by C J Paget
“Akisa!” I called, barely daring to hope. Perhaps I was mistaken; perhaps the wolves had taken someone else; perhaps my daughter had been waiting for me to return and find her.
That’s right, sighed the voice, she’s here.
I stopped on the hillside, listening. Someone called my name. Saariv? No, I saw his body. I know it was him. My bed and my skin have been cold ever since.
They’re here, the voice hummed, waiting for you.
I heard my name again, far away in the trees. Instinct warned me this was all wrong. My mind was clearing. Recalling my argument with Yebani and the others, I retreated a step. The team must’ve noticed I was missing, for it was Osharu I heard calling. If the other mages came looking for me, they might all be in danger. Reason told me to turn around and run into the trees, but Akisa’s sweet laughter drifted down from the hilltop. I couldn’t leave without trying to find her. I climbed on.
The summit was wide and flat. In the center stood a series of crystals. Placed at random, some were taller than I, some far shorter. The sunlight glistened in pink and silver facets.
Among them loomed a statue. Tall and slender, it appeared to be carved of the same pale crystal. The folds of a robe, a formalized headdress. A goddess, perhaps, now forgotten and nameless. The hill had shifted with the ages, and she listed at an angle. The sharpness of the details had worn down to a cloud-like softness. Still, when the light fell just right, her features reflected a sublime serenity. What those glistering eyes would’ve seen. Ah, memories as old and enduring as the stone itself.
I searched, but Akisa was not to be found; her laughter had gone silent. My heart sank.
You come for healing, said the voice. Rest a while. You need not live with your pain. Let me help.
“Who are you?” I asked, approaching the statue. The hairs on my arms rose. The statue was clearly the source of the dwergma emanating from the hill. What spirit dwelled within?
I have seen your memories, it said. Do not mourn any longer. Let me cleanse you of this sorrow. I will mourn for you. So many have come, seeking solace. See how they rest?
They? I glanced about the hilltop but saw no one else. Only the crystals gathered at the statue’s foot.
Yes, see how happy they are.
The crystal nearest to me rippled with darker colors. I peered deep inside and realized there was a face, an elphine face, inside. Pointed ears, long flowing hair, garments the color of the forest. Other crystals encased more faces: gnomes, elphines, trolls, gorgons, creatures I had no name for. Wondrous, I thought, and then realized I was not seeing merely images inside the crystals, but bodies. Bodies captured inside the stone.
Do not be afraid, said the statue. They rest, free of sorrow, free of regret.
“Free!” I cried. “Whatever you are, you have destroyed them!”
Ennala, will you go home, only to live alone? You brought your daughter into a dangerous place. She trusted you. Now she is dead. Can you live with that? Will you?
Whether or not the entity within the stone is capable of projecting the future as well as the past, I saw the long line of years still before me, living in solitude, in emptiness, in the endless regret of losing my husband and daughter to my own carelessness.
My grief became as tangible as the stones, so heavy it pressed me to my knees.
I can spare you this misery. Give your memories to me and be at peace.
A cry came from the rim of the hilltop. “No, Ennala!”
Yebani and Osharu scrambled to the summit, panting and shivering, though sweat dripped down their brown faces. Nightmares of their own haunted their eyes.
The statue invited them, Come, rest a while.
“Ennala,” said Yebani. “Do not listen.”
“I have lost everything that matters,” I replied.
“Not everything. Do not give your memories to this thing. It will devour them, then you will have nothing of your family left.”
“We’re going to find the nearest portal home and leave,” said Osharu. “We’re not going without you.”
If you go, I cannot relieve you of this burden.
Memories of Saariv and Akisa, a burden? The guilt of losing them, yes. But not the memories. Those are sweet, filling the dark hours of the night, the empty moments during the day. What would I do without them? Turn to stone.
“No,” I said and tried to rise. But pink crystal had grown over my feet, my knees. Too late! Saariv’s face, the scent of his skin, my daughter’s laughter, all began to fade, leaving behind a blank grayness. I cried out.
