《The Garden Moon》 Chapter 1: Liza As I stepped out of the terminal into the scorching heat, I took a look around the airport. Never been to LA before. LA-X is the international airport, and looking out the window, I gasped at how flat the airfield was. Never in a million years could they pull it off in New England. The scale was disorienting. After I dragged my suitcase inside, a young man wearing a cowboy hat and jeans stopped in front of me. Howdy, I almost said. He was a big guy, tall and lanky, but his eyes bore none of the laidback attitude his posture would portray. He was sharp, in the way I like to think I¡¯m sharp. ¡°You have to be Gunther,¡± I said. He laughed. ¡°And you got to be Ms. Bailey.¡± With one hand he took my luggage and lifted it smoothly off the ground. I had to jog to catch up to him, and I thought with some amusement that I would have no trouble finding him if I did happen to lose him. His cowboy hat sailed a foot above the crowd. Out front he found a blue sedan and popped the trunk. While he put my bag in, I leaned over next to him. ¡°What¡¯s a girl like Tammy Faye doing asking me for my help? Did you know she was a televangelist? Am I crazy? Be honest if you can. I took this job half expecting to be fired on sight when she realizes who I am.¡± Gunther turned and eyed me. ¡°She might not have noticed.¡± ¡°But as far as I can tell, she and I have nothing in common, and I don¡¯t have the kind of reputation to attract customers from across the country.¡± He shrugged. ¡°You can ask her. But not today. Hop in. I can drop you off at the hotel.¡± And that¡¯s how I wound up in LA for the first time. The next day, I got up before my alarm, and walked around restlessly on the thick carpeted floors of the hotel. Breakfast in the hotel lobby was lucky charms out of a plastic container. The hotel lobby smelled fresh as an endless summer. My ride came exactly on time. When I caught a glimpse of the car and driver through the round windowpane: he was a tall, weatherbeaten man in a deep red and green flannel, with a squint in his eye and a stern set to his jaw. Somehow seeing Gunther sitting in his car, I felt like I got him. I saw the silhouette of a worn leather cowboy hat on his head. The car was old, frosty blue with beige hubcaps and faded leather seats. As I navigated out the spinning hotel door, he hunched over to look out at me through the window, and his look was casual but sharply discerning. I felt he wasn¡¯t looking at me the way normal people do. I felt like he was looking into me. With a practiced motion he leaned over and popped the door open. Looking at him through the open door, it occurred to me how out-of-place he was in the car. He belonged on horseback, wind in his hair. ¡°Gunther,¡± he said, in case I¡¯d forgotten. ¡°Ms. Mennser sent me to pick you up.¡± Pulling out of the hotel¡¯s semi-circular driveway, Gunther drove me to where Tammy Mennser lived. Up the boulevard lined with beach houses, screened with evenly spaced bushes, palm trees, and deep evergreens for shade. I saw Tammy soon as we pulled in. White hair that curled at the end like elk antler clouds about her jawline, and a face both serene and remote, a judging face, a face that offered no warmth or sigh of approval. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. She sat under a white arch, surveying the pool, its aquamarine tiles and the sun-baked patio around it. Flower beds lay beyond the patio, in view of a generous balcony of bleached wood, like driftwood. A white stone chimney rose above the pale orange roofing, and thin, glittering windows glaring out from the tops of private lofts and bedrooms inside. The cowboy and I approached her up a winding cobblestone walkway. She did not turn her head, but stared resolutely into the distance, over the flower beds, the groves of palm trees, the gentle slope of sand and dry grass down to the roiling blue and white foam breakers, out to sea. We stopped in front of her, our feet coming to rest on the echoey stone walkway. She turned as if she had known we were there, stood up, and shook my hand. Her grip surprised me. ¡°You¡¯re the girl,¡± she said. The first surprise of many; her voice was a southern drawl. ¡°Eliza,¡± I said. She asked my last name and I told her. ¡°Tamara Menser.¡± She let my hand go. ¡°Like anything to drink?¡± I shook my head and sat down next to the lady, fingering the armrests. When Tamara had sat down carefully, much slower than when she got up, she eased herself back into the cushions. ¡°I read your book.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Based on a true story, really?¡± ¡°As much as an autobiography can be.¡± ¡°Meaning?¡± I shrugged. ¡°No tell me. I want to know. ¡°Okay. The marketing team says it¡¯s based on a true story in order to trick the audience into thinking of it as real. It sort of doesn¡¯t matter if it¡¯s based on a true story. What would that even mean?¡± ¡°Well, you talk just like in the book. And I like the way you think. The way you think about things. I like your point of view. You can help me. That¡¯s what I think. Your book demonstrates a kind of precision and thoroughness in regards to your research.¡± I paused, to let her go on, but no. ¡°You want me to do some research for you?¡± I said. ¡°Indeed.¡± ¡°I flew a long way to see you today.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve been well compensated. Maybe you wonder why I didn¡¯t just tell you over the phone?¡± ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s pointless to wonder because I don¡¯t have room for a job right now.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± ¡°You¡¯re aware I¡¯m a journalist?¡± ¡°Indeed.¡± ¡°Well, usually I publish my research, in a story.¡± ¡°Hear me out,¡± she smiled. ¡°I¡¯m aware of your interest in journalist. My offer isn¡¯t money alone. I have connections in the publishing world¡ªI was a TV presenter once, and then a writer. You might find my network useful, but¡ª¡± she raised a hand to silence me. ¡°I was going to suggest that, assuming you can solve the case, why not write an article about it?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Think about it. You¡¯d have to move out here, but I can help with that too.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t even told me what we¡¯re talking about.¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t exactly given me room to breathe. Is everyone from Boston like you?¡± ¡°You should know. You went to college in Boston.¡± ¡°I thought I went to college in Tennessee,¡± she said, smiling. I shrugged. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m impressed, but weren¡¯t you partway through refusing my offer?¡± ¡°I want to take your offer. I¡¯m enticed, and the pay is¡ªI mean, I wish I could. But I can¡¯t.¡± ¡°Well, I respect that. In that case, best of luck to you.¡± ¡°Out of curiosity, what was the case?¡± ¡°A five-year-old boy murdered his own father.¡± ¡°Right. Best of luck to you.¡± Chapter 2: A Straight Razor The cool razor slid down my neck. The scent, eyes shut: warm shaving cream on the back of my neck. Spring air blew in the front door, and out the back. ¡°That¡¯s about it,¡± said the barber. I blinked my eyes open; admired the cut. She was younger than me. Thirty-two I guessed. Fit, and rocking a mullet with a streak of hard pink. Wore a hot pink choker too. The razor hung casually in her hand. This was her third time cutting my hair. With her free hand, the barber dried my neck with a towel. ¡°Looks good,¡± I said, checking myself out. The barber admired it herself. ¡°An-hour-and-five-minutes good?¡± She put her wristwatch where I could see. I flashed her a smile. ¡°We started late.¡± ¡°You showed up late.¡± Taking the cape off me with one hand, she beat their hair out of her razors, and threw the dirty towel on the far end of her desk with the other. With a hitch in my right hip, I worked my way up from the old wrought-iron chair. It buckled as I hopped off, but the barber ignored this. Chair wasn¡¯t broken. Chair had character. The girl led me past the row of chairs, where another four worked on clients in a harsh light that did nothing to illuminate their faces. A curtain fell into place behind us, and the air took on a smoky quality. I took a seat in one of the two beat-up leather chairs. She sat down behind the counter, and I asked her how much I owed. When she told me how much, I gave her two twenties over the counter. ¡°Just give me five back,¡± I said. ¡°Thanks.¡± She flipped through a book of dates. ¡°Six weeks good?¡± ¡°Please,¡± I said, but it came out stiff because I had just noticed a woman in the corner of the room, watching me. Her gaze bored into me, and it flashed through my mind that she might know me, professionally. A cigarette hung in front of her lips, grasped in two fingers. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The barber got me down for six weeks later, and I think I tipped again¡ª I don¡¯t know how much. I was distracted. Might have been ten dollars. It doesn¡¯t matter. The woman was watching me, and I recognized her. When I got up to leave, she followed me, and when I stepped out the open front door onto the sidewalk, she locked step with me. On the street, I relaxed. If things had gone down indoors, things would have ended badly. She was sixty, but she was fit in a way yoga bands won¡¯t do for you. The cropped denim jacket I¡¯d seen on my way into the hair salon was slung over one shoulder. The other shoulder had a red tattoo. We were on mainstreet, just before Six, and a couple of warehouses filled our view. Little shops lined the street on both sides, and cars had to push through the stream of pedestrians. ¡°Got a light?¡± I shook my head. ¡°How¡¯d you get a light for that one?¡± She dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, no break in her step. ¡°The girl in back lit it for me.¡± ¡°They let you smoke in there?¡± ¡°Showed her my carry.¡± Sure she did. We kept walking. But I wondered what she had under the denim jacket¡ªif it would come into play. I stopped walking. She faced me. ¡°You know why I¡¯m here.¡± ¡°Maybe,¡± I took a look around. Street was crowded. ¡°Are you here to talk, or¡ª?¡± She laughed. ¡°There¡¯s a kid went missing, fifty years ago.¡± The job. ¡°You had me until ¡®fifty years ago.¡¯ What kind of job¡ª?¡± ¡°Before he went missing, his stepfather died and was buried without an autopsy. But his daughter¡ª¡± I raised a hand, but she went on. ¡°His daughter saw what happened.¡± ¡°How old was she?¡± ¡°Old enough to remember.¡± I sighed. She went on smoking. ¡°A five year old kid isn¡¯t very strong, but his stepdad was sick...¡± ¡°You think I¡¯m gonna take this job?¡± ¡°I think that kid¡¯s still alive. And Liza, this job is off the market. The client found somebody who¡¯d take the job, but if you and I could solve it first?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°But you¡¯ll think about it?¡± She insisted and her voice dropped to a whisper. ¡°You and I, we have history. The two of use together could manage it. And if you don¡¯t want my name in your records, we can leave off after that. You won¡¯t hear from me again.¡± ¡°It¡¯s that much money, huh?¡± ¡°In the right neighborhood, I could retire off it.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll think about it.¡± She¡ªyou don¡¯t need to know her name¡ªShe walked away. I knew where to find her. Thinking things over, I stood a while in the shadow of the brick warehouse. Strikes me I¡¯ve been doing a lot of that lately: standing and thinking. Maybe it¡¯s about time, I thought. Chapter 3: Mario I know people who would have smacked Mario, even if it meant getting bounced from Mario¡¯s! I wish that was me. But instead, I glared at him over my dinner. Risotto? ¡°You¡¯re a traveling journalist. As a rule, you must expect, at times, to travel.¡± ¡°Travel yes, but not across the country. Not to an island off the coast of LA. I¡¯m a country girl, Mario.¡± ¡°An island sounds relaxing. And an island is country.¡± ¡°Not this island. I looked it up. It¡¯s more densely packed than¡ª¡± I gestured aimlessly. Mario raised his fork. ¡°Cheers to that.¡± He took a sip of the red. The soft red chandelier gimmered on his jacket as he moved. The wineglass made a pleasant ring as he tapped it with a fork. ¡°I¡¯ll travel out of the country any day,¡± I said, ¡°But there¡¯s a reason for that.¡± ¡°You do not love¡ª¡± ¡°I do not love the nation of my fathers. No, Mario.¡± ¡°You would like it more if¡­ it were legal to have more than one father? It¡¯s not a bad country, sans a few unfortunate¡ª.¡± ¡°That is legal. But yeah, it¡¯s the Florida of the world.¡± He shrugged. ¡°I live in the Italy of Boston. And what¡¯s wrong with Florida?¡± ¡°You know about the Florida Man?¡± Mario grinned. His front tooth was still missing. I mean he hadn¡¯t got a fake yet. I held up a hand to try and keep his attention. ¡°In Florida, if you break the right law, the cops will shoot somebody for you. If you break the wrong law¡­¡± He sighed. ¡°Just like in Boston, just like in New York, just like in¡­¡± ¡°Well, yeah. But Florida¡ª¡± ¡°I thought it was Texas?¡± ¡°Maybe. But I¡¯ve been to Texas. I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°And soon you¡¯ll go to California.¡± He was Greek by the way. And Mario wore his hair long. And tonight he wore a loose-fitting cream colored blouse with an open collar. It looked expensive. Mario was just pulling off his jacket when the waiter came by, and he practically grabbed the younger man, pulling the man in close. They whispered rapidly in Greek before the waiter stood up and looked at me, as if calling out for help. When the waiter finally ran off, I looked expectantly at Mario. ¡°I told him to kiss the cook.¡± He said simply. But he was holding back a grin. ¡°And he doesn¡¯t know you¡¯re screwing the cook.¡± ¡°How do you know I¡¯m screwing the cook?¡± I rolled my eyes and Mario shook his head smiling. ¡°No. He hasn¡¯t the faintest idea. And I told him I wouldn¡¯t pay, otherwise. I told him, say it¡¯s from Mario.¡± ¡°Oh you are not behaving yourself tonight.¡± I began to gather my things. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Mario noticed and nodded his head solemnly. ¡°You think we¡¯d better get out of here quick, before the cook comes looking for me.¡± He was teasing me. ¡°Are you done?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Are you going to take that job? Be nice to have the apartment to myself again.¡± ¡°Rude. But yeah, I think I will take the job, it¡¯s just¡­¡± Mario glanced around and stood up. He had left a check under his plate. When I stood up, he threw an arm around me and leaned in. I leaned in too, not facing him. When Mario spoke, it was just beside my ear. ¡°Murdered last week is different from murdered fifty years ago?¡± he said, just above a murmur. I shrugged. ¡°And he didn¡¯t die well.¡± ¡°What can you mean by that?¡± ¡°The way he died. What do you think would drive a kid to do that?¡± I felt Mario nod. ¡°You think the man was abusive?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the simplest explanation, so it¡¯s probably true, but that doesn¡¯t tell the whole story.¡± ¡°Then where do you start?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a cowboy in LA. I¡¯m gonna ring him.¡± Mario squeezed my shoulder lustily, though how he managed that I cannot tell say. I rolled my eyes. ¡°Sometimes I think you¡¯re a twelve-year-old boy in the body of a man.¡± ¡°Twelve?¡± He looked insulted. ¡°I was drooling over cowboys before that!¡± ¡°There¡¯s more,¡± he said. ¡°What is holding you back right now?¡± ¡°You remember the Newspaper internship I had in high school? Mario¡¯s jaw tensed. ¡°We weren¡¯t speaking then. But yes, I remember.¡± ¡°One of my contacts found me in a hair salon today.¡± ¡°You should never have dealt with thugs.¡± ¡°I agree. But it got me that internship, and the stories they handed to me¡ªI had my finger on the pulse of everything before it happened. Everything.¡± ¡°The underworld was a bad look on you. It¡¯s a bad look on anybody. But what did they want?¡± ¡°She had a case, and thought I might want to throw in with her. My research skills plus her persuasive skills¡­¡± ¡°And?¡± ¡°It was the same damn case that Tammy Faye was gonna offer me.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me that.¡± ¡°Yeah, because I wasn¡¯t gonna take it.¡± ¡°But now? I¡¯m almost sorry I convinced you.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m not. I refused to let her pay me. I make my money as an investigative journalist, and if she were to pay me once cent for this job, it would put my loyalties into question.¡± ¡°Loyalties to whom?¡± he held the door open for me. I thanked him. ¡°Loyalty to the truth,¡± I said, ¡°And to the best practices of journalism.¡± ¡°Is your integrity under scrutiny?¡± ¡°By me it is. By the general public, no. Most people believe what they see, as long as it doesn¡¯t offend them.¡± ¡°And if it does offend them, they don¡¯t believe?¡± ¡°Did you take media literacy in middle school?¡± ¡°No¡± ¡°What about high school?¡± ¡°No indeed.¡± ¡°I think that¡¯s most people. Most schools don¡¯t even offer it. So I can¡¯t blame them. But I¡¯m a journalist. It¡¯s my job to think about these things. And I have the luxury of working independently. I don¡¯t have to meet a quota for¡­ for anybody. Long as I can pay the bills.¡± ¡°But you said you¡¯ll take the job.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to find out what happened.¡± ¡°And write the story?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°But you won¡¯t let Tammy Faye pay you.¡± I nodded. ¡°It¡¯s too late anyway. She took the offer down.¡± ¡°Even so, financially, it¡¯s foolish. Actually, it¡¯s foolish anyway. If Tammy Faye¡¯s been shopping it around to the likes of¡­¡± ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯m not about to¡ª¡± ¡°I know.¡± He held up a hand. ¡°Do not pontificate to me. You¡¯re principled. I love that about you. All I need to know is we¡¯re going to burn up the town, like old times. But! You do worry me.¡± It was half past eight when the two of us hit the pavement. Cool New-England summer nights. I was going to miss them. Even the nights are stifling in California I¡¯m told. Mario took my arm one last time, and gave it a squeeze. ¡°Going west, huh?¡± I pulled him in for a hug, and then I looked one more time. I can¡¯t say why but ever since I got the offer, I keep feeling like I won¡¯t be coming back here for a while. Boston, if this is goodbye? I shivered. Should have worn a hoodie, but I¡¯d warm up once I started moving. Chapter 4: Pioneer Species The next few weeks I set about navigating the move. I had finished college by working at a full-time job and paying my own way, with some help from the college, but I stalled afterwards. I had no concrete plan, and I had taken up seasonal work while I worked as an independent journalist on the side. I could perceive a distant future where I wrote novels, and an immediate future where I graduated school, but I had no clear vision for the island of life in the interim. I knew I would need a job, but it seemed foolish to invest my efforts in a temporary corporate gig (save me! I was only going to abandon it for writing, eventually), and so I stumbled along, ran out of money, and took whatever odd job came my way. Hunger was a powerful motivator. But I wrote a lot, considering it practice, and when I half-heartedly sent articles to a publisher (mostly for the sake of practice) and I found some modest success. I got my first check in the mail the month of graduation. so I kept it up and soon I was making a meager but real income. That set a natural fire in my pen. But I needed to move somewhere cheaper. My savings dwindled at an alarming rate, just paying rent in Boston. So when I got the offer from Tammy Faye, I was tempted. I was heavily tempted. But I stuck to my guns, and I looked for a place in LA. It wasn¡¯t much cheaper than Boston, but I tried not to let it phase me. I put ut offers, and even incorporated one into my opinion piece in a local LA newspaper, asking landlords to call me if they had any listings below $700/month. Somehow it worked, but not in the way I expected. How did I get to the apartment under the train-tracks, which was just rebuilt after the earthquake, rebuilt by an opportunistic realtor with a background in experimental architecture that he never got to use normally? At last I had found a publisher who would take my writing, and all I needed was a place to stay in California. That was her one requirement, and while the publisher herself was a brief and impactful node on the journey as a writer, this new place, the pay was much better, and the work was fulfilling, but I needed to save money so I looked for the cheapest apartment there was¡­ I found it, but it was located on an island. The real history of the summer began when I moved to Corsair. The landlord had answered my posting in the LA Times, where I posted in a kind of desperate hope to slip past the concrete inboxes and answering machines of the California landlord, and it worked. I took her offer right away because $500 a month meant I could live off my writing for the next six months, without a part-time job; I had a few projects already under way. When I looked up the property later, I discovered what the lady had been trying to tell me over the poor signal and past the thunder of a train passing directly overhead the very apartment I would be renting. I would be living on an island, accessible by one long train-bridge. The place was gorgeous but for that one major flaw, which was the noise of the trains, but since I was somewhat hard of hearing, easily distracted, and accustomed to city life anyway, I found the noise a comfort. People don¡¯t move here for the silence, the landlord said. I was a perfect fit. But there was something else. From the moment I met the landlord, she conveyed a sort of heightened sense of reality. She was observing the world through a different lens than I was, and I got the perpetual sense that I was missing something. As it happened, I was one of the first people to move there since the traintracks were installed, and so was my singular neighbor. Much later, I would realize how close I was to missing her. Ships pass in the night. Every gesture she made was not strange enough or unusual enough to make me know anything for sure regarding the way she felt about me. I might easily have overlooked her signals entirely, if I had not see our lives reflected in the strange occurrences that began at this time to enter my life. I saw our lives reflected in the mossmen, and Tombstone, how we were both like pioneer species, surviving where nothing else could, and growing to depend on one another in small, innocuous ways until our own ecosystem evolved out of thin air. For some reason, after the first month, even though I hadn¡¯t met her, I felt as if we were the only people ever going to live there, unless some fundamental change occurred in the apartment complex and the surrounding city, the kind of change that happens only once a generation or so. What¡¯s more, I did not even see my neighbor for a month. Even so I felt a sort of comradery or respect of a shared but obscure passion, interest, or experience. We were both pioneer species; we alone seemed the only two people capable of thriving in such a place. It was lonely because of this, not that I minded solitude; it was lonely and spacious, and the space afforded me all the freedom I desired. I had what amounted to a private courtyard, filled with empty balconies that led to empty apartments, save one, where the yellow (really, soft-white) lamps of my yet unnamed neighbor turned on in the evening, and stayed on until well after midnight, when the temperature dropped to a cool sixty-five as the sea-breeze swept over the train tracks, and the apartments underneath them. The place wasn¡¯t bad. It had a bedroom without windows, but with a connected bathroom, a den, and a long kitchen. Because of the lack of sunlight, I pulled the mattress into the den, which on one side overlooked a beautiful view of the sea far below, down a long hill of dark rocks, and in the deep blue water, rocks like blunted teeth, and a sunrise, which cast the long shadow of those rocks over the roiling surf, and on the other, opened out onto a small but intricate balcony of wrought iron, over an overgrown courtyard far below, almost directly under the train tracks. Warm air coiled in the courtyard, and some chemical in the tracks gave a scent of spices to the air, faint but oddly stirring, and often vibrating with the distant then thunderous passage of trains. After about a month at the new place, around the time my he first month¡¯s rent was due, I found a letter at my door signed Tamara Menser. How she found me I could not imagine. But the letter went like this. Welcome to LA. I assume this means you¡¯ve decided to take my offer. Take your time settling. I shall be in touch. Tammy Tamara Menser On the day of the meeting, I got up early and walked around the apartment, restless. I took breakfast in sweatpants and a tee-shirt¡ªa bowl of cheerios and soy milk, and scrambled eggs with a diced avocado and the last shredded cheese. Then I threw on a sundress and a pair of slides, and wide, thick sunglasses. I did my hair in a bun and stuck a brass needle through it, to match the dress. With a few minutes to spare, I sat on the couch, the AC rumbling, and I looked across the room into the mirror. A sound shattered the anxious stability of that moment when a car pulled up outside the apartment. I rushed down the stairwell, purse swinging wildly in the hook of my elbow. It was Gunther again, the same weatherbeaten cowboy. It struck me how someone could look so old and young at the same time. His rosy cheek, the jaded stare. He drove me by mostly the same route as when i stayed in the hotel. Up the same boulevard, lined with beach houses, still screened with evenly spaced bushes, palm trees, and deep evergreens for shade. Time moved slowly here, changed nothing. I mentioned this offhandedly to GUnther, and he smiled. ¡°Nothing except we who live here. Time changes us same as anywhere.¡± On the car radio was a program about the world changing. It was November 2016. The whole country is in an uproar about the presidential election, but obviously not everyone was. I was 33 years old. The driver is a middle-aged greek man (with a cowboy hat) who leaned over the wheel with a gaze that called to mind a grecian hero, hanging off the rail of a ship and peering into godforsaken waters. His neck was thick and tanned. For most of the ride he spoke little, only to inquire about my comfort. He offered a bottle of water which I accepted but did not drink, with the AC halfway blasting. Outside, the curious landscape of the island fluttered past. Islands of luscious green amid the rolling barren rocky coastland. But sometime during the radio program he shut the radio off. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. In a moment of quiet, I realized how silent the interior was. As a semi-truck passed us on the island¡¯s micro-highway, I realized how intensely the interior must have been soundproofed. ¡°You don¡¯t like that stuff?¡± I gestured to the radio. Gunther shot a glance into the rear-view mirror. ¡°I try to keep up. I take a professional interest in the outcome of the election, you might say. It concerns me deeply. But for now I¡¯d prefer to focus on driving. You have to pay attention these days.¡± He spoke those last words with an unwarranted intensity. I nodded and he went on, unprompted. ¡°When the world changes,¡± he went on, unprompted, ¡°New possibilities and opportunities are created, and others are lost by the same matter of the same course. When the world changes, it is important to look into things you might have gave up on a long time ago, because they were no longer possible, or didn¡¯t make sense, or outside circumstances prevented you from considering them as a potential part of your future, and consider carefully which of them become possible. That was her station, you know? She had a show.¡± I was unsettled by the driver¡¯s comments¡ªall I could think to say was, ¡°Oh, interesting.¡± He shrugged, and I didn¡¯t have time to think it over because just then we rolled into Tammy¡¯s driveway. She met us in the foyer, and took us to the yard again. The smooth grass seemed entirely unchanged from my last visit, unless it were a faint yellow tint. ¡°There¡¯s something I need to tell you,¡± I said. Tamara held up a hand for silence. ¡°Listen to me, dear. I have spent my whole life preaching on a mystery. In order to persuade God¡¯s flock, I had to turn that sucker right up to eleven. Button my shirt up all the way but make sure it was tight. Got my hair just right, lipstick. You know I used to put on this accent? Now it''s automatic. So much show business got me tired of that mystery. I still believe in God. I just don¡¯t care. Mom was disappointed to find out I was hosting a talk show. She said dad would be proud of me for pursuing a career in the performing arts. He said he went to the war and fought so his kids could be engineers, so our kids could be artists. But my mother disagreed. But it didn¡¯t turn out that way. I mean, you¡¯re staring down the barrel of catastrophe. Your generation might be the first one in a hundred years who actually have it harder than the ones who came before. So I still believe in God, yes. But I do not care.¡± I nodded, not quite understanding. I didn¡¯t believe in God, but I wouldn¡¯t say unless she asked. She did ask, right away, but I shrugged and before I could elaborate she gave me a look as if to say, You see? Then she paused for a long time. ¡°I want to tell you something unpleasant. My brother went missing when he was five. That was after he strangled my stepdad in his sleep somehow. I want to know what happened to him.¡± I took a breath. ¡°How old were you?¡± ¡°Six.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear that.¡± ¡°After he strangled my father in law, he went away. That is, he was taken away. Mom said he had to go before he strangled the rest of us. I believe he was autistic and became aggressive because he couldn¡¯t understand the way our stepdad handled us.¡± ¡°What was his name?¡± ¡°Alexander. An old friend of hers called Larry took him on a trip. Larry was going to hike a mountain. So my brother was taken up the mountain with him, and never came down. I want to know what happened.¡± I asked for their last names and she told me. ¡°So, how did he strangle a grown man? He was five.¡± Tamara pursed her lips. ¡°Our stepdad was sick. I think it¡¯s because he didn¡¯t take the vaccines when he was growing up. Not that there¡¯s anything wrong with that, just, it got him real sick that time. When Alexander found him, he was likely deep in a coma. If Alexander had thrown a few blankets over his face, the man might have died anyway. That¡¯s how weak he was. But for some reason Alexander found it necessary to wrap his forearm around dad¡¯s throat and squeeze. Dad woke up¡ªAlexander¡¯s cheek was bleeding, and he had a black eye, and bruises where dad¡¯s fingers went around his arm.¡± The way I felt next was like a black cloud has settled over me. I gave no consent, and I signed no contract. I was silent for a long time, but I knew in my heart of hearts that I had to go, and Tamara seemed satisfied herself, as if she knew it too. ¡°Who took Alexander up the mountain? His name.¡± She told me, and I memorized the name by repeating it to myself mentally. ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡± ¡°Does this mean you¡¯ll take my offer?" ¡°Look, if you won¡¯t leave me alone, then fine. But I refuse to let you pay me. I make my money as an investigative journalist, and if you were to pay me once cent for this job, it would put my loyalties into question.¡± ¡°Loyalties to whom?¡± ¡°If I had a dime for every time I¡¯ve explained this, I wouldn¡¯t need a job.¡± ¡°Tell me in brief then. I can fill in the blanks. What¡¯s all this about loyalty? I thought were were unemployed.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t take this the wrong way. It isn¡¯t a high horse for me, but I was talking about loyalty to the truth, and to the best practices of journalism.¡± ¡°Is the integrity of journalism under close scrutiny?¡± ¡°Frankly, no. But I believe quite strongly¡ª¡± ¡°High horse?¡± ¡°The integrity of journalism should be under scrutiny. Same as democracy. About six corporations own all the major media companies in the US. If we don¡¯t watch them closely, and we don¡¯t, they¡¯ll slip, and they are slipping right now.¡± ¡°Well, you learn something new everyday.¡± ¡°But why worry, then? You deserve to be paid for your work.¡± ¡°But not by double dipping. I want to get paid for the story, and research is part of the story.¡± ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be paid for the research too? When you can get someone to pay you? I¡¯m not used to folks refusing money.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a journalist. It¡¯s my job to think about these things. And I have the luxury of working independently. I don¡¯t have to meet a quota for¡­ for anybody. Long as I can pay the bills.¡± ¡°Well¡­ Now I really want you to work for me.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Look, I¡¯ll do the job. But I can¡¯t have you on my payroll¡± ¡°Then why are you here?¡± ¡°Because you wouldn''t leave me alone. I just moved into a new apartment. How did you know I was living there?¡± ¡°How did I knew you were living there. That¡¯s an intriguing coincidence. I used to own that aprtment.¡± ¡°Well then I can¡¯t accept it either,¡± I began to feel myself getting hot with frustration. It¡¯s at times like these when I feel the world is conspiring to ensure that I cannot follow my principles even a little bit, so what is the point of having them? Tamara held up a hand. ¡°Take a drink. All is well. I said I used to own it. I sold it to the California government six months ago. It¡¯s public housing, at a rate based on income But I knew it wasn¡¯t taken, because I only sold it recently.¡± ¡°How did you find out I was staying there?¡± ¡°The state sent me a notice that someone had moved in. It was a thank you card for having sold my property to the state. They didn¡¯t include a name, but they did include a picture of you¡­ Your license photo I believe.¡± ¡°First of all, that¡¯s weird. But also, if my rent goes to the state, where do those funds go?¡± ¡°Social programs, ultimately.¡± ¡°How¡¯d you manage that?¡± She smiled. ¡°You don¡¯t believe me? In many ways California is like a small independent country. Don¡¯t go homeless on principle. People might accuse you of privilege. Anyway, it was nice to meet you.¡± We were silent for awhile after than. Finished out drinks and she was about to say a pleasant farewell when I interrupted. ¡°Why me?¡± ¡°You mean, why did I look for you specifically?¡± Gunther drove me back to my apartment, without anymore cryptic words, I was left in silence to think. I found myself disoriented at first. Tammy Faye looked like a former televangelist, or she would do if she put on the usual makeup I¡¯d seen in photos of her. But she didn¡¯t act like one. Her southern accent aside, she seemed to blend in fine with everything I knew about California. Chapter 5: Larry Eastman and The Osborne Fire-Finder When I returned home, I walked over the threshold into the dark apartment. With all the lights off, there was a faint glow from the train tracks high above, as the cars rumbled past. In the dark I passed the balcony and saw my neighbor for the first time. I hadn¡¯t known she lived across from me. Had we missed each other for an entire month? There she was, across the courtyard, on the same story as me, laying on a mat on her balcony. The courtyard was empty most nights. I thought about calling out to her, but then a sudden motion of her wrist conveyed that she was, in her own mind, entirely alone and private. She stretched her hand up toward the passing trains and grasped at the thundering air, like she wanted to be swept away into some far-off country in the dead of night, or wanted to pull some passenger down to her, like the whole world was passing by above her, just out of reach, and she let the it run through her fingers like a comfortable breeze. Strangely stirred, I turned myself to my keyboard, and sank into my work. Sleeping in late, I wrote again, immersed in my own thoughts and mental patterns. I found myself thinking about Tamara sometimes as well. The train tracks went to the mainland and continued onto one of the bigger islands where a military landing field saw a lot of traffic. Many passengers wore camouflage and carried ruck-sacks. This apartment was the kind of insane purchase that made me wonder if she was a millionaire, the kind without any sensibility, in which case I imagined she would both frustrate and intrigue me. At least she had the sense to sell it, though it can¡¯t have made a profit. I found it difficult to write in the apartment. I did my work with the windows open. The fresh air and especially the movement of air did something to stimulate my imagination. It provided the exact ingredients to write my best prose. But in the apartment, in a place with so much noise overhead, I was distracted and unsettled. The outside world slipped into her apartment. When I realized the root cause of my discomfort, I took a break. I got up from my desk, stretched my stiff back, and closed the windows with a clatter. As an afterthought I eased the curtains close together. Sitting back at my desk I listened. All the shuddering trains had faded into a distant, continuous thunder, swelling and fading like a sine wave, and when I opened up my laptop again, I was able to set my thoughts clearly on the page. Before I had time to be grateful, I swept myself away with a string of ideas. I wrote for several days like this, without any lengthy pauses except to sleep. Whenever the urge struck me to move my body, I would get up from my rolly-chair and lie on the yoga mat, which I left unrolled on the living room floor, collecting dust. The air conditioner blew directly over the yoga mat, which was laid on the floor between a burgundy leather sofa and a blue-painted bookshelf, where I stored my books and a few shoeboxes filled with legal documents and financial records. I lay with her head away from the bookshelf, in order to keep the books and shoeboxes outside my field of view¡ªI wanted to avoid thinking about finances when I was writing, or when I was on a break from writing, the breaks being just as vital to my process as the writing itself. If I did spot these administrative symbols, they would exert a force over me, like talismans, and I would feel compelled to waste my writing break with little administrative tasks, even though I knew it would deplete my focus. At mealtimes, I cooked simple meals in a single pan if possible. But for lunch, I just pulled a container out of the freezer: I prepared all my lunches ahead of time so that I could move my work to a new location, such as the library, almost instantly, without a lot of complicated preparation. Another benefit of these prepared meals was that I could write for long periods when inspiration struck me, and I wouldn¡¯t need to interrupt those precious moments of flow just to cook myself a meal. And takeout was not an option¡ªThat was just my rule, derived from the simple facts that home-cooked meals are cheaper and (usually) healthier than takeout. Eventually my breaks were less effective. It was a common sign that my inspiration was fading. When I sensed the flow of creativity dwindling, my first instinct was always to push ahead, and try to make it as far as possible with whatever I had left in the tank, but years of experience had taught me a better method for making progress. I took a long walk, and let the story percolate in my subconscious mind. While I walked, I told myself, If my thoughts linger on the story, I will allow myself to continue to work in progressively shorter increments, aided by tea and a warm blanket, but for the present moment, what I most need is to walk and let my mind rest. My thoughts drifted. They turned, like the way a person turns their head, away from the story I was writing and toward Tamara, and the mystery of her long-missing brother. I felt a chill up my spine, as if the hairs on my neck had turned momentarily electric. I blinked, and looked into the huge dark space behind closed eyelids. I saw a middle aged man, lying in bed. The window was a yellow rectangle of moonlight. The bed was made of wood carved into twisting patterns, and the sheets were wrapped tight around the man. He was breathing hard, and wheezing. I felt something twist inside of me, like a ball of metal in a junkyard compressor, compacting tighter and tighter under the influence of enormous external pressure. When I got home, I relocated my notepad and laptop to the living-room shelf and fetched a small tote-bag. Then I pulled a prepped meal from the freezer, and threw it in the bag. Then I also packed a fresh notepad beside my lunch, and tucked my most reliable pen into the bag. I did these things with a sense of urgency, without any certain idea of what urged me. I decided to visit the library again. This much became clear to me as I slipped out the door: I¡ªthe internal self¡ªneeded space to clear away the fright that had descended on me, while I dwelled on Tamara¡¯s father. Sick, dying man in bed. This was the library I discovered early in my time on the island, and which I put as my business address in all my initial business communications, since I could not remember the address of my apartment yet, but for some reason I could remember the address of the library. I had spent a few nights trying to relax with a good book, in the lounge chair by a white, bay window that overlooked a small green lawn and a line of trees. But her relaxation failed every time. Today the library might serve a different purpose, I thought. I could work there. Inside the library, I found a quiet desk apart from the others and began absentmindedly to research the man who brought Tammy¡¯s brother up the mountain. I had very little to go by, I logged onto one of the library computers and opened a web browser. The screen cast a yellow aura on the table in front of me. The library was dimly lit, here, as if not to wake the books I thought. Then, on second thought, I stood up and went to the front desk where I asked for an old yellow-page phone-book from around the right time period. I laid back in the chair and made some phonecalls on my cell, not expecting much but it was worth a shot. The first few numbers were dead, unsurprisingly. But then I found one ringing. I sat up and flipped to a blank page of my notepad. The pen hovered over the lined paper. I was careful not to mark it. I sensed I would need to concentrate all the ink into my notes, without any marks to distract from them. The ringing stopped, and the call went to voicemail. But it was the answering machine at a business called Coney Island Firewatch. I left a brief message and hung up. Then I sighed and got up to stretch. Wasn¡¯t there a song about Coney Island? I realized I forgot to pack any water and decided to stretch my legs and go to the water fountain by the front entrance. Closing my notepad, I hid it under her tote bag and walked past the shelves, the reading tables, and under the brick archway into the checkout area. Then she walked past the front desk, where my footsteps echoed dully in the hall. A man stood at the water fountain already, filling a clear plastic bottle. He smiled apologetically, and finally moved aside. I stood back to let him finish in peace, but then I thought he looked familiar. I would have been shocked to learn that I knew anyone on the island, but then I remembered. I had seen him only once before, behind the desk. He was a librarian. We had shared some small but pleasant conversation while he helped me to find a book that was filed in a different section than I expected. I smiled at him as he finished and tucked her hair behind her ear while I drank from the fountain. Then my phone went off in my pocket. I wiped my mouth on her wrist and hurried out the front door, digging out the phone. ¡°Hello?