Copyright Š 2020 Hybrid Fiction. All material appearing in Hybrid Fiction is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part is not permitted without permission in writing from the editor. All characters and events are fictitious. The publisher bears no responsibility and accepts no liability for the work herein.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Table of Contents Cover: Descent by Graham Kennedy “Ampu-Chic” by Michelle F. Goddard ................................................................................................................. 3 When Ronnie, an injured up-and-coming sculptor finds herself at the mercy of a skewed medical system, a fortuitous intervention reveals a more sinister agenda. Project Auroral: Finale drawn by Marc Rene and written by Ben Pyle ............................................................. 12 The saga of superheroine Aryn comes to a thrilling close!* When Gods Sleep: Part I by Marco Cultrera ....................................................................................................... 18 The God-King, a brutal dictator has emerged and is waging a war of conquest without any regard for his subjects or life itself. It's up to Merad, last descendant of a long line of abused women, to stop him. “Heroes Never Die” by Rickey Rivers, Jr. .......................................................................................................... 31 A superhero origin story with a supernatural twist. “Machines in Motion” by Benjamin C. Kinney ..................................................................................................34 The discovery of new technologies has extended the Napoleonic Wars for forty years. In the war’s endless need for personnel, a Jewish refugee has a chance to become a military engineer, despite the restrictions against her religion and gender. To win her place among the engineers, she’ll need to outmaneuver all the officers and mentors who want to keep her under their control. “Skin Deep” by Jasmine Arch ............................................................................................................................ 42 When Miach, a young selkie, wakes up sick in a strange cabin and without pelt, it's easy to draw conclusions about Hagan, the cabin's owner. But Hagan's kindness and unassuming manner succeed in winning Miach's trust. “Law of Conservation of Baseball” by Stephen Case ...................................................................................... 51 Hunter handles her first love—and heartbreak—with a twist of magic and physics. “Bodark” by Ryan Norman ................................................................................................................................62 A young man in a futuristic, medieval American South races to rescue his lover from a forced marriage to a gentryman. His success will depend on his ability to understand the messages of trees, a friendship with forest daemons, and whether he has the determination to pursue love without knowing whether it will be reciprocated. About the authors and artists............................................................................................................................ 75
*
See Hybrid Fiction, Issues 2 through 4 for the rest of Aryn’s adventures. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
AMPU-CHIC By Michelle F. Goddard
There is a line. Not perhaps written on the floor plans but just as indelible. I sit on that line in the one stray chair, orphan now to both sides. I’ve been here at the clinic for over two hours, riding the line, like I do with everything, walking that narrow path and thinking that will keep me safe. One foot rests on blue and white check linoleum that exudes a strong ammonia smell. This waiting area is designated for the ‘economically aided types.’ The EATs sit in their metal-framed navy upholstered chairs, reading out-of-date magazines, wiping their sniffling noses, and nursing the occasional cast worn by shabbily dressed children next to pinched-faced mothers. Seniors linger with the patience of those resigned to have no choice but to wait, idly knitting or staring off into space, while they stifle coughs into worn handkerchiefs. I cradle my poorly bandaged wrist as it throbs, but I’m not one of them. My other foot rests on an exotic wood floor, the one wholly natural thing in the area. It’s buffed to a shine that almost reflects my pain etched face back at me. This lounge is more café than clinic. Clients, not patients, sit in plush armchairs perusing e-magazines and books, or gather to gossip or check out the latest digital feed. A computer terminal displaying a very upscale homepage and an electronic bulletin board flashes with advertisements about new style yoga and recipes for ‘The Enhanced.’ One woman taps with a cyber-digit that sprouts from her nail and extends to a stylus point, downloading class times into her calendar. Unlike me, I don’t think any of them are desperate to see a doctor. They seem pleased enough to chat with the cheerful brunette nurse as the red-headed one collates client data directly through her e-junkt, an implant alteration that links directly to the data stream. I had noticed the minute hole, a dark glittering spot positioned discreetly below her left ear, when I first arrived. Now, a spider-silk wire connects her to her workstation. A girl with a pierced nose leans against one of the nearby terminal kiosks, chin in one hand as the other guides a mouse. The girl stands with her hip cocked so hard it looks like it doesn’t belong to her, like it’s already Enhanced. Probably mimicking the latest model pose from an advert. On the screen, a model struts with a herky-jerky motion up a catwalk and then poses in a stance impossible for only the most devout masochistic yogi. The audience rises to their feet applauding as she Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
4
Clydesdale-clomps off the stage. The girl’s gaze slides away from the screen toward me. I don’t look away fast enough. Shit. She nods her chin in the general direction of my arm. “In here for a tweak?” “Just a sprain” I say. I give her my best dismissive half-smile, hoping she gets the hint. “Sprain?” the girl asks. She stares at me, delight and horror flicker like a strobe across her face. Is she tasting the macabre, swishing it around in her mouth and deciding whether or not to swallow? My gaze flits over the girl, taking in every detail. Early teens. Even the black clothes with their preworn and pre-ripped stamp of street-legit history, dark lips and night-clubbing raccoon eye makeup, isn’t enough to hide that. And by the sound of that slight lisp, she has a new tongue piercing. I listen and catch the tell-tale clickity-click the newly adorned always make when playing with the stud. “So, it’s not Enhanced?” I pretend not to hear as I stare down at my arm. My fingers delicately explore the muscles and tendons hidden beneath my desperate one-handed bandaging. Certainly a break would be more painful but what if it’s a fracture? Days of healing, hours of work delayed; the calculations run through my brain. A sprain. Please let it be just a sprain. “What were you doing when you hurt it?” the girl asks loud enough that I would have to be deaf and sitting in another district not to hear. “Working.” I adjust my posture to give my left butt cheek a chance to get the feeling back into it. Tucking my arm tight against my chest, I re-cross my legs, completely turning my body away from the girl in my ‘do not disturb’ posture. “Working how,” the girl says. Again she uses that impossible-to-feign-deafness volume. My vibrating cell rescues me. I retrieve it from my jacket pocket and read the text. It is terse and terminal. Deadline can’t be moved. Please confirm installation is on track. I can barely hold my phone and I’m supposed to finish the sculpture? My fingers freeze, suspended over the keypad. I put it away without answering. I can’t give them any answer. I can’t know for sure. Not until I see a doctor. “What kind of job uses no Enhancements,” the girl says. An older nurse passes me, the gentle hiss of her hydraulics accompanying her gait. “That’s enough questions from you,” she says. The girl makes a face but then continues to scroll down the page, watching it through half-lidded eyes that seem to drift as if pulled by a magnet in my direction. “Excuse me?” I say, waving at the nurse. “Hello?” Her name tag says Sinclair RN. Sinclair has been back and forth all morning seeing to the EATs, escorting them into examination rooms and in some cases, wheeling them through the large double doors that lead out into the hall and to the elevators for lab work. She has been diligent and efficient, and I hate to bother her, but I do. “Nurse Sinclair? I’ve been waiting quite a while. I was wondering—” “We’ll be right with you,” Nurse Sinclair says not breaking stride. It is not the first time I’ve heard this. The two younger nurses at reception have both uttered the same. Sinclair stops in front of a heavy-set senior. After a few words, she gingerly helps him to his feet. Her Enhanced legs hold most of his weight as she guides him across the linoleum. “Janelle,” Sinclair says, summoning the brunette with a wave. Janelle pushes a wheelchair to her, wrinkling her nose as the elderly man is lowered into the chair. She wheels him away down the hall as if he’s on fire.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
5
Sinclair slips behind the desk and calls up something on the terminal. With a nod in my direction, she walks across the wood floor, her thick soled nurse’s shoes making no sound at all. “Ms. Taylor?” “Yes,” I say jerking to my feet. I jostle my wrist in my eagerness, unable to quell the wince and hiss of pain. Sinclair takes my wrist in a firm grip. Her ministrations send me jerking out of her grasp. “That hurts?” the nurse asks. I nod my head, pain robbing me of speech. The throbbing in my wrist sends tendrils of fire up my arm and into a spot deep in my shoulder. Not for the first time this long morning I think, I should have let that sculpture fall. “No wonder you’re not in the system. I assumed when you walked in that you were Enhanced.” She releases my wrist and folds her arms over her stomach as she squares her shoulders and pulls herself up tall. “But painful as this is, it is also a wonderful opportunity. I’m sure you’re considering Enhancements.” “It’s just a sprain.” “I know the accepted belief is that a break is best for the alteration. The shock helps the ‘Enhancement’ to take. But really a sprain like this would do just fine. After all, ‘Enhancements; The Last Pain You’ll Ever Feel’.” “No. I mean it’s just a sprain.” I ease my arm forward, revealing more of my poorly wrapped bandage around my wrist. “I just need a doctor to have a look. Maybe put my wrist in a temporary cast, perhaps a prescription for pain-killers...” Sinclair stares, shock and disbelief flashing on her face before her considerable discipline schools it back into its usual blank pleasantness. “You are not registered as an EAT.” I shake my head. Sinclair glances back toward the main desk. She takes my wrist and more gently this time examines it. “Yes, this is just a sprain. A bad sprain,” she says as I moan. “Nothing broken. That’s some good news.” “I’ve been waiting a long time and I really have to get back to work.” Sinclair sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, but you will have to be patient.” Sinclair shakes her head. “You know it’s a shame. A minor cybernetic alteration with a minute introduction of nano-bots would have already fixed this right up for you. It really is the way of the future. I couldn’t do my job without it.” And I can’t do my job with it. But I say nothing. I’ve had this argument before, and pain and desperation won’t make my debating skills any better. The girl sneers at my bandaged wrist. “What. Can’t afford it?” “Enough of that, young lady,” Sinclair says to the girl. “If you can’t be civil, you can’t be here.” She rests her hand on the girl’s back and guides her away from me and toward the main doors. The girl slouches out of the clinic, shoulders hunched, boot heels slapping against the floor. Most of the people have come and gone. Even the EATs were rushed through as if poverty is contagious and the staff has to minimize exposure. The only exception other than me is an elderly East Indian woman. She sits across from me, on the same invisible line separating the waiting rooms. She has been there since I arrived, walking around the room, checking out billboards and the computer, sitting amicably, watching people coming and going with a simple placid smile on her face, her wrinkles making her eyes into bright emeralds that glitter within the coppery tissue-paper folds of her face. She’s dressed in a simple yet elegant Selwar Kameez. The soft, blue silk tunic and pants are plain,
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
6
but she has a tasteful and intricately embroidered scarf in the same blue silk, thrown back across her neck. Her grey hair has a few black strands and is swept back into a long braid that shows elegant jewelry dangling from her ears. She does not appear to be in pain, but if she were here for a checkup, surely she would have been seen to by now. So, what is she doing here? I abandon the pale distraction of my curiosity. I cross my legs, rest my forearm gently on my raised knee and examine my wrist. I carefully open and close my fingers, but even that little feat sends another wave of bright pain radiating up my arm, making me hiss and grimace. My uninjured hand closes in a fist that is sure to leave little half moon indentations in my palm. The red-headed nurse looks over at me with one of those smiles that isn’t really a smile. She tilts her head in a practiced sympathetic manner. “Thank you so much for your patience.” I nod with a stiff smile to hide my surprise. What. Are they telepathic? Does she have some sort of antennae linked into the e-junkt at the base of her neck that gauges the patience of their patients? Increase in heartbeat, perspiration, something that tracks your eye movements? Rates of eye-rolls per second? I’m trying to keep my sense of humor, but the thought sort of creeps me out. I flinch at a shadow and the feeling of someone too close. I look up to see the wrinkled, smiling face of the old Indian woman. She is standing right beside me. “May I?” she asks. I barely acknowledge her before she sits down, but I force myself not to show the irritation I’m feeling. It’s not her fault I’m in pain and miserable and freaking out a little bit. The smell is getting to me. I have run out of sitting positions for my poor numb behind and pacing isn’t any more comfortable, especially because I have to keep my wrist immobile. “My name is Dharma,” the old woman says. “You’re Veronica Taylor, aren’t you? The artist?” I jerk back, surprised that this woman would know who I am or care. A buzz of conversation blooms in the area around the desk, behind raised hands and into eager ears. The brunette nudges the redhead as she stares at me. “I told you so, Monique. That sculpture in the midtown mall. The big one. Right at the entrance. That’s yours,” she says. “Well not anymore, of course,” I say trying to interject a little levity as those in the clinic turn and stare at me. Sinclair joins them at the desk, her blank gaze flitting between us. “People pay a lot of money to buy her work,” Janelle says to the nurses. She turns to me. “And is it true you do everything by hand. Real hands?” I rise from my chair and approach the desk, preferring more discretion. I can feel the eyes of everyone near the desk on me watching me like I’m a dangerous animal. A fully natural animal. I could be capable of anything. I was tempted to growl just to see what would happen. Someone might actually scream. Instead, I stay civil. “Well, yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s what they’re buying.” Janelle leans across the desk. “There’s some controversy about that isn’t there? The whole organic versus cybernetic. Where does the art lie? That whole debate.” “I just make sculptures. I leave politics to other people.” “But can anyone really do that?” Janelle asks. Sinclair smiles a tight line of skepticism under narrowed eyes. I doubt she’ll ever check the inscription on the mid-town mall scultpure. Even if she did, she probably wouldn’t believe that I’m
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
7
the sculptor. It would be hard to envision this unassuming woman the soul behind that monstrosity. It’s even harder to believe that anyone would choose not to be ‘Enhanced.’ “You really should have told us who you were when you first came in,” Monique says. “We might have been able to do something about the queue. But as it is, our hands are tied.” She glances down at my wrist and makes a face. “Sorry.” Monique shrugs, a soft movement of her shoulders used to smooth over difficult matters. Me, being the difficult matter. “Thought it was first come, first serve for walk-ins. I mean it’s not like I staggered in here having a heart attack.” “Heart attack. Oh you’re funny too,” Monique says with the appropriate giggle, socially defined by pitch and duration. “Would you like a coffee?” “I would really like to see the doctor so that I can get back to work.” “Of course, of course,” Monique says. “While we’re waiting, we can fill out some forms—” “I’ve already done that—” “Then you can give us your credit card, and we’ll calculate your installments.” Monique sits at her computer and readies her fingers over the keyboard. “I’ll be paying in a cash-transfer,” I say. Monique cocks her head to one side. “Perhaps you should check our rates, before you…” She leaves the implication dangling, her eyes subtly measuring me up against what must be the exorbitant sum on the screen in front of her. “I’ll be fine,” I say, matching her tone for tone and enjoying the subtle lift of her eyebrows. I head back to my chair that straddles two worlds. Show no fear. This is a game of poker. Monique is used to people who have nothing in their hand. Nothing in their hand. The bitter irony is not lost on me as I pull my arm tighter into my body. Ahead, Dharma sits smiling up at me. I change trajectory to the chair across from her. I try to get comfortable shifting from one cheek to the other as I uncross and cross my legs. Again. Unfortunately, like the teenager earlier, the old woman does not get the hint either. “I’m sorry,” she says sitting down beside me. “I didn’t mean to make this uncomfortable.” I hold out my wrist. “Something beat you to it.” “I think I can help you with that.” “You a doctor?” My phone rings. A call this time. “Excuse me.” I retrieve my cell from my pocket as I shoulder my way through the main door. I listen to the message. No text to misunderstand its meaning. The tone is clear. I have to give them an answer. I turn to the door to find Nurse Sinclair staring at me from the other side. She slips through. “Can the doctor see me now?” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but he won’t be able to see you today.” Her gaze flickers over her shoulder. Through the transparent glass I see the young nurses laughing with a client, as they have been doing for most of my time in the waiting room, leaving the real work to the capable and dedicated Nurse Sinclair. “Can you help me?” I ask. “Please.”
