Ages of Wonder Read online

  She should have protested, should have teased him. Something. Anything. But she said nothing.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Danny demanded. “What have you done to her?”

  “I haves give her to you, as I promise,” said the creature. “She is yours now. Will do as you say.” The creature’s eyes shone. It was proud of itself, Danny realized. “Or I say,” it added. It turned to Maria. “Tell to Danny you loves him, Maria.”

  “Te amo, Danny,” Maria said immediately.

  He had dreamed of this, of winning those words. But her voice was flat. It was nothing, meant nothing.

  “How have you done this to her?” he shouted.

  “Shh, shh. They hear. Soldiers hear. Very bad, they hear.”

  “Yes,” Danny agreed, lowering his voice. “But tell me.”

  “Is a gift from my mother. To keeps me safe. She loves me, my mother.”

  “But then, why didn’t you do it to me? Or to the Spaniards that attacked you?”

  “Is hard, hard. And the giving, it was long ago. The gift fades so I use it little.” The creature smiled again. Danny wished it wouldn’t. He had felt sorry for it and it had done this. “But you,” it said. “You make other arrow. I go to my mother. I not need gift.”

  “And maybe I won’t give you the arrow,” Danny said.

  “But I have got Maria for you,” the creature said. “She do anything. You wants kiss? She kiss. Look.”

  The creature shambled over to her. It thrust its face towards her.

  Danny shoved the creature away. Maria might have been made of stone for all the response she gave. She was so close to him now. He could smell her, the lemons she used to scent her soap, the underlying musk of her.

  He could hear her breathing.

  He kissed her, briefly, on the mouth. When she didn’t resist, he did it again more urgently.

  Still nothing. And yet he wanted her so badly. He let his hands move across her still body. She didn’t move.

  In his dreams, she’d been a willing partner. She’d whispered his name and held him close.

  This thing he was holding was not Maria.

  Danny pulled away. He turned to the creature.

  “What have you done to her,” he screamed. “What have you done to me?”

  “Dones to her what you asked,” the creature. “I don’t do nothings to you.”

  “Yes, you have,” Danny shouted. He slapped the creature hard across the side of its head. It shrieked and turned away.

  He grabbed it and hit it again and again with his fist.

  “Why?” he said. He was out of breath. “Why?”

  “Because it what you want. What you say.”

  “You must have known I didn’t want that,” Danny said. “No man could want that.”

  “I not know,” the creature said. “I not. She do what she told, like good girl. That’s what my papa say. Mother be good girl do what she told because—”

  “What? But you said your mother was pleased to be with your father—”

  “Mouth say she happy. Face say other thing,” the creature said. “But she good girl, do what papa say.”

  “Or he’d make her,” Danny said. Most men would. His own mother was wise and funny when his father was not there, but when he was, she minded her manners. “She was scared of him.”

  “Yes,” the creature said. “I scared. Brother too. That why we not want her go. But she go, and brother go, and then just papa and me. And he so angry. He hits me. Like you hits me. Then with belt—”

  “Why didn’t you use your gift to stop him, then?”

  “I did. But he just sit there. I have to feed him, clean him. I not likes. So in end, I . . . tell him to do a thing and then he no need feeding and cleaning.”

  “You told him to kill himself,” Danny said.

  The creature looked away.

  Danny grabbed the back of its head and forced it round. “You killed your father, you wicked creature.”

  “I not sorry. Not for that. He trapped my mother. He did. He did.”

  “And you helped her to go and in return you got stuck with him,” Danny said. It must have been terrible, but murder was murder and a mortal sin however you looked at it. “It’s no wonder you don’t know right from wrong.”

  “Oh I know I do wrong. Not first wrong thing I did.” The creature twisted out of Danny’s grasp.

  “You did worse?” Danny demanded, advancing on the creature. He made a wild guess. “Did you kill your mother too? Is this all some mad tale to account for—”

  “No no,” the creature said. “Not kill her. Worse. You not make me tell. You not.”

