AUTUMN 2024, SHORT STORY, 650 WORDS
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In the ashes of a vanished city there rests a reliquary. Its gem-encrusted glass is fire-darkened, facets clouded by centuries and smoke.
To unlock its secrets, we assembled a team of archaeologists and biologists, exospecialists and chaplains, historians and children whose imaginations were all that managed at last to fill in the gaps of lost history. After a year (measured on this world as nearly two thousand days, each a handful of hours), we completed an inventory of the relics. Alongside, we crafted a calendar of nameless saints.
I. Skulls: So far as skulls have sockets, teeth, crania—we found eight.
Three in fragments, four of questionable composition, one whole
and nearly familiar. Some were labelled with nails, others with paper
that crumbled at our intrusion. One had hair still clinging to
desiccated skin. One had glass eyes and bejeweled teeth. Four
were reptilian, we think. One was cartilaginous, with
selachimorphous teeth.
By our reckoning, a year on this planet numbers 1,822 days. Based on seasonal change, we divided these into 24 months, each lasting between 70-80 days.
The first eight months we named for each of these skull-saints, as follows:
1. Braid-Skin
2. Gem Tooth
3. Half-Reptile
4. Quarter-Reptile
5. Cracked Snake
6. Riveted Jaw
7. Shark Bone
8. Fragmentary Lobe
We celebrate the skull-saints with feasts in the last week of each month and fasts in the first. In between, we mourn.
II. Pieces: Eighteen small bone fragments were found in the chest,
determined to belong to twelve distinct individuals of at least six
species. Some fragments were bound in ribbon, others in gold.
Remains of jewelry and weapons could be matched through study
to several specimens. Others remained naked, orphaned and bare.
Once documented, we assigned these fragments to the next twelve
months of the year:
9. Vertebra, Humanoid
10. Hand, Shattered
11. Leg Bones, Amphibious
12. Wings, Burned
13. Satchel of Fragments
14. Decorated Ribcage
15. Inner Ear, Ribboned
16. Gilded Vertebrae
17. Reptilian Claws
18. Femur, Unknown
19. Tibia, Unknown
20. Bone Dust
We begin each of these piece-months with a feast, followed by weeks of fasting. We finish in prayer.
III. Stone: Three relics are siliceous in composition. They do not appear
to have been ornamental, so are perhaps representations of distinct
individuals of whom no remains could be acquired. It was also
posited by the children that these pieces were themselves remains,
though even the exospecialists could name no comparable known
species. We classified them as such:
21. Graphite-Limestone Composite
22. Interstellar Fragment
23. Iron-Veined Quartz
Each month, in honor of these saints, we journey through mountains and into caves, searching for meaning in the seams of unfamiliar land.
IV. Chest: The final relic is the reliquary itself. Veined wood swirls with
burls and numerous anomalies, fusing impossibly with its glass
window and shadowed stones. It opens like a mouth, studs along
the lid resembling molars. There is no evidence of internal organs,
but the substructure is intricate—almost an inner dermis, a
skeleton, a soul.
The last month of the year we named in honor of this box, whether it be beast or merely a container for the dead:
24. Casket, Decorated and Soot-Stained
At the conclusion of the year, we celebrate our find with a festival to rival all others. Archaeologists and biologists, exospecialists and chaplains, historians and children gather in the city that once was. Knee-deep in ash, we paint ourselves in the colors of the horizon and remember the lives of beings we never met in places we never chanced to visit.
As the light fades, we set fires on every hill and search the alien sky. Constellations wheel above us, their shapes still in progress as we settle into this new home, drawing meaning where we can. This civilization may yet yield its secrets to our waiting minds.
One day, our saints will rise anew.
Marisca Pichette is a queer author and bone-collector based in Massachusetts, on Pocumtuck and Abenaki land. More of her work appears in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Vastarien, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, and others. She is the winner of the 2022 F(r)iction Spring Literary Contest and has been nominated for the Best of the Net, Pushcart, Utopia, and Dwarf Stars awards. Her speculative poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, is out now from Android Press.
