Word Puppets Read online

  “Have you tasted these?”

  “What?” Whole clusters! He turned his back on Rachana and the boy. “Amarone—do you think?”

  She held out the bunch of desiccated grapes. The flesh had shriveled on them, concentrating the juice in the tiny packets. Bharat plucked a grape and placed it in his mouth. The flavor exploded on his tongue. None of the stressed qualities of the grapes still on the vine showed here. The sugar, acid, and vibrant flavors had been concentrated by the slow evaporation of water through the grape skins.

  He picked up another cluster. They showed the same raisined quality and the flavors were consistent with the first sample.

  This could make an interesting wine. Different. One showing the qualities of the vineyard during this time. Bharat had been so focused on making it rain, that he had not thought about other ways to make wine. In the past, the thinned grapes had only been garbage, not beautiful packets of flavor.

  Indra tilted her head, watching him. “What do you think?”

  He laughed and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off the ground. “I think you’re brilliant! We can make an Amarone style wine.” He kissed her cheeks. “My love, I would never have thought of this on my own.”

  With her thumb, Indra wiped a tear from his face. “And I would never have thought of it if you had not introduced me to wine.” She nodded past him to Rachana and Mukund. “Do you think they would be good partners for each other?”

  Bharat narrowed his eyes, imagining them in fifty years. “I don’t like the way he makes her carry his bag.”

  “Ah.” Indra shook her head. “I like the way he lets her share his burdens.”

  “Which is what you asked of me.”

  “Yes.” She took his hand. “I promised to be your partner.”

  Bharat looked at the raisined grapes in his other hand. “Will you forgive me?”

  “Forgiving you takes no effort, but I need your trust. That’s what hurt. You did not trust my love for you.”

  Bharat dropped the grapes in the dust and turned fully to her, taking her other hand in his. “I promise to be your true companion and life-long partner from this day forward.”

  She smiled at him and led him forward a step. “Let us take this sixth step for longevity.”

  At the sound of the sixth sutra of their wedding vows, the hollow space inside Bharat slowly filled. He led her into the fifth step, moving backwards through their vows. “Let us take this fifth step to pray for virtuous, intelligent, and courageous children.”

  She looked at Rachana and wrinkled her nose in a smile. “Let us take this fourth step to acquire knowledge, happiness, and harmony by mutual love and trust.”

  The vineyard dropped away, and his world filled with Indra. “Let us take this third step with the aim of increasing our wealth by righteous means.”

  “Let us take this second step vowing to develop mental, physical, and spiritual powers.” Indra leaned forward and kissed him, the scent of jasmine filling his nostrils.

  He kissed her back. “Let us take this first step vowing to keep a pure household; avoiding things injurious to our health.”

  Rachana laughed. “What are you two doing?”

  The steps of the wedding sutras had taken them down the row to Rachana and Mukund. Bharat lifted his head from Indra and smiled at his daughter. “We are having a romantic moment. Go away.”

  Then he held his wife and wept as she pulled him closer.

  Mundari Vineyards, Amarone, 2048

  An odd but interesting wine for the adventurous. Made from dessicated Syrah in an Amarone style. Dried cherry and cranberry favors dominate within an overtly sweet but lively structure.

  Mundari Vineyards, Shiraz, 2048

  The flagship wine from Mudari this year is deeply flawed.

  The result of an ill-considered weather experiment, the wine suffers from flabbiness, high ethanol, and queer tequila flavors.

  Bharat handed a printout of the latest copy of Sommelier India to Indra. “It’s here.”

  “And? No—don’t tell me.” Indra started to read and sucked in her breath.

  During Kumari’s legal battle with ISRO, Bharat had not turned the weather control back on. With the sugars concentrated by dehydration, the potential alcohol levels of the grapes were high. The Amarone remained in balance with its residual sweetness, but the dry Shiraz showed coarse flavors and was excessively alcoholic.

  She set the review down. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry about the Shiraz.”

  Bharat fought the grin threatening to overwhelm him and handed her another page. “Look at the incoming order forms for today.”

  More orders than they usually received in a month filled the page. “Most of them are for the Shiraz.”

  Indra’s eyes widened as she scanned the order forms. “But—why?”

  The grin broke out, spreading across his face. “The novelty! It’s been at least forty years since a vineyard was stressed by drought.”

  Indra raised an eyebrow, and the corner of her mouth twitched with the beginning of a smile. “Maybe we should put ‘deeply flawed’ on all our labels.”

  “Perhaps.” He laughed, still giddy.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I want you to know that I am very proud of you.”

  Her words poured through him with sweet comfort. “Thank you.” Bharat held her and listened to the rain falling on their vineyard.

  Indra snuggled against him. “What do you think the weather will be like tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know.” He kissed the top of Indra’s head. “But it will be beautiful.”

  First Flight

  Mary Elois Jackson stood inside the plain steel box of the time machine. It was about the size of an outhouse, but without a bench or windows. She clutched her cane with one hand and her handbag with the other. Felt like the scan was taking nigh unto forever, but she was pretty sure it was just her nerves talking.

