The first time that Michael visits the chapel, he cries for hours. His breasts have just begun to grow, and he does not know why his flesh, which used to suit him so well, now feels so strange. His father, a tight-lipped man with a bald head and a thin, skeletal belly, tells him that these changes are natural. He tells Michael that the blood between his legs is because of Eve’s sin in the garden, and that the swelling in his chest is natural for a woman of his age. Michael has trouble understanding all of this. It is a very confusing time for him, and he has no one to turn to except God.
The two of them are traveling the coast, hoping to find some safe harbor, when they spot the grey stone spire. Eager for reprieve from the growing storm around them, they approach, and are welcomed by the monks who constitute the convent. Michael’s father thanks them profusely, citing the rarity that a woman be allowed into a recluse such as this. The monks look at him oddly, and then move their glances back and forth between Michael and his father. Michael is confused by this encounter, but is mostly just glad to be out of the rain.
They lead Michael and his father further in. They offer them bread and wine, which Michael refuses. His father shares not his hesitation and drinks greedily, with supplicant gulps. By the time they finish their meal, the storm has begun to fade. The stone walls hang high around them, stained glass gleaming with radiant light, while the silent brothers manning its station look at Michael with kind, understanding eyes. His father keeps him close. He closes his eyes and prays. He prays to be seen, to be known by something other than himself. He prays to God, over and over and over, in an unyielding stream. He prays so much that the words lose their meaning, until he is no longer speaking French. He prays in something different, something not human in its weight.
Outside, the sea howls as high waves pound the rugged coast, and rivers of rain splash off the sloped roof before pooling into moats. Michael feels as if he is sinking. The sound of water on the cobble spills throughout the wide chest of the chapel’s nave, echoing off the stone walls like beams of light reflected in a mirror. This sound, now something other than just water, rings around him. It is a deep, pulsing sound, like a heartbeat. When Michael looks up to the ceiling, it is coming from the ground, but when he puts his ear to the ground, it is coming from the ceiling. Michael imagines that he is being swallowed whole. It is October 8th, 1328, and for the first time, Michael has felt God.
Gim is not a spiritual person. If they were, they would have spat the name of some deity as they botched the landing, the heavy weight of the ship’s supports slipping against an incline that they hadn’t noticed. But Gim isn’t spiritual, neither versed in the Interior Pantheon nor in any of the named or unnamed Gods of the shattered outer systems. Instead, they simply say, “Fuck.”
Across from them, Priy lets out a nervous laugh.
“I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing.”
“I do,” Gim insists. “Just rusty.” Then the tremors cease and the shifting cockpit stills. An imperfect landing, but the thing’s in one piece. Enough to tease a small smile from Gim. Not bad for their first time moonhopping in months.
But Priy has another perspective. “Those cycles at the way-station softened you up,” she teases.
“Oh, shut it.”
Gim is blushing as they speak. They both feel it. That they are both happy to be together again. It had been a long while since they spoke, and it was not the most amicable of partings. But time has helped to heal that. When the holocall from her came in, Gim read it with their heart pulsing. Priy is coming home from the Preo-Militia. Done fighting to free the outer settlements from Interior control. Good work, needed work, but Priy is coming home.
“Feel free to fly it yourself next time.” They huff, hauling themselves up from the control console. “Let’s see if the famous freedom fighter knows her way around a C-class lander.”
Gim is lashing out playfully. Since the time they spent together in the academies, their life has been duller and less nobly spent than Priy’s. Long summers at the way-stations. Gambling. There is money and jest in the crowded corners of life, if you know where to look, and Gim knows where to look. But they are happy to be here with their old friend. Scavenging together. Just like the good old days.
Priy laughs. She doesn’t know her way around a C-class lander.
On the trip here, she had told herself that she wasn’t going to flirt, but Gim is just so beautiful in the cold light of the cockpit. She breathes in the smell of batteries, of which Gim always smells, and it is not unpleasant. It reminds her of old memories, old feelings. Suddenly, without warning, she leans across the console from the passenger’s chair and plants a kiss on Gim’s cheek.
When they slip the oxygen masks over their faces and step down the landing bridge, they are holding hands. They are on Dis-7, the seventh moon of the gas giant Dis, somewhere in the thirtieth ring from the Interior core. There was once a population here, and after that there were Interior colonists here, but now there are neither. According to Priy’s records, no one has lived on Dis-7 since the remaining Miayshi settlements were glassed by Interior incinerator ships seventy cycles ago.
