The Very Best of F & SF v1 (64 page)

“We don’t really
know anything about you,” she said.

To begin with,
my name is Ezekiel. My mother was fond of saints and the Bible and such. She
died shortly after giving birth to me, her first and only child. I was raised
by my father, on the island of Murano. Perhaps you have heard of it? Murano
glass? We are famous for it throughout the world. My father, himself, was a
talented glassmaker. Anything imagined, he could shape into glass. Glass birds,
tiny glass bees, glass seashells, even glass tears (an art he perfected while I
was an infant), and what my father knew, he taught to me.

Naturally, I
eventually surpassed him in skill. Forgive me, but there is no humble way to
say it. At any rate, my father had taught me and encouraged my talent all my
life. I did not see when his enthusiasm began to sour. I was excited and
pleased at what I could produce. I thought he would feel the same for me as I
had felt for him, when, as a child, I sat on the footstool in his studio and
applauded each glass wing, each hard teardrop.

Alas, it was not
to be. My father grew jealous of me. My own father! At night he snuck into our
studio and broke my birds, my little glass cakes. In the morning he pretended
dismay and instructed me further on keeping air bubbles out of my work. He did
not guess that I knew the dismal truth.

I determined to
leave him, to sail away to some other place to make my home. My father begged
me to stay, “Whatever will you do? How will you make your way in this world?”

I told him my
true intention, not being clever enough to lie. “This is not the only place in
the world with fire and sand,” I said. “I intend to make glass.”

He promised me
it would be a death sentence. At the time I took this to be only his confused,
fatherly concern. I did not perceive it as a threat.

It is true that
the secret to glassmaking was meant to remain on Murano. It is true that the
entire populace believed this trade, and only this trade, kept them fed and
clothed. Finally, it is true that they passed the law (many years before my
father confronted me with it) that anyone who dared attempt to take the secret
of glassmaking off the island would suffer the penalty of death. All of this is
true.

But what’s also
true is that I was a prisoner in my own home, tortured by my own father, who
pretended to be a humble, kind glassmaker, but who, night after night, broke my
creations and then, each morning, denied my accusations, his sweet old face
mustached and whiskered, all the expression of dismay and sorrow.

This is madness,
I reasoned. How else could I survive? One of us had to leave or die. I chose
the gentler course.

We had, in our
possession, only a small boat, used for trips that never veered far from shore.
Gathering mussels, visiting neighbors, occasionally my father liked to sit in
it and smoke a pipe while watching the sun set. He’d light a lantern and come
home, smelling of the sea, boil us a pot of soup, a melancholic, completely
innocent air about him, only later to sneak about his breaking work.

This small boat
is what I took for my voyage across the sea. I also took some fishing supplies,
a rope, dried cod he’d stored for winter, a blanket, and several jugs of red
wine, given to us by the baker, whose daughter, I do believe, fancied me. For
you, who have lived so long on this anchored rock, my folly must be apparent.
Was it folly? It was. But what else was I to do? Day after day make my perfect
art only to have my father, night after night, destroy it? He would destroy me!

I left in the
dark, when the ocean is like ink and the sky is black glass with thousands of
air bubbles. Air bubbles, indeed. I breathed my freedom in the
salty
sea air. I chose stars to follow. Foolishly, I had no clear sense of my passage
and had only planned my escape.

Of course,
knowing what I do now about the ocean, it is a wonder I survived the first
night, much less seven. It was on the eighth morning that I saw the distant
sail, and, hopelessly drunk and sunburned, as well as lost, began the desperate
task of rowing toward it, another folly as I’m sure you’d agree, understanding
how distant the horizon is. Luckily for me, or so I thought, the ship headed in
my direction and after a few more days it was close enough that I began to
believe in my life again.

Alas, this ship
was owned by a rich friend of my father’s, a woman who had commissioned him to
create a glass castle with a glass garden and glass fountain, tiny glass swans,
a glass king and queen, a baby glass princess, and glass trees with golden
glass apples, all for the amusement of her granddaughter (who, it must be said,
had fingers like sausages and broke half of the figurines before her next
birthday). This silly woman was only too happy to let my father use her ship,
she was only too pleased to pay the ship’s crew, all with the air of helping my
father, when, in truth, it simply amused her to be involved in such drama. She
said she did it for Murano, but in truth, she did it for the story.

It wasn’t until
I had been rescued, and hoisted on board, that my father revealed himself to
me. He spread his arms wide, all great show for the crew, hugged me and even
wept, but convincing as was his act, I knew he intended to destroy me.

These are
terrible choices no son should have to make, but that night, as my father slept
and the ship rocked its weary way back to Murano where I would likely be hung
or possibly sentenced to live with my own enemy, my father, I slit the old man’s
throat. Though he opened his eyes, I do not believe he saw me, but was already
entering the distant kingdom.

You ladies look
quite aghast. I cannot blame you. Perhaps I should have chosen my own death
instead, but I was a young man, and I wanted to live. Even after everything I
had gone through, I wanted life.

Alas, it was not
to be. I knew there would be trouble and accusation if my father were found
with his throat slit, but none at all if he just disappeared in the night, as
so often happens on large ships. Many a traveler has simply fallen overboard,
never to be heard from again, and my father had already displayed a lack of
seafaring savvy to rival my own.

I wrapped him up
in the now-bloody blanket but although he was a small man, the effect was still
that of a body, so I realized I would have to bend and fold him into a
rucksack. You wince, but do not worry, he was certainly dead by this time.

I will not bore
you with the details of my passage, hiding and sneaking with my dismal load.
Suffice it to say that it took a while for me to at last be standing shipside,
and I thought then that all danger had passed.

