The Horrid Glory of Its Wings

By elizabeth bear

illustration by john jude palencar

“Speaking of livers,” the unicorn said, “Real magic can never be made by offering up someone else’s liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that.”

—Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

* * *

My mother doesn’t know about the harpy.

My mother, Alice, is not my real mom. She’s my foster mother, and she doesn’t look anything like me. Or maybe I don’t look anything like her. Mama Alice is plump and soft and has skin like the skin of a plum, all shiny dark purple with the same kind of frosty brightness over it, like you could swipe it away with your thumb.

I’m sallow—Mama Alice says olive—and I have straight black hair and crooked teeth and no real chin, which is okay because I’ve already decided nobody’s ever going to kiss me.

I’ve also got lipodystrophy, which is a fancy doctor way of saying I’ve grown a fatty buffalo hump on my neck and over each shoulder blade from the antiretrovirals, and my butt and legs and cheeks are wasted like an old lady’s. My face looks like a dog’s muzzle, even though I still have all my teeth.

For now. I’m going to have to get the wisdom teeth pulled this year while I still get state assistance, because my birthday is in October and then I’ll be eighteen. If I start having problems with them after then, well forget about it.

There’s no way I’d be able to afford to get them fixed.

* * *

The harpy lives on the street, in the alley behind my building, where the dumpster and the winos live.

34 comments

1.  mamculuna
Tuesday December 08, 2009 09:54am EST

Wow. That story. It's amazing. Thanks.

2.  Asakiyume
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 10:09am EST

I love what the harpy says about turning rot into bronze, and I very much like when Desiree first starts wondering about whether the harpy can fly, and thinks about whether she can help the harpy.

The illustration is beautiful, too.

3.  Grey Walker
Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:22am EST

That's gorgeous. And that illustration will haunt me.

4.  Caitrin a puxill
Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:22am EST

Beautiful picture.

The story is very compelling. I was drawn into this girl's life, her thoughts, her musings. That made the ending all the more disappointing. I had hoped that she could soar, while life lasted; suicide isn't an answer.

5.  Asakiyume
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:25am EST

@Caitrin a puxill (4.)

I hadn't thought it necessarily suicide--we don't know if she falls or is transformed.

6.  matociquala
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:26am EST

Caitrin @4: so you think she killed herself? That's a very interesting interpretation.

Thank you all so much for your comments.

7.  erzebet
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:33am EST

Thank you for blowing my mind. o.O

8.  very moving
Tuesday December 08, 2009 12:12pm EST

as someone with lipodystrophy and who takes or has taken those meds i could relate to that aspect.
(tho i turned poz as a male adult)
the viewpoint is nicely done.
the non-happy but non truely tragic ending ,merely grim and offering a choice, is the kind of thing i like about your writing.

i understand wanting more than just the safest course as well.
it's why i left sf and moved back to europe despite being poz.

i expect this will show up in some best of collection next year.

beautiful painting as well.
is this storie for a ya collection ?

9.  AnitaCroft
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 12:30pm EST

I love this story, very grim and yet hopeful. I do feel that she was somehow transformed at the end.
Thank you for this!

10.  matociquala
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 12:37pm EST

very @8 I have and have had friends with HIV/AIDS, so this story is very close to my heart on that front.

I have no further plans for this story at this time, but of course I am open to developments.

Anita @9 I think so too. But I could be wrong.

11.  A'tuin
Tuesday December 08, 2009 01:07pm EST

Oh, just lovely. it's dark and sad, which is kind of what I need just now. Thanks.

12.  Amal El-Mohtar
Tuesday December 08, 2009 01:22pm EST

This is an amazing story. Your prose -- this is so weird to say, and yet it's how I feel about it, and I mean this as a synonym of awesome -- is like lifting weights. Every sentence feels so thorough, so deliberate, and in reading it I feel myself going through that exertion, feel muscle fibres tearing to remake themselves more tightly. The physicality of it awes me.

I love the ending. I love that it's poised on the edge of as many possibilities as she is. I love the examination, the back and forth on that last page, the connection to the opening quote. It's just so GREAT.

13.  ericmarin
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 01:56pm EST

I really enjoyed this story, and I particularly liked the ending.

14.  glinda
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 07:24pm EST

As usual, when reading your work, I have no words.

15.  TexAnne
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 07:48pm EST

I have discovered the thing people will write dissertatons about someday: all of your characters have agency. It's been obvious for years, of course, but this story brought it home to me.

And the picture is unutterably beautiful. If I had a decent printer I'd put it on my wall.

16.  Skogkatt
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 08:59pm EST

Both the story and the picture are gorgeous.

17.  matociquala
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 09:04pm EST

Thanks again, guys.

Amar @12, that's kind of how I felt about it too--I have always felt like you can choose the harpy's life or the mundane life, but you have to pick one--and they are both valid and valuable choices. It's the Peter Pan thing: you can be Pan, or you can be Wendy. There is no middle road. Alas.

