We left to you a burnt-up city,
A dwindled fortune, and our fears.
I know it isn’t very pretty
But it’ll be all yours for years.
You have every right to curse us
But give two dodderers a break.
Put down this silly book of verses
And enjoy life, for our sake.
Swanny closes Power Suit and stares at the cover. In lieu of blurbs or a book description, her father’s portrait takes up the entire back of the jacket: a gesture of humility on his part, no doubt, since he wasn’t a handsome man. He has a beard but no mustache, giving him a vaguely Hutterite aspect, and a smile that, in keeping with the tone of his last poem, is more apologetic than knowing. But it’s his eyes that hold Swanny’s attention. Looking into those eyes is like looking into the past.
When was the moment she can see now in her mind? Was she lying in her crib, reaching up toward the mobile of educational creatures who circled above endlessly in her miniature sky? Propped up in a high chair, gnawing a stub of carrot as she cut the first of her many, many teeth? Stubbornly crawling in the direction of the nearest poison cabinet, the impulse toward self-destruction unnamed but squirming in the heart of her even then? Whatever the context, the memory is there: her father, looking down on her with those exact eyes, his expression one of sympathy, guilt, even pain, as he watched her futile struggle, as he saw stretch before her a lifetime full of the same wasted exertion, and worse. He only hoped she’d have a little fun along the way.
And, never far, there was always Pippi—Pippi, to whom no struggle was futile, no exertion wasted, Pippi, whose belief in her daughter was so harsh and relentless it came across as an accusation: “Make an effort. You’re doing this to infuriate me. If you’d only pay attention. Don’t slouch. You’re not listening. Show your work. Faster. I don’t care if it takes you all night. ‘Good enough’ is not good enough. Concentrate. Stop working beneath your abilities. Don’t disappoint me.” You are my daughter. You will never die. Pippi had felt no guilt about bringing a child into a ruined world. She’d made it her business to assure herself Swanny could survive it—could perhaps even conquer it. Such strange, flawed, irreplaceable parents. Gone forever.
Now Swanny is disappointing them both.
Swanny has forgotten that she’s in the public library; her thoughts have transported her home to the velvet fainting couch beneath her family’s bookshelves, amid the desolate grandeur of Wonland County. Only now, when a haggard crone—a Librarian—touches her shoulder does she startle back. Swanny stares up at her uncomprehendingly. This Librarian is the Grayest of the Gray Ladies. Ash seems to line the creases of her face.
“I’m sorry,” the Librarian whispers, “but you’re distracting the other patrons.”
“Why? Did I make a sound?” Swanny’s voice is a croak.
“You were crying rather loudly, yes. But the trouble is, you’re much too young to be here.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re distracting the other patrons,” the Librarian repeats, not unkindly.
“You don’t understand,” says Swanny, hanging her head, eyes fixed on the book in her hands. “I’m dying too—I just found out yesterday—and I don’t know what to do. I haven’t the faintest idea where to start.”
And then that voice: a sound as sharp and familiar as vodka cracking ice. “Not yet, darling. Give it a few years.”
Swanny’s head snaps up. “What did you just say?”
The Librarian blinks, her glasses magnifying her rheumy eyes, and raises a finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
Swanny leaves the library in a daze. She feels the eyes of the Librarians on her as she passes through the stacks and between the long rows of tables. The iron doors don’t want to budge. It takes all of Swanny’s strength to pull them open. She does it with a sudden desperation she no longer knew she had. The library is a mausoleum, and she’s offended the ghosts. She feels sick and small. Her father’s slim volume, jammed in the pocket of her coat, is her grave robber’s prize, a relic, the tiniest finger bone of a buried giant. How could she have thought her death would be significant, special, noble even? Dying counts for nothing at all; absolutely anyone is capable of it. The doors give and she bursts out into the sunlight.
“I don’t care what it costs, send somebody,” Ripple is telling his LookyGlass. “Do you seriously not know who I am?”
“I suppose no one cares that I’ve just communed with the dead,” says Swanny. “Good lord, Abigail, what are you eating?”
Abby looks at the tiny drumstick of roasted meat she’s munching. “Chicken?”
“Chicken,” the bird lady affirms, in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
Hooligan runs up, noses at Swanny’s crotch. Swanny swats him with Power Suit.
“I need a private detective,” she announces. “Also, a pistol, a shooting instructor, and a good attorney. I intend to avenge my mother’s death.”
Ripple covers the LookyGlass microphone with one finger. “Avenge her death? Seriously? Swanny, if those torchies got away, you don’t want to go after them. They learn to chainsaw before they can walk. You were lucky to make it out of there alive.”
“I’m well aware of the dangers, but I don’t see what choice I have. It’s my destiny, my redemption, the one mark I’ll leave upon this uncaring Earth.”
“What are you going to do? Wander around the sewers till you bump into them? Go to Torchtown?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, no offense, but you wouldn’t last five minutes down there. Those pros would eat you alive. You should leave this to the actual authorities.” He returns his attention to the LookyGlass.
“As effective as your method may be—” Swanny hazards.
“Fuck! He put me on hold.”
“I feel mine is more direct.”
Ripple shrugs. “OK, so you’re going on a rampageathon. I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.”
“You’re contractually obligated to support and encourage my Personal Enrichment Endeavors.” Then, softer, almost tenderly petulant: “You have to help me.”
“Fem, I don’t have to do anything. I’ve got my own family to think about. And I already promised Abby I’d help her find her parents. She has no clue who she is.”
“Yes I do,” says Abby quietly, ruffling the purplish feathers on Stumpy’s throat.
The bird lady takes Abby by the hand. “Dearie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t know who I was until one morning I woke up, boobs a-droop, kitty-cats burnt to a crisp, and a little birdie told me, ‘We’ve been singing your name all this time. How come it’s only now you listen?’?”
“What is your name?” asks Abby.
The old woman makes a guttural sound, half coo, half whistled trill. Abby repeats it back, raising the pitch at the end as if she’s asking a question. Hooligan cocks his head.