“Hello,” Nico said as he approached.
He watched her spilling dust from a watering can upon a bed of flowers. The flowers had faces, all them scrunched and coughing, their wilted petals curling toward pallid stems. The woman didn’t turn when he spoke; she just muttered insults, each one aimed at a particular flower.
“Ugly roses. Horrid peonies. Worthless Asters. Disgusting Gerber daisies.”
With her silver curls, and the wrinkles of her skin sunk deep as trenches, he wondered if she might be deaf. “What are you doing?” he said, this time much louder than before.
“What’s it look like?” she snapped. “I’m dusting my crops.”
Once she emptied the dust can, Nico watched her traipse into the cottage. She returned carrying a digital camera and a small tin filled with paint.
“Smile, you fetid sacks of excrement,” she said.
She proceeded to snap photos of the flowers’ faces, their swollen eyes and puffy cheeks appearing stark and magnified upon the camera’s LED screen. She then dipped her fingertips into the tin and flicked paint specks on every petal.
“What’s that for?” he said, peering over her shoulder.
“Don’t you know anything about plants? It’s photo-synthesis.” To the flowers, she said, “Now thrive or, so help me, I’ll pluck you all and throw you in the hearth!”
She scuffled inside again, still muttering curses, and slammed the door behind her. Nico let a few seconds pass before he crouched before the flowerbed, trying to evince an air of kindness.
“Are you okay?” he said.
The flowers shook their heads. “No sir,” they said at once.
Their voices were small, delicate and hurting, a sound like someone making tiny rips in paper.
“You look starved. Do you need some water?”
“Yes sir,” they said.
He circled around the cottage and found a bucket filled with water resting in the shade of a well’s limestone wall. He returned to the flowerbed and slowly poured the water on soil so dry it had split into patchwork, leaf-shaped segments. The flowers closed their eyes and let out a contented moan. By the time the water absorbed into the earth, they stood erect. A darker hue bled into their petals, slow at first and then more and more until their corollas blushed with vibrancy.
“Thank you, sir,” the flowers said. “The mangkukulam who takes care of us hasn’t learned yet.”
“Learned what?” said Nico.
“Malice withers.”
Nico swung by a florist after work and picked up a dozen red roses. Then, at the grocery store, he purchased Cathy’s favorite treats: chocolate covered nuts and chews. While he had no false notion that a modest box of sweets and a pretty floral arrangement would somehow spackle over all the cracks of their relationship, he knew it was a start.
At home, he handed the presents to his wife. She looked taken aback, didn’t say a word, but he could tell she didn’t hate them. He led her to the table. They sat down and he took her hand and cradled it in his own, realizing how much she meant to him and how long he’d craved the warmth of her skin touching his.
“I put you through a lot ever since the day we met,” he said. “And I…”
He wanted to say more, to tally up the wrongs he’d done and wrap them in a soft quilt of his apologies. But shame pressed against his insides and that was all he could manage before he began to cry. A long silence passed between them: his nervous and imploring, hers quiet and aloof. For a while, he believed she would stand up and walk away.
Instead, she nodded and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
A hint of the woman she once was peered from behind the sullen mask covering her face. “Yeah. Okay.”
Nico wiped his eyes. He smiled, though he didn’t know why. That little word had so much meaning packed inside it and he didn’t have the wherewithal to decipher it completely. Still, it was a start, a shiny new path stretching out before them into a broadening horizon. And, for now, it was enough.
Nico stood on a cliffside overlooking a great expanse of grasslands, their leaves catching the sunlight and sparkling with the luster of emeralds. A herd of tikbalangs argued in the distance, the sound of their shouts and snorting punctuated by the stamping of their hooves. Kapres rested like black lumps on the trees of a balete forest lining the horizon. The slow bass of their snores—muffled by the distance—whispered in his ears, reminding him of an elegy or a prayer. Perfect for the task he had planned.
