Gravity Box and Other Spaces

by Mark Tiedemann

  These stories are dedicated to the Clarion Workshop class of 1988 with special appreciation to Kate Wilhelm and to the memory of Damon Knight

  Thank you

  About the Author

  Mark W. Tiedemann began publishing science fiction stories professionally after attending the Clarion Workshop in 1988. He has subsequently published more than fifty short stories, numerous reviews and essays, and ten novels. Compass Reach was shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award in 2002 and Remains for the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 2006. He served on the board of the Missouri Center for the Book for nine years, five as president, during which time he oversaw the creation of the Missouri State Poet Laureate post. He is a lifelong resident of St. Louis. He works part-time for Left Bank Books and is represented by the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  Also by Mark Tiedemann

  Aurora: An Isaac Asimov Robot Mystery (Isaac Asimov’s Robot Mystery)

  Aurora

  Mirage

  Chimera: An Isaac Asimov Robot Mystery (Robot Mysteries)

  Remains

  Compass Reach

  Metal of Night

  Extensions

  Real Time

  GRAVITY BOX AND OTHER SPACES

  by

  Mark W. Tiedemann

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Mark Tiedemann

  Cover by John Kaufmann

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-940442-02-0

  Published by Walrus Publishing, Inc.

  4168 Hartford Street

  Saint Louis, MO 63116

  www.walruspublishing.com

  “Miller’s Wife” first published in Black Gate Magazine, Winter 2003.

  “Private Words” first published in Sirens & Other Daemon Lovers, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, October 1998.

  “The Disinterred” first published in SciFiction, 2002.

  “The Playground Door” first published in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1993.

  Table of Contents

  Miller’s Wife

  By Other Names

  Private Words

  Preservation

  Redaction

  The King’s Arrows

  The Disinterred

  The Playground Door

  Along the Grain

  Forever and a Day

  Gravity Box

  Miller’s Wife

  Egan Ginter pulled into Saletcroix with a vague sense of accomplishment diluted by a distant anxiety that having arrived he now had to do something. For a few moments he considered turning around and leaving the valley, but he had come here to sever himself from complications that threatened to bind him to a life he did not want.

  Driving over the last ridge, he looked down across a pocket of land that offered the escape he sought and a place that offered little he could want for very long, the ideal stop along the way. The town consisted of half a dozen buildings that merged with the dense Ozark scrub. Their foundations were scaly and leprous and appeared to be made from half-poured concrete mixed with vines and lichenous dirt. Only the tavern looked solid. “The Pumphandle,” a wide red and white hand-painted sign declared. Though Egan was certain it had been at least the second place built on the side of the two-lane state blacktop, it seemed newer than the other structures. A bright blue and yellow neon advertisement glowed in its window. Egan saw no church, and the gas station was identifiable only by the row of pumps standing like sentries before it, their brand names eroded to illegibility.

  Egan pulled into a parking space in front of The Pumphandle and shut off the RV. He reached across the driver’s seat and drew the sheet of typed instructions toward him. Curt Albright’s A-frame was supposedly a few miles from here, but the directions cautioned him that the turn-off was hard to find. Egan folded up the page and tucked it into his shirt pocket, then went into the tavern.

  Inside the tavern, the dark interior reminded him that he disliked bars. He went through cycles with them. As a child, he once believed they were all lined with a light-absorbing material that made it impossible to illuminate them sufficiently. When he got older he decided it was the regular patrons who sucked the light out of the air. He had liked that idea for a while, especially when he considered himself a regular patron and wanted the anonymity such places allowed.

  A row of booths lined the wall to the right; a few tables grew out of the ancient wooden floor that creaked amiably underfoot. The bar stretched to his left. Three large men huddled against it at the far end. One booth was occupied by four men bent over tall glasses. An older woman sat at a table near the front, a bottle before her. She watched Egan with mild curiosity.

  “Help you?”

  Egan blinked at the woman behind the bar. Her eyes were large and bright. Gray streaks lined her thick, pulled-back hair, and she smelled faintly of tobacco and soap.

  “Uh, yes. I’m looking for the Albright place. I wanted to make sure I had the right directions.”

  Her eyebrows drew together briefly before she looked down the length of the bar. “Tommy, you know where the Albright place is?”

  One of the three men nodded. “Five miles north, on the left, right past Menlow’s place.”

  “He ain’t there,” someone else said.

  Egan turned toward the booth. “I know. I’m a friend of his. He’s letting me stay there for a couple weeks.”

  The men stared at him for a time, then nodded and returned to their subdued conversation. Egan waited for another question, but the silence continued.

  The woman at the table drained her bottle and stood. She came to the bar, dropped a dollar bill on the counter, and looked at Egan.

  “Hello,” Egan said.

  “Welcome to Saletcroix,” she said. Her voice was sharp and carried a faint New England accent. “Are you married?”

  Egan laughed. “Excuse me?”

  The woman smiled. “I suppose not. Sorry, don’t mean to pry. Just wondering if you’ll be staying long.”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, folks are nice enough.”

