“Nothing, Miranda,” he said, losing some of his contentment. “Just enjoying the day.” Channing opened the newspaper and scanned a couple of pages without interest; it was hard to concentrate with her sitting there staring at him and he felt his appetite wane. His eyes stopped at a morbid photograph that showed a dark body bag next to the twisted wreck of a car. The paragraph accompanying it was sadly simple.
First grade teacher and mother of four, Sandra Wheatley was killed on her way to Blaine Elementary School early this morning. According to police, a truck driver returning from an overnight run fell asleep and crossed the center line, striking Mrs. Wheatley’s car in the left front. The truck driver was treated for minor injuries at Wellington Masonic Hospital and released with a citation for careless driving.
Channing couldn’t help but notice the woman’s initials–S.W. Had they been transposed, he might be worried; besides, he’d seen Miranda put the glass frame safely away. Right now, he could still feel his wife’s staring eyes and he put down the paper in exasperation.
“Miranda,” he said irritably, “you’ve been watching me all morning. What’s the problem?”
She dropped her gaze obediently and picked at the tablecloth. “I’m sorry, Channing. I didn’t mean to stare like that. It’s just that, well…”
“What?” he asked. “It’s just what?”
“I did so like your anniversary present,” she said. “I don’t know how to say this.” She hesitated.
Channing leaned back and folded his arms. Her it comes, he thought angrily. She wants to take it back.
Finally she continued. “Do you think you could get me another little glass thing–frame or whatever you call it? I didn’t want to tell you last night and spoil your mood, but one of the maids dropped it when she was cleaning the cabinet. It shattered into about a hundred pieces.”
****
Zachary’s Glass Shoppe.
It hadn’t changed–the same dusty, mildewed smell, the same old glass vases and unremarkable crystal statues adorning the shelves. Channing didn’t know what he’d expected to find on his second visit–perhaps, although it’d only been a little over two weeks, that the place didn’t even exist anymore. But here he was and this time he didn’t wonder whether or not there was an owner; he could feel Zachary’s presence behind the curtain.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Mandell.”
Channing started. He must have done a fade-out, because suddenly Zachary was there and Channing didn’t remember seeing him step up to the register. “Oh, hello.” He didn’t say anything else–how does one ask to buy another life?
Zachary smiled at him serenely and waited. Five seconds passed, then ten; still Channing remained nervously silent, never meeting the man’s eyes. Finally Zachary sighed knowingly and bent behind the case, bringing up the mirrored tray and its glittering contents.
“A pity about Sandra Wheatley,” Zachary said softly. “I’m sure she was a lovely woman.”
“Who?”
“The woman who died this morning when the frame was broken,” Zachary answered softly.
Channing felt his face drain–this sixth sense of Zachary’s seemed less the impossibility he’d once thought. Then he frowned. “But I thought you said her initials were W. S., not S.W.”
The man shrugged. “A small, shall we say, white lie? Sometimes I am compelled inexplicably to reverse the letters.” His face remained emotionless.
“Oh. Well, it w-was an accident,” Channing said, stammering slightly. “One of the maids dropped it.” He chided himself mentally for offering this explanation; after all, what difference did it make? Even had he purposely crushed the golden frame, which of them was truly the more guilty? Himself, for its destruction? Or Zachary, for its creation?
“Of course.”
Listening to the velvety tone of Zachary’s words, Channing again had that leonine impression of deadliness. To mask his unease he turned his attention to the tray. So many colors and shapes! And each represented the life–he now fully believed–of someone in the city, a living, breathing man or woman, someone who loved and hated, just like himself. There were at least five or six frames he didn’t remember form the last visit–which one? His conscience was playing hell on his ability to choose.
“This one,” he said finally. He pointed to it and watched as Zachary lifted it from the mirror’s surface and held it up for inspection. It was different from the others, darker and classier. Amid the crystalline tendrils of glass were smoky swirls of black and gray.
Zachary’s eyes found his. “A beautiful piece,” he said evenly as he moved to put it in Channing’s palm. “The life it surrounds belongs to a–”
“No,” Channing interrupted and waved the glass away. “Please, I don’t want to know. Just… wrap it.”
“Not even the initials?”
Channing shook his head firmly. If something happened to the frame–if it were dropped–it would be easier on his psyche if its… victim remained a mystery to him.
“As you wish.”
Channing wandered the small area absently, listening to the small rustling sounds the shopkeeper made as he packaged the gift and letting his thoughts float for a while.
“Will there be something else, Mr. Mandell?” Zachary asked softly.
Channing stopped with his back to the counter and his hands in his pockets. He breathed in for a long, nerve-gathering moment before turning.
“Yes… Zachary,” he said. “There is.” He stepped to the counter and pulled a folded handkerchief from his jacket. Willing his fingers not to tremble, Channing opened the linen and held it out; in the center of the white square was a single platinum blonde hair.
“Do you,” he asked carefully, “ever custom make your frames?”
