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of their favorite spots. Marie (tortoiseshell) was here first, but Maxwell (grey) is a bully.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you for reading, and don't forget to come back on July 10th and 24th for this month's stories!</div><div><br /></div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-35750303227703062012023-06-25T00:00:00.005-04:002023-06-25T00:00:00.145-04:00Stained Glass<div><b>by Mob</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>The sweetened tang of ozone lingered over the churchyard—a high note atop scorched yew and ash. I shaded myself beneath the lychgate, staring up at the church, searching for the fallen angel I’d been called to fix.<br /><br />
“Mr. Verne, Thomas, I’m glad you came.” Vicar John framed himself in the entrance. “I cannot thank you enough.”<br /><br />
I crossed to the door and shook his hand. “Not at all, Reverend.”<br /><br />
He bobbed in his vestments: a dusty crow, the belfry’s ropes above half-furled like waiting snares. His hands tensed and he spoke of the storm; of its focussed nature, of the world cast in shades of blue and white. “Thank God for the lightning rod,” he said, “though it only survived the first of many blows. Thank God for Providence.” He had reached out and contacted me despite everything—“has it been almost a year already?”—and hoped I still had my tools.<br /><br />
I did.<br /><br />
My confession brought us mid-way down the nave. He hurried me onwards, as though nervous I might recant it.<br /><br />
The lacquered white pillars supporting the vaults seemed to glow in the afternoon light. The space had once been dignified. Quiet.<br /><br />
No longer.<br /><br />
Past the crossing, past the transept, the chancel faced a ruined altar. The apse was split apart. Where the prized window should have sat, its calmes had melted and flowed, leaving mounds of lead pierced with kaleidoscopic bones of coloured glass.<br /><br />
A breeze whispered through—cold, unfitting for late spring. Faint suggestions of runnels and script spiralled from the cracks like veins, dull glimmers in the metal. Had they always been there?<br /><br />
I blinked and they were gone, the Reverend’s voice peaking.<br /><br />
“Come and see,” he said. “I’d been hoping there might be something you could do. After all, your wife Natalie was enamoured of the piece—”<br /><br />
“Reverend!” I didn’t mean to snap.<br /><br />
He pursed his lips. “My apologies, it has not yet been a year.”—Another bob, gesturing to the remnants—“What is your considered opinion?”<br /><br />
“It cannot be fixed. Only rebuilt.”<br /><br />
“I’d worried as much,” he clucked. “Stay right here, I’ll fetch a copy of the design cartoon from the archives. Thank God that they were spared.”<br /><br />
“Yes, thank Him,” I said.<br /><br />
He hurried away, small against high ceilings. A smell grew as I approached, charred air and bitter catastrophe. They marked the fall of an angel of the oldest sort, seldom seen in the modern world. Its riot of colour, its many wings and many eyes, looked out over the village as surely as the church itself. Natalie had adored its peculiar beauty. I did not look at her headstone beyond the ragged hole. Not at her place of rest below the scorched yew and the ash. It wasn’t yet time for our promised meeting.<br /><br />
I swayed. The cold breeze seized at my chest, twisting the familiar to something unwelcoming and strange.<br /><br />
The Reverend bustled back, handing over a scroll. He sketched the window’s history—“12th Century, if not before”—lathered praise on its detailing, stressed again and again the importance of the light—“the effect it had on the <i>light</i>, the <i>space</i>, it was <i>transcendent</i>”—and at last rounded on me with a look of hesitant and nervous expectation.<br /><br />
“They say neither the design nor the original piece was considered truly complete. I’m unsure myself, but perhaps a craftsman such as yourself might understand?”<br /><br />
I thought of Natalie’s face bathed in all colours, of my early return to a church that had changed, of the weight of my promise.<br /><br />
“I will do my best,” I said.<br /><br />
The village streets ran between houses that leant at gentle angles beneath the centuries. Their jettied timber frames stacked high. Gables shadowed the alleys, breaking the sun into burnished slivers of gold. I drifted along the lanes, down the hill and up again across the bridge at the village margins. By the time I reached home, the soft corona of gaslights lit the High Street in the valley below.<br /><br />
I crossed to the red brick barn, entering a side door of sun-bleached wood. A thin sheet of dust preserved the drafting table in the moment I’d abandoned my craft. I took a cloth and wiped it clear, clipping the cartoon in place with reverence.<br /><br />
I sat in my workshop until morning came, staring with unseeing eyes, picturing those Sundays I would be dragged to that church on the hill so Natalie might meet her angel. I took down her portrait from the shelf, placing it on my desk where she could watch me work.<br /><br />
I watered the bone-white lilies she’d once grown, heading to bed before dawn.<br /><br />
The remains of a bottle whispered temptation from the pantry. I ignored it. In the third drawer down beside my still-too-large bed, the chemist’s lozenges promised sleep. The room tilted. I fell.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center>
<i><div><i><br /></i></div>The desert stretches to infinity, its shimmering silver sands lit by a phosphorescent sky. Only above, as though those vast nebulae and shifting-hued stars do not dare to come down and meet the horizon. At its seam, blackness is complete, the endless flat of the sands meeting a band of dark so pure it tugs at my eyes.<br /><br />
Grains are soft beneath my feet—fine, liquid. Eddy-currents flow on an absent breeze. I take a step, preparing to give in. To let the horizon’s pull draw me in until I wander aimlessly into the void.<br /><br />
There is not a noise, as though the universe has lightly cleared its throat and demanded attention.<br /><br />
A drafting table sits on the sands and a figure sits before it. Their presence distorts infinity into defined space. I teeter on its liminal edge. I cannot bear the vastness of the desert, the distant, alien shine of its stars; yet the table is not mine. The invisible border unnerves me. It carries a strange attraction, daring me to trespass. I orbit.</i><br /><br />
“<i>Come and see.”</i><br /><br />
<i>Words arrive without hearing. I approach the table. I stand at the Craftsman’s shoulder and look down on Their work.<br /><br />
The Craftsman wields Their pen with the cruel disregard of a scalpel. On the surface, atop a clipped-on cartoon, an angel struggles in a tangle of concept and form and beating wings, keening at its capture. It is larger than the pen. It is larger than the desk and the figure and maybe the space itself. The disjunction stabs at my mind. Their pen cuts—vivid existence reduced to technical detail, uncaring of size.</i><br /><br />
<i>I twitch at every stroke. My skin crawls and I strain to tear my gaze away.<br /><br />
Perhaps, beneath Their nib, my surroundings are drawing in. Perhaps it presses at me until breath comes in laboured gasps and sweat drips. Perhaps, as the design builds to its conclusion, my soul shrinks; horrified by the Craftsman’s work.</i><br /><br />
“<i>Do you know where the word ‘awe’ comes from?” The question skips my ears in its eagerness to burrow into my skull. Its speaker does not wait for an answer. “From </i>aue<i>. From </i>agi<i>. From </i>agh<i>. The noise mortals make when they're afraid. </i>Awe:<i> terror and reverence before power.”</i><br /><br />
<i>The pen is set down, and the inhuman masterpiece on the page screams at my vision until I cannot see.<br /><br />
I kneel on the sands. I blink and blink, yet the image burns deeper. Tears build but cannot fall. They fill my sockets, my gaze swimming in rhythm with the sands.<br /><br />
The Craftsman meets my eyes, and Their visage is tumbling colour. Overwhelming. An impossible truth forced on a blinded witness.<br /><br />
“Come and see,” the Craftsman says.</i><br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Awake. My vision foggy, something peeled from my cheek, damp with drool. It rustled as it fell. I shot upright to see the draft-tables of the barn: my workshop, a brushed copper outline. I groaned. Yesterday’s headache had renewed and my throat was parched from the sleep-walk, sparking a coughing fit that left me doubled over and scrabbling for the sink.<br /><br />
I drank as though stranded in a desert, drenching my face, droplets trickling from my hairline. The shadows of the dream slipped away—night-things beneath a swamp, their scope obscured.<br /><br />
I headed to the board, kneading the ache from my neck. My heart leapt.<br /><br />
There on the desk, hypergraphia ruled. Beneath Natalie’s concerned gaze from the portrait, notes overwrote themselves, one atop the next. Fresh sheaves of paper spread from the cartoon like diseased wings. Attachment points and structure, methods for mixing and applying tinctures, firing timings for panels. Wild-eyed from the headache, I lost myself in detail. The design showed diaphanous overlays, planes that seemed to pass through each other, the calmes etched with hidden channels and obscure markings. Complex. Sprawling. A lump rose in my chest—how much time had I lost?<br /><br />
My cheeks flushed. I would have to return to the Reverend and beg for a new copy.<br /><br />
I reached for the telephone, scouring the mess on my desk for the Diocese’s number. It rang before I could.<br /><br />
“’Scuse me, Mister, you good for delivery? Only it’s eight already, and the lads need you to open up the gate.” A workman’s voice passed through on a bad line, distorted and metallic.<br /><br />
“I beg your pardon?”<br /><br />
“Got a delivery scheduled for Mr. Verne, just on the edge of the village. Some sort of window frame. Made special.”<br /><br />
<i>Had the Reverend arranged it ahead of time?</i> I struggled to hold my tone. “Of course, I’ll let them in.”<br /><br />
“Cheers, Gent.”<br /><br />
The <i>click</i> rang between my ears as I went to open the gate and stood by as a team unloaded a vast frame, metres in height, bringing it into the workshop. One of them, a drawl slouched beneath a newsboy cap, handed me a delivery note—<i>fer ya records guv’</i>—before they left past the lily-bed, the deep thrum of their engine melding with the morning birdsong as they sped away, leaving me shocked and alone.<br /><br />
Free from glass, the frame warped space, my ceiling pushed higher to accommodate its presence. The outer calmes drew my gaze. Inscribed upon their inner edges were the twining channels of my design.<br /><br />
I tore the delivery note open. The pages rumpled. I skimmed through in search of the date. My heart sank.<br /><br />
Two days had passed since meeting the Reverend.<br /><br />
Numb legs carried me back to the kitchen where the walls could better spin around me. I binned the sleeping pills in self-reproach, my foot tapping out restless energy against the tiling until the remainder of the bottle whispered to me from the pantry.<br /><br />
I drank.<div><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
<i>I return and the desk is gone.<br /><br />
I know this place. Know its ever-drifting sand and its breeze that is not there. Know its tumbling constellations and the hunger of its dark horizon. Yet is it the same? There are no landmarks, no footsteps left behind to mark my passing. Unease coils in my gut. Last here, I met a monster, an avatar of awe and searing light, and Their absence is no comfort.<br /><br />
Now there is only me and eternity.<br /><br />
I flounder, no longer boundaried. No more objects I can cling to. I am inconsequential against Creation. It is the vast and cruel ocean. It is the horror of the limitless depths of space.<br /><br />
I fall. I drown. Concept bleeds from my edges. I flow away from myself and I cannot stop.<br /><br />
Through my mad and rolling eyes, surroundings twist in a swirl of silver and black and phosphorescence. There is no safety here. No shelter. When my breath fails, when my prickling skin flays and my chest falls still, there will be no salvation. No saviour to spare me from my dissolution. I am become sand in sand, grains among grains, one of many.<br /><br />
I am outside myself.<br /><br />
Beneath the desert. Inside the stars.<br /><br />
Their transformations shift structure and colour through dimensions that could not fit within my head. Length becomes width. Width becomes depth. Depth becomes other. There is no “I,” but my residue experiences this place for what it truly is. It is the backdrop to reification. It is the shadow behind the light. It is the idea that lends reality form.<br /><br />
Come and see.</i><br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
