by Robert Reed
"There are no demons," he proclaimed.
Grandfather watched him, and waited.
"Blue Clad is a man, and Yellow Hair is another man." He wanted to whisper, but his voice grew louder with each word. "They are the same as us. And those demons who floated down the river—"
"Raven," Grandfather interrupted. "Stop this."
"They aren't demons, either. They are men, different from us in ways, but not very different. I think."
"Is that what you think?"
The old man's voice was hard and scornful.
Raven said, "Yes," as he stood, walking over to the metal ropes. Then he put a hand on top of a dead tree, and like a buck deer, he leaped over the highest rope, landing in the grass on the other side. "It's the same world over here," he announced. "It feels the same, because it is."
The old man shook his head, tears running.
"Uncle knew," said Raven, "and that's why he left us."
"He left us," said Grandfather, "because he was weak and foolish. No other reasons are needed."
Raven shook his head, wanting to hear none of it.
"You aren't weak or foolish," Grandfather continued. "But I think you have made a simple, horrible mistake."
"What is that?"
The old man followed him, crawling beneath the lowest rope and standing up stiffly to face him. "You are right. Between the spirit realm and our world, there is no difference. But that's because we lost. Our little valley was flooded with the demons' evil, and now everything belongs to them."
Raven winced and closed his eyes, thinking hard now.
"We are demons," Grandfather told him.
"I am not," Raven growled.
"You are, and I am, too. And that's why those demons confused you for men." Grandfather laughed gently, lifting his good arm and setting his open hand on Raven's shoulder. "The medicine man who brought us here…your ancestor, and mine…knew we wouldn't withstand the demons' flood. We were scarce, and we were human, and how could we be anything but weak?"
Raven shook his head, saying nothing.
"Look below," Grandfather told him. "Imagine our river rising. Imagine those cold black waters covering the valley floor, and then the bluffs, and finally us. You and I would be the last people swallowed by the awful water."
"I don't want to think about that," Raven began.
"But flood waters always fall," Grandfather continued. "And what is the first ground to rise up into the sun?"
"This is," Raven realized. "The last ground swallowed."
Grandfather grinned, saying, "Exactly. Our ancestor wanted us in this place because this place would be the first to emerge. He had a bright, wondrous vision of a great demon who would make himself human again, and make his family human, and then would make the world a good human place, free of madness and pain."
"He saw this?" Raven gulped.
The hand dropped now. "Yes, he did."
A strange sweet hope took hold of Raven. Quietly, he asked, "Could I maybe be that special one?"
Grandfather just looked at him, then turned and slipped back under the metal rope, starting to walk home. "Come with me," he said as he vanished into the shadows. "Come, or you'll never know if you could be."
Raven stood motionless for a long while.
He looked at the towers of light, and he looked down at the quiet little river. And then he looked inside himself, finding the answer waiting there.
© 2001 by Robert Reed
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Gordon Van Gelder for Spilogale, Inc., December 2001.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
* * *
Robert Reed is the exhausted author of more than two hundred SF stories, a few Fantasy/Horror efforts, and more than a dozen SF novels. Reed won the Hugo in 2007 for his novella, "A Billion Eves". His most recent book is The Memory of Sky, published in 2014 by Prime Books. He lives in Nebraska with his wife and daughter.
Jenny is Killing Turtles Again
Alexander Danner
She's got her system down: a fly on a string, to lure a snapper to snap; a sharp carving knife to sever an extended neck. Simple. Safer than other methods. She's lost toes to other methods. She's lost fingers. Snappers have wickedly sharp beaks. No one knows that better than she does. There are safer ways, of course. A heavy enough rock lobbed from a distance can shatter a carapace. Shatter a spine. You don't have to get close enough to lose digits. But that way is cruel. Jenny doesn't like cruelty.
She doesn't like killing turtles, either. But it has to be done.
