by Anthology
What? Leave him here? She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting against the nausea that clawed up her throat.
She couldn’t leave him here.
Years stretched out in front of her like a prison sentence. Starting over again, no job, no friends. Facing Candice alone, without backup. Without Julie.
Dragging at air, she squeezed her fingers around her wrists, ran for the bathroom to be sick—
And tripped over a bucket, landing on a fire poker.
The hell are a bucket and fire poker doing in the hallway? Massaging her jarred ankle, Becca rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, where the attic ladder pull-cord swung slowly.
A shifting thump came from the ceiling. Becca smiled despite herself. She’d discounted the attic ladder as out of his reach. But standing on a bucket to twirl the ladder cord around a fire poker and pull the ladder down—that sounded like her father’s grandson. Becca eased the stairs down and crept into the attic.
Sam stared at a box, almost ravenous, scribbling on the backs of envelopes. As she approached, the typewriter clicks came, muffled—he’d wrapped her dad’s old shirts around the machine to quiet it. Becca couldn’t stifle the grin. He frantically pressed a key over and over, scribbling as he went.
Becca sat, but he didn’t look up.
“Grandma’s mad at me,” he whispered.
“Grandma’s worried about your Mum.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Becca hugged him close. “What’ve you got there?” She pointed at the envelopes.
Sam bit his lip. “She took my notebook, but…I’d already gotten pretty good at remembering the codes. I was working on remembering the rest.” He cringed slightly, breath held.
Becca looked over his scrawl. The patterns held steady, three symbols to a phoneme. “Do you remember how you figured them out?” She sifted in the attic piles for some pieces of card and a pen. “Let me show you how to make a decoder ring.”
Sam grinned.
“So how’s our soldier doing?”
“Someone’s chasing him. He almost got caught near Yoorannis but that’s when the shuttles showed up.”
“Near where?” Becca peered at the envelopes in the dim light of the attic window. Sam pointed, and she squinted harder. “Yoor…Uranus. It’s a planet.”
“Like in space?” Sam’s eyes widened. “He’s a space soldier?”
“Maybe an astronaut. He must be clever, sending the message out.”
“He did what you said, asked what he didn’t know,” Sam pointed to another section, then frowned. “If he’s in space, then…it’s not my Dad.”
Becca sighed and squeezed Sam close.
Feet slammed on the attic stairs. Candice’s head rose from the floor, her face like ice. She glanced at them, and Becca was nine years old again with her new dress covered in mud. She clutched Sam, leaning between him and her mother.
Candice loomed down. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, when you know how much Julie needs you. But if you can’t do it yourself…” She hefted up the typewriter, crate and all, and carried it over to the attic window. Becca watched, her legs refusing to move, as Candice opened the window and dumped the crate through it into the rain. Sam shuddered at every thump and ping of metal as the crate and its contents burst apart on their front lawn.
“I put your bag away.” Her consonants could have cut steel. “When you have realised there are more important things, I’ll be in the living room, looking after my daughter.” She stalked down the stairs. Becca’s face burned.
Sam shivered. “Does Mum think I don’t love her?”
“No, mate,” Becca rubbed his arms as if to warm him, or perhaps herself. “Your Mum knows how much you love her.” Her voice sounded hollow, even to her.
***
Becca lay awake on her childhood bed, studying the scrawl on the bottom of Julie’s bunk. Sam slept, the rise and fall of his breath like a tiny piston, but sleep eluded Becca.
The pre-dawn birdsong niggled. They were the wrong birds. She missed the magpie warble, the cackle of Kookaburras as they hunted worms for their young.
Who would raise Sam? Her? Her mother? No, Becca had made too many hard choices to break that cycle, she had to spare him that. But how could she take him away from Julie? Rick would never sign on for a kid, he didn’t even want a dog. And Candice couldn’t care for Julie on her own, not even with a physio-nurse visiting.
Was this her life, now? Walled in with Candice by guilt? Caring for the body of a sister she’d never see again? Becca bit down on her cheek until she tasted blood.