  “All right,” Danny said. “I won’t make you tell me but you have to release Maria from your gift. Can you do that?”

  “Oh yes,” said the creature. “I can. But I not. You shoot last arrow and I release her.”

  “Oh, really,” Danny said. “What’s to stop you going back on your word?”

  “No no, I not. I not be here. I be in sky with mother. I not understand why you want Maria free, but why I not do it? I be so happy I do anything.”

  “It’s what you do when it doesn’t work that worries me,” Danny said. But he couldn’t think of any other way of making the creature release her.

  So, once again they stood in the darkness. Danny once again aimed over the creature’s head. And once again he thought of shooting for its heart. If he had been sure killing it would release Maria he would have done it. He thought he would. But he couldn’t be sure and couldn’t risk trapping her forever in that hell.

  “Now!” said the creature.

  Danny loosed the arrow. It flew up. The creature caught it.

  Light blazed around the creature. For an instant, it hung in the air.

  “Well I’ll be—” Danny said.

  The creature crashed back to earth.

  “No,” it screamed. “Not again, not again.”

  Convulsive sobs racked its body. Danny was moved to pity despite everything that had happened.

  He sat down next to it.

  “Hush now,” he said, as if the creature were a little child. “Hush. There will be other arrows, other chances.”

  “No,” said the creature. “No more. I can’t. Is useless. She not wants me anyway—”

  “But you were so close,” Danny said. “I didn’t believe any of it, you know. Nothing. But you were almost flying. And you shone like starlight.” What am I saying? he wondered. Why am I encouraging this filthy little beast? But yet he patted its shoulder, soothing it as he might a feral dog.

  “You not know. She hate me. She hate me, not want me. She take good child because she know I bad.”

  “But you said you were too heavy to run up the spear,” Danny said. “How does that make you bad?”

  “I say that. You believe? You stupid, then.”

  “Most gracious of you to say so,” Danny said.

  “No, you listen. She put spear. Brother go. She smile, smile, yes? But I go and she look at me. Hard look. Sometimes you look like that, but she look harder. Because she know. And I start to run for spear. But she looking at me and I cannot run. Because she know . . .”

  “What? That you did something?”

  “Yes. I not want her to go. And I know she want go, because who want to stay with papa?” the creature said.

  Danny nodded. He’d left home as soon as he could but he worried about his mother constantly. “What did you do?” he asked quietly.

  “I found her wings.”

  “Yes. You said.”

  “No, not then. I found them long before. Papa puts them in box under loose floorboard. It squeak. I think maybe if I fix it, he pleased. But I find box under, and in it her wings. All white and soft as baby hair.” For a long moment the creature did not speak. It stared at the ground and its bony fingers moved restlessly across its thighs. “I not want mama to go. You understand? Or I want go too. But there is one pair of wings and I did not know she had plan to take u
s. So I took the wings and I hid them in the garden. And every day I think of them, and the days are long, and weeks and months, and then a year and two, and I hurt inside from thinking. You understand?”

  “Oh, I do,” Danny said, and meant it.

  “And then my brother find the wings and there is nothing I can do. And all bad thoughts come true, because she goes and he goes and there is just me and papa and papa’s belt . . . you see?”

  “I do,” Danny said. “But I do not think she meant to leave you. Why would she? She loved you.”

  “But I bad,” the creature wailed. “I not mean to be. But I bad and I hurt her and I want—”

  It’s a child, Danny thought. It’s a child, trapped in that unthinking moment of bad decision. It’s no wonder it did that to Maria . . .

  “Did you tell her you were sorry?” Danny asked.

  “I not. Not then. I too scared. She leaving. I want to say, I sorry. I love you mama. Not leave me, please not leave me.”

  “Then tell her now,” Danny said. “She’s up there, a star. Surely they hear everything?” He had no idea what he was saying. He only knew he had to drive the creature to the point where it would release Maria, and he dared not mention that in case the creature retreated into grief and mania again.

