Asimov's SF, October-November 2005 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T14:01:01+00:00

Copyright (c) 2005 by Phillip C. Jennings.

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Dark Flowers, Inverse Moon by Jay Lake

A Novelette

Jay Lake’s first novel, Rocket Science, is now available from Fairwood Press. The author publishes short fiction regularly in major markets worldwide and lives in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached through his Web site at www.jlake.com. Jay’s most recent story for us, “Martyrs’ Carnival,” appeared in our June issue.

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“There are only two paths to magic.” Speaking from the borrowed pulpit of the tiny Episcopal church, Germaine Templar smiled beatifically. Her dark face was obscured to toothy shadow by the hood of her white aba. “One leads through the bright moonlight and the other through the dark of night.”

Bullshit, thought Sally, lurking in a pew near the back, only a few scattered heads between her and the speaker. There’s a million ways to get things done. Unfortunately, you only get to do one of them. And you’re lucky if you get that much.

Sally had come here for the same reason she went to so many lectures and meetings—seeking a path to lead her out of the thicket of Skill and loss in which she had been trapped for too long.

“You can reach deep inside your heart,” the other woman continued, “to what the ancients called the omphalos, the navel of the world. Standing in that place, you can see both paths.”

Sally’s mouth crinkled. If this Templar had the Skill her words hinted at, the real magic of the everyday world, the Colors of Sally’s thoughts and mood would be a shout in the dusty church. But Sally didn’t believe in this woman. She hadn’t believed in anyone or anything in the four years since that night in California when Skilled had died during her Bringing, staining her own new-Brought Skill. Sally slipped from the pew and walked quietly out into the vestibule. The lecture was just another New Age fraud and she was hungry for barbecue.

* * * *

The sauce wasn’t the greatest, but the smooth, smokey flavor of the beef brisket lay across the grain of the meat like butter on toast. Sally especially loved the crunchy outer shell of the end pieces, where the tang of salt and fat mixed with the crackle of burnt meat. And nothing beat the mouthwatering smell of barbecue.

Everybody from Texas Monthly to The New Yorker raved about Black’s and Kreuz’s in Lockhart as two of the best barbecue joints in Texas, but for Sally’s money, Chisholm Trail down Highway 183 at the other end of town was just as good as either of them, with half the hassle and a quarter the price.

The place resembled a down-at-the-heels Elks’ Hall, paneled walls hung with hunting trophies and old newspaper clippings. The service was about to the level of a high school cafeteria but the sausage and brisket excelled. Who cared whether they could make a decent potato salad? Sally was pretty sure the cook was Skilled, had come to the meat recipes that way.

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