Elizabeth Hand - Generation Loss

“You were asking about the commune,” said Toby, and pointed. “Most of it was up at the top of this hill, but people salvaged it or burned it for firewood. Those shacks are all that’s left. Denny’s old bus is over the hill a ways. And that’s Aphrodite’s place there—”

Among the trees by the cove stood a clapboard building that looked as though it were attempting to pull itself up the hillside. There were loose and missing boards everywhere. The roof was sunken, the stone chimneys crumbling. The white paint had weathered to a uniform gray and was filigreed with moss, and moss-covered boulders thrust up against the walls.

I looked at Toby. “At midnight does it turn back to rocks and pine needles?”

“Not what you expected?”

“No. It’s so dark. Photographers want light.”

“Light’s better on the eastern side.” He gestured toward the black water of the cove. “It’s old. Wasn’t real big, so she kept adding on to it.

“I don’t see any lights.”

Toby looked up. Smoke threaded from one of the chimneys, carrying the acrid smell of creosote. “She’s here. Someone is, anyway.”

He headed for the front door, its granite sill scattered with ashes. An untidy stack of firewood stood beside it, and a snow shovel.

“Hey, Aphrodite.” Toby rapped loudly on the door. “You got visitors.”

I felt a flicker of real excitement. I thought of the pictures in Deceptio Visus , of a Medusa’s frozen face gazing from a black-and-white photograph. Then the door opened, and those Medusa’s eyes were staring at me.

She was so small and finely built that I felt huge and ungainly standing in front of her, silver-white hair to her shoulders, white skin, bright red lipstick carelessly applied. Her face was lined, but otherwise she looked remarkably like the woman in the photo. Behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses the familiar onyx eyes glittered, bloodshot but still challenging. She wore a black woolen tunic, black leggings, scuffed-up moccasin slippers. She looked like a girl headed for dance class, or a wizened geisha doll.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Without warning a mass of dark shapes surrounded her, growling and whining. I backed away in alarm. “Jesus—”

“They won’t hurt you.” Aphrodite gestured at me impatiently then crooned, “Runi, Fee—down, get down .”

The writhing shadows resolved into three immense dogs, the biggest dogs I’d ever seen. Toby put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

“Those are her dogs,” he said.

“No shit.” I pulled away from him. One of the dogs jumped toward me, its head brushing my chest before I pushed it down. Another stood on its hind legs and pawed at Toby’s shoulders. It was so tall it looked as though they were dancing.

“They won’t hurt you,” Aphrodite repeated. The look she gave me was disdainful.

Toby took a step back, toward the trees. “I better get going,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

“Hey, wait,” I said and pushed at a grizzled, narrow muzzle. “I didn’t pay you yet.”

“Not to worry,” he said. “You can catch me another time.”

“Get inside,” ordered Aphrodite. “Fee! Tara, Runi! Now .”

The panting dogs receded. As I followed them inside, one thrust its nose against my hand and stared up at me with moist, imploring eyes.

“I’m Cassandra Neary,” I said as Aphrodite yanked the door shut. “Man, those are some big dogs. Are they wolfhounds?”

“Deerhounds.”

She hissed a command, and the dogs pattered off. We stood in a narrrow foyer, its pine flooring scratched and furrowed, tattered rugs askew. A line of windows on the opposite wall looked across the cove to open water and a gray prospect of islands and gathering cloud. There was a bench heaped with yellow rain slickers and boots, split kindling and old newspapers, aerosol cans of Deet, several big flashlights. Kerosene lamps hung from the ceiling alongside coils of rope and a pair of snowshoes. Aphrodite’s small, black-clad figure was incongruous among all this North Woods clutter. She stared up at me imperiously, finally asked, “Who did you say you were?”

“Cass Neary. Cassandra Neary.” My mouth went dry. “I’m supposed to—Phil Cohen said he’d spoken to you. About an interview for Mojo magazine.”

“Never heard of it. An interview?” She made a throaty sound that I realized was a disgusted laugh. “I never give interviews. Who sent you?”

“Phil Cohen.”

She continued to stare at me, shrugged and turned away. “Never heard of him.”

“You never heard of him?” I asked weakly. I thought of what he’d told me.

She specifically asked for you, God knows why .

Now I knew why. She hadn’t asked for me at all. This was another of Phil’s screwed-up plans, sending me on a fool’s errand because he was too lazy or chickenshit to do it himself.

Another Phil Cohen favor. And I was so desperate, I’d fallen for it.

“Have you had breakfast?” It was the same tone she’d used with the dogs.

“I—I wouldn’t mind some coffee.” I felt sicker than before but did my best to sound calm. “Thanks.”

“This way, then.”

I gritted my teeth and comforted myself with images of Phil with his nose broken. Aphrodite moved with small darting steps; that and the Klaus Nomi makeup made her look even more like some bizarre automaton. As we walked through the hall, heaps of kindling gave way to stacks of magazines and books, shoes in varying stages of decay, fifty-pound bags of dog food, cases of bottled water, cartons filled with empty liquor bottles, and baskets of plastic film canisters.

I glanced at one of the baskets then looked up. Aphrodite stood in a doorway with her back to me. I grabbed a film canister, shoved it into my pocket, and went on.

“Do you have your own darkroom here?” I asked.

“No. Sit down.” She looked at me irritably. “You should have left your jacket in the mudroom—no, give it to me, I’ll do it.”

I handed her my jacket but kept my camera bag. As she retraced her steps, I looked around at a big old-fashioned kitchen. A woodburning cookstove stood in the center, deerhounds flopped beside it like mangy fur rugs. There were fragments of Turkish carpets on the floor, and a trestle table covered with papers and the remains of breakfast. I set down my bag, wandered to the window and stared out at the cove. A small dark shape loped along the water’s edge then disappeared beneath the pines. It was too small for a deerhound. I wondered if it was a fox, or a lost cat.

“I see Toby got you here in one piece.”

I turned. A man was beside the stove, pouring coffee into a mug. I stared at him, incredulous, as Aphrodite came back into the room.

“This is my son, Gryffin Haselton.” She picked up a kettle from the stove and walked to the sink to refill it. “Do you want coffee or tea?”

“Coffee would be my guess,” said Gryffin. He crossed the room to hand me the mug he’d just filled. “I took your berth on Everett’s boat earlier. Toby said he’d make sure you got here okay. The way you were putting it away last night, I figured you’d sleep in.”

“You figured wrong.” I took the coffee.

“Well, you got some local color, anyway.”

Gryffin turned to get another mug. The deerhounds moaned softly as he stepped between them, and I reached down to stroke one warily. Its head felt like a skull wrapped in worn flannel. Aphrodite leaned against the kitchen counter and regarded me with those glittering black eyes.

“Tell me what this imaginary interview is supposed to consist of.”

I told her, glossing over the fact that Mojo was not a photography magazine and I was not, in fact, anywhere on its masthead. When I mentioned Phil Cohen’s name again, she frowned.