Firebirds Rising

by Sharyn November

  The shock pushed the words out of my mouth. “I love you, Sara.”

  She shook her head, wide-eyed. “Oh…”

  “Marry me. I’m going to Colorado next month, you can go with me. You can finish school there—”

  Sara was still shaking her head, and now her eyes were full of tears and reflected stars. She reached out a hand, stretching it out as if we were far, far apart. “Oh, Jimmy. I want—Oh, don’t you see?”

  “Don’t you care for me, Sara?”

  She gave a terrible wordless cry, as if she were being twisted in invisible hands. “I can’t leave!”

  “But for you and me—”

  “There are more people than just us. They need me.”

  “Your folks? They’ve got your brothers. They don’t need you the way I do.”

  “Jimmy, you’re not listening. I can’t leave. I’m the mountain.”

  Her face wasn’t crazy. It was streaked with tears and a deep, adult sorrow, like the saints’ statues in St. Patrick’s Church. Sara reached out to me the way Mary’s statue reached down from her niche over the altar, pity and yearning in the very fingerjoints. I saw the waving heat around her, and the stars in her eyes and her hair.

  I stepped back a pace. I couldn’t help it.

  I saw her heart break. That’s the only way I can describe what I watched in her face. But when it was done, what was left in her eyes and her mouth and the way she held her head was strong and certain and brave.

  “Good-bye, Jimmy,” she said. She turned, sure-footed, and ran like a deer along the tailings ridge into the night.

  I think I shouted her name. I know that something set the dogs barking all over South Hollier, and eventually Enrique Gutierrez was shaking me by the shoulders.

  When Sara hadn’t come home by morning, we called the police. Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez were afraid she’d broken her leg, or fallen and been knocked out. I couldn’t talk about what I was afraid of, so I agreed with them, that that could have happened.

  Every able-bodied person in South Hollier joined the search. Everyone thought it would be over in an hour or so. By afternoon the police had brought dogs in, and were looking for fresh slides. They didn’t say they were looking for places where the rocks might have engulfed a body.

  If she was out there, the dogs would have found her. Still, I had to go down to the station, because I was the last one to see her, because the girl at the lunch counter had heard our fight. And God knows, I must have seemed a little crazy. I told them what I’d seen and what we’d said. I just didn’t tell them what I thought had happened.

  I didn’t transfer to the Colorado School of Mines. Leveling mountains didn’t appeal to me anymore. I went back to premed, and started on medical school at the University of Arizona. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, I enlisted, and went to the Pacific as a medic.

  After the war, I finished medical school and hired on as a company doctor at the hospital in Hollier. Pop had passed, and Mom was glad to have me nearby. I couldn’t live in the house on Collar Hill, though, that looked down the canyon to where Guadalupe Hill had been. I found a little house in South Hollier, small enough for a bachelor to handle.

  The Gutierrez house was gone. As the dump grew, it needed a bigger base, and the company bought the house and knocked it down to make room for more rock. Mr. and Mrs. Gutierrez bought a place down at the south end of Wilson, and while they were alive, I used to visit and tell them how their old neighbors were getting on.

  I’d lived in South Hollier for a couple of months before I climbed the slope of the tailings one December night and sat in the starlight. I sat for maybe an hour before I felt her beside me. I didn’t turn to look.

  “The mountain’s happy now,” I said. My voice cracked a little.

  “I’m happy,” she said. “Be happy for me, Jimmy.”

  “Who’s going to be happy for me?”

  “I’ll do that. Maybe someday you will, too.”

  I shook my head, but it seemed silly to argue with her.

  “What used to be good still is,” she said. “Remember that.” And after a minute, “I take care of everybody, but you most of all.”

  “I’ll die after a while and save you the trouble.”

  “Not for a long time.” There was motion at the corner of my eye, and I felt warm lips against my cheek. “I love you, Jimmy.”

  Then there was nothing beside me but a gust of cold wind.

  I’d watched the mining of Guadalupe Hill, and thought men could do anything, be anything, conquer anything. I’d thought we’d cure cancer any day.

  Now Guadalupe Pit is as deep as Guadalupe Hill once was high, and next to it there’s a second pit that would hold three Guadalupes. Both pits are shut down, played out. There’s no cure for cancer, the AIDS quilt is so big that there’s no place large enough to roll the whole thing out at once, and diabetes has gone from a rarity to an epidemic.

  But in South Hollier there’s a ridge that could have been nothing more than a heap of barren, cast-off rock; and a cluster of buildings that could have slowly emptied and died inside their wall. Instead there’s a mountain with a goddess, and a neighborhood that rests safe and happy, as if in her warm cupped hands.

  —For Elise Matthesen, and the necklace of the same title

  EMMA BULLlives in Tucson, Arizona, in the twenty-first century, but is fond of road trips and time travel. She’s the author of several fantasy novels, including War for the Oaks, Finder, Bone Dance (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and the second-place Philip K. Dick Award novel), and (with Steven Brust) Freedom and Necessity. With her husband, Will Shetterly, she edited the Liavek fantasy anthologies (see Pamela Dean’s story “Cousins” for a window into Liavek). She’s been in several bands, most recently the Flash Girls. Her cat, Toby, is teaching her to play tag. For more information, see www.qwertyranch.com.

  AUTHOR ’S NOTE

  If I were writing a term paper, I’d have to say, “Landscape and history are one of the author’s most dependable sources of inspiration.” For this story, one inspiration was Bisbee, Arizona, which seems to me to have more story ideas per capita than is reasonable. Bisbee’s full of weird magic.