  “If a bit nosy?”

  Lips pursed, she nodded and left.

  “Don’t mind Mrs. McCutcheon,” the woman behind the bar said. “When new folks come through, things take a turn for the exciting.”

  Egan looked at her, trying to decide if honesty was a good idea just now. “So are you married?”

  The woman laughed quietly. “No, as a matter of fact, and I’m not looking to be.”

  “Good. Then we’ll get along.”

  “Fair enough. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Where can I buy groceries and things?”

  “Right next door,” she pointed. “Lloyd’s got about everything you need.”

  “I doubt that,” Egan quipped. “He hardly knows me.”

  She raised her eyebrows and for an instant Egan felt foolish. “Welcome to Saletcroix, Mister. Lemme give you one on the house.”

  “Thanks. Mind if I take a rain check? I still have to find this place.”

  “Long as you promise to come back.”

  “Absolutely.”

  He watched her walk back toward the customers at the end of the bar. Her jean
s were tight, and he enjoyed the roll of her hips, wondering briefly how she looked in a good light; then, impatient with himself, he left the tavern.

  Leave it alone, he thought, climbing back into the Cherokee. Don’t start trouble for yourself again.

  The older woman who had been interested in his marital status sat in the cab of a pick-up, watching him. When he saw her, she smiled thinly, nodded, and pulled out. She drove down the road in no great hurry back the way Egan had come.

  Maybe I should leave—

  He started the engine, jammed the gears, and took the blacktop toward Curt’s place.

  As he drove, he began to notice that his first impression of the valley had been deceptive. Taken at a glance, Saletcroix seemed lushly green with rich farms and thick forest. Now, he noticed how dry everything seemed, the grass going brown, crops thinning above hard grayish earth. It looked as though it had not rained in weeks.

  Egan slowed at the sight of black smoke billowing up above the tree line. Two more turns and he saw an open gate and a straight gravel road leading directly to a house in the midst of a collection of farm buildings. A single fire truck was nearly lost in the dense clouds. The lights of a police car flashed.

  Egan drove slowly past. Less than fifty yards farther on he saw another gate and the signpost Curt had told him to look for. The dirt road was steep and curled sharply into a flat area in front of the A-frame that rose up out of the ground as if grown from seed. He stared up at the house, aware of a growing revulsion. Everything smelled musty and thick with spring even through the tinge of smoke. The woods seemed nothing but a vast collection of spindly young oak and maple. Egan’s feet sank in the after-winter humus as he stepped onto the yard.

  “Tell me again why this is a good idea,” he said aloud, mounting the porch. The spring on the screen door was broken and the thin frame slapped the wall in the breeze. Egan fished the key from his pocket and let himself in.

  The air inside made his nose twitch. Light flooded the high windows and still failed to illuminate the interior. Wicker chairs and an old sofa furnished the main floor. An impressive stone fireplace filled the rear wall. Overhead, a loft hung like a shelf without evident means of support. Egan did not want to see the bed yet. He went back outside, unlocked the rear of the RV, and started unloading his bags.

  When he came out for the second load he stopped. A man stood nearby studying his vehicle, a shotgun dangling casually in the crook of his arm. He wore bib overalls under a faded green corduroy coat and a colorless cap with a broken bill.

  “Can I help you?” Egan called.

  The man looked up. His face was wide and lined, eyes hidden in the shadow of the cap’s bill. He stared at Egan for a few seconds, then nodded once.

  “Stayin’ here?” he asked.

  “For a couple of weeks.”

  “Uh-huh. This is Albright’s place.”

  “Do you know Curt?”

  “Met him. You kin?”

  “Just a friend. He’s letting me use it for a while.” When the stranger was silent, Egan added, “My friends thought I needed to get out of the city.”

  “Maybe.” He looked at the RV again. “Looks good.” He nodded again as if in approval. “I’m Brice Miller. If you see my wife, Esther, don’t let her in.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m lookin’ for my wife. She comes by, tell her to go home. Don’t let her in.”

  Egan bristled, abruptly resentful. “Look—”

  The sound of another vehicle on the road cut him off. He turned to see a police car pulling in alongside his RV. Egan wondered if it was the same one he had seen by the burning farmhouse.

  With the engine still running, a tall man in a khaki uniform shirt and blue jeans emerged from the car. He placed a campaign hat like those that state troopers wore on his balding head and came toward the house with a long, slow gait that Egan found both amusing and irritating.

  “I’m Sheriff Edmunds.”

  “Hello, Sheriff. My name is Egan Ginter. I’m a friend of Curt Albright.”

  “Ginter. That’s the name he said. Curt called me yesterday and said you were comin’. How long you plan to stay?”

  “Couple of weeks. Maybe three.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Well, all right. I wanted to meet you and let you know I’m around.” He looked at the other man then. “Brice, you found your wife yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Sheriff Edmunds’ mouth twisted. “Well, you better. You tell Mr. Ginter here?”

  “He knows.”

  “Well, all right.”

