Northern Stars

by Glenn Grant

  “Doctor?” Harriet asked. All she seemed capable of was catching a word from the woman’s explanation and repeating it as a question.

  “Yes, he was institutionalized as a young boy. The odd thing is that he’s somewhat aware of all the different people living inside him. He thinks that when his father sewed him back together, he used parts of all sorts of different people to do so and those bits of alien skin and tissue took hold of his mind and borrowed parts of it for their own use.”

  “That…” Harriet cleared her throat. “That was the … accident?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t any accident,” Flora said. “And don’t let anyone try to tell you different. His father knew exactly what he was doing when he threw him through that plate glass window.”

  “But…”

  “Of course, the father was too poor to be able to afford medical attention for the boy, so he patched him up on his own.”

  Harriet stared at the monstrous figure with growing horror.

  “This … none of this can be true,” she finally managed.

  “It’s all documented at the institution,” Flora told her. “His father made a full confession before they locked him away. Poor Frank, though. It was too late to do anything to help him by that point, so he ended up being put away as well, for all that his only crime was the misfortune of being born the son of a lunatic.”

  Harriet tore her gaze from Frank’s scarred features and turned to the old woman.

  “How do you know all of this?” she asked.

  “Why, I lived there as well,” Flora said. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “No. No, you didn’t.”

  Flora shrugged. “It’s old history. Mind you, when you get to be my age, everything’s old history.”

  Harriet wanted to ask why Flora had been in the institution herself, but couldn’t find the courage to do so. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know. But there was something she had no choice but to ask. She hugged her blanket closer around her, no longer even aware of its smell, but the chill that was in her bones didn’t come from the cold.

  “What happens now?” she said.

  “I’m not sure I understand the question,” Flora replied with a sly smile in her eyes that said she understood all too well.

  Harriet pressed forward. “What happens to me?”

  “Well, now,” Flora said. She shot the monster an affectionate look. “Frank wants to start a family.”

  Harriet shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice sounding weak and ineffectual even to her own ears. “No way.”

  “You don’t exactly have a say in the matter, dear. It’s not as though there’s anyone coming to rescue you—not in this storm. And even if someone did come searching, where would they look? People disappear in this city all of the time. It’s a sad, but unavoidable fact in these trying times that we’ve brought upon ourselves.”

  Harriet was still shaking her head.

  “Oh, think of someone else for a change,” the old woman told her. “I know your type. You’re filled with your own self-importance; the whole world revolves around you. It’s a party here, an evening of dancing there, theatre, clubs, cabaret, with never a thought for those less fortunate. What would it hurt you to give a bit of love and affection to a poor, lonely monster?”

  I’ve gone all demented, Harriet thought. All of this—the monster, the lunatic calm of the old woman—none of it was real. None of it could be real.

  “Do you think he likes being this way?” Flora demanded.

  Her voice grew sharp and the monster shifted nervously at the tone of her anger, the way a dog might bristle, catching its master’s mood.

  “It’s got nothing to do with me,” Harriet said, surprising herself that she could still find the courage to stand up for herself. “I’m not like you think I am and I had nothing to do with what happened to that—to Frank.”

  “It’s got everything to do with you,” the old woman replied. “It’s got to do with caring and family and good Samaritanism and decency and long, lasting relationships.”

  “You can’t force a person into something like that,” Harriet argued.

  Flora sighed. “Sometimes, in these times, it’s the only way. There’s a sickness abroad in the world, child; your denial of what’s right and true is as much a cause as a symptom.”

  “You’re the one that’s sick!” Harriet cried.

  She bolted for the building’s front doors, praying they weren’t locked. The monster was too far away and moved too slowly to stop her. The old woman was closer and quicker, but in her panic, Harriet found the strength to fling her bodily away. She raced for the glass doors that led out of the foyer and into the storm.

