I have not written a Christmas story this year. In fact, I’ve never actually written a Christmassy Christmas story. Sorry. My aim for next year is to write a proper one. But for now…
A long time ago, a long, long time ago, when Steph and I were younger and less exhausted, we put together a project called The December Lights Project. For the whole of December, we put up a short story every day, free to read, as a holiday gift. The stories were contributed by a group of wonderful writers who asked nothing in return, just the chance to spread a little holiday happiness.
The only thing the stories had in common was that they were all guaranteed to have a happy ending.
Like I said, I haven’t written a Christmas story, but I thought I would share my contribution to The December Lights Project again.
It’s my spin on a familiar fairy tale. Enjoy!
The Frog King
So, here’s how it happened.
Some people are really into traditions, okay?
I mean, seriously into traditions. It doesn’t matter what the tradition is or how dumb it might be. If it’s a tradition, it’s gotta happen just the way it always has, and that’s that. No discussion. These people, right. These people freak out if anyone just suggests that maybe, oh, I don’t know, things might change a little. That things might start to make some hopping sense.
Who wants to deal with that kind of raving, dribbling, eye-bulging freak-out? Sometimes, it’s easier to just go with the flow.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
All I’m saying is that if anyone says tradition to me again, they’re losing their head. I might be a frog, but I’m still the croaking king, okay?
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it happened. This was back when I was the prince, and a pretty good-looking prince, too, I don’t mind telling you. I was fifteen, I was hot, and it wasn’t going to be long before I was going to get married to some equally hot princess and have cute little prince- and princesslets running all over the place. You know how it goes. You’ve read the stories. Shiny wedding. Lots of gold, silk, horses and carriages, presents, and waving at crowds. Then a stupid number of too-soft mattresses, a bit of how’s-yer-father, and, as the French say, there you have it.
Everything was going swimmingly. There were plenty of princesses giving me the eye, and more than that, if you know what I mean. Which I think you do.
Then this old witch turns up at the castle gates and starts going on about tradition. Now, my dad, he’s a real sucker for this mumbo-jumbo. Astrology, witchcraft, dowsing, freaking crystals, the whole lot. And the witch has got this old book, and as far as my dad cared, if it was written down, it was God’s own truth, because why would someone write it down if it wasn’t true, right?
Don’t go there, okay, because I’m all over that one. But my dad was the king and what he said went and that was that.
So, the old witch, she’s saying that in the old days, in tradition, the princess has to kiss a frog, who then turns into a prince and they all live happily ever after, yada, yada, yada and whatever. Personally, I reckoned she’d been at the wacky-baccy. The thing was, she said, first the prince has to be turned into a frog, so the princess can kiss him and turn him into a prince. Which is a pretty roundabout way of going about things, if you ask me.
Nobody did.
So, the next evening, I’m standing in the middle of some dumb circle of candles, as naked as the day I was born, while this pervy, dirty old witch dances around me, waving a dead, dried frog. And, yes, she was naked too. That I do not want to think about, thank you very much.
Five minutes later, I’m on the floorboards, croaking away, and all frogged-up.
My dad was delighted.
Everyone gathers around, the courtiers, my friends, my family, all the rest, as I’m tipped into a marshy pool outside the palace, and they all toddle off back to the comfort of the palace, leaving me with the mosquitoes, the flies, the fish, and a damned heron that spent the next week trying to spear me.
Now here’s where it all goes wrong. Because tradition or no tradition, princesses just aren’t going around kissing frogs any more, if they ever did.
And so there I sit, unkissed, totally frog, until my dad finally croaks it (ha!) and they’re left without a king. Then someone remembers me, and they all come poking around my pool.
By this time, needless to say, no one can find hide or hair of the bloody witch, and I’m still a frog.
Yeah.
Oops.
Which brings us up to now, with me still here, still green, and still warty.
Most of the time they leave me alone. Let’s face it. Frog kings are pretty useless at ridin’ and huntin’ and dancin’ and the cuttin’-of-ribbons, and there’s not a whole lot else in the job description. So here I sit, and everyone’s happy. Happier, anyway.
Except on Tuesdays.
And, yes, since you ask, today is a Tuesday. Fan-bloody-tastic. Thank you for reminding me.
I can hear the feet tramping towards my tank right now.
Tuesday is when the king receives petitions and hands out justice. It’s—yes, you guessed it—a tradition. God forbid that anyone would think that maybe a frog shouldn’t be handing out justice.
Well, here they are, the whole obsequious, slimy lot of them, decked out in robes that looked stupid two hundred years ago and which haven’t improved with time. Oh, your majesty, this, and oh, your majesty, that. Bah.
The chancellor bows, then scoops me up out of my tank where I’d just been contemplating eating a nice dead fly. Then we’re off, in procession, cymbals tinging and trumpets tooting, me in the chancellor’s cupped hands.
You couldn’t come up with something more farcical if you tried.
I could hop out from here and make a run for it, but with all these robed idiots around I’d either be captured or squashed by the time I got to the end of the corridor.
Sometimes squashed seems like an appealing option.
Here we go. The throne room is just up ahead. My loving people are waiting.
Bastards.
The doors are pulled back, the trumpeters blow themselves red, and out we march.
Oh. Oh. Dear God. They’ve put the crown out again.
Someone’s going to lose their head over this.
I want to hide my warty face in my little webbed hands.
The crown is sitting in the middle of the throne. And I’m plonked right in the middle, trying to peer over the rim at the sniggering crowds.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to hand out some justice today.
And… Hell. I recognise those banners draped like pondweed from the rafters.
It’s not just a Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday of the month.
The first Tuesday of the month is princess day. God knows where they find them. Every scumming month they drag another poor, innocent princess into the throne room in the hope she’ll kiss me. There must be a lot of desperate royalty out there. Maybe we’re paying them. Maybe they’re far enough away that they don’t know.
All I know is that they’ve been scraping the bottom of the pond, so as to speak, with the ones they’ve brought in recently. And still no luck. Just a lot of horrified expressions and turned up noses.
Princesses these days, see, they’re more into Cosmo and Vogue and fifty-new-ways-to-satisfy-your-lover than squishing lips with frogs. Can’t say I blame them. I’m a frog and even I think it’s gross.
At my lowest, back in the pond, I did it with another frog. Yeah, it’s embarrassing, but what can you do? She was kinda cute for a frog. Nice shade of green and very smooth skin. Legs like you wouldn’t believe. Bit of a tongue on her, though. Clean up this pond! Don’t poop there! Were you looking at that other frog? The tadpoles were nice little things. Rather more of them than I’d been planning before I became a frog, of course. Still, plenty of heirs out there somewhere, although good luck sorting out the line of succession.
I’d always thought that doing the you-know-what with a frog would be as bad as it could get, but these Tuesdays, they’re worse. These are damned humiliating. Back when I was Prince Hot and Sexy, I never dreamed that I could be turned down by so many slappers and old maids. And the expressions on their faces. Let’s just say I thought I looked green.
I sink a little lower behind the rim of the crown, eyes just poking over so I can see what they’ve managed to dredge up this month.
The trumpeters blow hard enough to rupture themselves (some hope), silence (except the odd titter) settles over the throne room, the doors swing open with a gust of cold air, and then … nothing. Zilch.
I push myself up to get a better view.
Heads are craning, whispers starting, and the number of princesses coming through the door is exactly zero.
The chancellor clears his throat.
A courtier hurries forward, his stupid, toes-turned-up slippers hushing and slapping on the red carpet, followed by a hundred pairs of eyes. He whispers into the chancellor’s droopy ears.
I’d never really thought how ugly human ears are before. Frog ears are just neat little holes. Human ears? Like something God squashed on in a moment of distraction and didn’t have time to trim away.
The chancellor straightens, glances quickly at me, then turns to the crowd.
“Her royal highness, Princess Gertrude of Ruritania, is, ah, indisposed and unable to attend the gathering,” he booms. “She sends her most sincere regrets to his majesty.”
Who knows. He might even have fooled someone. It’s pretty clear, though, that she’s heard about me. She’s not coming.
My advisors gather in a little huddle, like herons peering into a pond.
A moment later, the chief heron stalks up to me.
“Your majesty.” He bows, and I have to restrain the impulse to hop back as I imagine the long beak spearing down. “There are no more.”
I blink, confused.
“Every princess alive has been invited. They have come, and they have left. There are no more. We have exhausted the possibilities.”
If I were human, I would sigh. It’s over. No princess will ever kiss me. I will never be human again.
It’s almost a relief. I wonder, abstractly, what they will do with me now.
A chorus of indrawn breaths attracts the chancellor’s attention. He turns. I hop to the side of my throne to look past.
Then I see her.
She’s walking down the red carpet, wearing a dress of glittering green that catches the candlelight and throws it back. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. Blonde hair cascades down her back. Her skin is as smooth as a pebble. Her legs are slim and look like they’re never going to stop going up (and in the dress she’s wearing, believe me, I can see). Her hands are delicate and long. Her eyes are as bright and sharp as emeralds. Everyone is watching her.
I realize my tongue is hanging out, and I snap it back like I’ve caught a fly.
“You’re not Princess Gertrude!” the chancellor says.
She ignores him, and he fades back like mist over the water on a summer morning.
She steps up onto the dais. I look up at her, and that’s some view, I’m telling you.
Her eyes gaze down at me. I think I might faint.
“Tell me, your majesty,” she whispers. “Are you true?”
I croak.
“Are you loyal?”
Croak.
“Are you honest and brave and noble?”
Croak. Croak!
“Do you choose … me? For ever and ever?’
Croak!
She leans forward, and the view improves again, if that’s possible. My mouth feels as dry as a sun-baked rock.
Her lips are moist and soft. I watch them, goggle-eyed, as they descend toward me. I lift up my little frog lips.
We touch. She kisses me.
I feel the magic, like I felt it before, when the witch cursed me. Except this time…
She’s falling. Collapsing down. Shrinking.
Her robes crumple.
For a moment, I think she’s gone, disappeared like dew. But then, as I peer over the rim of that ridiculous crown, I see her.
She’s crouched in the middle of her robes. And she’s a frog.
A very familiar frog.
She glares up at me.
“What do you think you’re doing squatting up there on that throne?” she croaks. “Do you think the pond is looking after itself? You’ve got two hundred children waiting for you back home! Hop to it!”
I smile a wide froggy smile, and with a single bound, leap from the throne.
Some people are really into traditions. Seriously into traditions.
It’s Halloween, I’m stuck here on poison-distribution candy-distribution duty while the kids are out trick-or-treating, so what better time to share with you my horror(ish) short story, At the Gates, which was first published in Black Static, oh, almost nine years ago now? Here it is. Enjoy!
At the Gates
1. Monday
Grace heard the whimpering before she saw the dog.
She was on her way home from school, hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets, head hunched down, watching the pavement. Her iPod buds were in her ears—it made people leave her alone—but the music wasn’t playing. She’d forgotten to charge the iPod last night, and it was out of power. It had cut out half-way through ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’, leaving her ears ringing with the silence.
If it hadn’t been out of power, she would never have heard the dog. And if she hadn’t heard the dog, everything would have been different.
