Worlds Seen in Passing

by Irene Gallo

  I looked over at Barth, absurdly still wanting him to see how good I’d been, to get her with the wand and then cut her down, but Barth, because he was still thinking of the she-bear, wasn’t paying a whit’s worth of attention to me.

  So I looked at Ingrid instead. Her face kind of bright red with the eyes still rolled back into her skull, body shaking and dancing even though she was on the ground. Travers had gotten out from under her, and now he was putting his ear next to her. At first I thought he was trying to tell if she was still breathing, but of course, he wasn’t, he was listening. He was listening to make sure he caught every word she said.

  It could have only been a few seconds, that whispery grating voice I couldn’t quite catch. But still it scared me even worse than seeing that stool run out underneath her feet, the sound of Ingrid’s truth saying. I don’t know what she said, but Travers’s face went white, and when she was done her body stopped its shakes.

  “Travers,” I said. Even though I was scared, I wanted to be Witness still. It was my job, and so I wanted him to tell me. “Just whisper it,” I told him then. “Go on.”

  “No use,” Travers answered, and I couldn’t tell quite what he was talking about but then it became clear to me. Travers let go of her head. I realized how he’d been holding it steady so he could hear, but then the neck lolled at a strange, unnatural angle, and I knew it had snapped like a wet branch during the fall.

  “Old Hangjaw wanted her to pay her daddy’s blood price,” he said.

  * * *

  That frightened me something fierce. Not just that Ingrid had died, well, I’d seen death before, but the way I had seen her mouth moving even though her neck had been snapped clean through. We never played the hanging game after that. Some of the men from the camp brought down that ash tree and burned all the wood away from town where no one would breathe the smoke of it.

  And so we all grew up. Those of us that could, that is.

  A couple of years down the line, Travers won a scholarship and followed it south past Lawford and out of bear country. I was lonely, but I never could blame him. Dad did, though, and they never spoke much after that. And me, well, I married Barth Gibbons, even though he never whispered about a red-haired, slim-hipped woman. I guess we can all make our own luck. That’s what I did that day when I was seventeen, and I went with Barth out to the Lawford Drive-In Theatre. I didn’t know at the time how easy it was for something to take root in you, but several months later, after I’d been retching for a week, convinced I had a helluva stomach flu, Momma told me she reckoned I must be pregnant.

  She was right, of course. Dad was pissed for a while but after Barth proposed and we got properly married then he was okay. The baby, though, didn’t come the way we expected it to. She came two months too early, in a slick of blood that sure as hell smelled to me like bear piss though no one else will say so. I lost the next one that way too, and the next, just so many until I wouldn’t let Barth touch me because I didn’t want to see all those tiny, broken bodies laid out in the blood pooling at my legs.

  Then one day, after the spring Barth bit into that she-bear and I had to knock him in the side with the hazelwand until he bled just to keep old Hangjaw happy, Travers called me up. I’d just lost another, a little boy who I had already starting trying out names for even though the doctor told me that was a god-awful bad idea to do so. And Travers said to me, “Okay, Skye, I know we can’t talk about it, I know we’re not supposed to, but I’m going to say anyway. You just keep going, okay, Skye? You’re almost paid up.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I couldn’t do it anymore, I’d seen all of the little bodies that I could, and all I could smell was bear piss. But I loved Travers, I always had, and I remembered what it was like to hold his hand out there by the tree. I remembered the hanging game.

  And so that night, though he was tired of it too and his eyes were bright and shiny and he said he couldn’t face another stillbirth either, still, I kissed Barth on the mouth. Nine months later out came little Astrid, as clean and sweet smelling as any a little baby was.

  So now I’m cradling that body of hers close to mine, her little thatch of black hair fluffed up like a goose and the rest of her so tightly swaddled there’s nothing but a squalling face. I’m looking at her and I love this child of mine so much, more than I can rightly say. “Shh,” I’m saying to her. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t be afraid now, girl.”

