The Melting Queen

by Bruce Cinnamon

  “Nice,” says Odessa, handing me another. “I’ve got probably five hundred of these. So don’t hold back.”

  She sends another bottle to its demise with a karate-like cry of force.

  “Why are we doing this?” I ask, drawing back my arm and unleashing the bottle with as much power as I can muster. It disintegrates splendidly against the wall.

  “I’m going to use the shards to build my birthing dome,” says Odessa. “My Womb Room. I’m going to create a mystical ritual for my birth performance.”

  She adds a spin to her next throw, and her bottle tumbles end over end before smashing spout-first into the rough wall. I shake my head and can’t help but grin.

  “I envy you, Odessa. You always know exactly what you want and exactly what you need to do.”

  “It’s easy,” she says, heaving another bottle. “Just do whatever you want and ignore everyone.”

  After finishing off all the bottles and collecting all the pieces of glass, we sit down at the kitchen table and sort the shrapnel. Odessa show me how to pick out correctly sized pieces, and to put the larger ones in a pile for further disintegration with a hammer. She starts arranging pieces on the tabletop, finding configurations so perfect that they’re almost seamless.

  “I’m going to glue these all together with a special craft bond that makes them hold completely. The glue is very thin, but you can still see the lines of fracture everywhere, even when the surface feels totally smooth.”

  She pushes a piece of glass into the mosaic she’s building, then flips it around the other way and it fits better. But then she flips it back again, so that the dissonant edge is against the others, standing out, drawing the eye.

  “Because if you can’t see the cracks, then what’s the point?”

  She continues to pluck out pieces of glass for a moment, then stops and looks up at me.

  “I’ll go with you, River. Sleep over here tonight and we’ll go tomorrow. Either to Phoenix, or to the Office of the Melting Queen. Either way, we’ll go together.”

  {7}

  Nothing in Heaven or Earth shall prevent it

  I walk through the cavernous lobby of the Stalk, in between Odessa and Sander. Odessa’s high heels click on the green marble floor. Sander prattles off facts about the building in a transparent attempt to distract me.

  The Stalk only opened two years ago, but it’s already an iconic feature of the Edmonton skyline. The tallest building in the city, it stands twice as high as any other skyscraper—you can see it from miles away across the prairie in every direction. Like any huge, dominating building, its construction polarized the public. Some people say that the Stalk is a triumphant addition to an otherwise woefully unambitious cityscape. The other side says that this glitzy monument looks like a big horrible piece of celery. The pale green windows, the curved tubular design, and the leafy public park on its roof all contribute to its notorious nickname. After a vicious editorial by an Edmonton Bulletin columnist, the cries to tear it down grew rabid. But really the debate had been over before it had begun. The thing was simply there, and every day it kept standing, its presence became more inevitable. The rooftop park has since become known as Top of the Stalk, and every floor has been tenanted—including Floor 85, the Office of the Melting Queen, just beneath the park.

  “You look great,” says Odessa as she pushes the brass elevator button.

  I nod, feeling my cheeks pinken, not quite believing her. Odessa helped me assemble a killer outfit from her closet, a scarlet power blazer with lipstick to match. She washed and brushed and braided my hair into what she called a Tymoshenko Crown—a long woven strand, wrapped around my head so I look like a chess piece, an agile and powerful red queen.

  We step into the elevator and it rockets up from ground level, compressing my vertebrae. Odessa tucks a stray stand of hair behind my ear.

  “You’re doing the right thing, River.”

  I nod again, not entirely convinced, but committed. It’s too late to back out now.

  The elevator doors slide open and we step into the Office of the Melting Queen. I expected to see a busy reception desk and a dozen panicked assistants flitting about. But the vast lobby is eerily quiet.

  On either side of the long hall, two rows of green marble pillars stand sentinel. Each pillar houses a circular, pneumatically sealed display case. Little brass plaques under the displays identify the historical artifacts that they contain:

  The first degree granted by the University of Alberta.

