He came back on a Sunday morning, was waiting on the mat when they unlocked the doors. Newspaper in one hand and a steaming Styrofoam cup in the other. When he saw Nadine, who’d been stacking Duraflame logs beside the woman with the tampon-antennae, he grinned. His grin did nothing, she thought, to hide his relief. Then thought itself erupted through her, and she dropped the logs she’d been cradling and swayed in place. Tingling. Stinging. As though every inch of her had been asleep.
“Hi,” he said. “So, okay. Cactus candy? No.” He raised the cup. “But pinon nut coffee? Yes.” He took a steaming sip.
Glancing sideways, almost all the way awake, now, Nadine noted that her companion had frozen, too. Tampon-antennae quivering, as though she were trying to make sense of something. Or admit what she’d already sensed.
“He’s here to help,” Nadine said—forcefully, to convince herself, really, or maybe just remind herself, because he really had left her here—and slid an arm around the woman’s waist. “He’s with me.”
“With you . . . ” the woman murmured.
“I’d like to see the Doña, please,” said the Collector.
Nadine felt her companion stiffen. Unless that was her own arm tightening. As far as she knew, she’d never heard that word spoken here. And yet she knew exactly whom he meant.
“You can’t,” the woman beside her said.
“Don’t,” said Nadine. And then, “You left me here.”
“She’s not back there,” said her companion. “She’s—”
“Back there?” said the Collector, gesturing down the soup aisle toward the stockroom. “Right.” And he looked at Nadine. And winked. Stupidly. And right then, Nadine saw it all. What leaving her had cost him. How scared he’d been of what he’d find when he came back.
How scared he still was.
Down the aisle he went. Nadine followed. Her first impulse was to stop him, pull him back, but she couldn’t make herself run, and so couldn’t quite catch him. Cats foamed and fled before him like a wake. He was still several feet from the metal stockroom doors, had just pulled the snub-nosed revolver from his pocket, when the doors swung open and the Doña appeared.
He didn’t stop moving. Nadine would always remember that. She saw the impact hit him, his knees half-buckling and his back twitching while cats scattered and Nadine herself flinched as she fought her feet to a standstill. Stayed where she was.
The Doña stood in a halo of her own light. Or maybe that was her hair, a shale-and-white cascade that tumbled all the way to her waist. Her tawny skin seemed to glow, too. Lion’s skin, under lion’s mane.
The Collector stopped, lowered gun in one hand, pinon nut coffee in the other.
“Don’t,” she heard herself whisper, edging closer. “Oh, please.”
To her surprise, the Doña spoke first. It took a long time. Mostly, the Collector just stood, or took nervous sips of his coffee. He never once turned around.
“Safe’s in the back,” the Doña told him, eyes black, shoulders high. Smile blinding-bright.
“You have something of mine,” said the Collector, and for a second, as he bent, Nadine thought he was going to kneel. Kiss the Doña’s hand. She thought that might be a good idea. Instead, he placed the coffee cup at his feet and straightened. “Someone.”
Now, the Doña laughed outright. Somehow, she seemed to coil and straighten at the same time, so that she loomed over the Collector like a bobcat in a tree. “If she’s here, she’s not yours. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work.”
For the second time, the Collector’s shoulders twitched. But again, he held his ground. Lifted the gun, though not to point it. “This either, I suppose.”
“Oh, that will work. On me. It won’t do what you want, though.”
“Thought not,” the Collector muttered. He laid the gun atop a stack of Cream of Mushroom cans.
For a time—though Nadine would never know how long, time being lost to her, then—the two of them just eyed each other. The Doña, the Collector. Like cats. The Doña’s smile, when it came, wasn’t completely without pity.
“You men. You grasping, stupid, lonely men.” She turned back toward the stockroom.
“Tell me how it works,” the Collector said.
Pleaded? Was he pleading?
The Doña turned back, no longer smiling. “Sure,” she said.
