by Various
In the movies they make it look all clean and neat. With graphics and actual lines stretching out like a map. But the reality is a mind-bending rush of ghosts all trampling in different directions, popping in and out of existence as the future shifts and shifts again. It’s hard enough to keep straight when I’m well-rested, but I haven’t been that in a long time.
I pause at the next corner and rub my eyes. When I lower my hand I see her.
The target.
The girl from the day before.
She’s crossing the street toward me, digging through her messenger bag for something. And two blocks away a truck is hurtling toward her.
I’ve seen this scenario enough to know exactly what I’m supposed to do. The guy standing next to me will shout a warning. A warning I’m supposed to prevent him from giving.
I take a step forward, ready to shoulder him to one side, throw him off-balance and keep him too busy to say anything to the girl with the dark green eyes.
It all muddles in my head. She lies smashed on the pavement. She walks down the street looking pale and flustered by a very near miss with death. The truck takes out half-a-block of downtown trying to miss her.
When I was younger and could still sleep at night, I thought that if I were to fold up and do the wrong thing, to fuck up the timeline The System presented me with, at least it would be for someone worth while. A sexy brunette maybe. Or a blue-eyed cherub of a kid.
This girl is neither of those. And she knows the truth about me. I have every reason to elbow the guy beside me in the gut and walk away while she walks into the front of a dump truck. On any other day, I’d be okay with that. But today, with the specter of the past as well as the future crowding my mind, I just can’t.
I step forward and grab her by the arm, pushing her back out of the way.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up as the truck hurtles past, the driver leaning on the horn with one hand and gesturing out the window with the other. The bloody-mess-on-the-pavement future and the explosion-rocks-downtown future blink out of existence like a blown light bulb.
A still-alive girl with muddy brown hair and green eyes looks up at me with a frown. “What…” Recognition hits, then comprehension and she goes all jelly-legged.
I quickmarch her to the safety of the curb, keeping her upright with one hand on her elbow and the other scrunched tight in the back of her shirt. “Don’t stop now,” I say, hoarse. “We need to get someplace safe.”
• • •
We sit in my apartment, twitchy and nervous.
I walked her around the city for hours—turning, backtracking, taking shortcuts through alleys, talking to strangers—all trying to avoid a future in which we both get snuffed. Eventually someone deskside must have realized I was using the information flowing from The System to outmaneuver whatever agents they had sent after us. After nine years, six months and thirteen days the crush of possible-future’s stopped.
Since I could no longer control what happened next, I went home. The girl came with me.
She sits in the chair that normally acts as a closet, feet tucked up under her, chewing her thumbnail back to the quick.
I’ve got the clicker in one hand, slamming through channel after channel in a desperate attempt to fill the sudden silence in my head.
“Are they going to kill us?” Her voice is steady. She could be asking if I want chicken for dinner.
I have to try several times before I can get a single word out. “Yeah.”
She pushes lank hair out of her eyes. Dark green eyes. “Why?”
It would be easy to mistake the question. Why will they kill us? But I know that is not what she is asking.
“It felt wrong,” I say. “Today it just felt wrong.” My head is spinning. I lean back against the pillows, settling more comfortably on the three thousand dollar mattress. “How big a difference can one life make, anyway?”
She doesn’t say anything. My eyes are sliding closed. The sleep that’s eluded me for weeks pours over me like the tide, sucking me under and away before I even have time to say Goodnight or Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.
• • •
I sleep like a rock.
• • •
When I wake up the girl stands at the window, face pressed close to the glass. The wodge of sky visible over her head seems redder than usual, even for dawn.
“What’s going on?” I rub my eyes, scooting across the bed toward her.
She points and I stand up, slow. Disbelieving. Across the horizon smoke and flames climb skyward. The city’s burning. Hell, everything’s burning.
She leans close, one hand closing around mine, tight. “I think you made a mistake.”
