Imaginarium 3

by Sandra Kasturi, Helen Marshall (ed) (v5. 0) (epub)

  15:45 PM Paramedics removed Hendricks to St. Michael’s Hospital. Officers Lum and Moche asked me if I wanted to prefer trespassing charges against Rostov. I replied that I was not authorized to do so, and asked to be allowed to call my immediate supervisor on site, Dr. Maurice L. Corbray. Officers Lum and Moche asked Rostov to remain in their custody until Dr. Corbray got here. Rostov agreed.

  15:50 PM I re-set alarms in Apartment 5.

  16:17 PM Dr. Corbray arrived on site. He elected to waive charges, but told Rostov she would be let go from her current position with MonitorU, and that she no longer had security access to Shumate House. Rostov turned her I.D. and fob over to me.

  16:30 PM Rostov, Officers Lum and Moche and Dr. Corbray left site. I proceeded to fill out Site Incident Report.

  Signed, Margaret Cuchner #TU-4445-000097.

  From This Narrow Life, the blog of Thordis Hendricks, September 30, 2012 (1:28 PM):

  But why would I do that? I remember saying. It makes no sense. I would never do that. No one would ever do that.

  I would never take three pills, take a sip of vodka, take three pills, repeat until gone. I would never have a bag over my head already when I did it, conveniently open at the bottom and hiked over my nose to free my mouth. I would never peel it back down again after I was done and knot it, once, twice, three times. I would never.

  Never make my way back upstairs, weaving slightly. Never feel stuffy and warm and happy and only slightly queasy. Never lie down flop on my bed (our bed), and close my eyes.

  Thinking: I would never, no one would. I’m not doing it now.

  Except, of course, that I was.

  Anyhow: This is what happened after, as far as I can figure out—

  I ended up at St. Mike’s, in a private room (thank you, Isa’s money). I remember Yelena sitting by my bed, but only vaguely; I think she might’ve been holding my hand. She looked so tired.

  (The weirdest thing is, in context, how I don’t remember “Lee” at all. I read that Skype log and I’m amazed it’s me talking, though it certainly sounds like me. Nothing seems familiar. The dreams, I at least remember having them. But this girl, this—whoever she was? Nothing.

  (And I even looked up Leora Soong on the ‘Net, too. Totally unfamiliar.)

  Dr. Corbray came by a week later, trying to convince me that Yelena was somehow responsible for what’d happened. I disagreed. By that time, of course, the next part was all over the news; I guess he was trying to do damage control, in his own fucked-up way. Maybe that was all he’d ever been trying to do.

  It’d make me sound entirely too nice to say I don’t blame him, exactly. Because I guess I probably would, if I let myself think about it. One way or the other, he lost himself a customer; whether or not that’s “enough”, given circumstances, I don’t know. The family lawyers kept telling me I had a serious case—one even said Yelena should co-sue with me, for wrongful dismissal, once her own legal issues were settled. But it’s not like Corbray can do it to anybody else now, either . . . so, kind of a moot point.

  Because that was another thing Yelena was doing, apparently, at the hospital—she got hold of my fob, waited ‘til that guard she found me with was off-shift, then used it. Went in through the fire access door, which I didn’t even know you could (but then again, how would I?). Went upstairs, got back into Apartment 5 . . . where she came up with enough salt to pour around the place that, when she followed it up with gasoline and threw a lighter in after it, the salt helped act as a firebreak and kept the damage confined to the apartment. No casualties, no damage to the rest of the house—but #5’s gutted. Whatever they put there next, it won’t be the place Leora Soong died in anymore, and maybe that will help.

  I’d like to find Yelena, not that I know how to go about it. I’d like to thank her, except that no one really knows where she went, after. The fire department says there weren’t any human remains in the ashes, and you’d think they’d be able to tell. So hopefully she got out, changed her name, went underground; maybe she’s working another job somewhere, keeping her eyes peeled for things other people don’t want to let themselves see. Maybe she’s sitting in front of a screen with her IM left open like some high-tech Ouija board, waiting for someone’s words to fill the box, seeing where they’ll take her. Maybe she’s telling Leora’s ghost the equivalent of Sit down, Miss Soong, we have a lot of work to do together.

