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When she came within a few feet of us, Christ said, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em,” and the Devil stepped forward. Tentacles began to grow from her body toward him. One managed to wrap itself around his left horn when he opened his mouth to assault her with a minute of fire. The flames discharged like a blowtorch and stopped her cold. When she was completely engulfed in the blaze, the tentacles retracted, but she would not melt.
As soon as the evil one finished, coughing out great clouds of gray smoke, Mrs. Lumley opened her eyes and the tentacles began again to grow from her sides. I looked over and saw that Christ was holding something in his right hand. It appeared to be a remote control, and he was furiously pushing its buttons.
The Devil had jumped back beside me, his hand clutching my arm. He had real fear in his serpent eyes, yet he could not help but laugh at Christ messing around with the Machine of Eden.
“What’s with the cosmic garage door opener?” he shouted.
“It works,” said Christ, as he continued to nervously press buttons. Then I felt one of the tentacles wrap itself around my ankle. Mrs. Lumley opened her mouth and crowed like a rooster. Another of the blue snake appendages entwined itself around the Devil’s midsection. We both screamed as she pulled us toward her.
“Three,” Christ yelled, and a beam of light shot out of the end of the Machine. I then heard the sound of celestial voices singing in unison. Mrs. Lumley took the blast full in the chest and began instantly to shrivel. Before my eyes, like the special effects in a crappy science fiction movie, she turned into a tree. Leaves sprouted, pink blossoms grew, and as the singing faded, pure white fruit appeared on the lower branches.
“Not fun,” said the Devil.
“I thought she was going to suck your face off,” said Christ.
“What exactly was she,” I asked, “an alien?”
Christ shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “just a fucked-up old woman.”
“Is she still a saint?” I asked.
“No, she’s a tree,” he said.
“You and your saints,” said the Devil and plucked a piece of fruit. “Take one of these,” he said to me. “It’s called the Still Point of the Turning World. Only eat it when you need it.”
I picked one of the white pears off the tree and put it in my pocket before we started down the junk hill. The Devil found the box of magazines and Christ came up with a lamp made out of seashells. We piled into the car and I started it up.
I heard Christ say, “Holy shit, it’s 8:00!”
The next thing I knew I was on my usual road back in Jersey. The car was empty but for me, and I was just leaving New Egypt.
Julie’s Unicorn
Peter S Beagle
The note came with the entree, tucked neatly under the zucchini slices but carefully out of range of the seafood crepes. It said, in the unmistakable handwriting that any graphologist would have ascribed to a serial killer, “Tanikawa, ditch the dork and get in here.” Julie took her time over the crepes and the spinach salad, finished her wine, sampled a second glass, and then excused herself to her dinner partner, who smiled and propped his chin on his fingertips, prepared to wait graciously, as assistant professors know how to do. She turned right at the telephones, instead of left, looked back once, and walked through a pair of swinging half-doors into the restaurant kitchen.
The heat thumped like a fist between her shoulder blades, and her glasses fogged up immediately. She took them off, put them in her purse and focused on a slender, graying man standing with his back to her as he instructed an earnest young woman about shiitake mushroom stew. Julie said loudly, “Make it quick, Farrell. The dork thinks I’m in the can.”
The slender man said to the young woman, “Gracie, tell Luis the basil’s losing its marbles, he can put in more oregano if he wants. Tell him to use his own judgment about the lemongrass—I like it myself.” Then he turned, held out his arms and said, “Jewel. Think you strung it out long enough?”
“My dessert’s melting,” Julie said into his apron. The arms around her felt as comfortably usual as an old sofa, and she lifted her head quickly to demand, “God damn it, where have you been? I have had very strange phone conversations with some very strange people in the last five years, trying to track you down. What the hell happened to you, Farrell?”
“What happened to me? Two addresses and a fax number I gave you, and nothing. Not a letter, not so much as a postcard from East Tarpit-on-the-Orinoco, hi, marrying tribal chieftain tomorrow, wish you were here. But just as glad you’re not. The story of this relationship.”
Julie stepped back, her round, long-eyed face gone as pale as it ever got. Almost in a whisper, she asked, “How did you know? Farrell, how did you know?” The young cook was staring at them both in fascination bordering on religious rapture.
“What?” Farrell said, and now he was gaping like the cook, his own voice snagging in his throat. “You did? You got married?”
“It didn’t last. Eight months. He’s in Boston.”
“That explains it.” Farrell’s sudden bark of laughter made Gracie the cook jump slightly. “By God, that explains it.”
“Boston? Boston explains what?”
“You didn’t want me to know,” Farrell said. “You really didn’t want me to know. Tanikawa, I’m ashamed of you. I am.”
Julie started to answer him, then nodded toward the entranced young cook. Farrell said, “Gracie, about the curried peas. Tell Suzanne absolutely not to add the mango pickle until just before the peas are done, she always puts it in too early. If she’s busy, you do it—go, go.” Gracie, enchanted even more by the notion of getting her hands into actual food, fled, and Farrell turned back to face Julie. “Eight months. I’ve known you to take longer over a lithograph.”
