Except, I realize, as I lever myself to my knees, her screaming. Shrill exhalations still fill the room, so omnipresent that, at first, they were beyond my notice.
The source of the sound is a pile of broken timbers fallen from the roof to land at the foot of the buckled and blackened metal screen.
On all fours, dazed, barely comprehending, I crawl across the room. The sound, I realize, is not Pree’s sound. I have heard her screams. . . too many. . . too many times. These are thinner, harsher, more insistent. I pull the charred beams away.
There, nestled in ash, is an infant child. A girl.
Gently I pick up her shrieking form, and, at my touch, she stills. Tiny hands clutch at me. She opens her eyes and regards me with a stare I have seen many times before. The final shot of the narrative. Already, in these first few moments of life, she resembles her mother, has her wide, open eyes, her cleft chin. She is Pree’s child.
I cannot say for certain, as I carry her into the kitchen, if she is real or not. I cannot prove it. I will never have the equations to do so. Who knows if I can ever trust my senses? But still, I swaddle the babe tightly in a fresh dishcloth, and simply take it on faith.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jonathan Wood is an Englishman living in New York. He writes odd little things that show up in odd little places, such as Chizine, Weird Tales, and Fantasy Magazine, and he regularly contributes flash fiction to www.dailycabal.com.
THE HARVEST
Myke Amend
Myke Amend is a painter, engraver, sculptor, and woodworker living in Grand Rapids, MI. His work has appeared in art collection books, science-fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction/Gothic/steampunk magazines, and on many magazine and book covers, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies. View more of his work and purchase original versions and prints at his website, mykeamend.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine
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“Salvage," Copyright © 2011 by Margaret Ronald
“The Curse of Chimère,” Copyright © 2010 by Tony Pi
“To the Gods of Time and Engines, a Gift,” Copyright © 2011 by Dean Wells
“Clockwork Heart, Clockwork Soul,” Copyright © 2009 by Kris Dikeman
“The Leafsmith in Love,” Copyright © 2010 by K.J. Kabza
“Cold Iron and Green Vines,” Copyright © 2011 by Wendy N. Wagner
“The Secret of Pogopolis,” Copyright © 2010 by Matthew Bey
“Kreisler's Automata,” Copyright © 2009 by Matthew David Surridge
“Six Seeds,” Copyright © 2009 by Sara M. Harvey
“The God Thieves,” Copyright © 2011 by Derek Künsken
“Playing for Amarante,” Copyright © 2011 by A.B. Treadwell
“Waiting for Number Five,” Copyright © 2010 by Tom Crosshill
“The Motor, the Mirror, the Mind,” Copyright © 2010 by T.F. Davenport
“Memories in Bronze, Feathers, and Blood,” Copyright © 2020 by Aliette de Bodard
“The Manufactory,” Copyright © 2009 by Dru Pagliassotti
“Architectural Constants,” Copyright © 2008 by Yoon Ha Lee
“Calibrated Allies,” Copyright © 2012 by Marissa Lingen
“The Mathematics of Faith,” Copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Wood
“The Harvest,” Copyright © by Myke Amend
Ceaseless Steam: Steampunk Stories from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine Page 36