by Beaman, Sara
And then he showed himself out and Irene sat on the edge of the bed sick with a feeling of betrayal.
For the next three days, Irene ticked the beads off, one by one. Every day she met the monk, once in the woods, once at Gretchen's after dark, once in an empty house. She slunk around town, miserable, feeling like a whore, her heart aching for Paul. But somewhere inside she felt the seed of desperate hope take root. This would work. It had to.
Meanwhile the monk ate hot meal with family after family, ministering and blessing as he went. He presided at a funeral, went to the quarantine house to visit the sick, and chatted with anyone in the street who would pause to hear him.
****
Margotty was walking home from a house of sorrow. The woman hadn't even known she was pregnant. First she was hobbled by cramping, and then came the clots of blood, the shreds of tissue, the strings of sticky mucus. It was confusion, pain, and a life trying to come into the world abruptly thwarted.
Margotty had seen it too often to be made sad by it, had dealt with the mess too many times to be sickened. But this evening she felt something more than the tiny heart-ache of one woman. What she felt was part of a greater sadness, the far-reaching melancholy of a barren, shrinking race.
A happy family was chatting on the porch of a house she passed, entertaining a visitor. An old man, a young couple, and their happy, whole, living son. The adults were talking and didn't notice Margotty beckon the boy to come down the walk into the street.
With a glance behind him, he sneaked away from the group, his pink cheeks shining with mischief.
“You're the witch?” he asked, staying just out of reach.
“That man your dad is talking to: the friar, the man of God?” Margotty asked.
The boy nodded without looking back.
“Tell him I want to see him. When he's done with his visit, whatever time it is.”
“Okay,” the boy agreed, eyes straining to get a good look at her in the gloomy street. Night was creeping in.
Margotty turned and walked back to her house.
****
“Ah, yes? That is, I heard you wanted to speak to me?” The friar peered into the house.
Except for a thin square of moonlight framed by the open door, the interior was a flat black unlit by even a single candle. He took a step, paused, crossed himself, and then walked resolutely into the room.
“You afraid?” Margotty asked with a smile. In the darkness she must have been invisible to him.
“Yes, uh, yes. I am in great danger of falling – of tripping up in the dark. Not very coordinated, you know.” He laughed weakly.
Margotty found his big warm hand with her small cold one. She led him to the stool, and he tried to settle himself on it. The clanking of the metal stool echoed in the bare room.
“Got a candle?” he asked.
“Why waste one?” Margotty said.
“Well, it just so happens,” he pulled one from his pocket and lit it, setting it on the counter. The flickering light made mirrors of Cinder's eyes and he jumped, then laughed. “The, uh, cat, ha ha.”
“What is it, uh – what do you want?” he asked.
Margotty hadn't planned how to ask him, and she was quiet, thinking. The friar waited, the candlelight alternately shadowing and illuminating his face.
“A baby,” Margotty said at last, her voice low.
“What?” He jerked back and nearly upset the stool. “What?” He recovered himself a little. “You're, uh, a little young, ha ha...”
Margotty worked at the laces on her shoulders.
“Margotty, p-please, don't try - you should find a husband, and...”
When she had them untied she pulled them clear of the dress, which slipped down to puddle at her feet. She wasn't wearing anything else.
“Ah! Oh, ho...ha ha...” He was just babbling now, and Margotty slid the dress aside with one foot and reached out to him.
He stood abruptly, and the stool went clattering over backward. Cinder darted from the room, her one white foot a ghostly marker of her flight.
The friar crossed himself and Margotty laughed, still advancing.
Then he held out his hands and seemed to get a handle on himself. “No, wait. There's, there's a p-price, Margotty. A p-price.”
“What price?”
“If it's...if it's a girl, she's for you. If it's a b-boy, then I'll come get him. B-before he's ten. A childhood - a life at the monastery, a monk, like me.”
