The End of the Sentence (11 page)

“I did not intend there to be. The end of the sentence has come and gone, and I am ending too. There is no more of me, or not enough. It is time for me to die.” Chuchonnyhoof’s shadow had fallen over him like a blanket, enfolding him in dark.

Abigayl opened her hands and showed what was in them. Two shoes. Mine and Lischen’s. For a moment I saw the fire light again, a ghost fire this time. She tossed the shoes into it, and they were gone. 

The ghosts no longer stood witness. All of the paired horseshoes were turned over, face down. Empty. Quiet.

“Malcolm,” Lischen said, her voice changed from the voice I knew. It was softer. “Malcolm.”

In front of Lischen, the rush basket from the house. In the basket was a black-haired boy. He smiled, and the corners of his lips curved up like Lischen’s, but there was my dimple on the side of his mouth. I felt for the crown that had been in my pocket, but it was gone. 

The skin of his left hand was silver, but where it met his arm, there was gold.

“Was this,” I swallowed past the lump of wanting in my throat, “expected?”

“Better,” came Dusha’s voice, out of a corner that no longer was part of the room, “to fix what you can.”

I could just see him, those eyes like sky breaking from the edge of a storm. The shadow was all around him now, and in the shadow, I could see other eyes glowing.

“A child is not like a shirt, to be changed out when torn,” Lischen said, but her hands were tight on the boy, holding him, and he cooed. 

“No,” said Dusha. “A child is a child. This child is his own.”

The baby’s silver fingers stretched, and grasped Lischen’s hair. The baby touched my face.

“This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven,” Lischen said. “This doesn’t mean I forget what you are, what you were, what you did, what you broke, who you hurt.”

She walked across the room, and into the shadow like it held no fear for her. She leaned in. 

“Still,” she said. Hisses and cries, howls from the darkness. She took his hands in hers, (were they hands? They were not, but she held them as though they were) and kissed Chuchonnyhoof, hard on the mouth. His eyes stayed open as she did it. I saw them go liquid, saw a tear run down his wasted face. Blood ran from his lips when she pulled away. 

For a moment, watching them, I thought it would be like a fairy tale. The princess kisses the monster, and then he’s no longer a monster. Happily ever after. But Lischen stepped back, and Chuchonnyhoof’s eyes closed.

Ever after. 

The last thing I saw before the dark became a bend in the wall again, before the floor became stone, was Abigayl rolling down her sleeves, and stepping into the shadows, her hammer in her hand. 

Then it was dawn, and it was the first of November. We walked up above the earth to find the marks of hooves and claws all over the frosted ground.

Not all of the magic disappeared after that. The dishes still washed themselves, and there was usually a woman’s voice, low, singing love songs as they did. Meals were no longer cooked, but occasional elaborate desserts showed up. Birthday cakes once yearly. Lights glowed in the hallway. My torn shirts were mended.

The blackberries were still in fruit, out of season.

I didn’t know who had stayed and who had left. It bothered me some, but then, I’d never really known whom I’d shared the house with in the first place. 

I’ve had a telephone line installed. My family knows where I am now. The car needed work, but the mechanic did it, and at the end, the nest in the ceiling yielded fledglings who took flight when I opened the door to drive it for the first time.

Sean goes back and forth, one week at my place, one week at Lischen’s. Sometimes I stay at her place, too. The silver on his hand has crept up a bit. It’s just past the bracelet of clasped hands Lischen made for him to wear so he’d have one like ours. Maybe it will keep going, maybe it won’t. The line of gold at the edge of his silver is bright enough that it could be real, something more than the remains of a gilt crown worn by a princess and by a goblin both. 

There was one more letter. It came the day after the anvil marriage, after Sean’s birth and Chuchonnyhoof’s death. It was left in front of the door, and there were violets, gathered in a bunch, with it.

It is said that too much iron in the soil poisons the ground. I can’t imagine how much iron was in Dusha Chuchonnyhoof’s body—an unbearable amount, I think. But things bloom over his grave—wild mint, and violets, and a tree with different fruit on every branch. 

It was Lischen who made the marker, one day in the spring. Simple, Dusha’s name. A horseshoe above it. 

Below it, the words: 

Our gratitude to Bill Schafer for commissioning this novella over convention cocktails at ConFusion, as well as to Yanni Kuznia, Geralyn Lance, and Josh Parker, and to John Scalzi who formalized our contract written on skin by photographing and tweeting it. Also to Joe Monti, who handled the more traditional aspects of contract negotiation.

China Miéville for editing, strong tea & the idea for the prison scene; Olivia, who used to live in Maria’s Brooklyn apartment and gets heaps of letters from prisoners who never knew her; the Oregon Historical Archive and Old Oregon Photos for introducing us to the work of Walter Bowman, and his 1890 portrait of a very small Native American boy with a prosthetic hand; Lischen Miller’s 1899 Oregon ghost story, “The Haunted Lighthouse,” from which the iron door comes; and Maria’s dad, Mark Bryan Headley Sr. from whom she inherited the 200-year-old Headley family anvil. 

In addition to those credited above who played a part in commissioning the novella, and who offered bits of reality far stranger than fiction, Kat would like to thank Sarah McCarry, for telling her she looked forward to meeting her monsters, and her Mom, Rebecca Howard, who provided food and sanity during a week of this novella’s writing.