Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology

by George R. R. Martin

  “But not like that,” said Marie, a little afraid, as if the dictator himself had suddenly appeared before her.

  “No. Not like that,” said Drost. “Go on, check the traps.”

  She hobbled out of the room.

  Step by step, she traveled from room to room. She’d never get used to the mice. She still let out a yelp when she saw one of them scurry across her path or dart behind a piece of furniture. Scooping the traps with their crushed bodies into garbage sacks still made her stomach turn.

  In only a day, most of the traps had caught mice. But just as many remained. They scrabbled behind the walls and chewed as loud as ever. Even cans in the pantry had teeth marks, tiny rodents chewing through everything.

  Drost made bowls of soup for Christmas dinner. Marie ate but didn’t taste it.

  “You’ve done well with the mice,” Drost told her.

  She wasn’t pleased with the praise. The job of setting traps was menial and gross, nothing graceful about it. She’d come here to reclaim her grace.

  She rested on the sofa, and he worked on the new mechanism on her leg, adding a clockwork array of gears and levers. His hands were deft and careful. She hardly felt his touch. She lay back and gazed at the plastered ceiling with its carved molding, glowing yellow in lamplight. Light and shadows. She heard scratching under the floorboards, a sound that tugged chills down her spine.

  *~*~*~*

  “I can make you dance again.”

  Dressed in a splendid cavalier costume of red velvet and gold trim, a shining cutlass hanging on his belt, the Mouse King loomed. All seven heads nodded in time to music, a pavane, a slow, exacting court dance.

  Marie was barefoot. She wore not the sweet, white chiffon ballet gown that Clara would have worn, but tattered rags, rotting tulle of a color that had faded to dirt. He didn’t seem to notice she was so ugly, so clumsy.

  They danced side by side, not touching. Even with the brace and the limp, she could dance the pavane, moving slowly, stepping carefully. The Mouse King shortened his steps to allow for her injury.

  She could almost enjoy it, if she didn’t look at the thing beside her.

  She found a ballet slipper in her hand. Stepping back, she hurled it at the Mouse King, because that was what she’d always done, what Clara always did, and she was at war. He knocked it aside with a wave of his arm.

  The center head spoke. “What now, Marie? Will you poison me or crush my neck?”

  “Crush our neck! Crush our neck!” the other six heads shouted and laughed.

  He made a courtly bow, and offered his clawed hand again.

  “Dance with me, Marie.”

  She could dance with him, like she might have danced with the Nutcracker Prince. She extended her hand toward his claw.

  Her foot itched. Reaching to scratch it, her hand met a tiny, writhing lump of hair and claw. Then her other leg felt a sting. Mice were crawling up her legs, jumping off walls to grasp at her rags. She screamed in full-lunged horror and swatted all over her body to get rid of them. They jumped away, and their scratching and squeaking seemed like laughter.

  They scampered and danced, footless things gliding across walls and floors, hundreds of them making a pattern as they leapfrogged each other and spun circles around her.

  She found another shoe in her hand and threw it, then another, and another. The shoes became huge, smashing dozens of mice as they fell. All her anger at the injury, the unfairness of it all, flowed through her arm and added strength to each launch of a shoe. Again and again, she’d kill them all, she’d wage war if that was what she had to do.

  The Mouse King stood watching, waiting for a toddler’s tantrum to end. This aggravated her all the more. As she raised her arm to throw another shoe at him, one that would knock off all seven of his heads, he pointed with a bony finger.

  “Look,” he said.

  Broken bodies of mice lay around them. A carpeting of mouse bodies, of fur in every color: gray, white, mottled, dusky, brown. All bleeding and twisted. Slaughter. She didn’t have a scratch on her.

  This wasn’t war. It was extermination.

  So what did that make her?

  *~*~*~*

  She started awake from more strange dreams, wracked with a sudden chill. The house had gotten cold, and she didn’t have a blanket.

  The lamps were off, but the room still glowed with rich light–the candles on the Christmas tree. It made a lovely scene, like something from a Victorian postcard. There was more: she heard it as a tickle in her mind, a sound just at the edge of consciousness, steady as a heartbeat.

