Not So Much, Said the Cat

by Michael Swanwick

“Martha, listen to me. You have all your life ahead of you and, depending on what choices you make, it can be a very good life indeed. I know. I’ve seen young women in your situation before, more times than you can imagine. Let me take you back to where you were before we met and start your life up where it left off.”

  Her expression was stiff and unreadable. “You can do that, huh? Rewind the movie and then start it up again?”

  “That’s an inexact metaphor,” I said. “With your cooperation, we can re-create the scenario. You’ll enter it, play your part, and then go back to your life. What happens then will be entirely up to you. No interference from me or anybody like me, I swear. But you have to agree to it. We can’t do a thing without your permission.”

  As I spoke, Martha’s face grew more and more expressionless. Her eyes were hard and unblinking. Which suggested that the one thing I feared most—that she would go catatonic, burying that beautiful spark of life deeper and deeper under soft cottony layers of silence and inertia—was a very real possibility. “Please,” I said. “Say something.”

  To my surprise, Martha said, “What does reality look like?”

  “I’m not sure I understand you. This is reality. All around you.”

  “It’s a fucking set! Show me what’s behind it, or underneath it, or however the hell you want to put it. Show me what remains when the set is gone.”

  “I honestly don’t advise that. It would only upset you.”

  “Do it!”

  Reluctantly, I pushed back the chair. There was nothing scheduled anywhere behind the house for hours. I went to the back door. I opened it—

  —revealing the roiling, churning emptiness that underlies the world we constantly make and unmake in the service of our duty. The colorless, formless negation of negatives that is Nothing and Nowhere and Nowhen. The calm horror of nonbeing. The grey.

  I stood looking into it, waiting for Martha to make a noise, to cry out in fear, to beg me to make it go away. But though I waited for the longest time, she did not.

  Fearing the worst, I turned back to her.

  “All right,” Martha said. “Rewind me.”

  So I took Martha Geissler back to where it had all begun. The sun and clouds were carefully placed exactly where they’d been, and the stagehands brought out the locomotives and hooked them up to the correct number of freight cars. Because the original engineer was talent, we put in a prop in his place The script didn’t call for the two of them to ever meet, so there wouldn’t be any continuity problems.

  “Here’s your mark,” I told Martha for the umpteenth time. “When the train passes that telephone pole over there—”

  “I step into its path,” she said. “Then I slowly count to ten and step backwards off the track. This time there won’t be a soda bottle underfoot. How many times have we gone over this? I know my lines.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and stepped into the grey to wait and watch.

  The train came rumbling forward, only moderately fast but with tremendous momentum. Closer it came, and closer, and when it reached the telephone pole I’d chosen as a marker, Martha did not step into its path. Instead, she stood motionless by the side of the track.

  The prop engineer hit the air horn just as the real one had, despite the fact that the track before him was empty. Still, Martha did nothing.

  Then, at the very last possible instant, she stepped in front of the train.

  There was a universal gasp from the shadows, the sound of my many brothers and sisters caught completely by surprise. Followed by a moment of perfect silence. Then by rolling thunderheads of applause.

  It was an astonishing thing for Martha to do—and she’d done it calmly, without giving me the least sign of what was to come. But I didn’t join in the applause.

  Briefly, I understood what it was like to be one of them. The talent, I mean. For the first time in my very long existence, I wanted something to not have happened.

  Thus ended Martha’s story. I returned to my own world and to the job of maintaining and arranging the world whose inhabitants fondly believe to be real. Theirs is, for all its limitations, larger and more commodious than mine. But I do not begrudge them that. Their lives are more difficult and far more profound than anything I shall ever experience. Neither do I begrudge them that. We all have our places in existence and our parts to play.

  Martha was a star in what we call the Great Game and what they (you) call reality. I am just a cog in the machinery. But if all my functions are mechanical, at least my reactions to it are not. I am not a camera. I am not a voyeur. Nor, God knows, am I the wizard behind the curtain, manipulating everything to his own benefit. Nothing of the sort.

