Archive for October, 2010
Dana Takes a Dare
Monday, October 11th, 2010
The Women’s Battle College didn’t have nine days of chariot races, law-giving, marriage-sanctioning, and mead-drinking on Samhain. They had a special dinner instead, and contests all afternoon.
The students had their own custom: they dared someone to walk nine times around the standing stone on the headland at midnight. They said Skye herself would come and grant a favor.
Dana took the dare.
Nobody came with her. She swished through the long dead grass, wondering how they would know she’d really done it. At least it wasn’t raining, for once; the moon rode the wind.
The stone made her nervous even in daylight. It always seemed about to turn, grating on its axis, to have a look at who had come to visit.
Nine times around, counterclockwise; then she stood and waited, feeling cold and foolish.
“You’re up late, Yamamoto,” said a pleasant voice from behind her. Dana squeaked.
It was Dr Eire, the headmistress, who laughed kindly, saying, “so much for back awareness.”
Dana ducked her head. “Yeah.”
“It’s all right. I’m supposed to be that good,” grinned the headmistress. “Come sit.”
Dana followed her.
“Mead,” offered the headmistress, passing her flask. Dana took it.
“Thank you, Dr Eire,” she said. “Am I in trouble?”
The headmistress looked out over the bay.
“I suppose you ought to be,” she said. “But I generally come here on Samhain, to see who took the dare this year.”
She paused.
“Supernatural beings grant favors at a price. Students never seem to remember that. Still, now that you’re here, did you have something in mind? If I can grant it, I will—at a price.”
It was good mead. Dana passed the flask back.
“I’m such a terrible student, and now I’m benched for a couple of months with this broken wrist. I just want to do better.”
Dr Eire turned, but Dana couldn’t see her face, angled into darkness.
“You’re not a terrible student,” she said. “Your coming to this headland proves rather that you are a determined one. The trick will be for you to see that yourself.”
Dr Eire helped Dana up. The headmistress stopped at the stone and poured some mead at its foot.
“And the price?” Asked Dana as they went down the hill.
Dr Eire chuckled.
“Don’t tell anyone what happened,” she said.
“Fair enough,” Dana grinned.
Flight Risk
Friday, October 8th, 2010
He decides a baby is the answer. The baby is plaster and lathe over cracked brick, a rickety, newborn bridge, a pair of handcuffs. The baby, he thinks. The baby.
She drinks nothing but seltzer. She swallows the air. He urges steak on her, potatoes and meatloaf, pineapple upside-down cake and caramel apples. Sticky things, heavy things. “Eat,” he says. He clutches at her hand. She shakes her head at him and drifts away from the dinner table. His forehead crumples and his shoulders tumble down. She grows larger and lighter.
He wishes she were happy. Instead, she is buoyant, giddy and strange. She doesn’t lumber the way other pregnant women do. She steps lightly, floats up the stairs. She never trips; she glides. She sleeps on her back now, her stomach straining up toward the ceiling fan, the sky light. It could break through the glass and drag her soaring through the sky, arms and legs dangling and limp, her enormous belly taking her away. He sleeps downstairs on the couch and wonders if she’ll be there in the morning.
When she goes into labor, she begins to laugh. She holds her belly and doubles over. Her laughter fills up the living room, bursts like bubbles in his ears. She laughs through delivery, and he sits in the corner, grim. The baby comes quickly, and when they spread her out naked for weighing on the cold scale, she bounces up and wafts through the sterile air of the hospital room. The baby glances off the corner of the room and glides across the face of the overhead lights. She casts a tiny shadow.
“I’ll get a step stool,” one nurse says, backing out of the room. The doctor sits on the floor. On the labor table, emptied out and hollow, she laughs. He stands and watches his child rotating slowly under the air vent, far above his head.
She will not let him touch their baby. She holds the baby in the crook of her arm. She holds her by the heel. She sits and looks at her floating above. She puts on her housecoat and goes out into the yard. She ignores him. She ignores the neighbors lining their driveways and yards. Clutching the baby’s heel, holding tight, she lifts up on to her tiptoes and reaches upwards, waiting for a strong enough gust of wind.