  Or maybe she walked into that whole Translation routine with her eyes open, wielding a skill-set I’ll never possess. Maybe she took Leora’s hand and pulled her on with her, so they ended up . . . somewhere else. Not the Kuiper Belt, hopefully, but hell, I don’t know. I don’t know.

  (I’ll never know.)

  So: This is the new blog, obviously. I’m out of Shumate, on a different cocktail, into another apartment; I go out every day, at least for a little while, and I make myself look up steadily, training my eyes on the blue, the clouds, trying to not think about the cold, huge black lurking behind it. The same black which encircles us all, no matter where we choose to hide, just beyond this planet’s pitifully thin atmosphere-skin. Because there’s no place we can go to escape it, even in our dreams—like death, it just is, and nothing helps for long.

  But this much has changed: Instead of thrashing around and trying to avoid them, what I do now is make myself think these thoughts through, all the way, allow myself to, and then I let them go. Get into corpse posture, lit or fig; shut my eyes, and breathe. One day I’ll stop, and maybe I won’t even notice. What happens after that is beyond my—or anyone else’s—control.

  This is the truth of what I have, what I am—it may get better, but it doesn’t get cured. You find a pattern and settle into it, hoping it holds. And so every day, every night, I feel things moving all around me, a pulse like some universal heartbeat, a million minds rubbing in from every side, pumicing their thoughts against mine. A Signal of sorts, though whether it comes from inside or out-, Tiamat or God or the underside of my very own personal chemistry-soaked brain is simply impossible to tell, or prove.

  Which means, our various faiths aside, that we should probably try to be content to deal with the immediate, and let the rest take care of itself.

  Still seeing signs and portents everywhere, no matter what, and letting them wash over me, resistlessly as rain. A shadow in a room, darkness on darkness. A light through the bedroom window, shining from nowhere, which follows you everywhere you move to, so you always wake up with it in your eyes. A car alarm that goes off all the time, especially in the middle of the night. Or a voice in your mind, only vaguely familiar, mourning—

  Team-mindedness! I broke routine, broke faith. I let my partner down. So I can’t go on, not now, not yet. Not yet. . . .

  If that’s Leora Soong’s voice, though, I don’t owe it to her to remember. I don’t owe her anything.

  Instead, I sit here typing and I take my pills, determined to keep on living, still haunted or not. Which I am, surely. Aren’t we all?

  In a way, every ghost is only our own.

  :axiom: the calling (excerpt)

  Daniela Elza

  today the crow in the pine is a story— its harsh charred voice pulls the morning out of the water. ripples the city’s dissolving dreams. they walk in broad daylight through memory lanes lined with walls so thin you can see where the dumpsters used to be benches where we sat and held hands. under the water a book turning pages. slow words come undone float to the surface black oily and slick. flow under bridges arches aches the marrow of the quiet the writing down and what a crow tears out of such silence.

  at feeding time they gather in the birches. circle. mussels in their beaks. my path littered with broken shells. the splash of sea water on winter pavement. an instant’s sleek shadow acrossmy face pecks a memory out of my eye.

  some days I am too empty for descriptions. myths span our damp sky with doubt. we look at each other—negatives of ourselves. crumbs tossed in ax
ioms of sorrow and so I watch your mouth become a crow-shaped black hole. my gaze pulled tight around the edge between substance and nothingness. between what stutters into night what splinters into morning.

  THE SALAMANDER’S WALTZ

  Catherine MacLeod

  It bothers me, forgetting the name of this time of year. This month of exquisite light. I know the word but can’t dredge it up. Maybe I shouldn’t be wondering right now. Maybe I’m growing absentminded. Maybe my husband pounding the steering wheel is distracting me.

  “Tom, stop, you’ll break it.”

  “The stupid wheel’s fine.”

  “I meant your hand.”

