An Interview with Lev Grossman Lev Grossman is the author of eight novels, including the bestselling The Bright Sword, an epic retelling of the story of King Arthur. He’s also the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Magicians trilogy which has been published in thirty countries and was adapted as a TV show. He has degrees from Harvard…
Ladies’ Night was Wednesday night. I was a teen wearing the heat like charmeuse; my rhinestone decolletage not far removed from games of Pretty Pretty Princess and Ring Pop richness. How do fifteen years look, all dressed up in patent anticipation? Rappelling from windows like Rapunzel’s lust, two girls escaped plain homes to walk toward a sequined strip. We waited outside Razzle’s, whispering Can I have your bracelet? to passersby, pilfered paper wristbands to vouch for legal age. Men said yes, smiles laced with knowing. We fixed our wrists in paper cuffs sealed with bubble gum. Tits up for the bouncer. Sheer surprise at entry. Flash of wrist to the bartender: I’ll have a Sex on the Beach, sunset-colored drink with the naughty name that felt like power on my lips. We sat steps from the ocean. Shimmying silky pony hair and laughing like chimps. Imping the cool girls, the college girls, even them, barely skirting twenty-one. Together we danced on go-go stages, hanging, small cages for the display of pretty birds like us. We already knew how to move, how to grind our diamond belt buckles against the bars. When we descended to the dancefloor, a ballroom if ever we’d known one, the men materialized in Marlboro clouds. Our lips tied in bows, we ribboned together for safety. But each hip thrust, each sip of ether, pulled us a little looser until we hung askance, stringy and stupid. We imagined it was us, holding the keys to the castles between our ears. We didn’t know better, couldn’t yet grasp the jeweled boxes of women whose hinges and clasps were broken and forced open. Force: hadn’t occurred to us yet, children plumped on American Dreams, tender foie gras goslings. When they crushed their dicks against us and corseted us in touch; squeezing and rubbing, churning and shoving, we wondered: Is this love?
The roses here are like pomegranate seeds, ruthlessly carnal and hopelessly tinged with the scent of the dead. The soil they grow in is leaden, fungicide paints each head. The flower smell is bred out in a hedge for longevity. How did this bloom that wreaths collective memory in sparking thorn and throbbing petal become mostly poison? Our apples have met a similar fate, vitamins and minerals bolting at downshot rates, revolting from the flush. Calcium, Iron, Phosphate: Bone, Blood, Soft Tissue— What greater issue? If the blocks are lost, how will our bodies build? After my vitals succumb, I will be spirit only, a scythe of the new moon. So much has already been cut away from my crooning fingers, which reach to grasp a meager scrap of fragrance, flavor, feeling. To hold those things like a yawn before thick sleep. When I go under, my wraith will rake the leaves of you, unearth the time we ate apple crumble hiding in the thicket of my grandmother’s rose bushes, that walled-up garden where the thorns cut my back and your knees and nothing bloomed but us, despite the stoniest winter.
Behind the Manna of St. Nicholas she veiled a means of escape brought by belladonna, a clear champion of beautiful women (and aren’t we all beautiful) pressed into a bottle, for ugly skin (and aren’t we all ugly). For their cheeks that bloomed with bruises, nebulae forewarning the birth and death of stars, rouged with an atmosphere of long-waves and shaking with volcanic activity, molten in rivers and canyons cracked between their ribs. These women knew the different kinds of burn: spark, rage, smolder, rain. Degrees of damage done by ravaging, ravishing lips in red, their words lined in the color of blood. The head bleeds so much, the mouth heals so fast. The throat is always covered when in public. The back of the neck exposed when in the home. Guiliana T. made a pretty bottle, named for her sake, Aqua Tofana (Storm Water). Would it soothe the skin and disappear the damage? Or could it make the water rise, take them to that deep and sleeping place, the foam lapping their lips, the sky’s eyes closing—finally offering the rest— with which the moondrunk night is blessed.
