Fantasy Magazine, January 2010

Fantasy Magazine Issue 34, January 2010

Table of Contents

After the Dragon by Sarah Monette (fiction) my mother, the ghost by Willow Fagan (fiction) Above It All by Carol Emshwiller (fiction) The Wing Collection by Eilis O'Neal (fiction)

Author Spotlight: Sarah Monette Author Spotlight: Willow Fagan Author Spotlight: Carol Emshwiller Author Spotlight: Eilis O’Neal

About the Editor

After the dragon, she lay in the white on white hospital room and wanted to die. The counselor came and talked about stages of grief and group therapy, her speech so rehearsed Megan could hear the grooves in the vinyl; Megan turned the ruined side of her face toward her and said, “Do you have a group for this?” She felt the moment when the counselor dropped the ball, didn’t have a pre-processed answer, when just for a second she was a real person, and then she picked it up again and gave Megan an answer she didn’t even hear. The doctors talked about reconstructive surgery and skin grafts, and Megan agreed with them because it was easier than listening. It didn’t matter; they could not restore the hand that had seared and twisted and melted in the dragon’s heat. They could not restore the breast rent and ruined by the dragon’s claws. They couldn’t stop the fevers that racked her, one opportunistic infection after another like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Her risk of thirteen different kinds of cancer had skyrocketed, and osteoporosis had already started in the affected arm and shoulder. They could not erase the dragon from her body, and she hated them for it.

***

In death, a dragon reverts to the minerals from which it rises into life. Rhyolite, iron, bright inclusions of quartz, and—stabbing through—the dragon’s terrible obsidian bones, every edge sharper than cruelty. No dragon can be moved from where it dies; the last profligate expense of heat welds it to the geology of its death. The dragon that died on that strip of beach in Oregon turned the sand to glass for fifty yards. Strange glass, black and purple and green, twisted in shapes no glassblower could imagine. The government brought their Geiger counters, but there, they were lucky. This dragon had not risen from Trinity or the Nevada Proving Ground or Pikinni Atoll. Its poisonous heat did not survive it.

*** After the dragon, her mother would not look at her. She came, and she yanked the curtains back, dazzling Megan’s aching eyes. She turned her smile like a call-me- Nancy searchlight on nurses and orderlies and doctors and interns; no one could escape, least of all Megan. She gossiped ruthlessly about women Megan knew, women who were healthy and successful and happy, women who were not lying in a white on white on white hospital room, women who had never seen a dragon. She brought flowers, daffodils and gaudy tulips and vast red roses, and the hospital room took them in and made them look fake and shrill, like her voice. Nancy came in and out like a cyclone, and she never looked at Megan. Megan lay and tried to remember the last time Nancy had looked at her, had seen her, had known her, and the next time Nancy came, Megan got her answer. “I found this picture of you, sweetie, and I thought you might like it.” Megan squinted and managed to focus on the picture; she hadn’t lost the burned eye, but it had almost no vision. From the portrait frame, her eighteen-year-old self smiled at her as dazzlingly as sunlight, unharmed and unaware that harm could come to her. She still called her mother “Mom,” not knowing yet the protection of irony, of distance, of pretending not to care. There was no dragon in her flat glass-protected world. And of course that was the daughter Nancy wanted to see when she was not-quite-looking at Megan: eighteen and blonde and going to prom with the boy she’d dated for three years. Going to college. Surfing just for something to do on the weekends, a way to hang out with her boyfriend and his friends. Even then, it hadn’t been true—even then the boys called her “Surfer Girl” more as a warning than a joke—but Megan had believed she could make it be true just as much as Nancy had. And she’d worked so fucking hard at it. Even when she quit school, got a job as an instructor, as her hair went sunbleached on top and brown underneath, she hid her failure from her mother as much as she could. For fifteen years, she’d hidden it, from her mother, from herself, and now she knew just how well she’d succeeded. Nancy said, “I’ll just leave this here where you can look at it.” She was gone before Megan got her eyes open again. Her eighteen-year-old self smiled at her from the bedside table. Megan snarled back.

***

The beach in Oregon had no name. There was no need; it was just another piece of coastline, a narrow strip of sand hedged about by rocks. Sandpipers and sea lions knew it but did not name it, and if the whales gave it a name, they told no one but their children. It still has no official name, but it has a designation: DI-2009-002-177. The 177th dragon incursion known to the Department of Defense to have occurred on American soil, the second such in the year 2009. There was a polite skirmish between the federal government and the state of Oregon, which the state of Oregon won; DI-2009-002- 177 remains public land. Inevitably, locals and tour books and websites begin to call it Dragon’s Beach.

***

For a long time after the dragon, she hated in the same way that she breathed. She hated the doctors and the nurses. She hated everyone who visited her. She hated herself. Above all else, she hated the dragon, the smell of it that would not leave her nostrils, the bright lidless regard of its eyes. She hated it for not killing her, for leaving her trapped in this ruined mockery of a body. She hated it for dying and leaving her to face the world alone. ***

Her physical therapist was a rangy blonde woman who looked like her name should be Astrid or Olga. Actually, it was Jenny, and she was a third generation Los Angelina who spoke Spanish on the phone with her husband. She insisted that Megan move her arm in ways it no longer moved, insisted that she walk the length of the hall outside her room, and when she finished and collapsed, sweating and dizzy and nauseated, Jenny said, “Good. Tomorrow we’ll do it twice.” Before the dragon, Megan could have kept up with Jenny easily—she could have run Jenny into the fucking ground. Now that was as far gone from her as picking up a water glass with the hand she no longer had.

***

No one knows the total of the dragon’s devastation. Human beings can be counted: five dead. Domestic animals can be counted: one dead, a Labrador retriever who died in the same instant as her owner, neither of them with even a chance to understand the death that stooped for them on silicate wings. Trees large enough to be landmarks can be remembered, although there is nothing left of them, only ashes. But even the best photographs, the most careful computer-generated reconstructions, can only guess at the squirrels which might have lived in the trees the dragon burned, the insects which were in its path, the earthworms which died beneath the heat and weight of its feet. There are craters left where the dragon stood, and the earth in them is scorched and lifeless.

***

After the dragon, after the surgery, after all the therapy, she still wasn’t whole. They let her go home to a musty, dark apartment she almost didn’t recognize as hers. It was like walking through the home of someone who had died. Me, she thought. I died. She went into the bathroom, stared, frowning and only half seeing at the brightly colored poppies on the shower curtain. A dead woman had chosen that curtain, and now she could not remember what being that woman had felt like. The woman in the mirror would never have chosen that shower curtain. The shiny skin along her jaw creased strangely when she tried to smile, and the eye looked as false as glass. Her hair was growing out again, though it was still not long enough to cover the warped cartilage of her ear. “At least you won’t frighten small children anymore,” she said, her voice strange and hoarse and deep. The dragon had dropped her voice from soprano almost to tenor, and she could not accustom herself to it. Could not abide with it. “This isn’t me!” she cried, harsh as a crow. “I died—I died! This isn’t me!” The mirror shattered, great pieces falling into the sink and onto the floor. Her hand was bleeding. She looked at it for several moments, watching the blood welling red and reproachful in the cup of her palm, before she remembered what to do next.

***

Sightseers come to Dragon’s Beach, but they don’t stay long. The rough glass of the beach is too dangerous to walk on, the earth crumbles horribly beneath your feet, and besides, there isn’t anything to see. Just a weird rock formation and some holes in the ground. If you’re stubborn, you can chip away a piece of the glass as a souvenir, but word gets around that it always, always draws blood, and anyway it’s dull and ugly when you bring it back home. Then there’s an internet scare that the glass is carcinogenic, and after that the sightseers don’t even get out of their cars.

***

After the dragon, she tried things she’d never tried before. It began with the mirror, which had broken into three large shards and seven smaller ones, along with all the bits too small to count. And she knew that she should simply throw them away, counted and uncounted, that the mirror was broken and that was that, but she couldn’t. She saved them instead and remembered her father teaching her to do jigsaw puzzles. After he had died, when Megan was nine, Nancy had thrown out puzzles by the armload. Megan kept the shards of the mirror, despite the eerily accurate echo of her mother’s voice in her head: “Sweetie, you don’t know the first thing about working with glass, and you know you’ve always been so clumsy. . .” She kept the pieces of mirror and began, not idly, to look at DIY and crafts websites.

***

Jenny had explained in careful and appalling detail the possible effects of failing to keep up with the prescribed exercise regimen, and Megan would not give more of herself to the dragon now that the fucker was dead. She went to the gym three times a week—the gym, god help her, which she’d always considered as a feeble second best to surfing or running or rock climbing, any of the things she couldn’t do now, might not be able to do ever with her newly friable bones—dragging her wreck of a body like a reluctant dog on a leash. At first it was a nightmare, one more new nightmare to add to the stack, but she said grimly to herself, If you survived the dragon, you can survive anything, and kept going. And no one was cruel. They tried not to stare where she could see them, and after a couple of weeks, the body builders began, very respectfully, to give her tips. She was both startled and grateful, and after another week she began to remember how to say, “Hello” and “Have a nice night.” And then she met Louise. Louise was Nancy’s age, but where Nancy was soft and feminine and restless, Louise was wiry and fiercely androgynous and had the strength of her own inner stillness. Louise was a cancer survivor; one breast was gone, and there were pain lines on her face that never entirely smoothed out. But what first attracted and held Megan’s attention were her tattoos. They started on her forearm and swirled up to her shoulder and then down both sides of her body beneath the tanktops she wore. The colors were vibrant, triumphant, and when Megan finally found the courage to ask to see the rest, she learned that the colors and the beauty and the pageantry of Louise’s tattoos were all emanating from a lion tattooed over her heart. The tattooist had used the topography of Louise’s chest, the scars and concavity, as guidelines, and the result was grotesque but also beautiful. “Why a lion?” Megan asked, and then was afraid it was a rude question. Before the dragon, she’d never had this sort of conversation, about real pain and disaster and how you lived with being broken. But Louise just grinned, a little ruefully, and said, “Strength in the Tarot. And Aslan from the Narnia books. And I’m a Leo.” “It’s beautiful.” Louise looked down at herself. “Yeah,” she said; she sounded almost surprised. “Yeah, it is.”

***

The world returns slowly to the glass beach. There is a graduate student writing her dissertation on the ecological effects of dragon incursions; she has a grant, and she walks out to the beach every day and takes notes and samples and pictures. She measures the craters; sends the ashes to be analyzed and compared with the ashes from the most recent California wildfire, with the ashes from Mount St. Helens, with the ashes from other American dragon incursions, all the way back to the dragon of 1869, the first dragon for which such samples had been kept. She walks out with white-knuckled care to the obsidian bones and only once lays her hand open on their merciless edges. She is lonely, but she doesn’t mind. Her work is important. On the day she sees the first cautious returning kildeer, she comes back after dark with a bottle of tequila. She pours a libation—not to the dragon, for the dragon is destruction and death and needs no homage—but to the Earth who heals herself if given half a chance, and then proceeds to get royally hammered.

