

The Red Penny Papers

Vol. III Issue 1, Fall 2012

Copyright 2012 Red Penny Papers

~

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyright property of the authors, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

~

Cover:

"A Connection to Beyond" by C. Bernard

Editorial Staff:

KV Taylor

John Cash

Blog Editor: Mark S. Deniz

Web Formatting by: Mark Baird

Table of Contents:

1. "A Connection to Beyond" by Cat Rambo

2. "Breathing Room" by Jamie Mason

3. "Fearsome Critters and Friendly Giants" by M. Bennardo

4. "Crossroads and Carousels" by Alan Baxter

5. "The Extravagant and Venturesome Lives of Woman Pyrates" by Katy Gunn
Introduction

Welcome to our second anniversary issue. We have been very lucky to have artist C. Bernard come back to us for her third RPP cover to celebrate with us–she's responsible for our very first, and also our first anniversary issue, plus the portrait of our patron saint Magdala Twistleton. Story-wise, as always, a variety of puply delights await. Mediums (or not!), hippies on the moon, tall tales from logging camps, crossroads magic, and of course, adventures on the high seas with two woman pyrates... which is not at all what it sounds like, but then, the best things never are.

-Katey

A Connection to Beyond

by Cat Rambo

"Katherine and Margaret Fox have a genuine connection to Beyond," Papa said. He folded the newspaper into careful quarters and put it on the dining table, looking at me across the wide wooden pool of its glossy surface, the shine broken by a bridge made of Duchesse lace, which fell two inches to either side.Stay home and keep

I knew who Katherine and Margaret Fox were — girls around my age who lived in Albany, New York. A few months ago I'd read an article in Papa's New York World about how the spirits communicated with them. First they just heard rapping, then they figured out how to make the spirits talk to them. One rap for yes, two for no. The spirit said it was a workman who had been killed and buried under their house. People dug where the spirit said, and there was a body of an Irishman and his trowel buried beside him. He was a mason, hired to mend a wall in front of the house.

"The editor writes that he believes it is the innocence of their hearts allowing them this great gift." Papa was silent, studying me. Then, with hesitation in his voice he said, "You never hear noises you can't explain, do you, Jenny?"

"No, Papa." It was the wrong answer, I could tell. He looked disappointed, the corners of his moustache drooping down.

"Is Mama a spirit or an angel? Or are they the same thing?" I asked.

"She might be."

"But you said she was an angel. Are they the same thing?"

"People aren't sure," he admitted. "Some think spirits are souls who still have business here on earth." He smiled a little. "I like to think your mama would not want to leave us so quickly. And so she remains a spirit."

He wiped his hands on his dark pants. "And what do you have planned for this fine summer day, Jenny? What important events lie ahead for this fifteenth birthday?"

"Cake and pink lemonade with Alice tonight," I said. "Aunt Tilda is making me a new dress, and this afternoon I am going over to let her finish it."

"And this morning?"

"I will sit on the front porch and sew...no, I will read from the Bible," I said, watching his face.

He smiled even harder.

#

Alice from next door came over. We sweetened our lemonade with handfuls of sugar from the sugar barrel in the pantry and licked the sticky grit from our fingers, and then chipped ice for it from the lump in the icebox. We drank it on the porch swing, using the tips of our toes to rock ourselves back and forth. Fat bees crawled through the honeysuckle shading the porch, too sluggish to pursue the liquid in our glasses.

"Next month I'm going away to boarding school," Alice said. She was one year older than me, but we were in the same classes at Miss Danning's Academy. She was fatter and blonder than me and I liked holding my arm next to hers and seeing how much plumper it was or how the sun had burned the fair skin.

Papa said I was his Indian maiden. This summer I reveled in the sun for the first time. Mama would have forbidden it. "What will you do next year when we're graduated?"

"Stay home and keep home for Papa." I kept Papa's home and ordered the menus each morning and made sure the cook and the maid didn't steal anything.

"My Mama says you're spoiled," Alice said. The sunlight glinted on her hair as she studied me.

I laughed. "She's just jealous because she doesn't have such a pretty home to live in," I said, not caring whether or not it hurt Alice's feelings.

"My Mamma says ever since your Mama died you've had the run of things and you'll be put down pretty hard when Miss Tabor marries your Papa."

"He's not going to marry her," I said.

"Why not?"

"He's just not going to. He's got me to look after him. He doesn't need That Woman."

"I'm sure there's things she can give him you can't," she said with a lewd curl to her lips, but I pretended not to understand what she meant.

Her mother rang the lunch bell, a cowbell you can hear throughout the neighborhood, and she slurped down the last of her lemonade and set the glass on the railing. "I'll see you tonight for cake, right?" she said.

I picked up her glass and wiped the railing with my napkin. "Yes."

#

Aunt Tilda was not my real aunt, but she was my mother's friend. She agreed to make me a grown up dress, black tulle sewn with guipure lace made into a collar a la Vandyke, the pattern taken from Godey's Lady's Book. Slicks of light moved across the fabric's glossy surface. I stood on a stool so she could hem it.

"How pretty!" a voice said from the doorway. It was That Woman. As she came into the room, I smelled lavender and heard her skirts rustling, although I could not turn to look at her.

"And how are you today, Jenny?" she said.

"Very well, thank you."

"It's her birthday, Miss Tabor." Aunt Tilda was still on her knees, setting the hem into place with tiny, deft stitches. I would have liked to have seen her finish it on the new sewing machine, but she worried it would wear out, so she saved it for special occasions.

"Her birthday!" That Woman's voice went up high, as though she was pretending to be excited. "Shall I make you something for your birthday, Jenny? Perhaps a little morning cap made of lace?"

"No, thank you," I said politely.

It wasn't what they expected me to say, and I could tell they were exchanging glances. The only sound in the room was a delivery cart's rattle from outside and two finches singing to each other in the trees near the window.

"It's a rather...dark dress, isn't it?" That Woman asked.

"It's what she wanted," Aunt Tilda said. She and I had argued about this already, but I said Papa would rather have the dress be black. Black makes me look mysterious, like something out of a poem.

"I am still in mourning for my mother," I said.

"Ah." She stood there, looking at me as Aunt Tilda began to pin a ruffle along the skirts around my ankles. "She died of pneumonia early last fall, did she not?"

"She did," I said. "She's buried in the church where the willow droops over the wall. It's a very romantic spot."

She laughed. "It's been almost a year now, though, Jenny," she coaxed. "Surely it is time to put on a little finery, to spread your wings and flutter for the boys."

"I am a decent, well-behaved girl," I said. Aunt Tilda made a stifled snort deep in her chest. The silence spread until Aunt Tilda cleared her throat.

"Give my regards to your father," That Woman said and was gone.

Aunt Tilda waited until she was out the door before she shook the fabric out and pinned it anew. "There's no need to be rude, Jennifer Miller."

"I said thank you."

She hrmphed. "Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, would it?"

I didn't know what she meant. I thought about crying. People will stop talking to you sometimes if you cry. But Aunt Tilda sees through that.

"You're going to have to face facts," Aunt Tilda went on. "That woman's got her cap set at your father, and you might want to think about the fact she may become your mother."

"I have a mother. She's in heaven."

"Your stepmother."

#

Papa said our usual preacher, Reverend Flint, was the best preacher in Cleveland, but I still fell asleep during the sermon unless I bit the inside of my mouth and pinched my legs. I pinched myself and wondered whether spirits came to church. I imagined them swirling around up by the ceiling, but I thought maybe Mama would come to us, a swaddled mass of veils and angry eyes, staring at me. I scared myself with the notion for just a moment, deliberately, knowing in my heart it was all fakery. There's nothing after we die.

Reverend Flint was a very tall man. His arms and legs looked like a spider's – like one of the daddy long legs I found sometimes in the morning grass. His hair always seemed damp, as though he had been swimming, and it sat close to his skull.

His voice echoed over the dim stir of the crowded church: "We are finite creatures, and therefore, how can we possibly offend a source so infinite that all our petty vanities and acts are as nothing? It is not God who must be reconciled to human beings, but human beings who must be reconciled to God."

Sometimes I could tell when the sermon's end is coming, but sometimes not. It was hot in the church and I could hear a fly buzzing in the window, and all the little coughs and sniffs people try not to make.

Outside the church afterwards, Papa was talking about spiritualism with some other men.

"Horace Greeley has stated Spiritualism and Free Love are tied together," Mr. Townsend said. "He said 'If there is any truth in Spiritualism, I am afraid the spirits who visit us mainly tenanted bad bodies while on earth and have not improved since.'"

They all laughed, except for Papa. "Spiritualism, on the contrary, leads us away from carnality. To be spiritually minded is life and peace."

"Are you gentlemen solving the world's problems?" It was That Woman. She held onto her brother's arm.

"We are indeed." Papa smiled at her, although some other men looked funny at her. Women don't usually come talk to the men. Aunt Tilda says young women are far too bold in this modern day.

"I hear you are a suffragette," Mr. Bowler said to her. I wasn't sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing, but she smiled.

"I am indeed," she said "Last April, I was at the Woman's Rights convention in Salem and had the honor of hearing Lucretia Mott speak. She said there is no issue affecting the human family more than Woman's rights."

"The convention where the women refused the men any right to participate?" another man said. "Will we see you wearing bloomers next?"

Most of the men guffawed, and her face turned red, but she stayed where she was. "Women are making great strides in this century. In Pennsylvania, they've opened a Woman's Medical College. Indeed, Reverend Flint has been talking of bringing a woman to preach at church here, Mrs. Sojourner Truth."

"A colored woman speak at church?" the man next to Papa scoffed. "I would as soon go see a talking dog."

"That's supposed to be the appeal," someone else said. "Doctor Johnson says the wonder is not what a preaching woman says but that she does so at all."

That Woman's brother tugged at her arm. "I must go speak to Mrs. Pennington." His voice was soft and gentle. "Come, sister, accompany me."

She left, but not without a last smile at Papa.

"That one's got her cap set at you, Fred," someone said. I didn't know if she was too far away to hear them or not. I watched her back as she and her brother retreated. There was dust on her crinoline's hem and the ugly smear made me glad.

#

That evening, we had cake after dinner out on the porch with Aunt Tilda and Alice. The cake had white and pink icing, and I served it on the best Doulton china, the one with ivory patterns like knotwork along the rims.

Out on the street, the neighborhood kids played kick the can and shouted back and forth. Mama said they were common and I couldn't play with them. Of all the girls on the street, only Alice passed muster, and even that was barely.

Papa slouched back into his Adirondack chair as I poured him more coffee. Alice took advantage of the motion to take more cake, pursuing bits of frosting with her fork.

"Have you had a pleasant birthday, Jenny?" my father said.

I nodded. "Yes, Papa."

He put a parcel wrapped in white paper and tied with a pink ribbon on the table. I opened it to find a book, Modern History, from the Fall of Rome to the Present Time.

"Most instructive." Papa said.

It wasn't a nice present, but when Mama was alive, she didn't allow presents, so I counted myself ahead. I flipped through the pages and look at the illustrations.

"I saw Miss Tabor today when I was out on my lunch constitutional," my father said.

"Oh?" Aunt Tilda said, archness in the words.

"She was looking quite well."

"Indeed?" Aunt Tilda's voice grew even more meaningful as she glanced at me.

"Quite well." He unfolded his newspaper and leaned back while Alice, Aunt Tilda, and I watched the children chase each other across the sleepy brick street.

#

Before going to bed, I studied the parlor table. When I was little, my mother would slap at me for kicking the leg. It made a hollow sound when I did it, a satisfying sound.

I found my mother's sewing basket in her room. I sorted through the spools of thread, trying not to look at the colors. I remember her making herself a blue dress, a yellow dress, a pink dress, and embroidering flowers on the hems. At the bottom, I found two thimbles, one sized for me, one sized for her. I took hers.

#

Late at night, when the moonlight washed into the windows, spilling over the floor like milk, I went down to my father's bedroom and knocked on the door. He came out, yawning.

"What is it, Jenny? Did you have a nightmare?"

"I heard knocking," I said. "Not the front door, but in the walls."

He blinked himself awake. "Really?" His voice was filled with excitement.

If I was patient, I hoped, I would not need to lead him.

"Did you try talking to them?" he asked.

"One rap for yes, and two for no," I said. "They want to talk to you."

He started for my bedroom, but I said, "They want a proper séance."

I knew how to do it from the stories of Katherine and Margaret. I lit candles on the sideboard. We sat across from each other at the table. He reached forward and took my hands, closing his eyes.

Underneath the table, I twitched off my slipper.

"Spirits, are you here?" His voice was hesitant. "Marion? Is it you?"

It was hard to move my leg without moving my hands, but the thimble on my toe made a satisfying rap on the table leg.

My father's eyes flew open.

"Did you hear that?" he gasped. At my nod, he closed his eyes again. I pretended to close mine, but peeked out beneath my lashes, in case he was watching me.

He wanted Mother, so I brought her back for him, rapping out messages, trying hard not to imagine what she might say to me if she knew my fakery. He asked if she was well and happy and I had her say that people in heaven sing all the time, and she hoped he's taking good care of me. His voice was tender and caressing – sometimes I'd heard them talking like that behind the closed oak bedroom doors, so heavy that they muffled sound.

My leg was exhausted and shaking with the effort when he said, "Marion, tell me, do you remember that night up on Fool Mountain?"

I didn't know what to say, but "yes" seemed obvious.

His smile faded. "Well, Marion, I think that's enough for tonight." He pushed away from the table. I slipped the thimble off my toe.

#

A servant must have seen the séance last night and spread the gossip. Both Alice and Miss Tabor came asking about it. I lied to Alice and said I didn't remember anything, but she kept pushing and pushing.

I told her, "Papa wanted to see if we could talk to Mama, that's all."

"My Mama said there were lights on at all hours over at your house," Alice said.

"What does your mother do, stand watching ours day and night?" I asked. Alice changed the subject and talked me into making taffy. Later Cook complained to Papa about the counters being sticky, and he forbade me to make candy anymore. What was the use of being the woman of the house if I couldn't make candy?

