One of the women walks by with a tray and offers a drink to Lygeia. Their fingertips brush together, a whisper of skin on skin. The woman gasps. Leans close.
“If you’re cold, you shouldn’t stand here underneath the vent,” she says.
Lygeia nods, although she doesn’t understand. The woman’s warmth is so close, but so far out of reach. Lygeia lifts her hand instinctively to touch, but the woman is already stepping away.
She sags back against the wall.
The liquor is cold and sweet on her tongue, like a secret, a wish. She takes tiny sips as the music plays. Crying doves, walking Egyptians, girls who want to have fun. Heat blooms inside her, not from the people or the liquor, but from the thought of such debasement. Is this what she must become to survive? Mindless babble instead of eloquence? Cacophony instead of symphony?
A sharp twist of agony in her side pulls the breath from her lungs. Surely her ancestors would deem death a better end. Yet the rhythms, once fixed in the mind, are hard to dislodge. Much like a thorn in the flesh.
The song changes again and again, she breathes in the notes, memorizes the words. Slowly, slowly, she can feel the music slipping into her, tracing patterns on her vocal chords, imprinting hateful harmonies on her lips and tongue.
A man with pale hair sculpted into artful waves walks by and smiles. “Want to dance?” She shakes her head. A few minutes later, another man, dark–haired this time, asks the same question. Again, after a shake of her head, he vanishes into the crowd.
Each song rolls into the next without pause. A song of tainted love becomes a look of love and then sweet dreams. Nonsense and whimsy, yet she begins to tap her foot in time.
A group of women cry out as another song starts, and they turn in circles, singing along. Lygeia winces at the lyrics. “You spin me round?” Had a child written them? The smile she’s been so careful with falls. Yet her body is moving with the music, too.
When the song ends, a shower of pink confetti falls from the ceiling. Lygeia feels it land on her arms, but doesn’t brush it away. The pain in her side seems faded. Distant. Her thoughts, too. She presses half–moons into her palms, but it doesn’t help. It isn’t the liquor; their concoction doesn’t hold a candle to a sailor’s homemade whisky. It’s the music. It’s hypnotic in a way it should not be.
She wants to cover her ears, but her arms feel encased in lead; wants to run, but her feet seem to have forgotten how. She squeezes her eyes shut. Thinks of her home beyond the harbor, in the cold waters of the bay. She thinks of a sailor’s last gasp of air, his heartbeat slowing down to nothing at all. She doesn’t understand what foul sort of magic this music holds and why it should hold her so.
Then she feels a familiar tingle in the back of her throat. No, not here. Not like this. It’s far too dangerous; there are too many people. She covers her mouth with a hand and staggers forward, pushing and shoving through the crowd.
“The bathroom is that way,” someone says.
“Don’t puke on me,” another shouts inside a cruel laugh.
She nearly sobs when the door comes into view. Then it opens and a huge group of people flow in. So close. Too close. And their skin is warm and inviting. Lygeia tries to nudge someone aside, but someone else steps forward and pushes her back. She feels like a strand of seaweed caught in a whirlpool; all she can do is wait for the spiral to cease. All around her, the warmth presses in. Taunting. Teasing.
A song begins to form in her throat, and she swallows the notes. Not safe. It’s not safe. The pain in her side pounds in time with her racing heartbeat. Sweat runs down the center of her spine, burning the wounds. Her fingers tremble. And the music rushes over her again and again and again. She shoves her elbow in someone’s side, drawing a glare, but a small space opens up and Lygeia pushes forward. The door is now only a few feet away. Another elbow. Another exhalation of surprise. Another space. And forward she moves.
The song bubbles up, straining to break free, but it’s wrong. The notes gouge the inside of her throat and stretch her vocal chords; the melody is a stone scraping across her tongue. It’s not her song, but something tainted, something horrific, yet it screams with the need for release.