¡± ¡°This is the Coney Island Firewatch. I¡¯m returning a call from Eliza.¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s me.¡± ¡°It¡¯s late in the day, so I don¡¯t have much time. What did you call for?¡± I shifted the phone to her other ear and pawed at my front pocket. ¡°Damn, it¡¯s inside.¡± ¡°Ms. Eliza?¡± ¡°I¡¯m still here. I want to talk to Larry¡­¡± ¡°Could I have a last name please?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± said Liza, the library door swinging shut behind her. The librarian frowned as she ran past. Notebook in hand she tucked a strand of hair out of her face. ¡°It¡¯s Larry Eastman.¡± There was a sigh-heaving pause. ¡°He doesn¡¯t work here.¡± ¡°Do you know a number I could reach him at?¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t. And I¡¯m probably the only person here as remembers him. He left a long time ago.¡± ¡°But you knew him?¡± No, and he didn¡¯t leave on good terms. He left without a notice. Actually, he left after destroying the Osborne Fire Finder, too. Not leave on good terms.¡± ¡°When was that?¡± ¡°A long time ago.¡± The man said, with finality. ¡°Do you know what year? I¡¯m sorry. This is really important.¡± ¡°That would be the fifties.¡± ¡°But, why?¡± Liza muttered, tapping her chin with the pencil. ¡°I don¡¯t know. He broke the Osborne Fire Finder, so maybe that¡¯s why he left. We have a tool that helps us estimate how far away a fire is, and in what direction, and he broke it, and they don¡¯t make them anymore. So maybe he left because he knew they¡¯d have fired him. ¡°Are you telling me that, since the device broke, you can no longer determine how far away a fire is? I¡¯m trying to understand¡ª¡± ¡°No. We use digital equipment, but since you mention it, in harsher weather conditions our digital equipment fails. It doesn¡¯t work. But¡ª Say, can I help you with something? Do you need anything else?¡± ¡°No, thank you. I really¡ª¡± The man hung up. I sat down then, hard. I felt sick with frustration. A few hours of work and I already felt at a loss again. I wished the gathering of information could follow some trajectory where I grew some measure closer to the answers at every step, but instead I found myself at loose ends again. I wanted to curl up in the library chair and take a nap, and since it was late, I did, and I wasted the rest of the night reading quietly by the heater, next to the window, while rain began to fall quietly outside. The rain persisted for days in a row, and when I tore myself away from the apartment to run some errands, I ran into a familiar face. She was getting out of a taxi cab at the crowded plaza, and when she saw me she waved me over. ¡°I saw you at the library.¡± She was tall, and her black coat accentuated the sharp angle of her face, and the extreme length of her hair, which was also black. I didn¡¯t recognize her, but I had seen a lot of people shuffled through the library. She shifted his umbrella to help cover me somewhat, moving towards the supermarket door with me. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Wait, don¡¯t walk so fast. I have some advice for you.¡± She was breathing hard. ¡°You were obviously looking for someone¡ªI couldn¡¯t help but overhear your conversation¡ªand if we¡¯ve run into one another here in the rain, it could be a sign. And I really can help you. It sounded like you were looking for someone important, or someone involved with an important situation.¡± Somebody shouldered past us, running to the open taxi. I shook my head. ¡°No, thank you. It¡¯s true that I was looking for someone but I can¡¯t tell you the details. I probably can¡¯t even take your advice.¡± ¡°Wait. At the very least, I can save you some time.¡± Thunder roared far overhead. ¡°There''s someone in the cove who can help you. You have to take my word on it though, because he¡¯s pretty strange and most people don¡¯t know about him. But if you go out to the docks, you can talk with him. Go to the old phone booth by the fourth piling, and pick up the receiver. Then wait about 30 seconds¡ªThe phone looks broken, but it¡¯s not. There¡¯s a man on the other side. This man will pick up the receiver after thirty seconds have elapsed, or sooner if he sees you from one of the yachts and decides to answer. Tell him who you¡¯re looking for, and maybe he can help you.¡± By this time, we had moved under the awning of the grocery store. The girl took down her umbrella and shook out the rain. Then she smiled. ¡°I guess I don¡¯t have any better leads, so,¡± I paused, thinking. ¡°What¡¯s his number?¡± ¡°He has no number. What I mean is that you don¡¯t need to dial a number. The line is always open.¡± With these words, she gave a last encouraging smile, then turned and vanished into the hubbub on the street. I tried to watch where she went, but I lost her almost instantly, and the gusts of wind corralled me into the store, where I absentmindedly purchased the bare necessities, and marveled at the woman¡¯s bizarre explanation. I continued to turn over her offer in my mind. The rains cleared, and sun broke through, bathing the island in calm, sunny weather. The rain-scent lingered pleasantly, like overturned leaves. I had passed the cove several times, on my way to work at the library. The next day, I paused on my commute and ate a picnic lunch on a park bench, with a view of the cove. A broad basin of dark blue water. The yachts bobbed in the waves, tossing this way and that like restless sleepers in the sunshine. One yacht was presently chugging out into the dark waves of the open sea. I could spot tiny forms, moving leisurely along the deck, or lounging with their arms and legs spread on the lawn chairs on deck. I could also see the docks that lined the shore. Their sun-baked wood creaked leisurely with each wave. There, a lady walking her dog. There the sand, sun-baked into the planks of wood. There bits of seaweed flung, by seagulls, or tossed by the clapping waves at high tide. I really was at a loss, so I decided to go down. I tucked my things into my shoulder bag and slipped off the shorts I had on. My swim suit was underneath, and I felt the warm sun on my thighs and shins. I threw a light flannel over my shoulders to keep from burning up, and then I struck down the long wooden staircase to the docks. The wind lashed my face with flecks of salt. The gulls cried overhead. I took the footholds carefully, twisting my ankle this way and that, to step between the lumps, knots, and soda cans that littered the stairs. When I reached the sand, I pulled my sandals off and held them as I strode across the beach toward the docks. I passed a pink umbrella, where a lady was sunbathing, her face covered by a wet towel. When I reached the docks, they were empty. The wood was too hot to walk on. An elderly couple meandered along the sand beside the docks, with a tiny dog that padded along the inner side of the docks, far away from the water. A few benches held pigeons or persons, one reading the newspaper, one lady on her phone, one bird pecking at crumbs. And there was the phone booth, halfway down, sitting on an old but solid peer. Its window faced the dark water, and the rocking yachts that sprawled like an undulating suburb. It was empty, and it looked too old to function properly. It looks broken, the girl had said. It was also an odd place for a phonebooth to be. This thought flashed through my mind as I stepped onto a patch of wood, so hot I winced. Sea-spray and the heat of the wood sent an odd shivering through my whole body. Cold droplets of saltwater, and hot wood on the soles of my feet. I rushed along the dock and slipped into the phonebooth. I stepped over the threshold into the cramped space. There, on the salt-dried boards hung a phone, with a circle of numbers for dialing. I glanced discreetly, left then right. Nobody was staring at me, so I picked up the phone. There was no dial tone. There was no sound at all, and beneath the stir of waves, it left me with the same impression as a well sound-proofed car, or a hotel room. Somewhat doubtful, I spun the dial to 1 and let it snap back to the starting position. There was a dring sound. After a pause. I repeated the smooth motion three times. Then a clear sound came through the phone. A voice spoke, clear and smooth through the receiver. ¡°Yes?¡± The voice was entirely ordinary. It bore no distinguishing features. Its tone was neither nasally or dark, but I felt a sensation of enormous depth and power, as if the speaker was exerting great strength to be herald by me, and greater still to maintain such a neutral and unassuming tone of voice. A chill ran down my spine. I wanted to sink to the floor, leaning my back against the side of the booth. I felt in danger, somehow. There happened to be a spiderweb in the upper corner of the booth, which I saw when I looked up. The spider sat calmly at the center of its web. I began to feel very small. I weighed my options. It occurred to me that if the speaker meant harm to me, he would have to reach the phonebooth. The closest hiding place was the alleyway, or someplace further away. I wondered feebly if he had a gun. Whatever the case, if I was in danger, I would do better if I could see him coming. So I stood still, and scanned my surroundings, paying special attention to the line of alleyways: the closest sources of cover. As I turned my head to scan the surroundings, the spider darted to a corner of its web, blindly fleeing from my movements. ¡°I won¡¯t tell you who I am. You can see me¡ªI can tell from the way you answered.¡± ¡°Yes. I can see you,¡± the man said in a flat voice. ¡°But I can hear you a lot better.¡± Liza scanned the boardwalk. The elderly couple had paused their stroll to sit on a wooden bench. The gulls were still looping overhead. Up one the street level, the road and alleyways were dark, because the sun sat low in the western sky, and cast sunbeams parallel to the boardwalk, so that the bright sun shone on the docks, which looked white, and the alleyways were in deep shadow, as the sunbeams passed them by, not spilling onto their cool planks and cobblestone. ¡°No,¡± said the voice. ¡°I¡¯m not that way. I am not hiding in the alleyway. Turn around. Let me see your face so I can decide if I trust you. It¡¯s not everyday that someone new calls me on this line. Sometimes I take it as an omen. Today, I will interpret your arrival in exactly the same spirit. Let me see your face so I can decide what kind of future you portend.¡± The yachts swayed in dark water. A sharp wind came off the harbor. Lots of people were on the yachts. Someone of them faced my direction. I couldn¡¯t see anybody on their phone. Perhaps this man was using an earpiece, but there was no way to see that from so far away. ¡°There you are,¡± said the voice. ¡°Yes. It seems like you¡¯re in control of the information here. You can see me, but I can¡¯t see you. You know where I am, but I don¡¯t know where you are. Couldn¡¯t you wave or something? It would be fair, and sportsmanlike.¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s better like this. Besides, it¡¯s my job to know where people are¡­¡± The voice lingered over these final syllables, as if gauging how much I knew already. I pursed my lips. I had a sour taste in my mouth from the salt, and felt like making a run for it. I was scared but at the same time, I sensed the edge of something unique and intriguing. ¡°If it¡¯s your job to know where people are, maybe you could help me find somebody.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°But if this is your job, you must charge some amount of money. Isn¡¯t there a fee?¡± The voice went silent for a moment. I was impressed again by the sense of isolation. The speaker must have been below deck, in a thoroughly soundproofed room. The gulls cried noisily over the yachts, but I heard none of their clamor through the receiver. ¡°There is no fee. Not for you, or anyone like you. I charge a fee to deal with senators, or foreign politicians. High-ranking corporate officials, or tech companies. But I don¡¯t charge a fee for you.¡± ¡°How do you know I¡¯m not any of those things?¡± The voice seemed to shrug. ¡°Artists have our place. Only the toughest of our kind survive in LA. We are living under a constant crisis, here. You know the causes. I would guess that you¡¯re a writer of some kind¡ªno, I haven¡¯t done any research. But artists¡­ We are so beautiful, and the landscape is so hostile to us. We are like a pioneer species, who come to the uninhabitable city. We cling to the burnt earth, find nutrients where no other species could¡­ And when we die, or when our leaves fall, it makes the burnt earth more habitable. No. Tell me who you¡¯re looking for and I¡¯ll tell you where to find them.¡± ¡°What if you don¡¯t know where he is?¡± ¡°You mean, what if I need to perform legwork to find him?¡± ¡°Exactly. You can¡¯t just give that away for free. I don¡¯t believe it.¡± ¡°I see your point. Allow me to explain. I like to keep tabs on the locals. It is a hobby of necessity. If I don¡¯t already know where this person is, and if I can¡¯t find him easily, then you will have alerted me to an exceedingly difficult mark. Anyone who avoids my notice must be a real professional. See, then we both value the information. Of course, I could charge you a fee, but I don¡¯t see any need to do that.¡± The voice might have gestured around the bay, as if the voice owned all these yachts. I thought about it. Then I told him who I was looking for. He thanked me and told me his name, which was Argo, and to wait a moment. After a long silence, he laughed. ¡°Well I¡¯ve got nothing. So I guess, I¡¯ll be in touch when I find him. Try not to let him know you¡¯re looking for him. It may interfere with my own efforts. Do you understand?¡± ¡°I understand.¡± The line went silent. There was no beeping or whine. The sounds from the receiver simply dissolved into velvet, and I was alone again in the booth, staring into the bay, with a dull ringing in my ear, and the faint summer breeze off the harbor up the quays.
I felt as if I were being watched, and that feeling didn¡¯t fade for several hours. I didn¡¯t feel safe going back to the apartment, so I hopped between caf¨¦s and made some notes in my writing pad, which Argo must have seen to guess my profession. By the end of the day, I wound up at the library. I guess I thought I might do some work, but I couldn¡¯t focus at all, so I left again. The girl who caught me at the grocery store wasn¡¯t working at the library that night apparently. On my way out the door, a familiar wisp of black hair caught my eye through a window. A moment later, the librarian came in, and I must have frozen, because she saw me right away. Walking to her desk, she laid down her bag and her umbrella, and cast a glance my way, raising her eyebrow. I nodded my head to say thanks, and she looked around and gave me a pointed look that told me to wait. I had been on my way out, so I sat on one of the benches in the entrance hall. Footsteps echoed on the tile floor as somebody walked out, sliding their feet on the door mat, and ducking into the rain with a coat over their head. Then she came up to me and sat down next to me. ¡°Did you go?¡± she said. I nodded. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°You look a bit shaken.¡± I nodded again. ¡°I don¡¯t know what to say. It went fine, I just didn¡¯t expect him to be so¡­¡± ¡°Piercing?¡± ¡°Sure. Piercing. I felt exposed, in a way that I didn¡¯t like at all.¡± ¡°But it was useful?¡± ¡°I guess. We¡¯ll see. He didn¡¯t know the guy, and he¡¯ll get back to me.¡± ¡°That means he¡¯s onto something. That means he already found a lead while you were talking.¡± ¡°Okay. That¡¯s encouraging. By the way, who is he?¡± ¡°Argo? I don¡¯t know. But he¡¯s connected to the library somehow. They have a business relationship. He requires books sometimes, and we ship them to him in plain, unlabelled boxes with just his address. No return address¡ªhe¡¯s insistent about that. And he asks for very specific editions of certain books, as if he¡¯s looking for a particular appendix or glossary, or a specific forward, rather than the bulk text of the book which is usually the same, more or less.¡± ¡°He sounded Greek to me. Did I imagine that?¡± ¡°It wouldn¡¯t surprise me. His name is taken straight from the Argonautica.¡± ¡°The what?¡± ¡°Jason and the argonauts.¡± ¡°Oh. Argo. The sea.¡± ¡°So maybe he is Greek. But he¡¯s a mystery, mostly.¡± ¡°I hope I don¡¯t regret asking him for help.¡± ¡°You won¡¯t. He¡¯s odd, and he¡¯s disconcerting, but I think he¡¯s a safe person to talk to. His interests are so far outside of our lives, it¡¯s like taking information from a bird. The bird might squawk and claw at you when you¡¯re tagging it, and a pigeon might even remember you, but it won¡¯t come after you. It¡¯s too busy with its own affairs.¡± In the weeks after that, we sat and talked quietly, and I became sort of friendly with the librarian. She was easy to talk to, and over the next few weeks we met for coffee, and when she was at the library, we sometimes sat together to read books or talk. She didn¡¯t ask about the details of my work, but she always asked if I had made any progress.
By the time I gave up at the library, it was dark outside. I walked home through the garden that perched on the edge of the industrial district of the island, a thin strip of green on the edge of a cement precipice. To my left was the clangor of factory machines like broken bells. To the right lay an open sky, and the murmur of the sea, dimly visible. Across the water, on the mainland, I could see the lights of LA, and its rusty halo of light pollution. There was another city further south, I don¡¯t know which one. But in between them lay a vast band of greenery, and thick dry forest, beyond which lay the desert. I imagined a green moss spawning on the desert, a pioneer species, the first to arrive after catastrophe, making the first islands of life in that desolate landscape, and their dying plant-matter paving the way for incrementally more fragile animals until at last humans could live there. Chapter 6: Benji & The Mortal Arc of the Universe While in hindsight, these events seem inextricably linked, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that I can weave them together like that. In the thickness of that early autumn, I was caught up in my writing, and the blossom of my career. Even the confusion with the landlord, and the extraordinary lucky break that she was paying me to live in those apartments faded into a mundane miracle. So too the issue of the five-year-old murderer sank into the back of my mind. With no lead to follow, and my focus fading, I needed a break to clear my head, of writing and of Tammy¡¯s mystery, so I put down the problem altogether for a time. In the interim, I occupied myself with exercise, and picking up around the apartment. I didn¡¯t turn my mind back to the dark peak and the fire-lookout for weeks. I had been ready to forget it entirely, when a friend of mine, who was on the mainland, came across the bay to visit me. I saw him in a small caf¨¦ on Mainstreet. I was passing by, on my way to the library when his face appeared at a window. I was so shocked to see him that I tripped and almost fell. When I recovered, Benji had run out the door, down the steps and crashed into me, much like a golden retriever. When he pulled away, he placed his hand on my chin and appraised me. He was tall, with a long unbuttoned coat, shopping bags hanging on his elbow, and a pair of raybans pushed back into his glossy black curls. ¡°You look timeless.¡± He smiled. ¡°I tried calling you at work but the phones are down, and I don¡¯t have your cell. And I don¡¯t know anyone else who lives here, but I was passing through and you know I never come this way, so I had to see you. How are you? How¡¯s the book?¡± ¡°The phones aren¡¯t down. It¡¯s a library¡ª¡± I laughed. ¡°I only put it as my work address because I didn¡¯t want to put my own apartment. But it¡¯s so old fashioned they don¡¯t have any phones except a landline which hasn¡¯t worked in years apparently. But what are you doing here? Why haven¡¯t you visited before?¡± ¡°I¡¯m on my way to Death Valley. And I can¡¯t stay for long. In Stockholm I got a new telescope for the supermoon next month. There¡¯s a crater in particular that I want to see called Shoemaker¡¯s Crater, where a famous satellite crashed with the ashes of the father of astrogeology on board¡ªwhat a grave to make! The moon will be close to see the wreck, at the bottom of the crater. There won¡¯t be a bigger supermoon for years, and there hasn¡¯t been one so big for decades. But tell me about your life. How are you How is Eliza Bailey?¡± While he talked, he led me inside the caf¨¦ and silently beckoned a server, who later brought us drinks and biscuits. We talked late into the evening. Folk came and went, the door jingled, and from the small round window above our table, the dark crept into the caf¨¦. The lamplight flickered, and a cool draft blew under the door, wind off the harbor. We slowly drained our drinks, and with warm food in our bellies, we finally took our coats, and pushed in our chairs. Benji scrawled his signature on the bill, and wrapped a scarf around his neck. I smoothed a few bills and laid them under my plate. They were warm from my pocket. When at last we stepped out onto the quiet street, it was cold, and clouds hung over the moon, and the harbor glittered darkly. Benji stuck close to me in the street, and glanced up at the night sky and sighed. Patches of sky were visible between the clouds, and the stars were dazzlingly clear. Without a word, we started walking. A pace down the sidewalk, he spoke. ¡°It¡¯s always lovely to see you, Liza. I hope I didn¡¯t keep you out too late.¡± ¡°No, not at all.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my bad influence, isn¡¯t it.¡± Benji cracked a faint smile. ¡°You¡¯re staying up later and later.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s hard to get to sleep.¡± ¡°Oh? Has something happened?¡± ¡°No, I just have a lot on my mind. There are some things that keep me up at night, but it¡¯s more like¡ªI almost brought it up over dinner, but I feel like the caf¨¦¡ªThere¡¯s something I want to tell you about.¡± ¡°It¡¯s very us, to talk about what keeps us up at night, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± I smiled. ¡°But it¡¯s not psychological this time. And it involves someone else¡¯s private information.¡± ¡°Ah¡­¡± Benji held up a hand while he thought for a moment. ¡°Are you telling me¡ªBe careful,¡± he said, seeing me start to speak. ¡°Don¡¯t spill anybody else¡¯s secrets, if you think it might be dangerous to either of us.¡± ¡°No, I think it¡¯s safe. I won¡¯t tell you everything, but I want to tell you in general terms because I think I need your advice, now that I think about it.¡± Benji paused. ¡°Is there someplace we can sit down for a while?¡± I looked around. We had come close to the park where I had looked over the bay, and the barren coast of the wasteland, the mainland. The yachts bobbed invisibly in the bay, their glossy white hulls invisible in the dark. But their lapping reached our ears, and the flicker of city lights reflected on their hulls reached our eyes. Across the expanse of ocean, the desert on the mainland was blue and distant. ¡°There¡¯s a park up ahead. We can sit on a bench and talk privately. The wind will keep us from being overheard.¡± Benji nodded and allowed me to lead him out off the street, onto the cool autumn grass of the park. A few maple trees stood bare in the dark, their ruby leaves crunching beneath our feet. ¡° I took a job,¡± I said as we crossed to the bench. ¡°The landlord who used to own my apartment asked me to help her with a personal matter. She expressed to me privately that she wanted to hire a private investigator, but in the end she simply could not find any private detective with whom she was comfortable working. But for some reason she felt comfortable telling me her story.¡± Benji nodded. His face was impassive, pointed over the harbor into empty space, but I knew how well he listened. First I gave him time to interrupt if he wanted, and then I went on. ¡°When Tammy was little, her younger brother Alexander murdered their step-father. The method of this murder is difficult to explain, because Alexander was five, but her stepdad was very sick when Alexander murdered him. Their mother sent Alexander away after that. He went with a man called Larry, a friend of Tammy¡¯s, up a mountain where Larry was hiking that weekend, and Tammy never saw him again. Her mother wouldn¡¯t speak about him, and young Tammy learned at a young age not to press her mother.¡± Sensing I was done, Benji gave a rueful smile in the dark, still gazing over the harbor. ¡°What¡¯ve you got so far?¡± ¡°I know where Larry was working, but I can¡¯t find anything else.¡± ¡°Where¡¯d he work?¡± ¡°At a fire-lookout, the same fire lookout where he took the kid probably. He was fired later that same year, but no one at the company knows why.¡± ¡°So they say?¡± ¡°They told me he was probably fired because he broke a piece of equipment.¡± Benji frowned. ¡°You think he killed the kid, and they fired him to avoid a scandal?¡± I shrugged. ¡°It could be. Alexander was autistic, and it was the ¡®50¡¯s. Who knows what people would do to an autistic kid.¡± Benji sighed, then shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re crazy. For taking this case, you¡¯re nuts.¡± ¡°Any advice?¡± He sighed. ¡°Besides dropping it?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t drop it.¡± ¡°Why not? What if Larry finds out you¡¯re after him? Or what if the company knew all along, and covered it up. What if they find out that you¡¯re going to expose some kind of scandal. You could be in real hot water before you know it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe you¡¯re right, but for some reason I don¡¯t care. I have a chance to do some good here.¡± Benji smiled. ¡°For some reason. Maybe you should care. You¡¯re a good kid. But you¡¯ve got a lot of options. You could volunteer at a pantry, or make regular donations. I know you love stories, but you don¡¯t know what you¡¯ve gotten yourself into.¡± ¡°Neither do you, though. And I didn¡¯t agree to help her because it was an interesting story. It¡¯s a horrifying story. I want to help her because she asked me to. And if I don¡¯t do it, who will? It happened more than sixty years ago. Who else would dig up the past for her?¡± ¡°A private investigator, for one. Or somebody with less to lose. You have work to do. This is a vital time in your career. You really want my advice, it¡¯s this: get out before you¡¯re in too deep.¡± ¡°But I can make a difference here. How can I just walk away?¡± ¡°Digging up the past. The truth might do more harm than good.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t believe that.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because you¡¯re young. You have more years ahead of you than behind. Maybe you think digging up the past means digging up childhood traumas, birthday parties, and the way your parents raised you, or high school drama, your first broken heart. Stuff like that. In reality it¡¯s more complicated.¡± ¡°But when am I going to have a chance like this?¡± I sighed, and slumped down on the bench. The wind blew through my hair. I shuddered. Benji looked down at me. Then he looked over the bay. ¡°When was the last time you met with Tammy?¡± ¡°About a month ago.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you meet with her again. Tell her what you did find out. Maybe she can think of something new, or something that didn¡¯t seem relevant at your first meeting. You might jog her memory.¡± Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. After that we sat in silence. I breathed in the deep night air, and thought uneasily about the fire-lookout tower. I began to feel like I had wandered into dark regions of my own mind, as if the tower lay in one of those regions. I shuddered. Benji laid a hand on my shoulder, and I flinched at first, but then I sighed. ¡°Good luck. I¡¯m going to check on you in a week. Please don¡¯t do anything stupid until then. You¡¯re unsupervised, as a grown up. Don¡¯t abuse the privilege.¡± ¡°You¡¯re leaving?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve got a plane to catch. At two A.M.. But let me walk you back to your apartment.¡± He stood up, and I stood up with him, and we walked slowly back to my apartment under the train tracks. But my feet dragged. At the door, I offered to show him inside, but he had to hurry up the flights of stairs to the train station, or he¡¯d miss the plane. I watched him for a moment from the bottom as he sped up the stairs, coattails flying in the wind. Then I turned my key in the lock, and strode into the apartment lobby, and back to my room. I didn¡¯t see this, or know about it until later. When I had turned the corner from the lobby, a dark shape clove from the shadows and stopped the door with its palm, just in time to keep it from closing. Then it slipped inside and shut the door behind it. I decided to meet with Tamara the next day, if I could, and set about relaxing. For some reason talking with Benji reminded me of Tammy¡¯s driver, Gunther, with his cowboy hat and his cryptic advice. I ran it through my head as I lit a candle and dragged a few blankets over to the couch. Sometimes in life, certain possibilities are removed. It is important to look at those possibilities, if you can remember them, because when the world changes, things that were previously impossible might come back into your life unexpectedly, and if you already ruled them out, then you will miss them, and they will pass you by, and then it really will be as if they were impossible all along, when in reality, you had a chance, and simply weren¡¯t prepared to take it. That¡¯s how I thought about it. I couldn¡¯t make anything of it. But something did pop into my head, and it was not entirely pleasant, like a relative who visits unexpectedly. I remembered someone from my past, and felt¡ªwith the same sense that tells a person when they¡¯re being watched¡ªI felt that our paths had converged without either of us knowing, or being able to predict. If we hadn¡¯t met already then we would, at some point in the future, but I had no way of knowing when, or in what manner we would meet, or under what specific circumstances. My instincts told me that somehow, we might recognize each other. And that our secret might have survived, the hidden feelings we had shared before the progression of life had torn us apart and set us on different, incompatible paths. The world might be changing. But what had caused this change? And was it a meaningful change, or simply the gradual result of the past events. I wondered, did the past lead me here? Did the past lead the world to its current state, or did something happen when we weren¡¯t looking? I don¡¯t know where that thought came from, but it seemed to enter my consciousness from a source other than myself, and it put me down a line of thinking that was not wholly pleasant, but rightly so. Things seemed to be moving in a bad direction. Even if we could meet, what would the price be? We, and our long delayed meeting would have to survive that world somehow, or wait things out, or escape it somehow. But how to escape the world? There is only one exit for each of us, and we cannot follow one another there. We endure together, or escape alone. Somewhat contrary to the impression these chapters might leave, I didn¡¯t spend that much time thinking over these events. They were blips in an otherwise busy time. For one thing, I still had no furniture, and I made a list of all the furniture I might need. Up until that point, I had only a bed, and a small writing desk. All my books sat in cardboard boxes. My clothes were in three duffle bags, and on my bead if I¡¯m being honest. A few personal belongings nestled in my backpack, which hung off my desk chair. I walked around my apartment to think about what furniture might look nice, but I grew pessimistic, thinking that my furniture would only have to be moved again when I moved, so I should get as little as possible. Then, the snarky but realistic voice said, that¡¯s no way to live, and I couldn¡¯t argue with that. What¡¯s the point of depriving myself of comfort, just to dodge a day¡¯s labor (or a moving assistant¡¯s fee). By then I had wandered to the balcony. I could hear the wind through the glass doors, and the trains overhead. Across the quartyard I saw my neighbor¡¯s balcony. This was cut in half by the shadow of the buildings. The right side was scorched and bright with sunlight. Shadows clung to the other half like ivy. Her blue cot sat half in shadow, one corner flapping in the wind, and the glass door behind it rippled with every movement of my head. There was some kind of shelf inside the glass doors, which left only a small gap for entering the balcony. On top of the shelf was a long fish tank, a reading lamp, and a stack of books. There might have been something small atop the bookstack, but I couldn¡¯t make out what it was. Maybe a matchbox or a wallet. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t leave a wallet inside the window,¡± I said. But I was thinking, what kind of person might she be? And as I wondered, I recognized two truths simultaneously; that my fascination was mixed with a vague, romantic curiosity, and that my fascination (and therefore romantic sensation) was merely the result of her unaccountable situation. Not that I¡ªespecially I¡ªwas in the position to judge her, but how exactly does a person wind up living in an abandoned apartment complex beneath train tracks, on a weird but beautiful little island off the coast of california, equidistant and far from San Diego and Los Angeles. I didn¡¯t believe in signs, but I felt from that moment forward that we obviously had something in common, something that almost no one else could have experienced, and we should meet, we would meet inevitably. But I also knew that, for an entire month, we had lived in quiet proximity without ever noticing one another. Unless she had noticed me, and decided not to introduce herself, not to make herself known. I might have done the same. You don¡¯t know what kind of person would choose to live in such an odd place. Possibly someone crazy, or someone mentally, emotionally unstable. Maybe she was waiting to see what kind of person I was. Had she watched me, quietly from afar, safe with the knowledge that I, oblivious fool, would not suspect anything? I suddenly felt ashamed for peeking into her apartment from across the way. In all likelihood, I had been the first one to notice, and I ought to introduce myself like a good neighbor. But something held me back. Several things. I had my own unpleasant business, and I was not in the mood for the social obligations of a neighbor, even if they might have helped me. And besides, I ought to get over my weird neighbor crush before introducing myself. Otherwise, I might say something foolish, or I might blush uncontrollably, or panic and run away only for her to open the door and see me scuttling down the hallway like a thief, or a kid playing ding-dong-ditch, and then she¡¯d think I was childlike. That was obviously ridiculous, and I didn¡¯t need to worry. But I ought to overcome the crush anyway, and greet her with an open mind. I owed her that. I mean I owed myself that too, but then again, couldn¡¯t I hold onto my little swirl of emotions? No. I decided I should handle it like an adult, by which I meant, an emotionally mature person. But it might turn into something anyway, I thought. I opened the window and wind swept into the apartment. Papers flew off my desk. The curtains lifted and streamed like banners close to the ceiling, and I stood by the open door, my eyes watering from the wind. Despite the view of stone bricks, and no sign of nature apart from small patches of moss on the sunny half of the walls, I could hear the sea, which rolled on constantly even when the trains lulled overhead. For a moment, it seemed that the courtyard contained all of it: the trains, the passengers, the gulls, the sea, her depth, her breadth, her shores. The wind carried them here, and I was their sole observer, keeping the day watch over this atmospheric phenomenon while my foil, across the courtyard slept, so she could watch over them all by night. Did the wind bring us here too? I jumped when the phone rang. ¡°I found him,¡± said the flat voice on the line. ¡°Argo?