by Rich Horton
For a long time now, private clubs, custom services, and other forms of high-class entertainment haven’t been able to satisfy him. He’s been looking for special experiences, like this girl. The web site described her this way: I sell stories. Special. Expensive. No substitutes. You must come in a beat-up car. You must bring enough money. No matter what happens, you may never come see me again.
His right index finger trembles. Everything is set. He sits, expectant. He begins to believe that she can offer him what she claims.
“I’m ready,” he says.
Xiaoyi nods. Without him noticing it, she’s now sitting across from him, in an armchair located where the driver’s seat ought to be.
“I’m going to ask you again: what do you want?”
“I have everything.”
Xiaoyi says nothing as she stares at the man. Suddenly, she takes off her shoes and tucks her feet under her on the armchair. She curls her whole body into a ball and sinks into the soft white leather.
“When you’ve thought it through, tell me. I’m on the clock, by the way.”
This is a difficult client, she thinks. He’s going to wear me out. Xiaoyi decides to close her eyes and conserve her strength.
“Why don’t you tell me something special, something I don’t have or haven’t experienced?”
“A story,” Xiaoyi says.
“That’s right.”
Xiaoyi opens her eyes, but keeps her body in the same position.
“They tell me that you’re really good, unique. But you’re expensive. All those who had used your services, they say that you . . . ” The man seems not to notice that his voice is too excited.
The noise of other cars honking interrupts his speech. The sounds seem to come from far away. He begins to feel that something is wrong. The air feels thin; the sunlight seems harsh; a susurration fills his ears. He has trouble telling the density of things. This is another world.
The man stands and walks around the confines of the shadowy outline of the little Charade. But the walk takes him ten minutes to complete. He’s never even dared to think that the passage of time can change.
When the man sits down again, Xiaoyi says, “I’ll tell you a gentle story.”
“I’ve heard such stories. They’re liquid. Sticky, wet, filled with the smell of tears and mucus. I don’t like them.”
“Stories are not liquid.” Xiaoyi glares at him.
Before the man can argue with her, something tumbles from above and falls into his lap. It’s warm, furry, and squirms around: a pure white puppy! Round, dark eyes. Wet nose. Oh, it’s sticking out its pink tongue and licking the man’s finger.
“Stories are like dogs,” Xiaoyi explains. “When called, they appear.”
“How did you do this?” the man asks, carefully cradling the puppy and watching it suck on his finger.
“With this.” She shakes the pendant hanging from her neck.
“A dog whistle?”
“Only I can work it. When stories hear my call, they come, and then people take them away.” Xiaoyi leans up. “So, do you want this one?”
The man looks at the puppy. “I’d like to see some others.”
5
“How about this one? Do you like it?” Xiaoyi asks.
The man shakes his head.
Xiaoyi glances around the car. It’s filled with dogs she’s called here. They sit quietly, their faces expectant. More than twenty pairs of eyes stare at her innocently.
The Rottweiler that she just summoned pushes against her hand with his wet nose. Xiaoyi absentmindedly strokes his ears. She’s tired and cold. The cold feeling is close to her skin, like a soaked-through shirt.
“Do you need to take a break?” the man asks. But his eyes say Keep going! Faster! Faster! I want my story!
Xiaoyi stands up and grabs the man’s hand.
Wind against their faces. An unfamiliar smell.
The sky spins. An ancient, somber prayer song echoes around them.
The herdsmen have lit a bonfire of cypress leaves. Goshawks gather from all around and land with puffs of dust around them.
The old priest-shaman sings with a trembling voice. He sharpens his knife and hook until they glisten. The living bow their backs as the dead lie with their naked chests exposed. The goshawks flap their wings and take off, circle in the air, cry out.
In the far distance, at the limit of vision, bright flags flap in the wind.
They’re standing under a big sky, on a limitless prairie, bathed in bright, harsh sunlight.
