Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction

by Claude Lalumiere

  “Me,” Wren answered, and kissed her, and there was no good rejoinder to that. They got up and left the café, the barista frantically dialling 911 behind them. It was bright and cold outside, and a fresh snowfall had whitened the snowbanks, covering the winter filth and debris. “That’s the second one today,” Wren said. “Your turn next.”

  “Probably,” Nadia agreed. They didn’t always get pulled to the same people, a fact that Nadia found odd and couldn’t help wondering about. Now that there was someone else to compare herself with, suddenly whole new avenues of exploration were opened up, and suddenly she found herself interested in them.

  “It could be you’d met one of those two somewhere,” Wren suggested when Nadia brought up the subject. “You know, old classmate, old co-worker, friend of a friend — if it does only work with strangers, and I’ve never seen anything to suggest otherwise, maybe when only one of us gets pulled to someone it’s because the other knows them from someplace.”

  “I don’t remember them,” Nadia said. The dog-walkers had both been well-heeled business types, typical of downtown but not the sort of people Nadia ordinarily interacted with.

  “Maybe you don’t have to,” Wren said with a shrug. “Maybe having met them’s enough.”

  Without much actual discussion, Wren moved her things into Nadia’s apartment one weekend in March, with the help of three casually stoned teenagers who seemed to be friends of Brian’s. She set up her bedclothes on the couch, surrounded by the boxes of comic books she’d lugged up the stairs.

  “I always wanted to be a superhero,” she confided that evening, as they washed the dishes. Nadia’s cupboard was embarrassingly bare, and dinner had ended up being packaged soup with Rice Krispies in it in place of crackers. Wren declared that she’d eaten far worse. “Ever since I was a kid, you know, like Spider-Man or something. One day I’d just wake up and be special.” She laughed, standing on her tiptoes to put the bowls in the cupboard. “As superpowers go, this one’s pretty crap, but I guess you take what you can get. I mean, Ant-Man talks to ants for fuck’s sake. That’s not exactly the grand prize in the superpower lottery.”

  “Ant-Man?” Nadia repeated. Wren looked at her as though she’d just admitted her ignorance of Bliss Carman or the Group of Seven. “What? I don’t read comics.”

  …Or listen to folk music in crowded basements, or march against the war, or smoke pot on a stranger’s balcony while policemen drove by below in benign indifference, or go hiking on the mountain — all of a sudden she had a life and a social circle beyond her co-workers and her landlord and her sister in Toronto. It was strange.

  She mentioned this to Wren once, who had never considered it out of the ordinary, her endless parade of friends with whom she laughed and wrangled in English or French with equal fervour and fluency. She was, Nadia found out, a native bilingual, but she had no accent in English, her French heritage only perceivable in her last name and her occasional use of words like coordinates and close the light, which plenty of Anglo-Montrealers used as well.

  “Well, of course you get new friends when you start dating somebody,” Wren said airily. It was three weeks after she’d moved in, and five days since she’d moved from the couch to Nadia’s big antique bed. That had been a surprise, but not as much of one as Nadia had expected; next to the world-shattering experience of having someone to talk to, someone with whom she didn’t have to dissemble or hide, even sex paled. “I mean, you’ve met like fifty of my friends, and I’ve met — oh — well, your landlord, anyway. And that guy Jerry who delivers your pizza, you know, the one with the bolt in his knee and the suicidal girlfriend.”

  Nadia blinked. “I didn’t know that. How do you know so much about the pizza guy?”

  “I talked to him,” Wren answered with a shrug. “He’s interesting. People are always interesting, don’t you think?” It was the sort of thing she said a lot. “I mean, look at you. Anyone would look at you and think, oh, boring secretary type — even your co-workers probably do. They would not think you’re a wacky lesbian superhero. This is why I like talking to people. You find things out.”

  “I don’t think I’m a lesbian, actually,” Nadia said.

  Wren giggled throatily, running her hand across the soft dark fur below Nadia’s belly. “I beg to differ.”

