FSF, January 2009

by Spilogale Authors

  "Bite me! Bite me!” he screeched.

  "Sorry,” Gavin muttered.

  He scooped Sancho into his lap and cranked up the window just as they reached the water. Spray arched from the front wheels, splashing onto the windshield and across the side windows. The front bumper submerged for a moment, and Gavin gripped the dashboard with white knuckles. Sancho spread his wings and whistled. The Beetle pushed up a bulge of bow wave. The front end bobbed. The rear wheels bumped, skipped, raced, and suddenly the car was afloat. Amanita shifted into fourth and throttled back. The engine settled. The Beetle slowed. Burbling gently from the submerged muffler, they eased away from shore toward the distant lights of the islands.

  Amanita laughed sharply. “Well, this is a bit of an anticlimax, isn't it?"

  The old Beetle had a handhold at the top of the dash above the glove compartment. Sancho climbed onto it and peered out the front window, head cocked.

  "Whoa Nelly!” he squawked.

  Gavin tried to laugh, but gulped instead as the Beetle lifted on the first small swell. He forced a smile. “Shouldn't you turn on the lights?” he said. “In case there are boats or floating logs or something?"

  "It'd ruin our night vision,” Amanita replied, but she turned on the parking lights at least. Amber light fanned from the Beetle's four quarters onto the coal-black sea. The dim green glow from the dashboard reversed the shadows on her face.

  "Thanks,” Gavin said. He spoke in a half whisper, but his voice still sounded loud to him. He fell silent.

  Slowly but steadily, the Beetle puttered farther from land, rising and falling as the slight ocean swell rolled beneath them. Somewhere in the distance and half a beat off, a bell buoy rang. The lighthouse winked in its own slow rhythm. Gavin's heart beat double-time to them all. As far he could tell, the lights of the islands weren't getting any closer. His eyes began to ache from the strain. He glanced at Amanita. She was looking through the windshield, both hands on the wheel, shifting it slightly right and left, as though she was driving on a highway, with white lines and medians and guard rails and road signs to mark their path. Not an ocean, with nothing but starlight, bells, and a course plotted on the chart of her childhood dreams.

  He looked back out the windshield, and the lights had changed somehow. The alignment was wrong. And it was still shifting, as though the islands were drifting to the left.

  "They're moving,” he said.

  "We are,” she replied. “There's a strong current here."

  Of course, he thought. Islands can't move. But as he watched the lights shift against the apparently fixed stars, he couldn't shake the feeling that the islands were sliding aside, dodging, leaving the Beetle on a clear path to the open sea.

  "Don't worry,” Amanita said, “it'll slow as the tide turns.” She gave him a smile that he supposed was meant to be comforting, but the low, green light from the dash only made her seem fey.

  Still they crept onward, Amanita steering always toward the islands, though they seemed to slide farther and farther askew. Gavin leaned his head against the side pillar and stroked Sancho's head. Sancho murmured and fluffed his feathers. Gavin opened the window a bit, and a breeze blew in, cooling his cheek. The air was moist, salty, and stung his nose. The noise of the bell wavered oddly. The motion of the Beetle freshened. Wavelets began to lap against the fenders, and the lift of the swells increased. Gavin took a firm grip on the handhold. Sancho perched on his knuckles.

  Now the lights ahead seemed to waver. The breeze grew more damp, and smoky tendrils wafted through the amber glow of the parking lights. Beads of condensation appeared on the windshield, lensing the starlight.

  "Fog,” Amanita said quietly. “The final barrier.” Her smile grew.

  The tendrils thickened. The beads swelled and began to roll down the windshield, leaving oily tracks that scattered the lights of the islands into splinters of rainbow. Then even that disappeared, and all they could see were the fans of amber streaming from the Beetle's quarters into a dense, billowing fog. Amanita turned on the wipers. They didn't help.

  Gavin stared ahead, desperately trying to see though the drifting curtain. He lost all sense of direction. There was nothing beyond the amber glow of their own making.

  No, wait, he thought. Is that...? The fog seemed to lighten, as though a moon had lifted above an unseen horizon. A shadow, a shape, a hint of something solid wavered beyond the arched smears on the windshield. The Beetle rocked slightly, and water purled beneath the running boards. A minor key. The hairs prickled on Gavin's scalp. He strained, listening. The water made a sound like laughter. He glimpsed ... A mound? A tree? A face?

  Dazed, he turned to Amanita. Her smile was mirrored in the windshield.

