

Five Stories for the Dark Months

Katherine Traylor

Smashwords Edition

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Copyright 2013 Katherine Traylor

Cover image is "Window," by Lucrecia Beatrice

"Under Glass," "Warmth in Winter," and "Over the River" can also be read online at the author's blog,  Among the Goblins. "Sans Merci" and "Boon" have never been published before in any format.

 Visit the author's Smashwords page!

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient, or refer them to the free stories at  the author's homepage. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to  Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Table of Contents

1. Under Glass: A girl discovers the danger of being rude to a mirror.

2. Warmth in Winter: A young border guard and a foreign spy must avoid pursuit while traveling through a forest full of hungry ghosts.

3. Sans Merci: During a stolen coffee break, a young father meets a beautiful stranger who is much more than she seems.

4. Over the River: A young woman wanders to the riverbank on Halloween and is invited to a strange party.

5. Boon: A very dark Thumbelina retelling, inspired by zombies and Norse mythology.

6. About the Author

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Under Glass

October 2011

Table of Contents

"But you said I could go!"

"I said you could go if you kept your grades up, young lady, and I told you what would happen if you didn't."

"But Aunt Laurie—"

Adie's mother folded the report card and set it down on the pristine kitchen counter. She clearly would rather have thrown it on the floor. "I will call Aunt Laurie myself and tell her why you're not coming," she said. "Or you can explain to her why shopping with your friends was so much more important to you than your visit next month."

"That's not—"

"Don't you raise your voice to me, young lady, or you'll regret it." Her mother pointed out the door. "Now go upstairs and do your homework. Dinner's in an hour."

Adie glared. "I'm not hungry." Her stomach rumbled as she spoke. The air was heavy with the aromas of baking bread and homemade tomato sauce, and she hadn't eaten anything since lunch. But some things were more important than her mother's spaghetti, and New York was one of them.

Adie's mother looked heavenward, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "All right. Then go upstairs and go to bed. I don't want to see you until morning." With that she turned back to the cutting board and began dicing celery with harsh, uneven strokes. Adie knew that the conversation was over.

She grabbed her backpack and stormed from the kitchen, down the hallway and up the towering stairs. She made sure to stomp hard on each beige-carpeted step. All right, she would go to bed—and then she'd get up early tomorrow, eat breakfast and leave the house before either of her parents woke up. Right now she wasn't sure if she wanted to see them ever again.

The trip to New York was a long-delayed birthday present from her Aunt Laurie, who had been one of Adie's dearest companions until she'd moved away last fall. The thought of calling to tell her aunt that the trip was off was enough to make her gut clench. Tears blurred her vision as she opened her bedroom door. She threw her backpack on the floor, then went back down the potpourri-scented hallway to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She would go to bed. Right now she'd rather be dead than face the knowledge that her own stupidity had lost her New York.

In the bathroom, Adie squeezed a healthy glob of toothpaste onto her toothbrush and shoved it into her mouth. She winced as it rammed the backs of her gums and bruised the inside of her cheek. As she brushed (tops... bottoms... insides... outsides... twice all over...) she watched the reflection of her face in the mirror.

The girl in the mirror was an unfashionable sixteen. She had frizzy hair and an awkward nose, and her shirt was stained from a spill at lunch.. Her cheeks were wet with tears; her eyes were red and swollen. This was the kind of face you had when you were hopeless. When you weren't going anywhere. When you would spend Christmas break alone with your own stupid parents... and when, worst of all, you weren't going to New York because you had been stupid.

She spat her toothpaste into the sink, then spat again to clear the dregs from her mouth. Now the girl in the mirror had little dribbles of toothpaste foam all over her lips and chin. Her nose had begun to run,too. She looked ridiculous.

Adie wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the girl in abject misery. So. Stupid. Why had she ever even thought that she would make it to New York? She was probably doomed to stay here forever and rot, like an unharvested pumpkin in the world's worst field.

A little more toothpaste ran down the chin of the girl in the mirror. Despite her foolish appearance, there was a glint in her eyes that Adie didn't much like. The girl looked mocking. Mean, even. Adie could understand why people wouldn't want to be around a girl like that. She wouldn't want to be around herself, either. She just made everyone angry. It was probably for the best that she wasn't going—Aunt Laurie would probably have regretted inviting her even if she had gone.

She glared at the girl, and the girl glared back. "Fuck you," Adie whispered. She wiped the toothpaste from her mouth with an angry fist.

The girl in the mirror watched dumbly, as if she hadn't understood what she'd said.

On a whim, Adie licked her fingertip and wrote—in big, neat block letters—on the surface of the mirror: FUCK YOU.

Then, to make it even clearer, she wrote it backwards.

When she looked back down at her reflection, her stomach dropped: The girl was not looking at her.

She was looking, instead, at the message Adie had written, and her lips were moving as she read the words. When she finished, her eyes went wide. Slowly, she looked back down at Adie.

It was not a nice look.

More than an hour later, as Adie lay trembling in bed with the blankets over her head, someone came into her room. She thought that it was probably her mother, because she could smell her mother's neat floral perfume over the faint tang of her own unwashed laundry. Well-pressed chinos swished efficiently to the center of the room, then stopped.

The person who was probably her mother stood quietly for a very long time. Adie lay in the warm darkness beneath her blankets and wished that she could be sure.

"Still mad?" her mother said finally. The sound of her voice was blessedly familiar.

Adie shrugged. She hadn't actually thought that much about the argument since she'd seen what must have been a hallucination in the bathroom mirror. She still shuddered just thinking of the malice in her reflection's eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" her mother continued in her calm, reasonable way.

Adie snorted. Tell her mother she was hallucinating? Sure, that would smooth things over.

Her mother sighed. It was a soft, gusty sigh, quite restrained: the sigh of someone who has too many troubles to welcome another one. It also had that extra little trill of exasperation that had always been applied exclusively to Adie. This, more than anything, convinced her that it was safe to come out.

She pulled the covers from her face and sat up. The air was a cool shock against her skin after more than an hour between the blankets. Her mother, who had already started to leave, stopped in midstride. She looked surprised, and no wonder: Adie rarely left a sulk until at least a day after she'd started it.

"I'm still mad," she said quickly, lest her mother wrongly assume that all was forgiven. "But... I'll come downstairs."

"All right," said her mother, looking bemused. "Go wash your hands and come set the table."

Adie approached the bathroom as if it were a dragon's cave. Her heart was pounding. The bathroom light was out, and since the room had no windows it was as dark as a real cave would have been. She snaked her arm around the doorframe and felt for the switch. For one harrowing second she was sure that something was going to bite her hand off—but then she found the switch, and light flooded the bathroom.

There was something wrong with the mirror. At first she couldn't make sense of what she saw. It was a strange crosshatching over the surface of the glass, so thick in places that it almost looked frosted. It covered the whole surface of the mirror, from top to bottom and left to right.

After a moment, Adie realized that the marks were scratches, gouged into the surface of the glass as if with a screw or a nail. They grew larger and wilder the further down they went, until at the bottom they became a nest of angry gouges that took up half the mirror.

She reached out automatically to touch the glass. The scratches were quite deep, almost rough to the touch. It would have taken someone a lot of work—and a lot of anger—to produce them so quickly. Gradually, her mind found patterns in the chaos—and then it all clicked into place. From top to bottom, side to side, the scratches spelled out the same two words over and over again, until they culminated in a ragged scrawl across the bottom:

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Something moved behind the glass, drawing Adie's eyes to her reflection. The girl behind the mirror was almost hidden behind the destruction she had wrought, but it was clear that she was pleased with herself. She smirked at Adie and mouthed two words. Though Adie couldn't hear them, she understood them quite clearly.

"I just don't see how you did it," her mother said the next Saturday. "You were only up there for an hour—some of those scratches were a quarter of an inch deep!" She was leaning against the kitchen counter, overseeing Adie's punishment breakfast of cold cereal and milk. For Adie's parents there were pancakes and coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. The smells in the kitchen were an exquisite torture to Adie, who usually looked forward to Saturday breakfast all week.

She watched wistfully as her mother sliced fresh cantaloupe and poured real maple syrup into a jug for the table. "I didn't do it," she muttered for the thousandth time.

"Then who did, Adie?" her mother snapped. She had clearly lost patience with Adie's protestations of innocence. "Only you and I were in the house, and I promise you that I didn't carve 'Fuck you' all over your mirror. Are you suggesting that some criminal broke in and did it?" She looked as if she wanted to throw something.

Adie rather wanted to throw something, too. She shrugged, looking down at her plate. What could she say?

The new mirror for her bathroom was delivered within a week of the old one's demise. Under her mother's direction, Adie had cleaned and polished the room to a sparkling sheen, and the air was heavy with the remnants of chemical vapors. The mirror itself was larger and more elaborate than the other one had been. It had a beveled edge where the other had been plain, and a border of frosted-glass roses that Adie longed to run her fingertips over. She stole glances at the glass as her father installed it, and watched as her mother polished it to brilliant clarity. There was nothing unusual in their reflections. She began to hope.

After dinner that night, she crept towards the bathroom with butterflies in her stomach. Once again she reached through the doorway first to turn on the light. New mirror or not, there was no way she would ever set foot in that room again without the light. Across the flawless counter, she laid out her supplies: toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, mouthwash. Then she looked up.

For one long, still moment, she stared at her reflection, and the reflection stared back at her. Neither of them moved. Around them, the house was quiet. Downstairs she could hear the news, and over it her parents' quiet voices. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

Adie slowly let out the breath that she must have been holding for ages. In the mirror, the other girl let out a breath, too. The two of them smiled at each other and reached for their toothbrushes.

But as Adie squeezed toothpaste onto her brush, her reflection's smile continued to grow. In a moment it had become a savage grin, baring sharp white teeth much larger than her own.

She shrieked and leaped backwards, hitting the wall hard. A towel rack jabbed her painfully in the back. The thing in the mirror let out a shriek, as well, and then began to laugh. Adie could only just hear it over the thunder of footsteps on the stairs: her parents, coming to see what was happening. She wanted to tell them to hurry, please, help her—but the thing in the mirror had wrapped its fist around its toothbrush and was advancing towards the glass. Adie threw her arms across her face just as the mirror shattered.

When her parents reached the bathroom door, they found her crouched amid a sea of broken glass, hiding her eyes and weeping hysterically. Of the thing in the mirror there was now no sign, only a little flicker in one of the shards of glass, which might have been a trick of the light.

This time the mirror was not replaced. Instead, her parents began to talk about "finding special care" and "seeing a therapist" when they thought that Adie couldn't hear them. She barely heard them, anyway. She had discovered, to her horror, that reflections were everywhere. She caught glimpses of herself in windows, pot lids, the blades of table knives. Though she kept her eyes lowered as much as possible, she kept seeing twitches where nothing was moving, flashes of teeth out of the corners of her eyes.

One night, on her way to bed, she paused in her bedroom doorway. Across from the door, next to the closet, there was a full-length mirror that her mother had bought for her at a flea market years before. It was very pretty, with a carved wooden frame the color of oxidized copper. Adie had always loved it, but since her first encounter with the thing in the mirror she had left it carefully covered. Now the sheet that she'd covered it with lay pooled on the floor, and the mirror stared back at her unguarded.

Her reflection gave her pause, for she looked almost at death's door. She had grown pale and drawn from many nights without much sleep, and the skin under her eyes was so dark it looked almost blue. Her hair was an unkempt mess, and her clothes were slightly out of place: she never checked her appearance anymore if she could avoid it. It was no wonder her parents had taken to whispering about her when they thought she wasn't listening. The changes in her appearance would have startled anyone.

Just as she remembered that she should probably look away, the girl behind the mirror took a step forward.

Adie was out the door and halfway down the hall before she'd really registered what had happened. She had just enough presence of mind to tiptoe back and yank the door shut behind her. She thought she felt something tug against it when it was nearly shut, and had to hold back a scream as she wrestled it into place. When it was finally closed, she grabbed a few blankets from the linen closet down the hall, minced back across her doorstep, and pounded down the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her.

Her parents were in the kitchen, talking in hushed voices again. They fell silent when they heard her go into the living room. "What are you doing, Adie?" her mother called, in that sweet, careful voice she'd taken to using lately.

Adie spread one blanket across the old tweed couch cushions. "I'm sleeping down here tonight." She had given up explaining herself, since they never believed her explanations anyway.

There was a flurry of whispers. "Um... okay, honey," her father said. She heard him close his newspaper. "Good night."

She stacked most of the throw pillows at one end of the couch, then spread the other blankets on top of them. As she slid between the covers of her makeshift bed, she heard chairs scrape in the kitchen. A moment later, the kitchen light went out, leaving the downstairs infinitely vast and dark. "Good night, sweetie," her mother called.

"Night, Mom. Night, Dad."

In the darkness, her hearing grew sharper. She listened to her parents footsteps as they climbed the stairs and started down the hallway. They were still whispering, as if they thought she didn't know what they were talking about. One of them stepped on the creaking board outside Adie's bathroom. There was a soft click—someone turning off the hallway light—and the darkness deepened. A moment later, Adie heard her parents' door squeak open and shut.

