A pulse of water answered her, close to her legs. (Or was she wearing the tail? Was it right beside her fins? Suddenly, she wasn’t sure.) A hand grabbed her foot and pulled her through the water. It tugged her like a fish on a line; it reeled her close with silver-spider hands.
She forgot. Ed made her forget.
She forgot all the training and the tubes, and she cried out a burp of surprise. And then there was no more air. Ed’s hands—both hands, then—clamped around her foot. Her ankle. Her leg. Up around her knee, and reaching higher.
Give it back. His lips didn’t move. He didn’t speak, but she heard him anyway.
Tammy flailed, almost dropping the towel but catching it at the last second with two fingers. It sank slow, unraveling from its balled-up twist in slow motion. Unraveling but not untying, not undoing completely. Not letting the treasured tiara fall free.
Tammy reached, elbows thrusting in every direction for the nearest hose. There were always hoses, hidden here and there. Always hoses for breathing, for refreshing, for shaking off the sparkles that crept up behind her eyes when it’d been too long since she’d had a breath; and the fizz was coming up now, and so were the silver-spider hands, curling like an octopus up her thigh.
Another splash, and something hit hard against her head.
(It was Frank. That part was an accident.)
When he joined them, he turned the water pink, a little bit, in a curly cloud there by his side. He took Ed by the hair, right by that billowing head that looked for all the world like a poisoned anemone. He yanked Ed hard, snapping his neck back, and up.
The octopus, silver-spider hand seized, and struck, and let go.
It went, sucked into a flurry of frothy spring water and violent rich foam, a curtain and a tower of bubbles.
And the static.
There was a dazzling flash, and there was Frank—turning the water all pink but not giving up. Frank, with his sun-brown arms and legs as strong as chains, the big ones that hold ships to docks—the big ones that hold anchors on ocean liners . . . and Frank was holding on, but the thing called Ed was spinning—trying to cast him off like the alligators people wrestled for tourists.
And Tammy was spinning too.
There wasn’t any air, and there weren’t any hoses. Did Frank pull them all up when the day was out and over? Did he put them all away? Of course, when no one needed them. Of course, when the mermaid aquarium was empty, in the auditorium with eighteen seats, lined up like soldiers in a row, lined up like lines on a page, in a story, in a fairy tale where something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. Of course there wasn’t any air.
Tammy let go of the towel. It dropped away with its strange little prize, a glimmering cheap hairpiece with gems made of sea glass.
She didn’t know how she knew about the sea glass, but she would’ve bet her life on it. Maybe she was betting her life on it. No, that couldn’t be right.
She wasn’t even sinking anymore—but rising, slow and unafraid. Her back breached the surface; she could feel the late day sun warm against the wet shirt there, and warm against her skin. She wasn’t a real mermaid. This wasn’t a real aquarium, but that tiara was real, and its sea glass gemstones were magic of a glorious kind. And Ed was real, and he was magic of a terrible kind. The two went together, somehow.
She felt . . .
She heard . . .
She saw . . .
Below her the crumpled towel stopped atop a rock. It teetered, toppled against another boulder, into a plant. Onto a compressor, and down again, another step or two to the spring bottom, where it came to rest in the soft, white silt. It came unfolded, unwound, and from beneath one waving corner of terry cloth, there sparkled something bright and cheap and priceless.
A deadly lure, glittering with enchanted glass.
Cherie Priest is the author of twenty novels and novellas, most recently The Family Plot, I Am Princess X, Chapelwood, and the Philip K. Dick Award nominee Maplecroft; but she is perhaps best known for the steampunk pulp adventures of the Clockwork Century, beginning with Boneshaker. Her works have been nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction, and have won the Locus Award (among others)—and over the years they’ve been translated into nine languages in eleven countries. Cherie lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with her husband and a small menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets.
Website: cheriepriest.com
Twitter: @cmpriest
Facebook: facebook.com/cmpriest
* * *
As Good as Your Word
ELLEN HOPKINS
* * *
Fine Day
Early spring, the ground velvet
brown just beyond April thaw.
Robins comb the earth, hungrily
plucking foolhardy worms,
as overhead cottonwoods shake
crowns of near-fluorescent green.
From a safe distance, I watch
a motorcade in serpentine form
slither along creviced asphalt,
through wrought iron gates.
None of the passengers know
I’m here. None know me at all.
But I know the boy who rides
in the place of honor inside
the long black Cadillac
hearse. We were more than
friends. We took a vow
and this is his promise, kept.
