Deep magic second coll.., p.50
Deep Magic - Second Collection, page 50
part #2 of Deep Magic Collection Series
“When I die,” the man from the sea said, breaking Eshi’s morose introspection, “you must give me to the sea. The gods of my people demand their gifts, and do not like to have them taken away. You would not want their eyes on you, my friend.”
“You have time yet,” said Eshi. “Let’s talk of better things.”
And they did, until the sun burned away the night and the man from the sea fell asleep on cool morning sand.
He did not wake for three days.
Sweat trickled down his bloodless cheeks, passing eyes that were suddenly, violently open.
“Friend,” the man from the sea cried. “Friend!”
Eshi, who had not left his side for fear that sleep would fade into death, took his hand. At that touch the man from the sea gave one final, rattling breath. A deep sigh like the recess of a wave, and life followed in the undertow.
They left his body in the shallows at low tide.
6. Stormdancer
The coming of Orra’s zephyr made real every creeping worry that had hung over Eshi’s thoughts of her. It hovered there above her shoulder, while the shallows swallowed her ankles, and took the form of a whirling cyclone. Eshi’s heart fell at the sight of it, for he had never seen its like before. The other adults on the beach, between their congratulations for the other children in the shallows, cast sympathetic eyes Orra’s way, punctuated by quick and accusatory glances at Eshi.
Orra’s parents quieted her away, guiding her by the hand while she craned her neck to watch the dance of her zephyr with wondrous eyes. Soon Eshi stood alone on the beach, the tide lapping at his toes. The waves rolled in sluggish curls, as though a weight held down their heads and tightened their barrels. Eshi wanted to talk with the man from the sea. Rabba had died not long after and left Eshi without council.
What was to be done about Orra?
The girl was not his daughter, as Kana had grown fond of saying, and Eshi had suffered enough. In a long life of curiosity he had never solved the puzzle of his own zephyr. Why think he could puzzle out the girl’s?
Dark clouds prodded Eshi away from the beach. He lay awake, listening to Kana breathing beside him, remembering the rattle in the lungs of the man from the sea during those final days. Swollen pain filled his knees and knuckles, worsened by the coming storm. His hair was rough and brittle to touch, his beard thick and full. Would he die, never knowing his zephyr? Would Orra?
Lightning stabbed through the dark gap of the smoke vent. Thunder battered at the door. And then again, battering at the door, but following no lightning.
“Eshi!” Orra stood in the rain, her tunic soaked and clinging. Lightning flashed and reflected in her eyes; thunder rolled to the beat of her breathing. She danced for him, following the mad spin of her zephyr. She danced as he had told her to, when she was only five years old. When her arms arched and her shoulders opened, the wind spiraled through the rain. When her feet pounded the earth, the clouds churned above. When she snapped her fingers, lightning flared.
He ran out to her, laughing and dancing despite his swollen knees and thinning hair. They huddled together after, shivering beside the fire. Kana—roused from sleep and frowning—clicked her tongue at their foolishness. They only giggled and laughed and shared a glance. Eshi thought his heart would burst, but he worried not a whit for death.
* * *
Orra Stormdancer was no Seawind’s Whip. Her talent lacked the finesse to drive wind behind a sail, but at her gesture typhoons broke long before they reached the bay, at the pounding of her feet the rains came to sate dry ground, and at the snap of her fingers lightning released itself far out to sea where there was no danger of their sparking a fire.
When the red ships came from the open waters of the far eastern sea, Orra Stormdancer became a legend in the archipelago. She stood on the peak of Eastwind Island and threw her arms wide, and furious gusts spilled from the upper air, catching the strange, ridged sails of the invaders and driving them away.
Pilgrims came from Coralrock and ever farther west to crowd the beach and watch her summer dances. Always a place was reserved for Eshi—who she called teacher—and his pride in her swelled every time she danced.
He was old now. There was no argument to be made. Kana’s sagging body and her hair like dry reeds were constant reminders. He could not throw or run or swim as once he had. Since Rabba’s death he had assumed the role of storyteller but thought himself a poor replacement. Nevertheless, the children loved him, and parents enjoyed their time alone while he kept their children captive. When he was not entertaining the island’s young, he sat on the shore, where once he had talked with the man from the sea and watched the gulls wheel and the waves curl and the Deep Divers leap into the bay.
ABOUT JEREMY A. TEGROTENHUIS
Jeremy A. TeGrotenhuis is a writer from Eastern Washington state, where he grew up playing make-believe in the same desert that houses the most polluted nuclear waste site in America. He won first place in Writers of the Future for 1st Quarter 2017, and has a B.A. in History and Philosophy from Whitworth University, where he is currently pursuing a Masters in Teaching. His fiction has previously appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine and in the anthology Pirates & Ghosts from Flame Tree Publishing.
Website: jeremyteg.wordpress.com
Facebook: facebook.com/jeremyteg
Twitter: @jeremyteg
THE PAWNSHOP OF INTANGIBLE THINGS
By Margery Bayne | 1,500 Words
YOU DON’T FIND the door until you stop looking for it. You paced the block three times, crumpling the address-bearing napkin tighter in your fist with each passing. The unusually patient, midday barstool companion must have gotten the numbers mixed up. That, or this was a goose chase of a joke.
