The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 7

by Jonathan Strahan

  In her lunch bag he found a slip of paper. Mom used to leave notes in his lunch, too—stupid advice like YOU CAN DO IT! And REACH FOR THE STARS! This note had a silly fairy sticker on it that said Tinkerbell, plus a lot of weird designs, circles mostly, with various spokes in them, and scribbles connecting them. If he glanced at them a certain way the circles turned and the scribbles danced. Right beside Tinkerbell, under the glow of her tiny wand, was GO FIND THE MAGIC! in Mom’s one-of-a-kind handwriting.

  Tinkerbell told him what it meant, which was a clue to how upset and out of it he was. Mom had sent Margaret away on some impossible quest.

  One of his sister’s drawings crinkled under his hand, tingling his skin. He pulled the drawing up against the light and watched as the lines of the furiously dancing doll vibrated.

  Felix had no idea what he was doing. Like his mother always said, he let himself be led. With various pencils, pens, crayons, he extended the lines on the paper so that they wrapped, cocooned, buried the dancing doll in a hard shimmering tunnel. Then the spiral spread off the paper to contour the folds of sheets, comforter, pillow, until he dropped everything, hands shaking, and stood back.

  Vaguely he recognized the park by that shelter they’d stayed in for a few weeks last year, elaborate slide system with a tower where kids waited their turn. On the wall of the playground was a mural he couldn’t see in the drawing, wizards and fairies, gnomes in fur coats like rats escaping a sewer, that had always creeped him out when he’d taken Margaret there. So had all the old guys hanging around like wizards who’d lost their powers, or who’d just hallucinated them, now convinced all the tasty magic was there in the bodies of the playing kids. Margaret had always wanted to say hi, and Felix hadn’t let her. The lines didn’t show anything but the dancing of the kids and a space of no-dancing, no-motion, watching.

  The deep-shadowed tangle behind the playground hid the entrance to a secret cavern, or something more every day. The sewer. He’d yelled at Margaret to keep away.

  When Felix got into the park it felt like dusk although he didn’t think it was that late, hoped Margaret hadn’t been left alone that long, didn’t stop to check the time on his phone. Homeless guys were sitting on the wall. There was the mural, more faded and dirtier than he remembered, layered in a graffiti of filthy, hysterical requests. The opening of the sewer pipe was huge, protective mesh broken into fringe. It quivered like it was singing.

  Margaret was in there. Looking for a magic place. Because she was a kid, and magic could be anywhere her mother said it was.

  Felix dropped onto hands and knees and, without allowing himself to think about it, started into the pipe. Then the darkness detached into a ragged bulk of shadow backing out. The man grunted, hit his head and swore. The seat of his pants was muddy. He had Margaret. Her pale face popped up on one side and then disappeared.

  Felix’s first impulse was to block the exit, trap the guy inside the pipe and call the police. He fumbled for his phone. Then he thought he might have a better shot at saving his sister if he moved out of the way. The guy kept coming, dragging Margaret, his fist swallowing her hand. Felix grabbed at the guy’s shirt and was about to throw himself at him when Margaret yelled, “No! Felix! He’s my friend!”

  The big, red-faced, dirty guy was all the way out, and he reached back into the pipe with both hands and pulled Margaret out. She hugged him before she hugged Felix. The homeless guy growled, “You better tell somebody, dude.”

  Into Felix’s neck Margaret said, “I’m scared, Felix.”

  "Of him? What’d he—”

  He felt her shake her head. “Of Mom. She makes me do stuff. She doesn’t take care of us. My friend says it’s not right, kids shouldn’t be treated like that.”

  "Felix, you found her!” Mom went to hug Margaret but Margaret turned away. “I knew you could do it—I’ve always had faith in you.” To the homeless guy she said, “Thanks, Woody,” and kissed his cheek.

  "You sent her out here, right?” Felix didn’t care who heard. “A test for me.”

  Mom looked at Margaret and lowered her voice. “She loves magic but she didn’t inherit my abilities. You did.”

  "I want it!” Margaret wailed. People were looking at them. Woody patted her head, told Felix again to tell somebody, and shambled off to find saner company. Felix finally found his phone.

