Upside Down

by Jaym Gates

  But, man, my fists do that thing. Knuckles and bones. Tendons jumping. Like a fist on fire.

  I slip out before he’s finished. I let him talk his talk. It’s enough that he knows I’m here. It’s enough that he knows I know.

  #

  The way people talk is a poem. It always seems like they’re saying one thing, but when you crack them open, there’s so many layers of meaning under their skin that you can get lost in it.

  Liv stopped talking when she turned six. Didn’t make another word for four years.

  She’d just open her mouth and no sound would come out. The speech therapists and good teachers said not to worry. The bad teachers said she was trouble. Liv told me nothing. But I learned to hear her body language. I could read her emotions from a hundred yards away. The way she edged her lip with her teeth when she was about to do something she’d regret. The hunch of a shoulder that meant she was steadying her resolve. The twitch of an eyelid just before she pulled the trigger on her breakdown.

  Four years of silence. When Liv turned ten, the first thing she said to me was, “I want to burn our house up.”

  And that’s when I got her father put away for good.

  #

  Dylan likes guns.

  Liv likes guns. She also likes William Blake and the kittens that try to kill her and cinnamon-sugar on toast.

  There’s a little of both of us inside her.

  I trail her father to the place where I know he’ll lead me. He can see my headlights. He goes left when he wants to go right, slow where he wants to go fast.

  The place he lands is quiet. Sharp and dark.

  I’m good at my job, even when it’s not a job anymore. His gun and my fists tangle somewhere between the shadows and the light. Let’s skip the boring parts where I ask him why and he doesn’t have an answer. The part where I try to remember that crazy isn’t like poetry. That there are no layers of heart and bone and sinew beneath it to shore up its faulty rhythm. So let’s skip the part where I take the man I once loved and do horrible things with my hands because he took my daughter or because he wants me to or because I can. The part where he says again and again that he doesn’t know where Liv is.

  I once said torturing someone for information is like trying to get computer code out of a chip with a jackhammer. It’s still true. But sometimes the computer code is broken anyway, so you might as well use the jackhammer. Here is the poem where you say fuck being gentle. Here is the poem where you rage.

  I don’t kill him. Not because I don’t want to, but because I want to believe that the side of me that lives in our daughter buys her a fighting chance.

  I wipe my hands down the side of his face. Blood and drool. What shoulder and what art? These lines of his skin split to reveal the layers of meaning beneath. This is my poetry, baby. I say, “There’s more where that came from. I am one prolific bitch.”

  #

  The shelter is open late for regulars like me, regulars who know how to knock and have made a passing friendship with the women who run the place.

  I poke my fingers in the cage of a large black and white cat with green eyes. Scarlett, the tag says. Scarlett nibbles at my fingertip. Exploratory bite, like a shark. I like her already.

  “Hey Rose.” It’s Debbie, the shelter coordinator, in a bright yellow Save The Snails! shirt. The snails on her shirt don’t look like they need to be saved. They have claws and weird tiger teeth. Even their shells are armored.

  The girls at the shelter know me. Not know me, know me. But they recognize me. They call me Rose, which is the name I put down whenever I sign the little form that says I understand adoption is a life-long commitment and that I am prepared to feed, shelter, and care for this creature until it dies. Of course, I also have a contingency plan in case I’m the one who bites the dust first.

  “I got a little orange tiger that just came in,” Debbie says.

  I nod. I’m talked out. I had a lot to say to the man in the dirt before I left him there. A lot about where he’s going to move on now that he’s a free man. A lot about how death isn’t going to be his best friend, not even near, with me at his back. He won’t listen, of course. But that’s for later. It will either matter or it won’t.

  Debbie opens a cage and pulls out the tiniest ball of orange-colored fluff I’ve ever seen. I’m not even sure it’s a real living thing until its entire body opens in a giant pink yawn.

  I don’t usually take kittens. Someone else always saves the kittens, with their big eyes and their inability not to love everything that moves. No one saves the adults, with their scarred faces and their meds and their need to put their claws to the furniture.