The man blanches. “What the . . . ?”
“To simplify somewhat, this story is too big. Moving us is simpler than having him move.” Xiaoyi moves to the side.
The man now sees the hound. Though, strictly speaking, it’s not a “hound” at all.
It’s gigantic. Its mouth is wide and its nose broad. Its teeth are as sharp as knives. It crouches, not moving, only its thick fur waving with the wind. Ancient blood thousands of years old courses through its veins. It is the embodiment of the cruel and strict law of nature. It is a sacred beast.
“Do you like him? He’s very expensive.”
“You’re saying that I can bring him with me?”
“Yes, if you’re willing to spend that much.”
“A very high price to pay, and not just in money?”
Xiaoyi’s throat tightens. She nods.
The man looks at the massive hound, which still isn’t moving but seems to arrogantly take in everything before him. In the end, the man shakes his head.
“Any others?”
“You are sure you want to keep looking?”
The man doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
Saaaaa-saaaa. The sound of the wind comes from Xiaoyi’s chest: thin, dry, lingering, like sand passing through an hourglass.
6
Everywhere they look, it’s the same. The world is one substance. Bright light sparkles from the deep blue.
They’re at the bottom of the sea. The water pushes and pulls noiselessly.
Xiaoyi’s hair and skirt drift alongside the kelp.
The man opens his mouth. No bubbles. There is no need to breathe at the bottom of the sea.
“This is my last story.”
The man’s eyes quickly grow used to the ocean. He looks around but cannot see any dogs. “Where is it?”
“The dog is only a shape, to make them easier to call and to be accepted. But here, you see them in their native state. No, that’s not exactly right either. Fundamental nature consists of zeros and ones, part of the ultimate database. This sea is an illusion, a projection of that fundamental nature. The sea of data is too big to be compressed into the shape of a dog. Of course, you may still call it a dog. From the perspective of the story, nothing is impossible.”
Xiaoyi pauses and takes a drink of seawater. It’s salty, and makes her even thirstier. “This place has existed for a long time, and it’s too strong. My computing power is insufficient to alter it, to call it. I can only . . . be called by it.”
“You’ve brought others here before?”
“Most people are easier to satisfy.”
“What happened to those you did bring here?”
Xiaoyi smiles without answering.
The man can feel the transparent currents—1100110111—pass by him. They’ll flow to the countless trenches and caves at the bottom of the sea and leave this place behind. Some day, this ancient source will dry up, too. But not now. As far as the man is concerned, it is eternity.
He takes a step forward. The sea trembles; the sky trembles; everything in the sky and in the sea trembles. If, someday, a bird dives toward the surface of the sea, then he will feel the excitement and joy of that dive through the seawater, as well.
“You like this?”
“Yes.”
“It’s even more expensive than you think.”
“I know.”
“What I mean is that I don’t have any way for you to bring it wi
th you.”
The man is silent. Far to the north, a part of the sea roils with dark, surging currents. He can no longer think it over.
“Then I won’t leave.”
Xiaoyi bites her lips. After a long silence, she opens her mouth, and lets out a word soundlessly.
A school of orange lyretails swims between them, obscuring their faces from each other.
When they can see each other again, both are smiling.
7
Six p.m. Rush hour. A tidal wave of humanity emerges from the subway stations, fills the shops, the roads, the overpasses.
Xiaoyi gets out of the Charade. This is the world of the present. Dusk burns brightly and gently. Pedestrians part around her.
Behind her is her shadow, stretched very long. Together, they walk slowly, with great effort.
Xiaoyi lifts her hand to find the dog whistle hanging around her neck, touches it.
They exist. They’ve always existed.
She’s not alone at all.
She does not cry.