  Mary? he thought. No, never that. Look at her: eyes wild, shining, cold and sharp and filled with longing. Longing so deep it could drown islands itself. Look at her hands on the wheel, turning into the waves, then back on course. She knows where she's going; she's going where she believes. A belief so fierce nothing can stand before it. Surely not fog. Nor dark. Not even the tide and a million miles of open sea. And I'm going with her, willy-nilly. No turning back, no choice now. It was her choice, and it will be until we arrive ... somewhere. The Isles of Shoals, the isles of dreams, the halls of the fairy kings ... wherever she chooses to take us.

  Suddenly, he laughed, past caring.

  She looked surprised. She studied his face. Then she laughed with him. Her smile glowed in the fey light. Her eyes burned. Her hair seemed to stream in an invisible breeze. She was wild, yes, and wide open as the sea, transformed and beautiful in a way that terrified him. She sounded the Beetle's horn, and the tinny beep made both of them laugh harder.

  Sancho whistled and shrieked, “Whoa, Nellie!"

  Amanita turned the wheel away from the faint loom of light and shadow before them. She reached into the back seat, pulling forth a wooden paddle almost as long as the little car was wide. She laid it across Gavin's shoulder. He took it, rolled down his window, and thrust the paddle into the water, leaning out to add strong strokes to the Beetle's putting engine. The car pulsed forward with each one.

  Sancho flew out the window. “Let's go!” he cried. “Let's go!"

  "Sancho!” Gavin yelled. “Come back!” The fog swirled, wet and deafening. He leaned farther out, searching the darkness. The car rocked violently. His stomach lurched. “Sancho!"

  Amanita held their course. “He'll find us,” she said. “He knows the way."

  Gavin hardly heard her. He stared out, back, straining to see. To hear. Was that a splash, a laugh, a ripple of movement, hanging above the water behind them, where Sancho had disappeared?

  But Sancho flew back into the amber glow. He settled on the handle at the turn of the hood. “Go with the flow!” he squawked, peering forward like a demented figurehead.

  Gavin laughed again and resumed paddling. The fog soaked his face, dripped off his eyebrows, ran down his cheeks, and filled his mouth with the faint taste of iodine and brine. A bell rang faintly somewhere before them, borne on the damp breeze. Behind, the keen of faint music faded away. Maybe it was the muttering engine, the lapping sea. Slowly, steadily, the Beetle muddled onward.

  * * * *

  Dawn came in a slow twilight that Gavin didn't even notice until the fog had turned pearly and the amber parking lights dim. His arms were sodden with fatigue and the weight of water in his shirt. He kept paddling. A strange shape loomed suddenly in the darkness: a buoy, swaying and clanging with a bell muted by fog. It swept past and was lost again. The sea swirled, slewing the Beetle right and left. A swell slapped the side, splashing a little water through the window. Gavin heard the wet grumble of waves washing on a shore. He was about to call a warning to Amanita when the sun topped the horizon. The fog turned to spun gold. Warmth played on their faces. Sancho whistled Beethoven.

  The fog eddied, thinned, and disappeared as if vanished by a spell. They were motoring along a channel between two rock-bound islands barely a
hundred yards to either side. Straight ahead lay the low, dark silhouette of a third island. Boats rode at anchor in a small harbor sheltered by the three rocky mounds. And beyond the harbor and the islands, the sun laid a bright pathway across the ripples of the broad sea.

  Gavin turned to Amanita, his face split by an uncontrollable grin. She had her own face back, her normal, human face, and the sunlight painted her features gold.

  "It's beautiful,” he said. “Even if it's not....” Where? he wondered. Where had she thought she was taking them? Where had they gone? “It's the Isles of Shoals. Is that okay?"

  She looked uncertain for just a moment, but it passed. “It's fine,” she replied. “It was the going that mattered.” She returned his smile twofold, and he glimpsed the fey beauty at play in her eyes.

  Beaming like an idiot, Gavin stared at every rock, house, and stunted tree on the three islands, as Amanita piloted their uncommon craft into the still water of the harbor and around the end of a long pier jutting from the right-hand shore. She brought them alongside a small, floating dock lined with dinghies, and reached behind her seat again to draw forth two coiled lengths of rope.

  "Tie us up,” she said. “And Gavin? Don't open the door."

  He stopped, hand poised on the door handle. “Oh, right,” he said.

  So he heaved himself out through his window, and greeted Sancho, who flew to his shoulder as he bent to tie the Beetle at front and back. Then he returned to the passenger window and helped Amanita climb out. Somehow, in reaching for her hand and trying to support her elbow and catching her as she almost tumbled into the water, he wound up holding her close in an awkward sideways hug, with his right arm tight around her breast. She winked. He blushed and stepped back, but kept hold of her hand.

  "What do you think?” she said. “They must serve breakfast somewhere on this island."

