Imaginarium 3

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

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s beautiful, beautiful. . . .”

  “Oh, my father.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Max Kern.”

  “Sadie Kern--?”

  “My sister-in-law. She described you to me, said you might drop by. You’ve made quite an impression on her.”

  “She’s been very kind.” The others have gone, leaving us alone. “What else do visitors do in Bormaine?”

  “Leave, mostly. Almost all the gift shops close this weekend.”

  It’s early for that, most places. But, like Salianda, Bormaine is far enough off the beaten track that there’s no point waiting for the half-dozen travellers who still might pass through, but probably won’t.

  “However . . .” He lifts the round stone off the stack of brochures on his desk, and hands me one. “I think this might interest you.”

  And he’s right.

  Tom and I married six weeks after leaving Salianda. Lately I’ve been wondering why he married me when I was willing to be his mistress. Gratitude, perhaps. His idea of payment due. Maybe he thought he really loved me. I didn’t know enough about love to know the difference.

  I painted another dozen canvasses before I went dry. They paid for our house in Arizona.

  More irony.

  But here in Andrea Waylan’s studio I don’t have to work from memory. Like everywhere else in town, the sea is close. Three other women have signed up for her last art class of the year, and are chatting softly, self-consciously. I recognize one of them from the museum. She drops her cell into her pocket and mutters something about no service. The storm-to-come is interfering with the signal.

  A few of Andrea’s half-finished canvasses stand against the wall. Her style is nothing like mine, but a love of the water is clear in every stroke. All of them have faint grey bands along the top, a warning, to me at least, that there’s a storm coming.

  There most always is.

  Andres waits until the appointed time, then, when no one else comes, asks, “How many of you have taken lessons before?” A couple of them raise their hands. “What did you paint?”

  “Seascapes, mostly.”

  “You’ve come to the right place.” She gets a few polite laughs. I try not to fidget. We’ve already paid for our canvasses and paint, and my fingers twitch in anticipation. “If you don’t want to do a seascape, you can try this.” She gestures to a still-life she’s set up, a pretty arrangement of apples and flowers with a few crisp leaves.

  I look out the big windows. The light is still good, but there’s a line of grey along the top of the clouds. The Salamander’s restless, too, I think, and finally pick up my brush.

  I’ve always loved mixing the colours, the sharp smell of the oils, even the tiny pat of brush against canvas. But mostly I love the way time becomes irrelevant when I work, becomes fluid and ripples around me. In that timelessness is my niche.

  I never did fit into Tom’s world. In a world of haute couture and even more haute cuisine, there’s not much use for a woman who can rebuild a small engine. Like the little mermaid, I was always dancing on pins and needles.

  As I recall, she turned to foam and spread herself on the waves. Sometimes I’ve thought I could feel myself disintegrating, too.

  But here in Bormaine I feel strong again. Back among people who know there are things in the deep sea that watch us go by, and wait; that we probably know more about outer space than the depths of the ocean; and that there are stars and whole worlds in both.

  My grandmother knew all the constellations. She must have told me their names, but I don’t remember: one more time I didn’t listen.

  The memory of her anger burns at unexpected moments. I hear the soft shush of her hair hitting the floor at my feet. The morning she counted me among the dead was an ordinary one, like this—the village going about its business, heavy rain just hours away, the sunlight on your skin like static. Like here, tourists were straggling out of town to find excitement, locals were gathering wood for the bonfire to celebrate . . .

  . . . the equinox.

  Like here.

  Oh.

  Oh, my father.

  The last tourists out of town that day were Tom’s friends.

  He wasn’t just an outsider in Salianda. He was the last outsider.

  Oh, my father, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—

  “Maya? Maya!”

  I startle back to Andrea’s studio as she grabs my wrists. My hands are dripping blue paint, black, silver-grey. It take a moment for my voice to reroute to my mouth.

  “What happened?”

  “You threw your brush down and started slathering paint on with your hands.”

  What else, she doesn’t say, but I must’ve been making some noise—the ladies are grabbing their coats and scurrying their paintings out the door. They look like young deer who’ve heard howling nearby.

  “I didn’t mean to chase away your students.”

  “Their time’s up anyway,” she says calmly, and studies my canvas. Dim eyes peer through great whorls of colour, but this painting isn’t just of the ocean. There are bands of fire, streaks of lightning. There are ash angels flying out of the waves.

  I know whose face they have.

  “What do you want to do with this?” Andrea asks. Good question—I have no place to keep it, and it’s too big to take if I have to move on. “Would you like me to see if I can sell it?”

  “Yes, please. Um, is it okay if I clean up before I leave?” She points toward the bathroom and doesn’t turn quite fast enough to hide her grin. The mirror explains: nothing will clean me up short of a garbage bag. My clothes are unsalvageable. But I scrub my hands anyway, and wipe the smears off my face.

  She’s waiting to lock up when I come out. It’s almost six o’clock.

  “Thanks, Andrea.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She doesn’t hurry me out the door, but I know she has somewhere to be.