¡± ¡°It is I.¡± ¡°How¡¯d you get this number?¡± ¡°This island was once a Greek colony.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± I heard him shrug. ¡°The roots linger. Today, you are the golden fleece. I am the cyclops, and this receiver is my one eye, watching over you, counting the sheep as it passes under my gaze.¡± ¡°The cyclops goes blind,¡± I reminded him. I don¡¯t know why. He was being ridiculous. And he still hadn¡¯t told me how he got my number. Somehow I wasn¡¯t surprised. For a moment he said nothing. ¡°Do you read often?¡± I shrugged. ¡°I read when I can. The last book I handled was the yellowpages from the 1940¡¯s.¡± ¡°But you can read.¡± ¡°Of course I can read,¡± I was getting angry. He had disturbed me from a pleasant (if maybe useless) line of thought. ¡°There¡¯s a book you might find, if you look hard enough. Two Atmospheric Phenomenon: What We Learn from Anecdote. It was taken out of print before it went to the printer, but a miscommunication between the publisher and the printer let a few advance review copies slip.¡± ¡°What do you mean it went out of print before it went to the printer?¡± ¡°Well the book was in a newspaper listed as going out of print, and the newspaper came out before the book¡¯s scheduled release date.¡± ¡°So it was never printed.¡± ¡°Not apart from the advance review copies.¡± ¡°Where did they go?¡± ¡°The printer sold them to a boutique bookstore in LA.¡± ¡°Why would I want that book?¡± ¡°Your Larry saw One of the Two Atmospheric Phenomenon. His name is on the cover.¡± ¡°What? He didn¡¯t seem like¡ªwell, I mean I didn¡¯t get the impression that he was a writer. But maybe he was interviewed.¡± ¡°The author seems to have known him quite well.¡± ¡°And what does Atmospheric Phenomenon mean? You wouldn¡¯t happen to know where I should look, would you?¡± ¡°I only count sheep.¡± ¡°Has it occurred to you that people aren¡¯t like that? You don¡¯t own these people just because you can pay enough to stalk them online, or find them. They aren¡¯t your sheep.¡± ¡°Maybe you want to repay me, but I don¡¯t need your advice. Keep it.¡± The line went dark. It rang again. ¡°Now what,¡± I snapped. ¡°Ehem. Hi,¡± said a voice. ¡°Oh god. Benji. Sorry. What¡¯s going on? Did you make it okay?¡± ¡°I am fine,¡± he said, laughing. ¡°No, no. I¡¯m okay too. I just made some progress actually. I was mad because I had to talk to this guy, who lives on a yacht and talks a lot about ancient Greece.¡± ¡°I wish you took care of yourself the way you take care of business.¡± ¡°Benji, I would stab my own eyes out from boredom taking care of myself.¡± ¡°Really? It¡¯s a lot of work.¡± ¡°Ok stop quipping back and forth with me. It¡¯s annoying. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°I had a feeling. Are you sure everything¡¯s okay?¡± ¡°I am okay.¡± ¡°Fine. Talk soon?¡± ¡°Okay.¡± I set my phone on the table. I picked it back up immediately. My thumb went automatically to check messages, but I put the phone down again. I was restless. I needed guidance. No. I needed to think. I needed to clear my head and banish any thoughts about Argo. He never said how he got my number, for one thing. I felt watched, but I needed to focus anyway. Pulling the curtains, went to the lounge chair and curled up. I guess I did have one piece of furniture. Pulling my knees up to my chin, I took in the quiet shade of my apartment. The windows were bright billowy squares with the drapes pulled. I ought to shut the windows too, but the fresh air washed over me, and the rumble of the trains, and I needed for a moment to drown out some thought or tone in my mind. I closed my eyes, opened my senses to the trains, and let their rumbling rock me to sleep. I dreamed I was riding the train somewhere. In my dream, I saw Benji next to me on the train. He was thinking about the moon again. The biggest supermoon in years. He was going to Death valley. No, he was going to the airport. That¡¯s where the trains went. You had to fly to get to Death Valley. When I woke up, I was also thinking about the moon. Chapter 7: Atmospheric Phenomenon and The 700 Club When I woke up, I was thinking about the moon. For some reason I was concerned about it. It occurred to me that the moon might pull my attention just as it pulls the sea. But no. That wasn¡¯t it. The flow of my mind in that drowsy world was drawn by the current much stronger, of someone else¡¯s life moving sharply in a direction of its own. I felt it distinctly, but I could not identify the person. It could have been anyone. It could have been the pull of my own life, flowing inward like a whirlpool. Looking for a distraction, I put it out of my mind and called Tamara. Someone picked up on the first ring. ¡°Hello,¡± said a voice. It sounded tinny through the phone, but it must have been low and resonant in person. ¡°It¡¯s Liza. I¡¯m calling to speak with Tamara Menser.¡± ¡°Hang on,¡± said the voice. There was a pause, as if someone had covered the receiver completely to have a private conversation with someone else in the room. I was sitting in the lounge chair and pulled my legs up under me. I realized it was probably Gunther, the man who introduced me to Tamara. Then she came on the phone. ¡°Hello, Liza?¡± ¡°Tamara. Yes, it¡¯s Liza. Can I meet with you? Sometime this week?¡± I wasn¡¯t sure how much I could say over the phone regarding her younger brother, or the man who probably murdered him, without breaking our contract of secrecy. It wasn¡¯t likely for somebody to tap my phone. Nobody would have any reason to listen in. But the radio tower is far away, and the airwaves pass through miles of unknown sky, even when you call somebody close by. You never know who might intercept them. Tamara seemed to nod, or to pause in thought. Perhaps she glanced at a calendar on her coffee table.¡°Are you free tonight?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± I said. I pulled my planner off the top of a nearby cardboard storage box, and flipped through it to make sure. ¡°I have no commitments tonight.¡± ¡°Great. Why not come for dinner? We can speak privately. But, is everything okay?¡± ¡°Yes, everything¡¯s fine, but I have some information I want you to hear. I wonder if it might stir up something you wouldn¡¯t remember otherwise.¡± ¡°You think you¡¯ve found a piece of information like a key, and it will unlock some memory?¡± Her voice pitched up a bit, like she was annoyed. ¡°Yes, something like that. I admit it wasn¡¯t my idea. But it¡¯s worth a shot.¡± ¡°I like you, and so I don¡¯t mind playing along, but I didn¡¯t leave anything out.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t mean it like that. Even someone with a good memory might consider certain events or details insignificant, but you might evaluate some of those details differently with new information. I didn¡¯t have time to listen to everything you remember anyway.¡± ¡°You think, if we meet, we might hone in on something useful.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I hope.¡± ¡°Have you run out of leads then? Does everything I told you lead to a dead end?¡± ¡°No. In fact I have a lead I need to follow up on this afternoon, if I can. But some have led to dead ends, yes.¡± ¡°Do you mean that you¡¯ve lost the trail, or that you¡¯ve run into some kind of wall.¡± ¡°To tell you the truth, it¡¯s both. I followed the trail of the older gentleman we discussed, and I was able to call someone who used to know him, but I don¡¯t think they would tell me everything they knew.¡± ¡°Hmm. Say more tonight. God willing, I can put the pressure on them. It might be enough. What do you say?¡± ¡°I may need your help with another lead as well. But help of a different kind. I have a lead, but it seems like an expensive one to follow. We discussed my payment, but we have no agreement over out-of-pocket expenses or reimbursement.¡± ¡°Tell me more tonight. If I can afford it, I will front you the money, and you can do as you please. Or if possible, I will make the purchase myself, or through a discreet third party to protect our privacy. Can you tell me what sort of expense you¡¯re talking about?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a book. I can¡¯t imagine it would be dangerous.¡± I waited, but she didn¡¯t say anything. I imagined her deep in thought, tucking her thin blonde hair behind one ear and leaning with her chin in her hand, elbow on the kitchen counter. ¡°That¡¯s all I can tell you over the phone,¡± I said after a while. ¡°Right. We can say more over dinner. I will send the call back to Gunther now, and he will set a plan for dinner.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said. I couldn¡¯t read her tone. Gunther picked up and offered 6:00 for dinner. If I was going to be late, I should call him. He was about to hang up when I said, ¡°Wait. I thought about what you told me.¡± It hadn¡¯t crossed my mind for a few days, but it flashed into my mind now. He didn¡¯t say anything so I went on, in case he was confused. ¡°About the world changing, and things becoming possible again,¡± I went on. After another long silence he said, ¡°You thought about that.¡± ¡°Yes, I thought lots about it. I think it¡¯s good advice.¡± ¡°When I saw you, I knew that you were the kind of person who decides about things with absolute finality.¡± Before I could respond he continued. ¡°I will pick you up at 5:30. Call me if you are going to be late, and wear something warm, and nothing too fancy.¡± ¡°I will.¡± ¡°Goodbye.¡± That afternoon I hunched in front of my computer and searched for the book. The trains rolled overhead. I applied chapstick to my lips periodically, and sometimes wore headphones to stave off boredom. I was listening to the soundtrack of a youtube documentary, about vacuum fluorescent displays. The background music was jumpy and electronic, with a synth wash in the background, and it kept me calm while I searched for clues. After an hour of looking, I decided I wasn¡¯t going to find anything, so I took off my headphones, pushed my chair back, stretched, and stood up. The clock above my window read Four O¡¯Clock. I had time to make some dinner before Gunther came to pick me up. Barefoot, I padded onto the tiled floor of the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. In the cool light, I saw a variety of vegetables, mostly green, a plastic carton of blueberries, a small mason jar of almond milk, and a bag of sliced gouda deli cheese. I finagled a cutting board from its place in the cabinet, took my good knife¡ªthe small one¡ª, and sliced an onion into small cubes. I wasn¡¯t anything spectacular in the kitchen, but I handled a knife well, and chopped the onion quickly enough that it didn¡¯t burn my eyes. Then I poured some olive oil into a pan, and got going. While I ate, slowly and carefully, I thought about what Gunther had said. It was 5:25 when I finished getting ready. I closed the windows, locked them. Then I fetched a hoodie from the closet and threw it on over my shirt. Why had Gunther asked me to dress warm? At 5:30 a car honked outside. Slipping out the apartment door, I walked to the lobby and looked out through the front window. There was the car, baby blue. When I got in, Gunther ignored me, responding with only grunts and nods. He had his cowboy hat, but a thin scarf was around his shoulders, and a warm fur-lined coat sat in the front passenger seat, while I sat in the back. He was silent, so I said, ¡°Where are we going.¡± He flashed a look in the rear view mirror. ¡°Ms. Menser¡¯s abode.¡± ¡°Why the coat?¡± ¡°She¡¯s outside.¡± We found Tamara in a white gazebo, halfway down the lawn. She wore sweatpants and a t-shirt, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail which bounced in the gusts of sea-wind. She glanced at us before turning her head over her shoulder, and stretching her side. ¡°Not many people see me like this,¡± she said over the wind, when Gunther opened the screen door to the gazebo. ¡°I try to keep up appearances. But to tell you the truth I don¡¯t like dressing up. Anything that restricts my movements restricts my mind. There is a flow in my body, and clothing can get in the way of that flow, and make certain movements uncomfortable. The result was sometimes that I stayed still when I ought to have moved, or changed position in some way, and that made me stiff, and sometimes it affected my mood, or other things. My thinking, for example.¡± ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with dressing like this,¡± I said. ¡°Of course not, but some of my business partners would judge me harshly, showing up to a meeting like this.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Maybe their thinking is obstructed.¡± Tamara smiled, but didn¡¯t face me. She was still looking over one shoulder. A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, and her shirt was damp in the front and in the lower back. But it was cool outside. ¡°I was exercising,¡± she smiled. ¡°I never lift weights, but I like to perform bodyweight maneuvers to keep myself strong. And to get out of my own head. There¡¯s an awful lot to think about sometimes.¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°What does a former TV actor think about?¡± Finally she looked at me. ¡°I was thinking about you, actually. And the work you¡¯re doing.¡± With that, she stood up, pulled the sweatshirt over her head, and led me to the bench in the gazebo. I noticed that Gunther had gone. He was outside on the lawn, out of earshot, gazing over the sea, and speaking in a low voice into his earpiece. A light touch on my arm brought my attention back to Tamara. ¡°When we called,¡± she said, ¡°You said you wanted to tell me something, and you thought it might stir up memories that had otherwise been lost to time.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right,¡± I said. ¡°You said your memory¡¯s good. That helps. I just want to tell you what I¡¯ve learned, and maybe you can give me with some more details. To start, I found Larry.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. You found Larry,¡± she said. There was a stiffness to her tone. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about things. I¡¯m not sure if it was right for me to put this responsibility on your shoulders. If you find out enough about him, there¡¯s a possibility that you might meet him. Whatever you may feel about him, please don¡¯t let him know you¡¯re angry, or loathing, or whatever it may be. Maybe you feel a certain loathing or disgust knowing what he might have done with my brother. I don¡¯t condone his actions, but don¡¯t put yourself into a dangerous situation. This past seems to be alive and dangerous, and I am sorry to have entangled you in these events.¡± I nodded. ¡°I understand. A friend of mine recommended I abandon this case, but I won¡¯t do anything stupid. It isn¡¯t like me. I have been through stressful situations before, and I keep my cool. Even when I¡¯m angry. Maybe it comes out later in odd ways, but in the moment I am always in control of myself, including my expression, so that I don¡¯t give anything away. But we should talk about Larry, and the book. Larry worked for the Coney Island Firewatch, which is a fire lookout on Mount Coney, which started on this island to watch for forest fires on the mainland. It was useful because it has a unique view of the low coastlands and a few harbors, and also because the wind is so fierce here that a coastal fire could spread with deadly speed, gobbling up trees the way a vacuum cleaner tears at a carpet. When Larry worked for the company, he probably lived on this island.¡± As I spoke, something quickened in Tamara¡¯s eyes. I could see the memory surfacing, in a breathtaking display of thought captured through human facial expression. I left off, and we were both silent for a long time. Outside, bees hummed through the greenery, tipping fronds of goldenrod with their weight. At last Tamara spoke. ¡°He was on his way to a mountain when he took my brother,¡± she said. ¡°You remember my brother was sent away because of what he did to our stepfather. I think my mother, I guess, not knowing what else to do, just needed him to go away¡­ She was scared, and she loved him, but she was not equipped¡ª I think he killed the boy. But it¡¯s not my mother¡¯s fault; she was raised just like I was. She was, well, I don¡¯t know what she was. A God-fearing woman.¡± Tammy sits very still as if a memory is playing in front of her eyes¡­ or the fear of God had momentarily frozen her. ¡°If this case puts you in danger, I will do everything within reason to help alleviate that danger. A man who can murder a child could do other things.¡± I waited for her to go on. When she didn¡¯t, I tried to speak slowly and reassuringly. I said, ¡°The best thing you can do is answer my questions accurately.¡± ¡°I can do that, but I was only six. My memories have likely changed beyond the point of usefulness. If I remembered things more clearly, I might have looked into things myself.¡± ¡°You told me that Larry Eastman took your brother up the mountain.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I think, anyway. Obviously I didn¡¯t see them go.¡± ¡°Assuming he did take him up the mountain, you also told me that your brother never came back down. What did you mean by that?¡± ¡°Only that I never saw him again. I suppose I don¡¯t know if he came back down again.¡± ¡°I think your intuition is correct. A mountain is an easy place to hide a body, especially when an investigation is so unlikely. Nobody goes up there, except for the fire lookout and a baggage train, which brings supplies by mule-train to the fire lookout, once every three months or so. The trip is difficult and dangerous, and nobody is likely to go off the path.¡± ¡°And with the storm,¡± she said. ¡°What?¡± ¡°And with the storm that had blown in,¡± she said. ¡°There was a huge storm that night, all across the west coast. I remember because I was worried about the storm. I dreamed that lightning struck my brother, and pulled him into the sky.¡± ¡°You dreamed that?¡± ¡°Yes. Lightning wrapped around him,¡± she said. ¡°Like cold white fingers, they pulled him into the clouds. ¡°It was a nightmare,¡± she said, without a hint of irony. ¡°An atmospheric Phenomenon,¡± I said. My voice was devoid of tone or meaning. Outside a car bumped past her house. On the lawn, Gunther spoke quietly into his earpiece. The surf tumbled on the rocks. Tamara sat very still, her posture relaxed, but I sensed a great tension in her back, as if she were suppressing a shiver, or holding her breath. ¡°Starting from the beginning, I was born in International Falls, Minnesota,¡± she said mechanically. ¡°My mom and my biological father were Pentecostal preachers. After I was born, something happened that removed any affection my mom had for the church. She divorced my biological father. She wouldn¡¯t go to church anymore. ¡°During what she called her estrangement from the church, she remarried. I think she was seeing this guy even before the divorce, and maybe he was the reason for their divorce. One night, in his sleep, our new stepfather was strangled to death by my younger brother, whose mental condition had probably been another reason for the recent divorce. My mom and my biological father hadn¡¯t been able to agree what to do with my brother. In the new marriage, my brother did something with our step father. There¡¯s a weird symmetry. Blinking, she said, ¡°That happened in 1948. I was 6. He was 5. I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s important.¡± I nodded. ¡°The details are important in a case like this.¡± Glancing at me, she went on. ¡°After he strangled our new stepdad, my mom thought he was possessed¡ªhe probably just had a mental disability of some kind¡ªI realize that now¡ªbut my mother didn¡¯t know that, and she had no idea what to think. She gave him to one of our friends, who was going to take him on a trip and ditch him somewhere. That¡¯s what I gathered. I didn¡¯t know where, or who the relative was. I assumed he was going to live somewhere else. I don¡¯t think he did. ¡°I want to know what happened to my brother. I told you I believe he had autism¡ªI really don¡¯t know for sure, but it could have been that. Here is why. First of all, he did not grow at a normal rate, physically or mentally. He was always either very fast or very slow. He was also extremely flexible. I also should mention that he built very elaborate houses out of twigs, leaves, bark, and shells, along with anything else he could find on the island, which was a lot back then. He was also very strong for his age. He never stopped moving. I guess it¡¯s called stimming, and it¡¯s something he did because it made him feel better. He needed intense physical stimulus all the time, and so he was always on the move. And he didn¡¯t always understand what other people said to him. People would say things, and he would know all the words, but he was confused anyway. ¡°I was asleep when it started. My brother and I shared a room. I woke up when the door opened. My brother ran into the hallway, which was filled with queasy light from the moon. I was too sweaty to fall back asleep right away, so I threw off the covers and followed him. I found him opening my mom¡¯s door. I tried to tiptoe fast enough to stop him, but he slipped in and left the door swinging. ¡°My mom and stepdad were both naked, with the sheets only half covering them. The harsh moonlight fell on them both. Their breathing sounded completely different. My mom¡¯s was deep and nasally sounding. Our stepdad¡¯s breath was short and thick, even in his sleep. Each breath was like a cough. My brother was out of sight. Then he popped up beside my dad, onto the bed. I wanted to run in and pull him off. He was going to wake them up, and I was scared about something. I don¡¯t know what. But I couldn¡¯t go in. I felt as if a wall stood between me and the room. ¡°My brother crawled up toward the head of the bed and sat for a moment near our stepdad¡¯s head. His hair was thick and black, with a small thinning patch on the back. His face was pale and tired. I remember The skin on his neck was loose. My brother grabbed him in one smooth motion. I saw his eyes open in panic as my brother squeezed. His body was still sleepy, not fully awake. He tried to struggle, but his hands were still weak from sleeping. ¡°And then something happened that I haven¡¯t told you yet. I don¡¯t know why. But yo should know that my mother woke up. I saw her eyes open, but she didn¡¯t move. And I smelled something then in the room, something that had been there all along without my realizing it. I have never smelled it since then, but it¡¯s the one thing I remember with absolutely clarity. ¡°At this point my father wasn¡¯t struggling so much. He had already been weak. And with my brother¡¯s bony arm across his windpipe, he went unconscious pretty quickly. ¡°That¡¯s when I ran away, tore myself away. I don¡¯t know how to describe it, but it took violence to wrench myself away from the sight. I ran back to my room, threw myself in bed, and pulled up the sheets. I thought there was no way I¡¯d sleep, but somehow I did, and when I woke up, there were police sirens outside. ¡®Dad¡¯s going away for awhile,¡¯ was all our mom said to me.
¡°I went away to an all-girl¡¯s school after that, because my mother didn¡¯t need a kid around. Then I actually got into Brown, which was unheard of at the time. Then I became a show-host on the christian television show, because their usual co-host had quit. ¡°It was 1962, and I was 20 years old, and the studio was going under. They had a monthly operating budget of $700. They had almost no money to pay me, but it¡¯s not like I was doing anything else, and lord knows I needed the money, so I joined. ¡°My co-host retitled it Jim and Tammy, after he started sleeping with me. The two of us invented the idea of the 700 club to raise money. To keep us on the air. ¡°We ran a special telethon version of the show, and the idea was that all seven hundred members of the club would contribute ten dollars a month, and get a producer¡¯s credit. It worked so well, we ran the telethon every year. ¡°Then Jim was let go, and nobody would say why. And I left too. ¡°When the two of us left, the studio execs destroyed all our props, and tore down the old set as a kind of symbolic retribution for something. But they couldn¡¯t touch us in any meaningful way, apart from firing Jim. ¡°For a while we had no income. Jim had a lot in savings, but that wouldn¡¯t last forever. We both made a lot of phone calls, and even got some job offers, but at the time we were so madly in love we couldn¡¯t bear the thought of working separately again, so we set up a television network of our own. Then something happened that nobody expected. The $700 club followed us. ¡°It was as if the old studio had cut ties with them, when it cut ties with us. They funded us, and kept on funding us. That was a turn of events so unheard of (maybe less so nowadays) that we got national news coverage, and pretty soon our viewership skyrocketed. We put a down payment on a new house after just one year: this house,¡± she said, gesturing to the whitewashed wall just up the lawn. ¡°A decade later, we paid off the mortgage.¡± I watched her closely. While she told me all of this, I sensed that she was drawing closer and closer to her point, like water swirling around a drain just before the last of the water sinks down, and the tub is empty. ¡°Jim, he was very good to me.¡± In that moment, I felt fear closing over me, out of nowhere. Tamara peeled away the coverings, one at a time, of forbidden knowledge. Our conversation had wandered into parts unknown. We found ourselves in a perilous place. ¡°We should not be here,¡± I wanted to say. I wanted to run out of the gazebo, bowl past Gunther and his earpiece, run up the lawn, past the multi-colored stone patio, and into the street. But I did not run. I sat still, as she pulled the words out of the deep places of her memory, and pulled out strings of my awareness, strings that went straight back to the parts of my brain that do not forget what they hear. A shiver ran down my spine but still I did not move. Could not move. But all she said was, ¡°He passed away.¡± I let out a breath. Deep breath. We had circled the drain, and nothing more. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said. Tamara smiled. ¡°Oh don¡¯t be sorry. He was bound to die sometime, and God knows I¡¯ve learned to cope with it. Really, it was a long time ago.¡± ¡°How did he die?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I mean the doctors couldn¡¯t tell why he died. It was of natural causes.¡± ¡°But you don¡¯t know which ones.¡± ¡°Sorry?¡± ¡°Nevermind. I think I understand.¡± ¡°I would like to read that book as soon as possible. Can you front the money?¡± ¡°Give me the title and we¡¯ll see. There isn¡¯t much risk it¡¯ll exceed our budget.¡±
I never learned about this until later, but Gunther a few days later Gunther held the receiver with his chin on his shoulder. ¡°Tamara Menser?¡± ¡°Yes. Gunther?¡± ¡°It¡¯s Gunther. I found the book.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not so sure.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°It contains interviews from two separate sources on a peculiar atmospheric phenomenon in the late 1940¡¯s. Your late husband is cited.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sure it¡¯s him.¡± ¡°I checked.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°What do you make of it?¡± ¡°Nothing. I made a husband out of him. Seems he made something else out of himself.¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t know about this?¡± ¡°What year did your husband die?¡± ¡°1970.¡± Gunther sighed. ¡°I thought so.¡± There was a long pause. Then the line went dead. Gunther kept it to his ear, but the receiver only emitted a dull static. ¡°Don¡¯t blame her,¡± he muttered. ¡°And I won¡¯t blame her one bit for whatever she does about it.¡± Chapter 8: Used Books I had gone out walking, the day the book arrived. The mail truck rolled past me, and turned onto my road, right in front of me. Turning sharply on my heel, I backtracked. I had been walking along a sea-side street with a wide, pale sidewalk, and some cliffs that looked over the sea. It was a beautiful day for walking, with a sky full of puffy white clouds and a comfortable breeze over the island. There were houses that blocked my view every so often, and I felt a little self-conscious looking over their lawns toward the sea, but the sky was deep cerulean, and the clouds seemed a heavy, almost dark white in front of them, not dark with raine, but dark with shadows. I passed an old man mowing his lawn. He had combed white hair and a navy blue jacket, and bright yellow ear protection. Then I turned the corner onto my street. At the cul-de-sac was my apartment building and above it, the train tracks and the high end of the island. A train pulled in now, lurching to a halt. The mail truck had rolled to a stop at a townhouse halfway to my mailbox. By the time I caught up, it had pulled away and stopped in front of my apartment. The mailman was coming out when I got there. He held the door for me, and I smiled gratefully, out of breath. Sweeping my hair into a ponytail I slipped the key from my pocket, pressed it into the lock, turned it, and pulled the door open. Sure enough, a slim brown package had been shoved inside, next to a magazine, which was folded in half but not creased. Taking these things, I went upstairs, wrapped in the distinctive smell of the magazine. I slowed my pace in the hallway, listening for the footsteps of my neighbor, in case my she was there, but as usually, the hallway was dead silent, like church. All I could hear was music from a passing car, and high above, a train pulling out of the station. I wanted to read the book right away, but something held me back. I set it carefully on the kitchen table on top of the magazine. I hung up my coat in the hall, untied my shoes and set them by the door. Then I walked to my window and looked outside. It was filled with sunshine, like a fish tank is filled with water. The island bustled below, and overhead, the thunder of trains running in the clouds.. I felt that I was about to learn something significant, and that if I were not in the right frame of mind, I might not receive it correctly. If that occurred, I would be left with a useless jumble of facts. I imagined I could string them together, but there was no guarantee that it would have the same effect, even if I got them in the right order. If my intuition could be trusted, I thought, then the information I was about to receive must be more than a list of facts. It wasn¡¯t merely a list of facts, it was also a sensation and a feeling, or a sense, that would be missing even if I did put the pieces together. Some things cannot be received even by understanding them. They must be received through more careful and elusive means, though I couldn¡¯t have said what. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. My mind was filled with a mess of things. The briskness of the walk, my rush to find the packages. I pulled the shade. In the shade of my apartment, I determined that a ritual would help prepare me for the information I was about to receive. With the shades closed, the apartment had an airy feel, with light filtering through the blinds, across the pinewood floors, and a cluster of long, thin shadows here and there, slanting across the floor and the walls. I went to the closet and opened it. Inside was dust and a lot of cardboard boxes. There on the top shelf sat a small metal toolbox, which I lifted down. Inside, I found a mess of drill-bits, screw drivers, allen-wrenches, and a box cutter. At the bottom there was also a small electric saw. I pulled the box-cutter and a screwdriver from the box. The box cutter had no blade, so I used the screwdriver to remove the screw that held together the two-part body of the box-cutter, and pulled a blade from the small storage compartment inside¡ªa thin, trapezoidal piece of metal with blades on either side. Fitting it into the blade-encasement at the front of the knife, I screwed the halves back together. I performed these motions slowly and carefully. I had a scar on my right hand from my childhood, when I had cut myself with a similar knife when I lost my grip. Now, I took the utility knife and sliced the tape on the package. Then I eased the paper wrappings away. Inside was a small paperback, sandwiched between bubble wrap. Without touching the book, I lifted it with the bubble wrap and set it on the table. Then I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, dried them thoroughly, and returned to the table. Now I took the book in my hands. I shouldn¡¯t put so much pressure on you, I thought. Maybe you¡¯re just an unusual biography, or a think-piece. But something tells me you contain a kind of forbidden knowledge. It was odd to think that a used book might contain something like that. Someone tried to erase this book, the thought flashed through my mind like a shudder, like a feeling that someone is watching. No shadowy figures appeared at the window, but I remained ill at ease. Someone did try to erase this book. I had the book for a few weeks after that. On weekends, I sometimes felt the desire to read it, but reading it felt equivalent to a departure, and did not feel prepared. Around the island, the seasons were changing. The rainy season had begun, and flash floods swept down the mountainside and over the island. A thin layer of mud filled the streets and caked the sidewalks. On sunny days it baked into a pleasant crunchy coating on the roads, like peeling paint, and the street sweepers swept up great clouds of brown dust trying to remove it before the next cloudburst. With winter coming on, the train stations were bustling with cleaning crews, removing any last debris from near the tracks to prevent it from sweeping over them come spring, when the snowmelt on the mountains could wash over the train tracks. The autumn wind, which had been warm for a time, had turned frigid, and people took out their winter coats and scarves, and wore them loosely, and unzipped, but to protect against the wind. And all the while, a feeling of doubt settled over me. These changes, which the island seemed to undergo annually, were new to me, and ominous, and I still knew very few people. I had no friends to comfort, or to comfort me. I spent my days in the library, writing, but I found my stories laced with melancholy. So at last I read the book. Chapter 9: Eugene Shoemaker and the Shoemaker Crater Tamara Menser sat by an open window. She leaned into the breeze, listening to the interview on her monitor. An empty mug sat on the windowsill, Tamara picked it up from time to time. ¡°They buried Gene on the moon,¡± the lady was saying. ¡°No, that¡¯s¡ªThe burial site¡¯s a crater. His remains went up on the Prospector in ¡®98, and went down into a crater they named after him¡­ Yes, about 1.6 years.¡± The muffled voice of the interviewer asked another question, and the woman replied, succinctly and efficiently. ¡°Another probe. Looking for polar ice, which was Gene¡¯s big dream.¡± ¡°Yes, in both poles. Well, they found hydrogen, and it looked like water should be there.¡± Tamara settled back into her chair again, and stretched her legs out in front of her. ¡°His dissertation? The Barringer Crater¡ªI heard enough about it¡­.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that? Yes, in Arizona.¡± ¡°Yes, he did. He graduated two years early from CalTech. He was¡­ sixteen. Class of ¡®48.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Yes, he probably was the youngest.¡± ¡°Scientists were most interested in continuing the investigations into the signs of water ice on the Moon found by the Clementine probe.¡± With a sigh Tamara turned the volume down, but left the interview running. ¡°Come in.¡± It was Gunther. ¡°I booked your flight,¡± he said from the doorframe. ¡°Where¡¯d you find her?¡± ¡°Her?¡± Gunther squinted interview. ¡°She doesn¡¯t look that way anymore¡± ¡°Where is she?¡± ¡°New York, and I got you a driver, too.¡± ¡°When do I go?¡± ¡°Tomorrow morning. But there¡¯s a problem. She lives in a group home.¡± ¡°A condo?¡± ¡°No it¡¯s a home for folks mental illnesses, and it¡¯s not clear if she¡¯s staff¡ª¡± ¡°So it might be difficult to visit her.¡± ¡°It might be illegal.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Tamara unzipped her briefcase and slipped the tickets inside. Gunther tipped his hat. ¡°If you go, don¡¯t make a scene.¡± ¡°Oh please.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be worried if it was just you out there.¡± ¡°You think someone else might be watching?¡± He shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s been signs.¡± ¡°Well.¡± Tamara reached for the stack of papers on her desk. ¡°You don¡¯t seem that worried.¡± ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m not. ¡®Cause the trail¡¯s cold, but¡­¡± He shook his head. Now she understood. ¡°But we¡¯re on it.¡± ¡°Yeah. And we¡¯ve been on it.¡± Chapter 10: Two Atmospheric Phenomenon Having finished the book, I wanted to see Tamara. The sooner the better. But she was nowhere to be found. I called her a few times, but all I got was the answering machine. I figured she was busy, but where was Gunther? Maybe on vacation. No idea why he¡¯d go, because the weather was fine on the island. I figured if he was off in a business trip, I at least should enjoy the sunny days. I did whatever popped into my head. Nothing else I could do. So I took walks, cooked, watched TV, wrote in my journal. Late at night, I lay awake, too tired to watch TV. One night I sat up in bed and wrote in my journal. ¡°I feel empty. Maybe I¡¯m always empty, and just don¡¯t notice because I¡¯m busy. Or maybe I¡¯m really, seriously empty, in a way that nobody else is. When I sleep, I am filled with things, and all day I use them up until evening, when I feel like a car that¡¯s running out of gas, or a kid who can¡¯t reach the gas pedal, or the brake pedal. I just putter on, running on fumes until I go empty. And then I just sit there, on a dark road, headlights beaming straight ahead at the road before me.