Tesseracts Seventeen

by Colleen Anderson

  The towel turned red. So did his eyes. He shoved himself off me, an expression of dark pain spreading on his face like a bruise. Then he staggered to his feet and ran.

  But he remembered to take Arden’s face with him.

  Dr. Stillman sewed my cheek up so neatly that I have only a faint scar. It itches a little when my skin dries in winter. I keep it covered with makeup.

  Sheriff Douglas brought a sketch artist to the hospital. He introduced me with, “This is Diane Martell, one lucky girl.”

  My lips were swollen. “How do you figure that?” I slurred.

  “You’re the only person who’s ever survived one of this guy’s attacks.”

  I blinked slowly. “He’s done this before?”

  “Five times that we know of. First time around here. Apparently he has a thing for women on their own. I think he’d been watching Arden’s house, didn’t expect you home until later.”

  “I left work early. Bad headache. Ask my boss.”

  “I already did.”

  “He actually takes women’s faces?”

  “Yeah. He seems to be something of a collector.”

  “Um… why?”

  “Well, my best guess would be he’s crazy.” Hard to argue with that. Even the doctor barked out a rude laugh. “Di, you might be the only person who’s seen him to know him for sure. You feel up to giving a description?” I didn’t, but could hardly refuse him. I was exhausted when the sketch artist finished with me.

  His drawing was an excellent likeness. But it would’ve been more accurate if his eyes had been bloodshot.

  I’d thought Arden was joking when she said, “Try not to kill anyone.” All those times I’d removed a fillet of ghost it had never occurred to me that if I could slice, I could slash. I’d never considered that I’d become dangerous. I was doing what I was capable of. It was just the way I was born.

  Maybe it was just the way he was born, too.

  I had time to think in the hospital, but there wasn’t much to think about. I didn’t know what exactly I’d taken from the killer, but couldn’t assume he wouldn’t remember me. Despite the sheriff’s promise to keep an eye on me, I didn’t feel safe in Oakdale anymore. I’d never forget the killer’s voice. I’d always be waiting for that drawl behind me.

  And, with Arden gone, the visitors would come looking for me. I wanted to stay ahead of them for a while.

  Uncle Robert came to his wife’s funeral. He brought red roses. Who knew what he was remembering? He was a big man, and no, he didn’t look like someone I wanted to mess with. The sheriff, bless his heart, must’ve had the same idea— he followed us back to the house for a cup of coffee.

  We were barely in the door before Robert said, “This house is mine.”

  “Yes, I know.” After so many years of living there I probably could’ve made some kind of claim. But I was leaving anyway, and I enjoyed seeing his face fall when he realized I wasn’t going to fight.

  I had a couple of boxes open on the kitchen table. I said, “Could you give me a few hours to finish packing?” I’d hoped for more time and a little privacy, but didn’t think he’d give me either. Humility seemed like my best bet. “Uncle Robert, would you mind if I took something to remember Aunt Arden by?”

  “Depends,” he said warily.

  I pointed to the china cabinet. “Could I have her set of soup tureens?”

  “Those ugly cat things? Yeah, get them out of here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But that’s all you get.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I held my breath as he lifted them down and set them on the sideboard. He watched as I crumpled newspaper around them and arranged them gently, careful not to rattle the lids. He stared for a moment at my black eye and the stitches lacing my face, then wandered off to look in the fridge.

  As soon as he turned his back I slipped Arden’s blue plate into the box and taped it shut.

  I was delighted when I learned that pique assiette can also be translated as plate stealer.

  Wilmerton is a pretty nowhere on the road from somewhere to somewhere else. The tourists come through from late spring to mid-fall, most with good imaginations and deep pockets. I’ve made sets of dishes for housewarming gifts; flower pots for tiny orchids; pitcher-and-basin sets for their nieces’ weddings. Once, a shallow dish for somebody’s Zen sand garden.

  I’ve sold them a lot of pottery after dark.

  I make enough off my daytime customers to pay the bills, maintain my property, and keep the tax man’s nose out of my account books. I make enough after dark to go anywhere else. But nowhere the desperate couldn’t find me.

  This is where my car and I both decided to stop running. I passed Garth Cory Pottery on my way to find a diner, and stopped to look at the indigo plate in the front window. I didn’t usually believe in signs. The one on the door said Help Wanted.

  Seeing the rough towels and cutting tools on Garth’s workbench, I felt as if pieces of my life had somehow been reassembled here.

  I said, “I’ll work for nothing for a week, then you can give me a job interview, okay?” He pointed me toward the counter as the first customer of the day came in. We never did the interview. He took the sign down the same day I rented the house up here.

  I learned to make pottery and found my own vessel. I learned that fake ID doesn’t have to be perfect, and if you keep your mouth shut people are happy to draw their own conclusions. I created something close to the life I wanted.

  I never expected to end up in another small town where your neighbors know too much about you. Mine know that during Garth’s last days in the hospital, I sat by his bed and wiped his face with a towel.

  I bought his business with the midnight money Arden had hidden in her soup tureens. Then I moved it to the top of the hill and waited.

