Portable Childhoods Read online

  Praise for Portable Childhoods

  “Ellen Klages writes about childhood in brilliant, primary colors. Like Ray Bradbury, her nostalgic stories are like myths.”

  —Maureen McHugh

  “Ellen Klages’s work seems as transparent as spring water, but this is a woman who knows that clarity and simplicity can pierce the heart.”

  —Peter Straub

  “This delightful collection showcases the best of Klages. Her protagonists are lovable, her prose natural, and her charm evident throughout. In time for the holiday season!”

  —Karen Joy Fowler

  “Welcome to Planet Klages! These stories are warm, witty, occasionally wise, and always wonderfully written. Ellen Klages is going to be big as big. Buy this book now, read it today, and become her fan forever.”

  —Michael Swanwick

  “I haven’t been writing prose very long, but I’ve been reading prose long enough to know this — Ellen Klages approaches greatness.”

  —Janis Ian

  “Ellen Klages writes like a dream — a dream from which you wake up laughing, and that fills the rest of the day with its strangeness and sweetness.”

  —Margo Lanagan

  “Like childhood, these stories run deep with not-yet-happened nostalgia and fierce yearning for what never was. And, like children, they brim with joy, wonder, and wickedness.”

  —Nicola Griffith

  “When you surface out of an Ellen Klages story, it’s like arriving home after a long trip: your kitchen table, your car, your living room are all recognizably yours, but strange, and not half as real as the place you just came from. That place is the real world, and the people in it are as complex, unpredictable, and solid as you. It’s a hard place to come back from.”

  —Emma Bull

  “Ellen Klages’s stories combine the clear-eyed wonder of an intelligent child with the beautiful, controlled prose of a craftsman. And they have heart. What more could one ask of fiction?”

  —Delia Sherman

  “Reading any fiction by Ellen Klages, whether it’s set in the basement of a home in Detroit or on the green glass desert sands near Los Alamos or at the favorite fishing spot of a father and his very special son, you are always submerged deep in the rich and strange magic of life.”

  —Charles Vess

  Praise for The Green Glass Sea

  “Klages makes an impressive debut with an ambitious, meticulously researched novel set during WWII.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “…an intense but accessible page-turner, firmly belongs to the girls and their families; history and story are drawn together with confidence.”

  —Horn Book, starred review

  “Many readers will know as little about the true nature of the project as the girls do, so the gradual revelation of facts is especially effective, while those who already know about Los Alamos’s historical significance will experience the story in a different, but equally powerful, way.”

  —School Library Journal

  “The story is [a memoir of the life of the small daughter of an atomic scientist, who recounts the events leading up to and following Trinity] in heartbreaking Klages style: simple, subtle, emotionally powerful writing that will knock you on your ass again and again as you read it…. If you haven’t read Klages before, you’re in for a treat.”

  —Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

  “Ellen Klages is a very careful writer — which is to say that she is full of care for her craft, and allows her readers the intelligence to take care of themselves. To take care, for instance, of the differences and resonances and contingencies between reality and fantasy, between real life and fairy tale; and to take care of what one can say to and about the other.”

  —EDSF Project

  “Klages gives us sympathetic characters and slow-building suspense in an absorbing novel with a unique view of wartime.”

  —Newhouse News Service

  “This beautifully told and historically accurate story makes you feel what it would be like to be a kid in this surreal, secretive world of scientists, mathematicians, and their families.”

  —Not Your Mother’s Book Club

  Ellen Klages

  Portable Childhoods

  Tachyon Publications | San Francisco

  Portable Childhoods

  Copyright ©2007 by Ellen Klages

  This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Cover photo ©2007 Ellen Klages | Small cover images from the collection of the author Design & composition by John D. Berry The typefaces are Aldus nova and Palatino Sans (Special thanks to Linotype GmbH for advance use of a pre-release version of Palatino Sans)

  Tachyon Publications

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  (415) 285-5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  Editor: Jill Roberts

  Book ISBN 13: 978-1-892391-45-2

  Book printed in the United States of America by Worzalla.