Miss Tabor came and spoke to Papa about it too. They sat out on the porch and I lingered in the parlor at the open window, listening to them talk in the darkness.

"Rumor holds you have been conversing with the Empyreal Realms," Miss Tabor said lightly.

Papa was silent for a moment before answering. "I must confess, Miss Tabor..."

"June, if you please."

"June, then. I must confess that in my foolishness I've always believed there was another realm into which the spirit passed upon death, barely separated from our own. And that the layer's thinness accounted for such phenomenon as ghosts."

"You speak as though you do not believe in it anymore," she said.

"Do I? I wonder sometimes how much of what we see is our own wistful interpretation or else charlatanry and fraud."

"Indeed, you are in a cynical mood," she said. "I've never heard you like this."

"Since my wife's death I have had less faith in human nature."

"Why since her death?"

"I must tell you this story in the deepest confidence," he said. "My wife had pneumonia and was much weakened, at a time when our house was full of visitors, due to the Christmas holidays. She was found after dinner in her bed when her sister went upstairs to check on her."

Locusts shrilled in the trees as he spoke. "The thing is this. The doctor came to certify the body before it was taken to the funeral home and asked me if my wife had fallen, for she had curious bruises around her face.

"I lied, of course, and said she had fallen."

"Why? I don't understand," Miss Tabor said.

"The person who was known to have been with my wife was my daughter Jenny. I did not want to expose her to unpleasantness occasioned by the fact someone had taken the opportunity to remove a dying woman from this world."

"Are you saying your wife was murdered?"

"Do you believe in spiritual affinities as spoken of by Swedenborg?" Papa asked.

"The idea that some souls naturally embrace each other? I have heard it spoken of."

"My wife and I were the opposite," Papa said. "We were the product of a match arranged by our parents when we were both in our infancy. I was eight when she was born, and I remember the grown-ups making sport of the upcoming nuptials and asking after my little bride to be."

"But surely you came to a sympathy once you were married?"

"My wife," Papa said, "was not a pleasant woman. She made everyone's life wretched. She knew she was dying of tuberculosis, so she set about driving us all crazy."

"I still don't understand." Her voice was quiet and calm. "Are you saying you killed your wife or that your daughter did?"

I didn't hear Papa's answer. He raised his voice. "Go to bed, Jenny," he said.

#

When I came home from Mrs. Tabor's, Papa was in the parlor with another man. I didn't like the way he looked. His face was red and he had ginger hair. He wore a bright blue vest with a gold chain leading to the pocket.

"Jenny, this is Mr. Cain," Papa said. "Abraham, this is my daughter."

"The gifted miss herself!" Squatting on his heels, Mr. Cain peered into my face. Then he reached out and felt my head. "Ah, I can see where she gets it. Her bump of sublimity is well developed."

"You are a practitioner of phrenology, sir?" Papa asked.

"Only a dabbler, only a dabbler in that ancient art."

Papa turned to address me. "Mr. Cain arranges for spiritual tours, Jenny. So people like yourself can share their gifts with other people looking for guidance from the spirit world. Do you think you would be willing to conduct a séance with him present?"

There was no way to say no, so I nodded.

"I'll be right back." Papa left, and Mr. Cain and I were alone. I could feel him looking at me while I studied the design on the carpet. Tulips and lilies next to each other, first a row of red and white tulips, stiff and formal, then a row of orange lilies, the green leaves edged with blue.

"Let's understand each other," Mr. Cain said, his voice low. "You and I both know you're faking it, but your father doesn't need to. Let me see you in action and I won't blow your gaff."

I looked at him, not sure what he meant.

"I won't tell on you, dolly, but I do want to see." He grinned slyly. "You might teach an old dog new tricks, eh?" His face was pinked with heat and gleamed from the sweat. I heard Papa coming down the hall before I could reply.

We sat around the table, and Papa drew the curtains across the windows, letting the room fill with shadows. We joined hands and closed our eyes.

I didn't mean to do anything, not at first, but Mr. Cain's fingers tightened on mine until it hurt. He wouldn't let go. Finally I managed to make the table rap by putting my toe under the leg and jerking it up, careful not to move the rest of my body.

"Ah, spirits, speak to us," Papa said. His eyes were still closed, but Mr. Cain was looking at me. "Do you have a message?"

Rap.

"A message for me?"

Rap.

"From my wife?"

Rap. Rap.

"Then who?"

Mr. Cain's fingers clenched mine so tight that I gave up the idea of having the spirits tell Papa not to let me go. I'd have to persuade him in some other way. There was a long silence.

"Are you a member of my family?" Papa asks.

Rap. Rap.

I couldn't think of what to do. The air pushed in around me, hot and still, and Mr. Cain was still hurting my hand. I used all my strength trying to push at the table, but it was so heavy that my chair tipped over backwards and I fell on the carpet, my fingers bruised. I started crying, but I didn't know whether it was from the pain, or the frustration. Nothing was going right.

Papa was there, his arm around me. Behind me Mr. Cain stood, staring down at me and smiling.

#

Over dinner, Mr. Cain told us about the spiritualists who he arranged tours for. He said they come from all over the world. One was related to English royalty, he said.

"I am a follower of the principles developed by Antoine Mesmer and use them to manipulate the magnetic fields in the body and induce trances in the girls. Pretty girls, all of them," he said, winking at Papa. "You'd fit right in."

"How do you provide for their education?" Papa asked.

Mr. Cain squinted at him before answering. "We bring tutors on the tour, of course. Each girl applies herself to her studies, which include elocution, literature, and etiquette. And travel, as you know, polishes one. The girls get to interact with society of the highest degree."

"It sounds ideal." Papa smiled at me. "Don't you agree, Jenny?"

I chose my words with care, like picking cards out of a hand. "I would feel homesick. I would not want to leave you, Papa."

"Sometimes parents are willing to make sacrifices for their children," Mr. Cain said. "Many of the parents certainly do not need the wages the girls earn, but wish to see them advance in society."

"Exactly," Papa said.

"You are no fool," Mr. Cain said.

"No," Papa said. "My wife and I had a saying: 'I've never visited Fool Mountain.'"

It felt as though the floor dropped away below me, but I had nothing left to say. At least during the first séance I was able to tell Papa not to marry again. At least I did that.

#

Three days later, the carriage came to take me away. Papa loaded my trunk on it, its brass-knobbed corners glinting in the sunlight.

Mr. Cain hadn't thought much of my talents. While Papa was gone, he told me I'd be taught how to spill ectoplasm from my mouth and to roll my eyes upward and pretend to be speaking in voices other than my own.

"You're pretty, though," he'd said. "That goes a long way. Ah, we'll be friends, Jenny my love. Fast friends indeed."

He took my hand and helped me up into the carriage, which smelled sour and musty. The horsehair-stuffed seat was bumpy and uncomfortable. He patted my knee as Papa came to the door.

I tried one final argument. "Papa, I don't want to..."

He cut me off. "Nonsense, Jenny, you'll have a fine time and become a fine lady. And you'll bring your marvelous gift to the world. Helping people reach their loved ones is a noble cause indeed."

He slipped me a dollar coin. "For a special occasion."

The carriage jolted and rumbled forward as Papa stepped back. That Woman was waiting for him. She put her hand on his arm as he waved to me, smiling. Mr. Cain reached over to take the coin.

"I'll just put this away to watch over for you," he said, sliding it into his pocket. "Oh, Jenny. Fast friends indeed. There's so much left to show you."

John Barth described Cat Rambo's writings as "works of urban mythopoeia" — her stories take place in a universe where chickens aid the lovelorn, Death is just another face on the train, and Bigfoot gives interviews to the media on a daily basis. She has worked as a programmer-writer for Microsoft and a Tarot card reader, professions which, she claims, both involve a certain combination of technical knowledge and willingness to go with the flow. In 2005 she attended the Clarion West Writers' Workshop. Among the places in which her stories have appeared are ASIMOV'S, WEIRD TALES, CLARKESWORLD, and STRANGE HORIZONS, and her work has consistently garnered mentions and appearances in year's best of anthologies. Her collection, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT was an Endeavour Award finalist in 2010 and followed her collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, THE SURGEON'S TALE AND OTHER STORIES.

© 2012 All rights reserved Cat Rambo.

Breathing Room

by Jamie Mason

Willy uses a hose to siphon bootleg oxygen from the condo into the VW microbus he shares with Moo. This is a dangerous operation, not so much for them as for the Yuppies infesting the newly-built facility. But Willy says screw 'em, the condo-dwellers are oxy-hogs, and the Moon used to be so cool, man (fun people, good weed, great music) before the Yuppies showed up and bought all the terra-formed parcels, inflating property prices and forcing all the real people to leave, because nobody wants to live on a Moon where everything costs a fortune and you can breathe without a pressure suit. Who cares if the Yuppies explode? Nobody gives a shit about Yuppies anyway and power to the people. Man. That's what Willy says. And Moo agrees with him. She always does.

Willy drives to the Amsterdam Café for breakfast, chancing a shortcut through one of the remaining unpressurized sectors. The O2 level in the bus drops dangerously, leaving them cold and lightheaded as they slalom back through an airlock into a zone developers have artfully allowed to remain bohemian. ("Yuppies like a walk on the wild side now and then, man.") Willy parks at the curb and they take a seat on the deserted patio. Hamid leaves the kitchen to deliver menus personally.

"Where's Deena, man?"

"Gone." The proprietor makes a dismissive gesture with one hand while pouring coffee with the other. "Back to her family on Earth."

After Hamid departs, Willy bitches up a blue storm about economic conditions. There's no money anymore, man, no breathing room, no place to work but in the service industry catering to retired Yuppies. Damned Yuppies!

He and Moo finish breakfast and Hamid deposits the check. The total for two coffees, a donut and a muffin comes to ...

"Sixty-eight dollars! Man, Hamid! What is this, man?"

"Oxygen surcharge." The proprietor smiles apologetically. "The neighborhood association has levied a tax."

Back behind the wheel of the microbus, Willy broods for a time, staring forlornly through the windshield as a trio of workmen erect a sign announcing a planned gated community. Willy watches the parade of departing crash-pads, head shops, and cheap cafes like a tie-dyed Antony as the god abandons him. He remains motionless, glowering for a full minute before sitting forward and twisting the ignition.

"You got the guns, man?" He snarls the question through gritted teeth.

Moo nods as they pull away from the curb.

#

Teddyboy Gunderson's degree in genetic engineering paid off. His genome-tinkering resulted in Tranquility Toke, winner of the 2061 Cannabis Cup and the weed of choice of Kit Turnbuckle and the Velvet Sewer, the rock super-combo whose mega-selling Space Goober tour kicked off at Aldrin Stadium (Willy and Moo were there). Teddyboy's rep was made when he scored exclusive rights to be the group's dealer. Hobnobbing with the jet-set cemented his legendary status, as well as a live-in relationship with Jill, the Sewer's maximum groupie.

"Jill!" Teddyboy kicks off his loafers in the vestibule of the townhouse bankrolled by his celebrity drug-dealer income (Darkside Magazine dubbed him the "Pablo Escobar of Pot"). He yanks loose his tie as he pads toward the kitchen for a beer and a toke following his return from a whirlwind tour of Earth-side distributors. The reverberation of the departing shuttle shivers through his feet as it thunders downrange from Lovell Station, visible through the high, thin lattice-work of the dome as a tiny spark trailing exhaust.

And Jill, all scarves and silks and straight-leg jeans terminating in narrow bare feet, gray eyes radiating the canny intelligence of the streetwise survivor, the veteran caretaker of movers-and-shakers, appears in the kitchen doorway, beer in one hand, a blunt of Tranquility Toke smoldering between the fingers of the other. "Dahling!" She comes forward, offering these recreational anesthetics to her man, air-kissing Teddyboy's cheeks with burlesque sound effects strangely suited to her London accent. "Mwa-MWAH! Wonderful to see you again. Simply fabulous, dahling. Back from Terra, what? How is the old girl?"

"Fine. How's the grow room?"

Jill wrinkles her nose. "Still putrid, dahling. The technician hasn't yet been to repair the O2 scrubber."

"Then what the hell do we pay taxes for?" Teddyboy grunts, fumigating the room with great gusting exhales of Tranquility Toke as he lumbers toward the basement steps. "Goddam crop's ruined. Nobody's gonna buy weed that smells like fucking Freon."

"Er, quite."

Teddyboy thumps downstairs to inspect the neon green forest marching toward the back wall in orderly rows beneath the glare of halogen grow-lamps. He sniffs cautiously. A lingering chemical odor disturbs the organic bouquet of his crop. Damn. Teddyboy has recently begun marketing to a higher class of locals, semi-retired smokers laid back enough to deal in cash but sufficiently hip to demand quality. He can probably fast-talk a few into a buying bag from this rotation but most will be put off by the stench. Problems like this had never come up when his customer base consisted exclusively of first-wave Moon rats: misfits, prospectors, hippies. But times are changing; who knows what ambitious espontaneo may be fostering a little cottage grow-op of his own? Teddyboy is not about to jeopardize his monopoly by giving his clients a reason to shop elsewhere. With a sour glance at the defective scrubber hanging in the corner, Teddyboy turns and thumps back upstairs. He emerges into the aroma of Jill's world-famous spaghetti sauce.

"Dahling, there's a camper van been parked at the curb for over an hour now."

Teddyboy glances out the window. "Probably looking to score." The van is vaguely familiar; some old first wave customer eager to score a bag for the weekend? Teddyboy won't encourage or discourage a knock on the door. It's commerce he can do without, and right now he needs some peace and quiet. He busies himself with retrieving messages from the answering machine, the first of which is from Kit Turnbuckle. The rest are either bill collectors or sales calls. Moving into the 'burbs has meant being added to the solicitors' call sheets. "Goddam free market'll fill up my in box but it won't fix my air scrubber," he bitches.