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
8
“It’s against the rules. There are procedures.” “Anything you can do. Anything. I’ll pay.” She pulls at her lip. I reach for my i-dent card. “I’d have to pay anyway. I may as well pay you.” “I might be able to, but you have to do exactly what I tell you.” She holds the door open for me. “Of course,” I say rushing through the door. Nurse Sinclair guides me back inside. She walks me past the waiting room and into an examination room. “You’ll have to wait here until I can see to you. You understand?” I nod. “You said you can do a cash transfer?” Again, I nod. “What’s your bank information?” Sinclair cocks an eyebrow. “They can trace that. You’ll have to send it to a blank account. You know what that is, don’t you?” I nod, desperation making my head move before reason can step in. “You’ll have to make the payment before I can help you, you understand that?” I nod and this time my head feels as if it isn’t mine, as if I’m nodding from habit, nodding in time with the heartbeat of pain in my wrist. Sinclair slips from the room. I retrieve my phone. When I swipe it open, the committee’s text runs across the screen. My hand trembles, but I search for a place to make my deposit. I jump when the door opens and take a step back when Dharma rushes inside and closes the door behind her and locks it. “What are you doing?” “I was worried,” Dharma says. “I thought it was going to be the girl.” “What about the girl?” “We’ve heard of an unusual statistical anomaly at this clinic. A surprising number of emergency alterations, not full-blown Enhancements but then again not everyone can opt for that.” “This is just a sprain. I’m being seen for a sprain. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t know you. You need to leave.” “Yes. That’s true. You don’t know anyone here.” Monique enters with a cup in her hand, steam rising lazily from it. She glares at Dharma. “What are you doing back here?” “Washroom?” Dharma asks, flashing an innocent smile. Monique shakes her head and rolls her eyes. She thrusts the drink in my direction. “I said I didn’t want anything to drink,” I say. “Nurse Sinclair wants you to drink this.” I stare at the cup. Monique purses her lips. “The sooner you drink, the sooner you can feel better.” I reach for the cup, an automatic response. Dharma stumbles forward and jostles our hands. The cup tumbles. Some of the contents spray me. Most of it falls on the old woman. She cries out with pain as the liquid splashes on her bare arm and through the delicate fabric of her tunic. I see Monique shoot her a venomous look, quickly veiled, as she picks up the cup and hurries out the door. I hear her call for Janelle and a towel before the door swishes shut.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
9
“Are you okay?” I ask Dharma. “What just happened?” Even through the darkness of her skin, I can see her arm beginning to redden. I wonder how bad the burns are beneath her tunic. “Shouldn’t you let someone see to you?” “I’ll be fine once I get home,” the old woman says as she quickly sops up the liquid with her long neck scarf. “Please. I could use an escort home.” Dharma leans heavily on my shoulder as she holds the wet fabric from her skin. She stares up at me. “It’s not far.” I hesitate, but there is something about Monique’s eagerness to return not with first-aid but with another drink that just pisses me off. I stare at her as she stands in the doorway and realize I want to leave. I’ve wanted to leave from the moment I stepped into this place. Up to this point I had tried reasoning it away as the nervousness of being in a strange doctor’s office or my eagerness to get back to the work. The fear that this injury may put a delay on my art that I can ill afford both financially and professionally. There are lots of logical reasons for this apprehension. Still, some part of me has been sounding a warning that has nothing to do with logic. “I have to go,” I say. “Unfortunately, when you come back, you’ll have to join the queue again,” Monique says. ”And there is a risk that you might seriously injure that wrist without medical attention. I would not advise this, especially as the doctor is prepared to see you next.” More lies. “I’ll just have to take that risk,” I say as I link arms with Dharma. She takes my arm in a manner so gentle that at first I don’t even realize it’s my sprained wrist that she holds. At least it would be protected from the crowd as we walk together. “And really,” I say, as we make our way slowly toward the glass sliding doors, “should you be serving such hot beverages? People have been known to sue over something like that.” The doors slid shut behind us, and I feel the old woman begin to shake with laughter. “That was brilliant. They probably couldn’t have you leave quick enough after that subtle threat.” The old woman cocks her head up at me and grins. “I’ll have to remember that for next time.” Next time? Who is this woman? “Though I probably shouldn’t show my face there for a while.” We walk out of the clinic and onto the street arm in arm and in silence. My injured wrist has become suddenly warm. The painful tension has loosened. It must be the way I’m holding it, must be taking the pressure off the nerve. “What happened in there?” I ask. “You tell me. You have good instincts, don’t you?” Dharma says. “Not dulled by synthetics. Still something of the animal in you. Enough to know when something doesn’t smell right. Some people don’t like people like that. They’re threatened by it.” I resist saying anything for another block but finally curiosity gets the better of me. “I’m nobody.” “Really? Successful artist snubbing her nose at the status quo? Can’t have stories about successful naturals living off the grid,” Dharma answers good-naturedly while she tenderly changes the position of her brown hand wrapped around my wrist. “Living proof that there’s another way. Some would find that threatening.” Dharma sighs and pats my arm gently. Surprisingly, there is no pain. That morning, a touch like that, would have had me jumping out of my skin. “A way without Enhancements and nutritional supplements and continual maintenance and built in obsolescence?” Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
10
She grins, her eyes narrowing as she re-grips my arm, further up this time. “No, can’t have that at all.” “What are you saying?” I ask. I try to laugh but it sounds a little too tight. “What could they do about it?” The warmth in my forearm increases. I’m not usually comfortable with physical contact, but Dharma puts me at ease, and besides, she does seem to need the help walking. “Something could go wrong during the exam,” the old woman says. “Sometimes these things happen. Something small. Something not even that serious, but something only someone in your unique situation would find…” she pauses. “Life changing.” We walk like ghosts, steering clear of the more populated spots on the sidewalk to occupy the shadows. Her words are like fingers of ice walking slowly up my back. “They could be sued,” I whisper during a break in the crowd. “There would be an investigation. Charges.” “And in the end, you would still be a cripple or dependent on their Enhancements.” “What do you base this conspiracy theory on?” “Fair enough,” the old woman barks with a harsh laugh. “A healthy skepticism. Perhaps I speak from firsthand experience.” She leads me out of the pedestrian traffic. On a secluded corner, she looks up at me brazenly. There is a moment of silence as we stare at each other, but then the sun dips behind a cloud, causing an odd dimming in one of the woman’s emerald eyes. I wait for a nod of permission before taking the woman’s chin in my hand and gently turning her face. The light glints ominously in her right eye. “Your eye sight must be perfect to do surgery,” the old woman says softly, “and strangely, there was no cure or optic component that would fit my particular case.” She pulls back, removing her face from my hand. She turns back to the street. I follow. “There was a court case,” the old woman says, as we fall in step. “But of course these things happen and after giving me a nominal monetary fee to discourage any further legal action, it was done.” She wraps her arm in mine, holding my wrist gingerly in her wrinkled hand. We walk in silence. I am stunned by what she says, and the old woman is obviously giving me time to digest it. We turn the corner onto one of the older streets of the city. “You have no reason to trust me,” Dharma says. “Fair enough, my dear.” She removes the scarf from around her neck. “There’s enough here to have it tested. What did they say? Something to make you comfortable while they examined your wrist?” She takes a slow breath before continuing in a forceful voice. “Do you think you should need to be unconscious for that?” Dharma stops in front of an old, but freshly painted, building. The sign overhead reads Organic Tea Shop in gold lettering, tastefully decorative in an Art Nouveau style. She hands me the scarf. “I would suggest you go to a police station. They are unbiased, and their lab would tell you if an innocent seeming date had other plans for you. If you have any further questions, for example, why your wrist feels so much better and why in a few days it’s almost good as new, drop by to return my scarf.” The old woman puts her hand on the doorknob. “And for a cup of tea. You do drink tea, don’t you, dear? I promise there will be nothing in it but tea.” She gives me a mischievous wink, the twinkle in her eye devoid of sharp edges. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions then.” She disappears inside. I’m tempted to force the issue. Instead I take off in the other direction, my arm hanging, for the first time today, comfortably at my side. An hour later I am standing, trembling, outside the precinct. They asked if I wanted to press
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Goddard
“Ampu-Chic”
charges. They asked for a description of the man who had given me the drink. I apologized, saying I was pretty drunk at the time and thanked them for their help. I told them I have learned a valuable lesson; I will be more suspicious of strangers offering me drinks. Well, perhaps not all. Perhaps in a few days I’ll be in the mood for a nice cup of tea.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
11
WHEN GODS SLEEP: PART I By Marco Cultrera
Domaru was all about order. He roamed the infinite searching clusters of matter of every size floating in the void and observed the exact laws of the Primordial Cosmos systematically demolishing them, leaving only the crumbs behind. With time, he learned how to bend those laws. He discovered that he could make the forces they regulated stronger, accelerating the deconstruction, or halt them, and assemble the matter in very confined spaces before reactivating them. The resulting destruction happened much faster and left behind only the finest dust, filling his heart with joy. He became so efficient that soon he had to travel farther and farther to find more matter to disintegrate, and that worried him. How would he occupy himself once he had made the Primordial Cosmos completely still? Then he sensed a new energy flow at the core of his greatest creation, a grid where only particles were left, equidistant from each other and absolutely still. The thought of his crowning achievement being disrupted caused an unsettling new sensation inside of him. He was upset for the first time. As he approached, he saw from a distance the brightest light he had ever seen. He felt an overwhelming impulse to destroy it. Domaru’s anger was turning into rage. When he got closer, he realized that there wasn’t just one, but two sources of energy, identical and rotating in a perfect circle around each other, following all the rules of physics that Domaru loved so much. And the result was beautiful‌ and calming. Could have he been wrong? Could the order that he so strongly longed for come in more interesting ways than a symmetrical grid of static particles? Was that you?
Domaru froze. Those words had just sprung in his mind. He had never considered that another conscience could exist, never mind someone he could communicate with. The grid, the voice insisted, and its perfection. Did you make it? Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
19
Domaru came out of his stupor when he realized that he was able to answer. Yes.
A flurry of joy coming from the gravitational fulcrum around which the two sources of energy rotated hit him. Are you in there? he ventured. Yes! I’m Afelis. Do-Domaru. Come closer Domaru, don’t be afraid
Domaru drifted through space until he reached her. Then he turned his mind outward, towards the spectacle all around him, and stared in awe. The static order he loved was beautiful in its simplicity, but dynamic harmony had so much more possibilities. Every single particle moved in synchrony, forming symmetrical swirls and spirals and he couldn’t spot even the tiniest discrepancy. Did you make this? Yes! Afelis replied. I called them stars. But I couldn’t have without your beautiful grid as starting point.
To hear Afelis praise his creation filled Domaru with another new emotion, pride. Until now, Afelis continued, all the matter I have created remained ugly, no matter what I tried to do with it.
Then was when Domaru realized that all the clusters he had found and crumbled hadn’t just sprung out of nowhere in the Primordial Cosmos. They had been brought into existence by Afelis. And he had crushed them without giving it a second thought. A sudden uneasiness pervaded him. What was it? No, Afelis replied, sensing his distress, don’t feel guilty…
Guilt, another new feeling. You couldn’t have known, she continued, and they didn’t amount to much.
They stood there for a while, together, basking in the perfect beauty of the binary stars rotating around them. What if… they said at the same time and that coincidence made a new tingling sensation emerge inside Domaru. He abandoned himself to it and saw Afelis doing the same. They were laughing for the first time. Together, she continued, what if we worked together? Yes! Domaru replied without hesitation.
They traveled to a new untouched part of the Cosmos. Afelis added more clumps of matter to those already drifting around, and Domaru disintegrated them, forming a grid larger than the one he had created before. Afelis morphed it into a bigger star as Domaru watch mesmerized. Then they did it again and again. To allow Afelis to create at greater scales, Domaru changed the size and composition of the Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
20
building blocks of his grids, also distributing them in newer and more intricate patterns. They made red and white and blue stars, giant and small stars, and everything in between. Some were binary, like Afelis’s first creation, and a smaller number triple. With practice, Afelis achieved even more complex hierarchies, with up to five stars rotating around each other. After they had done it a few million times more, Domaru assembled the stars themselves in another grid, the biggest yet. Afelis giggled in pleasure and Domaru felt the happiest he had ever been. She reached for the stars and evolved their static symmetry into a perfect spiral, rotating at just the right speed. The end result left Domaru in awe, never before had such a sheer amount of energy and matter moved in synchrony. Their first galaxy was born. Domaru felt Afelis’s loosen her grip on the stars, and saw the spiral starting to break under the gravitational laws. Her sadness hit him, and he realized that he would do anything to make her happy again. He grabbed more matter outside the galaxy and started stuffing it in its very core, offsetting the outward pull, until even light couldn’t escape the force of gravity. The Primordial Cosmos had its first black hole. Her creation—their creation—was now rotating at a fixed speed with gravity and centrifugal force perfectly balancing each other. Afelis suddenly shot ahead, and Domaru followed. They sprinted and glided and twirled around the arms of the galaxy, laughing and calling to each other while hiding behind a giant blue star or inside a tiny white dwarf one. Afelis suddenly fell in the black hole, only to immediately shoot out on the opposite side, so fast that Domaru lost track of her. It only took him a moment to find her again, just outside the galaxy, but the thought of having lost her had terrified him. Domaru had tasted the bitter flavor of fear for the first time. I want to do it again! she told him.
Domaru didn’t have to think about it; Afelis’s happiness was all that mattered to him. In that moment, he realized that the fear of loss and desire to please were the opposite sides of the strongest of the new emotions he had felt since meeting her: love. And just like that they were off, spending the next eons of their timeless existence creating millions of galaxies, of all different shapes and sizes, until Afelis approached Domaru again. Let’s do something truly together now…
Domaru didn’t understand at first. Was she implying that he had been holding back? The idea of having failed her morphed into something unbearable. His being was uncapable of physical pain, but he was hurting nonetheless. Wasn’t his pure and absolute love for her not enough? Why was he suffering? Afelis hurried to comfort him. No… You have been a great partner, but we can do more.
Afelis guided him back to where they had met for the first time. The binary stars were still there in a corner of their first galaxy as beautiful as ever. Afelis gathered some of the leftover matter nearby, and Domaru hurried in to help her. Together they shaped it into a sphere.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
21
We need more variety Afelis said.
Domaru had learned that at the right temperature some of the hard substance floating in the void turned liquid. He dragged the sphere closer and closer to the binary stars until the crevasses on the surface filled up with a fluid that reflected their bright light. Water. Yes! Afelis squealed in happiness.
She dove into it, and Domaru followed. When they met inside the water, sparks travelled through Domaru, giving him immense pleasure, as his body intersected with Afelis’s like never before. When it was over, minuscule constructs were swimming around them, moving on their own accord, obeying to new laws complementing the natural forces Domaru knew so well. We did it! Afelis erupted with joy. We made something new.
Her joy, the most intense he had ever felt, infected Domaru too as he focused on those fledgling new organisms floating around. They had created life. To his surprise, Domaru wasn’t disturbed by the apparent chaos their creations lived in, eating each other and leaving only mangled residues behind. He had just discovered that parental love was more powerful than his needs for order. In the following ages, they helped their children survive and grow. They created an atmosphere, to shield them from the spikes of cosmic radiations and give them more energy to explore their world, as they diversified in different shapes and sizes. The more adventurous ones moved out of the water and populated the dry surfaces of the planet. Domaru and Afelis raised mountains to give them shelter and nurtured more static life forms, like plants and trees, to provide a stable supply of food outside the water. As their children thrived, a new grand design begun to emerge. With every new evolution and naturally occurring cull, life was showing Afelis and Domaru that it was able to thrive alone and that their intervention was required less and less. Soon they were left with nothing to do but watch. That’s when Domaru realized how tired he was. In all the eons before meeting Afelis, he had never felt the need to rest, but all the emotions he had discovered since then, and the effort of creating and nurturing life was taking its toll. He turned to Afelis and saw that she was feeling the same. They retreated into the center of the binary star and fell asleep after a last proud stare at their children. Domaru woke up first, and gazed lovingly on Afelis, still in her deep sleep. He turned his attention to the planet they had created. What he saw horrified him… One of the species had become dominant and was destroying the perfect equilibrium that had been ruling when he had fallen asleep. Many other species had been completely wiped out by its actions, while more were on the verge of extinction. Domaru’s powerful mind explored all the possible future outcomes and he realized that the most probable one saw the dominant species damaging the planet irreparably if left to its own devices, wiping out all life, including itself. Domaru’s first instinct was to just hurl the planet into one of the stars. He and Afelis had obviously been wrong to just let life grow unchecked. But she would be devastated if he destroyed their creation without consulting her. Worse, she would be mad at him, something he couldn’t even begin to accept.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
22
But wouldn’t witnessing the abomination their planet had become give her more pain than if it was just gone? There had to be another way. Domaru examined the dominant species closer. He realized that the humans, how they called themselves, were mostly concerned with their individual existence. They had achieved a level of consciousness that made it impossible for them to think much further than the tiny amount of time that their individual life lasted. How could he make them understand that their existence was dependent on the entire ensemble of all living things? That all species thrive or die together? Maybe if he reached down to one of them, he could enlighten him. That one individual could lead the rest to salvation. But he couldn’t just reveal himself to him, his primitive mind wouldn’t survive. His chosen one had to reach that conclusion himself. An idea sparked into Domaru. He found the human in charge of one of the largest social groups and entered his body for an instant, to make a change. It was an extremely delicate procedure, as Domaru was used to working on much larger scales, but he succeeded. Suddenly exhausted again, he went back inside the binary star and fell asleep again next to Afelis, confident that in time his singular action would save their children. Faelan inherited the necklace the day she had her first blood. Her mother told her that the stone encased in the pendant belonged to her as the first of her daughters to join the Order of the Sacred Mothers. Three weeks later, the night she got pregnant, Faelan had her first vivid dream. More followed, but sporadically, with intervals of months or even years. Every time she woke up after one of them, the stone laying on her bare skin was warm. By the time she had given birth eight times and her first born and only daughter, Merad, was ten, she had had enough dreams to know the path ahead. In the ensuing months, Faelan tried to prepare Merad, explaining the importance of what she was asking of her on many occasions, and her daughter stoically nodded every time. Nonetheless, when Merad became a woman three years later, they cried together. “Are you ready?” a seven-month pregnant Faelan asked her daughter once they had run out of tears. She replied with another sigh, the deepest one yet, and Faelan hugged her. “No, no, no… I’ll be by your side every step of the way.” Merad seemed to calm down. “I’m ready,” she said, suddenly sounding twice her age. Faelan put a small cauldron on the fireplace. She took the necklace and lowered it into Merad’s cupped hands. The stone, a purple rock with streaks of silver, shined in the hearth light. “Put it on and make sure it always touches your skin,” she said. Merad obeyed as the gentle puttering of the boiling water blended with the crackling of the firewood. Faelan dropped the berries in the cauldron. “Will it hurt?” Merad asked. “No, you’ll be in a deep sleep,” Faelan replied, a claw tightening around her heart. When the fruits had steeped enough, she poured the liquid into a cup and gave it to Merad. She sipped it slowly, until her eyelids begun closing. Faelan took back the cup from her daughter’s Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
