by Cutter, Leah
Tess woke with tears rolling from her sightless eyes and a double ringing in her ears—both from the chimes over her front door as well as an internal alarm that told her it was time. She waited where she was. No use rushing this thing.
“Do you know me, old woman?”
“No,” Tess said, her head rearing back in surprise. She’d always thought it would be a man.
“You were the first to show me the fire.”
The sibilant tones slithered into Tess’ night and she saw the girls again with her second sight, sun-kissed and nervous, ready but not broken. “You?” she asked, wondering if the bells had been wrong. Maybe it wasn’t her time, not yet. She wondered how much the girl had seen of the future Tess had heard.
Warm, too-warm fingers grasped hers. Tess knew the girl wanted her to see, but she’d sold her eyes too long ago. She sat as empty as the stars, waiting for the revelation. Would it be enough to fill her?
“The flames will bring the revolution,” the girl promised earnestly.
Tess laughed. She couldn’t help it. “For all your sight, you still don’t see. Direct action causes direct reaction. May bring evolution, not quick change. Besides, why are you joining—”
“It’s all individual action—”
“All you want are the flames. Alive, burning you.” Tess hadn’t given away her eyes for nothing. She knew ones like this one—the philosophy didn’t matter as much as the fire. She squeezed the now-flaccid fingers, hard, pushing her knowledge at the girl, willing her to witness her own delusions.
“Why do you make me see these things?” came the strangled whisper. “First the fire, now this?”
“They’re using you,” Tess said. “Buck them off.” She knew the girl could be riderless if she tried.
The harsh laugh startled Tess. It sang of the chilled ice of monsters, hidden behind the glass of civility. “Too late.”
Tess shook her head, knowing the girl watched her with the amber eyes of a hawk. “The flames attract you because you’re a phoenix. You, only you, can rise from the ashes.”
The tide shifted with the speed of mating turtles. Tess heard the sand trickling out of the hourglass, grain by grain. She could only wait until either the glass was empty or it was turned over and more time was granted to her.
“I—I can’t,” the girl mourned, the sorrow of broken leaves clogging her throat.
Tess understood. For the girl to live as she did was impossible.
But to change was even harder.
“Still. Thank you,” the girl whispered. She reached now for Tess’ other hand, drawing it up above the table, revealing the switchblade that Tess had palmed.
She may be old, but she was never helpless.
The girl just laughed, sounding carefree for the first time. “Thank you for this, too. It makes my choice easier.” The knife dropped to the floor, somewhere behind the girl.
Tess gathered her strength. She had other powers, hidden in dark places, that this neophyte had never even dreamed of. But then she felt the strangest thing. Soft lips pressed against hers, firm and smooth. She shared her stale, aged breath with someone who still smelled sweet and young, fresh but far from innocent.
The kiss ended with a small sting, maybe a nip of too-sharp teeth against fleshy skin.
“Don’t you see?” the girl asked as she dropped Tess’ hands, leaving only the echo of heat behind. “It was always Mama who cared for me. Mama who started the fires. Not Papa, as everyone always assumes.”
Tess had known her vision hadn’t been pure, but only now did she see how wrong it had been: It hadn’t been the saddle the girl had waited for, but the guillotine.
“Good-bye, Mama of the flame,” the girl called as the door chimes rang again.
Tess tried to rise from her chair but found she’d been drugged. Clever girl, betraying her with a kiss. She tried to feel pride for this child who’d claimed her, that she’d given birth to without even knowing, however those feelings had long since been hollowed out of her.
Smoke wrapped around Tess like a well-known lover, caressing her to sleep where she dreamed of flames leaping higher and higher until they tickled the feet of the heartless stars.
But even the flames couldn’t fulfill them, not now, not ever, not even as the world was ending.
#7
The secret the 9s tell themselves: They are not storytellers. They insist they speak only truths about individuals and societies, that the singular man is also just, that a collective is no better than a mob. There is no narrative, no overarching plot of one against many, no villain or archnemesis, no hero or protagonist. They simply are as they stand, truth-speakers among the liars.
However, man is a storyteller at heart. And learning is more easily swallowed with the sugar of a tale. So they speak at gatherings and weave their stories of men and women and the gigantic struggles, of moral imperatives and individual actions.
But in their secret hearts, the 9s know: They are not storytellers. They are simply in the story, being told.
#8
Peter sat in the center of the attic, at the center of his desk, in the center of his chair, poised over his ancient typewriter, willing the words to come. He wasn’t sweating in his white room, wasn’t intimidated by the pure, twenty-eight-pound bond paper rolled snugly around the platen, wasn’t above wiping his ink-stained fingers across the white perfectionist Ikea tabletop.
The words would come, as surely as rain would fall in Seattle. It was just a question of when. The subject matter never dictated his speed—he could reel off reams of prose and philosophical debates on most topics, from the sex lives of bees to the mating rituals of tortoises to the meaning behind the bombs and the anarchist’s screed to the violent bonding of stars and fire. He just had to wait for that shift of a butterfly’s wings to set his muse into action, his fingers galloping to the finish line.