“Okay,” Margotty smirked. She only wanted a girl, anyway. A daughter to tell secrets to. “Are you some kind of recruiter?” She caught his wrist and pulled him back toward the center of the room.
“Yes. Well, no. No. I mean, that's ostensibly what - but I find it much easier - though certainly slower...just to, you know, make my own recruits. It's not, it's not a sanctioned, uh...ha ha.”
Margotty laughed. “Behind the church's back you sleep with women and then take their babies?” She drew him down to the floor. “So you must have done this before?”
The friar winced. “Well, uh, yes.”
“Then why are you afraid?” She lay back, her tangled hair fanning around her.
He looked at her, licking his lips nervously. “Maybe you're too, uh, young, Margotty. Just a girl, no husband...” He glanced around the house as if fearing to see someone else, and then started to stand.
Margotty reached out and grabbed the hem of his habit. “What's wrong with you? Do it.”
“Who, uh, what, are you? Why are you...?” His eyes were fixed on her as she let her knees fall apart. Even in the faint candlelight she could see him sweating. “The devil...” he gasped. “What, uh, what price?”
Margotty laughed again. “I'm not trying to bargain for your soul. I just want a baby. You're the one asking a price.”
“You take my seed, and the devil – he- he takes the soul. Judgment, p-perhaps, for my carnal indiscretions...” He spoke hurriedly and tried to cross himself, but Margotty caught his hand before he could finish and drew it between her thighs.
The friar was breathing in quick gasps as he fought his way out of the habit. He threw it down and lifted her onto it.
Childbirth was pain and blood and then beautiful reward. She expected sex to be just a nine-month-early investment in pain, but it was nothing like that. It was breath and sweat and then soaring, aching, breath-stealing triumph.
****
He woke later and she could tell by the way his hands moved over her that he wanted to do it again.
“Did you take a vow of celibacy?” she asked. He pulled away from her guiltily.
“Yes.” The candle had long ago guttered out and in the absolute dark his voice was steady, the stutter gone. “I'm not a worthy man of God, Margotty. I've broken most of my promises to the church.”
She waited for him to reach for her again but he didn't. She slid across the floor and laid her body against his. He felt cold.
“Do it again,” she said.
“Guilt enough for one day.” But she could feel his muscles tensing.
Margotty moved against him. “Once more won't matter.”
“Temptress.” His breath was coming quicker. He crossed himself.
Margotty pulled him on top of her.
****
Margotty woke when Cinder hissed and the friar yelped. She raised herself up on one arm in time to see the tail of his habit disappear through the closing door. Cinder, perched on the counter, smoothed down her fur.
Margotty sat up and pulled her dress on in the early light. She was cold and stiff. Winter was still coming on and she needed work. Then she remembered that she had Kathy's birth fee coming to her soon, and she went to the back room and slipped into bed.
She slept until she heard the door creak and a feminine voice call her name. When she saw Bitsy in the outer room she smiled. The woman believed she was pregnant at least once a year, despite all evidence to the contrary, and she always had food for Margotty.
Margotty would eat until poor Bitsy could no longer fool herself. Or, if she was right this time and everything went well, Margotty could count on several meals a week for nine months and another generous birth fee in the spring.
****
Irene finished washing the last plate and handed it to Hua to dry. She was recovering her calm; the white bead days were over. No more trips to see the monk. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
“I was planning to spend the day cooking,” Hua said. “I invited the monk for dinner again.”
“He's coming here?” Irene asked, feeling her face grow red.
“No. I invited him, but he said he's leaving today. I wish he could have come one more time. One more blessing for the baby. Couldn't have hurt.” Hua smiled and rubbed her pregnant belly.
Irene glanced down at her own stomach and felt a tiny, painful burst of hope. Paul must have seen her expression and misinterpreted it as despair, because he was at her side as soon as Hua was on the other side of the room.
She smiled and reached for him, and he put his arms around her and held her close.
He said quietly in her ear, “Soon, love. Be patient. It'll happen.”
“I know,” Irene said, leaning into his warmth. “I know it will.”
