by Ellen Datlow
But when they started to talk—actually only Black Braids ever talked, Gold Glasses just stood there—I knew pretty quickly what they really were: DPW, Department of People Watching, they said they’d been watching me a long time. Watching the house, and the bottle-fence, and the bag-forest, watching it all come together and grow. And questions, oh boy, she must have asked me a thousand questions, like who I was and how long had I been there and who else lived with me in the house. I said if they’d been doing all that watching how come they didn’t already know? but she just kept on asking, little lists coming out of her pockets, flap pocket jacket like a magician’s top hat and finally, “There’ve been complaints,” Black Braids said, like that was somehow my fault, how could it be my fault? I never complain. The sink taught me that. “We’ve gotten quite a few calls about your property. The most recent one was from, let’s see, a meter reader.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s not only an eyesore,” Black Braids said, “it’s a sanitation issue. For the neighborhood, but for you, too. According to this report,” another flap pocket, another piece of paper, “inspectors have been out here twice before. Do you remember talking to them at all?”
“No,” I said. Behind me the bags rustled, a soothing sound; it made me smile so I said it again. “No.”
Gold Glasses took a piece of paper from her pocket and gave it to me; I gave it back. Black Braids said, “We don’t want to—” something “—you,” some word I didn’t know. “We only want to help.”
“If you want to help,” I said, “start planting.” I really meant it, I wasn’t being a smarty, I don’t like it when people are smarties to me. But the DPW ladies got mad, I could tell. They didn’t take the Popsicle sticks, they tried to give me some letters or pamphlets or something, and when I wouldn’t take them Gold Glasses put something right on the house: a big red sticker, dark red like a fire, like a fresh new scar, and “We’ll be back,” Black Braids said, and something about the way she said it—not ugly, but like a promise, a hard promise you mean to keep—made me think of the sink, and thinking of the sink right away made me ugly and so I started yelling, I didn’t mean to but I did, yelling swear words too which is not nice and I know it but I did it anyway, yelled them all the way down the sidewalk and up to the DPW car, a car too new to be parked on this street, new blue car that pulled away fast, jerk of speed like a carnival ride, where your head rocks back, and you laugh.… But the ladies weren’t laughing, and neither was I; I might have been crying, I’m not sure. There was stuff on my face, I had to go in the house and wipe it off and once I was in the house I did cry, the kind of crying you do when you know no one can hear, my head pressed against the wall where the phone used to be, we’ve gotten quite a few calls about your property … calls? from who? I don’t have any neighbors, not anymore. Maybe it was a lie; they’re allowed to tell lies, those kind of people, did you know that? DPW and cop-type, social worker, testify-in-court people, they’re allowed to lie as much as they like.
On the dark red sticker it said BOARD OF HEALTH and then some other stuff I couldn’t read. I admit, I sort of liked the sound of that: the Board of Health, like a big strong piece of wood sanded smooth and honey-brown. But this was a different kind of board, the people kind, the kind that means someone’s going to do something to you that you’re not going to like. So I had to think.
I can figure things out, I can put any kind of stuff together, but thinking is hard for me. So the first thing I did was bring my zoo inside. I didn’t have tags or licenses for any of them so it was better they be out of sight. It made the bedrooms kind of crowded but I liked the company, and maybe one of them would give me a signal, some sign to tell me what to do. The dogs were best for that, and the deer, the smart little ones with the antlers.… But by the time it was dark they still hadn’t told me anything.
So I did what I always do when I feel bad: I went to Sure-Would Forest, to stand in the night and the breeze, listening to the bags and the way they sound like whispering, a hundred voices whispering, telling strange and quiet secrets to each other in the dark. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck moving along with the whispers, like plants underwater, pulled by tides and currents that no one can see, they’re just there, like the night air, like the Forest; like me. It made me feel strange and secret too; it made me happy, in that funny way you’re happy in the dark. But I still didn’t know what to do about the bottles, about the DPW and the Board of Health.
Maybe there was nothing I could do.