The whimpering was coming from the alley. High, close walls of Victorian brick enclosed the alley in deep shadow. Most people would have hurried past, but Grace had never been able to turn away from an animal in distress.
Her mum would kill her if she brought another dog home. But what else could she do? It wasn’t like she could leave it there.
There had been a time when her mum wouldn’t have minded, when her mum would have even come out and helped Grace carry the dog in. Found a blanket, warm milk. Would have sat up half the night. Before. That was how Grace thought of that time. Just, ‘Before.’
Taking a quick look around, Grace stepped into the mouth of the alley. The shadows closed in, like black cobwebs drifting down. She shivered.
Jeez, Grace. Still afraid of the dark?
You bet.
She dropped down into a crouch and held out the back of her hand for the dog to sniff. If it was hurt or frightened, it might snap to protect itself.
The dog was huddled against a bin, wrapped up like an old, balled blanket. If it hadn’t been for the whimpering, Grace wouldn’t have even recognised it as a dog.
“Come on, old thing. I won’t hurt you.”
The dog turned its head to look at her. The whites of its eyes were sharp in the darkness.
“You really are a poor old mutt, aren’t you?” Grace said, keeping her voice soft.
Its coat was matted and dirty. In places, its skin was bare. If it had been clean, Grace reckoned it would have been white and brown, but that the moment, and in the poor light, it was a near-uniform grey. The dog whimpered again, then stretched out its muzzle towards her.
“Good girl.”
No collar.
The dog licked Grace’s hand with a dry tongue.
“So,” she said, “will you follow me, or do I carry you?”
***
Her mum wasn’t in, and neither, thank God, was Malcolm. But Sean was running wild with little Craig from across the street. She bumped the door closed behind her with her hip. Two eight-year-olds let loose and uncontrolled. Perfect.
The headache that had settled behind her eyes after she’d left the alley thumped once, like a giant heart.
“What the hell are you two doing?” she snapped.
The two boys stopped in mid-shriek. Craig’s eyes widened.
“You’ve got a dog.”
Grace shifted the poor beast in her arms. “You don’t say.”
“You have,” Craig said, excitement pitching up his voice.
“Mum’s going to kill you,” Sean said.
“No, she’s not,” Grace said. “Because you’re not going to tell her. Okay?”
“She’s going to kill you.”
Grace pushed past the boys. They parted.
(Like dry bones under iron wheels).
She stumbled. Where the hell had that come from? She didn’t feel well.
She would put the dog in her bedroom with a bowl of water and something to eat. Rice. She’d heard that was good for sick dogs, and this dog was really sick. She was shivering in Grace’s arms, and her skin moved loosely over her bones.
“I’m going to call you Hope,” Grace whispered in the dog’s ear.
“You better go and see Mr. Uri,” Sean called.
Grace closed her eyes. “Why?”
“Because he hasn’t paid his rent. Again. Malcolm’s getting mad.”
“And he’s making smells,” Craig added.
She heard their footsteps slap on floorboards.
“Don’t go outside,” she shouted, to the sound of the slamming door.
***
Craig had been right about the smell. The corridor stank of boiled vegetables, or worse, boiling laundry. Between the smell and the headache that was still swelling behind her eyes with every pace, Grace felt sick.
Mr. Uri was her mother’s tenant. Somehow, they’d inherited him with the house when her mum had bought it. Grace didn’t really understand how that had worked. She’d only been a kid when they’d moved here. But she did know it had made the house cheap enough for her mum when they couldn’t afford anywhere else. That had been ‘Before’. Before Malcolm and before his money. Grace was glad. Mr. Uri was the best thing about living here. Sometimes she thought he was the only good thing.
She stopped outside Mr. Uri’s door. The smell here was atrocious. If Mr. Uri was cooking in his rooms again, Mum would have a fit.
She laid a palm on the hard wood of the door. She could feel the rough grain against her skin. Her nerve endings seemed hypersensitive.Fever, she thought, and hoped she was wrong.
There was a virus going around school. Half her friends had come down with it. She had almost hoped Dean would catch it so she could have an excuse to go around and nurse him, but no such luck. She’d been sure she hadn’t got it, though. She never got the flu. And the last thing she needed right now was
(…bodies choking on swollen tongues…)
to be sick. God!
She let out a breath. She was not going to give in to this virus.
“Mr. Uri?” she called gently.
No answer. She hadn’t really expected it.
She rapped.
Still no answer. She smiled. Here we go.
She tried the handle, and of course it was open. He’d told her that he never worried about burglars. “What can they take that I haven’t already lost?” he’d said. But she knew he really left the door unlocked so that she could come right on in.
She pushed the door open and stepped through.
The window was open. Bright late-afternoon sunlight slipped between the swaying curtains. Grace could hear birdsong from somewhere outside, but she didn’t know where; there were no trees in this street, no parks nearby. Mr. Uri sat in his armchair, head resting on the wing. He was dozing, and snoring slightly. His thin white hair haloed his wrinkled scalp in the sunlight.
Funny. There was no smell in here. It must have been something else. Not the drains, she hoped. God, how she hoped. She’d be up to her shoulders in them before Malcolm would even consider calling a plumber. Good for her character, Malcolm would say, but Grace knew he was just tight.
She crouched in front of Mr. Uri and took his frail hand.
“Mr. Uri?”
He let out one final, shivering snore, and then blinked at her.
“You were sleeping, Mr. Uri.”
He smiled. His smile always made him seem far more frail, like he was a shed skin held up only by memory.
“I had just closed my eyes. To enjoy the silence.”
Grace backed up and seated herself in the chair opposite. Mr. Uri frowned. “You look pale.”
“Maybe a virus.”
He shook his head. Whenever he did that, she found herself worrying absurdly that his head would come tumbling off and she would have to catch it.
“You should be in bed, not visiting old men.” He laughed. It sounded more like a dry cough.
“It’s Monday,” Grace said. “You forgot your rent.”
He straightened slightly, a dry stick unbending. “Not at all. It is on the table.” He gestured, shaking.
“Admit it,” Grace said. “You only forget so I have to come and fetch it.”
Mr. Uri looked away. “An old man gets lonely here.”
She leaned forward and took his hand again. “I know.”
***
When Grace got upstairs, there were raised voices in the dining room. She thought about just heading on past, up to her bedroom. But she was still carrying Mr. Uri’s rent money and she didn’t want to get him in any more trouble.
Her mum sat at the over-polished table, her fingers making tight circles above the surface, as though she was polishing it still. Sean hunched in the corner, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, forcing himself into a small, shocked ball, as though if he could squeeze himself tight enough he might just disappear. Why did neither her mum nor Malcolm ever think about Sean when they had their shouting matches? He was eight, for God’s sake, and he looked shell-shocked.
“What the hell is going on here?” Grace demanded.
Malcolm swung away from the window. His hands were clenched into white fists.
“Watch your mouth. I’ll have no swearing in my house.”
Oh, no. Grace wasn’t letting that one past. She raised her eyebrows. “Whose house?”
She saw Malcolm’s teeth clamp down, like he was chewing on wood, and his face redden.
Her mum cut in, before the argument could really let fly. “Your dad went down—”
“He’s not my dad.”
Her mum let out a long, silent breath.
“Your dad went down to see Mr. Uri.”
“He missed his rent,” Malcolm said. “As fucking usual. Thinks this is a free ride.” He slammed the side of his fist against the wall, making the pictures shake. Sean flinched. No one except Grace seemed to notice. “I know he was in there. I hammered on his door. Bastard pretended he was asleep.”
“Maybe he was asleep,” Grace said.
“Yeah?” Malcolm lifted his chin. “Then he needs to wake up. We’re not a charity. He’s missed his rent. That’s it.”
Grace shoved her hand into her back pocket where she’s put Mr. Uri’s money. Her head hurt, she had a sick dog to look after and this arsehole was making everything difficult again. “He hasn’t missed his rent.” She pulled the money out and flung it at Malcolm. The notes scattered, like a flock of birds bursting before a cat. “There it is.”
Malcolm’s eyes flattened and stilled, fixed on her. Grace knew he wanted to hit her. He might even have tried to, if her mother hadn’t been there. She glared at him.
He snapped away, as abrupt as a gunshot, turning on Grace’s mother.
“He should be in a home.”
Grace knew she should stop. She knew she had pushed it too far already. But she couldn’t.
“He is in a home. His home. It’s been his home for a whole lot longer than it’s been yours.”
In the silence that followed, the air was thick, frozen.
Pins and needles prickled across Grace’s skin, and for a second she thought she was seeing through smoke. Through the soles of her feet, she felt the ground shake, like
(…flesh splitting, boiling, breaking apart…)
an earthquake. Fuck! She was not giving in to this virus. Not when she had all this to sort out.
Through dry lips, she managed, “Longer than it’s been home to anyone of us. If anyone should leave, it’s us. Not—”
The sharp, incongruous sound of her phone cut her off. She plucked it out of her pocket and flipped it open.
Hell.
“Dean,” she said. “Hi.”
***
Being best friends with the hottest guy in school should be fantastic, right?
Wrong.
Grace and Dean had been friends since they’d been two years old. They’d done everything together, right from the start. They’d been in the same classes right through to high school, and they still were. They’d played games together, slept over, been bathed together, holidayed together. For a few years, they’d not talked much, because boys and girls didn’t, but they’d been friends anyway. And then, unfairly, three years ago, Dean had got hot and she hadn’t. His shoulders had widened, the puppy fat had burned away over his cheekbones, his eyes had darkened. And all he would ever think of her as was his friend.
They could walk down the street, arm-in-arm, and they were only friends. They could go to movies or cafés, as friends. He would tell her about his girlfriends. She knew when he’d started having sex. She’d had to look happy for him. Be happy.
It was killing her.
Maybe she could have tried to be more like the girls he liked. Blonde, thin, tight clothes. Too much make-up. She hadn’t. She’d gone the other way. She’d dyed her hair black and grown curves where she wasn’t supposed have curves.
Dean wanted to talk about his new girlfriend. Rachel. Grace could have told him Rachel was a bitch. She could have told him it was going to end badly. Instead, she pretended to be pleased, and tried to think of how she could make Dean see.
***
2. Tuesday
Her dog, Hope, was worse. She hadn’t eaten the rice Grace had cooked for her, or touched her water. She scarcely lifted her head when Grace came over. Hope wasn’t shivering anymore. Grace didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Grace wasn’t feeling that great either. She lay down next to Hope and wrapped herself around the poor creature’s thin body.
***
3. Wednesday
It wasn’t rent day, but Grace went to visit Mr. Uri anyway. The man didn’t get any other visitors. Grace couldn’t imagine how awful it must be to be too old to do anything by yourself and to have no one ever coming to call. She didn’t know how he could stand it.
Mr. Uri was in his chair, where he always sat. Grace had never seen him anywhere else, although she knew he must move about. He ate. He kept himself clean and shaved. He wore a clean shirt every day. It was just hard to imagine him doing any of those things. He looked too delicate, like he was made of tissue paper and could blow away or crumple up in a breeze.
