by Ellen Datlow
In the end I did nothing. Instead, I left. In just a moment, I was out of the artificial skin and had fled back down the sidewalk and up the pole and into the wire itself. A moment later I was back at home, coming conscious within the skin I had occupied before.
Mother was standing there, patiently waiting, wearing her traveling clothes. When she saw I was back, she cut the ropes, quickly freeing me.
“Where’s your sister?” she asked.
“She was seen,” I said.
She just nodded, her skin’s lips a thin line. I got up and massaged my wrists. My father was standing there beside her, an ice pack pressed to his head. “She may still come back,” he said.
I sat there, nervously waiting. In the end, yes, she did come, with a deep gasping breath, and in a state of panic. She looked at me with fury.
“You left me,” she accused.
I shrugged. “You were seen,” I said.
She looked to Mother and Father for support, but they remained impassive. She had been seen. She knew the rules. She was lucky we had waited for her at all.
“It can’t see me anymore,” she said. “No need to worry.”
“You blinded it?” asked Father.
“Killed it,” she said. “Strangled it.” She looked at me again. “No thanks to you,” she whispered.
“Don’t be snippy,” Mother said to her. She belted her coat around her. “Come on,” she said, “let’s go.”
—
BUT WE HAD barely thrown open the door when the specimen appeared. It looked just as it had before, same orange and black, same unfortunate hat, except for the black marks on its neck. And the fact that, in places, you could see right through it.
“Hello,” Mother said.
“Trick or treat,” it said.
“Can I help you?” Mother asked. “Are you lost?”
“I…don’t know,” it said.
“Yes,” Mother said. “I can help you.”
For a long time it was immobile, silent. “Who are you?” it finally offered.
“Me?” asked Mother, bringing her hand to her neck in a way that brought back memories for me. “Why, I’m your mother. Don’t you recognize me?”
And that was how our family grew from four to five, and I came to have a new sister. Millie did not seem excited, but I most certainly was. A new sister, I thought, imagining all I would be able to teach her, a new sister! And teach her I did, and loved her too, for the whole remainder of the evening. Up until the very moment when, as the clock struck midnight and the holiday came to an end, we ate her.
All Through the Night
Elise Forier Edie
WHEN THEY SHOWED Maggie her husband’s body, it was Granny O’Neill she mourned, not him. To be sure, she had loved Aiden once. But New York had hardened her heart into cobblestone, and the sight of his snapped neck, and poor dirty drawers, only twisted her mouth in disgust. Every finger in his right hand was broken. He had died in the streets like a dog.
She said to the men who had probably killed him, “See that he’s properly buried.” In autumn, they sent her some money. Maggie set it aside. By then she knew she was pregnant, and her troubles were only just beginning.
But first, she thought of Granny O’Neill, and the rain-washed fields of Kerry. How, even when they were both starving, light and fragile inside as spiderwebs, Granny’s bewhiskered face had been smiling.
“See how hunger makes the world like a veil,” she had said. “How another Place hides behind it.”
And wee Maggie, just a child then, with her bony side pressed to Granny’s, had seen: how the grass hid a greener field beyond, how the hedges were full of slim doors and slit windows, how the fields glittered with a thousand faceted eyes. She looked and never forgot the World-Behind-the-World, the one you could see only if your belly was empty.
But if such a World-Behind existed in Five Points, Maggie imagined it a wretched place. For New York pressed in on all sides, and instead of clean, green hills and bog ponies, there were crowds of people, cramming like hogs at feeding time. Their first few days in America, Maggie white-knuckled Aiden’s sleeves like a child, and when he laughed and tried to peel her off, she whined and clutched him more. Everywhere they went, they banged into horrors. Pits of shit steaming behind tenement houses. Fireworks exploding over a river of fish corpses. A pack of ragged children cooking rats on a fire.
They shared a room with ten other immigrants, curled on a straw-strewn floor. She wept. “What if we die here?”
“Die?” he laughed. “But of course we will. And here. This is our home now. But don’t fret, my love. We’ll be on to something better.”
But weeks passed and she saw nothing better in the whole New World. Not mist-bathed fields, or warblers, or wych elms, not mushroom circles, or hills furred with green. Just sights so strange, she didn’t know what to make of them: A Syrian lad with a ragged pet monkey. A long braid snaking down a Chinaman’s back. A peddler holding a tray of tomatoes, the fruit’s smell and color so foreign and alarming, she almost yelled at the sight.