Yebani and Osharu ran to help me.
They pried at the crystal advancing fast up my thighs, past my hips.
The grayness spread, too. Who were these men, tugging at me? I screamed and fought them. “Leave me, I want to rest! Why are you hurting me?”
One of the men freed a hatchet from his belt and, with the flat of the blade, cracked the crystal encasing my legs. No! How could I sleep if I lay naked to the memories?
The crystal grew along my arms, hardening them in the posture of fending off the strangers’ attack.
“Hurry!” shouted one. The other struck with the hatchet. Chips of crystal caught the sunlight like dying sparks.
I pleaded with the statue, “Hurry, I must rest.”
“Fight her, Ennala!” cried the man with the hatchet. “Fight for Saariv. For Akisa!”
These names meant nothing to me. But I heard the sound of a child’s laughter float among the trees. A little girl’s face swept aside the grayness. “Akisa,” I muttered. The crystal spread up my neck, turned my face to the statue. I couldn’t look away.
Stay with us.
“No! They belong to me. Give them back.”
Whether the hatchet struck the right flaw or my refusal broke the spell, the crystal shattered, sloughing off in bright shards. Yebani seized me under the arms and dragged me to the rim of the hill.
Do not leave us! cried the statue, a shriek so desperate it shook us to the ground. Fists of crystal stabbed through the soil, reaching for us. Osharu attacked them with his hatchet, and we fled.
My last glimpse of the statue was of a sad expression. There was no serenity there, nor memories, only insatiable hunger, eternal loss. Perhaps the expression resulted from the fall of the sunlight across the stone. Perhaps not. A sigh of longing pursued us from the clearing.
* * * * *
Day 12
My memories have returned to me in waves. The cadence of Saariv’s voice when he spoke to me softly in the night. The flash of Akisa’s knees when she spun, delighting in a new dress. Even the memory of their deaths. And though I weep, I do not regret. For I would rather live with their loss than lose them utterly.
Rather than run home, we have decided to continue on to the plains in the east. The others were surprised by my proposal, but the decision was easy to make. I told them, “What we discover beyond the horizon, we will remember when we are old. And without memories, there is only stone.”
NIGHT MARKET
by Jesse Summerson
It was evening when they snuck out, the late November sky already darkening and bleeding into an early December. The sun had sunk low and fat under the tree-line, turning the trees to shadows, their branches thin and naked in the twilight, made into skeletal fingers hemmed and steepled as though in prayer.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Grace breathed, stepping on a small branch and snapping it beneath her slipper. “Remember what father told us about them? What if they try to kidnap us?”
Her sister, a few steps ahead, giggled and raised a finger—slender and pale as a whisper—a gesture of silence before ducking behind the trunk of a large maple tree.
“Starr! Starr! Come back. This isn’t funny, Starr!”
Grace followed, checking behind the trunk.
“Grace! Grace! Oh help, Grace! They’ve got me! The gypsies have got me!”
Grace chased after the trail of soft laughter and taunts that her sister lef
t behind.
“That’s not something you joke about, Starr! It’s really not! Come back, please. I can’t see you.” She paused, and when no response came, she called out, “Starr! Are you there?”
“Quiet. Be quiet.” Starr crouched near Grace’s feet, hidden by forest growth, and touched her sister’s ankle with the tips of her fingers.
Grace jumped.
“Listen. Do you hear that?” Starr asked.
Grace knelt down next to her sister. Starr continued to crouch on all fours, small pieces of crushed and broken autumn leaves stuck to the underside of her feet.
“What are we listening for?”
“The stream. Father said that they’re set up beyond the Stickle Brooke.”
Grace crept closer, unsnagging the hem of her sister’s white shift from a branch as she did so. “I don’t think we should go that far. Father is going to be upset with us just for sneaking out. What will he do if he finds that we snuck out and went past the Stickle Brooke?”
