Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Broken

Originally published by Escape Pod (episode 509)

My favorite part about skimming is that I’m not broken when I do it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have levels, that I’m on or off, because that’s how everything’s supposed to be when you’re in the hypernet. Even if I’m not supposed to be in the hypernet.

I’m only able to skim because Kaipo left my interface node on. That was the day he told me I could call him Kaipo instead of Dr. Singh. His eyes are different than mine, but that’s not because of the Skew, and even if it is I wouldn’t care, because they’re pretty and dark and they twinkle a little bit when he smiles. We’d had sex twice when he told me I could call him Kaipo if we’re alone. Sex is almost as good as skimming, only it doesn’t last as long, and sometimes I’m stinky afterwards, which I’m not a fan of. Sometimes Kaipo smells like pumpkin, which I’m totally a fan of.

"Overshare."

"Hi, Heady," I say, rolling onto my side on the bed to look at her. I frown, which I know because the muscles at my jawbone ache a little when I frown. "Did you hear all that?"

Heady raises an eyebrow and purses her lips. Heady’s my big sister. Like, really big. Eight and a half feet big. That’s what the Skew did to her, blew her up bigger than life, but I think it suits her. She’s not as tough as she looks to most people, though. She’s totally as tough as she looks to me right now.

"Sorry," I say, sitting up. "Sometimes I get confused about outside and inside my head." That’s what the Skew did to me: broke my head. You can see that when I cut my hair or trim my beard, because the hairs change colors each time. Other people tell me it’s silly, but I like it. I can never decide if I like red or blue or green or purple or yellow more, and this way I get to have them all, and all’s better than some.

Heady sighs.

"Don’t worry, Sy," she says, because Sy’s my name. "You never have to apologize to me."

She smiles, and the muscles in my cheeks tense up so I know I’m smiling, too. She’s a good big sister, Heady. Even if she’s not real.

Well, Heady’s real, but she’s not real here. She used to be. The room felt even smaller and tighter back then, because my interface node was turned off and no one would turn it back on. The world was only four walls, and they were right on top of me. The window didn’t matter; it was just part of the wall, wasn’t it?

The door, now that mattered. Heady came through the door. She left through the door. One of those times, she introduced me to Dr. Singh. That was before he let me call him Kaipo.

"Neuroelectro therapy," I said after Kaipo did. It was just sounds.

"It means your node turns back on, Sy," Heady said. She smiled. She has a good smile, too. Not the same way as Kaipo. It’s not like that. The muscles in my cheeks ached a little.

"I’ve been looking over your files since I was assigned your case, and…I think we can actually use our interactions through the node to re-map some pathways."

"My node turns on," I said.

"For our sessions, anyway," Kaipo said. It was the first time I saw his smile. My ears tingled.

He left us alone after Heady signed some paperwork, and then she sat us down on my bed.

"Sy, I have to go away for a while," she said. Her voice was soft, like all her hair. Her hand was light on my shoulder even though it could swallow mine.

"How long’s a while?" I asked. I’m good with time. It’s a pattern. I’m very good with patterns. While isn’t a good pattern. It isn’t time. It’s pretend, like a code loop that never finishes.

"I don’t know," Heady said, still soft. She hugged me to her, and I could hear her heart pounding. I remembered how mine slammed in my chest when I was trying to think of what I should say to Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles. Heady always knew what to say. She let me go, kneeled in front of the bed, then wrapped her sprawling hands on my shoulders. Her round eyes were a little wet, but she smiled as she looked me in my eyes. It wasn’t quite as pretty as usual.

"But Dr. Singh is going to take care of you," she told me. "And once I’ve got things sorted out, I’m coming back for you."

I bit my lip. Not enough to hurt, which I sometimes do.

"But you have to stay here so I can find you, understand?"

I nodded.

"And then no more doctors or secrets, just you and me. I promise."

I didn’t talk. I hugged her. It’s not always easy, wrapping my arms around her, but I did it. I didn’t squeeze too tight, because Heady’s bones aren’t as tough as normal-sized people. I held on until she hugged me back. Her hair fell around us and made the world go away. She smelled like ginger and cumin, which don’t go together, except with Heady they do. I listened to her heart pounding, to the little sniff she made. I held her with my arms, then I let her go with my arms, and then she walked out the door.

"How about that doctor?" the other Heady said after the door clicked closed. That’s when the other Heady started, because I’m very good with patterns, and I only let Heady’s go with my arms.

"He’s a cutie, right?" Heady prodded, smiling. "There’s definitely potential there."

The muscles in my cheeks ached again, but only a little.

Kaipo has access to turn my interface node on and off because that’s how we do neuroelectro therapy. That’s when I have to call him Dr. Singh.

"It’s getting more tranquil here, Sy," he says with a smile when he joins me in the closed server where we do therapy.

"That’s totally good, right?" I ask.

"It totally is," he says with a little laugh. He smiles. I really like his smile. Right now it’s simulated through the code, but the real one is nice, too. He shows all his teeth, even the canines that are a little crooked. It’s open, his smile. I’m totally a fan of that.

So I’ve been practicing, smoothing out the abstract shapes and the code mutations that make being in the server interesting. They worry Kaipo. If I’m ever going to build filters, real filters and coping whatchamahooies, I have to listen to him. Plus, my chest gets a little tight when he cocks his head and frowns that worried frown. I like the smile more.