He spent hours collecting rocks. He gathered them together and then stacked them high as his shoulders, sealing up the gaps with mud and clay he’d scraped up from the ground. Once finished, he surveyed his creation. It was a cairn in the rough shape of a cone. He’d seen pictures of similar structures online, and though his version lacked the magnitude of Bronze Age artisans, he felt proud of his accomplishment nonetheless.
“I miss you, Mom,” he said, shutting his eyes. “We haven’t spoken for a while so I thought I would catch you up on what’s been happening with me. I got a new job. It pays less than the last one, but it’s not as stressful either. I have an amazing wife. You’d like her. She’s far more forgiving than I ever deserved. We also had a beautiful child. He’s two years old now and, one day, I hope to share this world with him the same way you wanted to share it with me.”
He took the watermelon scarf from around his neck and draped it around the cairn.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for the love you planted deep inside me. It was slow to grow, but I think it’s finally sprouted.”
With that he kissed his fingers, pressed it to the cairn, and then willed himself back home. The other world vanished and, quicker than he could take another breath, he found himself standing in his driveway. Despite the somberness of the previous moment, he was giddy at the prospect of seeing his family again. They were waiting for him. They wanted him around. That realization made him grin and, for the first time in longer than he could remember, life didn’t feel like a prison anymore.
About the Author
Samuel Marzioli’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Best of Apex Magazine (2016), InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Shock Totem. His website is http://marzioli.blogspot.com/.
Boirdeleau, WI (Population 3,017)
Aimee Ogden
The town of Boirdeleau, Wisconsin, had a population of three thousand and seventeen, three thousand and sixteen of which were perfectly ordinary folk and precisely one of which was an ancient mummy of questionable provenance.
Boirdeleau, tucked in alongside the Mississippi River just a few miles north of where it met up with the Chippewa, had a nice winery and a few folksy shops on Main Street, but no particular claim to fame other than the mummy, which resided in a glass case in the local library. Miss Faulkman, the librarian these past two years, took responsibility for the mummy's care and upkeep. Right now, she could only hope that her charge would not intervene on his own behalf with the young man from the State Historical Society who had come to examine him.
According to Mr. Brzycki, the mummy was a priceless historical artifact—a point which Miss Faulkman could not argue—and according to him, the State Historical Society in Madison had sent him to evaluate its condition. He flashed paperwork in Miss Faulkman's face, too quickly for her to catch more than the Historical Society seal at the top. "Specifically," said Mr. Brzycki, tucking the papers into the inside pocket of his rather threadbare sport-coat, "with regard to travel."
"I think he'll travel fine," said Miss Faulkman, who had enough experience of this to know rather than think, but who knew better than to tell Mr. Brzycki so. "Where do you mean to take him?" Another, more important question bubbled up behind that one. "And how long will he be gone?"
Mr. Brzycki smiled. It was a very nice smile, in a certain very well-practiced way. "Well, for good, of course! It needs to be sent back to where it came from."
"I see," said Miss Faulkman. "And where is that?"
They both turned
to look at the glass case. The mummy rested in a seated position ("criss-cross applesauce" was the phrase as Miss Faulkman had learned it) with the top of his head against the back wall, in such a way that the outsides of his legs did not fully rest on the bottom of the case. He was wrapped in bands of brownish cloth, both arms individually sheathed and crossed across his chest. Based on the seated position he might very well have been a relic of the Inca or some other South American people; though based on the wrappings themselves he could also easily have been an ancient Egyptian mummy. Or then again, perhaps Chinese? He had no burial mask or jewelry or other ornamentation that would have helped in his identification. Miss Faulkman only referred to him as "him" at all because the mummy hadn't made any effort to correct this initial usage of hers—not because of any outward indication of his theoretical gender.
Miss Faulkman let the uncomfortable silence build between her and Mr. Brzycki, who had gone about pink about the edges. "Well, that is for the experts to assess," he said. "Knowing Captain Follett, it could have been just about anywhere."
