Apex Magazine Issue 71

By Jason Sizemore and Sigrid Ellis

Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
FICTION:
Beatification of the Second Fall — Sean Robinson
Silver Buttons All Down His Back — AC Wise
Crow — Octavia Cade
Wind — Naomi Kritzer
Slow — Lia Swope Mitchell
This Thing of Darkness — Yzabel Ginsberg (eBook/Subscriber exclusive)

NONFICTION:
Words from the Editor-in-Chief — Jason Sizemore
Interview with AC Wise — Andrea Johnson
Interview with Cover Artist Adrian Borda— Russell Dickerson
Clavis Aurea: A Review of Short Fiction — Charlotte Ashley
Never Enough Farmers! Class and Writing Fantasy Novels — Jennie Goloboy

POETRY:
The Multiple Lives of Juan and Pedro — Isabel Yap
there must be a surefire way to separate the ravens from the crows— Keith S. Wilson

Cover art by Adrian Borda.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Book Company
• Release date: Apr 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310771095

Jason Sizemore

Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

Book preview

Apex Magazine

Issue 71, April 2015

Edited by Jason Sizemore & Sigrid Ellis

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Editorial

Words from the Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

Fiction

Beatification of the Second Fall—Sean Robinson

Silver Buttons All Down His Back—AC Wise

Crow—Octavia Cade

Wind—Naomi Kritzer

Slow—Lia Swope Mitchell

This Thing of Darkness—Yzabel Ginsberg

Nonfiction

Never Enough Farmers! Class and Writing Fantasy Novels—Jennie Goloboy

Interview with AC Wise—Andrea Johnson

Interview with Adrian Borda—Russell Dickerson

Clavis Aurea: Review of Short Fiction—Charlotte Ashley

Poetry

The Multiple Lives of Juan and Pedro—Isabel Yap

there must be a surefire way to separate the ravens from the crows—Keith S. Wilson

Words from the Editor-in-Chief

Jason Sizemore

Welcome to Apex Magazine issue 71!

This month we have several stories that highlight the consequences of hard decisions. This is one of my favorite themes and I’m delighted to bring these stories to you. Counted among our fiction contributors this month are Sean Robinson, AC Wise, Octavia Cade, Naomi Kritzer, Lia Swope Mitchell, and Yzabel Ginsberg.

Our nonfiction offerings this month come from agent Jennie Goloboy as she writes about some of the common problems she finds in fantasy fiction (writers pay attention!). Andrea Johnson interviews the talented AC Wise, while Russell Dickerson talks to cover artist Adrian Borda about his unique creations.

Poetry editor Bianca Spriggs has selected two outstanding pieces for us this month from Isabel Yap and Keith S. Wilson.

On June 20th, Apex Publications will be celebrating its tenth birthday! To honor the event, Apex will cohost an anniversary celebration with Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, KY. Right now, we have over 30 past, current, and future Apex editors, authors, and artists scheduled to make an appearance. Hopefully, when issue 72 comes out, we’ll be able to provide a complete guest list. There will be a Q&A, a signing, dinner with the Apex editors, and an evening mixer all held at Joseph-Beth. I hope to see you then!

Jason Sizemore

Editor-in-Chief

Beatification of the Second Fall

Sean Robinson

(4400 Words)

For Devin

I am four when the door at the top of the stairs is opened to me for the first time. Mother has invited friends over—men who smell of tobacco smoke, women who reek the scent of too many flowers stuffed into a glass jar. They clutch handbags and hats, and fill up the front parlor with a mix of cigarette smoke and fear. I am too young to understand when I walk into the blue-papered room.

Their eyes are sunken, desperate, dead.

I don’t realize what it means when a man traces the bottom of his lip with the tip of his tongue, or a woman whose name I do not remember clutches at her stomach. They stare at me.

Mother enters carrying a Mason jar. She scans the crowded room—fifteen people pushed in like cordwood—and nods to them. They call her Sister Judith and, when she passes a basket from the buffet table, each puts money inside.

This is my job. When the basket returns, I take it from the shaking hands of a man with gray hair. His skin hangs from his bones the way Mother’s curtains hang in the parlor—limp and tired.

Mother nods and the rest stand, then she leads them from the cramped parlor to the stairs. They follow her like a slow-moving train. The men and women in their Sunday best take the stairs, as though afraid of what lay behind the old wooden door at the top.

God fearing people are born in these hills, walk the streets of Saint’s Crossing, bow their heads on Sundays. What is at the top of the stairs gives face to their fear.

