Nebula Awards Showcase 2014

by Kij Johnson

  Dondel said, “You will have my protection,” and she settled into her chair.

  “Andril beside her. The mother of Wyatt must sit beside him.”

  They complied and Nranda pointed to Wyatt. “You must put a chair there, and we must find another man. We have a woman over still.”

  “Me,” Brenda said, “and I’m not leaving. I’m paying for my room just like you are.”

  Nranda turned to Wyatt. “You see? Had you gone, so much the worse. What more men have we?”

  J. R. Christmas put in, “Our cook and his helper. They left with Dinah. I’d take Felix, if it were up to me.”

  Wyatt brought him and dialed down the lights.

  “You may join hands if you wish. It does not matter. Minds, you must join. Each is to touch the mind to the left.”

  What a fuckin’ farce, I thought. Only then I felt her thoughts coming in through the right side of my head. It was like we were some kind of twins, only I’d never known about it. What she was tellin’ me mainly was how to touch Ms. Pepper. So I did, and it felt good. I told her what Nranda had told me, and I said, “You and me, anytime. I can’t promise you’ll like it, but I’ll try. Hard.”

  It felt better than I’d ever have imagined when Felix touched me. I’d always known he was a good man, cheerful and hard-working, a man who cared about what he did and had his own quiet pride. I’d liked him, and never known that he liked me, and respected me, too. He told me how to touch Andril. That was what I thought, anyway, but when I tried, it wasn’t Andril.

  It was the child, small and pure. Simple as water and as deep as the sea. Not good or bad, because the child didn’t know those things, didn’t know what they were and had never done anything because it was a good thing. Or because it was a bad thing, either.

  “I love you,” I thought. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.”

  I was still trying to figure out how you were supposed to hold minds instead of hands, when Erennide’s snuggled up against mine. It was a little bit apologetic and a little bit passionate. Most of all, it was friendly. She kept saying over and over that she was my friend whether I was her friend or not.

  After a second or two of that, I wanted say, “I’m your friend, Erennide. I always will be, but I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

  The problem was that it wasn’t Erennide’s mind my thoughts were going into. It was Nranda’s, and that was when I found out about her and my son. I was glad then that June was not sitting where I was.

  There was a little table in front of Nranda. I don’t think I said that. It was one of ours, draped in a white tablecloth from the dining room, a table just big enough for two people with drinks. There were twelve of us in the circle, so you can see that our circle was a lot bigger than the table. The middle had been empty, but all of a sudden, right after I got through learning about Nranda and my son, there were people in there and a funny kind of light. It didn’t come down from the ceiling or up from the floor. It was as if every person had swallowed a light bulb, and the light was shining through them.

  “Don’t let it burn,” a man said to me. “Don’t let it burn, don’t ever let it burn.” The third time he said it, I realized that he was talking about our place, about the Christmas Inn. I wanted to say I wouldn’t, but I kept thinking that he was dead, I was trying to talk to a dead man, and I couldn’t open my mouth.

  One was talking to Maximo. I heard him say something in Spanish. I didn’t understand it, but I saw Maximo’s face. There were others, but I don’t want to talk about them. One may have been Gisele’s mother. Something like that.

  What I want to talk about is my grandsons, Adam and Mark, because they were there, too. I waved to them—waved hard. Adam didn’t see me, or perhaps he didn’t want to. I was pretty strict with them when they were here with Mary. He went over to the other side of the circle, and I thought at first he was going to see Grandma June.

  He wasn’t. There was another kid there, one I hadn’t seen before, sitting between June and Andril. They came together, and after that they were gone. I guess I took my eyes off them for a moment to look at Mark. When I looked back, it was like neither had ever been there.

  Mark came straight over to me. He said, “I’m dead, Grandpa. Our plane came down in the water and I got my hand back, but I’m dead. Can you help us?”

  I said, “I can’t, sport. I wish I could. But pretty soon I’ll be dead myself. Then we can be dead together.”

  Then my Mary said, “Hi, Pops.” I’d loved Mary since she was a baby, and I’d never heard that deep, deep sorrow in her voice before.

