“I sort of know what that’s like,” Emily murmured. “ ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Canada.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, where are your PARENTS from.’ ” Emily mimed throttling an invisible neck, and Lynette chuckled. “It’s not as bad here, actually. Mostly people assume I’m American.” She paused, thoughtful. “So — why doesn’t Kel go back?”
“Ah.” Lynette put down her cup, folded her hands in her lap. “They cannot afford the cost.”
“The cost?”
“Indeed. Our world is the source of our power; when the way is open, we can shift our shapes, fly, find things that are hidden or missing, carry our lovers across the world in our arms if we so choose. When the way is shut —” Lynette shrugged, “— there is a cost to open it. At present it is as if Kel and I have been stripped of citizenship, and must apply for visas instead of coming and going as we please. And, as with visas, there is always the chance that after having paid the price and sent in our paperwork, our application will be rejected all the same. …Are you all right?”
Emily nodded, tight–lipped. “Sorry, I just — what do you mean, find things that are hidden or missing?”
“It’s just an ability we possess.” Lynette looked at her curiously. “A function of our nature.”
“Oh.” She nodded again. “Please go on. What is the cost?”
Lynette considered her for a moment longer before answering. “It is… An elaboration of the usual shedding of a form. For us, to open the way, we must give up a whole person. A sacrifice, if you will.”
Emily stared at her. “What, you mean — you have to kill someone?”
Lynette shook her head. “Not kill. Give up. Relinquish. But it only works if the person is precious, beloved. For me — if I were to cut out my tongue, I might be able to open the way back. I would be giving up who I have become here, my art. Once on the other side I might easily choose a different form, one with a tongue, perhaps one with a more beautiful voice — but I would lose Lynette Byrd, whom I have come to love, and I would never have her again. That is if the sacrifice is deemed sufficient.”
“So, Kel —”
“Kel loves nothing about who they are here. Every moment spent in their body is torment. Kel never kept one body for long, understand — if you comprehend gender on a spectrum of male and female, think of us as possessing gender along a spectrum of fluid and fixed. It is agony for Kel to be in one body, to be static, to be observable always in the same way.” Lynette sighed. “It is an exquisitely devised exile. We must love something so much that we could never wish to give it up — and then give it up. So long as Kel despises their body, they cannot shed it, and so long as they cannot shed it, they will always despise their body and the world it is forced to inhabit. The only things they have come to love, while here, are the river Kelvin, from which they take their name — and Anna. But not enough. Kel is too willing to give them up. I had hoped that perhaps with Anna — with someone who understood the pain of a body that feels wrong —” Lynette shook her head. “As soon as Kel began to feel deeper affection for her, they sought to barter it for passage.”
Emily blinked. “Kel tried to give Anna up?”
“Yes.” Lynette looked pained. “There is a ritual we do, by the river, to open the way home. Anna participated, willingly — but it wasn’t enough. The trap works too well. Kel might have once loved me enough for the leaving to hurt sufficiently, but —” she closed her eyes, briefly. “— It is hard for them, that I will not give up myself to pay for the chance of our passage. And so it goes. The magic must be cruel, to work. It must feel like the tearing of a page.”
Emily felt a sudden pang — a tug in her belly, like cresting the topmost hill of a rollercoaster, teetering on the edge of the plunge.
“So, without your powers, you can’t open the way back, and until that way is open, you don’t have your powers?”
Lynette opened her eyes again, and nodded. Emily bit her lip.
“And could — anyone open up the way? By giving something up?”
“In theory.” Emily felt her cheeks flushing beneath the sudden intensity of Lynette’s gaze. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying — suppose someone wanted you to have your powers. For something specific. Would you — could you help them, if the door was open?”
Lynette said nothing for a long moment, while Emily met her eyes. When Lynette finally spoke, it was gentle.
“What have you lost, Emily?”
She pulled her backpack onto her lap, unzipped it, pulled out her journal, and put it on the table between them.
