Read Online The House of Discarded Dreams by Ekaterina Sedia - Free Book Online Page B

Vimbai.”
    “Balshazaar,” the head said.
    Vimbai studied the head—it was quite old and quite dead, and very desiccated; Felix was not lying about that. The sparse hair covering its parchment-yellow scalp did resemble trees—each hair stood alone and separate and rather straight up. Long and deep furrows covered the face, and Vimbai thought that she noticed traces of faint green luminescence hiding inside them. Balshazaar was a landscape in his own right, and Vimbai could not think of a single thing to say to him. “It’s nice to meet you,” she finally managed. All the other questions rising in her mind were cut off by their overwhelming mundanity—what did it matter who Balshazaar was or where he came from or if he ever owned a body? Now he was just a desiccated head living in the hair of a really weird teenage malcontent. The rest seemed trivial.
    “Going already?” Balshazaar said politely.
    “Yes,” Vimbai answered. “I don’t belong here—see, there’s a whole other world outside, and—”
    “I know,” Balshazaar interrupted. “I’ve seen it.”
    “You used to live there?”
    “No. Felix takes me out sometimes.”
    “You don’t say.” Vimbai was angry at Felix now, for not telling her more and certainly for not letting them know that he had dragged a disembodied head out of whatever unknown dimension. It was one thing to amputate phantom limbs, and quite another to show Balshazaar the world. It was just like grandmother said, one did not screw around with things one did not understand.
    Grandmother. The woman who used to be so ridiculous was starting to make sense; or at least she lacked Vimbai’s streak of rationality, which made her helpful in irrational circumstances. Grandmother lived—or used to, when she was truly alive—in the world where razor cuts protected from misfortune, and cunning muroyi , witches, could sic spirits on the living and make them ill. Grandmother would deal with a dead head like she dealt with all such problems—remember a remedy or go to a n’anga and have it fixed. Vimbai wished there were a healer nearby, someone who was versed in dealing with the supernatural rather than someone like her, who flailed and hyperventilated and tried to stay calm in the face of it—so far, that was all Vimbai could manage. Even her fear of the Harare healers had receded enough to think of them wistfully.
    “I’ll be going now,” Vimbai said, and straightened. Balshazaar’s face diminished as it hurtled away from her, and Vimbai looked into Felix’s disturbing eye. She was not ready to tell him anything yet, and so she stalked away without saying a word. Felix was so disconnected from everything anyway that he probably didn’t even think her rude.
    Vimbai padded to her room along the hallway that had grown a covering of soft, slightly wet moss, and lay down on her bed. A mattress and box spring, really—not a proper bed. She resented her grandmother’s arrival and the house’s ill-fated journey. Why did it have to happen to her, a perfectly rational person? Were those the superstitions of her ancestors that dragged her along, people long dead but unwilling to let go? It just wasn’t fair that someone she was related to by blood alone could do that, as if shared genetic background gave them some sort of power over Vimbai. She wondered if Maya too felt that same pull and resentment.
    Maya. Maya who barely talked anymore and instead followed with her feral pack from one room to the next. They roamed like hunters, disappearing into the closets recently converted into thick suffocating forests, they swam in rivers that poured from the downstairs bathroom. Vimbai hated to admit that her worry about Maya was just a pretense designed to mask her envy and disappointment at not being invited. She too would enjoy a pack of furry familiars following her around, she too would like to be unconcerned about their future and the present circumstance.
    Peb floated up through her