New York Fantastic

by Paula Guran

  It wasn’t.

  Sweeney watched the woman pick up her paintbrush, set it down. Pick up her phone, look at it, clutch her hair or shake her head, then set the phone down and walk back to her canvas. She had been repeating a variation of this pattern since he landed on the fire escape outside of her window.

  He had seen her take the picture, and wanted to know why. The people who saw him were usually quite good at ignoring his transformations, in that carefully turned head, averted eyes, and faster walking way of ignoring. Most people didn’t even let themselves see him. This woman did. Easy enough to fly after her, once he was a bird again.

  Sweeney wondered if perhaps she was mad, too, this woman who held the mass of her hair back by sticking a paintbrush through it, and who talked to herself as she paced around her apartment.

  She wasn’t mad now though, not that he could tell. She was painting. Sweeney stretched his wings, and launched himself into the cold, soothing light of the stars.

  In the center of the canvas was a man, and feathers were erupting from his skin.

  “Oh, yes. Brian is going to love it when you tell him about this. ‘That series of paintings you didn’t want me to do? Well, I’ve decided that the thing it really needed was werebirds.’”

  It was good, though, she thought. The shock of the transformation as a still point in the chaos of the city that surrounded him.

  The transformation had been a shock. The kind of thing you had to see to believe, and even then, you doubted. Such a thing should have been impossible to see.

  And maybe that was the thread for the series, Maeve thought. Fantasy birds, things that belonged in fairy tales and medieval bestiaries, feathered refugees from mythology and legend scattered throughout a modern city that refused to see them there.

  She could paint that. It would be a series of paintings that would let her do something powerful if she got them right.

  Maeve sat at her computer, and began compiling image files of harpy and cockatrice, phoenix and firebird. There were, she thought, so many stories of dead and vengeful women returning as ghost birds, but nothing about men who did so. Not that she thought what she had seen was a ghost, or that she was trying some form of research-based bibliomancy to discern the story behind the bird (the man) she kept seeing, but she wouldn’t have turned away an answer.

  “And would it have made you feel better if you had found one? Because hallucinating a ghost bird in Manhattan is so much better than if you’re just seeing a naked werebird? Honestly.” She shook her head.

  Though it wasn’t a hallucination. Not with the picture on her phone. Why it was easier to think she was losing her mind than to accept that she had seen something genuinely impossible was something Maeve didn’t understand.

  She printed out reference photos for all the impossible birds she hadn’t yet seen, and taped them over the walls.

  In the beginning, when the curse’s claws still bled him, and Sweeney had nothing to recall him to himself or his humanity, he would fly after Eorann, who had been his wife, before he was a bird. She was the star to his wanderings.

  Eorann had loved Sweeney, and so she had tried, at the beginning, to break the curse. Unspeaking, she wove garments from nettles and cast them over Sweeney like nets, in the hopes that pain and silence spun together might force a bird back into a man’s shape. Even had one perfect wing lingered as a reminder of his past and his errors, it would have been change enough. More, it would have been stasis, a respite from the constant and unpredictable change that, Sweeney discovered, was the curse’s true black heart.

  When that did not work, she had shoes made from iron, and walked the length and breadth of Ireland in an attempt to wear them out. But she was already east of the sun and west of the moon, the true north of her compass set to once upon a time. Such places are not given to the wearing out of iron shoes.

  Eorann spun straw into gold, then spun the gold into thread that flexed and could be woven into a dress more beautiful than the sun, the moon, and the stars. She uncurdled milk, and raised from the dead a cow that gave it constantly, without needing food nor drink of its own. If there were a miracle, a marvel, or a minor wonder that Eorann could perform in the hopes of breaking Sweeney’s curse, she did so.

  Until the day she didn’t.

  “A wife’s role may be many things, Sweeney. But it is not a wife’s job to break a husband’s curse, not when he is the one who has armored himself in it.”

  Those were the last words that Eorann had spoken to him. From the distance of time, Sweeney could admit now that she was right. Still, from the height of the unfeeling sky, he wished that she had been the saving of him.

  “Well, they’re different. That ’s certain,” Brian said, walking between the canvases.

  “If different means crap, just say so. I’m too tired to parse euphemisms.”

  Maeve only had one completed canvas—the man transforming into a bird. But she had complete studies of two others—a phoenix rising out of the flame of a burning skyline, and a harpy hovering protectively over a woman.

  “They’re darker than your usual thing, but powerful.” Brian stepped back, walked back and forth in front of the canvas.

  “They’re good. I’ve a couple galleries in mind—I’ll start making calls.

  “You’ll come to the opening, of course.”

  “No,” Maeve said. “Absolutely not. Nonnegotiable.”

  “Look, the reclusive artist thing was fine when you were starting out, because you didn’t matter enough for people to care about you. But we can charge real money for these. People who pay real money for their art aren’t just buying a decoration for their wall, they’re buying the story that goes with it.”