  "You have great talent, son. And if you didn’t find her, I was your back-up.” She was actually proud of herself.

  She’d think he hated her, but he didn’t. He just didn’t have anything more to say to her. He waved his hands once, twice, and the lines danced around them. He didn’t know if Mom couldn’t see them, but she definitely couldn’t see him or Margaret. He called 911.

  Swift, Brutal Retaliation

  Meghan McCarron

  Meghan McCarron’s [www.meghanmccarron.com] stories have recently appeared in Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Unstuck, where she has since become an assistant editor. She lives with her girlfriend in Austin, Texas.

  Two girls in wrinkled black dresses sat in the front pew at their older brother’s funeral. They had never sat in the front pew in church before, and they disliked how exposed they felt. Behind them stood their brother’s entire eighth-grade class, the girls in ironed black dresses and gold cross necklaces, the boys in dark suits, bought too big so they could get another use. Few expected more funerals, but the suits would serve for graduation in May—which, after all, was a funeral, too.

  The girls’ aunt gave the second reading, which was one of the letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. The younger sister, Brigid, loved the rhythm of those words, “Saint Paul to the Corinthians.” She didn’t know who the Corinthians were, but she imagined a small, dusty town, the people crowded around the town square as someone stood, just like her aunt, and read the latest letter from Saint Paul. This letter informed the Corinthians that though their outsides were wasting away, their insides were filling with the light of God. Life was a wobbly tent, but God had built a sturdy house in heaven. The older sister, Sinead, thought this God-house probably sounded good to people in the desert two thousand years ago, but her brother’s house wasn’t just sturdy: it had a pool. Also, her brother’s insides had not grown stronger. He had wasted away, all of him. This stupid reading confirmed her suspicions that God was like any other adult who lied and told you horrible things were for your own good.

  Sinead and Brigid felt as alone as it was possible to feel while smushed up against someone on a pew, unaware that the other person was also furiously contemplating God. They were doing their best not to be aware of anything. Noticing things, they had discovered, was dangerous. Was that Ian’s English teacher sobbing three rows behind them? Was that the priest saying Ian’s name in the homily? Were those flowers already wilting on the coffin in the early-September heat? Before, Sinead would have gotten angry about these things. Brigid would have tried to figure out their meaning. Now, the sisters found it safer to sink into the fog of mourning, though they didn’t know to call it that. They were just trying to be very still, in hopes that events would pass them by.

  A few pews back, two of Ian’s classmates trailed out, sobbing. The reading had ended, and the cantor began to sing “Alleluia.” The congregation rose to their feet, and their mother’s hymnal slipped out of her black lap. She chanted along in a low, flat voice neither of them had heard before. Their father did not stand, but sat upright at the edge of the pew so stiffly he almost looked funny. His suit was rumpled and he’d slathered himself in cologne to hide the scent of alcohol. Sinead and Brigid were used to the cologne, but they had never seen their father look so small before. They had done a good job ignoring their surroundings, but their strange, frightening parents dragged them back into reality. They stared hopelessly at Ian’s fat, luminous coffin.

  The reception after the funeral filled the house with earnest thirteen-year-old girls bearing food made by their mothers. Every girl in Ian’s class brought food, and most of it was lasagna. Lasagn
a with beef, lasagna with pork and spinach, “garden lasagna” featuring broccoli and Alfredo, Mexican lasagna with hot peppers and tortillas, and one particularly vile concoction made with whole-wheat pasta and dairy-free cheese. All of the lasagna piled up in the kitchen, since the girls’ parents had brought in caterers. Their mother didn’t have the heart to throw it away, so she shunted it to the refrigerator.

  The sisters spent the reception hiding in plain sight, or trying to. They glued themselves to their grandmother, who had flown in for the occasion. Their grandmother was a sour old lady who smelled like cigarettes and gin fumes. But she was also tall and heavyset, so they could literally hide behind her as she talked to second cousins and great-aunts and even a step-something, the girls didn’t catch what. Sometimes the sisters held hands. Brigid was the one who did the hand-seeking-out, but Sinead was secretly glad for something to hold on to when strangers stooped down to say they were sorry. Where were they when Ian was sick? Sorry? Sinead would make them sorry.