***

After the dragon, she put things back together as best she could. From her mother, Megan had learned to judge herself by marking points off from perfection. But now, looking at herself in the fractured, crazy-quilt mirror she’d made, perfection didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t sure what did. “What do you like about yourself?” Louise said one day at the gym. “What do I like about myself?” Megan said blankly. “Yeah,” Louise said, not pausing in the steady rhythm of the rowing machine. “Louise, have you seen me?” “Megan,” Louise said back, just as snippy, “did I say anything about your looks?” Megan didn’t have an answer to that, and she went to swim laps with the question still bouncing around inside her head. Later, when she joined Louise in the jacuzzi, she said, “My mother always said it was a good thing I was pretty because what else did I have to offer a husband?” “So your mother is who? June Cleaver in hell?” Megan felt guilty about laughing, but god, there was no way she could stop herself. And Louise just grinned. “I’ll tell you what I like about myself,” Louise said. “I like my tattoo. I like that I’m strong. I like that I’m entering a marathon next year, and I don’t think I’m gonna place, but I know I’m gonna finish. I like that my sister’s kids hug me hard, and I hug ‘em back. I like that I don’t give a shit anymore how my hair looks.” She raised her eyebrows at Megan. For a moment, Megan didn’t think she had anything to say, and then she blurted, “I like my legs.” “They’re cut,” Louise agreed. “You gonna take that tai chi class?” “Maybe,” Megan said, and they finished their soak and walked back to the locker room lazily arguing the pros and cons. Megan showered, put her street clothes on. T-shirts now, always t-shirts, because as awkward as it could be pulling them on, it was better than the humiliation of fumbling with buttons. And it wasn’t like she had anything left she could win by being chic and femme and a copy of Nancy. She looked in the locker-room mirror and saw somebody who was so far from perfect the word didn’t make sense. Somebody who was going to have to live with it. Somebody who could live with it. She waited, awkwardly, until Louise was dressed, and then said in a rush, before she could change her mind, “Louise, will you introduce me to your tattooist?” And when Louise looked at her, clearly startled, she said, “I want . . . I like the fact that my body is still alive. And I want it to know that.” “Of course,” Louise said, and in her smile Megan saw beauty that no mother, no dragon could touch. “Of course.” —for Elise Matthesen

Sarah Monette grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the three secret cities of the Manhattan Project, and now lives in a 103-year-old house in the Upper Midwest with a great many books, four cats, one husband, and one albino bristlenose plecostomus. Her Ph.D. diploma (English Literature, 2004) hangs in the kitchen. Her first four novels were published by Ace Books. Her short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, among other venues, and have been reprinted in several Year’s Best anthologies; a short story collection, The Bone Key, was published by Prime Books in 2007. She has written one novel (A Companion to Wolves, Tor Books, 2007) and three short stories with Elizabeth Bear, and hopes to write more. Visit her online at www.sarahmonette.com. my mother, the ghost Willow Fagan

I was eleven years old when I realized that my mother was a ghost. I can remember the exact moment of this realization, but I wish I could better explain how it came about. It was like I had all these broken pieces of the truth, like shards of a white bowl, and in one moment, the pieces flew together, reforming the bowl, like the instant of its shattering running in reverse. Here were the pieces I had: My mother wore the same dress every day, white and filmy, speckled with small blue and green flowers. My mother never went outside. My mother never touched me. My mother spent most of her time cleaning, and yet the brown, blotchy stains under the white rug in my parents’ bathroom never went away. My mother had a terrible memory, and was never sure what day of the week it was. My mother’s eyes were the same color as her hair, a restless grey. ***

Here is what happened, up to the moment of my realization: I was sitting at the kitchen table, using watercolors to paint within the penciled lines of a sketch I had drawn of my mother. It was a spring afternoon. I had just gotten home from school. My mother was off somewhere in the house, cleaning. I was having trouble finding the right colors. I smelled something burning, and then smoke began to pour out from the sides of the oven, as if the casserole or roast my mother was cooking had erupted into a volcano. This happened a few times every week. I did not stand up. I did not leave the room. The smoke seemed welcoming. I wanted to be enveloped by it: the grey swirls, unfolding and unfolding, as if the wealth of shapes in the smoke were endless. Then my mother was there. “Oh,” she sighed. “Again.” She stood, her back to the oven, her hands behind her back. I imagined that she was wringing her hands, that they were frantic rodents that she did not want me to see. “Brian, honey, let’s not tell your father about this, okay? How would you like to go out for some ice cream after dinner?” The smoke outlined her in clouds. I looked down at my unfinished painting, at the absent colors of my mother’s eyes and hair. I looked back up at my mother, at the smoke. My mother’s eyes, my mother’s hair, were the same color as the smoke, exactly. My mother was a ghost.

***

It is only now that I’m at college that I’ve shared this information with anyone else. I could only trust someone whose own life had been shaped by something bizarre, something which officially, scientifically, does not exist. My best friend Allison was abducted by aliens. She loves to talk about it. Actually, she loves to talk about everything. She also loves eating toast with mustard, and singing along with videos of old Broadway musicals, and riding her bike at night.

***

I didn’t tell anyone that my mother was a ghost because I was scared that if I told anyone, she would vanish. At first, this was pure instinctual superstition. But as I got older, the fear endured, shifting forms. I became scared that if I told anyone, they would call a priest, who would come to my house and banish my mother to the afterlife. Or a scientist, who would conduct an experiment in our living room and prove that my mother did not exist. Or a New Age lightworker, who would position crystals around our windows and convince my mother to let go, to see through the illusion of fear and move towards the light.

***

Allison understands. She tells me, “I know what you mean. I don’t know how to feel about the aliens. I mean. . . I don’t trust them at all. They took me right out of my bed and I screamed and screamed but there was something intangible in my throat. And yet. . . they know so much that we don’t. They’re beautiful in a way I can’t describe, like the pinnacle of some art form I’d never heard of before, the masterpiece that draws on centuries of culture and symbolism I just don’t know, but I can still tell it’s a masterpiece, you know? And they gave me some of that beauty, put something of their making inside of me. I don’t know what it is, but I know that it. . . it lets me know some of what they know.” We sit for hours in my dorm room, talking and talking, not caring about sleep deprivation and our classes the next morning. She has this way of seeing the world that fascinates me. “I don’t really think that they are extraterrestrials,” she says, “I think the human mind is more powerful than we know. It’s like, in ancient times, the natural world was unknown, full of danger and possibility, so the stories we told were about giant animals and tree spirits and humans who could become animals. But now it’s technology that has become so complicated it’s unknown, unfathomable to most people. And I think, in the past, those beings were more than just stories, I think they were really out there, in the darkness beyond the campfire. Science and the Enlightenment probably killed off most of them, but now they’ve created their own monsters and faeries. You know, aliens and robots and artificial intelligence.” “But what about my mother?” I say. “Are you saying she only exists because people still tell ghost stories?” “Oh, Brian, I don’t know. I don’t think there is one theory that can explain everything. You have to figure out your story for yourself.”

***

I am trying to figure out my story for myself. But of course my life isn’t finished yet. How can I see the patterns when so much of the whole is undone? Maybe that’s why my mother is sticking around, so she can look at the totality of her life after it has finished, can finally comprehend it before she allows her consciousness to dissolve into oblivion or to be transformed unrecognizably by the Great Blender of reincarnation. But, does she know that she’s a ghost? And is the task impossible anyway? I mean, is she preventing her story from ending by lingering in this world?

***

“I want them to come back,” Allison tells me. “I have dreams about them.” She blushes. “What kind of dreams?” I ask. “Uh, well… wet dreams,” she says. “Did they. . . you know. . . when they abducted you?” “No,” she says, “none of it was sexual. Even my dreams now aren’t sexual in the usual way.” I want to ask her if she ever dreams about me. “Sometimes,” she says, “I think I want them to take me with them.” “But,” I say, “if they are manifestations of human stories, where would they take you?” “The land of post-modern mythology?” she says, grinning. “The realm of the collective unconscious, maybe. Where Wonderland meets Valhalla meets the Matrix.”

***

When I was a little kid, I loved Alice in Wonderland. I read it over and over again. I begged my mother to read it to me every few weeks. She would shut off the vacuum cleaner and sigh, or leave her hands submerged in the sink full of suds and dishes while she listened to my pleas. She would always relent eventually, and often ended up reading me the book with her hands still wet, so the pages got all crinkled. Sometimes, I would run my fingers along the surface of the pages, thinking about my mother’s touch. I didn’t care that my favorite book was being slowly destroyed.

***

After I realized my mother was a ghost, I began to obsessively wonder if anyone was solid. In sixth grade, I kept a list of my classmates and would check their names off after I had arm-wrestled them, or tagged them, or slapped them high five. The girls were the hardest to find excuses to touch. I was the only boy in my class who eagerly sought out partners at the school dance, who was excited about doing the do-si-do in gym class. I never found anyone who wasn’t warm, solid: human. The funny thing is, I’m not even sure what a ghost feels like. I’ve always been too scared to try to touch my mother.

***

I’m scared to touch Allison. I don’t know what would happen. “It makes sense that you’d be scared of finding out exactly what your mother is,” Allison says. “I know what my mother is,” I say. “She’s a ghost.” “Ah,” Allison says, “but what is a ghost?” “I see what you mean,” I say. “I can think of lots of different possibilities,” Allison says. “But I’m going to be quiet. I know I can talk too much, and I don’t want to impose meanings on you, on your mother.” We are sitting in a Denny’s at one in the morning, lingering over hash browns and greasy omelettes. I watch Allison’s fingers drumming her spoon soundlessly against her napkin. She can never sit still. Her foot taps the same beat, dangerously close to my foot. How can I contemplate the nature of ghosts when I am haunted by the specter of the possibility of contact? Accidental or intentional, I know it would be electric.

***

I didn’t ponder the nature of ghosts at the beginning, or for the first few years. I didn’t know any other concept of ghosts other than the classic lingering soul. When I first heard the theory that ghosts were merely echoes, imprinted on the fabric of reality by extremely intense emotions, I was shocked. Had my mother been even less present than I had thought? Than I had even imagined could be possible? Those were bad, bad days. Once the thought, the question, entered my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. If my mother was simply an echo, an illusion, how could I know that anything was real? How could I know that cars were solid? Or bridges? From there, it was a short step to worrying about the enduring reality of the pavement. I walked exclusively on the cracks and the grass, as much as I could, for three months. Everyone thought I was crazy. Then I lost faith in the ground itself, and I refused to leave my bed for a week. Lying there, I had nothing else to do but worry, and my thoughts began to eat away at themselves, like a starving rodent devouring its own hands. I realized that even my questioning of reality could be an illusion. How did I know that my questions were real? How did I know that I was real? I would spend hours trembling in bed, consumed with the thought that I might be intangible but too scared to touch myself to make sure. And then I would touch myself, and feel the reassurance of solid flesh against solid flesh, and sigh with such deep relief. But, within minutes, my doubts would start up again.

***

Even now, I’m not sure how I found solid ground again after that horrible spinning time. I can recount the logic, the shape of the structure I built, but I cannot explain how I regained that visceral faith in the solidity of the world. My solution, my faith, was based on my mother, as the doubts had been. Here it is: Despite my mother’s poor memory and repetitive actions, she could not be an echo. She could remember some things; she learned how to type on a computer keyboard as a ghost. She responded to the world, to me, with more intelligence and empathy than a loop stuck in time ever could. For example, she had stopped her cleaning to read Alice in Wonderland to me. Because of this, I was certain she loved me. If my mother loved me, the world must be a solid place. ***

But sometimes the fear comes flooding back. Especially when I’m walking in the dark alone. Even now, I’m frequently scared that the floor or sidewalk or dirt, which seems so stable in the light, will suddenly change shape or consistency and my foot will plunge into something I can’t understand, some monstrous jello. And I still can’t walk across bridges.

***

The problem with telling a story is that stories are hardly ever finished, so the people you tell the story to are in danger of becoming characters in the story themselves and changing the trajectory of the plot. I think this might be happening with Jane. All because of one simple question. Jane is in my web design class. Since the rest of the class is relentlessly mainstream, we sit next to each other. Jane is goth, but in a Victorian black lace and dried roses kind of way rather than a black leather pants and Nine Inch Nails kind of way. She’s surprisingly computer savvy. She alternates between snobbish cynicism and morbid romanticism, like she can’t decide which bittersweet ice cream flavor she prefers. One day, we’re walking together after class and she asks me, “Do you believe in ghosts?” I have no idea if I can trust her with the truth. I don’t know if she has ever experienced anything strange enough that she would have some basis for understanding. So I say, “Do you believe in ghosts?” “I don’t know,” she says, lowering her eyes. ”I don’t know what—” She looks up, her eyes flashing like bobbing lights in the dark. ”Can I tell you something?”