His eyes opened as she came in, and he smiled. She drew up a chair next to him.
“You’ve got a new dog.”
“Yeah… How did you know?”
“I always know,” Mr. Uri said.
Grace looked down at her folded hands. Her fingers clenched each other too tightly. “She’s… sick.”
The old head bowed, and again Grace was scared his neck would just snap with the movement.
“I know,” Mr. Uri said. “There was a time I could have done something about that.”
Grace looked up. “You were a vet?”
A frown creased Mr. Uri’s papery forehead. “I… I don’t remember. Maybe. Something like that. But… I stopped. It wasn’t worth the price. I stopped.”
Grace leant close. “What do you mean? What price? Where are you from, Mr. Uri? Who are you, really?”
But the old man’s eyes were already fluttering shut. An old man, dreaming old, confused dreams. That was all he was.
Grace adjusted the pillow under his head then tiptoed away.
***
4. Thursday
“You know what I think?” Malcolm said. They were sitting in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Grace’s mum was at the stove, frying bacon. Grace hadn’t eaten meat for years. Neither had her mum, before. “I think he’s one of those Nazis. One of those war criminals.” Malcolm had rolled up his newspaper and punctuated his words with short snaps on the edge of the table. It was setting Grace’s nerves on edge.
“For God’s sake!”
“Why not? He’s old enough. He’s got that weird accent. That’s what they did, the Nazis. They ran away and hid. Pretended they were normal people. Changed their names.”
Grace slapped her toast down, suddenly not hungry. “He’s just an old man. Why can’t you leave him alone?”
“I think we should call the police,” Malcolm said. “Get them to take him away. Get him out of here. I don’t want no Nazis in this house.”
“Sounds like we’ve got one already,” Grace muttered, but too quietly to be heard.
***
When Grace got back to her bedroom, Hope didn’t look up. She didn’t open her eyes. She lay there, unmoving. Her chest wasn’t rising or falling.
“No,” Grace whispered. “Don’t be dead. Don’t die.”
She dropped beside Hope on the pile of blankets. With a trembling hand, she touched her dog’s nose. It was dry and too cold, but air feathered against her hand. Grace let out a shaky breath. She pushed herself from her knees, unfolding carefully, not wanting to disturb Hope, and crossed to the other side of the room. She pulled out her phone and punched quick-dial.
“Dean?” she said. “I need a favour. Can you come over?”
***
“You look shit,” Dean said, as Grace opened the door.
“Thanks.” Dean didn’t look shit. He looked fantastic.
“Seriously. You’re pale. Are you sick?”
“I feel
(…the weight of rusting metal, crushing, cracking, breaking…)
a bit… weird.” Understatement. Her skin felt both hot and cold, pricked by a thousand separate needles.
“You need to see a doctor?”
“No. That’s not why I asked you around.” She indicated with her head. “Upstairs.”
He followed her to her bedroom. If they hadn’t been friends, that would have meant something.
When he saw Hope, Dean looked at Grace. “The broken, the beaten, and the damned, right?”
“What?”
“You. You want to save your mum. You want to save me from Rachel. You want to save that old bloke downstairs. You want to save this dog.” He reached out a hand and touched Grace’s cheek. The touch made her shiver. “You can’t save everyone, Grace.”
“I don’t want to,” Grace whispered. “Just her.” But she was too quiet, and Dean didn’t hear her.
Dean sighed. “So what do you need?”
“Help me get her to the vet,” Grace said.
***
The consulting room stank of disinfectant and fear. Air-conditioned coolness washed from the ceiling. Grace laid Hope on the rubber-covered examining table and stepped back.
They had started by taking turns carrying Hope, but by half-way, Dean had been doing all the carrying, and Grace had had to lean on his arm. Her legs were shaky, and she could feel sweat on her cold skin. (Weren’t viruses supposed to move faster? This one had been hanging around for days.) Dean hadn’t complained. Even though Hope had fouled her bedding during the night and Grace hadn’t been able to get her completely clean, and even though Dean was missing school.
The vet’s practiced fingers pressed over Hope’s scrawny body, checking her stomach and bones and skin. At last he straightened up, refolding his stethoscope.
“Well?” Grace demanded. She felt Dean’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
The vet shook his head.
(All will be ash.)
Grace’s knees lost their strength, and the virus kicked through her system. If Dean hadn’t been touching her, she might have fallen.
“She’s too sick,” the vet said. “It would be kindest if you let me put her to sleep.”
“No,” Grace whispered. She shook her head. “No. You’re a vet. She’s sick. Do something about it.”
The vet sighed. “She’s malnourished, probably with some kind of internal injury. She’s got fleas and an eye infection. That’s just the start of it.”
Hope turned her brown eyes up to Grace, showing the frightened whites like twin crescent moons. Grace put her hand on Hope’s flank, and the dog leaned hard against her, trying to press itself into her.
“You wouldn’t say that if she was a person.”
“I’d need to do a full work-up. CBC to rule infections. Blood chemistry profile. Urinalysis. Some X-rays. If there’s something serious wrong, the tests and the treatment could cost thousands. You can’t afford that, can you?”
For once, Grace didn’t know what to say. Behind her, she could feel Dean’s warm body against her, holding her. Hope pressed against her stomach, bones like sticks against Grace’s hand.
The vet sighed. “Look, this is what I’ll do. I’ll keep her here, keep an eye on her, try to get her to eat and drink something. There are a few things we could try. You can pick her up this evening. If she’ll keep eating, she might regain enough strength. Then we can take another look at her, see if anything is clearing itself up. Otherwise…”
(All will be ashes.)
***
That evening, when they brought Hope home, they met Malcolm on the stairs. He shouted. Grace screamed and held Hope tight.
In her bedroom, Hope lapped at the water and took a lick of the rice.
Grace cried.
***
5. Friday
Grace had to leave school early. In her fever, she couldn’t hold a pen. Dean helped her home and tucked her into bed.
She cried when he left.
She was in love. She was sick.
She shivered under her covers. Across the room, Hope stood, stumbled to the bed, and clambered on.
***
6. Saturday
The house was dark and still when Grace awoke, her bedroom painted streetlight-yellow. Hope’s warm weight was gone from her legs. For a moment, her heart stopped. Then she saw Hope curled up in her own blankets.
Grace’s fever seemed to have broken some time in the night. She felt weak, but the wrongness that had swelled in every cell of her body was gone. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed, pushing off her tangled covers.
Hope was sleeping, but she’d eaten the rice Grace had left for her. Grace felt tears dampen the corner of her eyes.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered.
Hope’s eyes opened, and her tail gave a single thump.
“Come on,” Grace said. “Let’s get you out to the garden. Then I’ll find you something more to eat.”
When they came back, Grace found some chicken in the fridge, warmed it in the microwave and fed it to Hope, one sliver at a time. Hope’s bright eyes watched every piece. Towards the end, she started to jump for the chicken.
In the house, everyone else was sleeping.
***
7. Sunday
“Tomorrow,” Malcolm said, “everything’s going to be different.”
Grace put her fork down warily. “What do you mean?”
“The Nazi. If he hasn’t paid his rent by nine o’clock, he’s out of here. We’ve got a contract. I’m fed up with him ignoring it. And you’re getting rid of that dog. Take it to a shelter or put it down. Whatever. It’s time this family started acting like a family, and that means you’re going to learn to show me a little respect.”
Grace slammed back her chair. “You’re not part of this family. You’re not our dad. You don’t get to decide.” She stood. “If you touch my dog, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
She spun away, heading for the door.
“Tomorrow,” Malcolm called.
“Fuck you.”
***
Hope was curled tightly into her blankets, a ball of patchy fur and bones. Grace could hear the sighing of Hope’s breath. The bowl of chicken and rice next to Hope’s bed hadn’t been touched. Grace dropped down beside her and placed her hand on Hope’s neck.
“You’re just not hungry, right? Right?”
Hope didn’t open her eyes.
8. Monday
Her fever had returned with a vengeance, sometime in the night. Grace’s skin felt clammy, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She rolled over in her bed. The sheets were damp with sweat.
Ten o’clock. Shit. She’d slept in too late.
She tumbled out of bed, pulled on her jeans and a sweater. Her hair was tangled and dirty, the T-shirt she’d slept in crumpled.
Hope was lying where Grace had left her. She didn’t look like she’d moved at all. The bowl of rice and chicken was still untouched. She hadn’t come to Grace in the night when her fever had returned.
(Everything will be different.)
“Not you,” Grace whispered. “You’re going to be okay. No matter what, you’re going to be okay.”
(Everything will be different.)
Grace hunched down next to Hope, her body held in tight against her shaking chills. Hope’s fur felt dry beneath her hand. The dog was scarcely breathing, but now they were touching, Grace could feel the shivers rippling across Hope’s frail body, to match Grace’s own. Hope cracked open a sticky eye. It drifted shut again, and Hope’s breath sighed out. For a moment, Grace could feel nothing in Hope. Not a movement, not a shiver, not a breath. Then, with a shudder, Hope drew in another breath. Grace pushed herself to her feet.
The vet. She had to get Hope to the vet. They could feed her somehow. A feeding tube or something. Build up her strength, test her, treat her. Make her better.
And it would cost thousands. Grace had nothing. Just a few pounds. She could sell stuff. Her iPod. Her computer. Malcolm would be furious, but Grace didn’t give a fuck. Except it wouldn’t be enough, and it would be too slow.
(Bones will splinter under heavy wheels. Fires will burn. All will be ashes.)
She stumbled, the fever stealing the strength from her legs. With a grimace, she forced the muscles in her legs to lock firm.
Malcolm had money. Lots of it. Grace didn’t know exactly how much, but she did know he was loaded.
There was no way he would give her a penny of it. Not for Hope.
Dean would give her money. He wouldn’t even ask why. But he had even less than she did.
She wanted to scream. Who else? Her mum? Not without Malcolm knowing and putting a stop to it.
Tears stung her eyes. “You’re not going to die! You’re not.”
Who else?
Mr. Uri. Mr. Uri had money. Maybe not much. He was an old man. But he paid his rent every single week, no matter what Malcolm might say. Maybe he could lend her enough. She could work, pay it back. Even the idea of asking him made her feel sick, dirty.
(Skin torn away. Iron jaws closing on muscle. Screams in the darkness.)
“Stop it! Please.” She could hardly stand.
(Everything will be different. All will be ashes.)
She had no choice. He was the only one she could go to. He was the only one who could help her.
She dropped to her knees
(…flesh bursting with sores…)
and scooped Hope into her arms.
“I’m not leaving you,” she whispered. Tears were running down her face. She wiped them on her shoulder, then staggered to the door.
***
Malcolm was outside Mr. Uri’s rooms, hammering on the door. He wasn’t alone. Two men—friends of Malcolm’s—were leaning against the wall, almost blocking the corridor. They watched her as she descended the stairs, not saying anything.
“What are you doing?” Grace demanded.
Malcolm turned from the door. His look of satisfaction made his face almost pleasant. “He missed the rent. That’s it. He’s out.”
