The Lesson

by Cadwell Turnbull

  Mera could see the green trees stretching out to the horizon. She knew she had come from an island like this, but had not been aware that it was so large. From this height, she could see pockets of large flowers, their petals massive and drooping. Large canai dipped down into the flowers’ throats, feeding from them with long tubular tongues. The hair on their backs and wings undulated, and the tips of their wings glowed like dying embers.

  “Whatever these beasts were,” her mother continued, “it didn’t take long for us to understand the danger. They hunted us at night. They dragged us away to their lairs. They ate us. We could hear them eating us.”

  Mera felt frightened. She hadn’t felt frightened by the story in a long time.

  Her mother continued, the tendrils of her head dancing to her words. The streaks of orange below her black eyes woke and widened, spreading their fire. “We sat stupidly for a long time in that horror, until we decided that this was a lesson we needed to learn. The only lesson.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Mera said. “It’s just a story.”

  Her mother hissed through sharp teeth. She put a cold hand on Mera’s back. Her sharp nails pinched a little, but Mera didn’t dare show intimidation.

  “I used to believe it was a myth, too. A story to scare children, to convince them of why so many of us left Sa for the black sea, in search of the one thing. But then I saw the bones.”

  It didn’t happen right away. Her mother, Ssasharen, had no trouble waiting in the silence until it did. Before long, the trees fell away abruptly. In their place were pits dug into the red earth. Mera could not see how deep they were, because they were filled with bones—huge bones, the ribs of monsters Mera had never seen in Ynaa Sky. Purple vines coiled around the yellowed bones like remnants of ancient skin.

  “It wasn’t as long ago as you would think, Ssasmeran,” her mother said. “And they aren’t the only bones down there.”

  As they got close, Mera could see the little ones, too. She recognized some of the twisted shapes. The long backs of the Angaars. The broad skulls of the Mndei. Dead races of Sa who had come into conflict with the Ynaa during the Sa Expansion. Races that had left their home islands to make bigger maps, only to meet their end. Mera had heard those stories, too. Now she was looking at their bones.

  “So we could be safe,” her mother said as if in response to the unvoiced question. Her nails dug deeper. Mera felt her face flare from the pain, her stripes pulsing.

  “To continue,” her mother said. “Because if we hadn’t done what we did, we would be in those pits, with purple vines choking our bones.” Her mother released her. “We had no choice. The universe understands only strength.”

  As Mera lay in bed, she repeated her mother’s words in her mind, comparing them to what she believed now. That world, that version of herself, felt like a lifetime ago. How much had changed since then? Mera had spent more time on Earth than on Sa. Even at the time, the Ynaa had changed their physiology. They were no longer the smaller, weaker version of themselves that came out of the jungle. Mera had gone further. She had become an entirely different race, the reefs’ alterations to her body far more extensive than the superficial changes to her brethren.

  Back then, her mother’s words had felt so powerful, so important.

  Mera knew better now.

  She had seen her own strength fail. She had clung to Siba’s corpse in a coffin of salt and water. She had arrived too late to save Amelia from the wave that swept her away. She had nearly lost Derrick while sitting right next to him.

  The universe didn’t care about strength. It didn’t care about anything. Indifference looked like malice to creatures with something to lose.

  Mera sat up in bed, the large house set out before her, quiet like a pit of bones. She got up and walked down the hall, stopping at Derrick’s room. In the dark, she could see him. He had moved since she saw him last, shifting from his back to sleep on his side. Lee was not there. Mera entered, her footsteps careful.

  “Thank you for saving me,” Derrick said as Mera approached.

  She stopped.

  “You’re not as quiet as you think.” He sat up in the bed with a groan.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” He smiled in the darkness. “And fucking hungry.”

  “I can fix you something.”

  “You cook?”

  “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  Derrick laughed. “Was that a joke?”

  She smiled but said nothing.

  “I’ll wait for morning,” he said. “I just want to make sure you won’t go back to protecting me from the world.”

  “I won’t,” Mera said, moving closer to the bed. Derrick followed her, tilting his head up to watch her face as she approached. She watched his eyes strain to make her out in the dark.

  She stepped closer, leaning over him, so close that he didn’t have to try hard to make her out. She lingered there for a moment. She could feel his hot breath. Her body responded with quickened breaths of her own, the human parts of her biology responding to his.

  “What …” He gave up when Mera’s lips came down to meet his. The wave that went through her surprised her. It was a dangerous thing, what she was doing. She didn’t care.

  Breathing hard, she put her hand on his chest and pushed him back down on the bed. She got up on top of him, staring down into his eyes.

  The kiss was a question. She waited for his answer.

  Derrick reached up and kissed her. She allowed the kiss to happen, allowed him to nestle deep into her like an animal seeking warmth. Derrick shuddered, surprised by the intensity.

  The night air crept in from the slightly open window. It filled the room, swirling under them and through them. Mera felt it, her skin puckering with new sensitivity. She took off Derrick’s shirt and touched his chest. His body warmed to her touch, as if it were communicating in some special language of atoms and energy.