The slope of the behemoth planet hangs heavy in the sky above them, all bright green and pulsing with storms. It is beautiful, daunting. Dormant geysers dot the landscape ahead of them, and methane-based vegetation towers in swaying stalks. Gim extends a finger towards a building sitting at the base of a small mountain, half-buried beneath rubble and moss.
“There,” they pant. “The refinery your contact gave us. Let’s hope their intel’s on the up and up.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Priy smirks.
They make their way towards the old building. It was once a Miayshi temple, but after the glassings it was converted into an atmospheric fuel-condensing station manned by interior colonists. Long since abandoned, it stands grim and empty before the two ex-lovers, and as they bound towards it, their thick heads of hair bob, synchronized in the low gravity.
The morning after their stay at the chapel, Michael and his father return to the road. The monks leave them with a parting gift of dried meats, warmly accepted. One of the monks, the eldest among the clergy, leans down and pats Michael on the head. His teeth are crooked, kind, eyes gleaming with an understanding that pierces Michael. He returns the smile, and then the rough hand of his father quickly whisks him away. The cotton of his shirt catches on his sore breasts, and Michael’s face flushes scarlet. His father marches back towards the road, and then they are both gone.
Michael won’t return to the chapel for seven years, but when he does, he will be greeted with open arms. The brothers will embrace him in remembrance, they will compliment his new haircut and his new clothes. The eldest among them, the one with whom he shared that glance, will smile faintly as he looks at the strapping lad Michael has become. Just before age takes the old man, and he ascends to the kingdom of God, he welcomes Michael among their ranks.
They bury him in the crypt where generations before him lie. Michael thinks it the most wonderful place he has ever seen. He finds comfort in the bones and the dust and the dark. He thinks that one day, it will be nice to lie among them here, climbing together towards Heaven’s tall gates in brotherhood.
Dust has overtaken the building. It covers the golden roots that have pushed their way in from outside, blanketing metal beams and old machinery, obscuring archaic dials and screens whose measurements have long since been thrown inaccurate by weather and age.
“The plasma-circum-generator should be around here somewhere,” Priy says, stepping over a large, overturned hose. “Probably not in this main section, though. I’m gonna go look in the next room. You can scavenge in here and see if you find anything good.”
“Sure,” Gim says, distracted. Priy slips through a door at the far side of the room, a flashlight in her hand, but Gim’s attention is too preoccupied to notice. They heard it when they first walked in, writing it off as just the old building creaking in the wind. But in the quiet of this chamber, they can hear it clearer. It’s a steady, two-note drumming. Almost a heartbeat, Gim notes. They put an ear to the wall, and it is coming from the ground. But when they put an ear to the ground, it is coming from the wall. There is something deep in it, something deeper than Gim’s ears can register, but the imprint of that sound is unmistakable. It rings out like a breath, like breathing. Gim’s heartbeat slows and takes the same pace as the drumming, and soon they are breathing with it too. Gim could swear that they are dancing, moving in perfect rhythm with this invisible partner.
If Gim was a spiritual person, then perhaps they would recognize this sound. If they knew more about the Miayshi people than simply their death, they would perhaps recognize this sound. They might even know that it was once given a name. But Gim is not a spiritual person, and so they don’t. They just listen. They listen with their ears and their chest and the tips of their toes touching the ground. The oxygen mask on their face is gone, they realize. They are naked before this sound. They are inside of it, caught up in the deep drum beat of its body.
Priy returning from the far room returns them to reality. She is carrying a small bulb, riddled with wires and tubes. The sound is instantly gone and Gim is once again in the main chamber of an ex-temple, ex-atmospheric fuel-condensing station, currently scavenging ground with their former lover who left them for revolution.
“Look what I found!” Priy says, sing-songy, boasting the device.
Gim takes a moment to re-center themselves. They shoot a warm smile at Priy, who is looking on with pride.
“I thought it would be bigger.”
And then the two of them are laughing, making their way back to the ship, carrying their prize close to their chests like children.
It has been seven years since Michael first came to the chapel. In the interim, he has dealt with the loss of his father, the death of a fellow monk, and the news of impending raids on coastal monasteries. It is a trying time, but Michael has faith in the Lord’s deliverance.