"Why not call McCoy?" Jill's knife thwacks onions to splinters with a machinelike efficiency learned cooking for tour-shuttles full of roadies and rock musicians.

"Monkeywrench McCoy? Nah, he'll work for a half-hour then stay for four, chit-chatting and drinking up my beer. Better to let the city pay for it." Teddyboy drains his can and grabs another on his way out to the rear balcony. Jill sets the noodles to simmer and joins him.

"Nice view." She lights a cigarette.

"Since they bulldozed that damned commune under." Teddyboy huffs a deep lungful of blunt and gestures down the hill at the now-empty lot, his roach dripping sparks. "Oxygen fees woulda driven em out eventually but sooner is better. First wavers worked damned hard for a foothold up here! Yeah it was share and share alike in the old days but times have changed. Ya gotta keep up or get left behind. Those guys were living in the past."

Jill considers this, keeping her thoughts to herself. She has been around enough new bands and start-up labels to know how it goes. Ambitious amateurs labor to get things off the ground but are elbowed aside at the first glimmer of profitability by professional opportunists with the money to take projects over the top. Why should a Moon colony be any different? Business is business. But Jill says nothing, just smokes quietly.

"They were bringin -" (the phone rings) "- property values down and -" (another ring) "- makin it harder on all of us -" (another ring; he turns to go in) "- to move ahead."

A fourth ring sounds and the answering machine kicks on as Teddyboy crosses the kitchen to answer. A voice – male – comes on speaker: "Mr. Gunderson? This is Sal Vy of ConSol. About your O2 scrubber? Seems there's a virus on the network and -"

"Great!" Teddyboy grabs for the receiver.

"- having the same problem all over the colony so ..."

BLAM!

Teddyboy freezes receiver midway to his ear as the front door is kicked in and Willy and Moo enter, guns drawn.

#

And Jill, savvy enough to keep a laze-taze handy for home use, slips through the doorway, weapon up, and immediately gets told to drop it by a rough-voiced Willy. She complies but with slow defiance and a smoldering gaze. She reads the relationship between the invading pair in a split-second. The rough-voiced white boy with the Rasta-wear and dreads is obviously the dominant. The other, a dough-faced girl in overalls and gumboots, her mop of curls captive beneath a wool toque, has the vacant look of the veteran tag-along. Jill reads adoration in the glances she keeps firing the Rasta's way.

"The fuck you want?" Teddyboy's snarl contains a tremor only Jill can hear. Teddyboy G, baddest of bad boys, scourge of the small-time growers, college wrestler turned black marketeer and virtuoso with a baseball bat, is frightened. This knowledge hits Jill like a block of ice.

"The fuck you think I want, man?" The thin-faced Rasta's eyes narrow. "Money. And weed. Lotsa both."

"Screw off!"

"Whatchya gunna do? Call the cops?" Willy's gaze flicks over and catches Jill sidling toward the end table, her fingertips brushing the lacquer box that hides a switch-blade. Willy jerks his snub-nose and the girl, Moo, moves in and takes Jill's elbow with an apologetic smile. She's reachable, that one, Jill thinks and allows herself to be guided to a chair where she sits, guarded by the dough-faced Moo.

Teddyboy meanwhile wrestles his flaming outrage to a low simmer. Money? Weed? Sure. These goons can have the entire ruined harvest in the basement. Take it! But the shoeboxes of cash beneath his bed have to last until the next rotation flowers. That's months away. Teddyboy will die before giving away his hard-won security.

"Listen." Teddyboy's snarl softens to silk and he raises his blunt, soil-stained hands. "You're in a tough spot. I know that. I'll give you as much weed as you want. As for the money, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement ..."

"The shoeboxes. Under the bed." Willy jerks the gun. "I snooped last time I was here. I want all of it."

Teddyboy feels his kingdom tip and teeter. "You want what? Air? Look, I got an O2 scrubber in the basement ..."

"The one stinking up the place with Freon? Give it a rest, man." Willy's patience frays and Teddyboy watches the knuckle of his forefinger whiten against the revolver's trigger. Probably been smoking all day, Teddyboy thinks and feels a glimmer of hope–before admitting that a scattered, irritable hostage-taker is possibly more dangerous than a determined, focused one.

"It can't be hippie-ville around here forever. Things change." Teddyboy shrugs. "Change brings jobs. Think of the people who are gonna make money building stuff, pressurizing the dark areas. More businesses will -"

"Don't gimme that big-shot capitalist talk, man! You used to be somebody real, Teddyboy. What happened to you? This is our home, too. Just because we don't have big-shot jobs doesn't mean we don't count, man. They're crowding us out, man. No breathing room! Moo and me been livin in the van since they bulldozed the commune!"

"That's rough." The ensuing pause is filled with the O2 scrubber chiming its hourly maintenance notification. Jill can tell by Teddyboy's clenched brow that her man is calculating, figuring. Her dalliance with Teddyboy is due not only to his bull-like physique but also his cunning. His superb lightning-swift animal cunning, she thinks and congratulates herself.

"Yeah, rough," Teddyboy repeats. "Look – I'll level with you. Willy is it?" He is looking directly into the Rasta-guy's eyes now, palms spread, appealing. "Bill, the way things are shaking out I'm gonna need every penny I got just to pay my piece of the air tax. That's not your problem, but it's the way things are for me. But look, I've got something for you. I've got more cash – and some O2 – stashed in a storage locker. Out by the Mariposa Airlock. We'd have to stop at my lawyer's office to get the key but ..."

Embers of hope stir in Jill's present emotional ash-pit. George Kazan, Teddyboy's lawyer, does indeed keep an office out by Mariposa. He also keeps a pistol in his desk drawer. They have guns around here, too, but accessing them under present circumstances doesn't seem likely. Kazan's office has the tactical advantage of being unfamiliar territory. Perfect for an ambush. And Teddyboy has a key.

" ... I can get us in. Get you the cash and a half-dozen bottles of prime O2 worth their weight in gold. Those bottles were my insurance policy but you can have em. Yours. Sell em and you can buy a place of your own. Hell, re-open the commune. Have all your friends move in. Whaddya say?"

And Willy listens, frozen stiff, but something intangible shifting in his aura. Jill hates the word "aura" with its connotations of low-rent mysticism and table-tapping, but in this case it applies. Willy's "aura," once black, now dances yellow-gold at the edges. With listening. Acceptance.

"It's just a short ways from here. We can take your van." Teddyboy smiles, administering this nudge.

Willy relaxes. A smile edges his thin, bearded face. He glances at Moo. And Jill's heart sings.

Two minutes later they are in the rear of the van as Willy floors it for the Mariposa Airlock. As they cross a silent intersection, a tone sounds – the chime of the neighborhood scrubber, demanding maintenance.

#

The suburban streets – an illusion of distance created by forced perspective – stretch in calm silence to the Dome's membrane. Beyond, the lunar landscape rolls to the horizon in sterile grey. The microbus wheezes up the boulevard farting clouds of monoxide. Jill forces herself to breathe, measuring the distance between herself and Moo, calculating, planning what she'll do to the girl once Teddyboy makes his move. It won't be pretty. For in addition to a semester of bookkeeping at community college, Jill's education includes a six week course in defensive tactics taught by a retired Israeli Airborne sergeant and Krav Maga expert. Both talents had proven useful in her former entourage life.

"Tourists!" Willy crooks his arm across his chest in an effort to keep Teddyboy covered with the gun as he steers one-handed. "This place used to be so happening, so fresh, man ... I mean ... Lookit that!" He jerks the barrel at a scrubber mounted on a scaffold by the municipal building, its face a galaxy of blinking red lights and text crawls ("CONDITION 14872 ... SERVICE IMMEDIATELY ...") "Goddam oxy-hogs. Lookit what they've done, man!"

Teddyboy's eyes never once leave Willy and Jill marvels again at her man's will. She knows he will make his move at the first opportunity, so she must be ready with hers. She flashes a sidelong glance at Moo. The lumbering girl gazes vacantly back. What makes her tick? Jill wonders. The stolid Moo displays no passionate idealism, exudes no anger, and doesn't seem to have a sexual bone in her body. If anything, Moo is a true blank slate. Just the type a controlling snipe like Willy wants. Viperous little counter-culture types always prefer followers to friends. Jill takes a chance.

"Why do you stay with him?" she whispers. When Moo looks over, Jill darts her eyes to Willy. "Why?"

Moo blinks, pulls her gun arm back in a lazy arc, then flashes it down, pistol whipping Jill across the mouth. Jill tastes metal, blood. Passes a hand across her lips. Fists away the thread of blood and keeps her eyes on Moo. The pain causes her flesh to shriek but Jill knows how to master pain. She knows it is far more important to psych out her opponent than give in to discomfort. She waits for a flicker of nervousness – an acknowledgement of her seeming imperviousness – from Moo. But the big girl has merely returned to her state of vacant watchfulness. An odd bird, thinks Jill. And turns away, allowing herself to grit her back teeth against the swelling agony.

Willy slows at a red light. A procession of vehicle and foot traffic crosses through the intersection in front of the VW. All are headed in the direction of Lovell Station.

"Wonder what's goin on?" Willy reaches for the joint tucked behind his ear.

The O2 scrubbers! Jill starts when she recalls the phone message about a computer virus proliferating across the network. The repair chimes of the ubiquitous machines have become so commonplace they've faded into the background. But as she attunes her ears to them now, they rise in deafening chorus.

"Willy!" She sits forward. "You have to turn this bus – ACK!"

Jill shrieks as Moo grasps a hank of her hair and yanks her back into her seat. Jill raises her hands to the fire in her scalp, feeling Moo's greasy fingers curled into her locks. Closes her eyes and breathes deeply. Wills herself not to scream.

"Don't do that again, man." Willy's gaze in the rear-view mirror is triumphant. "For your own good just sit still. Moo is crazy. She'll kill you."

Moo is crazy. Those three words flood Jill's bowels with ice water. Suddenly Moo's impassiveness – her muteness, her stoic presence – are tinged with menace. Jill returns to her deep breathing, her mental rehearsal of Krav Maga tactics, her anticipatory surveillance of Teddyboy.

My beautiful, cunning, ruthless man, she thinks. And allows herself to feel a glimmer of hope.

The light changes and Willy accelerates through the intersection bounded on one side by a crush of waiting people and on the other by the departing bumpers and backs of evacuees high-tailing it to Lovell Station. The civil defense siren sounds and Teddyboy reaches for the radio.

"Don't touch that, man!"

Teddyboy's gaze snaps up. "Something's happening. Maybe we should -"

"Maybe nothing! You sit still or Moo'll hurt your girlfriend some more. You'd like that wouldn't ya, Moo?"

And Moo makes a sound – the first sound Jill or Teddyboy has ever heard her make. It is a gentle lowing, like the lament of a bull at eventide, a gravelly sigh that deepens into a growl. And stops on a laugh.

The greasy fingers in Jill's hair tighten briefly before letting go.

Mad, Jill marvels. Mad as a bloody hatter.

The siren shrieks to a halt. In the sudden stillness, the Dome's O2 scrubbers howl their collective service warning, a chorus of identical tones jangling in out-of-synch rhythm. These abruptly fall silent. Then the siren resumes.

#

Willy stabs the brake and the bus jams to a halt before a low building with a lit sign.

GEORGE KAZAN, ESQ.

Attorney-at-law

Criminal defense, tax & family litigation

Jill peers at the squat cinderblock structure, at the strong door with its peep hole, at the glowing rectangle advertising legal services and the tiny dark cubicle the size of a portable toilet stuck to the outside wall – the emergency shelter with its store of O2. All the structures built before the Dome were required to have one. Kazan's office is located close to the membrane, in a down-and-out neighborhood from pre-Dome days notorious for sudden variances in pressure. Teddyboy appreciates Kazan for his ability to "keep one foot in the street" (and, Jill suspects, look the other way when necessary). The outer ring, where tenants willingly trade safety for low rent, is exactly the kind of place an operation like Kazan's can flourish.

"Okay." Teddyboy produces a digital key. "The key is in George's desk, I know exactly where. Let's -" Teddyboy is interrupted by a sudden heightening in the siren's volume "- let's go in and ..."

"No way, man." Willy cuts his gaze toward Jill. "Moo, go with him. I'll stay here with the chick."

Teddyboy falters, though only Jill can sense it. The presumed plan had been to attack and overpower both kidnappers simultaneously upon the surprise appearance of Kazan's pistol. With everyone at close range – and a presumed match-up by gender – they stood an even chance. Separated and divided (her facing an armed Willy alone) there are no guarantees. But with the scrubbers malfunctioning and the sirens wailing and the first escape rockets climbing skyward from Lovell Station on their panic-plumes of exhaust, she and Teddyboy are left with no choice.

Teddyboy locks eyes with her. Gives a barely perceptible nod. Then says aloud: "Okay. Let's go."

Willy turns and levels his gun at Jill as Moo and Teddyboy step to the curb.

#

The interior of Kazan's office is a cloud of black velvet cut by the firefly-twinkle of computers running back-ups. Teddyboy pauses and probes the wall for the light switch, intensely aware of the wrinkled damp of his dress shirt – donned twenty-four hours ago – enfolding his chest like Saran wrap. A PointCast news crawl bursts to life across the screen of the nearest terminal:

LUNAR EVACUATION UNDERWAY ...

>>> DOME DEPRESSURIZATION IMMINENT <<<

"Know what that means? Depressurization?" Teddyboy's fingers find the stud and the office bursts to light. His question to Moo sounds casual. "You understand what's going on?"

Moo's gaze meets his.

"Your friend is crazy. He's going to get us all killed. We should leave."

Moo raises the business end of her pistol and flicks it at Kazan's office door.

Teddyboy takes a deep breath. Perhaps there is no reasoning with Moo. Maybe Willy was right when he said she was crazy. They're both crazy.