Remember, I was
already quite weakened by my days adrift, and the matter of taking care of this
business with my father had only fatigued me further. Certain that I was
finally at the end of my task, I grew careless. He was much heavier than he had
ever appeared to be. It took all my strength to hoist the rucksack, and (to get
the sad, pitiable truth over with as quickly as possible) when I heaved that
rucksack, the cord became entangled on my wrist, and yes, dear ladies, I went
over with it, to the bottom of the world. There I remained until your own dear
father, your husband, found me and brought me to this place, where, for the
first time in my life, I feel safe, and, though I am dead, blessed.

Later, after my
mother had tended the lamp while Ezekiel and I shared the kisses that left me
breathless, she asked him to leave, saying that I needed my sleep. I protested,
of course, but she insisted. I walked my ghost to the door, just as I think any
girl would do in a similar situation, and there, for the first time, he kissed
me in full view of my mother, not so passionate as those kisses that had
preceded it, but effective nonetheless.

But after he was
gone, even as I still blushed, my mother spoke in a grim voice, “Don’t
encourage him, Agatha.”

“Why?” I asked,
my body trembling with the impact of his affection and my mother’s scorn, as
though the two emotions met in me and quaked there. “What don’t you like about
him?”

“He’s dead,” she
said, “there’s that for a start.”

“What about
Daddy? He’s dead too, and you’ve been loving him all this time.”

My mother shook
her head. “Agatha, it isn’t the same thing. Think about what this boy told you
tonight. He murdered his own father.”

“I can’t believe
you’d use that against him. You heard what he said. He was just defending
himself”

“But Agatha, it
isn’t what’s said that is always the most telling. Don’t you know that? Have I
really raised you to be so gullible?”

“I am not
gullible. I’m in love.”

“I forbid it.”

Certainly no
three words, spoken by a parent, can do more to solidify love than these. It
was no use arguing. What would be the point? She, this woman who had loved no
one but a puddle for so long, could never understand what was going through my
heart. Without more argument, I went to bed, though I slept fitfully, feeling
torn from my life in every way, while my mother stayed up reading, I later
surmised, from her book of myths. In the morning I found her sitting at the
kitchen table, the great volume before her. She looked up at me with dark
circled eyes, then, without salutation, began reading, her voice, ominous.

“There are many
kinds of ghosts. There are the ghosts that move things, slam doors and drawers,
throw silverware about the house. There are the ghosts (usually of small
children) that play in dark corners with spools of thread and frighten family
pets. There are the weeping and wailing ghosts. There are the ghosts who know
that they are dead, and those who do not. There are tree ghosts, those who
spend their afterlife in a particular tree (a clue for such a resident might be
bite marks on fallen fruit). There are ghosts trapped forever at the hour of
their death (I saw one like this once, in an old movie theater bathroom,
hanging from the ceiling). There are melting ghosts (we know about these, don’t
we?), usually victims of drowning. And there are breath-stealing ghosts. These,
sometimes mistaken for the grosser vampire, sustain a sort of half-life by
stealing breath from the living. They can be any age, but are usually teenagers
and young adults, often at that selfish stage when they died. These ghosts greedily
go about sucking the breath out of the living. This can be done by swallowing
the lingered breath from unwashed cups, or, most effectively of all, through a
kiss. Though these ghosts can often be quite seductively charming, they are
some of the most dangerous. Each life has only a certain amount of breath
within it and these ghosts are said to steal an infinite amount with each
swallow. The effect is such that the ghost, while it never lives again, begins
to do a fairly good imitation of life, while its victims (those whose breath it
steals) edge ever closer to their own death.”

My mother looked
up at me triumphantly and I stormed out of the house, only to be confronted
with the sea all around me, as desolate as my heart.

That night, when
he came, knocking on the door, she did not answer it and forbade me to do so.

“It doesn’t
matter,” I taunted, “he’s a ghost. He doesn’t need doors.”

“No, you’re
wrong,” she said, “he’s taken so much of your breath that he’s not entirely
spectral. He can’t move through walls any longer. He needs you, but he doesn’t
care about you at all, don’t you get that, Agatha?”

“Agatha? Are you
home? Agatha? Why don’t you come? Agatha?”

I couldn’t bear
it. I began to weep.

“I know this is
hard,” my mother said, “but it must be done. Listen, his voice is already
growing faint. We just have to get through this night.”

“What about the
lamp?” I said.

“What?”

But she knew
what I meant. Her expression betrayed her. “Don’t you need to check on the
lamp?”

“Agatha? Have I
done something wrong?”

My mother stared
at the door, and then turned to me, the dark circles under her eyes giving her
the look of a beaten woman. “The lamp is fine.”

I spun on my
heels and went into my small room, slammed the door behind me. My mother, a
smart woman, was not used to thinking like a warden. She had forgotten about my
window. By the time I hoisted myself down from it, Ezekiel was standing on the
rocky shore, surveying the dark ocean before him. He had already lost some of
his life-like luster, particularly below his knees where I could almost see
through him. “Ezekiel,” I said. He turned and I gasped at the change in his
visage, the cavernous look of his eyes, the skeletal stretch at his jaw. Seeing
my shocked expression, he nodded and spread his arms open, as if to say, yes,
this is what has become of me. I ran into those open arms and embraced him,
though he creaked like something made of old wood. He bent down, pressing his
cold lips against mine until they were no longer cold but burning like a fire.

We spent that
night together and I did not mind the shattering wind with its salt bite on my
skin, and I did not care when the lamp went out and the sea roiled beneath a
black sky, and I did not worry about the dead weeping on the rocky shore, or
the lightness I felt as though I were floating beside my lover, and when
morning came, revealing the dead all around us, I followed him into the water,
I followed him to the bottom of the sea, where he turned to me and said, “What
have you done? Are you stupid? Don’t you realize? You’re no good to me dead!”