Then you see it, about ten steps away, right off the sidewalk. The address numbers are painted in gold on the top of the door; under it is “Luck’s Pawn” in freehand. The whole thing is sun bleached. It should have jumped out immediately against the modern, corporate background of the rest of the street.
There are no windows, so you knock two knuckles against the wood. No response. No business hours are posted. You try the doorknob with the fading boldness of drink that led you all the way here. The door is unlocked.
Inside is a long, narrow room, with glaring fluorescent lights and a motley-colored carpet that might have been ripped right out of your dentist’s waiting room.
What’s most unusual are the jars lining three walls on floor-to-ceiling shelving. Mason, canning, Kilner, squat vials with stoppers, and even a few recorked wine bottles sticking up above the rest.
You lean in to inspect, but don’t step any closer. The overwhelming urge not to touch or get too close is more than from a you-break-it-you-buy-it fear. You see regardless. Inside each jar is a coil of paper.
“Can I help you?” says an interrupting voice. You jolt in a full-bodied shock of surprise.
Behind a jewelry counter at the very far end of the room stands a woman who you cannot say for sure was there upon your entrance.
You clear your throat, but your voice still comes out higher than you want. “I heard you pay for ideas ...?”
Out loud, no longer so dizzy with drink and desperation after bemoaning heartbreak at the bar for the fourth time this week, it sounds like someone has pulled a real good one over on you.
The woman scoffs. “That is such a simplification.” She rounds the counter and leans against the edge. “What I do is deal in intangibles.”
A dozen questions immediately pop into your skull, but you don’t raise a single one, not even a succinct “What?” The woman, however, must read it from your expression.
“Hopes, dreams, ambitions, inspirations, emotions,” she says, rolling a wrist in the air. Your eyes follow her wine-colored fingernails. After you leave, it will be the one finite thing about her appearance you’ll be sure of. “The stronger the better. Love, hate, passion, conviction, and yes ... ideas.”
She walks to where the shelves meet in the left corner. “This is my collection of unwritten novels,” she says. “I call it the slush pile ... publishing joke.” She points to a blue glass vial and says in a stage whisper, “I think this one would’ve been great.”
A book idea is what your bar companion said he had sold. “Just an idea taking up space in my head. Always thought I should write it, but never knew how.” He got five hundred bucks. It seemed too good to be true but a valid-enough exchange. Nothing as bizarre as this jar-filled room.
The woman shuffles to the right and touches the shelf above her head. “Religious doubts ... faith, though, is hard to come by. Most people willing to sell it have already lost it.”
She gives a tour of the room, labeling all her oddities. “Reoccurring dreams—a lot of tidal waves” and “Ah—the memories. Memories are tricky ones. Have to be plucked like a daisy from a field. But they’re the most ... distinct.”
Once she’s completed her tour and returned behind the counter, you say, “I don’t get it.”
She sighs in overdramatic fashion. “It’s simple. You sign over ownership of whatever intangible you’re pawning or selling in exchange for cash.”
You blink. “I sign a piece of paper, and you give me money.”
“You sign away your intangible, and I give you money.”
You say, “I need ...” Luckily math is your strong suit, even though it only led to the boring career of accountant: spreadsheets, computer screens, and calculations. You had one brilliant-colored crash of wonder in your monotony. A year, a lucky year and—
Emotion balls up tight at the back of your throat. You swallow against it. You need a security deposit and first month’s rent for a new place. Can’t crash at your sister’s forever. Add in some extra for a few more days of wallowing.
You throw out a number.
The woman drums her fingers on the countertop. “That would take ...” Pat, pat, pat, pat. “Memory of your first kiss?” (A peck in fourth grade behind the jungle gym at recess, and the least complicated romance of your lifetime.) “Or ... are you an artist of some sort?” (You’re a numbers person, but she paint-stained enough of your shirts.) “I’d love a chunk of talent.” (You built a career on the only talent you had.)
“No?” she asks after you shrug your way through her suggestions. “Hmm.” Pat, pat, pat, pat.
You swallow again, mouth sticky from dehydration. As this woman tries to prod something valuable from your inner life, your neurons can do nothing but snap back to another woman, as hard as you try to rip your mind and heart and all from her. That’s what the excessive drinking has been about, after all.
This past week, after that final fight, you’ve tried to identify where the first of the cascading cracks started, but all you can land on is the last one. Screaming at each other from across the gulf of a room. You, throwing your hands up in the ultimate denial of it all, stating, “I’m leaving.” She, voice trembling but eyes fired with daring, saying back, “If you walk out that door, don’t expect to walk back through.” You slammed it on your way out.
That was the first night you slept off a bender at your sister’s place. You called out sick from work and went back to the apartment when you knew your girlfriend would be gone. She’d already changed the locks.
“What about regret?” you say. “Do you take regret?”
The woman stops drumming her fingers, eyes alight. “You’re offering an entire emotion?” she says. “I’d pay double for that.”
You nod.
“All right,” she says, flicking out a sheet of paper. “If you’re sure, then.”
