Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories

by Kelly Barnhill

  He gives her a bow and blows her a kiss and it nearly breaks her in two. It is a good life they have, the two of them. It will kill her to leave it behind. She knows a change is coming. She can feel it hover, just out of reach, as surely as a coming storm.

  The church pastor wanders over, his steps weighted and slow. Sweaty skin, hooded eyes, and a red, red nose.

  “Ah!” the junk man says. “Reverend! Do I have the perfect thing for you!” He ambles into the square, all bony knees and elbows. He is barbed wire and braided grass holding up a patched suit, and greets the half-drunk pastor with a foxy grin and a conspiratorial wink. With a wave of his hand he reaches into one of his many pockets and produces a bottle that, as far as he can tell, will never run dry. The pastor licks his lips and stares with interest.

  The Sparrow shakes her head and turns away. She cups her hands and ladles the toad onto the ground between the identical chickens, first giving the top of its head a quick kiss. The toad bellows indignantly—not for the kiss, but for the separation from the girl. He loves that girl. Desperately. So do the chickens. And she loves them back.

  She slides into the crowd. There are people who can see her today—unusual, though it’s been happening more and more lately. And it’s not always pleasant. An old man tips his hat and then puckers his lips at her.

  “Oh, come now, guttersnipe,” he says. “One kiss.”

  She shakes her head and darts away.

  She bumps into an old woman with a basketful of muffins for sale.

  “Hmph,” the woman says. “Watch where you’re bumping, little tramp.” She picks up the muffins and brushes the grit off with her fingers, checking this way and that to make sure no potential customers noticed. “Off with you now. Shoo!”

  The woman doesn’t notice that the number of muffins in the basket has inexplicably doubled. She will only realize something is wrong much later when she counts her earnings at the end of the day and finds her purse nearly twice as full as it should be. She will have no explanation for it. She will not remember the girl.

  The Sparrow tries to buy meat from the butcher with the coins she lifted from the junk man’s purse. The butcher gives her a poisonous glare.

  “Oh!” he says, throwing his hands up. “You’re paying me this time, are you? Well. Maybe we should have a party.”

  She presses her lips together and says nothing. She has stolen from him. Before. She’s surprised he knows. Sucking her lips between her teeth and biting down hard, she points at a good-looking bit of salt pork, which he wraps for her begrudgingly.

  I’m sorry, she wants to say. But she doesn’t.

  He has a wound on his shoulder. It is wrapped, but the wrappings are soaked with a yellow fluid, and red streaks seep across his skin. He is sweaty and shivering. The Sparrow tilts her head to the left.

  Yellow, she thinks. Yellow, yellow, yellow.

  The red streaks start to shrink.

  “Thank you,” she says when he hands her the meat and she hands him the money. “Thank you for everything.”

  And she slips back into the crowd and disappears.

  Well, the butcher thinks. She didn’t disappear. I just suddenly wasn’t able to see her. With all the people. She was sucked into the crowd.

  Except that’s not exactly what happened. She wasn’t moving. And the crowd didn’t suck her anywhere. She simply vanished.

  Wait, the butcher thinks. What am I saying? Who vanished? I haven’t seen anyone all day. He shakes his head. He has no memory of the junk man’s daughter. He stares at the coins in his hand, confusion clouding his face.

  And even more confusing, the wound on his shoulder has begun to itch. He is crazed with itching. He throws off the bandages, and realizes that his wound is gone, and his skin is whole. Nothing shows where the injury was. His skin is firm and smooth as a baby’s.

  And even stranger: On the spot where the wound once was: a coin. A big, gold coin.

  Yellow, the butcher thinks. Yellow, yellow, yellow.

  The junk man’s daughter watches his face. She hasn’t moved. The butcher simply doesn’t see her. She shrugs and continues on her way.

  She stops at the cheese maker’s and the breadsmith’s and the beekeeper’s, buying enough to keep her father fed and whole. The marketplace is crowded today—it’s harvest time, and everyone’s yields are impressively high this year. The beekeeper’s stall is crowded with jars and she sells honeycombs by the barrel. The pigs are fatter, the milk has twice the cream, and the potatoes are as big as boulders.