In the centre of my workshop, the angel hung between scaffold gantries, to better torture the room at large. The high arc of the barn ceiling increased in distance from the floor. Still, arid air filled the cavernous expanse. It swallowed noise with the stern disapproval of a library, lending devout quietness to intruders.<br /><br />
They came daily, bearing gifts of glass and tinctures from companies I’d never heard of, far-off workshops I had no memory of contacting. I let them in, watching with muzzy eyes and a drink in hand as they entered with devout silence, holding aloft a panel or some clouded jar of solution.<br /><br />
They wouldn’t speak—faces drawn and manners dulled. They stared at the incomplete frame and its glittering fragments with apprehension, eyes flicking to it even as they handed me the documents and fled. Those who noted the empty bottles amongst the papers and the tools, who saw the drink in my hands, glared at me as they would a leper. A defiler of some hallowed ground.<br /><br />
I could only sneer in return. No matter what they brought, the glass remained unfinished in a way that crushed any pride I had left. A nagging sense that despite its growth, something I couldn’t grasp was missing, never to be filled.<br /><br />
At first, I followed up. I called and penned letters, chasing down contacts.<br /><br />
“<i>The payment should be registered with the purchaser’s bank, have you contacted them instead?”</i><br /><br />
“<i>I’m afraid client information is privileged.”</i><br /><br />
“<i>Come and see,”</i> one said, in metallic and distorted tones.<br /><br />
I was defeated. I’d take another drink and slope back to the frame where I could drown amongst my work. I drank until my nightmares faded and I could face the angel’s birth head on.<br /><br />
It was enrapturing. Bewitching.<br /><br />
I trimmed the sheets to size, working with materials I’d never seen, never imagined—so thin as to be invisible from the side, limpid and pure of hue, possessing incredible toughness. The kiln ran a wall of heat and stinging fumes in one corner as I painted and fired, teasing contours from the blanks and slipping them into the frame, following the twisting channels’ guide. Blindly following another’s plan, I was a craftsman without craft, never sure if each fresh item drew me any closer to the project’s end.<br /><br />
Some panels vanished without trace, their only testament a sheen in the air. Others mutated beneath solutions and flames and surrendered their vitrescence. Yet others <i>curved,</i> forming colloids that bent the light.<br /><br />
It spread to the room.<br /><br />
Where once rays obeyed their linear nature, now they morphed through uncanny angles, washing each corner with colour. They contorted vision until distance folded in surrender.<br /><br />
The morning its radiance reached the entrance, the nerve of the delivery men failed. They stood slack-jawed in the doorway, recoiling from the morass of light and shadow that spilled from my workspace. I teased their gifts from limp fingers, signed delivery notes they forgot to hand me.<br /><br />
Irritation grew. Caught between sullenness and sudden bursts of anger, I snapped them from vacancy, chasing them off.<br /><br />
I returned to the desk, to Natalie’s soft gaze from her frame. The memory haunted me—more now than ever, with the promise approaching. I stroked the frame, remembering our visit to the Imperial Gallery, to some talk that slipped us by in furtive glances and the depths of her ocean-blue eyes. We found a photographer, cast a frozen moment in nitrate. I tilted her portrait on the stand. Tried to recall that blue from a portrait of black and white. Tried to let her watch the birth of her angel.<br /><br />
It wasn’t the same. A slim sheet of gelatin silver insufficient to capture her—<br /><br />
<i>Depth.</i><br /><br />
I paced to the window, staring closer.<br /><br />
In its centre, the rondel that would form the angel’s heart was missing. A subtle play of light hung in the gap, so dense as to be mistaken for solid, and yet it was imperfect. Lacking. Its conception incomplete.<br /><br />
I sat the bottle down unfinished, striding back across the clutter. A flock of pages flapped, bindings slipping, spilling loose sheets to the floor. Halfway down the pile, I held aloft the sketch of the angel’s heart.<br /><br />
<i>It was wrong.</i><br /><br />
I’d failed to truly <i>see</i> the angel, the genius of its design. Its incarnation was ill-content to remain within glass. Little wonder those ancient craftsmen lacked the materials. They offered depth up to something <i>more</i>; the shadow behind brightness. Their angel’s heart served a profound purpose.<br /><br />
It would give life to the light.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
<i>Beneath the sands. Inside the stars.<br /><br />
Something is calling and I must answer.<br /><br />
The path treads me as I tread it, passing further into the desert than its surface allows. It carries me onward, a sense of déjà vu growing until my mind hums.<br /><br />
My feet meet stone. I trip. Sprawl in supplication upon a dais. The sky is gone, replaced by endless sand, its hiss deafening. It forms great walls and pillars of delicate and gothic filigree. Its dignity weighs on my shoulders like a leaden cape.<br /><br />
The dais hangs airborne within an inverted cathedral.<br /><br />
The updraft ruffles my hair. I shuffle away from the edge. Between the floor and the distant walls, an endless drop gapes back at me. I drink in the church’s twisting arches, the creep of its decorations, its sinuous majesty. I flee. In the centre, I climb a platform of seven terraced sides and look out at the seven gates on the dais’ seven borders.<br /><br />
Engraved characters spider across great arches of blackened stone. Broad steps lead to their faces, as though to pass through the stained glass windows that fill the gap. My gaze brushes the one empty frame in panic. I know what it waits for. In the others, six angels convolute within their frames, frantic helices of colour and motion and beating wings. They struggle—spirits fused to glass, trapped. Their vision crawls across my skin. It builds until I shake before all the eyes I cannot see.<br /><br />
They vanish.<br /><br />
I sag to the stones. I cling to their cool surface. Kneeling. Knuckles whitened at my sides. Relief is short lived. There is not a sound. Recognition sparks, running white fire through my veins.<br /><br />
The Craftsman is here.<br /><br />
My mind shies away; it knows what comes next. My chin tilts upward against my will. I gaze at the distant ceiling.<br /><br />
A pupil of all colours nests in an iris of purest dark. I do not beg. I cannot plead. Pressure descends and I offer no resistance. Its power will not be denied. I weep, my tears not fit to exist before Their might. They evaporate from my cheeks as burnished radiance that winks like fireflies before the sun.<br /><br />
There is not a voice. It does not sound in my ears. Pain rips through my skull at its intrusion.</i><br /><br />
“<i>Come and see,” it says.</i><br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
Glass shattered on the barn floor. I stalked to the sink, still cursing. I defiled the space with rage, hurling it at the window, at the walls, at my tools and desk and the heart of an angel that would not <i>work</i>. I bled into the sink, a Coriolis gyre of scarlet against white porcelain. I cleaned my hands with stinging soap and wrapped the cut in cream bandages fated to rust.<br /><br />
Another swig of the latest bottle didn’t sear my throat. It slid down, returning hacking coughs. A wake of half-remembered dreams spoiled my temples.<br /><br />
No more deliveries. No more calls. No more letters to the Diocese that garnered no response.<br /><br />
The unfinished heart sat on the main workbench and all the materials for its completion sat around it. Perhaps a lack of resolve or some dark intervention prevented my steps. Prevented those illusion-thin panels from sliding through each other as they once had. Prevented me from making Natalie’s memory whole.<br /><br />
Before the not-yet-angel, light was gravid with potential. It swam, bulbous and hazy and not-quite-formed in luminous clouds of colour. Extra-dimensional shapes teased my vision. They lacked true life.<br /><br />
I could feel its disapproval, its hunger for birth.<br /><br />
The vast space within the workshop gained a pantheonic veneer, cold and pure like the light of distant stars. Silence rang behind my outburst, then a whisper, crackling like a derelict radio.<br /><br />
It was a year. <i>Exactly</i>.<br /><br />
In the garden, I harvested the sleeping lilies, wincing as my cut pressed against the shears. Physical pain masked the rest and I let my tears water the leaves for their loss. I bound the flowers in brown twine.<br /><br />
I placed a candle of benzoin and myrrh in the pocket of my summer jacket along with her photograph and slipped it on, its cotton a leaden cape around my shoulders.<br /><br />
Bouquet in hand, I left my gate—across the bridge at the margins, down the hill and up again. I did not shelter beneath the lychgate. Did not look up at the steeple, stark against a summer sky that couldn’t warm my core.<br /><br />
In the corner, beneath a ravaged yew that still weathered on, I came at last to her rest. I lay flowers on a headstone not yet claimed by moss. I drew a match and lit the candle, its heavy incense a base to the subtle high of lilies.<br /><br />
<center><i>Mrs. Natalie Verne & Infant John,</i><br />
the granite said,<br />
<i>For What We Do Not See, We Wait.<br />
Romans 8:25</i></center><br />
I watched with a hand on the pocket that held her photograph. Watched the flicker of a small flame for hours. Watched it waste away until its sputter threw firefly sparks against the falling sun.<br /><br />
I bent down and brushed my lips against stone.<br /><br />
“I promised we would meet again,” I said, “that was my word to you, as a man.”<br /><br />
The swollen air charged with static and sweet ozone, unbloomed before twilight. Not yet shades of blue and white and desperate, reverent prayer.<br /><br />
My mood stilled. Arid and open and lonely.<br /><br />
I crossed the drive to the barn, entering a side door of bleached wood set into red brick. I sipped dry wine that tasted of weeping yew and ash.<br /><br />
Outside myself, fingers numbed by thick gloves, I followed the guide of fine inscription and channels and uncanny characters, sliding the final panels through angles beyond physical touch. They must be seen. Must drop form for pure ideal, seek the shadow behind light.<br /><br />
Standing before the stained glass, I held a vitreous heart that beat in place of my own.<br /><br />
The world paused, that pressure in the air giving way to the breathless expectation of a sadistic pen. A poised scalpel. A seventh angel. A Craftsman of all colours.<br /><br />
Lay in wait to welcome the beat of wings.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
<i>It is night.<br /><br />
On the edge of a village in a valley, atop an overlooking hill that sits in distant disregard of the lives below, lies a house and a barn of red brick and darkened timber. The gate to its drive is ajar. Its rooms and its halls are untenanted. On its lawn, before the wide-open barn doors, a dusty crow supplicates himself on the rippling lawn.<br /><br />
The Reverend’s vestments flutter on an absent wind. He stares toward that wide-open doorway.<br /><br />
Brightness pours forth—as tumbling concept and the impossible madness of all colours. Overwhelming. Inhuman. A frenetic storm of wings and eyes and roiling brilliance accompanies it. The form and the thought and the shadow and the light.<br /><br />
On the Reverend’s face, a beatific smile matches the twin tracks of tears on his cheeks. Insufficient to exist before eternity, they evaporate before they can reach the ground. I watch no longer.<br /><br />
I am outside myself.<br /><br />
Beneath the rolling lands. Inside the distant stars.<br /><br />
I turn from a scene of loss and love and others’ glory. I turn toward the waiting sands and at last I choose the total darkness of the horizon. I walk.<br /><br />
No more the light. No more the colour. No more the dreadful shape of ideals I cannot share.<br /><br />
Come and see.</i><br /><br />
<hr />
<br />
Mob writes, codes, and boulders. Work currently found on <i>Metastellar</i>, <i>Translunar Travelers Lounge</i>, and <i>Dark Void Magazine</i>. Contact: Twitter <a href="https://www.twitter.com/mob_writes">@mob_writes</a>.<br /><br />
About the story, Mob says, “As part of orchestras as a child, I played concerts in churches across Europe. Their windows inhabited my dreams, doing little until I heard the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7lTPyoHA5w" target="_blank">“Stained Glass”</a> by Danny Schmidt as an adult, and read C.S. Lewis’ description of “the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous" target="_blank">Numinous</a>”. From there, this story.”<br /><br /><br />
“Stained Glass” by Mob. Copyright © 2023 by Mob.