There are two turtles today, which is the right number of turtles. They're near the pond, behind the house where Jenny lives with her grandmother. Where Jenny's parents used to live. It is a place where turtles rarely go anymore. A place the turtles have learned to avoid. The coincidence of finding them here heartens Jenny. It is as if they have been guided here. By something inside them. Guided to Jenny's fly on a string. To Jenny's knife.
She kills them easily. Two quick swipes are all she needs. One for each turtle. She's good at killing turtles now.
Once the turtles' heads have been safely removed from their bodies, Jenny settles into the messier task of opening their shells and peering inside. She doesn't dwell on the details of this process. She tries not to see the bones or the fluids. She doesn't vomit. She hasn't vomited in a long time. But she could. She still could, if she allowed herself to look too closely. Only one fact bears significance: once the turtles have been laid open, their shells pried apart to reveal all they contain, it is clear that there are no ghosts trapped inside.
Jenny curses, then reprimands herself for the slip in her language. Jenny doesn't talk like that. She's a good girl. But she'd been so sure. She is used to disappointment, used to the empty shells, but these two had seemed so perfect, so precisely right. But no. She'll still be killing turtles tomorrow. For today, all she has to show for her efforts is another pot of turtle meat. Her grandmother will be pleased at least. Gran loves turtle meat.
With her armload of turtle carcass, Jenny pads back to the house. She steps her bare feet into the basin of water beside the door, rinsing the blood from between her toes. She leaves the meat in a strainer over the sink, where her grandmother will clean and carve it. Later, she'll clean the shells and bones herself. She can sell them to a man who turns them into "genuine replica native art," which he in turn sells to tourists and curiosity collectors. For now, she scrubs her hands and forearms under the faucet, then climbs the stairs to her bedroom.
It is the same bedroom she slept in a year ago, though so much else had changed. One year ago, Jenny was only twelve years old. Her parents were still alive. In those days, she spent most of her time out in the woods behind her house, and that hasn't changed really. It used to be fun, though. Back before she hunted turtles. Before she started carrying her knife and her fly on a string.
And, of course, one year ago, her bedroom had not been haunted by the ghosts of strangers. There are seven now, muttering to themselves, shuffling about among her clothes and knickknacks. They play with her toys. They wear her socks. Very few of Jenny's possessions are actually Jenny's anymore. The room has become a boarding house for ghosts, and Jenny is less an inhabitant than a caretaker.
Two of the ghosts have learned to be small, have taken up residence in her old dollhouse. They like to sit together on the little wooden couch, staring at the little wooden television with its painted-on image of a young man kissing a young woman. Mostly the ghosts ignore Jenny. They aren't her ghosts. They're other peoples' ghosts, and they resent that their own children have not hunted turtles on their behalf. Their own children have sacrificed neither toes nor fingers, have not learned how sharp a turtle's beak can be. Jenny knows. The ghosts keep their gratitude to themselves. Just as Jenny keeps her own gratitude to herself. But she knows this too: it is only because of the ghosts that no one will ever take Jenny away from her house or make her live with some other
family. Who could stand to take in a girl with so many foundling spirits bound to her? Adopting such a menagerie of haunts would be unbearable.
Tonight one of the ghosts has wound up Jenny's music boxes. There are twelve of them, all built by her father in his basement workshop. Papa had been a watchmaker by trade, but music boxes weren't so different. Each played a dainty tune, well suited to sweet little girls, like he thought his daughter ought to be. Sometimes Jenny winds one up, if only to pretend. The ghost, however, has wound all twelve boxes, creating an unbearable discordance of syrupy tinklings. He is trying to dance to the various tunes, but only manages to twitch un-rhythmically, his elbows banging against the walls. Jenny won't watch these weak gesticulations. She changes her clothes quickly, then exits, stepping quietly back down the stairs.
