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    Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
    Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
    Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
    Ebook455 pages6 hours

    Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions

    By Neil Gaiman

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    About this ebook

    The astonishing and impressive first collection of short stories from New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman

    An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat in a second-hand store . . .

    A stray cat fights and refights a nightly battle to protect his adoptive family from an unimagiable evil . . .

    A young couple receives a wedding gift that will reveal a chilling alternate history of their marriage . . .

    Beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks, a frightened little boy bargains for his life with a most persistent troll . . .

    Such miraculous inventions and more await within Neil Gaiman’s first collection of short fiction, a gift of wonder and delight from one of the most unique literary artists of our day. In his capable hands, magic is no mere illusion, but a powerful means to reveal the nature of our humanity obscured in the smoke of our fears and anxieties . . . and reflected in the funhouse mirrors of our dreams.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 17, 2009
    ISBN9780061795299
    Author

    Neil Gaiman

    Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and multi-award winning author and creator of many beloved books, graphic novels, short stories, film, television and theatre for all ages. He is the recipient of the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and many Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. Neil has adapted many of his works to television series, including Good Omens (co-written with Terry Pratchett) and The Sandman. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College. For a lot more about his work, please visit: https://www.neilgaiman.com/

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    Reviews for Smoke and Mirrors

    4/5

    2,963 ratings71 reviews

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    • 4/5
      While looking back through the various short story collections I've read, I realized I hadn't wrote any sort of review for this one, even though I did write a review for Neil's second collection, Fragile Things. I don't know how I let that slide.

      Well, I'm writing the review now. I think this is one of the most even collections I've read. I don't know that it has the highest concentration of great stories, but it was by far the most consistent, with none of the stories being bad or forgettable. I also thought the poems were generally better than those in Fragile Things, even though that collection has the poem Instructions, which is my favorite of all Neil's poems.

      To prove it, here are my personal top five from this collection, presented in the order that they appear, using memories that are fast approaching three years of age.

      Chivalry
      One of the best things about Gaiman is how he uses folklore and myth to tell modern tales with modern sensibilities. This is one of the best examples of that. This is a story about a knight seeking the holy grail, and the old lady who has it on her mantlepiece. A fantastic 'what if' sort of story that shows what it might be like if all the magical objects of power from our myths and legends really existed, and how unimportant they might be if pulled from the realm of myth, despite their powers.

      Troll Bridge
      A bittersweet story about a boy who runs into a troll and gets away by convincing the troll that he'll be 'tastier' if he leaves and comes back with more life experience, only to eventually give himself up to the troll when his life doesn't work out the way he expected. The best thing about this story is how it makes you really feel the passage of time. It's like how you sometimes dream that you've lived out an entire lifetime, even though you've really only been dreaming for minutes. Gaiman is uniquely gifted in being able to make that come across with the written word, but I think this story is the one that did it best.

      Changes
      What if you could take a pill to change your sex at will? Do I really need to say anything else to make you want to read this?

      Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
      A story about the Lovecraft mythos that is oddly compelling, despite the fact that I had never read any of Lovecraft's work before reading this. In fact, this story is what made me buy an omnibus of his work, and while I still haven't read the whole thing I still consider myself a Lovecraft fan, and this story is what turned me into one.

      We Can Get Them For You Wholesale
      A story about a man who wants to kill his girlfriend because she's been cheating on him. He looks through the phone book to find an assassin, and winds up with a number that he really shouldn't be calling.

    • 5/5
      From Book Jacket:

      The distinctive storytelling genius of Neil Gaiman has been acclaimed by writers as diverse as Norman Mailer and Stephen King. Now in this new collection of stories--several of which have never before appeared in print and more than half that have never been collected--that will dazzle the senses and haunt the imagination. Miraculous inventions and unforgettable characters inhabit these pages: an elderly widow who finds the Holy Grail in a second-hand store...a frightened little boy who bargains for his life with a troll living under a bridge by the railroad tracks...a stray cat who battles nightly against a recurring evil that threatens his unsuspecting adoptive family. In these stories, Gaiman displays the power, wit, insight and outrageous originality that has made him one of the most unique literary artists of our day.

      My Thoughts:

      Neil Gaiman doesn't write horror stories... he writes magic...stories that wrap you up in what your parents told you for years was impossible or unreal. Some of the samplings that I really enjoyed were..."Snow, Glass, Apples"....this is not your grandmother's Snow White, and Gaiman himself states that he hopes the reader will not read the original fairy tale the same way ever again. He succeeds. "Chivalry"... a brilliant, extremely funny look into the mind of an elderly woman who has found the Holy Grail in a secondhand store and think it's a perfect doo-dad for her mantel, never mind that Arthurian knight who keeps hounding her for it. A tip to anyone who is in the habit of skipping book introductions....Gaiman actually hides a story within the introduction of this book as a payoff to those who religiously read the introduction. That sort of cleverness suckers me in every time.
    • 5/5
      Of course it's 5 stars... It's Neil Gaiman! Eclectic and brilliant story-telling that always comes out perfect.
    • 5/5
      My favorite story out of this collection was once "The Price." I think it captivates the way Neil Gaiman tends to think in his stories, and the ending couldn't have been more perfect.