  The wind almost drove her back inside when she finally got a door open, but she pressed against it, through the door and out onto the street. The whirling snow, driven by the mad, capricious wind, soon stole away all sense of direction, but she didn’t dare stop. She plowed through drifts, blinded by the snow, head bent against the howling wind, determined to put as much distance as possible between herself and what she fled.

  Oh god, she thought at one point. My purse was back there. My ID. They know where I live. They can come and get me at home, or at work, anytime they want.

  But mostly she fought the snow and wind. How long she fled through the blizzard, she had no way of knowing. It might have been an hour, it might have been the whole night. She was shaking with cold and fear when she stumbled to the ground one last time and couldn’t get up.

  She lay there, a delicious sense of warmth enveloping her. All she had to do was let go, she realized. Just let go and she could drift away into that dark, warm place that beckoned to her. She rolled over on her side and stared up into the white sky. Snow immediately filmed her face. She rubbed it away with her hand, already half-frozen with the cold.

  She was ready to let go. She was ready to just give up the struggle, because she was only so strong and she’d given it her all, hadn’t she? She—

  A tall dark figure loomed up suddenly, towering over her. Snow blurred her sight so that it was only a shape, an outline, against the white.

  No, she pleaded. Don’t take me back. I’d rather die than go back.

  As the figure bent down beside her, she found the strength to beat at it with her frozen hands.

  “Easy now,” a kind voice said, blocking her weak blows. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  She stopped trying to fight. It wasn’t the monster, but a policeman. Somehow, in her aimless flight, she’d wandered out of the Tombs.

  “What are you doing out here?” the policeman said.

  Monster, she wanted to say. There’s a monster. It attacked me. But all that came out from her frozen lips was, “Muh … tacked me…”

  “First we’ll get you out of this weather,” he told her, “then we’ll deal with the man who assaulted you.”

  The hours that followed passed in a blur. She was in a hospital, being treated for frostbite. A detective interviewed her, calmly, patiently sifting through her mumbled replies for a description of what had happened to her, and then finally she was left alone.

  At one point she came out of her dozing state and thought she saw two policemen standing at the end of her bed. She wasn’t sure if they were actually present or not, but like Agatha Christie characters, gathered at the denouement of one of the great mystery writer’s stories, their conversation conveniently filled in some details concerning her captors of which she hadn’t been aware.

  “Maybe it was before your time,” one of the policemen was saying, “but that description she gave fits.”

  “No, I remember,” the other replied. “They were residents in the Zeb’s criminal ward and Cross killed their shrink during a power failure.”

  The first officer nodded. “I don’t know which of them was worse: Cross with that monstrous face, or Boddeker.”

  “Poisoned her whole family, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but I remember seeing what Cross d
id to the shrink—just about tore the poor bastard in two.”

  “I heard that it was Boddeker who put him up to it. The poor geek doesn’t have a mind of his own.”

  Vaguely, as though observing the action from a vast distance, Harriet could sense the first officer looking in her direction.

  “She’s lucky she’s still alive,” he added, looking back at his companion.

  In the days that followed, researching old newspapers at the library, Harriet found out that all that the two men had said, or that she’d dreamed they had said, was true, but she couldn’t absorb any of it at the moment. For now she just drifted away once more, entering a troubled sleep that was plagued with dreams of ghosts and monsters. The latter wore masks to hide the horror inside them, and they were the worst of all.

  She woke much later, desperately needing to pee. It was still dark in her room. Outside she could hear the wind howling.

  She fumbled her way into the bathroom and did her business, then stared into the mirror after she’d flushed. There was barely enough light for the mirror to show her reflection. What looked back at her from the glass was a ghostly face that she almost didn’t recognize.

  “Monsters,” she said softly, not sure if what she felt was pity or fear, not sure if she recognized one in herself, or if it was just the old woman’s lunatic calm still pointing an accusing finger.

  She stared at that spectral reflection for a very long time before she finally went back to bed.

  * * *

  “We’ll find you another,” the old woman said.