Grace gripped Hope tighter and felt the bones push through her thin T-shirt. “What’s he supposed to do? Where’s he supposed to go?”
Malcolm leaned in close. “I. Don’t. Care. He can sleep on the streets for all I care. And that fucking animal can join him. It stinks.”
She took a step back. Malcolm turned to the door and shook the handle.
“Fucker’s locked his door.” He hammered on the wood, the sound too loud in Grace’s ears. Hope let out a whimper, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Wake up, you old fucker, or I’m kicking this door down!”
Grace closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. She forced the fever back a step.
“Let me talk to him. Just for a minute?”
Malcolm gave her a disgusted look. “Yeah?” He considered, then shrugged. “Please yourself. But if he’s not out of there in an hour, I’m going to get him out myself, and it won’t be pretty.”
Grace squeezed past Malcolm. He didn’t move back far enough, and she felt the hard muscle of his leg against her thigh.
“I’ll tell you this much,” Malcolm said. “He’s awake now.” He thumped once more, hard, on the door. “Aren’t you, you old bastard?”
Balancing Hope in one arm, against her chest, Grace reached for the door handle.
It didn’t surprise her at all that the door opened beneath her hand.
***
Grace clicked the door shut behind her. Mr. Uri wasn’t in his usual chair. The window was open, but she couldn’t hear the birds singing.
He had left a couple of blankets folded into a dog’s bed by the door.
“Mr. Uri?”
He knew we were coming.
She shook her head. Maybe he had just hoped. She lowered Hope into the bed. Hope laid her head down, eyes closing.
Grace straightened, and the movement sent her fever sweeping up through her, the room spinning away.
She stumbled forward a step—
And her feet came down on a path of bones.
They were blackened, splintered and ground and crushed.
(The bones of your family, your friends, of everyone who ever was and ever will be.)
(He is awakening.)
Skulls stared blankly up, eye sockets dark and lost. Above her, a smoke-stained sky stretched from horizon to horizon.
A scream built in Grace’s throat, pushing itself up, over her tongue, past her lips.
It was impossible. It was the fever. She was hallucinating.
She could feel the hardness of the bones beneath her feet.
It was real.
It didn’t matter. She had to find Mr. Uri.
(If he wakes, all will be ashes.)
“I don’t care,” Grace whispered. “I don’t care.”
To the left of the path, a single tree, stripped of its leaves and bark, stood skeletal and white against the heavy sky. Grace saw no birds, no stars, no moon or sun. Just the shroud of smoke. She smelled ashes and rust.
“Mr. Uri?”
Something immense and metallic groaned.
(Nothing will stand. Nothing will endure.)
(He is awakening.)
(He is awakening.)
(He is awakening.)
(Bones crack, blood turns to steam, diseased flesh burns.)
Grace shuddered. She bowed her head and took a step along the path of bones. Then another.
Far behind, she heard the sound of a fist hammering on wood. She ignored it. She kept walking.
In the distance, something grew. First it was a line along the horizon, then a strip, then a wall. It stretched as far as she could see and cut across the path. She kept walking.
(Blackened worlds spin in a dead sky.)
The wall was vast, taller than a tower block. It blocked out the sky, as black as obsidian, but dull, as though the thin light from the smoky sky sank into it, unable to escape.
In the centre, at the end of the path of bones, stood a pair of iron gates.
The gates were ajar.
Bones slipped and crumbled beneath her feet. Grace kept her eyes fixed on the gates. The path rose towards them.
On the blackened earth before the gates lay the bodies of eagles. Dozens of them. Their wings were broken, their feathers charred, their eyes blank.
(Nothing will endure. Bodies will be broken.)
Grace stepped over the bodies, feeling her way past them. She laid her hands on the iron gates. They were cold beneath her skin.
Behind the gates, behind the wall, something was growing. A mountain of darkness. Storm clouds piled upon each other, up and up and up, leaning towards her, towards the gates. She could feel their weight and their fury even from here. Metal creaked.
The gap between the gates was too narrow for her to slip through. She tugged at the gates, pulling them further apart.
Screams tore the burning air. Weight piled upon her. The clouds rolled forwards.
(All will be ashes.)
“Mr. Uri?” she called.
If she could reach him, he would help her. He would change everything. Fix Grace, get rid of Malcolm, save Dean. Make it all right. He could do that.
(All will be ashes.)
Just an inch more.
Wind howled, hot and dark and fierce.
From behind her came the sound of furious barking. Grace turned.
Running up the path of bones came Hope. Her head was down, drooping, but still she barked.
“No,” Grace whispered. “Go back.”
Hope stumbled, her weak legs failing her. Grace saw her dog’s jaw smack into the bones.
“No!”
Hope struggled to her feet again, took another step forwards. Fell again.
Grace ran. She leapt across the bodies of the fallen eagles, raced over the blackened bones.
Hope tried to rise.
Panic gave Grace a burst of strength. She lunged forwards and caught Hope before she could fall again.
Hope’s body shivered helplessly and violently. Grace gathered her and hugged her tight. Hope’s head dropped and her body went limp.
Slowly, Grace rose and turned towards the gates.
Step by step she made her way back.
The storm clouds shrieked. Hot wind blasted her.
Mr. Uri could help her, but all would be ashes. He had said it wasn’t worth the price. She squeezed her eyes shut, and tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Hope,” she whispered.
She knew what she had to do.
She opened her eyes and leant her shoulders against the gates. Tendrils of storm clouds reached through the gap between the gates and licked across her skin like icy fire. She pushed the gates shut.
At the gates, among the ashes and the bones and the death, she slumped to the ground. She buried her face in Hope’s thin fur and waited for the end.
In the dead world, all was silent.
Hope’s body twitched, once. Grace’s eyes popped open. She looked up.
Light streamed in the open window. She could hear birds singing. Mr. Uri sat in his chair above her. He gazed down at her with eyes of pure black. Inside them, Grace saw storm clouds churn.
“Your friend was right,” Mr. Uri said. “You can’t save everyone. You never can.”
“I don’t want to,” Grace said. “Just her.”
Mr. Uri’s frail hand descended and rested on Hope’s neck. For a moment so brief Grace couldn’t be sure she hadn’t just blinked, Grace saw blackness lick over Hope’s skin like icy fire.
“You already did,” Mr. Uri said.
Hope looked up at Grace with clear eyes. Her tail thumped against Mr. Uri’s carpet.
When Grace looked back up, Mr. Uri’s eyes were drifting shut.
“I’m tired,” he said. “Tired.”
“Sleep,” Grace whispered.
***
Grace settled Mr. Uri’s head on his pillow, making sure he was comfortable and wouldn’t wake with a crick in his neck.
He had left his rent money on the table by the chair. She picked it up and strode to the door, Hope dancing along behind her. The fever had gone from her body and taken her weakness with it. She pulled open the door.
Malcolm was standing behind it, fist raised. She shoved the rent money at him.
“He’s paid his rent.”
Malcolm’s mouth opened, but Grace didn’t give him a chance to answer. She remembered the storm clouds in Mr. Uri’s eyes and the fire that had touched her skin. She reached out with her memory to touch them. She met Malcolm’s gaze. “Everything is different,” she said. “Everything. You’ll leave him alone. You won’t touch him.”
She stepped past and left Malcolm standing there. Everything was different. It was going to stay that way.
-End-
And, yes, I’m putting this up for free on my blog, but it’s still copyright, so please direct people here to read it rather than posting it elsewhere. Thank you!
I’ve always loved Ancient Egypt. I’ve visiting the remains of the civilization in modern Egypt. I love books and novels and short stories about it. I love watching documentaries. So it’s no wonder that Ancient Egypt is one of the influences on the Ancient Martian civilization in SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB.
Ancient Egypt was a wonderful, rich, and varied civilization, and though it was only an influence in SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB, it was the setting for my fantasy story, The Land of Reeds, that was published in Realms of Fantasy in February 2006, a story of revenge, ghosts, and the path to the afterlife.
With just four days to go, I thought I’d offer the pure Egyptian (fantasy) experience up for free. Enjoy!
The Land of Reeds
The dead, he had discovered, had mouths and could speak, but they could not be heard.
Or, they could not be heard by the living: the dead talked among themselves with voices of sand and dust. Amenemhet did not wish to talk to the dead. A man who has been murdered wishes to speak to those still living, to lay testament before them, to give warning.
The dead, in their crowded voices, said that Re no longer travelled through the underworld each night. They said that his face was now no more than a ball of fire in the sky. There were no more demons in the underworld, no Apep the serpent, no Amemet the great devourer, no gates, no judges, no scales. There was no Land of Reeds.
The dead said Amun-Re died on the day the Macedonian usurper sat upon the throne of the two lands and proclaimed himself Pharaoh, for Alexander was no true son of Re, no true son of Osiris and so no god.
Perhaps, Amenemhet thought, they were right. All his life, he had studied the map that showed the path through the underworld and learned the words of the Chapter of Renewing the Gates in the House of Osiris which is in Sekhet-Aanru. After his murder, Amenemhet had watched through the eyes of his ka as the sem priest prepared his body and performed the sacrifices and as the kher-het priest read the prayers and instructions. All had been in order, and Amenemhet had felt his ka slip free.
But when night came, his ka had not entered duat. It had remained in the desert sand, and Amenemhet had become aware of the press of the dead around him and the whispers of their dry voices like the desert wind. “Re no longer travels the underworld at night,” they whispered. “His face is but a ball of fire…”
* * *
He left the tombs and the dead behind him and walked down into the town. The narrow streets were busy with the living. Amenemhet passed easily through them, his ka as insubstantial on their skins as his words were on their ears. Other kas of the dead also moved through the streets. They stared at him with drawn, grey eyes. Amenemhet stepped around the dead, sometimes stepping through the whitewashed, mud-brick walls of the houses that lined the tight streets to do so.
Once, in the market, he shouted furiously at the living: “Rep-a Djau has murdered me. He slipped a blade into my throat and left me to bleed to death.” But the living kept on their way, chattering and laughing. Amenemhet spat emptily onto the ground.
“They can’t hear you, you know.”
Amenemhet looked around. The ka of a child was standing behind him. She could not have been more than eight years old when she died. She scarcely came up to Amenemhet’s waist.
“I know,” he said. “Go away.”
Her ka held ghosts of colours. Specks of precious gold swam in her eyes. Most of the kas he had seen had been grey.
“We could help each other,” she said, scampering after him as he strode through the crowd. “I was poor and young. I never saw the maps of the underworld. I never learnt the words to speak at the gates.”
“Go away,” Amenemhet said. “Those things are as dead as Amun-Re. The Land of Reeds is no more. And what could you offer me?”
Amenemhet’s house was on the southern edge of the town, a mile from the rich flow of the Nile, set among the estates of the wealthy. Amenemhet had been hety-a of the town, and all had been pleased to pay him court and to seek his wisdom. Now those same people saw him not and heard him not. The only one who paid him court was the ka of the wretched urchin who dogged his heels like a loose bandage.
“Something,” the child said. “I have been dead for a long time. I know the world of the dead among the living. I know things.”
“Go away,” Amenemhet repeated.