      But as I've come back to this collection I now find myself rereading "It's Only the End of the World Again," which has quite possibly the perfect opening to a story. What I love is that the opening delivers on its promise to be great. And Gaiman's skill at making the supernatural a completely accepted part of each world in his stories ALMOST makes me believe in an afterlife—which is more than I can say for any church. In each of his stories, no matter how creepy, I want to crawl through the page and explore that world again and again. Excellent stuff.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars.This is a collection of short stories by Gaiman. I don’t read a lot of short story collections, but I picked this one up specifically for one: Snow, Glass, Apples - a retelling of Snow White from the Queen’s point of view. It was probably one of my favourite stories in the book, along with The Price, which focused on a stray black cat who lived on the porch of a family; every night the cat got completely beaten up by something, so they wanted to find out what was doing it and to try to protect the cat. I won’t give away the ending…But, like with any short story collection, some are better than others. I don’t like poetry, so anything that wasn’t in regular prose style, I tended to skim through. Even still, I rated this higher than I do most short story collections, probably because I like the horror/supernatural type theme that was behind a lot of the stories.
    • 4/5
      Having read two of Neil Gaiman's short story collections, Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things, I do prefer this one. It's a tighter, more cohesive book than Fragile Things; the stories and poems are subtly linked by a shared tone, a certain, peculiar outlook on life or the recurring leitmotifs of angels, fairy tales and mythology or magic. Some of the stories, like 'Murder Mysteries' and 'Troll Bridge' are very similar to Neil's Sandman comics. The anthology is almost entirely other-worldly and fantastic, but my favourite story was one of the most down to earth, 'One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock' a slowpaced, affectionate look at one boy's daydreams about the hero of his favourite adventure novels. If you enjoy Weird Fiction, I'd definitely suggest finding yourself a copy.
    • 4/5
      Excellent collection. I especially enjoyed the alternative 'Snow White' story. Less poetry than his last collection that I read, which I also enjoyed. Great for people with little time that just need a moment away from the real world every now and then.

      Ironically, I think that I had read this book (at least some of the stories) before. It only came back to me once I started reading them. It's bad when you've read so many books you start to forget them.
    • 4/5
      I have read several of the more popular Gaiman books, but this is my first anthology. In no particular order, these are my favorites: Chivalry- comicalTroll Bridge- strangeMouse- Guard catMurder Mysteries- very clever, would like to read again
    • 5/5
      Of the three short collections, this is definitely the more horror-themed of them. Fragile Things does have horror elements, but there’s also more elements of fantasy and magical realism. And Smoke & Mirrors has the same things, but there’s a little bit more of a darker element to the stories.

      This has some of my favorite stories. “The Goldfish Pond…” is probably my hands-down favorite, and surprisingly that’s the one with the least fantastical elements (and I like the “mostly a true story” aspect). “Murder Mysteries” is fantastic, I love “Chivalry” and “Snow Glass Apples.” “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” is hysterical, even to someone who doesn’t really know a lot of the Cthulu Mythos. And there’s “Bay Wolf” which shouldn’t work, but he excels at the whole poem.

      As for the rocking back and forth…hoo boy. One word: “Babycakes.” Less so, “The White Road,” and I’d like to find a copy of “Eaten” as Gaiman refers to the two poems as part of a triptych. I wouldn’t say that it’s completely disturbing, but a lot of the stories are extremely unsettling.

      It’s a well-structured collection, and I recommend it for a good scare or just a deeper read into Gaiman’s work.
    • 4/5
      I don't normally like short stories, but Neil Gaiman has them down to an art. His short stories don't feel like shrunken down versions of a novel: they feel like short stories. My favourite story in the whole thing is actually the story in the intro, the wedding present. Well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      Want to know how good this book is? Well, I bought it because it's a book of short stories. My husband and I were going on a trip to Hawaii, and I figured I'd read it on the plane.

      Which I did. I then kept reading it -- in our hotel, in the car, on the way to the beach, at the beach. My husband was getting so irritated at me because I was spending our vacation on the island of Oahu reading a book.