“My best friend.”
§
Dear Paige,
I told Lynette about you. It was hard, at first. For so long you’ve felt like a secret I’ve been keeping on your behalf. My best friend, to whom I write — who never writes back. My best friend, whom I’ve known for half my life — but who hasn’t spoken to me in over a year. My best friend, who was going to travel with me, share a home with me, be up against the world with me — who vanished into air and darkness and didn’t tell me where she was going.
It was hard, but it got easier.
I told her how afraid I’ve become for you. I told her about your depression, how you’d been withdrawing for a while, that it got worse once we had extra time zones between us. I told her about the unanswered phone messages, e–mails, postcards. I told her about how I called your work one time just to see if they could tell me you were alive, and how they said they’d laid you off a week earlier, and didn’t know how to answer my question about whether or not you were okay.
She asked me if I was prepared to find out that you’re dead. I told her that I knew you couldn’t be dead, couldn’t possibly be, because I’d know. I’d feel something snap. I’m sure I would.
She told me to prepare for the possibility all the same.
So this is the last I’m writing to you in here. I’m giving you up — sort of — to find you. It may not work. It may not be enough. But I told Lynette that I’m giving up years of myself in here, too — the me who is best friends with Paige, who is happy and secure and confident, who can see friendships come and go because at her core is this one, this unshakeable soul–twin sister–friend who’ll never leave her.
So long as I’ve been writing in here I’ve felt like I could still be that person, because by writing to you I am conjuring you, I am keeping you in existence, and if you exist, so do I. And maybe if I find you — if Lynette can find you — she said Peri magics include carrying people through the air, so — if you’re in trouble, if you’re hurt — I can’t even think about that but I have to trust in something, that this will be okay, somehow. That I can still be some kind of me even without you.
I love you. I’m giving you up.
Emily
§
Lynette and Kel had gone ahead, saying they had preparations to make. Anna watched as Emily laced her boots in the entrance to their flat. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Why would you do this. You hardly even know them.”
Emily shrugged. “It’s not for them. It’s for Paige. And — for me.”
“Bullshit.”
Emily flinched and looked up, hurt. “What possible other reason could I have?”
Anna folded her arms, looked away. “Whatever, I don’t care.”
“Do you not want me to do this?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Think about it for two seconds, Emily.”
“But Lynette said you wanted —”
“Fuck Lynette.” Anna brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Look, I just — I love Kel. I fucking love them. And it’s — hard, to make peace with losing someone for their own good, to know that you’re the price of their happiness, and to agree to pay that price and then have it not be enough, because actually they didn’t love you enough, you know?” She exhaled, pushed the heel of her palm into her eye. “And here you are, having only just met them, making some kind of huge weird sacrifice, and if it works —”Anna choked. “�
�� If it works, then I lose Kel, and nothing about it was noble, nothing about it was my sacrifice. I’m just another failed attempt to get home.”
“That’s not true,” said Emily, shocked, standing up so quickly she stumbled. “Anna —”
“Shut up. Go to the river, do whatever needs doing. I get it. Been there, done that.” They looked at each other through tears. “I hope you find your friend.”
Then Anna walked into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. Emily tried not to cry as she let herself out.
§
They stood together beneath the Gibson street bridge over the river Kelvin, having climbed over the fence and down to the water’s edge. Emily clutched her journal to her chest and shivered as Kel waded into the water barefoot. Once the river reached their lips, they stopped.
Emily could hear Kel murmuring something into the water. Lynette stood next to her, wearing her cabaret costume and clutching a fistful of flower petals. She spoke quietly.
“You know what you need to do?”
Emily nodded.
“Very well. Kel is almost finished asking the river’s permission to pass through.” She looked away. “I hope this works. I don’t know how Kel will bear it otherwise.”
Emily swallowed, thinking of Anna. “I hope it works too.”
Kel stopped speaking, and began undressing in the water. As they removed their shirt, Emily saw the two long black lines of feathers running to either side of Kel’s spine like sutures, glinting in the dim light.