¡± Gunther called me on a Tuesday. For August, it was cool, and I had taken off strolling in the foothills. I was just getting back to the trailhead when my phone went off. I leaned against a wooden fence and answered. After a brief exchange, my hand fell to my side and I slipped the phone in my bag. No explanation of where he¡¯d been. Just a quick hello and a casual invite to dinner. By now I was used to this mode of communication. I said I¡¯d be there. When the time came, I walked. I knew the route by now, so why not? Gunther greeted me at the doorway. I noticed a new row of hedges kept it out of view from the road. ¡°Did you notice anyone following you,¡± he asked me in a low voice. ¡°No, but I wasn¡¯t looking. Is there¡ª?¡± ¡°Things are escalating.¡± Before I could respond, he ushered me inside. Tamara sat in the den. She¡¯d seen some sun. I sat down across from her and placed my hands in my lap to mirror her. ¡°Hi. Thanks for coming.¡± She smiled reluctantly. ¡°I¡¯d like to know what going on,¡± I said. ¡°Did you like the book?¡± I thought about it. ¡°No. I didn¡¯t like it.¡± ¡°Any reason?¡± She seemed uneasy. ¡°Yes. It was a bit scattered.¡± ¡°Any idea why somebody would take it out of print?¡± She looked me in the eye. ¡°I would say¡­ lack of demand. Nothing controversial in there, nothing to censor, if that¡¯s what you were thinking.¡± ¡°And yet someone paid good money to bribe a well-known editor, to pressure the publisher, to take it out of print.¡± Now it was my turn. ¡°Was it ever actually printed?¡± ¡°What?¡± Tamara tilted her head to one side. ¡°This copy is just a mock-up.¡± I showered her the artless cover. Tamara shook her head. ¡°It was the only copy we could find.¡± ¡°Then maybe the book was never printed. And maybe someone paid for that to happen.¡± Tamara nodded again. ¡°Now what?¡± ¡°Well, I saw the author.¡± ¡°You found her?¡± ¡°Gunther did. And I met with her. But her living situation. it was impossible for me to see her openly.¡± Gunther slipped out quietly and shut the door behind him. ¡°The woman I spoke to was Carolyn Shoemaker. I came to her home in New York. All her roommates were asleep, so we sat in the dark and talked for about three hours, but it seemed much faster. When she told me about her husband, she spoke quickly and quietly, so I had to listen very closely just to understand what she was saying.¡± As Tamara spoke, I became aware of the moon rising over the windowsill and vanishing behind the curtain. She talked over the drafts of night air, and the shrill nightbirds. ¡°Just before she met Gene, Carolyn was 20 and living in Los Angeles. The West Coast had just seen a big rainstorm, and the rain only lasted for two hours over LA, but the amount of rain was enough to cause mass flooding because the landscape there is incredibly flat. In some areas of California outside LA, the subterranean water is so close to the surface that the rainwater has nowhere to drain. The ground is already saturated. In other areas, the desert ground is so compacted that rainwater just flows along the topsoil because it can¡¯t sink into the ground. So all that water collects and flows downhill, away from the mountains, and into the city, because it has nowhere else to go. ¡°¡®I caught a connector from Detroit to Deboise,¡¯ she told me. ¡®There was a moment during the storm when, in a swirling mass of clouds, I saw lightning shoot up into the sky until it was lost in the darkness, and in the sudden radiant light, I saw the rain, and it was falling upwards. ¡°Before I could interject she went on: ¡®I have a distinct sense of what I¡¯m supposed to see, and what I¡¯m not. It¡¯s a kind of intuition that I¡¯ve had since I was a kid. These days it applies mostly to work. If I hear a conversation going on in the background, I can tell without fail if it¡¯s a private conversation. I see a document, and I know if it¡¯s confidential, even if it¡¯s unmarked. My intuition is finely attuned to that specific distinction, but when I saw that rain, it triggered my intuition. I felt as if the rain were part of a confidential document, or a private conversation between two strangers. If you really want to know, I felt as if I had walked in on two strangers making out and turned the light on. ¡°¡®When I saw the rain falling upwards, I thought that the plane might be falling. It would have to be falling very rapidly for the rain to fall upwards from our perspective. But that couldn¡¯t be. Surely I would feel it if the plane were losing altitude that fast. I got up. ¡°¡®The flight attendant appeared in my path. ¡°Go back to your seat!¡± she said. ¡°Go back to your seat and put your seatbelt on.¡± ¡°¡®I¡¯m going to throw up,¡¯ I said. ¡°¡®She let me pass, and I shuffled through the hallway, past people¡¯s knees and the lumpy shapes of carry-on bags. ¡°¡®On my way to the front of the plane, I stole a glance out the window, past the silhouettes of men and women sitting in their seats, clutching their things, drinks shaking in their hands. There was lightning again, and the rain lifted, same as before. I got to the dark empty space between the attendant¡¯s little desk and the lavatory, and I knocked on the cabin door. A flight attendant opened it and gawked at me. Light was dim in the cabin. The pilot sat behind the control panel. The copilot faced the side wall, riffling through a small metal box. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°¡®You can¡¯t be here.¡¯ The flight attendant made a shewing motion. I could barely hear her over the rain. ¡°¡®Where¡¯s the bathroom?¡¯ I had to yell. She waved toward the laboratory door and tried to shut the door. ¡°¡®I squinted into the cockpit. She shifted her weight to lean in front of me. Making eye contact, she motioned with two fingers. ¡®It¡¯s right there.¡¯ Then she gripped the door with both hands and pulled it shut. ¡°¡®The plain lurched again and I feigned a fall, grabbing the door. The flight attendant lost her grip and stumbled backwards. I had a clear view of the control panel. I saw what I needed to see, before I was pushed back and the door shut in my face. The flight attendant was outside with me now. ¡°¡®¡¯Seatbelt light¡¯s on for a reason!¡¯ ¡°¡®She pushed me into the lavatory and shut the door behind me. I was alone again, and I sat down hard on the closed toilet seat. Inside the captain''s cabin I had caught a glimpse of the dials. Searching my memory of the image I found what I was looking for. I was not an expert on planes, but I recognized the units and the general range of numbers I should look for. We were something around thirty-five thousand feet in the air, but more importantly the number has remained steady. We weren¡¯t falling.¡¯ ¡®A few months later I happened to be speaking with a friend of mine who was in the hospital. He told me about something he saw while he was staying in the fire-watch tower¡ªwhich seemingly you know about. His friend had called him up there to see the storm. They were above the clouds, and they saw rain start to fall upwards. That was on January 26, 1948. The same date as my friend¡¯s plane-flight. I couldn¡¯t believe it was a coincidence anymore so I called up my old friend at the fire watch but I couldn¡¯t get in touch. Come to find out he went missing, years ago. But when I went looking for him, all I found was an address in Amador. When I went there, the whole house was gone. Just a mailbox and an excavator sitting near the foundation, and a pile of old lumber. But at the drugstore, when I stopped to pump gas, I met Gene. He was leaning on the hood of his car, wearing some faded jeans, and smoking a cigar. He was on his way to an impact crater in Death Valley.¡± Tamara paused. She had relayed the story well, and I had filled in the blanks with what I got from that book. The whole time, I had been able to picture the old author in her armchair, telling Tamara these things, their voices just above a whisper. ¡°I did a bit of research. That man¡¯s house got washed away by the flood.¡± I remained silent, and Tamara set her tea on the porch railing. ¡°She wouldn¡¯t say much more after that. So I went to see about her friend. Carolyn couldn¡¯t find him, but I did.¡± Tamara seemed to notice I was silent. A dull shock had silenced me, silenced even my mind. I had no words and no thoughts, just a numbing buzz. Tamara¡¯s intensity scared me. I assumed it was wind that took the rain upwards. It was the only explanation, but in the dark outside Tamara¡¯s house, in the open air by the sea, with her cigarette smoke swirling about her face. The embers cast a dim red light across her eyes and her wrinkled face. ¡°He was in prison. When I finally got in a room with him, he told me he gave a 5-year-old child to one of the mossmen during an acid trip on the mountain¡ªhe figured he was tripping already when he was the rain, but it wasn¡¯t until later that he remembered the rain happened before he took any acid, because he only took the acid when his friend arrived and gave it him, and when he watched the rain it has just been him and the 5-year-old kid he was supposed to get rid of. ¡°The moss men. Who are they?¡± Tamara shot a glance in my direction. ¡°The what?¡± ¡°You just said he gave the kid to one of the moss men? Who are the moss men?¡± ¡°Shit, Liza. I don¡¯t know what I said. But that¡¯s not a bad name for them. He said he¡¯d been about to throw him off a cliff into the lake when something came out of the lake. Storm clouds were already rolling in. Little things like small, wet men, skin the color of charcoal began to crawl up the cliff, as if they weighed nothing. Their legs floated behind them, and they climbed with their hands. As he retold the story, it reminded him of a video he had seen of astronauts on the international space station, clinging to the runs of a ladder while their bodies lifted behind them, held down only by their spines and muscular contractions, and not by any natural force of gravity. When he got back to the watchtower, there was one waiting inside for him. Tall, slender, naked, but in the light of the flashlight, his skin was not black, but dark green, like moss. This man asked for the boy. He never took his hand off the ceiling, and he was flexing as if to keep himself from floating up to the ceiling. But the fire-watch man couldn¡¯t believe he was weightless. The ceiling tiles flexed under its hand, as if its enormous bulk were pressed against the ceiling by gravity just as hard as our feet are pressed into the earth. If it had hair, the hair would have fallen upwards.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what he saw?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Then we have no idea what actually happened. If his trip was that bad, he could have seen anything. Did nobody look for the kid?¡± Tamara looked at her hands. ¡°Just me.¡±
Gunther took me home. He was silent for the car ride. The radio played a local college station softly. The moon was hid behind clouds, but in places the stars peaked through, and I watched them through the windows, where they mingled with the colorful reflections of Gunther¡¯s stereo system, and the lit-up dials on the dashboard. When he let me out, it was chilly. Fall was well on its way to winter, and I clutched my jacket around me. The temperature couldn¡¯t be below seventy, but there was humidity in the air, and the wind off the pacific ocean blew a chill over the island. Even here in the shelter of the apartment building. Overhead, a train was just arriving. It slowed, the lines of blurring light grew shorter, separated into individual bulbs. The doors opened. No one got off. When they closed the train howled, let off steam, and accelerated away from the apartment building and away from the island. I ought to take the train sometime, I thought. I could visit Benji in LA without much trouble. Or I could visit the shops. I¡¯ve got a nice bit saved up by now, it would be perfectly alright to spend some. And this case has me on edge. It would be nice to get away for awhile. Maybe Benji could put me up for a few days, or hell I could fly to New York for a week. I make my own schedule. Why did I insist on working day after day? Habit, I guessed¡ªand it had served me well, so I shouldn¡¯t be harsh with myself, but it isn¡¯t good to work all the time. The mind needs rest in order to perform its best, just like the body. With these thoughts I went inside and prepared a late dinner. When I finished chopping everything for a stir fry, I set it on the oven and walked to the balcony for a moment. I opened the door and fresh air flowed into the apartment. I needed that air. Stepping outside I yawned and stretched my arms up high. For a moment, I leaned on the railing and put my head in my hands. When I got up, the door had shut quietly behind me. The eleven PM train passed overhead like rolling thunder, and all became quiet. Somewhere above the moon should be visible soon, I thought as I reached for the doorknob. Then hesitating, I turned toward my neighbor¡¯s window. Sure enough the blinds were closed, but a light seeped out from behind them, and movement. Shadows blocking parts of the light, visible at the cracks. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t watch her like this. If I ever do meet her, she¡¯d think I was a creep. It is creepy to watch like this anyway, no matter if she knows or what she thinks. And even if I learn something, that will only ruin my own experience of getting to know her. I¡¯d have to pretend I¡¯m surprised when I learn certain things. I couldn¡¯t do that. Maybe I¡¯ll see her on the train one day, getting on or coming off. I ought to spend more time there. It¡¯s a good way to meet people. People are curious about the island anyway, so even if I don¡¯t see her, I might meet other interesting people. Maybe I wouldn¡¯t feel so lonely then. Then another thought flashed through her mind. ¡°I must look like a creep watching from here.¡± I reached for the doorknob when a deep voice came out of the courtyard behind, echoed on the brick walls. ¡°Wait.¡± I froze, and he went on. ¡°It¡¯s a deadend. You won¡¯t find him.¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± My voice shook. He was on a balcony, standing close to the wall. There were no lights on him. ¡°Who are you?¡± ¡°I have a message for you.¡± I fumbled for the doorknob. ¡°In the course of your clumsy and unconcealed research, you have got on the trail of an interesting¡­ issue. You and I are looking into the same peephole.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°I am a snake in the tall grass at night, feeling the heat of a tiger. You have yet to see either of us clearly. If you alert him to your curiosity, he will not hesitate to kill you. The tiger is alone in our world, and frightened, but very strong. And he is more dangerous than you realize. I will let you live if you walk away now, because that would be quieter. But make a fuss, try and wake the tiger? You know what¡¯ll happen.¡± ¡°You are threatening me.¡± I was angry now. My hand closed on the doorknob. ¡°What research?¡± ¡°I am drawing a line in the sand,¡± he said in a measured tone. I tore the door open and burst inside, diving to the floor, I rolled to the side. No gunshot rang. Heavy silence filled the room. I was breathing hard. The lights were on, but I could feel the fear of night. He could see me if he tried. I dove for the lightswitch. Clicked. Now the dark was absolute. I ducked. Still no gunshot, so I crept toward the door. It hung open, creaking in the night breeze. My eyes were adjusting. I could see the glint of starlight on the brass doorknob. The gas-stove glowed nearby, and I caught the reek of burnt onion. I reached for the knob. I could feel each nerve in my arm. If he shot me now¡ª? I yanked the door shut. Chapter 11: Tombstone The stairs rang under my feet. Up, up. I figured, do something unexpected. Windows flashed bright moonlight as I passed them. Occurred to me that when a person¡¯s turns upside down, you can¡¯t just do the same things you did before. The essential tasks of life are replaced. The essential turns irrelevant, and the meaningless day-to-day bullshit is a life-saver. I was suddenly glad I knew the layout of this whole apartment building. Up and out a metal door, along an empty hall. Outside I could see the courtyard. Twenty feet to a side, but a long way down. Green grass far below like pale green light at the bottom of a pit. The walls of the courtyard were an amplifier for the trains that roared over the complex. A fire escape made no sense because there was no ground-level exit, but there it was. From any window, it went up or down, then back into the building. Like a maze in one of those kids books. I caught my breath and leaned against a window frame. Then I undid the latch and pushed. A gust of wind pierced the gap and drove into the hallway. I slipped onto the window sill and stepped onto the fire escape. Wind ripped into me. I froze, and a dull metallic rattle trailed up and down. Clouds hung in the sky like wet sheets, bellying with rain. The moon lit them up from behind. Grimacing, I climbed. No shadowy figure stood on the balconies below. No hand closed around my mouth from behind. No face leered over the roof above. I looked up and down, and to the side as I drove one hand after the other, one foot, then the next, testing my traction as I went. I could not afford to slip. One ladder hung down, but the bottom was broken off. Adjusting my pants I hiked my leg up onto the railing, and heaved myself up onto the lowest rung. The iron groaned under my weight and I felt my stomach lurch. Cold wind whipped my shirt. I clung on. My backpack was hung heavy, threw my balance. Climb. I was almost there. Thunder overhead. Then a train roared past, and my stomach dropped. The wind was a weight and force tore me off the wall. I fell in open air. A dozen train cars flew by. I screamed, whipped my arm around. Nothing caught. Then I rammed into a balcony. My vision swam. I saw the moon, in a tear between the clouds, hanging in the stillness far above the storm. I blinked and looked again. Then I looked away, closed my eyes and stared at the red bricks under my hands. My heartbeat quicked. I tried to focus. But when I looked again, the moon had not changed back. It was green. Clear as a green apple, a patch of pale and shadow covered about a quarter of the moon, like a thin layer of moss, or a fungal infection. With a last effort I dragged myself up and over the lip of the roof. There a nest of metal girders and stone columns lay under the train tracks. People stood on the cement platforms to either side. A man in a fur coat pointed down at me and yelled. Rain plinked on the steel girders. I crawled to my knees, got my feet under me. Then I ran, hunched over, between the metal girders toward the landing. The harsh station lights cast a web of shadows around me. A rumble shook the platform. A crowd was gathering. ¡°Look at her!¡± someone said. ¡°Hey!¡± The rumbling grew to a metallic cacophony. ¡°Oh my God!¡± With a last effort I darted through the last of the girders and jumped toward the cement landing. I landed with my arms and chest on the landing. The cement lip bit into my stomach. A light like an alien sun appeared to my right. I felt it before I saw it. The matte silver, tens of tons of steel and wheels careened toward me. Someone grabbed the back of my jacket. The collar closed on my neck and stomach, and my armpits. I was lifted off the landing, and hung for a moment, before the cold cement connected with my knees. Gasping I whirled around, just as the train flew past with a gust of fear so stark I felt my stomach rise in an instant. Blood rushed to my vitals. Then I was pulled away, and someone held my arm tight. I whirled around my fist in the air. ¡°Elizabeth!¡± Benji caught my fist and let my arm go. I swayed, confused and terrified. He stepped away and I stood there, breathing hard, the blood rushing to my face. For a moment, all was silent. No suitcase wheels rolled on the cement floor. Nobody shouting into their phones. Further off, people who hadn¡¯t seen me were still milling about, and soon the crowd melted back into motion. Benji was hot with fury. Pacing down the empty train car. ¡°You¡¯re in over your head, he hissed¡± I was sitting on the bench, Benji¡¯s outer-coat over my shoulders. ¡°Want to tell me why people are hunting for you? People who I¡¯ve never met, and that tells me you¡¯re involved in something¡­ insane. Out of your league. Not your business.¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡ªwho¡¯s looking for me?¡± ¡°I was just coming to get you.¡± ¡°Get me? Since when do you come and get me?¡± ¡°Listen to me. When I was in LA, right after our last visit, somebody came to the office looking for you. They didn¡¯t talk to me, but I overheard your name and had a listen. I thought somebody might have read your work and wasn¡¯t able to find your new adress since it had changed so recently, and because you¡¯re so private about your personal life. You know I¡¯m always looking out for opportunities. I thought I¡¯d catch her on the way out, and put in a good word about you.¡± ¡°At the publishing house?¡± I cringed. ¡°I was going to walk away when I heard our old manager, and she sounded scared. ¡®No, I can¡¯t tell you that,¡¯ she said. I¡¯ll give her your email. That should be enough, and that¡¯s all I can do for you anyway. No, I don¡¯t know what state she¡¯s in. She could be in Turkey for all I know. And I¡¯ve got a meeting right now, so I¡¯ll have to let you go.¡¯ I saw the woman leave. Her face was tight, and I thought I saw her eye twitch from the intensity with which she held her gaze level, like she was fighting to keep composure. She was dressed in a gray pant-suit with a wide brown belt around her waist, and low heels. Her hair was pulled back, too in a military bun. And no earrings or jewelry of any kind.¡± I shrugged. ¡°That could be nothing.¡± I stared out the window. Looming evergreens flew past, and outcroppings of stone, hewn away by dynamite a long time ago. ¡°Could be nothing,¡± Benji agreed. ¡°But if it is nothing, then explain to me why I find you crawling underneath the train tracks, escaping your own apartment. Like Kronos crawling out of tartarus. What happened last night?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe nothing. Somebody was threatening me from outside my apartment. He was saying things that scared me, and I just needed to get out of there without anyone watching. So I climbed up to the top floor and used the fire escape to climb up to the roof, where the train tracks pass over.¡± ¡°Are you well?¡± Benji pursed his lips and looked at me. I rolled my eyes. ¡°How did he get into the courtyard anyway?¡± ¡°Maybe he went down the way you came up.¡± I shuddered, ¡°It¡¯s possible. I guess I will keep my doors locked from now on.¡± ¡°Yes, and you should keep off the fire escape too. Jesus.¡± Benji paced some more while I hung my head and sighed, stretching my neck. ¡°Well anyway,¡± he said. ¡°I looked the woman up. That woman who was asking for you. She¡¯s a representative of the Shoemaker estate.¡± ¡°What is that?¡± ¡°Shoe Maker. Shoemaker. Far as I can tell, it¡¯s a scientific journal. Maybe they need an editor. But I got a bad feeling. That¡¯s why I decided to visit you. I can¡¯t explain it but I had a feeling that your life was obstructed in some way. And you wouldn¡¯t answer my calls.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I should have called you. I know you were worried about me.¡± ¡°And rightly so, as I suspected. Get a grip, Eliza. No more rooftop escapes. If a crackhead starts yelling from your balcony, just call the police. No, fuck the police. Call me.¡± Benji was out the next day but he left a plate of cookies from the local bakery I still hadn¡¯t been to. I took a handful to the library. ¡°Begging your pardon. Excuse me, Liza?¡± A small man in a suit and slicked back hair stood by my desk. His knuckle rapped softly on the table. I pulled my headphones half off and blinked at him. Finally I said, ¡°Can I help you?¡± ¡°I represent the Shoemaker estate. I wondered if I might have a word with you.¡± With a single motion I gathered my papers into a loose stack and slid them into a folder. Then I stood up and slotted the folder into my bag. ¡°Interesting,¡± said the man, having seen a page or two. ¡°What are you working on?¡± I hesitated, weighing what reply might get my work into a magazine¡ªa book, even. When the man leaned over the desk, his pot belly pressed against the creaky wooden desk. ¡°Nevermind. It¡¯s you I came for anyway. A word?¡± I followed him down the library¡¯s main hall, and he took a leisurely path amid the old bookcases, so worn they appeared to be made of driftwood in some places. He walked with briskness and confidence in his step. ¡°Like I said before. I represent the Shoemaker estate. My name is Harold Alfonse if you want to know.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°Nice to meet you,¡± I said. He nodded, curtly. His chin was bumpy with stubble, and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. His eyelashes were long and his glance lingered on my face in an inscrutable and observant way. ¡°You¡¯re a writer. I¡¯ve seen your work, but you haven¡¯t published in awhile. Have you come down with Writer¡¯s Block, or is it research that pulled you off the keyboard?¡± ¡°Oh, publication is always spaced out. Stories take time.¡± ¡°But this is your longest gap yet.¡± I shrugged. We passed into the reading room and my gaze wandered from desk to desk. A sudden chill seized me. A tall, fit man in bluejeans and a thin jacket sat reading at a desk. His gaze was steady. His posture was relaxed. But sweat glistened on his forehead, and there was a readiness. Something told me that, while his pupils gazed intently at the book in his hand, they weren¡¯t moving. Something told me he was urgently and solely focused on his peripheral vision, on me. Violence lurked in his body. He was braced for a sudden move, a move toward me. But there was no threat in his eyes. Just a nervous preparation for extreme outcomes. The undercover man, I thought. ¡°Well. I won¡¯t waste your time. I¡¯m here because it has come to our attention that your research involves certain articles and topics which are of great interest to our estate. You borrowed electronic books from our library and have even requested some physical materials.¡± ¡°They were denied. I remember you.¡± For a moment, I lost sight of the undercover man. ¡°Yes,¡± Harold went on. ¡°I am a liaison of our library. I have come to offer you access to those materials in person, if you would like, but they are a part of our Special Collections and cannot leave Special Collections. They are objects of great sensitivity. They are not ordinary works of scientific documentation.¡± ¡°What are they?¡± ¡°Fictions, simply put. They contain fictional stories, well, a fictionalized memoir actually. But one that is dangerous to own outside of our special collections.¡± My hand tightened on the strap of my bag. ¡°Dangerous how?¡± ¡°Put bluntly, it is bad luck. You may think it is foolish and superstitious to say so, but unfortunate and inexplicable events have occurred whenever someone owns a copy. For whatever reason our special collections seem to be safe. But we don¡¯t dare send the books away, not even to so reputable a library as this.¡± He gestured vaguely with his hand. ¡°Well, you said it already. That¡¯s superstition.¡± ¡°But our rules are rules, all the same.¡± ¡°What sort of inexplicable events?¡± ¡°Oh,¡± the man shrugged. ¡°Storms, floods, fires. Unexpected visitors and unexplained injuries and medical conditions. Robberies. Nothing directly connected with the book except that every single owner met a bad end sooner or later. No one who has owned a copy ever died of natural causes.¡± ¡°How could you possibly know that?¡± The man frowned. ¡°I¡¯ve upset you. That was not my intention. I only meant to impress upon you the serious nature of your request. I traveled here because my superiors believe your work is worth my time traveling here. Whatever you¡¯re researching must be very interesting if it involves Two Atmospheric Phenomenons, but on behalf of the estate, I must urge you not to publish whatever it is you¡¯re writing through the usual channels. Whatever they offer you, it will always be worth more to me.¡± He¡¯ll buy the rights and bury it, flashed through my mind. ¡°Well, thank you,¡± I said, forcing a real smile. The man studied my face for a moment then smiled in return. ¡°You¡¯re most welcome,¡± he said. But his face said, good job Harold. We had walked a full loop by now and stood under the lobby''s marble archway. Harold gave a firm handshake then hurried toward the exit. Someone walked past me, also heading for the exit. My stomach rolled. It was him. As he passed me by, I held my breath and kept my face immovable. He was the same, his casual stride. But a faint spring in his step, the stillness of his shoulders, and the carefully molded expression he wore unnerved me. He is still watching me. Watching me or not, Harold left. I half-jogged to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and climbed on the toilet. A narrow window by the ceiling looked over the parking lot. A narrow black car hummed on the curb. Harold climbed in. A moment later, the man in bluejeans and a thin jacket strode into view, slipped into the car beside Harold and the car pulled away. ¡°What do you make of that,¡± I said to myself.
I was slurping noodles when the phone rang that night. I sat on the living room floor with my knees tucked up to my chin and a bowl of ramen balanced on my knees. The radio was thumping with some new mix on KCRW. ¡°This is¡­ Radio One,¡± said the DJ, a British guy, huh? I swallowed and got up to answer the phone. ¡°¡­¡± I picked up the receiver and blanched as if I¡¯d seen a ghost. But I saw nothing. Heard nothing presently. But I felt as if I had suddenly opened a box containing a dangerous gas which now filled the room, seeping out of the receiver. I took a breath. There was no detectable poison of course, but my palm was sweating when I said, ¡°Hello?¡± ¡°Yes. Who am I speaking to?¡± The voice was heavily distorted. ¡°Who¡¯s calling, please?¡± I said. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t say. Call me Tombstone.¡± ¡°OK. Tombstone. What an odd name.¡± I said it again. ¡°Tombstone.¡± ¡°Yes. And your name?¡± His voice was heavy and mechanical. ¡°Maybe I shouldn¡¯t say either.¡± ¡°Good. I would like to meet with you, regarding a matter of great importance to us both. My¡ªthe man I represent believes the mossmen may try something soon and we would like to lift you before that happens. You know about the mossmen of course.¡± ¡°Of course I don¡¯t. The what?¡± My hand flew to the pad, pen ready. Well this will be interesting, I thought. ¡°I am calling because I believe some people may try to harm you in the near future. But not directly. Nothing like that yet. But they have a very long reach and can influence many aspects of your life without you sensing them.¡± ¡°I was threatened last night.¡± I set my pen down. ¡°Now this.¡± ¡°Yes, you were encouraged to be discreet because I believed you were safe. But the mossmen already know about you. You are too close to the heart of things and they will not tolerate discovery. The mossmen will eliminate you if they can, and if you aren¡¯t careful they will achieve that end. Your end. Which is why I am urging you to meet with me. Time is running out. Moss grows on the unmoving stone.¡± My jaw hung open. It was all nonsense, but this man knew about last night. The apartment sprang into focus around me. A shadow wavered on the balcony. The long cream curtains swayed in a draft. A board creaked in the hallway. ¡°You want to meet with me?¡± ¡°It is imperative that I meet with you as soon as possible.¡± ¡°Where should I meet you?¡± ¡°On neutral ground. Someplace where I can¡¯t influence you, and they can¡¯t harm either of us. It¡¯s only fair that way.¡± ¡°Influence me? In what way?¡± ¡°There¡¯s an old, charred bridge on Harbor road. It passes over train tracks. The wood and iron are blackened, but the bridge is safe. I will meet you there tonight. Come as soon as possible. Step onto the bridge and I will reveal myself. Can I count on you to do that?¡± I was breathing hard. ¡°No! This is ridiculous! I¡¯m staying where I am. No, I¡¯m leaving right now.¡± I hung up.
From inside a small bakery, I watched the bridge. It was empty, and black in the dark¡ªno, not just in the dark. The wood was charred. I sipped my coffee thoughtfully and tried to watch the bridge without attracting the attention of the baker behind the counter. ¡°It¡¯s unprecedented,¡± he was saying, not talking to me. ¡°How cold you think it¡¯ll get tonight?¡± Someone replied, muffled by the clatter of the kitchen out back. An oven door slammed and, ¡°Damn.¡± Something sizzled and the odors of baked bread and hot tea fluttered through the bakery.. Somewhere outside a crow called. The stars had appeared in the night sky, but mountains, vast and dark, filled the lower half of my view in a blank void. Far away, cold wind blew off the sea, and billowed up the far side of those mountains, and blew out over the peaks, over me and over the harbor. I could feel its chill spiraling down through air currents to the level of the street, and seeping under the cracks of the door and pressing through the window panes. ¡®Come as soon as possible,¡¯ the man had said. Well, I¡¯m here. Stealing a last sip of coffee I zipped my coat and slipped out the front door. ¡°Night, miss!¡± I waved over my shoulder, but my eyes were fixed on the bridge. I had seen something, or thought I saw something pass over it, like the shadow of a bird. Something about that shadow had clicked, and I strode toward the bridge. It wasn¡¯t far¨Cjust a block away, but I was shivering and only halfway there. Overhead, the clouds passed like the hulls of galleons, viewed from fathoms below, distorted by the vast expanse of water between us. The bridge was wide enough for two lanes, with a sidewalk on one side, and huge wooden pillars holding the roof aloft. As promised, the entire bridge was blackened with soot, which glistened with dew or mist. A pair of sawhorses and some dry police tape warded off traffic. No cars were on the road that night. The sidewalk was my own. The only company were street lamps, which buzzed like bees flying from shadow to shadow to collect shadow pollen. I found a gap in the wooden barrier and stepped over the police tape, which sagged under my touch and fell away. My boots stamped loudly on the pavement, and then clopped onto the wooden bridge. The wind did not follow me, and I stood in the silent street alone. For a moment, I stood alone. Then I saw him, a great heap of a man, hunched on the bridge in front of me, halfway between each side. His lopsided shoulders shrugged as he breathed, in and out, up and down they rose and fell like the flank of a slumbering bull. Next to him, I would dwindle into a willowy, formless thing like a candle flame. Even as I thought this I felt myself losing the thread, and I fell backwards onto the pavement. In the dark, I pressed the walls of my mind outwards until I perceived great distances in the dark, and my mind moved in all directions, and when I did this my mind lost density and cohesion, but the dark fabric or water of the darkness expanded without loss of depth or potency. I expanded readily and grew, feeling I was fighting against something, some pressure behind my eyes, and as the dark water grew with me I realized it was alive. Terror filled me, knowing how much of this living deep water I have let into my mind. When my mind was cohesive and focussed, this water was a background thing, not more. Then I grew my boundaries and it grew too, expanding to fill the spaces. My mind grew thin and airy, and the water grew cold. This dark water did not follow the rules of physics. It did not expand and lose density. It expanded and intensified. This thing in my mind had not familiarized itself with the rules of my psychology. It had either entered me from the outside, or had sat asleep in my mind for who knows how long, never using my senses, lurking in the basin like a tidal pool that never drained, and old things lived there, and grew in it, nourished by it, the suffocated by isolation. Now they grew vast in the ocean of my mind. I turned my inner gaze downward. Dark shapes moved in the water. Sharp pain covered my freezing palms. I sat up with alarm, felt I had woken up from a dream: I had stepped onto the bridge, seen the man, then¡­ what? But he was still there, in the flesh. He began to walk toward me. ¡°You don¡¯t make this easy,¡± he growled. I pulled the Koch and Heckler as I staggered to my feet, but my hands were cold. I fumbled. The gun fell. The man slowed. I half lunged toward it, but I hesitated. His gaze fell to the gun. Then back to me. ¡°You¡¯re the girl,¡± he said. I was crouched, ready to lunge for the gun. My voice shook, but I almost shouted. ¡°You¡¯re Tombstone. I recognize your voice.¡± He looked at me down his broad, flat nose. His eyes burned ¡°Try that again and I¡¯ll shoot you.¡± ¡°Try?¡± Still he didn¡¯t move, but his mind raced. The gun was loaded, surely. But the safety was on. If he moved quickly, he might¡ª ¡°Don¡¯t try it,¡± I almost whispered. ¡°You think you¡¯re faster. You try to hypnotize me again, or make a sudden move, and you¡¯ll see what happens. I came here to listen. Talk to me.¡± Tombstone moved his lips this way and that, flexing and stretching his lower face. Then he nodded, and took a slow step back. I lurched forward. Tombstone lunged toward me, and froze, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. His two eyes were looking down the barrel. Chapter 12: A Preponderance of Evidence Tombstone eyed the barrel of my gun. ¡°You don¡¯t make it easy.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have to. Tell me why you¡¯re really here.¡± ¡°You won¡¯t believe me.¡± ¡°Try me.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a storm in Death Valley,¡± he said, shrugging. ¡°Like the storm in ¡®48.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you came here to tell me?¡± ¡°No, but if you don¡¯t believe I¡¯m telling you the truth, then none of this will sink in and I¡¯ll have wasted my time.¡± ¡°Why do you care so deeply about my safety? You were just about to kill me.¡± ¡°I tried. I will try again. But if I can¡¯t kill you, I want to protect you against them, because if they get a hold of you¡­¡± ¡°You¡¯re just making this up.¡± ¡°I¡¯m saying this so you¡¯ll listen,¡± he spat. ¡°I need to wake up and see what kind of world you¡¯re living in.¡± ¡°What happened in ¡®48?¡± ¡°Oh come on,¡± he sneered. ¡°Just tell me what happened in 1948.¡± Tombstone raised an eyebrow. ¡°You don¡¯t know.¡± I lurched forward another inch. The gun barrel pressed against his forehead. Tombstone seethed. ¡°The supermoon in 1948. You don¡¯t know what happened,¡± panic crept into his voice. ¡°If you don¡¯t start talking¡ª¡± He lunged. I pulled the trigger, nothing happened, then the metal barrel cracked against my forehead with the knockback. A gaping hole thundered through the roof of the bridge. Tombstone leaped over the side, coattails flapping behind him, into the air, into the rain. Down over the side he fell, and vanished into the mist. I ran to the railing. No sign of the man, just the dark harbor waters below. Further out, the pale white shapes of the yachts bobbed like sheets in the wind, and further still the moon hung just above the horizon, huge and luminescent, and pitted with dark craters, and faintly green, as if a thin layer of moss grew over the surface.