  Her corset made her ribs creak with every breath. She’d expected to hate wearing the thing but there was a certain comfort from having something to support her back and give her a shape more like a woman than a sack of potatoes.

  A gust of air puffed around her and the steel box was gone. She stood in a patch of tall grass under an October morning sky. The caravan of scientists, technicians, and reporters had vanished from the field where they’d set up camp. Elois inhaled with wonder that the time machine had worked. Assuming that this was 1905, of course—the year of her birth and the bottom limit to her time traveling range. It beat all she’d ever thought of to be standing there.

  The air tasted sweet and so pure that she could make out individual fragrances; the hard edge of oak mixed with the raw green of fresh mowed grass. And here Elois had thought her sense of smell had gotten worse because she’d plain gotten old.

  She recollected her self and pulled the watch out from the chain around her neck to check the time, as if it would reflect the local time instead of the time she’d left. 8:30 on the dot, which looked about right judging by the light. Now, she had six hours before they spun the machine back down and she got returned to her present. If the Board of Directors had thought she could do it all faster, they’d not have sent her back for so long on account of how expensive it was to keep the machine spun up, but even with all the physical therapy, Elois was still well over a hundred.

  With that in mind, she started making for the road. She’d been walking the route from the box to Huffman Prairie for the last week, so they could get the timing on it. It looked mighty different for all that. There had been a housing development across the street from where she’d left and now there was a farm with a single tall white house sitting smack in the middle of the corn fields.

  If she thought too much on it, she wasn’t sure she’d have the nerve to keep going. Down the road a piece, a wagon drawn by a bay horse came towards her. Besides the fellow driving it, the back of the wagon was crammed full of pigs that were squealing loud enough to be heard from here.
Made her think on her husband, dead these long years or two years old, depending on how you counted it. She shook her head to get rid of that thought.

  Elois patted her wig, though the makeup fellow had done a fine job fixing it to her head. She’d had short hair since the 1940s and it felt mighty strange to have that much weight on top of her head again. The white hair wound around her head in the style she remembered her own grandmother wearing. She checked to make sure her broad hat was settled and that the brooch masking the “hat-cam” was still pointing forward.

  She hadn’t got far when the wagon pulled up alongside her.

  “Pardon ma’am.” The boy driving it couldn’t be more than thirteen and as red-headed as a step-child. He had more freckles than a dog has spots and his two front teeth stuck out past his lip. He had a nice smile for all that. “Seeing as how we’re going the same way, might I offer you a ride?”

  He had a book in his lap, like he’d been reading as he was driving. The stink of the pigs billowed around them with the wind. One of the sows gave a particularly loud squeal and Elois glanced back involuntarily.

  The boy looked over his shoulder. “My charges are garrulous this morning.” He patted the book in his lap and leaned toward her. “I’m pretending they’re Odysseus’s men and that helps some.”

  Elois couldn’t help but chuckle at the boy’s high-faluting language. “My husband was a hog farmer. He always said a pig talked more sense than a politician.”

  “Politicians or sailors. If you don’t mind sharing a ride with them I’ll be happy to offer it.”

  “Well now, that’s mighty nice of you. I’m just going to Huffman Prairie.”

  He slid over on the bench and stuck his hand out to offer her a boost up. “I’m Homer Van Loon.”

  Well, that accounted for his taste in reading and vocabulary. Boys his age were more like to read the penny dreadfuls than anything else but anyone whose folks saddled him with a moniker like Homer was bound to be a bit odd.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m Elois Jackson.” She passed him her cane and gripped his other hand. Holding that and the weathered wooden side of the wagon, she hauled herself aboard. Grunting in the sort of way that would have made her mama scold her, Elois dropped onto the wooden bench. Three months of physical therapy to get ready for this and just climbing into a wagon about wore her out.

  “You walk all the way out here from town?” Homer picked up the reins and sat next to her.

  “Lands, no.” Elois settled her bag in her lap and told the lie the team of historians had prepared for her, just in case someone asked. “I took the interurban rail out and then thought I’d walk the rest for a constitutional. The way was a mite longer than I thought, so I’m grateful to you.” The Lord would forgive her for the lie, given the circumstance.

  “Are you headed out to the Wright Brothers’?”

  “I am. I never thought I’d see such a thing.”

  “That’s for a certai—” His voice cut off.

  Elois slammed hard against pavement. The wagon was gone. Power lines hung over her head and the acrid smell of asphalt stung her nose.

  And smoke.

  Shouting, half a dozen people ran toward her. Elois rolled over to her knees and looked around for her cane. It had landed on the road just to her side and she grabbed it to lever herself back to her feet.

  Mr. Barnes was near the front of folks running toward her. Poor thing looked like his heart would plum give out he was so worried, though Elois wasn’t sure if he was worried about her or his invention.

  The young fellow who did her wig got to her first, helped her to her feet. Seemed as if everyone was chorusing questions about if she was all right. Elois nodded and kept repeating that she was fine until Mr. Barnes arrived, red-faced and blowing like a racehorse.

  Elois drew herself up as tall as she could. “What happened?”

