Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales (31 page)

It is Leo who swims toward me, propelling his body through the water with
one arm. He’s forbidden me access to the water even as he swam in it every day, and aside from my few nights in it, I have not had a chance to keep myself strong enough. Leo has the strength I lack now, and he is catching up quickly.

I renew my efforts. If he reaches me, he can drag me back to shore.

“Come back with me. Please! This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” he says.

There are no
words I know to make him understand. Selchies have been where I am now for centuries. We all know that to be captive is to die a little each day. There are good men, and there are broken men.

“Eden,” he calls my name and then he orders, “Eden, stop!”

I obey; I obey completely: I stop fleeing, stop swimming, stop
keeping myself above water. The human body can’t stay under water as long as a seal
can, and I count on that.

What I don’t count on is Leo’s determination. He dives under the waves and grabs me. I can’t fight him as he pulls me above the water.

I stay limp in his grasp. I will not help him return me to the land, and he doesn’t think to order me to do so.

“I don’t want you to die.” Leo kisses my head and murmurs, “I’m
not
like my father.”

Then I feel something brush against
me and realize why he was swimming with only one arm. He has brought my skin into the sea. He pushes it toward me, returning it to me of his own will. It clings to me, wrapping around me, and I forget Leo. I forget everything except for this: I am whole and free.

I let out a bellow of joy, and I hear the answers of my selchie-sisters. They call to me, echoing my happiness, rejoicing that I am
home. I am tired, but they will help me. I have only to swim toward them, and they will take me to safety.

I hear splashing behind me, and I turn. A human boy is saying something. He speaks my name, and I think that there is something more I should do here, but I am exhausted. I can’t recall if I am to help him or take him under the water where his land-dwelling lungs will fill with the sea until
they burst. He is struggling in the water, but my selchie-sisters call out, letting me know that they are nearing.

This human is not my concern. I leave the splashing behind and enjoy the welcoming waves of my home. I am whole, and I am free. There is nothing else.

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
…………………………………

Before I was a writer, I was a teacher. One of my favorite novels to teach—both in American literature courses and women’s literature courses—was Kate Chopin’s
The Awakening
. The inevitable classroom discussion of women who walk into the sea or otherwise see death as superior to enslavement was met with the ever-foolish idea that “that was then, and we no longer
need feminism because we’re all equal.” I didn’t agree then, and I agree even less now as I watch state after state in my nation pass laws limiting women’s ownership of their bodies. I don’t think suicide is ever the answer, but I do think we live in a world where feminism is still essential.

Tangled into this Chopin-influenced short story is my love for selchies. I’ve been to Orkney three times
in the past four years. I’ve walked among seals, and I’ve had them follow me in the water as I walked on the shore. It’s easy to see a human face in the mist. It’s easy to understand the origin of the mythology, and when I add that mythology to Chopin, I see a woman entrapped again, but this time with another option—one in which her need to enter the sea is more than seeking death. The sea still
offers freedom.

K
ELLEY
A
RMSTRONG

As Cole hurried along River Street, the cries of the peddlers changed. One minute they were hawking mended shirts and worn boots and the next they were selling equally worn-out dreams and promises. “Peddlers of hope,” people called them. “Predators,” his brother, Tyler, said. Preying on hope, because that was the only thing the people of New Chicago had left.

If
Tyler caught him here, Cole would get a lecture. There was no danger of that, though, because his brother wouldn’t set foot on this part of River Street. He said it was because he didn’t want to give the hope peddlers an audience, but Cole suspected Tyler feared temptation. Walk past the peddlers and he might hear a pitch that would make him dig into his pocket for coins they couldn’t afford to spare,
wagering them on the dream of a better life in New Chicago.

New Chicago. The name itself rang with promise. People from across the nation fought starvation and bandits and the infected to get to the great city. When they were finally admitted, after weeks in quarantine outside, they wept. But they did not weep for joy.