Now the living room became an alien wasteland, alive with strange black shadows that seemed to move whenever she tried to look at them. Shivering, she pulled a blanket all the way over her head. Like everything in the linen closet, it smelled vaguely of mothballs, although her family had never used them.

She tried to reassure herself that she was safe. For one thing, her parents were probably still awake. They always sat up talking and reading for a while after they'd changed into their pajamas. In her mind she saw the clean white light of their reading lamps, heard the placid murmur of their voices. It made her feel a little better to know that they'd hear if anything strange started to happen.

Then she remembered the menacing stare of the thing behind the mirror. It had traveled from the bathroom to her room so easily. What was to stop it from traveling to her parents' room, as well? Her reassurance twisted into anguish in her gut, but she did not dare climb up the stairs to warn them.

The house grew very quiet, and into the silence there came a dream. Adie was walking. She had in her arms a long, thin parcel: the mirror from her room, safely covered once again.

Something was pounding against the glass beneath the sheet. Adie knew that if she didn't lock the mirror away, the thing inside it would get out. Then it would get her, and maybe after it killed her it would take on her face and kill her parents, too. Her bedroom closet was the nearest safe place to put it.

As Adie tried to shoulder open the sliding door, fingers rose from beneath the sheet. They clawed at her arms, leaving welts that stung like cat scratches. She forced back a scream as she wrestled the mirror into the closet. "You are nothing," hissed a voice from beneath the glass. "You are food." Sharp teeth bit into her neck just as Adie hurled the mirror into the corner. She heard the glass crack, and saw the sheet start to fall. Leaping backwards, she dragged the door shut.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then something began to scrabble against the door.

Adie screamed herself awake. For a moment she lay paralyzed in the darkness, soaked in sweat. The stifling air was full of harsh, desperate breathing, as if an animal's lungs had been ripped from its body and left to die on their own.

Gradually the breathing slowed, and Adie realized it was her own. The last black shreds of the nightmare fell away. She remembered that she was still curled up in the darkness beneath a nubbly, scratchy old blanket that smelled vaguely of mothballs, on a couch that under ordinary circumstances she'd have gotten in trouble for sleeping on. This was the living room, not her bedroom at all, and the mirror she'd dreamed about was nowhere nearby.

Her mouth was as dry as if it had been wiped out with cotton balls. Adie swallowed, but couldn't get rid of the sour taste that lingered in the corners. She took one last, deep breath and pulled the blanket off her face.

Cool air rushed over her skin, drying her sweat and giving her goosebumps. She peered into the dark, trying to assure herself that nothing was amiss. The night was dark and still, and the neighborhood was silent. Even the crickets had stopped chirping. It had to be late—maybe three or four in the morning. Adie turned over uneasily. She meant to go back to sleep, but quickly discovered that she desperately had to pee.

She thought, for a split second, of waiting until morning. The house was vast and black and frightening, but in her nest of blankets she felt relatively safe. The pressure on her bladder, however, became too powerful to ignore, so at last she relinquished her safety and staggered to her feet. Clumsy with sleep, she toddled toward the bathroom. The hardwood floors were chilly, and she wished that she'd thought to bring socks. In the kitchen she heard the hum and groan of the refrigerator, and was startled by the the rattle of ice falling into the dispenser.

It wasn't until she had almost reached the bathroom that she remembered: Her own bathroom had no mirror anymore, but this one certainly did.

Frost crept up Adie's spine as she stared through the pitch-dark doorway. She almost retreated right then and there, but she knew that she'd never be able to make it until morning. A brief notion of going back upstairs was quashed by the memory of her nightmare, and of what she'd seen in her room. Downstairs it was.

Anyway, if the thing was in her bedroom now, then maybe it hadn't come downstairs yet.

Somewhat cheered by this thought, Adie reached through the doorway and turned on the bathroom light. Its cheerful yellow glow spilled into the hallway, shrinking and clarifying everything it touched. Now Adie could see that the bathroom was, in fact, just a bathroom. There was the striped wallpaper that her parents had picked out together. There were the gleaming brass fixtures her mother polished with frightening regularity, and the white tile floor that her father had laid one sweaty afternoon when Adie was nine. An unlit purple candle among the hand towels filled the room with the scent of lavender and roses.

Just to be on the safe side, Adie kept her eyes lowered and stepped quickly past the mirror. Nothing flickered in the corners of her vision, and nothing hissed or muttered when she raised the toilet lid and sat down on the icy seat. She concluded her business without incident and got up to wash her hands.

Morbid curiosity compelled her to look up this time. She raised her eyes fearfully to look at her reflection—but there seemed to be nothing to fear. She saw only herself—the same old Adie, frizzy hair and awkward nose and all. When she smiled, her own shy smile came back to her. She lifted her arms, and her reflection's arms went up, as well. She even did a little dance, and the mirror mirrored it without a trace of mockery.

The thing must somehow have been confined to the upstairs—or maybe she'd even defeated it when she'd trapped it in her dream. Tomorrow she would ask her dad to take the mirror out of her room. Maybe a priest could even come and bless the house. She'd ask her mother about it.

Happy that the end was in sight, Adie grinned at her reflection.

Her reflection grinned back, and turned off the light.

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Warmth in Winter

January 2012

Table of Contents

Jenna was glad they'd taken Peter's body back to town to bury. Eerie as the silence was, the moaning of his ghost would have been much worse. Even so, she wasn't sure how much more of this cabin and this winter she could stand.

She picked up her mother's letter again. I don't suppose you'll have a proper burning tree this year, it read, but maybe you can put this ornament on your fire.

The little straw star was neatly made, with all the ends tucked in, and hung from a scarlet ribbon. The woven pattern was unique to her village, but even without it she would have known the star was from Goldenfield: they made the best solstice ornaments in the country.

She glanced at the fat black stove in the corner. It kept the watch-cabin warm enough, but it wasn't nearly as comforting as a real fireplace, and no substitute at all for a burning tree. She imagined opening the oven door, putting the little star among the coals, watching it burn there. It wouldn't do at all.

She had just decided to hang the ornament above the front door, instead, when a loud knock broke the silence. Her heart jerked in her chest. She sat frozen, wondering if she'd imagined the sound.

The knock came again. "Grant!" shouted a muffled voice. "Peter Grant! You open this door right now!"

It was dark outside. Any traveler with sense was off the road—not that there ever were travelers up here, besides the monthly deliveries of supplies from town. And who could have urgent business with old Peter, who'd been dead now for over a month?

The pounding came again, louder this time. Jenna stood. There was no point pretending that she wasn't there—the porch lantern was lit, and the windows were bright—but she tiptoed to the door and slid the cold brass cover off the peephole.

The person on the porch was tall and thin, hunched in the lantern's light. He wore a drab wool coat and a threadbare scarf. The lantern's light cast a shadow from his deep-brimmed messenger cap, so she couldn't see his eyes, but from his bearing she thought he was young.

He didn't look too dangerous. Maybe he was a messenger from town—he knew Peter's name. Although it was strange he wouldn't know that Peter was dead. She opened the door a crack, letting in a gust of freezing air. "Hello?"

He looked up. His eyes were a startling blue. He was not a man at all, but a girl, Jenna's age or a little older.

"Where is Grant?" the girl said.

There was something very strange about her accent. Jenna blocked the doorway with her body. "He died last month," she said. "I'm his replacement."

"No." The stranger gasped. "How could he die?"

"Uh... he was old, I guess. He didn't tell anyone he was sick, so we didn't know to check on him. We only knew he'd died when he didn't make his report last month."

"And you are... his replacement?" The stranger looked unconvinced.

Jenna nodded. She was still trying to place the accent. It seemed familiar, like she'd heard it before, on the radio or—

No.

She stepped back, and tried to slam the door. The stranger caught it easily and slipped inside. Cursing, Jenna ran for the old rifle on its hook across the room. It didn't work, but the Northerner wouldn't know that.

It didn't matter: the girl caught her easily, and pinned her arms to her sides. "Hold still. Look, I won't hurt you. I only need to use your telephone."

"Like hell!" said Jenna. She stomped on the other girl's feet, but her slippers did little damage against the Northerner's snow-slick leather boots.

"My name is Arica Whitethorn. I worked with Peter Grant when he was alive. I'm on your side." She let Jenna go so suddenly she stumbled. "See, I'm not holding you any more. I'm not doing anything. I'm only here to pass on a message."

Jenna took a deep breath, trying to calm her staggering heart. "You're a... a spy?"

"Something like that."

"Prove it."

The Northerner—Arica—scratched her head. "Well, look, did you ever find old Peter's will?"

"His will? I have no idea."

"Look over there, in that trunk by the window. Open the lid."

Jenna crossed the room, keeping one eye on the stranger. She opened the trunk, which she'd inspected already: it was lined with cedar, full of old wool blankets. "It's not in here," she said. "I've looked in here before."

"No, inside the lid. There's a false top. Push by that knot and—there, that's it."

Jenna had to catch the lining of the lid as it all fell loose at once. Above it, tacked into the outer shell of the trunk's lid, was a flat packet of yellowing papers.

"He didn't have much family," said Arica, as Jenna pried the tacks loose. "He didn't like to leave his will in town, so he kept it here. He showed it to me one day, when we were snowed in by a storm."

Jenna flipped through the papers. She didn't know much about wills, but it appeared legitimate: a long list of small bequests, mostly minor sums of money, with a letter to Grant's lawyer at the end. "All right," she said slowly. "I'm willing to believe you probably knew Peter. But that doesn't prove anything."

"I don't want to prove anything," Arica said. "Not to you, anyway. I just want to use your phone."

Jenna snorted. "Right. Then after that I guess I'll escort you to Greenwater and introduce you to the Prime Minister."

"It may come to that, if you don't help me now! If Peter's really dead, then I need to get in touch with our next-in-line as soon as I can." She gave Jenna a speculative look. "I don't suppose he clued you in? Gave you the code words?"

"I didn't even know him, really," said Jenna. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"Drat and damn. I guess... look, there's a plan, all right."

"A plan. What sort of plan?"

"To bring down the junta."

"You're... you're working against your own government?" Jenna said. "Why?"

"Because they're destroying us! They've taken away almost everything good we ever had. We're starving—there's no food, and your allies all have us embargoed. We have no jobs, and we can't even go to school—only the elite are allowed into the universities. For the sake of all that's good, we don't even have witches anymore!"

"How... how many are... in your group?" said Jenna. "I mean, how many... spies... are working with you?"

"There's a chain that runs from here to your Prime Minister—and then to all your allies, as I understand it." Arica was pacing. "They're waiting for information I have about our national defense system—in return, they're supposed to make the takeover as bloodless as possible, so we can have freedom without too much blood. The information is time-sensitive—the generals know we have it, and the're already working to change the system. I have to get to the next agent in line before the soldiers catch up with me."

"Soldiers." Jenna felt faint. "How'd you get through the border, anyway?"

"We have friends among the border guards."

"But the soldiers don't."

"No."

Jenna gritted her teeth, thinking of her brother Pauli at his border station five miles to the north. She hoped that wasn't the way the girl had come. "Well, I can't just let you use the phone," she said. "It's only connected with Goldenfield and the capital, and only certain people are allowed to answer it. If you call, they'll want to know who you are, and then they'll send someone to check on us—"

"Then for god's sake, put it through yourself, and ask for—"

There was another knock at the door.

Arica froze.

The knock came again. "Hello?" called a man's voice. "Open the door, please!" His accent was the same as Arica's.

"They're here!" Arica hissed. Her eyes were wide. "I thought I'd have more time..."

"Hide." Jenna pointed to the bedroom doorway. "I'll try to throw them off." Arica looked skeptical, but obediently slipped from the room.

"Hello?" It was a woman's voice this time. "We wish you no harm. Please open the door!"

Jenna ignored the voices and ran to the telephone. She picked up the receiver—then stopped. The line was dead.

The knocking became a hard, rhythmic pounding, like someone was kicking the door with a steel-toed boot. Whoever it was, they clearly weren't planning to go away. Jenna crept to the door and slid the cover from the peephole again.

She saw only blackness. Had something blocked the hole? Even if the lantern had somehow gone out, something should have been visible by the moonlight.

"Do not move, friend." The man's voice was very close. "You are now looking down the barrel of my pistol. If I hear the slightest sound from you, I will shoot. You will then lose your eye and anything behind it. Do you understand me? Say 'yes,' please"

"Y-yes," said Jenna.

"Now," the man said, "I want you to lift the latch. Do nothing else, because I will hear it if you do. If you do not unlock the door, then I will shoot you and break it down anyway. If you do as I say, however, then I will not harm you at all. Do you understand now? Please say 'yes' again."

"Yes." Jenna could see no choice. Very slowly, she slid the bolt open.

The door flew inward, knocking her off her feet. She found herself lying on her back, staring up into the barrel of a rifle.

The woman holding the rifle wore a long wool greatcoat and a thick fur cap. Her stance was entirely military. "Do not move, friend," she said, "or I will shoot you in the head." Jenna believed her.

The male soldier crept toward the dark bedroom doorway. He held a cocked pistol in his hand. Jenna wanted to shout, warn the spy somehow, but the staring barrel of the rifle kept her silent. She lay still, miserable, barely daring to breathe.

