by Fran Wilde
“I need to tell you I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry you found me in the desert, sorry I took you here. And sorry I made you get that Fishgirl. I ruined a lot of things, trying to help what couldn’t be helped. What shouldn’t be helped. But it’s time to make things right.”
Shadow’s eyes were crusted shut with sand, and dust lay in the fine lines of his forehead. I don’t know if he heard anything I’d said.
Outside, dusk had just started to reach across the sky, but I couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to go.
* * *
Tying Shadow onto the horse was easier than I thought. The animal was docile from the heat and didn’t much protest as I tied him onto its back, his limp head hanging off the side of the horse’s neck.
When I went to get the Fishgirl out of the well, on the other hand, things changed. The damn town changed.
At the well, the wince whined like an injured animal when I began to turn it, and the little creature suddenly weighed as much as a horse—like the well was holding on to her, wanting to keep her down in its black belly. I finally hauled her over the edge, her limbs slick and gritty with mud, and hurried to put her on the wagon. She didn’t make a sound; she just blinked at me with her milky eyes. Maybe she was too tired and dried out to make a fuss. I sweated something mighty when I tried to strap her in, the rope slipping and burning my palms like it wasn’t rope at all I was holding but a blazing hot snake.
I hurried out of the square, the wagon squealing. There were no movement on the street. Most townsfolk were huddling in their houses, their lanterns flickering behind the window panes. I led the horse through town without being noticed by a single soul. The houses and buildings sure noticed though, and they didn’t like it one bit. They loomed, and their shadows stalked us, twisted and dark and alive. There came groaning sounds from the buildings—wood cracking, floor boards splintering. But I didn’t turn around. I just tugged the reins harder.
I don’t know if it was the proximity to the Fishgirl, but when we’d gotten to the edge of town, Shadow came to. He turned his head toward me and whispered my name. I tried to catch his flickering gaze, and it steadied on me. He looked a little like a rabid dog and a tired angel all at once.
“We’re going now?” he croaked.
“Yeah, Shadow, it’s time.” I patted his shoulder. His fever was cooling, just a little. Or so I told myself. “You think you remember the way to the canyon where you found the girl?”
“Didn’t matter the first time that I didn’t know. Probably don’t matter now either.”
“Well I need you to take her back to that place. Take her back, and keep her safe there.”
“You won’t come.” It wasn’t a question. He knew.
“I gotta stay, Shadow. I let you down the moment I asked you to go get that creature. I betrayed her, and you, and all things good. I can’t undo that. I gotta pay the price, just like Woodstown.” Ma’am’s words became my own. “Sometimes it’s best to let burn what needs to burn.”
Through the caked dust on his face, and the tendrils of dried mud too, Shadow smiled. It was a sad smile. “You’re a good man. You won’t burn, Utah Sullivan.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Look around, my friend,” I said. “The dry is about to pounce on this place. Things are about to get pretty hot around here.”
“You might burn here, in the desert. But in the place where it counts, you won’t. Told you God sent you to me for a reason.” He pointed his finger to my chest. “To give you a chance to cleanse that dust off your soul before the end comes. And now I think you have.”
Shadow whispered something to the animal, words twisted and unfamiliar that I couldn’t understand. But the horse understood, and it took off at a trot, faster than I would have imagined it could, stirring up a cloud of dirt like it had the dry devil himself on its tail.
But the dry devil wasn’t on their tail. It was right there, on the edge of town, with me. The further away the horse got, the tighter the air became. It crackled in my ears.
I watched Shadow and the Fishgirl disappear into the waiting darkness, and to whatever fate awaited them beyond. Then I turned toward Woodstown and went to face my own.
I reckoned the dry was mad with me for not succumbing completely, body and soul and heart, but Shadow was right—I felt a certain peace inside, knowing I had done at least something right when I sent the two of them off.
Maybe we’d both done good, after all.
Copyright © 2014 Sylvia Anna Hiven
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Sylvia Anna Hiven lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her fiction has previously appeared in Daily Science Fiction, EscapePod, Stupefying Stories, and more. Find her on Twitter @brynnfarusiel.
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COVER ART
“Kaybor Gate,” by Alex Ries
Alex Ries is a Melbourne- based illustrator and concept artist. His artworks have been featured by publishers including Clarkesworld Magazine, Pearson Education Canada, and the Discovery Channel. He worked with THQ’s Bluetongue Entertainment studio and contributed to four published titles. His studies in diverse visual media such as painting, 3D visualization, and film, coupled with an interest in biology and real-world technology, have fostered an artistic style that can not only accurately illustrate life from the real world but fictional life as well. View his work at www.alexries.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
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Compilation Copyright © 2014 Firkin Press
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