Kaipo takes us through the exercises. I make the right shapes and say the right things. I’m very good with patterns, so this feels natural. When we’re done and we’re back outside the server box, but inside the room box, he taps notes into his tablet.

"You weren’t too good at the coding bits?" Heady asks. I bite my lip. It hurts a little this time. I shake my head.

Kaipo says being accelerated too much in one area puts me out of balance in the others. There’s a middle. He’s helping me find out how to present it. I can’t talk out loud to Heady, though, when Kaipo is around. That definitely gets a frown and isn’t what I ought to present. So I keep my mouth closed, because if I don’t say anything, I can’t lie. Which I’m bad at, anyway.

"This is maddening!" Heady calls out, walking around behind Kaipo. She leans down to see what’s on his screen.

"Just tap in already," she says, pointing to me and then pointing to the tablet. She knows she can’t really see what I can’t. I shake my head.

"Come on," she drawls, kneeling next to Kaipo. She leans her head on his shoulder. "Just one little skim and you can see—"

I feel a pinch in the muscles on both the top and the bottom of my mouth, and that’s how I know I’m pursing my lips. I try to wave Heady off.

"Sy?" Kaipo looks up. It’s not a frown or a smile or even pursed lips exactly. That arch at his eyebrow means he noticed. He walks over. "Are you all right?"

Heady throws her hands in the air.

"If you just listened to me, you wouldn’t have to—"

I stand up and smile at Kaipo and bite my lip just enough. He smiles. I like his smile.

"Okay, fine. You got this," Heady says, and walks sideways until she’s not here any more.

Kaipo taps the tablet to put the security feed on a loop. I let him think I didn’t do that a minute and a half ago.

I touch his fingers with mine. My cheeks feel warm. Other places, too.

I don’t just like Kaipo’s smile. Or his eyes. Or how he sometimes smells like pumpkin. I like that his skin is a kind of pale, not-exactly copper. I like that there’s a little bit of hair around each of his nipples, and a tiny dusting of it on his sternum, but not much anywhere else under his shirt. I like the feel of his waist when my legs are wrapped around it. I like the rough sides of the spine ridges the Skew gave him. I like how soft his lips are on mine, and on my neck, and on my nipples even though they have more hair than his. I like that I don’t have to talk but he knows what I need and want, and I know the same for him.

I don’t like how tight my chest feels when I think about what he’ll need and want once I’ve run away.

When they first brought me (I’m not supposed to talk about them), Heady—real Heady—came to visit every day. She held my hand, and told me what she’d done that day, only not everything, because she knew if she told it all, I might open my mouth and it would all come out.

That was how I got put in to begin with. We’re special, Heady and me. It’s hard—like, super duper hard—for people to have babies up here on the Rim, because one of the ways the Skew hurt just about everybody is that they can’t make babies. One baby is a party. Two babies is the kind of new that’s scary.

They didn’t want scary, because scared makes people do even more scary. They raised us separate for a while, helped us figure out what we were good at. Heady was good with people. I was good with not-people, with patterns. They fitted me with an interface node, and it felt right. At first I could just tap the local network, and I felt less cramped in my head, but it was still small. Pycha Gol is supposed to be one of the better roids, but home was still just a floating rock in the Rim. Everything was cramped and close and slow and stinky, which I’m not a fan of.

But the planet below? They’ve got the hypernet, which is big and bright and open and has more to know floating around inside it than I think anyone could ever know. Even any-one-hundreds could probably never know it. I’m totally a fan of that. Which is why I started learning to skim.

I’m good with not-people, but Kaipo’s been teaching me: talent is different than perfect. Especially when you’re excited about something and don’t really get that you have to be careful. And aren’t very good at being careful even when you know to be.

The woman who came first was big. Not as big as Heady, but the Skew gave all her teeth points, which made her scarier. Her partner was a man who rode in a chair. He had bone on the outside of his knuckles. I think maybe the Skew knew they wanted to be in security. Which is weird, because everyone tells me diseases can’t think.

The room was cramped and close. All smudged metal and streaky glass. The chair hurt my back, but I think maybe it was supposed to. Heady and I were eighteen. The hair at my scalp was orange from my most recent haircut. There was still some purple on the tips, though, and all the green and pink from the two cuts before that. It helped me feel a little brighter when I saw it in the smudged mirror, but then Bone Knuckles crunched his fist into the table, and Pointy Teeth leaned in and smiled. Her breath was stinky, which I’m not a fan of.

I don’t think she liked the face I made when I smelled her and tried to turn away. She grabbed me by the cheeks and made me look right at her.

"So, you’re going to tell us who hooked you up with hypernet access codes, and then maybe we can see about making sure you don’t have to do rehab time at a conversion station."

"That’s a deal you want, kid," Bone Knuckles said, wheeling his chair around to my other side. "I’ve been in the atmocite plant. For a place that makes our air, it is damn hard to breathe inside."

"Scrawny thing like you?" Pointy Teeth said, "I figure you might not even make it through a term before you wind up too damaged for life after." She stood back up and moved over to the wall, leaning against it. That made me feel better, because then I couldn’t smell her breath. I thought how bad it’d be if I had to work in the conversion station, where it would be stinkier than anything.

"I just asked nice," I told them, because that was the truth, and I thought that’s what people wanted. Bone Knuckles wheeled his chair back again and laughed.

"You hear that, Sonja?" he said. "Asked nice. That’s all."