23
unfathomably small hands and laid her on the bed. She grabbed an ultra-thin knitting needle from a hidden compartment in her nightstand—the very one she had been sharpening for months, dreading this exact moment. Faelan gently opened her daughter’s legs, did what needed to be done, and then yelled for the guards and the medics. They found her clutching to the blood-smeared needle, begging them to save her daughter. The next morning, Faelan was dragged in front of the Sacred Mothers’ council and fastened to the supplicant’s chair. In the crowd, her eyes found Hordun, the sire of all her children and the closest thing she had to a life partner. His expression was as shocked as everyone else’s. “Faelan Eleven,” Relan Nineteen, the head councilwoman, addressed her. “The accusations against you are grave.” Faelan was only supposed to answer direct questions, but she couldn’t wait any longer. “How’s Merad?” They had locked Faelan in a cell, and none of the jailers had answered her constant pleas about the status of her daughter’s health. Relan’s eyes widened in contempt. “Does anybody know?” Faelan insisted, scrutinizing the faces of the other women sitting behind the three half-circle balconies rising in front of her. Many of them, as far ahead in their pregnancy as she was, wore the discomfort caused by their hard seats and the insufficient leg room on their faces. Ironically, she was more comfortable in her chair, restraints and all, than she would have been sitting on her own council seat, the only one empty a few spots to the left of Relan. An older man advanced. “I was able to save her,” he said with a booming voice that had no place in his frail body. “She’s resting now, but she will never be able to have children.” All the woman in the room gasped in horror. Except Faelan, who sighed in relief. “Faelan Eleven, that’s the reason you did it, isn’t it?” Relan said. Faelan’s wrists tested the shackles. “To stop your daughter from fulfilling her life of procreation as ordained by the God-King Himself.” “His perfection humbles us!” everybody said in unison at the mention of their ruler. “After Merad, I’ve given birth to eleven sons in thirteen years,” Faelan said through clenched teeth, “each one of them taken away from me once weaned. Why would I want that for my only daughter?” “Because it’s her destiny!” Relan blurted out, standing up. “Our destiny!” All the women in the council nodded vigorously. “Are you suggesting that the God-King is wrong?” she continued. “His perfection humbles us!” everybody recited again. “I don’t have to remind you that heresy is punished with immediate execution,” Relan added. “Go ahead,” Faelan murmured just loud enough for Relan to hear, looking down to her extended Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
24
belly. “At least this child won’t be taken by your precious God-King.” “His perfection humbles us…” the words had been spoken out of habit but without conviction. The horror of what was about to take place was already filling the room. Raelan’s raised her hand towards the guards, but a deep voice interrupted her before she could give the order. “Relan Nineteen,” Hordun said, stepping next to Faelan. “May I speak?” “Of course, General,” she replied lowering her head in deference. Faelan breathed easier as he started talking. “All of Faelan’s Eleven sons are excelling at their training and will certainly make a strong addition to the God-King’s army.” “His perfection humbles us.” “Even you,” Hordun addressed Relan, “the headmistress of the Order of the Sacred Mothers, the shiniest light in providing sons to our ruler weren’t as… efficient before your procreation time came to an end. How long did it take you to give birth to nineteen sons?” “Thirty-five years.” “And how many females you gave birth in that span?” “Nine.” “Faelan has at least twenty more child-bearing years ahead of her, and it’s not inconceivable that she’ll have more sons than you.” “But…” Relan tried. “Yes, what she said is inexcusable, but we can’t lose track of the reason the God-King—” “His perfection humbles us.” “—has created the order. Our ruler needs as many soldiers as you all can give him to spread his wisdom to every corner of the world. Faelan Eleven is fulfilling her duty better than any other Sacred Mother on record and must be allowed to continue to do so.” Faelan saw in Relan’s eyes all her disappointment, but she nodded. No woman, not even the Sacred Order’s headmistress could go against a man’s words. “As you wish,” Relan conceded. “But I can’t let heresy fester inside the order. She needs to profess her loyalty to our ruler.” Faelan’s stomach clenched. A small price to pay, considering what was at stake, so why was she finding it so hard? “I will serve the God-King,” she said staring at the floor. “I can’t hear you.” Relan replied. Faelan’s head snapped up and she met the headmistress’s eyes, shouting with all the air in her lungs. “I WILL SERVE THE GOD-KING!” Her lips curved in a tiny smile seen a hint of fear in Relan’s eyes as she joined the rest of the room in repeating “His perfection humbles us.” Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
25
“Satisfied?” Hordun asked her. Relan sat back down before replying. “Yes, but I hereby order that should Faelan Eleven bear other daughters, they will be taken away from her upon birth. She won’t breastfeed them or have any contact with them for the rest of her life. Including Merad.” “No!” Faelan yelled as blood left her face. Hordun turned to the guards. “Bring her back to her quarters.” “No, please…” Faelan pleaded, her stomach a fistful of knots. She needed to be by Merad’s side. She had promised her. “Take her away!” Relan ordered unnecessarily as the guards were already dragging Faelan out. Faelan’s sobbing had only the effect of silencing every other woman in the room. The next day, Faelan was watching the rising suns through the window of her room. Their mutual and perfectly circular movement could be distinguished only for a short time at dawn and at sunset. Once high enough above the horizon, the human eye morphed them in one blinding circle. She heard Hordun’s steps approaching behind her. “I’m glad you are feeling better this morning,” he said. His words felt like a rope tightening around her neck. How could he even think that she was better? “I just can’t understand why you did—” “I stated my reasons clearly at the council.” Faelan saw anger re-shaping his face. “I thought we had an agreement,” he said. “Or do you want me to throw you back into the rotation?” “Sure… What difference does it make who sires my children? They will all be taken away, sons and daughters alike.” “How can you forget all that I’ve done for you?” he said with trembling voice. “I broke all the rules to spare you from being raped by whichever horny veteran was up. Do you even realize how much effort it took to create a safe environment around you?” “Don’t you dare compare the hardship of our lives!” Faelan quickly covered the distance between them and jabbed his chest with her extended fingers. “Since I was born, all I had to look forward to was spitting out as many babies as possible. How can’t you understand that I didn’t want the same for my daughter?” “Do you think I had any choice myself?” “All you do is sleep, eat, and screw as many of us as possible to get us pregnant. Forgive me if I don’t have any sympathy for your limited choices.” “I earned my retirement! Years of kill or be killed at the front. Seeing my fellow soldiers and best friends die beside me. Not to mention the atrocities that I had to commit in the God-King’s name.” “While he just sits on his throne watching… Year after year, century after century not caring for Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
26
any of the thousands that waste their lives because of him.” Hordun’s entire body was trembling. “I shouldn’t have you give preferred treatment… This is goodbye then.” Faelan grabbed his arms. “No, no, I just needed to be sure.” Hordun’s head recoiled in surprise as he founds her eyes again. “You could have argued about the God-King’s vision and the future age of unparalleled prosperity he promised for our descendants once he rules over the entire world, but you didn’t. You feel like I do, don’t you? You obey the God-King, but you’d rather not.” Faelan saw in his eyes the final confirmation she needed. “There is another way. Our kingdom is as prosperous as ever. Why keep fighting new enemies so far away that they had never heard of us before our armies invades their homes? The God-King may have had good intentions at first, but now all he’s accomplishing is to make us all suffer.” “Another way?” “Merad. I need you to train her.” “What?” “You are the best martial instructor this nation has ever seen.” “But she’s a woman. She can’t fight.” “She will if you teach her. You’ll have to do it in secret. She’ll work as a maid during the day, and train with you at night.” “And then what? They won’t let her join the army.” “When she turns twenty, she will compete with the other cadets in the Trials.” “What? Once they see she’s a woman, they’ll throw her in jail or worst. This is madness...” “No, it’s the beginning of a revolution.” Seven long years later, Merad was waiting just inside the corridor accessing the arena. She could see only half of the stands, completely packed. Sacred Mothers, retired veterans, maids, guards… Nobody who lived in the Citadel would ever miss the Trials. The thirty-two cadets chosen as the best of this year’s class were already lined up. The two left standing would guide the two sides on tomorrow’s skirmish. The commander of the winning side would become the captain of the entire contingent, leaving to join the God-King’s army at the front in a week time. “I bring you another contender,” Hordun’s voice resonated from the first ring, right in front of her, all the way to the ceiling of the arena. She stopped breathing when she recognized her mother, Faelan, sitting next to him. Their eyes met and time came to a halt, while Merad’s mind was whipped back to the first days of her training.
“Get up!” Hordun growled with clenched teeth, keeping his voice down in the silence of the night. Merad had lost her pole again, under the strikes of the General, and her fingers were on fire. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
27
She obeyed, grabbing the six feet piece of wood and assuming a defensive stance. When Hordun attacked her again, the tears in her eyes blurring her vision made it easier for him to send her sprawling to the ground again. “This is a waste of time…” the General said, throwing his pole to the side. “You are too weak, I don’t know what Faelan was thinking.” Hearing her mother’s name made Merad lose all control and start sobbing. “Can I see her… Just once?” Hordun’s strode to her, his red face stopping an inch from hers. “No! You can’t! She saw to it. And stuck me with you and this farce!”
The voice of the Head Conscriptor brough her back to the present. “General, the selection has been made,” the Head Conscripter replied, pointing to the cadets standing still in the arena. “I’m not asking to replace any of them, I’m invoking the external recruitment clause. I’d like to champion someone not trained in the academy. As a former general, I have the right to do so.” Hordun had explained the intricacies of the laws created by the God-King to Merad. She didn’t remember much and didn’t care. Every single one of her muscles was ready to spring, all she needed was a target. The Head Conscripter looked for answers in the faces of the underlings around him, but they all avoided his enquiring look. “But it hasn’t invoked in more than ten generations…” Hordun just kept staring at him. Merad had been on the receiving side of his stone face hundreds of times during her long nights of training. The general didn’t believe in compassion as a motivator. “Very well,” the Head Conscripter caved in, “where is this foreigner?” Merad walked into the arena, her face hidden behind a full helm. A necessary precaution, as if they knew she was a woman, they wouldn’t even let her fight. “Name?” one of the clerks asked. “Merad,” Hordun replied. A common name for both genders, there was no need for an alias. Nobody was going to make the connection to Merad the maid. To reconcile for the arrival of an extra aspirant, a preliminary match between Merad and the lowest ranked of the chosen thirty-two had been announced. The weapon to be used was decided by chance, and when the broadsword was selected, Merad grinned. Her least favorite, but she welcomed the challenge; it would keep her more focused. The cadet came at her using a textbook approach, steadily advancing with his guard up. Merad parried his first few blows, retreating, and boldened, he gripped his sword with both hands to add strength to his next strike. When the blade came down, Merad dodged it easily, and the cadet stumbled forward carried by his momentum. Merad hit him in the back and saw unabashed surprise in his eyes just like she had seen in Hordun’s the first time she had clipped him a few weeks into her training.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
28
Hordun’s bored expression had suddenly melted away. She had reacted by instinct and dodged the strike from his pole and hit his exposed flank. Too tired to think, she had let a repressed muscle memory resurface and took over her body. “How did you do that?” Hordun barked. She looked down and saw her feet laying parallel, like when she used to dance. The GodKing’s laws still allowed leisure in little girls’ lives before they had their first blood. She let her body continue the sequence and found herself facing the General again, weapon ready. Hordun charged her, and she slipped away again, morphing her dance routine into a flurry of dodges at the end of which she again saw an opening in the General’s guard. This time he parried her blow, but it took him a considerable effort. “Well done,” he praised her for the very first time. “Let’s go again.”
The dull-bladed sword used in the trials had only produced a loud clank on the cadet’s shoulders, but it would clearly have been a fatal wound in a real battle. But the judges failed to declare Merad the winner, and a few boos arose from the crowd. It looked like Merad’s strongest opposition of the day might just be coming from the stands, not from inside the arena. The cadet, who had staggered back, composed himself immediately, a testament to his training. Merad let her anger take over and charged him. Her opponent easily parred her attack and counterattacked with a lunge to her head. At the last moment, she moved to the side, but his sword clipped her shoulder.
“Patience!” Hordun blurted out. “Your years of dancing may have given you superior agility and body control, but fighting is a different beast.” Merad looked at the general from the ground, her body aching all over, but she wasn’t let the
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
29
pain show on her face. “We need to train your mind now,” Hordun continued. “Avoiding your opponent’s blows and keeping your distance is pointless if you don’t pick the right moment to strike back. Study his movements and find his weaknesses.”
Merad forced herself to step back, waiting for her opponent again. She dodged or parried all his strikes, and she realized that he was prone to take a tiny bit longer to get his guard back up after he attacked from his off-side. When, frustrated by Merad’s slippery strategy, the cadet grabbed his sword with both hands again, Merad went for the parry instead of the dodge he was expecting. Merad staggered under the power of the cadet’s strike, leaving her head open to a killing blow. From her opponent’s off-side. When the strike came, she dodged it and counterattacked, landing another clear fatal wound. Merad had lured the cadet into ignoring his weakness. The judges had no choice but call the fight in her favor, and the crowd exploded. The day went on with Merad’s opponents giving her less and less trouble as she learned to control her impatience. Even the judges stopped making it harder for her as they realized that they were just prolonging the inevitable. “Congratulations,” the Head Conscripter said, once the crowd had quieted down after cheering yet another of Merad’s victories, who had cemented her place in the final four. “You earned the right to duel for the command of one of the two sides in tomorrow’s skirmish.” The first fight was a tight and close affair, that saw Tauriel, the third ranked cadet, prevail with a flurry of blows that took Jaithan, second in the rankings, by surprise. Then Merad and her adversary took the center of the arena. His name was Sithlin, considered the favorite for Commander well ahead of the trials. He had legitimated his status by breezing through all his fights. Hordun had trained him and had briefed Merad extensively. His technique wasn’t the best of the field because it didn’t need to be. His exceptional physical strength, paired with an uncommon agility for someone his size, made him nearly invincible in one-on-one combat. His only weakness was his ego, ballooned by the constant praises, and Merad was sure she could exploit it to her advantage. Something that made her hate what she needed to do even more. He charged her right away, but Merad dodged every single one of his attacks, and with every missed swing or lunge, Sithlin’s frustration mounted, resulting in a series of rookie mistakes. Not enough time between strokes, neglecting to go back to the right stance. Merad discovered them all, and when he moved a bit too close after another missed swipe, Merad lunged the tip of her weapon and hit his shoulder with a clean strike.
Ooooh… Many in the crowd reacted were cheering openly for the newcomer. Merad’s stomach clenched at the thought of having to let them down. The blow wasn’t fatal, so the fight continued, and Sithlin kept attacking, but more patiently, and eventually clipped Merad. She tumbled to the ground but was up again in a heartbeat, her spear deflecting the swipe Sithlin had directed to her head. Five minutes into the contest, Merad parried a blow, dodged a second, counterattacked with
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Cultrera
When Gods Sleep
30
another non-fatal blow to Sithlin’s leg, and parried his counterattack but her arms buckled under his strength. She let her grip on her spear slid down just enough to leave her head exposed. Sithlin didn’t waste that opportunity and doubled down with a strike to Merad’s head. A clean fatal blow that made her fall face down and her helmet fly several yards away. The crowd exploded, equally divided between booing and cheering the victor. The Head Conscripter made his way to the center of the arena, while Merad remained still, her hair still covering her face. “Sithlin and Tauriel will guide the two sides of tomorrow’s skirmish! Choose your second-in-command among the two runners-up,” he added. “I’ll take the foreigner!” Sithlin said first, pointing to Merad. Merad wasn’t surprised. He was infamous for making all the decisions when he commanded a scrimmage, seeing his right hand as just another officer instead of seeking his advice. Choosing a stranger who supposedly knew little of the God-King’s army strategies and who he had beaten in a public fight fitted that narrative. “Very well,” the Head Conscripter said turning to Merad. “Kneel to your commander.” It was time, they could deride her, jail her or hang her, but that wouldn’t change what she had accomplished. Merad the maid, a woman winner of seven fights against trained men stood up and showed herself to the world.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
HEROS NEVER DIE By Rickey Rivers, Jr.
There she was, in front of the gravestone kneeling, tears in her eyes. Grandmother was gone. The news shook Cherie, gave her an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. She reminisced in the lonely graveyard. The wind had an awful howl, a sound that would have scared her had she been younger, had she been less brave. A small voice interrupted nostalgic thoughts. "How did she die?" Cherie raised her eyes to match a face with the intrusion. It was a child. The response that came to Cherie's mind was a rude one, too rude for the girl, so she restrained herself. "How did she die?" the girl repeated, this time sternly as only as a child's voice could get beyond raising it. "Natural," said Cherie, "natural causes." The girl knelt before the grave, letting her dress sweep earth and stone. "How old was she?" Cherie wiped her eyes, "Sixty-one." The girl went quiet. She faced the gravestone with focus, her curls dancing in the cool breeze. Something about her made Cherie uneasy. Why was a young girl in this place alone? Was she really alone? Cherie thought the worst. "Are you here alone?" said Cherie. The girl smiled, placing a hand on the gravestone.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Rivers, Jr.
“Heroes Never Die”
32
Cherie began to worry that the girl was lost. She looked around for others, but the graveyard was empty beyond the two. "How old are you?" "I'm eleven." Cherie sighed. "You shouldn't be alone." "I'm not." Cherie felt dread. It wouldn't be right to leave the girl. She must have been lost or left behind. "Who is she to you?" said the girl. She gave Cherie a blank stare. "My grandmother. This is her grave." "Wow." There was excitement in her voice or possibly an emotion that Cherie couldn’t place. “Yeah," said Cherie. "I visit her every two weeks." The girl nodded. "That's nice." The autumn wind whistled around them as the orange tone of day began to fade. The girl stood. "It's getting late. I should go." Cherie stopped her. "Hold on." "What is it?" said the girl. "Can you tell me your name?" The girl dusted off her dress and turned. "Maple." The name was spoken so softly that it almost carried off into the weather, an evaporation of sound itself. "Wow. That's my grandmother's name." "Cool. It's a good name." "Yeah, I always liked it. Reminded me of pancakes." "Memories, eh, Super Cher?" Cherie's heart fluttered. She clutched her chest and repeated "Super Cher?" Her mind took her back. She was a little girl, tying a bedsheet around her neck and pretending to be a hero. Her grandmother gave her the name, and she gave her grandmother her own supername, Mighty Maple, her super sidekick. The names had bonded the two until her death. In the now, Cherie watched the girl walk away. She wanted to say something. She wanted to hug her but she knew she couldn't. The girl arrived at the gates and stopped. She stood there for a
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Rivers, Jr.
“Heroes Never Die”
33
moment as if waiting. Then, the girl became nothing. She was gone. Mighty Maple couldn't leave. Cherie understood. Her mind went back once more, taking her to a different, much happier time. "Look at me, Grandma!" And Cherie ran through the house, her bedsheet cape flapping behind her while Grandmother cheered on. "Oh, look in the sky. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super Cher!" "Don't forget her trusty sidekick!" "But I don't have a cape Super Cher. Whatever shall I do?" "Don't worry! We'll get you one!" Into the clean laundry they went searching. This was their first adventure of many. Cherie remembered it well. She laughed, wiped a tear, and stood. Mighty Maple wouldn't want tears. It was dangerous to be vulnerable. That's when villains could pounce. Cherie looked around. Night was settling. How could she manage to find her way to her car? It was time to run. But could she
make it past the treacherous leaves? She thought of something,
but it in years. Could
would be impossible without her cape. Besides, she hadn't used it she make it back safe and sound? Was she doomed to remain with spirits?
