Asimov's SF, December 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Maybe I can't afford to be that choosy.”

  Her father let go. Addie slipped from his lap. “Good night,” he said, which was the signal that he wanted to be left alone. She left the room and closed the door behind her.

  * * * *

  Addie was in bed and her father had retreated downstairs by the time Maerleen came upstairs with Cyril. Addie sat up, arms draped over her knees, while Maerleen took off Cyril's T-shirt and pants and helped him into his pajamas.

  “Did he give you a lot of trouble about brushing his teeth?” Addie asked.

  Cyril shook his head violently.

  “No, he did not,” Maerleen said.

  “Good about the emp, too,” Cyril muttered.

  Maerleen leaned closer to him. “What's an emp?” Addie asked, thinking it had to be another of her brother's made-up words.

  “Maerleen put one in. Here.” Cyril put his hand on the back of his head near his neck.

  Maerleen said, “I did no such thing.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “I smoothed back your hair. That is all.” Addie glimpsed the fierce look in her brown eyes before she turned away. “Now be quiet and behave yourself.” Maerleen tucked him into bed and turned out the light on his night table. “Good night, Addie and Cyril.”

  “G'night,” Addie mumbled.

  “Sleep tight,” Cyril said in a singsong voice. “Don't let the bedbugs bite.”

  Maerleen disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, leaving their door open as their mother always did, because Cyril was afraid to go to sleep with the door closed. Addie heard a soft click and knew that Maerleen had closed her own door.

  She lay there, listening to the sound of people talking, punctuated by the occasional muted blare of a trombone. Her father was watching television, as he sometimes did before going to bed. Usually the indistinct sounds soothed her into sleep, but she lay there, awake, turning over on her stomach and then onto her side before the sounds abruptly died.

  Her father had gone to bed, Cyril's rhythmic deep breaths told her that he was asleep, and yet she was still awake. That must be because of Maerleen, because someone new and strange was in their house.

  Addie sat up, slipped from her bed, and tiptoed toward the doorway. There was a sliver of light at the bottom of Maerleen's closed door.

  She went into the hall, expecting Maerleen to fling her door open at any second. She could always say that she was going downstairs to the bathroom. Somebody was talking behind the closed door; it had to be Maerleen, but why would she be talking if she was in the room all by herself?

  Addie crept to the door and pressed her ear against it.

  “. . . sez dee fond hem.” Maerleen was almost whispering the words. “Empsen, but . . . neh.” There was a long silence, as if she was listening to somebody on a telephone, and then, “Bay.”

  Addie scurried back to her room, then peered around the doorway.

  There was no telephone in the room, so if Maerleen was talking to somebody when nobody was there, maybe she had some kind of secret radio device, something that a spy might use. But what would a spy want with anybody in their house?

  Maerleen's door opened. Addie imagined that she would come out in a long coat, even if it was the middle of August, holding a parrot-headed umbrella like the one in the storybook Addie had been reading that afternoon. Instead, she came out in a long white bathrobe and headed for the stairs. Addie waited until her shadowy shape had disappeared below the railing along the stairwell, then followed her. Probably only going to the bathroom, she thought as she crept down the stairs, disappointed. She reached the downstairs hallway just as the front door opened.

  Maerleen went outside, closing the screened door behind her but leaving the other door open. Her bathrobe was a luminescent bluish-white in the moonlight. Addie held her breath as she crept toward the doorway.

  Maerleen stood on the porch, looking toward the street. A man in a pale sports jacket, a floppy dark bow tie, and dark pants stood on the sidewalk, facing the house. Addie froze, even though she was sure he could not see her through the screen. He had a mop of thick white hair, a long, thin face, and held a flat metal object that looked like her father's cigarette case in one hand.

  Maerleen lifted an arm and shook her head.

  “Tamara,” the man called out.

  Maerleen shook her head again. “Not now.”

  “Will see.” The man nodded, looked down, and disappeared.