And poor Aiden breathed his last in the gutter, lips and blue eyes beaten to jelly. Maggie cursed herself thrice over. For it had been she who asked to come to this stone-cold country, an impossible ocean away from everything they’d ever known.
For a time, she felt safe at a grocery on Orange Street. She would linger there, after sewing pieces for a Jew down the road. Cheerful apples tumbled in bins; fragrant hams hung from the rafters. Mrs. Docker, the proprietress, was like an apple herself, crisply round and red cheeked. Her boy Jack would sing the old songs betimes, in a tenor clear as church bells. Maggie could cozy up to the counter and almost feel she was back in Ireland. Granny would be alive again; this mistake called New York would be but a fading nightmare, ere Maggie blinked her sleep-filled eyes.
One evening in October, walking home from Rosenbaum’s, she saw a big fire burning in the middle of Paradise Square. A pack of ragged boys, sticks clamped in their fists, sang and chanted as they pelted down the crowded lane. Maggie didn’t think on it at first; she was weary, and her neck ached from bending over stitching. But when she stepped in Mrs. Docker’s door and saw the merriment in every corner, she cottoned it was All Hallows’ Eve.
At the stove, wee Jack roasted nuts. Nearby, a gaggle of girls took turns peeling apples. They tossed the parings over their shoulders and blushed to the shouts and whistles of young men looking on. “I fling yon paring over me head,” they sang. “My sweetheart’s letter on the ground is read.”
“ ’Tis in the shape of a ‘P,’ so it’s Peter she’ll be marrying,” proclaimed a tall lass, squatting in the sawdust, pointing from a pile of apple skins to a lad, who hunched brawny shoulders and grinned at the floor.
“Nay! ’Tis a ‘D,’ ” a dark-haired girl shouted. “And Damien’s the lucky one who will have our Nell.”
“ ’Tis a ‘P’ and that’s final!”
“La! You couldn’t read the nose on my face!”
And Maggie watched as a laughing argument broke out, which had no real resolution, until everyone determined blushing Nell must pare down another apple, so as a final reading about her intended’s initials could be made.
At the bar, Mrs. Docker presided over an enormous barm brack. It was a thick cake, into which trinkets had been baked, along with apples and raisins. For a penny, Maggie could buy a piece, and the cake would tell her fortune. If her slice had money in it, she’d find wealth in the coming year; if her teeth clamped on a bit of wadded rag, bad luck would follow.
She bought a wedge and a glass of ale. But once the cake lay in front of her, she hesitated to eat it. She was hungry, but she also feared her fortune, as she did everything these days.
“Afraid of breaking a tooth on your penny?” Maggie felt a bump, and a warm hand cupping her elbow. She turned and gazed into bright, slanted eyes. The man’s skin was pretty, foreign tinged. A blue coat wrapped his shoulders, and a big, blue hat toppled on his hair. “Y
ou can poke it to crumbs first,” he said. “Shall I show you? Here,” he called out to Mrs. Docker. “Give us a spoon. We’ve a shy one.”
Maggie’s face heated as Mrs. Docker handed over a dented utensil. The blue-clad man whistled, a cheerful sound like a kettle. “I like a fresh Irish lass. You’re all dappled like turkey eggs and innocent as daylight. Am I right?” He smashed at Maggie’s poor slice with the back of the spoon, crushing it flat as he talked. “Do you speak, darling? Or only stare?”
“I can speak. And I didn’t ask you to ruin my cake.” The crumbled remains reminded Maggie of poor Aiden’s face.
“Ach, it’ll taste the same, I promise.” The Blue Man winked. “And I can’t help wanting to ruin things. You, especially.” He leaned forward, his lips inches from her own. “Your hair’s like a flaming phoenix, love. Tell me, does it burn the same downstairs?”
Everyone in the grocery laughed. Maggie snatched at the spoon. “That’s for my husband to know, not the likes of you.”
“Oh ho!” said the Blue Man while the crowd hooted. “Hot and fiery and slick as an eel’s tail, I’ll warrant. But married, alas. Where’s your husband, then? Drinking? Fighting?” He cocked his head. “I hope he’ll at least come home to help you with the baby. Do you want a boy or a girl?”