  The wind picks up. I shut down the computer. The mosaics disappear. The screen fades to the color of rain.

  Some people are just meant to walk through our door, I think.

  Then his car drives up, and he does.

  He says, “Only a fool would go out on a night like this, right?”

  “I’ve been sitting here waiting for you. What does that make me?”

  His smile is still lopsided.

  I could easily believe he’s targeted me, another woman on her own, but for the look I recognize too well— he’s got a set of memories he needs to be rid of.

  No doubt they’d make a good companion piece for mine.

  I think of the smashed pots in the green tub, and all those stiletto slivers just waiting to be put in place. Soon they’ll be joined by the grey pot on the table, a mourning vessel for someone who won’t be mourned. Like Arden’s face, one more piece of the mosaic.

  I sit further back from the table than I usually do, but my hands are steady as I pour his tea and set the cup beside his saucer.

  Then I wipe them on a dishtowel and say, “Talk to me.”

  * * * * *

  Catherine MacLeod has always lived in Tatamagouche, a small Nova Scotia town where making things out of bits and pieces is a way of life. Her publications include short fiction in On Spec, TaleBones, Black Static, and several anthologies.

  Leaving Capre Roseway

  John Bell

  The mainland is too weak—

  yields to us,

  but not this place—

  at least not yet.

  To leave memorials

  on this island

  would be folly— it is

  beyond remembering.

  Here our conceits and

  fabrications are resisted,

  wounds that

  heal over.

  The hatred of symmetry

  is palpable:

&n
bsp; farms, cemeteries, fortifications

  fall into the

  rising ground,

  joined in a dark, leafy silence

  disturbed only by

  the distant sound of surf

  the incessant buzz

  of mosquitoes

  and deerflies.

  At the southern

  end of the island

  the abandoned

  lighthouse compound

  at Cape Roseway

  is overrun with an

  unlikely flock

  of sheep.

  In this cold, exposed pasture

  the sharp, salt air

  mingles with the

  stink of manure

  inside the maws

  of the crumbling buildings

  panic-stricken lambs

  peer out and cry for

  their mothers.

  Walking back

  to the government

  wharf from the lighthouse

  you must ignore

  furtive paths

  leading from the

  main road, for this

  place has its desires:

  it wants you to

  plunge into one of

  these dark whorls,

  following the tangled

  remains of a lost trail

  until, long after it

  has ended, you too

  want to stop

  and cry for

  your mother.

  She will never

  come, but if

  you stand still

  in the mottled darkness

  and relinquish your fear,

  the buzzing will stop ,

  the island will

  bring solace—

  a sublime

  green comfort.

  There is

  no reason to be

  afraid: only

  vestiges of

  something that

  is long

  gone.

  McNutt’s Island, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia

  * * * * *

  John Bell was born in Montreal and grew up in Halifax. After a long career at the National Archives in Ottawa, he returned to Nova Scotia and now lives in Lunenburg. He is the author or editor of nearly twenty books, including Invaders from the North, a ground-breaking history of Canadian comics. A former editor of the poetry magazine Arc, Bell has contributed to numerous anthologies, among them Ark of Ice and Nova Scotia: Visions of the Future, both edited by Lesley Choyce. In 1981, Bell and Choyce co-edited Visions from the Edge, one of the earliest Canadian SF anthologies.

  Everybody Wins

  Rachel Cooper

  The first time I saw the orange cat, sleek and well fed and lifeless on the gravel shoulder, I thought, Someone’s lost their moggie. The speed limit’s eighty klicks. It wouldn’t have known what hit it.

  Two days later the cat’s still looking fresh as I zoom by. At least it isn’t on the tarmac. I’m wondering why no one has given it a decent burial beside the petunias.

  Maybe it was wild. You get that in farm country.

  Within two weeks that cat was pretty flat, and within three it wasn’t much more than a smudge. I didn’t see crows at it, either. It just sort of melted in the August heat. Two years ago now, that must be.

  I still think of that cat sometimes. Well, plainly I do, since I’m thinking of it now. Gone to cat heaven. Or mouse hell. Two for the price of one.

  “Cool!” Jacob Merino tucked his skateboard under his arm and leaned forward for a closer look. Hovering two feet in front of him was a purple sphere the size of a basketball. A ribbon of text ran around its equator as blurry shapes shimmered in the metallic hemispheres. LOTTO LOTTO LOTTO, the text read.

  Jacob looked around, but the skate park was nearly deserted. He reached out to touch the sphere. It darted just out of reach and stopped.

  A quiet, metallic voice floated on the morning air. “Touch me and win twenty thousand dollars.” Jacob reached out again, and again the sphere darted away. He set the skateboard down. The sphere hung there, not moving. Jacob took a little step sideways, then walked slowly all around it. LOTTO LOTTO LOTTO was clear as anything. The blurry shapes on the upper half looked familiar, he said later, sort of like skateboard wheels. And he could hear a quiet background noise like kids laughing.

  “Touch me and win twenty thousand dollars,” the voice said again.

