Fantasy Magazine, Issue 2

334 Pages·2013·0.87 MB·English

by  Fantasy Magazine

Fantasy Magazine

Issue 2

Table of Contents

Sparking Anger by Margaret Ronald (fiction)
Ragazzo by Bruce McAllister (fiction)
Lessons With Miss Gray by Theodora Goss (fiction)
Cotton Country by Aaron Schutz (fiction)
Nine Tails, Hundred Hearts by Yoon Ha Lee (fiction)
Children of the Revolution by Lavie Tidhar (fiction)
On the Bus by Patricia Russo (fiction)
Light of the Moon by Karen Anne Mitchell (fiction)
The Novel of the Holocaust by Stewart O'Nan (fiction)
The Voices of the Snakes by Karina Sumner-Smith
(fiction)
The Sphinx and Ernest Hemingway by Wade Ogletree
(fiction)
Madonna Littoralis by Caitlin R. Kiernan (fiction)
It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks by Paul G.
Tremblay (fiction)

Interview: Theodora Goss
Book Reviews

About the Editors

© 2006 Fantasy Magazine
www.fantasy-magazine.com

Sparking Anger

Margaret Ronald

Lisa dug up the first skull just before sunset, as the

last light streaked the stony earth of the garden. Her
hands recognized it before her eyes did, and she jerked
away, rocking back onto her heels so violently she almost
hit the patio.

From behind her, the sound of an angry string section

started up again. Lisa shook her head—she’d gotten used
to Mrs. Kostianaya’s single-minded musical tastes, but
she didn’t have to like them—and rubbed at her eyes. But
the skull remained where she’d dug, staring up at her
through a fringe of weeds. One eyesocket was clotted
with dirt; the other gaped sightlessly at her. I don’t
believe it, she thought, but reached forward nonetheless
and brushed the earth away.

A hand touched her shoulder. Lisa yelped and pulled

the skull free, curling it against her stomach. Later she
would wonder at the strength of her response, how she
had first moved to protect it.

“You’re still out here?” her mother asked. “It’s

getting late.”

Lisa forced herself to relax. “You’re home just as

late.”

“Work ran over.” She crouched beside Lisa, awkward

in her business attire. “You’ve done some good work
here. I don’t think even Nanna could have done better.”

Lisa abruptly remembered what she was cradling

against her body. “Mom—” She lowered the skull till it
rested on the ground. “Is—is this sort of thing usual?”

Her mother gave the skull a brief glance. “What, a

lump of gravel? I should think so. This garden probably
used to be an old driveway. I’m surprised you can get
anything to grow.”

“Gravel,” Lisa repeated. She set the skull down. It

could look like gravel, in the dimming light . . . but it
wasn’t. “Mom, I think . . . I think maybe I’m cracking
up.”

Her mother rose to her feet, brushing off her skirt.

“It’s only been a week, Lisa. You can’t have cabin fever
already; you’ve got two more to go.”

“Can’t I just go out once? Just to the store with you?”
“No.” She helped Lisa up. “I’ll talk to Mrs.

Kostianaya, though. Maybe we can see about borrowing
her plot, since she doesn’t seem to use it. That’ll give you
some more work, keep your mind off things. And maybe
I’ll ask her to go easy on the Mussorgsky; she’s playing it

so loud I can hear it out here.”

Lisa tried to smile, but she felt the skull’s mute gaze

on her back all the way inside.

* * * *

In the morning, Mrs. Kostianaya’s plot was occupied

by a sagging storage shed. “She must have ordered it
recently,” Lisa’s mother said. “Oh, well. I’ll talk to her
anyway.”

Lisa didn’t answer. Mrs. Kostianaya had been playing

her one song over and over, this time till midnight, and
she’d started up again at eight o’clock. Before her
suspension, Lisa hadn’t noticed how often Mrs.
Kostianay played her music, but now with TV, computer,
and headphones all off limits, it was close to driving her
nuts. She worked on this week’s homework as long as
she could stand to be inside, then fled to the garden.

But Mrs. Kostianaya was there first, having left her

music still playing. Lisa tried not to scream. “Morning,
Mrs. Kostianaya,” she said through her teeth.

“Rotten, stinking hulk! Sulfur-smelling piece of junk!

What do you think you’re doing here?” Mrs. Kostianaya
hobbled closer to the shed and whacked it with her cane.
“Stupid thing,” she panted, “dragging me down, don’t

you understand? I can’t afford you! I have to look after
myself!” She kicked at the sagging clapboards and lapsed
into a spate of feeble Russian.

She’s talking to the shed, Lisa realized. Christ, that’s

sad. “Mrs. Kostianaya, are you all right?”

Mrs. Kostianaya cast a glare over her shoulder, then

stumbled back as if shocked to see Lisa there. “You can’t
take it,” she said. “I’m an old woman. I’m weak. I don’t
have any to spare.”