Kel turned to look at them, and nodded once. Lynette closed her eyes.
“It’s time.”
She drew a deep breath, cast the petals into the water, and began singing the Arcade Fire’s “My Body is a Cage.” While she did, Emily took a few steps into the water and opened the journal. She looked down and couldn’t help but read a line — from an early entry, a happy day, speaking of how exciting it was to be in England, how she’d been to the Sir John Soane Museum and tried to count all the busts for science.
As she grasped the page and pulled, she couldn’t tell if it was she or the paper who was tearing.
Then she staggered. The world tilted, and she felt herself struggling to hold her breath. Something was happening to the water — a churning where it had been still, a circling of light flooding upwards around Kel. Emily tore another page, and another, throwing each one into the river, sobs welling up as she did, cutting into her throat every time she read, in spite of herself, a snippet of something Paige would never read, never know — her conviction that a different sun shone over London, made of syrup and smoke; the dream she had on Halloween after her first gin and tonic; her first kiss with a woman. She’d meant to share it all with Paige, had written it all out for her, and if Paige didn’t have them, how could she?
Lynette was still singing — set my spirit free, set my body free — but she sounded farther and farther away. Emily could see the light around Kel brightening, and Kel — Kel was changing. The twin lines of feathers on their back were growing out, covering more and more skin, and Kel’s body was blurring in and out of the water. Could it be working? Was it enough, after all? Would she find —
Lynette’s song ended, and half a beat after the final note Emily heard her say, as if she were shouting from a vast distance away, look into the water.
She looked. In the same brightness she had seen shimmering around Kel, there was Paige.
The sight sank into her like a knife. There was Paige, in a laundromat — she was seeing her from behind, her long pale hair twisted up into a bun. She was taking washing out of one machine and putting it in a dryer. She was humming something, happily.
Overwhelmingly, Emily knew she was happy.
I can bring her to you, thundered Lynette’s voice, if you wish. In half a moment or less.
She did wish. She wanted, so badly, to have her in front of her, to rage and scream how, how could you be happy and all right and not speak to me, why wouldn’t you, what did I do wrong, what.
Paige was happy, washing laundry, and had her back to her. Emily stretched her hand into the water, choking on everything she wanted to say. But she’d said it already, into the river, as Anna had said it to Kel.
She drew her hand back.
“No,” she whispered. “She’s fine where she is.”
Then the light dimmed, the river smoothed, and Emily found herself weeping into the down on Lynette’s shoulder.
§
Dear Emily,
This is probably cheating, but you never specified the size of journal required, and a palm–sized Moleskine is still a Moleskine, and that means journal, so. Here I am, writing to you in a journal. My penmanship peaked in Primary 6. I hope you’re happy.
I’m sorry for — well, everything. I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly by keeping away for a while — that’s why I’m writing in here, for now. I figured maybe we both needed a little space after what happened. But — well, I miss you. I miss talking to you. This is a piss–poor substitute, actually. But I guess it’s better than nothing, and I think you might like, maybe, to know that I pay attention to the things you say even if I also tease you about them a little.
So I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up — it’s a small book, and it’s not meant to replace anything, obviously. It couldn’t. I don’t know how you’ll feel about it when I give it to you. I just want you to know, basically, that I still really like you, that I think you’re grand, that I’m grateful you’re not a jerk, and maybe if you’re up for it we could go to Nice N’Sleazy’s sometime for a gig? I think you’d like it, the ceiling lights are covered in paper shades with clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds on them.
Oh, you’re just coming in for your shift. I’ll write more later.
Love,
Anna
Just Another Future Song
Daryl Gregory
AS THEY PULLED HIM OUT OF the oxygen tent, he asked for the latest party.
“Oh, Mr. Jones,” one of the nurses said, amused. “We wouldn’t forget that.” The nurses, women in gray smocks with pale faces, moved in and out of view, murmuring in conspiratorial voices.
