Kij Johnson by Myths

Author:Myths
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It was good with the Myth Girls. They cut my hand to make me part of the gang, and then gave me my own long coat and sewed the first pieces on. I didn’t know anything about living Underground, but Maniac and the others helped me and got me medicine and took care of me. Lyre took me out teasing bums until Maniac chewed her out for taking me along on something so dangerous. Spider wanted to teach me to pick pockets, but Maniac said I didn’t have to do that. I fell into a trance almost every time we Told, and she said that was hard enough work.

I’d been with the Myth Girls a couple of months when a woman came to us. She was thirty, dressed Corp but poor, like she was from uplevel maybe doing some drudgy little job to pay for a single room and maybe to feed a cat. Her black eyes were very big, and she was sweating, rubbing her palms dry on her jacket. She was scared but determined, needing magic. I felt bad for the ones like her, and there were a lot of them: there is no magic, not like she wanted, anyway, to make everything happy and easy. But she had the money, and she had a question. Myth Girls don’t say no.

People drifted towards us as we danced shouting through the Tunnels — a half-dozen, then a dozen more, until we had a crowd. They always gather. It’s the horror of seeing a knife-victim bleeding on the street: you’re afraid, but you can’t resist. Even knowing it could be you.

I was spinning like a dervish, spiraling into my trance: even here, half lost, the Myth Girls whirling around me made me happy. I belonged here, with my friends, in the eye of this storm.

I raised my arms — they’d taught me a lot of gestures like this, to make it interesting. Maniac caught the corp-woman’s hand and held it palm-up, shiny with sweat. The woman whimpered, but I cut her anyway, saw the blood, and closed my eyes.

I can’t tell you a Myth without Telling. It’s the chant and the song and the dance and the words, all together. Without the Telling, it just sounds like bits of old fairy tales, jumbled up with hearsay and vids and Tunnel-smarts. But it’s the truth that’s Told. If it comes out different every time, it’s because you’re different every time you ask.

While I Told, the rest of the Girls would swarm through the crowd, quick as rats. They’d take packages and tokens, anything that might not be noticed right away.

Afterwards, the Girls clustered around.

“Nice work, fod.” Lyre handed me back my colors. I pulled the coat on, feeling it stick to my sweaty back and arms. I felt cold, tired, light-headed, a little sad, like always afterward.

“I did all right?”

Maniac danced from foot to foot. “Yeah.” She touched my shoulder, already turning away to lean over Spider’s shoulder. “What’s the take?”

Hey,” Lyre hissed, and gestured with her head toward the shadows along the Tunnel’s wall.

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