Eclipse one: new science fiction and fantasy by Jonathan Strahan

Author:Jonathan Strahan [Strahan, Jonathan]
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, General, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Fantasy, Science fiction; American, Short Stories, Comics & Graphic Novels, Science fiction; Australian, Science Fiction - Short Stories, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Short stories; American, Science fiction; English, Fantasy - Short Stories, Fantasy fiction; American, Anthologies (non-poetry), Short Story, Fantasy - Anthologies, Science Fiction - Anthologies, Fantasy fiction; English, Novels; other prose & writers, Fantasy fiction; Australian
ISBN: 9781597801171
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : Night Shade Books, c2007.
Published: 2007-10-14T23:00:00+00:00

"Eleanor Araxia Bagaybagayan.

Born: 24 February 1907

Died: 24 February 1907.

Length: 13½ inches.

Weight: 5 lbs, 9 oz.

We planned to call her Anoush."

Below that, there was a space, and then the precise writing gave way to a strange scrawl: clearly the same hand, but looking somehow shrunken and warped, as though the words had been left out in the rain. The rabbi squinted at it over his glasses, and went on reading:

" She has been dead for years—she never lived —how can she be invading my pictures? I take a shot of men coming to work at a factory—when I develop it, there she is, a little girl eating an apple, watching the men go by. I photograph a train—she has her nose against a window in the sleeping car. It is her, I know her, how could I not know her? When I take pictures of young women at outdoor dinner parties—"

"That's your magazine cover!" I interrupted. My voice sounded so loud in the hushed room that I was suddenly embarrassed, and shrank back into the couch where I was sitting with Sheila Olsen. She patted my arm, and the rabbi said patiently, "Yes, Joseph." He continued:

" —I see her sitting among them, grown now, as she was never given the chance to be. Child or adult, she always knows me, and she knows that I know her. She is never the focal point of the shot; she prefers to place herself at the edge, in the background, to watch me at my work, to be some small part of it, nothing more. She will not speak to me, nor can I ever get close to her; she fades when I try. I would think of her as a hallucination, but since when can you photograph a hallucination? "

The rabbi stopped reading again, and he and Sheila Olsen looked at each other without speaking. Then he looked at me and said, somewhat hesitantly, "This next part is a little terrible, Joseph. I don't know whether your parents would want you to hear it."

"If I'm old enough to be Bar Mitzvah," I said, "I'm old enough to hear about a baby who died. I'm staying."

Sheila Olsen chuckled hoarsely. "One for the kid, Rabbi." She gestured with her open hand. "Go on." Rabbi Tuvim nodded. He took a deep breath.

" She was born with her eyes open. Such blue eyes, almost lavender. I closed them before my wife had a chance to see. But I saw her eyes. I would know her eyes anywhere. . . is it her ghost haunting my photographs? Can one be a ghost if one never drew breath in this world? I do not know—but it is her, it is her. Somehow, it is our Anoush. " Nobody said anything for a long time after he had finished reading. The rabbi blew his nose and polished his glasses, and Sheila Olsen opened her mouth and then closed it again. I had all kinds of things I wanted to say,

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