Teddyboy pushes open the office door, remembering the first time he came here over a decade ago. Fresh out of graduate school, toting a jar of BC Bud seeds gathered during his apprenticeship to the finest growers in the Cowichan Valley, he arrived in a pressurized lunar bus, a starry-eyed impresario intent on setting up shop. Back then, Kazan still had all his hair and favored Hawaiian shirts when not in court. They smoked joints during late-night conferences in his office to draft patents and cobble together boilerplate shipping agreements, held impromptu bar-b-cues, and chased chicks together. One night, Kazan took pains to assure Teddyboy that he was just the right lawyer for the job.

"Brass knuckles in court. And ..." He yanked open a drawer and produced a nickel-plated .45. "This for the rough stuff."

The good old days.

Stepping behind the desk, he keeps his eyes on Moo in the doorway. Her expression is blank, unconcerned. Teddyboy smiles reassuringly at her before opening the drawer. There among crumpled briefs and empty cigarette packs is the butt of Kazan's pistol. Teddyboy reaches in and ...

#

"They're crowding us out, man! That's the injustice."

Jill smiles her best glowing, ever-phony dinner-party grin – the one she used back when her life was filled with fawning fans and money-bag record producers who wanted to fuck her and sign Kit (or was it the other way around? She can't recall). Here, among the claxons of a depressurizing dome, close to a membrane threatening to shear and pour in crushing weightlessness, she feels a similar species of pressure to those heady days. She must balance the encroaching catastrophe with charm. It is what she does best.

"No room to live, man, no room to breathe. It -"

The flat crack of a gunshot tugs his attention to the window and Jill makes her move, clearing the space between herself and the rear of Willy's seat mongoose-quick. She grasps his gun-arm and levers it down, thumb up so the elbow hyper-extends across the seat back. Willy shrieks and whirls toward her, trigger finger squeezing reflexively. The revolver blasts inside the box-like VW, the bullet close enough to Jill's thigh that she can feel the wind of its passage. Break the arm, she orders herself. Just snap it and the gun will fall. A sensation ripples through her fingers, like the snap of a drum-stick shearing from a chicken. Willy howls and thrashes and his eyes widen in fear. His fingers flex again, but he is too weak to pull the trigger.

Teddyboy appears just then, sprinting through the doorway of Kazan's office. Above the claxon of the depressurization alarm, Jill hears him scream and fire. The first bullet shatters the side-view mirror of the VW. The second tangles in its chassis, crumpling a side panel. Willy drops the gun. Grapples open the driver's side door. Tumbles out, the weight of his body dragging his shattered arm from Jill's grasp. She scoops up the fallen gun and draws a bead on Willy, following his progress across the sidewalk toward the 02 shelter.

"Forget him!" Teddyboy leaps behind the wheel. "The whole Dome's about to blow! We gotta jam!"

Jill lowers the gun. Nods. Tries hard not to think about Moo.

The van rumbles to life and leaps from the curb as Willy ducks into the shelter and yanks the door shut behind him.

#

Agony crawls the length of Willy's arm. He grits his teeth, punches the red button by the door, and waits as the pressurized shelter seals itself against the storming vacuum outside.

The Moon – his Moon – is dying.

It used to be so Happening, man. So fresh. Until the Yuppies ruined it all. Frenzied expansion overburdened the air network to the point of weakening the fragile atmosphere. The place became claustrophobic, unlivable. Before then, it had been home to the best people. And only the best.

There is a tiny window in the side of the pressure shelter. Willy peers through it. A hairline fissure has appeared in the membrane of the dome, running from the upper right hand corner of his field of vision diagonally downward. As Willy watches, the fissure expands to disappear from view behind the edge of Kazan's office building.

"Fun people, good music, great weed," Willy mutters.

So happening.

So fresh.

In a few minutes, an entire cross-section of the Dome will implode and this neighborhood will be engulfed by the hostile vacuum beyond. The oxygen will blast outward, sweeping streets and cars and even a few buildings away on its tidal rush. The 02 shelter in which Willy sits will remain, tethered to the lunar core by a titanium cable, its homing beacon automatically activated to alert space command Earth-side that a survivor is waiting until they can dispatch a rescue pod. Which may take days.

Or weeks, Willy thinks.

Beside the door, someone has scrawled in inkpencil:

WELCOME TO THE BREATHING ROOM

Willy laughs. Until his arm starts to hurt. Then he stops.

Jamie Mason is a Canadian sci-fi/fantasy short-story author and novelist whose works are characterized by absurdist themes and an exaggeratedly fatalistic world view. His stories have been featured in On Spec, Abyss & Apex and the Canadian Science Fiction Review. His young adult sci-fi novel ECHO was published in June 2011 by Drollerie Press. Visit  www.jamiescribbles.com to learn more.

© 2012 All rights reserved Jamie Mason.

Fearsome Critters and Friendly Giants

by M. Bennardo

And just what in blazes, Cookie wanted to know, was he supposed to do with all of this food now?

All through the winter, Robeson had assured him again and again: "Go ahead and order it all for the spring. He'll be back then. He's taking the winter off, but you'll see–he'll be back in the spring, and hungry."

But spring had come to the Michigan North Woods. Crocuses and bluebells poked out of the thawing swamp, and thick carpets of ferns unfurled under the oak and pine and maple trunks. Northbound ducks choked the flyways and herons flapped ponderously back to their treetop nests, soon to be obscured by the millions of green leaves itching out of the branches below.

Yes, spring had returned to the Michigan North Woods, but Paul Bunyan had not. Instead, there was a barge at the Lake Superior landing with six brand-new, bright red Overpack horse-drawn logging wheels. Five feet even at the axle, the manufacturer stated that these wheels comprised the only method guaranteed to clear felled timber from soggy ground without sinking, sticking, or soaking the logs.

The only method, that is, except to have a verified giant, fifty-three feet tall at the shoulder, lift them out by hand.

"Can't you cancel the orders?" asked Robeson.

Cookie's mind reeled. Cancel the orders? He'd coordinated Bunyan's board months in advance, corresponding by letter with millers, brewers, hog farmers, and both land and water carriers to make sure everything arrived on time. Cancel the orders! Already, there were barges and carts all across the Great Lakes, carrying loads of food bound for Robeson's logging camp.

"I'll see what I can do," said Cookie sadly. He surveyed the shipment that had come that day–fifty sacks of flour, a thousand dozen eggs, eighty-five prize hogs, five hundred gallons of maple syrup, and three hundred barrels of Milwaukee beer. Even if those logging wheels worked like they said, there would be an awful lot of vittles going to waste.

#

Of course, Cookie knew that Robeson had it worse. That night at camp, he had to break it to the boys that Bunyan wasn't coming back and all they were getting instead were four Swedish skidders from Ontario who had experience with the logging wheels.

Practically Robeson's whole outfit had come to rely on Bunyan for all the heaviest work–almost everything except stripping branches, squaring logs, hacking ties, and loading barges. That left them with a lot of experience in preparing logs to ship back east, but almost none in bringing trees down. Folks did say their camp food was second to none, but it wasn't Cookie's place to judge.

"Not coming back!" Bonner roared when Robeson broke the news. He was a hulking, bearded feller from Quebec, not given to much talk but not shy when he was. "Where in the blazes is he then?"

Robeson didn't say anything, but old Tandy always seemed to know everything. "Minny-soter," he said, the gap in his teeth whistling on the sibilant.

A general murmur followed. Until recently, Minnesota had been wooly with wildness and hardly settled at all. But it was a bright young state now, with senators and congressmen eager for industry. Minnesota's virgin woods, filled with trees that had never felt the bite of an axe or heard the rasp of a crosscut saw, were just so many millions of acres of vertical treasure ripe for the taking.

"It's a blow, no doubt," said Robeson. "But we'll just have to take up felling and skidding the old-fashioned way, like every other outfit does. And now we've got the logging wheels, and these four fine Swedes to teach us how to drive them."

The Swedes shifted uncomfortably under the catcalls that greeted their official introduction. O'Doul, the wiry Irish tree topper, was especially unimpressed, even though the crown of his head barely reached the shoulder of the smallest Swede. "Those four together wouldn't make one of Bunyan's legs!"

Robeson held up his hands. "That may be, but we've got modern equipment now and some solid know-how. In a couple weeks, I expect we'll be hauling those mast pines out as fast as we ever did." When that didn't calm the camp much, Robeson added: "And for now, you all might as well wet your whiskers on Bunyan's share of the beer."

At that, a spontaneous cheer went up, so loud that Cookie's ears didn't stop ringing until the second barrel was tapped.

#

Halfway through the third barrel, the Swedes and the rest of the camp were as friendly and familiar as if they'd been weaned on adjacent knees. Cookie kept the beer flowing–there was no danger of running out, and another nip was always good for morale. Soon, talk turned, as it always did, to the fearsome critters of the north woods.

It was one of the Swedes who started it, when he saw old Tandy absently rubbing the sagging ruff of a sad-looking dog they'd brought from Ontario. "Have you ever seen the axehandle hound before?" asked the Swede–a towering fellow over six feet tall named Peder.

"Axehandle hound?" Tandy gave the dog another vigorous rubbing under its flopping ears. "This old girl? Shoot."

"Certainly," said Peder. "We found her in our last camp one morning, so full of axehandles that she had fallen asleep with one still in her mouth, gnawing it in her dreams."

"She's a sweet girl," added Anders, another one of the Swedes. "And so we kept her. Two axehandles a day, and she's perfectly tame and docile."

Tandy and the rest of the boys looked properly doubtful at this. Bonner was the one to raise the stakes. "I don't suppose she'd eat an axehandle now?"

Peder looked thoughtfully at Anders. "She's already had her two for the day..."

Bonner shook his mountainous head in mock chagrin. "Ain't that a shame. And I almost thought I might see something I've never seen before."

Anders shrugged. "One more shouldn't hurt. And if it will please our hosts..."

During this exchange, Cookie had crept closer to the fire to see how things would play out. He was just in time to see Peder reach into the capacious pocket of his dungarees and sling an axehandle across the fire at Bonner's feet.

The hound gave a mournful yelp and leapt away from Tandy, going to ground atop the axehandle at Bonner's toes. Bonner jumped half out of his boots, and the camp erupted into loud, drunken laughter. Cookie chuckled along smugly, for he had seen the Swedes earlier that evening, skimming bacon grease off his skillet for purposes that were now perfectly clear.

When the men had quieted down again, it was the turn of the old camp hands to reciprocate. "The dangers in these here woods," Tandy began, "are probably not far different from what you've got in Ontario. Bears, wolves, catamounts–and of course the hidebehinds."

"Of all of those," opined O'Doul solemnly, "the worst are doubtless the hidebehinds."

Tandy took a long pull on his pipe and nodded his head silently as he sucked on the smoke. "Yes, that's for certain. They are a treacherous critter indeed."

As the men bantered, it was clear that none of the Swedes wanted to be the first to ask a question. But finally Peder good-naturedly took the bait. "And what exactly," he asked, "is this treacherous hidebehind?"

"Oh?" asked Tandy, in mock surprise. "I suppose you haven't got them in Ontario then?"

"Unless they go by a different name."

"Well," said Tandy, pondering for a moment. "It's a fast critter–devilishly fast."

"Faster even than a hawk on the wing," added O'Doul.

"That's so," said Tandy. "But the hidebehind is no bird. It's a kind of–what's the word that I want?" Here, Tandy looked around the ring of faces lit by the glowing campfire. "Bonner, what would you say?"

Bonner shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Difficult to say," he said, "on account of the critter's velocity."

"You've said it exactly," said Tandy. "If the hidebehind is anything, it's a kind of a blur. That's all the sight you'll catch of it, you understand–if you get even that much. It's a big critter–that much we know. Big enough, easy, to take a full-grown man when he wants. But able, nevertheless to hide behind even the smallest sapling in the blink of an eye. No matter how alert you may be, no matter how quickly you turn when you hear a noise behind you–you'll never catch the barest glimpse."

"I always pictured it," said Bonner carefully, "like some terrible python, twisting and sneaking along, slithering up behind trees and creeping out to strangle a man unawares."

"No," said Peder, shaking his head. "I don't suppose we have anything like that in Ontario. Bears–yes. Wolves–yes. But these hidebehinds–certainly not."

"You say it takes men?" asked Anders.

"It appears to be mostly interested," said O'Doul, "in the intestines. Or at least such is the conclusion after examination of the carcasses discovered after the fact."

"And you have seen these carcasses?"

Tandy looked moodily at the fire. "I doubt these pups have. But such a sight I have seen, and I hope never to see again."

After a moment of silence, in which the only sound was the popping and hissing of the fire, Bonner raised his cup again to his pink face. "The only effective deterrent, they say, is first to fill the intestines with a sufficient quantity of alcohol that they are rendered unappetizing to the critter."

The camp roared with laughter again, and the men all drained their cups.

#

Come morning, the spring felling started in earnest. Bacon and coffee were in great demand by aching heads and gurgling bellies, but the flapjacks sat mostly uneaten. Even Cookie, who had drunk less than most, was sick of the smell of them long before he'd finished frying the morning's batch.

Robeson had scouted out a stand of white pines on a ridge not far from the camp. They were tall and regal trees, between a hundred and two hundred feet high, and looked as though they would make fine masts for the California clippers plying the gold coast of the Pacific. This was part of Robeson's strategy to make up for the loss of Bunyan–the mast pines were each worth a great deal more than a similar quantity of wood delivered as railroad ties or telegraph poles.

It wouldn't be easy, though. The pines needed to be brought down carefully and squared on site to keep them ramrod straight during transportation. The shipyards were particular about dimensions and quality, so the splitting and squaring was more delicate than what Robeson's outfit was used to. In addition, the long pines would tax the carrying capacity and maneuverability of the logging wheels. With all the extra finesse needed, Cookie knew that the outfit must be in pretty dire straits for Robeson to go all in with this gambit. It had the feeling of a make or break proposition.