He is studying the work of an Arabic contemporary when he hears the sound of someone rapping on the chapel doors. Hastily, but with great effort, he rises to attend to the knocker. His back has grown sore, what with the constant bending over and writing, but he is happy to ignore the pain. It is nothing compared to the suffering of his old life.
When he opens the door, there is a young girl standing before him. She is wearing a man’s garb, and has light stubble along her face, but he recognizes her as a woman. Tears are running down her cheeks, he realizes, glistening in the light of the summer sun.
“Oh dear,” he mutters, sincere in his concern. “Please, step inside, let me fetch you some food.”
The little woman follows him into the cool air of the church. He rushes to the kitchen and prepares some bread and water, telling his brothers quickly of the pained girl waiting on him. She is thankful when he brings her the meal.
“Tell me,” he asks, “what brings you to this humble place of our Lord?”
The young girl smiles. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
Michael frowns in confusion.
“You’re the one they were talking about. The woman who became a man.”
“Why?” Michaels asks, blushing. “Are you interested in the Lord’s miracle?”
Her eyes are hungry, but she isn’t looking at her food. “How did you do it?” She asks.
“I didn’t do anything. The Lord did.”
“Well then how did you get the Lord to do it?”
“I prayed.”
“I’ve been praying. Nothing has changed.” The young woman lowers her head in grief and begins to choke out her words. “Every night, I pray to him. I pray for guidance, for hope. Please Lord, change me, I beg. Change me Lord, change me. I heard about you, and the miracle that happened, and so I set off to find you. It has taken me several months.”
“Ah, I see. You are like me, then?”
“Yes. I want to become a woman.”
Michael smiles. He lays his hands on the woman’s shoulder. “May I ask your name?”
“Louis.”
“Louis, you should eat this bread. You look hungry. Lay your worries aside for a moment, and allow yourself to eat.”
Louis looks at the bread on her lap, and then obliges. She is hungrier in her belly than she thought, she notes, as she tears into the warm flesh.
“Louis, I wish I could tell you how to reproduce what happened to me. I wish I could. But I fear I do not possess the faculties to accurately describe it. My vision—the vision that changed me, eludes me to this day. I remember some of it, yes. I remember the sound, the great drumming heartbeat of heaven. It came like a whisper at first, and then like a shout, and then like a clap of thunder, roaring out from inside of me. And the flames, I remember them too. They billowed before me like flesh opening in welcome. It burned so bright that the embers spat white hot and fiery, but there was more to it—something beyond the flames that I cannot recall. There was a figure, perhaps of our Lord, I am not sure, that I saw. But its precise nature proved to be ineffable, for as soon as my vision was over, the memory of it was gone. But I remember a name, a name that must have been some angel or a creature of God’s will, for upon hearing the syllables hit my ears, a great warmth spilled throughout me. And there was a sweetness, too. ‘Gim’, this was the name. The name of the miracle that changed me.”
“But how, Father, can I have this vision too? I need it. You must understand, more than anyone else, how much I need it.”
Michael smiles at the urgency in her voice. He remembers that same urgency in himself very well. “Louis, I do not know that I can give this to you in the way that you seek. But, if it is of any comfort, let me share a secret: the vision did not change my body. I am still, in the flesh, the same as I was before it. I bleed still monthly, and beneath these robes I have breasts. It was my soul that changed, Louis. It was my soul that changed.”
Neither of the two say anything for a while. Louis keeps eating, her face pointed towards the floor. She is mulling over what Michael has just said, thinking greatly on his past and her future and the hope that they could be bound by similar fate. But one detail from his account sticks out to her. The name of the vision. Gim. This is a name that Louis will keep in her head for the rest of her life, and when she hears the drumming herself, some six years down the line, she will know its name—its true, impossible name, as well. And when the vision ends she will forget. And when the vision ends her soul will be changed.
“Who’s the fence again?”
“An old friend. I trust him.”
Gim shifts weight between their feet uncomfortably. “I don’t like waiting out here like this. We look suspicious.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ve made deals here before.”
Gim has never been to this way-station. They’ve heard of it, though. It’s famous for its lack of Interior presence. This absence invites other problems, however. Gim eyes a tattooed woman wearing the red uniform of the Shattered Rim. She has four arms—implants from clone flesh. A common surgery all the way out here, so far from law.
“Why isn’t he here yet?”
“He’s probably just running late. I wouldn’t worry.”