“If he finds out. Just don’t tell him anything this time. We’ll be back before morning anyway.” Starr looked back at her sister. The coral coloring from the sunset made her blush prettily.
Starr gently slid her hand along Grace’s cheek, tucking away loose strands of dark hair. “Just pretend that you’re Errol Flynn, with your sword to save you. It’s an adventure.”
Starr moved through undergrowth, unmindful of the snags and small cuts that appeared on her bare arms and shoulders.
From behind her, Grace said, “Wait, Starr. Wait. I can hear it.”
Starr stopped. “You’ve got great ears, Gracie. Great ones, like a bat.”
“That’s mean. I do not have bat ears.”
“Big bat ears. Black as night and hairy.”
Grace reached out and pinched her sister. “That’s not funny, Starr. I do not have bat ears.”
“All right, all right!” Starr squealed.
“You promise, Starr? You promise?”
“I promise, Gracie. Your ears are small and fine.”
Before them, the Stickle Brooke cut through the forest like a vein. The water trickled in the clasping darkness; the air around it was cold and damp. Starr was the first to cross, stepping feet as pale as moonlight into the stream. She shivered and laughed as she waded through. The water lapped at her legs, diverting itself around her.
She motioned for Grace to follow.
“Is it cold? What’s it feel like?” Grace asked, stepping back, then forward, then back again on the bank.
“It’s only cold for a moment, when you first step in. Then it warms up. It almost feels like it’s holding you. Like it’s got you, and it doesn’t want to let go. And then it’s over. Hurry up. I think I see something.”
Starr moved on, her profile glowing slightly through the trees like a shaft of moonlight.
“Starr! No! Starr! Wait!”
Grace edged to the brook and stepped lightly upon a stone. The water gnawed hungrily at her slippers, soaking the thin material. She moved from large stone to large stone, each step feeling the shock of brook against her feet.
“Wait, I’m coming.” She followed, watching her sister flicker between trees, and shivered. Whether because of the cold, or the image of her sister, ghost-like, ahead of her, or something else, she did not know. She caught up to Starr as the land sloped downward in a gentle curve.
“Look, Gracie,” Starr pointed. “Do you see that? Are those lights? Aren’t they pretty?”
Below, in the clearing, the dark shapes of caravans crouched, low and squat. Odd juts of wood stuck out and into the ground, covered by thin canvas. They looked like extended mouths, forever swallowing the ground.
The whole thing was lit softly by small glass orbs, placed in the grass or hung from winter branches by braided ropes. Each one glowed in a different color; here a bright red, there the orange and yellow of fire, and there, farther off, suspended like a captured star, a brilliantly white one hung from a branch a few feet off the ground.
Nothing moved in the clearing.
“Do you think they’re open? I don’t see anyone down there.”
“It looks like they’re closed; we shouldn’t go down there. Not if they’re closed.”
“I don’t see anyone down there,” Starr repeated. “Do you?”
“No, but…” Grace looked below her. The whole thing was unnaturally quiet and lifeless. “Let’s just go back.”
“Okay, Gracie. We’ll head back. But first…” Starr crouched, bending at the knees, and began to creep down the slope, moonlight sliding along the ground.
Grace placed a hand over her mouth and watched.
She watched Starr creep over to the white ball of light hanging from the tree. In the quiet of the night, Grace imagined she could hear her sister’s footsteps in the grass.
When Starr reached the bottom of clearing, she turned and motioned for Grace to follow her. “It’s clear, Gracie! Nothing to be afraid of—I think everyone’s asleep.”
Atop the hill, Grace took a few steps down toward the caravan. When she moved, it seemed that the shadows moved with her—slithering like the Stickle Brooke around her legs and feet. She thought she could make faces out of the shadows. About halfway to the market itself, she heard, deep inside her ear, like the warm, heavy nothings from a lover:
Come buy. Come buy; apples and quinces, lemons and oranges, plump un-pecked cherries—melons and raspberries.
“Starr, I think we should go. It’s dark. How are we going to find our way back?”
