INTERZONE 253 JUL-AUG 2014 (10 page)

We spent a lot of time walking. We could have driven our rovers but we preferred the walks, liking the ache in our hips after a long day of going from here to there. This was often before our daughter –
our
daughter, not only mine. Part of you and part of me, wedged into an entity all her own. Once she came, there was less walking and more running.

She loves to run, especially in this light air (the only air she has known), long brown hair streaming out behind her, small bare feet never knowing the lick of cool grass, but only the crunch of coppery sand. She loves to mound the sand over your feet until you wriggle them free. Toe by toe, pop pop pop, but this only lasts so long.

Her eyes (they are yours, fragmented blue and hazel) watch the sepia figures capering against the horizon and she says they dream of taking her away. (It’s the easiest explanation. Why would she want to leave? Hush,
hush
.)

•••

We could lock her in a closet, but this isn’t that story, or planet. She grows up too fast even though years are longer here. She grows tall and thin, so straight against the red sky, and that brown hair deepens to something red-gold.

She longs for others of her kind – we are not them, she tells us every night as we curl her into bed. Not them – those who know this world inside and out because it is their own. We fashion this world in Latin and they do not have Latin, she insists.

Your long fingers plait her hair into braids, each end tied with a ribbon the color of Earth skies; come morning, these ribbons spool undone on her pillow, on her floor. One morning, there are only ribbons.

She wrote us a letter. (No, she didn’t, but hush and let me tell this before I go back to melting moons and the way your hand fit against the curve of my head the same way it eventually did hers and—)

I can’t. I want to tell you about the rain first.

•••

You don’t remember, but this is where we began.

In the hush of space where there was only the muted rumble of the engines through the walls. I said it was like a cat purring. You tried not to laugh, but I saw the way your mouth moved. That slant. I know all the words it conveys and contains, and tell them each to you so that you might remember.

Laughter, derision, amusement, irritation, contemplation, love, love, love unspoken. That was never a word between us – it simply was, the way
Valles Marineris
simply is. The way one finds unexplainable comfort in something so overwhelmingly large. Something so overwhelmingly present.

You told me about rain first – you hated it on Earth. It was something to slog through, something that flooded gutters, leaked through roofs, soaked socks and shoes and wrinkled fingertips. You liked it dry, because dry was simple, uncomplicated by anything so random as water. Water went where it would, dry was always dry and didn’t go anywhere.

But slowly on the ship, you came to long for rain. I heard the longing in the slant of your mouth as it moved over the curve of my shoulder in the shower. You tongued the beads of water down the length of my arm, directing them exactly where you wanted them, and you saw something new in water then. Possibility became a word also balanced in the slant of your mouth.

You watched the skies once we settled in. You communicated with the other distant outposts that had been established, asked them every day what they saw in the clouds. They never saw rain. This world was dry, itching for a good downpour. The planet could not stretch to reach the dry ache in its middle.

The day we found her ribbons was the day it rained. (This is both true and not – just listen.)

She wasn’t old enough to go on her own (oh, she was, but will you hush?). We did not walk, we ran to the edge of the canyon, all along that jagged edge. (They don’t call it
Valles Marineris
– they have no idea what
Mariner 9
was and though we tell them, they don’t care. To them, it’s Scar and Cradle and where they first emerged.)

We ran and did not look where we went because it was her we looked for. We saw their tall forms against the sky as we always did, moving in that dance we didn’t understand but enjoyed watching, but there was no smaller figure amid them.

We ran, our feet knowing the way without us having to look – we could have traced these routes in our sleep (I probably often did, but you did not, still wishing I could pull you down inside my own dreams). Dust rose in the heavy air, coating arms, cheeks; my lips curled apart they were so dry and at first I thought I was crying – a thing I had not done since we descended to the bottom of the canyon and lost— No. That did not happen. The square in the yard says otherwise, but it needs to hush, and this—

Hush.

This. It was not tears, for it was not salty, but it tasted almost like metal as it washed down from the clouded sky. It was harder than anything we had known (it wasn’t), washing away every speck of dust and debris (not entirely). Even at a distance, we could hear the canals overflow. Your hands curled into my arms (they did) and you held tight (always tight) – were you keeping me anchored or you?

