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The Woman Who Walked Out of the Desert
by Alexis Ames
Second Place
Tempe’s ankle-deep in cow shit, once again explaining to Mr. Garrison that no, his herd wasn’t stolen by bandits from Acidalia Planitia, it’s more likely they simply walked through the hole in the fence he still hasn’t fixed, when a percussive bang rips through the town, rattling her bones and spooking the horses in a nearby pasture. She knows at once that it’s the airlock, even before the wind kicks up.
“Get inside!” she bellows at Mr. Garrison, pushing him toward his clapboard farmhouse, and then she runs. Past the grocer’s, past two of the brothels, past the saloon, into the cloud of swirling red dust that has already enveloped half the town. She yanks her bandana up from where it hangs around her neck to cover her nose and mouth, and the red dust stings her eyes but there’s nothing for it.
All at once, the wind dies and the dust settles, and Tempe blinks burning tears out of her eyes to clear her vision. The saloon’s muscle got to the airlock first, wrangling it back into place even before her deputies could reach it.
Hooves beat against the ground, and two of the town’s engineers approach at a gallop. Their horses stop short of the airlock, and they leap off, rushing over to inspect the damage with two of Tempe’s deputies.
Three more deputies stand in a semi-circle, guns drawn and pointed at the most beautiful woman Tempe has ever seen in her life.
“What’s all this?” she demands, striding over, struck by how calm the stranger seems. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle. No one should look that calm with three guns pointed at their head.
“She just walked in outta the desert, Sheriff.” Bess’s voice shakes, but her aim is steady and true.
“I ain’t in the mood for jokes,” Tempe says shortly. “I wanna know what the hell is going on, and I wanna know it right now.”
“Not a joke, Sheriff,” Ezra says. “I saw it m’self. She came from the desert on her own two feet, not on a train.”
“What’s your name?” Tempe asks the stranger. Her hair’s as red as the dust that gets into every crevice in town, and her eyes are as blue as the marble Tempe’s ancestors left behind over a century ago.
“Marte,” she answers, her voice as rich as molasses.
“Your surname,” Tempe says impatiently. When the woman says nothing, she prompts, “Your mama’s name? Grandmama’s name?”
“There’s a dust storm,” Marte says instead, and Tempe’s insides clench even though she’s been through this rodeo dozens of times before. “Three days behind me. You’ll want to prepare.”
“How’d you outrun a dust storm?” Ezra demands, and there’s the slightest tremor in their hands.
“Easy,” Tempte says. She can already tell from the closed-off look on the woman’s—Marte’s—face that there won’t be any other answers coming, at least not anytime soon. “Put her in a cell. Make sure she’s got water and food and a blanket. I’ll be by later to talk to her. And Bess, I don’t want to see no injuries on her, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bess says, an unhappy furrow between her brows.
Tempe finds the postmaster at the saloon, knocking back gin and flirting with Vivian, Big Jack’s stepdaughter. She’s been a fixture behind the bar for the past year, and Tempe won’t be surprised if she hears in a few months that Jackie’s handing the entire operation over to her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Tempe says, taking the stool next to Delma and signaling for a drink herself. Vivian pours her whiskey and slides it over with a wink. She’s young for Tempe’s tastes, but she can see why Delma is taken with her.
“You ain’t,” Delma says, but there’s no heat to it.
“You got contacts in nearby towns,” Tempe says. “Think you can use any of ‘em to look into someone for me? I got a first name, that’s it. Nothing else to go on.”
“S’pose I could, but it’ll have to wait until the storm passes through,” Delma says. “Radiotelegraphy is down, and they’ve stopped all the trains. Just got word.”
“Damn,” Tempe mutters.
“What is it?”
“Got a situation,” Tempe says, lowering her voice. “Stranger walked into town today. My deputies saw it themselves. She won’t give us a name, and she walked right outta the desert. Was hopin’ we could maybe find something out from our neighbors, see if they’ve encountered her before.”
“I’ll do what I can, but like I said, it’ll need to wait.”
Tempe knew that her two options with the stranger were to either put her on the first train to the capital and let the authorities deal with her there, or banish her from the town by sending her back through the airlock and out into the desert. But with the storm closing in and trains stopped for the time being, Tempe now doesn’t have a choice but to let her stay.
“Sheriff Abbott!” A kid comes running up to her, one of the Gillespie twins. She can never tell them apart. “Mayor Carter wants t’see ya. He’s at the jail.”