  “Maybe not this —” I start. The tiny tiger takes another yawn and then promptly falls asleep in my hand, one tiny pale claw hooked into my skin.

  Tyger, the tag on the cage says. Damn it.

  #

  It’s our old house. The one Liv wanted to burn up. I think some part of me always knew this was where I’d find her.

  I can see Liv through the kitchen window, the soft O of her face, waiting and watching. I remember the click-click of the stove as she lit it. “I want to burn the house up.” I remember the hunch of her shoulder over the gun, the twitch of an eyelid, the single, eternal sound of copper and steel entering my body.

  I grab my things out of the car and stand on the lawn. I lift my arms to my sides.

  In one hand, I hold a mewling ball of teeth and claws.

  In the other, I hold the purring barrel of a gun. Handle out, toward the question that is my daughter.

  Your mama’s a poet, baby.

  Here is the poem where you go gentle.

  Here is the poem where you rage.

  My daughter opens the front door.

  Santa CIS

  Episode 1: No Saint

  Alethea Kontis

  Buddy stood on the stoop and stared at the door in front of him. It was solid — oak, he guessed. Maybe ash. It had been a long time since he’d needed to distinguish the two on sight. He removed his glove and slid his fingers down the face of it, appreciating the subtle curves in the plane. At first glance, it did not look like a work of expert craftsmanship, but Buddy’s trained eye knew just how deceptive that simplicity was. A dilapidated log cabin high in the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains had no business possessing a door like this.

  It meant he was in the right place.

  Buddy took a deep breath and knocked. Even without his gloves, his knuckles made little more than a quiet tap on the thick wood.

  There was a murmur from inside the cabin with the cadence of, “Come in.” Buddy stretched a hand out to the door’s handle but stopped short. It wasn’t his place to presume upon old friendships. He could not screw this up. This meeting had to go perfectly. Lives depended on it.

  The next sound from behind the door was that of a shotgun being cocked. No mistake there. Buddy resisted reaching for his service weapon.

  He could not screw this up.

  The door opened, and the warmth from the stove inside enveloped Buddy’s body from head to toe. The old man stared at him. There was a glimmer of something in his eyes, but it passed too quickly for Buddy to count on it. There had definitely been a clenching of teeth beneath the stubble on his jaw — a tic he’d been able to hide back when he’d had a full beard, but one Buddy recognized all the same.

  “Elmore,” said the old man.

  “Sir.”

  “I said ‘Come in,’ for goodness sake.” He stepped back, motioning to the room behind him with the hand that held the shotgun.

  Buddy stamped what snow he could off his boots and entered. “Thanks, boss.”

  “Don’t call me that, kid. I’m not your boss anymore. ‘Nick’ will do just fine.”

  “Yes, boss. I mean, Nick.” He removed his other glove and hat and set his snow-covered backpack on the small rug just inside the door. The room was stifling, but then, the old man had always preferred it that way. Beyond that, everything else
seemed out of place. There were no pictures on the wall, no plants on the bare windowsill. There were no tables scattered about for the sole purpose of displaying lovingly crafted doilies and bric-a-brac. There was a stack of books beside the large chair in the center of the room and a hurricane lamp, but no pipe.

  “You need a haircut,” Nick said as he pushed the thick door closed.

  Buddy raised his hand to his hair, pulled back into a short ponytail. He liked wearing it long now, so that it covered his enormous ears. Especially in weather like this. He noted Nick’s almost military-shaved scalp. “You’re one to talk.”

  The grunt Nick gave in response might have almost been a laugh. He placed a tea kettle on the stove, then moved to the kitchen area. He stoked the fire in the oven before sliding in a metal sheet covered in drops of what could only be cookie dough. The faint odor of sugar they added to the room was a wistful reminder of a time gone by.

  “Please don’t bake on my account,” said Buddy. Judging by the old man’s wiry frame, it was obvious he hadn’t touched a cookie in a very long time.

