Dark Mondays Read online

  Dark Mondays

  Kage Baker

  Kage Baker, celebrated creator of the Company novels and the standout collection Mother Aegypt now brings together pirates, primates, eldritch horrors, maritime ghosts, and much more in Dark Mondays. This captivating new collection of fantastic short fiction is sure to cement her reputation as one of the most original storytellers working in the fantasy and speculative fiction genres today.

  Whether spinning tales of the mysterious young woman and the dreadful pirate captain Henry Morgan in the original novella “The Maid on the Shore,” the tiny California beach community assaulted by Lovecraftian terrors in “Calamari Curls,” or the girl menaced by a haunting photograph and a trio of aspiring vampires at the heart of “Portrait, With Flames,” Kage Baker distinguishes herself throughout Dark Mondays as a storyteller extraordinaire, crafting intricately-woven plots, compelling characters, and captivating settings filled with convincing detail.

  As likely to shock and surprise as it is to fill you with a sense of weird wonder and delight, Dark Mondays will entrance you with its inventive prose, astound you with its action, and seduce you with its style.

  Dark Mondays

  STORIES BY KAGE BAKER

  “The Two Old Women” © 2005 by Kage Baker. Originally published in Asimov’s, February 2005.

  “Portrait, With Flames” © 2006 by Kage Baker. It is original to this collection.

  “Monkey Day” © 2006 by Kage Baker. It is original to this collection.

  “Calamari Curls” © 2006 by Kage Baker. It is original to this collection.

  “Katherine’s Story” © 2006 by Kage Baker. A significantly shorter version was previously published electronically at Fictionwise.com, February 2001.

  “Oh, False Young Man!” © 2006 by Kage Baker. Published here for the first time.

  “So This Guy Walks into a Lighthouse” © 2006 by Kage Baker. Originally published in Poe’s Lighthouse (CD Publications, 2006). Reprinted by kind permission of Chris Conlon.

  “Silent Leonardo” © 2004 by Kage Baker. Originally published in ReVisions (DAW Books, 2004).

  “The Maid on the Shore” © 2006 by Kage Baker. It is original to this collection.

  “Dark Mondays and Peculiar Tuesdays” © 2006 by Kage Baker. It is original to this collection, and available only in the limited edition of this book.

  To Tom Barclay, fellow seeker after truth and the original melody to Dead Man’s Chest. Here’s to ourselves, shipmate!

  THE TWO OLD WOMEN

  The gulls rose from the evening water, glided out serene and pointed, each little pilot craning its neck to judge its way on sharp-curved wings. So high the sea the bright foam was driven on the wind, and cloudy air rolled in low above the little town. Backlit by the low sun, the long combers threw back manes of white salt mist, thundering up the sand. Boats rocked at anchor, battened down against autumn gales, and she could hear their blocks and tackle clinking even up where she sat.

  The old woman gazed down at the harbor.

  She wore black, being a widow, a little stumpy lady like a wooden post. When she had been a young wife, sitting in this same place, watching this same harbor, there had still been ships moored in the green water, and the horizon was all masts and spars. Gradually the masts had given way to steam, or diesel. Now only the sailboats bore canvas. Bright summer days they skimmed out there beyond the island, or tacked to and fro in the harbor. Not tonight.

  Nobody ventured out tonight, except grandmothers in black. They went to St. Anthony’s for evening mass, praying for their dead on All Soul’s Night. The old woman, though, remained in her chair. She was not a grandmother.

  She sat there still as the sun sank, as the pink twilight fell. When the change in the wind came she felt it first, because her house sat high on the last street. She turned, peering. It was a hot wind, coming over the fields, and it smelled of mown hay and creek water. It flowed over her. It rolled down on the harbor. The mist fled before it, retreated out to sea, and the sea grew glassy and calm.

  Her breath quickened, though her expression of stolid patience did not change. She rose, creaking, and went slowly into her house.

