A Gift of Fantasy

By Mary Beth Bass

Short Story Anthology

IN THE PLACE WHERE SHE FELL
Mary Beth Bass

THE SHOPGIRL AND THE VAMPIRE
Ciar Cullen

DRAGONSTONE
Paula Millhouse

LINGER IN THE ECHO
Josh Sinason

A MATTER OF THE MIND
Kent DuFault

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781941260739

Book preview

A GIFT OF FANTASY

Short Story Anthology

IN THE PLACE WHERE SHE FELL

Mary Beth Bass

THE SHOPGIRL AND THE VAMPIRE

Ciar Cullen

DRAGONSTONE

Paula Millhouse

LINGER IN THE ECHO

Josh Sinason

A MATTER OF THE MIND

Kent DuFault

www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

Smashwords Edition

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

IN THE PLACE WHERE SHE FELL

Copyright 2014 Mary Beth Bass

THE SHOPGIRL AND THE VAMPIRE

Copyright 2012 Ciar Cullen

DRAGONSTONE

Copyright 2013 Paula Millhouse

LINGER IN THE ECHO

Copyright 2013 Josh Sinason

A MATTER OF THE MIND

Copyright 2012 Bellakentucky

All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

ISBN 978-1-941260-73-9

CONTENTS

IN THE PLACE WHERE SHE FELL

THE SHOPGIRL AND THE VAMPIRE

DRAGONSTONE

LINGER IN THE ECHO

A MATTER OF THE MIND

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A GIFT OF FANTASY

IN THE PLACE WHERE SHE FELL

Mary Beth Bass

The end

When she first got here she dreamt of him, of both of them, every night. She woke up screaming on the street, or under the bridge that crossed the river in the place where no flowers grew. People shook her or kicked her until she quieted. At the river they threw water on her head until she stopped screaming. She’d learned to be quiet since then. Now she hardly dreamt of him at all. Or the boy. But her heart still swelled past the point when it should have broken whenever they came into her thoughts.

The woman who owned the restaurant died. Sometime earlier, she didn’t know how long, the woman had taken her hand and in front of witnesses placed a writing instrument in her fingers and guided her into scrawling words in the language she’d never understand. The paper meant she’d always have a job and a safe place to live in a little house behind the restaurant.

It had been so long since she’d spoken, she’d forgotten the sound of her own voice. She forgot the sounds that made the words she used to know. She didn’t remember her name. But she never forgot his face.

She’d tried to. When she’d been here not very long but long enough to know she was never going back she’d tried to burn his face, and the feel of his hands, and the scent of his skin, and the music of his voice, from her memory.

The first time it rained here it was so early in the morning that even though she was sleeping outside she could make herself forget where she was and pretend for a moment she was where she wanted to be. He’d kissed her in the rain once. Before they were married, before the boy was born, before she’d disappeared, he kissed her in the rain.

She remembered the water falling between her shirt and her back, chilling her skin and her breasts. He’d led her to the shelter of an awning. It was after midnight and the store that sold teapots and baked goods was closed. Water poured into her ears and her eyes, and her mouth pressed against his. They were both shaking from the cold—he less than she; his tall, strong body held on to the heat longer than hers did. She’d watched him lower his gaze to her breasts almost visible underneath her wet shirt. He grazed his hand over her nipples and she gasped, trembling and laughing in the cold and the rain. He bent down. She watched sheets of water cover his shaved head, making it look like a clear shallow ocean lived between the map-like shadows of his hairline. She stroked his neck and cried out when his hot mouth covered her cold wet breast. He sucked hard on her nipple and played with her with his tongue until she forgot they were on the street, forgot it was raining, forgot everything but his mouth on her breast. When he plunged his hand into her pants and slid a warm finger inside her she came so hard she couldn’t stand.

That morning—the first time it rained here, after she’d fallen and could never go back—that morning the rain on her face made her think of him, and afterward she never tried to forget his face or the sound of his voice or the feel of his hands again.