  Mera pulled Derrick closer as if in answer, and with all her strength, she let go.

  King Cock

  Jammie heard the fire engines first. Then he smelled the smoke.

  It couldn’t be.

  He told Dana to get out of the house, then rushed outside to see his backyard on fire. The crackling flames were burning through his entire blasted weed farm.

  Shit!

  It was too late for the weed. The fire truck, by the sound of it, was making its way down Waterfront. It would take fifteen minutes tops before it barreled down the small St. Thomas road leading to his house.

  Enough time to save his cocks.

  Jammie took off his white shirt, stained yellow from years of use, and wrapped it around his neck. Taking one last breath of clean air, he tied the shirt over his nose and mouth. Then he ran into the smoke.

  Jammie’s backyard was fenced in, with a tight dirt path between his weed farm and his coop. The unkempt grass along the path had caught fire, and within minutes, the chicken coop would be up in flames, too.

  He ran down the dirt path and jumped over the burning grass, flames licking at his legs.

  By the time he got to the coop, his rooster Joliah was already dead. The poor bastard. King Cock, however, was going crazy in his cage, screeching in terror, his mane fluffed up beyond what Jammie had thought possible.

  The heavy smoke was burning Jammie’s eyes. He blinked away tears, unlatching the cage and reaching in for King Cock, barely thinking about proper technique. When he grabbed King Cock, the bird went nuts, pecking and clawing everywhere. Jammie was pumping with so much adrenaline, he didn’t pay any mind to the fresh cut on his hand. He tucked the big rooster under his arm—an ordeal in itself.

  Jammie could hear the sirens through the crackling flames. They were close. He scrambled his way through the tall grass along his fence because it was the only path left to him. When he cleared t
he fire, he pulled the shirt from his face and took in a gulp of smoky air. He erupted in coughs, his throat scratchy and raw.

  King Cock went crazy again, scratching at Jammie’s side. There was no shirt to protect him from the rooster’s sharp claws and spurs as they dug into his flesh.

  He winced and loosened his grip, and King Cock launched into the air and landed on Jammie’s roof, then took off out of sight.

  “But what fuck I seeing here!” he yelled. “Where the rass you going?” It made no difference. His prize rooster was gone.

  Pressing his shirt to his bleeding side, he walked out to the front of his house just in time to see the fire truck pull up. Five men in full firefighter gear jumped down before it even made a full stop. Three men went for the hoses, and once the driver stopped the truck, they all ran past him in the direction of the fire.

  Jammie felt dizzy, the world around him spinning furiously.

  In minutes, the firefighters had hosed down the flames and returned to the front of the house. Jammie’s backyard was all black twigs and ash, but the fire was out. The neighbors were out on the street, grateful for their collective good fortune. Two older women glared at Jammie and spoke in whispers.

  “You know how this started?” one of the firefighters asked.

  Sheila, most likely, Jammie thought. She had been livid when she found out about Dana. And she was the type to act out in this way. “Nah,” Jammie said. “The smoke woke me up.” Not precisely true, but it didn’t matter.

  “You got a permit for that farm in the back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mind showing me?”

  “Yeah, no problem.” He reached into his wallet and handed over a card.

  The man glanced at it and looked up at Jammie. “This is your driver’s license.”

  “Shit, my bad. It in the house.” Jammie staggered backward. “I can get it if—”

  “No, it’s fine,” the man said.

  “Pahnah high as fuck,” said another firefighter, standing near the fire truck.

  “Give me your address and number,” said the first man. “We’ll be contacting you.”

  • • •

  When Jammie returned, bandaged and stumbling, Dana was still naked in bed, smoking from her glass hand pipe, serene as ever. She had not taken his warning to heart.

  “What happened?” she asked in a tone that displayed no real interest.

  “I’m going to have to go to court,” Jammie said, undressing. “Some shit about a fine. It wasn’t even my fault.”

  But it was his fault. He knew that a reckoning was due for getting with Dana. He just hadn’t known what it would be.

  Dana said nothing. She inhaled deeply from her pipe.

  “I lost my cocks,” he said.

  “Oh?” Then nothing.

  The weed farm was, in fact, legal. He really did have a permit. It was the cockfighting that would get him in trouble if anyone really cared.

  The weed would grow back, and a burn was good for the soil. But King Cock, that magnificent bird, was irreplaceable. That loss, he would feel. Jammie was tired of losing things. In thirty-seven years, he had managed to keep only a weed farm and some fucking roosters. And now that, too, had literally gone up in smoke.

  Jammie slid his naked body up against Dana. The room spun around him. He sighed, looking her over as if with new eyes.

  “What under there, anyway?” he asked. “Under that skin.” He poked her in the side.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “I’m serious.” He reached out and grabbed her breast. “This even real?”

  Dana moved so fast, Jammie could still see the afterimage of her, lying calmly next to him. The image of her on top of him, however, felt more real. One of her hands was clenched around his throat. He could feel the pressure behind his eyes, as if they were going to pop right out of their sockets. That felt very real.