“‘Course he is,” Tempe says, throwing a few coins on the bar and tipping her hat at Vivian. “Thanks, Del. Good luck.”
“Don’t need it,” Delma says with a wink, and Vivian floats back over to her as Tempe takes her leave.
Arizona Carter has already made a sizable dent in Tempe’s brand-new packet of cigarettes by the time Tempe makes it over to the jail. He’s sitting in her chair, feet propped on her desk next to an overflowing ashtray, peering at the jail’s lone prisoner while he smokes his latest cigarette down to a nub.
“Don’t recognize her,” he says when Tempe steps into the cramped space. There’s room enough for her desk, a bookcase, and three jail cells which are usually empty. Pete the town drunk makes a regular appearance in one of them, but he’s off in the Argyre Basin this week visiting a sick sister. “She come in on the train this morning?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Tempe says.
“Where from?”
“Melas,” Tempe says, because it’s the closest town and the train’s last stop before it reaches them here in Aonia. “Mayor—”
“Impossible,” Carter interrupts.
“Pardon?”
“It’s impossible for her to have come from Melas. They ain’t there anymore.”
“What d’you mean, they ain’t there?”
“The whole town’s gone. There’s nothing there but desert. The train went through this morning, like usual, but there was nothing. Not even a train station. Every person, every horse, every building is gone.”
It happens, Tempe knows. Towns get abandoned because mining operations move elsewhere and jobs dry up, and the trains that spiderweb across the planet’s surface will sometimes discover that the empty buildings have vanished. Other times, towns will go silent over the radiotelegraphy system, and riders dispatched to contact them will find nothing there but empty desert, as though the town had never existed.
But it’s never happened so close to home.
“The storm,” Tempe says, and Carter lifts one shoulder in a shrug.
“Near as we can tell, it passed through Melas a few days back. Mrs. Johnson got a radiotelegram from her son the day before. Since then, I’ve learned, there’s only been silence.”
“Mayor, that storm is heading right for us.”
“I know,” Carter says grimly. “And the train we got this morning high-tailed it outta here, and there are no more behind it. Railroad company won’t dispatch another one until the storm has passed. We can’t evacuate the town.”
Icy tendrils of fear tighten their grip on Tempe. The impending dust storm might have swallowed a nearby town, and they can’t evacuate their own. They’ve ridden out storms before, but if rumor is to be believed, not one like this.
“You need a diamagnetic field.”
Tempe and Carter both turn to look at the woman in the cell. She’s got her forearms resting on a bar, leaning lazily on them. Tempe can’t pin down her accent. With certain words, it sounds like she might be from the north, but then others make Tempe think she’s from the south. A diamagnetic field, whatever that is, sounds scientific, and most scientists live in settlements out east.
“And what, pray tell,” Carter says, “is that?”
“Something that can repel a dust storm,” Marte says. “There’s iron in that dust, and iron can be repelled. It won’t turn the storm away entirely, but it will lessen its effects.”
Lessen its effects. That’s awful formal speech, which is consistent with the western towns. Tempe shakes her head. This woman is a walking mystery.
“That somethin’ you can make?”
“A diamagnetic field? Of course.”
Carter narrows his eyes. “Would you?”
The woman smirks. “For the right price.”
“Knew it,” Carter says, pointing his cigarette at Marte. “That’s a scam, that is. A stranger no one’s ever heard of walks into town and claims to have a magic elixir, but they won’t show it to you until you pay up. It’s the oldest grift in the books.”
“Yes, I conjured up an entire dust storm by myself so that I could scam this entire town out of its money,” Marte says, sounding amused. “How incredibly clever and devious of me.”
Despite herself, Tempe feels her lips twitch, though she quickly schools her expression when Carter looks her way.
“Sheriff?”
“What’s your price?” Tempe asks.
“Nothing exorbitant, I assure you.” Now the woman sounds like she’s from Earth, like it’s eighteen-ninety-three all over again and she just stepped off the first rocket train from that blue, blue world. “Asylum. Refuge. Protection. Let me stay. I can be useful here, if you’ll let this town be my home.”
It’s another mouth to feed, sure, but Marte is right—she’s young and fit, and they can always use extra help in the fields. She certainly looks like she can pull her weight.
“I say we let her stay,” Tempe says to Carter, “if she can prove to us that she’s able to build this machine.”
