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Book Tour and what Deadwood can teach us about plot

Cross-posted with my newsletter.

Book Tour!

This post is mostly going to be about plot, community, and some craft discussion based on my recent we-watch of the show Deadwood.

But first! Did you know I’m going on a book tour? That’s right! And you can find me at the following dates and times (also listed in the image below):

Saturday, 16 March 20242:30 PM Eastern at ICFA, Orlando, FL
Reading hosted by Emma Törzs, featuring Janny Wurts, Siobhan Carroll, F. Brett Cox, and me!

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
6 – 7pm Pacific, at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, CA
Reading and conversation with with LP Kindred
https://www.mystgalaxy.com/31924Wasserstein

Thursday, 21 March 202412:30 – 1pm Central, Virtual
I’ll be in conversation with Jeremy Brett, the Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives.
Register here:
http://tx.ag/WassersteinTalk

Saturday, 23 March 2024
4:30pm Pacific, at Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo, CA
Reading and conversation with Naseem Jamnia
https://www.facebook.com/events/3743146905905189

Sunday, 24 March 2024
6 pm Pacific, The American Bookbinders Museum, San Fransisco, CA
In conversation with Gail Carriger
http://www.sfinsf.org

Saturday, 30 March 2024
1:30 pm Pacific, West Valley Regional Branch, LA Public Library, Los Angeles, CA
https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/izzy-wasserstein-discusses-her-debut-novella-these-fragile-graces-fugitive-heart

Saturday, 28 September 2024
Time TBA, Topeka, KS
Kansas Book Festival
https://www.kansasbookfestival.com

Deadwood, plot and community

Note: contains major spoilers for the TV series Deadwood and discusses the death of a child.

Deadwood, David Milch’s fictionalized and highly stylized retelling of the story of boom town that rose up around a mining camp in what would later become South Dakota, is a deeply problematic show. It depicts racism, misogyny, and violence, among other notable elements. While I would argue that the show depicts these elements, rather than endorsing them, it is a difficult watch. (To pick one example: its failure to meaningfully engage with the Native American peoples who suffered mightily at the hands of colonialism is a massive flaw.)

Despite that, it is, to my mind, the best show of the “golden age” era of television, telling the story of a group of people, many of whom are capable of monstrosity, nevertheless discovering they need each other to survive. Underneath all the violence, language, and nudity is a show about community.

It’s also a show where terrible things routinely happen, and I want to talk about one of those events, because it’s the kind of storytelling choice that I generally find abhorrent, but in Deadwood, I think it works. And the reason it works has to do with the nature of plot and of the tools of characterization.

At the end of the 9th episode of season 2, 8-year-old William Bullock is trampled by a runaway horse. During the next episode, he dies of his wounds. The sequence of events is shocking, even in a series as heartbreaking and unpredictable as Deadwood. While the decision to kill of William was apparently made as a result of behind-the-scenes drama, Milch and the series’ writers take one of my least favorite tropes—a dead child used to motivate our hero—and turn it into something powerful.

To understand how they do that, we need to reflect on the situation the characters find themselves in when the tragedy strikes. William’s parents’ relationship is collapsing. An outsider has committed a series of horrific murders. Political maneuvering threatens everything the town has built; and George Hearst, fantastically wealthy and legendarily cruel (in the show’s depiction; I can’t speak for the historical figure), is on his way to Deadwood, where he will immediately be a threat to anyone and everyone.

This is the moment when poor William dies. Everything about his death, from the timing to the unpredictable nature of it, is devastating. And here is where the show makes the choice that changes this death from what could be just another “fridging” to an event that reveals to us how this community can maybe—just maybe—come together to survive the existential threats it is facing.

To do so, it forces us, and the town, to sit with the horror of what has happened. So shocking and deeply felt is William’s death that daily life in Deadwood shuts down almost entirely. Enmities aren’t forgotten, but they are at least put on hold. Almost the entire town gathers for the funeral, and even Al Swearengen, who doesn’t attend, consents to let the sex workers in his employ join the miners, businesspeople, criminals, and men of the cloth (categories that, in Deadwood, have significant overlap), to pay respect to this boy, the son a sheriff many of them loathe and more than a few of them love.

During the funeral, the camera lingers on faces in the crowd. We see every heartbroken expression, every shattered visage. William’s mother, who has held herself at a remove from the rest of the town, invites everyone into her home for a viewing. Even Swearengen, who can’t bring himself to face the event, is deeply rattled by it. Only a few figures, those who are actively working with Hearst against the town, are set apart from a town that is learning, at great cost, that it is in fact a community.