      That is how great this book is. I picked it over snorkeling.
    • 3/5
      The stories in this book are sometimes horrifying, sometimes thought provoking, and sometimes just plain weird. Overall, I enjoyed this book.
    • 4/5
      Compilation of peculiar short stories told in the typical “Neil Gaiman” style, these two are the same as that of Fragile Things. I love it.
    • 3/5
      A bunch of really good short stories and a few that were just ok. My favorite was "Murder Mysteries" which is about the fall of Lucifer over God's Justice. Loved it.
    • 5/5
      More reasons why Neil is one of the best writers around!
    • 5/5
      This was good summer reading and good counter-reading for studying. I like this maybe more than Fragile Things. I just love how Gaiman writes. And there were some life changing stories.
    • 4/5
      I can't completely review this as I've read some, but not all of the stories. What I've read I've liked.
    • 3/5
      I seem to be in the minority on this collection. I had high hopes for this Smoke and Mirrors, but left it fairly disappointed. Don’t get me wrong . . . Gaiman clearly has a fecund imagination, and a powerful grasp of the use of imagery, and at his best seamlessly blends dark fantasy with the very funny. But I found little of this as compelling as American Gods (which I rather liked), for example. There were several strong stories in the collection, including a couple that I rated as 8s (Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, which I found quite funny, and Snow, Glass, Apples, after the reading of which I will never quite think of a famous fairy tale the same again), and several that I rated 7s (Murder Mysteries would have been an 8, were it not marred by the inclusion of a completely gratuitous and overly graphic little sex scene). But others of the stories left me very flat. I could easily have done without Don't Ask Jack, Changes, Looking for the Girl, The Sweeper of Dreams, Foreign Parts, and Tastings. And I would characterize the poetry as strong on imagery, but fairly pedestrian on word-smithing.
    • 5/5
      Contemporary humor, pythonist and sufficiently daft enough to make you pick up the book for a story a day - there's plenty of short stories here just waiting for an avantgarde student film producer to make a name for themselves
    • 5/5
      Wow, what a great collection. I have this habit of marking stories in anthologies that really peak my interest but after finishing half the book and realizing I'd earmarked every story so far I started to understand that Gaiman was on a whole different level. This is an amazing achievement definitely worth picking up and rereading a couple of times. Some of my favorites include: "Nicholas Was", "The Price", "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar", "Virus", "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale", and "Snow, Glass, Apples".
    • 4/5
      Anyone who has ever read Gaiman has to know that he is nuts and unpredictable. In this book he shows you a whole new range of unexpected twists. This is an anthology of short stories. Highly recommended to anyone who is either a fan of Gaiman or short stories in general. There was quite a bit of poetry...that I wasn't as enamored with as I was with the short stories...but was well worth buying new!
    • 5/5
      i lost my original copy of this collection in what i jokingly call "the great divorce of 2005". i re-purchased it last year and i don't know why i waited so long. "murder mysteries" -- i read it and every time i finish the last page and sit there and stare into space for a bit.
    • 2/5
      Have been leafing through this over the past month. Inventive, but not terribly good. More humor, less horror is needed. 8.15.07
    • 4/5
      A very mixed bag.Some of the stories are among the best and most thought provoking short stories that I have come across such as-'The Wedding Present','Chivalry','Troll Bridge','The Daughter of Owls','Shoggoth's Old Peculiar',and 'Murder Mysteries' This last the best of all I think. For the rest most are er interesting but I have to say there are a few that were just too unpleasant for me to take.Oh I read them,but I won't be repeating the experience.
    • 5/5
      I loved this trip through Gaiman's imagination. Not every short story is the best, but I adored the way he described why each story was written. He's a better novelist, but this collection is a must for Gaiman fans.
    • 5/5
      A collection of short stories and short poetry spanning over twenty years of Neil Gaiman's career. From the first stories he wrote to more recent endeavors this collection has it all. Some of the stories are truly brilliant, i especially like the retelling of the classic folk tales (The Troll under the Bridge and Snow White), others are mediocre or just plain strange, but that was to be expected. Even a mastermind like Gaiman has to have better and worse days.A fan of Gaiman's work shouldn't miss this collection if only for the introduction where he recounts the origin of the different stories, however, I am sure you'll find a couple of stories you'll treasure in this book as well.
    • 4/5
      The book that made me an absolute fan, the one that makes me want to be a writer of brilliant short stories.
    • 4/5
      Best part is the introduction. Aside from that, best 'stories' are: Chivalry, Goldfish Pool, Looking for the Girl, Tastings, Vampire Sestina and Babycakes--- but all for different reasons. Altogether a great collection for its genre
    • 5/5
      This collection is fantastic and highly recommended. Gaiman's writing in this has the style/feel of realism, but the subject matter he covers ranges from pleasantly fantastic, too subtle horror. I picked this up recently in an airport becaue I ran out of books (horrors!). It kept me engrossed the entire flight and my subway ride home. I managed to finish the last story just as I got to my apartment.
    • 5/5
      At that moment, Neil Gaiman became her favorite author of all time.

    Book preview

    Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman

    READING THE ENTRAILS:

    A RONDEL

    I mean, she said, that one can’t help growing older.

    "One can’t perhaps, said Humpty Dumpty, but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."

    — LEWIS CARROLL, THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS

    They’ll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate—

    The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

    Tomorrow manifests and brings the bill

    For every kiss and kill, the small and great.