  “They’re not for you,” said Nick. He broke the shotgun in half, pocketed the shells, and leaned the empty gun against the wall. “So what brings you here, Officer Alvin? Business or pleasure?”

  “It’s Agent Alvin now, actually. Special Agent.” He felt stupid the moment the words crossed his lips. Nick already knew that. Nick knew just about everything. Besides, a congenial visit wasn’t an option. The last thing Nick had instructed Buddy to do was never to contact him again.

  “We need your help.”

  Nick’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “We?”

  This wasn’t playing out the way Buddy had hoped. He unzipped his parka and removed the plastic bag with the letters. He’d let the children speak for him instead.

  “My pal Oki Johnson is a postal employee at the office in Anchorage. Around this time every year, he leads the team that receives and answers all the Santa Mail.”

  Nick grimaced and reluctantly took the package in his large hands. This sort of thing was a sore spot with the old man: Postal Services answering Santa Mail. Parents bearing the responsibility of gift giving. Imposters parading about in red suits. Marketing firms using his likeness willy-nilly until he was nothing but a colorful, two-dimensional cartoon. The population of the world had exploded and no one needed Santa Claus anymore, so Nick had retired. Disappeared. Vanished to where no one could ever find him…except the senior elves who had once directly reported to him. By design, theirs was a magical bond that could be left behind, ignored, shoved under the rug of the self-conscious, but never forgotten.

  “Those letters were directed to his home office sometime over the last few weeks. They have a whole system for Santa Mail up there, but once Oki came across two of these, he asked everyone to stay overtime and open the rest of the mailbox. They found twelve in all.”

  “There are only eleven here.”

  “I got the call from Oki about the twelfth on my way up here. Before I lost cell service.” The kettle on the stove began to whistle. Nick settled his glasses on his nose and opened the first envelope. Buddy moved to shift the kettle off the heat. He didn’t need to read them again. The words on that first tearstained page had been burned into his brain for all time, and the rest were all the same.

  DEAR SANTA,

  PLEASE SAVE ME FROM THE BAD MAN.

  PLEASE SANTA. IVE BEN A VERY GOOD GIRL. I PROMIS.

  SANTA PLEASE COM SOON. I MISS MY MOMMY.

  I WANT TO BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS.

  SINCERLY,

  YOUR GOOD GIRL BETHANY

  Buddy ran through each one in his mind as Nick read them. Every name. Every teardrop. Every please scrawled in round-handed crayon. Every misspelled word. The angle of the stamp in the corner of every envelope. He waited to speak until Nick had finished reading them all.

  When he was done, the old man removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He laid his other hand over the small pile of envelopes in his lap, as if the gesture might somehow protect the children inside them.

  “The lab found no fingerprints,” said Buddy. “I have my team cross referencing the names against reports of missing children filed in the area. The postmarks on the envelopes are mostly from Wyoming, but there are a few from Montana and one from Idaho, which leads me to believe that this ‘Bad Man’ is holding the children somewhere in Yellowstone National Park. But that’s thousands of square miles. And it’s the only lead I have.”

  “Have you tried Bavaria?” Nick said in a low voice.

  Coming from anyone else, the suggestion would have come across as ridiculous. “By all accounts, Krampus is still chained up in the bowels of Kinizsi’s church in Nagyvázsony. Not an easy answer to get, by the way. It took me three days just to find someone who would take me seriously.”

  “Are they still worshipping him?” He didn’t mean the Hungarian priests.

  “Yes.” Buddy wished he had a different answer. Krampus had been incarcerated immediately following the murder of Nick’s wife. Despite that, the devil’s popularity seemed to be having a resurgence. The most recent generation seemed to love the pagan heathenness of his story, embracing the cards and legends as if they were things to be celebrated. Krampus became a hip, kitschy historical figure … while Santa Claus was reduced to little more than a seasonal lie told to entitled children.