The man stepped through the doorway. A moment passed in silence. Suddenly there was a shout, a shot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Tears welled in Jenna's eyes. The spy was dead, and now the soldiers would probably shoot Jenna, too.

The woman's mouth had slid into a nasty smirk. She called something out in a dialect that Jenna had never heard before.

No answer came.

The woman frowned, and started to turn, her mouth open to call again.

There was a second shot. Something very strange happened to the woman's head. A moment later, she slumped to the floor, and did not move again.

Then Arica walked out of the bedroom, sliding a pistol into the pocket of her coat. She gave Jenna a bemused smile. "Are you all right?"

"Uh." Jenna sat up, keeping her eyes carefully away from the dead woman beside her. "I... I think so. The... were these the soldiers you were talking about?"

"Some of them." Arica hurried to the phone. "We have to call now—soon there will be others."

"The line's dead," Jenna said. "Ice on the wires, or maybe they cut it. We can't call anyone."

The spy cursed. At least, Jenna assumed it was a curse: she hadn't heard the word before. "I have to go straight to the capital," she said.

"To Greenwater? But it's twenty miles!"

"There's no choice! This won't wait." Arica returned to the bedroom. She emerged a moment later, dragging the dead man's body behind her. Though the corpse was much bigger than she was, its weight seemed to give her no trouble at all.

Then the spy began to strip the dead man's heavy coat from his body. "What are you doing?" Jenna said, shocked.

Arica looked surprised. "It's a very warm coat. Much better than mine."

"But his ghost will walk!" Jenna became sharply aware that she'd never been in the presence of so much fresh death before. She hoped that both ghosts would remember that she hadn't been the one to kill them.

"I think we have more important things to worry about." Arica finished stripping off the coat and let the body fall to the floor. The head struck the floorboards with a heavy thump. "Peter was always talking about ghosts, too..."

"You should have listened. I don't know what the dead are like on your side of the border, but they're a serious threat down here. Did Peter tell you about Damned Alina?"

"Damned who?"

"She was the last of our great witches. When you—your people, I mean—invaded, twenty-five years ago, she knew we didn't stand a chance—we were completely overwhelmed. After the fifteenth or sixteenth massacre, she decided to do something about it. It was supposed to have been the greatest spell she ever did—and it would have been, if it worked."

"What happened?" said Arica, looking interested in spite of herself

"Well, the numbers were really against us. By the end of the war we had almost no soldiers left—but we had lots and lots of corpses." She glanced at the two bodies on the floor. It seemed like a rather bad idea to tell this story here, but she crossed her fingers and continued. "So Alina, who thought herself quite clever, decided she'd make an asset out of a liability."

Arica blinked. Then she gasped. "No—she didn't!"

"Oh, yes, she did. Her idea was that since we were all about to die anyway, we didn't really have that much to lose. An army of the Reawakened could have turned things in our favor, you know?"

"But that's abominable! Reawakening is a crime against nature. That woman should have been burned at the stake!"

"Maybe in your country," Jenna said. "I heard the junta killed all your witches."

"That's... that's true." The Northerner's voice had gone oddly quiet. "Well. Go on, then. What happened?"

"Well," said Jenna, "of course Alina didn't have enough power of her own to Reawaken every dead soldier in the country, even as powerful as she was—not nearly. So, deciding that it would be worth it in the end, she put up everyone else's power, too. She poured all the magic in the country into that spell. It's why we don't have witches anymore," she added, rather bitterly. "And then, to top it all off, she cast the damned spell wrong."

"Wrong, how?" Arica sounded fascinated now.

"I think her exact words were something like, 'Let all the glorious fallen rise and fight their living enemies, and drag them down into the grave.'" Jenna smiled grimly. "I guess it didn't occur to her that if you're dead, maybe you think all the living are your enemies. Fortunately, she also failed to specify just how the dead were supposed to rise. So instead of a ravening army of the Reawakened, we just have a massive horde of ghosts who won't lie peaceful." She paused. "You've really never heard all this?"

"No. Peter never went into detail—he was a solitary man, you know, and didn't talk much. And in my country... well, they don't really tell us anything useful. All we learn about the war is that your country was the aggressor—"

Jenna hissed. "They dare—"

"I know it's not true! Now, anyway. I didn't know before." She shook her head. "So... anyway, the spirits, they're just... wandering out there?"

"Mostly they stay in their graves," Jenna said. "We were lucky—at least our allies had witches left, and they were able to modify the spell after the dead all turned on Alina and killed her in the first hour. So now it's just when the living happen by that the ghosts all rise and follow—and they fade again when morning comes. If you can keep ahead of them that long, then you're generally okay."

"I'd heard this place was rotten with magic," said Arica, shaking her head, "but I never quite believed it. What happens to you if the ghosts... catch you?"

Jenna smiled darkly. "The nicer stories say they just get inside your head and trap you in a kind of daydream. They want to be remembered, see, so they show everything they did and were in life, from the moment of birth to the moment of death. You can't look away until you've seen it all—and by that time, of course, you're usually dead of starvation or exposure or something.."

Arica nodded. "And the... less-nice stories?"

"They rip out your eyes, climb in through the sockets, and eat you from the inside out."

Arica shivered. "May I never meet one." She looked down at the coat in her hands, and seemed to hesitate a moment. Then she shrugged. "Well, I guess I'll take my chances. Odds are I'm not going to live long enough for anything to haunt me, anyway." She said this almost cheerfully, as if it were a fact she'd had ample time to get used to. "Anyway, I swear I've never seen a ghost before. Maybe that witch's spell only works on you Southerners." With that, she shook out the coat—ignoring the bloodstains—and pulled it on over her own. "There's one for you, too," she said, nodding towards the other corpse.

Jenna turned. She saw now that there was a neat round hole near the center of the dead woman's forehead. A pool of scarlet blood had spread out behind the corpse's head, like a flat, ragged pillow. Some of it had spread beneath the body and was soaking through the good, thick wool of the coat. "Thanks," said Jenna, shuddering, "but I have my own."

"As good as that one?" Arica said.

"Of course not." Jenna's coat was an old, worn hand-me-down—Pauli had given it to her when he'd gotten his promotion and a new uniform. The country could barely keep its regular soldiers supplied, let alone the road-watchers who acted as secondary defenses. "It doesn't matter, though. We don't take from the dead."

"The dead," said Arica, "would have shot you, may I remind you, if I hadn't shot them first. Keep that in mind—and make up your mind quickly, because we need to get going."

Jenna started. "Going? We? Where?"

"Greenwater! The capital! I told you already. You've got to come, too, of course."

"But why?" Jenna's head was spinning.

"Once these two don't report back, somebody's going to come see what happened to them—and they're not going to like what they find. We've already stayed too long, so put on that damn coat—or don't, I don't care—and let's get going."

There seemed to be no time to argue. Jenna decided, given the events of the last few minutes, that she'd be best off trusting the stranger for the moment."All right," she said, "but we'd better go straight to Goldenfield instead. It's only half as far as the capital, and the phone lines might still be up." And if they're not, she thought grimly, at least I'll be among friends when the soldiers get there.

The dead woman's coat really was a good one: lined with squirrel fur, and clearly almost new. And it was very, very cold outside.

Nervous and ashamed, Jenna began to strip the coat from the body. The corpse seemed almost boneless, as if death had robbed it of all its solid parts. She fumbled with the buttons, and almost dropped the body several times, but at last she managed to retrieve the garment. She couldn't quite stand to put it right next to her skin, so she put her own coat on first and draped the stolen one over it.

There was no time to pack. She looked around the room, already mourning her possessions: her hard-won books, her clothes, her letters. She wasn't very much attached to the cabin itself, but she still felt guilty leaving it here to be ransacked by enemies. She prayed that some of her things would survive long enough for her to come back and get them.

There was no point in thinking about it now. Jenna damped the woodstove and buried the coals, hoping they'd go out without a problem. She took half a loaf of bread and a packet of dried fish from the cupboards, and filled two canteens with water. At the last minute she remembered to bring the matchbox. She hoped they wouldn't have to stop long enough to light a fire, but it was best to be safe.

She divided the provisions in half and gave one share to Arica, then looked around one last time. Her eye fell on the little straw star that still lay on the table. She picked it up, and her mother's letter, too—if she couldn't take anything else, then she could at least take those. Finally, she rolled up Peter Grant's will and stuck it in her pocket. That would have to do.

Arica was pacing at the door. "Are you finally ready?" she said.

"Do you have snowshoes?" said Jenna, ignoring the spy's impatience.

"In the bushes outside your house."

"Would you grab mine from that hook there?" Gloves, hat, scarf, and she was ready. "All right. Let's go."

The wind had died, and the night was silent. The air smelled heavily of pine and fir. Jenna took the lantern from beside the door, and the two girls set off southward down the road.

For a long time there was no sound but the even scuff of their snowshoes across the snow. Though the moon was full, trees crowded close to the road, laying it deep in shadow. It was hard to see anything beyond the lantern's light.

They had just taken the fork towards Goldenfield when the lantern began to flicker. Jenna moaned. "It's dying. I didn't even think to bring more fuel!"

"You have more fuel? Why on earth wouldn't you bring it?"

"You were pacing at the door!" Jenna felt more than a little defensive. "I had no time to think. Anyway, I thought there was more in the lantern."

The spy huffed. "What kind of soldier are you?"

"I'm not a soldier! I'm only a road-watcher. The guard stations are all north of here—you must have passed them on your way in." She thought of Pauli again, and tried to suppress the horrible thought that flashed through her mind. "I guess... I guess some of them are empty, now."

Arica gave her a sympathetic look. "We'll get to town as soon as possible. Once your people know about the... breach, they can send in reinforcements." Jenna nodded, miserable, and pressed on.

They were two miles from the cabin when they passed the first mass graves. "This was the Bluebell Battlefield," Jenna said.

Arica looked around. "What was?"

Jenna pointed at the great snow-banked berms that flanked the edges of the road. "Do you see those? They're grave mounds."

"What, all of them? Is this some kind of cemetery?"

"If you want to call it that." Jenna frowned. "You never heard of the Bluebell Battle? It was the first battle of the war!"

"I thought the first conflict was the skirmish at Gum Creek."

"Is that what you call it? A skirmish?" She found herself outraged on the part of her long-dead compatriots. "It was a slaughter! Your full first line of troops against a lot of half-armed villagers fighting desperately to protect their families... Call it a massacre if you want, but don't call it a damned skirmish."

"I—I'm sorry." Arica sounded genuinely startled. "I really don't know that much about it."

"It was a surprise attack," Jenna said. "There was no time to rally the troops, even if we'd had that many to rally. No one had any idea an invasion was coming—we'd always been on good terms with you."

"It was right after our royal family was murdered," said Arica. "We—that is, the citizens—thought at the time that Southern assassins had killed them all. The generals must have put it around to cement their power when they took over—and after that we were all too busy fighting the war to question the change in leadership."

Jenna nodded. It wasn't something she'd ever heard before, but she supposed it made sense if it was true. "Anyway, there was nothing we could do, and everyone knew it. But of course even the peasants wanted to do what they could, so they took whatever weapons they could find and came out to the road. Even a lot of the older children." She shook her head. "All of them died, of course.."

Arica was silent. "I don't know what you want me to say," she said after several seconds. "You want me to apologize? You know I'm no more responsible for what happened than you are."

Jenna shrugged. "Just... wanted you to know, I guess."

The mounds seemed to watch the travelers from beneath their heavy shrouds of snow. Shadows pooled oddly in the crevices between them, and lingered where the lantern's light should have driven them off. "Hurry," Jenna said, walking faster. "This isn't a good place to be at night."

But by then it was too late, of course.

The dead rose like mist from their graves: men, women and children, all stunted and gaunt, wearing the wounds they'd died from. Some of them were missing eyes, arms, heads. Others were naked, bruised and bleeding. They had died in springtime, when the bluebells blossomed, and what clothes they wore were ragged and thin, but they did not shiver. They floated forward, murmuring things in voices too soft to hear.

Arica had stopped short, wide-eyed. Though her mouth was open, no sound came out.

"Come on," Jenna said, taking her by the arm. "They probably can't get through the light, but I don't want to take the chance. It'll be better if we can put them a little ways behind us."

When they had finally left the grave mounds behind, they slowed down a little. Arica still shuddered. She kept looking over her shoulder to where the dead still followed them, slow and ceaseless.

"You've really never seen a ghost before?" said Jenna.

"I mean, I heard stories, but... they're only legends! Myths! If I'd believed in something like that, I'd never have be able to sleep at night!" She shuddered again. "I may never sleep again! How do you keep them from your houses?"

"Fire keeps them away. Uh... not fire, specifically, you know, but any bright light. That's why we keep lanterns at our doors." She looked up at the moon through the fog of her own breath. "And that's why moonless nights are the worst for traveling. If there had been a new moon tonight, you might not have gotten me out of that house, soldiers or not."

Arica was scanning the sides of the road, as if expecting to see more of the dead wandering between the trees. There might well have been more, but Jenna certainly wasn't going to mention it. One wanted a cool head on one's traveling companion.