  Inside, her house was spartan and shabby, but scrupulously clean. One bare table with two chairs; one rug with a half-century’s path worn across it, sun-faded. Only in one corner was there color, all around the tall shelf where the candles burned in their ruby glass cups before the image of the Blessed Mother. Here the old woman had set a vase of flowers, dark red roses from the schoolground fence, yellow chrysanthemums from her garden.

  And here she had hung the pictures: the tinted photographs of a distant wedding day, a smiling bride and groom, a formal portrait of a handsome young man in his best suit.

  She took off her shawl, tied on an apron. For the next four hours she worked very hard, pounding spices in a mortar, chopping greens, simmering broth. She roasted a formidable loin of pork with garlic, baked linguica with peppers, and crumbled crisp bacon into the Caldo Verde; but she prepared nothing with seafood of any kind. And in no dish did she use salt.

  When things could be left over low heat, she went into the front room and laid the cloth carefully, set out the candlesticks. One place set, one bottle of black-red wine from a cupboard, a single fine glass. Half an hour before midnight, she set out the tureen, the platters of meat, the pan of cornbread. She poured a single glass of wine. She lit the tapers. She took another candle, a blue one, and set it in the window, carefully tying the curtains back.

  Then she took off her apron, drew her shawl around her shoulders, and walked down to the harbor.

  The wind had not changed. The air was clear, the darkness full of little flickering lights. It took her longer than it had used to, to get down to the mole, but she arrived before midnight. She waited, staring out into the night ocean.

  At midnight she saw the white sail gliding in, as she had known it would. The black water was smooth as glass, the little fishing boat moved over it without a sound. She could see it clearly now. The timbers were rotted and festooned with rank weed, the paint bubbled and chipped away, and all the ironwork risen like biscuit with rust. But the sail was white and whole, belled out with phantom wind, bright with phantom sunlight. His face was bright, too, where he sat at the tiller.

  He was still young.

  He brought his craft up to the mole easily, tossed a loop of seaweed around a bollard and moored; stepped lightly out, with his duffel over his shoulder. He leaned down to kiss her. His lips moved as though he were speaking to her, gleeful and excited, but he wasn’t making a sound.

  He chattered away in perfect silence, all the way back through the town. He outpaced her easily, on his young, long legs, and more than once had to stop and wait for her at a turn in the street. He looked a little puzzled at her slowness.

  But they got to the top of the hill at last. He bounded up the steps of their house, opened the door for her, slung down his duffel and stood rubbing his hands together, eyeing the food greedily. As she closed the door, he was already pulling off his jacket and knitted cap. Where he dropped them they became a soaked mass of rotten wool, and the duffel was black and sodden too.

  He hitched his suspenders, sat down at the table, rolled up his long sleeves. Grinning, he helped himself to the food. Knife in one fist, fork in the other, he ate heartily, steadily, and set the fork down only to gulp the red wine. She sat across from him and watched. He smeared melting butter on the corn bread. He savored the pork crackling. Once or twice he looked around on the table, hunting for the salt; but as it wasn’t there, he shrugged and went on eating.

  When he had done, when the white candles had burned down a quarter of their length, he pushed his empty plate back and said something to her. He winked broadly. She r
ose and went into the bedroom, and he followed her.

  There her young heart went out of her body, and the old woman sat weeping in a chair watching the young woman undress, and slip into bed. He shucked off his boots, his clothes—they fell to pieces on the floor, and water spread there in a dark stain on the rag rug. He climbed into bed with the phantom girl, and she lay in his arms.

  Far into the night, as the young husband and wife slept, the old woman rose from her chair. She was moving more stiffly now, and her eyes were swollen from so much weeping, so she felt her way as though she were blind. She gathered up the ruined garments in her apron, carried them out to the garden, and lay them at the base of a tree. She collected the food from the table and carried it out there too. She got a shovel. Gasping, her old heart laboring, she dug a hole under the tree and buried the rags, the remains of the feast.

  Then she went back into the house. She took a box from a cupboard and carried it outside again. Walking the perimeter of the garden fence, she laid down a line of white powder, very carefully. When she had drawn an unbroken circle around her home, she went back indoors.