  It will all go away, unfortunately. The rest of the nation is in a food shortage. This province has been the only one oddly blessed with abundance, which means that soon it will all be gathered, crated, and shipped off.

  There is a frenzy of buying, people getting what they can afford before—

  “Sparrow!”

  The girl looks up and sees Marla, the egg woman—all broad shoulders and wide hips and hardened biceps—tossing her neighbors out of the way as she hurries across the square.

  Marla has loved the Sparrow for as long as she can remember. And the Sparrow loves her back.

  “Marla,” the girl says with the beginnings of a smile—one that fades the moment she sees the look on Marla’s face.

  “Run, child!” the egg woman says. “Soldiers. The soldiers are back.”

  She throws out her arms, blocking the girl from view. As though all that was needed to keep the girl from harm was the formidable presence of her own body.

  “But my father—”

  “I’ll see to him. The Constable is distracting the soldiers. He won’t let anything happen to you. None of us will. Run. Now.”

  And the egg woman turns and walks toward the soldiers, strong as a tank. She has a basket of homemade cheeses hooked in the crook of her arm. She has a basket of astonishingly fine eggs from her battalions of Most Remarkable Hens. Indeed, there are no hens quite like them, thanks to her little Sparrow.

  She’ll use them if she has to.

  And the Sparrow hesitates. She looks to the greengrocer and the cobbler. She looks to the berry man and the candle maker. No one sees her. The soldiers stand on the far side of the square, their electronic eyes focused on the eggs in the basket.

  “Whips up like none other,” the egg woman says loudly. “Thick as cream.” They also cure acne, heal burns, mend shoes, seal cracks, and make meringues that will melt in the mouth. (They can also, in a pinch, secure a lover for the night. Very powerful, these eggs. Not magic, though. Surely not.)

  The Sparrow calls for her father. She calls for the Constable. She calls for the egg woman. No one comes. She wobbles. She flickers. And she flies away.

  Later, people will say that they saw a flash of a patched apron catch a breeze and fly above the heads of the crowd.

  “No,” someone will counter. “It wasn’t an apron. It was feathers.”

  “Not feathers,” someone else will say. “Wings. Patchwork wings.”

  “Hogwash,” a third will swear. “It was a flock of sparrows. Sparrows and sparrows and sparrows. And then they were gone.”

  4. Then.

  The Sparrow couldn’t remember being born.

  She could remember, however, parts of her life within the watery womb of her mother. She could remember the sound of her mother’s worry. She could remember the soothe of her father’s voice, and then the bite of her father’s rage. And the silence he left behind. She remembered the Boro comet, though she could not see it. She remembered it like a flash in the dark, and the surge of . . . something . . . coming up from under her like a wave.

  And then she was something else. Even then, she knew. She knew her hands, she knew her mouth, she knew her toes, and she knew her magic. She knew these things without the power of names.

  She heard the fear in her mother’s voice at the mention of Boro comet. But
it wasn’t the comet that made her like this.

  It wasn’t the flash that changed her, it was the wave. The wave from underneath. The Boro comet doesn’t make. It draws. She knows it in her bones.

  5. Now.

  Every Vox in the nation sputters to life at once.

  “CITIZENS!” it screeches. “YOUR COOPERATION HAS BEEN NOTED. YOUR MINISTER ASKED AND YOUR MINISTER HAS RECEIVED. LONG LIVE THE MINISTER. THOUSANDS OF PATRIOTS FLOODED OUR MESSAGE LINES AND OUR VIDEO CENTERS AND OUR OFFICES. SO MANY BEAUTIFUL ACCUSATIONS. SO MANY JUSTIFIABLE CONCERNS. YOU WILL BE REWARDED—MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN ALL. YOU WILL BE REWARDED.”

  A crackle.

  A breath.

  A beat.

  “AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO KNOW AND DO NOT TELL.”

