“We don’t have to live in this place, no more. We can leave, Daddy. You can leave. We can go right now. Come with me.”
She peeled the spider web-like substance from across his eyes. She was relieved to see recognition there.
“All right, Slick Bean,” he said, as if waking from a dream, and reached for her outstretched hand. He held it, letting the warmth spread through his palms, and then he forced himself to rise.
They waded through the carpet of husks until they were standing outside.
“Daddy, did you see that hole in the ground? I swear, I ain’t never seen nothing like this in my whole life. You think it’s fracking that did all that? Brought all these damn bugs?”
“Not all. I did it,” Doc said as he leaned on her, letting her guide him to the green truck door. He didn’t wait for her puzzled reply. “You know how it is! Here, people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say. They just be talking, thinking aloud. But sometimes, out here, the land be listening.” He turned to the wind, the piles of husks, the moon and the shadows. “Can’t a person think aloud sometime? Wrassle with a thought until they come up with their own good answer?”
He stood and pointed at the dark tower, the V lit up like a bright red scar.
“What’s a good answer for this? How can we fight it?” he shouted into the black mouth of earth. “We opened our mouths and welcomed them here with open arms, helped them build the very thing that would kill us.” He turned to Rachel. “Some things you build, not so easy to tear down again. Now, what’s the answer for that?”
The wind carried his cry through the air, and the question rested in the darkness around them, in the limbs of the tree.
And something else waited under the roots of the trees and beneath their feet. The wind rippled through the leaves, shook the maple’s branches in answer. Loaded with emerald and red-orange cicadas, the branches swayed as the insects split their skins. As the ground shook, they emerged from the dark, wet earth, emerged after a lifetime of waiting alone. Night after night, they had awakened. Wave upon wave, they came.
“The ground gon’ sour?” Rachel asked as she opened Big Daddy’s passenger door.
“Not the ground. Us.”
The humming rose, a hymn that seemed to sing the world anew. Up from the jagged edge of earth, a great figure climbed out, six gigantic, jointed legs lifting it up and out of the land Doc and his people had once proudly claimed as their own. Iridescent wings unfolded from its wide, curved back. They glistened and sparkled in the night, unearthing mountains of soil and roots and old things not witnessed since the angel poured its first bowl over the sun, and the moon had opened like a great eye in the sky. Free from its dark sleep, the giant unfurled its wings and thrummed a deep tympani-drum sound that the little ones echoed and joined in, their song a bellowing in the air.
Rachel and Doc covered their ears and watched in wonder, as it raised its great, jewel-encrusted head and turned to them. It seemed as if a million eyes watched them from all directions, all at once, then within minutes, the creature stomped across acres of what had once been the town’s most fertile land. The ground shook beneath its many feet, and the others raised their drumsong as it headed toward the Viscerol plant.
Safe in Big Daddy, Rachel and Doc stared at each other, not speaking in the truck. They held each other for a long, long time, and for an even longer time, it seemed like neither one of them breathed. Then they jumped, a startled, delayed reaction after they heard the thunder, a rush of mighty wings as the last of the Viscerol plant and its signature water tower crashed to the ground. The earth rumbled one final time, and Rachel and Doc shook in the truck that rattled like a great tin can. The wind howled, a loud keening, and the old trees lay low, then all was still and quiet, and the only thing they could see was the white mouth of the moon.
Rachel rolled the window up, hands shaking, the old handle squeaking. She started to crank the truck up, but Doc reached for the keys.
“Come on out and let me drive, girl,” he said.
Tired as she was, Rachel didn’t even have the strength to argue. She just shook her head and looked at him. “Daddy, you ain’t driven Big Daddy in years.”
Doc wiped a layer of gossamer threads from around his jaw and his throat. His hands looked smooth, sturdy. His heart felt ripe and strong. “When I leave, you leave,” he said. “Step on out, Slick Bean, and let’s get up out of here.”
He hummed a happy tune as they drove off, some of that old country music Rachel pretended she couldn’t stand, Big Daddy groaning down the road, only empty shells and withering husks remained. But above them and around them, hidden in the dark earth and in the green branches of trees, something like hope remained, listening and waiting for a warm spring night, and a mischievous wind to return again.
The Society for the Reclamation of Words and Meaning
by Fran Wilde
Prosperity was one of my least favorite words. Its meaning had slipped so much over the years. I loved plucking it from certain politicians’ lips and sealing it away.
I’d done that once already, temporarily. Now I was aiming to make it permanent.
“Once, we were prosperous. Our rivers ran with silver, our fields shone with gold …”
The incumbent’s voice carried across the courthouse square, musical, if not downright pleasant, and steeped in promise.
“… Those days, before the terrible, callow, lying grifters took power and stole all of this from you, were the best of days. What has come since has rendered you pale shades of yourselves, trapped in a mundane and harsh world.”
Governor Mary Vine had the kind of voice that made people want to cheer and clap.
“But, my friends, for the past four years, I’ve worked tirelessly on your behalf to restore your prosperity, and drive out the callow thieves from behind every desk and seat where they cling.”
And clap they did.
