“Go!” I said. “Go where?”
“Anywhere. To town. To the green land. Up north. Someplace that isn’t here.”
I literally could not understand what she was saying at first. Then the idea began to take root in me, slowly, like a seed unfurling and sinking down runners into the earth.
To leave. To go away. To walk into the trees and keep walking, not turning around.
Was that possible?
“Why did we never leave before?” asked Susan savagely. “Why didn’t we? I don’t know! Is it an enchantment, do you think?”
“But…but we’ll starve, won’t we? If we don’t have the garden? We’ll get lost…and Mother…”
“Damn Mother!” hissed Susan.
Her blasphemy was too astonishing. I gaped at her like a fish pulled from the stream. The dark birds’ call rose and fell like breathing.
“Susan! You can’t!”
“I can,” she said. “You’re coming with me.”
§
If we had gone then, this story would be different.
If we had gone then, perhaps Susan would be telling it instead of me.
But we went back to the house, because Susan thought we would need supplies, and Mother was waiting in the shadow of the woodshed.
Her hands were enormous, as large as Susan’s head. She plucked her from the ground like a woman pulling weeds.
“What are you up to, girl?” she growled, as Susan spluttered and struggled. “You were sneaking around last night and getting into things you shouldn’t.”
“Mother!” I cried. “Mother, put her down!” I grabbed uselessly at her arms.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” hissed Mother. “You think I don’t see you slinking around here? Thinking you’re being oh-so-clever?”
She shook her on every word, and I heard the click of Susan’s teeth meeting as her head snapped back and forth.
Perhaps if Susan had denied everything, we might have come through. But Susan was never the peacemaker, never the one to smooth things over, and when Mother stopped shaking her, she raised her head and shouted “Why didn’t you tell us it was a boy?!”
There was a little silence around those words. No one breathed.
And then, from under the earth, Father said “Aaaaaauuuhhh…?”
“Oh-die-will!” screamed the dark birds in unison.
Mother transferred her grip to Susan’s neck and slapped me aside with her free hand.
She strode into the house, dragging my older sister behind her, to the trap door on the root cellar. I ran beside her, grabbing at her, my head still ringing from the slap, trying to slow her down. “Mother—Mother—stop, stop !”
She flung back the door and went down the ladder one-handed. I stood at the top, my mouth hanging open, and I heard Father laughing in the darkness.
“Thaaaaaaat time?” he gurgled. “Aaaauhhh…”
“No!” snarled Mother. “ Not that time! Now eat and shut up!”
I heard Susan scream, and then I heard a sound like when Father ate the mangel-beets, but worse.
The screaming stopped.
Mother’s head appeared in the hatchway of the trap door. I grabbed the wooden door and slammed it downward with all my strength.
I was only trying to stop her climbing. I did not expect to hit her. The wooden door bounced off the top of her skull and she let out a roar like Father when he was hungry and put up one arm and tore the trap door off its hinges.
I ran.
I bolted out the door and around the corner, knowing nothing, thinking nothing, only trying to get away. I was halfway up the ladder to the roof before I thought This is stupid, where do you go, there’s no other way down —but it was too late.
The ladder was small enough that she had to be careful climbing it. The top rung banged rhythmically against the edge of the roof.
I scrambled backward. If I had to, I would jump. There was nothing else that I could do.
Her face came over the edge.
The dark birds struck her in a wave of bodies, like crows mobbing a hawk. She slapped at her face and I heard their wings crunching, but there were more and more, going for her eyes, cackling high, and she rocked on the too-small ladder, her arms windmilling as she jerked backward.
And she was gone.
“Oh-die-will!” screamed the dark birds. “Oh-die-die-die-die-will!”
I crept to the edge of the roof.
Mother lay stretched out in the garden, surrounded by dark birds living and dead. She had struck her head on the millstone. Her blood mixed with the blood of the dark birds and the earth slowly turned black beneath them.
§
I had to jump down to the water barrel and I scraped my hands and my shins doing it. I should have gone at once, immediately, but I thought of Susan in the root cellar, and thought perhaps that Father would have known better than to eat her, and maybe he had realized what she was. Maybe she was lying wounded in the dark now.
I had to check.
I came down three rungs of the ladder and whispered “Susan?”
“All gone,” said Father. His voice was thick and burbling with disuse. “All gone. None for you.”
I felt as if I were hanging in the air, and if I moved up or down the ladder, even one rung, the words would strike, and I would understand them. If I understood them, I would have to feel them.
If I felt anything…anything at all…I would die or faint or fall off the ladder and be eaten up.
“Mother’s dead,” I said sharply.
“Is she? Ahhh….” I could hear him moving, a rustle of flesh, a clink of chain. “Yes. As it should be. When they start…throwing boys…it’s time.”
“Time?” I said blankly.
“For a new Mother,” he said.
I was silent. There was only his breathing and outside of the house, the screams of the dark birds.
“Usually…it’s a Ruth…” he said, and laughed. “You’re only the second…Baby…to take her place…”
I told you at the beginning that not all the Ruths were fools. It had not occurred to me then that some of them might be monsters.
