– Yeah. He used to be so-well, civilized. Disciplined. Controlled. And now -Now I wouldn't trust him with anything. Not the book, not anything. You can't turn your back on him. He's hungry all the time.
– He is?
– He'll eat anyone if he doesn't stop himself. He'd eat the fucking field-mice if he could!
– I thought it was supposed to make you not eat much, she said gently.
– He doesn't eat much. He doesn't eat anything. He used to like broccoli rabe and anchovies and crème caramel. He can't take real food at all, now.
She touched his wrist. -I'm really, really sorry.
– Yeah, well.
– I'm glad you're here.
– Yeah.
Her warm fingers slipped around his wrist, soft against his pulse, like life holding onto life. She'd know if anything happened to him. She'd know…
The radiator clanked, and, on the edge of sleep, he jumped.
"Sii-lent night… "
The sound drifted up from the radiator, no, from the window it was under, which rattled in a gust of wind, covering for a moment the words, the silly happy people out there singing in the street, and then it was, "Allllll is calm… Alllll is bright…"
"Yes, come along, field-mice," cried the Mole eagerly. "This is quite like old times! Shut the door after you. Pull up that settle to the fire."
She said, -I'll be your home, tonight.
– Dulce Domum, Kay said quietly.
– Dulce? Is that, like, ice cream?
– It's the chapter in the book, stupid. Latin for "Home, sweet home."
– I've got half a jar of dulce de leche from the corner bodega. When's the last time you ate?
– Breakfast, I guess.
– Get up, she said. -In my home, we make fried eggs and toast in the middle of the night when we're especially happy. It's a tradition.
And they braced themselves for the last long stretch, the home stretch, the stretch that we know is bound to end, some time, in the rattle of the door-latch, the sudden firelight, and the sight of familiar things greeting us as long-absent travellers from far overseas.
About the Authors
Daniel Abraham was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, earned a biology degree from the University of New Mexico, and spent ten years working in tech support. He sold his first short story in 1996, and followed it with six novels, including fantasy series "The Long Price Quartet," Hunter's Run (an SF novel written with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois), dark fantasy Unclean Spirits (as M. L. N. Hanover), and more than twenty short stories, including International Horror Guild Award-winner "Flat Diane" and Hugo and World Fantasy award nominee "The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics." His most recent book is The Price of Spring.
Peter S. Beagle was born in Manhattan on the same night that Billie Holiday was recording "Strange Fruit" and "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," just a few blocks away. Raised in the Bronx, Peter originally proclaimed he would be a writer when he was ten years old. Today he is acknowledged as an American fantasy icon, and to the delight of his millions of fans around the world is now publishing more than ever. He is the author of the beloved classic The Last Unicorn, as well as the novels A Fine and Private Place, The Innkeeper's Song, and Tamsin. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Mythopoeic awards. His most recent book is collection We Never Talk about My Brother. Upcoming are new novels I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons and Summerlong, and new collection Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle.
Elizabeth Bear was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She lives in Manchester, Connecticut, with a presumptuous cat, a giant ridiculous dog, the best roommate ever, and a selection of struggling houseplants. Her first short fiction appeared in 1996, and was followed after a nearly decade-long gap by fifteen novels, two short story collections, and more than fifty short stories. Her most recent books are novels Chill, By The Mountain Bound, and novella Bone & Jewel Creatures. Bear's "Jenny Casey" trilogy won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. Her short story "Tideline" won the Hugo and Sturgeon awards, and her novelette "Shoggoths in Bloom" was a Hugo nominee.
Pat Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. She studied at the University of Massachusetts and University of Kansas, edited small press magazines Shayol and Chacal, and published her first story in 1980. One of the most important writers of the cyberpunk movement, she is the author of sixteen books, including debut novel Mindplayers, which was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winners Synners and Fools, as well as two nonfiction movie books on the making of The Mummy and Lost in Space, five media tie-ins, and one young adult novel, Avatars. Her short fiction is collected in Locus Award-winner Patterns, Dirty Work, Home by the Sea, and Letters from Home. She currently lives in London with her husband, the Original Chris Fowler.
Paul Di Filippo sold his first story in 1977. Since then he's had several hundred short stories published, the majority of them collected in his dozen short story collections. He has written nine novels, including Fuzzy Dice and Spondulix. His most recent books are novel Roadside Bodhisattva, collection Harsh Oases, and short illustrated novel Cosmocopia. He is currently working, at last (!), on A Princess of the Linear Jungle, a sequel to his multiple award-nominated novella A Year in the Linear City. He lives in his native state, Rhode Island, amidst eldritch Lovecraftian surroundings, with his mate of thirty years, Deborah Newton, a chocolate cocker spaniel named Brownie, and a three-colored cat named Penny Century.
Jeffrey Ford was born in West Islip, New York. He worked as a machinist and as a clammer before studying English with John Gardner at the State University of New York. He is the author of seven novels, including The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, and The Shadow Year. His short fiction collections are The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories, The Empire of Ice Cream, and The Drowned Life. His fiction has won the World Fantasy Award, Nebula, Edgar Allan Poe Award, Fountain Award, Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Ford lives in southern New Jersey where he teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College.
Karen Joy Fowler was born in Bloomington, Indiana and attended the University of California at Berkeley between 1968 and 1972, graduating with a BA in Political Science, and then earning an MA at UC Davis in 1974. She published her first science fiction story, "Praxis," in 1985 and has won the Nebula Award for stories "What I Didn't See" and "Always." Her short fiction has been collected in Artificial Things and World Fantasy Award-winner Black Glass. Fowler is also the author of five novels, including debut Sarah Canary (described by critic John Clute as one of the finest First Contact novels ever written), Sister Noon, The Sweetheart Season, and Wit's End. She is probably best known, though, for her novel The Jane Austen Book Club, which was adapted into a successful film. She lives in Santa Cruz, California, with husband Hugh Sterling Fowler II. They have two grown children.
Molly Gloss was born in Portland, Oregon, and studied at Portland State College (now University). She worked as a schoolteacher and a correspondence clerk for a freight company before becoming a full-time writer in 1980. In 1981, she took a course in science fiction writing from Ursula K. Le Guin at Portland State University. Her first short story, "The Doe," was published that same year, and was followed by a dozen more, including Hugo and Nebula Award-nominee "Lambing Season." Her first novel Outside the Gates appeared in 1986, and was followed by The Jump-Off Creek, The Dazzle of Day, Wild Life, and The Hearts of Horses. Wild Life was a James Tiptree Jr. Award-winner. In addition, she has won the 1990 Ken Kesey Award for the Novel, the 1996 Whiting Writers Award, as well as the PEN Center West Fiction Prize. Gloss has also written book reviews, essays, an appreciation of Ursula K. Le Guin, and an introduction to the memoir of a woman homesteader. Molly Gloss lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest.