Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 (116 page)

They were so confident. They were so commanding that they even commanded the full attention of themselves. They didn’t look back.

“Welcome to Clan territory,” I told them when they came to a halt before me.

“The same tree?” one of the white-coated men asked casually.

“There will be no trade today. You will stay as our guests.”

“No,” one of the guards said, starting to step forward, but the white-coated man was curious and unafraid.

“Guests for how long?” he asked.

“Permanent guests,” I said, and the guards, swearing, turned in time to see Skink flinging nests into the open hatch of their heli. They pulled out guns and fired bullets at him, but he dived into the water and swam away.

They pointed their guns at me, but I laughed in their faces.

“Kill me,” I said, “and the Clan will vanish into the forest. You’ll never find them. You can drink those vials under your coat for a while, but then you’ll die.”

“Another helicopter will come from the Island,” the man said, struggling to remain calm.

“Maybe. Maybe they’ve got ant troubles of their own, on the Island. Come with me, now. We’re going to the caves. There are some women there who will need those vials.”

“Wait,” the second white-coated man said. “You don’t understand. We can’t stay here. Our instruments have detected a big storm approaching. There will be a wave like nothing that you’ve—”

“Yes,” I said, grimacing, turning away from him. “I know about the wave. Put your weapons down and follow me. We’ll be going through the trees. If you bring any metals, the ants will smell it. They can taste it from very far away, and they’ll come.”

One of the guards didn’t follow.

He sloshed back through the water to the flying machine and climbed into the cockpit. I watched him struggle with the controls, twitching while the ants bit him again and again. The motor started and the machine’s mounted wings began to whir.

In silence, the three that remained watched the heli fly crazily back towards the island.

“The protocols,” the white-coated man whispered. “Without them, they’ll shoot it down.”

But nobody shot it down.

“I think they’re busy,” I said.

The remaining guard put his weapons down shakily.

Ants were already marching out onto the sand.

Nosey came to me, hours later, but there was still no sign of Skink.

“Show me where he is, Nosey,” I said, making the signal for Nosey to find people. The old yellow dog whuffed and skittered off into the mangroves.

I followed with a sense of dread.

The Island People had been set to building bark tents and catching toads; I was expecting many more Island People to arrive over the following days and weeks. We would not stay. They would be angry with us. There might be more shootings.

But the Island People were not like the wireminds. They knew about the local poisons as well as the bacterial remedy, and so long as they brought their children with them, they would not die if left alone. I would let their anger cool in our absence. Maybe, one day, we would make contact with them again.

Nosey whuffed again, excitedly.

“Skink!” I shrieked, and ran to my future husband.

He sat in a bloody puddle of mud, staring into the dead, filmed eyes of an enormous shark that had wriggled its way through the shallow water, desperate to get to him, but then become trapped by the gills in a snarl of stilt-roots.

“Skink!” I cried again, shaking him by the shoulders. “Where are you hurt?”

Skink’s dark eyes gradually focused on me.

“A bullet went through my leg,” he said quietly. “It’s not bleeding any more.”

“Where’s Bloodmuzzle?”

“Inside the shark,” he said.

He didn’t cry.

Nosey licked the small leg wound clean, and I helped Skink return to the camp. Once he was settled, I went back to the mangroves with a long shell knife and cut the dead shark open, determined to get my mother’s dog out of its guts.

Inside its stomach, along with poor Bloodmuzzle’s remains, I found a little black plastic package.

The totem for the Clan is the shark.

I held the voice of my mother’s brother in my hand. The vials had brought life back to the dead mothers in the caves. The recorder would bring life back to the whole Clan.

“I am Rivers-of-Milk,” I said with astonishment to Nosey.

He tilted his long face to one side. His hearing wasn’t that great.

About the Author

Thoraiya Dyer
is an Australian writer, archer and ex-veterinarian. Her short science fiction and fantasy stories have appeared in Cosmos, Apex, Nature and Redstone SF. Fans of “The Wisdom of Ants” can get hold of the Australian-inspired stories, “Yowie” (Aurealis Award winner for Fantasy Short Story) and “Night Heron’s Curse” (Aurealis-shortlisted) from Twelfth Planet Press and Fablecroft respectively. “Asymmetry,” a collection of four original stories, will be published in 2013 as part of Twelfth Planet Press’ Twelve Planets series.