"I had to ask a lot," I clarified. Which was true. I knew it was called encryption, and I knew what I was doing with protocols and algorithms, but I knew that none of that made sense to most people the way it did to me. I was trying to make it easier for them to understand. They were still mad and confused, though. I wasn’t good with people. Heady was.

That’s all I was thinking when I said, "Maybe we can call my sister, and she can help me explain better, because Heady’s good with—"

"Woah," Pointy Teeth said. She looked to Bone Knuckles, and he wheeled closer again while she stalked in from the other side. They looked at each other, and I looked at them, then they looked at me.

"You have a sister?" Bone Knuckles asked. I’d already remembered by then that I wasn’t supposed to tell about having a sister, but it was too late. I wanted Heady there more than ever. Heady’s really good at lying, but I’m no good at it at all. I’m either talking, or I’m not talking.

I didn’t talk. They didn’t like that. There was yelling and shaking, and Pointy Teeth threw a chair.

Since I didn’t talk, I still don’t know how Heady found me, but she did. And she smiled down at Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles.

"Adopted," she said, calmly. "Sy’s my cousin, really, but his folks were in a horrible…" she sniffed and covered her eyes, and even I wanted to hug her and make her feel better for my parents who were dead, but who really she just invented on the spot.

Bone Knuckles reached into a compartment on his chair and gave Heady a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes. They apologized. They said things about trouble and heartache even though my chest didn’t hurt. They promised to track down whoever sold me skim codes, who was me but they were letting me go, because Heady and I walked out the door together.

The next day they committed me. That was three years ago.

"This is, really, the worst idea ever," Heady says. People keep walking where I put her, so I move her around. It’s much more crowded outside than I remember. And stinky. I’m not a fan of that.

"Then we should go back," Heady hisses, stooping down to try to pull me out of line for the jumper. "We can still go back."

It took me a long time to get here. First Dr. Singh had to become Kaipo, and even though I liked his smile and all the other things, I had to remember about the next piece. He had to leave my node on, and even that was a tiny step.

I had to remember to be careful this time. Had to remember talent wasn’t skill. That if you go too fast, they catch you. Just fast enough. Find the pattern. Fall into it. I didn’t want Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles to drag me away again three years later.

When the orderlies thought I was sleeping, I skimmed. I started small because, Kaipo taught me you always do. You have to pick up bricks to build a wall to build a house to build a city. When you skip the normal steps, people notice.

First, I asked the internal net nicely if I could sit quiet in my little corner. I watched the bits and bobs moving around. Made a map of my tiny piece of things while the code got used to me being there.

The security systems are very territorial, which is good for a security system but was bad for me. I squeezed myself small and made my edges soft. You have to let them know you aren’t mean or angry and won’t try to make them let you places that belong to them. The security system hissed once or twice, and sniffed me over a few times, but eventually it stopped looking at me. I was part of its territory, so it didn’t need to guard against me.

I could move around, then, and smile nice at the video feeds. Video feeds aren’t like security systems. They want you to look, as long as security isn’t nearby. The feeds were fans of mine, because I didn’t make them pick and choose. I let them show me everything, not just the fights and the screaming and the people when their clothes came off. The feeds said the orderlies kept making them show just that last bit and ignoring empty halls, which made the hall feeds sad and lonely. But I curled up with them and didn’t yawn even once when they showed me the quiet between the night patrols.

Once I learned the patterns, I had to talk to the lock timers. Locks aren’t as prickly as security, but they are stubborn. They slide into place and they fall dead asleep and they don’t want to move until morning. They like their routine. They don’t like to change. It makes them wobbly inside, which I am totally not a fan of, so I understand. I puzzled over that until I bopped myself for forgetting I wasn’t starting small again. Little bits, little bobs.

Each night, I slipped just a little more into the timing algorithms for the locks. They batted at their noses a few times. Snorted, but not loud enough that security bothered to look, because it was busy slinking and hunting, and locks and me didn’t move fast enough to catch its attention. Once a lock half rolled over, and I had to hum it back to sleep because it wasn’t quite time yet.

I needed a place to go when I was outside. I couldn’t stay on Pycha Gol. I’m not sure if roids are the bricks or the houses, but I needed a new one. I threw a jangly bit to distract the security system, then I skimmed out into Pycho Gol’s net to the jumper system to pick a route and a ship, so that when the locks opened, I wouldn’t have to wait any longer.

I picked this jumper after I accessed it. It’s going to a roid where they fix things, not people. I think that’s a good place for me. So I nudged here and there, and when the locks woke up early while the orderlies were busy watching people with no clothes, I picked up my bag and walked through the crowds and the stink to the line because now I have a ticket, linked up on my retinal scan. I lean down and don’t blink at the flash.

"We’ll buzz in a little while," the jumper security guard says, strapping a little plastic bracelet to me. It fits almost like the ones at the hospital. He waves me on with his flipper-hands.

"Kaipo will get in a lot of trouble for this," Heady says.

"He really cares for you," she adds. I look her in the eye, and she cocks her head to the side. If she were real, I think she might cup my cheek in her hand. The muscles at my jawbone ache.

"I think I was bad for Kaipo," I say.

"Sy, sweetie, that’s not—"

"I’m bad with people. For people."

Heady’s lips thin, but she doesn’t say anything.

"Kaipo’s a doctor. He wanted me to get better. I’m totally better now, you heard," I say.

"He’ll hurt, Sy," Heady says. "It hurts when you leave people."

"I know," I whisper, hanging my head. My eyes burn a little, and it’s hard to focus.

