“Pick me, Miss Lucy,” their voices echo through the house, following me no matter where I hide. Nobody notices that my skin has gone pale, my eyes receded, and that perhaps I’m more in need of a passable doctor than an eligible bachelor.
“No more,” I want to say, but they wear me down and wear me thin until I close my eyes, spin in a circle, and say yes to the first one I see.
He isn’t the worst of them. This so-called honorable lord might even be better than most, because he’s so ordinary, blander than yesterday’s porridge, and part of me hopes that means he won’t make unreasonable demands. Maybe with him, I won’t have to fear a belt or a fist or a calloused hand that will hold me down until I scream, until I learn that screaming will do no good, until I’ve gone as mute as the dead.
Choosing him is supposed to keep me safe. Yet the moment he slips the ring on my finger, it feels like a gold-shaped prison. My dreams are fading away, as ethereal as the fog that brought you here.
Before bed, I lock the window again, and this time, you don’t return. You’ve moved on to your next conquest. I hope that means that I’m safe now, that the worst is over, but while I’m asleep, Mina vanishes as well, departing for her own matrimonial funeral.
She leaves a note on my vanity. Good luck, my Lucy. As though all the luck in England could ever rescue us from this.
I sleepwalk through the next afternoon, hollowed out and aching, never hearing any of my mother’s eager wedding plans or my fiancé’s pointless promises. Outside, the wisteria is blooming in the garden, but its scent dissolves in the air, lost to me in the same way that I’ve lost everything else.
After midnight, I crawl out of bed and across the room, a leaden weight in my belly. Striking the last match, I light the candlesticks and read Mina’s letter for the hundredth time, as though I’ll discover some secret code. Only nothing’s there but the same four words, empty as before. My chest twisted and heavy, I glance up at myself in the vanity, and everything in me goes numb.
I’m barely there. I’m barely anywhere. A thin scream lodges in my throat, as right in front of my eyes, my reflection is abandoning me. And it isn’t doing the decent thing and disappearing all at once. Instead, I sit here at the mirror, grief seeping through my heart, and I watch myself disintegrate slowly. Hour by hour, I become less of me, my features going gray and translucent. By morning, I won’t exist. This body will remain, but I will not. I’ll be easy to forget too, a footnote in a story that’s not my own.
When it’s almost dawn and I’m almost gone, I exhale another scream, louder this time, and though you can’t be bothered to hear me, wherever you are, I manage to wake the rest of the house.
“Lucy?” My mother’s footsteps patter down the hall, but I don’t answer her.
This can’t be real. This can’t be how I end. My hands unsteady, I lift the pair of burning candlesticks and pitch the fire at what remains of my own reflection. It does no good. Nothing will save me now.
With the candles limp on the floor, their flames sear through the rug, and I back into the corner, breathless. When my mother finally forces open my door, she cries out at the sight of me, of what I’m becoming. Then she barricades my bedroom and calls in someone to help.
That’s when the worst of them arrive.
5. The Out-of-Town Doctor
I awaken in the morning to a man with a heavy leather bag and heavier words, his voice booming up and down the stairs, ricocheting like a silver bullet off the yellowed wallpaper.
“Anemia,” he declares in the first of his lies, and sheds his fur-collared coat on the floor. “We’ll fix that.”
I never catch his name, because he only ever speaks over and around me, never to me. There’s no reason to expect anything better. A scientist in a lab wouldn’t introduce himself to the frog pickled in formaldehyde, so why should this famed doctor bother to say hello to the wan girl restrained on the canopy bed? I’m worse than a specimen in a jar. Just ask my mother.
“She never listened, never acted like she should,” she weeps in the hallway, and my fiancé embraces her.
“It’ll be all right now,” he says, and I wonder who exactly it will be all right for. Certainly not me, not when the doctor threads his stiff tubes into my veins and calls all my former suitors into the room.
“Leave me alone,” I whisper, but the house turns cold, and nobody seems to hear me.