Nothing came in the still morning air to brighten the sterility of his room. Mostly he didn’t mind the waiting. It was peaceful, now, in the house, with both daughter and wife gone. There was no longer anyone to ask what he wasted his time on.
Peter felt a stirring at the back of his neck, as if a single hair had just raised itself above the others, not even quite a hackle. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. His muse must be ready to dump something heavy. He didn’t care whether it got published as a letter to the editor, or if he ended up uncovering his ancient mimeograph and copying out his own handbills again. The words would go through him and come out, purified by their journey, and in return, purifying him. He poised his fingers over the keys again, ready, willing, and able to sacrifice himself.
But instead of the glorious deluge of words came a cranky buzzer.
Someone was at the front door.
“We’re not home!” Peter cried. They couldn’t hear him. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t about to go downstairs, not now, not when poised for this.
The buzzer rang again. Peter ignored it. They’d take the hint and go away. He was determined not to lose his inspiration.
Then Peter heard the door open. He reached for the tablet on the side table, swiping open the security camera app. It showed the back of a frilly gown as a woman stepped across the threshold, a blur of blue and white glittering stones.
Someone in a dress so fine surely hadn’t come to rob him. So he waited, wondering what would arrive first, the woman or his muse.
Or maybe they were one and the same. Before Peter could go farther down that thought path—the physical manifestation of his inspiration—he heard the all-too-human clomping of footsteps up the wooden stairs.
A vision turned the corner and came into his room. Her face was hidden beneath white Kabuki paint and a blood-red dab in the center of her lips. The bodice of the dress looked as if it had been made out of pieces of broken cathedral glass, all different shades of blue, while the skirt flowed out like white flames. Only when Peter noticed the sun-kissed hair did he recognize his daughter. “Bridget,” he sa
id, not bothering to rise from his seat. “What’s the occasion?”
“Why didn’t you stop her?” The words sounded stilted, practiced and forced, as if issued from an untrained actor.
Or perhaps by someone not wanting to speak them at all.
Peter put his elbows on his table, glad he was still seated. “I couldn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t stop her. Not with you. Or with myself.” He shuddered, remembering his shame. He wasn’t a big guy, not physically at least, and his wife had taken advantage of that. It had been her money; he couldn’t leave, and so he had endured. Both of them had, until the blessing of cancer had removed her finally.
The goddess before him bent her head in prayer before fixing him with eyes that trapped him more surely than ants in amber. “Not good enough,” she declared.
Peter sat, transfixed. He would give anything to his little girl, anything to take away her pain. The words had never been enough, though, not then, not now.
“But I forgive you.”
The words brought Peter no salvation. He’d never forgive himself.
Bridget flowed around the table and gave him a stinging kiss to his cheek. As she drew back he saw the piercing, like a bee’s stinger, protruding from her lower lip. “I forgive you, Papa.”
Peter sank into his chair, unmoving as the goddess floated back to the other side of the desk and stared at him, as still as a statue. They held their tableau in his pristine ivory tower as the smoke rose to comfort him, wrapping around the pair of them, thicker than wool batting. When the flames rose to absolve his guilt, he thought he saw her move. The dress flowed and the glass became sharp wings, hard enough to break through the skylight and take her back into the world where she belonged while he poured out his last soliloquy in blood and anguish, the words unspoken but heartfelt.
#9
The last secret of 9s: They lie.
Author’s Note
This was the ninth story in the Baker’s Dozen challenge. It was my “breaking the rules” story, where I did everything wrong on purpose: I switched POV characters, killed off POV characters, changed tenses, made up my own words, and so on. This story was one of the more compelling stories to write—the scenes came one at a time, but when a scene showed up, I could do nothing else except write it down.
This story touched deep places in me. I went to college in London during the 80s, when the IRA was planting bombs. I had many close calls, like the time they blew up a storefront on High Street just after a concert at the Prince Albert Hall had let out, when the street was full of people. I was two blocks away. If I hadn’t stopped to go the bathroom, it might have been me cut to shreds by the flying glass.
The Other Story
Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Illumignot lived the handsome King Franklin and the clever Queen Isabella. They loved each other dearly and their rule was both just and wise. Every morning they took time for each other, sharing golden morning tea in the sunroom of their quarters, holding hands and speaking their deepest secrets, wishes, and dreams while looking out over the beautiful valley of their kingdom.
The wish they spoke of most often was simply this: to have a child they could call their own.
There were heirs aplenty they could choose from. They both had siblings with children to spare. Their dear niece Deirdre with her fine red hair and wisdom beyond her years was one; their nephew Arthur who was both bookish and worldly was another. (Their lives and adventures are other stories.) The king and queen still wished for a child of their own; they knew their desire was selfish, and yet, they dreamed anyway.
Finally, after more than a decade, Queen Isabella got pregnant. King Franklin rubbed her feet every day and told her she looked beautiful, even after she’d been crying. Fortunately, the pregnancy wasn’t difficult, and after nine months of the entire kingdom holding its breath, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy: Prince Kyle.