  Maeve was pretty sure no one wanted to buy the story of the artist who had a panic attack at her own opening. No, scratch that. She was absolutely sure someone would want to buy that story. She just didn’t want to sell her paintings badly enough to give it to them.

  “Well, then how about the story is I am a recluse. A crazy bird lady instead of a crazy cat lady. I live with the chickens. Whatever you need to say. But I don’t interact with the people buying my work, and I don’t go to openings.”

  “You’re lucky I’m good at my job, Maeve.”

  “I’m good at mine, too.”

  Brian sighed. “Of course you are. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But I don’t understand why you don’t just buy yourself a pretty dress, and have fun letting rich people buy you drinks and tell you how wonderful you are.

  “Let yourself celebrate a little. It’s the fun part of the job, Maeve.”

  It wasn’t, not for her. Of course, Brian wouldn’t understand that. Maeve worked too hard to keep her panic attacks hidden. She had an entire portfolio of tricks to keep them manageable, and out of view.

  Out of the apartment was fine, as long as she didn’t have to interact with too many people. Crowds were okay as long as she had someone she knew with her, and she didn’t have to interact with the people she didn’t know. When she had to meet new people, she did so in familiar surroundings, either one on one, or in a group of people she already knew and felt comfortable with. Even then, she usually needed a day at home, undisturbed, after, in order to rest and regain her equilibrium.

  A party where everyone would be strangers who wanted to pay attention to her, who wanted her to interact with them, with no safety net of friends that she could fall onto, was impossible.

  Even after Eorann had told Sweeney that she could not save him, it took him some time to realize that he would need to be the saving of himself. More time still, an infinity of church bells, of molting feathers, to understand that saving himself did not necessarily include lifting the curse.

  In search of himself, of answers, of peace, long and long ago, Sweeney had undertaken a quest.

  A quest is a cruel migration. This is the essence of a quest, no matter who undertakes it. But Sweeney had not known what to look for, save for the longing to see some
thing other than what he was.

  The Sangréal had been found once already, and though lost again, it was the kind of thing where the first finding mattered. The dragons were all in hiding, and Sweeney had never particularly thought they needed to be slain.

  Nor had he known the map with which to travel by, save for one that would take him to a place other than where he was. He took wing. Over sea and under stone and then over the sea to sky.

  Maeve saw the bird at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine again. Cathedrals, churches, museums, libraries, they were useful sorts of places for her. When the walls of her apartment pressed too tightly, these were places she could go, and sit, and think, and not have to worry about people insisting that she interact with them in order to justify her presence.

  “I came here for peace and quiet, you know. Not because I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of you naked.”

  The bird did not seem to have an opinion on that.

  When she sat, Maeve specifically chose a bench that did not have a line of sight to the bird’s current perch. Not like it couldn’t fly, but it was the principle of the thing. And she really didn’t want to see it become a naked man again.

  Stories about artistic inspiration that came to life and then interacted with the artist were only interesting if they were stories. When they were your life, they were weird.

  The bird landed next to her on the bench.

  Maeve looked at her bird, at her sketchbook, and back at the bird.

  “Fine. Fine. But do not turn into a man. Not in front of me. Just don’t. If you think you’re going to, leave. Please.” She tore off a chunk of her croissant and set it on the bird’s side of the bench. “Okay?”

  Maeve was relieved when the bird did not answer.

  There was a package from Brian waiting for her when she got home. The card read, “For the crazy bird lady.”

  Inside was a beautiful paper bird. A crane, but not the expected origami. Paper-made sculpture, not folded. Feathers and wings and beak all shaped from individual pieces of brightly colored paper. It was a gorgeous fantasy of practicality and feathers.

  Maeve tucked it on a shelf, where she could see it while she painted.

  He hadn’t answered her today, the red-haired painter. Sweeney could speak in bird form—he was still a man, even when feather-clad—but he had learned, finally, the value of silence.

  This had not always been so. It had been speaking that had first called his curse down upon him.

  He had called out an insult to Ronan. Said something he should not have, kept speaking when he should have driven a nail through his tongue to hold his silence.

  Ronan had spoken then, too. Spoken a word that burnt the sky, and shifted the bones of the earth. A curse, raw and dire. That was the first time the madness fell upon Sweeney. The madness, and the breaking of himself into the too-light bones that made up a bird’s wing.

  When it came down to it, it was pride that cursed Sweeney into his feathers as sure as pride had melted Icarus out of his. Pride, and a too-quick temper, faults that dwelt in any number of people without changing their lives and their shapes, without sending them on a path of constant migration centered on a reminder of error.

  Curses didn’t much care that there were other people they could have landed on, just as comfortably. They fell where they would, then watched the aftermath unfold.

  Some days were good days, days when Maeve could walk through her life and not be aware of any of the adjustments she performed to make it livable.

  Tuesday was not one of those days.

  She had taken the subway, something she did only rarely, preferring to walk. But a sudden hailstorm had driven her underground, and sent what seemed like half of the city after her.