  “I mean it,” Nadia insisted. “I’m not attracted to women as a group, just — you know — just to you. I couldn’t be with somebody who didn’t — understand. It almost doesn’t matter if you’re a woman, or if you’re pretty, or if—”

  “Are you saying I’m not pretty?” Wren demanded with mock outrage, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter.

  “You’re gorgeous, and you know it. What I’m saying is that I’d love you no matter what, so your gender isn’t a factor.”

  “It’s a factor to me,” Wren insisted. “We could absolutely be friends if you were a guy, but I wouldn’t be dating you.” She frowned. “And in that case we’d have never met. I’ve never known the mojo to work if people were going to be just friends. So you have to be a lesbian.”

  Nadia frowned, trying to work out this logic. “I don’t see it. Just because you think like that, doesn’t mean I do. You’ve been with girls before. I’ve never even wanted to. I’m not a lesbian, I’m a — a Wrensexual, how about that?”

  Wren laughed delightedly at this new conceit. “Well, right now Wren is feeling very sexual indeed, and we have a good hour before either of us has to go to work.” She reached for Nadia, who smiled and abandoned the attempt to explain, letting her thoughts go under and drown.

  Then it was April, and a spring blizzard kept them snowbound in the apartment for three days. The power was going on and off unpredictably throughout the city, and Nadia’s supervisor called from the office to tell her that there was no point coming to work. Wren took those days off from her current job (cashier at a cheese shop in the Atwater Market; their refrigerator was full of discounted cheese), and they spent the time curled up under enormous quilts in Nadia’s bedroom, watching the Space Channel whenever the lights came on and ordering pizza from the one place in the neighbourhood that could be counted on to have electricity by virtue of being right next to the hospital and on their grid.

  Their conversation, proceeding by fits and starts in between segments of Mystery Science Theater, eventually circled around to their powers. It was strange how little they discussed the subject lately. Even when one or both of them felt the pull toward some stranger in the supermarket or the downtown streets, they tended to act on it without speaking. Nadia found it comfortable to be with someone who wouldn’t go into hysterics at the sight of yet another death, but, still, it was an odd habit to have fallen into.

  “We can’t be the only ones, you know,” Nadia said. “I mean, two of us in one city and nobody anywhere else on the planet — it’s pretty unlikely.”

  “We’re probably the only ones in Montreal, though. I was looking it up on the internet—”

  “Looking up what?” Nadia asked with a grimace. “I tried researching this back when it first started happening to me, and all I found was sappy poetry and Greek myths.”

  “Statistics Canada,” Wren clarified. “The death rate in Montreal is about sixty people a day. Most of those are probably in hospitals and nursing homes and whatnot — Nadia, there isn’t room for more of us here. There’d be more accidents.”

  “And murders,” Nadia added.

  Wren looked thoughtful. “I’ve never seen a murder yet.”

  “It happens sometimes. Not as common as accidents, though. I saw a guy stab the cashier at a dep once. It was pretty ugly.”

  “Mm.” Wren hugged her, pulling the quilt tighter around both of them. “I hope the meeting was worth it.”

  “Couldn’t tell you.”

  “What’s the worst one you’ve ever done?” Wren asked lazily. “I mean
, one where you just went, aw, shit, this is a bad idea?”

  “There was one a couple of years ago, at a wedding reception,” Nadia answered. “The bride and the guitarist. He broke a string, and she had a spare in her purse. When I left they were making plans to start a rock band. I don’t think the groom noticed. You?”

  Wren thought about it. “Car crash,” she said at last.

  “I don’t mean deaths,” Nadia said with a grimace. “I mean meetings.”

  “Me too,” Wren said, idly rubbing her bare foot against Nadia’s shin. “They met in hospital after she was paralyzed. She’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of her life, but she’s got her chance at true love. Who’s to say whether or not she’s better off?”

  “Us, I guess,” Nadia said with a shrug. “Who else?” Then her eyes narrowed, and she levered herself up on one elbow. “Wait a minute — how do you know about that? I mean, if you pushed the crash, and they met in hospital—”

  “I followed her, of course.” Wren frowned. “Don’t pretend like you’ve never done it. I was curious, that’s all. The death was the woman in the other car, and it seemed weird to have that happen before the meeting, so I followed the ambulance. Making sure it was all working out, you know.”

