Trickster Drift

by Eden Robinson

  He was going to text his lab partner to borrow his notes from the morning class, but he remembered he didn’t have his cell. It was gone. He didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to think too hard about yesterday. He sat on the couch, and burnt as much cedar, sweetgrass and sage as he could find. A grating buzz woke him from wherever he’d zoned. He staggered to the intercom.

  “Jared?” Aunt Georgina said. “Jared, it’s me. Is this thing working?”

  Something circled the floor like a centipede, arms and legs moving in a blur. It shook its head. It spat. The ghosts and spirits crowded into the living room, into the kitchen and down the hallway.

  “Hey,” Jared said. “I’m in 202. Come on up.”

  He pushed through the spirits and unlocked the door, leaving it open while he waited. He heard the elevator ding and the door slid open. Cedar clung to Aunt Georgina, who blinked through her thick glasses as the ghosts and spirits poured into Mave’s apartment. She wore a long floral dress and a heavy sweater that poked out of her rain jacket. Jared shivered.

  “My,” Aunt Georgina said, hesitating at the door. She peered inside. “Oh, my, my, my. What have we here?”

  “Hey,” Jared said.

  “Don’t like you,” Cedar mumbled.

  “It’s kind of weird in here,” Jared said.

  “Pish-posh,” Aunt Georgina said. “We’ve seen worse. Come, Cedar. Be a big boy.”

  “Mmm.” Cedar held her hand with both of his.

  Jared backed up to let Aunt Georgina come in. She stopped just inside the door. She unhinged her jaw. The bottom half rested on her chest. Her eyes rolled back as she sucked in a deep breath. The ghosts and spirits bellowed as she swallowed them, inhaling them, and then the hallway was empty. Aunt Georgina’s spine straightened and she pulled herself up, expanding until her head brushed the ceiling. Her large plastic glasses fell from her face and her human skin burst, her dress shredded, hanging from the thing that had been hiding under her skin. Jared slowly backed down the empty hallway. She touched the walls and the painted bird men in the painted landscape beneath the normal, beige wall blurred then flowed in an inky river to her fingers. She cupped the blood-coloured flood and drank hungrily.

  “Better,” she said, wiping her mouth. She patted Cedar on the head. “Take your skin off, dear heart. We’re among family now.”

  Cedar plunked himself on the floor, scratching his ear. He studied Jared. “Do we eat him now, Gran?”

  “Don’t be silly, Cedar,” she said. “We don’t eat family. We’re here to help.”

  Jared backed up into the living room as she came down the hallway, swinging her head back and forth, sucking in the dead and the otherworldly. She pushed open Jared’s bedroom door. The painted faces in the wall shrieked and then went silent. By the time Jared got there, the walls were bare.

  Cedar barrelled into the room in his wolf pup shape, shaking his fur and jumping up on the bed to lick his paws. Aunt Georgina studied Dent and Shu on the other side of the floor. She bent to touch the surface, unhinging her jaw again.

  “Don’t!” Jared said. “Wait! No! They’re friends!”

  “Ashuta,” Aunt Georgina said, her mouth becoming normal. Ish. “And a stringy little ghost. My, but we have developed our talent since our last meeting.”

  “Can you get them out? And not eat them?” Jared said.

  “Of course,” Aunt Georgina said. “But we’re going to join them first, I think.”

  She grabbed Jared’s arm and yanked. He screamed. Cedar howled on the bed. And then the floor was gone and they were falling through the sky and Cedar’s howls were gone.

  The thing that had been Georgina Smith cradled him like a baby as the air roared past them. His arm was on fire. Jared shut his eyes in panic, then felt them slowing, felt them drifting, and he opened his eyes in time to see them land. Music, a thousand songs, all played at once, all rising and falling. The sound vibrated in his chest like the world’s loudest rock concert. He tried to cover his ears, but his one arm wouldn’t move.

  The Georgina thing tucked him in a tree. Below him, dolphin people clicked and squeaked at them, their language a physical thing moving through them. They backed away from Georgina, creating a wall of grey faces with tiny black eyes. The city rose around them, echoing back the sounds in a way that made his head throb.