Cookie was busy enough getting vittles out three times a day, so he didn't see much of the actual work. He could hear the men singing faintly at times through the trees–old French sea chanteys reworked into songs to keep rhythm when pulling on crosscut saws. The skid road passed close enough to camp that he could peer out the back of the cook tent and watch the big logging wheels dragging their loads down to the barge landing. The skidders waded through swamp water midway up their shins, swatting mosquitoes and fighting to keep from losing their boots in the sucking mud, while the logging wheels rolled along beside them. Bunyan probably could have hauled better and faster, but not by much.

But suddenly, things came to a terrible halt. One night, a young Irishman didn't come back with the rest of the men. O'Doul asked after him during dinner, and by the time the bean pots were empty, it was clear that nobody had seen him all afternoon. Cookie could see what this was building up to, and sure enough it wasn't long before somebody whispered the word "hidebehind". Soon, the men were clamoring for more beer, which Robeson flatly refused them. It was a close thing whether the camp would break into a general riot, but the men ultimately dispersed to their tents, grumbling and discontented.

The next morning, there was rebellion. Nobody would work except the Swedes, and Tandy tried to talk even them out of going out. But the Swedes were scornful. "The boy has run home," said Peder. "He slipped onto a barge behind the logs. It happens all the time in Ontario, and we don't fuss like this about it."

But a little before lunch, Robeson and three of the Swedes tramped back to a camp full of idling men, their faces drained of all color. Anders wasn't with them, and it was with trembling voices that they asked after him.

Robeson, shaking now, sat down and ordered beer for all the men. "After we've drunk, we'll go out and search for both of them." Robeson's voice was quiet but firm. He didn't say what the beer was for, but he didn't have to.

#

It took four hours to find the bodies, and once they did, there was no doubt that it was the work of a prowling hidebehind. The Swedes took it worst, as they'd never believed in the critter from the first, but everyone was on edge. As often as the hidebehind story was told, nobody except Tandy had ever claimed to have seen the work of one.

As night fell over the camp, with the two man-sized heaps of blankets lying on a couple of rough-hewn cooling boards, old Tandy looked around the somber assembly. "Either we pack up, or we catch it."

Robeson bit his thumb and looked defeated. "That ain't much of a choice."

Cookie was surprised to hear Robeson cashing in his chips so easily, but Peder immediately leapt to his feet, pounding his fist against his open palm. "Nay, nay! We'll find it and cut its throat, if it's the last thing we do."

The camp exploded in shouts. When things quieted down, Tandy pursed his lips and looked away a moment. "Ain't such an easy thing to do, not with a critter so powerful fast."

"You ever seen one caught?"

Tandy shook his head. "I seen one tracked once–but that was in the snow, when you could follow its footprints from tree to tree." The men glanced around the group, hoping someone would have an idea an idea how to track or kill such a creature in the snow-less spring.

And suddenly Cookie heard himself talking. "Hang on a second now," he said. "I got an idea." Everyone turned to him, the weight of expectation heavy in the air. Cookie held up his hands as he furrowed his brow and screwed his eyes shut. "At least, I think I do..."

#

By mid-morning the next day, the men of the camp had all taken their places in the hunting ground that Cookie had picked out. It was a dry clearing on a rocky outcrop of fifty yards square, free of mud and populated by a sparse couple dozen trees. The first clever thing Cookie had thought of was to bring up as many bags of flour as they could carry, ripping them open and covering the hunting ground with a fine layer of white powder. Artificial springtime snow.

The men were kept on a steady diet of beer as well. Fuddled heads and fumbling fingers didn't make the work any easier, but Cookie was acutely aware that his plan risked the lives of everyone in camp. As such, it seemed better to err on the side of too much alcohol. And with the half-soused men made unappetizing, Cookie had ordered the fattest of the hogs chained up as bait instead.

It was a long, quiet morning of waiting. Cookie was especially nervous. Every time he heard something out in the woods–whether it was a falling twig or a rustling bush–his head whipped around. After fifteen minutes, he'd given himself a combination case of whiplash and vertigo without seeing a thing. But what did that mean? Hidebehind or not, there'd be nothing to see.

Four long hours crawled by, until finally there was a different noise to be heard. It started as a kind of rustle, like a squirrel out in the underbrush, followed by a couple of crashes like a plunging deer. Cookie's hands tightened around the axe he was carrying, and the men murmured around him. "Somewhere," whispered Cookie, a little too loudly, "behind one of those trees..."

Cookie strained to see anything, but the slithery rustling had stopped. Then suddenly, one of the chained hogs let out a terrible squeal. Every eye at once turned to see what had happened, but there was nothing to see except the bloody end of the hog's chain dropping to the forest floor like a dead snake. Otherwise, everything was still and silent. Cookie licked his lips and let out a loud whistle.

At the signal, a long loop of men who had been hiding at the perimeter of the clearing jumped to their feet and hefted heavy chains waist high. Others spiked those chains into trees, leaving the clearing enclosed by an unbroken length of chain. Cookie didn't figure the chains alone would really hold the hidebehind if it wanted to slip away, but he hoped they would at least slow it down enough that it would prefer to stay inside the enclosure.

The men gingerly stepped out of hiding, eyes scanning the flour-speckled ground for footprints. Somebody started hiccuping, which brought a cascade of angry shushes.

Cookie's heart beat hard, and his blood pounded in his head. From where he stood, he saw the hidebehind's tracks in the flour, leading from the empty coil of chain to a tree about ten feet away. In the time it took the men to turn around, that's how far the critter had scurried without anybody catching sight of so much as a tail.

The tracks themselves were fearsome enough–each was comprised of three thick splayed toes, ending in sharp belly-rending claws. Each print was about the size of a spread hand and the sight of them sent shivers down Cookie's back as they inched towards the tree.

"All right," croaked Cookie when they reached it. He'd been bold enough with a full belly of beer, but now he felt his enthusiasm evaporating off the top of his head. "Be careful to stay on this side of the tree–we don't know what a cornered hidebehind might do if somebody was to pop round the other side." Bonner and another feller, each carrying heavy axes, nodded silently as they stole close to the tree and positioned themselves by its trunk.

Suddenly there was an explosion of muscle and metal, the blades of the axes burrowing rapidly through the trunk, chips flying in every direction. In a wink of an eye, the fellers had cut the tree through. Then Bonner pressed his massive foot against the trunk and kicked back, sending the trunk crashing down into the underbrush.

When the echoes of the crash died and the tree's branches ceased quivering on the ground, the hidebehind was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a hog carcass with its guts hollowed out and strangulation marks around and around its neck and body. Another set of fearsome footprints led from the carcass to another tree in the chained off area.

Once again, the fellers moved in and quickly chopped down the tree, sending the hidebehind flashing invisibly behind another. This went on for some time, but the men always drove the hidebehind as much as possible towards a particular tree in the enclosure that had been blazed with a deep X. That was where Cookie wanted the hidebehind to end up, and with every tree they knocked over, it was all the more inevitable that it would get there.

Finally, after chasing the hidebehind from behind a dozen trees, Cookie followed the latest trail of the critter and saw that it led to the blazed tree. His heart flopped heavily in his chest–this was the real test now. If this part of the plan didn't work, then the day had been a waste. Cookie looked to O'Doul and the Swedes, seeing the slow-burning anger in their eyes for their dead friends. Then Cookie looked to Robeson and saw the desperation in the boss's face–the dim light of hope ready to give way any second to despair and defeat.

Cookie nodded at Bonner. The axes set to work again in a flurry of flying bark and wood. The tree trembled, its top branches swaying unevenly as squirrels leapt desperately out, chattering as they dived for cover. Even a stunned porcupine fell heavily to the ground, but nobody paid any heed as it picked itself up and waddled gingerly away.

Instead, everybody watched the tree. At last, it began to tip. The trunk tilted against the missing chunk at its base, and the tell-tale splintering proved that the whole thing was about to go over. Cookie held his breath and screwed his eyes shut, and didn't open them again until he heard the unearthly wailing of the exposed hidebehind.

There it was, in all its fearsome glory, a ropey, hairy, howling thing, stuck fast in a pit that they had dug behind the blazed tree and full of thick, gooey maple syrup–almost three hundred gallons in all. The critter looped its long, thin body in hideous contortions as it strove to break its powerful legs from the suction of the syrup. It clawed at the air and opened its maw wide in an awful gape, and for a moment it was all teeth and tongue and glistening pink esophagus stretching down and down into a ravenous gullet.

Then, without any word of command, the men fell on the hidebehind in a body, hacking it to pieces with their axes, not stopping until every writhing segment had been divided into pulpy pink fibers of unrecognizable gore.

#

"That was good thinking out there," said Robeson later, when he and Cookie were alone in a quiet moment. "I just wish it were enough."

Cookie looked up sharply. "What do you mean? There's nothing to stop you from felling and squaring that whole stand of pines now."

Robeson shook his head sadly. "I was at the landing yesterday, getting the prices from the barge men. Pine masts are dropping every day. Between the steamers and the Suez Canal, they aren't building new clipper ships. We've already cut more masts than the shipyards are likely to need anytime soon."

"What are you going to do?"

Robeson shrugged. "We can cut trees the rest of the year, but we'll never make enough to keep the outfit afloat." It was no wonder he'd been ready to give up when the hidebehind arrived. "We'd need twice as many telegraph poles as we can cut to have a chance."

Cookie stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Twice as many?"

Robeson smiled sadly. "Why? You got some other bright idea?"

Cookie didn't want to say anything about it quite yet, but he thought he just might.

#

Later, folks would say that Cookie had heard Paul Bunyan's stomach growling from Minnesota, all the way across Lake Superior, a long low rumbling every evening like distant thunder over the still clear waters under the high keening calls of the loons. But that wasn't exactly how it happened.

Just as Robeson's inexperienced fellers and skidders could never match Bunyan's fantastic pace of work, so too Cookie knew that any other outfit's inexperienced cook would have a difficult time keeping up with Bunyan's monumental appetite. It had taken Cookie years to get the victualing of that giant just right, and even he still found himself improvising on occasion when a delivery was late.

The plan this time was far simpler than the scheme to catch the hidebehind, but it took plenty work all the same. For one thing, Cookie spent five whole days butchering hogs and marinating the hams in maple syrup, just the way Bunyan always liked them.

Then it was a simple matter of hiring the barges to float a little ways further west down Lake Superior, past Wisconsin towards the Minnesota shore, where they lit a great bonfire on each one just before dawn to roast the giant skewers of ham that Cookie had cured–each skewer six feet long and loaded with the meat of three hogs. Before long, the smell of roasting hung over the lake in a succulent miasma, beckoning to empty stomachs for miles around.

The sun was barely up when Cookie first felt his barge rise and sink on a cresting wave coming from the west. Then came another, and another, and then a regular pulse of them every half minute or so. Soon they were bigger, the water piling up under the barges, pushing them up and out as the men worked hard to keep the boats in place. But Cookie didn't care–he knew what this meant.

It was no surprise when Paul Bunyan's head peered around the treetops that screened a westward arm of the lake from view. The giant's big, soft eyes looked down through the leaves and morning mist. When he spied the barges, he seemed to give a little leap of joy that sent giant waves careening down the lake and crashing into the boats. Cookie laughed as he wiped lake water out of his face.

Two steps more, and Bunyan's whole body was visible. He waded waist-deep through the shoreline shallows of Superior, moving with panther-like speed now that his quarry was in view. In half a heartbeat, he had snatched up one of the great ham skewers and closed his lips lustily around the glazed and roasted meat. Bunyan kept on eating, sending the barge men diving in fear every time his great fingers dipped in for another skewer. But Cookie knew there was nothing to fear.

When the ham was all gone, Bunyan smiled and cupped his hands, throwing great splashes of crystal clear Superior water up into his face. Then he turned his monstrous grin back to the barges, torrents of water pouring out of his beard, with the occasional plop of a falling lake trout. "Ah, Cookie," he said in his impossibly deep voice. "I knew it must have been you."

"Don't they feed you out in Minnesota?"

Bunyan laughed, a rolling sound like the pealing of low church bells. "They do, Cookie. But they don't understand. They give me lots of little things–lots of little flapjacks and slices of bacon. Not like you made it!"

"Not very satisfying, is it?"

Bunyan only shook his head. "You try eating everything small sometime. There's nothing to sink your teeth into. You get tired of eating long before your belly is full."

Now Cookie laughed. "You come on back to Michigan, and I'll grease up my old tin-roof skillet for you. We can start with a hundred egg omelet, and follow it up with a stack of two-foot thick flapjacks. Dump a barrel of syrup on that, and you can really sink your teeth into something."

Bunyan grinned and slapped his belly. Then he looked guilty. "What will Robeson say? I'd be ashamed to see him again."

"He just says that since you've been gone half the season, you need to work twice as hard when you get back. But if you do, you can have your old contract back on the same terms." Cookie paused. "Unless you're tied up here, of course."

Bunyan shook his head and held up his hand, thumb and forefinger pressed close together. "It's just a little contract. So small, I never could sign it."

"Then how about it?"

Bunyan took a deep breath and filled his lungs with the clear, cold morning air. Later, Robeson showed Cookie his pocket watch, with the crack on the crystal and the hands halted by the sprung gears at a quarter past seven–the exact moment that Bunyan's whoop of joy blew all the tents down at the North Woods camp, eighty miles away.

M. Bennardo's short stories appear in Shimmer, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Three-Lobed Burning Eye, and The Journal of Unlikely Entomology (among others). He is also editor of the Machine of Death series of anthologies. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but people everywhere can find him online at http://www.mbennardo.com

© 2012 All rights reserved M. Bennardo.

Crossroads and Carousels

by Alan Baxter

Mark Cooper lay under a light sheet, wishing a breeze would blow in through the open window. Not a breath stirred the curtains and the hot night lay heavy like a shroud. He sighed, rolled over, kicked off the sheet. Even that seemed to smother him. As he settled, the silence of the night covering him again, he heard blues guitar, faint as a whisper of hope in a dark cell. He held his breath, turning one ear to catch the strains. The sound of his cheek on the pillowcase drowned out the notes. As he began to think he'd imagined it, the music drifted over him again, gossamer faint but beautiful. The way he wished he could play.