We watched the canyon fill and flood, and we stared and we should have been terrified – why didn’t you run, they always ask – but there was no need to run, not from the storm we lifted our faces toward. They doubted that the canyon flooded – there is no possible way, they say, that such a large space filled with rain waters. Not on that planet. You would have run. You would have been killed. It did not flood.

But we know it did, and when you lean in to kiss the tears from my cheek now, I can hear in the slant of your mouth that you know it did. You remember.

•••

We found her after the rain. She in her bare feet, walking slow with others of her kind. So impossibly tall, thin like a reed, her hair as red-gold as the sands which gleamed with the storm’s wet. She smiled at us and it was her hands (gone larger than our own) that slid over our rain-damp heads, to cup us the way we had cupped her.

You offered her a ribbon and she let you tie it into her sodden hair. (Years later, we would both find ribbons, one in the garden and one in the canyon’s depths, and we would not know them as hers or ours. Who was here?)

And then she was gone. Running and not walking as she ever had, into the distance with those great tall beings. Ray would have understood, you said. The people this place once held, the ghosts it still did. Ray knew it was only ever ghosts. Things lost, things broken but still littering the landscape. Glittering it, you say.

We look at those large, fractured stones now and don’t understand how they fell. We walk the growing perimeter of our base in bare feet and wonder why we shun shoes. When the winter rains come they wash the yard clean – scrape and landslide – and reveal a square notched into the dirt and we wonder who was here before.

Ray would know, you say.

•••••

E. Catherine Tobler’s recent story sales include
Clarkesworld
,
Lightspeed
, and
Strange Horizons
. She’s a Sturgeon Award finalist and the senior editor at
Shimmer Magazine
. This is her first appearance in
Interzone
.

CAREN GUSSOFF

ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD WAGNER

SESSION ONE

In this universe, they called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In this universe, the treatment was drugs, or prolonged exposure, or cognitive therapy, or eye movement reprocessing.

In his universe, they called it Consequent Distress Condition. Blankenship didn’t know how it was treated; in his universe, he didn’t have it.

The therapist called him in from the waiting room. “Mr. Blankenship?” she asked, and when he stood, she said, “I’m Dr Reed.”

One would think in a city the size of Seattle – this one or the other – Blankenship wouldn’t keep running into people he knew. In his Seattle, her name was Meridian. In this universe, couples took on one or the other’s family name. In his universe, you made a whole new name. Like Blankenship.

Here, the other Blankenship was named Ferguson.

And his wife, Zhorah Blankenship, was still alive and married to someone else. She was called Zhorah Graham.

Blankenship followed this Dr Reed into her office. She motioned for him to pick a seat from the ring of chairs, and then sat directly opposite him.

Blankenship knew he couldn’t stay in this Seattle much longer. But it made Tibbi comfortable because it was familiar. So, they stayed. Blankenship would do anything for his daughter. Including combing his hair differently, as differently as he could, and meeting people he already knew.

He’d do anything for Tibbi. His beautiful, brilliant, funny Tibbi. And, if other universes were more like this one than their old one, she was truly one of a kind.

“Forgive me, Mr Blankenship. You look so much like an acquaintance of mine,” Dr Reed said. “You have a brother?”

Blankenship shook his head. “Only child. But they say everyone has a twin. They say that, right?”

“Right.” Dr Reed sat back in her chair. It was a signal he should also relax. “Today, we’re just going to talk. Get to know one another.” She looked down at the notes on her lap. “So, you live with your daughter?”

“She’s thirteen,” he said.

“A wonderful, tough age.”

“She’s everything.” Blankenship ached as he said that.

Dr Reed glanced again at her notes. “You live in a motel. How long have you been there?”

“Since…it happened.” Blankenship ached again, but in a different place, in his stomach. He swallowed it down. This treatment was supposed to help this go away, not rise. It rose just fine on its own. “It’s an extended stay motel,” he said.

“Do you want to talk about it a little?” Dr Reed blinked. “The incident, I mean. Not the motel. But, of course, we can talk about anything you want.” She leaned closer. “But the incident, your target, as we call it, is why we’re here. Right?”

