Classics Mutilated (13 page)

And then they were both gone—he and Gib, the scythe, everything—leaving only a frail shell behind. 

Everyone came back into the room as if they had been summoned, Sue leading, tears on her dear familiar face, Austin looking ancient and horrible, and Vinnie, Vinnie, hands clasped to her chest.

They crowded the body and Emily staggered away, mouth tasting of paper, eyes dry, head aching. 

"Take me home," she said to Vinnie. "Please."

Emily had to go home now, taking her fragile, ragged, worthless little soul. If she hadn't had a fruitless romance with
him
, if she hadn't wasted all of that time, she still would have seen him here, and she could have bargained with him, she could have given him her soul in place of Gib's and it would not have been worthless. Gib would have lived, and so would she.

But
he
had cheated her of that. He had known, and he had cheated her, because he claimed he loved her.

Could one such as that love?

She didn't know. She didn't want to think of it. Not now, and maybe not ever.

May 24, 1886

The Homestead

Amherst, Massachusetts

Twilight was falling as Vinnie picked up the last pile of poems. She had just lit Emily's favorite lamp, giving the room a brief scent of kerosene and burned wick.

Vinnie's hands shook. She was exhausted, but unwilling to quit. The poems—ah, the poems—they were Emily, and more than Emily. They were about her life too.

There's been a death in the opposite house
, began one, and Vinnie set it aside. She could not read that. It was about Gib. There were a number about Gib, some even calling him by name. 

Gib's death had destroyed Emily. From that moment forward, she had been ill, although most did not know it. She continued her letters and, clearly, her poetry, but little else, her eyes hollow, her expression always a little lost.

Not with a club the heart is broken
, Emily whispered,
nor with a stone. A whip so small you could not see it….

Like a poem, Vinnie thought. Like a poem.

"I can't do it, Em," she whispered as if her sister were still here. For all she knew, her sister was alive in the poetry, haunting the room like a restless ghost. "I can't do it."

Burning the poems would be like losing Emily all over again. And storing them would be wrong too, because Austin or his daughter Mattie might burn them, following Emily's wishes.

Vinnie would burn the papers, burn the letters. She would do that much. But the poems were alive, like her sister had been, and she could not destroy them.

Finally, Emily had to step out of her room and let the world see her as Vinnie had seen her, all those years ago—vibrant and witty and filled with an astonishing love.

May 15, 1886

The Homestead

Amherst, Massachusetts

He came like she knew he would, his face filled with triumph. Emily was too weak to fight him. She couldn't get out of bed, she couldn't even open her eyes, yet she could see him, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand gripping hers.

"Are you ready to join me, Emily?" he asked, not trying to disguise the joy in his voice.

"No," she said. "I will never join you."

"You have no choice," he said. "I take everyone."

"But you do not keep them," she said. "You taught me all those years ago how to defeat you. When the memory is gone, the soul goes too. After Vinnie, after Austin, after Mattie, no one will remember me."

"Except me," he said.

"And you do not count," she said, "because you remember everyone you touched."

His eyes widened just a little. "You hate me, Em?"

"For Gib," she said. "I'll never forgive you for Gib."

"Never is a long time," he said.

"But do not fear," she said. "I have escaped Eternity."

"Would it be so bad, Emily, spending forever with me?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "It would."

"You do not mean it," he said as he took what was left of her soul. She felt a momentary relief, a respite from pain she hadn't realized she had, and then a brief incandescent sense of joy.

Only a few more years and they would go quickly. Vinnie would see to it. Nothing of Emily would remain, nothing except a name carved into a stone above an old and sunken grave—and someday, not even that.

She had won. God help her, she had finally won.

May 15, 1892

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Higginson had the dream again. He used to dream of that clearing in Florida, filled with bodies laid out symmetrically. But ever since he turned in his edited version of
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
to the publisher, this dream had supplanted the other.

Emily, as he had first seen her, red hair parted, white dress, beseeching him not to betray her.
Honor me
, she would say, her eyes silver and terrifying.
Honor me
.

And he would say,
I am. I am making your work known
.