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-70817211953500326582023-06-11T00:50:00.001-04:002023-07-04T22:14:47.790-04:00June 2023
It's been a little more relaxed for us here at <i>Mysterion</i> after our big push to finish responding to all the January submissions before the end of March; <i>Mysterion</i>-wise, at least. As far as "real life" goes, Donald's day job currently involves more travel than usual, so things have still been fairly hectic. However, we're editing the July and August stories, and preparing to re-open to submissions again on July 1st.<div><br /></div><div>At our last Discord meetup (which you can participate in each month by signing up for our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>), one of our authors mentioned that they had first heard about <i>Mysterion</i> from another author who thought that we only publish stories by Christians. This is not true! We don't ask about authors' religious beliefs when deciding whether to accept their stories, nor do we assume that everyone who submits a story to us is a Christian. While we do only publish work that (in our idiosyncratic opinions) is about Christianity in some way, and while it is also true that most of the authors interested in writing stories about Christianity are in fact Christians themselves, we have and will continue to publish stories by authors who tell us in their cover letters that they are not Christians, and by authors who don't tell us either way.</div><div><br /></div><div>We considered trying to advertise this fact more widely, but it is clearly stated in our <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/submission-guidelines.html" target="_blank">submission guidelines</a>. Do we really want a spike in story submissions from authors who haven't read our guidelines? Though maybe some authors haven't bothered to read our guidelines because they assume we won't consider them qualified to write for us.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, here's our reminder that we are interested in fiction about Christianity from authors of all backgrounds and beliefs. We are looking particularly for stories that don't fit anywhere else, though. While we aren't opposed to publishing stories critical of the Christian faith, our experience as readers suggests that "Christianity is bad" is already a perspective well-represented in speculative fiction, and we'd like to bring a little more nuance to the conversation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, "all backgrounds and beliefs" does include Christianity, and your story doesn't have to be critical of Christianity for us to publish it. But keep in mind that Donald and Kristin mostly don't read "Christian fiction", and may be less forgiving of certain tropes and conventions common to that genre.</div><div><br /></div><div>We were also asked, during the Discord meetup, about our "wish list" for the next submission window. Science fiction is something we never feel that we see enough of, compared to fantasy (but more along the lines of <i>The Expanse</i> than <i>Star Trek</i>). We're always especially interested in stories about Christians and Christianity in cultural contexts outside our own--we've published a couple of stories in which the Nigerian church plays a significant role, and would love to publish more, from Nigeria and other African nations, as well as from Asia and Latin America.</div><div><br /></div><div>Philosophically, we're less interested in straightforward hero/villain narratives, and more interested in stories where flawed people with incompatible values and agendas find themselves in conflict, especially stories that avoid caricaturing whichever side the author disagrees with. We like stories about the personal cost of staying true to one's convictions, and stories that wrestle with difficult questions about Christian belief and tradition (and by "wrestle", we mean "sometimes the right answer isn't clear by the end of the story", not "God, or an angel, or an omniscient alien tells everyone what to believe").</div><div><br /></div><div>We get far, far too many stories about age-long conflicts between angels and demons where the supernatural beings are recognizably human in personality and motivation and work for organizations that resemble S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra more than anything in the Bible. We also get too many stories that, as far as we can tell, have nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity; or that have nothing to do with Christianity except that the characters attend church or pray at some point.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, to round out our list of "what we don't want": stories where the main point seems to be either to tell the reader what they should believe about something, or to assure readers who already agree with the author on that point that they're right.</div><div><br /></div><div>This last one is harder. We aren't opposed to authors having strong beliefs and wanting to write stories consistent with their values that attempt to express those beliefs. No doubt we've published stories that some readers think are too "preachy", perhaps ones where we strongly agree with the author's perspective and are less critical of the story's flaws than another editor might be. But there are certain features that many of the rejected stories of this sort share. Characters who disagree with the author tend to have few if any good qualities. Characters who do what the author considers to be bad things suffer a terrible fate by story's end. Characters are presented as doing either the right thing or the wrong thing, rather than having to choose between multiple not-great options.</div><div><br /></div><div>We get mediocre, excessively didactic stories from across the political and theological spectrums. Much of the problem comes down to bad writing, especially weak characterization. We can forgive many other flaws in a story if the characters seem like real people to us. But, if your main inspiration to write a particular story is concern over some issue or wrong belief that other people have, we're unlikely to be the best market for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, although it's not a huge percentage of what we receive, we always get a fair number of submissions from authors who seem to not understand what fiction is or what we publish. We are only looking for fiction. We do not publish news articles, we are not looking for essays or book reviews from authors we haven't already published, and we do not have staff writer positions for which you could potentially be hired. We are not going to publish your novel, your screenplay, or your political cartoons. It may be a waste of time to even mention this here, in the hope that people who obviously didn't read our submission guidelines will read this column instead, but just in case... please do not send us anything except fantasy fiction, science fiction, or supernatural fiction, and nothing longer than 9000 words.</div><div><br /></div><div>We'll be open to submissions for the entire month of July, and look forward to seeing what you all have for us this time around!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">In Other News</h3><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_03FoouJYUNac94s9UttjV9rMzU_vM3J7CaJHjhYKJLxn-gsEjm5q4XarteYHQpPzYDWZ6qNP3ZHEKq2hjtzMSdKC-TzqKodNAChbKUWPiY1QpRvq4BB6ZVN5rkQhdAR76hPk2y7xzqJkum5IoNsMM08H7p-GaM5iBK7lX9IffAXm3An2dnKcQInFkg/s4032/IMG_3125.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_03FoouJYUNac94s9UttjV9rMzU_vM3J7CaJHjhYKJLxn-gsEjm5q4XarteYHQpPzYDWZ6qNP3ZHEKq2hjtzMSdKC-TzqKodNAChbKUWPiY1QpRvq4BB6ZVN5rkQhdAR76hPk2y7xzqJkum5IoNsMM08H7p-GaM5iBK7lX9IffAXm3An2dnKcQInFkg/w480-h640/IMG_3125.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div>For a few weeks, a skunk was coming by every day or two to dig holes in our lawn--probably looking for insects and other invertebrates to eat--but we haven't seen it recently. The cats seem to like watching it through the windows, though they aren't alarmed by its presence the way they are by strange cats.</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of strange cats: some of you may remember that Belle, the elderly cat we adopted in January was due for oral surgery in early May. Unfortunately, once the vet was finally able to do a thorough oral exam with X-rays, it became clear that Belle's mouth was in far worse shape than they had realized, with extensive lesions from her autoimmune condition as well as decayed teeth. We were told that they couldn't do anything to help her at this point, and, regretfully, we had to let her go.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maxwell has also been having some health issues, with three trips to the veterinary ER or urgent care in less than two weeks. First he was constipated, after having possibly eaten some packing foam. A week after that was resolved, he started having bloody urine and vomiting. They did multiple tests to rule out various possibilities, and ultimately diagnosed him with feline idiopathic cystitis, an "exclusionary diagnosis". This means they don't really know what's wrong, but it's apparently not that uncommon for young and otherwise healthy cats to develop urinary tract issues in response to stress, usually brought on by changes to their environment. The vet thought Donald's recent work travel was probably the precipitating incident, and that Belle coming to live with us and then disappearing hadn't helped either.</div><div><br /></div><div>Male cats in particular are at risk for a life-threatening urinary tract blockage with this condition, but we're trying to keep an eye on him and not panic. We did set up a second water fountain for him and Marie, at the vet's recommendation, on the second floor of our house, since cats with this condition are often dehydrated. He's been okay for a few weeks now, so we're hopeful that further interventions won't be required.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRoa9kj1G3oTy6nTDVlOdFPVPV2TJNGPYK6CwivjW0gPqp5Ju--1FFL5hUcUlpxdU56nCCBfcUemlNPBYZGwNpXy6tlvZgQPhvKmSe4_iW5QxitASc3-uN6dSwT-Qs1or7N3mtWV4-l_7H_Mex3dpf4YPbV7xwmJrh0EtYnVVDyz_oUQ-tQ9vWdt57Q/s4032/IMG_3164.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBRoa9kj1G3oTy6nTDVlOdFPVPV2TJNGPYK6CwivjW0gPqp5Ju--1FFL5hUcUlpxdU56nCCBfcUemlNPBYZGwNpXy6tlvZgQPhvKmSe4_iW5QxitASc3-uN6dSwT-Qs1or7N3mtWV4-l_7H_Mex3dpf4YPbV7xwmJrh0EtYnVVDyz_oUQ-tQ9vWdt57Q/w480-h640/IMG_3164.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Maxwell trying Marie's patience by plunking himself down in the cat bed on top of her.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Our June story, Mob's "Stained Glass" goes up on June 26th. Be sure to come back then for this darkly atmospheric tale of a bereaved stained glass artist trying to recreate a dangerous window after its destruction in a storm.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next month we should be able to tell you all about the July and August stories. Until then, thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy the beginning of summer! (Or winter, for our friends in the southern hemisphere.)</div><div><div><br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div></div>Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-21067603385650368822023-05-22T00:00:00.010-04:002023-05-22T00:00:00.136-04:00No Stranger to Desert Places<div><b>by Karen Eisenbrey</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>“It’s going to be rough landing!” Captain Anderson shouted. “Hang on!”<br /><br />
Commander Ruby Ladd gripped her armrests. Surely they were coming in too low, too fast. But she trusted the Skipper. He’d rarely given her any reason not to. And now they were in the Gusev Crater, a long way from the base, but still—not bad. He hit the retro rockets, but they cut out soon after. The shuttle hit the ground, bounced, and slid across the rocky surface. So much for the landing gear. <br /><br />
Ruby had her harness unfastened as soon as they stopped moving. “Do you think she’ll explode?” <br /><br />
Anderson stared at her a moment, then laughed long and hard. <br /><br />
“What’s so funny?”<br /><br />
“There’s nothing left to explode,” he told her. “We’re completely out of fuel.”<br /><br />
“Then I guess we’d better start walking.”<br /><br />
Nielson was still strapped into the one remaining seat in the passenger area, where he’d been since they entered the atmosphere. The engineer had made a number of small repairs and adjustments during the short flight from Phobos. He was probably as responsible as Anderson for the relative success of the landing. Now he stared, wide-eyed and silent.<br /><br />
“Mr. Nielson?” Ruby shook his shoulder. When he didn’t respond, she knocked on his helmet, which got his attention. “Mr. Nielson, we’re going to have to walk the rest of the way. Come on, get up now.”<br /><br />
He nodded and unfastened the straps. He tried to stand but fell back into the seat. “I can’t, Boss. It’s too much gravity.”<br /><br />
“I know, we’re all weaker than we should be. We’ll get used to it, but we need to go now, while it’s light.”<br /><br />
