Interfictions (25 page)

Don't look up, Ben. Just a dream.
Wakey wakey, Ben-my-baby,
like Ma used to say. God damn you if you look up—

Ma stares at me, hanging from the rafters, her face purple and swollen, her tongue big as a cow's, thrusting out between her black lips
—.—.—.—

Just couldn't see the Light anymore, baby.
Ma's voice, sweet and soft, talking from that dead mouth.

You see it though, baby-mine. You see it more than I ever did.

Wakey wakey, c'mon, Ben
—.—.—.—

You just follow the path, honey. You keep going. Ain't none of us lost yet—.—.—.—

And Ma stares at me with those cloudy eyes, and I sit there and cry until Pa and Cole come home.

Morning came, and aches and hunger and tiredness and fear, all one big package, tied up in torn bandages, glittering with frost.

Took me three tries to get Pa settled again. My knees stretched the cloth of my jeans they was so swelled up, but like I figured, nothing was broke, Lord be praised. My back throbbed, gashed raw by a jagged edge of Redemption rock.

I wanted to guzzle water to make up for the hollow place in my stomach, but I managed to take just a trickle, knowing that whatever was left in the skin might be all I'd get.

Pa felt heavy again. Redemption Mountain looked tall enough to reach Heaven itself. My legs trembled like a newborn colt's.
Goin' down's a lot easier than goin' up, big brother.
Cole's voice, whispering his Devil-talk in my ear.

Then Pa on my back, telling me
you go, boy. You just put one foot down then the other and quit thinkin' so goldarned much! And mind the path!

One foot in front of the other. No thinking about pain or hunger or anything else but the end of the trail.

Redemption.

Couldn't help thinking, whatever Pa might've wanted. Had to keep my head full of noise just to drown out the pain and hunger and plain cussed tiredness.

So I kept walking, and I listened.

Cole asks why Ma killed herself, Pa says keep on walkin' boy, Ma says she lost the Light, Maisy Reynolds paints her picture on Pa and tells me to save him for Ma's sake, Reverend Samuels says—

Dead end, I missed a turn somewhere, and there's no way to go forward, so I go back, back, looking for the true path to the top.

—
Maisy says save him for my sake, no no, for your dead Ma's sake, that's it, and Reverend Samuels tells us that taking your own life is the one unforgivable sin, you're turning your back on God and His wisdom, you're giving up on Eternity, so no Heaven-cart for Elspeth Task, God-have-mercy-on-our-Sister's-damned-soul—

Sip of water, glance at the setting sun, prayer for time and strength.

—
Cole says Pa says Ma says Reverend-talk Mary's face staring at me from Pa's shriveled loins—

The mountain gave me a flat spot and I fell down, Pa covering me like the bony hand of Death.

Ma, your son's comin' to you.

And Ma's voice, the only dream I had left,
Not lookin' for my son, Ben. Just bring me my husband.

I woke up with the sun drifting over the mountain. Pa lay there, his wrappings brown and gray from dirt, an ugly bundle of sin.

Cole said something about Pa.
He drank and carried on somethin' fierce
—.—.—.—

Yep. You ain't lying, Cole, he did.

Just ‘cause he never run off with someone's wife
—.—.—.—

Nope, he never did that either, little brother.

'Course, Maisy Reynolds never got married.

Pa jumped in.
Don't you be thinkin', boy. Don't you try to find sin when you ain't got no proof.

Ma's face, black lips and all, Pa. Ain't that proof?

And Ma, always Ma, taking his side.
Ben-my-baby, Ben-my-strong-young-man, you don't know the truth, honey. You ain't the judge, you ain't a Reverend, and you can't ever be God.

Not fair, Ma, not after what he done to you!

Wake up, son. Just ‘cause you see the sun don't mean your eyes are open.

I cried. Just sat there, not much water left in my skin, and bawled like a baby.
I'm hungry, Ma, and I'm cold, and I'm tired, and this mountain don't ever end, it just keeps growing like that Tower of Babel, and I want to go home now. Can I go home now, Ma? Pa? Cole? Won't somebody answer me?