  First Edition: 2007

  All stories copyright by Ellen Klages. “Basement Magic” © 2003. First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 2003. | “Intelligent Design” © 2005. First appeared in Strange Horizons, December 2005. | “The Green Glass Sea” © 2004. First appeared in Strange Horizons, September 2004. | “Clip Art” © 2007. Previously unpublished. | “Triangle” © 2001. First appeared in Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Horror, edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel (Overlook Press: New York). | “The Feed Bag” © 2003. First appeared in Tales of the Unanticipated #24, 2003. | “Flying Over Water” © 2001. First appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 7, 2001. | “Möbius, Stripped of a Muse” © 2007. Previously unpublished. | “Time Gypsy” © 1998, 2006. First appeared in Bending the Landscape: Original Gay and Lesbian Writing: Science Fiction, edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel (Overlook Press: New York). | “Be Prepared” © 2002. First appeared in The Infinite Matrix, September 2002. | “Travel Agency” © 2002. First appeared in Strange Horizons, February 2002. | “A Taste of Summer” © 2002. First appeared in Black Gate, Winter 2002. | “Ringing Up Baby” © 2006. First appeared in Nature, April 2006. | “Guys Day Out” © 2005. First appeared in Sci Fiction (www.SciFi.com), April 2005. | “Portable Childhoods” © 2007. Previously unpublished. | “In the House of the Seven Librarians” © 2006. First appeared in Firebirds Rising: An Original Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Sharyn November (Firebird: New York).

  Contents

  Introduction | Neil Gaiman

  Basement Magic

  Intelligent Design

  The Green Glass Sea

  Clip Art

  Triangle

  The Feed Bag

  Flying Over Water

  Möbius, Stripped of a Muse

  Time Gypsy

  Be Prepared

  Travel Agency

  A Taste of Summer

  Ringing Up Baby

  Guys Day Out

  Portable Childhoods

  In the House of the Seven Librarians

  Afterword | Ellen Klages

  Acknowledgments

  I WAS MIDDLE-AGED when I finally found my tribe, and learned that Madison, Wisconsin is one of the centers of the world. Thanks to Jeanne Bowman, who took me to a party in Hayward against my will and changed my life. To Pat Murphy, who told me the secret to being a writer: Write Something. To Karen Fowler, Debbie Notkin, and Jeanne Gomoll for introducing me to WisCon and the Secret Feminist Cabal
. To Delia Sherman, my writing sister, and her partner, Ellen Kushner, who are my role models for how to make words and singing and laughing all an integral part of life. To Walter Jon Williams, for founding Rio Hondo, and to Nina Hoffman, Leslie What, Maureen McHugh, Ted Chiang, Sean Stewart and others who critiqued my stories there. To Laurie Winter, my writing and poker buddy. To Michael Swanwick for kicking my butt in the right direction. To Margo Lanagan for the best conversation about punctuation I’ve ever had. To Emma Munro and my other Clarion South mates, for crits and companionship. To the Cajun Sushi Hamsters from Hell, my writing group in Cleveland, who saw some of these stories through their larval stage. To Neil Gaiman, for taking time out of the world’s busiest schedule to write an introduction for this book. To Nicola Griffith, who bought my very first story, and to Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, John O’Neill, Gordon Van Gelder, Ellen Datlow, Jed Hartman, Eileen Gunn, and Sharyn November, extraordinary editors all. To Jill Roberts and Jacob Weisman of Tachyon Publications, for gathering all my fictional flotsam and putting it in one place. To Kurt Vonnegut, for Welcome to the Monkey House, Jack Finney for “The Third Level,” and Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone. And to J. D. Salinger for “Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut,” which made me want to be a writer.

  To the Secret Feminist Cabal.