TexAnne @15 ... how would one write a story about somebody with no agency?

And make it interesting?

Okay, now I feel challenged!

18.  TexAnne
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 09:05pm EST

Bear @17, you wouldn't. Other people have done it, but not made it interesting.

19.  Edmund Schweppe
Tuesday December 08, 2009 10:33pm EST

Gorgeous writing and gorgeous artwork. Not comfortable writing, by any means. But gorgeous.

20.  thereallinda
Tuesday December 08, 2009 10:42pm EST

the story is wonderful, thank you so much for writing it and making it available online.
i have a special attraction to vultures, so the vulture-like quality of your harpy made it that much more special for me. the illustration is gorgeous.
soaring with those bronze wings...

21.  Tanya Avakian
Tuesday December 08, 2009 10:48pm EST

There are many levels to that story. It's extremely powerful and the end is heartbreaking for reasons I do not entirely understand. Your interpretation--that one is mundane or not--is one I hadn't even thought of.

It owes an obvious family resemblance to "The White Donkey" by Le Guin, and there's also some of "The Women Men Don't See" by Tiptree, but it's all yours.

And it reminds me a little of "Grave of the Fireflies." I don't quite know why.

22.  matociquala
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday December 08, 2009 11:03pm EST

Tanya @21, I don't mean to imply that that is the ONLY way to spin the ending. That's just the one that kicks me in the swuid, so to speak.

thereallinda @20, I had wanted to write a Harpy story for years, and then in 2007 I was privileged to meet a vulture and listen to a presentation about her, and I knew I was in business.

It only took me two more years to write the story after that.

23.  Tanya Avakian
Wednesday December 09, 2009 01:43am EST

Yes, there are lots of interpretations one can give the ending. It always amazes me how much a story can be about.

I meant rather that I just never thought of it that way, though it's obvious in some ways--it also makes it a companion of sorts to "The White Donkey" to see it that way, because the girl doesn't go off with the unicorn in that story and in this one she does choose the harpy (I think--even that isn't entirely clear).

Oh, and I also think of "The Ring" by Isak Dinesen. Which may be online somewhere (it's quite a short story). That got me on a similar level.

24.  Tanya Avakian
Wednesday December 09, 2009 01:46am EST

Maybe it gets to me to think of it with this interpretation because I'm working on a piece of fiction where this comes up. That one can get what one wants, in the form of some unusual power or at least an unusual, set-apart way of life, and the implications can still be heartbreaking. I've got a duel of sorts going on between two equally matched people who chose the harpy, so to speak.

25.  BunnyM
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday December 09, 2009 06:17am EST

Beautiful, unease-granting work, as always, Bear.

Wonderfully evocative artwork to go with it, too.

Anita @9: I do feel that she was somehow transformed at the end.

I'd argue that from the end point of the story, whether she chooses to jump/chooses magic/chooses the mundane life/slips and falls without making any choice at all, she will be transformed permanently.

Myself, I like the liminality of the way this story ends most of all, which is saying something, as I adore everything else about it, too.

26.  AnitaCroft
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday December 09, 2009 03:21pm EST

I think that every time you make a choice you are transformed in some way.

27.  Valan
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday December 09, 2009 06:28pm EST

Wow. Its a very moving story, thank you for posting it online. Completely Wonderful.

I especially love the imagery of the sunlight transforming the harpy, and image of the sunrise that complete's Desiree's transformation at the end.

28.  jeffy
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday December 09, 2009 09:19pm EST

Heartbreaking and inspiring, terrifying and exultant. "Horrid glory" indeed.

In the interest of polishing, there's a typo in the second paragraph of page five: "with" where "which" should be.

29.  dwg
Wednesday December 09, 2009 10:21pm EST

Powerful stuff, Bear.

For me the question is, does she need to become the harpy, or is she already the harpy.

30.  JoeIriarte
VIEW ALL BY · Wednesday December 09, 2009 10:28pm EST

I wonder if anybody else identified with Mama Alice a bit? I'm an adoptive parent of medically needy kids from DCF custody. For what it's worth, I think you did a good job of capturing the conflicts endemic to that situation.

31.  rpresser
Thursday December 10, 2009 05:21pm EST

Bear @17: Given that there are (at least) millions of actual live people on the planet who have no agency, or at least believe and act as if they have none, it should certainly be possible.

32.  rpresser
Thursday December 10, 2009 05:21pm EST

Wait -- "act as if they have no agency"? What gibberish am I spouting?

33.  DCS
Thursday December 10, 2009 05:30pm EST

So from my entirely mundane point of view: Efavirenz can cause hallucinations (and depression). What if this is all in her head? Oops. At least her hallucinatory world is interesting.

34.  Reziac
Thursday December 10, 2009 05:37pm EST

I had the other posters' thoughts, like, is this real? or is this suicide?

But the one that sticks with me is, "What if the harpy lied?"

(And if so, what did it lie about?)

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