Yes, it’s a fine, fine day
for Cameron Voss’s burial.
More Cars
Than I expected to see pull one by
one to the side of the road. Cameron
is—I mean was—a strange boy.
(No stranger than I, of course.)
I’m surprised so many people
have turned out to say goodbye.
Far fewer, I have little doubt,
would do the same for me.
I’m sitting on a hillside grave,
shaded by an elderly oak, cool
grass licking my skin. This is
the oldest part of the cemetery,
and I’m pretty sure whoever I’m
sitting on doesn’t mind. Laura
Simpson is her name. She died in
1802. Her spirit must be long gone.
A breeze rises warm, lifts
my hair, puffs a kiss on my neck,
and I remember Cam’s words:
The flesh disintegrates to reveal the spirit,
initiate its journey. The spirit may
wander or stay bound to those it loves.
Who did Laura Simpson love? Are
they here? Is she? And where is Cam?
The Flesh Part of Cam
Is, I assume, in the shiny, copper
casket levitating over the freshly
dug hole in the ground. I know
there are straps holding it there,
but from here it seems suspended
in mid-air, a product of magic.
Cam’s family gathers to witness
the lowering. I’ve never met them,
but I’ve seen their photos on his
loudly. Why? Why? His father
slides an arm around her shoulder.
I could tell them why. But they
wouldn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t
understand why their son chose
to put an end to his life. He was
only seventeen. Just like me.
Suddenly the breeze turns chill.
It whispers through the greening
leaves, Seventeen. Seventeen.
Goosebumps rise up like ghosts
from their graves. It’s time to go.
I take a deep breath. “Goodbye Cam.
“Sleep well. I’ll see you one day.”
I Start Across
A long stretch of lawn, beaded
with headstones. My VW waits
on the far side, staring at me
with mournful eyes. Cam told
me once that before he died
he wanted to take a cross country
ride in a car just like mine. “Why
were you in such a hurry to go, then?”
I whisper the words into the sky.
They are answered there by the hideous
cry of a crow. Chloe! It screams
and I start to run. How can this evil
tongued bird know my name?
Winter’s littered branches snatch
at my feet as I stumble toward
the harbor of the street. Chloe!
I look over my shoulder, and see
the black feathered dagger perched
on a wire, staring curiously. It
never wanted me at all. “Stop it!”
I command myself out loud and slow
my pace to a measured walk. Why
am I so spooked, anyway?
Maybe coming to pay my respects
wasn’t the best idea. But I wanted
to say goodbye to Cam, since, despite
many long conversations, we never
managed an in-the-flesh hello.
Safe in My Bug
My hand trembles as I turn
the key. How absurd. Ghosts
only go a-haunting at night,
and if I imagine contempt
in the eyes of a bird, it is only
the manifestation of my own guilt.
The car knows the way home,
lets me think about how Cam
and I met that day, in a chat room
named “Contemplating Death.”
I had recently lost my best friend
to leukemia, and as her short life
neared its end, I kept promising
to go visit. But watching her waste
away creeped me out and she died
before I ran out of excuses. It wasn’t
my own death I was considering
that afternoon. It was Erica’s, and
for some reason, it didn’t occur to me
that dreams of suicide had drawn
most everyone into that cyber crypt.
Hi. I’m Barry and I want to kill
myself. Sounded like SA—Suicides
Anonymous. Whatever. Anything
was more entertaining than thinking
about what a poor excuse for a friend
I was. I didn’t care one bit about Barry,
though. “Hello. I’m Chloe and I want
to know what happens after the light
sputters out.” Nobody had an answer.
I Lurked for a While
Strangely fascinated by the (all
things considered) rather trivial
reasons people gave for wanting
to exterminate themselves.
My boyfriend walked out on me.
I flunked out of chemistry.
I had sex with my brother.
My sister is really my mother.
I sat at the keyboard, fingers
itching to write, “What the hell
is wrong with you? These things
aren’t worth dying for.”
And then, like he could read
my fingers’ minds or something,
up pops Cam’s instant message:
What would you die for, Chloe?
That Was the Beginning
Of our beautiful, but totally odd,
relationship.
Odd, because, though we lived
on opposite far edges of the same
city, we never hooked up for real.
Introverts to the point of pain,
we kept waiting for the right time.
Time ran out.
Odd, because though we never
hooked up in real time, we fell as far
in love as two people who’ve never
met in the flesh can. Most people
probably believe actual skin-to-skin
contact is a requisite for romance,
but it wasn’t Cam’s touch I tumbled for.