  But I can’t stop thinking about that hill Dad left covered in bear bones that one summer way back when. Can’t stop thinking about the nine little bodies I had to bury in the dirt before this little child of mine came along. As I’m holding her in my arms, feeling the warmth of her tucked tight against me, that thing that feels like the best thing in the world, I’m also wondering if she’ll ever go out one fine afternoon to play the hanging game, and I’m wondering about the things our parents leave us, the good and the bad, and whether a thing is ever truly over.

  HELEN MARSHALL is a critically acclaimed author, editor, and medievalist. After receiving a Ph.D. from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, she spent two years completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. She was recently appointed Lecturer of Creative Writing and Publishing at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England. Her first collection of fiction, Hair Side, Flesh Side, won the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer in 2013, and her second collection, Gifts for the One Who Comes After, won the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award in 2015, and was short-listed for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. Her stories and poetry have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including Abyss & Apex, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Tor.com.

  The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere

  John Chu

  In the near future, water falls from the sky whenever someone lies (either a mist or a torrential flood depending on the intensity of the lie). This makes life difficult for Matt as he maneuvers the marriage question with his lover and how best to “come out” to his traditional Chinese parents. Hugo Award winner. Edited by Ann VanderMeer.

  The water that falls on you from nowhere when you lie is perfectly ordinary, but perfectly pure. True fact. I tested it myself when the water started falling a few weeks ago. Everyone on Earth did. Everyone with any sense of lab safety anyway. Never assume any liquid is just water. When you say “I always document my experiments as I go along,” enough water falls to test, but not so much that you have to mop up the lab. Which lie doesn’t matter. The liquid tests as distilled water every time.

  Uttering “this sentence is false” or some other paradox leaves you with such a sense of angst, so filled with the sense of an impending doom, that most people don’t last five seconds before blurting something unequivocal. So, of course, holding out for as long as possible has become the latest craze among drunk frat boys and hard men who insist on root canals without an anesthetic. Psychologists are finding the longer you wait, the more unequivocal you need to be to ever find solace.

  Gus is up to a minute now and I wish he’d blurt something unequivocal. He’s neither drunk, nor a frat boy. His shirt, soaked with sweat, clings to a body that has spent twenty-seven too many hours a week at the gym. His knees lock stiff, his jeans stretched across his tensed thighs. His face shrinks as if he were watching someone smash kittens with a hammer. It’s a stupid game. Maybe in a few more weeks the fad will pass.

  I don’t know why he asked me to watch him go through with it this time, and I don’t know why I’m actually doing it. Watching him suffer is like being smashed to death with a hammer myself. At least Gus is asking for it. I know I’m supposed to be rooting for him to hold on for as long as possible, but I just want him to stop. He’s hurting so much and I can’t stand to watch anymore.

  “I love you, Matt.” Gus’s smile is radiant. He tackles me on the couch and smothers me in a kiss,
and at first, I kiss him back.

  Not only does no water fall on him, but all the sweat evaporates from his body. His shirt is warm and dry. A light, spring breeze from nowhere covers us. He smells of flowers and ozone. This makes me uneasier than if he’d been treated to a torrent. That, at least, I’d understand. I’d be sad, but I’d understand.

  He’s unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans when my mind snaps back to the here and now. It’s not that his body doesn’t have more in common with Greek statues than actual humans. It’s not that he can’t explicate Socrates at lengths that leave my jaw unhinged. It’s that not only did “I love you, Matt” pull him out of his angst, but it actually removed water.

  Fundamental laws of physics do that. Profound theorems of mathematics do that. “I love you, Matt” doesn’t count as a powerful statement that holds true for all time and space. Except when Gus says it, apparently.

  “Wait.” I let go of him. My hands reach down to slide to a sit.

  Gus stops instantly. He’s skittered back before my hands have even found the couch cushions. His head tilts up at me. This is the man who seconds ago risked going insane in order to feel soul-rending pain for fun. How can he suddenly look so vulnerable?