  Georgina lunged. She shredded one of the dolphin people and then reached through its chest and pulled out its heart. She tipped her head back and swallowed it in one gulp, like it was a raw oyster. Jared watched them stampede away, heard their fear in their cries as they ran to buildings, ran to cars, ran. Georgina licked her fingers.

  “Mmm,” she said.

  Dolphin police cars drove through the crowd and dolphin officers shot at her. The bullets bounced off her scaled skin and she laughed. She stomped towards the police cars and ripped them open, chomping on the drivers’ faces.

  The music was a constant blare. The street lights all went red. Dent and Shu circled him, saying things; their mouths were moving, but Jared couldn’t hear them above the alarms and the screams and the music.

  Dent touched Jared’s arm. It wasn’t ghostly; his hand didn’t go through him. Shu willed something, and Jared’s shoulder snapped back into place. He could move his hand. The pain became bearable, a dull ache.

  Georgina flipped a cop car in the air. It crashed through the lobby of a nearby hotel. Sirens echoed off the buildings as more cop cars approached. Shu and Dent took hold of Jared and they lifted him up. They floated.

  “No,” Georgina boomed, marching back and grabbing Jared’s ankle. She flicked Dent and Shu away and they arced through the sky, vanishing into the horizon.

  “What a delightful little world you’ve found,” she said.

  Gran! Gran! Come back! Cedar’s voice was frightened and Jared could hear his hiccupping crying.

  I’m coming, Georgina thought at Cedar. Calm yourself.

  Her breath smelled like blood. Her face was slick and red. She smiled as she pulled Jared close. A little bit of grey skin was stuck in her teeth. She wrapped an arm around him. They lifted up, floating.

  Gran found us a new hunting ground, dear heart, Georgina thought at Cedar. No gods. We can eat as much as we want.

  Want Mama, Cedar thought.

  Shh, Mama’s coming. Everyone is coming. We’re all going to feast.

  A black spot hovered in the sky and Jared could see Cedar peering down. They went straight to it and Georgina climbed through, carrying Jared like a football, tucked under her arm. Cedar jumped up and down, excited, wagging his tail so fast it blurred.

  Come, Georgina thought. Everyone. Come now.

  Jared could hear them all. Excited. Curious. Hungry. He could sense the ones that were near and the ones that were far away. They all dropped what they were doing to listen to Georgina promising them a banquet, a terrible feast.

  Wanna stay here, Cedar said.

  Dear heart, Georgina thought. This world is dying.

  Is not.

  Remember when I told you about the Quake and the Eclipse? The Year with Two Winters? The Flood?

  Mama.

  Your mama’s coming, dear heart. Don’t be frightened. Georgina tenderly stroked Jared’s cheek. We have our key now. The humans will kill their world sooner rather than later, but we’ll be long gone. We’ll be safe and well-fed. We’ll feast on this little world beneath our feet, and then the next, and then the next.

  39

  As midnight rolled around, Jared sat on his bed, cradling his arm. It still ached, but he could lift it. The floor was filled with flashing lights and helicopters. Dolphin people in uniforms. A barrage of missiles that exploded harmlessly beneath his feet.

  He was glad Mave wasn’t home. Coy wolves filled the apartment. Coy wolves wearing people skin. They came in one by one or as couples. They padded silently across the floor. Cedar’s mother had stripped her human skin and suckled Cedar near Jared’s feet. Georgina sat cross-legged on the bedroom floo
r, flanked by two men.

  “I knew one of Wee’git’s children would be the key,” she said. “But I never thought it would be you, Jared.”

  He shrugged.

  “We should bring his baby witch,” Georgina said. “As insurance. In case our baby Trickster gets uppity. Go get her.”

  “No,” Jared said.

  The men glanced at him and then at Georgina.

  “Go,” she said.

  As they left the room, she smiled at him.

  “Don’t,” Jared said. “Please. I’m not fighting you. I’m not.”

  “We won’t hurt her,” Georgina said. “But as you grow more experienced, you’ll get ideas. You’ll turn against us. We know your kind. You’re fickle.”