The eccentricity of the shop dissipates when you look over the contract. Amateur legalese in Times New Roman, with spaces left for names, dates, and “intangibles.” You fill it out, feeling like you’re the con artist. The woman counts out hundred-dollar bills onto the counter, which you now see is stocked with a supply of empty jars.
You check one bill against the light.
“It’s real,” the woman says, then jerks back the contract when you’re poised to sign it.
“It’s all real,” she says, catching your eye, not blinking. “No refunds. Though”—she glances at the paper—“I doubt you’ll come looking for one, considering.”
She slides the contract back within your reach. You sign.
Nothing happens. No piece of your soul wisps out of your mouth like frosty breath. No electric shock tremors through your body. You feel the same, maybe lighter. Richer, at least.
The woman rolls up the paper with quick fingers. She slips the scroll into a mason jar. After twisting tight the lid, she lifts it eye level for observation and ignores you completely.
You slip the wad of cash into your pocket and start toward the door.
“Right here,” you overhear her say, and glance to see her nudge two canning jars apart to fit in yours. “Right between resentment and pining.” She steps back. “Perfect.”
Your hand is on the doorknob, but the curiosity bubbles over now that it’s all over. Any anxiety you had before signing, of scamming some crazy lady out of money, is gone.
“Why do you ... deal in intangibles, anyway?”
“Are you kidding?” she says, as if you’re the insane one. She spreads her arms wide. “Who needs gold or antiques? In this room, I’ve got all human experience.”
As you step out onto the street, you slip your fingers into your pocket to fan the edges of the bills. Your knuckles bump against your phone, long set on silent so you could pretend to ignore it instead of it ignoring you.
You check the screen for the time, or so is the mental leap of logic. Instead, you see the lifeline you had been tossing and turning in hope for. Four missed calls and a text: Can we talk?
But groping for a way back was yesterday, last night, two hours ago, and this is now. Now, you delete her texts, her contact info, her photos.
You walk to the nearest subway station, eyes set forward, leaving everything behind you’ll never grow to miss.
ABOUT MARGERY BAYNE
Margery Bayne is a writer of the speculative and the literary, a published short story author, and an aspiring novelist. She is a native of Maryland, a graduate of Susquehanna University’s Writers Institute, and works every day surrounded by books in the public library.
Website: www.margerybayne.com
Facebook: facebook.com/writermargerybayne
THE FRONTIER
By Kyle Malone | 17,000 Words
I. Return
THE NIGHT WINDS tore across the empty plains, hunting. They came from far out in the desert, growing bolder as they reached the Frontier. Their blowing sound was a kind of music.
Neladi lay awake and listened to the song, its chorus rising against the walls of the house, each note straining the sand-weary timber. Where the winds found a gap, they pressed tight, forcing themselves inside. That was when the noise changed to a lullaby, or a hum, as if the winds were worshipping the bare room while they crossed it. In truth, it was Neladi who was busy with prayer. So busy that it took her some time to realise the knocking sound wasn’t the protests of her house, but the gate outside in the yard.
The gate that led from the desert.
Perhaps it’s just the voice of the storm, she thought, but she slipped out of bed all the same. She eased into a nightgown and padded to the door.
The hall beyond was quiet, doused in cool blue shadows. The air was slightly warmer there, as if somebody had breathed it a moment before. Neladi found the banister and guided herself to the stairs.
As she began to descend, something gurgled behind her. Neladi froze, heard only the step groaning beneath her weight. The house fell into a different sort of silence.
Even in the darkness, she felt the gaze of the three ghosts against her skin. They followed her, watched each move from the far-off reaches of the gloom. She’d never seen them, but she knew the bubbling noise wasn’t them. The ghosts of her house never made any sound. When Neladi turned, she found a half-pale face staring back at her.
“Why are you awake, Mama?” the little girl said. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
Neladi sighed. “Emmi, what have I told you about questions?”
Her daughter made a slow circle on the floor with her foot. “What you ask of others you should ask first of yourself,” she mumbled.
Neladi folded her arms and waited.
“I thought I heard a noise,” Emmi said. Her eyes drifted to the floor. “I thought maybe ...”
Neladi shook her head. “It was the wind, my sweet. Nobody spoke but the wind. Now go, get some rest.”
Emmi mouthed a goodnight, and Neladi watched her pale face disappear behind the bedroom door.
At the end of the stairs, Neladi found the altar. It was a small thing, nothing more than a candle and a hooded cover. In some houses, it could have even been mistaken for cheap decoration. But this wasn’t another knickknack or piece of furniture. This was the Heart of the Wind, a place where her people worshipped God. She removed the dark shroud with care and dropped to her knees.
“We all return to ash, ash returns to wind ...” she whispered, bowing her head in prayer.
The words belonged to her father, and to his father before him. A priest had once told her if they traced the mantra back far enough, they’d find the voice of the wind itself. He had preached the same message all over town. In time, it even crossed the Frontier. In fact, he had talked about it so much, that the words were still on his lips when the red-robed Aelia priests escorted him away. A year later, Neladi had helped to build the man’s funeral pyre. She’d heard few sermons since.
