Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

  As the light grew brighter, I drew back from the edge so I wouldn’t be seen. But I couldn’t see who had come in with the light. Just as I dared to peer out, the platter was jerked away, and the barber hurried to the table, examining it.

  Spinning around he shouted, “Come out of there, you little rat!” He dragged a chair closer to the hole. The barber’s lanky arm lunged into the hole and flopped around like a fish out of water. “Come out! You’ve ruined everything!”

  I didn’t dare say a word. I scarcely breathed.

  “I know you’re there, boy.”

  Throwing myself out of his reach and across the mud puddle, my fingers scrubbed along the shaft I’d fallen down, hoping to hear Ma and Pa above. “Hurry,” I whispered.

  “I know you’re bleeding. I can smell it. Reckon I’ll have to come get you.”

  Unable to reach me, the barber’s arm slithered from the hole, and he began to moan and groan and mumble to himself. Little by little, I eased toward that edge again, curious but wary of being tricked. I noticed three flat-topped pegs in the wall just under the opening. The platter had been resting on these. Below, the barber wandered about the stone room like a blind horse in a pumpkin patch, struggling to remove his jacket over the hump on his back.

  On the table sat the platter. With the barber’s candle beside it I could tell it was like the offering plate at church. It had little puddles of dark blood on it, and a handful of small white stones.

  With a gasp, I realized why I’d seen men holding bloody rags at their mouth. The barber had pulled their teeth!

  Why bring them down here?

  A pain-filled cry drew my attention back to the barber. The man had fallen but managed to remove his jacket. He tore a padded shirt over his head, revealing an inhumanly thin torso underneath, and a wad of bandages upon his back. “Got to fit in that hole,” he grumbled.

  His talon-like fingers plucked away the bandages, revealing two stumps sticking up from his back like another pair of arms cut off above the elbow. The skin was a mess of scabs, bruises, and dark blotches. I didn’t much want to have sympathy for the barber, but it looked like it hurt a lot.

  “What are you, and happened to you?” I asked, horrified. “What do you want people’s teeth for?”

  The barber sneered up at me. “Why does anyone want teeth?”

  “To chew food.”

  The barber growled in frustration. “Why does anyone want teeth that aren’t in your head?”

  “To get candy money from the tooth fairy?”

  The barber’s eyes locked on my mouth. With a sudden shout, he put one flat foot on the floor and clambered onto the table. “You’ve lost a tooth.”

  He looked mean enough to hunt bears with a hickory switch. I scurried backward, fast.

  “Where is it? Give it to me!”

  Clinging to the edge, the barber used the pegs to pull himself up. “I need it!” One hand punched into the hole, then the other. “Give it to me now!” The barber pulled himself forward until those two stumps stopped him. He grunted and gnashed his many, many teeth and tried to flatten himself so as to fit into the hole.

  “She imprisoned me, boy. I broke out and she took my wings to punish me.” His voice had gone all whiny and sad. “Now she comes for the teeth, comes down this tunnel to collect them… but all I get are the teeth of old men.” He looked pathetic. “Take me a hundred years to pay my debt with those rotting teeth… but if you’ll just give me your tooth, maybe a few more, it’ll be over.” His eyes begged me.

  But he wasn’t gonna euchre me; I was no ninnyhammer. “No!” I shouted.

  At that, his wicked expression returned, and I swear that peck o’ trouble would’ve fought a rattler and given it the first bite! He strained his twiggish arms so hard something snapped loud—one of his stumps. The barber screamed. I covered my ears.

  “Your teeth,” he growled, “are young and new.” Another snap. Another scream. “So white.” Panting loudly and filling the space with a horrible smell, he wriggled forward. “I must have them. Just three or four. You’re young enough others will grow in!”

  “Can’t have ‘em.”

  “I’ll give you a bag full of candies…”

  “I said no!” I grabbed a wad of mud and threw it into the barber’s face.

