“Addie?” Mama’s voice came closer. “Delaney. Where are you?”
Addie looked at me, pale and helpless. “Sorry, Del.” Then she sagged against the ground and didn’t move.
The baby sighed, too. She turned her cheek against my chest and got real heavy in my arms. She wasn’t my fault. But I cried and kissed her head and waited for Mama to find me.
She pulled the door open, and sunlight fell on me like the church folks’ judgment. “Delaney. Where...” She stopped, seeing the baby lying white and still in my arms. And Addie sprawled on the ground in a smear of blood.
For a moment, her face turned white and stiff. She knew the hand she’d had—sending us out in the heat so she could make that terrible cake meant to take me out of the world for good. She knew. And she turned all that guilt and anger on me.
“Just like your father. Hurting everyone who gets close to you.”
I clutched the baby against my chest. “This is not my fault.”
“Nobody will believe that.” She raised her fist like she was going to strike me, but couldn’t bring herself to step through the door. “You and your lying tongue. Anyone that believes your stories is a damn fool.” The guilt faded, replaced by rage. “I’ll make sure no one has to listen to you ever again.”
She slammed the door shut, and I sat in the dark and sobbed, breathless in the heat. “No, Mama. Please. I promise I’ll be good.”
After a few minutes, something slapped against the walls, and I smelled gasoline. The muffled whump when it ignited pushed the flames around the edges of the boards—fire licking hungrily at the dry wood.
And, with both my sisters dead and no way out, I lay down on the floor and waited to die.
The heat grew nearly unbearable, and my dress smoldered and broke apart. But something else happened.
I’d seen the future before, little bits and pieces. Mostly terrible things that Mama had planned. But that was always fragmented. Never more than a few heartbeats of what might be.
As the heat sank into my bones, I saw all of it. So many threads. So many choices. So many futures in which I became every terrible thing Mama had told me I would be.
For a moment, I wondered if maybe she was right.
Maybe I was always destined to be a monster.
The tin roof overhead screamed as it peeled back off the nails holding it to the rafters. Or maybe that was Mama outside using her tongue the best way she knew how.
I closed my eyes and laid my hands on those threads. So many choices. But every one was a choice, every one had a chance to go a different way. I might be a monster, but I don’t have to be a villain.
I took that heat and magic shimmering along my bones and pulled those threads. The chain Daddy used sometimes to pull Cousin Larry’s car out of the ditch tumbled off a collapsing rafter and landed on my arm—red hot iron laying imperfect circles across my skin. I screamed and the door shuddered, like someone was throwing themselves against it.
Having made my first choice—to live and not to die—I let go of those threads.
The door busted in, and a burlap-covered shape snatched me up off the ground and threw me over their shoulder. Out into the sunlight and across the yard. And with every step, I whispered to myself.
I promise. I’ll be good.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Stories never happen in a vacuum. Many thanks to the strong, brave, loving people in my life who have showed me how to persevere even when things look grim – you all inspire me in every way.
In particular, many thanks to Marian, who read the first drafts and encouraged me to take more risks. And my second readers Adelle, Evelyn, Joy and Robby. Thanks to Jay, for his encouragement and insight, for helping me put the last touches on these stories and for clearly loving my characters as much as I do.
Thank you to Bob Mecoy, my ever-patient agent, for his enthusiasm and encouragement.
And thank you to the readers who keep coming back. Your enthusiasm and support is priceless.
About the Author
A.G. Carpenter writes fiction of (and for) all sorts, with a focus on the speculative. With over a dozen published short stories, her work has appeared in Twitter-zines such as One Forty Fiction and Trapeze Magazine, online publications Daily Science Fiction, Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi, and Abyss & Apex.
The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise - a collection of short stories and novelettes, Mothers Last Child – a bio-punk novelette, Jacquelyn and the Sparkly Emo Vampire Goat – a humorous fantasy novelette, and Brass Stars – an SF Western novella are available now.
Carpenter graduated from The College of Santa Fe with a degree in Moving Image Arts (B.A, 2004) and is still an avid fan of film making, with a preference for movies in which things explode. She lives in the southern United States with her husband, their lively son and a herd of cats.
Also by A.G. Carpenter
Novellas & Novelettes
Dust
Legacy
In the Cool of the Day
Mothers Last Child
Jacquelyn and the Sparkly Emo Vampire Goat
Brass Stars
Short Fiction Collection
The Weather’s Always Fine in Paradise
Ring of Fire/1632
Monster Society
(Co-Written with Eric S. Brown
& Robert Waters)
More from Falstaff Books
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Copyright © 2017 by A.G. Carpenter
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This book is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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