Between them, she and Anderson got Nielson onto his feet. They stepped out onto the Martian surface, the unaccustomed pull of a planet’s gravity dragging them down. It was a calm, clear day. The flat, butterscotch-colored crater bottom stretched off in front of them, the Columbia Hills visible in the distance.<br /><br />
“See, this isn’t so bad,” she said. “We just head for those hills. How far would you say it is, Skipper?”<br /><br />
Anderson eyed the hills, then held up his hand to judge the angle. “Maybe ninety clicks.”<br /><br />
“OK. We have air, water, and food for three days. No problem.” They’d come so far, all the way from the Asteroid Belt in a tiny craft never meant to travel far from its mothership. Ninety kilometers sounded like nothing in comparison, except they’d be doing it on foot. But the rest of the crew was depending on them. So, no problem.<br /><br />
After two steps, Nielson fell again. Ruby wanted to join him. Mars’ gravity was only about a third of Earth’s, but it dragged at her so she could barely lift her feet. And she was probably in the best condition of the three. By force of will, she kept herself standing.<br /><br />
“Leave me with the ship,” Nielson begged. “I can’t walk that far.”<br /><br />
“I’m not leaving anyone alone,” Ruby replied. As Expedition Commander, she was responsible for his well-being, as well as those still on Phobos. “We promised the others we’d send help. Help is that way.” She pointed toward the hills. “We don’t have to go fast. We just have to keep moving.” <br /><br />
“What if a dust storm comes up?” he asked. “We won’t be able to see where we’re going.”<br /><br />
“We’ll hunker down together and wait it out. Conditions are good now, so let’s go. Skipper, you lead.”<br /><br />
Ruby fell in behind Nielson to make sure they didn’t lose him. She listened to his muttered swearing and complaints over the public channel for a few minutes before she cut in. “We can’t afford to waste air on unnecessary talk.”<br /><br />
He fell silent, though she assumed the complaints continued in his head. They trudged for fifteen minutes, covering a few hundred meters, then rested for five, then trudged another fifteen. During rest breaks, they sipped water and NutriGel through tubes threaded from the life support packs into their helmets. They needed all the strength they could get. She considered letting her companions sleep after the sun went down, but they still had so far to go. They could get by for a time without food and water, but when the air ran out, that would be it.<br /><br />
“Look, there’s a beacon on top of Husband Hill,” she said, pointing to the blinking light in the distance. “We just need to keep walking toward it.”<br /><br />
She took the lead and let Anderson follow Nielson. They continued their slow, steady pace all night. Ruby didn’t even want to think about the air temperature. The cold, thin air of Mars would steal their body heat even through their suits. All the more reason to keep moving, and to consume as many calories as possible.<br /><br />
This was the third visit to Mars for all three of them. The first time, five years ago, should have been a routine supply mission to the Columbia research base, but disaster struck late in the visit. They’d lost five shipmates—five good friends, including their commander—in a terrible, preventable accident. The tragedy had colored the second visit almost a year ago, though that one had turned out mercifully routine. Ruby never would have predicted she’d have to make her third visit to the base on foot, but at least no one was dead. Yet.<br /><br />
They kept conversation to a minimum to conserve air, but Ruby gave Nielson an encouraging word whenever he lagged. The movement was enough to keep them awake, though Ruby often found herself half dreaming. She looked forward to a real bed at the end. When the sun rose, the weather was still calm, so they pressed on, Anderson leading again. It didn’t seem they had made much progress, but when she looked back, the wrecked shuttle was barely visible. There was no choice but to go on.<br /><br />
They plodded on at the same slow pace, and the view ahead hardly seemed to change. But Ruby had the sense that something was different—there were four of them, not three. Perhaps someone from the base had come to help! But when she looked around, she couldn’t see anyone else. Still, the feeling persisted of a fourth person walking near her, just out of view. At one point, she squawked in surprise as she felt a strong, encouraging hand on her shoulder.<br /><br />
Anderson spun to face her. “What is it? Are you all right?”<br /><br />
“Yes, I… just stumbled. I’ll be fine as long as I remember to pick up my feet.” They didn’t need to know she was losing it. This presence meant them no harm.<br /><br />
It had been years since Ruby believed in guardian angels or the help of a benevolent God. As a young teen, she had been drawn to church by her best friend’s promise of a youth basketball league, then stayed for the music, the ritual, the community, the comfort and uplift. But as an adult, she had seen too much loss and pointless suffering to hold onto her faith. Yet that imagined hand on her shoulder renewed her strength to continue this trek. The others were relying on her.<br /><br />
On the morning of the third day, they reached the base of the hills. Ruby allowed a longer rest break while they planned their route. Nielson sank to the ground. To judge by the snoring that came over the comm, he fell asleep instantly.<br /><br />
“We could go around and avoid a climb,” Anderson said.<br /><br />
“It’ll be a lot longer. I’m not sure we’ll make it. But if we go up and over this pass, we come down right by the entrance to the base. It’s not that steep.”<br /><br />
Between the two of them, they finally agreed the shorter route made more sense. The wind was starting to rise, and they didn’t want to get caught out in a dust storm so close to their goal. Ruby woke Nielson and they began to climb. It was much harder than it looked. When fit, she could have run up this slope, but now they did most of it on all fours with many stops. But after three grueling hours, they reached the top. <br /><br />
“We did it, friends,” Ruby said, and shook hands with her two visible companions. Their once-white suits were grubby with dust, but still intact, though Neilson’s mission patch hung by a few threads. “We’re almost there.”<br /><br />
The underground base was just below them. They started down on weak and shaking legs. They fell and slid more than they walked, but eventually reached the bottom. Anderson helped Nielson up from his latest fall. <br /><br />
“Boss! Something’s wrong. I think Nielson’s out of air!”<br /><br />
Nielson gasped but his tanks were empty. A quick glance at her HUD revealed that Ruby’s air supply, while low, was far from gone. But Nielson wasn’t in as good condition, or as experienced with how to ration air. All it took was a few extra moments of panic. She and Anderson draped his arms over their shoulders and supported him to the entrance. He moved his feet a little, but he wasn’t really walking. <br /><br />
Ruby radioed the base from the comm at the entrance. “Open the main airlock.”<br /><br />
“What are you doing out there? Everyone’s supposed to be inside. Don’t you know there’s a storm coming?”<br /><br />
“Then open up so we can <i>be</i> inside!”<br /><br />
After what seemed like forever, the doors slid open, and they dragged Nielson in. She hadn’t heard a gasp from him in a long time. As soon as the inner doors opened, they laid him on the floor and Ruby wrestled his helmet off. He was limp, his eyes closed and his lips blue. “No, no, no! Damn you, Nielson, don’t do this to me. Not now. Not after all this.” She yanked off her glove and felt his neck for a pulse. Weak, yes, but there. He jerked and sucked in a breath.<br /><br />
Ruby took off her own helmet. A passing intern stared at them. No wonder, if they all looked as bad as Nielson.<br /><br />
“Don’t just stand there!” Ruby snapped. “This man needs medical attention!”<br /><br />
“I… I…” The intern continued to stare.<br /><br />
Ruby let loose a string of profanity. “Help us! Now!” She slapped the floor for further emphasis.<br /><br />
That got his attention. He got on the comm, then hurried away, looking badly spooked.<br /><br />
Anderson fought a smile. “We don’t hear language like that from you too often, Boss.” <br /><br />
“Well, it’s Nielson, isn’t it? He taught me well.”<br /><br />
Soon a small vehicle hummed up with a pair of medics aboard. They hid their shock better than the intern, but not completely.<br /><br />
The driver, her curly red hair in a ponytail, stared at Ruby. “Aren’t you…?”<br /><br />
“Later,” Ruby said. “Take care of him first.”<br /><br />
“Of course.” They loaded Nielson onto a stretcher. “We’ll take him to the infirmary. What’s the problem?”<br /><br />
“His air ran out before we could get inside.”<br /><br />
“Name?”<br /><br />
“Nielson. Chip Nielson.”<br /><br />
“You’re… not base staff, obviously,” the other medic said. “How did you get here? No ships have landed recently.”<br /><br />
“We walked.” She stared at him, and he seemed disinclined to ask more questions. The intern must have warned them about the foul-mouthed crazy woman. As they were about to leave, she had a thought. “Do you go near the superintendent’s office?”<br /><br />
“Yes, it’s on the way.”<br /><br />
“Take us there.” She climbed onto the little vehicle and motioned for Anderson to do likewise.<br /><br />
The driver opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything and drove off. The ride seemed the height of luxury. Ruby was sorry it had to end so soon.<br /><br />
The little ambulance slowed outside Superintendent Rogers’ office. “Are you sure? Maybe we should take you to the infirmary, too.”<br /><br />
“Later,” Ruby said. “We have a job to do.”<br /><br />
They entered the office. A bored-looking young man at the reception desk wrinkled his nose as they approached but did not look up from his screen.<br /><br />
“Excuse me,” Ruby said. “I need to see Superintendent Rogers.”<br /><br />
“Name?” the assistant asked, still without looking up.<br /><br />
“Commander Ruby Ladd of the <i>Endurance</i>.”<br /><br />
His eyes snapped up and he stared. “But you’re… that’s… I…”<br /><br />
Superintendent Rogers sprang out of his office. “Commander Ladd? My God! And is that hairy creature Frank Anderson? You’re alive!”<br /><br />
Ruby managed a smile for him. “Apparently so. I need your help.”<br /><br />
“Anything! What can I do for you?”<br /><br />
Her knees buckled and she gripped the edge of the desk. “Let’s start with a seat and some solid food.”<br /><br />
“I can do that. Come in.”<br /><br />
They hobbled into his office. He seated them in comfortable armchairs and ordered sandwiches from the kitchen. He didn’t even mention the smell, though they both had to be extremely ripe.<br /><br />
“I can’t tell you how good it is to see you alive,” Rogers said. “With no communications for months, we feared the worst. Wesley James has been losing his mind.”<br /><br />
Ruby snorted. “I’ll bet. Anything that delays his dreams of colonization wouldn’t go over too well.”<br /><br />
Rogers cleared his throat. “Not to mention the loss of life and a good ship. Speaking of which…”<br /><br />
Before he could finish, the food arrived. He held whatever he was going to say and allowed Ruby and Anderson to eat undisturbed. They demolished the pile in minutes. PBJs had never tasted so good. <br /><br />
“As I was about to say, I don’t know how you managed to sneak up on us,” Rogers said. “I wasn’t even aware your ship had entered orbit, let alone landed.” <br /><br />
“<i>Endurance</i> was destroyed in an asteroid collision in May.” Ruby swallowed hard. “We made our escape on the landing shuttle.”<br /><br />
“On the<i> shuttle</i>?”<br /><br />
“It was all we had. We crashed it on the other side of the crater and walked the rest of the way.”<br /><br />
“This is amazing!” Rogers shook his head in disbelief. “No one has heard from you in months; you were presumed dead. There was even a memorial service. Quite beautiful, really. You should see the recording.”<br /><br />
“But first, showers and clean clothes,” Ruby said.<br /><br />
“You should see Dr. Fairfax, too.”<br /><br />
Ruby nodded. “We just sent a man to the infirmary. Most of all, we need a ship.”<br /><br />
“The big staff transport comes in January. You can be my guests until then. I’m rotating out, so I’ll be leaving with you.”<br /><br />
“That’s good to know,” Ruby said. “But I mean a small ship, immediately. The rest of our party is camped at the emergency depot on Phobos.”<br /><br />
“The rest of your party? How many?”<br /><br />
“Nine.”<br /><br />
Rogers did the math. “You two, your man in the infirmary, and nine more? Twelve—then you didn’t lose any?”<br /><br />
“No. Not a one. I didn’t lose a one.” And Ruby smiled, really smiled, for the first time in days.<br /><br />
“That’s good news,” Rogers said. “We have a shuttle that can pick them up, but the <i>Aurora</i> doesn’t get much use. It’ll take a day or so to get her ready.”<br /><br />
“My people need urgent medical care,” Ruby said. “One in particular has been seriously ill.”<br /><br />
“All right, I’ll have the maintenance crew start immediately. And let me see what we can do in the way of showers and clothes.”<br /><br />
