Enchanted Forests (29 page)

happen to the Ant at all. Only the Ant herself could tell the dif-

188 Karawyim Lon^

ference, for suddenly she could comprehend what the birds and

bugs and bushes were saying to each other, all above and around

and beside and beneath her.

"Now I will tell you a secret," said the Queen, but the daugh-

ter Ant didn't let her.

"I can find my own secret," said the Ant, for she knew very

well that she was scintillating clever, and this made her more

than a little proud. "And choose my own name, too," she added,

and went away satisfied to make her own way in the world.

Before long the Ant came upon the Paper Wasp, sucking rain-

water from her paper nest and spitting it out over the side. Paper

Wasp certainly knew how to build a nest, thought the clever Ant,

and set herself to bargain.

"0 my Friend," she said, waving her antennae high. "You

have the most beautiful nest I have ever seen, but I could not

help noticing that it is almost empty. Perhaps you could use

some assistance in guarding it? I have a fine sharp stinger that I

would wield in your defense."

"0 my Enemy, you think to trick me," said the Paper Wasp,

"but I have seen your sister the Army Ant, who marched her

daughters over my nest, all as fierce as ever could be, and killed

my poor helpless brood and carried them all away. As for sting-

ers, I have a 'scruciating one of my own, as you will learn if you

come any closer."

At that the Ant's antennae drooped, and she went hastily on

her way. Before long she came upon the Passion Flower, tilting

her broad leaves to catch glimmers of sunlight. Passion Flower

certainly knew how to make nectar, thought the clever Ant, and

set herself to bargain.

"0 my Friend," she said, waving her antennae high. "You

have the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen, but I could not

help noticing that some of them have been eaten. Perhaps you

could use some assistance in guarding them? I have fine sharp

jaws that I would wield in your defense."

"0 my Enemy, you think to trick me," said the Passion

Flower, "but I have seen your sister the Leaf-Cutter Ant, who

marched her daughters over my petals, all as industrious as ever

could be, and cut out immense semicircular pieces and carried

them all away. I have had enough of jaws, and so I am making

a pernicious poison, as you will learn if you come any closer."

At that the Ant's antennae drooped, and she went hastily on

her way. And so it went with every plant and animal she spoke

to, until she began to think her choice of magics had been a fool-

HOW THE ANT MADE A BAjRGAJN     189

ish one after all. Still she walked on across the dark damp bot-

tom of the forest-

The Ant walked far and she walked wide, she walked low and

she walked high, until one day while climbing a cloudy moun-

tain she came upon the Resplendent Quetzal sitting on an Avo-

cado tree and ruffling his emerald-and-scariet feathers. She didn't

have a bargain to make with the Quetzal, so she kept walking

without bothering to speak. But as she passed she heard him say,

"What manner of animal do you suppose that is?" From the Avo-

cado's trunk his wife replied irritably that she hadn't the faintest

idea, since the only thing she could currently see was the interior

of; A tree.

Aha. thought the clever Ant to herself, the Quetzal has never

met any of my sisters. And she thought perhaps her luck was

about to change.

Indeed it was the very next day that the Ant discovered the

Acacia. He was a tattered tree, a bedraggled tree, and nearly all

of his leaves had been chewed right off their stems. But the

clever Ant looked at the thick prickly moms that grew all along

the Acacia's trunk, and she thought of the Quetzal's wife, and

die set herself to bargain.

"0 my Friend," she said to the Acacia, "those are impressive

thorns that you have grown all along your trunk. But I cannot

help noticing that they have not kept-the Grasshopper and the

Caterpillar and the Katydid from chewing nearly all your leaves

right off their stems. Perhaps you could use some assistance? I

have a fine sharp stinger that I would wield in your defense."

• "All right," said the Acacia, who had never seen an Ant of any

sort before.

So the Ant climbed high in the bare branches of the Acacia to

me very tiptop, where the last little leaves were stretching toward

a sliver of sunlight, and waited. Soon enough the Grasshopper

landed on the leaves and widened his mandibles to take one in-

cisive bite. But he never got even a taste because the Ant ran

right up to him and stuck her stinger into the Grasshopper's foot.

When he lifted that foot out of reach, she stung another one, and

when he lifted that foot up, she stung a different one, until finally

the Grasshopper had no feet left to stand on, and he flew off in

a huff-

"Well, that takes care of him," said the Ant to the Acacia. "I'll

be on my way now. Best of luck." And she started climbing back

down along the bare branches.