  Ancient stone knives from the Rossdale Flats.

  Wayne Gretzky’s five Stanley Cup rings from the Oilers’ dynasty period.

  A grapefruit-sized chunk of hail from the Great Tornado.

  I hear Sander suck in his breath as we approach the end of the lobby and look up at the final display case, lit by a spotlight. Under its thick glass casing hangs an extraordinary dress made from fresh green leaves. Jets of moisture spray down onto it, just like on lettuce at the grocery store.

  There are a few chairs and couches assembled beneath the leaf dress, but no indication that anyone is here.

  “Hello?” calls out Odessa, looking down the hallways that curve out in either direction.

  “Maybe we should just go,” I say.

  Odessa ignores this comment.

  “Come on,” she says. “We’re bound to find someone eventually.”

  She heads down one of the hallways. I follow. Sander stands in the lobby, mesmerized by May Winter’s leaf gown.

  “Sander.”

  With visible effort, he tears his eyes away from the gown and turns to look at me. Odessa called him in the middle of the night when I had another vision—running through the forest again, terrified of being caught. She figured his encyclopedic knowledge of Edmonton would include something about the Melting Queen’s visions. But when I regained consciousness and asked him to explain everything, he was forced to say his three least favourite words: “I don’t know.”

  Now, he looks at me with an uncomfortable blend of emotions: the awestruck devotion of a fanatic meeting their goddess, the rabid attention of a scientist looking at a research subject. Whenever he looks at me he bores his gaze into my eyes, as if he’s searching for some trace of the other Melting Queens in there. I hope it will pass.

  “Come and look at these portraits,” I say.

  Giant oil paintings of all the former Melting Queens hang along the hallway. Alice Songhua is the most recent, standing on an outcropping above the river valley, surrounded by a crowd of people all releasing paper lanterns into the night sky. A Chinese dragon is coiled above her, breathing fire. Her hand is guiding a young child’s as he lets go of his glowing lantern.

  As we carry on down the hall we go backwards in time. Next comes Louise Morrison, who stands in front of a multicoloured transit map holding out a CIRCLE towards the viewer. Then there is Tegan Stornoway, planting the hedges that will become the Infinite Maze in the huge public gardens which replaced the decommissioned City Centre Sky Harbour. Then comes Summer Johnson, skating down the Freezeway ice lane which loops around downtown, a group of smiling children in tow. Each Melting Queen’s portrait shows off her signature initiative.

  We come to a portrait which features a tall angular woman with short black hair. Her portrait is very dark. Her pale face stands out against the thick, shadowy forest behind her. I recognize her immediately, and read the plaque beneath the portrait frame:

  Victoria Goulburn

  Melting Queen 92

  08 April 1995 – 27 March 1996

  I look up into Victoria’s thin face. Unlike most of the other queens, she isn’t smiling. She looks sombre, serious, and tired. I understand. I felt that fatigue, that heaviness, when I was her. I looked out of those eyes. I inhabited that skin.

  “Over here.”

  I look up and see Odessa standing just beside a door, craning her neck around to peek inside. I come up beside her and peer into a huge room whose far wall gives a panoramic view of th
e river valley far below.

  In front of this spectacular vista, a dozen people sit around a big crescent moon-shaped table, elevated on a dais. They’re arranged like a tribunal, with one woman sitting at a table before them, on a lower level. The elderly man at the head of the committee is on his feet, shouting, spraying the room with spit and banging his fist on the table.

  “Where is Alice Songhua? Where has she gone?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Of course you don’t know! You know nothing!”

  Kastevoros Birch shakes with fury. His voice is hoarse and dry, like the sound of a winter tree creaking in the wind. He wears a faded suit that might’ve been in fashion fifty years ago, and waves his arms around with remarkable flexibility for such an old man.

  “Where is River Runson? Why doesn’t she exist in the CIRCLE directory? Why isn’t she here, right now? Why can’t you do your job?”