***

Allison is sitting upside down, her head on the couch cushion, her legs over the top. She says it both allows more blood to flow to the brain and gives one a substantially different view of the world. I am trying not to stare at the inch of skin between her pants and shirt, the hint of her underwear. I start to tell her about my conversation with Jane. “I think I found someone else who’s as strange as we are,” I say, grinning. “Oh, yeah?” Allison returns my grin. “I’ve told you about this girl Jane in my web design class, right? The goth?” “I’m not sure,” Allison says. “Is she cute?” “She’s pretty cute,” I admit. But not as cute as you are. Allison has never asked that about someone before. Is she testing to see if I like her? Is she jealous? “Anyway. . .” I go on. I tell her the story.

***

“So, then she tells me that she got this e-mail from a friend she hasn’t talked to in forever. They’d only known each other online, but they were really close. I guess he was actually a semi-famous hacker or something. He used to hint to her that he had some really serious physical problems, like some deteriorating muscle disease or something. And talk about the idea of uploading himself to the Internet, but she never took him seriously. They lost touch after she started college, and didn’t talk for years. Then, yesterday, she gets an e-mail from him claiming that he had successfully uploaded himself, that he was now a ghost in the machine. She was sure it was a sick joke. Then she read online that he had killed himself. She wrote an e-mail back, demanding proof. Then she gets this instant message from him. They talk, and he tells her all this stuff that only he could have known about.” “So it really worked?” Allison says. ”That’s amazing.” “I don’t know if it’s amazing,” I say. ”But it seems a lot different than my mother. There’s something at least potentially exciting about it.” “So, did you tell her about your mother?” Allison asks. “Yeah,” I say. “But I’m not finished talking about her story.” “Okay,” Allison says. She turns herself right-side up with a grace I could never match. I don’t know if that makes me want to have her as my girlfriend or to be her. “She doesn’t think it’s amazing. She’s not even sure that it’s true. You know, that stage.” Allison nods. “She wants to believe it. She wants to believe that she hasn’t lost her friend. And, really, since they only talked online before anyway, she hasn’t lost him. . . The weird thing was, she wouldn’t tell me his name. I offered to talk to him for her, to see if I could tell if he was really a ghost. She totally flipped.” “Maybe she doesn’t trust him,” Allison says. “It’s hard to trust someone who’s dead,” I say. “You don’t trust your mom?” Allison asks. She sounds surprised. “She hasn’t changed since I can remember,” I say. “So I know I can rely on her. But, Allison, the point is, Jane asked me this question and. . . I’m really scared.” Allison takes my hand and my heart flips over. My eyes are swimming. What does this mean? Before I can ask, or settle my thoughts, Allison asks, softly, “What did she ask you, Brian?” “How she died,” I say. “She asked me how my mother died.”

***

How did my mother die? I don’t know the answer to this question. The astounding thing is that I haven’t even thought about it until now. “Maybe that’s why she’s still here,” Allison says. She is still holding my hand. “Maybe she needs to tell the world how she died. Or maybe she’s trying to figure out for herself how she died.” “Does she even know she’s dead?” I ask. I think of her in the bathroom, scrubbing and scrubbing the irrepressible stains. Why didn’t I offer to help her, even once? I’m sure I could have thought of some better method, some new chemical or tool to scrape with, or, if nothing else, replacing those damn tiles. “You could ask her,” Allison says, watching me carefully. “Why haven’t I thought of this before now?” I say, gesturing sharply with both hands. I realize a moment too late that I have pulled my hand away from Allison’s. I remember something new. Once, when I was five, I left a toy car on the kitchen floor. I was sitting a few feet away from it, playing with pink Musclemen figures. My mother walked into the room and stepped on the car. She tumbled towards me, and I pulled away. She caught herself with her hands. “Oops,” she said, and smiled a goofy smile at me. But the important thing is, I pulled away. What does that mean? I thought that I wanted nothing more than my mother’s touch, but when the opportunity literally fell towards me, I ran from it. Did I know even then, as a child of five? Did I know what would happen if my mother and I touched? ***

“Tell me honestly,” I say to Allison, who is happily munching on her falafel pita, “if the aliens came back, would you really be happy? What would you do?” “I don’t know,” she answers. We are sitting in a local non-corporate restaurant on a lazy Saturday afternoon. ”My answer keeps changing. I decide for sure that I’ll demand an explanation from them, and then my mood will shift or I’ll read a new book and I’ll decide that I’ll ask them to take me with them, after all.” “But how can you live with that uncertainty?” I ask, dipping a fry in her hummus. I don’t need to ask permission. She laughs. ”Brian, life is uncertainty.” “No, it’s not,” I argue. ”Lots of things are certain.” “Like what?” “Well,” I say— “Hi, Brian.” It’s Jane, looking fetching in a black gown. ”I hope I’m not interrupting?” “Not at all,” Allison assures her, smiling. Has she ever smiled at me in that way? ”I’m Allison.” Jane squeezes into the booth next to Allison. As I watch their bodies touch I feel like they’re putting pressure on one of my internal organs. Like my heart. This is the last time I’ll get to see Allison for the next week or so, and I really don’t want our private time interrupted, but there’s nothing I can do.

***

This is what happens over Thanksgiving break: My mother is absorbed in her scrubbing. Every muscle in her body seems to tense and relax with the motion of her arm. We are in my parents’ bathroom. She is scrubbing the stains normally hidden by the white rug, which is hanging on the shower rod, drying. “Hi, Mom,” I say. Her back flinches. “You shouldn’t be here. You have your own bathroom.” She does not get up. “I know,” I say, “But I wanted to talk to you. And it seems like you’ve got a full time job cleaning your own house.” “It’s our house.” “I wanted to ask you something.” Her back ripples, as if she is sighing, but there is no sound. She turns around, scrubs towards me for a second, and then stops. She looks up at me. I’ve never been able to read her eyes. I am silent. “What?” “How did you die?” I ask. I wonder what tone of voice I just used. Her face flickers, and, for a moment, the grey of her eyes and hair spreads into her face, like ectoplasm spreading through water, like smoke filling a soul. Then, she is herself again, the grey neatly contained within the proper lines. “There are some questions we don’t ask in this house.” She bends down again, continues her endless Sisyphean scrubbing.

***

And I know. My mother is not trying to decipher her story, to see it in its totality. She is trying to erase it. She is still on her hands and knees, after death, still scrubbing away. Or maybe my mother, the ghost I mean, the ghost of my mother, maybe that is what my mother could not scrub away in a lifetime of scrubbing: the irreducible, the unbelievably stubborn part of the soul. Is the mother I remember nothing more than the stain under the white rug in the bathroom? ***

I call Allison. Her mother, or at least some older woman I assume must be her mother, answers the phone. She says she will get Allison for me. “Hello?” Allison says. Her voice is a rush of welcome familiarity. “Hi,” I say. “It’s me.” “Oh, hey Brian!” she says. She sounds happy to hear from me. “What’s up?” “I just talked to my mom,” I say. “You mean talk talked?” she asks. “Listen, I’m really sorry, but I can’t really talk talk myself right now. I’m in the middle of a game of Scrabble.” A game of Scrabble is more important than what might be the most important conversation of my entire life? “Oh, okay,” I say, “that’s cool.” “Do you want me to call you tonight?” Allison asks. Yes, of course. “No,” I say, “I have plans.”

***

My plan is not to have imaginary conversations with Allison for hours while listening to ’80′s albums that I left at home, but that’s what I end up doing.

***

“I just talked to my mom.” “Wow. I know how important that is to you. I want you to tell me every word that the two of you exchanged. And then we can analyze it for hours.” “Well, there’s not really all that much to analyze.” “Don’t be shy, Brian. Have I ever told you how sexy your voice is?” “No, you haven’t. I, uh, think your voice is kind of sexy too.” “Really? How about now?”

***

“Allison, I’m a little hurt that you played Scrabble rather than talked to me.” “I’m sorry. I should have told you that my aunt has terminal cancer. Playing Scrabble is a family tradition. And, this might have been her last year.” “Oh. God, I feel like a jerk for even—” “Brian, don’t. I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but I almost feel like you’re already more important to me than some aunt I see once a year.” “Really?” “Yes. This might sound crazy, but will you marry me?”

***

I realize these imaginings are a little over the top. But everyone has fantasies like these though. Right?

***

I try not to think about them when Allison calls me the next day. I think I’m blushing with the effort. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she says after we exchange hellos. “My mother is a real tyrant about board games.” “It’s okay,” I say. “I forgive you.” As I say this, I realize that it’s true. I would forgive Allison anything, as long as she doesn’t leave for good. “I’m not like that,” Allison says. “Am I? I don’t fixate on details?” “No,” I say, “not at all. Can I tell you what happened?” “Sure,” Allison says.

***

Am I my mother’s son? I don’t mean this in some cheesy, fantasy novel way, like I was conceived post- death, and am literally a half-ghost, with one smoky grey eye and one normal brown one. I mean, am I erasing my own story? Am I scrubbing with words by telling this story, using graceful, circular motions to distract my audience, myself, from some stain? Is this story the white rug? Is there another story I am not telling?

***

Allison says, “The problem with that metaphor is that storytelling is fundamentally different from cleaning.” “That’s true enough,” I say. “But,” Allison says, “is there another story you’re not telling?” I nod, then realize we’re talking on the phone. “I think so.” “Why don’t you ever talk about your father?” Allison asks. I hate my father. “There’s not much to say,” I say. “He’s at work most of the time. He’s the strong, silent type.” “So, your father’s a cliché,” Allison says, “and your mother’s a ghost.” “That’s not funny,” I say, even though I have to admit that it is sort of funny. “Is he a workaholic?” Allison asks. “Probably,” I say. “Does he know that your mom is a ghost?” “I don’t know.” “Have you seen them touch each other?” “I can’t remember,” I say. I can’t even remember seeing them in the same room together.

*** I know that telling a story is fundamentally different from cleaning, from sweeping or mopping or doing the dishes. What I don’t know is, what is storytelling like? Is it like an archaeological dig, burrowing down to the lost city of truth? Or building a bridge, that spans now and then? Or weaving a tapestry, every sentence a thread? What I think, what I would like to think, is that we all become ghosts in order to tell stories. We all allow ourselves to be abducted by aliens, so that, for a time, we can step out of the bounds of our lives.

***

For a few days, I thought this story was over. But it’s not. Maybe it should have been, and I botched it up by telling Jane the story and making her into a character. The details don’t matter, or at least they’re still too painful to relate. I’m sure you can guess what comes next: Allison and Jane hook up, and the tremors of their shared orgasms threaten to destroy the foundations of my world.

*** I am sitting on my bed, with my knees huddled up to my chest. I can’t look at Allison. Thank God my roommate isn’t in the room. “I just want to be held,” I say. “I just want someone to hold me.” Allison stands up. “Of course I’ll hold you,” she says. ”Silly.” I have no reply to this. My heart is pounding. I feel like I have to struggle to remember how to breath. She sits behind me. She is so warm. She encircles my waist with her arms. I relax, let my muscles relax, allow my body to be held up by Allison and the bed. “Shhh,” she says, even though I am silent. “Shhh, it will be okay.” I am astonished by how comforting the simplicity of her warmth, her body against my body, is. I feel a little sexual flutter in my crotch. And then I realize that this isn’t the touch I want. This isn’t my salvation, arriving years late but still decked out in shining armor and splendid on a sexy stallion. This isn’t a movie, this isn’t the shining moment at the end followed by a blissfully black screen and some imaginary audience shuffling and putting on their coats. Because, even if Allison and I become lovers, none of her caresses will be the touch I’ve been yearning for. Nothing can be. Even if I somehow managed to bring my mother back to life. Even if my mother is reincarnated, and I somehow find her and recognize her, and convince some stranger-who-was-my-mother to cradle me in her arms. Nothing can erase all those times my mother did not touch me. Nothing can fill that hole, put those broken shards back together into anything resembling what should have been. “Brian?” Allison says. “How are you doing?” I pause. I expect the comfort to have vanished, I expect my insight to have soured the haven of her arms. But it hasn’t. Allison is still warm and alive, my best friend. Allison is still holding me. Some things remain solid.

