Fat Girl in a Strange Land

by Leib, Bart R.

  “Nothing was said about what happens if the Order failed.”

  She listened for the words. None came. She remained silent, watching. Again, it was all about how the Children of Anu perceived the outside world. They must wonder how an overweight blond like me took control of one of the most powerful orders in Kendrick. Not by threats. That’s for sure.

  “The Children and the Order have been allies for a long time. I don’t want that to change. We were promised a lot based on the success of the ritual. The ritual failed. We got nothing. Yet, we supported the Order.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Acknowledgement of this debt. We won’t walk away empty handed. Some of the Children died that night.” Reggie put his coffee down and clenched his hands under the table. It was clear to Corelli that he was controlling his anger and making the effort to work within a society not his own. It had to be difficult for someone so hard to work with someone he perceived to be so soft. She wondered how he would treat her if she were as lithe as he was lean.

  Corelli mentally cringed as she spoke the words she did not want to say. “The Order of the Sacred Eye acknowledges that it owes the Children of Anu a debt.”

  “A significant debt.”

  She ignored his clarification. “A debt. This debt is acknowledged. What is it that the Children want in exchange for it?”

  Reggie sat back and looked at her for a long moment. She could see him fighting with himself over the semantics of ‘debt’ versus ‘significant debt.’ In the end, he decided not to quibble over it. He did something worse. “Nothing at this time. I just wanted the Order to acknowledge the debt owed to me and mine.”

  Damn. Open ended debts were the worst thing someone could agree to but she had no choice. “The debt is acknowledged.”

  “Thanks.”

  She put down her cup. “Anything else?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Then, if you don’t mind, I do have other things to do. I wasn’t standing around waiting for your people to come fetch me.” She glanced at Mike and his burned hand.

  Reggie looked over at Mike who stood up straighter. “Anything from you?” Reggie’s voice, raised for Mike to hear, was laced with disapproval.

  Mike stepped towards the table and addressed Corelli. “I’m sorry I touched you. I won’t do it again. Will you heal my hand?” The words, though spoken smoothly, looked like they hurt to say.

  She almost agreed but her lip gloss magic, still working, prevented her from speaking. Instead, she just looked at him but turned her attention to Reggie out of the corner of her eye.

  “Are you willing to heal him, Corelli?”

  “Only if that’s what you want, Reggie. Your group, your rules, your decision.”

  “No. He fucked up. He should suffer. If Anu wishes, he will heal his Child.” Mike looked at Reggie and then away. His face flushed as he clenched his uninjured hand into a fist but said nothing.

  “As you wish.” She gathered up her purse. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  “I’ll have Sam drive you back.”

  Corelli shook her head. “No thanks. I’ll get a taxi.” She held up a hand. “No need to get up. I know my way out.” She turned and walked out through the front door without looking back or to the sides. She did so like a woman leaving a store she was no longer interested in.

  She knew Reggie and several of the Children watched her with great interest and a new regard. She had lived up to her new position and proven she was as much a shark as they were even if she did look like a seal… and that was a factor to be considered within their plans. They all knew it.

  Once outside, she did not bother to try and hail a taxi. They rarely came this way. This was too dangerous an area for them. Instead, she headed for a bus stop she knew to be a couple of blocks away. She realized, with a smile to herself, that she was not breaking down in trembles as soon as she walked away, nor did she feel the usual slickness of nervous sweat at the small of her back. In fact, she was feeling confident and self-assured at her performance. It was a good feeling.

  But, she could not bask in this glow for long. She needed to report to the rest of the First Circle and tell them what happened. Shark or not. Seal or not. This meeting would have lasting consequences.

  Jennifer Brozek is an award winning editor and author.

  Winner of the 2009 Australian Shadows Award for best edited publication, Jennifer has edited seven anthologies with more on the way. Author of In a Gilded Light and The Little Finance Book That Could, she has more than thirty-five published short stories, and is an assistant editor for the award winning Apex Publications house.

  Jennifer also is a freelance author for numerous RPG companies. Winner of both the Origins and the ENnie award, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS.

  When she is not writing her heart out, she is gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Jennifer is an active member of SFWA and HWA. Read more about her at her blog: http://jennifer-brozek.livejournal.com.

  Marilee and the S.O.B.

  by Barbara Krasnoff

  * * *

  He was extremely pretty.

  Marilee looked up from her book and watched as the young man walked — no, glided — onto the downtown A train as though the subway car — hell, the entire world — belonged to him. He wore a loose blue-grey tee and matching trousers with brown, hand-tooled sandals; a swath of his white-blonde hair was caught up in a small, thin topknot that streamed from his head down the back of his neck. He was completely, utterly unfashionable, but on him, it didn’t matter.

  He sat down across the aisle from Marilee and fastened his dark, large eyes on the floor of the car. She pretended to be concentrating on her copy of The Magicians, but inwardly, Marilee rejoiced. This was perfect. It was Friday, she had no appointments for the evening, and she was ready for an adventure. He would be her latest quarry.

  Marilee liked following people.