  Jared wanted to wake up. He wanted to wake up now. He wanted this to be a dream and he didn’t want Sarah dragged into it. He didn’t know what he could do. He wanted to warn her. He wanted her to run. He wanted a way to tell her what was coming. He wanted his mother. He wanted Nana Sophia. He wanted help. He wanted it now.

  “That’s enough,” Georgina said, standing. “Go get his aunt. Go get his mother. Get his cousins. Quickly.”

  “No!” Jared said.

  “Calm yourself,” she said. “Or we’ll make your friends and your family suffer. You’ll watch us rip them apart, Jared. If you don’t listen to me, everyone you love will suffer.”

  “No,” Jared said.

  The thing from the wall slithered through the ceiling and wrapped itself around Jared’s feet. Wound and wound and wound itself like a snake.

  “What the hell is that?” Cedar’s mother said.

  Help me, Jared thought. Please, help me.

  The fireflies rose through the floor, faint. They gathered above Jared’s head.

  “Jared,” Georgina said. “Stop. Now.”

  “Home,” the fireflies said.

  Tendrils of light wound down, pausing in front of Jared’s eyes. He didn’t want to, he really didn’t want to, but the wolves would find Sarah, they would bring her here, and he didn’t know what would happen then. He didn’t know what they would do, and it scared him. He didn’t want to go back to the dolphin world and watch the dolphins get slaughtered by coy wolves and the Georgina thing.

  More fireflies came into the room and Georgina tried to grab Jared. But she couldn’t grasp him as he shredded into wisps, and she roared in frustration. Sarah had been right. As he joined the fireflies, as he disintegrated into glowing threads, somehow he was still Jared, still had his own thoughts. But he could hear them now, their song like whale song, but high and sweet.

  “Bring his family! Now!” she shouted.

  Jared wanted not. He wanted them safe. He wanted Sarah safe.

  “Sarah,” the fireflies repeated, beginning to spin together, sparking.

  “I’m warning you,” Georgina said. “I will not have mercy if you cross me. If you run, if you get away from us, we’ll hunt down everyone you love and slaughter them.”

  The thing that loved to wind around Jared’s feet chittered, amused at the thought of bloody death for all the people who took Jared away from it.

  The fireflies suddenly rang like a gong and he could hear them in his head again, their voices singing, tired of this universe and its clumsy numbers. Tired of monsters eating them when they had never, in all their remembered history, been subject to annihilation.

  “Home,” they sang, their voices full of longing.

  He saw the dusty mountains and hot, barren plains of the world he’d visited with Sarah through his basement ceiling. He saw a sky full of bright, unfamiliar stars.

  “Don’t test me,” Georgina said.

  We should all go, the thing whispered. Take them with us so they can’t hurt anyone.

  All of them, yes, Jared thought. All of us. Now.

  And they went.

  The fireflies streamed up into the night sky, joining a river of other fireflies, merging and winding away, lifting out of reach, joyous. The stars were as bright as light bulbs, unnaturally close and vivid. Jared thumped as he landed.

  Caught by the thing around his feet, Jared staggered and fell to the dusty ground and his skin burned in the heat, rocks sizzling like concrete after a summer’s day. He sucked in a breath but couldn’t get any air. All around him, coy wolves struggled to breathe, stumbled and fell to the ground, gasping. Georgina howled. Cedar and his mother ran in frightened circles, snapping at Jared.

  “Bring us back!” Georgina shouted. “Bring us back now!”

  Coy wolves. Hundreds of them, suffocating. Jared wouldn’t bring them back because they would kill everyone he loved. One by one, they stopped moving. Georgina, though, didn’t die. She howled. She shoved him down, put one large foot on his leg and snapped it. The sounds he made, the sounds, his leg.

  “I have gold,” she said. “I have treasures you can’t imagine. Jared, bring us back. Please.”

  He wouldn’t bring them back. He wouldn’t bring them back to his family. She could make all the promises she wanted. He crawled. He felt his leg drag behind him as Georgina wrapped one hand around his neck and snapped.

  * * *

  —

  Georgina stood on Jared’s body as her family died around her. Jared hadn’t expected to die, but here he was, hovering off the ground near his body. The thing slithered around, unhappy about the cold feet of Jared’s dead body. Georgina was alive and he hadn’t expected that either. He didn’t know how she was still breathing when everyone else from their world had choked to death.