  It’s time to give the Salamander his due.

  “Hello, Sadie.”

  “Hello, Maya.” She comes down the stairs lightly, one hand holding a cloth bag, the other slipping something shiny into her dress pocket. “How was Andrea’s class?”

  “Good.” I’m not surprised she knows where I’ve been. I know small towns well enough to realize that not only Eroth is watching.

  I glance around. “It’s awfully quiet. Have the others checked out?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes are very dark.

  Oh, my father.

  We pass on the stairs without speaking again.

  “Maya, where have you been? Where have you been?” Tom pulls me through the door and locks it behind me. The room is cold. “Something seriously weird is going on here.”

  “What?” I didn’t think I’d be hungry, but the containers of take-out on the bureau smell wonderful. He bought soup.

  I take fresh jeans and a shirt from the closet. From where he’s standing he can’t see that his clothes and travel bag are gone.

  “You don’t have time for a bath. We have to get out of here. My cell phone’s been stolen.”

  So now he’s lost his voice, too. “Are you sure?”

  “It was on the bed when I went in the bathroom just now, and gone when I came out. But that’s not it, come on, I have to show you something.”

  I ball my clothes into the garbage can and dress quickly. He eases us down the stairs as if we were spies, and picks up the desk phone: static. I’d blame it on the storm coming, but I’m out of comforting lies.

  “You have to see this.”

  The sky’s black with waiting thunder. He pulls me toward the cliff—for him, an act of desperation. He leans over the fence and points. “You left the window up. I saw those when I closed it.”

  At first I can’t imagine what’s scared him
so, then I remember—the skulls among the white stones, waiting to encircle the bonfire, are the reason Sadie doesn’t put tourists in the back room. The Salamander takes the flesh and spits out the bones, and often they end up back where they were offered in the first place.

  “We have to get out of here, Maya. You have no idea how strange these people are.”

  “Yes, I do.” But he’s not listening. He honestly doesn’t know what he just said; it doesn’t occur to him that I’m one of these people. Being this close to the sea, in a town so much like Salianda, terrifies him. The memories must be overwhelming.

  But did he really think I wouldn’t go down to the water?

  “Do you see them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on, let’s head for the garage. Nate leaves the keys in the truck, remember? We can just go.”

  But, of course, we can’t. Half the townsfolk are standing behind us when we turn.

  “What the hell’s happening?” he whispers.

  Nothing. It’s already done. I knew this might happen when Nate told him he’d have to order a fuel pump. There were two in his garage, either of them a good-enough fit for our car. He was hedging his bets, ensuring at least one outsider would still be in town come tonight. Once he’d decided that, there was no place to run.

  I knew when Sadie didn’t tell Tom about owning my painting. She didn’t tell him anything he didn’t have to know, treating him like outsider.

  But I didn’t tell him, either.

  The last outsider come the equinox is always the sacrifice. The cold season is a lonely time, and the Salamander needs a companion until spring.

  There’s no credit card receipt to show we stayed in the hotel. I’m sure the register is already missing the page with our names. I expect Tom’s phone is in the water by now, and, quite possibly, the car with it.

  Sadly, I can’t think of many people who’ll miss him. Naomi might want to report his disappearance; but she’s married, and, with him gone, will have to reconsider her options. She might come looking, or she may simply grieve as well as she can and move on.

  His business contacts might have some questions, but these are the same people who abandoned him in Salianda. Moving on is second nature to them.

  I expect it’ll bother me for a while; but that won’t stop me from, finally, doing what needs to be done. I’ve already rescued Tom from the sea once, my pride making me steal from the Salamander what it clearly wanted for itself. Even now, for a moment, I think we might be able to escape. But probably not, and I doubt these people would be as forgiving as my grandmother. I can’t keep saving him, and I’m not willing to die for him again.

  But I don’t want to leave him for the fire.

  I push him, hard.

  He barely grabs the fence in time, staring up at me in horror, his gaze full of ghosts. Neither of us ever thought I’d do such a thing.

  But today all kinds of lines get crossed.

  Thunder cracks, and the ocean answers, spraying up into the rain. The Salamander waltzes with the storm. Tom wanted us to be unmarried. Tonight we will be.

  But not yet.

  I can at least give him a fast death. I scoop up one of the bricks and swing.

  For this one last moment I’m still his wife, and I owe him kindness.

  LOST

  Amal El-Mohtar

  I don’t know where I am.

  I close my eyes and there’s a forest,

  warm and dark, where I can reach out

  and touch you. I could get lost

  you say, from miles away,

  in bed with you

  right now

  and I am already there, pine needles on the ground,

  your body as near as the trees.

  Your words make evening of my sheets,

  a dim sky falling over woods

  seeded in syllables, tangling

  breath and branches together

  behind the eyes I’ve shut to find you.

  One can believe anything in the dark:

  that I could turn and know

  the heat of your back,

  the curve of your shoulder,

  the soft smell of your neck.

  There is strange comfort in being lost,

  in making a home of uncertainty—

  a pillow of moss, a bed of leaves,

  a presence out of absence.