  Oh, if there’s anything Gus can do, it’s put up a brave front. He does that stony-faced thing where his mouth is set in a grim, straight line better than anyone I know. But behind his hard, blue eyes, I can see the fear that’s not there even when some paradox rips him apart.

  Best to take the pain now. I’m half-convinced nothing can actually hurt him, even when he’s afraid it might. It’d only hurt him more later.

  “That’s some display you just did there, Gus.” I’m stalling. Stop that. “I don’t love you, not as much as you obviously love me.”

  The water that falls on you from nowhere is freezing cold. I slip on the couch, but it just follows me. When it’s this much water, it numbs you to the bone. I want to scream, “What the fuck?” but if I even breathed, I’d drown. Gus tries to shield me, blocking my body with his, but not even he’s fast enough. I try to push him out of the downpour. However, he’s a mixed martial artist and I’m not. We share everything after the initial shock. The torrent lasts for seconds. We’re both soaked and he’s laughing so hard that he’s fallen off the couch, doubled over on the wet floor, flopping like a fish.

  I feel like I should be insulted, but his laughter is joyous. It’s like the peal of giant bells, low booms that vibrate through you and make everything in the room rattle. I can’t tell if those are tears on his face, or just the water from nowhere.

  My body shakes so hard, I can’t stand. The cushions squeak around me, keeping me bathed in ice-cold water. Gus stands up. He’s not even shivering. He picks me up, wraps me in his arms, then kisses me gently on the forehead.

  “I’m sorry, Gus. I just ruined your couch.” The floor is covered in rubber weight-lifting mats. I’ll mop that up once I can move again.

  This just sends him into another fit of laughter, more controlled this time. His hands are gentle around my waist. Without them, I’m pretty sure I’d crash onto the floor.

  “You’ve just told me that you love me in I think the only way you can, and you’re worried about the couch?”

  Coming from anyone else, that sentence would make me feel too stupid to live. Still, he has a point. I fumble but can’t find any words to answer.

  “It’ll dry off,” Gus says. “Besides, you bought the couch for me.”

  Biotech engineers make more money than personal trainers, even the world’s most overqualified ones. Who knew? Rather than actually moving in together, I’ve been slowly furnishing his apartment. Gus has patiently assumed that once the apartment no longer looks like a cross between a library and a weight room, I’ll move in. He’s long offered to move in with me, but I don’t want him to. My efficiency isn’t worthy of him. It’s just a body locker.

  “I should clean up the mess I made.” I pull away and Gus catches me before I fall. He literally sweeps me off my feet.

  “Stop fretting. It’s okay.”

  We get out of our wet clothes in the bathroom and huddle together under blankets in bed. It isn’t until he starts shivering that I realize he’s just as cold as I am. The mixed martial artist has just been more heroic, or stupid, about it.

  “You know.” Gus’s voice is surprisingly steady given how his teeth chatter. “Now that we know how we feel about each other, how about we solemnize the relationship? Make it official.”

  My brow furrows so tightly, it hurts. He’s serious. As lightly as he tossed it off, he meant it.

  “You risked permanent insanity just to ask me to marry you?” Honestly, there are less life-threatening ways.

  “No, that was just training.” He’s not joking. “I can’t imagine life without you. You can’t imagine life without me. Say yes?”

  The air stays resolutely dry. He could have made it all one big question to avoid letting whatever makes the water fall have a say.

  “My family…” I have no idea how to broach this. It’s totally possible for him to love me and still never want to see me again.

  “They know about me, right?” I swear the man reads minds.

  “Yes?” It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either. The air gets distinctly humid. My arm hairs stand on end, as if thunder were about to strike. I’m still shivering from my last lie. My mind is in tatters, torn between the cruel truth that will make him lose all respect for me and the blatant lie that will plunge me into fatal hypothermia. The pang that gnaws at my heart grows and spreads. It wrings me, twisting and squeezing the life out of me. I jerk my face into what I want to be a smile.