  “We blew a transformer.” Mr. Barnes gestured at one of the telephone poles, which had smoke billowing up from it. “Are you all right?” Up close, it was clear he was worried about her and Elois chided herself for doubting him. He’d not been a thing but kind to her since the Time Travel Society recruited her.

  “I’m fine. More worried about the boy I was talking to than anything else.”

  That stopped all the conversation flat. The program director, Dr. Connelly, pushed her way through the crowd, face pale. “Someone saw you vanish? You’re sure?”

  “I was sitting in his wagon.” Elois settled her hat on her head. “Maybe, if you send me back a few seconds after I vanished, we can make out that I just fell out of the wagon.”

  “Out of the question.” Dr. Connelly set her mouth into a hard line. With her dark hair drawn tight in a bun, she looked like a school marm with an unruly child.

  “He’ll think he’s gone crazy.”

  “And having you reappear will make things better?”

  “At least I can explain what’s happening so he’s not left wondering for the rest of his life.”

  “Explain what? That you are a time traveler?”

  Elois gripped her cane and took a step closer to Dr. Connelly. When she was young, she would have been able to look down at the woman and still felt like she ought to, even though their eyes were on level. “That’s exactly what I’ll tell him. He’s a twelve year-old boy reading Homer on his free time. I don’t think he’ll have a bit of a problem believing me.”

  A muscle pulsed in Dr. Connelly’s jaw and she finally said, “There’s no point in arguing out here in the heat. We’ll take it to the rest of board and let them decide.”

  That was as clear a “no” as if she’d actually said the word. Elois leaned forward on her cane. “I look forward to speaking with them.” She cut Dr. Connelly off before she could open her mouth. “As I’m the only one who’s met the boy, I trust you’ll want me to tell y’all about him.” Folks shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that just cause she was old meant she was sweet.

  Elois sat in her costume in a conference room with Dr. Connelly, Mr. Barnes, and two other members of the board, both white men who looked old but couldn’t be much past retirement age. The conference room had flat panel screens set up with the other board members on them. They had been debating the issues for the past half hour largely going into details of why it was too dangerous to try to make her reappear on the wagon on account of it being a moving vehicle.

  Elois cleared her throat. “Pardon me, but may I ask y’all a question?”

  “Of course.” Mr. Barnes swiveled his chair to face her. The boy didn’t seem that much older than Homer Van Loon for all that he’d invented the time machine.

  “I hear y’all talking a lot about the program and I understand that’s important and all, but I’m not hearing anyone talk about what’s best for Homer Van Loon.”

  Dr. Connelly swiveled her chair to face Elois. “I appreciate your concern for the boy, but I don’t think you have an understanding of the historical context of the issue.”

  Her disdain lay barely under the surface of civility. Elois had seen this sort of new money back when she’d been working in the department store and she always had been required to smile at them. No need now.

  “Young lady,” Elois snapped at Dr. Connelly like one of her own children. “I’ve lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Collapse. I lived through race riots, saw us put men on the moon, the Spanish Flu, AIDS, the Titanic, Suffrage, and the Internet. I’ve raised five children and buried two, got twenty-three grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren with more on the way. And you have the nerve to say I don’t understand history?”

  The room was silent except for the whir of the computer fans.

  Dr. Connelly said, “I apologize if we’ve made you feel slighted, Elois. We’ll take your concerns under advisement as we continue our deliberations.”

  If she hadn’t been a good Christian woman, she would have cracked the woman upside the head with her ca
ne for the amount of condescension in her voice.

  “How many folks do you have that are my age?” She knew the answer to the question before she asked it. She might not use the Internet but she had grandchildren who were only to happy to do searches for her. A body couldn’t travel back before she was born and Elois was born in 1905. There weren’t that many folks of her age, let alone able-bodied ones.

  “Six.” Dr. Connelly looked flatly unimpressed with Elois’s longevity.

  Mr. Barnes either didn’t know where she was headed or agreed with her. “But you’re the only that’s a native English speaker.”

  Elois nodded her head in appreciation. “So it seems to me that you might want to do more than keep my concerns ‘under consideration.’ ”

  A man on one of the screens spoke. “Are you blackmailing us, Mrs. Jackson?”

  “No sir, I’m not. I’m trying to get y’all to pay attention.” She straightened in her chair now that they were all looking at her. “Y’all saw the video of me meeting him. Homer Van Loon is a boy out of time himself. He’s reading the Odyssey, which if you know anything about farm boys from 1905 ought to tell you everything you need to know right there. Not only will he believe me, he’ll understand why it needs to be kept secret—as if anyone would believe him anyhow. And if you think on it, having someone local to the time might be right handy. He’s twelve now. When you send someone back to Black Friday, which you will I expect, he’ll be in his thirties. You think a man like that wouldn’t be helpful?”

  Mr. Barnes shook his head. “But we researched him today. His life was entirely unremarkable. If he knew you were a time traveler, wouldn’t that show up?”

  Elois took a breath to calm herself. “If he’s told to keep it a secret, and does, do you think his history would look any different?”

  One of the board members in the room, a lean man with wire-rim glasses spoke for the first time since they started. “You’ve convinced me.”