    You want to know the future, love? Then wait:

    I’ll answer your impatient questions. Still—

    They’ll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,

    The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

    I’ll come to you tonight, dear, when it’s late,

    You will not see me; you may feel a chill.

    I’ll wait until you sleep, then take my fill,

    And that will be your future on a plate.

    They’ll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate.

    AN INTRODUCTION

                    Writing is flying in dreams.

                    When you remember. When you can. When it works.

                    It’s that easy.

                            — AUTHOR’S NOTEBOOK, FEBRUARY 1992

    They do it with mirrors. It’s a cliché, of course, but it’s also true. Magicians have been using mirrors, usually set at a forty-five-degree angle, ever since the Victorians began to manufacture reliable, clear mirrors in quantity, well over a hundred years ago. John Nevil Maskelyne began it, in 1862, with a wardrobe that, thanks to a cunningly placed mirror, concealed more than it revealed.

    Mirrors are wonderful things. They appear to tell the truth, to reflect life back out at us; but set a mirror correctly and it will lie so convincingly you’ll believe that something has vanished into thin air, that a box filled with doves and flags and spiders is actually empty, that people hidden in the wings or the pit are floating ghosts upon the stage. Angle it right and a mirror becomes a magic casement; it can show you anything you can imagine and maybe a few things you can’t.

    (The smoke blurs the edges of things.)

    Stories are, in one way or another, mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn’t work. Like mirrors, stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in the darkness.

    Fantasy—and all fiction is fantasy of one kind or another—is a mirror. A distorting mirror, to be sure, and a concealing mirror, set at forty-five degrees to reality, but it’s a mirror nonetheless, which we can use to tell ourselves things we might not otherwise see. (Fairy tales, as G. K. Chesterton once said, are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated.)

    Winter started today. The sky turned gray and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. I sat in the darkness and watched the snow falling, and the flakes glistened and glimmered as they spun into the light and out again, and I wondered about where stories came from.

    This is the kind of thing that you wonder about when you make things up for a living. I remain unconvinced that it is the kind of activity that is a fit occupation for an adult, but it’s too late now: I seem to have a career that I enjoy which doesn’t involve getting up too early in the morning. (When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.) Most of the stories in this book were written to entertain the various editors who had asked me for tales for specific anthologies (It’s for an anthology of stories about the Holy Grail, . . . about sex,  . . . of fairy stories retold for adults, . . . about sex and horror, . . . of revenge stories, . . . about superstition, . . . about more sex). A few of them were written to amuse myself or, more precisely, to get an idea or an image out of my head and pinned safely down on paper; which is as good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. Some of the stories began in idleness: fancies and curiosities that got out of hand.

    I once made up a story as a wedding present for some friends. It was about a couple who were given a story as a wedding present. It was not a reassuring story. Having made up the story, I decided that they’d probably prefer a toaster, so I got them a toaster, and to this day have not written the story down. It sits in the back of my head to this day, waiting for someone to get married who would appreciate it.

    It occurs to me now (writing this introduction in blue-black fountain pen ink in a black-bound notebook, in case you were wondering) that, although one way or another most of the stories in this book are about love in some form or another, there aren’t enough happy stories, stories of properly requited love to balance out all the other kinds you’ll find in this book; and indeed, that there are people who don’t read introductions. For that matter, some of you out there may be having weddings one day, after all. So for all of you who do read introductions, here is the story I did not write. (And if I don’t like the story once it’s written, I can always cross out this paragraph, and you’ll never know that I stopped writing the introduction to start writing a story instead.)

    THE WEDDING PRESENT

    After all the joys and the headaches of the wedding, after the madness and the magic of it all (not to mention the embarrassment of Belinda’s father’s after-dinner speech, complete with family slide show), after the honeymoon was literally (although not yet metaphorically) over and before their new suntans had a chance to fade in the English autumn, Belinda and Gordon got down to the business of unwrapping the wedding presents and writing their thank you letters—thank yous enough for every towel and every toaster, for the juicer and the breadmaker, for the cutlery and the crockery and the teasmade and the curtains.

    Right, said Gordon. That’s the large objects thank-you’d. What’ve we got left?

    Things in envelopes, said Belinda. Checks, I hope.

    There were several checks, a number of gift tokens, and even a £10 book token from Gordon’s Aunt Marie, who was poor as a church mouse, Gordon told Belinda, but a dear, and who had sent him a book token every birthday as long as he could remember. And then, at the very bottom of the pile, there was a large brown businesslike envelope.

    What is it? asked Belinda.

    Gordon opened the flap and pulled out a sheet of paper the color of two-day-old cream, ragged at top and bottom, with typing on one side. The words had been typed with a manual typewriter, something Gordon had not seen in some years. He read the page slowly.

    What is it? asked Belinda. Who’s it from?

    I don’t know, said Gordon. Someone who still owns a typewriter. It’s not signed.

    Is it a letter?

    Not exactly, he said, and he scratched the side of his nose and read it again.