****
This is getting to be a habit, Channing thought as he climbed in the convertible. Déjà vu crowded in and he knew he’d experience it once more when he came to pick up Miranda’s replacement anniversary present. He opened the glove compartment and gingerly placed his purchase inside, packing the rest of the contents–maps, extra napkins, and the like, securely around it. That should do it, he thought as he locked the compartment. Besides, it hadn’t really been that expensive. If life was cheap, the frame so safely packed in this car was almost worthless compared to the one he would pick up in three days.
As he drove away, Channing wondered how he would explain the drain on the checking account to Miranda–perhaps she would accept the truth: that he had ordered a custom replacement for her shattered anniversary gift. More likely she would think he’d spent the money on Adrienne, although he hadn’t seen his sister since the morning of his first visit to Zachary’s. Miranda’s instinctive and secretly justified jealousy of his twin was amazing, and finding time to visit Adrienne was like trying to escape a leash of saltwater taffy: he’d pull away, his wife would just reel him back in. Even today he had to rush back to the estate; Miranda had a huge dinner party planned and only promising to order her new present had allowed him a few hours’ freedom. No doubt Miranda was having Adrienne’s home watched even now.
Nevertheless, the contentment Channing had felt this morning returned; soon, very soon, his life would take on a new direction.
****
“Channing, it’s gorgeous!” Miranda squealed and hugged him quite hard, clutching the fragile glass object in one hand. For one dreadful moment, he fully expected the frame to be crushed in her careless hand. Would she then die in his arms?
She pranced to a chair and sat, cupping her hands around the frame a little more cautiously. Channing thought dryly that while she couldn’t know she was literally holding her life in her hands, she should at last think of the monstrous amount of money he’d paid for that tiny, peach-tinted bauble.
Channing watched impassively. With her clumsiness, he figured two, three weeks at the outside before she broke it. It would be just like suicide when she did, he reasoned, though he’d failed to inform her that the personal object i
nside the crystalline piece was a strand of her own hair. Zachary had obligingly scripted the initials M.M. on the parchment, another little white lie. They stood for Miranda Mandell, the married name that she scorned in favor of her family name. Had she asked, Channing was prepared to claim the initials were W.W.
It proved a groundless worry; twenty minutes later the box and parchment were crushed in the wastebasket and the frame occupied the same, possibly lethal spot as had its predecessor. It was, Channing knew, only a matter of time; when it happened he could righteously attribute it to chance–Lady Luck, bad odds. He planned not to lay a finger on it, but nothing that fragile ever survived more than a few weeks around Miranda.
He smiled.
****
The air spilling in the open window of the Mercedes felt good, cold and crisp, like freedom in vapor form. He checked his watch. Miranda’s little tea party would probably last another two hours, time enough for him to cruise over to Adrienne’s. Though they talked often, he hadn’t seen her for almost a month, nor had he spoken about Miranda’s unique gift yet. The frame in the glove box was for Adrienne; he knew she would love the sense of control she would feel from it–the almost god-like ability to end someone’s existence at will.
He chuckled as he turned into Adrienne’s drive. When he’d left, Miranda and her cronies had been passing the peach-tinted glass among themselves. Among those shaky old biddies, it was highly unlikely it would be in one piece upon his return. He shut off the engine and sprinted up the walkway. As he pounded the knocker, he hid the gift behind him.
“Channing!” Adrienne cried when she opened the door. “How I’ve missed you!” She grabbed his free hand and pulled him inside. “How long can you stay?”
He grinned. How like her to be greedy right from the start! “An hour,” he answered. “Two at the most. But here, I’ve brought you something.” He held out the box, then pulled it back teasingly. “But it’s very different. And very fragile.”
Adrienne took it almost reverently. “Damn, Channing. You know how she watches your money. How will you explain this?”
He followed her into a sitting room and sprawled laughing onto a chair. “Pretty soon I won’t have to. She’s bound to rid the world–and me–of herself for good. Perhaps even by the time I get back.”
Adrienne frowned and sank to the carpeting, sitting Indian fashion. Except for the modestly applied make-up, it was like viewing his reflection in a mirror. “I don’t understand.” She didn’t wait for his explanation as she slipped a nail through the gilded sticker and pried open the flap. Her fingers gently closed around the smoky-hued glass and lifted it up. She sucked it a small breath. “It’s beautiful! But what is it?”
“It’s a life,” he said eagerly. Such a complicated, profound idea–yet he managed to explain it in only a few minutes.
“Someone’s life, huh?” Adrienne asked dreamily. There was no question that she believed him; the word of her twin had always been indisputable. Her long fingers opened and closed around the crystal filaments, opened and closed. “How… enticing.”
Channing could tell she was captivated and pointed to the box. “The initials of your person are in the box. Why don’t you see what they are?”
She picked up the carton with her other hand and tossed it to him. “Here, you tell me.”
He caught the box and fumbled reluctantly for the parchment beneath the cotton padding. “Here,” he said, holding up the tiny paper. His eyes focused on the script and he froze.
“Well?” Adrienne asked impatiently. “What are they?”
“Uh,” he said shakily and reached out, “can I see it? I haven’t–”
“No way!” she said and scrambled out of his reach. “It’s my personal responsibility. God, what a feeling of power!”
Channing watched her numbly. Have to take it back, he thought, exchange it. He looked at the writing on the piece of parchment and stifled the urge to crush the paper in his fist.