Roger Follett was the individual responsible for the presence of the mummy in the library of Boirdeleau. Captain Follett had resided in the town some years before, insofar as his globetrotting permitted him to call any singular place his residence. Follett's expeditions had him described in some of the older town literature as an "adventurer", but Miss Faulkman thought that perhaps "marauder" might have been more accurate. Neither had the man been particularly forthcoming with the accounting of his travels. Fortunately, he'd brought relatively few such souvenirs back to Boirdeleau permanently.
She explained the situation to Mr. Brzycki as ably as she could: the mummy had been here nearly a hundred years, no one knew anything about it, there was no record of its origin. Like the mummy, she was one of the few residents of Boirdeleau who hadn't originated here, and she wasn't as familiar with the lore surrounding Follett as she might have been. In any case, she took care to avoid the words "adventurer" and "marauder" alike. "The only thing I can assure you," she finished, "is that the town will absolutely not part with their, er... " She wrinkled her nose at the placid mask of the mummy's face. "Very important relic."
Mr. Brzycki put one arm on a bookshelf and leaned toward her. He was very slightly taller than she was, and, in the lean, had grown a great deal more annoying as well. "Getting this thing back to its place of origin is simply the right thing to do. Surely someone like you, with an appreciation for the classics, can understand that."
Miss Faulkman withdrew a handkerchief from her pants pocket and dabbed at a smeary fingerprint that the overeager young man had left on the mummy's case. When she'd graduated the LIS program, she'd mailed out forty-two resumes. Only Boirdeleau had called her up for an interview, and she'd jumped at the offered job. She had never thought during that process to enquire about the side duties that might come attached to custodianship of a beloved local curiosity. "I'm sure that you can appreciate my position, too. I can hardly hand out priceless antiquities to the first person who comes along." She folded the handkerchief into tidy quarters before returning it to her pocket. "Even if you had a local library card, which I'm fairly sure is not the case."
"Trust me." Mr. Brzycki's perfect smile didn't flicker one whit as he straightened up out of his lean and adjusted his tie. "You don't want the Journal Sentinel here with a news crew, protests, bad press." Miss Faulkmann opened her mouth to say that the only press she might get in Boirdeleau was the Dollarclip Savings circular that came once a week on Thursdays, but he was still talking. "I'll be back with a moving van and get the whole mess out of your hair."
"You can't do that!" objected Miss Faulkman, as he brushed past her. On the off chance that he could indeed do exactly that, she called after him, "You'll have to go all the way down to La Crosse to rent a truck!"
But Mr. Brzycki didn't respond, other than to duck his head and mutter an excuse-me when he bumped into old John Goodbear on his way out the door. Mr. Goodbear stared after the man for a moment, holding the door open as he did, until Miss Faulkman scolded him over the cool wet draft off the river that he was letting in. "Is he in town to see our friend here?" he asked, wiping dirt off on the rug. Though no one in town did much to broadcast the mummy's presence, word did get out from time to time. "I thought I recognized him for a second, but… I suppose not. You just get to expecting familiar faces in a town like Boirdeleau."
"Yes, he was here about the mummy," said Miss Faulkman briskly. "But never mind about that." Her hands fluttered briefly at her sides, as if on their own accord they would just as soon have gathered up Mr. Goodbear into a firm embrace. That wasn't her place, though. He wouldn't care for a stranger fussing over him so. But she thought she knew why he was here, and pressed gently for the reason. It didn't serve her well to pry too much. The residents of Boirdeleau were an insular sort, with good reason. But library degrees didn't grow on trees—or in vineyards. "Your daughter was able to take you up to the Twin Cities yesterday, wasn't she, Mr. Goodbear? What did they say?"
"I keep telling you, just call me John. Everyone else does." Mr. Goodbear took off his hat, and spun it around between his big hands. "And, well, it's stomach cancer. That's what we expected. There's a program for treatment, one of those experimental groups, but there's a waiting list, and I was hoping our friend here—"
Of course the mummy was already moving, legs unfolding and straightening. Miss Faulkman hurried to open the glass case as he got all the way up and lumbered forward. "Let me get that for you," she cried, and swung the door out of the way just before he reached it. He didn't always seem to remember that the case front was there, and there wasn't any space in the library budget for a new case again this year.