Paranormal Romance
Christopher Barzak
This is a story about a witch. Not the kind you’re thinking of either. She didn’t have a long nose with a wart on it. She didn’t have green skin or long black hair. She didn’t wear a pointed hat or a cape, and she didn’t have a cat, a spider, a rat, or any of those animals that are usually hanging around witches. She didn’t live in a ramshackle house, a gingerbread house, a Victorian house, or a cave. And she didn’t have any sisters. This witch wasn’t the kind you read about in fairytales and in plays by Shakespeare. This witch lived in a red brick bungalow that had been turned into an upstairs/downstairs apartment house on an old industrial street that had lost all of its industry in Cleveland, Ohio. The apartment house had two other people living in it: a young gay couple who were terribly in love with one another. The couple had a dog, an incredibly happy-faced Eskimo they’d named Snowman, but the witch never spoke to it, even though she could. She didn’t like dogs, but she did like the gay couple. She tried not to hold their pet against them.
The witch—her name was Sheila—specialized in love magic. She didn’t like curses. Curses were all about hate and—occasionally—vengeance, and Sheila had long ago decided that she’d spend her time productively, rather than wasting energy on dealing with perceived injustices located in her—or someone else’s—past. Years ago, when she was in college, she had dabbled in curses, but they were mainly favors the girls in her dorm asked of her, usually after a boyfriend dumped them, cheated on them, used them as a means for money and mobility, or some other power or shame thing. A curse always sounded nice to them. Fast and dirty justice. Sheila sometimes helped them, but soon she grew tired of the knocks on her door in the middle of the night, grew annoyed after opening the door to find a teary-eyed girl just back from a frat party with blood boiling so hard that the skin on her face seemed to roil. Eventually Sheila started closing the door on their tear-stained faces, and after a while the girls stopped bothering her for curses. Instead, they started coming to her for love charms.
The gay couple who lived in the downstairs rooms of the apartment house were named Trent and Gary. They’d been together for nearly two years, but had only lived together for the past ten months. Their love was still fresh. Sheila could smell it whenever she stopped in to visit them on weekends, when Trent and Gary could be found on the back deck, barbequing and drinking glasses of red wine. They could make ordinary things like cooking out feel magical because of the sheer completeness they exuded, like a fine sparking mist, when they were near each other. That was pure early love, in Sheila’s assessment, and she sipped at it from the edges.
Trent was the manager of a small software company and Gary worked at an environmental nonprofit. They’d met in college ten years ago, but had circled around each other at the time. They’d shared a Venn diagram of friends, but naturally some of them didn’t like each other. Their mutual friends spent a lot of time telling Trent about how much they hated Gary’s friends, or telling Gary about how much they hated Trent’s. Because of this, for years Trent and Gary had kept a safe distance from each other, assuming that they would also hate each other. Which was probably a good thing, they said now, nodding in accord on the back deck of the red brick bungalow, where Trent turned shish kabobs on the grill and Gary poured Sheila another glass of wine.
“Why was it probably a good thing you assumed you’d hate each other?” Sheila asked.
“Because,” Gary said as he spilled wine into Sheila’s glass, “we were so young and stupid back then.”
“Also kind of bitchy,” Trent added over his shoulder.
“We would have hurt each other,” said Gary, “before we knew what we had to lose.”
Sheila blushed at this open display of emotion and Gary laughed. “Look at you!” he said, pointing a finger and turning to look over his shoulder at Trent. “Trent,” he said, “Look. We’ve embarrassed Sheila.”
Trent laughed, too, and Sheila rolled her eyes. “I’m not embarrassed, you jerks,” she said. “I know what love is. People pay me to help them find it or make it. It’s just that, with you two—I don’t know—there’s something special about your love.”
Trent turned a kabob with his tongs and said, “Maybe it’s because we didn’t need you to make it happen.”
It was quite possible that Trent’s theory had some kind of truth to it, but whatever the reason, Sheila didn’t care. She just wanted to sit with them and drink wine and watch the lightning bugs blink in the backyard on a midsummer evening in Cleveland.