They’d heard that New Chicago was like the metropolises of old, clean and
safe and bursting with promise. Instead they found
a ravaged place with peddlers selling maps to the city they’d just left.

Tyler’s dream wasn’t to leave New Chicago. He knew there was nothing better for them out there. But there
was
something better in here: Garfield Park. Beyond its walls was a real city—safer, cleaner, better. To get in, though, you needed money. Lots of it.

As Cole passed
through the hope peddlers, he noticed a group gathered in front of one booth.

“—guaranteed to ward off the infected,” the young woman was saying.

She was about Tyler’s age—twenty-two—and dressed in not nearly enough, given the bitter wind driving off the river. That, Cole decided, explained her crowd.

“—my friend Wally,” she continued, waving at a barely upright drunk beside her. “He was out
there, beyond the city walls, for three days and not a single one of the infected bothered him. Why? Because he was wearing this.”

Cole pressed into the crowd, as if straining to see what she held. His fingers slid into a man’s bulging jacket pocket. Out came a switchblade. Then he reached into a woman’s shopping bag and nicked two bruised apples. While the crowd absently shoved him back, he
tucked his winnings under his jacket. Then he backed out and continued on.

This part of the market was the best for lifting and picking. There were always crowds, and there were always distracted people, most who’d just finished their shopping farther up.

If Tyler found out what Cole was doing, he’d get another lecture, this one about empathy. If they started stealing from other people, they
were no better than the infected. But life here was a
battle, and only the strongest would survive. Tyler knew that. He worked for Russ McClintock, the most feared man in New Chicago. Tyler wanted better for Cole, though. He always had. So he pretended he slung boxes and cleaned warehouses for McClintock, and Cole pretended he spent all day reading the books Tyler brought home. And both brothers
slowly added to the small fortune they’d need to buy their way into Garfield Park.

Cole was moving slowly past the peddlers’ booths, as if reluctantly being pulled along by some other task. You had to act as if you were just passing through so you didn’t catch the attention of the peddlers themselves, who hated anyone stealing from their marks before they could.

Cole came through every other
day and picked only four or five pockets before moving on. It helped that he was small for his sixteen years, average looking and clean. The “clean” part counted for a lot in New Chicago. Good water was so hard to come by, but Russ McClintock liked his employees to be shaven and scrubbed—it lifted them above the riffraff. So he had plenty of reasonably clean water, and he let Tyler bring Cole around
for baths, in expectation of recruiting him someday.

Cole was almost through the hope peddlers when he caught sight of something interesting. A man from Garfield Park. You could tell because his clothing didn’t look like it had been mended more than a time or two. Cole’s gaze slipped to the man’s right jacket pocket. It gaped open, ready for the picking. Unfortunately, the man looked uncomfortable
here, his gaze darting about. Not an easy mark.

The man finally found what he was looking for—an older man with a dragging leg, cheeks patchy with graying stubble, eyes dull with the “New Chicago look,” that empty gaze, expecting
nothing. When the old man saw the guy from Garfield Park, he lifted a hand in greeting. The rich man’s eyes narrowed, as if thinking the old guy looked vaguely familiar.
Then he nodded and approached. They exchanged a few words and headed toward an alley. Cole followed.

He knew his way through the alleys around the market. Now, seeing where the two men were going, he skirted down a side road and came out near the end of their alley.

“I remember you had an interest in special items, Mr. Murray,” the older man was saying, his voice a hoarse rumble. “A scholarly
interest.”

“If you summoned me here to sell me some cheap bauble—”

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Murray. I know you’re a very busy man. This is something special. I’m told it’s well known in certain circles.”

“Everything is well known in certain circles,” Murray snapped. “And almost all of it is as worthless as that crap they’re hawking out there, so if—”

“It’s a monkey’s paw.”

Silence. Cole inched
toward the corner.

“A what?” Murray said finally.

Fabric rustled, as if the older man was pulling something from his pocket. Cole leaned around the corner. He could see the old man holding something, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

“There’s a legend—” the old man began.