IN THE COOL OF THE DAY
by A.G. Carpenter
First published in Abyss & Apex (Jul. 2013), edited by Carl Rafala
• • • •
THE SUN has barely crawled above the tree tops and already the house is cooking, humid and smelling of too many generations of tom cat. Miriam and Gran have scrubbed every inch of floor and baseboard and as much of the wall as can be reached without a stool, but the smell lingers. Especially when it’s hot.
Miriam nudges the screen door open with her shoulder, carefully balancing the tray with the pitcher of sweet tea and two glasses with crushed mint in the bottom. “I brought something to drink,” she says.
Gran looks up with a smile, vague around the edges. “Oh? Oh, yes. That’s nice.” She smooths the hair back from her face and her normal clarity returns. “Sweet tea with mint.”
“Your favorite.” Miriam fills the glasses and takes one in either hand. A moment of concentration and condensation forms on the rapidly cooling glass.
Gran nods, approving. “You’re getting better at that.” She takes a sip. “Just right.”
“Been practicing enough.” Miriam takes a quick swallow from her own glass. Her palms are pink and hot and she flexes her fingers, waiting for the heat she drew out of the tea to dissipate.
“Make sure you get the beans picked before the storm comes in.”
Miriam glances at the horizon, clear and hot, doubtful, but she nods. “Yes, ma’am.” A plume of dust rises from down the road, glinting in the early morning sun at the base. “Cars coming, Gran.”
“Yes.” Gran pushes up to her feet and reaches for Miriam’s arm. “Help me upstairs.”
Back in the winter Gran had started needing help up the stairs. A sturdy pair of legs to help keep her balanced, she’d said. Each month the trip upstairs took longer; not just stopping half-way up to catch her breath, but after every step.
The doctor had come out and looked at her. He’d recommended she move to a bedroom downstairs, get plenty of rest, and take the pills he gave her every day.
Miriam couldn’t swear Gran wasn’t taking the pills, but she certainly hadn’t taken a bedroom downstairs and she was always up before sunrise. Until yesterday when Miriam found the kitchen empty and Gran still lying in bed, foggy-eyed and cranky as a baby.
Gran pauses at the bottom of the stairs and smiles apologetic. “Must be the heat getting to me.”
Miriam knows it is more than that, but to speak it is to make it real and she would do anything not to lose Gran. Even lie. “Hasn’t been a summer like this as long as I can remember.” She picks Gran up, careful, and carries her upstairs.
“Don’t forget those beans, now,” Gran says as Miriam tucks her under the sheets.
“No, ma’am.” The thrum of car engines is loud and Miriam glances toward the window, uneasy. “You sure about this, Gran? I can send them away.”
“No, sweetheart. It’s about time my daughters came to see me. And if a touch of heatstroke is what it takes then so be it.” Gran pats her hand. “Now get on downstairs and open the door.”
Miriam nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
Gran squeezes her fingers, reassuring. “Don’t you let them push you around. This is your house too.”
“Yes, ma’
am.”
But her stomach squirms as she steps out on the front porch and comes face to face with Gran’s daughters.
Aunt Leslie and Aunt Margaret are like china dolls—made from the same pattern but colored different from each other. They are dressed up like they’re headed to church, curls coming loose and limp from the heat, heeled shoes wobbling on the gravel path.
Aunt Leslie’s mouth ties up in a knot and she turns up her nose. “Girl.” Her tone of voice spells the word b-a-s-t-a-r-d. “What have you done with Mother?”
“Gran’s upstairs. Resting.”
Aunt Leslie’s eyes get smaller and harder and she grabs Miriam’s arm. “If I find a mark on her…” Her own fingers make marks of their own, tightening up hard enough Miriam’s hand goes numb.
There is little point in denial, the aunts will not believe her no matter what she says. The accusation itself is so ridiculous it doesn’t bear acknowledgment. So Miriam says nothing. She pulls her arm out of Aunt Leslie’s grip and gestures toward the house. “You can wait in the parlor ’til Gran wakes up.”
Aunt Margaret sniffs, her mouth screwed up just like her sister’s. “Don’t know what sort of country medicine you’ve been practicing, but Gran doesn’t need to be getting out of bed.” She waves a hand and a broad woman in an unflattering white uniform trods forward. “I’ve brought a nurse to look after her.”