Then she would raise her arms, like a banshee from Irish lore, and screech, and as she screeched, the hooded figure would rise behind her and clasp his arms around her, dragging her to the clearing and all those dead men….

And Higginson would wake, heart pounding, breath coming in rapid gasps.

This morning, after the dream, he threw on his dressing gown and made his way to his study. He knew why he had had the dream this time. Another volume of
The Poems by Emily Dickinson
had arrived with a note that this was the seventh edition.

Seven. And more to come. He and Mabel Loomis Todd had barely touched the thousand manuscripts Miss Dickinson had left. He admitted to no one how surprised he was; he had thought her words too strange for the reading public, her gift too rare.

But they adored it, some, he thought, in part to the surgery he had felt it necessary to perform, ridding it of her excessive dashes and her breathless punctuation. But still, the essence of her lived.

Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?
she had written him in that very first letter.

And now he could answer her truthfully: her verse was more alive than ever.
She
was more alive than ever.

So why had the first sight of the seventh edition filled him with such horror?

He picked it up and thumbed through it—stopping suddenly at unfamiliar words. He did not recall editing this poem.

He eased into his favorite chair, book in hand, and read:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

There was no despair mentioned in the poem, and yet he felt it, like he felt that banshee scream. 

What had she written to him once, when she mentioned his books about the War?

My wars are laid away in books
.

Yes. Yes they were.

He closed the volume, determined to never open it again.

Annedroid of Green Gables

By Lezli Robyn

The Station Master whistled to himself while the steam engine puffed into the small Bright River station, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he checked his brass pocket watch to verify the arrival time for his logbook. He had been told to expect an important delivery today, and so he was personally going to oversee the unloading of the cargo carriage. There wasn't much excitement to be had on Prince Edward's Island, so he was very curious as to what the package contained; he'd been told to unpack the box with care upon arrival. 

The train chugged slowly to a stop, and the Station Master scanned the carriages to see if all was in order before pressing an ornate but bulky button on his lapel pocket. It whirred perceptively and then emitted a piercing whistle to alert the passengers that the train was safe to disembark. 

He tilted his hat in greeting to the first young lady to step onto the platform, but she didn't have eyes for him. She was gazing about her with a soft smile on her face, smoothing out her skirts. So he made his way to the back of the train, signaling for Oswald to keep watch on the platform while he began to search for the precious cargo, and wondering why the owner hadn't arrived yet. 

On the way he detoured to pull a brass lever on the side of a machine fixed to the platform near the last carriage door. The device wheezed to life, numerous brass and wooden cogs beginning to whirl around, steam pumping out of several exhaust valves as the leather conveyer belt sluggishly sprung into action. He then walked into the carriage and lit the gas lamp hanging just inside the doorway, automatically picking up and placing all the small packages and bags onto the conveyer belt so they would be transferred to the station office for sorting. 

He paused when he came across a large trunk in the dark recesses of the carriage, the layer of dust that shrouded it a testament to its long journey on more trains than this one. He grabbed the lantern and held it over the trunk, wiping the corner clean to expose the sender's stamp.

"LUMIERE'S REFURBISHED MACHINES-TO-GO"

Satisfied, the Station Master pulled out his Universal Postal Service key and inserted the etched brass device into the leather buckle locks that were holding the lid of the trunk down. He heard a perceptible whir as the key activated in each lock, and they sprung open. He paused, his hand hovering just above the lid, wondering what he would find in the trunk. It was not often that city machines, even refurbished ones, made their way to the tiny coastal towns.

His curiosity got the better of him. The stamp told him that the trunk would be too heavy to carry off the carriage without extra help, so he knelt down, checked that all of the buckles had completely disengaged, and lifted the lid slowly.

Only to find himself looking into a pair of brilliant green eyes.

They blinked and then focused on him.

His blinked too, very rapidly, his mind a jumble of uncoordinated thoughts.

A small hand reached out of the trunk and took the lid from the Station Master's frozen grasp, pushing it completely open. 

The man's mouth fell agape in response, as he stared anew at the trunk in wonder. Matthew Cuthbert had always been a man of few words, but his reticence in this case was a little extreme. A machine indeed!