  But, equally,

  one can believe anything in the dark.

  I could tell myself stories. I could say

  there once was a girl who made woods of words

  and lay down in them to dream

  lost her breadcrumbs to the birds

  and her maps to a running stream

  but in the dark, it’s hard to know

  middles from beginnings

  or anything else.

  It could be

  that you, whose voice is an open door

  that takes me no place twice—it could be

  that you know exactly where you are,

  keep a compass in your breastbone

  and won’t tell me where it points—

  that when you say I could

  get lost

  you don’t mean you will.

  But, still,

  anything is possible in the dark,

  and everything is possible

  in stories.

  So:

  it’s warm beneath this blanket sky,

  and she has been so cold,

  his voice is still as close as sleep,

  and still as sweet to hold.

  So let him lead her into rest

  be it here, or near, or far—

  she’s always loved the evening best,

  the twilight, and the stars.

  FIREBUGS

  Craig Davidson

  There are shapes that only live in fire.

  Hunger. Fire’s basic drive. The purest, most incarnate hunger you can imagine. Nothing mankind has ever assembled is impervious.

  I’ve seen fire chew through lead girders: they soften and bend over backwards like a contortionist. I saw a column of flame ripple up a sheet of aluminum siding; it crinkled and contracted—the sound of ice cubes fracturing in a glass—as the metal curled up as if rolled by huge invisible hands.

  Fire will grunt and growl and come at you with the soft slitherings of a snake. It’ll howl around blind corners like wolves and gibber up from flame-eaten floorboards and reverberate in a million other strange ways besides: sounded like buzzard talons clawing across pebbled glass, this one time.

  Other times it’ll come for you silent as a ghost: a soft whisper of smoke curling back under a doorway, beckoning you to open it. That’s when it’s most dangerous—when it’s hiding its true face.

  Solid. That’s one thing people don’t get. There’s a sturdiness to fire, which may seem odd seeing as it’s flexible, too, happy to shape itself around its host. But I’ve seen it punch holes in walls and carry roofs off houses. I watched a rope of flame rip through a backyard elm quicker than a chainsaw. Neater, too. Surgical.

  But most lethal are its shapes. Fire holds the most nimble, the most uncanny and breathtaking shapes. It strolls and eddies and curls over like tidal breakers. A man can stare into the shifting centre of a fire and see . . . well, everyone sees something different.

  The shapes in fire echo those of familiar understanding. You believe you’re watching creatures of smoke and char breathing themselves into existence. The shapes become more beguiling the closer you near to the flashpoint: when the heat is such that it’ll steam the marrow in your bones.

  Jerry Ullness, good friend of mine, a twenty-year vet on Ladder 11—saw him fall into a fire. He dropped his axe and raised his palms like a penitent evangelical welcoming the Lord into his heart.

  It happened in a narrow staircase inside a
firetrap off Morrison Street. The blaze had taken root in the basement and twined through the walls like ivy, crawling up the electrical wires with orange fingers. The flames licked up under the stairs and gnawed through the wood; the stairway toppled into a roaring pile of cinders directly in front of poor Jerry. He teetered on the precipice, peering down into drifts of glowing coals . . . he saw something. What, I couldn’t say.

  “No, Jerr. . . .” I’d breathed.

  But he was gone. Bewitched by the shapes. Like those demon-women in the old myths, calling from the jagged rocks, luring sailors to their doom. You get caught up in the shapes of fire, give yourself over to their authority, and by the time the flames reach out you’ll go willingly enough.

  I told Jerry’s wife it was smoke inhalation. He’d passed out. Simplest explanation. Hell, maybe it even happened like that. She had him cremated. Truth told, Jerry was pretty much there already.

  Part of me was jealous. A small part, but . . . I wanted to see what he’d seen.

  I was born Blake Kennedy Jr., on a hazy July evening at the Cataract City General. It had been a humid season: slut-hot, people around here call that kind of heat.

  A serial arsonist was at work that summer. The city was burning. My mother said I was born with old fires racing through my blood.

  That summer’s pyromaniac was a cagey bastard with a flair for the theatric: What he’d do was bust into a vacant home, crack open the Bakelite casing of the rotary phone, attach a wire to the ringer and thread it down to a jug of kerosene. He’d hightail it to a bank of payphones, hunt the number from the directory, put a nickel in the slot and place a call. The spark of the ringer traveled down the wire and set the kerosene aflame.

  The local rag hired a headline writer with a tabloid background.

  Dialling for Disaster! Calling for Conflagration!

  When a local headshrinker postulated that the guy might’ve been setting fires to satisfy odd lusts, the headlines ran salacious:

  Pervy Pyro’s Phallic Phone Party!

  Doc sez: Freaky Firebug is a Blaze-setting Bedwetter!

  My mother said the locals stopped taking vacations: they didn’t want to come home to a blackened shell. Investigators figured it was either a telephone repairman or a sneak thief, except nothing was ever stolen. They never did catch the guy.