They passed through three more cemeteries in the next hour. Each time, more spirits rose to join their ghastly retinue. The dead moved slowly, and the girls' pace wasn't too punishing, but stopping to rest was out of the question.

After a while, Arica pulled the half-loaf of bread from her pocket. "Shall we eat?"

"All right." Jenna took out the fish, split it in half, and handed one share to Arica, accepting her half the bread in return.

Arica raised her ration in sardonic salute. "Eat well."

Smiling, Jenna returned the gesture. "You know, tonight's the solstice. We should be having sun cakes and wine."

"You have sun cakes, too?"

Jenna nodded. "Filled with honey!"

"Really? We use blackcurrant jam."

Jenna wrinkled her nose. "That sounds awfully strange."

Arica was peering through the trees again. "What do you use for your burning tree?"

"Fir, usually. And you?"

"The same!" Arica seemed delighted by the similarity.

"I'm surprised you're allowed to have burning trees," Jenna said. "I heard your government is completely godless. No offense," she added.

"No, you're right. They don't generally approve. Sometimes they send out soldiers to harass the people who keep the old feasts. They don't mess much with our town, though. We're peasants, so it doesn't matter what we do."

Her tone was light, but there was real bitterness under it. Jenna remembered what little she had learned about Northern society. "I thought there weren't supposed to be any peasants in your country. Isn't everybody supposed to be equal?"

"Supposed to be, yes. That's the grand theory." Arica sneered. "Funny, isn't it, how things never quite work out the way you plan them to?"

"Yes," Jenna said softly. "Funny."

They were silent for a long time after that. Occasionally Jenna dared a glance back at their dead following. She kept her eyes low, hoping to avoid any ghostly gazes. The light was so dim that she saw almost nothing, but she never doubted that the whole procession was still behind them.

They were halfway through their ten-mile journey when the soldiers came.

At first the sounds were very faint, barely audible over the creaking of the branches: the distant jingle of harness, the puff of hooves through the snow. When Jenna finally made sense of what she was hearing, she froze, and pulled Arica to a stop. The girls listened, horrified, as the sounds grew unmistakable.

"They're coming," Arica whispered, her face a frightened mask. "We have to put out the lantern!"

"We can't! It's the only thing keeping the ghosts away!"

"Well, then what do you suggest?"

"Maybe..." A shout from behind cut into her thoughts: they had been spotted. The jingle of harness grew louder.

Jenna tried to focus. "If we go into the trees..." She peered into the black wall of woods beside the road. "You can't take horses through..."

"So? They'll dismount, and then they'll catch us."

"We have snowshoes..."

"I'm sure they do, too."

A thought struck. "Would they know about the ghosts?"

"I... wouldn't think so," Arica said.

The idea grew, sparks kindling flames in Jenna's mind. "If they were to chase us through the woods," she said, "they'd have to stop and put on their snowshoes."

There was a brief silence. "Yes," Arica said. "I imagine they would."

Jenna chanced a look back. Outside the circle of light, the ghosts swirled and wavered like mist. If one didn't know they were there, one might not see them at all. "Do you see a lantern back there?" she said.

"No." Arica's voice was strangely cheerful. "No, I don't believe I do."

They exchanged looks, then started walking again, much more slowly.

The wait was nerve-wracking, but necessary: they could give the soldiers no chance to realize their danger. Arica was as tense as a bowstring, clearly poised to run. Jenna felt both sick and excited.

At last, in a blur of snow-muffled hoofbeats, the riders tore around the bend. "Go!" Jenna shouted, and the girls plunged into the pitch-black woods.

The lantern swung wildly, sending crazed arcs of light around them as they wove between the trees. Behind them, Jenna heard the riders wheeling to a stop. She heard curses, then shouts, then the cocking of guns.

She knew the very second the soldiers saw the dead. The shouts abruptly ceased, giving way to frantic orders and then to a storm of gunfire. Suddenly hoofbeats rose and faded: panicked horses, leaving their riders behind.

At last, the gunfire gave way to clicks as chamber after chamber ran out of ammunition. Then came screams—then moans—then silence.

Jenna tried to peer back through the darkness towards the road. She could see nothing beyond the circle of feeble light. She supposed that was a blessing. "I almost feel sorry for them," she said. "If I didn't know they were coming to kill us..."

Arica didn't answer. Turning, Jenna saw that the Northerner was looking the other way, deeper into the woods. Her face was very still.

Jenna felt a chill. "What's wrong?" she said. "What do you see?"

Arica pointed.

At the very edge of the dwindling light stood a multitude of the risen dead. As Jenna watched, more filled in around the circle, until the girls were completely surrounded.

"No," Jenna groaned. How could there be so many?

"There must have been a battle here," Arica said softly. Her face was still blank.

"I don't know of one," Jenna said, but she knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. The war had been a bloody, chaotic time, and thousands of people had been reported missing and never found. "There might be another mass grave somewhere nearby," she said. "We might even be standing on it, for all we know."

They both looked uneasily at their feet.

The lantern flickered again. It seemed about to die.

"What are we going to do?" Arica whispered. The ghosts were pressing closer now, as if they knew that they had almost won. "Do you think we can make it to town?"

Jenna shook her head. "It's five miles, and we might not have five minutes." She thought longingly of Goldenfield—the neat rows of houses, the little grocery store, the wide town square where her mother had taught her to snowshoe. Everyone would be gathered there tonight, singing bright songs in the light and warmth of the—

Oh.

Oh.

"What?" Arica hissed, as Jenna's expression changed. "Did you think of something?" She looked desperate enough to go along with almost anything.

"Look for a dead tree," Jenna said urgently. "Dry as you can find."

"How would I know? They're all bare!" Arica said. Panic was edging into her voice.

"Look at the bark! If the bark is peeling... or if there's a fir with dead needles—"

"Oh!" Arica cried, and pointed triumphantly. "There—look!"

The tree was perfect: a broad, brittle brown fir, at least ten feet tall and tapered like a lady's gown. It wore most of its needles, and so couldn't have been dead for long, but Jenna thought it might be just dry enough. "Come on," she said, and carried the light forward through the whispering circle of ghosts. "If we can keep a fire going until dawn—it should be only a couple of hours—then they'll go back to their graves and we can go home."

"What if more soldiers come?"

"It won't matter either way if we're dead."

The light dwindled lower as the girls pushed their way through the ranged ranks of the dead. The ghosts seemed to realize that they were about to lose their prize, for they began to murmur and moan, reaching out with tatter-sleeved arms as if they could break through the light and seize the living. Jenna thought she could almost feel their icy fingers on her skin, even through her borrowed coat. It took every scrap of nerve she had left to make it to the fir tree.

"Quick," she said, "a song!" A manic energy was pulsing through her veins. "A burning song, the best one that you know!"

"A—!" Arica caught on, and started to laugh (only a little hysterically). "You've got to be joking!"

"I am entirely serious." Jenna pulled the little straw star from her pocket and hung it on one of the dry brown branches. The ornament was slightly bedraggled, and it looked rather sad all by itself among the needles, but it was as much as they had and much better than nothing. "Go on," she said, "sing! And you'd better still have those matches."

Now Arica was really laughing. "You are insane," she said—but she pulled out the matchbox and handed it to Jenna. "You know we don't really need a song."

"True," Jenna said, "but I want one. I think we deserve one after all this, don't you? And anyway, it's supposed to make the wood burn longer."

"But why do I have to sing?"

"I brought the ornament!" She made shooing motions with her hands, glancing at the circle of vengeful ghosts. "And you'd better hurry, before the lantern runs out and they all tear our eyes out. Go on!"

So, with a last nervous glance at the frustrated spirits, Arica began to sing a solstice hymn. Her voice was low and rough, hoarse from the cold and shouting and probably sickness—but the song she sang was beautiful. It rose and fell along an eerie scale that Jenna had never heard before, and the words were in the dialect the soldiers had used—Arica's home tongue, she realized with a start. Jenna couldn't make out much of the language, but even so the themes were clear: friendship, safety, home and family, light in darkness, warmth in winter. Feeling safer than she had any right to, and happier than she'd ever thought she would, Jenna smiled, struck a match, and lit the star on fire.

~}*{~

Sans Merci

June 2012

Table of Contents

Paul had found the café a year before, when he and Wendy had first moved into the new apartment. Well, "found" was probably an overstatement: the place was a little out of the way, but it was hardly hidden. It was tucked into the back streets behind their apartment complex, cool and quiet, and for some reason it was never crowded though the menu and décor were the latest in coffee-shop chic. Paul liked to duck in from time to time, on the rare occasions when he wasn't busy, and drink his coffee at a table beside the window, watching pedestrians pass outside and pretending he was ten years younger.

As the door chimes jingled behind him, Paul's pocket hummed. He grabbed reflexively for the phone, but then forced his hand back to his side: the text could wait a few more minutes. Wendy had probably just remembered something else they were out of—Cheerios, maybe.

As the line moved up, he surveyed the blackboards above the bar. The menus and their hand-drawn illustrations changed monthly, and most of the specials were things Paul had never heard of: the Pumpkin Bread Smoothie, the Snowberry Latte, the Honey Mocha Spritz. He almost decided to spring for a Golden Cappuccino, just so he could finally see what made it different, but as always the six-dollar price tag put him off. By buying coffee at all, he was stealing from shallow coffers—he should at least try to mitigate the damage. "I'll have a small latte," he said when he reached the register. "Please."

The barista was one Paul had seen many times before: a grim-faced kid with a shaved head, a chinstrap, and a barbell through his eyebrow. Though he had to have recognized Paul, he gave no sign of it, and simply said, "Skim or whole?"

"Skim." Paul had caught Wendy looking at his waistline the other day—she wasn't the only one who'd put on weight when they'd had the baby. Though she hadn't said anything, the look had stung for hours afterward.

The barista scribbled something on a cup. "Three dollars," he said, looking bored with the transaction already.

As Paul waited for his drink, his phone buzzed again. He took it out with a sigh. As he'd expected, the text was from Wendy.

Can you bring back diapers?

Yeah, sure. Anything else?

Another pink-bubbled message buzzed into place. I don't think so. PS Mom called. Dinner at 7.

OK. Paul's heart sank at the thought of another stifling meal in Mrs. Kraft's airless dining room. At least the food was usually good. I'll be back pretty soon.

The café was unusually busy this evening. Hip, wealthy-looking patrons sat in clusters around the low round tables, deep in private conversations. Most of them looked up with forbidding smiles when Paul glanced at them. When his drink was finally done, he grabbed it and hurried self-consciously to his usual seat by the window.

The table was occupied.

For a second Paul could only stare in shock at the dark-haired woman who sat reading by the light of his favorite lamp. It was too unfair—he got away so rarely! He only wanted ten minutes by the window, so he could sit and forget about his job, his family, his growing load of responsibilities. Was that so much to ask?

It was getting late, anyway. Maybe he should just take his cup and go—

The woman looked up, and Paul forgot to breathe.

Her beauty was of the strange, multifaceted kind that couldn't quite be pinned down. Objectively, her face was odd: wide-spaced black eyes with spiky black lashes, an upturned nose, a wide mouth, sharp jawbones curving to a pointed chin. Her dark, wavy hair, parted in the center, was otherwise so tousled it looked almost unkempt, and her face had a strange grayish cast beneath golden overtones. She should have been ugly, Paul thought dimly, but instead she was the most fascinating person he'd ever seen.

As he tried to think of some way to keep her looking at him—so he could keep looking at her—the woman spoke. "I'm sorry. Am I in your seat?" Her voice was low and gentle, with a hint of dulcet laughter.

"Um, no!" Paul felt as if he'd just stared into the sun. He blinked his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to un-dazzle them. "Uh, no... um, not really. I... just, I usually..."

"Say no more." The stranger's mouth twisted wryly, and she reached for her cup. It was one of the ceramic ones, blue-and-white floral with a silicone lid. Wendy had one like it in her office. "I was just going."

"No, no, please stay!" Paul said quickly. "I'll sit someplace else..."

"Well, here." The stranger reached across the table, took a quilted cloth bag from the second seat, and hung it from the back of her own. Like her clothes, it looked discreetly expensive. "Won't you join me?"

"Uh—I—" Paul stammered. He felt like he'd suddenly regressed to adolescence. "Um, I wouldn't want to interrupt..."

"That's all right. I always enjoy company." The woman put down her book—a thin, worn paperback with a geometric cover. What Paul could see of the title looked like French.

He sat down without another thought. "What are you reading?"

"The collected works of Alain Chartier." She leaned closer. "Have you read him?"

"Um... no, I—" have never heard of him. "I don't get to do a lot of reading these days." He set down his untasted coffee.

"No?" The woman blinked, startling Paul with the flicker of her lashes. "That's very sad. Why not?"

She had a slight accent—French, probably, given the book, but it didn't sound like French. Her looks were no help, either—she could have been from anywhere, or nowhere.

After a second, Paul realized that he hadn't answered her question. "Um, my wife and I just had a baby. Um, I mean she had the baby, but... uh..."