Grasshopper Song by K.D. Edwards
Part i
Scout woke with the sound of tearing canvas still in his ears.
Memory tangled with reality. He held still, all heartbeat and pulse, until the final pieces of the dream dissolved under bleary scrutiny. Gone was the mauled tent, the jagged strips of moonlit sky, the screaming. Back was a bedroom which smelled like last night’s roasted corn.
He kicked away the manacle of damp bed sheets and got up.
His bedroom had once been an executive office suite and came with an attached bathroom. Scout went into it, picking his way around stacks of water cooler jugs that had been repurposed for waste management. When he’d done his business, he rinsed his hands in a bowl of water, shook them dry, and strode out another door into the corridor.
Someone was clumping around a nearby office. That’d be Beck, drinking away the earnings from his last scavenging trip.
Scout took the corner into Beck’s room and realized his mistake a half second past any fucking good. Not Beck—Izza. Izza Halcyon, the daughter of a town family. Beck had been enjoying her high-maintenance affections for weeks now.
Izza sat on the corner of a marble-topped desk, kicking her heels and finger-combing her flattened hair into thick gold ringlets. When Scout didn’t say anything, she raised an eyebrow first at his boxers, and then at the scar on his cheek. Scout couldn’t untuck his bangs from his ears without being obvious about it, and he hated her more than a little for that.
“Sorry,” Scout said through teeth. “I didn’t know you were here. Is Beck about?”
“He ran out of tequila and thought he remembered a bottle you hid on the fourth floor.”
“Beck always thinks he remembers a bottle I hid on the fourth floor. You two have a good night, now.”
Before Scout could retreat, she said, “You don’t like when I’m here, do you?”
That was just the sort of thing Izza Halcyon would say: using a parting shot like a crowbar to pry her way into actual relevance. “I don’t really have an opinion either way, Izza.”
“Mm. It’ll be interesting, at least, now that you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”
Scout closed his eyes against something that was halfway between a migraine and a prayer. Beck had a reckless tendency to drink heavily and make random declarations of love.
He said, “Have a good night, Izza. Tell Beck I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“You can talk to me now. Hey, did you hide a bottle on the fourth floor?”
Pale-haired Beck was limping up the corridor, favoring what was probably a stubbed toe. Beck leaned his massive shoulders forward into an exaggerated squint and added, “Nice fucking underwear.”
“I didn’t know you had a guest,” Scout said. “I’m going back to bed. Keep it down.”
“It’s just the Halcyon girl. She’ll keep. I dimly remember a bottle, maybe in an office, maybe sitting on a desk.”
“I’ll keep?” Izza demanded from out of sight. “I’m not your whore, Jonah Beckstrom!”
“You sure aren’t,” Beck said. “I have to let you stay until morning.”
Scout headed back to his bedroom and shut the frosted glass door on their argument.
Since there was no chance of going back to sleep, he walked over to the supply closet. Inside was a metal ladder. Most of the ladder’s paint had flaked off ages ago, and the bolts creaked as he put weight on them.
A trap door overhead opened to another supply closet, which opened into a cement utility hallway. At the other end was a fire exit. Scout had to put his shoulder against the door to push. Metal squealed against stone, and then cool nighttime air washed over him.
Thorn Creek was a few days shy the end of an Indian summer. It was still close enough to hot weather that you felt you had a right to be offended at the chill. Scout padded over to a clothing bin he kept next to the defunct elevator housing. He ended up in a sweater, thermal underwear, and a ski jacket—enough layers so that when he forced his arms down his side, hot air puffed out like a bellows.
The rooftop actually had a name. The pre-Collapse realtors had called it the Willow Perch—Scout had seen it mentioned on some yellowed advertising literature in the lobby.
Why did they name so many damn things after trees? Pretty ironic, since nowadays people were more than happy to stack all manner of things between them and the crap that thrived in the woods.