"0 my Friend," replied the Acacia in something of a panic, for

190 Karawynn Long

he knew that as soon as the Ant left the Grasshopper or the Cat-

erpillar or the Katydid would come back and chew his last little

leaves right off their stems. "You must have been traveling very

far. Why don't you crawl inside one of my hollow thorns and

rest for a while?"

"That sounds splendid," said the Ant, "but I shall be hungry

soon, so I really shouldn't stop until I've found something to

eat."

"Oh. you needn't worry about that," said the Acacia. "I'm

sure I can manage to feed such a valiant Ant as yourself."

At that, the Ant (you remember she was scintillating clever)

gave a little fillip of her antennae, which was her way of smiling

to herself, and chewed a round hole in one of his thick thorns.

Then she crawled right inside, curled up, and went to sleep.

Then the Acacia concentrated very hard, until he had grown a

nubby little knob at the base of a nearby stem, and filled it with

nectar. When the Ant woke, she took one sip and vibrated with

delight, for it was the sweetest nectar she had ever tasted.

"0 Acacia," said the Ant, "I will make a bargain with you.

I and my daughters will live inside your thick thorns for always

and always, and defend your tender leaves from the Grasshopper

and the Caterpillar and the Katydid, for always and always. In

return you will provide me and my daughters with as much

sweet nectar as we need, for always and always."

"Agreed," said the Acacia. Whereupon the Ant crawled back

into the hollow thorn and began to lay her eggs.

Now as you recall, Best Beloved, egglaying is a tedious task,

especially for someone so scintillating clever, so the Ant did a lot

of thinking besides. And what she thought was this: that sweet

nectar is all very well for grown-up Ants to eat, but that young

Ants need something rather more highly-nutritious, or they will

not be very clever Ants at all when they are grown-up. Her bar-

gain was not yet done. She clambered back out of the hole in the

thorn,

"0 my Friend," said the Ant to the Acacia, "your leaves are

looking ever so marvelous, but I cannot help noticing that clingy

curly vines have twined around your stems and are stealing the

light from them. Perhaps you could use some assistance? I have

fine sharp jaws that I would wield in your defense."

"All right," said the Acacia.

So the Ant climbed high among the leafy limbs and crossed

over onto one of the clingy curly vines where it spiraled around

a branch. Then she opened her jaws and bit into the vine, just at

HOW THE ANT MADE A BARGAIN     191

the base of the leaf-stem, and chewed and chewed until she

chewed clean through it and the leaf fell off. Then she bit

through another leaf-stem, and another, until me clingy curly

vine was as bare as could be, with no leaves at all to gather light.

"Well, that takes care of mat," said the Ant to the Acacia.

"But I am far too tired to bite any more vines for quite a while."

And she let her antennae sag in a most exhausted fashion.

"That's all right," said the Acacia. "Soon your eggs will hatch

and you will have many daughter Ants to help you."

"They'll be far too stupid for mat," the Ant replied sorrow-

fully. "You see, sweet nectar is all very well for grown-up Ants

to eat, but young Ants need something rather more highly-

nutritious, or they will not be very clever Ants at all when they

are grown-up."

"You needn't worry about that,'* said the Acacia. "I'm certain

I can manage to feed the daughters of such a loyal Ant as your-

self."

At that the Ant (you remember she was scintillating clever)

gave a little fillip of her antennae, which was her way of smiling

to herself, and crawled back inside her hollow thorn to tend her

eggs.

Then the Acacia concentrated very hard, until he had grown

highly-nutritious globules at me tips of the leaves on one branch,

all of them a radiant orange color. When the eggs began to hatch,

the Ant detached one of me orange globules and clambered back

through the round hole in the thorn, where she fed it to her own

first best beloved daughter.

"I will make a bargain with you," said the Ant to the Acacia.

"I and my daughters shall live in your thick thorns for always

and always, and with our sharp jaws protect your juicy stems

from the curly clingy vines, for always and always. In return you

shall provide me and my daughters with as many of these highly-

nutritious globules as we need, for always and always."

"Agreed," said the Acacia.

"Surely this is the best bargain anyone has ever made since

the beginning of the world," said the Ant. "I shall call myself

Acacia Ant in recognition of it" And she gave a little fillip of

her antennae.

Before long the Tamandua and the Pangolin and the Angwan-

tibo all trundled through that part of the forest, hunting for 'spe-

cially tasty delicacies, but the Acacia's thick thoms pricked them

every time they came close. Finally the Tamandua snuffled his

long nose, and the Pangolin curled his sticky tongue, and the

192

Karawynn Long

Angwantibo blinked his round eyes, and they all went away hun-

gry-

So even today, Best Beloved, if you look at the dark damp

bottom of the forest, you can see the strong fierce daughters of

the Army Ant hooking themselves together by the ends of their

spindly legs, and the sturdy industrious daughters of the Leaf-

Cutter Ant carrying semicircular pieces of leaf away over their

heads.