He slipped from the bed, stood by the window, straining his ears to hear. The melody was distant, heart wrenching in its perfection. He pulled on shorts and went out into the night. Standing on the front porch he heard it more clearly, though still it seemed a universe away. He walked to the gate, out onto the quiet country road. The night was still and close, the air heavy with summer, yet the song slipped through like a cool rain. The pauses between the notes, sublimely perfect, gave him goosebumps.

Without thinking Mark started up the road, following the sound. Who would be playing guitar at this time of night, here in the middle of nowhere? His feet stirred up dust on the still-warm bitumen. No rain had washed these quiet, broken streets for weeks. He passed his neighbours houses, hundreds of metres apart, flaking paint and rusting tin roofs. A wet-eyed cow in the paddock opposite watched him with wary disinterest.

The music grew louder as he walked, the most soulful blues licks he'd ever heard. He imagined standing on stage with his band, turning out chops like that, and shivered despite the oppressive heat. He turned right, heading towards the coast road. He saw a figure sitting on the paddock fence up ahead, bathed in moonlight. The guitar in the figure's hands reflected a deep red in the colourless whitewash of the moon.

Mark paused, the notes floating to him more clearly, the guitar singing like an angel. Where's he plugged in?

Mark found himself walking forward again. The figure on the fence looked up, smiled. His teeth were bright in the night. He stopped playing and Mark felt as though his heart had been punched. 'Hey man.'

Mark smiled back. 'Hey.'

'I'm Nick.'

Mark nodded, not sure what else to say. Nick seemed young, maybe mid-twenties, scruffy in a dashing way. He had tousled, jet black hair, bright eyes. Mark eyed the blood red guitar, smooth maple neck, scuffs from years of fingertips caressing out notes.

'You play?' asked Nick.

'Yeah. But nothing like you.'

Nick half-smiled. 'Ah, I do okay.'

'Where did you learn to play like that?' Mark asked, still admiring the beautiful guitar.

Nick ignored the question, hefted his instrument instead. 'You like it? She's a beauty, eh?'

'Where's your amp?' Mark leaned over the fence, looking for a cord. He saw none.

'You could play like this if you wanted,' Nick said, that bright smile again.

Mark's eyes narrowed. He looked from the guitar to Nick, and beyond to the street. Another road crossed it, heading back towards Maker's Farm and north towards town. Nick perched on the fence at the corner of the paddock. Mark laughed, shaking his head. 'I'm dreaming.'

'What?'

Mark laughed again, louder this time. 'I'm dreaming, right? A fantastic guitar player? At a crossroads?'

Nick grinned. 'Pinch yourself.'

'Yeah, sure. Wake myself up.' He took an inch of forearm skin and pinched. It hurt, but nothing changed. His smile changed to a frown and he pinched again, twisting. 'Ow, dammit.'

'Not dreaming,' Nick said, still smiling.

They stared at each other for a long time. Nick sat on the fence, relaxed. Mark grew increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually he said, 'No way, man. This can't be real.'

'How badly do you want to play like me?' Nick asked.

'Not that badly, dude.'

Nick picked up the guitar from across his knees and his fingers began to glide across the strings and frets. The music pushed tears from Mark's eyes in an instant, every note and every pause touched his soul. He turned and ran, his feet whacking dryly against the bitumen.

When he slammed his front door, pouring sweat and gasping for breath, the song still carried through the night.

#

Mark stumbled through his day at the factory, grumbling along with everyone else about the heat and the lack of rain. They all knew moaning about it wouldn't do any good, but still they cursed gods they didn't believe in and beseeched others.

When the whistle blew he trudged out into the sunshine with his fellow wage slaves. A few raised their hands and waved in the car park, wishing each other good weekends. Mark returned the sentiments and drove for the coast and Saltspray City. The only escape from the oppressive summer was the occasional sea breeze and the air whistling around the Waltzers and rollercoasters. This was his playground, his sanctuary. He strolled the boardwalk, breathing deep of the dust and diesel. Maniacal music of carousels and flashing coloured bulbs assaulted his senses. Candy and popcorn, laughs and screams, thousands of sweat-sheened faces smiling through the hundred-year-old mechanical fun factory along the beach road. Music and funfairs, Mark's heart and soul.

He went into an arcade, drawn by the promise of giant fans working overtime and dollars to be made from the one-armed bandits. If you knew how to tease them you could switch roles and be the bandit yourself. Music blared and coins crashed and Mark let the place swallow him up.

He smiled as golden dollars cascaded into the metal tray with a rattle of riches. As he scooped them out a hand slapped on his shoulder.

'Marky Mark! What you doing tonight, man?'

Mark turned to see Greg and Craig standing behind him, flexing in their white singlets and board shorts, grinning under sun-bleached hair. 'I dunno, guys, whatever. You?'

'Just hanging at the carnivale, my friend, as usual. Fuck all else to do, huh?' Greg's teeth were bright in his tanned face as coloured neon danced across his skin.

Craig leaned forward to be heard over the din. 'We're gonna ride the Ghost Train. Goose the pretty girls and make 'em scream. Coming?'

Mark laughed, tipped his haul of coins into a pocket and followed them out into the dusty strip of shooting galleries and hooplas. They swaggered with the confidence of locals, standing proud among the tourists and day-trippers. We're here all the time, their walk said. But you folks have fun now, you hear.

After one ride through the cardboard and papier-mache of the Ghost Train, Greg slipped away tailing a pretty blonde in tight denim shorts. Craig and Mark wasted a few dollars shooting dented metal targets with air rifles, threw wooden balls at coconuts they didn't want to win, chased after teenage city girls on holiday.

Mark looked at his watch. 'I gotta go, man.'

Craig frowned. 'It's early. You sick or something?'

'No, man, I got a gig. Palisade, every Friday and Saturday for the last two years. How long have you known me?'

Craig's frown melted into a grin. 'Cool! I'll come and watch. Well, I'll come and get drunk, but I like to listen to you guys knocking out twelve bars while I drink.'

As they passed the switchback Mark watched the swirl of screaming faces in a blur of bright lights and blasting technopop. For a moment one pair of eyes caught his, frozen in time for a second, her scream spreading into a smile. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, deep green eyes and long, chestnut hair.

Craig dragged at his shoulder. 'Come on, dude, you got me thirsting for a beer now.'

Mark followed, the beauty lost in a rush of spinning lights and colour.

#

His band arrived at the Palisade in dribs and drabs as usual, taking the stage a bit after ten to a roomful of drunk locals and guarded holidaymakers. They pounded out their blues beats and worked up a sweat, the usual handful of hardcore fans grinding in front of the stage. Twice a week for two years they'd brought the Delta to the Palisade and Mark lived for it. But he wanted more. He wanted to play for crowds of thousands. He wanted to make music like Nick, sitting on the farm fence playing for no one. Well, no one but Mark, it seemed. He must have dreamed it, surely.

The thought of the strange young man and his perfect blues kept rising in Mark's mind, causing his bandmates to flick him concerned glances as he tripped over runs. Flustered, he dropped more notes, and their looks became annoyed. He shook the memory of the strange guitar player from his mind and rallied, but the gig was average at best.

As the night wore on and the cheap beer soaked in, he saw her again, the beauty from the fair. She watched him playing and his fingers flew as their eyes locked. He dredged up something special from the root of his being and closed out the set with a blistering cascade of sound.

His bandmates forgave him his earlier transgressions, slapping him on the back as they packed up their gear. But when he stepped off stage, the girl was nowhere to be found.

#

Lying in bed that night, wishing again for a breeze through the window, Mark heard the strains of Nick's guitar flying softly through the dark. He whimpered, covered his head with his pillow, and ground his teeth until a fitful sleep took him.

#

The weekend arrived hot and bright like the week that birthed it, but a soft breeze carried some relief from the south. Mark rose late, made coffee, lazed on the veranda in nothing but shorts. He read comic books and practiced his guitar licks, determined the entire next gig would be like the end of the night before and nothing like the start. By the time the afternoon sun cleared its zenith and began to soak the veranda in molten, golden heat, he dragged himself inside, dressed, and carried his battered guitar case out to the car.

He drove to the amusement park, Welcome To Saltspray City, habit and ritual to avoid the inland afternoon swelter. Striped booths and painted clowns surrounded him as he lost himself among the sideshows, wondering about Nick and his promise. Was it possible? An offer at a crossroads in the middle of the night. Had it really happened? What would he be giving up if he agreed? What would he get?

He flicked a dollar to Sam in the glass booth at the foot of the big wheel. The wheel that had kept on turning for decades, carrying laughing people up for a view of the ocean, beach and town, spread out below them like a satellite map. He climbed into a split vinyl seat and let the wheel carry him up into the cool air a hundred feet above the carnival, the raucous sounds sliding quiet as he rose, swelling back with the descent.

At the top of the second rotation he leaned his elbows on the safety bar, letting the cool high air wash over the back of his neck, and looked down into the miniature tracks and weather worn buildings. Cracks covered the roof of the dodgem arcade, power cables snaked through the air between fibro huts, balloons and pennons fluttered and danced in the soft, warmer breeze below.

And he saw her looking up at him. Her dark brown hair lay over her shoulders like a cape as she shaded her emerald eyes and smiled. So tiny, so far away, yet the only thing not lost in the blur. As the big wheel swept around, carrying him down, Mark stood against the bar. 'Sammy! Hey, Sammy, you gotta let me off.'

Sam leaned forward in his worn, strained seat, the dark stains under the arms of his t-shirt. He grinned and stabbed a button with one meaty finger and the wheel paused. Mark flicked him a wink of thanks and lifted the bar, hopping free of the chair. The wheel began to slide by him as he walked casually down the aluminium steps. She waited for him, still smiling.

'I thought that was you,' she said. 'I saw you yesterday.'

Mark nodded. 'Yeah, you were on the switchback. Then you came to the Palisade and watched us play, right?'

'Yeah.'

'What's your name?'

She looked up at him under a dark, feathered fringe. 'Let's not worry about names. I prefer strangers.'

Mark raised an eyebrow. 'Really? Okay. You wanna grab a drink? Something to eat?'

'Sure.'

They spent the afternoon eating cotton candy and hot dogs, riding on the carousel and the switchback and the rollercoaster. They laughed and joked, played tricks on unsuspecting tourists. Mark asked if she was on holiday or if she lived nearby, but she refused to say, playing games with him as much as everyone else. He didn't mind, her company thrilled him. He showed her the tiled coolness of Tony's, smelling of antiseptic and buzzing with needleguns, where he'd got his tattoos. 'It's a kind of ritual self-torture. You got any?'

She dipped her eyes, didn't answer.

The afternoon dimmed, cooled into evening and the evening wore on and Mark started checking his watch. She smiled at him after the third time. 'Am I boring you?'

'No! No, quite the opposite. I want to hang out with you, but I've got to go soon.'

'Ah, playing at the Palisade again, right?'

'Yeah, you gonna come down? We could have a drink or two afterwards.'

She smiled. 'Maybe. Hey look!'

She spun away, catching his hand as she went and dragged him up creaking wooden steps to a booth. He smiled to himself as he read the words painted in pinks and reds, Tunnel Of Love.

She pushed coins into the scratched plastic tray. 'Give me two, mister.'

Old Bill Denton, all grey stubble and yellow teeth, gave Mark a strange look as he took her coins, slipped two short tickets back to her. Mark grinned, still holding her hand, and let her lead him into a poor imitation of an Italian gondola. They rattled and wobbled through heavy velvet curtains into the darkness of the ride, soft reds and blues lighting romantic vistas poorly cut from cardboard and plywood. Soft music played, half drowned by the distant throb of the cacophony outside. She turned to him and slipped one leg over his knee and her arms around his neck and kissed him. Mark returned the kiss, enjoying the anonymous excitement of it.

When the shoddy gondola emerged into the noisy evening of the amusement park mere seconds and a lifetime later, Mark felt as though something had changed inside him. They stepped out of the ride, holding hands back to the strip and the lights and the noise. Mark led her between sideshows, away from the bustling crowds, determined to enjoy more of what she'd given him on the ride, this perfect angel.

'Don't you need to get going?' she asked, pulling him to a stop between a dirty white prefab wall and a rumbling diesel generator.

He looked at his watch, wincing at the time. He would be late. 'Yeah, I guess so. Come with me!'

She reached behind her neck, undid the clasp on a silver chain. She pulled a locket from her smooth cleavage and held it up between them. It turned gently, reflecting a hundred colours from a thousand stuttering bulbs. He tipped his head to one side, confused. As he opened his mouth to ask questions, she kissed him, silencing him with her tongue. He felt her hand slip into his pocket.

She broke off the kiss, left him feeling like she'd taken his breath away with her. He gasped air into his lungs as she walked back towards the crowded strip.

'Hey!' he called after her. 'Come to the gig tonight, please? I'll buy you a drink afterwards.'

She looked back over her shoulder, blew him a kiss. He could have run after her, caught up and made her promise to come along, but something made him stay.

'If you don't come to the gig, I'll see you here again tomorrow maybe?' His voice was lost in the noise of the generator as she slipped into the passing crowd like the sun swallowed by clouds.

He pulled her silver locket out, wondering if maybe her phone number was in it. When he popped it open he found nothing but a tiny dried flower tucked under the delicate folded silver edges.

#

The Palisade seemed both busy and empty as Mark tried to find the high point from the night before. He watched the crowd but saw no sign of her shining chestnut hair or glittering green eyes.

The music was dead and empty, disappointed like his soul, and the crowd thinned before closing time. His fingers were clumsy through the last songs and he couldn't wait for the end. If only he could find that high from the night before, the closing symphony of blues that had washed away three hours of mistakes and missed rhythms. If only he could play like Nick on the farm fence.

He ground his teeth and endured the berating of his mates after the gig. He made excuses about tiredness, too much heat, working too hard. Clive, the tall, rangy bass player, made a snide remark about needing to get laid or something, and Mark winced at the inadvertent truth of the observation.

