So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction

by Christopher Barzak

  Keeping the park on your right hand side, you totter down Fifth Avenue toward the south end of the park where police are likely to be. You must outrun Finwë's visions; they sweep down on you chaotically, their chronology now violent and random.

  When you finally reach a policeman, you tell him you've been attacked, that you need to get to the hospital. Finwë's thoughts spiral down on his abduction, the stench of human waste fills your nostrils. The policeman at first ignores you, treating you like some homeless nut, then he is suddenly kind, awkwardly skirting your blindness. Missing person. He takes you into a squad car and provides a dusty wool blanket to warm you; it's smell leading Finwë to remember the damp of his tomb.

  At the hospital the nurses take you in, strip away your soiled clothes. They ask who they should call and you instantly say Jake, give them his number. He arrives after your broken foot has been x-rayed and sealed in a heavy cast and you are hooked up to a saline drip to replenish fluids. You grit your teeth through the pain, knowing that you survived. Somewhere deep within you Finwë shouts, wanting his story told.

  Jake hugs you tightly; you hear the tension in his voice as he fights off tears. You kiss him. You don't have the words to thank him for coming, for being there always. Words are kept close and tight by the elf's ghost.

  I thought you were dead. The door was broken, you were missing for days. Jake kisses the side of your head, thanking god for returning you safe and sound.

  That doesn't matter now. You ask for paper and a pencil. You have to write something down before the painkillers kick in, get the swirling stories out of your head and onto the page. You listen to Jake hold his breath, exhale slowly, the wet rise of a smile. All right.

  Jake returns with a spiral notebook and pencil purchased from the gift store. You take the pencil in hand; it feels right, a natural extension of your arm. You open the book to the first page, touch the edges with your fingers, judge where to begin. The letters begin to form, graceful sweeps and curls, the elf's words pouring out of your hand like lost magic. Finwë laughs, the sound emerging from your mouth, as his story spills onto the page.

  Sean Meriwether's work has been published in Lodestar Quarterly, Skin & Ink and Best of Best Gay Erotica 2. He is the editor of Velvet Mafia: Dangerous Queer Fiction (velvetmafia.com) online, and Men of Mystery. Sean lives in Brooklyn.

  Laura Left a Rotten Apple and Came Not to Regret the Cold of the Yukon

  Lynne Jamneck

  Never did I think I would find enchantment in a place like the Yukon. Not that I didn't believe in magic. I just never thought I'd leave the city. Then again, I should know better. I surprise myself all the time. Besides--snow, you know. It's like that.

  I left New York because it became too much of everything. Too many people, crowded beyond belief. Skyscrapers and cranes that endangered my sense of perception. Noise--the constant, grinding clamor that rendered me helpless to defend against the solid input of information. Unsympathetic concrete inflexible beneath my feet... and way too much daytime TV.

  The last straw was receiving an irate flip of the bird beneath a ginormous sky-stealing DKNY billboard by a cabbie and not understanding the accompanying insult. At times like these, I was glad I didn't own the prerequisite New York accessory--a gun.

  I packed the only three suitcases I owned and had a last stroll through Central Park. The Statue of Liberty remained her stoic self throughout our one-way conversation. I smoked a last Marlboro beneath her perpetually flaming torch. She didn't seem to think much about my confessions about quitting the habit. Maybe she missed France. I got the distinct feeling she didn't give a flying fig about my complaints. Really, who could blame her?

  I caught a KLM flight from LaGuardia Airport and spent more than ten backbreaking hours in transit, before taking a chartered airplane the size of a mosquito to the small town of Poniwok in the Yukon Territory.

  The weather was atrocious.

  Well. Too late to turn back now. I'd never give that black Gotham the satisfaction.

  ---

  Poniwok.

  Population 4,500.

  David Lynch's wet dream.

  Mountie Sergeant Gwen Morrigan looked at me intently from above the rim of her steaming cup of diner coffee. Blonde wisps of hair spider-legged from beneath her chocolate-brown wool beanie. Tuque, as she had reminded me on several occasions. Rhymes with took. Beanie--what the hell? Americans, go figure. She made me nervous for all the right reasons.