A golden chariot stood outside the gate of his house. The sight of it plunged Amenemhet’s ka into coldness. Rep-a Djau was here. With a roar of rage that did not even stir the dust in the air, Amenemhet plunged through the outer wall.
The murderer was not in the square court, but the door in the north portico stood open, and Amenemhet heard voices from within.
Amenemhet stepped through. Rep-a Djau stood in the centre of the reception room, clad like a pharaoh in his green and gold gown and his bead necklaces. Baketamen, Amenemhet’s wife, sat on an earthenware bench before Rep-a Djau. The two girls, Meryt and Kawit, and his little son, Hori, who was scarcely off his mother’s breast, stood behind Baketamen. Baketamen had obviously been crying, but she had dried her eyes and looked up at Rep-a Djau.
“I have always been a good friend of your husband,” Djau was saying. “He trusted me. Anything I can do for you, I will.”
“Liar,” Amenemhet screamed. “He always envied me you. It wasn’t enough that he was richer than I, that he had the ear of the Tjaty of the two lands. He wanted you. He killed me. Don’t listen to him.”
Baketamen smiled. “You are kind, Rep-a. We will remember your kindness.”
Djau bowed. “You may always call on me.”
Then the murderer turned, and strode out of the house.
When Amenemhet finally thought to look, the ka of the troublesome child had gone.
* * *
The servants did not come the next day. When Amenemhet’s ka searched through the house, he found his wife sweeping the sand from the floor. With every stroke of the brush, a tear fell from her face into the sand to be lost in the water she had sprinkled there. His children, even little Hori, were building a fire from dried dung. When he had been alive, they had burned only wood in this house.
“There is a new haty-a now,” a voice said. “You are dead. Your place is not here. The taxes you once received now go to another.”
The ka of the child stood beside him.
“Go away,” Amenemhet said. “Why do you bother me with things I know?”
* * *
The first creditor came at dawn on the third day. He was a grain trader from Thebes. Amenemhet had met the man only once. The man had stuck to Rep-a Djau’s shoulder like a shadow to a wall. Amenemhet had disliked the man and refused to do business with him. That had angered Rep-a Djau.
“It grieves me to trouble you at such a sad time, Nebet Per,” the trader said to Baketamen, “but your husband owed me money. The debt is long overdue. I would wait longer, but my farmers need payment.”
Outraged, Amenemhet swept through the man. “I have done no business with you. You lie.”
“You are mistaken,” Baketamen said. “I keep the household accounts. I have no record of any debts unpaid. My husband told me of no contract with you.”
The trader bowed his head and passed a rolled papyrus to her. She flattened it. Amenemhet peered past her. The bill of sale was clear. His seal had been pressed firmly onto the papyrus.
Hesitantly, Baketamen said, “It is a large sum.”
“You see my dilemma, Nebet Per.”
“I made no such contract,” Amenemhet shouted. “The bill is false. Rep-a Djau must have stolen my seal when he murdered me.”
Baketamen rolled the papyrus and returned it to the trader. “You will be paid.”
The trader bowed deeper.
“How?” Amenemhet said, but none answered.
* * *
They came like the flow of the Nile, the creditors, each with his papyrus. With every payment, Baketamen’s face became more drawn, her figure more bent. Her eyes grew desperate. She did not sleep.
At last, near the end of the second week, when the latest in the flow of creditors had gone, Baketamen dropped to her knees on a floor mat.
“Amenemhet,” she wailed. “How could you?”
“But I didn’t,” he said.
She did not hear him.
* * *
“We must sell the house,” Baketamen told her children. “That is the only way we can pay your father’s debts. This is a good house. It will bring us enough.”
“Where will we live?” Kawit asked, through tears.
“We will find a small place in the town. It will just be one room, but it will shelter us.”
“We should go to Rep-a Djau,” Meryt said. “He would give us rooms in his palace. He is kind.”
Baketamen shook her head. “Your father would not like that. We still have our pride.”
“Who cares about father?” Meryt shouted, little Meryt with the wide brown eyes and the thick black hair, his jewel. “This is all his fault. I hate him. I wish Rep-a Djau was our father.”
She turned and ran from the room, passing through Amenemhet’s stricken ka.
Amenemhet’s anger lifted him like a feather in the wind from the north. Yet it seemed a distant anger, an anger drained of colour. His ka drifted through the town, across the rich fields, to the desert beyond and the tombs. For a while, he forgot his family and slipped only among the kas by the tombs. They did not revolt him as they once had. He found comfort in their endless, repeated words of despair. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky…
Time passed, a scarce-noticed breeze.
One day, a golden chariot drew up before Amenemhet’s tomb. A tall man in green and gold alighted. Disquiet grew in Amenemhet.
The tall man hitched up his robe and urinated onto Amenemhet’s shrine, befouling the offerings left there.
Amenemhet howled. Rep-a Djau. Fury revived him, and his memories tore back. He chased the speeding chariot towards the town, throwing curses at the rep-a’s back.
Once in the town, he slowed. The streets here were narrow. The rep-a’s chariot could not move swiftly.
Amenemhet surveyed the crowds of the living. How bright they were. He became transfixed, and soon the chariot was gone.
Wailing from one of the low buildings reached Amenemhet. He passed through the wall.
He did not recognise his family at first. These people were strangers to him. They were dirty, bent, sun-darkened, and poorly dressed. Yet when Baketamen looked up, Amenemhet knew her.
Beside her, Meryt and little Hori stood over their prostrate sister. Kawit moaned and twisted on the dirt floor. Her skin was oily with sweat. She seemed very close to Amenemhet, as though her ka wished to slip from her body and begin the journey to the Land of Reeds.
Baketamen brought a rag from a bucket and squeezed water over Kawit’s hot skin. The girl moaned in response.
“Mother,” Meryt said. “Kawit is dying. She will not last another day if we cannot bring a doctor.”
“We have no money for a doctor,” Baketamen said. “It is all gone.”
“Rep-a Djau has money,” Meryt said. “He has his own doctor. He would help us. You know that.”
Baketamen bent her head. Then she straightened. “You are right. We have waited too long. Help me with your sister. We will go to the rep-a.”
* * *
Amenemhet followed his family to the rep-a’s palace. A guard let them through the massive external wall, while another hurried off to fetch servants. Beyond the wall was a garden. Date palms, pomegranate trees, sycamores, and acacias lined the winding paths. The roof of a pagoda jutted from the shrubbery to the left. Blossoming vines trailed over it. Around the edge of the gardens, Amenemhet saw kitchens, workshops, stables, cattle sheds, and a wide granary.
“I never could offer you this,” he said, unheard. “Yet you loved me.”
Servants arrived to carry Kawit on a litter. Baketamen and other children followed a scribe through the gardens. They passed a large rectangular pond from which grew lotus plants, papyrus reeds, and water lilies. Amenemhet saw the thick brown bodies of fish slide through the water.
The enormous house stood on a plinth at the end of the garden. A colonnaded flight of stairs led up to a vestibule. There Rep-a Djau stood, his smile as wide as the river. Amenemhet saw the rep-a take Baketamen’s arm. Then a silent wind took his ka and bore it away.
* * *
Time passed. Dust settled on his eyes. His ka grew gaunt and listless. He found himself drifting through the streets, dragged again and again to the crowds at the tombs. He forgot his name and his purpose.
“You’re becoming like the rest of them,” a small voice observed. “You are fading. Your ka will forget what it knew, and all you will be able to do is repeat the same words all the other kas repeat.”
“Go away,” he said. But there was no force to his words.
The ka of the child continued remorselessly. “You will forget the map of the underworld. You will forget the path to the Land of Reeds. You will forget the words to speak at the gates.”
“Go away. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky. There are no demons anymore in the underworld, no Apep, no Amemet, no gates, no judges, no scales. There is no Land of Reeds.”
“Listen to yourself. You just repeat the words. Maybe Amun-Re is dead. Maybe Re no longer travels the underworld. That does not mean there is no Land of Reeds. You know the map, yet you will not follow the path.”
“There is no path,” he said.
“If you help me, I will help you,” the dead child said.
Amenemhet’s ka drifted, caught by a dead wind.
Time passed.
* * *
Something was pulling at him. Amenemhet realised he was at the tombs. Kas pressed tight around him. He could hear words coming from his mouth. “…are no demons anymore in the underworld, no Apep, no Amemet—” He cut off the words.
The ka of the child stared up at him sadly. “Your colours are almost gone. You are near to forgetting.”
“Then let me,” Amenemhet whispered.
“Your daughter is well. She has recovered from the fever. Your family now live in the house of your murderer. He speaks of marriage to your wife. Perhaps…perhaps soon your son will number among the dead. Your murderer resents that your blood flows in your son’s veins. Accidents are easy. I know.”
Already the words wanted to bubble from Amenemhet’s lips. Re no longer travels the underworld at night. His face is but a ball of fire in the sky… Instead, he said, “Help me.”
“Come, then,” the ka of the child said. “I will take you to one who can speak with the dead.”
* * *
The child led him down towards the river, where the poorest lived. Sometimes, in the inundation, these rough houses were swept away by the river. When living, Amenemhet had not come this way. The narrow streets stank of human waste.
The hut the child took him to had partially collapsed in an inundation. One wall was gone. The roof dipped towards the floor. Amenemhet dipped so he could see within.
“Come,” the child said. “To the living, she is deaf and blind.”
Amenemhet stepped into the dark.
“I see you, oh dead,” a voice said. “I smell your dust and I hear your pale breath.”
Amenemhet bent towards the sound. A crone sat huddled among rags.
“Who are you?” he said.
“No one you would know, oh grand hety-a.” She cackled. “So grand to come so low.”
“I was murdered,” Amenemhet said. “Rep-a Djau slid a blade into my throat and left me to bleed to death. You must tell everyone. They must know the truth.”
The crone rocked back and cackled again. “Who will listen to the words of an old woman against the word of the rep-a? They would throw stones at me.”
Amenemhet fell to his knees. “I was always a loyal servant of Ptolemy Philopator. Once, he touched my hand.”
“Go,” she said. “The kas of the dead have no place with the living. Go to the Land of Reeds or go to fade. I do not care which. You know the map of the underworld, and the child is a true child of Re. Between you, you can reopen the path once more.”
“I do not know where the path begins,” Amenemhet said.
“It begins where it has always begun,” the crone said. “It begins where life meets death, where they combine, and where life fails.”
Amenemhet stood. “I will not go while the rep-a lives. Justice must be done.”
“Then fade,” the crone said, “but bother my rest no more.”
* * *
The town was filled with celebration. Curious, Amenemhet followed the crowds.
Rep-a Djau’s house was surrounded by flags. Amenemhet heard music within. He passed through the wall. The child followed behind.
His wife stood on the top of the steps leading to the rep-a’s house. Beside her, Rep-a Djau stood, garbed in a wedding robe.
“He has married her,” Amenemhet said. He swept forward, his ka buoyed by rage. He pummelled his fists through Rep-a Djau. They had no effect.
He felt the dead wind try to lift him back towards the tombs.