  I grab his wrist before he does it again. Ten minutes since the car broke down, and already his knuckles are bruised. We both know he’s frustrated, but so far only one of us knows he’s terrified. I caught the smell of the ocean miles back. His blue eyes shine with panic he hasn’t recognized yet. Blue as a ghost, my mother used to say.

  Which reassures me my memory still works—it’s retained what had to be her most obscure saying.

  Tom smacks the wheel again, yanking my arm.

  “Stop! Beating on the car won’t help.”

  “Fine!” he snaps. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “It looks like the middle of nowhere, but I could be wrong.”

  He glances at the watch on the wrist I’m holding, just to be doing something, annoyed that I’m not annoyed. But it’s not as if we were trapped. We’re on a road; it has to lead somewhere. For a man with freakishly good eyesight, he’s really bad at seeing possibilities.

  Ironic, I think—an art dealer who can’t see the big picture.

  He pulls his hand away and takes out his cell phone, that shiny little pacemaker he can’t live without. He checks his messages; frowns when he doesn’t find the one he’s been waiting for. He has a meeting in the city on Monday and—unusual these days—decided to drive the five hundred miles. Even stranger, he insisted I come along. It’s been a while since he asked.

  When we were first married he drove everywhere, wanting me to himself. But we usually headed inland, a fact that didn’t register at first—I was too busy being fascinated by things I’d never seen before. But now he flies to his meetings when he can, and I stay behind more often than not. His days of romancing me are long over.

  “Dammit!” He growls as the signal fades, then tries again. I look away, bored. The air almost shimmers here.

  If Tom wants to be alone with me there’s a reason. The most likely is that he wants to have the talk. He wants a divorce. But it’s all right—we’ve been married ten years; I’ve wanted to leave for nine.

  Which is why I said ‘yes’ when he asked me to come. At some point I’m going to get out of the car and walk away. I could fly or buy a train ticket, but with no destination in mind I’m in no hurry to get there. At least this is a ride somewhere. I need a place far enough away from him to be comfortable, close enough that he can find me when the paperwork’s ready. But before then I have to hear him out. My mother would say, “As long as you’re his wife, you at least owe him kindness.”

  Sometimes I’ve wondered about the state of her marriage, but I agree. This must be awkward for him. Maybe he’s worried I’ll cry and cause a scene. Maybe his ego will be stung when I don’t. Maybe Naomi can kiss it and make it better.

  I’m surprised I’m not wounded by their affair: pride was always my biggest fault.

  “Thank God,” Tom sighs as he gets a signal. “I’ll let Ian know I might not make it Monday.”

  He’s concerned about the meeting, not what’s over this hill. Typical. He gets out of the car slowly, reluctant to leave a familiar environment. The air is working on him; he’s recognized the smell. He won’t say anything about it, but his eyes are almost glittering, the exact blue of this September sky.

  He’ll call Naomi first. She’s the reason he keeps checking his watch. The reason he wants a divorce. And, since he’s barely been able to think of anything else for the last year, probably also the reason we’re lost. I head toward the crest of the hill, giving them some privacy, relishing the scent.

  As I reach the top I close my eyes for a moment, pretending the ocean is just ahead.

  And when I open them, it is.

  Equinox, I think suddenly. That’s the word for this time of year. Tomorrow is the fall equinox, when the sun seems to travel south across the celestial equator. How could I forget that?

  How could I forget the ocean has this many shades of blue?

  Oh, my father, I’ve missed you so much.

  I can almost feel Tom trembling as he walks up beside me. I start to reach out to him, then let my hand drop. He’s been terrified of the ocean ever since the accident. He likes to think he’s tough, that nothing can get the better of him, but life wears us smooth, like water on stone. My mere presence in his life reminds him he’s lost his edge.

  I missed Salianda horribly when we were first married. I’d never been away from the town for so long. Tom tried to be sympathetic, and listened when I told him about picking tomatoes from my mother’s garden, and helping Uncle Lucius repair the machinery on the fishing boats. But one day he walked into the bathroom and caught me stretched out in the tub, looking up through the water, hair floating like seaweed, listening to my heartbeat in my ears. He turned away quickly, unease plain on his face. I suppose sympathy only goes so far.