Willow Fagan lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he reads tarot and cultivates dreams. This is his third story appearing in Fantasy Magazine. His fiction has also appeared in Behind the Wainscot. He keeps a blog at willowfagan.livejournal.com, and would love to hear from you. Above It All Carol Emshwiller

Suddenly here was this baby girl and I said, okay. I didn’t have a lot to do right then except for the baby birds who had lost their mothers. They had to be fed every two hours. . . and so did she. It wasn’t much extra work. That year I had three baby ravens, one wounded jay, one wounded owl…. I also had an almost-road-killed baby raccoon, though I usually stick to birds. I’m a certified raptor rescuer, but I take in anything. That year I didn’t have as many as usual. They told me they’d found her at the bottom of a cliff in the mountains, not even bruised. They looked, but they couldn’t find where she’d come from. And then they couldn’t find anybody to foster care her. I felt sad just as I do for all the creatures in my care. I took her in right away. She was so small and skinny. . . I didn’t think she’d last. She’s still small and skinny, but now I think that’s the way she’s supposed to be. Perhaps that’s why. . . partly why. . . she does as she does. At first she wasn’t hard to look after because I’d tie her to things and I had a net over her crib and play pen. I even sewed stones in the linings of her clothes. They had named her Robirda. That was fitting. I call her Birdy. Later, when she understood what those stones were for, I couldn’t keep them on her no matter what I did. She’d take off all her clothes and I’d find her in a tree. I know she liked to tease me. She’d get just out of reach and sit there seeing what I’d dare to do to get her back. And I always dared to do it. When she was older I gave her a little backpack. It was sky blue, the color of her eyes, and had animals all over it. I filled it full of the books she loved the most, but she’d hang it on a tree limb and off she went. Up she went, that is. It was only for me, she did these tricks. In front of others she acted like a normal girl. As if she knew that was best. But even weighted down, she was great at running, jumping. . . (She never skinned her knees, unless I had sewn too many stones in her pockets.) On the swings she’d take your breath away. I had to be watchful and with my net by my side all the time, but now that she’s twelve everything has changed. All of a sudden, she wants to be just like everybody else. All by herself she started gathering up stones to keep in her pockets. She even asked me what other people liked to eat the most and she stopped eating her favorite foods in favor of what the other girls liked. She said she liked bacon and I knew she didn’t. She said she loved walking in the rain when I knew she loved the sun. She was always cold in rainy weather. She said her favorite color was pink when I knew it had always been blue. She started walking around hunched over instead skipping and running. She didn’t climb trees anymore at all. We couldn’t afford a lot of things but I bought her a pink dress with a lacy collar just like everybody else had. I got her the heavy boots she asked for when she hardly needed shoes at all. She does errands for friends and has a little money of her own. She bought herself stuff to plaster down her hair. I refused to buy that. I liked her hair the way it was, just as fly-away as she is. When she changed, I changed. I was the one, then, taking out the stones. “I wish you’d be yourself,” I said. “I wish you’d go back to eating my fried frog’s legs and my airy pancakes with honey. I wish you’d stand up straight.” I told her she was exactly right for who she is and she said, “Then why did you tie me down all the time and weigh me down with stones and catch me in your net? You’re the one, wanted me to be like everybody else. So I agree with you now, that’s all. You ought to be glad.” “But I didn’t know how to look after you without you being down here with me. I didn’t know where you’d end up or how high you’d go. I still don’t know. I just wanted to keep you safe. Where would you end up? You don’t even know yourself, do you.” She’s right though, it is my fault. I called her Birdy and never wanted her to be one. Now that she’s changed it’s a lot easier for me, but I don’t want easy anymore. I wish she was back to her old giggly self instead of staring around watching what everybody else is doing and trying to do the same. Perhaps we ought to get away. . . from school and home and all my orphaned animals. Take a vacation. It’s a good time. I only have a few birds here now. I can get a baby sitter for them, though it’s not an easy job. The baby humming bird you have to feed with an eyedropper and the baby crow takes meal worms. She hasn’t been up into the mountains, ever. She used to want UP so much I never dared go there, where it was all UP. Also, since that’s where she came from, I didn’t know what might happen. Besides, I was always too busy looking after my creatures. At least that was my excuse. So far she doesn’t know about the thinner air and the beautiful views. Oh I suppose she knows, but only what she’s read in books and seen in pictures. It’s not the same. I was scared to take her there. Maybe she’ll even remember getting lost and falling off the cliff, but maybe now is the time to do it. Except would she come? I tell her we won’t stay long. “We’ll take a picnic. You can wear your boots.” “What would we do up there?” She wants to mope around down here all Saturday. I don’t say that out loud though. “Aren’t you curious about those mountains?” “No.” “Just for today. Just for me. You can bring a book. I’ll bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. . .” (She never used to like those) “. . .and we can pick berries. They’re different up there.” “I don’t like berries.” (How can she not like berries?) “Well then pick some for me. We’ll leave early and be back by afternoon.” (I’m thinking, then you can mope.) I finally convince her. She wears her heavy boots. She never had blisters until she got those boots, even so she insists on wearing them. Maybe that’ll be her excuse for not going very far and for resting all the time and for reading her book and never looking out at the view. I don’t head for the tallest mountain in the region, that one’s always too crowded, but hardly anybody bothers with the second highest. I know these trails by heart. Even after all these years I recognize the rough steep parts and the smooth easy parts, the big tree struck by lightening. The logs, where you cross the streams, look like the same old logs. Even with those big boots, she keeps her balance crossing them. She’s fearless. I knew she would be. She starts getting excited about how great it is. She actually stands up straight and looks out at the views. No need to worry that she’ll be reading every chance she gets. We bird watch. We pick berries and she can’t pretend she doesn’t like them. We start having a good time just like we used to have before she got to be twelve. I see a place that looks sort of like a trail but it’s not one I ever took before. . . if trail it is. I choose it because, unlike most trails, it’s headed straight up. Pretty soon we’re off in unknown territory. We both get out of breath. If it wasn’t for her boots she wouldn’t be. I’m tempted to tell her to take them off but I want her to think of it all by herself. I never wanted to be a hovering mother even though, what with her drifting off whenever she got loose, I had to be. We go on up until we get above the tree line. It gets hard to walk. There’s no trail, it’s rocky, and lots of the rocks are wobbly. Finally she takes off her boots. She’s looking embarrassed—as if she’s failed in some way. I guess in her own mind she has. . . failed as one of us. I say. “Nobody’s here but us. Do it! It’s OK.” She knows what I mean. It’ll be dark if we don’t head back soon, but she’s not thinking of heading down. She’s looking on up. Eagerly. I’d like to watch her as she skims away, but I’m trying keep my balance on these rocks and I have to keep watching my feet. And then I do stop and watch. At first she’s wobbly. How could she not be since I never let her practice? And the air is thin up here. She gets about bush high. Then, leading with her left shoulder, she moves off slowly, sideways, then faster and faster, zips around the cliff and out of sight. I follow but I’m so slow on these rocks. She didn’t even look back once—at least that I could see. Maybe it’s so much fun to skim away that she’s forgetting everything else. I’d love to do that, too, especially now that I’m not only carrying all the food and jackets, but her heavy boots. If I could waft away like that I’d forget all about me, too. But I begin to worry. I don’t want to get lost up here all alone. At least she’s finally enjoying herself. There’s that. I should feel happy but I don’t. But isn’t this what I wanted? Isn’t this exactly why I came? I sit on a rock and rest. Then, after a long lonely time, I pick up my bundle and her boots and go on. Up. It’s starting to get dark. We’ll. . . I’ll have to find a sheltered spot. I should head down into the trees, but I don’t want to leave her up here by herself. Except what if she goes on, up and up and up, and never comes back? I find a cubby hole in the rocks. At least it’s sheltered from the wind. I leave my pack out where she’ll see it and know I’m here, though I’d rather use it as a pillow. I’m too worried to sleep much. If she doesn’t come back in the morning I’ll have to go down by myself. Why did I ever think of doing this? But she did look so happy as she sped away. I had no idea she could go that fast. I’ll bet she didn’t either. In the morning I start down. I don’t know what else to do, but I go slowly. On the way I see a wounded pika. Should I carry him down to my bird clinic? It’s sort of like rescuing a rat but not quite. He’s been attacked by some big bird. I don’t know how he managed to not get eaten—unless I scared the bird off with my wobbling around on these rocks. I know how to hold him so he can’t bite. I wrap him in toilet paper and then my bandana and put him in a side pocket of my knapsack with his head peeking out. I feel better now. A little bit. At least there’s something to look after and he’s company. I talk to him like I do to all my creatures. I name him Little Rat. Birdie would think the name silly and would name him something better—or even sillier. I keep looking back to see if she’s coming. It’s breezy. I’m cold. I have her jacket. I hope she’s OK. I say all that out loud to Little Rat. There’s a swish of air, a bit of blue, and I hear an “All OK,” as if right in my ear. Then a cool touch on my cheek. I can’t see her but I know she’s there. Finally she settles on a rock a few yards from me and holds still so I can see her. “Mom!” She yells it. “Mom, they’re all over!” “Who?” “Us.” I run to hug her, but she isn’t there. She’s zipped to a pile of sharp rocks a yard away, too rough for anybody but her kind to sit on comfortably. But then she comes and we hug. “You wanted me to see how nice it is up here, and I can’t even tell you how wonderful.” “I just thought you should be who you really are for once.” “And we’re here. It’s us. And they’ve always been there. Here. I mean even down there. They mix in with you guys lots of times.” (We’re still hugging.) “Lots of times they tried to bring me back but they couldn’t because you always had me weighted down some way and you had that net over my crib. They’re all skinny little people just like me. But Mom, you’re my real mom. They say so, too. After a while they thought nobody could be any better than you at looking after me so they let me stay with you. They want me to say Thank you. Oh, Mom. . . I’ll never forget you.” “What are you saying? Are you leaving? You’re only twelve.” “They want to teach me how to be what I really am. Just what you wanted. They’ll take care of me. Look.” She disappears into nothing but a breeze. Then I think I see her, but hardly, maybe it’s her, ten feet up. Then she stands still, in front of me again. “They taught me that last night. It’s so fun.” “I did the best I could.” “I know.” “Can’t you stay a couple more years?” I knew I’d have to let her go like I have to do with most all my creatures, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. “Mom, they. . . we’re all over. They hide among us. . . among you guys I mean, and take advantage of your things, your warmth, your food. . . you never notice. They can sip your tea even as you’re sipping. They snatch bites from your forks. They’ve lived with you since the very beginning. We, I mean. And you’re right to call me Birdie. They think they started out as birds. Maybe some kind of hummingbird. They call themselves Snatchers and you guys are The Slows. And Mom, I even have an aunt up there.” She gives me a kiss on my cheek and a hug so hard it hurts. “I gotta go. Bye. . . Mom.” And then she’s gone. I tried to hold on to her but I didn’t try really hard. I hear, as if right in my ear, “I’ll come for visits.” Then something brushes at my tears. Soon as I start back, my hat blows off and I have to chase after it. I don’t know if she did that or not, or if it was the wind. It would be just like her, though. I hope she was the one that did it. I stroke Little Rat a couple of times, being careful to avoid his teeth. I tell him, “It’s just us—for now.” And we go on home.