  The creature stood up. It raised its face to heaven. “I sorry, mama. I stole your wings. I bad, I bad. But I was scared you leave. I was scared I be left. I sorry.”

  The air shivered.

  The light came down from heaven, a blaze of glory that shimmered and coalesced until a woman stood there. She was so beautiful that Danny could hardly bear to look at her. She stretched out her wings and they seemed to envelop the sky.

  “Oh my child,” she said, and her voice was like the shattering of crystal. “What has become of you?”

  “I sorry, mama. I sorry I hid your wings.”

  “Oh child,” said the star-woman. Her voice was full of disappointment, and the sound of it was more than Danny could bear. “Is that your guilt? Have you even now not learned the wrong you did me?”

  “I sorry,” the creature said. “I not want you to leave me with papa.”

  For a loathsome instant, Danny was back at home. His mother was pushing a bundle of food and a few coppers into his hands and telling him to go, go before his father woke. And he had gone and left her because it was all he could do. “I can’t,” he’d said. “You must,” his mother had answered. “Make something of yourself. Find yourself a good wife and treat her well, that’s all I ask. Trust me, Danny, it’s all a mother wants for her child.”

  Trust, he thought, and knew what wrong the star-woman could not forgive.

  He took a step towards the creature. The star-woman turned her awful, glorious gaze upon him. He looked away. Looked at the ground. But took another step.

  “Listen,” he said to the creature. “You did a bad thing to your mother. But what was the worse thing?”

  “I not know. I only know I sorry and I right. She not love me, she hate me.”

  “She’s your mother. She loves you. I promise you.”

  “Yes,” said the creature, but it didn’t sound as if it believed him.

  “Didn’t she protect you from your father?” It was a guess, but there had been so many times at home . . . he knew he was right.

  The creature made a sound that was half sob and half word. It took a long, shuddery breath. “Yes,” it said at last.

  “Of course she did,” Danny said. “Because she loved you. So why would you think she would leave you?”

  “Don’t know,” said the creature. It shrugged and turned away.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit insulting to think she would leave you? Perhaps that’s why she’s angry.”

  “Yes but I scared,” said the creature. “I not . . . brother is . . . brother is like her. Beautiful one. Her beautiful boy. Me, I like father. So I think she protect me because sorry for me, but why she want ugly one with her?”

  “You should have trusted me,” said the star-woman. Her voice was like breaking ice.

  Danny felt his bowels loosen just at the sound of her. But he had to continue, had to free Maria.

  He looked up at her, although he thought his eyes would burn away.

  “He thought he wasn’t good enough for you. He was a little boy scared of losing his mama.”

  “Who are you to speak thus to me?” said the star-woman, and Danny was sure he would die.

  But there was Maria.

  “I am . . .” he paused. He was sure the star-woman would know a lie if she heard one. And so he said something that he knew was true, even though it had only been true for a few moments. “I am your son’s friend.”

  The star-woman regarded him. “It is good that he has a friend,” she said at last. “And perhaps there is truth in your words.” She turned to the creature. “Why didn’t you trust me, my son?”

  “I was just so scared, mama. I’m sorry.”

  “Then so am I,” she said. “You should come now. It is not earth that weighed you down, but your guilt and my anger. And the things of earth no longer become you. Be free of them.”

  She motioned with her hand, a movement Danny could never later quite recall.

  Light blazed around the creature. He stood tall. His features, his bones, everything changed. Bright wings burst forth from his shoulders.

  Another light fell from the sky. A young man, so like the being who had been the creature that there was no telling them apart.

  “My brother,” each one said at the same moment.

  “And now we are almost finished,” said the star-woman. She turned to Danny. “But a true friend deserves a true gift, and you have a good heart. What would you have?”

  Danny thought of the gift she had given her son, and the damage it had caused, and knew he must choose carefully. He could ask for Maria—the real Maria, not the witless creature she had become—to love him truly. He thought the star-woman would grant it, that she had that power. But it was not something a man of good heart would do. His mother would be appalled.