  He tried to joke about the incident later, calling me his little mermaid.

  But, as I recall the story, the mermaid’s prince left her for someone else, too.

  “Maya?”

  I point toward the village at the foot of the hill. It’s a pretty middle-of-nowhere, at least. “They must have a garage there. And maybe a hotel.”

  He gets our bags from the trunk, frowning at how heavy mine is. But he’s too preoccupied to be curious, and since he doesn’t have to carry it, he doesn’t wonder long.

  “What did they say?” I ask.

  “The meeting’s still on. I’ll call Monday if I can’t make it.”

  Nate’s Garage is at the edge of town, just past a neat sign reading Welcome to Bormaine. A middle-aged man wiping his hands on a grease rag looks up as we walk in.

  “Car trouble?” he asks politely, pointing back along the road with his chin. Neither of us is exactly dressed for hiking.

  Tom says. “It just quit and rolled on to the side of the road. I can’t start it again.”

  While Tom and Nate hash it out I take a look around. The place is surprisingly clean, the mark of a man who takes pride in his work. Lucius would’ve been elated with an inventory like this.

  I ask, “Is there a hotel in town?”

  “A mile up the road. My wife runs it.” He tosses the rag onto a wooden chair and turns back to Tom. “I’ll bring the truck around and we’ll go take a look.”

  I take our bags and walk on without looking back. The air is crisp and sweet. Gulls fly screeching in high loops, a sign pickings are good nearby. The scent of turning leaves is strong and rich, the smell of the season burning itself out.

  The Bormaine Hotel is plain but clean, intended for comfort rather than a magazine cover. An old-fashioned, gently curved staircase draws my eye. One like this graced my grandmother’s house. I climbed it countless times, and slid down the bannister more than once.

  The desk clerk is a small woman, her eyes warm and brown.

  “Is there a double room available, please?”

  “Sure. There’re only a few other guests still here.” She waits until I sign the register, then takes my cash. “I’m Sadie Kern.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sadie.” As I push the book back across the counter I bump her paperweight out of place. I glance at the flat, round stone painted with two wavy blue lines, and, without thinking, murmur, “Eroth is kind.”

  “And wise in all matters.”

  Our e
yes lock. She says, “Do you mind if I ask where you’re from?”

  I could name any of the places where Tom keeps an apartment, but that’s not what she asked. “Salianda.”

  “Right. I’ve been there. Thought I recognized the accent.”

  Ah. So that’s it, I think. Ten years later I still haven’t lost my accent. No wonder there are days when every word I utter, no matter how benign, irritates Tom. Even my voice is a reminder of the accident.

  She takes a key off the rack. “I’ll show you your room.” She looks again at the registry in passing, then stops and does an almost comic double-take. “Maya . . . ?”

  I signed my maiden name. It felt right.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No. Oh, my. Come here, please.” She leads me through a door behind the counter, into a good-sized kitchen. “Is that yours?”

  My father, I think. Oh, my father.

  The painting is large, the colours wild: great bands of blue and green, purple and silver, spinning like whirlpools. Like winter sunlight shattered through an iceberg. The motion and colours remind me of home. They feel so familiar to me.

  But of course they would. The signature in the corner is mine.

  Maya Wexton: a strange child, quiet, thoughtful. The youngest of six sisters. Some said I was the prettiest, but I felt dull compared to them. They were clever and useful, and I seemed to be of use to no one but Lucius.

  Until Tom Riordan came to Salianda looking for me. He was the first person who’d ever singled me out. The first to actually call me an artist, although the neighbours called me a prodigy. My mother just called me messy; but she grinned as she threw my paint-splattered shirts in the washer, and tolerated the trance-like state I fell into when a big canvas absorbed me. I drew faces in the sand, and spined seashells in oil on the walls of the machine shop. Lucius growled, “Get back to work,” but never wiped the murals off. He gave me my first good set of brushes and paints.