Palimpsest by Valente Catherynne M

Author:Valente, Catherynne M. [Valente, Catherynne M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bookbinders, Erotic stories, Fantasy Fiction, Locksmiths, Girls, Contemporary, Fiction, Urban Life, Fantasy, Erotic Fiction, SteamPunk, General, Beekeepers
ISBN: 9780553385762
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Plenitude caresses her cheek with a bold stroke.

Sei moans and falls into the Rail’s arms. The long-faced woman wraps her kimono around the girl and holds her tenderly, sweetly, with infinite care.

ONE

THE RABBIT IN THE MOON

Sei woke sobbing in a strange apartment, her hair plastered to her face, clawing at her shoulder. Yumiko did not hold her. She just watched, calm as a teacher watching a slow student struggle through a simple passage.

“It’s always hard to wake up,” she said.

Sei clutched her, her eyes rolling and wild as a dog’s. “I need—”

“To go back? Yes. I know. Do you think I’m different than you?”

Sei could not breathe. Her body ached, her joints, her lungs. “Take me back, take me to someone, anyone, I don’t care, just . . . the train, I can’t leave them, they want me there, I have to go back!” She groaned. “God, let me go back to sleep!”

“You have to wait. The Floor of Heaven opens at dusk. I sympathize, I really do, but I’ve been where you are now, and I had to wait, too.” She put her arm around Sei’s naked waist. “There’s a tenor there, at a place called Thulium House. He gives me sapphires every night; he pierces my arms with a long needle and hangs me with jewels until I cannot move for the weight. He puts opals on my eyelids, and kisses on my lips until I am bruised with him, and all over blue. Do you think I don’t miss him?”

“There is a train, full of strange fields and forests . . . ”

“I envy you.”

“They need me!”

Yumiko put her head to one side. “Have they said what for?”

“No . . .”

“Then it can’t be good. Don’t be in such a rush.”

Yumiko rose and began the rustling, habitual motion of making tea. Sei realized that this must be Yumiko’s place. The walls were bare; she had a bed and a table and nothing else. The apartment looked like someone has just moved in, or expected to move out soon.

“My mother told me once,” said Sei softly, to Yumiko’s back, “when I was little, she told me that dreams are small tigers that live behind your ears, and they wait until you’re sleeping to leap out and tear at your soul, to eat it up at very civilized suppers to which no other cats are invited.”

Yumiko quirked an eyebrow. “Was your mother, if it’s not impolite, totally crazy? I mean, that’s not really a working theory of the subconscious.”

Sei shrugged. “Back then, I just thought she was wild and beautiful, like a goose, and like a goose she flew at me in a rage sometimes, and bit my toes. And sometimes when I came to see her in our tatami room her kimono would be torn to pieces, and she’d be naked and bleeding on the floor, her own skin under her nails. She was bleeding like that when she told me about the tigers. So I guess she

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