The rep-a lent towards Baketamen. “Tonight,” he said, “you are mine.”
Amenemhet saw his wife shiver and a tear lay its trail down her cheek.
He drew back. His ka grew cold.
The ka of the child gazed up at him, her face sad.
Amenemhet looked up at Rep-a Djau. “I know where the path begins,” he said.
* * *
The dead were easy to lead. Their kas had become grey. They had lost their will. They could only repeat words. Amenemhet became his own dead wind. He passed through them, drove them, tugged them. And he taught them new words to repeat.
Slowly, the kas began to drift from the tombs.
A cold wind passed through the town, and even the living moved aside.
It reached the walls of Rep-a Djau’s palace and passed through them. The guests grew silent.
At the high table, Rep-a Djau stood, his forehead lining, his mouth growing tight.
The cold wind reached him. The dead reached him.
“Follow,” Amenemhet said. Behind him, the dead whispered their new words.
Amenemhet flowed up into Rep-a Djau’s heart. There the ka of the dead met Rep-a Djau’s living ka.
Grey dust fell from Amenemhet’s ka and drifted down onto the rep-a’s heart. Amenemhet’s colours grew. Ahead of him, he saw the path.
The ka of the child came next. Rep-a Djau clutched his chest as the cold touched his heart.
Then the river of the dead swept through him.
Amenemhet saw the grey dust fall from their kas. As each of them passed through Djau, they spoke the words Amenemhet had taught them: “I am Rep-a Djau. I am a murderer and a liar. The gods judge me. I have murdered hety-a Amenemhet.”
Rep-a Djau’s lips twitched. Sweat sprang from his pale face.
Still the dead came. Still they spoke the words.
Rep-a Djau stiffened. His head tipped back and the words poured from him in a scream: “I am Rep-a Djau. I am a murderer and a liar. The gods judge me. I have murdered hety-a Amenemhet.”
Then he fell.
The last ka to pass onto the path was the ka of Rep-a Djau.
Amenemhet took the hand of the child who had helped him. The map that showed the way was clear before him. The words to speak at the gates sat on his tongue.
“Come,” he said. “Together we will find the Land of Reeds.”
It’s eight days until SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB is published! No, I’m not nervous. Honest. Really not.
For today’s countdown post, I thought I’d give away a free short story.
I started writing when I was a teenager, but when I got to university, that kind of fell away for ten years or so. I played about with stories and books a little, but I didn’t really put any focused time or effort into them and I didn’t achieve anything. But in 1999, I was in a pretty awful job and I needed something, anything to stop myself melting from the boredom or it. I decided to actually put some effort into writing again.
I joined the online writers’ workshop, Critters, and then went to Clarion West in 2001, and between those two, I finally turned myself into a professional writer.
Today I’m giving away the first short story I ever published, back in 2002. I wrote it soon after finishing my time at Clarion West, and I still like it. It’s not as smooth as what I write these days, but I think it still holds up.
This story was first published in Realms of Fantasy, December 2002. Enjoy!
Please note that some parts of this story are not suitable for younger children.
Dawn, by the Light of a Barrow Fire
I knew something was up as soon as I saw Frank trudge out of Bennett’s trailer. Twenty years of working in mud and dust and dirt beside him meant I could read him the way he could read a pile of ancient bones. Anyway, something was always up when Bennett asked to see one of us.
This last year, since David died, had been hell, and working under Bennett had only made it worse. If the university department hadn’t been so short of cash, we would have quit in a week. Instead, we had gritted our teeth, bowed our heads, and tried not to scream, praying for the next funding round.
Marcy straightened beside me, and brushed her hair back with a muddy hand.
“I’ll bet you a tenner at three-to-one Bennett’s decided he wants a long barrow instead,” she whispered.
“Do you think he knows what a long barrow is?”
Marcy, Frank, and I were the consultant archaeologists on this project, although Bennett did far more instructing than consulting. We were reconstructing a Neolithic settlement and round barrow for an English Heritage project—one of those projects where you’re supposed to work using the same techniques that were used for the originals. In other words, it was pretty much guesswork from start to finish. We were the second team to work on this; Bennett had fired the previous team when they had refused to comply with one of his more ridiculous whims. We had avoided that fate so far, if only because we couldn’t afford to lose the project.
The whole project was supposed to be for Ancient History Year. Only Ancient History Year was ancient history four months ago, and we still couldn’t agree a design for the huts. Frank and I were for the standard rectangular, thatched design, wooden posts at the corners, and stone walls, a single room centred around a hearth pit. Marcy was holding out for circular with a partitioned interior. We were all trying hard not to let Bennett have a say. He would probably want a two-up, two-down with a conservatory on the back.
Frank reached the top of the hill, and collapsed into the bracken.
“Well?” Marcy said.
“He wants a trench.”
I looked across the hillside, past the half-finished earth mound of the barrow, to the open moor of bracken and brambles. A hawk hovered in the blue air. There was nothing out there for miles. “Where? It’s solid rock up here.”
“He doesn’t care,” Frank said, wearily. “There’s a TV crew coming. Apparently ‘everyone knows archaeologists dig ditches’, so he wants one.”
I groaned.
* * *
It rained most of the next day, a cold spring rain that threatened to turn to sleet several times. The water poured in rivers down the hillside, submerging the proto-trench we had started to dig in the valley where the ground was softer, and threatening to wash Bennett’s trailer away. But no such luck.
By three o’clock, the rain had eased and Bennett sent us back to work, armed with a rusting pump. In minutes we were soaked and frozen. Thank God for students. We sent two of them into the deepest part of the trench to flail away with mattocks and shovels, while me and Marcy hunched over damp cigarettes. Frank was assiduously, and pointlessly, examining a pile of stones some distance from anything wet. Two minutes in the trench had been more than enough for him. No wonder. The whole thing was a façade. We had no reason to believe there had ever been a settlement in the valley. After all, who would want to live in a quagmire? And even if there had been, what did it have to do with building the barrow?
“Hey, look at this,” one of the students shouted. He was crouched up to his waist in the brown water of the trench. I pushed myself up. Mud squelched beneath me. No doubt some innocent flint was being mistaken for an axe-head again.
“He’s found an ancient plastic cup,” Marcy whispered, and I covered a grin.
He hadn’t.
He’d found a bone.
He was waving it around, spraying water in his excitement.
Frank came wandering over, and relieved the student of his find. “It’s definitely human,” he said, turning the brown bone in his hands. “A tibia, probably from a juvenile. Pretty old, I’d say.”
A child. A cold stone dropped into my belly. I pushed past the others and dropped to my knees, scrabbling about in the lowering water.
Within moments my hands caught on something hard and curved. I pulled it free from the peat, not caring that I might be damaging it. I knew it was a skull the moment I touched it, but I didn’t admit it to myself until I had it out the water. It was small. I turned it in my hand. Most of the left side was missing. Smashed away.
I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Marcy asked. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“We should do this properly,” she said. “Come on. Leave it to Frank and the students.”
I followed her out of the trench. I was starting to shiver. Maybe it was the cold water.
A child. David had only been a child, just nine years old. My son. A boy chasing his ball. The car hadn’t even stopped.
Marcy sat me down on a stone as the sun emerged from the black clouds. My knees were weak.
I sat and watched them uncover the skeleton, a bone at a time. The skeleton of some poor dead child. Maybe one who had been chasing his ball. Then a car hit him leaving a hole like a fist in his skull.
No. I shook my head to clear the memories. These bones were too old. They weren’t David. David’s ashes were scattered across the field behind my house. No one had scattered this child’s ashes. No one had buried him.
“I’m okay,” I said to Marcy, getting to my feet. “I’ll be fine.” I’d dealt with David dying. But it would be the anniversary of his death in three days, so it was natural that I should be thinking about him. It had been a moment of shocked memory, that was all.
“I’m going to carbon-date the bones,” Frank said, looking up as we approached. “I’d bet they’re at least a couple of thousand years old.” He showed us one of the bones. “Look, they’re in pretty good condition. We might be able to get some DNA.”
I nodded, trying not to feel queasy.
A loud tooting made us all turn. A van had pulled off the road near the trailers.
“That’ll be the TV,” Frank said. “Last chance to hide.”
I tried to smile, but it came out like a grimace. Like a skull.
The back doors of the van opened. Two men emerged carrying a film camera and microphone. A third man, wearing a flying jacket and dark sunglasses, and carrying a clipboard, got out the passenger’s side. The wet ground had begun to steam slightly in the hot sun. I was still cold.
“Into the bunker,” Frank called.
“Hush,” Marcy said. “They’re coming over.”
I was feeling sick, and weak, as though I hadn’t eaten for days.
“You must be Bennett,” the man in the flying jacket said when he reached us, extending a hand to Frank.
Frank started to choke.
Marcy stepped forward quickly. “I’m Marcy Raney. The comedian is Frank. The cute one is Cameron.” She pointed at Frank then me. “What do you want to film?”
“Any swords, armour, stuff that’ll look good on TV,” Flying Jacket said. “No rocks though. People don’t like watching rocks.”
Marcy stared at him for a moment, then, “You know this is a Neolithic project?”
“Cool.”
“You do know what Neolithic means?”
Flying Jacket frowned. “Huh? Yeah, yeah, of course.”
“It means stone age.”
Flying Jacket frowned. “So no swords?”
My head was throbbing. All I could see was David’s body, lying by the side of the road, bleeding. I was choking.
“You’re not from the BBC, are you?” Marcy said.
“Satellite,” Frank whispered.
“Hey,” the cameramen called. “They’ve got a skull over here.”
“All right!” Flying Jacket shouted. “Let’s get-”
“Leave the fucking skull alone!” They all turned to look at me. “Just … just … leave it alone.” I remembered the journalists when David was killed. Wanting to see his room, his clothes, his photos. Hanging around outside the house, night and day, pointing their cameras. It had been a politician’s car. It hadn’t stopped.
“You okay?” Marcy whispered.
I nodded. “Just don’t touch it,” I said to the TV crew. “It’s … it’s not been catalogued yet.” It was pretty lame, and we all knew it. Maybe even the TV crew knew it.
I walked away.
* * *
He has seventeen scars on his chest. His son has only three. The boy is young. Too young to be out alone at night when there are bears and wolves around.
He walks from his hut to the barrow. The boy has too great an interest in the barrow. Maybe he will be there.
The ancestor-bones are bright in the sky tonight. The ground is white and the trees are flat against the sky. It is not a good night. Spirits can see too easily on a night like this.
He grasps the bones around his neck and hears them click together. Protect me, he thinks.
He wants to call out for the boy, but he does not want the spirits to hear. Nor the other men. They will think him a woman for worrying about the boy.
I have the soul of a bear, he thinks. He wears its teeth sewn into the hides of his cloak. I fear nothing.
The boy is not at the barrow.
* * *
I awoke from the dream, shaking. It had been cold, and my son had been lost near the barrow. David had been lost. I had been looking for him. But that hadn’t been me, had it?
Dawn was close.