It was his incredible quirky brain.
Odd, because falling in love led
us to make a suicide pact. Before
I met Cam, I’d never seriously
considered snuffing the flicker
of my lousy life, which proved
so much richer with him in it.
Despite his need for control.
Odd, because that promise to die
in tandem is what made us beautiful.
We were Romeo and Juliet, except
without the duels, balcony
confessions, kissing and sex.
Zero sex, although we did talk about it.
We talked about what we liked.
(I made everything up. All the sex
I’ve ever had was in my imagination.)
We teased each other with fictional
scenarios of what we’d do to each
other when we finally met.
On this side of death, anyway.
We Also Talked
Often late, often long, about
the other side of corporeal death.
I asked if he was certain about
an afterlife. He didn’t hesitate.
How could you doubt it? The body
is a vessel, and inside it, the essence
of existence. Some call it the soul,
and it can’t be extinguished.
I’d only recently considered it,
had no clear sense of a hereafter.
“But what comes next? Heaven?
Hell? Something else completely?”
He paused, and I could almost
hear him shrug. We can’t be
certain ’til it happens, and that’s
half the fun of it, you know?
Uncertainty never sounds like fun
to me. I was more confused than
ever. I asked if he thought people
had sex after they died. He answered
with a question, Why would
the spirit rely on the physical
for pleasure? I figured it was
rhetorical. But then he continued,
Without the constraints of flesh,
energy is free to do what it will.
Imagine the rush when separate
energies collide. Totally orgasmic!
I Thought He Was Enlightened
So when we started talking
about being together forever,
sans flesh, I wasn’t scared
at all. I was intrigued.
Anyway, what did I really
have to lose? Not like this life
was taking me anywhere special.
Not like this life had brought
me anything but massive clouds
of sorrow, from my father’s death
when I was twelve to my best
friend’s, not so long ago.
Cam took charge of planning how
we would do it. He wanted to go
out in style—via bullet or rope,
so people would remember.
I preferred something a little less
dramatic, not to mention painful.
Pills for me. There are plenty in
the medicine cabinets—Mom’s,
and mine. The one thing Cam
was adamant about was going at
the same time, so the exact same
door in the continuum would open
for both of us simultaneously.
I believed him in a way. But,
personally, I was discussing
abstractions. Anyway, my M.O.
has always been more talk
than action. Did I swear I’d do
the deed at the precise moment
he did? Yes. When he asked,
Do you give me your solemn word?
I vowed that I would swallow
those pills right before he stepped
off the desk in his room,
noose
around his neck jerking tight.
I swore I would, but when Cam
jumped feet first into the forever
night, I had only taken two
Valium with a tumbler of Wild
Turkey. I got buzzed. Cam died.
It Is Late Afternoon
By the time I get home, shadows
deepening toward evening. Silence
swallows the house, and I’m grateful
for my mother’s usual Saturday
afternoon bowling. I go into
my room, drop the blinds, hang
a sign on the outside of my door:
Taking a nap. DND.
She knows the code: Do Not
Disturb. She’s seen it hundreds
of times, and unless I’m already
waist-high in manure,
she respects my right to be weird
in private. In semi-darkness,
I flop down on my bed, close
my eyes, consciously relax
every muscle, begin to drift
toward a gentle rose-colored glow.
Closer. Closer. The light grows
brighter. Darker. Red. Blood
scarlet. I jump back into awareness.
I’m in my room, and it’s black
in here, except for . . . a red light.
Flashing. Flashing. Flashing on
my computer screen. No, not just a light.
Words. Hard to read from here.
I get up, cross the floor. Five words.
Flashing, red: What would you die for?
My Entire Body
Goes rigid, morgue cold.
“Turn it off!” screams my brain,
and I lean toward the computer,
but suddenly I don’t want to
touch it. Mustn’t touch.
Mustn’t look. I turn away,
flip on the lamp. Soft copper
light scatters the darkness.
Chloe! I jump at the sound,
but the voice that falls heavy
in the hallway belongs to
my mother. Dinner’s ready.
Dinner? Yeah, I’m starving.
But I answer, “Be right there.”
Some masochistic sliver
of my psyche makes me
turn back toward my desk.
The monitor no longer blinks.
A single word remains,
a steady crimson glow:
die.
Every Molecule
Of air is sucked
from the room. Run.
Run or follow through.
Follow through and die.
Run. Try. Can’t. Stuck.