Page 2 of Fable for the End of the World

“Inesa,” he says, “you’re one of the good ones.”

I’m not sure if he means one of the good residents of Lower Esopus, the ones who don’t complain when the denizens of Upper Esopus flood our houses six times a year by keeping the reservoir too high; or one of the good taxidermists, the ones who don’t charge for every stitch of thread or droplet of glycerin; or one of the good Soulises—maybe. With how much everyone in Esopus Creek hates Mom, that’s not a hard title to win.

Or maybe he means I’m one of the people who doesn’t judge him for what he’s done. For paying off his debts with his daughter’s life. But he would be wrong about that. I might hate him less for it than everyone else in our town, but it’s not something I can forgive. Or forget.

I set my jaw and give him the coldest look I can manage, pretending that I’m eight inches taller, as tall as Luka. “I want seventy-five credits.”

Floris doesn’t say a word as he takes out his Caerus card and presses it against my cracked tablet, doesn’t say a word as he sweeps his daughter’s body off the counter and carries her toward the door. He forces it open with his foot, its rusted hinges creaking. When the door slams shut after him, the little woodenSOULIS TAXIDERMY SHOPsign clatters like a cheap wind chime.

I lean forward on my elbows and put my head in my hands. I have to breathe hard into the silence for several minutes and squeeze my eyes shut, until I stop seeing Sanne’s face. When my heartbeat has steadied again, I sink down onto the floor behind the counter.

The desiccant I gave Floris was worth ninety credits, easy. Luka is going to kill me.

I find out quickly enough why Sanne was wet—it’s raining. It hasn’t rained in a couple of days (a small miracle, for Esopus Creek), so I have to dig my raft out of the clutter behind the counter. The sky is a dusky purple, striped with pink from the pollutants that are strong enough to slice through the heavy clouds. By the time I’ve finished closing up the shop, the water is knee-high and my jacket is soaked.

It’s one of those rough, fast storms that sweeps in with little warning, the kind that’s likely to raise the water table enough to lap at the legs of our couch. At home Luka is probably already layingdown sandbags. I get on the raft and test the depth of the water with my pole—it’s right up to the nine-inch notch—then push off into the rain.

The water is sluicing down Main Street, a murky, churning brown, rushing from Upper Esopus to Lower Esopus. It’s after six now, so the evening commute has started, all the shop owners clambering onto their rafts and poling up toward their houses on higher ground. Across the flooded road, there’s Mrs. Prinslew, down on her hands and knees on the porch of her shop, stuffing rags beneath the doorframe. All four of her sons moved south to the City, and now she runs the black market goods store all by herself. Wiping rainwater off her wrinkled brow, she sits back on her heels and swivels her head around, catching my eye.

The question rises instinctually in my throat:Do you need some help?But a second, stronger instinct pushes it down. Here in the outlying Counties, the offer is not a kindness. Because no assistance comes without gratitude, and no gratitude comes without debt.

That’s what Caerus taught us—slowly, and then all at once—when the credits ran out and they came to collect.

The most I can give Mrs. Prinslew is a wave and a nod. She nods back, and I pole on.

At this hour, the punters are out in force, hawking fares from people who can’t pole on their own. The punters have real boats, narrow and sleek, with a little platform to stand on and even a small carved seat for their passengers. It’s fifteen credits for a ride to the residential district, ten if you live in the Shallows. On therare occasions that Mom leaves the house, she always hires one. She says she doesn’t trust my arm.

The streets of Esopus Creek run horizontally across the hill like striations on a cliffside, and the divide between Upper Esopus and Lower Esopus is stark. The houses in Lower Esopus have flat tin roofs and rotten wooden siding, paint stripped off after so many storms. They’re held aloft over the hill by spindly cinder block columns, porches sagging precariously.

The houses in Upper Esopus are round and white like insect eggs, made of durable plastic that the rainwater rolls right off. They have sheet glass windows and covered porches that can fold and unfold, depending on the weather. They’re Caerus pod houses, airlifted from the City and dropped right down on the hillside.

Mom says they’re sterile and ugly. Luka says she’s overcompensating.

Our house is at the very end of Little Schoharie Lane, the lowest street of the Shallows. Our neighbors have a bit of pride because there used to be a school here, ages ago, before learning was all virtual. Everyone likes to claim thattheirhouse is on the property of the old school, but Luka and I don’t bother pretending our house has any sort of noble pedigree. I pole into the yard and hitch my raft to the foot of the stairs. Then I clamber up, boots sliding against the wet concrete, my hair drenched even under my hood.

There are sandbags on the floor and I can smell blood as soon as I step through the door. I shrug out of my soaked jacket and hang it on the hook beside Luka’s. Mine is green, turned black bythe rainwater. Luka’s is black, turned blacker. Today’s kill must have been messy.

He’s sitting at the kitchen table, hair drying in stiff spikes. As soon as he sees me he says, “Did you board up the windows at the shop?”

“I never took them down from last storm,” I say, and offer a huff of laughter, thinking he might laugh back. “Didn’t see much of a point.”

Luka offers only a grim smile in return. He’s fiddling with his tablet, scrolling between a game app and a news app. We’re both dancing around our twin questions.

How much did you make today?

How many did you kill today?

I blurt out my question first. “How many?”

“Two rabbits and a white-tailed deer.” Luka’s response is immediate, because he knows he did well. I could have guessed as much from all the blood on his jacket. “I was going to take them down to the shop, but then the rain started.”

“I’ll take them tomorrow.” I swallow. “We should start up-charging for the deer. I had a City buyer in today who told me he wanted four mounted heads—four. I told him it could be a month.”

“Bucks with antlers?”

I nod. “I had him make a nonrefundable deposit. Two hundred credits.”

I was proud of my work today, until Floris Dekker. I never feel bad about being shameless with the City buyers. They come in wearing shining black boots and jewel-toned slickers, and whenthey take down their hoods, their faces and hair are dry. They’re always jovial, remarking on the quaintness of the shop, politely ignoring the dripping ceiling and the buckets half filled with stale water. They don’t blink or scowl when I list my exorbitant prices, and sometimes they even apologize tomewhen they have to press their Caerus card three or four times against my cracked tablet to get the transaction to go through.

---