  The sky was just getting light in the east. She blew out the candles. The smoke rose, coiled.

  * * *

  The other old woman, in her house down the hill, woke a little while later. She dressed herself and, kneeling at her corner shrine, said a rosary. Sometimes her gaze was on the Blessed Mother’s kind, inscrutable face; sometimes on the framed photograph of the old man, sitting in after-dinner ease with a grandchild on either knee, and the ash falling from his cigar caught by the camera in midair forever.

  But as she told her beads, the other old woman became aware of a sound. It could be heard above the diesel motors rumbling to life in the harbor, the raucous screaming of gulls following the trawlers out. After a moment she identified it as someone hammering, irregularly.

  It continued as she rose and went to the kitchen. It counterpointed the rocking of the wooden bowl as she kneaded dough. It was still going, three taps and a pause, three taps and a pause, as she sliced potatoes and set them to fry in bacon grease.

  At last she turned from the stove and went to the window above the sink. Parting the checked curtain, she squinted in the direction of the sunrise. There was her sister’s house, on its high ridge. She peered, rubbed her eyes, retrieved a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket and slipped them on. She saw a man on a ladder, putting new shingles on her sister’s roof. The sun, just now reaching him, lit him up in gold.

  The other old woman nodded in approval, and went back to the stove.

  After a moment, though, she frowned. She looked out the window again, wiping her hands on her apron. At last she turned down the heat and left the kitchen, walking through the house.

  Marco’s bed was empty, neatly made, because he was away at boot camp. Danny was still asleep on his side of the room, snoring. The other old woman shook her head at the sport jacket lying where it had been thrown, the cigarette butts on the floor, the guitar. She picked up his discarded socks and went on.

  Margaret Mary was in her room, sound asleep under the sultry gaze of Elvis on her tacked-up posters, and the other old woman spared her no more than a glance in before moving on. She looked in on the twins by habit, and caught them awake and clandestinely eating Halloween candy. One basilisk stare was all it took and they scrambled back into bed, huddling there as she retrieved tiny underwear and socks from their hamper.

  Celia woke when she opened the door, though John slept through it. The other old woman left without a word, and had the first laundry load going when Celia shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.

  The hammering was still going on. Tap tap tap, pause.

  “The wind’s changed. It’s coming from inshore, can you feel it? Going to be hot today,” said Celia.

  “Mm,” said her mother.

  “Mama,” said Celia, clearing her throat, “you don’t have to fry up so much linguica in the morning. The kids want Corn Pops.”

  “Danny likes it,” said her mother. “Did you tell Rosalie to get Jerry to fix Tia Adela’s roof?”

  “No, Mama.” Celia yawned, and got a can of coffee down from the cupboard. “I told you, Danny’s going to do it. He promised me.”

  “Well, somebody’s up there now,” said her mother, parting the curtain once again. Celia blinked, came and stared.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Not Danny,” said her mother.

  “Huh,” said Celia, troubled. But she went to the breadbox, methodically laid out sandwiches for the school lunches: Peanut butter for the twins, tuna salad for Margaret Mary. Three brown paper bags, three oranges, three dimes for milk. Rituals for the living.

  Not another word was said on the subject of Tia Adela’s roof, as the household was fed, as the children were sent to school, as John went to work at the boatyard, as Danny was coaxed out of bed, bullied into eating linguica and onions despite his hangover and sent on his way to the new job at the fish market, as the clean, wet clothes went out on the line to dry.

  But when the house was quiet and well-ordered again, the other old woman looked meaningfully at her daughter and pulled on her shawl. Celia followed her out the door, fanning herself with a piece of newspaper.

  “Mama, it’s hot,” she complained. “You don’t have to wear that thing.” But her mother ignored her, and they were silent the rest of the way up the hill to Tia Adela’s house.

  The hammering was still going on. They could see the edge of the ladder poking up over the roofline, but they could not see the workman until they walked out to the edge of the street and turned.