So I went back in, out of the night of secrets, and brushed my teeth with my fingers, and climbed into my sleeping bag next to the deer and the dogs. And right away I had the dream again.
I am standing on something soft, like a mattress, like quicksand, something that sags and shifts when I try to move. And from way up above, past the high lip of a cliff, comes garbage. Bags and chunks and thunks of garbage, raining down like giant bullets on me: rotten oranges, filthy socks, wet newspaper and styrofoam and cracked plastic cups, it falls forever and the smell is awful but what really scares me is that there’s no end to it, no escape, it just keeps falling and I know if I don’t get out of there it’s going to bury me, cover my head so I can’t breathe, already it’s up to my waist but the ground’s so soft I can’t move, can’t get away, it’s coming faster and faster and it’s bigger now too, it’s warped lawn chairs and blown car tires and wrecked-up old computers, refrigerators without doors, cars too rusted to drive, everything’s bigger than me and it’s falling faster, it’s going to bury me for sure, I open my mouth to scream but
but I
wake up, my own breath a shout, a scary sound—and as I sit up, right away I feel it, cold and wet all around me, I peed the sleeping bag—and now I’m really scared, because that’s a bad thing to do, a baby thing, dirty garbage baby, oh God I know what happens next
dirty garbage babies belong in the SINK
so I run, run right out of the house like I used to do, flee to the heart of my forest where I Sure-Would like to stay forever, safe forever under the flutter of the bags, their soft sound now a million mother’s voices, good mothers, godmothers, fairy godmothers who in their million voices all say, now, the very same thing
come with us
in the safety of the trees, where everything is just the way I left it, the way I made it, everything is mine and everything is safe, the garbage isn’t garbage anymore because I fixed it, cleaned it, made it fences and ponds and beautiful trees, beautiful trees
come with us
the godmothers and me and the plastic animals, the flamingoes and the ducks and the sitting-down dogs, all of us escaping into the trees, where we drink from the Mirror Pond and listen to the leaves, and watch the whirligigs dance in the breeze that blows forever, the breeze that tells secrets, and hears them, and heals
come with us, the forest says
and I just do.
They’re right on time, the DPW people, Black Braids in the new car and two men, work men in workmen’s uniforms, driving a truck: they have rakes, and brooms, and heavy gloves; they have plastic bags. Black Braids sits watching and drinks from a paper cup of coffee; the men have no coffee, the men have to get to work.
They leave my Popsicle sticks untouched, the animals are safe inside, but everything else… I stand there watching as they pull out, one by one, each bottle in the glass-bottle fence, still the whirligigs, uproot my trees, throw my bags away into another, bigger, bag. “One hundred bags,” I say, only to myself but the workmen hear me, one of them stops for a minute and “You shouldn’t live in all this trash,” he says, slow and kind, like he knows me and is worried about me. Sweat on his face, his gloved hands at his sides. “It’s not healthy, you know? We’ll clean it up some, give you a nice fresh start.”
I already had a nice fresh start, but I don’t say that; he’s trying to be nice, he is nice so “Thank you,” I say, and move out of their way, go stand back by the truck until they’re all don
e, until Black Braids comes out of her car with a piece of paper, she doesn’t even bother to speak to me, just folds and tucks the paper in the door… and then they’re gone, Black Braids in her car, the men in the truck with all my things, everything piled away like nothing, like trash; I almost think I can hear the bottles clinking at me, jam and spaghetti sauce, good-bye, good-bye—
—and I cry a little, I can’t help it, even though I know it never does any good to cry: the truck still turns the corner, my yard is still ruined, everything I worked so hard on is still gone. But even as I cry my hands are already getting busy, tugging and nipping at the heavy plastic, the thick clear gorgeous plastic of the workmen’s garbage bags. The back of the truck was full of them, long bags to make long leaves like, like palm trees, I’ve never had palm trees before. I don’t know what the deer will think, but the flamingoes are going to love them.