  “Mary! Mary . . .” I wanted to jump up and throw my arms around her, but I knew I couldn’t do it. It would have been like hugging a soap bubble. As soon as I tried, she’d be gone and I’d never see her again. I put my head in my hands, and I cried.

  I felt her touch and looked up. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t what I saw. What I saw was the most beautiful sunlit landscape imaginable: gentle hills with blue mountains in the distance, lovely green grass with wildflowers all through it and groves of trees here and there. Two brooks trickling down through the hills, one making a waterfall that might have been four feet high.

  Mary was standing next to me with her hand on my shoulder, and I said, “Where are we, Mary? What is this? How did we get here.”

  “People who know about it call it Summerland, Pops. Have you ever heard that name?” She smiled as she spoke, and her sadness was mixed with something like joy.

  I shook my head. “It looks like Heaven.”

  “It isn’t. They say Heaven’s a lot different and much nicer. What you see is our place of punishment.”

  “Hell?” I felt as if my legs had been kicked from under me. “You can’t mean that.”

  “No,” Mary said, and her voice made me want to cry all over again. “Hell’s different again, and much worse. This is . . . Temporary. No one stays. Heaven is forever, and so is Hell. But until things change, this is where I am.”

  “You live here?”

  “I don’t live at all, Pops. I’m dead, remember? I know what they told you, and in a way it was true. This is where I stay when I’m not on earth with you and Mom. I can’t rest where you two are, you see, so I get awfully, awfully tired, and then I come back here. It’s not cruel, my punishment. Nobody’s rubbing his hands and laughing. It’s just the bad part of what I’ve earned, and I have to work my way through it. You see how beautiful this is? It’s what Earth could be like. It’s what we were supposed to do, and didn’t. Its beauty hurts us because it reminds us, each and every time we see it, of the place we were given and what we did with it. It cheers, too, when things seem worst. We were thought worthy of this, and we could be worthy of it yet. Look at me, Pops? Look me in the face, please, just for a minute.”

  I did, and she said, “We’re out of the game here. That’s the thing that hurts the most. We can rest here, like I told you. We can rest and drink in all the beauty, but we can’t eat and we can’t sleep. We can’t work or play, or even make friends. We can go back to your earth, sometimes. We can go back, but we can’t do any of those things there, either. Or even rest. I told you that.”

  I nodded.

  “We’re out of it. I played soccer in high school and college. Do you remember how you and Mom tried to get to all my games?”

  I did. I said, “Soccer and softball, Mary. You were good at both of them, the best one on the team.”

  That got me a sad little smile. “Thanks, pops. You were my biggest fan. I was yours, too. A bigger fan even than Mom. Did you know it?”

  I had, and I nodded.

  “You used to say that business was a game, too, and you were right as usual. Here we’re out of all the games. Am I making this clear? All of life is a big, big game made up of little ones, with everybody playing on the same team. Do I have to explain who and what you living people are playing against? Entropy is one of their names.”

  I thought I
knew, and I said so.

  “That’s good, because I’m getting terribly tired. We’re out of it here. We can rest because we’re on the sidelines, and the sidelines are where you get to rest. Only when you’re on the sidelines you want to get back into the game. Eventually some of us move up. It means our playing careers are over. We’re no longer undergrads and can’t stay on the team, although we can cheer for it and do certain other things to help. The rest of us will go back after we’ve worked through all the things we have to work through. When we’ve remembered and repented all of the opportunities we missed, all the times we hotdogged when we should have helped a teammate. We go back and begin a fresh life fresh, somewhere else, some other time.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood everything, but I nodded.

  “You’ve been here before, Pops. Probably three or four times. Try hard and keep trying, and you may remember it. Or not.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, “and I’ll keep on praying for you.”

  “That’s good. I’m almost through. But I want you to remember this, too, and I know you will. I loved you as much as any girl’s ever loved her father. So long, Pops.”

  She took her hand off my shoulder, and I realized that my face was in my hands and wet all over with tears.