The woman laughed. "A new father? I'm surprised you have time to stop for coffee."

Paul flinched guiltily. "Um, I don't."

"Aha—so you're here incognito?" The woman leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile. "Don't worry: I'll tell no one."

"Ha. Thanks." He sipped his cooling drink.

"What are you drinking?"

"It's just a latte," said Paul, feeling inexplicably embarrassed.

His companion nodded, as if he'd said something profound. "How is it? I've never had one."

"Really?" He offered his cup. "You want to try some?"

The woman's laugh was like a flight of butterflies. It left a delightful chill in Paul's stomach. "Oh, I couldn't."

"You should! Here, it's good." He pried up the lid of his cup and handed it to her, feeling oddly eager to please.

Smiling, she accepted the drink and took a sip. Watching eagerly for her reaction, Paul was disappointed to see her face fall. "Well, it's... nice," she said.

Rarely had he felt like such a failure. "You don't like it."

"Well, it's... a little bland, isn't it?" The woman handed back his drink. "Kind of... thin."

He should never have gone for skim milk. Trying not to feel defensive, he said, "What are you drinking?"

She picked up her cup as if she'd forgotten about it. "Oh, this? It's not on the menu. It's a sort of... specialty drink—a custom order."

"What—you mean, like, half soy, half skim, triple-pump vanilla, hold the whipped cream, sprinkle pixie dust on top? That sort of thing?"

She smiled again, and Paul's heart started a two-step. "Maybe something like that."

"Well..." He cleared his throat. "Can I try it?"

He was embarrassed almost immediately. What had made him say that? "It's all right," he said quickly, "never mind. I—"

"Here." She held out the pretty cup, and Paul took it reflexively. The hot ceramic stung his palms as he sniffed the drink through the hole in the lid. It smelled wonderful: like milk, honey, almonds, cinnamon—and was that cardamom? "Wow," he said, and took a reverent sip.

The world tilted, and for a long moment Paul forgot where he was and what he was doing. Finally he blinked, and found himself looking at the world through a veil of golden fog. "Wow," he said hoarsely. His voice sounded tinny and distant. "What was that?"

The stranger stood, her long skirt crinkling. She smoothed her sweater and straightened her antique shawl. "I have to go," she said, shouldering her bag. "You may keep the drink, if you like."

"Wait!" He stood, almost knocking down his chair. "Where are you going?" The thought of her leaving was suddenly intolerable, though a minute ago he had wished for nothing else.

"Home! It's getting late, and I hate to walk the streets alone when it's dark outside." She smiled distantly at Paul. "It was nice to meet you, Mr...ah..."

"I'm Paul. Paul Rogers." He held out his hand. "I—"

His phone buzzed. He ignored it. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name, miss..."

She smiled. "I never gave it."

The phone buzzed again. Paul thought about turning it off.

"You may call me Helen," she said graciously.

"Helen." The name rang in his mind like a bell. "Um, where do you live, Helen?"

"Why?" She gave him a sidelong glance. "You wish to visit?"

Paul covered the phone with his hand, wishing it would stop. "I can walk you home—I mean, if you want." The words startled him, but he couldn't take them back and not seem rude.

Helen laughed. "So you don't think I can take care of myself?"

Before Paul could answer, his phone began to play the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"—Wendy's ringtone. The sound was so unexpected that it robbed him of his wits. It had played through twice before he realized he should answer it.

"Excuse me," he murmured. Avoiding Helen's eyes, he retrieved the phone and took the call. "Hey, babe. What's up?"

"Paul?" Wendy's voice was worried. "Where are you?"

"Uh..." He looked around. "Um, I'm..."

"It's been more than an hour!"

He choked. "What? I—" Catching sight of the kitty-cat clock on the wall behind the bar, he saw that she was right. "Wow. I'm sorry, I had no idea!"

"Are you almost done? We need to get going soon if we're going to make it to Mom's on time."

Prickles of conscience dragged his mind slowly back to life. "Right. Sorry. I'm almost done—I'll be home pretty soon."

"What happened?" she said. "I didn't think it would take you more than fifteen minutes or so to get to the store and back."

"Yeah, well—" Helen had started toward the door. Something long and sinuous rose out of his heart and tried to follow her. "I, um, dropped my wallet," he said quickly. "Didn't even notice it was missing till I got to the store."

"Oh, my God! Oh, Paul..."

"It's okay!" he said, spinning the lie as he went. "Um, some lady found it and gave it back—she looked at my ID and came to find me. Everything's just fine."

"Thank God." Wendy sighed heavily. "I was about to have a heart attack! So you're coming home now?"

"No, uh... I, uh, haven't been to the store yet. I just got the wallet back this second. I'm going now, though!"

He heard Wendy sigh again. "Okay, babe. Glad you got it back, anyway. Just hurry, please! We're already late."

"I will."

"Bring Cheerios!"

When he'd hung up, Paul ran outside in a crash of tinkling bells. Helen was standing under the café awning, looking up into the sky. The sun was gone, and the skyline stood black against the purple remnants of the sunset. The glow of the streetlights reflected off the eternal banks of haze, veiling the street in amber gloom.

Though it had been rush hour when Paul had gone into the café, now the street echoed like an empty ballroom. The few pedestrians hurried past with hunched shoulders, ducking their heads as if against impending rain. When Paul let the door swing shut, the jingle of its chimes was louder than a telephone.

Helen turned. "Was that your wife?"

"Uh, Yeah. I'm... I'm actually a bit late, so..."

"Then you'll be going home, I suppose."

He fidgeted. "Probably better. Um..."

She turned away, sniffing. "I had best be going, too. Look how dark the sky is! And I have no escort home."

Paul squirmed, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Are you going to be okay?" His mind filled with an image of dark streets, and of Helen slim and vulnerable beneath the streetlights. Now that they were both standing, he could see for the first time how small she was. She really shouldn't be walking out alone after dark...

"I'm sure I shall be fine," said Helen dryly. "Perhaps some other gallant will escort me home."

The barb stung. "How far do you live?"

"Not far. Perhaps ten minutes?"

Ten minutes. Twenty, there and back. He was already late—if Wendy was going to kill him, anyway, then he might as well do his good deed for the day. "Okay," he said, deciding all at once. "I'll walk you."

Helen laughed. "All right, then, knight-at-arms. I thank you. Shall we go?"

She led him a long and silent way, through streets and alleys Paul had never seen before. She walked without speaking, and her long hair veiled her face. She seemed to have forgotten he was there. From time to time he tried to make conversation, but everything he thought of to say fell to pieces on his tongue before he could say it. It had to have been more than ten minutes already, he thought soon, but there was no way of saying that that wouldn't have sounded petty. In the end, he walked as quietly as she did.

At last Helen stopped on a quiet street lined with brownstone buildings. Most of these were dark, but the one she'd stopped by had a number of lit windows. By their light Paul could see that the building was covered with small embellishments: blooming flower boxes, small flags, old lace curtains. Soft jazz music floated from an upstairs window.

"Here we are," said Helen, taking off her bag. "Wait a second—I'll find my keys."

Now that they were here, Paul felt extraneous, as if he'd walked onto the set of a play he wasn't acting in. He looked up at the house. It had to date back at least to the early 20th century, he thought. A plaque near the door suggested it was a historical site, though it was too dark for Paul to read why

"You look lost," Helen said, stepping toward him with her keys in her hand. "Is something wrong?"

"I... no." His phone buzzed. "I..."

"Perhaps you should check your messages." Her voice, which before had been so gentle, was low and throaty now—hoarse, teasing. Paul found himself getting hard.

"Uh... uh... yeah, sorry." He fumbled the phone from the pocket of his tightening jeans. "Just a second..."

He could practically read Wendy's anger from her text. Where are u?!!! Scrolling up, he saw that it was only the latest in a long string of similar messages, though he'd never heard the alerts from any of them. We can't go to Mom's now! She's going to bed. What the fuck, Paul???

I forgot the milk, he typed quickly. Back soon.

NO FUCKING WAY!!!! PAUL, IT HAS BEEN 2 HOURS!!!!!

He didn't know what to do. After a second, he put the phone back in his pocket. "I'm sorry," he said again, though he didn't know why he was apologizing to Helen of all people.

She moved closer. "No apology is necessary. Would you like to come upstairs? Have some coffee, perhaps?" She laid her hand on his arm.

A chill shot through his body. Paul groaned. "Ah, no. No, I—" He was hot, confused—his heart was racing. His jeans were unbearably tight. "I'm sorry, I—" He gasped, and tried to pull away, but failed. "I really shouldn't. I need to get home."

His phone began to ring again. As the Sugar Plum Fairy tripped her erratic way up and down the scale, Paul stared into Helen's cold dark eyes and wondered why he was here. At last, without really thinking about it, he pulled the phone out again and turned it off. "I have to go," he said again.

"Of course." Helen stepped backward, swaying like a cobra. "It was so very lovely to meet you, Paul. I think perhaps we will not meet again. But you should go home—go and see your wife. See your son."

Something terrible was happening, he thought. A glorious opportunity was slipping by, and for the life of him he couldn't tell why he wasn't taking it. "I..."

"But are you sure you won't come upstairs, only for a little while?" Her eyes glinted yellow in the glow of the porch lights. There was something mesmerizing about her voice—it hissed and throbbed, burrowing deep into his head. "I think you'll feel much better."

Paul swallowed around a throat gone suddenly dry. "I really shouldn't." His voice was hoarse.

"You could take a taxi home." Reaching out again, she laid her hand against his chest. He drew a sharp, painful breath. "You'd be there in no time, that way. What's ten minutes, more or less, if you're already so late?"

"My wife is going to kill me." Despite his words, his hand rose up and closed around Helen's small, cold one. "She's going to skin me alive."

"Then why are you in such a hurry to see her?"

Her logic was impeccable.

"Ten minutes," Helen whispered, holding his gaze.

Paul shivered. He opened his mouth to refuse, and nodded. "All right," he said. "Ten minutes."

He woke to silence. Thin grey light flowed through an open window, along with a chilly breeze that shivered the white gauze curtains.

Paul stirred, frowning. Had Wendy changed the curtains? But she loved the blue ones, and she was always talking about saving money...

The bed was different, too, he realized slowly: a circular mattress on the floor by the window, covered by a white duvet—down, he thought, scented with herbs. He was naked beneath it—they must have made love last night. Dimly, he began to remember...

...the taste of her salty skin between his teeth, her hands against his throat as he moved into her—the sharp, dry scent of her body, and the shape of her small, dark nipples—the brush of her tangled hair against his—

Gasping, Paul turned over and reached for Wendy. "Mmm... hey, babe, I—"

His hand, beneath the covers, fell on a taut, curved waist—much smaller than Wendy's had ever been, even before the baby. Its owner sighed softly, nuzzling closer.

A tremor of fear ran through Paul's bones. "Wendy?" he whispered. He reached for the edge of the duvet—then stopped, afraid to see what lay beneath.

"Mmm... who is Wendy?" The voice was low and hoarse with sleep—and nothing like his wife's.

He watched, mute and frozen, as the covers fell and Helen sat up. Nude, she was exquisite. Her bones were delicate, her breasts high, her skin flawless. Her back was to the window, and the dim gray light of morning set her face in shadow, making black pools of her eyes. Her dark hair fell to her waist, cloaking her shoulders and covering her nipples, obscenely demure.

She looked younger now, thought Paul, in the small part of his head that wasn't paralyzed with horror. She could have been eighteen, where before she'd looked almost thirty. Her waist and hips were narrow, her breasts small and pointed, her belly flat. Her skin was as smooth as glass. She looked like an angel, or perhaps a fairy.

She watched him stare for a moment, then smiled. "Good morning, Paul," she said.

He couldn't think of a word to say.

"Did you sleep well?" Helen cocked her head, birdlike. "We've had a long night together." With a sly half-smile, she ran her fingertips down Paul's chest. "But perhaps you are ready for a second round?"

"No." He shook his head, finally realizing what had happened. "No, no, no. This can't be right." He staggered from the bed, and saw his phone abandoned in the center of the hardwood floor. He picked it up, but its screen was thick with dust, the battery long dead.

"No—you didn't sleep well?" Her voice was mocking. Following him from her nest, she twined herself around him as he searched for his clothes. Her fingers trailed down between his legs and began to toy with him. He moaned.

"Or," she whispered, pressing the words against his throat with lips and teeth and tongue, "perhaps you mean that you—" (squeeze) "—don't want to try again?"

As Paul sank to the floor, collapsing around himself in a miserable lust-soaked heap, Helen laughed. "Pity," she said, stepping away with a little kick to Paul's side. "I had thought you rather enjoyed yourself."

Paul's face was slick with tears as he stared up at her. "Please," he said. His voice was small and hopeless. "I need to go home."

"Home? All right, but you must know you may not have one anymore. A night can pass so quickly, sometimes—hours feel like minutes, and years—well, they feel like hours."

She turned away, and began to pace around the room, clearly waiting for him to go. They were in a small studio, he thought—a round, bright room that felt like the inside of a tower. After a minute, not knowing what else to do, Paul took a few deep breaths and began pulling on his clothes.