  "Let's hope so,” he replied. “Come on, we'll find someone to ask."

  "Hello!” Sancho cried. “Hello! Go with the flow!"

  Squeezing her hand, Gavin led the way off the dock and up the path toward the heart of the island.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MARKET PLACE

  BOOKS-MAGAZINES

  S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, pulps, books, fanzines. 96 page catalog. $5.00. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853

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  20-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $40 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.

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  Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.

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  NEW MASSIVE 500-page LEIGH BRACKETT COLLECTION Lorelei of the Red Mist: Planetary Romances $40 (free shipping) to: HAFFNER PRESS, 5005 Crooks Road Suite 35, Royal Oak, MI 48073-1239, www.haffnerpress.com

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  Invaders from the Dark by Greye la Spina and Dr. Odin by Douglas Newton, unusual fiction from Ramble House—www.ramblehouse.com

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  Weaving a Way Home: A Personal Journey Exploring Place and Story from Univ. of Michigan Press. “No one with a working heart will fail to be moved.” -Patrick Curry

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  A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, a large and lavish art book published by Centipede Press. Intro. by Harlan Ellison, afterwd. by Thomas Ligotti. 1000s of words of artist bios and history. 400 oversize pages, full color, 12 x 16, over 15 lbs! From Centipede Press, 2565 Teller Ct., Lakewood, CO 80214, jerad@centipedepress.com. SPECIAL: $100 off, $295 pstpd w/ slipcase.

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  Discover a new sci-fi epic!

  Constellation Chronicles

  www.constellationchronicles.com

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  Do you have Fourth Planet from the Sun yet? Signed hardcover copies are still available. Only $17.95 ppd from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

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  SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

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  BACK ISSUES OF F&SF: Including some collector's items, such as the Fiftieth Anniversary Issue. Limited quantities of many issues going back to 1990 are available. Send for free list: F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

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  MISCELLANEOUS

  If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoingstress.com

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  Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.

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  FOUND: Near Strawbery Banke. One parrot, gray with red tail. Says, “Here's a pretty boy.” Nice.

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  Witches, trolls, demons, ogres ... sometimes only evil can destroy evil! Greetmyre, a deliciously wicked gothic fantasy ... “A haunting read” (Midwest Book Review). Trade Paperback at Amazon.com or call troll free 1-877-Buy Book.

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  The Jamie Bishop Scholarship in Graphic Arts was established to honor the memory of this artist. Help support it. Send donations to: Advancement Services, LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, LaGrange, GA 30240

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  Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu.

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  F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Curiosities: The Man Who Was Thursday; A Nightmare by by G.K. Chesterton (1908)

  This bizarre, surreal, and hilarious novel of one century ago features a plotline shockingly relevant to our own time ... filled with terrorist cabals and suicide bombers.

  One evening Gabriel Syme, a young idealist, is enticed into a pitch-black room, interviewed by an unseen man, and recruited into a secret agency dedicated to catching anarchists. But the anarchists are organized; they have democratically elected a council of seven men, each code-named for a day of the week. Syme infiltrates the council and is elected the new Thursday.

  Each of the other six anarchists has his own bizarre traits and secrets, as Syme gradually discovers. But the strangest and most terrifying anarchist is the group's cryptic leader, Sunday.

  The story is a constant flow of action, including probably the very first car chase in popular fiction. There's also an elephant chase, a balloon chase, and the whole universe inside a masquerade party.

  The entire novel has the feel of a nightmare: a dreamscape filled with bright kaleidoscoping colors yet with the ever-present dominance of red. Enormous faces loom everywhere, arousing a dreadful memory from Syme's childhood. Puns, wordplay, and obscure references abound.

  The Man Who Was Thursday is a clear influence on the TV series The Prisoner, featuring a similar use of symbols and images with multiple interpretations in a global village where individuality is malleable. In an essay published the day before his death, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) stated that this novel represents humanity's triumph over pessimism.

  —F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: Coming Attractions

  Those of you who have been disappointed at the lack of novellas in the last few issues need not worry—we have several in the works, including a classic reprint that will have to remain a surprise for now.

  Some of the stories that are coming soon include a new fantasy novelette by Yoon Ha Lee, “T
he Bones of Giants,” Bruce Sterling's descent into the hidden side of Turin, “Esoteric City,” and John Kessel's tale of future Prague, “The Motorman's Coat."

  We've also got a passel of tales in hand by writers who are new to F&SF, including Henry Garfield, Jack Skillingstead, Sarah Thomas, and John C. Wright.

  This year promises to be a special one. Subscribe now so you won't miss any of it.

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  Visit www.fsfmag.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.