This morning, today, it wasn’t raining, although the sky was grey and heavy. The restaurant was closed for a holiday she didn’t understand the origins of, so she walked along the river, careful always to avoid anything that reminded her too dearly of the place she’d been before she fell. She’d forgotten and let go of a lot, but she hadn’t forgotten everything. And sometimes still, even though the length of time she’d been here was too long for counting, sometimes she’d forget to be careful. And a street corner, a store window, an almond tree, would be so familiar her heart stopped for a second.

Today, this morning, right now, the sun fought to break through the clouds. She was walking along the river to the stone bridge where dove-grey birds waited for people to feed them bread or seeds or crunchy fried discs from plastic bags. Two children, a boy and a girl, were running between the birds trying to catch one. Their mothers stood at a safe distance for watching, talking and laughing. The sound of the voices and the language she’d never comprehend had stopped bothering her. She didn’t know how she’d feel if someone spoke to her in the words she used to know. Would she even understand?

The little girl ran too far after a bird, her mother following quickly. She walked behind the pair, slowly enough that she saw the young man after they did.

He was on his hands and knees at the foot of the bridge, breathing heavily, his gaze on the stone path. He picked up his head and addressed the mother and her daughter. The mother pulled the little girl away from him. He stood up and started after them, saying something. The mother and the little girl ran past, whispering some kind of warning in their rushing water voices.

She turned her head to watch them go. The young man’s voice sounded loud and close and desperate in her ear. He grabbed her shoulders with both hands and said something again and again, shaking her shoulders, begging her to understand him.

His language was not formed of sounds like roaring, rushing water. There were openings and closings. Flat shapes, sudden stops, round broad notes. His eyes were wild as he repeated the last string of noises she knew had to be words.

When he realized she didn’t understand him, he dropped his head, let go of her arms and walked away.

* * *

Navigation and negotiating

Pretending to be mute and illiterate she’d gotten a job cleaning fish and shrimp, and cutting vegetables for a restaurant that catered to families and elderly people. It was near the water, a wide blue river that split the city in half. At one time the long belt of water and mud separated the moneyed classes from the poor, but now the rich clung jealously to both banks of the river, nestled in perfect symmetrical houses constructed of good, clean materials, and ringed with dense gardens that never showed a weed or flashed an indecent color.

When she was seventeen, before she fell, she snuck down to the river to meet him after her parents were in bed. Decades before she was born, funds were donated by a woman who was older then than she’d ever be; funds for dozens of terraced beds filled with flowers, both wild and cultivated, as a publicly private apology for her intemperate youth—or maybe in joyful memory of that now sleeping slice of time. These riotously colorful beds were separated by neat brick paths lined with low, fragrant thyme and chamomile, and she’d lost her virginity in the shade of two long beds stuffed with blue and purple bearded irises. For years afterward he bought her bunches of irises on her birthday, and sometimes for no reason at all and the only reason that mattered. She now never went near that part of the river. If the iris beds were there, here in this place, too, she didn’t want to see them.

She must have reminded the brown-haired woman who owned the restaurant of someone now lost. Sometimes she caught the woman openly staring at her, and once the woman stroked her cheek, murmuring something in that noise-language, sounds so much like almost-recognizable words that she’d cried. The woman hugged her and she hugged the woman back. It never happened again.

One day, after she’d worked at the restaurant for more time than she could account for, the man with wild eyebrows who made the sauces dropped a basket of dirty mushrooms in front of her. She bent over to get the vegetable brush and felt his hands on her ass. For the briefest moment she held herself perfectly still, for the briefest moment pretending that the huge rough hands belonged to someone else. But they didn’t.

She stood up and turned around. She knew better than to speak. Not that anyone who knew her was afraid of her anymore, but never being able to make herself understood was so frustrating she often ended up crying. Once she’d been taken to a hospital.