  “Kastevoros,” begins one of the other people at the table, but Birch holds up his hand and silences them.

  All of the ECHO board members look exactly the same as their leader. Thinning white hair sits feather-light upon their heads. White skin sags and quivers under their chins. They have rheumy eyes and expensive clothes and frown lines carved deep into their faces.

  “Do I need to remind you what will happen if River Runson is not found?” says Birch, his voice a low growl. The woman in front of him hasn’t moved the whole time, but now she shakes her head.

  “Psst.”

  I look across the doorway at Odessa.

  “I’m going in,” she whispers.

  “No!” I try to grab her arm, but it’s too late.

  Odessa pirouettes into the room and clears her throat. Everyone’s eyes flash to the door, drawn magnetically as Odessa Steps enters. The woman at the low chair turns in her seat.

  “How did you get in here?” snaps Birch.

  He looks down at the woman in front of him.

  “Where is Barbara? Have you lost her too? What’s the point of even paying her? I swear to God, Kaseema, if she’s down there on the 68th floor again, hunting for a husband, I’ll—”

  “Can we help you?” interrupts the woman in a steady, measured tone which makes the old man seem all the more shrill. Her brown face is framed by a navy blue hijab which matches her jeans. She cradles a tablet in the crook of her arm like it’s a baby.

  “Yes,” says Odessa. “My friend—”

  “Wait.”

  The old man frowns, pulls out a pair of glasses and rams them on his face. His eyes widen as if he’s looking at Odessa for the first time.

  “It’s you! Finally! Where have you been?”

  He pushes back his chair and stomps down from the high table, marching across the room toward Odessa.

  “There’s no time to waste. We must begin at once. Kaseema, call the tailors and schedule a gown fitting. Then call Rosemary Silt and schedule an interview. Then call City Hall and tell them we’ll be ready to go by the first of June. A full week behind schedule, but better late than never! We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Odessa towers over him, but he seizes her shoulders all the same.

  “River Runson!” he cries. “Not quite what I expected—she’s bald, we’ll have to find a wig-maker Kaseema, make a note, I’m thinking blonde—but definitely we can work with this. Where are my manners?” He takes her hand and pumps it up and down. “Kastevoros Birch! Official Advisor to the Melting Queen. Alice Songhua caught us off guard by Naming you. We had a substantial list of well-vetted suggestions. But there is a precedent of chaos, as I well know.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Birch,” says Odessa with a radiant smile. “But I’m afraid you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion. I’m not River Runson.”

  The old man’s face droops.

  “What?” he says flatly. “Are you sure? Of course you are. Look at you.”

  “No,” she says. “This is River.”

  I’m too slow to slip away. Odessa lunges out the door and pulls me inside. I feel every eye in the room rake over my body. The combined force of all their gazes undoes my woven crown, smears off my lipstick, tears off my scarlet power blazer and strips me naked.

  Odessa takes Birch gently by the shoulders and turns him so he’s looking at me.

  “Hello,” I say, dry-mouthed.

  The old man says nothing. His face is frozen. He isn’t even breathing.

  “We were hoping you could give us some explanations,” says Odessa, who seems to be enjoying this immensely. “River here has had a couple of weird, out-of-body experiences.”

  The woman in the hijab stands up and comes toward us.

  “The Melting Queens often have memories intrude into—”

  “What are you doing?” Birch interrupts. “Don’t humour this insanity, Kaseema. This is impossible!”

  He rounds on Odessa, unwilling to even look at me.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” he says.

  “I know it’s unusual,” she says. “River was terrified when they heard Alice Songhua call their name. That’s why they didn’t come at first. But now something even more terrifying is happening to them. They had a vision and travelled in time, or something. They were Victoria Goulburn, in the 1996 Melting Day parade.”

  “I saw tons of things,” I say. “All these different eras of the city, old streetcars and horses and a dark forest.”

  The old man looks at me with horror and revulsion on his face, the way you’d look at a compound fracture that’s bursting through your skin.

  “What did you say?”