  Nranda smiled at the stunned expressions around the circle. The clock in the lobby was striking; she waited until the echoes of the twelfth and final stroke had died before she spoke. “The time is midnight. Your great holiday is done. You have entertained us with your farce for several days. We thought it only just that we should entertain you with our tragedy before we go. Both plays are at the final line. We, the players, drop our masks. We, the audience, rise and think of home and friends once more.”

  “There is an epilogue,” Andril said.

  “Exactly. You are eight, an inconvenient number. Therefore, those who have seen least are to go. Big man.” Nranda pointed to Maximo. “Go! Take your woman with you. The cook, also.”

  Maximo rose and glowered at her but did as he had been told.

  “Five remain, and this is what we wish.” There was silence as she looked from Wyatt on her left to Brenda, from Brenda to June, from June to Gisele, and from Gisele to J. R. Christmas on her right. “You may choose, but one must choose for the group. Is that understood? You may remember us, and all that has taken place in this, the Christmas of us. Or you may forget—if that is what the chooser wishes.”

  No one spoke until Dondel caught the eye of J. R. Christmas. “You will be concerned for your profit,” Dondel said. “You have great need of it, I believe.”

  J. R. Christmas nodded. “We need it badly. You’re right.”

  “Though you forget, it will not be gone. You will not remember how it came into your hands, but you will have it still.” Dondel took a thick packet of bills from his coat. “Here is more. It is nothing to us. Do not count it until we have gone. And merry Christmas.” He tossed it to Erennide.

  “This is from Dondel,” she said. “Some of you may receive other gifts from certain ones of us in the years to come. That might happen.” She passed the packet—a stack of fifty dollar bills—to J. R. Christmas.

  Nranda said, “You five who remain know not only the ghosts we have exhibited to you, but us. You have heard our words, and we have heard yours. Some of you have shared food with us, and there is not one of you who has not shared life with us. Who denies this?”

  J. R. Christmas looked at June, and June at him. Gisele and Brenda exchanged glances. Wyatt looked at his shoes.

  Andril coughed. “Very well. Quickly, please. Who are we? Whom have you kissed? To whom did you teach your songs? Are we your countrymen? You know we are not. If we are not, who are we?”

  June said, “You’re human beings. That’s what I feel.”

  Wyatt whispered, “Not me.” He had not meant it to be heard, but all of them heard him.

  “You must be specific,” Nranda snapped. “You. The waiter. What are we? Say it!”

  “You’re devils,” Wyatt told her. “Mr. Dondel gave me a hundred bucks, but that doesn’t change what I think, and I think you’re a devil straight from Hell.”

  “The short woman next.” Nranda pointed.

  “I’m with this kid,” Brenda said. Her hand found Wyatt’s and clasped it. “With him or anyway close to him. Friendly or unfriendly, you’re demons.”

  “Mrs. Christmas next. Speak.”

  June shook her head.

  “You have no opinion? None?”

  “I know what I believe you are,” June said. Her voice carried no emotion. “I don’t want to be the one to choose, so I won’t say.”

  “You must!”

  June shook her head.

  Andril smiled at her. “I understand, although I am not certain Nranda does. We will take you last. If either of the others arrives at the answer, we will not take you at all.”

  June smiled; she was not pretty even when she smiled, yet there was something better and more lasting in her eyes.

  Andril turned to his left. “You are called Gisele, are you not? You must share your wisdom with us, Gisele. We insist.”

  “I saw a ghost,” Gisele said.

  Nranda snorted.

  “I saw a ghost. He was—it doesn’t matter. What he told me was meant to be terribly, terribly cruel. I know that. But it wasn’t. Those were the words that unlocked my cage, and I spread my wings.” She looked at Wyatt and seemed hardly older than he.

  “You must tell us what you think,” Nranda snapped. “Your most promising theory. Who are we? What are we?”

  Gisele rose. For a moment she looked at Dondel.

  And giggled.

  He chuckled, a chuckle full of warmth and friendship, and she crossed the circle and tried to take Nranda’s hands. “I think you’re angels. You may be fallen angels, like the waiter said. You’re angels just the same.”