Gim does worry, though. Priy doesn’t know that they owe Shattered Rim a debt, and they haven’t found a good time to mention it yet. It seems less than productive to bring it up now.
“If he isn’t here by the hour we are leaving. This place is dangerous.”
“Aren’t you the one who lived in a way-station for six cycles? I should be the nervous one.”
“That was different. I was in the Interior.”
“As if that makes it better.”
“Look, not everyone is able to take the risks that you are, okay? I had to watch out for myself. I don’t like them, but I learned to live with them.”
“You’re being reductive.”
Gim shifts uncomfortably again. They search for words to reply, but before they can choose the right ones, a voice interrupts them.
“Priy! Good to see you!”
The man approaching them is tall, broad, and his belly looks warm. The strap of his work coveralls hangs loose over his shoulder, revealing a large tattoo of a double crescent moon. Gim doesn’t recognize it as the symbol of the Miayshi, but they are observant enough to realize that its display is intentional.
“Mael!” Priy responds, stepping forward to offer him a hug.
“It’s good to see you,” he says. “We’ve missed you on the homefront.”
“I’ve missed it too. I’ll return soon, I promise.”
It takes Gim a moment to put the pieces together.
“Wait,” they mutter, “are you with the Preo-Militia?” Their voice drops as they say those last words, fearful of being overheard, despite the lack of guards. ‘Priy, you didn’t tell me that’s how you knew the fence.”
There is silence for a moment, but it is broken by Mael. “Who’s the friend, Priy?”
“We’re not friends. We just work together.” Gim says.
“Gim—”
“And wait, what do you mean you’ll ‘return soon’? I thought you retired?”
“I never told you that.”
“It was implied.”
There is silence again. Again, Mael breaks it. “I don’t want to interrupt,” he croons, “but I do have a schedule to stick to. I hope you can understand. Do you have the circumgenerator?”
Priy nods, and then pulls it out from her coat, handing it to Mael.
“Thank you, truly, thank you, Priy. This will save lives. And thank you too, Gim. I hope to see you again.” And then just like that, before Gim can protest, he is gone.
“Priy, what the fuck?”
“What, Gim?”
“He didn’t pay us!” Gim starts up to pursue, but Priy grabs their arm and halts them. “Priy, what the fuck?” they repeat.
“Gim, I’m sorry I wasn’t one hundred percent truthful with you. But I wanted you to come along with me on this mission. I had to make sure you would see it through to the end.”
“Mission?”
“There is a larger world out there.”
“You’re talking about the militia.”
“I’m talking about people’s lives.”
“You lied to me. Again.”
“Gim—listen to what I’m offering. You’re a good pilot. Do you really want to waste away the rest of your life?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Dying is a part of life.”
Gim frowns. They have no response. Furious at both Priy and themself, they spin around and begin to walk away. Again, Priy catches their arm.
“Just… Just think about it.”
Their eyes meet. But then Gim breaks away, and then they walk away, and just like that they are gone, lost in the crowd of the way-station, and Priy is once again alone.
Michael gets a letter that the monastery to the north has been raided by pirates. For weeks, he and the other monks prepare fortifications, praying to God for protection. But the pirates never come. One morning, Michael rises, and the seagulls are yipping, and the seafoam is brackish, and he knows that the danger has passed.
Priy returns to the front lines. The Preo-Militia has just begun an official assault on the Interior fortress on Gethal. The going is tough and lots of good soldiers die. She watches a blast from an incinerator cannon reduce one of her friends to ash, and for a moment, she imagines Gim’s face on his crumbling body as it swiftly drifts into a thousand motes of dust.
Gim is taken by the Shattered Rim. They get picked up on the way-station, mere minutes after leaving Priy. They spend several weeks inside of a makeshift holding cell, and then are released after being relieved of their left pinky. The Shattered Rim deals in blood, and luckily for Gim, their debt was fairly insignificant. Now paid, Gim walks free.
They don’t hear the drumming again for a good while. They are in a gambling den, drunk off rum, when it comes. Gim thinks it odd timing. There is no cause for it, no reason for it to return now, after all these years. Gim has never even considered the possibility that it could return—they assumed it was terrestrial, bound in some way to Dis-7. They thought it was coming from the moon itself. Since Gim is not spiritual, they never learned about the Miayshi religion. Perhaps, if Mael were here, he could explain it to them, but Mael died on Gethal, fighting beside Priy. So Gim knows nothing of it. Instead, they put their ear to the wall, and it is coming from the floor. But when they put their ear to the floor, it is coming from the wall.