  Another breath. And another. The Vox is silent. Until—

  “Oh citizens,” the Vox whispers. “Oh, my precious citizens. I cannot, cannot say.”

  6. Then.

  The Minister had never counted on the wind. He built his tower higher and higher—a wobbly, twisty, unlikely looking structure, uncurling like seaweed toward the shimmering limit of the sky. Dark stones, blackened windows. Impossible without magic, without his little magicians.

  He loved them.

  He couldn’t bear to think of them.

  He shoved them out of his mind.

  And look. His tower. A marvel! It was higher than any structure in the history of the world. The Minister knew the history of the world. He had all the history books, after all. The ones he hadn’t burned, anyway. And while the books told of impressive structures, they never mentioned the winds.

  The wind at the top of the tower nearly sent him careening to his death, which would have been unfortunate seeing how long—how very long—he had spared himself the unpleasantness of dying. Fall off his own tower? Certainly not! He started binding himself with straps to keep him in place as he gazed at the sky through his stargazer, and watched for the first glimpse of the returning Boro comet.

  Four times a century it came. The Minister had seen it more times than he could count. And now he would see it pass by once again—and so close—but he still would not be able to catch it. Not yet, anyway. How many more magic children would he need until his tower was tall enough? Ten? Hundreds? Thousands? How many enhancements would he need before he could pluck the comet from the sky and carry it in his pocket forever? It sickened him, of course, this business with the children. But the sickness in his heart didn’t interfere with the surety of his will. Besides, the first act of cruelty made the thousands that followed infinitely easier.

  He needed that comet. He needed it desperately. It was all he could think about.

  There were large red flowers growing along the edges of the walls defining the rooftop patio—a gift from one of his magic children, right before she died. “To help you breathe,” she said kindly, before she breathed her last. Her lips were pale, her eyes were the color of milk, her hair had fallen out months before. He usually did not learn the names of his magic children—or anyone, really. People die so quickly when they are not enhanced, and only the Minister is enhanced. He has seen to that. But the magic children. They die quicker. Best not to know them.

  This one, though. This one he knew. Not her name, of course, just the fact of her—that inscrutable bit of the Self that cannot be drawn or recorded or named. And after all these years, he still mourned her. A raw, painful, immediate feeling of loss.

  Red flowers, his heart whispered. Red, red, red, red.

  He picked a flower, breathed deeply, and felt a tightening in his throat. He inserted the flower stem into his lapel and returned his gaze to the stars.

  “Soon,” he said, waiting for the first glimmer of the comet to come into view, “soon.” And he shivered, thinking of the coming magic, blessing the land. Thinking of the women with bellies about to swell with children imbued with the power to assist their Minister. Living only for him until they died.

  “Soon,” he said, and he imagined himself plucking the comet from the sky as though it were a candied fruit atop a large, luminous pastry. A delight meant for him and him alone.

  He fell asleep at the top of his tower, wrapped in wind, as the taste of sweetness and magic and promise lingered on his tongue.

  7. Now.

  The boy named Jonah makes his way to the egg woman’s house. Very few people know the way. Indeed, Marla the egg woman can count those who do on one hand. And Jonah is not one of them. She removes the small pistol she keeps in her ample brassiere and points it at the boy.

  “Give me three reasons why I shouldn’t shoot you, son.” She says this casually, as though asking his opinion on whether bulbs should be planted in September or October. The gun in her hand is small and bright. She holds it perfectly still.

  The boy puts up one hand. The other grips a locket around his neck. “I—”

  “I can give you one why I should.” A mild smile. A narrowed eye. “Trespassing.”

  “I—”

  She rolls her eyes. “Really? That’s the best you can do?”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” the boy says. “I truly don’t know what brought me here. I—” He shakes his head as though to dislodge sleep from his brain. “I’ve certainly never been here before.”

  Marla gives a sidelong glance to her right. She shakes her head with a harrumph.

  “You’re Laney Tice’s oldest boy, yes?”

  He nods.

  “Your mother’s a good woman. A clear mind in a sea of puddingheads. She’d miss you if you didn’t come home.” She sets the gun back in her lap. “Greet her for me, will you?”

