Apex Magazine December 2010 Issue 19 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: apex magazine, apex publications, apex book company
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2010-12-04T15:51:19.909000+00:00

“Vickie. Vickie, open your eyes.”

Light, the color of blood. Sound, like sand in his ears. Quill tried to speak, found himself convulsively swallowing water as soon as he opened his mouth. At least it was sweet and fresh, and did not taste of salt and death. When the glass touched his lips again, he shook his head. The red light shifted. The glass went away.

“Are you awake? At last?”

The voice rode roughshod over his feeble attempts to explain.

“What maggot ate your brains? Taking a boat, a little boat -- not even your boat, Vickie! -- Out there -- all alone -- after such a storm! Vickie, you chowderhead! You are lucky to be alive! You are lucky you washed up at all, and were found, and found by good folk and not… opportunists… like yourself!”

The voice, less sandy now and more familiar, squawked like a tame magpie.

“I was on that Island, with the dead,” he said.

The strident voice stuttered to silence.

“She wanted to eat me. He wanted my thighbone for his flute.”

“Who?”

“They were -- like us.”

“Who!”

“Drowned.” Quill shifted on his pillow. He was thirsty again, but everywhere, as if his body were one parched throat. His sister’s hair was too red; it scraped his crusty eyes. “You would have understood her, Babs. You would’ve… done better.”

“Hush, Vickie,” said his sister, more gently, mollified. “You did all right. You came back.”

Quill must have made some involuntary sign of dissent, for Babs placed her hand on his head. Quill could feel the shape of it blossom inside his skull. A good hand. A bit blunt, large-knuckled, dry, with calluses from needlework, riding horses without gloves, handling oars in the sticky deeps of summer. Like his. Like his own. He groped for it, found it restless near his hair, pressed hard.

He tasted salt on his lips. One splash, then another, coming from above.

Babs had been right -- all women carried the sea. Where they walked, so would the undine. Where they dwelled, so would the Island. And Quill would always live among them, skinless, nerves naked to the storm and the salt and the song on the wind.

“Don’t let her take me back. Don’t let her take me down.”

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