  Dana’s eyes were blank. Jammie didn’t see a human anymore, but something else. Her face seemed to vibrate, and behind it he could see pitch-black eyes and fluorescent skin.

  “Please,” he managed to say. “Please.”

  Her face softened, and she loosened her grip on his neck.

  At the moment, her body felt more real than his, her skin smooth and hot against his cold, numb collection of parts. His mouth was dry. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt like a heavy, lifeless thing.

  Just as quickly, she returned to her side of the bed, calm again. Not surprising. Quick, flashing anger was typical of her kind. As was sudden calm. She lit her pipe again and inhaled. Jammie took a few minutes to catch his breath.

  He had met Dana one night out at Duffy’s. He was alone, dancing in the center of the dance floor, drunk and high out of his mind. She had been standing against the wall, watching him. They had locked eyes a few times. It was only at the end of the night, when she approached him, that he realized what she was. He had gone home with her anyway.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the Ynaa in his bed. “That was disrespectful. No excuse.”

  “You won’t do it again,” she said as if she were naming an essential truth of the universe.

  Jammie waited a few minutes before speaking again. “I could ask you something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why you leave your planet?”

  “It became too small for us.”

  He didn’t bother with a follow-up. This was all the answer he would get.

  “What do you miss from home?” he asked instead. Warily he laid his head on her shoulder. His temples throbbed as if his head were resting on the chest of a hummingbird.

  “The endless ocean. The salt in my gills. Coarse skin.”

  Jammie tried to picture her with gills and failed. Air filled his lungs and emptied again. He felt as if he could float away with one deep breath.

  An unknown length of time passed as he vibrated through waves of high. When he came back to himself, he called out to her. At that moment, he realized that “Dana” could not be her real name.

  “What?” she answered anyway, continuing the illusion.

  “When you leave here, what will you miss?”

  She pulled Jammie closer to her. For what it was worth, the human skin covering her own was soft to the touch. He felt comforted.

  “What will I miss?” she said, stroking his cheek. “I can’t think of a single thing.”

  Homecoming

  When Patrice pulled into the driveway a little after noon, Derrick was already standing outside, the ambassador’s house looming behind him. The house was white and had a red cross-hipped roof with several ridges and valleys. Extravagant and nonsensical and too big for just one person. The decadence annoyed Patrice beyond words.

  She had to go down a tight, winding dirt road to get to the house—gravel, rocks, and potholes the whole way, making it impossible to drive more than three miles an hour. Northside was filled with big, expensive houses at the end of dirt roads. It was how the wealthy hid. The ambassador was now using the same strategy, for similar reasons.

  “You came down for me?” Derrick asked playfully as she got out of the car.

  Patrice stood behind her open door, maintaining some distance between them. Derrick was wearing basketball shorts and a V-neck. He looked good except for the giant bandage wrapped around the top of his head. “No. I was due to be home.”

  “Uh-huh,” Derrick said, smiling. He sat on the hood of her car, and she watched him as he gave her a once-over, unsatisfied since most of her body was blocked from view behind the tinted driver’s-side window of her mother’s car.

  “How could you be so stupid, Derrick?”

  He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t think—”

  “Obviously.”

  “What do you care?”

  Patrice knew what
he meant by this, knew the meaning behind the words. “You’re still my best friend, Derrick. No matter what.”

  “No matter what,” he repeated. “How’s your mom?”

  “Fine,” Patrice said. “At home with Alice.”

  Derrick smiled.

  She glared at him. “So where’s the ambassador?”

  Derrick stopped smiling. “Look, I’m not going there with you. I’ve had enough trouble with this shit as it is.”

  “Then stop doing it.” She had said the words. But she knew Derrick. He would do what he wanted and damn the consequences. For all he went on about his grandmother’s stubbornness, Patrice couldn’t imagine another soul more stubborn than Derrick.

  She moved out from behind the car door and closed it. He could see it now. He looked down and then up again.

  “The fuck?”

  Patrice didn’t say anything.

  He looked down again, this time lingering. “You’ve been busy.”

  Patrice looked away. “Look, you can’t be messing with that”—she searched for the right words—“individual, Derrick. It’s dangerous.”

  “You can’t just drop a bomb like this and go on to lecture me about my love life.”

  “So it’s true?” She felt a kick in her belly.

  “Not really,” he said. “A little bit.”

  “Oh?” She wasn’t sure just how to feel about this revelation. What he was talking about was unnatural.

  “What about that, though?” he asked.

  “It was unexpected.”

  “The dude know about it?”

  “What you think?”

  “Don’t know. Didn’t hear shit about it until you showed up here.”

  Patrice had to stifle the desire to punch him. “I came to see if you were okay. That’s it.”

  “I safe. You should come inside.”

  “I told you—”

  “Trice, she not here. She went out this morning.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not—”

  Derrick chupsed his teeth and turned, heading for the house. For a moment, Patrice stood there with her arms crossed, trying to be stubborn. It didn’t last. “You stupid boy,” she muttered, and followed Derrick inside.