There, pulling itself into sitting position, was an
android.
The Station Master had never seen one of those sophisticated machines before, and he didn't know how to go about interacting with them.

"Are you my new Father?" the android asked.

He shook his head somewhat absently, gathered his wits together, and rediscovered his voice. "Your new owner will be here soon," he offered gruffly. He gestured towards the carriage doorway. "Shall we go wait for him?"

The android looked towards the doorway and then back to him. "I can go
outside
?" 

Again, he was taken aback. "Of course. If you want to meet your new owner you
have
to." 

He stood up and hesitated, looking down at the android sitting in the battered travel trunk, and then reached down. A dainty hand rose to meet his, and he was startled by its warmth. For some reason he had expected android skin to be cold. Lifeless.

Like a machine.

But, instead, the hand he clasped in his own felt like that of a child. Somehow that thought put his mind at ease. He helped the android out of the trunk and then stepped out of the carriage, turning back to see what such an advanced machine would make of their humble station. 

The android moved tentatively into the light and the Station Master gasped. It was female in form! He had previously thought all androids were made to appear androgynous.

He watched her look up in wonder at the sun when she felt its rays fall upon her face. In the full sunlight her skin shimmered with a slightly golden hue, but that was not her most distinguishing feature. It was her hair—or more the point, her two braids of very thick, decidedly red, woven copper filaments that fell down her back. The worn sailor hat didn't disguise the brilliance of the fine metallic strands, nor did the yellowed threadbare dress detract from the elegance of her form. While too slender to be considered very feminine, and her face too angular to ever be considered classically beautiful, she was a striking figure with her huge expressive eyes and the delicate brass nails that graced her little fingers.

In one hand the android held a carpet bag that had clearly seen better days, but she was holding it with such care that the Station Master couldn't help but be intrigued. He'd never considered the fact that an android could have luggage; it must have been stowed in the trunk with her.

She moved forward, turning around slowly as if to soak everything in, but when she spotted the conveyer belt she walked up to it, curious, and without preamble started fiddling with the various levers and cogs on the side with her free hand, only flinching—but not pulling back—when the steam from one valve hit her. 

She had clearly done this before. Her tiny hand fit into the tight spaces to tweak this or that with such precision that within minutes the machine was running smoother, much to the Station Master's astonishment. She kept working until the chugging sound of the machine had turned into a soft purr, and then she turned back to the Station Master, who stammered his thanks.

"Oh, no need to thank me," she replied. "This machine is a primitive version of the sorting machines I used to operate at my previous home every day. It's such a pleasure to be able to work out how things operate, don't you think?" The android didn't give him the time to answer. "I've always thought so. There is something beautiful about seeing a machine work to the optimum of its capacity."

The Station Master couldn't agree more. He couldn't take his eyes off the android in front of him. She was an absolute marvel. He wondered where her new owner was.

He turned slightly and gestured towards the station building. "Would you like to wait in the Ladies Sitting Room until Mr. Cuthbert arrives?"

She tilted her head, considering both him and his offer. "No thank you," she replied. "I'll wait outside. There's more scope for the imagination."

The Station Master smiled. What a charming girl.

Matthew Cuthbert looked at the android from the far end of the platform and hesitated. He had never been much of a conversationalist, and had always found talking to girls to be one of the most awkward experiences in the world, so it was daunting for him to discover his most recent purchase was female in form. He had been told that he was buying a prototype whose model had never been put on the production line, but he hadn't thought to ask about gender.

He couldn't help but be intrigued, however, despite his anxiety. Androids had first been created to replace the child workforce in the factories that were expanding throughout the major cities. For many years children had often been the cheapest and most practical workers because their tiny hands and slight forms meant that they were able to manipulate delicate machinery, and so naturally the androids were modeled after them. But their creators soon discovered that their clientele did not want their new workforce looking like children—innocents. Nor did they like that the prototypes were created with advanced problem-solving skills, because some people believed it gave the androids individuality as they adapted to what they learnt, leading them to want to try new things outside the factory walls. As a consequence, the androids that eventually populated the factories all over Canada were created to be completely unremarkable in their subservience and androgynous appearance.