Kathe koja’s novels include The Cipher, co-winner of the Bram Stoker Award, Skin, and Kink. She has also written three novels for teenagers: straydog, Buddha Boy, and The Blue Mirror.
Several of Koja’s short stories have been published in the Datlow/Windling Adult Fairy Tale series and several have been chosen for Year’s Best anthologies. Some of her short fiction has been collected in Extremities. She lives with her husband, artist Rick Lieder, and her son Aaron in the suburbs of Detroit.
Author’s Note:
The forest—its mystery, its safety, its embrace—is sometimes where we make it. And sometimes what we throw away is what we need the most.
The Pagodas of Ciboure
M. Shayne Bell
On a day of the summer Maurice nearly died, his mother carried him to the banks of the Nieve River and his life changed forever. He was ten years old then. It was a warm day around noon in June of 1885. A gentle breeze blew off the bay, and from where they sat Maurice and his mother could smell the salt of the sea. His mother believed such breezes could heal.
“When will Papa be here?” he asked his mother.
“Any day,” she said. “His letter said he would come soon.”
“Will he bring a doctor to bleed me?”
“Hush,” she said. She brushed the hair across his forehead. “No one will bleed you in Ciboure, Maurice. I won’t let them.”
Maurice leaned against his mother and slept for a time in the sunlight. When he woke, he wanted to walk along the river. Yes he had a fever, and yes he did not feel well, but he wanted to walk upstream. He felt drawn to something in that direction, curious about what might lie just out of sight. His mother watched him totter along. “Don’t go too far,” she said, glad that he felt well enough to do this on his own but anxious that he not hurt himself.
Maurice worked his way slowly up the riverbank. He picked a reed and swished it at the grasses ahead. The grasses gave way to flowered bushes, and the land rose gently to a forest. The water of the little river gurgled over rocks as it rushed clear and cold down from the Pyrenees.
Not far into the trees, in a wide glen, Maurice came upon the walls of an abandoned pottery. Five hundred years earlier this workshop had sold sparkling dinner plates and soup bowls to Moorish and Christian princes. After the region had passed to France, its wares had been treasured in the palaces and mansions of Paris, Lyon, and Marseilles. But most of the wealthy family who owned the pottery had been guillotined in the Revolution. The few survivors had not returned to open it again.
The roof was now caved in. Windows in the stone walls were sunny holes. Maurice stood on his tiptoes and looked through one of the windows. He saw grass growing where workers had once hurried about polished floors.
Maurice walked around the ruined building and stopped in surprise. Three high mounds down by the river glittered in the sunlight as if covered in jewels. He had never seen anything like it. Among the daisies and the wild roses and the lacy ferns sunlight gleamed and sparkled on what looked from a distance like gems. It was as if he had wandered into a fairy treasury.
“Mother!” he called because he wanted her to see this. “Mother!”
But she was too far away to hear. Then he decided to be quiet: if there were jewels on those mounds he did not want to attract anyone else walking in the forest. He would fill his pockets first, then he would lead his mother here. If he had found jewels, they could buy a seaside mansion and he would get well and his father would come to live with them. They would all be happy again.
He walked slowly down to the mounds. His feet crunched on the ground, and he realized he was walking on broken china and glass. When he got to the mounds, he could see that that was what sparkled in the sunlight—broken dishes. The mounds were the old trash heaps of the pottery. There would be no fortune here.
Maurice scooped up a big handful of the shards, careful not to cut himself, and he carried them to the river. He held them down into the water and let the water wash away the dirt that had blown over the shards all these years. After a moment he shook out the water and spread his handful of broken china, wet and glittery, on the riverbank. Some shards were edged with a gold rim. One had a black fleur-delys entirely complete. Three pieces were from a set of blue china so delicate and clear he could see shadow through them when he held them up to the light.
Maurice was tired and hot. He sat breathing heavily for a time. When the breeze moved the branches overhead, sunlight sparkled on the broken china that had washed into the shallow riverbed. Maurice liked this place. Even if there were no jewels, it was nice to dream about being rich. It was nice to dream about being well again. This was a place that invited dreams.