My breathing slowed, and a dread laid itself over me. The moon hung like a weight in the sky, and it weighed on my mind. Why green? What was growing there? Surely it wasn¡¯t moss, but if I chose to accept my perceptions then I would have to accept the possibility that it was something. If I take this seriously, if I don¡¯t just dismiss the green moon as a hallucination, then what? If I accept the green moon, then I must accept certain other possibilities. I will need an explanation. I will also need to accept that certain knowledge and assumptions I have carried with me for years will no longer hold water. These things I used to know: nothing grows on the moon, and nothing can grow because there is no oxygen or water on the moon. Some of these things are verified by science. The shoemaker crater¡ª I stopped mid-thought. My hands fell to the railing and I clenched my fists around it. The Shoemaker Crater. They must know about the moon. The storm rambled on overhead, thunder and an undulating downpour. But my head was empty. Too many thoughts pushed in from the outside. I should proceed in an organized way, I told myself. Start with what I know, and go down the list until you encounter a contradiction. Then you¡¯ll just have to make a call. Do you trust what you have always known, or do you accept this new reality? ¡°No,¡± I said out loud. ¡°There isn¡¯t time. There¡¯s a storm in Death Valley, and Benji is there now. I need to help him.¡± But you don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on. How can you help him? So many fundamental truths have been upturned. Yes, I¡¯m going in blind, but if I wait, then the storm will break over Benji and he¡¯ll be alone, not knowing how deep the well goes. There are forces at work that I do not understand. Tombstone, and the Shoemaker Estate. I don¡¯t know what they¡¯re capable of, or their stakes in all of this. I¡¯ll just have to take things as they come. Wait. Do you know there¡¯s a storm in Death Valley? No. Check first. It was around ten by now, and the rainclouds had blown out over the sea, and weeknight events were coming to a close. Teenagers and young adults filtered out of the shops and into the fresh night air, with umbrellas ready and coats pulled tight around their necks. From the shadow of the bridge, I watched the commotion. They were about my age, all heading back to their studio apartments or their parent¡¯s houses, or to the dorms, or else to catch the last train back to the mainland. Slipping my hands into my pockets, I left the shadow of the bridge and followed the sidewalk, hoping to avoid the attention of strangers. Someone might call the police if they saw me loitering under the bridge. As I strode down the lamp-flooded streets to my apartment, I head someone calling my name. Boots splashed on the sidewalk behind me. I whirled around. It was the librarian. She was breathing hard and fell into step beside me. Her hair was soaked blacker than usual, and matted onto the jacket she wore. She was shivering. ¡°He wants to talk to you,¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t have time,¡± I said, walking fast. ¡°Someone tried to kill me twice in a week, and I¡¯m getting off this island. If needs to tell me something he can send a messenger, or find me himself. Or make a phone call. Jesus. Why can¡¯t he just call me?¡± The librarian grimaced. She seemed to be making up her mind. ¡°It¡¯s difficult for him to leave the yacht,¡± she said finally. ¡°He has a condition that makes it impossible for him to travel.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m leaving, and I don¡¯t have time to see him.¡± ¡°Where are you going?¡± I wiped the rain off my forehead and looked at her. ¡°Why do you want to know?¡± ¡°I want to help you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think you can,¡± I said. ¡°And how would you know? You just stumbled into all this. I helped you once already, don¡¯t you think I can do it again? You¡¯re crazy trying to do this all alone.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if I can trust you.¡± ¡°And the people who you can trust can¡¯t help you. So a thing has got to give.¡± The gun was still warm against my side. I stopped and looked her in the eyes. ¡°For my own safety, I am going to decide not to trust you. But I will let you help me if you insist. If you meant any harm, you could have hurt me already.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a common sentiment. But keep your guard up.¡± ¡°Is that supposed to make me trust you more?¡± ¡°You¡¯re desperate, and you need help. And desperate people make mistakes. I need you to think clearly. And it will help if I know who tried to kill you.¡± ¡°He told me to call him Tombstone.¡± There was a long pause. I turned to look at her. ¡°Right,¡± she said. Her face was pale, but she didn¡¯t say more. ¡°You know him?¡± She hesitated, thinking of a lie. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°He tried to use some kind of hypnosis on me, less than an hour ago. I tried to shoot him. He jumped off a bridge into the harbor.¡± The librarian raised her eyebrows. ¡°You tried to shoot him?¡± ¡°Yes, but my hand slipped. The knockback almost killed me.¡± ¡°Jesus. Where¡¯d you get a gun?¡± ¡°I¡¯m working for someone. They warned me things might get harry. But until this week, nobody tried to kill me. In fact, a whole bunch of unusual things happened this week. It¡¯s as if everyone found out about me at the same time.¡± ¡°Weird,¡± she said, but she wouldn''t look me in the eye. We parted ways shortly thereafter. I didn¡¯t press her for answers. I had enough to think about and I didn¡¯t think her answers would simplify anything. When I got home I phoned Benji. There was no answer, so I texted him. Then I cleaned up. In front of the mirror I stipped down to my shorts. My back ached. My hands stung, and dried blood caked my palms. My cheek and forehead were bruising. My clothes smelled of smoke when I threw them in the wash. Then I pulled off my socks and threw them in as well. The tile floor was cool on my feet and I shivered. The lights were dim in the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I straightened up. When did my posture get so bad I pulled my hair into my hands and held it behind my head. Turning this way and that I look over my body. Everything seemed in order. People used to compliment my body. In the half-light, the body could have been someone else¡¯s, on the other side of a glass window. Both of us were naked, myself and the girl in the mirror. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The weariness came in waves, and a wave crested over me then, and I felt pleasantly exhausted somehow. I feel as if I haven¡¯t learned anything definite, but I¡¯ve learned a lot. I can¡¯t say it was a waste of time, I thought. Even if I spent almost none of it in the library researching that poor little kid. It could be all these strangers and I are headed to the same conclusion, and maybe I¡¯ll find what I¡¯m looking for there. But I need to be more careful. I was lucky I thought to ask for a gun. Imagine if Tombstone had caught me unarmed. I shuddered and turned on the lights. My eyes hurt, then adjusted, and I turned on the shower. As the water and warm washcloth eased the dirt off my skin, I let my mind wander. Whenever I thought about something, I let it pass away into the distance of my mind until a pleasant distance developed between my conscious mind and all the troubling things I needed to think about. I breathed deeply, and the steamy air filled my lungs. When I had finished, I laid down in bed and pulled the sheets and duvet up over my head. They were pleasantly cool. I had bought the highest quality I could afford, and since I didn¡¯t have expensive tastes elsewhere in life, the sheets were nice. Now I cherished them. Pulling them off my head, I let myself fall into a deep state of physical release. My hips sank comfortably into the mattress. My shoulders relaxed. My head was warm and foggy. And then I left my body behind for a while, and sank into the world of dreams, where all the thoughts that had passed by in the shower came home to roost. When I woke, my body was calm and loose, and a deep restfulness had washed over me all night, but there were tears on my cheeks and my stomach was flexing with a sob, and my nose had run down the side of my face in the night. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. What time was it? The gray curtains billowed in slow motion with the draft. A shapeless light hung there, no harsh angle of morning sunlight. The red alarm clock on my nightstand read 3:00 a.m. but the numbers blinked. I sat up with the covers still over me. A fresh, chilly morning smell filled the apartment. I must have left a window cracked, and rain came down overnight. The blinking alarm clock meant we lost power sometime in the night while I was asleep. Slipping out of bed onto the carpeted floor, I padded to the window and threw open the shades. Outside a gray mist filled the air, but I could see clouds overhead, where the mist thickened. The sun had not come up. I could feel a chill through the window. Shivering, I went to the closet and pulled a hoodie on. Then I sat on the bed, pulled my knees up to my chin and stared out the window. My mind was strangely quiet, as if I had worked everything out in my sleep. My inner calm persisted through the morning. My precious inner calm. The feeling was so rare that I couldn¡¯t help waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the back of my mind I could sense the near future, waiting for me, ready for me. And here I was, calm and unconcerned. I guess I was ready too. I called Benji that morning and still got no answer. But that didn¡¯t matter. I knew where he was. I checked the weather. A storm was over Death Valley. I saw it on the weather radar, online. The long, trailing body of the storm, blue within green, and red alone the center. The red dot moved steadily from West to East. Then I packed a bag. I took my old duffle bag from the compartment over my closet and laid it on my bed. I packed a change of clothes. On top I placed my notebook and a cloth bag of pens. I placed these things in the bag automatically. I had taken them with me on every trip I could remember. There was a knock at the door. I sprang upright. The gun was in my hand. How alien it seemed in my hand, my thin fingers, my knobby joints. Not killing hands. Lifting up my shirt I shoved the gun underneath and zipped the duffle bag. Then I tiptoed to the hallway. There was another knock, this one quieter. In a few steps I was at the door. I closed one eye and put my face up to the peephole. I stared for a moment, unable to comprehend. Brown hair filled the view. Then a girl¡¯s face appeared in profile. She was turned, her side to the door. The girl with brown hair raised a hand again to knock, but her face convulsed with a cringe that touched beneath the outer layers of my heart. She lowered her hand. Some process of thought unfolded behind her eyes. My hand hovered over the door automatically. I clamped my own hand over my mouth. I knew who she was. I stood with my other hand on the doorknob, my face pressed to the keyhole. She was my neighbor. Who I¡¯d never seen. The question mark where I hung something childish and empty. I came home to her lights and quiet music spilling across the quartyard. And me coming home to no one, it helped to know she was there. The girl walked away. She looked back for only a second. The lights came on across the courtyard. Then music played dimly. Much later, a smell of pasta wafted across the air currents of the courtyard. But I would be gone by then. My forehead fell to the door and I breathed a long, singular breath. Then I retrieved the duffle bag, got into my shoes, and left.
The moon was out. I jogged across the lawn to the street. The road was dry and cool. The moon hung directly overhead, centered over the road so that its rays lit up the reflective yellow lines on the new black tar. I looked discreetly up at the moon. Still green, still cream underneath, or gray, with a layer of tuft-like, fuzzy green just barely clinging to the ancient moon. As I jogged, my bag bumped painfully against my side. Winded, I slowed down until I was walking. My breath came hard, but it soon calmed and my thoughts began to wander as I walked toward the train that would take me to Death Valley. It occurred to me around this time how the moon might appeal to my imagination. While the earth appeared full of color and life, the moon was a blank slate. Of course it contained shades of cream and gray, but this only increased the effect. The moon gave the ghost of an impression, and my mind filled in the rest. If I had imagined the green¡ªcontinue to imagine the green, I reminded myself¡ªwhat might it symbolize to me? I thought, without much pleasure, that it might symbolize growth or new beginnings that were all out of reach. Something new and vital is brewing up there, I thought, while our own world seems to be dying. All our systems depend on one another. The systems themselves are not delicate, but we have been steadily unraveling their foundations for decades now, and when they do become unraveled, it will be nearly impossible to reverse the damage. The future is bearing down on us. It would be nice to start again somewhere new, or to escape before the world rots. Maybe I think it is like a garden on the moon, and little moon people walk around, smelling the moon flowers, and children jumping high in the air, and then a meteor strikes again and it¡¯s fireworks, and a blossom of dust and heat that burns out soundlessly, like a lens flare. I wonder if the moon people share our past, or if they have lived in our barren moon for eons, and only now began to grow life on their field of rock. For them, the future is better than the past. It used to be that way in America, too, I think. Right after World War II there was this sentiment about the end of history, and people thought the old cycles of chaos and war had ended. But something changed, something switched. I guess it happened during the new moon. When everything was dark, and nobody was looking, something slipped into the world. I guess it comforts me to imagine something else is responsible for the way things are, and not, you know. I was almost to the station when my phone rang. My phone rang. Gunther spoke over the bad connection. ¡°Hello, is this Liza?¡± ¡°Yes, hi Gunther,¡± ¡°Can we talk?¡± I scanned the road around me. Apart from a chattering couple, who were already passing me and walking away, I was alone on the road. The station ahead was moderately crowded, but the noises of steam vents, generators, and trains passing through was enough to offer us privacy. ¡°Yes,¡± I decided. ¡°Is everything okay?¡± He chose the words very carefully, and his voice was more formal somehow. I realized he was controlling his tone very carefully. ¡°Things got a little scary this week.¡± He was silent. ¡°I had to use the tool you let me borrow.¡± ¡°Ah.¡± I felt a sob creep into my throat out of nowhere. ¡°No one else knows, except a man called Tombstone who tried to hypnotize me on a bridge down by the harbor.¡± I said, swallowing hard. ¡°It reminded me of something I wanted to tell you, but I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ll understand.¡± ¡°Well try.¡± ¡°Ok. I have experienced a persistent blindspot in my memories; that¡¯s how it feels. Like a smell that recalls the open pathway to a memory that¡¯s not there. But I wasn¡¯t alive then, I was never there, and yet I feel as if I was, my working mind believes I was there, at that place, at that time.¡± ¡°When the world changes tracks, evidence of the change appears in subtle ways. Things which shouldn¡¯t change noticeably at all change gradually over a single lifetime. Those things basically shouldn¡¯t change at all or else in big ways as a result of a visible catastrophe, after, say, a natural disaster. But this slow acceleration of change followed by a full return to the ordinary pace of things¡­ That¡¯s how you can tell we are in a different world entirely, filled with mostly the same things, rearranged and permuted slightly. So a river that had just barely flowed one way down an impossibly gradual slope might now flow the other way. Sometimes the flow stops at a dam, man-made or built by animals, or at a clogged place choked with fallen trees, and a buildup of sediment or the flow might reverse, like I described. And people are the same way, and their dams and changes in psychological topography are the same. Changes within manifest changes without. Which in turn can change the way things move over you, or flow through the troughs of your outermost psychology.¡± ¡°You¡¯re taking a lot of heat,¡± he said. ¡°You should back out. Tamara says you should back out now before things get dangerous. But she didn¡¯t know about the tool I gave you. So you should really back out. She¡¯ll pay you in full, in exchange for whatever information you gained this week, and we¡¯ll hire somebody who¡¯s trained for this level of danger.¡± Now I was silent. ¡°You¡¯re the second person to tell me I should back down. If I don¡¯t see this though¡ª¡± ¡°Liza, we don¡¯t need you to get hurt. We need a professional. I think you may have led us to the source of Tamara¡¯s sorrow, and maybe you are not equipped to deal with what comes next.¡± ¡°You mean, you don¡¯t need one person risking their neck alone, impotently straining to perform a task. You think a team would do better.¡± ¡°Yes, I think that.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have time. Someone very close to me has become involved, and certain other events have made my participation inevitable. All the disparate elements of my life have begun to swirl around this mystery. I¡¯m going to Death Valley, to the mouth of the whirlpool, where everything leads. Something¡¯s going to happen there, maybe like what happened on that mountain in 1948.¡± ¡°What did happen then, on the mountain?¡± ¡°I think Tamara¡¯s brother was sold.¡± ¡°You think he was a victim of human trafficking.¡± Gunther¡¯s voice told me he had wondered about this himself, already. ¡°Is there any reason to believe that?¡± ¡°Not directly.¡± ¡°Then be careful, because Tamara has thought about that before. We discussed at length what it might mean if her brother was sold as part of a human trafficking business. She has grieved the possibility of that outcome for her brother, but dealing with the reality would pain her in a new way. But please explain what you mean by, not directly. Please explain how something points to that outcome indirectly.¡± ¡°I can start by ruling out alternatives. I think the man wanted to kill that kid, but he didn¡¯t. He hinted at this repeatedly. I read the interview in that book you got me. He confided to his friend, admitting his intention to kill the young boy because he hoped, after his confession, the author would trust him enough to believe what he told me next. But his story was a fantasy. He described events that can only be explained as hallucinations, and his story contained many lies and much confusion. But that¡¯s to be expected. For one thing, he experienced a severe acid trip while he was on the mountain. For another, these events occurred during an extreme weather event. But in his hallucination, he described giving the boy to one of the people he hallucinated. The second crucial element is this. The events of that night took place during a supermoon, one of the biggest we¡¯ve had in decades. But that¡¯s about to change, because an even bigger supermoon is coming in twenty-four hours. The storm will reach its peak intensity over Death Valley, at the same time the supermoon rises over the valley. I am not a superstitious person, but in the course of my research I have encountered several individuals and organizations of high scientific repute who place great importance on the events of that night, and while they deny the importance of the coming supermoon and its simultaneous storm, but their actions show otherwise. Someone called a hit on me. The Shoemakers paid me a visit. That¡¯s why I utilized the tool you let me borrow. ¡°A preponderance of evidence.¡± ¡°Exactly. In 1948, three things happened at the same time. A supermoon rose over the Firewatch tower on Mount Coney, a storm ravaged the island, and a child went missing. I have documented witnesses to each of these events, and reason to believe that these events are connected, or at least that several disconnected organizations believe they are connected, or consider them connected in some way. All that I did already. Tomorrow night, in Death Valley, two of those three events will occur simultaneously, which has not happened since 1948. I am going to stop the third.¡± Chapter 13: The Bottom of the Ocean We caught our train. Tamara went to sleep with a hat over her eyes. Gunther slipped into our traincar at the last minute and sat beside Tamara. He nodded to me as he set his bag down. As the sun set, Gunther pulled a book from his bag, and leaned against the window. His eyes scanned the book, but every so often I caught him scouring the train car, his eyes on each door, each window. Sometimes he seemed to be looking far away. Gunther keeping watch like that, I let my mind wander. In the fading light, we sped past a yellow sign. It flickered past us, by a brick building, a dumpster. I couldn¡¯t see what it said. But the sign was diamond-shaped. But when the lights of the train hit the sign, it bounced back all wrong. The color was incorrect. The light bouncing off the sign was entirely different from the light that came out of the train. As if the light-waves and light-particles of the train were all vanishing into the sign, and passing to a different place, and the light that came off the sign¡ªthe light I could see¡ªwas from that place, and it glowed like an aura around the sign. The glowing aura around the street sign stayed with me, even as it vanished into the distance. Made me think of how each person has their own model of the world, which they have built subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) in their mind. And that people who are visually impaired, or impaired in other senses, their world, their model of the world, which only exists only in their imagination anyway, just like the rest of us, would be so different from another person¡¯s model who isn¡¯t visually impaired. But it¡¯s supposed to be the same world. And it made me wonder. Are there some things that only one person has seen? A person¡¯s world might contain things that very few people have seen, and therefore very few people have taken into consideration. And so much of that model is built on memories, it is possible that some people place enormous emphasis on certain things they remember and not others, and that would affect their model of the world too, so that these models of the world would revolve around concepts, objects, or interactions that no one else would notice or bestow any importance upon. I had to accept that maybe other people could see the moon, because I wasn¡¯t hallucinating. It was just that this particular change in the moon, from their point of view¡ªthe view of the general public, maybe¡ªthis changed moon might seem of so little importance as to escape their notice entirely. It was possible that I, and perhaps a few others, were the only people in the world who knew about the moon changing. No one else noticed, so no one could think about its significance. I know it sounded crazy, all this talk about the moon. But I couldn¡¯t help what I was thinning. Maybe if I had left well-enough alone, I wouldn¡¯t have wound up in this mess. But no, I took this job with Tamara before I saw the moon, and was already in the thick of things. Tamara had woken up at some point. She was looking at me with an expression I couldn¡¯t read. ¡°You aren¡¯t old enough to remember the moon landing, are you?¡± ¡°I watched it with my parents.¡± ¡°When Buzz, you know Buzz Aldrin? When he got sick, everyone thought they might need to use the backup crew. This was before the moon landing obviously, but not long before. So, a kind of backup plan went into motion and the folks at Nasa immediately set about constructing and training a backup for the backup team. They had planned for such an occasion and had selected several likely candidates. I was one.¡± My eyes must have gone wide because she laughed. ¡°It isn¡¯t all that crazy, is it? Our training was intensive, and I enjoyed it. But in the end, Buzz was perfectly fine and the backup team was not used, so our team became a redundancy. I never went up. But it turned out someone had a use for us anyway. One of the leaders at Nasa asked the backups¡¯ backup to dinner one day, and introduced to Sergio Hutchinson. Sergio was a civilian, but I believed from the very start that he something else too. Possibly he was some kind of informant or a freelancer for the CIA¡ªthey must have those. But again he claimed he was a civilian, and that he was a diving instructor, and his company was hiring a team of divers, but they couldn¡¯t find anyone qualified, partly because the location of their dive was under certain environmental conditions that were entirely beyond the training of most divers. But he believed our Nasa training made us well-equipped to handle the kind of environmental difficulties of his dive site. He avoided telling us the purpose of this dive, beyond saying that we would carry a piece of equipment from one submarine to another. He said it was part of a test. A simple transfer. But the transfer was set to occur off the western coast of Australia. We flew to Perth and then drove nine hours north to Carnarvon. Then we took a seaplane to Bernier island. From there we took a boat into the Indian ocean. We sailed for about 30 hours, 200 miles toward our destination. This location is the antipode of the bermuda triangle, not inside the bermuda triangle, but just on the cusp of it. When we got to the site and tried to perform the transfer, I first became aware that I was not alone in my suit, or perhaps in my mind. I could feel it urging me, urging me and speaking also to something else, or someone else I couldn¡¯t see, then urging me again, more desperately, more violently to let myself sink into the water, to lose consciousness. And all the while he was talking to me, trying to convince me that both of us were better off dying here. ¡°They won¡¯t find you here. It would be better to die now and save yourself the suffering. If you don¡¯t die now, you will have to choose whether to kill yourself or to go away with those men, and they will not kill you but. At least if you die here, they shall not find and defile your warm body after death. A gunshot would draw them like flies, and if you failed to kill yourself, then what? You would die from their defilement. If you let yourself fall asleep now, your death is guaranteed, and you need not fear for your suffering or dignity, but can die peacefully. There was a silhouette at the window. Our floodlights barely illuminated his face. An old man, sickly thin, pale, wrinkled skin. He had watched the transfer unmoving. Now his eyes followed the diver who returned to his submarine. When I returned to our submarine, I stepped into the airlock, undressed When I came above deck, Cain was speaking quickly into the radio. But someone kept interrupting him from the other side. When I climbed up the cramped stairs he shot a guilty look towards me. Covering the receiver, he swallowed and said, ¡°They want me to send you back out.¡± ¡°Is something wrong?¡± I said. ¡°Don¡¯t think so,¡± he said. Marco looked at me, but he spoke to Cain. ¡°We delivered their package. What do they need her for?¡± Cain¡¯s face twitched. ¡°Why don¡¯t you go,¡± Marco said. Fear flashed across Cain¡¯s face, but he hid it quickly. Not quickly enough. Marco took a slow step toward Cain. ¡°No. Nobody¡¯s going out there.¡± Marco shook his head. ¡°You refuse?¡± Cain looked at me. ¡°Tell me why they need me.¡± He shrugged. ¡°They wouldn¡¯t say. Honestly.¡± ¡°You think they might hurt her.¡± Marco stated this as fact. Cain nodded slowly. ¡°It¡¯s possible.¡± ¡°You should go, you bastard.¡± Marco spat on the grated floor. ¡°After all she¡¯s done for you.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if¡ª¡± Cain flinched as the comms went off again. Looking hard at both of us he took the call. ¡°Yes? This is Kappa.¡± [Th¡ªpoison in my cup. C¡ªn. Cain, you should have never come here. I am going to wake them. The water is ice cold, and they dream of warm blood.] The color had drained from Cain¡¯s face. Then the submarine lurched. My knees turned to jelly. But it was Marco, not¡­ not whatever the man was going to wake up. Marco gunned the engines. Bubble¡¯s erupted outside every window. The bubbles enveloped the submarine. Slowly, haltingly, our metal vessel began to move. Bubble jets rocketed behind us and slowly we gained speed. The voice in the radio continued like an incantation, but soon it lost coherence, and it went away entirely. When we made it to the surface, I threw up, again and again. The pressure wasn¡¯t right. Marco had rushed everything. He had lowered the pressure too fast, and my body could not adjust, through the rest of the crew seemed fine. Cain spoke little on the return journey. He looked like a man who saw a ghost, or looked into the jaws of death. That day on the bottom of the ocean¡ªI never came closer to death. Now Tamara sat back in her chair and began to speak in a low voice. Her story was over, but the heat of it lingered between us. ¡°I believe most living people have a certain thing inside them,¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone¡¯s born with it, but maybe they¡¯re born with the raw, primordial goop to form this thing inside them. It exists inside their mind and just at the edges of their nerves and other physical senses. Just like how the human body requires sustenance, this thing inside requires sustenance, but each one requires different sustenance. Often the thing will communicate its hunger through desire or impulse. Have you ever wanted something but it made no sense why you wanted it? Maybe you knew it was a bad idea, and might even hurt you, or hurt other people, but you felt that you wanted it anyway. That¡¯s the thing inside you. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Some people are lucky, and they only need to do random, harmless things once in awhile. Other people find that they are happily drawn to one another in some way, and those people might become friends or lovers, not because their friendship evolved organically, but because they had compatible desires deep within them, not necessarily the desire to be friendship, but what else could they call this relationship of mutual exchange. But some people have to do hard things, serious and dangerous things that no person would do for any reason under ordinary circumstances. And something happens when the thing isn¡¯t nourished. It grows hungrier. Sometimes, it simply dies, and the person lives the rest of their life with a hollow place inside them. In other instances, the unnourished thing grows violent and begins to consume other parts of the mind, or begins to gnaw at the edge of the nerves and physical senses. Some of them die, and some of them are carnivores. Carnivorous variants are more common I think. People begin to forget things. Their eyesight goes. Some people lose their sense of smell. Or their sense of time. Mostly these processes are gradual. Most people never notice the presence of this thing until it is gone, and then all they can sense is its absence. Sometimes the relationship between this thing and the person is more violent. The unnourished thing becomes twisted, and it begins to consume things that it wasn¡¯t meant to consume. It nourishes itself on things which are also toxic to its very core, like a person who smokes. One of the symptoms in the human being might be a feeling of impending doom. They might be in perfectly good health. They eat well, exercise, have a healthy social life, but something at their core is sick, and getting sicker, and all because of minor changes, from one healthy set of habits to another for the human being. They have done nothing discernibly wrong, but for the thing inside them, it is like an allergy, like changing from sunbutter to peanut butter and slowly killing itself with a very mild allergy, until one day it cannot breath, or it develops a kind of psychic necrosis, and rots alive inside the human shell. That is a horrible way for it to go, because the human did nothing wrong as far as they can tell. They tried to take care of themself, and yet parts of them died as a result. It¡¯s so unfair the way it can happen. These people are so sensitive to change.¡± ¡°Have you learned anything about yours?¡± I asked. She nodded. Her eyes ran this way and that as if she were enduring some struggle inside. Then she said in a shaking voice, ¡°Always thinking about death. I think it wants me to die.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why you think about death.¡± I stated this as a fact, but she shrugged again as if considering an open ended question. ¡°It¡¯s not so much that I think about death. I specifically wonder what happens when I die? Would that thing die too? Or if I die, would it get to live, grow stronger?¡± ¡°But surely it must be twisted in some way. Its desires have grown toxic and harmful rather than nourishing.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t forget. The nourishment doesn¡¯t need to nourish me. It only needs to satisfy the thing inside of me.¡± ¡°You really think your death might satisfy that thing, and it would live on somehow.¡± ¡°I really think it might. But I don¡¯t know¡ªhow could I know? But yes, it makes me wonder.¡± ¡°You said before that when the thing requires something for its nourishment, it will manifest in some kind of impulse or desire.¡± She nodded again, and seemed to prepare herself, as if she knew exactly what I was about to ask, and had been delaying this moment, pushing it back and perhaps hoping we might avoid this thread among so many other questions and so much discussion. I hesitated, my eyes lingering on hers, which were downcast. ¡°I know what you¡¯re thinking. But don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m not any danger to myself, not for now. But yes, I do feel the desire. I do want to kill myself. I feel the impulse.¡± ¡°How often?¡± ¡°It¡¯s pretty much every day.¡± ¡°I see.¡± I didn''t know what else to say. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m here,¡± she said, wiggling her velcroed shoe. ¡°Yes, I guess I figured. You¡¯re here so you don¡¯t try anything.¡± ¡°Yes. You must think I¡¯m insane, Liza.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to try and get close to dying, some kind of ritual death with the mossmen, and not actually cross the threshold, but get close enough that the thing reveals itself, and she can squash it somehow, or take hold of it. ¡°I won¡¯t cross the threshold. But I want to put a foot across, and see what they do.¡± ¡°Why are you telling me this?¡± ¡°I need someone to anchor me. Someone who knows what I am trying to do. If you stay with me, and hold my hand, and speak to me, we can tow the line. And if I try to go across all the way, you can pull me back.¡± ¡°How would I do that?¡± She shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I just hope you can figure it out when the time comes. I will be close to biological death, but my mind will make the final decision I think. So maybe I won¡¯t need you except to remind me of the purpose of my death, fake but almost real. But I need to get close, and if I decide in the moment to let myself go entirely, I will need someone to convince me to stay. And if I succeed, and my near death draws out the thing that haunts my mind, I will not have the will.¡± ¡°The will to destroy it.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°You want me to destroy it then.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°How could I destroy something which only exists in your mind?¡± ¡°I think that, if I draw it out, it might exist for a brief moment in both of our minds. Out in the open.¡± ¡°You think I could perceive it then, if I felt for it.¡± She nodded. ¡°But there¡¯s another reason. I went back to Perth years after, and the sights and sounds and smells of that place reminded me sharply of my journey to the bottom of the sea. But I remembered things differently this time. The memory was evil. I believe that only through my new memories, I saw things as they really happened. When I was there, my eyes were deceived. But looking back years later, I could recall things clearly for some reason. ¡°What was different?¡± ¡°Well I was camping with some friends in Perth, who didn¡¯t know about my day in the submarine. We had gotten lost, in a harmless way. As I drifted off to sleep beside the fire, I went over the events of that night, one at a time. I sank into a state of deep contemplation, where the awareness of myself intensified in an odd way. Here is what I¡¯m trying to say: Perhaps the combined exhaustion and anxiety at being stranded in the middle of nowhere, alone, I began to dream while awake, I thought, but I still gazed at the fire before me, and at times I stood up and paced, but as I filed through my memories and reached the part of the story where our submarine sank towards bottom of the sea. That was the initial descent. But I perceived the events differently in hindsight. Most of the events were just as I thought, but in some cases, the events split. I could remember two different versions of the same events. The story I told you so far is the first version. We sank to around 2000 meters below sea-level, and then performed an exchange with a foreign submarine, but if you remember, I thought the events were derived from some kind of hidden logic, like a behavioral cypher, to keep the crew from understanding the real meaning behind this exchange. In the second version of that memory, we sank to 2000 meters below sea level and received the first transmission from the foreign submarine. Then the captain ordered us deeper. At first the crew protested. Our sub wasn¡¯t built for depths far below 2200 meters, and the buffer zone only took us to 2250 meters. These were figures that the crew had memorized. But the captain reassured them it was safe. The buffer is guaranteed down to 2250 meters. In reality, he said, the submarine could travel deeper without suffering structural damage. 2300 meters would be reasonable, for instance. 2500 meters was probably safe as well. At a certain depth, the pressure increases more slowly. The captain told us he only planned to visit 2250 for a brief moment. Satisfied, the crew took us down. Here the captain ordered the crew to hold our position, while he took myself and the first mate into the lab. The lights were dim, here, at the bottom of the sea. The captain closed the door, and the sound of the crew went away. The lab was located far away from the engines, so the silence was almost complete except for the thwacking sound that echoed through the miles of water. I was suddenly viscerally aware of how fast sound traveled underwater. Without a word the first mate walked toward the back wall of the lab. He passed the shelves and stainless steel table, all crammed together, and came to specimen airlock. Standing in front of the airlock, the first mate pulled its lever. The lever was stuck. Placing both hands against the lever, he strained against the stainless steel. Finally, it screeched open. The first mate gasped and bent double for a moment, hands on knees. Then he stood lifted one foot up onto the lip of the stainless steel table. His face turned toward us as he clambered onto the table. The blood had drained completely from his face. Next his knee got up on the table, and he began to crawl backwards into the airlock. First one leg, searching blindly for the back of the airlock. Then his other leg. He bent at the knee, and pushed himself backwards using only his hands. His legs were now completely trapped in the stainless steel cylinder. Last, he stuck both arms into the cylinder and gripped the ribbed sides, pulled his torso into the airlock, until only curly hair stuck out the top. At this point, the captain made a move toward the airlock. I snatched at his arm, but he caught my wrist. My other first hooked him in the jaw. Blood oozed from his lip, but he pushed me and I sat down hard on the steel bench. Two of the crew sat down with me, and held my arms by my sides. My head leaned against the metal wall. Sweat poured down my back and neck. Lights blinked overhead, dimmer than ever. I could do nothing but watch. I closed my eyes and saw the man trapped inside the airlock: The captain walked to the airlock and closed the door. The door was two inches thick, of solid steel. Just shy of closing, the door swung into the man¡¯s head, stretching his cramped neck to the side. The captain gathered his strength and pushed the door closed. A muffled cry escaped the airlock. I imagined myself cramped in that airlock. I needed the first mate to force the door back open, but his arms and legs were pinned. Then the captain turned his lever. The lever turned slowly. The captain was breathing hard. Another cry escaped the airlock, but sounded like it was coming from underground. Then another, higher in pitch. The man¡¯s heart was beating faster. His stomach churned. Fear rose in his throat like bile, like a bot boiling over. Once the fear took hold, it strangled him. The screams didn¡¯t stop after that. They were so quiet, but impossible to ignore. The captain made a gesture and two sailors pulled me to my feet, and led me to the airlock. I shivered. The remaining sailors stood by, watching me impassively. The captain withdrew a black leather bag. Inside were a number of medical devices. He pulled a stethoscope from inside, and put it on me. The sailors held my arms. Then he held the stethoscope up to the airlock. My heart sank. A hiss like boiling water filled my ears. The screams were clear now but still quiet. SOmething banged against the inside of the airlock, again and again, over and over. Each bang, the scream cut out. Then it picked up again. I shivered. I felt my stomach rise. The men held my arms tight. I couldn¡¯t get free. I shook my head from side to side. The captain gripped my head, four fingers on each wide, splayed above my ears. He was careful not to cover my ears, or to disrupt in any way the placement of the stethoscope in them. I don¡¯t know how long they held me. I vomited. Then I vomited again, all over the captain. But he didn¡¯t move. His boots turned to a blur before my eyes. The smell faded into nothing. The banging faded after a while, quieter, but the screams would not end. He choked inside the airlock, his screaming cut short. I heard the sound of vomit. My own stomach heaved, but I had nothing. Bile pushed halfway up my throat and stayed there. My eyes and nose stung. When they removed the stethoscope, I went limp. The sounds of the submarine returned to my ears, but I couldn¡¯t comprehend them. Random beeping and whirring, like white noise to me. I realized it was silent. With a great effort, the captain moved the lever on the airlock, and pulled the door. His boots were sticky vomit. The door swung open, and the first mate¡¯s head lolled out. His forehead was red all over. His eyes were red. Half-congealed blood dropped from his palms. The fingernails on his right hand were ripped partway off. His eyes were open, unblinking. I must have fallen asleep at some point. I didn¡¯t remember all of Tamara¡¯s story until much later. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, stretched my neck and looked at Gunther, just as the lights flickered on. He sat in a relaxed position, but there was nothing relaxed about him. Chapter 14: Death Valley Observatory and Flooded Sands A taxi took us from the restaurant. The roadways hummed with bustle, and the seething air danced on the tarmac, swaying their translucent hips. We skirted the suburbs then, and hit the back roads, following the faint curves and dips of the landscape. Far away, I could just make out the furrowed mass of Death Valley national park, darkling hills the color of wet sand. The car let us off at a trailhead. I opened the door for Tamara and she stepped out like an old-world explorer. Gunther got out and hiked his leg onto a rock, to tie his bootlaces. Then we slung on our backpacks and I hiked up my jeans while the taxi hummed away. Somewhere in the drybrush, I could hear some kind of bird. Loggerhead shrikes, or a roadrunner. Two wooden poles marked the e As I stared out the bay window, I Over the paciRainclouds over the pacitific ocean laid their burden of spaFaroaway gulls wheeled in the rainstorm. Theiir voices came to me on the wind, distant .shrill Overhead, stormclouds clBright clouds lairained let a mist fall., around them. White shapes in the pale sky. like strokes of a paintbrush.. Higher on the island, underneath the traintracks, m y apartment looked onto the same sky.ntrance. Tamara shared a look with me, as if to reconstitute our agreement. I took the bleached rocky path and zigzagged down the hill. Tamara came behind me, under Gunther¡¯s watchful eye. Benji waited at the base of the foothills, leaning on a jeep. His jeep was black, and the sand was tinted red, racing away for miles into the desert. The hand of night spread shadows across the sand. When we got close, Benji started the car. I shoved my bag in the back seat. Tamara was shaking Benji¡¯s outstretched hand. He and Gunther shared only a nod. The evening wind swept around us, and I scanned the horizon for stormclouds. ¡°They won¡¯t roll in until after dark,¡± Benji stood beside me and spoke softly. Tamara and Gunther were loading their gear. I nodded. ¡°No problem getting here?¡± I shook my head, shielding my eyes from the glare off the silver jeep. ¡°Just took a cab.¡± ¡°Here.¡± Benji handed me a pair of sunglasses. Then he squirted sunscreen into his palm and started lathering his face, nodding to the bottle on the hood of the jeep. ¡°Hey, thank you.¡± Benji was silent. ¡°I know I asked a lot of you, and haven¡¯t given you a satisfactory explanation, or any explanation really.¡± He shrugged. ¡°You could have lied and said you were curious. Tamara is paying handsomely for this favor. I probably would have said yes.¡± He handed me the sunscreen. ¡°Maybe I should have lied.¡± Cracking open the bottle I squirted some of the lotion into my palm. ¡°A lie would have saved me the nerves. Hell, if I didn¡¯t know what you were working on now, I might have taken you at face value.¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t about that.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t lie now.¡± ¡°What do you want me to say?¡± ¡°I assume you¡¯re just trying to protect me, by lying.¡± I nodded. ¡°If anyone asks, I had no idea what you were doing last Fall. I visited you twice because I missed you. We talked shop about your writing. I¡¯m not stupid.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s gonna be asking?¡± ¡°Academics, I think. The Shoemaker estate.¡± ¡°The Gene Shoemaker estate?¡± ¡°Maybe some others, too. I don¡¯t think they¡¯d hurt you.¡± ¡°They might throw common rock specimens at me.¡± Benji ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. ¡°Are you going away after tonight? I mean¡ª¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Thought so.¡± I shook my head. ¡°I¡¯m gonna lay low.¡± Tamara was hollering and waved us over to the jeep. Benji took me by the shoulder and looked at me. His eyes moved over my face. Then he nodded. ¡°You¡¯ll be good. He clapped me on the shoulder as I walked toward the jeep. Gunther sat in back, with his gun out, running his fingers over the seams and knobs while he stared out the window. Tarmara crossed her legs and stared out the windshield, over my shoulder. I stared into the sunset like it was the last soft thing. As we drove, night fell, and I felt as if we had arrived. Night wasn¡¯t just a time between dusk and dawn anymore. It was a place, and I had got there. As the sun set, its horizontal beams seemed to pierce the clouds ineffectually. The density of the storm had increased. At night the clouds lost all color, became dark, heavy shapes in the night sky.