“I can do it on a smaller scale, and I’ll teach your engineers how to adapt it to cover the whole dome,” Marte says.
They both look at Carter, who considers Marte for a moment before nodding. “It’s a deal. You don’t look stupid enough to bring a dust storm to our doorstep and then get trapped inside here with us, anyhow.”
Marte’s answering laugh is bright and tinkling, and Tempe thinks oh, no.
Irma the blacksmith has arms like the trunks of Earth trees, and Tempe bites the inside of her cheek to suppress an amused grin at the way Marte does a double take when they enter the shop. Irma has already cleared out a corner, so that Marte has a workspace. She’s also acquired the equipment and tools Marte requested, and they’re spread out across a worn table.
“Anything else you need, I can find it or make it,” she tells Marte.
“How much time d’you need?” Tempe asks.
“How much time do I have?”
“The storm arrives in three days, like you said.”
“Then I suppose I have three days,” Marte says. “Let’s say…twenty-four hours for the prototype, and then forty-eight hours to make the real thing. I can build the prototype on my own, but I’ll need assistance after that if we’re going to be ready in time.”
There were a few off-duty train engineers in town, as well as the dome technicians. They would have to do. “You’ll have it. One of my deputies will be here at all times. You need anything, they know how to find me.”
“Don’t trust me, Sheriff?” Marte asks, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
“The only thing that moves faster’n a dust storm is the rumor mill in this town. You’re a stranger who came from the desert. I don’t want no trouble, that’s all.”
She stations Ezra inside the blacksmith shop first. They are the most level-headed of her deputies, and the human equivalent of a brick wall. No one will try to make trouble with Marte while Ezra is on duty. Tempe doesn’t think that Marte will give Ezra trouble, either, not if Irma was enough to give her pause.
There are the usual preparations to be made around town now that they know a storm is approaching. The dome technicians are out in full force, checking the integrity of the dome and reinforcing any weak spots. A makeshift hospital is being set up on the ground floor of one of the brothels, which has the most space for potential patients. Tempe and the rest of her deputies do an inventory of the town’s food supplies. If the storm blocks the railroad tracks or otherwise incapacitates the trains that bring them supplies, they have enough in the general store to feed the town for a week. Mr. Haversham won’t take too kindly to Tempe’s deputies seizing his inventory and distributing it to the town for free, so Tempe hopes it won’t come down to that.
She returns to the blacksmith’s shop late in the evening. Bess is the one keeping an eye on Marte and an eye out for trouble, though it seems like she’s doing more of the former than the latter.
“Any issues?” Tempe asks in an undertone. Bess’s gaze doesn’t waver. She’s fixated on Marte, who has cobbled together a machine that resembles a box with a cone on top. Several spikes jut out from the top of the cone. It looks more like a torture device than a dust repelling machine, but what does Tempe know? She ain’t a scientist.
“Townsfolk keep coming by, tryin’ to see what she’s up to in here. Told ‘em to move along.” Bess shakes her head. “I don’t trust this.”
“She give you any reason not to trust her?”
Bess gives Tempe an incredulous look. “Besides walkin’ out of the desert, you mean?”
“She could’ve come in on the supply train early this morning, ‘fore they were all stopped.”
“Sheriff, Deputy,” Marte says without looking up from her work, “if you two could be persuaded to stop gossiping about me for a moment, I believe this machine is ready for a demonstration.”
Irma carries the prototype outside for them, muscles straining under the weight of the unassuming machine, and sets it in the dust.
“Here.” Marte hands Tempe a rectangular controller. “Whenever you’re ready, you can press the switch.”
“Are you insane?” Bess interjects. “Boss, don’t touch it.”
Marte huffs. “You won’t believe me, will you, if I press the switch and the machine works? It’s best that the sheriff does it, so that you can see there’s no interference from me.”
“She’s right,” Tempe says. “If you’re so worried about it, you can wait in the shop.”
Bess clenches her jaw and doesn’t move. Tempe nods and flips the switch.
The machine hums quietly, its subtle vibrations causing the tiny hairs on the back of Tempe’s arms and neck to stand on end. At first, she thinks it’s a breeze that’s stirring the dust at the base of the machine, but then she realizes that the dust is moving away from it, creating a perfect circle around the machine. Tempe flips the switch again, shutting the machine off, and the dust settles.