"Then you should stay," Heady says, kneeling down in front of me. She doesn’t have real fingers, but my chin picks up when she puts her hand under it, anyway.

"If you leave, I won’t know where to find you when I come back," Heady says.

"That’s not true," I say.

"You can’t leave a trail," she says, standing in front of me, hands hovering near my shoulders because she can’t touch them. Her eyes are wet. "If you did, they’d find you and put you somewhere else where they’d never let me in to—"

"Not that part," I say. My chest is tight. "You’re never coming back."

Heady stands there, towering over me. I feel extra small right now.

"Don’t say that," she whispers. "I promised."

"You lied," I say, walking around her, putting her at my back. I can’t look at her, even if she’s not really there.

It’s a long few minutes while I wait for them to buzz me. I try not to breathe too deep. Then I finally hear her say it. Soft, because I probably still don’t want to hear it.

"Yes."

I sniffle, which is totally because the air’s so dirty and stinky here. I’m not a fan. I look back at Heady and her big, wet eyes. I wish she really told me. Real Heady. I wish she trusted me. But she didn’t, and now she’s gone. One blink later, and the other Heady’s gone, too, because I can’t see her any more.

I can’t stay for Heady. I can’t stay for Kaipo. But I can do this much for them. I can let go. Of the promise we both knew wasn’t one. Of one last piece of reshaped code that shouldn’t be there. Flatten it all out. No more bad patterns. Just me.

The bracelet on my wrist buzzes. It’s been a little while, I guess. Now it’s time.

Hide Behind

Originally published by The Sockdolager (issue 3)

"It’s never gonna fruit 'cause you stole it."

Yuna flinched at the whip-crack of a voice. She heard Ruthie’s frustrated sigh next to her. They both knew before turning around from the fruit-bare Seeder tree that Sheriff Lightle was paying a visit.

"Seeder trees outside a grove are for everyone, Sheriff," Ruthie drawled, falling back into the old argument. "This one was plenty far away from the brush fence, and you know well as I, the whole point of Seeder trees is to help settlers survive frontier living. The tinpots want their trees spreading cross-country."

"Natural-like, sure," the wiry man shot back, hooking his thumbs in his gunbelt and cocking one sharp hip to the side. He jabbed his nose at the tall tree behind the pair of women. "But you scoop it out of the ground and start grafting it willy-nilly, that ain’t doing right by the Seeders."

"Now, Chick—" Yuna started.

"Charlie," Sheriff Lightle all but barked.

"Charlie," Yuna corrected with a thin-lipped smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tiny bit of a nod Ruthie gave her. Quickest way to escape one sore point was to poke at another. "I know you didn’t stop by just to roast the same old chestnut, did you?"

"Shouldn’t I make the tree puns?" Ruthie whispered. Yuna nudged her research partner with an elbow. Ruthie made a show of smoothing out her prairie skirt.

Chick frowned. For a minute Yuna thought he’d push right on. He’d been sore with her since fainting in a briar patch the first time he’d seen a dead body. Seven years later he still hadn’t forgiven Yuna for smirking at the scratches on his back and belly as she treated him. It probably hadn’t helped when she told him the belly ache afterward was all in his head.

Yuna thought he was about to keep going right into the threats to tear the tree out and burn it to stop it going bad. Of course, that would have meant he had to touch it, which was more than a little unlikely given his superstitions.

Then something twitched behind his eyes, and his shoulders sagged.

"Widow Stormalong was killed last night," he said, all the fire out of his voice.

Yuna nearly jumped when she felt Ruthie’s hand squeeze at her elbow. Neither one of them said a thing.

Chick continued. "Thing is, the way she was opened up—" his gangly-fingered hand circled low in front of his stomach—"looked just like what happened to Henry Johannes." They all thought Johannes had been coyotes, but—

"A coyote couldn’t bite its way through giant flesh," Yuna said. Her neck ached as she tried to keep her voice steady.

"No kind of coyote would get near enough to try," Ruthie added.

"Which is why I’m here," the sheriff said. He looked skyward, running one hand over his head and sending some of his fine hairs standing up from the static. "I was wondering…well, Marcus, he knows how to put a body together, but…"

Ruthie squeezed again at Yuna’s elbow. Yuna gave her a weak smile to cut through the worry in her eyes. Marcus was an undertaker, not a doctor. There was only one of those in town.

"I’ll take a look," Yuna agreed, her voice nine times steadier than she actually felt.

"I’m helping," Ruthie piped in. Then Yuna only felt seven times unsteadier.

Henry Johannes had been the first victim they found, three days back. When she heard about it, though, Yuna felt worst for his poor wife, Wacéda.

"She comes in after a hard week on the cattle trail, just wanting to sit down to those griddle cakes Henry made so well, and she finds him…" Yuna shuddered and didn’t finish. She willed her fingers still while she re-corked the medicinals she and Ruthie had brought in from the garden.

"I just saw him yesterday," Ruthie said. "Gave him some of the new rhubarb for a pie he was fixing to make." She shook her head and added, "Gentle soul, that one."

Yuna raised her eyebrow and looked sidelong at Ruthie. "You sure you’re talking about Henry Johannes?"

Ruthie punched Yuna in the shoulder. "Hayashi Yuna, don’t you even think about talking ill of the dead," she chided.

"My pa used to tell me something from the old country: death don’t change who you were. It just keeps folks from talking about it."