If the typical death-of-an-innocent trope is about motivating a hero (examples abound, but think of the motivating event in John Wick), then here we have something much rarer: a group of people who have had to live with the daily reality of violence suddenly face something they can’t hide from, a loss even more random and unfair than the show has taught us to expect. And, as people tend to do in a tragedy, they come together. They mourn, they offer each other what words and actions they can manage. What they can offer isn’t nearly enough, but what consolations ever are in such a situation?

Here, Deadwood tells us: sit with this grief. Watch the characters, almost all of whom are complicit in truly terrible things, face the fundamental unfairness of life. Watch them offer what they can to each other. Watch them realize, maybe for the first time, what they mean to each other.

Deadwood is a show packed with plot. But incidents like Williams’s death are rare, because most of the plot proceeds from the terrible logic of characters’ choices. It’s a plot that unfolds by carefully showing us who characters are and allowing conflict to arise from those similarities and differences.

But while plot can be a series of consequences for choices, life itself isn’t always that tidy. That’s one reason why I think of plot less as a series of related events, and more as the results of characters trying to get what they need from each other. Almost every interaction in Deadwood can be thought of in those terms, and when something like William’s death occurs, it forces characters to think of matters beyond their own wants and even needs. It defies the capitalist, everyone-for-themselves logic that most of the shows characters accept, and makes them realize the limitations of that logic.

In lingering over William’s loss, Deadwood rejects easy answers and rote motivations. In bringing its marvelous ensemble cast together to face this tragedy, it hints at the arc of the entire series, an arc that will be defined by this fragile, violent, wildly flawed community, and will show us—and them—why none of our burdens can’t be borne alone.

And if that isn’t a cool alternative to “lone hero” plot-lines that shape so many westerns and so much storytelling advice, I don’t know what is.

Do you have thoughts on Deadwood, plot, or using the deaths of innocents in storytelling? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

Upcoming Events Online and at AWP

Somehow the first month of 2024 is almost behind us. Where does the time go? For me, the answer has been, in no particular order: teaching, writing, getting ready for the launch of These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, and re-watching Deadwood.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be doing multiple events. I hope to see see you at them!

ONLINE: Wednesday, 1/31 (tomorrow!) at 10 pm Eastern/7 pm Pacific I’ll be reading short fiction on Story Hour along with Wole Talabi. Zoom and Facebook links are available at the link. I’ll be reading two very short stories that are among my personal favorites.

KANSAS CITY: Saturday, 2/10 at 1:45 pm Central at be be participating in the AWP panel “The Trans Fantastic: Craft, Themes, Reception” along with an amazing group of panelists: Alina Boyden, Maya Deane, Megan Milks and Nino Cipri. Location: Room 2504AB, Kansas City Convention Center, Level 2.

LAWRENCE, KS: Also on Saturday, 2/10 at 7 pm Central, join me, Emma Törzs, and Abbey Mei Otis at the Raven Bookstore in Lawrence Kansas for a reading. Emma and Abbey are immensely talented writers and awesome people. Not only will this be a very fun event, but you’ll have a chance to buy copies of Emma and Abbey’s gorgeous books and there should be some fun incentives for those who want to pre-order These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart! Those in attendance will also be among the first people ever to hear me read from it. Location: 809 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, KS.

There are many bookstores that I love, but the Raven has a special place in my heart. Even though I no longer live in Kansas, it will always be my local bookstore and it’s one of my very favorite places in the world. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come by and say hello!

But wait, there’s more: I’ll have more events to announce, including the official book launch for These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart, very soon!

Sisters, change, and dealing with the past

This edition of the newsletter is very short, because it’s finals week here and that means three things: grading, grading, and procrastination grading. But I’m taking a quick break from two of those three to share some news.

Today my story She Blooms and the World is Changed” is free to read at Lightspeed. This story is personal to me. It’s about sisters, colonialism, the limits of a “leave no trace” ethos, and what we do with the wreckage of the past. 

It’s also a rarity for me. I don’t often write about siblings, despite being from a big family and loving my siblings. I’m not sure why they don’t appear more often. Maybe it’s for the same reason animals don’t occupy a lot of space in my fiction: I don’t want to put them through the kind of stress that characters are often facing. 

Which is pretty wild; if you’re reading this, you probably know that I’m not the least bit shy about putting my protagonists through some terrible times. I’m sure siblings and animals will start showing up more, though. I’ll do my best to keep the animals out of harms way. No promises for the siblings. 

*** 

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From received a lovely review from Maya C. James in Locus. I particularly loved this line: “I felt like I was traveling through a liminal space with little protection but tremendous wonder and hope.”

***

With the semester almost over, I’m preparing for a busy summer. One of my goals for the summer is to listen to a lot of audiobooks while I’m working around the house. So I ask you, dear reader: what’s a great book you’d recommend on audiobook? Recent books and those written by marginalized folks are ones I’d particularly love to see. 

