Her mother jumped on top of her and wrapped her fingers around her daughter’s neck. The wooden rollers in her hair began to fall out, leaving soft curls behind.
It’s just until you calm down, the mother said, squeezing. Then I’ll stop and we’ll have some kasha like a family should.
But her mother was feeble. The daughter brought up her fist and socked her mother in the jaw. The mother fell to the floor. All her wooden rollers fell away, but when the daughter put her hand on her mother’s face to hold her down, her curls shuddered and straightened out.
The daughter looked at her brother’s wet face and said, Little darling, didn’t you want it to change?
Please, he said. I’m used to this. No, I don’t know. No. I’ll be six if you want, if you really want.
But he was so tired and woozy that when she gently pushed him over he landed on his back with a sigh.
The daughter clambered to her feet and stood in front of the basement door. The doorknob was hot under her hand and she cringed. Once she turned it, she knew, as she knew the things she could count on her hand, whatever was behind the door would change everything.
The knob creaked.
I’ll never forgive you! her mother said, holding her sobbing son in her arms. You’re dead to us, do you hear me? Dead if you go down there!
Beyond the basement door the whirring was so loud the daughter could feel it bombinate in her blood and marrow, and she could almost convince herself that the movement was something alive inside her. Something electrified. With each step she descended the thrum in her grew until it was so frenzied it was hard to remember herself as whole; she felt like she was everywhere. It hurt and it was so good. The plaster and wood of the house trembled beneath her, but nothing quaked as greatly as her body. Her skin pulled away, stretched thin and taut. She was beaten upon by the whir and her skin beat back. There was so much wonderful whizzing and whirring inside of her, how had she never noticed?
When she finally arrived, would her body detonate in a flash and spread across the whole city in a brief but enduring stain on their storefronts, their wombs, their memory, or would she be a dud and fade away?
Acknowledgments
Many people have supported this work through encouragement, revision comments, writing sessions, the occasional sad alcoholic beverage, and endless compassion for weird stories. I would like to thank the women and men who have mentored me, especially William Jablonsky, James Pollock, Lawrence Coates, Wendell Mayo, Michael Czyzniejewski, Marly Swick, Trudy Lewis, Elaine Lawless, Carsten Strathausen, Maureen Stanton and Alexandra Socarides. Special, loving thanks to the women who wrote with me, read my work far too many times, rejoiced with me in success and comforted me in disappointment, especially Misha Rai, Michelle Zuppa, Colette Arrand, Karen Craigo and LaTanya McQueen. Thank you to my long-suffering friends, who occasionally inspired the work but mostly were emotional cornerstones: Beth Gorski, Carla Mazighi and Sarah Landolfi. Thank you for all the times you made me laugh, and more so for the times you made me think. Thanks especially to my husband, Nathan Riggs who sat with me on far too many stoops listening to my ideas for these stories. Thank you, Angela Carter, for existing once upon a time, and leaving me stories that still cut me and open me up and make me hope for something wonderful. Thank you Emily St. John Mandel for choosing this collection out of so many, and thank you to Andrew Gifford and everyone at Santa Fe Writers Project for giving this work a home.
Thank you to the editors and literary magazines who published these stories in slightly altered versions first:
Sequestrum: “Put Back Together Again”
Apex Magazine: “All Who Tremble”
The SouthEast Review: “Postpartum”
The Madison Review: “Eden”
Shimmer: “Food My Father Feeds Me, Love My Husband Shows Me”
Kill Author: “The Romantic Agony of Lemonhead”
Vestal Review: “Mermaid”
A Capella Zoo: “Three Times Red”
Children Churches and Daddies: “Beasts”
Gargoyle: “The Ibex Girl of Qumran”
Permafrost: “Suburban Alchemy”
Deathless Press: “Let Down Your Long Hair and then Yourself”
Kendall Hunt Publishing: “Juniper”
At the end, however, thank you most of all to my parents, Ken and Judy, who always supported my writing even though it was not always the most sensible choice. Thank you to my mother, who read the entire Chronicles of Narnia aloud to me while I was sick as a child, for giving me a love of words and a love of fantastical stories. Thank you also to my father, who took me to a book store and purchased The Odyssey when I was eight years old, proudly telling the seller that the book was not for him, but for the awkward child next to him who really wanted to read it. In retrospect, it was probably not age appropriate reading, but I thank you for not questioning that. Thank you for encouraging me to do this. And thank you both for shaping me into who I am.
About the Author
A.A. Balaskovits is the winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project 2015 Literary Awards Program. Her fiction and essays have been published in numerous journals and magazines, including Indiana Review, The Madison Review, Gargoyle, The Southeast Review and Apex Magazine. She is the winner of the 2015 New Writers Award from Sequestrum. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri and an MFA from Bowling Green State University. Originally from the Chicagoland area, she now resides in South Carolina. Magic for Unlucky Girls is her first book.
www.aabalaskovits.com
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