  “You wretched guttersnipe!” He growled and tried to wipe it away, but his gangly arms were too long to bend in this cramped space. He had to move his head against his upper arm to wipe the muck from his eyes.

  I threw clump after clump into the barber’s face until I heard, “Colt! You there, son?”

  “Pa! Help me!” I squirmed up into the shaft as far as I could.

  “Ropes a-coming down. Put the loop under your arms, and I’ll pull you up!”

  I clawed desperately around the shaft. “Hurry Pa!” I felt the edge of the coarse rope.

  The barber’s fingers snatched around my shoe. “You’re not going anywhere ‘til I get those teeth!”

  I jerked the rope down and around me with one hand and dug another handful of mud to throw with the other—but I felt something small scrape between my fingers. Searching the thick stuff, I found my lost tooth.

  The barber’s one clean eye widened. “Mine!”

  Then Pa pulled.

  I was hauled a few feet up into the shaft, but the barber held tight to my shoe.

  “You’re heavier than I thought, boy,” Pa shouted down into the tunnel.

  I kicked at the barber with my other foot, keeping him from moving his grip higher.

  “Hold on, boy,” Pa shouted. “Need a break. Good Lord. Shoulda hooked the rope on the saddle. Ma, bring ol’ Nellie over here.”

  “Don’t stop, Pa!” I pushed the tooth into my shirt pocket and twisted onto my stomach, trying to climb up the rope. The weight of the barber kept me from it.

  “Give me that tooth!” The barber pulled himself up and wrapped the tail of my shirt in his fist.

  In that moment, I got so angry. Far angrier than I was scared. I was determined to fight like Kilkenny cats and keep this skeersome snap-perhead from getting my first tooth.

  I rolled to my back again and shouted, “You can’t have it! If she wants teeth, you’ve got plenty to spare!” and thrust my heel against the barber’s mouth. I felt teeth break.

  The hole filled with the barber’s shout as he slid backwards, but his grip on my shoe stopped him.

  I pushed the toe of my free foot at the heel of the clasped shoe.

  “No! NO!” the barber cried.

  My shoe slipped off and the barber raged as he fell away.

  I was quickly hauled up and into Ma and Pa’s arms.

  I clutched them so hard. “Sorry I ran. I promise to do my chores every day, just say you’ll never take me to a barber again.”

  — THE EDITORS —

  Alana Joli Abbott is the author of interactive multiple choice novel apps including Choice of the Pirate, the “Redemption Trilogy,” and comics including Cowboys and Aliens II and Ithaca. Her game design has been featured in Tiny Dungeon 2e: The Hatchling Edition and Serenity Adventures. She is Editor in Chief at Outland Entertainment where she co-edits anthologies like Kaiju Rising 2 and Knaves. Alana has visited ancient ruins around the world; sung madrigals semi-professionally; and earned her black belt in Shaolin Kempo Karate. She lives near New Haven, CT.

  National bestselling and award-winning author Cerece Rennie Murphy fell in love with writing and science fiction at an early age. It’s a love affair that has grown ever since. In 2012, Mrs. Murphy published the first book in what would become the “Order of the Seers” sci-fi trilogy. Mrs. Murphy has since published seven books.

  In addition to recently publishing her first time-bending romance titled, To Find You, Mrs. Murphy released the 2nd book in the “Ellis and The Magic Mirror” children’s book series with her son. Mrs. Murphy is currently developing a fantasy adventure, titled The Wolf Queen and a 2-part space opera. Mrs. Murphy lives and writes in her hometown of W
ashington, DC with her husband, two children and the family dog, Yoda. To learn more about the author and her upcoming projects, please visit her website at www.cerecerennie-murphy.com.

  — THE AUTHORS —

  C.S.E. Cooney lives and writes in the borough of Queens, whose borders are water. She is an audiobook narrator, the singer/songwriter Brimstone Rhine, and author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories (Mythic Delirium 2015).