  Her tea had gone cold but she was too tired to relight the stove and make herself another cup. Her hands were folded on her lap, her gaze fixed on the tin can of cold water that still sat on the stove. A film of ice was forming on the water.

  “You’ll see,” she added. “We’ll find another, but this time we’ll put her together ourselves, just the way your father did with you. We’ll take a bit from one and a bit from another and we’ll make you the perfect mate, just see if we don’t. I always was a fair hand with a needle and thread, you know—a necessary quality for a wife in my time. Of course everything’s different now, everything’s changed. Sometimes I wonder why we bother to go on.…”

  The monster stared out the window to where the snow still fell, quietly now, the blizzard having moved on, leaving only this calm memory of its storm winds in its wake. He gave no indication that he was listening to the old woman, but she went on talking all the same.

  CARPE DIEM

  Eileen Kernaghan

  Eileen Kernaghan has lived in British Columbia all her life and operates a used bookstore in the Greater Vancouver area, Neville Books. She has published three fantasy novels, Journey to Aprilioth, Songs from the Drowned Lands (which won the Aurora Award—then called the Casper—in 1985), and The Sarsen Witch, and a book on reincarnation, all from Berkley Books in the U.S. She has also published speculative poetry and SF short stories in a number of Canadian magazines and anthologies, including Ark of Ice and the Tesseracts volumes.

  “Carpe Diem” is from Tesseracts3.

  * * *

  “I’d better get going.” Angela sweeps up hat, gloves, U-V shield, air monitor from the foot of Martha’s bed. “Meditation class in half an hour.” She is always in a hurry, even for these daily sessions that are supposed to slow her down, teach her to relax. Already, at thirty, there are faint stress-lines around her mouth. “See you in a week. Is there anything you need?” She hovers in the doorway, waiting for Martha to ask, as usual, for magazines, or shampoo, or dental floss.

  Martha says, on a sudden crazy impulse, “Yes—a bottle of Bushmills.” She enjoys seeing Angela’s eyebrows go up, her mouth stiffen. “A great big one, a forty-ouncer, if you can still buy such a thing. Oh, and a carton of cigarettes.”

  Angela gives Martha a tight-lipped smile. She is annoyed, but indulgent—an adult dealing with a wilful two-year-old. Martha feels a quick stab of resentment. She is neither young enough nor old enough to be treated like this. Well, my girl, she thinks, you’ll soon enough be in my shoes. When the time comes, all the exercise and clean living in the world won’t save you from Assessment.

  Angela has her hat on, and one glove. “I’ll bring you some apple juice,” she promises, predictably. “And you other ladies? Can I get you anything?”

  Martha’s roommates glance up—June from her knitting, Dorothy from the inevitable copy of Christian Health.

  “Nothing for me, thank you.” Dorothy places a faint but perceptible emphasis on the “thank.” She has a high, nasal, vaguely British voice that sets Martha’s nerves on edge.

  Encouraged by Martha’s small act of rebellion, June winks, and leers. “Well, dear, since you ask … how about something about six-foot-two, that looks good in tight jeans?”

  There is an awkward silence. Angela, pretending not to have heard, zips up her other glove. Dorothy is sitting bolt upright, holding her magazine like a U-V shield in front of her face. Even Martha is uncomfortable. June always goes that fraction of an inch too far, stepping over the thin line between the risque and the merely vulgar. Her notoriety is spreading, on this and other floors. She flirts outrageously with male examiners, and is said to have called the head counsellor a silly cow.

  “June is indiscreet,” Dorothy has more than once remarked, in June’s absence. Martha’s mother, plainer-spoken, would have called her common.

  When Angela is out of earshot, boots clicking briskly towards the elevator, June says, “She’s a pretty girl, your daughter.”

  “Well, not my daughter, actually,” Martha tells her. “My husband’s daughter, by his first wife.” She is not sure why she is bothering to explain the distinction. “My late husband,” she adds. Widowed and childless, she thinks, with a sudden sick lurching of her heart. Things like that mattered, when it came to Assessment.