  Nadia shook her head. “I’ve never done that. Never wanted to. I just — it’s bad enough I have to watch them die; I don’t want to see them fuck up their chances, too. I’d feel guilty all the time.”

  “You mean you don’t?” Wren asked wryly. “Good for you.”

  “That’s not what I meant!” Nadia exclaimed, flustered. “Of course I — I mean — oh, stop it.”

  “God, I love you,” Wren laughed. She always sounded a little surprised when she said it, as though she were just that moment discovering it to be true.

  “How many of them do — you know — fuck up?” Nadia asked after a moment.

  “You want to know?” Wren teased. Then she sobered. “A third, maybe. A quarter. They don’t get a phone number, they say something stupid, they decide they’ve got better things to do — maybe a third. We only give them chances, Nadia, you and I both know that. They have to do the work themselves.”

  Brian’s birthday was the ninth of May, and they returned to Wren’s old apartment for the party. The metro was delayed half an hour by some emergency that the announcer failed to explain, and by the time they got there, the party was in full swing. Someone Nadia vaguely recognized pressed a drink into her hand. J-Pop bubbled through the stereo system while Dave and his band (currently called Cheerios of Steel) tuned up in the living room. Nadia guessed there were already more people in the apartment than the fire code allowed. Wren seemed to know them all.

  “Nadia!” Brian, in a beer helmet and bedsheet and carrying a hammer, appeared at their elbows. “Hey, great, make yourselves at home. How’s it going, Wren?” The doorbell rang. “It’s open, just come in!” Brian shouted. Nadia winced. “Sorry. Hey, get yourselves some cake or something.” He looked at them expectantly.

  “He’s dressed up as Thor, and he’s waiting for us to compliment him on it,” Wren explained to Nadia.

  The doorbell rang. “It’s open!” shouted half a dozen people at once. “Brian, put a fucking sign on the door saying ‘Just walk in,’” Wren added.

  Brian shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Then the cops can just walk in if they want to.”

  “Why are you always worried about the cops?” Nadia asked.

  “Because they’re always infringing on my fucking freedom of—”

  “—stealing digital cable, yeah, we know,” Wren finished. “Jesus, Brian, it isn’t like it’s a secret. Look, how about if I put up a sign saying ‘Just walk in unless you’re the cops?’”

  “Then they’ll know we’re hiding something!” Brian wailed.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Brian—”

  Nadia drifted away from the conversation, over toward the buffet of cake and vegetable sticks set up in the living room. The band was arguing over microphone placement, and people were sitting in knots of conversation around the room. Nadia felt ill at ease. Three months with Wren had helped, but she was still profoundly uneasy in social situations.

  She filled a paper plate with chips and vegan cookies and took up a perch on a high uncomfortable stool next to one of the couches. Two girls were excitedly detailing a road trip they were taking to Boston in July. Nadia tried to look interested.

  Her attention was distracted from the group’s wrangling about American youth hostels by the sound of Wren’s raised voice from the back porch. “—to do with you anyway! Why can’t you just fucking leave it?” The reply was inaudible, but it seemed to make Wren furious. “It was never like that!” she shouted. Nadia craned her neck, trying to see the argument, but Wren’s tiny frame was hidden by the crowd. Nadia stood and started to make her way in the direction of the voices, but by the time she had made it to the living room door, Wren had pushed her way out through the partygoers and was standing in the hallway, fuming.

  “Trouble?” Nadia asked mildly.

  “No,” Wren snapped.

  “Who were you talking to?” Nadia persisted.

  Wren grimaced, took her arm, and steered her back into the living room. “Nobody you want to meet. Wait here, I’m going to get another drink.”

  “That was Ruth,” Brian said quietly at her shoulder as she watched Wren making her way to the kitchen. For someone in a toga, he managed to make himself surprisingly inconspicuous. “Stubby’s ex. She’s holding a grudge. Ruth, I mean. Well, maybe Stubby is, too, but Ruth’s always been pretty clingy.”