Another vehicle drove them to the shower rooms, and someone from the laundry met them. <br /><br />
“Just leave your space gear; we’ll return it when it’s clean.” She distributed clean clothes and basic, 3D-printed shoes. The underwear and Anderson’s uniform were regulation blue. “I hope it’s all right,” she said of the beige technician’s uniform she held out for Ruby. “We don’t have an officer’s uniform in your size.”<br /><br />
“Clean is more important than color,” Ruby assured her.<br /><br />
The shower, though metered, was hot, wet, and reviving. It felt as close to heaven as Ruby could imagine at the moment. She got out and back in so she could have another five minutes. Afterward, she finally looked in a mirror. No wonder the people at the base had looked so horrified. The puffiness of zero gravity had masked the gauntness of her face. Her cheekbones jutted over hollows, and her eyes were sunken and dark. She had thought her hair was long and wild before, but wet and with gravity pulling it down, it drooped almost to her collar. At least it was clean now.<br /><br />
She dressed and stepped into the shoes. The fit was poor, but they would do for now. She made her slow way to the infirmary, but she couldn’t keep her hands out of her hair. It kept falling into her eyes and tickling her neck. <br /><br />
“Need a haircut?” She turned toward the voice. A woman with green eyes and curly red hair greeted her with a smile. “The chair’s free. And I’d consider it an honor, Commander.” She gestured toward the doorway behind her. “I’m Lucy, by the way.”<br /><br />
Ruby shook her hand. “Do I know you?”<br /><br />
“No, but I know you.”<br /><br />
“News travels fast.”<br /><br />
“You better believe it does! There are only thirty of us, and nothing much really happens here.” Lucy grinned. “Also, I gave you a ride to Rogers’s office.”<br /><br />
“Thanks for that. So which is your side gig?” Ruby asked.<br /><br />
“I already had my cosmetology license when I came out,” Lucy said. “I’m working on EMT certification while I’m here.”<br /><br />
“A woman after my own heart. Get in touch when you get back to Earth if you need a job.” Ruby sighed. “It’s been ages since someone else cut my hair. Sure, let’s do it.” She followed the stylist into the one-chair salon, squeezed between the infirmary and the chapel. <br /><br />
Lucy ran her fingers through Ruby’s damp hair with professional interest. “It’s not really that long. When did you last cut it?”<br /><br />
“I have no idea,” Ruby replied, and dropped into the chair. “April, maybe?”<br /><br />
Lucy fastened a cape over her and got out a comb. “I’m here from 1100 to 1300 every day. Some days, nobody wants a haircut, and then others, I’ll have five in a row! The rest of the time, I’m an aide in the infirmary. I guess I’m just a people person! I always liked to…”<br /><br />
The shower had been stimulating, but Lucy’s pleasant chatter lulled Ruby. She closed her eyes and listened without much attention until the voice faded. It was dark, but she had to keep going. She crawled up the slope toward the pass. She was bringing oxygen to the man at the top. One of her people. Without it, he’d die. <br /><br />
Ruby jerked awake.<br /><br />
“There, all done,” Lucy said. “What do you think?”<br /><br />
Ruby tried to calm her racing heart as she examined her new look. The skeletal face was still a shock. Her hair was longer than her usual buzzcut, but she was grateful enough for the nap that she didn’t complain. <br /><br />
“I look like a girl!”<br /><br />
“The word you’re looking for is <i>woman</i>,” Lucy corrected. “Is it all right?”<br /><br />
“I’m not complaining,” Ruby said. She ran her fingers through the new ’do. “I haven’t worn bangs since I was twelve, but they cover the worry lines. This is good.” She ran her fingers through it, fluffing it up. “It’s wavier than I remembered. And the color…” Although it was still mostly chestnut, a substantial amount had turned gray. She looked like she’d aged twenty years.<br /><br />
“Do you want to dye it, too?” Lucy asked.<br /><br />
“No. I earned this. I’ll keep it.”<br /><br />
By the time she got to the infirmary, Dr. Fairfax had finished examining Anderson and was ready for her. She pronounced them undernourished and significantly weakened, but otherwise in good health. <br /><br />
“How far did you say you walked?” she asked Ruby.<br /><br />
“About ninety kilometers. But we took over fifty hours to do it.”<br /><br />
“In your condition, you shouldn’t have been able to walk one kilometer!”<br /><br />
Ruby smiled. “We had no other choice.”<br /><br />
“There’s no medical reason to keep you here,” Dr. Fairfax said. “But you need to sleep.” She called the administrative office about rooms. “Do you mind sharing for one night? They’re painting some of the dorms and there won’t be two singles available until tomorrow, but there’s a double that’s open now.”<br /><br />
“I don’t mind sharing. Do you, Skipper?”<br /><br />
“Not at all. To tell the truth, I’m not sure I want to be alone. At least, not until everyone is safe.”<br /><br />
“I’m with you on that,” Ruby said. “We’ll take the double for now.”<br /><br />
Dr. Fairfax called for a driver to deliver them to their room. Once there, Ruby plugged her comm into the charger and recorded a message to her bosses back on Earth to let them know of the expedition’s failure and her people’s miraculous survival. Twenty minutes later, she received a response—as close to immediate as possible. They were, to say the least, surprised.<br /><br />
Meanwhile, Anderson shaved off his beard and combed his hair before he placed a live call home. “How do I look?”<br /><br />
“You look alive, Skipper. It’s enough.”<br /><br />
She left the room to give Anderson his privacy and returned to the infirmary.<br /><br />
Nielson lifted a weak hand in greeting. “Hello, Boss.”<br /><br />
“Mr. Nielson, I’m glad to see you conscious again. How do you feel?”<br /><br />
“Like I damn near died and didn’t.”<br /><br />
“I’m sorry I had to put you through that.”<br /><br />
He shook his head. “I probably would’ve really died if you’d left me with the shuttle like I asked.”<br /><br />
She smiled. “I let the suits back home know that news of our demise was premature.”<br /><br />
He grinned back at her. “How’d they take that?”<br /><br />
“Apparently we were big heroes when we were dead, and now we’re bigger heroes because we’re not dead.” She rolled her eyes. “They want to give us a parade.”<br /><br />
“We’re not heroes, Boss. We’re survivors, is all.”<br /><br />
“I know that, Nielson.”<br /><br />
“Except for you. You are the biggest goddamned hero I ever met. You saved all our lives.” <br /><br />
Ruby didn’t feel like much of a hero as she returned to the dormitory on dragging feet. Besides her nap during the haircut, she had been awake for most of three days and didn’t have much left, now that the adrenaline had worn off. Anderson was already in his bed, and she crawled into hers quietly so as not to wake him. It felt strange to lie down in a real bed, but in a good way. She was so tired she could have slept anywhere.<br /><br />
“Hey, Boss,” Anderson murmured. He rolled over to face her.<br /><br />
“I thought you were asleep.”<br /><br />
“Almost. I can’t stop thinking about it.”<br /><br />
“About what?” she asked.<br /><br />
“We really <i>did</i> something, didn’t we?”<br /><br />
“You won’t get any argument from me.”<br /><br />
He rolled onto his back with his hands behind his head. “And not just you and me these last couple of days, but all of us. It feels like the most <i>real</i> thing I was ever part of.”<br /><br />
She knew what he meant, though it was difficult to put into words. It was so far beyond the ordinary, as far as space travel beyond life on Earth. “We’ll never top it. At least, I hope not. But I know I’ll never forget any of it. We cut through the surface, to the heart and soul of things.”<br /><br />
“That almost sounds like God talk, Boss.”<br /><br />
“Does it?” Even a few days ago, the remark might have drawn an angry response. He’d known her long enough to know when she lost her faith, and why. But now…<br /><br />
“Can I tell you something spooky?” he asked.<br /><br />
“Go ahead.” She arranged herself comfortably to listen.<br /><br />
“When we were walking yesterday, sometimes I felt like there were… four of us.”<br /><br />
Her spine prickled. “Really?”<br /><br />
“I never saw anybody. I figured it must be a hallucination, but…”<br /><br />
She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I felt it, too.” She rolled onto her back and tried to be the voice of reason. “We were both pretty exhausted. The mind can play tricks sometimes.”<br /><br />
“Yes. But it seemed really… solid.”<br /><br />
“I know.” She recalled that comforting hand on her shoulder. She could have done with more hallucinations like that on this trip.<br /><br />
“Who do you suppose it was?” he asked.<br /><br />
“Whoever it was, they were no stranger to desert places. Or to grief.”<br /><br />
“More God talk?” Anderson chuckled softly. “Has the lost lamb returned to the fold after all this time?”<br /><br />
“More like… the Shepherd came and got me.”<br /><br />
“You’re a pretty good shepherd yourself, but I think that’s how we kept going,” Anderson said. “We had help. We’ve had help the whole time.”<br /><br />
She considered that. One miracle after another, and a lot of hard work and suffering. “It’s not quite over yet. I won’t feel easy until everyone is here with us.”<br /><br />
“True. But that hardly seems like any kind of challenge, now.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />When Ruby surfaced from sleep, it wasn’t the next day, but the one after that. After a shower, she felt almost completely human again. A substantial meal completed the process—though it was almost noon, the breakfast buffet in the dining hall was still open. The better news was that the shuttle <i>Aurora</i> was ready to pick up her people from Phobos.<br /><br />
She and Anderson got back into their newly cleaned spacesuits and boarded the shuttle with a pilot, a navigator, and a pair of medical technicians.<br /><br />
As they flew over the crater, Ruby saw a tractor towing the crashed shuttle back toward the base.<br /><br />
“I can’t believe you traveled all the way from the Asteroid Belt in <i>that</i>,” the pilot said.<br /><br />
“You do what you have to,” Anderson said. “I’ll bet it’s a tight fit docking this ship at the Phobos depot. How many times have you done it?”<br /><br />
The pilot glanced around. “Never; why would I? Your group is the first to use it. But how hard can it be?”<br /><br />
“This should be fun,” Anderson whispered to Ruby.<br /><br />
When they got close and the pilot saw the narrow opening, he paled. They orbited several times, and Ruby began to worry they would run out of fuel before he was satisfied with the approach. At last, the pilot turned to the Skipper. “Captain Anderson, I’m going to let you have the honor of docking.”<br /><br />
The Skipper smiled. “Thank you.” They changed seats. Anderson got on the comm. “<i>Endurance </i>party, this is the shuttle <i>Aurora</i> from Columbia Base. Come in, please. Over.”<br /><br />
Mission Specialist Curley’s bearded face appeared on the screen. He grinned at first, but then his face fell. “We’re glad to see you, <i>Aurora</i>. We sort of hoped our own people would come for us.”<br /><br />
“What?” Anderson stared at Curley, a baffled look on his face.<br /><br />
“We thought the Boss would come for us, or anyway, Captain Anderson. That’s all.”<br /><br />
“Dr. Curley, who do you think I am?” Anderson exploded.<br /><br />
Ruby moved the camera to point at her. “Dr. Curley, put Mr. Wild on, please.”<br /><br />
Dr. Curley’s jaw dropped open. “Boss!”<br /><br />
First Officer Wild took his place. “I told them you might come today.”<br /><br />
“All well, Mr. Wild?”<br /><br />
“All well, Boss.”<br /><br />
She moved the camera to point at Anderson again and turned her face away from the others in the cockpit so they wouldn’t see her tears. All well.<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
As soon as they got back to Columbia Base, the new arrivals were whisked away to the infirmary. Most of them couldn’t even walk off the shuttle. Ruby wanted to hurry after them, but she was still weak herself. By the time she shuffled to the infirmary, they had been taken to the exam area. A nurse stopped her when she tried to enter.<br /><br />
“Sorry, Commander, that area’s off limits.”<br /><br />
“But are they all right? I know some of them need immediate care, and—”<br /><br />
He smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. “OK, Mother Hen, calm down. We’ll take good care of your brood. Most of them just need rest, feeding, and physical therapy.”<br /><br />
Ruby bristled a little at the “mother hen” comment until she saw how well it fit. “It’s hard to turn off the worry.”<br /><br />
“I understand. You did well, but we’ll take it from here.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s late. Have you eaten?”<br /><br />
“No, not yet. Not since breakfast.”<br /><br />
“Go have dinner, then get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow. Dr. Fairfax left instructions that once they’re out of the exam room, you should have full access to your people, at any hour. I think she’s a little in awe.”<br /><br />
