Kelly Link - Get in Trouble - Stories

Gwenda threw off her long sleep. Sank toward the curve of the bulkhead, pressing on a drawer. It swung open and in she went to make her toilet, to be poked and prodded and injected, lathered and sluiced. She rid herself of the new growth of hair, the fine down on her arms and legs.

So slow, so slow, Maureen fretted. Let me get rid of it for you. For good.

“One day,” Gwenda said. She opened up her log, checked the charts on her guinea pigs, her carp.

This is why you are last again. You dawdle, Gwenda. You refuse to be sensible in the matter of personal grooming. Everyone is waiting for you. You’re missing all of the fun.

“Aune has asked for a Finnish disco or a Finnish sauna or the northern lights. Sullivan is playing with dogs. Mei is chatting up movie stars or famous composers, and Portia is being outrageous. There are waterfalls or redwood trees or dolphins,” Gwenda said.

Cherry blossoms. The Westminster dog show. 2009. The Sus sex Spaniel Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee wins. Sisi is hoping you will hurry. She wants to tell you something.

“Well,” Gwenda said. “I’d better hurry, then.”

Maureen went before and after, down Corridor One. Lights flicked on, then off again so that the corridor fell away behind Gwenda in darkness. Was Maureen the golden light ahead or the darkness that followed behind? Carp swam in the glassy walls.

Then she was in the Galley and the Great Room was just above her. Long-limbed Sisi poked her head through the glory hole. “New tattoo?”

It was an old joke.

Head to toes, Gwenda was covered in ink. There was a Dürer and a Doré; two Chinese dragons and a Celtic cross; the Queen of Diamonds torn in eight pieces by wolves; a girl on a playground rocket; the Statue of Liberty and the state flag of Illinois; passages from Lewis Carroll and the Book of Revelations and a hundred other books; a hundred other marvels. There was the spaceship House of Secrets on the back of Gwenda’s right hand, and its sister, House of Mystery , on her left.

Sisi had a pair of old cowboy boots, and Aune an ivory cross on a chain. Sullivan had a copy of Moby-Dick; Portia had a four-carat diamond in a platinum setting. Mei had her knitting needles.

Gwenda had her tattoos. Astronauts on the Long Trip travel lightly.

Hands pulled Gwenda up and into the Great Room, patted her back, her shoulders, ran over her head. Here, feet had weight. There was a floor, and she stood on it. There was a table and on the table was a cake. Familiar faces grinned at her.

The music was very loud. Silky-coated dogs chased flower petals.

“Surprise!” Sisi said. “Happy birthday, Gwenda!”

“But it isn’t my birthday,” Gwenda said. “It’s Portia’s birthday.”

“The lie was small,” Maureen said.

“It was my idea,” Portia said. “My idea to throw you a surprise party.”

“Well,” Gwenda said. “I’m surprised.”

“Come on,” Maureen said. “Come and blow out your candles.”

The candles were not real, of course. But the cake was.

It was the usual sort of party. They all danced, the way you could only dance in micro gravity. It was all good fun. When dinner was ready, Maureen sent away the Finnish dance music, the dogs, the cherry blossoms. You could hear Shakespeare say to Mei, “I always dreamed of being an astronaut.” And then he vanished.

Once there had been two ships. Standard practice, in the Third Age of Space Travel, to build more than one ship at a time, to send companion ships out on their long voyages. Redundancy enhances resilience. Sister ships Seeker and Messenger , called House of Secrets and House of Mystery by their crews, left Earth on a summer day in the year 2059.

House of Secrets had seen her twin disappear in a wink, a blink. First there, then nowhere. That had been thirty years ago. Space was full of mysteries. Space was full of secrets.

Dinner was beef Wellington (fake) with asparagus and new potatoes (both real) and sourdough rolls (realish). The experimental chickens were laying again, and so there were poached eggs, too, as well as the chocolate cake. Maureen increased gravity, because even fake beef Wellington requires suitable gravity. Mei threw rolls across the table at Gwenda. “Look at that, will you?” she said. “Every now and then a girl likes to watch something fall.”

Aune supplied bulbs of something alcoholic. No one asked what it was. Aune worked with eukaryotes and archaea. “I made enough to get us lit,” she said. “Just a little lit. Because today is Gwenda’s birthday.”

“It was my birthday just a little while ago,” Portia said. “How old am I, anyway? Never mind, who’s counting.”

“To Portia,” Aune said. “Forever youngish.”

“To Proxima Centauri,” Sullivan said. “Getting closer every day. Not that much closer.”

“Here’s to all us Goldilockses. Here’s to a planet that’s just right.”

“To real gardens,” Aune said. “With real toads.”

“To Maureen,” Sisi said. “And old friends.” She squeezed Gwenda’s hand.

“To our House of Secrets ,” Mei said.

“To House of Mystery ,” Sisi said. They all turned and looked at her. Sisi squeezed Gwenda’s hand again. They drank.

“We didn’t get you anything, Gwenda,” Sullivan said.

“I don’t want anything,” Gwenda said.

“I do,” Portia said. “Stories! Ones I haven’t heard before.”

Sisi cleared her throat. “There’s just one thing,” she said. “We ought to tell Gwenda the one thing.”

“You’ll ruin her birthday,” Portia said.

“What?” Gwenda asked Sisi.

“It’s nothing,” Sisi said. “Nothing at all. Only the mind playing tricks. You know how it goes.”

“Maureen?” Gwenda said. “What’s going on?”

Maureen blew through the room, a vinegar breeze. “Approximately thirty-one hours ago Sisi was in the Control Room. She performed several usual tasks and then asked me to bring up our immediate course. Twelve seconds later, I observed her heart rate had increased precipitously. When I asked her if something was wrong, she said, ‘Do you see it, too, Maureen?’ I asked Sisi to tell me what she was seeing. Sisi said, ‘ House of Mystery. Over to starboard. It was there. Then it was gone.’ I told Sisi I had not seen it. We called back the visuals, but nothing was recorded there. I broadcast on all channels. No one answered. No one has seen House of Mystery in the intervening time.”

“Sisi?” Gwenda said.

“It was there,” Sisi said. “Swear to God I saw it. Like looking in a mirror. So near I could almost touch it.”

They all began to talk at once.

“Do you think—”

“Just a trick of the imagination—”

“It disappeared like that. Remember?” Sullivan snapped his fingers. “Why couldn’t they come back again the same way?”

“No!” Portia said. She glared at them all. “I don’t want to talk about this, to rehash all this again. Don’t you remember? We talked and talked and we theorized and we rationalized and what difference did it make?”

“Portia?” Maureen said. “I will formulate something for you, if you are distraught.”

“No,” Portia said. “I don’t want anything. I’m fine. ”

“It wasn’t really there,” Sisi said. “It wasn’t there and I wish I hadn’t seen it.” There were fat-bodied tears on her lower eyelids. Gwenda reached out, lifted one away on her thumb.

“Had you been drinking?” Sullivan said.

“No,” Sisi said.

“But we haven’t stopped drinking since,” Aune said. She tossed back another bulb. “Maureen sobers us up and we just climb that mountain again. Cheers.”