As he found his shoes behind a row of potted plants, he began to wonder what he might say to Wendy. An hour could be explained—even two or three, if he were very careful—but an entire night? And what had he been thinking—what had ever possessed him to go home with a total stranger? He felt like some dark, unknown part of himself had been in control the night before—surely he'd never have done... what he had done... of his own volition?

"Are you quite finished?" Helen was waiting by the door, looking impatient. "I have things to do today, so I think you should be going."

Paul advanced on her, suddenly furious. "What the hell did you do to me?" Remembering the strange, sweet drink she'd given him, he said, "What was in that cup? Did you drug me?"

"I gave you nothing, my dear fool, that you did not ask for first." Helen batted her lashes and made her face stupid. "Oh, miss, may I try it, please? Let me walk you home?"

He raised his arms, and for a second was sure he would strangle her—but Helen stepped between his hands and laid a chaste kiss against the corner of his mouth. Immediately, his anger left him.

"Why?" he said sadly, lowering his arms.

"That's enough now," said Helen gently. "It's time for you to go."

Paul let her lead him to the door, like a tired child being taken off to bed. He felt as if the world were ending. What would he do when he went outside? How could he go back to Wendy, after what he'd done? How could he approach her, with the scent of another woman's body on his skin—with the prints of Helen's nails across his back?

"Let me stay with you," he said, suddenly grabbing her hand. "Please. I'll do whatever you want—just let me stay for a while!"

She laughed. "A man who would betray his wife and child, and go home with a stranger? Please be serious, Paul—I'd never be able to trust you."

He was opening his mouth to protest—though what he'd say, he didn't know—when he saw his reflection in a mirror that hung beside the door.

The man behind the glass was a gaunt, weary, ugly stranger. He looked a bit like Paul, if Paul were ten years older and had lost most of his health and vitality. His back was hunched, his face creased and drawn. His hair was thin and graying, and his clothing looked about to fall apart from the buttons outward.

Paul swallowed. "Who is—" Then his voice dried out, like the last water falling from a dusty pump.

"Time slips by so quickly, you see." Helen looked vaguely sheepish, as if she'd left a window open or forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning. "I only meant to take a few months, but I got too carried away... You were very enthusiastic, you know." She flashed him the conspiratorial smile that had so engaged him at the café... had it been the night before? Or a decade ago? "And I get so hungry," she went on wistfully. "You have no idea how hard it is—finding someone who'll come along willingly, then stopping before too much time has gone. Sometimes I just get..." she shrugged girlishly, "lost in time."

Giving Paul's shoulder an encouraging pat, she opened the door. The hall beyond was blank and anonymous—they might have been anywhere in the city. "I think your odds are good, though. In the grand scheme of things, ten years really isn't that that long—I'm sure your wife will still remember you, if she's here." She gave him a little push, and he stumbled out into the hallway. "Even if you can't find your family again, don't worry—there's a place for you somewhere. You've got all the time in the world."

Then she closed the door, and Paul was left alone.

~}*{~

Over the River

October 2012

Table of Contents

Sabrina couldn't sleep with the moonlight shining in her eyes.

Her friends were having no such trouble. Jenny and Mark were sound asleep, cuddled up in their zipped-together sleeping bags. Brian had been snoring for half an hour. But Sabrina, pressed against him, was as alert as ever.

She'd tried snuggling closer to Brian, and moving farther away. She'd unzipped the bag for a breath of air, and zipped it back up when she'd gotten too cold. She'd rolled over, covered her eyes, counted sheep, and tried to meditate. But wherever she turned, the halogen light of the full white moon shone through her eyelids, keeping her wide awake.

At last she couldn't take it any more. She eased herself out of the doubled sleeping bag she shared with Brian, patting his shoulder when he whimpered in his sleep. Shoving her feet into her old yellow Crocs, she walked to the edge of the woods.

The air was cold tonight. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and stomped her feet. She'd put on sweats over her flannel pajamas, and the socks she wore were the fluffy SpongeBob ones her sister had given her for Christmas, but the wind cut through everything like scissors through gauze. Strange that it should be so cold: usually it didn't get below fifty this time of year.

She supposed she could go into the house. It would be warmer. But the door was probably locked,and she didn't want to wake Jenny for the key. Anyway, what if she encountered Jenny's parents? They seemed like nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she didn't feel like making small talk. Better to stay out here.

She could stir up the coals and roast some marshmallows, but she'd already brushed her teeth. She hadn't even brought a book.

Frustrated, Sabrina stared into the forest. The moonlight fell in broad beams through the leafless trees, chasing the shadows from the underbrush. Far below, at the bottom of the hill, the Little River glittered like tinsel. They had walked along the shore this afternoon, before sunset, but the place looked very different at night—fairy-haunted; forbidden.

She paced restlessly around the edge of the campsite, peering through the trees for a better look at the water. Every few steps she saw a flash of moon-bleached sand, a twinkle of water. Then, suddenly, a path came into focus.

She didn't know how she had missed it. It was a wide, straight track between the trees, leading right down to the water. It looked much more passable than the glorified deer-trail they'd followed that afternoon. She could probably make it in her Crocs without twisting an ankle. And it wasn't that far: the murmur of the water carried clearly over the chilly night air.

She could go down now, have a little walk, and come back without waking anyone. It would only take a few minutes. She might even be tired enough to sleep when she got back. Still, it seemed wrong to go off and leave her friends without saying anything.

Sabrina turned to wake them—let Jenny or Brian, at least, know where she was going. But they were all sleeping so peacefully—and she knew they'd tell her not to go. It wasn't safe to wander by herself at night.

Making a quick decision, Sabrina shoved her hands in her pockets and started down the trail.

On the shore of the river stood the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.

He was a little older than she was, tall and broad shouldered, with a swimmer's body—clearly visible, as he wore nothing but a pair of soaking-wet jeans. The moonlight was generous, highlighting muscles that might not have been visible by day. Half mesmerized by his abs and deltoids, Sabrina stepped closer.

His face would have been at home on a Grecian urn. His nose was aquiline, his complexion umber, his mouth sensuous and a little cruel. He had a satyr's beard, and his thick dark curls shadowed his face like little horns. As she approached, he pushed his hair back, and his sharp black eyes nearly stopped her in her tracks.

"Hey." His voice was deep and lazy."What's up?"

She couldn't speak. She felt as she were being studied, as if he were assessing her fitness for some unknown purpose. She groped around for words, and finally came out with, "Aren't you cold?"

His laugh rippled through her skin. "I'm used to it. Where'd you come from?"

"Up the hill." She pointed toward Jenny's house, though she couldn't see the path anymore. "We're having a campout. You know. For Halloween."

"Very nice," he drawled, sounding entirely uninterested. "What's your name?"

"Uh... Sabrina."

"Nice to meet you, Sabrina. I'm Cyrus." He held out his hand. "Well met by moonlight, et cetera, et cetera."

Sabrina took his hand, found it warm and dry and strong. "You live around here?"

He laughed. "Sure. Over the river. We're having a party, too." He pointed at a spot far upstream, where the opposite shore was mostly obscured by a clump of deep, dark forest.

Sabrina couldn't see anything over there that looked like a party. She moved closer to the water, and a wavelet swamped her shoes, soaking through her socks in seconds.

Cyrus laughed as she cursed and staggered backward. "Don't get wet."

"Thanks." She kicked off her shoes and peeled off her socks, rubbing her feet on the sand to try and dry them. She felt like she'd been frostbitten, and knew she should probably go back to camp. "How'd you get here, anyway? I didn't see a bridge."

He shrugged. "Walked. Ain't that deep. I'm about to go back..." He looked her up and down thoughtfully. "Want to come with?"

She should say no, of course, but found herself stammering. "Uh... I... I don't know." She dropped her shoes and socks on the sand. "What kind of party is it?"

"Oh, you know. Just a small gathering—food, beverages, entertainment. Kind of a yearly tradition."

Sabrina glanced back towards the house again. Would her friends wake up, if she went with this stranger? Would they find her gone, panic, and call the cops to search the river? "I probably shouldn't. Didn't tell anyone I was c—"

Cyrus grinned, and she stopped speaking abruptly, realizing that she should have kept that information to herself.

But he only turned away, and said, "You're probably right. Best to go on home. Could be dangerous over there—you might meet strangers." He patted her arm. Her whole body tingled. "So long..."

"Wait. I..."

He shook his head. "You probably wouldn't like it. I mean, you're already scared..."

"Scared?" She looked down at herself, as if that accusation might be visible on her shirt. "I'm not scared. I just..."

But was she? A chill was running through her veins—but she didn't think she was frightened. Excited, maybe. Intrigued. "I'm not dressed for a party," she hedged.

Cyrus laughed. "You look fine. No one over there's going to care what you're wearing."

Sabrina stared across the water. The moonlight was so bright that in places the surface of the river looked almost opaque. It rippled so smoothly she knew it had to be deep. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"Not if you're with me. I can carry you over."

He probably could, she thought, looking him up and down. He was as tall as Brian, and looked stronger, though Brian had been a football player before his injury. Cyrus looked like he'd never been injured in his life.

She turned away, wondering if he could see her blush by moonlight. "What are you, the ferryman?"

He laughed again. "If you like."

Well, he was a cocksure bastard of the first degree, but she had to admit he was oddly alluring. Unconsciously, she moved a little closer. "How do I know you won't drop me in the river?"

"You don't." He held up two fingers, a Scout's-honor gesture. "But I swear I'll do my best to keep you dry." Then he lowered his hand and leaned quite close, so his breath ghosted over her face. "I'll keep you dry," he murmured, "as long as you pay the toll."

She breathed in, then exhaled, distracted by the smell of his hair: moss, dry leaves, and something animal. "Wh-what kind of toll?"

"Well, what have you got?" His lips curled into a teasing smile. His face was nearly touching hers. "I can't work for free."

Sabrina shivered, but stepped back, trying to conceal her disappointment. "I guess that settles it, then." She tried, and failed, to smile. "Don't have any money."

"Oh, it doesn't have to be money. Could be anything. A silver coin. A loaf of bread." He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Even a kiss."

Even as her whole body came alive with interest, she thought guiltily of Brian, sleeping by himself at the campsite up the hill. She should walk away now—shouldn't even consider the offer. But the moonlight made the river seem like a different world, and Brian had no part in it. "All right," she said, surprising herself.

Smiling, Cyrus opened his arms.

He was hot, and strong, and his warm lips tasted like river water. It was the best kiss she'd ever had.

Without taking his lips from hers, Cyrus gathered her into his arms. Despite his heat, a chill ran through Sabrina's body. She realized, very faintly, that he was walking—wading into the water, his feet sinking into the sandy riverbed. Her heels dipped into the river, and cold water soaked the hems of her sweatpants, but she didn't open her eyes.

Finally, when Sabrina was quite breathless, the kiss ended. They were on the opposite shore, and Cyrus was setting her down on the hard-packed sand. The cold ground was like an electric shock on her bare feet. She staggered, clutching his arms for balance, and opened her eyes.

While they'd been crossing, the moon had passed behind a cloud. The shore was entirely dark, and very quiet. Thick bushes crowded them like thugs. A strange bird cried in a nearby tree. Even the river sounded odd—its voice a sullen murmur, as if heard through a layer of ice.

She hadn't realized, from the other side, just how wide the river was. It had looked small, and passable—an inconvenience, but not really an obstacle. From this shore, though, it looked wide, and deep, and dangerous.

She turned back to Cyrus, suddenly unnerved. He was wet from the ribs down, and the muscles of his abdomen gleamed like oil. Unconsciously, she reached out to touch them.

He pushed her away, almost gently. "That's enough now."

Embarrassed, Sabrina pulled away, confused by the distance that had come into his face and voice. "What's going on?" Her voice, in her ears, was childish. "Where are we?"

"The other side. Come on, now." He turned away, and started upstream without waiting for her to follow.

Sabrina was suddenly, overwhelmingly conscious of the dangerous situation she'd walked into. She opened her mouth, about to ask him to take her back, but he was far away by then. His strides were swift, unfaltering: he seemed to have forgotten she was there. When she called to him, he barely slowed.

As they walked, she started hearing voice, laughter and conversation and even song echoing out of the darkness. Far ahead, faint golden light reflected off the river. "Is that the party?"

Cyrus nodded.

Then they came around a bend, and there it was.

The shore had broadened, and the air was warm, fragrant with woodsmoke. Tiki torches had been set out in a large square across the side. Inside were dozens—perhaps hundreds—of people, sitting around bonfires and under striped pavilions.

She rubbed her eyes, but the picture just got clearer. How could they all have gotten here? This was parkland—she was pretty sure no roads led in or out. Had they come by boat? A few were tied up on the shore, but not nearly enough to have brought so many people. And the sound should have carried—why hadn't she and her friends heard the party from their campsite? And who were these people, anyway?

They looked, at first, like a historical reenactment society with a very relaxed dress code. Their clothes spanned the last two or three centuries, and seemed to have come from a number of cultures and walks of life. Most of the guests were dressed as farmers—in shirts and homespun trousers, calico dresses, or T-shirts and overalls. A few, however, wore hoop skirts and frock coats. Some of the black people wore old cotton clothing, and had a beaten-down look that made Sabrina think of slaves. A number of the guests looked like full-blooded Native Americans, and wore beaded shirts and dresses with feather-topped hats for the men. There were soldiers, flappers, hippies, businessmen, and even a few people who might have come from Sabrina's own street.