  I am the man in grey, and I love you all.

  THE DALA HORSE

  Something terrible had happened. Linnéa did not know what it was. But her father had looked pale and worried, and her mother had told her, very fiercely, “Be brave!” and now she had to leave, and it was all the result of that terrible thing.

  The three of them lived in a red wooden house with steep black roofs by the edge of the forest. From the window of her attic room, Linnéa could see a small lake silver with ice very far away. The design of the house was unchanged from all the way back in the days of the Coffin People, who buried their kind in beautiful polished boxes with metal fittings like nothing anyone made anymore. Uncle Olaf made a living hunting down their coffin-sites and salvaging the metal from them. He wore a necklace of gold rings he had found, tied together with silver wire.

  “Don’t go near any roads,” her father had said. “Especially the old ones.” He’d given her a map. “This will help you find your grandmother’s house.”

  “Mor-Mor?”

  “No, Far-Mor. My mother. In Godastor.”

  Godastor was a small settlement on the other side of the mountain. Linnéa had no idea how to get there. But the map would tell her.

  Her mother gave her a little knapsack stuffed with food, and a quick hug. She shoved something deep in the pocket of Linnéa’s coat and said, “Now go! Before it comes!”

  “Good-bye, Mor and Far,” Linnéa had said formally, and bowed.

  Then she’d left.

  So it was that Linnéa found herself walking up a long, snowy slope, straight up the side of the mountain. It was tiring work, but she was a dutiful little girl. The weather was harsh, but whenever she started getting cold, she just turned up the temperature of her coat. At the top of the slope she came across a path, barely wide enough for one person, and so she followed it onward. It did not occur to her that this might be one of the roads her father had warned her against. She did not wonder at the fact that it was completely bare of snow.

  After a while, though, Linnéa began to grow tired. So she took off her knapsack and dropped it in the snow alongside the trail and started to walk away.

  “Wait!” the knapsack said. “You’ve left me behind.”

  Linnéa stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you’re too heavy for me to carry.”

  “If you can’t carry me,” said the knapsack, “then I’ll have to walk.”

  So it did.

  On she went, followed by the knapsack, until she came to a fork in the trail. One way went upward and the other down. Linnéa looked from one to the other. She had no idea which to take.

  “Why don’t you get out the map?” her knapsack suggested.

  So she did.

  Carefully, so as not to tear, the map unfolded. Contour lines squirmed across its surface as it located itself. Blue stream-lines ran downhill. Black roads and stitched red trails went where they would. “We’re here,” said the map, placing a pinprick light at its center. “Where would you like to go?”

  “To Far-Mor,” Linnéa said. “She’s in Godastor.”

  “That’s a long way. Do you know how to read maps?”

  “No.”

  “Then take the road to the right. Whenever you come across another road, take me out and I’ll tell you which way to go
.”

  On Linnéa went, until she could go no farther, and sat down in the snow beside the road. “Get up,” the knapsack said. “You have to keep on going.” The muffled voice of the map, which Linnéa had stuffed back into the knapsack, said, “Keep straight on. Don’t stop now.”

  “Be silent, both of you,” Linnéa said, and, of course, they obeyed. She pulled off her mittens and went through her pockets to see if she’d remembered to bring any toys. She hadn’t, but in the course of looking she found the object her mother had thrust into her coat.

  It was a dala horse.

  Dala horses came in all sizes, but this one was small. They were carved out of wood and painted bright colors with a harness of flowers. Linnéa’s horse was red; she had often seen it resting on a high shelf in her parents’ house. Dala horses were very old. They came from the time of the Coffin People who lived long ago, before the time of the Strange Folk. The Coffin People and the Strange Folk were all gone now. Now there were only Swedes.

  Linnéa moved the dala horse up and down, as if it were running. “Hello, little horse,” she said.

  “Hello,” said the dala horse. “Are you in trouble?”

  Linnéa thought. “I don’t know,” she admitted at last.