Eli has officially been declared a missing person. I trudged through the snow, my boots leaving deep impressions, while I watched my breath escape in shivers. We had one flashlight and six people’s worth of determination to find Eli.
Max was ahead of me, shouting into the void: “Eli! Come on Eli! I know you can hear me, dammit!”
I jogged to catch up, my breath shallow in the cold.
“Max, we have been searching for hours.” I said, through choked back tears.
“He’s fine, Kit. We are going to find the idiot. Okay?”
“Okay,” I sniffed back.
I could feel something was wrong. It felt like the tether tying us together had snapped and Eli suddenly went loose.
We would always go for walks along the river together. Giggling, cracking jokes, howling up at the sky like the goons we were.
I took a turn through the woods and headed down the hill towards the riverbank. I kept walking, mindlessly, not really sure what I was even looking for. A body?
I was looking for a body.
The police found Eli’s car at the trailhead. His phone, keys, and wallet sitting in the front seat.
I continued walking along the rushing water of the partially frozen river, rubbing my hands together from the biting cold. I had been out here for hours, looking, longing, hoping.
As I continued down the riverbank, I stumbled into a clearing. There was a perfect opening lit by the moon; a tree poised so it hung gently over the water.
And there he was.
I dropped to my knees and screamed up at the sky. The kind of scream that stained memories, burned lungs, and caused aches in your bones.
Max and the others came running from behind and took in the scene. Max dropped down and wrapped his arms around me. We huddled there together in the snow—the moon the only reminder the Earth was still standing.
The child’s joy was contagious. He had no idea this would be one of the most symbolic moments of his life. He emanated sunlight, smiling.
Moments of happiness and recurring lucidity. Life previously so turbulent became a blue ocean of calm. We fought for the first time, the hurt flowed like rain, and the world collapsed after the relapse. I asked myself several times, “Does no one like me?”
Months that used to pass quickly now pass slowly, dragged by force through time.
At the end of the year, the bright star passed by so quickly that almost no one saw it, but that hopeful child did. He requested to have one more chance to change an uncertain future.
Just like the stars that shone that night, the notification appeared. In the middle of the pitch-black, hope rose again with one simple question, can we still be friends?
Maybe I was too hasty. Maybe I should have thought more. If I leave, will you remember me? It’s sad to know I no longer have you with me, smiling. It’s sad to delete the memories of good and magical moments. It’s sad to see you moved on, and I’m still standing at the same bus stop. Now, I’m the one asking the question, can we still be friends?
here— all along the path
lead me
as if each step could do more than amplify
the silence you left for me
look— how the grass bows a slow
gravity —dislocated
footfall after
footfall after
how the river runs
to your body runs
headwaters welling from every fracture
already
i am forgetting
how to pronounce your name
my good-for-nothing tongue plumbs
your good-for-nothing mouth
—mud-choked
estuary split open with seed
those gardens that will never be
birds come with their hunger
and i let them—
because the berries are too red
because secrets are graves and i’m tired
of digging
there are other ways to make a body sacred
hoofprints measure
the width
of every field
and i follow
simple as that—
what does it matter if the dreams are wordless?
if i am visited by ghosts or if
i have become one?