Huge shapes loomed out of the darkness. Benji sped past them, knowing them to be stones, slowing only to let roadrunners or owls shake off the fright, and pad quietly off the road. In our headlights, the road seemed plain and quiet. The night air rushed through the open windows. But I began to feel that something was behind us, giving a wide berth, moving back and forth across the sand. At last, Benji parked the jeep in the shadow of a large crag. There were lights at the top. Stepping out, the sand was hot under my feet. I could see it on my bare ankles. Before I followed Benji, I looked behind me, but I saw nothing in the dark. Nothing moved unless it were the sand, stirred by a night wind. Steep concrete stairs climbed the side of the observatory. At the top we found a wide area of flattened stone. A few buildings, with metal sheathing and metal roofs, which were locked to the public. At the far side of the platform were a few tents, and a huge gleam of metal. It was a telescope, on a huge mount, two feet in diameter and fifteen feet long. Its shape reminded me of a cannon, but here in the desert it seemed at home. Heavy white sheets hung over the ends, and a few nerdy looking campers milled around the base. These would be Benji¡¯s friends. As we made our way to the campsite, Benji explained that the observatory was built in the months leading up to the 1948 supermoon, as part of a university project. The head of the astronomy program had been Gene Shoemaker, and there on the side of the telescope was a plaque with his name. The plaque was made of meteoric iron, and fastened with rivets that had been manufactured for the Prospector, which had carried Gene¡¯s ashes to the moon. The observatory had been dedicated to him, and now it was a memorial to him. Overhead, storm clouds had filled the sky. It was no longer possible to discern their movement. ¡°Should be clearing up soon,¡± Benji said, by way of greeting his friends, but his mouth was twisted into a frown. Somewhere above those clouds, the moon was rising. Invisible, it drew closer and closer to earth. From our perspective it would begin to grow. But for now we could see nothing of its movements. Pushing inside one the far tent, Benji tossed his clipboard onto the table, picked up his notebook, and began his final preparations, telling me with a nod that I was free to move about. Tamara and Gunther stepped aside for a short while and spoke together. They joined me soon after in Benji¡¯s tent. Gunther entered first and held the tent flap for Tamara. Under the lantern, she looked older, or seemed older. I waited for her to make eye contact. I raised an eyebrow. She nodded back, as if to say, ¡°All is prepared.¡± But I still did not know how she planned to kill herself. She would not tell me. Benji found us in the tent. ¡°Take some rest. I¡¯ll wake you up when it¡¯s time. We¡¯re all gonna nap, and then it¡¯s coffee and moon-watching.¡± But I couldn¡¯t sleep. The wiry cot dug into my hip and ribcage, and soon gusts of wind whipped the tent walls. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. When I woke up, all was silent. Outside, a steady rainfall tapped against the tent. Further off, it plinked on the metal roofing. Something urgent leapt in me, and I sat up, wide awake. Tamara lay in the back, snoring softly. Gunther was there too, with his back against the wooden crates. Also asleep. The lanterns were lit outside, and swinging in the wind. I could see them through the wall of the tent. Careful not to make any sound, I slid out of my cot and walked barefoot on the tent floor. The cement was hard underneath the nylon fabric. Ducking out of the tent I blinked in the lantern light. I saw the telescope, uncovered. Benji and a few of his friends were adjusting the angle. Steaming coffee mugs sat on a white plastic folding table next to the telescope, collecting rainwater. I turned away from the telescope and scanned the darkness that sat beyond the lantern light. The land was flat and rocky on every side. Faraway cliffs laid long shadows across the desert like dark blankets. Without really thinking I took off walking. The sand was dark and warm, but its gloom was only a product of the night. Underneath its, the sand was the color of plaster. It was placed here by the wind, carried here from parts unknown to cover the ground. Rain pattered against the surface of the desert with a hollow sound. I thought of scorpions poised in the upper sands, and owls that run on two legs hiding in their burrows. Nameless things were alive out there, things that weren¡¯t scorpions, owls, or insects. I thought of the wind, the clouds, the stones in the ground. All these moved, or sat quietly in the dark. And me, I realized. And the creatures of the desert would be watching us, watching me, the wind, and the clouds, travel across her face. It was at this time the tombstone appeared in the desert. Ahead, in the shadow of the cliffs I saw it. A black gavestone in the sand. Moss huddled around it, a thin sheen of moss grew over it, like the moss that grew on the moon. I could not tell which way it faced, but as I drew closer, the tombstone turned into the shape of a man, and the man held a bundle in his arms. Back and forth he swayed in the shadow of the cliffs. Fear latched onto me. I dropped to my belly, pressing myself into the sand. I made no sound, but turned my head to look. The man was walking towards me, slowly, talking to himself. He had been watching me. The blood rushed through me. I fought¡ªI strained against my own hesitation. Run¡ªRUN I screamed inside my body. The voice ran on, measuring itself, meandering in and out of hearing, pulling part of me with it. I recalled a voice, speaking out of the blind night while I stood alone on my balcony, under the thundering traintacks. Again in the shadow of a bridge. A voice that lulled me like a hollow drug and¡ª He was closer now. My stomach writhed. A knot of fear tightening to pain. I needed to double over. Heave. But I stayed, stock still on the sand. Like I was cast in concrete. No movements escaped. All my pain went inward. I reeled. I became aware of places he had touched me while I lay on the bridge, helpless. Places I had not remembered until now. I could hear his voice clearly now, voice was thick and breathless. Overhead the clouds began to part. The moon appeared, huge and ominous. Rain began to fall out of the blackness overhead, where no clouds were. Tombstone set the bundle on the sand, and it stood up. A small, wrinkled man, painfully thin staggered to his feet. A single hand clung absentmindedly to the sorcerer¡¯s pant-leg. His eyes were far away, gazing that way and that. A mote of recognition flashed across my mind. By a sense older than sight I saw who it was, I thought he was about the right age, wasn¡¯t he. Tombstone¡¯s fingers closed around my throat. The moment he touched me, I soiled myself. My body had no words. I could not move. So I soiled myself again. The smell absorbed me, sickening. But the cold hand squeezed harder. Vomit crept up my throat but could no longer exit my throat where Tombstone''s fingers held tight. My veins slammed against his grip. Then my vision went dark. It happened all at once. But the muscles in my groin convulsed, without relief. My arteries strained against their walls. The blood was all I had left that could move.
I was back in the tent. Tamara lay on her cot beneath me. ¡°It¡¯s time,¡± I said to myself. ¡°It¡¯s past the time. We have to do it now. Tamara?¡± I shook her once, hard. She didn¡¯t move. ¡°Here¡¯s fine,¡± she must have said. I couldn''t remember where I¡¯d been until this moment. She had gone on, ¡°Before I begin, I have to remind you it¡¯s risky. The human body is designed to perform certain functions, and what you¡¯re about to do, what I¡¯m about to do to you, will require us to step outside the normal functions of the body. But don¡¯t wait,¡± she had said. ¡°I¡¯m ready. I dreamed it was already done. Do you fully understand what I¡¯m saying? There is a real chance I¡¯ll experience some type of medical emergency. Gunther¡¯s bandaids and ibuprofen won¡¯t help me.¡± My hands were on her. I had put them down on instinct. Feeling her. The muscles shook all through her body. She was dying. I did not have any evidence to prove this. I simply arrived at the conclusion with a silent desperate cry. She was dying now, and I could not remember what I¡¯d done. The rain whipped itself into a fury. Thunder roared until my ears rang. Her body twitched. I stood up, shaking, my hands in the air as if to drive away any personal responsibility for the woman who lay at my feet. ¡®I may never fully recover,¡¯ she had said. ¡®Even if I live.¡¯ At a sudden splatter of rain across the tent floor, I whirled around. Gunther stood in the doorway, drenched and dripping with rain. The tent flap fell shut behind him. He swayed. His nose was dripping blood. His eyes were wide. ¡°Something¡¯s out there.¡± His voice sent a shiver down my spine. I noticed the gun at his hip, no longer bothering to conceal it. ¡°Is it done?¡± I couldn¡¯t say. Gunther looked at Tamara lying on the bed. He knelt beside her and rocked her gently by the shoulder. His face was close to hers, listening, sensing for breath. ¡°Gunther, what¡¯s out there?¡± Gunther looked up at me, his lip curled back in a sob of fear. ¡°We need to leave. Right now.¡± With two hands, he lifted Tamara¡¯s body into a sitting position. Then he breathed, thinking. With one hand, he lifted the gun from his holster and handed it to me. He did not look me in the eye. The gun was heavier than mine. With a single smooth motion, Gunther lifted Tamara into his arms, and pushed out of the tent. The rain slashed in all directions, drenching me. Shivering, I staggered after Gunther across the camp. I grasped the gun tight. A wreck lay in the middle of the tents. The telescope lay on its side, shattered lenses strewn across the concrete. The tents strained against their rope ties. The jeep sat down below the stairs at the far end of the camp, rocking gently in the huge gusts of wind. From above it looked like a toy car. The wind it seemed had nothing to block its path, and gained momentum across the entire desert to slam into the camp and everyone around it. I changed to glance upward, and shrank down in fear. The moon hung over the desert, through a hole in the clouds, huge and threatening. Wrenching myself away from the sight I ran toward the van. I could hear shouts through the rain, and someone screamed. Propping Tamara into the back seat, Gunther leapt into the driver¡¯s side. I climbed in beside Tamara, and propped her head against my shoulder. Buckling my seatbelt, I held her close against me to keep her from rocking too much. I could feel her body, cold and clammy, but her head was hot against my shoulder, hot like a fever. Turning the jeep, Gunther slammed the gas. The tires spun and then we lurched forward and sped across the sand. Soon the buzz of the tires and the rhythmic pelt of rain against the windshield lulled us all into gasping silence. My heart still raced, and I could hear Gunther, breathing hard and fast as he peered through the haze of raindrops and mist. Something brushed my arm and I screamed. Wrenching against my seatbelt I pulled away. In the dark, I could see nothing. Even the light from the headlights was dimmed by raindrops. The cab was utterly black. But I could feel something on Tamara, like a thick fur thing pressing against me where Tamara had been. I shoved it away, but flinched at the touch, and a stench wafted off of it. When I looked again, Tamara appeared as she was. I could dimly make out her face in the light from the headlights. The rain had diminished, and Tamara snored softly. I could hear her now. When Gunther finally pulled to a stop, he let his head fall slowly onto the steering wheel. Staying there he breathed slowly. Pulling the door open, I stepped out into the mud and was sick. I wretched again and again. When I was done, I leaned against the jeep. I heard a door open and shut, and Gunther came around the hood. He put a hand on my shoulder. Then he took the gun out of my hand. I had forgotten I was holding it. Then he raised his arm and fired. I flinched. One, two, three. The bullets cracked into the mud. Four, five, six. I started to sob. Then he holstered the gun at his hip. After a while he took me by the shoulders and wrapped his arms around me. I shook. When I stopped crying he let go, and we stared at each other in the feeble light. The sun was rising far away. The moon was gone. Back in the jeep Tamara lay fast asleep. ¡°She looks peaceful,¡± Gunther said. I nodded. I realized I had never seen her asleep. Gunther must have seen it a thousand times. ¡°Whatever happened in the tent¡­ Think it worked?¡± ¡°She¡¯s alive, so¡­¡± ¡°But did you accomplish what you set out to do?¡± I shook my head. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t even know how to tell.¡± ¡°We saw shapes in the desert, outside the light of the campfires. Geometric patterns in the desert, like the sand wasn¡¯t sand at all, but a field of magnetic dust like I¡¯ve seen at smaller scale in a science lab.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°The desert was making shapes,¡± Gunther said again. ¡°I figured it had something to do with you. Shapes. I don¡¯t know how else to explain it. I don¡¯t know the name for those patterns except that in the end, it formed a kind of fractal spiral around our camp. And that¡¯s when I saw things moving. I thought it was desert animals that burrow, coming up out of the sand. I thought they were probably scared, because the sand was moving over their burrows. Maybe it messed up their burrows. But they weren¡¯t animals. They weren¡¯t small enough. They were like¡­¡± Gunther¡¯s face was taught. ¡°They were like people, crawling out of the sand. They were gone when I came out of the tent with you. They were crawling toward the tent when I went in.¡± There was no jest in Gunther¡¯s face. No trace of irony. At last the sun broke over the hills, and heat spilled over the valley. The chill air mingled with the sunlight, and I shivered, but this time I let myself shake, and I shook for a long time, shivering and sometimes laughing for no reason as I paced around the jeep. At last Gunther and I drove on. When we found the paved road, he followed it to the gate, where a sleepy ranger let us through with a dazed look. It was at this time that Tamara woke up. Her sleep had been long and deep, and when she spoke, it was to no one in perticular, but her eyes and her voice were clear. ¡°It¡¯s done.¡± Chapter 15: The Tide Goes Out Back on the island nothing had changed, but I was starving. Gunther drove. Rain pelted the street outside the train station. We turned left onto a connector road, and rode the line between the docks and the old industrial complex. His land cruiser roared as we picked up speed, ear protection on, headsets built-in, like they wear in war helicopters. No traffic on a Sunday. Only place with no traffic on a Sunday. Gunther had a little place behind Tamara¡¯s, squeezed in a back-alley beside a bare face of rock. Tamara¡¯s house sat on top of the rockface. He backed into the garage. We got out as the overhead door closed on the tired, sun beaten streets, steaming with rain. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you live here.¡± He shrugged. ¡°It comes with the job. But I don¡¯t live here anymore. You live here, and I keep watch.¡± ¡°This was Tamara¡¯s idea.¡± He shook his head no. ¡°You don¡¯t have to put me up. Not like this. What about Tamara¡¯s place?¡± I followed him in. He showed me to the den, with chairs around a dark coffee-table by the bay window, which looked out over the alleyway. Sun hit the panels at an extreme angle, and rain lashed against the panes. ¡°I considered putting you up in Tamara¡¯s house.¡± ¡°If I stayed there, you could watch both of us.¡± ¡°Tamara has asked me to keep a close watch on you.¡± I sat heavily on the couch. The leather welcomed my tired limbs, and I heaved a sigh. Turns out I ached all over, but the worst was my head. ¡°Don¡¯t fall asleep there,¡± Gunther said. Pots and pans clattered in the kitchen. The phone rang. Gunther picked it up. Nobody there. Then it rang three times and stopped. There was a pause. Gunther still held the phone. One hand held an oven mitt by his side. Then it rang again, and Gunther picked it up, listened for a moment, and handed it to me. ¡°About Tamara,¡± he said. Tamara¡¯s voice was tinny and quiet. ¡°Liza.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I sat up stiffly. A moment¡¯s panic washed over me. Gunther frowned; watched it pass from me. ¡°I have to be brief. Before entering the desert, we discussed the possibility of an abrupt ending. Gunther and I prepared for such an outcome. Do you remember what I¡¯m talking about? I mean, am I making myself clear?¡± When I said nothing, she went on. ¡°Listen carefully. We discussed various outcomes. I knew it was possible that after the events of the desert, it might become necessary for one of us to leave, cut off all¡ªor nearly all¡ªcontact, and go into hiding. My chief concern was you, and we discussed how Gunther might transfer you to a safe house if it became necessary, but things have not panned out that way. The Shoemaker estate is dissolving. I cannot say more in this regard except that you will not have to worry about the kind of fallout I predicted. Nonetheless, I am grateful for these preparations because I have decided myself to make an abrupt departure, leaving Gunther behind.¡± She had spoken too fast for me to follow. I mean I had heard what she said, but I was taken aback. ¡°I have been searching for my brother since before you and I met. Now I¡¯ve found him. We¡¯re together. In hiding. What I¡¯m trying to say is, all the work you did paid off. All this stuff with the mossmen, and their awful miracle¡­ My brother¡¯s was always my only real concern.¡± ¡°You¡¯re leaving.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Then a heavy silence followed. ¡°I¡¯m going away,¡± she said at last. ¡°I may not see you again. But your help is what brought my brother to me. He is old, just not as old as me. But in some ways he is still a happy boy, and I¡¯m a happy girl. I think we can play together, before the end. But he must never be found again. The people who hurt him are still out there.¡± Tamara seemed to know that I finally understood. ¡°Thank you for bringing us together. He is my brother. He¡­¡± A moment of quiet passed. Gunther still watched me. ¡°I think I have to go,¡± she said at last. I could almost hear her nodding to herself, blonde curls bobbing up and down. Then she did go. Gunther took the phone. When he sat down across from me, I looked¡ªanywhere else. He was lost in thought. Outside the bay window, stars peeped over the opposite building. Stars over the pacific ocean, over LA. Over the blue desert. Over Death Valley. The faintest stars, and a barrier of the red mist at the horizon halo, where light pollution hung in a wide arc. I thought about the energetic little man, who had groveled at the feet of Tombstone in the desert. I looked back at Gunther. Whatever he felt about Tamara going off, on her own, it was done. She was out of his reach. He grappled with that alone, I guess. Stretched across his face was¡ªThe expression¡ªThe anguished unmaking of his relationship, his guardianship¡ªHe was prepared to lose Tamara, but not for her to leave. But he never told me. After a few weeks, he seemed back to normal, but¡ªI don¡¯t know. Maybe he never got over it. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. I was not back to normal. I stayed with Gunther for four weeks. Every evening, I watched the sky, looking for the moon, but the stormclouds lingered, and held their place over the whole west coast. Rain fell for days in a row onto the black streets. I saw nothing of the moon, but the Shoemaker estate called me incessantly. I knew their numbers from my research: numbers copied off the yellowpages weeks ago, which I had written in a long list. I ignored them all. Sometimes they left messages. I listened to these with my phone in my hand. I would never call them back. As the moon gradually waned, I began to feel peace in my mind, as if my own personal storm were clearing, but that only gave me time to think deeply and clearly about what happened in the desert. I realized that on top of everything else, the moon had been pulling at my heart, just like how it pulls on the tides, and it dislodged something that was buried deep inside of me. Like the odor of flowers in thin mountain air, this long-buried thing overwhelmed me. I did not know what that thing was, or how the moon had gripped my heart, but the pull was undeniable. I wondered if, when the Garden moon waned into nothing, it would pull that something growing in my heart far away. And left nothing to replace it, nothing but a space in her heart. But for now it lingered, dislodged and uprooted, and I decided to enjoy it before it passed away. Gunther often left for hours at a time. I called Gunther one night, when he was out and got no answer. So I put down my phone on the counter and wandered to the bay window. Cars passed the alley¡¯s mouth, mostly I detected the sound of cars, their sound boiling up over the buildings, drifting to my ears like steam, a hot sound far away, sometimes near. The sound of people going somewhere fast, each person going somewhere different, sometimes closeby, watching one another just to avoid a crash, or sometimes curiosity.
One night I took a taxi back to my apartment. I felt somehow that the danger had passed. The mossmen, the Shoemakers, and Tombstone. I paid the tab in cash, and slipped onto the familiar sidewalk. No different than any other sidewalk, I thought to myself. But it felt right, beneath my feet. I was pounding the pavement before long, racing to the front doors, but when I rounded the corner it was destroyed. A part of the complex had simply crumbled. Rubble piles lay among the sand, as if the cement walls had given up, and let themselves dissolve in the wind and rain. A warm breeze buffeted my face. The headlights of passing cars slashed across the broken building, like searchlights. With nothing to find, the words flashed through my mind. I kept on walking. I tried to act natural, as if I had nothing to do with that place. I thought about my neighbor. The moon isn¡¯t out¡­ It¡¯s been raining for weeks. How can I know if the mossmen succeeded or failed to carry out their miracle? Will I see a difference in the Garden Moon, or would the change be too faint to notice, even after days, weeks? I wondered many things as I stood on the balcony. I dreamed that night of the moon, dark with moss.
We agreed I should leave. Or at least get on the road to avoid being found by the estate¡­ or the mossmen. But each of us packed alone. Now that Tamara was gone, her absence might draw unwanted attention to the house. Gunther could not explain away her absence indefinitely. We had to vanish too, at least for awhile. The next few days and late into the night, I packed my bags until Gunther¡¯s house appeared as it was when I had arrived. I left no trace of my coming of going. I went to the park, with the two rows of trees and sat on the swingset, waiting for the moon to come out. Should have been almost full again. The sun set over a bay full of white yachts. Now the moon rose. I waited. I wanted to make sure about the moon. It rose, plain and luminous. A moon older than humanity, its surface riven by meteoric impacts, littered with satellite garbage of a once great human endeavor for space exploration. It was the moon I had known before the Garden Moon. I went back to Gunther¡¯s house, stood by the bay window, and thought. The shifting tides of fate had brought us together like sea creatures drawn into the same current, myself and Tamara, and Gunther. But now the great motion had ceased, and I thought maybe I could turn my attention to other things, without fear of being swept away. Whatever strange lives had brushed up against me, carried by the same currents of fate, they had now washed away. In the wake of the Garden Moon, I felt a familiar thing. I remembered my old life, the way I had been a writer and nothing more. Faraway gulls wheeled in the rain. Their shrill voices came to me on the wind. Bright clouds let a mist fall around their white shapes in the pale sky. I thought I could write about those clouds. I sat alone on the couch, staring out at the rain and began to think about my neighbor. I wanted to meet her more than ever then, just to say hi. But she could not understand the weight of this simple act, or what it meant that I was no longer swept up in the strange fates of my friends and enemies. But somehow, after the Garden Moon, she would go too. It occurred to me as I sat back and watched the sky. We would not meet again. Each of us would persist on our own quiet islands of life. The Garden Moon was over, and its grasp on all of us had loosened, and then dissolved entirely. My old neighbor was gone and I would have no way to find her, no business finding her. Then I remembered Gunther¡¯s words. When the world changes, it is important to look into things you have given up, things that were no longer possible. Their stories had come to an end. When the world changes, consider carefully which of these might be possible again. Consider, he had said. I have considered them. With a sigh, I let them go.