  There were still people in the house that night, straggler aunts and loud neighbors. One of Ian’s coaches was out back with their father, smoking cigars and laughing too loud. At some point, their mother noticed the girls scavenging in the kitchen and sent them up to bed. Sinead made Brigid go up first, since her bedtime was an hour after her sister’s, but once Brigid was gone Sinead felt unmoored. She was too proud to give up her older-sibling right to a later bedtime, but she also didn’t want to be in the room with the loud, sad adults. She found herself contemplating the whole-wheat dairy-free lasagna. Their mother had left it out to rot, and the faux cheese was buckling and sweating.

  Sinead heard Brigid turn on the shower in her bathroom. Brigid had only started showering before bed a few months earlier, to imitate her older sister. This infuriated Sinead generally; tonight it felt like a slap in the face. Sinead snatched up the casserole dish and took the withering lasagna up to Brigid’s messy pink room. She carved it up with a butter knife and hid the uneven squares under Brigid’s pillow, beneath her covers, in her shoes, under her dresser—anywhere it would either squish or rot. This was a cruel thing to do after Sinead had spent all day comforting and being comforted by her sister. But the comforting also served to remind Sinead that it was just the two of them now, and that she could no longer enjoy the position of invisible middle child. She had embraced this identity with gusto—her favorite book was The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo—but now she was the oldest. In the books she’d read, the oldest was bossy and bullying, or foolish and frivolous. In their family, the oldest was either sick, or played pranks.

  As Sinead stashed the lasagna in the tradition of her dead brother, she began to feel as if she were being watched. She whirled around, sure that she would find Brigid in her pink bathrobe, her hair piled on her head in a towel, like women in old movies and their mother. But the shower was still roaring, and Sinead found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  Except it wasn’t her reflection. The face was Ian’s.

  Then it wasn’t. Sinead took several gulping breaths. One of her aunts had sent her books about grieving, so she’d known that she might end up hallucinating. She must be hallucinating.

  This did not stop her, however, from snatching up the dirty pan, running into her room, and locking the door behind her. She threw the pan beneath her bed, jumped under the covers, and turned off the light. Then she switched it on again and covered her mirror with a sheet. But that really made her room look haunted, so she took the sheet down and stared at her reflection, willing her brother’s face to appear. The reflection remained her own, which made her feel stupid. Stupid was a familiar, oddly comforting feeling.

  Brigid sat on her floor in the dark, drawing a picture. She used her tiny reading light, which was designed for airplanes, though Brigid had gotten far more use from it during long waits in the dim, fluorescent hospital. She almost missed sitting in the boring corridors, compared to funerals and evil sisters. Bits of lasagna were still mushed into her hair, and Brigid was drawing a picture of her sister’s head on fire. Sinead’s curly hair stuck out in all directions, like she’d been hit by lightning. Brigid added her parents to the picture as little stick figures, off in the distance. They didn’t do anything about the flames.

  Brigid felt bewildered and hurt by the lasagna bombing. She did, however, recognize that a prank war had begun, and she had to respond in kind or risk humiliation. Unfortunately, she had the younger sibling’s handicap of not having seen as much television or read as many books as her older siblings, so she was reduced to deflecting the same prank back at them. For a time, Brigid had experimented with turning the other cheek, but this had only resulted in more spiders in her bed, more covert arm-twists, and more stuffed animals fed to the neighbor’s dog. Clearly, Sinead was attempting to take over Ian’s turf, and the only effective response was swift, brutal retaliation.

  Brigid completed three more meditative, vengeful pictures of her sister before quiet settled over the house. When she was sure everyone was asleep, she slid open her door and crept down to the kitchen. The clean, shiny counters reflected the blue light thrown off by the oven clock. Brigid was old enough to understand that her house was full of “nice” things, though “nice” to her meant “alienating and not to be touched.” When Brigid opened the fridge, a chill crept along the back of her neck, like someone was blowing on it. But the kitchen was empty and silent and blue.