Ruthie set her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and raised one black eyebrow. "That’s no old saying from nowhere," she said.

"But it’s true," Yuna returned with a sideways smile. Ruthie’s dark face split with a bright grin.

"Point taken," she said, though the smile fell as quickly as it had come. "Henry was a bit of a grump, but not so you minded, really. He certainly didn’t deserve what those coyotes did to him."

"Still don’t understand why they’d come in so close as that, anyhow," Yuna said.

There was a time when Yuna would have been over the moon at the chance to autopsy a giant. That thrill of discovery was what brought Ruthie and Yuna together in the first place, and what had inspired them to try raising a Seeder tree to find out just what made it tick. Ruthie was a brilliant botanist. Yuna had a gift for medicine. The two of them could take that seedling and ferret out its secrets. Maybe folks like Sheriff Lightle got prickly about it, but even Chick knew there wasn’t really anything wrong if it meant discovering something thrilling and new.

But this wasn’t university, and Widow Stormalong—Natalie—wasn’t a tree. Wasn’t just a body, even. She’d come by last week asking after herbs to help her sleep at night. Ruthie had to harvest a whole new batch of plants to get enough to do for Nat, given how much better giant bodies were at flushing toxins.

Now Nat was gone, and that made two victims. Nat proved it couldn’t just be coyotes or riled-up whimpuses whirling about. There was no joy in discovery now, but there also wasn’t any more avoiding it. Not if they wanted to stop more people dying.

When Yuna got inside, saw how low in the stomach the opening was—saw what was missing—she knew it could only be one thing.

"Hidebehind?" Chick asked, incredulous when Yuna suggested it.

"There were punctures on Nat’s forearm, but nothing eaten up around there. Suggests toxin of one stripe or other. I thought for a minute it might be some kind of snake, but…" Yuna shook her head. "You know of anything else that eats only intestines on a kill?" Yuna asked.

The color had bled from Chick’s face. Even Ruthie’s dark skin flushed a bit gray as it sunk in.

"They’re only supposed to eat but once every half-dozen years or so, ain’t they?" Chick asked with a nervous laugh. "Now this one’s gone and eaten not only twice, but took a giant-sized helping, besides?"

Yuna felt her own gaze turn cold with Chick’s pun. Ruthie filled the silence.

"What little we know about them’s twisted up in campfire stories, anyway, so who knows how big their bellies are?" Ruthie countered. "You said you found Nat under that Black Walnut tree she kept. Wacéda found Henry under their Pecan. That’s how they stalk, isn’t it? From behind trees. I mean, they’re called a hidebehind for a reason."

"That tree she found him under?" Ruthie had said, the day they first heard about Henry, "Wacéda bought that tree from me when they got hitched." Her voice was hollow. She glanced toward the garden and grove out back of Yuna’s house. Which was also their office.

"They got hitched!" came a voice from out back. It sounded more than a bit like Ruthie’s.

"Oh, don’t tell me that jackalope is back in the garden!" Yuna said. She grabbed up a broom and headed outside.

"Could be worse," Ruthie called over the stomping of Yuna’s boots. "Remember when that batch of splints came through? Smashed up half the grove."

"Hard to forget," Yuna groaned. "Powerful tough to break those noggins," she recalled.

"Break those noggins!" came the sound of Yuna’s own voice.

"I think it’s over here," Ruthie called.

"I think it’s over here," Ruthie called again from a slightly different direction, though she hadn’t actually moved.

"I think it’s over here," now, a third time and direction.

Yuna sighed.

"You need whiskey," called out a new voice. Yuna turned to see Wacéda looking on from the edge of the grove.

"I need a drink," Chick muttered, dragging Yuna back to the present. He looked back and forth from Yuna to Ruthie. He opened his mouth to say something more, but only shook his head.

"I…thank you kindly, ladies," he finally said. "Let me take you both home. Nobody ought to be going anywhere alone right about now."

Yuna looked to Ruthie and raised an eyebrow. Ruthie gave back a shallow shrug. Chick hadn’t been chivalrous in a long while. At least, not when he wasn’t by begging after slippery elm and peppermint oil for his heartburn. But with some critter around so fast that no one ever saw it until it jumped out and cut you open for supper, maybe now was a good time to bury a hatchet.

Yuna’s place was closest. Ruthie waited in the wagon while Chick walked her to the door. He grabbed Yuna’s elbow just before she opened it.

"Doc Hayashi, those trees Mrs. Eagleton mentioned," Chick said.

"What about 'em?"

"They both came from Mrs. Eagleton, didn’t they?"

"Yes," Yuna answered, not sure why the sheriff hadn’t asked Ruthie herself.

"And were they grafted with that Seeder tree?"

Yuna frowned. "No."

"You sure?"

Yuna sighed heavily. "Ruthie and I keep excellent records," she finally answered. "We have a log of every single graft. None of them have gone wandering, and why does any of this—?"

"You’re the scientist, Doc," he said. "You tell me: seem like a strange coincidence to you that the two trees that drew a hidebehind came from your grove?"

"Don’t be dim, Chick," Yuna shot back.

It was the sheriff’s turn to frown.

"Charlie," Yuna corrected before he untied the mad knot in his tongue. She twisted out of his grip and waved him back toward the wagon. "Just…get Ruthie home. I’m sure Abe’s worried sick about now."

Yuna stared out into the grove as the sun set, the sound of Chick’s wagon swallowed by the wind through the leaves as he took Ruthie home.