I know of at least one book that I’m thrilled to see out in the world: Emma Törzs’s Ink Blood Sister Scribe. A story of two sisters and the magical library they protect, it features exquisite prose, amazing worldbuilding, and characters you’ll want to obsess over. I can’t wait for y’all to read it. 

2022 Awards Eligibility

Somehow it’s already (dramatic sting) awards season. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of work come out this year, and I’d be honored if you’d consider it when you’re nominating. I’ve grouped them below by category.

Short Story Collection

The cover of All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From, picturing a group of characters who might or might not be the variations on the same person, against a background of black, deep purples, and pinks.
I’m biased, but I love this cover so much!

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From with Neon Hemlock Press

My debut short fiction collection contains 14 stories, 3 of them never before published.

“Across every genre and tone, Izzy Wasserstein imbues her stories with a unique power: to reach through the page and into your chest, where they hold your heart as if it’s the last of its kind. These are gorgeously-told queer tales of grief and love, fear and wonder, for people and for entire worlds, and they give comfort and strength to the exact parts of our souls that this moment in history relentlessly erodes. Dress your wounds with these words. Drink up their warmth in the dead of winter. They’ll take care of you.”

–Elly Bangs, author of Unity

Novelette

Shadows of the Hungry, the Broken, the Transformed in CossMass Infinities (9500 words)

Justine’s shadow watches her. It stands under the lamp post across from her flat, her smoky semblance, flickering and shifting under the gaslight. She’s at her window, tea cooling in her hands. Though the shadow has no eyes, Justine is certain that it stares at her, just as she is certain it is hers. She would know it anywhere.

This is my first published novelette, and it’s near and dear to my heart. If you’ve found yourself needing community in hard times, or struggling under the burdens of institutions that are supposed to support you, then please know I wrote this for you.

Short Stories

“Everything the Sea Takes, it Returns in Lightspeed (2700 words)

Everything the sea takes, it gives back in its own way and its own time. That was what Jess’s grandmother believed, what she’d told Jess as they stood in the shadow of the giant red cedar that had washed ashore, its severed roots thicker than Jess’s body. It must have drifted for a thousand years or more to return to them in that moment.

My ode to the Pacific Northwest, and a meditation on loss and how we keep going despite it. I’m hugely proud of this one, and if you only have time to read one story of mine, this is the one I’d recommend.

These Whispering Remains in Decoded (7500 words), paywalled

I pull myself up from the morgue table, from the fragments of bone that were once a young woman, then vomit bile and not much else into a trash can. I’ve long ago learned not to eat before communing with the dead. Jensen holds my hair back as I empty my stomach, and when I straighten, wiping my lips with the back of my sleeve, his brow is furrowed.

“Don’t tell me,” I say, but he does anyway.

“Worse than ever,” he says, meaning the shaking, the sweating, the pained cries that come along with the ability to share the dead’s experiences. Jensen calls communing my gift. If so, it’s a cruel one.

This story is about grief, burnout, and what we owe the dead. It’s also my response to the many deeply problematic elements of the “true crime” genre.

“Blades, Stones, and the Weight of Centuries,” “The Case of the Soane Museum Thefts,” and “Hopper in the Frying Pan” all appear for the first time in All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From, and all are eligible for nominations.

Non-Fiction

The Necessity of Trans Joy in Uncanny (1200 words)

We deserve stories as rich and varied as the stories about cis people. We need stories like “Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue,” and stories of joy. When we write trans tragedies, they’ll be the tragedies we need to tell, ones that center us, that help us make meaning of this transphobic world. And we won’t limit ourselves. We’ll write comedies, romances, erotica, weird tales, thrilling space adventures, and stories of triumph.

Even in our worst times, we will find joy. We’ve always found ways to have it and we’ll keep doing so. And when those joys seem impossibly far away, fiction can help us hold on.

This one does what it says on the tin, or at least in the title.

News and Updates

I’ve been remiss in updating this blog. Too many demands on my time, too little focus to go around. But now that Elon Musk is busy remaking Twitter into a somehow-even-worse product, I’ll be working to keep this space much more active going forward.

The Necessity of Trans Joy

Thanks to Uncanny for giving me the chance to write about trans joy and how much I crave seeing it depicted in fiction. Thanks in particular to Meg Elison, who edited the piece and and without whose support and insightful feedback it would never have existed. And thanks to the trans community, without whom I’d surely have given up on this whole writing thing.