  Introduction

  Neil Gaiman

  TO BEGIN WITH, a physical description: Ellen Klages is shorter than I am, and she grins more. Her hair is shorter than mine, too. I think she’s around my age, more or less, but she bounces more than I do and sometimes she bustles, which I never do at all. There. Now you’ll know her if you pass her in the street.

  I met her in person first, which is dangerous for authors, because we don’t fit preconceptions and the stories on the inside and the stories on the outside are very different. The Ellen I met in the flesh was funny and bustling and smart, a force of nature: the second time I met her I wound up shaving off my beard and giving it to her to auction, and she made this seem like a sensible thing to do. I’m not even sure I knew she was an author back then. And then I started to notice her name cropping up in story collections, and online.

  The stories mapped slowly onto the person. I expected them to be funny and bustling, and they weren’t. They were something else entirely.

  It’s not that there aren’t jokes in the stories you are about to read. There are. But most of these tales are stories of wide-eyed childhood, fables of powerlessness and of taking what power and control one can from one’s life. These are stories of families, the ones we are born into and the ones that we create. They are tender stories, most of them, betraying a love of and respect for people of all kinds and shapes and minds. They contain wisdom—you will learn here, if you had forgotten, that a book can be a safe place to hide, for example, and so can a library. They are about the bonds between people. They exist in a place on the borderland between genre and mimetic fiction, sometimes walking the line one way, sometimes the other, often leaving the reader unsure until the final paragraph what kind of story this has been, what kind of escape Ellen’s characters have taken, what kind of mercy they have been given…

  This is her first collection of stories.

  I do not believe it will be her last. There are writers with their own voices and their own agendas, who have important things to say, and who say them in their own way. Ellen Klages is one of them.

  Enjoy.

  Neil Gaiman

  In a hotel room somewhere in America, November 2006

  Portable Childhoods

  Basement Magic

  MARY LOUISE WHITTAKER believes in magic. She knows that somewhere, somewhere else, there must be dragons and princes, wands and wishes. Especially wishes. And happily ever after. Ever after is not now.

  Her mother died in a car accident when Mary Louise was still a toddler. She misses her mother fiercely but abstractly. Her memories are less a coherent portrait than a mosaic of disconnected details: soft skin that smelled of lavender; a bright voice singing “Sweet and Low” in the night darkness; bubbles at bathtime; dark curls; zweiback.

  Her childhood has been kneaded, but not shaped, by the series of well-meaning middle-aged women her father has hired to tend her. He is busy climbing the corporate ladder, and is absent even when he is at home. She does not miss him. He remarried when she was five, and they moved into a two-story Tudor in one of the better suburbs of Detroit. Kitty, the new Mrs. Ted Whittaker, is a former Miss Bloomfield Hills, a vain divorcée with a towering mass of blond curls in a shade not her own. In the wild, her kind is inclined to eat their young.

  Kitty might have tolerated her new stepdaughter had she been sweet and cuddly, a slick-magazine cherub. But at six, Mary Louise is an odd, solitary child. She has unruly red hair the color of Fiestaware, the dishes that might have been radioactive, and small round pink glasses that make her blue eyes seem large and slightly distant. She did not walk until she was almost two, and propels herself with a quick shuffle-duckling gait that is both urgent and awkward.

  One spring morning, Mary Louise is camped in one of her favorite spots, the window seat in the guest bedroom. It is a stage set of a room, one that no one else ever visits. She leans against the wall, a thick book with lush illustrations propped up on her bare knees. Bright sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the oak outside, is broken into geometric patterns by the mullioned windows, dappling the floral cushion in front of her.

  The book is almost bigger than her lap, and she holds it open with one elbow, the other anchoring her Bankie, a square of pale blue flannel with pale blue satin edging that once swaddled her infant self, carried home from the hospital. It is raveled and graying, both tattered and beloved. The thumb of her blanket arm rests in her mouth in a comforting manner.