Carol Emshwiller grew up in Michigan and in France. She lives in New York City in the winter and in Bishop CA in the summer. She’s been doing only short stories lately. A new one will appear in Asimov’s soon. She’s wondering if she’s to old to start a novel but if a good idea came along she might do it anyway. PS in England is putting out two of her short story collections. . . a sort of Ace double. . . her anti-war stories on one side and the other stories on the flip side. Find her online at sfwa.org/members/Emshwiller. The Wing Collection Eilis O'Neal

It was Jeffrey who had wanted to go to the bookstore after school. Jeffrey, Emily had discovered after he moved in with them, read constantly. He read in the morning while he ate his cereal. He read whenever he finished an assignment before everyone else in class, which was pretty much all the time. He read during recess, sitting on a shaded bench on the playground. He read after they got home from school, and he would have read during dinner if Emily’s mother had allowed such things. Emily didn’t read, not if she could help it. After all, who wanted to waste recess reading when you could be playing soccer? “Are you sure it’s supposed to be here?” Emily asked for the third time. They were standing on a cramped street near downtown, the kind of narrow street that made her feel claustrophobic. “Yes,” Jeffrey answered in his wheezy voice. He was breathing harder than usual, probably because of the hill a block back, and she thought he would pop out his inhaler soon. He squinted through his glasses, trying to read the sign on the corner. “The phonebook said it was on McPherson.” “Well, this is McPherson.” Emily spread her arms out to indicate the whole street. “Where’s your store?” As Jeffrey peered down the block, she had to work not to sigh. After all, she hadn’t wanted to walk four blocks out of their way to look for a bookstore that was proving to be pretty much non-existent. But her mom’s newest favorite sentence was “Be nice to Jeffrey,” something she muttered whenever Emily looked like she might not want to do things like watch PBS or let Jeffrey try to teach her to play chess. Also, he hadn’t told her dad that she was the one who had discovered the sparklers in the garage, and that it was under her orders that Jeffrey had been carrying them to the driveway last week. So she owed him. “Let’s just go to the end of the block,” Jeffrey said pleadingly. “If it’s not there, we’ll go home.” Emily did sigh then, and scuffed the toe of her sneaker against the sidewalk, but finally nodded. They had only gone past two other shops—a hair salon and a junk store—when Jeffrey stopped. “Em, look at this,” he said, his voice even more breathless than usual. Shaking her head, Emily shouldered up beside him to peer through the dirty window. A moment later she was at the door, pushing down on the tarnished brass handle, with Jeffrey right behind her. ***

All the way home, Emily could tell Jeffrey was thinking about the wings. He kept closing his eyes at the corners, like he was imagining them, so that she had to yank his arm when it was time to cross the streets. The shop had been dark, the build-up on the windows not letting in much light, but otherwise clean and free of dust. A counter ran along the back wall and shelves of various sizes took up most of the floor space. Filling the shelves, and hung on all the walls, had been the wings. They were wings without bodies, spread to their fullest extension and mounted in glass cases. On the walls hung massive wings in cases taller than Emily or Jeffrey. She had recognized a pair of snow-white swan wings, but those weren’t even the biggest. That honor had been reserved for the black and white wings with huge long feathers at their tips. Cases full of smaller wings stood on the shelves— butterfly wings, moth wings, bat wings, cardinal wings, dove wings, even tiny, glimmering dragonfly wings. “That was so weird,” she said after a while. “But it was cool, don’t you think? I just . . . that guy sort of creeped me out.” The man she meant was the wings’ owner. He was named Mr. Theodus, and he had almost kicked them out as soon as they were inside. “This isn’t a shop,” he had said. “It’s a collection. My collection. It isn’t for kids off the street to stare at.” But then his eyes had flashed to Jeffrey, standing behind Emily. He had stared at him for so long that Jeffrey had said quietly, “We just want to look at them. They’re . . . they’re wonderful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” And for some reason, Mr. Theodus had said, “Fine. You can look.” He had watched them from behind the counter, his blue eyes sharp as ice. An empty case lay on the counter in front of him, and Emily had wondered if he were going to put a new set of wings in it. But Mr. Theodus didn’t touch the case while they were there, and she didn’t ask him about it. There had been so many, and they were all so beautiful, all locked in shiny glass cases with bronze latches. Emily wandered through the rows, going wherever she felt like at the moment, but Jeffrey had been purposeful in his investigation. He looked at each case for the same amount of time, as if he were scared that if he looked at one for too long, he might miss all the others. He looked, Emily thought, sort of sick, like he had eaten too much ice cream but still wanted more. They had reached the next corner, and he was still doing that closed-eyes thing. “Hey! I’m talking to you,” she said. He was thinking about them. She knew it. So why wouldn’t he talk about them? “Do you want to go back? Do you think he’ll let us? Jeffrey, answer me!” But Jeffrey only gazed at her, until she huffed and marched on ahead of him. Fine. If he could stand not to talk about them, so could she.

***

When they got home, Jeffrey headed right for the dining room table, where the day’s mail would be lying in a pile. Watching him, Emily scowled a little before trudging up the stairs to put her backpack up. You would think that, after what they’d seen, he would be able to skip checking the mail the instant he got home. She was heading back downstairs when she heard the second part of the daily ritual. “Aunt Eileen,” she heard him ask, “was there any other mail?” “Not today,” Emily’s mother said. “Sorry, sweetheart.” By that time, Emily had reached the bottom of the stairs, so she could see Jeffrey standing by the table, one hand still on the mail. His shoulders sagged, but not from the weight of the books in his bag. Emily’s mother, coming in from the kitchen, put an arm around him and, though he leaned his head against her, he didn’t hug back. This was the reason that her mother was always saying, “Be nice to Jeffrey.” One Thursday night, Jeffrey’s mother, Aunt Holly, had shown up at their house with Jeffrey in tow. It had been exciting, that first night, because Emily couldn’t remember ever meeting her aunt before, and she had never talked to a grownup with such long hair or so many piercings. Aunt Holly had stayed for a day, and then asked if Emily’s parents could watch Jeffrey while she went on a weekend trip with her boyfriend. Then, a few days later, Aunt Holly called and asked if Jeffrey could stay another week. The week passed, but she didn’t come to pick him up, and there was no second phone call. Jeffrey got two postcards— one three weeks after his arrival and the second only four days after the first postcard. One showed a beach in South Carolina and the other a hotel in Miami. Neither said much besides Missing you, XOXO, Mom. In return, Jeffrey wrote his mother a letter every other day and mailed them to their apartment in New Jersey, but the letters went unanswered. Emily’s parents had enrolled Jeffrey in her sixth grade class after the fourth week. That had been two months ago. Jeffrey kept the postcards taped to the inside cover of his school notebook. She knew because she had caught him looking at them once during math class, though he had covered them up when he saw her watching. She didn’t think that anyone else knew. Emily’s mother gave Jeffrey another squeeze and then went back into the kitchen. Jeffrey didn’t move. Emily watched him for a minute as he picked at a corner of an envelope. “Come on,” she finally said. “We can play checkers on the porch.” He looked paler than usual when he lifted his head, but he smiled weakly at her. “Okay,” he said. And then, pulling a bluejay feather from his pocket, “Look. I found this in the yard. It’s just like the ones in the shop. Do you think he’ll let us go back?”

***

To Emily’s surprise, Mr. Theodus did let them back into the wing shop when they showed up a few days later. After that, they went to the wing shop two or three days a week after school, whenever Emily didn’t have soccer practice. Sometimes it was locked, but most of the time Mr. Theodus was there and they could look at the wings as much as they wanted. Not that Mr. Theodus let them look for nothing. Half the time he greeted them with dusting rags and window cleaner, which they used on the hundreds of wing cases. It was a little weird because, even though she was fascinated by them, Emily found the wings strange and sort of gruesome. They looked vaguely lonely, separated from the bodies that had once been theirs. And some of them were from animals that you weren’t supposed to kill. She could tell from the tiny plaques placed at the bottom of the cases, which gave the name of the animal the wings had come from. “But aren’t bald eagles endangered?” she protested when she read that plaque. “I thought you couldn’t kill them.” “I acquired those wings before the ban went into effect,” Mr. Theodus answered. He was oiling the hinges on the luna moth wing case, but he glanced up at her as he spoke, the gold rims of his glasses flashing as he moved his head. His tone and look made her think that she might have offended him, but also that he might not be telling the truth. But before she could say anything, Jeffrey said, in his fact-quoting voice, “Yeah. He could have gotten them any time before 1940 and it would have been totally legal.” He scowled at her, something he rarely did, as if he were hurt by her suggestion. Because no matter how fascinated she might be by the wings, Jeffrey’s attention made her look like she didn’t care at all. He lingered over polishing the cases, and asked Mr. Theodus dozens of questions about the wings. He checked out books about birds and insects from the library and brought them to compare to the wings in the cases. At night, he would sometimes sneak into her room to talk about them, and he would keep talking even after she rolled over and pretended to go to sleep. He was, Emily decided, obsessed. But she didn’t worry about it—Jeffrey could get obsessed by a lot of things, like the time he begged her mother to throw out six unopened cans of tuna because they didn’t say “dolphin safe” on them. At least, she didn’t worry about it until later, when the books started changing. ***

She first noticed them at the library one day, as she hovered impatiently over Jeffrey’s shoulder while he checked out another stack of books. The stack was mostly bird books, but there were also two books with odder titles. One had a pentagram on the cover and Fundamentals of Witchcraft written in thin red letters, while the other showed a lush forest background and the words The Natural Witch. “What’s up with those books?” she asked as they left the library. “What books?” Jeffrey’s voice was a little higher than normal. It was the same voice he used when Emily’s father asked who had snuck three cookies before dinner. Emily glared at him. “The ones in your bag. The witchy ones.” “I’m doing some research. For school.” “We haven’t been talking about stuff like that at school. I’m not stupid, you know. I pay enough attention to know that.” But Jeffrey just shrugged and said, “It’s a special project. For extra credit.” He jerked his backpack higher on his shoulders and walked faster. Emily watched him, not sure if she should argue, then shook her head and jogged to catch up. She kept an eye on his books after that, though. More on magic appeared, crowding out the bird books. Some were anthropological books, with a lot of words she didn’t know, but a lot of them were books that claimed to teach you how to do magic. He even brought home books on voodoo and card tricks, though he didn’t keep the card-trick books for more than a day. Once, he checked out three or four travel books about Florida and South Carolina. It was the travel books that finally made Emily suspicious enough to bother him again. She waited until after dinner one night, then walked quietly down to Jeffrey’s room. It had been her father’s study, though now his computer was stuffed in beside the sewing machine in Emily’s mother’s craft room. At first, Jeffrey had refused to accept anything other than a bed, desk, and dresser for the room because, as he put it, he wouldn’t be there long. Slowly, though, it had begun to look more like a sixth grade boy—or at least a neat-freak sixth-grade boy—lived there. He was sitting at the desk, a book in his lap, when Emily entered and shut the door. “Okay,” she said. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to tell Mom about all those weird books.” His eyes narrowed. “She won’t mind. She likes it that I read.” Emily folded her arms. “Fine. Then I’ll tell her about the wing shop.” Jeffrey whitened, his already pale skin going ivory. “No.” The word was short and breathy. “Don’t— just don’t.” “Then tell me.” Jeffrey licked his lips. “I’m learning magic,” he said finally. Emily’s heart thumped, but she tried to keep her face unchanged. “What, like card tricks?” “No, like real magic.” “There’s no such thing.” “Yes, there is,” Jeffrey insisted. He kept his voice down, like he wanted to make sure no one out in the hall could hear them. “There was a woman in our apartment. She was from Mexico, and she could do magic. My mom used to leave me with her sometimes. I saw her tell a man’s fortune once. She told him that she saw death, and he was hit by a car right down the street the next week. She made amulets and charms and people would come buy them from her. She told me . . .she told me once that I might have been good at magic, if I had been born in Mexico. They know about magic there.” That’s stupid, Emily wanted to say, but he looked so worked up that she didn’t. And Prove it seemed, well, somehow dangerous, with him glaring at her like that. So she only said, “Well, even if magic is real, even if you are such a freaking natural at it, what do you want to learn it for?” Emily regretted the question almost as soon as it was out. After all, if magic were real, who wouldn’t want to learn it? She could think of a few of the seventh-grade boys— the ones who never wanted to let her join the recess baseball games— who could stand to spend some quality time as toads. Jeffrey didn’t answer for a long time. When he did, he looked sad, a lot younger than he was. “I just have something I have to do,” he said. Normally she would have grabbed his arm and insisted that he tell her more. But there was something in his voice, a sort of finality so strong that she only stared at him, unable to get the words out.