  She always had, ever since she was a small girl and her mother had made the mistake of giving her a copy of Harriet the Spy. Like the character in the book, she felt different and set apart from the other kids — although it wasn’t because she was interesting, but because she was fat and ugly (or so her schoolmates told her). The day after she finished reading the book, Marilee borrowed the small silver amulet that her mother hid in the back of the silverware drawer (she wanted a good luck charm, just in case) and, instead of going home after school, followed a boy who called her “Marilee the Blimp.”

  It worked. She kept him at a distance, ducking around corners and standing in crowds when she could — and she wasn’t only successful at not being found out (which made her, for the first time, feel really smart), but also discovered that the boy lived in a house painted a blinding shade of green.

  Since then, whenever she felt depressed or lonely, Marilee picked a person out from the crowd who spiked her interest and followed them. Even after she grew up and became, to all intents and purposes, a normal responsible adult — working as a legal secretary for a small firm in lower Manhattan — she would, when she got the urge, choose her quarry and trail them to their destination.

  In fact, she soon realized that it wasn’t really about the person — although she tried to pick people who were interesting or different in some way — but about that destination. Marilee wanted to find out where she would end up. She liked it best when people led her to neighborhoods and areas that she didn’t even know existed — once the pursuit ended at her quarry’s home or at a store or an automobile, Marilee would contently take a few photos of the neighborhood and write about it in her journal.

  So far, in all the years that she had played the game, nobody had actually caught her. Marilee told herself it was because she was, indeed, fat and ugly — and therefore invisible. Even when she went into neighborhoods filled with people who looked and sounded nothing like
her, nobody seemed to notice her.

  She knew it was wrong; even a bit creepy. Hell, it was stalking. But it was also fun, and it satisfied something in her, a longing for something different and strange.

  And she always wore the amulet on a silver chain around her neck. Her mother had finally given it to her a few days before she died. “Here,” her mother had croaked at her one evening. “Take this,” and she pressed the small silver disk into Marilee’s hand. “It belonged to your grandmother. I don’t know much about it — she died when I was a baby — but a neighbor told me that it’s supposed to help you see things clearly.”

  “Does it work?” asked Marilee. It was a pretty thing, about a couple of inches in diameter, with a picture of a rather voluptuous naked woman on one side and some elaborately designed symbols on the other.

  “Didn’t work for me,” said her mother. “Otherwise, I’d never have married your father.” She laughed until she started to choke.

  * * *

  The young man didn’t read or sleep or listen to music like most other passengers. He just sat perfectly still, staring down at the dirty floor of the subway car, his eyes partially lidded. He only moved when the car pulled into the station; then he looked up, examining each person who came into the car.

  His expression changed when a child or adolescent entered the car. For a few minutes, he would watch them, smiling slightly, and then apparently lose interest.

  Once, a woman came on with a boy about five years old. While his mother read a magazine, the boy started to play with a small electronic toy, got bored, and looked up and around the car. As soon as his eyes met the young man’s, he stopped and stared, mouth slightly open, fascinated. The young man smiled at the child — at least, his mouth parted in what seemed to pass for a smile — and held his gaze.

  The mother and child stayed on the train for only three stations; when the train pulled in at what was apparently their stop, the mother grabbed the boy’s hand. “Come on!” she said when the boy didn’t move, “We need to get off now!” When the boy sat there, still staring at the young man, she finally picked him up and carried him off.

  The child wailed. The young man raised his shoulders in a slight shrug and went back to his examination of the floor.

  * * *

  Once they had made the crossing from Manhattan to Queens, passengers started getting off at various stops. After a while, the train moved from underground to outdoor tracks, and by that time there were only a few tired locals left, along with several nature enthusiasts headed for the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a natural area about a mile from Marilee’s house.

  Among the tired, out-of-shape Queens residents and the be-jeaned, over-equipped naturalists, Marilee’s quarry stood out like a peacock among pigeons. When they finally reached the Broad Channel stop where Marilee lived, she was prepared to stay past her station. But to her surprise, the young man got up (along with most of the remaining passengers) and left the train. She stood and hurried after him.

  He walked indolently through the turnstile and out of the station, down the block of narrow working-class homes that overlooked the station and train tracks. The crowd of passengers thinned as locals broke off and walked down side streets to their homes. Marilee continued to follow him.

  She watched as he gently placed his palm against each curbside tree he passed, not pausing in his lazy stride, but not neglecting any tree — except, she noticed, the few that were surrounded by iron railings — until he got to Cross Bay Boulevard, the main road that ran along the shore of Jamaica Bay. At that point he — along with all the passengers who had come with binoculars, bird books and other paraphernalia — turned right, in the direction of the Refuge. Marilee stayed a few paces behind.

  After about a mile, the houses disappeared in favor of a confusion of low bushes and trees. They finally came to a traffic light, and the naturalists all crossed the street to the main entrance of the Refuge, where there was a visitor’s center and a wide pebbled path that allowed birders to check out shorebirds in comfort.