  Mary Louise is studying a picture of a witch with purple robes and hair as black as midnight, when she hears voices in the hall. The door to the guest room is open a crack, so she can hear clearly, but cannot see or be seen. One of the voices is Kitty’s. She is explaining something about the linen closet, so it is probably a new cleaning lady. They have had six since they moved in.

  Mary Louise sits very still and doesn’t turn the page, because it is stiff paper and might make a noise. But the door opens anyway, and she hears Kitty say, “This is the guest room. Now unless we’ve got company—and I’ll let you know—it just needs to be dusted and the linens aired once a week. It has an—oh, there you are,” she says, coming in the doorway, as if she has been looking all over for Mary Louise, which she has not.

  Kitty turns and says to the air behind her, “This is my husband’s daughter, Mary Louise. She’s not in school yet. She’s small for her age, and her birthday is in December, so we decided to hold her back a year. She never does much, just sits and reads. I’m sure she won’t be a bother. Will you?” She turns and looks at Mary Louise but does not wait for an answer. “And this is Ruby. She’s going to take care of the house for us.”

  The woman who stands behind Kitty nods, but makes no move to enter the room. She is tall, taller than Kitty, with skin the color of gingerbread. Ruby wears a white uniform and a pair of white Keds. She is older, there are lines around her eyes and her mouth, but her hair is sleek and black, black as midnight.

  Kitty looks at her small gold watch. “Oh, dear. I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late for my hair appointment.” She looks back at Mary Louise. “Your father and I are going out tonight, but Ruby will make you some dinner, and Mrs. Banks will be here about six.” Mrs. Banks is one of the babysitters, an older woman in a dark dress who smells like dusty licorice and coos too much. “So be a good girl. And for god’s sake get that thumb out of your mouth. Do you want your teeth to grow in crooked, too?”

  Mary Louise says nothing, but withdraws her damp puckered thumb and folds both hands in her lap. She looks up at Kitty, her eyes expressionless, until her stepmother looks away. “Well, an-y-wa-y,” Kitty says, drawing the word out to four syllables, “I’ve really got to be going.” S
he turns and leaves the room, brushing by Ruby, who stands silently just outside the doorway.

  Ruby watches Kitty go, and when the high heels have clattered onto the tiles at the bottom of the stairs, she turns and looks at Mary Louise. “You a quiet little mouse, ain’t you?” she asks in a soft, low voice.

  Mary Louise shrugs. She sits very still in the window seat and waits for Ruby to leave. She does not look down at her book, because it is rude to look away when a grown-up might still be talking to you. But none of the cleaning ladies talk to her, except to ask her to move out of the way, as if she were furniture.

  “Yes siree, a quiet little mouse,” Ruby says again. “Well, Miss Mouse, I’m fixin to go downstairs and make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. If you like, I can cook you up one too. I make a mighty fine grilled cheese sandwich.”

  Mary Louise is startled by the offer. Grilled cheese is one of her very favorite foods. She thinks for a minute, then closes her book and tucks Bankie securely under one arm. She slowly follows Ruby down the wide front stairs, her small green-socked feet making no sound at all on the thick beige carpet.

  It is the best grilled cheese sandwich Mary Louise has ever eaten. The outside is golden brown and so crisp it crackles under her teeth. The cheese is melted so that it soaks into the bread on the inside, just a little. There are no burnt spots at all. Mary Louise thanks Ruby and returns to her book.

  The house is large, and Mary Louise knows all the best hiding places. She does not like being where Kitty can find her, where their paths might cross. Before Ruby came, Mary Louise didn’t go down to the basement very much. Not by herself. It is an old house, and the basement is damp and musty, with heavy stone walls and banished, battered furniture. It is not a comfortable place, nor a safe one. There is the furnace, roaring fire, and the cans of paint and bleach and other frightful potions. Poisons. Years of soap flakes, lint, and furnace soot coat the walls like household lichen.