And told him. Not about herself, but her girls: the braided one, whose sister, cousin, and mother had had their lives ended for them in the alleyways of Ciudad Juarez, the cousin and mother on the same night, in different alleys; the checkout-stand woman, who’d left the University of New Mexico to nurse the sick uncle who’d molested her as a child into his grave, and then stopped here for a string cheese on her way back to Albuquerque; the tampon girl, who’d literally walked off the reservation, because no one would drive her, with no destination in mind except elsewhere; the junkie hooker from El Paso who’d somehow cold-turkeyed herself one summer night—though not in time to save her hearing or one of her kidneys—and spent her off-shift hours humming to herself in the bakery aisle.
Others. So many others.
“But it’s not all women,” the Collector said, when the Doña finally stopped. “It doesn’t work on all women.”
“No, indeed,” said the Doña. “On very few women, actually. They have to be worth saving. They have to deserve the home I’ve given them.”
“And be far from their old one.”
“That’s right,” said the Doña. Clearly surprised.
The Collector’s voice came out sadder than Nadine had ever heard it. “With no way back.”
“Right again. Oh, you are a rare one.”
“And whole worlds inside them.”
The Doña positively swelled, throwing her arms wide and gazing around at where her employees had gathered by the dairy cases, in the produce aisle. All of them watching. Cats crouched under nearby shelving or hunched, submissive, at her feet. “That, most of all.”
The Collector started to say something else, but she cut him off. Couldn’t help herself now.
“That’s why I am here. That’s why I came.”
“To trap. To imprison.”
In mid-gesture, the Doña froze. Swayed. Her smile dissolved. “And here, I thought you understood.”
“I’m hoping you do,” said the Collector. “I’m here to help.”
Now, finally, the Doña laughed. “Help. You. Scarecrow man. You already know better, I think. What help can you give, in comparison to mine?”
“I can help you let them go.”
“But . . . that’s the beauty of it. Don’t you see? That’s what makes it so powerful. So unbreakable. You do see, don’t you? It’s not me. It’s nothing I’ve done. I simply . . . created the opportunity. That’s the real secret. These women. All these beautiful, marvelous women. They want to stay.” And with that, she raised her arms again, like a faith healer. Like an angel. Transcendent. Triumphant. Shining. “They want to.”
“Unbreakable, you said?”
The Doña looked too ecstatic to answer.
“It can never be broken, you said.”
“Not by me. Certainly not by you.”
“That’s what I thought.”
And there it was again, Nadine realized with a shudder. That undertone of regret. He glanced at her, half-smiled, turned back to the Doña. “That’s why I decided to call your brothers.”
Silence flooded the market, and the world outside, too. As though whatever was coming had already happened. Its impact pre-determined, just not yet felt. The seconds between lightning and thunder.
“You did what?” the Doña finally answered. Arms still outstretched.
“I’m so sorry,” said the Collector. “I know you meant well. They’re on their way.”
“But . . . how could you . . . how did you even learn who . . . ”
“You should go now. You really don’t have long.”
The Doña lowered her arms. While from every side, the cats—a
ll of them, dozens—crawled from their hiding places, edging nearer. Bumping each other. Meowing their confusion. If that’s what it was.
Raising trembling fingers to her lips, the Doña stared at the Collector. While everything in Nadine screamed, Run.
But all the Doña said was, “Why? Why would you do that?” Then she dropped into a crouch, snapping her fingers at the cats, waving her employees close. “Come. All of you. We have to hide you. Keep you safe.”
And that, of all things, triggered the worst. The moment when the Collector turned sidelong, and Nadine got a clear look at his face. And knew that whatever he’d planned wasn’t working.
Brows knitted, long fingers curled uselessly around the coffee cup, the Collector shook his head. Then, abruptly, he turned again to the Doña and said, “Wait.”
“We cannot wait, thanks to you.” She was gathering cats, pushing them through the swinging door into the stockroom, waving her employees closer, her whole frame a whirl of motion.
“If they want to stay . . . why the spell?”
Once more, the Doña stopped. Turned. Looked up, from her knees. Nadine felt herself leaning forward.
“If you’re right,” the Collector said, “and the women want to stay . . . what do you need the magic for?”
