“She wants you to come home.” I pour again.
Marco slugs the drink in his glass. His eyes shine empty, staring into a middle distance only he can see. When he ran, how far did he go? Has he seen the end of all things? Did he watch his mother die screaming? His eyes are unsettling. Not burnt-wood, something else.
“What are you running from?” he asks.
My stomach lurches. I try to pour another shot, but most of it spills on the bar. It will evaporate soon; the bar will go up in flames. All this alcohol—we’re a Molotov cocktail, waiting to happen. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t have chased me this far if you weren’t running from something.” Marco’s eyes fix me. I know the colour now—river-mud brown.
I shudder. The sensation goes all through me. I don’t taste what’s in my glass; I taste cheap wine stolen from a funeral table the day we buried our parents—my father, his mother.
Jason. My stepbrother.
I saved his life once, pulled him out of the river after he slipped on a rock. He was nine; I was ten. Lying on his back, rocks darkening with the water running from his skin, squinting up into the sun, he called me his guardian angel.
I breathe deep, and draw in a lungful of wet leather and hay. Firelight flickers from the old trashcan we dragged into the barn. Rain drums the roof. Our feet hang over the edge of the loft, heels kicking dust-pale wood. A horse whickers softly.
“I hate them,” my stepbrother says.
“Who?” I drink straight from the bottle, bitter tannins clinging to my skin, staining cracked lips red.
“All those people at Mom and Dad’s funeral. They’re all a bunch of fucking phonies.”
He takes the bottle from me. I nod. A storm hangs over us that has nothing to do with the rain. A weight presses between my shoulder blades; my skin itches. I know Jason feels it, too. There is something waiting to rise.
Then, there, I am pulled out of myself. I am in Venice, looking at Marco across the bar, watching the world burn. I am floating above the vastness of a star-filled eye. Time means nothing.
I know what I will do to survive.
My stepbrother hes the rest of the wine, tosses the bottle against the far wall where it shatters, spraying glass. A few droplets fall into the fire, making it snap and sizzle. I retrieve another bottle, pen-knife out the cork. We stole a whole armful as we left the funeral.
My stepbrother says, “They’re lucky they aren’t alive to see what happens next.”
I don’t have to ask what he means. He feels what’s coming, but has he seen the end of the world? Does he know what I’ll do to make sure I will?
“What’s the worst sin you can think of?” I squint into the dark on the far side of the barn. “Not that Bible shit. Something real.”
Shadows shift, fold and unfold. Jason looks down, heels drumming the wood, dust spinning up every time they hit.
“Hurting someone you love and meaning it.”
I nod. The stars shift. They’ve always been right. They prick the sky, prick my skin, and draw blood. I know what I have to do to survive. Tendrils reach for me, the colour of starlight and as cold as the moon. I have to wrap myself in a sin I can never forgive, the worst thing I can think of, a pain I can never forget or give away. It’s the only way to stay human.
I reach for Jason’s hand, squeeze fingers as chill as ice.
“The world is ending.” Jason’s breath is rapid, wine hot.
I nod, lean close. Our faces almost touch. He understands what’s coming and he wants me to save myself because I once saved him. I could refuse his gift, but I don’t. My heart beats, cracks, and salty water rushes in.
“It’s already ended,” Jason says.
“So, fuck me.” I pull him close, bite down hard on a kiss. I taste cheap wine and blood.
It would be mercy to say I slid into oblivion, but I felt every minute. I tasted every drop of sweat. I cherished every tear, cradled it on my tongue. After, Jason slept. I drank half the remaining bottle of wine, and threw the rest into the trashcan—a spray of glass, a gout of flame, the horse’s soft whinny turning into a scream of fear.
The fire traced wings on my back.
And I flew.
Dizzy, I grip the edge of the bar. “Your mother paid me a lot of money.” I force the words out through clenched teeth.
Marco’s image doubles, sways. I see other eyes, reflecting flame—eyes so pale they would pick up the colour of whatever was around them, flaming gold like the setting sun, or silver like the rising moon. River-coloured eyes; rain-coloured eyes. Jason’s eyes, weeping love.
I swam in marble corridors, in drowned-green canals. I tried to let tentacles steal the best of me, the rest of me. It wasn’t enough. My sin kept me safe; it kept me whole.
“Your mother…,” I try again.
“It doesn’t matter.” Marco shakes his head.
The ghosted memory of a smoky voice, tasting of bitter chocolate, threads the air and fades away. Scratchy hay presses a pattern of almost-words into my skin. I hold a blind man as he sobs. Shadow tendrils touch the deepest part of me, stripping my bones clean, taking everything except what matters.
I could cash in. I could make the biggest paycheck of my life. I could keep running and test the theory that the future is infinite. Or I could stay this time. I could burn.
Marco’s gaze meets mine. Flames reflect between us. Inside the flames, impossible angles rise dripping from the canals. An eerie, piping song needles me with remembrance. Stars draw blood from my skin. Marco lays his hands, palms up, on the bar—an invitation.
Ragged-nailed hands grip a microphone, cup a glass heart. Palms slicked with blood drop eyeballs near a drain.
There are many possible futures; I see them all in Marco’s eyes. Two charred corpses decorate the remains of Josie’s restaurant, one in front of the bar and one behind. One charred corpse sits slumped against the bar. An empty, charred husk of a bar dies alone, with no one to witness its end.
It will come down to a battle of wills, my will to survive against Marco’s will to die. I know what I gave up to survive; what did he give up to run? Which matters more?
My scars itch and stretch tight across my back, shaping wings. Wings for flight, or wings for salvation? Maybe this time they’ll stay stitched beneath my skin, folded tight around my body like loving arms.
My wings have always been there; the stars have always been right. R’leyh rose everywhere, everywhen. I have always been what I am now. I have always survived.
For the moment, I take Marco’s hands. And together, we watch Venice burn.
A DAY AND A NIGHT IN PROVIDENCE
By Anthony Boulanger
Anthony Boulanger is a French author living in Paris. He writes most often about the dark paths of Fantasy, but also makes frequent excursions into Space Opera. Among his favourite subjects, you can find birds (which come in many forms, with a marked preference for the Phoenix) and maledictions. Among his favourite authors, Tolkien, Glen Cook, Roland Wagner, Orson Scott Card, and Mathieu Gaborit occupy the top spots! You can join him on his blog (anthony-khellendros.blogspot.com), his Facebook page, or by emaiclass="underline" mithrilas@wanadoo.fr.
THE GROUP WAS one of the most heterogenous that Philips had ever led into the Providence basilica: some Asians, ears already glued to their guide; some Europeans, apparently wondering what they were doing there; and some American compatriots. Among all these people, how many came only because the building is listed on the tourist routes?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Philips began, “welcome to the Most Holy Church of Our-Lady-of-Lothlorien. The initial structure was first constructed in 254 Before Tolkien by a pagan community. The conversion to the Saint’s cult dates to the fifth century.”
The young guide did not turn toward his group. He refused to contemplate the children who preferred to play on their portable consoles, rather than look at the glass windows representing the creations of the Master-God, or the parents trying to masticate popcorn in this sacrosanct place.