What would Dad do?
Figure it out. Find what you’re missing. Build your decoder.
Typewriter pieces sprang forward in her mind. Where had that astronaut come from? How did he contact her?
You’re just distracting yourself from the problem. She winced at her mother’s voice in her head. If she stayed here, she’d turn into Candice.
She had to leave. They both did. Julie would want what was best for her son, even if that didn’t include her. Becca’d find a school nearby, ask work for flexible hours. Her friends would visit, and Rick…She’d work something out with Rick. He’d come around, he’d like Sam. She’d make it work.
Becca swung her legs out from the covers and felt for a torch. The only dressing gown she could find in the dark was Sam’s blue Thomas the Tank Engine one that barely covered her hips, but it would have to do. She eased open the dresser that held Sam’s clothes and quietly bundled them into his backpack. Candice had hidden hers somewhere. She’d buy a new laptop when she got home. If she didn’t go now, she might lose her nerve. She’d put his backpack in the car, then come back for him.
Becca crept down the hallway, past her sister’s laboured breathing. In her head, Candice’s voice cursed her: selfish child. Becca held her breath and slipped the latch on the front door.
The rain had lifted, leaving a pre-dawn sogginess that clogged the air. Becca tip-toed out to the car, the mud squelching through her toes. Shoes. She should get some shoes when she got Sam. She eased the car door shut, and turned back to the house.
The typewriter still lay in pieces on the grass near the bins. Sam would need it. As if it could somehow fill the void of what she was taking him from.
He’s already lost her.
Not the point.
She picked over the remains, laying out letter-levers and keys in a sad little row. She couldn’t put it back together again; most of it was a twisted mess. She held the ‘A’ in her hand, its long arm bent from impact and twisted in the ribbon. Broken, like her sister, never to be whole. Her ink-purple fingers blurred as hot tears wet her cheeks and neck, and sobs pulled up from her gut. She curled over her chest, squeezing the broken pieces in her hand until her palm cramped, sobbing so hard her stomach ached.
Her mother had been right. She’d just been hiding behind the puzzle. Becca stared down at the ink marks in her hand, drained.
A clear symbol sat on her palm where the A had rested. It wasn’t an ‘A’. Slowly, hand shaking, Becca pressed the A key through the ribbon into her palm.
Another symbol.
Electricity surged through her blood stream. She sifted through the rubble. The decoder had disintegrated in the rain, but—but Sam’s notebook might be salvageable. Trying not to breathe, she flipped the lid off the garbage bin and rummaged inside, dug out the gravy-sodden notebook and wiped the worst of the mess off with the mountain of used tissues.
The gravy had eaten half of Sam’s notes, but with her laptop, she could re-translate it with ocular character recognition. Give it a dictionary and the translations from the notebook, it could take educated guesses at the rest. She could figure it out, finish it for him.
One problem: Candice had her laptop.
Conviction wavered under Candice’s imaginary glare.
You could just leave it. You’re taking him away from everything, he’s probably not going to care. You could just slink away, li
ke always. Because she scares you. Your own mother scares you.
Fist closed around the ‘A’ key, Becca marched inside.
She found her carry-on bag stuffed in Candice’s wardrobe and lugged it halfway to the hall before the lights flicked on. Candice stood in her vermillion dressing gown, one raised hand gripping a leather belt.
“I thought you were…” she began, expression foggy. She glanced at Becca, then the bag, hardened her gaze and drew herself up, setting her face into battle-mode. She let the silence play out, the seconds battering at Becca’s walls like artillery.
“I deserve better than this. So does your sister.”
Becca flinched as the words shot through to her gut. “It’s not about you.” Her voice whined like a child’s.
Candice strode towards her, the belt swinging ominously. “She needs you. You can’t run away because you don’t feel like dealing with it. You don’t get to pretend anymore while someone else cleans up the mess.”
The bag slipped down Becca’s arm like a weight fixing her in place and her mind narrowed to the words, to Candice’s voice, struggling to gain an edge.