  Tick tick tick tick…

  The brass pendulum of the grandfather clock swung back and forth. Drost had fixed it. His tools were cleared away. The hands read five to midnight.

  Drost stood in the doorway. She didn’t know how long he’d been watching her.

  “You should get up. Try your leg. They’ll be here soon, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “The mice, of course. You didn’t kill them all. So they will come.”

  The old man was as crazy as she was, which made it all right, she supposed.

  Drost had also finished the brace on her leg. The device was almost pretty, an ornate contraption of brass and steel, polished and shining in the candlelight. Her gaze became lost when she tried to sort out the maze of gears, pulleys, wires, and cords that laced together.

  Sitting up, she was afraid to put any weight on the leg, afraid to bend the knee in a way she knew would be painful. She stood, hopped a little, testing the weight. No pain. The gears spun and cords raced on pulleys. She walked a few steps–no limp. She held her breath and tried the positions, plié in third, stand and arabesque–

  She stumbled, not because the leg failed but because of shock. She held her hand over her mouth and closed tearful eyes.

  “Ah, it works,” Drost said proudly.

  “It’s noisy.” Every movement she made was accompanied by clicking and whirring, the mechanical litany of a wind-up toy clacking through its paces. Not graceful.

  “What did you expect? It is machine, not flesh. Perhaps a little oil would help. But there isn’t time for that now.”

  The clock began to chime the hour.

  One, two, three… Brass tones shook the house’s bones.

  The clock. The tree. The strange old man who made carvings and clockworks. And Marie was the clockwork dancer that Drosselmeyer made.

  All she was missing now was her Nutcracker Prince. Maybe Drost could bring the Cavalier to life. She suddenly felt like she needed rescuing.

  Four, five, six…

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “A door will open,” he said. “The magic will burst upon the stage. You know that.”

  The mice will come.

  “I don’t know anything.” She backed away from him, aware with each step that her leg was strong and she moved without a limp. But the gears chittered like squeaking mice.

  “Oh, come now. When you asked me to make you dance again, what did you really want?”

  “To dance—”

  “No. The dancing is only a means to an end. I know you, fifty years in the ballet I’ve seen your kind again and again. You truly want to believe. You don’t want to dance–what you want is to find that magic again. I know, because I want it too. To step through a door to another world.”

  Seven, eight, nine…

  The light became blinding. She had to close her eyes. She felt the rumble of the chiming clock in her bones, as if the sound of thunder filled the sky. The light shone like a sun.

  Dizziness rattled her. She gasped for breath and tried to speak. At least her legs were steady now. “The mice will come… you’ll kill them—”

  “You will kill them. I’m lucky you are here. You are better at fighting them than I am.”

  “But you were a soldier—”

  “I did not fight in the war. No, I served as a guard. At Birkenau.”

  Marie shook her head. It wa
sn’t real… all his beautiful work in the theater come to this… The music blurred to white noise, the light burned. Shaking her head, she covered her ears.

  Ten, eleven, twelve.

  The sound faded, the chimes dissipating. Marie’s eyes grew accustomed to the glare and she could see again.

  The Christmas tree had grown, just like in the story. Its branches were as big around as tree trunks; it was a redwood forest all by itself. The ornaments were castles nestled among the boughs, airships of gold wire traveling above her. Marie craned her neck, trying to see the crystal star at the top. The candles glittered like suns. The walls, the sofa, and the clock were mountains.

  It wasn’t that the Christmas tree grew. Clara shrank. Why hadn’t Marie ever thought of that before?

  Her heartbeat settled. She took a few steps, turning in a circle to study the strange place she found herself. Her legs were strong; she could spin and dance, even if she made noise like a clockwork, or a skittering mouse. Such a feeling of peace came over her, of rightness.

  Then the mice came.

  Sharp claws scrabbled on the rug. Their chittering replaced the fading sound of the clock’s bell.

  They were as large as Marie, their eyes at the same level as hers. Thousands of them lined the edges of the room and drifted toward her. Only her size had kept them at bay before. Now, they were stronger, larger, quicker, vicious with their teeth and claws.

  They looked angry. They wanted revenge for all their slain brethren.