“Here,” she says, thrusting the controller into Bess’s hands. “You try.”
Bess does, and the circle of space around the machine grows by a few more inches. She shuts the machine off, scowling.
“Right,” Tempe says, turning to Marte. “What do you need?”
At Marte’s direction, Tempe gathers all the train engineers and dome technicians she can find, and Irma once again offers use of her shop. The plan is to construct dozens more of the machines and to line the inside of the dome with them. Even from inside, they can repel the choking red dust that covers the desert in every direction. They won’t dissipate a dust storm entirely, but they will lessen its effects.
Tempe has other business to take care of around town, so she leaves a couple of her deputies behind to supervise the construction of the diamagnetic devices. She’s called out to Mrs. Finster’s farm to mediate a dispute between her and a neighbor over some missing chickens, and after that, she breaks up a fight at the saloon and has to throw both Barlowe and Caddel in a cell to cool down and sober up. Once the two of them are snoring in their cells and Ezra relieves her, she heads back over to the saloon to help clean up the damage.
“Does the town sheriff always moonlight as the town cleanup crew?”
Tempe dumps her pail of broken glass and dirt into the nearby bin, then raises an eyebrow at Marte. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, darling, but ‘round these parts, we all look out for each other. Sometimes the town sheriff is the cleanup crew, sometimes she’s the bartender, sometimes she’s the midwife. We do what we need to ‘round here to take care of each other.”
“Does the town sheriff also perform the duty of the town tour guide?”
Tempe lifts an eyebrow at her. “Ain’t you supposed to be ensuring there’s a town left to tour when this is all over?”
“There will be,” Marte assures. “Your engineers and techs are a competent lot, and fast. We’ve finished constructing all the machines.”
“That was fast.” Tempe straightens, one of her hips popping painfully as she does so. “And they all work?”
“We tested each one, and they’re all functioning perfectly. You’re welcome to see for yourself if you like.”
Tempe tilts her head, considering her.
“In the morning,” she says. “We’ll get up nice and early, have breakfast down here at the saloon, and then we’ll go test your machines.”
“We?” An amused smile curls Marte’s mouth. “Awfully confident, Sheriff, aren’t we?”
“You wanted a tour, didn’t you?” Tempe puts a finger under Marte’s chin and rests her thumb on the other woman’s bottom lip, relishing the way her eyes darken and her warm breath puffs across Tempe’s skin. “There ain’t much to look at in this town, sweetheart. I can promise you my bedroom ceiling’s the only thing worth seeing.”
Tempe’s jaw is still aching pleasantly when she opens her eyes to watery yellow Martian sunlight, and she can feel where the uneven wood floor rubbed her knees raw the night before. She lifts her hand to rub her eyes, and catches a whiff of Marte still lingering on her fingers. Marte, who still slumbers beside her, the sheets bunched around her waist.
“Sheriff!” Footsteps pound up the stairs, and Tempe barely has time to draw the sheets up to her chest before the door bursts open. Beside her, Marte jerks awake. “I need you. Now.”
“Is it Jepson again?” Holding the sheets to her chest with one hand, Tempe leans over the side of the bed to fish for her clothes and boots. “Swear to God that man’ll be the death of me.”
“Quickly,” Bess says, and something in her voice makes Tempe look up. She’s panicked, unsettled—nothing to do with Old Man Jepson, then. It must have something to do with the machines.
Marte must pick up on this, too, because she also sits up. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.” Bess has her gun drawn on Marte in the space of a blink. “You ain’t needed, you hear?”
“Put the gun down!” Tempe barks, finally finding her voice. “Christ’s sake, Bess, what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I need to see you, Sheriff, and only you.”
“Put it down,” Tempe snaps, “and wait for me outside. Go!”
Bess leaves, reluctance emanating from every pore, and Tempe quickly dresses.
“I’ll be back ‘fore you know it,” she says, leaning down for a quick kiss. “Jepson’s a pain in my ass, but he’s mostly harmless.”
“Are you certain one of your deputies can’t handle it?” Marte runs a hand down Tempe’s side, and it takes all of Tempe’s willpower not to pin her to the bed.
“If they say I’m needed, I’m needed.” Tempe kisses her again, deeply, before reluctantly drawing away and hurrying out the door after Bess. Bess already has two horses tied to a post for them outside, and she swings herself into the saddle as Tempe comes out the door. Tempe mounts her own horse, and they’re off.
