“What about my felon setting?”
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Faryn never sets it off and I’m sure she’s committed a hundred crimes.”
“Who?”
“No one.” Neither Faryn nor her john were in evidence. “She isn’t here.” Cora took off her jacket and laid it on the first step of the spiral staircase. Her de-layering helped Jude find his resolve. He stepped across the threshold.
Alarms erupted in the air. Rhythmic red lights slashed across the room. “Intruder detected,” speakers somewhere in the room said. “Wait for the arrival of the police.”
Jude skittered back out the door. “You’re not supposed to be here!” he said to Cora who covered her ears with her hands.
“Do not damage the equipment,” the speakers said. “Do not resist arrest.”
“And now they scanned my chip!” Jude said. “I still have the prior-felon marker. I’ll go back to jail!”
For a moment, adrenaline conquered mesco to flush panic through Cora’s system. “I didn’t know!” Cora said above the clamor in the air.
Jude did not hear her. He had turned from her to sprint across the field toward the darkest part of the night horizon, away from the sunset and the city.
“Don’t leave me!” Cora yelled after him, but his retreating frame was soon lost to her. She closed the door. The siren quieted and then stopped, although the red light continued to pulse across the ground floor. Every few seconds, the speakers reminded her that there was an “Intruder detected.” She drifted toward the console and looked for a way to turn off the alarm system. An icon pulsed on a display. She hammered at it to no effect. Sinking to the floor, she pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed. The Meta-mat pulsed on her leg. She found a spark of the mesco coursing through her blood and held onto it, willing its calm to infuse her.
The door sucked open to reveal Faryn. Out of breath, she threw down a shovel covered in mud. It was too early for her to be home.
“What did you do?” Faryn said, descending on Cora.
“I’m sorry,” Cora said. “I didn’t know.”
“You idiot! This place is all lit up! You can see it for miles! I can’t stay here anymore! I told you not to mess this up for me!”
“Don’t get angry, Faryn. We can turn off the alarm.”
“It won’t turn off. Not for a threshold breach.” Faryn found her blade and flicked it open. “You’re going to pay for this! Give me your credit chip. Tell me where it is and I’ll make it quick. The cops will be coming.”
Cora’s free hand shot down to her thigh and then retracted from her mistake. She reached instead for the knife in her pocket and struggled with trembling hands to point the blade at Faryn. “We can go to a kiosk. I’ll give you all my credits. Please don’t cut me.”
“I don’t have a chip, you idiot.” Faryn leapt at Cora, first knocking the knife out of the younger girl’s hand and then slashing at her throat. Cora fell away from the blade, tumbled backward into a wall and slumped to the floor. But Faryn was on Cora again, grabbing the smaller girl’s knife and pressing it to her throat.
“Show me exactly where your chip is!” Faryn said. Not waiting for an answer, she punched Cora where she lay. Cora’s spine crunched against the floor. Pain shot through her body and stole her breath. Her legs curled up to her chin and around the ball of pain at her center.
“I’ll just start cutting into everything if you aren’t more cooperative.”
Cora forced herself to touch her pant leg where her chip lay just below the Meta-mat and the skin of her thigh. Faryn grabbed Cora’s leg and pulled it straight. A kick landed in Cora’s ribs when she began to struggle again. The edges of Cora’s world turned black. Faryn hacked at Cora’s pants until they could be ripped at the thigh. The loose pant leg was pulled to below Cora’s knee.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Faryn said. “Where’s your leg?” Faryn reached down to touch the space between Cora’s hip and her thigh where the floor showed through. Realization dawned in the older girl’s face. “You sneaky little freak! I know what this is. I’m going to be rich.” Faryn pinched at the invisible Meta-mat and fumbled her fingers just above Cora’s knee to find the joined seam.
Faryn began to peel the Meta-mat from Cora’s skin. The sound of the whomp-whomping that lived inside Cora started to fade. In the corner of a long-ago room, Cora saw herself helpless to stop her step-father from killing her mother. It didn’t matter that she had planted a knife in his throat a few days later. She had waited too long. She would not do that again. Her hand found the fallen knife, raised it high and brought it down hard. The knife plunged through the older girl’s hand and the Meta-mat to bury itself in Cora’s leg. A shock of pain coursed through Cora’s body and disappeared to nothing.
Faryn’s scream was higher pitched than any of the alarms had been. She tried to jerk her arm away but succeeded only in making the hole in her hand ragged. Cora grabbed the hilt of the knife to pull it free. Liberated, Faryn tumbled backward. Fast-flowing red blood spilled from the older girl’s hand to pool in heavy drops on the floor.
“I’ll kill you,” Faryn screamed.
Cora looked down at her wound, silent and undemanding. “You won’t,” she said. It was the calm of the mesco and something else. Blue liquid from the deflating Meta-mat leaked into the gash in her thigh. The whomp-whomping was something more now, filling the places where the mesco usually lived. To Faryn she said, “Get out.”
