The Book of Apex: Volume 3 of Apex Magazine by Catherynne M. Valente

Author:Catherynne M. Valente
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Apex magazine, anthology, fantasy, short story, science fiction, horror, Catherynne M Valente
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2012-06-16T18:06:04+00:00

LEWIS READ TO THE CHILDREN EVERY Tuesday and Thursday. He continued to be inexplicably late. He couldn’t be reading to children for five hours.

Might he be dating someone?

Imagine if someone else took him on, drove him from place to place, paid for the medicine that kept him alive for the perhaps-four-years (but who knew what might happen, how that statistic might stretch with medical advances) he had left. It would be as sudden, as welcome as a fairy godmother’s wish granting, removing the responsibility for Lewis from her life.

What would it be like if someone else—perhaps a nurse with excellent health insurance, prone to wounded bird sorts—took that on?

Extracting the hospital newsletter from the mail one morning, she’d looked through the list of classes and discussion groups: Social Networking for Seniors; Health Insurance Basics; Applying for Disability Benefits; Journaling for Beginners; Intensive Journaling; Extreme Journaling, Alcoholics Anonymous; Sexoholics Anonymous; Netheads Anonymous; Strength Training and You; Ornithology for Your Window Feeder; How to Live Without Salt; You and Your Colon; Learning to Trust Doctors; Making a Living Will; Vegan Cooking.

Practical Shamanism.

She’d smelled sage and lavender wafting from his room. New habits: an odd gesture with his hands before and after eating, a phrase said under his breath. A scuttle of unintelligible words, like a tinny echo of a prayer in foreign movie. Sitting by himself, staring at plants in the garden.

What could it be other than Practical Shamanism?

She stuffed the brochure in the recycling bin as though it might tip him off that she’d been snooping. Give him something new to reproach her with.

She didn’t want to ask him directly. She wasn’t sure what to make of the concept of shamanism, or even where it fit into the world of the New Agey.

What else could she do but search on the Internet, making mental notes, bookmarking as she hopped from page to page?

A range of beliefs. Tarot and divinatory dreams. The healing properties of tourmaline and snowflake obsidian. The ability to enter other dimensions. Healers and renders of the soul, one website read. Animal or spirit guides.

She pushed her chair back and stretched. Wondered which of her characters would be her spirit guide. She loved them all. Maybe Mrs. Mountebank and the Whistling Gypsy a trifle more. Only a trifle. And they weren’t animals.

What was Lewis’ spirit guide? A snake, a wasp? Something more terrifying? She could not imagine it being benign.

But Lewis seemed happier, less snappy. Perhaps she could relax. Never entirely, though. She’d been ambushed too often.

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