Peter Beagle - The Line Between

«You'll be killed," said the fisherman.

The octopus was hardly equipped to smile, but the fisherman could hear one in his voice all the same. «I shall still be with God.»

«That particular form of deep metaphysical appreciation will come to you soon enough without the help of fatalism or fifty–foot waves," said the fisherman, pulling the half–filled canvas bag from his belt. «Besides, our conversation has just begun.»

Quick as the eels he was so good at catching, the fisherman slid over the rail and dropped to the exposed seabed. Once there he knelt down and pulled the open canvas bag back and forth through the silty, cross–cut shallows, losing his catch, but harvesting a full crop of seawater.

«Well? Are you coming?» the fisherman shouted up to the octopus. He held out the brimming bag exactly like the promise it was. «Time and tide, my many–armed friend. Time and tide!»

In the years that followed — and these were many, for the fisherman and the octopus did survive the tsunami, just — these two unlikely philosophers spent a great deal of time together. The fisherman found in the octopus a companion who shared all his interests, including Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard (whom the octopus found «a trifle nervous»), current events both above and below the water, and favorite kinds of fish. The octopus, in turn, learned more than he had ever imagined learning about the worlds of space and thought, and in time he even wrote his book. After suffering rejections from all the major publishing houses, it finally caught the attention of an editor at a Midwestern university press. That worthy, favoring the poetic over the literal, tacked Eight Arms to Hold You above the manuscript's original title— Octopoidal Observations — advertised the book as allegory, and watched it enjoy two and a half years on the New Age bestseller lists. Every three months he dutifully sent a royalty check and a forwarded packet of fan letters to a certain coastal post office box; and if the checks were never cashed, well, what business was it of his? Authors were eccentric — no one knew that better than he, as he said often.

The octopus's book found no underwater readership, of course, since in the ocean, just as on land, reviewers tend to be sharks. But the onesidedness and anonymity of his fame never troubled him. When not visiting the fisherman, he was content to nibble on passing hermit crabs and drowse among the rocks in a favorite tide pool (his own sunken hulk having been smashed to as many flinders as the fisherman's old boat), thinking deeply, storing up questions and debating points to spring on his patient and honorable friend.

And he never asked if anyone or anything was God, not ever again. He didn't have to.

Moral: The best answer to any question? It's always a surprise.

* * *

El Regalo

Sometimes a story interests me too much, for one reason or another, simply to let it go: I need to know what happens later. This doesn't happen often, and when it does I hate it, but there you are.

And so it is with this one. I need to know what comes next for Angie and Marvyn (not to mention El Viejo). That's why somewhere up ahead there will be a full novel detailing the further adventures of these two Korean–American siblings. I plan on giving it the title which inspired this story in the first place: My Stupid Brother Marvyn the Witch.

«You can't kill him," Mr. Luke said. «Your mother wouldn't like it.» After some consideration, he added, «I'd be rather annoyed myself.»

«But wait," Angie said, in the dramatic tones of a television commercial for some miraculous mop. «There's more. I didn't tell you about the brandied cupcakes — "

«Yes, you did.»

«And about him telling Jennifer Williams what I got her for her birthday, and she pitched a fit, because she had two of them already — "

«He meant well," her father said cautiously. «I'm pretty sure.»

«And then when he finked to Mom about me and Orlando Cruz, and we weren't doing anything — "

«Nevertheless. No killing.»

Angie brushed sweaty mouse–brown hair off her forehead and regrouped. «Can I at least maim him a little? Trust me, he's earned it.»

«I don't doubt you," Mr. Luke agreed. «But you're twelve, and Marvyn's eight. Eight and a half. You're bigger than he is, so beating him up isn't fair. When you're … oh, say, twenty, and he's sixteen and a half — okay, you can try it then. Not until.»

Angie's wordless grunt might or might not have been assent. She started out of the room, but her father called her back, holding out his right hand. «Pinky–swear, kid.» Angie eyed him warily, but hooked her little finger around his without hesitation, which was a mistake. «You did that much too easily," her father said, frowning. «Swear by Buffy.»

«What? You can't swear by a television show!»

«Where is that written? Repeat after me—'I swear by Buffy the Vampire Slayer—' " «You really don't trust me!»

" 'I swear by Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I will keep my hands off my baby brother—' "

«My baby brother, the monster! He's gotten worse since he started sticking that y in his name — "

" ' — and I will stop calling him Ex–Lax—' "

«Come on, I only do that when he makes me really mad — "

" ' — until he shall have attained the age of sixteen years and six months, after which time—' "

«After which time I get to pound him into marmalade. Deal. I can wait.» She grinned;

then turned self–conscious, making a performance of pulling down her upper lip to cover the shiny new braces. At the door, she looked over her shoulder and said lightly, «You are way too smart to be a father.»

From behind his book, Mr. Luke answered, «I've often thought so myself.»

Angie spent the rest of the evening in her room, doing homework on the phone with Melissa Feldman, her best friend. Finished, feeling virtuously entitled to some low–fat chocolate reward, she wandered down the hall toward the kitchen, passing her brother's room on the way. Looking in — not because of any special interest, but because Marvyn invariably hung around her own doorway, gazing in aimless fascination at whatever she was doing, until shooed away — she saw him on the floor, playing with Milady, the gray, ancient family cat. Nothing unusual about that: Marvyn and Milady had been an item since he was old enough to realize that the cat wasn't something to eat. What halted Angie as though she had walked into a wall was that they were playing Monopoly, and that Milady appeared to be winning.

Angie leaned in the doorway, entranced and alarmed at the same time. Marvyn had to throw the dice for both Milady and himself, and the old cat was too riddled with arthritis to handle the pastel Monopoly money easily. But she waited her turn, and moved her piece — she had the silver top hat — very carefully, as though considering possible options. And she already had a hotel on Park Place.

Marvyn jumped up and slammed the door as soon as he noticed his sister watching the game, and Angie went on to liberate a larger–than–planned remnant of sorbet. Somewhere near the bottom of the container she finally managed to stuff what she'd just glimpsed deep in the part of her mind she called her «forgettery.» As she'd once said to her friend Melissa, «There's such a thing as too much information, and it is not going to get me. I am never going to know more than I want to know about stuff. Look at the President.»

For the next week or so Marvyn made a point of staying out of Angie's way, which was all by itself enough to put her mildly on edge. If she knew one thing about her brother, it was that the time to worry was when you didn't see him. All the same, on the surface things were peaceful enough, and continued so until the evening when Marvyn went dancing with the garbage.