  June says, “No offense, mind, but if that was my daughter I’d give her a good whack on the bum.” Martha takes no offense. She knows exactly what June is talking about. She is fond of June—fond of her irreverence, her boisterous, good-natured vulgarity, her shameless defiance of the rules. June’s own daughters—big, cheerful, loud-voiced, blonde women, younger versions of June—bring her candy bars, which she hides between the mattress and the springs. Martha hears the furtive rustling of the wrappers, late at night.

  “What’s the use of being alive,” June wants to know, “when you have to give up everything that makes life worth living? A short life and a merry one, that’s what my daddy used to say. Did I tell you about my dad? He was fifty-three when he passed on. His heart just plain gave out—and small wonder. Nearly three hundred pounds when he died, bacon and eggs every day, cream in his coffee, two packs of cigarettes, half a quart of whiskey after supper…”

  Dorothy, turning a page of Christian Health, allows herself a ladylike snort. Martha hopes this unfortunate piece of family history has not been recorded in June’s file.

  “Mind you,” says June cheerfully, “that wasn’t what killed him. When he died he was drunk as a newt in bed with Sally Rogers from next door, who wasn’t a day over eighteen.”

  Martha laughs. It’s hard to stay depressed with June in the next bed. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” Martha says.

  “Come again?”

  “A poem. ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.’ By Herrick, I think—one of those fellows, anyway. Second-year English. It was a catch-phrase around our dorm.” Martha closes her eyes, drawing the lines bit by bit out of the deep well of the past.

  Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

  Old time is still a-flying:

  And this same flower that smiles today,

  Tomorrow will be dying …

  She falters. “Damn. I wish I could remember the rest of it.”

  “Well, I never was much of a one for poetry,” June says. “Though I didn’t mind a Harlequin once in a while. But that, what you just said, makes good sense to me.”

  “It did to us,
too,” says Martha, remembering, with affection and astonishment, her eighteen-year-old self.

  * * *

  At three A.M. Martha wakes from an uneasy doze. She has not slept well since she came here; and tomorrow she faces a battery of tests. She tells herself there is no need to worry. She hasn’t touched sweets for fifteen years, or butter, or cream, or cigarettes. Nor, in spite of her joke about the Bushmills, alcohol. Seven years ago she gave up meat. She is only slightly overweight—better than being underweight, according to her doctor, who keeps up on the latest studies. She walks everywhere, takes megavitamins, exercises, practises biofeedback and meditation, checks her blood pressure daily; is as scrupulous as Angela in the use of U-V shield and air monitor. There is, perhaps, a little breathlessness on the stairs; a trace of stiffness in her finger-joints. An occasional absent-mindedness. Normal enough, surely, for a woman of sixty. Nothing to worry about. Certainly nothing to warrant Reassignment.

  Her throat is dry, and her heart is beating faster than it should. She repeats a mantra in her head. Health. Joy. Peace. Sleep. Other words, unsummoned, creep into her mind.

  That age is best which is the first,

  When youth and blood are warmer;

  But being spent, the worse, and worst

  Times still succeed the former.

  She wants a drink. She wants a cigarette. She wants to get out of this place. Lying wide-eyed and fearful in the aseptic dark, she listens to the small mouse-like rustle of candy wrappers.

  * * *

  Martha lies back on her pillows, staring at the posters on the opposite wall. They remind her of the samplers in her grandmother’s drawing room. “Healthiness is Next to Godliness.” “A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body.” “A Megavitamin a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.” She is exhausted by the daylong pokings and proddings and pryings, the sometimes painful and frequently embarrassing invasions of her person. She admires, without daring to imitate, June’s cheerful rudeness to counsellors and examiners; her steadfast refusal to co-operate. Only Dorothy seems unaffected by the tests. She wears the smug and slightly relieved look of a schoolgirl who knows she has done well on her math final.