She holds her hand even tighter, mashing her lips painfully against her teeth. Moves forward until she stands before the door. When her fingertips brush the wood, someone opens it from the other side. She staggers forward and her hand comes away from her mouth as she reaches out to the doorframe to stop her fall. The song surges up through her throat, up and out. Not a song at all, but the dreadful cry of a seagull with a broken back, the wailing of a mermaid with a severed tail. An abomination.
She clamps both hands over her mouth, but it’s too late. Footsteps rush toward her. Hands touch her skin, their warmth flowing into her. The pain in her side melts away; the pain in her clipped talons and back, too. She can hear the beating of their hearts, the expansion of their lungs, but something is wrong. Their hands tug and pull and their eyes are not vacant, their mouths are not slack. She sees desperation and a furious hunger, as if they want to tear her to ribbons. It isn’t right. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, the way it’s always been.
“Stop,” she commands, but they don’t obey.
She squirms and twists, trying to get free. The warmth turns to heat and she’s burning up, boiling, because there are too many; they’ll kill her. She shrieks a banshee’s wail, but it does nothing. Of course it does nothing. The only way to break a bond is death, but there are too many and her talons are too dull. She was a fool. Such a fool.
She pulls free of the hands and breaks into a run. They follow behind, crying out in dumb need. The soles of her boots slap hard on the sidewalks, the asphalt. Buildings pass in a blur. Hands touch her skin then fall away. She runs faster and faster, smiling when she begins to smell the tang of the harbor. The water draws closer and closer and still they follow.
She dives into the water, tasting dead fish and pollution, but her arms and legs kick true and her body slides through the harbor murk like a river serpent. She hears the splashing of many bodies in the water, feels a hand wrap tight around her ankle and pull her under. She kicks hard. Something — a nose? a jaw? — crushes beneath the heel of her boot. She surfaces and swims faster.
She may not possess a mermaid’s gift of breathing beneath the water, but she can swim for a long time. The humans might survive the waters of the harbor and the bay, but they’ll never survive the ocean, not even in the thrall of this unnatural bond. She has to believe that exhaustion or drowning or a combination of both will eventually claim them one by one.
If she has to swim all night and all day, if she has to travel to the other side of the ocean, she will get away from their grabbing hands and the corruption of their music. Her real song is still inside — it has to be — and she’ll find people who will answer her call. She won’t give up. Not now. Not ever.
But behind her, the splashing continues, a hand grasps, and she goes under again.
Bad Dream Girl
Seanan McGuire
“There are three parties involved in any conflict: you, your opponent, and the terrain. Get the terrain on your side as fast as you can. If that means bribing a mountain, well. Stranger things have happened.” — Alice Healy
A nondescript warehouse in Northeast Portland, Oregon
Now
FERN WAS DOING SPEED TRIALS AROUND the track again, her head down and her arms pumping as she raced against her own personal record. I sat on the bench with my elbows resting on my knees, watching her go. There’s practically nothing in the world that can keep up with a sylph going full–tilt. A sylph on roller skates is in a weight class of her own. Fern was going fast enough that it seemed like she should have been leaving a contrail, and I could see half the team mentally taking notes as they watched her go.
It was really a pity they wouldn’t be able to put any of her techniques to use. Fern skated the same way the rest of us did. It’s just that she had a
variable density while she skated, and everyone else had to content themselves with the boring old laws of physics.
Fern finished her last official lap around the track by thrusting a fist into the air, accompanied by the approving whoop of our coach. Four other girls promptly piled onto the track with her, trying to match her pace even as she was starting to bleed off her momentum. I snorted amusement and bent forward to check the laces on my skates. If speed trials were finished, it was time for more formal practice, and they were going to want me paying attention for that.
“Yo, Thompson.” I raised my head to see Carlotta — better known as “Pushy Galore” in this setting — skating toward me. She jerked a thumb at the girls now circling the rink. “You going to get out there this practice, or are you going to keep weighing down the bench?”