Miriam knows it is too late for nurses or doctors, but she will not be the first to admit that Gran is not just sick but dying. She stands to one side as they all march inside.
Aunt Leslie has her two daughters in tow, dressed in pink and white with shiny patent leather shoes that tap-tap-tap on the wooden porch. Veronica and Matilda are younger than Miriam, but look older with their noses in the air in perfect imitation of their mother.
Cousin Jeanne, who is too young to know much of anything least of all that she is supposed to hate Miriam, smiles as Aunt Margaret tugs her into the house. “Hello, Miri.”
“Hush, Jeanne.” Her mother glares at Miriam and slams the screen-door hard enough to shake the paint loose.
Miriam looks toward the cars, but there is only Aunt Leslie’s husband, Thomas, and Aunt Margaret’s husband, Earl.
Mother hasn’t come.
Miriam can’t pretend to be surprised by it. Mother never comes, even though she always promises to be there. But it is still a disappointment.
She pulls a piece of ribbon from her pocket and ties her hair back. There’s beans to be picked and tomatoes too. As she starts filling the basket a truck rolls up the drive. For a moment she feels a flicker of hope, then the engine stops, the door opens and a lanky young man climbs out. Bobby. She swallows against the wave of betrayal, forcing it back down her throat as hard and cold as a hailstone.
Bobby owns a piece of land down the road and keeps it by doing odd jobs all over the county and it’s not like she doesn’t know he needs the money. Or that if he weren’t there some other fella would be.
He waves to Miriam, then ducks into the house when she doesn’t wave back.
She wipes the sweat off her forehead and yanks a few more beans off the vine. It ain’t personal. But she reaches the end of the row before the buzz of anger quiets back down.
Used to be the garden was Gran’s domain, but now Miriam does most of the tending—working ’til the sun gets too hot to bear, then going back out late in the day to sing to the plants before night comes. It is hard work, but satisfying in a way that the chores at the orphanage never were, no matter how much she accomplished.
The uncles and Bobby begin carrying things out of the house: the dining room table and chairs, boxes that clink and clatter with Gran’s best china and silver, the writing desk from the parlor, and so on. Back and forth they trudge, sweating and swearing as they load up the trailers hitched to the rear bumpers.
Miriam recognizes the bedframe from her room and the little dresser. She closes her eyes and thinks real hard and her room flickers up out of the red-veined darkness on the back of her eyelids. The mattress and covers are sitting against the wall, her clothes jumbled in a heap in the middle of the floor. Aunt Margaret takes the mirror off the wall and jerks her head at Bobby. “Bring that down too.” An awkward gesture toward the night-table, then she is edging out the door with her arms full.
Bobby rubs his head with a scowl. He pauses for a moment, tugging the sheets on the lonely mattress straight, then scooping Miriam’s clothes off the floor and setting them on the coverlet.
Miriam smiles, even though she loses her concentration and her view of the room. Her head aches from the effort and she rubs her forehead with her knuckles, tired and hot. A waste of effort anyway. She knows what she’ll find when she goes inside.
The kitchen is a mess, but apparently Aunt Margaret and Aunt Leslie aren’t interested in the everyday plates. Or much else that’s useful. They’ve pulled it all out—looking for valuables, Miriam guesses—then moved on.
She takes a few minutes to straighten the worst of the mess, then starts lunch. Good thing she did the baking just yesterday; there’s two fresh loaves in the bread box for making sandwiches.
“I imagine you must be beating the boys away with a stick, Miriam.” Bobby leans back against the counter, easy.
Miriam’s heart skips a beat or two but she doesn’t let it show. “Don’t be silly. I know your folk are from Alabama and they do things different down there, but ’round here we wait ’til girls are good and proper grown up ’afore they start seein’ boys.”
“Proper grown up.” He chuckles. “Just how old is that?”
All she has to do is glance sideways to see his face—dark hair flopped into his eyes and a teasing smile pulling his mouth all crooked.