  “Then most likely you are. You mustn’t sit in the snow like that, you know. You’ll burn out your coat’s batteries.”

  “But I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.”

  “I’ll teach you a song. But first you have to stand up.”

  A little sulkily, Linnéa did so. Up the darkening road she went again, followed by the knapsack. Together she and the dala horse sang:

  “Hark! through the darksome night

  Sounds come a-winging:

  Lo! ’tis the Queen of Light1

  Joyfully singing.”

  The shadows were getting longer and the depths of the woods to either side turned black. Birch trees stood out in the gloom like thin white ghosts. Linnéa was beginning to stumble with weariness when she saw a light ahead. At first she thought it was a house, but as she got closer, it became apparent it was a campfire.

  There was a dark form slumped by the fire. For a second, Linnéa was afraid he was a troll. Then she saw that he wore human clothing and realized that he was a Norwegian or possibly a Dane. So she started to run toward him.

  At the sound of her feet on the road, the man leaped up. “Who’s there?” he cried. “Stay back—I’ve got a cudgel!”

  Linnéa stopped. “It’s only me,” she said.

  The man crouched a little, trying to see into the darkness beyond his campfire. “Step closer,” he said. And then, when she obeyed, “What are you?”

  “I’m just a little girl.”

  “Closer!” the man commanded. When Linnéa stood within the circle of firelight, he said, “Is there anybody else with you?”

  “No, I’m all alone.”

  Unexpectedly, the man threw his head back and laughed. “Oh god!” he said. “Oh god, oh god, oh god, I was so afraid! For a moment there I thought you were . . . well, never mind.” He threw his stick into the fire. “What’s that behind you?”

  “I’m her knapsack,” the knapsack said.

  “And I’m her map,” a softer voice said.

  “Well, don’t just lurk there in the darkness. Stand by your mistress.” When he had been obeyed, the man seized Linnéa by the shoulders. He had more hair and beard than anyone she had ever seen, and his face was rough and red. “My name is Günther, and I’m a dangerous man, so if I give you an order, don’t even think of disobeying me. I walked here from Finland, across the Gulf of Bothnia. That’s a long, long way on a very dangerous bridge, and there are not many men alive today who could do that.”

  Linnéa nodded, though she was not sure she understood.

  “You’re a Swede. You know nothing. You have no idea what the world is like. You haven’t . . . tasted its possibilities. You’ve never let your fantasies eat your living brain.” Linnéa couldn’t make any sense out of what Günther was saying. She thought he must have forgotten she was a little girl. “You stayed here and led ordinary lives while the rest of us. . . .” His eyes were wild. “I’ve seen horrible things. Horrible, horrible things.” He shook Linnéa angrily. “I’ve done horrible things as well. Remember that!”

  “I’m hungry,” Linnéa said. She was. She was so hungry her stomach hurt.

  Günther stared at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then he seemed to dwindle a little and all the anger went out of him. “Well . . . let’s see what’s in your knapsack. C’mere, little fellow.”

  The knapsack trotted to Günther’s side. He rummaged within and removed all the food Linnéa’s mother had put in it. Then he started eating.

  “Hey!” Linnéa said. “That’s mine!”

  One side of the man’s mouth rose in a snarl. But he shoved some bread and cheese into Linnéa’s hands. “Here.”

  Günther ate all the smoked herring without sharing. Then he wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down by the dying fire to sleep. Linnéa got out her own little blanket from the knapsack and lay down on the opposite side of the fire.

  She fell asleep almost immediately.

  But in the middle of the night, Linnéa woke up. Somebody was talking quietly in her ear.

  It was the dala horse. “You must be extremely careful with Günther,” the dala horse whispered. “He is not a good man.”

  “Is he a troll?” Linnéa whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  “But I’ll do my best to protect you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Linnéa rolled over and went back to sleep.

  In the morning, troll-Günther kicked apart the fire, slung his pack over his shoulder, and started up the road. He didn’t offer Linnéa any food, but there was still some bread and cheese from last night which she had stuffed in a pocket of her coat, so she ate that.