    Well, she said in an exasperated voice (but she was not really exasperated; she was happy. She would wake in the morning and check to see if she were still as happy as she had been when she went to sleep the night before, or when Gordon had woken her in the night by brushing up against her, or when she had woken him. And she was). Well, what is it?

    It appears to be a description of our wedding, he said. It’s very nicely written. Here, and he passed it to her.

    She looked it over.

    It was a crisp day in early October when Gordon Robert Johnson and Belinda Karen Abingdon swore that they would love each other, would support and honor each other as long as they both should live. The bride was radiant and lovely, the groom was nervous, but obviously proud and just as obviously pleased.

    That was how it began. It went on to describe the service and the reception clearly, simply, and amusingly.

    How sweet, she said. What does it say on the envelope?

    ‘Gordon and Belinda’s Wedding,’ he read.

    No name? Nothing to indicate who sent it?

    Uh-uh.

    Well, it’s very sweet, and it’s very thoughtful, she said. Whoever it’s from.

    She looked inside the envelope to see if there was something else inside that they had overlooked, a note from whichever one of her friends (or his, or theirs) had written it, but there wasn’t, so, vaguely relieved that there was one less thank you note to write, she placed the cream sheet of paper back in its envelope, which she placed in a box file, along with a copy of the wedding banquet menu, and the invitations, and the contact sheets for the wedding photographs, and one white rose from the bridal bouquet.

    Gordon was an architect, and Belinda was a vet. For each of them what they did was a vocation, not a job. They were in their early twenties. Neither of them had been married before, nor even seriously involved with anyone. They met when Gordon brought his thirteen-year-old golden retriever, Goldie, gray-muzzled and half-paralyzed, to Belinda’s surgery to be put down. He had had the dog since he was a boy and insisted on being with her at the end. Belinda held his hand as he cried, and then, suddenly and unprofessionally, she hugged him, tightly, as if she could squeeze away the pain and the loss and the grief. One of them asked the other if they could meet that evening in the local pub for a drink, and afterward neither of them was sure which of them had proposed it.

    The most important thing to know about the first two years of their marriage was this: they were pretty happy. From time to time they would squabble, and every once in a while they would have a blazing row about nothing very much that would end in tearful reconciliations, and they would make love and kiss away the other’s tears and whisper heartfelt apologies into each other’s ears. At the end of the second year, six months after she came off the pill, Brenda found herself pregnant.

    Gordon bought her a bracelet studded with tiny rubies, and he turned the spare bedroom into a nursery, hanging the wallpaper himself. The wallpaper was covered with nursery rhyme characters, with Little Bo Peep, and Humpty Dumpty, and the Dish Running Away with the Spoon, over and over and over again.

    Belinda came home from the hospital, with little Melanie in her carry-cot, and Belinda’s mother came to stay with them for a week, sleeping on the sofa in the lounge.

    It was on the third day that Belinda pulled out the box file to show her wedding souvenirs to her mother and to reminisce. Already their wedding seemed like such a long time ago. They smiled at the dried brown thing that had once been a white rose, and clucked over the menu and the invitation. At the bottom of the box was a large brown envelope.

    ‘Gordon and Belinda’s Marriage,’ read Belinda’s mother.

    It’s a description of our wedding, said Belinda. It’s very sweet. It even has a bit in it about Daddy’s slide show.

    Belinda opened the envelope and pulled out the sheet of cream paper. She read what was typed upon the paper, and made a face. Then she put it away without saying anything.

    Can’t I see it, dear? asked her mother.

    I think it’s Gordon playing a joke, said Belinda. Not in good taste, either.

    Belinda was sitting up in bed that night, breastfeeding Melanie, when she said to Gordon, who was staring at his wife and new daughter with a foolish smile upon his face, Darling, why did you write those things?

    What things?

    In the letter. That wedding thing. You know.

    I don’t know.

    It wasn’t funny.

    He sighed. What are you talking about?

    Belinda pointed to the box file, which she had brought upstairs and placed upon her dressing table. Gordon opened it and took out the envelope. Did it always say that on the envelope? he asked. I thought it said something about our wedding. Then he took out and read the single sheet of ragged-edged paper, and his forehead creased. I didn’t write this. He turned the paper over, staring at the blank side as if expecting to see something else written there.

    You didn’t write it? she asked. Really you didn’t? Gordon shook his head. Belinda wiped a dribble of milk from the baby’s chin. I believe you, she said. I thought you wrote it, but you didn’t.

    No.

    Let me see that again, she said. He passed the paper to her. This is so weird. I mean, it’s not funny, and it’s not even true.

    Typed upon the paper was a brief description of the previous two years for Gordon and Belinda. It had not been a good two years, according to the typed sheet. Six months after they were married, Belinda had been bitten in the cheek by a Pekingese, so badly that the cheek needed to be stitched back together. It had left a nasty scar. Worse than that, nerves had been damaged, and she had begun to drink, perhaps to numb the pain. She suspected that Gordon was revolted by her face, while the new baby, it said, was a desperate attempt to glue the couple together.