Before Lisa could speak, the old woman burst into

tears, gave the shed one last kick, and hobbled away. The
shed creaked and slid a little, like a cowering dog. Lisa
glanced at it. “Don’t you fall down,” she muttered.
“Mom’ll pitch a fit if you crush her seedlings.”

It didn’t answer, and Lisa felt a dull burn of shame. It

wasn’t fair to make fun of Mrs. Kostianaya; she was, like
she said, old and weak.

One doesn’t necessarily follow the other, she thought

angrily. Nanna was old, but she wasn’t weak. Not by a
long shot.

But Nanna was dead, years dead. She eyed the skull

on its perch at the edge of their plot. It hadn’t changed,
save that daylight made it impossible to mistake for
gravel. So I’m cracking up, she thought. At least I won’t
be the only crazy in the building.

By noon she’d dug up five more skulls, the shock

fading with each one. Her mother returned home on her
lunch break and came out to see the garden. “Is there a
reason,” she asked, “why you’re putting little dirt mounds
all around my garden?”

Lisa looked at her, at the jawless skulls, and back.

“Rocks,” she lied. “There must have been an old
driveway here or something.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Still, keep at it. You’ve got my

mother’s touch; you can make anything grow.” She let
her hand rest on Lisa’s shoulder.

Lisa smiled at the earth. “Thanks. I’d—I miss Nanna,

sometimes.”

“So do I, sweetie.” She let go of Lisa’s shoulder,

wrapping herself once more in the iron courtesy her job
required. “See you later.”

Nanna had made everything grow. Her old house had

been surrounded by green things, even in winter. That,
plus her sometimes abrasive attitude, had put people off,
but Lisa had loved it. “So they think I’m the witch in the
woods,” Nanna had laughed with her one Halloween.
“Who cares? I like being the witch in the woods. Maybe
the men don’t look at me any more, but now they listen to
me.”

Lisa held her hands up. Where the shadow of the shed

covered them, they looked old. Old as bone.

* * * *

“I heard from Ronnie Coleman’s mother,” Lisa’s

mother said as she passed the potatoes. “She says his
hand’s healing, and he should be able to practice with the
football team in the fall.”

“That’s too bad,” Lisa said.
Her mother sighed. It was difficult to see her face; the

overhead light had lost a bulb again, and the remaining
one was inadequate, sinking half of the table in shadows.
“You’d prefer it if he never played again, wouldn’t you?”

“When you put it like that, yes.”
Her mother was silent for a moment, and the echoes

of earlier conversations spoke for her. How could you
break his hand? What on earth were you doing, trying to
kill him? But all those had been said, and said again,
until they’d sunk into the walls of the apartment like
mildew. “I take it,” her mother said, “that you haven’t
started your essay on nonviolence yet.”

She dug at the tablecloth with one ragged fingernail.

“No.”

“They won’t let you back without it. Even if you

finish your suspension.”

“I don’t care. It’s a stupid topic.”
A hint of iron came into her mother’s voice. “And one

you could stand to learn more about.”

“I have learned more about it,” Lisa said, spearing a

potato on the end of her fork. “You got me all those
stupid books.”

Her mother shook her head. “Being stubborn is not

going to make it any easier when you go back—”

She shoved her plate back and got up. “I’m not

hungry any more.” Her mother covered her face with a
shaky hand, but didn’t call her back.

The TV started up not long after, its drone the only

thing to counteract Mrs. Kostianaya’s music. From the
sound, it was one of the courtroom dramas that Lisa and
her mother both loved, but Lisa stayed in her room. No
TV during the suspension, and if she was out there, that
meant none for her mom as well.

She lay down, wrapped her pillow over her head, and

imagined that it was Ronnie Coleman’s skull in the
garden, the stupid surprise on his face when she broke his
hand now eternally wiped away. But as her eyes began to
close, the image changed, and it was her skull instead,
eyesockets burning with a corrosive light.

* * * *

The twelfth skull was the one that gave her trouble.

This one had a jaw attached, though “attached” wasn’t
quite the right word for the way it hung askew. When she
poked at the skull with her gardening fork, it spun and bit
the fork, snapping the tines straight off.

Lisa didn’t think, just reversed the fork and whacked

the skull with it. The skull rocked to one side, and when it
came to rest looked almost chastened. She set it with the
others, jaw dangling over the border, and examined the
damage.

The fork was unusable, and the common shed lacked

any replacement. She cussed for a while, mostly because
it felt good to cuss where her mom couldn’t hear her, then
came out and gave Mrs. Kostianaya’s shed a long look.
There was no sign of Mrs. Kostianaya herself; the shades
were drawn tight, and if Lisa listened hard enough she
could hear the Mussorgsky again. What is that piece? she
thought. Not the Fantasia one. The one the marching
band mangled at their concert last year, along with
Swan Lake arranged for drums and horns.