  “I want Maria to be free of whatever your son did to her,” he said. “If she’s to love me, I’ll have to earn that love and make a place where we can be together in this world.”

  “That is not in my gift,” the star-woman said. Danny stared at her, appalled. But she turned to the being that had been the creature. “My son,” she said.

  “It is done,” he said. “I’m so sorry for the hurt I caused you and her, Danny.”

  “It’s nothing,” Danny answered out of habit.

  “No, it’s not. If we’ve learned anything this night it must be the value of acknowledging our failures, wouldn’t you say?”

  Danny nodded. Then he surprised himself by laughing. “Your English has improved.”

  “The body I was wearing had mostly forgotten how to think. But that part of my life is finished with now, and I thank you.”

  “As do I,” said the star-woman. “But you have not chosen a gift of me, Danny Fletcher.”

  “I would not know what to choose,” he admitted.

  “Then let me choose for you.” Perhaps she saw him flinch. “I’ll give you no double-edged swords, Danny Fletcher. Just the promise that if you choose wisely—and I know you can—you will find what you seek and earn what you deserve. But are you sure you do not want her love?”

  “I want her love,” Danny said. The star-woman raised her hand, so he went on quickly, “but I want to earn it.”

  “Then I was right. You have chosen wisely. But do not forget that other woman you owe so much. You should seek her too.”

  “I will,” Danny said.

  “Then farewell, Danny Fletcher,” said the star-woman.

  “Farewell,” said her sons. “Farewell.”

  There was a blaze of light so fierce that Danny threw his arm up in front of his face and still it blinded him.

  When he could see again, he looked around. Maria was standing by the palm trees.
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  She was smiling.

  Danny went to her.

  Immigrant

  Sandra Tayler

  Goibniu ran his gnarled brown fingers lovingly over the wooden gears. The gears were motionless now, but soon they would run. His yellow eyes traced the path from the huge mill wheel, across the gears, and into the spinning machine which would make the thread. The cotton mill was almost complete.

  Startled by the sound of human footsteps, Goibniu instinctively ducked into hiding. It was Samuel leaving the mill to go to dinner. Goibniu scrambled to follow his friend. He didn’t want to be left here alone. Being alone always made him aware of the emptiness of this land. It was so different from back home. England was full of monoliths and groves and magical boundaries, as the Fae creatures lay claim to territories. America had none of these things. Goibniu had never cared much for the other Fae, but now he missed them.

  The door of the mill was already shut when Goibniu reached it, but it didn’t matter. He never used the door anyway. There was a loose board next to the door that was perfect for his two-foot-tall frame. He blinked in the bright sunlight. Samuel was already half way to the house. Goibniu looked around for other humans. He was always wary of humans, but particularly since that man on the steamboat had shouted “Demon!” and summoned a priest. Samuel said it was because Americans had never seen Fae. Goibniu just knew that being seen caused a world of trouble.

  There were no humans, but Goibniu’s gaze was drawn across the field to the edge of the wood. There stood a fox. It was not only a fox, but also Fox, imbued with a greater spirit, the essence of Fox. Goibniu swallowed. A second spirit lurked by the stream. He could sense it, but not see it. These spirits were neither human nor Fae. They were larger than anything he had encountered before. He could feel the power they commanded. And they watched him constantly. Goibniu ducked his head and dashed after Samuel.

  Waterman coalesced near the stream bank, his yellow spines blending perfectly with the reeds. The man exited the wooden structure which straddled the waterway. Today Waterman was not interested in men. Today he was watching for the new creature that had come to live at the man-house. Its arrival affected this place like ripples on a pond. He had come to see the source of the ripples. It emerged only a moment later. It was small and brown, shaped like a man. It scanned the world with yellow eyes and pointed ears. Waterman watched as the small gnarled shape ducked its head then dashed after the man. It reminded him of the twisted tree roots which so often found their way into his stream.