She put her hands on the man’s chest and shoved him away. He held her hands to his soft flesh and laughed, surprised she didn’t want him. He made sounds with his mouth. She didn’t understand precisely what he said, but she thought he was implying that she couldn’t do better than him. She was lucky, he seemed to think. She should kneel and be grateful, he indicated in a mocking gesture, followed by a cruder unmistakable suggestion. She took off her apron and walked out.

She lived on the top floor of an abandoned building inhabited by drug addicts and people whose problems she didn’t understand the exact nature of but could empathize with nonetheless. She brought them food from the restaurant and they left her alone, although she slept with a knife she’d stolen from the kitchen when no one was looking. Now that she’d left her job she didn’t know if they’d let her continue to stay for nothing in return.

Halfway to her building she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, roaring in a language only she understood. The woman who owned the restaurant stepped back, frightened by the sound of her voice, so she lowered her head to apologize for the scare. The woman couldn’t bear to hear her speak. The woman had almost made her quit at the beginning because she kept trying to talk, desperate that someone would eventually understand her.

She raised her head. The woman touched her face, then took her hand and tried to lead her back to the restaurant. She shook her head and wouldn’t move. The woman turned away with an expression of frustration then turned back, her brown eyes lit with inspiration. Making sure she was watching, the woman grabbed her own fleshy buttocks then viciously smacked her own hand, glaring furiously at it as if it belonged to someone else. She did it again and then twice more. Nodding her head decisively, the woman then walked slowly backwards toward the neighborhood where the restaurant was near the flower-cloaked river.

Would the woman take her side against the grabby man with wild eyebrows who made the sauces? He’d been at the restaurant longer. His job was more important than hers. Anyone could do what she did; anyone could cut vegetables and clean fish and shrimp. She crossed her arms over her chest, unsure of what to think. Could she trust the woman to take her side against the man’s?

The woman came back and stroked her cheek once with a soft, warm hand then pulled a locket from underneath her bright blue shirt. For a long moment the woman gazed at the locket like she didn’t want to open it. Smiling sadly up at her for a second, the woman clicked open the silver, egg-shaped disc. The image was of a sweet-faced teenage girl, her coloring the same ruddy mix of pink skin and woolly brown hair as the woman who sighed, her eyes fixed to the face in the picture.

She picked up the woman’s hand and squeezed it. The woman patted her cheek, and she realized that since she looked nothing like this lost daughter she must act like her in some way. Maybe it was her quietness. Or her methodic movements when she cut the vegetables and cleaned the shrimp. Maybe it was the way she tucked her hair behind her ear. Whatever it was, having her around made this woman happy…which made her happy, too. Happier, at least. And maybe it explained why the woman would take her side against the man in her restaurant.

She smiled at the mother whose daughter was lost and gently touched the smiling face in the small picture, then started walking back to the restaurant. She could handle Grabby Eyebrows by herself. If he came near her again, she’d do more than push him away.

She almost fell when the woman took her hand and tugged her back. The woman’s face was different now. No longer guarded or worried about not being understood, the woman pulled her close. The woman whispered something in that wet incoherent voice then slid the first image up to reveal a second, older picture underneath. It was the same face as the first, but at around four years old, smiling, smiling, smiling into the camera.

She took the tiny picture from the woman and stared at it, stared at the child, uselessly, feverously, willing it to be another face. Just for a second. Just a second. She wanted to see his little face for just a second. Just once. Just once more.

The woman kissed her cheek, and she sobbed into the woman’s soft, warm shoulder.

* * *

The shock of landing

She was still in front of her building. She hadn’t fallen at all. The almond tree growing up from the basement apartment patio was as pink and frothy as it was when she’d come outside to go for a run before the family woke up. The smell of coffee and turkey bacon was still drifting out of the first-floor window where the couple with the sassy French bulldog lived. The jagged crack where the guy from 32A dropped his refrigerator still snaked across the middle step. Whatever the fuck had happened, it was over. She’d blacked out. Or something.