Maggie was scarcely sure of the pregnancy herself and didn’t know how the Blue Man could have guessed. A knowing whisper spread through the room. She bit back the words trembling on her lips: I don’t want the baby. I don’t know how I’m going to feed it.
Something like pity shone in the Blue Man’s eyes. He had flecks of gold in them, and his hair was dark as a forest floor. “Ach, I meant no harm. But here. What’s this?” He bent over the flattened cake. “Ah, yes. A pretty for the pretty, unless I’m mistaken.” He brushed his long fingers in the crumbs and plucked out something shiny. Maggie gasped. It wasn’t the expected coin, or rag, but a jewel, red as a flower. It caught the light as he rolled it in his fingers. “Why, Mrs. Docker!” he called over the counter. “Are you so rich as to be baking rubies in your cake?”
“Enough of your games, Blai Orrit,” Mrs. Docker said. “You pulled that thing from your very own pocket.”
“I never!” the Blue Man said. “ ’Twas baked in this Irish girl’s barm brack, I swear it, and a fine fortune it foretells.” He twirled the stone. It was pretty as fire. “What say you, Irish? A year of riches, and girl baby, fresh and fair as her mother? Is that a fortune fit for your beauty?” He smiled and dropped the stone in her hand.
Holding it, Maggie felt cold and hot all at once. She’d never seen anything so lovely. It looked alive, shimmering on her palm. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Don’t you? Well, mayhap you’ll sell the babe to me, if you don’t want her.” The Blue Man had leaned in close again, voice so soft, she hardly heard it.
“What?”
He grinned. His canine teeth were long and sharp looking. “If she’s a lass, your child, you can sell her to me. I’d treat her well. Put her to work only when she’s ready. Would you like that, love?”
The heat in Maggie’s face had become a cold chill. He had discerned the worst wish of her heart, like a traveler reading tea leaves. She took in his slant eyes and bright blue clothes, the pearl-and-gold sheen of his skin. With a start, she realized he wasn’t human. Why, he must be a strutting sidh lad, come on All Hallows’ Eve to tempt and trick her. And he was a Five Points Fae too, as wicked and dangerous as the city they stood in. The spit in her mouth dried up.
Another chuckle rippled through the market, but Maggie paid it no mind. She let the red bauble drop and backed away.
“Come now, lass,” the sidh lad called. He stooped and plucked the jewel from the floor. “Don’t forget your fortune. It’s bad luck not to take it.” He clawed at her arm again.
“For the love of God, stop teasing the poor child. She’s too green to even know it’s glass.” A woman slid herself between Maggie and the Blue Man. “Buy me a drink, damn your eyes, Blai Orrit. Leave the poor child to her beer.”
“If I must.” The sidh lad tipped his hat. “But her beauty puts me in her debt. And I always pay my debts. Do you, Irish?”
At that, Maggie stumbled out the door, leaving her cake and her beer and the laughing crowd behind.
All the way home, she startled at shadows, for it was perilous to be alone and abroad on All Hallows’ Eve. She had been foolish to linger in Mrs. Docker’s. Revelers danced in the street; firelight glimmered on every corner. But she did not gaze at or join in the merriment. Instead, she kept her eyes to the ground. She was afraid she might glimpse Aiden’s corpse, lurching through the streets, looking for her. Or she might see the sidh lad’s blue coat as he came to tempt her more. Only when she was home safe in her tenement room did Maggie heave a sigh of relief.
The feeling was short-lived. For when she reached in her apron pocket, her fingers closed on something hard. With a gasp, she pulled forth the shining, red stone, the one the sidh lad had dandled. Somehow it had found its way back to her—unasked for and uninvited.
When it rolled to the floor, one of her flatmates snatched it up. “Gods, where did you get this?”
“Pulled it from my fortune cake at Mrs. Docker’s.” Maggie had backed into a corner.
“That’s a piece of good luck.”
“I don’t think so, Lynn. I’m afraid one of the Good Folk put it there.”
Lynn smirked. She was a sharp-faced girl, with a mouth full of chipped teeth. “Bosh. There’s no such things. Don’t be a bumpkin, Maggie.”
“I tell you, he looked passing strange. And he knew I’m with child, though I’m not yet showing.”
“Then he’d a sharp eye, that’s all.” Lynn turned the jewel in the lantern light. It sparkled in her grimy fingers. “When are you due?”