Did she have the courage to try? A voice rang out from inside. "Save me, Super Cher!" The voice was familiar and sweet. Someone's in danger. There was no time to think. "No need to worry," she said. "Super Cher is on the way!” With that, she readied herself and ran bravely toward the front gates. The lack of cape didn't hold her back. She could leap up and over anything with ease. For a moment her ascent surprised her before she reminded herself that she didn't need the cape to fly. Instead, something from within, something from a pit of despair lifted her high towards clouds above. With dried eyes, the sights were lovely.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
MACHINES IN MOTION By Benjamin C. Kinney
Eszter spent her first battle in breathless fear, not of some errant shell or cannonball, but of the engineers. She followed them through trenches choked with smoke and rustred mud, expecting them to see through her at any moment. Sooner or later, they would realize the new girl wasn’t so clever after all. Sooner or later, they would know what she was. She held the toolbox steady and watched the three engineers work on the humanoid hulk of a fallen automaton. Kúlisch buried his hands wrist-deep in the engine’s pumps and ducts, his trim goatee wet with condensed steam. Nahlah crouched, her dark wiry body twisted as she angled a screwdriver up into the back of the automaton’s neck. Corporal Lujza sat to the side with an armor plate in her lap. Smoke and soot painted her coat the same color as her hair. A scowl creased her face as she laid new silvery thaumic wires into the charred armor plate. Nahlah caught Eszter’s eye and offered her a screwdriver. Eszter rose, and then froze as Lujza grabbed her arm. Lujza shook her head and shoved the armor plate into Eszter’s hands. Her mind went blank, but her body was already moving. She tucked the armor under her arm and grabbed a wrench from the toolbox. She had only glanced at the fasteners that would join armor to chassis, so she had to pluck out a handful of bolts and hope she had guessed their sizes correctly. She realized she had no prayer for this, and the thought sent a rush of worry and exhilaration up her spine. Kúlisch lifted his hands clear of the machine. Nahlah leaned across and slid her screwdriver deep into a gap between engine and chassis, her glove braced against gears. She turned the screw, grimacing in concentration. Machinery clicked, engaged—and jumped. Nahlah yanked off her torn glove and wrapped a rag around bloodied fingers. She stumbled away, and Eszter’s shock dissolved into a guilty exhalation of relief. Eszter wrestled the armor plate into place, and bit back a curse as metal rattled against metal. She shoved down the plate, then forced herself to let go. She dropped in the bolts and wrenched them tight. Lujza elbowed her aside and connected the thaumic circuits with a few final lengths of Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
35
wire. Kúlisch snapped a flag in front of the machine’s lenses, and the automaton rose: seated, then kneeling, and then standing. It swept smoked-glass eyes across the engineers, then raised and lowered the small-bore cannon of its right arm. Eszter strained to hear its engine, but the cacophony of battle muted it as surely as every other sound. The automaton took position alongside three of its kin, and infantrymen formed up behind. Eszter tried not to read the faces of the soldiers in their mud-stained white coats and once-blue breeches. Instead, she watched the engineers. They were both staring at her: Lujza with grim satisfaction, Kúlisch with raised eyebrows. Eszter lowered her gaze, gathered the tools, and followed the engineers to their next corpse.
My hands won’t shake next time, she told herself. The sunset light stretched out their shadows ahead of them as they approached their corner of the sprawling camp. Eszter watched Lujza's stride, the way the woman's boots slapped the mud on every step, the way she gained her speed from stride instead of haste. Someday Eszter would figure out how to copy that fearless gait. Lujza glanced backward, and caught her stare. Eszter froze, and the two of them halted as the other engineers moved onward. Once they were alone, Lujza said, "You saw what I did for you back there?" Eszter glanced down at her hands, her skin raw but whole. "Thank you for stopping me. She was trying to give me the dangerous work, wasn't she? I didn’t realize." "If you have to reach in deep, do it before the engine’s fixed. Save your hands for something worthwhile." She narrowed her eyes. "You did well today. I should apologize," she said without a trace of regret. "For what?" "For being surprised. I should’ve expected you to be a fast learner. Jews are supposed to be cunning, aren’t they?" Eszter’s blood halted in her veins. There was nobody close enough to overhear, but still she whispered. "Don’t speak of it, Lujza. Please! You mustn’t let anyone know." "Why not? You think the army doesn’t take Jews? No, I suppose it doesn’t. Their loyalties don’t lie with Hungary, after all. But our squad has three foreigners and three women in four people — nobody cares where engineers come from." She smiled like a hungry woman set before somebody else’s meal. "Nobody cares unless someone complains to the officers." "But you wouldn’t do that." Eszter buried her hands in her greatcoat pockets, so Lujza wouldn’t see them clench into fists. "I brought you here, why would I get rid of you?" Lujza's hand descended on Eszter’s shoulder. "Remember that." She turned away, leaving a smear of red mud on the shoulder of Eszter’s coat. Eszter's stomach tightened at the thought of following meekly behind Lujza. She doesn't upset me, Eszter told herself. I just need a minute to stretch my legs before dinner. She turned aside and meandered among the grey canvas barracks tents. She scarcely noticed the soldiers until a voice called out, "Hey, engineer! Come sit with us!" She instinctively reached up to Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
36
adjust her kerchief, but all she could do was pull her peaked cap more tightly over her hair. She found the engineers around their cookfire. Kúlisch prodded a pan full of meat, and Lujza opened a flask of liquor. Nahlah sat across the fire, bandages wrapped around two of her fingertips. Kúlisch spoke to Lujza in a Slavic accent, maybe Polish. "You haven’t told Captain Sipos about the new girl yet, have you?" Lujza shrugged. "I’ll tell him when the battle’s over. For now she’s got Bertók’s old tent." Nahlah studied Eszter with a smile like a sugared lemon. "Glad you could join us, new girl." She flashed her bandaged hand. "Don’t worry, you’ll get your scars soon enough." Eszter searched for the right words, but she got no chance to speak them. Lujza grinned like a lion defending her kill, and said, "It took you a month to measure bolts that fast. Keep on getting yourself cut up, maybe the surgeon will marry you and get you out of our hair for good." Nahlah laughed sharply, and she and Lujza began to banter like husband and wife who hated each other slightly less than they hated the thought of divorce. Kúlisch offered the bottle to Eszter. While he was sitting down, she could hardly tell he was a few inches shorter than her. He said, "You stuck through your first battle, good start for an assistant. Brave and stupid, two fine qualities for all of us in the army. Where’d she find you?"
She didn’t find me, I found her, Eszter wanted to say. But Lujza would hear it, one way or another. "I lived in Budapest my entire life. And through the siege." He lifted his eyebrows. "And?" Eszter shook her head. "And that's all. Nothing left for me there." Nothing left she would accept, at least. The liquor burned her throat like acid and apricots, the way pálinka should. "All right, point taken." He shared a knowing smile. "But if you don't want to talk about your past, you need some good lies to tell." She traded the bottle for a hunk of bread and a warm plate of canned beef. Her best meal in months, but she clutched the knife until her fingers hurt. I can endure this, she told herself. In the last year, she had starved, she had lost her brother, she had abandoned her fellow Israelites; what more did it cost her to live without pride? As long as she could stay among the machines. The fire grew low, conversation slowed, and Eszter slipped off to her tent. Alone at last, she shed her coat and threw herself onto dead Bértok’s cot. Exhaustion saturated her bones like metal fatigued beyond its limits, but her mind kept ticking. The bolts still rattled in her hands; Lujza’s threats and promises still loomed over her head. Eszter rolled onto her side. If she wanted to sleep, she would need to finish one more task, despite the risk. After all, it was Friday night. She fished two stubs of wax from her meager pack and lit the candles, her body bent over the flame so no one would see the light. This wouldn’t be the first time she worked through Shabbos, but in the old rhythms of her whispered prayer, she might find a little bit of rest. At dawn, Eszter’s squad joined the mobile artillery on the south flank. Six-wheeled carts launched shells into the distance, shrouding the ground with sulfur and smoke. Every fifteen minutes, the guns would roll themselves to a new position before the French artillery could find their range and return fire. Usually, it worked.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
37
The engineers let Eszter carry tools, tighten connections, and watch them do the real work. She tried to understand every choice they made. Why won’t an 8/5 gear power a three-inch pivot joint? How long do you have to wait between laying down overlapping thaumic wires? How do you identify the replacement modules for the automata’s cognitive mechanics? She memorized each question so she could scavenge for answers later among Lujza's leavings. Another squad relieved them at midday, and the engineers divided up the burden of materiel worth returning to camp. Lujza argued with Nahlah over a disabled mortar, while Kúlisch set off with an empty coal cart and the temptation of a moment out from under Lujza's eye. Eszter hurried after him. "Can I—" She halted, her voice distant and muffled. No, her ears exhausted from the battle. She tried again. "Can I try directing the cart?" "Of course!" Kúlisch beamed. "Here, take the baton, go on. Wave it like this if you want the cart to go faster, like that to slow down. To make it turn, twist like this and then point." Eszter rolled the baton in her hand. It was a hollow metal tube inlaid with the silver lines of thaumic circuitry. Back in Budapest, Lujza had said that thaumic science was to magic, as chemistry was to alchemy. To Eszter’s eyes, the silver plexus was a book written in a language she could not yet read. This, at last, was a Talmud worth deciphering. Kúlisch said, "A lot of girls try to sign up just because we’ll take them. Chasing after some soldier boy, usually. But those girls don’t pay attention like you, and Lujza talks like you have a real knack. Think you might join us for real?" Eszter’s heart coiled with hope, a clock wound full. "I will. I’ve made my choices. And like I said, there’s nothing left for me back in Budapest." "Ach. What happened?" The mainspring in her chest unwound, its power dissipated. She could not mention the pogrom that took her father, nor the humiliations her brother had refused to endure. But she could tell a piece of truth, and make it sound like the whole. "Our apartment building burned down at the end of the siege, after the French diggers came up." Kúlisch grimaced. "I’m sorry to hear it. Still, at least we have the frogs on the run now. It’s been fifty years, but who knows? Maybe Napoleon has finally run out of steam. Here, slow the cart down, the depot’s right over there." Eszter reoriented the cart, and after a few tries she sent it rolling toward the coal depot. Kúlisch reclaimed the baton and led her among the quiet tents. She asked, "Can I really join like this? Don’t automaton engineers need some kind of training?" He shook his head. "It’s like working in a factory. Start next to someone senior and learn as you go." "Even thaumics?" "Ah, for that you’d need real training. A year, Lujza says. Looking to follow in her footsteps, are you? You may well have what it takes, but you’ll have to start at the bottom with us. Don’t worry. If I tell the captain you’re good with a wrench, that’ll be enough to get you started." He swept an appraising look across her face. "I’m glad you’re staying. A girl like you would brighten this company up a bit. You’re a pretty girl and an honest one too. Not like some people we know, yes?" Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
38
Eszter’s heart beat faster, for more reasons than she could name. "I’m sorry, Kúlisch. I’m not looking for something like that right now. I just want to be an engineer." He frowned. "You don’t have to obey Lujza, you know. She’s only a corporal." He chuckled, shook his head. "Whatever she told you, forget it. I’ll put in a word for you with the officers. They won’t let us fraternize with soldiers, but they can’t keep two engineers apart. My tent’s a lot more comfortable than a dead man’s, I promise." He took a step closer and looked up at her with his jaunty smile. Eszter glanced around at the maze of tents, empty of anyone who could hear a shout for help. She extended her arm, but she couldn’t bring herself to push her hand against his chest. "Please, don’t. You’ve been kind to me, but you don’t know me." Kúlisch dipped his head. "Well, fair enough. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. I hope I didn’t offend you." He took a step back and offered a trim little bow, without ever losing that confident smile. "Consider my enthusiasm as a compliment, yes? And if you ever—" "Kúlisch, you pint-sized bastard!" From thirty feet away, Lujza’s voice sliced through the echoes of distant battle. The stout older woman strode toward them, her uniform spattered with coal dust and blood. Kúlisch turned his smile toward Lujza. "Corporal! Is something wrong? I hope that mortar didn’t bite you, I warned you about the bolts." Lujza shoved him away from Eszter. "Don’t play games with me, you six-inch shit. Keep your jealous little hands off of her." "Calm down, Lujza. I’m not bothering her. Tell her, Eszter. We were just talking, that's all, right?" Ezster opened her mouth to speak, but the answers fought each other in her throat, and no sound emerged. Lujza slammed her fist into Kúlisch’s stomach, and the air rushed from his lungs with a grunt. Lujza crossed her arms and watched him gasp for breath and then straighten. He worked his jaw as if a splinter of bone had stuck between his teeth. He glanced at Eszter and then let his gaze fix on Lujza. "My apologies. Lujza." Eszter dropped her hand from her mouth before Lujza could see it. Lujza turned away from Kúlisch, grabbed Eszter’s arm, and guided her away. Lujza said, "If anyone talks to you when I’m not around, you tell me, understand? Come on now, girl. Put on your gloves, we have scrap duty for the afternoon. You can ask me a few questions while we walk." The engineer’s hand on her elbow made Eszter feel safe, like a treasure under lock and key. But I need to walk at my own pace, she told herself. She pulled her arm free. Lujza maintained her stride, and Eszter had to hurry to keep pace. Lujza glanced back and smiled like a child eyeing an errant marble. "Don’t get lost, girl." A dozen memorized questions hung on the tip of Eszter’s tongue, but she held them back. More important than any scrap of knowledge, she needed to make sure that Lujza wouldn’t tire of mentoring her. "Thank you for your help back there," Eszter said. She probably even meant it. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
39
The boneyard was a wide low heap of scrap and riches, the size of a house smashed into kindling. Eszter took a spot at one edge and began to sort. Again and again, she took a hunk of mangled metal, studied it, tested it, and placed it one of her own little piles. Occasionally she found a serviceable mechanism, or a fragment inlaid with intact thaumic wires. More often, she pried apart broken machinery and extracted some salvageable component, an unbroken gear or piston. Even pieces with French measurements could be pressed back into service. Mostly, she found scrap metal, and tossed it behind her so a conscript could cart it away to be melted down in some distant foundry. The scrap, at least, might make it back to Budapest. Lujza sat ten yards away, but the distance might have been ten miles. Eszter worked at her own pace, her gloved hands deep in the guts of the fallen. Every shattered mechanism gave her an excuse to study or to wonder. A pair of warped pistons let her test the interplay between form and friction. A broken gear train outlined the story of all its lost and scattered pieces, and all the things she might someday make it do. At one point, the words of the shekahcha rose unbidden into her head, a sentence of thanks for the world’s beauty. She could not recall when last she’d said that prayer. "You the new girl who’s been following Squad Eleven? Eszter something?" An unfamiliar voice broke her reverie. Eszter registered the late-afternoon light, the sound of distant shells, and the sullen young man in a sergeant’s uniform. He rolled a truncheon in his hand, back and forth. "That’s me, yes. Can I help you?" I have no reason to fear, she told herself. My secret is safe, it has to be. "Captain Sipos sent me to get you. Come along now." He beckoned with his truncheon. She glanced toward Lujza, but the older woman shook her head and returned to her work. Eszter was trapped against the iron, with place to go save where this sergeant might take her. She stood, and followed the sergeant back into the domain of men. The captain's tent had four poles, and room enough for bed and office both. Captain Sipos sat at a table strewn with notes and blueprints. He had a bushy face, with sideburns and moustache, pierced by clear blue eyes. "Sit," he said, without looking up from his writing. Eszter found two chairs, but one had Kúlisch already sitting in it, his arms crossed. He offered her an apologetic little smile. Sipos handed a note to his orderly, who stepped outside and left the three of them alone in the tent. Eszter tried to sit up straight. She wished she had cleaned some of the mud and grease from her clothes. She wished she had a uniform that fit. Sipos said, "Specialist Lengyel here says he was attacked by one of the other engineers. By Corporal Lujza Rigó. He said you witnessed it. Did you?" The two stares made Eszter’s heart curl up like a snail. "They had a disagreement, sir, but it didn’t seem important. I don’t know what to say." Sipos said, "Specialist Lengyel, back to work." Kúlisch raised his eyebrows and glanced at Eszter, but she focused on the captain’s brass buttons. The tent flap rustled, and then fell quiet. Captain Sipos said, "Soldiers can brawl if they want, but I’m in command of engineers—a gaggle of women and undesirables who need a sterner hand. I decide what’s important here, girl, and the important things are these." He ticked off on his fingers: "Discipline among my engineers. Knowing Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
40
whom I can trust, and whom is unworthy of service. And your answer to my question." She started to speak, and then halted. Kúlisch had treated her kindly, but for his own motives. If she wanted to rid herself of his insistent smile and insistent questions, she held the tool to achieve it on her own. "They argued, but she didn’t hit him, sir. He’s lying." A bitter taste rose in the back of her mouth. She swallowed, and it was gone. "Very well. I’ll do something about this." He wrote another line, signed his name, and then sealed the letter. "But I’m not finished with you. Come closer." He looked her up and down for the second time. "So you’re Lujza’s latest foundling. There are things I tolerate from that woman, because she’s one of our best engineers. She picked you up in Budapest, yes? I grew up in the old town, up the hill in Buda. Where are you from, girl? And what’s your full name?" "Eszter Révay, from Prater Street," she lied, a name and address from outside the ghetto. "Prater Street? My favorite cukrászda was just around the corner from there. Did you go to the Széchenyi? You have to stand with Jews sometimes there, there’s no avoiding it so close to the ghetto. But you’d hardly notice, the bad ones stay behind their walls. Besides, it’s worth it for the krémes. You never went? Ah, a pity." He gestured her back to her chair. "Our little troublemaker Kúlisch said you have some real talent. That you could make a good engineer someday, maybe even in thaumics. Is that what you want?" "It is, sir." A burst of heat and lightness spread through her chest like an engine’s first breath of steam. "More than anything." "I assume you need the army to pay for your training, so if you want to learn thaumic engineering, it'll be a five year enlistment." He shook his head. "You don’t know what you’d be getting yourself into, Révay. You’re young, you’re polite, you’re pretty enough, and evidently you’re smart; you can do better than waste your youth in oil and mud. Save yourself some callouses, go back home to your family. Besides, if I let you sign up, you’d never get to try that krémes."
Krémes. A pastry she could never afford, from a city she might never see again. This question, at least, she could answer honestly. "I wouldn’t anyway, sir. At the end of the siege, a lot of the diggers came up in the Erszébetvarós ghetto. There’s not much left of the neighborhoods around it. And my family is all in the army or gone." Sipos put a hand against his face, his index finger pressed against the hollow of one closed eye. He took a deep breath, then lowered his hand and started writing another letter. "Well, if you’re certain, I’ll keep you on as an assistant until we’ve pushed the French back past the Balaton. Then we’ll send you north for thaumics training. Best of luck and God bless, Junior Specialist Révay. Hungary and the Coalition could use more girls like you. You’re dismissed." Eszter stood up, but a knot tightened in her stomach. Lujza would hold so much more power, now that Eszter had earned a prize worth losing. The walls of the ghetto loomed around her still. "Sir." Eszter swallowed, her mouth dry. "There’s something else, if you have a minute?" Sipos’ pen paused above the paper. "Make it quick." "It’s my squad, sir." She spoke slowly, trying to plan one step ahead of her words. "There’s a Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Kinney
“Machines in Motion”
41
reason why Kúlisch wanted to get Lujza in trouble. I think they used to be lovers, but now he’s with Nahlah, the Arab woman. If you discipline Kúlisch, it’ll put those two at each others’ throats. Or mine, now." Truth is the seal of the Holy One, the sages said. But she would not let guilt stop her tongue, not when one more lie might save her. He pointed his pen at her. "This is why I care so much about how my engineers behave. I was afraid your squad might fall into such things after Bertók died. But if they’re just jealous, you all can sort it out yourselves." His pen descended and scratched out a word from his note. "Don’t waste my time, Révay." The words clicked into place like a bolt into its fastener. She could forge the truth, and her heart, into tools of their own. "It’s not just bad moods, sir. Lujza’s trying to ruin me. She’s started spreading rumors, making up lies. Telling people I’m a Jew." "I see." Sipos frowned. "Well, perhaps it’s time to split up that squad up after all. I’ll make sure Lujza knows she won’t get away with any rumor-mongering." He crumpled up his letter and started anew. "Go get your things, then give this note to Lieutenant Orosz. He’ll find a place for you." Eszter stood outside Captain Sipos’ tent as the cannons and sun faded for another day. Back home, in her burned-out apartment and the shattered ghetto, it would almost be time for havdalah. The end of Shabbos, the border between the sacred and the mundane, between Israel and the nations of the world. The cycle of another week, beginning anew. She could see her tent from here, and she spent a few moments watching a nameless figure start a cooking fire. If she did not return to that tent, she could escape the lot of them. She would have to abandon what little she possessed: some threadbare old clothes, a tin of friction matches, and two stubs of wax.