Now it was Murray cutting him short. “I’ve heard it.”

“Three wishes. They say the paw grants three wishes.”

Murray
snorted. “If it did, you wouldn’t be here trying to sell it to me.”

“I … made mistakes,” the old man said. “I didn’t know you need to be very, very careful what you ask for. The gentleman who gave me the paw tried to explain, but I heard only the part about the wishes. He was a wealthy man I’d helped, as I used to help you. He wanted to help me in return. So he gave me this. He told me to take
care, but I didn’t listen and I used up my wishes.”

“And now you want to sell it to me?”

The old man shook his head. “Not sell. Give it away, as it was given to me. That’s only right. You helped me, Mr. Murray, and I never thought I’d be able to properly thank you. But now I can.”

“If you expect me to believe—”

“Then don’t. It is, as I said, freely given. At worst, it would make an amusing
addition to your collection.”

Murray snorted again, but he dug into his pocket and pulled out a couple of bills. He took the paw. When the old man didn’t reach for the bills, Murray let them drop. Then he walked away.

Cole ducked back as Murray passed, but the man was busy shoving the paw into his pocket.

Cole looked down the alley. The old man was walking away. He’d left the bills on the ground.

Cole slid soundlessly down the alley. When he reached the bills, the old man looked over his shoulder. Cole froze. He could easily scoop up the money and run, but too many of his brother’s teachings had stuck and instead he pointed down.

“You dropped those, sir.”

“Take them,” the old man said.

Cole hesitated, but the man seemed serious. Cole supposed Tyler would say it was the principle of
the thing. The old man
had tried to repay a debt, and if Murray was too uncouth to accept the gift, that was his problem.

“Thanks,” Cole said. “Here.”

He tossed one of his apples. The old man caught it and nodded, unsmiling. Then he continued on, dragging his bad leg behind him. Cole scooped up the cash and took off after Murray.

Cole wanted that paw. He didn’t believe it had any special properties.
There was no magic in this world. He wanted it because it would amuse Tyler. He’d tease Cole about it every time his little brother complained.
You miss Pepsi and burgers, bud? Why don’t you ask the paw? Just be sure to ask carefully, or you’ll get rat and piss.

Lately, making his brother laugh practically took magic. Hell, most people hadn’t found much to laugh about in ten years. Not since
H2N3.

H2N3. A boring name for what had, in the beginning, been a boring virus. People got it, they suffered through a mild flu, and they recovered. Then they’d get it again. And again and again. Traditional treatments didn’t work and the rate of spread was insane. Soon it was putting a massive strain on health care and workplaces across the world. Something had to be done. A vaccine had to be
found. And one was.

Later people would say that the vaccine testing process had been rushed, that the results were faked, that it was a conspiracy by the drug companies in collusion with the government. But Tyler said no—he remembered their parents nursing them through round after round of the flu, grumbling at the government to hurry up and approve the vaccine. Finally, people got it and everything
seemed fine.

Then the reports started coming in. Gangs of ordinary people roaming the streets, attacking passersby for pocket change. People on the subway being murdered for a sandwich or a cup of coffee. The victims who survived reported that it was like being savaged by a wild animal—clawing and biting and ripping. Then those who’d been bitten began to change, to become like their attackers.

“It was a zombie apocalypse,” people said, “just like in the movies.” Which was crap. Cole had seen a zombie movie once, sneaking in when Tyler’s friends brought one over. The infected were not zombies. They hadn’t died; they weren’t rotting. They’d just changed. They’d become feral—that’s the word Tyler used. Whatever stops a hungry person from attacking a kid for an apple, that’s what the infection
robbed from its victims.

Ten years later, most of the population was infected. The rest had retreated to fortified cities like New Chicago. If there was any real hope left, it was that eventually the infected would annihilate themselves out there. But they sure weren’t hurrying to do it. In the cities, things weren’t much better, as the increasing shortage of food and clean water meant that you
could still lose your life over an apple, murdered by a regular person who needed it to survive.