  Addie caught her breath. He had just winked out all of a sudden, the way people sometimes did in her dreams. Maybe she wasn't really awake. But he couldn't have disappeared. He had only stepped into the black shadows under the small tree in their front yard, where she couldn't see him.

  Maerleen turned toward the door. Addie scurried into the living room and slipped behind the sofa.

  Maerleen's pale robe made her look like a ghost as she moved through the hallway. Addie held her breath until she heard creaking sounds from the stairway. Maerleen and the man outside obviously knew each other. Maybe they were in love. Maybe they were spies; that was what Leslie would think.

  Addie crept out from behind the sofa. The front door was open. She went to close it and saw that the man was across the street now, his back to her, and then he moved away from the streetlight and disappeared again.

  She closed the door and went upstairs slowly, treading lightly on the steps that creaked. She made it to the second floor without making any noise, but as she passed Maerleen's room, heard her voice behind the door.

  “. . . don't know,” Maerleen was saying. “Give me more time. Think . . .” Addie hurried to her room, afraid to hear anything more.

  “Addie!” Cyril shouted from his bed.

  “Shh!”

  “Addie!” he cried out in an even louder voice.

  “Shut up,” she whispered. “You'll wake up Maerleen.” She got into bed and pulled up the top sheet.

  “She won't hear me,” Cyril said in a soft, calm voice that did not sound at all like his. “And she's already awake. I heard her.”

  “Be quiet.”

  He did not say anything else. She lay there, counting her breaths, which made more sense to her than counting sheep, and at last fell asleep.

  * * * *

  Leslie Vicks said, “I think she's weird.” Leslie had come home from camp the day before and had just met Maerleen a little while ago.

  Addie sat on the front steps of her house with Leslie and Bobby Renfrew. Erastus, the Meyers’ orange-furred cat, had wandered over from next door and was stretched out on the step next to Bobby. Cyril was behind them on the porch playing with Lincoln Logs; he had already put together a ranch house and a stagecoach station.

  “She's okay,” Bobby protested.

  Leslie leaned toward Addie. Her brown hair was longer, and her bangs came down to her eyes. “I think she's up to something,” Leslie whispered. “Maybe she's a spy.”

  Addie looked around uneasily, even though Maerleen had left right after meeting Leslie to spend the afternoon at the Hayes University library. At least that was where she had told Addie's mother she was going, but maybe she was meeting that man she had spoken to from the porch two nights ago. Maybe they were climbing the hills of the Hayes University campus to look at the gorges, or having a picnic in the park near Delphi College.

  “I said maybe she's a spy,” Leslie repeated. “A Red spy, from Russia.”

  Addie waited for Bobby to tell Leslie she was silly, with all her talk about spies. Instead he said, “Maybe a spy would come here.”

  “To Delphi?” Addie snorted. “Why would a spy come to Delphi?”

  “I wasn't talking just about the town, I meant your house.”

  “Why would a spy come to my house?”

  “Because your dad's a scientist,” Bobby replied, “and scientists know stuff, like how to make A-bombs.”

  “Dad's still in school,” Addie said. “He isn't a scientist yet.”

  Bobby squinted at he
r through his glasses. “But he wants to be one, doesn't he? That's what he's studying, and there's a couple of profs at Hayes who worked on the A-bomb, aren't there? Maybe the Commies want to get them on their side.”

  “That's silly,” Addie said, but Bobby might be on to something. His father had joined the Army and died in Korea, so Bobby had good reason to worry about Commies, and his mother had a job at the town library and was always bringing books home for him to read. He was smart; he knew more than she did, anyway, with all his reading, which made her feel that she had to at least consider whatever he said.

  “Maerleen isn't a Commie,” Cyril said behind them.

  “I didn't say it,” Bobby said, “Leslie did.”

  “Did not.” Leslie scowled. “I said maybe she was a spy.”

  Cyril said, “She's not a spy, neither.”

  Addie turned to look at her brother. He didn't sound like himself, and now he was staring right at Leslie as if he actually saw her, instead of looking down or away from her.

