“I want to live happily ever after,” she whispered.
“Did the demon put those words in your mouth? How could that be?”
“With you, Xan. And yes, he did. He put all the words in my mouth, the good and the bad, even the ones made from tears and the blasphemies that should never be spoken.” She laid her head on his shoulder.
He saw now that all things could be bent to evil. The world could be hot glass twisted in the claws of a demon. But it hadn’t been meant so at the start, that perfect gather of blue and green glass.
“She’s going to be awfully surprised when she finds out that you’re not always dyed cinnabar from head to toe,” Garland remarked, slinging the bag of ramps over his shoulder. He eyed the younger man’s hair, caked with blood. “Pleasantly so, I reckon.”
“These jeans, do you think—”
“What?”
“Nothing.” The gaffer let out a spark of laughter. “Not a thing.”
The roofs in the valley glimmered and faded, and sparks of stars blew in from the hearth of the sky and made the girl cry out in fear and joy. She’s really only a newborn baby, Xan thought, despite the words. So he would sleep in the studio and yield the cabin to her. He would have to let her grow a while before they could promise to live happily ever after. A year and a day floated into his mind; surely he could wait a year and a day. But it was already in him to love her, as it had been from the moment he had helped her from the glory hole — perhaps even when he had lifted the salamander to his cheek. Her blood on the marble had claimed him as her own as surely as if the marver had been not a glassmaker’s tool but some pagan goddess — a boulder of granite stained with the blood of children, set up in a grove of stunted acacia trees, somewhere hot and distant and long ago. But she wasn’t of that cruel world. She had been burned in the glory of the glass fire and owned a soul.
He shuddered, remembering the stone in the lake of blue flames and the faces drifting beneath the waves. Glancing down, he saw the girl’s bare legs glowing white above a drift of dwarf iris leaves. Oh, he longed to remake the world to be as smooth as glass for her feet! Garland was unlocking the car, tossing the ramps into the trunk. Xan felt that he would never be done thanking the man for telling him about the living creatures born from fire. He and Salamandra would visit Garland’s farm; then he would go see Eva and show her what sort of woman he could win for himself. Though the widow might be sad because change is often sad for the old, she would welcome them in. There were strands of color in the bewitching ball of Earth — enough to hold them secure in its web.
“Listen!” Salamandra stepped forward. A spine-tingling sound like a waterfall of crystal swept toward them. “The music of the spheres,” she said, her face as naked in delight as an infant’s.
An enormous windblown tree blossomed in Xan’s imagination, its leaves splashed with raindrops, its twigs and branches hung with an endless number of glass bells. Sweet as a mountain breeze, the sureness came to him that all his life to come would be more radiant than before. He sighed with pleasure, gripping the girl’s slender fingers. He had feared the stain of Attorney, but now he was certain: the soul had found a better place to nestle and, like a wing of thinnest glass, would unfold and flash with rainbow colors. She would make it her own. Before they turned toward Garland and home, he and his salamander bride-to-be looked up at the glory of the constellations, now strengthening and shining in the furnace of night, and one or the other spoke.
“Before the stars were made, we were dreamed and meant to be.”
MARLY YOUMANS is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent fantasy is Ingledove. Her novel The Wolf Pit won the Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction. Val/Orson, a novella set in the California treetops and drawing on the legend of Valentine and his wild twin, Orson, was published in 2008. Her first book of poetry is Claire. Her short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Salon Fantastique; Logorrhea; Firebirds Soaring; We Think, Therefore We Are; and Postscripts, and reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year. Her Web site is www.marlyyoumans.com.
When The Beastly Bride tugged at my sleeve, I had been daydreaming about glass and its marvelous transformations. I thought immediately of a girl metamorphosed from the mythical fire-born salamander. Fiery and metamorphic glass led me to the furnace, the underworld, and a mix of earthly and otherworldly beauty.
The history of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is one that includes magic and mythic beings. Tiny bones and small tunnels of the Little People had been found during construction in Cullowhee, where I grew up. Cherokee tales mixed in my mind with folk ways and stories handed down by settlers from Scotland and Ireland. Later, the magic of these regional tales tinged The Curse of the Raven Mockerand Ingledove and crept into some of my other novels, poems, and stories — as in this one.
THE MARGAY’S CHILDREN
Richard Bowes
Not to boast, but I’d say I’m pretty good as a godfather. As an actual parent, I’d doubtless have been a disaster. But I have six godchildren, and I love all of them. Selesta is the second eldest and my secret favorite. When she was real small, three and four years old, I had Mondays off and her mother, my friend Joan Mata, would leave her with me while she kept doctors’ appointments and met her design clients in the city.
That was when Selesta and I first talked about cats. At the time, I had an apartment on Second Avenue in the teens, and on the ground floor of the building facing mine was a row of small shops, each of which had a cat. Selesta took a great interest in them. That could just have been because she couldn’t have a cat of her own.
The Italian deli had a majestic tricolor cat named Maybelline. As a deli cat she had plenty of food, numerous admirers whom she would allow to pet her as she sat in the sun by the front door, and mice to keep her busy at night.
The Russian cobbler next door had a thin gray cat with a truncated tail that twitched back and forth. A shoe repair shop has no food and probably few mice. The cobbler was thin and gray himself, and when I once asked him the cat’s name he just shook his head, like he’d never heard of such a thing. So I decided to call him Hank, and Selesta agreed with me.
The third store was a Vietnamese nail and hair and massage shop with elaborate neon signage. It employed a trio of exotic ladies with elaborate nails, and one very silly man. Their cat was a Siamese named Mimi or something like that. Mimi had a wardrobe of exotic sweaters and collars and even booties.
She was usually carried by one of the ladies. When she passed by, the other cats’ noses and ears twitched, as if they could sense a cat nearby but couldn’t tell where it was.
To amuse ourselves, Selesta and I made up stories about the three cats and their adventures. Once they all went out to find a pair of red striped socks for Hank on his birthday. Another time they went to the moon, which was run by a bunch of gangster mice.
Maybe there I should have discouraged her interest. However, I believe Joan had asked me to be the godfather of her only child because we went back so far and shared so many secrets.