The mummy stopped just in front of Mr. Goodbear, whose face had split in a smile even as tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks. "Bless you," he said. "I don't know what we'd do without you."
The mummy's head inclined briefly. Then one bandaged hand shot forward, burying itself in John Goodbear's belly.
Mr. Goodbear's head pitched back, and Miss Faulkman looked away when a guttural moan ground out of his wide-open mouth. She would never get used to this, no matter how long she lived in Boirdeleau. She didn't think this was the sort of thing a person ought to get used to. But she stared down at the red tips of her shoes where they peeped out from under her pants, and counted breaths until the library grew quiet again.
She looked up just in time to see the mummy's hand pull back from Mr. Goodbear's belly, covered in gore well past the wrist. In the knotty brown fingers there was a handful of—best not to look too closely. Miss Faulkman had a degree in library science and not biology for several very good reasons. Instead she shooed Mr. Goodbear to a chair, while the mummy loomed in the background. She did not watch to see what he did with the handful of muck he'd dredged up from John's innards, but rather passed Mr. Goodbear a fresh handkerchief from her purse so that he could dry his brow.
Mr. Goodbear wound up blowing his nose into the handkerchief a few times before he was quite ready to stand up again; Miss Faulkman deftly declined his attempts to return it afterward. He asked for a moment alone with his "old friend", and she went to tidy up in the Young Adult section while Mr. Goodbear pressed the mummy's hand and spoke quietly to him. When the door jingled at last, she looked up again. The mummy stood alone, looking in her direction. Or at least with his head turned toward her; she had never been certain how much he saw or heard or simply knew.
She put both elbows up on the shelf of crime novels that abutted Young Adult to peer back at him. "Sometimes I wonder," she said, "what it is that you get out of this particular bargain."
The mummy shook his head at her. She ducked her head, feeling strangely admonished. "Yes, I know, we should get going. Let me find my car keys."
The mummy fit in the passenger side of Miss Faulkman's car, albeit with his lower legs crammed snugly under the dashboard. Miss Faulkman coaxed the engine to life, and they glided down out of the st
reet-side space in front of the library and out along Main Street. Gaily-painted storefronts lined a two-block space on either side. Mrs. Lorson, who owned Ole and Lena's Handcrafted Norwegian Goods and Foods, waved from just inside her glinting window. Miss Faulkman hesitated, and then lifted the fingers of her left hand from the steering wheel in greeting. Her thumb stayed hooked behind.
It wasn't a long drive to Boirdeleau School, which took the town's children up to the seventh grade. After that they were bussed farther up the river to attend the junior high and then the high school in Pepin. But something drew Miss Faulkman farther northward on Main Street, up out of town and onto the highway that followed the Mississippi. You could see the water, sometimes just a distant glint on the far side of train tracks, sometimes a broad muddy bathtub between the two hillsides. If the mummy had any opinions on this jaunt, he kept them to himself, as ever.
Finally she pulled over in a shady overlook, just off the highway and up around a grassy hillside. She got out of the car, looking down on Boirdeleau to the southeast. She picked up her purse for a cigarette, and then remembered that she didn't smoke anymore.
The mummy rolled down the window.
Miss Faulkman came around the car to the passenger side. "Good thing they're automatic," she said. "I bet you'd have a devil of a time with a hand crank. Do you want to get out?"
A nod.
Soon enough he stood ramrod-straight beside her as she slouched against the hood, with a faded parasol in one bandaged hand to protect him from unwanted UV rays. "It's my job to take care of you," she said, and realized she was speaking as much to herself as to him. That wasn't right. She looked up at him, put a hand on his bony arm. "Do you—I mean, I should ask you, shouldn't I? Do you want to go home? Wherever that is?"
The mummy's arm lifted, stick-straight. Pointing back down the river to Boirdeleau.
Fell Beasts and Fair Page 20