    Why would they say this? she asked.

    They?

    Whoever wrote this horrid thing. She ran a finger across her cheek: it was unblemished and unmarked. She was a very beautiful young woman, although she looked tired and fragile now.

    How do you know it’s a ‘they’?

    I don’t know, she said, transferring the baby to her left breast. It seems a sort of ‘they’-ish thing to do. To write that and to swap it for the old one and to wait until one of us read it . . . Come on, little Melanie, there you go, that’s such a fine girl . . .

    Shall I throw it away?

    Yes. No. I don’t know. I think . . . She stroked the baby’s forehead. Hold on to it, she said. We might need it for evidence. I wonder if it was something Al organized. Al was Gordon’s youngest brother.

    Gordon put the paper back into the envelope, and he put the envelope back into the box file, which was pushed under the bed and, more or less, forgotten.

    Neither of them got much sleep for the next few months, what with the nightly feeds and the continual crying, for Melanie was a colicky baby. The box file stayed under the bed. And then Gordon was offered a job in Preston, several hundred miles north, and since Belinda was on leave from her job and had no immediate plans to go back to work, she found the idea rather attractive. So they moved.

    They found a terraced house on a cobbled street, high and old and deep. Belinda filled in from time to time at a local vet’s, seeing small animals and housepets. When Melanie was eighteen months old, Belinda gave birth to a son, whom they called Kevin after Gordon’s late grandfather.

    Gordon was made a full partner in the firm of architects. When Kevin began to go to kindergarten, Belinda went back to work.

    The box file was never lost. It was in one of the spare rooms at the top of the house, beneath a teetering pile of copies of The Architect’s Journal and Architectural Review. Belinda thought about the box file, and what it contained, from time to time, and, one night when Gordon was in Scotland overnight consulting on the remodeling of an ancestral home, she did more than think.

    Both of the children were asleep. Belinda went up the stairs into the undecorated part of the house. She moved the magazines and opened the box, which (where it had not been covered by magazines) was thick with two years of undisturbed dust. The envelope still said Gordon and Belinda’s Marriage on it, and Belinda honestly did not know if it had ever said anything else.

    She took out the paper from the envelope, and she read it. And then she put it away, and sat there, at the top of the house, feeling shaken and sick.

    According to the neatly typed message, Kevin, her second child, had not been born; the baby had been miscarried at five months. Since then Belinda had been suffering from frequent attacks of bleak, black depression. Gordon was home rarely, it said, because he was conducting a rather miserable affair with the senior partner in his company, a striking but nervous woman ten years his senior. Belinda was drinking more, and affecting high collars and scarves to hide the spiderweb scar upon her cheek. She and Gordon spoke little, except to argue the small and petty arguments of those who fear the big arguments, knowing that the only things that were left to be said were too huge to be said without destroying both their lives.

    Belinda said nothing about the latest version of Gordon and Belinda’s Marriage to Gordon. However, he read it himself, or something quite like it, several months later, when Belinda’s mother fell ill, and Belinda went south for a week to help look after her.

    On the sheet of paper that Gordon took out of the envelope was a portrait of a marriage similar to the one that Belinda had read, although, at present, his affair with his boss had ended badly, and his job was now in peril.

    Gordon rather liked his boss, but could not imagine himself ever becoming romantically involved with her. He was enjoying his job, although he wanted something that would challenge him more than it did.

    Belinda’s mother improved, and Belinda came home again within the week. Her husband and children were relieved and delighted to see her.

    It was Christmas Eve before Gordon spoke to Belinda about the envelope.

    You’ve looked at it too, haven’t you? They had crept into the children’s bedrooms earlier that evening and filled the hanging Christmas stockings. Gordon had felt euphoric as he had walked through the house, as he stood beside his children’s beds, but it was a euphoria tinged with a profound sorrow: the knowledge that such moments of complete happiness could not last; that one could not stop Time.

    Belinda knew what he was talking about. Yes, she said, I’ve read it.

    What do you think?

    Well, she said. I don’t think it’s a joke anymore. Not even a sick joke.

    Mm, he said. Then what is it?

    They sat in the living room at the front of the house with the lights dimmed, and the log burning on the bed of coals cast flickering orange and yellow light about the room.

    I think it really is a wedding present, she told him. It’s the marriage that we aren’t having. The bad things are happening there, on the page, not here, in our lives. Instead of living it, we are reading it, knowing it could have gone that way and also that it never did.

    You’re saying it’s magic, then? He would not have said it aloud, but it was Christmas Eve, and the lights were down.

    I don’t believe in magic, she said, flatly. It’s a wedding present. And I think we should make sure it’s kept safe.

    On Boxing Day she moved the envelope from the box file to her jewelry drawer, which she kept locked, where it lay flat beneath her necklaces and rings, her bracelets and her brooches.