And the morning mists showed up again, crying just like me, but all they could say was
no, no, no, no, no
—.—.—.—

Paths and paths and paths, looping back on themselves, taking switchbacks right when I thought they was going straight to the top. Didn't care ‘bout food anymore, nor water, and I was so full of pain that it felt right.

I fell over so many times I learned to roll as I fell, letting Pa's body hit first. He finally caved in, his ribs flat up against his backbone. Nothing between them, no innards to squash out. No soul to lose.

The mountain already had that.

Take it back, boy. You're the only one who can.

Couldn't even tell whose voice that was. They all got mixed up together, somewhere along the trail.

When I finally saw the peak, I barely knew why I was there. Pa's body curled around me, his old bones broke and loose in his bindings. If Cole'd done a better job of slashing the linens, Pa'd be scattered across the face of Redemption by now, just more bones for someone else to trip on.

If anyone else ever made it this far.

There weren't no more paths, just this one spot, a ledge barely big enough for me to let Pa down on without worrying he might roll back off the mountain.

And, almost touching distance from the top of Redemption, a wall of stone, maybe ten feet high, with just enough crags that I could probably climb it, given time to rest between handholds.

By myself. Long as I left Pa where he lay.

Ten feet. Maybe twelve, hard to say. If I had a rope, I could climb up and pull Pa after me. It could work, long as I had a rope.

Pa's linens barely kept him whole. A few threads held him in his skin, and I blessed Cole for not having enough time to do the job right, but no way could I try to unravel any of that mess and make a rope. Pa'd just go to pieces, considering the state of his body and all.

Cole hadn't messed with Pa's head, though.

I didn't want to see his face, Lord no. But I figured I could get ten feet of strong, tight-wove linen if I wanted it bad enough.

If I wanted it.

Ma? Is it worth it? Did he do things to you? Did he push you into the barn, put your head in the noose, even though he wasn't there in the flesh?

No answer from Ma. Didn't really expect one. Sometimes you're just left alone.

I turned Pa over on his stomach, found a good place to start, and gathered the cloth.

Cole didn't leave me no knife, so I had to make a knot somewhere around Pa's shoulders, right where Cole cut the linen up. I tied the other end of Pa's wrappings around my waist.

I never knew a head was so big. I had ten feet of winding-sheet and some to spare.

I checked the knots and climbed those last few feet. It was slow going. When I finally reached the top of Redemption, my fingers was raw as my back. I wanted to take a quick look at the top. I wanted to see where I'd brought us, me and Pa. I felt a pain around my waist, like Pa was tugging at the reins.

I just kept walking. The linen rope strained around my hips. I took a couple steps back, real easy, and the line loosed up some. I tried to breathe. Tried again. Couldn't feel nothing but the empty inside me, my stomach, my lungs, my heart.

Wasn't nothing atop Redemption Mountain but a short, bare stretch of flat rock.

No bones, no rotted cloth, no sign anybody ever made it up here before, ever.

I had to make myself go back to the ledge. The mist was rising again, and I could barely see Pa's poor broke body down below.

Sorry, Pa. I'm bringin' you up here, don't matter what it takes, but I ain't sure you'll be likin' it much.

I laid myself down on the edge of Redemption and reeled Pa in.

When Pa came over the top, he was facing me, hanging from the cloth rope, and for just a flash of time I saw Ma, hanging from the rafters of the barn, her face swelled up, her lips black and near-bursting.

Let him go. Just let Pa fall back down the mountain. Ain't nobody ever gonna know, Ben. You did all you could for him—now let the mountain take him for good.

I almost did it. Almost shifted my butt and scrunched the rolls of cloth out from under me, slipped the tied loop off and let Pa fly back down Redemption, scattering his mean old bones down the mountain while he fell.

And Maisy Reynolds whispered in my mind, not like Ma or Pa, where it felt like they talked right in my ear, but just a memory buzzing around, looking for the right time to get heard.

You get this man to the top, Ben. You make sure he gets saved. For my sake. For your dead ma's sake.

For your sake.

I knew she never said it that way, but it was there in the whisper. Maisy-Mary, her drawings all sliced up now, still giving me mysteries, even up here.

I dragged Pa over the edge of Redemption, turned his face away, and cried until the sun set.

