Excerpt from "The Fragrance of Orchids"
by Sally McBride
Winner of the 1995 Aurora Award

November, 2023; Washington DC

"It's now four in the morning," said Sarah tiredly into her recorder. "I'm back at the hospital. Washington never goes to sleep completely, certainly a big hospital never slows down. They had to clear a floor for her, which no-one here seems happy about, but she'll be whisked off to Houston as soon as she's able to be moved." She had to raise her voice over the babble of talk, clacking footsteps, and cell phones beeping.

"Apparently Seule's guardian eye, confused by the fact that Seule was the attacker, didn't try any fancy shooting. It screamed for help and hovered recording till someone came. Fortunately, for Seule anyway, that wasn't long. It all happened so fast. . . it was very painful to watch."

Sarah was still shaken. There were few civilians among the tight-lipped men and women in uniforms at the briefing. The videotape was fish-eye distorted, and the sound buzzed and squalled.

Seule and Clayton Elliot were working alone in a mock-up of the alien craft's interior, observing the varied responses of an environmental panel. They were talking quietly, the eye only picking up the odd innocuous phrase. Clayton, a dark, angular man with the weedy look of a student, leaned across his station and took Seule's left forefoot in his hand, forcefully directing it to a spot on the panel. In slow motion replay, Sarah watched his expression. He looked peevish, impatient.

Seule's forefoot, claws sheathed, slid up Clayton's arm and around his neck, pulling him toward her. He drew back. It was obvious that her strength exceeded his. His muscles tensed, his face showed repulsion. Worse, it showed boredom, irritation. When Sarah saw this look, she knew instinctively what would happen next.

Clayton pushed Seule away. Seule clasped him more firmly; he struggled, swore. She began to whine, a high keening. Sarah was familiar with the look of Seule, but this sound was utterly alien. Its meaning was universal. The next few seconds were full of action, too fast to follow well even in slow motion. Clayton struck at her and she raked him with her hind legs, as a cat would a rabbit, still clutching him with her clawed forelegs. She was licking his face as he screamed. Her neck-fingers grasped and stroked his face, his neck, his eyes and mouth.

Hands and bodies intruded suddenly, the eye pulled back, wobbled, and recorded five or six people trying to separate them. Upon being removed from contact with Clayton's body, Seule collapsed and began to slash at her own limbs with her teeth. Someone pulled her head back, two men held her limbs. Crashing noises, shouts, the spurting of blood. It had been, literally, a shambles.

Excerpt from "Water, Circle, Moon"
by Sally McBride

The moon's rays showered Leila with cold fire. The tips of the grass were turning in circles, each little blade moving as if it followed its own tiny sun. She stayed carefully on the stone path. Passing a tall spray of cosmos nodding in the night, she reached out to touch a blossom-wheel, but it whipped back on its stem sending dozens of tissue-pink petals down in a clatter, as if they were little shells, or giants' fingernails hurled away. Leila felt her heart leap. Dared she pick up a petal?

As she reached down she turned her head, startled. She'd heard laughter, a group of people laughing. The horses? The laughter circled her, around and around. She turned to follow it, swirling very slowly, winding itself around her neck gently, so gently, tighter and tighter. She pulled it back and quickly braided it, fastening it with a bit of thread pulled from a button.

Rubbing her neck and hardly daring to blink, she crept along, her toes in their thin sneakers feeling for the steps. "Oh, Innis, why wouldn't you come with me? Damn you!"

Somehow she'd always pictured herself doing this in sunlight. Tramping along through flowers and tall grass toward the centre of magic where she would dip her cup and drink. Not this; it was too soon, and too damned dark. She ran her hands along the stable wall where she thought the door should be, and fumbled into a large metal padlock. Turning it in her fingers she saw it gleam briefly copper, then blacken into iron. Holding it made her dizzy. She let it clank back against the door it guarded, and turned away biting her lip. The moon was behind a cloud and it had gone absolutely black.

Maybe, maybe I should have listened to him, she thought, feeling her heart pound. The flagstone path poured itself toward her like water filling a hollow where she stood.

Suddenly she knew that she had to get away, now, and started to walk as fast as she could back to the house. Her feet splashed in water she couldn't feel, and she heard a fast running clatter as the cosmos petals skittered along beside her. She began to run, holding her arms before her face and feeling panic close behind. What if the house doesn't let me in?