Instead, he unbuttons his shirt and takes it off, letting it fall to the floor and, as he makes his way into the bedroom, he frees himself from shoes, socks, pants, underwear, so that when he enters he is naked. He does not bother to towel himself dry before he gets under the covers with Sessina. Ignoring the photograph of his grandfather that stares accusingly in his direction, he snuggles up next to her and finds that he trembles against her skin, his heartbeat as rapid as if he had just run three miles. Clutching her to him, he is relieved to hear her pulse slow and even beneath the pressure of his hands, having feared in some irrational way that she might prove to be a phantom. But she is here, and she is real.
Sessina stirs in her sleep and murmurs, “Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“How was the prison?”
Gabriel’s mouth curls into a smile and a frown at the same time.
“I . . . I saw a miracle. A miracle,” he whispers, and now the tears come softly as he holds her. “He flew. He flew . . . and I could not follow him.”
But she is asleep again, lost in her own dreams, and does not seem to hear him. No matter. Soon he too is drifting off to sleep, so tired and confused that he cannot think of anything and yet is thinking of everything, all at once, for the first time.
ABOUT THE BOOK AND THE AUTHOR
World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer has had books published in over twenty languages and his short fiction has appeared in many year’s best anthologies. Novels include Finch, Shriek, and City of Saints & Madmen. Nonfiction includes Booklife: Strategies & Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer, Monstrous Creatures: Essays, Articles, and Reviews, and The Steampunk Bible. Solo and with his wife Ann VanderMeer, editor of Weird Tales, VanderMeer has edited several influential anthologies, including Leviathan vols. 1-3, The New Weird, Steampunk, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, and the forthcoming The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. He reviews books for the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and others. A frequent guest at conferences and conventions, VanderMeer has lectured at MIT and the Library of Congress while also running writing workshops all over the world. He also serves as the assistant director to the Shared Worlds SF/Fantasy teen writing camp. Visit www.jeffvandermeer.com for more information.
The Compass of His Bones and Other Stories Page 9