For a long moment, the Doña just crouched, as though considering. Or preparing to spring. Then she shrugged. “I didn’t invent it,” she said. In the blackness of her pupils, like fireflies in a cave, was a wildness Nadine had never seen in another living thing. But the voice was a controlled, low purr. “All I did was set it loose. To save them from the world. From themselves. From what they’ve been taught they want. And so your calling my brothers won’t work, either. See? There is not one thing you can do. Except perhaps get us all killed.”
The Collector’s shoulders sagged, and he glanced at Nadine again. The words were out of her mouth before she even realized what she was saying.
“That’s why I called them.”
For the first time—lightning-fast, like a nictitating lid flicking shut and open—the Doña blinked. Then she stood. “What?”
“That was our plan all along. Tell her, Hon.”
But the Collector had gone blank. Looked as baffled as the Doña. Nadine plunged ahead anyway.
“My getting in here. Pretending to be trapped in the market, so we could make sure it was really you behind it all. Right?”
Now, the Collector nodded, repeatedly, while the Doña stared. “Exactly right. Yep. Worked like a charm, too. We had to make sure you were who we thought. Make sure we were earning the Cartel’s money, because one wants to be sure to earn the Cartel’s money, after all.”
“Callar,” the Doña whispered, wild eyes locking on Nadine’s, which set her shaking. “Puta. What have you done?”
Somehow, Nadine held still. “Just one mama lion ridding herself of another.”
“Callar,” the Doña shrieked. “Shut your whoring mouth. Puta perra. Esclavo. Diablo.” She had her arms out again, and stepped forward while cats squealed under her feet.
How soon did the Doña realize what she’d done? Nadine knew only what had happened—to all of them—the moment she started shouting. Got angry. It really did feel like a leash snapping loose. A hand at her neck, letting go. Her throat falling open. The outside world—the vast, empty, ordinary world—rushing in.
The Doña had whirled for the stockroom, spitting and screaming in her rage. “Them, first,” she was shouting toward her girls. “We’ll deal with these two first. Come on, niñas.” She vanished through the doors, and the Collector turned, brow sweating, eyes blinking furiously, as though trying to twitch away sunspots.
“You’re quite brilliant,” he said. Then he was talking to all the women around him. “Don’t be scared. Don’t think. Don’t worry about the boundary. It’s gone. Just run.”
There should have been hesitation. They knew, even if the Collector didn’t, about the cats. Had known all along, Nadine realized now, but had somehow set the knowledge aside during their time with the Doña. Or been lured away from it, back into the dreaming present.
But every woman there had experienced exactly what Nadine had, moments ago. Felt their old lives engulf them. And now every single one of them dropped whatever they had in their hands and ran.
Nadine would remember only fragments of those next, hurtling moments. The doors sliding open. The blast of frigid air against her face, seemingly shoving her back. Her screaming for the braided girl, the only one near her in the lot, to come with her, to jump in the Jeep. That single moment, crossing the threshold onto the freeway, when she grabbed the dashboard with both hands and closed her eyes and held tight. Until they were out of the lot, their wheels grinding on the open road.
And that last moment. The sound, or collection of sounds, behind her. Audible, utterly clear somehow over the wheels and the engine and the whistling in the wind.
The cats. Reaching the curb at the edge of the lot. Leaping into the air to cross it. Screaming as they froze, started to crack . . .
“See, it was mostly protective,” the Collector told her, days later, in the Las Cruces hotel room where they’d holed up since leaving the braided girl at the pedestrian checkpoint over the Rio Grande and fleeing west out of El Paso.
He poured her yet another cup of pinon nut coffee. Had already told her he was going to keep making her drink it until she agreed that it was good.
“Protective.” She was still hunched in blankets she could not seem to leave, She’d long since decided she did like the coffee, but she wasn’t going to tell him that, yet. “But . . . how did you even know she was there? We didn’t see her until that night. At least, I don’t remember . . . ”
“I didn’t know,” the Collector said, hunching forward.
