Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History by Ken Liu, Tananarive Due, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, Sofia Samatar, Sabrina Vourvoulias, Thoraiya Dyer Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes.
    Her vision snapped to focus when she heard the splash again. The creature was beyond the poor reach of their lamp, but she could hear its size – the front end slapping the water first, then the back. Like William said, as long as a man. But maybe wider. Beyond reason, she expected a bloodhound to come flying from the water, teeth gnashing.
    William sucked in a long breath.
    “You see it?” Lottie said.
    William shook his head, waving his lamp slowly back and forth across the water.
    Lottie’s heart tried to pound free of her. “Maybe it’s a gator!”
    “No,” William breathed. He stayed patient with his lamp’s spotlight, which showed only brown flecks floating in the murk.
    “What, then?” Lottie said.
    “As a boy,” he said quietly, “I heard stories about Walasi. A giant frog. My mother told me, her mother told her, her mother’s mother, through time. To the beginning.”
    Ain’t no damned frog that big
, Lottie’s mind tried to tell her, but she remembered the bullfrog’s call she’d heard outside. An omen after all.
    William pointed left. “Look there,” he said, calm beyond reason.
    Ripples fluttered in the lamplight. Then a frothy splashing showered them. Lottie screamed, but did not close her eyes. She wanted to see the thing. A silhouette sharpened in the water, like giant fingers stretching, or a black claw. Her hands flew to cover her eyes, but she forced her fingers open to peek through.
    The creature churned the water, tossing its massive body. A shiny, bulging black eye as large as her open palm broke the water’s plane, nestled by brown-green skin.
    The creature flipped, its eye gone. Was this its belly? Pale beneath the water, smooth as glass. Too big to be anything she could name. The mine’s thin air seared her lungs.
    “Did you see it?” William’s grin made him look fevered. His eyes seemed as wild and wide as the water creature’s. “The frog?”
    It can’t be
, she tried to say, arguing with her eyes. But her mouth would not move.
    Lottie was whimpering, a childish sound she hadn’t made since the day Marse Campbell turned Uncle Jim away. She sat as far back as she could from the water, her arms locked around her knees. Her bones trembled as she rocked.
    William whipped off his tattered shirt. His readied knife gleamed.
    “Leave it be!” she said.
    “Any child knows about Walasi, but no one has seen him. And now… here he is!” William’s excitement unsettled Lottie. “Walasi tries to kill everyone in the village. But a warrior slays him.”
    Lottie felt a fear deeper than the mine’s darkness. Maybe Uncle Jim’s mojo had confused his mind. Had that come of touching it?
    “Waya…” She called him by his mother’s name, hoping he would hear her.
    William clasped her upper arm and squeezed. His face wore an eerie grin. “When the warrior kills Walasi, it turns to little frogs. Harmless. They scatter. The village is saved.”
    “All your people is gone far away,” Lottie said. “You ain’t got no village. Ain’t nothin’ you can do!”
    “What else should I do, dear Lottie?” he said. “Should I run and hide like a boy?
    He laid his head across her belly, and she breathed him up and down. Lottie tried to summon words to bring sense to him, but she had no strength to speak.
    Then he slipped from her, holding tight to his knife. He dove into the black water.
    Lottie screamed. “
Waya
!”
    Endless silence, except for the dripping water.
    Every evil Lottie could dream felt certain: The creature was pulling strips of her husband’s flesh with its teeth, far worse than any dog. And it would come to take her next. It would tear the baby from her and scatter its limbs. Uncle Jim had bargained his freedom with a curse. He had sacrificed them.
    The world spun, the mine’s darkness fighting to take her thoughts too. She felt dizzy enough to faint, but she could not. Could
not
. Lottie kept her mind awake by counting off in her head as she waited for