“We’re gonna have words, you and I, when this is all over,” Tempe says as their horses canter across town, kicking up red dust in their wake. “This ain’t like you.”
“Fine,” Bess says. “We can have words, so long as you listen right now.”
She pulls her horse to a stop and dismounts. Tempe does the same, then jogs after Bess as she makes her way over to a machine. Bess pulls the controller out of her pocket and thrusts it at Tempe.
“Stole it outta Irma’s shop,” she says to Tempe’s questioning glance. “Flip the switch.”
Tempe does so, and—nothing happens. The machine doesn’t hum to life, and the dust that surrounds it remains still.
“You stole the wrong one.” Tempe thrusts it back at her. “This belongs to the prototype.”
“No, it don’t.” Bess pulls another controller out of her pocket. “But I knew you were gonna say that, so here’s the prototype controller. It don’t work, either.”
Tempe flips the switch, and again, nothing happens.
“They only work when she’s around,” Bess goes on. “Bring her out here, later this morning. Tell her you wanna do one last test. You seen for yourself they don’t work on their own. When she’s around, I guarantee they will.”
“What are you saying?” Tempe asks, her mouth dry, disbelief stinging her eyes. Her mind swirls with possibilities, trying to come up with some plausible explanation for why the machines aren’t working right now.
“She lied to us,” Bess says, “and I don’t know why.”
“It has to be a mistake.”
“Yeah? Let’s ask her, then.”
“Wait!” Tempe stops her with a hand on her arm. “No. I’ll talk to her.”
Bess gives her a skeptical look. “Will you? ‘Cause the lives of everyone in this town depend on those machines, if this storm is really what took out Melas.”
“I will,” Tempe says. “I’ll talk to her, and we’ll sort this out.”
Marte is no longer abed by the time Tempe returns to her rooms, much to her disappointment. If she had been, Tempe would have slid between the blankets and curled around her sleeping form, content to shut out the world—and the impending dust storm—for a few more hours. Perhaps even forever.
“Everything alright?” Marte asks as she adjusts her skirts. Her red hair is loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back. Tempe wants to brush it aside, kiss the pale column of her neck, slide a hand up her thigh…
“Fine,” Tempe says. “Had to break up a brawl down at the brothel, that’s all.”
“I should let you get back to your work.” Marte ties up her hair with nimble fingers. Fingers Tempe would like to put to better use. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
“No,” Tempe says. “No, I don’t have anywhere t’be for a few hours yet. Thought I might go for a walk, check on the machines one more time. Come with me?”
“Sure.” Marte finishes lacing up her boots and takes Tempe’s hand as they leave the room. Tempe doesn’t do this, this casual intimacy, especially not after spending a night with someone. Beforehand, yes, she’ll flirt and buy someone drinks and let her fingers or arm brush casually against theirs. But after they have sex, what’s the point? She got what she was after, and so did the other person.
Then again, she’s never let someone stay the night, either. She’s never woken with someone in her arms and wished that she never had to move, and she never wants to let go of Marte’s hand.
She has to, though, as they approach the machines, so that she can dig both controllers out of her pocket.
“I want to test ‘em one last time,” Tempe says, and Marte nods for her to go ahead.
“Of course.”
Tempe flips the switch on the first controller, and the machine closest to her hums to life. The choking red dust that surrounds it vibrates and starts to move away. She turns it off, and then moves to the next machine, repeating the process. Marte trails behind her, never more than half a dozen steps away.
“See? They’re all working perfectly,” Marte says.
“Yes,” Tempe murmurs, heart sinking. “They are.”
Marte slides her fingers between Tempe’s, squeezing gently. Tempe wishes she found the touch revolting, wishes she had the urge to push Marte away, but never has something felt so right.
“Breakfast?” she asks, and Marte beams at her.
“In bed?” she asks, and Tempe groans. How she wishes.
“Only if a can of cold beans will do. I’m hopeless at cooking.”
“Well, I suppose you were bound to have one flaw,” Marte says, and Tempe flushes. “What’s the best place for a meal around here? The saloon?”
“Only if you’re looking for something warm and delicious,” Tempe says, wrapping an arm around her waist and steering her toward the saloon. “Vivian’s gonna flirt something awful with you, though.”