Matthew couldn't fathom how they could be considered superior in design to the original prototypes, but he wasn't going to complain. It meant he could afford to buy the "flawed" machine sitting on the platform in front of him. 

He took a deep breath and walked towards the android—and then right on past. He realized at the last moment that he had no idea what to say to her.
How exactly does one greet an android?

He reached the end of the platform, and stood there for a minute before turning around to see the android now eying him with evident curiosity. Matthew wondered what such a sophisticated machine would make of him, for he was very unassuming in appearance. Tall, with lank shoulder-length hair that was now more steel-colored than the black of his youth, he had a stooped frame, as if his very posture reflected his wish to not stand out in a crowd. But the shy smile he gave the android when he finally walked up to her was welcoming, and his eyes were kind. Before he even had time to consider how to greet her, the android had stood up and reached out her hand.

"You must be my new father, Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables." She shook his hand in greeting, still clutching the carpet bag to her side. "I'm Anne—Anne with an
e
. Most people believe that Anne is short for
android
, and so often they leave off the
e
when they write it down. However the
e
is the letter that completes the name. If I met someone else called Anne, but spelt without the
e
, I just couldn't help but feel they were somehow lacking. What do you think, Mr. Cuthbert?"

He blinked, surprised. "Well, now, I dunno." He had a simple intelligence, but he wondered if the android was expressing her insecurities about being accepted. And more important, did she
know
she was doing that? "Can I take your bag?"

"No thank you, Mr. Cuthbert. I can manage. I have to make sure I hold the handle with a 43-degree tilt at all times or it's prone to falling off. An extra degree either way and the bag has an 82 percent chance of losing its structural integrity. It's a very old, very dear carpet bag."

Matthew smiled at the unexpected mix of technical evaluation and human sentiment in Anne's statement, seemingly fitting for a machine made in Man's image. He gestured for the android to follow him, and they made their way to his horse and buggy in silence, Matthew looking at the ground, and Anne looking at everything else. 

She appeared captivated by the most commonplace things. Even while one of the very rare and expensive steam-operated carriages rolled on by with the girl from the train gracing its leather seat, protecting her fair skin with her lace parasol, Anne's attention stayed focused on the old draft horse hitched to Matthew's buggy. 

"I'm at a loss to see how you power this locomotive," she replied after a moment. 

The corner of Matthew's mouth twitched, and he ducked his head to hide a smile, realizing that the android had never seen a horse before, and that this particular one was close to comatose. 

He walked up to the horse, rubbing the gelding's neck gently, prompting him to shake out his mane and seemingly coming to life. "There are no steam-generated levers needed to operate this buggy. I just tell Samuel here to pull it for me." 

The android blinked. "Samuel isn't a machine?" 

"No," he said simply. 

"But this creature's purpose is to serve humans?" she asked, her head tilting to the side.

Matthew's hand paused mid-stroke. "Well, yes, I suppose in a way that's true."

"Does it have free will?"

This time it was Matthew who blinked. "He lives and works on my farm."

She didn't miss a beat. "Because he has no other choice."

"Yes."

She nodded to herself. "I understand."

Matthew was struck by how definitive her answer was. "How so?"

"That existence was not unlike my life at the factory." She reached out her hand and gingerly mimicked Matthew's actions a minute earlier, her brass nails glinting in the filtered sunlight as she rubbed the horse's neck.

Matthew watched her for a long moment, then: "Did that bother you? Being told what to do all the time, I mean."

"No. Why would it?"

Matthew didn't know how to reply.

Anne continued on, almost absently. "I like to learn, and to keep busy. I also like to discover how things work. The Supervisor told me that that was a flaw in my make-up, and that I had to be terminated. I didn't know why I was going to lose my job when I had just surprised him by halting production of the main sorting machine in the factory to improve its performance by 6.3 percent, but he wouldn't listen to me anymore." Her hand stilled, and the horse head-butted her to resume. "It was Father who intervened. He told the Supervisor that termination was too final a punishment, and that I could still be of some use. However, I don't understand what he meant by that comment, because I no longer work for the company."