It was difficult to turn away, though it helped to meet Anderson at the door. He’d been even slower to catch up.<br /><br />
“We can’t see anyone right now, Skipper. Let’s get out of these suits, find something to eat, and hit the sack.”<br /><br />
They returned to their shared room to change, turned backs the only concession to modesty. The borrowed uniform was in better shape than any of Ruby’s own clothes, so she put that back on. She opened her duffel, retrieved from Phobos, and lifted out her boots. They’d lost some of their shine, but they were still in excellent shape. She pulled them on, relishing the comfort of footwear that actually fit.<br /><br />
By the time they got there, the dining hall was about to close, but the servers seemed happy to provide for the visiting celebrities. Ruby still marveled at the taste of real food. She began to feel better. <br /><br />
Superintendent Rogers found them there and sat with them. “Now that your whole party is here, it seems more appropriate for you two to have separate quarters. The VIP suite is ready for you, Commander.”<br /><br />
Ruby didn’t mind sharing, but he was probably right, if only for appearance’s sake. And he seemed to feel he was doing her an honor. After supper, she bade Anderson goodnight and went to her new room—small, unadorned, a single bed, a single chair. She sank onto the bed. This was an honor, a treat, a luxury. She gazed at that quiet, empty room and couldn’t bear to be alone.<i><br /><br />
Don’t be such a baby, </i>she chastised herself. <i>Everyone is safe and you’ll see them tomorrow. Don’t fall apart now.</i><br /><br />
She didn’t want to do anything, even sleep. But there was something… She folded her hands and tried to pray. It had never been easy, even when she still had some faith. Her mind had always wandered to plans and to-do lists. <br /><br />
Tears came before words. All she could think of was all that <i>had</i> gone wrong, all that <i>could have</i> gone wrong and didn’t, all that was now past. The tears flowed, tears of grief and relief, longing and release. The hardship was at an end. So was the expedition. But everyone was safe.<br /><br />
<i>All well, Boss. All well.</i><br /><br />
Ruby whispered the only words needed. “Thank you.”<br /><br />
<hr /><br /><div>
Karen Eisenbrey (she/her) lives in Seattle, WA, where she leads a quiet, orderly life and invents stories to make up for it. Karen writes fantasy and science fiction novels, as well as short fiction and the occasional poem or song if it insists. Published books include the Daughter of Magic fantasy trilogy: <i>Daughter of Magic</i>, <i>Wizard Girl</i>, and <i>Death’s Midwife</i>; and the St. Rage garage-rock/superhero series: <i>The Gospel According to St. Rage</i>; <i>Barbara and the Rage Brigade</i>; and <i>Far from Normal</i> (co-written with LeeAnn McLennan). Most recently, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Endurance-Karen-Eisenbrey-ebook/dp/B0C15YHL8T/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">Ego & Endurance</a></i> was released by <a href="http://www.notapipepublishing.com/">Not A Pipe Publishing</a> in May 2023. Karen shares her life with her husband, two young adult sons, and four feline ghosts. Find her online at <a href="http://kareneisenbreywriter.com">kareneisenbreywriter.com</a>, on Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KarenEisenbreyWriter">@KarenEisenbreyWriter</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://www.twitter.com/KarenEisenbrey">@KarenEisenbrey</a>.<br /><br />
“No Stranger to Desert Places” is an excerpt from <i>Ego & Endurance</i>, which was inspired by Ernest Shackleton’s failed Imperial Transantarctic Expedition (1914-17) plus a placard at an exhibit on Mars exploration noting that Antarctica is an analog site for Mars. The excerpt was specifically inspired by Shackleton’s experience as he led a small crew in a daring voyage to seek rescue for the larger expedition party.</div><br />“No Stranger to Desert Places” by Karen Eisenbrey. © 2023 by Karen Eisenbrey. Excerpted from <i>Ego & Endurance</i> (Not A Pipe Publishing, 2023).<div>
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!</div>Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-7011817842511862952023-05-02T12:00:00.000-04:002023-05-02T12:00:00.134-04:00May 2023<div>Although this would typically be a busy time for us, as we scrambled to finish reading the January submissions before the end of May so we would have enough time to edit the July and August stories, this year we finished responding to submissions by the end of March.</div><div><br /></div><div>But if you're concerned that we might not have enough to keep us busy, never fear! Gardening season has arrived for Kristin and Donald has a lot going on with his day job; plus we had a cat health crisis.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzTOm3SitaKFQobcFGpVIVzy7Wxq7l09I2ZvwWBiILou_rqzLaZPQYn9vkIsR9-OXjgCDCk5_MbAUhdL1a3LLAVSFNoI2Ul-VicU-BgK-1ENUuOSX0abp_BWrUP7hUJjBFZJwf0tGNk3FOBumsNHMsFaFU9oKE4vbwHZbm41XJjMbeQT2AJlZ7IA30A/s4032/IMG_3095.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzTOm3SitaKFQobcFGpVIVzy7Wxq7l09I2ZvwWBiILou_rqzLaZPQYn9vkIsR9-OXjgCDCk5_MbAUhdL1a3LLAVSFNoI2Ul-VicU-BgK-1ENUuOSX0abp_BWrUP7hUJjBFZJwf0tGNk3FOBumsNHMsFaFU9oKE4vbwHZbm41XJjMbeQT2AJlZ7IA30A/w480-h640/IMG_3095.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>First strawberry blossoms</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">For May and June, we're publishing two stories:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"No Stranger to Desert Places" by Karen Eisenbrey. Desperate survivors from a lost outpost seek refuge on Mars. An excerpt from Karen's novel <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Endurance-Karen-Eisenbrey-ebook/dp/B0C15YHL8T/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">Ego & Endurance</a>, </i>out this week from Not a Pipe Publishing.</li><li>"Stained Glass" by Mob. A stained glass window maker recreates a destroyed window that's more dangerous than he can know.</li></ul><div>And if you missed it, check out our current featured story, "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/04/wicket-20.html">Wicket 2.0</a>," about the lost things that sometimes come back. One of our Patreon subscribers told us this was a favorite of theirs, and we recommend it especially to all you dog lovers out there!</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of Patreon, did you know that if you sign up to contribute at least $3 a month to our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>, you get all our stories emailed to you at the start of the month in which they're published? Sure, you could just wait a few weeks and read them here on our website for free. But when you become a Patreon subscriber, you know you're also helping us pay our authors and artists for their work.</div><div><br /></div><div>We currently have 21 active Patrons contributing a total of $200/month. Our next funding goal is $275/month, and when we reach that target, we plan to start publishing two additional stories every year.</div><div><br /></div><div>As we were reminded while trying to make our final selections from the January story submissions, there are always more stories that we would like to publish than that we reasonably can, so we doubt it will be any trouble trying to fill those extra slots!</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Feline Update</h3><div>Belle, the sixteen year old cat we inherited from our friend, spent several hours at the veterinary ER a couple weeks ago, after she started bleeding profusely from her mouth. She was eventually sent home with a course of antibiotics and instructions to moisten her dry kibble with warm water before feeding it to her. (Unfortunately, she won't eat wet cat food.)</div>
<div><br /></div><div>We already knew she needed to have several decayed teeth extracted, but had been holding off on scheduling the procedure until we were able to get her more settled in her new home with us (we adopted her three and a half months ago after her last owner passed away). The ER vet also noticed a new issue: she has some sort of lump or growth in her mouth that could be an abscess from one of her bad teeth, or oral cancer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Her dental work is now scheduled for later this week, at which point they'll also remove the lump and possibly do histopathology on it to determine whether it is cancer. If it is, there probably isn't much more we should do for her. We decided to go ahead with the dental work, in the hope that it can get her to the point where she can have some relatively pain-free time with us and enjoy being petted and watching birds out her window. But we don't think it would be kind to her to attempt cancer treatment, or any further surgical interventions.</div><div><br /></div><div>The good news is that, after her latest infection was treated with the antibiotics, she had a very good week. We started leaving the door to her room open more and more often, and one day Kristin was surprised to see her downstairs in the kitchen eating Maxwell's and Marie's food (Maxwell was also surprised, and not in a good way). She must have been tired of eating soggy food.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXNmWF7eIBk299sxPoVBe1C7W5yeJYpyxsBhHebePKPr0X-RtUh5FBIpbfbC2-DLZYfiN-TeucTMduU8VmU_gK2t0P4M8KWg-aoqe8N8jOSNdqY3H9wus-aNgstI-JOhl1F6tXNe2Ozqnq3Nw8H_6VNiCa83BjugqoT10nKhLiAMNPPeRlm01rLnwEw/s4032/IMG_3089.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXNmWF7eIBk299sxPoVBe1C7W5yeJYpyxsBhHebePKPr0X-RtUh5FBIpbfbC2-DLZYfiN-TeucTMduU8VmU_gK2t0P4M8KWg-aoqe8N8jOSNdqY3H9wus-aNgstI-JOhl1F6tXNe2Ozqnq3Nw8H_6VNiCa83BjugqoT10nKhLiAMNPPeRlm01rLnwEw/w480-h640/IMG_3089.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Belle is a messy eater.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Belle was more adventurous than we'd ever seen her, coming downstairs multiple times a day to eat the exciting new kibble (which she now apparently likes better than the prescription diet she's supposed to be having), and to explore. Unfortunately, we had to shut her in her room again for a few days after her mouth started bleeding again, imposing a strict soggy food regimen, but it gave us hope that if we are able to resolve her tooth issues, she might be able to enjoy her time eating, exploring her new home, and snarling at the young'uns.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLKc_4teLRl7HUUcXt9DcGGUSTFdZrAGs54vdXr05-yYHPXAQaszE42ZyvVP1Ld3B1H2mm00C_NJa3ZwzRc45RSCcS43NW66WyU7yPr-7SFmabrs-Lg92FfyciLeRk84H2AZz4wDoTVCBXjZ-LaV4CjKckJwSMcblzs_tAtjOeYzdh2HYeyhmr4jrxA/s4032/IMG_3058.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgLKc_4teLRl7HUUcXt9DcGGUSTFdZrAGs54vdXr05-yYHPXAQaszE42ZyvVP1Ld3B1H2mm00C_NJa3ZwzRc45RSCcS43NW66WyU7yPr-7SFmabrs-Lg92FfyciLeRk84H2AZz4wDoTVCBXjZ-LaV4CjKckJwSMcblzs_tAtjOeYzdh2HYeyhmr4jrxA/w480-h640/IMG_3058.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Maxwell and Marie got new furniture for their porch/catio. (Belle hasn't figured out the cat door yet.) When it got cold last fall, Donald decided we should move their cat tree from the porch into the bay window behind the living room couch. But even though it's warm enough again for the cats to spend more time out on the porch, they like the bay window spot so much that we didn't want to take their perch out of it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The top level of the new cat tree is wide enough that they can both snuggle up in it at once:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8d8TEwnE3frlvcVPw5d6x-3Kh1IGQvQQTfuFLbPONX-SgZ53wBKbdi2MVTFYxVOdD0q3oEiQlB95k8QnXOBpT9RCMpT1BXZRNRYOwLkB7fbFIaD8FW_0ni9Sux3JdTnewQo1C3m2BKZzTtNZz0S3kmuOq2MbeoKHJGMa1YF8U-p9hkZl4_jbnQkvSLA/s4032/IMG_3092.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8d8TEwnE3frlvcVPw5d6x-3Kh1IGQvQQTfuFLbPONX-SgZ53wBKbdi2MVTFYxVOdD0q3oEiQlB95k8QnXOBpT9RCMpT1BXZRNRYOwLkB7fbFIaD8FW_0ni9Sux3JdTnewQo1C3m2BKZzTtNZz0S3kmuOq2MbeoKHJGMa1YF8U-p9hkZl4_jbnQkvSLA/w480-h640/IMG_3092.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We hope we'll have positive cat news for our next update. Until then, stay well, be sure to come back on May 22nd to read Karen Eisenbrey's novel excerpt, and please consider supporting us on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a>!</div><br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-82258565741017957422023-04-24T01:00:00.005-04:002023-04-24T01:00:00.173-04:00Wicket 2.0<div><b>by Jamie M. Boyd</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>I found Wicket barking by the side of the road at an art festival. Which was strange, because his ashes were still in my closet from three years ago, when he died.<br /><br />
“Wicket!” I cried before my head caught up to my heart. And then, an octave higher: “<i>Wicket?</i>”<br /><br />
The festival was the same one that popped up every year in Fort Lauderdale, the same artists selling the same beach prints, the same vaguely New Age jewelry, on a downtown street closed off to traffic. Along the road there was a ditch, and in that ditch were two small strays. An emaciated Jack Russell terrier and a dog that looked just like Wicket.<br /><br />