  Jared heard the rattle of bones and turned to see hairy men with large, slanted heads and bared teeth creeping down a hillside, gingerly avoiding the bodies of the coy wolves as they came closer. Jared wondered if any of them remembered him, remembered being trapped in his world. He wondered if they could help him.

  “You killed everyone I love,” Georgina said to his ghost.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Jared said.

  “I’m going to resurrect you now,” she said. “And then I’m going to kill you again.”

  No, Jared thought as he felt himself being drawn back into his body. No, no, no.

  “Eventually,” Georgina said, “you’re going to bring me back to our universe and you’re going to watch me kill everyone you love.”

  40

  Jared was dead again. He moved as far away from his body as the ghostly tether would let him. He couldn’t feel himself being eaten anymore, but he could hear the joints popping as Georgina ripped off his arm and licked the flesh from his bones, the crack as she snapped his humerus and sucked the marrow. The thing from his bedroom wall kept out of her reach but never stopped watching Jared’s body, amused.

  The ape men hadn’t been any help. She’d chased them down and eaten a few of them, but she wouldn’t let Jared’s body go and he slowed her down, so the rest got away. The fireflies formed a cloud, glowing like northern lights in the night sky, blocking the stars.

  “Can you help me?” Jared asked them.

  He felt their attention, but they didn’t move any closer. If they would shred him again, send him up to the sky in tendrils, he could shake Georgina’s grip on his body.

  You need to be in your body, the fireflies thought at him. The ogress is demi-mortal like you, so she can’t be touching you or she’ll hitchhike. We don’t want her back in your world with Sarah.

  “All you had to do was behave, Jared,” Georgina said, “but you couldn’t do that, could you?”

  Jared was stuck in a dusty, rocky valley with an ogress who was picking through his corpse’s torso for her favourite organs. Pain skewed his sense of time, as did being a ghost. He wasn’t sure if they’d been here forever or a few hours, but this was the third time she’d eaten his body. She was hungry, endlessly hungry. And sad, underneath her fury. Although she was starving, she didn’t eat the bodies of the coy wolves. She squatted beside one, nibbling on Jared’s arm like it was a scrawny chicken wing. Whatever magic she was trying to work failed. The wolf
remained dead. The thing that had claimed to be his aunt hit her fist against the rocky ground.

  The ground was littered with beings he’d murdered. When he was in his body, he could smell the wolves starting to rot, wave after wave of smell, like driving past a slaughterhouse.

  Kill or be killed, bucko, his mom used to say.

  He’d never thought that could be him, that he could be as violent as his mother, but here he was, drifting along the ground, examining his handiwork. Obviously it was self-defence. But it still felt wrong. The coy wolves hadn’t actually done anything. Yet. And now that possibility was over. All their possibilities were over.

  Soon, he was going to be dragged back into his body as the ogress resurrected him again. And then ate him. And then brought him back. Rebirth was like being tasered. She would try to kill him slowly, but her hunger would overcome her and she’d begin ripping off things, crunching his bones between her teeth. The pain was vivid and erased all thought, but short-lived, and then he was here, floating around in a world without television or wi-fi. Or coffee. God. This world had no coffee. There was nothing here but the dusty wind. His cannibalistic fake-aunt cracked his bones and slurped the marrow.

  Just to hear something other than his own bones crunching, he sang “Someday,” one of his favourite songs after he’d broken up with Sarah.

  “Stop it,” the cannibalistic Georgina said. “No Nickelback!”

  “Or what? You’ll eat me?” Jared said.

  Jared couldn’t remember all the words, but he sang the bits that he could remember over and over, out of sequence, heartfelt, earnest. Cannibal Georgina threw his foot at him. It sailed through his non-corporeal body. She furiously mojoed his body back together and shoved him back in it so she could strangle him.

  “Stop singing!” she screamed, her hands wrapping around his throat, throttling him like the brainless chicken she thought he was.

  Jared sang louder. Mentally, in his head—because he was choking, fainting, and couldn’t so much as squeak—Jared sang and sang and sang.