    Spring became summer. Winter became spring.

    Gordon was exhausted. By day he worked for clients, designing, and liaising with builders and contractors; by night he would sit up late, working for himself, designing museums and galleries and public buildings for competitions. Sometimes his designs received honorable mentions, and were reproduced in architectural journals.

    Belinda was doing more large animal work, which she enjoyed, visiting farmers and inspecting and treating horses, sheep, and cows. Sometimes she would bring the children with her on her rounds.

    Her mobile phone rang when she was in a paddock trying to examine a pregnant goat who had, it turned out, no desire to be caught, let alone examined. She retired from the battle, leaving the goat glaring at her from across the field, and thumbed the phone open. Yes?

    Guess what?

    Hello darling. Um. You’ve won the lottery?

    Nope. Close, though. My design for the British Heritage Museum has made the short list. I’m up against some pretty stiff contenders, though. But I’m on the short list.

    That’s wonderful!

    I’ve spoken to Mrs. Fulbright and she’s going to have Sonja baby-sit for us tonight. We’re celebrating.

    Terrific. Love you, she said. Now got to get back to the goat.

    They drank too much champagne over a fine celebratory meal. That night in their bedroom as Belinda removed her earrings, she said, Shall we see what the wedding present says?

    He looked at her gravely from the bed. He was only wearing his socks. No, I don’t think so. It’s a special night. Why spoil it?

    She placed her earrings in her jewelry drawer, and locked it. Then she removed her stockings. "I suppose you’re right. I can imagine what it says, anyway. I’m drunk and depressed and you’re a miserable loser. And meanwhile we’re . . . well, actually I am a bit tiddly, but that’s not what I mean. It just sits there at the bottom of the drawer, like the portrait in the attic in The Picture of Dorian Gray."

    ‘And it was only by his rings that they knew him.’ Yes. I remember. We read it in school.

    That’s really what I’m scared of, she said, pulling on a cotton nightdress. That the thing on that paper is the real portrait of our marriage at present, and what we’ve got now is just a pretty picture. That it’s real, and we’re not. I mean—she was speaking intently now, with the gravity of the slightly drunk—don’t you ever think that it’s too good to be true?

    He nodded. Sometimes. Tonight, certainly.

    She shivered. "Maybe really I am a drunk with a dog bite on my cheek, and you fuck anything that moves and Kevin was never born and— and all that other horrible stuff."

    He stood up, walked over to her, put his arms around her.

    But it isn’t true, he pointed out. This is real. You’re real. I’m real. That wedding thing is just a story. It’s just words. And he kissed her, and held her tightly, and little more was said that night.

    It was a long six months before Gordon’s design for the British Heritage Museum was announced as the winning design, although it was derided in The Times as being too aggressively modern, in various architectural journals as being too old-fashioned, and it was described by one of the judges, in an interview in the Sunday Telegraph, as a bit of a compromise candidate—everybody’s second choice.

    They moved to London, letting their house in Preston to an artist and his family, for Belinda would not let Gordon sell it. Gordon worked intensively, happily, on the museum project. Kevin was six and Melanie was eight. Melanie found London intimidating, but Kevin loved it. Both of the children were initially distressed to have lost their friends and their school. Belinda found a part-time job at a small animal clinic in Camden, working three afternoons a week. She missed her cows.

    Days in London became months and then years, and, despite occasional budgetary setbacks, Gordon was increasingly excited. The day approached when the first ground would be broken for the museum.

    One night Belinda woke in the small hours, and she stared at her sleeping husband in the sodium-yellow illumination of the streetlamp outside their bedroom window. His hairline was receding, and the hair at back was thinning. Belinda wondered what it would be like when she was actually married to a bald man. She decided it would be much the same as it always had been. Mostly happy. Mostly good.

    She wondered what was happening to the them in the envelope. She could feel its presence, dry and brooding, in the corner of their bedroom, safely locked away from all harm. She felt, suddenly, sorry for the Belinda and Gordon trapped in the envelope on their piece of paper, hating each other and everything else.

    Gordon began to snore. She kissed him, gently, on the cheek, and said, Shhh. He stirred, and was quiet, but did not wake. She snuggled against him and soon fell back into sleep herself.

    After lunch the following day, while in conversation with an importer of Tuscan marble, Gordon looked very surprised and reached a hand up to his chest. He said, I’m frightfully sorry about this, and then his knees gave way, and he fell to the floor. They called an ambulance, but Gordon was dead when it arrived. He was thirty-six years old.

    At the inquest the coroner announced that the autopsy showed Gordon’s heart to have been congenitally weak. It could have gone at any time.

    For the first three days after his death, Belinda felt nothing, a profound and awful nothing. She comforted the children, she spoke to her friends and to Gordon’s friends, to her family and to Gordon’s family, accepting their condolences gracefully and gently, as one accepts unasked-for gifts. She would listen to people cry for Gordon, which she still had not done. She would say all the right things, and she would feel nothing at all.

