The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [92]
"Wise?" says Brey.
"Do you wish to attract rats?"
"Rats?" says Brey.
"Are you ready for them?" says his father. "Are you prepared? Brey?" he says. "Brey?"
His Fishline.
The fishline was the gift of his father. It is wound around a wheel-rimmed spool as thick as Brey's torso. The words "20# TEST PREMIUM FISHLINE: 21,120 FEET (APPROX. FOUR MILES)" are stenciled on both wheels of the spool.
Brey does not know what "miles" are. He has never heard nor seen the word "feet" used in this sense before.
His father, explaining, says, "It is called fishline because it is fishline."
His father volunteers nothing more about fishline, only informing Brey that it is fishline. Brey masters this information, makes it his own.
He takes a ring of keys off his belt. Opening the ring's gate, he slips the fishline inside the ring. He hooks the ring back onto his waist.
The fishline whirs past him as he walks, slipping through the eye of the ring, a hiss beneath the clank of keys.
He walks down the halls toward the next set of keys. He picks away a half-scabbed cut on one hand, lengthening it, deepening it. He stops to rinse his hand with water from the canteen. The water drips onto the polished floor, separating into beads. Holding aside the keys that cover his shirt, he presses his hand against the fabric. He wipes the hand dry.
He passes empty intersections, enters dark halls. Light returns, then fades. He trusts to the fishline.
He reaches the last explored intersection. He finds his father there. "Hello, Brey," his father says. He and Brey shake hands.
"Are you sure that collecting keys is the right choice?" says his father. "Are you prepared for every contingency?"
Brey nods, passes through the intersection. Beyond, the halls grow brighter still. He approaches the next intersection. He hesitates, halts. Allows his eyes to adjust.
The intersection is heaped ankle-deep with dust. No keys are visible.
Brey hesitates. He turns away. The intersection behind him is empty, his father gone.
[TWO]
His Dust.
The dust meshes and thickens as it approaches the intersection, coming together in a solid sheet at the near edge, thickening as it moves in. He turns away, follows the fishline back the way he came. His father absent, he consults his mother.
"Where the halls are dusty, the halls are full of dust," says his mother. This can hardly be disputed.
He waits for her to say more. He stands motionless at her bedside, watching her lips purse and relax as she breathes.
His keys rattle as he walks toward the door. He hears his mother behind, calling for his father. He opens the door and goes out, pretending not to hear.
In his room, pinned to the mattress, a note from his father:
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Father.
What ashes are Brey does not know. Dust he knows. Father he knows.
He tears a square of paper from a page of Our Friend the Rat. He drops it onto the tiles to mark the intersection.
On his written maps, he marks dust-filled intersections with the letter "d." He marks dust on the original map of his halls. He does not mark dust on the other maps. He will wait and see.
His Father.
His father squats in an empty intersection, pushing Brey's fishline about with his fingers. Hearing Brey's approach, his father rises to greet him.
"How do you explain this, Brey?" says his father, holding the fishline pinched between two fingers. "Fishline?" says Brey.
"Unspooled through the halls?" says his father.
"Collecting keys," says Brey.
"Is that what fishline is for?" says his father.
His father stands twirling the fishline, awaiting a response. Brey takes his father's arm, tugs him down the hall.
They stand next to each other, staring at the dust. His father moves to move his arm around Brey. Brey squirms away.
"This is dust, Brey," says his father. "Similar to ash," his father says.
He is on his knees in his parents' room, crawling. He unwinds a strip of sheet from his mother's leg, spreading it flat on the floor. He scrapes together the dust under her bed. He sprinkles