World Fantasy 2022

I’ll be at World Fantasy this weekend. If you’re there, I hope you’ll say hi! And please don’t be offended if I have to glance at your nametag to be sure of who you are. I wasn’t good with faces even in the Before Times. You can find me at the following events:

Thursday, 3 PM: Queer in the Market: The State Of LGBTQ+ Representation in Fantasy and Horror Publishing (Location: Celestin ABC)

Friday, 4:30 PM: I’ll be reading from All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From. (Imperial 11)

I hope yo see you there!

Speaking of My Book

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From, my debut short story collection, which Elly Bangs praised as “gorgeously-told queer tales of grief and love, fear and wonder,” is out in the world! You can buy it through Neon Hemlock, order it through your local independent book store, or ask your local library to get a copy!

“The Futures Are Queer”

If you’ve read this far, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll like my newsletter. In it I talk about writing, media, food, TTRPGs, and whatever else crosses my mind.

Upcoming events

Somehow it’s already July! That means it’s book launch month, and that I’m going to be doing a lot of fun events. All of the following are online except the reading on

Wednesday, July 13, 9 PM Central (2 AM GMT): Story Hour featuring yours truly and Karl Dandenell. (FB Live and Zoom info at the link above). I’ll be reading a story from All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From.

Thursday, July 14, 7 PM Central (midnight GMT): “The Imagination of Resistance: Community and Solidarity in Speculative Fiction” panel discussion at the 1455 Festival of Storytelling. Featuring me, Craig Laurance Gidney, RB Lemberg, Victor Manibo, and dave ring. Info about attending the festival is as the link above.

Thursday, July 21, 7 PM Central (midnight GMT): The wonderful Argo bookshop is presenting an evening of reading and discussion. I’ll be appearing alongside my dear friends (and Clarion West 2017 classmates) Andrea Chapela, Elly Bangs, Iori Kusano, Gordon B White, and Emma Törzs.

Andrea is hosting the event, Emma is moderating the Q&A, and we’ll be reading from each other’s work! Come hear us share some of our favorite works and genuinely just love on one another! Register via EventBrite.

Tuesday, July 26, 5 PM Central (10 PM GMT): “That Classic You Always Meant To Read.” I’ll be co-facilitating with the brilliant Alexandra Manglis a discussion of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest. You can register for free here, though registration is limited to those participating in Clarion West’s write-a-thon. Registration for the write-a-thon is free and available here.

Wednesday, July 27, 6 PM Central (11 PM GMT): I’ll be appearing on Neon Hemlock Live! I’ll read something and try not to be too obvious about how bad I am at using Instagram’s video features.

Tuesday, AUGUST 23, 7 PM Central: [Note the new date!] I’ll be appearing live and in-person at The Raven bookstore in Lawrence, KS. The Raven’s been my beloved local bookstore for many years, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that they’re hosting the in-person release celebration for All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From!

That’s a lot of events with a lot of awesome people. I hope to see you there!

Pre-order All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From

In case you missed it, the amazing Charlie Jane Anders hosted the cover reveal for All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From. And I can’t resist showing it off here:

Cover by Vivian Magaña.

The collection arrives on July 26, and it’s available for pre-order pretty much everywhere. That includes

Neon Hemlock

IndieBound

and your local independent bookseller!

If you must, it’s also available for order at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Again, though: independent bookstores are great! Support them!

2021 Awards Eligibility Post

In 2021 I published four stories, all of which I’m quite proud of. They’re listed here in the order they were published. I’d be honored if you’d read any or all of them.

Dead at the Feet of a God” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies (2900 words).

There is no avoiding it: your story will end with you dead at the feet of a god. Your divinations have told you this. There is no ambiguity. The portents float at the edge of your vision, haunt your dreams, shake themselves free with each throwing of the bones.

Like Birdsong, the Memory of Your Touch” in Fantasy (700 words).

A few seasons is long enough to pull apart our roads, a few lifetimes to erase most signs of our passing, and if birds are still singing elsewhere, maybe the ravens will remember us and tell our stories, laughing at all we had and couldn’t keep…

“This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” in Apex (6500 words).

“I was part of the Free Zone downtown,” she tells him at last. “Kam swore we could hold the cops off if we stuck together, but they tore through our wards, bashed in the walls—and I fled. When my family needed me most, I ran.” She has never told anyone this. The words twist in her. Bile rises in her throat.

To Reach the Gate, She Must Leave Everything Behind” in Lightspeed. (500 words)

Death takes much and in return it offers Susan P— only clarity. She finds herself in a great gray desert and knows her life has ended. Clad in a royal dress, she carries a bow and quiver, and a finely-carved ivory horn dangles from her throat. A tremor of fear shakes her. She’s not possessed such things in many years. Has she returned to His world?

Witches, Suffering, and (Possibly) Triumph

For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.

James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues.”

