Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Volume 10

“It’s horrible,” Micah answered.

Agnes scooted closer. He wasn’t human. He could kill her just by thinking it. He was a monster, and she adored him. She took his face in both hands, moved them down so the roughness of his stubble felt smooth, and kissed him.

“I need to go,” she said, hours later, when she woke with her head on his bare strong chest and her body gloriously sore from the weight of him.

“No you don’t,” Micah said, his hand warm and strong on her leg. Somehow, he knew. That she had no home, that she slept in her car. He sat up. His eyes were wet and panicky. He kissed her shoulder. “Please don’t go,” he said. “Why do you want to leave?”

Because Trask sends late-night goons to check for squatters sometimes.

Because I might lose my job if I stay.

Because this is not my home – I didn’t earn it, didn’t pay for it, can’t afford it.

Because I don’t deserve a home.

Because love makes me do dumb things.

“You’re like me,” Micah whispered, and his whispers vibrated in her ears even once she was back in the Walmart parking lot in the cramped backseat of her car under a blanket: “You’re on your own. We’re what each other needs.”

TRASK SAID ROUTINE was the key to success, which is why every morning Agnes woke and went to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and an unbuttered bagel and a rest room wash-up and tooth-brushing. Which is what she did the morning after making love to Micah. This time, though, when she emerged from the rest room and a woman was waiting for it, she didn’t think to herself: Oh no, what if she guesses what I was doing in there and immediately knows I’m homeless and pathetic, but rather: What if she’s doing the same thing as me – for the same reason as me?

Which is maybe why, this time, she broke the routine slightly and instead of heading straight to the bank for her day’s assignments Agnes drove east into Transect 1, feeling her chest tighten, struggling to breathe deeply against the weight that could not possibly be guilt, because she had done nothing to feel guilty about, because she had done the right thing –Trask said so –

And found the deep raw crater, lined in red clay like a wound in the belly of the universe, where the house she grew up in used to be.

“AGNES?” TRASK SAID, looking confused. “Everything okay?”

“Hi,” she said, stopping herself from apologizing for disturbing him. An unscheduled visit was an unprecedented breach of propriety. They texted, or they talked in supervisory meetings. She had never just shown up before.

“What’s happening to the houses in Transect 1?”

“We’re demolishing them, Agnes.” His voice now was like when teachers wanted to shame her into silence.

“Why?”

“I told you. Actionable recommendations from the central analysis division. Even with emanation placation measures in place, we’ve been noticing some disturbing patterns.”

My mother was right, she thought. They’ve gone feral. His computer made soft pinging noises as the day’s pitches arrived. Every bank routinely made offers for every other bank’s underoccuppied property, usually for ridiculously low amounts, knowing they’d be rejected. Fishing for hunger. Trying to ‘assemble development portfolios’ and other concepts she had not initially understood. “But people could be living there,” she told Trask, knowing, as soon as she said it, that the argument had no financial weight and was therefore worthless.

“WHAT DO YOU mean, you can’t step onto the lawn?”

“I just can’t,” Micah said, grinning, face glistening with French fry grease and her kisses. He leaned over the porch railing; reached out his arm to her. “But it’s part of the property,” she said, stepping just out of his reach. Micah shrugged. “Property is a legal fiction,” he said. “Words on paper don’t change anything. A house is a house.”

“A legal fiction,” she said, and texted the phrase to herself. “I thought you didn’t know The Rules.”

“Some things I just know,” he said. “I don’t know why I look like this, but I know what I can’t do. And I know that when you’re here, it feels right.”

“But this is crazy, isn’t it? You and me. A spirit and a person? I’ve never heard of that.”

“Me either,” he said. “So?”

“We can’t... be together.”

“We’re together now.”

“This isn’t my house.”

“Why not?” His eyes were wide, sincere, incredulous. She wanted to eat them. She wanted to have them inside her forever.

“Because it costs money to buy a house. I don’t have money.” Micah nodded, but she knew he did not understand.

Back in the car, she stared at the wooden block studded with keys. Her roster for the day: three dozen homes, defenseless.

Agnes had made mistakes before. She’d shattered friendships. She’d had a drink when she knew the whole long list of horrible things that would come next. One thing was always true, though: She knew they were mistakes before she made them. She decided to make a mistake and that’s what she did. The hard part was figuring out the right mistake to make.

“TWICE IN TWO weeks,” her mother said, stubbing out her Virginia Slim. “You hard up for a place to take a shower?”

“Happy to see you, too, Mom.”

Her mom sat back in her chair and sighed, a long aching sound. Her eyes did not seem able to open all the way. Walmart had demoted her from the cash register to the shoe section. They talked in terse, fraught sentences until the water boiled and the instant coffee was prepared.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry for what?” her mother muttered.

“Sorry for what I did. To you.”

Her mother’s mug clinked against the counter. Now her eyes were wide.

“What did you do?”

“You know what I did. We both do. You even said so, the last time I was here.”

“Tell me.”

Agnes nodded. She owed her mother this much – to spell it out, to look her in the eyes. “I told the bank you were still living there, in the house, after you’d stopped paying the mortgage. After you’d been evicted. I got you kicked out.”

Her mother’s eyes were harsh, unblinking. Agnes took a sip: The coffee was so strong it hurt to swallow. “Do you know? What they did to it?” Her mother nodded. “I drive by there, sometimes.”

“I didn’t think I did anything wrong,” Agnes said. Her voice felt so small. “I thought you were in the wrong, to keep on living there when you couldn’t pay.”

“What changed?”

Agnes shrugged, opened her mouth, shut it again.

Her mother took her mug, added hot water, handed it back. “Last time you were here, you asked why the spirit took on the shape of Ganesha. I said I didn’t know, and I don’t. But I have a theory. When I was a little girl, our next-door neighbors were Indian. They had a Ganesha statue on their porch.

They had a girl my age, we used to play together. She always made me rub the statue’s stomach for good luck. I think when a house finds its perfect owner, it takes on the shape that owner needs to see.”

Agnes sipped. Diluted to human strength, the coffee wasn’t bad.

12 BURNT HILLS Road again. She lingered, left an extra orange. The house frightened her, but sometimes being frightened wasn’t bad. Sometimes fear brought you where you needed to be.

Agnes, it said, when she turned to go. This time the squeal of glass and wood, grinding together: All four windows in the front room trembled together, spoke as one.

“You know my name?”

We all know your name.

“We?”

The empty ones. I want to show you something. Will you let me show you?