Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

THE STORY

They're futurists in love. They don't believe in romantic happy endings.

Farfalla Corrado is a globetrotting Italian witch, trained in Brazilian voodoo. Farfalla can tell real fortunes, see real ghosts and speak real curses. Farfalla doesn't just know the future – she can feel in in the dark, twisted depths of her heart.

Gavin Tremaine is a high-tech Seattle venture capitalist. He can forecast the future, spot its trends, and invest in its business models. Gavin has a big future ahead of him – unfortunately, Gavin knows what that big future holds for the little people.

When their worlds collide, history itself begins to crumble. They already know how this love story is bound to end – and it's not what the other expects.

BRUCE STERLING

Bruce Sterling lives in Austin, Turin and also Belgrade. He is married to the Serbian feminist and novelist Jasmina Tesanovic.

He is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.

His nonfiction works include The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier; Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years; and Shaping Things.

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LOVE IS STRANGE

Bruce Sterling

Chapter One: The Haunted Hotel

Gavin rubbed the glare from his jet-lagged eyes and stared into the Mediterranean. “Capri is Paradise.”

His sister wiped at her runny mascara. “I guess Capri’s okay. I’ve seen better.”

“Check out the giant rocks in the breakers down there.”

The cliff top loomed over a peacock-blue ocean. The little Capri park exploded in a flower-basket of scarlet, violet and orange. Eliza was dressed all in black-long black sleeves, long black skirt, black eyeliner, black lipstick, black combat boots.

Eliza plucked her black iPhone from her black laced bodice and tapped at her screen. “Those are the Faraglione Rocks.”

“Wikipedia,” Gavin nodded. “Wikipedia on wireless broadband. Wow, what a handy service that is.”

“I keep telling you that iPhones rule! You gotta get an iPhone right away, Gav! They get new apps all the time!”

Gavin smiled and shook his head. He used a solid, dependable Blackberry. Besides, he worried about Steve Jobs. The Apple honcho seemed frail to him, ghostly. ‘Reality distortion field.’ How long could that last? Nobody could distort reality. The very idea was so weird.

Eliza squinted at her screen from under her droopy black hatbrim. “A Roman Emperor built this garden. This place we’re standing in. The Emperor Augustus Caesar. Two thousand years ago.”

“Yeah, Italy is all about wizards and emperors,” nodded Gavin. He stretched his arms out and basked in the dazzling sunshine.

Gavin did a lot of business in Italy — Milan and Ivrea, mostly — but with his little sister at his side, the charm of Italy touched his soul. The past and future wheeled around them, clean, winged and airy, like two island seagulls.

Or, maybe that swooning sensation was jet lag. The past and future, spinning around in his head.

A chattering crowd of tourists trampled the Capri garden. They rambled in clusters, past the marble fountains and the rust-specked iron benches. Sweaty, sunburned foreigners, in baggy shorts and flowered shirts.

The foreign tourists were the livestock of Capri. Like sacred cattle, they roamed wherever they pleased. Some took a stony walkway that zigzagged down to the sea, like the tortured path of a video game. Others vanished uphill, into long green ridges clustered with chalk-white vacation villas.

Down in that foamy, sparkling surf, the Faraglione Rocks beckoned to Gavin. Towering giants of stone-unearthly, primeval, majestic. Like stone ghosts of a past life, or stony promises of a future life. A promised future life that was haunted by a ghostly past life... anyway, a life that was
different
.

“I wonder,” said Gavin, “how many people, for how many centuries, have looked at those rocks. There must have been millions, even billions, just looking.”

“Whatever. Google gets a billion looks every day.” Eliza tucked her iPhone away. “Gav, watch me now. I’m gonna stare at your giant rocks like nobody else ever has!”

Eliza lifted her sharp chin, took a deep breath and pulled her narrow shoulders back. Eliza had the serious, bone-deep glumness that only seventeen-year-old girls could achieve.

Then, Eliza glared at the ancient rocks with a burning glower of teenage fury. As if she could crack those ancient stone towers with the mystical force of her will.

Gavin watched his little sister in bemusement. Why did Eliza always do things like that? What was she trying to prove? That witchy, sullen, Goth Chick thing.… such a very old look for such a young girl.

Why did she have such a weird look in her eyes?
Somebody
deserved to look that strange. But never a modern Gothic girl.… An
ancient
Gothic girl!

A Gothic princess in the garden of a Roman Emperor!

Gavin smiled. He reveled in this insight. Gavin was a techno-futurist. He worked on budgets, statistics, hunches, buzz and VC forecasts. Sometimes, though, an idea just struck him out of nowhere, a burst of intuition. This was one of those moments. It was perfect.

Once, yes, there had been a Gothic girl standing here. Really, truly. Standing, just like them, here, in this very garden. A living human being from the distant past. Gavin could practically smell the reek of pagan patchouli. A Gothic barbarian princess, glaring at those big Roman rocks. As if she could destroy them, just by resenting them.

This Gothic princess of Capri longed to topple the Emperor’s rocks. Because of what they meant. Because of who she was.

A sea breeze whistled up the cliff side and lifted Eliza’s coal-black hair. Suddenly, she looked up at him and smiled.