I got to the site early, when the mists still cloaked the hills and turned the barrow into a ghost floating above the ground. We were going to try to place the capstone on top of the barrow today, before covering it with a final layer of earth. We, and several dozen volunteers, would haul the ten tonne block of granite up the slope of earth that made up the side of the barrow, and drop it onto the upright support stones, sealing the barrow. We were leaving part of one side and the entrance clear so visitors could see how it was constructed, and compare it to the quoits that dotted the landscape hereabouts. We would do the same with some of the huts, if we ever built the damn things.
“I knew you’d be here.”
I turned. Marcy was climbing the hill behind me. I hadn’t heard her car approach.
“Couldn’t sleep, huh?”
“No,” I said. “You?”
“I was worried about you. Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
She slipped her arm through mine.
“You’ll make the students jealous,” I said. Students always had a crush on Marcy. I could understand that.
She smiled sadly. “Students don’t get up this early. Nor do you.”
The sky overhead was a pale blue, almost white. The bracken and heather and brambles were speckled with dew. Spiders’ webs bowed under the weight of drops of water.
“It’s stupid,” I said. “It really shouldn’t have got to me. I’m over it.” I shook my head. “I guess I was tired.”
“Bullshit,” Marcy said. She grabbed my arm so I had to turn to face her or I would have jerked my arm away. “You’re not over it, Cam, and you’ve never been over it. You’ve never talked about it. You’ve just bottled it up as though that’ll make it go away. Well it won’t.” She took a breath and glared into my eyes. “Shit, why do you think Alice left you? You never even talked to her.”
I recoiled. Marcy never held back, but she’d never thrown that at me before. My face reddened and I started to turn away.
“Cameron…” she said. She tugged my arm. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Just … just talk to someone, Cameron. If you can’t talk to me or Frank, talk to a doctor.”
“I don’t need to talk,” I said. My throat was so tight it hurt to speak.
She pulled me round and to her. I resisted for just a moment, then rested my forehead on her shoulder. Tears were cold on my cheeks. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered into her rough hair.
“Talk,” she said. I shook my head against her shirt. Talking would only hurt more. Better to bury the hurt, like ashes in a barrow.
Eventually she pushed me away and wiped my eyes with a corner of her scarf.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m okay.”
Marcy gave me a sad grin. I knew she didn’t believe me. Hell, even I didn’t believe me.
Someone shouted, “Hey,” from down the hill. We turned to see Frank.
“I thought I’d find you two canoodling up here,” he said.
The mist must have been killing the sounds of cars. There could have been a convoy down there.
“It’s a morning for early mornings,” I said.
“It’s not an early morning,” Frank said. “It’s a late night. I spent the night in the trailer studying the bones.” He looked at me. “I figured you’d want to know.”
“And?” My voice caught on the word and I had to repeat it. “And?”
“It’s pretty hard to know without getting them into a lab, and even then…”
“Guess,” I said.
Frank shot a glance at Marcy, then shrugged. “A young boy, probably between seven and twelve or so. It’s difficult to tell until we know exactly when the bones are from. People’s development rates have changed over time. I would guess they’re late Neolithic, but that really is a guess until I get the carbon dating results.”
“What killed him?”
Frank grimaced. “It could have been anything…”
My heart hammered. My mouth was as dry as sand.
“The head?” I croaked.
“Yes, it could have been the head wound. Maybe a blow from a weapon, or an animal, or maybe just an accident. We’ll never know.” He shrugged again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I turned away. My chest was tight and I couldn’t get enough air. “It’s okay.”
* * *
The capstone got stuck halfway up the slope of the barrow when the rollers sank into the soft earth. Bennett suggested using a crane, but apart from the fact that we didn’t have one, that would rather have destroyed the point of the exercise.
I stood with Marcy and Frank on top of the barrow, just above the gaping burial chamber, and we scratched our chins, three bruise-eyed, tired archaeologists whose theories had just collapsed.
“Bigger rollers,” Frank said.
“Tougher volunteers,” Marcy said.
“Planks,” I said.
We didn’t have a clue.
* * *
The frost is hard on the ground. The cold bites into my skin. It is dark, but the moon is bright. I am standing in the shadows of a hut. It is round, with stone walls sealed with dried mud, or perhaps dung. The thatching protrudes almost to the ground, and the roof is steep. The door is a thick fur. From here, the dwelling appears to be sunk into the ground. It looks like Marcy’s design for the Neolithic huts, apart from the roof.
Where the hell am I? It reminds me of my dream, but it seems too real for a dream.
Nearby, I see three other huts. Between them is a low stockade. I can see three or four goats huddled together, breathing clouds of hot breath into the air. I smell smoke and goat dung and something else I’d rather not think about.
The door of one of the huts pulls open, and a man steps out, then pauses and looks around. He is dressed in a heavy, hooded fur cloak. I guess he is about five four tall, but heavily built. He has a long black beard, and long straggly hair. I can’t see his eyes.
He grunts, then turns and walks from the huts by a path that leads up the hill. I follow him. He doesn’t seem to notice.
The path curves around the side of the hill as it goes up, passing through a stand of trees. I think I can identify oak and lime, and maybe hawthorn.
Something howls. My mind says wolf, but how can it be? Wolves have been extinct in Britain for hundreds of years.
I emerge from the trees. The man is fifty yards ahead of me, but I see him clearly. He is near the brow of the hill. There is a barrow there, a dark silhouette against the moonlight.
The man reaches the barrow and circles it. Then he climbs to the top and peers around. His shoulders slump. He descends and sits before the barrow, crouched over. Within minutes a small fire springs up. His face is made gaunt by its flickering light.
I think that maybe he can’t see me. I can’t be here, so he can’t see me. I start up the trail again.
The stones are hard and cold beneath my feet. My joints ache.
I reach the barrow, and the sitting man. He is staring into his fire. I step past him.
“He is gone,” the man says. I jump, then turn to him. He has a deep, accented voice. If he is Neolithic, as he seems to be, he can’t be speaking English, but that is how I hear it.
“Who?” I ask, softly. Maybe he isn’t talking to me. Am I here, or is this a dream? If so, whose? Mine or his?
“The boy. My son. He is gone. I fear he is dead.” He looks up at me. “The boy has no fear.”
Sadness rolls over me so suddenly that I have to close my eyes and clamp my jaw. He is dead, I want to say. Nine years old, I want to say, and hit by a car. It didn’t even stop.
“Can a boy survive seven days out here?” the man asks. “I have searched everywhere. I cannot find him.” His eyes are staring straight into mine when I open them. They are a deeper blue than I have ever seen. His voice turns soft, so that I have to strain to listen. “He had only three scars. Now he is gone. I cannot find him. I cannot bury his ashes. He cannot travel to the tchetchla.” I don’t recognise the word. “Help me,” he says.
I stand. On the other side of the hill, I see a wooded valley. It looks very familiar. If it had no trees, and a small stream, and a road, and a couple of trailers…
I leave the man behind and descend into the valley. It is hard to place myself, but I think that there is where Bennett’s trailer would be, there in the trees.
A film of ice splinters beneath my feet. The ground sinks, and peat-dark water wells up. Not far away are the tracks of a large animal. Something bigger than me, with claws.
And there, just ahead, where the mud is deep and only a couple of dead white tree trunks stretch from the water, there is where the trench will be. I feel sick.
* * *
“You look bloody awful,” Marcy said.
My head hurt. I was sure a migraine was coming on. “Bad night.”
“We’re going to try the capstone again, tomorrow,” Frank said, looking pleased with himself. “We’re going for larger rollers.”
“Round huts,” I croaked.
“What?”
“I think we should have round huts, like Marcy said, and steeper roofs.”
“Traitor,” Frank whispered to me, then glared at the smirking Marcy. “Go suck on your trowel.”
“What’s on the agenda today?” I asked. Pulses of pain were making my vision swim.
“You’re going home,” Marcy said. “Me and Frank have been talking. We’re going to gang up on Bennett and make him give you a day or two off, and we’re making an appointment for you to talk to your doctor.”
“Don’t…” I said, then took a breath and started again. “Don’t tell me what to do.” Pain thudded through my head and I grabbed at my eyes instinctively. “I’m coping,” I whispered.
Frank and Marcy exchanged glances.
“No,” Marcy said. You’re not,” She had her fists on her hips, and her lips had turned white. “I’ve been watching you this last week. If you go on, you’re going to have a breakdown. You’re going to talk to someone, if we have to drag you there by brute force. I’m not joking.”
I looked her in the eyes, through the pain. No, she wasn’t joking. Something crumpled in me. I nodded carefully. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to someone.” And I would.
* * *
I parked the car beside Bennett’s trailer. The luminous hands of the clock showed 3:15. It was a clear night, with a thin layer of mist floating just above the valley floor. I pulled on my big coat and my gloves, and let myself out.
My nose ran immediately, and my eyes streamed. I wiped them with the back of my glove. I wished I’d worn another pair of socks and brought a hat. Too late to go back for them. Tomorrow was the anniversary of David’s death.
I slipped my key into the lock of the second trailer, the one me and Marcy and Frank shared. It was slightly warmer there. I turned on the light. The desktops and surfaces were covered in drawings, photocopied articles, and bits of pottery and stone, the normal mess.
I went straight to the drawers at the far end of the trailer, and pulled open the top one. The bones were there, where I had seen Frank put them, sealed in clear plastic bags. The sight of them made me tremble. I forced myself to calm. I clenched my fists until my hands stopped shaking.
Bennett would fire us for this, I had no doubt. It would be the end of my career, and God knows what would happen to Frank and Marcy and the department.
I took a deep breath. I had no choice. These were the boy’s bones, I was sure, the poor lost Neolithic boy’s. “I’m sorry,” I muttered under my breath. What a way to repay Frank and Marcy.
I carefully emptied the bags one by one into my canvas rucksack. I heard the bones clatter together brittlely. Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed.
I turned off the light, and locked the trailer behind me.
I started along the track, up the hill.
* * *
He is waiting for me outside the barrow. A small fire is burning fiercely. Wolves howl out on the moor. I see trees in the valley, and on the other side of the hill, the dark shapes of the settlement huts, smoke still rising from one. I smell the goats even from here, a rich, cloying smell.
I hug my coat tight around me.
The fire is hot as I seat myself beside him.
“The boy is dead,” the man says.
“Yes,” I say, through tears. I see tears on the Neolithic man’s own cheeks. “I loved him,” I say, and when the man nods I know he knows I am talking about David. “I miss him.” I think it’s the first time I’ve been able to say this.
I pass the rucksack to him. He fumbles with the buckles, then opens them. Slowly he pulls out the dry bones, one by one, and places them on the fire. They catch quickly and burn brightly.
“I loved my boy too,” he says. “Here I set him free.”
Finally he removes the skull, kisses it, and hands it to me.
“Here I set him free,” I say, choking on the words. David, I think. Goodbye.
I kiss the skull too, then place it on the fire.
We sit before a fire of bones, as the morning pales the sky. When the bones are entirely burnt, he scoops the still-hot ashes into a clay pot, and hands it to me. I place it in my rucksack.
In the morning I will place the pot inside the barrow, before the capstone is finally levered on. The boy will travel to the tchetchla.