That night, the entire kingdom celebrated. Servants sat beside lords and toasted each other, the palace dogs and their guards raced and drank deeply, and every family cheered and played well into the wee hours of the morning.
When the celebration ended, all slept, mindless of their duties, knowing they’d be forgiven. The kingdom had an heir and the people had a prince.
That was when the Blue Fairy came and stole all their shadows.
* * *
The next day dawned bright and clear. Pierce, the head gardener for the palace, woke slowly. His head ached and his mouth tasted as though he’d been eating last year’s roots. Like the rest of the kingdom, he’d celebrated the arrival of Prince Kyle with too much mead and not enough meat. His apprentices still snored on their cots in the main room beyond the curtain. He stretched, expecting his joints to ache like a winter storm was coming, but strangely enough, they didn’t. He felt lighter, almost like a tree without roots.
He shivered even though the blankets were still tucked around him and warm: Nothing good could come of such boundlessness.
Still, Pierce rose and went about his morning ablutions as usual, only bellowing for his lazy apprentices to wake when he’d finished dressing. The mad scramble to get food from the servants’ kitchen and tea the right sweetness followed. Pierce grumbled about how long it took, though when he thought about it later, he did believe his three apprentices had dashed about more quickly than usual, as well as with less grace.
While the apprentices went about cleaning their quarters and their clothes, and debating the day’s assignments, Pierce went out to the roses, intending to prune a few as well as make a bouquet for the queen’s lunch. He reached out for a magnificent yellow one, clippers in hand, when he looked down.
The rose cast a shadow, as tall as Pierce, along the fine, white stone path.
Pierce’s shadow was missing.
He squinted up at the sun, making sure the angle was right. But no shadow fell from his body. He stuck the point of his clippers into the back of his hand, hard enough to draw a drop of bright red blood.
As far as Pierce could tell, he still lived. But where had his shadow gone? He bellowed for Timothy, one of his apprentices.
“Did you cut yourself again?” Timothy asked as he came running up, eyeing the wound on the back of Pierce’s hand.
“Look!” Pierce shouted, pointing one shaking hand at the bush before him, his eyes on the ground.
Timothy looked from the rose to Pierce. “Is there something wrong with the flowers?” he asked.
“Down, you idiot,” Pierce growled.
“I don’t see anything,” Timothy said after a moment. He gave an audible gulp of air after glancing at the bushes and the trees. “I don’t see anything.” He held out his own trembling hand. “What does it mean?” He didn’t cast a shadow either. It didn’t make Pierce feel any better.
“Nothing good,” Pierce grumbled. “We must tell the king.”
* * *
“What does it mean?” King Franklin asked his advisors, one by one. They’d all stepped into the bright morning light, casting about for a shadow that never appeared. They’d held books, pillows, fans before them, which all cast the proper dark shape on the floor, the sun shining through their bodies like glass. Messengers, tied to their horses since they were suddenly too light to sit properly, came from all parts of the kingdom with the same story: Everyone’s shadow was gone.
“What does it matter?” replied Owen, the youngest of the king’s advisors. “There’s no need for a shadow, is there? Don’t you all feel lighter, freer, better than before?”
As one, the advisors and king nodded. They all felt it, how they were closer to the hawk than the lowly stallion. Familiar aches from old wounds hurt less. The sky drew their attention instead of the ground.
“It doesn’t mean anything good,” warned Bryon, one of the oldest advisors. “Shadows are there for a purpose. You’ll see.”
It was about a week before Bryon’s words proved true.
The Kingdom of Illumignot wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t large either. It h
ad known famine and plague, though in the recent years there had been wealth and food aplenty. There were many people, babies born often and grandparents dying. Still, the first deaths didn’t occur right away.
Peter the gravedigger sat in his hut, finishing his lunch and waiting out the last of the afternoon showers. It had been a slow week since the birth of the prince. The grass across the graves shone bright green, glistening and peaceful. It was one of the reasons why Peter worked in a graveyard: It was almost always quiet. He liked to walk among the graves and think about the latest news, or contemplate the deeper meanings of things. He’d just about finished that morning’s burial when the tower bells had rung noon and the rain had started. As the next burial wasn’t until tomorrow, he knew he had time to nap before he finished closing up the one and started opening the next as well as eat his lunch.
As the rain slowed to merely drops blown from the trees, Peter gathered up his shovel and headed toward the slash of brown cut across the bright green, whistling an old tune he’d learned in childhood.
Peter slowed and stopped whistling when he saw something had disturbed the grave. As he drew closer he realized that someone sat on top of the dirt, just their head and shoulders rising above the ground.
When Peter drew closer still he recognized Old Farmer John…whose body was supposed to be under the dirt, not sitting on top of it.
Peter shivered, afraid. He’d seen magic and ghosts before, but this was different, a fresh body no longer in its coffin, breaking the order of things. Still, there was nothing for it and he marched ahead. “Afternoon,” Peter said politely. He didn’t want to talk with the body, but there were worse things.
Old Farmer John merely nodded at him.
“I went to a lot of work to bury you this morning,” Peter said. “And now I’m going to have to do it again.”
Old Farmer John shrugged, as if it were no concern of his.