Yuna watched the leaves on the Seeder tree turn mustard, then glow fire-red as the light shot through them on its way to rest. Everybody knew there was something special in Seeder trees. Tinpots, for all you rarely saw them, were looking out for folk. Fruit made a body feel refreshed even with just a bite. There was plenty of evidence it helped folks heal powerful quick. Bark even acted as a repellent to some of the nastier critters that roamed the wilds. It seemed a perfect plan back in the day to find out just how the tinpots did it. That kind of thing could help a lot of folks. And maybe make a name for the ladies who figured it out.

But the tree never had fruited. It grew strong, even grafted all right, but not a single blossom drew the bees and other pollinators. They couldn’t figure out just what sort of magic the tinpots bound up in the tree. Yuna found herself wondering now: if this tree weren’t calling bees, if it was off-kilter from their meddling, could it be calling something else?

Yuna shook her head. Chick was an idiot. She wasn’t about to take science advice from a man who didn’t have the sense to keep his face out of a briar patch. She felt a touch sorry for Ruthie, stuck on a longer ride with him, but knew soon enough she’d be home to Abe.

Yuna smiled and shook her head. There was a time Ruthie had been a bit unsure about Abe; then again, Abe felt the same about Ruthie. But given they were both sweet on Yuna—and Yuna just wasn’t built to give either of them what they wanted in that regard, though she loved them both dearly—it seemed the best plan for everyone as far as Yuna was concerned. And the wedding bells had proved her right, now, hadn’t they?

Yuna set a kettle to boil. Then she went to light some lanterns as red turned purple turned moonlight gray outside.

With the jackalope chase abandoned at the interruption, for a moment Yuna hadn’t seen the widow Wacéda at the edge of the grove. She had the same strong, wide stance she always did. The blues and reds of her leggings were bright as usual, like the vermillion she used in the part of her long, black hair. Then Yuna saw the sag in her shoulders. Stray hairs clung in the mourning clay caked over her face. Clay that was dry and cracked, except for the streaks in it that spread out from under Wacéda’s eyes.

"Jackalopes love whiskey," Wacéda said after all three women had been standing around staring at each other for much too long.

"Wacéda," Yuna said, like it was a race to get the next word out. "I…oh, darling, come inside and get off your feet," she said. Ruthie was already running for the door.

"I’ll put on some tea," Ruthie called back.

"Pie," Wacéda said as the screen banged closed. Then it was just the two of them.

"Whiskey pie?" Yuna asked.

Wacéda smiled. It was thin, and ran away from the light as soon as it showed, but Yuna caught it. She walked over to the widow, took her shoulders in her hands, and squeezed just a little. Yuna wanted to hug her, but there surely was a pie in the woman’s hands.

"Rhubarb," Wacéda corrected. She held the pie out. "Henry made it, but it’ll go bad before I can eat again, and…" she bit her lip as she jabbed her chin toward the front door. "Ruthie shouldn’t make tea on my account. I can’t drink it anyhow."

Yuna nodded. She remembered how she had to calm Henry when Wacéda got news her brother passed. Four days fasting never hurt anybody, she assured him. He’d been about to argue when she tapped his belly and told him he could probably do with a day or two, himself. He’d stomped off like a schoolboy told he couldn’t go fishing on a Saturday morning.

"Ruthie makes tea every time the wind changes," Yuna said, slipping an arm into the crook of her visitor’s. "Lets her check my larder. Abe’s always eating the sweets out from under her, so she pays me back for introducing her and Abe by sneaking some of mine. If she wasn’t the one who cultivated the tea in the first place, I’d have to scold her for how much of it we pour out every day."

Wacéda looked down. It wasn’t a smile this time, but Yuna thought she felt her arm relax just a titch.

"Drink or no, it makes the place smell good, and good smells can be good for a body, so what say you and the pie come inside, and Ruthie and I’ll have tea while you tell us about jackalopes and whiskey?"

The tension came back when Yuna mentioned talking, but Wacéda shrugged.

"You’re the doctor," she muttered.

"So I am," Yuna said. She urged Wacéda toward the door. Though the widow dragged her feet a bit, she came along.

Yuna didn’t realize just how tense she’d gotten sifting through the past until the kettle whistled and she nearly smacked her head on the ceiling by jumping. She pulled the kettle off the stove and added leaves. This batch actually was from a graft with the Seeder tree. Didn’t work the kind of miracles Seeder fruit could, but as Yuna breathed in the scent a moment while it steeped, she felt some of her tension melt. Sometimes Ruthie’s tea-for-everything notions weren’t all wrong.

That didn’t stop Yuna from jumping again at the pounding on the door.

"Yuna?"

Yuna frowned and hurried to the door.

"Ruthie," she chided as she opened it. "You’re like to have scared me out of my—"

Yuna’s throat closed up as she caught sight of Ruthie. Candlelight flickered across her eyes, empty and haggard. She swayed a bit, holding herself, rubbing the dark, red stains on her hands into the calico of her blouse.

"Abe’s dead, Yuna," Ruthie said before Yuna could find her voice. She walked past Yuna. By the time Yuna had the sense to scramble after her, Ruthie was staring out the big back window, into the dark of the grove. Yuna stopped just inside the room when Ruthie spoke.

"I used to tease you," Ruthie said, looking out into the grove, "didn’t make sense to me how your door couldn’t swing either way, especially with a couple of catches like Abe and me around. But now…I think you know better than the rest of us. Can’t lose anybody, the way you are."