It was a good night. The shish kabobs were spiced with dill and lemon. The wine was a middlebrow Syrah. Trent and Gary always provided good thirty-somethings conversation. Listening to the two of them, Sheila felt like she understood much of what she would have gleaned from reading a newspaper or an intelligent magazine. For the past three months, she’d simply begun to rely on them to relay the goings-on of the world to her, and to supply her with these evenings where, for a small moment in time, she could feel normal.
In the center of the deck several scraps of wood burned in a fire pit, throwing shadows and orange light over their faces as smoke climbed into the darkening sky. Trent swirled his glass of wine before taking the last sip, then stood and slid the back door open so he could go inside to retrieve a fresh bottle.
“That sounds terrible,” Sheila was saying as Trent left. Gary had been complaining about natural gas companies coming into Ohio to frack for gas deposits beneath the shale, and how his nonprofit was about to hold a forum on the dangers of the process. But before Sheila could say another word, her cell phone rang. “One second,” she said, holding up a finger as she looked at the screen. “It’s my mom. I’ve got to take this.”
Sheila pressed the answer button. “Hey, Mom,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” her mother asked, blunt as a bludgeoning weapon as usual.
“I’m having a glass of wine with the boys,” Sheila said. Right then, Trent returned, twisting the cork out of the new bottle as he attempted to slide the back door shut with his foot. Sheila furrowed her brows and shook her head at him. “Is there something you need, Mom?” she asked.
Before her mother could answer, though, and before Trent could slide the door shut, the dog Sheila disliked in the way that she disliked all dogs—without any particular hatred for the individual, just the species—darted out the open door and raced past Sheila’s legs, down the deck steps, into the bushes at the bottom of the backyard.
“Hey!” Gary said, rising from his chair, nearly spilling his wine. He looked out at the dog, a white furry thing with an impossibly red tongue hanging out of its permanently smiling face, and then placed his glass on the deck railing before heading down the stairs. “Snowman!” he called. “Get back here!”
“Oh, Christ,” Trent said, one foot still held against the sliding door he hadn’t shut in time. “That dog is going to be the death of me.”
> “What’s going on over there?” Sheila’s mother asked. Her voice was loud and drawn out, as if she were speaking to someone hard of hearing.
“Dog escaped,” said Sheila. “Hold on a second, Mom.”
Sheila held the phone against her chest and said, “Guys, I’ve got to go. Gary, I hope your forum goes well. Snowman, stop being so bad!” Then she edged through the door Trent still held open, crossed through their kitchen and living room to the front foyer they shared, and took the steps up to her second floor apartment.
“Sorry about that,” she said when she sat down at her kitchen table.
“Why do you continue living there, Sheila?” her mother said. Sheila could hear steam hissing off her mother’s voice, flat as an iron. “Why,” her mother said, “do you continue to live with this illusion of having a full life, my daughter?”
“Ma,” Sheila said. “What are you talking about now?”
“The boys,” said her mother. “You’re always with the boys. But those boys like each other, Sheila, not you. You should find other boys. Boys who like girls. When are you going to grow up, make your own life? Don’t you want children?”
“I have a life,” said Sheila, evenly, as she might speak to a demanding child. “And I don’t want children.” She could have also told her mother that she was open to girls who liked girls, and had even had a fling or two that had never developed into anything substantial; looking around the kitchen, however, Sheila realized she’d unfortunately forgotten to bring her wine with her, which she would have needed to have that conversation.
“Well, you should want something,” her mother said. “I’m worried about you. You don’t know how much I worry about you.”
Sheila knew how much her mother worried about her. Her mother had been telling her how much she worried about her for years now. Probably from before Sheila was even conceived, her mother was worrying about her. But it was when Sheila turned fifteen that she’d started to make sure Sheila knew just how much. Sheila was now thirty-seven, and the verbal reminders of worry that had started when she’d begun dating had never stopped, even after she took a break from it. So far, it had been a six-year break.