Vivian charms Marte the way she does everyone who walks through her doors, and Tempe might’ve felt more than a bit jealous if Marte didn’t have a possessive hand on her thigh throughout the entire conversation. It doesn’t hurt that Delma’s there, too, and that Vivian leans on the bar to talk in a low voice with her whenever she’s not tending to customers.
The doors bang open, and Tempe swivels on her stool to see Bess storm into the saloon. Her expression turns stormy when she sees Marte seated next to Tempe at the bar.
“I’m gonna see the mayor,” she says, jabbing a finger at Tempe. “He’ll have your head for this.”
With that, she turns and strides out of the saloon.
“I gotta take care of this.” Tempe gives Marte a firm kiss. “Don’t go anywhere.”
She runs out of the saloon, catching up with Bess in the middle of the town square and grabbing her arm.
“Bess! Bess, wait.”
Bess shakes off her hand and whirls around. “You got an explanation for me, Sheriff? Or just more bullshit?”
“You can’t go to the mayor.”
“I have to. You ain’t listening to me, Sheriff! You’ve seen yourself that the machines don’t work, and you’re just gonna let her get away with it.”
“I tested them this morning, they work just fine. It was a glitch, that’s all.”
Bess stares at her incredulously. “You know the machines only worked ‘cause she was there with you! They don’t work without her. You saw it for yourself! I showed you.”
“And so what?” Tempe demands, frayed nerves snapping. “Who cares if the machines only work if she’s around them? Where is she gonna go, Bess? That storm is only hours away, the trains ain’t running, and we live under a dome. And she’d never—”
She’d never leave me.
Tempe has never been so certain of anything in her life. She’s only known the woman, what, two days? But Marte’s here for good, Tempe knows it. She’s as sure of that as she is of anything.
“She walked into this dome, and she can walk right out of it again. The rest of us can’t,” Bess says. “I’m gonna see Mayor Carter. You’ve lost your mind, Tempe.”
She starts off again, and Tempe runs after her. They round a corner, and Tempe seizes Bess by the upper arm, dragging her through the nearest door. It’s a stable, full of the sounds and smells of snuffling horses, which covers up the noise it makes when Tempe shoves Bess against a wall hard enough for her head to crack against it. Bess falls unconscious, head lolling onto her shoulder, and Tempe finds a spare bit of rope to tie around her chest, wrists, and ankles. She drags Bess into an empty stall, one that doesn’t look like it’s had an occupant in some time, and steps back out into the cool, fabricated Martian air.
Marte is right where Tempe left her, chatting with Delma and Vivian, and she lights up when she sees Tempe step into the saloon.
“Changed my mind,” Tempe says into her ear. “We’re havin’ breakfast in bed after all.”
They dash through the dusty streets, laughing, Marte’s hair coming loose from her bun and whipping away from her face as she keeps pace with Tempe. They clatter up the stairs to Tempe’s rooms, and Tempe presses Marte against the door as soon as they’re inside, reaching over to throw the latch as they kiss.
After, as they lay tangled together, Tempe dares to voice the thought that has been clamoring inside her skull ever since they first fell into this bed together—or perhaps it’s been there since she first laid eyes on Marte.
“How long’re you staying?”
“I already told your mayor.”
“Maybe I need to hear it again.”
Marte’s lips curve into a smile. “Long as you need me.”
“Me, or the town?”
Marte rolls so they’re facing each other, noses almost touching, and runs her fingers through Tempe’s short-cropped hair.
“I reckon they’re one an’ the same,” she says, in a poor attempt at Tempe’s accent, and Tempe kisses the laughter from her lips.
Tempe wakes to the sound of rustling clothes, and her heart sinks to her stomach. She lays there with her eyes closed, trying to convince herself it’s a dream, that in her half-awake state she’s only imagining the whisper of skirts and soft click of boot buckles. But consciousness is unrelenting, and the lingering wisps of sleep dissipate quickly. She slides her hand under her pillow, fingers wrapping around cool metal. Marte’s hand touches the doorknob, and Tempe sits up, leveling her gun at Marte’s chest.
“Where are you going?”
Marte turns around, a bemused smile on her full lips. “Do you treat all your lovers this way?”
“Only the ones who lie to me.”
“I’m a liar because I got dressed?”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Tempe was supposed to wake up with Marte in her arms, not with her sneaking out of her rooms. The machines were going to be switched on as the dust storm approached—only a few hours off, now. Why would Marte leave before then?
“Bess was right, wasn’t she?”