I’ll start with an admission: I sometimes wish I could write happy, feel-good stories. But that’s not my temperament, and the world seems to have taken from me whatever small gift I had for such tales. So instead I write about how bad things can be, and about how we can press on anyway.

Things are bleak, and almost certain to get much worse. But nihilism and despair serve the interests of the worst people, so in my writing I try to be face the truth without being consumed by it.

—–

All of which is to say, my newest story isn’t as grim as its title might suggest. “This Shattered Vessel, Which Holds Only Grief” is a deeply personal story for me, with origins in my obsessions with memory, community, and anarchism and anti-authoritarianism. It’s also shaped by my attempts to deal with the trauma of the Trump administration, the capture of democratic institutions by fascists, and the pandemic.

It also owes a massive debt to Andrea Martinez Corbin, whose gorgeous story “Raise the Dead Cobbler” is a direct influence on “Shattered Vessel.” Seriously, you should read it. It’s great. Andrea was kind enough to let me borrow her “Witch of _____” framework, and after several years, I finally found a story where my own witches were needed.

—–

I hope you like my story. But more than that, I hope it marks a small contribution to an essential conversation.

We can’t avoid suffering. But may survive. We may triumph. And whatever comes, we’ll need each other.

The Grass Bows Down, the Pilgrims Walk Lightly

By Izzy Wasserstein

[Author’s Note: This story was originally published in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.]

~~~

My mother kept an old faith, and when I was young she would tell me stories of the Aesir. She explained how, each day, Odin sends his ravens into the world. Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, scour the globe for what they may learn. Perhaps they will help him uncover the secret to preventing Ragnarök, the death of all he has worked to build. Until the ravens return, the god sits motionless as a statue. For without them, what is he?

#

We crest the ridge, and the grasslands stretch to the horizon, each lavender blade as tall as my shoulder. The wild fields ripple in the wind, mottled by cloud-shadow. If I could, I would stay and watch the light and dark play over the wilderness, but Korvach starts down the slope immediately, and I must hurry to keep up. I am the guest of honor, or possibly the subject of a trial. Behind us extends a line of Klevish pilgrims. Once or twice I have looked back to see dozens of them, dressed in slate-gray robes, their angular faces dominated by protrusions that strike me alternatively as a nose or a raven’s beak, though they are neither. The effect of the whole is to make them seem like a line of plague doctors. An ominous association, but they have been polite and welcoming in their formal way.

At the bottom of the ridge, the rocky soil gives way to rich grassland. Korvach turns to me, though he does not break his stride. “You commune with us, Erika-Negotiator, by joining our pilgrimage. Now you may see something you have never seen before.”

The briefing documents I’d read commented on the Klevish tendency toward understatement and noted that it was “most pronounced among devotees of the Known Path.” Even so, I am not prepared for what happens. Korvach gestures casually with his hand and before us, the grass bows down.

There is no other way to describe it. The stalks all around sway gently in a light breeze, but the ones right in front of us each bend at the tuft that makes up the base of the blade and lie flat before us.

“We begin,” Korvach says as he steps forward. For yards before each footfall, the grass in front of him ripples and bends down. We walk easily on the path created for us, long grass on either side standing tall.

I have come to Kleva to seek the continued aid of the Klevish. They are more than happy to share their technology with humanity, giving us access to the stars, to advanced terraforming techniques, and much more, all at a very reasonable price. But in each negotiation, there is always a demand.

Through some method I do not understand, they choose a Negotiator from among human volunteers who must complete a task to seal the agreement. Our xenosociologists haven’t solved the riddle of what, if anything, connects the Negotiators they select, nor the tasks. One negotiation involved playing and winning an elaborate game played with tiny, exquisite moving figures. Another time a Negotiator was tasked with maintaining the health of a pond for a full year. One Negotiator composed poetry.

We have walked for kilometers when Korvach, moving at the  same unyielding pace as ever, breaks his silence. He does not take his eyes off the folding path before him. 

“Erika-Negotiator, I speak to you now as Korvach-Negotiator, not Korvach-First-Walker. Do you understand?”

“I think so. You now speak not for your religious order, but of our negotiation.”

“So it is. I have a task for you. Should you fulfill it, we will share with you the genetic reclamation technology your people request.” In typical fashion, he does not say: and if you fail, we will deny it to you. What else should I expect? The Klevish are the most advanced species humanity has encountered, and yet they also prioritize such things as pilgrimage across uninhabited islands and cryptic, puzzling negotiations.

“I understand,” I say.