  Her work includes the novella Desdemona and the Deep (Tor.com 2019), three albums: Alecto! Alecto!, The Headless Bride, and Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir, and a poetry collection: How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes. The latter features her 2011 Rhysling Award-winning “The Sea King’s Second Bride.”

  Her short fiction can be found in Ellen Datlow’s Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Sword and Sonnet anthology, edited by Aidan Doyle, Rachael K Jones, E. Catherine Tobler, Mike Allen’s Clockwork Phoenix 3 and 5, Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018), Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 12, Lightspeed Magazine, Fireside Magazine, Strange Horizons, Apex, Uncanny Magazine, Black Gate, Papaveria Press, GigaNotoSaurus, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, and elsewhere.

  David Bowles is a Mexican-American author from south Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. He has written several titles, most notably The Smoking Mirror (Pura Belpré Honor Book) and They Call Me Güero (Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award, Claudia Lewis Award for Excellence in Poetry, Pura Belpré Honor Book, Walter Dean Myers Honor Book).

  His work has also been published in multiple anthologies, plus venues such as Asymptote, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Metamorphoses, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children’s Literature.

  Carlos Hernandez is the author of more than thirty works of prose, drama, poetry, and fiction. He is also a game designer and served as the lead writer for Meriwether, a computer role playing game that explores the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He is an associate professor at CUNY and a member of the doctoral faculty at CUNY Graduate Center. In addition to his adult short story collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, he is also the author of the “Sal and Gabi” middle grade science fiction series. His short stories have appeared in Uncanny and anthologies including The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017.

  Jim C. Hines is the author of the “Magic ex Libris” series, the “Princess” series of fairy tale retellings, the humorous “Goblin Quest” trilogy, and the Fable Legends tie-in Blood of Heroes. His latest novel is Terminal Uprising, book two in the humorous science fiction “Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse” trilogy. He’s an active blogger, and won the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His short fiction has appeared in more than 50 magazines and anthologies. Jim lives in Michigan with his two children. Online, he can be found at http://www.jimchines.com.

  Minsoo Kang is a historian specializing in the intellectual and cultural history of Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a fiction writer. Due to his father’s occupation as a diplomat for South Korea, Kang has lived in Korea, Austria, New Zealand, Iran, Brunei, Germany, United States, and other places for shorter periods. He served in the army of the Republic of Korea and earned his Ph.D. in European History at UCLA. He is an associate professor at the history department of University of Missouri - St. Louis. He is the author of the history book Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination (2011: Harvard University Press) and the short story collection Of Tales and Enigmas (2006: Prime Books), and the translator of the Penguin Classics edition of the Korean novel The Story of Hong Gildong (2016). His short story “A Fearful Symmetry” was included in the 2007 Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collection, and “The Sacrifice of the Hanged Monkey” in the 2018 The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy.

  New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, storm chaser, and geek. Author of over 20 books and 40 short stories, Alethea is the recipient of the Scribe Award, the Garden Sate Teen Book Award, and two-time winner of the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award. She has been twice nominated for both the Andre Norton Nebula and the Dragon Award. When not writing or storm chasing, Alethea narrates stories for multiple award-winning online magazines, contributes regular YA book reviews to NPR, and hosts Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow every year at Dragon Con. She currently resides on the Space Coast of Florida with her teddy bear, Charlie. Find out more about Princess Alethea and her wonderful world at aletheakontis.com.

  Seanan McGuire is a native Californian, which has resulted in her being exceedingly laid-back about venomous wildlife, and terrified of weather. When not writing urban fantasy (as herself) and science fiction thrillers (as Mira Grant), she likes to watch too many horror movies, wander around in swamps, record albums of original music, and harass her cats.

  Seanan is the author of the “October Daye”, “InCryptid”, and “Indexing” series of urban fantasies; the “Newsflesh” trilogy; the “Parasitology” duology; and the “Velveteen vs.” superhero shorts. Her cats, Alice and Thomas, are plotting world domination even as we speak, but are easily distracted by feathers on sticks, so mankind is probably safe. For now.