#

That night, alone in the heat, frustrated and disappointed, he heard Nick's guitar again, calling out across the paddocks. With a snarl of anger he turned his stereo on, drowning out the mocking talent with strident throbs of Led Zeppelin. Eventually a troubled sleep took him.

#

Mark spent all day and all evening Sunday searching through the carousels and arcades, looking everywhere for a sweep of shining brown hair. He knew he wouldn't find her, but searched all the same, hoping against hope. His friends found him a couple of times and he brushed them off, ignoring their confused, hurt faces.

As the amusement park began shutting down and turning off for the night, lights going out, boards filling booth windows, Mark sat on railings, chin in his hand. The ocean shushed the sand at his back and people thinned out until nothing was left but the comatose carnival, all closed wooden eyes and shadows, waiting for the return of the people that were its lifeblood.

Mark slipped off the railing and scuffed his shoes along the seafront, staring at the concrete sliding by, feeling like a fool.

#

He found himself back at home in the early hours of the morning, tired and miserable. He hung the locket from the corner of the mirror in his bedroom and fell onto the bed. He would be a zombie at the factory the next day, dangerously fatigued. He didn't care. Nothing mattered but the girl without a name and he didn't know why. Would he ever get his blues back without her? Had she stolen more than his heart? He'd had flings with girls on holiday a hundred times, one of the reasons he hung out at the fair so much. But this girl had been special.

The sound of Nick's guitar drifting through the still night air didn't make him angry any more. Just resigned. He pulled himself off the bed and walked with heavy steps through the house, across the veranda, along the dusty road.

Nick sat on the fence in the moonlight, playing his blood red guitar. Mark approached and stood there, head tipped back to the sky, tears pouring down his cheeks as Nick's magic floated up through the stars.

Eventually one last note slipped away into the night, sustained for minutes before nothing but dark silence accompanied the two men.

'I knew you'd come back,' Nick said softly, his voice kind.

'What will it cost me?' Mark asked. 'To play like you.'

'I think you know.' Nick laid his guitar across his knees, looking at Mark with soft eyes.

Mark's own eyes were still wet, his cheeks glistening. 'It's too high,' he said in a thin voice. 'That's too high a price.'

'Is it? For such a gift?'

They were silent again, the zephyr breeze gently caressing their hair. 'What made you change your mind?' Nick asked. 'Why did you come back tonight?'

'I feel like I already lost... something. All I have is my music.'

'Lost something?'

Mark sniffed, looked Nick right in the eyes. 'A girl,' he said, still stunned that she'd had such an effect on him. 'I can live without her if I have the music. I can live without anything if I have that music. Your music. But your price is too high.' He turned to leave.

'Wait.' Nick's eyes were dark, almost black. He reached into the pocket of his pale denim shirt and pulled something free. 'What if I gave you her as well?'

Fresh tears started from Mark's eyes as he watched the silver locket turn slowly, reflecting pure white moonlight.

Alan Baxter is a Ditmar Award-nominated British-Australian author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci-fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He is the author of the contemporary dark fantasy novels, RealmShift and MageSign, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US, the UK and France, including the Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website – www.alanbaxteronline.com – or find him on Twitter @AlanBaxter, and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Don't forget our current serial is Alan Baxter's  The Darkest Shade Of Grey, free to read online or available as an ebook for $1.99.

© 2012 All rights reserved Alan Baxter.

The Extravagant and Venturesome Lives of Woman Pyrates

by Katy Gunn

Our pockets full of elephant teeth, gold-dust, lamp tassels, and rat pellets, we leap about the decks of our new plundered galley, the Whidaw.

'We shall continue its name, the Whidaw!' shouts Bellamy.

'I declare you Captain!' I shout generously.

'I would be honored!' She whips a filched dishtowel up for a flag.

'By the honor of rogues going quick down to Hell!' But do we see clouds rolling in purple and thick as demon-drove galleons?

Captain Bellamy shakes her fists at the attic ceiling in a pyrate's challenge. 'Come with what you will!' She leaps to the window curtain rods to take down her small sails.

'Double reef your main sail, Paul Williams!' she says.

'Yes, Captain Bellamy!' I hop up the pile of chests and grab onto the coat rack, stripped of its prongs by numerous savage storms. It knocks over the lamp and sends us into the dark center of danger.

The Whidaw is very near overtook, since we have only the goose wings of the fore-sail to scud with. Our rapid hollering barely keeps the broken writing desk and the double crib upright, but the head of our vessel stays to the sea.

Captain Bellamy says, 'I wish we could run out our guns to return the salute of this thunder!'

'Do it!' I say.

She kicks the metal side of the dossier cabinet rapidly, and I shout 'BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!'

Captain Bellamy knocks over the dossier cabinet. I pass her a mixing bowl.

'The poop has broke away,' she says.

'Bucket the water, bucket the water hurriedly!'

'The tafrel got drove in!' The writing chair goes scraping across the floor.

'But do I see land ho! land ho! in the distance?' I shout against hope. Is it the coast of Carolina, that magical place where we might replace the tafrel and get jovial once more?

'I believe it is Rhode Island.' Captain Bellamy pumps her fist above the writing desk.

Captain Bellamy is nearly always right. We land the galley at Rhode Island a second before the thunder storm sends us to our perishment in the great black depths. Father barely misses the feat. He appears in the doorway with crackers and tea.

'Hello Father, what are you doing?' says Captain Bellamy.

Father usually sends our snack up in the dumbwaiter or fo'c'sle, and we only see him downstairs for dinner where the cook serves us all hearty portions of meat.

'Checking to see how you children are getting along up here?'

'Paul Williams and I are doing quite well, thank you,' Captain Bellamy says.

Father sets our crackers and tea on his old writing desk. He seems to consider righting the chair and sitting down, but only in the way that people think of things they don't believe.

'Two imaginative children playing at sea in the attic of a decrepit old house, mother gone at work, no one but their old todger of a father puttering downstairs, like the beginning of a fantastical story,' narrates Father. He picks his way back down the stairs.

Captain Bellamy and I don't know to which kinds of stories he is referring, but they sound terribly dull. We go back to the Whidaw, placing crackers among the elephant teeth in our pockets as we must if we plan to last another day on the tempestuous, wearying sea.

#

As the Pyrates in the West-Indies have been so formidable and numerous that they have interrupted the Trade of Europe into those Parts; and our English Merchants in Particular have suffered more by their Depredations, I write on my paper from memory.

'How is Magadoxa spelled?' asks Captain Bellamy.

'M-a-g-a-d-o-x-i-a,' says Mother, who I have learned it is best not to correct. Mother seems to enjoy defending her own erroneous statements, and who is a pyrate to judge the methods by which another gains pleasure?

Captain Bellamy must be writing A Description of Magadoxa for her composition, though I can't tell whether she taken Mother's spelling.

'Your sentences will not benefit from looking at your sister's, young man,' Mother has thunderous eyes. She takes up my paper and glances over the first few lines.

'And this is exactly what you wrote for your geography composition!'

This afternoon we have been assigned to write about an important historical figure. 'It is also about my favorite historical figures,' I say.

'Pyrates are not figures.' Mother places the paper face-down. On the blank back I letter, A Historical Figure is, but I can't think of anything else.

Mother has moved on to Captain Bellamy's paper. I grow tense waiting for her to pull her sword and thunder that Magadoxa fits the requirements of the assignment even less, but she only nods and replaces the paper face-up for Captain Bellamy to continue.

I have to spend ten minutes in the corner for failing to complete my composition. Captain Bellamy is allowed to sit silently in her seat. I alone know she is plotting for the opportunity to leap to the wheel and relieve Mother of her execrable head.

The plank stretches out before me, disappearing into the shadow of black night. I wait for the call of my captain.

#

Landing at Rhode Island means Captain Bellamy and I are required to leave our ship and fulfill the social duties required by landholders, such as eating dinner in the dining room.

The cook serves up a hearty shepherd's pie, two-thirds mutton. It is no fresh-caught swordfish, fresh with backbone and struggle, but still, very good.

Our company awaits news of our latest exploits.

'We fought the thunder storm of centuries and won,' says Captain Bellamy, smashing her fork into her pie with relish.

'We shot our guns into the bellowing thunder,' I say.

'Well.' Father smiles dutifully. We understand his wistfulness, his muted envy. We do not mean to brag. He takes a few minutes to pluck the peas from his mashed potato one by one.

Having checked his emotions, he asks, 'How were lessons?'

I falter, still being sore at Captain Bellamy for refusing to come to my aid, but I know it is not prudent to be sore at one's captain, and Captain Bellamy seems to need time to chew through a largish chunk of mutton.

'They too were a challenge,' I manage to say. 'Nevertheless, I began to write a general history of the pyrates, and Captain Bellamy wrote a description of Magadoxa.'

'I did not.' Captain Bellamy sticks out a tongue flecked with meat. 'I wrote a composition about the Queen of Magadoxa.'

'Very nice,' says Father.

There are no other opinions to be put forth, as is a Tuesday and Mother will be taking her dinner next door after tutoring the children there. I can certainly say nothing more, even through dessert and the rest of our night at Rhode Island.

For I am aghast at Captain Bellamy.

She knows what happens to pyrates who get caught up with women, especially those tied by their titles to land.

'The Queen of Magadoxa,' I hiss at the wall between us at night. Toss tonight in terror of death on land, for surely you know better than romance!

#

Moments from setting off the shore of Rhode Island, Captain Bellamy sights a sloop for the taking. 'It is the vessel of Captain Beer!' she says, pointing at me. She ties me up while she rifles and plunders my sloop.

But my mischievous crew unties the knots! Captain Bellamy's knots are too strong for any less than the whole mass of men to figure them out, but when they do, Captain Bellamy and I watch in mutual horror as the rose-tooled end table falls over and sinks.

'Damn my blood,' says Captain Bellamy. 'I am sorry, Captain Beer, that they ruined your sloop for the both of us, for I scorn to do anyone a mischief when it is not to my advantage.'

She takes in my sad face and breadth of shoulder, and to the surprise of all the watching crew offers her hand in invitation. 'Though damn ye, you are a sneaking puppy, Captain Beer, and so are all those who submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security! Had you not better make one of us, than sneak after the asses of those villains for employment?'

I consider a life of madness and plunder. 'Well all right.'

'Yes! Let us celebrate! Let's have a play!' shouts Captain Bellamy, waving a chipped sundae glass in the air.

Because one of the crew had been an itinerant actor before turning pyrate, she stands herself tall on the writing desk and takes on the swaggering step of the stroler. 'Everyone!' she says, 'pay attention for the play of the Royal Pyrate!'

'I will play Alexander the Great,' I say.

'Yes, yes,' says the stroler.

With a full length of curtain falling regally from my head, I point a finger at the stroler and recite, 'Knowst thou that death attends thy mighty crimes, and thou shall'st hang to morrow morn betimes.'

'But my dear!' says the stroler, 'my dear Queen! Surely you, a fair woman, ruler of all the fecund lands of Magadoxa, will see the stalk of passion growing for you out of the heart in this breast!'

She pummels her chest with her fists. I stare at her, dumfounded.

'That isn't how it goes,' I say.

'Will you not take me in your arms, sweet Queen, and lavish your plum upon me?'

'No! You're supposed to cut off my arm, and I, Alexander the Great, will revenge the loss of it by your death!' I ride the immediate swell of the pyrate's unquenchable anger, and stare down this lowly stroler who dares to upset the rogue's honor of our galley with the frivolity of Queens and plums. 'You are no pyrate!'

'I am a pyrate and a stroler too!'

'You used to be a stroler, and now you're a pyrate, and Captain Bellamy will not allow such gross softness on his deck. The captain will have you beheaded at once.'

'I am Captain Bellamy too!'

'Not anymore you aren't!'

'And Captain Bellamy has a lady, too, and she's the whole reason he went pyrating in the first place. Her name was Maria Hallet, and I love her more than any gold at the bottom of the whole sea.' The stroler gives her shoulders a shake.

'You're a liar.'

'I am not. It's been wrote in the books.'

We can set this straight. I drag the hornswoggling stroler by her wrist to the place where A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the moft notorious Pyrates, and also their Policies, Difcipline and Government, etc. rests black-bound in its golden beam of attic light. I turn to Chap. XII of Captain BELLAMY and his crew almost immediately, fate and truth both for once on my side.

'There!' I say, stubbing my finger into the first paragraph. 'Show me now where it says Captain Bellamy loves any kind of lady.'

The stroler flutters her eyes. 'Maybe,' she says, fanning the pages ceremoniously, 'maybe you haven't read all the books.'

#

As pyrate and also Alexander the Great I should have sufficient wit to understand what the stroler has implied. I spend all of lessons thinking it over and only avoid the plank again by asking Mother if I can look at the bookshelf.

'I feel interested in broadening my readings,' I explain.

Mother is flustered. 'Young man! Of course you may, and you just ask me if you have any questions or special book requests.'

On the bookshelf are great volumes of poems, dramas, politics, and histories, but none have pyrates in the title, and pyrates always merit mention in the title of any volume that even briefly involves them. I try to think of other places the stroler might find books, but nothing comes to mind except Father's study, and not even Alexander the Great myself would dare look into those starless waters.

Besides, the stroler has never shown interest in reading before. She always whines for me to read aloud, then interrupts to ask questions that can only be answered by my reading other chapters aloud, and so on. She nestles in her hammock with her eyes shut while I work at the page.

I return to my writing desk without a single book, though Mother presses me to say which volume draws my attention the most. 'A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the moft notorious Pyrates only,' I mutter, but the stroler is clamoring for an audience with her grammar lines thrust into the air, and I remain unheard.

I draw X's in the crevices of my desk and have time to erase them all before Mother notices. That is how much attention the stroler requires.

The Whidaw needs washing, a dullish but not unformidable task, as the galley has all the tackings of the most complex of ships. It sometimes takes all afternoon to right and dust the braces, sheets, clewlines, writing desk, crowfoot, coat rack, shrowds, sails, end table, lamp, cat head, chipped dishes, horse on the bowsprit, and all of the other nooks in which rats and other small creatures fond of sea have nestled.