Yuna shook off the sting of the old talk. It didn’t matter right now. "Ruthie, are you all…is the sheriff with you?" she asked softly.

Ruthie laughed, but there was no mirth in it. It was a loud, braying thing that smacked against the walls, then fell to nothing as quick as it came.

"Dead, too," Ruthie said, her tone flat like she was just declaring the grass green.

"Lord, Ruthie," Yuna whispered. She started across the room, her stomach falling out inside her. "Hidebehind got both—?"

"I killed him," Ruthie said. Yuna’s legs locked up on her. "Stabbed him right in the eye, good and proper."

Yuna’s stomach came back with a knotted cramp. Her throat closed up again.

Seem like a strange coincidence to you that the two trees that drew a hidebehind came from your grove?

No.

Toxin of one stripe or another.

It wasn’t…no.

Gave him some of the new rhubarb…

She knew Ruthie. Knew her better than anyone.

Abe’s dead, Yuna.

Anyone still alive.

"Ruthie, I want you to remember how long you and me have been friends," Yuna croaked out. Words. That was good. Now if she could just make them sound like she wasn’t a body dried up in the desert.

"Seven years," Ruthie said, cocking her head as she watched the darkness outside. "About how long some folks say a hidebehind can go before it needs to feed each time. A body wonders: what’s a critter like that do in the meantime? Suppose it sleeps all that while, or does it just go docile? Turn friendly once it’s filled itself up?

"Hidebehind," Ruthie gave a soft chuckle when she said it this time. "Hell of a thing, isn’t it? So fast it can’t be seen, except by those poor folks it eats the insides out of."

"That’s how I understand it," Yuna said, rubbing her hands along her arms.

"Seems like scientists ought to have better logic than that," Ruthie said, shifting her weight. The moonlight quivered where it fell in the window, mixing with the shadows at play in the tight curls on the back of Ruthie’s head.

Yuna opened her mouth to answer, but all that came out was a squeak. She cleared her throat, swallowed, felt the lab table pressing into the small of her back as she realized she was leaning further away.

"You see the big flaw in that narrative, right?" Ruthie said, glancing back to Yuna for just a titch before staring back out into the grove.

Yuna just nodded, one hand sliding behind her, searching blindly on the surface of the table. She caught a glint of metal from something Ruthie was holding in front of her, at just the wrong angle to make out what contraption it might be.

Knife. You know it’s a knife.

"If the only people who ever see a hidebehind are its victims," Ruthie said. "How would anyone know what it looks like at all, let alone that it was a critter?"

Yuna saw the blade as Ruthie turned to face her. Ruthie’s eyes seemed drawn to it, to the silver marred by what must have been red, but in the moonlight just looked black as oil. The quiver of moonlight and shadow played on Ruthie’s face. Yuna’s hand closed around…to be honest, she didn’t know what, and didn’t trust herself to look away and find out.

"A jackalope can sound just like folk, so it’s not like nature doesn’t know how to make a good mimic. What if," Ruthie kept on, turning the blade loosely in her hand as she meandered across the room to Yuna, "the reason no one’s ever laid eyes on a critter that could be a hidebehind, is because they look just like folk?"

Yuna’s eyes felt hot. She itched on the crown of her head and behind the knees.

"Ruthie, please," Yuna whispered as Ruthie’s frown deepened. Ruthie stopped moving, her gaze slowly drifting up to meet Yuna’s. Everything looked empty behind her eyes.

Yuna didn’t wait for the flashing metal to move. She lashed out with what she’d grabbed. Pestle, it turned out as Yuna smacked Ruthie across the skull with it.

She ran as soon as she heard the crack of it, didn’t wait to see if Ruthie crumpled or changed. A hidebehind was faster than anything, but Yuna ran anyway.

The closest door outside was the one to the orchard. Yuna slammed it open and barreled into the moonlit night. She swerved between a row of ash trees, stumbled but didn’t fall when she snagged a sleeve on a mulberry branch. Then she caught sight of Chick, and nearly ran right into the shovel planted in the soft earth. She dodged just in time, then gaped at the sheriff.

Ruthie hadn’t lied: Yuna could see, in the slashes of moonlight falling through the leaves from the Seeder tree, the bloody hole where the sheriff’s left eye ought to be. But there the man stood, otherwise looking right as anything. He even smiled.

"Charlie…Ruthie, she’s…lord are you all right?"

"I’m tougher than you gals give me credit for," Chick said, swaggering up to Yuna. He jabbed his sharp nose back toward the house. "Ruthie’s back up there, then?"

Yuna nodded. "I must have knocked her out, or else she’d already be on me. God, Charlie, how are you even upright?"

Chick laughed and shook his head. Yuna’s cheeks throbbed with her pulse.

"Listen to me, Charlie," Yuna insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders. "I think you’re in shock, or maybe Ruthie slipped you something, like Henry Johannes' rhubarb or whatever paralytic she used on Nat. Ruthie’d know the right plants. But this won’t last. We need to treat this before you bleed out or…ow!"

Yuna yanked her hands off the sheriff’s shoulders as something sharp dug into her palms.

The sheriff cocked his head and smiled. Yuna felt a chill as she saw the tiny cuts on her hands, looked back to see something spiky on his shoulders. Another something started wiggling behind the wound in his eye.