for months after i dream
of sawing circles
out of ice allow myself
fall through
since i outgrew my last body
winter arrives one black bird
at a time & the snow
ghosting into my memories
no matter how
i hold them
don’t tell me it’s only october
that i have no sense of direction
each day i gather in the rafters
of every conversation
strange-voiced as a god
distrusting
the construct of god
the idea that healing is possible
if i am to make you believe in
me i must retrieve my body
walk across the water
of a crow’s eye
to find
the blackhole at its center
to learn the art of undrowning
all night entranced i watch my back
undress mirror into
mirror my scarlet mole a tiny hole through
my heart there breaths fatten like wax bead onto
sheets room soft with the opposite of
candlelit where nothing
touches me
i crumble
where nothing touches me my magnetic field
erratic and weak admits all
manner of dark matter i draw back
along an involuntary muscle immune to
stillness and gravity one ear
brimming with silver one eye a field
of milkweed
i do not mean to
haunt myself but i do linger
in this disintegration loop with minutes
gathering ponds in my palms
with my face eclipsed in a shard
of dinner plate which i rise to find
moon after moon which i run from
circling wolfish
for the bitterness of my own fingers
in my mouth
A Community Feature with Lamp Lifeboat Ladder Lamp Lifeboat Ladder is a global refugee resettlement program that supports survivors of torture, sexual violence, and trauma who have been forced to flee their homeland. They provide protection and holistic accompaniment to survivors, and work with them to identify and address their needs—this may be medical care, safe housing, access to education, or therapeutic support. Lamp…
It took them several years to realize they were all dreaming the same dream. Why does one really report a dream, after all? Over the breakfast table, pulling on non-slip shoes for work, sitting in the passenger seat of a tired minivan on the way to school—only unusual dreams are the topic of conversation. If it’s…
Top Notes:
Crisp, elusive, clean.
Like the dried orange peel that flits from fingertips into the shallow of the beach water with the moon draping beyond, and the sand particles drifting past lips when the wind kneads hair into twisted knots while the brine never dries.
Pores opening to inhale scent. Mouth opening along with little holes in my skin, and I can almost hear the crunchy, grainy, salty sand rolling in my mouth. I am the voyeur, standing alone in the middle of an open beach.
My unintentional gift— the orange peel— where did it go? It should have sunk underneath the salty waves and laid motionlessly on the brown sugary sand. It should still be there, stagnant, stationary, waiting to be picked up and returned to my hand. And yet, I don’t see a glimpse of murky orange underneath sand-filled water. The moon nods winks at the beach, it pulled my offering away, but I hadn’t had the chance to see it leave.
There exists no orange by the shore.
Middle Notes:
The top notes are long gone and the remaining concoction blooms into a deep creaminess. The velvety middle notes melt into my skin, but my mind yearns for the clean scent of an orange peel flying away. I can’t delight in the taste of time gliding out of reach.
A cycle of fingertips presses down on the oblong perfume nozzle. Spritzes of chemicals grace the air. I exhale. Sniff deeply to replace the remaining air in my lungs with a glimpse of the dried orange peel that has long since flown away into the ocean by the moon’s accord. There’s a nervous haste to my actions. A senseless, irrational desperation for something I know is transient, a bit too ephemeral, something better left in the past.
Base Notes:
The remains after the disintegration of the baked orange and soft cream. The brunt of the burnt metallic base note lingers and settles into my skin. It pockmarks the open gaping holes, an excess of chemicals sunken in because of my earlier desperate spritzes.
I can smell it. I feel it sinking and carving a territory into my skin, and I thrust my inner elbow underneath my friend’s nose. Trust me, it’s there. But when they try to breathe the chemicals into their lungs, their nose denies its existence. I hunch my back and dive into the juncture of my elbow and inhale. It’s not there in my nose, but I feel it burrowing under my flesh. The pain triggers memory as a reliving and relieving of the process of the death of The Moon by Planetary Pull.
“Are you breathing?”
The girl felt nausea in her nose all at once. Saltwater rose from her stomach, through her throat, and out of her mouth as she spat out bits of the sea trapped in her lungs. The woman standing above her frowned, but the girl didn’t answer her query. What kind of question was that, anyway? Could she have answered if she was not breathing? No.
Shuimu looked down. She was dressed, which was the most important thing. A black dress stuck uncomfortably to her skin, no shoes. The pulse of the waves pushed the fabric of the pants closer to her body, and it irritated her. She moved to her knees, pushing the woman’s hand away.
“What land is this?” Shuimu barked.
“You don’t know?” the woman answered. A smirk played across her face and a silver robe covered most of her frame.