Then there were... others. Firelight flickered off of faces and bodies that weren't entirely human. There were small, nude people with bald heads and jagged teeth; there were enormous men with branches that looked like clubs. A woman in the corner had three or four arms, all pouring drinks for the crowd around her. There were even people who seemed to have animal heads: dogs, cats, birds, foxes. Sabrina thought they were masks, until she saw one blink.

She turned to Cyrus, meaning to ask she-knew-not-what, but he was already gone. A moment later she spotted him across the campsite, accepting a mug of something from the woman with too many arms. Even he looked wilder here—the curls that had shaded his face like horns now looked like horns indeed. She waved to him, but he didn't even look at her.

Despondent, Sabrina crossed the line of torches. Friendly face surrounded her immediately.

"Hello, dear," said a little round woman, whose skin was wrinkled like tree bark. "Is this your first time?"

"Of course it is," said the man beside her, a Native American in a beaded blue shirt. "Look, she doesn't even know where she is yet. Bet the riverman brought her."

He beckoned to a young black woman who was pouring herself a drink. She approached, handed him the pitcher, and gave Sabrina a curious smile. Beneath her calico kerchief, her eyes were large and sad.

"What is this place?" said Sabrina, helpless.

The wrinkled brown woman had produced a mug from somewhere. She held it while the man in blue poured. "It's a party, dear," she said, quite kindly. Her voice creaked like ancient branches. "Haven't you ever seen one?"

Not knowing what to say, Sabrina took the mug and stared at it. It was very simple, and looked handmade—plain red clay with a clear glaze that gleamed in the firelight. Its sides were cool, and wet with condensation.

"Take a sip," the old woman urged her. Sabrina obeyed.

It wasn't beer—she wasn't sure what it was. It had a strange, spicy flavor she couldn't quite place. Was it mead? Some kind of cider? She took another sip. "I'm Sabrina." It seemed suddenly important that they should know that.

The three strangers nodded. "We don't use names much here," said the girl, "but I'm pleased to meet you, Sabrina. I was Hannah."

"I was Tom." The man smiled.

The old woman smiled, too, but didn't give her name.

A few feet away, a girl with red curls paused to give Sabrina a filthy look. She was very pretty, and wore a tight sweater that showed off an excellent figure.

"Who was that?" Sabrina said, when the girl had moved on.

The other sighed. "That was Kelly," said Hannah. "The riverman brought her last year."

"Sour grapes," said Tom, smiling again.

The old brown woman just shook her head, and filled Sabrina's cup.

Sabrina took another drink.

Time passed in a pleasant haze. Whatever was in the mug proved mildly intoxicating, and she didn't get sleepy no matter how much she drank. From time to time she thought to look for Cyrus, but he was never nearby. He moved from fire to fire, greeting friends and smiling mysteriously at everyone. Once she saw him pat Kelly on the shoulder and kiss her cheek. Another time he seemed to be exchanging secrets with a beautiful dark woman in an old-fashioned dress. Not once did he look at Sabrina.

She soon forgot her disappointment, because it turned out her new friends were excellent company. They constantly asked questions about her life, and seemed fascinated by every answer, even things as simple as "I go to State," or "I have three sisters." Soon others joined them, and greeted Sabrina like one of their own. They all plied her with drink, and with food in little clay bowls: deviled eggs, cornbread, muffins, brownies. Everything was perfect, and she never felt full.

Before long she was in the middle of a large crowd of people, roasting homemade marshmallows over the largest bonfire. Its heat scorched her face, and the air was rich with smoke and sugar. Someone had remembered an old drinking song, and was teaching it to the others amid waves of laughter. "'Twas on the good ship Venus—by Christ, you should've seen us...'"

Halfway through the song, Sabrina noticed that the crowd was getting a bit thin. Several of the more flamboyant partygoers were nowhere to be found, and most of the fires and pavilions had been abandoned.

As she watched, two Native women who looked like sisters embraced, sighed, and disappeared altogether. Before she could move, a little blond boy ran into the shadows and didn't come back. Then a person in a long white cloak, whose face she'd never seen, bowed once to the crowd and vanished.

One by one, the guests disappeared. Some of them just left, walking from the torchlight into the darkness. Others faded slowly from sight, waving sadly to their friends. Others still were there one minute, then gone the next time she looked for them.

She knew, in whatever part of her brain was still active, that this was not right, but she couldn't make herself move. The disappearing guests seemed like someone else's problem—an unfortunate fact of nature that no one could really change. Framing a comment along those lines, she turned to Hannah—and gasped.

In the last few minutes, Hannah's lovely oval face had shriveled like a month-old apple. Her dress hung from her body like a tablecloth, and she smelled of sweat and illness. She seemed to be dying of some wasting disease.

"What happened?" Sabrina said.

Hannah smiled faintly. "You know, I almost made it," she whispered. "I got as far as the river—then I broke my leg. So..." With a sigh, Hannah disappeared.

Tom, next in line, was covered in blood. It poured from a fist-sized wound in the center of his chest, which must have taken out at least one vital organ. "Bastards were waiting at the river." Blood flowed through his teeth as he spoke. "We—" Then his eyes widened, and he too faded away.

Desperate, Sabrina turned to the old round woman, who was watching her sympathetically. "What's going on? Why—"

"Don't worry, dear." The woman patted her hand with broad, soft fingers. "They'll all come back next year, you know. You will, too."

"I..." Her brain was spinning. She shook her head, but couldn't clear it. "What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just the one night, you know—before the winter starts. When the veils are thin." She yawned, smiled apologetically, and stood. "But I'd probably better go, too—I'm getting sleepy. Lovely to meet you..."

"Wait," Sabrina said, reaching for her hand. "Please—"

But the old woman was already strolling towards the torches, nodding goodbye to the few remaining guests. Her wide back swayed, and her brown skirts rustled across the ground like leaves. Before Sabrina could stand, the woman had left the campground, and vanished into the darkness of the woods.

In a few minutes, all the other guests had left—fading like mirages, or simply walking away. Sabrina could only watch, pinned in place by shock or confusion or whatever she'd been drinking. Finally, as the sky began to lighten, she was alone, still sitting on her log beside the abandoned fire.

Or almost alone. There was Cyrus, standing at the edge of the campground, surveying the site with satisfaction.

As if a spell had broken, Sabrina finally stood. "Cyrus! What happened?" She ran over to him, tripping on feet gone suddenly numb.

He smiled distantly. "Hello, Sabrina. How'd you like the party?"

"It—where is everybody?"

"Oh, they all went home. Back to where they died, you know. It's almost sunrise."

"To where..." Her voice guttered like a candle.

Cyrus laughed. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you didn't guess?"

"You mean they were..."

"Sure." He gave her a pitying look. "You already knew there was no one over here—no one human, anyway. Where'd you think they all came from?"

Sabrina shook her head, sure there must have been something in the drink. "But... How do I get home?"

"Oh, you don't."

"What?"

"You are home, now." Cyrus gestured around him at the abandoned campground. "You paid the toll, remember? Drank the brew, ate the food? It's a one-way trip—you're one of them now. If I were you, I'd just get used to being dead."

"I... but..." Dead. The word echoed in her mind like a church bell. "But... you didn't... I didn't... why did you bring me here?"

"Because you wanted to come," he said, smiling. He leaned close, and pressed a chaste kiss against her cheek. "I'm an equal-opportunity ferryman—I'll take anyone over, as long as the toll gets paid." He patted her cheek, then stepped away. "And it was a good party. But it's over, now."

Her mouth opened. The words fell out of her head, and she just stuttered. "I—but—we—"

"It's not so bad, being dead—from what I hear, anyway. And you picked a good place. The river's lovely, and you might even find some company if you look. If all else fails, you'll see them all at the next party." Then he yawned, stretching his exquisite muscles like a sleepy cat. "Afraid I've got to go. Got a drowning to take care of tomorrow—today, that is—and then a suicide after that. No rest for the ferryman." He grinned. "Later, Sabrina."

She reached for his hand, but he was already gone.

It was getting lighter, and fog was rising from the dawn-touched river. Sabrina watched the moon set behind the trees, and listened to the calls of awakening birds. The torches went out one by one, and the embers of the bonfires slowly turned to ashes.

~}*{~

Boon

October 2012

Table of Contents

The Blue Child's great audience chamber was a cavern underneath the ground. Its walls and floor and ceiling were all thick with ice, and at the back an enormous hole opened into darkness: the door to the underworld, whence the Blue Child and his family had come.

Bleak as it was, the hall was stuffed with courtiers, who watched the human petitioners go by as if this were a holiday.

Perhaps it was a holiday, for them. Magda really didn't know what they did, for they were never seen up on the ground.

Most of courtiers here were Iubar—the Shining Ones—half corpse and half angel, with gemstone eyes and odd, mechanical expressions. They were said to fly the heavens at night, too high and dark for human eyes to see, and bring the Blue Child news: the doings of his family, his enemies, and his wretched human subjects.

Some of the courtiers, though, were humans themselves—scattered through the crowd like bone fragments in a sugar bowl, perfumed and powdered to hide the odor of their living bodies. They were finely dressed, some more sumptuously than the Iubar, but their faces were pinched and watchful. They looked like starving wolves, afraid they'd be devoured if they let their attention stray for a second.

The Blue Child sat on a throne of ice in the center of the hall. He wore a short silk tunic, sandals, and a gold ring around his arm that looked like grave goods. Though his fine youthful body was tinged a hypothermic blue, he didn't shiver, and lounged indolently across his icy throne as if perfectly comfortable.

He smiled condescendingly as Magda knelt before the throne. "Well, then, woman—have you a petition?" His sweet, treble voice rang like struck crystal.

Magda bowed. "Yes, my lord."

"Then pray, speak—but speak quickly, for Petitioners' Day is nearly over."

Several of the courtiers tittered. Magda gritted her teeth, concealing her anger, and began.

"My lord, on the day when the ice melted, and the door to your mother's kingdom was uncovered... just before you, and all your brothers and sisters, stepped out into the sunlight and raised your perfect faces to the sky—before the Winter of Winters had begun..." She swallowed, finding that her throat was full of tears. "In those days, I was newly married, and expecting my first child."

When she looked up, the Blue Child had leaned forward, setting his elegant face on the knuckles of one thin hand. One could almost imagine that he found her story... diverting—but Magda had been watching him, and knew that he used the same face with every petitioner.

"On the last day, sir, the baby was three months along, and I was walking with my husband at the seawall. We were... happy..."

"Ah, happiness." He made a vaguely derisive gesture, and his courtiers tittered. "So sweet; so fragile. Continue."

"When the skies turned black," Magda said, "and the great shriek rent the air... when the lightning flashed, and the oceans died, and the whales floated up from the depths to lie on the sea like bladder-wrack..." Her mouth kept speaking, but in her mind's eye she saw it all again—birds falling from the sky, crops withered in the field, and Peter... "When the ninety-nine were killed, and the hundredth left to mourn... I lost my husband, and the baby, at the same time."

She remembered how Peter's face had looked in the moment before the seizures—how he'd reached for her, and tried to touch her cheek, before he'd lost control of his muscles and flopped on the ground like a suffocating fish. Even then, before he'd died, his groans had sounded like the bellow of a thrall—and as she'd taken his hand, the pain had begun...

"The pregnancy could not survive." Her own voice sounded oddly clinical, as if she were listing off a litany of griefs that had afflicted a total stranger. "I miscarried. There was no one to help—we were far from the village—and I had to..." She paused, breathed, continued. "After... it was born, I went for help, but everyone in the village was dead, or screaming. So I went back and buried them myself, beside the seawall."

The words stopped coming. Magda bowed her head.

For a moment the Blue Child was silent. Then he laughed. "Is that all? So far I've heard nothing from you that I hadn't heard already from a thousand others. You should be thankful you're still alive. Rejoice—you were spared! Chosen, in a way—granted the privilege of watching the end of the world with your own two human eyes."

Magda closed her eyes against another rush of tears. "Sir, I thank you, but I am very lonely. I cannot conceive—since it happened I've been barren..." (And hadn't she tried, in barns and back-rooms, with friends and whores and strangers, all without a single pregnancy...)

The courtiers laughed again, as if they could hear what she was thinking. Since the voices of the Iubar were never heard by mortals, Magda knew it was the humans who were mocking her.

"So you want a child?" When Magda opened her eyes, the Blue Child was studying the ranks of thralls that crowded the back of the hall. "I don't believe we can raise the baby you were carrying—the unborn aren't terribly useful, anyway—but I'm sure—"

"No!" Her voice came out almost as a shriek. "No, sir, I beg you—please, I don't want a thrall."

He turned to her with a very curious look on his icy face. "Did you... interrupt me?"

Magda bowed her head, knowing that he might well kill her now. "I meant no disrespect, sir. I pray you, pardon my... impropriety."