Mother is wearing her china-white blouse and clutches the Mason jar to her chest. She opens the rickety door like Moses must have parted the Red Sea—like merging two worlds. The lady at the front of the line, the one who clutches her stomach, gasps.

There is an angel in our spare bedroom.

I do not know his name.

He is too large. His bare feet hang over the edge of the bed. His wings take up most of the room, pushing against the robin’s egg blue walls. His skin is pale, like his wings. Mother grows his hair long in the winter before cutting it to sell in the summer.

But today, with summer beating down our necks, his hair is a blond fuzz on his scalp, over blue eyes. The angel does not speak from the bed as Mother enters. His hands are bound to the posts, his feet are tied to the footboard. A thin sheet covers his modesty, though I do not know what modesty means when I am four years old.

Mother crosses the threshold into the room and the others follow. They press against each other, their faith only daring them across the threshold. Few enough are willing to get close to the angel.

She has staged two vases on the bedside table. One is filled with rotten carnations—black and brown. The other holds a single rose—a tiny stunted thing from the bushes she had planted outside but never cares for.

The angel stares at the ceiling, blue eyes memorizing the chipped white paint. Mother reaches out to touch his chest, where sweat has pooled in the hollow of his muscles. She makes a show of it, coating her fingers, then turns to the flowers.

Mother touches the carnations first, wrapping her fingers around the withered bloom. The flower changes as she does it, growing out, regaining its yellows and pinks and greens. When she moves to the second, it is as beautiful as it’d been the last time her friends came to visit.

The rose is a tiny thing—just a speck of red hanging at the end of a thin stem. She touches it with the tip of her finger. It grows, engorges, bursts from itself into a heavy-petaled bloom.

A man—the one with too much skin—falls to his knees and begins to shake like fire ants are crawling up his pants. I stand by the door, leaning against the frame, pressing my cheek against the cracked paint.

Mother has one more trick.

She opens the Mason jar and pulls a garter snake free. The audience is used to this—they have been to revivals, watched the snake handlers pass rattlers hand to hand.

But this snake hangs limp and dead.

They watch Mother as she approaches the angel. His wings do not move, his eyes remain locked on the ceiling. Sister Judith pulls a nail file from the pocket of her dress. It is metal but does not shine. There is brown rust at its tip.

Mother looks at where his ribs join together like two hands. There are silver lines in his skin—just above his heart. The nail file is set against the angel’s flesh and a line is drawn, its sharp edge splitting him.

It bleeds for a heartbeat, a track of thick, red blood. Mother lays the dead snake onto his chest. Then it changes. It grows larger and longer. The dull green and black scales glow like pieces of obsidian and beryl.

The snake turns its head toward the gathered crowd. Four turn and run down the steep stairs, taking them two at a time. The old man has fallen to the floor. He does not move. The rest stare.

Is it real, Sister Judith? one woman says. She has no hat and in the humidity her perm has begun to fall out. The snake has curled up on the angel’s chest, not watching them. In the heat of the setting sun, both angel and snake shut their eyes while the rest don’t dare speak.

Mother raises a manicured eyebrow. She smiles and it is not a happy smile. Even at four years old I know it is not a happy smile. The woman with her wilted hair takes a step forward and then a second, her eyes are on the angel. Before she gets to the foot of the bed, my mother stands in front of her.

What will it cost? the woman asks. What will it cost?

The blood of the most high is too full of the grace of God for us. It would do… she trails off and looks at the scene for a moment. The angel is tied wrist and ankle to the bed. His hands are clenched in the bindings, strange things. It would do strange things. It is not meant for us.

A sigh escapes the lips of Mother’s friends.

Then why are we here? a man says. He is fat and strains the buttons of his suit.

"I simply say the blood, my brother, there are other things to purchase, she says and smiles. And have you met my son? Come here, dear."

This is my second job—my new job.

I walk into the room for the first time, pushing through the crowd. I turn and they stare at me. I don’t like it when they look at me. In the heat of the end of the day my Sunday suit itches around the collar. Mother has her back turned to the angel and as I glance back I see him watching us.

Meet my son, Learner, she says.

They do not speak.

§

I am eight when I ask her where he came from. We sit at the breakfast table stirring heavy cream into grits. I think that they look a bit like his feathers, ground down to paste. But I do not say it.

My mother is wearing pearls, a blouse with purple flowers with a white background. She has a simple black skirt and pantyhose. I don’t know if she is pretty then, I am too young to know or care. I can