Errantry, page 31
But for me it was inextricably tied up with everything I had ever dreamed or imagined about that world. A sense of immanence and urgency, of simple things—horses, dogs, people, grass—charged with an expectant, slightly sinister meaning I couldn’t grasp but still felt, even as a kid. The hunters in their crimson tunics astride their mounts and the horses rearing from turf whorled with white flowers, pale arabesques in a green carpet; the greyhounds springing joyously, heads thrown back and paws upraised as though partaking in some wild dance; the beaters—boys in tunics colored like Easter eggs, creamy yellow and pink and periwinkle blue—chased after the dogs. To the left of the painting, a single black-clad man—knight? lord? cleric?—rode a horse richly caparisoned as the rest. Dogs and horses and men and boys all ran in the same direction, towards the center of the painting where a half-dozen stags leapt, poised and improbable as the flattened targets in a shooting range.
And above everything, mysterious, columnar trees that opened into leafy parasols, like the carven pillars in a vast and endless cathedral, trees and hunters and animals finally receding into darkness as black and undifferentiated as the inside of a lacquered box.
I had not seen the image, or thought of it, in years. But it all came back to me now in a confused, almost fretful rush, like the memory of the sort of dream you have when sick.
“Vivian.” I started at the sound of Tommy’s voice, calling from inside the next room. “Viv—”
I dropped the poster and pushed my way to the open door. A narrow path led into the room, wide enough that I could pass without knocking anything over.
“Tommy?” I strained to see him over a mound of old clothes. “You okay?”
It must have been a bedroom once, though I saw no furniture, nothing but old clothes and shoes, wads of rolled-up belts like nested snakes.
But I could see the wall, close enough that I could almost touch it, with a closet door that hung loosely where one of its hinges had twisted from the sheetrock. Tommy was crouched beside the door. One hand was extended towards something on the floor inside the closet; the other was pressed against his cheek as he shook his head and murmured wordlessly.
I thought it was the dog. I swore under my breath and felt sick, looked over my shoulder as I called for Angus. I stumbled the last few steps through tangled clothing until I reached Tommy’s side, and knelt beside him.
It wasn’t a dog. It was a woman, nineteen or twenty, lying on one side with her knees drawn up and her clenched fists against her chin. I gasped and grabbed at the wall to steady myself.
“Shh,” whispered Tommy. He reached to touch her forehead, then drew his hand gently down her face, tracing freckled cheekbones, her chapped lower lip. “She’s sleeping.”
Angus staggered into the room behind me. “Holy shit. Is she dead? What are—”
“Shh.” Tommy turned to look at us. His eyes were wide, not with amazement but something more like barely suppressed rage, or terror, or even pain.
Then he blinked, and for the first time seemed to notice me. “Hey, Vivian. Angus. Look. Look—”
I turned to stare at Angus, too stunned even to be afraid. He stared back, speechless. We both looked at Tommy again.
His hand cradled the girl’s cheek as he crooned to her beneath his breath. Without warning, her eyelids fluttered. I jumped. Angus gasped then grabbed my arm.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered. “Fucking hell, fucking—”
“Shut up.” Tommy’s face was fierce; but then the girl stirred, moaning. He turned from us and set his hands lightly on her shoulders.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay, I’m here, someone’s here . . .”
She tried to sit up, then gave a small cry. Her head drooped; she retched and Tommy held her as she spat up a trickle of liquid.
“That’s a girl,” he murmured. “That’s my girl . . .”
I could see her clearly now, her hair dark and matted, thick, a few curls springing loose to frame her pale face. She wore a man’s white button-down shirt, seamed with dirt and rust stains, blue jeans, white tennis socks with filthy pom-poms at the ankles.
“Is she okay?” said Angus.
“Sure she’s okay,” said Tommy in that same low, reassuring voice. “Sure she’s okay, she’s going to be just fine . . .”
I stumbled forward to help him carry her. Angus tried to clear a way for us, kicking at old clothes and magazines as we lurched from room to room, staggering between the piles of trash, until finally we all stood by the front door. The girl’s head lolled against Tommy’s shoulder. Angus looked at her in concern, but I also saw how his gaze flickered to her soiled shirt with its missing buttons, the frayed cloth gaping open so you could see her breasts, the spray of freckles across her clavicle and throat.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She looked up. Not at us: at Tommy, who stared down at her with lips compressed, smiling slightly.
“Stella.” Her voice rose tremulously on the second syllable, as though it were a question. “Stella.”
The dog barked again, not inside the house this time but somewhere nearby, just out of sight among the evergreens. Angus ran to the car as Tommy and I helped the girl across the mossy ground.