“Nonsense. We’re here now. We—wait, do you hear that sound?”
Grace stopped. She heard a bell toll. She hurried down the hill.
The closer Grace got to the clearing, the more it seemed that she could make out jeering, gruesome faces in the shadows, sharp-toothed and hard-eyed. Each of their faces were different, some had sloping, tuberous mouths. Others still had snubbed bat faces, with great hairy black ears.
“But Starr. We have no money.”
“We don’t have to buy anything. We can just look. Let’s see what they’ve got at least. We came all this way. After one look, we’ll go back home.”
“They won’t be mad if we wake them up and don’t buy anything? Mister Rocha always gets mad when he puts his special candies out and we don’t buy anything.”
Shadows slithered like snakes around the tree trunks. Something light stepped on forest debris, cracking and breaking it.
The whisper was closer this time; the balls of light around her pulsed with some foreign beat.
Swart-headed mulberries, wild free-born cranberries, crab-apples, dewberries.
Grace stepped farther into the clearing.
“Starr! Something is wrong. We should go!”
Pineapples.
Something roughly the size of a cat darted past her.
Black shapes swam around her. The colored balls of light danced and swayed; pulsing, making Grace feel sick. Something with leathery wings flitted past her. She lost her balance and reeled, losing sight of her sister in the wash of strange movement.
Blackberries.
A thin, long shape tumbled between her legs, hurry-skurry.
Apricots, strawberries.
The shapes proffered plates of gold up to her in the multi-colored light.
All ripe together. In the summer weather.
They swarmed around her, holding their plates high above their heads.
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye, come buy. Come buy.
In front of her, the tangled mass of shapes knotted and turned.
“Starr!”
They seethed and broke at her ankles like lapping currents.
“Starr! What’s going on? Where did you go?”
The mass threatened to break over her, knock her down, tumble her to the ground.
“Starr!”
They broke before her, parted by slender hands.
“Gracie?” Starr sounded breathless. “Where are you?”
“Starr! I’m in the middle!”
Starr pushed through the throng, stopping here and again to gaze longingly at the fruits, to touch and to smell them. Her eyes glowed with the pulse of the colored lights.
“Gracie, do you see this? These are amazing.”
“I want to go home. I don’t like this, at all. I’m scared.”
“You’re right—let’s go home. Maybe we’ll come back with some money. I’ve got some saved.”
Starr reached out through the part in the throng she had made and grabbed Grace’s hand.
“Thank God you’re all right, Starr. I—wait, what happened? What happened to you?”
Starr’s white shift was askew; her hair was tussled and wild. It curled and wove dangerously, like a thing alive in the soft night wind. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead and arms.
“Nothing’s wrong, Gracie. This is exciting! Oh, look! A pomegranate! We had one of these when we were little, remember? It wasn’t as big as this one, though. Or as colorful.”
“Home, Starr. I feel faint and I want to go home.”
“All right. Let’s go, Gracie. We’ll come back tomorrow.”
Starr moved two of the shapes aside. One of them held a golden platter of grapes above his head.
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. They look delicious. But we have no money. Sorry.”
The creature with the face of a rat said:
You have much gold upon your head. Buy from us with a golden curl.
“Don’t Starr. Please, let’s just go, please?”
Starr reached up and pulled a single strand of hair from her head. She handed it to the rat-faced shape in the shadows. It held up a bunch of grapes.
“Want some, Gracie?” she asked over her shoulder.
“No. I just want to go home.”
“Yes, yes. I know. We will. Soon.”
Grace felt her mouth harden into a thin line as Starr bit into a grape. The juice burst from within the thin membrane and dribbled onto her lips.
“Gracie. This is amazing.”
The mass of inhuman faces cheered. One by one they held up their dishes and one by one Starr handed them a golden hair in return. The smell of ripe fruit mixed with the music in the air. She whirled around, carouseling on one foot, stopping to try different fruits. Juice spilled on her shift, wetting it.