"Sit up," he said, tapping her head with a burning-cold finger. "Don't be tiresome. What about your husband? Wouldn't you rather have him, after all? Raising a man is a simple thing, and he wouldn't be so very different. You might even get him to speak to you, once in a while."

Magda thought of all the thralls she'd seen—poor slobbering, shuffling things, unable to remember their own names, or follow any but the simplest instructions. Some of them had been put to work, tending gardens and stacking merchandise, while others were left to act out poor facsimiles of the lives they must once have led. She'd even seen an old dead grandmother, once, rocking in a wooden chair before the fire, her slowly-thawing flesh filling the house with the smell of decay.

The thralls came bound with bright silk ribbons, which were supposed to keep them docile (though Magda suspected they were a cruel joke). You had to feed them bread, with a touch of your own blood—and if ever they tasted flesh, they'd slaughter you, and return to the Blue Child's castle with your guts hanging from their mouths.

If they gave her Peter like that—a half-rotted corpse at the end of a ribbon—she would kill him, then kill herself.

She took a deep breath. She might as well ask. The worst the Blue Child was likely to do was kill her—and that would almost be a blessing. "My lord," she said, "the boon I want to ask for is... a living child."

Whispers broke out all around the hall. Behind her, the last petitioners muttered nervously, as if they feared that Magda's brashness would get them all thrown out.

The Blue Child stared, as if she'd tried to bite him. "A... living child?"

"Yes, my lord." She couldn't meet his eyes, for fear she'd lose her nerve. "I don't need a thrall—I can do my own work. I want a companion. Someone who can speak to me."

The Blue Child was silent for some time. At last, slowly, he nodded. "Your request is... unusual, but I believe I can grant it. Not a true child," he added, before Magda's heart could surge too high, "for that is not where my power lies—but I believe I can give you what you need. Wait here."

Then he clapped his hands, summoning a page—a little thrall girl with only one arm—and murmured instructions in her shriveled ear. Then, as she tottered off into the darkness, he summoned the next petitioner.

An hour later, Magda staggered home, cradling the Blue Child's strange gift between her mittens. It was a tiny, lumpy package, wrapped in an onion skin and tied with red string. Magda dearly wanted to could look inside, but knew that doing so would break the spell.

All the way home, she recited the Blue Child's instructions:

'Plant this bulb at midnight in soil from your husband's grave. Water it with snow, and a bit of your own blood. You must put the pot on the windowsill, in a room where it can hear you breathing, and tend it faithfully for one hundred days. If you do as I have said, the flower will grow. When it opens, you will have what you desire.'

That night, humming a forgotten song, Magda retrieved a long unused flowerpot from her dusty toolshed. She lined the bottom with rocks, and added a layer of sand from the garden path (down which Peter had carried her, drunk and giggling, on their wedding night). Then she carried the pot to Peter's grave by the snow-covered seawall. The wind off the frozen sea was so cold it burned like acid, but Magda gritted her teeth, scraped away the snow, and dug out enough of the icy soil to fill the pot.

At home, she set the pot before the fire, and waited several hours for the earth to thaw. It gave off an odd, musty smell as it grew warmer—not bad, but unexpected. At midnight, though the soil was not quite thawed, she dug a hole in it with her fingers and buried the 'bulb' inside.

She'd prepared a cup of snowmelt, and a knife to open her skin. Letting her blood drain into the chilly water, she thought how strange it was to water a flower this way, and wondered if the bulb would grow at all. However, she did not dare disobey, and after quite soaking the soil, she set the pot on her bedroom windowsill and went to bed.

For ninety-nine days, nothing happened at all. Each morning Magda checked the pot first thing—and each morning she was freshly disappointed, for the earth was always damp and dark, unbroken and unchanged. Oddly, it never stank, though the smell of her blood should have brought the flies swarming. When the soil dried—as it always did, though there was never any sun to warm it—Magda watered it again with blood and melted snow, then went to bed.

News of her situation had spread, and often her neighbors paused outside the fence to peer at the empty flowerpot on her windowsill. Most of them shook their heads and clucked their tongues. "That's what happens, dear, when you try to outwit Hel's Children. Better to have asked for your Peter back, or even some stranger's child. At least a thrall could have helped you do your work." Whenever they said this, Magda would look at their own stinking thralls, and nod politely, and bid them good day.

In fact, she was glad that she had no servant, for she found that work took her mind from waiting. There was little enough to do, at first, but when she started looking she found things she'd let slide: the cluttered toolshed, her indoor garden, the frayed hems of her clothing. She cleaned, mended, moved furniture around, and found excuses to talk and trade with her neighbors. Every night, no matter how tired or lonely or mournful she felt, she opened a new cut on her arm and fed the lifeless pot its portion of bloody snowmelt.

On the morning of the hundredth day, a shoot appeared.

When she woke up, Magda didn't know immediately what she was looking at. Surely this was a dream—the flowerpot was empty, as it had been empty every day before this, and would be empty till the world finally ended. But when she touched the shoot, it was cool and waxy and solid, and seemed to be quite real. A neighbor, passing by, confirmed it: Magda's boon was growing.

Word spread, and soon everyone in town had come to look. Many had thralls in tow, and the poor dead things displayed odd energy at the sight of the shoot—hooting and grunting, as if they'd encountered a kinsman. Magda let them all stay awhile, then shooed them off, afraid that too much attention would disturb this bright new magic.

But the shoot, though pale, was strong—and grew quickly. Within weeks, it had developed into a hardy green stem, surrounded by long, sleek. It looked a little like a tulip.

For a while it stayed like that—a little taller, day by day, but not changing much. Impatient now, Magda began adding more of her blood to the nightly infusion, and many days walked around so weakened that she felt like a thrall herself. It seemed to be helping, though—for at last a bud began to form.

It was a tight furl of crimson petals, half the size of her fist. She was confused, because she recognized it as an iris bud—but the plant, quite clearly, was no iris—and never in history had an iris been so red. To be safe, though, she started adding compost to the pot, and closed the shutters to keep it warm.

At last, a year to the day after she'd returned from the Blue Child's castle, she woke to see the flower opening.

She could barely eat, barely dress—this was the day, surely, when her child would arrive. Would it come to the garden gate, as if arriving home from school, or descend from the heavens like one of the Iubar? Should she cut off the flower—offer it as a posy? Or was the flower just a harbinger of the time?

All day she paced beside the flowerpot, offering a little blood and water whenever the soil looked dry. Her nearest neighbor, as it happened, owned the county's only surviving nanny goat. For the price of her last silver teapot (her mother's prize possession, but never mind) he sold Magda a bucket of milk. She could only hope the child would drink it.

As night fell, the falls of the iris dropped, and its standards stretched to their full, radiant extent. It was a glorious thing—a perfect, rippling blossom the size of Magda's hand, with velvet petals the color of fresh blood. In the center, beneath a golden crest, its style-arms clustered close together, protection the organs within.

The flower itself would have been worth a dozen silver teapots, as flowers never grew in the shadow of the Blue Child's castle. That thought barely occurred to her, however—for she'd opened the window, and could see that no child was coming.

The flower waited. The air was still. Magda moaned, impatient, agonized. She tried to sit and wait, but her cozy house seemed suddenly stifling. At last she put on her threadbare coat and went outside.

She stood for hours in her snow-covered garden, shifting and shivering as the lights went out in all her neighbors' houses. From time to time she could see the thrall guards passing up the street, dragging their truncheons behind them as they staggered through the snow. Would they bring the child, when it came? Or would they stop it on the street, and keep it from coming at all?

The village clock struck midnight. Magda took a last look at the street, but it was empty. Even the thralls were gone now, brought inside to rest while the next shift of corpses was polished up.

Depression settled over her like frost. There was no child. It had all been a cruel game—a punishment, perhaps, for Magda's impudence. She should have known better than to trust one of Hel's Children, should have—

Something rustled behind her. She spun, and saw that the iris was moving.

She ran to the window so fast that she tripped, and fell hard on the frozen ground. As she looked up, she saw the inner petals pushing outward, as if something deep inside the flower were trying to get out.

A sweet, delicate scent began to pervade the air. After a moment, she placed it: it was the perfume Peter had given her on the night when she'd told him she was pregnant. Recognizing it, she finally understood.

"Hello?" She leaned towards the flower, listening so hard she barely dared to breathe. "Are you in there?"

For a second, the petals stilled. Then, slowly, a little naked creature, barely the length of Magda's thumb, crawled out from beneath the petals.

It was a girl—not a baby, but a little damsel fully-formed. She looked about ten—the age Magda's own baby would have been, had it survived. Leaning closer, Magda studied the girl's face, and gasped: the child looked exactly like Peter.

For a long time, they watched each other without speaking. Then, very carefully, Magda set her hand palm-up beside the flower. "Come, darling," she whispered, afraid the full force of her voice would shatter the child. "Come, darling, let's get warm."

The girl stepped daintily onto Magda's palm. Though the flower was only cold—chilled by its exposure to the winter night—the girl's tiny feet burned like chips of dry ice. Wincing, Magda cupped her hand around the child to make a windbreak, and carried her into the house.

The girl's eyes were the color of pomegranate seeds. Her skin looked like dirty snow. Her lank hair—the same mouse-brown as Peter's—fell like petals around her face.

"You must be cold," said Magda, although the girl had not shivered once. "Let's get you dressed."

"It's all right, Mother." The sweet piccolo voice made every word sound like a song. "I'm quite content."

Hearing the word 'Mother' from this precious child's lips, Magda wanted to dance. Restraining herself, she merely said, "I'm pleased to hear that, darling—but wouldn't you like something to wear, just the same?"

The girl cocked her head, as if considering a serious proposition. "If you wish it, Mother, I'd be pleased."

Magda carried her to the sewing table, and picked up the little white smock she'd found in a dusty box underneath her bed. Of course, it was a thousand times too large for this small maiden, but with only a little pang she cut a slice from the garment's sleeve, and made a sort of shift. Between them, they fastened it about the child's waist, tying it with a bit of ribbon. Then Magda opened one of her ancient compacts so the child could admire herself.

The girl studied her reflection, then nodded. "I like it, Mother." She made a pretty curtsey. "You're very skilled."

Magda began to smile—then noticed how thin the girl was. Her skin almost matched the white fabric of her shift—she looked as if she might faint at any second. "But aren't you hungry, my love?"

For the first time, the little girl shivered. "Yes, Mother. I'm very hungry."

Quickly, Magda took a thimble to the pot by the fire, and dipped up a bit of soup. It was weak, and the vegetables were sparse, but broth was hot and she thought it might be good for a young stomach. Gently, she offered it to the girl, who took it in two hands as if it were a bucket.

The girl sniffed the broth, then frowned. "I'm sorry, Mother," she said, shaking her head, "but I cannot drink this soup."

"Why not?" Magda was immediately worried. "Is it too hot?"

"Oh, no—but I need something richer."

Then Magda remembered the goat's milk, and blessed herself for having thought of it. She emptied the thimble, ran to the kitchen, and filled it up with milk.

This time the girl took a sip, and swallowed thoughtfully. Almost immediately, though, she handed the milk back, looking quite ill. "I'm very sorry, but I cannot drink this, either."

Her voice was much weaker than it had been, and Magda felt a chill. If she couldn't find anything the child could eat, then the girl would die—and if the girl died, Magda knew she'd die, herself.

She knelt beside the table, and raised her hands as if in prayer. "My angel, you must tell me quickly: what do you need to eat?"

The girl hesitated for so long Magda thought she wouldn't answer. At last, in a voice that shook like onion skin, she whispered, "If you love me, Mother, please... give me your hand."

Then Magda remembered the scars on her arms, and all the long months she fed the flower with snow and blood. Feeling suddenly much older, she offered her hand, palm-up.

The girl walked onto the ball of her thumb, then gripped the digit with surprising strength. As she opened her mouth, displaying teeth like white needles, Magda turned her face away.

She bowed her head, trying not to move, as the child began to eat. She could ignore the pain—pain, she'd experienced, and the bites weren't very big—but the sound of that dainty mouth chewing was difficult to ignore. She told herself, as the blood ran down her hand, that this was the only way.

At last, when her new daughter had stripped all the skin from her thumb, the tearing stopped. Magda raised her trembling hand as the girl chewed her last bite, and let her step back onto the table. Forcing herself to smile, she picked up the old white smock to stem the bleeding.

"Are you all right now?" she said, pressing the cloth against her wounds. "Is that enough?"

"Yes, Mother. Thank you." The girl wiped her face with an arm that looked much rosier than before. Her cheeks were flushed, and her red eyes gleamed like rubies. "I've eaten well, for now."

###

About the Author

Table of Contents

Katherine Traylor is a fantasy writer based in Durham, North Carolina. She read too many fairy tales as a child, too many fantasy novels as an adolescent, and far too much Harry Potter fanfiction in university. The only hope for her now is to let some of the accumulated magic escape into stories of her own. Her upcoming novel, THE WOODS AND THE CASTLE, is a YA paranormal drama about a shy teenage girl with an evil invisible friend. She thanks you sincerely for reading, and hopes you've enjoyed these stories. Best wishes to you! <3

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