  I watched as she nestled the cup in its saucer and dumped yet more sugar from a squeezie bottle into the tar-black coffee. She never wore gloves, despite the mostly well-below-freezing-point temperatures. Tough cookie. I checked the mercury of the gauge on the wall: –6 Celsius. And I had grown used to this?

  The sergeant swallowed her coffee as if it was strong drink and looked at me mischievously. The smell of butter tarts wafted from the diner's kitchen. The taste of pecan pies without pecans. I glanced briefly at the occupied booths near us. No one seemed the least bit interested in our conversation.

  Morrigan weighed her words and asked: "Were you a rebel, Ms. Kane?"

  I almost blushed at the inflection in her voice. "Well. Not to sure about that. I write stories for a living. That, at least, is my father's idea of rebellion."

  How had we stumbled onto this topic of conversation? One moment she was asking me why a best-selling author had left the Big Apple for a small cherry, and then all of a sudden she was citing my apparent mutiny and I was feeling like a lovesick teenager.

  I hadn't planned on fooling around with the local constabulary but there was something... absurdly alluring about Gwen Morrigan. And to find her in such a desolate, barren place as Poniwok was edging on the mysterious. New York had never offered up a gem such as this.

  Gwen smiled at me knowingly. "You still haven't told me why you left New York."

  I didn't want to say something pedestrian, so I simply pitched my shoulders dismissively. "Too much... New Yorkness." So I said something stupid instead.

  "New Yorkness? Huh. And they say Canadians talk funny."

  I swallowed coffee and kept my mouth shut.

  "So what did your agent say when you told her you were taking off to a place no one had ever heard of?"

  A sudden gust of ice wind howled wolfishly round the corner of the deli and made off down the road. "She nearly had a heart attack."

  "I can imagine."

  "According to her, I wasn't rebelling; I was making the biggest mistake of my life. She said that New York forgets people once they leave the city's perimeter."

  Gwen smiled and signaled the waitress for more coffee. "We have no such qualms around here."

  ---

  The first time I saw Gwen it was snowing, a rather habitual occurrence in Poniwok. I was trying my best not to look like a total dolt while lugging my suitcases off the chartered plane that had deposited me in Old Crow, -- population 260 --about a hundred kilometers east of Poniwok.

  She stood at the foot of the steps leading down from the airplane, snowflakes plowing furiously round her head, boots sunk down in the snow up to her calves. She didn't seem to notice.

  When I finally got myself on the ground, Gwen had resolutely stuck out her hand for me to shake (no gloves) and I'd dropped everything to grab it firmly with both of my own. Curious... I remember feeling heat radiate from her, her bare hands warm through the padded wool gloves I was wearing.

  I didn't give it a beat of thought at the time. I was suffering from a wicked case of jet lag and my period had started with subliminal vengeance just hours before. I chalked the experience down to a doozie of a hot flush.

  Gwen said something but I didn't hear it over the din of the airplane's propeller and the howling wind. I smiled and nodded and she picked up two of my three suitcases without fuss and started walking toward the robust police pickup truck parked a couple of yards away. I didn't waste any time in following her. Was this the extent of the welcoming committee my agent had talked about?
Yes Laura, small isolated towns love welcoming New York celebrities to their communities. She must have been sarcastic.

  You think?

  Ruth--bless her heart--had almost choked on her breakfast baguette when I'd told her on a sun-drenched Manhattan Monday morning that I was leaving New York. She just about had a coronary when I told here where I was going.

  "Professional suicide, Laura!"

  Drama queen. I told her not to worry--people liked it when writers did eccentric things.

  "You're not eccentric Laura; you're pissing off to some... native Nowhereland!"

  Her words now carved shrill noise in my head as I ducked down and struggled my way to the police truck. I felt wet, everywhere. The lamenting wind seemed to be whispering admonitions in my ears with icy lips.

  I tossed the suitcase with the others already on the backseat and dragged myself into the passenger seat. Finally, mercifully, out of the snow. The inside of the truck wasn't much better.