The stroler is very interested in the land where we clean the ship. She is often to be seen gazing into the trees, sifting the soil between her fingers, or stacking up chests into small, serviceable huts.

'Paul Williams,' she tells me one day, for Captain Bellamy is busy studying maps and everyone knows me to be his right-hand pyrate. 'Paul Williams, we might lay the foundation of a new kingdom which in time might subject the world and extend its conquests beyond those of the Roman empire.'

She raises her voice. 'If you think fit to erect this tract of land into an empire, and your joint imperial majesties will employ my abilities, I think I would prove a true patriot. Rome, the mistress of the world, was founded by a couple of sheep-stealers, and peopled by runaway slaves and insolvent debtors. How much more advantageously might you two undertake the erecting of a new monarchy?'

'Thank you for your advice. Captain Bellamy and I will consider your proposal,' I say.

'Because,' she continues, 'now that Rome is fell the world has lost its mistress, and everyone needs a mistress. Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes!'

She shouts this last line like she is taking a galleon, though I do not recognize a word.

'Mistress?' I say.

'Oh, yes. Mistresses.'

The stroler never showed any interest in women before yesterday's journey, but her concern with them is so quickly growing prodigious that it threatens to consume our whole afternoon and send our neatened galley into a new wreck of torn sails and splintery legs.

I do what I know. I take us back to the book: 'Dear stroler, have you heard of the extravagant and venturesome lives of woman pyrates, often said to be those most devoted to the ruthlessness and codes of pyracy?'

Extra devotion might be an embellishment on my part, but the stroler has been embellishing much herself in the last few days, she will thank me for white lies later if they help her regain her strong sea legs.

The stroler says she has indeed heard of the woman pyrates, but her memory has grown rusty and full of salt, so might I read a passage to remind her?

#

'Upon which she, Mary Read, called to those under deck to come up and fight like men, and finding they did not stir, fired her arms down the hold amongst them, killing one and wounding others,' I read.

'Let's do that! I'm Mary Read and you're the pirate who dies.'

Mary Read snatches a cane from our pile of chests and climbs onto the writing desk. She slashes with her cutlass wide enough to knock the china dolls off the windowsill. They bounce into the lacy pillow waves of their deaths.

I crouch behind the chests.

'Come up, you cowardly whelps and hen-hearted numbskulls, take up your weapons and fight like men!' She gives me no chance to consent before shooting her cane at me, 'BANG BANG BANG BANG.'

Even a pyrate may swoon under pain of his own eradication. I clutch my chest, convulse, and fall back while Mary Read takes out a row of snuffboxes with her cutlass.

'Come, Anne Bonny, and fight beside me like hellions the men will never be! We can take this ship without them, damn my menstrual blood!'

'What?' I have never read this strong-sounding curse.

She is too engrossed in the fracas to answer, and what am I doing, lying on the ground when I'm a bloody good pyrate with no scrap of hen in my heart?

'Damn my menstrual blood!' I shout. Our backs together, we parry and slash all that dares stand before us until nothing remains and we have taken the richest and handsomest ketch off the coast of Providence and are delighted with all the bombardments we find there.

#

In lessons we are lectured on the honor of ladies and gentlemen, and then Mother bids us write compositions on the subject. I take the challenge heartily, setting ink down in the great tradition of the pyrate code of honor. My teeth hard at work on my lips, I squint to parse the finer points and set them down as precisely as possible.

Mary Read works with equal zeal at some variation of my work. Perhaps she is creating a new code based on the honor of the woman pyrates in whom she has found such interest. Or she might have thrown all rules to the sea and chosen instead to compose a record of our recent taking of the ketch, of the way we two woman pyrates stood back to back and fought for our livelihoods while the strongest men huddled below deck, terrified. Damn what Mother says.

Yes, Mary Read is wont to throw all rules to the sea in favor of adventure.

Before we may leave, Mother checks our compositions. She nods over mine with her lips in a terse ball. Perhaps she finds it difficult to follow logic so foreign to her, poor soul of the mainland governed by scoundrels under cover of law. She takes Mary Read's composition up, and the ball of her lips sucks inward and disappears.

'You, young man, may run off. I must keep your sister a moment more.'

I am motioned toward the door with a ruler, the cutlass of Mothers.

Huddled outside with my ear to the crack, I wait to hear the fate of my fellow pyrate. If I hear a shout, an altercation, or 'plank,' honor means I will rush in at her defense. I clutch my pencil, a short and feeble dagger, and wish there were time to climb to the attic and fetch a more effectual weapon. But the shout could come at any second.

'What are you doing, boy,' says the cook above me, her face tinged pink from the outdoors. She carries onions. 'Good boys don't listen at doors to things which exclude them.'

She puts a dirty hand on my shoulder and steers me to the kitchen, where I am forced to sit in a hard chair, take part in a discussion about the relative benefits of currents and sultanas in bread pudding, and wait silently for Mary Read, impotent to help her in this most crucial time of action.

#

'Did you have fun in the attic?' Father asks.

'We took the fullest ketch in all the seas,' says Mary Read.

'In all the sea around Providence,' I say.

'How were your lessons?' says Father.

'We wrote about honor,' I say.

I want to mention how Mary Read had to stay behind and fight Mother, so that she might be prompted to describe the altercation with its details and causes, but honor itself keeps me from divulging such information even for the procurement of more.

'I wrote about a little girl named Juliette,' says Mary Read.

Father's moustache jumps but quickly rights itself. I jump and do not right myself immediately because I am having a failure of wit. I cannot think of any female pyrates other than Mary Read and myself, Anne Bonny.

I am forced to remember the stroler's insult and warning, maybe you haven't read all the books, and how it haunts me. I scan Mary Read's face but find no obscure titles or forgotten pyrate names scrawled on the pudgy planes.

'What did you compose about Juliette?' asks Father. My agitation passes unnoticed.

'I wrote about how lovely Juliette is.' Mary Read makes her face into a happy little smile and smashes her fork into her peas. One squirts yellow at Father.

He says nothing more. I watch Mary Read for clues, and Father focuses very hard on cutting his pork chop into tiny triangles and squares.

#

Mary Read is cross when she sits down beside me to continue The LIFE of Mary Read.

'Just that this better be good today,' she says.

'Don't grow disillusioned,' I say. I too have sometimes wondered how a day as dramatic as yesterday's taking of the ketch can be followed by a day thrilling enough to match, and must remind myself that only in pyrating can each day exceed the one before in exuberance and danger.

We take up the book.

'In their cruise they took a great number of ships belonging to Jamaica, and other parts of the West-Indies, bound to and from England, and whenever they met a person that might be of any great use to their company, it was their custom to keep him by force.' I skim down the page because Mary Read is a pyrate thirsty for fighting and the taking of ships. She will quickly grow bored with such background information as that of place names and minor characters.

She leans against our treasure chests, eyes closing already.

I continue with vigor. 'Among these was a young fellow of a most engaging behavior, or, at least, he was so in the eyes of Mary Read who became so smitten with his person and address that she could neither rest night or day, but there is nothing more ingenious than love.' I pause to glance ahead for the names of weapons or action verbs.

Mary Read's eyes shoot open like portholes burst by cannons. 'Well, keep on.'

'Um, she first insinuated herself into his liking by talking against the life of a pyrate, which he was altogether averse to, so they became mess-mates and strict companions. When she found he had a friendship for her, as a man, she suffered the discovery to be made, by carelessly shewing her breasts, which were very white.'

'Let's do that!' Mary Read says.

'You would talk against the life of a pyrate?' I say. I had thought woman pyrates were, if nothing else, as faithful in their trade and lifestyle as any good pyrates, but the History has proven me wrong. The book shuts heavy with my disgust.

'You're just like Father,' she says. 'You be the fellow and I'm Mary Read. Fellow, you are such a good friend.'

'Of course I'm a good friend, I'm your best mate. I am Anne Bonny, another despicable woman pyrate.' I know resisting the History is childish but I have been riled up by the text.

Mary Read climbs onto the writing desk, her favorite stage. 'You can't be Anne Bonny. You're a boy,' she sneers.

'I'm a pyrate!'

'You're a fellow. And we're going to be companions!'

Mary Read yanks on the buttons at the back of her dress and pulls its top half down. We stand still for a moment, staring at her squishy white chest.

'That hairless mound of butter is no pyrate's chest!' My chest is smooth too, and my logic is faulty, but we never finished reading the chapter and I don't know what else to do next.

'Oh but my Juliette is lovely! See how those delicious little breasts have begun to heave! Anne Bonny, I do declare she's better fleshed there than you are, and would you believe it, she's only thirteen!' Mary Read says, jumping up and down on the writing desk.

'I'll be Juliette and you be the Marquis de Sade,' she commands. 'Oh fuck! Ah, by sweet Christ, what verve, what fiery temper!

'Stop it!' I say. The Marquis de Sade sounds like a pyrate's name but I've read all the pyrates in the book and I don't recognize it.

'Father locked up the good books but we can still play Juliette!' Mary Read says, stretching herself across the writing table.

So Mary Read did cross the gray and ominous seas of Father's study and make it out fighting. I spend a second in awe of her bravery. But she is still lying on the writing table, her arms and legs sprawled over the edge like a dead pyrate's, and if this is what one learns from passing through the torment of Father's study, I want nothing to do with the place or its knowledge.

'She revealed herself to our eyes, lovely as Venus, that sea-risen goddess,' Mary Read whispers, touching her chest. The monologue continues for a significant portion of the morning. The things she has learned in Father's books are dull as lessons and somehow, in a way I haven't the wit to identify, worse.

#

'Spell chastity,' says Mother.

'C-h-a-s-t-a-t-y,' says Mary Read.

'No.'

'C-h-a-s-t-i-t-y?' I correct.

Mary Read jiggles her legs back and forth and scratches the back of her neck. She coughs more often than necessary.

'Is something the matter, young lady?' asks Mother.

'Just can we write compositions yet?'

Mother blushes like she did when I asked to look at the bookshelf, but her expression wavers between pride and anxiety. She blushed when she read the composition that made Mary Read stay after lessons, too.

'Yes, we must,' says Mother, 'but we are writing about chastity, and you must be able to explain exactly how your topic matches that specific subject.'

'Yes, ma'am,' says Mary Read, in perhaps the first instance of my fellow pirate ever using such a polite form of address to one other than a captain.

A blank paper appears on my desk. What element of pyrating relates to chastity?

I am an eloquent, elegant writer, but all I have composed by the end of the composition is an illustration of a ketch under sail, Mary Read sailing at the helm with her shirt down, looking cross. The image I have rendered stares at me with such derisive force that I want to mark her out, but before I can, Mother snatches it.

She holds it up beside Mary Read's composition. 'Oh, oh.' With one paper wrinkling in each fist she stomps to the door.

Her head comes back in for a second. 'You, young man and lady, may stay in your desks.' The door clicks shut.

Mary Read and I look at each other. She sticks out a tongue stained with ink from putting her pen in her mouth. I pretend not to see her and look at the bookshelf, full of its boring old nothing.

Mother bursts back in.

'And his composition, his drawing, corroborates it,' she is saying to Father. 'I just cannot believe.'

Father lists alongside Mother like a yawl in her choppy wake. He nods and shakes his head alternately. His mouth pulls down and back.

Mother narrows her eyes at me, her hand twitching for her weapon. I brace myself though all I have are my pencil and pen. Mary Read puts her pen back in her mouth. We should never embark upon such venturesome travels as lessons so ill equipped.

'I believe he has found some unsuitable book on the street somewhere and is teaching her all the, oh, filthy content he gleans from it. Pyrates and, well, that which we have just discussed. It must be found and confiscated,' Mother says, looking torn between fighting us and washing everyone's mouth out with soap.

'Yes, unsuitable,' says Father, though he gave me A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the moft notorious Pyrates, and also their Policies, Difcipline and Government, etc. for my eighth birthday. He said it would help me develop a childlike sense of adventure.

Did he not realize the book must turn both progeny to pyracy?

With a daggers in each hand I leap onto the table and bellow, 'Who are you sneaking puppies to relieve men so bold as us of our greatest treasure?' In the seconds before I take on Mother, I glance back to Mary Read who I know without the smallest doubt will be clambering up behind me.

She is sprawled against the back of her chair, her pen a dangling cigar. She says, 'Juliette is no man.'

With my best mate, my first mate, my captain having thus deserted me, I hover in midair at the edge of a plank over the center of the roaring sea, and I tumble in.

#

'No!' I cry at Father. Mother tightens her grip on the back of my neck.

Father lifts the History resolutely. The old sinew of his arms must strain under his thin sleeves to lift the weight of all the pyrates whose eternal lives he is ending as he trudges down the stairs with the book.

I squirm under the tears that coat my face, the thick and acerbic pyrate's tears that do not come easily and always indicate a more terrible affair than any regular man could bear to imagine. For if a sadness comes that a pyrate cannot anticipate, it is the worst in the world.

Mother holds the back of my neck until we can no longer hear Father's footsteps. She looks me in the eyes and she gives my cheek a tiny, sharp slap.

'Ah,' she says. She points a thin forefinger at Juliette, a beach shark fat with soulless devil-may-care. 'Tramp,' Mother says very quietly. She retreats down the stairs.

I, however, will stand here forever at the threshold to this broken ocean, able to focus on nothing but the stripped coat rack, smashed lamp, rack and ruin, thinking of how once we stood tall on frigates and galleons, all nations before us and all the seas.

Juliette climbs onto the deteriorated writing desk and waves a foot in front of my face. A toe sticks through her stocking. She has taken off her shoes. 'Get over it, Marquis,' she says. 'There are other fun games for us to play.'

Further Reading:  
 _A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates_ , by Charles Johnson  
 _Juliette_ , by the Marquis de Sade

Katy Gunn is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama with other writing forthcoming from Crazyhorse, Puerto del Sol, trnsfr, and PANK.

© 2012 All rights reserved Katy Gunn.

