“Many months later, he found another bit of flesh, one of his fingertips. Over time, over many, many years, bit by bit he regained the parts of his body the seagulls had eaten. He realized that what happened was that the seagulls had shat him out. The seagull crap took time to gather together and become that which the seagulls had eaten. And then, of course, it took time for the flesh to wash up on the beach, and for Buster-he long ago quit using that name, though-to find those small parts of his body. It took many bags of trash, junk, and some treasure for him to haul off, but there you go.”

Travis glared at him now, become again a surly boy. “Ah, that’s just a story,” he said. “It’s not true.” He held out his hand for the bit of blue beach glass.

“Oh? You think not?” Uncle pulled off his gloves, finger by finger, and showed Travis his wrinkled hands. “See these fingers? See how the tips look a different color? And see my lips, how what you think is scar is just that part of my lips the sea gave back? And see my nose?” Uncle lifted up the corner of his hat, then, showing the boy his empty eye socket. “And see my lost eye, the eye I have searched for ever since that day long, long, ago when the boy who chased seagulls learned his lesson.”

“Creepazoid!” the boy yelled, and ran away before Uncle could whack him with his bamboo staff.

Uncle watched the boy run back up the beach, toward town. Along the way, Travis deliberately veered from his path to run through a flock of seagulls, only one or two of whom grudgingly flew up. They had grown tired of the boy’s game.

Uncle turned and continued on his way, back to his tiny driftwood shack heated by coal, back to his single bed, his single room, and the junk and treasure he scavenged and sometimes sold. As the sun moved down below the bluff above town, one last flicker of light caught a shiny something on the beach. Uncle reached down and picked it up. At first he thought it might have been a child’s marble, ground cloudy by the beach, but when he held it up to inspect, the marble rolled into his empty socket and became his eye.

Uncle looked at the world in stereo again, the world no longer flat but wider, although a bit fuzzier with the cataract in his old and weathered eye. Well, he thought, that’s the last of it, the last bit of flesh returned from the sea. His cabin and his bed awaited him, and he wondered if he’d bother to make a fire for the night, or if he even needed to.

Must have made my peace with the sea, he thought, with the seagulls.

And Buster, born as Percy, now known as Uncle, went home, perhaps to die, perhaps to live another day, but never, ever, ever to chase seagulls.

Palimpsest by LAURA ANNE GILMAN

“That had better be coffee.”

“Hazelnut. Double.”

“You’ll live.” Wren’s arm reached out from under the blanket and snagged the cup out of her partner’s hand. Without spilling a drop, she raised herself on her elbows and took a sip.

“God. I may be human after all.” She peered out from under a tangle of mouse-brown hair at the man standing in the dim light of her bedroom. He looked broad-shouldered and solid and reassuringly familiar. “What time is it?”

“Nine. A.M.,” he clarified. “Rough night?” Sergei sat down on the edge of her bed, forcing her to scoot over to make room.

“No more so than usual. The Council came down hard on the piskies who were dragging people under the lake, so there’ve been some minor temper tantrums in protest, but other than that everything’s quiet. Well, quiet for them, anyway.”

There had been the equivalent of a gang war in Central Park earlier that year between water and earth sprites. Fed up, the city’s independent Talents-lonejacks-and the Mages’ Council had declared truce long enough to make sure things didn’t get out of hand again. Wren, like all lonejacks, distrusted the Council on principle, and the Council and their affiliates thought lonejacks all were troublemaking fools, so it was an uneasy truce to say the least.

Wren took another sip of the coffee and decided that there was enough caffeine in her bloodstream to move without breaking apart. She got out of bed, cup still in hand, and staggered to the dresser to pull out a clean T-shirt.

“You know if the Cosa ever did get itself organized…”

“Bite your tongue.” She ran one hand through her hair and peered at herself in the mirror. “Oh, I look like hell. Thank God I don’t have another stint of babysitting for a couple of days. I could sleep for a week…”

Suddenly his presence there clicked, and she turned to glare at him, the effect in no way diminished by the fact that she was naked save for a pair of pink panties.

“Sorry, Zhenechka. We’ve got a job.”

Wren closed her eyes tightly, seeking balance, then kicked back the rest of the coffee with a grimace and handed the cup to him. “Shower first. Then details.”

She stopped halfway to the door. “Is it at least going to be fun?”

“Would I sign you up for anything boring?”

“The last time you said something like that, we spent two nights in a Saskatchewan jail. And if you say ‘it wasn’t boring,’ so help me I’ll fry your innards.”

The sound of the shower started up, and Sergei allowed himself a faint smile. “Wasn’t boring.”

– 

Under the pounding of steaming hot water, Wren swore she could feel the particles of her body coming back into focus. She ducked her head under the stream of water, then reached for the shampoo, massaging it into her scalp with a sigh of pleasure as the deep herbal scent wafted through the air. She could rough it with the best of them, but after a night wrassling with earth spirits peevy at everything that moved, a little luxury was nice. And if the coffee’s any indication, this may be the last luxury I get for a while. He only buys the Dog’s coffee when he wants to soften me up.

Rinsed, dried, and dressed, she walked out of the bathroom drawing a comb through her hair, wincing at the tangles. Her partner leaned against the counter in her tiny kitchen, drinking a mug of tea and reading the newspaper. “All right, you know you’re dying to tell me. So spill.”

“Seven grand down.” He gestured to the counter where the coffee machine was just starting to send out scented steam. “Another ten when you retrieve their package.”

“We’re working cut-rate this week, I see.” They had three price scales. High-end was the stuff that was snore-worthy: divorce settlements, insurance reclamations. Situations that required thinking and ingenuity were slightly cheaper. Sergei knew, by now, what would pique her interest, and was willing to dicker a little less sharp for them. And third…

Don’t think about the third. If you think it, they’ll call.

Third was working on retainer for the organization known as the Silence. Wren had been with them for a little more than a year now, Sergei for far longer than that. Human, nonmagical, and utterly without mercy or compassion, the Silence were nonetheless one of the Good Guys. She thought. She hoped.

“So, what’s the deal?”

“Stow-and-show. Special interest group, wants nine-tenths of a particular display.” Translation: Several someones, acting in concert, wanted her to steal something-possession being nine-tenths of the law-from a museum, the “stow-and-show.”

“You have got to stop watching those god-awful heist movies. Life’s not a caper, Serg.” The coffee machine finished perking, and she grabbed a mug from the sink and filled it. “Paperwork?”

He jerked his chin at her kitchen table, and she noticed the sheaf of papers awaiting her perusal.

“They’re organized, I’ll give them that.”

“Organized, and chatty. Guy wanted to tell me every detail of his life, his job, and the weather in Timbuktu.”

Coffee in hand, Wren sat down at the table and drew the blueprints toward her. “And how is the weather there, anyway? Oh Christ on a crutch, the Meadows.” She had hit them twice in four years-by now she and the alarm system were old friends. “And still people loan them exhibits. I just don’t get the world, I really don’t. What’s the grab?”