  Inspiration was also provided by Elise Matthesen’s named necklace, “What Used to Be Good Still Is.” For glimpses of Elise’s awesome jewelry, check out www.lioness.net.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  If a book can be compared to a theater production, a list of books like Firebird is basically a continuous repertory season. There are a lot of people behind the scenes who make it happen, and who are never thanked. Let me tell you who they are.

  FIREBIRD

  The editorial boards, both teen and other

  Ginny Schneider was my 2005 summer intern and I wish she could’ve stayed

  PUFFIN

  (Note: Firebird is an imprint of Puffin)

  Eileen Kreit: Vice President and Publisher

  Gerard Mancini and Phil Airoldi: Associate Publisher and Utility Outfielder

  Pat Shuldiner and Martin P. Karlow: Copy Editors

  Deborah Kaplan, Linda McCarthy, Nick Vitiello, Kristina Duewell, Jeanine Henderson, Tony Sahara, Jay Cooper (in absentia), Sam Kim (who typeset this book and made all of the exhaustive changes), and Christian Fünfhausen: Art Directors and Designers

  Lori Thorn: Creator of the Firebird logo, and designer of this book's cover

  Amy White and Jason Primm: Production

  Nally Preseault: Almost everything else

  VIKING

  (Note: All of the other fantasy and sf books I edit are published by Viking first)

  Regina Hayes: President and Publisher

  Gerard Mancini and Laurie Perl: Managing Editorial

  Denise Cronin, Nancy Brennan, Kelley McIntyre, Jim Hoover: Art Directors and Designers

  Janet Pascal: Fellow Diana Wynne Jones fan and Executive Production Editor

  Nico Medina: Copyediting

  PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC .

 
; Doug Whiteman: Head of the Children’s Group

  Mariann Donato: Director of Sales and Marketing

  Jackie Engel, Jennifer O’Donohue, Nancy Feldman (in absentia), Mary Raymond, Annie Naughton, Robyn Fink, Allan Winebarger, Janet Krug: Sales

  Our field and inside sales reps rock the house and should be worshipped (a special acknowledgment here to Dave Cudmore and Ron Smith)

  Gina Maolucci (in absentia), Emily Romero, Gina Balsano, Katrina Weidknecht, Lucy Del Priore, Lauren Adler, Andrea Cruise, Jess Michaels, Ed Scully, Lara Phan, Kim Chocolaad, Courtney Wood: Marketing

  George Schumacher and Camille DeLuca: Contracts

  Susan Allison, Ginjer Buchanan, Anne Sowards: Ace Books

  Betsy Wollheim, Sheila Gilbert, Debra Euler: DAW

  Cindy Spiegel: Riverhead Books

  OTHER NICE PEOPLE

  Jude Feldman titled this book. She and Alan Beatts are the main people responsible for Borderlands Books in San Francisco (www.borderlands-books.com). Go there and buy things.

  I remain amazed by the wholehearted support and friendship offered me by both fans and pros in the genre fiction field. Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed, come up to me at cons, and bought the books. And special thanks to Charles M. Brown and the staff at Locus, Ellen Datlow, John Douglas, Jo Fletcher and Simon Spanton, Diana Gill, Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, Anne Lesley Groell, Eileen Gunn, Greg Ketter and Lisa Freitag, Jaime Levine, Elise Matthesen, Shawna McCarthy, Farah Mendlesohn, Jim Minz, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Stella Paskins, Judith Ridge, Bill Schafer, Jonathan Strahan, Rodger Turner, Gordon Van Gelder, Jo and Sasha Walton, Jacob Weisman, and Terri Windling, among many others.

  An honored thank you to the Minn-StF people for Minicon.

  I want to again acknowledge all of the stellar authors in this book, and their agents.

  Our cover artists are fantastic. Special thanks to Cliff Nielsen for another stunning piece of art for this book!

  There are so many librarians, educators, and teachers who have gotten behind Firebird, and they all deserve applause.

  And of course, I need to mention my father, Frederick November. Not only is he genetically responsible for my reading speed and somewhat bizarre sense of humor and dubious social skill, but he is one of the best people in the entire world. He even laughs at my jokes. Everyone should know someone like him; I get to be related to him!

  ABOUT THEEDITOR

  SHARYN NOVEMBERwas born in New York City, and has stayed close by ever since. She received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied and wrote poetry; her work has appeared in Poetry, The North American Review, and Shenandoah, among other magazines, and she received a scholarship to Bread Loaf. She has been editing books for children and teenagers for over fifteen years, and is currently Senior Editor for Viking Children’s Books and Puffin Books, as well as the Editorial Director of Firebird. Her writing about her work with teenage readers (both online and in person) has been published in The Horn Book and Voice of Youth Advocates, and she is currently working on an essay collection. She has been a board member of USBBY and ALAN, as well as being actively involved in ALA, NCTE, and SFWA. She was named a World Fantasy Award Finalist (Professional Category) in both 2004 and 2005—in 2004 specifically for Firebird, in 2005 for editing.

  She has played in a variety of bands (songwriter, lead singer, rhythm guitar), and maintains an extensive personal Web site at www.sharyn.org. She drinks a lot of Diet Mountain Dew and likes to cause chaos in her wake.

  The Firebird Web site is at www.firebirdbooks.com.

  * Fast Light Jump

  * Interplanetary Satellite Intercommunication

  * Interplanetary Union

  * Local Mail