*** And then came the day that Mr. Theodus got the brown pelican wings. He had them on the counter when Jeffrey and Emily got there, adjusting them inside the huge eight-foot glass case. “What’re those?’ Emily asked immediately. “I bet Jeffrey knows,” Mr. Theodus said. Jeffrey didn’t say anything for a second. Then he croaked, “A brown pelican. Is that right?” Mr. Theodus nodded. “From the Atlantic coast. Florida. What do you know about them?” “Yellowish crown, white head, gray-brown wings with darker flight feathers,” Jeffrey said in the sing-song voice of memorization. “Long bills with a pouch for swooping down to catch fish. A ninety-inch wingspan.” Emily sniffed, kicking her toes against the floor. “I like the swan wings better.” Then she pushed herself off the counter and went to wander one of the butterfly rows. It was a little while before she realized that Jeffrey hadn’t moved away from the counter. He was still standing there, staring at the pelican wings. There was something strange in his face, something that made Emily think of longing and hurt and hope all at once. He reached his hand forward, but just before his fingers touched the feathers, Mr. Theodus cleared his throat. Jeffrey jumped, his hand hovering an inch above the wing. “I’m going to have to ask you not to touch my wings, Jeffrey,” Mr. Theodus said. “Your wings,” Jeffrey echoed softly. “Mine,” Mr. Theodus replied. Jeffrey looked miserable, all sick and achy. He didn’t drop his hand though, not for a long minute. Emily could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. The air in the shop felt charged, so electric that she was sure that if she touched the metal clasps on the cases, she’d be shocked. She thought she felt something pushing, like an invisible force between Jeffrey and Mr. Theodus. Mr. Theodus was staring at Jeffrey and Jeffrey was staring at the wings. The feeling was making her nauseous. Something was happening, something. . . but what? Then Jeffrey let his hand fall and shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.” He turned away from the counter and ambled over towards a case of bat wings. He didn’t look at Emily, but even from across the room she could see that something had changed inside him. His face was closed, like she had never seen it before, as tightly shuttered as a house readying for a hurricane. ***

That night, Emily woke up slowly, because she kept trying to convince herself that she didn’t really have to go to the bathroom. She was debating with herself about whether or not she could hold it when she heard the sound of the front door shutting. She waited, then jumped up and ran over to the window. When she looked down, she saw Jeffrey walking across the yard, a few pieces of paper in his hand. As she watched, one of the papers slipped down onto the grass without his noticing. He kept going, crossing the driveway and then making his way down the street. Bladder forgotten, she grabbed a pair of jeans and shoved her feet into her sneakers without bothering with socks. Then she snuck into the hall, down the stairs, and out into the darkness. It wasn’t windy, so the piece of paper still lay on the grass. She reached down and saw that it was an envelope. She squinted, holding it up so that she could use the porch light to read it. She immediately recognized Jeffrey’s handwriting, so much neater than hers. It was one of the letters he wrote to his mother, she realized. Was he going to mail it, in the middle of the night? What a freak. She started to shake her head, but then noticed the yellow sticker running across the bottom of the envelope. SCHOFIELD, HOLLY. FORWARDING ADDRESS UNKNOWN. Emily stared at the envelope, confused for a minute. Then she jerked her head in the direction Jeffrey had gone. She couldn’t see him— he had already gone around the corner and disappeared. It didn’t matter. She knew where he was going. Gripping the envelope in her hand, she started for the wing shop.

***

He must be going fast, faster than she had ever seen him move during gym class, and she was going slowly, because no matter how tough she acted, Emily had never liked the dark. She never caught up with him, and it wasn’t until she reached the end of the wing shop’s block, when she heard the sound of glass shattering, that she began to run. She sprinted up the street, heart pounding with the exertion and fear, and found Jeffrey standing in front of the wing shop, a field of broken glass in front of him. “What are you doing?” she cried as she skidded to a stop beside him. It took a long time for him to look at her, so long that she grabbed his arm and shook it hard. “Jeffrey!” Normally, he would have let her shake him, reserved and unresisting, but this time he yanked his arm away from her so violently she gasped. “Don’t, Em,” he said. “Please. I have to have the wings.” “Which wings?” She wrapped her arms around herself. Someone must have heard the crash, must be calling the police right now. “The pelican wings. They’re the only ones big enough, the only ones from where I need to go.” “You’re going to— what? Steal them? You can’t. They’re not yours, it’s—” Jeffrey’s chin jutted out and she thought she caught a note of strain in his voice, like he was trying to convince himself along with her. “I need them more than he does. He’ll be able to get others. I have to have them—they’re the only ones.” Something finally clicked. “Are you still talking about that stupid— that magic?” Jeffrey jerked his head, nodding. “It’s not real. You know it’s not real. You can’t —” “It is! I’m going to get those wings, and I’m going to fly and find my mom.” He was holding the two postcards, she realized, so tightly that they were bending under the force of his clenched fist. “I’m going to scream,” Emily warned. “Right now, if you don’t come with me. I’m going to scream and someone will hear.” She drew in a breath, ready to scream louder than if she were cheering the soccer team to victory. “You won’t,” Jeffrey said. And then he raised his hand at her, fingers spread, and said a word. Without meaning to, Emily let the breath that she had taken out without a sound. She felt drained, so tired that she might have curled up on the sidewalk, if it weren’t for the glass. They stared at each other, and then Jeffrey said quietly, “I have to do it, Em. It’s the only way. I can’t find her on my own. I need the wings more than he does.” Then he stepped gingerly across the glass and swung a careful leg through the busted window. Emily watched as he crunched across the glass that had fallen inside the building and then past the first row of shelves. A few of the cases had fallen down, and she noticed a brick lying on the floor beside one of the shelves. It was dark inside the wing shop, and the pelican wings would be on the counter or hung on the back wall, if Mr. Theodus had gotten around to hanging them, so Emily couldn’t see Jeffrey after a minute. She shifted from one foot to the other, her arms still tight around herself. It seemed to take a long time, but Jeffrey finally came back through the window. “Help me,” he called, and though she didn’t want to, Emily hurried over and took one of the great pelican wings from him. It was huge, but light enough to carry. Once he was through the window, Jeffrey took the wing back. His eyes were bright, like they had been the first time she took him to the new downtown library. “They won’t carry you,” Emily said. Her voice sounded small and defensive. “You weigh too much. And besides, they’re taxidermied—they aren’t really wings anymore. Just feathers stuck together to look like wings.” Jeffrey tore his eyes away from the wing to shake his head at her. “It’s magic, Em. How much I weigh won’t matter. And these aren’t taxidermied. They’re real.” Emily balled her hands into fists, feeling like she wanted to cry. But she never cried; she wasn’t that type of girl. “They aren’t. Jennifer’s father hunts and he told us about how they do it. It’s just the skin and feathers they keep.” “These are real. All the wings in the shop are real. Mr. Theodus told me.” He’s a liar, Emily wanted to shout, but she wasn’t sure if it was true, not now. Jeffrey smiled, softly, as if he had heard her thoughts. “Maybe it’s magic, that he has real wings. He never told us how he got them. Or why he wants them.” He glanced down at the wings in his hands, and then back into the wing shop. The look was pensive, a little guilty, and she thought that maybe he would listen, if she tried to stop him now. “Jeffrey—” she started, but just then she heard the rolling howl of a siren several streets over. Jeffrey snapped around to stare in the direction of the sound, the look falling away. “I have to go, Em.” No. You can stay with us. We like you. We love you more than she does. But the moment was gone. It was too late, and she couldn’t say it anyhow, so she only nodded. “You should leave before they get here.” She wanted to say something else, but she had never been any good at mushy stuff. So she just nodded again. “Bye, Jeffrey.” “Bye, Em.” They stared at each other, and then Emily turned and ran, her sneakers pounding across the glass and then the bare pavement. From the end of the block came the sound of tires squealing around the corner. So she ducked behind a dumpster in an alley beside the beauty parlor only two stores down from the wing shop. Jeffrey was still standing there, the wings in his arms. His head was moving slightly, like he was chanting something, and then he was washed in the blue and red lights of a police car. The lights were sharp, blinding her, as one of the police car doors slammed shut. “Don’t move, son.” One of the men shone a bright white light at Jeffrey, so bright that Emily had to crouch even lower behind the dumpster and shut her eyes against it. In her hiding place, with her eyes squeezed tight, she didn’t see him go. She only heard a triumphant, “Hah!” and then the sound of feet running over the glass. “Where did he go?” “That way, I think. You go look.” Emily kept her eyes shut, and the sound of running feet moved off in the opposite direction. One of the policemen seemed to be talking on a radio. “Just vandalism, I think. There was a kid here, but he sort of . . .disappeared. Ran off, I mean. One minute he was here and then he wasn’t. Didn’t see anyone else. . . . No, no backup . . . .” A long time later, so long that Emily’s foot had fallen asleep and her legs ached from being bent under her, she opened her eyes. It was still night, but the police car had gone. She stood up and almost fell over from stiffness. After a minute of stamping around to wake up her foot, she walked slowly over to the wing shop. Some yellow tape with DO NOT CROSS printed on it was stretched across the window, but everything else was the same. There was no sign of Jeffrey. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the moment the policeman’s light had flashed on him. There had been running right after that, but she didn’t know if the footsteps had been Jeffrey’s or just the policeman’s. She thought there had been a draft of wind, right before the sound of running, like something with big wings taking off, but maybe she had just imagined it. Just like maybe she had imagined the voice, so close and quiet it was like it was whispering in her ear, saying, “Stay put. They won’t see you.” There was nothing to tell her what had happened, nothing except one long brown feather lying curled on the glass. The policemen hadn’t noticed it, or they hadn’t thought it was important. Emily looked at the feather for a long time before bending over and picking it up. She held it in her hands, wondering if she should put it back in the wing shop. Then she turned, the feather still in her hand, and started home. ***