  “Matt, this isn’t a root canal. Don’t stretch it out. Whatever you have to say, it’s okay.”

  I take a deep breath. The release of saying something true though warms me as if I were buried in Gus’s arms on a winter’s night and we were the only people in the world. No wonder all the cool kids suspend themselves between truth and lie. However, rehearsing this speech for months in my head has not helped one bit. The words rush out so quickly, I’m not even sure what I’m saying.

  “Mandarin doesn’t have gender-specific third-person pronouns. Well, the written language does, but it’s a relatively recent invention and they all sound the same and no one really uses the female and neuter variants anyway. And it’s not like there aren’t words for ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend,’ but I always refer to you as ‘愛人.’ It means ‘sweetheart,’ ‘lover,’ ‘spouse.’ And never using your name isn’t all that unusual. Names are for friends and acquaintances. Members of your family you refer to by title—”

  When Gus interrupts me, the only thought in my mind is “Did I just tell him that I call him my spouse to my parents?”

  “Wait. Slow down.” Gus’s intellect trains on me like a sharpshooter. “The way you talk about me to your family, we might as well be married?”

  “Yes.” My stomach is in my throat. The world bobbles around me and I’m stumbling at a cliff’s edge.

  “But they don’t know my name, or that I’m male.”

  “Yes.” His bullet strikes my heart and I’ve just crashed on the rocky shore.

  “Hmm.” He wears his “I’m going to fix this” face, but then it hardens into that grim, stony thing that breaks my heart. He nudges himself against me, then holds me as if only I can fit in that gap between his arms and chest. “We can’t marry until you’re ready to come out to your family. I’ll wait as long as you want.”

  His skin transforms from cold and clammy to warm and dry. He uses declarative sentences. The truth of each one is obvious. No weasel words or qualifiers. Instead of being soaked in water though, Gus is soaked in disappointment. Normally, his smile glows and I melt in its heat. Right now, he’s wearing a cheap copy. He’s about as likely to admit that I’ve hurt him as he is to use anesthesia.

  This isn’t like him. I expected an argument. I mean, I should have come out to my family a decade ag
o. If they don’t suspect anything, it’s because I’m still years younger than Dad was when he married Mom. Instead, we behave as if I hadn’t just said no to him, albeit tacitly.

  Gus chatters on about Procopius’s Wars of Justinian. He’s just finished volume four, in the original Greek. I talk about stem cells and gene splicing. It’s as if tonight were any other night I’m over, and we’re just catching each other up on how our day went. His hands and his tone slowly ask if I’m interested even though he always interests me. I’m still cold and he covers me with his now warm body. The thoughtful smile, the affectionate way he holds me, nuzzles and kisses my neck, they try so hard to let me know that everything is fine between us, that he desires me as much as I desire him. He’s not aggressive. We’ll go as slowly as I want.

  “Let’s visit my family this Christmas. The two of us.” My voice is louder than I’d expected. “Not the ‘Christ is born’ Christmas, but the ‘get together with family and give presents to the nieces’ Christmas. We stopped when my sister and I outgrew the whole Christmas-present thing, but when she had kids, we started again. With the water falling now, I wanted to skip this year for my own sanity but—”

  “Stop.” He’s on his side, his arm around me. He’s not as happy as I want him to be. “Are you sure? I can wait years if that’s what you want.”

  “I should have done this a long time ago. I don’t think I’ll ever be any more ready.” If Gus realizes that I’m outing myself to my family for him, he’ll probably refuse to go out of sheer principle. I’m not sure I can do it with him, but I know I can’t do it without him.

  Gus senses that all I want is to be held so that’s all he does. The condoms stay in the drawer. He drifts off to sleep, and I lie next to him listening to the calm rhythm of his breath. I’m the only son. All I can think about is my parents’ “you’re responsible for carrying on the family name because when your sister marries she will become part of her husband’s family” speech. It freaked me out even before I’d come out to myself.