Neil Gaiman - Stories - All-New Tales

He laughed and waved his hand at me. The bird’s wings snapped from the side of its body, like knives leaping from sheaths, and it glided up and lit on my shoulder.

“You see,” said the boy on the stairs. “It likes you.”

“I can’t pay,” I said, my voice rough and strange.

“You’ve already paid,” said the boy.

Then he turned his head and looked down the stairs and seemed to listen. I heard a wind rising. It made a low, soughing moan as it came up through the channel of the staircase, a deep and lonely and restless cry. The boy looked back at me. “Now go. I hear my father coming. The awful old goat.”

I backed away and my heels struck the stair behind me. I was in such a hurry to get away I fell sprawling across the granite steps. The bird on my shoulder took off, rising in widening circles through the air, but when I found my feet it glided down to where it had rested before on my

shoulder

and I began

to run back up

the way I had come.

I

climbed

in haste for

a time but soon

was tired again and

had to slow to a walk.

I began to think about what

I would say when I reached the

main staircase and was discovered.

“I will confess everything and accept

my punishment, whatever that is,” I said.

The tin bird sang a gay and humorous ditty.

It

fell

silent

though as

I reached the

gate, quieted by

a different song not

far off: a girl’s sobs.

I listened, confused, and

crept uncertainly back to where

I had murdered Lithodora’s beloved.

I heard no sound except for Dora’s cries.

No men shouting, no feet running on the steps.

I had been gone half the night, it seemed to me but

when I reached the ruins where I had left the Saracen

and looked upon Dora it was as if only minutes had passed.

I

came

toward

her and

whispered

to her, afraid

almost to be heard.

The second time I spoke

her name she turned her head

and looked at me with red-rimmed

hating eyes and screamed to get away.

I wanted to comfort her, to tell her I was

sorry, but when I came close she sprang to her

feet and ran at me, striking me and flaying at my

face with her fingernails while she cursed my name.

I meant

to put my

hands on her

shoulders to hold

her still but when I

reached for her they found

her smooth white neck instead.

Her

father

and his

fellows and

my unemployed

friends discovered

me weeping over her.

Running my fingers through

the silk of her long black hair.

Her father fell to his knees and took

her in his arms and for a while the hills

rang with her name repeated over and over again.

Another

man, who held

a rifle, asked me

what had happened and

I told him-I told him-

the Arab, that monkey from the

desert, had lured her here and when

he couldn’t force her innocence from her

he throttled her in the grass and I found them

and we fought and I killed him with a block of stone.

And

as I

told it

the tin bird

began to whistle

and sing, the most

mournful and sweetest

melody I had ever heard

and the men listened until

the sad song was sung complete.

I

held

Lithodora

in my arms as

we walked back down.

And as we went on our way

the bird began to sing again as

I told them the Saracen had planned

to take the sweetest and most beautiful

girls and auction their white flesh in Araby-

a more profitable line of trade than selling wine.

The bird was by now whistling a marching song and the

faces of the men who walked with me were rigid and dark.

Ahmed’s

men burned

along with the

Arab’s ship, and

sank in the harbor.

His goods, stored in a

warehouse by the quay, were

seized and his money box fell

to me as a reward for my heroism.

No

one

ever

would’ve

imagined when

I was a boy that

one day I would be

the wealthiest trader

on the whole Amalfi coast,

or that I would come to own the

prized vineyards of Don Carlotta, I

who once worked like a mule for his coin.

No

one

would’ve

guessed that

one day I would

be the beloved mayor

of Sulle Scalle, or a man

of such renown that I would be

invited to a personal audience with

his holiness the pope himself, who thanked

me for my many well-noted acts of generosity.

The

springs

inside the

pretty tin bird

wore down, in time,

and it ceased to sing,

but by then it did not matter

if anyone believed my lies or not

such was my wealth and power and fame.

However.

Several years

before the tin bird

fell silent, I woke one

morning in my manor to find

it had constructed a nest of wire

on my windowsill, and filled it with

fragile eggs made of bright silver foil.

I regarded these eggs with unease but when I

reached to touch them, their mechanical mother

nipped at me with her needle-sharp beak and I did

not after that time make any attempt to disturb them.

Months

later the

nest was filled

with foil tatters.

The young of this new

species, creatures of a new

age, had fluttered on their way.

I

cannot

tell you

how many birds

of tin and wire and

electric current there

are in the world now-but I

have, this very month, heard speak

our newest prime minister, Mr. Mussolini.

When he sings of the greatness of the Italian

people and our kinship with our German neighbors,

I am quite sure I can hear a tin bird singing with him.

Its tune plays especially well amplified over modern radio.

I don’t

live in the

hills anymore.

It has been years

since I saw Sulle Scale.

I discovered, as I descended

at last into my senior years, that

I could no longer attempt the staircases.

I told people it was my poor sore old knees.

But in truth I

developed a

fear of

heights.

Dublin-born Roddy Doylehas written novels, play, and screenplays. His novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize in 1993. His Barry-town trilogy has been filmed as The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van .

Joyce Carol Oateshas published more than fifty novels, as well as numerous short story collections and volumes of poetry and nonfiction. Her novel Them won the National Book Award.

Joanne Harrisis the author of The Evil Seed and Chocolat , which was a number one best-seller on the London Sunday Times and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year. Runemarks , published in 2007, was her first book for children and young adults.

Michael Marshall Smithis a British novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer. He has won the British Fantasy, the August Derleth, and the Philip K. Dick awards. His book The Intruders was picked up by the BBC for a major new drama series.

Joe R. Lansdaleis the author of scores of novels and short stories, including the popular Hap and Leonard mystery series. He is a multiple winner of the Bram Stoker Award. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife and family.

Walter Mosleyis the author of more than twenty books in many categories, but is perhaps best known for the highly regarded and popular Easy Rawlins hard-boiled detective novels. Born in Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City.