“I need some time to think, and then I need to see what else is out there in the world,” said Aracely.
“Baby . . .” said Daisy.
“No, Mama. You owe me this.”
Daisy looked at her. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“All right, baby,” she said. “I’ll see you in the spring.”
* * *
There is a carnival that tours the Midwestern United States on a shifting schedule, like all touring shows of its kind. It is among the last of a dying breed, but still it moves, and still it unfurls like a flower whenever it lands, the petals of the midway spreading wide. People who’ve seen it say there’s something special there; something that may endure when the other traveling shows have closed.
“It’s like a haunted house,” one said, when interviewed by a local paper. “It’s a little shivery, but you want to be there anyway. You want to know what happens next.”
What she didn’t say—what none of them ever say—was that as she was leaving on the first night the show was in town, she had looked back over her shoulder and seen two girls, barely blurring into women, appear at the top of the Ferris wheel. Their hands had been locked together, tight as chains, and their eyes had been on the moon, and even with all that distance between herself and them, she would have sworn that they were smiling.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
* * *
I have always loved the story of Hades and Persephone. It shares a great deal of its shape with the ballad of Tam Lin, which was the subject of my thesis in school. I wanted to sort of prod at the places where those stories aligned, and where they fell away from each other. My favorite part of the story has always been that Hades, in Greek myth, is really the nerd of gods. So why would he steal this one perfect flower? What sort of situation would need to arise for him to even consider taking such a step? And the carnival, of course, is always a perfect place to interrogate a myth, because it’s a liminal space we create ourselves, out of canvas and paint and anticipation; we can unravel any story we want there. I was raised on carnival ground. I never intend to stop picking it to pieces.
* * *
SEANAN McGUIRE
THE JUSTIFIED
BY
* * *
ANN LECKIE
HET HAD EATEN NOTHING FOR weeks but bony, gape-mawed fish—some of them full of neurotoxin. She’d had to alter herself so she could metabolize it safely, which had taken some doing. So when she ripped out the walsel’s throat and its blood spurted red onto the twilit ice, she stared, salivary glands aching, stomach growling. She didn’t wait to butcher her catch but sank her teeth into skin and fat and muscle, tearing a chunk away from its huge shoulder.
Movement caught her eye, and she sprang upright, walsel blood trickling along her jaw, to see Dihaut, black and silver, walking toward her across the ages-packed snow and ice. She’d have known her sib anywhere, but even if she hadn’t recognized them, there was no mistaking their crescent-topped standard, Months and Years, tottering behind them on two thin, insectile legs.
But sib or not, familiar or not, Het growled, heart still racing, muscles poised for flight or attack. She had thought herself alone and unwatched. Had made sure of it before she began her hunt. Had Dihaut been watching her all this time? It would be like them.
For a brief moment she considered disemboweling Dihaut, leaving them dying on the ice, Months and Years in pieces beside them. But that would only put this off until her sib took a new body. Dihaut could be endlessly persistent when they wished, and the fact that they had come all the way to this frigid desert at the farthest reaches of Nu to find her suggested that the ordinary limits of that persistence—such as they were—could not be relied on. Besides, she and Dihaut had nearly always gotten along well. Still, she stayed on the alert, and did not shift into a more relaxed posture.
“This is the Eye of Merur, the Noble Dihaut!” announced Months and Years as Dihaut drew near. Its high, thready voice cut startlingly through the silence of the snowy waste.
“I know who they are,” snarled Het.
The standard made a noise almost like a sniff. “I only do my duty, Noble Het.”
Dihaut hunched their shoulders. Their face, arms, torso, and legs were covered with what looked like long, fine fur but, this being Dihaut, was likely feathers. Mostly black, but their left arm and leg, and part of their torso, were silver-white. “Hello, sib,” they said. “Sorry to interrupt your supper. Couldn’t you have fled someplace warmer?”
Het had no answer for this—she’d asked herself the same question many times in the past several years.
“I see you’ve changed your skin,” Dihaut continued. “It does look odd, but I suppose it keeps you warm. Would you mind sharing the specs?” They shivered.
“It’s clothes,” said Het. “A coat, and boots, and gloves.”
“Clothes!” Dihaut peered at her more closely. “I see. They must be very confining, but I suppose it’s worth it to be warm. Do you have any you could lend me? Or could whoever supplied you with yours give me some, too?”
“Sorry,” growled Het. “Not introducing you.” Actually, she hadn’t even introduced herself. She’d stolen the clothes, when the fur she’d grown hadn’t kept her as warm as she’d hoped.
Dihaut made a wry “huh,” their warm breath puffing from their mouth in a small cloud. “Well. I’m sorry to be so blunt.” They gave a regretful smile, all Dihaut in its acknowledgment of the pointlessness of small talk. “I’m very sorry to intrude on whatever it is you’re doing down here—I never was quite clear on why you left, no one was, except that you were angry about something. Which . . .” They shrugged. “If it were up to me”—they raised both finely feathered hands, gestured vaguely to the dead walsel with the silver one—“I’d leave you to it.”
“Would you.” She didn’t even try to sound as though she believed them.
“Truly, sib. But the ruler of Hehut, the Founder and Origin of Life on Nu, the One Sovereign of This World, wishes for you to return to Hehut.” At this, Months and Years waved its thin, sticklike arms as though underlining Dihaut’s words. “She’d have sent others before me, but I convinced her that if you were brought back against your wishes, your presence at court would not be as delightful as usual.” They shivered again. “Is there somewhere warmer we can talk?”
“Not really.”
“I don’t mean any harm to the people you’ve been staying with,” said Dihaut.
“I haven’t been staying with anyone.” She gestured vaguely around with one blood-matted hand, indicating the emptiness of the ice.
“You must have been staying with someone, sib. I know there are no approved habitations here, so they must be unauthorized, but that’s no concern of mine unless they should come to Merur’s attention. Or if they have Animas. Please tell me, sib, that they don’t have unauthorized Animas here? Because you know we’ll have to get rid of them if they do, and I’d really like to just go right back to Hehut, where it’s actually warm.”