One day while Gunther was out, went to the train station. The foamy lip of the sea heaped against the pilings; splayed along the shore. A woman stood by the water in the wind. I stopped when I recognized her. The phone booth was just up ahead. Maybe she¡¯d been using it. She smiled when she recognized me, but no words passed between us, and she turned and walked away. But in walking away she passed close by me, and I sensed a vast expenditure of energy between us. I passed by her in a heart-warping flux of emotion and unexpressed desires that I did not understand. I wanted to ask about Argo, ask her why she helped me, but I clamped my mouth shut, and when we had passed, and she was removed from my field of view, I arrived at the edge of the docks, and turned around to look over the island from below. Far away were the apartments under the train tracks. A ways downhill were the coastal villas, Gunther¡¯s tiny place, Tamara¡¯s old place, the small clump of skyscrapers like a cluster of gemstones, thrust into the radiant sky. The moon hung above them, dusty gray, barely visible in the full light of day. There remained no hint of green. I turned away, to the bay full of yachts. The foamy lip of the sea heaped against the pilings; splayed along the shore. In the end it was up to me. At that very moment, two trains passed across the island, rocked by one other in a roaring exchange of wind and electric lights. A thousand passengers met and departed. A thousand impressions blurred into a press of staggering emotion, that if only they had slowed for a moment, then the two would exchange, and they could see each other clearly, and the dizzy spell of everlasting motion would have ended with a hiss, and sigh. Doors open. They would step off the train, and into one another¡¯s lives. Moon Landing - Part 1 The Shoemaker estate did not pick up until the fifth ring. When they did, a slow mechanical voice drawled over the line. A special microphone disguised this person''s voice. The message came, and was recorded as such: "A talisman, in the hands of one crew member, will dramatically increase the effect of the moon¡¯s gravity on the Apollo spacecraft. The moon landing must be sabotaged in order to preserve the secrecy of our operation, and our relationship to the lunar menace." When the speaker had finished, the line went dead, and the secretary of the Shoemaker estate finished writing, tore her note from the pad, folded it and placed it in an envelope, prepaid for first class mail. Then she took the notepad, which bore faint pen-marks on the blank page. This she brought to the hearth in the foyer. Tossing it inside, she stoked the flames, and crushed the pages with the iron prong. Then she returned to her desk, and picked up the phone. "There is a message coming for Tombstone through the US Mail. I am calling to request urgently that he speak with me." The Kennedy Space Center was in Cape Canaveral, Florida, north of the city, and slated for a whole variety of attractions. A NASA shuttle launch simulation was on the docket, as well as a huge gift shop with astronaut memorabilia. An Air Force Space and Missile Museum would show the remains of the space shuttle, assuming it came back. A manatee sanctuary park lay on the banks of the Banana River just a few minutes drive into the city, and the three men, soon to be heroes of Man, had spent about an hour on the boardwalk, shuffling along, soaking in the boring and terrestrial ambiance. In less than twenty-four hours, they''d have a birds eye view of this city, if they wanted one. But their eyes would be turned upwards. After their brief walk on the waterfront, the three men returned to their hotel rooms and made themselves ready for the celebratory dinner, which would celebrate their guaranteed success, whatever the real odds were. No one knew, really. Nobody had done this before. Niel took the microphone once everyone was settled in. ¡°The last time I was in this room," he said, "There were ten people. Myself, Buzz, and a few others. We had just met with the director of NASA and former President Kennedy, for whom this facility was named. Without his support, and the continued support of former President Johnson, and President Nixon, we¡¯d be years away from a launch. There was some scattered applause. ¡°I¡¯m happy to announce that¡ªofficially¡ªwe have confirmed tomorrow¡¯s launch. Everything is going according to plan.¡± A scatter of camera flashes. ¡°What a fine time in Cape Kennedy. Thanks for having us. And wish us luck, folks. Our next stop is the moon.¡± Neil gave a last wave and stepped down. The lights were dim and a celebratory band played in the corner. When applause died down, he sat by Mike and Buzz at a small round table, one of many. Mike leaned back. ¡°How about this place, huh? What a show.¡± Neil grinned. ¡°Too dark. Too colorful. Get me back on board. The white and gray, and too-bright lights.¡± ¡°I prefer this.¡± Mike said. Buzz grinned. ¡°Me too, but I can barely see. For example, what¡¯s this? It looks like water, right? Too dark to tell. I wonder if it tastes like water¡ª¡± Neil snatched the drink. ¡°I can tell by the scent, Buzz. One great leap for mankind?¡± He winked at Mike. Mike laughed. ¡°One drunken blunder for Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldran. I can see the headlines now. At least they had a good time.¡± ¡°One great night for two men, and apologies to mankind.¡± All three of them laughed. Then Buzz shrugged and played innocent. Niel disposed of the hard seltzer. A while later, Mike leaned on the balcony rail. He caught a whiff of the fuel tanks. A whiff of the alcohol. A whiff of the steak. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Perfume ticked the fine receptors at the edge of his perception. A woman appeared at the door. She took in a deep draught of the night air and walked toward him, stretching her arms. The dress flowed over her like water, over the wide curve of her hips. Her legs surfaced and sank into the layers of fabric. The sharp angle of her shoulders trailed behind her as she stretched, and the neck of her dress, which was already cut low and the candlelight cast deep shadows on her chest. He watched her with all his attention out of the corner of his eye. His throat had turned dry. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. She did not look at him, not even when she drew level with him. Without acknowledging his presence, she melted into his side, and leaned her head on his shoulder. ¡°You look good in a suit.¡± Her lips tickled the lobe of his ear. He breathed in sharply. Then he inhaled, and drank in the scent of her perfume, and the deeper scents he knew so well beneath it. The scents of the lab, her laundry detergent, and the scents that lingered on their bedsheets. She nudged his arm with her elbow and they held hands. ¡°How many more parties, Mike?¡± He shook his head. ¡°We launch tomorrow. How many can there be?¡± ¡°When you get back, I mean. How many? Celebrating the work you did.¡± She turned a bright green eye toward him. ¡°I¡¯ll skip ¡®em,¡± he shrugged. ¡°Mary-Anne¡­¡± ¡°Mike?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to lose you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a funny thing for you to say.¡± She frowned at him, and he smiled. Her eyebrows crinkled when she frowned. Then he signed. ¡°I know you¡¯re angry, about me going, and you staying.¡± ¡°Well¡­ Yes. It should¡¯ve been us, Mike.¡± ¡°I know. But¡­¡± ¡°But what?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. It wasn¡¯t up to me.¡± ¡°That isn¡¯t true.¡± ¡°No, it is true.¡± ¡°Well you didn¡¯t work that hard to convince them, did you?¡± ¡°I asked them, I explained why you should be on the crew. They gave me a definite answer. A firm an unequivocal no. They weren¡¯t going to budge, Mary-Anne.¡± ¡°You could¡¯ve tried again.¡± ¡°What, just to make you feel better?¡± ¡°No, to make me feel like you cared. Why am I on the backup team? Buzz is more distracting than any of us. It¡¯s all a load of bull.¡± ¡°I wish I could take you with me.¡± She wasn¡¯t really listening. ¡°I bet they¡¯re drinking right now. Does anyone else take the missions as seriously as I do?¡± ¡°I do,¡± Mike retorted. She looked at him, and her face softened. ¡°Sweetheart. I know you do. But it feels like you¡¯re the only one besides me who cares what happens up there. It¡¯s a shame, that¡¯s all. If something goes wrong¡­ I just can¡¯t bear the idea that those fools might get you all killed. What am I supposed to do?¡± ¡°Maybe I should let them drink. Then we can send the backup crew. Serve them right for dicking around all the time.¡± ¡°That would be nice.¡± She turned his head gently toward her. ¡°But if that happens, they won¡¯t send you.¡± Her lips pressed into his. ¡°My hero. My Heracles. My sweetheart. Always off on another adventure¡­.¡± ¡°I always come back to you.¡± ¡°To me?¡± Her breath ran down his neck, her voice the barest whisper. ¡°Always.¡± His hands rested on his hips, pulled her against him. ¡°Not to anyone else?¡± Her voice was barely audible. Mike leaned back and searched her face. His face was a mask of worry, and she enjoyed the deep green, dancing with the soft light of the dining hall. ¡°Nobody else, baby. Never.¡± ¡°I want you to bring something with you, something of mine.¡± He grimaced but she didn¡¯t let him speak. Her finger pressed against his lips. ¡°They won¡¯t mind. They won¡¯t even notice. Here.¡± She pressed an object into his hands and closed his fingers around it. ¡°Carry this and think of me.¡± He looked at her in silence. ¡°Promise me.¡± She groaned. ¡°I¡¯m not asking a lot.¡± ¡°I promise. I promise.¡± He cracked his fingers and looked. It was a ring, small and unadorned save for a green jewel. His favorite color. His eyes went wide and he looked at her again. ¡°You know what that is, right? Mike.¡± ¡°Oh my god,¡± he said. He stepped back, half expecting her to kneel. ¡°Maybe we can do it when you get back.¡± She smiled, and squeezed his hand once. Then she took him by the hand and led him back inside. He couldn¡¯t see her face, but tears ran down her cheeks. Mike held the ring with an iron grip, until his hand tingled. He felt light, like he could lift off the ground and just float. ¡°You¡¯ll look good in a wedding dress,¡± he whispered in her ear. She smiled, and her green eyes flashed. The moon was a waxing crescent, but as everyone knows, the shape was just an illusion created by shadows. Nothing actually changed about the moon, except the slow erosion of meteorites smashing into the wide, empty planes where no man ever walked. Moon Landing - Part 2 ¡°It¡¯s not bad, this.¡± Mary-Anne undressed. They were back at the hotel. Their bed sat in the corner, with striped sheets. A cushioned chair faced the plain wooden desk by the window, where Mary-Anne lay each article of clothing as she pulled it off. ¡°Tired, Mikey?¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t sleep if I wanted to.¡± Mike yawned. Then he got up, off the bed, and fiddled with the things on his desk. The keys, his watch, his clothes. He picked up his shirt and refolded it a second time. Then he lay down in bed and, as an afterthought he took the ring out of his pocked and set it on the nightstand. Then he took a sip of water and rolled into the sheets. Mary-Anne turned the lights off crawled into bed with him. ¡°Mike.¡± He must have drifted off. ¡°Mikey.¡± ¡°What?¡± He sat up. ¡°You¡¯re hoggin the blanket.¡± ¡°Sorry. Sorry.¡± She pulled the blanket off him. ¡°Hey.¡± She was snoring already, fast asleep. Naked, he lay for a while and stared at the ceiling. Moon beams fell on the desk below the window, and on the ceiling. ¡°Why not,¡± he breathed. Then he sat up and took a sip of water. The glass was colder than he remembered. When he put it back, he missed the nightstand. He lunged forward to grab it and missed. The glass shattered. He rolled over. The ring had fallen too. It was on the ground, spinning quietly. Almost, Mike thought it was a trick of the light. No. The ring was floating on the surface of the spilled water, and spinning very slowly. He reached for the ring and grasped it with two fingers. Then he grabbed what was left of the glass. Air hissed between his teeth when it cut his finger. Then he Stepped around the broken glass and tiptoed to the bathroom. Mike kept the bathroom light off but he lifted the shade. Moonlight poured in. The handles on either side of the faucet read Hot and Cold in very faint letters. He filled the glass as high as the jagged edge, and dropped the ring inside. It floated. Mike pushed it down with one finger and blood billowed from his finger. He let go. The ring popped to the surface and spun slowly in a circle. Mike watched in awe as it clinked against the side only to recourse and bounce off another side, slow and trembling. ¡°What the hell.¡± Mike put the ring in his pocket. Then he dried his hands and wrapped a piece of toilet paper around his finger. He stole a glance at the bed. She was sound asleep. The hallway outside was silent. Mike had never been out this late at the Kennedy Center, but he knew the route by heart. The lab would be dead empty at this hour¡ªno, because they were launching tomorrow. He paused in the stairwell. Them he turned back upstairs. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. There was a small lab on the top floor. Only the emergency lights were on. He fumbled for the key, and slipped inside. The whole room was glowing green. Mike took some needle nose pliers from the tool shelf, a pair of magnifying glasses, one large and one small. Then he hunched over a bench and pried the green stone from his ring. It came easily. In two beakers, Mike placed the ring and the green stone. The ring sank. The stone floated. ¡°What are you?¡± Fumbling among the shelves, he found a box stuffed between two rows of manila folders. It was a tackle box, with a sticker label on each compartment, and a small rock inside each. Mike took a few rock samples and ran them along the green stone, trying to scratch it. Each rock was harder than the last. Nothing worked until the quartz. ¡°What the hell are you?¡± Directly above Mike, beyond the skylights, hung the moon. For some reason its light appeared green tonight. All the clouds around it were rimmed with green, like the hills of a vast meadow at twilight. The stone spun wildly in its beaker. Mike didn¡¯t notice that the moon was green. His optic nerves absorbed the light, but his mind refused to accept the fact that it was green. The moon was not green. There was nothing green about it, and nothing green on it. But it stuck with him, somewhere under the surface of his conscious mind. He had seen these things, and he could not un-see them, but neither could he accept them as real. With his brow still furrowed, he took the needle nose pliers, replaced the stone on the ring, took a small chain and hung the ring around his neck. Then he got a broom and dust pan from the custodial closet and tiptoed back to his bedroom. There, he cleaned the broken glass off the floor. When he had dumped it in the bin, he took one last look out the hotel window, and crawled into bed next to Marry-Ann. But it was a long time before he fell asleep, and when he did, he dreamed many strange dreams, and remembered none of them.
Gene punched the comms. ¡°This is Ground control.¡±The line crackled evenly. A voice came through. ¡°Been awhile.¡± ¡°Niel?¡± ¡°Yessir. This is Niel Amrstrong.¡± Gene let out a breath and leaned closer to the mic, loosening his collar. ¡°Fuel consumption¡¯s up, Niel. I think. What¡¯s the readout on your end?¡± ¡°Hang on.¡± Murray leaned over the desk and peered up at the sky through the window. There was a long pause. Somewhere up there, the astronauts were checking out their dials. He sat back down at the consol. ¡°Damn it¡¯s cold in here.¡± Gene cracked a smile. ¡°It¡¯s colder up there.¡± The comms came to life. ¡°Hey ground control. Yeah, we¡¯re burning fuel too fast, but it¡¯s not bad. What can we do?¡± ¡°I¡¯m working on it. And tell Mr. Collins to turn his comms back on.¡± ¡°Will do. Mike¡ª¡± Niel was talking away from his mic. ¡°Mike, turn your comms on. GC¡¯s trying to reach you.¡± Niel floated at the threshold of the command module. Michael reclined at his desk, strapped in and scanning the dials methodically. He was fingering his neck. His skin was red where the chain hung around it. The closer they got to landing, the heavier it felt. It was his imagination. The small, illogical part of his brain¡ªor maybe the big illogical part, wondered: What if the moon''s gravity trapped them all, and he never got home to Mary-Anne? He looked up. ¡°Comms?¡± ¡°Yes. GC''s trying to reach you. We¡¯re going burning fuel too fast. A bit too fast. Nothing crazy.¡± The ship lurched. Niel¡¯s eyes bugged out. He fumbled for a handhold and banged his head against the metal flooring. ¡°Mike.¡± He struggled to his feet. Faintly, he became away the moons gravity was acting on them. The ship had entered the atmosphere. Too early. Just a bit too early by Niel''s estimation. A gurgling sound came from the chair. Neil righted himself. He was halfway floating halfway crawling, slowly to the height of the chair: Mike lay in his chair, not moving. His head thrown back. Niel climbing up on the chair and shook his crewmate. A red mark was around his throat where a thin, metal chain pulled against his Adams Apple. Niel, furrowed his brow and looked closer. The chain snapped, as he did, and a small ring with a green stone clattered to the floor Neil¡¯s eyes followed the stone. He glanced at Mike. Then his eyes returned to the stone. Outside, the moon was green. Or something green was on the moon, or between the Moon and Earth. The stone fell toward the moon with incredible speed. The Apollo, of course, came with it. When the ship crashed, it crashed into a field of green moss. Green moss on grey stone. Somewhere on the moon, someone laughed. The Second Version of the Memories at the Bottom of the Sea As I drifted off to sleep beside the fire, I went over the events of the night, one at a time. I sank into a state of deep contemplation, where the awareness of myself intensified in an odd way. Here is what I¡¯m trying to say: Perhaps the combined exhaustion and anxiety at being stranded in the middle of nowhere, alone, I began to dream while awake, I thought, but I still gazed at the fire before me, and at times I stood up and paced, but as I filed through my memories and reached the part of the story where our submarine sank towards bottom of the sea. That was the initial descent. But I perceived the events differently in hindsight. Most of the events were just as I thought, but in some cases, the events split. I could remember two different versions of the same events. The story I told you so far is the first version. We sank to around 2000 meters below sea-level, and then performed an exchange with a foreign submarine, but if you remember, I thought the events were derived from some kind of hidden logic, like a behavioral cypher, to keep the crew from understanding the real meaning behind this exchange. In the second version of that memory, we sank to 2000 meters below sea level and received the first transmission from the foreign submarine. Then the captain ordered us deeper. At first the crew protested. Our sub wasn¡¯t built for depths far below 2200 meters, and the buffer zone only took us to 2250 meters. These were figures that the crew had memorized. But the captain reassured them it was safe. The buffer is guaranteed down to 2250 meters. In reality, he said, the submarine could travel deeper without suffering structural damage. 2300 meters would be reasonable, for instance. 2500 meters was probably safe as well. At a certain depth, the pressure increases more slowly. The captain told us he only planned to visit 2250 for a brief moment. Satisfied, the crew took us down. Here the captain ordered the crew to hold our position, while he took myself and the first mate into the lab. The lights were dim, here, at the bottom of the sea. The captain closed the door, and the sound of the crew went away. The lab was located far away from the engines, so the silence was almost complete except for the thwacking sound that echoed through the miles of water. I was suddenly viscerally aware of how fast sound traveled underwater. Without a word the first mate walked toward the back wall of the lab. He passed the shelves and stainless steel table, all cramped together, and came to specimen airlock. This submarine was custom fitted with a specimen airlock. Something was exchanged, in a lockbox, through the specimen airlock, at a depth where it''s safe to dive, in the first version of this memory. Standing in front of the airlock, the first mate pulled it¡¯s lever. The lever was stuck. Placing both hands against the lever, he strained against the stainless steel. Finally, it screeched open. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The first mate gasped and bent double for a moment, hands on knees. Then he stood lifted one foot up onto the lip of the stainless steel table. His face turned toward us as he clambered onto the table. The blood had drained completely from his face. Next his knee got up on the table, and he began to crawl backwards into the airlock. First one leg, searching blindly for the back of the airlock. Then his other leg. He bent at the knee, and pushed himself backwards using only his hands. His legs were now completely trapped in the stainless steal cylinder. Last, he stuck both arms into the cylinder and gripped the ribbed sides, pulled his torso into the airlock, until only curly hair stuck out the top. At this point, the captain made a move toward the airlock. I snatched at his arm, but he caught my wrist. My other first hooked him in the jaw. Blood oozed from his lip, but he pushed me and I sat down hard on the steel bench. Two of the crew sat down with me, and held my arms by my sides. My head leaned against the metal wall. Sweat poured down my back and neck. Lights blinked overhead, dimmer than ever. I could do nothing but watch. I closed my eyes and saw the man trapped inside the airlock: The captain walked to the airlock and closed the door. The door was two inches thick, of solid steel. Just shy of closing, the door swung into the man¡¯s head, stretching his cramped neck to the side. The captain gathered his strength and pushed the door closed. A muffled cry escaped the airlock. I imagined myself cramped in that airlock. I needed the first mate to force the door back open, but his arms and legs were pinned. Then the captain turned his lever. The lever turned slowly. The captain was breathing hard. Another cry escaped the airlock, but sounded like it was coming from underground. Then another, higher in pitch. The man¡¯s heart was beating faster. His stomach churned. Fear rose in his throat like bile, like a bot boiling over. Once the fear took hold, it strangled him. The screams didn¡¯t stop after that. They were so quiet, but impossible to ignore. The captain made a gesture and two sailors pulled me to my feet, and led me to the airlock. I shivered. The remaining sailors stood by, watching me impassively. The captain withdrew a black leather bag. Inside were a number of medical devices. He pulled a stethoscope from inside, and put it on me. The sailors held my arms. Then he held the stethoscope up to the airlock. My heart sank. A hiss like boiling water filled my ears. The screams were clear now but still quiet. Something banged against the inside of the airlock, again and again, over and over. Each bang, the scream cut out. Then it picked up again. I shivered. I felt my stomach rise. The men held my arms tight. I couldn¡¯t get free. I shook my head from side to side. The captain gripped my head, four fingers on each wide, splayed above my ears. He was careful not to cover my ears, or to disrupt in any way the placement of the stethoscope in them. I don¡¯t know how long they held me. I vomited. Then I vomited again, all over the captain. But he didn¡¯t move. His boots turned to a blur before my eyes. The smell faded into nothing. The banging faded after a while, quieter, but the screams would not end. He choked inside the airlike, a scream cut short. I heard the sound of vomit. My own stomach heaved, but I had nothing. Bile pushed halfway up my throat and stayed there. Tears streaked down my face. My eyes and nose stung. When they removed the stethoscope, I went limp. The sounds of the submarine returned to my ears, but I couldn¡¯t comprehend them. Random beeping and whirring, like white noise to me. I realized it was silent. With a great effort, the captain moved the lever on the airlock, and pulled the door. His boots were sticky with vomit. The door swung open, and the first mate¡¯s head lolled out. His forehead was red all over. His eyes were red. Half-congealed blood dropped from his palms. His the fingernails on his right hand were ripped partway off. His eyes were open, unblinking. His forehead was a mess of dark, bruised flesh, and blood. I don''t know. Maybe the head-banging killed him. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 1 During my last days in Boston, I paid a visit to the hair salon on the corner of Blackrock and Berkeley. Just coming from a big lunch, I sank into my chair with bliss and total abandon. The front door was propped open with a rough stone. People came and went. Invigorating winds blew in. My eyes wandered over the hubbub and settled on a petulant old lady in the corner. She reclined at one of the stations, and smoked a cigarette through the mouth-hole of her face mask. Despite the lushious styling chair, the woman¡¯s body looked awkward and uncomfortable. I wondered absently if I would look that way in a few decades. Her eyes bore into me. ¡°Is that hyphenated?¡± said a voice. I looked in the mirror. ¡°Is what hyphenated?¡± The hairdresser shrugged. ¡°Your name. E-Liza. Get it?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Tough crowd.¡± I chuckled politely, and after a suitable pause, nodded my head toward the back corner. ¡°Who¡¯s that lady?¡± The hairdresser had been running a comb through my hair. ¡°Is she staring at me now?¡± I asked. ¡°She is.¡± The hairdresser hadn¡¯t moved her head more than an inch. She grabbed her baby powder and slapped it gently onto the back of my neck. ¡°Do you know that woman?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. Do you?¡± ¡°No. She isn¡¯t allowed to smoke in here. I¡¯m done, by the way. Are you happy?¡± Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. She spun me around in the chair until I faced the mirror, which was encrusted with plastic jewels. There I was. My own lustrous green eyes stared back at me, with bags under them. My t-shirt was wrinkled, and shoulders, broad and bony as a vampire. I turned my head back and forth to admire the cut. My hair was just two inches shorter than before, but something had changed in the texture and volume. A wave of confidence whelmed in me. ¡°I look like a drug addict, but God, I love this cut.¡± ¡°Was it worth an hour of your time?¡± She held her wristwatch in front of me. The watch read one-o¡¯clock P.M. ¡°I got here at twelve-thirty.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my lunch break.¡± She winked. Her perfume had wafted over me as she leaned in, and it was, ¡°Endless summer.¡± ¡°Not lunchtime though¡ª,¡± I said, before I noticed her winking-eye. Her reflection considered me. ¡°There¡¯s a room in the back,¡± she said slowly, dipping her toes in the water. I chewed on that. Then I screwed up my face and said, ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Really?¡± ¡°Sure means sure. So, definitely.¡± I tried to recall her name while I paid the receptionist up front and she waited by her bedazzled mirror. When I returned she took my hand and led me to the back of the salon, where she ducked through a red curtain. I followed, and the curtain had more heft than I expected. As it fell into place behind us, the sounds of the hair salon faded, and a quiet buzzing filled the silence. The room was dark and warm, with a subterranean aire. Two brazen lamps cast a warm glow on the coffee table, flanked by two leather chairs. Two overlapping rugs covered the floor, like patches of moss. I sat in one of the beat-up leather chairs, kicked my boots off, and looked up at the girl standing above me. ¡°This is our break room,¡± she said, sitting down next to me. Her gaze wandered over my face. ¡°And I¡¯m just taking a break. If anyone asks.¡± I took her face in my hands and stopped it a few inches from mine. ¡°What if somebody comes in here?¡± I said, my heart racing enough to shake my voice box. She shrugged, sluggishly. ¡°I say who cares?¡± Her eyes lingered on mine. Then she leaned in and kissed me. Almost too soft to hear, she moaned into my mouth, and her lips pressed merrily, messily into mine. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 2 The old woman followed me when I left the hair salon. She was smoking, and she let the door slam behind her. I didn¡¯t notice her tailing me right away because my heart was still racing after lunch. I hadn¡¯t eaten a bite, but I felt vigorous.. A voice behind me said, ¡°You got a light?¡± She had tailed me a few blocks by then, and I heard her rasping breath. I wasn¡¯t in the mood to talk so I ignored her and turned sharply on my heel, strolling down a side-street, where some pop-up shops and a couple of drab apartment buildings filled our view. Pedestrians meandered from shop to shop, picking through the rubbage nicknacks. ¡°Hey. Gimme a light.¡± She raised her voice this time. The woman was in her late-sixties, wrinkled and leather-skinned. She had one arm. ¡°How¡¯d you get a light for that one?¡± I said over my shoulder. Dropping the cigarette, she stamped it out mid-stride. ¡°The girl at the counter lit it for me,¡± she mocked. ¡°Now wait up.¡± I kept walking at the same, even pace. ¡°They let you smoke in there?¡± I said. She snorted. Was she breathing hard.. ¡°They did when I showed them my carry.¡± I stopped. ¡°I remember you. You¡¯re Beverly Gimble.¡± ¡°Bev.¡± She scowled at me, not quite catching her breath. ¡°What is Bev short for then?¡± She didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Do you know why I¡¯m here?¡± ¡°Bevel?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t. Do you?¡± She snarled and stepped an inch closer to me. ¡°Hey take it easy.¡± I raised my hands defensively. ¡°Maybe¡­¡± I looked around hopefully, ¡°You¡¯re here to talk?¡± The street was crowded with shoppers. A cop car prowled on the far side of the street, passed within Bev¡¯s field of view. The old crone leaned in close, hunching over, and pulled me along with her. ¡°Listen you little brat. I don¡¯t have long to chit chat. What do you say we step inside and talk. I¡¯ve got a job for you.¡± ¡°And I thought you were here to make amends.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a kid went missing, fifty years ago.¡± ¡°Fifty years ago. You had me until ¡®Fifty years ago¡¯. What kind of job¡ª?¡± She smiled. ¡°No working journalist would take it.¡± Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Yeah, fifty years ago isn¡¯t timely.¡± ¡°But you¡¯re not working, are you?¡± Bev cocked an eyebrow at me. ¡°Hey. I¡¯m working on that.¡± ¡°You¡¯re unemployed, aren¡¯t you? Just like the old days.¡± ¡°When I was a kid.¡± ¡°So listen up. Before the little boy went missing, his stepdad died of, quote, ¡®natural causes.¡¯ Unquote. But there was never an autopsy. No professional examined the body. Now his daughter¡ªHis stepdaughter, that is¡ªsaw what happened with her own eyes.¡± ¡°OK. How old was she?¡± ¡°Old enough to remember what she saw.¡± I sighed. ¡°A kid doesn¡¯t make a reliable witness. Not that anybody does.¡± ¡°Well she¡¯s not pressing charges. She has no intention of taking this to court. But it¡¯s a lead, that¡¯s all. A place to get started.¡± She went on smoking. ¡°Well? What did the little girl see?¡± ¡°A five-year-old kid isn¡¯t very strong, but the stepdad was sick¡­ She thinks the old man was asleep, and the little boy throttled him.¡± ¡°If you think I¡¯m gonna take this job you¡¯re not thinking.¡± I spat the words. The cop car pulled to the curb. Bev dragged me into a clothing shop. The door triggered a chime somewhere at the rear of the store. ¡°Hey take it easy will you. I¡¯m a big girl now and I might just push you back.¡± A hint of malice brushed the edges of my tone. Bev¡¯s voice was muted by the clothes all around us. She kept on at a whisper. ¡°I would gamble my left arm, the boy¡¯s still alive. He¡¯d be grown up, but that¡¯s beside the point, Eliza. This job went off the market very quickly. Now isn¡¯t that interesting? Why do you think it went off the market so quickly?¡± ¡°Somebody got the job,¡± I said flatly. ¡°Maybe. Maybe somebody got the job. But you and I move fast. If we got to the truth first¡­¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Think before you speak. What do you mean no?¡± Her voice dropped to a whisper. ¡°You and I¡ªwe go back. You know what I can do.¡± She pressed the knuckles of her right hand into the fabric of her pants. The knuckles cracked, one by one. ¡°And Eliza, if you don¡¯t want to hear from me again¡ªand I respect that¡­ just say the word. You won¡¯t hear from me again after we wrap this up.¡± ¡°It¡¯s that much money, huh?¡± I glanced out the window. Two cops were interviewing a distracted crowd. ¡°Hmph. In the right neighborhood, I could retire off it.¡± ¡°You mean Florida?¡± She shrugged. ¡°Jesus. God. You should move to Florida, Bev. You¡¯d love it.¡± I cracked a smile. ¡°Think about the job, Eliza Bailey.¡± ¡°I have been thinking. Why¡¯s it pay so much?¡± Bev¡¯s hand dismissed me. ¡°Discretion, urgency, sentiment. The old girl misses her little brother. Who knows.¡± ¡°Ok, fine. I¡¯ll consider.¡± We shook hands. Mulling things over, I stood a while in the shadow of the brick apartment building. The street crowd sighed. Seagulls fussed overhead, dive-bombing for French-fries. The wind was fine and crisp. A man walked in front of me with a half-eaten hotdog. A young girl in white jeans walked the other way. When they had passed, I turned my back to the wall and pulled my phone out of my butt pocket. Turning the brightness way down, I opened my email and scrolled until I found ¡®Pamela Adams¡¯ and opened her email. It was the same brief, alright. ¡°Beverage,¡± I addressed the place where Bev Gimble had stood. ¡°You were right, old girl. Someone did get the job.¡± I tilted my head back, breathing in the night air through a monstrous grin. It was getting late. At this time, the sky produced a cerulean blue horizon, and the moon hung in a waxing crescent the color of fogged diamond. The night breeze caused my mind to wander as it often does. I found myself thinking about the moon, how the shape of the moon is just an illusion created by shadows. Maybe that¡¯s why it took me so long to realize what was different about it. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 3 ¡°Next¡­¡± The attendant turned his attention to the man in line, ignoring me. ¡°Wait, wait. Wait.¡± I fumbled for my passport and extended it to the man. He leaned forward to look, his face not pleased to face me. ¡°That¡¯s my name. Can you please check again.¡± I pleaded with him silently while he looked between the passport and me. ¡°Ehem.¡± He looked down his nose. A line was building. ¡°Sorry, ma¡¯am. We don¡¯t have your bags. My guess is, your luggage never made it off the ground. ¡°That¡¯s impossible. Checked it.¡± ¡°It is possible. You flew from¡­ Chicago? The number for O¡¯Hare International is here.¡± He slid a wrinkled flier across the counter and pointed to the number. ¡°Dial a Zero after they pick up.¡± He took the phone from his desk and thrust it into my hand. The chord stretched over the service desk. ¡°Any questions?¡± ¡°Sure. Have you looked at the moon lately?¡± He glared at me. I shrugged, pulled the cord as far as it would reach, and dialed. Listening to the dial tone, I checked my watch. Twisting the watchface, I brought it close to my face and read the time. ¡°O¡¯Hare¡ª¡± I dialed zero. It rang twice. ¡°Service desk.¡± ¡°Chicago, right?¡± I folded the flyer and put it on the counter. ¡°Yessir.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Eliza Bailey. Just landed in LA. My goddamn luggage never made it on the plane.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡± ¡°Eliza Bailey,¡± I said. ¡°Luggage for Eliza Bailey?¡± ¡°That is what I said. Ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°First class I¡¯m guessing¡­¡± ¡°Economy.¡± ¡°From your tone of voice. One¡­ Two carry-ons, right?¡± ¡°Those are mine.¡± ¡°Well, good news, Miss Bailey¡ª¡± ¡°I highly doubt that.¡± ¡°They¡¯re in LA.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Should be all set, ma¡¯am. They should be in LA by now.¡± ¡°But they¡¯re not¡ª¡± I looked around. The line at the service desk were taking turns glaring at me. ¡°Are you in LA Miss Bailey?¡± ¡°Yes I am. You seem to have grasped the problem.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°We loaded them on the plane.¡± ¡°Miss Bailey?¡± A man in a cowboy hat leaned over the divider. He was huge, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. He took the hat off, and held it in one hand. His hair was thick and black, and slicked back with sweat. I raised a finger to say wait. He nodded and stepped back, hat in hand. I lifted the phone again, eying the cowboy. ¡°My luggage is definitely here in LA?¡± ¡°Unless it fell out of the plane, Miss. If you just go to the service desk¡ª¡± ¡°I¡¯m at the service desk. Ugh. Nevermind.¡± I let the phone down and it hung by its chord. The man behind the counter curled his lip. I turned back to the man with the cowboy hat. ¡°Yes?¡± I smiled politely. ¡°Miss Bailey. I work for the Adams family.¡± ¡°The Adams Family? Oh.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t help but overhear¡­¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Certainly the airport will sort it out. Gunther, by the way.¡± His hand engulfed mine. ¡°Nice to meet you. I wanted to change before the interview.¡± He clicked his tongue. ¡°Wouldn''t worry. Pretty sure this interview¡¯s a formality, no more. Let¡¯s go.¡± Leisurely, he strode into the crowd. I swiped the pamphlet off the counter and jogged after him. The crowd parted in front of him, and he didn¡¯t seem to notice, but neither did the crowd. After a dozen paces, he looked over his shoulder. ¡°Whatcha smiling about, Miss Bailey?¡± I shrugged. ¡°Nothing. Just¡ªMust be hard to lose you in a crowd.¡± He faced forward again. ¡°You¡¯d be surprised.¡± The cowboy hat sailed a foot above the crowd. It was big as a sombrero, but it looked like a cowboy hat on his head, which it was. ¡°You aren¡¯t from LA, then?¡± I caught up with him. ¡°No, ma¡¯am. I live here now, but I¡¯m a long way from home.¡° ¡°Which is where?¡± He led me to the parking lot. A blue work truck sat straddled two parking spaces. It simmered in the heat. All the windows were rolled down. Gunther opened the back door and made room for me. ¡°Maine.¡± ¡°Maine? The me state.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°ME.¡± I paused next to him. Looking up I said, ¡°What¡¯s a guy like you do for Pamela Adams?¡± ¡°Personal security.¡± ¡°Are you her bodyguard?¡± ¡°Something like that, yes.¡± He looked down. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be with her, then?¡± His eyes lingered on my face. ¡°Probably. But then, I cannot always be.¡± Was that bitterness? I sat down, and Gunther shut the door. On his way to the driver¡¯s seat, Gunther swept a few parking tickets off the windshield and pocketed them. It took awhile to crawl out of the airport, cars moving like dusty turtles. Eventually we took the expressway. Then we cut through the suburbs and watched the fenced-in yards. ¡°Not much of a talker, are you?¡± ¡°I was thinking how I¡¯m going to get my luggage back.¡± We had turned into a rocky coastal road that wove between clusters of brown rock. Ahead lay an old bridge over shallow water that struck out over the pacific shallows to an island. Gunther drove me down a wide island boulevard, lined with old houses. Each house hid behind a screen of unkempt bushes, palm trees, and island oaks with fat leaves for shade. Behind the row of houses loomed white cliffs, wind howling over them. On the other side lay black rocky beaches. Gunther shut the radio off. After a while I noticed. ¡°You don¡¯t like that stuff?