Blankenship closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at Reed or Meridian or anyone when he said it. “My universe exploded.” He opened his eyes. Nothing had changed. “The motel is comfortable. Just like a little apartment.”

Their first house was small, a white wood cottage. Zhorah said inside reminded her of a boat. A cozy little boat. That was why they adopted ‘Blankenship’.

He suddenly felt exposed. “You aren’t allowed to tell anyone what we talk about here?” Blankenship asked. In his universe, medical professionals swore some sort of oath of silence.

“No,” Dr Reed said. The question didn’t surprise her. “Doctor-patient confidentiality. I will never disclose anything that goes on here, unless I believe you are an immediate danger to yourself or to others.”

“I’m not,” Blankenship said. He was pretty sure of that.

“Now, tell me again, in different words if you can, about your target.”

Blankenship sat forward. He decided to try again, eyes open. “My universe…” Different words. Exploded. Blew up. Disappeared. “…was destroyed.” He really wanted to make her understand. “My whole universe is gone.” He made a move with his hands, but he didn’t know an appropriate gesture. “Gone.”

SESSION TWO

The first session left Blankenship exhausted in a way he’d not experienced before. In his universe, he’d have called a car to take him home, and he would have slept straight through dinnertime. In his world, he’d never had to do that. And now, in this world, he couldn’t afford the indulgence.

He had the motel to pay for, and food, and the therapy sessions. And things for Tibbi; thirteen year old girls required a lot of supplies just for basic maintenance: lotions, lip gloss, colorful socks. Outfits. Not just clothes. Outfits.

And he was trying to save up enough to buy both of them new identities. As safe as this Seattle made Tibbi, they couldn’t stay – and Blankenship couldn’t use Ferguson’s ID numbers for too much longer without a day of reckoning.

He also wanted to pay Ferguson back for the cash they stole from him in the beginning. That wasn’t as important, since Blankenship was Ferguson; he knew he’d ultimately understand about the whole thing.

He was an understanding guy.

“That’s what you like most about yourself?” Dr Reed asked. “That you are understanding?”

“Is that OK?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered. “I just wanted to make sure that was what you wanted me to put down as your starting ‘positive belief’. That’s going to be really important as we move forward with therapy.”

“I’m an understanding, forgiving guy.”

Dr Reed wrote that on the worksheet. He was supposed to take home this sheet after the session and practice whatever was on it.

“We’re going to find your ‘safe place’ now,” she said. “A time and place when you felt completely safe, completely happy. Or as close as possible. Could be anytime, anywhere, from earliest childhood onward.” Dr Reed wrote SAFE PLACE on the sheet. “I want you to picture it. Sights, sounds, smells. Keep your eyes open. Take your time. Let me know when you are there.”

Blankenship immediately knew his safe place. They’d built an addition on the tiny white boat cottage for the baby – half glass walls and a glass ceiling, almost like a greenhouse for their flower.

Zhorah sat in a rocking chair, next to the crib, Tibbi swaddled in a light green plaid blanket. Zhorah rocked. Tibbi slept, her fat pink cheek pressed against Zhorah’s breasts.

Blankenship sat on the ground right next to his women. His arm fell asleep from reaching up for so long to hold Zhorah’s hand underneath Tibbi’s bottom, but he ignored that as long as he could to just sit there.

Fat raindrops tapped the glass roof like fingers. Not to be let inside, but just to let them know they were there, they were everywhere, watching out for the three of them.

“I see it,” he said.

“Clearly?”

Blankenship leaned his head against Zhorah’s leg. He didn’t know if he actually did that at the time, but he could feel her and Tibbi’s warmth.

“Yes,” he said.

“We’re going to make a kind of shortcut to it. Tap your left knee,” Dr Reed said.

He tapped.

“Whenever you tap your knee there, you will call up that safe place. You will be there,” Dr Reed said. “Now, be here. Look at me.”

“OK,” he said. He immediately wanted to tap his knee again.

“Tell me about something else. Tell me about your work.”

“I used to be a film critic,” he said. “Now, I’m a bookkeeper.” Money in this universe was made of paper and metal coins, but math was the same.

“What’s your favorite movie?” she asked.