It's better this way, she told herself. I want to bring nothing with me.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
SKIN DEEP By Jasmine Arch
Oil-tipped waves tumbled over me as I crawled up the beach on leaden limbs. Thick black muck coated my hide, plastering the fine dark hairs together and clogging my eyes and nostrils. As the tide retreated, it tried to draw me back into its embrace—the silt of home tainted with the taste of sulfur. I fought back against the pull and continued up the slope towards the looming dunes. My stomach clenched, bringing up acrid bile that stung my throat and nose. Black spots danced at the edge of my vision, moving every time I tried to look at them, like herring slipping out of my grasp. When I opened my eyes, whitewashed bricks had taken the place of the oil-slicked beach. I blinked, puzzled by the pale pink arm in front of my face. When the fingers moved, I realised they were mine. Dark silken fur and claw-tipped flippers had made way for smooth, hairless skin and fingers. I tried to roll over, but my muscles refused to cooperate. The only thing I managed was to push the blanket off my shoulders, exposing me to the chilly air. “Oh, you’re awake.” A low, gravelly voice behind me chased my pulse into my throat, and I screamed. Or tried to but only a grating moan came out. I coughed, choking on thick mucus as my throat burned. “Here, I’ll help you.” Hands pulled the blanket back up before cupping my head and gently turning me over. The movement made my vision swirl and spin. My stomach roiled, my body contracting as it tried to heave up more of the sludge I’d almost drowned in. “Woah.” The stranger leaned back as he rolled me further onto my side and held a bowl under my face. The cool edge, solid against my cheek, was the only part of the world that seemed to stay in one place. With his free hand, he supported my head.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
43
When the spasms stopped, I glanced up at him. Brown eyes with laugh lines at the corners met my gaze from behind wood-rimmed glasses. He had black hair, slicked back from his forehead, and a thick beard. Pitted scars spread across his dark skin like freckles. He glanced down at the bowl and smiled. “Well, you got most of it in the bowl. That’s a start.” I had to get out. Find my pelt and make it back to the water. My brother would be sick with worry. I’d promised him—and myself—this would never happen again. That I wouldn’t allow it. And I’d failed. But my eyelids grew heavy and the black spots returned. Sunlight pooled on the floor, a square bisected by the six lines of an old leaded-glass window. This time, my fingers moved when I tried them. My hand came up to my face. Still smooth, dry, and hairless. A door clicked shut, and I gasped, trying to sit up and turn in the direction of the sound. “Try not to exert yourself just yet,” the voice rasped. “You need rest.” Working my tongue around, I tried to bring some moisture to my mouth. “You don’t fool me.” “Sorry?” He came into view, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, tilting me in his direction. “I said ‘You don’t fool me.’” I shuffled away from him until my back pressed against the wall. “Takes a big man, doesn’t it, to capture a selkie when they’re unconscious and helpless.” He laid a cool hand against my forehead. “I imagine that it does. But that’s not what happened.” “I’m naked, in a strange bed, and my pelt is gone.” “I found a seal on the beach, coated in crude oil and barely breathing. When I tried to clear its airway, the pelt came loose at the neck.” As he nodded, he smiled at me again. “But it’s safe. Don’t worry.” “Give it to me,” I whispered. “Can’t do that.” He shook his head, walking into the next room and returning with a shallow bowl. Fragrant steam curled up, hinting at the flavours of the sea. Fish, kelp, and silt. My stomach rumbled, and I pushed myself up on one elbow, trying not to look too eager for the food. He glanced up at me, lips curved in a half-smile. “Hope you're hungry.” “How do I know you didn’t put anything in it?” I eyed the bowl in his callused hands. “Why would I do such a thing?” I raised an eyebrow as he walked over and offered me the bowl but I kept both hands clasped around the edge of the blanket. He walked out and returned after a few minutes holding a sweater up. “This should fit you.” He laid the sweater on the mattress, next to my pillow. “If you put this on, I’ll go find some more pillows so you can sit upright.” “You can take your cast-off clothes and sti—” Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
44
“Well there’s three options, not counting starvation. You can eat in the nude or tie yourself in knots trying to hold that blanket up. Or there’s that sweater.” I closed my eyes as I tasted the first spoonful of broth, and it swept me out to sea. The silty tang of kelp swaying in the current; delicate bits of flaky haddock darting away from my spoon. Savouring the complementing flavours, I leaned into the pillows he’d piled behind me. Before I knew it, the spoon clanked in the empty bowl. I had to force myself to take deep breaths as my insides roiled, digesting the light brothy soup as if I’d feasted at a rich, heady banquet. I placed the bowl on the bedside table—an upturned crate so old the wood had greyed—and drew the sleeves of the sweater over my fingers. Years of sun, wind, and salt spray had bleached the fabric and softened it to a velvety texture. “Feel better?” I didn’t open my eyes, didn’t want to give him the acknowledgement of meeting his gaze. “I’d feel better if I had my pelt.” “You need to get your strength back before you return to the sea.” Heavy, ponderous footfalls came to my bed and the spoon and plate gave a faint clatter before the footsteps retreated. “Going now would get you killed. Caught in someone’s nets or taken by a predator.” “I’m already taken by a predator.” “Tell you what.” His voice took on a sharp edge of gruffness, causing my pulse to jump. “I’ll let you see the damn pelt so you can make sure it’s intact.” I opened my eyes and stared at him. “You will?” “Yes.” To one side of the room stood a wooden coffer. Sturdy, solid oak, polished to a satin sheen. An ornate brass oval framed the keyhole. He held up a matching key, letting it catch the pale sunlight darting into the room. The hinges creaked as he lifted the lid and pulled out a bundle of grey wool. When he unwrapped it, my pelt cascaded over his hands and wrists, silky and black. “See? I didn’t do anything to it. No binding sigils, no ropes, no tricks.” “Give it to me.” My fingers clawed of their own volition as I reached for it. He dangled it just out of reach. “Get up, walk over here, and take it.” Gritting my teeth, I pushed the blanket off, swung my legs out of bed, and tried to stand. My knees slammed into the hardwood floor. I caught myself on my hands, crawling forwards. Breath heaving, sweat pouring down my face, I forced myself to move. My fingertips grazed his boots and I looked up. The pelt rippled towards me—tantalisingly close—but the tips fell short of my fingers. The bastard refused to lower it as he looked down on me. “I did say walk, friend.” “I’m not your friend.” Panting, I watched him from my spot on the floor as he carefully folded up my pelt. Part of my essence. He gently stroked the fur to smooth it out and a shiver ran down my back at every slow caress of his calloused hands. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
45
The lid on the coffer clicked shut, and I let my shoulders slump. My captor walked back to where I sat, helped me to my feet and slung my arm over his shoulders. “I’m not doing this to spite you.” “Sure.” I sighed, letting him drag me back to bed with as little cooperation as possible. The next morning, I sat propped up in bed with a bowl of watery porridge, staring out the window at a grassy hill. He brought me the brass key, dangling from a leather thong. “That’s the only key. I’m not going to keep you confined or anything like that. All you need to do is reach that coffer—and your pelt—on your own two feet.” I rolled my eyes as he bent down to tie the thong around my neck, the cold metal against my chest raising goosebumps along my arms and shoulders. “I’m Hagan by the way,” he said as he patted my knee and headed for the coffer. “Wait!” I shot forward. “You said you wouldn’t—” “I said all you had to do was reach it.” He nodded, picking it up with a grin. “I never promised to keep it next to your bed.” He walked out with my pelt, whistling a tune that made me want to punch him. He appeared in the window, gave me a cheerful wave, and marched up the grassy slope. He stashed the coffer in a stand of trees and sauntered back down. When he came inside, a cat slipped in at his heels, looking like it had just fought a battle and lost. "There you are, Amergin." Hagan stooped, scratching the cat behind its ragged ears. "Come to say hello?" He glanced at the bowl lying forgotten in my lap. “Maybe you can convince our guest to eat some breakfast.” “Should have known you were full of shit,” I said as I gritted my teeth. “True colours always show sooner or later.” His hand touched my shoulder, light and warm through the fabric of his sweater. “All you have to do is get well again. Strong enough to hike up that hill.” “Anyone could steal it out there.” I shoved the bowl into his hands and turned my back to him, pulling the blanket up to my neck and brushing off his hand as I burrowed into the pillow. The cat hopped onto the bed and curled up against my side with a loud purr. Scowling at Hagan, I shuffled to the folding chair by the little trestle table. “That thing will fold up underneath my arse and it’ll be your fault for forcing me to sit on it.” “I never knew selkies were so prone to dramatics.” He smirked as he carried two plates to the little table. Hands braced on the table, I sank into the chair as slowly as my trembling legs allowed. “Well, I did know humans were sadistic, smart-arsed little shits. More fool me for letting myself get trapped by one again.” “What do you mean, ‘again?’” He studied my face, head tilted to the side. I glared at the fork and knife he held out but kept silent. Before I accepted them, I reached up to touch the key, reassuring myself of its solid presence. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
46
Hagan brought out a covered blue stoneware dish, lid sealed in place with a ring of hard-baked dough, so dry I barely scented the tang of salt. He tapped at the dough, breaking the edges. Steam rose from the cracks, fragrant with fresh herbs and the rich savour of garlic and chicken. Under the table, Amergin let out loud plaintive wails. I snickered as he pawed at my leg. "Quite the serenade. You named him well." "I don’t mind his whining too much. He's good company when he deigns to grace me with his presence." "Well I can't blame him for begging." As I waited for Hagan to work the lid free, I reached down to stroke the cat. “About time you got me some decent food. I’ve got porridge and broth coming out my ears.” “I’m the one who had to wipe up your vomit, so you’ll have to forgive me for feeding you things you could keep down.” He pulled the lid off, leaning away from the cloud of steam, but it still misted his glasses so he ended up peering over the rims. “I didn’t make you kidn—” “I did not kidnap you.” The muscles at his jaw clenched for a second as he spooned a helping of chicken onto my plate, doused with sauce. “You have my pelt.” He pulled a phone from his back pocket, dropping it on the table next to my plate before sitting down across from me. “Want to call the police? Go on. Or maybe the marine mammal rescue center? Number’s in there. They’ll pick you and your pelt up before you can sneeze. But you won’t be seeing the sea anytime soon.” I sighed, picked up my fork, and speared a soft caramelised garlic clove. Leaning into the doorjamb, I stared around the sparse little kitchen as Amergin twisted himself around my ankles in tight circles. To one side, along the outer wall, stood a narrow cot, folded up to allow passage to the little gas range. By the range, a tiny light-brown land-dweller bird stared at me over the edge of an open box, eyes and posture calm and relaxed. One of its wings sported a splint and bandage. “I found her last month. Broken wing. Should be as good as new.” Hagan thrust his hands into his pockets as he came into the room. I sighed, smiling at the little thing. “Amergin isn’t even going after her.” “He came in here a refugee once,” Hagan said. “He knows not to pick on my other guests.” On the other side of the range, there was one other door, its cut-glass panes looking out into a well-kept veggie patch. I turned to face Hagan. “There’s only two rooms?” “Yes.” He smiled as he brought me a chair. “Here. Sit for a bit and rest.” “So where do you sleep?” “In here.” He made a gesture to encompass the room.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
47
I stared at him as I pointed to the rickety-looking cot. “On that?” “Well, the floor is a bit hard.” He shrugged and winked at me. “Not to mention my balls would freeze to my arse.” He gave me his own bed when he could have left me on the cot in the frigid kitchen. “But—” “Let’s go outside shall we?” Hagan turned away from me, shoulders rigid as he marches out the door. “The fresh air will do you good. Maybe tomorrow, we can try to set the bird free. See if she’s ready to fly. What do you say?” I followed his retreating back. “I’d love to.” The little bird—a wren, Hagan had called her—sat in the palm of his hand, head dipped to one side as she took in her surroundings. She blinked up at me, and then she was off, spiralling up the hillside. Raising my hand above my eyes to block the glaring sunlight, I stared after her. The hill loomed over Hagan’s cottage, with its little vegetable patch. I shook my head. “I can’t.” He handed me a cane. “Sure you can.” “Look at me. Barely out the door and already out of breath.” I pointed to the top of the slope, where the copse of trees waited. “It’s too far.” “Today, yes,” he said. “But you already made it farther than you did yesterday. I thought you were made of sterner stuff than this but here you are, giving up at the first—” “Don’t talk to me about hard. You have no idea what it’s like, living in a world that is constantly pumped full of toxins and trash by those who don’t have to live in it—by those who would—” Panting, shaking with fury as well as fatigue, I walked to the edge of Hagan’s garden—five more steps—before I turned back to the house. “Those who would what?” His voice softened behind me. I shook my head. “Forget it.” Tomorrow, I’d pass the gate. I lay draped over Hagan’s shoulder—tired limbs dangling like a rag doll—as he picked his way down the slope, going slowly across the uneven terrain. “Almost made it to the first of the rhododendron bushes.” Smiling, I closed my eyes to bask in the miniscule victory. “You did good. But try to keep the return trip in mind next time.” He chuckled as he released my hand to open the yard gate. “The fitter you get, the farther I’ll have to carry you back if you keep this up.” “I just wanted to—” “I know. It’s OK.” He tweaked my boot as he walked between rows of lettuce, mint, zucchini, and cabbage. “Think you’re rested enough to make it inside from here?” “I think so,” I said. Carefully, he bent and set my feet on the ground. “Go on in and have a lie down. I’m going to Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
48
grab us some carrots for dinner.” With a nod, I wobbled to the door. “Thank you.” I turned back to face him and he met my gaze with a grin, white teeth flashing in that dark wiry beard. The doorknob was cold beneath my palm, sending a chill up my arm as I hesitated. “You know. For carrying me back?” “No problem.” He laughed, a deep, soft sound I’d not heard from him before. Once inside, I leaned against the greyed oak of the door. I’d almost made it halfway. Dragging my feet, I shuffled past the kitchen to my bed. The corners of my mouth crept up into a smile as I lay on top of the covers and sank into the pillow. Sweat dripped down my forehead and plastered my hair to my cheeks as I looked up the slope. Next to me, Hagan’s voice was low but constant—a tide of encouragement pushing me up the slope. “Come on.” He came up beside me, patting my shoulder. “You’ve got a few more steps in you.” “I can’t.” Panting, I leaned over my cane. “Sure you can,” he said. “Catch your breath for a bit, and then lift your foot and put it in front of the other.” “Hilarious, aren’t you?” I growled, wishing I had my claws instead of the puny pink nails. He sprang ahead, running a few steps before turning and spreading his arms. “You could punch me, but you’d have to get up here.” Wagging his eyebrows, he curled his lips into a lopsided smirk. Closing my eyes, I breathed in and took another step. Slowly, I zipped up my parka—the one Hagan had lent me, anyway—and headed for the door. “Well, today’s the big day, isn’t it?” He stood, walking me to the door on bare feet. “Wait,” I said. “You’re not coming with me?” “Not this time.” As he spoke, he shook his head. “You’ve got this.” I stood by the door, unsure of what to say until he guffawed. “What happened to the pissed-off selkie I scraped off the beach? You’re not getting soft on me, are you?” “Thank you, Hagan.” On a sigh, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. He smelled of woodsmoke and the mint from his tea. His beard tickled my cheek. It took him a few seconds to return the embrace. “That’s the first time you used my name.” “Names have power,” I whispered. “I don’t use them lightly.” Moving back, I brushed at a speck of dirt on his collar to avoid his gaze. “You never asked for mine.” He nodded. “I figured you’d tell me in your own time.” “It’s Miach.” I released him and reached for the door. “Wish me luck?” “You won’t need it,” he said. “Goodbye, Miach.” I carried the coffer to the dunes, folded up each borrowed item and placed it inside. I laid the brass key on top of the little pile. Standing on the beach, I watched the tide roll in. In one hand, I Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
49
held my pelt. It rippled as if stirred by a breeze, but it was a still day. The fingers of my other hand, I’d wrapped around the leather thong Hagan had tied into a necklace for me. As I was about to drop the scrap of leather on top of the brass key, I hesitated. Maybe I could keep this. A reminder that not all humans are bastards after all. I withdrew my hand and closed the coffer. Holding one end between my teeth, I tied the thong around my neck, leaving just enough space for a snug fit after my transition. Then, I lifted my pelt and slipped it over my shoulders.