  The crazy woman without gloves was sitting behind the wheel, humming off-key to an old '80's song on the radio. My face felt numb. Was that a contradiction in terms?

  "I hope you're Laura Kane," Gwen Morrigan said, looking at me with those dark, shadow-pooled eyes which seemed out of place in a place so white. "Otherwise I've gone and picked up the wrong woman."

  In different circumstances, I would have recognized that right off as the come-on line I later realized it was. But I was tired and crabby and hungry and briefly contemplated getting right back on that horsefly of an airplane and risking Ruth tell me I told you so.

  It was only later, drifting off to sleep beneath a tally of blankets that I remembered: I don't get hot flushes.

  ---

  Esther Fromgard owned the Poniwok grocery store. In truth, that was too kind a description for the place, but it fitted my vocabulary. It really was more of a supply store where you were encouraged to buy in bulk

  A box of canned tuna, a carton of instant pasta, ditto the coffee creamer.

  Now Esther, she was a talker. Why wasn't that a surprise? She took a liking to me from day one. Or maybe she just pretended very well.

  "Seeing as you're new here in town--let's see. You have one of them butterbean bags at half-price. You should eat. Just look at you. You're too thin."

  I refrained from telling her that all the butterbeans would do was make me fart. Instead, I thanked her. She waved a liver-spotted hand. "New York City, 'eh?" She lit an unfiltered cigarette with a remarkably steady hand.

  "Imagine that," I said, thinking of an old song.

  "What on earth you doing here then?" The question was both curious and skeptic.

  I took a bottle of unfamiliar but expensive-looking Scotch from a shelf. "I came to write a story."

  "Huh. Not enough stories in New York?"

  "Too many."

  "Now that--that's true."

  I wondered if Esther had been to New York but didn't ask. I took the Scotch--and the bag of beans I'd be eating through the remainder of the year--along with some fresh milk and eggs to the counter. Esther sucked her cigarette with devotion while scanning the contents of my basket. I had no idea what the items would come to. None of the supplies were price marked but, considering Esther was my only option I didn't see that it mattered much.

  "What you think of our sergeant?" Esther asked, writing what I assumed was the accumulative total of my shopping on a notepad.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Our sergeant. Gwen Morrigan. Always thought that was a funny last name. Not Poniwok stock."

  "Oh--Sergeant Morrigan!"

  She looked up at me quizzically from the notepad. "What--no sergeants in New York City? Only them detectives?" She pronounced it deh-tectives.

  "No, no, of course there are sergeants in New York." Esther's sly smile made me think she was having me on. "Sergeant Morrigan's not from here?" I asked, my curiosity peaked and wanting to cover my chagrin.

  "Nope. Came to Poniwok couple of years ago. Damned if I can exactly remember when. Filthy cigarettes--make me forgetful."

  That was a novel one for the Surgeon General to get his teeth into. "It was very nice of her to meet me at the airport."

  Esther laughed out loud. "Airport! That's a real good one, Honey. Well, someone had to go and get you in that whiteout of a snowstorm. You'da ended up in Alaska without a proper guide. This place is like Brigadoon when the snow closes in 'round it. Here you go." She handed me a distended brown paper bag and some change. I was going to have to get used to carrying cash with me.

  "The sergeant's a peach. She caught those baby-moose killers coup'la months ago with some fancy deh-tective work."

  "Mr. Morrigan must be proud," I ventured.

  Esther lit another cigarette. "No Mr. to speak of. That girl's too damn stubborn for any man. Too damn tough, too."

  I smiled at Esther and pushed past the obstinate door back out into in the cold. Things were starting to look up.

  ---

  Two months later, and the good sergeant and I were dancing round one another in the most magnificent and stupidly romantic of ways.

  Hard as it may be to believe, the weather took a turn for the worse. Ruth phoned and asked when I was coming back to New York. I told her that I'd written twenty thousand words in one week. She reiterated that this was solely because it continuously snowed in Poniwak and Fifth Avenue wasn't a taxi drive away anymore. I told her hey--if it ain't broke...