    Melanie, who was eleven, seemed to be taking it well. Kevin abandoned his books and computer games, and sat in his bedroom, staring out of the window, not wanting to talk.

    The day after the funeral her parents went back to the countryside, taking both the children with them. Belinda refused to go. There was, she said, too much to do.

    On the fourth day after the funeral she was making the double bed that she and Gordon had shared when she began to cry, and the sobs ripped through her in huge ugly spasms of grief, and tears fell from her face onto the bedspread and clear snot streamed from her nose, and she sat down on the floor suddenly, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and she cried for the best part of an hour, for she knew that she would never see him again.

    She wiped her face. Then she unlocked her jewelry drawer and took out the envelope and opened it. She pulled out the cream-colored sheet of paper and ran her eyes over the neatly typed words. The Belinda on the paper had crashed their car while drunk and was about to lose her driving license. She and Gordon had not spoken for days. He had lost his job almost eighteen months earlier and now spent most of his days sitting around their house in Salford. Belinda’s job brought in what money they had. Melanie was out of control: Belinda, cleaning Melanie’s bedroom, had found a cache of five and ten pound notes. Melanie had offered no explanation for how an eleven-year-old girl had come by the money, had just retreated into her room and glared at them, tight-lipped, when quizzed. Neither Gordon nor Belinda had investigated further, scared of what they might have discovered. The house in Salford was dingy and damp, such that the plaster was coming away from the ceiling in huge crumbling chunks, and all three of them had developed nasty bronchial coughs.

    Belinda felt sorry for them.

    She put the paper back in the envelope. She wondered what it would be like to hate Gordon, to have him hate her. She wondered what it would be like not to have Kevin in her life, not to see his drawings of airplanes or hear his magnificently tuneless renditions of popular songs. She wondered where Melanie—the other Melanie, not her Melanie but the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God Melanie—could have got that money and was relieved that her own Melanie seemed to have few interests beyond ballet and Enid Blyton books.

    She missed Gordon so much it felt like something sharp being hammered into her chest, a spike, perhaps, or an icicle, made of cold and loneliness and the knowledge that she would never see him again in this world.

    Then she took the envelope downstairs to the lounge, where the coal fire was burning in the grate, because Gordon had loved open fires. He said that a fire gave a room life. She disliked coal fires, but she had lit it this evening out of routine and out of habit, and because not lighting it would have meant admitting to herself, on some absolute level, that he was never coming home.

    Belinda stared into the fire for some time, thinking about what she had in her life, and what she had given up; and whether it would be worse to love someone who was no longer there, or not to love someone who was.

    And then, at the end, almost casually, she tossed the envelope onto the coals, and she watched it curl and blacken and catch, watched the yellow flames dancing amidst the blue.

    Soon the wedding present was nothing but black flakes of ash which danced on the updrafts and were carried away, like a child’s letter to Santa Claus, up the chimney and off into the night.

    Belinda sat back in her chair, and closed her eyes, and waited for the scar to blossom on her cheek.

    And that is the story I did not write for my friends’ wedding. Although, of course, it’s not the story I did not write or even the story I set out to write when I began it, some pages ago. The story I thought I was setting out to write was much shorter, much more fablelike, and it did not end like that. (I don’t know how it did end originally anymore. There was some kind of ending, but once the story was underway the real ending became inevitable.)

    Most of the stories in this volume have that much in common: The place they arrived at in the end was not the place I was expecting them to go when I set out. Sometimes the only way I would know that a story had finished was when there weren’t any more words to be written down.

    Reading the Entrails: A Rondel

    Editors who ask me for stories about . . . anything you want. Honest. Anything at all. Just write the story you always wanted to write rarely get anything at all.

    In this case, Lawrence Schimel wrote asking for a poem to introduce his anthology of stories about foretelling the future. He wanted one of the verse forms with repeating lines, like a villanelle or a pantoum, to echo the way we inevitably arrive at our future.

    So I wrote him a rondel about the pleasures and perils of fortune-telling and prefaced it with the bleakest joke in Through the Looking-Glass. Somehow it seemed a fine starting point for this book.

    Chivalry

    I’d been having a bad week. The script I was meant to be writing just wasn’t happening, and I’d spent days staring at a blank screen, occasionally writing a word like the and staring at it for an hour or so and then, slowly, letter by letter, I’d delete it and write and or but instead. Then I’d exit without saving. Ed Kramer phoned and reminded me that I owed him a story for an anthology of stories about the Holy Grail which he was editing with the ubiquitous Marty Greenberg. And seeing nothing else was happening and that this story was living in the back of my mind, I said sure.

    I wrote it in a weekend, a gift from the gods, easy and sweet as anything. Suddenly I was a writer transformed: I laughed in the face of danger and spat on the shoes of writer’s block. Then I sat and stared glumly at a blank screen for another week, because the gods have a

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