He sat quietly—just long enough for the things that had gone still at his approach to start moving and singing again. First the birds, then the butterflies, then Maurice saw clusters of pieces of china moving slowly over the ground: one cluster, then another, then more than he could count. They moved slowly between the flowers and around the stands of grass.
Maurice sat very, very still. He did not know what was making the pieces of china cluster together and move. He shivered, but he did not dare run. He watched very carefully, hardly daring to breathe. Sometimes only three shards moved together. Sometimes a handful. The pieces that moved were bright and clean, and the sharp edges had all been polished away. One small clump of six snowy-white shards came upon the pieces Maurice had washed. It stopped by one of the blue ones, and drew back as if amazed.
It was then that Maurice heard the singing. It was an odd music, soft and indistinct, and he had to struggle to hear it at all. The simplest birdsong would drown it out. But the white china shards tinkled as they moved, and amidst the tinkling a high, clear voice sang. He thought the music sounded Chinese.
Other clusters of shards hurried up—pink clumps and white clumps and some with each shard a different color or design. With so many gathered around him Maurice could hear their music clearly. Somehow, surrounded by music, Maurice forgot to be afraid. Creatures that made music would not hurt him, he thought. They seemed to debate in their songs the merits of each piece he had washed. Maurice slowly reached out and picked up the white shard with the black fleur-de-lys. He set it down by a small cluster of terracotta shards and thought it made a fine addition.
All movement and song stopped. The clusters sank slowly to the ground. No one walking by would have noticed them or thought them special at all. Maurice put his hand back in his lap and sat still. He wanted them to move once more. He wanted them to sing.
It took some time for it to happen again. After the birds had been singing by themselves for a long time and when the butterflies were fluttering about Maurice’s head, the terracotta pieces slowly drew themselves up into a terraced pattern, the larger pieces on the bottom, the smaller on top. It held the fleur-de-lys shard in the middle, as if it were a shield.
You look like a pine tree, Maurice thought.
But the more he looked at it, the more he realized it looked like a Chinese temple. He knew then what these creatures were. “Pagodas,” he whispered. “Pagodas!”
His mother had told him stories about the pagodas. She’d said they looked like little Chinese temples. They were creatures made of jewels, crystal, and porcelain who lived in the forests of France. If you were good to them, they could heal you. He had thought the stories mere fairy tales.
He looked at the glittery river and the sparkling mounds and then at the shining shards around him. “Please heal me,” he whispered. “I want to get better. Please help me.”
He did not know how it would happen. He thought that maybe he should touch one of them. Some power might flow into him and make him well if he did. He reached out and gently touched the terra-cotta shards.
They sank down at once. He picked up each piece, then put it back in its place. He saw nothing among them. He found no hint of what a pagoda inside its shell of shards might look like. “Please help me,” he whispered. “Mother’s doctors can’t, and I don’t want Papa’s to bleed me again.”
Nothing around him moved now. When he heard his mother calling, he stood up very carefully. He did not want to step on the pagodas. He took off his shoes and planned each footstep before he took it. He tried to walk on grass and flowers, not the broken china. He hoped he had not hurt a single pagoda.
His mother met him at the steps of the pottery where he sat lacing his shoes. “You have been gone a long time,” she said. She looked around as she waited for him. “Oh, this is pretty here. The trash heaps glitter so. You shouldn’t walk barefoot to the river, Maurice—you could cut your feet on the glass!”
“I was careful, Mother,” Maurice said.
She smiled and took his hand. They walked home slowly.
She did not have to carry him.
That night, while the fever made him wobbly, Maurice pulled the box that held his favorite things out from beneath his bed. Inside were all the letters from his father carefully tied with a red ribbon. He set them aside. There were the thirteen francs he’d been able to save, wrapped in a note to his parents asking them to divide the money. He set that aside as well. There was the bright red, white, and blue pouch that held the set of seven tin soldiers his grandmother had sent him from Switzerland.