And if somewhere in the forest you see a tree with a wide

space around it that no plant nor animal dares to encroach upon,

then you will know that it is an Acacia- For the daughters of the

Acacia Ant are valiant and loyal and (so long as they eat their

highly-nutritious globules when they are young) most scintillat-

ing clever, and they keep the bargain the Acacia Ant made for al-

ways and always and always.

In Fear o( Little NeB

bu G y Gregory reeley Feek

Gregory Feeley, whose novel The Oxygen Barons was

nominated for the Philip K. Dick award, here assembles a

tale around a famous character from Charles Dickens, a

writer best known for his urban settings. But the dichot-

omy between city and countryside is present in much of

Dickens, which allows Feeley to take afresh look at a very

different nineteenth-century story.

"She needs rest," said the old man, patting her cheek;

"too pale—too pale. She is not like what she was."

"When?" asked the child.

—The Old Curiosity Shop

Garlic grows poorly in Shropshire; the strings of bulbs that the

four men dropped around their necks had come on a boat from

Calais. Daiton fingered a clove, and found it soft: would its ef-

ficacy, like the bloom of a cut flower, fade after the first day?

The question did not bear thinking on. He tried to stuff the reek-

ing necklace into his shin, got it tangled with the cross on its

cord—a bit of papistry he was ashamed to wear, but afraid not

to—and pulled both free with a curse.

"Like a stinking censer," growled Burke, the sweat of fear

mingling with garlic as he bent to break open the crate. Burke

bad traveled as far as Silesia and seen much, but spoke of noth-

ing more specific than his disdain for Romish practices. And

what if their quarry was no Catholic? wondered Daiton, unable

194                    Gregory Feeley

to halt the runaway train of his thought. Should the superstitions

avail them then?

The top split with a crunch, and Burke tossed aside his iron to

pry up the spintered boards and peer with his companions into

the crate. A dozen wooden stakes lay like carrots, each symmet-

rical as a geometer's cone. Dalton lifted one and felt its unnatural

smoothness, then discovered with a finger the indentation at the

base where the lathe had held it. The stakes had been machined,

probably in a Spitalfields mill. He held it up, and saw Burke's

eyes narrow in recognition.

"By God," he swore, "it's one monster hunting another." He

seemed ready to recoil from the stake, as though it had trans-

formed into his prey.

"Mind your language," said the parson, spectacles glinting as

he raised his chin. "This is a holy business we are about."

"It's a dirty business, and don't you forget it,"

"Burke," Dalton interjected firmly, "will a stake turned on a

lathe serve our purpose? Or need it be carved by human hands?"

Burke glowered and considered, "Not that I know," he al-

lowed. "If a stake cut by gypsies proved worthy, as I have heard

tell, then its making matters not. It could be machined by a Jew

on Whitsunday, so long as it is driven well home."

The journalist had said nothing, as was customary, and Dalton

would not have been surprised to see him recording this ex--

change in a memorandum. Instead, he was crouched before the

crate, rummaging through its contents with a bony rattle. "A

baker's dozen," he said, looking up. "Perhaps not a propitious

number. Are we likely to need so many?"

"Heaven forbid," cried the parson.

"If the first try fails," Burke said, "ye shan't get another."

"Perhaps the Professor expects us to split up, each taking

three?" Dalton asked. But that made no sense, as well as begging

the question. He didn't mention his next apprehension: that the

Professor had feared their quarry was not one, but many.

"Hullo," said the journalist, "here's something." His fingers

had merely touched the bottommost stakes as he counted them,

but now he brought one forth. He raised it like a candle, and they

stared. It was less than half the length of the others, although

shaped to the same proportions. The stake was a perfect minia-

ture, as though fashioned for a—

The thought struck them all at once. "Sweet Jesus Christ," ex-

claimed Burke. And this time the parson did not rebuke him.

* * *

IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL

195

"We know it's a child," Dalton said, more for his own benefit

than for the journalist's. "The professor said that the examination

post mortem showed clear—"

^We know," said Buike shortly. He stood and crossed the

deck, to take up Us station against the far railing, looking out

aver me dark water.

The Journalist looked mildly after him. then back down at his

notebook. "Have you ever read De masticatione mortuorom in

tumulus?' he asked.

Dalton shook his head. "Something about the biting dead?" he

asked. "I haven't studied Latin since grammar school."