Candice loomed within striking distance. “Your sister understood that,” she said. “We had our differences, but she worked hard for her family, for her son. She buried her husband while you ran off to your koalas. And now she needs you, and you’re leaving it to everyone else, like you always do. Leaving us behind.”
Shaking her head mutely, Becca tried to drum up words, thoughts, anything.
Candice leaned close. “You selfish child. Always, no matter what I did. She’s not the one who deserved this.”
Sickening heat flooded up from Becca’s belly, swallowing her.
Candice’s eyes glinted in triumph. “Were you even going to say goodbye to Sam? Or are you leaving that to me as well, to explain why you’re abandoning him.”
Sam.
Becca found an edge. Protect Sam. She clutched it like a spear, lifted her chin, locked eyes with Candice. “I’m taking him with me,” she snarled.
Candice reared back, mouth open.
Drawing her anger from her voice, Becca pulled herself straight. “I gave up every friend I had to move away. My sister. My job. My possessions. I didn’t run away, I made a calculated choice. I paid a price.” She took a deep breath, chin thrust out like she could push the words out and not hear them. “It was worth leaving everything behind to be free of you.”
Silence again, but this time it couldn’t touch her. Her blood surged like ice through her chest.
“How dare you,” Candice breathed. “You ungrateful—”
“I’m just being honest with you,” Becca shot back. “Without the nonsense, just like you wanted. Without pretending this is okay.” I can do this. I can stand up to her. I can protect him. “Because it’s not. You are toxic, and if you want to get anywhere near Sam, things are going to have to change.”
Candice brandished the belt. “You can’t take him away from me. From Julie.”
Becca snatched it out of her hands. “I’m his legal guardian. Anyone can see she’s not fit for motherhood.” She took a deep breath and leaned close enough to smell the laundry soap on her mother’s gown. “I will miss her until my heart stops, but it would have been kinder to everyone, especially her, if you had just let her go.”
Becca re-shouldered the bag. “I’ll bring Sam to you to say goodbye.”
***
Sam had mumbled groggy goodbyes. Becca had tried to wake him, but the boy just wanted to sleep, so she’d tucked him in the car with her carry-on and the remains of the typewriter and driven to the airport to wait for their standby flight. He slept the whole way, and barely woke when she piloted him to an empty gate lounge. Becca sat in the row next to him and rifled through her bag for her jeans and jumper to drag on.
He should be with his mother.
I can’t leave him with Candice.
She scrabbled faster through socks, underwear and camisoles. No jeans.
Candice wouldn’t hurt him.
She’d control him.
Deciding this for him isn’t control? You can’t be a parent. This isn’t your life.
Hands shaking, she dragged the jumper out of its tangle with a t-shirt and her headphones. She must have left the jeans at Candice’s. She tied the jumper around her hips.
I’d be better than she would. Julie would want this.
Would she? Would Sam? Or is this just what you want?
This was ridiculous. She’d made the decision. She wasn’t going to unmake it. She shoved the escaping underwear back in, hauled the laptop out and set it up on the table with the typewriter pieces and the gravy-sodden notebook. Her fingers jittered on the keys. Sometimes distractions were necessary.
The program took less time than she’d expected. Components just fit, like something guided her code, pulling it into a prototype effortlessly. She could almost smell her father’s aftershave on the keyboard.
Gripped with a frenzy, she snatched some napkins from the table, hammered the broken key through the ribbon onto them as fast as she could and held them up to the webcam, tapping the keyboard impotently while the program churned up the translation. Next to her, Sam rolled on his bag in his sleep, curling around it.
There it was: the astronaut’s team had been colonising Titan when unfriendly ships arrived from outside the system. He stole one and escaped, largely by jabbing everything to see what it did, and broadcast his distress call until the American shuttles turned up.
Sam was right, this guy had her father’s attitude. Poke it with a stick. Never let ignorance or fear stand in the way of trying.
Don’t let her beat that out of you again.