  “Excuse me, Sheriff,” Egan interrupted. “I saw a house on fire across the road.”

  “Menlow’s,” Sheriff Edmunds said. “Burned to the ground.”

  “Was anybody—?”

  “Frank Menlow. His boy got out, but we couldn’t do nothin’ for Frank.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I, uh—” Egan wanted to walk away, feeling oddly embarrassed about having asked.

  Suddenly Sheriff Edmunds stabbed a finger toward Brice. “Find her, Brice. Don’t need more trouble.” He nodded toward Egan. “Good talkin’ to you, Mr. Ginter. Maybe I’ll see you in town.”

  Egan only nodded in return and watched the sheriff fold himself back into his car and back down the hill. When Egan turned to say something to Brice, the man was gone.

  “Christ,” he muttered. “Deliverance People.” He glanced skyward. “Thanks, Curt.”

  The next morning, Egan found an enormous steel urn under the sink in the compact kitchen and made a full pot of coffee, then started cleaning. This became his routine for the next several days, during which he battled spider webs, destroyed mouse nests, swept out crickets, and swiped away layers of dust. The outside world receded, and he began to appreciate Carl’s insistence that he come out here. He was even thankful the place didn’t have a phone.

  “I draw the line at doing windows,” he announced the morning he knew that the place was finally clean enough. He poured a cup of coffee and went out to sit on the front porch in one of the rickety Adirondack chairs.

  It was quiet. There was only the sound of rustling trees. The air was cool and pleasant. He waited and stared into the patternless forest around him.

  He fidgeted. He shifted position. He cleared his throat and tapped a complex rhythm on the arm of the chair. Nothing worked to calm a stirring restlessness. Within minutes everything he wanted to forget about the city, his family, Clair, and the complications of his life filled his mind.

  For the last three weeks, movement had worked to distract him: going from room to room, cleaning and straightening, or driving aimlessly gave his problems an impossible target to hit. The idea of coming all the way out into the hinterlands, “the Boonies” as Curt called it, seemed likely to leave those nearly sentient problems confused, as if his sudden absence might cause them to find someone else to pester and free him from their gnawing attention. Unfortunately, reality had other plans.

  He gulped the last of his coffee and strode with pronounced exaggeration through the house to refill his mug. He looked out the kitchen window and considered chopping up some fire wood. A few logs lay near a broad stump and a double-headed axe rested just inside the back door, but he had never cut wood before, and the woodpile was already pretty substantial.

  “Hell with it,” he muttered as he grabbed his jacket and headed to his Cherokee. Without giving what he was doing much thought, he headed down the blacktop and headed down the road to town. He passed the ruins of the farmhouse, now just a charred ugly ruin in the midst of the other farm buildings that stood around it like mourners. Menlow, Egan thought. It felt odd knowing the name of the man who had died there, as if he were intruding.

  Something caught his eye. He slowed down to get a better look. There was movement. Yes, there it was again. Someone had just come out behind one of the buildings, moving with care through the debris. He seemed to be searching for something. He cradled a shotgun in his left arm while shoving aside blackened b
oards and sections of burnt wall with his right. There was an intensity about him, a singular purpose that seemed to drive him through the wreckage. Egan drove past. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about the man. He kept turning it over in his mind until he grabbed the right memory. It was that man who had lost his wife. It was Brice. Not knowing really what to make of it but happy to have solved the small riddle, he sped past and hurried on to Saletcroix.

  He parked between two pickups across the road from The Pumphandle and made his way inside.

  “It’s not rainin’,” the bartender said, grinning at him.

  Egan stared at her for a moment before he remembered: rain check. “But I’m thirsty,” Egan said, smiling. “What do you have on tap?”

  She nodded and drew him a glass. “Only got one kind. Road washed out the other day. My delivery couldn’t get through.”

  “As long as it isn’t light.”

  “Never.”

  He took a long pull and set the glass down. “I’m in luck. My favorite.”

  “No matter what it is, I expect.”

  He laughed. “I’m Egan. Egan Ginter.”

  “And you’re stayin’ at Curt Albright’s place for a bit. I’m Bert.” She must have noticed something in his expression because she continued, “Short for Roberta.”

  “Hey, Bert’s fine with me. Um, did you say the road washed out? It hasn’t rained since I’ve been here.”

  “Other side of the ridge. We thought it might send us some, but it stalled at the crest and poured on the next county. It ain’t rained here since, well, in nearly eight weeks.”

  “Oh. I thought it looked dry.”

  “This one’s been a bad spell. You hungry, Egan? I make a good cheeseburger.”

  “I wasn’t until you mentioned it.”

  He watched her walk away again. This time she wore a pair of painter’s pants that hung loose from her waist, but Egan still enjoyed it, his imagination supplying detail.

  “Did I hear Bert say you was stayin’ out to Albright’s?”

  Egan turned towards the voice. Four men crammed into the center booth gazed at him from beneath their hats, beer bottles and glasses scattered over the table between them. As far as Egan could remember, they were a different bunch than those who had been here that first day.