Faryn reared up to charge and then stopped. Staring, she shuddered. Cora followed Faryn’s horrified gaze downward. Starting at Cora’s puncture wound and moving across her leg, Cora was starting to disappear. She pulled off her shoes and the broken cloth of her pants to watch first her leg and then the rest of her fade into the background to be replaced by a shimmering transparency, something that she suspected only she could see. A steady, comforting warmth spread through her body. She smiled.
Faryn backed against a wall and swiveled her head from side to side, trying to find the invisible girl. They turned at the same time to the noise of approaching fliers, audible even above the whomp-whomping. Trailing blood, Faryn fled out into the field.
Cora removed the remainder of her ragged clothing. She ran a finger along her thigh, felt the chip just below her skin and cut it out with Faryn’s knife. Pain was only a memory. She walked outside and cast the chip into the field. The last of the sunset called to her.
The noise of the fliers became a physical manifestation of machinery that spotted Faryn running. A bullet whistled through the air. Faryn screamed and tumbled.
The last long rays of the sun penetrated Cora’s skin, infusing her with their energy. The whomp-whomping thudded through her, a meta-heartbeat of the world. She saw her own windmill for the first time. It was taller than she had imagined. Three elegant blades, invisible to the rest of the world, powered by the wind and the sun, caught the air and spun. Other windmills dotted the landscape from horizon to horizon. The skin of each one sparkled like her own.
Neighbors
Kamila Z. Miller
They live next door to each other, the kind of neighbors who talk like friends but don’t know each other very well. One is a robust and tall man who moved into the village five years ago. He may have giant blood in him, but of course no one will know for years and years. They grow so slowly, giants, that they can pass for one of us well into their forties or longer. The fact that he may be a giant doesn’t scare me.
The other is slender and quiet. His skin is pale against his dark hair, and his eyes are large and set wide like a beautiful woman’s. I imagine that a ghost forces him to live in a closet, eat only scraps, and only allows him to venture out on business or special occasions. When he does go out he’s very straight and somber.
I’m one of the few who’s gotten words out of him. Speaking to him about
the weather gave me tingles, like he was a wild animal and ate out of my palm without biting me.
Of all the eligible bachelors in the village, only these two have captured my attention. The rest of the men are too mean, or have girlfriends, or are dull, or dirty, or are clowns. I’m glad that there’s more than one man I wish for, and I’m glad that the men I have in mind don’t already have a dozen eggs placed in the baskets on their doorsteps.
If one had eggs in his basket I’d put mine in the other, but they’re both empty. I don’t even know if they want eggs in their baskets. Maybe they just put those baskets there because it’s expected.
The haunted man has a blood red ribbon tied on his basket. Maybe he hopes, like me, that someone can love him.
The plain and dusty basket on his neighbor’s step may be a sign of lost hope. I would love to make him feel wanted, the way I want to be loved.
Or maybe he doesn’t want to be bothered. And maybe the blood red ribbon next door is a warning. It’s not a friendly red, to be sure. The ribbon ends are cut clean and sharp, a razor edge that comes to a perfect point.
They aren’t supposed to watch. I wonder if they’re cheating, peering at me through their curtains. I hope they are. I hope they realize that I like them both.
Meanwhile the other young women in the village are wandering about in small packs, giggling.
I’m seized by a sudden, mortifying thought that these men would be appalled to have my egg in their baskets. My heart quickens to a panicked gallop. I throw the egg and run. It doesn’t matter where it lands. I know it’ll shatter into a thousand colorful pieces, and the three of us will always, forever, be alone.
In the dry oak woods outside town I look back at the village where the potter’s kiln and the charcoal beds smolder all day and the old man stands by the bronze statue of the Duke’s great-grandfather waiting for someone to rent his cart and pony. Houses like minecrowd inside the river bend, roofed in red tile or thatch, while the wealthier folk live on the hill that used to be oak woods. The rich houses have copper-turned-green roofs, or dark slate.
Near the fountain, where the shops are and where two broad stone roads snake across each other, I see the slender man walk to his stationary shop. His straight body and dark clothes make a sharp line that hooks my sight until he vanishes inside.
Did he clean up the broken pieces of egg? Maybe I’ve made things worse, maybe hurt them both with my cowardice, but my face doesn’t feel hot with embarrassment. I’m all cold and shivery inside.
It starts to rain on the way back. The ground is so dry it doesn’t even get dark—the yellow grass and brown earth make every drop disappear instantly, but the moist, warm scent is all over and inside me. It slows me down and sings to me, making me want to stay where the rain patters on crisp-edged oak leaves. Little acorn hats and pieces of shell remind me of the broken pieces I left behind and I don’t want to go—
—but I will, because they mustn’t think I hate them.
Girls in bonnets holding baskets and boys in festival hats, all with ribbons, are clustered together talking, smiling shyly while trying to look indifferent. No one minds the warm rain. As I go by alone they form alliances to stare. Their words become halting, then hurry on. They don’t have to talk about me to make me feel alone.
They seem so young, and rich.
Something like a rock grows in my belly as I get close to the two red-tiled houses, both painted white with dark brown trim like most of the places close to the shops. Their sides touch and they share a roof with a whole line of houses, little round-topped gates leading to places like the garden I used to know. The giant’s walls are a little more gray than the rest.