He didn’t know what to say. All the films in this universe were different. Then, he realized it didn’t matter. Like in his universe, there were so many films he could just say anything – it wouldn’t be unusual if Dr Reed had never heard of it. “
The Berry
.” In his universe, that was a well-known and award-winning documentary.

“Good,” she said. She paused, and then said, “Tap your knee.”

He tapped. He heard Tibbi take a breath, the kind that signaled she was about to cry. He squeezed his wife’s hand, and then lowered down his tingling arm.

“Are you there”? Dr Reed asked.

“I am.”

“Good,” she said. “Excellent. Let’s move on.”

SESSION THREE

Dr Reed wore a scarf with a distracting print. The way he had to hold his head, so his neck wouldn’t shoot pains, kept him staring right at it.

Dr Reed asked him about himself, and then about some other things. The scarf bothered Blankenship. He couldn’t focus until he heard his daughter’s name.

“What?” he asked.

“How is Tibbi coping with everything?” Dr Reed repeated.

When he got home from work the evening before, Tibbi had been flopped on her stomach, sideways across her bed. She liked the queen size mattress much more than her tiny little cot back at home.

The cot was a small bed. For a small girl in a small room in a small white house.

She rolled over as Blankenship locked the door behind him.

“Hello, precious,” he said. “How was school?”

“Hi, Baba,” she said. “When are we going to find a real apartment?”

She answered herself at the same time he did: “Soon.” Then she sighed and rolled back over onto her stomach.

“Are you feeling all right?” Blankenship asked.

“I’m not sure, Baba,” Tibbi answered. It was the most forthright she’d been in days. “I think so.”

Blankenship sat next to his daughter. She felt warm to him. Maybe she’d caught something. He gave her some Naproxen, after studying the label for warnings longer than he needed to, and let her watch whatever she wanted to on the TV.

“She’s all right, I guess,” Blankenship answered Dr Reed. “She alternates between pretending she finds the whole mess quite boring and having stomach issues.”

“That sounds like a teenager.” Dr Reed put her hand to her throat. “Do you want me to take this off? You keep focusing on it.”

“No,” he said. “Yes.” Something about the colors, the blown-out paisley print, kept him from being able to think straight.

She untied it and then hid it beneath a leg. “Did you practice your positive belief? And going to your safe place?”

Blankenship nodded. It helped when the panicked ache rose up. But, he’d also had to force himself from not tapping his knee all the time: on the bus, in traffic; at work, staring at a screen of spreadsheets until they smeared; sitting up in his queen sized bed, listening to his daughter’s tiny, little snore.

“We’re going to do some unpleasant work for a few minutes,” Dr Reed said. “If you feel up for it.”

“Sure.”

“We’re going to identify a ‘negative cognition’. Think of it as the opposite of your positive belief. It’s something about you that you are uncomfortable with, that causes you distress. This can be related to your target. How you reacted, for instance. Or, why you think you are so deeply affected.” Dr Reed touched her neck again, seeming surprised the scarf was not there to play with. Then she went on. “Some examples could be ‘I can’t deal with being alone’, or ‘I can’t protect my daughter’.”

“Neither of those.” He had been alone since his Zhorah died, and he did protect his daughter. They were in this universe, after all, instead of being pulverized, or atomized, or whatever happened to everyone and everything in their world. He knew the right answer. “I can’t find my place in this world.”

Dr Reed nodded. She wrote that down in her notes. “We will work on that,” she said.

“Thank you,” Blankenship said. “I hope so.”

Because, in this universe, he was a ghost. It was best if he didn’t take up much space and left only the most fleeting of impressions.

And like a ghost, he haunted. People and places.

He left work today right after lunch, extra early, so he’d have time to make a stop before his appointment. It took two busses. The house was, as they were called in this universe, a ‘craftsman’, typical for this Seattle. It set into a hillside in a neighborhood that didn’t exist in his universe. There, it was some government buildings, although he wasn’t sure which.

It was light blue, with darker blue trim and a shiny, red door. The deep porch was held up by square pillars, and a wind chime of cut metal butterflies rang like a bell in the breeze. The curtains were pretty diaphanous, and Blankenship could see right into the sitting room, a sofa, throw pillows, the exposed beams framing the bookshelf.