“Your task is to discover why the grass kneels before our passing.” He walks on. For the first time in many years I feel a spark of excitement, and the desire to solve a mystery, to learn something new. I am surprised by joy. That joy pulls me forward, and brings with it echoes of the past.

#

I was packing for Venus when Maebh poked her head into the bedroom and laughed. I flushed with embarrassment.

“What?” I asked. I was sitting on the bed, surrounded by stacks of clothing, shoes, research notes, bio-scanners, transmitters, packing and unpacking them as I tried to make a year’s worth of gear fit into just one suitcase. Maebh had only a sturdy backpack braced against her shoulders.

“I’m laughing at you, silly,” she said so sweetly that I couldn’t hold it against her. “We’re not headed to one of the Far Colonies.”

“It’s always wise to be prepared,” I said, defensively.  “That’s one philosophy,” she said. “And it’s useful when putting together a research grant. But when it comes to the actual trip, I prefer a different one.”  I arched my eyebrow. “And what’s that?”  “Travel light,” she said.

I grunted. “Easy for you to say. You’re not responsible for the equipment, the logistics–“

“I know, I know.” She sat down next to me, put an arm around me. For all her talk of travelling lightly, her pack was heavy enough that the bed sank down where she sat, pulling everything, including me, toward her. “You are thorough and rigorous, and I appreciate it. But when we’re dealing with the storms on the equator, you won’t want to be lugging around extra weight.”

 “I just want the necessary amount of weight,” I said, and offered what I hoped was a playful pout.

 “I can help,” she promised. “We just focus on what’s essential and leave the rest.” Her grin was an admonition and a tease and a promise all at once.

“Focus on what’s essential,” I said, cupping her cheek in my hand. “I like that.”

Eventually, we finished packing.

#

Odin sends his ravens out into the world to gather knowledge, for he is an old god, and wise, and he knows that he must learn much if he is to prevent Ragnarök. Among the things he knows is that he likely cannot prevent it. The end is coming for him, for all the gods. But he continues to seek a way to change the future. While the birds are flown from him, it as if he is dead or never-born. When they return, his fate is one day nearer.

#

Korvach walks on through the bowing grass. I follow along with him as best I can. He never hurries, never shows any sense of urgency. He is implacable. I suspect that he could walk day and night across the entire pilgrimage if he had to do so. He stops promptly at sundown, though, and the pilgrims at the back slump to the ground. I join them, for I am even more exhausted than they are. They have no need to perform tests on the grass, then rush to catch up with him repeatedly as I do. I suspect their sleep is not haunted, as mine has been, with dreams of the past.

My bio-scanner develops analyses of the grass, the soil, the entire biome. It is of little use until I find the right questions to ask, however. Korvach must know this, just as he knows the answer to the riddle he has posed me. And I think he knows I am struggling. On the third day, when I catch up with him again from examining another sample, he does not speak until I catch my breath.

“How is your progress, Erika-Negotiator?” he asks, his stride never slowing.

I reflect on my struggles before answering. “Each day I test hypotheses,” I tell him. He tilts his head slightly. I am beginning to recognize the Klevish facial expressions. I think this means the answer suits him.

“If you wish to discuss what you have learned, I will always listen,” he says.

Currently my scanner is tracing the product of microprocessors I injected into a stalk, to see if there is some subterranean connection between individual plants I haven’t detected. If the signals spread to other plants, I will be close to an answer. In the meantime, I find myself happy to talk.     “First I checked to see if all the stalks are part of a single organism, as with some plants on Earth,” I told him.  “I see,” he says, inclining his head; he suspected I would try this.

 “They are not. Next I checked pheromone signaling.”

 “And?”

 “Nothing I can detect.”

“Ah, the smell of the fields,” he says. “Each year for a hundred and fifteen years I have made this journey, and each year the smell is a connection to my past.” The afternoon is thick with the scent of cut apples and roasted peppers. It is a smell to hold on to.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I say. “There’s no macroscopic fauna I can find on this whole island, and no other flora, either. Just the grass stretching endless.”

The place is impossible to discuss without slipping into something approaching poetry. As though it is opaque to science​ ,​ I think grimly. But the Klevish chose me from among many volunteers; surely they picked a biologist for a reason. Perhaps they know of my work with dolphins.

 “It is the practice of our faith,” he says. Such a strange way to put it.

 “I will run more tests,” I say. “If fortune is with me, each failure will bring me closer to success.”

“Each step takes us closer to the coast,” he says, and I wonder if he is chastising me, or urging me on.

#

A year after we returned from Venus, I came home to find

Maebh staring out over the sea. The view was spectacular, each Manhattan high-rise resting on reclaimed junk turned into a home for coral. Two hundred feet beneath us, life bloomed in the once-dead seas.