  Uneasily Nadia thought of the all-night conversation in the coffee shop and Wren’s giggling breakup phone call to her then-girlfriend. She felt guilty and was irritated at herself for it.

  “Anyways, my advice is, don’t get involved,” Brian continued. “Nothing good comes of getting involved in shit like that. I remember this one time, Dave was seeing this girl — Shirley, Cheryl, something like that — she used to be in his band back when they were The Federal Spacewarp. And she was cheating on him with this one guy who was a lifeguard, and one night at three in the morning he calls me — Dave, I mean, not the guy — and he’s all, Brian, help me out here, I’m stuck in Ottawa, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing in Ottawa, and he’s—”

  Nadia kept nodding politely, certain he didn’t expect any kind of response. Her fingers twitched restlessly against her plate. Just nervous, she told herself, but already the longing was coming over her, and she knew it for what it was. She sighed. This wasn’t turning into a good night. Just get it over with, she told herself.

  “—out of the canal, mad as hell of course, and when we finally rounded up the goats—”

  “Excuse me, I need to use the washroom,” Nadia interrupted, and stood and left him there, mouth open midsentence. By the time she got to the door she could hear him continuing the story for someone else’s benefit.

  The kitchen was crowded, a sea of faces reflected dimly in the sliding glass doors that led out to the patio. Nadia felt suddenly very warm. The tug came at her from somewhere to her left, and she pushed. The lights went out.

  “You can’t run the microwave and the blender at the same time,” someone called. Nadia thought it was Dave. “Shit, where’s the breaker box?”

  Someone knocked over a chair, and someone else yelped. Apologies followed and sparked a conversation. Nadia didn’t bother to listen. It was dull stuff, it always was.

  “In the linen closet,” Wren’s voice answered from close by. There were crashing sounds all through the apartment as too many people tried to negotiate too little space. Nadia sighed and stayed put.

  The lights flickered on again, revealing the same sweaty crowd as before, minus the two who had met in the dark and apparently left. Three heartbeats passed, and then the screaming started from the livi
ng room. Here goes, Nadia thought, and wondered whether they could still catch the tail end of the hockey game if they left now. The party was clearly going to be a bust.

  “What happened?” Dave demanded. There was a general push toward the living room. Nadia peered over people’s heads, more out of an attempt to blend in than because she really wanted to see. Brian and another man were kneeling on the floor beside a tall Chinese woman sprawled facedown on the carpet.

  “She hit her head on the table,” Brian said urgently. His face was grey. “She’s not breathing. Does anyone know CPR?”

  Someone did. Someone else called 911. Nadia saw Wren emerge from the hall closet, see the body, and drop to her knees. People moved back to make room. “Ruth fell,” someone told her.

  “Ah,” Wren said. Her voice was curiously flat. “Ah, no. Nadia, no. Please.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nadia whispered. “I didn’t know.”

  This was her, then. Nadia looked closer at the body, its face obscured by the hair of the person trying to breathe it back to life. Ruth was tall and thin and wore a long blue dress. There was no personality in the splayed limbs and the long, still torso. As the would-be rescuer lifted his head to do the chest compressions, Nadia saw a flat nose, an eyebrow piercing, a scattering of acne across the chin, but somehow none of it resolved into a face. This woman had been part of Wren’s earlier life, and now she was dead. Nadia had never known her, and she never would now. And for what? For strangers.

  They took a taxi home. After a few cheery comments about the warm night and the stars, the driver was mercifully silent. The house was dark, and it creaked and shivered around them as they crawled separately into the big bed. Nadia lay on her back, stared at the cracks in the ceiling, and wondered how long it would take for Wren to leave.

  In the dead hours of the morning she woke and found herself curled on her side around Wren’s smaller body, their wrists clasped in each other’s hands like trapeze artists or gladiators. Wren slept, snuffling quietly as she did when she fell asleep crying. Nadia smiled, hiked the covers up higher with her feet, and went back to sleep again, convinced it would somehow be all right.