  Seanan’s favorite things include the X-Men, folklore, and the Black Death. No, seriously. She writes all biographies in third person, because it’s easier that way.

  Raised in the wilds of countless library stacks, Gwendolyn N. Nix has forged her skills in writing and science in the shark-infested waters of Belize, by researching neural proteins, inducing evolutionary pressures in green algae, and through the limitless horizons of her own imagination. A born seeker of adventure, she saw her first beached humpback whale on a windy day in New York, met a ghost angel in a Paris train station, and had Odin answer her prayers on a mountain in Scotland. Her short fiction has appeared in StarShip Sofa and The Sisterhood of the Blade anthology. The Falling Dawn is her first novel. She lives in Missoula, MT.

  Physician Glenn Parris is a Fordham University, SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine graduate, and Native New Yorker, but this Emory Medicine alum and Georgian forevermore, writes science fiction, medical fiction, historical fiction and fantasy. He’s lived in suburban Atlanta with his wife Carla for over 28 years.

  He joined the Atlanta Writers Club in 2011 and credits much of his growth as a writer to that organization’s support and activities. The opportunities to belong to a local community of writers has proven invaluable.

  He is a regular guest at the DragonCon diversity track Labor Day weekends. Author of the “Jack Wheaton Mystery Doc” novel series, The Renaissance of Aspirin, and the dark fantasy short story, Unbitten: A Vampire Dream, and the speculative science fiction novel, Dragon’s Heir: The Archeologist’s Tale.

  A fan of Michael Crichton, Stephen King and Frank Herbert, Glenn’s vison is to develop his writing skills in several genres of fiction.

  L. Penelope has been writing since she could hold a pen and loves getting lost in the worlds in her head. She is an award-winning author of fantasy and paranormal romance. Equally left and right-brained, she studied filmmaking and computer science in college and sometimes dreams in HTML. After living on both coasts, she settled in Maryland with her husband and their furry dependents. Sign up for new release information and giveaways on her website: http://www.lpenelope.com.

  Linda Robertson is the internationally published author of the Persephone Alcmedi series set in Cleveland, Ohio. She’s also published a handful of short stories, is a graphic artist, and an unrepentant former lead guitarist who presently writes musical scores for her books. In 2006 she won the Florence B. Allen writing competition. Linda’s website is: www.authorlindarobertson.com

  Zin E. Rocklyn’s stories are older than her years, much like the name she’s chosen to pen them under. Of Trinidadian descent and hailing
from Jersey City, NJ, Zin is influenced by the everyday curiosities of the terrifying unknown and the fascinating weird. Her work is currently featured in the anthologies Forever Vacancy, Sycorax’s Daughters, and Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters II. She also has a non-fiction essay “My Genre Made a Monster of Me” in Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy issue. Her personal website, terizin.com, is currently under construction, so stay tuned for all of her weirdness in HTML form. In the interim, you can follow her on Twitter @intelligentwat.

  Shanna Swendson earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas but decided it was more fun to make up the people she wrote about and became a novelist. She’s written a number of fantasy novels for teens and adults, including the “Enchanted, Inc.” series and the “Rebel Mechanics” series. She devotes her spare time to reading, knitting, and music. Visit her website at shannaswendson.com.

  Grey Yuen is a writer based in Singapore. He was raised on a mixed diet of eastern Wuxia, western Fantasy, and Southeast Asian folklore. This has resulted in a terrible allergy to badly-translated old Shaw Brothers movies, as well as a fascination with stories that break new ground with old cultures. He writes locally, but has published in anthologies such as Sword & Mythos (2014). A high caffeine-tohaemoglobin level in the system helps, as always, a habit left over from his Dark Days as a mild-mannered IT Engineer.