  Three smart raps on the door made Buddy jump. The odds of him finding Nick’s cabin in the first place had been slim to none. The odds of two people happening upon it were nonexistent.

  Slowly, resignedly, Nick lifted his tall frame out of the great chair. “I’ll get the cookies. You get the door.”

  Buddy might not have expected the company, but Nick clearly had. The tea, the cookies: they were all for this new visitor. Buddy left his weapon holstered and answered the door as instructed.

  Night had fallen quickly behind them, so the visitor was illuminated only by the soft, flickering lamplight. She was tall and trim, even in her fur-lined coat and headscarf layered beneath it. It covered her nose and mouth, revealing nothing but two eyes like coal. But live coal, black that burned with an ember glow. Buddy half expected her to remove the wine colored scarf and reveal a body made of fire.

  And then he realized it was no mere scarf at all. “As-salamu alaykum.”

  “Wa-Alaikum-as-Salaam,” she said in return. Buddy was honored to receive the full response typically reserved for other Muslims. But if she was here, on this doorstep, the woman undoubtedly had some idea of who — or what — he was.

  She pulled down the lower half of her hijab and yanked a glove off with her teeth. Her dark skin was flawless. Her full lips were painted a color as red as blood. She was beautiful … for a human.

  Buddy blinked when he realized he was staring. He tried to mask it by pretending to compare her face with the image on the credentials she was holding up for examination.

  “Agent Zhara Munin. NSA.” Her voice was as rich as he’d imagined it would be, with a thick Spanish accent.

  “Agent Buddy Alvin, ISB,” he responded automatically. She did not move a muscle until he had removed his own credentials and revealed them in turn.

  “Park Service?” Her mouth turned up at the corner as she said it. “Nice.”

  Buddy scowled defensively. “And you wouldn’t be here without me.”

  “True. May I come in?”

  Buddy was tempted to say no, but Nick had already emerged from the kitchen with a plate of hot cookies. He stepped aside and motioned for Agent Munin to enter.

  “Take off your coat,” Nick said without a care in the world, as if Federal agents stopped by every day.

  “We can’t stay long,” she said. “There’s a storm front moving in, and the chopper needs to take off before that happens.”

  She had a helicopter? Buddy scolded himself. She was NSA. Of course she had a helicopter. And probably eight flying reindeer, and a partridge in a pear tree, and anything else her littl
e heart desired. He’d had to fill out a mountain of paperwork just to cross state lines, and then personally purchase all the equipment he’d required to make the climb.

  “We have time,” said Nick. “Elmore hasn’t even officially asked me what he’s come here to ask yet. Please. Make yourself comfortable. Have a cookie. They’re snickerdoodles. Your favorite.”

  Agent Munin stared at Nick and then at the rest of the room, just as Buddy had. She eyed the plate of cookies skeptically, and then unzipped. Buddy guessed the tailored suit beneath her long coat had cost at least a month of his salary. Easy. He tried not to be self-conscious of his earthier wardrobe, but then, he’d actually had to climb the mountain.

  Agent Munin took a cookie from the proffered plate. Buddy took one as well, just to be polite.

  “How did you know?” she asked. Nick’s eyes twinkled in answer.

  “He always knows,” Buddy translated.

  Agent Munin turned to Buddy. “If he knows so much, why must you still ask your question?”

  Nick shrugged. “Call me old fashioned.”

  “Boss.” Buddy caught himself. “Nick. These kids all appealed to you. You already know their identities. You probably already know who the Bad Man is as well. At the very least, you know where they’re being held.”

  Nick leisurely poured a cup of tea and offered it to Agent Munin. Then he poured one for himself and took a sip. “Not off the top of my head,” he said finally.

  “You know what I mean.” Buddy tried his best not to let his frustration show. “Nick, I’m asking you to check the list. One last time. Please.”

  Agent Munin lowered her teacup at the mention of the list. It rattled ever so slightly in its saucer as she set it down on the table. She said nothing, only folded her hands in her lap and waited for the men to continue.