  “How do you know?” Leslie said. “How could you know?”

  “I just know.” Cyril shrugged. “She showed me another strawberry birdie this morning.”

  That was impossible, Addie thought; they only saw those on the wall in the afternoon.

  “She said she came down a thread looking for me,” Cyril continued, “and it took a long time but she found me, and then she showed me the strawberry birdie, and then we went downstairs and she went out.”

  Leslie snickered. “Strawberry birdies.”

  “Don't make fun of him,” Bobby said.

  “She sounds funny when she talks. She sure doesn't sound like an American.” Leslie stood up. “Let's go to my house.” She waved an arm at Addie. “Come on.”

  Addie did not move.

  “You just gonna sit there with Bobby and that stupid cat and your retard brother?”

  “Don't call him a retard,” Bobby said.

  “Well?” Leslie put her hands on her hips. “Are you coming?”

  Addie shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. Leslie stomped toward the sidewalk, looked back over her shoulder, then ran down the street.

  “She's mad,” Bobby said as he scratched Erastus behind the ears. The orange cat hunkered down, resting his head on his front paws. “But she won't stay mad.”

  Addie said, “I don't know about that. Anyway, she shouldn't have said that about Cyril.”

  Bobby got up. “Wanna go to Capetti's?” Capetti's Haven, a store that sold candy, paperbacks, and comic books, was one of Bobby's favorite places.

  “Can't. Mom told me to keep an eye on Cyril.”

  “Bring him along, then.”

  She glanced at her brother. He seemed all right now, but he might start acting up if they went downtown, she'd have to watch him whenever they crossed the street, and she didn't feel like walking the three blocks to Capetti's just to hang around while Bobby looked at all the Tales from the Crypt comics his mom would not allow him to read at home.

  “Nah,” she said. “We better stay here.”

  Bobby shrugged, then hurried toward the sidewalk and down the street. Addie gazed after him until he disappeared around the corner. “You told Leslie you saw a strawberry birdie this morning,” she said, “but you couldn't have.”

  “I did too. Maerleen showed it to me.” Cyril took the ranch house of Lincoln Logs apart and put the pieces carefully back into the box, then pushed the stagecoach station under the porch swing. “Wasn't like the other strawberry birdies.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was this big grey building like a church but with sand all around it, and these little tiny people standing on the steps in front, and next to that was this big long building with this big loop pointing up at the sky.” He made a swooping motion with his arms. “And yesterday she showed one with all this water with patches of red stuff all over and some buildings sticking up out of the water.”

  “Another strawberry birdie? When?”

  “Yesterday. She said something about it showing where she came from, but I didn't see any people.”

  He was making it up. But Cyril didn't make things up. He used funny names for things, but he did not tell stories that weren't true.

  “Ask her,” Cyril said. “She'll tell you.” He pointed across the street. “There she is.”

  Maerleen stood on the other side of the street, in the yellow shirtwaist dress she had been wearing that morning. She stuffed something into her handbag, then crossed the street. Addie wondered why she had not noticed her standing there before.

  “Go ahead,” Cyril said as Maerleen reached the sidewalk in front of their house. “Ask her.”

  “Cyril says you showed him a strawberry birdie this morning,” Addie called out as Maerleen approached them. “And he says it wasn't anything like the little car shadows, that he saw people and sand and a big long building with a loop, and yesterday you showed him another place and said—”

  “Why did you tell that to your sister?” Maerleen glanced from Addie to Cyril.

  “Because it's true.” He crouched down and crawled toward the porch swing.

  “What did you show him?” Addie asked.

  “Think of them as being like your moving pictures,” Maerleen said, “except that they are not showing images of a made-up story. They are showing something that has . . . that will happen.”

  “Maerleen?”

  Addie looked up. Her mother stood behind the screen door, dressed in the sleeveless white shirt and baggy blue shorts she wore only at home. “I thought you were going to the library,” she continued.

  “I have finished my research there.”