“I was waiting for Fern’s speed trials to finish,” I protested, bowing my head long enough to check my laces one more time before pushing to my feet and skating smoothly forward to meet her. “Did she beat her record?”
“The girl’s a machine, I swear.” Carlotta shook her head. “One day she’s going to be reclaimed by the secret government lab that built her.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed, stealing a glance at the clock. We had thirty minutes left before we had to cede the warehouse to its next tenants, a bunch of local college students who were probably planning to use it for a rave. I checked that my helmet was strapped firmly in place, flipped Carlotta amiably off, and joined the girls circling the track. Fern grinned as she passed me in the pack, looking totally serene. I grinned back. We all have our happy places. For Fern, going as fast as she possibly could was the key to personal satisfaction. For me, it was… well, a little different. But a good roller derby practice was close enough.
We had half an hour. That could be all the time in the world, if we spent it right. I put my head down, stopped thinking about anything but the moment, and let myself just skate. It was a wonderful feeling. When I did that, I could understand why Fern risked herself the way she did, showing off for a bunch of humans who probably wouldn’t appreciate it if they found out the real situation with her.
When I skated, I was happy. It was a pity it could never last.
§
Thirty minutes passed all too fast, and the bell found us returning to the benches where we’d left our street clothes, stripping off our protective gear and sniff–checking skate pads before grimacing and shoving them into our bags. Mine smelled like something had died in them. I was going to be doing some serious scrubbing when I got home, assuming nothing potentially fatal came up en route.
“Hey, Annie.”
I looked up at the sound of Fern’s voice, and smiled. “Hey, Fern. That was some awesome skating out there today.”
Her periwinkle blue eyes widened as she asked, anxiously, “I didn’t do anything wrong?”
“No,” I assured her. “You were perfect.” If any of our teammates heard us, they’d assume we were talking about her speed trials.
What she was actually asking was whether she’d pushed her density–reduction trick too far, blatantly breaking the laws of physics, rather than just goosing them a little the way she usually did. She hadn’t crossed that line yet. When she did, I’d tell her. It was part of my reason for being in the league. Cryptids like to have fun as much as anybody else, and when you’re a cryptid girl with a fondness for tattoos, piercings, loud music, and the sound of roller skates endlessly circling a wooden track, that fun is likely to take the form of women’s flat–track roller derby. Which is where I came in.
My teammates call me “Annie Thompson,” or “Final Girl,” when we’re actually prepping for a bout. At home, my name is Antimony Price — no less ridiculous than my pseudonyms, I know. I’m the latest in a long line of cryptozoologists, and it’s my job to keep people like Fern, who just wanted to skate without being hassled over the fact that she’s not human as such, from getting into trouble.
That, and I really, really like the sound it makes when an opposing team’s jammer gets her skull bounced off the track. It’s this sweet sort of hollow boing noise, and remembering it can help me resist the urge to punch my older sister in the face.
Roller derby: it’s good for more than just interesting bruises.
Fern — whose derby name was “Meggie Itwasthewind” — beamed. She sobered again just as quickly, and said, “Coach really wants me to go out for jammer.”
“And I really think that’s a terrible idea.” Fern’s speed was a function of her density. When she dialed it down, she moved faster, but had less inertia behind her. If she tried jamming at her full speed, she’d run into the opposing team’s blockers and find herself with no momentum left. She looked so downcast that I added, “Besides, it’s way more fun to watch them slamming into you and realizing that you’re heavier than you look.” The inverse of Fern’s density trick made her virtually impossible to shove aside. Watching the other team try to shift a five–foot–nothing girl who seemed to weigh more than the Incredible Hulk was pure comedy gold.
“You really think so?”
“I do. And it’ll get you into a lot less trouble.” I tucked my skates into their bag. “See you at the bout on Friday?”
Fern nodded, her smile returning. “I can’t wait.”