There aren’t as many pieces of egg as I thought there’d be. It landed away from the wall, as if it had bounced off, and opened into a still-egg-like shape. I pick it up just as the giant’s door opens. I step back, the stone in my belly jumping up into my throat.
He walks by me. He’s carrying an axe and a sack of saws and clippers and things for trimming trees. It’s another reason why everyone thinks he’s a giant—because he lives by and for the trees, whether they make fruit or nuts or nothing at all. He’s not that much taller than me but he feels massive, and his shadow crushes me.
It takes all my courage to say, “Good day, Mr. Fulwen.”
He gives me a long look. “Good day, Miss Strand.” He nods and keeps going.
And stops.
Then starts walking again.
I didn’t realize he knew my name, though everyone in the village knows everyone, even a newcomer like him. “This—” I begin, desperately. He stops and his head turns slowly like a Clydesdale’s. “—was supposed to be for you.” I hold up the pieces.
His brown eyes are gentle like a hound’s. It starts to rain harder. He holds out his hand. I walk and reach and walk and finally I’m there, so close, and I drop the broken egg in his large hand. “It was pretty,” he said. “Did you drop it?”
I can’t lie, and I can’t speak. I shake my head.
“Well, I have to go to work.” He bows his head and his voice pitches down. “Thanks,” he says, and walks away.
He thinks I’m awful, giving him a broken egg like this.
I want out of the rain. I hurry toward the chocolate shop but the slender man emerges from the stationary store next door and I stop.
He stares. I stare back. The rain drips from the back of my bonnet down my neck.
“Miss Strand.” His voice is quiet but sure.
“Mr. Grantler.” My voice whispers and falls with my gaze. The rain finally begins to shine the stones.
“Please, come in out of the rain.” A bell rings as he opens his door. I walk feeling like I have no choice, but I’m willing. My heart is trying to escape out my throat. He’s wearing white, white gloves.
It’s quiet inside when he shuts the door, though I can hear the rain through an open window somewhere. The shop smells like paper and ink and everything is perfect and clean. White and lavender and pink and blue and gray and even black paper lay in neat stacks, arranged by size, on cherrywood shelves. My skirts and shoes and vest and blouse are too cheap to be standing here.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
“No.” He’s just standing there. “You were on your way out. I shouldn’t—”
“No. I just like the scent of rain.”
“Oh. Me too.” I’m unbearably awkward but there’s sharp edges of joy breaking up the stone inside me. I want to run again, this time because I’m too full of life and excitement, but I don’t want to leave either, so I say just anything. “And the oak woods.”
“You shouldn’t go there.” His low voice softens even more. “It’s dangerous.”
“Really?” His tone wins over my own common sense for a moment, but then I wonder. “Why?”
“Dangerous for a woman alone.”
No one had called me a woman before. My face warms and my ears feel hot. “Well, no one has ever bothered me.”
“They still hold rites not far from here. I hope you don’t go far.”
I know where he means, and I shiver. The Godrent—an oak so old it only has two living branches left on it, a squat thing that looks more like stone than wood, with oaks almost as old planted in three circles around it that form straight rays when sighted from the middle. When I touched the central oak something like a static spark hurt my fingers. The pain didn’t make me back out with my skin prickling. It was a sudden fear of everything around me, like the sky had opened up and I’d fall into it somehow. “No, I don’t go far.”
“About Mr. Fulwen . . .” He speaks like he’s been thinking all sorts of things and is summing those thoughts up with something diluted by delicacy. “I saw you speaking to him just now.”
“Yes.” My hands come together and I force them apart befo
re I start to wring them like my mother does sometimes.
“He goes there sometimes.”
I want to challenge that, tell him so, what if he does? Lots of people do but that isn’t really true. Besides, the way he says there makes me think, for just a flash, of the Godrent again. “Do you think there’s something wrong with that?”
“Not exactly. That is, I’m not surprised he does.”
“But I shouldn’t.”
“Not alone, no.” His long, slender, gloved hands slide along a shelf and then back, and forth, caressing. He doesn’t seem conscious of it. He watches me, only me, so unblinking and direct that I don’t like it, but I don’t want him to look away either.
I think no one in the whole village has spoken as long to him as I am speaking to him now. Does he stare at everyone this way? Outside the shop he looks at no one, as if he sees nothing. I have nothing more I want to say about the woods, so I say, hoping to stretch things, “You have beautiful paper.”
His eyes shutter. He doesn’t close them all the way, but the stare is gone and he seems to fade into a shadow. “Here.” His gloved hand picks up a piece of lavender paper and offers it. It’s perfect and smooth and feels like I imagine silk would feel—softer than I expect paper to feel.
“I couldn’t—” Both our hands hold the paper.
“Please.” He lets go.
“Thank you.” I don’t hear rain anymore, just dripping. “I’d better go.” I want to leave. The gift, and the loss of his gaze feel wrong. I’ve done something wrong. “Thank you.” He follows me to the door and opens it for me as he’s done a thousand thousand times. It’s stopped raining for now.
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, 28 Page 9