Sweet Subtleties

Lisa L Hannett

Javier calls me Una, though I’m not the first. There are leftovers all around his studio. Evidence of other, more perishable versions. Two white chocolate legs on a Grecian plinth in the corner, drained of their caramel filling. A banquet of fondant hands, some of which I’ve worn, amputated on trays next to the stove. Butter-dipped petals crumbled on plates, lips that have failed to hold a pucker. Butterscotch ears, taffy lashes, glacé cherry nipples. Nougat breasts, pre-used, fondled shapeless. Beside them, tools are scattered on wooden tables. Mixing bowls, whisks, chisels, flame-bottles. Needles, toothpicks, sickle probes, pliers. Pastry brushes hardening in dishes of glycerin. In alphabetical rows on the baker’s rack, there are macadamias, marshmallows, mignardises. Shards of rock candies, brown, yellow and green, that Javier uses to tint our irises. Gumdrop kidneys, red-hot livers, gelatin lungs. So many treats crammed into clear jars, ready to be pressed into cavities, tissue-wrapped and stuffed into limbs. Swallowed by throats that aren’t always mine.

“Delicious,” I say as Javier jams grenadine capsules into my sinuses, a surprise for clients with a taste for fizz. “Delicious.” The word bubbles, vowels thick and popping in all the wrong places. Gently frowning, Javier crushes my larynx with his thumbs. He fiddles with the broken musk-sticks, tweaking and poking, then binds the voice box anew with licorice cords. I try again.

“Delicious.”

Still not right. The tone is off. The timbre. It’s phlegmatic, not alluring. Hoary, not whorish. It will put people off their meals, not whet appetites. It doesn’t sound like me.

Javier’s palm on my half-open mouth is salty. His long fingers gully my cheeks. I wait in silence as he breaks and rebuilds, breaks and rebuilds. Concentrating on my lungs, my throat. Clearing them. Making sure they are dry. I don’t mind being hushed. Not really. Not at the moment. If anything goes wrong, if I collapse this instant, if I crack or dissolve, at least my last words will have been pleasant. Something sweet to remember me by.

It won’t be like before, he said. There will be no weeping. No throttling chest-rattle. No thick, unbreathable air.

On Monday, I made my latest debut—I make so many. Served after the soup but before the viande at the
Salon Indien du Grand Café.
My striptease was an enormous success. Fresh and unmarked, clad in edible cellophane, my marzipan dusted with peach velvet. Even the stuffiest top-hat couldn’t resist. Javier had contrived a device to drop sugared cherries onto every tongue that probed between my legs. Dozens of gentlemen laughed and slurped, delighted I was a virgin for each of them.

“Marvelous,” they shouted, licking slick chops. “Belle Una, tonight you’re more divine than ever!”

“Marvelous,” I say, calm and mostly clear. Mostly. Close enough.

Sugar-spun wigs line a window ledge above Javier’s workbench. Faceless heads, all of them. Now visible, now obscured, as he bobs over me, intent on his work. The hairdos are exquisite. Some pinned up in elaborate curls, some plaited, some styled after Godiva. Glinting honey strands. Carmine. Deep ganache. Exquisite, all of them, despite showing signs of wear.

Between soot-streaked portraits on the walls, wooden shelves support a horde of glass molds. As one, they gape at me from across the room. Their faces as like to each other as I am to them. High brows and cheekbones, pert mouths, strong jaws, noses so straight we’d be ugly if it weren’t for our delicate nostrils. Javier insists we are identical, indistinguishable, impeccable casts of the original. We must be the same, he tells us. We must be. We
must.

Once people have well and truly fallen in love,
he said,
they do not want variety.
They want the same Una they enjoyed yesterday, last week, last month. They want the same Una, now and always. The same Una that Javier, confectioner gourmand, is forever recreating.

For the
hauts bohème
on Wednesday evening, I played the role of limonadière. Stationed behind the bar counter, I wept pomegranate jewels while spouting absinthe verses. Odes to beauty, freedom, love. Javier encouraged this crowd unreservedly. “They’ve loose clothes, loose hair, loose morals,” he said. “And loose purse-strings.” Under his guidance, the bohèmes tickled my limbs with the bows of gypsy violins. Scratched me with pen nibs. Trailed paintbrushes along my soft places. With each stroke, swirls of hippocras bled to my surface. Ale, brandy, champagne, rum. One by one, the lushes lapped it all up. They prefer drink to desserts, Javier said. Those with maudlin constitutions cannot keep anything substantial down.