In the refugee camp where Scout was born, people talked about the deserted American towns and cities like they were a candyland Mecca. They talked about the empty mansions, the warehouse stores bursting with blister packs of medicine, the airtight cans of food, the tanks of unused gasoline.
What they didn’t talk about was the uptick in wild boar population, or the omnipresent strangle runner, or the air that—against anything you’d expect in the absence of aerosols and fossil fuels—did not smell fresh or clean. It smelled like old metal and plastic that was making a slow slide into a rusted entropy.
Shit, Scout thought. I’m in a mood.
So he sat still for a while, emptied his mind, and nodded off.
The horizon was pinking when he finally snorted awake. His yawn boiled out like dragon smoke. As he tightened the blanket around his shoulders and prepared to shuffle back inside, a bang echoed upwards.
Scout moved quietly to the edge of the roof.
Down below, in the overgrown clearing between the Park’s six buildings, a small crowd of people were tossing crates and bags from the back of a hay cart. One of the trunks split open in a spill of clothing.
Realization moved through Scout like a slow muscle cramp.
Someone was moving into the Park.
Part ii
One of the few things Scout had left from his dead mother was a photo album.
In it were grainy family snapshots taken with a disposable camera. This was back when there were still people around who knew how to develop film—when skill-sets such as photography optimistically lingered in the Collapsed world, until getting devoured by the demands of everyday survival.
In those photos, Scout was smiling. Grinning, even. His mother said he was the happiest kid in the American-Mexican refugee camp. She said that every neighbor in a fifty tent radius knew Scout by name.
Without those pictures as proof, Scout might have had a hard time believing it. He couldn’t remember ever being that happy.
He hadn’t just lost everyone important in his life; he’d lost them horribly. He’d lost them in consumptive coughs, and bloody waves of dysentery, and animal attacks. By the time Scout didn’t have anyone else left to lose, something in him had hardened, something that set him apart from other people. So Scout became a scavenger, because it was one of the fe
w jobs he could think about that kept a couple of miles between him and human interaction.
He was good at it, too. He made enough money to give up the shared resources of Thorn Creek for a nearby office park outside the town walls. Eventually he’d even made enough to hire on an employee. Jonah Beckstrom was a town native; like Scout, he’d lost his family young.
Up until forty-eight hours ago, Jonah had been more than enough company for Scout in the otherwise empty Park.
Scout watched with mounting resignation as Izza Halcyon’s large family relocated from Thorn Creek into the old grocery store on the other side of the Park. They used rusted shelving to create a warren of bedrooms, built a working kitchen behind a cracked butcher case, dug latrines by the rear loading dock.
Since Beck was on talking terms with the huge family, Scout sent him to spy. After the fourth visit Mrs. Halcyon started making noise about how nice it’d be to have Beck as part of the family. Beck ran back, drank half a bottle of crap moonshine, and asked Scout if they still spoke Spanish in Mexico.
Scout asked around town and got a lot of different stories about why the Halcyons had moved.
Some said it was about religious freedom. Others said the father had told people that he had enough hands to start a farm of his own. Most people didn’t have a clue. Cal Halcyon, they said, was a loud, blustery man who kept neighbors at arm’s length.
Not that it made a difference. What mattered was that the Halcyons were here, and they weren’t looking to go anywhere anytime soon.
****
The fifth floor office had once been part of the bank headquarters’ law library. Scout had tossed the legal texts in exchange for a collection of phone books. Each phone book had been scavenged from a town or city within a twenty mile radius. They were his best resource in planning scavenging trips, along with the dozen or so maps pinned to the walls.
Everyone knew that all the low-hanging fruit was gone. Supermarkets, big box retailers, sporting and hunting outlets—they’d all been picked clean. But a smart scavenger realized that when civilization ended, it ended quickly. All those trailer trucks of merchandise didn’t just disappear. They were abandoned in transit on highways, at rest stops, outside motels. Half of Scout’s time was spent trying to find where the supply chain had broken down during the Collapse.