  Ruth countered by asking why I was so goddamned chirpy. I said because there was the distinct possibility that I was going to get laid very soon. Then I slammed the receiver down like a giddy teenager and promptly unplugged the phone.

  It was Tuesday morning. I was just going to sit down with a

  charged laptop and frozen knuckles when a knock at the front door stopped me from starting a new chapter. Terry McKenna--the intrepid P.I. of my mystery series--would have to wait her damn chance.

  I was expecting Koki, or Cookie, or whatever the hell his name was. Koki, an elderly Wiseman of unknown heritage, was a handyman of sorts. Jack-of-all-trades and master of all to boot. How did he do it? I had no idea. Electrical, plumbing, carpentry, whatever. Koki had a magical tool that could fix all.

  This was great news to me since the last plumber I'd foolishly invited into my apartment back in the city had done such a spectacular job at being incompetent that my whole bathroom ended up getting a rehaul. I kid you not.

  But I digress.

  Koki was supposed to come and cast his keen eye on my generator. Most of the houses in Poniwok had one, but the place I was staying in hadn't been lived in for some time. The generator had already failed me once after the electricity went down during a snowstorm. I wasn't going to have it happen again. When the lights went out in Poniwok, things were as dark as a witch's nose hole.

  I opened the front door, ready to try and understand as gracefully as possible the foreign dialect of Koki's accent. It wasn't him. Surprisingly, I didn't seem to care.

  "Sergeant Morrigan." And again, without any gloves.

  Gwen seemed pleased at my surprise. "You know you've got a gutter round back that's just about ready to hit the ground running?"

  I stuck my head round the edge of the door to look but didn't spot the felonious trimming. "Koki's coming over; I'll ask him to look at it."

  "Ah, actually, no. That's what I came to tell you. Afraid your generator and the gutter will have to wait."

  "Why don't you rather come inside? I grow cold just from looking at you out there."

  Gwen shrugged. "I'm tough."

  "So I've heard. Come inside anyway."

  In all likelihood, it could be attributed to the fact that Gwen Morrigan made me feel like a pining adolescent, but I swear... it's the queerest thing. Whenever she comes near me I smell bluebells. And maybe... peaches. And it wasn't her perfume, either. Nothing bottled smelled this fresh, this... alive. And it was as if the smell expanded outward to fill whatever room she happened to be in. Even outside, in t
he snow, in the wind, I've smelled it. She had the uncanny knack for making everything seem warmer somehow.

  You're right, Laura, babe. Pining. Adolescent.

  "I hope nothing's amiss with Koki," I said trying to get my mind back on track.

  "Oh, hell no." The low, steady timbre of her voice held a tone of amusement. "Koki's just an impatient son-of-a-bitch sometimes who won't act his age. Seems he climbed up Slick Grayson's roof day before last an' slipped."

  "Oh shit. Is he okay?"

  "No doubt. Just sprained his ankle something good in the resulting fall. He won't be on that leg for a couple of days to come."

  "Poor Koki." And damn his stupidity. What about my generator?

  Gwen stepped closer, cutting the space between us. "I thought I'd ask if you wanted to come out to the creek. Going to see if those moose poachers have been foolish enough to come back." Her lips hovered. Was there something else? For how much longer would we be able to keep our hands off each another?

  I had to say something. "You're not taking one of your constables with you?"

  A risky spark glimmered in her eyes. "Nope. Scaller's got the day off and I need Doug to supervise. Got a cluster of fresh ones from Whitehorse in the Detachment office and I don't want any of them chafing away footprints. Besides, you're a much better conversationalist than any of them."

  "Ha."

  "Better looking, too."

  "Oh--"

  Kiss her.

  Kissherforgodsake.

  "I should get back to writing..."

  "Yes, you should. So are you coming with me or what?"

  How could I resist such an invitation?

  ---

  The wind-chill factor rivaled the sharp edge of an untouched razor blade. Even in Gwen's macho pickup, I could feel it slither and creep in through the cracks, the ventilation gaps.