Something important had happened. Something that he should remember.
A great moon face leaned down into his line of sight. The man smiled with teeth of brass. “Welcome back, Jonesy.” He had a thick Brixton accent. Another man leaned in, a twin of the first. The same brow as blunt as an anvil, the same thick neck. But this second man was stone, not all smiling.
Mr. Jones opened his mouth to cry out, but all that escaped his lips was a rasp. He tried to lift his arms to protect himself, but his limbs would not respond. He knew these men, these brothers, though he could not remember their names. They were there in their strange black smocks when he died. The one who never smiled had held him down while tiny knives ripped him apart, cell by cell.
“The orderlies will take care of you from here,” the nurse said. And suddenly they were alone.
They lifted his willow–boned body, moving his limbs like a puppet’s. They dressed him in silk pajamas and a lush smoking jacket of deep purple. The slippers were black velvet. Finally, they placed him in a red velvet chair with silver wheels.
The smiling one crouched to look him in the eye. “No fun and games this time, eh, Mr. Jones?” he said. “No wandering about, doing mischief?”
Mr. Jones didn’t know what he was talking about. What mischief could he possibly do? His entire body felt weak as paper.
They pushed him across marble floors, through a corridor of high arched windows. Outside it was dark, but spotlights raked the windows, casting disturbing shadows. Eventually they reached a large room walled in glass. A solarium, Mr. Jones thought, though there was no sun here, only the dark and those roving lights, diffused by fog or grime, pawing the windows. The brightest light in the room was cast by the face of the huge television screen. It was ten or twelve feet wide and half as tall, a miniature cinema. In front of it, dozens of ancient men and
women sat slumped in wheelchairs as ornate as his own. The occupants were mottle–skinned and half–bald, jaws agape. The light of the screen flickered in their wet eyes.
“I…” The word came out in a whisper. “I want…” He wanted to see the doctor, but fear closed his throat.
The smiling brother ignored him. “Attention everyone,” he called. “Don’t want to miss the celebration.” His voice was waxy with sarcasm. The brothers parked Mr. Jones in the center of the room, then set about positioning the other patients around him. Some of the old ones cried out, twisting to keep the screen in sight. Others were asleep, or simply inert.
The stone–faced brother pushed a large, wheeled cart into the circle. Atop the cart was a white cake bristling with dozens and dozens of black–topped candles, so many that Mr. Jones could not quite read the words on the cake’s surface. Was that his name? It seemed to be the wrong one entirely.
The silent brother produced a match, flicked it alight with a long fingernail. He began to touch the tops of the candles, moving unhurriedly, lighting row upon row. The match somehow never gave out or dwindled. The cake disappeared beneath a rippling expanse of flame.
“How many?” Mr. Jones asked. His voice seemed strange to him, like a rake dragged across a cave floor.
“Oh, yer but a lad of five–and–twenty,” the smiling brother said. He clapped a hand on Mr. Jones’ shoulder. “Times twelve. Give or take.” He laughed hard.
Mr. Jones pictured twenty–five twelve–tone octaves, climbing higher and higher. He could not be that old. No human being could.
“Won’t you honor us, Jonesy?” the orderly asked. “You used to love to sing.”
Mr. Jones shook his head.
“Aw, don’t be shy. Bang a gong.”
Mr. Jones was surprised to see a young face in the audience. The teenager stood at the back of the room, watching the proceedings: hands in black jeans, a swoop of black hair streaked with orange hanging over one eye, a scarlet mouth. The teenager caught Mr. Jones’ eye and nodded.
The smiling orderly turned Mr. Jones in his chair and shook his head in exaggerated disappointment. “All right, then.” He bellowed to the crowd, “The rest of you, then! One and two!” He beat his arms in the air, and a few of the elderly patients began to wheeze and squeak like a carousel winding up. The song stuttered to a halt before they got to his name. Mr. Jones scanned the room, but the teenager had disappeared.
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