I clapped, too.
But when those same people went home today, palms still stinging from applauding so hard, they wouldn’t remember a thing Mary had said a few hours later. But they would know that they liked what they’d heard. They’d know Mary was looking out for them. That they deserved to be prosperous, and they would be, someday.
Governor Vine had that particular talent.
“And now I turn to you—my partners in the next four years. I cannot ever do this without you. We will restore the gold and silver. We will bring back to you the prosperity you deserve. My heroic friends. Together we will triumph.”
As the crowd roared, I turned the words “triumph” and “heroic” over in my mouth, my lips pressed tight. Tucked “prosperity” between my teeth. I hoped they would be enough.
The sun warmed my cheeks, but I barely felt it.
“Lia, you’re not going to spell her right here in the square, are you?” Effie whispered in my ear.
I was, in fact, going to spell Mariella Vine right there in the square. “It won’t hurt her. Much.”
“But there are so many people. And what if she notices?”
“Euphrosyne,” I said with a sigh, “I tested a quarter spell on you and Joy. Did you see anything? Did you feel anything?”
“No. Not until much later.”
“But you know it worked, right?”
“It’s still working, Thalia.” She glared at me. “Honestly. I don’t miss hyperbole. But being able to spin a fib would be nice. At least when I need to ask for time off at the Rite Aid, and all I can come up with is, ‘My Friend Needs Me To Help Keep Her Sister from World Domination’ and ‘The League of Vigilant Lexicographers Called.’ Both of those? They got me a note in my file and a suggestion from my manager that I get more sleep.”
“Shhhh, Effie. I’m focusing. If now’s not the right time, then when? We have to act.”
“You have to act. I think you feel you need to cast the spell during her first campaign speech in order to make a difference, but really, Thalia, this is clearly meant to embarrass
the governor, too. It’s revenge. That’s unbecoming of a scholar. Why not wait and do this in private?”
Effie might have understood revenge—she was right about that—but she knew surprisingly little about showmanship, and less still about word reclamation spells. Or the energy they drained.
Still, she was excellent at escapes. We were going to need one of those in a moment and I’d be too tired to pull it off. So, I smiled. “Maybe so.”
“Lia’s spell needs a lie to work, remember?” Joy leaned over Effie’s shoulder. “And the cast is stronger when there’s an audience.”
Joy got me.
“This is your last chance to back out,” I told them both. Once the governor caught on, or worse, once my mother—and Mary’s—spotted me, I’d be in a world of trouble.
Worse than last time, even.
Mary had hissed the last time I’d spelled her, “You’ll never work in this town again.” It had been a lie, but one she believed with all her heart, so she could still whisper it through clenched teeth.
Even back then, plenty of people would have hired me to keep their bosses and spouses from misusing words if they’d known what I could do. Back then, I’d chosen not to tell anyone, out of respect for our mother.
Plus, my spell hadn’t been strong enough that time to keep her from separating language from meaning and truth for long.
So Mary had continued to turn words inside out for her own benefit and would until she couldn’t.
Which was going to be soon.
My first good spell, the first one that had made any difference anyway, had been a reclamation spell. They were what I was best at. My calling, Gran would have said. I’d combined a little honey and spit with dandelion spores and the vestiges of the lie Mary was telling a constituent, let it all dry, and then blown the seeds at my target as I said the words Gran had given me: Veritas Immaculare.
Mary had gawped like a fish, mid-sentence. She’d been just a junior State official then, telling a resident how much better things were than they had been before she took office.
“And you’ll feel so prosperous when you get that enormou— that hu— that moderate refund check … / cough / Please excuse me, Mr. Roberts, I seem to have the tiniest of scratchy throats. I’ll be right back.” She’d pushed her chair back, brushing dandelion seeds from her hair, and click-clacked out of the room on tight heels.
Back then, I’d stepped from my place behind the office curtains and gathered the spores from her desk while Mary was in the bathroom. They weighed heavier in the hand than they had a moment before. Filled with Mary’s false words.
That spell had been a little crass because I hadn’t yet learned to separate out white lies told to avoid hurting feelings from the more harmful kinds of lies. And I’d been tired from the effort. But I’d rescued enough words—enormous, huge, and prosperous in particular—to feel like I’d made a small difference.
Then, over the next few years, long after I’d been fired as Mary’s assistant, I’d refined the spell.
Once I had it, I’d phoned Joy and Jason and Euphrosone, everyone I’d called the corners with in college while Mary was off running student council, and told them what I was up to.
They’d been game, mostly.
Now, they were hesitating.
“I wouldn’t have signed up if I’d known we’d be standing in mud and shadows, Lia. Hiding in the bushes, at our age.” Joy picked nettles from her thick wool socks. She’d been a metro reporter, before those were outsourced to social media freelancers. Emphasis on free.
“You would have. You’re as sick of this as I am. Mary’s been promising a return to the days of precious metal rivers for as long as I can remember, and no one seems to notice. She’s got to be bewitching words. I just can’t catch her at it. So, we will catch the words instead. Just like before.”
