Ellen Datlow - The Beastly Bride

Her gaze followed its trajectory, first golden against the blue day and then, of a sudden, a ball of fire streaking away through the night. The eyeblink replacement of sun with moon nearly made her lose her balance. Still, she managed to watch until the sweet became a star among the million other stars. When Ganesha, glowing slightly in the dark, turned to face her, she clapped for him. He bowed.

Once they were situated back on the bench, the girl lit a cigarette. Ganesha gently waved her smoke away with his ears and curled his trunk over his left shoulder. Kroncha climbed on the bench between them, curled up, and went to sleep.

She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and turned her head to look at him. “It’s night now?” she asked.

He nodded, pointing to the moon and stars with three of his hands.

“What happened to the day?” she asked.

“You’ll get it back later,” he said.

“Got my report card today,” she said, and took a drag.

“A triumph, no doubt,” he said.

“When my father saw it, he checked my pulse. My mother was in tears. I can’t help it, though; their frustration is comical to me. A report card. What does it really mean?”

“An excellent question,” said Ganesha.

“Should I care?”

“Do you feel as if you should?”

“No,” she said, and flicked the glowing butt away onto the dirt.

“You’ve outwitted that conundrum, then,” he said.

She leaned over slightly and began petting the sleeping Kroncha.

“When I saw you in the time of the red leaves, you told me you were in love,” said Ganesha.

She smiled. “An elephant never forgets,” she said. “I hate that part.”

“The young gentleman with the tattoo of Porky Pig on his calf?”

She nodded and smiled. “You know Porky Pig?” she said.

Ganesha waved with all four hands. “Th-th-that’s all, folks.”

“Simon,” she said. “He was okay for a while. We used to bike out to the forest, and he helped me build a little shrine to you out of cinder blocks from the abandoned sand factory. I brought out your picture, and we’d go there at night, drink beer and light incense. He was really cute, but under the cute there was too much stupid. He was always either grabbing my tits or punching me in the shoulder. He laughed like a clown. After I dumped him, I rode out to the forest to the shrine one day and found that he’d wrecked it, torn your picture to scraps, and kicked over the thing we’d built, which, now that I think about it, looked a lot like a barbecue pit. Then he told everyone I was weird.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Ganesha.

“I guess I am,” she said. “Poe’s my favorite writer, and I like to be alone a lot. I like the sound of the wind in the trees out by the abandoned factory. I like it when my parents are asleep at night and aren’t worrying about me. I can feel their worry in my back. I have a lot of daydreams — being in a war, being married, making animated movies about a porcupine named Florence, running away, getting really good at poetry, having sex, getting really smart and telling people what to do, getting a car and driving all over.”

“Sounds like you’ll need to get busy,” said Ganesha.

“Tell me about it,” she said. “My specialty is napping.”

“A noble pursuit,” he said.

“The other day,” she said, “when I took a walk in the afternoon, I went all the way out to the factory. I sat on that big rock next to it and watched the leaves blowing in the wind. In a certain configuration of sky and leaves, I saw this really detailed image of a mermaid. It was like she was there flying through the air.”

He closed his eyes and tried to picture it.

“A rabbit hopped out from behind a tree then, and I looked away for a second. When I looked back to the leaves, she was gone. No matter how I squinted or moved my head, I couldn’t find her there anymore.”

“Nevermore,” whispered Kroncha from sleep.

“I thought it might have been a sign from you.”

“No,” said Ganesha, “that was yours.”

“I’ve wanted to write a poem about it,” she said. “I can feel it inside me, there’s energy there to do it, but when I sit down and concentrate — no words. All that happens is I start thinking about other stuff. I’m afraid I’ll look away from her one day, and she’ll be gone, as well, from my memory.”

“Well,” he said, sitting forward, “am I the destroyer of obstacles or am I not?” As he spoke, the color drained from him and he became gleaming white. Out of thin air appeared four more arms to make eight, and in his various hands he held: a noose, a goad, a green parrot, a sprig of the kalpavriksha tree, a prayer vessel, a sword, and a pomegranate. His eighth hand, empty, he turned palm up, as if offering something invisible to her.

“You are definitely the Lakshmi Ganapathi,” she said, laughing.

The seven items suddenly disappeared from his hands, but he remained the color of the moon. “Show me the things you think about instead of the mermaid,” he said.

“How?”

“Just think about them,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

She did, but after quite a while, she said, “I can’t even picture. Oh, wait. Here’s something.” Her eyes squinted more tightly closed. She felt the image in her thoughts gather itself into a bubble and exit her head. It tickled the lobe of her left ear like a secret kiss as it bobbed away on the breeze. She opened her eyes to see it. There it floated, five feet from them, a clear bubble with a scene inside.

“Who’s that?” asked Ganesha.

“My mother,” she said.

“She’s preparing something.”

“Meat loaf.”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“Gross,” she said.

“Not exactly a modaka ,” he said. “Let’s see more.”

She closed her eyes and thought, and eventually the bubbles came in clusters, exiting from both ears. Each held a tiny scene from her life. They bobbed in midair and sailed on the breeze, glowing pale blue. Some had risen to the tallest branches of the trees and some lit snaking paths through the thicket toward the lake or field.

“There goes Simon,” she said as the last few bubbles exited her right ear.

“Call them back,” said Ganesha.

“How?”

“Whistle,” he said.

She did, and no sooner had she made a sound than all of the glowing bubbles halted in their leisurely flights and slowly reversed course. She whistled again, and they came faster and faster, flying from all directions, each emitting a musical note that made their return a song that filled the surrounding thicket. Their speed became dizzying, and then, at once, they all collided, exploding in a wave of blue that swamped the picnic table. The blue blindness quickly evaporated to reveal a man-shaped creature composed of the bubbles. Now, instead of scenes, each globe held an eye at its center. The thing danced wildly before Chloe and Ganesha, sticking out its long, undulating tongue of eyes.

She reared back against the table. “What is it?”

“A demon. We must destroy it,” said Ganesha, and leaped off the bench. The ground vibrated with his landing, and this startled the demon, which turned and fled, its form wavering, turning momentarily to pure static, like the picture on the old television in her parents’ den.

“Kroncha, to the hunt,” said Ganesha, his color changing again, blue and red swirling through moon-white and mixing.

The rat rubbed its eyes, stood up, and jumped down to the ground. As Ganesha squatted upon Kroncha’s back, the rat asked, “A demon?”

Ganesha now brandished the point of his broken tusk as a weapon. “Correct,” he said. Kroncha inched forward, building speed.