  She couldn’t blame them. She closed her hands into fists, wishing for a weapon, knowing how little good it would do. A dozen of them would pile on top of her before she could hurt one of them. And she would deserve it. She backed away slowly, hoping to find shelter.

  She didn’t scream.

  Drost was at the base of the Christmas tree, picking at something on the trunk. Lines appeared, a rectangle of light, like the cracks around a door.

  A doorway. For the Ballet, Drost had made a trapdoor in the stage through which the nutcracker doll was taken away and the dancer in the life-size Nutcracker mask and costume took its place. Fog from the smoke machine and light poured through that door. It made a gateway to another world. Or so Marie had wanted to believe, when she danced as Clara.

  “Drost!” She started to run toward him, when her knee froze. She tripped and fell, unable to move her leg. “My leg—”

  He held up a key, a clockwork winding key. “I timed that well.”

  Marie found the little square in her brace where the key would fit and wind the mechanism, tightening the gears and pulleys. Unwound, the brace was useless.

  “If you want this, you must kill them all. They guard the doorway, you see.”

  “I won’t fight your war.” She ripped off the brace. Gears popped and cords sprang away. As the support of the brace fell away, pain returned.

  “It will still take them time to finish you, and I will escape.”

  She expected the mice to rush her, dozens of them fighting each other for the chance to tear her flesh. But they didn’t attack. While they glared with eyes of hate and glee, they kept a circle around her, waiting.

  For the Mouse King.

  Drost had just opened the door in the trunk of the Christmas tree when the Mouse King sprang at him, leaping from the hillside of the tree skirt, slashing with his cutlass, letting loose a seven-layered snarl as all the heads hissed at him. Drost fell, ducking the weapon. His head was thrown back, his eyes glazed with terror.

  Dressed in a red cavalier cloak, the Mouse King loomed as he had in Clara’s dream, head upon head leering down, eyes and teeth flashing.

  Drost didn’t have a chance. Or, Marie had thought Drost didn’t have a chance. But the old man scrambled away from the Mouse King’s reach. The Mouse King stabbed the sword down, and again Drost dodged.

  Then Drost drew a handgun from the pocket of his trousers. The gun Marie had brought.

  She only thought of stopping Drost. She grabbed the tangle of brass and steel that had been the brace around her leg. Ignoring the popping in her knee, tortured ligaments and bone scraping on bone, she stood and ran at the old man.

  She swung her makeshift weapon at his face. He only saw her at the last moment. His eyes went wide, then she struck, slamming his head back. The gun fired, a heart-stopping crack. He fell. She dropped to her knees, crying in pain.

  Drost writhed for a moment. Blood covered his neck, pooling on the floor. A sharp edge of steel had cut his throat.

  Everyone had a weak spot. That was how Clara killed the Mouse King with nothing more than a slipper.

  The Mouse King was kneeling. Marie held her breath, thinking he was hurt–it would have been for nothing if he’d been shot after all. But he straightened. His chest moved, taking deep breaths. He’d been worried too, it seemed. All the heads watched her, expressions unchanging, mouths still and eyes dark.

  The Mouse King began removing his heads.

  They were like masks, and one by one he set them aside. He came to the last, which fit him like a helmet, and took it off.

  Before her crouched a young man. His face was slack with surprise, his dark gaze locked on her. He was a little too gruff to be handsome, his black hair was coming loose from a haphazard tie, his face was shadowed with a day’s growth of beard. Slowly, a smile curled his lips.

  “You wanted your Nutcracker Prince. Will you take a King instead?”

  Around them, a thousand mice bowed their heads and made four-footed obeisance.

  “Are–are you hurt?” she said.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head wonderingly. “I have you to thank for that. And you–are you hurt?”

  She started crying, her breath catching in her throat. All she could do was nod.

  He came to her slowly, as if he was afraid he might startle her. He knelt by her and put a hand–a claw, his hands were still the knobby paws of a mouse–on her knee.

  “I have a little magic of my own,” he murmured. “Enough to heal.”

  A warmth like sun filled her leg; the pain went away. His touch was gentle, and his face was kind.