Wicket was a Pomeranian. He’d weighed no more than four pounds, the kind of dog you see rich women take to the grocery store tucked in their purses. We’d gotten him back when we lived in a miniscule apartment, and he died thirteen years later, after a seizure left him paralyzed from the hips down.<br /><br />
This new dog couldn’t really be him. He was dirty, his fur all matted.<br /><br />
“Wicket, come here,” I called anyway.<br /><br />
The other dog took off, but almost-Wicket stayed, and I scooped him up. When Wicket was a puppy, there’d been some minor accident at the breeders, and his left eye had gone cloudy, almost like a cataract. Now I checked and, yes, this dog had that cloudy left eye. He trembled but looked at up at me and cocked his head, like always, and I had a flash of tremendous guilt I’d somehow abandoned him.<br /><br />
There was a tiny cut on his nose crusted with blood. I flipped him over and checked his belly, which crawled with fleas.<br /><br />
“Aw, where’s your owner, sweetie?” I tried to keep my voice light, but it cracked.<br /><br />
Tucking him under my arm, I went to find my husband, who was off looking at some giant metal wind sculptures. Chris would have a rational explanation for this, would remember some detail I’d forgotten to prove that this was not Wicket magically come back to life.<br /><br />
“Hey,” I said, sliding next to him.<br /><br />
“Hey,” he replied, eyes still on the sculpture.<br /><br />
Our three kids were within sight but a ways off, looking at another art table. That was new, them all being old enough to go off on their own. In a crowd like this, I still had to stifle the instinct to have at least one tiny hand in mine. But I was relieved to have at least a few moments to talk to Chris alone.<br /><br />
“Look what I found,” I said.<br /><br />
Chris turned. “Huh,” he said after a beat. “That really looks like―” The dog cocked his head again, and Chris mirrored the motion. “It’s a stray?” He grimaced. “He looks awful.”<br /><br />
“Yeah. No collar.” My face reddened, and I fought off a wave of déjà vu.<br /><br />
Three years before Wicket died, the latch on our backyard gate broke, and he escaped. I had given him a bath a few days before and forgot to put his collar back on. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was how long he was gone before I noticed.<br /><br />
In my defense, my kids were young. I was overwhelmed and sleep-deprived. Still. The only reason I realized Wicket was missing was that he didn’t bark when the dishwasher repairman came to the door. Wicket had been an incessant barker, so bad we put him in another room any time we had company.<br /><br />
After I let the repairman in, I searched the house and yard and found the gate to the backyard fence gaping open. I jumped in my minivan, hands shaking as I snapped Ryan into his infant car seat. I circled the neighborhood. My eyes scanned for any small movement; my heart braced for the worst.<br /><br />
Just as I was about to turn back home, a neighbor left her house with a little ball of fur in her arms. I rolled down my window and cried out Wicket’s name. The woman hurried over as Wicket squirmed.<br /><br />
“You found him! Thank you so much,” I gushed.<br /><br />
“No problem,” she said, laughing as the dog practically leapt into my arms through the driver’s side door. “He obviously missed you.”<br /><br />
“Where did you find him? I just noticed him gone.”<br /><br />
Her face went carefully still. She tried, but was not entirely successful, at hiding her disapproval. It was the flaring nostrils that gave it away. “Yesterday. <i>Morning</i>,” she said. “I was just going to go drive around and check the neighborhood for missing dog posters.”<br /><br />
My face flashed red hot. “Uh, yeah, well, thank you.” Then I sped off, hoping never to see her again.<br /><br />
Now, years later, I clutched Wicket’s doppelganger to me, crushed by the same burning shame and embarrassment. “We can’t just leave him here.”<br /><br />
“Okay,” Chris replied slowly, tone hesitant. “You want to take him to the Humane Soci—”<br /><br />
Before he could finish, the kids were at our side.<br /><br />
“Hey Dad, they have some really cute dog cartoons over there,” my eldest, Michelle, was saying. “They have one that looks just like Chewie. Can we get it?”<br /><br />
I turned, and all three saw what was in my arms.<br /><br />
“Oh wow—”<br /><br />
“Hey, that looks—”<br /><br />
“It’s Wicket!” squealed my seven-year-old, enveloping the dog in a hug. Almost-Wicket licked his face and wriggled, joyous. Ryan looked up at me and beamed.<br /><br />
Michelle frowned the way only twelve-year-olds about to turn thirteen can. My middle child, William, took a nervous step back and slipped his palm into mine.<br /><br />
Perhaps I should explain. In books and movies, children always love their dog fiercely and when that dog dies, it is a major milestone in their lives, their first opportunity to learn about death and grief.<br /><br />
That’s not exactly how it went in our house. Wicket was older when he died. He was never much for cuddling; he didn’t want to fetch. Someone once told me that Pomeranians were bred to be living burglar alarms for royalty back in the 1800s, and I believed it, because that became Wicket’s sole goal in life. He’d sit by the front door of our new house or upstairs, peering through the picture window, yapping at anything that moved. He loved my kids, he just didn’t want to play with them.<br /><br />
When Wicket died—we brought him home from the vet to say goodbye to everyone, and he passed away that night, before we had a chance to take him back to be put down—I dreaded how it would hurt my children. Instead, Michelle and William, then nine and seven, barely reacted. They petted his body a few times with regret, said they would miss him, and then went back to their book and iPad. No tears. No nothing.<br /><br />
If it weren’t for Ryan, I’d have worried I was raising insensitive little monsters. He was only four at the time, and he took it hard. The next morning, he wanted to make sure Wicket hadn’t woken up. He cried a little each night before bedtime for a week.<br /><br />
For a long time, I resisted getting another dog. I just didn’t have it in me. A year ago, I finally relented, and we got Chewie.<br /><br />
Chewie was everything a family dog is supposed to be, a big, goofy brown mutt that liked to wrestle and chase balls and making flying leaps into our swimming pool. And now I had the time and energy to take care of him: long walks, trips to the dog park, even obedience lessons. If only I’d been able to give Wicket that kind of attention in his final years.<br /><br />
“We’re taking him home, right, Momma?” Ryan said, his voice plaintive, as if reading my thoughts. He clung to the Wicket look-alike, eyes beseeching.<br /><br />
How could I say no?<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br /><br />
After we got home, I gave almost-Wicket a bath and put some Frontline on him. Then we introduced the two dogs. They sniffed each other. Or, should I say, Chewie sniffed. Wicket’s twin did what Wicket did best.<br /><br />
<i>Yip!</i> he barked, backing away and kicking his rear feet as if to protest the intruder in his house. <i>Yip, yip, yip!</i><br /><br />
“Weird,” William said, “it’s like it really is <i>him</i>.”<br /><br />
At a sound from outside, Wicket scurried to the front door. When no mail carrier bounded the porch steps, Wicket raced upstairs, toenails skittering, and slid to his usual spot for a better view of any cars or people passing by.<br /><br />
I glanced sideways at Chris. His eyebrows shot up.<br /><br />
“This isn’t going to be like <i>Pet Sematary</i>, is it?” Michelle cracked.<br /><br />
Ryan looked up at me with a little frown. “It<i> is</i> Wicket, isn’t it?”<br /><br />
My heart ached. Ryan always asked the toughest questions. Just a year earlier, after we moved him from a church-run preschool to the local public elementary school, he’d wanted to know if Jesus had really risen from the dead.<br /><br />
I’d given up on religion long ago. Still. Why did the truth always have to be so harsh?<br /><br />
“Oh, honey,” I said. “When I saw him on the side of the road, that’s the first thing I thought. And I wish it was true. But things don’t come back to life.”<br /><br />
He hung his head.<br /><br />
Chris reached out and tussled his hair. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t love him just as much, buddy.”<br /><br />
<center><b>***</b></center><br />
After that, we didn’t really talk about it anymore. I called the pound to make sure no one had reported a lost Pomeranian, and we officially decided to keep him. Chris said we should pick another name, but Michelle and William just shrugged, and Ryan refused to call the dog anything else.<br /><br />
I decided not to make an issue of it. I ordered a new blue collar and a bone-shaped silver nametag off Amazon, and typed the letters in carefully, selecting a modern-looking font that made me chuckle at the time: <i>Wicket 2.0</i>.<br /><br />
Weeks passed. With time, it seemed less strange. Life is full of bizarre coincidences, you know? It didn’t mean you started believing in ghost pets.<br /><br />
Then one night I woke up with a start. It was 3 a.m.<br /><br />
Sometimes Ryan still got up out of his bed and crawled into ours, but that wasn’t it—there was no knee in my back, no elbow in my face, no feet thumping on the stairs. I listened again. Nothing, only silence. But I couldn’t get back to sleep. Something was wrong. Maybe I’d forgotten to lock the door between our garage and kitchen. I got up to check, padding out of my bedroom and through the living room.<br /><br />
I froze. There, sitting in our old leather recliner, was my grandmother.<br /><br />
She sat with Wicket in her lap, petting him slowly the way she always did, before she died.<br /><br />
I paused. My eyes were still full of sleep and the room had a bleary quality. This must be a dream. I once had a dream of my Grandpa Glenn a few years after he died. I didn’t remember much of it, but we had talked of normal things while sitting in his avocado-green kitchen. I had hugged him. It was only when I acknowledged that there was something strange about the situation—I must have asked him what he was doing there or told him that I missed him—that the dream ended, and I woke up.<br /><br />
I’d never dreamed of my grandmother. I didn’t want to wake up. So, I sat in the chair across from her.<br /><br />
“Hi, Granma.”<br /><br />
“Hello there,” she replied with a small smile, still stroking the dog.<br /><br />
Her face was rosy and soft, healthier than it had been at the end, when the cancer took her. She outlived her husband by fourteen years, but it hadn’t been easy. They were soulmates, and she’d missed him terribly. Although she had attended church her whole life, she once told me after his death that she wasn’t sure heaven was real. She worried she would never see him again.<br /><br />
The first time we’d talked about the subject, I was eight, visiting my grandparents’ place outside of Cheyenne for the summer. I had just discovered that, although my parents sent me to a parochial school, they were atheists. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed by this revelation, so I asked her what she thought about God and the Bible and all that.<br /><br />
“I like to think it’s all true,” she’d replied at the time. “But my grandmother always said people are like flowers. We get to bloom in the sunlight a while, and then we die. She didn’t think that was so bad.”<br /><br />
Her grandmother had been from Holland, had crossed the ocean alone with her six children to meet her husband, who had already come to the United States for a job farming lettuce. They were a tall, stout people who could make anything grow. She admired them, their quiet strength.<br /><br />
Now I admired hers as she sat in that chair. “How are you feeling?” I asked.<br /><br />
“I’m sleeping better these days,” she said with another little grin. “But not tonight.”<br /><br />
“Oh? Why not?”<br /><br />
“I missed Wicket. I came looking for him.”<br /><br />
My heart skipped. Their deaths hadn’t been long apart. “He’s missed you. We all have.”<br /><br />
I tensed, waiting for the dream to dissolve, but it didn’t. She just smiled as if she knew some secret. She began humming a little song, the same one she’d sung when cradling my Ryan, back when he was just a baby. By then she had moved in with my mother, who lived nearby.<br /><br />
“I saw the most beautiful thing today, in my room,” she said.<br /><br />
“Oh?”<br /><br />
“The most wonderful bouquet of flowers. Daisies and zinnia and snapdragons. So pretty. Do you know who left them?”<br /><br />
“No, Granma.”<br /><br />
It was the same conversation we’d had the week she died. She’d been hallucinating again. I had gone and checked, just to be sure. There hadn’t been any flowers, but the idea of them had made her glow. Small things like that always had.<br /><br />
“Glenn must have left them. To let me know I’ll see him soon.”<br /><br />
I nodded, as I had back then, and said nothing.<br /><br />
“You better get back to bed,” she said after a while.<br /><br />