You done good, boy.

Maybe I was sleeping. Too hungry and tired to do much more than that, so maybe.

The mist came up the side of the mountain, thick and pale, a Lamb-of-God white fog from below. Like Redemption burned down there somewhere, throwing off all the dead-weight on the mountain in big puffs of smoke.

I saw faces, heard voices, felt dry touches of old, dead folk across my skin.
Lost for so long,
they told me.
Lost and looking for home.
They all just kept rising past me, straight up from Redemption, until there wasn't any mist left up there.

Pa's voice again,
you done real, real good,
and Ma in there somewhere, not her voice, so much, but just a hint of Ma's soul, there with Pa, nodding her head and smiling behind him.

Seemed like she was saying something about leaving.

Go home, Ben. Go home, my fine, fine man.

I picked up Pa's body, all the loose pieces that used to be this big strong man. He didn't weigh more than a whisper now, no more than the voices that used to clutter my head. I took him right to the middle of Redemption Mountain, laid him out so the sun would shine on him whenever it rose over Redemption's narrow peak.

Then I found a path down Redemption. Didn't have no food, barely any water, and I was tired as God on the sixth day. I didn't care a whit.

Redemption Mountain was empty now. Souls all flown away, going wherever they deserved to end up, I suppose.

But that didn't mean there wasn't nobody left to save.

It sure wasn't going to be an easy path down, but I owed Maisy Reynolds a story, and maybe even a chance at redemption.

I don't set out to write stories that exist outside of comfortable genre boundaries. Take “Climbing Redemption Mountain,” for example. I'm pretty sure I intended to write a straightforward fantasy story: start with an unusual way of attending to the dead, do a little world-building around it, and
voilà
—fantasy!

Then the little voice in my head (the “let's really screw with this” voice), said,
How ‘bout we make this some weird variation on Christianity. You don't see
that
much these days
—.—.—.—

I listened.

This is what happens when you grow up as a voracious reader, and “genre” is only a word you confused with “gender” as a wee child. On my bookshelves, right at this moment, Peter Straub kisses John Steinbeck; Kurt Vonnegut canoodles with Joseph Wambaugh; Gregory Maguire peers at George R. R. Martin's backside; and I don't even want to think about what Elmore Leonard, John D. MacDonald, Richard Matheson, and Julian May are doing to each other.

Oh, wait. I get it.

They're busy gettin' all
interstitial
.

And I'm one of their many, many children.

Mikal Trimm

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On the side of the hill the last of the daylight is almost gone. The hedges are solid black ramparts, shielding the houses from the path. Behind the hedges the windows are yellow with electricity.

It is a warm, still night. The front door of one of the houses is open. On the doorstep stands a woman in a nightdress calling a cat.

'Timothy!'

The light of the house is behind her. Through the thin white cloth her form is clear as can be. She is small and slender. She is not aware of her display.

'Timothy, Timothy.'

Outside the little box of a front garden a shadow in human shape moves at an angle across the road. It is a man running on tiptoe, like a dancer making a silent entrance. It is not clear where he has come from: whether up by the path, like an honest pedestrian, or from behind a tree where he has been standing for some time, watching.

The woman's name is Leanne. She is also at this moment on tiptoe, on her front doorstep, scanning the hedges. She has not seen the shadow.

Deftly the man slips his hand over the gate. He dabs at the latch with his fingertips.

Leanne is startled. There is someone coming in the gate, someone she doesn't know.

She shades her eyes with her hand, trying to see his face. ‘Yes?' she says. ‘Can I help you?' Her voice is high with tension.

'You called me,' says the man. His voice is quiet too, self-assured. ‘I'm Timothy,' he says.

Leanne laughs, flustered. ‘Timothy's our cat!' she says.

'That's right,' says the man again. ‘I'm Timothy.' He lifts his arms out to the side. ‘I was a cat, until last night. This morning I woke up like this.'

He looks down at himself, and up again at her.

Timothy is a black cat. The young man is white, but he is dressed all in black: black turtleneck, black trousers, black shoes. His hair is clean, long and dark; his face smooth, capable, like the face of a young doctor in a hospital drama.