Bubbles danced on the currents as I dove, spinning and whirling through the silty water. Eyes closed, I savoured the scents and flavours of home. No eggs or nettle soup but untamed surf and schools of fish parting before my nose, hoping to escape my teeth. A slight underlying note of sulfur remained, leaving a bitter aftertaste I ignored as I called out to my siblings and swam to the cove we’d called home for generations. Fins vibrating with anticipation, I neared the waters of my birth but no playful cubs tumbled over the waves. Seagulls avoided the soiled surface, resting on cliff and stone instead. All I found was ominous silence. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Arch
“Skin Deep”
50
I cried out, stomach roiling, as I pushed myself to greater speed. When the reply came, it was faint, the voices fewer than when we got separated. My brother met me as I entered the bay, touching his nose to mine before sniffing the leather thong I wore. His song was both joyful and wistful as he turned to swim ahead of me. His mind reached out to brush mine. “You’ve been gone for many moons.” “I was sick and unable to swim.” “We thought you were taken. Lost.” His sadness washed over me. “I’m glad you came back in time.” “In time for what?” “We have to leave. Find safer harbours. Too many of us have fallen ill or been taken by landfolk.” He wriggled his body, turning onto his back and looking at me. “I can take that thing off for you.” “It doesn’t bother me,” I replied. “But it’s—” “It’s fine.” I blinked, meeting his gaze. Averting his eyes, he turned and swam on. His movements were clipped, abrupt. Perhaps my tone had been sharper than intended. “When the moon rises, we will follow the tide out to the open sea.” Away from our ancestral home but also away from Hagan’s little cottage. That was what I’d been working for, the months I’d been trapped on land. It was what I wanted. Wasn’t it? I just hadn’t expected it to be so final. Panting, I crawled through the surf and up the beach, fighting the pull of the receding tide. Sodden pelt draped over my shoulders, I let the moonlight wash over me. I allowed myself a few minutes to catch my breath, curling my fingers into the loose sand. The pelt wanted to wrap itself around my limbs, pull me back to my sea form, but I evaded its grasp as I pushed myself to my feet and followed the path I’d only walked once before in the opposite direction. The cottage lay dark and silent in its bed of greens and plants. When I knocked on the door, no one answered. I tried again, waiting, dancing from foot to foot as the breeze chilled my wet skin. Still nothing but silence and the padding of my feet against the flagstones of the garden path. Finally, shivering, I let my shoulders slump and turned away. If I hurried, I might still be able to track my herd mates. As I reached the gate, a square of yellow lamplight fell at my heels, blinding me to the night. Hagan’s voice, thick with sleep, drove a chill up my spine. “Miach? Is that you?” “I was wondering...” I turned, pelt clenched in my trembling hands. “I was wondering if you knew of a spot where we can keep this safe.”
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
LAW OF CONSERVATION OF BASEBALL By Stephen Case
He was the kind of kid who always had what looked like a brand-new baseball with him. He hadn’t always been that kind of kid. He used to be just a friend who could spend the entire afternoon curled in a hammock with me reading comic books or magazines, depending on our collective mode. But now before school and after, when we scattered back down the arteries of streets surrounding Stonefield Middle Grade Center, he would be throwing and catching a baseball, over and over. We lived a block apart from each other. For the past three years we had followed each other home, spending the rest of the afternoon either at his place or mine. But adolescence had risen up between us like a wall of glass. It made our view of each other distorted, magnifying in weird ways aspects of ourselves we had never noticed before. We both felt it, I think. And I compensated by a kind of confused aggression. “Why do you always have that stupid baseball with you?” I asked walking home one particular afternoon. It was early September and warm enough that the un-air-conditioned school had felt like a furnace. He was throwing and catching but now stopped and glanced at me. We didn’t spend the afternoons at each other’s houses anymore. That would have been awkward, somehow. But I think we both missed each other. “Why does your hair always smell like hairspray?” he shot back. “What?” He shrugged. “It used to smell like bubblegum.”
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
52
“You used to smell my hair?” He shrugged again and went back to catching and tossing, catching and tossing. The shrugs irritated me. It irritated me that he seemed disappointed somehow, like I let him down because I cared about my hair not looking like I had just rolled out of bed. And it irritated me more that I found myself caring that he cared. Why should I care that he noticed I used my sister’s hairspray? He hadn’t noticed the perfume. “You’re not even on the baseball team,” I pushed. “It makes you look stupid.” For a minute I thought I had hurt his feelings, because he stopped tossing the ball and stood still for a second, looking down at it. “Do you want it?” he asked, not looking at me. “I’ve got like a hundred.” “Why do you even have a hundred baseballs?” He looked up at me with a lopsided grin. “Remember that time we found the turtle on the sidewalk?” he asked. He was looking at me closely, like he was trying to see past the makeup and the hair and the new outfit that maybe he hadn’t even noticed. (I didn’t care, I repeated to myself.) Like he was trying to find someone. I didn’t like that look. “Yeah?” “You had that turtle book,” he continued. “And we convinced ourselves we’d found the last surviving specimen of an endangered species.” He was still smiling, but I scowled. “Yeah, and then it got run over because you left it outside in a cardboard box even though I told you not to. And it rained and the sides got all soggy and it escaped.” He laughed. “And you cried.” “So did you.” I was almost smiling now, remembering long afternoons when this neighborhood seemed a lot larger, but then he got somber. His stupid, soft brown eyes were on everything but my own—on the sidewalk, my bare shoulders (a new top from my sister’s closet), the stumps of the ash trees the city had cut down this season along the easement. Everywhere but meeting mine. “But that feeling, Hunt.” He was the only person who still called me that. I was Hunter now, even to my mom and sister. “That we had found something . . . amazing. A secret. Something only we knew about.” I shuffled my feet. “We had a lot of those.”
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
53
His next words came in a rush. “I want to show you something. Tonight. You have to swear not to tell. Meet me behind Edison at eleven o'clock. Exactly eleven. But only come if the sky is clear. It won’t work if it’s cloudy.” He was talking fast, like it was spilling out of him, and I just nodded before really processing any of it. But he smiled weakly and hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder, then swung up the sidewalk to his house, still clutching that stupid baseball. What had just happened? I knew why kids at the high school met in dark fields, and the field behind old Edison Elementary, just blocks from our houses, was a favorite make-out spot. He and I used to hide behind the hedge and lob water balloons at couples getting frisky in the grass. But he had just asked me to meet him there. And I had nodded. I walked the half-block to my own house, heart hammering, trying to decide whether I was confused, frightened, or elated. When I got to the field that night he was waiting. He smelled like bug spray and sweat, and he wore an old leather ball glove on his right hand. “I forgot you were left-handed,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The field stretched from the street to the line of trees at the edge of the old school, which as long as I could remember had been a church and a private Christian academy. Mom had gone there back when it was a public school. There was a soccer net set up in one corner of the field, and the whole field plus the school building and parking lot filled an entire block. In the opposite corner from the soccer field there was a ball diamond mostly overgrown with grass, though a chain-link backstop still stood behind where home plate had been. He was waiting beside the trees, and I followed him to the grass in the outfield, pretty much at the center of the field. It was an exposed position if he actually had making out in mind (and I still hadn’t decided how I felt about that), but it was also outside of the reach of the parking lot lights. “It looks pretty clear, don’t you think?” he asked, sitting down and then craning his neck and scanning the sky anxiously. “It will only work if it’s clear. I don't know why.” His dad was a barber with a shop within walking distance. That meant his hair was always impeccable, cut short around the sides and just long enough so the bangs reached down toward his eyes. Maybe I was a little distracted thinking about his hair, because when I sat down next to him, I sat a little too close. Geez, I was nearly sitting in his lap. But he didn’t move away, so neither did I. “Are we looking for shooting stars?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
54
This close, I could smell his hair-gel over the sweat and bug spray. And he complained about my hairspray? He smelled like his dad’s barbershop. “No,” he said, still sounding anxious. I had showered that evening and then stood puzzling over an assortment of jean shorts, shirts, bras, and camisoles spread over my bed, most liberated from my sister’s room. I had tried on two or three, looking at myself in the mirror and wondering about how much leg or arm I should be showing. I decided that if he tried to kiss me, I’d let him, just to see what it was like. “Then what is it?” I whispered. “A satellite?” “I can’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me. You have to see it. Lay back in the grass, like this.” He lay on his back and I lay down beside him, just close enough that our shoulders were touching. It felt kind of like those afternoons reading in the hammock in his backyard. I wanted to twist around and punch him in the ribs, make him tell me what the secret was, but I decided I wasn’t going to touch him at all. If there was going to be any touching (apart from shoulders) he could make the first move. We waited in a chorus of crickets. He kept checking his watch. Its glowing face lit up his features like a firefly perched on his wrist. I remembered catching them with him, often, in this field. “The weather said it was supposed to be clear tonight,” he muttered. He shifted in the grass, though, significantly, not moving enough so our shoulders no longer touched. “It looks clear to me.” I glanced upward at the handful of bright stars that were visible from the middle of the neighborhood. I was getting bored. Shouldn’t he have done something by now? He checked his watch again and flexed the glove he still wore on his right hand. Suddenly something seemed to occur to him, and he bolted up, startling me, and scanned the edges of the field. “There’s no one around, is there? You have to see that. To know it’s not a trick.” He looked down at me, and there was something like panic on his features. “I’ve never shown anyone before.” “What, a UFO?” I sat up too, and suddenly my nervousness and annoyance crystallized, sharp and jagged. “This is a trick, isn’t it? You’ve got friends or something hidden over there by the trees—“ The alarm went off on his wristwatch, a tinny beeping in the darkness. “That’s it.” I stood up. “I’m going home.” “Wait!” He grabbed at my wrist with his free hand, which was an idiot thing to do if he wanted to calm me down. “It’s now! Look!” He had the other hand with the glove open over his forehead like maybe he thought I was going to lean down and hit him or maybe he was shielding his eyes from the stars. There was a faint whisper, somehow electrical, from somewhere above us. It felt like something huge had sparked in the sky, though I couldn’t see anything, just feel a slight crackle of static on my forearms and back of my neck. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
55
Then another whisper—this one somehow familiar. I didn’t have time to process that until later, to realize it was the sound of something falling, until after it had resolved into the solid thwack of a ball landing in his glove. A baseball.
“See?” He jumped to his feet, holding the glove in front of him like a prize, like he had caught a star. “Touch it!” “That’s a stupid trick,” I said slowly, trying to convince myself it was. “You’ve got a friend over there somewhere who threw it.” “Touch it!” he insisted. I did. The ball was warm, almost hot, to the touch. I picked it up out of his glove. “You’ve got a friend who put it in the microwave and then threw it. What a stupid, weird trick.” I held it close to my face. It had a tangy smell, like the air under a storm. I thought of the crackle I had just felt more than heard. It made me think of lightning. Was the ball glowing slightly? “No one threw it. It just-- appears? Every night it’s clear.” I still held the baseball. “Every night?” “It has to be perfectly clear.” He nodded his head eagerly. “I was afraid it wouldn’t be tonight, and you’d think I was crazy.” “You are crazy.” I pushed the ball back into his glove. “Keep it.” He laughed. “I’ve already told you: I’ve got like a hundred.” His nervousness was gone. He was grinning. I could see his teeth in the shadows. He was thrilled it had actually happened and that I had seen it. That he had shared it with me. But it still wasn’t sticking. I wasn’t really processing what had happened because—well, because Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
56
it made no sense. It was so random. It didn’t connect to anything reasonable. And I was disappointed. Why? That he hadn’t brought me out here to— What, exactly? And why should I care about that? He put the ball back into my hands. “How long?” I finally asked, dumbly. “How long has this been happening?” “I don't know.” He shrugged and then spread his arms in a gestured that took in the field, the neighborhood, and the sky. “All summer, I guess. At least, that’s when I noticed it. I was walking home after playing video games at Jay’s. I cut through the field and heard that… crackle, or whatever, and then this baseball falls right in front of me.” I turned it over in my hands. “And you haven’t shown anyone else?” The ball was cooling off. It just felt like a normal baseball now, warmed by my hand. “No one,” he said. “I haven’t even told anyone. They wouldn’t believe me.” He paused. “But... I wanted to show you.” He smiled. “It took me like forever to convince myself to do it.” “Why?” He shrugged. “We used to share a lot of secrets, like you said. But this year... I wasn’t sure things were the same.” “We’re still friends.” I paused. “We used to be best friends.” “Yeah.” We stood like that for a minute, staring at each other, trying to figure out what had changed, why we felt like we were standing at the edge of a cliff. I lifted the ball to my face. It smelled like leather. It tasted salty and felt rough on my tongue. “Did you just lick the ball?” he asked me. Ah geez. I had. I was holding it in front of my face, and I had put it to my mouth and licked it like a nervous girl, like I was six years old. I was nervous. Why was I nervous? “What does it taste like?” I hated being nervous. I hated him for making me feel nervous. I had never been nervous around him, but now we were standing in this field, and I was waiting for something to happen, like he had been waiting for the ball to fall from an empty sky a minute ago. He had been nervous then, worried something wouldn’t happen, that the sky wouldn’t be clear, the stars wouldn’t align. That something wouldn’t happen. Now I was worried nothing would happen. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
57
“Hey.” He grinned again. “Earth to Hunt. What’s the ball taste like, you weirdo?” Screw that. I would make something happen. I dropped the ball and pulled him toward me. “It tasted like this,” I told him. We went to the field together a lot after that. We never did anything like the high schoolers were supposed to do there, or at least not very much like that. Any afternoon that we walked home from school and it looked like it would be clear, he would ask me to meet him there. Every time he sounded unsure. Every time he grinned when I nodded. We mainly just talked. Mainly. I spent some time in the library downtown looking at old newspapers on microfilm, scouring them for anything weird, trying to find a reason for what we saw that autumn in the field over and over again, until I finally found an article about a baseball game in 1979. It was the last year Edison had been open as a public school and the local leagues still used the field. “There was like some kind of freak storm,” I reported, proud to have finally connected some of the dots, strange as they were. It was deep autumn now, cold, and we were lying on our backs in the grass. I was wrapped in his jacket, which I had to coach him into offering. “Clear blue sky, though I guess it was storming really bad the next county over. Like, this huge storm system. Then this single bolt of lightning from nowhere rips out of the sky and strikes a tree at the edge of the field. Tree’s gone now, but for a long time you were supposed to be able to see scorch marks on it where the lightning struck.” I shifted my weight against him. His arm was around my shoulders and probably going to sleep. “They cancelled the game or delayed it or whatever. But what was weird was that just before the lightning a player had popped a high fly, and it never landed. They never found the ball.” “They never found the ball?” He rolled over so he was facing me and put his other hand on my waist. He always felt like he had to whisper when we were in the field, which I didn’t mind because it meant his face was up against my ear when we talked. “It never came down.” “So it falls here? Over and over again?” I nodded, enjoying having figured it out. Or at least, having figured out where the weirdness began. “What about conservation of mass?” he mused. We had just covered this in Mr. Eckard's physical science class. “You can’t keep making the same baseball, over and over again, forever.” “I thought about that too.” I liked running my fingers through his hair. When I went home at night, they smelled of his hair-gel. “I read somewhere it's matter or energy. Like, you conserve one or the other and you can switch between the two. I bet there’s enough energy in a single bolt of lightning to make a lot of baseballs.” “A million baseballs,” he said, kissing my check low, near my jaw.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
58
“The law of conservation of baseballs.” He laughed, and I put my head into the crook between his shoulder and his neck and at our feet a baseball plunked to the grass with a soft hiss of static. Of course it couldn’t last. Maybe the baseballs could. Maybe they’d be raining down on the field, one after another, forever. But we were kids. We couldn’t walk home from those nights, smelling of mowed grass, a warm baseball gripped between us like a secret, forever. Winter was full of grey skies, and that Christmas break he travelled over the holidays with his family. When he was back, I gave him a Christmas present walking home from school, and he apologized for not getting me anything. It was a baseball glove. I thought it was a cute joke between the two of us. Then at spring break my family left, Mom taking me and my sister up north, which we told her was stupid because everyone else traveled to where it was warmer if they traveled at all. But Mom said the lake was good for her soul. When we got back, it was over. I knew it as I walked to school alone, wondering why he hadn’t waited at the normal spot, and then I didn’t wonder anymore when I saw Elainey standing beside him at his locker. Elainey, who we used to call Morainey as in moray eel, which was stupid but was because she was so skinny, like an eel. Her legs were still really skinny, but now that was somehow graceful, like a runner or a gazelle. I think it would have just been my heart broken and me maybe a little older and wiser if that was all it had been: Elainey there with him, smiling and laughing. But she was holding a baseball. The next time my mom’s boyfriend was over, I told him I wanted him to teach me how to throw a ball. I tossed him one of the baseballs. “Are you thinking of going out for the team?” “Sure,” I said. We walked into the front yard. Mom’s boyfriend’s name was Drake, and my sister and I liked him. He seemed like a genuinely good guy, though Mom didn’t always seem to agree, and he never did anything to make us feel weird or creepy. That meant something, because my sister was at the age where she was getting that a lot. “It’s a weird world,” she would tell me. “Guys think they can say anything to you and you’re just supposed to smile at them.” I didn’t tell her about the weirdness of baseballs falling out of a clear sky. So Drake and I stood in the front yard, and he taught me how to throw. He had played sports in Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
59
college, and he was really picky about how I held my arm. He said it was important to train all the
gimp out of it, but I think he wanted to say train the girl out of it and kept catching himself. “This is an old ball,” he said after a while. We weren’t really playing catch. We didn’t have gloves. But we were doing our best, and I was winging them at him as hard as I could. “Where did you get it?” “Found it,” I said. We quit when Mom got home, and we had dinner. I think Drake was supposed to have fixed it, so Mom was kind of pissed about that not happening. By that time, though, I had the hang of throwing it pretty hard and straight. After dinner I went back outside, chalked a circle on the side of the garage, and started throwing again.
Thwack. Close, but not close enough.
Thwack. After a while I heard the door slam and then my sister was beside me, squinting at my target. “You’re not using a softball,” she said mildly. “And anyway, you hate sports.”
Thwack. That one was almost dead center. “That target is just about the size of a guy’s head,” she said.
Thwack. Perfect. “Do you want to talk about it, Hunter?” I paused and glared at her. Then I retrieved the ball and walked back to my spot on the lawn. We had never seen where the baseballs actually came from. It had only ever been a feeling, that whisper of electricity and the hint of something, like the specks that dance in front of your eyes in a completely dark room. A bit of magic. A secret. Something that belonged to us. “No,” I told her.