Some say it is living, some say it is inert, like gravity, or light. Many believe it is a bit of both. The Miayshi said that it binds together things that would otherwise be unbound. Like a string reaching across the cosmos, across time, against dimensions, linking a singular point to another. It is believed to be formless and impossible to perceive, but some have attested to have witnessed it. Those who have had such visions claim to have heard a great thumping, and a white flame, and a figure that they could not remember. If Gim was spiritual, they would know this, but they aren’t, and so they don’t. But when they see the flames, white hot and spitting light, they can hear two names:
A true name, impossible to hear, impossible to speak, writhing with both life and fire. This name they do not remember, for it is unknowable to them. But the second name, this they remember. It fills them with a warmth, and with a sweetness, and for the first time in a long time they feel at peace upon hearing it. The name is “Michael,” and the figure before them, standing in the midst of the flames, is a young man with a pale, moonish face. His shoulders are weak, hidden beneath long robes. There is a look in his eyes that Gim understands, although they do not know how they understand it. But it is there, calling out to them, screaming to be seen. “Please, God, change me,” his eyes say. Gim can see the desperation in them. They can see the pain. Gim nods at him in knowing, and then he is changed.
Michael dies of influenza at forty-three. His brothers lay him to rest in the crypt beneath the chapel, like so many before him. In time, his corpse is defleshed by little crawling things, until only his bones remain.
Just before his death, Michael asks a scribe to record his final thoughts. He narrates his account of his vision, and the impossible sound which came from two places at once. He describes the drumming, and the flames, and the figure. He tries so hard to remember who it was. Not Jesus, this he knows. But he can’t remember. Besides this omission, it is an excellent account. Michael is thorough, precise, and his prose is beautiful.
Gim decides to join the Militia. They don’t really have a reason. Nothing has convinced them. They just get up one day and do it.
Just before Michael sees the Kingdom of God, he is guided past a river of jewels by a figure. Although he does not recognize them now, this is the same figure that he saw in his vision—the one he tried so hard to recollect. They stand tall, their dark skin glistening in the light of the planet above them, all green and full of storms. They are wearing a dusty leather coat, worn pilot gloves, and a scarlet-red shirt. They smell of batteries, which is a smell Michael does not recognize. It is not unpleasant.
An explosion rips up the earth beside Gim. They are manning a turret, but the blast shreds it to pieces. Around them, the Preo-Militia are dying. The Interior forces have more ships and better guns and they care less about tending to the wounded.
“Can you hear me?” Priy pleads. Gim tries to center their vision on her face but it is difficult. “Sweetie, my love, can you hear me?”
Gim reaches up an arm and touches her face. Priy is panicking. A large piece of metal shrapnel is lodged in Gim’s chest.
“I love you,” they say. The words are difficult to get out.
“Fuck fuck fuck.”
Another explosion tears past them. Behind Priy, a young member of the militia is vaporized by a pulse cannon. “This is my fault,” Priy whimpers. “I brought you here, this is my fault.”
Gim shakes their head. They want to say that they don’t blame her, and that they are happy to give their life fighting for something that matters. They want to say that they forgive her. But they don’t. Instead, they just smile, and then die.
The Miayshi people call their god something that roughly translates to thread. It is a thing of linkage, taking disparate points in space-time and connecting them.
In 2024, an article will be published after Michael’s skeleton is found in the crypt of a French monastery. Unraveling the Mystery of Female Remains Found in an All Male Chapel. The article will posit several theories—that Michael was the wife of a prominent local lord, that he was the secret lover of one of the monks, that he was buried there by mistake. But in Chicago, a young boy who doesn’t yet know that he is a boy will know the truth.
And then elsewhere, in a very different time, a young child will stand above where Gim is buried.
“There was a huge battle here, once,” an old woman will tell her. “Many people died fighting.”
The child will nod her head, but she will not be listening. Instead, she will put her ear to the sky, and the drumming will be coming from the mountain. But when she puts her ear to the mountain, it will be coming from the sky.
| Maxine Sophia Wolff is a transgender writer from Virginia. Her work has appeared before in Fusion Fragment, Seize the Press, Planet Scumm, and more. She also works as a writer and narrative designer in the video games industry, and self-publishes interactive fiction online. |  |