Dawn crept over the horizon of the runway. Becca’s hands ached. The program struggled with words not in the dictionary, and she paused to decipher them by hand.
“Dear Grandma and Grandpa,
I don’t know how this’ll reach you, I think their tech latches onto whatever it can. I set the ship to do a data dump at the end of this transmission; hopefully there’s something Uncle Sam can use. I’m taking a lot on faith, you know, with your stories. Tell Mum I love her, and say hi to Uncle Sam.”
Becca frowned. Was Uncle Sam actually a person?
There was an address before the message, like a letter: Rebecca Willoway and Michael Oaks, 275 Tempus Terrace.
Her name. Candice’s address.
Becca hugged the laptop to herself and pressed the ‘A’ key a few more times against the last napkin. It wrote ‘A’. She wasn’t surprised.
But it couldn’t be her, if it was “Uncle” Sam. Sam would be a cousin to any grandchild of hers. And she wasn’t staying here.
Except Sam was her son, now. If she had any other children, he’d be more brother to them than anything else.
The dawn sun soaked through the window into her spine with the realisation, sickeningly warm. Becca slumped as her life collapsed back inside the walls of Candice’s rule.
Even if you believe in magic typewriters from the future, it doesn’t mean that future’s going to happen.
No, but it’s possible. I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t thought something good might come of it.
The warmth roiled in her chest.
It’s not possible, because you’re taking Sam away from that. For his own good.
Maybe I just don’t want to give up my life. My friends, Rick.
You’re doing the right thing for Sam.
Am I, though? Or am I just doing the easy thing for me?
The thought slammed down like stone. Becca shut the lid of the laptop, fighting the urge to curl up around her knees.
Forget the stupid typewriter a minute. What’s best for him? That’s my job, now. That’s what Julie wanted.
The plastic seat squeaked softly—Becca stopped herself from rocking.
I stood up to her once. I can stand up to her again. Maybe I could make some happiness here.
She unfolded herself from the s
eat and stoked Sam’s hair from his face.
He deserves to have his mother—his real mother—in his life.
You’ll have to keep fighting for it. Keep fighting her, every moment.
***
In the carport of Candice’s house, Becca gathered the last of the scrawled-on napkins from the back seat. Sam, finally awake, had scampered off to tell the whole thing to Julie as soon as the engine had stopped. Hands full, Becca flicked the door closed with her knee as another car pulled up in the drive.
A young man in blue scrubs and coiffed black hair stepped out, hospital-branded duffel bag slung across one muscular shoulder. He gave her a wave, smile gracing perfect cheekbones, and Becca was suddenly acutely aware that she stood in the front garden wearing a tied-on jumper and a child’s dressing gown, hands clutching stained napkins and sticky with gravy, face still swollen with tears.
“How’re you doing?” he called out with a rich burr from one of the southern states of America. He held out his hand. “Oakes, Michael Oakes. I’m your sister’s physio-nurse.”
“Oh, yes. They—they said.” Becca stammered, trying to wind the robe more tightly against herself. “I’m sorry, it’s been a bit of a night. Michael, was it?” Belatedly, she offered her hand to shake, still full of napkins. His warm fingers wrapped over hers securely. A small scar bisected his left eyebrow, giving him a permanent inquisitive expression. He didn’t even flinch at the gravy.
“Oakes, yes. It’s okay. It’s like that.” He stepped closer, professional manner softening for a moment. “It gets easier, I promise.”
Becca looked back down at the address on the napkins. “Are you sure?” she said, not entirely to him.
He smiled again, and extended his arm to lead her toward the house. “Trust me,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Derrick Boden
http://www.derrickboden.com
Clay Soldiers(Short story)
by Derrick Boden
Originally published by Daily Science Fiction in November 2015
Bret woke with a piercing pain in his side, the roar of the battlefield still raging in his ears. The ceiling and walls were white. A white curtain hung at his left. A bag pumped liquid into his vein. His ragged breaths burned. The exoskeleton must've pushed through his lung. Could they fix that? God, he hoped so.