“Tempe—”
“She was right! The machines only work when you’re around. Why?”
“The machines don’t work when I’m around them,” Marte says calmly.
“Yes, they do. I’ve seen it for myself—”
“The machines don’t work at all,” Marte says over her. “They light up and they make noise, but they don’t affect the dust. I do.”
She crosses the room to the window, where watery sunlight is pouring in, and lets her hand hover over the windowsill. Everything in the town is covered in a fine layer of red dust, and Tempe’s rooms are no exception. A cloud of dust rises off the windowsill, and it follows Marte’s hand as she sweeps it through the air.
“I don’t understand.”
“You might as well put the gun down. Shooting me won’t stop what’s already in progress.” Marte drops her hand to her side, and the particles of dust fall to the floor. “You’ve noticed it already. The uptick in missing animals, though no one has caught any thieves in action. They’ve been disappearing for weeks, haven’t they? You’ve managed to rationalize it so far. A broken fence here, a wandering chicken there. But it is unusual, isn’t it?”
“These things happen—”
“Not like this,” Marte says. “This is different, and you know it.”
“I assume you’ve got an explanation, then?”
“Not one that you’ll like,” Marte says. “They haven’t disappeared. They’re still here.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Marte sweeps her hand through the air again, and a cloud of red dust rises off the floor. It swirls and spirals through the air, following her fingers. “Nothing has been lost. It looks different, but it has not been lost.”
“How can something still be here if we can’t see it?” Tempe demands. Her head’s pounding like she had several drinks too many at the saloon the night before. “You ain’t making any sense.”
Marte flicks her hand, and the dust settles on the windowsill again. “It’ll come to you.”
Tempe stares at her, then at the dust, dread coiling in her stomach. “Dust. They’re—everything that’s gone missing, you’re telling me they’re dust?”
“They are of Mars, and to Mars they shall return.”
“All those towns that disappeared…”
“Not disappeared.” Marte sits on the bed, mere inches from Tempe, and strokes her cheek. “Changed.”
The gun goes off. The bullet shatters a vase and buries itself in the opposite wall. Tempe looks down. The muzzle of the gun had been pressed against Marte’s stomach, but when she pulls it away, there’s nothing. No blood, no bullet hole.
“What are you?” she asks, horrified.
“I told you who I am, what I am. I told you the first moment I met you.”
“You’ve told me nothing, only your name—” Tempe stops, dumbfounded. “Marte. Mars.”
Marte inclines her head. “I never lied to you, Tempe.”
“We have over five hundred people in this town. We have to save them. I have to save them.” Tempe grasps Marte’s hand, solid even though the bullet went right through her. “How do I do that? Please.”
“There is nothing to save them from.” Marte turns her hand over so their palms touch, and then laces their fingers together. “This is what it means to be Martian. Unlike Earth, this is a planet that cannot be altered, not forever.”
“We have been living here for centuries!”
“And for centuries, your towns have been disappearing—into the mountains, the hills, the dust. They are Mars, and Mars is them.”
“Earth will send more people.”
“Yes,” Marte says, “and I will welcome them the way I have for centuries.”
Tempe’s chest is heaving. “If I hadn’t let you into this dome, if I had banished you like they said I should, would it have changed anything?”
“No,” Marte says. “This would always have happened.”
She kisses Tempe’s cheek, then releases her hand and stands. She lingers in the doorway for a moment, her lips parted as though there are more words on the tip of her tongue, but then Tempe blinks and she is gone.
Tempe hurries to the window. She can see to the edge of the town’s dome and no farther. The horizon, the hills, even the train tracks have been obscured by a yellow-orange haze. The storm is almost upon them.
Her cheek is cold where Marte’s lips touched her. Tempe goes over to the polished glass that hangs in her room and stares at her reflection. There are grains of red sand on her cheek, and when she lifts her hand to brush them away, they seem to multiply, trickling from her face. She pulls her hand away and stares at it. Red dust falls from her fingertips. Her nails dissolve, and then the pads of her fingers.
The dust and sand pool at her feet as, outside the dome, the wind begins to howl.
Winning pieces are published as received.
Fiction Potluck
July 2024
Second Place Winner:
Alexis Ames
Alexis Ames is a speculative fiction writer with works in publications such as Pseudopod, Luna Station Quarterly, and Radon Journal. You can find more of their stories at www.alexisamesbooks.com.