"That Ruthie, she’s a quick thinker," Chick said. "Year or so ago, when there was still enough left inside this one, it might have killed him, that stab to the brain. Hell, you ever really took a look at his bellyache, that might have stopped me even sooner."

Yuna felt her own belly knot as a vine started snaking out of the bloody wound where Chick’s eye used to be. Thorns along its length opened the wound wider.

"Now? Not much of anything can hurt me."

"Charlie, don’t do this," Yuna said, taking a few steps back.

"Don’t do this," Yuna’s voice called again, somewhere behind the sheriff. He turned to look to the other voice long enough for Yuna to get her hands around the shovel. She smacked him across the face with it as he turned back.

Chick stumbled. Yuna hit him again. And again. She tried not to listen to the wet, heavy thunk as she smashed the shovel into his head, sent him reeling back. He reached out to steady himself. Though he’d made nearly no noise before, the sheriff screamed as his hand grabbed the bark of the Seeder tree for support. The tree, for its part, seemed to shudder at the touch.

Chick tried to pull away, but his hand might as well have been stuck with hot tar. He yanked and shrieked, the thorny vine twisting in the air where it peeked out from his eye. The briar vine ripped back inside Chick, and the sheriff’s whole body seemed to ripple.

He stopped screaming. Stopped making any noise a body who talked ought to make. There were just more wet, tearing noises. Yuna dropped the shovel, numb as she watched the ends of Charlie Lightle start to fall in on themselves. His hands and feet went flat as a child’s balloon once it’s popped. His face—what was left of it—shriveled. Legs and arms and knees and elbows were nothing but a wrinkled sack of skin collapsing.

His middle, though, swelled and writhed as whatever it was inside him pulled itself tight and close. Then it ripped through, about where the bottom half of Chick’s belly used to be. The vine wriggled its way out of the opening it made with its wicked thorns. Grew its way out of the skin sack. It coiled on the ground, a wild, nasty heap of bramble that pulsed in the play of moonlight through leaves.

When Yuna’s knees gave out, she realized it wasn’t shock numbing her. She looked down, to the punctures on her hands, and remembered the same shape to the ones on Nat.

The thorn vine started to rise up, taller than Chick stood, the top end swaying, then bending toward Yuna. A stupid little piece of briar, hiding behind the sheriff’s face. Now it wanted Yuna’s, and she could barely keep herself upright.

"Jonni grow!" called Ruthie’s voice, but Yuna knew the jackalope wouldn’t distract the thing a second time, whether it called out Seeder blessings or some other nonsense.

"I said jonni grow you overgrown weed!" Ruthie yelled, grabbing the base of the bramble with her gardening gloves and shoving it against the trunk of the Seeder tree.

The vine shot forward. Yuna couldn’t even bring her arms up, though thorns that cut giant flesh would have shredded her own easy enough, anyway.

But the vine stopped short of her, whipped itself straight up, then slammed into the ground. And again. Thrashed about, full of all the strength that must have taken Henry, Natalie, Chick…Charlie. Back and forth, whipping and writhing, but there wasn’t a body to leave behind this time. Thorns stuck in the bark of the Seeder tree well and good, and as Ruthie ran into Yuna’s fuzzy view to drag her backward, the tree wasn’t letting go.

Ruthie poured something warm in Yuna’s mouth. It burned on the way down, but worked quickly. The edges of Yuna’s vision came back.

"Saw what happened when he touched the tree," Ruthie said. "Figured had to hurt even more without skin between it and—"

The feeling now back in her arms, Yuna hugged Ruthie close. Ruthie hugged her back, and Yuna felt the catch in her throat open up again.

They sat there, propping each other up, until the hidebehind stopped convulsing. They held on as it withered and shrank to a tiny string of nothing. Neither one of them could breathe properly until the hidebehind crumbled into dust and blew away.

"And it won’t…Henry won’t…?" Wacéda asked. It was the day after the hidebehind met the tree. Wacéda’s mourning mud was washed away, though Ruthie was in her own black, now. She wouldn’t talk about Abe, wanted to focus on cleaning up the mess and the trouble. Yuna thought it better she faced what was gone. But then, Yuna wasn’t nearly as convinced she had the best ideas any more.

There was tea, because Ruthie figured no widow should hear this story if she couldn’t have tea to calm her nerves. Yuna’s contribution was the whiskey mixed in each cup.

Yuna shook her head. "When it took the sheriff, it left him alive," she said. "Far’s we can tell, when it went after Henry, it wasn’t after a new skin—"

"—host," Ruthie offered the softer word. Yuna nodded.

Wacéda knelt by the small mound of fresh earth, though she didn’t touch it. They’d buried what was left of Charlie near the tree. Just in case. Ruthie squeezed Yuna’s elbow. Yuna placed her hand over Ruthie’s.

Wacéda stood, glancing up at the branches. Then she frowned. "That’s new, isn’t it?"

"What?" Yuna and Ruthie asked in unison. They didn’t need to look to each other to feel a joint panic that the hidebehind might not have all shriveled. One of the teacups tipped over, but neither lady bothered with it until they could see.

"There," Wacéda said, pointing to one of the lower branches. Yuna shaded her eyes and caught sight of it just as she heard Ruthie’s gasp.

"Blossom buds," Ruthie said.

"Well, I never," Yuna added.

"Never!" called another Yuna voice close behind them. All three women whipped around, where a four point jackalope cocked its head at them a moment, then went back to lapping up the tea mixed with whiskey where it had spilled.