Water is running in the kitchen now—Gran is washing the turtle meat. Jenny knows she ought to help her grandmother in the kitchen. Her daily hunt usually saves her from this chore, but her daily hunt usually involves two or three hours of searching before she finds a turtle. The search is the part of the hunt that Jenny enjoys—walking down by the river, beating bushes, stomping through mud. There are deer to be spied on, trees to be climbed. On a good day Jenny doesn't find any turtles at all, and just spends her daylight hours stalking through the trees. Finding those two turtles right outside has robbed her of her escape. Really, she ought to go back out, continue her hunt, since her first kills offered no reward. But she won't kill more than two in one day. That's the limit she has given herself. Her gift to the turtles and her conscience alike.
Jenny walks into the kitchen just in time to see Gran slurp down a scrap of turtle meat. Gran always remembers to cook Jenny's meals, but often forgets to cook her own. Or simply prefers them uncooked. Jenny hasn't asked.
"Anna," Jenny's grandmother calls out. "Anna, come help me in the kitchen."
Anna is Jenny's mother. Anna is dead.
Of course, so is Jenny's grandmother. Death has not cured the senility of Gran's old age. Lost limbs are easily re-imagined in their proper place. Cancers simply forgotten. But senility is a trap—Gran must first remember that she is dead, and no longer subject to living ailments before she can reclaim her wits. Senility is a forgetting disease, and the fact of her own death is lost to her. She doesn't remember the failure of her heart three years ago. She doesn't remember the turtle that snatched her soul and swallowed it down. She doesn't remember the butcher's knife that Anna used to free her.
Believing herself to be alive does have advantages. Gran hasn't forgotten how to eat. She hasn't forgotten how to clean the meat from a turtle's bones, or how to cook it into a nourishing soup. She hasn't forgotten that she loves her granddaughter. When she sees Jenny, she smiles.
"Mama's not here, Gran," says Jenny.
"Oh, she's out? Did she go to buy salt?
"No, Gran. Do we need salt?"
"Can't make soup without salt."
Jenny checks the salt box, and yes, it's empty. She doesn't particularly like going into town. People don't like her there. They don't like how she lives alone. They don't like what she does to the turtles for miles around. But she doesn't dislike going to town either. She prefers it to watching her grandmother suck on strips of raw meat. And there are never any turtles in town; she can leave her knife at home. She pulls an old pair of tennis sneakers from the hall closet and slips them onto her bare feet.
It isn't far—an hour's walk along a paved road. She can easily get there and back before dinnertime. If she were in a hurry, she could take her father's car, as she has done in the past, during the deep cold of winter and the high heat of summer. The townspeople don't like to see an underage girl driving a car, of course, so she always parks at the edge of town and walks the last little way. But today is cool and she's in no hurry. She prefers to walk, just like her mother used to do.
Jenny often walked with Anna on her trips to town. Papa always offered them a ride, but Anna declined, preferring the slow and quiet hike. It was their opportunity to talk together, mother and daughter, away from the rest of the family. Talk about school, about the changing world, about what it felt like to fall in love.
It was on one of these walks that Anna first explained about the turtles, how they swallow ghosts, how the ghosts long to be freed. Jenny was only seven the first time this was explained to her, but she listened attentively. She had seen turtles behind her own house, had seen how swiftly they could snatch a dragonfly from the air. She instinctively understood that they were not to be trusted, not to be taken lightly.
She was ten when Gran died, out by the pond, the worst place a person could die. She had seen Gran's ghost waft up from the corpse, begin to coalesce into human shape, but there were turtles nearby, as there always were in those days. Just as quick as Jenny could blink, Gran had been snapped up and swallowed.
Jenny had cried out for her mother, but Anna wasn't home, she was in town with Papa. Jenny knew the turtle needed to be killed, needed to be opened up so Gran could climb back out. But she had never before done such a thing, had no idea of the process, and no weapon to use. She thought about running for a kitchen knife or for her father's woodcutting axe, but she was terrified to leave the spot, terrified that the turtle would slip away while she wasn't watching, carry her Gran off into the pond and never return. So she sat in that spot, staring at that turtle, keeping it in sight until her parents came home three hours later. Anna had come out the back door after finding the house empty, taken one look at Jenny, the turtle, and her own mother's body lying in the weeds, and immediately understood. Without a word she went back to the house for her knife.