“Drag…the old one…down here,” he suggested. “I’ll eat her…when I’m hungry….”
“You want me to be the new Mother?”
He laughed again. I could hear his teeth scraping against the foundations.
“What else…did you think…you were for?”
I went back up the ladder.
Mother lay in the garden. I looked at her and wondered if she had been a Ruth or a Susan or if it mattered.
There was a dark bird on top of the millstone. It looked at me with moonlight eyes, and there was something about the way its head was tilted, as if it were waiting…
“Susan?” I whispered.
The flock descended. They perched on my shoulders, on my head, along my arms. Their hard black feet prickled like sewing needles. My sisters. A hundred Ruths and Susans and Babys.
Was one of them Lily? Was it only ogre’s daughters that, once devoured, became the dark birds instead?
How many of them had been Mothers?
I took a shuddering breath, but I had no time to cry. I could not risk Father knowing what my plans were.
I went to the woodpile and began to drag the firewood out, log after log, piled around the house.
I did not know what would happen after I lit the flame. Perhaps the smoke would suffocate him. Perhaps the fire would cook him slowly. Perhaps the floor would burn away and the chains that held him would melt and he would escape into the world.
I did not want to be there to find out.
The Susan-bird called once, imperious.
“Yes,” I said. I knelt and blew on the spark until it caught, then rose and dusted splinters from my hands. “Yes, I know. I’m coming.”
Ursula Vernon is the winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Mythopoeic Awards. She has written a number of children's books, short stories, and comics, and writes for adults
under the name T. Kingfisher. She likes fairy-tale retellings, gardening, and has strong opinions about heirloom beans. You can find more of her work at redwombatstudio.com .
* * *
The Invisible Box
by J. J. Litke | 1174 words
1,100 Words
Viola watched the unconscious man trapped inside the transparent cube. He would wake soon. She counted down the seconds until his eyelids fluttered. The sedative’s dosage had been precisely timed. Her engineering background gave her the skills to systematically plan every detail.
At first, the man was groggy and unsteady. As unsteady as Viola’s mother had been after her trembling hands dropped a skillet, spattering hot oil on her legs. She wouldn’t venture into the kitchen again, and Viola convinced her to go into the assisted living facility. The place had solid recommendations that the facility director held up to Viola like badges of honor. It wasn’t until later that she found out how much effort they put into squashing negative reviews and complaints.
As the man fully woke, he looked at the city square around him, confused. Confused like Viola’s mother, when she said she hadn’t received her medications. Viola talked to the attendants, and they always insisted everything was given on schedule. Her mother was only forgetting that she’d taken the medication to control her tremors, or the cholinesterase inhibitor meant to help her memory. Once her mother became angry, raising her frail voice louder than Viola thought she still could, demanding that she was not getting her medications every day. And Viola hadn’t known whether to believe her.
The man stood up and tugged at the black and white striped shirt he wore, the black pants, the red suspenders. These were not his clothes, but he didn’t know how he had come to be dressed this way. Viola didn’t know that the attendants in charge of her mother’s care were not getting the training she’d been assured they all had. Even if they’d taken the supposedly required eight-hour class, it fell far short of the necessary training for memory care. The director led Viola to believe he employed a far higher ratio of medically licensed staff than he actually did. She didn’t know many of them were low paid, and turnover was high.
Now the man in the city square stared at the unfamiliar people who walked past him. The way Viola’s mother sometimes stared at her when she came to visit, a distant look tinged with bewilderment. She once asked Viola her name. Viola’s throat choked her reply, and her mother had curled her shoulders down and drawn her arms in, shielding herself from this agitated stranger. Viola tried to get Mother’s doctor to intervene, and he prescribed a different medication. Viola wondered how often her mother had actually received it.
The man touched the white greasepaint that coated his face, recoiling. When Viola got the call informing her of her mother’s death, she recoiled back from the phone, dropping it to the floor. She had thought from the impersonal tone beginning the call that it was going to be a telemarketer. At the facility, no one could tell her what had happened. Mother was simply found dead, lying in the courtyard. Viola tried to talk to the director—he was not interested in meeting with her, always conveniently unavailable.
The man started to walk, then bounced backward as he hit the invisible barrier of his prison. He stretched out his hands, putting them flat against the wall. He pounded on it. Then he started trying to feel his way up—down—side to side, seeking an edge, tracing his way around the inside of his invisible box. Viola was impressed at how much he looked like a genuine mime. He was no longer a director who would hire unskilled workers, understaff his facility, then encourage them to lie and cover up abuse. Now he was just a mime in an invisible box.
The man shouted, but no one could hear him through the transparent plasma shield. Just like no one had listened when Viola tried to convince law enforcement to press charges. The director saw to it that no evidence existed and no personnel would testify to any wrongdoing. Her only option was a civil lawsuit. But the facility’s pockets were deeper than hers, and loss of money wouldn’t hurt them the way Viola wanted them to hurt.