"I don't read Latin," the journalist said, "so do not know the

volume. Nor have I entree to the Bodleian Library, so have not

seen Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampyres of Hungary, evi-

dently on a like topic, although I paid a tipsy undergraduate to

abstract it for me, and learned for my trouble that I 'would not

like it' A similar book, however—the Travels of Three English

Gentlemen—was made available to me at a lending library in

Greenwich, and dates from 1734, the same era as the earlier

tomes."

"And what does that volume have to say?*' asked Dalton wea-

rily.

The journalist turned a page and held it so to catch the light

of the barge's lantern. 'Travels from Venice to Austria," he read,

"including the Carnian Alps, Hamburgh, and the Duchy of Siria.

Local superstitions, including vampyres, an apparently Servian

word. These Vampyres are supposed to be the Bodies of de-

ceased Persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the

Graves, in the Night-time, suck the Blood of many of the Living

and thereby destroy them.' "

Dalton shivered suddenly, and drew his coat more closely

about him. "And how are they hunted?" he asked.

"The grave of a suspected vampyre is opened, and if the

corpse be rosy-cheeked, bearing no evidence of decay, it is a

vanapyre."

"And how killed?"

The journalist said mildly, "By those means already familiar

to us."

Dalton thought of something. "But the corpses are still undis-

turbed in their graves. How do they come to plague the living?"

"I believe the creature is thought to be a ghost or spirit, which

drinks living blood while its body yet lies underground. The

196 Gregory Feeley

vampyre of Slavic imagination seems as much a superstitious

fancy as a banshee or goblin."

"I wonder what Burke knows of tins," Dalton mused.

"Burke," said the journalist, "is not talking." As he spoke, die

barge bumped softly against something below the water tine.

Dalton looked over the railing to see that the towpath had drawn

closer; two figures stood by a wagon in the false dawn, the tiny

glow of a pipe showing briefly in the darkness. The team draw-

ing the barge had been halted and were cropping placidly as the

vessel drifted to a stop.

"Banbury?" asked the parson, looking confusedly at the empty

crossroads.

"We're not going that far," said Dalton, who reached for me

crate. One of the barge hands was lifting a long plank, which he

shoved over the rail until its far end touched the shore. The jour-

nalist steadied Dalton as he stepped over the railing, the crate un-

wieldy but light in his arms, and onto me swaybacked plank. He

dropped the crate with a rattle on the wet grass and waited as his

colleagues joined him. One of the figures climbed down from me

wagon and came toward mem.

"Reverend?" the man muttered, low.

"Just say yes," said Buike, as the parson made to extend his

hand- He lifted a burlap sack with a clank and threw it over one

shoulder.

Dalton felt in his pocket and produced silver, which he handed

to me bargeman and his companion holding the horses. In sec-

onds the bargeman was back across the plank, which withdrew

with a small plash, and the barge had resumed its journey with

no sound greater than the creak of ropes and clopping hooves.

"They think we're smugglers," said Dalton in sudden surmise.

"Just as well," answered Burke. He followed the others back

to the wagon, whose driver turned his head away at their ap-

proach. Clouds were beginning to brighten to the east, a filthy

umber that Dalton had never seen, even in London. He climbed

into the back with the others and fell asleep within ten minutes,

lulled by the jouncing bed where the barge's smooth glide had

only spooked him.

He woke at midmoming when the driver pulled up at a brook

and everyone climbed out to piss. A yellow haze tinctured me

sky in me direction (Dalton thought) of Birmingham, but a wood

lay some miles ahead, a green smudge beyond open fields. Dal-

ton felt his chest constrict, and a horror arose in him that he

could force down only by turning away.

IN FEAR OF LITTLE NELL

197

The young man, evidently the driver's son, had climbed back

into the seat. and was looking curiously at the crate and sack in

tfae back. When he saw Dalton watching him, his face went rigid,

and he turned his back with unmistakable contempt. So we are

your Untouchables, thought Dalton with a grim smile. We'll do

your dirty work, but you won't acknowledge us.

They entered me wood an hour later, and were quickly among

trees so tall that they leaned over the narrow road like curious

specters, and at last met overhead in a green vault. The wagon

still clattered so loudly as to make speech impossible, and the

four men simply looked at each other or lapsed into abstraction;

but me leafy canopy had an immediate effect on Burke, who

stared up at it in a kind of terror. Patterns of light and shadow

ran across his upturned face, which drained of color as though

through his opened mouth.

The journalist reached into his pea-jacket and pulled forth a

stoppered flask, which he passed to Burke without a word.