  “I was Victoria Goulburn, and I saw the city changing over and over, and I was running through a forest.”

  Birch shakes his head.

  “This is impossible,” he whispers. “This is very, very bad.”

  “Kastevoros,” cautions the woman.

  “No. No, this isn’t possible. There’s been a mistake.”

  Birch stares at me with the coldest, most merciless look I’ve ever seen.

  “Get out of here,” he hisses, his voice barely a whisper. “Get out.”

  “Kastevoros,” repeats Kaseema, stepping between us and the old man. “Once one is Named, she cannot be changed.”

  “Yes, Kaseema: she. She cannot be changed.”

  He turns to look at the ECHO board members for a moment, but all of them seem completely useless without his direction.

  “I’m getting security,” he says. “They will see you out. Don’t you ever come back here.”

  “Kastevoros, please sit down.”

  But Birch ignores her and marches out the door. After a moment, all the ECHO board members stand up and file out after him, not deigning to even look at us.

  Odessa and I stand awkwardly near the door, unsure of what to do. Kaseema glances up at the empty table, then gives us a tight smile.

  “Well,” she says, “you had better come with me.”

  She leads us out the door where we find Sander standing frozen against the far wall, mortified. Kaseema seems no less fazed by his appearance than she was by Odessa and me. She leads the three of us further down the hall of portraits.

  “I’m going to explain what’s happening to you as best I can. Kastevoros can explain better, but he’s…”

  “Being a total diva?” says Odessa.

  “A little rattled. He’s been the Melting Queen’s Official Advisor for over sixty years.”

  We arrive at the end of the hall, where the first Melting Queen’s portrait hangs under a spotlight.

  “She doesn’t look the same as her statue,” I mutter to Sander as we walk by.

  “It’s just artistic licence,” he says. “Unfortunately, there aren’t any photos of May Winter, just drawings and descriptions.”

  Kaseema opens the door across from the portrait, leading us into a small and meticulously organized office. Our host settles behind her desk and gestures at the chairs across from her.

  “I’m Kaseema Noor,” she says as we sit down.
“Executive Assistant to the Melting Queen. I coordinate the schedule, talk to the media, plan public events, and help execute whatever project the Melting Queen takes on for the year. I’ve been working for this office for fourteen years. I’m very good at my job. And I work for the Melting Queen. Not ECHO.”

  She looks straight into my eyes. Her voice is slow and calm.

  “I don’t know how much attention you pay to the Melting Queens every year, but you’re young so I’ll assume it’s not that much. But even the fanatics who follow her every move don’t know this: when you’re the Melting Queen, you have a connection to all the others, throughout all of Edmonton’s history. From the moment your predecessor speaks your name till the moment you crown your successor, you’re connected to a noble tradition of women.

  “The current Melting Queen has memories fall into her mind from all the others, stretching all the way back. We call them Intrusions. They can either be complete, full-body experiences, or small, isolated sensations—tastes, smells, sounds, feelings. Sometimes this happens often, sometimes only once or twice throughout a Melting Queen’s full term. I’ve never experienced it myself, so I don’t fully understand. Nobody really understands this position except for the women who’ve held it. Even Kastevoros. There are stories, old myths that may or may not be true. I don’t know.”

  Kaseema leans forward, elbows on her desk.

  “What I do know is that once you are Named it cannot be changed. It’s in the Old Lore, Article Six. You are the Melting Queen. The Intrusion you experienced proves this. Birch knows this, no matter what else he says.”

  “He’s an asshole,” says Odessa.

  “Yes. But that doesn’t matter. We don’t need him.”

  I sit in the chair, trying to process what I’m hearing. On the one hand, I’m not crazy. On the other hand, mental time-travel magic exists. I still remember being Victoria Goulburn. If I close my eyes I can still see that parade, hear baby Adam Truman crying. Her memory is part of me now, part of my memories, along with the hundreds of different Edmontons and the terror of the dark forest.

  “So what now?” asks Odessa.