  He nods again. His face is muddled. Darting eyes in a tangled brow.

  “Well,” she says firmly. “Off you go.”

  “Yes,” Jonah says. “Off I go.” He is about to say something more. His voice catches and he says nothing. He turns, takes two steps away, and then freezes.

  Marla groans.

  He spins around. “Scorpio!” he nearly shouts.

  “What’s that child?”

  “Orion’s belt!”

  Marla sighs and shakes her head. “Jonah Tice, what are you on about?”

  “Delphinius and Draco and Cassiopeia! Polaris. The arm of the Milky Way.” He closes his eyes and presses his hands to his face. “I came here with a girl. I’ve seen her before.”

  Marla feels her stomach drop and her mouth go dry. “Now,” she rasps, “that’s enough of this silliness.”

  The boy’s face is glowing. He holds his hands open before him, as though wanting to catch something that might fall from the heavens. “She wore no shoes.”

  “It’s cold.” The acidic bite of panic in her throat. “No one goes barefoot in this weather. You imagined it.”

  “She wore a dress made of scraps and a coat that was too big and a face made out of sky.” His breath comes in quick gasps.

  He loves her, Marla thinks, her skin going cold.

  “Now that’s just foolishness.” She tries to scoff. It is a thin, brittle sound.

  “Sparrow,” the boy whispers.

  “No.”

  Shut your mouth, she thinks. Her heart screams it. Shut your stupid mouth.

  “Sparrow.” The boy’s face falls into itself, like a sleeper waking up.

  “A trick of the light,” she says. “I mean an active imagination. I think you should go.”

  “Sparrow,” he says with more insistence. As though it is the most important word in the world.

  Marla points her pistol at the ground to the left of the boy’s feet and pulls the trigger. He yelps.

  “Get out.” Her voice is dead calm. Her face is a stone. She shoots again, this time on his right side. And slightly closer.

  He turns and runs as though pursued by wolves.

  “Don’t come back, or I’l
l sic my dogs on you!” This, of course, is an empty threat. Years ago, maybe, her dogs could have torn the poor child limb from limb. But not anymore. They are impossibly old. Plus they are drunk. Drunk in love with the Sparrow.

  The Sparrow sits on Marla’s right, leaning her head on the older woman’s muscular shoulders. She has not just arrived. She has been there the whole time.

  “I told you,” the girl says.

  “This proves nothing. The boy is nothing but a bundle of junk and sighs and juicy thoughts and sweaty socks. It’s not magic that drew him. It’s pheromones. I knew boys would be sniffing around in your vicinity someday, so it’s no surprise. Pay him no mind. He’s one of many.”

  “Don’t be mean,” the Sparrow says. “He’s nice.”

  “God,” Marla snorts. “Please.”

  “I must go find Papa.” The girl stands and stares down the path. Marla gives her a narrowed eye.

  “Really,” she says, glaring at the spot where the boy had just stood. “You’re off to find Simon, and not . . . anyone else?” Marla is the only person in town who refers to the junk man by his proper name. Always has. Even before the Sparrow came into their lives.

  The girl smiles and gives the egg woman a kiss. “Hug my hens, will you?” She waves at the chickens in the barn, the Most Remarkable Hens. Each one regards the girl with their loving, identical eyes. The egg woman waves her off with a grunt.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go,” Marla says. “And don’t follow that boy home.”

  “I won’t,” the girl lies.

  She disappears down the trail.

  “Don’t go,” Marla whispers to no one in particular. “Please.”

  8. Then.

  The Boro comet appeared in the sky four times a century, which meant that four times a century pregnant women in his country would fuss and worry over the possibility of bearing a child with magic. And, four times a century the government sent operatives into the hospitals and clinics. They listened to rumors and hired spies and tattletales and read furtive glances. They measured the middles of women of child-bearing age. They banned prophylactics. They made lists of the names of pregnant women and their due dates. No one knew how many children would be born marked by magic—it was different every time. But the papers were ready and the payouts accounted for.