  Maeve got off at the second stop, not even sure what street it was. Her pulse had been racing so fast that her vision had gone grey and narrow. If she hadn’t gotten out, away from all those people she would have collapsed.

  Her notebook, her most recent sketches for her paintings, was left behind on the Uptown 2 train. It had to have been the train where it went missing. She had been sure it was in her bag when she left her apartment, and it was clearly not among the bag’s upended contents now.

  Forty-five minutes on the phone with MTA lost and found had done no more than she expected, and reassured her the odds of its return were small.

  And though it had smelled fine—she had checked—the milk with which she had made the hot chocolate that was supposed to make her feel better had instead made her feel decidedly worse.

  The floor of the bathroom was cool against her cheek. Exhausted and sick, Maeve curled in on herself, and fell into tear-streaked sleep.

  The bird was in her dream, and that was far from the weirdest thing about it.

  The sky shaded to lavender, the clouds like ink splotches thrown across it.

  Then a head sailed across the waxing moon.

  Sweeney cocked his own head, and shifted on the branch.

  Another head described an arc across the sky, a lazy rise and fall.

  Sweeney looked around. He could not tell where the heads were launching from, nor could he hear any sounds of distress.

  Three more heads, in rapid succession, and Sweeney was certain he was mad again. He wished he were in his human form, so that he might throw back his own head and howl.

  Five heads popped up in front of Sweeney, corks popping to the surface of the sea.

  Identical, each to each, the world’s strangest set of brothers.

  They looked, Sweeney thought, cheerful. Certainly more cheerful than he would be, were he suddenly disconnected from the neck down.

  Each head had been neatly severed. Or no. Not severed. They looked as if they were heads that had never had bodies at all. Smiling, clean-shaven, bright-eyed. No dangling veins or spines, no ragged skin. No blood.

  Sweeney supposed the fact that the heads were levitating was no more remarkable than the fact that they were not bleeding. Still, it was the latter that seemed truly strange.

  “Hail.”

   “And.”

    “Well.”

     “Met.”

      “Sweeney,” said the heads.

  “Er, hello,” said Sweeney.

      “A.”

     “Fine.”

    “Night.”

   “Isn’t.”

  “It?” Their faces were the picture of benevolence.

  “Indeed it is,” said Sweeney.

  “We.”

   “Would.”

    “Speak.”

     “With.”

      “You.”

  As they seemed to be doing that already, Sweeney simply bobbed his head.

      “Do.”

     “You.”

    “Not.”

   “Remember.”

  “Us?” The heads circled around Sweeney.

  He tried to focus, to imagine them with bodies attached. Nothing about them seemed familiar. He could not see past their duplicated strangeness. “Please forgive me, gentlemen, but I don’t.”

  “We.”

   “So.”

    “Often.”

     “Forget.”

      “Ourselves.”

      “Or.”

     “Perhaps.”

    “We.”

   “Haven’t.”

  “Met.” They slid into line in front of him again, the last one bumping its left-side neighbor, and setting him gently wobbling.

  “Can you read the future, then?” It seemed the most likely explana tion, though nothing about this encounter was at all likely.

  “Yes.”

   “And.”

    “No.”

     “Only.”

      “Sometimes.”

  Sweeney appreciated the honesty of the answer almost as much as he appreciated the thoroughness.

  �
�   “Listen.”

     “Now.”

    “Sweeney.”

   “Listen.”

  “Well.”

  “No.

   “One.”

    “Chooses.”

     “His.”

      “Quest.”

      “It.”

     “Is.”

    “Chosen.”

   “For.”

  “Him.”

  “All.

   “Quests.”

    “End.”

     “In.”

      “Death.”

  “So does life,” said Sweeney.

      “Then.”

     “Choose.”

    “Yours.”

   “Well.”

  “Sweeney.”

  The heads cracked their jaws so wide, Sweeney wondered if they would swallow themselves. Then they began to laugh, and while laughing, whirled themselves into a small cyclone. Faster and faster it spun, until the heads were nothing but a laughing blur, and then were gone.

  Sweeney, contemplative, watched the empty sky until dawn.

  Maeve sat up, her head and neck aching from sleeping on the tile, her mouth tasting as if she had licked the subway station she fled from earlier that day.

  Legs still feeling more like overcooked noodles than functioning appendages, she staggered into the kitchen, and poured the milk down the sink. It was a largely symbolic sort of gesture, performed only to make her head feel better—it certainly wouldn’t undo the food poisoning or the resulting fucked up dream, but seeing the milk spiral down the drain was still a relief.

  Talking heads flying around Central Park and conversing with a bird who was sometimes a man. It was like something out of a Henson movie, except without the good soundtrack.

  Becoming involved enough in her work to dream about it was, on balance, a good thing. But there were limits. She was not putting disembodied heads into her paintings.

  Maeve painted a tower, set into the Manhattan skyline. A wizard’s tower, dire and ancient, full of spirals and spires, held together with spells and impossibility.