For once, the beauty of the world had made her happy. Gavin recognized the importance of what was happening. He could feel a change, a transition, but also the sense of something returning. The past as a future that has already happened.

What a pretty smile Eliza had, as pretty as any Capri garden. Up to this moment in her life, Eliza had been... Well, she had just been his little sister, a slouching, petulant, Goth kid. But they were far away from Seattle now, far away from their parents, far away from all the aching pressures of business, the family, the fear...

Eliza was happier already. Something joyful had awoken inside her, now that she was free. A more genuine Elizabeth Tremaine was coming out of her shell.

Eliza suddenly looked so grown-up to him. Maybe this was the last time Eliza would be his kid sister. Still his sister, no longer a kid.

Gavin placed both his hands on the cold iron railing of the overlook. “Eliza, I want to tell you something,” he said. “When I was seventeen — as you are now — I made some big decisions about my life.”

Eliza turned her head toward him. “You found out that you were an accountant?”

“Well, yeah, I am an accountant. But no, that’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”

“I don’t want a business career,” sniffed Eliza. “You know what I want? What I really, truly want from my life? Because I already know.”

“I’m eager to hear this,” Gavin told her.

She looked him in the eyes. “You’re not teasing me?”

“I would never tease you, Elizabeth. I want you to tell me. I study futurism, and I think that I can help.”

“Well, in the future, I want to be a princess.”

His little sister wanted to be a princess. What a fairy-tale notion. A six-year-old would laugh at a fantasy like that.

“I see,” he said.

“No, you don’t see! I
need
to be a princess! That’s the only thing that will
help!
I have to be like
royalty!
That’s the important part! When I make the scene, everybody has to stop and stare. They all just
look at me
! Just because, wow, it’s
me
: Elizabeth Aimee Tremaine! Or whatever cool name I have, in the future: Madonna, Shakira. One of those one-name names that only stars can have.” Eliza’s shoulders suddenly slumped. “Every dorky chick in this world is named ‘Elizabeth’.”

“So, uh, you want to be an entertainer? That’s a pretty tough life.”

“No, more like Paris. I mean, Paris Hilton. Paris is famous and powerful, and she gets all kinds of international respect. She’s a girl from a rich L.A. family, but in Seattle we do real work.”

“Look, Paris Hilton is in movies. Paris had her own TV series. Paris cut a record.” Gavin had closely studied the career of Paris Hilton. Because Paris Hilton was trendy. Trends were always important to futurists. “I don’t think that you want to get famous the way that Paris Hilton got famous.”

Eliza opened her furry black satchel. She pulled out a portable CD player. “Gav, look here. Once, I loved this machine. Because it plays all my CDs. But nobody buys music in the stores any more! Even
I
don’t pay for music, and I’m
rich!
I’m carrying a zombie in my purse!”

“Well, yes, that platform is obsolete now, but a new business model will arise for music.”

“No it won’t! That’s a lie! Nobody will ever pay! The music business is the walking dead! Don’t lie to me.” Eliza stuffed her doomed device back in her furry purse.

Gavin rubbed his chin. “Your Digital Native generation really has some issues.”

“The music business is dead! And someone has to raise the dead!
Me!
Why
not
me? Who else, if not me? Elizabeth Aimee Tremaine, the bride of the music vampire! I would do that, I love music! I’d do anything for music. Without music I’m not even alive.”

Gavin nodded, rocking from heel to toe in his Timberland brogues. “Okay. Sure. I get it.”

Gavin felt pleased to see his sister taking such an interest in technology issues. He’d been afraid that his geeky lectures on those subjects had flown right over her head. Dedicated platforms, Mp3 files, copyright, intellectual property, piracy, bandwidth, it could get a little tedious. But, Eliza understood those things. Just, in her own way.

Eliza pulled at her wind-tangled hair, which was blonde at the roots but dyed the lifeless color of coal dust. “When our music scene dies in Seattle,” she told him, “our town will become a dead city. Everything will be quiet and evil and covered with thorns.”

“Aw, come on, that’ll never happen to Seattle. We’re an inventive, creative city. We love the arts!”

“Well, I love music with all my heart, and I have to watch music walk around dead every day. In the shadows!”

Gavin didn’t know how to respond this lament. He was certain that he should say something. Something upbeat and reassuring, older-brother style. Something that was good, wise and cheerful, that would make everything better for Eliza.

Here was his sister, finally spitting up the source of her misery. Confiding in him, and trusting him. He should do something. Yet, he couldn’t console her. He had nothing to tell her. He lacked a prepared position statement.

“Back home,” Eliza grumbled, knotting her brows, “we have that huge skyscraper tomb thing, that’s like that stupid Rock and Roll Museum that Paul Allen built. But there’s nothing in there now but some science fiction weirdness. That sucks!”

Gavin cleared his throat. “Well, the music industry does have potential revenue models. Subscriptions, touring, merchandise sales...”

“Gavin, every idiot keeps saying that. Are you stupid? That’s not reality! That is a fantasy! When the money walks away, money never comes back! Not by itself! And when all the money’s gone, there’s nothing left but zombies. Zombies and vampires! It’s the truth! It’s so obvious.”

Gavin was completely thrown. He’d been doing pretty well with Eliza on this trip, but now the gears froze solid in his head.