¡± I gestured to the radio. Gunther glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. ¡°I want to focus on the road. You have to pay attention these days.¡± I nodded and rubbed the jetlag out of my eyes. ¡°So, what¡¯s a girl like Pamela Adams doing, asking for my help. I mean. Be honest. She could afford a lot better.¡± ¡°You aren¡¯t a journalist.¡± ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°You¡¯re unemployed.¡± ¡°I am?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t work for a newspaper anyway.¡± ¡°You got me. Maybe I should start my own some day.¡± ¡°My point is, you are not, officially, an agent of the press.¡± ¡°Thanks for rubbing it in.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to announce that you¡¯re an agent of the press, or ever admit to being one. Could be useful.¡± ¡°No, people can sniff us out a mile away. They¡¯ll know I¡¯m a reporter.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 4 ¡°Miss Bailey?¡± The Pacific Ocean rolled around the island, huge and silent. The work truck slowed to a stop. ¡°Are we there?¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid I¡¯ve told you a lie, maybe two lies.¡± White foam churned into the nooks and crannies of the coastline. Gunther looked out the windshield. ¡°Glad I reserved judgement,¡± I said. ¡°I still have it in reserve.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t work for Pamela Adams.¡± He turned to look at me. The water sank its icy fangs into the bare, black rocks. ¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°I can live with that. I do work for Pamela Adams. What¡¯s the second lie, Gunther?¡± ¡°Miss Adams can¡¯t hire you.¡± ¡°She already hired me.¡± ¡°She offered you a job, sure.¡± ¡°You picked me up at the airport and drove me all this way just to¡­?¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°You¡¯ll need another job.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand. Are you trying to hire me? I¡¯m not interested.¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m not offering to hire you.¡± ¡°Then what are you doing?¡± ¡°I used to work for Miss Adams¡ª¡± ¡°Ok. That explains your rude commentary about my employment. Feeling bitter about it?¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± ¡°Not too bitter to drive me here.¡± Gunther growled. ¡°Maybe I should write a book too, in all my free time.¡± ¡°That¡¯s only for unemployed journalists. Gunther, you know I quit my job to come here? Left my friends behind?¡± ¡°You have many friends in Boston, Miss Bailey?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to miss my shitty neighbors, anyway. Strat cat who lived on our fire escape. The termites.¡± ¡°She¡¯s dead.¡± ¡°But don¡¯t worry about me. I have, say, $300 in my checking account. What?¡± ¡°Pamela Adams is dead.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± Gunther unbuckled, opened his door, and got out. A moment later he opened my door. ¡°Get out.¡± I did. I breathed in deep. The wind perfumed us with accents of the sea. Gulls cried overhead. ¡°Why did you bring me here?¡± He sighed. Then he shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t.¡± ¡°I just figured since you flew all this way¡­ you should see her daughter.¡± ¡°She had a daughter? What¡¯s her name?¡± ¡°Tammy.¡± ¡°Is she here?¡± ¡°Yeah. And she would like to know what happened to her mother.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 5 ¡°You all wear hats like that?¡± The courtyard swayed with flowers and leafy trees, and the splash of leaf-shadows on the grass. Wooden swings hung from the thickest tree branches. ¡°Cowboy hats, I mean. Do you all wear cowboy hats, who work for Ms. Adams?¡± Gunther followed my gaze. A stylish grandfather napped in a chair at the edge of the courtyard. A three piece suit kept the sun off him, and a cowboy hat shielded his face. ¡°Just me and the butler.¡± Gunther tipped his head toward the older man. We were well within the courtyard now. A white stone chimney rose above the pale orange roofing. Thin, glittering windows glaring out nooks and crannies of a roof with many awnings. A woman with hair so blonde it was almost white sat under the painted arch of the gazebo, and leaned against the wooden post. Her white curls hovered around her jawline like clouds, and her expression was serene and remote, like the face of a mountain behind parting clouds I thought. Whatever lay behind that face was out of reach. We approached her by the winding cobblestone walkway, and Gunther slowed his pace. Pamela Adams stared resolutely into the distance, over the flower beds, the groves of palm trees, the gentle foothills, down to the roiling blue and white foam of the breakers, out to sea. When we reached her, I followed her gaze. ¡°You¡¯re Ms. Bailey,¡± she said, standing up. I nodded and offered a polite smile she didn¡¯t return. Beside the gazebo, a pool rippled under the breeze, encircled by the sun-baked patio. Flower beds lay at intervals around the pool, stuffed with topheavy blossoms. ¡°Eliza,¡± I said. ¡°Eliza Bailey.¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Tamara Menser.¡± She said, remembering to smile. ¡°Take a seat.¡± Tamara moved toward the chairs under the gazebo. ¡°You smoke?¡± I shook my head and sat down next to her, fingering the armrests. Tamara sat down much slower than she had gotten up. A glass table with drinks sat between us. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about your loss,¡± I said lamely. She sighed. ¡°Gunther made a considerable effort to call you before your flight left Boston. Spare you the trouble of flying.¡± ¡°Virtuous. Respectful of my time. I wish he had succeeded in that.¡± ¡°Well, I asked him not to. He argued, so if you¡¯re upset about us dragging you all the way here¡ª¡± I looked at her. Her face gave nothing away, but finally she spoke again. ¡°You¡¯re a journalist, right?¡± I picked up a glass and wet my lips. ¡°Gunther keeps reminding me I¡¯m not.¡± ¡°I think you can help me,¡± she went on. ¡°What do you want me to do? Write your mom¡¯s obituary?¡± She shrugged. ¡°Really? No thanks, Ms. Adams. I need a job, not an hour-long gig.¡± ¡°You think you could write her obituary in an hour?¡± Something in her tone gave me pause, like a flash of movement underwater. I laughed bitterly. ¡°Sure. I¡¯ll start now. Pamela Adams died before she could hire me.¡± Tamara bit her lip. Her voice was very small when she spoke. ¡°She was murdered actually.¡± ¡°Murdered.¡± She nodded. Her white curls bounced. ¡°Murdered. How?¡± ¡°We¡¯re not sure. But it happened on the train tracks.¡± And now you want me to write your mom¡¯s obituary.¡± ¡°I want you to find out what happened to her.¡± ¡°What do you know already?¡± ¡°I know that she died. And we¡¯re pretty sure it was murder. I want to know what happened before that. I want to know why she was murdered.¡± ¡°The cops haven¡¯t found the murderer?¡± ¡°No trace.¡± ¡°But she was definitely murdered?¡± ¡°It was clear from what was left of her,¡± she said quietly. ¡°Look, Ms. Adams, I¡¯m a writer, not a cop.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be working with¡ª¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t work with cops.¡± ¡°With Gunther, Miss Bailey.¡± ¡°Okay. Okay. I do work with Gunthers.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 6 ¡°LA Times.¡± I had taken my leave of the Adams¡¯ and was at the docks around sundown. Pretending to be tired, I set down my bag and dialed the paper. ¡°I think I¡¯m being followed. My name is Eliza Bailey. I¡¯m at the Queen Andy¡¯s Boatyard on¡­¡± I scanned for an intersection close enough to read the street signs. ¡°East Island Boulevard.¡± A lime green speedboat gunned its engines, lurching forward, yards at a time, between two yachts. The sunny pacific quelled and splashed between them. ¡°This is the LA Times.¡± ¡°Still? Oh good. I thought you might know who it is that¡¯s following me.¡± There was a pause. ¡°Unlikely, miss.¡± ¡°Are you chewing gum?¡± I pushed my sunglasses up and feigned confusion, looking around. After a longer pause, the man on the end of the line raised his voice. ¡°Are you in danger?¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m trying to find out. She hasn¡¯t done anything yet.¡± This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°Then why¡¯d you call us?¡± ¡°Well, can¡¯t you check if there¡¯s a warrant out for somebody¡¯s arrest, fitting the description?¡± ¡°On the loose? I¡¯ll check. But you should buy the newspaper and look at it yourself.¡± ¡°I only read the Times. Anyway she¡¯s average height, in khakis and an open trench-coat. Ring a bell?¡± ¡°What¡¯s she look like?¡± ¡°Long black hair, sharp nose,.¡± I shrugged. ¡°That doesn¡¯t narrow it down much.¡± ¡°Can you take a message anyway?¡± ¡°Sure, what the hell. But I¡¯m telling you, it could be anyone.¡± ¡°No, hang on.¡± I let the phone fall to my side. ¡°What was that? You cut out.¡± The woman was laboring to button her trench coat with one hand. The other sleeve was empty. ¡°I think she¡¯s wearing a cast.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I think her arm is broken.¡± ¡°Elijah¡ª?¡± ¡°Eliza Bailey¡ªEliza with a Z. I¡¯m staying at the Gardenia. Call me at this number.¡± ¡°Bailey. What does that remind me of?¡± ¡°No idea. Can you call me?¡± ¡°Fine. If anything shows.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± I picked up my suitcase and looked at the woman. She gave no indication that she noticed. Instead, she stood erect by the railing, and let the wind catch her hair. Fine. If she followed me, she followed me. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 7 The hotel was underneath a train bridge. A train thundered over. My cabby shut the boot and handed me the bags, one of clothes, and one of tools. Inside, a second train shook the ceiling. ¡°Are they always this loud?¡± ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am. Unfortunately.¡± The receptionist looked up without moving her neck. ¡°You don¡¯t advertise that fact.¡± ¡°No, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡±You should.¡± I tucked the newspaper under one arm and smiled at the glaring manager, who overheard. Upstairs, I blocked the door with a chair and, on second thought, the couch. The latter was much heavier. I turned the fan on high, and stripped down to my underwear. Then I sat on the homemade barrier and spread out my newspaper on the couch. The ice cubes in my coffee melted as I read the paper. The door opened without any sound of a key in the lock. Just the handle clicked, and the door slammed against the couch. An eye appeared in the crack, saw me in my underwear, and got two sizes wider. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! I covered myself with the newspaper and, pausing to think, kicked the door shut. I heard a muted apology through the door. I climbed on top of the couch and pressed my face to the peephole. An upright bellhop stood next to a cart of cleaning supplies. His mouth hung open. The shades weren¡¯t closed. Standing on the couch, I realized my butt was in full view of the neighbors. Well, good for them. When I was dressed, I moved the couch and checked the peephole. Opening the door, I startled the man again and smiled, shoving my hand toward him. ¡°Eliza Bailey.¡± We shook hands. ¡°Ah¡ªah.¡± The guy¡¯s face was bright red. ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it. Why don¡¯t you make it up to me somehow.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. Buy me a drink at the hotel bar? You had the nerve to come back here. I guess you wanted to apologize, or maybe just sneak another peak.¡± He paused, working up to an apology, and turned a darker shade of red. I waved him off. ¡°Just buy me a drink. I¡¯m in town on business and I could use some information anyway. Someone who knows the local area.¡± ¡°I could take my lunch,¡± he said. Then he narrowed his eyes. ¡°You really asking me to buy you a drink?¡± ¡°It''s only fair. You¡¯ve seen me naked. But don¡¯t get your hopes up. Next time I¡¯m going to put a chair, the couch, and the bed against the door.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± ¡°Good. I¡¯ll meet you downstairs in five minutes.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 8 Distantly my phone rang. I trudged to the closet and pulled it from my jeans. ¡°Howdy you. It¡¯s me. Eliza Bailey.¡± ¡°Dinner tonight with Tamara.¡± Gunther spoke softly. ¡°Invitation or an order?¡± I was fighting with a pair of jeans. ¡°We need to discuss the details of her mother¡¯s investigation.¡± ¡°And her murder, right? You want me to write that obituary.¡± ¡°Come with your questions,¡± he said. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Is she a good cook?¡± ¡°I will pick you up at five, at the hotel¡± ¡°If she isn''t a good cook, we could always get takeout. Know any good Chinese food?¡± ¡°One more thing. There is a locker at the train station with four-hundred dollars inside a duffel bag. Sit in the hotel lounge. In fifteen minutes, someone you¡¯ve never seen before will drop a key. Hang onto it.¡± ¡°Ok. Thanks.¡± I reshouldered the phone. ¡°Her mom was better.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°She¡¯s okay. Her mom was a better cook.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t skip lunch then.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 9 ¡°Uniform suits you.¡± I sat down across from the bellhop. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± ¡°Richard.¡± ¡°Last name?¡± ¡°Knox. You going to report me?¡± ¡°Richard Knox?¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s my name. Silent K.¡± ¡°Silent K would make a hell of a nickname. You ever¡ª?¡± ¡°Just Richard Knox, or Rick Knox.¡± ¡°But he doesn¡¯t does he?¡± ¡°I beg your pardon?¡± I leaned back in my chair. A waiter set two drinks at our table. ¡°Rick doesn¡¯t knock. Richard barges in.¡± ¡°Ah what the hell. I¡¯m buying you a drink. Do you have to badger me the whole time? If you¡¯re mad, file a complaint. If not, then gimme a break.¡± He took a swig. ¡°Okay, well. Look. I think it¡¯s funny, but I¡¯ll stop if it¡¯s bugging you, if it upsets you. How about Richard Talks? Why don¡¯t you say something?¡± ¡°What do you want me to say?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, just tell me about yourself. How long have you worked here?¡± This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°Just this summer. I¡¯m an English teacher at the middle school.¡± ¡°The middle school on this island?¡± ¡°I thought I¡¯d try my hand at hopping bells.¡± ¡°Makes sense. Do you like it?¡± ¡°There¡¯s plenty of time to read.¡± ¡°You read books on the job?¡± ¡°Sure, and I¡¯d appreciate if you don¡¯t tattle.¡± I shrugged. ¡°I couldn''t care less. Are you on lunch break now?¡± He nodded through his glass. ¡°Don¡¯t usually drink on the job, but what the hell. I walk to and from work, so¡ª.¡± I put my elbows on the table and leaned on my hands while I watched him drain his glass. ¡°Have you seen the moon lately?¡± ¡°Why?¡± He didn¡¯t look up. ¡°No reason. I was just making conversation.¡± He set the drink down and eyed me over the table. He shrugged. ¡°What would be the point anyway? It¡¯s always the same moon. I have probably seen the moon a thousand times in my life. More.¡± I agreed. ¡°But have you ever really looked at it? Looked hard, I mean?¡± He looked off. ¡°Have you?¡± ¡°I guess not,¡± I said. ¡°Maybe once or twice.¡± ¡°Just goes to show¡­¡± He set down the empty glass. ¡°Anyway, thanks for the drinks.¡± ¡°Is that all?¡± ¡°Is what?¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t ask a lot of questions. About town. You said you were in town on business.¡± ¡°I am.¡± ¡°Well you didn¡¯t ask a lot of questions.¡± ¡°If anything comes up, I¡¯ll find you.¡± ¡°Ok, but I¡¯m not buying you any more drinks.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m not stripping naked even to shower.¡± After he left, I sat back and sighed. ¡°Ugh.¡± I picked up my glass. A key sat on the table, in the place where my glass had been. It had an ugly square head and streaks of rust along the shaft. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 10 Taxi, taxi! Bastard! Taxi! I swam through the crowd outside LAX like a drowning goat. When I finally got inside, I saw the same man working the service desk as before, so I high-tailed it to the baggage claim instead. In a carpeted rest area, I threw myself into a chair. Bev Gimble was leaning face-forward against a vending machine across the hall. She appeared to be threatening it. I slid out of the chair and followed a loose crowd. By the time she finally squeezed a bottle out of the poor machine, I was almost entirely obscured by the throng. Through a gap between two businessmen, I saw Bev sit down almost exactly where I had sat, and pull a cigarette out of her shirt pocket. A moment later, a man with a large badge sidled up to her and said a few words out the corner of his mouth. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. For a moment I lost sight of her. I had to wait for another gap in the crowd. Bev glared at the man with the badge and mashed her cigarette into the arm of her chair. The man took it gingerly and walked off, tossing it into the nearest bin without looking. It had not yet been lit. I leaned against the wall for a moment. Then I dragged my bags all the way outside. ¡°Taxi!¡± I tried. ¡°Bastard,¡± I tried. I moved with the current, but there were, simply, not enough taxis for girls with soft voices. Instead of going hoarse, I went back in the air conditioning and opened my new duffel. It had barely fit in the locker back at the train station. Inside were four hundred-dollar bills in a standard envelope. I took a one-hundred-dollar bill and bought a newspaper and a novel from the airport gift shop. With the change, I bought a large mountain dew and a bag of chips. I put the rest of the bills back in my envelope. Then I found an empty lounge and read my book while rush hour crawled past. All the ice melted. I never got my bags. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 11 ¡°Mate in three. Takes, takes. Pawn to e-seven. Rook takes on e-seven; check. King to d-six. Rook to e-six; checkmate.¡± We sat around the coffee table in Tamara¡¯s living room. The walls were hung with paintings and a metal chandelier swayed above us. The curtains were thrown back, and light poured in through a dusty window. ¡°Wow,¡± I said. ¡°Good game.¡± We shook hands, and Tamara quietly reset the board. Before she was done, she glanced up at me. ¡°How¡¯s the hotel?¡± ¡°Good.¡± I took a deep breath and I leaned back into the couch. ¡°Couldn¡¯t believe it¡¯s free.¡± ¡°Free as promised.¡± Tamara smiled briefly. ¡°A staff barged in on me without knocking,¡± I said, gauging her reaction. She continued resetting the board, but said, ¡°Did you find out their name?¡± ¡°No,¡± I lied. ¡°But if I see him again, I will.¡± ¡°Do that.¡± She sat back and we played a few moves while Gunther set the table. ¡°So what happened to your mom?¡± The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Tamara raised her eyes to mine. After a moment she answered. ¡°My mom was looking for her little brother. He went missing when they were kids.¡± ¡°She was?¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t know that?¡± ¡°I thought she was hiring me to do that. Did she find out what happened to him?¡± ¡°I think she was close. These are her notes.¡± She handed me a red folder. I opened it and spread some of the papers on the table. ¡°Wow. New York, LA¡­ This a National park? She went all over the place.¡± ¡°Yeah. She needed to see everything for herself.¡± Tamara lifted a sheet of paper out of the pile.¡± ¡°What makes you think she was close?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. She¡¯s been looking for him all year, flying all over the country. She must have gotten close right?¡± ¡°Maybe. Not necessarily.¡± ¡°She was murdered wasn¡¯t she?¡± Tamara set her piece down hard. I looked up from the chess board. ¡°You think she was murdered in connection with the investigation?¡± She sighed. ¡°I guess I do, yeah.¡± ¡°Where was her last trip?¡± ¡°I wish I knew, because when she came back to this island, that¡¯s when she was murdered. I guess you¡¯ll want to see where it happened?¡± ¡°The train tracks right?¡± ¡°Right over the hotel.¡± ¡°When can I see it?¡± ¡°Soon as we¡¯re done here.¡± The chess board sat between our plates. Between bites, we played a few moves in silence. Tamara stared at the board. ¡°Your opening is pretty strong,¡± she said. A pawn hung from her fingers. ¡°I just know the one. By the way, I read the paper this morning. Your mom died of ¡®natural causes.¡¯¡± ¡°Check.¡± ¡°Just check?¡± ¡°Mate.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 12 ¡°What. You didn¡¯t expect me?¡± Gunther stood in the open door of my hotel room. I stepped back and let him in. Smiling, he walked past me and took off his coat. ¡°You ready to go?¡± I nodded, shouldering my bag. ¡°Just a moment.¡± He closed the door. Pausing, he looked around and seemed to be listening. Then he leaned over and squinted out the peephole. ¡°Someone following you?¡± I set my bag down on the bed. I raised an eyebrow. Gunther cast me a warning glance and, biting his lip, and took one last look out the peephole. Then he turned his full attention on me. After a pause he finally spoke. ¡°Eliza. Can I sit for a moment?¡± ¡°Sure.¡± I waved him to the chair. He sat down slowly, pulling his hat off. I mirrored him and sat down on the bed, legs crossed. When he had settled deeply into the chair, Gunther looked me in the eye. ¡°It¡¯ll be dark soon. Before we go, I want to go over a few things.¡± ¡°Okay. Shoot.¡± He nodded. Then he shot: ¡°Tamara thinks Ms. Adams was murdered because she was looking for her brother. Looking into what happened. Why he went missing. Ms. Adams hired you too. Whoever killed Ms. Adams may try to kill you.¡± After a long pause, he said simply, ¡°What do you think about that?¡± I sat very still on the bed, turned inward. After an equally long pause I sighed. ¡°Checks out.¡± He nodded. ¡°We will need to be careful. Tonight and going forward, if you¡¯re still on board¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind. I¡¯m not looking for her brother, though. I¡¯m trying to find out what happened to Pamela.¡± He shrugged. ¡°You¡¯re probably right. But I want to be clear about the risks¡± ¡°Are you able to protect me?¡± He nodded, and opened the flap of his jacket. A gun was strapped to his ribcage. ¡°The bullets are rubber, but they¡¯re more than enough.¡± I chewed on that for a minute, than nodded to myself. ¡°Well, we¡¯re losing daylight.¡± ¡°You¡¯re in?¡± I stood up. ¡°I¡¯m not afraid. And you¡¯ll keep an eye on me, right? You¡¯ll use that thing. That¡¯s why you¡¯re working with me. You¡¯re a bodyguard after all.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± He stood up. ¡°I¡¯ll do my damnedest.¡± He spun the cowboy hat slowly on one finger.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± ¡°Sure.¡± ¡°Gunther?¡± He looked down at me, over his shoulder. His hand was on the doorknob. ¡°How was Pamela murdered?¡± The train car was empty except for us. We faced one another in a booth under a flickering light. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°You want to tell me why was Pamela flying over the country without her bodyguard?¡± Gunther looked darkly out the window. ¡°I advised against it. But I guess she had reasons.¡± ¡°What do you guess?¡± ¡°Well, she needed me at home, performing another function.¡± Gunther blinked slowly. ¡°I was taking calls.¡± ¡°That¡¯s odd. Anyone could have done that.¡± ¡°Agreed.¡± ¡°But the same can¡¯t be said for saving her life.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± His shoulders sank. I turned to look out the window. We sped along the cliff tops. Out one window. Hillocks of stunted grass rose into view and fell like a green wave, revealed by the train¡¯s exterior lighting. Out the other side, stars dotted the vastness above the Pacific Ocean. ¡°Who called, by the way?¡± ¡°While Ms. Adams was away? Just the regulars. The Adams family gives money to a variety of institutions.¡± ¡°What do they say? More money, please?¡± He shrugged: ¡°Not in so many words so eloquently phrased. But yeah.¡± ¡°Anyone else call?¡± ¡°Not a soul.¡± ¡°Ok. What kind of institutions are we talking about?¡± ¡°The Shoemaker Estate is one. They¡¯re big on astro-geology. Another is St. Paul¡¯s. There¡¯s the Parks and Rec department. A few nursing homes. It¡¯s a mixed bag..¡± ¡°Ok, well it¡¯s possible that Pamela wanted to appear at home, if you follow me.¡± ¡°I do. But I don¡¯t know. I think she told me to watch her landline because she expected somebody to call.¡± ¡°Somebody in particular?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°But you don¡¯t know who.¡± ¡°Maybe they got in touch with her another way. Maybe they found her.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, Gunther. That all seems like guessing to me.¡± Gunther shrugged. ¡°Maybe. I tend to trust my gut. I¡¯ve been wrong before, but I¡¯m always near the mark.¡± The train braked with a dull grind that rattled the floor. Gunther held the table and leaned back in his chair while I looked out the window at the lights blurring past. ¡°Here we are.¡± Gunther, ground his teeth. ¡°And here Ms. Adams was, too. Right?¡± I waited for the rumbling to cease. ¡°Yeah. Right about here.¡± The lights slowed. The doors hissed and we got up, walked onto the landing. There was a small crowd, hurriedly wrapping themselves against the cool night air. Gunther and I walked slowly, allowing the crowd to move past us to wait impatiently for the elevators. When we had some space to ourselves on the platform, Gunther stopped and turned around. ¡°This is where she got off.¡± ¡°What then?¡± ¡°She walked this way, back toward the tracks.¡± The doors hissed shut and Gunther waited patiently while the train stirred and rolled away. ¡°The next thing I know, she climbed down onto the tracks, scrambled across, and climbed up the other side. Right about here.¡± He pointed to a spot a little ways away, on the other side of the tracks. ¡°How did you learn about that?¡± ¡°A few people witnessed her climbing down. One tried to stop her by hollering and waving his arms.¡± I squinted into the darkness beyond the tracks. Gunther followed my gaze. ¡°That¡¯s the old platform. Back when this train was a steam engine. It¡¯s all run down and not even the lights work. But I checked it out.¡± ¡°And¡­¡± He shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s pretty empty. No place to hide. Nothing dangerous. It¡¯s just a platform with a killer view of the Pacific Ocean.¡± ¡°So what killed her?¡± ¡°We have no idea. All I know is I came up to meet her, and I saw her across the tracks, just there.¡± I followed his finger to a place near the middle of the platform. I could picture her standing there, tights torn about the knee from climbing up and down the tracks, her hair blowing in the wind. ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°She fell. Hard onto the platform. It was like somebody had tackled her. As if an invisible weight crushed her. There was no warning. When the hotel staff called, I came right away. When I got close enough to see her¡­ Her head was broken open. I didn¡¯t need to check for a pulse. Paramedics arrived about same time as me.¡± As we stood there, another train blew past. This one didn¡¯t stop at the island, but sped along with no regard for anyone. The wind ripped in our faces. People sat behind the fogged windows, basking in the glow of electric lights. Many colors flashed past us¡ªclothing, hair, and luggage¡ªlike a whirlwind of confetti and they were gone. Darkness closed around us once again. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 13 Eliza¡¯s phone rang the moment she was alone in her room. It was a woman¡¯s voice. ¡°Hey gorgeous.¡± ¡°Who is this? Are you chewing gum?¡± ¡°LA Times, baby girl. Did you miss me?¡± ¡°Ruth?¡± Ruth had let me crash at her apartment for an entire summer when I was in school. She had been in grad school and kept her apartment like the inside of a PC: wires and fans everywhere. ¡°How about, ¡®Thanks for calling me back.¡¯¡± ¡°Jesus, the LA Times?¡± ¡°Relax.¡± She laughed easily. ¡°I¡¯m a UX designer, not a journalist.¡± ¡°A what? What is that?¡± I threw back on the couch and kicked off my shoes. One got tangled in the ceiling fan and spun lazily above me. ¡°User eXperience. I made the Unsubscribe button so freaking small you can¡¯t click it. Genius, right? People love what I do. By the way, don¡¯t try to zoom in to click it. Your computer will crash.¡± ¡°I never zoom in. Only out.¡± ¡°Where are you? Can we talk without consequences?¡± ¡°I¡¯m in a hotel, underneath the loudest goddamn train I¡¯ve ever heard.¡± ¡°Alone?¡± ¡°With my thoughts and everything. Ruth, you never realize how much you miss somebody. Until¡ªYou know.¡± She laughed. ¡°I¡¯m in LA. Let¡¯s grab lunch, see a movie. Now, about the stalker.¡± I sat up at that. ¡°Yeah, I almost forgot.¡± I snatched a notepad from the coffee table and laid it on across knees, pen in hand. ¡°Huh. Guessing you haven¡¯t seen her again.¡± If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Not a lick.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s good news. I took a peek at our wanted section, and there¡¯s nothing matches your description. Zilch.¡± ¡°Well thanks for looking¡± ¡°Well hang on. I was gonna say. All these files. They¡¯re physical you know? They¡¯re paper, most of them. If I were you, I¡¯d take a look myself. When I see a stack of paper, my eyes throw up.¡± ¡°Right. Well, I¡¯d love to. When can I stop by?¡± ¡°Anytime¡¯s fine. I¡¯m working late. Just me an hour, and¡ª Can¡¯t get anything done during the day, anyway. Not with all the actual journalists here.¡± I looked at my watch. The hour hand was closing in on ten o¡¯clock. I yawned. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Do the trains run that late?¡± ¡°Sure. Where are you?¡± ¡°Just, I¡¯m on this island.¡± ¡°You can always crash at my place. Tomorrow¡¯s Saturday anyway. I¡¯ll give you a lift tomorrow.¡± ¡°I looked at my watch again. My vision blurred. ¡°I would, Ruth. But I think my eyes are throwing up.¡± ¡°Better sleep, huh?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be in touch.¡± ¡°I look forward to it. Can I stop by tomorrow?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a Saturday¡ªWhat the hell. I¡¯ll let you in.¡± ¡°I really appreciate it.¡± ¡°Sure. You need the address?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± I sat up. ¡°You got a scribe on hand?¡± ¡°Hang on.¡± I grabbed a pen and pad off the nightstand. ¡°Ready to receive.¡± ¡°202 West First Street.¡± ¡°That¡¯s easy. Could¡¯ve remembered that.¡± I wrote it down. The ballpoint rolled like a wheel across the paper, leaving a dark line. ¡°Need to hear it again?¡± ¡°No. I inked it.¡± ¡°See you tomorrow. Night, baby girl.¡± After we hung up, I peeled off my socks and stripped naked. Remembering the bellhop, a smile curled my lips. I took an oversized tee-shirt from my carry-on bag and pulled it over my head. Then I let my hair down and shook the knots out with my fingers. Then I sat for awhile and pictured each of the people I had met in the last few days. Gunther, with his bell-bottoms, button up, and cowboy hat. The matching butler in his own hat, asleep in a sharp suit. Tamara with her white-blond curls. And a woman with one arm who was following me. Then I got up and brushed my teeth. How common is it to have one arm, I thought. How many people are entangled with two people, who have one arm each? When I got to bed, I tossed and turned all night. I woke up drenched in sweat once. But after that, my back sank deep into the mattress, and my body fell into a deep, restful state. As if I had sweated something out of my body. Right down to my heels, I felt the weariness slip away, like a foreign soul drifting off my body, like steam pouring off the surface of the ocean. The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter14 I read Pamela¡¯s journal the next morning, while enjoying a cup of coffee. A lot of the notes were typed on expensive paper, with a red line down one side, and a plastic coating over the three holes. The front page was hand written, on cheap printer paper, hole-punched, with an index card glued onto it. The index card read: Talk w/ Carolyn Shoemaker - - - best I can remember. redwood hospice¡ª Jan 11 The pages that followed were typed using a typewriter, with ink splotches here and there, and finger prints on the page. Pamela¡¯s typing was accurate, but typos popped up every few lines. Getting comfortable, I shifted around in bed, and began to read. Just before she met Gene, Carolyn was 20 and living in Los Angeles. The West Coast had just seen a big rainstorm, and the rain only lasted for two hours over LA, but the amount of rain was enough to cause mass flooding because the landscape there is both incredibly flat and incredibly dry. Some areas of California, just outside Los Angeles, the bedrock is very shallow, and as a result, the rainwater can¡¯t drain very deep into the ground. The ground is already saturated. In other areas, the desert ground is so compacted that rainwater just flows along the topsoil because it can¡¯t find anywhere to sink into the ground. No cracks, holes, or passable soil. So all the rain water collects and flows downhill, away from the mountains, and into the city, because it has nowhere else to go. ¡°I caught a connector from Detroit to Deboise,¡± she told me. ¡°There was a moment during the storm when, in a swirling mass of clouds, I saw lightning shoot up into the sky until it was lost in the darkness, and in that radiant light, I saw the rain, and it was falling upwards too.¡± Before I could interject she went on: ¡°I have a distinct sense of what I¡¯m supposed to see, and what I¡¯m not. It¡¯s a kind of intuition that I¡¯ve had since I was a kid. These days it applies mostly to work. If I hear a conversation going on in the background, I can tell without fail if it¡¯s a private conversation. I see a document, and I know if it¡¯s confidential, even if it¡¯s unmarked. My intuition is finely attuned to that specific distinction, but when I saw that rain, I felt as if the rain were part of a confidential document, or a private conversation between two strangers.¡± Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°When I saw the rain falling upwards, I thought that the plane might be falling. It would have to be falling very rapidly for the rain to fall upwards from our perspective. But that couldn¡¯t be. Surely I would feel it if the plane were losing altitude that fast. I got up.¡± ¡°The flight attendant appeared in my path. ¡®Go back to your seat!¡¯ she said. ¡®Go back to your seat and put your seatbelt on.¡¯¡± ¡°¡®I¡¯m going to throw up,¡¯ I said. ¡°She let me pass, and I shuffled through the hallway, past people¡¯s knees and the lumpy shapes of carry-on bags. ¡°On my way to the front of the plane, I stole a glance out the window, past the silhouettes of men and women sitting in their seats, clutching their things, drinks shaking in their hands. There was lightning again, and the rain lifted, same as before. I got to the dark empty space between the attendant¡¯s little desk and the lavatory, and I knocked on the cabin door. A flight attendant opened it and gawked at me. Light was dim in the cabin. The pilot sat behind the control panel. The copilot faced the side wall, riffling through a small metal box.¡± ¡°¡®You can¡¯t be here.¡¯ The flight attendant made a shewing motion. I could barely hear her over the rain.¡± ¡°¡®Where¡¯s the bathroom?¡¯ I had to yell. She waved toward the laboratory door and tried to shut the door. ¡°I squinted into the cockpit. She shifted her weight to lean in front of me. Making eye contact, she motioned with two fingers. ¡®It¡¯s right there.¡¯ Then she gripped the door with both hands and pulled it shut.¡± ¡°The plane lurched again and I feigned a fall, grabbing the door. The flight attendant lost her grip and stumbled backwards. I had a clear view of the control panel. I saw what I needed to see, before I was pushed back and the door shut in my face. The flight attendant was outside with me now. ¡°¡®Seatbelt light¡¯s on for a reason!¡¯¡± ¡°She pushed me into the lavatory and shut the door behind me. I was alone again, and I sat down hard on the closed toilet seat. Inside the captain''s cabin I had caught a glimpse of the dials. Searching my memory of the image I found what I was looking for. I was not an expert on planes, but I recognized the units and the general range of numbers I should look for. We were something around thirty-five thousand feet in the air, but more importantly the number has remained steady. We weren¡¯t falling. The ran was going up, and up, and up, like it didn¡¯t care about gravity at all.¡± The Garden Moon (Revised) Chapter 15 The typewritten pages ended there, with the last page only half filled with ink, but Pamela had made hand-written notes at the bottom, which went on for a few pages. A few months later I happened to be speaking with Larry E. who was in the hospital. He told me about something he saw while he was staying in the fire-watch tower on January 26, 1948. He had went up there with some friends to watch the storm. They were above the clouds, and they saw rain start to fall upwards. Same as Carolyn Shoemaker, but I didn¡¯t make the connection for a few months. The same date as Carolyn¡¯s plane-flight, and I trust her to remember the date accurately, so they were watching the same storm, just from a different vantage point. I couldn¡¯t believe it was a coincidence anymore so I called up Larry at the fire watch but I couldn¡¯t get in touch. He wasn¡¯t in the hospital either. Checked that. Came to find out he had been fired. Then gone missing. Found was an address for Larry in Amador. When I went there, the whole house was gone. Just a mailbox and an excavator sitting near the foundation, and a pile of old lumber. Came to find out Larry was in prison. When I finally got in a room with him, he was having a full on breakdown. Told me he gave ¡®a 5-year-old child¡¯ to one of the ¡®mossmen on the mountain¡¯¡ªtold me he figured he was already tripping when it started, but later on he said it was raining all day, before he took any acid, because he only took the acid when his friend arrived and gave it him, and when he watched the rain it has just been him and the 5-year-old kid he was supposed to get rid of. I didn¡¯t tell him that was my brother. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Note: I don¡¯t know why I called them that. The mossmen. But that¡¯s not a bad name for them. Larry was playing with my brother, kind of swinging him around in the air. He was going to throw my brother off a cliff into the lake when something came out of the lake below that made his stomach roll over. Under the cloud-cover, little things like small, wet men, skin the color of charcoal began to crawl up the cliff, as if they weighed nothing. Their legs floated behind them, and they climbed with their hands. As he retold the story, it reminded him of a video he had seen of astronauts on the international space station, clinging to the runs of a ladder while their bodies lifted behind them, held down only by their spines and muscular contractions, and not by any natural force of gravity. When Larry got back to the watchtower, there was one waiting inside for him. Tall, slender, naked, but in the light of the flashlight, his skin was dark green, like moss. The mossman asked for my brother, never taking his hand off the ceiling, and he was flexing as if to keep himself from floating up off the ground. But Larry couldn¡¯t believe he was weightless. He said it seemed fake, but the ceiling tiles flexed under its hand, as if an enormous bulk were pressed against the ceiling by gravity just as hard as our feet are pressed into the earth. If it had hair, the hair would have fallen upwards. I asked if he really saw all that. He said yeah. I have no idea what actually happened. If his trip was that bad. I asked if anybody looked for ¡®the kid.¡¯ ¡®Just you,¡¯ he said. I didn¡¯t tell him it was my brother. I got my revenge on the way out. Larry won¡¯t be any more trouble.