Shuimu looked past the woman from her new resting spot. A blank darkness stared tauntingly back at her. The only light came from the woman, as if she had stolen the moon’s brightness and trapped it inside her. The waves continued to lap on the shore, but no sound came from them. Shuimu laughed out loud. She placed both hands on her chest, took a deep breath, and started chanting.
The Shurangama Mantra came out deep and strong from her lips. The pace was quicker than usual, if only to make the spell work faster.
“What are you doing?” the woman shrieked. “You can’t do magic at night, it’s forbidden here!” Shuimu opened one eye to watch the woman waving her arms. Shuimu smiled at the hysteria and continued her mantra.
“NAMO SARVA TATHĀGATA SUGATĀYA ARHATE SAMYAK-SAMBUDDHĀYA,” she called. Give praise to all the Exalted One, the Well Attained One, the Perfected Disciple, the Perfectly Self-Awakened One! Let us call the power of the Sun!
As she reached the end of the verse, she felt a shift in the air as the woman lunged at her.
Shuimu reached up to wrap her hand around the woman’s hair, twisting it and her head back. Shuimu pulled the woman’s head towards her own face so they were looking at one another upside down.
“Enough games, hag,” Shuimu hissed. “Take me out of this dream and back to my people.”
The woman feigned shock with a wide gasp on her face. She cried out, “What are you talking about?”
Shuimu brought her left hand down onto the woman’s throat and pressed until she heard the quiet, last gulp of air.
The woman’s body disappeared and the light within her died. Just as Shuimu guessed, the woman was none other than the shapeshifting moon in her human form, come to murder her. Too late, you tyrant, Shuimu thought. The horizon faded back into view. Trees on fire lit up the beach as the war against Shuimu’s people raged on. The uprising was here. There was no more time to waste.
a woman at night is like a man in the morning
except in all the ways she is not
for there are no means for the mounted streetlight to feel as warm
on skin
as the unrobed mid-day sun
nor can the sweet chirp of mothers to their young in the nest atop that big old birch
quite compare to the cricket’s night
interspersed by those phantom voices spun
by the hungry winds
gusty manhandling of autumn’s last branches
the moon for all her virtues
cannot give the time
no more than the sun can refrain himself from his merry traverse
on the trail of east to west
from dawn until dusk
when man’s wondrous telescope finds itself wrapped under a tarp
bearing the dirt of good fun
hoisted onto something so naturally manufactured for liberation
a Jeep, perhaps, or a pickup truck
sans the sort of thing resembling a cover or door
or perhaps onto a back naked without the indentations of a bra
braced upon loud clunky feet that squelch down the mud path
they have never learned to tip-toe around uncles in living rooms
and meander to kitchens where mothers pour libations for thirsty throats or
to hush the patter of hurried footsteps
and avoid the big old lurker lying in the shadows
or to use inside voices when not inside
and listen for those foreign fingers hungry for tender necks
and to stay away from bad manners and shadows
no matter if the shadows transport
to a poppy field
their pearly whiteness more spectacular night’s canvas and in it
where a patch of grass has
been worn down by calloused bare feet
in the same way man may fall to his knees
look at stars in skies
as the Romans did when Jupiter struck down light’s mandate from His celestial mantle so
too must woman fall
but to scatter rings of salt in the dark
knees resemble meniscus
at night man will delight in the moon
but know that she is nothing without sun’s light
woman could never think to look up
and arrive at this mournful realization
amongst the manic thrum of
howls erupting from the menagerie’s wolves menacing
the walk from car door to home door
uniformed silhouettes brandishing woven manacles
breeding fathers’ Mendelian gaze on adolescent breasts
dead men
and wandering fingers reeking of menthol and vapor
she hears them all in the menial silence of dawn’s darker precursor
senses heightened by menarche
and tragically
the scent of her own traitorous blood is what does her in before morning
All our guests have arrived, and we’re both at the altar.