  The other old woman said nothing, but she made the sign of the cross involuntarily. Celia shaded her eyes against the sun with her newspaper. “I’m sweating to death, Mama,” she muttered, studying the workman. Nobody she knew, though he was certainly good-looking: long lean back bronzed by the sun, a mermaid tattooed on his right arm. His hair was a little long; his wool trousers were a little tight.

  “Hello?” she called. “Mister?”

  He did not reply. He did not even turn his head; just reached over and took the last tarpaper shingle from its box, and tacked it in place.

  “Hey!” Celia called, when he paused to wipe his forehead. He did not appear to notice her. His lips were moving as though he were singing to himself, though he was not making a sound. He dropped his hammer, climbed briskly down the ladder and walked out of sight behind the house.

  “I wonder if he’s deaf?” said Celia. “I’ll bet that’s what it is, Mama. She’s hired one of those handicapped guys from St. Vincent de Paul’s, huh? Danny would have gotten around to it,” she added plaintively. “Gee, now I feel bad.”

  Her mother did not reply.

  “Mama, maybe we should knock on the door, see if Tia Adela’s okay,” said Celia. “Some of those guys are a little crazy, you know?”

  “No,” said her mother. “We’re going home.”

  She said it in such a way Celia knew there was no point arguing. They walked back down the hill.

  * * *

  Once or twice, at night, the hot wind brought the lowing of cattle from the big ranch far up the canyon. By day, the twins and Margaret Mary sweated in their blue woolen school uniforms. Rosalie, miserable in the heat, fled her tiny apartment and walked up the street to sit on the porch swing with her mother. The radio blared from the house behind them.

  “Did you throw up every damn morning like this?” she asked querulously, raising her voice to be heard over Perry Como.

  “Only with you and Marco,” Celia replied. “All I could eat for a month was green grapes and crackers. It’ll get better, sweetie.”

  “I sure hope so,” sighed Rosalie. “Were you bothered by smells too? I opened a can of sardines, and I swear I nearly died.”

  “Good thing Jerry’s not in port right now, then,” joked her mother, but Rosalie did not smile.

  “I miss him already,” she said, staring out at the sea in
resentment. “I had bad dreams last night. It’s too late in the year to go out so far, don’t you think?”

  “It’s still summer,” said Celia, waving at the electric fan. “Summer in November, for God’s sake. And they have to make money while they can, you know.”

  “It’s not fair,” said Rosalie. Her mother looked at her sidelong.

  “You married him,” she said. “I told you, didn’t I? Marry a Souza, an Avila or a Machado, and half the year he’ll be out there on a trawler. And the other half of the year your house will stink like fish.”

  “Maybe he can get a job at the boatyard with Daddy,” said Rosalie. Celia made a noncommittal noise. Rosalie lifted her head to watch a leaf floating down the wind. Her gaze fell on the house against the skyline.

  “Don’t tell me you got Danny to paint Tia Adela’s house!” she said.

  Celia looked unhappy.

  “No. She has some boy from St. Vincent de Paul’s up there, or maybe the Salvation Army.”

  “It’s looking really nice,” Rosalie observed, standing to see better. “See, all those hedges have been cut back. Somebody took down that big dead tree! Jerry was going to do that for her, when he got around to it,” she added, a little uncomfortably.

  Celia shrugged. Rosalie’s face brightened.

  “Gee, do you think she’s getting it fixed up to sell? Like, maybe she’s going to move into a home? Maybe you could talk to her about giving it to Jerry and me instead. We really need the room.”

  “I don’t talk much to Tia Adela,” said Celia. “Anyway, sweetie, it’s her house.”

  “But we’re young,” Rosalie groaned. “What does she need with a whole house?”

  * * *

  That night the wind changed again.

  The temperature dropped. A long swell rolled in from the sea, and by midnight the surf was booming on the mole. Mist rolled in, too, white under the stars. It brought the smell of salt, of sea wrack and low tide.