“Spring, I suppose.”
“Hard, with your man gone.”
“Yes.” Maggie swallowed, thinking of the sidh lad’s offer. Had he paid for her baby with this jewel? Would he come for the child after Maggie bore it? Did she want that?
“Shall I sell this for you?” Lynn asked. “I’d get a fair price, I promise.”
“No.” Maggie snatched back the stone.
Lynn sniffed. “You’d do well to be nice, now you’re on your own. You’ll need friends.”
“Don’t want them.” Maggie didn’t want to know anyone from this foul place.
She lay down in the straw on the floor and turned her face to the wall, clutching the stone with one hand and her belly with the other. Could she bear to leave her child with the Good Folk and buy a ticket back to Kerry? Could she stand to stay in Five Points and raise it on her own? Either choice seemed bad, the same way every street in New York led to heartbreak and ugliness.
In the end she kept the jewel, though Maggie knew it was wrong. Still, she liked to hold it up to the light. Red and bright, it made her think of flowers and tales. She rolled it in her fingers as she walked and warmed it in her palm. She had never had anything so pretty. And she told herself she’d return it soon, for certain before her child came. But she made no effort to find the Blue Man. Instead, she avoided Mrs. Docker’s altogether and bought her ale at an oyster bar instead.
The child inside her grew fast. First, it felt like a butterfly, with shivering wings in her belly. Then it bubbled and roiled like a stew. Finally it came, swift and on a tide of pain so strong, Maggie shook and shrieked and forgot everything. There were two days of weeping and straining and screaming, then the babe was delivered, and the midwife pronounced her healthy.
Maggie stared, dumbfounded at a golden-haired girl. She looked like Aiden, and when the child opened her mouth and gave a cry, everything in Maggie’s chest thrummed. It was like a factory switch churning giant machinery. Her heart flooded, her eyes filled. Look at the cunning creature, she thought, with her fingers curled like new leaves, and tiny spikes of eyelashes shadowing her cheeks.
With plunging terror, she remembered the
ruby. Oh, she must return it, and right away! She’d been foolish to keep the thing for so long. She didn’t want to sell her baby.
She searched her apron, the straw, the sills, the sashes, and even the grime-filled cracks in the floorboards. But no glowing little jewel was to be found. And when she went to ask Lynn about it, Lynn was gone, and Maggie knew her for a thief.
“Now Blai Orrit will come for my child,” she thought, more scared than ever in her life, more terrified than the day Granny breathed her last, or Aiden took her hand and they boarded a ship. She screamed and swore and gazed at her baby and screamed and stomped and swore some more. For two days her heart galloped as she nursed and waited for the sidh lad to claim what was owed. But he didn’t come. So Maggie scrounged a bent nail from the gutter. Cold iron would protect them both from the Fae. Then she tied the child to her bosom and named her Bride.
Maggie returned to the Rosenbaums’ flat, where she worked sewing pieces six days a week. Cloth and trim clogged their dank apartment. She sat there with six other girls and sewed the same things over and over. But when Maggie crouched in her wooden chair, with Bride bundled to her breast, bearded Rosenbaum tutted and told her that she must leave the child with someone else while she worked.
“But the cost—”
“What of the cost to me?” he asked. “If your breast milk leaks on my piecings? If the baby ruins your work with her chewing and meddling?”
Mrs. Rosenbaum cooed and clucked at the child. “Don’t worry,” she said, wren-brown eyes twinkling. “Find a girl to watch her. Buy her good, fresh milk, and she’ll grow up strong. All the advertisements say cow’s milk is better. She’ll be fine, love. This isn’t Ireland, after all.”
Maggie heeded the woman. After all, Mrs. Rosenbaum could read newspapers and add up sums. So she found a babysitter, two rooms down from her own. The girl was smooth-haired, twelve years old, and simple, but Maggie knew she would treat Bride with gentleness. Half of Maggie’s pennies went to the babysitter. With the other half, she bought fresh milk. She would tote a tin cup to the street each day, where peddlers ladled milk out of buckets. Some wagons were grimy, others buzzed with flies, but Maggie always looked for the thickest, creamiest product, milk that hissed and foamed from containers and poured like silk into wee Bride’s mouth. Instead of buying new shoes, Maggie wrapped rags around her feet. Every day she sewed until her hands cramped and her eyes burned.