First up, my book Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, and its sequel, The Emperor of Mars, have been resold for publication in Germany. They’re going to be published by Loewe Verlag. I have absolutely no details about when the books will be out (or really anything else, for that matter), but it is so cool that the books are being translated into German. I did three years of German at school and lived in Vienna for six months, so I’m going to make an attempt to read it in the German. Mind you, my German is kinda rusty.
It’s all completely cool and completely unexpected.
The morning after Vaidwattie left, Srilal found the first thing of beauty. It was lying on the damp pavement outside his house, where a thousand boots trod every day. The first thing of beauty was an origami bird so delicate and fine that when Srilal lifted it on the palm of his hand, he thought it might fly away.
A few years ago, back in 2010, I think, Steph and I ran a little publishing project called the December Lights Project. The idea was to publish a different free story, each from a different author, every day in December. Each story was going to be fun, funny and light. We had some amazing stories and it was a great success, but after a couple of years we took the website down (because, you know, it cost money to keep up and we were broke).
Anyway, because the story I contributed isn’t available for free anywhere else online, I thought it would be nice to share it on my website again for anyone who missed it the first time around and who likes funny, light stories.
Here it is:
The Frog King
So, here’s how it happened.
Some people are really into traditions, okay?
I mean, seriously into traditions. It doesn’t matter what the tradition is or how dumb it might be. If it’s a tradition, it’s gotta happen just the way it always has, and that’s that. No discussion. These people, right. These people freak out if anyone just suggests that maybe, oh, I don’t know, things might change a little. That things might start to make some hopping sense.
Who wants to deal with that kind of raving, dribbling, eye-bulging freak-out? Sometimes, it’s easier to just go with the flow.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
All I’m saying is that if anyone says tradition to me again, they’re losing their head. I might be a frog, but I’m still the croaking king, okay?
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it happened. This was back when I was the prince, and a pretty good-looking prince, too, I don’t mind telling you. I was fifteen, I was hot, and it wasn’t going to be long before I was going to get married to some equally hot princess and have cute little prince- and princesslets running all over the place. You know how it goes. You’ve read the stories. Shiny wedding. Lots of gold, silk, horses and carriages, presents, and waving at crowds. Then a stupid number of too-soft mattresses, a bit of how’s-yer-father, and, as the French say, there you have it.
Everything was going swimmingly. There were plenty of princesses giving me the eye, and more than that, if you know what I mean. Which I think you do.
Then this old witch turns up at the castle gates and starts going on about tradition. Now, my dad, he’s a real sucker for this mumbo-jumbo. Astrology, witchcraft, dowsing, freaking crystals, the whole lot. And the witch has got this old book, and as far as my dad cared, if it was written down, it was God’s own truth, because why would someone write it down if it wasn’t true, right?
Don’t go there, okay, because I’m all over that one. But my dad was the king and what he said went and that was that.
So, the old witch, she’s saying that in the old days, in tradition, the princess has to kiss a frog, who then turns into a prince and they all live happily ever after, yada, yada, yada and whatever. Personally, I reckoned she’d been at the wacky-baccy. The thing was, she said, first the prince has to be turned into a frog, so the princess can kiss him and turn him into a prince. Which is a pretty roundabout way of going about things, if you ask me.
Nobody did.
So, the next evening, I’m standing in the middle of some dumb circle of candles, as naked as the day I was born, while this pervy, dirty old witch dances around me, waving a dead, dried frog. And, yes, she was naked too. That I do not want to think about, thank you very much.
Five minutes later, I’m on the floorboards, croaking away, and all frogged-up.
My dad was delighted.
Everyone gathers around, the courtiers, my friends, my family, all the rest, as I’m tipped into a marshy pool outside the palace, and they all toddle off back to the comfort of the palace, leaving me with the mosquitoes, the flies, the fish, and a damned heron that spent the next week trying to spear me.
Now here’s where it all goes wrong. Because tradition or no tradition, princesses just aren’t going around kissing frogs any more, if they ever did.
And so there I sit, unkissed, totally frog, until my dad finally croaks it (ha!) and they’re left without a king. Then someone remembers me, and they all come poking around my pool.
By this time, needless to say, no one can find hide or hair of the bloody witch, and I’m still a frog.
Yeah.
Oops.
Which brings us up to now, with me still here, still green, and still warty.
Most of the time they leave me alone. Let’s face it. Frog kings are pretty useless at ridin’ and huntin’ and dancin’ and the cuttin’-of-ribbons, and there’s not a whole lot else in the job description. So here I sit, and everyone’s happy. Happier, anyway.
Except on Tuesdays.
And, yes, since you ask, today is a Tuesday. Fan-bloody-tastic. Thank you for reminding me.
I can hear the feet tramping towards my tank right now.
Tuesday is when the king receives petitions and hands out justice. It’s—yes, you guessed it—a tradition. God forbid that anyone would think that maybe a frog shouldn’t be handing out justice.
Well, here they are, the whole obsequious, slimy lot of them, decked out in robes that looked stupid two hundred years ago and which haven’t improved with time. Oh, your majesty, this, and oh, your majesty, that. Bah.
The chancellor bows, then scoops me up out of my tank where I’d just been contemplating eating a nice dead fly. Then we’re off, in procession, cymbals tinging and trumpets tooting, me in the chancellor’s cupped hands.
You couldn’t come up with something more farcical if you tried.
I could hop out from here and make a run for it, but with all these robed idiots around I’d either be captured or squashed by the time I got to the end of the corridor.
Sometimes squashed seems like an appealing option.
Here we go. The throne room is just up ahead. My loving people are waiting.
Bastards.
The doors are pulled back, the trumpeters blow themselves red, and out we march.
Oh. Oh. Dear God. They’ve put the crown out again.
Someone’s going to lose their head over this.
I want to hide my warty face in my little webbed hands.
The crown is sitting in the middle of the throne. And I’m plonked right in the middle, trying to peer over the rim at the sniggering crowds.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to hand out some justice today.
And… Hell. I recognise those banners draped like pondweed from the rafters.
It’s not just a Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday of the month.
The first Tuesday of the month is princess day. God knows where they find them. Every scumming month they drag another poor, innocent princess into the throne room in the hope she’ll kiss me. There must be a lot of desperate royalty out there. Maybe we’re paying them. Maybe they’re far enough away that they don’t know.
All I know is that they’ve been scraping the bottom of the pond, so as to speak, with the ones they’ve brought in recently. And still no luck. Just a lot of horrified expressions and turned up noses.
Princesses these days, see, they’re more into Cosmo and Vogue and fifty-new-ways-to-satisfy-your-lover than squishing lips with frogs. Can’t say I blame them. I’m a frog and even I think it’s gross.
At my lowest, back in the pond, I did it with another frog. Yeah, it’s embarrassing, but what can you do? She was kinda cute for a frog. Nice shade of green and very smooth skin. Legs like you wouldn’t believe. Bit of a tongue on her, though. Clean up this pond! Don’t poop there! Were you looking at that other frog? The tadpoles were nice little things. Rather more of them than I’d been planning before I became a frog, of course. Still, plenty of heirs out there somewhere, although good luck sorting out the line of succession.
I’d always thought that doing the you-know-what with a frog would be as bad as it could get, but these Tuesdays, they’re worse. These are damned humiliating. Back when I was Prince Hot and Sexy, I never dreamed that I could be turned down by so many slappers and old maids. And the expressions on their faces. Let’s just say I thought I looked green.
I sink a little lower behind the rim of the crown, eyes just poking over so I can see what they’ve managed to dredge up this month.
The trumpeters blow hard enough to rupture themselves (some hope), silence (except the odd titter) settles over the throne room, the doors swing open with a gust of cold air, and then … nothing. Zilch.
I push myself up to get a better view.
Heads are craning, whispers starting, and the number of princesses coming through the door is exactly zero.
The chancellor clears his throat.
A courtier hurries forward, his stupid, toes-turned-up slippers hushing and slapping on the red carpet, followed by a hundred pairs of eyes. He whispers into the chancellor’s droopy ears.
I’d never really thought how ugly human ears are before. Frog ears are just neat little holes. Human ears? Like something God squashed on in a moment of distraction and didn’t have time to trim away.
The chancellor straightens, glances quickly at me, then turns to the crowd.
“Her royal highness, Princess Gertrude of Ruritania, is, ah, indisposed and unable to attend the gathering,” he booms. “She sends her most sincere regrets to his majesty.”
Who knows. He might even have fooled someone. It’s pretty clear, though, that she’s heard about me. She’s not coming.
My advisors gather in a little huddle, like herons peering into a pond.
A moment later, the chief heron stalks up to me.
“Your majesty.” He bows, and I have to restrain the impulse to hop back as I imagine the long beak spearing down. “There are no more.”
I blink, confused.
“Every princess alive has been invited. They have come, and they have left. There are no more. We have exhausted the possibilities.”
If I were human, I would sigh. It’s over. No princess will ever kiss me. I will never be human again.
It’s almost a relief. I wonder, abstractly, what they will do with me now.
A chorus of indrawn breaths attracts the chancellor’s attention. He turns. I hop to the side of my throne to look past.
Then I see her.
She’s walking down the red carpet, wearing a dress of glittering green that catches the candlelight and throws it back. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. Blonde hair cascades down her back. Her skin is as smooth as a pebble. Her legs are slim and look like they’re never going to stop going up (and in the dress she’s wearing, believe me, I can see). Her hands are delicate and long. Her eyes are as bright and sharp as emeralds. Everyone is watching her.
I realize my tongue is hanging out, and I snap it back like I’ve caught a fly.
“You’re not Princess Gertrude!” the chancellor says.
She ignores him, and he fades back like mist over the water on a summer morning.
She steps up onto the dais. I look up at her, and that’s some view, I’m telling you.
Her eyes gaze down at me. I think I might faint.
“Tell me, your majesty,” she whispers. “Are you true?”
I croak.
“Are you loyal?”
Croak.
“Are you honest and brave and noble?”
Croak. Croak!
“Do you choose … me? For ever and ever?’
Croak!
She leans forward, and view improves again, if that’s possible. My mouth feels as dry as a sun-baked rock.
Her lips are moist and soft. I watch them, goggle-eyed, as they descend toward me. I lift up my little frog lips.
We touch. She kisses me.
I feel the magic, like I felt it before, when the witch cursed me. Except this time…
She’s falling. Collapsing down. Shrinking.
Her robes crumple.
For a moment, I think she’s gone, disappeared like dew. But then, as I peer over the rim of that ridiculous crown, I see her.
She’s crouched in the middle of her robes. And she’s a frog.
A very familiar frog.
She glares up at me.
“What do you think you’re doing squatting up there on that throne?” she croaks. “Do you think the pond is looking after itself? You’ve got two hundred children waiting for you back home! Hop to it!”
I smile a wide froggy smile, and with a single bound, leap from the throne.
Some people are really into traditions. Seriously into traditions.
Me? I think I’ve got a better idea.
– The End –
And, if you’re looking for more fun, funny stories, Steph has also put up a free, fun, funny story on her blog today, called Dreaming Harry. Go read it!
