As Mother of the Market, it was her job to stop it. Abeni knew this the way she knew her own heartbeat, the way she knew she craved the light of a distant sun. Sunlight on grain, she longed for it—but no, not yet.
Yes now, sweet Mother.
The whisper startled her and the shadow man curled his hand around her throat. Abeni no longer felt inside the station; the docking ring and its cargo bays seemed far distant, only a smudge of light on the distant horizon. The shadow man pulled her backward, through stars and planets, through nebulae and across black holes. Flashpoint, she thought, and squeezed her eyes shut, but even then she could see the places he showed her and all their terrible creatures. The darkness writhed, reaching for her with questing limbs that were sun-warm and slick. Abeni could not breathe for the horror that spread before her, this rotting land with its dying gods. These creatures reached for her, for Aphelion, to live yet again though so many had forgotten.
The sunlight here was sickly, throwing into shadow more than it illuminated, but she could see winged horrors moving within that light. Abeni tried to make sense of what she saw, but could not; she found that when she stopped trying, she could see more, more that made her want to shriek, but she had no breath, for the shadow man kept firm hold of her. She supposed, in a far distant corner of her mind, that he hoped to intrigue her. These goods, if they could be called such, were like none Aphelion had seen; wouldn’t the universe marvel that Abeni had found such wonders? Wouldn’t they herald Aphelion Station as the new dawn, the beginning of an entirely new life?
Abeni wrenched herself free. She stumbled to the decking, hands smacking the metal before her shoulder could. She sucked in a breath and startled when she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She rolled toward the wall, expecting the shadow man, but it was a different man who stood there, the merchant Esmail, whom she slowly recognized. Abeni took his hand and pulled herself up.
“Little Mother, are you well?”
Her eyes moved past him, to the shadows that coated the walls of Aphelion Station. “I am not,” she said, seeing no reason to deny it. She was not well and neither was her station, but she wondered how both might be so, again.
“You speak in riddles, Abeni,” Esmail said, after she told him of Bolanle, of the nutmegs, of the writhing darkness. She could not make better sense of all that she had seen, did not know how to stop what she felt coming. “You speak of things that are not so. These shadows do not move and nutmegs are but nutmegs.”
The worst thing of it, Abeni decided, was not Esmail disbelieving her. It was that she longed for the things the shadow man had shown her. She wanted these creatures to come through Aphelion Station and make their mark upon it. How wonderful a discovery these great and terrible things. This corner of the universe had never seen their like. The curious child within Abeni responded to that, wanted to see these creatures in the light of the sun, wanted—
No. What she wanted did not matter. She could not allow it. Would not. “Esmail, I need your help,” she said. “I need the containers of your ship and the compost of this station.”
The shadow man said it would not matter, but Abeni moved forward, anyhow, claiming one cargo bay for her experiment. Sunlit grain, she wanted a forest of sunlit grain. She would have to make do with nutmegs and so, did, planting all that she had in the malodorous compost the engineers gave her with mocking smiles. They thought she had finally lost her mind, for nutmegs were not grown this way. The horticulturists told her the same, insisting she come to their deck to see how they did their work—one must splice, one must graft!—but no. Abeni paid to house her experiment within one of the cargo holds and waited, ignoring everyone who told her she was wrong.
As the hold began to warm over the coming days, Abeni wondered if perhaps she was wrong after all, but something within her said to keep on. Never had she heard such an insistent voice and so, she tended the nutmegs as she might children, often forgetting her normal duties as she walked among the growing trees. This could not be so, the arborists said, walking down the neatly planted rows; how could these poor nutmegs be growing as they were? Abeni did not know, but watched as they soared upward and reached for the ceiling with its artificial sunlight streaming downward.
Harvest, and Abeni welcomed those who would see what she had grown. Esmail came to help her gather the nutmegs and it was he who opened the first of the pods to reveal the spice inside. Thus, it was Esmail who suffered the first horror as the creature unwound itself from the nutmeg and crawled out of the pod, latching onto the nearest arm. It was, after all, hungry, Abeni supposed.
The creature was a thing she had seen in the writhing darkness, a dozen lashing limbs and one hungering mouth. As it suckled at Esmail’s arm, he staggered backward. Below his moan, the cracking of other pods was heard within the cargo hold. Beneath Abeni’s feet, the decking rumbled. She moved to the doors, knowing then that Aphelion was lost. All that it had been, gone. Her mistake. Her vain hope. She pushed the arborists into the main docking ring, sealing the cargo hold with herself and Esmail inside. All around them, pods broke open, creatures writhing to escape their confines.
And then, the shadow man came and laughed in Abeni’s ear as he wrapped his arms around her. Abeni leaned back in his embrace, wanting to let these creatures out, wanting to show them to the world, and yet -
“Told you, there will still be the water,” the shadow man whispered.
She thought, Oh, but I miss the sunlight. “Let the water come.”
The shadow man flooded the compartment with his warm, oil-slick water. Abeni felt herself float upward, amid the creatures who swam and seemed to grow within the disagreeable water. They moved effortlessly, bobbing and darting, swarming over what remained of Esmail, drifting closer to Abeni and the shadow man. She pressed closer to him, into his darkness and beyond.
“Sweet Mother,” he whispered—and then his eyes flew wide.
Abeni had reached beyond him, to the control panel, where slick fingers skimmed to vent the compartment. Water and creatures alike were blown outward, into the abyss beyond Aphelion Station, into the darkness between the stars. Abeni felt the shadow man release her, felt his scream as his children died, amid boiling water which then exploded in a shower of ice. Did it snow between the stars? That day, it did.
And Abeni…Abeni reached until she could reach no more, and dreamed she felt sunlight trailing over her cheeks, her throat, and into the hollow of her fish-marked palm.
for J., as always
DARK OF THE MOON
By James S. Dorr
James Dorr has published two collections with Dark Regions Press, Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance and Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret, and has a book of poetry about vampirism, Vamps (A Retrospective), that came out this August from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Other work has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, New Mystery, Science Fiction Review, Fantastic, Dark Wisdom, Gothic.Net, Chi-Zine, Enigmatic Tales (UK), Faeries (France), and numerous anthologies. Dorr is an active member of SFWA and HWA, an Anthony and Darrell finalist, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a multi-time listee in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Up-to-date information on Dorr is at: http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com.