My mother wavers in the doorway, her ruddy cheeks streaked with tears, as the men pin me to the mattress. One after another, right down the line, their starched shirts unbuttoned, sweat beading in the curve of their upper lips, they pump their blood into my body, filling me up with them. A transfusion, they call it, though I’ve got another word for it.
“Stop,” I say, but with their faces flushed and eager, they’re used to ignoring what I want.
6. Myself
For what it’s worth, I don’t believe this one. I won’t believe it, no matter how many times they tell me I should have known better.
“If only she’d stayed at home,” says my mother.
“If only she’d married sooner,” says my best friend.
“If only she’d been a better patient,” says the out-of-town doctor.
“If only she’d said yes to me instead,” say all the suitors I denied.
They’re wrong, they have to be. With their poisoned blood in my veins, I’d never beg these men or beg God to forgive me for what I haven’t done. The last breath draining out of me, I’d never hate myself for giggling too loudly in the garden or the parlor or the streets, for tossing my head back and letting out a shriek of delight that could split the sky and decorum in two. And after I’m dead, I’d never curl up in the shadows of my tomb and weep silently to myself, make-believing all the ways I could have laced my corset a little tighter, kept my shoulders a little straighter, been the kind of girl who might have made my mother proud.
I’d never blame myself for what wasn’t my fault, just because they claim it’s my burden to bear. Just because the world isn’t made for silly dreamers like me.
But like I said, I wouldn’t do any of that, so let’s not even talk about it.
7. The Faceless Mob
They come at night when my crypt is quiet. It might only be one or two of the men, or maybe it’s all of them—the doctor I don’t know, the suitors I spurned, the fiancé I never wanted. You might be there too, a shapeless form in the background, bleeding in with the rest, a torch in your hand and a sly grin on your face.
What I do know: this should be a safe place for me. Resting in my own coffin shouldn’t be so bad. I’ve always been a girl who wanted impossible things. Now I’m a corpse who wants only to be left alone. A fair request for the dead, but not something I’ll be lucky enough to get.
The first scratching at the mausoleum door, and what’s left of my heart quickens in my chest. It could be Mina, come at last to pay her respects. She’s the only one I’m willing to see. Her hand is strong enough to slip the slab from my coffin, to free me from this place.
“We could still run away,” I whisper to the dark, but then their gruff voices seep through the stone, and all that I know is it isn’t her.
One other thing I know: I haven’t left this tomb. Nestled here in an ivory lace dress meant for a wedding altar, I’ve been quiet and calm and nothing like you. I haven’t gone into the night and indulged this hunger that writhes inside my belly, the dubious gift you’ve given me.
Yet the truth means nothing to these men. They thrive on gossip, and they’ll use their lies, sharp as dog-rose thorns, against me. They’ll claim I’ve done terrible things. Because you can’t let a corpse rest. You have to make sure the corpse learned her lesson.
“We need to help Miss Lucy,” they agree. All for my own good of course. All to save me from myself.
When they write about this in their journals, they’ll say they looked me in the eye when they finished me. They’ll say they banded together with wreaths of garlic flowers and words of co
mfort for the dead. They’ll say they were brave men who had no other choice.
These are just more of their lies.
There’s a reason I can’t be sure which of them is here—they never dare to show their faces. Instead, packing fodder waist-high around my tomb, they barricade me in and set me alight from the outside.
I’m already dead, but that doesn’t matter. These men know all the best ways to hurt me. As the fire rages, they linger outside and listen to me scream, my skin puddling in my coffin, my brittle bones and brittle heart reduced to ash.
I never thought dying twice could be so painful.
8. No one at all
How many ways can you murder a girl? Too many to count, I suppose, but it makes no difference in the end. Because in a countryside filled with monsters, there isn’t time to mourn the ones like me forever.
And it turns out you’re an expert in forever. In the legends about you, no one ever seems to question how you can always rise again. It’s easy to believe that a man of power could conjure himself from dust. But nobody expects the girls you destroy to do the same. We’re meant to be lost. Death is our birthright and our destiny.
Only maybe it’s not mine. Maybe more than a phoenix, more than just men like you, can surface from the embers. It could be that nobody murdered me after all, because maybe I’m still here.
The sun rises and falls again from the sky, and something happens in the mausoleum darkness. A spark that shouldn’t be, one that you and the other men could never imagine. The burnt slab shifts off my tomb, shattering on the ground, and one fragment at a time, I piece myself back together, a patchwork monster of a girl. Hair like charred straw, colorless marrow that’s soft yet stronger than infinity.
The fire in my crypt scorched my flesh, but it burned away my fear too. All that’s left of me now are these dreams of something else, something better. I won’t be a conquest or a footnote or an afterthought, and I won’t be the one who’s forgotten.
Fresh skin stretches taut over my splintered bones, and I part my new lips and exhale a scream meant only for you. Tucked inside your Scots pine coffin, you hear me, my voice from afar boiling in your ears like the blood you crave. For once, regret stirs in you, because you finally realize you can make a mistake too. You can choose a girl who simply won’t die.
When you flee back to your castle in the mountains, the men think you’re running from them, but I know the truth—you’re really running from me. They’ll run too, when their time comes. Since I don’t know which of them visited my crypt, it only seems fair to blame them all.
For now, though, you’ll have to do. At the downtown station, I climb aboard an evening train headed east. None of the other bustling passengers notice me. In this new body, I’m like a ghost, here and not here, a specter that can be seen only when I say so. The world has wanted to ignore me, and I’ll use that now to my advantage.
In my solitary compartment, I close my eyes and envision you. The way you run home like an admonished child, and how quickly the men catch up with you. They outnumber you by a mile, but even once you’re at their mercy, they won’t understand what to do. Those clumsy hands of theirs, gripping carved wood and crucifixes, fingers trembling all the while. They might turn you to cinders, but they’ll also leave you there to resurrect yourself. Soon there will be another trip across the sea, and another dreamy girl in a goblin market who doesn’t know to be afraid.
Except not this time. As the locomotive engine chugs across the mountains, carrying me to you, I’ll make sure of that much. Let the girls go on dreaming. Let them wander city streets that aren’t so fearsome without you waiting there in the darkness.
You once knew my secrets. Now I know yours. Far away, in a castle that reeks of withered bellflowers and heartache, you’ll rise from the ash, and I’ll be there to greet you, with my new bones and new skin and this thirst I’ll never slake. We’ll sway together in the ruins you’ve created, dancing to music only we can hear.
And with a hand on your shoulder and another through your heart, I promise you that I’ll never let you go.
CAROLINE M. YOACHIM
The Archronology of Love
from Lightspeed
This is a love story, the last of a series of moments when we meet.
Saki Jones leaned into the viewport window until her nose nearly touched the glass, staring at the colony planet below. New Mars. From this distance, she could pretend that things were going according to plan—that M.J. was waiting for her in one of the domed cities. A shuttle would take her down to the surface and she and her lifelove would pursue their dream of studying a grand alien civilization.
It had been such a beautiful plan.
“Dr. Jones?” The crewhand at the entrance to the observation deck was an elderly white woman, part of the skeleton team that had worked long shifts in empty space while the passengers had slept in stasis. “The captain has requested an accelerated schedule on your research. She sent you the details? All our surface probes have malfunctioned, and she needs you to look at the time record of the colony collapse.”
“The Chronicle.” Saki corrected the woman automatically, most of her attention still on the planet below. “The time record is called the Chronicle.”
“Right. The captain—”
Saki turned away from the viewport. “Sorry. I have the captain’s message. Please reassure her that I will gather my team and get research underway as soon as possible.”