It had been an informal practice, with skaters from all four of the teams in the league coming together to use the space. Most of the girls had been from my team, the Slasher Chicks, or from the Concussion Stand. That made sense, since we were the teams that would be skating against each other on Friday. The other two teams in the league — the Block Busters and the Stunt Troubles — would have their next bout in two weeks. It was a good schedule. I just had to hope that this season, I’d be able to show up for more than half the bouts.
Elsie was waiting for me outside the warehouse, the windows in her little Honda rolled down and Taylor Swift blasting on her car stereo. I gave her a sidelong look as I slung my skate bag into the backseat. She grinned and waggled the fingers of her left hand at me in a wave that couldn’t have been more girly if it had been accompanied by rainbows and the smell of cotton candy.
“Howdy, sweet cousin of mine,” she said, in an exaggerated, utterly fake southern drawl. “You need an escort away from this den of sin and depravity?”
“You met your last three girlfriends here,” I said, getting into the front seat. “What is wrong with you today?”
“I got sneered at by some girl whose hair has never been conditioned,” she said, dropping the accent. “If I’m going to get looked at funny for not being counter–culture enough, I’m going to earn it.”
“Elsie, you’re a succubus,” I said flatly, and buckled my seatbelt. “You’re more counter–culture than most of these girls would know what to do with. Now please, I beg of you, change the CD.”
“You’re no fun at all,” said Elsie, and pressed the button to switch her car stereo back to my usual default: the local college–run indie station. The soothing tones of Halestorm assaulted our ears. “How was practice?”
“Good. I think we’ve got a good chance of stomping the Concussion Stand in this weekend’s bout.”
“Uh–huh.” Elsie seemed to be paying more attention to her lip gloss than to the road as she pulled away from the curb. It was a ruse, at least if her flawless driving record was to be trusted, but it still made me grateful for modern advances in automotive safety. “You realize that you start talking derby and all I hear is ‘blah blah hot chicks hot chicks piercings tattoos hot chicks yay,’ right?”
“I keep telling you to strap on a pair of skates and meet more of those hot chicks for yourself.”
“Honey, I do fine pulling from the stands.” Elsie shot me a sloe–eyed look. I snorted in amusement. Even if I liked girls — which would have made my teenage years a lot easier, since all the other kids in my high school assumed I was a lesbian no matter what I did — I wouldn’t have been into Elsie. I don’t date relatives, especially not f
irst cousins.
Elsie greeted my snort with a grin, finally turning her attention to the road. Good thing, too; what looked like half the players from the Concussion Stand were skating across the street, having switched their competition gear for standard rollerblades. “Want me to flatten them?”
“No, they’re nice. Besides, their primary jammer’s a chupacabra, and that means she’s sort of my responsibility.”
“Kill a bunch of humans, whatever, kill one chupacabra…” Elsie shook her head. “Our priorities are skewed, screwed, and…”
“Tattooed?” I suggested.
“Doesn’t start with an ‘s,’ but I’ll allow it this time.” Elsie waited for the Concussion Stand to pass before she hit the gas again. “Okay, this time I promise I’ll listen: how was practice?”
“Good. Normal. Relaxing. Carlotta knocked me on my ass twice — I’m going to have a pretty spectacular bruise tomorrow — and Fern broke her record on the speed trials. Again.” I settled in my seat, cheerfully recounting all the little dramas and delights of the day. Elsie listened attentively, asked questions when the narrative called for it, and generally acted like she gave a damn, which was all I could really have asked from her.
It’s funny, really. My big sister says she wants to go into professional ballroom dancing and it’s like our parents can’t support her fast enough. I join a regional roller derby team — in a league with no fewer than five cryptid players, mind you, which means it’s worth keeping an eye on, and that doesn’t even start to touch on the cryptids in the national derby community — and I’m lucky if they remember I’ve got a bout. That’s what being the youngest of three will do for you, I guess. I’m neither the heir nor the spare. I’m the annoying child prodigy blowing things up in the backyard, and inching closer to “former child prodigy” with every passing day.
Glitter & Mayhem Page 24