  “Please return to your seat,” Nranda told her, and she did.

  Erennide whispered, “You must try like the others, my Jule.”

  J. R. Christmas nodded. “I saw ghosts, too, just like Ms. Grantham. I saw ten or twelve, and three spoke to me.” He himself could speak no more.

  From the other side of the circle, June said softly, “Was it so bad, Julius?”

  “It wasn’t. It was good.” He raised his voice. “I said I talked to three ghosts, and that’s the truth. I think there’s a bigger truth—that I’ve talked to seven. You’re ghosts, if you ask me. The ghosts of what, I don’t know. But ghosts. You wanted my guess. All right, you have it.”

  “And we,” Andril murmured, “must have your wife’s after all.” He turned to June. “Had any of the other four been correct, I could have spared you this. They were not, by which you know that we are not devils, demons, angels, or ghosts. You called us human beings, and you were quite correct. We are. Be more specific.”

  June rose. Although she was not tall, she seemed tall in that moment. “You want a guess,” she began. “You’re going to get a speech instead. Last night, when most of you were in bed, I put up my old crib set under the tree. This man Andril,” she gestured to her left, “watched me, and asked what Mary and Joseph, and all the shepherds and angels, were worshipping. I told him I’d put the child Jesus in the crib on Christmas morning—I’ve done it, though I doubt that anybody noticed.”

  “I did,” Andril murmured.

  “And I said that until I did, they were worshipping nothing. I thought about that later, and I’ve thought about it ever since. I feel it’s the key, or maybe the key to the key. It’s the key to what’s wrong with Christmas. And it’s the key to the key to what’s happened to the five of us this Christmas.”

  She paused as if waiting for an interruption; none came.

  “The trouble with Christmas is that we don’t think of the child. Holiday means holy day. I suppose everybody knows. All right, there’s nothing wrong with the things we think about, decorating the house, and getting presents for other people and giving them. The
re’s nothing wrong with singing, or playing games, or kissing under the mistletoe. But mostly we don’t think of the child at all, and as long as we don’t, we’re worshipping nothing.”

  “She knows,” Erennide told Andril.

  Very slightly, he nodded.

  “There’s a child with you,” June said. “I gave that child milk and a cookie, and some strawberries I had. We didn’t see it much, and when we did, we didn’t pay much attention to it. The child’s the key just the same.” She pointed. “Anybody here who understands about the child understands Erennide there.” She pointed again. “And Nranda, too. And both the men.”

  Dondel clapped. His hands came together softly, making no sound; but he continued clapping.

  “You won’t get a guess from me,” June said. “I’ve told you why you won’t get one. I’ve given the rest a clue, and any of them who want to decide can speak up and do it.”

  For a moment, no one spoke; then Brenda said, “I just wish I knew what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “You must decide,” Erennide told June. “You cannot escape this.”

  “It’s whether we forget all this or remember it?”

  Erennide nodded. So did J. R. Christmas, who was fingering the thick packet of bills in his coat pocket.

  “I want a vote.” June sighed. “I’ll decide whichever way the vote goes.”

  Wyatt said, “Don’t call on me first, Mom. I got to think.”

  “I’ll go first,” Brenda announced. “I want to forget. Is that plain enough?”

  June nodded.

  Gisele’s soft voice seemed to float in the silence. “I wish to recall everything. I must. I must remember.”

  J. R. Christmas cleared his throat. “Some of it was bad and some was good, June honey. I’d like to forget the bad and remember the good.” He glanced at Erennide and stood a trifle straighter. “That’s probably the way it is for everyone, but we don’t get to pick and choose. So I’m with Ms. Grantham. I want to remember.”

  More loudly than necessary, Wyatt said, “So do I, Mom. Can I explain?”

  June nodded.

  “Me and Nranda did things you wouldn’t like, and it got me thinkin’ about the kids at school and what jerks they are. Then I thought, oh shit, they’re only kids, cut ’em some slack. After that it hit me that I was growin’ up. I was growin’ up, and you don’t know how bad you need to till you start. I want to hang onto that.”