Eventually, Emily’s parents started letting her go out by herself again. In the first days after Jeffrey’s disappearance, when they thought he might have been kidnapped or something, they hadn’t let her even walk to school alone or sit in the front yard. That hadn’t been the worst of it, of course. There had been crying, and searching, and flyer making, and calls to everyone from the FBI down. They had tried to find Aunt Holly, but never could, which only made Emily’s mom cry harder. Emily had had to talk to the police three times. They asked things like had she noticed Jeffrey acting strange, or had she seen him talking to anyone weird. When they asked if she had heard him leave that night, she just said she’d been asleep. Everyone believed that, and then went back to trying to find Jeffrey. But finally, after months passed and the police kept insisting that he must have just run away, things began to quiet down. And eventually her parents stopped driving her to school and relinquished the stranglehold they had on her bicycle. But it wasn’t until she got the postcards that she decided to take the library books back, and to visit the wing shop again. She had hidden the books— the ones about magic and voodoo and the flight of birds— when she got back to the house. She had gone right into his room, taken the books, and hidden them under her bed without knowing exactly why she was doing it. And they stayed there, gathering what she imagined must be gargantuan late fees. She didn’t go to the wing shop, either. For a while, she was scared that Mr. Theodus might come looking for her, demanding to know where his pelican wings were. But he didn’t, and she didn’t go back, not until the postcards came. The mail was still in the mailbox that day, so she was able to take the two postcards— one addressed to her and the other to Mr. Theodus, care of herself— without anyone else seeing them. Afterwards, she went upstairs, and hauled the books out from under the bed. They were gross, covered in dust, and she had to wipe them off with a dirty shirt before cramming them inside her largest tote bag. At the library, she was charged $17.65 in late fees. She handed over the $5.53 she had on her and tried to ignore the librarian’s look of shock to see her with so many books. After promising to pay the rest when she had it, she left the library, but instead of turning south to go home, she turned north towards the wing shop. It felt weird to be taking the route again, and even weirder to be doing it alone. She kept expecting to hear Jeffrey beside her, for him to start telling her about some story he had just read. During one of their walks to the wing shop, he had told her about Icarus, but she hadn’t thought anything of it then. Her palms were sweaty by the time she reached the wing shop’s block, and part of her wanted to turn around and go home. So she thought about what she would say to Mr. Theodus, whether she would apologize or not, and that distracted her a little. But when she reached the shop, it was empty. The window had been repaired, so she could see through it into the shop. But the walls were bare, and even the shelves with the small glass cases were gone. It looked dusty inside, and quiet, like the shop hadn’t been used in a long time. Emily stood there, deflated, as if she had walked into a house expecting a surprise party and no one had jumped out at her. When had he gone? Had he waited around, hoping that Jeffrey might return them, or that she might come to explain? Where had he taken the wings? She went over to the door and tapped on it, but lightly, not expecting anyone to answer, and after a minute she dropped her hand. She waited for a few minutes, wondering what to do, before she noticed the old-fashioned mail slot in the door. Slowly, she pulled out the postcard addressed to Mr. Theodus. The picture side had Wild Florida written across it in curvy letters, and a photograph of a brown pelican soaring above an empty beach. There was only one line written on the other side in neat handwriting. I’m sorry I had to take the wings. It wasn’t signed. Emily looked at the sentence for a long time before reaching into her tote bag and pulling out her own postcard, a twin to the first. Except that on the back, where the one to Mr. Theodus had a sentence, hers was empty. The sun was hot on her neck, but she didn’t move. She held the two postcards out, comparing them. There was nothing on hers except a dirty smudge, like someone had started to write something and then erased it. In the sunlight, though, she thought she could see the indention left by a pencil, something she hadn’t noticed inside her house. Still looking. I just wanted to It might have said that. Maybe. She looked at the postcards for a long time, then slid the one with the writing on it through the mail slot. Part of her wanted to keep it, but she didn’t. It was getting late, and her parents still didn’t like her to be out without telling them. She rubbed a finger over the smudge mark before putting her postcard back in her tote bag. She looked through the wing shop window one more time, then started home. She had wanted, when she decided to go back to the shop, to show the postcards to someone else, to ask why Jeffrey hadn’t written anything on hers. But maybe there was no answer. Maybe it was just easier to say you were sorry than to try to explain stuff like wanting things, or love, or being left behind.

Eilis O’Neal lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is Managing Editor of Nimrod International Journal. Her YA fantasy novel, The False Princess, is forthcoming from Egmont USA in July 2010. Her short fantasy has appeared or is forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction, Interfictions II Online Anthology, and others. She can be found online at www.eilisoneal.com. Author Spotlight: Sarah Monette T.J. McIntyre

What can you tell us about the writing process involved in “After the Dragon?” Was this story a fully formed idea that came at you in a rush, or was it something that required an incubation period to become fully realized? “After the Dragon” is dedicated to Elise Mattheson. Would you like to tell your readers (who may not know of her) a little bit about this person and why your story is dedicated to her?

Elise Matthesen is an artist and metal-worker (and a good friend). She has a habit of naming the jewelry she makes, and her titles are so wonderful and evocative that they frequently inspire art in other forms. I’ve written several stories from Elise’s necklaces and earrings (including my first published and most reprinted story, “Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland”), as have many other science fiction and fantasy writers. This story is dedicated to her in thanks for both her friendship and her art and because she has taught me a lot, by example, about finding grace and joy in an imperfect and often hurtful world. Elizabeth Bear and I have an odd sort of tag-team game going with Elise’s jewelry and dragons and stories. I wrote “Draco campestris” from a necklace of Elise’s; then Bear wrote “Orm the Beautiful,” which is in some ways and from odd angles a response to “Draco campestris,” as well as being inspired by another of Elise’s necklaces. “After the Dragon” is, in some ways and from odd angles, a response to “Orm the Beautiful,” and it is also a response to Elise’s sculptural necklace, “After the Dragon, She Learned to Love Her Body.” (Bear has written a fourth story in the sequence, “Snow Dragons,” and I have a pair of earrings called “Dragons of Earth and Sky” that are telling me there needs to be a fifth, so the game is still going on.) So that’s where the dragon came from. The other side of the story—Megan’s recovery from the dragon—comes from something I’ve realized recently is a theme in my work (and dude, you have no idea how weird it is to be saying that: “one of the principal thematic elements in Monette’s work is …”), namely what happens to heroes after they save the world. I wrote about that in “Straw,” and—from a different perspective—in “The Half-Sister” (which I just posted last week as part of Crossed Genres‘ Post A Story For Haiti fundraiser). And this story is about that, too. It is probably inspired, down at its roots, by being profoundly affected by Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown, when I read it as a child, and now that I think about it, it’s also a response, because while Aeryn is nearly killed by the after-effects of slaying her dragon, she isn’t disfigured by it; in fact, if I remember correctly (and I may not, since it’s been years since I read the book) her suffering makes her beautiful in a sort of Hollywood consumptive way. So this is a story that attempts a moderate degree of realism about what might happen to you if you survived slaying a dragon. Also, like The Hero and the Crown, it’s about trying to reconcile being a hero with being a woman. Or, in Megan’s case, reconciling being a woman with being unable to perform the standard of femininity she’s been taught she has to achieve, about trying to find a definition of womanhood that has room for who she is, instead of who her mother wants her to be. The story took a long time to germinate, and then several months to write, and it fought me every step of the way.

“They could not erase the dragon from her body, and she hated them for it.” What, exactly, is the “dragon” in this story?

The dragon is a dragon. I mean, sure, you can say that it symbolizes catastrophic life-changing tragedy (there’s a reason Megan’s friend Louise is specifically a breast cancer survivor), or you can say that it symbolizes the negative effects that industrialization has had on the planet—hence the references to Trinity and Pikinni Atoll —but really, it’s a dragon. In this particular story, I’ve constructed dragons to be the force of geology cranked up to a speed that human beings can perceive, like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, only animate and predatory. Part of the fun in writing this story was in imagining the dragon and its effects on the beach.

At one point, the protagonist’s mother brings in a photograph of Megan as a teenager. “Her eighteen- year-old self smiled at her from the bedside table. Megan snarled back.” Why would Megan snarl?

Because she’s disfigured and maimed and full of hatred. Because her mother only wants that version of her daughter, not the real one. Because her eighteen-year-old self is full of innocence and self-confidence and Megan can remember being those things, but like the old joke says, you can’t get there from here.

After a vivid scene involving a mirror we are told that “After the dragon, she (Megan) tried things she’d never tried before.” This indicates that tragedy and loss may be a means to rebirth? Do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?

I think “rebirth” is too strong a word. I think that surviving tragedy and loss is one of the most desperately important things we have to learn as human beings—how to pick up the pieces (those that remain) and keep going. And to be open to new experiences even after devastation, rather than closing yourself off. That’s what this story is about—not about rebirth, but about surviving in spirit as well as in body.

So, tell me, what’s next for Sarah Monette? Are there any upcoming publications you would like to mention?

My next novel, The Goblin Emperor, will be coming out from Tor under the name Katherine Addison. Once I’ve turned that in, I’m hoping to be able to write more short fiction, which I will continue to publish as Sarah Monette.

T.J. McIntyre has seen his short fiction and poetry published in numerous publications including recent appearances in Everyday Weirdness, Ruthless Peoples Magazine, and Scifaikuest. He is a member of various writing organizations, including the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA), and serves as a moderator for the Lobo Luna and Western Writers writing communities on LiveJournal. Until earlier this year, he published Southern Fried Weirdness, an anthology and web zine celebrating speculative fiction and poetry with a Southern perspective. He lives in a busy household in the muggy heart of rural Alabama with his wife, two young sons, an aging Doberman mix, five tiger barbs, and three salt-and-pepper catfish. Author Spotlight: Willow Fagan William Sullivan

Your story, “my mother, the ghost”, spends a lot of time discussing why we tell stories. How did you decide to write a story that would focus on stories? Did you find it to have any particular challenges?

Hmm, well, I wouldn’t say that I really sat down and decided to write a story about stories. That’s just the story that came to me. But it probably stems from my longstanding interest in metafiction and my fascination with the power of stories in general. I think that all stories are part of a long dialogue and, in certain ways, are responses to other, earlier stories. Metafiction just makes this conversational aspect explicit. Also, I know that my understanding of the world, especially when I was a child, was very much shaped by the stories that I read. I’m probably drawn to exploring this in fiction. And, it makes sense to me that a child who discovered that one of their parents was a ghost would turn to ghost stories in order to try and understand their situation. That’s one of the most important purposes of fiction, in my opinion: to serve as mirror for our lives. There were certainly challenges involved in writing this type of story! Generally, I think that whenever a writer expounds on how powerful and important stories are, there’s a risk of it coming off as narcissistic or self- congratulatory (which is a danger that I’m hopefully avoiding in this answer!) There were also specific issues that I had to deal with in writing “my mother, the ghost”. In the earlier drafts, too much philosophical musing about the nature of stories ended up disrupting the flow of the story I was trying to tell. There were also some sections which were overly self-referential. In my experience, it’s often hard for writers to clearly see the flaws in their own stories. I found the critiques of other writers, specifically from the Online Writer’s Workshop, to be very valuable in seeing these issues in “my mother, the ghost”. I ended up cutting about 800 words to make the final version of the story.

Another interesting idea your story focuses on is uncertainty. Allison even goes so far as to say that “life is uncertainty”. Brian seems both attracted to uncertainty and frustrated by it at different points in the story. For example, Brian seems both curious about what the nature of his mother’s ghost but, at the same time, worried that if he understands it too well it might cause the ghost to change in some unwanted way. Do you think there is a “right” way to approach uncertainty in life?

I definitely don’t think there’s a single correct way to deal with uncertainty, but I would say that there are some approaches to it that are more helpful than others. For example, if you simply refuse to accept uncertainty, as Brian tried to do earlier in the story, you’re most likely setting yourself up for disappointment and unnecessary pain. I tend to think it’s better to flow with uncertainty and to be open to the possibilities that arise with each changing moment. That’s an ideal, of course, and one that I struggle to move towards myself. I agree with Allison that “life is uncertainty”, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve mastered the art of dealing with it at all. I think that coming to terms with uncertainty is one of the hardest parts of life. At the same time, I share the aspect of Brian that you point out, and am both drawn to and troubled by uncertainty and ambiguity. My attraction to ambiguity is partially rooted in the fact that I identify as queer and genderqueer, and my understanding of queerness includes it being something slippery and mutable. I’m fascinated by mythological figures that can be read as queer, such as shapeshifters who change from one gender to another, and from one species to another. To me, that’s the attractive face of ambiguity, but of course there’s also the stomach-clenching anxiety that can happen when you don’t know what the future will bring in terms of the well-being of yourself and your loved ones.