She pulls her own mouth into a little knot and tosses her head. “Sixteen. At least.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
Out of the corner of her eye, Miriam can see he is chewing his lip, thoughtful. Seems he’s taller than the last time she saw him and not as skinny, neither. His shoulders are getting broad like his daddy’s.
“Sixteen, huh? So it’ll be another few months before I can ask you to marry me.”
The knife slams through the tomato, narrowly missing the end of Miriam’s thumb. She looks up at him, wide-eyed. Expecting this is just another tease.
He’s smiling, but not playful and his spring-green eyes are serious.
“Marry you?” Her voice squeaks on both words, first up, then down. She sets the knife down and wipes her hands on her apron like Gran does when she’s figuring the answer to a difficult question. “We’re not courting, Bobby.”
“Not yet.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, waits.
Miriam’s mouth opens and shuts a few times. “Bobby Fannin…” She stops, not sure what to say next.
He shrugs, easy and loose, like a cat stretching. “You think about it, Miriam.”
She raises her chin, still bitter over the help he has given her aunts. “I think if I’m to be marrying it won’t be to a dirt poor farmer with nothing but sticks to his name.”
He gets a pale around the mouth but he reaches out and takes her hands tight. “Say what you want, Miriam. It won’t change my heart.”
Before she can say anything else, Aunt Margaret bangs through the door. “I’m not paying you to stand around, boy.”
He ducks his head. “No, ma’am.”
“They need help getting that dresser up on the trailer. You go give ’em a hand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bobby glances back at Miriam and his eyes are still serious, but he smiles anyway before he’s out the door.
Silence lays down in the room like an old hound.
Aunt Margaret’s mouth screws up tight and her nose flares as she looks at Miriam. “Is lunch ready, girl?”
Miriam flushes. Always girl. As if it will keep people from knowing they are related.
“Well?” Aunt Margaret steps closer and Miriam flinches. Her arm still aches with the bruise Aunt Leslie gave
her earlier.
“Almost, ma’am.”
“Get on with it, girl. My husband will be back inside shortly and he’ll want something to eat.” She smiles, gloating. She has a husband, while Miriam’s mother doesn’t. Just like Miriam doesn’t have a father. At least, not one she’s ever met.
Aunt Margaret clomps down the hall and Miriam finishes cutting the tomatoes. She adds thick red slices to each sandwich, balances the top slice of bread and cuts them neatly in two. The table in the middle of the kitchen is covered with plates. With both aunts and their daughters and husbands, plus Bobby, the house is full.
Miriam balances a row of plates down one arm and picks up two more with her other hand. She knows better than to ask for help.
Bobby and Uncle Earl are still outside, but the rest of the family is sitting in the parlor, hot and uncomfortable in their Sunday best.
Matilda and Veronica look unimpressed by the lunch offering, but Jeanne smiles, big and warm, when Miriam hands her a plate with a sandwich cut in the shape of a star.
“Thank you, Miri.” Her voice is high and clear, breaking the muggy silence in the parlor like glass.
Miriam smiles and nods. The back of her neck is hot with the weight of outraged looks and she hands out the rest of the plates, quick, and returns to the kitchen.
It only takes a moment to lay Gran’s lunch out on a tray: sliced cucumbers and tomato with fresh greens and another glass of sweet tea.
“I’ll take that, girl.” Aunt Leslie shoulders her to one side.
Miriam frowns. “I take Gran’s lunch in.”
“Not anymore.” Aunt Leslie picks up the tray and marches down the hall.
Swallowing a lump of disappointment, Miriam sits down at the kitchen table and pulls her own plate close. She pours a fresh glass of sweet tea and adds a wedge of lemon to the amber liquid.
Before she can take the first bite or sip, Aunt Leslie is back. Her face is stiff, rosy lips mashed into a line so thin they are almost invisible.
“Yes, ma’am?” Miriam wonders what she forgot, if there is another pinch coming.
“She wants you to eat with her.” Aunt Leslie’s voice grates on every word.