She looked out over the water, and for a moment I was completely content. The view was a daily reminder of the work we had done, the painstaking but rewarding process of healing the seas. Each day I taught enthusiastic students at the flotilla, and each night I came home to Maebh. What more could I ask?

That’s when I caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Her eyes were red, her cheeks slick. She paced away when I met her gaze, but I hurried to her. “What’s wrong?”

“A letter came for you,” she said. I rushed to the table. There was only one reason anyone would hire a courier to deliver a physical document. Sure enough, the letter was emblazoned by the seal of the flotilla. I felt Maebh watching me as I broke the seal and read.

When I looked up at her, she had twisted her hands into tight knots, and was working ineffectually to keep her face neutral.

“They’ve approved it.” I fought to keep the excitement out of my voice. “The whole grant.” I would be overseeing a team of students working on the next phase, the dolphin reintroduction program. That meant job security and a significant budget and a chance to play a major role in reshaping the whole of the Atlantic.

“Good,” she said, and I was shocked to realize she didn’t mean it. From the look on her face, she was, too. “I mean, I’m glad for you, Erika. I know how hard you’ve been working for it.”

“We’ve​ been working for it,” I say. Outside the sunset cast​ the sea in pink and gold.

She gave me a look that shatters me each time I think about it. “Anyway,” she said, “Congratulations.”

“What is this? I thought you’d be happy for me.”  She hesitated. “I thought so too. I told myself I’d be happy for you. For us. But sometimes–sometimes the world doesn’t unfold the way we hope.”

 I could feel my jaw hanging open. I forced it closed. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

 “Yes,” she said. “And it will be your life. It will open project after project to you. They’d be a fool to let you get away.”

 “What’s wrong with that?” I felt anger bubbling up, anger I didn’t understand.

“It’s the endpoint,” she said, and paced over to the window. The city’s lights were burning against the last of the day. “It means you’ll never take a field assignment on Europa or a colony or…”

 “We could never hope to get an appointment this good off world.”

 “Probably not,” she said, and was silent so long I was surprised when she continued. “Do you remember that night on Venus when we watched the Erinaceus venaeus​        ​ foraging?”

We’d watched it for close to an hour, its small nose exploring the undergrowth, rooting through the rich loam, looking so much like its cousins on earth, save that it was slightly smaller and its coat was a shimmering green.   

“I could never forget it. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” I said.

“You told me then that you never wanted to stop exploring.”   

Oh. “I—-this is a kind of exploring. Rebuilding what we’ve​ lost.”

She ran a hand through her hair and turned back to me. “Earth’s going to be okay,” she said. “Even if you didn’t take the grant, someone else would get it and reintroduce the dolphins. Why does it have to be you?”

“Because I’m good at it, Maebh, and because it’s worth doing.”

“Yes,” she said. “And it means we’re staying here forever, rebuilding what we’ve previously fucked up, when there’s everything out there.”

I was still clutching the delicate acceptance letter. My hands shook. I could see the shape things were taking, and I felt something awful curl itself within me.

#

When Huginn returns and Muninn is absent, Odin is lost. His mind is alive with Thought, but with no Memory to guide him, he cannot plan for Ragnarök. He cannot draw on the wisdom of the past. He is useless, incapable of action, for his mind is as blank as and shapeless as a block of stone.

#

On the fifth night, the pilgrims camp just beyond a rise. While they settle in, I backtrack and sit on the bare rock at its peak. I watch the sky as the stars come out in their unfamiliar constellations. This is my first trip outside of the Sol system. For a long time I had no wish for such a trip, until restlessness or regret changed my mind.

The night here is darker than any on earth, with no moon, nothing but the stars and the rustling of the grass. It is a beauty as vibrant as any field of flowers, yet somehow as desolate as a desert.

I do not notice Korvach has come up behind me until he speaks.

“Is it a sight worth seeing?”

“Very much so,” I say. “I wish–there is someone I very much wish could see it.” Maebh would have loved it here. But if she were still with me, I would never have followed this path. Korvach is comfortable with silence. He does not press me, but neither does he hurry on. Finally I speak again. “There is no trace of a neural network, and no microfauna that would explain the grass’s behavior.” A team of experts with proper equipment would no doubt crack the case quickly. But whatever the Klevish want me to learn, I alone must discover it.

“I am told,” Korvach says, and sits beside me, “that on

Earth many people practice a meditation of stillness.”

“It’s true,” I say. “More than one of our faiths teach such things.” I do not see the connection, but it is a better topic than my failure to find answers.

“You would commune with me, Erika-Negotiator, if you would share whether you keep such a faith.”

“I do not keep them. Once I thought I could never be still, and then the time for movement had passed before I realized I had already halted.”