Because an author always chooses which details to include in a story and which details to leave out, one might say that all stories have some uncertainty to them (at least compared to the “blooming, buzzing confusion” of real life.) As an author, how do you approach including and excluding uncertainty in your writing? Is it something you consciously consider?

I’m going to come at this question a little bit sideways. I’m really interested in the question of uncertainty in fiction. One of my favorite writers, Kelly Link, includes an enormous amount of ambiguity in her stories. She writes things like, “She kissed him. Or she didn’t.” This is very satisfying to me and I’m not entirely sure why. I think that it might be because any narrative has ghosts— that is, other possible paths the story could have taken. By explicitly conjuring these ghosts within her stories, Link creates a very rich, layered effect. With this story, I was aiming to do something along those lines.

Brian, our narrator, portrays himself as very passive. Telling a story, especially about oneself, is a very empowering act. Should we read the story with this in mind? Is the story itself a part of the plot?

That’s an interesting perspective on the story, one I honestly hadn’t thought about before. I’m of the school of thought that the writer’s interpretation of the story is not the only valid one, so I’m reluctant to say that readers “should” do anything. But I like the framework that you’re using and I certainly agree that telling one’s story can be a very empowering act. I see Brian as moving from doubt towards trust in this story, and from refusing to grapple with the painful realities of his family (partially through never talking about how his mother is a ghost) to honest engagement with them. I think it makes sense to consider how the fact that Brian is telling this story plays into that. And a story which includes statements like “The problem with telling a story is that stories are hardly ever finished, so the people you tell the story to are in danger of becoming characters in the story themselves and changing the trajectory of the plot” certainly invites the type of reading you suggest.

All three of the main characters (Brian, Allison, and Jane) have had “extra-normal” experiences. Do you think that experiences like that help people to bond?

Oh, definitely. I’ve never had anything as strange as being abducted by aliens happen to me, but I have had what could be called “extra-normal” experiences. Living as a queer person in American society is sometimes very alienating, and involves experiences that the majority of people have not had and may not easily understand. And as someone who is genderqueer, that is, as a minority within a minority, that dynamic is amplified. I find that a number of my closest friends are queer people who, for whatever reason, don’t fit well with the mainstream of LBGT society. I’m also Pagan, and I’ve had spiritual experiences that could be seen as “extra-normal”. My spiritual practice, and the insights and transformations it brings, are important parts of my life. It’s hard for me to be close to people who have never ventured into those realms and who don’t even consider them to be real. On the other hand, one of my best friends is an atheist straight boy, so there’s multiple ways in which people can bond.

Do you have anything else you’d like to say about “my mother, the ghost”?

I think I’ve probably said enough. Thanks for the thought-provoking and insightful questions!

William Sullivan is a writer, computer programmer, and musician living in Austin, Texas. You can find his website at enkrates.com. Author Spotlight: Carol Emshwiller Jennifer Konieczny

Could you tell us what inspired your story “Above it All,” and a little about the process of writing it?

I always have a hard time answering this sort of question. After I’ve been working on newer stories I often forget how I worked on an earlier one. And they’re all a little different.

Your work frequently features mountains, which you have said you equate “with excitement, danger, joy, beauty.” In “Above it All,” Birdie is from the mountains, and her presence evokes love, anxiety, and joy in her mom. When writing, did you know immediately that “Above it All” would be partially set in the mountains? Did Birdie develop out of your love for the mountains, or once formed, did you know that she belonged within that setting?

I wasn’t thinking about mountains at the beginning of the story but since Birdie was always rising that gave me the idea of going off into the mountains. I never know where a story is going but I like mountains so much they pop up lots of times. At that point in the story where the characters have to DO something, (make a move) that’s when I first thought: Go to the mountains. Then I go back to the beginning of the story and insert mountains at the start.

In “Above it All” the protagonist is addressed solely as “Mom.” How do you feel about people, women or men, being defined by their relationships?

I don’t see where, in the story, I could have put in her name or more about her. The story involves just those two people. My first person characters often don’t have names. You don’t think of your own name very often. And, actually you’re right, “mom” did define her. . . she was mom to all creatures so your question is the right one. That’s who she is. I’m always so inside my story that I hardly ever think of meanings of smaller questions within the story that are beyond what the characters are thinking.

The trip with Birdie up to the mountain, for me, echoed Abraham’s ascent with Isaac. By staying away from the heights of the mountain, Birdie’s mom kept her daughter safe but separated herself from the mountains she loved and knew. By returning Birdie to the mountains, both reconnected with their roots. As a mother of three children, how did you find the process of your children growing up and leaving the nest? As an author, how do you handle letting characters act in manners you had not anticipated? How does it feel to submit a story to the world?

As a mother, I was sad to see them go, and I miss them a lot now, too, but it’s exciting to see them going off into the world doing their own things. But as a writer, I was glad to see them go so I could write. I started writing when they were little. . . out of loneliness. You may wonder how somebody with three little kids can be lonely or even has time to feel lonely but. . . now I need loneliness for writing. Actually, I’m never lonely when I write and I always do write. I love when my characters act in unanticipated ways. When that happens, they always and only do exactly what they would do, but I was way behind them and didn’t anticipate it. In Leaping Man Hill, my character said exactly what she would say, trying to get her mother off her back. I knew she was exactly right to say that, but I had to stop writing for a week and regroup. Regroup my subconscious, that is. I never know where my story is going but I do know on some level or I’d not have had to regroup. Submitting a story to the world? I haven’t thought about that for a long time. I used to get a sort of stage fright. And I do know some people don’t like my stories and some people misinterpret what I’m saying. There’s a danger, too, in writing first person unreliable narrator. People think what your characters think is what you think but their thoughts are part of how I characterize them. I think I must have courage. . . I hadn’t thought of it till right now. . . in writing from points of view that aren’t mine. Not so much in this story though. It’s when I’m in the point of view (for instance) of my warlike colonels that I get in trouble with some readers.

You say on your website that you were passionately involved with the avant-garde movement in the ’60s and currently are passionate about postmodern work. Your own writing traverses science fiction, magical realism, anti-war, and westerns. Do you find it easy to transition between different movements and genres? Are there other genres you would like to work in? Do you feel that categories are useful or restrictive?

I’m not interested in the avant-garde anymore. There are lots of reasons I only do science fiction now. For one thing, I do like plot. (Just because I start out not knowing where I’m going doesn’t mean I don’t end up with a plot.) Also science fiction is a place where you get an answer within a reasonable time. I got tired of waiting a year or more for a rejection slip from a literary magazine. I got too old for that. I also like the science fiction world. I’ve known it since my husband was an illustrator. You get to know a whole batch of nice people.

Could you tell us what you are working on now?

I’m only doing short stories lately. I’m thinking I’m a little old for starting a novel, but I suppose if I found a good idea for one, I’d start it. Many of my recent novels started as short stories that I wanted to continue. For the last couple of years all my short stories have such definite endings there’s no possible way to go on.

Jennifer Konieczny hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An alumna of Villanova University, she now pursues her doctorate in medieval studies at the University of Toronto. She enjoys working with fourteenth-century latin legal texts, slushing for Fantasy Magazine, and scanning bookshelves for new authors to read. Author Spotlight: Eilis O’Neal T.J. McIntyre

What was the inspiration behind “The Wing Collection?”

I write two kinds of short stories. The first are stories that appear almost fully formed, then take me by the scruff of the neck and shake me, screaming, “Write me now!” I really like those, because they tend to be a bit easier to write. (The first story I published with Fantasy Magazine, “Swan,” was one of those.) The second kind are stories in which one really cool image or idea floats into my head, but all alone, without the actual story around it. I’ll have those ideas sort of haunting me for months or years, and every now and then I’ll get a flash of something that helps flesh the original idea out. That’s how it was for “The Wing Collection.” I got this mental picture of cases and cases of wings without any bodies, but I didn’t know where they were, or why they were there, or who had arranged them. I tinkered with the concept for probably a year, but it wasn’t until I heard Emily’s voice in my head that I really understood where the story was going. How relevant was the Icarus myth to your story? Besides the obvious (both involve characters with wings), what is the relevance of this particular myth?

Both Jeffrey and Icarus plan to use their wings for escape. But I think that neither of them really understands the full implications of their flights. They’re literally flying off into the unknown, and without perhaps being as prepared as they need to be. The wings themselves make for fascinating images. How did you decide which species to mention when discussing the wings themselves? Is there any particular meaning behind the species chosen for the purpose of your story? Some of the wings are just there to demonstrate the extent of Mr. Theodus’s collection. But some of them were chosen with certain themes or meanings behind them. For instance, I chose the brown pelican wings as the wings that finally push Jeffrey to steal from Mr. Theodus not only because they might be large enough to (magically) carry a boy, but because I wanted wings that would be easily identified with a particular region, one that Jeffrey feels a real need to go to. Also, the brown pelican was still on the endangered species list when I wrote the story, and I liked the precariousness of their situation, which reminded me of Jeffrey’s. Another example would be when Emily turns her nose up at the pelican wings, saying that she likes the swan wings better. Though certainly not stupid, Emily’s a little more of a surface person than Jeffrey, so it makes sense that she would like the obviously grand swan wings better than the more obscure brown pelican wings.

The collector’s name, Theodus, is very evocative. How did you choose his name? Does it have any significance?

His name was not an easy one. But I knew when I was creating Mr. Theodus that he was contradictory. Nice in some ways, but vaguely sinister and outright creepy in others. So I wanted a name that captured that ambiguity. I decided on Theodus because it has the soft, soothing sounds of “Theo” and then the abrupt, harder ending of “dus.” Also, it sounds a little antiquated to my ear, which ties into the Icarus myth and also to the fact that I’m really not sure how long Mr. Theodus has been alive.

Jeffrey is described as a very bookish character. Why do you think he spends so much time in his books? Jeffrey’s a lot more like me when I was a kid than Emily is. And I read constantly as a middle schooler. Though I still take a book with me almost everywhere I go, I think I read for different reasons as a child than I do now. And a large part of that was escape—particularly from the seriously hard time I was having in middle school. I think Jeffrey reads for the same reason. He wants to get away from the life he’s really leading in any way he can.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. So tell me, what’s next for Eilis O’Neal? Do you have any upcoming publications or projects you would like to mention?

I’m really excited to say that my first novel, The False Princess, will be published in July by Egmont USA. The False Princess is a YA fantasy novel about a girl who has grown up believing that she’s the princess of a country, only to be told at the age of sixteen that she isn’t. She’s been a stand-in for the real princess, who had been hidden away as a child to escape a threat of death. Now, though, the threat has passed, and Sinda is basically booted out of the palace to make her own way, and discover who she is when the only identity she’s ever known is taken from her. I suppose you could say it’s a reversal of the more traditional commoner-turned-princess tale. In short fantasy, I’m also happy have another story to come with Fantasy Magazine, and one with Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Cat Rambo lives, writes, and teaches by the shores of an eagle-haunted lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her 200+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short story, “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” from her story collection Near + Far (Hydra House Books), was a 2012 Nebula nominee. Her editorship of Fantasy Magazine earned her a World Fantasy Award nomination in 2012. For more about her, as well as links to her fiction and information about her popular online writing classes, see www.kittywumpus.net.

Sean Wallace is the founder, publisher, and managing editor of Prime Books. In his spare time he has edited or co-edited a number of projects, including two magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine and Fantasy Magazine, and a number of anthologies, including Best New Fantasy, Japanese Dreams, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, People of the Book, Robots: Recent A.I., and War & Space: Recent Combat. He lives in Germantown, MD, with his wife, Jennifer, and their twin daughters, Cordelia and Natalie.