Instead, she used her connections as an engineer. Viola made a few subtle inquiries about a company working on the tech she needed. Their force field project had been discontinued due to instability at a large scale. But the smaller models worked for Viola’s purposes.
A forged ID badge and disguise got her in. Security cameras wouldn’t identify her any more than her mother had during their last visit. Then Viola walked out with a wealth of plasma technology. Most importantly, she took several sets of ground strips from the force field project. The strips generated magnetic fields that would confine plasma injected with dust particles, allowing the plasma to crystallize and behave as a solid. This would effectively create flat planes and become the walls of her prison.
Her captive had a chance at rescue. He might use the greasepaint to write a message, or find some other way to beg for help. Eventually, the strips would run out of power and collapse the magnetic fields, most likely before he suffocated. As he had not intended to murder her mother, Viola was not intent on murdering him. He would be punished, though. And this experience would haunt him the rest of his life. Viola’s mother had been robbed of her memories, but memory would be a torture for those who failed her.
The man waved at people, trying to get their attention. A little girl waved back, but the girl’s mother pulled her along, hurrying past without making eye contact. He finally turned and spotted Viola standing a short distance away. He wouldn’t recognize her with her wig and modified features, but she stared straight at him. He beckoned. He threw himself against the wall. He fell to his knees and started to sob. Viola had cried many days recently. Now she smiled. He would not be able to break the plasma shield, and passersby would only see a mime pretending to hit a wall, the lack of sound adding to the illusion. And there he would stay, invisible in plain sight.
Viola stayed until he got up and started around his box again. Funny how much he looked like a mime. Robbed of freedom and dignity, just as he’d done to her mother.
A new identity along with her new face ensured Viola couldn’t be caught before fulfilling the rest of her plan. The director’s name was only the first on her list. There were more injustices to correct, more villains to be punished. Soon more mimes would be appearing around the city, patting their hands against the walls of their own invisible boxes.
And people would ignore them as best they could.
J.J. Litke lives in Austin, Texas, where she writes SFF and moonlights as a graphic design instructor. She is not a robot—she enjoys non-petroleum beverages, engages in sentient-life activities, and has taken a human mate. Her fiction has also appeared in Cast of Wonders , Andromeda Spaceways , and Farstrider Magazine . Find her at jjlitke.com and on Twitter as @jenztweets.
* * *
Next Station, Shibuya
Only just today, the deep-colored plum blossoms have scattered; traversing the spring day, the breeze scented with their fragrance. by Iori Kusano | 3260 words
3,700 Words
Tonight you fell asleep on the loop line again.
You didn’t mean to do it but the rumble of the train stretched around your shoulders like an arm, spiraled deliciously down your spine. You were alone in the car and your reflection flickered in the window across the aisle. The city lights on the other side of the glass sparkled like stray glitter dusted over your face.
The sky was a deep blue that looked soft somehow, like your favorite pajamas you’d had in high school. You wanted to be wrapped up in it, wanted to lie down in a quilt as heartbreakingly soft and blue as that sky.
You were exhausted, Nagiko.
You closed your eyes for just a moment.
「次は代々木、代々木。お出口は左側です。中央線の各駅停車千駄ヶ谷、四ツ谷方面と都営地下鉄大江戸線はお乗り換えです。」
“The next station is Yoyogi, Yoyogi. The exit is on the left side. Transfer here for the Chūō line local service to Sendagaya and Yotsuya,
and the Metropolitan Subway Ōedo line.”
You woke up cold and clean and still alone when the recording called your station. You love that voice a little—its lightness, its cheer, its unflagging politeness. You could be in love with someone who spoke that way, but not even I am that pleasant all the time.
But you know that. You are not always happy with me, Nagiko, but you love me.
As you walked home from the station I made sure every streetlight above you was lit.
This is how I say, “I love you, too.”
§
Your address is technically in Sendagaya 5-chōme, but it might as well be in Shinjuku, and your station is Yoyogi. If you leave the window open you can hear the intercom in the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in the daytime. Every night I lull you to sleep with the humming song of the power lines running along the street.
When you open the door your apartment looks just as you left it this morning. You narrow your eyes, trying to fight down the pinched hollow feeling in your sinuses that always foreshadows tears.
Tonight the whole world is different and you don’t know why. You wonder if you drank too much at dinner, if maybe you should have refused the fifth round of beers that your professor called for.
You take your shoes off and leave them by the door. You put your purse down on the floor. The futon is still on the veranda where you left it, and when you drag it inside it smells faintly of the sunlight it’s been soaking up all day.
The thin cardigan goes back onto its hanger; the dress goes into the hamper. As you wash your face and brush your teeth you are struck by your own reflection, and reach out to rub the mirror with the corner of your towel. The faint haze around your face doesn’t dissipate.
You tell yourself that you have certainly drunk too much. You turn away from the mirror, pad to the kitchen, chug a glass of water.
When you lie down at last you realize that you are shaking. The wind rustles a sutra in the tall trees of the Imperial Gardens. You ball yourself up but you feel exposed.
Apex Magazine - January 2017 Page 7