“Una, chère Una,” the bohos cried, slurring into their cups. “Promise never to leave us again.”

Emotional drunks,
I thought.
Glutting themselves into confusion. Muddled on passion and wine. Can’t they see I’m here? I am forever here.

“I feel—” I begin. Javier traps my jaw. Holds it still. Wary of what, I wonder? That it will fall off with talk, no doubt. That I’ll run out of things to say before tonight’s performance.

I feel solid, I want to assure him. I feel settled. Take it easy now. Easy. I’m going nowhere. I’m right here.

Friday’s connoisseurs ate with torturous restraint.

“Pace yourselves,” the women said, cracking knuckles with the sharp edges of their fans.

“Sugar is a mere distraction for the palate,” said the men. “It will never satiate.”

As centerpiece on their ruby tablecloth, I sat with legs pretzeled into Sadean poses. Wearing garters of hardened molasses, nothing more. By the second remove of sorbet, my contorted ankles and wrists had crumbled. I couldn’t stand for all the gold in the world. My paralysis thrilled our hosts no end—as did Javier’s copper blades. Two daggers per guest. Honed to ravage goodies from my thighs, rump, belly. Tantalized, the feasters took turns at fossicking. At knifing currant ants and blackberry spiders from my innards.

“What an illusion,” they moaned, crunching aniseed antennae. “So convincing, so real . . . And not even a splash of blood! When did you learn such tricks,
chère fille
? Why have you not beguiled us this way before? No matter, no matter. Bravo, chère Una,
et encore
!”

Tips are highest when egos are stroked, my confectioner says. When pomposity is rewarded with flirtation. So Javier slapped their bony backs. He stooped and kowtowed. I bowed as best I could. Waggling my fingers and toes. Letting them caress me long after the coins had rolled.

Rigged with peanut-brittle bones, my digits made such a gratifying snap when the party finally succumbed. When they gave into temptation. Indulged in wounding and breaking.

Javier ribbons my chin with silk to hold it in place for a few minutes. My neck needs patching; he’s made quite the mess of it. He spritzes rosewater to keep me malleable, then shuffles to the stove. Bent over hotplates, he sings quietly as he stirs. His plainchant quickens the pots’ ingredients. Sifted flour, hen-milk, vanilla essence. A sprinkling of salty eye-dew to bring his subtleties to life. Over and over, mournfully low, he garnishes the mixture with tears and base notes of my name.

Una, Una,
he whispers, adding a pinch of cardamom to freckle my skin.
Una, this time you’ll be just right.

For tonight’s outcall, Javier embeds a diadem of Jordan almonds into my curls. “The candied treasure of Priam,” he says, chiseling them into my scalp. Content, he moves on to my hazel eyes. Sets them with a stony stare, like Helen’s transfixed by the sight of her city ablaze. She’s a favorite of Javier’s. Peerless Helen. Unforgettable Helen. With that legendary face. All those ships sailing after it. Lately, while assembling and reassembling me, he’s worn grooves into her story, worn it thin with retelling. The affair. The abduction. The hoopla and heartbreak. His sunken cheeks gain a healthy sheen as he talks of truces made and broken. Gifts offered, shunned, accepted. The permanence, the stubbornness of young lovers. The tale spills from him like powdered ginger, spicy and sharp, as he presses buttercream icing into my moist gaps.

While he pokes and prods, I make predictable observations. Repeating comments he himself once made. Repeating threadbare conversations. Repeating things he’ll smile to hear.

From the shelf, the molds watch us, unblinking.

“Ignore them,” I say, repeating, repeating. “It’s just the two of us now.”

Javier rubs the scowl from my forehead. Heats a spoon and melts saffron into my eyebrows. Sunshine lilts through the studio’s crescent windows as he works. The deep gold of late afternoon adds fire to his story. Promises broken, omens ignored, the grief and wrath of Achilles. Every word igniting, ablaze. But when he reaches the sack of Troy, Javier pauses. Unwilling to narrate the ending, he backtracks. As always, to Helen.

Concentrating, he plunges a series of long plaits into my scalp without letting even a drop of custard ooze out. Carefully, precisely, he stretches them down my spine. I’m half-bowed under the weight of so much hair. He fusses with the braids, fusses.