“A sad thing,” he said. “I too could not keep a faith of stillness. I must keep moving forward, for movement is life. And how else will the Path know us?”

“I thought ‘Known Path’ referred to you knowing the path.”

“One could not be true without the other,” he says, and stands. “Good night, Erika-Negotiator. We resume our journey at dawn.” It is a reminder of how little time I have left. In less than a day, the pilgrimage will be over, and I will have succeeded or failed.

I stay some time on the rise and then push my way toward camp through the grass: it has already risen behind us. When sleep takes me, I dream of Maebh, and of Ravens.

#

I did not need to check the time to know that Maebh’s ship would be leaving soon. Beneath me, the Earth spread like a familiar face. Each year she grew more beautiful, each year a bit more green. In my lifetime she would be as green as in the old images. And long after I am dead, perhaps Maebh will look down on a world so verdant one would not know it was the work of many generations to salvage it.

I turned away from the viewport to find Maebh watching me. For once, she stood still, her backpack thrown over her shoulder. The strap was ragged around the edges, and the seams were caked with dirt.

“The Captain wants me on board in five,” she said. Her eyes shone, though with sadness or excitement I couldn’t say.  On impulse, I took her hands. The last moments, the last of us, and I couldn’t find anything to say.

“It’s not too late, you know,” she said. “You can still come with us.” The colony ship would take a qualified biologist in a moment. They’d take almost anyone who was willing to head four hundred years to the ragged edge of human exploration.  “Or you could stay.” I expected anger, I think. I was so miserable I would have picked a fight just to be sure she felt something. But she looked at me with pity.

“There’s a whole universe out there, worlds where humans have never set foot. I can’t turn my back on that.”

“But you can turn your back on me?”

 That did it. “After all this, I thought you’d want me to be happy.” 

 “I want us​ to be happy.” Behind her was the embrace of the​ Milky Way and a moon-bright lance–a vessel accelerating toward relativistic speeds.

 “We don’t want the same things anymore,” she said, as though I didn’t know it keenly.

“You could be happy with me,” I insisted. “You don’t have to throw away everything we’ve built together.”

“I’m not throwing it away, Erika. The past is always there. It’s a tool for discovering the future.” It took me a very long time to make sense of that. “I have to go,” she continued after a moment.

We kissed, and she turned away. When she was almost gone down the corridor, I shouted after her. “Will you think of me?”  She glanced over her shoulder, flashed a smile. “You’ll always be part of me.” Then she turned the corner. I wasn’t right for a long time after that.

#

Huginn does not return, but Muninn does. Odin’s consciousness has fled, but guided by memory, he follows the path laid out for him. Each step enacts the promise of the one before, and each enables the next. Thus he faces the future.

#

Ahead of the pilgrims, a single point of light: a ship in the bay, ready to collect us and take us to civilization. I rush through the high grass, holding the sensor high above my head. I find Korvach keeping his steady pace. We will reach the bay hours from now, as the sun dips behind the waves.

 “Korvach,” I shout, then hold my side as I try to catch my breath. He does not slow.

 “Yes?” His tone is serene, but his face tilts in what might be a smile.

 “When you take this pilgrimage—-do you set out and finish at the same time each year?”

 “We do.” Definitely a smile.

  “Down to the minute, I believe.”

  “Yes, Erika-Negotiator, we do. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I think I’ve solved it.”

  “And what have you discovered?”

 “It’s prions.”

He does not stop, but he shifts his whole torso to face me as he walks, reminding me of a curious corvid. I push on. “Prion folding, specifically. Proteins that pass on their shape to other nearby proteins. In fauna, prions can be deadly—-mis-folding proteins in the brain, for example. It creates a cascade. A similar process in plants on Earth can allow them to react to changes in their environment. But nothing on earth rises to the level of information retention in your grass.”

“I see.” Of course he knew all this already; the test was to demonstrate what I had learned.

“The prions solve the problem that the plants don’t have brains or nervous system. They don’t need them—-they don’t need to interpret, to understand. The prions function as their memory, so they react based on past stimulus. They don’t think, but they remember.

“It is as you say, Erika-Negotiator,” Korvach says. “May I ask how you arrived at this insight?”

“I’ve been thinking,” I say, “of stories my mother taught me. And of words–words of wisdom from someone I love. About the use of memory. And then I realized plants could have a kind of memory, too.”

 “Your insight communes with the grass, and with me,” Korvach says.

We walk on together for some time, toward the beach. I have been lost for so long. It feels good to know where I am heading. The stars come out one by one.

“I think I would like to know more of your faith, Korvach,” I say.

He tilts his face up to the sky in a gesture I have never seen. “I very much hoped you would, Erika-Pilgrim. Let us walk together.”

The grass communes with us by bowing down; we commune with it by following its path into the future, by moving forward.

~~~