I used to wonder what you thought about when you closed your eyes. When you were awake, it was easy enough to tell. You either had your nose down in a book, or you were taking a moment so we could listen to music or read together. You’d come up with these fantastic ideas as we danced to whatever song you chose, and when they blew my mind, you would give me the most breathtaking smile. But when you slept, it was a little harder. You didn’t toss and turn, you never made a peep. I watched you for years. And, though you never seemed quite happy, you always seemed the most at peace.
Everyone’s staring at you. Always at you.
I used to wish you’d never found me. We spent every moment together, since. Every class, every meal, and every conversation. It was great…but I felt guilty. You never spent time with anyone else, even when they asked first. No one ever saw me, standing when someone took the seat beside you, or quietly stepping back when they got too close and unknowingly pushed me aside. They never looked my way, and that was fine. But you never spoke to them, and I always felt like it was my fault.
You look so beautiful, I can barely hear the priest.
Would it have been this way if we’d never met, all those years ago? You knew me better than I knew myself. Maybe that was the problem. I savored every moment with you. But there were days you’d grow silent, and just stare at your phone. Days where you’d smile with everyone else, then cry the moment we got back to your room. There were a lot of those days, and I couldn’t comfort you through any of them. Those days, I wish you’d known me a lot less. Those days, I wished you could forget about me.
After the service, everyone stands as we head down the aisle.
I used to wonder about you. It was seventeen years ago you decided you were tired of playing alone, and you saw me for the first time. You dragged me into your make-believe games, and we’ve been together ever since. You were such a bright person. If we had grown apart, as most friends like us did, I know you wouldn’t have abandoned me. You would’ve sent me off with the most amazing story, more than I ever wanted, even if it could never compare to loving you. How it felt, being loved by you. You were everything, my Sun. I had always hoped you would forget me, and make better friends, like all the other children did. Now I wish I could’ve been enough.
They lower you into the ground. And I go with you.
Both moons were out tonight, their red and blue lights filtering through the branches overhead. The night where both moons were full came only once a year. If Esther were superstitious, she would take it as a sign that both moons were out the night she decided to run away from home.
The silence outside the high rampart of the city made her skin crawl. The cart’s wheels squeaked in protest as the draught horse’s hooves thudded in the dirt, drawing the cart forward. Inside the metal walls, the city was polluted by sirens wailing, car tires screeching, and factories churning away. Something behind those walls haunted Esther, and the fear sat deep in her chest as she recounted the seconds it took to get past the guards.
Crates surrounded her on all sides with her knees drawn up to her chest and a pelt blanket draped over her shoulders for warmth. To forget about the oppressive darkness of the surrounding forest, Esther kept her eyes pointed heavenward on the moons looming overheard. The driver’s rattling lantern was the only light source in the vicinity. The low noise of an owl hooting in the distance made Esther jump in surprise, slamming her elbow into a crate. The motion struck a nerve in her elbow, causing her to wince and hiss in pain.
“You alright back there, lass?” The driver asked, looking back at her.
She rubbed a hand against her elbow. A thick Valendolic accent touched his voice—a rare sound in the post-occupation era.
“I-I’m fine. No need to worry about me.”
“The owl startled you, eh?” he chuckled a bit. “I can’t blame you. Those buggers sound awfully intimidating this time of night. ‘Specially when you can’t see.”
“I’ve, uh, barely been out of the city myself. You don’t hear them a lot inside the walls.”
He nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. I can’t imagine animals wanting to live inside those blasted walls. Humans least of all.”
Somewhere, back within city limits, she knew her brother and father were panicking about where she was. What if they were phoning her now disconnected number, knocking on their neighbors’ doors asking if they’d seen her anywhere, or calling her school to ask if she’d come in for the day? Maybe her father was so desperate he reached out to her mother and ask if she’d decided to stay at her place. None of their efforts would yield answers—by daylight, Esther would be long gone.