Jenny paid careful attention to the extraction that followed, and learned her lesson well.
Although she still enjoys the walk to town, Jenny finds her own thoughts a poor substitute for her mother's voice. And walking so far in real shoes makes her more aware of her missing toes; the imbalance of her foot against the insole of her shoe is somehow harder to ignore than the feeling of grass passing through the gaps when her feet are bare. Still, the trip will be worthwhile; it is early, and she comes to town so rarely. She can afford to dally today. There is no need to go straight to the grocery. She hesitates, considering where she might go. She sees the pet store, but she is no longer permitted through that door. The shop owner doesn't believe in ghosts, and so he despises Jenny, believes she should not be permitted near animals of any sort. She misses them, misses the company of creatures she isn't obliged to kill. But that's not something she can explain to the shopkeeper.
Next, she considers the doll shop. Jenny has already lost interest in dolls herself, but thinking of the tiny ghosts in her room, she decides to pay the store a visit. She has bought them gifts in the past, and they enjoyed them, even if they haven't acknowledged Jenny herself. Instead, they pretend that they have just returned from shopping, pretend they have selected their own new furnishings. They debate whether the upholstery matches the carpeting, whether they ought to have purchased service for twelve instead of eight, whether they gave the deliveryman an appropriate tip.
The shop is small, the shelves densely packed with everything a young girl could want in hand-carved miniature home goods. From basic tables and chairs to kitchen appliances, to linens, to lights and electronics. There is a tiny working radio, but it is too expensive. She considers a tiny bassinet, but rejects it quickly—she does not want to encourage the little ghosts to pretend they have a child. It would upset Jenny to watch such a thing. She rejects blenders, brooms, and lawnmowers. She will not trick them into pointless labor.
When she sees a plump armchair with a lever to make it recline, she is reminded of Papa, of his evening relaxation, with his feet up and a book in hand. Jenny takes the chair from the shelf, hoping the little man will enjoy it as much as her father had enjoyed his own. For the little woman, she settles on a claw-footed bathtub. They deserve these small luxuries, the two little people. Jenny is sure of it. Lastly, she looks for something to ado
rn the bare walls. She chooses a miniature set of paintings by a woman artist from years ago, five tiny images of flowers and bones, soft and lovely.
She takes her intended purchases to the counter and hands them to the shopkeeper. He wraps each piece in tissue paper before placing them gently into a paper bag. She reaches into her pocket, but the shopkeeper won't take her money. He gives her a sad smile and waves the money away. Being an orphan has its advantages too.
It's time for Jenny to finish her chores. She slips into the grocery quietly, not looking at the teenaged cashier, but she knows he's seen her. She knows this boy. He's a little older than she is, a grade ahead of her back when she still went to school. They used to be friends, she and he. One year ago. Before he was old enough to have a job. Before she was old enough to live alone. They used to eat their lunches together at school. They used to sneak into the movie theater to watch the R-rated movies when their parents thought they were safely asleep in their own houses. They used to kiss each other in the dark and giggle beneath the flickering projector. One year ago.
She used to borrow his bicycle when they had plans, so she wouldn't be gone from her house longer than necessary, and so she wouldn't be walking alone on an unlit and isolated road. She would take it home after school and hide it in the woods by her house, where it waited for her 'til night. As she slipped out her window and down the tree, she'd anticipate the coming ride as much as the forbidden movie, the illicit kisses. She loved whizzing along with no one to know where she was or what she was doing, pedaling with all her might, carefully swerving around the nocturnal creatures whose eyes flashed light from her single headlamp back to her.
She has no bike now. Her parents never bought her one, and it's an extravagance she can't afford. She has electricity to pay for, oil, and gasoline for the car.