Free Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff Page A

In the city she had just left there lived an out-of-work mechanic, a man of little ambition and even less courage. Shy but possessed of a depth of passion that was his one strength, this mechanic favored women with fiery red hair, milk-white skin, and silver eyes, women of medium height whom he could kiss without stretching or stooping; Calliope fit this description exactly, more exactly than might have been believed possible. Even for those whose fantasy lover was different, Calliope had a heart-catching edge to her, a perfect, irresistible something. That she walked tonight was a fact of her own choosing; no motorist, regardless of their hurry, would have denied Calliope a ride had she desired one. But she did choose to walk, wanting to be alone for a time, as she always did after an Exit.
    Back in Dover, the mechanic would soon return from a day’s wandering to find his lover Gone. Not gone, but Gone. Photographs of the two of them together now showed only one person, him; a jacket saturated with her scent now smelled only of must; their bed was made, as if never slept in. He would search for her frantically, and when he realized that she was truly lost forever, the Hurt would begin. Calliope had seduced him well; he would Hurt so badly that at first he would think he was going to die. But when death did not come, he would find himself being transformed by his Pain, and in the end for the sake of lost love he would be drawn into an act of great heroism, of consequence. Exactly how this was to come about and for what purpose Calliope could not have said . . . she knew only that it had something to do with a Story. As always. But she was not the Storyteller; she was part of the Tale.

    Calliope turned her thoughts ahead, to the next Meeting. This upcoming Love promised to be an important one, and more complicated than the last. She cleared her mind and walked, duffel bag slung over her shoulder, a tiny silver whistle hanging from a chain around her neck.
    There was no moon that night. Calliope traveled far, in darkness. By eleven forty-five she had reached the small town of Talbot’s Legacy, some twenty miles outside of Dover. The road was deserted, and she passed through the town’s center with no company except for the scant streetlamps that cast faint circles of light on the asphalt every thirty yards or so. And the wind, of course. The wind was always with her.
    The Turning began at exactly twelve o’clock.
    Far to the north, so many miles distant that no natural creature could have heard it from here, a set of tower chimes marked the passage of one day into another as the clock touched midnight. Calliope’s ears perked up at the sound.
    A moment later she walked beneath one of the streetlamps, and her hair was longer. Longer, and darker—it covered her ears, nearly touching her shoulders. And that was not the only thing different about her, though for a moment it was the most noticeable.
    Thirty-some paces in the shadows, and another streetlamp captured her. Her hair, black as the new moon, now hung halfway down her back. Her skin had taken on color, and her eyes were phasing from silver to dark brown.
    More paces, more changes. Calliope’s entire stature began to change, becoming shorter, thinner; her skin continued to color, taking on a rich olive cast; her breasts grew smaller, more compact, but still perfectly proportioned; her nose widened.
    The entire metamorphosis took perhaps five minutes. When it was done, Calliope stopped under another streetlamp and looked at her reflection in a nearby storefront. It had been a long time since she had been Asian; she liked what she saw.
    “I’m on my way, George,” said Calliope, executing a graceful pirouette in the lamplight. “I’m on my way.”

A SIDETRIP THROUGH HELL
    I.
    For Luther and Blackjack, New York City had become a memory left far behind. Led by the mongrel’s nose and the Heaven scent, they had been traveling for some days now, in a zigzagging but