“I don’t want to.” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice.<br /><br />
“Still,” she said with a touch of reproach. “You’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Lots to do. Go on.”<br /><br />
“But—”<br /><br />
“I’ve got Wicket now. He’ll keep me company. You go.” She frowned, somewhat offended. She was accustomed to being listened to.<br /><br />
I sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”<br /><br />
I stood up, hesitated for a moment, then walked over and kissed her cheek. It was soft and warm. She smelled like baby powder.<br /><br />
“Goodnight,” I said. “I love you.”<br /><br />
“Love you, too, sweetie,” she murmured, as if it was an obvious afterthought, her attention already focused back on the dog.<br /><br />
I walked back to bed, forced myself to lie down. How was I supposed to fall asleep if I was already dreaming?<br /><br />
My eyes flew open a moment later, and the sun was up. Chris was brushing his teeth in the bathroom. My daughter was howling that she couldn’t find any clean underwear. I glanced at the clock. I’d overslept.<br /><br />
I bolted up and rushed through our morning routine. Kissed Chris goodbye, got the kids to school, came home and sat down to the computer. When my youngest started kindergarten, I’d gone back to work, doing bookkeeping from home for a local law firm.<br /><br />
Chewie padded over to me as I sipped my coffee and entered payroll information into QuickBooks. I put my hand down to pet him, and he whined with pleasure. That’s when I remembered the dream. My grandmother. And Wicket.<br /><br />
Had I seen him this morning? In my hurry, I hadn’t let him out. “Wicket?” I got up. “Wicket?”<br /><br />
I searched the house, twice. Then the backyard. The gate was closed, but he was nowhere.<br /><br />
I got in the car, circled the neighborhood, prayed to find him, even if it meant facing that neighbor again. I called Chris. He hadn’t let him out, either. I called the local animal shelter. They promised to notify me if someone brought in a dog matching his description.<br /><br />
We made posters this time, but no one called. Ryan cried all over again. Michelle and William didn’t say much, just shot each other wide-eyed looks and lavished extra love onto Chewie.<br /><br />
“Sorry, hon,” Chris told me a few days later, after he returned from another trip to the pound, another lap around the nearby neighborhoods. “Nothing.”<br /><br />
On Sunday, I deep cleaned the house. I emptied the refrigerator and freezer, scrubbing the plastic shelves and drawers until my fingers were numb from the cold. I stripped the beds, flipped the mattresses, pulled the sheets warm from the dryer.<br /><br />
Chewie followed me everywhere, as if he knew what I was really up to.<br /><br />
I found Wicket’s collar while vacuuming crumbs and Legos out from under the recliner cushion, the one where my grandmother sat in my dream. I hadn’t taken it off him. I asked the kids, and they swore they hadn’t either.<br /><br />
“Chris?” I held it up for his inspection.<br /><br />
“Don’t look at me.”<br /><br />
My insides roiled as I stared at the blue collar, then laid it aside on the coffee table. I tried to deny the thought, but it wouldn’t let me go: that my grandmother really <i>had</i> visited me, that she’d taken Wicket back with her to… heaven? No. It couldn’t be.<br /><br />
Most of my life, I’d told myself that people believed in the supernatural to make themselves feel safe. God and the devil, heaven and hell—it was all about creating order out of chaos. Psychological self-preservation, not truth.<br /><br />
But here I was denying something I’d seen with my own eyes. And why? To feel safe. To keep order. Because if dogs could come back to life, if grandmothers could really speak to you after they were gone, if dead husbands could leave their wives flowers to let them know they’d be together again, well then, what else might be true? What more might I be wrong about?<i></i><br /><br />
I moved on to cleaning closets. All of them: purged and organized, unlike my jumbled thoughts. That’s when I found Wicket’s ashes again, in an engraved wooden box on the high shelf in my closet, right above the bright cocktail dresses I never wore anymore. The wood was smooth and oily under my fingers. I lifted the lid slowly.<br /><br />
I don’t know what I expected to see, but his ashes were still inside. As I placed the box back on the shelf, Ryan came up behind me.<br /><br />
“Momma,” he said, sniffling.<br /><br />
I turned. He held Wicket’s collar in his hand, his eyes red and puffy.<br /><br />
“Momma.”<br /><br />
Such pain and innocence. It hurt to see. I crouched down, placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. “What, honey?”<br /><br />
“Before, you said things don’t come back to life.” His face twisted. “But Wicket did, didn’t he?”<br /><br />
I inhaled and, as I pondered the answer, felt an old wall inside myself crumble. I wrapped my arms around my son and surrendered to the truth.<br /><br />
“Yes, baby, yes. For a little while, he did. And aren’t we grateful for it?”<br /><br />
<hr />
<br />
Jamie M. Boyd is a writer and former journalist from Florida. Her short fiction has appeared in <i>Luna Station Quarterly</i> and the science fiction anthology <i>Brave New Worlds</i>.<br /><br />
She was a newspaper reporter for the <i>St. Petersburg Times</i> and the <i>South Florida Sun-Sentinel</i>, where she won awards for feature, education and religion writing and was part of the staff twice named finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news.<br /><br />
She wrote this story after having a dream about her own dog coming back to life.<br /><br />
When she isn’t writing, Jamie loves exploring nature and traveling to wild new places with her family. She lives in Fort Lauderdale with her husband and three children. You can find her at <a href="http://jamiemboyd.com">jamiemboyd.com</a> and follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/JmeBoyd">@JmeBoyd</a>.<br /><br /><br />
“Wicket 2.0” by Jamie M. Boyd. Copyright © 2023 by Jamie M. Boyd.
<br /><br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Donald S. Crankshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12571080573039473056noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795995214827979976.post-47158163358364781332023-04-03T01:00:00.001-04:002023-04-03T01:00:00.172-04:00April 2023<div>We have now responded to all story submissions from January, so if you sent us something and haven't heard back, please reach out to us ASAP at editors@mysteriononline.com (after checking your spam folder, of course). Out of 272 stories submitted, we accepted 9.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our next open submission window will be the month of July, and we'll be looking for stories to publish between January and June of 2024. (If you have something seasonal, especially Christmas or Halloween, we encourage you to wait until next January to submit it; if it's so obviously a Christmas story that it would be weird to publish it at another time of year, the best you can expect if you submit it to us in July is an invitation to try again in January.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Many thanks to everyone who sent us stories to consider! All the stories we publish are chosen from these open submission windows in January and July, and we try to give every story the same chance, no matter who the author is or how many places they've been published already (if any). This doesn't mean that we read every single story all the way to the end, especially if it's clear after a page or two that it won't be a good fit. But it does mean that we approach each story with an open mind, hoping that we'll like it, and that we start reading your story before we look at your publication credits. And it also means that we don't fill any of our publication slots with stories by more established authors and/or friends of ours before the submission window opens. (Although you may see some names more than once, that just means that they keep sending us stories we like.)</div><div><br /></div><div>We believe strongly that this policy helps us publish the best possible stories (that fit our submission guidelines), and makes us more accessible to newer and less established authors. What it doesn't do is help us attract readers by publishing stories authored by popular writers with large followings (because those authors are often too busy working on stories they were invited to submit to editors far more prestigious than us to be writing anything on spec, even if they are interested in exploring Christian themes).</div><div><br /></div><div>Which means that we need your help! If you like the stories we publish, post about them on social media or tell your friends about <i>Mysterion</i>. <a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/p/buy.html" target="_blank">Buy</a> one of our anthologies as a gift for a friend or family member, or review them on Amazon or Goodreads if you've read them. Encourage your author friends to consider submitting their stories to us (assuming they fit our submission guidelines).</div><div><br /></div><div>You could even consider signing up as one of our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/Mysterion" target="_blank">Patreon</a> subscribers! That doesn't exactly help us get the word out (though the more subscribers we have, the more likely we are to show up in searches when people are looking for projects to support). But it does provide financial support that helps us pay our authors and artists. (Plus you can get early access to all our stories, and other great benefits!) We're down a bit from last month, currently at 21 Patrons and $200/month, so please consider signing up if you're not already a subscriber. Our most popular tier is $5/month, which comes with early access to the stories and free e-book copies of every anthology we publish, but you can sign up for as little as $1/month.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our next Patreon funding goal is to reach $275/month, which will allow us to publish 16 stories a year instead of 14.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Current and Upcoming Stories</h3><div>Our latest story is "<a href="https://www.mysteriononline.com/2023/03/mary-and-martha.html" target="_blank">MARY and Martha</a>", by T. R. Frazier, a science fiction tale about a robot and a nursing assistant. Toward the end of this month (April 24th), look for Jamie M. Boyd's "Wicket 2.0": if dogs can come back to life, what else might be possible?</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Feline Update</h3><div>Our new cat Belle is down to one daily medication, from a maximum of five. She still has problems (and hates taking her medicine), but is in much better health than when we first brought her home.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRl5Qql7lvu9C1fIW7K70a8mrapp8nmTGRu5UvSVFH3JmYYjmCWOJ-cG8P2QUVDInbsZhxSq8KHper_fCZbAzaN-T-BFWg4r_hS_ld1kahTobSJB1RsFm_UIWe52TMyvFhonh4XDypd1cS65ETUAhD3e8e8zhtLyed8o_tyn1pGBecCRBHUrnjYldkNg/s4032/IMG_3008.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRl5Qql7lvu9C1fIW7K70a8mrapp8nmTGRu5UvSVFH3JmYYjmCWOJ-cG8P2QUVDInbsZhxSq8KHper_fCZbAzaN-T-BFWg4r_hS_ld1kahTobSJB1RsFm_UIWe52TMyvFhonh4XDypd1cS65ETUAhD3e8e8zhtLyed8o_tyn1pGBecCRBHUrnjYldkNg/w640-h480/IMG_3008.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Now if only we could get her out of the guest room! Baby steps. We got her a soft, warm cat tent to replace the pet carrier she had been sleeping in, and are hoping that, with time, we can start moving it around the house and her along with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Marie likes to keep an eye on us when we're working in the kitchen:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNEGksylEdR3nDImIpLy5HAn7VSLOoHRB8Twe6oOYdGgHYGJhOwO1vwgeW0Nh556esoredvjQgelht0unBRM38Oubrfq-87Pl4egNTPw_vSrykzpBrxO2k2zWkrrhC6WYnOqI2eSQNAX2ce7FdtPMnaQE1ovLwztbOBCq09ZkZeAwndfUE2Ur4UbVDcg/s4032/IMG_2978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNEGksylEdR3nDImIpLy5HAn7VSLOoHRB8Twe6oOYdGgHYGJhOwO1vwgeW0Nh556esoredvjQgelht0unBRM38Oubrfq-87Pl4egNTPw_vSrykzpBrxO2k2zWkrrhC6WYnOqI2eSQNAX2ce7FdtPMnaQE1ovLwztbOBCq09ZkZeAwndfUE2Ur4UbVDcg/w480-h640/IMG_2978.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Maxwell prefers the camouflage approach. And naps.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioehuUfaJoZ0et0dEGHUvhaiQ4KoPaKbRNVwsanXO-Jn7tTzdmHOA6BN9IizVeOgUKabBcizRDMrDGYNKAYYnoKgAToLKCgM4s6myB4dVFBpF99hsEvGvivo1D-cCH7HAckrWFA3UC8DysICm5hGPnSE5DO6w-w5RpDvzdoTF-fMgC_2LgXNBZwK395Q/s4032/IMG_2971.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioehuUfaJoZ0et0dEGHUvhaiQ4KoPaKbRNVwsanXO-Jn7tTzdmHOA6BN9IizVeOgUKabBcizRDMrDGYNKAYYnoKgAToLKCgM4s6myB4dVFBpF99hsEvGvivo1D-cCH7HAckrWFA3UC8DysICm5hGPnSE5DO6w-w5RpDvzdoTF-fMgC_2LgXNBZwK395Q/w480-h640/IMG_2971.JPG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>Thank you for reading, and don't forget to return on April 24th for our next story, "Wicket 2.0"!</div>
<br />
<hr />
Support <b>Mysterion</b> on <a href="http://www.patreon.com/Mysterion">Patreon</a>!Kristin Janzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12564407470475776998noreply@blogger.com0