M.A.
Sometimes I am compelled inexplicably to reverse the letters–a little white lie.
“So what are they?” Adrienne asked and gave a wicked giggle. “Who am I going to kill?”
“Please,” he said desperately, “let’s take it back–it’s defective. We’ll get another one, okay?”
“Why, Channing,” she crooned, “are we having a guilty conscience? Hardly fitting since your dear Miranda may very well destroy herself even as we speak!” She laughed then and tossed the frame in her hand lightly, as if it were a tennis ball. Channing felt a pulse jump at his temple.
Personal objects are obtained by pure chance, Mr. Mandell.
He remembered the last time he’d seen Adrienne, the morning of his first visit to Zachary’s Glass Shoppe, how he’d held her close and kissed her good-bye, her head resting sleepily against his shoulder only half an hour before stepping into the glass shop. A soft-focus memory streaked back: running his hand nervously through his hair and over his jacket, a few stands floating to the countertop.
… pure chance, Mr. Mandell.
Zachary, serenely sweeping them away.
He looked at his twin, the other half of his heart. Adrienne tossed the frame up again; it arched past her cheekbone as she raised her face to look at him and he saw how well the smoky crystal tendrils matched her gray eyes. The fragile glass dropped–
Channing opened his mouth to tell her, to stop her.
–into her palm. Her fingers folded into a fist and she smiled with cruel pleasure as her knuckles went white with the killing stroke.
He wondered how Miranda was doing.
God, how he hated to sleep alone.
****
Remembrance by Yvonne Navarro
Dave never read “Zachary’s Glass Shoppe” but I chose it for this memorial anthology because although it was only the sixth story I had published, it was the first I ever had mentioned in Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.
Dave was the first editor to buy a story from me, and he even paid me – if I recall correctly, he sent me a check for $1.20. Although he never accepted anything else I submitted for The Horror Show, he offered me some of the best advice I ever received after reading and rejecting one of my stories.
“You write stories like they’re novels,” his rejection slip read.
He’d edited just one page of the my submission and the proverbial light bulb went off over my head as I saw how much useless detail – fluff – had worked its way into the tale.
Dave Silva was a wonderful editor who not only published me, but taught me how to edit. I will always appreciate that, and I will always remember him.
Yvonne Navarro
HERE WITH THE SHADOWS
Steve Rasnic Tem
Jewel was surprised to find her dad waiting for her on the sidewalk, his last bundle of mementoes wrapped like a child in his arms. She wasn’t late. He could be impulsive; she tried never to be late where he was concerned.
She got out of the car and hurried up the steps. “Dad? Is something wrong? Why are you waiting out here?”
He blinked at her a few times before speaking, his eyes wet and shiny. He did that a lot these days. Not as if he didn’t remember her. More as if he remembered too much.
“I got finished with my goodbyes early, I guess. I didn’t want to wait in an empty house.”
“Okay… but I’d like my last look.”
“Sure, go ahead. I’ll wait out here.”
“Dad, at least sit down.”
“Okay.” He put the bundle on the ground and plopped down on the step so fast it made her gasp. “I’ll just wait here.” When she was a kid she’d thought that when he sounded like this it meant he was mad at her. Maybe there was some anger, but she’d learned it wasn’t about her.
“Dad.”
“Go on, I’ll be okay. I won’t wander off. Promise.”
“I’ll just be a minute.”
If anything made it clear it wasn’t her home anymore it was seeing it
empty. Grayish rectangular patches in the polished wood told her where the furniture used to be, but at the moment she couldn’t remember which piece went where. Her steps echoed too loudly, like something invisible beating on the door. Window panels rattled as if tapped. She’d done that once when she was eight. Dad had sat with her for two hours while she cried for her cut finger, and for Mom.
She hadn’t lived in this house for about ten years, but she’d visited him almost every week. It was still home, until today. She kept glancing out the front windows. Dad still sat there, as he’d promised. Alec said her Dad should stay with them. “Alec’s a good man,” Dad had replied. “You don’t let this one go, you hear?” She’d blanched at that, feeling criticized. “But I don’t want you watching me grow old every day.” And that was that.
Outside she made herself beam. “So you ready for your new life?” She said it a little too loudly, a little too eagerly. He laughed, obviously seeing right through her, but he didn’t say anything. This was the man who’d told her “when one door closes, another always opens,” practically every other day of her life. She’d listened to it eagerly when she was little, as if it held a magic secret; resentfully when she was a teenager, thinking it the corniest thing she’d ever heard; and now she still thought it corny, but occasionally found herself giving out the same advice.
The drive from the old house to that Sixties development in the suburbs was a good hour, but only ten minutes via interstate from her own place, so checking in on Dad would be easy. He sat quietly in the passenger seat while she tried to think of what to say. Sometimes trying to make him feel better about something only seemed to agitate him more, as if he just wanted her to shut up.
After a while he looked back. It made her sad. Then a few minutes later he repeated the motion. Then again a few minutes after that. She watched him more closely this time–he wasn’t looking through the back window; he was glancing into the back seat.
Better Weird: A Tribute to David B. Silva Page 14