  Günther walked faster than Linnéa did, but whenever he got too far ahead, he’d stop and wait for her. Sometimes the knapsack carried Linnéa. But because it only had enough energy to do so for a day, usually she carried it instead.

  When she was bored, Linnéa sang the song she had learned the previous day.

  At first, she wondered why the troll always waited for her when she lagged behind. But then, one of the times he was far ahead, she asked the dala horse and it said, “He’s afraid and he’s superstitious. He thinks that a little girl who walks through the wilderness by herself must be lucky.”

  “Why is he afraid?”

  “He’s being hunted by something even worse than he is.”

  At noon they stopped for lunch. Because Linnéa’s food was gone, Günther brought out food from his own supplies. It wasn’t as good as what Linnéa’s mother had made. But when Linnéa said so, Günther snorted, “You’re lucky I’m sharing at all.” He stared off into the empty woods in silence for a long time. Then he said, “You’re not the first girl I’ve encountered on my journey, you know. There was another whom I met in what remained of Hamburg. When I left, she came with me. Even knowing what I’d done, she. . . .” He fished out a locket and thrust it at Linnéa. “Look!”

  Inside the locket was a picture of a woman. She was an ordinary pretty woman. Just that and nothing more. “What happened to her?” Linnéa asked.

  The troll grimaced, showing his teeth. “I ate her.” His look was wild as wild could be. “If we run out of food, I may have to cook and eat you too.”

  “I know,” Linnéa said. Trolls were like that. She was familiar with the stories. They’d eat anything. They’d even eat people. They’d even eat other trolls. Her books said so. Then, because he hadn’t told her yet, “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. Someplace safe.”

  “I’m going to Godastor. My map knows the way.”

  For a very long time Günther mulled that over. At last, almost reluctantly, he said, “Is it safe there, do you think?”

/>   Linnéa nodded her head emphatically. “Yes.”

  Pulling the map from her knapsack, Günther said, “How far is it to Godastor?”

  “It’s on the other side of the mountain, a day’s walk if you stay on the road, and twice, maybe three times that if you cut through the woods.”

  “Why the hell would I want to cut through the woods?” He stuffed the map back in the knapsack. “Okay, kid, we’re going to Godastor.”

  That afternoon, a great darkness rose up behind them, intensifying the shadows between the trees and billowing up high above until half the sky was black as chimney soot. Linnéa had never seen a sky like that. An icy wind blew down upon them so cold that it made her cry and then froze the tears on her cheeks. Little whirlwinds of snow lifted off of the drifts and danced over the empty black road. They gathered in one place, still swirling, in the ghostly white form of a woman. It raised an arm to point at them. A dark vortex appeared in its head, like a mouth opening to speak.

  With a cry of terror, Günther bolted from the road and went running uphill between the trees. Where the snow was deep, he bulled his way through it.

  Clumsily, Linnéa ran after him.

  She couldn’t run very fast and at first it looked like the troll would leave her behind. But halfway up the slope Günther glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He hesitated, then ran back to her. Snatching up Linnéa, he placed her on his shoulders. Holding onto her legs so she wouldn’t fall, he shambled uphill. Linnéa clutched his head to hold herself steady.

  The snow lady didn’t follow.

  The farther from the road Günther fled, the warmer it became. By the time he crested the ridge, it was merely cold. But as he did so, the wind suddenly howled so loud behind them that it sounded like a woman screaming.

  It was slow going without a road underfoot. After an hour or so, Günther stumbled to a stop in the middle of a stand of spruce and put Linnéa down. “We’re not out of this yet,” he rumbled. “She knows we’re out here somewhere, and she’ll find us. Never doubt it, she’ll find us.” He stamped an open circle of snow flat. Then he ripped boughs from the spruce trees and threw them in a big heap to make a kind of mattress. After which, he snapped limbs from a dead tree and built a fire in the center of the circle.