Thwack. After a couple rainy spring days, I moved from the side of the garage to the front. There was an ancient basketball hoop there. It was there when we moved in, and Mom had never bothered to take Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
60
it down. The thing was old enough that it had chains instead of rope netting. Drake said it belonged in a museum. We had never even owned a basketball. I didn’t want to look entirely crazy, so I waited until dark, until the hoop was just a black circle over my head. Then I practiced throwing the ball upward, through the hoop. Sometimes it bounced off the rim. I did a lot of chasing balls around the driveway, probably looking like an idiot to anyone watching, nothing like Morainey with her long white legs. Stupid gazelle legs. I threw upwards through the hoop. If I didn’t hear anything, not the ball hitting the rim, not even the jangle of chains as it passed and then fell back through to my waiting hands, then I got it right. I threw it again and again and again until I got it right every time. There was a dance or something at the end of the school year. It was at the high school, in the gym, and maybe it was to get us used to being there at the end of our middle school careers or something. Maybe it was to get us ready for next year, for being freshmen. We wouldn’t be walking to school anymore. No one asked me to the dance, which was fine. I probably would have said no anyway. The night was perfect. It was clear. Summer lurked at the edges of the breeze, just a hint of warmth that worked its way under my sweater. There would be more boys. I knew that. I wasn’t even really mad at him anymore. It seemed inevitable, somehow, like this was just a thing that happened. There would be other faces, necks, whispers, scents of hair-gel. But not this. No more baseballs. That magic or madness or tiny tear in the universe. He had shared it with me. It was ours, even if we weren’t anymore. I wasn’t going to share it with anyone else. I held my baseball. I stood at that particular spot in the field, directly beneath where they fell. The few stars watched with disinterest. I didn’t see any sign of cloud. Soon. “Hunt.” His voice startled me badly. I hadn’t heard him approach. “What are you doing?” He was alone. “Where’s Morainey?” I could hear embarrassment color his voice. “She wasn’t feeling well. So she called her dad to pick her up from the dance. I came home too.” “I hope she feels better.” I kept my eyes on the sky. Almost time. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Case
“Law of Conservation of Baseball”
“Hunt...” he began. The tiny, audible spark. I threw upward as hard as I could and heard the two balls connect over my head as satisfying as the solid clack of billiards. And then, for the first time, a second whisper of electricity, like the echo of lightning. I smelled ozone. “What did you do?” he whispered. I waited, satisfied. Around us the neighborhood was quiet. Nothing fell to the ground. Nothing came from the sky. “Goodnight,” I said, turning and walking home. A couple days later there was a storm, one of the first of summer with big grey clouds that piled up like mountains and rain that lashed the grass. The next morning, I cut through the field on my way to school and found a single baseball. It was blackened and burned as though it had been struck by lightning. It tasted like ash against my tongue.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
61
BODARK By Ryan Norman
Nana always said there’s two kinds of love in this world: grass love that flourishes and then withers after a frost or two; and tree love. I’d say, the hell do trees know bout love? She’d just laugh, not even minding I swore, and say that trees know more’n most people ever will, when it comes to love. As I take step after ragged step down this trail, all I can think of is Ida, and wondering if we got the grass love or the tree love, whatever the hell that means. That aint true. I’m also thinking bout food. You ever been so hungry you’d eat anything? I mean any Gawd damn thing soft enough for your teeth to crunch up? Cause that’s how hungry I am, as I squat in the twilight and pick apart a Bodark apple with my knife—them green globes with wrinkles on the outside, even though my Nana always told me the only ones who could eat them died a long time ago. And dammit, she was right. My mouth puckers with a taste like ashes and vinegar, and I retch up the little bit I had gotten down. I wipe my sleeve and look west at the setting sun, cause that’s where the Shurrif’s men are coming from. To drag me back home. To drag me away from her.
Am I too late, Ida? I’m thinking of her when I stumble back to rising, thinking of our stolen kisses in dark hallways, thinking of her when—
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
63
A knife slits a gash cross the side of my neck. “Gah!” I shout. Eyes blink back at me from the shadowed woods. My vision’s blurry from the pain so I can’t see shit. I’m all rattled on the inside, but my body— My body remembers the training. My right foot draws back with nary a thought, and plants firm against the clay earth. The next time the knife comes for me, my own blade is there to block it. “You the Shurrif’s man?” I say twixt clenched teeth. And I get a look at my would-be killer: she’s smaller’n me, a lot smaller’n me. And pretty, too, her eyes a deep brown that reminds me of Ida.
Ida, hold on— “I look like a man to you?” She pulls a second knife from somewhere I can’t see and smiles, I swear to Gawd she smiles, as she swings it round to my temple. And I might be tired. And starving. But Gawd strike me down if I’m about to let some hateful little creature keep me from Ida. I knee her twixt her legs afore her blade lands home, hoping it works the same as on a man. It does. She grunts and falls back, but only just a step afore she rebounds with both knives out— “That’s enough, Honey,” a woman says, stepping out from a mossy boulder. “In fact, I’d say it’s plenty.” Her accent is so strange I can’t figure which Fiefdom she’s from. But it aint a Southern one. The girl—Honey—don’t take her eyes off me, but her knives drop a little. My heart pounds like a runaway Byrd. This girl’s got me fighting, and when I start fighting I wanna kill—I aint proud of it, but there it is. That’s why the retired Shurrif trained me, and why the new Shurrif always wanted me for his crew. Cause I take things all the way. I tighten my grip around the knife, and Ida’s words comes back to me like a whisper, hot and breathy in my ear: every life is precious to itself. And I don’t see it, not really, but I don’t wanna do nothing I’d be ashamed to tell Ida when I see her. I spit on the ground and turn back to the trail. Whatever the hell these women got going on, I can’t let ’em slow me down. The new woman walks after me, her dress ruffling, with sun-orange curls flowing round her shoulders. “What business do you have in these woods?” she says, the words all short and choppy. “I’s passing through.” I don’t slow my step. “And got no time for new quarrels.” Honey stalks us from a distance like some goddamn Muttwolf. “Lots of men just passing through nowadays, seems like.” Honey’s voice is sharp as a whip. I don’t say nothing to that, but I pause to dab at my neck. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig thanks to that little shit. “The sun’s all but spent,” the other woman says, and somehow her hand is on my shoulder, though I don’t know how anyone could ’a moved that quiet or fast. “Allow me to tend your wound.”
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
64
“I can’t stop,” I say. The woman nods to the trail bending east down the hilltop. “Your trail only grows narrower from here and crowded on both sides with Honey Locust for miles. And if you’re lucky enough not to impale yourself in the dark, there are Muttwolves to consider. Going any further tonight would be suicide. Though we have welcomed visitors with that purpose before...” I stop at this and squint my eyes. And sure enough, the drier, eastern side of the mountain is packed with Honey Locusts—bout as big as Maples and studded all over with spikes long as my hand. Strong and sharp enough to nail two boards together, which is exactly how we used them during the iron shortage. And there they are, bristling all down the trail like black teeth just waiting on a good meal. “If I stop here, I’m as good as dead anyway.” I look back west, where a faint dust trail lets me know the Shurrif’s men are riding hard up the base of the mountain I just summited. Riding them Byrds, all pumped up on growth drugs meant to make animals faster when all it really did was make ’em mean. “Those men will need to stop for the night, too,” she says, nodding to the grey sky fading to blue. “Byrds are too valuable to risk breaking a leg in the dark.” I turn to look at Honey, who stares at me like she’d like nothing better’n to finish the skewering she started. I look back to the other’n, with her gentle voice and rosy cheeks. A shiver goes down my spine. Both of them are beautiful, but— They aint Ida. “I got someone waiting for me,” I say quietly. “We have that in common.” She smiles. “I am Mrs. Bodark. And you look like you're starving.”
Bodark. And I try not to think bout Nana’s stories of daemons in the wood that shift from trees to people and back to trees again, luring travelers into eating strange food or impaling on spikes or— “I’ll take my chances on the Muttwolves and Locusts,” I say. “Then you’re a dead man walking.” Honey flips her knife in the air like it’s a toy. “With us, at least you’ve got a fighting chance of seeing the sunrise. Though I don’t much care either way.” A Muttwolf howls in the distance, and the last of the twilight fades to black. I take a few cautious steps through the dark and a Locust spike snips into my calf almost immediately. I mutter a curse and shake my head. I’s too flustered on my way out of town to grab a torch or prism, just charged into the world like a damn fool. Caring and careless, Ida always called me. She’s half right, at least. I turn back to the women behind me, now just lumps in the dark. What should I do, Ida? But the only answer I get is chirping frogs. I set my jaw and admit I’m gonna run myself through on one of these spikes if I keep going. And I aint no use to Ida as a tree ornament. Nana’d have something to say bout me bedding down in a daemon’s camp. But why should I fear enchantments or temptation when I got me an anchor?
Hold on, Ida. Just a little longer. And I stiffen my back and follow Honey and Mrs. Bodark into the thicker part of the wood. Their camp is cozier than it’s got a right to be, this far from town. But I suppose daemons got their ways. Two rough canvas tents and a cook fire with delicious smells pouring out of the stewpot. A HydroPump, Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
65
sucking water out of thin air and pumping it through a set of rusty pipes they use to warsh with. Mossy boulders shelter us from the south wind, and an open ridge on the north side overlooks the dark forest, which is full of Locusts and Muttwolves and Gawd knows what else. But it’s the forest I’ll need to cross at first light, if I stand a chance at getting to Ida. If she still wants me. I mean, of course she does, it’s just— Afore she disappeared, she’d been holed up in her Mama’s house for damn near a moon’s time. All those weeks that I came a’knocking. All those weeks that I filled up her postbox with what scratching’s I could manage. And I got no answer in return, less you count her Mama’s scowling. Which might have been its own kind of answer, after all. My belly twists at the thought— But I never got the chance to ask afore she disappeared with the Shurrif’s brother. Heading to Harriston, I found out, which happens to be the nearest county that still allows Silent Weddings—the ones where women don’t speak no vows. It’s how bandits and Gentrymen make their kidnappings permanent and legally binding. I grind my teeth, thinking of the Shurrif’s brother, with his clean hands and frilled collars. Honey kicks her legs up on a stump on the far side of the fire and tosses me a strip of jerked meat. I tear into it, half-choking cause I’m swallowing afore I even chew. I look up to thank her— Any words of thanks I had choke down with the deer flesh. She’s still glaring. Mrs. Bodark gives a low whistle. “If Mammut was here, he’d sort those men out for you.” She smooths the ruffles on her dress and gives me an expectant look. I don’t say nothing to this, just keep eating, chewing slower this time. “Tell me, Emmitt,” she says (and that proves they’re daemons, don’t it? Cause I aint never said my name). “If those men catch up to you—” “If?” Honey snorts. “When, more like.” I bristle but don’t say nothing, cause Honey’s right. Shurrif’s men are riding Byrds, which I couldn’t hope to outrun if I had three days a head start. I grind my teeth and curse every professor in the Fiefdoms for resurrecting them creatures with black magic and dinosaur bones, acting like it was gonna do folks a world of good when all it really did was give rich families like the Shurrif’s a brand new way to outpace the rest of us. Mrs. Bodark clears her throat and continues as if Honey hadn’t spoken, her voice so full of concern I almost forget she’s a daemon: “If those men catch up to you, what will happen?” I shrug my shoulders. The Shurrif only wants two things from me. To leave Ida to that perfumed scoundrel, and to join up with his crew. I aint inclined to neither. I study the embers. “Probly dying.” “Never seen a man handle a knife like you.” Honey looks up. “I wager some of the dying would be theirs.” But she don’t say it like a compliment, holding my eye as she grinds a whetstone along a blade. I know she means to cower me. But it does the opposite. The sound of rock and metal focuses my thoughts, like it's my brain getting sharpened stead of her knife. Scraping away the noise. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
66
And when it falls away, there is only Ida. Her hand on my cheek, her doodles on bar napkins. The way she spat in my face when I accepted money from the Shurrif to rough up the Grocer’s son, and that’s when I first knew I loved her. Cause she believed in a better version of me. A better version of our town. And she’d fight like hell to make it so. “You’d risk your life for your lover. How romantic!” Mrs. Bodark beams. I grimace, wondering if she’s reading my thoughts again. But she’s wrong. Shurrif don’t wanna kill me, not exactly. Just slow me down so’s I miss the wedding, and then it’s a forever deal and I won’t have nothing to do but trudge back home and live out my days as a violent piece of shit working on the Shurrif’s crew. But the Shurrif don’t know how fast I can move when my mind is set, Byrds be damned. And the Shurrif’s brother aint got no idea what’s coming for him.
Hold on, Ida. I’m comin. And the next thought, which I can’t help, but there it is:
You want me to come, don’t you? “Mammut would risk a hundred deaths to get to me,” Mrs. Bodark says with an affirming nod. Honey groans and drops her whetstone. “Not this again.” I look up. “Mammut?” Mrs. Bodark beams like I’ve given her a gift. “Imagine a creature big as the world.” And her words got something in ’em, some magic that drifts into my mind like campfire smoke, and I see him, not really see, more life a half-remembered dream: a creature as tall as a tree, with a nose so long it drags the ground, and covered all over in thick brown hair. It reminds me of Nana’s stories, bout a time afore the Fiefdoms, afore even the United States, when monsters walked the earth. Turtles the size of wagons, and sloths as big as houses. I clear my throat. “Mastodons aint walked the earth in a thousand years, my Nana said.” “Longer than that,” Mrs. Bodark says quietly. “Much longer.” And I recognize that look in the way she screws up her lip, that feeling like half the world’s gone missing. Honey snorts. “You two. Pining like bitches in heat for lovers that moved on.” “Mine aint moved on,” I growl. “She was taken.” “You sure bout that?” Honey grins, and I’m bout to stand up and wipe that smile off her face— Mrs. Bodark puts a hand on my shoulder and hands me a wooden bowl full of steaming stew. It’s full ’a roots and turkey meat and floated with juniper berries. With loaves of acorn bread and roasted persimmons on the side. Helluva meal to just have simmering away, and more’n enough for two women. I wanna dive right in, but Nana didn’t raise a fool. “You expecting Mammut tonight?” “She expects him every night,” Honey shakes her head and squats by the fire, brushing a strand of brown hair out of her eyes. Eyes brown and beautiful, like Ida’s. Her skin brown, like Ida’s, but not quite the right shade. “It’s always the same. Laboring over his dinner half the day. And every night, no Mammut.” Mrs. Bodark shrugs. “When we labor for the ones we love, it doesn’t feel like work at all.” And I know that’s a lie, cause I hated every minute of digging that garden at the poorhouse when Ida
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
67
asked me to. But I don’t say nothing. I smell the stew. Satisfied there aint no angry Mastodons on the way, I take my first bite and start choking— It tastes like bitter ashes in my mouth, and a helluva lot like the Bodark apple from afore. Honey laughs, watching me struggle and juices running down my beard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Emmitt,” Mrs. Bodark says, takin the bowl from my hands to let me finish coughing and shaking. “I make it the way Mammut likes, but few have his taste.” “That’s a’right,” I say, tearing up from the choking. The jerked venison from earlier keeps my belly from grumbling, but only just. “I’m used to it. My lady’s rubbish in the kitchen.” Mrs. Bodark opens her mouth, and Honey cackles like mad. My cheeks flush red. “Oh Gawd, ma’am, I didn’t mean—I only meant, my lady don’t like to cook.” I always did the cooking when Ida and I’d meet up. She’d do other things for me, though—she’d draw me these little pictures. I drift off, thinking bout how her pictures was more’n just pretty. The best way I can say it is this: when I saw her drawing of a fox, it changed my eyes so I saw foxes different ever after. Mrs. Bodark clears her throat, and I blush even harder. I can feel my Nana turning in her grave at my rudeness to a host, daemon or no. “I’m sorry, m’am.” And then, “Your fella’s lucky you been working to prepare for him.” Mrs. Bodark softens, but Honey cuts in. “She’s not the only one preparing. If that sunabitch ever comes back, I’ll be ready for him, too.” Her eyes are flint, and I spent too much of my life bandaging wounds with fury not to recognize it in someone else. Every tree’s got scars, my Nana said. And I think bout them spikes on the trees, and wonder how they got so long. Mastodons got a lot of hide to get through, I wager. “I been hardening myself against that bastard for a long time.” Honey starts the grind of her whetstone again, steady as water. Mrs. Bodark frowns darkly at this. I blink my eyes and look twixt the two, but this is an old argument past the point of words, I can tell. And I wonder if they see the similarity between them, how they both been spending themselves near to bankrupt on Mammut. One to welcome and one to wound. Mrs. Bodark rubs her hands together and smiles again. “And where will your quest for true love lead you, tomorrow, Mister Emmitt? Where does she await you?” I blink my eyes for a moment, cause I don’t think Mrs. Bodark would be calling this a quest if she saw me shitting brown water yesterday evening, or breakfasting on grubs from a rotten stump. But it don’t feel right to correct her. I also don’t wanna give them information that might hurt them later if the Shurrif’s men get here, daemon or no. “Eden.” Honey gives a low whistle. “Eden’s a long ways off, soldier.” “I aint a soldier.” “But you will be, won’t you?” Honey sucks at her teeth. “Any lawman with a rifle could ’a picked you off when you scrambled the bluffs. But those men don’t wanna kill you. Why waste the talent?” I don’t say nothing to this, but she keeps on. “Lots of women take a shining to soldiers.” “I don’t want lotsa women,” I say, more to the fire than to them. I want Ida. And I can feel Mrs. Bodark beaming at me. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
68
“You’re as bad as she is.” Honey says, while Mrs. Bodark just folds her hand, like ignoring Honey was a talent of hers. “Falling over yourself like an idiot for someone that’s moved on.” “She was taken,” I growl. Honey meets my eyes. “You saw it?” I shift on my stump. “Didn’t need to.” “Then how do you know?” I open my mouth but don’t say nothing. Cause I don’t know, do I? These last weeks her Mama turned me away at the door— And the Shurrif’s brother parking his buggy outside her house, all fitted with fine pewter— And I heard laughing from her window, one night, I swear—
Was that you laughing, Ida? Two days of straight running, and my mind stayed quiet. But now I can’t help but see the other side ’a this deal. What if Ida wanted a gentler man, a man with enough money where he didn’t have to shave spikes off the trees to nail his boards together or take the occasional thug job to earn the Shurrif’s coin? Maybe she wanted a man with influence, to help her shape this rust bucket town into the peaceful utopia she’d always preach bout. She probly ended things a moon ago, and I’s just too stupid to see the signs. Maybe I ought to just turn round in the morning. By the time I raise my eyes from the fire, Mrs. Bodark has disappeared into one of the canvas tents, and I think I hear her sniffling, but it’s hard to tell. And for a moment I think I’m alone and better get some rest myself, when I hear Honey making noise from the other canvas tent, on other side of the fire from where I’m squatting. I lean over to peek around the flames, and she’s crawling on all fours into the dark of her tent. Her boots are off and her wool skirt is riding up her legs a little higher, the skin of her thighs glistening in the firelight, and I snap my head to look away. But Ida, Ida—Did you leave me? Something smacks me in the chest and thuds into my lap. I hold it up, a black pod speckled with white, as long as my forearm, plump and heavy. “What’s this?” Honey pokes her head out the flap of her tent. “Something sweet.” She smiles, and this time it aint the hateful kind. I open up the pod and, sure enough, it’s full of tender green balls coated with a sticky, sweet syrup. I moan a little afore I realize she’s watching me eat it— Just watching from inside her tent. And she aint glaring no more. “I can help, y’know. Mrs. Bodark aint got nothing but sap and words. But I’m like you, Emmitt. I got teeth. Together we might be strong enough to give the Shurrif an early retirement. Strong enough to set things right.” “You tried to kill me today.” I study my hands, cause looking at her inside that tent makes me uncomfortable. “Why would you help me?” Honey laughs, drawing my eyes back to her. “I got my own scores to settle, down in your town.” I lick my lips. All those Locust groves we cleared during the iron shortage…Men lie, but never daemons, Nana told me. And I don’t doubt Honey’s offer is true. I try not think bout how badly I want it—to see the
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
69
Shurrif fall. Maybe even take his place. Cause if I was Shurrif, I could carry a gun and keep my own crew. I’d ride up to Harriston and take Ida back, Silent Wedding or no. Cause you can’t break the law when you are the law. A log falls apart in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks and light and I can see deep inside her tent— Honey aint got nothing on anymore— And my eyes are full, just full of her skin, golden in the firelight. I feel an ache inside me— But it aint Ida’s skin— And Honey’s just sitting there in entrance to her tent, legs folded in a smooth arc underneath. She snakes her tongue to suck the venison between her perfect teeth, like this is the most natural thing in the world. Her lips part, plump as fruit. “Your bedroll’s over here.” I glance to my pack, sitting all the way over there across the fire, next to the entrance of her tent. Honey strokes it with her left foot.