He made like he might touch her, and she shrank back. Apparently, she was still angry about his leaving her, though she knew she shouldn’t be. Probably shouldn’t be.
“Nadine, all I knew was what I saw in those girls. And then in you. And I knew that whatever had hold of you, it was powerful. Not something I could break by just carrying you out of there. It had to be powerful, to stop you. To stop those women.”
“But . . . ” Nadine stared over the rim of her cup. A new round of shivering rippled up her spine, and yet, somehow, she held the cup straight, the coffee un-spilt. “How did you get onto her?”
The Collector shrugged. “That wasn’t hard. Everyone in the area knew she was there. Given who she turned out to be—who her family was—that’s hardly surprising, is it? The hard part was coming to the realization that she really did believe exactly what she told us. She really was out to save you all, from everything and everyone. From families like hers. That’s what was so hard to grasp. That particular magic . . . it only works when cast in kindness. Her kind of kindness. That was the piece I needed. That’s why it broke. When you broke it.”
“There was nothing kind about what she did to the cats.”
“Ah, but see,” and the Collector hunched forward more, his enthusiasm for discovery manifesting itself even now, “she didn’t actually do that. At least, she wouldn’t say so. All she did was create the boundary. A safe haven, in a world almost utterly devoid of them. If any of her guests—daughters, really—were fool enough to try and leave the place she’d created for them . . . leave Heaven . . . ” He shrugged.
“So why didn’t they . . . ” Nadine shook her head, put the coffee down on the night table as her wrists, then her arms started shaking once more. “Why couldn’t they just turn back into whoever they’d been? Why did that have to happen to them? Once the boundary was broken?”
The Collector watched until she settled. “I don’t know. I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t even know what the cats were, or who they were, until you told me. Maybe, when they tried to escape before you and I arrived, and got transformed . . . maybe, at that moment, they really became hers. Maybe they could never go back, after that.”
“Creatures of Heaven,” Nadine said, tears forming yet again. “Members of the Pride.”
But the Collector gazed at her so long, so quietly, that the tears never came. “Maybe. Yeah. Creatures of Heaven.”
Nadine leaned forward, was about to grab him and kiss him, when he said, “Unless.”
She sat back. “Unless?”
“Unless the transformation spell—the cat spell—was different magic entirely. Something the Doña created to protect herself, from what she feared most.”
“Cats?”
“The women those cats had been. Women who’d tasted all she had to offer—home, Heaven, call it what you will—and decided to leave anyway.”
Nadine thought of Ireland, then. Of the little houses they’d passed on the reservation, their leaning walls and flaking roofs. The junked cars in the snow. There really was a difference, she thought, between accretion and collecting. The one simply an accumulation of detritus from the life you’d lived. The other a collage of bits scavenged from other lives and hung on your wall like a mirror. One accidental, the other willed. The home you were born into, and the one you made. Which was the truer?
Then she thought of the Doña’s home. The one she’d been born into. The family she’d escaped.
“Tell me one thing,” she whispered. “You didn’t really call them, did you? You didn’t really get in touch with the Cartel. With her brothers. You wouldn’t.”
And the Collector let go of her hands. Looked down at the bed, over her shoulder at the window. “You keep being wrong about that, Nadine,” he said.
Nadine stared. “Can you go away for a while, now?”
“Okay,” he said. And stayed right where he was. And took her hand again, and held onto it, until she held him back.
Glen Hirshberg’s novels include The Snowman’s Children (2002), The Book of Bunk, 2010), and Motherless Child (2012), which has just been republished in a new, revised edition by Tor. He is also the author of three story collections: The Two Sams (a Publishers’ Weekly Best Book of 2003), American Morons (2006), and The Janus Tree (2011). In 2008, he won the Shirley Jackson Award for novelette, “The Janus Tree.” He is also a three-time winner of the International Horror Guild Award, and a five-time World Fantasy Award finalist. With Peter Atkins and Dennis Etchison, he cofounded the Rolling Darkness Revue, an annual reading/live music/performance event that tours the west coast every fall and has also made international appearances. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, son, daughter, and cats.
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