  The young man didn’t join them. Instead, as soon as the others had crossed, he turned around, stared right at Marilee (who was pretending to tie her shoelaces) and smiled. It was a rather nasty smile. “You’re following me,” he said, with what sounded like an Irish accent.

  This had never happened to Marilee before — nobody had ever caught her at her game before. After the first shock, she realized that there was no sense in denying that she actually had been following him, so after a moment she simply shrugged and smiled back.

  “Yes,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry about that. I sometimes follow people; it’s sort of a hobby. I don’t mean anything by it.”

  She pulled a small box out of her pocket and offered it to him. “Want a mint?”

  The young man stared for a moment at the box, then took it, pulled out a candy, put it in his mouth and threw the box aside. A little annoyed — Marilee hated littering — she bent, picked up the box (leaving the candy that had spilled out onto the sidewalk for the seagulls), and put it back in her pocket. She’d throw it out later.

  The young man swallowed the mint and smiled at her again. He had perfect teeth. “May I ask you something?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Marilee said.

  “Why do you suppose I’d want to have anything to do with you?” he said in a conversational tone. “You’re fat and ugly.”

  Then he stood up and calmly turned into the less developed, wilder part of the Refuge that was on their side of Cross Bay Boulevard. Marilee knew it well: narrow paths led into areas replete with marshes, vines, birds, mosquitoes and ticks. The young man paused at the entrance, pulled off his sandals, and continued barefoot onto the trail.

  Marilee stared after him, almost too astounded to be angry. She had, of course, experienced her share of rudeness from men (and women) who felt that somehow her size meant she was stupid as well. She had been ignored at singles parties, rejected by job interviewers, and sneered at by lounging teenagers. But she hadn’t experienced anything this blatant since childhood.

  Obviously, the kid was a 100 percent, unadulterated S.O.B. She should, she thought, just let him alone. After all, it wasn’t as if he was leading her to a new and interesting area — she had grown up around here. Besides, if he turned out to be something more dangerous than a rude young man, did she really want to confront him alone within the Refuge?

  And she wasn’t exactly dressed for hiking. She was wearing her usual work clothes: comfortable shoes, a nice pair of slacks, a blouse and a long, loose sweater. She didn’t have any kind of insect spray (and she loathed insects) and she knew the paths would be unpleasant and muddy, because it had rained the day before. She should, she told herself, simply turn around and go home.

  But she couldn’t just leave it there. She felt a little like that child on the subway must have; fascinated by the young man and reluctant to let him out of her sight. Also, she was intensely curious about what he was up to, marching into the Refuge barefoot. Was he some kind of weird religious cultist? A kid who had some strange ideas about bonding with nature? Or was he simply an over-confident S.O.B.?

  What the hell, Marilee thought. At the very least, she’d have a great story to tell over drinks. She went over to the curb, sat, and tucked her pants carefully into her socks; it looked geeky as hell, but better to look awful than give the local ticks something new to suck on. She stood, slung her pocketbook diagonally across her chest to keep her hands free, and headed in.

  Almost immediately, it felt as though she were walking in the depths of a forest rather than right off a major NYC thoroughfare. She could still hear cars occasionally go by, but around her there were trees, bushes, vines and (ugh!) insects. Mosquitoes and gnats buzzed in her ears; she wished that she knew whether or not those shiny leaves that brushed against her legs were poison ivy or oak or whatever. One of these days, she thought, she’d have to do a bit of research on plants.

  After about ten minutes, sh
e stopped where the path forked. The right path, she knew, led to a sheltered part of the bay where cormorants, swans and seagulls regularly gathered; it was pleasant enough, but nothing special. The left fork ended at a bird blind that overlooked a small pond crowded with tree limbs, bushes, lily pads and an occasionally occupied owl box.

  Marilee stopped and listened carefully. She was far enough from the road that she could no longer hear cars — in fact, except for a few birds and insects, and a plane that was ascending from JFK International Airport about 10 miles away, she couldn’t hear anything. Including any other people — her quarry had either stopped, or was an exceptionally quiet walker.

  She flipped a mental coin and decided to take the left fork.

  The blind was a half mile down the path. It was a simple three-sided structure made out of rough wooden planks. The wall opposite the open side had several large, platter-sized holes cut into it so that you could look through at the pond beyond without frightening the birds and other creatures that might be there.

  Marilee walked up to and into the blind; it was completely empty. She had lost her quarry, she thought ruefully. So it wouldn’t be a story with an interesting ending after all, but just about a rude kid who managed to lose her in the underbrush of the Refuge. Sighing, Marilee looked through one of the holes.

  The tiny pond was shimmering in the last rays of the afternoon sun. Its surface was nearly covered with large flat lily pads and wisps of floating algae; around its edges, trees bent inward as if providing cover for the pool.

  At first, there didn’t seem to be any life there aside from the algae and small insects that buzzed about the water’s surface. But then there was a slight movement. Marilee squinted a bit, refocusing her eyes, and there it was, seated comfortably on one very large branch overhanging the pond: a large, long-legged, dark bird with shining, suspicious eyes and a long, wispy breeding plume that streamed down the back of its head. An egret.