Ida? My feet stumble me over to her tent afore I know it’s happening, and I try to take my eyes away, but I can’t. I come up to the flap of the tent, and Honey’s face is upturned at me. She pushes a hand down twixt her thighs, not starting to touch herself that way, just like she’s getting her fingers warm. But it gets me looking at her legs and wondering if her skin is as soft as it looks. She raises an eyebrow like it’s an invitation— And this is everything I want. A way to get Ida back. A way that no one can’t stop, once Honey and I take down the Shurrif. I lick my lips, and I remember why it feels good to be the one doing the hurting sometimes. Why I trained with the retired Shurrif all those years, where he taught me the Secret of the Brawling Bears and the many ways to hurt a man. Cause if you can hurt someone, you can change things fast. And in the time it takes for grass to grow to your knees, I could be running the town with Ida by my side— My belly’s goes to ice. I remember how her spit felt on my cheek, how it stuck in my beard, after I roughed up the Grocer’s boy. How she gave me shame when I had none. Ida dreamed of a world without Shurrifs. Without fighting. And I start think bout who I’d be, what I’d be, by the time I got to her, if I say yes to Honey. If she’s even waiting on me at all. I reach down to my pack, fingers trembling—I aint ashamed to admit it—as they graze past Honey’s calf, her legs all warm and smooth and perfect— And I snatch my pack and wobble back to the other side of the fire and shunt out my bedroll. Honey kinda moans this laugh while I flop around inside my bedroll like a fish, twisting against the stiffness in my trousers and praying for the sleep I know aint coming. I try to think bout trees and grasses, asking myself if I’m the kind of man that withers in the frost or the kind that petrifies over a thousand winters, and either way it feels like my love for Ida is killing me. And I hear Honey’s voice one more time, low and breathy from across the fire. “Soldier?” And I don’t answer. Which I guess is its own kind of answer. It takes me a long while to fall asleep.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
70
Thinking bout Ida. Thinking bout the Shurrif’s brother. Thinking bout Honey, just laughing at me whether she’s trying to kill me or bed me. And Mrs. Bodark, making hot meals every day for Mammut, and him never coming— But when I do sleep, I sleep hard. And there aint no Shurrif or Ida in my dreams, just a great big Fiefdom with sloths and cats and great herds of mastodons spilling across the land like a wide brown river. The woolly beasts sidestep the Honey Locusts and their knife-length spikes, reaching down with great long trunks to scoop Bodark apples off the ground— And in my dream Mrs. Bodark is smiling, just watching it with me and smiling. My dreams fade to black. Nana always told me the key to a good night’s sleep is a clear conscience. And I don’t know bout that, cause aint nothing clear bout me these days, but I do sleep. Just sleep and sleep and sleep. And rue it, soon as I open my eyes. “Morning, Emmitt.” I jerk my head just afore the Shurrif’s Byrd stomps a talon onto my pillow. I scramble to my feet. He’s got six men behind him, all mounted on Byrds, with rainbow-feathers ruffled and reptilian eyes wide open like the world is a never-ending goddamn surprise. They block the trail going west back home. And the Shurrif’s twixt me and the eastern trail, the one that flows into the Honey Locust wood. Toward Ida. I eye the six men behind him. Seven in total, then. That aint too many to fight if I can get my knives out of the pack— “Too many. Even for you, Emmitt.” The Shurrif twitches his mustache and slips a pistol out of his green wool coat. The Byrd shuffles beneath him, grazing a Bodark branch and causing the green spheres hanging over our heads to wobble like chandeliers. “But you’re the kind of man that would try anyway.” “You better kill me,” I say, planting my feet apart like I been trained. “Cause you and your brother are dead men if I live.” The Shurrif cocks his pistol. “I don’t wanna hurt you, Emmitt.” The good knives are down in my pack, too far to reach. But I start to wind my hand round to my belt where there’s a dull little camp knife— The Shurrif clucks his tongue and gestures for me to get my hands up. I do. The Shurrif relaxes his arm and looks around, at the disturbed leaves where the canvas tents and the HyrdroPump and the rest of the daemon’s camp had stood only hours ago. “We know you didn’t stay here alone. Where are th’others?” I shake my head, “Weren’t no others.” But I’m wondering the same thing, aint I? Guess daemons got ways of disappearing, and Gawd I wish I knew the way myself. The Shurrif spits. “Search the woods,” he says, and two of the six men dismount their Byrds and start picking their way in long circles through the spiked wood. The Shurrif twitches his mustache and flexes his gloved hand around the reins. “Ida went of her own free will, Emmitt. She wanted this.” And I can tell by the twitch in his left eye: he’s telling the truth but he’s hiding some of it, too.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
71
“She would ’a told me.” “She’s scared ’a you.” The Shurrif frowns like he’s breaking hard news to a pal over glasses of shagbark whiskey. “You’re a violent man, Emmitt.” “Lies,” I say, trying to sound more certain than I feel. “Ida knows I’d never hurt her.” He clucks his tongue. “Emmitt, a woman like that aint never gonna appreciate you.” His eyes blaze. “But I will. You’re confused at the moment, but I know your heart. You’re a man with courage, Emmitt. A man with fidelity.” And he’s doing that thing with his eyes again, where he hands out a bit of the truth while keeping the meat of it in his pocket. Cause I know he don’t give two shits bout my courage or my fidelity. He wants a killer. But he don’t know the half of what I’d do, who I’d kill, to get past him and that Gawd damn freak-ofnature he’s riding. Cause on the other side is Ida. He gives me a weary look, holding the pistol steady and reaching with the other hand into his vest pocket. He pulls out a letter, unfolds it with his gloved pinky and begins to read. “Dear Emmitt, our courtship is over.” He flips the paper around, and there it is, in her own loopy cursive script. My throat goes dry. “She even drew you a picture, so you’d know it weren’t forged,” he says, chewing his mustache. His eyes soften. “It’s time to let her go, Emmitt.” My eyes drag over the words one more time afore they land on the little picture at the bottom. A White Oak tree, half-covered by snow. And that’s when I know that our summer is over. That ours was the grass kind of love after all. “Emmitt,” the Shurrif says, raising an eyebrow. “It’s time to let her go.” I try to forget the Shurrif, forget the whole damn mess, so’s I can think clear for a moment. I look up at the branches, the morning sunlight glancing off the ropy bark of the Bodark tree. I see it’s got a few thorns on its high branches, and I guess that means there’s even a time when the Bodark didn’t want mastodons getting too close. But it’s shed its thorns for the most part, and now I guess just puts all that energy into making those damn green balls, dangling over us like this was a party. And it don’t make no sense, all that fruit going to rot, year after year. All the wasted effort. And for what? That’s when it hits me, what it means when a tree loves you. A tree aint asking for nothing back. It just gives it all away. And it don’t stop, not for a hundred winters, and even after the woodsman’s axe, even then, the stump keeps sprouting. And I don’t know if his letter’s a trick. I don’t know if Ida’s waiting on me or not. And I’m scared as hell of spending my heart on someone that don’t care if I live or die, of all my fruit doomed to rot. But I look back to the Bodark apples dangling over my head, and it hits me that maybe the only way to make fruit in the first place is to not know what’s gonna come of it. “If we start back now, we’ll catch the tail end of supper.” The Shurrif chuckles. “And losing a woman’s nothing we can’t cure with a few glasses of shagbark.” “I aint going back with you.” I set my jaw and spread my feet. “And I aint losing Ida. Not ever.” Not till I
hear the words from her own lips. Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
72
The Shurrif frowns long and hard like he’s made up his mind and don’t like where he ended up. “Damn shame.” He lifts the pistol again, right at my face— And his finger’s on the trigger— And I scramble for the little camp knife in my belt, though there aint half enough time to do nothing— He’s squeezing the trigger— And a Bodark apple falls right on his gun hand, heavy as a stone— The bullet flies out the barrel— And zips across my left ear, tearing off a healthy piece. But I’m alive. Alive enough for Ida. My hand finds the knife. The Shurrif fumbles the gun and brings it up for the next shot— But my feet are dancing, and I know it’s funny but that’s what it’s like when I fight, like dancing— And Ida’s telling me to spare his life, so I just nick the tendon in his forearm that coulda pulled the trigger again. He looks up at me, eyes wrinkled in pain and confusion, but I don’t stop to pay him any mind. I drop the little camp knife and dive through my pack, till my hands land on the cloth-wrapped handles. And not a moment too soon. Cause by the time I come out with my knives, my fighting knives, four of the Shurrif’s men are off their Byrds and surrounding me, bristling with swords and spears and no guns, thank Gawd, cause only the Shurrif’s allowed to carry one. They come for me. It don’t take but a moment— A moment for me to sidestep two charging swordsmen and let them prick each other ’stead of me. A moment to bring the iron-ended handle of my knife across the temple of another, even as I roll cross his back to maneuver away from a spear, letting him charge right over the bluff’s edge. And a moment later I’m back by the Shurrif lying at the edge of the eastern trail. And there aint a drop of my blood on my knives. I think Ida would like that. I give the Shurrif a kick and roll him onto his back, and he’s still clutching his arm so it’s easy to reach down in his jacket and badger round till I find Ida’s letter. The Shurrif’s saying something to me, but I don’t hear cause now I’m staring down the last two men, the ones the Shurrif had made dismount earlier to scout the woods. And them two is blocking my way to the Honey Locust trail. I raise my knives, and rear back for a throw. It’s the maneuver of a desperate man, the old Shurrif warned me, cause a knife throw’s a gamble no matter how good you are. But I don’t need it to stick. In fact, I’m counting on it won’t. I turn away from the men and toward the Byrds standing by the bluff, preening themselves with long, lizard snouts. And I throw both knives, leaning back a few inches to make sure the handles land first and not the blades.
THUD.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
Norman
“Bodark”
73
My knives bounce off one creature’s rump and then over the bluff’s edge. The Byrd squawks bloody murder and riots the whole bunch, till they’re running helter skelter in the woods and leaving a trail of rainbow feathers floating behind. The two men stare me down for a moment, but only a moment. Cause each of them’s got half a fortune invested in their Byrds, and whatever reward the Shurrif’s put on me wouldn’t begin to cover the loss of a Byrd if a Muttwolf pack found them first. The men run off fast as they can, and I can’t help but smile. Cause the Secret of the Brawling Bears, as I learned it from the old Shurrif, is this: folks wanna hurt you, but more than that, they don’t wanna hurt themselves. And something I learned all on my own, is that a man’s got as many nerve endings in his coinpurse as the rest of his body combined. I get a healthy head start now, running as careful as I can past the eye-gouging spikes of the Honey Locusts on all sides of the trail. It aint but a minute afore the men are beating down the trail behind me again on Byrdback, and they’re mad as hell by now, and not half enough careful. I hear them shriek and know the spikes are snagging their big mounts. With the Honey Locusts snarling close on either side, those Byrds are gonna need to slow to a Gawd damn tiptoe. I laugh, starting to believe for the first time that I might stand a snowball’s chance of beating them to Harriston. And I swear, I hear Honey laughing too. Half the Locusts are dangling with the sweet, syrupy pods like the one she gave me last night. I breathe a quick prayer of thanks to Honey and Mrs. Bodark for saving my life, but then I remember they’re daemons and might not look kindly on my prayers. So I just thank Honey for snagging the Byrds, and Mrs. Bodark—well, if the Fiefdom’s professors can bring back the Byrds, who knows? Maybe this world aint seen the last of the Mastodons neither. I slow down to avoid the spikes but keep forward. Forward to what, I don’t know. But I keep forward. I get a healthy distance down the trail that day, until I finally emerge from the Honey Locust wood onto a bluff overlook. Down at the bottom of the slope I see the whole town of Harriston spread afore me like a wounded beast of wood and iron, belly up and screaming in the quiet sunset world of bluff and creek and oak. My legs are rubber and I figure I can afford to steal a moment, so I sit down and unwad Ida’s letter and smooth it on a rock. The words are still there, our courtship is over, but I don’t linger on the words. I look to the picture, cause that’s where I’ll see her true. The drawing of the tree is still there, gnarled in the snow. And I know I’ve made a mistake. Cause what else could it mean? A dead tree in winter can’t mean but one thing. A tear rolls off my cheek and splatters on the page, and for the first time a splotch on the drawing catches my eye—which is odd, cause Ida don’t make mistakes in her drawings. Did she spill the ink? I squint at it, but no, it aint spilled ink. It’s an oak leaf, clinging to the branch, long after the rest had blown away. And then I understand her message, clear as winter moonlight.
Don’t let go. And I let the letter blow away and sprint down the slope for Harriston, my heart full to bursting. Cause the world aint seen half of what I can do, what Ida and I can do once we’re back together. And I’ve made my peace that sometimes the fruit rots, and sometimes the fruit finds a hungry mouth. But ours aint rotting today.
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
74
Until next time... When you’ll read… “Green” by O. Sander “Sighisoara 3.0” by Russell Hemmell
When Gods Sleep: Part II by Marco Cultrera “Beware the Snake” by Heather Santo “A Day Like Any Other” by Alexandra Seidel “Circle of Blood” by Marcus Vance “The Vengeance of Hallowtide” by Paul H. Hardy “Vicarious” by Gloria Wickman “Pip” by Toeken
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
75
About the authors and artists… Graham Kennedy has been a professional illustrator for nearly 30 years. His mediums of choice are marker pen and coloured pencil (with some Photoshop embellishments). Whilst he can and does (!) work digitally if the job requires it, he still prefers to work “traditionally”—and he continues to see a place for hand painted art even in this digital age. In his words, “You only have to look at the art of the great Drew Struzan to appreciate that!” Contact: GKillus@aol.com or https://www.facebook.com/GrahamKennedyIl lustration Michelle F. Goddard’s short fiction has been published in Iguana Books’ Blood is Thicker anthology, Ulthar Press’s Machinations and Mesmerism anthology, and B Cubed Press’s Alternative Apocalypse anthology among others. She is also a professional musician with song credits for plays and promotional videos. Contact: michellefgoddard Ben Pyle’s prose short stories have appeared in Literary Yard, Ariel Chart, Page & Spine, and Scarlet Leaf Review. His comics with artist Renan Balmonte have appeared in My Kingdom for a Panel from Arledge Comics, Elsewhere by Unlikely Heroes Studios, and Monster Mashup by Grit City Comics. Ben and artist Marc Rene have worked together on comics for years and will soon debut their comic Slugger. Contact: bspyle@crimson.ua.edu or Twitter @bspyle
Marc Rene is a self-taught artist with a background in design. His mentors include noted artists J.H. Williams III, Darick Robertson, and Steven T. Seagle. Rene’s credits include work for Cartoon Network, Disney, Creative Juices Design, the San Jose Sabercats, Public Speaking Los Angeles, the National Forensics Association, Fry’s Electronics, COGnitive Gaming, NACL eSports, and comedian Sammy Obeid. Rene has worked on several graphic novel projects: NICE from American Gothic Press, Slugger by Ben Pyle, and iHolmes by Michael Lent. Contact: Instagram marcrene_art, Twitter @marcusRhill, or Facebook www.facebook.com/marcreneart Marco Cultrera was born in Rome, Italy and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. After a start as a theoretical physicist, he built a decade-long career as a video-game writer, creative director, and game designer before becoming the stay-at-home dad of three daughters and more recently, four cats. His short fiction has also appeared on The Arcanist and Polar Borealis. You can reach him on twitter @marcocult and via email marcocultrera@gmail.com Rickey Rivers, Jr. was born and raised in Alabama. He is a writer and cancer survivor. He has been previously published with Fabula Argentea, Back Patio Press, and Every Day Fiction (among other publications). His third mini collection of 3x3 poems is now available: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VDH6XG5. Contact: twitter.com/storiesyoumight
Hybrid Fiction September 2020
76
Benjamin C. Kinney is a neuroscientist, SFF writer, and two-time Hugo Award finalist as assistant editor of the science fiction magazine Escape Pod. His short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Analog, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more – including another story with Eszter and Lujza, due out in Kaleidotrope in 2021. Kinney is an American of Hungarian Jewish descent, and he hopes you all get the chance to eat krémes at a cukrászda near the old Erszébetvarós ghetto. He currently lives in St. Louis with three cats and a spacefaring wife. Contact: benjaminckinney.com or @BenCKinney Writer, poet, narrator and podcaster Jasmine Arch lives in a cozy little nook of the Belgian countryside with four dogs, two elderly horses, and a husband who knows better than to distract her when she's writing. Her written works have appeared in The Other Stories, Newmyths.com, and the Bedford 78 Historic Fantasy Anthology. Contact: JasmineArch.com or Twitter @jaye_arch
Stephen Case is left-handed, does not play baseball, and has not to the best of his knowledge, ever violated the law of conservation of energy. He has a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science and teaches at a liberal arts college in Illinois. His novel, First Fleet, is Lovecraftian horror meets military scifi and is available from Axiomatic Publishing. His latest book, Making Stars Physical (University of Pittsburgh Press) is on the history of astronomy and was shortlisted for the History of Science Society's Pfizer Prize. He reviews books for Strange Horizons, and his short fiction has appeared in Shimmer, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere. Contact: stephenrcase.com or Twitter @stephenrcase Ryan Norman is committed to exploring relationships with nature through fiction and alternate worlds. He is addicted to fantasy novels, a father of two, and spends entirely too much time staring at the trees near his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Contact: ryancnorman@gmail.com
Hybrid Fiction September 2020