  Music swelling, the full orchestra, cymbals crashing as the set fell away and the Prince carried her to another world—

  The Mouse King rose and stepped away. Then, like in a dream, he reached for her.

  “Will you dance with me, Marie?”

  She stood on perfect legs. She could run, leap, and fly into his arms if she wanted to. She gladly took the clawed hand that he offered. He led her to the gold-lined doorway set into the trunk of the Christmas tree, and together they traveled to the Kingdom of the Mice.

  NNEDI OKORAFOR is an award-winning author and a professor at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She is the author of several books for both young people and adults. Her novel, Who Fears Death, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2011. Its prequel titled The Book of Phoenix is scheduled for release in 2015 from DAW. She recently signed a three-book deal with Hodder & Stoughton, which kicked off with Lagoon in April 2014. You can find out more at Nnedi.com

  Showlogo

  Nnedi Okorafor

  He fell from the clear warm Chicagoland skies at approximately 2:42pm. He landed with a muted thud on the sidewalk in the village of Glenview. Right in front of the Tunde’s house. There were three witnesses. The first and closest was a college student who was home for the summer named Dolapo Tunde. She’d been pushing an old lawnmower across the lawn as she listened to Dbanj on her iPhone. The second was Mr. David Goldstein who was across the street scrubbing the hood of his sleek black Chevy Challenger and thinking about his next business trip to Japan. The third was Buster the Black Cat who’d been eyeing a feisty red squirrel on the other side of the Tunde’s yard.

  The sight of the man falling from the sky and landing on that sidewalk would change all three of their lives forever. Nonetheless, this story isn’t about Dolapo, Mr. Goldstein or even Buster the Cat. This story is about the black man who lay in the middle of the sidewalk
in blue jeans, gym shoes, and a thin coat with blood pouring from his face…

  *~*~*~*

  “I go show you my logo,” Showlogo growled, pointing his thick tough-skinned finger in Yemi’s face. All the men sitting around the ludo board game leaned away from Yemi.

  “Kai!” one man shrieked, holding his hands up. “Kai! Na here we go!”

  “Why we no fe relax, make we play?” another moaned.

  But Yemi squeezed his eyes with defiance. Yemi had always been stubborn. He’d also always been a little stupid, which was why he did so poorly in school. When professors hinted to him that it was time to hand them a bribe for good grades, Yemi’s nostrils flared, he bit his lower lip, frowned and did no such thing. And so Yemi remained at the bottom of his university class. He scraped by because he still, at least, paid his tuition on time. Today, he exhibited that counter-productive stubbornness by provoking Showlogo, hearing Showlogo speak his infamous warning of “I show you my logo”, and not backing down. Yemi should have run. Instead, he stood there and said, “You cheat! You no fe get my money, o! I no give you!”

  Showlogo flicked the soft smooth scar tissue where his left ear had been twelve years ago. He stood up tall to remind Yemi of his 6’4 muscular frame as he looked down at Yemi’s 5’11 lanky frame. Then without a word, Showlogo turned and walked away. He was wearing spotless white pants and a shirt. How he’d kept that shirt so clean as he squatted with the other men in front of the ludo board game while the wind blew the dry crimson dirt around them, no one knew. No one questioned this because he was Showlogo and for Showlogo, the rules were always different. As he strode down the side of the dusty road, Showlogo cut quite a figure. He was very dark skinned and this made the immaculate white of his clothing nearly glow. He looked like some sort of angel. But Showlogo was no angel.

  He walked past two shabby houses and an abandoned building, arriving at his small flat in his “face me, I slap you” apartment complex. He wordlessly walked down the dark hallway past four doors and entered his home. It was custom for none of the flats in the building to have keys, too expensive. Showlogo had always liked being able to just open his door. Plus, no one was dumb enough to rob him, so what need did he have for locks and keys or hiding his most valued things? He slipped his shoes off and walked straight to his neatly made bed. Then he removed his white shirt, his white pants, his white boxers, too. He folded and put them on his pillow in an orderly stack. He removed the diamond stud from his right ear. Then he turned and walked out. People peeked from behind doors but not one person spoke to Showlogo or each other. Not a whisper. Unlike Yemi, his neighbors were smart.