  The white light of the fridge was warm and calming, so Brigid left the door ajar after pulling out Sinead’s special orange-mango juice. No one knew why Sinead liked this juice so much—their mother blamed their father, other mothers, television ads—but everyone else in the house thought it was nasty, and only Sinead ever touched it. Brigid left the juice on the counter, then got up on a stool to retrieve salt and hot sauce from an upper cabinet. She shook in as much hot sauce as she could, then poured in some salt. After shaking the mixture together, she examined its color and consistency in the fridge light. Satisfied, Brigid placed the bottle back on the top shelf exactly how she’d found it, with its label facing the milk. She took a moment to admire her handiwork and shut the door with a schuck.

  Ian stood on the other side of it. Brigid stumbled away from him, and put her back against the counter. He had hair again, the straight, tufty blond stuff he’d grown in after the first time he’d gotten better, not the curls from the pictures before Brigid was born. He wore shorts and a polo shirt, like he was on his way to the country club. But his face was pallid and green, and his eyes were ringed by the deep, scary circles that had appeared right before he died. Brigid didn’t feel fear, or even shock. All she could think was, I thought I’d never see you again.

  Brigid became aware of a soft hissing sound. Her elbow had knocked over the salt, and it was pouring onto the floor. When she looked back up, Ian was gone.

  Brigid forced herself to go to the closet, find a dustpan and broom, and sweep up every last grain of salt. Seeing her ghost brother was terrifying, but having her father find salt all over the floor was equally scary, if not more so. Once the floor was clean, her terror surged back and she sprinted up the stairs.

  As she rounded the bend, she nearly crashed into her mother. For a flicker of a moment, Brigid was sure she’d been caught, but then her mother looked over Brigid’s shoulder and said, “Ian, you better go wash the fishes.”

  Brigid realized her mother was back on Ambien. She had foolishly hoped her mother would sleep better once she stopped spending every waking hour at the hospital, but apparently not. She pressed herself to the wall and let her mother sleepwalk down the stairs.

  Despite the fact that she was furious with Sinead, Brigid jimmied open her door—Sinead kept it locked, though they had figured out how to break into each other’s rooms years ago—and jumped into her bed. Sinead woke with a groan and Brigid hissed, “Shhhhhh!”

  "Euh?” Sinead said.

  "I saw Ian,” Brigid said.

  Sinead stiffened,
then put her arms around her little sister. She noticed her hair smelled like tomato sauce. “I saw him too,” Sinead said.

  "What are we going to do?” Brigid whispered.

  Sinead thought about the brave older sisters she’d read about in books and said, “We’re going to help him.”

  Sinead didn’t actually believe in her own bravery, but her borrowed stock phrase seemed to calm Brigid. It calmed Sinead a little bit, too. When Ian was alive, there had been very little either of his sisters could do for him. When he was well, they had tortured him, or tortured each other; as a result, when he was sick, every earnest gesture had felt forced. They had loved their brother, but they hadn’t liked him much. Now here he was, turning to them, of all people. Of course they would do right by him. Of course they would help.

  Sinead woke early and cleaned up Brigid’s room while Brigid caught up on sleep in Sinead’s bed. She shook lasagna out of Brigid’s shoes and scraped off everything that remained under Brigid’s covers. Then she stripped the bed and took the whole mess downstairs. She put the sheets in the washing machine, pushed the rotting lasagna down the garbage disposal, and scrubbed the pan until her fingers hurt. Finally, when the evidence of her crime had been thoroughly erased, she let herself have breakfast. She poured herself some Rice Krispies, sliced up a banana, and sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop.

  Technically, it was a school day, but Sinead and Brigid were taking a “leave” of a few weeks. This was supposed to help them recover from the trauma of Ian’s death, though Sinead suspected it was actually so the other students wouldn’t have to deal with their uncomfortable grief. Sinead had felt miserable and adrift in the days following Ian’s death, but now that she had a purpose, those feelings disappeared. She felt happy, even privileged, to be sitting at home in the morning eating cereal and a banana and googling “ghost brother,” though this only brought up television-show recaps and one site about “Haunted Gettysburg.”