The woman saluted and left. Saki sent a message calling the department together for an emergency meeting and returned to the viewport. New Mars was the same angry red as its namesake, and the colony cities looked like pus-filled boils on its surface. It was a dangerous place—malevolent and sick. M.J. had died there. If they hadn’t been too broke to go together, the whole family would have died. Saki blinked away tears. She had to stay focused.
It was a violation of protocol for Saki to go into the Chronicle. No one was ever a truly impartial observer, of course, but she’d had M.J. torn away so suddenly, so unexpectedly. The pain of it was raw and overwhelming. They’d studied together, raised children together, planned an escape from Earth. Other partners had come and gone from their lives, but she and M.J. had always been there for each other.
If she went into the Chronicle, she would look for him. It would bias her choices and her observations. But she was the most qualified person on the team, and if she recused herself she could lose her research grant, her standing in the department, her dream of studying alien civilizations . . . and her chance to see M.J.
“Dr. Jones . . .” A softer voice this time—one of her graduate students. Hyun-sik was immaculately dressed, as always, with shimmery blue eyeliner that matched his blazer.
“I know, Hyun-sik. The projector is ready and we’re on an accelerated schedule. I just need a few moments to gather my thoughts before the site-selection meeting.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Hyun-sik said. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but I wanted to offer my support. My parents were also at the colony. Whatever happened down there is a great loss to all of us.”
Saki didn’t know what to say. Words always felt so meaningless in the face of death. She and Hyun-sik hadn’t spoken much about their losses during the months of deceleration after they woke from stasis. They’d thrown themselves into their research, used their work as a distraction from their pain. “Arriving at the planet reopened a lot of wounds.”
“I sent my parents ahead because I thought their lives would be better here than back on Earth.” He gestured at the viewport window. “The temptation to see them again is strong. So close, and the Chronicle is right there. I know you’re struggling with the same dilemma. It must be a difficult decision for you, having lost M.J.—”
“Yes.” Saki interrupted before Hyun-sik could say anything more. Even hearing M.J.’s name was difficult. She was unfit for this expedition. She should take a leave of absence and allow Li Yingtai to take over as lead. But this research
was her dream, their dream—M.J.’s and hers—and these were unusual circumstances. Saki frowned. “How did you know I was here, thinking about recusing myself?”
“It isn’t difficult to guess. It’s what I would be doing, in your place.” He looked away. “But also Kenzou told me at our lunch date today.”
Saki sighed. Her youngest son was the only one of her children who had opted to leave Earth and come with her. He’d thought that New Mars would be a place of adventure and opportunity. Silly romantic notions. For the last few weeks she’d barely seen him—he’d mentioned having a new boyfriend but hadn’t talked about the details. She’d been concerned because the relationship had drawn him away from his studies. Pilots weren’t in high demand now, he’d said, given the state of the colony. Apparently his mystery boyfriend was her smart, attractive, six-years-older-than-Kenzou graduate student. She was disappointed to find out about the relationship from her student rather than her son. He was drifting away from her, and she didn’t know how to mend the rift.
Hyun-sik wrung his hands, clearly ill at ease with the new turn in the conversation.
“I think you and Kenzou make a lovely couple,” Saki said.
He grinned. “Thank you, Dr. Jones.”
Saki forced herself to smile back. Her son hadn’t had any qualms keeping the relationship from her, but clearly Hyun-sik was happier to have things out in the open. “Let’s go. We have an expedition to plan.”
* * *
We did not create the Chronicle, we simply discovered it, as you did. Layer upon layer of time, a stratified record of the universe. When you visit the Chronicle, you alter it. Your presence muddles the temporal record as surely as an archaeological dig muddles the dirt at an excavation site. In the future, human archronologists will look back on you with scorn, much as you look back on looters and tomb raiders—but we forgive you. In our early encounters, we make our own errors. How can we understand something so alien before we understand it? We act out of love, but that does not erase the harm we cause. Forgive us.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 Page 20