Whatever, so long as it keeps her from looking

outside.

The shed’s windows were opaque with grime. Lisa

squinted at one of them, trying to make sense of the vague
shapes within, then gave the doorknob a tug. To her

surprise, it swung loose in her hand, and a musty,
swampy smell enveloped her.

Her eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness,

taking in the meager furnishings. A hearth took up the far
end of the house, and beside it a contraption of wooden
frames woven with cobwebs listed to one side.

This isn’t a shed, she thought as she stepped inside.

This is someone’s house.

In the center of the room was a big stone tub, round

and as high as Lisa’s waist, with a long lump of the same
kind of stone in it, polished smooth. Pestle, she thought,
and a mortar, like the kind Mom uses for rosemary. But
why so big . . . or maybe I’ve gotten small . . .

A dark stain lay at the bottom of the mortar. Lisa

stared at it, then, as a hollow wind swept around her,
turned and fled.

Once outside, the sunlight burned away some of her

panic away. She bent over and braced her hands on her
knees, breathing slowly.

“So this is where you’ve been.”
She jerked upright, one hand snatching up the trowel

from the patio table before she could think. A lumpy boy
stood on the far side of the fence, hands in the pockets of
his letter jacket. His sneer, if nothing else, was familiar.
Her memory extended a name: Jason something, junior

varsity. Oh, hell, she thought.

Jason’s grin widened. “Coleman’s not happy with

you.”

“That’s funny,” Lisa said. “I’m very happy. Only way

I could be happier is if I’d broken both his hands.” She
stepped to block his view of the skulls, very aware of their
gazes at her back.

The grin disappeared, but the sneer remained.

“Coleman’s got plans for you,” he said, taking a step
closer to the fence. “Teachers can’t help you, principal
won’t, and you can’t stay with the other girls forever, no
matter how they’re acting. Once you get back, we’re
coming for you.”

“See if I care,” she shot back, then paused, replaying

his words. “They’re not giving in any more, are they?”
she said. “The other girls aren’t putting up with your
bullshit any more. Not after they heard what I did.”

Jason’s face twisted in momentary fury and was

insufficiently covered by his attempt at scorn. “They will
once we’re done with you,” he spat. “The whole team
wants a piece of you for what you did to him. It’ll be just
like with that little slut, only you’ll be awake for the
whole thing.”

Lisa threw the trowel overhand as hard as she could.

It grazed his arm—her aim was off—but he yelled as if

it’d broken a bone. “You tell them that when I’m done
with them, they’ll wish I’d just broken their hands!” she
shouted. “You tell them that I’m going to smash open
their empty heads and kick their balls so hard they’ll be
tasting scrotum for a week! You tell them—”

“Lisa!” Her mother stood framed in the back door.

Lisa swallowed her words, choking on them. Her mother
glanced at Jason. “Are you all right? Get inside, Lisa.”

Seething, she did so. The apartment was dull and

quiet, so quiet that she could hear the placatory tone of
her mother’s voice. She kicked the garbage can over, then
cursed and spent the next few minutes cleaning up the
mess.

Her mother came in just as she got the last of the

potato peels. “I convinced him not to tell his father.
That’s all you need right now, another mark on your
record.”

“Another mark—Mom, did you even hear—”
“I didn’t need to hear it, Lisa!” She dropped her purse

on the counter and placed her hands flat against the
tabletop. “You can’t afford this, and neither can I! Do you
know what I found out today?”

Lisa took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “What

did you find out?”

“Todd Pierce. Two months ago. His father said he lost

three teeth.”

Lisa exhaled. “There was this freshman girl,” she

said. Her mother’s expression didn’t change. “He kept
spiking her punch when she wasn’t looking. It was her
first party, so she didn’t know what it was supposed to
taste like. Two more and she’d have been out cold, and
he’d have dragged her off to the back room.”

Her mother nodded slowly. “Glossing over for the

moment the fact that you were at a party with alcohol—
without my knowledge, apparently—can I ask why you
then found it necessary to attack him?”

“So he wouldn’t do it again.”
“And did she thank you for coming to her rescue?”
Lisa glared at the floor. “No.” But they’re not giving

in now. Not after I showed them how to fight.

Coleman’s got plans for you.
Her mother sighed, then dragged a chair from behind

the table and sank down into it, rocking as its uneven legs
took her weight. “Lisa, you’re turning eighteen this
summer. You’re not going to be a juvenile any more, and
if you keep doing this sort of thing then you can be
arrested for assault.”

“And what Todd did—what he had planned wasn’t

assault?”

“Did Ronnie Coleman assault anyone?”