That first spell had worn off in a couple of days. Unfortunately, that time, I’d spelled Mary just before Christmas. She’d described to our parents exactly what had happened.
“I was sitting there with a constituent, and none of my words would come out. Well, most of them. I’m still having trouble.”
Mother had turned to look at me. Her eyes narrowed. “Thalia.”
Even as I’d tried to look innocent, I swear Father had smiled, quietly amused. He’d been good with spells once, enough to stage elaborate magic tricks at birthday parties. Though now, he was fading. His favorite tricks had been disappearances and reappearances. But his passion had been the truth. Just like Gran.
Mary’s passion was power.
Mine was words.
If Father had understood what I’d done then, or if Gran had been around to see it, both of them would have helped me, I’m sure of it. But they were gone. And the rest of the family sensed Mary’s ambition and supported it.
Heck, I’d supported it, once upon a time.
We’d always been a political family. Seventeen generations of New England Vines, seven state senators, two mayors, Gran herself an alderman, several poets, and now Mary, running for governor again.
Not one witch among us for a long time, at least who’d admit it beyond party tricks. Until me. Everyone had decided I was just dabbling, combining spells and verse with a little adjunct teaching, until that Christmas.
“I thought you were working on your dictionary, Lia,” Mother had hissed. “That we’d given up meddling.”
Mary looked at me, shocked. “You’re fired,” she’d sputtered without waiting for me to defend myself.
“I quit,” I said, just as fast.
“You can’t quit. I fired you. You’re a thief. A liar. A—”
“A witch? A lexicographer? Both? You’re a word-mangler. And maybe a bit of a witch yourself.”
“Thalia!” Mother actually clutched her pearls. “We’re not even through dinner.”
I ignored her. “Go ahead, say you’re not doing spells, not misusing words.”
I wanted Mary to deny it then. But, of course, she couldn’t because I’d temporarily spelled away her ability to lie. So, she just shook her head.
And Father said, “There, see? No more fighting at dinner.”
And we both sat down and ate in silence.
But now I knew she’d been casting spells, too. Ones that twisted meaning. When everyone thought she was a brilliant orator, she’d been torturing words into doing her bidding.
She recovered. I did, too, and found another job. But my mother never forgave me.
I caught a glimpse of her up on the podium, scanning the crowd for my face.
As I pulled my companions deeper into the shadows, I dipped beneath my broad-brimmed hat to better avoid her gaze.
Mary had recovered from that first spell. Her exaggerations and empty promises had come back even stronger, and she’d won and won and won.
“Words are tools, Lia,” she’d whispered while our parents were in the kitchen, lighting the dessert. “You can steal a tool from me, but others will come to hand. Words reflect what their audience wants to hear, as much as what the speaker intends for them to hear. I’ll send you the contents of your desk.”
“You don’t think,” I said, putting my fork down on my plate with a clink, “that words should mean something on their own so that people have something real to hold onto?”
She laughed at me then. “So naive. Real power means you get to shape words. Not steal them.” The lights dimmed then. Our parents brought out the fig pudding, glowing blue with port, and Mary’s eyes danced. I put a piece of dessert in my mouth and chewed until the taste disappeared.
She was wrong. She had to be.
I needed to get stronger. To stop her for good.
So, I kept working on my spells, in between teaching classes at the community college and helping build online dictionaries that traced the lineages of words back to their first uses.
My classes grew popular. People wanted to learn about language, rhetoric. All of it.
Who better to learn from than a lexicog
rapher and—once, for Mary—former political speechwriter?
But even my students, in those early years, wanted to learn more about how to influence people and less about how to speak the truth in ways that inspired real change.
I watched it get worse, especially after Mary won the governor’s race. I watched words devolve, lose meanings, reverse themselves, and become bent paperclips that could only hold hot air. We were at great risk of words meaning nothing.
I watched my own sister do her part to mangle it.
Sometimes still using parts of the speeches I used to write her.
But the words she spoke, and people echoed back, had little attachment to any meanings.
Even press headlines bore ragged shadows of former sense. One last week, in fact, heralded “A Return to Opulent Sensibility.”
That’s when I called my friends to action. Joy, the former journalist, now librarian; Effie, the editor; Jason, the small press publisher.
We’d met at the bar across from the state building. I’d shown them how the spell worked. And we’d decided on a name for our group. Because every New England rebellion worth its salt needs a name or two. “The Society for the Reclamation of Meaning and Sense” and “The League of Vigilant Lexicographers.” Joy had even made buttons, blue with white type: SRMS; LVL.
And now the moment was here. The crowd had swelled at the statehouse steps just before 1:00 p.m., jostling for a view of my sister. She, along with her quiet husband and two glorious daughters, as well as my mother, arrayed themselves photogenically near the podium, all in different shades of blue.
I wore black. A thick sweater with a rolled collar and cuff sleeves in a deep, midnight hue. It matched my hair, pulled up in a messy bun beneath my hat, but still dark, with a few gray streaks. It matched my mood. My jeans were a shade of blue like everyone on the steps, but that was merely because they were comfortable. Not a sign of affiliation. I might have looked a little bit witchy.
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