“There’s so much crap in there, I don’t even know if there’s room.” Angus clambered into the backseat and started shoving stuff onto the floor. “Shit!”
“It’s okay,” said Tommy. He’d removed his jacket and was helping the girl pull her arms through its sleeves. “We’ll make room.”
“Yeah, but what about this!” Angus shook his guitar case. “What about her? We need to call the police, or—”
“Just get in,” said Tommy. He eased the girl into the backseat. Angus hurried to the trunk and shoved in the guitar case. “We’ll make it fit, we’ll figure it out.”
I leaned inside and pulled the seat belt across the girl’s chest. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her eyes were almost black, with irises so dark they seemed to have no pupil. Her breath smelled of leaf mould and cloves.
My heart thumped so hard it hurt. I smiled, then backed away so that Tommy could slide in beside her.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I got into the front with Angus. “Now what?”
He shrugged and tossed something into my lap: the ruined picture book he’d read inside. “I have no fucking clue,” he said, and started the engine. “But I guess we’ll figure out something.”
I rolled my window down and leaned out. A flurry of wings, a keening cry as a pair of wood ducks rose from the lake and flew agitatedly towards the trees. The wind had shifted; it carried now the smell of rain, of lilacs. I glanced into the backseat and saw the girl sitting with her face upturned to Tommy’s. His hand was on her knee, his own face stared straight ahead, to where the road stretched before us, darker now, the dirt and gravel rain-spattered and the ferns at road’s-edge unfurling, pale green and misty white. I heard another bark, and then a second, echoing yelp; the distant sound of voices, laughter. As the car rounded a curve I looked back and saw several small lean forms, white and gray, too blurred for me to discern clearly, racing through the underbrush before they broke free momentarily into a bright clearing, muzzles gleaming in a sudden shaft of sun before they disappeared once more into the trees.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to all of my editors for their guidance and support in bringing these stories to light: Jack Dann, Gardner Dozois, Neil Gaiman, Steve Jones, John Klima, Eric Marin, George R. R. Martin, Al Sarrantonio, and Gordon Van Gelder.
Most of all, my gratitude to Bradford Morrow, editor of Conjunctions, who over the years has provided a home for my own work and that of so many other writers, and whose encouragement and vision are a continuing inspiration for me.
Publication History
“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Stories, Morrow, 2010.
“Near Zennor” copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books/Quercus, 2011.
“Hungerford Bridge” copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Conjunctions 52, 2009.
“The Far Shore” copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2009.
“Winter’s Wife” copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Wizards, Berkley, 2007.
“Cruel Up North” copyright © 2008 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Lone Star Stories 25, 2008.
“Summerteeth” (as “Vignette”) copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Logorrhea, Bantam, 2007.
“The Return of the Fire Witch” copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Songs of the Dying Earth, Subterranean Press, 2010.
“Uncle Lou” copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Conjunctions 57, 2011.
“Errantry” copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Hand. Originally published in Conjunctions 48, 2007.
About the Author
Elizabeth Hand, a New York Times and Washington Post notable author, has written eleven novels, including Mortal Love, and four collections of short fiction. Her most recent novels are Radiant Days and Available Dark. Her thriller Generation Loss received the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. She has also received the James Tiptree Award, the Nebula Award (twice), the World Fantasy Award (four times), and many others. Her novella, “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” was a Hugo finalist. Hand is a longtime contributor to numerous publications, including the Washington Post, Salon, L.A. Times, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and DownEast Magazine. She divides her time between the coast of Maine and North London, where she is working on the third Cass Neary thriller, Flash Burn, and a neo-gothic YA novel, Wylding Hall.
“Strange, beautiful, and occasionally disturbing territory without ever missing a beat. . . . Johnson’s language is beautiful, her descriptions of setting visceral, and her characters compellingly drawn. . . . [S]ometimes off-putting, sometimes funny, and always thought provoking.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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This two-volume selection—as selected and organized by the author—contains almost forty stories and both volumes include new introductions by Le Guin.
“She is the reigning queen of . . . but immediately we come to a difficulty, for what is the fitting name of her kingdom? Or, in view of her abiding concern with the ambiguities of gender, her queendom, or perhaps—considering how she likes to mix and match—her quinkdom? Or may she more properly be said to have not one such realm, but two?”
—Margaret Atwood, New York Review of Books
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“Each tale is a beautifully written character study. . . . McHugh’s great talent is in reminding us that the future could never be weirder — or sadder — than what lurks in the human psyche. This is definitely one of the best works of science fiction you’ll read this year, or any thereafter.”
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Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories
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Nancy Kress, Fountain of Age: Stories
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The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
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Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse: Stories
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Elizabeth Hand, Errantry