  “Hold still, then!” Jacob grabbed and missed, but this time he almost made it. He stood still. Slowly, he slid his right sneaker forward. The sphere didn’t move. Slowly, slowly, he shifted his upper body forward, following the right foot, inching his hands forward. The purple sphere sidled away like a skittish colt, then sidled back.

  Jacob lunged and grabbed the sphere in both hands. “Gotcha!” He hung on for a full second, palms tingling, before it slipped out of his hands.

  “Congratulations. Please take your ticket.” With a tiny whir and a kachunk, a pink slip of paper popped out the side of the sphere. Jacob took it and read, “LOTTO LOTTO LOTTO. You win $20,000! Keep this ticket safe. You will receive your prize in sixty days.” He turned it over and saw the prize date. August 5th, two months away. The purple sphere hovered for a bit. “Thank you for playing,” it said. Jacob stumbled backwards as it shot straight up and out of sight.

  I can still hear his excited laughter when he told me. “It was wicked, Uncle Josh!” His voice was just starting to break, and when he got excited it spiked to falsetto. Lord, I remember those days when your nose is too big for your face and your hands are goofy. Well, even at forty-one I guess my hands are still goofy, but my nose fits my face all right.

  My neighbor Maria Hoffman said she felt a tap on her shoulder in the Superstore parking lot as she was leaning into her SUV to straighten a grocery bag. She was loading up for a camping trip to Cape Blomidon.

  Maria turned around and there’s this metallic silver sphere, right at eye level. “Touch me and win twenty thousand dollars,” a quiet voice said.

  “You touched me,” Maria said.

  “That doesn’t count. Touch me and win twenty thousand dollars.”

  Maria reached out a hand, but the sphere floated — “like a soap bubble,” she said — out of reach. It stopped and she could see every detail. LOTTO LOTTO LOTTO, read a ribbon of text around its middle. The blurry shapes on the upper and lower halves looked like holograms of fluttering flags, the red and white of Canada, the blue and white of Nova Scotia.

  Wow, she thought. Snazzy marketing. Sure hope it’s not my tax dollars paying for this. She reached out and almost connected with it, but no luck. Now she was getting cranky. The silver sphere bumped her arm, then floated just out of reach.

  “What’s it cost?” Maria said.

  “Nothing. Touch me and win twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Third time lucky.” She shoved her hand out and her palm connected. An electric jolt made her snap it back again. As she was flexing to get the feeling back, there was this tiny whir, a kachunk, and a pink slip. She took it and read “LOTTO LOTTO LOTTO. You win $20,000! Keep this ticket safe. You will receive your prize in sixty days.” The silver sphere hung around a second, and the quiet voice said, “Congratulations. Thank you for playing.” The sphere shot straight up and out of sight.

  Jacob saw it on the six o’clock news. So did Maria. So did I. All over town the spheres appeared in front of people with the same message. All the local channels covered it, and all the reporters said the same thing: so far, everyone who saw a sphere managed to touch it and receive a ticket.

  By eleven o’clock, reports were coming in from all over. In Winnipeg, a hundred spheres, like a rainbow of
birthday balloons, descended on a schoolyard. The kids went nuts, and for a while the kerfuffle of shouts and jostles and excitement meant nobody could hear what the voices were saying. Two teachers on recess duty managed to calm down the pint-sized rabble. Ms. Watkins, who taught grade four and coached soccer, was the first to hear the quiet invitation to touch a sphere. She lunged and brought down a blue one, pocketing the ticket. Every child at that school went home with a ticket. Some entrepreneurial sixth graders tried to trade candy for the second graders’ tickets but got no takers.

  The morning papers had front-page photos from around the world.

  By the end of the week, nobody had a clue and everybody had a theory.

  It was a marketing campaign for a new sports line. A tourism campaign to boost the Nova Scotia economy. A new worldwide lottery that was starting with a bang. Everyone liked that idea.

  Prizes varied according to country and even culture. In certain villages of sub-Saharan Africa the prize was a cow. People grabbed. In some regions of Tibet, it was a donation to the poor and a blessing. People grabbed in droves. In Carmel, California, where the hot tubs were heated by solar panels, it was a promise to restore a hundred acres of rain forest. Well-manicured hands at the ends of well-toned arms grabbed confidently, some for the cameras and the six o’clock news.

  Across the world, people feinted and lunged and caught and released.

  In sweatshops and school cafeterias and grocery checkouts, giddy optimism jostled with sour cynicism. But even the people who denounced it as a blatant con still tucked their tickets in a change purse or a pocket or a shoe.

  When the spheres appeared in Washington, the Pentagon scrambled helicopters and F/A-18s.

  But then the President’s five-year-old daughter, Molly, burst into the Oval Office clutching a ticket, a pair of Secret Service agents barrelling along behind her.

  “Daddy, look what I got for you!”

  The President put down the phone, took the ticket and read it, expecting to see that Molly had won twenty thousand dollars like everyone else.

  “What the…? ‘A balanced budget for your daddy’?” He raised his eyebrows at the Secret Service agents. “Whoever is doing this, at least they have a sense of humour!”

  He kissed his daughter, picked up the phone again and told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stand down the troops.