  “Then maybe you could take Adelaide and Cyril to the park. I'd rather have them playing there than watching television here. Just keep them away from the pool.” Their mother was afraid they might catch polio if they swam in the park pool.

  “Then you do not need me here?” Maerleen said.

  “Gail and Gary are asleep, so I'm going to take a nap.” Mrs. Almstead wiped her forehead with one hand. “It's too hot to do anything else. Just bring them back by suppertime.” She retreated into the darkness, leaving the door behind the screen door open.

  “Then we shall go to the park,” Maerleen said.

  Addie did not want to go to the park, especially if they could not swim in the pool. By now the older boys would be hogging all the swings, the slides, and the jungle gym, while the girls just sat around and watched them.

  Cyril put away the rest of his Lincoln Logs, tucked the box under his arm, and stood up. All he would do at the park was play with his Lincoln Logs. She couldn't go anywhere without her brother tagging along and doing something weird that made other kids laugh at him. Her face flamed. She suddenly wanted to hit him and wished he would go away and never come back.

  “Adelaide,” Maerleen said.

  “It's Addie!” she shouted.

  “Addie, why do you look so angry?”

  Cyril widened his eyes. She was suddenly ashamed of her anger. “There's nothing to do at the park,” she mumbled.

  “Perhaps we should go there anyway,” Maerleen said, “and find out what there is to do.”

  Addie stood up and shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Erastus padded up the steps and curled up under the porch swing. Cyril looked down at the box under his arm, then put it on top of one of the wicker chairs.

  “Come on, children.” Maerleen slung the strap of her handbag over her shoulder; Cyril grabbed her left hand. “Come on.” Addie felt fingers grip her right hand tightly. They were suddenly moving toward the sidewalk; Addie scurried to keep up with Maerleen, who kept glancing behind herself with a worried look on her face.

  They turned right, in the direction of the park. A red Chevrolet convertible sped past them, followed by a green Pontiac station wagon, and then the street was empty of traffic. As they came to the small bridge a block from their house, Maerleen let go of Addie's hand, fumbled with her
handbag, and pulled out a flat silvery object. The familiar bridge seemed to flicker and then disappeared. For a moment, all Addie saw was a distant patch of light at the end of a dark tunnel. Her stomach lurched and then, all at once, they were standing in the park next to the jungle gym.

  “Here we are,” Maerleen said.

  But this couldn't be their park. The jungle gym was rusty, several bars were missing, and the rest of the structure looked as though it would fall apart if she tried to climb on it. All of the grass was dry and yellow, with sandy patches, even though it had been green and in need of mowing just the other day, while the swings and the slides had disappeared. The pool was gone, replaced by a broken-up pit of rubble, and the brick building next to the park was only a couple of walls of reddish rock. On the other side of the street, she no longer saw the gray house with the turret and the big white house with the wraparound front porch, but instead a high metallic wall. They were the only people in the park; she wondered why no other kids were around.

  “What happened?” Addie asked. “How did you do that?” The air was strange, too, so hot and thick and sticky that sweat was already dripping from her bangs onto her face. “This doesn't look like our park.”

  “But it is,” Maerleen replied.

  “But why—”

  “No one lives near here now,” Maerleen said, “but it is the park.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “It is the park as I know it . . . as I will know it, as it will be.”

  “I still don't understand.”

  “It is what the park will be a long time from now.”

  “I don't like it,” Addie said.

  “My life and the lives of those like me are not easy lives,” Maerleen said. “We did not inherit what we might have had, but even so, our lives might have been much worse. We might not have lived at all.”

  Cyril's face was slick with sweat. He leaned against Maerleen. She put an arm over his shoulders. He was different when he was with her—quieter, able to look into her face, not shoving her away when she reached out to him.

  Maerleen's eyes widened; she suddenly looked afraid. Addie turned her head and saw a man on the other side of the park, standing near a metal pole. He wore a red and white striped jacket, white pants, and a straw hat with a wide brim. The man took off his hat, revealing a head of thick white hair.